Skipping Stones 2

Between the chill rain and the chill mountains, one could wonder why the sith-makar is outside. He sits on the rocks in his new, leather duster. His muzzle points to the sky, reflective and... he shivers.

Kisaiya is wandering through the Mountains, partly because she was trying to find the secret tunnel. She never really thought about the lyrics to that song being literal, and she wasn't sure if this was the mountain, but maybe. Just maybe... Her boot makes a shlorp, psh, shlorp, psh, with each step as they pull free of the mud and land in more watery mud. Every step is another trudge until. "Peace to your Necks!" She grins, spotting Chay. She's currently half-hidden under the cloak with its hood up to protect her.

He shudders, drawing his duster more closely around his shoulders. Then, blinks in the rain. It flows down his scales in tiny rivers. "It iss pleassant to sshare words, princess. How are you today?" he asks. He inclines his muzzle carefully, teeth clicking.

Kisaiya looks over the Sith-makar with a cant of her head as she watches him. A step closer with another pull of the mud at her boots. It's not much of a pull, it's not really downpouring after all. "I'm well, just Kisa though." She gives a faint smile and raises her eyebrows with a bit of curiosity hinted in them.

"How are you though, Chay? And are you ready to tell me what you haven't yet? You do have me curious about your past, and you've definitely left me with more questions than answers."

Caution, confusion. He looks at her warily, this scaled, drawn beneath his coat. "I am sspending time, lisstening to the--to the rain," he says. A half-lie, but also a half-truth. "It iss noissy in the city, princess. Forgive thiss one. He did not mean to causse confussion." He lowers his muzzle partly. Then stops, deliberately raising it. That never happened.

"It's okay." Kisa says, a smile sliding gently along her lips as she keeps that same careful look on Chay. "You don't need to tell me now, it's alright. We're in no rush. Did you pick up that jacket from Sandy's place? I think you might like it there, lots of color, and she's quite nice - she tries to act all mean and stodgy though."

He looks towards her sideways, his expression affable and warm, but anything with these scaled--it could be a mimic, couldn't it? He drops his muzzle, curling his tongue around a canine, but the expression seems more thoughtful than anything else. He drops it. "Purchassed," he says warily. And then, "I iss warmer than my old one. ...I have never been to her sshop, or...wass sshe the one sspeaking to you while you were building the snowman?" Speaking very loudly.

There's a ponder as she stares at Chay, a tilt of her head to the side even further and then an arching of her eyebrow, "Snowman? I don't-" She peters off and stands up a little straighter. She crosses her arms over her front and furrows her brows now with a push of her lips and to the side. "Hmm."

"Probably?" Kisa slowly nods her head, "At least, I think that would be about right. But when we talked on the bank and you were showing me how to skip stones, I told you to try and talk to her."

He hunches slightly. It's almost imperceptible, if not for his seven-foot frame. He is not small, this sith-makar. "I am ssorry. I have been working with the Guild and...I think I ssaw her after. Sshe wass very loud. You ssay thiss is only a fassade?" he asks her. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh, no." Kisa says with a wave of her hand, "She's always loud, that's always true, but she's not as mean and stodgy as she comes across. She's a really nice person, just doesn't do very good at showing it. And she likes to drink... and eat too much." She looks off to the side, not at Chay as he hunches for the moment. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, glancing back to the Sith-makar, "I don't mean with the guild either though. I mean before all that. You don't have to though, I understand. The past can be a tricky thing."

He tilts his head to the side again, and then stretches out, stretching his neck and scratching at it. "I had never conssidered. You know, in ssome plasses, that iss a lie." Oops. "They--I only mean...they are not who they sssay they are. Perhapss, ssince I did not know her, I did not know what to--" Oops. He tries to recover: "Have you tried sskipping sstones, again? You sseemed to find ssome talent in it."

Kisa stares at him. Just stares, and slowly lets an eyebrow rise up to an apex. She cants her head to the side, considering it all, "In some places that is a lie." An amused smile, "I was terrible at it, you were the one who was good at it. I'm pretty sure I got two skips at best. But, nearly anything can be a lie depending on the way you look at it. Embellish a little, embellish not enough, change a topic, answer a different question, any of them could be lies in their own way."

.

He looks at her, in a kind of direct way. Not enough to be rude, and soon his eyes slide to the side and away. "I hadn't conssidered it in that way, princess. Perhapss you are right, but. ...if you would like to sskip sstones again, ssometime, let me know." The rain trickles down, pat-pat and cold. It slides off his duster and scales. He only shivers occasionally. ...but here, it IS quieter than in the City. "I have sseen ssome of the Green out there. It ssseems a very beautiful river."

A shake of her head and she gives him a smile, but she did mean what she said, "I would like that. Especially if it helps you get more comfortable. There are many good people here, even some of the ones that don't /seem/ good, are." Kisaiya smiles all the more broadly to him.

"Oh! Have you met Svar and Durr? I love those two. Svar more than Durr, to be honest." She crinkles her nose, "Durr is a little stuffy for my taste."

"I...we..." that is to say. Chay looks lost for a moment, like a child who doesn't know whether to tell the truth or not. And adult is being nice to him.

But you know what happens when you trust?

He takes in a breath. "Perhapss I will ssoon, princess. I met one of the People a few dayss ago. Sshe sseemed kind. I...there are more of the People here than I expected." Cautious wonder.

"YOU SHOULD MEET SERRA!" Kisa says, her eyes going wider, "OH! And SASHA!" She tosses an earm out and back toward the city. "There are so many great people! There's Gah the Elf, and Aya the disappearing, and... And.." She pauses, thinking, "OH! So Serra! She's totally trying to court me, it's pretty interesting." A tuck of her hair behind her ear, "And she's volatile but really nice. She has a great heart. And Sasha, well, you met her once! YOU MET HER ONCE!" She tosses both arms out.

"AT THE BAR! When I got the greeting wrong and said Peace to your Nethers. Sasha was there! She was a little drunk." And she looks back toward the city again for a moment, continuing to ramble, "And Alba! Alba is awesome! I love her, she's so cool and..." She sort of wiggles her arms around along with her fingers in what she must think is some way to describe an insect of many legs.

"..and... I don't even know how to describe her. Maybe she'll let you see Hissy too! Hissy is a basilisk I helped save and brought to Alba. OH! If you find Spiders! Take them to Alba! She likes Spiders!"

Oh. Oh my god. He leaps, landing behind the rock and putting it between her and him. He's gone into fight-or-flight mode, with the bare whites of his eyes showing; a rare thing, for a scaled. Their eyes are more like the marbles of a canine, an alligator, or horse. Anything but the...

Breathe. Breathe. Palpate. Oh my god.

"There's so many others." Kisa continues to say, still looking out at the city. "There so many people I've met and so many of them are awesome. I mean, there's definitely those that are -" Her face kinda tweaks a little, "Eh? They make lots of judgements. Jump to conclusions, think I'm scared or something." She shrugs, "I don't get it. Like there was this one guy at Alba's, ugh. I couldn't stand him. And then there is Zant, he's-" Her voice peters off and she slowly turns her head back to look at. Blink.

"Err." She turns her head to the side a little, "Chay?"

Oh god. Oh god oh god. His spine is coiled like a snake, and his claws grip the stone. Inside, he's shaking. Outside... "Yess, yess princess. I'm here. I'm ssorry...you were ssaying? I--I'm ssorry. I...perhapss I ssaw ssomething."

"There's so many people you can meet and enjoy!" Kisa says, looking back toward the city again. "There's all sorts of species. I think I even once saw an Oruch who acted more Myrrish than most humans do." A look back toward Chay, "And then there was Svar, like I said. He likes spicy! I got him some pepper oil recently, and I think he'll like it. The last bottle was taken by a Tarien priest thanks to a Bard." A roll of her eyes with a cant of her head to the side.

"Ugh, that bard. Stuffy. So many stuffy people." Kisa's lips curve into a smile, "Don't be stuffy. Don't take life too seriously. Don't fall into the bit of Gods and lectures. Live, Chay. Live."

Oh gods. Meeting people. MEETING PEOPLE. Battleclaw no. And live? Something goes through his eyes. He summons a smile, finds a smile for her, this softskin. "We were the Ones Who Went Out," he tells her, a true thing. And settles on the stone again, his breath coming too fast. Too...he folds his hands together, the claws interlaced. "Where are you from, princess?"

"I suppose that the place I'm mostly from is Vandalheim." Kisa says with a tapping of her finger to her chin, a smile spreading ever wider, then a look off to the side for a moment. "But I've been many places. What about /you/?" A slow arch to the eyebrow as she lets the eyes drift back toward him.

"I...we were originally from Am'sshere," he says, crouching his words. "But plasses like that, I have only sseen on mapss. Did you enjoy the journey here?" he asks, turning the conversation back around.

"What do you mean places like that?" She asks with a little shaking of her head from side-to-side, a frown pulling along her features. The eyes dart off to the side for the moment, and when he changes it she won't press. Instead she continues too.

"Here Alexandria or here /here/. Both of them, yes, but for different reasons." She tucks her hands behind herself, swaying from one foot to the other, "Alexandria is great because it's a new place, large and amazing. Here... What's not to like about this place?"

"It is large," he says, unguarded for a moment. His eyes flick up to her features and stay, as though there was never any fear there at all. He appears to relax. "If it iss like being any other plasse, I would not know. I have not been to many ssoftsskin ssities and tiss one...they tell me it iss very large. Are other...are other ssities thiss large?"

"Some of them can be, I think." Kisaiya says with a bit of musing though. She looks back toward Alexandria again and sighs in a wistful way. She sways, shifting her weight from one to the other.

"Vandalheim is sprawling in a way, not like Alexandria since it's near a giant rift in the land." She smiles slowly, "The city is like a mushroom in a way. It slowly floods out along the coast, and also back into the dark rift. The part in the rift scales upward, along the walls of the very scar. It's..." A shake of her head. from side to side.

"It's amazing."

He stares at her as she talks, as though he could see her words. And then. And then he blinks once slowly, as a reptile might, and looks to the side. "There iss...they ssay there iss a plasse like that, out here. On the peninsula." Greater Alexandros, he means. Alexandria is at its end. "They call it Genrivian Gorge, and it iss tied to artifice." Oh. Oh could one hear the care, the flatness in his voice. But he smiles.

"I don't know of the place." Kisa says a bit pensively as she watches Chay with a little frown developing along her brow. She gives a short shake of her head, "Have you been there? I 'd be curious to hear about it, every place is a new adventure after all."

He kicks his feet, on the boulder. He doesn't do this very WELL. They're awkward-shaped, at least to a sofskin's sensibilities, and his legs are too long really, for it not to be this way. Then there's the duster. So really, it doesn't work very well at ALL. "...I have heard tales from other g--from otherss. There are legendss ssurrounding it, and I'm ssure it iss not as pleasant as Vandalheim. It iss probably very dangerouss but...a gorge and cliffs sstrike me ass beautiful, in any casse." There are all sorts of legends surrounding Genrivia. Whirl wants me to put it on the map. But it'd involve editing a lot of ascii and mapcode. >.>

The human just sort of stares as she can't quite seem to wrap her head around what exactly is happening. The scuffing feet is definitely throwing her and she just blinks. Another tilt of her head the other direction. "From other... what?" There's a raise of an eyebrow as that seems to be the part that's most interesting to her.

Could he BE any more evasive? This large sith-makar, just seven feet in height with a general heaviness in build that comes from living in the outdoors. Or, given the faint line-scars on his wrists and neckline, something else. He looks away again, not meeting her gaze. Not...oh.

Oh.

A slave might do those things. A slave might not meet a master's gaze. But he is a free man, isn't he. "I thought it interessting, princess. Perhapss, I will go and when we sskip sstones ssometime, I will tell you about it?"

Kisaiya plants her hands on her hips, staring hard at the Sith-makar, "No-o-o-o-o." Her voice ending on a higher note than it starts, with an eyebrow slowly rising to match it. "Nope. Nope!" She shakes her head, but the eyes stay on him as her mouth pulls off to the side.

"What was it you were gonna say! You've heard tales from other... what?" She starts to tap her foot, but she also has a look that's akin to amusement careening along her visage.

"Tales?" he shifts uncomfortably. Can a seven-foot monster squirm? He does, just a touch. The tail gives it away, if one knows what to look for. "Sstories, princess. Justt...sstories of thiss terrifying gorge, out to the northwesst, where thiss lich king lived. Koboldss, other creaturess, have made their homes there. If one lisstened to rumorss." He looks up then. Dares to. "But, your look makess me think they were made up. It would be nisse if they were. ...ssa, but I think I sshould look, ssometime." Misdirect. It's like pinning in an animal. He dives one way, then the next. To the side. But he's /polite/.

Kisaiya continues to stare at him, her lips growing a bit thinner as she doesn't seem to be buying any of what he's saying. She makes it a point to give a look that says as such, that she knows what he's doing. She even gives a pause at the end, letting it linger on as she stares. Yes, she knows he's being evasive. "Fine."

A little flat, she taps her foot a couple times, making a light splashing sound as it hits into the mud. "Fine, I'll let it go. Whatever it is you're hiding, you must be doing it for /some/ reason. So, let's go with... maybe. I have no idea about this place you talk of. But I agree. It would be nice if it was mostly just rumors. Especially with talk of lich kings."