Afterbunn

As always the Fireside Lodge is a rowdy place. Large figures arm wrestle and share drinks over war stories. Thus Razen - even is his blood-covered armor - doesn't stand out much. He is dripping onto the table he's managed to keep to himself (thus far), and onto the dirt floor as he nurses a pint of heavy drink and watches the others in the lodge having a good time. From the expression on his face he'd love to join in. On the sports or the conversations perhaps; it's impossible to tell which. He doesn't however. Razen sits in his corner and drinks alone.

Compared to the usual patrons of a tavern such as this, the thing that walks through the door next is short and scrawny. The blue-robed priestess Chloe was still in stalker mode, and having waited outside for a bit to see if Razen would return, she decided to peer in and see if he was even still around. She uncoils the braid from the bun it was put up into and begins putting the silver clasps in other places along her hair as she stays to the edge of the main room, until she sees Razen, bunny blood and all, tucked into a corner by his lonesome. At least until she slides into the chair opposite his at the table, "Hai."

Razen looks up from his drink with a long blink of surprise and smiles at Chloe. "Hello! Did you enjoy our bout?" He lifts a hand and wipes at a spot of blood on his cheek only to smear more blood on his face.

Chloe crinkles her nose as he smears more scarlet cross his green features, "Not really, poor bunnies. I mean yeah yeah I know.. they weren't normal rabbits but -stiiiilll-" She sighs a little and shakes her head. She dramatically flops back against the chair and lets her arms dangle past the seat as she peers at Razen conspiratorially. After a few moments she sits forward again, folding her arms along the table and resting her chin on them, her braid coming down the side of her face and partially obscuring it as it runs along her forearm.

The half-oruch lets out a hearty chuckle and shakes his head. "They would have eaten /us/ if given a chance. I am betting that they will taste fine when I cook this later." Razen nudges a pile by his foot of rabbit pelt. It's a very large pile of pelts tied together with rope and undoubtedly the pelt is wrapped around some rabbit meat. "I have been thinking to have made fur-topped boots with the pelts, would you like some?"

Chloe arches an eyebrow, tilts her head to peer around the edge of the table, looks back up. Her face is unreadable for a moment as eyebrows shift and lips draw back, but finally she sighs as her mask resets, "Blegh, yeah sure, they're pretty, I shoulda grabbed some myself but I was busy uhhhhhhh...." She perks up suddenly and glances around as if she had forgotten something, then shrugs and settles back down, glancing to Razen's face once more, "So do you often slaughter things and then get drunk?"

Razen considers the question a few seconds before shrugging. "There are a lot of unusual and terrible things around Alexandria. Demons and the like." He seems contemplative for long moment before taking a hefty swig of his drink and looking unsettled. Clearly looking to somewhat change the subject he zeros in on the sentence that she left open. "So what were you busy doing?"

Chloe nods along a little bit, letting her eyes wander as he falls silent, but then he asks what she was doing and her face turns light red as she shoots up from her relaxed position, "Nothing!" She glances around, then peers back at him as she settles back in, "Oh you meant... well yeah, noooothing." She sticks her tongue out at him, the color not fading from her face.

Some might think oruch, and their kin dull, but Razen is far from it. He grins at her, unwilling to let her escape his question so easily. "That hardly seems like /nothing/." Thoughts flicker across his storm-green eyes, and tilts his head. "What could you be hiding that you did not do?"

Chloe lifts up a hand to try and hide her face, peering at Razen from the corner of her eye around the edge of her fingers, "I totally.. wasn't following you at all." She says in a soft little flat voice, like a kid that's been caught and made to confess. Her eye contracts a little before she flops her hand back down and lays her chin upon her folded arms once more.

The answer clearly stimies Razen; he stares at her blankly and then with a small tinge of suspicion. "Why would you be following me? Did someone hire you to follow me?" He lets his hand fall away from his tankard, both of them flat on the table with just a little tension in them suggesting that he is considering that he might have a fight on his hands.

Chloe perks up an eyebrow, lazily turning her face to meet his, and after a moment of scruitny she straightens up, "What? No nah I uhhhh I mean uhhhh... I just was uhhh... following you... no reason.. no reason what so ever..." As she mumbles her left hand comes up, playing with her braid and teasing at her hair as she tries to look anywhere but at Razen.

Razen leans forward, trying to meet her gaze though she keeps looking elsewhere. Finally he grasps her shoulder with one bloodied hand and when he speaks it's with half a growl. "Tell me why you were following me!"

Chloe's honey eyes go wide as he grabs ahold of her shoulder. It's not rough or painful, but it does surprise her all the same, as does the boom in his voice despite the lower volume. "I... cause uhhh..." She bites her lower lip for a moment, unable to look away as the red rises in her face, "Cause I uhhh.. wanted to?" She nods suddenly, "Yeah, cause I wanted to, s'all!"

GAME: Chloe rolls bluff: (9)+11: 20
GAME: Razen rolls sense motive: (16)+0: 16

Razen lets go of her carefully and frowns a little to himself. "Sorry... I did not mean to frighten you or anything." He sighs and shakes his head. "Things have been so strange since I moved here I feel like I do not always understand people." The half orc offers her an apologetic smile. "It is very different where I come from."

GAME: Chloe rolls bluff: (14)+11: 25

Chloe flashes a bright smile and waves a hand dismissively, "Didn't scare me even a little bit. Sorry, I'm... weird. I come from a very small town and so many people! Oh the people, and then there's you and well yeah, yah know... anyways I'm sorry if I am freaking you out." She giggles nervously for a moment before she glances at the untended mug, "Can I join you? With tea, clearly.

Razen nods and lifts a hand to bring the waiter to them. It's not right away, because the waiter has to dodge around several impromptu arm-wrestling matches. "Of course. Let me buy, as an apology."

Chloe will not turn down a drink on someone else, even if it was only going to be hot water, as she tells the waiter exactly that while going through the folds of her robes and pulling out a small pouch. Laying this on the table as the waiter walks away she begins sorting through the contents, before pulling out a small silver ball with tiny holes, and then crunching various leaves up into the silver sphere before locking the clasp and waiting. The whole time she's staring-not-staring at Razen from the corner of her eye.

The half-oruch watches her pull out the silver ball with interest, but as she starts sorting leaves and mixing them he leans back away from her a little and eyes the leaves suspiciously. "Are you going to make it by magic?"

Chloe snorts a little, shaking her head, "No, I'm going to put the leaves in the hot water, and this ball keeps the leaves from getting in my tea! Only certain types of tea do you want leaves in, and you don't want leaves in any tea unless you're trying to see the leaves, and then it really matters what kind of leaves you're using, and who you're drinking the tea with." She's rapid-fire talking as her finger rolls the silver sphere about underneath the tip until a mug of hot water is brought moments later, at which she smiles brilliantly and plops the tea holder in, letting it sink to the bottom and hanging the little silver cat charm off the lip of the mug so it doesn't slink into the warm depths.

Razen makes a soft drawn out 'ah' sound and watches as she drops her silver ball into the water before taking a drink of his own drink. The waiter was nice enough to bring him a second round as well, so he finished the fist off before the man could wander off again. All the better to leave the table relatively empty. "So, what brings you to the Fireside? If not the ale I mean."

Chloe leans her cheek into the cup of her left palm, watching Razen as she occasionally uses the fingers of her right hand to grasp the silver chain and tease the sphere within the water. At the question she grins a little, rolling her eyes gently as she starts to lean as if to fall out of her chair before recovering with a giggle, "Yah don't listen do yah, I was following you, so why ever you're here, I'm here, for similar reasons!" She nods self-satisfactory in her answer. Razen laughs. "I am here for the drink and..." He glances toward the people around them. "For the company." He glances at her, and there's a little light that seems to go off in his eyes. "Were you following me before? On that mission to kill the rabbits?"

Chloe shifty-eyes, then peers at Razen, pursing her lips before saying, "...Yes?.." But is it a statement, a question, a declration of ignorance? It's hard to tell, made even more so by her sudden preoccupation with staring down into the darkening waters of her brewing tea.

Razen takes it as a statement and seems pleased with himself, and his stormy gaze slides away from her to watch the people moving about the lodge for a bit. It's clear he's deep in thought. "It is a quiet night here. Usually by now someone has tried to start a brawl or two. I should challenge someone to a match..." He makes no move to do so however, his hands wrapped around his mug as though it was warm. Razen shakes his head and seems to shake himself. "How about you? If you came for the company - since you clearly did not come for the drinks - then you must want to challenge someone!"

Chloe looks up from her preoccupations, and then just stares at Razen with her eyes squinted and head tilted to the side like 'Whaaaaat?' for several long moments before she shakes her head and starts laughing, almost uncontrollably. Finally she settles down and shakes her head, "I don't challenge, people, I entertain them! I mean I can see why you challenge people, I mean uhhh yah know you're... you and like uhhh.." She's sort of just vaguely gesturing at him and his torso with her hands af if that should explain everything, "Ripped and everything so like, that's what you do but not me no no, I play cards and my flute and I make jokes and I make people laugh and smile!"

Razen laughs, and then laughs again the sound light and surprisingly gentle. "Little does not mean weak. After all Ga'Elian is barely bigger than you, and he took down a giant with barely any effort at all." He sounds suitably impressed with the elf and shrugs. "I do not challenge people because I am certain of victory, in fact I look for those I know might truly challenge me... and I am hardly the strongest you will find."

Chloe nods a bit as she dips the sphere in and out of the warm browning liquid, "Sure it doesn't, but it does for me." She says with a little bit of a smirk, sticking her tongue out beside the silver ring set into her lower lip before drawing it back. She pulls out the silver sphere and lets it sway gently over the top of the mug as the droplets drain out of the leaves contained within. "Of course you don't, I didn't mean to insinuate that, I just meant yah know, you beat stuff up, I make you not look so beat up! And I make you feel better at the end of the day."

GAME: Razen rolls bluff: (2)+1: 3

Awkwardly Razen rubs his shoulder and shifts his weight, looking away from her at the people in the lodge. "I guess I did manage to land killing blows on two of those beasts. I can not expect more than that." He sighs heavily just the same.

GAME: Chloe rolls sense motive: (9)+7: 16

Chloe watches him momentarily before she picks up the mug and tentatively sips from the edge of the lip, a little sigh of contentment after she swallows, "I am not quite sure what you mean, and I'm not qualified!" She purses her lips to the side, looking at Razen over the top of her tea, one eye slightly squinted. "For what it's worth, I don't uhh.. care how good you are at beating things up? If that makes any sense, I don't make sense to myself anymore since I got here."

"I have trouble understanding too." He grinned at her as if they could bond over not being able to make sense of her words. "But then as I said before - the customs and words of this place are all very new to me." Razen takes a drink of his ale and settles it back down without a sound. "Do you come from somewhere else, or has Alexandria always been home to you?"

Chloe giggles a little and nods, "Yes, same to me. Oh no, no I come from Yles Namvadin, if you know Yelrona, though she is quite a bit older, we grew up in the same village. So the big city is like well it's just.. mind blowing!" She nods quickly several times then sips on her tea, glancing at Razen with a little smirk on her lips before she seems to notice herself and peers down into the contents of her mug with pursed lips again.

Razen nods. "I know Yelrona quite well, but she has not really talked to me about her home at all." He glances aside and looks at his own drink. "I really do not know what to make of Alexandria but... perhaps you can tell me more of your homeland?" Razen seems actually interested meeting her eyes with a surprisingly intense gaze.

Chloe looks up for a moment, then her eyes dart away again after the contact, red crossing her cheeks as she bits into her lower lip. Then she clears her throat and shrugs all nonchalant while glancing askew at another patron while her fingertips trace the lip of her mug. "Well iunno, it's small, we pretty much all know each other. My dad ran the Inn, called the Wandering Crescent. Rona's mom was the High Priestess, I'm only half so uhh I'm not as old as a lot of the others that are like my age in the community, if that makes any sense. Basically I'm the baby but not baby of town." She giggles a little, "There was a couple others like me but they only came in the summers because they lived out in the forests instead of in the village proper."

Razen blinks in surprise. "You are half Sildanyar?" He clearly had not been able to tell, but he smiles at her and touches her arm with one large hand. "Half does not mean less."

She nods a few times, but as he touches her arm Chloe freezes a little like a deer that had just been startled. After a moment she twists her lips in a shy smile and shrugs a little, "Yeah, I know. It might not mean less, but it does mean short! Well, in a certain way, anyways!" She grazes her top teeth over her lower lip as she goes 'uhhhmmmm' and then she sits up a little straighter, "For the most part we just, did our things. The only times things were different were during the celebrations. I was put in charge of running festivities for the Temple while I was an acolyte so I got to organize the celebrations and make sure everything was ready and convince everyone to help out."

The half orc pulls his hand away, scrubbing it over the short curly hair on top of his head and sitting up a little straighter as she explains the things that she used to do back home. "That sounds like a lot of work. It must have been nice though, to be trusted with something that is that important." He takes a small drink of his ale and shifts the cup around rather than settling it on the table.

Chloe arches an eyebrow at him, "Pffft, I suppose, I would much rather have been left in the libraries and not having to deal with centuries old nitpicking and grudges to get everything working." She laughs a little, shaking her head slightly, "Not that it was that bad, but they're all old families and some just don't like others and would have just little things that had to be done before they'd cooperate or things like that. Like I'll make the pie, but she has to provide the apples and he has to provide the crust stuff like that."

Razen chuckles and shakes his head. "It would be better if they fought it out. I thought that the Sildanyar were better about working together than all that.

Chloe raises up a hand, palm flat, and wriggles it back and forth a little, "In general I would say so, but in communities like that it's... a well balanced network shall we say. No one will necessarily say no even if their demands are not met, but it's just better for everyone if things get settled out. It just means I had to start planning for an event a few months in advance." She giggles slightly.

Even so Razen looks agast. "Months? In advance of a festival everyone knows is coming?" He shakes his head in surprise of what the Sildanyar must do in all that time. "Those must be some festivals at least. If you get ready that far in advance it must be a good celebration."

Chloe nods energetically then sips at her tea in the quiet moments before she speaks again, gently crossing her legs at the knee underneath the table. "They are very energetic and enjoyable yes! Especially the spring festival, I missed out on the summer festivals, both here and at home, because I was travelling here."

Razen nods and finally finishes off his drink. "I should go and get some of this gore off of me." He offers her a grin. "I am sure that we will see one another again soon."

Chloe pouts momentarily, but she does her best to hide it behind her mug before she finishes off her tea and nods gently, "Okay! Yeah you'd look way better not covered in semi-innocent bun-guts." She grins lightly then glances around before she ties up her pouch and tucks it back away in her robes then stands, "Well! I'm'a quit following you for today, buh bai!" She does a little twirl while grabbing the edge of the split in her robe as a sort of farewell wave before she meanders her way into the crowd and heads for the tavern doors.

-End-