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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:25:44 GMT -6
SMT In A Perfect World x GH Ignorance Is Bliss (SMT In A Perfect World being rented out to Linyü from Briar) Breeding 2/4 for Patronne and Matronne
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:27:05 GMT -6
It was a new day, and Noa was once again visiting the breeding centre. Honestly, he hadn't anticipated finding himself back here so soon. It wasn't really that the puppies from the last time had been so terribly interesting, but now that he had a Houluh of his own... Well, the apparently random nature of the offspring produced by one of Nana's breed did interest him some, at least. And there was a good market for these puppies, though when he said as much to Briar, Briar had reacted with a look of surprise, and then of disgust. And that had been interesting too - both in and of itself, and the idea that he had still been surprised. Noa had the sense that Briar already had a fairly low opinion of him, and was generally determined not to expect any more from him, and yet here they were. This time around, he had gone off to the breeding centre himself, with Nana and Rhys in tow, pretty much the same arrangement as last time except for his lack of human company. Briar was supposed to meet them there. He had his own errands to run, though as to what these were, Noa had no idea.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 18:28:07 GMT -6
(on loan from Briar) Seveth, damn him, had signed them up for another strange job. That was the thought at the forefront of San's mind as he ran through the city, a dog in tow. Luckily the dog seemed unbothered by the pace he had set, and if anything, looked happy for the exercise. San had nevertheless murmured an apology to him with Linyu's soft smile before heading down the street at nearly a full sprint. If he was being honest, San didn't even know where Seveth found these things. The jobs, of course, not the dogs. The dog had been provided by the job, which had come from, as it turned out, a tired looking youth who covered most of his face with a scarf. He might not have been as young as his height suggested; there was something about his face... But he didn't stay any longer than he needed to, to relay the job specifics.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:29:05 GMT -6
Some things were still private, and they did live their own separate lives, even if Briar did live at the estate, and even if he did work for Noa.
{The pups from last time sure were fuzzy,} Rhys said from his perch on Noa's shoulder. If anyone could be said to be excited over the prospect of more puppies, it had to be Rhys. To say that he had a childlike enjoyment of such things wouldn't have been an understatement, but then, that had always been how he was. It would have been strange now if he had suddenly turned cynical. Puppies were the sort of thing that children would get excited over, and so naturally Rhys would like them too.
"Apparently the trinket had something to do with it," Noa replied. That had been unexpected, and lent an air of mystique to the whole affair that it otherwise would have lacked entirely. After all, it wasn't as if the trinket had been a serum or something, injected into the Houluh themselves. It had simply been present at the time of conception. He looked down at Nana, as if she would somehow offer him a clue as to exactly how it had come about.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 18:29:50 GMT -6
And between the boy’s uneasy bearing and the fact that so much of his face was covered, San hadn't gotten a very good look at him before he had been left alone with the dog accompanying him now.
Either way though, it was an odd request - to take the dog to the breeding centre. The job board in the city seemed like the most likely suspect, but only because all manner of jobs did get posted there, and thus it was the ony place where such strange jobs might come up in the first place. This wouldn't be the issue that it was if Seveth would only shift for himself. They needed money - they always needed money, and mostly it was Seveth's fault, since Seveth's expenditures tended to outweigh San's fairly handily on any given week. The times when this was the exception generally happened when there was a large necessary expense.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:30:17 GMT -6
Alas for Noa, she had no such answers for him. She was, as far as he could tell, just a dog - a dog with some few strange abilities, including the ability to walk on air as if it were solid, but otherwise unremarkable.
Of course, one might think that being able to walk on air at all was very remarkable indeed, especially for a dog. But the problem with that was that Noa had already accumulated creatures that were much more magical and strange, and so was inured to the wonders that this one had to offer.
{The trinket?} Rhys said. {I didn't know it could do something like that... Does it just make fuzzy puppies?} Rhys was fishing another such trinket out of Noa's pocket now. They had taken it along for the purpose of today's breeding, and being Noa's familiar, Rhys generally had free run of whatever Noa had on his person. They didn't spend much time apart, and along with Rhys's telepathy, well, what was Noa's was Rhys's, and vice versa.
Now Rhys inspected the thing with renewed interest - and so did Nana, probably owing to the fact that it had floated out of Noa's pocket apparently of its own volition.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 18:31:06 GMT -6
And then it was paid by San because San was the one who would remember, and who could be bothered to go about it the correct way. And so, because they always needed money, they were always in need of jobs. But aside from the even more strange requests and dealings that Seveth occasionally took that involved magic, which San had absolutely no expertise in, all the jobs Seveth picked up fell to San to actually follow up on, and... do. This was one such example. It didn't even seem terribly difficult, since the dog - Doc? - was easy to handle, just out of the way and strange. Perhaps Seveth had some sort of phobia of canines... But if that was the case, he shouldn't have taken the job in the first place, San thought. It would have been better, for his state of mind if nothing else, if he could give Seveth the benefit of the doubt in this case.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:31:47 GMT -6
The charm lay hanging in the air, tantalizingly close - within reach, if only she jumped for it. She didn't jump up to get at it, but from the laser focused look in her eyes, Noa expected that she would have liked to, and it was only due to the fact that people had spent some significant amount of time on her basic obedience that she did not immediately do this.
He wondered where Briar and his Houluh were. It was past the appointed meeting time already. Noa had actually expected them to be here already, since he had arrived a little late himself. Fashionably late, of course, because he never did like to be early to things... And now that he was the one making all the rules for himself, there was no longer any reason to be anymore. It also kept him from having to wait on other people. Mostly. Apparently that wasn't to be the case today, judging from how things were going. Patience was not really one of Noa's virtues, especially given the state of his affairs.
Eventually the sound of footfalls caught his attention, and he turned with an expectant gaze in the direction of their origin.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 18:32:24 GMT -6
But this far into their acquaintance, San didn't feel particularly charitable toward Seveth anymore. Perhaps he never did, but experience with Seveth hadn't exactly changed his mind.
The breeding centre finally came into view. At least it was no longer as difficult to run a distance as it had been when he had first arrived here, his body emaciated from months of sickness at sea. He wasn't up to the height of his condition when he had been with the Watchful Ones, but he was in tolerable health now, and his training was progressing despite Seveth's apparent best efforts to sabotage it - which was to say that it was slow, but not nonexistent. Another few minutes saw San and the dog to the entrance, where a single man was waiting with another dog in tow. This must have been the person that San had been meant to meet, per the specifics of the job.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:34:55 GMT -6
That Briar was running must have meant that he was aware of the fact that he was late. Perhaps he even regretted it. That would certainly be something, though Noa wasn't stupid enough to suspect that it was because Briar had been looking forward to this. No, the sour expression that Briar had worn for most of their last trip spoke more than enough about Briar's feelings on the matter. More likely he was afraid that Noa would attempt to enforce some sort of consequence.
Any later, and he might not have been wrong about that. Patience really wasn't Noa's forte, and even with people he was fond of, well... He didn't like having his own time wasted, hypocritical as that might have been of him to say.
Nana looked up too, her attention dragged from the floating trinket; and Rhys let said trinket fall back into the pocket that it had been resting in before. But the figure that appeared was too large to be Briar - and too dark haired, his face open and exposed, the skin too light. Noa frowned, eyes narrowing. That was certainly Doc running beside the stranger, but that did nothing to change the fact that it wasn't Briar coming towards them now.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 18:36:34 GMT -6
He had a bored look on his face, verging into annoyance; and besides the dog, there was some sort of small, white and pink creature sitting on his shoulder. It was winged, a little reptilian in appearance, though the tendrils along its body rather confused the notion. It didn't look like any lizard that he had ever seen, but then he wasn't from here. Seveth might have recognized it, but thus far San's knowledge of the creatures here was still sparse, and there did indeed seem to be a great deal of variety among them.
The other dog, now that San was close enough to get a good look at it, was a silvery color, but there was something of the same metallic sheen that Doc had on him. Doc apparently recognized this other dog, and ran forward to greet her eagerly, tail wagging - or maybe they were strangers, and he just liked company.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:49:12 GMT -6
As the other party drew nearer, however, Noa realized that it wasn't a complete stranger after all. It certainly wasn't Briar, but the dark-haired man running up to them wasn't unknown to Noa. The line his mouth had drawn didn't ease, but now he inclined his head, tapping at his chin with a forefinger, trying to place the connection. Almond eyes, short dark hair, and a certain... buzz of something else about him. He had seen this combination before, but where...?
"Ah," he said, eyes widening, as the recollection came to him all at once. "You're that one... The water node." Or at least Noa was pretty sure this was him, anyway. He'd only dealt with the specific individual twice before this point, and this year it had mostly been done in writing. He was still waiting to hear back about the chaos node, but he did understand that these things took time.
Doc didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that he was being walked here by someone else, and Noa felt a little... Uncomfortable was too strong a word for it, but it bothered him on some level. Nana, by contrast, seemed wary of the stranger, staring at him despite Doc's presence.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 18:53:35 GMT -6
San didn't recognize the man with the silvery dog at all, but apparently the man recognized him. This must have been someone that Seveth dealt with; situations like this came up all the time. The fact that the other man had trouble placing Linyü was promising; it most likely meant that they hadn't dealt with each other often, and San wouldn't draw too much ire or suspicion if he didn't seem familiar with the other man's specifics.
He adopted a slightly sheepish smile. It was easier now, having maintained the facade for some time, to slip back into it, as if it was a mental space that occupied some part of his mind. "Ah... It's been a while, hasn't it?" he said.
The other dog didn't seem nearly as friendly as the one he was chaperoning. It didn't respond to Doc's entreaties at all, instead choosing to fix San with a baleful look.
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Post by Noa on Apr 30, 2021 18:58:30 GMT -6
That was better; Noa didn't often feel strongly about Houluh, but on this occasion he was glad that the one he had was Nana and not Doc. At least she knew enough to be wary of strangers, and didn't go wagging her tail to anyone who approached. He wouldn't have liked to see such easy behavior in any of his other creatures; even Azalea, who was generally of a mild temperament, wasn't eager on other handlers, perhaps owing to her nature as a Pliathor now.
... Well, all of them except Rhys. But Rhys was bound to Noa by magic, by a pact that was much stronger than his bond with his larger creatures, so at least Noa never had to be concerned with the matter of Rhys's loyalty, even if Rhys's attention was inclined to wander.
Still, it probably wouldn't do if Nana bit the man. She had been trained not to, but if she saw him as a sufficient threat, maybe the possibility might come up anyway. He clapped his hands, and Nana stood down, though she still wasn't wholly relaxed.
{Do we know him?} said Rhys, looking between Noa and the other man. Apparently Rhys didn't recognize him either.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 30, 2021 19:02:22 GMT -6
San was pretty sure he could take on one of these dogs. Roku had warned him that there were a lot of powerful creatures here, some obviously so and others more deceptive, hiding their magical abilities. But these dogs, as far as he could understand, were generally companions or working animals, the same way that dogs elsewhere might be such.
But while it was possible for him to fend off an attack, it wouldn't be pleasant, and he didn't want to reveal any extent of his own combat capabilities, diminished though they might be, if he didn't have to. Therefore it was a relief when the other man gave the dog a signal to stand down.
"She... really doesn't like me, does she?" he said, laughing a little nervously, clutching at the leash as Doc tried to pull him forward. Let the other man think him scared of the threat of a dog bite.
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