RP:A New Hunter in Frostmaw
Frostmaw Tavern
Orikahn gratefully accepts the shots of rum, plucking each up in his gauntleted fingers and nodding his thanks to Drargon. Careful not to spill, he makes his way back to his table by the fireside. Without any fuss or ceremony, he slides Aira her shotglass before taking his own seat, flipping his cloak over the back of the chair and trying to settle in comfortably. He reaches up to unbuckle his visor and set it on the table between them. The sabertooth nods slowly, not yet breaking the silence. He absentmindedly toys with his shot.
Aira dropped herself rather ungracefully into a chair near the fireside, sliding her quiver and bow from her back and resting them at her feet. The warmth of the fire was welcoming and Aira pulled her legs up, hugging her arms around her knees as she stared unceremoniously into the flames dancing in the hearth. She was consumed by her own thoughts and only turned her metallic gaze from the fire when Orikhan slid a glass of rum towards her. She stared at the amber liquor for moment before reaching out and plucking up the vessel. She cupped it in her hands as she turned back to the fire, not lifting the glass to lips.
Orikahn bought 2 Ice-Breaker Rums for 0 gold, 70 silver, and 0 copper.
Orikahn gave you 1 ice-breaker rum.
Orikahn lifts the glass and tilts his head back, tossing back the shot between his saber fangs and shuddering once, just once, as the burning liquid works its way down. He sets the glass inverted on the table. "Graah." The feline clears his throat and looks up, hoping to catch the barmaid's eye. It's going to take more than a shot. "We were lucky." Orikahn hoarsely growls, and he clears his throat again, speaking up properly this time, his velvety basso sailing across the table. "We were lucky, I think. I've had things go much worse before, on more than one occasion, in those ruins." Looking down, only now does Orikahn realize he'd been wearing a groove in the table with the spiked tip of his gauntlet. He stops himself just in time; the barmaid arrives at the tableside. "Two of the usual, Kahn?" The giantess asks, and the hunter nods in answer, sending her traipsing back to the bar, soon to return with foamy flagons. "If you're going to help this ghost," Orikahn goes on, "I suppose you'll have to be allowed in the ruins, won't you?" He leans over and begins fishing for something in his pack.
Aira continued to gaze into the fire until Kahn takes his shot of rum and inverted his glass on the table. As if suddenly realizing what is in her hand, Aira followed suit, tilting her head back and downing the rum in one shot giving a slight shudder. She placed the glass on the table and unfolded her legs, sitting straight once again. At the mention of being lucky, the runaway simply shrugged; it was the most intense encounter she had ever experienced but she wasn't familiar with the area. Aira lifted her gaze to the barmaid as she comes and takes the feline's order and offered a small, polite smile. When Orikahn posed his question, she looked directly at him. "Yes, that be good. But I would go anyway even if not allowed." Aira figured transparency was best, there was no use lying if Kahn were to find her back in the ruins some day.
Orikahn pulls out a small pouch of some kind. An animal skin? It was some oily-looking bag tied with a leather strip, and he sets it on the table to begin unfastening it. "I have no doubt," Kahn knows what a firecracker this young elf can be, "but maybe we can figure out something mutually agreeable. You've seen the ruins and the wilds; you know the dangers." The barmaid returns, setting out their beers, and Kahn pauses in his fiddling with the small pouch and pulls out some coin for her. Silvers jingle between them before the hunter can go on. His gaze returns to Aira. "I need swift feet and able arrows," his fingers finally pry the bag open, revealing a bright lump of greasy red pigment, "so I'd like to annoint you as a hunter of Frostmaw."
Despite what the pair had been through recently, Aira managed a smile when Orikahn mentioned something more agreeable for the two of them. She leaned forward then, resting her arms across the table as she watched him curiously, copper eyes settling on the small pouch as her blonde hair danced along the table. Her concentration was once again broken by the barmaid as more drinks are brought and coin is exchanged. "Me? Hunter of Frostmaw?" Aira thought back to her short time in Frostmaw, where she had shot and killed plenty of little critters. And there was the mammoth, although she would argue that perhaps that was more luck than anything else. Despite her slight lack of confidence she perked up and a large grin broke across her full lips.
Orikahn bought 2 Warming Ales for 0 gold, 0 silver, and 10 copper.
Orikahn gave you 1 warming ale.
Orikahn carefully moves the now open skinful of pigment closer to the center of the table, then begins removing his gauntlets. "Yes. You'd have the authority to enter the ruins, and you wouldn't have to worry about me making lunch of you someday." Orikahn sends her a wry look. "A shame, but I suppose it would be hard to trust me without some kind of promise, wouldn't it?" With his bare fingers, now, the massive feline beast takes the pigment and begins working it, carefully kneading and softening the greasy paste. "So you'll have my protection as a pridemate, and a modest salary to boot. In return," Kahn's eyes flicker up to her face, hoping to gauge her reaction to all this, "you'll be prepared to assist Frostmaw as a hunter may. Sometimes, this will mean scouting, spotting and reconnaissance; sometimes this will mean risking your life." Something in his eyes softens. "And sometimes this will mean putting troubled spirits at ease, for the sake of the wilderness' well being. What do you say?" He holds up his fingers, thick with red ointment, ready and waiting for her answer.
Aira gently cradled her cheek in her hand as she watched Orikahn working the pigment, metallic eyes on his kneading. Her eyes flicker up to his green ones when he mentioned that she would be safe from being his lunch. "I held my own pretty good, I think," she jested then before returning her gaze to the pigment. She listened intently and he listed all the things she would gain by accepting the position. When he began to explain what she would give in turn she looked into his face once again, remaining quiet. She does remain silent for a few moments, not because she was worried about risking her life, but more because her mind had returned back to the little shadow girl back in the ruins. It was that more than anything else that solidified her resolve. She gave Orikahn a curt nod then. "Sound like just what I looking for."
- missing Orikahn’s post*
Aira took her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed, apparently deep in thought. She tipped in her chair, balancing on the back legs for a few moments. Suddenly, she let the chair fall back to the floorboards with a loud thud and shot up out of her seat. She held up an index finger towards Kahn, indicating she would be back in a minute. With a few strides she was already across the room and disappearing up the stairs. Just as quick as her outburst came, Aira was padding down the steps with a book and jar of ink in hand, a feather quill tucked behind her tappered ear. She slid back into her seat and immediately began to flip through the tome which seemed to be written in elvish, with beautiful, looping penmanship. "Remember I tell you little girl say she stuck? That not first time spirit tell me that." Aira skimmed the pages of her book until she settled on a yellowing page towards the beginning and pushed it towards the center of the table. "I write down when spirits come to me because no one believe me at home. One night when I escape my room spirit come to me. He say he stuck in far away place because bad spirits won't let him go. Little shadow girl tell me same thing."
Orikahn startles when the chair falls, then sends Aira an annoyed look as she rushes up the stairs. She disappears from view, and the hunter sighs through his nose, steadying himself with another sip of beer. Pulling back his hood, Orikahn frees his head and rubs at his ears, massaging the cartilage as it can finally stand upright, free from the confines of fabric. He then goes on to begin unfastening his bracers and armguards; so does Aira find him when she comes back down, tugging on the buckles and prying away the metal plates to expose the arming doublet beneath. "Hmm?" He glances over to the journal as she explains. Stuck far away? Bad spirits? "Is that what all this says?" The cat points carefully at the page, tilting his head curiously to the side, following the lines of script. "The night when a spirit came to you?" Studying the page intently, he tilts his head to the other side. Some of the shapes could resemble spirits, he reasons. And that one kind of looks like a house? If there is a story in it, though, he can't find it...
Aira nodded her head, lifting her eyes from the page to Orikahn's face. "Yes. I begin to see patterns of spirits, of what they tell me. Once one come many more come. So I start keeping track of who they are, what they want so I know how to help. I only see this spirit once and he say he stuck far away and that bad spirit not let him go." She shrugged her shoulders then, leaning back in her chair as she let out a deep sigh that caused a loose strand of hair to flutter across her freckled face. "They probably not related but it curious that both boy and shadow girl say same thing to me." The runaway paused then, resuming her chewing on her lip. "Or maybe my head just sick like me ma say."
Orikahn scratches his chin. It still seemed odd that all those things could be there in those funny scribbles. He leans back, ignoring the journal for now and focusing on Aira's spoken words. "These sound like the spirits of the weak of helpless," his maw reflexively wrinkles in disdain, "placing them well beyond my usual spheres of spiritual interaction. Perhaps these trapped ones do not speak to me because they know my heart is hard." His fingers flex, needing something to grab, so he snatches up his flagon for another swig. It buys him a moment to think. "This makes you better suited, I'm sure." They know a sucker when they see one. "They must somehow know you'll want to help them."
Aira fixed her gaze on Orikahn, drawing her book back towards her once again, her slender fingers curling the edge of the page absentmindedly. "I wish they leave me alone," Aira admitted bitterly. She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "I worry one day good spirit not actually be good and lead me to danger." It seemed Aira was at least self aware of her shortcomings. The runaway resumed the tipping in her chair, rocking back and forth slightly, copper eyes glinting eerily as she watched the flames. "I not expecting to encounter spirits in Frostmaw."
Orikahn swirls his beer. "Well," his brows raise, "normally, you'd be right." Tilting his head, the cat cups his chin in his hand and gives a little push; his neck pops noisily. "And I imagine things will settle back down again," Kahn sighs through his nose, "well, you know, I've already told you. That how everything is, in Frostmaw anyway." The cat eyes his gauntlets and bracers on the table. "In fact, I don't think I'll rest here long. My work in the wilderness isn't finished. You," his jade green gaze snaps to connect with her copper orbs, "if you go back into the ruins, don't do anything foolish. I don't want to find your frozen corpse shambling along with those other..." his maw wrinkles contemptuously at the mention of such abominations, "...undead. Bah. I shouldn't have taken these off." The cat downs the last of his beer, foam dripping down his saber fangs and onto the table. "Here," the cat fishes in his bag a moment, "your first salary." He tosses a handfull of gleaming, precious gems onto the table, then focuses on restrapping his bracers and gauntlets.
Orikahn dropped 3 diamond. Orikahn dropped 5 emerald. Orikahn dropped 4 ruby. Orikahn dropped 1 glowing stone.
Aira had forgotten completely about her own ale and soon clutched the mug and brought to it to her lips drinking thirstily until it was nearly gone. Her body stiffened slightly as his jade eyes lock with her metallic ones, warning her to tread carefully in the old ruins. A slender hand reached up to gently touch the red warpaint on her cheeks. "I suppose it must be hard to find new elf to hunt if I die." Despite the morose topic, Aira's voice was even and nonchalant, as if they were talking about the latest storm. She only lowered her irises to the table when the feline dropped some precious stones, reaching forward and picking up a diamond, rolling it around in her fingers. These weren't an abnormal sight for the high elf, her mother wore these quite often, Aira herself had worn one on her finger for a time. She was eager to sell it.
Aira picked up 3 diamond. Aira picked up 5 emerald. Aira picked up 4 ruby. Aira picked up 1 glowing stone.
Orikahn is soon strapped back into his plates. Last is his visor, which he holds in his gauntleted hand. "Whatever happens, I expect interesting news." He stands and begins fastening the visor over his feline face. When Aira touches her warpaint, she will see it clinging to her fingertips, bright and red like fresh blood. "We've had good luck running into one another. Good juju." With noisy clangs, he beats his armored breast. "Yah! Back to the hunt. Savage spirits be with you, Aira." He nods to her with his faceless visor. "We'll meet soon again, I'm sure."
Aira rolled her fingers as the bright red paint stained her fingers. She pulled a rag from her back pocket and wiped them clean. She pulled her book back towards her, plucking the quill from behind her ear and unscrewing her jar of ink. She watched as Orikahn stood and beat his breastplate, lifting her hand to salute the feline. "You, too, kitty." She nodded her head, offering him a rare smile. "Good juju," she repeated, "Fate." Aira tucked her legs under her, dipping her quill in the ink and beginning to write a new entry in her journal.
Orikahn exits with a swish of his cloak, disappearing from the warmth of the tavern and into blowing snows.