[closed]

[heirring]

WHO: Flint, Bartimaeus, Wysteria, Fitcher & misc. guests
WHAT: Misc. socializing.
WHEN: Firstfall
WHERE: Kirkwall, etc.
NOTES: Catch all for closed starters. If you want something, hit my up by PM/discord/plurk/whatever and we can make it happen.

Comments

[notched]

She lingers for a moment, eyes on the opening. She wonders how difficult it would be to scale up to that. She might need to know for later. She's not about to check it out this moment though, she turns from it and follows after him. She's only able to glance briefly at some of the other residents and their habits.

"How do you know they'll even come back?"

If she were a griffon, she would not.

[esquive]

He shrugs. "They were born here, and are fed here."

Maybe that's all it is.

Then he leads her around a post and a low half wall, and at once they find themselves in an open box stuffed with straw and littered with little white shards of bone. The big dark shape bundled in the nest has its back to them, wings neatly folded and head tucked away out of sight. The griffon doesn't rouse, not even when Marcoulf gives it a little whistle.

[notched]

She peers around him as they approach this standoffish griffon sleeping in the dark. Its indifference to him is a marked change to not just the fat man, but also the others who had shuffled and gawked at them. This one doesn't even look up. Anna is not the type to start making noises at a strange animal, she's really the type to meld into the shadows and watch very carefully. An impulse she is perpetually trying to ignore in this space. She hates the tightness of it, swinging her whip would be impossible in here-- Not that such an impediment troubles her. The thing is just as dangerous collapsed.

What will she do instead then? Instead of being an over-vigilante idiot. Hadn't she been excited to meet this thing? What is she going to do...

Make noises at a strange animal, she supposes.

"Good morning," she says to it, tone flat but expressive of her own bemusement with herself.

[esquive]

The big shape in the low light doesn't stir, though its big chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm and the puff of its breath is easily discenered. Beside Anna, Marcoulf clucks his tongue in dismay and tosses one of the bits of jerky into the box. The dried meat bounces off the griffon's haunches and into the straw. The animal's feathered tail ripples in response.

"She's particular," he explains. And, a little sullenly: "For what is a blighted mystery."

[notched]

"Maybe she doesn't like humans," she suggests distractedly. "And she's made up her mind about it."

There were those kinds of beasts in Yharnam too. They still knew who they were, even inside the blood hungry cage their body had become. It was one such beast that had first told her:

Oh, you are a sick puppy! You drink the blood of half the town, and now this! And you talk of beasts? You hunters are the real killers!

She's holding her breath as if she expects the griffon to raise her head and speak.

[esquive]

"Nonsense."

It's as if she's said something truly offensive, and to prove her wrong Marcoulf wades into the sea of straw. That's when the great dark grey animal shifts in her nest. She's at least as large as the dun colored griffon who'd intercepted them for head scratches, only she's pure rippling muscle and there is something sharp and predatory in her bright eye as her head comes up and rotates around to regard them. Marcoulf pats her haunches with both hands. In reply, she opens her beak and shrieks one ear splitting note. And then chirps.

[notched]

What an absurd pair they make. A scraggly old man and a stubborn griffon. Anna's eyebrows go up, head tilting as the creature gives such an inquisitive burble as its final note of greeting. That too is absurd in the face of what she had been dreading. She remembers what Marcoulf said about not looking her in the eyes too long, but Anna does it anyway for a moment; gauging how much intelligence lies behind a predator's eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shriek and chirp.

[esquive]

"Hello. Or perhaps 'stop touching me.' Who can say."

He doesn't stop though, instead patting the griffon a few more times on her haunch before he makes his way farther forward along the muscled line of her body. He keeps a hand on her, steadying as he wades through the thick straw. The hen (or griffonness? is there a word for such things?) meanwhile shifts her golden eye to Anna. She blinks back at her, beak partly open and one wing slowly coming unfurled from her side like a cat absently stretching a leg.

Marcoulf doesn't try to duck under the line of her folded wingspan. Once level with the animal's shoulder, he reaches up between the feathered appendages and gives the spot between them a hearty scratch. The griffon doesn't respond, save for a few petulant flicks of her tufted ears.

"Particular," he says again, for emphasis.

LIONHEN

[notched]

"I see," she's used to seeing horses and such attend to his intentions, but this beast was having none of it. She lived her own little life up in this aerie, what did she need from any of them? Anna wonders again what stops this griffon from not simply just flying off and never returning. Stubborn, but also indolent preferring this soft bed of straw and her daily feed over the effort to find it elsewhere.

"Maybe she's bored."

Had made the choice out of good sense but now nothing was very exciting? What a frivolous problem to have.

[esquive]

The scuffy man in residence hums a low noise of assent. Boredom is probably it, he agrees, but what that means and how to resolve it - that part he hasn't sorted yet. He scrubs between the points of the griffon's shoulders, then reaches farther to smooth the rustled feathers of her neck. The hen ruffles them right back up again without averting her attention from Anna, her gold eye staring hard.

"Here." Marcoulf extends his arm out to Anna, offering out another piece of jerky. "Maybe she'll take to you better."

[notched]

Her lips purse. She doubts it, but here she is. So she comes forward into the hay, picking her way to the griffon. She takes one of the wing-feathers between her fingertips and feels out the texture for a moment before she glances up at the griffon with heavy lidded brown eyes.

"There's a Hunter, named Eileen the Crow," she reaches up rubs the griffon's. "She's the last one of the Hunters of Hunters. She lived, all the way to that final night, and continued her mission. Of slashing our necks when we would frenzy and lose ourselves. She wore a mask with a fine beak like yours."

Then it's more clear that she is talking to the beast, irony low in her voice.

"She's as fast as a nightmare, and she has two enchanted blades that she'll rip through you with. What do you think? Are you half so deadly?"

Or are you content to be little more than a pet after all. She offers up the jerky .

[esquive]

From where he has half laid across the griffon's side to reach her neck, Marcoulf regards Anna's progress. He's a quiet observer, and the motion of his hand where he strokes the hen's neck is a small and silent thing. She - the girl, not the bird -, he thinks, is a funny little beast: equal parts sharp and sentimental. Unimaginative, it occurs to him as the griffon extends her face toward Anna. The animal cocks its head, bright golden eye staring and beak clicking in soft contemplation of the meat without actually reaching for it. Is it an inconsiderate appraisal? It doesn't feel like it.

The griffon reaches past the extension of Anna's arm, bypassing the jerky in favor of closing her beak around a tarnished button on her coat. She pokes at it, then nips, then tugs.

"Stop that," Marcoulf scolds, taking a fistful of mottled fur and feathers and tugging on her.

[notched]

She laughs at the creature's total disregard, she can't help it. She might've even expected as much. She pushes the menace away from her firmly. Even still, "Take it if you want it, girl."

It takes a few moments to settle her back, and Anna brushes off her hands with a sigh.

"That's willful," she concedes.