Green-Trash Halfbreeds
A02: Old Clunk's Junkyard
The Junk Yard. One of Alexandria's filthier parts, not quite so pungent as the sewers, but still not anything like the noble district.
Today, poking around the piles of actual garbage more than those of salvageable artifice parts, a tall, gaunt figure in the filthy clothes of the most poverty-stricken stoops low, seeming fascinated with digging through the trash with his bare green hands and bare green feet. Something seems to be moving creepily around one of his legs, inside the pantleg.
It's a fine day for a walk beneath the clear blue sky and bright sunlight. Razen's enjoying the breeze, following where whim takes him. Which apparently is the junkyard. There are plenty of interesting things to look at though, and the half-oruch takes his time to peruse whichever items catch his curiosity. At least until he comes upon a pile of garbage. He stops at the base of it and looks it over. That's when he notices the figure digging in it. Uncertainly he calls out. "Hello?"
The digger-in-garbage turns at first, slowly, to see exactly whose attention he has captured, then rises to the full 6 feet of his full height. In one hand, he holds a plump worm. He squints and says, "Yes? Am I trespassing on your property?" The thing moving around inside his pantleg now moves upward, and finally pushes its way past the rope belt and out onto his abdomen. As it emerges, it shows to be a green snake with a diamond-shaped head. It comes only partially out, turns to look at Razen and hisses.
Yelrona has a torn piece of paper in her hand and is making frequent references to it and her surroundings as she walks through the junk piles, as though consulting a map. She looks up at a familiar voice coming from the other side of a pile, startled. "Hello?" she echoes, looking around the corner, and then "Ah! Razen. How --" she stops when she notices the third party, who she realizes in retrospect must have been who Razen was actually greeting, and the trouser-snake that emerges, hissing. She regards the snake curiously. "Is it friendly?" she asks its associated person.
Razen seems totally uncertain of what to do with the picture before him. His eyes are wide in surprise, his lips quirked into a frown. Slowly he looks at the snake and then back up to the man. It's clear that he is so caught up with it that he is startled when Yelrona comes around the corner. "Yelrona!" The tone of his voice is louder than it needs to be and he seems embarassed by this fact. "Um... No it is not my garbage. But what are you doing in it?" His question echo's Yelrona's.
Kruulvog tenses up as an elf joins in addressing him. Then at her question, he takes the snake up out of his pants allowing it to coil around his forearm. He says, "GreenFang is my only friend." Then to answer Razen, he lifts his other hand to his mouth and eats the worm.
Immediately Razen smiles broadly. "That does not have to be so; I would like to be your friend also!" He scrubs a hand over his short curly hair and grins even more widely. "Come, we can get you a hot meal."
Kruulvog looks at Razen skeptically, but says, tentatively, "Offering food is a good way to meet someone." The way he says it is less like an observation and more like the recitation of a lesson. He asks, "You live here?"
"So it is!" He agrees with the statement, and pauses briefly at the question. "I live in Alexandria yes. My name is Razen by the way." Razen nods politely to the other half-oruch.
Kruulvog takes a cautious step toward Razen, perhaps skeptical, but undeniably hungry. He says, "I am Kruulvog. Al-eks-ann-dree-ah. Yes. That is what they named it. I am from far away. South."
Razen smiles and nods. "I am from far away myself. Far, far north. I came from the tundra lands." He lifts a hand to touch the bear hide he wears. It's easy to tell from his clothing that he's from a cold climate, and he looks perhaps a bit overly warm in his notably dirty attire. The half orcuh looks considering. "I think you would like the Ox. It has good food, and good drink too."
Kruulvog walks forward now, the veneer of skepticism perhaps pushed aside a little. Still, he strokes the snake, as if the action is a security blanket. The reptile watches Razen. Kruulvog says, "How can you want to be my friend.? You only just saw me."
The half-oruch shrugs. "I like making new friends. I..." Razen gives a little shrug. "I did not have many back home, but... Here in Alexandria I have made many." He grins at Kruulvog. "Besides, we are both new here, so why not make friends with one another?"
The snake now uncoils from Kruulvog's forearm and slithers up his arm and across the back of his shirt so that the serpentine head wraps around his neck just enough to look forward. between the scruffy stubble of beard and the collar of the open shirt. The snake's body lays across the back of Kruulvog's neck and down in front of the opposite shoulder, its tail lost to view within the shirtsleeve.
Kruulvog says, "Perhaps so. Amid so very many people, it would be... prudent to make alliances." <yrch-speak>
He thinks a moment longer and then asks, "This ox is a female? I mean, you said it has good food. I assume you mean someone has butchered it and roasted its flesh? But as for it having good drink, all I can imagine is that someone must have milked it before it was slaughtered... or are you referring to its blood?"
Razen lets out a loud laugh that tilts his head back and then grins at Kruulvog. "It is a tavern my friend. A place where people gather to eat, and I could not tell you what they serve there save that it is very filling, and always warm." He motions with his hand for the other man to follow him. "Come, you will see for yourself.
Kruulvog looks at Razen laughing and scowls until he understands that the Ox isn't an actual ox. Then he cracks a sheepish smile himself.