grow and change. (rathe)

[Dor]

there's a bird that nests inside you sleeping underneath your skin when your open up your wings to speak I wish you would let me in I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me change, change, change - counting crows - Timestamp: 7 Winter 511 AV The ancient mountain oak occupying the back garden of All Things Wild had grown accustomed to the roosting of an altogether strange bird. There were hours in which she was a peregrine, the sky side of her wings a glimmering black that the sun long since ought to have faded toward blue. Wings would huddle up amid the branches when the cycle of the sun and moon was warm and blanketed in the unique quality of light Lhavit boasted she would sleep or maybe just dream. Days had grown colder and the oak leaves had given up their ghosts, shaking the shed skin of memories into crunchy piles all along the water garden. They made bright splotches along the well tended garden, releasing a scent of decay that was meant to remind a soul of the circles through which all the world turned. It was not yet late, not even for the dual nature of the star city, and in the moonlight Leth had sent his shadow spilling out from Koten Temple to slice across the remodeled observatory. The bird was busy watching her face in the water. She sat in her human skin cross legged on a moss blanketed stone dressed in what the majority of the population would consider to be indecent. It was still constricting to her, a mere pale linen shirt with untied sleeves flickering past her fingertips. If she stood the hem would brush the backs of her thighs, a little short but still at least managing to cover enough to maintain basic decency. He might have seen her before, shrugged into her feathers, a falcon of sharp curiosity and fierce observation clutching at branches but within and without the shops borders. There was a drawer somewhere, a hide away that harbored a small cache of her possessions a change of clothes, a purse, a collection of seashells and broken fray of stained jesses. Her most precious treasure was strung from her neck, a glint of silver studded with jewels that glowed like the sky in the moonlight. She was fiddling with it when the sound of his steps made her still, eerie and watchful. A pair of black eyes dragged from her reflection in the water toward the doors inside, watching with acute interest as he filled the doorway. She had seen him before around the shop, just as he had seen her, and if her eyes were the same then perhaps her thoughts themselves were changed when she walked with legs rather than dressed herself in wings.

[Rathe]

The kitchen was a mess and so was Rathe. A path of white powder paved through his dark hair in two different directions, proof of the frustration that led him to plough his hands through his hair. The cinnamon jar was turned over on its side, emptied clean onto the table while he was mixing up the batch of cookies that was now baking. While he was mashing up the star fruit, he’d gotten carried away, bending the spoon, spilling the cinnamon with his elbow and knocking the bowl against the sack of flour that was now everywhere.

Rathe couldn’t even look at the floor, he knew more flour had spilled off the table and down onto the ground, but he didn’t have the stomach to look at it. He was contemplating hiring someone to clean it up when a thump at his door jarred him, tearing his attention away from the mess. Rathe rose from the table, lazily stretching out the kinks in his tired muscles and moved towards the door. As he reached for the handle, he realized his hands were still covered in flour. He wiped them over the front of his blue shirt, smudging the fine powder across his stomach. “Who’s there?” he belted out to the person on the other side of the door.

“It’s me, let me in! Whatever you’re baking’s making my stomach growl. Move your ass, before I eat through the door.” Shree’s voice boomed from the hallway through the small apartment and probably through the paper-thin walls but Rathe’s smile was genuine as he pushed aside the heavy door.

“Third batch of cookies just hit the hearth, what took you so many bells? Usually, you’re here before the first batch is finished.”

Shree didn’t waste time getting inside and he went straight for the table full of cookies. His eyes rounded into saucers as he looked around, taking in the mess. “Woah! Looks like Rhysol himself paid you a visit. How’d you get so lucky my friend?”

Rathe’s face was serious as he picked up one of the towels on the table.

“Luck has nothing to do with it, timing is everything.” He handed the towel to Shree. “I’ve got cookies to spare if you’re willing to help me clean up.”

Shree’s eyes had returned to their normal size but they were glossed with humor. “That’s slave labor, a man’s gotta eat. Besides, I don’t know what this cleaning thing is you’re talking about.”

Rathe picked up a cookie from the plated pile on the table and handed it to Shree. The other man snatched it out of his hand and shoved it in his mouth with a movement so quick, Rathe nearly lost a finger.

Rathe watched him eat it, a satisfied smile turning up the corners of his mouth, until Shree choked and spit it out into his hand. He grabbed the water off the table and chugged it down, tears replacing the humor in his eyes. “What…was…that?”

“A cookie?”

“Yeah, a cookie? Did you try that batch or did you give it to me as a joke?”

Rathe stared at the cookies, then picked up one himself, turning it over in his hand. It looked like a normal cookie, then he bit into it and tasted…salt. His face pinched up and he spit it out too. All of the cookies had come from the same batch, except for the ones that were baking now. Oh Lhex! He’d forgotten about the ones that were cooking. Now he could smell them beginning to char. Inside the hearth, his star fruit cookies crackled with hard black edges. Forgetting himself for a chime, he reached inside and almost burned his hand in the fire. As it was, the heat singed the dark hair on the knuckles of his right hand. His left escaped without injury, but barely.

He grabbed the other cloth lying crumpled on the table, dipped it into the water bowl and wrapped it around his hand. Shree had to help him get the cookies out. He set them out on the table, but they were beyond saving, there was nothing Rathe could do.

“I could help you do another batch,” Shree offered.

“No more cinnamon and I burned my hand?” Rathe held up his injured hand for Shree to see. It wasn’t that bad, but he really didn’t feel like making anymore cookies, he was afraid of what might happen with the next batch.

“Uh, my stomach’s still grumbling? If I you don’t get me some real cookies, I could get irritated real fast. Isn't All Things Wild open? You can go get some more of whatever you need there so we can get these cookies going.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yup.” Shree scraped the chair across the floor and flomped down on it with a screech of bowing wood under his heavy frame.

Rathe felt even less like arguing with Shree about food than he did like making more cookies. He shoved a couple of kina in his pocket and went to the shop instead.

All Things Wild was mostly quiet when he arrived. The only other person there was a kelvic he’d seen a few times in passing. He was surprised when she approached him, as they’d never spoken before, but he bowed, slightly holding back his wounded hand, and smiled in greeting.

OOCSorry this is so long.

[Dor]

“What did you do to your hand?” The bird girl’s voice was surprisingly husky. It did not much fit the slight stature and hollow bones of her seeming. The lacework of a foreign accent garlanded her words, dripping with slithering syllables of a language born far from Lhavit and its gloaming constructs. A startled expression claimed the bird girl’s face, widening lightless eyes. Bare feet skittered backwards, one step, two before arms lifted a few inches from the rest of her. Poised for flight, she was, chin turning to brush against the teacup rise of a shoulder and peer at him from the edges of things. “You aren’t usually here,” she went on, baffled but not necessarily accusatory. It was not her shop, after all. “Not at this hour. Are you looking for something for your hand? Haeli keeps medicinal herbs,” a beat, “Somewhere.” Not that she would know which to use for what, but Dor was often game for trial and error. OOCMany and much apologies for being so damnably slow!