Haven in the Woods

[Illilli]

"hrm... Uhm... I guess its kinda like a loin coth only maybe a bit more comfortable." Illilli shrugged a bit, she couldn't very well show Geldenwing a pair of undergarments as the last pair she had had was destroyed in that first traumatic transformation. Long scaly tails just weren't easy on a lady's delicates.

"Usually not as much fabric jammed somewhere uncomfortable." she winked at Geldenwing. Illilli mimiced yanking a wedgie to emphasize her point.

"You are so lucky you can magic your clothes with your size changes Geldenwing... You'll be fun to sew for because your outfits will work up faster and take less time. Maybe we can get you some fancier fabrics next time we... uhm... go for supplies..."

Taking a piece of string about an armspan long Illilli used it to mentally measure about how long a piece of fabric would be needed for a shirt for Ander. She figured the boy was in most need at the time. Illilli could always go tiny if she had a need to. Dragons had scales for their modesty.

She folded over the fabric so there was a double thickness, adjusted it so the doubled up fabric was a bit longer than her measurment and cut the fabric off the bolt. She then cut a hole in the middle of the folded side, making the shirt look a bit like a poncho. The width was a little broad but a few gathered stiches took up the extra in the areas that were to be the shoulders.

She hummed a bit and took some enormous stitches to stitch the sides together forming a sleeveless shirt.

"I'm just gonna stick it together for shape and I'll go back and do the neat stitches later unless you are interested in sewing it up... These stitches won't hold it together for much hard wear but it does the trick to make sure we get it the right size..."

She quickly measured and cut out 2 rectangles that were going to be come sleeves. The shirt looked kinda baggy but it would be airy in the summer months and welcomed extra fabric in the winter.

"We'll stitch the seam on the outside then kinda double it over and stitch again... that will keep it from wearing out and fraying too soon..." she demonstrated folding the ragged seam showing on the good side to the back where it was encased in the fabric."

She threaded a needle and gave Ander a questioning look while offering the needle.

[Ander Valman]

Ander laughed quietly to himself when Gelden asked what underwear was, and told himself that he wasn't turning red. In fact, he wasn't, but a nice shade of light pink made it's way up his throat to his cheeks.

He turned his concentration to Illilli's reply, trying not to laugh at her own discomfiture and the miming of a wedgie. He'd given his fair share of those before, as well as receiving them. As fun as it was giving them, it was never worth it when he got them back.

Illilli continued on with preparing the fabric, explaining what she was doing as she went. Ander had a hard time following along, but nodded when he felt it was appropriate. When she offered the needle to him, he shrugged slightly as he took it, deciding he might as well give it a try. Especially since he had just met this woman and she was trying to help him get some new clothes. She had even been forced to steal in order to help him out. Or at least, he was pretty sure that was what she and Gelden had been up to last night.

As he fumbled with the needle and thread, he kept the two pieces folded over as Illilli had shown him. He put the needle in on one side, then pushed it through an inch further down the other side. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but he was trying.

Illilli would be able to tell he was doing it extremely wrong, but Ander hadn't the slightest clue.

[Geldenwing]

Gelden blinked and looked down at herself, her modest breast-band and leather-woven skirt. Both items had leaves and twigs and grasses liberally woven through, and she saw no need to change them. They were comfortable. She looked up, and up, and up some more, at her dragon-lady friend.

"What's wrong with my clothes?"

It was an honest question, not twinged with any bitterness or sarcasm. She'd never before considered her clothing inferior, and thought that for herself, she was the epitome of style and taste. Well...not quite. But she'd certainly never seen her clothing as bad.

"Are they really bad? What's wrong with them? Do they smell?!"

She turned her head and sniffed her shoulder band, but didn't think she could smell anything awry. Maybe the dragon lady had better senses though. Gelden felt positively shamed; had she been disgusting this entire time?

Looking depressed, she sighed and resigned herself to new clothes. But she still couldn't help but say...

"I like my clothes just fine, thank you very much."

She shifted her eyes to Ander, and noticed he was sewing. Oh, sewing! She could sew...sort of. Mostly she could manipulate clay and mud into shapes, and with a little magic she didn't need a kiln to solidify the shapes she formed. But maybe she could help somehow.

"How do you sew? All I see is you put a hole in the fabric, over and over and over, but how do you know how to space it? What's the trick?"

[Azer]

Azer stumbled through the forest. It wasn't often a man like him stumbled, normally light on his feet, but Azer was a city boy, and no good with the wild. If anyone had been tracking him, they would have had an easy time of it, with a trail that more likely belonged to a herd of Bull Elephants than a man.

But no one was tracking Azer, and as he stumbled from tree to tree in search of a suitable hollow to hide his drugs, all without success, he grew steadily more aggravated. On what must have been the hundredth (or at least it seemed that way), cave Azer approached, he discovered a rotting crib and bed frame sitting outside of it. "What the hell is this?" he thought suspiciously. He was so deep in the fucking woods the plants on the ground were bigger than he was, and he had discovered rotting furniture? He spat the burning knot of weeds that he had been sucking on out of his mouth, caught it in his hand, and inspected it for a few seconds remarking, "Wow, I guess this shit works.".

He placed the smoke back in his mouth, careful not to burn himself, and turned to look at the entrance to the cave. It was big enough to walk through, but so chocked with weeds he would probably have to crawl anyway. "Weeds that were glowing?" Or maybe he was higher than he thought.

Azer took one last deep puff of the stuff in his mouth and, after a short coughing fit, snubbed it out and tossed it aside. He lowered himself to his hands and knees and, careful not to let his satchel fall open, crawled into the cave, which sloped gently downward.

The second he entered, the glowing vines started to flash brighter and dimmer, causing him to doubt even more strongly that they were really there. As he got closer to the end of the narrow entrance path, Azer noticed that they seemed to become larger and more healthy the farther into the cave he got. This definitely confirmed his suspicions that they didn't exist.

When Azer left the entrance hallway for the "main Chamber" of the cave, he froze. "Fuck, how high was he?" He was standing in a bar... an underground bar, in the middle of nowhere. In the heart of a fucking forest, in the middle of nowhere.

He sighed, at least he had a place to hide his goods.

[Illilli]

"Hun, nothing is wrong with your clothes! You are just too pretty to only have one set!"

Illilli felt a bit guilty as she had been considering creating outfits for Geldenwing simply on the fact that she was small and pretty. Almost like having a little living doll to dress...

"As for sewing, you can either just eyeball it, or you can sorta count the threads..." She showed Geldenwing the way the linen threads made a very simple grid in the fabric.

She looked over to Ander's progress on the shirt.

"Smaller stitches and that will come out very well! You are doing quite well for your first time Ander!"

There was a rustling at the door and the vines started to brighten, as if welcoming a guest. Illilli did a quick mental check and since all three of them were sitting right together, it had to be a stranger at the door.

The Glowvines though plants and not too bright, could atleast tell the difference between the looser drives of animals and the more ordered thoughts of sentient beings. The vines near the entrance were definately opening the petals of their blossoms and filling the entry hall with more light to show the newcomer the way in.

"I think we better hide..." Illilli said as she moved behind the bar. Her markings were beginning to ripple from the stress. The markings shifted from red-purple-blue and back, glinting a little in the light of the glowvines.

Illilli was poised, barely peeking over the bar near the tiny stone bar replica on the end. She was a bit more worried because there was no way to put the fire out behind the big bar quickly and a nice crackling fire is definatly a good sign of people being around.

[Ander Valman]

Ander, tongue clenched between his teeth, was concentrating on the shirt when Illilli was handing out his advice. He tried to make the stitches closer, and discovered that it did work better. Ander did notice that the stitching wasn't even close to straight, but he wasn't worried about it. What he was worried about was that he kept poking himself in the finger, once deep enough to draw blood. He didn't say anything, but it still hurt. He sucked the finger for a few minutes to stop the bleeding, then went back to work.

Ander was concentrating so hard that he didn't notice the rustle at the entrance and the brightening of the glowvines. That is, until Illilli started making a fuss about it. He grabbed some of the fabric and stood, looking around for a good place to hide.

His heart beat up in his throat, and fear caused him to shudder. He was suddenly cold where moments before he had been comfortably warm. Someone was invading their sanctuary, and he would have to run again. He didn't want to leave; he was beginning to like it hear with Illilli and Gelden.

Even as he was telling himself his fears were irrational, he was dragging the fabric and any signs of life into the room he had cleared out. He threw everything in the corner with the piles of pine branches and hunkered down behind it all. He waited.

[Geldenwing]

The fae watched both Illilli and Ander scatter away, blinking in minute confusion. She didn't remember the glowvine's limited communication skills too well, but Illilli seemed to think there might be danger approaching.

The faerie disappeared in a puff, shrinking to her fae-sized shape, and hid within the folds of fabric she and Illilli had recently brought in. She remembered being chased out of town a few days ago; now she couldn't be sure if the approaching person was the mean guard, or maybe someone else who hated fae folk. The tiny woman, now even smaller than before, peered through the small cavern she'd created in the sheets, and watched a very odd fellow indeed tromp into their sanctuary.

He didn't look so bad...

Gelden's first instinct when she saw strangers was meet and greet, not fight or flight. She'd never developed a proper sense of self-preservation. And so when the stranger started looking around in plain and clear uncertainty, the fae, friendly to a fault, followed her misinformed instincts and flit out of the blanket. She glided through the air, smooth and crisp, and then stopped mere inches away from the man's face, ever ready to flit about madly like a drunken wasp if the need arose.

"Hi!" She grinned broadly, waving. The odd natural glitter in her skin made her shiny in the light of the glowvines, which now seemed to be celebrating their first true guest in ages.

"My name's Geldenwing! Who're you?"

[Azer]

Azer blinked, trying to clear his eyes of the groggy haze that came with being high. He turned slowly, scanning the room and mentally berating himself for making this trip while high. He normally had more self discipline, but he hadn't had a hit in so fucking long - Something tiny burst from the cloth on the counter! Whatever it was flew straight at Azer. It hovered not half an inch from his face and screeched something unintelligible. (at least to Azer) In his inebriated stupor Azer didn't stop to consider what it was, and simply tore his knife out of his shirt, slashing wildly at the thing with all the force he could muster. "Fucking Wilderness!" he screamed.

[Illilli]

Seeing the blade slashing at Geldenwing was more than enough to touch off Illilli's rage. She was still quite angry about recieving a particularly nasty shot from a sling in her rump and being foiled in her attempt at revenge. A threat to her now oh-so-dear friend threw fuel on her rage. Nobody was going to hurt the ones in her protection. Nobody.

As her anger focussed itself on the widly slashing man, Illilli thought she felt a light touch as if from far away. Like catching the faintest spark of a lightning bug in the forest early in spring, something tickled her soul and then disappeared.

The colors of her markings shifted and twisted and her body snapped from its previous shape. Her wings and tail exploded from her body but luckily, she had remembered to wear garments that were designed around that possibility. No one had to cut her writhing body from the leather cocoon of her shirt and pants this time!

Illilli leaped onto the top of the bar and spread her wings wide. Feeling perhaps a bit like an overprotective mother, Illilli bellowed at the intruder.

"You shall NOT hurt her you beast of a man! This place is ours!" her slight fangs hung over her bottom lip as it quivered in her rage.

The fury in her voice caused the glowvines to increase their light. The petals peeled open and her lightly scaled body shimmered whitely where her halter top and split skirt did not cover it. Her markings flashed darkly red, blue or purple as she prepared to leap at the intruder, tail lashing.

[Ander Valman]

Ander thought he heard a tiny, high-pitched voice speaking in the next room. His mind raced as he tried to figure out what was going on.

And suddenly everyone went crazy. First, whoever had come into the cave was suddenly yelling wildly, using curse words that Ander's dad had only used when he had been drinking. Words that Ander had never uttered.

Then there was a loud thud, as of something large landing on a wooden surface. He had no idea what that could be. Curiousity quickly got the better of him, and he stood and began making his way around the pile of pine branches and fabric. He had just started his journey when Illilli began yelling in a loud angry voice.

Ander heard every word clearly, and his curiousity quickly vanished in shocked anger. Someone was trying to hurt Gelden! The thought flickered through his mind that the tiny, squeaky voice he had heard earlier had been her, greeting the new guest.

And this guest responded by trying to hurt her! Ander came out of the room, sliding to a stop. He saw a bearded man at the entrance with a tiny fairy flitting about him, and Illilli was ...

She was in the big, half-woman with wings form, her body changing colors swiftly. Forgetting himself for a moment, he stared at her, at how ferocious she looked at that moment.

With a shake of his head, he stepped to the side and glared at the man, from behind the counter and near Illilli. He did make sure that he was not within smacking distance of Illilli's tail thought.

[Geldenwing]

Geldenwing had been swatted at and waved at, poked at and even bagged. But she couldn't remember ever having been slashed at. It was lucky, very lucky, that she was as tiny as she was, and the man was as high as he was. She shrieked when the knife came up, and began the odd dance that anything small and most bugs do when flapped at 0 she began a dizzying orbit around the man's body, flitting around and about like a drunken mayfly that for reasons unknown is completely unable to just twist away and fly out of the danger zone.

One good swipe of his knife could have cut her in half, but she kept up the display until Illilli's bellow of anger cut through her panic and she shifted her flight path. She stopped short, seeing Illilli all angry and dragon-fied. It brought back bad memories. She eeped and twirled until she found - ah ha!

She zipped across the room, a small glittery speck, and hid herself behind Ander's shoulder, nestling into the crook of his neck and peeping through his hair.

"Be careful, Ander!"

She whispered this directly into his ear in her audible stage-whisper type of voice, though this made it a tad hard to hear such a tiny voice.

"He's got a knife!"

As if that weren't obvious.

[Azer]

Azer immediately regretted taking a swing at the giant bat, or whatever the hell it was. The exact fucking second his knife left it's sheathe the thing went wild, and suddenly his vision was all madly flapping wings and flailing limbs. It made circles around his head screeching all the while until something seemed to explode out of thin air onto the counter. The second it did whatever was flying in circles quit and scooted off to hide behind a boy. So on the counter, it was a woman!... with bat wings and a tail? She bellowed at him to stop trying to attack “her” whoever her was, but at the moment Azer didn’t have the concentration to think about that. He tried to come up with something clever to say, something shocking that might catch her off guard. Instead he waved his dagger at the three of them and, stumbling over his words, asked “You fuckers real or what?”

(OOC: I apologize for the extremely long wait, I had a very busy week. I am usually pretty good about updating, it shouldn't ever be close to this long again.)

[Illilli]

"You stagger into OUR home without announcing yourself..."
she crouched ontop of the bar as if to spring.

"You try to cut my friend Geldenwing in half with your little knife. Hell, haven't you seen a FAERIE before?" she bellowed a bit louder causing the glowvines to flicker in reaction.

"And you ask if we are real? I think you had better apologize or I shall show you how real I am with a couple bruises!"

She reached down and picked up a large dishrag from where it had been left on the stone bartop. She wadded the rather dirty rag in a ball and lobbed it with all her force at the intruder.

She leaped from the bar to a nearby stone table skidding a little across the tabletop.

Instinct made her stretch herself as tall as possible. Her spread wings twitched in what was an obvious warning pattern, much like a rattlesnake that is about to be trod upon. She inhaled as if to breath fire, but in this form she only hissed menacingly. Her bright blue slitted eyes narrowed in the direction of his form and almost appeared to glow.

Staring out across the stone tables and chairs separating her from the intruder, she waited for an apology, shaking in impatience.

[Ander Valman]

Ander's eyes could barely follow the flitting fairy as she darted to and fro, avoiding the angry slashes of the knife. They did though, which was why he wasn't particularly frightened when suddenly something was whispering in his ear.

He nodded lightly to the words of wisdom whispered in his ear from Gelden, but kept his eyes trained on the newest entrant of the tavern.

Then Illilli, who seemed to be working herself into a frenzy, began bellowing at the man. She then leapt from the bar to a table top after throwing a rag at the man. Ander took an involuntary step backwards, frightened by the sudden change in the normally docile woman... half-woman.

He half looked back to get reassurance from Gelden, but realized he wouldn't be able to see her. He held a hand over his shoulder for the fairy to climb on to as he returned his gaze to the confrontation, trying to not let fear take a firm grasp on him.

Ander would feel better to be able to have the reassurance of the fairy standing in his hand, where he could see her. Even so, he was intently watching the man standing at the entrance of the cave, gauging his reaction to all of this.

Deep inside, stirrings of anger at this person coming into his new home made his stomach churn. His over-riding feeling was fear, as yet, and he didn't consciously notice the anger.

[Geldenwing]

Acting from the same instincts as a bird, Gelden immediately alighted upon the offered hand. She stared at Illilli, who'd grown much taller than before and was the most threatening thing Gelden had seen all week.

The little fae looked up at Ander's face, then back to her dragony friend, and couldn't think of a single thing to do. Normally she'd just flit right back into the man's face and yell at him eyes-to-eye, but he had that big knife and didn't seem to care where he waved it. And she wasn't about to ask Ander to get any closer, for his own good.

"I don't like it when people are all mad and screamy. It's not much fun."