For The Want of Tarts (Open)

[Deleted]

The day was warm, bright and alive with the qualities of nature, shaking off the last vestiges of that long hard winter. The cold wind, defiance in its blood, carded invisible fingers through her bone-white coat, a reminder of the dying season. Remember me, friend, it seemed to whisper I will be back. But Nuelah was unbothered by the chill, the promise, and laid sprawled out on her back, slender body resting comfortably in the short grass. She nestled down on a mostly-clear patch of turf, trees towering above her in their pursuit of the nourishing light of the day-star. Small animals bounded atop the outstretched limbs, shaking free skinny pines and loose debris as they embarked on their own quests for food. A few of those little errant strays landed in her fur, her hair and against her closed eyes. 

Nuelah smiled. She had missed this, the simple charm of the natural world. Life returned anew. The chirrups, barks, and squeals like music to her ears, not at all like the noise that clattered inside the communal spaces in those massive settlements. What she heard was real music - songs that sang so sweetly to her, without words.

Winter can be beautiful, too, of course, but in the way that old bones are beautiful. Yet for all its charm she gave nothing of herself to it. Her heart belonged to spring, her soul to summer, her mind to fall. Winter, ever starved, took by force what wasn't given freely. It reminded her of her companion in that way. The chilly wind, a remnant of the bygone season, rushed over her supine form in a gust, as if knowing her thoughts and finding them unflattering.

Nuelah brushed the pines from her face with a casual sweep of her fingers and opened her eyes. She was greeted by the rays of daylight filtering through the branches like eyes peeking through splayed fingers. Her eyes moved further up the sky, to a break in the canopy where she could see the star unobscured. Nuelah raised her arms to the air and cupped her hands around the day-star, creating a soft cradle for the celestial body to dwell within.

The ever-curious faun wondered at how something so small could set the world aglow with radiance and warmth. She wondered at how it could all at once be a giver of life for some and a blazing scourge to others. She also wondered why she was punished for looking directly at it. If the gods did not want the day-star to be seen, why make it so brilliant?

Arms falling at her side, Nuelah blinked rapidly, trying and failing to banish the phantom images of the day-star from her vision. The will of the gods was great and terrible, and was not meant to be questioned by the likes of her, she concluded.

Just then the wind carried in its arms the aroma of something sweet.

"Up," she muttered to nobody but herself. "Stop dallying."

Still, two or three - or five - minutes passed before Nuelah drew herself to her feet. She raised her arms high over her head, arched her back and pushed up on the tips of her hooves, stretching the indolence from her limbs. When she felt the life return to her extremities, Nuelah crouched by the divot that once cradled her and pulled a bow from beneath a pile of sticks. The great elkhorn limbs were smooth against the pliant curve of her palm.

"Where do you go, girl?" a severe voice questioned from the shadows of the trees. Old Night, ever shrouded on the clearest of days, lazed quite comfortably on the pile of bones he'd amassed during their stay.

"I must hunt," came her reply. "For the berries."

Fruits would be coming into their season soon, if merchants didn't already have them, and those little berry stuffed pies would be making a comeback. She very much intended to carry home as many as she could when the time arrived.

Fen'Nuelah lifted both a spear and a mask from the forest floor as well. She threaded an arm through the bow and settled it across her back, the spear she tucked into the crook of her arm, blade resting beside her cheek. The mask, her second face, was held in a loose grip. When she looked up to her companion, she found his empty eyes staring at her. The demon's expression was the same wolfish grin he always wore, but there was a dusting of confusion sprinkled over top.

Nuelah waved her hand dismissively. "You would not understand." Ever the steadfast carnivore, he most assuredly would not understand, so she pulled the mask over her face and bounded off without another word.

Strong legs carried the nimble faun across the landscape until she arrived at the stretch of the forest where she last spotted a family of wild swine the day before. The area was dense with crowded trees and squat evergreen shrubs. Unearthed root systems, either dug up by searching paws or pushed up by the trees themselves, posed as tripping hazards. In the near-center of the area, a small clearing was stamped out by frequent traffic. A narrow stream, no wider than the thickness of her thighs, flowed gently but quickly across the forest floor there, flanked by a sparse 'shore' of smooth rocks.

It was there she found her quarry and killed two boars, both too old to make it far. They were dragged back to the little stream. Nuelah squatted down and eyed her spoils with little interest. Old meat, silvered fur, broken tusks - not her finest kills, but they would do well enough to get her started. Leaning over, she put the blade of her spear in water and started the task of cleaning her weapon of gore.

[Nefarious]

There was something terribly wrong about the grace period between winter and spring. The air was nice and warm, save the occasional chill wind, but there were no bugs out just yet, the flowers and trees only just starting to show their brilliant colors. He should’ve been happy about it, mesmerized by it even, but the basset hound just hated spring. Spring lead to summer, and summer in Kotar could get to be hot as hell, and as anyone with a wrinkly dog would know- summer meant lots of uncomfortable sweating and the ridiculously tedious cleaning of his ears and neck wrinkles, lest the sweat become trapped, pool and then grow infection. Ticks and fleas also became a problem as the weather warmed up, attaching to the soft places behind his ears and in the crooks of his joints. Not to mention the foul odor of pollen and ragweed and other such allergies, which thankfully didn’t affect the anthro canine too much, it just smelled bad, sometimes to the point of messing up a trail that he was following, which was terribly annoying. Still, it was like the rising of the sun- there was nothing that he could do about it. So the hound dog tried to remain light-hearted as he made his way through the brush toward a clearing.

The clearing was small, less a naturally occurring phenomenon between the trees and more like some sort of meeting place where a number of animals had flattened the grass and removed the trees. So it was small, quaint and peaceful, very remote, but the keen hound found it anyway, only to be surprised that he was not alone in the forest this day.

As he stepped out of the brush and into the beautiful sunlight, he noticed a figure on the other side of the clearing, only fifteen, maybe twenty, feet away from him, close enough to have a conversation. And, while this startled him a bit, he realized quickly that the faun had its back turned to him, so really it was him that was doing the surprising. He just kind of stood on his edge of the wood, watching the fellow anthro as she cleaned her weapon along a creek bed. The basset hound tilted his head. She looked strong, lean and wiry but athletic, the kind of body that was toned not on purpose but with purpose, to outrun predators, to climb trees, and watch for enemies, as well as to pound said enemies into the dirt if there was no other option. Her- and now that he was close enough to gather her scent in his nose, he was sure it was in fact a ‘she’- weapon of choice was some sort of interesting polearm and it made the dog grin his wide, toothy, crooked little grin. He had a lot of respect for polearms. He had tried to learn how to use one in his youth but it never really took. Polearms required some distance to be useful, not as much as a crossbow or arrow, but enough that the dog had a dislike of them, he liked to be right in his victim’s face as they bled out on the ground at his feet. It was something from the power hungry side of his brain, it felt more visceral, more personal that way. That was why he wielded two high powered revolvers. They required close combat to be effective, less accurate but with much more power if you were close enough to a target. He loved to bury the muzzle against the skull of a victim and watch the blood spray as he pulled the trigger, there was just something about it that made him feel more alive.

As his mind wandered, so did his dark insidious eyes. That was when he noticed the boar, dead on the ground at the faun’s feet and he threw up his hands in exasperation, making a noise of disappointed. He’d been tracking those boar for over a mile, but she had gotten to them first. He groaned.

“God dammit, I’ve been looking for those damn pigs all morning.” He paused to scrub his face with his paws….hands? Handpaws. “Now what am I going to eat for breakfast…?”

[Deleted]

She heard him before she saw him. The tread of his approach was made soft by the dew-moistened soil, but she still heard. Nuelah didn't immediately turn to meet eyes with the fellow, though, instead choosing to finish maintaining her weapon. It was an old thing, heavier than it looked and a foot and a half longer than she was tall. It had been put through trial after trial throughout the years with many more still to come, but the old thing was durable. Her wet hands smoothed along the ash wood shaft, wiping the curving inlay free of stray blood before returning to the metal head. The steel was hammered thin and stropped to a deadly point, made apparent by the little red bubble of blood that perched at the tip of Nuelah's prodding finger. A ball of iron, small but heavy for its size, acted as a counterweight at the butt end of the pike. While far too modern for a forest-dweller like herself, it was excellent for impaling anything trying to get close (or away), although that was where the usefulness faded - when 'get close' turned into 'got close' the thing might as well be a walking stick. But then, not too many people tended to get close enough for her weapon of choice to be unideal. 

When the words were spoken Nuelah finally turned her head to see the one sharing the clearing with her. From behind the dark mask, blue eyes glanced at the dog for the briefest of moments then took in the empty space around it, seeing no one. Setting her pike aside, the faun turned her body to better see the rest of the clearing. She looked to the left side, the right side, straight ahead of her and finally back behind her. With brows pinching inward, she angled her head toward the dog and listened. Small wildlife scurried throughout the forest around them, but not a single step belonged to a human.

Someone said those words but there wasn't anyone to say them. And because there wasn't anyone to say them, obviously Old Night was bored. The voice was different, true enough, but that old bastard had so many voices Nuelah would be more surprised if it wasn't him.

"Someday, you will have to find some other lost thing to bother," she muttered under her breath, speaking the language her mother taught her. With a grunt, Nuelah stood to her full 5'4" and approached the hound with a slow stride, careful not to spook the animal. Wary of being bitten and having to mulekick potentially someones pet, she stopped perhaps four feet away from...him? An obviously deep inhale confirmed the animal's sex.

The dog was black and tan with mottled ears, apparently punched through by earrings. The erect way he stood was not typical for the species but not entirely outlandish; she had seen her fair share of clever dogs doing tricks. Not all of them were clothed, though. Humming, Nuelah stared closer at the dog dressed down in rags. Maybe someone wanted to offer some meager form of protection against cold weather? The tatters wouldn't even keep a faint fart from a mouse at bay, though. And were those..what were they called...guns? Who would even give a dog... Poor thing. A hand was extended to the dog for him to sniff, as she had seen small children do.

Haltingly, she beckoned at him. "Here. Boyie. Gud? Mh. Good...ah... babbie dog."

The english words felt heavy in her mouth, came out slow and awkward, but they sounded right. Maybe. Probably. Yeah, definitely.

[Nefarious]

The basset hound remained calm as the faun approached him. She was taller than him- though most creatures are, so he had to look up a bit to keep her face in his sight. Or rather, what would be her face, were it not covered by some sort of mask. He narrowed his eyes as her proximity gave him a better view of it. It appeared to be made out of wood that was either burned or simply painted a dark purple sort of color and there was a symbol in the center of the forehead. A guild perhaps? No, it lacked intricate detail, it wasn't a logo, a rune perhaps? A magical rune even? The dog just had to guess, perhaps if she was open to it, he could simply ask her what it was for, the mask was even all about. She was hiding her face, why? The hound dog tilted his head in confusion.

He was a little taken aback by her ridiculous attempt at the common tongue, so much so that he had to quickly stifle a laugh, trying to appear a little on the threatening side, to make sure she didn't do anything terrible to him. But it didn't seem to be working, she spoke to him as though he was a child or even just a normal dog, reaching her hand out for a sniff or a pat. He wanted to smack her hand away, how dare she insult him by thinking of him as a clueless, lesser being, he didn't need to sniff her god damned hand.

But old habits die hard and even as his brain yelled and frothed, he leaned forward and sniffed the outstretched hand. He didn't get much information from the gesture- it was definitely a female, an adult female who has been around for a pretty extensive amount of time, she smelled a little old, a little musty, but still strong and youthful, her species must simply have an excessive life span. He tilted his head at her again.

"I'm not a baby... At least you got the dog part right." He eventually said, his tone a little annoyed but mostly laced with a confused sort of caution. As if to draw attention to them, one of his handpaws tapped a dull claw against the exposed butt of one of his revolvers hanging from a belt around his waist. "My name is Nefarious."

[Deleted]

Oh. It was the dog who spoke? Behind the glassy blue lenses of her second face, her same-colored eyes drifted off to the side and narrowed with suspicion. She still was not entirely convinced a trick wasn't being played on her, even if it seemed far too unlike Old Night's usual games. The old demon preferred to confuse with verbal deception and shapeshifting was not one of his many tricks as far as she knew. But... a dog? Huh.

Fen'Nuelah's exposure to common household pets was very limited, but she knew they could be taught tricks. Horses kneeled to their riders, cats gifted dead things to their masters and birds carried letters to far places. But in all her years this was the first time she'd come across a talking dog. Still, she supposed something such as he wouldn't be too far outside the realm of possibility. Hell, she saw a fire-breathing lizard in the sky once so why not a talking dog. 

Looking back to him Nuelah dropped her hand and, after a moment of consideration, squatted down and draped her arms over top her thighs in an attempt to appear passive. The bigger she was the more threatening she appeared, and she didn't want to frighten him. Although after eyeing him once more, something told her he wasn't the least bit intimidated by her. He looked... rough. Not scratched up or generally ragged but like he was not the type to scare easily. He was narrow-bodied (not that she'd ever seen a fat dog) but he looked capable enough that a faun would be the last thing to send him running for the hills. He also looked unrested if those dark spots under his beady eyes had anything to say. Maybe this was a working hound... of some kind. 

A small smile pulled at the corners of her lips, unseen behind her mask as she belatedly digested his words. He wasn't a baby, of course. She knew he wasn't. Nuelah may have been unlearned but she wasn't daft. Just... she assumed that was the best thing to say, even if not entirely correct. She knew how to get across the gist of what she wanted to say, largely by way of pantomiming at people, but she wasn't always on point. This dog, however, was quite the anomaly. He spoke in cohesive sentences which meant his mastery of the foreign language was far superior to hers. Maybe someone more prideful might be offended that a hound could communicate better then they could, but Nuelah was honestly captivated. What kind of life does a talking dog live? Could he speak in all the many languages? Did his master teach him? Why was he done up in tatters? And what did he need guns for? Were his teeth not good enough? Did words soften their edges? The impulsive wave of questions had to be barred by the firm set of her jaw. Speaking in the common language did not come easily to her and she did not think he would know her mother's tongue, but oh, how she wanted to ask him so many things!

"Say again." the faun commanded suddenly after what might have been an uncomfortably long silence if anyone was counting the seconds, and beckoned with her hand for him to say his name again. "Nefrer-Neferee...yas?"

Nefer-what? His name rolled around her head the moment he uttered it, but it sounded so unpretty. It did not feel like a name; it did not flow off her tongue in the same way as hers did. When she whispered his title to herself, trying to say it as he did, well it just felt unnatural. But then, most foreign names sounded weird to her, didn't they?

Waving a hand and shaking her head dismissively, the faun allowed her own to pass fluidly between her lips.

"Fen'Nuelah." The syllables flowed seamlessly together, with the end, lah, coming out soft like a gentle exhale. She was proud of her name. It was pretty and good and expressed her finer points in a single breath. Thankfully her parents gave her a good one before they died.

"Masster is...?" Nuelah trailed off, gesturing with a casual sweep of her arm at the trees behind him. Her tone was interested as she spoke, even as she carefully picked her words. "Is... Neferee lost? We go to his home, after...?"

The 'after' being the meticulous disassembling of the two dead boars that languished in the sun during this oddly welcomed distraction. They would need to be tended to before long but she wasn't so at ease as to put her back to the canine oddity. Nuelah still wasn't sure what his intentions were, if any, or why he was in 'her' forest (she would have had an idea if she bothered to process his earlier bemoaning), but she was nothing if not cautious. Those legs of his were tragically short but he didn't have to be a champion sprinter when he could riddle her with the metal balls from those guns. The faun was fast, but not that fast. Still, Nuelah decided the meat could wait just a bit longer - she was far too curious about this dog who didn't seem very much like a dog.

[Nefarious]

The basset hound squinted, reluctant to trust the faun’s ridiculously friendly behavior. He wasn’t afraid, he had no doubt that, should she reach for him or lunge, that he’d be able to put a big ol’ hole in that pretty mask of hers before she even got the chance to touch him. But at the same time, her open, curious demeanor was no comfort either. She probably wanted something from him, people were only nice when it would benefit them somehow. Perhaps she was trying to distract him, to keep him occupied long enough for her companions to show up or something. Maybe she just wanted to get close enough to pick his pockets, he did have a pretty substantial amount of gold on his person, but he tried not to worry about it. He had plenty more money back at home, he wouldn’t miss a couple of coins.

So, he tried to relax, tried to project a mask of indifference, of judgment and scrutiny, as though he had her completely figured out. His claw still tapped gently at the stock of one of his handguns, the other handpaw looped though one of his belts, hanging off of his side casually. He shifted his weight first from one foot to the other as he studied the strange creature in front of him. He sighed and rolled his eyes at the ridiculous attempt at his name.

“Nefarious.” He said, louder and slower this time. “Nef-fair-ree-us.” His tone was a little impatient, a little insistent, he didn’t like having to repeat himself. But, still somewhat curious about the faun, he didn’t storm off or just run over, grab a pig, and haul ass. He instead humored her desire for conversation.

“I have no master…” He started, pausing when she said something else. “No, I’m not lost. I don’t get lost. I was hunting…” He paused again, crossing his arms stubbornly and flicked his head in the direction of the bodies on the other side of the clearing. “… tracking some pigs. The trail lead me here. I’m still not sure how you managed to get them before me, I work pretty fast. Probably not as fast as someone like you though, you’ve got the legs of a runner. Not me.”

He gestured down at his stumpy legs with one handpaw.

“Even on all fours I am super slow. But,” This time he drew one of his revolvers, giving her clear sight of it in the brilliant sun, the almost white steel of the weapon gleaming ominously in the sunlight. Nefarious looked up at the handgun for a long thoughtful moment. “… guess you don’t need to be a runner when you’ve got a few of these.”