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 Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:24 pm
It was such a nice day, Rem decided it was about time to get out of his study and actually do some work outside for once. Gardening was… well, it wasn’t exactly masculine, but he enjoyed it anyway. It was good back-breaking labor, the type of thing that would get him utterly exhausted by nighttime, which meant he wouldn’t have shell-shock related nightmares. That was very important to the one-time soldier. Unfortunately, as soon as he stepped outside with little Taliesin trotting smartly behind him, he could tell he wouldn’t be getting any work done today. Just inside the gates, calmly leaning against the bars, was Mal. Oh, and Aeron as well, but the gryphon wasn’t leaning against anything. He was busy taking a snooze, apparently.
“Mornin’, Rem!” Mal said cheerfully, waving at the other man.
“What do you want, Mal?” While he doubted he would get a real answer, he figured he would ask anyway.
“What? A man can’t come and check to see how his friend is doin’? I just wanted to check on little Tali. How’s he?”
Rem looked back at the little gryphon chick who was currently hiding behind his legs and looking up at Aeron as if he had never seen another creature like that before. “He’s… fine, I suppose. A little shy. How’s Aeron?”
Mal laughed and stretched out a little before scratching his gryphon affectionately on the neck. “You two’re a perfect match. All shy and whatnot. Aer’s doin’ well. He likes spendin’ time with Sekhmet. Have you heard any news on account of… well… you know. The whole ‘noble’ thing?”
“No more than you have. You’ll probably know before I do. Look, be honest for one moment in your twisted life; did you or did you not make fake documents to make it look like you’re a son of Rosaylen?”
Lifting his hands Mal shook his head rapidly. “No! I would never do that! I only made a cogged the first set. I didn’t do anythin’ with Rosa… Say, who’s that comin’ down the road?”
“Don’t change the subject, Mal!”
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Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:50 pm
If Rem had looked at Mal's question, he would have seen Nyhali coming down the street toward his abode. Her hair wasn't styled today, the unruly and slightly curly red locks left to thier own devices aside from a thick brown ribbon that kept the majority of it secured behind her back. Some of it had escaped the confines to curl fetchingly around her face. She wore an outfit she usually reserved for flights with Kedri; soft brown leather shirt and pants, with a brown skirt slitted on the sides to compromise between expected feminine wear and practicality. All were decorated with red lace designs sown onto the clothing, and not over the edges of collars or cuffs. Stuff itched like crazy if it was allowed to rub, after all.
She was also wearing a pair of thick leather gloves, easily seen when she lifted a hand to wave. Presumably they were for protection from the ball of orange fluff and dark brown scales pouncing after her shadow.
Harbinger was distracted from her game when her new human suddenly stopped. The little dragriffon blinked up to see why... and spotted Aeron. A childish squawk of surprise followed, and then a moment of indecision before the chick tried to squirm between the gate bars to investigate.
Nyhali had the chick on a leash, though, so she didn't get far. "Hello, Rem! Hope you don't mind the visit... my new friend here wanted to go for a walk." She grinned down at the over-large chick. "Say hello, Harby." She was answered by an indignant "rawp" as the dragriffon tried again to punish the leash for not letting her go.
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 1:16 pm
With his back to Nyhali, Rem couldn’t see the woman. But he could hear her. That was enough to cause a sudden red flush, both because shewashereohmygod and because she had snuck up on him and Mal like that. Damn b*****d had probably planned this…
Suddenly, he wished he was wearing better clothes. Since he had been planning on gardening, he wasn’t exactly wearing his best. Or even close to it. To put it mildly, these were the clothes that he didn’t mind messing up and smelling like manure.
Mal tilted his head to one side, looking rather like a curious gryphon himself. Hmm… Rem blushing at the sound of a person’s voice and suddenly unable to speak… a gryphon walking by the woman. This absolutely had to be Nyhali. “Hi. You must be Nyhawhatthehellisthat?!” all of Mal’s attention was suddenly stolen by the overlarge chick at the woman’s side. He had vaguely noticed it, but now he really noticed it.
By this time, he had gotten used to seeing gryphons everywhere. This one was definitely different.
Luckily, Rem had gotten control of himself by this point and wasn’t blushing as badly. Besides, one of them had to be polite. Since Mal sure as Hell wasn’t going to concern himself with social niceties, it would have to be him.
“Morning, Nyhali,” he said, temporarily forgetting that it was almost afternoon. “Umm… this is Malcolm Lansing. Mal, this is Nyhali…” the man already knew, but Rem felt it would be polite to introduce everyone. “Oh, and this is Taliesin,” he said, gesturing to the little silver gryphon chick who was still hiding behind his legs and looking up at the much bigger gryphon. “And that’s Mal’s gryphon, Aeron.”
Aeron was no where near as shy as Tali, however. He lifted his head and his ear tufts went up as soon as Harby squawked. His golden eyes focused on the unusual chick who was far more interesting than any of the humans around. Why was there a string attached to her anyway?
Stretching out elegantly, he made his way to the bars and sniffed the little chick, or as much of her as he could get. Aww… now this was cute. Aeron had been thinking a lot about chicks lately; until fairly recently, he had been the one taking care of Tali.
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 4:02 pm
The gate seemed to be open so Nyhali pushed it open, which immediately caught Harby's attention. The little dragriffon flicked her tail and forth and started to stalk forward, only to be stopped by the woman. Nyhali unclipped the leash and let Harby go and the chick bolted inside to go investigate first Aeron, and then after spotting Tali bounded over to investigate him, too. Nyhali chuckled and entered the yard before closing the gate. "Nyhawhatthehellisthat? I haven't heard that one before."
She leaned down to scratch the orange chick between her tiny horns as she circled around Rem's legs trying to get to Tali and stood back up to shrug at them both. "Kaisa found her... Some guys in the seedier part of town that had no business trying to take care of her stole her egg from someone. He's been trying to track down the owner, but whoever it was seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. So... I guess she's mine now." She pointed at the odd, feather-backed, leathery wings and the scales on Harby's hindquarters. "Near as we can tell... she's half-dragon, though how the hell that happened I have no idea. Nobody seems to know where she comes from or how to take care of her aside from the basics... I'm learning as I go. Having to oil her scales so they don't dry out and crack and make her scratch at them, for one."
Harbinger had finishes sufficient sniffing of Tali and proceeded to try and get him to play, only she was distracted by a jingling sound... and turned to see Aeron's tail moving about and making the delightful sound. And something on his tail was shiny and flashing in the light! She trilled in delight and immediately turned to start play-stalking the appendage.
Nyhali grinned. "Actually, Rem, it's a good thing you're not wearing anything shiny. She's torn apart two of my necklaces and one of my favorite silver belts so far. She keeps the pieces in a pile next to the bed I made for her." Griffons tended to like shiny objects and pretty stones in the first place; Harby also had a dragon's hording instinct on top of that, it seemed.
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Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 5:03 pm
Nyhali’s words brought another flush to Rem’s face. Was it really that obvious that he was wishing that he had worn nicer clothes? At least this blush was easier to control. It was just embarrassment, which Rem was, more or less, used to by now.
“Half dragon, half gryphon?” his nose wrinkled slightly as he considered the idea before disregarding it completely. No, it just wasn’t possible. Dragons were… well, giant fire-breathing lizards. Gryphons were half-bird, half-lion creatures the size of horses. A mating just wasn’t physically possible. “Dragon… did Kaisa tell you about what happened in the bar? Some crazy man started accosting a man who was drinking near Mal and I; he accused him of being a dragon.”
Mal nodded, as if his movements would somehow lend credence to the story. Currently, he was kneeling down by the odd gryphon chick, watching her movements with open fascination. “Crazy b*****d. I’m wish I had some of whatever he was drinkin’ earlier.” Hm? So, Nyhali and Kaisa knew each other… well, he had known that already, but this confirmed it.
Rem noticed Mal’s skirting around the topic of Kaisa and decided that someone had to bring it up. “Kaisa stopped the fight from breaking out. I think he impressed Mal.”
The dark-haired man shrugged, apparently not willing to say whether or not he was actually impressed. For now, he seemed content to watch the gryphons.
They were awfully amusing. Tali continued trying to hide behind Rem’s legs and hissed dramatically at Harby when she got too close. All puffed out, the little chick tried to make himself seem big. Every hair and feather on his body stood out and his beak was wide open in a hiss. He didn’t know what to make of this… this thing approaching him.
Once the orange bundle of terror lost interest in him, Tali relaxed slightly, his fur going down just a little.
Aeron twitched his tail, enticing Harby closer. Far bigger than the draggriffin, he had no fears of her. She seemed like… well, a chick. That was about as much as Aeron cared. He trilled curiously at her and then shook his tail once more, trying to make the bells make more noise. The male gryphon was meticulous about his appearance, most especially about his bells. They always had to be perfectly shiny.
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:06 am
Nyhali's comment had been purely incidental, and more a warning than anything else. If it bothered her in the slightest that Rem was looking less than his best, there was absolutely no sign of it.
"Ah... he mentioned meeting you two, but we didn't have a lot of time for chit-chat. He caught me at a bad time... He time to tell me about Harby... Harbinger, and then I had to go out for most of the rest of the day." No need to elaborate about the shouting match or the way she hadn't really let Kaisa speak until he'd dragged her out to see the little grifflette.
"But that sounds like Kaisa... he was probably showing off. He's a bit of a peacock sometimes." She wrinkled her nose good-naturedly. "He's got a right to it, though." Any more information about Kaisa was going to have to be asked. He was a difficult subject for the red-head, though she didn't show it. Well, any more information aside from, "If you guys ever want to look him up I can tell you how to find his place."
Aeron's enticement worked, and Harby sprinted forward to bat at his tail. She wasn't fast or coordinated enough yet to actually manage to catch it, but she didn't seem to mind trying. Repeatedly.
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:07 pm
“Nah, I’ll track him down myself,” Mal said without really thinking about it. Huh. He probably should have thought about it just a little bit longer than he did. The way he said it, it sounded like a foregone conclusion that he would be interested enough to find Kaisa again. Ah well. Damage done. Best to just pretend there hadn’t been a mistake at all.
Flashing a smile at the others, he commented, “’S always more fun to track them down yourself.”
“… I’ll have to take your word for that.”
While the humans were speaking and the other gryphons were playing, poor Tali was ignored. The little gryphon wasn’t used to being ignored, not at all. He fluffed out his feathers and chirped for attention. When this didn’t work, he briefly considered trying to climb up Rem’s leg, but then something else caught his eye. Peering around Rem’s legs, he looked up at Nyhali and whistled quietly, wondering just who this person was. He wasn’t used to seeing a lot of people. Just Mal, Rem, and Laura. Curiously---and convinced that the Giant Orange Monster wasn’t going to attack him in front of the humans and Aeron---little Tali approached Nyhali and nipped at her pants before dancing away with a trill.
“Tali! Stop that!” Actually, it was pretty damn cute… and, honestly, Nyhali was probably used to little baby gryphons being nuisances, but Rem still felt that he had to say it. He scooped up the little gryphon---although, since he was getting bigger---Tali was a big armful for the man. This had no real effect other than getting Rem covered with silver fur and feathers as Tali struggled, apparently thinking this was a game. “I’m sorry about him… he’s not used to most people. He’s still at that age where everyone is a plaything to him.”
Actually, at this point, Rem was wondering if Tali would ever grow out of that stage. After all, just look at Aeron and Harby! The adult gryphon was still enjoying playing the same silly games as any chick. Only he couldn’t be held.
Aeron’s tail slowed down as the older gryphon realized that Harby was still in the clumsy chick stage. She looked older, but that was only because she was bigger than normal. Well, time to boost the little girl’s self-esteem… and n** on her tail while she was distracted by Aeron’s tail. Muwahahaha….
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 3:10 pm
Nyhali gave Mal an odd look. "...You sound like Kaisa." If she was going to say anything else it slipped her mind at Tali's attempts to garner attention. She smiled at the grifflette that was now occupying Rem's arms and scratched Tali behind the ears. "Tali just needs some training. He's like any young thing, you gotta teach him manners. Right now he's still cute enough to get away with it, though."
Harby was just about to get Aeron's tail - and had her own nipped. She did the griffonic equivalent of a squeel and darted away to the safety of the nearest human, which just so happened to be Mal. She then proceeded to try and climb up the kneeling man's back to peek over him at Aeron.
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Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:46 pm
“It won’t be so cute when he’s Aeron’s size,” Rem commented, nodding towards the large adult who was still amused by little Harby. Not that it was likely for Tali to grow that large; Aeron was a big gryphon, even for a male. He had to wonder how Mal handled him, especially considering Aeron’s reputation for not listening to anyone. Ah well… that was a question for later.
Scratching Tali behind one ear, Rem came up with another question for Nyhali. “How’s Leolin doing? Laura doesn’t talk about his condition…” and Rem didn’t ask too much, since he wanted to respect Laura’s space. Oh, and things were still a little awkward between them, at least for him. He didn’t know if Laura was feeling just as awkward about the whole… thing.
It was a testament to Rem’s ability to ignore obvious things that he didn’t notice Harby attempting to climb up Mal’s back.
Mal, however, did notice. He blinked several times and looked over at the little drag-gryphon. “Hi. You know, in polite society, it’s considered rude to climb on someone’s back… yeah, yeah, I know. Polite society is borin’. Still, my back can’t take this, sweetheart. Come on, get off of my back.” Mal tried to dislodge Harby, but found this to be oddly difficult, seeing as he couldn’t really twist his entire torso around. He was flexible, but not that flexible.
Aeron, however, did realize. But, he pretended not to. He squawked in a mock perplexed manner and looked around, as if wondering where the little drag-gryphon could have gone. Using his beak, he turned a stone over. Yeah… like Harby could fit under there.
He also turned his back on Harby, leaving his tail entirely defenseless. The bells chimed and glinted in the sun as he wiggled his tail.
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Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:43 pm
"Well if you're worried about it, I can have Kaisa come over and help you figure out how to train him. I could help too, even, I just don't have as much free time as he does, since he usually comes to Xuan for the griffon shows and vacation time and I'm stuck with business for a while..." She smiled at him. "One thing I can say is he's going to be like a puppy in that if he does something you don't want him to do you have correct it right then. If you try to punish or correct him for something very long after the fact he probably won't have any idea what you're on about because he'll have entirely different and likely unrelated things to interest him." Rem had dogs, so he probably understood that much... "I heard you have some dogs? Can I see them?"
Nyhali was actually mildly surprised to hear that Laura wasn't letting Rem know how Leolin was doing. After all Rem had as much to do with getting Leolin safely out of there that night as anyone... "Leolin's doing much better. I think his ribs are healed, though they're still tender, and the pulled tendons in his shoulder are going to take longer to heal since he has to use the muscles around there for even turning his head. He should make a full recovery, though."
Harby was quite amused by the man's reaction to her and shifted back and forth when he tried to grab her, flapping her miniscule wings and mussing up his hair repeatedly in the process. Then she noticed Aeron's apparent inability to see her up here, and that would have decided her on staying until she figured out how to get his tail, except that he turned around. Gasp! He didn't know where she was AND he'd just turned his back on her! Golden opportunity!
Aeron's tempting had succeeded where Mal had failed and Harby clambered (as quietly as possible for a clumzy little chick) off of Mal's back and crept toward Aeron's tail, being "sneaky" so as not to alert him. Then she pounced.
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Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 3:08 pm
Rem blinked in surprise at Nyhali’s request; it wasn’t often that people came around and wanted to see the dogs. They usually wanted to see Taliesin, or try to get Rem’s views on the recent political troubles between Albion and Paralene, which he didn’t particularly enjoy talking about.
“The dogs? Yes, I have three… Trillion, Aggie, and Flash. They’re inside right now. Are you sure that Harby will be ok with them?” The dogs were always curious about something new in their realm, and Harby would certainly fall into that category. It had been a week before they stopped nudging Tali with their noses and this was with the little gryphon constantly scratching their noses.
Was this some sort of sign? Had Nyhali been asking around about him? Clearly, she must have, since it wasn’t common knowledge that he had dogs. Except… oh… right… his heart sank a little. Laura lived with him and she and Nyhali were close friends. Laura must have mentioned the dogs at least once to the red-head. That explained it. “I’ll go let them out now.”
Harby would be able to hold her own.
Mal grimaced and rubbed his back as Harby dismounted. While it was undoubtedly cute and all, it had still hurt. Harby was young, but her talons were forming nicely. To prevent it happening again, he stood straight up, deciding that kneeling would only lead to the same problem. Again.
“Cute chick,” he said dryly. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to say anything else since a sudden flurry of dogs appeared. Supposedly, it was only three dogs, but it was hard to separate one from the other. Two of them ran around Nyhali, as if she was the most amazing thing that had ever happened in their world. The other, a large black hound, continued to sniff Mal’s feet. “Hey, Flash!” Mal said good-naturedly, rubbing the dog behind the ears. The dog’s tail wagged once or twice before he laid down and surveyed his kingdom.
Rem returned, smiling a little sheepishly. “Trillion and Aggie… well, they’re young and hyper,” he explained as best he could, referring to the dogs who were still running around Nyhali.
By now, the two younger dogs had noticed Harby and were watching her with interest. Just what was this?
Aeron’s ears went back at the dogs’ sudden entrance, but he made no movements towards them. If they came too close, he had his ways of dealing with them… generally, a good hiss made them back off. He let out a ‘blurp’ of a noise as Harby ‘unexpectedly’ attacked his tail. Looking over his shoulder, he nipped at her wings gently.
He would like to have chicks one day. Maybe with Sekhmet… but, later.
ooc| To explain... >.> Aggie is basically sort of like a Border Collie, Flash is some sort of hound, and Trillion is a puppy of indeterminate breed.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:32 pm
Nyhali laughed delightedly. "I don't mind Rem! I love dogs, I used to have one. They're adorable." She gave Trillion and Aggie as good a set of pettings and scratchings as she could with them weaving around her like they were. When they spotted Harby she let them go. She was pretty sure Harby would be fine with them. She'd probably try to play chase with them, actually. One of ther servants had a dog that she'd been playing with. Harby was surprisingly gentle with other creatures, if not the furniture or her jewelry.
Harby blurped right back at Aeron when he nipped at her wings and toppled over on her back and swatted at his beak with all four feet playfully. Then she spotted the dogs off to the side and made an inquiring chirp. They looked... sort of like that furry thing at home that she played chase with. Sort of. Were they the same sort of things? Time to investigate! ...As soon as she managed to figure out how to roll upright with her wings in the way.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:12 pm
She liked dogs? She liked dogs! She liked dogs! For Rem, this was a perfectly good reason to celebrate and use italics indiscriminately. In his mind, he was absolutely convinced that a person who liked dogs had to be good. Anyone who didn’t like dogs was subject to suspicion. After all, who could hate dogs? There was just something lovable about a creature as selfless and loyal as dogs. Rem couldn’t stop himself from smiling; had his face frozen? If it had… well, he couldn’t say he particularly minded at the moment.
The dogs momentarily stopped their gamboling as they finally noticed Harby. Aggie made the first move, her fringed tail wagging like a flag. She barked a few times at the newcomer, perhaps trying to communicate with the gryphon through dog-speak. When this failed, she wasn’t put off at all; dipping on her forelimbs, she sunk into a playbow and barked a few more times before bouncing away. Trillion dashed after her, joining in the enthusiastic barking session. Both of them stopped to see if Harby was going to play or not.
Aeron’s eyes narrowed slightly at the dogs’ antics and he let a deep hiss escape his beak. His tail lashed, but he made no attempts to run up and disembowel the canines. But, if Harby was hurt at all… his eyes softened---as much as they could for a bird anyway--- and he nudged Harby slightly, urging her to go play with the dogs.
Honestly, he doubted she would hurt them much. In his experience, dogs tended to bounce back from just about any type of injury.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:35 pm
Harby needed no more urging and gave a little chick's playful and rather pathetic imitation of a war screech and tore off after the dogs, darting this way and that after one or the other, tripping over her own feet, getting right back up, and doing it all over again as many times as necessary. This was fun!
Nyhali watched Harby play with the dogs, laughing, and chatted with Rem and Mal a bit. It was good to see Rem smiling so openly, she decided. He ought to do it more often. She even told Rem a bit about the little white mutt she'd found as a stray puppy and had for nearly 9 years. But before he could ask about how she lost her dog she trailed off a bit, and fortunately for her a bell rang to sound the time somewhere nearby. She didn't really want to talk about it, and it was time to go anyway.
"Ah... sorry guys, I'd best get going. Other things to do today." She retrieved her now tired-out dragriffon and smiled over at Rem. "I had a nice visit. I'll try to stop by more often."
It took a few more moments before the goodbyes were completely over and she exited the gate, waving for a time while she went back down the street the way she'd come. It was good to have friends again.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:52 pm
Rem was clearly disappointed that Nyhali had to leave, but he sure as Hell wasn’t about to stop her. After all, he still remembered the Battle of the Shindig; the memory of Nyhali sitting on a gryphon and trying to fight off the Black Beast was probably going to stay with him for the rest of his life.
“It was very nice to talk with you again,” he said, still smiling, despite his disappointment that she had to leave so soon. “And bring Kedri next time. Tali needs to get used to other gryphons.” He kept waving until she was out of sight, just in case she happened to look back.
Her stories were really… well… interesting. He had done his best to meet the expectations that he felt she set, but had a feeling that his own tales had fallen short. Although, he did share the story of the time when he had stuffed bugs into his sister’s underwear drawer.
Mal simply waved a few times before working on getting Aeron moving. It was getting late… not amazingly so, but he still had stuff to do. “Later, Rem,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve got to get Aeron home; he’s gettin’ hungry and eyein’ your dogs.” With his own lazy salute, Mal tapped Aeron lightly on the shoulder to tell him to get moving.
When the gryphon ignored it, Mal simply seized the collar and tugged. At least then Aeron got the message.
Aeron nuzzled Harby one last time before she had to leave. Chicks really were cute… hopefully, he would get some of his own soon. Tali got some attention as well, one last nuzzle and n** before Aeron trotted at Mal’s side.
ooc| Aaaaand done. :3
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