[OOM] Eiattu - Grasslands

[fighting_mad]

Plourr rolls onto her back and stares up at the blue sky, shading her eyes with one hand. It's a warm day, a few wispy clouds scudding across the sky and the sun shining bright. The two thaks are quite happily tucking into their feed nearby, tethered to a fallen tree, and the tall blades of grass wave softly in the wind all through the field. Best yet, there's no sign of anyone else or any manmade object as far as the eye can see; just grass, thaks, forest, and sky. She closes her eyes and lets the sun warm her face.

Comments

[fighting_mad]

Koer has a nasty habit of body-checking her mistress (really, they are kindred spirits) from time to time, and it is to her own misfortune that she chose that precise moment to do so. Plourr staggers to one side, but the tossed mud goes splat against Koer's rump. The thak squawks indignantly and swishes her muscular tail, and Plourr, oblivious to the shot that was just taken for her, swats her scaly orange muzzle.

"No rules!" she shouts over her shoulder. The stable doors have already been rolled open; from the looks of it, the few hands standing under the shelter of the roof have been watching the rain come down.

They stare at the princess of the realm, heir-apparent to the royal throne of Eiattu IV, and the filthy princess treats them to a serene nod as she passes. Inside the barn, it is warm and dry and smells of animals, tall grass, and feed, and Plourr slicks her hair back with her free had, leading Koer back toward her designated stall.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial smiles cheerfully at the stable-hands and shouts after her "Still cheated." Leading Erantu to his stall, he begins unsaddling the tired thak, brushing hair out of his eyes.

"Cheater," he mumbles, and makes a rather rude hand gesture in her general direction.

[fighting_mad]

She makes it right back as she balances the saddle on the stall door. "Try not to be a sore loser, sweetheart," she says, grinning and slipping the bit out of Koer's mouth and the bridle off her face. Koer digs her nose into her shoulder, already searching for bluefruit, and Plourr strokes her forelock, picking up a cloth and wiping down the wet scales of her face. "It's unbecoming."

[eiattu_pride]

"Yeah, yeah."

Rial unbuckles the bridle, takes off the saddle and sets the saddlepad upside-down to dry. "Cheating is unbecoming."

[fighting_mad]

Plourr sniggers cheerfully enough--if still smug as a well-fed thuvasaur--and doesn't dignify that with a response, rubbing Koer down. She talks to her quietly, and there may be a hum or two under her breath, though she wouldn't easily admit that one.

[eiattu_pride]

When Rial's finished grooming Erantu (and maybe he slips the thak a little piece of bluefruit he'd been saving for himself) he stands in front of Koer's stall, attempting to squeeze water from his hair.

"Ready?"

[fighting_mad]

Plourr ruffles a content Koer's mane and slips out of the stall, picking at the fabric of her soaked trousers, which are sticking to her like an uncomfortable second skin, just like the rest of her clothes. She leans against Rial a moment. "As long as you're finished sulking because I beat you," she says, grinning up at him.

[eiattu_pride]

"I," Rial informs her, "am not done. I shall go to our quarters and spend the rest of the night sulking in my wet clothes, telling all my troubles to Wainthropp, until the next morning."

Beat.

"That's when I die of a broken heart."

[fighting_mad]

She's snickering before he has even finished, leaning into him harder, and she laughs outright, by the end.

"Or of the common cold," she says wryly, kissing his cheek.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial grins at her, before remembering that he's supposed to be sulking. "Never. That's far too ordinary."

Slipping an arm around her shoulders, "Besides, I don't get sick. Who would take care of the datawork?"

[fighting_mad]

"Me," she points out, still wry, and she heads for the barn doors. She may not sling an arm around him in return, but it should be said that she certainly doesn't go out of her way to dislodge his.

A stablehand starts to offer an umbrella in their general direction, but Plourr just snorts and heads back out into the downpour.

[eiattu_pride]

"Gods help us," says Rial, deadpan, and shakes his head at the offered umbrella.

[fighting_mad]

"Yeah," she says, the rain immediately pounding her hair flat again as she turns an easy grin on him, picking her way through the mud under his arm. "Don't die."

[eiattu_pride]

Rial squeezes her shoulder lightly, rain pouring down onto him. "Never, my princess."

[fighting_mad]

"Oho, immortal, are you?" she says, laughing, paying more attention to him than she is to the eventual goal of the side entrance across the courtyard.

[eiattu_pride]

"Of course," he says, grinning. "Skin of steel and a heart of...something impenetrable."

[fighting_mad]

They're both grinning fit to bust, dripping and muddy and looking decidedly unroyal, when Plourr tugs him through the door. It's the servants' level of the palace, but it's closest and besides, Plourr has never thought herself above being down here. More specifically, it is one of the kitchens, populated by precisely one boy, peeling tubers.

He stares to his heart's content. Plourr quirks an eyebrow at him and says to Rial, "Shielded, maybe?"

[eiattu_pride]

Rial grins at the boy, flicks water at Plourr, and nods.

"Very much so."

[fighting_mad]

"Mmm, well, I'm not," she says, ducking away from the water-flicking and slipping her wet hand into his, largely to prevent further attacks. Through the kitchen, into the cramped hallway, and pressing her boot into the baseboard beside a barrel of flour, all without hint of hesitation. Plourr knows her palace. "Immortal, that is." The panel in the wall slides open and she steps through without a second thought. "Despite what the boys might have said after some of the stunts I pulled."

[eiattu_pride]

Hmm. Rial will have to remember this one.

"That's a pity, now." He reaches out with his other hand, half-touches the side of her face, "Stay alive anyway?"

[fighting_mad]

She smiles at him, fleeting and genuine. "Of course." Then she turns and leads them deeper into the passage, moving under the low light of the self-contained glowlamps placed here and there.

"I've got this whole living thing down pretty well."

[eiattu_pride]

"Excellent."

Rial thinks that now would be an optimal time to mention children, but...he doesn't want to ruin the mood.

So he stays quiet.

[fighting_mad]

The air in the passage is cool and a little stale, like it always is, and she can feel her skin begin to lose some of the warmth afforded by the humid air outside. She glances at him, once, but he doesn't seem inclined to say anything, and contrary to popular belief, Plourr doesn't mind a little silence once in a while and can keep her mouth shut.

So she guides them through the maze of passageways, taking a left here, right there, left left right straight left, all with absolute surety.

Until there is only darkness ahead, and she stops. "Shit." The lights in this passage must be out of power.

[eiattu_pride]

Rial makes a face, glancing up ahead. "Let me guess. That's our only way out of here?"

Rial Pernon, while most don't know it, is not very fond of the dark. He won't panic, or anything, but he's not a huge fan of dark shadowy secret passages where anything could be lurking.

[fighting_mad]

"Well," she says, and she glances over her shoulder, in the direction that they came. "We could go back that way. It'll drop us right in the middle of the main corridor, though." Otherwise known as, as the name suggests, the most widely traveled thoroughfare in the entirety of the palace. Which also happens to be just about as far from their apartments as one can get.