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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:38:21 GMT -6
He was so amazed by the lizard’s insane joy that he did not instantly let go of the stick, letting it fall free as a gemstone was produced and tossed towards him. Was she trying to communicate that she wanted him to bite the pole? Or did the silly thing hope to make herself feel better by tricking him into tasting it?
Mildly offended but too curious to act on it, he bit the pole several times as the command was given, slowly backing up towards one of the trees on the lot. Once the leaves were brushing against the top of his majestic horns, he stopped, waiting. The lizard had taken to throwing in new noises, sounds to be ignored as the one time he had responded by snapping at the pole, sure the poor lizard had already forgotten the right sound, she had hissed and spat.
Then came the correct sound, dare he call it a word, and this time he twisted his head up and bit into the branch.
This brought on a new series of chirps, and the lizard was so happy that he could not help but alternated between biting the pole and the branch a few times as she pointed. If only he could say the word back and watch her do the same. ((Sid-22.2 Haix-203.0 Bite-End?))
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:38:32 GMT -6
He was just growing bored with the lizard’s antics when he thought to steal away the pole on her next command, taking to the air with it to dangle it just beyond her reach. He did not get the chase.
The lizard seemed to notice some change in his body language, some warning of what was yet to come. So she instead struck downward, stabbing the pole into the ground so that its other end was pointed towards him. His bewilderment grew as she began to repeat a new noise, for he was still not sure he could call what came out of the lizard’s mouth as words, and with each repeat she stabbed the earth with the pole. When he reached for the pol, she snarled at him.
Which of course meant he snatched it up in a blink of the eye, tugging it free and floating out of her reach before she could even hiss. ((Summon Wooden Spear-Start))
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:38:51 GMT -6
Haix did her best to ignore the tat-lung as it chuffed and swam through the air above her. He had begun to make a strangled croak of a noise and then tap her with the stick, leaving it in range until her hands came up to grab it. She did not want to play whatever game he was after, and so she ducked into a crouch and gathered as many of the twigs and branches that she could.
She nearly dropped the small bundle of wood as the croak came again, and the pole slapped against the tree just above her head, only to catch a few of her quills as it slipped free of the tat-lung’s meager grasp. He snorted, though whether because he had lost his toy or because Haix had escaped further harm she did not know. With a barely suppressed sigh soundlessly slipping between gritted teeth, she looked up to see that the tat-lung was still circling above her. Catching his eyes with hers, she repeated the new command, the one that painfully reminded her of the story she had heard from the beastkin ranger, stabbing the sticks into the earth with each repeat.
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:39:13 GMT -6
The ranger had been speaking to another about some trip they had taken outside of the hive walls to a small scattering of buildings that called itself a town. Some soft-skin had run up to her, begging her and her beast’s aid at one of the outlying mines, to help some family beset by a beast after their land. And from what she had heard, the soft-skins that had lived there were staked like scarecrows and the ranger had barely gotten herself and the soft-skin out of there without the tat-lung that had taken up residence noticing.
She had not paid too much attention at the time, eager to trade in her hides and get back to the kennel and deal with whatever nonsense her own tat-lung was capable of. Now it stuck with her, and she wondered if she could even trap Sid in a barn and burn him as they had done, or if she would need to train a beast specially to deal with him.
To the tat-lung she did not tell the story. He had been the little fish. She told him only the command over and over again, staking each piece of wood into the earth.
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:39:27 GMT -6
Sid, to his credit, would not have been inspired to slaughter the little lizard with stakes of dead wood had he known of the story and her thoughts. In fact, he would have been more than a little insulted, only forgiving the lizard as he knew she was a pathetic little creature. Instead, he had been puzzling over the newest sound, the way the lizard ignored the pole he had dropped to merely stab at the earth with twigs.
He landed beside her, confident that she could not harm him with this new silliness. She continued on for a few more sticks, Sid trying to make sense of the sound and the act, when she suddenly stopped to stare up at him. She said the word, for it had to be a word, pointing to him and then the ground.
Now he was sure he understood. She wanted him to do this strange thing as well! He looked at the remaining sticks and grabbed at the one that looked the best, its bark mostly uncracked but for the jagged edge. But his fingers could not seem to grip the slender twig correctly. He grabbed at another one, ignoring the lizard’s insistent repeat of the word, and snatched up a thicker one. But he found he could not drive this one into the ground, the grass too thick and the branch obviously too warped to work correctly.
Patience with the lizard and this game beginning to evaporate, he decided to show the lizard something better than s twig in the ground. As she repeated the word again, pointing at the ground, his hand curled upwards, fingers themselves curling towards his palm, and a piece of wood as thick as her arm shot out of the ground.
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:39:37 GMT -6
The lizard flinched away, and he worried for a moment that he had overdone it and broken the poor thing’s spirit. Perhaps this was all that she had, staking sticks into the earth, and he had just taken it from her.
But then she chirped and danced around the pole, and out came a gemstone for him. She liked that then, did she? He swallowed the gem, almost choking as he chuckled at her excitement. She definitely knew now that there was nothing he could not do better.
So he tolerated her next bit as he had done with the biting, waiting for her word and then calling stakes of wood through the earth that brought up clods of dirt that never dared to land on him, knocking over her twigs. She threw a few random noises in there as well, some that were similar enough that it might have tricked a lesser mind. Cute of her to try to trick him.
But like before, he was starting to grow bored of the repetition. Had the lizard not grown bored of their little game yet? It felt as though they had been at this one for days.
((Sid-23.2 Summon Wooden Spear-End?))
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:39:47 GMT -6
So Sid took off into the air, calling for her one last spear as she called up to him, this one close enough to her that he hoped she would realize that game was over. Leaving her to root around in the dirt or whatever she would do while waiting for him, he considered the spears. Truly, they were strong things, longer and better than the mere twigs she had been littering the earth with. But, like the twigs, they were dead things. He could feel the magic within him as he called the spears from the earth. It certainly was like a call, equal parts a demand that rose from his chest and a wheedling pull that arose from the same place asking for the wood to emerge. The wood was boring, dead. He had learned to call them back at the odd outdoor place, using the called wood to smash through the metal locks he could not solve. It was an old trick. So what else could he ask for? ((Verdant Growth-Start))
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:40:01 GMT -6
He would not aim it at the lizard, for she was a frail thing and might die if he was not careful. Instead he focused the call on one of the spears, calling at it to do, well, something else, to be something more. He felt the force within him shifting and spinning and he prodded and pulled at it mentally, alternatively begging and demanding and threatening and offering the spear to be something more.
It did not even twitch. He tried again and again, still ignoring the calls of the little green lizard as one might ignore a gnat. He felt nauseated as his physical form twisted and undulated in accordance to the forces he could feel within himself, but he could neither feel nor see any response from the spear. Had he not called it up? Should it not obey him, entertain him?
Ah, but it was dead, was it naught. His eyes widened, then narrowed as he considered it. He focused on the earth, told it and begged of it what he needed to make the spear appear, did he not? Now he reached out his will to the earth below the spear.
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:40:21 GMT -6
As he writhed and called on the earth, called for something living, something with which to adorn the spear and make it a thing of beauty that all would know it could only have come from him, something that would make the lizard fall onto her knees and weep as she should, the spear twitched. He nearly lost his concentration then, but he kept the feeling, the sensation of weaving something new and amazing that was his right.
The spear twitched and shuddered, and a moment later his concentration snapped like a brittle twig on hard earth as he beheld why. From the grass had come more greenery, long tendrils that were much thicker than the grassy blades, wrapping around the base of the spear. From some of them sprouted small leaves, growing broader as they came closer to the base.
Sid floated closer, admiring it, wondering if he could do even more. He had called new life from the earth, but could he not call enough to cover the wooden spear?
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:40:48 GMT -6
She had not known of this.
The bits of information she had found on tat-lung, agate’s in particular, had said nothing about growing plants. She had even thought the mentions of a wooden spear erupting from the earth had been little more than a joke until she heard the beastkin’s story. But now she watched as Sid floated around the spear,writhing over it as though he had been pierced by it, as the vines crawled up around the spear, wrapping it up like a salaves with its meal. It took a little longer before the spear was completely encapsulated by the green, no hint of the dead white wood peering out from underneath the dense growth. It was bizarre, something that she never would have thought the little fish could do.
And she intended to make sure Sid knew to do this on command as well. TO snare a beast without having to worry that it might run the wrong way, that a knot might give, would be amazingly useful. If the tat-lung would obey, he might help her earn back the credits she had lost because of him.
If he would obey.
She called out to him, pitching her voice high and excited, pointing at the vines. Praising him gained her a look of extreme indifference from him, but the way he puffed out his chest betrayed him. She said the new command, tapping the vines once, twice, then skipped over to one that stood nearby, repeating the command. Sid, with a near comical sigh, twitched and suddenly the other spear began to quake as it was swallowed up in the vines.
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Post by Alma on Mar 30, 2020 1:43:11 GMT -6
He accepted the gemstones gratefully, secretly pleased that he had made the simple lizard so happy with this new trick. Like with the others, she had assigned a word to it, and like before, he would only perform the trick for the lizard when she told him the right one. He had to keep her active in this little game after all.
And once all the spears were covered and the lizard seemed rather satisfied with herself, he expected that she would finally hand the pack over to him so that he might pick out the contents that he would want. When she did not, instead turning to go back to the path, he decided to help himself, floating over to take the pack off of her back.
And the lizard, rather than be glad that he might take the burden from her shoulders and lighten it, screeched a word he faintly recalled from earlier days. He recoiled obediently, then narrowed his eyes and drew his lips into a snarl. It was fine for games, but he would not allow the lizard to dare think she could command him. And seeing as she had so enjoyed the trick he had just performed for her out of his own generosity…
Haix nearly fell as something lashed around her leg, keeping her from taking another step. Struggling to pull herself free, she watched as a second series of vines sprang out from the earth, grabbing at her legs and tail, pinning her in place. Twisting and struggling, she might shift an inch as her bones moved in ways most could not, but the vines merely shifted with her.
And with her attention locked on breaking free of the vines, their sudden growth ended as a shadow loomed over her. She was lifted slightly into the air as Sid grabbed her pack, but the vines were not willing to let her go despite their new stillness. Her flailing arms missed him, and he ducked down and ripped the rope binding it to the harness, floating a few yards away to inspect its contents.
He did not notice, nor particularly care, that the lizard went silent and still as he tore a hole in the side of the sack. He knew the vines would do nothing more than hold her for a bit, and by the time her mind figured out a way to break free he would be done. When Haix finally moved, she broke free, whatever cursed endurance the vines had been granted leaving them. Sid had gulped down the last of the fish and gems, tossing the pack to the ground in front of Haix as she silently rushed towards him and he lifted into the air.
A fine meal, and he was ready for a well deserved nap. He left the silent lizard to gather what little he had left behind, knowing she would be grateful that there would be less weight to carry back, and flew back to his room.
And of course, if she got hungry, he had left her a gem.
Haix stared mutely at the gem she pulled out of the grass, then back up to where the tat-lung had disappeared. ((Verdant Growth-End? Sid-24.2 Haix-204.0))
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