Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

"I'd settle for one or the other," Rowan replied with such sincerity that Vix snorted.

"You're all terrible," she informed them.

To that, Arsenic gave her a genuine, if crooked grin. 'Guilty as charged.'

[The Kingpin]

Raising his hands, mug and all, Andruil added, "Don't look at me! I never exactly claimed to be anything else!" All the while that lopsided grin of his just became more and more devious. Shiryaz, still perched on his shoulder, was not amused, and tugged at a lock of his hair in protest.

[Hopeflower]

"'Twas my mistake," Vix sighed, leaning back in her chair a little. "I took you for a gentleman. I already knew these two were awful."

"Such sweet nothings," Rowan teased, a wolfish edge to her smile. She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, purring, "Do go on."

Vix laughed and joked, "I would, but I don't want to scar anyone for life."

'Again,' Arsenic muttered, and Rowan lost it.

[The Kingpin]

"He does have a point. Of the three of you, you probably know me best. Surely you should have seen by now I am just a man, albeit with above average charm, some shiny armour and a fancy name," argued the Knight

[Hopeflower]

Vix's smile gentled at the edges. She rubbed absently at the base of her thumb. "Of course. And I'm just an innkeeper." She shrugged and spread her hands. "Other people will always see more to us than what we think we are."

Sensing a turn in the conversation, Rowan glanced at Arsenic and stood with a stretch. That's our cue to take off, kid. "This has been fun, but those books won't go through themselves," she said. "We'll pester you guys some more at the library."

Vix blinked, but replied evenly, "Alright. Watch your footing on the way there."

"The day Nick finally slips and falls on his *** is the day you all never stop hearing about it," Rowan informed her, chuckling.

'All the more reason to be glad I have such good balance,' he shot back with a roll of his eyes.

[The Kingpin]

"I hear it's a city wide pastime to 'ice-skate' during the winters. Whenever there's ice on the roads that's dense enough. Perhaps it would help you avoid falling!" suggested Andruil jokingly.

[Hopeflower]

'I'd sooner fall doing that than walking,' Arsenic fired back. He stood, trailing behind Rowan as the pair made their way out of the boarding house. Until she caught his elbow and made him fall into step beside her. The way her shoulders shook and she danced a few steps out the door, tugging him along, suggested she'd made some silent comment of her own.

The moment of tenderness left Vix's expression and she huffed a short laugh of her own. An unusual morning, but at least Arsenic seemed to be feeling better. "So that's how she does it," she remarked.

[The Kingpin]

"Some magic needs no spells, it seems," agreed Andruil amusedly.



It had been a long night of listening for the Son of Storms. They had begun near sunset, and had not stopped until sunrise. It was with a tired yawn that the Scholar walked through the stable by the inn to find Ceridwen asleep, Syria surprisingly resting by her side. A mutual need for company, no doubt. Ceridwen had no protection from her fear of the evils of men, and Syria had no Beshayir to rest with and care for. And neither had the watchful yet affectionate presence of the Emissary to give that much needed security. It was something that gave a pang of guilt to the dragon-in-disguise. At times like these, they needed him more than ever. To give strength to Syria when doubt had crept into her mind, to give Ceridwen bravery when her fears were redoubled by tales of greed. In this imbalance of fear and anxiety, it was his duty to restore the balance. For no matter how harsh the world's blows upon the morale of its denizens, there must always be balance in all things.

It was with that mentality that Septimus set down his satchel and approached the duo, resting carefully against Ceridwen's side, nestling under the blanket cast over herself and Syria, his wirshah shielding sensitive elven skin from the rough, pointy surface of hay upon which they lay.

[C S]

A stray movement bumped the book Syria had been reading to Ceridwen back into her, having been lost in the blankets when she dozed off not too long after the feathered dragon did. It was a gentle nudge on the back of one of her legs, which made Syria pull it in while making a sound of mild annoyance. Septimus could have heard a quiet "Stop", that would have been directed to someone pestering her if it were not a book that had intruded on her rest.

The intrusion was enough. Syria turned about, ruffling Ceridwen's feathers and the hay she slept on, and one more chance collision with the hardcover roused Syria awake, her eyes opening before the Scholarly elf's. It took a few seconds for the green to focus on the cyan, and another moment to understand that she wasn't imagining things. Syria blinked, and he was still there.

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar lay there, silent for the time being, though his expression curled into a pleased smile. A hand reached forward, brushing aside a stray lock of her red hair and placing it behind her ear.

[Hopeflower]

With a quick stop at the school to leave a message with the receptionist out of the way, Viho's progress back to the holding cells was swift. A full class day, he had decided, was not something he wanted to risk until he had more information. Until he did, he left what he did know in the hands of the students, to make their own decisions about coming back to school or not.

Once inside the door, he shivered and shook out his hands to get the blood flowing again. Not a nice morning to be running all over the city. For a moment, he envied Dahnae's ability to cover herself in warm fur at will.

"Good morning," he offered a little tiredly.

[C S]

There were many questions the mage could have asked the dragon-in-disguise. He knew that full well as the half-thoughts flicked about in her head, not reaching the threshold of spoken words, but with enough substance to glean what was going through her mind. How long had he been there, had things gone smoothly the night before, what in the world they were going to do now.

"Morning," she greeted Septimus. Syria then reached down to retrieve her book and rolled onto her back, flipping open to a page on a whim. Without a prelude, the mage added, "She was a bundle of nerves when she got back. It's a good thing you told me to keep this with me before you two went off."



The precinct lobby was emptier than it already was on a regular occasion. At first it seemed that the only ones to hear Viho were the two titanic statues that flanked him. Sure enough, Jesse proved that the place wasn't left completely unattended.

Just mostly so.

She appeared through the armory door and shut it behind her before calling out to Viho, "Ah. Nice timing there. Bunch of our guys left just a little bit ago, maybe you saw them on the way over here."

[The Kingpin]

"Well, she's always been nervous when it comes to anything on two legs. She probably wouldn't have taken to you and Beshayir so quickly if I wasn't there to prove you were worthy of trusting," responded the Scholar quietly, tracing a finger along the margins of a page until he reached one of her own. "But then, I can't really blame her this time. Walking into a den of poisonous serpents with who knows what kind of weapons at their disposal...in a way, she was right to be worried," he continued. "It all worked out in the end, though."

[C S]

"I got her to sleep and you're right here by my side, where you belong," Syria agreed. She took Septimus' hand and squeezed, chuckling softly. These moments were precious treasures hidden at the bottom of a canyon. On one side of the ravine was the mounting clash of the Oniare, and on the other was the void brought about by a quartet cut down to three.

[Hopeflower]

"I did," Viho confirmed, brushing some stray snow from the shoulder of his coat. "How's our guest doing? Any nausea, poor balance?"

[C S]

"Johnny said he was in pretty good shape all things considered," Jesse began, and then stopped herself. Guest. Those were some dire straits, when you locked your esteemed in a cell surrounded by night at all hours, until someone brought some light down there. With that in mind, Jesse said, "He might be feeling sick from the loneliness, if not the sensory deprivation and confined space."

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar smiled as he squeezed her hand back in turn. "How long did it take to get her to settle down?" he asked, noting what sounded like a twitter, but more likely an Unguul counterpart to a snore, coming from the dragoness against which they lay. He noted that Ceridwen, while curled up, had her head tucked into the feathers of her chest and shoulder, only her eyes and her feather crest visible. At least he could tell it was restful.

[C S]

"Not counting the talks about feather fluffing and the actual bout of feather fluffing? Just a few chapters of this book. And more feather fluffing," Syria replied. She then grew thoughtful, her lips pursing. "I think Ceridwen missed Beshayir's laughter, though."

[Hopeflower]

So he was awake. Good. "We'll see if I can't do anything to help with that," Viho replied, and Jesse couldn't have been blamed if she thought that sounded ominous coming from the psychomancer. He made a quick check of how he was feeling, himself. Still sore, but a relatively quick interrogation was something he could handle. Satisfied with that, he took a quick poke around his immediate area and, sensing Johnathan in his office, headed that way.

[C S]

The detective was on the verge of finishing up his compiling of notes. He had parchment gathered up in piles which contained his finalized reports, while individual pages were spread out over his desk. The individual pages were his own personal record, the pages grouped by relevance to one another. By themselves the picture wasn't complete, but treated as a whole...

... it was better than being dropped in the middle of a case without any sort of direction at the very least. He looked up from his work when he heard the short knock at his door and told his visitor to head inside, where they would have to accept that there was a woman casually perusing a shelf of legal doctrine.