RP:Where's Your Mum?

Summary: Meri has a rather interesting encounter with Nazaria, proving that Meri is not very good at playing the role of momma (without warning at least).

Transport to Rynvale

Nazaria walked barefooted down the plank of a newly ported ship holding the hand of one of the sailors. The small female youth stood just over four feet in height with wind tousled blonde hairs falling messily to her waist, she couldn’t be more than ten, perhaps eleven if one pushed the age a little. The girl was dressed in a gown tattered and worn to the thread-bare point, not a soul could determine the original color of the fabric. The hand swaying at her side was wrapped with a piece of torn up shirt, the old blood staining the strip across where her palm was. Dainty little thing of skin and bone, a wonder she survived the passage across the sea to the mainland. As the pairing reached the dock Al squatted down, wiped away a tear from the dirt stained face of the little lady and asked softly, “Are yeh sur ya Mum is here waitin’ for ya?” The mismatched deep blue and silver eyes of the youth glanced up at the man with a faint trace of a smile on those lips as she nodded with a sad puppy dog look on her face as she glanced around pretending to look for this Mum of hers waiting for her arrival. There in the distance Naz spotted another female with locks just as blonde as her own were hers not in need of a wash. Pointing with a sudden smile, revealing two tiny slightly sharper than normal canines, “There she is!” the lass exclaimed with a excited twinkle in those strange eyes. “Ay, tell ya Mum ya did a good job on ya own crosssin’ the sea. And take this too, for that hand o’ yers,” Al stated with a smile as he placed a small stack of coins into the girls good hand, “Take care now!” He waved and hollered as the barefeet of the werefox girl took off a running to catch up to Meri, the stranger with blonde hair in the crowd at the docks. Knowing the sailor would be watching the lass went to take a hold of the other woman’s arm, much like a child would, keeping her personal space close to the woman as if they really were reuniting parent and child. A hushed whisper to the blonde, “Sorry, for borrowing you, but not sorry, thank you.”

Meri's reaction was not a suave one, for it is not every day that a child comes up to her out of the blue and invades her personal space. A good number of mother's would probably do something mum-like....like embrace their child? Or even be okay with having their personal space invaded? Meri just about jumps on her skin and begins frantically looking around in a very suspicious manner, trying to figure out just what sort of shenanigans are transpiring. One minute she was just waltzing along the boardwalk, lost in her own brooding thoughts...and the next? Bamboozled. "Uh." Meri begins in a dumbfounded manner. Meri's reaction could potentially raise suspicion in the sailor, then again...how much did he really care to go out of his way to investigate the situation? "What the heck..." The blonde's confusion is beyond obvious, but she is compliant with letting Nazaria steer her in whatever direction the young female chooses, for now at least. While awaiting some sort of explanation, it is obvious the tattooed woman is on edge. It's made apparent in the way her eyes are darting around the area, as if she expected Nazaria were up to no good and someone else would soon be swooping out of the crowd to try and pickpocket her or something. Not that Meri looked like the sort of woman who would make for a good target] as she was tall, tattooed, in shape, armed. All in all, she looked like she was more than capable of throwing a punch that might cause some sting.

Nazaria was careful to remain close enough to the startled stranger that the pair seemed acquainted without causing any more of a scene than Meri was with her reaction. Next time Naz would have to pick out a better female from the crowd to pretend to be her Mum when deboarding a ship from the island. With the not as expected reaction the little girl lead the other lady away from the docks, blending into the sea of people on the boardwalk until she was sure the sailor wasn’t paying anymore attention to the little lass. Looking up at Meri with those eyes, the left a startling silver while the right was a deep blue, the girl smiled that little fanged smile of hers, “I suppose that it isn’t much use to you, but you see those men on that ship happen to be causing a bit of a problem back home with the locals from the island with their smuggling of goods off the locals ships and turning around and selling it here in Cenril for a bigger profit. Sadly, that isn’t even their biggest plan! I overheard the man Al there talking with another while I was supposed to be sleeping that in a few days their next target is to hit some big ship that is leave Cenril loaded with jewels and other items worth more than the fish and trinkets they’ve been taking already,” the girl seemed to ramble on with her information that she had obtained on her journey. Opening her hand the girl offered Meri the few gold coins she had been given by the sailor, “I don’t need this as I don’t need a healer, my hand is fully fine, but if you don’t mind not blabbing what I just told you, you can keep the coin for yourself.”

It wasn't much use to Meri? Well this information was actually of much interest to the blonde, though any use she would put it to would be about as nefarious as the sailor's that Nazaria is complaining about. Meri plays it cool, responding with an even keeled. "Hm. Where is back home? Rynvale?" Meri inquiries, more familiar with the region than she would be willing to let on. In a way, it would always be a home to her, even if her current home was presently residing somewhere in the forests of Kelay-Sage. "Well that's sort of how it goes there. Sort of how it will always go. Just one of those port town's that seems to attract pirates." The gears were turning in Meri's mind. Meri liked jewels, she liked riches, she liked money...and ever since she decided to ditch Larket, she has gone back to some of her old habits when it comes to acquiring her fortunes. "It's unfortunate though. I hope that they are not causing too much trouble for your family." Okay, Meri wasn't really too sympathetic, but she was sure doing a grand job of pretending that she was. She could pull of sympathetic far better than she could pull off the role of Mum. Nazaria can try and pawn off those couple of coins under the guise that she does not really need them, but Meri is nothing but skeptical of her lack of need and thus unwilling to accept the coin. "Naw. You keep it. I don't need your gold. You might need it, you just watch."

Nazaria clutched the few coins back into her small fist, letting her hand fall back to her side. There was a brow that raised when the woman started to question her with an entire demeanor change after she had let on about the boat with the jewels the sailors were meaning to hijack. She stayed silent a moment before picking her words carefully, “I don’t have a family, haven’t had one in over twenty years, thank you very much.” Twenty years? The girl didn’t even look old enough to be half that age. Another pointy tooth smile, “Rynvale is home, yes. However, I find that both you and the sailors will fail at getting rich off the jewel ship leaving port for home.” There in those mismatched eyes was a twinkle that the female knew more than just the plan of the sailors. Seems there was a third hand in play on this possible robbery. Lifting fingers she ran them through her wind knotted blonde locks with that same little devious smile planted on those childish lips. Just moments ago she was a crying lost little girl looking for her Mum on the mainland and now she was a total different little lady. Smirking Naz leaned in, “Want to know a secret, Miss?”

Meri doesn't offer up any acknowledgement to Nazaria's initial statement. A defensive reaction might hint that Meri might have an interest in a job like stealing jewels from a ship. The blonde has thought such, but not voiced such, and she was not ready to yet. There could be any number of reasons that Meri could see a those sailors having trouble getting rich off the jewel ship, including but not limited too Nazaria taking it upon herself to alert the authorities. A brow is lifted when Nazaria mentions that she has not had a family in twenty-years and a double take is given, but this would not be the first time that Meri has encountered someone who has looked younger than their age. Both of the blondes hands are lifted so that she can be clasped behind her neck, elbows extended out and gaze raised to the sky as she contemplates. Did she want to know a secret. Yes. Yes she did. But she would first take in a breath and release an exaggerated sigh along with an "Ohhh, I don't know." It's at this point that her hands fall back to her sides where they should be. "I won't really know if I want to know what the secret is until you tell me what the secret is, so I guess you'll have to tell me so that I can figure out if I really want to know this secret or not."

Nazaria tucked her blonde locks behind those pointed elf ears that were hiding behind the messy locks. A small indication to her ever youthful appearance, yet that wasn’t even half of it. There was something about this tall blonde with ink covering her skin that intrigued the young looking woman. This might be the only reason that she was so open to sharing this secret or at least a very minor part of what both the tall lady and sailors were missing, “The sailors plan to sneak aboard the ship in two days time before it departs, but that isn’t when the ship sets sail….” The smile grew into a wide small fanged grin on the fox girl’s face just thinking about it. Flipping a coin from her hand the girl caught the piece in her other hand and started off down the boardwalk without another word about the two ships, the real one and the decoy one. There was a small skip in her step as she left the other blonde there behind her allowing her to choose her own direction from there. From over her shoulder she gave out a small, “Thanks again for letting me borrow you!” The sailors from the ship were already done deboarding leaving the small woman free to depart her ‘Mum’ and find her way along the boardwalk.

Meri was equally intrigued by this little fox-girl-woman -- Meri was still trying to puzzle that out. It was not every day that Meri just happens upon someone so willing to divulge this information. Intriguing indeed. Nazaria seems keen on leaving and the tattooed blonde was not of the mindset to try and detain her, that was not the best way to make friends. "Yeah. Sure. Maybe next time I will do a better job." If there is a next time. Meri furrows her brows together a bit, unwilling to turn her gaze away from Nazaria so that she could meander off in her own direction. "Maybe I will be seeing you around." In fact Meri was going to make endeavors to try and assure that, starting with skulking around the docks for the next couple days from a distance, using the shadows and the rooftops to her advantage. She had a feeling that she'd see Nazaria there again, and perhaps even learn more about this jewel ship. It's not until Nazaria manages to escape Meri's sight that the blonde goes her own direction.