Closed Squirrels and Snakes (Arch and Lynn :P)

[Suresslynn]

11th of winter, 515

Suresslynn sighed as she looked out the window. It was looking to obnoxiously cold again that day, but her horse needed exercise rather badly. Sighing again, she rolled out of bed and put on her clothes before walking out of her room and locking the door. Heading to the stable, she saddled her horse and let him out into the main road.

Mounting her horse, she led him down the main road. She didn't plan to take Sandstorm out of the city, but her mount needed some exercise or he'd get all fat and lazy. Of course, he might buck her off less if he was all fat and sleepy all the time. Or maybe he'd do it even more often, as fat lazy horses wouldn't like to be ridden. Fortunately, her mount seemed to be behaving himself fairly well in public, barring the fact that he flat refused to go where she wanted him too.

As it was, she seemed to be heading in the direction of the knights headquarters. Definitely not where she wanted to go, so she pulled up on the horses reigns and he decided she wanted him to stand up on his hind legs. "You are such a petching moron..." she muttered, trying to stay on the horse until he decided to come back down. Fortunately, he did come down fairly quickly but instead of walking he stubbornly decided to stay where he was. Brilliant.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

"STEP ASIIIIIIIIIIDE!" Ser Maximus' constant screaming was giving Arch a headache, even though they'd only been acquaintances for about fifteen chimes. No wonder the man's soldiers are disappearing for days on end. A wonder they can stand to be on a single patrol. As obvious as it must have been that Archailist was not enjoying the obnoxiously-loud Sergeant, the others were utterly infatuated. Apparently the man was somewhat of a well-known title. Hardly surprising, they could hear his voice from the other side of the mountains. Sitting astride a horse that could even put Iros to shame, with a warhammer on his back built like the heaviest of his patron knight's weights, he almost seemed to enjoy roaring as he marched through the outskirts of the Dyres District, out towards the main gates. One in particular, a woman on the back of a horse poised right outside one of the main gates to the cramped inner corridors, got quite the screaming. "COME ON, MOVE YOURSELF! YOU'RE BLOCKING THE WAAAAAY!"

If his obcessant screaming didn't scare her horse shykeless, it'd be a miracle too far for even Kelwyn. Funny; that woman almost looked familiar. ".. Haha, Suresslynn?" Oh, what a sight he must have looked, emerging from behind Ser Iros and around a small throng of four other armoured knights building up a procession behind the mountain of Ser Maximus. "What are you doing sitting on your horse in the middle of the street..?" This was why he didn't take his own mount and just hitched a ride on the back of Ser Iros. The little canid mount got plenty of exercise just being taken outside the grounds, free to run around as he pleased anyway. Trying to tame any animal in the midst of the thrall of general populace was practically impossible. Iros was strong enough to keep his mount in check and Ser Maximus likely frightened his horse into submission.

"Iros, your squire knows this person?" Ser Maximus had turned around to address Iros but his voice carried so far that it still made Arch's words difficult to be heard. "Then can you tell your squire to inform her that she's blocking the path?" Oh for Sylir's sake. He turned back around to the Sergeant and struggled to bite his tongue and hold back the rage that'd slowly built over nearly twenty insufferable chimes of listening to the Sergeant.

"I think she heard you well enough Ser.. and furthermore, if you've got a request of me, I'd ask that you speak directly to me!" Ser Iros seemed to pinch his lips closed as a new shade of red descended over his face but not a word was spoken. Though he braced himself for a brand-new wave of audial pain, none came, surprisingly. For now the Sergeant shrugged his shoulders and nodded, before giving a quick slap to the reigns and driving his men forwards, out towards the gate. Iros lingered behind. "Err, what're you even doing out here, Suress? Aren't you a snake?" It seemed a little strange to see a reptile braving the cold of winter willingly, even if they were still waiting for the true snows to kick in.

[Suresslynn]

Before Suresslynn could get her horse moving again the knights appeared. And this time, they were led by some moron who appeared to speak only in yells. He was giving the viper a headache and worse, he spooked her horse. Sandstorm reared back and side stepped, waving his hooves threateningly at the strange knight. "Down, you moronic animal." the Dhani groaned, wrapping her arms around the horses neck as she tried to stay on. And then a familiar squirrel appeared, riding his dog.

"Oh, hello, Arch." she said, as her horse finally got back down on all four feet, but now seemed to want to crowhop around the morons horse. "It wasn't really my idea..." she muttered in response to her question as her misbehaving mount reared up on his legs again. Though she was too pre-occupied with trying not to fall off her troublesome mount, she did note the shouty knights rudeness and promised herself that if she ever got the opportunity, she'd fill his bed with thorns if she ever got the opportunity. Of course, maybe he was deaf or close to it. That would explain the shouting...

As the knights headed past her, Sandstorm decided he'd had enough of his rider and gave a quick buck, pitching Suresslynn off and onto the ground. Having successfully humiliated his rider, the horse regained his calm and walked over to sniff at Arch while Lynn just groaned. After a moment, she registered Arch's question and stood up, pushing her horses head away from the squirrel as she stood up, in case it was annoying her friend. "Wasn't exactly my idea. This stubborn pain in my tail needs exercise. Unfortunately, getting him to go where I want isn't always easy, so we wound up here." she said, stretching slightly. "And yeah, I'm a snake."

Looping her arms into the horses reigns in hopes it would keep him still, she looked up at Arch's patron. "Hello, Iros or Eyris, never did get that straight. Been a while." she said, giving her now second least favorite knight a small wave before she looked at the procession that had left Iros and Arch behind. "So what was up with Ser Shouts-a-lot? Is he deaf or something?" she asked, looking back at the squirrel.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The constant rearing made the Pycon wince. He could only hope that her words didn't reach Ser Maximus; though by the looks of things he was already focused elsewhere, waving his hands off and directing them out into the streets. If he ever wished to listen to the complaints or excuses of anyone excluding himself, the Sergeant was excessively good at disguising it. Just another reason why, for all the shouting and crazed behaviour that he seemed so eager to display to the viewing world, Archailist couldn't help but respect him. After all, when put in charge of even a small group of pages ordered with a simple task, he struggled to control them. At least it was better than Suresslynn, pulling at the reigns with all her might but ultimately still left in the dirt as the lumbering animal took interest elswhere. "Hah, don't worry about it. I understand." Perhaps not why it was giving her such a hard time, it seemed like a perfectly docile creature as he rubbed its snout with one hand, but he understood.

"That's Ser Iros to you, miss." The Akalak's voice wasn't as loud as the Sergeant but it still carried as much weight as he looked down on the Dhani from above with dark, piercing eyes. Apparently he was still on unsure footing after their last.. ahem.. encounter. Her casual attitude was only making that fact all-the-more apparent. "Ser Maximus will not be disrespected in the presence of another knight, certainly not one on temporary attachment." With his word spoken and after a harsh glare from Archailist, the Akalak marched on but refused to leave through the gates without his squire. Instead he stood there, half-in and half-out, waiting for Archailist to eventually catch up again. The desire to turn around and leave him there was overwhelming but with more than a little self-control, he reeled back his inner rebellious child.

"The less said about him, the better." That was about all he was willing to say on the matter. "Now come on, you're coming with me." There was no argument to be made on this. "You're going to be about the one good thing to come out of today and besides, it's just a quick walk around the edges of the castle, same as ever. Do one walk around Syliras, done them all. Gives you and your horse a little more exercise." Since the horse seemed to have already taken a liking to Arch's smell, he took it a step further and used one of the edges of the archways to climb up to a point where he could make a short, mercifully low-impact jump onto the horse's back. Funny.. he'd never actually ridden a horse before. Sure, he'd hitchhiked around on the back of one when someone else was driving, but that was different from being the only thing in the saddle. Made him realize just how unfathomably huge a horse was. "You guide it by the head and walk alongside it. No point getting on, it'll just throw you back off again."

[Suresslynn]

Suresslynn gave the big knight a confused look as he seemed to rebuke her, then watched him ride to the gate before she turned back to Arch. "Did I say something rude?" she asked, her confusion clear in her voice. The Dhani still had no real grasp of human social customs, but then she still thought humans were a bit uncivilized and uncouth, what with their getting mad when someone bit them for stepping on their house.

At Arch's comment, the Dhani just shrugged and grinned as the squirrel hopped on her horse. "Of course, Ser Squirrel. Besides, it was getting boring without you around. Just humans to talk too, and while some of them aren't bad...there are thing they just do not get." she said, taking her horses lead before noticing something. "Hey, we're forgetting someone." she said, before reaching down to pick up Arch's dog. "Can't be leaving you behind. We might need ya." the Dhani grinned, patting the pooches head before she patted Sandstorm on the head.

And at first, it seemed to go well. Sandstorm followed Lynn obediently and nothing bad happened. However, after about fifteen minutes, the horse stopped and rolled his shoulders before looking back at the squirrel in the saddle normally occupied by much bigger people and giving a whiny that set off a warning in the snakes head. Grabbing the horses head and looking him right in one big brown eye, Lynn hissed at him. "Buck him off and I will eat you. Clear?" she said. After a moment of silence, the horse whinnyed and...sat down before giving a whiny that sounded a bit too much like, "See, I didn't buck him off." for Lynn's tastes. "You are such a pain." she said, sounding more tired than anything else.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

He turned back around to glance at Iros, making sure he was out of earshot. Even then, he spoke quietly. "He's infatuated with Ser Maximus. The man's worked up quite a storm of publicity in recent days for his infallible strength; likely just a lot of bullshyke, not that there's a knight for miles around with enough between their legs to challenge it." As much as it wounded his pride, even Archailist couldn't help but feel frightened of the guy. His voice, his weapon; Ser Maximus had managed to build up a very imposing figure and knew exactly how to push it in all the right ways. Lesser squires shyked themselves on his command. "One of the sergeant's wing has caught some pesky illness and been decomissioned for a few days; Ser Iros all but begged to fill the gap and now is slightly too eager to keep up appearances for some futile hope that he might be allowed a more permanent position." Not that it'd ever happen, of course. Within a few days, the knight would recover, he'd take his original place and all their stupid swapping would be over and done.

"Pff, you're preaching to the choir." Of course, in the Order, one met many other races in the day-to-day training regimes. Zith, Nuit, Akalak. Perhaps it'd just be better to group all of the species that weren't Pycon under one title, though some like Suresslynn were testament that not all of the larger races were so bad.

He tried to stop the Dhani before she could pick up the dog, though Xarex was already in-hand, panting happily before he'd finished his complaint. "It's fine, you don't have to pick him up, he needs the.. exercise." Well, so much for the one reason he was taking out the dog today. "You know he can run alongside, right." Then again, he seemed just as excited in Suresslynn's hands as he had been while running around between the knight's feet. Maybe it was just better to let the dog go as he pleased and leave it at that. After all, it was just a little dog. Not a titanic beast, like the Dhani's horse, who needed such threats as literally being eaten just to make sure it didn't try to throw anything off it's back at a moments notice.

After Suresslynn's horse, Iros folded in behind. "You realize the reason I didn't invite you to bring friends along is that this is important, knights-only business that shouldn't be accompanied by civilians." Iros was seriously beginning to push on the squirrel-like Pycon's final nerves; one of his five eyes had begun twitching frantically in frustration.

"Well, that's funny, I'm not a knight, so if this is knight-only business then I suppose that means I've just been excluded from today's exercises, doesn't it?" Still hanging to the saddle his head spun around on his shoulders in a feat entirely impossible, if he had a spine at least. "Unless, that is, you're suddenly going to go back on your word and refuse to uphold the rules of truth and valour that you are sworn to just as much as I?" Ser Iros' gaze darkened. Archailist refused to flinch. You're testing my patience just as much as I am yours. Eventually the knight scoffed and kicked at the sides of his horse, jerking it forwards and around the Dhani as they passed the gates to meet up with the rest of the knights that were already forming a small group just fringing the trails leading down towards Mithryn Outpost. "Oh, look at that. Guess I just earned myself a day off."

[Suresslynn]

Lynn listened quietly to Arch's explanation of Iros's odd behavior as he gave, but didn't respond at the time. Though after the exchange between the squirrel and the moron, the Dhani did mean to make a comment, but first she had to investigate this backwards head trick of his. "Wow. You really can do just about anything with that body of yours huh? I mean, I can sort of do that as a snake, but only because my body in that form is basically one long neck. Or maybe it's one long tail...or maybe one long stomach. It's hard to tell." she said, trailing off into confused rambling as the knight left them behind.

Once he was well away, she started helping Arch get her mount back on her feet, mostly by tugging on his reigns. "And yeah, I figure the dog could walk, but my horse as a bad habit of bucking when he gets in a mood and I didn't want him accidentally hurting your dog." she said, as she tried to Sandstorm back on his feet. Instead, the horse just whinnied at her and proceeded to lay all the way down. "Stubborn piece of shyke..." she muttered, setting down Arch's dog and grabbing Sandstorms ear. "Get up, you silly beast." she growled. With a sigh, the horse finally rose back to his feet.

Looking at the retreating knights for a moment, she shrugged then looked back at the squirrel squire. "Well, I suppose if I was trying to woo someone I had fallen in love with, I wouldn't want company either. So, what are you gonna do with your day off?" she asked, reaching down to pet the dog as she spoke.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Weird, hadn't he already talked with her on the body Harameus had gifted? "Well yeah. That's how we were made." Just to show off a little, he raised both arms and pulled clay out of his tail to mold a second pair just underneath the first. It took some time and more than a little bit of effort to work the sausage-shaped lumps into actual arms, complete with individual joints and fingers, but it worked. They didn't look as 'good' as the top pair, but they were still arms. "Let's see your snake body do that." He stuck his little clay tongue out at the snake-woman and tugged both arms back inside his torso again to build up the hollow cavity he'd made with that little party trick.

While reforming his body, it became horribly apparent that Suresslynn really needed to spend some more time with her horse. The darn animal was stubborn. "Good plan. Better plan would be to do a bit more training with her before you try to ride her through a busy street if that's how bad she can get." Now he knew why she was just sitting there in the middle of the road. Her horse wasn't just ill-tempered, it was the reincarnation of an Isur - or at least could have passed for one in the personality department. He'd not even done anything to it yet it still rolled down onto its side and practically threw the little Pycon into the dirt.

"Yep." That hurt. "You definitely need to get that thing trained." Arch rolled over and struggled back to his feet, picking some flakes of dirt off his antlers. "No clue what I'm going to do now, suppose I might just hang around, you know?" He couldn't tell whether Suresslynn was just making light jest of Ser Iros' love, or whether she actually believed the Akalak and Sergeant to be lovers. She looked serious. Perhaps she'd ask later. For now, there were other things to do... or at least, there would be, if his nexus wasn't as dry as Eyktol. To be honest, as of late, he'd struggled to find anything really worth doing. Sure there was fun to be had here and there. Though one could spend so much time walking around the Bronze Woods before the place didn't seem to hold much else to really explore. "What are you doing? Just taking your horse for a boring old walk before you lock it back up in some stuffy stables?"

[Suresslynn]

Lynn laughed at Arch's comment about his clay body, then nodded. "I suppose so. It's one thing to know you can do stuff like that as far as having the knowledge goes, but it's another thing altogether to see it." she said, before he grew another pair of arms and teased her a bit. "Fair enough. But let's see your clay body be venomous." she said, sticking her own tongue back out at the squirrel.

At the Squire's comment about her animals stubborness, Lynn just sighed and nodded, then winced as he got thrown to the ground. "Yeah, but I don't really know how to train a horse. Besides, he's been like that since I got him in Eyktol. He's not really mean, I think he just doesn't like to be ridden. And are you okay?" she asked, seeing her friend struggle back to his feet...or would they be paws. Either way, he looked pained.

At his question, she tilted her head to the side for a moment then sighed. "That had been my plan, seeing as it's cold, but I think the confinement is part of his attitude problem right now. Guess I'd better take him out for a real ride." she said, tugging lightly on her horses reigns. Giving another whinny before he climbed to his feet, Sandstorm shook himself and started to mumble Lynn's hair again. "Stop that. My hair isn't food." the viper said as she pushed his head away. "Care to come along? And by the way, been meaning to ask you a question. Can...con-cov-convy...uh...does regular medicine and herbs work on you at all?" she asked, after stuttering over a word she had heard Sahfri use but couldn't quite remember at the moment as she started to climb back into the horses saddle. "Also, I'm gonna take him out into the plains or maybe up to the woods. If you want, you can come along. I won't be going fast with him, I hope." she said, grimacing slightly at the end as her horse whinnied at her.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

He would have rolled his eyes, but without pupils, the gesture was pretty meaningless. "Alright, I suppose you've got me there, in that one incident." She still wouldn't ever grow four legs, or two heads, or become a tree. In his own way, he'd still won, so he'd take that over whatever Suresslynn said. If he owned this dumb animal they he'd be able to hold it in check too. All the horse needed was a firm hand. Suress didn't really seem to have any control over the animal no matter how hard she tugged. Maybe horses were just too different from dogs for the Pycon to truly understand why she was having too much trouble. "Maybe you should take it down to the Menagerie or something, get it looked at by someone down there." That was all he could think of. "Or you could.. if you were a squire, that is." Rather key piece of information he'd almost completely forgot about until that moment. The Menagerie was inside the Garrison. Oops.

All it took was a little shaking to get the clay flowing back in his system, no harm done. Besides, it wasn't as if he couldn't handle a little bit of a fling. "Oh well; wherever you take it, don't ride it there, I guess. But at the end of the day, horses run and snakes ride on top of them. Or you could always just eat it, like you said." He nudged the seat of the horse with an elbow. "At least then it'd be useful for something, even if it isn't what you'd planned for it in the start, eh?"

With her relationship with the horse, he was rather stunned when she suggested that she was actually interested in taking it out for a long ride. "Uhh.. you sure about that?" Even as he talked, the horse was leaning over and beginning to eat her hair. Eat her hair. Maybe she just had a faulty horse or something, he didn't know how these things worked but that horse was definitely outside the norms. Never had he seen a regular horse owned by a knight or any of the other squires turn around and start chewing on their hair, or rolling over like a dog in the middle of the street.

But hey. If she wanted to, then he'd go along with it; mostly because he just wanted to see what on earth this broken horse had in store. "Yeah sure, if you're gonna do it then I'll come along with you." He'd even answer some of her questions just as payment for his amusement. "Huh? Oh. Don't know, haven't used it all that much. All I really need is a bit of clay and I'm fine after a few days. Herbs and all that other stuff would probably feel nice but.. I don't know what in Hai it'd do." He didn't really know what herbs or other medicines looked like, he'd never had to work with them before. Ever.