Spirits of the Earth

( @Draco )

This bonesaw was the silliest little children's toy Zea thought she might ever have seen in all her life. What made the situation tricky was that while it was mostly useless for any hands larger than her own--of which there were many in the area, she was sure--it was also sort of sweet. It was so small! Things just plain got more endearing the further they were scaled down, and if someone had presented Zea Misra with a doll-sized operating theater complete with shining leeches and glossy offal in pails? She'd have bought it. She wasn't made of stone.

Maybe a small amputation saw wasn't the worst idea. Now that she thought of it, weren't there often little nooks and crannies that she kept being called in to poke apart for people? Maybe if they could cram a saw into those hard-to-reach places, she'd be called away from her real work far less often.

Get the saw? Should she? Of course she should. The good Thanati tools were always worth it. Probably she ought to get something cheap and serviceable to put out for general use, though. No sense having students dissecting monkey eyes using the finest tools modern surgery had to offer.

Zea leaned back against a bamboo fence rail and laid her bag between her feet. With one hand she raked her fingers through and knotted into her hair, holding it out of her face so that with her other hand she could have a good rummage.

Thin knife. Tiny knife. Little probe. Bigger probe. Longer big probe. Spare saw blade. The tools accumulated in her hand as she dug to the bottom of the bag. Hooks! That was what she was missing. Very small hooks. Of course. Thank goodness she had stopped to pause with a fistful of surgical implements and check her bag or she might have been deeply embarrassed upon her return. Who went to the market and came home without muscle hooks?

This place was weird.

A lot of the people were so tiny. Avery kept his hood up, he'd already caused a scene on the mainland and while that was fun it hadn't been a very good idea. No one could say he didn't learn from his mistakes! Still, people were making way for him through the streets as he wandered around, his wings tucked up tight against his back, the tips dragging along the ground showing up under the cloak.

It wasn't a very good disguise but he tried.

Then the blindness happened and he leaned back and made a disgruntled noise. What was that?  His vision zeroed in one some pint of a person waving around metal, which he assumed was used to blind him. That damn glowing orb in the sky did less good than it seemed. Irritated, Avery moved closer, taking slow steps, taking his time to examine this person as he moved closer. Those were tools. He squinted, frowned slightly and looked at all the other little people. Nothing? No second glances? Of course he noticed their confused stares at him. No one was gonna stop the lady with the tools?

Avery was beside the tiny creature before he really noticed, "Do you always blind people with your instruments of torture?" He smiled, his sharp teeth apparent and practically right beside her face, "Or is today my lucky day, Miss...?" His voice was smooth, at odds with his stature and his scarred appearance. The hood did little to keep his face from being seen, again, it was an awful disguise and it was the middle of the day.

For good measure he gave his lips a lick before grinning again. What he was looking for was someone who could keep that damn dog away from him, the grapevine told him people were weird here and so far that grapevine was mostly correct. Lots of weird here.

Zea was just about to put her handful of brightly razor-sharp things back in her bag when she was quite suddenly accosted by a remarkably friendly... ....whatever that was. Well, friendly was what counted; it covered a multitude of cosmetic sins. Though now that she was getting a better look, this creature appeared to be covering for them all by itself.

What a pretty eye, and what a shame there was only the one. The way that mouth could split the whole head by grinning was sort of endearing as well. It lent a... a sincerity to its expressions that smaller mouths just could not match. She might have liked to get a better look at those wings, too, especially if they were functional. Who did not want to fly?

Fewer cosmetic sins than she'd counted at first glance, then. Far fewer. And again... friendly.

"Oh! They're not for torture. Mostly when I use them my subject is already deceased." Bodies wriggled less that way. She stuffed the assorted surgical oddments back down into the bag at last. "My name is Zea Misra, though you may call me Zea. And my apologies if I alarmed you. I did not mean to... to brandish them at anyone. Just taking stock."

Avery didn't straighten up, that would make the distance between them just too much and he'd probably have to raise his voice so it would carry so far down. Of course he noticed the looks. He was an oddity here, or so he assumed. Most creatures here were fleshy human colours and generally lacked most of the things he had, well two of them for sure, he'd seen someone with horns.

When she claimed they weren't for torture he made a disappointed clicking sound with his tongue and looked away briefly. Here he had thought there was going to be some common ground or something. Avery watched her put the tools back into her bag and he pressed his hand to his face for a moment, tapping at his chin.

"Avery." He stated, standing up a little straighter before moving in front of her, ready to cut to the chase, "You did not alarm me, Zea." Another smile, this one stretching to his ear, showing all his sharp sharp teeth. "I was simply curious, I only have the one eye... I'd like to keep it. I'm sure you understand." There was a pause and he frowned down at her.

"I've been told there are people who can talk to..." Avery paused, looking off to the side to find the right word, "talk to dead people." Nope, that wasn't it, but it was close enough. "I'm in need of someone who can talk to... Spirits?. Where might I find one of these." Of course it was way more complicated than that. Avery wasn't a monster of intelligent thought out words.

Look at that theatrically disappointed face at the lack of opportunity for torture chums. That was a little more forward an advance than Zea was used to, but there did not appear to be any malice in it, so why worry? Avery.

Zea looked up at this Avery, searching his--his? his--expression beyond the forthrightness of his smile. What did he want with spirits? The usual? It would be a shame if beneath all that novelty he was just a plain old grieving bore. Not an offense worth putting out his remaining eye, obviously, but still a small sadness in a day of commercial triumphs.

"Ah."

She pursed her lips a little, then nodded to herself as she decided.

"Yes. You will find such people here. You are looking for a Soul Speaker. In my opinion you will find some of the best with a temple. They will do a more reliable job of accounting for unwelcome company and focusing on whomever you're trying to contact. Though..." Her brows drew together in a brief pitying scowl. "...it's important that you understand the limits of such abilities. Not all spirits can be reached so conveniently. I don't want you to get your hopes too high for a thing that's by no means certain."

Curiously his head tilted and his lips pursed while he listened. There was a limit?

The soft chattering of teeth rose up from inside his cloak and Avery instantly snarled, standing back up and stepping away, flicking the cloak to shine sunlight on him. The chattering stopped and Avery's tempter simmered. The lack of his right arm meant that his cloak had been flicked away by his wing, the large taloned hand was curled slightly and he quickly fixed it, rested that hand again on his shoulder and fixing his hood with his left actual hand.

"Oh, trust me," He started glaring down at the shadow he cast, "This isn't a hard spirit to contact." Avery moved his hand to tap at his lips while he studied the girl. "I'm trying to quit, see, but I don't speak his language." Again, his single glowing eye looked down at her bag of goodies and curiosity made him open his mouth. Enough about him! What did she do?

"What do you do with those if they're not for torture?" It was an honest question and he looked at her owlishly. "Are they for meals?"

What an attentive face. Zea had been right; the enormous mouth really did make the whole face more expressive, even if all Avery was doing was silently being talked at. Facial asymmetry coupled with such overstated emotional impact... that combination could be very intimidating. People reflexively recoiled from asymmetry in her experience and if she put a mouth like this on one of her projects, Zea estimated that the deterrent effect would be considerable.

Friendly and a good listener and now inspiring. There was a combination Zea did not encounter every day.

Avery looked terribly haunted, though. Zea could relate. Inima's tits, could she ever. No wonder he wanted to get things settled out with an expert. He'd certainly come to the right place. If Zea had felt like taking on his personal problems he might even have come to the right person, though he was not quite that pretty. Not pretty enough for her to put up with a lot of ethereal nuisance on his account; high maintenance boys were for women without more interesting problems to solve.

He did make her laugh when she realized the line of his questioning. So forthright! Zea couldn't think of anybody else who'd have asked her so innocently if she ate her subjects. "You're so precious," she said entirely sincerely. "But no, they're not. Medical research, and sometimes surgery. Personally I prefer dissection to surgery. The stakes are lower and the bodies are more likely to hold still."

If Avery had ears that could bend down in concern they would have. As it was, he did not and all he could do was frown slightly at being called 'precious'. Even leaned back a little when she had laughed, looking at her curiously. This wasn't going quite as he anticipated. Where were the screams? The frantic awkward words because he was just so damn scary looking? No?

"What's medical research?" He asked before he slyly removed his hood, giving her the whole deal. The broken horns, the long braid. Dusky skin, darker purple hair. The orange eye didn't glow so apparently without the dark hood to accent it. Avery bent down again and looked at her, pulling a grim face in an attempt to intimidate her. "You should also bring me to a soul speaker while you tell me about this 'medical research'."

The chattering could be heard again and Avery smacked at the empty side of his cloak, all without breaking eye contact with the small human creature.

Zea would happily have answered questions rooted in genuine curiosity, jumped at opportunities to give long verbal treatises about her work, and certainly did not disdain good-natured and non-threatening attention from people as pretty--and anatomically novel--as this Avery. It was a combination of circumstances that were almost universally completely certain to have her rambling happily until her voice gave out.

What she did not like was this looming.

Why did Avery have to go and make it like that? Here she thought she'd found a man who wouldn't try to leverage his greater size and mass to intimidate her and then he had to go and screw it all up by doing what seemed to come naturally to so many of them. Why? Things had been so nice.

Zea rolled her shoulders backward and splayed her arms to either side of her across the bamboo fence, relaxing across it the way she would if she were leaning back on a tavern bar to entertain multiple devoted callers at once. In this case, she wanted to claim space.

Then she took a risk. She craned her head backward to look up into that surprisingly-charming face with its very lovely wide-splitting mouth so near to her throat. Zea blinked her large dark eyes once, solemnly. She waited while he broke his looming cool to swat at his chattering little nuisance, and didn't move.

"As it happens, I am a Soul Speaker. But it's a favor I only do for friends." She dropped her gaze as far down as it would go before raking it back up to his single pretty glowing eye, staring at him from beneath long black lashes. "Are we friends, Avery? Or are you going to be mean to me?"

As a predator ( a decent one too, thank you very much ) Avery could recognize the movement to make herself look bigger. He could appreciate that. As such a tiny creature surely she needed all the length in her arms to make herself look bigger. There was a tempting moment where he wanted to reach out and pat the top of her head but he resisted, instead he just watched, his head tilting again.

Like a gentleman he backed off slightly, instead straightened up to his full height and looked down at her. Zea's words caught him completely off guard and he frowned at her, searching her. Friends? His mouth opened for a moment, at a loss for words and it quickly snapped shut.

"Friends?" He repeated the word, saying it slowly as it trying to taste the sounds. Avery didn't have those. "I suppose I can have you for a 'friends'," his expression turned into something of a pout and he sat back on his heels, his tail moving to curl in front of his feet while he re-positioned his wings. The hands moved from his shoulders to press against the ground meaning he didn't have to bother to balance.

"I haven't been mean to you, Zea," Avery's voice had a distinct pout to it and he looked up at her, "If I have you may be mean to me... I won't bite."

Zea's body wanted very badly to relax in crashing relief, but just because she was out of the woods didn't mean they were done talking. If having a friends was such a jarring question for him, maybe he had a little to learn yet. Sometimes it was nice when they came teachable. All the way down to the dirt, too, and then he was the one looking up at her.

Either he'd had no idea what she'd been implying, or she'd genuinely hurt his feelings. The possibility of both was particularly weird.

She lowered herself toward the ground and squatted between her heels as well, bringing her height back down below his. Look at the little wing-hands. Zea tried hard not to picture the shape of the bruises they could leave. That was a whole train of thought not worth indulging in, even if it did do a great job calming her anxiety.

"Not without permission, I hope." Zea kept herself from smiling, mostly. "But it's always good to be sure. There are some faces I don't mind pulling off like baked chicken skin, but I like yours quite a bit just the way it is. You're very expressive and I like looking at you."

"Wait." Avery leaned in, "What?" The confusion and shock on his face made his mouth open slightly and he moved his hand over his face, pressing his hand to his mouth. Then his hand moved out and he made a 'hold on' motion. "You like looking at me." People here were really weird. This people right here in particular.

"I guess that explains why you're not trying to get away or begging me not to eat you." That had thrown him off and he tapped at the ground with his wing hands, the talons easily digging into the ground. How should he break this to her? The chattering again and Avery rolled his eye, giving a sigh and shifting his weight. That damn dog was very being extra chatty here, maybe he shouldn't have come.

Though, running away from a literal hell beast was always a bit of a chore.

"You realize, Zea, that I'm not human, yes?" Maybe she didn't notice? Avery figured if she found out what he was then he'd be scary. Maybe. This was a very odd girl.

He didn't believe her. Why would she lie about that? Okay, to convince him not to kill her immediately in the hopes that if his guard were down she could kill him first? Okay, yes, then she would have lied about that. Avery could have guessed that. But maybe this was some kind of emotional baggage thing?

That facial scar was pretty bad, and he might've been self-conscious about the horn. Maybe his horns had been very important to him and now one was broken. Should she have avoided bringing up his appearance at all? But it had been for a good cause! She'd needed to threaten him!

"Hmm." She nodded gravely. "I did suspect. But you have such an honest face and Thanati often keep everything all bottled up to be polite. And you don't seem to find my work unsettling, though..." Here was a thought. "...maybe it's because I haven't explained medical research yet. Anyway it's all pretty refreshing." She pointed down where the chattering seemed to be coming from. "Though you may want to get that looked at."

Thanati. Avery frowned at her for a moment, was she one of those? Probably. Sounded fancy. A fancy brand of human. They were all human, he'd never figured out why they called themselves different kinds of human. "Honest?" This girl was so weird. He licked the front of his lips and blinked again, his expression defaulting to 'owlish'.

Avery was a hell beast! The devourer of children and families!! And having a conversation with a strange new friends hunched over and honestly a little curious. Maybe even a little flattered. If she wanted to chop off his head with her tools that chance had come but she didn't move. She'd simply... Talked.

"Refreshing." Now it was sounding like one of those repeating birds. Maybe not so brightly coloured. When she pointed down Avery followed the line and he also looked at. "Nothing down there has tee-oh! That's my boss. You hear that chattering? That's all I hear too." He looked up and around for a moment, checking to see if the coast was clear. It was clear as it was going to get, not at all, he leaned in and lowered his voice. "I escaped. I was sort of a servant or something," He waved his hand in a dismissive manner  and pointed down to the shadows he made.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to something that can't talk? I mean. He can talk. But I can't understand him. I figured maybe one of the Dead People Talkers could help." Avery squinted, technically staring right at Zea but his eye was unfocused and he was staring at nothing. "Unless all they hear is chattering too. Damn." If the couldn't help... Well. Avery would just have to make it up as he went along. It'd be fabulous. Also it would suck.

Honest. Refreshing.

And nothing down there had teeth. Zea had not been angling for that bit of advanced detail, but she'd take it and make a mental note. Sometimes that sort of thing ended up becoming important and if luck was with her, today would be one of those sometimes occasions.

Avery leaned forward conspiratorily and Zea did the same, or as much as she could without toppling forward into his arms. That would be bold, even for her. Escaped servant. At least he'd had an occupation; it decreased the chances that she was eyeing something that only looked like a mature adult specimen of his... well, of whatever he was.

"I pretty much hear chattering, yeah. Though I don't know if you could maybe set up a system? Maybe one click for no, a bunch of clicks for yes? Then you could at least ask a bunch of questions to get closer to the point."

She'd assumed he was being haunted by something that he wanted to get rid of, but she'd assumed incorrectly. Avery just wanted to talk to his... his boss. What kind of a boss didn't find a way to command an underling? Zea sure would have. This whole situation was weirder than she'd figured going into it. It did make her curious, though. What sort of an arrangement did Avery and this incoherent master have? How had they arrived at it if they couldn't communicate? How completely weird!

Avery's face went slack. That was so simple. He grinned widely at her, "You're a genius!" Then he took off his cloak, diminishing his shadow. The chatters were annoying him and he'd gotten what he wanted. A solution. Sorta. Now that his shadow didn't have enough area for his boss to 'manifest' the chattering diminished. Avery's tail flicked along the ground and now all of him was on display for his odd new friends.

"Now. That has been solved." Another polite smile, "I'll talk to Chatter later." A hand wave and he looked down at her bag of goodies again, "Do you pick people apart? Is that what medical is?" Sounded good in his books. There had been a few times when he'd picked people apart. Of course, then he'd pick his teeth with their bones but... Surely it wasn't that different. Avery shuffled closer and started to play with the dirt under his left wing hand, making a little mound before brushing it away. 

Big smile! Big big big smile. What a face. Zea grinned and clapped her hands together once, pleased to have gotten it in one try. She was a genius. That was a fact.

Avery wasn't hiding himself anymore either. That was nice. Nobody was looming over anybody else and nobody was being super reticent and shady about maybe being some kind of monster. Zea could talk about stuff she did with corpses and he could have as many appendages as he wanted. This was much better.

"That's not all medical research is, but it's what I do, yeah!" So nice to be able to relax and talk about dismantling corpses. "I'm a priestess of Inima. She's a goddess of fertility and death, so life basically. That's a lot, but for what I do, I need to get to know bodies and how they're built. I need to know them really really well." She held out a hand palm down, pointing to various portions of it as she named them. "So it's not enough for me to know there are five fingers here. I also need to know that this blood vessel does something different from this other one, and that that bit pulls on this other one. And for that!"

She closed her palm to point an index finger for emphasis.

"I need to pick apart dead bodies, and I need to be very careful and very precise, and I need to be able to show other people how to do it, too. When we all know more about how bodies work, we can make better decisions about what's going on and what to do."

Finally they were at the part where she explained all about her work! Zea'd been waiting for this. Zea spent a lot of time waiting. Basically she was ready at all times. But now! Now she could maybe just be straightforward and nobody would step backward, make a vaguely nauseous face, and find a convenient excuse to leave. Maybe Avery wouldn't mind. What a wonderful change that would be.

Avery nodded along to what she said.

It was a automatic reaction and he stared at her hand, interested and a little afraid. If she was this interested in humans... He looked towards his wing hand and shifted his weight, sitting back with his legs tucked under him instead of on his heels. Avery moved his wing hand, far larger than his more humanoid ones. Gently he took her hand in his larged clawed one and he pointed to her palm with his regular hand "Tendons are awful." Avery supplied helpfully, "Don't eat those."

He moved his hands in front of himself, all three and examined them. He flexed his fingers and then looked at hers. Avery had never given thought as to how things worked. This Inima figure intrigued him and he looked around as if looking for her, "This Inima. She's... The leader of ... Uh..." Where was he? "Here?"

Avery listened intently with his pretty face and his enormous wide mouth and all those hands, listened while she explained the impolitic direction of her research, and appeared to have never heard of any of this before. He was a surprise pupil out of nowhere, at bare minimum a pretty face, and so anatomically interesting she just had to get hold of his corpse after he died. That wasn't even approaching what she'd like to do with it while they were both alive.

And it wasn't even Zea's birthday!

For all that his mighty claws looked good only for crude crushing and tearing, Avery took her hand quite carefully. She gave him as serious a nod as she could manage when he shared what he knew of tendons, again reevaluating his level of mental maturity. She wouldn't be taking advantage of him, would he? That would feel a little gross.

"Inima is a goddess. And yes, I think most people of Thanatos would agree that this is her land. We do our best to keep it in balance and generally not trash the place. We're responsible for Thanatos, and anyway. We live here. One of our most important tasks is to avoid messing things up. Otherwise even if Inima doesn't lay out some awful punishment for us, we'd sort of be punishing ourselves just fine without her."

Again he had the owlish eyes looking and his wing hands went back to his shoulders, tucking themselves up and out of the way. His remaining hand was placed on his leg. If this girl wasn't going to be afraid of him, Avery would try to get all the information he could get out of her. Okay it was slightly irritating she wasn't frightened, because how could he react in a way he knew how? Avery wasn't used to this.  This people being nice thing.

It had made him a little suspicious, half waiting for the knife in his side. He'd had people be nice to him before! Avery was onto their trickery. This girl though, was just... Being nice. Listened politely, taking a moment to look around. "We're in Thanatos now, yes?" Yeah. That's where here was, he remembered that name. Sorta. No, not really.

"Does Inima live here?" He looked at his cloak, "Is she your boss?" he jerked his thumb towards the cloak, indicating the whole 'Chatter' thing, "like Chatter is mine?"

Disappointment was threatening to become resignation. This Avery might not really be ready for Zea. Not for his potential in all areas of her life, anyway. Perhaps she was just to be a glorified tour guide.

She supposed she could still keep looking. No harm in looking, right? Now she just had to explain what deities were. Zea predicted that the concept of religion might be a little beyond him, but maybe she could get across some notion of the scale she was talking about?

"Sort of. I have people who are my bosses, but Inima is..." If the word goddess hadn't meant anything, what other words were there? Was this just culture shock or was he impaired in some way? "...bigger than people. I suspect she's bigger than Chatter. She's the boss of death. She's the boss of things making babies. She's the boss of fate. She's a very very big boss, big enough that she doesn't always spend a lot of time talking directly to us. Inima just arranges things and we do our best not to muck up what she did."

Oooooooooh.

Avery gave a nod. So she did exist, just not here. He could get that. Sort of. He wasn't used to the bosses not being here. Chatter bothered him constantly and that was a powerful demon dog thing. "I see." He nodded slowly, curiosity sated for the time being. "So Inima is here," He motioned around him, "But not actually here," he placed his hands on the ground. Hoping he got the concept which was just so beyond him.

The click of his tongue broke the momentary silence, "I'm not used to this place yet. You'll forgive me for my questions, yes?" Another smile, simply because she seemed to like them so much. Or was very good at pretending. "You're the only person I've found to tolerate my appearance without fear so you got my questions. I'm done. For now."  Avery stood up then, reaching his hand down to help her up if she felt like following him to her feet.

"You have done me a favour, Zea." He stated, "So by my laws, I owe you one in return. You may ask anything of me," He paused for a moment and gave her a suspicious look, "except to dissect me. I may squirm." Also he wasn't a fan of things that hurt unless it was gonna hurt so good. Dissecting didn't seem like that kind of hurt.

Avery was edging his way around the distinction between immanent deities and transcendant deities. Layman's vocabulary didn't do a good job of getting into the details and making things clear, but he had the gist of it! Zea nodded excitedly, pleased with him for figuring out a tricky thing and with herself for explaining it.

She took his hand to get up, mostly because he'd offered it and as sweet as he was... he was sort of a savage and it wouldn't help anybody to punish him when he showed consideration. Well... perhaps not so savage. He understood balance. He understood keeping relationships equal, without any debts. That was actually a far more fundamental thing than knowing what a god was, at least in Zea's opinion. Certainly for most people it came up a helluva lot more.

"I would love to actually but if you don't want me to, I won't. You're just really interesting and the tendons in your back alone are probably so complex. But I'm not going to cut you open without permission while you're alive. That's not an okay thing to do to a friend."

To a friend.

On other occasions she could make an exception, but Avery was so terribly sweet. How could she?

"But if there's ever a time when you don't need your body anymore, would it be all right if I tried to learn some things from it then?"

Please say yes please say yes please say yes please say yes.

With the mention of the tendons in his back he looked over his shoulder and adjusted his wings. He supposed they were. The fleshy wing bits went all the way down his back along the top half of his tail and he adjusted them, letting the right wing arm drop down to take place of his missing limb. The fingers curled and he examined them again, curious. He'd probably taste awful. The hand was put back on his shoulder and he tilted his head, looking down at her amused.

When he didn't need his....?

Avery laughed then. To anyone looking in it would probably be absolutely horrifying looking. His mouth opened and his head tilted back. It was a hearty laugh. "You want my body when I don't need it anymore?" He repeated, entertained. Far more entertained than he thought he would be, "Sure. If I'm not using it you might as well get enjoyment from it."  He rubbed at his chest, giving a quiet giggle and stared at her. No thought to how old he might be or how long it would be until he'd passed on.

Weird girl. He decided that he liked her.

"That doesn't help the favour I owe you." Another owlish tilt of his head, "I don't have... objects from this... here, " he told her, "so I can't purchase things for you. Or give you anything."

Zea stood up on her tiptoes to get as good a view down into the back of Avery's throat as possible. His mouth really did go all the way back there. What an amazing creature. Where had he come from? Was this sort of mouth structure common there? Was there just some whole population of people who could open their whole head up like a snake? How slow she'd feel eating dinner with them; how sloooooow she would seem by comparison! With her teeny tiny mostly-sealed orifices.

The thought of a whole nation of Averys made Zea feel a bit like a freak, but not in the usual bad way. In the good way! The fun academic line of pondering sort of way was a good way.

But he said yes! She clenched her hands in joyous little fists in front of her chest. She had a claim on the corpse. Anybody who could compel her to speak truthfully would know that she had officially been given proper legally-straightforward dibs.

She sobered a bit at his debt dilemma. It was a serious matter to him, and in this single way he was more well-grounded in a practical and pro-social perspective than most Thanati natives she'd grown up surrounded by. It was sometimes the only way to keep spirits earning their keep, so this was a need she understood.

"That is tricky. I would consider you bequeathing me your corpse to be payment, but if it doesn't satisfy the debt according to your way, then we are a little stuck." She sucked in her bottom lip and chewed it thoughtfully. "If that doesn't work I can keep thinking. I'll try not to leave you hanging too long."

The interest in his mouth wasn't lost on him. If anything her interest made him interested in turn. What was so amazing about it? Half of him was waiting for her to ask about it. The other half was waiting for her to just shove her hand in his mouth and pull on his tongue. He would allow her. Once. Just the once though.  Another smile at her when she clenched her fists and obviously looked very pleased.

"Am I that interesting?" He examined her, looking at her features. Before she was just another tiny weird human creature. Now she was Zea. The tiny weird creature he considered one of these 'a friends'. "I find you interesting. You have no natural offence." He took her hand in his, examined her fingers gently and looked at her nails. His own hand was clawed, "Your teeth are slightly pointed but... laughably so." He smiled at her, and then looked out towards the crowds of people going about their daily business and politely ignoring the beast that was feeling up some poor lady.

"Though I'm sure if I did something terrible here...." Avery went quiet and imagined all of the things he really would prefer not to happen. He didn't age like humans and had been alive for quite a while did but he wasn't immortal. "You're interesting creatures, you humans."

Still he played with her hand, running his fingers back over the areas she had explained before while he pondered. "I can help you with something." He suggested, "A task?"

Avery somehow had doubts that he was interesting. A stronger agreement than a simple verbal yes was a quick sharp upward flick of her eyebrows. Interesting was the polite public word for what Zea thought of Avery. It would serve.

He kept touching her, too. Now that they had reached a comfortable level, he didn't seem shy about it at all. At least he assumed that there must be something potentially dangerous about humans, because it meant that he'd apply the principle to her. Zea enjoyed him so far but did not actually want him getting used to the idea that she was some harmless little plaything he was allowing to live. That sort of thing gave men all sorts of irritating ideas and then retraining them was a gigantic hassle. Best not to let things go there at all; it wouldn't do anything good for their rapport.

She looked up from watching him tracing his fingers over her skin.

"Maybe since I helped you by answering your questions, you can answer some of mine? That can be a thing we just do. Ask each other questions and give the best answer we can. What do you say? I like getting answers to my questions."

Her questions? Avery looked down at himself and then back at her, letting her hand go for the moment. He was done looking at it, all small and delicate like as it was. They were mostly unimpressive alone, but in packs? Scary.

" I think this is a good idea," Avery nodded, "I also enjoy having answers to my questions." It was tempting to sit again since they were apparently going to have a conversation and he wasn't going to do some menial task for her. He'd have to admit that he didn't see that coming. He was huge, had more movable limbs than you could share a stick at and she wanted to talk.

No 'hey go haunt so and so' it was 'let's talk'. "You have helped me, so, I will answer anything you ask me." He paused, "To the best of my abilities." Avery wasn't one for knowing many facts which poor Zea would soon find out if she asked the right questions.

"Great!" Zea said brightly.

She picked up her bag, planning to continue shopping while she had a nice chitchat like normal people did when they were perusing market wares. A shockingly common sort of a thing. People looking at her would for once actually know precisely what she was doing and how ordinary her activities were. What a lark.

"So first question. Do you have a gag reflex? For example, if something were to touch your esophagus or the very back of the roof of your mouth, would you feel the urge to vomit?"

Having friends was grand.

Obediently and a little bit like a puppy, Avery moved to follow her. A step behind and to her left. It was an unconscious decision on his part, putting himself into the lower ranking position. Zea would probably not know what it meant. But he did. This was her here and while Avery was a powerful individual she was going to be the leader for the time being.

Again, Avery should be getting used to this, her question caught him off guard. "Do I have...?" He smiled then, his head moving. "No." He stated simply, trying to recall ever having to do that. "I do not do that." Sure he'd thrown up before, but he couldn't remember gagging because of something in his mouth. What use was that?

He went quiet while he tried to think of ever gagging. "I ate something bad once, but..." Avery tapped at his chin, "I didn't gag. I just threw up."  He paused again, "Is gagging when you make that noise?" He demonstrated the noise and then looked down at her, making sure they were talking about the same thing. "I like this game," He smiled, "ask me another. You're so curious and interested, it's adorable." 

Also all this attention was pretty sweet.

Avery explained, trotting along behind her, that she could essentially jam her whole arm down his throat and aside from probably annoying him... nothing else would happen. That was a skill that could make a person fairly popular in the right contexts.

"I am curious and interested and adorable. Thank you, Avery. But see, that's not how most humans are. For most of us, we're prompted to regurgitate if you stick something in our mouths, especially down our throats." She turned sideways to face him and laid her index finger across her tongue before tightening her lips around it and pulling it back out. "Not me. But I've worked on it."

Slowly his eyebrows rose and he tilted his head, watching her put her finger in her mouth and then remove it. Avery's mind went somewhere totally different and he stared at her mouth for a good few moments.

"Worked on..." He nodded towards her mouth and he smirked as suggestively as a too large mouth could, "Eating?" Gently he took her chin in his hand and tilted her head, examining her cheeks. He'd seen cheeks before, he just wanted to check her out better while looking as innocent as he could. Avery felt very tall.

For a few moments he'd wished he had his other arm so that he could walk with his hands behind his back and puff out his chest. As it was, all he could do was shift his wing hands on his shoulders and flick his tail. "No more questions?" His voice took on a disappointed lilt and he moved his wings around a bit more and it totally wasn't to call attention to them or anything.

There he went. Finally, Zea'd managed to prompt recognizable glazed focus. The boy had caught on.

Bless Inima's gentle heart, but she did make Zea work for it sometimes. Still, look how far back those jaws opened. Night of the Dead might be coming early this year, at least for one priestess. She couldn't return that precise favor as easily, but her physiology had its advantages too. When he came in closer to get a more direct look, Zea hoped that he was considering just what those advantages might be.

She smiled primly and blinked twice up at Avery. "Oh, plenty! Don't you worry. Curious and interested. That's me."

Politely, Avery waited. Then there were no questions and just silence and he looked down at her simply because he couldn't continue to crouch down and do it. Again his wing hands shifted on his shoulders and he looked away for a moment, his eyebrows drawing together.

"Are you..." He trailed off, looking back at her, his tail flicking again, "Are you going to ask any of them?" Avery had gotten what he wanted out of coming to this Thanatos place. There was a solution to his little chattering problem, he didn't have to hide anymore because screw everyone else, at least one person wasn't afraid of him.

Now there were no questions. Had he worn out his welcome? Was she just being nice now? Maybe... "You seem fascinated with my mouth." He started, shifting his weight and again, adjusting his wing arms, moving them slightly before giving them a wide stretch. Flaring them out to their full length which startled quite a few people before he tucked them back, returning to their unobtrusive place on his shoulders. "Is that all you're fascinated by?"

Zea had never in all her days actually wanted to tell anybody what nice teeth you have. Still. The things she could install Avery's teeth into might surprise even him. She imagined toucans with beaks filled with the things, flying to snatch tissue samples from her enemies or just anybody particularly weird. It would save so much time she'd have otherwise spent traveling.

"Oh! Sorry. Thinking, planning." She winked and turned to get walking again. She needed those hooks. "Got distracted. Do you have any specific dietary requirements? How do you excrete the food your body is done with? Do you have any allergies, anything you just absolutely can't physically tolerate? And how old are you? Are you unique or a member of a species?" A grin warmed her voice. "Enough questions for the moment?"

Again he moved to follow her, keeping close to her side and basically towering over absolutely everyone. Her questions were, again, something unexpected and he stared at her, wide eyed, for a moment after she asked how he excreted the food he ate.

"Yes." Avery said, nodding slowly. Those weren't the questions he was hoping for, but still. It was attention and good attention at that. He shuffled after her, it being too slow a pace for him to actually walk like he'd want to.  "Nothing specific. I think. All food is good food, I think. I eat my meat raw,"He added, hopefully helpfully, cooked meat... Blegh. He'd tried it, didn't like it!

"And I... Excrete... As humans do." His eyes narrowed while they wandered along and he answered her questions, "I can't tolerate..." Avery paused and tilted his head, trying to think of things he just couldn't stand. "Fabric on my teeth... And I believe I am... Unique, as it were." Avery paused, trying to think of things he'd seen like himself.

"I just know... I existed. I've been aware for a very long time, I don't remember everything." Significant things, sure, little things though, those were long gone. "Do you remember being born?"

Raw meat. Relevant to Zea's interests, but moreso that he could at least endure eating other things. She didn't know how many conures she could help him stuff down that throat of his without attracting extra attention. He stood out already, but looking funny was no excuse to be... well... uncivilized. Thanati could be weird-looking; what mattered was them being Thanati. If this was the first real culture he'd encountered... maybe it could work. It would be a challenging project, assuming neither of them got bored too soon in.

Food facilities. Latrines and toilets. Those would all work just fine, leaving a certain roughness and rudeness as Avery's main obstacle, with expensive custom tailoring as his second. Possibly dealable, if only remotely probable.

"I don't, and my experience is pretty typical for humans. I do count my age in seasonal years, but I suppose once I deal with the mortality issue the precise number will matter less and less over time." She continued scanning the market for the butcher and barber-surgeon who shared a stall, and pointed when she found it. "That's where we're headed. If you see any tiny eensy bitty hooks about this big?" Zea held her finger and thumb only a little apart. "Will you let me know?"

"Mortality issue?" He said back, quickly. Did humans have issues with that? Avery frowned down at her slightly, "Ah yes. You die of old age, do you not?" Eventually he would too, he was sure of it. Just not any time soon. As she was scanning for something, Avery just watched her. Curiosity was the only thing he was feeling. It was.. Nice. There were no under currents of fear or shame or hate.

At least not around Zea.

Avery gave a visible jerk when she pointed and spoke, slowly he followed the invisible line and looked at the stall, his eyebrows going up. "Tiny eensy bitty hooks?" He repeated and mirrored the hand movement, watching her carefully. "Yes. Of course." Sure, tiny hooks.

What could you hang up with tiny hooks? As they made their way over, his hand was on his hip as he walked. It was hard to look bigger while being lopsided, he stood at his full height when they got to the stall and he shifted his wings slightly. "Hello, I am looking for 'tiny eensy bitty hooks' they are about this big, " Avery made the hand movement that Zea had made at him, "My a friends would like some for..." Avery paused and simply stopped talking not able to finish the sentence because he didn't know what they were for.

The men at the stall pointed to the tiny eensy bitty hooks, one of them trembling visibly and both sort of just staring at him.

Look at Avery going all proactive and helpful. It was probably a good thing Zea had gotten to him first. What if some kind of antisocial weirdo had gotten hold of him? There'd have been no convincing him that they were... well, an antisocial weirdo. Or maybe she could? But then she'd have had to explain why being an antisocial weirdo was undesirable. Far better to have him just... follow her lead as best he could. More folks ought to, in Zea's opinion.

Zea peeked around from behind her much larger a friends. "Hi!" she said. "Thanks cutie," she said, patting Avery on the wing and maybe lingering longer on the folded skin than was strictly required by the gesture. "It's me again. I almost left without hooks."

The vendors looked from Zea up to Avery's completely sincere purple face, and she knew she had to say something.

"He's foreign." The barber-surgeon cocked his jaw to the side and looked at her levelly, as if to say that yes he had figured that bit out for himself. The bubbly sweetness drained out of her expression and posture. "Was he wrong to visit Thanatos? Are we uncivilized and rude?" Annoyance began seeping up into their expressions, warring with fear for the honor of being suppressed very badly. She sucked at her front teeth in quiet disapproval. "Your names, please?"

At this the butcher unlocked first, backing away from the both of them and leaving the barber-surgeon alone at the front. "I will just... see if I can find those hooks for you, Priestess."

Trusting Avery with very important glowering duties, Zea kept her eyes on the butcher in the hopes that he'd check over his shoulder and see her still staring.

If Avery's features could soften, they would have. Was she offended for him? Avery looked down at her, giving the top of her head a rather fond look before gazing back at the two human males that Zea was telling off. His regular face did enough to intimidate most people, this Zea was truly an oddity. At least the whole island wasn't weird after all. People had appropriate reactions here. Or at least, they had reactions he was expecting.

The barber-surgeon gave a quick glance over his shoulder, made eye contact with Zea and quickly turned about around, looking for the small hooks. Eventually, after some panicked looking around the  sound of metal hitting metal was heard and he looked at the Priestess, "H-how many do you need?"He asked his eyes flicking between Zea and Avery, giving him another look like he was trying to decide if the monster was going to eat him or let him get away. This time.

Avery took a deep breath, looking at the mans hand. He'd pricked his finger and there was a swell of blood there. He could smell it. There was a slight urge to let Zea know that he could scent blood, perhaps she could find that interesting as well? Instead Avery simply opened his mouth, to which the Barber-surgeon watching him gave a slightly muted whimper - an attempt at not being rude - and watched Zea.

If that was him there he'd have just eaten them. It wasn't though. They were as big as she was, anyway.

Absolutely unacceptable. This was Thanatos. Thanati were supposed to have control of themselves. If they were so upset about Avery they could do their jobs with good stoic faces and stiff upper lips and then collapse with relief after he was gone. They could take a half hour break and have a stiff drink to get their courage back up if they were so damned frightened, but there was no call acting like that where Avery could see.

"Two dozen, please," she said carefully. Zea's watchful gaze was still as implacable as before, but her tone was very deliberately cordial. "You see, Avery, on Thanatos we are polite people. We say please and thank you and we do not make people feel unwelcome when they visit us at our places of business." Her voice dropped about half an octave. "Everything is so much tidier when people are courteous to each other."

The untidy way--at least as Zea had been raised--was very untidy indeed, and nobody liked a mess.

The barber-surgeon nodded and swallowed carefully, giving the priestess a small polite smile. Having gotten his wits about him - sorta - he managed to count out the hooks carefully and place them down within reach of her, but far enough enough to not have to get any closer. "Apologies Priestess," he started "We so rarely get such interesting looking people here, my mind just flew!"

Avery smirked, tilting his head and then rested his hand on Zea's shoulder. Giving it a light squeeze of reassurance. Or something, he'd seen a mother do it to her kid while he was wandering around with his cloak on. It looked like it was for comfort, so, here he was, trying to mimic it. Seemed like a good idea. "I do not feel unwelcome."

"I believe I am unusual looking, yes?" He started, looking at the hooks for a moment and at the man who stood there, also looking at the hooks simply because anywhere else would be asking for trouble. "Those hooks aren't in me, I would call this a good day." A smile towards the Priestess they'd called her and he held out his hand - another gesture he'd seen - and waited for her to take it.

Interesting looking. That was borderline rude, too, but considering that Zea had just spent the last several minutes asking Avery questions about his gag reflex and excrement, she could forgive the man for focusing on interesting. Rude, but not wrong.

Finally, when Avery said that he didn't feel unwelcome, Zea snapped her smile back on. Perhaps Avery was better with social maneuvering than she'd expected. He was just so blunt. But here he was making casual pointed contact with her, helping her to both be imposing and de-escalate. Full of surprises, this one.

"That is very true." Zea took Avery's hand and gave it a companionable squeeze. "Jin'ta can be so much more cosmopolitan than some of the little hamlets. Since you've made my friend feel welcome, I believe I'll take a razor strop as well. Can never keep things too sharp."

The barber-surgeon being the expert on keeping things well and truly razor-sharp, pointed to a corner of the tent and let the butcher retrieve a strip of flexible canvas with metal fasteners on the end. "On the house?" said the butcher.

"Oh no no," said Zea, offering money to hammer down their difference in positions. "I insist."

Avery gave her a smile and squeezed her hand back, unsure of the message of the hand squeeze. Didn't hurt though, so that was nice.  Quietly he listened and stood there, a bit like a gargoyle, ready to freak out just about anyone that looked at him funny. Everyone did, but nothing was causing pain. Good in his books!

His eye slid up to look for the things the butcher was holding, confused slightly. There was nothing on this house. Avery was mostly looking up at the building when she went to pay, still confused. The Butcher accepted the payment and gave her a polite smile and a short bow before he went off to do other far more important things. Things that involved not facing the strange demon man hovering right there.

"Zea." Avery started, still looking up, "There's nothing on the house." Confused, he blinked down at her. He took a few steps back to get a better look without having to actually fly up there, "Why did he offer you something that was on the house?" He pointed to the shop, "Is that yours now?"

Zea finished paying for the last items on her shopping list. The amount of help she'd gotten from Avery in resolving things had been quite a delightful surprise. He must have felt he'd done his job, because as she completed her transactions he was just sort of... looking around. Mostly up. A quick glance didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary, so if there was a problem she'd just have to trust Avery to identify and probably murder it.

He got her attention before they left. There was nothing on the house.

Unfamiliar idiom.

Holy shit this was adorable. Zea couldn't decide whether she wanted to tweak his nose and kiss his forehead or have him drill her against a wall.

"Oh! Oh, it's just a phrase, Avery. On the house is like saying this drink is on me. He offered me the thing for free, but I declined and paid for it instead." So fucking cute. "Make more sense?"

A phrase. Avery looked her up and down for a moment and then she went to explain the phrase with another... Phrase?

"You don't have a drink on you." Avery squinted at her slightly, looking her up and down. "These are silly phrases." His voice took on a dismissive tone and he  put his hand on his hip because he couldn't cross his arms. "I understand though. These are not literal phrases, yes?" Yeah, he could learn things.

Sort of.

"There is nothing on the house and there aren't any drinks on you. These are... Phrases that imply different forms of payment." Pursing his lips he tilted his head and moved his arm to tap at his chin, closing his eye briefly and gave a nod. "I am learning?"

What a funny creature. Maybe he'd train up even more quickly than she'd expected. Of course, outside Thanatos he might run into a few odd surprises, but why leave Thanatos? Those places were weird, and they hadn't been able to help her. The whole lot of them could fuck off.

Look at Avery's sweet face, though. He was checking in with her about his progress. Probably for the best. She was the smartest person in this goddamn place.

"You are! Pretty sure it meant something to do with gambling but now it gets used in other situations. Basically he offered me free stuff because you're scary and I'm important. Time wasn't right, though."

Avery offered his hand again for her to hold, because - he could admit it to himself - it was kind of nice. Physical touch wasn't something he experienced often and the warm flesh of someone's hand against his own had a nice feel to it. The warm flesh of someone alive that he wasn't currently eating.

"You're important." The words were a dead pan statement and he looked her up and down, his head tilted because it was hard to do eyebrow things when half your face was a scar. "You look..." Avery looked around at everyone else, "Normal." He squinted at her and leaned down, "How are you important? Are you a goddess, too?"

Maybe that Inima person was taking a break.

Avery offered his hand again, and Zea took it.

The great tragedy of Zea's existence in this moment was that she had to answer him honestly in the negative, or else Avery would believe her. As prepared as she was--and she was--for his worship, Zea was not prepared to be his goddess.

"No," she said. She didn't even add a yet to the sentence, though that was out of respect for Inima. Even if Zea did have aspirations of godhood, it wasn't the sort of thing she felt she ought to announce too far in advance. Felt tacky somehow.

"In part it's because I'm involved with Inima's temple, and Inima is important. So even if I am not the big boss, I get associated with her socially." She flicked a conspiratorial gaze around Avery's wings to make sure nobody was listening too overtly. "The part where some people might find me intimidating isn't polite to mention, and as you observed it's important for everybody to be polite."

There was a pleased sound that came from his chest and he looked a bit like a happy bird. His eye was closed and his muscles moved just so, his wings twitched slightly in a happy movement. A big ol' happy bird.

Again, he made to copy a gesture he'd seen before and swung their hands slightly while they meandered about.  "I see." Not a goddess, just worked for a goddess. Sort of like him. Except Chatter wasn't a goddess so much as a high ranking hell beast. Far stronger than anything Avery could muster, he thought bitterly, gazing at what was left of his right arm - Nothing.

"There are too many people here." He observed, looking around, he could probably kill them all in about ten minutes if they didn't run too far. "Why is being polite important?" He inquired, his head tilted slightly, "What if one does not want to be polite? Is it polite to lie to someone by being polite when you don't want to?"

If Zea broke this kid's heart she was going to have to concede once and for all that she was a terrible person. Of course, if she broke Avery's heart then in all likelihood she'd be beyond caring whether she did, at which point the only lingering concern would probably be him trying to kill her. She did not like thinking about what a big simple monster like him did when his feelings were hurt.

"Politeness is mostly a way to avoid confrontation. Keeps us from messing each other up unless it's totally necessary. In Thanatos, if you hurt another citizen, that's a very very big deal. We all have stuff we want to do every day and it's much harder to do it if you're always wondering whether someone's going to rip your head off for spilling their tea."

Not killing made a far better rule. Better to spare everybody as a rule and let killings be the exception nobody saw coming. Made it a lot easier to keep people's trust. Made it possible to do her job.

He scrunched his nose and took a deep breath.

The air was nicer here, he'd give it that.

"I am not a citizen." He stated, giving her a look. Avery smiled then, still holding her hand and tugged her along behind him. "I don't rip peoples heads off for spilling my tea." It felt like it had to be said.

If everyone here was so polite, maybe he wouldn't get arrows shot at him. There was something about humans and flying game and arrows. They loved their arrows. More than a few had been shot at him.  What was a thing that humans liked?

"I need to thank you." It seemed like the right thing to do. "You have helped me, yes?" Avery gently removed his hand from hers and took her chin gently in her hands before he tilted her head up and gave her a kiss, right smack on the lips.

Avery was not a citizen, but anybody here he killed probably would be. Even if he just ripped up someone nobody would miss... his having done so would need to remain a secret. Otherwise... otherwise someone would want to get rid of him before he got to anybody who mattered. That would create problems for Zea. She'd never really had to choose between expedience and someone she liked, and did not intend to find out which she'd pick. As long as Avery knew that violence was not a done thing, he'd probably be all right.

They'd gone over his debt to her before, though, so him bringing it up once more came as a bit of a surprise. They'd settled it, right?

Evidently not quite.

When the much larger individual bent down toward her, Zea grinned and had to force herself to stop because she was going to waste the moment if she yanked herself back and pumped her fists in the air to celebrate Avery's apparently sufficient maturity. No, that was for later, maybe when he wasn't watching. Maybe after she'd really gotten something to celebrate. For now, she reached up past a great clawed hand to grab at the nice creature's pretty long braid, tugging on it to keep him down at her level for a few seconds longer.

She was helpful. They'd established it. Zea was helping.

The tug on his braid made him smirk. He could understand this.

Though it was in much more gentle company. Usually this involved fangs and claws. Maybe a little fighting. Some literal head butting. Bleeding lips by the end of it. This was different, but nice. Avery pressed against her lips with a little more pressure before lifting his head, watching his braid slide through her hand like rope

"The debt is repaid. You have helped me, I have helped you." He nodded, "That is a thank you. It is more intimate than a handshake," He knew what those were, they were impersonal and they usually stuck the wrong hand out for him to shake. No one wanted to shake the wing hand, either.  "I do not like handshakes."

Avery sighed and looked up at the sky. He'd come here for answers and he'd gotten one. Not quite the one he was looking forward to but still, it was an answer and a solution to his little chattering problem. He moved his hand to Zea's cheek and gently brushed it with his thumb before he gazed into her eyes, deciding that she could at least get this one last thing out of him. He knew she wanted it. Avery could see it in her eyes almost the whole time he'd been with her.

"Would you like to pull on my tongue."

The words were a rumble in his throat, sort of like he was asking her for a hot night on the tongue. Town. Hot night on the town.

Zea involuntarily glanced to the hand she'd have shaken if they had attempted that sort of thing, and reasoned that she'd liked this a great deal more. Avery really could make a decent seal with his mouth, which was both educational and something of a relief. It left a fair number of the usual possibilities on the table where they belonged.

After all. He was nice. He seemed like he might genuinely be nice... just... a tad feral. Avery was nice and Zea did rather like the way he looked at her. She'd never been anybody's introduction to normal before. It was a heady feeling, if somewhat precarious. His eventual offer stunned her into an immediate jerk of laughter. Wasn't he just full of surprises.

Just when she thought she was figuring him out.

The effort of suppressing giggles brought tears to the corners of her eyes and Zea fondly laid a hand on Avery's chest.

"You are incredible. Maybe later, big guy." She gave his chest a single pat, but didn't remove her hand. "Definitely later."

Definitely.