No signs of decay
Who: Javeri and P'ax with Chadamalith and Yyth
Where: A jungle clearing
When: Afternoon on day 1, month 11, turn 18
What: Javeri, at Chadamalith's insistence is out collecting the remains of the fruit. Chadamalith is found by Yyth which leaves Javeri and P'ax to speak of how no one stays the same while the dragons discuss diving and squishy things.
There's clearings in the jungle that were obviously tamed just to allow a dragon to land. Nearby are trees harvested for their fruit or vines or timber and because of the traffic the jungle has a hard time reclaiming its own. In one of these clearings, halfway up a tree, is Javeri. She looks to be trying to reach the last of the fruit high overhead that no one else wanted to climb for. Observing her is Chadamalith who sits up still as a statue without even a flicker of tail. When she finds a likely piece she removes it from its home and drops it down. Quick as lightening Chadamalith tilts his head up and opens his mouth to catch the fruit before it gets sullied by ground contact. The heavy scent of citrus in the autumn air indicates they've been at this for awhile now.
Yyth glides over the jungle, disappearing out of sight momentarily. She makes a loop and comes back, circling the clearing when she spots Chadamalith. Between the two of them, they don't take up much space and she's able to squeaze ungracefully into the clearing with him. << Hello, Chadamalith, >> she greets with dark enthusiasm. "Javeri?" P'ax calls curiously, looking around for her and finally spotting her only when the fruit falls into the blue's mouth and his head cranes up to see her in the tree. His eyebrows lift.
Chadamalith's greeting is slow and there's a bit of a mental sort of swagger to the blue as he greets << Yyth. You look fine today. >> Still too young for serious flirting it hasn't stopped him from trying it on with a green here and there. And up in her tree Javeri sees just the green coming down without recognizing it. She does recognize the voice of P'ax and hangs off a branch with one arm to wave. "Almost done up here. Hey!" Then she's back to trying to reach farther out on the branch where a few tantalizing fruits lay taunting her.
Yyth seems to consider the blue, as if wondering if he's worth her time. Deciding he isn't a threat to her own ego, she acknowledges him shamelessly. << Of course I do. >> She'd toss her hair if she was a woman. << Good to eat? >> she wonders of the fruit. "You okay up there? Do you need any help?" His eyebrows now move down across his face, his expression clearly indicating he's sure Javeri is more girl than monkey, and surely going to fall at any moment.
<< Better to eat than anything >> is Chadamalith's response as he chews up the fruit in his mouth. << Except perhaps a nice haunch of beast >> he amends with some silent consideration. << Do you want to try? >> He nudges his muzzle towards a small basket until it tips over and several limes tumble out onto the jungle floor. This does not please Javeri who, in her tree, groans. "I'm fine. Almost done. Just almost got these." A few more careful movements and she lets out a triumphant yell, tucks the fruit into a bag slung over her shoulder, and heads down to the ground jumping the last few feet. "What brings you here?" she asks P'ax as she goes to right the basket.
P'ax is dressed for the weather this time under his riding jacket as he peels it off and slides off Yyth's back. Yyth is immediately curious though her thoughts contradict Chadamalith on his idea that there could be nothing better. She dips her muzzle to sniff at the limes curiously, using a talon to spear one and bring it closer to her face to inspect and then eat. She shares the sour bloom of flavor with the blue. << This is very interesting. Thank you. >> P'ax shakes his head in amusement, moving to help pick up the spilled fruit. "Would you laugh at me much if I said Yyth wanted to bathe in the ocean today? And then Yyth saw Chadamalith and thought he might play with her. I'm just along for the ride, you know."
"I would never laugh at anyone when I am climbing trees for fruit to feed Chadamalith," Javeri says as the basket is righted and she drops empties her bag into it. "The extras I'll take down to the Sandbar and let them make me drinks from them." Ahh, an ulterior motive at last! Chadamalith helps himself to another lime before they can all be scooped up. << Fruit is very interesting. We eat it and it continues to grow. If you spit out the crunchy inside bits more will grow. It is neverending and fascinating. Do you have fruit trees where you are? >> Watching her blue Javeri laughs. "He's trying to convert everyone to the wonders of fruit. Faranth knows what we'd do if all dragons wanted to eat it all the time."
P'ax smiles briefly at her point, craddling one of the last limes in his hands thoughtfully before depositing it on top of the rest. "You're an amusing soul, Javeri," he remarks with a strange look on his face. Yyth mulls over what Chadamalith says, << Continue to grow? >> she queries, and an image of the lime swelling in the pit of her stomach until she as round and full as a gold dragon heavy with eggs comes to mind. She pokes the image, and it bursts apart in a spectacular explosion of ichor and lime juice. << Herdbeasts keep growing too. Especially when one jumps on top of another and wiggles around. The one on the bottom usually duplicates after that. >> She offers him a view of her home, desolate and cold, covered in snow now. << Only if the trees hide under the white stuff. >> "That so?" P'ax drawls. "Yyth'll only be sold if he tells her that it rots. She's a sucker for rotten things." The last goes unspoken but implied: being so rotten herself. "Probably plant more fruit trees instead of feeding pens."
"Amusing?" Javeri asks with a grin as she stands up and then drops the sack on top of the fruit. Clearly Chadamalith will get no more. "Is that a good thing? I've never been called amusing before." Glancing at the blue who watches the jungle rather than Yyth she shakes her head. "I think probably it's just cause he made me crazy. But rotten things? Eww. I have enough trouble just dealing with Chadamalith when he eats. I still can't eat meat after his stunts when he was just starting to hunt for himself." An arched brow along with a sour expression is cast upon her dragon. << No, you spit out the bits that grow and more grow. Then you can eat them again later and do it over and over until you are old. It does not require two for it to work. >> For her sharing of her home he can only offer in return what she has seen. Although his view of Ista is from the sky and the ground whirls around fast from picture to picture in a dizzying merry-go-round kind of way.
P'ax chews on the corner of his lower lip and finally gives her another small smile. "It's good, I think. And probably because most people aren't me." Or anybody else, for that matter. "Can't be any worse than her. Between her and Uanth..." he shudders. "They used to trade body parts. She'd save the eyes for him, and he'd save the hearts for her." Yyth turns a bored and unconcerned tendril of thought for Chadamalith. << Fruits don't scream in terror. It's not as fun. >> She watches his images of ista curiously, snatching at a few here and there. << Teeth feesh? >> she asks hopefully, showing the blue pictures of the large silloughettes of fish far bigger than anything caught in a fishing boat, dragons of the water.
"Well, no one else is you actually. You're not even you really." Javeri's grinning as she says it and her head nods towards Chadamalith. "He says that I am not me like I was me the day he found me. That tomorrow I will not be me either. Because we change after every new experience." She laughs at the end of the explanation and shrugs her shoulders. "That's Chadamalith though. Philosopher through and through. About drove me crazy in the beginning and I still get unnerved sometimes about him being way smarter than I am but at least he's not gruesome. Umm. No offense." Another smile grows as she gestures to the ground before sitting. "Have a seat?" Chadamalith considers the fish and then gives Yyth a mental shrug. << I have not any idea. Perhaps? I do not fish overly much. I like to chase them. Jekzith and I chased fish deep underwater. >> As for things screaming he has no answer to that and just gives back a calm blue screen.
P'ax tips his head as he considers her words. "Sounds like Yyth, in a way, saying I'm not even really me. No offense taken." He sinks down to sit close but not too close. Comfortable conversation distance. "Would you really like it if he was simple minded? It's wearing, after awhile." Yyth pouts for a moment and shifts her weight, her tail flicking on the ground. << Chase fish? >> This seems to be something she can be interested in. << How do you chase fish underwater? >>
"Well, I am not sure it is the same, but what does she mean by it?" Javeri sounds curious and doesn't seem to think anything of tugging off the boots she wears and then wiggling bare feet around. "I don't want him simple minded that's for sure! But a little less smarter than I am would be nice. I was reading -all- the time to try to know a half of what he was talking about. Or because I was trying to find answers to questions he had." Chadamalith doesn't move at all. If his chest did not rise and fall and his eyes whirl evenly he might be seen as not awake or alive. << You dive down deep. As deep as you can. Swimming underwater until they run too far to chase. >> He shares barely remembered images of the large brown and himself under the ocean chasing fuzzy around the edges fish.
P'ax grins lopsidedly. "Just that he's right, you and I, weren't not the same as we were, right? I mean..." he frowns and his voice drops lower. "If he died, you would too, you know. At least, you would want to. We're not just /us/ anymore. It's like knitting when you join one color into the next... before, it's just the first color, but when you tie the yarn ends together, you get a row that's both colors together, and you can't take it back apart afterwards to just have one color without destroying the whole thing." He picks a leaf off the ground and begins stripping the membrane away from the spine. "He just thinks differently than you, I don't think that makes you any less intelligent." Yyth pokes at these indescript fish. << I might try this. >>
"Well, sure, but he means more than that. I mean he believes that any time we experience something we're changed radically. So, like, if you and I got naked and jumped out of a tree we'd not be the Javeri and P'ax that climbed the tree." Javeri paused only a short while to find something ridiculous to use as an example and she seems pleased that she found something. With a laugh she gestures again to Chadamalith. "He -is- smarter than I am. He uses words that I don't understand and have to ask about. Sometimes he tells me a word I should use. I'm not real smart, P'ax. I get by same as everyone else, but I'm not ever going to be known for my brains. Just my personality and great legs." Legs stretch out in front of her to show off even if she doesn't think he'd appreciate her in shorts like some do. << It is good. But do not try to jump down there. >> Chadamalith remembers the warnings at least and shares with Yyth images of fish-dragon hybrids and combos of all sorts. Most of them amusing. << We are to swim down only although I still think it would take less time the other way. >>
P'ax's mouth screws up, his eyebrows drawing together. "I think that either of these things would be acceptable, but not at the same time. Naked on the ground, or clothed tree-jumping, but I'm not prepared to risk my bits on an errant cluster of twigs." Perhaps this is his own way of joking. "Well, being of only average intellect... I think you're fine." His eyes wander distantly towards the trees, straying past her head, flicking back when the movement of her legs catches his attention, but no more than that. Yyth's tail curls around, her wings fanning. << It is not smart to jump where you cannot see... >> And the hazy blackness of deep water stirs against the darkness of Between, the darkness of her mind, blending seamlessly into an inescapable trap. << Would you travel always in blackness? >> The idea appeals to her, this death of sorts.
"Coward," Javeri teases with a bright laugh. She gestures to the trees and the ground. "Nothing but air in between. But I suppose I should save the naked jumping for an appreciative audience and all. Why waste it?" Stretching her arms over her head she tilts her head up to eye the time. "Drat. I'm going to have to go. I've got an appointment I need to keep." Standing up she lifts a lime from the basket and tosses it at Chadamalith's head. He turns his head and snaps it out of the air before it can come in contact. << She wishes to go. There is someone she needs to meet. >> That someone is not worth mentioning although he provides an image of a ship and several men coming ashore from it. And he does not answer her question.
Where: A jungle clearing
When: Afternoon on day 1, month 11, turn 18
What: Javeri, at Chadamalith's insistence is out collecting the remains of the fruit. Chadamalith is found by Yyth which leaves Javeri and P'ax to speak of how no one stays the same while the dragons discuss diving and squishy things.
There's clearings in the jungle that were obviously tamed just to allow a dragon to land. Nearby are trees harvested for their fruit or vines or timber and because of the traffic the jungle has a hard time reclaiming its own. In one of these clearings, halfway up a tree, is Javeri. She looks to be trying to reach the last of the fruit high overhead that no one else wanted to climb for. Observing her is Chadamalith who sits up still as a statue without even a flicker of tail. When she finds a likely piece she removes it from its home and drops it down. Quick as lightening Chadamalith tilts his head up and opens his mouth to catch the fruit before it gets sullied by ground contact. The heavy scent of citrus in the autumn air indicates they've been at this for awhile now.
Yyth glides over the jungle, disappearing out of sight momentarily. She makes a loop and comes back, circling the clearing when she spots Chadamalith. Between the two of them, they don't take up much space and she's able to squeaze ungracefully into the clearing with him. << Hello, Chadamalith, >> she greets with dark enthusiasm. "Javeri?" P'ax calls curiously, looking around for her and finally spotting her only when the fruit falls into the blue's mouth and his head cranes up to see her in the tree. His eyebrows lift.
Chadamalith's greeting is slow and there's a bit of a mental sort of swagger to the blue as he greets << Yyth. You look fine today. >> Still too young for serious flirting it hasn't stopped him from trying it on with a green here and there. And up in her tree Javeri sees just the green coming down without recognizing it. She does recognize the voice of P'ax and hangs off a branch with one arm to wave. "Almost done up here. Hey!" Then she's back to trying to reach farther out on the branch where a few tantalizing fruits lay taunting her.
Yyth seems to consider the blue, as if wondering if he's worth her time. Deciding he isn't a threat to her own ego, she acknowledges him shamelessly. << Of course I do. >> She'd toss her hair if she was a woman. << Good to eat? >> she wonders of the fruit. "You okay up there? Do you need any help?" His eyebrows now move down across his face, his expression clearly indicating he's sure Javeri is more girl than monkey, and surely going to fall at any moment.
<< Better to eat than anything >> is Chadamalith's response as he chews up the fruit in his mouth. << Except perhaps a nice haunch of beast >> he amends with some silent consideration. << Do you want to try? >> He nudges his muzzle towards a small basket until it tips over and several limes tumble out onto the jungle floor. This does not please Javeri who, in her tree, groans. "I'm fine. Almost done. Just almost got these." A few more careful movements and she lets out a triumphant yell, tucks the fruit into a bag slung over her shoulder, and heads down to the ground jumping the last few feet. "What brings you here?" she asks P'ax as she goes to right the basket.
P'ax is dressed for the weather this time under his riding jacket as he peels it off and slides off Yyth's back. Yyth is immediately curious though her thoughts contradict Chadamalith on his idea that there could be nothing better. She dips her muzzle to sniff at the limes curiously, using a talon to spear one and bring it closer to her face to inspect and then eat. She shares the sour bloom of flavor with the blue. << This is very interesting. Thank you. >> P'ax shakes his head in amusement, moving to help pick up the spilled fruit. "Would you laugh at me much if I said Yyth wanted to bathe in the ocean today? And then Yyth saw Chadamalith and thought he might play with her. I'm just along for the ride, you know."
"I would never laugh at anyone when I am climbing trees for fruit to feed Chadamalith," Javeri says as the basket is righted and she drops empties her bag into it. "The extras I'll take down to the Sandbar and let them make me drinks from them." Ahh, an ulterior motive at last! Chadamalith helps himself to another lime before they can all be scooped up. << Fruit is very interesting. We eat it and it continues to grow. If you spit out the crunchy inside bits more will grow. It is neverending and fascinating. Do you have fruit trees where you are? >> Watching her blue Javeri laughs. "He's trying to convert everyone to the wonders of fruit. Faranth knows what we'd do if all dragons wanted to eat it all the time."
P'ax smiles briefly at her point, craddling one of the last limes in his hands thoughtfully before depositing it on top of the rest. "You're an amusing soul, Javeri," he remarks with a strange look on his face. Yyth mulls over what Chadamalith says, << Continue to grow? >> she queries, and an image of the lime swelling in the pit of her stomach until she as round and full as a gold dragon heavy with eggs comes to mind. She pokes the image, and it bursts apart in a spectacular explosion of ichor and lime juice. << Herdbeasts keep growing too. Especially when one jumps on top of another and wiggles around. The one on the bottom usually duplicates after that. >> She offers him a view of her home, desolate and cold, covered in snow now. << Only if the trees hide under the white stuff. >> "That so?" P'ax drawls. "Yyth'll only be sold if he tells her that it rots. She's a sucker for rotten things." The last goes unspoken but implied: being so rotten herself. "Probably plant more fruit trees instead of feeding pens."
"Amusing?" Javeri asks with a grin as she stands up and then drops the sack on top of the fruit. Clearly Chadamalith will get no more. "Is that a good thing? I've never been called amusing before." Glancing at the blue who watches the jungle rather than Yyth she shakes her head. "I think probably it's just cause he made me crazy. But rotten things? Eww. I have enough trouble just dealing with Chadamalith when he eats. I still can't eat meat after his stunts when he was just starting to hunt for himself." An arched brow along with a sour expression is cast upon her dragon. << No, you spit out the bits that grow and more grow. Then you can eat them again later and do it over and over until you are old. It does not require two for it to work. >> For her sharing of her home he can only offer in return what she has seen. Although his view of Ista is from the sky and the ground whirls around fast from picture to picture in a dizzying merry-go-round kind of way.
P'ax chews on the corner of his lower lip and finally gives her another small smile. "It's good, I think. And probably because most people aren't me." Or anybody else, for that matter. "Can't be any worse than her. Between her and Uanth..." he shudders. "They used to trade body parts. She'd save the eyes for him, and he'd save the hearts for her." Yyth turns a bored and unconcerned tendril of thought for Chadamalith. << Fruits don't scream in terror. It's not as fun. >> She watches his images of ista curiously, snatching at a few here and there. << Teeth feesh? >> she asks hopefully, showing the blue pictures of the large silloughettes of fish far bigger than anything caught in a fishing boat, dragons of the water.
"Well, no one else is you actually. You're not even you really." Javeri's grinning as she says it and her head nods towards Chadamalith. "He says that I am not me like I was me the day he found me. That tomorrow I will not be me either. Because we change after every new experience." She laughs at the end of the explanation and shrugs her shoulders. "That's Chadamalith though. Philosopher through and through. About drove me crazy in the beginning and I still get unnerved sometimes about him being way smarter than I am but at least he's not gruesome. Umm. No offense." Another smile grows as she gestures to the ground before sitting. "Have a seat?" Chadamalith considers the fish and then gives Yyth a mental shrug. << I have not any idea. Perhaps? I do not fish overly much. I like to chase them. Jekzith and I chased fish deep underwater. >> As for things screaming he has no answer to that and just gives back a calm blue screen.
P'ax tips his head as he considers her words. "Sounds like Yyth, in a way, saying I'm not even really me. No offense taken." He sinks down to sit close but not too close. Comfortable conversation distance. "Would you really like it if he was simple minded? It's wearing, after awhile." Yyth pouts for a moment and shifts her weight, her tail flicking on the ground. << Chase fish? >> This seems to be something she can be interested in. << How do you chase fish underwater? >>
"Well, I am not sure it is the same, but what does she mean by it?" Javeri sounds curious and doesn't seem to think anything of tugging off the boots she wears and then wiggling bare feet around. "I don't want him simple minded that's for sure! But a little less smarter than I am would be nice. I was reading -all- the time to try to know a half of what he was talking about. Or because I was trying to find answers to questions he had." Chadamalith doesn't move at all. If his chest did not rise and fall and his eyes whirl evenly he might be seen as not awake or alive. << You dive down deep. As deep as you can. Swimming underwater until they run too far to chase. >> He shares barely remembered images of the large brown and himself under the ocean chasing fuzzy around the edges fish.
P'ax grins lopsidedly. "Just that he's right, you and I, weren't not the same as we were, right? I mean..." he frowns and his voice drops lower. "If he died, you would too, you know. At least, you would want to. We're not just /us/ anymore. It's like knitting when you join one color into the next... before, it's just the first color, but when you tie the yarn ends together, you get a row that's both colors together, and you can't take it back apart afterwards to just have one color without destroying the whole thing." He picks a leaf off the ground and begins stripping the membrane away from the spine. "He just thinks differently than you, I don't think that makes you any less intelligent." Yyth pokes at these indescript fish. << I might try this. >>
"Well, sure, but he means more than that. I mean he believes that any time we experience something we're changed radically. So, like, if you and I got naked and jumped out of a tree we'd not be the Javeri and P'ax that climbed the tree." Javeri paused only a short while to find something ridiculous to use as an example and she seems pleased that she found something. With a laugh she gestures again to Chadamalith. "He -is- smarter than I am. He uses words that I don't understand and have to ask about. Sometimes he tells me a word I should use. I'm not real smart, P'ax. I get by same as everyone else, but I'm not ever going to be known for my brains. Just my personality and great legs." Legs stretch out in front of her to show off even if she doesn't think he'd appreciate her in shorts like some do. << It is good. But do not try to jump down there. >> Chadamalith remembers the warnings at least and shares with Yyth images of fish-dragon hybrids and combos of all sorts. Most of them amusing. << We are to swim down only although I still think it would take less time the other way. >>
P'ax's mouth screws up, his eyebrows drawing together. "I think that either of these things would be acceptable, but not at the same time. Naked on the ground, or clothed tree-jumping, but I'm not prepared to risk my bits on an errant cluster of twigs." Perhaps this is his own way of joking. "Well, being of only average intellect... I think you're fine." His eyes wander distantly towards the trees, straying past her head, flicking back when the movement of her legs catches his attention, but no more than that. Yyth's tail curls around, her wings fanning. << It is not smart to jump where you cannot see... >> And the hazy blackness of deep water stirs against the darkness of Between, the darkness of her mind, blending seamlessly into an inescapable trap. << Would you travel always in blackness? >> The idea appeals to her, this death of sorts.
"Coward," Javeri teases with a bright laugh. She gestures to the trees and the ground. "Nothing but air in between. But I suppose I should save the naked jumping for an appreciative audience and all. Why waste it?" Stretching her arms over her head she tilts her head up to eye the time. "Drat. I'm going to have to go. I've got an appointment I need to keep." Standing up she lifts a lime from the basket and tosses it at Chadamalith's head. He turns his head and snaps it out of the air before it can come in contact. << She wishes to go. There is someone she needs to meet. >> That someone is not worth mentioning although he provides an image of a ship and several men coming ashore from it. And he does not answer her question.