OPEN

[deceivingly]

WHO: Yevdokiya an Waslyna O Bearhold, Tiffany Hart, Matthias, maybe my other characters + YOU
WHAT: a humble open log
WHEN: Fantasy March
WHERE: the Gallows, Kirkwall, the Wounded Coast
NOTES: bath nudity, butchering a seagull, nothing worse atm

Comments

[nonvenomous]

The steady sink of Richard’s boots slows to a pause when she shakes loose the cloth; he turns on his heel to study her raised palm head on.

“Hm,” he says, following the peek of it through her fingers.

The matching splinter of light wedged in the heel of his left hand doesn’t show through until he’s tugged at the tip of the glove on that side and turned it over to face her. Same hat, same hand.

“My ancestors performed profane rituals with serpents, permanently mingling our bloodlines. Those of us who appear mostly human mix easily back into human society.” He snugs the glove back down firm to his wrist, and there’s nothing in an even glance to indicate that he’s pulling her leg. “This is the longest I’ve remained in one location in many years. I know people here willing to separate an arm at the elbow without asking questions.”

A casual offer, if she’s interested.

[deceivingly]

Doki looks from the glow to the boring human face. She looks at the boring human face very hard. Then she looks back at her hand, her arm, which she bends at the elbow, then flexes out again. A test.

She keeps her fist closed, the handful of green light just eking out between the crack of her bunched fingers.

Hm.

"Do you perform profane rituals?"

She sounds hopeful. The irritation has smoothed out, cleanly as if a wave has come up on her and washed it out of her. She begins winding the cloth around her hand again as she walks, the dark blot of the cave's mouth coming closer.

[nonvenomous]

His eyes are a clear, keen blue -- friendly, in spite of osprey intensity against her scrutiny. Daring her to isolate anything especially snakelike now that she knows to look for it.

“Only on special occasions.”

A crook at the corner of his mouth is appropriately sinister.

Then they’re walking again, amidst the sizzling of waves up the shoreline and the cries of gulls squabbling as they cannibalize the bird Doki left broken open on the rocks behind them. The cave mouth looms ahead. This would be an excellent place for a robbery.

"Tell me about the Avvar."

[deceivingly]

Pleased, Doki laughs. "Good. The Avvar love profane rituals."

Well. To be unbiased, she adds, "I am Avvar and I love profane rituals, so, this is true. We are the people of the Frostbacks. Nothing in the Frostbacks stays the same forever, so, nothing for the Avvar stays the same. My brother and I, when we are wanting to visit our clan, we must first track where they are living. It is a very good game."

As they walk, she pins her hand against her chest to hold the wrap in place. With the fingers of her free hand, she does up the knot, to tie it more securely. It isn't easy to do this one-handed but she has had practice now. She can even do it while avoiding the wash of the waves. She could even do it while thinking of a robbery.

"And we are better than lowlanders. Our gods are better. We do not fuck snakes, but, that is because snakes die in the cold. Bears we would maybe fuck."

[nonvenomous]

“Some snakes are capable of hibernating through the winter,” Richard says, helpfully. “Not that I advocate breeding with them even under more temperate circumstances.”

A look back over his shoulder confirms that their University charge is still turning over rocks in search of their quarry. Ahead, the sounds of the beach rebound strangely off the back of the cavern walls, rolling back on themselves over the low tide.

“Have you pledged yourself to one particular god or do you follow them all?”

[deceivingly]

Mmm! Doki's noise of keen interest at this new fact is too bright to be merely polite. She has learned something. She will remember this.

"We do not pledge. That is for lowlanders. Why would we bother when the gods live in all things." Theologically simplistic, deeply meaningful. Doki gestures around them, the sheer walls that rise above them, the spars of rock and driftwood, some of it still bearing the shapes it was formed to by human hands when it lived its former life as the boat.

"We have favorites. Everyone is loving the Lady of the Skies, and the Mountain Father, and Hakkon Wintersbreath. My clan has our spirit, Kriccobog. She has been with us very many years, is very fierce, makes her braids into a beard--" She pinches her braids together under her chin to show him. "--much better than yours. Is always eating goat hearts. Someday she will die and we will get a new spirit by making her gifts and singing her songs and things. I will be here--Riftwatch--but it will happen."

She shrugs. Easy come, easy go.

"You have pledged?"