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Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:59 pm
by Raithen
With a brief laugh he shook his head,
"Even if I knew what to look for I'd pick up the wrong thing and get myself killed." It wasn't that he was clumsy or stupid, it was that almost all of his grace and intellect went into the arts of war. On the ground, with no one or thing trying to take his life or threaten anything he cared about he tended to knock into things, pick up other people's drinks believing they were his own, and say the wrong thing to the wrong people. His older brother had endlessly mocked him about knocking over or into furniture when his wings had began to grow in earnest as puberty hit. Sometimes Rai wondered if he was still growing used to them as they effected his balance on his feet.
Since he'd entered the shop he had been concentrating with half his mind at all times to simply not knock over any of the many bottles and vials. One moment of thoughtlessness and a wing tip would sweep across a shelf and he'd have another shop keeper who had banned him from their business.
Glancing down at the little packet of weeds that had joined his growing pile of purchases he said, "What would happen if I ate like, all of it at once? Would I get... over hydrated?"
Raithen wasn't sure that was a thing, but if it was a thing he'd end up absentmindedly snacking on the roots and make himself sick.
"...No?" Was his first answer, he tended to tan rather than burn but he hadn't spent extended time in the desert since the training he'd gotten in school. "I guess I usually just make my own shade?"
His Avialae blood kept him from ever getting too cold and his Sun Elf blood seemed, so far, to have protected him from being sun burnt, but there was no harm in making sure, he supposed. Also, he kinda wanted to stay and keep talking. At this moment his instincts for keeping himself safe slammed his eyes to the side where something long and slim was moving. They calmed down when he saw it was a non-venomous snake, but they were replaced instantly with slightly wide eyed, hand-itching desire to touch.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:26 pm
by Hilana Chenzira
“There’s a lot of very solid people I grew up with that were just like that,” Hilana was smiling at him. “Everyone has things that they know and things that they don’t; but the smart ones don’t trick themselves about it. I can tell you what the plants are out here and how to use them and which ones will keep you going, but I know nothing about Kinetics.” She was cheerful. She knew what her limits were, even if she tested them constantly, but she certainly knew.
When he asked her about the consequences of too much waterweed, she considered it a fair question. “If you ate it all at once, you would have a sore jaw, and you would likely want to urinate quite regularly for the rest of the day.” Hilana said with a chuckle. “But nothing particularly bad would happen to you outside of that, though. I think your jaw would go numb before you got halfway through the pouch, though,” the Vastii was grinning, her eyes bright.
“That’s fair,” she admitted. “I wasn’t sure if you might burn or not… you’re the first Avialae I’ve ever met, so I wanted to check and see if you needed sunscreen.” Even her own people could burn a bit, and Hilana usually recommended it, but if he wasn’t going to burn, then surely he would be okay. But it was an interesting little tidbit she filed away for later.
She followed his gaze off to the side when he seemed distracted, and smiled when it seemed his gaze was on the python. “Oh, this is Tiaz. Would you like to pet him?” She offered, heading for the driftwood branch and lifting the sturdy python easily, letting him drape himself over her arms and up onto her shoulders as she came back to Raithen, offering him the snake’s body to touch. She supported the snake’s upper body easily with one hand, demonstrating for him how to pet the muscular creature. He was smooth and dry, predominantly white with black markings and grey shading. “He’s about four years old now, I got him as a hatchling from a trader,” she explained, as Tiaz’s tongue flicked. But the serpent was clearly relaxed, and quite comfortable with being touched and handled.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:49 am
by Raithen
The Avialae nodded, still smiling, he was listening despite the distraction that the very slowly scenting snake represented. Reluctantly he turned away from it to face the person who was speaking to him.
"I'm pretty good at sticking to my lane, mostly cause when I step outside it I look like an idiot and wanna avoid that as much as possible."
As he listened to her explanation he kept a perfectly normal expression and did not make any comments relating to the fact that he had experience with a sore jaw, nor to the idea that it now took quite a lot to make it so. At the end he nodded to show that he was taking this information to heart along with the rest.
"I'll take the sunscreen anyway, you never know, maybe it'll be worse than it was when I was a kid." He wasn't much past kid yet, in some ways, not past it at all. But he remembered being twelve as though it were half a life time ago, because for him, it was. When Hilana referenced what his eyes kept darting back to he took a hesitant step closer to the reptile. His head bobbled on his neck as he attempted to nod at the invitation while also not looking away from Tiaz.
"Does... does he want me to pet him?" It felt like a legitimate question. Hilana didn't strike him as the type to offer things for animals that the animal would hate, but customers could be assholes and deny sales for stupid reasons. When he seemed that the snake was at least indifferent to him he lifted a hand and slowly stroked along the scales.
"He's...soft?" Somehow he'd thought the scales would be hard and dry and he supposed that technically, they were 'hard' and 'dry' but they felt silky and the muscle under them made them feel soft though solid.
"How old do they get? Is he still growing? I don't know anything about snakes really."
He continued to very lightly stroke along the sinuous body, like a child afraid to hurt a kitten they were petting for the first time.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:21 pm
by Hilana Chenzira
“I can understand that. All too well,” Hilana’s smile was wry. “I look like one constantly in the cities, but here we are.” How she was raised contrasted considerably with how she was expected to be here. Out there, mistakes were part of learning. It was part of growing. And unless you made them over and over and over… it was less of an issue. But in Tertium or Solunarium… a lot of eyes were on you, and the stress that came from such things… Perhaps it was simple enough for her, as an Equestrian who wasn’t attempting to give herself airs, or move up the social ladder, or present any such image. The stakes were a bit lower, so long as she didn’t step on the wrong person’s toes. But it might not have been so easy for one of Royal blood and standing.
She made a mental note to grab the sunscreen after, as she held the python up for him. “I socialized him a lot as a hatchling,” Hilana admitted. “He was always with me when I was working with the convoys, so he got a lot of handling from different people, and then when I started my apprenticeship under my Aunt in Tertium, he came with me there. So he’s quite comfortable with people now, which not all snakes are, especially if you don’t start them young. But he can be really curious and wants to explore new people. If I’d had him on my shoulders when you had come in, he probably would have made a move to try to investigate you by now. He likes it, I promise,” she smiled down at the python, stroking his jaw with a finger up as his tongue flickered, his head turning a bit to have a look at the Avialae.
He was right, though: Hilana wouldn’t have encouraged the interaction if her snake wasn’t down for it. While he did accompany her to work most of the time, there were exceptions to the rule. On the days in which he was preparing for a shed or digesting his rabbit, she left him home rather than run the chance of people wanting to get pushy with him. In some ways it was easy to explain he wasn’t up to it, because the worship and respect for reptiles was strong in their culture, but she was lucky Tiaz was far too good natured and forgiving about most things. Water off a buffalo’s horn, after all.
“He’s very soft because he’s relaxed,” Hilana agreed. “That’s a way to know he’s fine and happy. If he wasn’t, he would coil up in a big, hard knot and then he gets a bit like a stone as his muscles get hard. He’s not one to strike if he’s upset, he just coils up most of the time if that’s the case. It’s kind of like how if we’re relaxed, our muscles and skin aren’t very hard to the touch, right? But the moment you tense up… it’s a different feeling. They can live anywhere between 30 and 50 years, though 50 is a lot less common…but hopefully he gets there. He’s very spoiled boy.” The python’s side pressed against Raithen’s hand, as off to encourage him to continue. The tip of his tail was lazily coiled around the Vastii’s forearm, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. “He should get a little longer than you are tall, so about another two feet or so. This species doesn’t get too much larger than that. Not like the reticulated ones in Ecith… those snakes can get about five times as long, 30-odd feet or so, and probably twice as thick, if you can imagine that,” she added. Maybe one day she’d get her hands on one, but in the meantime, Tiaz was plenty, and the unusually-coloured serpent was quite content with the pets and caresses. “Would you like to try holding him?” She offered, then, perhaps a bit surprisingly.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2022 9:45 pm
by Raithen
He shook his head, not contradicting the woman, as that would be impolite, but indicating that it didn't seem like anyone would take her for an idiot. Raithen himself had been raised in an environment of high expectation but rarely had the eye of intention been shone upon him. His sister and brother alike had been thrust into greatness and expected to live up to it, which, so far as he could tell, they were. If there were great plans for him, Rai was unaware of them.
The idea of socializing a reptile was foreign to the man who had grown up in a city of dragons, but it made sense once he heard it. He knew enough, at least, to know that this species was not venomous but that did not mean it couldn't or wouldn't, bite him. So he was grateful that this particular specimen was friendly. That the snake might want to investigate him as much as he wanted to investigate it was oddly gratifying and he gave a little laugh of delight when the head turned toward him and flickered out to catch his scent.
The mini-anatomy-lesson made just as much sense. Raithen's own body was soft when he was relaxed and a tension of hard muscles when he wasn't.
"He should be a very spoiled boy." He asserted as though it were fact. "What sorts of things does he like? ...Mice?" He recalled snakes being fed mice in some rituals. Shaking his head rather emphatically at the offer to hold the creature he backed away half a step.
"No, its okay. I'll just pet him, if that's alright."
Knowing he got clumsy when he was distracted made him fear dropping the beloved companion. He'd dropped pets that he'd been entrusted to carry before and never really gotten over the horror he'd felt even though none had been serious hurt.
After a few moments more he stepped further away and said,
"I shouldn't be taking up any more of your time, you were busy before I got here. How much do I owe you for all this?" He indicated the pile of goods Hilana had set aside from him and reached to untie the strings of his coin pouch.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:55 am
by Hilana Chenzira
Tiaz was content along the girl’s arms and on her shoulder, his tongue continuing to flicker in Raithen’s direction. Hilana’s fingers continued to stroke the soft, dry skin of the python, who was settling down, as perfectly comfortable on her as he was on his driftwood branch in the sun. But he did seem to be enjoying the attention, basking in it as he had the sunlight in the window. “He eats mostly rabbits these days, sometimes rats. Just depends on what is in the market,” the girl admitted, holding her hands up to approximate the size of the creatures Tiaz was eating. “They can eat prey about twice the width of their own body, but that’s kind of pushing it, so mostly large rats or small rabbits for him. If their prey is too big, they’ll usually regurgitate it, which isn’t good for them, but he’s yet to do that. If they don’t regurgitate it when it’s too big, it will rot in their stomach, which can kill them. He eats about every 10 to 12 days or so now that he’s grown, but when they’re little, they eat every 5 to 7 days.”
When he declined to hold him, Hilana was not at all put out. She knew there were some people who were strange about it, but they had their reasons and she wasn’t about to push. Even if the reason she thought it might be was in fact quite different than Raithen’s actual reason. Still, she appreciated it - snakes could get injured falling, and while this wasn’t such a height that Tiaz would get hurt, she’d rather keep him from getting a thumping. “That’s perfectly fine,” she reassured him. “I just thought I would offer, but perhaps another time,” she was cheerful. She didn’t know if there would be another time, but she did hope that there would be. That he could come back and tell her about his trip to the rural villages and how it went, and if they spotted anything.
When he stepped back at last, she smiled up at him. “You have not wasted my time at all. You’ve been great to talk with,” Hilana told him, working her hands free of her python’s coils so that he was just going to have to content himself with her shoulders and upper arms. Tiaz was not put out, lazily and loosely shifting to coil there, his head following Raithen as the Vastii turned away to grab the jar of sunscreen for him from another shelf, bringing it back to the table with his other purchases. “It’s not every day I get to talk about poisons with someone who is interested in them like you are." That was the truth of it. Especially not someone with his disposition.
“So, we have three bottles of paralytic poison, they are 5 gold pieces each. The non-lethal paralytic is 5 gold pieces as well. The bottle of antidote, which works for both the poison and paralytic, is 6 gold pieces. The restorative with the star thistle is 8 gold pieces. The antivenin is 10 gold pieces. The pouch of waterweed is 2 gold pieces, the cleansing solution is 4 silver pieces, and the sunscreen is 1 silver piece,” Hilana worked her way through the assortment of gathered goods. “This brings your total is 46 gold pieces and 5 silver pieces.” Her eyes flickered to the aisle of pouches of tea. “And I will throw in a sachet of one of my favourite teas if you’ll come find me again next time you’re in the city to tell me how your travels went.”
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2022 6:35 pm
by Raithen
The mistress of the shop was so open and welcoming that it felt, to Raithen, as though he'd known her for much longer than the hour or so he'd spent in her shop. He continued to gently stroke Tiaz as he listened to the care and feeding information and made plans in his head to possibly obtain something the reptile might enjoy if he came across anything palatable in his travels.
He listened and did the math in his head along with Hilana as she listed things for him. Not that he would have known if she was over or under charging him.
Reaching into his belt pouch he counted out fifty gold pieces and shook his head when he was offered change.
"Your time is surely worth as much, and more." If his tone and the eye contact he offered over a smile that managed to be both boyish and decidedly adult at the same time was warmer than strictly needed when conducting a deal with a merchant, well, he was just returning her generosity in kind.
"I will come back, even if all of this will probably last far beyond my next excision. I want that tea." He winked, and then laughed a little at his own flirting, "I'm sure you'll have stories of your own travels to exchange and, once the tea is gone, we could go out for other kinds of drinks, or dinner, if that suited you."
He ran a hand through the hair on the back of his head and offered her his prettiest smile before saying,
"Alright, I'll get out of your lovely hair. You don't have to answer, I know you're at work and might not want to scare off a customer. But, think about it?"
With this he tucked all his purchases into another pouch on his belt and, with one wave for Hilana and Tiaz each he stepped back out into the street.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2022 12:50 pm
by Hilana Chenzira
When he refused his change, Hilana smiled at him and inclined her head to him, leaving the coins she had tried to return to him on the wooden table. “That is very kind of you, thank you, Raithen. I’ve enjoyed your company, and you’re easy to talk to. It’s been my pleasure.” Tiaz was hanging onto the Vastiana, but he had also lifted his head and part of his upper body from her towards the Avialae, his tongue flickering and dark eyes on him, clearly having enjoyed the touches and pets he had been getting from him. He wasn’t about to leave his safe anchor, but he had found him interesting, and like Hilana, he would have been happy for him to stay even longer.
There was a glow to her cheeks at the offer, and her eyes were dancing. She did have stories, and she always loved to share them. Especially with someone who had his own. That was always something she enjoyed, and it was something that she missed - talking around the fires and sharing news of the Sands, what was found, what was sought, where they had been, what had changed, what had not... But she had found a kindred spirit here, she had a feeling. His energy delighted hers, and for the first time in a long time in the cities, she had felt very much at ease with someone new that she had no prior encounters with or connections to. Like knew like, somehow. And she wanted to get to know him better. That was not an opportunity she would let slip through her fingers.
When he stepped out, Hilana watched him for a moment before darting into action after him. She scooped up one of the larger paper packets of tea, following him out into the street. It smelled of cinnamon and other warming spices. “Raithen?” she offered it to him. “Take this one... and we’ll have another when you return. I would love to have dinner with you when you come back. Be safe, and may the Founders watch over you and protect you on your travels. Atraxia knows her own, and She will guide you, too.” She was smiling up at him, and her fingers would brush his, should he take the packet from her, letting her touch linger before she stepped back to let him carry on his way. Sweet Remedies was stamped upon it, and below that was ‘Honeycomb Spice’. The Vastii and her snake would watch him go, leaning against the doorframe, one hip jutting out, her skirts hugging her hips, and a radiant smile on her face as she lifted a hand to wave. Only once he was out of sight would she go back inside with Tiaz. "He is lovely, isn't he?" she smiled at her snake, who just brushed against her fingers in what she was certain was agreement.
Re: Introductions and Concoctions [Hilana]
Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2022 12:41 am
by Rune
R E V I E W
Lore: 14 Each
Points: 10 each, Raithen may use for Kinetics
Injuries/Ailments: None
Loot:
Raithen -50gp
Hilana +50gp
Notes: I get the feeling these two are going to be sickeningly adorable.