Summer 31st, 514 AV
If there was one thing Myrians were good at, it was being angry. Oryani didn’t like the one that was facing her now, expression dark and scowl written across the man’s face. At least it was a male, not a female… she had a bit of authority in this situation. The man had eyes almost as dark as hers, except the whites were still obvious, not blended into one large, midnight orb like her own. He was a good several inches taller than she was, and a whole lot more bulky. She didn’t like her chances in any kind of close combat with the man, if it came to that. At the moment, she wasn’t really liking the odds. There was no one around, and the two were stuck in a more secluded and treed area of Taloba, behind one abandoned building.
Oryani wasn’t quite sure what she’d done to earn this, an angry and threatening tone coming with rapid words in Myrian. She had actually simply been minding her own business, when the man came out of nowhere and started yelling at her. Actually, Alaril had come first, flitting around the corner of the building and landing briefly on her arm for a moment, unbidden. Only a moment later the man had gone running around, spotted the pair, and rushed towards them… which was when the eagle had fled, the coward. Instead of continuing after the bird, the Myrian had come to her, grabbing the collar of her shirt roughly and growling incomprehensibly.
It was obvious that Alaril had been up to more mischief… she really couldn’t keep control of the eagle, which was a change that needed to happen. It had happened at the bonfire, and now it had happened here. Lovely. She wrapped her own hands around the man’s much larger one and tried to pull it away from her shirt, growling in her own right. ”Common, COMMON!” she yelled at him, desperately trying to pull away. She was no match for his physical strength, so her only hope was reasoning with the man. Lovely… she was just terrible at reasoning.
Luckily there was a switch in language, one sharp statement put in Common rather than Myrian. ”You bird eat dinner, bite finger!” The man released her to hold up a hand, showing a slightly bleeding index finger. It didn’t look to bad, and it seemed more like Alaril hadn’t truly been trying to hurt the man. Possibly irritate him, or possibly as a defense mechanism to get away. Still, she swore loudly, suddenly sharing some irritation with the man. ”Petch it all, Alaril… you stupid bird,” she hissed to herself in Pavi, shaking her head. Hopefully she’d be able to work something out…
Then the Myrian grabbed her again, shaking her a little this time. She yelped and pulled back, hands once again trying to save her throat from being crushed. ”Pay! Pay!” the man demanded, almost in a fervor. He shook some more, before pushing her hard against the wall. Her head hit the stone solidly, and she had stars in her eyes for a few moments, until she recovered.
”You drunk!” she yelled back, grabbing his fingers and now attempting to pry them off. Where did it hurt the most on someone’s hands? ”Off, OFF!” She found the base of his nails and remembered a side comment someone had once mentioned. It hurt there, didn’t it? Taking a chance she dug her fingernails into those parts, hearing a satisfying yelp as the man suddenly let go. She took the moment to push him hard in the chest, to get away, though it didn’t move the large Myrian very far. Authority, she needed authority. She could feel fear building in her chest, slowly but steadily… but she knew what she needed.
She brought herself up tall, finding footing on the small rise of dirt where it met the wall, and even going so far as to slightly stand on her toes. ”Stupid male,” she hissed, trying to act the part of an important female Myrian. Now that she remembered the part of the man being drunk, she realized she could smell alcohol on him. Just great… drunk people were terrible at reasoning, landing her in another hole. She didn’t know what else she could do other than that, though… so there was nothing she could do but try.
”Stupid, stupid male,” she repeated, trying to dig it into his skull that he was inferior. Hopefully the Myrian wouldn’t remember that she was an outsider, not another of his race. ”Weak male, drunk male. I am female… better. Listen. Stop. Be smart. Bird not mine, go chase it, not me.” She sincerely hoped the man wouldn’t catch her bluff about Alaril being hers. The only proof was that the eagle had landed on her arm… and it was another gamble to tell if that would be remembered or understood at all. She glared straight into the man’s eyes to assert her dominance, almost reveling in the feeling. It was strange, this power… it wasn’t something she’d truly had much of before. It was interesting, even though she hadn’t even see the reaction to her actions, yet.
The reaction she earned was a stare. A flat, blank stare. Several ticks passed, and the man almost seemed to shrink on himself, anger fading slightly and looking a little confused. She almost surprised herself at how well it had worked, this ploy of hers. She had to try it again. There was a satisfying wave of success at being able to accomplish something like this, pretend to have someone below her. The only time that truly happened was when she was riding a horse, and then a person was physically under her… not mentally.
A moment passed in silence, then another. The quiet sounds of the forest could be heard, in the fading light. She’d barely realized how late it was. Then she saw something in the man’s eyes that made her swear mentally. Anger. More petching anger. She tried to keep up the authority that she’d collected, but she could see her control fading in the dark eyes, and the rage and indignance building. She had screwed up somewhere, though she didn’t know where yet. A low growl started coming as well, from deep in the Myrian’s throat. That sound was one she hadn’t heard before, and it was positively frightening.
The man took a step forward, and instinctively she took one back. That brought a grin of pleasure to the man’s face, though it quickly faded. ”No,” he said, voice hard and firm. Firmer and more sure than it had been before. ”Eagle. Yours. Eagle come to you, you pay back you OWE. PAY.” The last was at a roar, the calm control breaking as the man lashed forward to grab her again in the same place. Her neck was starting to hurt. She hissed in pain and irritation, trying to drag uselessly at his hands, scramble for the base of his fingernails, but he skillfully avoided her attempts after the first try, hands gripping in such a way that it was almost impossible to reach those sensitive areas.
She’d lost the power she’d had before in one stupid gamble, and now she was back in this position again… and it would be almost impossible to get in control again. She’d liked the feeling, that accomplishment of doing something with her words and her expression. She wasn’t skilled in that area, and… well… this was almost new. And she’d lost it.
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