Completed Birds of Air and Stone

[Itt]

The guard at first didn't seem overly aggressive, simply assertive in his demands for them to return to ground level. However, when things started to escalate, Itt throwing himself to his feet and Caspian sprinting to the next roof, the guard shifted his mode of speech. Instead of an insistent request, he gave the authoritative command, "Stop!" Given Caspian's visible instructions, the guard figured they wouldn't stop (because who in all of history ever did), so he got on the balls of his feet and rushed up to the building Caspian was now on top of. "Stop!" He called again, this time louder to get the attention of his fellow guard or guards that may be in ear shot.

Itt, still having the remains of his coughing fit lurching inside his chest, glanced at the other roofs around them frantically. He had mapped some of the Merchant's Ring on his map but the Noble District was new territory, he didn't know where to go! Or more importantly, he didn't know where to hide! Caspian's hand pointed with the sureness that Itt desperately needed, so he took his guidance and ran, throwing himself off the building and towards the other.

And by 'throw', Itt quite literally threw his limbs forward, putting all of his energy into making the gap and leaving none for the landing.

With all of his limbs in front of himself, he landed on the tiled roof and had no way to stop his momentum. He tumbled once or twice, a few tiles loosening and falling to the street below because of the crash. Itt gritted his flat teeth, his joints and the other points of contact wailing at him with discomfort. But he had to ignore that, he needed to go. The sloth pushed himself to his feet, slipping on some of the curved roof pieces before actually making another look around for the next roof.

Okay, where next, Caspian? Wait- where's Caspian?!

Standing up fully, holding his arm which took the bulk of his tumble, he scanned the rooftops, seeing that Caspian had run the opposite direction. His brown eyes glanced at the guard on the ground, then at his new friend who waved him away. His heart careened into panic and pain from both the smoke and his hesitation. What if Caspian was caught?

Itt bit his bottom lip, his feet glued to the unstable tiles he had displaced. He didn't want anything to happen to Caspian. After all, it was his own fault they were here. But another set of heavy footsteps were coming from his left with enough jingle for the Kelvic to imagine a twin guard.

Shiress had warned him not to get caught. He needed to go.

Itt hissed through his teeth, searching the shadows of Caspian's silhouette for his eyes before retreating. He turned towards the next roof, seeing the gap as about the same length as before. He ran for it again, meaning to repeat his previous lunge, seeing as it had worked last time (albeit painfully), but the tiles he had previously been stuck to in his indecision gave way, forcing him into a stumble. Itt swung his arms in circles to try and not fall, but the roof ended far too quickly for him to regain his balance in time. He gave a faltering jump as a last ditch effort to make it across.

Itt's body slammed into the wall with an audible slap and a hearty grunt. His arms were high enough to reach the ledge, his left forearm even slamming the corner of the roof. Unfortunately, his hands weren't able to grip the ledge hard enough, and he continued to fall down the wall, his forearm running along the corner of the rooftop and leaving skin behind. Itt didn't even have time to scream, he fell like a rock to the ground onto several bags containing soiled towels from the Black Waters.

The Kelvic grunted at his landing that could have been much worse, but his hand gripped his forearm first and foremost. The prickling sensations of pain brought his mind away from the chase, which wasn't the best means to escape, especially with the footsteps of the city guard looming ever closer. Though to Itt's surprise, a bag of towels was suddenly dumped overtop of him, filling his nose with the sharp scent of sweat and the musk of privates. He thought to remove the filth from his face as the towels were also daring to fill his nose in the literal sense with their ragged fluff, but his body froze without his permission as the guard he had yet to see ran near.

His steps were loud as he stopped in front of the alley, and his grunt almost tingled the hairs in Itt's ears. But taking the grunt with him, the guard continued on, running to the next alley. Holding his breath so he wouldn't be heard as well as to not smell the putrid smells invading his body, Itt waited until the guard was distant enough that he was sure he couldn't be heard anymore. Once out of earshot, he rolled over onto the hard ground, removing all of the dirty towels from his skin at once.

Who in the world put all of those things on him?

A pair of boney hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to his feet, despite being ill-prepared, and pressed against the wall.

Oh, that's who.

[Caspian]

To laugh at any point of the proceedings is far from appropriate. So Caspian doesn’t, at least not outwardly, but the problem is he’s got this thing where he laughs when he’s nervous, but also when he’s afraid and also indecisive and also in the face of boredom, and circumstances betray themselves as some degree of absurd.

Like a normal person, he’s also been known to laugh when things are funny - but infuriatingly, also when things aren’t, and when that happens it’s the lack of humor itself that really gets him.

So when the guard makes his plaintive call for them to stop - Caspian catches the laugh that threatens to burst forward, and it escapes from him as a sharp, odd exhale of a yip instead. It’s the mature thing to do, after all - the thing-to-do being not angering this irate figure of the law any further by making it personal, and subsequently any consequences, should they face any, worse than they already might be.

Itt needs more time, and Caspian’s committed to buying it for him. It helps that he’s sort of done this before - and it actually helps, for once, that he’s dressed in his usual attention-monopolizing ensemble. However, despite all his calculations and the uncharacteristically self-effacing vector of his intentions, he’s not quite factored in the night air, the fact of their being surrounded on all sides by a lake, and how the combination of these things and more has made a considerable sheen of dew layer itself over the already-slick roofing tiles.

In his pattering, his clattering, the guard thankfully giving him merry chase rather than Itt, he slips a little, his heart plummeting and sweeping in his chest as his balance swings in ways he didn’t predict and can’t control. When he dares glance over his shoulder - another spike of fear driving into his heart when he nearly succumbs to a momentary stumble - Itt is gone. Little does he know that Itt’s similarly, at this moment, going far more scathed - but the present is what matters, the immediate one that he can see and also, more importantly, not see, and not seeing Itt must mean that he’s accomplished at least half a good deed today. All he can do is assume that with the guard heaving and huffing after his own flounces and sapphire tails, Itt did manage to get away.

It doesn’t take too much longer for the guard to get winded to the point of uselessness. They’re in Docks territory now, anyway, which is a lot more ramshackle and slipshod and entirely Caspian’s kind of mess. The kind he can melt in.

With some doing - and with a good deal more unhelpful cackling dutifully suppressed - Caspian loses his pursuer after a series of sharp corners and deceptively sudden canals that illuse themselves to someone who isn’t so accustomed to roaming about in the dark.

Alone, finally, on a bridge sometime north, Caspian’s exhilaration ebbs away enough for him to realize Itt might not have found as much fun in being rousted as he had.

Suppose he ought to double back?

Itt’s his own person, though, one who had made his way around this city well before he’d met Caspian, and frankly, even during their meeting.

But the sense of responsibility towards Itt that’s rooted itself in Caspian is a new one, and he’s not sure what to do with it. It pesters, but not hatefully - it persists, he should say, and makes him wonder if there isn’t something he could have done better.

As he devotes serious consideration to retracing his steps, perhaps finding a way to ascertain from Itt where he lives in Ravok and if anyone’s missed him tonight -

The sound of dried reeds crackling underfoot from someone less than a stone’s throw away has him whirling in that direction.

Almost immediately, however, Caspian relaxes.

Though with an unveiled grimace.

“Please tell me you haven’t been following me all night. Even if you have. Do me the favor of letting me live with the comfort of the illusion,” he snaps exasperatedly at Taalviel before she’s even spoken.

She doesn’t say anything, though, not right away. Caspian might have turned on his heels and found some other amusement, conjured up the one he’d planned for himself earlier that involves handsome strangers in lamplight, or even just plain strangers so long as the mood’s right - but a curious resignation settles over him. And maybe it’s the way his sister doesn’t demand retribution, and how she’s a living artifact of a past that’s still not quite past enough, but -

They follow each other westward, in tandem, familiar treads. When Caspian finally settles into bed, the remaining wisps from his pipe collecting and dissolving against the sill, he dreams that they’re still walking, still westward-bound, tireless feet taking them across valley and dale, into lands where his father roams, of boundless wind and bite.

[Itt]

Itt winced as his already pained shoulders were pushed into brick and the foreign sensations of human contact writhed like spiders across his skin. The man before him, wearing rather dark drab was older. Much older. Much older than the people that Itt usually considered much older than he was. Caspian was much older than he and this geezer must be at least twice his age. It looked like his eyes were sagging out of his skull! And his cheeks were dropping like the jowls of a hound, the dark patches around his eyes serving a similar aesthetic to a raccoon.

This was the person who helped him?

Itt opened his mouth to gasp as he leaned into his shoulder with his palm, searching for something in his back pocket. However, as Itt's throat started to vibrate, the raccoon-dog-man pressed the hand he had been leaning on his mouth. And oh goodness the smell of this man's hands literally smelled like rotting scraps. Like the type of scraps that even a scavenger would leave alone, and it would get buried deep, deep underneath a layer of leaves, only to be excavated later by some other animal who accidentally came upon it. Itt preferred the towels. He felt bile crawl up his throat and lay on his tongue. Yeah, he definitely preferred the towels.

The sloth distracted himself by focusing on the sting on his forearm, a hand gripping the flesh wound with a tight squeeze. The sweat and dirt from his hands made the scrap wail more, but it did keep him occupied until the man finally removed his hand. Sighing in relief, Itt quickly spat the dollop of bile that pooled in his mouth onto the ground beside them. The guy was whispering something to him, but Itt's nose had been so violated by the scent that it must have clogged his ears. "Eh—" Itt half sighed in relief, half gasped in pain, and half grunted in confusion. Itt also didn't know what a third was. The more he looked at him, the more the man, scrambling in his pockets, looked familiar.

Was this the guy from earlier? Who threw the rock at the duck?

"Here we go." He pulled out a small bag and opened the drawstring. He picked up two juniper leaves from the sack, gripping Itt's wrist on his injured arm with long nails that rivaled Itt's— in sloth form. He slapped one of the leaves directly onto the wound, Itt jolting from the motion and the new kind of sting that reddened his already red skin. "Ow!"

"Shhhh, do you want to get caught? Here. Medicine." He pushed the second juniper leave into Itt's chest when it wouldn't stay on the wound. Itt took the leaf but pulled his arm away from the stranger. He would have stepped back to gain some distance since his personal bubble was popped a long time ago, but he was against the wall, so his feet shifted awkwardly underneath him, trying to figure out a way to go without informing his conscious brain. "I help you, you help me. Got it?" His breath smelled like parsley and slop, which matched the appearance of his dark coloured teeth. When Itt didn't respond right away, or perhaps in the right way, he pushed Itt's shoulders into the wall again. Itt noted the prominent joints on the stranger, since he wasn't necessarily skinny, not in the way Itt was, but his joints were like knobs that dug until him, giving him a full skeletal appearance. Like a fat skeleton. If that was possible. "Got it?"

"Ow, yes, yes, got it, yes." The young Kelvic nodded, wincing and nodding frantically.

"Good. You sleep, you wake up, you come here tomorrow. Go it?" His rotting teeth absorbed any light that dared peak at them.

"I sleep, yes, I sleep." Itt tried to use his previous language learning skills to figure out what he wanted.

"No, idiot," he hit Itt's temple with his palm, Itt's already frightened brain jostling around in his skull, making his head throb for a fleeting moment. "Tomorrow, when sun up." He pointed to the starry sky. "Sun up, you come here." He pointed to where they stood. "Got. It?"

"Yes, sun up, you come here." He nodded even more fervently. "I come here." His fingers tried to grip something on the wall, but his fingers just pressed into the brick until they were white. Well, whiter.

"Good. You no here then you go there." He pointed to the canal just outside the alley. Itt looked over and his muscles tensed.

"Yes, I come here, sun up, come here, sun up, come here, yes." His grin wobbled like his knees, threatening to give way.

"Good." He patted Itt's cheek, leaving behind sweaty residue. He turned towards the street and entered the full moonlight, clicking the collar of his black coat upward, scraggly hair thin and wasting. His skin was almost translucent under the moon's limelight. He turned the corner, the man fading away with the sounds of his footsteps.

Itt inhaled through his mouth, his chest stuttering. Briefly examining his treated arm and the leaf he had received, he glanced both ways. He had to admit, that was by far the weirdest interaction he's had so far. But at least he had met Caspian. Wait, where was Caspian? Did he get out okay?

Itt snuck over to the end of the alley on the tips of his toes, looking down the streets and then up at the roofs. He didn't see any figures or angry guards. That meant Caspian was okay, right? Yeah. Caspian was alright.

Maybe he'll see him tomorrow when he comes back? Yeah. Tomorrow. He'll say hi and maybe they can talk when they weren't on a roof. Maybe he could show him more about the smoke rings he made, and about the tobacco.

Itt smiled, inhaling through his nose to smell the fresh air, heading back towards the Merchant's Ring.

[Rohka]

Itt and Caspian, we have already discussed ledger-related updates. Once you've done that, PM me for your grade!