Private Tales To the City Between the Seas

[Voe]

It was like Phelaia described. Voe had a powerful urge to forget breakfast and... indulge.

"It's more than that for me. I've spent my life overcoming my instincts and urges."
He flipped the hams in the pans then let it rest. Sitting his elbows on his splayed knees.

"I learned not to run when a cave spider comes stalking. You go limp in the web and it thinks you're dead. I learned to stay calm when bitten by a rock head viper and lay down and let my body work the poison out instead of running for help and bringing the poison to my own heart before I get five paces.
I don't light fires under a red moon no matter how cold it gets, I don't sleep on the solstice no matter how tired I get. I am controlled, I raised a Drake-hound all by myself and now..."

Voe huffed and let the sizzle continue as he calmed himself from his mounting frustrations by rubbing them from the back of his neck.
"Now I am so used to not having anything I am loath to reach for what I want."

The dragon barely moved him. Though Otho happily gripped on the end of the tail and pulled, wagging his head from side to side with a playful growl.

"I'm sorry Phelaia, we've only just met I shouldn't put any of this on you."

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

Phelaia nodded. That all made perfect sense to her, and reminded her of a lot of Mister Balta's lessons about how to not get eaten in the Malakath wastes.

She cocked her head to one side at the last couple statements as she got up, pulled a knife out, walked over to the eel, and carved a couple generous slices off. She gave Ketu a one-handed headrub in thanks before walking back toward the cookfire. Ketu proceeded to turn around and huff hot air on the playful drakehound, rumbling his amusement aloud.

"What do you want, Voe? To go look for that town? 'Cause I'm happy to help. You're not putting anything on me, really. I just spent a whole season, almost two now wandering wherever. I'd be happy to maybe know where I'm headed for a while, even if I don't rightly know where it is yet. I didn't rightly know where Tirnua was either, but we got here."

Voe

 

[Voe]

Watching Phelaia get up Voe stayed quiet through he asking, probing into his wants.
Ironically he had been somewhat misunderstood so he searched his head for words while Otho took the blast of hot air in the face and wiggled his fin-like ears. still vying for a piece of eel.

In a moment of what might have been giving in on some level Voe stood with the skillet in hand to meet Phelaia as she approached and allow her to set the eel on the pan as well.

"Phelaia, when I say I'm loath to reach for what I want..."
His tail snaked around as he stood before her and gently hooked onto Phelaia's, linking green with blue.

"...I mean to say who I want."

The eggs and ham had finished, charred to fried perfection between them.

"I really am bad at this."

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

Phelaia gasped as Voe’s warm tail entwined with hers, her own tail twisting together with it of its own accord. She silently mouthed the words “who I want” after him with a momentarily puzzled expression, and then she flushed dark blue, blinking as it fully hit her.

“OH…. oh…. I think I understand now.”

She let her eyes meet his again, her heart tripping along like someone had put it into a ball and tossed it down a flight of stairs. She looked at the eel filets in her hands and giggled stupidly.

“You think you’re bad at this, Voe? Look at me. I got two handfuls of raw eel.”

Voe

 

[Voe]

He could not help but laugh a short huffing laugh that caught it's way out of his composure as he brandished the skillet he held in his own hand.

"Well look at us. Like we don't know one end of a shovel from the other."

It was funny, in a strange land with a stranger he'd spoken more of himself to than near anyone in a year save Cassiane. So close to all his questions and wonderings over long nights and despite it all whatever Esmoria's magic worked on him it didn't matter a lick of salt next to seeing the rising sun dawn on Phelaia's face or the sparkle in her eyes which were so like his own.

"I don't even know why I'm cooking, I'm not even hungry. I think I just needed to be doing something lest I... well. You know."

Now his own cheeks darkened, going the same dark green as his freckles and his tail tightened its curl on her own.

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

“I guess we just gotta figure it out, our own way. Mister Balta sure wasn’t talking about twisting tails and what comes after, but he always used to say ‘nobody knows nothing till they do.’ An’ then he’d shoo me off to go figure out my own way to do it.”

She finally managed to break their gaze long enough to notice the space he’d made in the pan.

“Oh! For the eel, right?”

She dropped the filets in, one neatly, the other less so, as she had absently squeezed it in her hand when their tails had decided to tangle and her claws were now caught in the flesh a bit. She giggled again as she shook the fish juices from that hand.

“Guess I better claim that one! It all smells really good, Voe. I’d wanna eat three breakfasts a day if my cooking came out like that. I mean I wouldn’t, but I’d wanna.”

Ketu had started to chow down on the eel in earnest, leaving the opposite end free for Otho to partake.

 

[Voe]

"Figure it out, hmm."

It was then Voe noticed her hands and that she, unlike him, did not clip her talons.

"If you like, that ones yours."

Voe was not going to insist upon anything right now. Least of all who gets what eel piece. They began to sizzle pleasantly in the pan and Voe returned to cooking. Separating the ham and eggs now that they were done onto a wooden pair of plates.

Behind them Otho chowed down under Ketu. Heedless of the dragon's size.

"It'll take a minute."
He said turning them over to check how fast they were cooking.

"Please, help yourself. The fish won't be long but we can save it for later if you get full."

He took a plate and a fork, also wooden and began to eat despite not being particularly hungry.

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

Phelaia took a moment to recover as their tails finally untangled. That feeling of being out of breath again. Like the time she snuck into Thagretis proper as a little kid, and got chased all the way up the Holy Elder Dragon’s temple! She took the plate with a grateful toothy grin. Sure enough, her finger and toe claws were their full natural length, nearly as hard as iron, and their points looked razor sharp.

“Thanks, Voe! Oh, I wasn’t trying to boss you ‘bout the eel! I just kinda squeezed that one when our tails.. “. She blushed almost blueberry dark. “I mean, I got my hand all over it, so I better take that one.”

She figured she was talking herself into more trouble about that point, and she quickly stabbed the ham, sniffing it curiously and taking first a nibble, then nearly a wolf bite. Her urchin’s dearth of manners betraying her, she enthusiastically commented mid chew.

“Wowr, this is goord, Voe!” She swallowed the bite with a gulp and a smack of her lips. “So.. smoky… and salty! What is it?”

Voe

 

[Voe]

"You didn't."

Voe did what he liked and did not sweat the small things but he did instantly regret how terse his reply may have sounded so he tried to amend it with the next answer.

"It's ham, which is meat from a pig. They're common where I come from but I suppose..."
Looking about he noted the variety of flora and fauna about them and how it was unlike anything he had seen before.
"... you have different sources of common meats here."

He must try to bring some of it back with him.

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

“Ham… from a pig… if their meat tastes this good, I’m surprised they’re common! Must be real big with claws and spikes and tusks, right?”

Phelaia devoured the meal quickly, though even her inner urchin couldn’t help a few pauses to savor and comment.

“Mm, real good eggs too, Voe! Never had ‘em crispy and smoky like that! You don’t poach ‘em sweet with mince and leeks and stuff there, huh? Not complainin’, just curious.”

And then her eyes were glued on Voe’s again, just like that. She blushed again and forced them over to Otho and Ketu, basking and blatting and snorting and snuffling amid the messy skeletal remnants of their breakfast. She decided she was actually worse than Otho. At least he seemed to be able to be sated.

Phelaia pretended that the sun was in her eyes too much, shielding them with her arm as she talked to Voe again. It smelled like lunch might even taste better than breakfast. She licked her lips absently, even though she was plenty full.

“So um, Voe… should we maybe see if Felixa an’ those Straline are still tradin’ in town? They seemed pretty keen to sail soon as they could.”

Voe

 

[Voe]

Voe smiled.
"Actually, they are round and soft and most are no bigger than myself."
Her idea of taste being tied to ferocity was an odd one but perhaps that was normal in Malakath.

"They're prairie hen eggs. Common on grassy flatlands. Short fat birds that don't fly but they're fast, can outrun an arrow. You need to be quiet to hunt them."
Talking about the world he knows made the one he had stepped into seem stranger.

"We should go to this Felixa then. Try to catch them before they set sail."
More Teiflings. More than he imagined.
It was so jarring to know how close they were, how close Phelaia was after such longing. Putting down his plate, he'd barely touched it, Voe wondered how to ask the question that was the seed of his quest.

"You said you grew up on the streets. Were you orphaned or maybe abandoned as a child?"

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

“Okay then! Lemme strike camp, an’ we can get going.”

She stooped to roll up her cooking supplies in the leather square they sat on, tying the corners and stowing it, then gingerly rolling up her bedraggled bedroll and strapping it to her pack. The pack looked heavy, but she shouldered it with hardly an oof. Lastly, she shouldered her quiver and took up her strange-looking, warped-wood bow. Her toothy smile faded a bit when Voe asked about her family.

“Yeah, Voe. I remember fire, lots of shouting, them screaming. It happened when I was real young. I barely even remember their shapes anymore…”

She tried kicking sand into the fire-pit without much luck, then took a small shovel out to do it properly as the soil here was apparently a lot firmer than what she was used to in the wasteland.

“I had some cousins, though, and we all looked out for each other on the streets. My oldest cousin Vali got into the city watch, and he got all of us ‘prenticed. I saw a few others of us in the slums sometimes. We wasn’t allowed inside the city proper. Worst beating I ever got was for sneakin’ in to look at the holy elder dragon statue.”

Wow, he’s close! Phelaia blinked, then laughed.

“How ‘bout you, Voe? Do you got anybody back in the Spine, folks, brothers, sisters, cousins?”

Her eyes met his curiously, lingering as her fingers fumbled to try restrapping the shovel to her pack. She awkwardly turned in a slow circle as she continued to dig at trying to do the knot right, until their gaze finally broke again.

Voe

 

[Voe]

Before he replied Voe got up and stopped Phelaia from spinning, affixing the shovel himself.

"I was a foundling. The first thing I remember is being alone. I don't have a family, well, maybe Cassiane. She's like a sister I suppose. Human but, yeah. There, all set."

He gathered his things and checked his own pack.

"I'm sorry your parents are dead but at least you know. I have no idea how I got to the Spine in the first place. I'm hoping I might get some answers here. Otho!"

The drake hound roused himself from the ground and gave a sniff at Ketu before going to his masters side.

"Lead the way."

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

She nodded, then walked over to Ketu and put an arm on his haunch.

"Time to go, Ketu. We're gonna try to find those Straline we met in Tirnua. Yeah, yeah! Otho is coming too. And Voe." She blinked and almost choked. "Whaaat? Ketu!"

She blushed dark blue and nearly tripped over a fig-root as she backed away from the dragon. Then she laughed it off, and started down the path leading down to the portal stone, and then onward more or less eastward, the overgrown but perfectly straight path rising steadily toward the rows of ruined towers off in the distance.

Voe

 

[Voe]

It was after a few long minutes of comfortable silence that Voe's curiosity got the better of him just as Ketu passed overhead. His great shadow darkened the path for a second before releasing the morning sun again.

"What did Ketu say to you?"

He might have guessed if he was taken to idle musings or such but his mind was always straining against the oppressive now. The next step, the next meal, the next sunrise. There was not much time for him to cultivate an imagination in his life.

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

“Ohhhh.”

Phelaia cheeks darkened again.

“Ketu, he, um… he called you ‘Phelaia’s Voe.’ I mean, he always calls me ‘Ketu’s Phelaia’ so maybe it’s just his dragon-way of lookin’ at things. Or maybe he was poking’ fun, who knows? I didn’t stay close enough for him to rumble-blast me like he usually does when he’s bein’ a big stinker ‘bout stuff.”

Voe

 

[Voe]

"Does that mean he thinks I belong to you?"

He asked genuinely.
Voe was not particularly given to teasing.

"Are dragons given to seeing things in such possessive ways?"

He cast his gaze up and followed the hovering shape of Ketu as it made its way in a long arc around to fly over them again. He had been keeping an eye on them or so Voe reasoned.

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

“I don’t think that! I mean, I don’t think I own you. Or Ketu. Any time people own other people, it’s ugly and wrong! But maybe it’s more of like, I dunno, a belonging to a clutch sort of thing with dragons? Because he doesn’t act like I’m his property. Like, he didn’t burn you to a crisp for holding hands or tanglin’ tails with me, right? He just rumbled a bit an’ flew off to fish. But he still calls me his. Maybe he was checking whether you’re part of his clutch now too, and where you fit in the pecking order… and he kinda asked it, like a question.”

She paused, realizing she was downright philophizering, hand gestures and all.

“And of course, I can’t answer that for you, or really even ask you to answer that before you’re good an’ ready to yourself. I mean, I walked all the way from Thagretis to the very edge of the map, climbed over mountains, just ‘cause I was curious, and I wanted to see what was really there. Before Ketu, before you popped up in my dreams. No hard reasons. Just curiousness. Maybe you’re just the curious type, too?”

She looked at him, instantly mesmerized by his eyes again before shaking herself out of it with a nervous laugh.

“An’ maybe you might decide I talk too much or something…”

 

[Voe]

"Hmm, you do talk a lot."

Voe replied honestly but not unkindly. Merely stating a fact.

"I like it when others talk. I don't find I have much to say that often. You have me caught in a rare mood. I don't mind talking I just, never find I have much to say."

He stopped talking and kept walking unsure if he was helping Phelaia feel better. Which helped him not think what it might mean to be "Phelaia's Voe" in any deeper sense.

Otho plobbed along the ground running off and sniffing or bark-snapping at Ketu as he swung back on his sweeps through the air.

Phelaia Hope

 

[Phelaia Hope]

“I don’t usually, I swear! Just today, I guess. Or maybe… just to you.”

She felt her tail brush his and try to reach after it, and she hurried her pace a bit.

“Shouldn’t be too long now, it was only a few miles. Hey, I saw what looked like a big Straline camp on a cliff just north of here! If Felixa an’ her folks have left, maybe the folks there would know too! They trade all over Malakath, with pretty much everybody but the Chi-Xilixis who hate ‘em. I mean, they can be kinda sneaky, but who isn’t in most markets, right?”

Voe