The Party Continues (Liz x Eldar)

While the weather was nice and such, Rose had only just gotten into her home and relaxed for a moment when she saw something moving a few hundred yards or so off in the trees. 'What is that? Not an animal that's for sure. But nobody's crazy enough to trespass here. . .Wait a second. . .' She took a moment to remember that she'd given a certain someone an open invitation to visit her, and given that they'd made it this far she had all the clues she needed. Del'ure always did have perfect timing, from her perspective at least.

She took up a pair of gloves to guard against splinters and creepy crawlies and made her way with a silent hop skip and a jump through the leaf-bare yet moss-fluffed trees, quite aware of where her guest was at. He just missed a hidden trap a few yards to one side, and was headed away from the next one she remembered she'd set. Granted there were some that had lain untouched since the day she set them, and she wasn't sure they'd go off after so long in disuse, but they existed and on every occasion they never ceased to keep curious and/or uninvited idiots off her property. She paused just out of earshot and sat on a somewhat sturdy branch about twenty feet or so off the ground to wait until he noticed her. When waiting failed after ten seconds or thereabouts, she smiled widely and waved to him.

"Why hello there darling! You have excellent timing, I just had time to get into my home and clean up a bit before I saw you passing by. I hope you didn't have trouble getting here, I did have traps set along the way." She liked to have her privacy at home, since in her mind her career forced her to be social enough as things stood. It didn't take long after her greeting to feel sore sitting in the tree, and it was a shorter time after that realization that she was making her way to the ground to meet her guest. "I got that book I was looking for, nearly cost me a lung but I got it. What've you been up to if I may ask? Anything interesting or exciting?"

"Oh they wanted me for a sacrifice but I managed a skin-of-my-teeth escape. I have a scar from where they tried to take out a lung." The latter statement was accompanied by a laugh, because she thought they were crazy as hell. Her smile faded only slightly when he mentioned how tough it was to get her to house. "I made it that way on purpose, I don't want trouble from people any more than I already get without it being uninvited. Though I'll let you in on a secret: most of my traps have gone so long out of use that they no longer work. So anything you encountered that actually made an attempt to work was simply down to luck." Rather piss poor luck in her mind but best not to say that.

"No need to watch for traps, past this point there aren't any for my own safety." That was something she'd had to really think about: whether or not she wanted to lose her leg walking to the lake to fish. Clearly that was no difficult decision, and when she built her house out in the middle of the swamp the half mile radius around her house was trap-free. Any traps that remained after so long of nobody bothering to set them off, only a small handful still worked. None of them were even lethal, just a bit of a jolt. "You hungry? I was about to get something cooking when you arrived. Only thing I can advise down here on the ground is to watch for snakes and other little creepy things." She spied something moving ahead of her on the ground and picked it up without much hesitation, except to dodge a strike when she realized it was a snake. "Aha! Got a feisty one!" After a quick examination she dropped it into the mud along the side of the path. "Pretty but not big enough to cook just yet." She'd been serious about cooking snake while he was visiting.

"I'll eat snakes, birds, the occasional reptile if I can catch them. I'll venture into the nearest village to get fruit now and then but usually just dried things that will keep for a good deal of time. I never quite know how long I'll end up being home, so I cover the basics and empty the cupboards when I leave again." Right as she got to the hidden ladder at the side of the tree her home was perched in she heard a loud hiss coming from the ground and quickly jumped a foot or so back. "Well smack me twice and call me stupid, I was standing on a nest of snakes!" It was more of a joy than a horror to her because that meant there would be good food on the table and leftovers after dinner. With a grin and a moment to readjust her gloves, she quickly grabbed one of the rather angry snakes behind the head and decisively wrapped it around her arm. "Wonder what all I could make with a few snake skins that look this lovely. . .?" The pattern on the reptile in question was a rather stunning maroon with a slightly darker mottled overtone. After looking at the nest again she relaxed her shoulders.

"If you'll venture around the other side of the tree the ladder should still be easy to reach without risk of being bitten." Sure enough everything was quiet and Rose was quickly up the ladder, one hand still holding what was going to end up being dinner. "Make yourself at home! I haven't gotten everything back in order yet but the book I acquired is over there on the table, and I do have my sea monster boots on the bookshelf in the den." For the elf it was over to the kitchen area to make short work of breaking down the snake she'd caught. The head and venom gland was carefully set aside so that one it didn't get into the actual meal, and two so Rose could extract it for later use. Off next was the skin and finally the meat was filleted while the bones were dropped in a small pot to boil.

More than likely she would head back down and pick up another snake or two and leave the nest alone otherwise. She didn't care that they'd made a nest where they did, heck she'd make sure the snakes survived because that meant easy food when they got big enough. The good thing about where she lived was everything was that she was the only person living in the area. "Got any questions for me? Anything you wanna know?" Now that she was home and had a chance to fully relax, questions were welcome and sitting in silence with a guest in the room just felt awkward.

"It was my appearance I think, but I wasn't born looking like this; I was poisoned in my younger years and while I survived I lost most of the pigment in my skin and my eyes turned yellow. Bounty hunters aren't known for keeping close ties to anyone either, so they were going to harvest my organs for some project or another. They got blood but not much else. Besides I don't know if they just wanted me dead or for use in a ritual." It wasn't the first time she'd had a close shave like that, but it was a first concerning a dragon cult. Bandits, other hunters, murderers: she'd seen a wide variety of people capable of butchery but, this was a new level of insane to her. "They don't even look normal. The way they style themselves and the way their bodies look borders on grotesque." Then again it was a dragon worshiping cult so her idea of normal was by far not something they'd be concerned with.

The sight of him sprawled out in one of her chairs was enough to bring a smile to her face despite her recent ordeal. "Not like they'd know how I came to look like I do, and I don't care. I got out alive and with the item I went searching for, so it was worth it to lose some blood and gain a new scar." It was almost boring if she got out of a job without some kind of wound to remember the trip by at this point. "I'm not used to having company in this particular house, in fact you're the only actual person I've ever had up here. Birds get in here on occasion and I'm always getting rid of bugs, but most people tend to heed the signs I put up." She turned her attention to the snake head and proceeded to drain the venom into a vial and place it on a shelf with a label under it that read "Snakes - Swamp Vipers". She had labels for scorpions, centipedes, two breeds of dragon and two or three for different kinds of snakes. "Feel free to have a look around the house if you want, I don't keep my secrets here."

She hadn't been thinking, of course, of the things she brought with her from her previous life on the Triad. There was an old box in the farthest corner of the house that had a diary in it and a good few letters that she'd written to her family during her marriage. The last ones made mention of her son, her husband's death, and her bizarre reaction to being poisoned. The son in question was long since dead, having been stillborn or else died soon after birth of unknown causes. The very last one had been her farewell message, which vividly painted a picture of the pain and suffering she'd endured for the sake of keeping her family under the impression that nothing was amiss. She hid her scars quite carefully and rarely attended family events with her husband for fear of him lashing out at her. She'd isolated herself from the world so nobody would know what was going on.

Too little too late did she realize that this was the home she kept that box in and froze. Maybe he wouldn't think to look into it. . .Or maybe he would and she'd have to explain everything. Best not to invite trouble and leave it alone unless he asked about it.

It was no secret that she liked having him around, even if there was only one thing in the house she actually kept hidden. At his comments and questions her recent memories of their adventures came rushing back and she laughed for a brief moment before responding to any of it. There wasn't much need for a response to her cooking, she liked to let it speak for itself and apparently it was doing a wonderful job without her talking about it.

"I'm glad you think so, the recipe is older than me. As for celebrating, I think waiting until the sun sets and we've had time to properly enjoy dinner might be a better idea." Why did he ask about what she did in her spare time when she'd said she never had any spare time? Except on the rare occasion she did, and she spent most of that time here. Did she want to tell him everything with nothing left out? Perhaps not, but she could tell him a few things that were of note.

"Well, if it's a quiet weekend I spend a lot of it just cleaning and catching up on days of lost sleep; clearing out old things on the shelves to make room for new knickknacks I bring home and such. If I'm feeling nostalgic I go and visit the grave marker that's posted about half a mile north of here and leave flowers for the poor soul. Days where I go up that way I usually visit nearby villages and do what tiny amount of shopping is required to fix my clothing. It's a rare thing for me to leave my property if I'm down here any length of time, and I'm glad this time I'm not staying here by myself even if you only stay with me for a short while."

While she was glad he hadn't looked or even asked about the trunk; it was going to come out sooner or later and half the information in it was common knowledge to him already. It hadn't occurred to her quite yet that she'd relaxed completely with him standing there, but when it finally dawned on her she didn't see a reason to care and leaned back to rest against his chest. He was warm and comfortable so why not? "So what is it you do when you have spare time?"

"I think that's one of the older bottles, I'm not surprised it's any good. Never really been one for drinking at home because I can't see the point in doing so alone. But I suppose a little won't hurt." She paused and put a lid on the dish she was making before taking a sip of the wine, remembering the day she'd bought it. It was just a boring day, one that'd gone a bit awry to be honest, and she'd picked it up with the idea that she'd get drunk when she returned home. Instead she spent the remainder of that day cleaning up the grave marker after ages of disarray. The slightly bitter note at the end sent a sharp pang through her when her thoughts drifted off.

"Perhaps the next time we do this I'll be visiting you, hmm?" How did they manage to be so alike yet so drastically different? Del'ure had few attachments to this world and yet he still held onto life despite that. Rose had attachments, but one by one they all faded away until all she had left was the notion that the next day would be brighter than the last. A fool's wishful thinking was her usual thought on the matter, but not so much after her latest travels. The elf liked to think she wasn't attached to the man currently standing in her kitchen, but in a way she was and it felt nice to have someone to sit and talk with. Even if he talked a lot with his hands, at times a bit too much but she wasn't going to complain about it. "Dinner should be ready in about half an hour it has to simmer." With that she took another sip of her wine and moved away from the kitchen to keep from fidgeting with the things she kept on her shelves.

"You know, I suppose it's worth mentioning that if you want a bath you have to risk swamp critters nipping at your ankles around here. I don't actually have space in my house for any kind of indoor waterworks unless I make some renovations. Something to look into perhaps, since I'm tired of catching most of my food while I'm bathing." As she finished her wine it started to loosen her jittery nerves a slight bit and she let her shoulders slump. The gentle breeze that rustled the remaining leaves around them also did wonders for her nerves, which was evident by the carefree half-smile creeping across her face.

As time dragged on, the stew she was cooking started to diffuse its aroma throughout the house and out the door, which was making Rose almost antsy for it to be done so she could eat, but that meant things might get awkward and tense again when they'd just calmed down. "Having you around has been a different experience for me, and I'm glad for that because my life is usually boring and/or filled with violence with little between the two to really smooth things over. I guess having people like you in my life is something to be grateful for in the end. And thank you for loosening me up, I know most of the time I'm a rigid twig." The hint behind that was a bit of a dirty joke as the last time they'd been around one another she woke up the next morning feeling more limber than normal.

"I used to have four houses I think, three or four. There's this house, the one in Harglen that I converted into a library that's run by a couple of locals, and I had something like an office in Kaionar until I thought better of keeping it and just left it alone, no clue if it's even standing anymore. My first home as an adult might still be standing back on the Triad, but I've never gone back to see it and it's been fifty years so whether or not it's been torn down is uncertain. If you ever stop by the library you'll see the skull of the sea lizard I helped kill during some of my earlier travels." That had been a very bizarre one too, since she had no use of her magic whatsoever and never did figure out what was causing such outlandish habitat changes. "Judging from the smell I'd say I need to check on that food before it burns."

With a bit of a flourish and a fancy backflip, she hurried back to check on the food and removed it from the heat to settle before serving it over partly-mashed potatoes. "Haven't properly cooked an evening meal in over a year, quite amazed I managed to keep it from boiling over." Of course being somewhere between tipsy and drunk she hadn't necessarily processed the idea that most of what she was saying had some rather provocative double-meanings. Oh well, made for humorous conversation at least.

"That's good to hear, means I need to keep up with my cooking skills regardless of my travels. There was this one tavern, don't remember the name of the town it was in to save me, but, the barmaid was the ugliest thing I'd ever see and flirted with every woman that walked in. Completely ignored men and I couldn't understand it for a good hour or so, then I got a better look and realized it was a man made up to look like a woman!" Here she couldn't help but snicker and laugh between bites of food, pausing to clear her throat. "I knew better than to say anything at the time but it was just too funny to forget. You want seconds on the food there's plenty to spare." Rose herself had seconds before long, having forgotten how good snake tasted when cooked with the right spices.

"Might even be thirds at this rate on my end." The sound of cranes calling outside the window made her snicker as it was followed by the sound of a small crash. One of the idiot birds had run into the wall of her house. "Well that's not the first time a bird's nearly flown through the window, but it never gets old either. Swamp bird feathers make pretty good pillows when I can manage to catch the birds that get into the house." Most of the time she caught the birds and used them for food anyway so using the feathers was just a bonus. When she'd finally had enough food she put her dishes away and sat back down giving Del'ure a curious look. "I'm so sorry I just realized I haven't let you get a word in edgewise this whole time! What of you and your travels? Surely you've had some interesting things happen to you since we last parted ways."

"The word "like" isn't usually one that comes to mind when men make mention of danger and mystery to me." she replied as she stood from her seat. "Thrill, crave, and hunger are what I usually find in my thoughts." Dessert, in literal terms, was the last thing on her mind as Del’ure sat in front of her having just been as blatantly suggestive as ever with innuendo. There was a time where she thought to try and push that sort of thing away, but from him in particular she rather liked the outcome. There was a rather scary realization dawning in her mind that he was turning her entire life upside down, and she was happy with the idea. She laughed softly and put the dishes away as she spoke again.

“You know somewhere in this blasted house I swear I kept something of use for entertaining that isn’t alcohol.” After some quick looking she turned to her lovely guest and threw up her hands with a grin. “I give up! Seems after all this time I’ve misplaced the box I used for my parlor games. I shall leave it to you to decide the evening’s events.” She hoped to go on a hike to work off some of the food they’d just wolfed down, but anything else would do as well. Anything was likely the appropriate word given his general pattern of behavior, but she liked him as he was.

On the back side of the house, between the newly found snake nest on the left and the swamp on the right, was a slightly worn trail that led to a slightly cleaner source of water a few miles off. Typically that was the place she used to bathe and wash her clothes when such things as shirts and trousers were of importance. She debated mentioning it to him, but she figured he might stay more than just one night since he’d come all this way to visit. A bath could wait till at some point they did something to need one.

The kiss hadn’t been so much a shock as the briefness of the moment and suddenly she was being inquired of about a place to bathe. “I use a large lily pond up a trail behind the house. It’s also where I get my flower petals from to keep my clothes from smelling musty on long trips.” Indeed there were several small bags of flower petals hanging about the house to keep the air smelling fresh as well, the ones back in her bedroom were rather ornate and filled with things like spices as well as flowers. She moved to get a fresh set of breaches and a shirt from her room, then returned and draped them over one of the chairs to tie her hair back. It was a flurry of gestures and all of five seconds and her hair had been tied up in a half-bun ponytail of sorts. With the light quickly fading behind the trees, she lit a lantern and grabbed her clothes. “Ready when you are.”

She set off down her ladder with the lantern in her teeth and her clothes across her shoulders before waiting at the bottom for her guest. The temperature had gone down a touch, the wind that rustled her hair was cooler than earlier, making for a slightly brisk evening and likely a colder night. It was tough to discern how days would end that far south, be it hot or cold, thanks to the humidity. Already numerous stars could be seen above the canopy, and Rose recognized several formations that she used for a compass in unfamiliar territory. The lantern she'd held in her mouth moved to her hand so she could see the sky more clearly; and for a few moments she thought of what the stars looked like back home on the Triad. Were they really the same? Were they the same ones she saw in Kaionar or even Harglen? They couldn't be, the stars had never looked this pretty to her before. "Amazing. . ." she whispered to herself as she cracked a slight smile.

Upon seeing him so genuinely happy she chuckled lightly and proceeded to drop her clothes into the pond and walk back down the trail a few paces. The little elf woman then ran as fast as she could and front-flipped her way into the water about a third of the way across the way from where she'd jumped. "I'm glad to see you like how I do things around here." After a quick strip-down, she busied herself with scrubbing her clothes for a few minutes before letting her hair down to get some of the oils out of it after her trip. "A while back I discovered that, over the course of several lead-ins and overflows, this pond empties out at the beaches south of here and I'd been meaning to plan a trip down to see them." Her gaze turned to him as she gingerly tried to keep from tangling her fingers in her hair, almost as if waiting for an answer. She knew better than to expect one so suddenly, and went about her normal-ish bathing routine.

"As for knowing how to please you, I should hope I have that knowledge by now given the nature of our. . .do I call this a very intimate friendship or is there a better word for it I wonder?" She'd said her statement with a smile and immediately dismissed the question by giving a pseudo-answer. "Whatever it is we have, I like it very much." She spent a few minutes swimming around and eventually made her way over toward her guest halfway wondering what to do next. A slightly devilish grin began to creep across her face and she quickly splashed him in the face before darting off in the other direction giggling as she went. Her behavior since arriving at the pond had been playful and light-hearted, no sense in dampening the good mood now!

"I hope you swim as well as you kiss, Del, or you'll never catch me!" she teased before disappearing behind a rock outcrop to hide. The breeze eased off a tad and the suddenly stationary warm air made it slightly harder to breathe, causing Rose's cheeks to turn a bit more red than they otherwise would from her exertions. There was no doubting that she liked having him around, the question that ran through her might was how much?

Through a combination of the sudden warming of the water and the alien feeling of either a snapping turtle getting too close to her leg she swam out from her hiding place with a distinct sound of panic. "Fuck!" She checked her leg to make sure she hadn't been bitten and sighed, glaring in the direction she'd come from. "So I just angered a snapping turtle it seems, Del. I got lucky it didn't take a chunk out of my leg." Not long after she spoke it swam into view and hauled itself out of the water on the opposite bank. She thought it had a rather unpleasant look on its face, but you never could tell with reptiles.

It was beyond her at that precise moment that she should still be getting away from Del'ure, with the whole turtle incident and such, but she was starting to want out of the water regardless of what happened when she did. "Want to head back inside? I'd hate to disturb anything worse than that turtle." Her lips were also changing color, the first noticeable indication that she'd been in the water too long. She didn't want to complain about her skin problems, but that was definitely a factor in wanting to be warm and indoors. Preferably with her favorite guest close by but that was almost a guarantee.