The loud, defensive bark startled Emanuel from his slumber and brought him clumsily to his feet. Jasper, a large black dog, stood about five feet away from Emanuel, head low and hackles raised, snarling at some unseen danger lurking somewhere in the direction of the main road into Bizmar. Emanuel rubbed the sleep from his eyes and brushed a hand through his hair, causing his ebony locks to fall loosely around his large, sharply pointed ears and cat-like face. His sword felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as he hefted the hilt from the ground and leaned against it.
"Jasper, hush up," he grunted. Slowly he stretched his wings, then fluttered them a moment to wake them up a bit. "I'm up, I'm up! There's nothing there, big guy." Jasper continued his low rumble for a moment longer. Then, as if nothing had happened at all, the great dog shook himself from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail and trotted over to Emanuel. Jasper's tail wagged madly when Emanuel began to roll up his rabbit skin blanket and rat fur pillow in preparation for the day's travel. Emanuel dodged sleepily as the dog spun around and bowed at him playfully, as he did almost every morning.
"Jasper! Watch it! You could kill a guy with tha- umpf!" Like so many other mornings, Emanuel's rear once again met the cold ground with a resounding thud that reverberated up his spine and into his skull, knocking every last ounce of breath from his lungs on impact. Immediately, Jasper fell to his belly and backed his ears, as though it was he who now sat in pain, attempting to revive his lungs with a bit of morning air. His high-pitched whine was the only sound in their small piece of forest for several minutes as Emanuel fought to catch and keep his breath. Finally, he spoke again, "Jasper, you should be very glad that I like you.... else I'd be having giant dog for dinner for the next month!"
Emanuel picked his sword and bedding up from where they had fallen in the chaos and tied them into a careful bundle with some twine he'd scavenged on the main road. With the remainder of the twine, he tied the bundle onto his back and climbed onto Jasper's back. Jasper's ears raised back up and his eyes lit up once more.
"Yes, yes, we're going now. C'mon, up with you." Gently he tapped at Jasper's sides to urge the dog to move. It had taken months just to get the dog to move when he said to, but direction was simple. 'A dog will follow his head, son' he remembered his father saying. It was this principle that had driven him to construct a simple halter and reins out of tied-together strips of leather from the pelts of small creatures he'd hunted for food in his travels.Once the dog understood when to move, it was a good deal easier to train him to move where Emanuel wanted him to with this makeshift apparatus. Jasper had grown so accustomed to it, in fact, that Emanuel rarely removed it when he stopped for his short periods of rest. Emanuel only occasionally had any trouble getting Jasper to leave some particularly interesting and especially noxious prize alone, any more.
They travelled along in the brush until it became too thick to maneuver through any longer. "Looks like we hit the road, today." Emanuel seemed only mildly annoyed with this idea, this morning, which was a vast improvement over his abject horror at the idea a mere month before. "Perhaps the giants will just ignore us.... or drop some tasty treat for you, eh Jasper?" At the word 'treat' Jasper's tail wagged happily and his youthful energy glistened in his eyes as he began to jump happily and then suddenly remembered that his beloved master was on his back. Emanuel clung tightly to the dog's neck until he'd settled down again. "Four on the floor, fella, four on the floor." Once more focused on a goal, Emanuel tugged the reins to the right and guided Jasper toward the main road.
It wasn't long on the road before the sounds of music and laughter and restless horses reached their ears. Emanuel steeled his nerves against this new adventure. Tonight he'd make his first contact with the local beings. Standing less than half their height, the beings in this strange new land were nothing less than giants to Emanuel. Even Jasper was near three times the size of the dogs in his home world. When they finally came within sight of the tavern, he pulled Jasper to a stop and simply stared at the massive building before him.
"Perhaps this isn't such a good idea...." He spoke mostly to himself, but Jasper didn't seem to like the idea much himself and he made this evident with a short, low snarl at an exiting tavern patron. The patron simply gaving the dog a look and chuckled at the odd couple before pulling himself onto his horse and riding off toward Bizmar. Emanuel seemed to draw some strength from his annoyance at being laughed at by a stranger. He puffled up his chest a bit and his ears perked up as he spoke to himself, "No. I'm smaller and faster than these giants can hope to be.... Besides.... they can't be all bad, eh Jas-" His thoughts were interrupted by an invisible intruder upon his senses.
Emanuel's eyes lit up as the scents tickled his nose and he shook his head a couple of times before jumping down from Jasper's back and fluttering up to the nearest window sill to perch. He crouched down on the sill and looked inside eagerly, and his mouth began to water. Fresh cream, buttered grilled fish, clean water, fresh baked bread.... In his excitement, he failed to notice that the window next to which he crouched was open a few inches. Reaching out a hand to lean against the open window, he missed the pane by just far enough that he suddenly found himself falling toward the floor of the tavern.
"Wuahhh!" he cried out, unable to gain his bearings and take flight before he landed with a splash in a large bucket of mop water sitting below the window. Quickly he wriggled back onto his feet and proceeded to climb out of the bucket and back onto dry land. Now wet and annoyed, he scanned the tavern for a safe place to sit and dry off.
-- Edited by Kotabear at 21:26, 2007-09-17
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"We always win. We always have, and We always will." - If you truly know us, then you'll understand.
Lyla started working at the New Dawn Tavern a day after her 18th birthday, a little over a month ago. She liked her job now that she no longer dropped plates and mixed up the food orders. Most of the customers that frequented the tavern were nice and the tips were decent.
She finished jotting down the order from a small group of people seated at a table near one of the windows then started walking towards the kitchen. Lyla stopped and turned at the sound of water splashing. Her jaw fell open as she watched the odd, small creature crawl out of the bucket and shake itself off. What the hell is that? She'd encountered elves, dwarves, and even a couple of gnomes, but had never seen anything like this before. It vaguely reminded her of the stuffed animal her last boyfriend won for her at the city carnival.
I hope it's friendly. If it turned out to be one of those nasty gremlins she heard about and tried to hurt her she would simply scream bloody murder. That would attract the attention of one of the tavern bouncers who would rush to her aid.
After drawing in a deep breath to calm herself, she approached the creature, hoping it understood the common language. "Um...hello. Can I help you?"
The dirty water dripped from Emanuel's clothes like raindrops, splashing lightly into the slowly growing puddle at his feet. He fluttered his wings to dry them off more quickly and nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the 'giants' spoke to him. He'd spent many long days and nights aside their camps, trying to learn their language. He'd practiced his words on Jasper and even with a nice Gnome he'd traveled with for several weeks. He'd liked that gnome. She was so much shorter than the giants and he didn't feel as though he might be crushed with a look when she walked near him.She'd taught him the common tongue until she had gone as far in his direction as she cared to, then left one morning, leaving Emanuel to his silent journey once more. Carefully he chose his words, having not spoken much since she had left except at Jasper now and then.
Clean water, please. And a blanket.... or, he wondered if he'd used the right word. A... a towel?
He wrapped his arms around himself, as though hugging himself and rubbed his upper arms vigorously. Despite the warmth of the tavern, he was still dripping wet and thus, quite chilly.
-- Edited by Kotabear at 18:33, 2007-09-20
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"We always win. We always have, and We always will." - If you truly know us, then you'll understand.
Lyla blinked in surprised when the short, unfamiliar being standing before her dripping water all over the floor asked her for a towel. She'd expected to hear guttural grunts or something similar, but the fur-covered critter spoke the common tongue quite clearly. I guess it's true when they say you can't judge a book by its cover.
"Hang on, I'll be right back." She made a beeline for the bar, returning a moment later with a large towel. As she proceeded to wrap the towel around the shoulders of the creature, she noticed its wings. "Those are really pretty!"
Once she settled the towel in place, she took a step back and grinned. "I've never met anyone like you before. Do you have a name? I'm Lyla and I work here as a waitress."
Puzzlement showed in her eyes. "What are you? I mean, obviously you're not a human or an elf." Lyla hoped he didn't take offense at her question. She was merely curious.
Surprised by the giant's sudden surge of friendliness and curiosity, he laughed. He fluttered his wings, "Thank you. And I am Emanuel Domanasi. I'm a Lynoan of the Baseta clan." realizing that this likely meant nothing to her, he added quickly, "Let's just say, I'm not from around here."
He then tilted his head a moment, in thought, a moment before dropping the bundle of belongings off of his back and onto the tavern floor. Quickly he unwrapped the bundle and slipped his hand into a pouch he'd built into the back of his pillow. One by one he pulled out six coins, several copper and a silver. The coins appeared to be actual coins of this realm, "A gift from a friend. Said it might buy me something more than rabbit jerky. What could I get for this?"
His trust was genuine. He seemed completely oblivious to the risk he placed himself at by blatantly advertising his ignorance of their money system. Lucky for him, it appeared these few coins are all he owned.
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"We always win. We always have, and We always will." - If you truly know us, then you'll understand.
OOC: I combined Lyla's post with Conor's in the above thread: "From the Nowhere." Thought it might be a cool idea to get them all together since they'll all in the same tavern.
Fyre removes the hood of her tattered cloak and let it lay on her back, she then swepted a few pieces of her black and white hair out of her face and her purple eyes darted around the room. She stopped and stared at the odd people in the tavern.
She stopped at watched the little creature with the wings, she tilted her head to one side watching the creature because she had never seen anyone so small before.
Her eyes then moved over to the gentleman whom she over heard as Connor, and watched him a few minutes as he talked with the other female.
Fyre then got up from her table unhooked the tatter cloak and removed it from her shoulders and smoothed out the black and Red dress and walked up to the bar. The dress made a soft rustling sound as she walked.
She stopped a few feet from the bar and tryed to find an open spot. Once she spotted one she moved up to it letting her hands slide over the wood of the bar, she let out a small breath as it was the first soild non-moving thing she has touched since she came into this strange world.
She then turned around and rested her back againest the bar and crossed her arms over her chest and looked around the tavern again. She watched the goings-ons of the tavern from her spot, and wondered what each person was like.
[OOC: I moved this post to the thread "From the Nowhere," since Azzy already consolidated both these threads into that one. I'm sure you just didn't notice, as it was easy to overlook. Please continue this story in that thread. Thanks! ~iGoddess :) ]
