Private Tales The unluckiest People Alive

[Ispir Sione]

Vel Anir; Noon


Ispir would walk along the bottom of the ravine planning out his next song to sing whenever he got to his next stop. Would it be something upbeat? Something somber? A poetic piece recounting some ancient myth or legend? His tongue would stick out in concentration as he crossed out yet another idea from his parchment. The list resembling less and less a running creative process and more and more a toddler's furious, jagged scribbling as he neared the bottom of the page.

That thought certainly didn't help things either. In fact it only made him pout a bit at how hard it could be to get the creative process flowing when it simply didn't want to. Many people, well, MOST people, simply had no idea how difficult it was to try and force creativity. To force oneself to write or compose when the inspiration simply was not there. When the well ran dry, the pump bore only dust, when the canvas seemed to physically reject any idea you attempted to place upon it rather than letting the idea flow across the surface.

Blessedly few were the times when inspiration seemed to fall, as if heavens-sent, right onto a struggling artist, right into their noggin.

That was when something fell, not-quite-heavens-sent, right into Ispir's noggin.

Having been so engrossed, so utterly enraptured by his own creative troubles, Ispir had failed to notice at all something, or in this case someone, tumbling down the ravine before slamming right into him with a startled yelp! This left Ispir, and his impromptu bowling ball associate, sprawled out onto his back, groaning in pain as his aquamarine eyes blinked open....

Only to find himself looking up into starkly golden eyes staring down at him.

Blinking rapidly Ispir would, perhaps to their surprise, not react with anger as their page and quill fluttered away on a breeze but, instead, he smiled up at the girl with the golden eyes and, one of his twin tails tangled in her chocolate hair, would simply chirp.

"Oh! Hello there friend! Umm...."

Fiddling with the tangled knot of forcibly joined hair Ispir would clear his throat and wheeze a bit.

"..... if you don't mind.... while I untangle our hair... you're kind of sitting on me....."

Zinnia ​

 

[Zinnia]

Falling down the side of a hill was not the way Zinnia had imagined beginning her day, but it was far from the worst beginning of a morning she'd ever endured. As she'd rolled, she'd considered the many, many awful and rude awakenings she'd received at the Academy. Being jolted awake by her room being on fire and forced out into the commons in her underwear, for instance. That was probably worse.

When she impacted with the bottom of the ravine, she wasn't so sure anymore.

"Nnnghh..." Zinnia groaned as she roused herself, pulling herself up a bit only to be stopped short by the knot her hair had managed to tie itself into with...oh. OH.

"Oh! C-crap! I'm so sorry! S-sorry!" the gold-eyed girl tried to pull back but felt her scalp protest and her hair go taut. "Ow! Oh, th-that couldn't have felt good for you, either, sorry ag-gain! Kress, let me j-just, um..."

She also tried to work the mess of hair, but felt her fingers brush against whomever this was. Soft. Her gaze focused and she finally took a moment to actually soak in the person she'd fallen upon. A...a girl? No--a boy, she realized after a moment. A boy that her brain could only describe as "pretty." If she'd seen him in passing that was likely all Zinnia would have thought of him, but unfortunately she was currently in extreme close proximity. That alone was enough to make her blush.

Tactical roll. That's what she'd call it later. She tactically slumped to the side that both of their hair was tangled on so that the boy would have room to work and not be being crushed beneath her. And at last, she breathed.

"There...are you h-hurt?"

 

[Ispir Sione]

Ispir would give a nervous chuckle and smile as the stranger attempted to pull her head back, tugging on his own hair and he winced a bit but continued to hold his own good natured smile. Speaking in the same moment as her as she apologized, turning their words into a barely decipherable slurry of apologies and awkwardness.

"Ow! Oh, th-that couldn't hahh I'm very sorry Misssorry ag-gainIreallydidn'tmeanto!"

At the brush of her fingers, gentle and perhaps a bit sparky, and the jumble of their words Ispir would pause his hands movement, not wanting to risk hurting her and to give her a chance to speak, though her own fingers were also soft, he then looked to check to see if she was in pain but- oh. No. She was just staring at him. He probably did look like a mess right now so he couldn't blame her. How embarrassing!

Evidently she agreed because a soft blush would spread over her cheeks and Ispir would avert his gaze politely. A similar flush overtaking his own cheeks as he followed her motion and titled his head to the side. Tactically, of course. With the added benefit of being able to breathe easier now. A win-win!

One hand pressing into his smarting stomach Ispir would give a wan smile at the pretty girl's question and try to avoid looking directly at her, for both their sakes, though this had the added effect of his hands no longer working on untangling their hair for the moment.

"Ahhh a-a little. I'm really sorry about that. I was working on writing some lyrics and.... oh!"

Suddenly remembering he should definitely be trying to untangled their hair he would raise his aquamarine eyes back to their hair, and her face, before smiling. Twin pools of glimmering starlight on a clear night sky staring directly at Zinnia as he beamed.

"Sorry! I should uhh... p-probably still work on that."

A small giggle, definitely nervous, before he joked anxiously.

"O-On the plus side you have really nice hair!"

His porcelain complexion was still burning a soft rose color, blushing even more now, before he ventured.

"I-I'm Ispir, by the way...."

Ah, it looked like he would have to undo his twin tails to truly get their hair apart, that would take some time, so he kept talking, his voice bubbling with amusement as he tried to make small talk.

"D-Do you.... roll down hills for fun?"

He couldn't help but tease a bit and would pause to unclasp his traveling cloak to keep his unbraided hair from getting caught in IT once it was down. But after a minute or so of working his hair would tumble down, releasing her hair and he would give a smile.

"Ah, there we go!"

Spoiler: Smile for Zinnia

 

[Zinnia]

Hearing someone else stutter like Zinnia did was something of a surreal experience for her, beyond what this encounter already was. Though whether the boy's was just due to nerves and not a running issue like hers was remained to be seen.

Despite having crashed into him and made a mess of what was probably a nice ensemble, the boy delivered a compliment to Zinnia. One that both made her eyes widen a bit in surprise and had her fumbling to see if her hood had remained up after her fall. She quickly found that it had, and breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Oh! Um...th-thank you, you...actually do as well. Sorry for messing it up," she said sheepishly, struggling to maintain eye contact with him. She wasn't sure what to do with her hands while he worked at untangling their hair, so she simply clasped them together in her lap while she lay upon her side.

"Z-Zinnia. I, um...good to meet you, though I w-wish it could have been under less painful circums-stances," she replied in kind. "And no, I just--ah!"

Her hair came free and she quickly sat up, pulling her hood forward and dusting herself off a bit.
"--I camped up top, and a dire boar d-decided it didn't like my tent, so it, uh...r-rammed it, and sent me down the side just now."

She stood and offered a hand down to help Ispir up, smiling at him as she did.

 

[Ispir Sione]

Ispir simply kept his bright, cheeky smile as his own hair was complimented. He would hum and murmur her name to himself once they were separated, his mind already pondering on how it sounded.

"Zinnia..... Hmmm."

As Zinnia gave her story and stood Ispir would reached up to replace his cap, taking one of the small bands he used in maintaining his twin tails into his lip, and glanced up at her for a moment. An odd sort of... tattoo....? Marking? Faintly glowing and visible on his chest for a moment as he adjusted his shirt.

Spoiler: As Requested

As Zinnia extended a hand he would then mumble around the band.

"Gummeee juhhh sewwund."

Expertly braiding his twin tail together again and tying it he would feel his face burn at the silly mumbling and simply grin a dopey, sheepish grin.

"Sorry! I just needed a second....."

Taking Zinnia's hand Ispir would slowly begin to stand and use his free to hand to haul up his traveling cloak behind him. His words freezing as he stood and, well, looked up at her. He was rather short, roughly half a foot or so below he height, and he would blink for a moment. He felt.... off for some reason. His chest tingled weirdly, his stomach felt both warm and cold all at once, and he even forgot to release Zinnia's hand as he continued speaking or, at the very least, tried to.

"You um.... a-... a direboar? That's odd...."

Silence for a moment. An awkward pause before he suddenly remembered the composing he had been doing and quickly released her hand.

"Oh! Right! I was working on a song when ermm.... you showed up!"

He would give a small, knowing smile before scampering over to collect his fallen quill and parchment before returning to Zinnia and smiling up at her.

"Well, since neither of us are alone anymore would you like to travel with me? Not that you have to, of course! It was just an accident that we ran into each other."

Did his heart always beat this loud? Why were his hands sweaty? He hoped she didn't get the idea he DIDN'T want her to walk with him!

These thoughts and more bolted through Ispir's mind, distracting, disorienting, novelties all. He had never felt this way before. Which lead to him simply blurting.

"Your eyes are nice too!"

In his usual chipper tone. Though he felt himself mentally facepalm. Weren't Bards supposed to be charming!?​

 

[Zinnia]

Zinnia blinked at the boy, silent as he rose up to his modest full height. There was an inkling of something, some internal understanding, as his hand lingered in hers for just a few moments too long. A place Zinnia had been in several times before. Surely, though, she was just projecting. She pushed the thought from her mind.

The sight of Ispir's tattoo was enough to pull her back to reality. She mentally stowed the sight away, but the glowing mark was far from the strangest thing she'd ever seen upon someone's person. Besides, she was far from one to gawp at such oddities.

"Yeah...direboars aren't very c-common outside of the forests around here, but I seem to be a m-magnet for..." she started to reply, but decided it was probably better not to scare off a potential new companion by so brazenly admitting her terrible luck. She shifted course, just in case. "...animals."

Then came the request for the two of them to travel together. She opened her mouth to reply, but was promptly cut off by--

"Your eyes are nice too!"

...Ispir might not have been the suave type that had swept Zinnia off her feet in the past, but his sincerity had a charm of its own. Despite herself, Zinnia felt her blush returned as she smiled at the boy and brushed some stray locks of hair out of her face.

"You're...very sweet. Um...j-just let me gather my things from above. I'm just out here patrolling anyways, so I can escort you for a while," Zinnia answered him, pointing to the place she'd fallen from. A look of worry suddenly washed over her. "Oh, Kress, I hope Seri's okay..."

 

[Ispir Sione]

Ispir simply nodded as Zinnia talked about direboars and, noticing her blush again, felt a sharp twang of regret and embarrassment in the pit of his stomach. Great, just great, he had embarrassed he-.....

Sweet??

Did she just call him sweet?

Ispir would blink, rapidly, his mouth suddenly going as dry as a puddle caught in the heat of a dessert sun. Words had never been something he lacked in, he was definitely a chatterbox at the worst of times, so why was it that right now of all times when his mind told him to do nothing but talk to this girl that he couldn't find any words to use!? But as Zinnia mentioned retrieving her things Ispir would nod and, clearing his throat softly, would give a smile.

"Just be careful?"

Lacing his arms behind his back because he couldn't think of anything better to do with them Ispir would watch Zinnia climb back up to retrieve something from her campsite, not realizing he was staring until she was half-way up the hillside, only to sharply turn away and pull up his sheet of dusty paper now. He wasn't even really looking at the scribbles he had been so focused on before. His heartbeat was now too loud, like it was a drum with a mind and tune all it's own and he HAD to match it's rhythm.

Casting a furtive glance over his shoulder to check on Zinnia he would fidget a bit awkwardly before taking up his quill. He knew, before he even thought about it, what the rhythm his drum-heart was demanding be matched, what words, what lyrics, would satisfy it. So it was that with a quick, shaky hand that Ispir wrote the following:

Zinnia.

Golden Eyes.

Before he hastily folded the paper and stuffed it with his belongings, turning around to wait for her return and, this time, as Zinnia neared the bottom of the hillside he would offer her a hand for the last couple feet. A small bit of his anxiety melting away as his kind nature compelled him to a genuine show of compassion. A soft joke bubbling forth as he beamed at her.

"Wouldn't... want you falling again, right?"

Despite the joke a tiny, subconscious part of Ispir's mind disagreed, which he found odd at first. But it wasn't until the next millisecond when he realized why that he blushed softly. He wouldn't mind her falling again... if it meant she fell right back into him.~

Zinnia​

 

[Zinnia]

Remarkably, the climb was a lot easier than the fall. Years of intense athletic conditioning frequently did Zinnia right, and this was no exception. She pulled herself over the lip of the ravine with ease and let out a sigh of relief when she laid her eyes on the remains of her campsite topside.

Her tent had been trampled but not destroyed, and an out-of-place looking sun hat had managed to drift several yards away from the scene to relative safety. Zinnia picked the hat up, dusted it off, and carried it back to the campsite. There she quickly gathered her things up, including her pack, shield, and hammer, and slid carefully back down the side of the hill.

There at the bottom Ispir was still waiting, and helped Zinnia maintain her balance by taking her hand as she reached the bottom. His hand, she noted, was softer than her own, a fact which she found to be novel.

"Th-thank you," she chimed with a smile, feeling flat, solid ground beneath her feet once more. "So...where are you headed? And w-what brings you out this far? The border territories are pretty d-dangerous, you know?"

 

[Ispir Sione]

Hands that were both soft and firm.

Golden eyes that seemed to radiate against his own like the shine of the sun mingling with that of the brightest stars.

A vibrant, twinkling field of aquamarine swirling around deep blackness that expanded to make that blue-green shimmer little more than a thin band like the corona around a solar eclipse when the moon completely blocked the sun.

Whether Zinnia knew what such a widening of the iris meant on a physiological level was entirely up to her but, safe to say, his eyes positively drank her in. As if she were an ambrosia they would never again experience after they parted ways.

Ispir himself was not even aware of most of this. Save the odd, warm tingling in the pit of his stomach and softly burning cheeks hinting that something was out of the ordinary. He could tell he wasn't SICK but as Zinnia spoke he became so distracted he actually had to focus to truly parse what she was saying. A fact that made him more than a little nervous and his hand would gently squeeze her own as he swallowed and answered perhaps a bit too quickly.

"Well I umm..."

He would glance off to the side, down the path he was traveling, pointedly avoiding the direct light of those twin suns.

"... I suppose I am just going wherever the road takes me for now. "

Shuffling a bit from foot to foot Ispir would take a single step as if to continue walking, before giving Zinnia a bright smile and retorting happily to her mention of danger.

"Then i guess it's a good thing you're here, right?"

If Zinnia was more coherent than Ispir in the moment, which was not a tall order currently, she would be able to note that he hadn't released her hand as he spoke. In truth?

The thought hadn't even crossed his mind.~​

 

[Zinnia]

It was fairly plain to see that Ispir was thoroughly lost in thought. So lost, in fact, that he was simply staring at Zinnia and still holding her hand...a fact which made her blush slightly.

"Um...I-Ispir, was it? I've got both feet on solid g-ground, you can let go now..." Zinnia chimed gently. She didn't want to upset him, but they had only just met minutes ago, and in violent fashion. There was nothing she knew about the boy at the moment, other than his appearance and apparent tendency for wandering ways and thoughts.

Speaking of wandering, a lack of both destination and any apparent means of protecting himself was a bit worrying.

"Um...y-yeah! I always thought the name sounded kinda ominous, b-but we Dreadlords are here to keep the people safe," she said with all the confidence she could muster, prepared to start moving forward. She was proud of herself for remembering the word "ominous."

"I was actually on my way to Vel Luin on the coast. You're welcome to j-join me, if you've got nowhere else to be."

 

[Ispir Sione]

Ispir would blink at the mention of his name, glancing at Zinnia as she chimed up about letting go of her hand, and he would flush noticeably. Snapping his hand away like a snake had just tried to bite him he would give a sheepish smile.

"Ah. Sorry about that! But... But yeah! Ispir is right...."

An internal facepalm from repeating his name would organize his thoughts somewhat and Ispir would nod along with her mention of the... DREAD.... lords... keeping people safe. At the invitation to join her he would nod, making sure to not do so too quickly, he didn't want to seem over-eager after all. Can you imagine if he did something to make himself look silly?

"Sure!"

Stepping beside Zinnia he would glance up at her and lace his hands behind his back, idly fiddling with his travel cloak, and glance up at the sky before idly twirling a twin tail around his finger in thought.

"So..... is it okay if I ask about you? I-I mean, to get to know you anyways. If we're going to be traveling together?"

Zinnia​