Arty} Just a case of girl meets boy... {Kat

Raffietti woke up slowly, sleepily snuggling back into Rokam as they both entered the sleepy, half-awake phase. However, when he moved away, she woke up with a start, the cool air on her back waking her fully. She stood up quickly, shaking herself down, and looked over at Rokam. The realization that she’d rolled into him while she was asleep hit her, and underneath her fur she blushed. “Erm, sorry about that…” she said a little stiffly, her heart pounding in her ears. She flushed even more, and hoped that her pale fur was thick enough to hide her pinkness. Her head was already feeling fuddled, and waking up so close to Rokam hadn’t helped. She was fighting with her emotions, which were being decidedly unruly, determined that she was /not/ falling for him. However, her argument was becoming less convincing the more she thought about it.

“Did you sleep well then, Ro?” she asked, clearing her throat in an attempt to brush over the awkwardness. It was a pleasant morning – the breeze was cool and sharp, but the sunlight underlying it was warm and the birds nearby had already started singing. A perfect day for a long journey, she thought to herself, as the memory of where they were going drifted back through her slightly sleepy mind.

“No, no, it’s fine,” he immediately assured Raffietti, really not wanting to get further into it. Luckily she didn’t seem to either, moving on promptly- which was a relief. He very much doubted that it had been entirely the other dragon rolling into him, even if they had woken nearer his original sleeping spot than hers.

Snorting out a little water which had made its way up his nostrils and shaking his head to clear it completely of the fog of sleep, he looked up at the lifeblood as he answered her question.
“For the most part, yes. I’m a little cold, but I’m sure that’ll be fixed once we get moving. And it’s shaping up to be a nice day.” He tilted his head back, luxuriating in the heat which pulsed down from the sun. After a few moments, he added, “Hot, too- we might be thankful of the river later on.” Flopping back down to the ground, he rolled thoroughly in the moss, his back covered in little pieces of the plant when he got back to his feet.
“Nothing like a good roll in moss,” he remarked cheerily. “Actually, speaking of the river- well, I spoke of it before, anyway- what would you say to a swim? I love swimming. I guess you might stay a bit wet, though…” He looked at her thick fur and feathers. They hadn’t seemed to be a problem while they were walking in the river previously, but the section they were at now was too deep to just walk in, and she might not want to spend the whole day soaking from head to toe.

“With flat scales maybe, but if I rolled about in it, I’d be picking bits out of my fur all week.” Raffietti smiled, watching Rokam roll across the moss with some considerable interest. It looked bizarre, but she had to admit it did look pleasant. At the mention of swimming, her eyes lit up a little, and she grinned. Rokam’s awkward way of getting to the suggestion almost made her giggle, but not quite “I’d love to – I haven’t had a good swim for ages. The water’s not deep enough near the city.” She commented, looking over at the river. It wasn’t moving too fast, so she couldn’t see there being a danger of being swept away (unless there was some sort of undercurrent, but there was nothing they could d about that even if it was the case). For a moment she realised that she might take all day to dry out again, but she didn’t mind. It kept her cool anyway, which was difficult on a hot day with all her thick fur. With a final smile to show that she was quite decided, she moved towards the river and dabbled one paw in it. It was cool, but with air warming up every moment, it wasn’t unpleasantly cold. She tested it with her other paw, and touched her nose to the water cautiously, thinking about how best to get into the water.

The mental image inspired by Raffietti’s words was an amusing one, and Rokam flashed a grin as he conceded,
“I expect so. Much easier for me.” A quick shake sent the debris flying off his skin, and he cracked a yawn before following her over to the water. What she said was true- the River Tarz was a large one, but that didn’t mean that all of it was deep enough for a dragon to swim in. They weren’t exactly small animals, after all. Where they had stopped, though, it was wide, deep and meandered across the landscape with just enough current to keep the water fresh without being so strong that it posed any danger. Even so, they hadn’t been moving in it when they stopped to rest the day before- it was just easier if there was something to keep your feet planted to.

Now, though, Rokam had no such worries. Smiling to himself at the lifeblood’s hesitation, he trotted straight up to the riverbanks and sprang off the ground, tucking his legs in close to his body and wrapping his tail around himself to form a ball as he splashed down into the current, sinking most of the way to the bottom of the river before coming to a gradual still. Before he could be carried away by the water, he paddled down to the pebbly riverbed and pushed off it with his hind legs to surface right in front of Raffietti, his head popping out of the water and looking her straight in the eye.
“Come on, it’s great! Nice and refreshing.” Swimming was a hobby of his, and he liked to think that he had a certain way of moving through the water- certainly the smooth, flexible gait of a card dragon did lend itself well to movement underwater, even if their relatively thin legs didn’t make them the fastest of swimmers.

Raffietti grinned as Rokam jumped into the water, clearly less fussy about it than she was. She watched him plunge down, admiring his smooth movement. She grinned as he emerged in front of her, and laughed, before springing off the riverbed and jumping over his head into the water behind him. Her fur was slicked to her sides almost immediately, and her feathery tail was pulled into a wide fan by the currents. “It’s /cold/!” she cried as she kicked up to the surface, laughing and beating her tail to keep herself afloat. She thought she was quite a good swimmer, but she wasn’t exactly /elegant/ with it like Rokam was.

“Betcha can’t catch me.” she grinned suddenly, before diving down and kicking her way upstream a little. Her fur was slicked to her sides by the water, making it easier to move, but she was still fluffy enough to be seen easily through the clear water. She fanned her tail wider to speed off, and poked her head up a few feet upstream, checking to see if Rokam had decided to pursue her, and if he had to check how far ahead she was.

Rokam ducked under the water reflexively as Raffi catapulted herself out over his head, but he surfaced a moment later, snorting water from his nostrils and looking around for her with a wide grin on his face.
“Nice and icy,” he agreed, seeing her surface a little way ahead of him and treading water to talk to the lifeblood for a few moments. “Great way to wake you up, huh?”

When she suddenly submerged herself again, he was taken aback for a moment, but quickly reoriented himself and plunged back below the surface with a laugh. Narrowing his eyes to shield them against the water, he quickly made out the white and red figure cutting through the river ahead of him. Rokam had never been one to take challenges lightly, and he didn’t change that attitude now; deciding to emulate sea animals he had occasionally seen, he pinned his front legs up to his body and held his hind legs straight out behind him as he began to move similarly to a dolphin or seal, using the flat club on the end of his tail as a fin to propel him faster. He only poked his nostrils above the surface to take breaths, and began to gain on Raffi relatively soon-well, this was obviously a more efficient way of swimming!

When she realised that Rokam was gaining on her, Raffi ducked her head under and kicked twice as hard, using her tail like a big flipper. However, her fur was seriously slowing her down, and Rokam was catching up fast. Time for a new tactic…

Raffi considered trying a new way of swimming, as Rokam seemed to have, but she wasn’t convinced she could pull it off. She couldn’t get any better at the game, but maybe she could change the rules a bit? It seemed worth a try – she could get quite competitive once she’d taken up a challenge. An idea hit her, and she fanned her tail, slowing dramatically.

Putting her front feet on the bottom of the river, Raffi twirled over herself, letting her tail spray water everywhere as it broke the surface of the water, and kicked to turn herself over onto her front again (she landed with all four feet effectively pointing up at the sky). Kicking off the bottom of the river, she hurtled towards the sleek shape in the water a little way behind her, intending to put him off. The currents were on her side, so it shouldn’t have been too difficult to catch him, as long as he wasn’t expecting anything.

Even when Raffi redoubled her efforts, her fur was simply too much of a drag, and Rokam was gleeful as he shot through the water. The last thing he expected was for her to suddenly spin round and leap out of the river like a… well, he didn’t know what. By the time he’d realised her tactic it was too late to dodge; instead, he did a half-flip to catch the lifeblood with all four paws as she flew towards him, entangling her in his legs. The two sank slowly to the bottom in a ball, Rokam playfully nipping at Raffi before twisting himself away and surfacing for air, grinning broadly. It only took a second, however, for that grin to fade away, replaced with a face of annoyance at himself. He hadn’t been thinking very clearly, caught up in the race and the moment. The other dragon hardly knew him; what if he’d taken things too far? Just because of all those stupid dreams he’d had last night… Giving a small growl of frustration, he lashed his tail under the water and stretched down with his hind legs to touch them to the bottom of the river as an anchor, his body vertical. Sometimes being a card dragon made his life so much harder than it needed to be. Why couldn’t he just like her, and let their relationship come on gradually? Instead he pretty much already felt as he might do years from now. He could tell her about all her little habits and even describe what her children were going to look like. Not exactly the basis for a normal relationship.

Still, there was no need to make things any worse. Lifting his feet from the riverbed, he paddled to the banks and pulled himself out, before standing over the water waiting for Raffietti.
“Low trick, but I think you won," he smiled. "You want to keep on swimming, or get going? I don’t mind.”

Raffi giggled as she hurtled into Rokam, letting out a little spout of bubbles, and grinned in mild victory as they sank. However, she let out another involuntary spout of bubbles as he nipped her, and looked after him in bemusement as he hurtled off. She kicked her way to the surface slowly, a somewhat confused grin on her face. They’d been having fun, right? Now that Ro had paused, however, she wasn’t sure what was going on. It felt like they must have known each other for years, the way they had been playing about, but she was fairly certain she’d only known him for the last day.

“What was all that about, Ro?” she asked, still grinning as she broke the surface of the water, her head held on one side. Near the banks the river wasn’t that deep, and her toes were already brushing the bottom, so she kicked off the bottom to wiggle onto the bank gracelessly. Finally managing to pull her now-drenched tail up behind her, completing the illusion of a drowned cat, she shook herself down, spraying water everywhere.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m cooled off plenty. We’re following the river anyway, so I guess we should keep going?” she suggested, giving Rokam a damp but friendly head but before picking herself up and turning to look upstream, where the hills they were headed for were looming on the horizon.

Doing his best to avoid wincing, Rokam gave an unconcerned shrug to Raffi’s question, flicking the grass on the bank with his tail.
“Just playing around, I guess,” he told her, giving a smile in return. Obviously she had thought it strange… but she was still smiling and didn’t seem angry, so with a bit of luck he hadn’t messed anything up too badly. Lost in thought for a moment, he was startled by the droplets of water which landed on him as Raffi shook and jumped slightly.
“Meanie,” he grumbled light-heartedly. “But anyway, that sounds like a plan. We should be able to reach the hills before the end of the day if we get a move on, and check things out a bit. Who knows what’s going on over there.” He wrinkled his nose for a moment before shrugging again and bounding forwards in the direction Raffi was looking. “Come on, they’re in sight already!”

Maybe he’d been annoyed with himself, but there was no reason to let that ruin a good day. Rokam, being an optimist, was quick to forgive, and if Raffi didn’t seem to mind too much about his rash actions then he didn’t need to either. He just needed to remember not to do something so silly again.

“Just playing around? Alright then,” Raffi grinned, satisfied that her coat was mostly dry by then. “Well, we can play around more when we’re actually there – it’s not far now.” She grinned, turning to nip at Rokam before starting to walk at a reasonable pace along the riverbank. There, they were even now.

“What do you think will happen when we get there?” she asked, studying the hills carefully for any clues they might have to offer. They were too far away to see any details, though, so they didn’t provide any answers for her. She still didn’t understand what Ro had seen in his vision anyway – just that they were both there, and there were some hills. Maybe she’d get her head around it when they arrived, but she doubted it.

Although her thick fur would stay wet for a good hour or so, the warm sun on her back made up for it, and the day looked like it was shaping up to be a pleasant one. She was just in the right mood for a good day of walking now.

Last edited by Artemis on Sun Aug 19, 2012 10:53 am; edited 1 time in total

“Not far at all!” Rokam flicked his tail, ready and eager to be off, only to be startled by a slight nip from Raffi. Relieved that it evidently hadn’t gone down too badly, he laughed lightly before settling into an even trot to stay level with the lifeblood. It was already shaping up to be a good day; he felt refreshed and energetic from sleeping on the moss and then their brief swim in the river, and the sky was clear with little prospect of rain. And, as they had both said, they’d nearly reached their destination. Despite his cheerful mood, Rokam felt a small twinge of apprehension at the thought. He really didn’t know what was going to happen to them in the search for this object, but if it was as important as he suspected, then it was most likely going to eventful. They could just hope it would all turn out well. And that this was the right set of hills.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen, really,” he admitted. “Maybe…” His steps slowing, he screwed his eyes shut for a second before huffing as he reopened them and shaking his head. “Nope, nothing’s coming. Maybe we’ll meet someone who can tell us something. With a bit of luck, anyway.”

The morning passed uneventfully, the two dragons exchanging easy chatter as they drew ever closer to the hills. By unspoken consent, they drew to a gradual halt as they reached the shadow at the base of the first.
“Big hill,” Rokam remarked, tipping back his head to take in its full height. “I’d race ya to the top, but something tells me we’re going to be climbing plenty of these. Best not to waste our breath. Why don’t we go to the middle of the big four?” The hill they stood at now was the first of these, covered in a layer of grass made luscious by the nearby rivers and a sprinkling of wildflowers. It was an idyllic, peaceful scene with little to suggest the presence of an immensely powerful magical object. But the closer they got to the centre of the hills, the more sure Rokam became that this was the place he had seen in his vision.

The morning passed uneventfully. Raffi was still within her comfort zone, having taken the same route this far in the past anyway. However, as the hills loomed closer, she became less and less sure that she knew where they were. She hoped that Rokam’s sense of direction was holding up better than hers near the enormous hills.

“Well, there aren’t many people out here really, but I guess we might find something that can help.” She suggested hopefully, before slipping back to their usual chatter until they reached the base of the first hill.

“Big is about right.” She said quietly, looking up in mild awe. She didn’t remember the hills being this big, but then again she hadn’t actually been this close before. “And the middle seems as good a place to start as any. If nothing else it will be sheltered, and we can stop for a rest.” She smiled, peering through the hills to see if there was a flat-ish route through them that she could use to pick out the middle. Finally happy with the direction, she fell back into pace with Rokam, looking around curiously.

“So, do you think we’re going the right way Ro?” she asked after a few more moments. After all, they were chasing his vision, so this was his territory now.

What Raffi said was true; there really weren’t many people round here. In fact, that was absolutely no sign of anyone having set foot in the area for years, though of course travellers and the like passed through now and then.

As they set off again towards the centre of the hills, Rokam found himself smiling ruefully.
“Y’know, I wouldn’t mind a rest too much,” he agreed. “Walking does get to you after a while. Still, all this grass is much nicer to walk on than the ground in a forest.” He knew plenty about walking round forests, having spent the first few years of his life doing so. What he didn’t know so much about was hills- which was why he stopped to think about his answer to Raffi’s question. How sure could he really be? The hills seemed the right size, probably the right number and placement too- but how did you distinguish one hill from another, really? Certainly all these four looked much the same.

Before he could formulate a reply, however, somebody else did.
“The right way? Well, you were going the right way until you walked right past my door!” The words were followed by a maniacal cackle. With a yelp of surprise, Rokam spun on the spot to see a man standing in front of a small, rough cottage, a vegetable plot extending to its side. Sure enough, he was standing on a porch in front of the door, a seat hung from its roof swaying slightly to indicate that he had just vacated it. He was undoubtedly old, his face lined with wrinkles and his hair grey, but he stood straight as a man half his age. He sported a short and neatly trimmed beard, extending up the sides of his face to similarly cut hair, and his eyes were clouded over and plainly blind.
“Lothum, is it?” he continued cheerily, as if his presence was entirely natural. “Well, you are the club, so it must be!” This was followed by another guffaw. “And you’ve brought your lady friend, eh? Well, the more the merrier!”

Rokam slowly turned to look over at Raffi, his eyes wide and bemused.
“I’m… er, sorry, I’m not Lothum. I think he died… um, about 130 years ago now.” This simply brought on another snigger.
“Well, that’s no surprise. One way you lot don’t change time is your lifespan! That’s no problem for me, you know! Come in then, come in, if you’re after a rest. I’ve got some soup ready. Good meat soup, now, I always want to be ready for visitors. Well, in you go!” He wafted one hand back at his cottage, prompting the door to swing open seemingly by itself. Rokam didn’t feel any magic, at least- part of which made this whole situation so strange. Plainly magic was involved.
“What do you think we should do? Do you feel any… magic?” She did use two different types of magic to him, after all, and about as strongly- perhaps it simply wasn’t connected enough to fate for him to sense. Yet, somehow, he got a niggling feeling that he should know something more than he did.

Or, at the very least, sense it.

Raffi flinched as she heard the disconcerting cackle from behind her, and turned quickly, her fur standing ever-so-slightly on edge. She hadn’t even noticed a house there, but clear as day, there was a man and his home just /there/. He seemed… odd, but at least he was friendly. An eccentric but friendly man was much better than the regular kind of hill-dwelling shady sort.

“Do you, erm, know this man Ro?” she whispered, trying to figure out what the old man’s motive was. He seemed keen to see them, but he didn't even know who they were? Maybe the very strangeness of it all should have been a sign that they were on the right path – after all, she didn't understand quite why they were off to the hills anyway.

Raffi just shrugged in response to Rokam’s bemused look, and focused on the man. His friendliness made her wary. When she was asked about magic though, she closed her eyes to focus, hoping she could sense something.

“Nope, I can’t feel a thing, beyond the expected pumping of blood and natural life force. Maybe there’s something inside, but I can’t feel anything from here. From what I can see, he’s just a normal man, broadly speaking.” she said finally. Although she was still wary, she decided to address the man properly, hoping she could figure him out a little better that way. “Mmm, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good meat soup. Ro?” she suggested. It didn't seem too dangerous yet, so surely there was no harm in going in for a bite to eat. She was getting hungry by then anyway – it must have been getting on for lunchtime, or even later.

Raffi’s question was entirely reasonable. Apart from getting the name wrong, the man was acting hugely familiar with Rokam, for no apparent reason other than that he had walked past the house.
“Never seen him before. Not in a vision, nothing.” Which made him wonder just how related to the task at hand this man was, if he hadn’t come up at all in what the dragon had seen. Still… perhaps he would shed some light on the matter. He didn’t seem too dangerous, so with a bit of luck nothing would befall them if they took him up on his offer. At least Raffietti had confirmed that he was alive. “Let’s hope we can deal with inside when we come to it,” he finally muttered to her, before raising his tone slightly to reply to the old man.
“I don’t often eat soup, but when I do… it’s meat soup. I don’t think a quick something to eat would hurt, really, or a bit of a break from walking. Thanks!” Half cautious and half curious, he stepped through the door to find an entirely unremarkable room on the inside- which became odder the longer you looked at it. Bundles of herbs hung from the roof beams along with pots and pans, a small table stood against the wall on one end, and a stove at the other heating the whole place. A few other essentials of life were packed neatly into the space, though no sleeping solution was apparent until Rokam further inspected the ceiling to find a bed built solidly across the beams. It was far from obvious how an elderly man living alone got in and out of the bed, nor how he stopped himself from falling out at night, but it did look well used and there was really nowhere else that he could sleep.

Bizarrely, two huge and shallow bowls already sat on the table, billowing steam. Rokam scarcely needed to take a breath to smell that it was the promised meat soup; the scent immediately set his mouth to watering and he dashed over to stare into one of the bowls.
“This smells delicious, I hadn’t realised how hungry I was,” he exclaimed. “Are these for you and some company, or…?”
“You’re the only ones going to be eating that soup, so tuck in! More in the pot!” No pots were in sight other than those hung from the ceiling, and certainly none containing hot meat soup. Card dragon he might have been, but he still had a good sense of smell. “Ooh, I haven’t had any visitors for a good long time now. Plenty of company, though!” He chortled again, plainly delighted with himself and his own wit. Rather than challenge what the clearly insane man said, Rokam threw Raffi a look of mixed emotion and doubt before lapping experimentally at the bowl he stood over.
“Good soup, at least,” he muttered to the lifeblood. “The strange things that happen on this island, I don’t know…”

Raffi shook her head a little in disbelief at the room as she looked around. She didn’t understand how it /worked/ - it just seemed too odd. However, she could smell the soup, and it didn’t smell bad. She still didn’t like cooked meat, but after a long morning the soup smelled more appetizing than she could have imagined. She turned to Rokam and spoke quietly, trying not to draw the attention of the odd meat-soup-man. “Should we trust him? I mean, he seems nice enough, but really? He just popped up out of nowhere, but seems to know us already.” She was nervous, but whatever Rokam decided she would stick with. For all that he was younger, he probably knew more about odd goings on than she did – she assumed that fate magic would have helped him adjust to strangeness at least a little.

As Rokam tasted to soup, Raffi followed suit, and lapped the hot soup gently. It was good – not as meaty as she would have liked, and he’d boiled the blood out of whatever it was, but it was tasty, in a more human kind of way. “Mmm, very nice!” she complimented the man, bobbing her head thankfully. She didn’t even try to think about where this ‘pot’ might be – the little house was already full of surprises, and she wasn’t sure she could take many more surprises that day.

It didn't take Rokam long at all to polish off most of his bowl; taking a break before finishing the lot, he leant closer to Raffi again to reply,
"I don't trust him really, he's just... Odd. But he doesn't seem too- uh, too dangerous." As he neared the end of his sentence his voice became doubtful as a wave of unease washed through him. Suddenly he was sure- something wasn't right here, and it was definitely linked to his previous vision. And, he suspected, it was no coincidence that this peculiar man had known other cards.
"Scratch that," he amended after a few seconds thinking all this through. "I'm not sure he's as harmless as he seems. Watch out."

Despite their mutual suspicion, it did seem like a good idea to keep the man sweet and not let on their wariness, and so Rokam nodded in contented agreement to Raffi's compliment.
"It's really good. Nice and... Meaty." There was a surprise.
Briefly, it occured to him to worry about drugs or the like in the soup, but he swiftly dismissed the idea. He might not he infallible, but he was sure he would have seen any real disaster at least in part.

Whether or not he was right was another matter.

Either way, he was stuck for now. He closed his eyes to yawn for a moment and, when he opened them again the man was right in front of him, placing a refilled bowl of soup on the table. Rokam started. This was no ordinary human for sure; he just couldn't understand what was happening. He couldn't sense any magic whatsoever, and it frustrated him.
"Did I give you a fright?" demanded their host rhetorically, waggling his eyebrows. "Now then, while you eat up... I've got something to show you, oh yes! Now then, now..." Turning away for a moment, he seemed to fiddle with something before spinning back with a bottle outstretched. It was a vial, really; small and made of glass, with a decorated lid. It was impossible to see inside, however, something black blocking the way.
"What..." Rokam frowned. "What is that?" Once again, he felt like his powers were edging on telling him something- but even as he tried to close in on it, the train of thought slipped away, leaving him to watch as the old man shook the bottle and the black seemed to drain away briefly to reveal a shimmering, swirling mist. It was of an odd, ribbony texture, and coloured in a crisp pale yellow and rich, deep, purplish-blue. After a moment, though, the black liquid seeped back down to cover it- just as Rokam caught a wave of magic surging out from the bottle.
"What... What..." The card dragon was incoherent with confusion.

Raffi nodded a little uncertainly as Rokam changed him mind, but they had clearly had the same thought that getting on the wrong side of the extremely odd and possibly dangerous man was a bad idea. “I will do, Ro.” She smiled to hide the true nature of their discussion from their host, before going back to the soup, eating hers much slower than Rokam to avoid being inflicted with a second bowlful. It wasn’t unpleasant, but her views on human food weren’t ready to change yet.

When the man rushed off to fetch this mysterious ‘something’, Raffi pushed away her now-empty bowl of soup and watched. The vial he produced spooked her a little, since the black coating was clearly magical, but she couldn’t sense anything from the black stuff at all. Then the man shook the bottle, and that changed.

The air reeked of magic, and it wasn’t a familiar kind of magic either. The substance (which she wasn’t even sure she could call a liquid after seeing it) was full of colours, but she didn't have time to inspect it before the black magic guard type think slipped back over it.

“Erm, what I think Ro means is: ‘what is that?’” Raffietti said uncertainly, standing close to Rokam as they looked at the liquid. She managed not to fold back her ears like she wanted to, meaning that, if all had gone well, the man wouldn’t notice her uncertainly quite as much. The odd substance seemed to have had more of an effect on Rokam than her, but then again, his magic might have been closer to that in the bottle. She didn't really understand it, and just stayed close to Rokam for comfort, watching the soup-man intently.

Last edited by Artemis on Tue Jul 02, 2013 5:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

Thankful to see Raffi accepting his warning, Rokam returned the smile with a nod before looking back to their eccentric host to see him take out the bottle.

He truly couldn't figure out what was within. Was it a liquid or more like smoke? It didn't follow any rules he knew; the long, shimmering fibres stretched out inside the vial, held for a moment and then flowed seamlessly to a new formation. Besides this was the vast source of magic he had sensed, and all only on display for a fleeting second before the black drained back over and obscured the contents from view.

He was, in a way, glad to see Raffi also shaken- it wasn't just him being stupid, then. Luckily she was still capable of speech, and he just confirmed her analysis with a nod while he got a grip on himself. For comfort more than anything, he swung his tail sideways just enough that it rested against the lifeblood's in a light touch.
"Hmmm," mused the old man in a crackly sort of way. "You really want to know, do you?"
Rokam scarcely had time to nod before he pressed on. "Well, it's not my secret to tell! You'd have to ask the owner of this. I'm just... Borrowing it, eh? Now that you're here though, my dear, I daresay I can make do without it! I'm sure you two could make good use of it, oh yes, and I'd give you a little while before the exchange was made. So what do you say, what do you say?"

It was at this point that Rokam accepted the blinding truth: something was very wrong here. Whether or not they came back, the club dragon judged it best to get out and think over the situation. Most importantly, whether or not it was at all related to whatever they had come here to do.
"We'll think about it. We have to be off for now, but we'll let you know what we think. Thank you for the soup and, er... Your hospitality."
"Not at all! Well, if you truly must be going, then take some of the soup with you seeing as you liked it so much! There-" Darting round behind the pair, he hovered there for a moment before whisking back in front of them- his hands empty of vial or soup. After a second, Rokam became aware of a warm weight on hs back, and twisted incredulously to see a large container strapped on securely- containing, by the smell of it, meat soup. He gave Raffi a wide-eyed look of bemusement before suggesting uncertainly,
"Shall we go then?"

“Yes, thank you very much for your kindness, but I think we should most definitely go and think.” Raffi said quickly. She wanted to be out of there, and agreed immediately when Rokam suggested leaving. She hadn’t noticed the man strap the container full of soup to Rokam, but when she noticed it she decided not to ask how it had gotten there, and simply shook her head with a grin as Rokam noticed as well.

“ Yes, I think we should go. Thank you again, king sir.” She said to their host brightly, before making for the door. Once outside, she turned back to Rokam. “Right, what in the world are we going to do? Should we at odd bottle was with us? Do you even have any idea what it /is/?” she asked quickly, still feeling edgy after being inside the strange house.

She was quiet for a moment after that. She was thinking. The bottle had been suspicious, but she felt as though they would be safer with the odd magic in their possession than with the strange meat-soup man. Plus, with both of them there, one of them could surely figure out what it did. Them a thought occurred to her. “He said he was ‘borrowing’ it, so who could that stuff actually belong to?” She asked slowly. The magic she had felt was immense, even in the few seconds the actual substance had been visible, so whoever it really belonged to would probably need it back at some point, wouldn’t they? Maybe… but things were getting so strange by them that she wasn’t sure.

Rokam nodded in agreement and thanks as he awkwardly made his way out of the house, shuffling round on himself to get out of the door. He just hoped the soup was strapped on securely, because he did not feel like scalding all over his back.

As soon as the two of them were far enough away that they were sure their bizarre host was out of earshot, the card dragon flopped into a sitting position, noting with some relief that the soup stayed within its container.
“I don’t know,” he moaned once Raffi was done with all her musings. “I’ve never seen anything behave like that before, who knows what it is. I just can’t tell a thing, I have no idea.” Bending his head in frustration, he tucked it into his legs and screwed up his eyes for a few moments. How did the rest of the world get by, always so blind? Perhaps Rokam didn’t know what was going to happen to him every minute- that would take all the enjoyment out of life- but he always had a hint. Big events could never sneak up on him, not if he tried to chase them down. But now he found himself utterly unable to get the slightest grip on what that little vial had meant. The knowledge was there, it had to be, but it just wasn’t a part of the information roaring past him.

“This may sound obvious,” he said in the end, lifting his head slowly from his legs. “But I’m sure this has to be the same thing I saw in my vision before. You just don’t come across two such powerful magical items on one trip.” In fact, rarely in his life had he felt something as strong as whatever the old man has shown them; it wasn’t something to brush off. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the creepily suspicious character being in possession of such an artefact, especially when he had “borrowed” it, as Raffi pointed out. Surely there were safer places for it to be? But what if the man truly did have a right to the item; who were they to take it away from him?
“Maybe he’s telling the absolute truth and he should have it. Maybe he stole, maybe he’s lying completely and it doesn’t have a rightful owner. Maybe it’s his! I don’t know! But I’m sure something’s not right, I don’t feel comfortable just walking away from this.” Agitated, he straightened fully and kneaded at the ground with his paws, great clumps of grass coming up in his claws. Much as he would like to, Rokam didn’t think dropping the matter was a viable option.
More was the pity.

Raffi was quiet for a while, before nodding, as if she was a little more sure of the situation. “If you think it was to do with your vision, I think we should take it then. I mean, there can’t be any more risk from carrying it than leaving it with the soup-man, can there? I trust you, Ro.” She smiled, using her nose to nudge the soup container back into the centre of Rokam’s back so it couldn’t tip up. “Besides, it could be really important that you have it. I mean, it seemed to affect you more strongly, and…” she trailed off, not sure what the rest of her point had been. Maybe this was a bad idea – maybe they should be running as fast as they could away from the odd soup-smelling house and hoping that the man wouldn’t find them.

“I get the feeling we’re going to have to go back in there some time anyway, but I guess there’s no hurry? I’m fairly sure that the odd man will be expecting us back exactly when we arrive anyway. He seems to know that kind of thing for some reason.” Raffi added, uncertainty creeping back into her mind. She wanted them to take it with them, deep down, but the implications of taking the odd bottle were slowly growing in her mind and clouding that decision.

As he always seemed to be, Rokam was taken aback by how easily Raffi got to the point. How did she have so much more common season and reasoning than him?
“Thanks,” he said solemnly. Card dragons were rarely trusted; understandable, perhaps, as nobody liked to think that their future could be controlled by somebody else. But equally, Rokam didn’t like to think that nobody was ever going to just trust him to make the best of things. Responsibility wasn’t something he was entirely comfortable with, but he couldn’t let Raffi down. “I think you’re right there, he does seem to. You’d almost think he was the one who could tell the future, not me.” He scuffed at the ground again, turning over the earth which he had torn up previously. Watching as an earthworm fled from his paws, he spoke slowly.

“I don’t… somehow, I can’t trust him. It doesn’t seem like anything much should happen, why would it? But all the same, I don’t feel comfortable leaving it with him for long. I have no idea how we could get it off him, but I’m sure we could figure something out. But… we wouldn’t have to do it straight away, I suppose. We could leave it a day or so, go around the hills a bit.” Rokam returned his gaze to Raffi, his horns held half-up in query.

Raffi listened nodding as Rokam thought through the situation. “Maybe nothing happening is the threat? Maybe something is supposed to happen that won’t so long as he keeps that stuff. Or maybe not, I mean, it could mean nothing at all…” she mused to herself, before shaking her head a little and focusing on the present. Everything was complicated, and it made her head hurt a bit. She had a few more years of knowledge and experience than Rokam in everyday situations, but he seemed so much less phased by the unusual and improbable situations going on. She admired that – it was charming.

“Yes… yes, I think waiting would be good…” Raffi thought slowly, “that was we have a little more time to think, and to finish that strange soup.” she giggled, nodding at the big tub of soup, before looking around. It was later afternoon, turning towards sunset, and the sky was a rich gold that glinted on Rokam’s lighter scales like jewels. Her fur was just a slightly orange shade of red instead of crimson, but she loved the sunlight all the same. “I think we should go that way – the hill just to the west. It looks… quiet, and I don’t know about you but I want to lie in the grass and relax for a while. We can think about the soup-man and his bottle of magic later.” she suggested, looking back towards Rokam and smiling, her fluffy tail twitching happily.

It would be so easy to get tense and worried about the situation, and for a while Raffi had been (and she was sure Ro was too), but the sunny hilltop seemed like the best place to be in the world right then.

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