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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:32:22 GMT -6
“... Right,” Noa said. He had absolutely no intention of doing anything of the sort. Frankly he was of a mind to find something to do that wasn’t chicken wrangling duty, but if push came to shove, he knew of other ways to coerce a bird into doing his bidding than that terrible display. He certainly wasn’t about to embrace a bird with his bare hands, not knowing where it had been.
“Come in, come in. The chickens are in the back yard,” said the man, who carried on in a manner that didn’t pay much heed to Noa’s own mood. Though Noa supposed that was just as well; for the moment it was easier to just allow himself to get hustled along. The pay was what he was after, which meant that he had to do at least something approaching what they asked him to, and the sooner he found out what that was going to be, the better.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:32:34 GMT -6
Unfortunately, it seemed that the man had already assigned Noa the duty of gathering the lost chickens. Noa was sure there was plenty else to be done in general, but the man made no move to detour or offer him other options. Instead, they made a beeline through the house to a door that presumably led to the back yard. Noa had just enough time to catch glimpses into the other rooms, where other people bustled about; some bore more than a passing resemblance to the man currently leading him through the house, and were likely relations. Others didn’t resemble him at all, and Noa suspected these were other souls bribed by the promise of compensation into this place. Perhaps some of them were family friends, but he rather doubted that so many would have shown up to assist with this endeavor if not for the promise of compensation.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:32:46 GMT -6
He might have been wrong about that, of course. Rhys was always saying that he just didn’t understand the spirit of friendship and camaraderie, or something inane like that. But it didn’t really matter to him one way or another, since he doubted there were any connections here worth making. It wasn’t as if he would never run into any of these people ever again; the city wasn’t so big as to rule out that possibility entirely. But that any of them would be important or powerful enough to be worth cultivating a connection with… That he doubted.
But all too soon they arrived at the door, which was considerably more rickety looking than the one at the front of the house. The chickens, or whatever other creatures lived in this building, had already done a number on it. The wood was scratched, much of the paint clawed away in the process.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:33:02 GMT -6
The hinges groaned unpleasantly as the man pushed it open. “Here we are! Here, chickie chickie chickie!” The man yelled this into the yard, but if he expected the chickens to come running at the sound of his call, he was sadly disappointed. Not that Noa was surprised; if they had run away in the first place, they weren’t the sort of creatures that would come when called for anyway. Or else what would these people need a wrangler for?
“They’re around here somewhere,” the man assured Noa, as if Noa needed assuring of that.
{He’s right, I can sense them,} Rhys confirmed. The man only just then blinked, frowning at Noa.
“Did you say something, son?” he said.
There was something funny about being called ‘son’ by anyone -- though upon closer inspection, the man did seem old enough to be of a plausible age to be Noa’s father. Noa arched a brow at him. “No, I didn’t,” he said.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:35:28 GMT -6
He had had something like this exchange countless times over the course of the last few years. No one ever really expected a telepathic Faeron. To be fair, it wasn’t the kind of ability that their kind typically had, but the fact that Rhys was unusually colored ought to have been a clue… And in the sorts of people who could sense the magic radiating off them both, the surprise was less excusable. They, at least, ought to know better. But this man seemed like the simple sort, unversed in magic; and the fact that he didn’t have any sort of reaction to Noa when he had first answered the door pretty much guaranteed that he didn’t have much sensitivity to magical energies. Either that, or he was a consummate liar who was adept at concealing his own reactions, but considering what he had seen so far, Noa rather doubted this was the case.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:35:55 GMT -6
The simple, and fastest, solution would simply be to introduce Rhys, but Noa was in the mood for some entertainment. And it was funny, at least briefly, to watch the man frown for the first time since Noa had entered his acquaintance, scratching his head and obviously puzzled. “I thought I heard--” he began.
{Ah! That’s me, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.} Noa’s amusement was short-lived, as Rhys himself piped up a moment later to introduce himself. He fluttered up from his place on Noa’s shoulder, presumably to make it easier to identify himself as the one who had spoke -- spoken telepathically, anyway, for a given value of ‘speaking’. {I forget, you know, that people aren’t used to this sort of thing. Nice to meet you, I’m Rhys!}
Noa sighed, but only slightly. By this point he had grown used to it.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:38:38 GMT -6
As amusing as Noa found it to mess with other people, his Faeron familiar was unfortunately a much more earnest sort, and preferred to be accommodating and to make friends where he could. Already the little speech was having its intended effect. The man was smiling again, broadly, as if his heart warmed over just from beholding Rhys. That was another incongruity between familiar and master; Rhys resembled nothing so much as a young girl's companion, rather than the familiar of a well respected practitioner of magic... Or a widely feared one, such as it were.
"Well, look at you, little fella! Pleasure's all mine," said the horned man. He reached out a hand as if to invite a handshake, then checked himself. "Guess you're a bit too small for that. But glad to have you on board! Don't let those chickens get ya, they've got nasty claws on 'em."
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:40:59 GMT -6
{Oh, you don't need to worry about me,} Rhys said cheerfully. {I'm tougher than I look! Besides, between me and Noa, I don't think we're actually going to need to touch the chickens to get them back in their coop.} Rhys puffed out his skinny chest, not that it did much to make him look more reliable or more tough. He was the wrong body shape for it. The horned man nevertheless seemed positively charmed, and now Noa sighed with a bit more force. They were likely to carry on for some time if he didn't intervene, and he didn't exactly want to be the third wheel to this kind of pointless conversation.
"Rhys," he said. "We have a job to do, and I'm sure everyone else has other matters to attend to." The job posting had certainly had a manic note to it, and the house had seemed pretty busy when they were walking through.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:44:10 GMT -6
The comment seemed to snap the horned man back to his senses too. He straightened, and had the grace to at least look slightly chagrined. "Right you are, son," he said. "I've got to get back to the kitchen myself. Look, holler if you need anything, alright? But if you manage to get your hands on the slippery little buggers, you take them to the kitchen, and we'll take care of things from there." The chickens weren't going back into any sort of coop -- though Noa had sort of already guessed that.
The revelation seemed to only be hitting Rhys now, however. {Oh, they're-- Oh. Well, I'll try not to tip them off,} he said a little uncertainly.
Maybe this would be more interesting than Noa had first thought it would be.
"You do that, little sir!" said the horned man, who beamed at Rhys like one would a precocious child.
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:46:38 GMT -6
It was a bit cloying, but with that the man took his leave, and Noa was left with Rhys to take in the state of the yard and begin the business of... wrangling chickens.
The yard itself wasn't actually as messy as Noa had anticipated, relative to the state of the house and the general manner of the horned man who had invited him in. The gardens had a homey look, but they were neat and functional, and even the pens and coops for the smaller animals that lived there seemed to be in good repair. The smell was somewhat unpleasant, but that couldn't be avoided, Noa supposed, for a family that raised farm animals in their yard.
The chickens, however, were nowhere to be seen.
"You said you could sense them," Noa said to Rhys, recalling the Faeron's earlier words. "Are they hiding, or do we have to go out further?"
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Post by Noa on Jan 31, 2022 23:52:33 GMT -6
{They're hiding,} Rhys said. There was less energy in his tone now, probably to do with the fact that he knew that they were capturing these birds for the butcher's block, rather than to put them back in their coops.
"Lure them out," Noa said.
{I'll try... Though it feels kind of wrong to be coaxing them to their deaths,} Rhys said.
Noa shrugged. "We've done worse things," he pointed out, which as far as it went was true. It didn't seem to offer Rhys much comfort, but the Faeron could sense that Noa didn't share his reservations, and that seemed to spur him enough to buckle down. Noa waited, arms crossed. He had other things he could personally try if Rhys's efforts proved to be ineffective, but this would be the easiest and cleanest method to get the chickens where they needed to go, if only Rhys could pull it off.
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Post by Noa on Feb 1, 2022 0:00:01 GMT -6
It wasn't really a matter of skill. Rhys had plenty of practice with his psychic powers by now, and he had been communicating telepathically for as long as he had been alive, so it wasn't as if he wasn't fluent in the language he was using, such as it were. The sticking point would be whether he could disguise his own reluctance for what he was doing, now that he knew where the chickens were going to end up. That wasn't really something Noa could help him with either, since there was a limit to the extent to which Noa could influence Rhys's mind.
For a while, nothing happened, but Noa knew better than to expect it to be instantaneous. Rhys would be having to engage with the chickens, coaxing them gradually, and possibly one or two at a time. Even if it worked, it would take some time before they saw the results.
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Post by Noa on Feb 1, 2022 0:07:51 GMT -6
But it was doubtless going to be faster than chasing down all these chickens individually and taking them by force, especially since Noa wasn't actually proficient in this sort of thing. The creatures he worked with were all big beasts, who had little enough reason to be afraid of him... At least initially, anyway. The trick was learning how to strike a healthy respect into the hearts of creatures who might otherwise pay him no more mind than he would pay a gnat, and he had some skill with that, to be sure. But cornering something small and prey-like wasn't really a skill he had cultivated.
As time continued to pass, however, he was beginning to wonder whether things really would pan out for Rhys's attempt. He could tell that the Faeron was still making an effort, but perhaps it was time to step in and offer some alternatives after all.
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Post by Noa on Feb 1, 2022 0:13:04 GMT -6
But then a rustling in the underbrush caught Noa's attention, and he watched as, one after another, a series of chickens emerged from their hiding places around the yard to gather around Noa and Rhys.
{They'll come quietly for now, though I think you had better restrain them once we get into the house,} Rhys said. {Actually, maybe it would be better to restrain them now.}
"Fair enough," Noa said, and set to work doing just that. Rhys helped out too; between the vines conjured by the Faeron and Noa's own bindings of various elements of magic, they had soon trussed up the whole lot of chickens. They were much less docile now that the jig was up, but Noa wasn't so careless as to create a situation where they could escape their bindings. Rhys's trick wouldn't work a second time, and he was not going to chase a chicken through the yard.
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Post by Noa on Feb 1, 2022 0:17:00 GMT -6
They proceeded back into the house with their prizes, through the beat up back door, meandering around the rooms until they found the kitchen, which looked to be a battleground for some sort of culinary Armageddon. It took some time before their presence was even noticed by anyone. But eventually a tall woman turned and saw him, slapping a hand to her chest. "Gods be good, you actually did it! And not a stain on you! My word! Galen, get over here!"
A stout young man hurried in from another room, and took the trussed up chickens from Noa. He didn't seem as surprised as the woman, though maybe that had more to do with the volume of work he muttered about having as he passed them by.
"Take a seat, young man," the woman said, ushering him into a chair. "You're the hero of the hour! We'll get the rest whipped up in a jiffy."
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