[PRP] A Work-Related Incident (Aurelian + Marla)

[Lady_Ourania]

The nights were getting longer, giving the moon a fuller view of the happenings below. For many, such an occurrence meant falling asleep and rising to the same suffocating darkness, huddled down and nervously awaiting the sun's return; for a fraud, it simply gave her more time to structure her newest con. Marla had begun plotting out increasingly elaborate touches, using the silent hours to her advantage. Her mother, she knew, would have disapproved of anything that did not share its borders with simplicity. Then again, seeing as the entirety of her career was built around a sham, there was little for her mother to have approved of from beginning to end.

Marla surveyed her current work with a critical eye, employing a ginger hoof to shift the collection with a certain amount of distaste. It had occurred to her days before that some clients required a little more showmanship than the jaunty jut of her hat and the way she could roll her eyes back into her head until only jaundiced-seeming sclera remained visible. She had collected the majority of her tools from the nearby shores, pebbles worn smooth by the waves, and shells picked clean once she had extricated evidence of their past lives. Beside them rested a small hoard of animal bones, waxy and yellow in the faded light. The delicate skull of a bird, beak tipped in black and razor-sharp, was nestled alongside a rabbit's curved thigh bone. There were also less identifiable bits: the strut of a wing, the rib of a barrel-chested mammal, a fanned, greening scapula. These she had uncovered in various places, strewn in the dirt and submerged in trickling streams. It was unusual to find a completely preserved skeleton, various parts and pieces carried off by the wilderness' whims. Some small part of her applauded such scattered burials, the carelessness with which unthinking animals treated their expired kin. There was no pomp, no ceremony, just a matter of thereness versus absence. It was refreshing when grief and fear were not factored in, replaced instead by such raw acceptance. The philosophies that surrounded death, the concept of an afterlife, those were the things that cluttered brains regrouped around.

And yet the mare could hardly bite the hand that fed her, funerary rites and overwrought survivors providing the bulk of her business. The baubles spread out before her were in the same configuration that so many of her predecessors used to prove their prowess, an open dare to the less knowledgeable. Marla knew that there was a measure of validity in such an act, but it would not be achieved through the remnants of some unrelated creature's corpse. Still, she had a potential customer who had been suspicious of her methods from the outset, and if she had to demean herself a little to debase them entirely, then so be it. A little glitz had never hurt anyone, and she rather doubted a falcon would take offense at the use of its leftovers enough to haunt her with loud cries and flapping echoes. Not many squirrel ghosts chittering and throwing phantom acorns at her, either, after all. Most animals did not often linger once their bodies gave out. She had spent her adulthood dealing with the notable exceptions.  

[Uta]

Lady_Ourania

((Apologies for taking AGES to tag this one! I went on vacation and then my soq muses decided to go on one too. x_x Promise to be more prompt!))

The stallion picked his way through the night with only the glowing moon -- and his obnoxious tail, It -- as his companion. The end of summer was nigh, fast giving way to the approaching fall, as evidence by the shadows embracing him earlier and earlier each night. There was a crispness in the air that felt good after a long summer, and the greens of nature were only just beginning to turn. A small gust of wind blew through the neighboring trees, their dry leaves rustling in song. Stars twinkled up above, and there was a quiet about the land that could have been enjoyable, had his ankles and haunches not been nipped at; had his tail not been pulled and tugged by the flitting creature that nestled within his mane; had he not wreaked of blood; had his stomach not yearned to be fed.

Aurelian was hungry, but he couldn't bring himself to hunt, couldn't bring himself to kill if he could help it. It was his greatest shame, a secret he tried so hard to keep locked away from the world. How would his family react if they found his need to take life to keep his own? Oh, there were ways around the need -- when water was present, he had learned how to fish, though it wasn't always easy. Unfortunately, fish had minimal meat and far too much bone, and the stallion found himself craving something with a bit more substance. He scavenged where he could, eating cold remained from those creatures that had been killed by proper predators. He ate as much grass and fruit as he could stand, to curb the edge of hunger when there were no creatures to feast upon. . . . but ultimately, sometimes, Aurelian had no choice but to hunt. It killed him to do such a thing, but his own body lost too much blood from his mutations to survive off sweet grasses alone.

Tonight was a night the stallion roamed in search of death.

His tail beast fluttered, hissing now and then whenever one of Aurelian's cloven hooves kicked back at it. He couldn't hurt the thing, he knew that much, and while the little creature sometimes was calm, perhaps even affectionate, more often than not it did nothing but cause trouble for him. Ornery as ever, It heckled, bit, harassed, snapped, snarled, and generally caused a ruckus when it could. While Aurelian was glad he did not suffer as beastly a mane as his sister, Aquitaine, he sometimes wished they might have traded beasts. Her hair creature could at least be better contained, and she at least had some sort of control over the thing. It did what it wanted, and any Aurelian had long since given up trying to appease it.

"The more racket you make back there, the less inclined we are to eat," he spoke quietly, pausing a moment to turn his bloody, red gaze back at the creature. The hair beast fluttered its wings, hissed in a moments objection, before tangling itself along Aurelian's lion-like tail, .Though it quit flitting about, the creature was far from quiet, creeling and growling quietly as the journey continued.

So much for hunting. . .

Heaving a heavy sigh, the stallion gave a shake of his head. What was he going to do with It? There was no getting rid of it, and no living comfortably with it either, so all he was left to do was cope. At least that was something he had practice in. Resuming his walk, the stallion moved through the night like some apparition. The scent of salt in the air told him he wasn't terribly far from the sea, even if it was not the beaches of his home. Moving through the foliage, he was completely unaware that he was making a bee-line straight to where Marla was surveying her work.
 

[Lady_Ourania]

Something about the arrangement still seemed off, somehow. Marla clicked her tongue in irritation, then nudged the rib from its side to a position where it rocked gently back and forth in the breeze. Unfortunately, as she drew her hoof back toward her body, the edge of her foot clipped the bird skull, sending it skittering across the uneven ground. Wincing at its rough passage, Marla carefully kept still, not about to risk reaching out and stopping it when she could just as easily crush its fragile crown. She watched it tumble, careen, expecting at any moment that it would hit a jagged rock and shatter. Which was why she raised a brow when it came to an abrupt halt instead, perfectly upright as it had been before, but now quivering like a compass needle with its beak decisively aimed toward the trees. Marla approached to see what it had been caught up on, then paused, a smattering of conversation reaching her. No, she thought, eyes narrowing as she honed in on the source. Not a conversation, but one voice, ostensibly talking to itself.

Marla sighed inaudibly, recognizing the unknown creature's nearness and her inability to flee without abandoning her recently-acquired belongings. She wasn't in the mood to entertain just yet, and besides, it didn't sound like the client she had been expecting. Some vagrant, then, hopefully one who hadn't heard of her. The crazies tended to congregate around her so-called gift if she let them, which was why she selected her targets with such care. The sane ones could get rough early on as well, there seemed no sense in denying that, but they were more predictable in their disappointments. The unstable were not.

Once she had prodded the skull out of the incoming stranger's path, Marla insinuated herself into a darker patch of shadows and waited. Just because she wasn't about to run didn't mean that she wanted to be spied first. It wouldn't be long before a stallion emerged, his passage preceded by no less than two silvery horns, both of them gleaming faintly in the moonlight. The rest of him, as it turned out, was not as simply defined. His long, silky mane obscured only a portion of the rampant swirls and ornate symbols that cluttered his body, wild and disordered in their placement. She might have lost her attention in that aspect alone had it not been for the patches of blood, some of them fresh, others clotted upon his coat. Lip curling, the medium nearly sank deeper into her cover, but was stayed by the series of snarls that directed her attention toward his overburdened tail. Now that was interesting. Beaked like the skull at her feet, she saw thin, red slits like eyes as they darted around, taking in their surroundings. It writhed as a separate entity, tangled as it was against him and nearly indistinguishable in shade from his mane. A parasite? Not the standard kind, she realized, as she repeatedly traced out the connection between the stallion's tufted tail and the head of the unnatural creature. The noises it made independent of its host also smacked of the supernatural, though it did minimally explain the one-sided discussion she'd heard earlier.

"Well, well," she murmured, raising her voice slightly so that the stallion would hear her before he saw her. "Aren't you an odd one?" She stepped out then, helm scraping against the lower hanging boughs. "Not the oddest I've encountered, but certainly up there."  

[Uta]

There was the strangest glint of light reflected off pale stones; at least, they looked to be stones at first. Unfortunately, upon his approach, the red eyed stallion found that the stones were yellowed, and the shaping proved them to be bones, an entire collection of them laid out not far from where he walked. The scent of someone tickled his nose, but no blood but his own was on the air that night. While he did not understand the meaning of the small collection, he instinctively began to turn away.

It . . . was not what he needed to look for, this night. There was no rotting corpse, no newly killed animal as far as he could see, and anyone that collected bones had a higher threat level than he might care to associate with. If there were bones, there might be a body; if there were bones, whoever was collecting them might wish very well to take his. Aurelian liked to think of himself as good stallion, if you would, but there were some things that were no his to to judge or censure. Marla's pile was one of them.

Aurelian would have carried on without a word had the mare not made herself known. Her scent was fresh in the area, but it did not mean he was going to blindly follow after . . honestly. . . he . . He didn't entirely care. He had witnessed enough in his life to not be overly concerned by such peculiarities, and at this stage, his focus was purely on satiating his own hunger. He would not be useful to anyone else if he himself did not feed. . . and bones were not going to do it.

Unfortunately, a voice broke out. That did cause the stallion pause, and he instantly turned towards the source. He did not see the mare, but he heard her. There was a ruffle of movement, and out from the foliage came a mare. Her words did not surprise him, not . . .not really; he was used to being called odd, and was simply relieved she didn't appear particularly afraid or startled. His tail was often a surprise, and the blood dripping from his mouth, from his eyes, and other places on his body didn't often help the scene.

On the other hoof, if this mare had anything to do with the pile of bones, he'd be wise to be a little cautious. One could never judge a book by its cover, so he learned and lived everyday. "I mean no harm." He explained patiently. Guilt struck him though, the knowledge that his need for meat would overwhelm his desire for peace; he scavanged when he could, but sometimes. . . well. . . he wasn't that desperate, not yet. Intrigued by this new body, his tail unwound from his leg and 'fluttered' (very poorly and not very well) towards Marla. The red eyed beast hissed and snapped its jaws at the mare. ". . . It, on the other hand, might very well attempt to bite." If she were wise, she'd keep her distance.

 

[Lady_Ourania]

He turned to meet her unabashed stare, and Marla had to give credit where credit was due: he was enough to take anyone's breath away. Not in the standard sense of the phrase, of course, given the red dribbling from every plane not taken up by hair or erratic patterns. But he did provoke a certain kind of awe, one that threatened at any moment to transmute itself into terror. Doubt had already begun to plague her resolve, and the longer she stood out in the open, the more she came to regret the impulsiveness that had made her reveal herself at all. Fascination did not necessarily preclude consequences, and she was not built for a confrontation in which the element of surprise had been willfully surrendered. Yet her interruption didn't appear to trigger any violent or brutal instincts in him. In fact, aside from the abrupt snap of his head toward her hiding place, he had not made a move. So he could hold himself in check, at least, whatever else he happened to do on his own in the dead of night. Marla decided to leave the distance between them as it stood, not about to test her luck any further in that regard.

His words caught her somewhat off guard, soft and careful while they offered what amounted to a temporary peace treaty. Not that such assurances were proof of his intentions, but the effort to voice them alone was unexpected. He must have had his unsettling appearance explained to him once or twice, to act so placid in the face of her taunts. A faint current of amusement worked its way down her spine, and she eyed the blood that seemed to spring perpetually from his person. One black brow arched high enough to vanish beneath the brim of her helm. "Of course you don't," she replied, and her tone was reasonable, even mild. "But I think we could both agree that meaning and doing are two very different things."

The fumbling flight of his tail immediately drew the remainder of her attention. His warning drew her step forward short, and she felt a slight flush of embarrassment for her own apparent eagerness. Nonetheless, Marla did extend her neck slightly to get a better look, rust-colored eyes narrowing with interest. Being closer only seemed to confirm her previous suspicions, a bird-like face enmeshed in the tuft of his tail, its wings formed from the very same tresses. How it achieved even the mimicry of flight was beyond her understanding. Still, the stallion had clearly distinguished it from himself, labeling it separate, other, a feature that did not share in his harmlessness. It would bite and he would not, despite all evidence to the contrary.

"Now that I'd believe," she said finally, lifting her face to consider him anew. His eyes were obscured behind the fall of his mane, but she could guess roughly where they sat, and had no qualms about attempting to meet them. "Still, that begs the question of what 'it' actually is. Parasite? Symbiote? Some curse passed down the branches of the family tree?" She scented the air as if to gauge the likelihood of her guesses, the only aroma that greeted her senses a splash of coppery warmth. No luck there. "Or did you dabble in matters you weren't supposed to?" She almost smiled at that last one, the irony not completely lost on her. "I wouldn't demean myself or my work by saying I'm new to the business, but I have to admit that you've got me a little stumped." She had seen so-called genuine possessions before, but nothing isolated to a single part of the body, let alone manipulating and animating it the way this creature managed. That they both seemed conscious simultaneously only invited further complication.  

[Uta]

Lady_Ourania

Sorry for my extreme slowness! :c

The stallion wasn't at all put off by the mare, her gaze, or her stare and curiosity at his tail. He was pleased that she didn't seem the sort to startle easy, or give way to fright; that was always a good thing, especially given his goulish appearance. Aurelian didn't go out of his way to make trouble, but that didn't always translate, given his appearance, and his need to hunt. It, also, wasn't much assurance, given how the creature seemed intent on making Aurelian, and those around him, as miserable as possible.

Ah, but such was the way of things. Life wasn't always kind, and the stallion was stalwart enough to make the best of it. He traveled, he roamed, he sought out new faces, some friendly, some cold, some downright awful, and he dealt with his lot as it came. It seemed the spirits had decided that, in lue of hunting game, he would find a stranger instead.

As Marle studied his tail, it offered the stallion a window of opportunity to get a better look at the mare in question. She was predominantly purple, her hide dark against the shadows of night. The moonlight did reflect off some sort of gems or jewels settled upon her chest; three of them, though it was difficult to discern if they were natural or simply . . . stuck to her. Additionally, she wore a most peculiar hat, and a sort of scarf, rested upon her shoulders. It was a peculiar get up, but given his own natural markings and bloodstains, he was certainly not one to judge. To each their own, after all. She was decidedly simple, compared to him, though that wasn't a difficult task, given his coat pattern. He was, ultimately, a bit outlandish in his appearance, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

"It was . . . I suppose some curse, really. While my parents are of mostly unicorn blood, my siblings and I all turned out....unique." He explained, pulling his tail back some as It snapped and snarled at the inquisitive Marla. It gave a few sharp snaps of its jaw, wings flapping in frustration as it couldn't quite get close enough. Like a child throwing a tantrum, the beast finally relented; instead of attacking Marla, it twisted back and latched on to Aurelian's back hoof, chewing and biting at his ankle and leg.

Aurelian ignored it. Better the beast bite him, than continue to threaten others.

"My tail began to take on a life of its own as I began to grow. I recall not where the monstrous face came from; it is surely not made of bone, but it is there all the same. I've never thought much about the reasons on why, much less what, happened with my siblings; but here we are, all the same." He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. "The spirits are fickle things, are they not? I assume they took great humor in the trickery they caused."

 

[Lady_Ourania]

She felt her regard being returned, accustomed to the kind of scrutiny her gear tended to evoke. Questionable fashion statements were all part of the business, even if she was fairly attached to the look she'd managed to cobble together from various regions and influences. It was all her own in the end, from the dyed headdress she maintained meticulously, to the tattered fabric that danced in a phantom breeze across her shoulders. The smooth shards in her chest were less affected than inherited, but she knew that they lent their own sense of mysticism, and Marla would take what she could get in her line of work.

But her own little quirks were nothing compared to what presented before her. The tail thrashed and vocalized in Marla's direction, seemingly intent on taking a chunk out of whatever came near enough to its mouth. Such violence was completely at odds with the voice that spoke to her, calm and measured as he spilled his family secrets with the same disregard as his blood. She listened silently to his suspicions, half-formed as they sounded. His parents were mostly unicorn. It was always that one little catch, that one, otherwise negligible qualifier that tended to complicate situations. She'd heard tales of outwardly normal creatures giving birth to warped offspring, some anomaly hidden in the blood for generations, only to emerge tellingly further down the line. Still, he seemed insistent on the cause being a curse. It wasn't the least plausible explanation, either, especially if all of his siblings shared in his rather unfortunate situation. Had it been a matter of birthright, surely at least one of them would have been spared.

Her gaze flicked up to his again when the deformed little creature was yanked back, clearly not of its own volition. So he had some control over it, even if it was minimal. That raised other questions, like where he ended and the creature began. Mid-tail? Or somewhere more nebulous? Was it a constant demarcation, or did the border between them shift? Marla huffed softly at her own interest, keenly aware that it was an extension of her curiosity as someone who skirted the edges of two realms. But before her scorn could fully register, the creature's sharp movement drew her attention. It rounded on its host with a mindless ferocity, beak clamping down on the thin coating of flesh over bone on his leg. Her eyes hooded slightly at the sight, the closest she would come to a wince of sympathy.

"I can't say I would be nearly as accepting were the circumstances reversed, spirits or no," she said with the barest shrug. A step brought her nearer to him, as well as the little bundle of bones that had lain abandoned up until that point. While she had still been judging his intent, Marla had left it alone, hoping it would escape both his notice and his hooves. Reassured now that the most dangerous parts of him were restrained, she dropped her head to move the bird skull back to its original position. The taste of it left much to be desired, and she had to take care not to let the softer parts of her mouth connect with the beak. Her eyes met the beady red stare of the parasite as she did so, and it occurred to her that the brief flashes she'd seen beneath the stallion's forelock bore a similar color, if not an exact one. She hesitated for a moment before nudging the skull back into the proper configuration and righting herself.

"Have you considered drowning it?" Marla asked with a faint smirk, only half-joking as she watched its jaws work at his ankle like some rabid dog. "Or cutting it off at the base?" What, after all, was a little more blood on his already soaked exterior? "I'd suggest an exorcism, but that generally works better with the dead than... whatever it is you have going on there."  

[Uta]

Aurelian had a peculiar indifference toward the mare, for while she seemed interested in his own appearance -- and many were -- he tried hard to be simply a normal, mundane stallion. Unfortunately, that wasn't easy. He had been raised to be a knightly-prince of the sea, which was his birthright, but it wasn't a true title, no matter what his mother might say. It was simply what his parents and grandparents had been dubbed by the local fauna, and the rumors stuck. Still, Aurelian did his best to break the stereotypes -- sure, he bled, he drank blood and ate meat, he possessed dual horns, and he had a temperamental tail but. . . . what did any of that matter? He kept It under control -- mostly -- and he wouldn't hesitate to do the right thing in any situation.

But, he would never get away from the stares. From the questions. From the poking, the prodding, and the distaste that came in line with his tail. It just came with the territory, and this meeting with this violet mare was no different.

Though he did notice the skull which she picked up and shuffled. Exactly what she was doing, he didn't know, and a small part of him did wonder. . .. but, he'd seen stranger. He'd also seen worse. Still, he tucked his own questions to the side, at least for the moment. Unfortunately for Marla, the birdskull only served as a reminder to the stallion that he still had not yet eaten. It reminded him, too, by biting further in his leg. "You learn to get used to it," he added with a small smile. How else could he explain? "It's probably best I recieved the feistier of the two hair-beasts. My own sister has a skull - -she calls it a dragon -- at least twice the size of my own, and hair at least ten times as thick, wrapped taught about her. The dragon rests upon her back, but I fear what would happen if she ever let it all down. He at least responds better to her commands, while It barely listens." He did glance down at the flapping hair monster, with a strange look of fondness and disgruntlement.

But oh, how his ears did p***k up some in alarm at the others suggestion. Drown It? Cutting it off? Still, his smile was quick to return and he gave a small shake of his head, pawing lightly at the earth as he dipped his head thoughtfully. Again, how could he best explain? "Er. . . It doesn't really breathe. Or grow. I've swam with it, as I grew up by the ocean, and while it seems to prefer to keep its head above water, I've held it beneath for far longer than any creature could survive. And It still lived. As for chopping it. . . my mother tried that, when I was a foal and It began to grow." He didn't go into much detail about that, though he suspected the results were obvious. Ah, but how his mother feared her children's peculiarities; though she loved all three, Aurelian knew that their freakish appearance had hit her hard. . . She had grown up in a purist family, after all. Sometimes he had to wonder, even now, what she thought, and if their appearance had spoiled her to the thought of more children.

But that was something to ponder another day.

It wasn't polite thought while taking up this other mare's time. "Unfortunately, despite some efforts in the past, I'm quite certain It and I are . . . stuck. He has his moments, at any rate. . .and I can't say I'd actually choose to part with It if I had the choice. It's an obnoxious addition, but. . . part of me, all the same." To not have the snapping, snarling thing would be most peculiar. Besides which, there were times it was almost adorable, or sweet. . . in It's own way.

"Ah, but . . . what brings you out this night, m'lady?" He wouldn't call out her set up completely, or the bird skull she just picked up. He was a gentleman, after all, and at this present moment, he saw little danger. There were many unique types out there, and who was he to judge? He had his tail. . . some had magic, some had elemental powers, others were monsters. But he saw no bloodspill, saw no pelt upon her shoulders. . . .

As far as he were aware, she was just a mare collecting macabre trinkets.