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 Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 9:00 pm
Who: Lord Yizhaq bin Saleh, Mister Georgie and their plagues, Hayat and Adal, respectively.
When: Half-past seven, in the evening.
Where: A busy city in Shregoad
Why: A chance encounter, of sorts.
Weather: Clear, with snow melted by a recent rain, chilly.
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Yizhaq rubbed a hand over his freshly cut hair, stepping out of a Shyregoaden shop and onto the wet, icy streets. Slim fingers opened his well-cut jacket to slip a small parcel inside an interior pocket. An expensive journal and pen set-for his dearly estranged wife. She was expecting, and it was beginning to show. A frown creased his dark, arched brows and the young lord strode in the direction of an upscale pub.
While he was in the mood to have a stiff drink before he returned to his current lodging, he was not in the mood to bump elbows with the cruder sorts of men that found themselves at the cheaper bars.
A deeper frown as the bird upon his shoulder shifted, adjusting her wings as she bent to rub her beak smoothly against his ear. A low noise from her dark body set him on alert, and he reached up to reassure her before continuing on his way. Hayat always noticed things he did not.
Which may have been why her blazing eyes found first Adal, in a sort of recognition the plagued seemed to have with one another, then Georgie, as his companion. Yizhaq, of course, simply walked by.
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Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:11 pm
Georgie drowned himself in cloth to keep from freezing to death at the Shyregoed borders, and it felt so long ago since he was in regular clothes that he thought his clothes was slowly becoming a part of him. Adal wore a significantly thinner layer of clothing than Georgie -- "It doesn't take a Plague's intuition to realize you're weak, Georgie, the cold's actually bearable around here."
Their place of residence in Shyregoed was not well insulated -- when the heat from their shoddily placed fireplace, of which the fuel was mostly dry dung, ceased to keep them warm, the two simply went to sleep. Being as poorly kept as it was, the lodgings were not necessarily crowded, and the two knew too well that any other place was too out of reach with their nearly nonexistent funds, and the amount of Shillings they had didn't satiate the monetary desire of any caravan driver that passed by. Thus, if the two were to get anywhere, they had to do one of two things: they had to recollect their breaths and trudge their way toward the nearest city, which took what felt like hours, or they would stave off with what they had and remain isolated in their lodgings. Today, with their supply of food nearly empty, the boys decided to go with the former.
Even while the two finally agreed to go outside together, neither of the boys found any means to start a conversation with each other. Scoffing, the Locos continued to advance further away from his meek Grimm, with full intention of losing him when the crowd got denser. Adal pulled down his hat so that its shadow could cover the base of his strange, yellow eyes, and lowered his gaze as to garner less attention. The usual method.
Why, though, was the Plague so irritated, so silently infuriated by his Grimm? Georgie, his nose red and stuffy, sniffed every moment he walked, halfheartedly coughing and sneezing then the cold bothered him. The fact that his keeper was so unbearably human -- so unbearably boyish -- bugged him, now that he saw how quickly his health had diminished in the cold.
Are you irritated, or is it that you really do care for him?
No, that's not it. Something else.
As Adal and Georgie scampered across the streets of the Shyregoedian city, the brunette Keeper had his nose buried deep within the contents of a thick leather-bound book, his hazel eyes as round as pearls. Despite his lack of good reading skill, the boy was reading quite quickly; every time he stopped to scratch his freckled cheeks, though, Adal knew he was confused. Even then, Adal didn't stop to help him, because Georgie understood the subject matter better than he did.
They were learning magic, and Georgie was doing better than he was.
Does that bug you so much, that he finally has a talent above one of yours?
Adal's pace slowed; for a while, what was once monotonous walking had become harder to maintain. He started to solely concentrate on steady footsteps and a low gaze, choosing to ignore the buzzing noise from behind him that was his brother. For a moment, the Locos looked bothered.
"Adal, this is fascinating, all of it!" Georgie paused, tilting his head to the side, leaning forward to catch a better glimpse of his brother. "Adal?" Georgie slowed with him, the book held in his hand lowered. The freckled boy jogged forward to pace next to Adal, lips pursed.
Just as he was about to say something once more, however, his Plague's gaze snapped upward; covering his nose with a single hand, Adal's eyes widened. A familiar scent was near.
The Locos slowly pulled his gaze upward; his eyes met with a dark avian figure's own luminescent pair, its claws perched upon its master's shoulder. A Plague.
Other times, Adal would have smiled and flaunted his presence; this time, he kept a solid frown and stopped in his tracks, feet cemented to the powdery ground. He watched the falcon in silence, locking his gaze onto its blackened feathers as its Grimm ambled by, and his own Grimm's words seemed to blur with the city noise at the back of his head.
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Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:58 pm
A huntress' cry and the large bird leapt into the air, a flap of those strong, wide wings causing a gust of air that stirred the leaves around her keeper's feet.
Yizhaq stumbled, reaching out to brace himself against a wall, his worried pale eyes following her she turned into a black speck in the sky. His voice sounded oddly girlish as he screamed to the clouds. "HAYAT!"
Leaning back against the wall, he was frightened, nervous, until--
She cried out again, her blazing gaze locking in on her target as she began to drop from the sky... Him. The one with the golden eyes.
Yizhaq didn't understand. Hayat was impeccably trained. She did not attack... People. A frown and he began to move, placing himself in front of what appeared to be two young men.
Screeching in frustration, Hayat pulled up, wheeling in the air, and finally, settling on Yizhaq's upheld arm. He quickly reached into his pocket to reset a leather tie that he'd never had to use before, tying her foot to his wrist.
Now he could deal with the two men. "I... Apologize..." He trailed off as he noticed Adal's almost-human appearance.
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Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:42 pm
When the avian greeted Adal with a loud screech, and dived deep into the Shyregoed skies, Adal was not met with fear, but with strange fascination. His eyes snapped upward as Hayat made a bountiful leap; the smell of faint decay that ruffled the edge of her feathers grazed the sky as she flew, and Adal could feel it fade until she was but a tiny dot in the middle of the vast arctic skies. Her name was Hayat.
In their abrupt encounter, a predator's performance, Adal smiled.
No. He was grinning.
His yellow eyes flashed wide with anticipation, tapered ears dipped lower than they usually were. As Hayat pierced her way back toward her allocated target, Georgie yanked Adal back by his shoulders, dropping the leather-bound book onto the icy ground of the city.
No matter, ignore him, come back down, I'm still here--
When Hayat was called back by a stranger's voice, Adal's brief plight of simple expectations clambered down upon him. He stared at Hayat's owner with a displeased frown, a frown even deeper than the one he wore moments before; Adal had forgotten that the Plague had an owner.
Neither of the boys spoke, both of their stares wide and wildly disturbed, though for reasons completely different. The freckled boy found himself shielding off the Locos, his legs set wide apart and his arms held out in a manner of protecting him, though Adal's head poked out from behind his shoulders.
Adal's eyes were narrowed, now; as Georgie relaxed his limbs, Adal nudged him to the side and pointed slowly at gyrfalcon. "Her name is Hayat?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 11:52 pm
"... Ah, yes. Hayat. She seems to have settled now." Yizhaq's gaze ran quickly over Adal, noting his ears, his eyes, his strange fascination. Much like Sir Sloane. "You are a plague, then. She seems to sense them, and I presume, you do as well."
Giving the falcon a long stare (which she returned, head tilted), he loosened her strap, holding forth his arm upon which she perched. "Should you like to greet her?"
Shifting, Hayat lifted and settled her wings, head tilting to one side as she stared at Adal, one of her taloned feet rising from Yizhaq's fist and stretching out, as if testing the waters, looking for something to move on to.
"I am Yizhaq. Who are you?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:22 am
"Hayat." The name processed slowly in Adal's mind. "...Hayat."
Adal paused blankly to stare back at the predator bird, his expression pressed into a longing frown with a fascinated, nearly childish gaze, though he was offset by an unsettled disappointment. Georgie juggled between an offset series of stares to the sleekly built falconer before them then back at the blond, who didn't seem to be inclined at all in responding to Yizhaq's observations and inquiries. Just as Georgie readied himself to reply, the boy covered his mouth with a heavily gloved hand and let out a loud and rather painful sneeze.
Sniffling, Georgie wiped his nose and mouth with the side of his sleeve, back stiff. He looked up at Sir Yizhaq with a bleak, uneven smile, given if only in a matter of courtesy. He caught a nervous glimpse of the falcon on his shoulders, then, and snapped back into concentration.
"His name is Adal Malt, sir." He paused, taking off his hat and bowing. "And I'm his brother, Georgie M--" He remembered the book that he had dropped on the ground seconds before, and his gaze trailed off at the road in front of him. "--alt, oh, where has that blasted thing gone..."
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Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 12:34 am
"Georgie and Adal." Yizhaq repeated the names, storing them away for later use, and made a noise with his tongue at Hayat, who looked over her shoulder at him for a long moment. Finally, she returned to her proper resting place, at his padded shoulder, and he could breathe easier.
"You look as if you've had a long journey," The slim lord bent to pick up Georgie's book, handing it to him. "Would you mind joining Hayat and I for dinner? We are, alas, alone here. Chaun, my page, is busy with his studies, and I'd rather not disturb him."
It was, of course, a sign of his love for the bird that he referred to her as a full entity.
It would be hard to say if she returned the sentiments, though she could fly away forever if she chose.
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Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:14 pm
Georgie glanced up at the young lord with a soft, nervous grin, hand nervously reaching for the book in his hand. "Thank you, sir." He paused, brows creasing in curiosity-- Chauhn...?
The same boy with the Ashen Plague?
Adal continued to stare at the bird perched on Al's shoulder, blinking curiously. His mind broke free of her for a moment, then, as he looked to Georgie, who was sniffling and sneezing once more, then to the Lord. A small smile broke free on his face, now, eyes bright with hidden inquiries. After brushing off some of the snow that had gathered on top of his hat, he took it off and bowed in formal greeting, eyes closed, just as any of the lower class would bow to a sire of the upper echelons of the nobility.
"It would be an honor, Milord Yizhaq, if it wouldn't trouble you." With swirled eyes, the Locos glanced up at the noble once more, straightening himself. "You must be quite reputable, to have a Page titled under your name."
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