Smoking or...?

[Reiko Valour]

Open

Rain was a curious facet of natures many whims upon the globe, able to fall in sheets or solitary droplets and change its strength from a drape along your shifting form to crushing you into the ground to meet with its settled form of a puddle. In truly felicitous noons one could find themselves bathed in a simple pessimistically dubbed drizzle but with the heat of the sun permeating through it to soften your outlook for the rest of that day. Typically though it fell with a stark refreshing chill that would sharpen the senses and snap a train of thought as it forced itself upon your attentions. Most importantly however...

"Bloody wet out here."

With a weakly supported klumph the door of a long disused carriage was shoved shut, great scores upon it's surface from various claws and only one set of marks belonged to the one who merely made use of it the previous night. The horses had long since scarpered or been devoured, most likely so did the driver and whatever passengers it may have had. Luggage and goods no doubt filched by others who had made use or simply discovered the broken wooden box... some beggar had even nicked the wheels. However it's new purpose of a simple little shelter wasn't badly fufilled as the Draconis which distanced himself from it began to ponder upon.

The landscape upon which his awakening figure looked upon wasn't strictly empty but it was certainly no great wound of civilisation upon nature. In the far distance near where the horizon slices into the sky he could make out faint smoke of what could be a furnace perhaps from a blacksmith... maybe a farm-stead going up completely, mattered little to be perfectly honest it wasn't the direction he was aiming to go. Had been lucky enough to be rewarded for living another day with just a light little mizzle, it would decorate and dapple little balls of moisture upon the clothing but it didn't lessen visibility. It's big brothers of down-pours and buckets had already hit the area before the Draconis' awakening though as large tracts of land were submerged completely in mizzle tickled puddles.

Small shudder ran through Reiko' frame as his feet dug into the ground, then sank, cold damp mud seeping between the huge clawed toes of his curious limb extremities. Then came the noise, for you see a Draconis' has such a high body heat that water hitting upon them barely gets long to remain in its liquid form and instead makes the trip to gaseous vapours very quickly. It does not do this noiselessly however and a pervading sizzle can be made out around the jutting striped snout poking out from his raised hood and among the steam clouds wafting up steadily from his large lethal feet. Bit of a palarva to start his fourth day of trekking, still he'd been assured by the soberest of patrons in the Cock and Strumpet that the next settlement was a mere six days strong walk and there would even be a manor house part of the way there to reassure him of going in the right direction. Hadn't cropped up though.

Thankfully it was no wanderers folly this route and while claimed back by nature in some segments there was still something of a trail, dusty and bare from the paths of wheels, hooves and feet. Most likely the odd wagon or two heading for the pantries of this undiscovered manor house, seemed a fair bet to hedge really. Took a moments effort to remove his feet from the deep gouges they'd made upon the water swollen dirt as he headed for the road, for one thing he was faintly curious on seeing a manor house this far out from nowhere. Besides if you stand alone in the wilderness, moving in mostly any direction should help your odds on meeting someone else, speak to while trekking. Not that he didn't make good company, sure he did, just that he already knows all the stories he might've been able to tell himself.

[Twisted Infinitum]

Sifan silk was truly wondrous. No matter how abused, dirtied, or wrinkled, the tight weave kept the unclean elements at bay. A single night of standing outside in the rain, and Edgar’s cloak had been washed to perfection. It’s obsidian sheen returned, muted only be the drizzle, and the delicate stitching of orange ivy along the seams was made as starkly vivid as the day it had been sown. It was a magnificent garment, fit for any nobleman, court wizard, or even your everyday second-place Gisela Open champion.

Yes, that’s correct. The figure standing in the boggy road, ankle deep in a puddle made fouler by the horse manure just recently washed from his shoulders, had bested all in that prestigious tournament except for one. A goat. The goat had an airship, though, so it was practically cheating. At least he had won enough to buy the cloak of his dreams - or his master’s dreams - because what was under that cloak, on the grand scale of pretty things, was closer to the dissolving manure underfoot than the fine garment that swaddled him.

All that could be seen of the abomination within was the ethereal glow of orange inside the cowl and a single outstretched hand of wooden digits with half-exposed metal gears. An elegant goblet was held in that rigid grip, silver rising from the stem to meet the gold that descended from the lip in a blending as natural as a snowdrift of precious metals. At some point in time, the goblet had embodied that finest wine ever imported into this bland patch of countryside. Today, however, it burgeoned with rain water almost to the top. Every involuntary twitch of the wooden hand jostled the rippling, drizzle-fed pool, threatening to spill it out. Fortunate, perhaps, that an impossibly priced wine wasn’t on the menu today.

As a stranger approached, Edgar paid no heed, even when the sloppy suction of wide feet came closer and the hiss of evaporating raindrops sounded like vipers unearthed from their holes. He stared, transfixed, into the goblet’s precarious pool. It had nearly reached the lip, quivering with fear as every gentle drop broke the surface tension that tried to keep it contained. Then, just as the traveller drew close enough to make weather-dampened introductions, the tension broke and the chalice belched stale rainwater down the fine metal and onto the rickety hand.

Finally, the commander of armies, the champion who had bested the likes of demons, men, and crazy girls with razor paint brushes, saw fit to speak. “It rained thiiiis much,” Edgar rattled in a voice as wet and clinging as the traveller’s footsteps with soft wooden clicks underneath the malformed words. “Splooooosh,” he added as he upended the goblet, making the road just that much more slough-like.

The goblet stayed there, upside down, on the end of an arm apparently forgotten. Edgar creaked his head around to face the newcomer, betraying only that the light within his cowl was situated to the left and unpleasantly bright in the dreary atmosphere. He paused for a moment, seemingly in thought, then spouted what would have to pass for an introduction. “You sell insurance? Fifteen minutes, fifteen percent?”

[Reiko Valour]

"Insurance?... sounds far too much like organized business. I've freely given reassurance though and it's time-scale varies quite a whack."

Well that was a proper little exchange given and thankfully the Draconis was able to offer his end of it with without having to raise his voice beyond the standard for while the hissing of evaporating water was persistent it was thankfully reduced to background noise. From within the darkened opening of his hood the fire-lizard took his time to peruse the fellow hooded fellow that stood before him, really wasn't all that much his sight could lock upon and digest with so many fun little ponderies on origins or future pathways but the hand... now that was a right sticking point. The goblet was fascinating and all that bollucks to some weedy bloke with a magnifying lense pressed to his eye but Reiko immediately focussed himself on assessing the wooden hand clutching hold of it in a stiffness rather befitting those curled and knarled branches that made night-time forest walks such a risk upon the wardrobe.

While all this lovely little mental athletics was moving through the Draconis' mind a silence developed, had some off-spring and resulted in a rather sizable family tree of nonworded absence of noise... well aside from the constantly falling rain and the hiss of the heated scales. After such an unusual opening and delivering the best thought out response he could manage in such circumstances... there really wasn't anything in his mind forthcoming to shift through his vocal chords and form language.

"So, are you heading anywhere in particular or just acting the place-holder for a future statue?"

Okay so not the greatest precursor to a conversation but humour always made a reliable fall-back when it wasn't the spot-light grabbing lead in pretty much every other situation. Place-holder seemed a fair enough comment, only other thing he could ponder up was that this was a piss-poor place and equipment for getting a drink of water.