Status: Complete
Date: August 21st, 2006 || Location: Outside the Stationary Store || Participants: Elena, Tybalt
Elena took a moment after exiting the Stationary Store to exhale a deep breath and gather her thoughts. "Well, Hadar, mum thinks I went to the bookstore, so I better stop there and pick some things up, right?" she asked the Kyuu flying above her rhetorically. He answered with a chirp - flying more was good! "Of course I'm right," she muttered, casting a baleful glare towards the shop and that annoying girl she'd left behind there. Checking herself over quickly - dress in order, bag in place, bracelets still there, necklace straightened out, and tattoo induced cold turned off. Oh, and the eyes. They could stop glowing too. People tended to stare when her eyes stared glowing; not that Elena minded being stared at, it was merely annoying when they weren't paying attention to the rest of her.
Everything in order once more, and Tiwaz shoved into a corner of her mind where she would be forgotten, Elena began her happily longer stride down the sidewalk towards a local bookstore, bag slung over her shoulder carefully, with Hadar over her head. Elena pinched the bridge of her nose as she walked, feeling a headache coming on. "I bet it's that girl's fault," she said crossly, tugging sharply on the strap of her bag, causing the bracelet she was wearing to sparkle and bounce around on her wrist. Closing her eyes briefly, Elena continued to walk on, not caring if she ran into anybody. After all, they should get out of her way.
Tybalt didn't get out of anyone's way, ever--in fact, it was becoming something of a habit for him to slightly spread his wings while walking down the street just to inconvenience as many people as he could with a minimum of effort on days he didn't feel like relieving those selfsame people of their wallets. It widened his bubble of personal space, and people usually either walked around him or gave him dirty looks.
He was in the process of returning one of those dirty looks to a passerby, scowling at him as the disgruntled man stepped around him, and didn't notice that he was on a collision course with Elena until it was almost too late.
"Shiny," was his first thought, not yet placing the multitude of sparkles to the face--not yet stopping, either, shiny-interest overwhelming common sense.
"Oof!" was his second, as he walked right into Elena, who might have felt a slight tug at her wrist.
With her eyes still closed, of course Elena didn't see Tybalt walking towards her. She might have gotten out of his way if she had. Doubtful, but we'll never know, because the pair did in fact end up colliding.
"Hey!" she said sharply, eyes snapping open to narrow and stare at the person who'd been rude enough to walk into her. "You should watch where you're going," the Tale continued in a snappish tone, not having yet placed why this bird creature seemed familiar.
The tug went unnoticed, but when she reached up to adjust her hair, Elena certainly noticed the lack of weight on her arm, as well as the lack of shine on her wrist. "My bracelet!" she cried, almost forgetting about Tybalt entirely. "Did you see my bracelet fall off?" Elena asked him, her tone now honey sweet as she tried to get him to help her find it.
Obviously, the thought that he might have taken it hadn't crossed her mind.
Tybalt took a single step back to distance himself from Elena, scowling down at her--shiny AND snobby, it seemed. "Maybe if y'kept yer eyes open, ye'd be able t'watch where I was goin' and move accordin'ly," he snapped back, arms crossing stubbornly over his chest.
"An' no, I didn't. An' if I had seen yer little trinket, I'd hardly be inclined t'tell ye of its whereabouts, princess." Take THAT.
Elena's face stiffened and she barked out a short laugh. "You? Why should I have had to watch out for you?" she asked, her voice dripping with condescension and contempt. "Maybe if you hadn't been so busy exchanging dirty looks with everyone, this whole thing could have been avoided!" Echoing Tybalt's posture, Elena crossed her arms as well, staring up at the taller Tale with slightly glowing eyes.
"At least you acknowledge I'm a princess," Elena muttered sweetly, eyes flashing with a momentary glint of triumph. That was usually half the battle right there, getting people to accept her as royalty. Even though she so clearly was. "I insist you help me look for it, since it's your fault it came loose in the first place."
"Everyone else seemed smart enough t'watch out fer me--though it looks like you wouldn'ta been, what with th' sunlight flowin' through yer empty head an' out through yer eyes an' all." The wings that had been spread to put people out were now arched in rising irritation, the ruffled feathers giving him a soft appearance that was completely at odds with his prickly demeanor.
"Aye, ye're royalty all right. Ye're a royal pain in the arse, and if y'think I'm about t'do anything but laugh at your "insistence," ye're obviously even dumber than y'look."
Elena was about to reply indignantly to the parrot's accusation of empty-headedness, when he said something that immediately cooled her anger. Not that it was gone, oh no, but now it was icy and sharp...Rather like her fingernails were quickly becoming.
"Laugh? Laugh at me?" Elena said, clipping each word short as her voice got steadily louder. "Listen to me, you scruffy walking feather pillow," she continued, stepping closer and staring up at him furiously, eyes blazing and hair fully aglow, "You will help me find my bracelet and you will do so right now." The last word was punctuated by a sharp jab of her index finger at Tybalt's chest, frost crackling a bit on her arm at the sudden movement. Obviously unaware of any danger, Elena stood there, hand now lowered to rest firmly on her hip as frost continued to creep slowly up her arm, adding a sharp bite to the air.
This game was swiftly losing any semblance of "fun" it might have once possessed--if there was one thing Tybalt hated more than the cold Elena now seemed to exude, it was being ordered around. His eyebrows drew downwards, eyes narrowing to angry slits of ocean blue. Tybalt's arms slowly dropped to his sides as he drew himself up to his full height, glaring down dangerously at her.
"I will do so right never, y' dozy cow," he responded, his tone growing softer even as Elena's grew louder. "An' y'best watch where y'stick that finger, lest y'care t'lose it. An' I wouldn't be helpin' ye find that, either."
Unaffected by the cold she was emanating, Elena continued to stare at Tybalt, still oblivious to the aura of menace that he was projecting. Around them, the sidewalk was mostly vacant of other pedestrians; by and large, they were crossing the street to avoid the pair of Tales, clearing a large space around them.
"Cow?" she tossed back, seething from the insult, which merely provided fuel for her anger and accelerated the temperature drop. "I am no cow, you ignorant feather duster. Now. You will help me look for my bracelet, or else," she added, once more punctuating her sentence with a jab at Tybalt's chest, this time using her other hand. Hey, he didn't say she couldn't use the other finger.
Tybalt's wings drew closer to his back, an instinctive reaction against the growing chill. He himself wasn't cold, however; he had his anger to warm him. He snarled at the second poke to his chest and was moving quite before he was even aware of doing so--one hand flashed out to catch the impertinent brat's wrist while the other moved to his opposite hip, fingers closing around the dagger that was, by now, as much a part of him as his wings. The blade was drawn from its sheath with an almost eager sigh and pressed, very lightly, against the side of Elena's hand.
"An' here ye dare call me ignorant," he said quietly, dangerously.
Elena's breath caught in her throat and the cold momentarily died down only to pick back up, even fiercer than before as she stared at the blade pressed against her. "Well, how was I supposed to know you had a knife," she muttered, momentarily losing her anger and stiffness, although it returned as quickly as the chill had. Quite aware now of the danger she was in, Elena nevertheless refused to display any of the fear now creeping down her spine.
A bright flash and a screech were all the warning either Tale had; Hadar had had about enough of this and dove from the sky, claws extended and aimed right for Tybalt's head. "Hadar!" Elena called out in surprise, having forgotten about the little dragon. Hadar's head momentarily snaked backwards to look at his mistress, causing him to miss Tybalt with his claws, managing to hit the other Tale with his wings instead.
Tybalt's deepening scowl had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with Elena's apparent idiocy. "An' what, pray, did y'think I meant t'remove yer finger from yer hand with, eh?"
His attention was diverted by the little dragon's shriek, and he instinctively squeezed his eyes shut--parroty pirate he might be, but he had no inclination to further live up to the stereotype by having to sport an eyepatch--and jerked his head away from the creature. His fingers tightened on Elena's wrist as his blade-laden hand moved from her hand to the air above his head, slashing blindly in an effort to get the damnable beast away.
"You're the first person I've met who's actually followed through on a threat," Elena explained waspishly. Not to mention the only one who'd really threatened her...
As Hadar flew away, squawking indignantly as Tybalt had managed to open a shallow cut on his chest, Elena's eyes narrowed and she concentrated on intensifying the frost effect around the wrist Tybalt was holding. By now, all of her lower arm was coated in rapidly thickening layer of ice, the swirled lines of her tattos glowing eerily blue underneath. "I think you'll find my finger harder to remove now," she breathed out sardonically, flashing her gaze upwards to smirk a bit at the parrot.
Tybalt snorted indignantly, shaking his head to clear it from the dragon's assault and opening his eyes once he heard the sound of wings flapping away. "Wouldn't be much of a threat if it wasn't followed through on, would it?" he muttered, bringing the dagger down to its previous position at Elena's hand--
--only to find it greeted by an icy glove. Oh, now this was just..."I think ye'll be findin' me hand harder still t'remove," he ground out, shaking their ice-joined hands for emphasis. "Now, y'can either stop with this...this magic nonsense, or we can see how well me dagger'll double as an ice pick."
Privately, Elena conceded the point, although she wasn't about to tell him that.
"Only if you promise not to hurt me once it's gone," she said in reply, her voice firm and confident as she attempted to sound as though she really could control the ice. She couldn't, of course; this was the first time this had ever happened to her, and she had no idea how to turn it off. Elena had, by now, given up the bracelet as lost and sighed internally at the amount of trouble she was likely to be in when Jerava found out. Hopefully Tybalt was one to keep his promises, as well as his threats, and she could get out of here with no more harm done.
Tybalt's eyes narrowed shrewedly as he weighed Elena's attempt at compromise against the remnants of his righteous anger. One the one hand, she had pissed him off--not that that was hard to do, of course. On the other hand, he couldn't feel his fingers.
"Fine," he said, lowering his hand to his side. "An' I'll also promise that next time I won't hesitate before cuttin' yer finger off. Now get us loose, wench."
"Fine," Elena snapped back, anger rising momentarily at being called a wench; she quickly buried it in an attempt to minimize whatever it was that fueled the ice and cold.
After a few moments of standing there, eyes squeezed shut as the Tale concentrated on thinking warm thoughts (this caused a brief, but genuine smile to flit across her face; her sister Anarya was the warm one), she cracked one open with a sigh. "I don't know how to turn it off," she muttered, wanting to pull back out of striking range, but stuck in a trap of her own making.
Tybalt tapped a talon against the sidewalk impatiently, glaring down at Elena as she had the gall to smile, of all things, at a time like this. The sooner he got free and the hell away from her, the better. Of course, as luck would have it, that wouldn't be anytime soon.
"You what?!" he yelled down at her, eyes widening in a mixture of shock and anger. "Y'froze us t'gether an' now we're stuck?" Tybalt paused before taking a step towards Elena, once more raising his dagger--this time he held it at her elbow. "Fine. Don't move, this might sting a bit," he ground out.
"Yes, we're stuck like this," she ground out, her own temper flaring back up in response to his. "And what are you doing?" Elena asked, voice going high pitched and slightly squeaky as he raised his dagger.
Of course, in response to the anger and fear, the ice grew thicker, both on her arm and his, spreading up past both of their elbows. The dagger was stuck now too, although with a sharp tug, it might be possible to break the much thinner ice surrounding it.
"That didn't help at all."
"Gettin' th' hell away from you, if all goes well," he muttered just in time to see his beloved dagger suffer the same fate as his frozen arm. "Oh, now look what y'did, y'bleedin' idiot!" A few sharp yanks did indeed free Tybalt's dagger, and he immediately inspected it; ice be damned, he'd cut her arm off at the shoulder if it was damaged! Lucky for her--and likely for him as well, if her last reaction was anything to go by--it seemed to be fine.
"No bloody s**t it didn't help. Y'only made it worse!"
"I made it worse? I'm not even trying to make it do this anymore. You're the one who attacked me!" Elena argued back, not noticing that the angrier she got, the further the ice spread. She could stand the cold nearly indefinately; how long Tybalt could keep up with her was another matter entirely. "I didn't even know I could do this," she wailed, sight momentarily blurred by tears before they froze on her eyelashes as she blinked to clear them away.
Elena might not have noticed, but Tybalt, who was watching the ice creep up his arm in growing alarm, certainly did. "I told you I was gonna cut yer bleedin' finger off if y'kept pokin' me with it! You were th' one dumb enough t'keep doin' it, an' ye're still doin' this whatever-it-is, so stop it!" he roared with all the command he could muster in this situation reflected in his tone. Tybalt was certainly more vulnerable to the cold than Elena was, and he had no desire to lose an arm to frostbite over some dumb trinket.
"Well next time I'll only poke you once!" she yelled back, tears stopping as suddenly as they'd started. If there was one thing Elena did have control over, it was crying on command. It was a skill that had served her well up until this point. "And I'd love to stop it, but I don't know how!" Face slightly red from tears and yelling, Elena looked completely different than from when they'd first run into each other.
"Oho, y'best hope there's not a next time, princess," Tybalt growled, brushing frantically at the thinnest layers of ice covering his arm with the hilt of his dagger. "If y'didn't know what y'were doin', y'shouldn'ta done it in th' first place. Now figure out how."
"Maybe if you'd stop yelling at me," Elena said, taking a deep breath and trying to calm herself down. The ice slowed its advance as she worked to get her temper under control, the glow from her tattoos dimming slightly.
Tybalt muttered, "So ye can dish it out, but ye can't take it," under his breath, which was probably for the best--whatever Elena was doing, it was keeping the ice at bay. "Keep at it, it's workin'!"
Elena's pointed ears twitched slightly as Tybalt muttered under his breath and she frowned severely at him, but loftily decided to ignore whatever comment he had made. Besides, if they quit arguing, she could calm down and get the rest of this ice off. "Still missing my bracelet," she said in a sing-song, biting her lip afterwards as she continued to try some of the meditation techniques her mum had tried to teach her.
"An' missin' it'll stay, least till we're loose," Tybalt growled.
"So you did take it!" Elena exclaimed, stopping in her efforts for a moment to scowl at the parrot unhappily. The ice was still receding, but as her concentration was no longer on making it continue, it was at a much reduced pace. For once in her life deciding that descretion was the better part of valor (not to mention her strong desire to get away), the girl shrugged. "If you really want one, maybe I'll buy one for you," she murmured, a wicked grin flashing briefly across her face before she resumed concentrating on making the ice go away.
If Tybalt's less-than-friendly attitude wasn't a clear indication that he found absolutely no humor in this situation, the ever-deepening scowl on his face should have been. "Think I'll pass, thanks--it ain't worth keepin' anyway. Are ye done yet, wench? I still think ye shoulda let me cut off yer arm."
"I don't think that would have worked," Elena replied absently, watching as the last of the ice melted away. She wiggled her fingers cautiously, but the cold hadn't bothered her at all and they moved freely. Her tatoos were completely dimmed now, and the girl felt a strange surge of exhaustion wash over her, but refused to let it show, not wanting Tybalt to take advantage of her weakness.
"I do," Tybalt shot back contrarily, shaking his arm to get blood flowing through it once more. Once he regained some semblance of movement in his fingers, he retrieved the little trinket that had started this whole mess. "Your bracelet, as promised," he said snidely, dangling it teasingly out of arm's reach before flinging it over Elena's head and somewhere down the sidewalk. "'Twas a pleasure meetin' ye, princess--pray fer yer sake it doesn't happen again," he finished with a snarl and a sneer that could cut glass, turning on his heel and stalking down the street in a considerably fouler mood than he had been in previously.
Elena refused to reach for the bracelet, crossing her arms and waiting for the inevitable insult. "Oh trust me, I can't think of anything I'd like better," she muttered to the departing Tale's back before turning to find her bracelet. Crouching gracefully, and careful not to get her skirt dirty, Elena found it a few moments later. Wrinkling her nose, as it had landed in the gutter, she tucked it away in her bag before heading home, taking a brief moment to rest against a lightpole. "At least he kept his promise."
