Throw Some Shade If You Look Good (Avery)

[Cobalt]

( @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?

[Draconian]

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.

[Cobalt]

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."

[Draconian]

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.

[Cobalt]

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."

[Draconian]

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?"

[Cobalt]

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."

[Draconian]

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.

[Cobalt]

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?"

[Draconian]

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."

[Cobalt]

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."

[Draconian]

"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.

[Cobalt]

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."

[Draconian]

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.

[Cobalt]

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!

[Draconian]

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. 

[Cobalt]

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.

[Draconian]

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?"

[Cobalt]

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."

[Draconian]

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?"