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 Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:23 pm
Rook was not a happy camper.
He'd managed, in the past 48 hours, to have a mutiny on his ship, fall into a pile of cow crap, get mugged, get beaten upside the head with a cane when he tried to lift an old lady's purse, and been pursued by the old lady's angry and very tall grandson for fifteen minutes.
Out of breath, covered in cow dung, and wishing very much that lightning would come from the cheerful sunny blue sky and strike him dead, Rook sat on a street corner and brooded.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:04 pm
"... hello?"
There was the sound of moving fabric and metallic footsteps behind Rook, and then someone was sitting down beside him on the curb. A young man with flaming red hair, his hand holding a corner of his scarf up to his nose against the odour Rook was emitting, gave him a vague smile.
"Are ... you lost? Need directions to a hotel? Or ... a hose?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:07 pm
Rook jolted and jumped a good foot of the ground, tail a bottlebrush.
"Don't DO THAT," he said, holding one hand to his heart and the other to his forehead. "Ye gods, man, do you want to kill me?!"
After his moment of melodrama had passed, Rook sighed and assumed his position of Pathetic Street-Dweller and All-Around Loser, staring at a crack in the pavement.
"But now that you ask, yes, I'm in need of somewhere to stay," he said flatly.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:18 pm
The boy looked a bit surprised behind the edge of his scarf at the outburst, which he had raised higher in a desperate attempt to keep his nose from melting off his face.
"Well uh ... I knows a place where you could get cleaned up, then point you to any amount of boarding houses, hostels, inns and etcetera. Sir."
He gave another vague, good natured and slightly awkward smile at the man, and seemed in some odd way to be waiting for something.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:26 pm
((because I'm made of fail, I gotta head to bed. See ya later xD ))
"Yes yes, very good," Rook said absently with a wave of his hand. Then he gave the new man a look, suddenly suspicious. "You're not a hooker, are you?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 9:35 pm
((HAA HAHAHAH HSDF HAFD HOOKER omfg you dont' know how much that made me laugh. allright! :3))
"........what?!"
Dropping his scarf, the boy waived his hands frantically in the air, shaking his head back and forth vigorously. As he did so, the hair hiding the left side of his face swung away, revealing a bronze sphere where his left eye should be.
"Oh, no no no no I'm n - a - do I looks like a girl?"
stopping his mad head shaking, he quickly looked down at his chest as if worried that breasts might have sprouted since he last checked.
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Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 6:04 am
(( I try, I try. :B ))
"There can be male hookers," Rook said stubbornly, glad his accusation had triggered such a quick denial. "And besides, I'm broke. Couldn't afford your services if you were."
Giving the false eye a mildly interested look, wondering how much it would be worth if sold in a back alley in the small hours of the morning, Rook stood and brushed a few dried flakes of dung off his coat.
"Well then. Carry on. I wouldn't mind something with a decent bath and a bed, really..."
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Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:50 pm
Looking up again, the boy's remaining eye wavered uncertainly.
"You're ... broke? Oh, oh .. well. That's ok."
He looked around, then seemed to make up his mind and stood up, a bit stiffly, on shoe-less feet that appeared to also be made from bronze, albeit far less skillfully.
"Well, follow me. You don't mind sleeping on - on straw do you? I mean without any money it might take a bit of work to get you a mattress that won't give you fleas. Or something worse. Oh, um. My name's Diek, by the way. Pleased to meet you."
Tugging up a corner of his overlarge jacket that had begun to slide down his shoulder, the boy gave another awkward half-smile to the koshka.
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:13 am
"Straw, brick, nails, I don't care," Rook said with a sigh of resignation. "Fleas I'll deal with, so long as they don't give me some kind of venereal flea disease."
Looking at Diek consideringly, he offered a hand as though in afterthought.
"Rook. Rook Malquin. Charmed."
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:33 pm
"ah .. er, right. same to you."
Diek had been trying to avoid this, but he gingerly took the filthy man's hand and shook it tentatively, trying not to breathe. It was amazing how focused and clear his thoughts became when the air around hi made his eyes water. even living on the streets as he did, it was rare to come across someone who smelled this awful.
fighting the urge to wipe his hand on his coat, he set off down the street, indicating for Rook to follow after him.
"so um ... you're not a native of (*) are you ...?"
(*I don't know where they are ... how about Erasmus? if so, insert that.)
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:45 pm
"Erasmus? Pfah, no," Rook said, ignoring how his own stomach turned as he caught a whiff of his soiled body. "I DID have an airship I traveled on, but...it and I have since parted company."
And gods take his forsaken crew and throw them into the lowest pit of hell for this slight. He was their captain for heaven's sake. They hadn't even mutinied against him properly, they'd just ditched him when he'd been busy. Ingrates.
"Are you?" he asked belatedly, a bit more gruffly than was necessary. "A native, I mean."
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:35 am
"I guess you could say that. Um. They found me washed up on a beach when I was a kid. I don't really remember anything before that, so to me, this island and city is my home."
Giving a nervous laugh, Diek scratched the back of his ear absent-intendedly. He felt kind of sorry for the man to have walked into such an awkward answer like that, he probably didn't need to hear about it. Pausing for a second, he turned off the main streets and into a maze of back alleys.
"Um ... you don't mind if the water's a bit cold do you?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:49 am
"Intriguing," Rook said absently, picking at a dried splotch of...well, he didn't like to think about it splattered across his arm. At the question he gave an indifferent shrug. "As long as it'll get me clean, I don't care."
Falling into sullen silence, he reflected for a minute on his behavior so far. He'd been rather rude, and the odd creature WAS just trying to lend him a helping hand. He sighed at his morality and shoved a hand into his pocket, groping for one of his only coins and pressing it into the boy's hand.
"Here," he said humbly. "Take it."
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:29 pm
Diek look down at the coin and his face crumpled. He knew it would have been no good he told them he couldn't do it but they had told him to shut up and stop complaining and anyway it wasn't like they'd mind it if he didn't bring this man in because he didn't have any money on him anyway so they'd have just said he was a waste of time, right? Swaying back and forth a bit, his lips moving while he thought this out to himself, the boy suddenly started, yelped and tossed the coin back at Rook as though it was red hot.
"It's fine! It's fine! You can keep it!"
He then did a 180% turn in the alley and hurried off in the other direction, not even glancing back a the man.
"I - I took a wrong turn back there, we're going the wrong way, come on."
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:10 pm
Hmm. That certainly wasn't at all suspicious, now was it. Rook's eyes narrowed and his ears set back a bit, but he followed Diek obligingly.
"Yes, yes of course," he said mildly. The gears in his head were turning thoughtfully now; so the boy wasn't a hooker, but that didn't mean he wasn't a procurer. "No rush, none at all."
Putting his hands back into his pockets, Rook rested his fingers on the worn hilt of his knife. If this kid was going to pull something, he wouldn't be walking away unscathed.
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