Shade of Desert Night

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Contrast: that was the name of the game in the desert. No two people, two days, two nights were alike. The cool, stern merchants who peddled their goods with all due seriousness were contrasted by the young, cloaked and adventurous desert children, who found all ways to make their fun in the vast ocean of blistering heat. The sweaty, stern and muscled men who worked their lives away in the ore mines, toiling endlessly in the subterranean atmosphere were contrasted by the lean and fierce men belonging to the hunter’s guild, who seemed to grow thinner and faster by the day. Even the chatty, social kindness found in the housewives of the area was to be contrasted – by the women slaves which were so often peddled as either tools for sex or housework, who knew no emotions whatsoever.

But among all of these, there was no starker contrast, than between desert days, and desert nights. With little to no cloud cover, and such dry air flowing slowly through the air endlessly, very little heat would ever remain well into the evening. This was, of course, unfortunate, but it would not stop this man. Rashn, or Bakr, as was his merchant name, would sit firmly, not stopping his trade simply for some cold air. While the day proved to be mild in terms of business, it had been quite interesting. That young, white haired one, Jyn’Rai as he called himself, was a person unlike any the merchant had come into contact with before. He seemed to be rather energetic and kind, without too much worry. While he certainly had his own problems and worries, he did not show them. It was similar, the merchant thought, to him himself. Neither showed their emotions readily, but they masked them in completely separate ways. “Another contrast.” He mumbled to himself slightly. With that, he would glance across the streets, noticing so few people out and about at such a late hour. It was expected, naturally, with such a frigid chill through the air. To non-locals, it wouldn’t be that bad, but it was absolutely freezing to a desert commoner’s standards. But surviving this was necessary to make a sale, and if it was to be rewarded with profit, the man would surely do it without flinching or question. Normally only freaks frequented his caravan at nights, but even freak’s money was good to him, and they were often easy targets for bartering with, since their sociopathic tendencies usually led to their fixating on one single object which they would give nearly anything to obtain. Suffice to say, they were good for business.

Unfortunately not many seemed to be out, this evening, and the man considered throwing down his tent cover and calling it a night. He’d naturally be awoken early when all the others would come out to play and peddle alongside him, so it’s not like sleeping in and missing some hours of work was a possibility. With that thought, but not yet totally convinced the night was over, the man would slink back into the carriage and lay his head down, dangling his feet over the end of the carriage as his gaze was cast to the sky; his wares sat tirelessly to either side, and the camels tethered to the carriage hawed tiredly. He mentally apologized to them, but knew they were accustomed to it. “Should no one come in the next few moments,” he told himself quietly, “I’ll just go to bed. Staying up isn’t good for my health, and… even I’m starting to get cold.”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The night of the desert, though not quite as cold as a young demon might have wanted, offered the only safe option for travel. Iskra was not originally built for heat. Her element, though she'd never lived among it, was the ice and snow of the mountains whose shade produced this desert that she'd marched through for seeming miles at a tireless trot. Her goal required her to have this area searched before the sun banished her to whatever shadows she could find until the next night.

For a moment, the beast-come-woman took a look up at the sky and noticed the uncountable lanterns of heaven. Stars. Perhaps cleaner spirits than she. Twinkling away without the hardships of Terra. Her clan's leader told her that they were bits of bone from the great dead god who birthed the world. She wasn't sure she believed in that anymore, but she was grateful that they were there to illuminate the near-white sands that threw any heat or light that fell upon them back towards the sky, seeming greater than it had descended.

When her eyes returned to the dunes, however, she noticed a village up ahead. Well! Such a thing was convenient. Now that she had a human form, she could walk into a settlement without being driven out with stones and weapons and sharp cries of disapproval. Never before had she walked into a human settlement, and the thought of doing such lent a calm excitement to her steps, for above all the woman was gravely dignified in the way that the merciless wilds taught dignity.

Most of the people were asleep, however. She knew this as a property of humans that separated them from the hyenas, for she liked to be up during the rule of the moon just as much as during the rule of the sun. One tent still had activity in the form of a merchant, and she didn't take very long to size him up because his livestock took the entirety of her attention.

Food! She thought in her primitive way. It was a base reflex, after all. Her human form came with no instruction manual, and she assumed that to eat one still had to kill. The concept of "ownership" and the difference between tame and wild animals in terms of permission-to-consume escaped her as well.

With quiet tread, she approached the camels. Her blue gaze was intent and her crouch took her low to the ground as she tipped across the sand to the beasts. Her hunger showed obviously in her stare.

[ EXP: 527 || +1 TEXP (first post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

The sky, though daunting at times, was also calming in night. It would abate the merchant’s cold feeling with its vast, distracting reaches. Nearly endless, it was, but something that doesn’t have an end has no beginning, and that which doesn’t begin cannot be sold, therefore, for anything other than petty observations, the sky was useless to Rashn. He would not throw a single penny to its deep reaches that he wouldn’t get back. Though, perhaps, the night sky did have a value: not in it itself, but in those it brought with it. The night scum, or the predators. The easily deceived losers of the night, and the beast who would only hunt by it. Luckily both of them were profitable: fools loved making bad deals, and nocturnal beasts had quite the fine coat if they were skinned carefully. “Too bad that’s not my kinda’ deal though…” the merchant thought to himself, as he lifts himself above the edge of the carriage with his hands, deciding it best to turn in for the evening, as even if no profit could be made while sleeping, if there was no profit to be made at anyway, sleeping had no cost or harm.

It was then, naturally, something caught his eye. A customer? Mm, one of the nighttime weirdos he was just thinking about, it seemed. Judging by the look on this one’s face, they wanted… his camel?! That was a definite no. “Those guys aren’t for sale,” the man grunts, with a low, obvious disapproving voice, “they’re my companions, and I need them for travel.” They’re about the only thing he wouldn’t sell, in all honesty, which is saying something for him. The camels, apparently noticing the predatory beast themselves, heff’d and hawed in verbal discomfort. Their reaction drew the merchant’s attention, and he, as stupid as it may seem, trusted their judge of character. Lifting himself up and over the edge of the caravan, he would stand to greet the woman. “Other than these here, what are you looking to do business with?” His tone, as per usual, was dull and straight to the point.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The camels were scared, but obviously they weren't going anywhere. The contraption that held them captive to the wagon meant she could kill one at her leisure. Meanwhile, she could examine this strange new word that this man mentioned. Sale. What was sale? She knew assail meant to attack, so in that context the strange word made sense. He didn't want her to assail his friends because he needed them to travel with.

Well, she could certainly relate. This man didn't seem to have a clan, and neither did she. The camels were probably the only thing that kept him company. She could respect that, so the woman didn't mind laying off of the livestock. She stood upright again and regarded the merchant briefly before her eyes drifted over to the wagon. He had two obviously edible animals with him and a cart full of things. He must be powerful, she thought, to be able to guard so much stuff for himself.

Still a rather humble creature, she decided that the utmost civility and respect were in order.

"I come from a forest far away," she began, not completely sure of herself in this context. As a hyena, greetings were so very simple. You sniffed each other, which told you immediately what you were dealing with right away, and then you established ranks based on that knowledge or possibly a brief fight. Her observations of villagers and her experience as a human, that is, someone with a profoundly weak sense of smell, told her that they conveyed this information with their words and ideas and their ability to name things instead. "There's only one that I know of. I don't know its name. My name is Iskra."

And now for the tough part: answering his question. Business, another mysterious word. It must refer to some abstraction. She knew what busy was, but all tenants of capitalism had escaped her language lessons as a small thing. She found it embarrassing as well that she was having trouble already conversing because of these sentence-holes, these individual words that she had to take guesses at.

At length, she decided that honesty was probably the best idea. He was the only human awake, and there wasn't anything stopping her from running to safety if he reacted poorly to her request.

"I'm what you people call a hyena," she began, indicating her spotted hair with a point. "I don't have a clan, but I am running an errand for someone. I came into this desert in the course of that errand, but I have never been in a desert before. There's no water and there's nothing for me to kill and eat, and this form..." she frowned at her fingernails. "...is hard to kill things with. I could pull it off if it wasn't for the fact that there is absolutely nothing to eat."

"So since you're a human, I thought I should ask you. Where can I get some food and some water here?"

[ EXP: 668 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

He stood, silently, as a good merchant should. Always listening, trying to pick the bits and pieces of hidden information out of the conversation, searching for the string which would lead to a better deal. There would, without fail, be something in the woman’s way that would betray her to him: be it her tone, her body language, or her manner of speaking. Something would invariably falter and allow him to pick up a weak spot with which he could strike a good deal. Or, so he was expecting. Which is why, when she kept such a serious, all-business like face upon the reveal that she was a… ‘hyena’, he nearly let his jaw fall in amazement. Not so much over the fact that he was meeting a humanoid animal, or anything so fantasy-like, but more along the lines of, ‘what the fuck did she just say?’ He was with her, in all honesty, through talk of the forest, and what not. People coming from the forest to the desert was hard to believe, true, but it was possible! A coyote, though?... or hyena? Whichever, either way, it was absurd to the merchant. With no experience dealing with or even understanding the existence of things known as ‘spirits’ yet, he was having an understandably hard time keeping up here.

Rashn would stop, hold his palm up to the woman in a rather traditional ‘hold the fuck on up here for a second’ manner, and use his free hand to rub his temples in a slow, counterclockwise direction for a moment. Upon dropping them, his mouth would open to speak, yet no words would come out. It was semi-convincing, honestly, since she had gone so far as to even differentiate him as a ‘human’ compared to her being a nonhuman. Nice touch; impressive. Finally, after a moment, his mouth would finally sputter the words “I’m sorry, could you say that one more time for me?” It was unusual for him to be taken off guard in the manner that he was, though it was mostly due to the female’s nice acting. This wasn’t an unusual tactic: acting crazy to try to get a sympathy deal or distract him long enough to run and grab some of his things, but never had it been done so well.

“You… called yourself a hyena, or something…? Just what in the hell are you talking about?”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra frowned, putting one hand on her hip and scratching her head. Now that she thought about it, most humans didn't know how to change from one form to the other... or hyenas for that matter. Well, she certainly couldn't speak for all hyenas, but she strongly doubted that her kind lived out here.

Well, what to do now? She certainly didn't want this human to regard her as strange, of all things. Even among hyenas, strange individuals were treated with suspicion and disdain instead of helpfulness and kindness.

She snarled and sighed. How to deal with this problem?

Well, she did learn to use demonic magic in her short time with her tutor. Perhaps it could help her change her form as well? Magic seemed to do strange things, after all. It put her in this form to begin with, as far as she could tell.

"One moment, sir," she said, turning and getting down on all fours. For a moment, she closed her eyes, focusing on the back of her eyelids as when she called upon the dark emotions that allowed her to harm others with spiritual power and focusing on her emotions of embarrassment and annoyance at the situation. For a long time, nothing happened, but then her emotions built upon themselves, and they grew and her growls grew louder, and she began to murmur strange syllables that got gradually less coherent until they were mere chuckles. A hyena's chuckles.

And as her voice devolved, so did her form. Her arms got thinner, then more muscular, then hairy. The hair was white and marked with spots. Her fingers curled into paws and her nails sprouted into claws. Her legs curled in on themselves and her feet stretched until they rested on their balls, lending her a digitigrade posture. Her pelvic ring opened up and her weight shifted onto her four legs. Finally, her clothes tightened into a beautiful coat rivaling the scintillating, pied beauty of a snow leopard's. Finally, a tail sprouted from her rear and with a short wag of the bestial appendage, the transformation was complete.

The beast stood a full four feet at the shoulder: a monster of prodigious size and fierce aspect. She laughed once, having lost her ability to talk, but she hoped she had proven her point. Such a demonstration managed to take a lot of her energy and she was quite hungry, though her impulse to eat the first thing in front of her was checked by the fact that she had talked to him.

Instead, she upreared on her back legs, happy to be a hyena again for the moment. Her head tilted curiously to the side as she regarded the merchant with her dark-blue eyes that looked very, very black in the sparse light.

[ EXP: 596 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

The man, seemingly afflicted by some sort of disease that limited movement could only stand there and stare at the once female figure’s transformation sequence. What it was lacking in CGI and Special Affects/nude body shots, it made up for in outright what-the-hell factor. His expression, some mixture of utter surprise shown by his gaping mouth, and utter confusion represented by his furrowed brow, seemed to be stuck to his face. Little words came to his mind, and even fewer came from his mouth. How the hell do you even respond to such a thing as that? Seeing a doctor would probably be the first step, but, no, this was real. Or had he actually fallen asleep in the back of the cart? It would make more sense than what he was seeing. Once the creature – which called itself Iskra, or a hyena, or something or other – tilted its head in Rashn’s direction, he would seemingly snap out of the confused state and quickly scan the area. Did anyone see that? Luckily it did not appear so, as no one was visibly on the streets at such an hour. A massive uproar would be the only logical following were this to actually get out, though a minor one was being caused by the camel’s reaction to seeing such a thing. Rather uncomfortable, they were, that they were huffing and spitting as camels do: probably not a good thing to do with a beast in the immediate area. Shooting them a quick glance and a soft, but firm word, they would quickly, though obviously not immediately, begin to quiet down, and he would turn back to the beast on the ground in front of him. Its height alone was rather staggering.

“L-Look,” he began, stuttering in an uncharacteristic fashion. “I don’t know how or what you did, just there… but, do me a favor and change back. Quickly… if you can even understand me.” The last part was mumbled under his breath, but it was more of a message to himself anyway. Adding on to that, he continued, “Look, I’ll get you some food and drink, but just shift back already. We can’t have you seen like this…“ …’Especially not with me,’ he finished internally. While it was abnormal, admittedly that he would offer to buy something for someone else outright, it was a business deal anyway. He needed to get her back into human form if it was at all possible, and since she seemed to be hungry, coaxing her like that would be the obvious choice to get her to shift back.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The creature grinned on for awhile, chuckling with uncomfortable loudness at the funny expression on the merchant's face. Honestly, it was perhaps the funniest facial expression she'd seen since she almost thrust her baby-hyena-making equipment into Lethe's mouth. It was hilarious, and she fell on her back, kicking her back paws out in laughter as she gave in to the humor inherit in the situation. Besides, it was open desert. If she really wanted to get away, she doubted that she couldn't.

At length, however, she decided that the offer of a good meal was too good to pass up. Visions of food danced through her head: half-dead fawn, milk and stomach acid and blood leaking onto the ground like sauce; a sun-cooked carcass with warm bone marrow; chunks of flesh from a still-living cow.

It all sounded so delightful, and those thoughts motivated her as the transformation played in reverse. In minutes, she stood, her spotted hair waving slightly in the warm desert winds. "So you believe me now? What's there to eat?" she was plainly excited by the prospect of eating.

[ EXP: 282 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

“No,” Rashn said to himself in his mind, “Seeing it the second time, backwards or not, did not make that any easier.” He wasn’t sure what was creepier: the cackling laughter of the animal, or that transformation sequence. She was certainly no magical girl. Regardless, he was just thankful that she had transformed back fairly quickly. Only minutes it had been, though his anxiety made it feel like an hour. But at this point, he was somewhat stuck: she had been promised food, and his merchant’s oath demanded all deals be seen to the end. Why did he believe in that crap, anyway? The desert was a place of outlaws, where oaths had no place. He would, mentally, note that that was something to take under advisement in the near future. “Yeah… food,” he started softly, “I said something about that didn’t I? Well…” There was a momentary pause, as he raised an eyebrow and rubbed the bottomside of his chin with the palm of his hand. He wasn’t sure how to continue, and was just now grasping the form of beast she had taken. They existed in the desert and were no major threat, though one of her size was certainly unexpected. Uncommon, perhaps was the word. Continuing where he left off, he would question, “What exactly do you want to eat? I’m not sure what kind of a feeder you are. Meat perhaps?” He didn’t carry much meat that was not for trade himself: any he did was normally consumed upon the ride. Meat trade was tough, since you needed to be so rapid with it so as not to spoil it. While it was good money, you had to pay extra for its curing and such, which was not big deal for meal-sized meats, but for tradable amounts it quickly racked up in expenses. Though, there were a few butchers in the area he could likely barter a good deal with. “…which meats, then, do you prefer? Small game?... Large?” The merchant asked the last bit as if he, himself, considered humans in that category.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The meat part, she thought, was obvious. Nothing worthwhile didn't eat meat, at least not that she could think of off of the top of her head. Indeed, eating meat was the only thing that qualified any particular creature to not be classed as meat. Her eyes drifted to the camels for only a moment, distracted by the thought of them with considerably less bodily integrity before she remembered her honor. It was a new concept, but she liked having it, along with goals.

"A goat."

The memory was faint, but once her clan had attacked a young kid when she was but a cub. The meat of it was tender and delicious, probably due to the effects of domestication on its breed. It didn't matter. She wanted to experience that again. The wisdom of the beasts dictated that they only steal from mankind in the severest of famines, and the matriarch wisely decided that it would be a one-time thing. Even so, it resulted in the death of a pack member later on in time... an escalating blood feud that left her the last of her the hyenas and a man somewhere far away the last of his known family. Peculiar how such small things can change lives so profoundly.

Nonetheless, she backed up her statement with a bit more explanation. "They're my favorite."

[ EXP: 315 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

The merchant frowned, outwardly, as the woman went to his camels after his question, and yet frowned even deeper when she decided to stake her claim on goats. Goats? Really… he could tell she was not going to be an easy one to deal with. Goats in the desert, young or old, were something of a delicacy. Were they done right, they were expensive, yet filling and delicious. The normal goat, however, was mostly bones and bodily juices, with very little edible meat human-wise. Feeding in the desert, especially with so few real places to stay and such minimal travel knowledge, was difficult. However, he noted, she was a beast. While still a fact he was having a hard time coming to grips with, it was one that had been forced upon him. Something told him he still hadn’t truly realized the seriousness of the revelation that ‘beasts’ could transform into ‘humans’, and vice-versa, but that would be felt in a delayed way, like a shot to the groin. Back on topic, she WAS beast, yes, so did that mean she actually liked those such digestive fluids? Was that what made meat tender to her?

It was kind of an awkward position, but, still, he would keep his word. First he would need to find goats in the first place, and while he did not know who would sell such a creature in this place, let alone at such a time, he knew someone to ask for help. The elderly merchant was close, and his entire job was to simply know where to look for merchants who sold particular things. Luckily, as a way to increase trade from the outside, merchants who did not belong to the town were allowed to use his services free of charge! With that in mind, Rashn would move to the front of the carriage and unravel the restraints from their tied poles, and would instead wrap them around his hand. Clicking his tongue, he would mutter ‘hut-hut’ to the camels. This sound, combined with the pull from their master’s hand, would tell them to begin walking and following the merchant. He would then, of course, look back to the one called Iskra and nod to her. “Then, if goat is what you want, I’ll get you goat. But first, we need to find where to look for it. Follow me.” It was for the best. Time to close up shop anyway, so he might as well find something to eat while he was at it himself.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

So he was keeping his word. Smart, she thought, prideful in her own abilities and feeling more in control.

The way the man lead the beasts about never failed to fascinate her. If her kinsfolk had figured out how to pull off such a feat, they might have been able to farm the dumb herbivores as well and had endless meat of any kind they desired. As things were, however, they could only control their own kind through bared teeth and a rigid system of rank.

The humans' way seemed better, or so she told herself, since going back among her own kind no longer remained an option for the rogue demon.

Perhaps there was one of these farms where they kept goats? Perhaps they would capture a wild one like her friend from the Village of the Moon did. That's the nice thing about humans. They were always so full of new things.

"You are amazing, do you know that?" she told the merchant, speaking out of honesty. "I've been a human for awhile, and it seems like it'd be hard, but you all have these... ideas. I don't think I've even scratched the surface." Her expression was stoic, even as her rough tone was relatively cheerful. "How did you manage to get so much stuff for yourself?"

[ EXP: 306 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Were Rashn a lesser man, this was the point in time where he would blush at being complimented. Were he less of a man, he would cast aside his glance and pout heavily. Were he less of a man, his voice would stutter as the crimson color filled his face and he forced out a ‘I-It’s not like I’m doing this for y-you, or anything! Idiot!’. But, of course, Rashn was not such a lesser man. The woman’s words fell flat, perhaps to the point of even being wasted on him. All they did was cause his unappealing expression to turn even further south, with a sour frown covering his face now. Yet, this was not to stop him from being gentlemanly and ignoring her question. “I found it. Or, at the least, that’s how I started,” he began, recalling the very beginnings when he woke as a small boy to an unknown world. “I found things lying around, here and there. People took from me, and I was left with nothing. So I found more, and more, and eventually I got to be too big to simply take from, so people would try to simply strike a deal with me. After that, I learned how to argue and exaggerate rather well, so I would instead trade. I’d take one item, trade it for two. Then those for four, then eight, and so on and so on. Honestly, that’s all there is to it.” The man’s voice trailed off at the end, as if he himself were not so sure that was all, but it wasn’t largely a big deal to him anyway. Just a minor inconvenience.

Moving on from the topic, the man would pull the reins of the camels as they began to slow their walk as their interest was piqued by the sights seen traveling throughout the city. Turning his attention back to the woman for a moment, he would counter with a question of his own. “So I’ve answered what you asked me, so do me the same courtesy: Just… what the hell are you?” He pauses, only to realize the vagueness of the question. “I mean, I know you said you were a ‘hyena’, but… can all of you do that? Are there even more of you? Tell me more about your people, then. You mentioned something about a forest?” The flurry of questions came from both his personal curiosity, and at the… intrigue of a new group of people to do trade with. If there were more where she came from, and they were all so unknowing about humanoid culture, then perhaps he could set up something much to his advantage. Trading meats for the various things located out in the wilderness, perhaps? That, he noted much to his happiness, could be a very lucrative deal for both ends.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

A perceptible gloom and darkness came over Iskra at the mention of her family, replacing the delighted curiosity she had at the thought of giving away things to get more things. She certainly wanted things, and she'd traded before, but it only then occurred to her that it could be used repeatedly to generate wealth. It was one of those nice ideas that humans had.

"I had a clan. A human and his seed killed them all."

She could have gone on to explain that her human form was a result of her original sin in letting them die unavenged as far as she could tell, or explained some interesting facts about hyenas or some of the stranger differences in their cultures, but the topic drained her the more she thought on it. Guilt and sadness came like a flood, and she felt she would drown unless she very quickly changed the topic.

"I'm alone. I went to hell for awhile and there was this human-looking female who was shaped like God had squeezed her in the middle and made her hips too big. I was looking for something to eat, so I caught her because she was pitiful. Before I could eat her this... rat guy. He was about this tall," she held her hand level perhaps three feet off of the ground. "And he said that he'd give me some cheese if I let him hold her, because she wasn't awake. I had hit her over the head pretty hard. I don't know what the rat guy needed her for, but that cheese tasted really good."

Fond thoughts of that meal filled her mind, driving out the misery that her past brought about. "So I think I understand what you did. To do the same thing I would have to hit many female things over the head and find many rat people. I'd have so much cheese..."

Dreamily, she stared up at the moon, imagining the entire sphere was muenster.

[ EXP: 439 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

While the merchant noted the obvious change in the demeanor of his companion after his question, he also noted how it did not seem to stop her from answering, however vaguely, and that she seemed to quickly rebound into happier topics of food and the like. That said, the conversation drew a quiet, “You’re pretty freakin’ weird.” from Rashn, as he stared at her, dreamy expression and all. Perhaps he had pushed the wrong buttons in asking the questions he did? Or perhaps it was the way he asked them. No matter, she had answered and that was all there was to it. He now knew that there were, at least at one point, people like her. If there so existed people like her before, then there certainly may be more. And while her conversation about hell was a little off-putting, he would shake that off to be discussed later, and for now, he would ignore it. “I didn’t know people like you liked cheese. You’re not a carnivore? More of an… omnivore, perhaps?” While he wasn’t a researcher or notekeeper, or anything fancy like that, he couldn’t help but be curious.

While he was in the business of asking questions, he came across the tent of the man who would tell him where to find the particular merchant stall that held goat beef, raw or cooked. Turning to the one called ‘Iskra’, he would hold up his hand. “Ah, I’m sorry. Hold on for a moment, don’t answer yet. I need to ask the man in here something,” he would say, and quickly disappear inside the heavy cloth tent. It would take him some time, a moment or two, before he would re-emerge with the information he had sought. Short bits of banter were made between the two, as they seemingly knew each other, but it would not delay his reemergence by long. Upon returning, he would look somewhat more refreshed, but would return to his business. “Ignore my question from before,” Rashn stated once again. “Just answer this: which would you prefer, cooked meat or uncooked? Adult, or child?”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

As far as Iskra was concerned, the merchant had made a stupid statement. Everyone knew cheese was made of meat... or at least as far as she was concerned it was "meat" in the same way that bones, brains, and the contents of a creature's intestines were meat. They came from a body, but she didn't know the actual process that they used to make it, only that it must be made of meat since it was something that tasted good.

Then again, he might've known more about the nature of cheese than she did. She didn't know much beyond its name and taste.

"It's meat," she answered anyways, not afraid of speaking what was on her mind even if it might be wrong. Her brow furrowed with thought. It had to be meat. Otherwise she was no better than some rabbit out munching greens.

But her friend disappeared into one of the cloth enclosures around them for a moment and she waited patiently for his return.

When he came back, she had another thing to think about. Honestly, she'd never been asked what she'd prefer before. She always ate what was available, but now that she thought about it, since she would presumably be eating in this human form, she wanted something tender and perhaps a little civilized to eat.

"I want a cooked kid," the hyena-woman answered at length. That seemed to be the combination that would yield the tenderest meat.

[ EXP: 336 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Ahh, so she wanted a young one. Good! The merchant, happy with the answer, would pause a moment to remember the direction they had to go in, only to note that it was right back in the direction they had already came. Ironically it was about a two minute walk from where he was set up originally, but, that was just the way it went. Either way, her wanting a young goat instead of an adult helped put him in a greater mood, since they were less expensive than the older, more meaty options. That said, her wanting it cooked made it slightly rougher, seeing as he could’ve just bought a slaughtered carcass for her if she really wanted it. Did she like that kind of stuff? She was, apparently, an animal, so he figured they preferred things like that. Looks like he still had a lot to learn about these weird animalpeople.

Regardless, he would turn back in the way they came and point. “We need to go back this way then. And, while I kind of dread asking this… how much did you want to eat anyway? You people big eaters?” Hopefully, Rashn thought, she wouldn’t eat too much and he’d be able to feed himself while he was at it. The camels only needed to be fed rarely, and that was one of the first few things he did upon arriving in each new town anyway, so they weren’t a worry, though perhaps he could find some dates to feed them as a snack? He was sure they’d appreciate it.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

"Thirty pounds."

She answered immediately and with startling precision. As soon as she'd become aware of what a "pound" of meat was, she knew how much she could eat. 30 of them were an average, filling meal for a hyena of normal size, but she was slightly larger. Either way, she thought that amount of meat would be a great starting point.

She grinned, thinking about the goat that would soon be hers. After all, she had faith in this merchant despite only just meeting him because she had confidence in her ability to eat him if he somehow failed to fulfill his promise. Her blue eyes drifted to the side, evaluating her companion with a brief look over. He was sturdily built, though not as freakishly muscled as some of the weirder demons she'd come across in onitoshi. Human meat was tender and tasted more like their tame swine than any sort of wild creature.

It wasn't a bad taste, she recalled. A delicacy among carnivorous beasts, for only the most cautious and clever could hope to consume a man without retaliation from others. Rather famously, humans never seemed to forget anything. She turned and started walking with him over the way they'd come.

"We're pretty big eaters, as you say."

[ EXP: 304 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

For whatever reason, there was only a minimalist reaction from Rashn as he heard the woman’s answer. Thirty pounds?! Looking at her, he couldn’t even imagine where that would all go. How was a woman of her stature going to fit it all in there? Perhaps it had something to do with the transformation screwing up weight distribution. Fascinating, but, not worth the time to find out. “Thirty pounds, huh…” he says, scratching his chin lightly. Even he, himself, had expected his own jaw to drop, yet for whatever reason such an astronomical number didn’t really faze him. It probably had something to do with the fact that he saw her shift from a human to a beast and back again earlier. Other things became somewhat trivial after that point. Though, to be honest, this wasn’t really a good situation to be in, and he both knew and felt it. Thirty pounds was going to be a pain in the ass to get. Kind of expensive to buy that much, though he could probably find a way to make it work. Probably. In his head, he was going over the calculations to see how much he would need to buy in actuality. Luckily the man who sold the kid sold in both cooked and uncooked varieties, so he Rashn could purchase some uncooked meat and try to sell that as well. But, thirty pounds? “Isn’t that, like… an entire goat? All the good stuff anyway?” he pondered aloud, though he probably just said something which would beget an essay of an answer from the woman about all the marvelous different things there was to eat in a wild goat and how thirty pounds was just scratching the surface, or something. In the current state of things, he would likely have to buy upwards of eighty pounds of meat total, and then sell that off at a slightly higher rate just to make up the expenses of the dinner he was going out to. As usual, women were a pain in the ass. “Alright, I’ll make you a deal: you make sure you eat it all without shifting into that… freaky animal mode, and I’ll just let you eat to your fill. That sound fair?”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The woman's bone-colored eyebrows furrowed. She wasn't exactly sure how much she could eat in her current form, but experience taught her that it was considerably less than she could eat as a hyena. After all, humans could store and preserve things. Hyenas could only save food in the cupboard of their stomachs, lest competing vultures whittle away at the food or brave and clever beasts come to steal. It made sense for them to have a bigger capacity for food.

"I understand," she answered simply when she was offered the deal.

"The smallest goats are sixty pounds of meat," she continued matter-of-factly, without clarifying that when she said meat she included everything but the horns and the hooves which, were it not for this alternate form, would be included in her meal. "Larger ones are a hundred pounds of meat. A kid should be enough for me at least."

[ EXP: 249 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

The man nodded his head in understanding, as the woman went on to explain the specifics of eating goats in a much less verbose way than he had predicted. “Just what do you consider to be meat, anyway?” he mentioned, vaguely remembering her comment on eating such amounts of cheese earlier, yet having missed the opportunity to hear her defend that cheese was in fact meat as he had already left to enter the merchant tent at that point. “And what parts of the goat do you want while we’re at it?” He pondered for a moment just what pieces he would be able to purchase cooked. Seeing as people in the desert were often times strapped for food, it was likely whichever individual item she fancied most would be purchasable, unless it was something weird like eyes or forehead meat. Did the forehead have meat? Unimportant, but a weird thought none the less.

Rashn would combine these questions with the slow moving of his feet, leading the camels accurately behind them as they spoke. It was still a fair distance away, but it was good to have these questions answered early. This one, Iskra it was, seemed to be fairly set in her own ways, yet also naïve to the way of humans. Did she really grasp just what a market was? He wondered what her reaction would be if he were to take her to one of the bazaars in the busy morning, yet that would be highly unlikely to ever happen since were he to go there himself, it would not be to babysit, but to operate as a merchant. He also did not trust what would happen if she were to go alone: did she have selfcontrol over herself? Just what was the difference between her and the beasts that roam the wastelandic desert region? Not that it mattered to him, in all honesty, but a beast getting loose in the bazaar would largely disrupt sales and cause all sorts of commotion that was bad for business, so he decided that he would likely actively attempt to keep her away from it if the situation ever arose. It was fortunate, then, that after the dinner he had promised her, he had by and large no intention of ever meeting her again, as she really offered nothing of monetary value to him, and being a man of the coin, that was the name of the game in the end. “You can buy each individual part, you know. You don’t have to eat a whole goat. If you want only one type of meat from it, that’ll be more than fine.”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Another confusing question. It was like talking to the pride demon, Jack, but considerably less threatening.

"Meat is..." she trailed off. Wasn't it obvious? Humans were the ones who invented the word. They should know what was considered meat. "What I eat. Rather, the only things I eat are considered meat. Not all creatures eat meat. Rabbits don't eat it, but because they don't their meat is sweeter than a creature's who eats it. And what parts of the goat?" That was a confusing question as well. "The... goat part? The part that's a goat?"

Of course animals had parts, but it took a bit of clarification from her companion and thought for her to remember that humans didn't eat a lot because they didn't support a lot of weight or muscle, generally, so perhaps they were pickier about the bits that they chose to consume. Well, that and they were generally surrounded by meat and the various things they ate because of their mysterious ability to farm and their insistence on keeping it all for themselves.

"I can eat any portion I am presented." It was as satisfactory of an answer as she could be expected to provide. Most manner of carnivorous animals left a stripped carcass on the ground after they had their fill, but a hyena kill is nothing but a red stain on the ground within a few dozen minutes. Did being human mean she would have to become wasteful and leave bits of creature for the rot and carrion birds?

But the longer she thought about it, the more she realized that she did have a preference, though she'd been sufficiently hungry to almost forget it.

"I think I understand. I prefer the rear."

[ EXP: 413 || +1 TEXP (5th post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Ah, so she would prefer the rump. Or, was it still referred to that when talking about goats? While it was a universally accepted, kid friendly version of ass, people having to break it down into specialized usages only made it hard to understand what people wanted even if they were speaking clearly. Couldn’t they have just developed a different word? “Alright, then we’ll get you your fill of that.” The man said, coming to a quick stop before turning down one of the less-populated back roads. Though, since it was night, everything was pretty much unpopulated. Shaking the thought away, he would reflect on her answer as to just what ‘meat’ was, and it really started to dawn on him that he was talking to an ‘animal’. While it had been forced on him physically earlier, and the knowledge came up to him before as well, he hadn’t really grasped the difference between him and her until then. She didn’t understand what meat was… she knew that rabbits didn’t eat meat, but couldn’t define what it was all the same? Perplexing.

Unfortunately, to the merchant perplexing was both annoying and slightly intimidating, seeing as he couldn’t do his job if he couldn’t understand someone. Seeing as they were close to the destination, he thought he would finish the remainder of the time with a slight explanation. “Meat is… generally speaking, anything off of an animal or living creature. You and I are meat. Rabbits are meat. Plants, definitely, are not meat. Cheese also isn’t meat, as even though it comes from an animal, it’s not actual a portion of their body. It’s made from a byproduct of their bodily functions. Therefore, cheese is not meat in the same way as your or my piss is not meat.” A disgusting, though accurate analogy. “Pretty much, if it doesn’t come directly from beneath the skin of something, then it’s not meat. Put it that way.” He wondered how she would react if he was to fill her in on how cheese was actually made, but that would have to wait for another time, seeing as they had finally arrived at their destination.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The reassurance that her "order" was on its way made Iskra a little happier.

The next series of words, however, placed her into confusion. "It's... not?" she asked at the statement that urine wasn't meat. She'd always classified it as meat in her own mind. Any "animal product" had been stuffed under the word except for hooves and horns and antlers and such, which weren't easy to eat and therefore weren't considered meat by her standards once again.

But it was mankind who invented the word and ultimately she would defer to a man on how a particular word worked. She was a newcomer to this scene after all. "I understand," she said again, simply. But if urine wasn't meat, what was it? It certainly wasn't a vegetable or fruit and as far as carnivorous animals went it was mostly edible.

"But... I like to eat something that isn't meat? Does that make me not a hyena?"

In truth, her definition of "meat" relied upon a bestial conclusion from circular logic. What was meat? What hyenas ate. What did hyenas eat? Meat. What was meat? So the word seemed to define itself. This person seemed to have transcended that, so she accepted his definition instead. It was more compatible with species other than hyenas.

"Wait... nevermind. I understand," she repeated.

[ EXP: 337 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Did she really? He doubted it. Honestly he himself was a little loose on the definition of meat, but he knew it came from animals directly. You could say he knew what it was but couldn’t explain it, kind of like the human definition of love. Yeah, meat was like love. That made sense. “Relax. You are what you want to be, as long as you don’t let other people change that you’ll be good. I highly doubt eating one non-animal byproduct will stop you from being what you want.” Though, speaking of animal byproducts, did these ‘hyena’ things eat other hyenas? Asking that might be in bad taste though, so Rashn decided against asking. He knew humans ate other humans, kind of. If they were desperate, cannibalism wasn’t unheard of in the desert. Though he himself never had to steep that low, he imagined that if humans would do it, so would the desert beasts. After all, in a land where resources were scarce, you had to do what you had to do, and nobody really held you in ill regard for it either. That was just the kind of place the world was, though if it was like that outside of the desert mountain ranges, the man didn’t know. He’d like to go there once if he could…

“We’re here,” he said rather dully, not being one for climactic expressions himself, “so behave yourself now. We’ve got to go in first and barter with the man. Please, don’t touch anything until I’ve bought it.” It occurred to him that, if she really did lack in self control and began to eat something, his entire ability to barter would be ruined: as soon as she so much as bit into something, she, and by correlation he, would have bought it and would have to pay whatever price the meat-merchant would demand. And as previously mentioned, in the desert, you did what you had to do, so he’d likely be grossly overcharged. Naturally, he sought to avoid that.

The man would step forward, pushing aside the light drapes that marked the entrance to the tent, and the tastes and flavors of the various meats, cooked and uncooked, flooded him. Ahh, how long had it been since he had real meat? He hadn’t had any since before he arrived in Rajeh, he knew that much, but perhaps it had been even longer than that. Meat wasn’t totally rare, but it was somewhat expensive and thus considered a delicacy. Internally he was hoping that the hyena woman wouldn’t totally freak at the sight of all the raw meats in the back of the tent. Perhaps she should’ve been made to stay outside? He’d have to do this quick, so, without hesitation, he would approach the man at the front of the ‘counter’ (which in reality was just a plank set on top two large crates, barely going waist high) and begin to talk in what would likely seem to the woman, if she was still paying attention, to be in tongues. Numbers would begin flying around, talk of quality of the materials and the like would fill the tent. It was the human world’s non-violent version of two animals barking and growling for dominance. The better merchant would come out the victor.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra frowned visibly. Well, that made sense. Things did not stop being things because a word changed... or did they? Well, the word changed. The world stayed the same. It was a sufficient enough explanation.

"Barter?"

She was vaguely aware of the word, but it was a strictly human thing. Most beasts of the wild were give and take. There weren't any intentional trades, though there might be some unintentional ones. The trees produced thousands of nuts, seeds, and berries for the squirrels. The squirrels never agreed to distributing the seeds in their feces or burying some of the hundreds of nuts they collected and forgetting their hiding places, but it was the price for the apparently "free" provisions of the trees. So trade seemed inherently... herbivorous. Carnivores simply took all they could and gave nothing back, or at least it seemed. They exacted a terrible price for ensuring that herds of animals remained strong. The storyteller of her old clan, a very intelligent beast, told a story of how the hyenas were created to consume evil and maladies and purge them from the earth. Wherever mankind drove out the hyena, the buzzard, the crow, they invariably received the consequence of allowing the decaying meat to remain wasted. One such village was so foolish, or so the storyteller told, that they drove out all the animals they personally deemed "unpleasant". They established a domain of cleanliness and preserved their dead in a massive crypt beneath the city. The waste pickers of nature were banished with horrible weapons of fire and metal.

But there was something the weapons could not save them from. Plagues descended on them like the flood and soon they were no different than the putrid corpses at the center of their village. It was a great feast and compensation for the reviled disease-eaters of Terra.

Her musings were halted by the fact that they were walking into the proper tent. Already she could smell the savory scent of a meat menagerie. Some kinds of flesh, she was familiar with. Others she wasn't, but she was curious. Through it all she detected a few old favorites.

"Barter..."

Honestly, it seemed to be some odd human game... one that she would tolerate simply because she wished to see how this matter unfolded. It wasn't something she got to see every day, after all. It seemed like a big fuss over nothing, as far as she could tell. If this were the land of demons or hyenas, there would not be as many words. It would be, "These are my teeth, so this is my meat," or "These are my claws, so this is my territory."

Human societies were more complicated than that, however, and she recognized the fact. They often didn't know their rank in their civilizations or were constantly trying to usurp or circumvent their authorities without direct use of force. These things, these... words were important. They dealt in the lofty realm of ideas instead of the brute force that the animals she'd come from did. This is what made them superior and why she originally left her kind, she decided.

So she seated herself on a convenient, upturned crate and watched with intent, blue eyes, ignoring the meat for now, though she was hungry. Rank produced discipline, and rank was the most important thing in her childhood. Though she didn't believe that the merchant outranked her, she did respect that it was basically his realm that she was in.

[ EXP: 756 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

This was it: the big showdown. The man seemed, for the first time, replenished, like a century old candle burned only mostly away, with one last bit of wick lit aflame once more. His expression was, still, less than appealing: he frowned, and scowled, and he never really smiled, yet there was life in his eyes. There existed an energy flowing through him. Adrenaline. Coursing through every vein in his body, he could feel it. The rush some people would get from war, or sex. An embarrassing thought that this was like such erotic things as that to him, but it was the truth and was set in stone. Rashn did not enjoy that the world was as cold and careless as it was, but he still reveled in the feeling of outsmarting another man and proving his worth in the world. It likely would be tracked back to his ‘childhood’, if there was anyone around to tell of it. “It’s just as I say. Ninety pounds.” The auburn haired one would, of course, have a sober expression written across his face as he continued the argument. His ‘opponent’, the gruff, scarred and much larger man on the opposite side of the counter would insist that, no, he wanted no part of Rashn’s ore collection or his barrels of grain, especially not if it meant trading a near hundred pounds of meat. This was quickly countered with mention of the sheer amount he would be getting, being matched in a nearly 2:1 ratio. Still, the butcher pressed on that grain was not an item he was particularly needy of, and ore was exceptionally common in Rajeh.

“Yes, but look at it this way,” the merchant began, his eyes glistening once before shifting back to normal, “the ore mines are ‘closed’. Production has stopped temporarily until they find a new deposit which they haven’t yet sucked dry.” His answer was instantly shot down again by the much bigger man.
“And it’ll be found soon. Ore production in Rajeh is never down for long.”
It was at this point that, for the first time, Rashn’s expression changed. Instead of simply being serious and focused, he began to appear somewhat downcast. His visage shifted to that of a sad person. “Then you don’t know…” he said quietly, rubbing his chin in thought of false depth. “It would make sense, in hindsight I guess. You’re a meat trader, so you do not know of the way the ore market works.” It was a simple trick: tell both a lie and a truth. What one says is true, but it is extended in seriousness into the territory of a lie. However, it seemed to work somewhat on the Butcher-man. His expression also shiftly slightly, and a ‘crack’ began to open in his defense. At that point, Rashn counted it as an already decided victory.
“Just what the hell are you talking about? You playin’ with me, boy?” Largely, no, he was not. And wisely so: playing with someone brandishing a meat cleaver and with such experience in gutting things was not a widely accepted example of, what the kids called, ‘a good idea’.
“No,” Rashn began, shifting to the other foot as he continued to be fakely calculating numbers internally. “It’s the truth. The thing is, the entire known world relies on Rajeh for ore products-“ true, basically, yet with Rashn not knowing of the whole world, this was probably being overdramatized. “-and they do so constantly.” Also true. “When the ore production ‘hiccups’ here in Rajeh, prices temporarily skyrocket due to need. They can even become worth doubly more.” Another truth, though them becoming worth twice as much only happened once, ever, and Rashn was not even around at that time to experience it firsthand. Unfortunately, it did not convince the larger man.
Grunting, he would lightly slam his cleaver to the counter, dismissing the nonsense. “I’m not convinced.” See? Regardless, Rashn was not worried. He had cracked somewhat, and so it was just a measure of applying pressure there.
“That’s fine,” he began, and then he mentioned that he could easily trade in the ore with one of the merchants who dealt in the materials specifically. He also brought up, though, that he when he would return to make the purchase of meat later, he would not be as kind in his dealings due to the depreciated value of his meats in comparison. With ore being worth so much, and his owning so much, he could afford to trade a little more loosely, you could say. While that was also rubbish, it seemed to have an effect on the merchant, who instantly called for him to wait. He seemed to be thinking quite heavily on the subject. Rashn wondered how much of this was going over the feminine one’s head…

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Patience. What was a virtue in humans was an instinct in carnivores, and her behavior while the words of the negotiations flew about like insects around a candle, was the same as she had in her more wild days during a hunt. This was a manifestation of knowledge, and her ears and eyes lapped up the display before her like a camel might lap up water in an oasis. Indeed, she had the same focused, intent, blank stare on her face that she'd had in her alternate form while sneaking up on some gently feeding horse. And she crept closer with an eerie slowness, as though she were in fact trying to sneak up on some creature for consumption.

She stopped perhaps six feet behind the camel-owning merchant, placing herself on a seat closest to the scene with infinite caution and silence, never once removing her eyes from the action taking place.

And she sat there like some spotty-haired statue without the slightest twitch.

The demon had to think over the words for awhile, as they seemed to be effective. The way that things went down seemed simple enough. The initiator would argue the value of his stock whereas the other would defend the value of his. For the initiator to succeed, he would have to convince the defender that he was gaining valuable stock instead of losing it.

She understood. Compared to the way she was used to, it seemed a bit more... fair to physically weaker parties. Since all of the humans here relied on each other so heavily, she supposed it wouldn't do to simply take everything from them all of the time.

"Did it work?" she whispered to her companion's back when the meat vendor went into his deliberation.

[ EXP: 398 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Rashn was, needless to say, feeding off of the feeling he bathed in. The rush, the success, it was all delicious to him. Every last second of it, he loved. It was as if he had won a great battle without lifting a finger. That kind of power and success, after starting off with nothing, was uplifting. He knew he could not get absorbed in it, lest he make the mistake of getting in over his head and getting ripped off. Inside, the merchant knew from experience nothing was more humbling than being completely obliterated after you had thought you had the upper hand. Until the moment when the goods crossed hands – No, until the moment you left the village with the stock at one’s side, you could never let yourself think the ‘battle’ was over, no matter how much you reveled in it. It was at this point, as he was trying to hold in his excitement, that the woman would whisper something behind him. This was good: any distraction to keep him from going too far was welcome. He would take this chance, turn, and whisper something in return. “I’m no teacher, but listen well anyway. If there’s one thing you should learn here, it’s that words are like poison: very rarely do they ever have any immediate effect.”

It was at this point that the butcher would demand his attention once again, and he would turn and continue the uncompleted conquest between him and the man. More and more, lies would spew out between the two and comparisons of goods would be made. Quality and quantity were brought up and dispelled consistently. It seemed as if, however, the butcher was not nearly as adamant as he had been up until that point. That was, as Rashn had mentally noted earlier, the crack taking effect. If the ground below one person is broken even slightly, their whole stance will crumble. “Perhaps, instead of just talking, you’d like to actually see my goods for yourself?” the auburn haired merchant offered, to which the butcher just frowned.
“No, thanks.” He started, but bellowed back an unfamiliar name out the backend of the tent. From there, a petite woman would come through, most likely his wife, and they would whisper among themselves quickly. “I’ll have my wife here do so. I’m sure she’ll be able to tell if they’re good or not.” It was likely ridiculous to an observer, that he would rely on someone else to check the goods for him, especially one who looked so inexperienced as the frail female, but it was actually somewhat of a good idea. Had he himself gone to check on the goods, it was as if he was admitting defeat in bartering terms. Leaving your tent was like stepping down in power: it signified that you were all but outright submitting. This was likely his last chance, albeit a desperate one.
With the woman’s disappearance to check the carriage outside, silence would dominate the room momentarily. Neither man would speak, but a small skirmish of a battle would rage on between the two’s stares. If real life was a world where electrical bolts came from your irises to do a beam-style battle, this was when one such situation would take place. It was, of course, quick, however, as the woman would come back shortly after leaving and whisper something again. From the back of the tent, a row of three small, plainfaced children would peak in, before their mother would quickly usher them out with her right behind. The butcher had an angry, almost constipated look on his face, before he utter the short words, “Fine. We’ll make it a deal then.”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Poison. She was familiar enough with that word. A substance that gradually weakened a creature and drew away its life and strength. The monitor lizards, a clanless, easygoing bunch, used these strictly to hunt. It would bite or claw once and allow its swift footed prey to flee, following the scent of blood at a casual pace and frequently stopping to smell the figurative roses. It might be the next day until it actually had dinner. The once mighty and/or swift beast would be a warm corpse by the time the water monitor approached it again with all the velocity of the turtle passing the figurative hare to the finish line.

She understood it to be a simpler way to hunt, and she'd borrowed it when she left her clan. The filth she ate came out in her bite, and even the magic she eventually learned to use had a wasting effect instead of the flashiness of outright damage. It saved energy and it allowed her to maintain her quality of life without having to waste valuable calories actually dragging prey down to the ground herself, though she was more than capable of the act.

Iskra's attention came back to the current when the smaller woman left the tent and the three diminutive humans peeked shyly at the scene. She tilted her head to the side quizzically. They seemed to be very vulnerable beings. Definitely the sort she would attack in a clan. Alas, those days were behind her. The demon had to remind herself not to size up people like prey so often.

The word "Deal", she assumed, meant "meat", and her excitement was apparent in the way that her warm breaths picked up and she leaned over on her companion merchant, huffing on the back of his neck.

[ EXP: 401 || +1 TEXP (2nd thread) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

As the rush of victory coursed through his veins for a moment, it was crushed down by that feeling by the nape of his neck. It was with this that all warmth inside of him was flushed out into the air and a staunch expression drew itself across his face. Were here a lesser man, this was the point when his control would dis—oh, wait, this joke was already done. Regardless, he was still lucky that he had control. Or, perhaps he was lucky that he had no interest? While most men would get all tingly between the legs at the breath of a female flowing over their bare skin, he ended up uncomfortable. Was it because she was actually an animal? He wondered for a moment how the hell pregnancy would work then if she was shifting forms all over the place. Maybe being pregnant just blocked usage of her form-altering capabilities. It was unimportant, but he couldn’t help but wonder.

Turning, he would brush off the intrusion of his beloved personal space to respond to his comrade. “You’re easily excited it seems. That said, pick out what you want. Anything you want here, you can grab.” He would step aside and allow the woman full access to the front of the counter, which would grant her vision of a smörgåsbord of different meats and cuts, all of which were of her choosing. The man didn’t mind, seeing as he had gotten more than enough which he could make a profit off of later. To be honest, he was just happy to be back in his own little ‘bubble’, still slightly perturbed by the invasion laid out by the one who called itself – herself, Iskra. Rashn noted that on the opposite side of the tent flaps, the three small children and the frail-looking housewife were moving around the barrels of ore and bits of cloth, as had been discussed, and he would need to watch to make sure they did not try to sneak anymore, or have any problems with it. Yet, he also wondered just what reaction the bestial lady would have. For some reason, he really didn’t want to miss it… though, that was probably fear that she was going to go absolutely crazy over it. No, no. She had shown fair control so far. There was no reason to expect any different now, though, admittedly he was something of a pessimist.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

So the deal was sealed, it seemed. Anything she wanted from the assorted types of flesh before her was hers to consume, it seemed.

Of course, the idea of simply eating it all as a human perturbed her. Eating in the human form had been so uncomfortable and difficult that she felt compelled to change back.

Yet, out of respect to her friend, she didn't want to change again in his sight. Besides, the deal had been not to change at all and--

Oh... right. She frowned and put her hand to her chin. What had been his exact wording?

The words escaped her. The food looked so good, though.

What was a promise anyways? It was a human thing, definitely, but she was trying to be more human.

Cautiously, she reached out and tentatively took a small poultry wing from a rack of several. When she bit into it, however, the tissue defied her now-blunted teeth.

The hyena demon sighed, her blue eyes staring forlornly at the masses of wet, tasty meat hanging before her like clouds in heaven. Heaven so close... It would be a simple thing for her to change back... so easy... she'd never seen so much food in one place in her life, not even when Lethe fed her the sacks of horseflesh and bird carcasses all those months ago.

"How... do we do this?" she murmured, trying to solve the problem in her head.

[ EXP: 303 || +1 TEXP (1st post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

As the hyena woman dealt with her inner turmoil, Rashn would be busying himself with the allocation of his new belongings. Mentally, he would check off one by one which cuts he would take with him. Smaller bits would be easier to carry, though larger cuts would be bartered for more in the future, if he could manage to preserve it all. He needed a combination of them, though in all honesty he was looking to unload it all quickly. Perhaps he would save five or six pounds worth for himself in his travels, but anymore would likely go to waste. Both cooked and uncooked, he marked them all with a calculating gaze. The butcher’s family would, by this time, have finished the unloading of his goods, so it was just up to him to finish picking his bits.

It was then that he would look to the side, and measure up the woman’s distraught appearance. Was there something wrong, he wondered? He had imagined she would be ecstatic over getting essentially free food, and to such the degree that she was. The thought came to his mind that it was not to her liking, though what kind of meats she would be used to, or prefer, and how they would be different from human-cooked meats was a mystery to him. “Is there a problem?” he asked aloud, deciding that just coming out and saying what was on his mind to be the best option. “Does it taste foul to you?” There was no telling if even suggesting such a thing would anger the butcher, who was still within hearing distance, but the sooner this little problem was solved, the sooner they could all be on their way. Did… did being in human form really put such a damper on things? Was there a problem he was missing with that?

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The solution came to Iskra like a sky-bolt from Vosht. The merchant no doubt planned to carry off all of the meat he didn't plan to cook or eat right away, and when he was asleep, she could simply change back and eat in her more comfortable form. A smile stretched across her face at the simple elegance of the solution. Yes, she still didn't recall his exact wording, but she was certain that there must have been some stipulation about her simply not changing back into a hyena around him. Surely if he were in the realm of dreams where her actions were unobservable to him... well, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. It was an act of deception, and even the simplest beasts understood such a thing.

"The meat is fine," she all but purred, self-satisfied. "I don't like to eat while I talk. Hyena courtesy and all."

Honestly, it was less an issue of courtesy than it was the simple fact that stopping to talk prevented one from inhaling food at top speed, so generally the spotted creatures never engaged in much conversation over a feast unless there was an overabundance of food, and overabundances of food were unheard of in the wild.

"I will talk with you now. I will help you load these things into your shell, and then I'll eat when we're done talking. Come now, I insist." As she spoke, she began moving the pieces of meat that she personally liked into what she had referred to as a shell: the merchant cart. All of the pieces of meat she chose were inordinately large. When she selected a rack of ribs from some large bovine animal, she piled organ meats onto it as though the side of meat were a platter and the heap of less costly flesh reached far above it. "I still have many things to say. I imagine that, as a human, you haven't been told the tale of the dead god? You call her the Sun and she birthed the three-headed being Terra, which we live on, and her brother Luna, who couldn't support life because he was a male and therefore weak... but she generated all things into perfection. There's her sister Keuakepo who lords over the storm, the fire, and the dead and her wicked mate and the father of all evils, Vosht."

She didn't know many stories to change the subject to, but the mythology of her exiled clan was written onto her heart as immutably as stone.

[ EXP: 487 || +1 TEXP (2nd thread) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

The man’s brow lowered in suspicion as the woman’s demeanor so rapidly changed. How did one go from a distant-look like that, to such an invigorated one like what she was wearing? Had Rashn ever known life as an actual child, he knew that something like that was routinely done when you did not want the other party to know something. Still, even without such experience, it struck an odd cord in his gut. Wild animals were untrustworthy by nature, but he had assumed one who managed a human form would be somewhat more… humane? That didn’t seem like much of a stretch to him, but perhaps this streak of non-pessimism was falsely placed. He almost wanted to point out nothing was stopping her from taking her portion of the food and leaving the city to eat it in her natural form if it was a big deal, but for whatever reason he opted not to. Mayhaps, he pointed out to himself, he decided against it due to the woman’s sudden desire to talk in tongues…

And by tongues, he meant talk about beings and things that he had no true understanding of. While he was already put off by the fact that she was so willingly helping him load his cart, the fact that she began to speak about old gods and three-headed beasts simply confused him more than before. A sweat drop formed at the back of his neck and well silently as he wondered to himself how the situation evolved to talking about mythological beings who had no proving presence on the earth. It was already established prior that she was not particularly sound in the head, but with each passing sentence between the two, it seemed the rift that was their differing sanity levels was pulled farther and farther apart. “Well, you’re… right about one thing, for sure,” he said with a grunt, as he loaded the last barrel of meats into the back of the carriage, flipping the ‘loading dock’ back to its locked position, “I’ve definitely never heard of these people before.” The auburn merchant had, though, heard of ‘gods’ before, though he never particularly believed in them. Surely he would follow the local customs and show respect to any such celestial beings they put faith in, but that was more out of a desire to not break the mold, or to offend. Were there a god of sun or life and death, surely there must also have been a god of trade, and they had never shown Rashn any particular favor, so for what reason would he need to return the gift as such? Deciding he was morally obliged to continue the conversation, he would hop up in the front seat of the wagon – opting out of directly controlling the camels at such a point – and try not to be a ‘dead fish’ in the conversation. “Tell me, how exactly does a god die anyway?”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra couldn't tell if the bedtime story was working, but she continued anyhow. It wasn't completely an act; talking about these particular stories always excited her. They were much like the ancient world's comic books or action movies in her head. They was never just words to her. She wish she knew some sleep-inducing spell. It was important that she eat in the village or the cart. Years of living alone taught her that dragging any meat she gained from the humans too far from their dwelling was an open dinner invitation to all manner of annoying creatures. Vultures and jackals and half-starved things probably weren't that far from the area, and a lack of a clan made a meal very hard to defend when it was assailed on all sides.

"Oh, of course nothing could kill the sun. She was entirely too powerful for that, but she died like many strong warriors die... giving birth." Her tone became grave as she continued. "This world actually died once on the way out of her... uhh..."

The demon's eyebrows furrowed. This was where the terminology became confusing. "Umm... I don't know your word for it, but your human females don't have one. I mean..." she held her hand about six inches apart. "Normal females have one about this long and you can send urine out of it."

It didn't occur to her that substituting the word "normal" for "hyena" might throw off a human listener, so she continued. "Of course, being a god, hers was massive, and since both her and her children are immortal, they can never permanently die. This world came back from death, and you can still see the sun in our sky. She gains a little of her strength back every day, and when she is fully alive again she will come purge this world of her mate's wickedness. He invented the Curse that mankind, above all other beasts, has to deal with, you see."

She shook her head. "Of course, we still call her dead even though she's partially alive. She gets up each morning, finds her powers are great, but not as strong as they were before, and she goes back to sleep. You can see her moving across the sky, though she's so bright you can't look at her. That's proof enough that she's there, if you require proof."

[ EXP: 493 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Well, she certainly is there. There’s no arguing the presence of the sun. “But,” Rashn begins, contemplating the validity of her story. “How can you prove the birth of this world by the sun? What makes you think it wasn’t the other way around?” To be honest, this was all just silly little travelling talk that the man was experienced in engaging in from the rare occasions he would actually travel with other merchants. Simple conjecture, is all. He would ignore the comment about a… long, urine-producing object on ‘normal’ females, and brush that off as unneeded information. All that would come of it was that he never wanted to see her take care of ‘nature’s business’ while in that form. Ever… wait, then what happened to it when she went into her human mode? Was it still there? Did it… go aw—never mind, a disgusting thought the man had no desire to linger on any further. Instead of wasting time on such a thing, he would instead continue the conversation, while beckoning for the woman to board the wagon so they could continue on the road through the city.

“I’ve no experience with any such celestial beings, but from here, the sun looks awfully small. I find it hard to believe this endless world came from the cradle of something like that. And if you believe in gods to such a level,” he would lift his head and point his finger directly to the sky at this point, “what do you, or your people, make of all those?” He would, of course, be referring to the bits and pieces of ‘heaven’ left floating in the sky that looked like physical constellations. His entire life, the merchant thought very little of those, believing them to be natural. He had no explanation for them, but they were there, so they must have some reason for existing. “If the world was born again from death, then what the hell are those?”

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra didn't hesitate to climb up on the cart, initially sitting like a dog before she recalled her form and shifted to a more reasonable posture with her legs dangling over the wood, imitating her friend. "Well, a cub dies without its mother's care. This world dies without the life and warmth that it gets off of the sun. This tells you that the sun is Terra's mother and not the other way around. Should this world perish, the sun will still be there, but should the sun perish, her infant will shortly perish after it."

Such an answer seemed simplicity itself to the demon, who'd often thought over similar questions in her own past, adding onto the mythologies conveyed to her by her clan and rationalizing them in her head. "As for the size of the sun, she seems that small because she's weakened and very far away. You humans can't really fly, so you wouldn't know, but you can fly on up to the gates of heaven and the sun will appear exactly the same size. You will have made no progress closer to it if you go ten thousand feet up. Things are only like that when you have unthinkable distances involved."

Honestly, she hadn't investigated herself, but she'd heard tale from other wild spirits who flew more often than she that it was the case. She had no protracted curiosity on the issue, only faith.

"Those pieces you see floating up there," the demon continued without missing a beat. "Are chunks of flesh from the old world. The gods aren't made of consumable flesh like horses, humans, or even hyenas. They're made of immortal flesh that can be crumbled, but never destroyed. Their flesh is sand and stone. Their bones and cartilage are the metals. Their organ-meats are the shiny stones. Their blood is the lava. Their hair is the grass and the trees. You can think of the things that eat the grass and the trees as parasites like fleas, and we were made to consume those creatures to help protect Terra from them."

"But the strange chunks you see floating around are fragments of the body that the world had after it died the first time, but before it was born. All the living creatures around you are from the litter that Terra produced, sired by Kaupe, the father of all ghosts. This makes us the grandchildren of the sun, when you think about it."

[ EXP: 488 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

As soon as the woman named Iskra would mount the carriage and settle into proper positioning, Rashn would lightly whip the reins into the back of the camels’ necks. He was already aware of where to try and pawn his portion of the meat off: a particular rival to the butcher they had just left. For whatever reason, the two did not like one another, and that was fine for him. If it meant he could push the meat onto him, then so be it. With the great deal the man managed, he could sell it for a low enough price to make it rather enticing for the second butcher, and this would likely lead to a very easy, very quick deal. He liked that idea. Although, the profit would not be as good as it could be, it would save on time, which, as he mentioned time and time again, was one of the richest resources of them all. That said, he would still have to contend with the woman to his side, and her odd tendencies and beliefs. “Chunks of flesh, huh?” he muttered, more to himself than to her. He would rub his chin quietly and gaze back up for a moment in thought. “While it’s definitely true I do not have any flying capabilities to my name, just what in the name of hell is keeping them up there then? Normal things fall from the sky after a short while, so what makes them the exception to this?”

It was at this point his demeanor turned, from the “I’ll play along” softness that it had before, to a hard, quizzical one. She had mentioned being birthed by the new world: grandchildren of the sun. That was fine, but all the same, he could not believe it. It was, quite simply, untrue to him. Normal people were birthed small and weak as children. Frankly, it was an event that somewhat scared him and confused him, but he knew it to be true. His eyes, multiple times, had seen it happen. Yet, he himself was never birthed from anything. This is why, for a moment, being born from the earth seemed reasonable. It was until, of course, that one would bring up the fact that he was born not small and weak as a baby, but large and weak as a child. Comparatively, when he ‘awoke’ to life, he was around the same size and strength as one who would have been living for thirteen or fourteen years, with no other people or parents to be found around him. Obviously, people were not born already grown, so that still did not answer the question of his own origin. Of course he would not say this to the woman so as not to send her into a tiff or insult her, but he quite frankly could not believe the last bit that she was trying to peddle as truth.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Whenever the cart bumped a certain way, Iskra could hear the wet flap of meat in the back of the cart, and it seemed to get louder and louder to her until it all but interrupted the merchant's questions. Of course, it was all in her head and the fact that she was gaining an increasing focus on the delicate flesh in the back of the vehicle.

"She never told me that part of the tale. The humans silenced her forever before she got to that part."

For a moment, the demon paused, looking up at the stars that dotted the sky around the moon. "I may speak to her again. I may not. I'm going back to hell sometime soon, but she may not be the same Storyteller I've always known."

The thought saddened her. That particular hyena had been one of the more memorable ones and a loyal friend.

Eating always made Iskra feel better, however, and she thought she shouldn't wait any longer. Clearly they were still going somewhere, and if they were then the merchant might not fall asleep any time soon.

"I must do something in private," she murmured, climbing into the meat-lined darkness in the back of the cart and quietly shifting forms.

[ EXP: 263 || +1 TEXP (5th post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

“I see,” he murmured silently. So this person was dead? Unfortunate, but really none of his business. Each person had their own personal baggage to carry, and there was not a soul alive who could truly rid them of it. Surely they could help shoulder a portion, but there was no discarding it to the side of the road. The revelation that it was a human who had done it and not another beast out on a hunt spawned a question in the merchant’s mind. Why, exactly, did she want to become more human? It seemed like she had something of a disdain for them, or at least, she logically should. By the sounds of it all, humans caused her quite a bit of pain. Rashn knew that was how nature worked, and that it was nothing personal, but it seemed like it would be hard to brush off. This was further evidenced by the fact that her mournful expression seemed to return upon the shift in conversation. Like a distraught dog or upset child, she was fairly easy to read. When the woman went off to her own devices in the back, he thought she simply needed to recollect herself. Was she shy? Embarrassed? She wasn’t going to cry over it, was she?! Gah, he hated the tears of women. It was rare of him to make a non-commercially-influenced pact, but he swore that, outside of due to a transaction, he would try to never make one of the fairer sex cry. There was no helping it if he ended up being so victorious in a ‘merchanteering’ duel that the spouse of his opponent ended up in tears, but everything else could be avoided as far as he understood. God dammit, what an annoyance! Hopefully he was over thinking things and she wasn’t that sad, or at least, wasn’t going to break down in his cart.

“I’m sorry. Losing the people you care about can be hard…” ‘…I guess. I’ve never really lost anyone, but I’ve never really had anyone either.’ Again, the last bit of it all was internal dialogue with himself. To never have, or to have and lose, which was more sad? Which was worse? The man did not particularly mind not having anyone to ‘care’ about, since that was usually just a word that meant ‘take care of’. The ‘care’ in those two sentences were not mutually exclusive. This was also the reason he avoided relationships, sexual or emotional. His merchant mentor had taught him that, regardless of anything else, there is no complete separation of love and sex, and love leads to marriage. He had also taught him that marriage was a loose word that roughly meant ‘willing sacrifice of half of your stuff.’ As such, marriage, love, and sex were all counterproductive to being a merchant.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra's transformation completed in the relative silence of the back of the caravan. He didn't see fit to come back there or look, and that was very polite of him. She found herself appreciative of his courtesy... or at least what she understood to be courtesy. It was another one of those human things.

For a moment, she thought of the faces of the various hyenas she'd lived and learned to fight under. They'd appreciate a scene like this, but they would think her weak. They didn't recognize cleverness among their ranks, only brute strength.

Well, look where her cleverness got her. She smiled and licked her chops.

And then she just let loose. She sampled every piece of meat in the back of the van before finally deciding on a delicious side of goat, and this side she attacked so viciously that shards of bone flew out and embedded themselves in various surfaces. Loudly and with snarls of ruthless pleasure, she ripped flesh from tendons like toilet paper from a roll, and the tender organ meats especially received no mercy from her fangs. She'd lied in a way when she said 30 pounds. The amount she consumed approached the weight of a grown man, which wasn't really her fault. Her unusually large size combined with her ability to summon magic and her brief fast in the desert gave her a powerful appetite, and she didn't even show signs of slowing down until she'd caused much destruction in that storage area.

But there came a time when she had her fill from eating so very quickly, and at that moment she laid lazily on her side, a large bone still clutched in her jaws as her head rested against the wooden floor. It was good to be smart. Perhaps she should've befriended more humans sooner.

[ EXP 349 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Remaining in relative ease during the whole of the shenanigans going on in the backseat, Rashn was only alerted part way in as the sounds grew louder and louder. Casting his gaze backward, his face was not of shock, but more of… disbelief. There were no mouths left agape, no eyes wide in panic. Only a slovenly opened jaw, and a sigh pushed through his tight airway. “I should’ve known.” Once a beast, always a beast. Oh well, to be honest he had promised her dinner, so that much was true… though, she had also made a promise. That was, needless to say, shattered instantly by her actions in the current time. The merchant internally chided himself for loosening his demeanor since he was dealing with a naïve ‘woman’ beast. He had expected it, and, with a loose kick to the barrel tied beneath his seat, he realized he would be fine. Nowhere near the steal that he originally had, but he would still make some profit.

“Hey now,” he began, obviously dissatisfied despite the fact he had a contingency plan. “That’s not very fair. Did you forget about our deal? You don’t transform and I feed you all you want. I held up my part of the bargain, and you left me with this… Not a very good reputation you’re creating.” He wanted to point out that, with her acting like this, he was not likely to do her a favor ever again, but he was more interested with her… what was it the kids called it? ‘Getting the fuck out?’ yeah, he liked that idea. The idea of her just running off – the deed done – was appealing enough, and with enough meats left to at least make up for his loses, he wouldn’t really mind just calling it a night and packing it in.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The hyena looked lazily up at the displeased man, fully comprehending what he was upset about, yet viewing it through the lens of the manners she'd been brought up in. She liked this man, and him offering a meal gave them a certain intimacy in her head not unlike the camaraderie she shared with her old pack. This camaraderie caused her to think of things in more military terms, that is, simple rank. She was stronger than him and female, therefore she outranked him. Of course he'd be displeased the food was missing, but it wasn't that important. He'd live. She was happy.

She stood up and yawned, her breath rather foul and her disproportionately large teeth in her intimidatingly powerful jaw adapted for crushing bones and shredding flesh alike now covered in cold blood. Her quiet trot took her over to the kneelsitting merchant, and she'd lick his face briefly, as though acknowledging his presence, before climbing into the front of the wagon again, still as a hyena.

The seat was comfortable and the gentle lurching of the cart had the effect on her that a rocking cradle might have on an infant. Her eyelids were heavy as she curled her large form into a circle on the seat and began to doze off.

[ EXP: 246 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Rashn’s unappealing gaze turned into a full-on grimace as the wet saliva planted itself on his cheek. That was just wrong. There was such a thing known as ‘respect’, which was seemingly lost on wild beasts by nature. It occurred to him if he was particularly vengeful, he could yell ‘thief’ as loud as his lungs would allow, or ‘monster’, which would both garner similar effects. Every merchant awake, and those who would be awoken by the call, would be up in arms over the idea of a thief being in the streets, and monster would naturally get people’s attention, most notably the city guard. However, it was his own misstep that caused his ‘loss’ here, so it was his own problem to deal with. That was not to say, of course, he was forgiving. By nature he would bear a grudge against those who stole from him, and this ladybeast was no different. His arm would bend and dig its elbow into her dozing side, not particularly hard or in an offensive manner, but just enough to deter her sleep.

“Oi, don’t think I’m going to trust you to go to sleep here. Like I’d leave you alone in my carriage after what you just did… I’m not that forgiving. I’ve got another stop to make tonight, so your two choices are to leave me alone now that our deal’s been completed, or you’ll follow me in and see everything to its end.” Either of which was fine with him, and was thus a win-win situation. Either he made sure she would leave his carriage alone, or he would be rid of her at last.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

The demon lifted her head lazily at the merchant's voice and his somewhat annoying elbow.

For a minute, it escaped her what exactly she'd done wrong until she recalled that she'd turned into a hyena when the payment was supposedly to prevent her from shifting forms.

Yet, he'd provided her a meal. The very least she could do was repay him with protection at his next stop. After all, she was a rather large demon. No doubt any normal humans that beheld her might be intimidated, though it was easy to think she might be mistaken for a very, very large dog.

She licked her chops once and nodded quietly, as though to signify that she planned on following him for the time being, not necessarily out of a sense of obligation, but because she liked him and wanted him to like her back and the fastest way to get reciprocal like going was acts of friendship.

After her confirmation of her plans, she didn't stand or sit. Rather, she remained lying on her side with her backside to the merchant and raised a leg, ducking her head between the parted limbs and grooming herself nonchalantly.

[ EXP: 226 || +1 TEXP (5th post) ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

“And please don’t do that in front of me.” The merchant would mutter silently, not wanting anything to do with an animal cleaning its private areas. More than anything this was done due to her previous mentioning of erect equipment on female animals. He still was not completely over that thought. Ignoring it for now, however, it dawned on him that she had not changed back, even after ‘agreeing’ to… something. Rashn assumed it was that she would follow him into the shop, since she had not yet left the carriage. Was she planning on remaining in that form? What, did she think it was alright to stay there since she already broke her promise? Or did she not just care? No matter how you looked at it, these was no way a spotted, furry creature like that, of such a size and with teeth of her caliber, would be mistaken as a tamed beast. Though to be honest, many people DID have pets or partners of similar stature, the man doubted others would view him as one capable of obtaining one like her.

A more devious thought floated through his mind for a moment, in that, yes, he could trade the raw meat in at the butcher, what about just giving him Iskra herself? He doubted that the butcher would actually be able to kill her, lest he be some sort of superhuman, but the commotion of their fight would likely end up with the guards taking notice and pandemonium erupting. Rashn would get her out of his hair, and make even more money out of it too! With such an oddly colored coat, she would likely sell for a lot… No, no, no. Internally, he chided himself for even thinking such a thought. It would be cruel to betray her trust, when she had… betrayed his as well. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad—No! Regardless of whatever she had done, doing something like that was unforgivable. Yes, she had wronged him, but selling her out like that would just make unnecessary enemies. While there was not a question he would have revenge, it would be dealt in kind. He would not try to kill her or maim her or put her in any bad positioning. Instead, he would wait and strike an economic blow to the woman… if, she was even capable of understanding basic monetary ideals that humans grasped. Well, she said she wanted to become more humane, or something like that, so he figured there would come a time when it applied. With that thought tucked into a chest in the depths of his mind, he would nudge the beast once more to grab her attention. “We’re here,” he murmured softly.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra stopped her customary cleansing at the merchant's request, not fully comprehending why he'd asked her to stop. It felt good and it was healthy, much like being in her hyena form. Yet, she respected that fairly small wish and licked his wrist in affection when it came close to her again during the nudge.

She'd stumbled across a good man, or so she thought, not having the slightest inkling of his transient thoughts of selling her off like an unwanted possession. Her full belly kept her satisfied with the world and ultimately with her new friend.

The beast cackled loudly in delight at the announcement that they'd arrived and quickly hopped off of the cart, taking a moment to sniff around the cart while she waited for her friend to take the lead.

[ EXP: 156 ]

Intern Rep! : 10 Location : GARhalla

Lifting one leg over the other, Rashn would slide off the carriage with all the care and grace of a four year old. He nearly slipped upon landing, a sign of his sleep deprivation. That wasn’t good; for health, or for bartering. Though to be honest, if there was anyone in the world who could do this job in his sleep, it was him. That was about all the self-gratification he could ever give himself, but what harm was there if it was true? And who would care if his dismount would earn a combined Olympic score of twelve? All that mattered to him was the money, and that was unaffected by how he would leave his vehicle.

Rubbing the spot where the beast had licked, he would immediately get into character. A high pitched whistle would flow through his lips as he began to unravel the barrel tied to the underside of the cart. It was to announce their arrival to the late-working butcher, but also as a ‘call’ to Iskra, as if she were a pet. This was mostly done for flavor and to help set the tone upon their arrival into the store that she was simply a ‘guard dog’ of his, so that the butcher would not flip out upon seeing an untamed beast running amok in the streets at night. If only he had a collar to complete the setup. No big deal, however. He could make do without one.

“Come, Iskra,” he would begin, barrel carried over his shoulder as he would move aside the flapping cloth door to enter the butchery. Inside, the man and his two elder sons would be toiling away, cutting and skinning beast, part by part. Sleep was obviously in their thoughts, as it plagued their bodies clearly so. It was well known, as mentioned prior, that he was a direct rival to the man he had come from earlier. Since it was also well known that man had a reputation for toiling late into the evening, this man, too, would do so, though without the skill for it of his competition. “Hello!” Rashn would begin, with unusual flair and energy. He had to match his style to the person and occasion, and like a specific flag in an eroge, this particular situation was a clichéd and common one. Be energetic to the tired; annoy them just enough so they don’t kick you out, but still want to get rid of you. What’s more, he had a card to play: this meat came from his competition, so anything taken from his mouth and given to his rival would be worth some fair coin. But then, if word got out about it, Rashn would make an enemy out of the man he had just finished trading with earlier. That was a bad idea, so he would need to keep this simple and tightlipped. “I’d like to do some meat trading, if you don’t mind. Isn’t that right, Iskra?” His gaze lowered to the hyena, with a smile on his face that looked like it was coming from an evil bastard whose only idea of smiling was a sickening grin.

Mystic Elder Rep! : 31

Iskra followed Nori into the store after first taking a short march around the tent, sniffing and ensuring nothing suspicious remained in the area before making her way into the tent after him. She was moderately responsive to his voice, not really minding that at the moment she appeared to be his "pet". Such a thing might have bothered her in the past, but there were more important things to concern herself with now.

By the time he announced her name in front of the other two merchants, she was sitting quietly, observing the two sleepy merchants before her. The idea of a business relationship was still a half-formed idea in the hyena's head, so her immediate thoughts were that she should take the time to make sure that all three of the men knew that they meant business and that they would tolerate no silliness, "they" being the beast and her friend. So she snarled.

She didn't lean forward into the gesture or bristle or attempt to look threatening at all, she simply made the sound for the space of perhaps three seconds and then fell silent.

[ EXP: 215 || +1 TEXP (2nd thread) ]

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