ARPG Miscellaneous: Clumsy | Teapot, Badallaioc, Helagnus, (Laverito)

Laverito = Laverito (rider)

Badallaioc = Badallaioc

Helagnus = the corva, Helagnus

Teapot = the casua (owned by SheepMomther)

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Trying to move or even slightly shift a dozing Badallaioc was terribly ill advised.

Laverito could get away with using him as a mattress, though - if not a very enthused one. Laverito sat on Badallaioc's back, nearly swallowed in puffy silken feathers, and meticulously groomed his long ears. 

He was always nearly unbearably conscious of his ears, and the smallest gnarl in the fur, or the most inconsequential glut of dirt, could ruin his concentration completely until remedied. Laverito had formed something of a bad habit (although that wasn't saying much, as he collected those) of grooming his ears whenever and as often as he possibly could.

He’d long believed the condition was a demonic curse cast at him by his mother, when he’d escaped her. Some days it was unbearable. Some days it was manageable. Some days it was both, alternating across the hours.

The casua rested across the clearing, lounging in the shade of a short tree, brown feathers fluffed up into a cloud of content stryx. While they had all been wandering together, the casua had never once shown a hint of aggression, not even when Badallaioc snapped out nasty curses in the heat of frustration. 

Not curses with any power behind them, of course. Badallaoic, for all his awful temper, was no demon. Laverito would know, being one himself. With his twisted horns and eyes of black, few would argue otherwise. 

But demon-spawn or not, he was still in some ways an animal. Specifically, a hare - a prey animal. And although the casua seemed perfectly friendly, Laverito was generous with his compliments but stingy with his trust. 

A squawk from across the way made Laverito freeze, one hand halfway down his left ear. He looked over to find the casua approaching. 

Blithely not acknowledging Badallaioc's cranky clucking in the least, the casua stretched out a long neck to gently offer a cheerful red flower. Sky-blue eyes, brimming with ever-so-hopeful anticipation, met Laverito's own eyes of empty black, and. Well. Laverito might be a soulless abomination more brewed than born, but how could anyone resist that?

Laverito crossed his eyes, staring at the gift being pressed against his black nose, and said, "Uh, thanks?"

When he carefully accepted the gift, the casua bobbed and swayed with obvious joy. It was a decidedly uncommon situation, truly: being plied with colorful gifts by a random wild casua who hadn't even given Laverito a name.

It was exactly at this moment, with Laverito still in the middle of his baffled wonderment, that the screeching orange corva dropped out of the sky. 

The tranquility of nap-time was broken. Laverito ducked, rolling into the grass and coming up on all fours, bounding behind the nearest tree with as much ease as running. He curled his thin-fingered wings close to his back, and had his knife in hand before he thought to grab it. 

The casua simply vanished into the trees, navigating them with graceful ease despite the low and tangled foliage and the collective panic of the moment.

Badallaioc, never one to back down, sprang up onto his red talons, roaring dramatically, more at being roused from his nap than anything. One did not simply disturb a dozing Badallaioc! 

And the corva was about to learn that lesson. Laverito didn't envy the corva one bit.

Well past merely ruffled feathers - Laverito would describe the corva's feathers as vibrating with sheer unmitigated rage - the corva staggered up onto her own talons, answering Badallaioc's roar with a shriek that made Laverito's ears pin down so tightly that they nearly wrapped around his neck. He grimaced at the hideous noise. 

Badallaioc chattered and snapped, speaking faster than Laverito could follow, but credit where it was due - the corva matched Badallaioc snap for snap, squalling and puffing and glaring every bit as fiercely as Badallaioc did. 

While the pair nattered at each other, Laverito cautiously leaned out to get a better look at the newest arrival. No rider, no tack, tattered feathers, chipped beak: in all, looked even wilder than the casua - and he jumped. Oh! The casua had come up behind him, also peering out at the confrontation in the clearing, that white-masked head tilted in what might be curiosity or confusion. 

"Helagnus?" Badallaioc snarled. "Some flier you are. Trying to fly through the ground, were you?"

"Clamp your beak, dirtfeathers!" the corva - Helagnus, was it? - snarled back. "I fly better than you do!"

"Ah, a great flashy flier?" Laverito said, doing his best to squawk without having the beak for it. "Bright feathers, bold back tips!"

Helagnus paused, then squinted over at where Laverito was peeking out from behind his tree, with the casua also peeking out over Laverito's much smaller head. Looking rather wrong-footed all of a sudden, Helagnus looked back to Badallaioc.

"That's my rabbit. Back off," Badallaioc growled. 

"I am a hare, you overgrown tit," Laverito chirped.

Badallaioc briefly shifted his murderous glare from Helagnus to Laverito, but only for a few seconds. With a derisive grunt, never minding the fact that stryx weren't designed to grunt, Badallaioc snidely asked Helagnus, "You crash often, or just where you're not wanted?"

"Court a tornado," Helagnus seethed, ruffling wrathfully.

Laverito could see a fight coming. Not the posturing and puffing and shrieking, but a full no-holds-barred battle for dominance. Badallaioc was hardly going to try defusing the situation, and Laverito wasn't stupid enough to try getting in between two massive, wild carnivores, neither of which would hesitate to take a bite out of him - and it would be a lethally large bite.

However, neither Badallaioc nor Helagnus had accounted for the casua. To be fair, Laverito hadn't either. 

The casua meandered out of the trees, looking for all the world as if battles to the death were things of fiction, pure campfire tales. Helagnus angled a white-masked face in such a way as to keep everyone in her sights, which was perfectly fair. Laverito didn't trust anyone here either. 

A small trinket was presented to Helagnus with all due aplomb: a stone the size of Laverito's palm, smooth and glittering in the sunlight with specks of shiny mica. The casua made full use of soulful blue eyes, gazing expectantly yet patiently at Helagnus. Laverito watched gleefully as Helagnus' willpower steadily crumbled.

Like a great number of creatures, it seemed that Helagnus, too, had a certain weakness for shiny things. Helagnus visibly hesitated, bright eyes darting hither-thither between all the witnesses, but always landing back on the sparkly rock. In this moment of hesitant silence, Laverito noted the ridges where scars or wounds were obscured beneath Helagnus' feathers. 

Helagnus slowly accepted the sparkly rock. The casua wiggled with happiness, and then wandered off to have a happy roll through the grass. 

Looking truly befuddled, with her beak now occupied by a sparkly rock, Helagnus looked at Badallaioc.

"Don't you ask me. I don't know," Badallaioc grumbled sourly.

"So," Laverito said, conversationally. "Fumble a thermal maybe?"

Helagnus didn't spit out her rock, but it was a very near thing. Her glare was nearly enough to smite Laverito where he stood, absentmindedly scratching his left ear. 

"Well, guess I wouldn't know," he acquiesced. "Don't fly. Badallaioc runs faster anyway."

Helagnus' eyes took on a primordial, fiery quality, and Laverito suddenly realized maybe that was not the right thing to say to a flying stryx.