Muttonhawk

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"I'll admit there have been times where I've thought about motherhood, though never for very long." Ariel gave a warm smile, "I'm glad that it has made you happy."

Kaleeth's nudge on Janius' side was timed just perfectly enough with him eating a mouthful of rice. The situation lapsed his concentration enough to idly take a breath through his mouthful, accidentally inhaling a grain of rice. Though he tried to shield his coughing with his mouth, the subsequent spray of rice out from the sides of his hand and mouth guaranteed that all of the attention he definitely did not want to attract to himself in this topic of conversation was drawn to him anyway. Janius desperately swallowed, coughed, and swigged from his waterskin until he could talk. "Pardon me," he croaked with almost teary eyes. He gave an acknowledging glance to Kaleeth-Rei, but nothing else to her hint.

Ariel, picking up on what the situation perhaps could have been about, stifled a laugh and redirected her attention to Ahnasha. "Sure, I'll hold Rhazii if he doesn't mind me," Ariel replied finally.

As his dinner was already at his side and Rhazii on his lap, Fendros repositioned Rhazii to hold him in his arms, then stood up and walked over to Ariel. He squatted beside her and she turned her body to receive the cub. "Say hello to Ariel, little one," Fendros said as he slowly passed Rhazii into Ariel's arms. Rhazii exchanged glances with Ariel, Fendros, and Ahnasha across from them with his mouth slightly ajar, but didn't seem too uncomfortable once secure in Ariel's arms.

"Hello Rhazii," Ariel said with a endearingly high voice while giving Rhazii a big grin. Rhazii moved an arm up and down excitedly, curling and relaxing his fingers. His scarring made his innocence slightly strange, especially up this close, but there was no denying that he was still an adorable little creature. Ariel and Rhazii sat staring at each other for a while, but for fear of holding him incorrectly, Ariel didn't really know what else to do. It seemed nice just to hold him like this though. It took longer than it should have for Ariel to notice Rhazii's eye colour, but she wasn't at all familiar with Khajiit children, so she didn't heed it as unusual. After a short while, Rhazii turned his head to other things. Ariel looked up with a thoroughly endeared smile. "Ahnasha, Fendros, you have a beautiful child."

Fendros returned the smile with agreement and looked at Rhazii. "Thank you."

After finishing a mouthful and pausing to burp through her nose as silently as she could, Sabine looked over at Janius and Kaleeth with innocent curiosity. "Are you going to have a baby as well, Kaleeth and Janius?"

Janius was quick to attempt answering first, clearing his throat noisily through his mouthful to buy time to swallow. Janius fumbled with his words all the same. "Well, it's not something we've really...well...I think it's a bit soon. There's a lot to consider with doing that, and...we have obligations with the pack ongoing, we would have to...ergh...make space for it and..." Janius began to trail off. It was clear enough that Janius was trying to avoid it, but with the pressure put on by Kaleeth, as well as other things on his mind, this was something causing him anxiety enough to have a sensitive reaction. Normally he was quick witted enough to deal with such things. Why did Sabine have to ask?

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Yep, she has been succeeding in doing that for a while now.

Unfortunately I've been press-ganged into doing raking today. I'll probably not get a post up until quite late in your timezone, sorry.

The Depths of Deception

Who's due to post?

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Sabine's mouth had been watering ever since the dish she had made with her sister had started to cook, so by this point, she dug into her share enthusiastically alongside raw Guar steak. Fendros found it a bit awkward to eat while steadying Rhazii on his lap with one arm. Each mouthful had to be taken leaning to one side to not drop any food on the cub. With demanding babbles and movements of his arms, Rhazii tried to reach for his father's food whenever it passed nearby, but he wasn't quite at the stage of eating solids yet. Janius took raw meat as well, but didn't quite serve himself as much of the rice and vegetables. It wasn't that it was a bad dish overall, but he had always been a picky eater when it came to certain vegetables. Life as a lycan meant that it wasn't an issue most of the time.

Ariel answered Meesei as she served herself. Even if she had a taste for raw meat in the first place, her conventional constitution made it inadvisable. "Actually, there's a few, yes. I get to meet plenty of people through business, but also through Rukee's family and friends. I'm acquainted with a clique of fashionable ladies that were referred to my shop by Neer, and are now regular customers. We have friendly chats sometimes in the shop, but they mostly love to talk about the less flattering things that the others may or may not get up to," Ariel stopped to giggle, "As you can imagine, none of them have really worked a day in their lives. They're noble ladies, I suppose. You spotted one when you entered my shop for the first time today, that was Vutamna." Ariel brought a finger to her lips for a second to think of others, "I sometimes have exchanges with the folk who make my glassware or collect ingredients. They are more honest, hard working people, but they are not very sociable with strangers to the city, as you might understand. It was only a couple of days ago that I learned that the glass blower had a wife and four children to his name. Deon, his name is. A very kind hearted man. Outside of work, I often spent free time at the Wamasu's Nest and befriended a few of the regular patrons. 'Any friend of Rukeewei's is a friend of theirs,' they said with their introductions. They're more forthcoming than most of the locals, but I think the drink helps."

Then and only then did Ariel yield to begin eating. She hadn't anticipated using her hands, but thankfully the rice was just sticky enough that it wasn't a problem. Her guar steak was a little tough, but it added to the experience of reliving dinner with the pack again. Despite the hardships, her memories of such times were fond.

Fendros had the next question. He looked up from giving turns of attention to his food and Rhazii. "How has living in Thorn been so far? Do you think it's better than Vos?"

"Mmm, I like it. There are advantages and disadvantages. I think learning the culture has been most difficult. Even after you helped me, Meesei, being in it had me learn a lot. As opposed to Vos though...well it's a wealthier city, that's one thing. It makes it a little safer. The weather is nice, but I've not experienced all of the seasons yet. I imagine for all the rain, it's definitely better than ash storms. However, I haven't dealt with any flooding yet. Hopefully that isn't too much of a problem where I live." Ariel took another mouthful and thought that she would have to be careful that she didn't talk so much to let her food get cold. She doubted she would have the capacity. Once she swallowed, she thought of a question for the pack in general. "So, how has life been with a baby in your midst? Less sleep I'd wager?" Ariel asked in an amused tone.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"Ahem, well, I wish I knew the answer to all of your questions," Janius responded, surprised at first, "We'll be riding in one, yes. As for how they're built, um...I'm not completely sure of the process, but I've seen partially build ships before, and they start off by making a sort of wooden skeleton, and then building around that. The masts are carved out of the trunks of single, tall, straight trees that grow in Cyrodiil and other places. Apart from that, how they float...it's, well..." Janius made strange gestures with his hands and curled his mouth in thought, but dropped his arms once he realised the difficulty in putting it to words. "I might be able to explain how they float, but I would need a bucket of water and a cup to demonstrate. That's the way it was explained to me when I was a child. I can tell you that it's not magic, though."

The other side of the dock did not have any more passenger vessels, but two cargo ships seemed willing to negotiate taking a party of seven, plus a pet lizard, with them to the Imperial city for prices that Janius could not guarantee to be constant, but were very slightly less than the passenger ship. Janius was a little disappointed to not find especially much in the way of savings, but at least they had left the dock with some options. Whatever questions Kaleeth had on the way back to the square, Janius answered as best as he could, but he hadn't realised until today just how little he knew about how ships worked.

Once the rest of pack finished selling the goods they had acquired on the road and reunited with Janius and Kaleeth, they headed to Ariel's shop again to deal with their alchemical goods. Ariel did indeed pick out quite a few things that were very difficult to get a hold of, and indeed bought from the pack a couple of specimens that she didn't even recognise. Ariel was grateful, but her business was not vast enough to buy up everything that the pack had if she was to give them a fair price.

When the pack left to sell the rest, Sabine stayed behind to set up her bedding and catch up with Ariel. They ended up preparing and making the rice and vegetables together while they talked. Conversation mostly revolved around recounting the time they had been separated in more detail. The subject of the ritual visions themselves brought Sabine and Ariel way back to the coven in their happier times there. Ariel was in a near constant state of amazement at how open Sabine had become. They were actually talking with each other, going back and forth. Before, you could barely get Sabine to speak. Conversation ebbed and flowed between the light hearted and personal, and before they knew it, it was time to head to the pack's encampment for dinner.

The last of the afternoon was spent visiting the two other apothecaries in the city that Ariel knew of to sell the rest. The other outlets were similarly surprised to find the ingredients in the pack's possession, but were a little less generous in buying them. The important thing was that most of the goods had been sold before the shops had closed. There was still a little to get rid of, though, and they were a few septims short of buying passage for all of them. Tomorrow morning would likely be made up of finding the last few coins and seeing how much else they could procure.

Nearly at sunset, The pack gathered around a campfire near to the shore. Not for weeks had the pack been so freely able to rest while breathing in salty and slightly dryer air than the marsh.

"So, we're either on a passenger ship, or one of two cargo ships?" Fendros asked Janius for clarification, "When do each of them leave?"

"One cargo ship leaves at noon tomorrow, at about the price of the passenger ship, the other leaves in three days, but is much cheaper, and the passenger ship leaves the day after tomorrow at sunrise." Janius turned to Meesei, "Will we be be embarking on the earlier one? I don't know whether we'll have time to get the gold for it, and even then, it didn't seem quite as safe or provisioned as the passenger vessel. They were shifty and ill-provisioned by the looks. They might be the types that go without food for the last stretch. The later one was better, but, well, I don't know if an extra day is worth the septims we would save."

Reacting to some noise nearby, Janius turned his head to one side. Ariel and Sabine could be seen wandering around trying to spot where the pack had said their camp would roughly be. They were heading in the right direction as lead by Sabine's nose, but Janius still stood up and called out to them, grabbing their attention and waving them over. In Ariel's hand was a bulbous cauldron with a lid and a carrying handle. It was about the size of her head.

Ariel approached a little out of breath, but still chirpy. "Hello everyone! I hope I'm not too late for dinner." She rang out once she was in earshot. Upon closer inspection, the cauldron she held had three little legs and the handle of a spoon sticking out from the lid. Once she opened the lid, a cloud of steam rose up and let forth a fresh and mouth-watering smell. "I hope you like it. It's just something we've thrown together." Inside of the cauldron was a large amount of brown rice, speckled with a few different vegetables that were available in the market that day. Some were familiar, like carrot and cabbage, and some looked a little strange, possibly native roots and herbs. It was different, but it looked worth a try.

ParaCom: Adversary Inside

Things were not cool in Luc's head, but Lieutenant Burkley's words put him on the straight and narrow for now. Even though Luc didn't appreciate being called a kid, or his reaction being interpreted as whether the surgery would kill Anya, as he knew even Anya wouldn't take that risk, Luc knew he had to put it all to the back of his mind if he was to focus. He pursed his lips and decided to leave it until afterwards. They were taking on a god damned dragon, it wasn't as if anything crazier was going to happen today.

Angus was a bit more level, but out of respect for Luc, he didn't press the issue of Anya's decision on him for now.

The WREC trooper that clomped its way on board caused them both to be a little uneasy. It was a hulking humanoid machine with a human head poking out the top, armed with a huge, door-sized gun. It was a preview of Anya would become, and it didn't exactly put Luc's mind at ease.

Once they touched down, Angus took the left side of the ramp, taking a knee and scanning for contacts, letting someone else on the right do the same. Once Angus waved them clear, the rest of the team spilled out, including Luc. Both Angus and Luc crept forward cautiously to secure the area and readied themselves to react with fire at enemy movement. A line of smoke plumes signalled where their objective was.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Kaleeth's reaction didn't disappoint. Janius grinned and chuckled through his nose. He let Kaleeth enjoy the view for a few more moments before taking her arm and encouraging her along. "Impressive, aren't they? When they're this big, they're called ships. They carry a lot of goods and people a long way across the water. We won't be going out to the horizon there, but we'll be heading all the way around the edge of the marsh and then a bit further. I've been on ships before, but never for that long. I hope it won't be too boring."

While Kaleeth was awestruck, Janius still wore a smile, but focussed on the people around them. If there were any unsavoury types, as was often the case on city docks, Janius wanted to know before it would be a problem. So far it was mostly fishermen and dock porters shifting crates or barrels. At this time of the day, just about everyone was a worker. Janius proceeded left along the docks and inspected all of the ships from the outside. Most were small fishing boats, though probably still bigger than the canoes Kaleeth had seen. Some were already unloading catches of ocean fish to sell. The fourth ship along was a little larger; a merchant ship by the looks. Some questioning of the crew loading goods revealed that it was heading north. They continued up the dock to the next larger ship to find that it wasn't taking passengers. The cargo was possibly too valuable to risk any strangers on board, Janius thought. The search continued without luck until they reached the last ship. This was a dedicated passenger vessel, so they would be sharing the space with a lot more people if they took this one. Some asking around found that the price for passage seemed reasonable, but was higher than Janius was expecting. They were heading out at dawn, the day after tomorrow.

It was still worth looking around to see if there were any others, so Janius decided that they would head down to the other end of the dock to try the ships there. Janius wasn't setting a pace that was conducive to conversation up to that point, so he looked to Kaleeth. "Was there anything else you wanted to know about ships, or the ocean?"

The Depths of Deception

The grenade that set off right near Shuo made Shiva flinch, but he wasn't badly affected. Even with the fire drawn towards himself, Shuo did well to manage his shield integrity and find a target for the grenade Shiva held in her hand. Shiva hazarded a peek, but Rareth's order drove her to activate her own grenade and lob it where Shuo had directed. She was completely unaware that Rareth was manipulating its trajectory, but the resulting explosion sounded like it had been placed properly.

Now that the enemy troops were shaken, Shiva stood up and whirled around, slamming her weapon down on the crate she had for cover and pulling the trigger in the enemy's direction. She silently dared any one of them to poke their heads up while she suppressed. Now the direction of the firefight had noticeably ebbed, and the squad could take more ground.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Cool, cool.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

The only response Janius had to Kaleeth's explanation was a non-committal smile. To him, the hint regarding Kaleeth's desires didn't really drop subtly, but he was still apprehensive to the idea of a child. Thankfully, Kaleeth shifted the conversation to a topic Janius was more comfortable explaining.

Janius looked at the sky while he walked to try and think of a starting point that would be most appropriate for Kaleeth's background. "Well, they have oars, like canoes, but there's a lot more wind out on the ocean, so they use that as well." Janius raised an eyebrow and looked at Kaleeth with a question, "What's the biggest boat you have ever seen?"

In his mischief, Janius wanted to see the look on Kaleeth's face when seeing the scale of a seafaring ship for the first time. He would give a more thorough explanation once they reached the docks and the visuals sunk in. Janius spotted several masts visible from over the top of some buildings on the way there, and he pondered whether he should point them out.