Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

"Ten helpings of the meal you're serving, if you please, sir," said the Scholar jovially to the street chef, before turning to face Syria. "Don't worry, dear. All in good time. What I have to say is connected to your plan," he added, the smile never leaving his face. He was almost thankful Beshayir was already in class. It was going to be an entertaining, but potentially child-unfriendly conversation that followed next.

[Hopeflower]

The redhead's lips twitched as though he'd swallowed a laugh. "She's due back any time now, actually. She went out to deliver some letters." Word of Dahnae's...unconventional methods of delivery had spread like wildfire, and Viho had had a very difficult time keeping a straight face when it had reached him. He was still impressed that he'd managed it.

[C S]

A flabbergasted, "Ten!?" came from the cook's mouth, ignored by the mage as she was suddenly made attentive and serious. "Connected? Seppy, unless you've been peeping in on my dreams," and at that, Syria blushed, "don't do that by the way-- how can it be possibly connected?"



"You mean she's off risking a broken neck and I'm up here--" Evisa's disappointment was palpable, as was the ambiguous sound of her more than likely kicking the wall, out of sight. She appeared again, bracing against the doorframe. "Uh, no offense or anything. She's a nice brat, I'm sure."

[Hopeflower]

"When you can get her to sit still long enough to listen," Viho agreed, amusement bleeding into his tone. Of his students, Dahnae remained the most energetic and eccentric. It must have been the cat's influence, or so he figured.

[The Kingpin]

"Yes sir, ten. Don't fret, I have the money to pay for it all," assured the Scholar, barely skipping a beat as he continued, "Patience, dear. There is no rush. Let's have our breakfast, find a pleasant spot to sit down, and I will tell you everything," he promised.


One would suspect that, with the two alone as they were, Ceridwen had parted ways with the scholarly trio, but that was not so. Instead, what the dragoness was doing, was resting outside the window of the Ministry-Building-come-school. Septimus Place --for that was its name-- was a regular haunt for her in the past five weeks since Beshayir was brought here for her first formal magic lesson. And still, it seemed surreal. An actual school, an actual ministry, was named after the Scholar. It was something that boggled her mind when she first learned of it, and still did now that she saw it every day. What, she wondered, would everyone back home think if they knew that the son of the Stormweaver was the namesake of an actual educational facility in an independent faction in Aster? Much as she tried, she could not guess.

[C S]

With a laugh, the cook began to assemble the flatcakes, sausages and eggs, lining up ten plates and humming a jig to himself. He did a little step-to dance as he rode this unexpected boom in business. Today was going to be a good day, no matter how many strange and grating people came his way. Syria shook her head and took Septimus' hands in hers. "Nothing much I can say to that. Wait, yes. Don't have late dinners, Septimus; they make you dream loopy."



It was just like she'd seen, really.

First you go really fast, then you go faster. But not too fast, because that was how someone hurt their bottom. After falling. Really far.

"She's taken to calling my armor weird..." Evisa began, sharing the stories of her chance encounters with the shapeshifter.

Dahnae bolted on the precipices of the inner city's ledges, gables, parapets and windowsills high above the busy, cluttered streets. The blowing air and her speed ruffled her coat and threw her bag around frenetically as she sped along by the literal tips of her toes, arms held out to either side for balance and, most importantly, to pretend that she was a bird in flight. She went from rooftops to the sides of the tall stone towers and back again with ease, doing harrowing cartwheels and flips to grab onto handholds so that she could shimmy across walls before springing off onto another path, be it higher or lower. She ran across the triangular ridges of shingled roofs, leaning from one side to the next with each footstep she took, before grabbing onto the decorative metalwork at the end of the buildings to lift herself clear of them in a grand handstand.

It was a good thing she had finished her deliveries some time before. No worries of her letters getting free and floating away on the wind. This was just practice, whenever she pushed off and let herself fall tens of feet only to latch onto the sheer walls, skid down the bricks and then drop onto another break in architecture that was not even wide enough to let her sidestep along with her back pressed up against the structure. She grappled these tiny bevels with her hands and let the rest of herself dangle, using the momentum of her body's swinging to propel her to the next route suspended far above the roads of Brodudika.

First you go fast, then you go faster, right onto a balcony overlooking one of the connecting buttresses that bridged the gap between towers. Disregard the lady in the frumpy dress that you just startled when you thumped down on the railing, no time for that. Spin around, grab the railing, kick off of the balcony and drop onto the bridge. Land in a crouch and twist your back around so that your hands were on the ground, and let your legs follow after so that you waste no time getting into a sprinting stance.

Sprint across the buttress, but don't head for the entrance on the other side. Jump over the railing, again, disregarding everyone else nearby who just gasped, they don't know a thing. Grab onto a windowsill and climb, leaping in between handholds to save some time. Keep doing this until you get near to your school, at which point you want to kick off really hard so that you're flying over the street between it and you, huddled into yourself as you do this death-defying somersault.

You stick the landing outside of the big window on the seventh story, standing on the tips of your toes while your arm are thrown against the glass. Then you tap against the window so that he other elves inside will let you in.

It was a step by step process that only made sense to Dahnae, who, despite her ordeal, did not seem fazed at all. If anything, she just seemed perturbed by the finely decorated obstacle.

"And then-- well would you look at that." Evisa crossed her arms.




"Golly, gee. What's up with you, little Friend?"

Solaurn inquired to her little strange friend. Little, though they weren't too far apart in terms of height. They were quite a ways apart when it came to appearance, though. Solaurn was a dwarven woman of darker complexion than most of her kind, being one of few that ventured beyond the mighty holds and fortresses built into the earth. She also lacked the toned appearance that most dwarves had, even those whose jobs were not so physically demanding. Solaurn, as her light blue dress and red sash would attest, was more magically inclined. She did not look like the spitting image of the average enterprising dwarf, but even she was hard-pressed to part ways with the earth completely. In a simple pouch on her back, she carried a slab of pale stone that was fairly sizable when compared to her small stature. To one of a taller sort, its dimensions were close to that of a grimoire.

Her pale blonde ponytail swished about as her blue eyes tracked the hurried movements of her travel companion of some time now. A little creature endowed in fur that still wore clothing made from weaves of plant fibers, a straw-colored dress that was dyed various colors to make patterns of stripes and triangles. She had a most peculiar -- and large -- feather stuck in the back of her dress, this friend who did not speak as others did. Solaurn didn't have much of a name for her past 'Friend', but the unusual companion had crossed paths with her one day upon the heartlands and they had been together since.

Solaurn did not know why she was acting so distressed. Like many others, she didn't have much reason to look up on a regular basis. She didn't see what Gwenviere did, the image of a girl careening through the air and smacking against a window.

[Hopeflower]

Viho failed to contain his chuckle this time, gesturing with one hand for the other students to stay where they were. "Quite something, isn't she?" he asked, both in reference to Dahnae's boldness and her recklessness. In a few strides, he'd crossed the room and opened the window. He drew back from the icy breeze and to give Dahnae room to climb in. Force of habit made him offer a hand for her to take if she wished. He would have been lying if he didn't admit, even if only to himself, that some days he worried about her falling. Ice was ever-present even up here, and at the speed and heights Dahnae seemed to prefer, an uncertain foot- or handhold really would mean risking a broken neck.

[C S]

For his concern and good nature, Viho got a face full of coat when Dahnae leaped into his classroom, using the elf himself as an anchor point for the briefest of moments. In those few seconds or so, it was almost as if the girl had given him a hug. Almost. From Viho, Dahnae landed in the center of the room, dropping onto her bottom and resting her hands in between her legs.

"Hey, look, it's the weird lady. Not Weird-Pam, though," she said, looking up at the viking.

"And this is where I make my leave," Evisa replied.

[The Kingpin]

"I'm sure they do, dear," said the Scholar, thoroughly entertained by the happenings around him in that moment. A grumpy street chef dancing a jig to a hummed tune, an amazingly excited Syria fuelled by her own dreams. The day seemed to be off to a wonderfully strange and wholly amusing start. He wondered if it bore tidings of what was to come.

The thump of the girl colliding with the window had caused the dragoness's head to snap upwards suddenly, eyes going wide with curiosity and a bit of concern. A moment passed before her wings spread, and she was airborne, though by the time she got to the girl, she had already entered the room the window was a part of. Still curious, she hovered outside, her head tilting as she stared through the window at those within.

[Hopeflower]

Firel's yelp of surprise came at the same moment where Viho almost froze in the middle of shutting the window. Almost. The dragon's wingbeats were only intensifying the cold breeze, and he shivered as soon as they were sheltered from it again. Viho wasn't sure he was any less unsettled with such a thin barrier between him and such a huge animal.

"There's something you don't see every day," he muttered. He should have picked up on such a large and potentially dangerous presence. His need to know why he hadn't warred briefly with the need to ask someone why there was a dragon of this size wandering the city freely. The self-preservation instinct that was screaming at him to back away from the window slowly won out over both of them.

A fourth corner of his mind, quieter than the rest, dryly observed that he should really stop being surprised by the curves Brodudika threw at him.

[C S]

"I should probably tell Beshayir this, too. With how much she's been excelling in her studies, I swear she forgets to eat sometimes." Syria reflected on that for a fleeting moment. What a way to come, from being starved on the street to being starved with her nose in the middle of a tome. There didn't seem to be any signs of her slowing down from there, either. Syria looked up at the sound of clinking plates, the old chef doling out one breakfast meal after the other onto a large tray. He almost made a show of it, how elevated his mood had become.

"Oh, what wonderful things come about from a dragon's appetite."

The man gave the lady a sideways look at that one.



The viking changed her mind and strode into the room with a sort of swagger that was in direct contrast with the started students around her. "Well isn't she a beauty," Evisa commented from Viho's side, hands on her hips. "A young Hueilin, probably still in her hundreds -- that's pretty young for a dragon -- must have been traveling with this Septimus card I've heard about. But I guess everyone heard him when he decided to shout thunder during that one snowstorm, huh?"

Dahnae did not care too much about that, or Evisa's apparent hobby of studying dragons. In the blink of an eye she'd gone from resting from her exhausting regimen to guarding Firel. She held herself close to the floor in an all too feline way, back arched, fingers splayed and the tips of her toes gripping purchase on the floor of the classroom. If one listened closely, they could hear her low rumbling growl, a little aspect of the jungle cat that came through just fine as an elvish girl.

[Hopeflower]

The blank look Viho gave Evisa made it evident that most of what she'd just said was gibberish to him. He'd spent the majority of two decades in near-total isolation, only coming into contact with people to take up a particular bounty hunt and to collect his reward. To say he was behind the times would be an understatement. Even if he hadn't made a conscious effort to drop off of the map, he wasn't sure he'd want to be that close to a dragon, no matter their age or species.

"Something I would prefer to forget," he said pointedly, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck.

Not everyone had been delighted with snow and ice falling on them. Viho had been on the doorstep to the boarding house he currently called home when a rather large icicle - too high for whoever had been regularly knocking them down to reach, and shaken loose by the wind and the dragon "shouting thunder" - had fallen and struck him. Closer inspection would reveal what had probably been a nasty gash, now a flaking scab surrounded by the muted red of new scar tissue. He hadn't expended the energy to heal it completely, needing to be in top form for his students.

Viho just counted himself lucky that nobody had asked about the blood.

Five weeks ago, Firel would have snapped that what Dahnae was doing was unnecessary. Now, he sighed, rolled his eyes, and carefully set his hand on Dahnae's back. "I'm fine," he mumbled, coloring faintly at the curious looks some of the other students were giving them. He cleared his throat, a little uncomfortable. "You can stand up."

[C S]

A rush of soothing heat met Viho's hand and wound when Evisa placed her glove on his back. "Relax," the viking told him. "She'll have to go through me to get to you all. The window might not make it, I have to say."


Dahnae simply tapped Firel on the shin a few times with her shoe, kicking out her foot to make her disapproval of the distraction clear. "You can feel on me later when there isn't a flying-fire outside," she told him bluntly.

[Hopeflower]

Viho's instinctive response to someone touching him being followed by the word "relax" was a tensing of his good shoulder. Slowly, though, his muscles did uncoil again. The warmth was admittedly nice after the blast of winter air.

"I suppose I should have expected that from one willing to educate elementals," he said, only half joking. The idea that anyone wouldn't think twice about engaging with a dragon was one that gave him pause. No wonder, he found himself thinking again, that Desrium had trusted Evisa with the task.

Firel snatched his hand back with a scowl, cheeks burning. Now, much to the entertainment of his classmates, he did snap, "Not likely." Well, he was making an effort to control his temper at least.

[The Kingpin]

The Scholar sighed, shaking his head as he reached into his satchel, drawing a stream of silver coins from within. Another irony; the coins he currently was producing were probably Draxonian minted coins. After all, most of what he currently had was earned in this very city several months ago.





Ceridwen, confused over the fact the window had been closed in her face, tilted her head, the feathers on her head bristling almost comically as she chirped in confusion. At this angle, she really did look like an enormous bird, all the way down to the way her beak clicked at the end of her twittering. "Is the girl okay?" she chirped, craning her neck back and forth to try and spot the girl.

[C S]

"Thank you very much," Syria said to the chef, "and sorry about earlier!"

The man waved his spatula dismissively. Honestly, the less he thought about these things, the better everything will be. A ditz would not rob him of his good mood.

He saw the mage's green glow overtake the tray, and watched her float it over to where she hovered. "So we've got breakfast." She looked around at their environment. "Jiier's Corner," she said after spotting the sign.



Before Evisa could reply to either Viho or the dragon, the speeding mass that was Dahnae hit the glass again. She sprawled her limbs across the window, looking the feathered drake in her eyes.

"I don't know what will break first: your window or your student, Viho." Evisa fought the urge to peel the troublesome girl away and sit her down at a desk, where she could be less obnoxious.

[Hopeflower]

So they speak. The new information was slotted in with what very little Viho had just learned, and the knowledge didn't put him any more at ease.

"I would hope both are durable enough that that isn't a concern," he said dryly. He had no such reservations about stepping forward and pulling Dahnae away from the window. Save your energy, he told the shapeshifter.

[The Kingpin]

The silvers stacked themselves up neatly on the counter in front of the chef as Septimus turned and walked, nodding to the Mage. "Lead the way," he said cheerfully as he headed in the direction of this place. All the while, he collected the memories of what Desrium had told him a couple of weeks ago, considering how best to deliver the story. It would be quite the tale...


Ceridwen, still somewhat crestfallen at how the elvish man was reacting to her, pecked the glass, a low clink being heard with the strike. Her expression did much to convey the misery she felt at the rejection. Such a response to her well-wishes was completely uncalled for! She did nothing to deserve this treatment!

[C S]

Syria did just that, turning her staff about and making a beeline for the nearest bench near the small park, the platter trailing behind her. As she neared the seat, she waved her hand about and sent the snow upon it flying a couple of feet away. "Perfect," she said to herself and brought the staff around the bench so that all she had to do was hop off of it to sit down. She held her legs out to be propped up by the instrument, and patted a spot next to her as an invitation for Septimus.


Glad that Viho had Dahnae covered, the viking stepped up to the window instead. After noticing that the others did not take well to the window being open, the lightweights, she began her channeling well in advance. Her hands and feet took on a very noticeable sunfire glow, and the air around her body wavered as if she were a fireplace... though a furnace might have been more apt. She opened the window and flared her magic, shining brightly as she met the young dragoness.

Evisa's words were nothing short of expertly eloquent speech. "Hey. How's it going?"

"No fair! I wanna speak to dragons too!" Dahnae protested, almost deflating in Viho's arms.

[Hopeflower]

"You can do that without jumping out of the window," Viho said, and released his student. The crushed look on the dragon's face was more than a little surprising, but the psychomancer came no closer. He chose an empty desk to sit on instead, resigning himself to the fact that the lesson simply wouldn't continue until the distractions stopped coming.

Fortunately for him, Firel was just curious enough to turn this into a different kind of lesson. The younger elf was practically bursting with questions, his gaze locked on the glow Evisa was producing. He held his tongue for the moment, but his knee did start bouncing in his impatience.