Tent Fires

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The woods here are thick, with the trees' branches virtually blocking out the light of the sun shining above. A barely managed trail is available to pick one's way through the undergrowth, but it's easy to find oneself stepping into a bramble patch nonetheless.

Further along the track, a wooden lodge house stands in the shadows of the trees around it. Closer inspection reveals the symbols of Gilead and Dana carved above the door.

Further still, the trail becomes virtually choked close, leading into and through a massive hedge.

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Svarshan Be a brightscale! Chomp a demon! 0s 4d

Myrana Short young woman with coal-black braids. 8s 2h

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Druid Grove <DG> West <W>

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Air beats against the side of the lodge. The stout logs stand against it, and so the wind curls to the side, seeking other entries. As it does, it gusts past a blazing fire--teases the smoke, and sends it slowly, lazily, looping into the air. At of the foot of the fire, Svarshan hunches, a skin stretched out in front of him. He holds a long blade in one hand, and draws it slowly over the hide. The blade clears the hide with each pass, drawing gristle, leftover bits of blood, or tissue. "Ssssa. I think. ...side," he says. To the side, he means. And, "Turnips. The...ssshhe had a few." The lady at the small store to the southwest, he means. He's so...communicative.

Little ribbons of potato- and turnip- and carrot-skin lie in lumps around the skirts of the black-faced lady peering intently into the oven. Black-faced because she is covered in soot. Peering because she is mad as an eggcup. Her braids bristle down her back like staticy creatures and her shoulders hunch up like vulture wings as she peels without watching her hands a knobbly potato, piling the curls on her skirts over her toes.

"Bread is a mystery, Svarshan," she says, not paying attention to him. Or perhaps being mysterious. Or drunk. It is possibly a mix of the three.

"All of these -things- go on in it."

"Mysterious things."

"Sexy things! Bubbles and gases!"

He looks up from the skin, his muzzle rumpling. She'd had him carry the stove out here, carry it out, in the cold...something about it being too smoke-filled in the lodge... And here sits talking of bubbles and bread. "That is..." Surely he has the word right. His muzzle rumples again as he looks at the items on the stove, and his tail gives a frustrated 'flick'!. "...that." ... And...surely he had the word?

"I know what you are thinking," sly Myrana reveals.

"You are thinking: But why does it bubble if it is not actually beer?"

This is probably not what Svarshan is thinking.

He opens his mouth. Closes it. He's so not good with words. And what she's saying, doing? Is beyond him right now. He draws the blade slowly over the skin.

"It is because of that mystical and tremendous mold I put in it to make it so," says Myrana. "Yeast! Yes, yeast! Same as in beer, but put in with flour and other things, it starts doing things! Shameful unspeakable things right where everybody can see it, tut tut tut."

Myrana says, "Oh! Actually I think it's done."

"You..." he tries again and then gets up. He does, though the movement is slow, and he slowly rocks against his tail, and then along one leg, to the knee...where he can get his feet underneath. "What are you making?" he asks her, at length as he looks over the stove. And then raises his muzzle to sniff the air, to scent it. And it smells like...

"AHA!" The oven door creaks with a shriek of metal hinges, and Myrana reaches in. Yes right in with her bare hands (shameful Infernal trickery that!) and plucks the ashy bread right out from it's stone over the glowing coals. "Oh! Ow!" She dances it between her fingers and it glows. It glows like bread come out of the oven, with a cracked crust and garlic oils and white cheese oozing up out of it like volcanic fissures. It looks heavy. "Ow! Ow! Hot! Svar quick!" And she tosses it to him.

"Augh!" He catches it and the pan smokes, searing his scales. His hands clench, but he doesn't drop it. Instead, the lines between his scales glow red, the color of magma beneath the earth's crust and he drops too to his heels. Holding the thing. His breath comes quickly, from the rush of adrenaline. "..." and "..." and he looks at her. Just. Looks at her.

Myrana is shaking her smarting fingers and wiping them on her apron, looking at Svarshan with an expression of... of... Oh oops!

Myrana says, "I ah."

Myrana says, "I thought you were like, you know, flame retardant."

Myrana says, "You're not flame-retardant?"

He opens his muzzle again. Closes it. "Yes."

Myrana says, "Yes you are, or yes you aren't? Because you should let your friends know that before they go and throw hot bread at you."

Myrana says, "It's just considerate."

He grips the pan either side, and walks it over to the stove, and then sets it there. Upon the hot metal. And turns and looks at her. And says, "Yes."

Myrana watches Svar do this with her face screwed up in a disgruntled pout... and then strokes her chin.

Myrana says, "So if I were to say."

Myrana says, "Someday, you know."

He looks at her with a patient, interested expression.

Myrana says, "Accidentally you see."

His eyes narrow.

"Set your tent on fire."

Myrana says, "Hypothetically, would you be alright with that?"

He takes a step forward.

And another.

Myrana cocks a hand to the side and looks sideways at the Makar.

Until he's about three inches from her face.

"No."

Myrana swallows.

And a slow grin. "Unlesssss you were a female sith'makar."

Myrana says, "A-aahaa. Yes well. That is the sort of thing one must knoww-wwwoowowoow wow what?"

Myrana stares at Svarshan in horrified fascination.

Myrana says, "You set each other on FIRE?"

Myrana says, "ON FIRE?"

Myrana claps a hand to her forehead.

"Yes," is all he says, though there's humor to it, now. A Tarienite-glint in the eyes, there. And then, "No." He reaches up and taps her on the nose before simply walking back to his skin.

And sits down.

Myrana says, "Wh-- but.."

Myrana says, "Bhu."

And picks up the blade. And begins to work.

Myrana takes a huffing breath, and rising up onto her toes like a bristling hedgehog, she tromps stiff-legged over to the oven. STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP!

"Are you making bread?" he asks her, after a while.

"And bread isss not a stew?" See, he has to have the words right.

This is important.

Myrana gets out the bread, much more carefully this time and using a wooden spoon and the edges of her skirts. "Yes-- I was learning about it. And I thought I would try a thing and share it with my friend." She turns around with a swish and a poff of soot, holding the steaming loaf in her skirts and sniffing haughtily. "Because-- no it is not a stew."

Myrana says, "Bread and stew is two different things."

Myrana says, "One begins with ess."

"Yes," he says. To both. To all. And grins.

Myrana flounces toward the fire, pretending not to notice. "AND I WAS GOING TO SHARE IT WITH MY FRIEND" she repeats, louder so that she can start again. "If he did not turn out to stink like a jerk." She sits next to the Makar, and starts breaking the bread in half. Hot oozy turnip and onion and potato goobers out from the middle.

Myrana offers the other half to Svarshan. "But it turns out much to my pers'nal amazement that I have many saintly qualities and don't ever want to hear more about what happens when two Makar try to kill each other by arson."

He blinks at her, and the look could be of one who understands not a thing. Or it could be Tarien's own humor, too.