Application: Firekeeper and Blind Seer (Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper saga)

[beastsouled]

The young woman who walked into the Sorting Room carried a bow and quiver of arrows on her back, but ignored those in favor of a knife with a large garnet set in the hilt. She looked to be about twenty, and very fit. Her curly brown hair was chopped close to her head where it wasn't pulled back into a tail, and her tanned skin was laced with pale

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[woocha]

Oooh ooh oooh, wolf wolf wolf! Hi! I'm Wishbone! Wishbone said, crouching down and wagging his tail in delight.

[beastsouled]

Insulted that she had also not been greeted as such, Firekeeper pointedly ignored the dog, turning back to the parchment on the table and pretending to read it.

Blind Seer glanced at her for a moment, one of those "oh please don't leave me alone with this" looks that he would later deny even knowing how to make. After a moment when it became obvious that she would not turn back to them, he grunted softly and turned his attention to the dog. Stiff-legged, he stalked over, towering above the little thing, and glared down at it with icy dignity.

[woocha]

Wishbone's tail drooped when he realized that he was not exactly welcome. But damned if he doesn't try to be friendly at least!

Do you two like stories? I could read you both some.

[beastsouled]

Stung pride or not, Firekeeper nearly turned. The Royal wolves of the Iron Mountains had a rich oral tradition, and she had dearly loved hearing the stories of the pack. This had only intensified once she had come to human civilization and learned the variety of tales, both true and invented, that existed.

She was proud, though, and continued to ruffle the parchment, unaware that she held it upside-down.

"I have met very few other beasts who could read," Blind Seer admitted. "Most of the others have been of the wingéd folk."

[im_wacky_times]

"YOU CAN'T GET MUCH MORE ROYAL OR WISE THAN THIS" preened T-Rex, sans sentence-ending aural punctuation as was his sometime wont.

He waited for inevitable accolades. When none were immediately forthcoming, he prompted: "So that means I AM THE ONE you want to speak with. RIGHT"

[beastsouled]

Both Blind Seer and Firekeeper crouched low at the appearance of the gigantic scaled... thing. Blind Seer's ears flattened; Firekeeper's would have if they had been able to.

Firekeeper spoke first, mostly to cover Blind Seer's instinctive warning growl. "Do you mean us harm, large lizard?"

[im_wacky_times]

"Heck no!" While T-Rex was very good at stomping on things (with an emphasis on cabins, cars, and ladies), he found that stomping people didn't have the same charm without Utahraptor around to complain about it. Stomping a small car might be appealing, just for nostalgia's sake. "Is that all you wanted to ask the royal and wise T-Rex?!"

[beastsouled]

"It seems... strange," Firekeeper said. Blind Seer flicked an ear in her direction, but did not move otherwise. Out loud, she said, "Is T-Rex what you is or who you is?"

[perkeleperkele]

Finland raised an eyebrow at Firekeeper's knife. Impressive. Better than his knife, which was ever present at his side.

[beastsouled]

Firekeeper glanced back, keeping her Fang close by and not keeping the other's knife out of sight. Beside her, Blind Seer tensed but did not move yet.

[perkeleperkele]

Finland smirks. He takes a step forward, just to see what happens.

[beastsouled]

Both Blind Seer and Firekeeper twisted their lips in a warning snarl at the same moment. Blind Seer's was the more threatening of the two, since his muzzle held sharp white fangs while Firekeeper's teeth were the smaller human sort. "We would warn you against violence," Firekeeper said, Blind Seer backing her up with an audible, rumbling growl.

[g4llows_c]

Terezi smiled, perhaps a little more kindly than she usually did. "'Blind Seer,' huh?" she asked, slightly adjusting the red glasses that concealed her own ruined eyes. "That just a name, or is he actually blind?"

[beastsouled]

"When other pups' eyes darkened, his did not," Firekeeper said, laying a hand on his shoulder and scratching at him through his thick ruff. He closed his eyes happily--there were advantages to having a human wolf as a companion. "Worried that he was blind. He is not."

[g4llows_c]

Terezi nodded, not sure whether she was relieved or disappointed. It wasn't as if she had been particularly looking to commiserate, but the prospect of having someone else blind around had been vaguely intriguing. "That was lucky, then," she said. "So he's like your lusus or something?"

She'd actually been fairly sure that humans, as a rule, didn't have lusi, but damn if these two didn't act like Nepeta and Ponce.

[beastsouled]

Firekeeper nodded briskly, thinking of a Wise raven named Bitter who had been half-blinded by a blood briar several months previously. Ravens did not rely completely on sight for their survival, though he would always be at a disadvantage on one side when searching for predators larger and fiercer than he.

While wolves relied most heavily on their noses for awareness of the world around them, blind pups would not last long in the harshness of the Iron Mountains.

"What is?" she asked, cocking her head to the side expectantly. She and Blind Seer were well-traveled by now, after six years away from their birth pack. New words were to be expected.

[shifter_mordi]

"My brother can talk to aquatic animals," Mordi told her, "and my cousin can talk to any animal. He keeps a ferret as a companion." By Hades, was that ferret annoying. "Does it run in your family?"

[beastsouled]

"Talents run in some lines, human and beast alike," she said, avoiding mention of her own. She refused to think of it as a talent. She was a wolf in heart, in mind, in all but body, and refused to attribute it to anything magic.

[shifter_mordi]

"Yeah," he said, and Mordi realized that he'd run out of conversation. "Anyway. Welcome to Hogwarts."