One's Trash Is Another's Treasure (Open)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

53rd Day of Spring, 512

Minerva walked down the streets of Zeltiva, a skip in her step, whistling a random little tune. She had a pack slung over her arm, and her belt and vest were bulging with the tools that she never left behind, wherever she went. You never knew when inspiration was going to strike, when you were going to need to build something, or when you were going to need to break something. She had a hammer and hatchet on her belt, picks, files, and awls stuck through the loops in her vest, and a scattering of other tools sticking out of every pocket. Her clothes were, as usual rumpled and stained. She'd slept in them again, and had decided she didn't smell quite badly enough yet for it to be worth the extra twenty minutes it would take to bathe and change clothes. Productivity was everything, and she didn't like to waste time on needless things.

She stopped every now and then as she walked to pick up a random bit of something or another off the streets. She stopped and grabbed a loose stone, holding it up and examining it with a critical eye. It was solid, had no cracks, and with a bit of polishing it could be carved into a useful part. She tossed it in her pack and continued on. She crouched by a building when she spotted some cracks in the wall. A few loose chips of marble were scattered on the ground near the damage. They were about the size of her thumb, and would be useful for carving into chess pieces or something similar. She tossed them in the pack as well.

Still whistling, she made her way down a side street and came across a pile of garbage behind a building. Not really caring whose garbage it was, she knelt next to it and practically climbed inside. The smell didn't really bother her, and she had gloves on to protect her hands. Besides, there could be useful things in there! She tossed aside some random bits of refuse, rotting food, and old rags, until she stumbled across something useful. It was an old, smashed clock, broken far beyond repair. She didn't have anywhere near the skill needed to build or repair something like this yet, anyway. But she could take it apart, examine how it used to work, and learn a great deal from it that way. Afterwards, she could strip out whatever parts were still in usable condition. Even if this clock would never work again, she could get a few worthwhile parts off it here and there.

Distracted from her salvage operation by this new find, she sat on the ground and started fiddling with the broken clock right there. People passing by on the streets stared at her, and a few pointed and muttered under their breath about her, but she neither noticed or cared. She had a puzzle in her hands, and broken or not, that was a treasure.

[Sylkra]

Sylkra was in her wolf form, sleeping near a pile of junk. Her pack was tucked safely behind her, and she was dreaming of deer and fresh meat. She was woken up by a large figure strut past her. It was that of a human female. Curious, Sylkra picked up her pack by her mouth and started following her. She stunk quite badly, maybe it was because Sylkra had a thousand times better sense of smell than her. Or, maybe it was because the girl never heard of a bath. The girl picked up a clock, and started fiddling with it. Sylkra stood idly by, watching as the girl played with it like it was a toy. Foolish girl. She decided to confront the girl after getting bored of watching. She padded up to her, and dropped her pack. She nuzzled her on the cheek, then stuck her head underneath her arm, begging for attention. It always worked. Sylkra loved getting pats and rubs from strangers, especially when they scratched her belly. It felt so good.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Minerva was so focused on what she was doing that she didn't notice anything going on around her. She was oblivious of the stares she was getting, and really wouldn't have cared about them if she had seen them. Unless something became enough of a distraction to interrupt her work, it was irrelevant.

She pulled out some paper and a quill, leaning on the paving stones to use them as a makeshift table. She started making sketches of what she saw of the inner workings of the clock, jotting little notes to herself. She couldn't hope to reverse engineer the whole design, of course, but she could sketch out a few of the individual components. Seeing how the gears connected to each other could teach her a thing or two.

A nudge at her side caused her to smear a line of her drawing. Her initial reaction to the interruption was to shove the offending creature away and say, "Shoo! Go on, git!" It wasn't until she felt the furry head under her hand that she tore her attention away from her work and looked down at...

...a wolf?

She blinked, then looked around, wondering if it was someone's pet. Wolves shouldn't be running loose inside a city like this... someone could get hurt. Though it seemed friendly. She absent-mindedly rubbed its head and scratched behind the ears as she pondered what it was doing here in the city.

That was when she noticed the pack lying nearby. Wolves don't carry backpacks... she thought, lifting the flap to glance at what was inside. It looked like human stuff...

"Ahh," she said, looking the wolf in the eye. "You're one-a those, whatchacallit, Kelvic, aye?" Minerva had never met a Kelvic before. She just knew the basics, that they were shapechangers. She didn't know any of the details, or how it all worked. Meeting one in person piqued her scientific curiosity.

"Can ya understand words when you're a wolf?" she asked in pure intellectual wonder. She pulled out a clean sheet of paper so she could take notes with one hand, the other one still occupied with giving the 'puppy' rubs. She started off sketching a quick drawing of the wolf's eyes. She wanted to look up sketches of normal wolves later, and compare. Would a Kelvic's eyes look different from a wolf's? She didn't know, but she intended to find out. Then she would write down whatever response the wolf gave, whether it spoke or just gave a nod of its head.

[Sylkra]

Sylkra enjoyed the rub. Her ears felt like they were getting brushed. The girl's hands soothed them, almost like magic. She enjoyed it, up until the point when the girl opened her backpack up. Her instincts told her to growl, but her brain told her to stay there and let her pet her. So, she followed her brain, for once. The girl rubbed for a while, then started talking. She figured out that Sylkra was a Kelvic, smart girl. Sylkra took her head off her lap and stood up, but still sitting. She listened to the girl ramble on about Kelvics, and then she asked her a question. She pulled out a piece of paper, and Sylkra decided it was because she was taking notes. Sylkra shook her head up and down, and then settled back down into her lap. She was starting to like this girl. She was obviously very smart, unlike Sylkra. She always considered herself dumb, but smiled at the fact. Being dumb was what made her, her.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Minerva wrote down, Can understand speech, can't talk. This was really fascinating. She'd never actually given the Kelvic a second thought before; with so many sentient species in the world, who could keep track of them all? But having one right in front of her, well, that was different. It was like a living, breathing puzzle sitting there, waiting to be unlocked, and demanding rubs.

"I'd sure love ta see ya shift," sue said, still petting the furry head. Then she blinked, thought about that, and twisted her head around to look in the wolf's eyes. "But maybe not onna first date, aye? Ha!" she chuckled, shaking her head at her own joke.

She kept sketching with her free hand, moving on past the eyes and doing her best to capture the shape of the face. She paid extra careful attention to the ears, muzzle, teeth, and nose; if there were a substantial difference between a Kelvic and a wolf, her first hypothesis was that it would be best seen in those key features.

She started rambling while she drew, "So, oy, ya live 'round 'ere? I ain't never been in the city 'fore. Just got 'ere yesterday I did. Gonna be studyin' up at that Uni, I am. Been 'prentice ta a wizard, 'fore he got tired o' grease an' sawdust all o'er 'is kitchen every day. Fah!" she waved a hand dismissively. "Who needs 'em anyway, am I right? I'll learn more up 'ere anyway, I reckon I will..."

A grumbling in her stomach reminded her that she had skipped breakfast this morning along with missing her bath. "Oy, Sook," she said to the wolf, "ya 'ungry? I ain't 'ad a tucker all day. Though I dunno where da blazes ya blokes eat 'round 'ere... I ain't seen no restaurants or nuthin' since I got 'ere. Ya eat people food, or ya 'unt deer or somethin'?"

[Sylkra]

Sylkra smiled at the girl's joke. She was very kind, just trying to make friends. She licked her hand as she pet her, it was almost hypnotizing, the strokes of her gentle hand. The girl started talking something about the university, but Sylkra wasn't really listening. A good pet would persuade her to do anything. She closed her eyes and enjoyed it. She stopped and perked her ears up. The girl was hungry. Sylkra could tell, her stomach growled dying for hunger. So did Sylkra's. She got up and looked at the girl, a happy look in her eyes. Food! She nodded when the girl said regular food. It was her favorite, although she couldn't eat much of it. Sylkra usually got sick when she ate too much human food, but it was always more welcomed than the normal meat. She loved the interesting taste. She would have to somehow warn the human not to let her eat too much. When she did get normal food she can't stop herself from eating too much. She picked up her pack in her mouth and waited for the girl to walk to dinner.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock wrote down, Can eat people food, and gathered up her notes. She tucked the broken clock into her backpack, rearranging things to make sure it could fit. She tucked a couple of the parts she'd pulled out into a side pocket, sorting them by size and type. Then she blew gently on her drawings to make sure the ink was dry, before tucking them into another compartment of the pack.

"Lead the way, mate!" she said happily, stepping up alongside the wolf. She laid a hand gently on the wolf's back, surprised at how tall it was now that they were both standing up. She'd never seen a real live wolf, whether Kelvic or normal, before. It was quite a sight. She found herself watching the muscles at the wolf moved, curious about its anatomy. Watching the way the legs moved gave her ideas about how she might, one day, duplicate that motion with gears and parts.

It was quite a beautiful creature.

"Oy, so what should I call ya?" she asked as they walked. "I mean, ya got a name, right? Can't just go 'round callin' ya 'Wolfie', aye? Aye." She looked to see if the wolf was wearing a collar or something that might have a name tag, or whether there might be one inscribed on the leather pack.

[Sylkra]

Sylkra decided it was obviously time for shifting. She ran away form the girl, and turned around a corner. Becoming a human again, she quickly slipped on her clothes and braided back her hair. She walked again, slowly, toward the girl. Her eyes fluttered with shyness, because, she just wasn't comfortable in her human form. "I'm Sylkra." she said. Her voice was almost in a whisper. She tried mustering out a smile, but was too nervous. She went on, "I... um... don't really like this form. I spend most of my time in m real form." She wanted to say more, but couldn't she was already trembling. She was never a people person, always a hunter. That's what made her so shy in human form, except for communication it was pretty much useless to her. When she walked by people in wolf form, she felt proud and strong. But in human form, she was like a nervous wreck. She felt embarrassed in front of the girl for looking like such a weakling. First impressions were everything. She realized she still had to add something about eating, so she said, eyes closed, "I can't eat that much human food. So if you see me eating alot of it, please try to stop me. It's just so... delicious. I don't know where to eat in this place either, I spend most of my time out in the forests hunting for meat." Getting even more uncomfortable, she said after that, "Excuse me, but, I don't like this form. May I switch?" Without even waiting for an answer, she blushed and opened her eyes, stopping to look at her expression. She ran around the corner again, and shifted once more. This made her very hungry and she felt like she could eat a Jamoura. She sighed, and using her mouth, put her clothes back in the pack. She came back to the lady, bag in her mouth. She looked at her, a happy look in her eyes.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

When the wolf suddenly rushed away, Tock called out, "Oy! Where ya goin'?" She took a step towards the wolf, but she had run off so fast that Tock didn't know if she could catch up. She waited where she was, planting a fist on her hip, wondering what the deal was. Had she said something to upset the wolf?

Then a girl came around the corner. Tock was still peering past the girl, looking for the wolf to return. When the girl introduced herself, Tock just nodded and distractedly replied, "Uhh, yeah, hi..." Her eyes never touched on the girl at first. It wasn't until Sylkra mentioned 'forms' that Tock realized what had happened.

Her eyes fell on the girl now, and she arched an eyebrow curiously. "Oh!" she said, blinking a few times in confusion. She was about to reply to the poor, trembling thing, but before she got the words straight in her mind, the girl ran off again. "Well, I'll be..." she muttered, looking around the street to see if anyone was watching. She kinda wanted to run around the corner and watch the shift, but it felt like that would be... wrong somehow. Like, watching someone change clothes, or something.

She waited until the wolf returned, then knelt before her and slipped her hands into the wolf's fur, giving her a friendly rub. "Oy, it's okay, aye? Aye," she said, grinning. "I think it's pretty shiny 'ow ya can do both, aye? Whichever one ya'd rather do is jus' fine wit' me, Sook." She gave the wolf some more rubs and nuzzled her with her cheek, laughing.

"Let's see what we can find, aye?" she asked, leading the way as they searched the city streets. It took her awhile before the smell of cooked food finally reached her nose. Following the scent, she soon found herself down at the docks, by the fish market. "Ahh... ya like fish?" she asked, not sure if a wolf would eat fish or not. "Looks like 'bout the only thing a girl can get cooked hot in this 'ere city, aye?"

She led the way over to one of the stalls that sold grilled fish, buying one for each of them. She then found an out of the way bench where she could sit and eat, setting the second fish down on the bench next to her. She wasn't sure if the wolf would prefer to eat it on the ground, but the bench at least was clean.

[Sylkra]

Sylkra felt so relieved when the girl said it was alright. Did she know how it felt? Being kelvic... being, different. Well, this girl was pretty... different. She was kind, but had attitude. Sylkra felt a little pang of envy towards her. The girl started walking, and Sylkra simply followed. They walked up to a fish stand, and Sylkra sniffed the air. Salty, fishy, yum! She was about to jump up onto the table and eat it, but held herself back. Don't do it Sylkra her conscience told her. But her instincts told her to steal it. She had these battles alot, the ones where she wanted to do something like an animal, but it was against the rul- eh, laws. As the humans call them. She padded over to the bench, and set down her pack beside it. She took the fish off the bench and threw it on the ground, and viciously bit into it. It was savory and tangy... and lavish. She wanted to savor every bite, but shifting had made her very hungry. She was finished within a few minutes, pausing here and there to gulp down the overly big bite she had bitten off. She licked her lips when she was done, and hopped up onto the bench. She licked the girl on the cheek. She liked this girl. She had bought her a fish. That was very kind.