Completed Food or friend?

[Raeyn]

15th of Summer 518AV

It seemed recently the Inarta started every day off with a little meditation practiced. It calmed his mind, allowed a little quiet in the cacophony of thoughts, remnants of last night's dreams and the worries of the day to come. To say Raeyn struggled with simply existing would be a correct assumption. Ambition stronger than anything else drove him to the point where he would spend all his time in the lab in spirit, if not in body. Every waking thought of every waking moment was that of gaining knowledge, gaining power and control. To master the world magics was an overwhelming goal, especially since as of later due to certain unfortunate circumstances he wasn't able to spend every waking hour achieving it.

No, as of later Raeyn was plagued by off voices whispering to him from the darkest corners of his mind. And they things of which they spoke, he quickly grew frustrated by. Those couldn't be his own thoughts! Certainly not. Never in his wildest dreams would he harm a hair on the heads of those he loved. Would he? It seemed as of late he had done a lot of second guessing.

This morning, just like every morning since this whole thing started, he sat alone of the hard, wooden floor of his apartment in little more than just his underwear. The heat of the roaring hearth kept him warm. It was grounding, allowed him to relax every muscle in his body, aided by slow and rhythmic breathing. Bells passed as he did so, focusing on every body part individually. First the toes. With every breath Raeyn felt them relax. Then the ankles, legs, hips, his ribcage and shoulders and his neck. Every part of him right down to the fingertips he imagined to sway up and down with the deep inhales and exhales.

In his mind Raeyn pictured the djed in his body relax too although the imagined image was quite surreal. An outline of his body filled with shimmering, swirling substance of all and no colours at the same time. Being colourless and formless was something quite foreign for a man's brain to comprehend.

"There's blood to be spilled, Raeyn. Raeyn. Blood."

The voice was a little quieter as it walking to him underwater. Plunging deeper and deeper into the shapeless, dark depths of meditation, the Inarta distanced himself from the voice to the best of his ability. And though it came at some considerable effort at first, with each breath he was more and more disconnected.

He wasn't quite sure when he had laid back against the wooden floorboards. The feeling of then tingled against his skin pleasantly. All of the hustle and bustle of Lhavit behind the window seemed so far away, muffled by a deep, mellow, pulsing ringing in his ears. One more moment and the Inarta would have fallen asleep where he lay but it seemed today was not to be so.

[Raeyn]

"Hey hey, Rae-rae." a voice came, accompanied by the slamming of door and squeaking of gently rusted hinges.

In a shred of a moment it felt like the sound travelled though his entire body and stung painfully where it hit. It was the same sensation he'd imagine one would feel when hearing the sound of nails scratching against a chalk board. Albeit the juxtaposition of almost complete silence and a sudden ruckus was so powerful that Raeyn was almost certain he had just suffered the greatest injustice of anybody in Mizahar.

His eyes snapped open, startled as they looked for the source of this noise. And soon enough did they settle of the fiery red locks that framed Mara's face and her mischievous eyes. Eyes to match his own.

"The petch are you doing?" she asked a little dumbfounded. For a moment she wondered if he had lost his mind of suffered a concussion, splayed on the floor in nothing but his underwear. It was a sight she wasn't quite prepared for given her twin's usually dignified demeanour.

But Raeyn would come to think exactly the same as his eyes settle on something he wasn't quite prepared for other. For in Mara's arms there sat a small hen. Speckled and soft she was with her eyes looking inquisitively at the Inarta man from her perch. A slightly tilted head as if she too was thinking 'This man, what a fool?' As unexpected sights go, this too took a little time for Raeyn to internalise before he grasped and scuttled to his feed. Suddenly his own unfortunate position seemed far less important than the surprise Mara had in store.

"What the petch are you doing?!" he cried, shaken as if he was looking at the beast of nightmares instead of a sweet, small bird. "Is that... is that a chicken? Yo do know that at the market you can buy them already off the bone? It would save you the plucking."

Mara was clearly quite offended by the comment. She clung the hen closer to her breast as if to protect her from the evil twin and scolded him accordingly. "She's not food you idiot. She's our new pet. Come on, isn't she adorable? Ruru can have a new friend."

At the sound of his name the dog lifted his heavy head from late morning slumber.

"That thing belongs in a pot. I bet it's delicious too." he scoffed. Mara had many ridiculous ideas in their 27 years on the mortal plane together but this by far was the most ridiculous one of them all in Raeyn's mind.

"One more word about eating her..."

"And you'll do what?"

"Come on. She's cute and she'll be useful. Eggs are good for your health you know." Mara's voice turned from anger to pleading in a split second. She had a habit of being so sickly sweet that even he, the man with no heart as she often called him, struggled to refuse her.

[Raeyn]

Disheartened a little by her sudden turn to sweetness, Raeyn shook his head. He was almost hoping for a fight. The chance to blow off some steam. Though it was never a physical kind of fighting, the two had learned to become really quite vicious with each other using nothing other than words. Thought years of learning to deal with each other's nonsense, they did also learn to forgive all.

He reached for the rather plain looking shirt that till now had been draped across the only chair in the house and swiftly pulled it over his head. The alchemists tone fizzled out from anger and spite into disappointment. "I can't believe you spent your miza on a chicken."

"I didn't." she replied simply, shrugging her shoulders.

"Then where did it come from?"

"I don't know. It just followed me so I took it home. At first I thought it had escaped from somebody's garden but eh, their loss I suppose. Shouldn't be leaving their chickens roaming about willy nilly."

Raeyn's dumbfounded expression only deepened. He stood there, hand abandoned at his side, blinking as if he didn't quite believe what he was hearing. But then again this was Mara. Being her twin he should have come to expect this kind of shenanigans from her by now. "You... you stole a chicken?"

"I did not steal a chicken!" Mara rolled her eyes. "Listen, she followed me. What am I suppose to do, shoo her away?"

Quickly enough the nonsense of the situation began daunting on Reyn and so his words turned to spiteful sarcasm. He didn't do any other form of sarcasm after all. "Of course. How could I forget, that is precisely what you do with a chicken if it follows you. Bring it home right into the kitchen pot. Is this what you'd do if a child followed you home too. I hear the Shinya don't look down too kindly at child kidnappers, you know? Mara, listen to yourself. This is ridiculous."

"The only thing that's ridiculous is how much of a stubborn asshole you're being. Syna watch over me, if you so much as touch a feather on this chicken's head I will not be held accountable for what I'll do."

[Raeyn]

At last, Mara gently placed the curious looking hen on the floor. The creature hadn't taken more than a second to talk right up to it's new master, Raeyn, and standing front of him, gazng into his very soul though his eyes. In turn Raeyn looked at it, baffled. What did the petching creature want? He had no food on him that she could peck at. For a prolonged moment the two did little else but look at each other. An aura of silence surrounded them.

It wasn't the first time Raeyn's eyes laid on a chicken. Of course not. But it was as if he could sense the oddity in this one in the way it stared at him. He wasn't sure if it was angry at his words or otherwise. Did chickens even feel such strong emotions as anger?

He stood up and walked over to the chest where the rest of his clothes were and in turn the chicken followed, staying very very close to his leg. The alchemist moved his foot against the animal's feathery breast, shoving it gently away but every time he did she would just return to her position between his feet, looking straight up at him as if he was the most bewilderingly beautiful man alive.

"Alright, what's the deal with you chicken?" he was soon to snap, turning Mara's attention to them once more. "It's following me now."

"I did tell you she followed me." Sounding as if there was nothing strange about that behaviour at all, Mara walked over to pick up the hen and place her on the floor a few feet away. Once more, clucking as she walked, the hen trotted over and placed herself snugly between Raeyn's feet.

"And this is not strange to you at all?" he asked, pulling the wool tunic over his head and pulling his hair though, twisting it into a ponytail as he did so.

Unabashed by the questions, Mara sat down on her bed and smiled. It seemed she was satisfied the animal was staying. After all she always got her way. "We'll name her Woodie. She kind of looks like a Woodie, don't you think?"

"So now you're naming our dinner?"

"Not dinner! Rae-rae."

[Raeyn]

They indeed didn't end up eating the odd chicken that night. And by the time the twins woke up from their dusk slumber, Woodie had nested herself quite snugly beside the Kalean Spicecoat.

Still rather unhappy about the presence of yet another mouth to feed in their shared home, Raeyn began preparations for dinner. He shoed the two animals who had napped by the rather scattered firewood pile only to come to quite the discovery once they both shifted. In the place of the hen lay an object the size of an egg but by the dull reflection one could judge it was anything but.

Curiously and a little hesitantly Raeyn picked up the object. It was shaped like an egg but cool to the touch and harder than a rock. When he tapped it against the side of the table, instead of cracking it just made a dent in the wood. He could see his own reflection distorted in the object's grey surface and when he brought it up to his face to sniff it, the familiar metallic scent filled his nostrils.

Raeyn was so very surprised by this discovery that he had to stop himself from tossing the thing across the room. "How curious." he whispered instead, his gave slowly settling on the hen who just looked back at him as if nothing had happened. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

It was indeed a solid steel egg. No doubt about it. Suddenly Raeyn wasn't at all thinking of eating the animal but, after slowly coming to terms with the fact he did indeed have a magical chicken on his hands, his mind started thinking of all the possibilities he could use her for his craft. After all, free metal was free metal and judging by the perfect, smooth surface of the egg, he may not even need the blacksmith's assistance in melting it down. Not having to purchase the materials for alchemy meant that he could now allow himself a lot more room to experiment and not have to always tailor the result of his transmutations. After all free metal asn't wasted metal.

The Inarta alchemist scratched his chin in pondering. If she could lay solid steel eggs than what other kinds of eggs was she able to produce? Did what he fed her have any effect on the result? Did it have anything to do with the animal's mood? Those were the questions that boggled his mind. Ones he would soon strive to have answered as he came closer and knelt by his new companion.

"Good girl, Woodie. Perhaps you're of more use than I first thought." he cooed softly, petting the animal. She indeed seemed to enjoy it, closing her eyes and letting out quiet, deep purring noises that mimicked his words. "I think we're gonna get along just fine"

[Luminescence]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
YOUR GRADES HAVE BEEN GIFTED
ENJOY!
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Raeyn

Skills

✦Meditation +1
✦Socialization +3
✦Observation +3
✦Animal Husbandry +1
✦Planning +1
✦Tactics +1

Lores

✦Raeyn: Second-guessing himself
✦Meditation: Relaxing the body one part at a time
✦Meditation: Picturing your djed
✦Raeyn: A drama queen
✦Mara: Brings gift of chicken...but not for food
✦Raeyn: Wants to eat his new pet chicken
✦Chicken: Can be useful
✦Eggs: Good for your health
✦Raeyn: Often fights verbally with Mara
✦Mara: Stole a chicken?
✦Chicken: An odd pet that acts strangely
✦Chicken: Dubbed Woodie by Mara
✦Woodie: Lays strange metal eggs
✦Woodie: A magic chicken
✦Woodie: Metal eggs could be useful
✦Planning: Using metal eggs for alchemy
✦Raeyn: Recognizes a good opportunity
✦Tactics: Free is free

Other

✦A magical hen, dubbed Woodie by Mara, who lays strange metal eggs

Notes
There wasn't much to give skill-wise in this thread; I did give you a point in tactics for the business aspect of realizing that free stuff is free stuff. I also had quite a bit of fun with the lores for this.

As always, please don't forget to edit or delete your grading request in the queue! If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grades, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM; I'll do what I can to fix whatever the issue may be!