I'll make up a title later

X

Xindaris

Guest
Original poster
Lir didn't know exactly where she was, and this was good.

Sure, there were a lot of people in the world who felt a certain place was their home, and every other place they went to, they had a reason to go there in particular. So they always knew where they were, because they always planned where they were going, and if they didn't know where they were it was a matter of distress or at least inconvenience. Lir, however, was not altogether like such people. She wasn't entirely unlike them, though, or at least not entirely unlike humans and any other races who shared a similar form. Well, she really wasn't even entirely unlike the races that looked decidedly non-human in all respects, since there is a certain aspect to being a person in the first place that separates people from animals, and most if not all people have that in common, but I'm afraid we're straying off track.

Lir was a werewolf, and this was normal for her. That is to say, she was born a werewolf and raised in a forest full of them. Technically she's somewhere around half elf, though most seeing her human form would presume they were looking at a human. This particular human would be a bit taller than normal, dark-skinned, built sturdy and athletic, not especially attractive but certainly not ugly, dressed in a patchwork of fur and leather put together in the form of a long-sleeved shirt and longer pants, barefoot, with brown hair that didn't dare reach to her shoulders and bright yellow eyes. This was the kind of person who showed up at the gates of a city whose name she did not know and was allowed in by the guardsman after a brief conversation.

So she was in the city, wandering about as randomly through its roads as she had the countryside before. She wasn't really paying quite enough attention to where she was going, being much too busy taking in the sights, sounds and smells of this place. And it would be hard for anyone who knew her past to blame her--this was a big city, and she had never before in her life seen a hundredth of this concentration of people and buildings. That tends to happen when one has lived a short twenty-one years or so in a sacred forest. But anyway, as I was saying, she wasn't watching where she was going closely enough, and soon enough inevitably bumped into someone.

((Okay, some basic rules. Please describe your character's physical appearance and give a bit of an introduction to them in your first post. You're free to make multiple characters and make/control NPCs (within reason, and don't go overboard please). The usual RP etiquette rules apply--you know, the ones about not stealing other people's characters by writing their actions for them without their express permission, and whatnot. Other than that, we're making this up as we go. It's probably a roughly medieval fantasy world of some sort. I reserve the right to take the plot by the horns and steer it in some particular direction if a good idea comes along, but I probably won't do it without consulting you first, especially if it involves doing anything to or with your characters.

Would prefer that the next person to come along is who Lir here bumps into. I suppose they could witness her bumping into some NPC and then react to that in a way that causes them to meet her, if that's more your speed.))
 
Zedefada "Zed" flew threw the streets, his heart pounding in his chest. Hearing the sounds of pursuit behind him, he upped the pace, wondering if the humans could keep up. Apparently, they could, as he soon felt their hands reaching for his hair and clothes. Ducking underneath a hand, sending the guard tripping over his own momentum, he made his way through the streets, praying his feet wouldn't fail him.

Inevitably, he reached a dead-end square, a few shops on the three sides with the street leading into the square. There weren't even any alleys for him to duck down. Just people. People everywhere. Muttering a curse in the dark elf language, he tried to blend into the crowd, but with his skin, charcoal in color and texture, and hair, silvery gray and down to his mid-back, it was easier said than done.

Quickly realizing he wouldn't be getting out of this any time soon, he unsheathed his dagger, turning to stand and fight, when he bumped into someone. A girl. Quickly seeing his chance, he grabbed her by her collar, swinging her around with him as he pressed his knife to her throat. "Get back!" he shouted, his minimal knowledge of the human language preventing him from saying much more. Wrapping his free arm around her waist, he held her to his body, backing away slowly while taking in the amount of guards on the rooftops and on the streets.

He hated this. He wasn't normally this way, holding young women hostage. But today was special. Quite recently, his people, who lived in the mountains towards the north, were suffering a plague. Already, their numbers were reaching dangerously low levels. Because of this, and to prevent the disease from spreading to the people of the city, an act had been passed by the king to keep all dark elves out. His people had all but given up, but Zedefada had decided that he would sneak into the city and take any medicine that might help.

As he had been getting the medicine, someone had walked in on him, and alerted the guards, despite Zed's pleadings. And that was what started this nonsense. "Will kill girl!" he shouted, though he wasn't sure of his resolve.
 
The young werewolf recovered from the slight dizziness and confusion fairly quickly, and only took about a second to go over the situation. The person holding her smelled vaguely like an elf, but not quite; she hadn't encountered this particular scent before, but she had been taught what a dark elf was, and recognized this one by the color of his arm. His command of Common seemed weak, but that was only based on the couple of phrases he'd uttered so far. The members of the town guard nearby, including the ones who'd been chasing him, had a lot more humans than anything else. That seemed odd--the gate guard had been a centaur, and she'd seen anything from orcs to the giant spider people whose name she still couldn't pronounce patrolling the streets. Then again, there were generally more humans around the city than other sorts of people, so it would make sense for more of the guard overall to be humans. And this man had somehow made himself a high-priority target.

Much more importantly, the dark elf was holding a knife to her throat and threatening her.

The guardsmen probably weren't going to get her killed to catch him, but he wouldn't have needed a hostage if he knew which way to go to escape. The problem with his plan was that werewolves don't tend to make good hostages. They have a tendency to try and escape, usually by force, even if it's hopeless and foolhardy. At least Lir had the good sense to think about how she was going to do that before she began.

She focused, as she had been taught, and a silver glow began to appear over her body. And then she pushed against the man's arms, trying to break free of them. She didn't look particularly weak, and she was stronger than she looked. Accompanying the push, in case it wasn't enough, she focused her magic in her arms, which caused the glow to intensify there. Any bare skin he had touching them should start feeling like it was touching a red-hot iron--the way a werewolf feels while touching silver.

((I'm saying Common=usual human language=English, but there is no England so it can't be called English.))
 
Her astounding beauty is enough to win over almost any man. She is shorter than average, but only slightly so. With her pale skin, and clothes that could only be called plain, there doesn't seem to be much to be desired about her. Her hair is unkempt, reaching her lower back, light brown and straight, with eyes to match, a same colored tee and jean shorts that make her look like she works on a farm, one can only wonder why the entire bar is swooning over her.

With an odd skillset, she is a prankster. She often gets her way with an unusual charm over the opposite sex, though anyone with any magical prowess would tell you it's just a cheap trick, like most of her skills. Her name is Princy, and though it would seem like it, she does not own a trinket magic shop. She's not curvy enough to be a dancer, and not strong enough for manual labor. She mostly gets by using tricks and illusions to steal food when she needs it, and money when she needs a room.

There was a commotion outside that broke her concentration, making the men around her wonder what they found so interesting about this young woman in the first place. She was curious now. Stepping outside into the bright sun, she saw a group of guards, a man, and a little girl in his arms, a knife to her throat. Anyone who lived here would be able to tell you that's a dark elf, they aren't allowed in the city, so everyone has to know what they look like so they can report it. No one can claim Princy is a law abiding citizen, and she thinks laws against the dark elves are unjust. Normally she would smuggle one in, or help one escape, but what can she do when one attacks a little girl? For the time being, she just stood as one of the citizens in the crowd, curious as everyone else in the growing crowd as to what's going on.
 
Under normal occasions, the pushing wouldn't have done much to Zed, but whatever magic she used on him forced him to take his arms away from her. Hissing through his teeth in pain, he dropped his knife, the metal of the blade clattering on the cobblestone street. Grabbing his wrist, he felt the pain leave as soon as it came.

"No!" Zed shouted, "Not sick." However, as luck would have it, he couldn't suppress a cough and the people nearest to him, an assortment of elves, humans, and various other residents of the city, backed up several feet. He was certain that he hadn't picked up the illness from the others in his race. If he had, he certainly would have already begun coughing up blood and had lost the movement of his legs. Gesturing towards himself, he said, "Fine."

Feeling the weight of the vials of medicine in his bag, he could feel tears stinging the backs of his eyes. If he was arrested or killed, then he would never get the medicine home. Even if they let him go, he wouldn't be able to take the medicine with him, and there would be little reason to go home then, would there? Brushing at his eyes with the back of his hand to keep from crying, he frowned at them all, hardly understanding what some of the guards were saying.
 
Lir's attack freed her from the man's grasp, but she wasn't done with him, or at least so she thought. The glow around her body pulled itself back in as she whirled around to face him, and a few changes came to her appearance. Her ears grew larger and taller, fur forming on them, and her teeth became sharp and predatory, and grew larger so that she could barely close her mouth if she tried. Her face was like that of a fearsome beast foolishly crossed when she looked at him stumbling back. "That was unwise," she growled.

Then he coughed, and she discerned the distinct scents of some various medicines coming from him.

It wasn't illegal in this city to be a werewolf, but like most places biting would be frowned upon. That's not even getting into her own home's taboo against it. So Lir turned her face back to normal and looked to one of the guardsmen, cautiously approaching after seeing her change. "What did this one do?" she asked, pointing at the elf.

"Welp, in addition to bein' a dark elf and threat'nin your life, miss, 'e was caught stealin' valuable merchandise."
This one occupied answering her, the other guardsmen moved in to surround the thief. "...Being a dark elf is illegal?"
"Yep."
"And the merchandise he stole..purely medicines, or something else?" They weren't quite willing to get quite too close to him, in case he should cough again. That had been a suspiciously emphatic denial, after all.
"Just meds, as we know. But who knows what else fits in that bag, eh?"
"Right, sure. Could you enlighten me on the legal system you have here?"
"Oh, it's fine courts we have here, miss. They ain't for his kind, though."
"And why would that be?"

Before the man could answer, something else happened.

((Bramble, if you want to hop in and do something to help the poor guy please do. If not, and if Zed doesn't have any tricks up his sleeve, someone make up an NPC to interrupt things or other strange random event. Third option is someone else joining the RP, but that isn't guaranteed to happen so I'm not counting on it. Don't want this written into a corner too soon, after all.))
 
(Nice addition, adding in something else happened, allows my character to do something cool ;P)

Breaking the law, an unthinkable act. Goody two-shoes, what do they know? Obviously they don't know the joy it can bring. Adrenaline, free stuff, what's not to love about it? Maybe it's more scary to those less inclined to get away. Helping would be criminals who aren't such bad people is something that brings a simple joy to Princy, and the sad look in the dark elf's eyes couldn't be the look of a bad person.

Grabbing a small piece of paper from a nearby stand, she wrote down something on it, just a few words. Walking towards the backs of the guards and slightly to the side of them, out of the way of the street so as to not get kicked, or pushed over, she sat. Sitting cross legged, a favorite position for concentrating, she licked the back of the paper and stuck it to her forehead. The guards may have been content talking about their fine government and courts and other fancy going-ons, when all of a sudden a few guards began to panic, mumbling to the other guards. The people began talking too, whispers of 'Where'd he go? Maybe he's a wizard. and I looked away for only a second!' could be heard throughout. If you were a person standing in the crowd, you would have been looking at the criminal one second, then the person on the other side of him the next.

Princy isn't a very strong mage, mostly party tricks, but with greater levels of concentration, she can perform some mediocre and mid-level spells. This one though is one of her favorites. Princy refracts the lights around people and objects, making them look different, maybe seemingly moving objects on their own, or even making people disappear. In this situation, she had refracted the light around the dark elf so he couldn't be seen, on top of that, she refracted the light of the area he stood in, making it so that the walking path looked like it was slightly off, so no one would walk into him by accident as the crowd started to disperse.

The light around her was refracted too, and, stretching her limits, even though she uses this spell all the time, she has a very small tunnel reaching from the dark elf's face to her body, so the dark elf would see the words 'DON'T MOVE!' posted on her head, one hand resting on her knee, and her right hand pointing to the note, hoping the elf could at least read. Until the crowd moved away, she wouldn't move. Eyes staying shut to help with concentration, noises drowned out with a lot of time practicing, she sat there, watching the level of light, which would mark the night, and her time to move and help the elf, had he stayed still.

Hopefully this night will be like every other night, with the streets being dead around this part of the city, otherwise reappearing elves an girls would seem slightly suspicious.
 
When the girl he had been keeping hostage started transforming, into...something else, wondering if he should dive for his knife now. Fear filled him. Dark elves had a malevolent goddess who could transform between a human girl and a wolf form. Quickly muttering a prayer, thinking that his people's gods had forsaken him for attempting to help a few people in his race. Muttering the dark Elvish words for "Forgive me, Tenefah," who was the goddess, he stumbled back a few steps, and the people of the city behind him did the same, though from the girl's sudden transformation or from Zed's proximity to them, it was unsure.

Just as he was about to whisper another prayer, the guards and people began talking amongst themselves, most people acting as if he had suddenly disappeared. Looking around confusedly, he wondered if Tenefah had actually come to save him. However, upon looking to her, it seemed she was the same as the rest. But...shouldn't a goddess be all-knowing? Shouldn't she be able to automatically know what was happening to one of her disciples.

As he turned around in confusion, he spotted a different girl, sitting down, the words "don't move" written on a paper on her forehead. He understood the second word perfectly, but the first one gave him pause. Elvish, no matter what type of elf spoke it, was a romantic language, and there were no words with apostrophes in them. As he tried to figure out what the word meant, he ran through the list of letters that could be in the 'n't' part of the word. Finally, it hit him. Eyebrows raising, he frowned slightly, wondering why such a person would have that written on her forehead.

He was tempted to just ignore it and make his way home, but figured that she was the one who was making him invisible. Tugging at the edges of his clothes self-consciously, he wondered what was happening. First, a goddess appeared, something the gods rarely did, and then he was turned invisible by a girl. It was truly an odd day. Brushing a few stray strands of his pin-straight hair out of his eyes, he remained where he was, looking around like a lost puppy.
 
The guards were confused, and so was everyone else. Lir could not see the elf, and was briefly confused herself. But any smart werewolf knows better than to trust the eyes alone. She listened, and sniffed briefly. He was still there--his scent hadn't moved, and she could hear him mesing around with his clothes. If he could make himself invisible, he would have done so before now; besides, there had been no tells--no signals to accompany magic. That didn't guarantee that he hadn't used magic, but it was more likely he had help. Someone was going to bump into him if he just tried to hide there all day..but more urgently, one of the watchmen might think to use their other senses any time now.

The werewolf faced a decision, and imperfect information. Expose the thief who apparently was a criminal partially for being what he was, or let him go free and risk running afoul of the city's rulers and authorities. What tipped the scales, perhaps more than the desire carefully trained by those who raised her to help those in need, was curiosity. Even if she was unable or unwilling to help this man, she had to know what in the world had caused him to get himself into this situation in the first place. And she wasn't going to learn that from someone rotting in the deepest dungeons of the city, or dead by execution.

Lies are swallowed easier when seasoned with truth. Lir put on an act, pretending to be shoved aside and knocked over onto the ground, complete with an "Oof." She halfway sat up, facing behind her and away from the dark elf's actual location. "He is just hiding himself with magic! He went that way," she said, pointing. The guards started running after the imaginary person, and she got up and dusted herself off. She strode to the knife and picked it up, examining it.

The hole in the crowd this event had created was starting to close, with guards and citizens alike. The stranger, and whoever was helping him, were going to have to do something to prevent him from being bumped into or recognized. She couldn't do much more for them right now.
 
As the light levels lowered against her eyelids, so did the noise levels in the street. It's nearly time to open her eyes.

In one smooth motion Princy's eyes opened, she took the paper from her head with her right hand while making a 'shhh' signal with her left hand in front of her mouth. Without her deeper levels of concentration, she lost the light manipulation around herself and the path around the elf, but still kept a small bubble around him. Standing up, she made as if to stumble, so she could push the elf against a wall, and appear only as if she were resting against the wall.

Casually lifting her head, Princy doesn't see anyone around. Looking down the street, rather than the elf, she whispered, "I can help, follow me."

With that, she took off in the direction she was looking, creating small mirrors in the air with refracted light, to watch where the elf was going so she could keep that bubble over him. Twisting down this ally and that one, eventually coming to an abandoned house. The previous owner died, and no one remembered to put the place up for sale, since Princy immediately moved in, and people thought someone still owned it.

It's nothing special, a couple of rooms separated by walls with large doorless openings. Princy opened the door, walked in, left the door open, and put her back to the wall right next to the door. When you walked in, you would see a slightly disorganized room. Desks piled with random things that caught Princy's fancy, mostly stolen goods. The room to the left is the bedroom, kept in an oddly meticulous order, with the bathroom right next to that one, and a kitchen to the right of the original room.

Concentrating, Princy left the door open long enough to let the elf in. Princy had closed her eyes again, creating a series of mirrors to let her see where the elf was, through her closed eyes, and created a bigger bubble of refracted light. Once the elf was safely inside, she closed the door and looked at him, taking in all the glory that is the rarely seen dark elf.

(That last part is of course, assuming you followed, and is in no way an obligation, or forceful moving of your toon. ;P Should you choose to do something else, I'll just cover my tracks in my next post, no worries :)
 
"Not sick," Zed told the girl in Common as soon as she looked to him. He left the door opened, wanting an easy way to escape if he needed. He didn't trust her in the least. It was no secret that dark elves were stronger and more durable than their cousins, regular elves of the citys and wilds, and it wasn't uncommon for someone to try to use that to their advantage or put the proud people to work. Oftentimes, someone would venture into the city in order to get medicine or sometimes help, and disappear forever. Of course, there were other times where they heard stories, horrible things, about what could happen to dark elves. Normally, a seemingly friendly person would offer or give help to the elf in question before using them according to their agendas. Folding his arms in front of him protectively, he wished he knew what had happened to his knife.

Earlier that day, when Tenefah had made the guards run in an opposite direction, he hadn't seen her pick up his knife, and now was missing the familiar weight in its sheath. Fixing his silver eyes on her, he didn't let his guard down, ready to run away if she came any closer. Dark elves weren't as nimble as their cousins, but could still weave in and out danger in a snap, and Zed was trusting on that ability to escape whatever this girl had in store for him.

"Stay...away," he said, at first unsure of his words. In fact, he had to repeat it in dark Elvish before he was able to say it properly in Common.
 
The guards forgot the knife existed, or thought someone else had taken it. Lir kept it tucked under a fold of her clothes, which were more complex than they first looked, with little fur-lined compartments throughout for holding things. They weren't made for sheathing sharp metal, of course, but she held the weapon by its hilt with a hand tucked into one of the deeper pockets and kept the edges away from the sides.

There was no way she could hold on to this thing. She hardly knew how to use it, beyond where the pointy bit went. This clearly wasn't her curiosity getting the better of her. She just had someone else's property to return to them. And whatever happened after that would be..natural.

While the crowd began to resume their normal business, she turned her ears back to those of a wolf, a comfortable change, and necessary to hear a small whispered voice telling the elf to follow. Not wanting to alarm them, Lir waited a moment, and then followed the pungent scent of the medicine down the sort of convoluted route clearly designed to confuse any pursuer. It wouldn't have been so easy if the scent weren't so fresh and strong, but eventually she found the place where it stopped and heard a familiar voice inside.

In a bit of inspiration, Lir removed the knife from her furs and carefully knocked on the door with its hilt a few times, hard enough to hear but by no means a demanding banging. And she waited. If nothing else, she had learned how to be polite back in the forest.
 
The look in the elf's eyes told Princy she had to tread carefully. Almost like trying to walk up to a deer in the woods. Luckily, a deer that knew some Common.

"I'm a friend." Said Princy, moving slowly towards the door to close it. "See all the things in this room?" Gesturing to all the piles of stolen clothes, vases, toys, and any number of other things that have caught her fancy over the years. "They ah all stolen. I've been hidin' from the law here for a long time, it's safe. I have magic to keep me safe, an' I can keep you safe too."

Slowly raising her arm to close the door, she said, "I think it's kinda dumb to be afraida someone just cuza what they look like, an' even dumba to make laws forbiddin' them from the city."

As Princy was just about to ask the elf his name and what he was doing in the city, there was a loud knock on the door that made her jump. Using the same quick wit that had kept her safe for so many previous years, she put a finger over her lips to let the elf know to be quiet, hoping he knew she could make him unseen. Princy slowly opened the old green wooden door, using little concentration to make the elf unseen, along with all the stolen merchandise. Princy placed her right hand casually on a symbol on the wall, about head level. It was a seven sided star within a double circle. Princy isn't a mage by any mage's standards, but with the magic she's been storing in that symbol over the years, she's prepared to use spells only the most skilled wizards could cast without preparation.

With a blank, yet friendly face Princy said, "Hi, what can I do ya for?" the blank face turning into a massive neighborly smile, keeping er left hand on the door to prevent forced entry.
 
The closer the girl came to him, the farther Zed tried to get from her. He only understood about one in three of the words she said, so most of the time she was speaking to him, he simply looked at her blankly, trying to decipher her first sentence. Jumping when there was a loud knock on the door, he ran, disappearing behind the doorway to the bedroom, not realizing that the girl had made him invisible again. Hiding out of sight from the doorway, he curiously took in the bedroom. It was nice, and felt homey. It was clean and roomy, and made him feel almost comfortable.

Upon hearing the front door opening, and the girl speaking to whoever it was, he listened in, wondering if the girl would have the intelligence to not let anyone in. Sneaking a peek out of the doorway, he saw who it was. The girl from before. Tenefah. Muttering a prayer to the gods for forgiveness from the goddess's wrath, he stayed behind the doorway, afraid that he would be struck down should he be seen.
 
Lir looked down at the girl greeting her at the door. She looked calm, but the werewolf's instincts told her this was the calm of a cat poised to pounce. Her ears, still those of a wolf, gently twitched a few times, picking up the dark elf's muttering. It sounded sort of like Elvish--not enough that she could understand it at this distance, but it gave her an idea for later. But first...

"I believe this belongs to your friend," she said, carefully putting the flat of the blade against her palm and slowly holding it out hilt-first toward the girl. "Or..ally. Beneficiary, perhaps? Guest, at any rate."
 
"Guest?" Princy said, adding a confused look on her face. "Hmm, Jered maybe? But he doesn't like knives. Hmm, it looks nice, maybe it belongs to somebody? I can tell your not from aroun' here, I'd be more an' happy to give it to the authority for ya, help em find out who it is this knife belongs to." At that, Princy bowed her head, "Wish I had a guest, I've been kinda lonely lately see? An' it's not as easy to find myself a good man as you might think."

"Right, the knife." Princy made to reach for the knife, looking as if she's attempting to shake off the sadness. She knows what the girl is, a werewolf. It helps that she doesn't hide that fact, since they aren't commonplace here. Princy thought to herself, "How can she know of a guest in here?" Princy isn't worried. She knows everyone in the town, and there are no wizards or mages holed up here. Only the strongest of mages can store enough magic to overpower her store of magic in a day, and a werewolf doesn't worry her, not at her house anyways.

After a short discussion and a quiet shut of the door, Princy walked over to where the elf was hiding, Princy knelt in front of him. "Do you trust me?" Being careful to pronounce her words more clearly, and slowly, to give the elf time to process them. Princy held out her hand, asking for the elf's in return. There are a few advanced humans that can control the own electrical impulses in their bodies. Princy isn't that advanced, so she uses magic instead. This allows people to convey thoughts, which transcend language, becoming essentially universal. With regular people who can control their electrical impulses, they can't open up a two way communication unless others' knew how too. Luckily, that's not the case with magic, easily allowing communication even between animals and people, so long as the animal doesn't attack.

If the elf took her hand, Princy would ask him what his name was, what he was doing in the city, and let him know she thought the girl knew he was here and she wasn't sure how she knew, or what to do about it.
 
The werewolf could hardly perceive why the first conclusion the girl thought she would draw would be something about a romantic partner..but decided not to dwell on it. There were more important things to do.

"Really now?" Lir pulled the knife closer to herself. "Maybe it'll look more familiar here," she said, taking the knife's hilt with her other hand and snapping it up to where the blade was an inch or so from her own throat. " 'Get back! Will kill.' "
With a look of astonishment, Princy's voice quivers as if she were actually concerned, "OK now, jus' calm down. There's plenty a reasons to keep on livin' now. Ya know, if the knife means that much to ya, keep it, I won't be tellin' no one." With a smile on her face and plenty of practice, Princy has had a lifetime of practice with playing dumb.

Lir lowered the knife back to her side with a mildly annoyed frown. "You know. You are extremely good at fooling one's eyes, but people have other senses. Are you aware the guard left as soon as they did because they were busy chasing an imaginary elf?"
Werewolf! Duh! How could Princy forget, super hearing and, maybe smell too? Princy can mask noises, though it's not easy, and smells just elude her altogether. "Eh, so, ya caught me. If you have such good senses, ya'd know that I can kill you where ya stand." With a calm look now, anyone magically inclined would be able to feel the energy welling up at the base of Princy's fingers, ready to protect herself.

Werewolf magic isn't quite like the magic of other races. Lir knew of the other magics only by proxy, through her education, and did not mean to get a more practical demonstration just now. She remained in a relaxed stance, ignoring the instinctive urge to react to the other girl's hostile body language in kind. "I think we would both regret that. Please..if I meant you harm I would not have come alone, or announced. I just want to speak plainly."
While the energy stays welled up, Princy's body relaxed. No matter what happened, she believes she has the upper hand so long as she has this magic storage. "I'm listening." Calmly said Princy, knowing you can't go around trusting anyone all willy nilly like. Princy waits, with one hand still on the handle, the other still barring the door.

"The man you have in there is desperate. He understands little Common, but was willing to enter this city in spite of its authority apparently being hostile to his people. He was very emphatic about not being sick, and the only thing he seems to have stolen is medicine. Which..by the way, has a very strong scent.
"I am on the Maq vinar, a kind of..spiritual journey if you will, and bound to help those in need. I think I ought to help him, and I may even be able to, but I cannot know for certain until I have a better idea of his need."
It takes one to know one, right? Princy is about the world's best liar, self proclaimed, and the wolf girl doesn't look like she's lying to her. After thinking for a little bit she replied, losing the fake faces she puts on, instead, putting a concerned look on, "He's scared, ya know. I planned on helpin' 'im too, ya know. How's this sound? Come back tomorrow, same time? It'll give me time to calm 'im down, and clean 'im up, and convince 'im that I'm not a danger, same as you." With this, she gave a genuine smile, friendly as can be, though it's no different looking from her fake ones.

Lir nodded. "That would be reasonable, I think..except he seems to have me confused with somebody else."

((Okay, sorry, need to make a couple of things clear. This was put together in collaboration with Bramble so the conversation would be a proper conversation. It takes place before the paragraphs starting with "Walking over to where the elf was hiding" happen, and kind of negates them. So..ignore that part. The last statement is intended as a cue.))
 
Zed had tried listening to their conversations, but he couldn't understand anything they were saying. Feeling his heart calm down a bit when the door was shut, he jumped when the woman appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. As she knelt in front of him, speaking to him again in that choppy Common language, he tried to figure out what she was saying. It took him a few minutes to associate the outstretched hand as a sign of trust.

Hesitantly, he reached out a tentative hand towards hers, gently placing his hand in hers. He nearly screamed when her voice appeared in his head, making sense to him, even though it was clear she didn't speak dark Elvish. Pulling his hand away in shock, he slowly returned it to hers, answering her first question. "What is your name?" it was.

"Zed," he had answered. "My name is Zed." He answered the rest of her questions, only frowning when she told him that Tenefah probably knew that he was there. "I am here because my people need the medicine to get better. I do not know what would happen if I do not go home." He was being careful on how he was wording everything. He didn't want to give away the location of the place where he had grown up, in case she would use the information to hurt his people.

After a few moments of silence, he asked her, "Why did you take me here?"
 
Exchanging her name when Zed told Princy his, she then said, realizing the wolf girl and her never exchanged names, "That girl wants to help, I think. Either way, I plan on findin' out tomorrow. I can do a spell, now what it does is passes the true intentions of others between a group of people, could do jus' two, but I want you to know that I mean well, an' same for the other girl, and we will both know your intentions too." After that and a little bit of small talk, Princy directed Zed to use a bed she had in a spare room.

Before going to bed herself, Princy sat on a dresser right below the magic symbol on the wall, crossed legged with her hands on her knees to increase concentration, and began storing energy into the symbol. As she began to become tired, Princy made her way to her bed, thinking of the interesting days to come.
 
Re: I'll make up a title later.

The werewolf was glad to be rid of the knife. About an hour after leaving, she was approached by one of the guardsmen who had been chasing the dark elf. He apologized, saying they had lost him somehow, and wanted to know if she'd seen him since then--of course, she hadn't. He brought her to a nearby outpost so an artist could get a description of what she thought the elf looked like, but of course she couldn't give the best of descriptions. After all, she genuinely had only seen him for a few seconds, and besides that werewolves know people by smell far easier than their faces. It's very difficult to explain a smell in human language, of course, since their sense for it is not so strong. After that, one of the watchmen offered her a tour around the city, which she took him up on. It might pay to know her way around this place, and even if it didn't she was supposed to be learning of places and the like.

This city's name, at last she learned, was Haradda, and it was ruled by the Duke of the kingdom. Dark elves were apparently a personal sticking point of his--something about a former lover's betrayal nearly costing him his life. The other cities and towns in the kingdom would not likely be quite this hostile to the race, but the Duke had a lot of clout, so people wishing to stay out of trouble might not help one much, either. The last stop the werewolf was taken to by the guardsman was a library, maintained by the mages' guild in the city.

She was welcome here, and managed to find a few books on the differences between dark and high elvish language. They were different, certainly, but they were more highly divergent dialects than entirely unrelated languages. Keeping a few rules in mind would at least make the other language a bit more comprehensible to a speaker of the other. Not wanting her interest in the language of an illegal race to draw suspicion, she spent the rest of the afternoon reading several other linguistic texts, and left around sunset.

After that, Lir found a place with a flat roof offering food and lodgings and, after buying a meal, took their least popular bed. Sleeping under the stars is not a matter of sentiment to a werewolf. The moon itself is the focus and source of their power, and to spend an entire night with a solid roof between one and the moon, even if it is raining or snowing, is to forfeit something very important. She was only now getting used to a diurnal cycle, having slept through the sunlight and walked in moonlight for the majority of her years.

Lir was careful the next day, doing what she could to make sure she was not being followed. She had done nothing to arouse suspicion in the matter of the dark elf, but if someone had some other reason for following her she didn't want to give them a convenient way to be unpleasant. It was earlier than the time she had come to the place the day before, following the smell of medicine, but there wasn't much else to do today. She knocked on the door gently and waited, arms crossed, for an answer.
 
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