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Post by seraaches on Oct 18, 2007 22:41:25 GMT -5
Shinrai blinked again as she twisted his insult, deflecting it easily away and still leaving a bit of a barb at him. Thus far, that was the most interesting thing to happen all night. Nevertheless, a hint of interest or not, he had more important things to do than deal with a dog in heat. He had continued reconnaissance to do and he just knew she would get in the way.
”Your presence is neither required nor desired,” Rai said coldly, though his eyes glinted faintly in brief amusement. The Yarrow Gardens female had called over the very barmaid he had so recently repulsed; the ferret hesitated only a moment, however, before bringing the drinks requested.
The horse let his ears flick backwards again in warning at the mustelid, and she swiftly put down the glass beside his current mug. Other than that, however, Rai was staring blandly at the canine, willing her to go away so he could keep listening for clues.
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Post by Bee on Oct 18, 2007 23:13:23 GMT -5
Mnemosyne sipped slowly at her dark amber drink. Not the best bitter she had ever had (not long aged, she suspected, but then she should have known better than to expect high-quality alcohol from such an establishment), but servicable. Her mood and confidence were improving, thanks to both the drink and the faint inkling that she was making some small measure of progress.
The stallion once again issued a chilly brush-off, but there was a slight glean of interest there. He had other things on his mind, obviously--Mnem did not know nor particularly care, but she assumed it was related to a sob-story of some sort--but she fancied she could help with that.
"Most...adventures...aren't," she replied, with a small shrug and winsome smile. "You get to like them."
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Post by seraaches on Oct 18, 2007 23:32:16 GMT -5
She was incredibly sure of herself. Incredibly so. Of course, that should have been expected from a Yarrows Garden female. It was an interesting twist to their conversation. ”A bit too confident, perhaps,” Rai purposefully murmured aloud as he gave her another long glance. He hadn’t touched the new drink yet; arguably because he was still working on his beer. In truth he was afraid that even that difference in alcohols would ruin him for the dirt-cheap beer. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford a better alcohol, but Shinrai had learned early to be frugal; everything had to gear towards his goal.
His long, whip-like tail twitched again as he kept his face virtually expressionless. ”Why have you… ‘deigned’ to interrupt my peaceful reflection?” His control over his facial expressions was a great deal better than his control over his tone, so the equine was careful to deliver his words in a very flat voice. Nevertheless, some hint of his intrigue or amusement just might come through to someone listening for it.
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Post by Bee on Oct 19, 2007 0:12:15 GMT -5
She chose to disregard his pointed mutterings. She knew she had a certain degree of..aplomb and tenacity...that had earned her the ire of a few people in the past (not that such people weren't easily dealt with, but with her current mission in mind Mnenosyne felt no keen desire for tonight's festivities to end in a hasty cremation), but she could usually wield it well and to her favor. She would just have to tread carefully; she really didn't think her confidence was going to be a hindrance, in any event.
Pleased by both the slightly less negative words and the faint hint of being roped in, Mnemosyne took another delicate sip at the bitter before replying.
"People coming to crowded places rarely do so for solitary meditation," she pointed out. "And someone like you is not precisely inconspicuous.” She let a note of invitation slip into her voice. “I seek merely the pleasure of your company."
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Post by seraaches on Oct 19, 2007 0:31:10 GMT -5
Actually, he often came into crowds to be alone; Shin had been a constant by his side until… He pushed the memories away. He needed another’s presence around him sometimes to just push away the feeling of constant loss. Even after years, he had not recovered, especially since he would not let his anger die. He wasn’t going to argue with the canine, though. She had no right to his memories or his unease.
He did, however, fight an urge to bristle at her insinuation that he wasn’t blending in. He’d spent years learning to be inconspicuous. ”More that you do not excel at being inconspicuous.” He let his eyes rove pointedly across the bright colours of her hide. ”I was blending quite well until you appeared here.”
He heard the invitation in her tone and made a decision to ignore it. There was something about the look in her eyes that said he would be better off simply verbally sparring with her words rather than try to deal with her implications.
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Post by Bee on Oct 19, 2007 1:31:08 GMT -5
She'd hit a sour note, apparently. She wondered if he were one of those creatures who had a thing, something dark and bitter eating at them like termites, hollowing them out and leaving them incapable of experiencing any sort of joy. Terribly depressing, if true, but also somewhat compelling; a sob story she might be interested in hearing.
At least for a time. Creatures with a thing also tended to be incorrigible whiners (she remembered, for one brief moment, an obnoxious affair she'd conducted with a fellow Yarrow Gardens canine, and the inordinate amount of time she had spent listening to that wretched girl complain and bemoan her sorrows) though she suspected this was probably not the case here. Time would tell.
And there would be time, if she had anything to say about it.
"Perhaps," she mused aloud, "I should have said people like you are rather conspicuous to people like me." Amused, she added, "And I do not intend to be inconspicuous."
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Post by seraaches on Oct 19, 2007 1:50:50 GMT -5
Shinrai was not mollified by those words; if anything it put him further on the alert. His tail twisted instinctively around his left hind leg, but he quickly forced it to unwrap again, pretending it either had not occurred or was a purposeful action.
”Oh, is that so?” he asked as casually as he could, but his tone held a hint of nerves and the white edge of his eye came into sight. ”I’ll try that statement. Just wot is so conspicuous about me for your oh, so, inconspicuous self? If—” His head tilted up as his chin dropped slightly to eye her challengingly. ”Of course, you don’t mind sharing your infinite wisdom with me.”
Despite his sharp tone and evident low-level irritation, Rai was slowly becoming intrigued with the canine; a reaction he was actually hoping to avoid. Especially since she was so blasted certain of her own allure.
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Post by Bee on Oct 19, 2007 2:33:22 GMT -5
Mnemosyne polished off her first drink. She suspected it would be one of many. She also suspected that she would not be able to answer the stallion's question directly without appearing to be a bit strange and more than a little callous--well, it's nothing really, it's just that I have an odd affection for sullen brooders and I think your life story might entertain me--so she kept it simple.
"You looked interesting," she said, and then threw an appraising glance about the bar. "They looked merely drunk. And now that I've offered you that little gem of insight, perhaps you would care to oblige me as well?"
She came dangerously close to uttering the words, What's a stallion like you doing in a place like this?, but she wouldn't be able to do that without bursting into laughter, which would undo all the work she had been keen to accomplish.
"What exactly are you looking for, my belligerent friend?"
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Post by seraaches on Oct 19, 2007 4:30:29 GMT -5
Somehow her answer didn’t seem entirely honest, though he didn’t think she was outright lying to him. No way to effectively check, so he didn’t bother trying. He had no reason to ‘oblige’ her curiousity; she was just a Diamond, after all, and a mid-ranked one at that.
Still, he found himself answering before he could think about it. ”Information,” he replied off hoof, as though it meant nothing to tell her. He flinched inwardly at having been so frank, even though his answer was still too ambiguous to really tell her much of anything. His ears shifted backwards for just a moment before beginning their careful swivels yet again. They were the one part of him that just seemed unable to remain still; almost like a feline’s tail. His tail slithered along his hindquarters for a moment, brushing at an itch, before falling back to its normal neutral position.
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Post by Bee on Oct 19, 2007 22:59:56 GMT -5
She hadn't expected him to spill his guts at the slightest provocation--he was probably used to keeping his story, whatever it was, close to the chest--but she felt a brief jolt of glee at being able to get something out of him, tiny though that something was. She wanted to offer some kind of encouragement, perhaps press the issue a little bit, but she feared that doing too much reconaissance too soon would cause the stallion to--well--bolt. Mnemosyne decided it was probably better to live in the now.
She took a moment to order another glass of barley, and decided to drink this one a bit more slowly. She tried to dismiss the fact that he had not even touched the bitter she had ordered for him--did he think she wasn't going to pay for it, or did he merely prefer terrible drink?
When her order arrived, she focused her attention back to the matter at hand. "Not having much luck, I take it," she offered warmly.
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