RP:Always Bring Your Pixie
Part of the I Got 99 Problems, and a Congenital Defect is One Arc
Synopsis: Josleen updates Kovl on her condition and her planned mission through Enchantment, the dragon boneyard, and the haunted wilds. Kovl volunteers to join Skylei, Lydrain, and Josleen on a dangerous, three-day adventure (each way).
Xalious Village
Josleen exits the tower carrying an empty basket. She smells faintly of garlic and onions as if she has recently cooked a savory meal. She dons her usual flowery attire, but gone is the veil and the jaw brace. Her hair has grown in to shoulder length. Her confidence has returned just in time to face new challenges. Ill Fate can't leave Josleen well enough alone.
Kovl darts down the spiral staircase in the Mage's tower and opens his wings, gliding toward the door. A smile familiar to his face forms as he feels the air breezing past his face and under his wings. He reaches the bottom just as Josleen leaves the tower, and the pixie makes a game out of swooping out through the closing window of opportunity (or should I say door?). He lets out a gleeful laugh as he accomplishes his exit, the echos of which may be heard by Josleen as he quickly catches up to her. Curious eyes lay upon her unveiled form. "Josleen?"
Josleen recognizes that tiny voice and greets Kovl with a smile before she even locates his tiny body. “Kovl!” She looks left then right before finally finding him. “How are you? It’s been a long time. What have you been up to these days?” She leads him towards the cool shade of a tree; it’s been a blistering summer in Xalious.
Kovl follows Josleen toward the tree, still smiling from the breeze against his skin against the heat of the summer. He rests on a perch in a low branch, sitting with his feet swinging under him freely. This is the first time the pixie has been able to see Josleen without her veil. He tries not to comment on the fact, though his eyes may be lingering a little long. "I've been studying. With a few added adventures, of course." The corners of his lips curl in a smirk. "And what have you been up to, Josleen?"
Josleen can’t tell if Kovl is staring at her longer than usual or not. Pixie behavior is a bit of a mystery, and Josleen has learned that she doesn’t need to understand something in order to accept it. “Adventures? That sounds exciting. You’ll have to tell me about those.” She smirks at his smirk reflexively. “I’ve been on a few adventures of my own - one to Enchantment, actually. I met Glenys, the druid caretaker of the Healing Tree. Do you know her?”
Kovl nods at the bard's question. "I would love to exchange stories. Yes, I know Glenys, although I do not know her well. You went to Enchantment? That is my home." The pixie is quick to think of why Josleen would want to visit her although he cannot be sure. "And what happened in Enchantment?"
Josleen grimaces slightly at his question and casts a suspicious glance at the tower. “My trip to Enchantment is a story best told in more private settings. There is some… sensitive information. But Glenys was lovely. I really enjoyed meeting her.” Her easy smile returns. “But come, tell me of your adventures! Where have they taken you?”
Kovl tilts his head, and his wings flick once behind him. Josleen's hint at sensitive information is naturally appealing to the curious pixie. "But you will tell me?" The pixie is unashamed at taking the bait. He pauses and scans his surroundings. "No one is here," He pries, delaying his own stories for the bard's response.
Josleen pulls an unamused expression. “Kovl, this setting is far too public. Come, if you have the time to spare, we can go back to my apartment.” She leads him across the village center towards the apartment she shares with Ezekiel above the ceramics store. “Ezekiel isn’t home at the moment,” she explains as she climbs the stairs and he flies - lucky guy. “He’s meeting with my father in the Tower. I just delivered a spot of lunch to them. Spoiled, aren’t they?” The apartment opens into the living room. Josleens drops her purse on the couch out of habit. “Can I get you anything? Lunch? I’m about to have mine if you’d like to join me.” If Kovl follows her into the kitchen, she’ll ask, “Tell me about your adventure while I heat up the food. Roast potatoes and vegetables, fish, and carrot bread. All made by yours truly.” She sends Kovl a playful wink and waits to hear his stories, pushing back and poking around for information in much the same way the pixie did.
Kovl 's curious expression turns into that of gratitude as Josleen leads him to her apartment, knowing that his curiousity will be satisified. The pixie nods at the bard's mention of Ezekiel and her father and agrees to lunch. The aroma of the kitchen is fantastic to the hungry pixie's nose. "Lunch sounds lovely. Thank you." As the two are in the kitchen, Kovl, with liberal embellishment drops a hint of one of his stories. "Me? Oh, I was attacked by a thief and then denied him of his mark. The poor soul went home with his tail between his legs. I will hunt him down later and exact revenge." The pixie sits on the edge of the table facing Josleen, smiling cutely as if he he said nothing of the sort. "Or would you like to hear about the time some sexy ladies were trying to get a piece of me, a bonafide muscle man of extreme taste and class?" The pixie flexes before chuckling.
Josleen laughs at Kovl’s joke and makes a show of eyeing his tiny little body as if she were interested. She doesn’t have to explain she is kidding; the ludicrous hypothetical is self evident. She starts to plate the food as she continues to converse. “Boy, would I like to hear about that! Which sexy ladies? Here in Xalious, or fellow pixies in Enchantment?” Unsure of how big or small a portion to serve a pixie, Josleen instead lets Kovl serve himself with the aid of his magical pixie dust. Her own serving is modest, typical of a lady who is always watching her figure.
Kovl , though hesitant to do so at first, does decide the use of pixie dust is much easier than serving oneself by hauling roasted potatoes across the table with a fork. His fingertips brush over a pouch at his side, slipping in before he steps from the table and grows quickly to human proportion. The pixie's mind scans his memories, recalling that the only time Josleen may have seen him like this is when he was disguised as an avian. Scooping food from the serving plates and containers to his own plate, Kovl sits across from Josleen and picks up a potato, taking a full bite from it as if it were an apple. "Oh, they were dryads in Rynvale. And boy, did they want a piece of me."
Josleen is thoroughly unaccustomed to seeing Kovl stand at over five feet tall. The surprise sends her lids aflutter. She had expected him to shrink the food, because this alternative escaped the grasp of her imagination. Thankfully, Kovl takes an unorthodox bite out of a potato, reminding Josleen that he is still a baffling pixie, eccentric behavior and all. As for his secret admirers, they inspire in Josleen a poorly suppressed grin at Kovl’s expense. It’s the same reaction she would give a young man who bragged about all the attention he got from prostitutes. “Is that so?” She cuts up her fish. “And did you? Give them a piece of you, I mean.”
Kovl begins to chuckle, taking mind to swallow his food first as Josleen asks the question. Rather than keeping up the story, he adds another piece of intrigue. "Well, no. If I did, I'd most likely be dead or severely injured. They weren't playing nice." The pixie winks at Josleen and takes another bite of the potato. "What happened in Enchantment?" A curious head tilt accompanies the question he has asked the eternity of 15 minutes ago.
Kovl asks the question just as Josleen stuffs her face with fish, and thus they engage in every food date’s most awkward moment: the suspenseful chewing. She tries to chew faster, which in turn only makes the chewing seem slower. She starts to talk as soon as she swallows the food, well before it has fully cleared her throat, and thus the swallowing squeezes her voice tight. This is how people choke to death, but thankfully the bard escapes such an undignified death for another meal. The first word comes out as no more than a wheeze. “heeeehh…. were there, excuse me.” She sips water then tries again. Her red face slowly drains to a normal hue. “You were there in Gualon when I first discovered my problem. Remember when I was charmed by those foul flowers. Remember that Arcos, the avian, rescued me, and were it not for him I’d have passed through the belly of a troll?” With confirmation that Kovl remembers, she continues, “Well, it’s a dangerous problem to have. I sought out the counsel of Lydrain, the Headmaster of the Academy of Magic in Larket. He’s a friend. Do you know him?” Yes or No, it doesn’t matter, Josleen continues. “Well, he ran some tests and it turns out that - maybe I should back up. I am assuming you’re familiar with magical resistances, right?” Her smile turns sheepish. “Of course you are, you’re in the mage’s guild. Well, so as -I- just learned, each of us are born with varying levels of resistance to the different sub-disciplines of magic. Mages work to fortify their resistances, as I am sure you do. Well, my resistance to enchantment type magic is missing - completely. As in, I have none. A newborn infant could resist those flowers easily; I could not. He ran tests with necromancy and transmutation spells and I resisted them as expected for my, uh, race. So. Well, you know Skylei, right? A dear friend of mine, and such an impressive academic mind. She accompanied me to The Healing Tree to see what the powerful druids would have to say. It wasn’t all good news, but there is a small glimmer of hope for me.”
Kovl watches, silently chewing his food as Josleen waits to swallow her own. The pixie stifles a laugh as she is caught in the awkward moment of the meal. Kovl loves awkward moments, and he appreciates this one thoroughly. As the bard begins, the pixie nods, indicating knowledge of Lydrain. He is aware of resistances, but luckily for him, his race is naturally magical and has a strong resistance to many types. The mage's head tilts again as Josleen explains Lydrain's discoveries. The pixie is largely unaware that it is possible to have absolutely zero resistances to a type of magic, but he also is not quite as knowledgeable about the subject. Additionally, his magical privilege can blind him to the perils of less magical races such as Josleen's. "So what did the druids say?"
“Mostly not good things,” she murmurs ruefully. “I can’t build any magical resistance to enchantment, because I have no base to build from. Glenys said I was born wrong. That something went wrong in the womb and I was born incomplete. In order to be fixed, I would have to reenter the womb and be reknit, correctly this time.” Josleen rubs her collarbone in her typical nervous tic. “That sounds impossible doesn’t it? Well, your kind is indeed among the most magical beings on this planet. It turns out that there is a magical, enchanted cocoon, pixie-sized, which I could theoretically enter for an indeterminate amount of time, then be reborn with all my resistances in place - hopefully. The Keeper of the Cocoon, a pixie elder named Trith, would have to grant me permission first. Reaching him is dangerous. Glenys said we have to descend the moat, cross the dragon graveyard, cross the haunted lands, climb the sleeping giant, and then join Trith on a pixie-sized ledge just to -ask- him if I can try to be healed by the cocoon. If he says no, we have to return the way we came with nothing to show for it. It’s about a three-day trip both ways.” The bard’s expression is as grim as her story-telling. “If he says yes, well then there is no guarantee that it will work, but Glenys has good reason to believe it will.”
Kovl starts to chuckle at the idea that Josleen could enter a womb again, and the image in his mind only fuels the laughter. However, when the bard told stories of the cocoon that could build magical resistances in Josleen, a sly smile crosses his face. "Of course, there is always something." Kovl's chest is puffed out, proud of the mention of his own race and the solution they presented. "It sounded silly at first, but it very well may work. I adore the creativity of the enchanter of the cocoon... A new womb. That's genius." Kovl lifts fish on his plate in his hand. He takes another big bite. "And it sounds like quite a journey to get there. However, I must say that I've played in that dragon graveyard on more than one occasion... against the will of my family. But they learned they cannot never stop who I am." The pixie smiles cutely again.
Josleen‘s brow lifts at Kovl’s confession that he is familiar with the dragon graveyard. “Oh? What should I know about it? I want to be as prepared as possible to increase my likelihood of…” The words she is looking for are ‘not dying,’ but she can’t bring herself to say them. Instead, she wrings her hands over her face until she is ruddy and looks thoroughly stressed. “I am so ill-equipped for this mission. I can’t throw a punch hard enough to scare a cat.”
Kovl places a finger to his chin. "Well, one thing you should know about dragon graveyards is that all the dragons aren't dead. In fact, some are very much alive, and they will not hesitate to attack those who trespass on the graves of their brethren. Hopefully you wouldn't run into them." The pixie pauses. "If Ezekiel wanted me to escort you to Gualon, he would flip if he knew you were making this journey alone. Maybe I should come with you. Enchantment is my home after all." The pixie finishes the last of the fish in one large bite, chewing as he awaits Josleen's response.
Josleen pales at the mention of living, aggressive dragons. “Oh.” Great. Kovl is such a calming presence, said no one. The bard has lost her appetite. “Ezekiel doesn’t know about any of this.” She and Kovl already discussed in Gualon why Josleen chooses to keep Ezekiel out of the loop. “But, if you are willing to join us, I’d be grateful to have your company. I would certainly feel a lot safer. Skylei is definitely joining me, and I believe Lydrain may as well. I should be hearing from him soon.” Her hand rubs against at the base of her neck. “I, uh, can’t offer much in the way of payment, but I would be in your debt.”
Kovl nods at Josleen but he doesn't quite expect to hear that Ezekiel knows nothing of the intended trip. "I would love to go with you, and do not worry about payment." The pixie sits up excitedly. "I hope we see a dragon!" Kovl does not take into consideration the uneasiness of Josleen until his eyes land on her paling skin and serious expression. "Oh, um... I mean, let's hope we won't." His ping of seriousness is again countered by an outburst of excitement. "But if we do, that dragon won't know what hit him!" He pauses, trying to balance his daring need for excitement with a compassionate tone for Josleen who is far less excited about the dangers of the beasts.. "But... I mean, we will be fine."
Josleen wears a synthetic smile for Kovl’s benefit, but she cannot find even a dreg of excitement left in her. “Thank you for agreeing to accompany me. I’ll be in touch to let you know when and where to meet up.” She clears the table. “Right now I need to take my leave. I need to be somewhere soon.” She smiles at the overgrown pixie. “Thank you again for everything, especially your confidentiality. It’s better that Ezekiel not know, trust me. It will be alright.”
Kovl nods again at Josleen, "Of course. You have my confidentiality. And Josleen... we'll be fine. I've gotten you through worse in the belly of the Exiled beasts. You will be fine." Kovl places his hand on the table as he shifts to his feet. "Thank you for the food. Please send word to me when you are planning to leave." The pixie starts toward the door, his belly delightfully filled and his curiosity sated.