closed | couldn't drag me away.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Butch Porkfist poleaxed & Final Fantasy's Amelia Bedelia archademode & Snidely Whiplash altusimperius
WHAT: I don't want to ride my chocobo all day. Neither does Benedict.
WHEN: Now.
WHERE: The stables.
NOTES: I don't actually know how horses work.

UNO.

Every stable has an old nag, so old and docile no one really uses it anymore. Some of them had names once, but when a horse gets old enough, they just fade into the background until they die. It'd be sad, if Jone gave a shit, but she doesn't, so it isn't.

Nag is a grey mare, born some time in, presumably, the Blessed age. She walks slowly and calmly behind Jone, who is holding a carrot. Nag slowly uses her flat yellow teeth to saw into the carrot.

"This," Jone says to the tower of metal standing before her, "is a horse."

DOS.

Later, at some point after Jone has menaced Gabranth with the platonic concept of equestrianism, she spots young Benedict in the distance. What he's doing doesn't really matter to her, and the fact that she might be about to make a fool of herself barely crosses her mind.

Without warning, she just shouts, with (practiced, but) real (sounding) concern in her voice. "Oi! Ben! They're coming, they are! Hide here!"

She waves her hand, looking generally distressed.

Comments

[archademode]

"That is not a horse."

Its teeth are so dull that the carrot seems to bend beneath their weight with each and every bite, head sagging low at the end of a neck that could only be described as forcibly bent. If the creature sees either of the two people standing at her side, it hardly shows in the lone, consistently vacant expression fixed firmly to her equine skull.

"It bears no fangs. Lacks the hunger of a hunter in its posture."

It has eyes.

[poleaxed]

Jone considers this, but not, honestly, too much. She can problem solve, question, take care, riddle and query with the rest of them, but only when properly motivated. This mystery isn't very engaging.

"Did something happen to you? A hard hit on the head when you were small, like?"

[archademode]

"No."

As gentle and expressive as ever— which of course means cold and hardened, and unwilling to elaborate any further in regards to solving this particular enigma. Instead he sets the whole of his attention to softly circling the docile creature, finding neither hide nor hair of any claws, nor lashing tendrils, nor rotted tooth.

It is, in its entirety, a rather depressing beast.

"Are they all much the same as this one? Surely it can support no weight. It looks to be in its grave already."

[poleaxed]

"Well, Nag over here-" she turns to Gabranth, "that's what you call an old horse. Nag is the oldest, gentlest Rouncey I could find. Rounceys're all around horses, they ain't bred for anything particular."

She lets go of the carrot, and it begins its slow and final descent into Nag's mouth.

"Destriers, now, those are some lovely creatures," she turns to the stables, and points to the tallest, most muscular horses, whose heads reach far above Jone's own, whose hooves could flatten her face. "They're bred for war."

Jone pulls an apple from the bag around her shoulder, green and bright, and holds it out to Gabranth. "You wanna try feeding one? You're all armored up for it."

[archademode]

"If they are bred for war, then they lack their own natural defenses."

Said as he snatches the apple from her hand with little ceremony, as if to prove he holds no fear of the simple creatures penned in the area surrounding them. In truth— it simply comes off as petulant.

Which is an accurate enough summary of the man regardless.

"How do they manage themselves in battle if they've no—" The apple is too far out of reach for the horse he's chosen to feed, eliciting a dry nicker from the animal as it shifts and stamps down across trodden strands of hay. "...if they've no weaponry of their own."

[poleaxed]

Jone puts her hand under Gabranth’s, moving it up so the horse can begin, with its thick wobbly lips, to try and grip the apple.

“They don’t fight by nature, mate, dunno what you have back home. In the wild, all they do is run. We make ‘em fight, we train ‘em up for it, breed ‘em, all that.”

[archademode]

Is that truly all they're meant for?

He can hardly fathom it, truth be told, yet in light of that knowledge the stiffness in his own hand seems to ease away by degrees where it's pressed against her own: the armor lacks give, of course, but beneath it, where his knuckles and joints were once flexed so hard that the beast could barely find purchase in grazing, now sits a certain kind of easy give.

"Very well. Show me how it's done."

[poleaxed]

So that apple disappears into the horse’s mouth pretty quickly. One huge jaw swings down, and it’s crunched up. The horse, a friendly thing (easy to be friendly when you’re that huge) whinnies in something that might be anthropromorphized as thanks.

“Let’s get her out of the gate, then. Some lads,” she says while she opens the paddock door and leads the horse carefully out, less in fear of any ferocity and more in respect of its size and gait, “some lads’ll tell you, the only real horse a warrior ever needs is a stallion. Them’s the boy ones. This ain’t.”

She points to the horse’s rump as they exit the stable, back into the open air. “Never ride a stallion into battle. Too wild, they are, and impossible to control. Mares— ladies like Moira here— and geldings— eunuchs— are the way to go.”

[archademode]

“Chocobos are no different.”

Said as he walks parallel to Jone— just across the horse’s other side, his helmet trained on her over the slight slope of the creature’s back. It is still strange to consider, to know there’s something of Ivalice in these beasts, no matter how different they are in form and function— but strange is not the same as wariness, and he’s found some level of comfort in fresh understanding.

“The best are those with an easy temperament and a wellspring of stamina to draw on: they do not buck their riders, nor flee from the chaos of gunfire or smoke.”

[poleaxed]

“Ch...ocobos,” Jone squints, and envisions something like a dracolisk. That’d explain Gab thinking about trying to feed the nag a cutlet. “We haven’t those here. And horses, not even them this big, don’t need training for war. Don’t ask me how that works, though; my folks were tanners.”

Which is to say, she grew up very poor.

[archademode]

Well, considering the origins of all things, Jone isn't necessarily far off, really.

"It was a matter of price in Ivalice as well."

When he was young— when he and his brother Basch used to run barefoot through the balmy streets of Landis without a care— the closest they could come to seeing the creatures was through fencing alone, or during the occasional procession.

"I'd not touched one until earning my title, and by then..." There's a faint scoff inside that helmet, his hand grazing the mare's side in a show of mild appreciation for her level behavior. "The beast I was given would have cost more than a hundred lives in worth alone."

[poleaxed]

“Ain’t it always,” she says, voice a bit dull. “Maybe if I’d joined the wardens, or pledged myself to the throne, but...”

“Having regrets just means you’re alive, I reckon. Oi, you wanna try’n ride her, Gab?”

[archademode]

He pauses there, his chin lifting slightly to better grasp the expression she wears as she speaks so candidly about wants...and regrets.

"You wished to serve the throne?"

He keeps his hands still as he asks, both of them pressed flat against the creature's shoulder, just where it angles up to meet the broad span of her neck. A sign of held intent— and a quiet inquiry, as unobtrusive as a man encased fully in armor could ever manage.

dos

[altusimperius]

Benedict is just minding his own business, thanks. He's out on an afternoon constitutional between lunch and returning to work, a time in which he'll often sit and sketch the Gallows around him, but this time he is dissuaded from doing so by Jone's urgent beckoning.

Face going pale, he hurries over to her. "What?? Who?"

[poleaxed]

Jone's only response is to look Gabranth straight in the eye (holes), as if to say I told you so.

[archademode]

Gabranth, perhaps thankfully, holds no expression due to his typical magesterial regalia: one hand is lax, thumb hooked across the leather belt at his waist against the pommel of a sword— the other hangs idly at his side.

Clearly, there is no danger present.

"We wished to speak with you, Lord Artemaeus."

[altusimperius]

Immediately, Benedict looks between them with an expression of muted annoyance. Why get his attention in that manner, if not--?

"What?"

The question is brusquer than he'd like, but he could be drawing by now.

[poleaxed]

“We wanna settle a bet! C’mere, Benny me lad.” She waves him over, smiling and welcome, a contrast from the mock-terror of before.

In an undertone, so Gabranth she murmurs, “should’ve bet you he were easy to scare. Won that one, ain’t I.”

[archademode]

"That is not—"

Underneath that heavy helm comes a narrowed exhale, one most often heard chasing the heels of Jone's tendency to do what she pleases when she pleases. That he's made no bet of his own, that he's not in the habit of yanking his own charges around on a whim, well— he isn't so childish as to need to state it out loud, so much as he likes to think his behavior speaks for itself.

His posture squares off once more, attention settling on Benedict instead, as if attempting to forcibly will the both of them to fixate on his preferred topic of conversation.

"You are to accompany us for the sake of furthering your battle prowess."

[altusimperius]

Benedict knew they would be collaborating on his training, but hadn't actually imagined what that would look like. Now that he sees it, he feels a nervous pit forming in his stomach, which he valiantly masks with an expression that manages not to be too wary.

"Accompany you? Where?"

[poleaxed]

Jone gives Gabranth a look that says you know you love it, smug and self-assured. She doesn’t know he loves it. She doubts she loves it, half the time. But you have to show a certain sort of confidence, or you’ll be walked all over.

To Ben, she says, “Now, it’s only if you like. I’m not forcing you, and I won’t let this dumb lug try.”

She points to Gabranth, letting him make the offer.

[archademode]

"I expect your attendance." Gabranth counters smoothly, ignoring Jone's own promise of safe harbor.

"We aim to fight a dragon. A Stormrider."

[altusimperius]

"A," Bene glances between them, "a dragon."

That sounds like essentially the last thing he would ever want to do, for multiple reasons, and the suggestion is so outrageous he can't help but smirk bewilderedly.

But Gabranth doesn't seem like the type to fool around, so it might be time to pull out some stops.
"I can't leave the Gallows," Bene says, almost smugly. He's omitting the truth, of course, which is that he can leave the Gallows with an escort, especially on a mission, but Gabranth is new and doesn't know that.

...and hopefully Jone, if she knows, won't care.

[poleaxed]

Jone squints, “thought you could.”

But she’s not clear on the details. And it is probably better if messire treason stays in throwing distance. “Dunno where I heard that.”

She shakes her head. Not important. “If you could, would you? We agreed you’d not fight the thing, just watch how it’s done.”

[archademode]

"Perhaps I ought speak with the person responsible for ordering your stay."

Surely an exception could be made in exchange for the benefit of experience gained, and reputation won by way of slaying something so troublesome.