RP:A Business Trip (Not an Adventure)

...continued from A Delivery Sensational (with Hazards Occupational).

Summary: Orikahn's luck (or perhaps skill) in caring for the young dragon has been outright poor. In a crucial moment, Zedidiah calls Kahn's judgement into question and, with a little courage and quick thinking, manages to turn their fortune back around for the better. Day eventually turns to night, so the two deliverymen make camp and conversation.

Rough Range

Orikahn has followed Zedidiah's advice and bound the dragonling's wings, wrapping them shut upon themselves in long, taut strips of hide. It was violent going at first, what with the scaly whelp thrashing and tossing about. Orikahn caught several sharp headbutts in the course of it, and he's now sourly nursing a bloodied nose and looking contemptuously back at the dragon's swishing tail, dangling out the back of Zed's wagon. Kahn walks alongside, tilting his head back every so often so he can noisily hawk up a vulgar mouthful and spit mingled blood and mucus into the rocky roadside. "Hoarlash," Orikahn was just explaining to Zedidiah that he'd already named the creature, "a mean, bad name for a mean, bad lizard." Well, for being as mean and bad as it supposedly is, Hoarlash has mostly been staring sullenly up at the halfling from behind.

Zedidiah, for his part, has been quietly guiding his horse along the trail that will eventually lead to Orikahn's dwarven buyers. Curiously quiet, if one knee the halfling at all, and with a suspiciously large interest in how Hoarlash's muzzle is affixed. Securely is the answer he prefers, which he verifies with yet another quick glance back at the dragon. Throughout the first leg of this trip, he has repeatedly reached into his vest and pulled out some small treat or another. Small pastries, finger sandwiches, strips of jerky. Each time he apparently thought better of lifting them to his mouth, in the eyeline of Hoarlash, and instead set this small picnic down on the bench beside him. After he retrieves a meat pie that is still, but just barely, warm from that morning, he calls out to Orikahn, "Maybe a quick snack break then? Make sure the mighty Hoarlash doesn't go hungry?" Certainly, Zed does not want him hungry enough to mistake a halfling for a snack.

Orikahn scratches his chin contemplatively. "Yes. Snacks are good." He throws a half-contemptuous look toward the back of the wagon and Horlash's swishing tail. The dragon's yet to eat or drink a thing, and it's looking rather subdued to say the least. "Maybe now it will behave," the hunter remarks, something of a dubious, sideways jab at the blue-scaled monster of a welp. Intuitively (perhaps its ears were burning) Horlash raises its head and stretches, wings shaking as they strain against their bindings. There's a noisy "pop" and a pungent paint-thinner odor as Orikahn unstops a dark, stout bottle and takes a healthy swig. "Mmm. Gah. Grog." He balls his hand into a fist and flexes his bicep, as though the drink and his outlandish musculature were somehow related. "Good snack."

Zedidiah is fully on board with this plan until grog makes an appearance. Is Orikahn going to give the dragon grog? If he gives the dragon grog, will Zed have to sit in front of a drunken frost breathing dragon all the way to dwarf lands? In dire moments like these, Zedidiah Gawkroger falls back on the only strategy left to a coward of his stature. Embrace the lesser terror. "Right!" He calls over to Orikahn as he scrambles off the driver seat, flipping it up to reveal just...just so much food. Like a miniature larder. halfling wagons apparently are built to store essentials in case of a breakdown , and essentials include enough food for four grown men for three days, or a halfling for one. "You just... you enjoy your snack. Too good to waste on dragons, that." Please don't give the dragon grog is the only thing Zed thinks as he unloads smoked slabs of beef and lamb. As an afterthought he also pulls out some sort of salted pork haunch, uncooked. Quietly, gingerly, he starts to lay these meats before the dragon, murmuring quietly "So Hoarlash. Ready to eat now ? Eat yummy cows and lambs, not yucky halfling, right?" He eyes the muzzle for a long time. He isn't moving toward it though.

Orikahn downs a second swig and turns to offer the bottle to Zedidiah, but he finds the halfling conspicuously out of his driver's seat. The cat blinks in surprise, but his nares flare at the smell of the veritable larder, and he pads his way over to peer in. "What's all this?" He speaks through an incredulous laugh, watching wide-eyed as Zed sets out a whole feast for Hoarlash. "So much," a broad fanged grin splits his face, "for a nasty little dragon. Don't waste your good meat. A little grog goes a long way." Orikahn gives the jug a shake, musically swishing the liquid inside. Contrary to the feline's suggestion, the dragon seems much more interested Zed's spread, and eagerly scoots closer to sniff at the smoked lamb. Hoarlash coughs, and twin puffs of frost blast out its nose, instantly precipitating into fat snowy flakes that drift down like so much confetti. This prompts another laugh from the feline. "Hoarlash chooses! Your snacks win." A gross understatement. "Need a knife for that muzzle, dragon tamer?"

Zedidiah had been quietly praying to whatever divinities look out for cowards that the dragon not get drunk, so much so that he's caught unaware when he is essentially volunteered to unleash the beast. "Oh no," the poor halfling answers without thinking, "I have my great grandpappy Frolo's..." the reality suddenly resolves itself before his eyes like a snapped bowstring. He finishes his sentence in the voice of a condemned prisoner walking to the gallows. "...Knives." From a just, let's be honest, idiotically ornate sheath, he draws a perfectly serviceable, simple long knife, bordering on short sword in his halfling hands. He approaches Hoarlash carefully, empty hand held out to grasp the muzzle and knife at the ready. "Okay Pappy Frolo, I'm doing it. Facing down a dragon, just like you. So a little help would be appreciated." Of course, according to Gawkroger family legend, Pappy Frolo's dragon had been the size of a small building, in its lair, not tied up on the back of a cart. Zed cuts loose that muzzle and then leaps with all the stored energy of a thousand cupcakes and a year of nightmares, his tubby body spilling over the side of the cart almost like an amoeba while Hoarlash does his dark work on that lamb.

Orikahn's playful look is immediately subdued into impressed surprise at the sight of the long knife, and there's no teasing or laughter to interrupt Zedidiah's concentration. Ears pert, pupils wide, Orikahn peers cautiously around to watch the de-muzzling. The sinew cord snaps, Hoarlash's fangs flash, and Zed is not a moment too soon getting out of the way of the lizard's hungry dive. "Hah!" Kahn thumps his chest in approval. "Quick work! Good fangs!" In enthusiastic pantomime, the feline turns toward Zedidiah to gnash his teeth and flex his claws with theatrical savagery. "Grah grah grah! Hah!" The cart, meanwhile, is visibly shaking with Hoarlash's enthusiasm as it greedily gobbles lamb, beef, and pork. The sounds of visceral gorging are punctuated by noisy crunching whenever the dragon finds a bone to munch up. "Good. Good snacks," Orikahn surmises, impressed. "Good juju. How lucky am I, to have accidented upon an expert in the care of dragons. The dwarves will have much use for you."

Zedidiah is just drenched in flop sweat as he climbs back onto his feet. He flinches back from Orikahn's dragon impression, then covers with a nervous laugh when he realizes the cat isn't going to finish the job for Hoarlash. "Yes, well.." He stammers as he ponders how to get out of this intact, "In my line of work you pick up a thing or two about a thing or two." That should be good. Makes him sound essential while being vague enough he didn't promise anything. But dwarven coin and the prospect of dwarven trade contracts keep him from following his heart and just running off into the wilderness. Plus, Orikahn could catch him. Without trying, in all likelihood. He clears his throat and offers some more dragon insight, "He seems a good specimen, has fight in him. We should keep him strong for the dwarves, let him conserve strength. Wait till he falls asleep before moving on." Muzzling a sleeping dragon sounds like a nightmare, but a much nicer nightmare than muzzling an awake dragon covered in pork blood.

Orikahn scratches his chin, admiring the wisdom of all this. "Good specimen, yes." The cat nods. "Until he falls asleep, yes." Kahn balls his hand into a fistfull of conviction and drops it into his waiting palm with a sound "thuck." While Hoarlash devours its fill, the cat wanders hither and thither, gathering what sparce tinder and firewood he can. The mountains have their occasional pines and such, but scrub seems to be the dominant vegetation presently. In the end, it looks like their campfire will have to run on weathered scraps gathered from what appear to be ancient, stranded caravans rather not unlike Zedidiah's own. The thin air cools with alarming rapidity, and by the time the primal hunter has managed to drill a spark alight with his bowstring, his panting breath is already visible.

Zedidiah watches Hoarlash the way a mouse might watch a cat. The dragon's eyelids droop, but Zedidiah waits. One eye peeks open a slit, and Zedidiah waits. Eventually the dragon slides into a sated slumber, and Zedidiah slowly, silently, creeps his way dragonside like honey sliding onto a piece of toast. The muzzle is back on so quickly, powered by a terror so complete, that an unwitting observer might mistake it for bravery. Only then does Zed finally have time to properly panic, and with teeth chattering from fear and cold he rips into his reserve of dried, candied fruits. Only the power of empty, sugary calories can bring him to a state approximating normality. Looking around at last, he takes in the scene. Hoarlash, the sleeping dragon. Orikahn, a mighty warrior. Making a fire. In the wilderness. On their way to see dwarves. The bottom drops from poor Zedidiah's stomach, and for once the halfling has lost his appetite. "Orikahn, sir?" His voice is the voice of a child. Or a mouse. Or perhaps a mouse's child, who is also very scared. Not the voice one would advise using around a predator. He gulps and tries again, now more like an adult halfling, so still pretty childlike. "You're surely quite mighty, and accomplished in feats of strength and acts of daring do. In your estimation, we are on a business trip, correct? Not..." He swallows hard again, "An adventure?"

Orikahn speaks as he inches incrementally larger tinder into the blossoming flames. "Hmm? You ask funny questions, master dragontamer." His nose wrinkles, and one might wonder whether "business or adventure" is too harsh a philosophical conundrum for such a creature as he. Dipping into his own reserves (if they can even be called that by comparison), Kahn pulls out a strip of leathery jerky from his medicine bag. He talks as he chews. "When eagles sweep the cliffs for hapless hares | or kestrels dart the sky for thrush or sparrow, | neither doubts her course, and neither dares, | for all her mind is straight and heart is narrow." The cat noisily rips off another strip of jerky with his teeth and falls ominously silent.

Zedidiah shifts his candies around restlessly, nodding at Orikahn's poetry as if he grasps some deeper wisdom in them. "Ahh yes. The eagle and the kestrel." He pops his candies into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before adding, "Birds, you know." The halfling eventually settles back into this being a business trip. Like a bird would go on. Business birds. He glances over to Orikahn, "Candied orange slice?"

Orikahn chases his jerky with a swig of grog. His glowing eyes flicker like a faulty fluorescent bulb, and the cat blinks, breaking out of some distant reverie. "Hmm. Hmmph!" Snapping his attention down to the orange slice, he sniffs once, twice, and looks a little dubious. If the halfling can get so fat eating these things, they must be food of some kind, or so Kahn reasons against his nasal intuition. With a hesitant hand, he skewers one of the candied fruits on his index claw and holds it up to the swelling firelight from one angle, then another. He licks it, seems unoffended, and pops the sweet in his mouth. Some seconds later, he hacks the half chewed wad into the fire, struggling not to gag and looking as though he took a shot of turpentine. It takes several moments and a lot of saliva before he can sit up, wipe his muzzle on his arm, and speak again. "Bad juju. Bad juju, no, no, no." Looking more sad than anything, Orikahn washes his mouth out with grog, shaking his head and gazing into the stars for guidance.

Zedidiah just stares in confusion, popping more candies into his mouth. "Well. Maybe some meats next time. Are we sleeping or just breaking for meal? I'm no stranger to long hauls." Ahh yes, now that Hoarlash is muzzled, Zed's vigor for travel seems to be returning.

Orikahn's distress subsides, little by little, and he turns a couple circles, padding around a little before he lays down with his head on his folded arms, body tightly curled against itself in a neat, round roll. "Yes, yes sleep." The weariness of the day seems to have found him all at once, and he yawns widely. "Tomorrow, master dragontamer, we meet the dwarves and make our pay."

Continued in Draconic Docility Specialists...