Hide and Seek

[Alenya Everglade]

"Eron! Eron, come back here!" Alenya's voice rang among the trees.
Apparently, her oversized pet eagle had desired an impromptu game of hide-and-seek because the animal had run off when Alenya had turned her back. Now, the silly beast was no where to be found.
Honestly, how many places in a forest can house a humongeous eagle? she thought bitterly to herself. "Eron!" she called again.
A distant squawk of Eron's was heard, enticing her, mocking her. Childishly, she stomped her foot on the leaf litter below it. "What happens when it gets dark and other hungry animals start to come out?" she called. No answer. "Huh, that usually sends him running," she said to herself; although Eron had a hugmongeous stature, he had a large heart and was afraid of a number of things, like the dark and bats.
Sighing, Alenya sat down against a tree and waited for the game to be over.

[Kalim]

Kalim personally loved this forest, mainly because this was there place where he had first found the branch that eventually wound up making itself into his staff, which had serves him well enough during his miniscule amount of time spent becoming a mage. As such, he often wandered around, with a compulsion to pick up any sturdy stick he could find and smack it a few times against a tree to see how well it stood, pretending to himself that it was a sword and he actually had some minute amount of skill with it and facing a worthy opponent.

It was during one of his random wanderings that he came across the girl, "Ahoy there!" Kalim said, brushing back a few branches and coming upon the small cleared area where Alenya sat, leaning against a tree, thinking she looked a bit put out, "Is everything alright over here? Or are you just taking a bit of a break to relax yourself." he said with a friendly grin.

[Alenya Everglade]

"Oh, hey," Alenya smiled absently, "I'm fine, but this is certainly no break. My crazy, sadistic, hide-and-seek-loving bird" - she yelled that description - "has run off, thinking we're playing a game. I'm just waiting for him to make a noise or come running up scared by some miniscule bug of sorts." She looked down at his hand and frowned. "Stick collector, are you? Or is there some strange hidden meaning behind the piece of wood you brandish so firmly. I heard you hitting trees earlier. May I ask what they ever did to you?"

[Kalim]

"The trees have done me great wrong! What are you talking about? What trees? You must be imagining things!" he said in short swift succession, his eyes shifting back and forth swiftly as he spoke, doing nothing but making him look to be in suspicious denial.

"This is just a walking stick I found and.........forgot that I carried a staff on my back," he said, dropping the stick to the ground that he carried and un-slinging his staff that was strapped to his back, making a show out of leaning against it for support.

"Erm," he said, clearly trying to change the subject, "You know, it might help if you called out really loudly that you were hungry or something and going to go home, then start to walk off, the bird might come flying back in fear of being left behind. I mean, it might work; you never know unless you try."

[Alenya Everglade]

"Sure..." Alenya smirked at the boy's anxious denial. Nice staff, by the way. I'm more of a swordswoman myself. My dream one would be elvin forged and have slight magical properties. You know, when regular magic simply won't cut it."
She squinted among the trunks for a rustle of feathers. "Okay, Eron...you win."
She paused; nothing happened.
"Come on out..."
Only the wind blew.
"Well, I'm hungry and if you don't show on the count of three, I'm eating your share of the food. One...two...OOF!"
For just then, a massive eagle, wing and head above Alenya, kamikaze-style dropped two feet away from her, knocking the girl to the forest floor.

[Kalim]

"Magical properties?" Kalim said, with a thoughtfully puzzled expression, "Bah! Who needs magic when you can just clunk things on the head? I found this staff myself, carved it down a bit over time. After all, biggest blade I've ever held was the knife I've used for whittling; I haven't seen much need for anything beyond that."

"Whoa," Kalim exclaimed in surprise, leaping back as they were assailed by the girl's pet and waving his staff in front of him as if to ward off the eagle.

"Ha!" he exclaimed in mild amusement once he recognized he wasn't about to be mauled by some savage beast, "Reverse psychology always works, doesn't it? Heh heh heh, you've been duped, my feathery friend!" he said to the eagle.

[Alenya Everglade]

Eron squawked indignately, snapping at the staff. Alenya cracked up and scolded the bird as she sat up tentatively.
"No, you great cat, he's not going to hit you. After all, you're no tree," she smirked and stared pointedly at Kalim, "even though you do enjoy hiding in them."
Eron quirked his head at Alenya, who listened to the silence, then laughed heartedly.
"Yes, you still have all your food."
More silence.
"Don't worry, he's a mage too. No one's coming after us."
More silence.
"Yet, I know. I need to stop hanging around the town square and tavern. Thanks, Mom," Alenya said sarcastically. She turned to Kalim.
"Oh, I'm so sorry about that. It must seem like I'm talking to myself, right? You see, me and Eron have been together for so long, I can hear him in my head. It's this crazy magical bond we have, kind of like reading minds." She laughed to herself. "I'm sure a lot of the people who come in contact with me and Eron think I'm mental, but it's whatever."

[Kalim]

"Now, I would never hit you," he said in the background as she spoke to her eagle, smiling wildly as he did, "Nah, you'd make a much better stew I think and we couldn't have you to mashed up for that. Unless of course we were having little birdie sausage, in which case that would be swell....."

"Ahhhh," he said simply, halting his ramblings when she turned her attention back to him, "Well, I don't personally understand any sort of mental minded stuff, but I do understand that I don't understand most magical abilities, if you get my meaning. So I figure I can just accept this one or have you locked up for being a danger to yourself and others...."

"Course," he said almost as an afterthought, "Then they'd probably lock me up for assailing innocent trees and smiting them for their wrongdoings."

[Alenya Everglade]

Alenya smiled herself. "Yes, we'd be a right pair in a mental hospital. Me talking to random animals and you hitting trees. What a show we'd give!" she smiled. "I don't really understand magical abilities either. I just know I can hear Eron and that's all I care about. I don't worry about the nitty gritty details about how it happens. It just does."

There was a beat of silence. "By the way, you wouldn't hit me or Eron? Ahd who exactly were you considering stewing? And birdie sausage sounds absolutely disgusting. Especcially an Eron sausage." Eron squawked and started to flap away. Alenya tugged on his claw. "Not really, stupid! I'm sure you'd be delicious...no, wait come back! Geez!" Alenya cursed herself as Eron flew up into the air. "Here we go again," she muttered. "Ah, well. He'll be back," Alenya waved absently as she perched herself on a low branch.

[Kalim]

"Well, to put us in a loony bin, they'd have to catch us first," he said with a sly wink at her, "And I don't know about you, but if pressed I can run pretty fast from authorities, as one learns quickly when one has a lot of fun with fire magic but little control over that same magic."

"I suppose you're right," Kalim said with a sigh, "I'm sure birdie stew would be much more flavorful." Kalim gave a bit of the start when the bird took to the air again, the sudden motion causing him to jump back for a step, "You know, that stew offer is still up for grabs......."

[Alenya Everglade]

"Thanks, but I don't feel like stewing my bird," she smiled at Kalim. She went still. "Did you hear something?" she whispered. She pushed Kalim down into the brush and crept behind a tree. Slowly, she picked her way through the branches, always keeping an eye out. She finally caught sight of a dark figure that seemed incredibly familiar. Her eyes widened in recognition; it was the...man?...from the caves. She took a step closer, accidentally placing her foot on a dry stick. It cracked like thunder on a clear day. Cringing, Alenya leapt down in the brush and halfway behind a tree, her eyes still on the myterious...thing.

[Kalim]

OOC: Erm.....didn't you like....just post in another thread with me? Isn't that like.....one of them...."paradox" thingies......I mean, I'd react to one based on what you did in the other but you haven't done it in the other so I wouldn't react even though I would react because it should have happened.........ghah! It boggles the brain! Oh well, I'll play along.


BIC:
"No, I didn't hear a thing." Kalim tried to say, but instead found himself face first in a pile of leaves and bracken, muffling his voice into an unintelligible mess. It really irked him that this came without warning, in addition to the fact that she didn't deign it proper to at least follow suit, instead deciding to creep along the forest floor.

Coming up sputtering and brushing dead leaves off himself, thoroughly convinced he had swallowed a couple pine cones in his brief meeting with the forest floor, he decided to follow the girl who had pushed him down.

"OYE!" he said loudly, after she had dove headlong into the same brush he had just been acquainted too, stepping to her side and nudging her with the end of his staff, "What was that all about? Are you really crazy or something? And I don't mean in the talking to birds way either."

[Alenya Everglade]

((OOC: yeah, I think I did post in another one of your threads...react or no, it can go either way. it's up to you! and yes, paradoxes are annoying. I just liked the thread and decided to respond.))

"SHHH!" Alenya hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth to shut him up. She saw the figure flinch and she pushed them further into the brush. "Don't you have any tact whatsoever? Don't you know not to bloody trust just anyone who comes into the forest? Especcially when that person isn't a mage?" she snapped in an undertone. Regaining herself, she sighed. "I don't mean to attack you. I vaguely know this guy and he threatened me before. I don't know him very well so I'd rather like to watch and see what he does before I go announcing our presence."

[Alenya Everglade]

((OOC: uh...which thread??))

[Kalim]

(Random one in the Arcane Santuary.....don't think you're there.......now we're just waiting on a post from Victor though, I guess.)