Advertise/Affiliate Other Forum Main Page The World Before You Play

A Good Going-Over

Started by Cobalt, May 07, 2015, 01:53:51 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Cobalt

What a thing to say.

Seriously, what a thing to say, especially to her. Then again, Oblirin wasn't from around here. He'd never seen her basement, never dug it back out after a flood. There were almost certainly very good ignorance-related reasons why he thought he could just tell her that she had dibs on his body.

"I wouldn't mind you bequeathing it to me after you die. You know, one corpse to Zea Misra, care-of Sura Temple of Inima. Especially if you think you can die as a dragon. Haven't gotten one of those yet."

Did Oblirin really think that she was going to ask to bathe in his blood and shove his heart up her ass or whatever other soul-bonding ritual was all the rage in the maladjusted necromancer crowd? What a gross prospect, sharing her life-force with some other... other anything. The thought made her want to take a bath.

SilmeriaElemred

''I would have to make sure to die here then. It is a long way from where I usually lived to here. But by all means. Wether I die, decompose and feed the earth with myself or be of use to someone, It will not matter that much to me.''

He wondered how far it was. He could use some sleep. And food. But most of all sleep. Come to think of it where would she let him sleep anyway.

Cobalt

"Don't suppose it would, no. Unlikely you're using the corpse anymore, so someone else might as well. Waste not, want not."

If he didn't die in Thanatos but nobody was doing anything else with his corpse, having it transported to the Meeting Place where she could retrieve it seemed like the most viable plan. Oblirin should start carrying a will. Obviously any worldly goods would get stolen and divvied up but nobody could use a corpse quite like Zea could.

Wouldn't it be best for everyone if the world learned that sooner rather than later? Oblirin should carry a will.

SilmeriaElemred

''My thoughts exactly'' Oblirin said.

He was curious what would all be discovered.''Would it be natural death I will make sure I will find you.'' Assuming she would live long enough. But who knows. Maybe she could pull it off. Something told him she actually could.

Cobalt

This Oblirin seemed like a decent sort. Good head on his shoulders, good sense of priorities and scale. Assuming he were inclined to keep his word--and he seemed like the type who might--all Zea had to do was wait him out.

"Sure would be neighborly of you." Zea pointed forward, and then crooked her finger to indicate a bend in the path. "How do you feel about a climb? The people I'm staying with have a platform a bit upward. If you don't think you're up to it, we can do a rope harness. But I'm sure they'll be happy to have another guest if I pitch it right. Or at least they'll pretend they are, which works just as well."

SilmeriaElemred

''I can climb.'' Oblirin assured her. ''Maybe not as fast as usual. Wether they are happy with me or not is what we will see ourselves. If they do not see me as a person they might see me as your research subject instead. He looked at his hands for a moment. The skin turned into smooth golden and green scales and his fingers turned into sharp claws which should help him with the climb.

Cobalt

Zea sucked in teeth and shrugged slightly, the gesture barely more than a sideways tip of her head. She doubted she'd have to go so far as to introduce Oblirin as her freaky science pet or spooky-ass familiar servant.

She reached up and touched the roots of a bromeliad on her way under a low-hanging branch. She wasn't usually tall enough for that sort of thing, and some part of her still jumped to tap claustrophobic ceilings. Childhood hadn't been a good time for whimsy. Now was better.

"We don't do slavery here. I don't think it'd help your case any to introduce yourself as someone's property, unless you want to have a long conversation about mainland savagery and general foreign barbarism."

SilmeriaElemred

''I think I will spare myself those kind of stories.'' Oblirin said with a chuckle and started to climb.

Hunger despite masked by the leaves he chewed, the bloodloss and being exhausted from a lot of things did not make the climbing easy. But he did make it and held on to the end. He was a determined person whom would cross his physical limits against odds and still would keep going after that. He would sleep when he could. And that was not during a climb or before having found a proper place.

Cobalt

Nobody really cared to hear about how barbaric everybody else was. If they'd survived childhood then by adulthood they either they knew or they didn't.

She began whistling, the sort of continuous meandering music that birds didn't bother to make because it served no purpose. Zea didn't really feel like getting an arrow or a dart through her eye as thanks for bringing company back with her.

The first leg of the climb was the tallest, with a starting platform easily spotted from up in the trees but shielded from view by the branches below. The path itself was made from bamboo and woven hemp, light enough to sway a little as they walked on it but sturdy enough to only need replacing once or twice a year.

They passed one ring of the path that circled a tree and held stacked firewood beneath oiled canvas.

Around a couple more trees and across three more forks in the path--which presumably led somewhere else--Zea and Oblirin reached a more strongly-reinforced scaffolding over which an open-sided oiled canvas tent had been stretched. There was a woman inside it grinding something granular on a flat stone, and she stood up at the sight of Zea returning with company.

This woman was, if possible, even more small and fragile-seeming than Zea. Unlike Zea, she had rough and thorny vines wrapped in her hair which shifted and twisted to keep themselves from slipping down around her cheeks. Her smooth brown skin made her age difficult to determine.

"Oblirin, this is Granma Jenny. Gran, this is Oblirin. We ran into each other while I was harvesting and we have something we've got to work on. Do you mind if he stays?"

Jenny's bright green eyes flashed between Zea and this stranger, and without a word she turned to walk away.

"That means yes. Grab a patch of floor, Oblirin. At least here you won't get rained on. Or eaten, probably. Gran's mostly reformed."

A slightly louder than necessary thump from Jenny's grinding indicated that she'd heard Zea and wanted the priestess to know it.

"Almost completely."

SilmeriaElemred

Oblirin nodded. Even if he would drenched by drain it would not bother him. His claws had turned back to normal hands again. He removed the leaves from his mouth before finding as how Zea phrased it, a patch of floor.

''Some sleep... sounds good.'' he normally would politely introduce himself but he was to tired.

Cobalt

Zea watched to make sure that Oblirin didn't accidentally pitch himself over the side, which would have been a pitiful way to go after all he'd been through. Once she was reasonably confident that he was just going to find a sensible spot to lie down, she took the basket from her back and set it down next to Jenny.

She sprawled close enough to watch Jenny at her deceptively monotonous task. "How you been, Gran?"

The woman with vines in her hair gave Zea an almost totally blank look.

"Yeah." Zea yawned. "Yeah, me too."

~~COMPLETE~~

Tags: