paixaorpg | He's a weasel, not a drowned rat! [complete]

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He's a weasel, not a drowned rat! [complete]

Character(s): Juro
Content: Juro roams the city in misery. But only because he doesn't like being rained on.
Setting: Vanaheim area, F3
Time: Hm...early afternoon.
Warnings: Juro's cranky.

Juro was MISERABLE.

He didn't know when he'd ever been this wet anytime in his recent history. Where had this weather come from? And how was it coming? There wasn't any sky to this place that he could see. He swore to himself as the water managed to find its way through to every single part of him. This isn't a city anymore, it's a damned river! he growled to himself.

He was already tired of splashing through puddles, tired of drenching himself even more - if that was even possible, anyways. Because of that, by the time he saw what appeared to be strange, shiny trees he ended up hopping up into one of them. They stank of some sort of metallic substance that made Juro want to grimace, but at least they offered some kind of relief from the rain. Of course, the inside of a building would have offered the best protection - but there was no way in hell Juro was about to go wading through even more of that water right now just to reach one.

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Ahnassi made her way down the streets of the strange city, much of her initial excitement over her new journal fading as the irritation over being completely drenched took its place. A little rain she didn't mind. It was good and right and made the plants grow. But this was just crazy! There was so much water falling from the not-real sky above and it just kept coming and coming! Ahnassi's simple green robes were soaked all the way through and were sticking against her fur as she walked. Robes were very comfortable most of the time, but when they were this wet, they were just awful to wear. She wanted to take them off, but then she'd have to carry them, and that was just as bad.

"Sheogorath's realm," she muttered to herself darkly. "It must be." What the daedric prince would want with her, she had no idea, but it seemed to make the most sense, given the situation. She should have known that the gods were conspiring against her, after all that had happened. Not very nice of them, really.

She hadn't seen any other Khajiit in this realm, either... or Argonians or Dunmer or any other kind of mer for that matter. Just humans... they seemed to be everywhere. That wasn't such a bad thing, but it was strange. Many of them looked very similar, too. Still, Ahnassi couldn't be certain that there weren't ~any~ other races in the city. They might just be waiting out the rain, although Argonians liked water, so she didn't see why they wouldn't be out, at least, if there were any of them to be found.

The Khajiit saw a bit of movement and blinked in surprise. There was something in one of the pretty metal trees that were decorating the city! And it definitely didn't look human. She saw fur on it, and that in itself was enough to prompt her to get a little closer and see what it was.

It probably wasn't the best idea, but Ahnassi's curiosity had gotten the better of her. She couldn't be certain, but the thing in the tree looked like some kind of wild animal... possibly a dangerous one, although it wasn't making any threatening moves. She hadn't seen anything quite like it before. She wondered what it was called.

Juro realized that there was a rather sudden silence by now. The tinkle of water hitting the metallic leaves had stopped - and, of course, so had the rain.

He looked around to make sure that he wasn't just imagining it, and then noticed the cat-like creature standing below on the ground. "And just what are you looking at?" he said to her, glowering at her. He stood up on the branch he'd been sitting on, using one arm to grab a branch above him to keep his balance. With his fur still dripping water, he really didn't look as frightening as he could have been.

Ahnassi looked up at the sky for a moment as the rain suddenly stopped... It had gone from downpour to a complete stop in a single moment, and now the painted clouds in the sky were rapidly parting to reveal a very bright sun. It was unexpected and very confusing and really didn't do much to reassure her.

She was even more surprised when the furry creature she had been looking at suddenly turned and talked to her. It wasn't some kind of wild animal! She still had no idea what he was, but she wasn't quite as worried about getting attacked by him if he was intelligent. "Ahnassi is sorry," she apologized, hoping she hadn't offended him. "Ahnassi did not realize you could talk. There are none of your kind in Morrowind, where Ahnassi comes from."

"Morrow wind? Never heard of that place." Juro sneered. "But even if you are from some weird foreign land, that still doesn't mean you can just stare at me like that." He took a moment to wring out the worst of the rest of the water from his fur, growling as he did so. Stupid rain, stupid...everything, right now.

Ahnassi was starting to wonder if she should just leave. The creature, whatever he was, didn't seem to be very friendly, even if he was able to talk. She was leaning towards disliking him for his attitude, but some of it was probably due to the fact that he was completely drenched. Ahnassi was too, but she realized that some people didn't take things like that as well as she did.

His argument was kind of dumb, though, and she decided to point that out to him, "Oh, don't be silly. Ahnassi has not seen or heard of your kind ever before. It would be foolish for Ahnassi to not watch a creature she does not know. If you were dangerous, like the kagouti and wild nix-hounds in Morrowind, you might attack while Ahnassi was looking elsewhere."

"Heh, not like it'd really matter one way or the other with me," said Juro. "If I really wanted to attack you, I'd get it done and over with before you could even blink." Even if that wasn't entirely true, he was rather speedy compared to most other monsters. "Wouldn't matter how well you were watching."

He saw no need to stay up here now that there was no chance of being swept away by a flood. Juro leapt from the tree, landing on his feet a good few feet away from the Khajiit. He stood there, watching her.

Ahnassi stepped back a little when the kamaitachi lept out of his tree, thought it was more of an instinctive reaction than any real fear. She didn't expect him to actually attack her, despite his talk. It sounded more like bluster than a real threat. "You might not find Ahnassi so easy to attack as you think," she told him, though a smile was starting to creep back over her face again. "But Ahnassi is happy that you don't really want to attack her. It makes the meeting nicer."

The Khajiit observed to herself that the other seemed to be watching her about as intently as she had watched him earlier. She didn't care, though. Unlike him, she wasn't going to make a big deal over someone looking at her. There had already been some of that since she had arrived, and she had a feeling that it was because there weren't very many other Khajiit around, if any. This person probably had the same problem, though he didn't quite seem to be handling it as well.

"So... May Ahnassi ask for your name?" Ahnassi asked after a moment, deciding that she might as well find out whatever she could about him, as long as he was willing to talk.

"Going for the formalities now, hm?" The kamaitachi smiled. "Name's Juro. And...I'd ask for your name in return, but I think I can already guess what it is. It's Ahnassi, correct?"

"Yes! Juro is correct!" the Khajiit assured him, grinning with pleasure at the fact that he'd already picked up on her name. At least he was someone who paid attention to things like that. Most of her race spoke as she did, which usually made it easier to pick up names... and also less awkward when you couldn't remember the name of a new friend. Ahnassi especially wished the orcs would pick up that particular habit. It wouldn't make something like Shadbak gra-Burbug any easier to say, but at least it would give the other person a better chance of not mangling it completely...

"Ahnassi is new to this city," she explained, wondering if he might be willing to tell her a little more about where she was and how she had gotten there... and maybe explain what was up with the crazy weather. The rain wasn't quite as bad now, but it was thundering... thundering inside a dome, of all places! Some wizard had to hate this place or something. "It is very strange to her... And Ahnassi does not understand how she got here... Ahnassi was walking home and then she is suddenly here in this crazy place with rain and snow inside, like there are sorcerers having a fight somewhere..."

"You and me both," said Juro. "Hell, I've been here for longer than you have and I still haven't been able to figure it out entirely." He gave a little sniff of disdain. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking about going to find some place to stay, in case the weather gets crazy again." He took a few steps back, before stopping and looking at Ahnassi again. "And what were you planning on doing?"

"Ahnassi thinks it is like the mad god Sheogorath's realm, which is said to be a strange and maddening place," the Khajiit explained to Juro, though she wondered if he'd even heard of Sheogorath... He seemed like he was from a completely different realm, possibly even farther away than Oblivion... It was an odd thought, but she supposed if the daedra could live in a different world, then so could this Juro person.

She considered his idea for a moment, having to admit that it actually sounded good. She wasn't sure he would want her to stay with him and look for an inn or something together... But he was really the first person she'd met that had actually talked to her for any real length of time, so she figured that had to count for something. "Finding a place to stay sounds like a good idea to Ahnassi. It isn't very nice walking around in bad weather and getting these robes all wet..." she patted her soaked garments to emphasize her point. "Maybe Ahnassi can help find an inn with the magic journal the gatekeeper gave her? It had a map..."

Juro snickered at the mention of Ahnassi's so-called 'mad god'. "No, no gods here that I'm aware of - especially not that Sheogo-whoever you just named. Never heard of him." He scratched his side for a moment.

"...Those things have maps?" he asked her, sounding the tiniest bit surprised. He hadn't seen one of those on his...but then again, he had been more interested in punting it away than in fully looking at it.

Ahnassi was actually a little surprised to hear that this wasn't the realm of Sheogorath... or any other daedra, apparently. That made her cirumstances even more confusing, but she supposed it might actually be better than that possibility. The daedra weren't exactly the friendliest sorts, for the most part. The city of Paixao was probably better without them around. Not that she'd ever say that, because if one of them was actually around, then she'd probably make him angry! Angry daedra were NOT nice people to have around, not one bit!

The Khajiit took out her pretty blue journal and opened it up, carefully pressing buttons as she tried to find the feature she'd just mentioned. "Yes, there are maps on these!" she exclaimed in a happy tone, turning the screen towards Juro to show him the little map of the city. "Ahnassi thinks they are very useful and is so happy that the nice man at the gates gave her one! It is such a NICE color too, don't you think? It matches your fur!" Well... kind of. It was blue, at least, although it was a bit brighter than the kamaitachi's fur was. Still, it was close enough for Ahnassi.

Juro gave her a small, exasperated look. "Not really," he said, the faintest touch of a frown pulling at his lips as he flicked his gaze towards the maps. The most he could make of it was that it was comprised of various lines and shapes; he'd never been one much for looking at even normal maps, and this electronic map was no less clear to him.

Not that he'd admit it, though. "Very useful," he agreed, a bit gruffly. "So, um, let's go ahead and find someplace to stay with that thing, then."

Ahnassi grinned and turned the little screen back towards herself, so that she could look for a good place to go. She didn't realize that Juro couldn't read the map well, but since he was letting her take the initiative for the moment and find them a place to stay, it probably didn't matter. She could read the map fairly well, herself. It was actually better than some of the maps she'd seen back at her home in Morrowind, and none of them were so wonderfully interactive! She could chose a spot on the map, and the little journal would give her information about it! Of course, the problem was that a lot of the places didn't seem to be the kind of thing they were looking for.

After a moment, she stopped picking dots at random and started looking at places near where they apparently were. This proved to be very successful, as the Khajiit immediately found what she was looking for on the first location she picked. "Oh! Here, Juro!" She said, glancing up at her companion. "There is a place called... Actua Are near here... Oh! And another place called... Haja o... uh..." she stared at the odd name for a moment, then tried to pronounce it, mangling it somewhat, "Haja o qwee how-ver? Hoh-ver?" She blinked, then gave up on the name. "They are both places to stay. Ahnassi does not care which one we pick... Would Juro like to go to Actua Are, or the place with the funny name?"

Juro had a 'what?' expression plastered on his face as he listened to Ahnassi try to pronounce the names. "The hell kind of odd names are those?" he said, and then continued in more of a mumble: "Can't anybody name anything with a decent name anymore...?"

He sniffed. "I don't care where we go, as long as it's decent. Though perhaps we should go to the place with the more normal name - I don't know if I'd trust a place with a name like...like...oh heck, whatever it was."

The Khajiit poked at the journal for a moment before nodding in reply, "Juro has a very good point. And Ahnassi does not want to sound silly going somewhere she can't say the name of. People might make fun of her. Actua Are it is..."

Ahnassi looked up at the surrounding buildings, then turned and pointed down the street. "This is the way the magic journal says to go," she announced, setting off in that direction, with a glance back to make sure Juro was following along. "Actua Are should not be very far away." In fact, the hotel was extremly close to the gates of the city, no doubt to give weary travelers a place to stay. Ahnassi wondered what sort of people ran the place, whether they were nice, and if they had nice things there that were not guarded properly.

Juro started following along only after Ahnassi glanced back at him, and he fell into a loping stride, following beside and just behind her. "It better not be," he said. He wouldn't mind just being able to get inside somewhere...maybe do a little grooming and just take a bit of a rest...

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He's a weasel, not a drowned rat! [complete]

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