Closed Squirrels and Snakes (Arch and Lynn :P)

[Suresslynn]

At Archailist's comment about being able to take her horse down to the Menagerie if she was a Squire, Lynn just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'll get right on joining the order just so someone can tell me Sandstorm's a petching lunatic." she said, her tone somewhat sarcastic before he mentioned getting some use out of her horse if she ate it. "Hey, now. Don't forget who got us away from that flying, poison, spitting lizard thing back when we first met. Sandstorm's never let me down in a pinch." she said, rubbing her horses nose affectionately as she spoke.

When Arch questioned the sanity of her choice of activities, the viper just shrugged. "Well, I figure part of the reason he's being all fidgety and restless is lack of exercise. Besides, he hasn't killed me yet and I don't figure he's going too." she said before the squirrel elected to come with her. At his comment about not being sure if herbs would effect him, she just shrugged as she started to lead her horse to the main gate. "Well, I guess it makes sense they wouldn't work all that well on you. I mean, you could try a few and see what happens, I guess. But if you learned to use herbs on the other knights and squires and whatnot, it might help make them notice you. I mean, people with sense usually listen to the person who knows how to heal them." she said as they headed towards the main gate.

After a moment a thought occurred to her. "Oh, how's your training going? Still catching trouble on account of humans and such being largely too thick to look where they put their feet? Or have they have finally started give you the respect you deserve?" she asked, stepping around a cat that was lazing in the road as she spoke, giving it a gentle nudge with her foot to get it moving to a safer napping spot.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Her retort had the squirrel-like Pycon in fits of laughter. "Pah, you wouldn't need to be a squire for that! Eylin will call anyone and anything one. You don't even have to pay him for the pleasure." Sad, hilarious and true all at the same time; that was definitely Iros, and Eylin. "Besides, I know she wouldn't abandon you in a crisis.. but she did leave you stranded in front of an entire wing of knights and pretty much rolled over at the idea of carrying you." Not even pretty much; it'd rolled over, right there, on the road, in front of people. More than enough evidence to file Lynn's mount under the 'petching lunatic' aisle, whether or not she could come in useful in some situations.

Then again, the same could be said of Lynn! Oh, he loved her to bits, she was funny and knew her way around the place, but.. petch, sometimes it made sense why Sandstorm was such an odd-ball; after all, it had to learn from somewhere. "Really. You think he's sitting around and purposefully avoiding doing anything is because he actually wants to go outside and do lots of execise." He took up a casual walking pace beside Lynn so that they could continue talking - well, it was actually a full-out sprint for Arch, which constituted for a casual walking pace for a human.. or quite a bit slower. Even if the horse didn't get any exercise, Arch would be getting plenty.

"Hmm? Me, learn that stuff?" It could always be a possibility. "I guess it's a little more difficult for me because, you know, I'll never be able to really use them on myself to see how they work. I get cut, the clay just comes back together again." He could even cut himself, right here and now and watch it happen. If Lynn tried, she'd spend the next several days recovering from what he could repair in mere ticks. It'd just be for their benefit then. By no means a reason to avoid doing it, but something to always think about.

It might actually give him a little edge when it came to dealing with the other squires and knights outside of combat - which was, in reality, one of the biggest issues. "Training's going well, you know, as well as it can be. I get a little more respect now that I've shown what I can do, but hey, they still step on me sometimes." He actually had to have a long sit down and wonder whether he'd ever get enough respect for that to stop happening. Likely not, really. Not until he was surrounded with his own wing of knights, following his orders and listening. "Overall, can't complain. What about you?"

[Suresslynn]

Lynn laughed at Arch's joke about his tutor, then shrugged at his comment about her mount. "Yeah, he's a problem at times, but honestly, I think part of it was just that he was upset with me. I mean, he's as used to sleeping outside as I am, and then I up and put him in stables. Can't have been impressed with me." she said, just before her horse whinnied at her as if in agreement.

Then Arch commented on her horses laziness, causing the dhani to turn to look at her mount. "Are you feeling lazy? Should I take you back to the stables." That earned her a flat stare from her mount, though she felt it was because she had stopped walking to address the horse. Maybe Arch was right, but the horse needed exercise whether he wanted it or not. As the two headed out of the city, Arch's dog finally noticed they were moving and ran to catch up with the squirrel, now trotting alongside the two of them with it's tongue hanging out.

Lynn shrugged as Arch explained why he had never learned about herbalism, then grimaced at his explanation of his training. "Geez. Form-locked races never look where they're putting their bloody feet. Then they get pissy when the thing who's house they just flattened bites them." she said, shaking her head as she spoke. "And my training's going well. Learned a few new herbs and medicines. Fun stuff." her expression brightened as she spoke and her voice got excited, though she refrained from launching into a detailed explanation of it all in favor of a question. "By the way, what is up with your mentors name? You call him by two names, but he only answers to one of them."

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Well, that would make sense. He worried sometimes that he left Xarex in the stables for too long as well; really the only reason he didn't let the dog go everywhere with him was because they didn't allow animals in the squire dormitories. Dogs, just like horses, were wild animals.. they needed to be outdoors, they needed exercise! While they were busy talking, Xarex had already ran up to them, hung around for a few ticks, then bounced off to petch-knew-where.. he knew that the dog would come back when he'd had enough, though. "Then let him sleep outside. You're a snake, just.. eat anything if it comes along and tries to eat him." If she was being serious about eating the horse, she'd have no trouble dealing with some of the smaller threats. Especially in winter, when most animals were hibernating anyway. "Might do you some good to spend a little bit more tame back out in the woods, living on the back of a tent and all that." He honestly had very little, pretty much no information on snake-people, but if they were anything like Kelvics, they enjoyed being animals just as much as they did being people, in his experience.

Then again, just because something needed to be outside didn't mean it couldn't also be a lazy sod. "You'd be better off just letting it loose to let off a little steam and lie down somewhere, I bet." Taking it back to the stables was.. well, he didn't know whether it'd be a good or a bad thing, he didn't know shyke about horses really, but he was running off some pretty good guesses. If I was a horse, I wouldn't want to be stuck in a little wooden cage all day surrounded by other horses. Ugh. That was his opinion, anyway. Were horses sociable?

Probably more sociable than many of the people who never even asked whether he was alright after nearly stepping on him - or, in some cases, actually stepping on him! "You're preaching to the choir. At least you've got it easy, when you want to, you can just change yourself back into a regular-sized human and not worry about being stood on. Me? Pff, I wish I could grow to that height." It was becoming more and more difficult to hitch rides on people as well, given his.. well, weight. Even Xarex seemed to show a little strain sometimes, but it wasn't like the Pycon was getting 'fat' as the humans called it. He'd always been this size.. always would be, too. Wasn't his fault. "Don't worry, when I climb a little higher in the pecking order, I'll actually be able to tell people off for trying to step on me. Hah, I'll arrest them over attempted murder of a knight." Now that would be something, wouldn't it.

In other news, things were going well for Lynn, which was always good; perhaps, one day, he'd ask a little more about her herbs and medicines and whatnot. "Huh? Oh, he's got this weird thing. Uhh." He'd never really asked about it directly, he'd never even worked with an Akalak before Iros, but during the changes between the two people, they'd referred to themselves in different names. It'd taken a lot of hard work and research on the human body, all the different body parts and all that nonsense, the diseases and the problems associated with them - by which he meant he'd looked at Iros for a long time really hard and once met someone with a cold - but he'd eventually narrowed this bizarre behaviour down to one surprisingly simple explanation. "He's got two nexuses."

[Suresslynn]

Lynn shivered as a blast of icy wind hit, then pulled her coat tighter around her before she listened to Arch's comment about letting Sandstorm sleep outside, then suggesting she do the same as it might be good for her, bringing an amused laugh from the Dhani. "I'd love to be sleeping back outside. Sadly, reptiles hibernate in the winter, and Dhani can do it too. It's why nobody saw me last winter. I was hunting in the forest, slithered into a hole to get away from the cold for a bit, and when I woke up it was spring. Not an experience I'm keen to repeat." she said, laughing a bit.

At his comment about letting the horse off to blow off steam, the viper nodded again. "I would, probably. But again, hibernation. Moving around keeps me warm, laying down...well, not a great idea." she said, grimacing. She purely hated Syliran winters, they were way too cold for her taste. Even the summers were colder than she would like, but it wasn't terribly cold.

Then came Arch's comment about her shapeshifting, which made Lynn shrug. "Well, the problem there is that it takes time for me to shift. Think back to when we first met, it took a second for me to shift into the in-between form. And that can make people panic, making them think I'm some kind of monster. I'd rather be dodging feet that knives, arrows, and rocks." she said, before giving his clay body an odd look. "If you're made of clay, couldn't you just...add more clay to yourself to make yourself taller? Or does it not work like that?" she asked curiously. It made sense to her, but then she had used to think that humans really could shapeshift, they were just too stubborn to actually do it.

When Arch explained Iros's odd shifts in personality, she had to stop to think. They were close to the gates now and Sandstorm was getting restless again, but she was kinda used to mischievous antics from her horse. "Two nexuses...that sounds...troublesome. I mean, do they ever fight at all? Or what if they like different things. I mean, what if Iros likes men but Eylin, or Eiros, or whatever his name is likes women? How do they settle that?" she said, just before Sandstorm had enough of her dawdling and took off out of the gates at a run, jerking the viper off of her feet as he took off into the snow. "Aw shite." she said, letting go just in time to avoid getting dragged along behind him. "He's gonna make me chase him down again..." she muttered angrily under her breath.

[Archailist]

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

It was easy sometimes to forget that he was talking to a reptile in the middle of winter. Well, actually, he'd never really worked out whether they were reptiles or humans or some strange cross between the two. Apart from being a fair bit faster than normal for a person of her size and musculature, Suress seemed to be a regular human.. well, whenever she was actually in her humanoid form. Then again, in her snake body, she'd looked pretty snake-like as well. "Ahh yeah.. I understand. I wouldn't like to miss out on an entire season if I had the option either. But it must be difficult, surely, missing out on hibernation? I mean, it's what you're supposed to do, isn't it.. so isn't there at least some part of you saying that you need to go and sleep for a season right now?" As a matter of fact, why didn't she fall into hibernation whenever she curled up and slept in her own bed? Perhaps he was just asking silly questions but every time he got into these conversations with the humans.. or even human-like things.. so many random thoughts bubbled up in his nexus that at least some of them had to be asked or his head might explode.

Like, how could she possibly complain about being able to change into a normal-sized person? "Uhh, I look like a walking, talking piece of pottery. You think that I don't have people calling me a monster and throwing knives and shyke at me just as much as you?" He met her with a level stare. "At least you have the opportunity to change into a normal person and walk around and not be judged or stepped on. I don't get that luxury. I can't grow myself, I'm forever stuck exactly this size, no matter how much I eat. We don't grow, we're born one size and that's the size we stay for our entire lives until we die and turn to stone." He reached up and stroked a hand through Xarex's fur, making the dog tilt it's head to press against his affectionate touches.

Her question gave the Pycon pause for thought. In truth, he'd never really seen much fighting at all between whatever the two souls were, although it seemed that Eylin was always ready to jump into a situation whenever things were beginning to turn sour, just to make things worse. He had no way of really knowing if there was any argument going on between the two halves, all he could do was speculate that there might be some. "I have no idea, Suress. You'd have to ask him directly, though I don't suggest it.. I never have." Akalaks were Akalaks. Iros had never shown any interest in learning more about Pycons and in return, Arch had done nothing to try and improve his understanding of Akalaks. It was a mutual lack of caring; the ideal bond between squire and patron knight.

"Want me to go and chase him down?" Though Xarex was excited, some good affectionate rubs had kept the dog at his side just long enough to watch Suress nearly thrown across the length of the Nettle District by her horse. He quickly remounted his dog in a casual swoop over the saddle and tightened his hold on the reins. "I mean, I can.. well actually there's not a lot I can do, huh." He sat up again, squeezing the clay around his eyes. Xarex would never catch up to a horse in full sprint.. and even if we did, I'm not going to be able to control it and reel it back in. "Sorry."