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 Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 11:16 am
Kalends watched as Reynard eyed the rabbit as the meat began to crackle in the fire and brown lightly. The clerk was looking at it with such abject want that the thief didn't quite know what to do. Kalends was used to being the one in Reynard's position, the man on the outside looking in at the luxury of the people that he stole from. He was still fairly confounded that Reynard hadn't run off with his cloak and tinder box, but had decided to chalk it up either to desperation or stupidity. As he watched Reynard fascinated with the meat cooking on the fire, Kalends was still not sure which category the man fell into.
Or both. Desperation made you stupid, and stupidity led to desperation eventually. But...somehow, Kalends couldn't think this man an idiot. There was something about his words and the way his eyes seemed to hold a certain indigence when Reynard asserted his indelicacy--pride, perhaps? The thief chuckled to himself when the man thanked him. When had someone last thanked him, Kalends of Edgecrest, rising thief?
He was about to comment on the cloak and the decency of the fire (Kalends hadn't been expecting much from what he had assumed with a man with no skills on the road, but it was serving his purposes nicely) when the magpie flew in.
Kalends jerked abruptly as the bird crashed down between them, his bloody dagger held at the ready as though summoned by a thought. The thief's eyes switched from guardedness to an open threat, his irises dancing with an invitation to battle. When he realized that the sound was just a bird (not an armed robber or highwayman as he'd surmised), and a slightly strange looking bird at that, Kalends relaxed, though still held out the dagger and contemplated the magpie. He supposed that they could eat the bird, too, and had had the dagger out for that purpose when Reynard started feeding it.
Wearily, Kalends flipped the bird a salute with the tip of his dagger before sitting down again and watching as the magpie glupped down the rabbit trimmings. It wasn't done out of superstition as much as habit; Kalends' mentor had been adamant about him observing certain traditions for luck and magpies weren't uncommon sights. "The bird looks fairly wedded to you already." He'd never seen anything like this, and had thought that Reynard was telling him that he didn't mean to keep the bird instead of his cloak. Perhaps, Kalends mused, this man was a sorcerer. He leaned back, cleaning his dagger off in the grass and polishing it on a pant leg as he talked. Sorcery, hmm? Maybe that would explain it. "I would have thought that one so well in command of nature that he can summon birds at his beck and call would have had an easier journey. You look half-dead already but you can call down spirits of the air as needed-- " here he took a swig from his waterskin "-- why not have your companion hunt for you? It seems to be capable enough and it would be an appropriate use for your magic."
Except for the bird's crashing, of course. Kalends shook his head at the magpie again, then offered the waterskin to Reynard. He'd seen enough of magic-users in Edgecrest to know that it didn't pay to tick them off face-to-face. Besides, it never hurt to have a sorcerer owing you a favor.
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:25 am
Reynard did not notice the glint of the knife, as he had been too busy watching the bird, but the magpie did. It did not seem alarmed by the weapon--bright though it undoubtedly was, it did not recognize the tool as one used to inflict harm--but instead appraised it with its single keen eye, approving, no doubt, of the way it reflected light. It observed Kalends’s lazy salute with a few rapid flicks of its head. As nice as shiny things were, though, it decided that food was still nicer, and bent down to make work of the entrails offered it. Feathers rustled dryly across its back as it pulled the stringy loops of offal apart.
Reynard nodded with a wry twist of his mouth when Kalends declared the bird to be wedded to him. He supposed that was more or less true. He didn’t really mind. He was about to remark on just how far the bird had followed him when Kalends went on, and absolutely confused Reynard in the process. For a moment Reynard forgot how hungry he was, despite the delicious smell of the rabbit roasting in front of him, and turned to regard Kalends, his stern expression fading into one of true bafflement. What was this man going on about?
His confused expression remained frozen on his face as he numbly took the waterskin. Reynard did not want for water nearly as much as he wanted for food, thanks to the magpie, but he was nevertheless grateful of the offer. He passed it back to Kalends after taking a mouthful, his brow still furrowed above his spectacles in clear confusion. “Magic?” Suddenly he realized what Kalends must mean, and the customary blankness returned to his face smoothly, almost mechanically. “Oh. No, it is just a magpie. It is not in any way special.” He paused to look at the bird, who was making small hops towards the rest of the entrails, obviously impatient enough to draw close to the two men to sate its appetite. “Well. Perhaps somewhat.”
He shook his head. “I have no talents in that particular art, I am afraid.” Reynard had never displayed even an ounce of magical talent. He preferred his books, his quiet office, and his arithmetic. “Though the bird had rather a knack for finding clear water, I do not think I could ever press it into bringing me food.”
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:33 pm
Kalends blinked, frowning as he put the waterskin away. "If not a magician, then what?" Offhand, the thief surely couldn't think of any professions that kept birds around as part of their work. He'd once seen a traveling circus (and cut a nice slice of profit from a performer's purse strings) but even then the carnival participants hadn't had what seemed like such a close relationship with their animals.
Still, Reynard hadn't seemed perturbed by the dead rabbit that was now starting to brown on the spit, and Kalends had long ago reasoned that Reynard was not a man of the wilds. "It's not exactly common to see a bird like that following someone around." At least not in Edgecrest, anyway.
Kalends poked at the meat again, as a way to distract himself and avoid having to make too much conversation. He wasn't too good at making small talk; most of his exchanges tended to either be in the realm of threats or business arrangements, and while he was quite good at those, daily life was not his forte. He speared the rabbit's hindquarters with his dagger, checking for tenderness. Waiting a few moments more, he checked again, and then pronounced it done.
Gingerly, he snapped the spit in half and then dug out his other dagger, a newer one he'd bought in Chestering. He thought about it a moment then passed it to Reynard with half the rabbit. "If you'd rather take it apart with your hands, be my guest. Personally," Kalends flicked his favored dagger into the meat, "I prefer this method."
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:57 pm
Reynard’s expression began to slowly take on the vaguely sour-faced look that seemed to serve as its default state of being at Kalends’s question, but he paused before the transformation could take full and unpleasant effect, because he honestly did not know how to answer it. Weeks ago he would have automatically replied that he was a clerk. What was he, now? Not much, he thought grimly to himself. He was out here in the wild world, where he could barely survive, where he didn’t belong. “For now, nothing more than a wanderer,” he admitted to Kalends, “but when I find civilization again, I suppose I will be what I can.”
He shrugged off Kalends’s observation about the magpie. He didn’t have any extensive knowledge of birds in general, and he certainly didn’t recall having seen very many magpies around St. Cobb, but the magpie had done nothing to convince him that it was in any way an extraordinary creature. “I fed it, once. I suppose it is rather like a dog, in that respect.” He glanced sideways, over the top of his broken spectacles, at where the bird was still steadily gorging itself. “It has a knack for finding water. Possibly, it likes the shine.”
When Kalends stood to butcher the rabbit, the magpie flicked its narrow head to bring him into the range of its single eye’s sight, and then immediately fluttered off, startled by the movement. It perched in a tree not too far away, watching the men at the campfire warily from among the branches. Reynard’s world once again narrowed to the smell of the smoking meat and the sight of the dagger flaying at the rabbit’s flesh, and when Kalends handed him the half of the rabbit, he nodded wordlessly.
He did actually have a small knife, something that he’d had in his pocket on the day when everything had changed. It was useful for cutting new quills and the twine that bound letters and old reports, but wouldn‘t serve as any means of self-protection, being barely as long as one of the former clerk‘s spindly fingers. Reynard began to eat carefully, doing what he could to preserve at least a little dignity, but when his mouth was full of the meat and the smell of the rabbit filled his senses, dignity was forgotten and replaced with something much more visceral. He gave in, devouring the rabbit with the desperation of someone who subconsciously knew that such a meal might be the last he would come across for some time.
That was not to say he was messy. Reynard didn’t waste so much as a scrap of the food, but he was utterly silent as he ate, wholly focused on the task. It was only when he was picking at scraps of meat clinging to the bone that his brain finally emerged from under the primeval haze of hunger, and he realized that he had made a rather poor dinner guest. He looked to Kalends, his shoulders hunched slightly in embarrassment. Part of him wanted to apologize for his poor manners, but even the straight-laced former clerk knew that this was really neither the time nor the place to stand on ceremony. So, instead, he said something that he thought was more important for Kalends to hear. When he spoke next, his deep voice was soft.
“Thank you.”
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Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 1:38 pm
His mouth twitched into something between a smile and a smirk when Reynard had mentioned that he was a wanderer. Yeah, Kalends knew how that was like. He severely doubted that Reynard had the same circumstances surrounding his journey as Kalends himself did-- unhappily whisked into the middle of nowhere-- but the feeling of being displaced was the same. So he nodded. "Likewise. I'm not very fond of this wilderness. I'd rather have a city."
Stopping himself, Kalends concentrated angrily on his food. What was he doing? Revealing things about himself to a stranger-- how stupid. He supposed that it made good cover, making conversation, but how lifeless the words sounded when he repeated them mockingly to himself over bites of rabbit: I'm not very fond of this wilderness honestly, he sounded like a coddled noble.
Kalends distracted himself watching Reynard devour his share of rabbit. He was almost starting to regret that he hadn't gone out and gotten more of the rabbits, given the way that his companion seemed to be tearing into his portion, but then the man thanked him and Kalends was at a total loss.
People didn't thank thieves. Even after performing a service or favor for his master when the man was still alive, Kalends didn't get thanked. It was just something he did to avoid punishment. He knew that no one was going to punish him for not helping, but Kalends' reasons hadn't been entirely unselfish; he had, after all, been trying to assuage a feeling that he didn't know how to deal with, so it wasn't like he didn't benefit. He caught a glimpse of the magpie in the tree and sighed. Was giving food all it took to get an animal to follow you like that? Was it deserved?
"You know how to hunt at all?" Kalends asked coarsely, trying not to linger on the subject of thank-yous and food-based gratitude and the deep metaphorical significance of the bird in the tree. "I mean, it's not like we're near anywhere to buy food. You seem better suited to civilization anyway, wanderer, but if you don't have magic to sustain you, you might as well learn to get food for yourself."
It was better than dealing with being thanked for something. Honing a craft, pursuing a skill-- that was much more comfortable territory.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 7:11 pm
Reynard did not judge Kalends as harshly as the thief judged himself. Frankly, Reynard didn’t know what to make of his new temporary companion, aside, of course, from a sense of gratefulness that was emanating in warm, gentle waves from his mercifully full belly. He was not used to the many intricacies present in social interactions, and honestly didn’t give Kalends’s words any thought beyond their initial meaning. He shared the sentiment, but he didn’t say so out loud. Once he arrived in Persea, he didn’t plan on venturing out any time soon--at least not without proper preparation.
Of course, he didn’t think he would be likely to be forced to leave Persea under the same circumstances that he had been forced to leave St. Cobb…
Kalends was speaking again. Reynard looked up. He had entirely missed the amusing similarity between himself and his feathered companion. Though he didn’t intend on following Kalends on his adventures through Panymium, he certainly looked on the thief with a slightly more favorable eye than he had the first moment they met. Reynard drew a deep breath and shook his head. “No. I do not,” he confirmed, entirely unnecessarily. It was a testament to how distracted he was that he did not catch the redundancy before it exited his mouth.
Reynard stared rather blankly at Kalends for a few moments. “Are you offering to teach me?” he finally queried. “I do not imagine I will have much success, but I will certainly not turn down any help that you would be willing to provide.” Reynard was obviously not too proud to turn down any sort of assistance, but nor was his tone in any way pleading. He spoke with the same rather flat cadence that he had been using since he had met Kalends, tinged by the slightest inflection of his Cobbian accent.
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:29 pm
Kalends nodded, trying to shake off his vexation at himself. Whatever, so he had his moments of weakness. Those were few and far between. Instead, he devoted himself to the task of teaching Reynard the intricacies of making traps and basic hunting. Kalends instructed Reynard in the proper way to wield a knife, throw a dagger to hit prey, and what little he'd managed to pick up about edible berries (which was really only a dire warning not to eat a certain green variety) and by the end of their practicing, the thief was fairly confident that should worse come to worst, his companion would not be wholly without regress when they parted.
Though he didn't admit it, Kalends was impressed at the analytical way that Reynard learned his skills. While Kalends still found plenty to make sarcastic comments at, even he had to admit that Reynard's dogged perseverance was more than he had expected.
And at last, Kalends allowed his pride to take an arrow to the knee, as much as he ever did. "After all that, I have one thing to ask in return." He grinned, trying to play it off as a joke, but then the long silence between his introduction and his question made it quite apparent that the thief's cockiness was not as justified as it seemed. "How in Panyma's name do you get to Edgecrest from here?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:05 pm
It would have been obvious by the time that Kalends was finished with him that Reynard would never be a master hunter. He was very obviously intelligent; fatigue-dulled through his senses were, his meal had made it possible for his brain to concentrate on something other than his empty stomach, and he absorbed the information that Kalends gave to him almost hungrily. Memorization was something he was familiar with, and in their wild surroundings, he found it oddly comforting.
Reynard had difficulty as far as performing the actual actions went, though. His hand-eye coordination was patchy, at best, and more than once he awkwardly dropped the knife he was supposed to throw. Still, he went after the task with dogged determination, and by the end of the lesson felt a little more confident that he probably wouldn’t starve before he reached Persea.
While Kalends led him away from the fire for demonstration (as well as to show off the berries that he should not eat) the magpie descended once more to finish off the remains of the rabbit’s innards. When it was done, it flicked its wings once, spattering black specks onto the ground.
When Kalends mentioned a return favor, Reynard turned his full attention on the thief, staring piercingly at him from behind his spectacles. He wanted to repay Kalends for what he had done, if only so he didn’t feel so helpless and pathetic out here. He did not smile or laugh as the thief finally asked his question, but nor did he give any sort of air of mockery. He gave the unusual request the same flat regard that he had given everything so far (save, perhaps, the rabbit). He was silent as he did a few internal calculations. “I would say you are slightly over five hundred miles,” he responded blandly, as if he hadn’t just told Kalends his destination, “so your best means of reaching it would be to find a city where you may arrange for a different means of transport.”
Perhaps a merchant caravan would be able to offer him transport, or, if he could afford it, he might travel by coach.
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Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:50 pm
"Gods," Kalends slumped back, feeling as though he'd taken a blow to the head, "everything is so far."
He supposed that what Reynard had said had been correct. His feet, though used to longer travel now, were already crying out in protest at a longer march. Yes, the best option would probably be to find a city close to where he wanted to go and then arrange for transportation from there. Not Chestering, he thought to himself acidly as he pulled the map out from his cloak, revealing his satchel, but maybe somewhere closer, somewhere less filled with military.
"What about the right direction to go to Prybridge?" He asked instead, pointing to the port city on the map. He had no idea where he was anyway, and even though it was perhaps logically a better choice to just return to Chestering and hitch a ride from there, Kalends seemed adamant about taking this other city. His satchel was flopped against a rock, and seemed fairly inconspicuous if not for the fact that Kalends had not once removed a single item that he'd used from it, instead pulling out the map, flint and tinder, and dagger from various pockets and compartments in his cloak.
The black specks on the ground didn't escape Kalends' keen eye, but he chose not to bring them up. For all Reynard's coldness, the thief could sense a faint air of companionship between the clerk and the bird, and so as Kalends surmised that perhaps the magpie had come down with an illness, he decided not to bring it up. While Reynard hadn't given Kalends any reason to doubt him, the thief was also not as sure that the clerk really wasn't some kind of magician, and as Reynard hadn't seemed bothered by the black soot his bird spewed, Kalends nursed the idea that perhaps this was a conjured bird that spouted hellfire quietly to himself.
"You probably already know where you're going." He commented offhandedly. "I know few people that would travel without a purpose in this weather."
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Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:08 pm
A map! Thank Panyma. Reynard looked over the map, his eyes rapidly flicking back and forth as he soaked in every detail drawn on its surface. He didn’t think he would get lost between where he was and Persea, but it wouldn’t help to absorb all the details of the countryside. He hadn’t had access to a map since he’d fled the city of his birth, and had not paid any extra attention to maps he’d encountered through his life as a clerk. “Prybridge…” he reached forward and touched the city’s name on the map with one gloved finger, his brow furrowing slightly in concentration.
He scoured his mind for any details he might know about Prybridge or the surrounding area. He had nothing. With a shrug, Reynard concluded, “Your wisest choice would be to continue to Persea, or perhaps Montburg.” Montburg was in the opposite direction, but it was a larger city, being something of a hub for those of scientific persuasion, and might have better-established means of traveling long distances available. Reynard didn’t know enough about travel arrangements to know whether or not it would be wiser to head to Montburg or to Persea for the purpose of securing transport further south.
“I do know that Montburg sees more travelers through its gates than Persea, but it is north of us, and you need to travel southwest. Being larger, it might have means of arranging your travel south that Persea does not. I do not know which town would better suit your needs of securing transport, but…” He tapped the map once and drew his hand away. “I am going to Persea.”
Reynard was blissfully unaware of the things that Kalends had decided about him and his allegedly hellfire-spewing magpie. He had noticed the black specks the bird seemed to shed on occasion, and simply thought that perhaps the magpie was dirty. It was a wild animal, after all. Reynard was accustomed to a world of dry, crackling parchment, riven through with the soft scratching of quills on paper. He didn't know much about wild animals' habits. The bird had been watching them from the ground, but now it gave a sudden, raucous cry, and Reynard looked to it as it flapped away into the sky, heading off for some unknown destination. “Or, perhaps I should say, ‘we.’”
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Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 4:50 pm
At his heart, Artemis Kalends was a practical man. He could recognize that Reynard knew something about this map, or at least, that the man was quite competent at reading it and that his judgement could be trusted, and did not think that the other man was lying or acting out of ill will when he said that Montburg would be the best option. But Kalends was also a man of efficiency (even if it was of a circuitous variety) and the idea of going farther away from Edgecrest seemed counterproductive, even if travel out of Montburg or Persea would be faster in the long run.
"Maybe I'll continue southwest, then." He pursed his lips resignedly, deciding that if a perfectly logical seeming person were to suggest going so far out of the way that he was probably better left to his own devices. Kalends was aware that there was no doubt a motive for it, but he didn't have the desire to puzzle it out. Intellectuals played games like this all the time for no reason other than personal amusement and Kalends supposed that wizards must also like them. He, however, had better things to do than chop logic at roadsides, things like stealing items that were dear to people, and he was anxious to get back to his true calling.
He looked out to the road. It would be a long stretch, but now that he'd eaten he felt better, more ready to begin slogging back to his city. "I suppose this is the last I'll see of you." He nodded at Reynard, then the magpie, and added awkwardly: "Both."
Kalends was about to turn to head out, but then stopped himself. "Just try not to die before you get to Persea. I'd hate to think of all that rabbit going to waste."
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 11:08 am
Reynard drew away from the map and nodded slightly in acknowledgement of Kalends’ decision. Though it did not strike him as the most logically sound one, this fellow clearly knew the ins and outs of road travel, and if he thought he could make the journey, then Reynard did not doubt that he could.
Kalends wasn’t the only one feeling out of sorts in regards to his current position and its relation to his calling. Reynard, up until recently, had been too preoccupied with the task of staying alive to wonder too much about his future when he reached Persea. Now, however, with his immediate hunger assuaged, he reached a moment of unexpected mental synchronicity with the thief. What was he going to do? In the grand scheme of things, what was going to become of Reynard Irving?
He didn’t know. “Perhaps,” he replied to Kalends. It didn’t seem likely that they would run into one another again, with such wildly different destinations and the promise of a uncertain future hanging over Reynard’s head. Even so, he would remember Kalends the same way he remembered the faces of the caravan that had taken pity on him earlier in his journey. It was all he could do.
“I assure you I will try,” he replied, somewhat dryly. He nodded to Kalends, wondering if he should thank the other--but by the time he had come to a decision that he should, the man was already out of earshot, and he wasn't willing to shout after him. Reynard stood still, watching him for a while, unsure how to feel about this odd encounter. Then he turned away, facing the road to Persea. Reynard watched the flickering black speck of the magpie slide against the brittle winter sky. He had a long road ahead of him… but he had come far yet.
He took a single step forward, towards an uncertain future.
(FIN?)
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