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 Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2010 1:02 am
The effect of his description on Aysel was electric. She jolted. It sounded very much like the goop seeping from her rabbit... But he seemed to know as little about it as she. Perhaps, though, if she could question him about its origins, she might gain some insight into the bizarre condition of her own animal. If a corpse could still be called an animal. But of course, not in front of her family. That would be a little more strangeness from her than they needed to be concerned with. Especially if the rabbit came up in the conversation.
Lucius tilted his head slightly, tapping his first three fingers upon his chin as he thought. "No... I don't think I've ever seen anything that sounds like that... What kind of fish is it?" At that moment, the nearer door slowly creaked open and out exited Aysel, shutting the door behind her. Yosif greeted her with delighted surprise, "Oh, Aysel, you're he--" But he was cut off. Not even acknowledging the group, she left again. She waited just outside the door; the postman was to leave soon enough. She would question him then. Yosif sighed. "Please forgive my niece's rudeness. She's... been having a rough time recently," he said with a forlorn glance at the room she had just left. The kids were quiet. They knew batter than to interrupt adult business.
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Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:28 am
Just as he'd thought. Coyotl wasn't surprised that none of the Vartanians seemed to have seen or heard of anything similar to the phenomenon he'd described, but it had been worth asking. He shrugged off the mild disappointment and looked to Lucius, wondering how to describe his peculiar pet when he really knew next to nothing about domestic fish. "Well, it's--"
As it turned out, he didn't need to bother trying to find a good set of descriptive phrases, since the attention of the room was quickly turned to one of the doors flanking the hearth, as it opened for the first time since he'd arrived. Out of the room beyond it slipped a young woman- Coyotl couldn't tell how old, but certainly younger than her twenties- who, to his puzzlement, completely ignored Yosif's warm greeting and left their presence as quickly as she'd come. Coyotl raised his eyebrows, not offended, but a bit surprised; when he was that age, such behavior would have earned him a swift pop on the head from his mother at the very least. He kept that to himself, though, as Yosif offered an apology on the girl's behalf. "Not a worry," he said, shaking his head. "These are bad times for us all." He didn't know the details of the girl's circumstance, but he didn't really need to. During such hardship, it was no wonder that so many showed evidence of the strain, and he didn't think less of her for doing so-- after all, if his estimation was right, she was practically still a child.
"Well, then..." Having spotted the rack that his overcoat had been hung on, Coyotl picked it up and shrugged it back on, pleased that it had dried off considerably. Yosif didn't seem annoyed, but if there was any chance of strife between the girl called Aysel and the rest of the family, it was that much more reason for him to be on his way. "Thank you again for having me. This is the best welcome I've ever had for delivering the mail." He nodded to each adult family member in turn, then waggled his fingers in a wave to the children before pulling open the door to the outside- "Take care."- and stepping into the chill of the evening.
Another thing about Shyregoed, he'd noticed, was that it got dark too quickly. It had been light out when he'd arrived, even with the rain and thick layer of clouds; now, though, it was taking his eyes a long time to adjust to the gloom, though the rain had since let up. He blinked and squinted around at his surroundings, not wanting to trip and fall on the likely muddy ground.
Distracted and half-blinded as he was by the darkness, he didn't even notice Aysel where she stood.
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Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:31 am
Yosif smiled, glad to see Coyotl understood, but with a touch of melancholy. "That is true... But from bad times can only come good." He sounded--and was--genuinely hopeful as Coyotl fetched his coat. "You are very welcome! I'm glad we could make you feel at home. Please, feel free to visit any time you're in the area. Have a safe trip back!"
"It was our pleasure," said Sevda as she picked up the emptied bowl.
"Travel safely!" concurred Lucius.
"Byyeeee!" crowed the children. The smaller ones waved back.
He had only taken a few steps out of doors before the name sounded:
"Coyotl."
The word railed against the dark, providing a connection from the girl to the postman. More than a request, less than a command, she stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes, what could be seen of them in the dark, bored into him with intensity. "Coyotl..." she repeated. "Could you please describe to me what the goop from your fish is like?" Despite her focus, her hands twitched at her sides; she clenched them shut. The light etchings of nervousness dabbed her face.
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Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:05 pm
At the sound of his name being spoken and the feeling of a hand being placed on his shoulder, Coyotl's eyes flew open wide and he was forced to bite back a yelp of surprise. Instead, he hissed something incomprehensible through his teeth and swivelled to face whomever had touched him, while simultaneously jerking away from the touch. "What in the hell--" The slight glow of the light from the home behind him and a few moments' worth of adjustment to the relative darkness of the outdoors was enough to let him make out the figure of the girl who had left just before he had-- Aysel, he remembered Yosif calling her. He did his best to shake off his alarm quickly; what was there to be frightened of? But he'd certainly been startled, and that fact in itself annoyed him far more than perhaps it should have.
He had a strong urge to demand to know what she wanted from him, in as snappish a tone as he could muster, but before he could, she had made the question unnecessary. But... what a strange thing to ask about. Coyotl guessed she had been listening in from the other room when he had asked her family about the black sludge floating around with his fish. Why would she want to know more about it? Part of him was curious, but most of him was feeling too churlish and unfriendly to care, and this sentiment was growing by the second. Had she lain in wait outside the door for him just to ask about the stuff? Or was creeping up on people out of the dark and scaring them silly just some weird hobby of hers?
He couldn't see the harm in answering her question, but he'd be damned if he was going to be civil about it.
"Well it's black, and goopy," he answered curtly, folding his arms across his chest. "Comes off in strands sometimes, and sort of trails around. I ain't touched it or anything." The contrast between his demeanor when he was making an effort to be polite and when he wasn't was definitely noticeable, and reminiscent of nothing so much as a poorly-disciplined teenager. "What's it matter to you?"
The difference was, of course, that in a child, such behavior could be seen as almost endearing, or at least normal; in a grown adult, it was just laughable, if not downright pathetic.
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:08 am
"Oh..." She looked away from him and leaned back on her heels, her brows furrowing and eyes narrowing in an expression caught somewhere between abashment and thoughtfulness. Her hand fell from his shoulder and clasped with the other behind her back. "I..." Her voice caught, and she had to stop. She had waited here for him to leave with such certainty and determination, a certainty that had been fading from the moment he took his first step out of doors; when inside, he had seemed such a nice man. But this sudden change in demeanor, one she would generally expect of a ruffian, unnerved her. Out here in the dark, she found him just the slightest bit intimidating, but she simply could not allow that to distract her now; she had a mission to accomplish.
She took a deep breath, then continued, adopting an illusory steel to her voice, a steel that weakened with each word she spoke, "In the woods. I... found the... corpse of, well, a rabbit. It was--is--covered in something that sounds very much like the stuff on your fish... I know you asked my family about it because you don't know much yourself, but... If you've been able to figure out anything about it, I would like to know. To understand it better. And I guess, if we have objects with similar..."--she paused, not knowing the word to describe such oddities--"...conditions, it's nice to know the other exists, right?" By this point, the confidence with which she had approached him had evaporated completely; she was scared. Of him. Of what he might do. She had never told anyone about her rabbit before, not even her own dear and precious mother.
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 1:03 am
Being a man with a certain lack of social graces, Coyotl seemed not to notice that his sharper-than-necessary reply had unnerved the girl. If he had noticed, it was likely that he wouldn't have cared very much; though the spook she'd given him had not really been all that bad, he was certainly not above making a mountain out of a molehill. But he listened anyway as she explained herself, staring at her reproachfully, and as she spoke he found himself growing more interested in what she had to say. At the very least, the reason she'd waited for him was now obvious, and he grudgingly allowed the circumstances of their encounter to slide.
"A rabbit," he repeated after she had finished speaking, scrunching his face and looking perplexed. "And you said it's a dead one?" That was something different, then; he found himself momentarily worried. Did that mean his fish was going to die as well? Shaking his head, he pushed the thought from his mind. The fish had lived for a long time with the ball of goo floating in the water with it; there was no reason for him to believe that its death was imminent. "Well... if I knew anything more about that black gunk myself, I'd tell you. But I don't, and that's the truth. Sorry." He offered her a shrug, his palms facing up. But he felt as though he ought to give some sort of advice to the girl- she seemed pretty young, after all, and adults were supposed to be able to offer wisdom to children, something like that- so he added, "Er... well, anyway, you probably shouldn't touch it, I'd say. It's got to be powerful bad luck." He scratched the back of his neck, looking thoughtful. That was the best advice he could come up with; it wasn't great, but it was better than nothing. "And that's true, what you said about knowing some other thing is out there with that stuff on it, even if we don't know what it is. Though I'd just as soon not have to worry over it, to tell you the truth," he admitted.
A thought struck him then, and he raised an eyebrow questioningly at the girl. "So why'd you wait for me out here to ask, then? Scared the livin' daylights out of me, just about," he admonished, with as severe a look as he could muster up. He was really laying it on a bit thick, at that point, but he was still feeling aggrieved at having been so startled by someone who might only have been half his age.
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:12 pm
When Coyotl at last turned his punishing gaze to the other subjects on his mind and began speaking, Aysel took the chance to pull herself together. Until the move, every stranger was family, and family was always at least some sort of friendly. "It was dead when I found it," she interjected. True strangers such as him, when they showed any sign of an unkind heart, as always a bit scary. But she had scared him a bit; that she knew... She decided so long as she stayed within the sight of the house, he couldn't do anything bad, and she would be fine.
With that opinion cemented, she was able to meet his gaze again, but she still shrunk when he gave her such a harsh look. "My family... kind of... doesn't know about the rabbit... It's a bit of a gruesome thing to have, I know... I don't want them worrying any more than they already are. You know?" She looked up at him, a bit pleadingly, hoping he wouldn't go back in and say anything.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her, and her attitude shifted. She tilted her head, looking slightly puzzled, and asked "If you don't want to worry about it and think it's such bad luck, why do you keep it?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:26 am
Hearing that the rabbit had been dead when the girl found it did little to ease Coyotl's worries over the health of his own fish, but it did make the whole scenario he now found himself embroiled in a bit less creepy. Only a bit, though. He wondered to himself which would be more off-putting: the thought that the girl might have killed the rabbit herself and left its body to rot, or the fact that she was so taken with an animal that had been dead for goodness-knew-how-long. At least she knew that it was pretty gruesome, he thought to himself as she continued, which meant she had some sense about her. "Don't blame you not wanting them to know," he agreed with a nod. "I wouldn't tell them either, probably, if I was you. Best not to trouble 'em about it." Come to that, he couldn't imagine a world in which saying to one's family 'I found a dead rabbit oozing black pus out in the woods' WOULD be a good thing to do. Some things were best kept private. He certainly had no intention of ratting her out, at any rate; whatever secrets she kept were her business, not his.
As for why he kept the fish around... Coyotl folded his arms, this time in a gesture that was more thoughtful than standoffish. It was a personal question, but a fair one all the same, and the fact that he wasn't able to come up with a clear, immediate answer forced him to pause. "Well, that's..." He knew why he kept the koi, of course; it was more than just a pet, it was something of a symbol of hope, something that was no less true even when taking into account the creature's strange affliction. But to explain that fact would require the telling, in detail, of far more personal a tale than he wanted to begin that evening. Besides, would a child her age really understand the significance the fish held for him? Either way, he decided, she would have to be satisfied with a shortened explanation.
"It's... important," he said. "'Least, it is to me. I was going through some bad times, a while back-- real bad. But then I found that fish, and everything sort of turned around. So I kept it. Felt like the right thing to do, I s'pose. And besides," he added after a moment's pause, "even if it's bad luck, I think it'd be even worse if I got rid of it, now." He squinted a little, as if trying to figure out whether what he'd just said had made any sense, before deciding that it got the point across well enough. "It's just one of those feelings."
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:14 am
Gaze falling down once more, Aysel nodded her agreement and silently thanked whatever gods there were that they allowed her the privacy she needed to investigate this rabbit's mysteries without concerning her family. She looked up again as he began to answer her question, and in the moments of silence that followed, she began to wonder if he knew the reasoning himself. But then he gave his answer, and she nodded. "It's weird, but I guess for you, it is good luck, it sounds?"
A moment of silence floated between them; she was all out of questions; as far as she could tell, he was all out of answers; and she began to take a couple steps back towards her home, bit only a couple before a thought occurred to her. "Coyotl...? If you find out anything about your fish or the sludge around it, could you get the information to me? You go everywhere, and... Well, out here I have to find out most things myself." Her gaze swept the empty surroundings with something like disappointment before locking back upon Coyotl. "Could you?" she repeated.
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:13 am
Coyotl put his head to one side. A bad omen that brought good luck... It sounded strange, to be sure, but was it any less likely than the explanation he had offered? "Sounds about right to me," he said eventually. "Strange little bit of luck, but all the same, I wouldn't feel right being rid of it." There was more to it than that, of course. People who kept animals usually did so for a utilitarian purpose, such as a dog to guard a house or a cat to catch mice. Pets that served no function were normally only owned by the very wealthy, since to keep and care for them was an indulgence that not many lower-class Panymese could afford. But even so, Coyotl found that he liked having the fish around, which in itself felt a little strange to admit. Then again, it wasn't noisy, it wasn't messy, and it didn't smell; all he had to do was feed it and change the water it swam in every so often. As frivolous hobbies went, he could do worse. (He'd even taken to talking to the fish when he was troubled, finding it a surprisingly good method of relieving stress, but that was certainly not something he'd tell anyone else.)
The dim light of dusk was quickly fading, and even as Coyotl had stood talking, it had grown noticeably darker. He was about to excuse himself, not relishing the thought of walking back to the nearest town in pitch-blackness, but before he could do so, the girl posed a final question to him-- a request, as it turned out. He twisted his mouth to the side slightly. Given that he worked closely with the postal dispatch, what she was asking of him wouldn't be that inconvenient... He doubted that he would find out much at all, given how things had gone so far on that front, but what could it hurt?
"I don't know how much I'll be able to find out... it ain't really the kind of thing you want to bring up with folks, you know?" Ignoring his mention of the fish to her family, of course. "But if I do... It's 'Aysel', right?" He was certain he had the family's surname written down somewhere, along with the directions that guided him to their home. With the amount of trouble that single delivery had given him, he doubted he would forget any time soon regardless, even with his shoddy memory for names. "If I hear anything, I'll try and send word. No promises," he added, not wanting to give the impression that he would suddenly transform into a font of information as soon as he returned to Imisus. "But I'll try."
Nighttime had brought with it an added chill, and Coyotl gave an involuntary shiver. He would warm up, he hoped, once he got moving again. "Take care," he offered to Aysel, taking a few steps away from her and lifting a hand in something that was not quite a wave, but served the same purpose. "You and your rabbit." With that, he turned away from the isolated home and began picking his way down the road, muddy but firming with the cold.
It struck him then, how isolated the girl must have felt with no one to speak to about the strange and lifeless creature she had found in the woods. For the first time, he felt slightly guilty for having been short with her, but no matter; it was over and done with. He hoped that she would be able to find something out on her own, since his own sleuthing skills left much to be desired. (And it wouldn't hurt, he thought, if she would stop spooking people out of the dark, either.)
Getting back to town would take an hour or two, but at least the weather was being more cooperative than it had been when Coyotl had still been searching for the Vartanian home. It did not feel as though it would rain again, and a glance at the sky revealed a few stars winking through the cloud cover. Perhaps, if he was lucky, the moon might even light his way.
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:50 am
Aysel nodded. "Yes; thank you. Good night." She did give him a wave, then turned and returned to the warmth of her house and home.
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