RP:Full Metal Feathers

Summary: Irenic runs into a familiar face and she agrees to help him out with a little problem.

Frostmaw Tavern

Slightly chilled, the tavern is still a far warmer location than the outdoors of Frostmaw. If the cold is too much for a visitor, they can take a seat near the tavern's center, a place dominated by a large firepit dug neatly into the earth. A fire is always burning within, fed by large logs and, strangely, scraps of leftovers flung in by passing patrons--to those in the know, this is to feed Aodhan, the fire wyrmling occupant of the pit and keeper of the flames. Aside from the stone and earth of the firepit, the rest of the flooring is of a dark wood, clearly a sturdy material to routinely bears the weight of many Frost Giants, their armor, and their frequent brawls. A similar wood, lighter in color, makes up the raftered ceiling with its steeped roof. Tightly packed stones create the lower half of the walls, the upper planks of wood built close together to keep out the cold. Booths, tables, armchairs, and stools of various sizes can be found throughout the tavern in no particular arrangement. Frost Giant lasses move skillfully among the crowds to serve ale and warm meals, occasionally stopping to regale a newcomer with the stories behind the many trophies hung upon the walls: sabercat fangs, mounted mammoth heads, aged weapons, dented shields, war banners, and a dragon skull hanging central from the ceiling, horns and jaws wrapped in blue chains. A rather bulky and well toned frost giant stands behind the bar. Upon his blinded left eye, a scar travels down and along his jaw. The large bartender, Drargon, simply watches the patrons, awaiting orders... or trouble, considering the massive war-axe resting beside him.

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Irenic walks into the tavern a lot less insane than the last time he was here, with many more warm layers of clothing and apparently speaking common, “whiskey, thanks.” After he gets is drink to warm his blood because dammit he hated the cold, but this was where he seen that woman with a metal, or something, arm. He even went as far as leaving post for her on the public board, oh yeah, he remembers that and glances over that way. He takes himself and that drink till his long snow booted strides were before the board in search for a possible response. Maybe she moved? Maybe she died? Maybe that guy who broke her heart made it up to her? He glares at his original chicken scratch left handed way of writing, pitiful, but chuckles in that low and short manner of his as he notices it read like some ‘personals’ ad. ‘Man seeking woman with metal arm,’ how did he not think that one through? He tugs the scrap of parchment away easily and crumples it up before shoving it in the pocket of his slacks.

Alvina was already in the tavern when Irenic entered. She’d seen his post, meant to write him back but the whirlwind of life and love swept her away from all her work. Even now, she’s not privy to the imaginations of inventions or the wishes of those around her as she snoozes by the firepit, wrapped in her navy furs. Her curls are loose and wild around her face, white snow boots guarding her feet from the harsh Frostmaw weather. She’s tilted in a plush oversized chair by the fire, the flicker of flame light showing the faint pattern of freckles on the bridge of her nose that’s otherwise invisible in sunlight. Flame was the only thing that brought it forth to the naked eye. She shifts, humming lightly some half spoken word in her sleep before rolling over to drool on the chair’s arm. Beside her on a small table is an empty glass of wine. Warmth and wine, the perfect combination for a dreamless sleep.

Irenic plummeted into a nearby chair at the fire with a grunt of, “merde!” Someone left a gauntlet on the chair and it had a spike on each knuckle. With a frustrated sigh he picked it up and tossed it with minimal expression into the fire… Okay, he’s a little on edge, but not being able to fly anymore was really making him a Debbie downer and remembering that post he left brought that longing feeling anew. He planned on asking her how her arm works, who made it, is this person still around? How much does it cost - wait, that doesn’t matter if he could fly again. It would matter if he can actually fly with them because he misses his damn wings. He hasn’t noticed the woman near the fire next to him or the fact she was asleep, but if his loud cursing hadn’t woke her he’d glance at the drooling person and they earned a smirk from scarred lips. She must party hard. Well, last time that was him, drowning in a whole bottle of the strongest whisky to not only warm his blood, but ignore it already fogged mind. He takes the eyepatch off that he wears over the unseeing brown eye and rubs it a moment before a giant sneezes loudly in the tavern while complaining of being sick.

Alvina was lost in some warm dark place, floating on a sea of sleep when Irenic curses. Her slender frame jolts to life, long before the Giant can sneeze or the cup can hit the fire, disrupting the flames therein. The right side of her face is creased with an imprint of the chair arm fabric, red and telling of a longer nap than she anticipated. Her fleshed hand rubbed at her eyes, recognizing the man across from her as someone she assumed to be safe. “ - Evening.” She mumbled, sleepily as she tousled her hair back to life around her pale freckled face and turned her emerald eyes toward the wingless avian. She searched for a bottle of whiskey but found none. She smiled, it’s lopsided still because she’s only half awake. Alvina leans back in the chair, letting her hair cascade over her shoulders while she stares at the ceiling to offer him the privacy he might want to fiddle with his eyepatch. Did he have that last time? She can’t recall. “Ugh, I slept too long…” She grumbles to no one in particular, chuckling at herself for being so foolish.

Irenic’s mismatched eyes watch the exhausted woman and his smirk remained during his low gruff reply, “evening.” He slipped off a coat as the fire warms him enough to allow it and thus reveals a black finely knit V neck sweater with the tattoos seemingly playing peekaboo around the collar. Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and this causes some of the graying dusky hair to fall and block that brown eye anyway. In a comfortable silence between acquaintances that silver eye wanders on her for a moment in appreciation, “a little daring to fall asleep out here in the open, no?” Pffft! He’s one to talk - manger ‘danger zone’ and as casually as it can get he brings up, “you have something special about you, if I remember correctly. I mean, I am old. Something about your arm?” Glass of his tumbler raises up so he may sip from the liquor, but he knocks his tooth and a sharp sucking of air through clenched teeth, “phaque!” A wince after sipping some whiskey down, “excuse my Veretian.”

Alvina eventually clears her throat and lets her chin even out to look at Irenic while sleep rounds out her eyes with a certain softness. Ah yes, she remembers him. Their heartbroken exchange, she'd chased him into the snow. He looked a lot more put together today, but who was she to say? Sort of rude, honestly. So instead, she grins at him, stretching her sleeved arms overhead and rustling the furs on the top of her cloak in the process. "Any place that doesn't have toddlers is fair game." She chuckles. "That's about the only thing I can't sleep through now. Ugh." She loved her daughters but gosh dang it she's tired. When Irenic knocks his teeth against the glass, she cringes. Ouch, she doesn't blame him for cursing. "It's fine, I don't understand Veretian anyway." Cue her lazy smile while she settles her arms back in her lap and considers him again. Something special about her? Ah yes, her arm. Wasn't it the thing most people noticed about her? It's a curse, truly. She flexes her left hand, which is currently gloved for symattries sake, before she pulls the glove off to show him. "That's me." Her smile slacks to a thin line of indifference. It's troublesome to be known for such a thing still.

Irenic gives another low chuckle as being a man with a secret charitable side when he finds himself donating most of his free time to the Gualon orphanage, but he’s not going to tell that secret here. “I hear you,” another sip, “sorry to wake the mama bear then.” The fact she has kids does not stop him from admiring her looks, he’s met lots of milfs - plus he’s oddly really good with kids. The writer makes that adorable! Her mention of not understanding his language, “I only use the curse words these days.” So he was actually apologizing for his foul(fowl?) mouth. His attention was taken by her arm and a look of interest fixates in it and he extends a tattooed hand toward her as if he meads to hold it, but he won’t without her permission, “May I?” If she allowed him to look and feel it after a moment he’d look back up at her, “This is really nice work. When did you get this done and if you don’t mind me asking how was this done?”

Alvina waves off his apology. “Don’t worry about it. I’m no stranger to foul language.” If Alvina could have read his thoughts and the pun therein she’d have laughed. When he asks to hold her arm, she hesitates. It’s visible on her face. Her lips curl into the side of her face in a low pout before she sighs and holds her arm out for him to look at. She wouldn’t let him hover long. When he compliments the work, she looks back, flexing her digits on their individual grooves and nods solemnly. “The finest.” She agreed. “My teacher, Cerinii, made this for me when I lost my flesh and blood.” Here she pulls it back slowly, not jerking but also not wanting him to ogle the tech. It’s her greatest fear that someone will discover the avian technology that makes it tick and gain an advantage over her personally. “I’m sorry, she’s deceased but I have some similar works in progress.” She looks him over. All his limbs are intact. Why was he asking? Her green eyes fall on his eyepatch. Did he want a replacement -eye-?? That would be a feat, surely. “Why are you interested? Are you an Engineer?” She asks calmly.

Irenic listened with those long pointy and pierced ears intently. “That’s quite an impressive appendage and accomplishment for those involved.” Although he enjoys reading and training he doesn’t have the patience or brains enough for that. “I’m no engineer,” he says nearly envious, but his tone gets a bit quiet as if he’s sharing a secret, “I miss the skies.” She might see that mischievous twinkle in that lonely silver eye dwindle just for a moment before he looked away back to the fire almost in shame. “It sounds so pathetic outloud and yeah my feet work fine. I could probably hire a carriage or get a flying mare or something but…” his tone became a bit gentle in an uncharacteristic way and he dips his head down on his hands to rub his forehead. “There has always been this endless freedom that at a moment's notice I could always go as I please. The wind at those levels is sharper and clearer while the world below you blurs out of view and everything gets so quiet.” He misses it - it’s possibly heartbreaking and obvious. “So… yeah I’m trying to see if wings are a possibility.”

Alvina feels immediate shame. It's her job to create things for different purposes, not to hoard secrets. She'd just been burned before and she knew Irenic had his own share of heartbreak but she didn't know the depth of it. It wasn't the same but she knew that feeling of loss. "Sometimes I still miss the way a hot mug feels against my fingers." She chimes in, flexing those fingers with want of that sensation. It didn't come, for lack of feeling or hot mug remains unclear and she frowns. "You don't have wings?" She frowned. Did she already know that? "I could try..." She offers, staring skeptically at the male. "But before you get your hopes up, I don't know if I could do it. I've only given wings to a horse. They don't fly as high and I'm not sure it would work with your set of muscles." She's quick to clarify, words spilling out like a rushed run on sentence, afraid he'll think she's making large promises. It would mean rodes in his back to activate the 'feathers' she made with Hudson's help. He'd enchanted each feather they made for Cleo. “It would be a long long process. Arduous, nearly priceless in it's labor. I don't know if I can."

Irenic went back to studying her for a moment with a curious look. “Um…” was he really that forgettable? People on Rynvale island still have a skepticism about if the myth of the bird monster is real or not. “No I don’t have wings. After my curse I didn’t get those wings back. Most avians don’t believe in any gods because we know better, but we do sort of take note on this energy. Kind of like karma and sometimes the powers that be give you what you’ve put out.” He doesn't seem regrettable even though he should and she could assume that if his wings were not cut off manually than he must have done some messed up things to get them ripped away, or just not granted back. “When my curse lifted I didn’t care at first because the immense pain of shifting every night and day was over, I could go back to sanity and speak common. The longer this goes on and I’m left here on the ground, walking everywhere,” he sort of spat out the last two words. “I start to nestle into that loss a bit more every day.” A thought of Baines enters his mind, as it usually does whenever he gets a little too depressed about this subject and a twitch of a smirk pulls at the corner of his lips. Lately it’s been a little easier because of her, but now he has someone to impress and be there for. “You could do something like that?” The way he posed his question was not that of disbelief or doubt, but of admiration. “I don’t care about the cost. Physical or monetary.”

Alvina listens with careful consideration of his tale. Ah yes, she recalls. His shifting, she’d seen. His lack of common and seemingly insane. That’s how she’d met him here in this tavern. Ordering an entire bottle of whiskey. It’s silly to remember now, like a strange dream you thought would filter away through you mind come morning. But it hadn’t. She saw his clothes spread out in the snow, felt the blistering chill as she ran after him. Still they shared loss, though much different now. Physical pieces of them had been removed, by force or circumstance. It hardly mattered how or why. She knew the pain of feeling less whole because of something like that. Replacements don’t fulfill in the same way but maybe it would help ease the burden. Bring something joyous back to his life. She wanted to try, if she could. Her lips pucker as she considers how to phrase her reply. “We’ve granted wings to a creature who could never fly -” Hudson’s horse Cleo. It felt silly to explain. “But like I said, it’s a long process and would be ENTIRELY experimental.” Would the gods even allow such a thing as a mortal human building wings for an ancient being? Is this what Cerinii would have wanted? A thought that circles her mind whenever she tries to push the boundaries of what she knows and what she doesn’t. Eventually, she sighs, as if she’s made up her mind and holds him in her stern gaze. “You need to be sure.” She pushes back a bit. It’s easy to say and much harder to do. She needed to be sure before she agreed. “It might be a long path of pain with little results. Do you want to do this even if you don’t have wings by the end? If it proves to be for nothing?” Her voice shifts from her normal, almost childish chirp to a serious professional woman twice her visible age.

Irenic watches, listens and holds this woman in his mismatched gaze with just as serious a look, but that tone of her’s gave him goose bumps(full of bird puns!) as if he was a child being reprimanded by a parent. He appears to think a long moment in silence, but with instinct he already knew the answer. “I’m certain. I don’t care if I have to sign a parchment waving away any rights. You could actuate no harm as long as all you do is try.” A shrug, “as far as pain… The shift every night and every day of having wings ripped from my back then grown anew every morning then night was so painful that it was driving me insane.” A gentle clearing of his throat in order to stop himself from pontificating, “pain is of no issue to me.” He finishes his drink, “give me a list of things you need from me. Gold, my signature on a contract, anything and send word when you are ready to do this.” He looked down into his empty tumbler, “I think it would end up hurting me more in the long run if I didn’t try. If it doesn’t work, I want you to know, that it would be through no fault of your own and I would never hold you accountable.” He had said in a ‘no pressure’ type manner.

Alvina didn’t mean to sound unfriendly but her work was dangerous. It could cause serious damage to his nerves or worse, provide furthering scarring. She didn’t want to be responsible for any more suffering than need be endured. She wouldn’t even try to until all the feathers were made and a proper harness was built to test their flight capacity. She’d have to do extensive research on Avian wings and their functionality. It would be a giant project that she couldn’t complete alone. A TEAM OF ENGINEERS. Maybe not a team, but a few more people to help. She wasn’t so powerful or patient on her own. Eventually she nods. “Okay. I’ll start the work and send word when it’s advanced enough to require your input.” She moves as if to stand and run off into the night to start blueprints. She can alter the outlines she already has for Cleo to fit the circumstance. It would be easier the second time around to make the feathers but geez. An avian wingspan had to have hundreds of feathers...it would be a large project to undertake, she thinks for the third time in as many minutes. She sighs, trying not to get discouraged. “Where can I find you?” She asked at last, reaching into her satchel for a notebook in which to write his information. “So I can write you when it’s ready to test?” She clarified again, emerald gaze flickering to his mismatched optics expectantly.

Irenic nods once and smirks at how excited she seemed, but suddenly felt the desire to read because other than being a con man he does love a good book. He looked at a loss for words a bit at this, “where to find me?” He has yes to find someplace he can call home and tentatively offers three different places he may be found, but, “the broken barrel, mostly.” After a moment he adds, “and hopefully under the employment of the Larket Queen again.” In order to aid his witch girlfriend in her plots.