Closed Unwelcome Company

[Scorn]

Fall 39, 513 It was raining. Scorn had gone to the surface only to be hit in the face with a barrage of falling water. Normally she would not let a little water deter her, since being stuck in this city was much more uncomfortable...but, this was more than a little water. The rain would obscure all senses, vision, hearing, scent...and the wind would smash her against the mountainsides long before she could get above them. And as much as she wanted to be free in the wildlands, she was not suicidal. So above ground was out, and she was still not comfortable treading amongst the vast numbers of Symenestra the way her sister seemed to be. She found herself wandering aimlessly toward the outskirts of the city. It was a bit claustrophobic with no air currents to lift her up, but her wings were plenty strong enough even in the dead air. She had resigned herself to an evening of not hunting, but she still instinctively listened for telltale heartbeats anyway. She mostly heard small vermin, not worth the energy it would take to catch them. But there was one slightly larger heart. She adjusted her direction to get a closer look at the larger heartbeat. From the smell, it was one of the Symenestra. Strange, usually it was only above ground she found them alone. She felt a boiling anger-hate rising in her; one of those creatures she was forbidden to hunt, not because it was dangerous, but because it would make her sister unhappy, for reasons Scorn could hardly fathom. But this one was on its own. Would anyone even notice if it...disappeared? Scorn couldn't decide whether to kill it or not...but there was no reason she couldn't play with it first either way. She determined which direction it was going, then landed right in its path. She flared her wings, partly to keep her balance on the rope-like web connecting various buildings, but mostly to look much larger and more intimidating than her otherwise rather small frame. When she knew she had the Symenestra's attention, she gave a low hiss for good measure.

[Vyvian]

Vyvian looked down at the small, decrepid cog he had found, his slim, delicate fingers turning it over and feeling its minute crevices. He wondered what metal had birthed it, what machine it was used in.. It was too thick for a time piece, and not sturdy enough for a crossbow, he knew that for sure. Behind his dead black eyes there was almost a shimmer of life, of interest. Almost.

He threw the cog away and listened to it roll slowly. No matter how complex, it was still a component without a machine to work in, it had served its purpose, and was now obsolete. Sighing internally, he moved smoothly across one of the many connectors for the buildings in the abandoned parts of Kalinor. They seemed to be grayed and weary with lack of purpose.

His hand rose to delicately brush some of his straight, bone white hair out of his eyes. Just like him then.

Standing up again, he pulled his furred hood back over his head, stroking it absently. He liked soft.. Silken fabrics were smooth, but not soft.. Indeed you would never see him not wearing this jacket, and if the hood wasn't up, there'd be an absent minded hand running the fur through his fingers.

Straightening up to his full height, a kind of sightly depressed slouch, Vyvian looked around him for anything of note. Well, for anything really. As his glassed over eyes scanned the landscape one hand absently twisted the ring on his left hand around, and he pouted in thought.

There was a soft rustle to his left, which made a vast difference to the desolate silence that usually was only broken by his own movements. Absently, he turned to see if he had disturbed a pile of rubbish or something of the like.

"Oh." he stated absently in his native tongue, as he looked at the what he guessed would be frightening creature, his mind seemingly examining itself as he felt genuine fear. Blinking, the glassiness of his eyes were lost to a faint shimmer of intelligence, interest, almost enthusiasm.

"You are..." he looked up as, despite himself, he felt compelled to categorize the creature in front of him. "Zith?" he stated, nervously twisting his ring before slowly pulling the crossbow off his back, aiming it at the creature with what seemed an unorthodox, if precise, style.

Again, he seemed distracted as his eyes wandered, as well as his aim "Ah wait, you probably don't understand me." he said, almost to himself more than to anyone else, before pouting and adjusting his aim back onto target.

"Uhm... Hello, Are you Zith?" he asked in common tongue, holding the crossbow steadily in one hand while he pulled his hood a bit further over his face, before using his teeth to pull his ring off the spare hand and to grip it in between his teeth, like a comfort of some sort.

[Scorn]

Scorn tilted her head to the side, curious. The stick man was pointing something at her. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but the twig inside of it reminded her of the flying claws that could tear a Zith out of the air even from the ground. It was not to be underestimated...but neither was she. Her eyes glittered as she grinned. "Yes, I am Zith." Then, she folded her wings and fell. She opened her wings in the darkness below. If this Symenestra identified her as Zith, then all he probably knew of her was that she was an "ally" of his people, that she and her sister helped them hunt, in exchange for shelter. The twig-men had gotten used to the presence of Zith, gotten used to the idea that a Zith wouldn't eat them. Maybe that had been true so far, but Scorn was far from tame. She would show this twig man that Zith were still to be feared. She flapped hard to regain altitude and speed, pinpointing the little twig's heartbeat. She zoomed straight behind him, and grabbed him under his shoulders on the way up. She would like to see him try to aim his flying claw at his back. She could drop him to the cave floor, and from this height, without wings, he would splatter to bits. She put her nose against his neck and inhaled deeply. "I have not yet tasted twig-man meat. I wonder...do you taste good?"

[Vyvian]

Vyvian was scared, but not in the screaming way. It was the kind of attitude one takes when they're resigned to death. His hand clutched his ring tightly.

"If you eat my poison glands your insides will dissolve and you will die."

He chuckled melodically. "No, I imagine having your vital organs dissolve does not taste good at all."

Looking down at the passing surrounding Vyvian smiled to himself, he may be about to die but he at least felt alive.

"I'm Vyvian by the way, nice to meet you" he said in a totally dead pan tone.

"And thanks for the scenic view of Kalinor. It's always interesting to have a little.." his eyes wandered and ring twisted as he thought... "Perspective?"

[Scorn]

Scorn sniffed her prey again, confused. He was supposed to be more afraid than this. Why wasn't it afraid? She shook it a little, as if that might fix it, but there seemed to be no effect. Instead of screaming or pleading for mercy, he was rambling on in that slave language. She almost did not bother making sense of any of it, but then he said him name. She whispered it back almost involuntarily. "Vyvian." It felt like silk on her tongue. Maybe...maybe she could keep him. Maybe having a slave would make living here slightly less unbearable... With a snarl, she wrenched her thoughts away from such a dangerously complacent path. She was Zith. She could not become comfortable here. If she took a slave, it would only be to have someone to abuse and take out her frustrations on. Nevertheless, it was going to get annoying just holding him up in the middle of this cave full of dead air. If she wasn't going to drop him, she should at least put him down somewhere. But she didn't want him to escape before she was done with him. She finally decided to bring him back to the small cave she'd been using as a living space. The cave was bare except for a tiny pile of possessions hidden in one crevice. She dropped him unceremoniously into the middle of the floor, heedless of any bruises he might sustain, and then landed in from of him. She flared her wings, making her seem bigger than she was, and advanced on him slowly. "You call me Scorn," she said in her most authoritative voice. She knew only a little about keeping slaves, but one thing she remembered was that you had to not leave any doubt about who was in charge.

[Vyvian]

Vyvian frowned at his own name being spoken.. it felt like he had been.. spoiled somehow.

He hissed in pain slightly as he was, for want of a better word, dumped on the cold, slightly damp surface of the cave. He grunted a little and stood up, brushing the grit off his clothes.

"Well.. Home sweet home I guess" he muttered. To be fair it's not much better than where I live, just less pointless pleasantries some other part of him thought.

Standing up, he saw the Zith in front of him intimidate him again. Raising himself a little more out of his hunch, he scowled and pulled his hood up.

"Nice name" he muttered distractedly as his eyes already started roaming around the cave. They fell on Scorn's possessions, and his paranoid mind ran through the possible scenarios.

Rubbing his head, he turned sheepishly back to Scorn.

"So.. I guess you either have me here to commit suicide by eating me, to have me as a slave, or because you need some help with fixing something?" he gestured halfheartedly towards the heap of belongings.

One eye narrowed and he looked upwards, before his face remained upturned and his eyes looked back down at her.

"Unless you're lonely?" he hoped.

[Scorn]

This twig man was smart. He understood his uses right away: food or slave. Of course, he had to ruin this impression by continuing to speak. Scorn's eyes narrowed when he mentioned loneliness. Too smart. "My lonely cannot be fixed by twig man," she spat. Besides, she wasn't lonely, not at all. She had her sister (even if Scourge was becoming more distant and enigmatic every night), and she had multiple mates to choose from. Well, at least two... If that had not been the sum total of her colony, she might have considered herself quite well off... "You are my slave, you do what I say," she added, glaring at him with her dark blue eyes in case he started getting any ideas to the contrary. She was pretty sure this was how Zith took slaves; just grab them and claim them. Of course, she had done so on impulse, and now that she thought about it, she couldn't quite remember what one did with slaves. She knew they could be used to teach young ones about the outside world, but she did not have any young ones (at least not with her). Slaves were meant to do what Zith were less adept at, but Scorn couldn't think of anything she needed but food and more Zith, and she was certainly better than any twig man at both of those things. The more she thought about it, the less sure she was she even wanted to bother with a slave, but she was too stubborn to back out now. But if she didn't keep him busy, he might start thinking he wasn't a slave at all, and then he might not listen to her. What was that thing he'd said earlier? He fixed things? "What things you fix?"

[Vyvian]

Vyvian's eyes darkened somewhat.

"A slave, so that is my new life." he sighed and looked down at Scorn.

"Well I could have asked for worse." he shrugged.

His mind wandered again and he walked over to the stash of personal possessions, rifling through them boredly.

"So you're telling me you're alone, but not lonely?" he glanced over his shoulder sadly.

"You should tell me your secret, I'm envious." he muttered dryly, with more than a hint of resentment. Pouting, he turned his attention back to Scorn's pile of belongings.

"Fix things? I'm a bowyer, it means I build and fix things like my crossbow here." he absentmindedly held the crossbow over his back, lethal end pointed toward him, to let Scorn have a look, as he continued to rifle through the pile.

[Scorn]

Scorn watched with poorly-disguised curiosity as he poked through her stuff. There wasn't anything particularly interesting in the pile; mostly just knick-knacks she'd pilfered off of the various humans her colony either enslaved or ate. Aside from a pouch containing hundreds of gold-rimmed pebbles, the only thing of note was a gnarled horn, about a foot and a half long. Scorn stepped closer to inspect the device he held. She grunted derisively. "What use I have for machines?" Though something about "bow" was familiar. Wasn't that what they called the things that threw the flying claws that could spear a flying Zith even from the ground? It might be useful to learn more about it, if only so that she could better defend herself against such things. As far as she knew, those flying claws were the only real threat Zith faces from the land-bound. She turned the strange device over and poked at it curiously, wondering how it managed to send its claw flying so far. Suddenly, the piece she was holding slipped in her hand, and the mechanism released with violent force. The bolt launched from the crossbow, grazing the side of her leg before skittering across the cave floor. Scorn dropped the offending device with a harsh screech, immediately taking wing and attaching herself to one of the pillars of rock hanging from the cave ceiling. She stayed there, her heart pounding, not convinced that the danger was past.

[Vyvian]

Vyvian looked behind himself slowly as he heard the familiar clunking of the crossbow, then glanced up at a terrified looking Scorn, and frowned. Cautiously walking forwards he picked up his crossbow again, stroking it softly and poring over its details to make sure it wasn't damaged in any way. Finally satisfied, he moved to the bolt and carefully retrieved it out of the ground.

"You have proved the use of these 'machines' yourself" he said sardonically. "You are born with a body designed to kill, I am born with a body designed to.." he trailed off as he tried to think of the right word, before waving his hand flippantly and continuing anyway

"Regardless, when I need to kill something, to eat for example, I use this. It means I can kill something from far away, without any danger of myself being attacked."

Smiling innocently, almost like a child, he drew the crossbow and inserted a bolt into it, before slinging it back on his back with familiar ease.

He looked up at the still wary Zith on the ceiling and smiled softly.

"You can come down now I won't harm you."