Setting: An enchanted forest

[coerthan]

[This forest is lovely, dark and deep, with pale blossoms and little floating lights peeking from dark shadows, a mist filling the air, and a general sense of mystery and magic pervading the entire place.

And if there's one thing the duskwight, cave-raised Drividot hates, it's magical forests.]

Damnable trees... [he mutters, struggling to bend aside shrubbery without getting slapped in the face with a bent branch.] I suppose that I can't just take an axe to them, otherwise I'll have sylphs or elementals or wailers or gods-know-what after my arse...

[And he freezes when he hears a branch snap that he had nothing to do with. Now what?]

Comments

[brushitoff]

[More branches snap as she comes into view.]

Wouldn't it be more trouble to use your axe? These are trees you're talking about, after all.

[coerthan]

[Oh--just a person. And not some forestborn who'd mourn the health of the trees, the way she's snapping through the branches. Good.]

I suppose you've got a point. No one has time to chop down an entire forest on his own. [He looks around the woods a bit wistfully though.] Even if I think we would be better off. Magical forests...

[brushitoff]

They're useful sometimes. What do you think this one is protecting? [She assumes it has to be protecting something.]

[coerthan]

No idea. [Folds his arms over his chest while thinking.] Portals to the void, ancient fallen kingdoms, the superiority of some chosen people--there are a lot of options. [His tone is sardonic and a bit bitter--he has firsthand experience with all of those.]

[moonpower]

[The magic in the air is what lures him here to begin with. A sense of wonder and caution, he almost startles himself with the breaking of the branch.

He looks down for a moment before up again, having followed the sounds of leaves and brush being moved aside to make way. He expected an animal, though. Yukito smiles faintly.]

I wasn't expecting another person. I hope I didn't startle you.

[coerthan]

You did, [Drividot returns,] But if that's all you're going to do, I don't mind. [A small hyur is much better than a large monster, after all--and he looks very harmless.]

[crossedarrow]

[Perhaps 10 yards from Drividot, a bowman leads his horse through the forest. He's no trouble cutting whatever's in his path down with a longsword, so he notices the elezen first. Silently, he moves to his horse's pack and withdraws a steel bow and quiver of arrows, drawing as silently as he can.

This... person didn't wear the colours of the enemy. Perhaps that was why the bowman was aiming for his shoulder. Any human wouldn't be able to hear the bow bending. An elezen probably would.

But he's never seen an elezen before now.]

[coerthan]

[Indeed an elezen can. An elezen can recognize that sound easily, from their own long history with the same weapon. An elezen can also reach for their own bow, under pretense of seeing something in the underbrush at a different angle from the hunter.]

I hope I don't have to shoot you, [He says to the underbrush.] I fear that would lead somewhere neither of us want to go.

[crossedarrow]

[He didn't expect to be heard. What had started as something commonplace in a strange location - letting fly a few arrows and killing before asking questions now posed a predicament. He'd had time, by now, to note the fact this man - while certainly a man, was not human. Too tall. His face far too angular. Ears, pointed. Limbs, elongated. Not to the point of being grotesque - just not human.

He'd assumed that the man was a manakete. But a manakete with a bow and arrows... He flattened his back against a tree, turning away. His eyes darted to his horse, a silent indication to it to stay where it was. If that went down, he really was screwed.

Perhaps Drividot heard the sound of twigs snapping before a human emerged from his (discovered) vantage point. The bow stayed raised, and his eyes were cold.

And he said nothing, save for one question, if the utterance of a few words could be called a question.]

Which banner do you fight underneath?

[coerthan]

[Hostile hyur. Not much of a surprise, really--the bow and arrows, only slightly; but then hyuran archers were far from unknown. The banner question, though--that was out of place. It belonged farther north, to the feuds and fights between the High Houses when they didn't have enough dragon-fighting to keep their warriors occupied. Not to a place like this.]

None, [wasn't precisely a true answer, but it was close enough.]

[crossedarrow]

[A snort, but not even the flicker of a smile.]

Don't expect me to believe you've a bow like that without the support of a high house.

[The man's unarmoured. He's not a knight...]

[coerthan]

[He'll see that snort and raise you an actual laugh.]

The High Houses, supporting archery when they could give the same resources to spears? Don't make me laugh.

[And he does seem to be armored. Surely, he would know better...]

[crossedarrow]

[Not laughing.

Part of the bowman wants to discuss the merits of being far further away than the end of a stick to bring something down, (after all, even he has some kind of reverence for his art) but...]

I have little idea what country you belong to, but I'll assume your head can come off alike any other man's. Should you wish to keep it, I counsel you to leave my lord's wood.

[walks_the_earth]

[Ginko is so at home in the woods, this man sticks out like a sore thumb. He must be from one of the cities... no villager worth his or her salt would trample around like a blind ox, like this guy is doing.

He's close enough to catch the last part of that as he steps into sight, shifting the box on his back so he doesn't catch it on the branch he ducks under.]

The god here is pretty easy going, actually. You could probably chop down some of the trees, if you need the firewood, but I don't recommend chopping the whole forest down.

[Aside from pissing off the God and Nature in general, that is a rather daunting prospect considering the size of the woods and the thickness of most of the trees.]

[coerthan]

[When the twig-snapper steps into view as a single hyur--who looks unarmed, possibly a peddler from the box he carries--he relaxes visibly.] It isn't like anyone even has the time to chop the whole damned thing down, [he mutters, before extricating himself completely from the bush (being six-nine and leggy makes getting tangled in things regrettably easy).]

So, [Drividot says, his humor improving with the absence of scratchy twigs,] which god is it that lives here, then? SInce you know them to be... easy-going. [Not a word he usually associates with gods.]