define('WP_CACHE', true); Chapter 35: Turning The Tables – Crossed Paths – Logs

Mar 03

Chapter 35: Turning The Tables

Chapter 35: Turning The Tables

In Which A Little Action Is Better Than Words.

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Yazeth: Kirrian, true to her word, is rather tired and returns directly to her room while Sola, Dawn and the cooks begin distributing meals throughout the house. Neither of them see fit to update Jozra on the situation, however, when they deliver her meal and the two of them take their meal with Dysa in the hallway leading to Jozra’s room.

Arrin Woodgreen:  He sighs rises, beginning to pace the room restlessly. After a while he climbs on top of one of the crates and settles down to rest a bit, ignoring his meal.

Yazeth: Deke and Nolan, who had scarfed down their meal quite quickly, allow the otter to roam. What’s he gonna do to a store room anyway, right? Jozra eats, albeit quite mechanically, returning Dysa’s previous skull-boring stare. Unfortunately, the rattesses set their table a ways a way and any conversation they have is held in hushed tones.

Arrin Woodgreen: He closes his eyes and allows his mind to wander as he begins to drop off.

Yazeth: Jozra has finished her meal long before the plates are cleared. This time, Sola and Dawn remain behind, but Dawn is quickly called away to speak with Kirrian. She returns a few moments later with a determined look on her face and something in her paw. Poking her head into the ferret’s room she says the first thing Jozra has had directed at her in hours. “Goodnight, Jozra. Sleep well.”

Jozra glances at the rattess curiously, realizing too late what Dawn intends to do as she closes the door firmly and clasps a lock on it. The ferret is on her feet in an instant. “HEY!”

Arrin Woodgreen: He’s soon fast asleep, dreaming of being somewhere far off away from here.

Yazeth: The ferret slams her fists down on the door, not that she expects to get through the solid piece of timber. Dawn calls from the other side. “Get some sleep! This is for your own protection. The lock will come off in the morning.”

Jozra merely growls softly in return as she hears Dawn pad off down the hallway. She stalks across the room, resuming her pacing route but is quickly irritated by it. She flings herself down on the bed, thoroughly disgusted with herself for getting caught, for Dawn and all of her stupid well intentioned friends, for, for, ergh!

Arrin Woodgreen: He mumbles something in his sleep and rolls over, an arm flopped over his face and the other over the side of the crate.

Yazeth: Exhausted by her frustration and the sparring the night before, Jozra falls asleep before realizing what she’s done, and where her proverbial ‘safety blanket’ is.

Arrin Woodgreen: He mumbles again, his whiskers twitching and his tail giving a slight wag.

Yazeth: It begins surprisingly innocently enough. She’s talking to Azrun, wrapped in a cloak and sitting perched on a rocky overlook.

“I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,” the archer-fox says. Jozra shakes her head darkly, “None of us do, Azer.”

She frowns in discomfort as she spies a mole staggering in the streets of the town, obviously infected and very delirious. This momentary distraction is enough for a young mouse the pair hadn’t noticed earlier, and he darts from the edge of town. Azrun spins and draws in the same instant, loosing his arrow but narrowly missing his target. Jozra hits him, though, and the mouse falls with a thud. The two cringe in shame and the ferret mutters through gritted teeth, “I HATE this.”

Arrin Woodgreen: He shifts again, adjusting the shirt pillowed beneath his head.

Yazeth: The scene shifts, in that way that dreams do, taking a roundabout psychedelic route through conversations and slain villagers to a council of the Scorpions assigned to this distasteful duty. The council where the Nine hesitantly reach the conclusion that the town must be put to the torch. Azrun looses a flaming arrow, Lysiz flings a torch from a precipice to the roofs below, Jozra and the others cut down the escapees. A child shrieks in terror and the noise manifests its self in the real world.

Dawn jerks into wakefulness at the scream. Jozra is startled awake. She blinks and wonders, “Who?”

Arrin Woodgreen:  The otter jerks into reality as his ears pick up the sound of the Jozra’s scream. He practically flies towards the door, trying the door to find it locked. He pleads with the other two males. “Please let me go, she needs me!” There’s no short-temperedness or anger in the in the male’s actions any more, only severe worry.

Yazeth: The ferret groans as she realizes, due to Dawn’s frantic scratching at the lock on her door, that it was indeed herself that had screamed. Tired, irritated and frustrated, Jozra resolves to get herself, and Soquan, out of this situation post haste.

Nolan, who was jerked out of a doze at Jozra’s scream, looks wildly at Deke who is staring at Soquan, obviously confused.

Arrin Woodgreen: He sighs and rams his bodyweight into the door, surprised as it breaks easily.  He pauses only a moment to get his bearings as he darts towards the origin of the noise.

Yazeth: Jozra stands as the door finally bangs open and Dawn and Sola rush through, halfway through comforting words and phrases before they actually see the ferret standing there looking, well, irritated. Their confusion is nothing compared to Nolan and Deke’s, who stare dumbly at the shattered remains of the store room door, still trying to process what just happened. It is this delay that gives Soquan the head start he needs to find his way to the stairs and up them.

Arrin Woodgreen: He stumbles around for a few moments before he finds the stairs.  Once this is achieved he darts up them as fast as he can without endangering himself.

Yazeth: Dawn, who is only slightly put off by the fact that the ferret is not, in fact, whimpering and crying as she would have expected, enters the room and puts a kind paw on Jozra’s shoulder, attempting to lead her back to the bed. “There, there… I had a feeling something like this might happen. Don’t you see why we had to separate you from the cause of your pain? “

Jozra, much to the rattess’ surprise, shakes the paw off and glares at Dawn coldly. “You don’t know anything.”

Arrin Woodgreen: Soquan suddenly bursts into the room, panting slightly from his run. Going into ‘protector’ mode, he snarls at the two rattess’. “Get yer paws off’o’er!”

Yazeth: Much to her own surprise, Jozra crosses the room quickly and clings tightly to the otter. She mumbles a rather inadequate explanation by way of, “I hate those rotting things…”

Arrin Woodgreen: He wraps his arms tenderly around the female, he rubs her back gently, being careful of her bruises. “I know.” He nuzzles her gently, his muzzle bumping gently at her collarbone, neck and jaw. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, I don’t like you having these nightmares any more then you do.”

Yazeth: The jaws on the rattesses drop, but Dawn’s eyes glitter in frustration. Such a naive girl… she thinks, though the thought process is interrupted by the arrival of a very indignant Kirrian with Deke and Nolan almost immediately at her back, looking rather sheepish at letting the otter go.

Spurred on by the arrival of her superior, the rattess takes a step towards the couple glaring fiercely at Soquan. “You take your hands off of her!”

Before the words are barely out of the rattess’ mouth, Jozra moves and a little black dagger soars through the air, shearing the whiskers on one side of Dawn’s face and thudding ominously into the headboard of the bed.

Arrin Woodgreen: He stands there, a bit confused at what happened, but cannot mistake the sound of metal into wood. “Jozra, be nice, they were only trying to keep you safe from the big, bad, female beating otter.” He gives her another slight nuzzle.

Yazeth: The ferret, however, has had enough of her would be ‘rescuers’ company. As Dawn stands stark still, utterly frozen by the turn of events, Jozra reaches past her to retrieve her blade. Muttering softly to Soquan, she pulls him by the arm towards the door, glaring at those blocking their path. “Lets get out of here.”

Arrin Woodgreen: He allows himself to be pulled behind the ferret, it’s the fastest way to move without his staff. “I’m right behind you.”

Yazeth: Deke and Nolan stand firm behind Kirrian, but Jozra draws herself up to her full height, which is just a hair taller than the slight vixen, and stares the head of the house in the eye. Each word she says is its own sentence. “I. Am. Perfectly. Capable. Of. Taking. Care. Of. My. Self.”

Arrin Woodgreen: He stands behind the ferret, his arms crossed as he listens.

Yazeth: To her credit, Kirrian does not flinch nor look away. She frowns and glances at Dawn, checking to make sure that the rattess is alright. “You have attacked one of my members and thus are no longer welcome in my house.”

The vixen gestures and Deke and Nolan stand aside, finally comfortable in their current role of ‘bodyguard.’

Arrin Woodgreen: He speaks from behind the ferret. “What about the stuff you took from me? Her extra set of clothes and my staff.”

Yazeth: Sola finally speaks up. “I put them in a crate just inside the kitchen, the door right next to the store room.”

Arrin Woodgreen: He nods and strides past the small group to retrieve the things.

Yazeth: The pair quickly find their way downstairs and in the kitchen with a small group of followers who mind their distance. Jozra grabs her spare set of clothing and places Soquan’s staff into his paws.

Arrin Woodgreen: He smiles faintly. “Thank you.” He shifts the staff to his unbitten paw. “Back to the inn then?”

Jozra

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