[The Wolf's Cave] Monsters and Men [Laute]

[Ifran]

75th Summer, 511 A.V. The foreign performer haunted many places in Alvadas, his mind having somehow found the trick of navigating the city of mirrors without much difficulty, but this evening he had come to the Wolf's Cave to drink among the other monsters. The Eypharian had been raised to believe himself superior to all others, even among his own august race, so he enjoyed this place owned by Kelvics, who were a mongrel breed in any case, who lived to serve. Perhaps he would acquire some of his own to tend to his needs. One needn't even pay Kelvics for their services if they tied their animal hearts to one's mastery. These days he had traded his finery for simpler clothes. Those he had worn through the deserts of Eyktol, the plains of Cyphrus, and the Suvan Sea had been cleaned and put away, worn and unsuited for civilized life in the city, even one such as this. Instead he wore dark blue, the color of his eyes. Linen pants and a cloak until he acquired more money and a tailor who could manage the exigencies of the Eypharian physique. His body was his instrument, and so it was toned to perfection, and in fact, he showed less skin here than he did at home. He smiled to himself and into his drink.

[Laute]

It was his nose that lead him here. In this city, where sight deceived one, only the other senses could be trusted.

And his other senses were more than enough to guide him.

As he entered the inn, his dark wings carefully cloaking his body, he paused at the threshold. There were many creatures here and they more than the food intrigued him. At the entrance were the animal-humans, the name escaping his mind.

He had met one before, a rabbit-like one. It had an interesting flavour, of prey and predator mixed, and he could only imagine what the ones in front of him would taste like.

Soft footsteps alerted him of his slave's arrival, his horse now stabled, and he restrained his urges. It would not do to hunt in a city, at least not so obviously. Instead, with measured steps, he glanced around the room for an empty seat.

At the very least he could partake in the food he has heard of, the spices that are lingering in the air as he moved through the room. Nearby, he could hear the sizzling of meat, the soft hiss of oil.

As he searched, his eyes fell on a human with six arms. Six arms, opposing Aditi's two, and a lean body. Muscular, perhaps to the point where the meat was stringy and tough.

He had to see if those arms were real. Without a word, he approached the man, Aditi following silently as they crossed the room. Seating himself next to the man, he stared at his torso. The arms were connected well enough, naturally perhaps. Not stitched on, at the very least.

There was a small shuffle behind him, Aditi alerting him to her fatigue, and remembering her, he motioned to the seat beside him. With a soft plop, she settled in beside him, her arms still wrapped around his bag.

[Ifran]

If he silently judged the men and women of Alvadas as being without proper etiquette, he certainly didn't expect it from the animals and so-called monsters of Mizahar. There was something refreshing in this Wolf's Cave, served by properly subservient wolf-Kelvics and surrounded by those considered freaks by the vanilla human population. And so his well-formed lips curled upward into a smile at the Zith, showing no teeth. Animals only bared their teeth to warn away rivals and predators, and Ifran was not feeling threatened. This was perhaps the first time he had faced a Zith without bars between them, but there were some in his family's menagerie and surely others in the collections of the rich and the noble of Ahnatep. It appeared he even had a slave. Well, he rose a step in Ifran's estimation. "Hello," he said, his Common clinging to the local dialect. The singer's ear had little trouble recognizing the cadence of their speech, his tongue with shaping it.

[Laute]

He recognized the greeting and what it entailed.

As long as he responded favourably, conversation would continue. A nuisance, had they been in the woods he would have preferred to tear apart this creature. The body told more secrets than its owner would know, each muscle and bone confirming truths that Laute suspected.

"Hello," he carefully replied, his voice deep with a practiced consistency. Though he was still subject to the odd squeak or rumble, he had some control over its occurrence.

"What are you?"

However, he didn't have the same practice with manners. Didn't fully care either, he had yet to understand the need for tact.

Beside him, he heard his slave make a soft sigh and he knew without looking her face was marred with a frown at his words. Not that she would say anything, over time he has come to realize that she would only speak if he asked or if there was any danger from his actions.

As he waited for the man's response, he glanced once more at his arms. He would have liked to touch his skin, test the muscles, but even Laute knew the dangers that would entail.

After all, the body revealed more than its owner would like.

[Ifran]

He looked the Zith up and down, amused by his feral bravado. Were they both standing, he estimated they would be of a height. If he had a khopesh to hand, he could have dealt with any threat the beast might pose, but he was unarmed at the moment and everything was uncertain in the city of illusion. Ifran had six arms, and the Zith had claws, teeth, and wings. A strange desire to wrestle the beast to the floor rose up within him, and he remained silent as the experience rushed over him. But he sat still as a statue, an amused, superior smile still tugging the corners of his mouth toward the ceiling as if there were a joke, but he was the only one who got it. "Men with four or six arms are called Eypharians, the lords of Eyktol. Do you know where Eyktol is?" He didn't intend the simple question to be rude; Eypharians of his class were only rude when it suited their purposes, and when speaking in High Arumenic, it was difficult to discern mockery at all.

[Laute]

There was a strange quirk in the other man's smile, in how he looked at Laute, but sensing no danger, he ignored it. Facial expressions, though they can be strange at times, held no interest in him.

Eypharians. Eyktol. He had seen parts of the latter and not really heard much of the former. The desert, if he recalled correctly, with hot winds and hotter earth. No ocean, or for that matter, water around for days.

He would like to visit a place like that, even if he only traveled to its edges. A place where water held no grip but on its inhabitants.

But it was too close to home and he had no desire to return there yet.

"It's a desert further south. I've seen it from a distance," he replied, not noticing the wording of the question. "Are the game dry there?"

Thinking of the heat and the dry land, his interest piqued. "How do you survive there?"

[Ifran]

"Yes, the desert to the south. The game are adapted to the heat, storing water within themselves or finding the plants that do. Blood can hydrate as well as water," he noted. "The Chaktawe and Benshira spend more time in the deep desert than do my people. The Chaktawe speak to the birds, and the both of them have learned the locations of oases, or have built qanats and other means to capitalize on what water there is. My people live on a river and by the sea, so there is water enough for our gardens, our food, and ourselves. "And you?" he asked, not entirely feigning his interest. He knew little of Zith society, though he had studied the way they moved, the way they spoke, in case he was ever called upon to mime one or sing some strange Zith song for some strange production. One never knew. His master had made him spend time with the Benshira, who were little better than slaves, in order to learn their music.

[Laute]

The man's words filtered in, his mind barely registering the information. Leaning in closer, for a moment, Laute found the scent of the desert, underneath the smoke and sweat and grime that lingered in the room. Still clinging to his skin, not yet washed away by his travels, were the dry soil and lush rivers he spoke of.

They coincided with his words and it was even more obvious this man didn't know everything Laute wanted answered. There were no spices or herbs on him, nothing to say he knew anything of cooking, and Laute found himself growing bored of his company.

Irrationally, he wondered for a brief second if he would find that desert heat at least within this man. If he were to search his cadaver, would he find the sun caged within? It's an irrational thought, he had created enough corpses to know what happened, but his brother was cold and wet after.

Cold and wet like the caves they lived in, and in the end, he disappeared in the dark. With nothing more than a--

There was a nudge at his side, Aditi he knew, and thinking back he recalled the question put to him.

He didn't need to answer it. There was nothing keeping him here, but watching the man's movements, something else struck him.

The man's movements were nimble, with a practiced grace. And though Laute didn't care for man's social norms, he wasn't ignorant to them. The tone, the manner he spoke and moved, all of them told Laute that this was someone who knew his place in the world and what he wanted.

And that was something he didn't mind knowing.

"North of the desert, in," he paused, recalling the name for the location, his voice rumbling as his control slipped. "Cyprus." Regaining command over his voice, he continued, "I lived underground, in vast caverns. There were many tunnels within, some not fully mapped. Our slaves lived and laboured below us."

He stopped, considering what he said. The question was answered, as far as he could tell.

"You're not a fighter." At least not primarily. He wasn't as tense as most warriors Laute had seen.

[Ifran]

Ifran observed the interaction between Zith and slave, wondering if the girl admired him or was beyond such things for fear of her master's punishment. He had seen spirits broken; in Ahnatep, such sport could be bought. "Am I not?" he asked, amused. "I haven't my blades with me, 'tis true. Do you speak of fabled Xy or some smaller settlement of your... people?" His manners were artful, his sense of superiority plain. It was difficult to argue the fact of his superiority when he was tall and well-built, rich and noble, educated and talented. At least he was honest.

[Laute]

"Not entirely," Laute replied, noting the change in the man's tone.

Even now, as he changed the subject from himself to Xy, the evidence was clear. The man was someone used to diverting attention, to the art of conversation. But Laute was not one to be deterred that easily. "You are something else."

Just what was the question.

Laute had been to Xy on his travels--it was hard to leave home without passing it. "Close to Xy," he replied, thinking of the enormous caverns, of the quiet rustles of wings.