RP:A Delivery Sensational (with Hazards Occupational)

Summary: Zedidiah, for the love of money, confronts his fear of predators and decides to help Orikahn with a small matter involving a hungry dragon.

Mountain Path

Orikahn sits by the fireside of a one-man day camp, twiddling a crude spit. There's a pleasant aroma of roasting meat, even if the critter isn't much of a pleasant sigh, just a stringy carcass with a red, greasy sheen and a little char on the stumped ends of what once were limbs. There's a wigwam woven of mountain grass, and a woolly hide spread for a mat, upon which Kahn sits cross-legged. The sabertooth himself stares rather absently into the fire. He's a massive creature; standing, he'd have to be around seven feet tall, and he looks to weigh around three hundred pounds, all of it lean muscle. His fur glistens with health, and a great bushy, striped tail waves behind him. If the anthromorph were not peculiar enough already, a third eye glows phosphorescent green from the center of his brow. Beside him are various instruments of carnage: a tomahawk, a long flint knife, a bow and a foxskin quiver stuffed with arrows. Also beside him, in a tight sinew muzzle, is a tiny dragon, no older than a hatchling, with blue gleaming scales. Staked tethers hold it to the ground, despite feeble struggling.

Zedidiah drives his cart along the mountain path. A modest affair, with the words 'Gawkroger Shipping Company' emblazoned across the sides. This isn't one of the carts dedicated to Gawkroger Sanitation, luckily, or the odor would have well preceeded him. An incredibly bored horse plods along, uninterested even as it detects a fearsome predator ahead. Zedidiah himself finds Orikahn more worthy of note, as he glances around hopefully for the town guards who were nearby to ensure he wasn't eaten last time his path crossed the tiger's. No such luck. Deciding that, if he's going to be spotted either way he might as well pretend he isnt afraid, he calls out, "Ho there, friend tiger. Is that rabbit I smell? I think I have some taters on hand if you'd care to make a stew of it after."

Orikahn breaks out of his fireside meditation and looks up. His nostrils flare. Does he remember this halfling? He doesn't see many halflings. "Hmm." The potato suggestion doesn't seem especially appealing, given the tiger's grimace, but Kahn cranes his neck nonetheless, trying to get a better look at this fearless little cart-driver. "Do dragons eat potatoes?" So much for hellos! Said dragon seems to have noticed Zedidiah's arrival, for it's halted its struggles to plead with big, startlingly vivid blue eyes.

Zedidiah plucks a bit of honeyed pastry from his jacket pocket and chews on it fretfully, swallowing hard and forcing a large smile onto his face as he gets nearer the fire. But, wisely, keeps his horse on the road. At some point getting closer to Orikahn will transition into getting further away, and the thought brings him a measure of peace. "Potatoes for dragons? Well now I'm a simple merchant, no dracothologist, but I should think meats, presumably well done? I have some jerky, but I don't think it would do the trick."

Orikahn gives this suggestion a passing thought. "Jerky will do." Lifting his spit away from the fire, he jams one end in the dirt so it can stand upright, still sizzling as it cools. "You will take gold?" Turning, Kahn crawls on hands and knees to stick his head in the wigwam and root around. "The dwarves say everyone takes gold, but I am dubious," the sabercat grumbles, eventually emerging with a jingling purse. "Gold for dragons. Gold for fights. Gold for everything." Looking rather out of his element, he starts counting out one, two, three, four... musically the disks glide over one another as they slip brightly into his waiting palm. "Always giving Kahn gold. It was much better when they gave me a pipe. Sturdy wood, good smoke for strong tobacco. I will show it to you. Jerky first."

Zedidiah tugs on the reins, just a bit. The horse, not particularly enamored with his lot in life, but resigned to it, complies, and draws to a stop. Zed draws a few careful breaths. The tiger has money. He performs the quiet calculations of greed, and steps amiably off his cart, explaining as he dips into his personal stash of dried, exotic meats, retrieving a representative sample from the large chest under his seat in the wagon. The snack seat. "Well, dwarves surely love gold, though they often overestimate its importance. Still, it can be useful in trade from time to time. Not truly important, not like dry shelter, good food, a nice pipe. Real men of the world, like you and I, we know what has true merit." The halfling pats his overweight belly. Yes, he is surely a survivalist on the level of Orikahn. "Still, gold has it's uses." He offers strips of meat to Orikahn, still giving the dragon a wide berth. Deer jerky, boat jerky, beef jerky, some type of lizard is in there too. "So, you have a dragon now?"

Orikahn studies the strip of meat intently, taking it in one hand and absentmindedly passing Zed a stack of coins with the other. The tiger sniffs it, bites off a little corner, chews it, seems pleased. "It's good to talk to someone who understands. Everyone else seems obsessed with the silly yellow stuff. Soft. Awfully heavy. Too bright. Good for nothing." He tosses the rest of the strip down by the muzzled dragon. "That it there," he indicates it with a nod, then stoops to pick up his flint knife. A moment later, he's grabbed the wyrmling roughly by the neck and, with a quiet pop, cut loose the binding muzzle. The little creature hisses angry and wide-eyed. Swiftly, Kahn releases it and withdraws. "Now eat," he commands the captive animal, but it only snaps with futile rage and continues angrily hissing. "It is not a very good dragon," Orikahn observes, disappointed. "The dwarves want one that will grow up strong, you see, but I am having serious doubts."

Zedidiah frowns as he looks from Orikahn to the hatchling. Of course, the coin is secured quietly and efficiently inside one of Zed's many pockets, even as he nods about how useless it is. "I should think it is doing a rather good job of being a dragon, in that it is angry and dislikes being confined. I know a man who traded in exotic birds. He clips their wings so they don't fly away while he's training them. The birds aren't permanently harmed, they recover, but it stops them from escaping. I don't know about dragons, but maybe there's something similar you could do? I mean, I imagine if someone bound you in chains, you'd try to escape first, eat after."

Orikahn seems to grasp the good sense in what Zedidiah says, and he takes the tip of the wyrmling's wing between his thumb and forefinger to splay it taut, prompting more objection and hissing. "Don't think it's old enough to fly, but its legs maybe," he slides a sly look back to the halfling. "You seem like someone who knows good tricks. You and I, we'll take this dragon to the dwarves' mountain together, and I will give you half of whatever they give me." The way Orikahn talks, this doesn't sound like much of a question or even a suggestion. "You know how to keep yourself well-fed. They will pay us more if it is strong and healthy." Amid its rather feebling raging, the dragon hiccups a puff of shimmering frost, spatting a nearby patch of grass with a glassy coat of ice.

Zedidiah is about to object. But... the thing has a muzzle. And dwarves do have gold. He fusses with his pockets, withdrawing a link of cold sausage left over from one of his breakfasts, and gnaws on it thoughtfully. "Well. Seems like it isn't the type of dragon to burn my cart down. Yes, yes this seems reasonable. Gawkroger Shipping will accept the contract. When do we leave?"

Orikahn unstops his waterskin and pours a puddle next to the dragon, presumably for drinking. "I will strike my camp, and we will leave. Keep the potatoes, but half my rabbit is yours now." Bossy, this Orikahn, but perhaps fair? He carves himself a shoulder and a shank, then offers Zed the rest of the spit. "Do you smoke pipe?"

Zedidiah thinks deeply over the rumbling of his tummy, then helps himself to a slice of rabbit. "I don't smoke myself. Dangerous in my line of work." The composting part. The little halfling munches quietly while he ponders the name of his new subcorporation. Gawkroger Exotic Animals?

Continued in A Business Trip (Not an Adventure)...