Closed Flesh and Fowl (Kassa)

[Dovey]

13 Spring, 518 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

This Festival of Illusion business wasn't half bad, Dovey had decided.

There were, of course, the obvious problems any labyrinth created. She hadn't been able to get to work for the past three days, and if she wanted to go out drinking, or for a bite to eat, or anything, she had better be prepared to do a lot of walking before she got anywhere at all. But Alvadas was like that at the best of times, so the labyrinth didn't present too unusual a hindrance. And as for the Stables being inaccessible, well, she wasn't about to turn up her nose at a week's holiday.

And then the maze's themes, varying day by day, were an exciting addition to the festivities. Yesterday it had been plants, the walls becoming hedges and gardeners hawking their wares all around, and the day before that had been glass. She hadn't been out yet today - she'd slept in, so although it was late morning she had just recently woken up - and she was eager to see what Alvadas would showcase next.

She thought she would go out for breakfast. It might be hard to find a restaurant in the labyrinth, but there were bound to be street vendors outside selling pastries and things. So she trotted down the stairs of the Cubacious Inn (passing on the way a patron with feathers in his hair) and slipped through the front door.

"Shy-YKE!"

The distant, frustrated cry was the first thing she heard. Dovey jumped a little, then stared curiously down the street, but the labyrinth made its first turning not far beyond the inn door, and she could catch no glimpse of whoever had shouted. Strangely, in fact, there didn't seem to be many people around at all. A man and a woman hurried past, clutching each other's arms, and a little boy darted from nook to cranny with a wild grin, but otherwise the street outside the inn was deserted. And the walls of the labyrinth were plain, with no hint of their bedeckment on earlier days.

Dovey frowned, a hint of foreboding settling in her stomach. What was Alvadas up to now?

The man and woman disappeared round the next corner. The little boy was still in sight, huddled rather obviously behind a water barrel. Dovey made her way over to him. "Um - "

He looked up at her, joy in his big brown eyes. What should she ask him? Start with the obvious. "Why are you back there?"

"Hiding," he said, picking his nose. "From the geese."

"What - " she started, and then he shrieked with excitement and ran. She stared after him for a moment, and then there was a hissing from behind her and she twisted hastily around.

A flock of big white birds strutted towards her, orange bills held high in the air. The lead goose's wings were a little unfurled, his neck stretched menacingly towards her. It was from him that the hissing emanated.

Even counting his neck, he wasn't so much as half her height. "Boo!" she shouted, and waved her arms. "Go away!"

The flock waddled closer. She flapped her hands at them. The lead goose took offense and ran at her, honking deafeningly. Dovey took a prudent step back.

Were they illusions? They looked ordinary enough, but were real geese this aggressive? She wasn't a bird person. Why should there be geese in the streets, anyhow?

Hoofbeats sounded from around the corner - two sets, one louder than the other. Dovey looked up from the goose as a pair of horses came trotting into sight. One was a tall chestnut, and the other, trotting somewhat shakily at the first one's side, was a spindly-legged foal with a thin black coat. Dovey blinked hard and stared at the pair of them. The goose took this opportunity to nip her on the leg and run past her; his flock followed, seemingly spooked by the horses. Dovey yelped a bit at the bite, which was hard enough to bruise, but she didn't so much as look down.

She knew those horses. They came from the Unstable Stables; the foal had been born on the first day of the season. How had they gotten here?

What the honest petch was Alvadas up to now?

Boxcode credit: Karin Ironyach

[Kassa]

Thought
"Common"
"Nari"
"Symenos"

The first true event Kassa had attended since leaving her home in Wind Reach: Alvadas' Festival of Illusion was just as exciting as she had hoped.

Ever since she left, she had wondered whether or not to really submerse herself in another culture, another city, another life when she wasn't sure if she was ready to release her former life to that extent. While the City of Illusions was far from the type of life she had grown accustomed to, there was no denying that it was an exciting experience.

Everywhere she looked, something was different. It was to be expected, but when she looked back, it would change again. That was unnerving, to say the least. She had been out of bed when the sun shone its first light, simply looking out of the windows and observing the already busy streets of the active city. She saw a few people leave the Cubacious Inn, so she finally convinced herself to leave the inn and join in the festivities. Kassa put her clothing and falcon glove on, then attached Graith's hood and jesses. The young falcon chick wasn't trained well yet, so she was absolutely not about to bring him into an chaotic situation without the proper preparation. As a habit of paranoia, the Inarta girl took her talon sword with her. No part of her believed that she would have to use it, but she always felt it was much better to be over prepared than under.

People were fascinating, and one never saw the same thing twice in Alvadas, whether it be the scenery or the people, yet that day she did. Kassa's golden eyes located a relatively shapeless dress that she recognized floating out of the inn that morning. Curious, the woman thought to herself, watching from a distance. She had no intentions of causing the girl harm or following her, but it would be helpful to know someone in the city, especially when that someone was staying in the same inn Kassa was.

What held her attention was the flock of white geese that seemed to be on the offensive. Kassa grew up with birds, granted they weren't geese, but she didn't know birds to downright attack someone without some kind of reason. When she saw the girl nervously step back, she decided to intervene.

Kassa started forward, holding tightly to Graith's jesses in her left hand. The chick had been swiveling his head from side to side the entire time, curious as to what was happening, but he now sensed Kassa's urgency and started flapping his wings in warning. The young bird was just over a month old, so it wasn't too intimidating to see the few white tufts of down floating away at every flap.

The sound of thunder stopped her. It was pretty quiet for thunder, though. Kassa furrowed her brows, glancing around to eventually recognize the sound as hooves, rather than thunder. Two horses came galloping around the bend, and the woman took a few steps back to avoid being in the path. She had grown up around giant eagles, so horses weren't exactly her specialty.

The look from the other girl, however, indicated that she knew the animals. Perhaps, following this girl was the smartest thing to do after all. Though Kassa certainly wasn't going to spring into action to stop the beasts, she decided that she would be the first to jump at helping someone do just that.

[/indent]

[Dovey]

13 Spring, 518 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

The mare and her foal weren't moving too quickly, Dovey assessed. Though they were trotting, their gait was leisurely enough that she didn't think they were running away from anything. Likely they were only feeling playful, as getting loose from confinement tended to do to horses in Dovey's experience. All that was reassuring, certainly, but it didn't answer the central question - that being, what in the world was she going to do about this?

She wasn't at work. She wasn't prepared for work. She hadn't even eaten today, for gods' sake! In all honesty the situation wasn't her problem at the moment; the Unstable Stables didn't own her, held no sway over what she did or did not do during her time off. She should let someone else deal with the two escaped horses.

And she would have done, too. But that foal was thirteen days old, and Dovey had barely stepped outside this morning when she'd been attacked by a band of marauding geese. Today seemed a dangerous day to be a newborn on the streets of Alvadas, and Dovey didn't like the idea of coming into work after the Festival concluded only to find this foal gone.

No, she would have to do something, petch it, even if it were only tying these two up somewhere supervised until somebody came and retrieved them. She certainly wouldn't be the one to take them home. She drew the line firmly at marching through the current labyrinth, facing down an entire fleabitten jungle for all she knew, just to return two horses to the Stables on a day she wasn't even drawing a wage. She might catch them, but they would stick around here with her.

Which of course left the problem of how she was going to catch them in the first place. Running ahead of yourself there, Dovey. Her deliberations hadn't taken long, but already the horses had halved the distance between herself and them. She had no rope, and she wasn't about to tear up her dress for this...

She made a circle in place, scanning the area for tools. Her eyes passed over the Cubacious and a redheaded girl who had evidently just exited it. Only once they reached the door of the house beside the inn did Dovey freeze, then laugh - a long, neatly coiled rope was hanging innocuously round the doorknob. There was absolutely no reason for it to be there; it had to be an illusion, but if Alvadas wanted to be generous, Dovey wasn't complaining.

Only the horses had nearly drawn even with her now, and would pass her by the time she had retrieved the rope. She'd have poor luck catching up with them then. "'Scuse me!" she called instead to the girl she'd glimpsed, her tone tense with urgency. "Toss me that rope, please - to your left, on the doorknob!"

Boxcode credit: Karin Ironyach