Two's Company

[DragonSong]

@MadEmperor

[Continued from here]


"I do not have stage fright," Hana was protesting indignantly. She skipped over a rock in their path and turned back to pout at her companion, arms folded. "I just...don't sing in front of people."

The little dirt road they were walking wound around the outskirts of the southern edge of Arca, so they could see the city in the middle distance, but the land around them was actually rather lush and almost wild. They were getting close to Tobin's cottage.

Walking backward, the kitsune continued, "One time--one time--I recognize the song you're playing and sing along. Doesn't suddenly make me a bard!" Despite the theatrically irritated tone, she was grinning at Thrax.

She couldn't help herself. This was the longest she'd been with...well, anyone. Not even with them, the way she and Thrax were, just...traveling together. It was certainly the first time she'd brought someone back to meet Tobin, and she found that--that she actually quite liked it. The familiarity of it; something solid and unchanging even though the world changed around them as they traveled.

It was nice.

[MadEmperor]

"Come on!" Thrax urged, half laughing and half begging as he trailed after her. "You sounded great! Just imagine the show we could put on!"

"It'd be le! Gen! Da! Ry!" he proclaimed with an eager grin, pronouncing each syllable a separate word.

[DragonSong]

"Legendary is a very flexible word," Hana laughed. "A monster can be just as legendary as a hero. And me performing?" She shuddered dramatically. "Definitely monster-worthy."

Hopping over another stone in the path--they were growing more frequent as the small road seemed to be winding through ever-less-trafficked areas--she added, "Besides, I can't play an instrument. Well, not really." The few scales Tobin had taught her to coax out of a tin whistle hardly seemed to count. "That puts an awful lot of the actual music on you, and that just doesn't seem fair."

[MadEmperor]

"You do realize that, without you, all the music is on me?" he asked with a smirk, gleefully poking a hole in her argument.

"Also, that's like the literal definition of stage fright, babe," he teased.

He teased, but he didn't want to make her do something she didn't want to. It was just really fun to tease her for her uncharacteristic shyness.

[DragonSong]

"Yes, but that--"

Hmmm. He might have her there.

Since she couldn't come up with an appropriately snappy answer, she huffed and pouted at him again. "Alright, fine. Maybe I have a bit--a tiny bit--of stage fright." She chuckled lightly and shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know how you do it. It never seems to bother you!"

[MadEmperor]

"Because I am an attention whore!" The bard declared it as if it were a badge of honor instead of a character flaw.  "You should really know that by now."

"Alas, we are not all blessed with my effervescent charisma." He grinned.

Wait. Back up. Babe? They were at pet names now?

[DragonSong]

"You're blessed with something alright, babe," she quipped back, a quick but pointed hint. She didn't object to the pet name on principle or anything, but she hadn't exactly been expecting it. "And you're seriously telling me you never get nervous when you perform? Like, never?"

She hopped yet another obstacle--a cracked branch, this time--and when her feet touched earth again they were paws. Rather than taking her more "natural" fox form, with its impressive size and multiple tails, she had settled into the shape of a more normal-sized vulpine creature. The only thing that set her apart from any other fox in the forest was the snowy white of her fur.

Sitting in front of Thrax, she rose up onto her hind legs and planted her front paws on his thigh, tail wagging. "Also, you should carry me. We've been walking all day and I'm done."

[DragonSong]

[Accidental double-post]

[MadEmperor]

"I mean, there is that moment where I hope a new song works in front an audience or that they won't throw produce at the gnoll savage that dares walk amongst them and only occasionally steals their women." Thrax said, getting briefly distant as he detoured into uncomfortable territory, but he quickly rebounded. "But then I remember that I, as you know, am amazing."

Looking down at her as she propped herself on his thigh, he laughed. "Really? You're the one out of energy? I'm the one carrying all the supplies."

[DragonSong]

The little fox whined plaintively and pawed at his leg. "C'mon, pleeeeease? Just for a little while. Then I'll take all the supplies the rest of the way—it's not like I'm tired, I'm just sick of walking."

She dropped back down to sit in front of him, pressing her ears back and widening her eyes. Despite the blood-red shade, they were distinctly puppyish.

In the back of her mind, she was turning over what exactly she could—or should—say about the rest of that. The way he was used to people treating him, or how he prepared to be treated. She'd faced a certain amount of unpleasantness in human-heavy areas, but that mostly stemmed from a distrust or bizarre fascination, not fear.

[MadEmperor]

Thrax couldn't withstand her puppy eyes, and she knew it. "Keep using that, and I'll build up a resistance," he said with a smirk. With a chuckling sigh, he kneeled down to pick her up.

Cradling her gently, he added, "Remember, you owe me."

[DragonSong]

With a happy yip, Hana braced her paws against his shoulder when he picked her up and licked his cheek. "Maybe you will," she said lightly, "but I'm betting I can get a few more good uses out of it before you do."

She butted her head against his cheek, then climbed up to drape herself around his shoulders. To a casual observer, she probably looked more like a scarf of some sort than a living fox. Except for the twitching ears.

"And I'm quite fine owing you," she added with pointed innocence. "I'm sure I'll be able to come up with some way to properly repay your kindness." She cut her eyes up at him, glinting mischief, then noted, "It's a left up here, between those two oaks."

[MadEmperor]

The bard nodded and headed in the indicated direction. It wasn't until he looked closely that he even saw the thin trail leading off from the road.

"You weren't kidding about him being a hermit; I wouldn't have seen the path if you hadn't pointed it out." He stepped onto the trail and disappeared into the trees. "He doesn't use booby traps, does he?"

[DragonSong]

Hana frowned--well, as much as fox could frown--and looked around. "He never has before, but, well, it has been a while since I've been back..."

She hopped down from his shoulder and crept a few feet ahead along the place, sniffing. Popping her head back up, she looked back at him and said brightly, "Nope, no booby traps. I definitely would have noticed something--"

Her back left paw stepped directly into a perfectly non-booby and ordinary snare trap, and quite abruptly she was dangling upside down in front of Thrax with a terrified yelp.

[MadEmperor]

Thrax grinned up at her with a smug twinkle in his eyes. "Just hunting traps. His, I hope."

He let her stew for a moment before using Stormsong to cut the rope securing the trap to a tree. Helping her free, he gave her a serious look. "Be more careful, yeah? The absolute last thing we need is for one of us to step in a bear trap."

[DragonSong]

"Yeah, yeah." She shook herself once the snare was off, sticking out her back leg to inspect it. "He never used to put his snares this far out in the west stretch."

Still, she gave herself another shake to settle back into her halfway form. Best not to tempt fate by remaining roughly the size of the rabbits such snares were meant to catch.

"I highly doubt he's got bear traps lying around, but you're right," she huffed as she got to her feet. "Oh, and gimme the pack—I do owe you, after all."

[MadEmperor]

"Do you, though?" the gnoll asked, "I carried you all of twenty paces."

He, of course, said that after she had hoisted the pack onto her back. Sneaky bugger.

[DragonSong]

"Yeah, but I did promise." She shrugged, then grinned over her shoulder at him. "Like I said, I wasn't tired. Just sick of walking."

Doubling back for a moment, she reached up to cup one hand against his cheek and guide him down for a quick peck on the tip of his nose. "And you, with your gooey center, just can't help yourself with a damsel in distress, can ya?"

She smirked as she pulled away and started walking again, reaching out to take his hand. "C'mon now, we're nearly there!"

[MadEmperor]

"If growing up on the Serha taught me anything, it's that everyone has a gooey center," he joked indignantly. He never admitted to being a softie; he still had this image of himself as a kickass warrior poet rather than a hopeless romantic.

He took her hand anyway, and the two were off.

"You really think he'll like me?" the bard asked, continuing to be uncharacteristically self-conscious about the impending meeting.

[DragonSong]

"Oh, of course not!" Hana laughed, "Tobin doesn't like anyone--that's why he lives out here on his own." She glanced up at him and dropped her tone to something more reassuring. "But, he tolerates me, and I like you. So he'll tolerate you, too. I promise."

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and walked a little closer to him than was strictly necessary from the width of the path.