Fable - Ask Flesh and Blood

[Méchanteau]

"I decided to scrap the meat."

Méchanteau sat by the cooking fire, stirring a pot of fruit slices and gruel while keeping company to a baby named Baby. It was a nasty little thing, always soiling itself and wailing at the darnest times, but the lich could not help but to find its company interesting. Certainly, it made for more interesting if unintelligible talk than the so-called lectors and wisemen he had whisked from all over. From its adorable little tusks to its pointy crooked ears, this elf-orc abomination had the lich surrendered, with many a hour spent crooked over a fertility grimoire detailing how one could keep such fragile, pudgy fleshlings alive. Hence the fruit slices and gruel, it pleased the Landvættir.

"You have to understand, dwarves make for poor cooks but worse ingredients."

Baby blew out a snot bubble.

"It's true, it's true. I once saw a troll, ugly as your pa must've been, devour one in three whole bites!" Méchanteau teeth sunk into an invisible cretin's neck, much to the amusement of Baby "Gnam! Gnam! Gnam! Blargh! That's right, he vomited the beard right up!" mist poured down the lich's mouth, scattered quickly by the clapping of stubby little hands. The little idiot loved it. Méchanteau raised Baby so both could stare at another's eyes, yet at some distance so the youngling wouldn't try to reach for the pretty burning lights "When you grow teeth and good taste, I'll let you try a bit of both. Troll and dwarf, how does that sound?"

Even if Baby didn't truly understand, she was smart enough to coo, which she had taught herself to do whenever Méchanteau had her raised like this.

"Very good. But get to it quick!" he propped her on his knee, reaching for the laddle with one swooping, wiry arm "Until then, you are at the mercy of nature. And nature, as I oft remind you, would rather see you dead twice-over! And what am I to do then, raise you?" he snorted, a sound not like the blowing of a flute as he did not have a nose. Baby was a pleasant hostage, but Méchanteau knew better than to keep it.

 

[Hilteliren]

The din of the campsite was a merry one, even if the company and circumstances were not. A talking skeleton and a half-breed babe speaking of unpleasantries that would scare off any halfwit passerby with a sense of self preservation. Maziri did not know what, exactly, she was encroaching upon but the feeling of it was quite clear.

Undead.

Ether shadows lingered just beyond the light of the campfire, the chill of their presence perhaps unfelt for the overabundant miasma of unsettling energies that was the late Captain. Two moony eyes peered in through the trees while a gentle chorus of bone, shell, and metal adornments announced the intruder's presence.

From the dancing darkness Maziri emerged, her dark countenance thrown into golden relief as she took in the stuttering body of robed bones.

"Im te pralla..." the Shaman breathed through a broadening smile, "wat cur-ee-ositey I find."

Raising both hands to show she was seemingly unarmed, she signaled truce to the man of bones and his infant, "Peace kohm, may I join yew?"

 

[Méchanteau]

Méchanteau poured Baby a bowl of hearty gruel, and another for whatever spirit would come to bless her meal. He had cooked for fleshies, as well as ghosts, but never before had he attempted to sate the appetite of both at the same time. Hopefully, the patron of this saltless, artless, tasteless feast would find the rye and diced pears to their liking...

It was hard to surprise the skeleton, but his jaw nearly dropped as nearing chinking and twinkling betrayed what promised to be an otherwise calm night. He had chosen this old forgotten burial mound for its seclusion and essence, and yet this one intruder had come regardless. Was she a land wight, a fairy, a spriggan? The grimoire said nothing of actually sharing the meal with its patron! He figured it was just a symbolic gesture, a flourish as writers are want to sprinkle in every other passage.

The intruder's human form, but above all else her accent, left him restless with curiosity "You are no spirit, are you nazrani?" he brought the bowl to Baby's lips, letting her partake in the bland - if highly nutritious - slurry. «Dead or meat, you are thanked for joining us. Take the seat.» he spoke in a bastardized amalgam of
Aina O Ka La dialects as he pointed at a fell tree, cut for timber by the same dwarf Méchanteau had half-considered to butcher and cook. The corpse, left to shamble around the perimeter, had obviously failed even in death. «Did you come to hunger?» the beheaded dwarf lurched from some bushes, a poor woodsman if his simple, dull axe was anything to go by «Or for the child?» he wiped Baby's mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, patting her back gently until a very loud, very orcy belch came out. As disgusting as it was fascinating, thought the skeleton. «You don't seem as kin.»

 

[Hilteliren]

"Ha?" Maziri's eyes perked at the name of her people, "Maziri An'Ka Imla Iwi Lua," she made the native gesture for greeting, gently bowing her forehead forward and pressing fingertips to it before arching them toward the creature.

"Mer Maziri," she indicated next her shortened name.

"My tanks for de welkom," Ziri conducted her way into the campsite, garb ringing and singing gently all the way, and quietly approached the child to lean and stroke a finger along plump cheeks, "meh kom for de company."

She smiled, dark lips pulling over teeth far too white, and turned to claim a seat along the indicated log, "but if yew spare anadda bowl I will gladly ..." silver eyed the bubbling pot, "partek."

 

[Méchanteau]

Méchanteau returned the gesture quite vigorously, repeating it on the baby once he realized it was probably not of an offensive nature. Silly humans with their silly gestures, barely using a twelfth of their bones in each! Still, the tiny creature wriggled against the guiding of the captain's hand, returning to limp to the side uselessly as baby arms do. She did not appear irritated by the stroke of the witch, unlike Méchanteau who wrapped her into an envious embrace. "It's I come, not me come." he noted emphatically, despite his lack of throat, tongue, or any means of making sound "An accent as thick as the speaker is all well and good, but you kick articles like they're dogs trying to-" he covered Baby's ears, "rut."

He let go of her, losing a button from his cuff in the process "You have to understand, I did not expect any visitors." he took the button from Baby's gums "In fact, you could say that I didn't want visitors to begin with." he flipped the small brass disk, juggling it from hand to hand, each time just instants before the kid could get her tiny fingers all over it "But where are my manners? You are my guest!" he threw the button to the fire, which flared violet and blue. He himself was stunned.

Baby wanted to play rather than eat. That much was made clear when the child very nearly slapped the bowl from Méchanteau's hand. He only partly threw it, deftly making it so it would be consumed by the otherwordly fire. "Well, look at that..." he mused, trying to piece together just how he felt about this Maziri character.

As Baby prepared to grumble he placed one gentle finger on her lip, 'through' her and in a high falsetto saying "You wouldn't happen to be the sort of witch that keeps kids as pets in tiny marzipan cages, would you? Or maybe you want fresh blood in your coven! I'm part elf and part orc, you can't get blood much fresher than that!"

He wiped the drool on her nearly bare scalp, on which he twined a blonde curl "Such a sweet thing, I could just eat you up and leave only bones!"

"Thank you, Captain Méchanteau! You really are the most reliable supplier of goods, artifacts and people in all of Arelith and beyond! With services ranging from R'lyeh to Melniboné!"

"Why, aren't you savvy!"

"And insured too!"

"Insurance agains-... no..."

He flubbed the pitch. He had no chance to mask or repeat it, too long a second had passed! He bit his knuckle in rage, just wishing that he had practiced some more in the absolute privacy of his ship, instead of coming off as an idiot! And as a prop Baby didn't help either, she had fallen asleep "Just get this thing away from me."

 

[Hilteliren]

Maziri's tethered humor floated about like thinly veiled misfortune as she watched and listen to the animated bones. Dead things were a curious sort. Living eternally without the wonders of the flesh was no way to live an unlife at all. Better truly dead than merely pretending. Or miming, as it were. The Shaman eased back into her seat on the log, one hand supporting her lean, a bated silence settled over her as a spinner's web did over the landscape in the morning fog.

"Just get this thing away from me."

"Yew don want it?" Maziri asked, a pointed silver glance shifting from creature to creature, "Den give it here." She offered to take it with open hands, "How does a ...man such as yaself kohm across a bab?"

 

[Méchanteau]

She really wanted the baby? "Let's not get hasty-" It was just to hold it. "Damage it, and you'll pay regardless." He shirked away from this rising insecurity, letting the disgusting little creature change hands. Away from its grubby touch, Méchanteau felt slightly more at ease, more back to his usual self rather than a far too doting and even weak-hearted worrier. Babies were strong enough, and they sold well and quickly, specially to witch folk! He ought to be glad.

"How does one come across any baby?" he asked rhetorically "I raided a village, burnt it to the ground. As I had my deckhands collecting the ashes I found this thing crying inside a barrel and I just couldn't help it." he waited for Baby's reaction, cooing silence "Well, the excitement is gone now. Taking care of that little monster has become routine. I'd like to at the very least have my expenses reimbursed, honestly, and the silence will be a bonus."

 

[Hilteliren]

Dark hands took the baby with a firm gentleness and the experience of one who had helped to rear and raise numerous younger siblings. The babe was heavy and clearly well cared for before it's unfortunate change of destiny. Moony eyes looked at it with a curious sense of fate before shifting back to the late Mechanteau.

The baby burbled quietly, eyelids heavy, belly full. It grabbed idly at the tendrils of her black hair, blinking up at the jingle of abalone shell earrings.

"De silence is a chay-rished ting wit a bab in yah day," Maziri hushed the infant, drawing her fingertips over its eyes to encourage their closure. For a moment her attention was back upon it but not in the way most women with maternal instincts might gaze. Carefully, the Shaman took hold of the infant's hand and inspected its palm. What she discovered caused her to blink, "An dis wan will grant yew no silence to kohm, but great change, yes."