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Mar. 12th, 2019 at 7:25 PM
[ Life really has a funny knack for poetry and irony, especially in those moments when you're least expecting it. Days ago Piper had come across a fork in the road and been pressed to make a decision. If she'd known then where that road would lead her in life, would she still choose it? No one can say for sure, but there's no taking it back now... ]
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[ When she left home she didn't have a specific goal or direction in mind. She'd only wanted to get away, clear her head, break the cycle that had become her life at some point- she wasn't sure which.
Honestly, some days it feels too much like a damned fairy tale for her own liking, with monsters, and adventure, bandits, and now even gods turning up on her proverbial doorstep. Most people would have run screaming in the other direction, but somehow to Piper it felt right, natural. It was the life that she was built for. Even if it wasn't the one that she wanted she can't deny that it feels like she's really starting to thrive for the first time in forever, finding herself in every new, dangerous encounter. A life safe behind walls, seated at a desk in some classroom in one of the kingdom's most illustrious boarding schools, wearing corsets and learning how to be a "lady"- no, thanks. But this? Fighting brigands and sleeping under the stars? Wondering where she'll end up the next day? Yeah, it's an improvement. That's the thing she continues telling herself.
Of course there were some pitfalls to her new lifestyle, like being on the run from beasts all the time, and never really knowing anything about the place she ended up, but she's had some very pleasant surprises along the way. Corona is one of them. What made her turn left at the fork, towards the coast, she couldn't say, but something inside definitely felt drawn there. It's only been a few days since she turned onto the path and she's happily made meals of apples plucked straight from the trees as she went along. She was halfway through her second one of the evening when the sound of commotion up ahead causes the hairs on the back of her arm to prickle. It's not hard to pick up on the cues of a struggle. Someone is in trouble, and it sounds as if they need help.
Immediately her hand finds the hilt of Katoptris,and Piper ducks into the shadows of the trees at a fast pace towards the sounds of the struggle.
A group of three roughshod looking men have a younger guy (maybe around her age, it's hard to tell in the dark) in goggles at a standstill. Judging by the expressions she can gather what's going on. The scrawnier guy (compared to the rest!) is standing in a defensive position in front of a cart, its contents covered by a sheet. The other three have him blocked off from continuing down the road. Where it gets interesting is the colorful mess scattered around the area BEHIND him. One thug is pinned to one of the trees by a glowing mound of orange goop, and another is in the process of ripping his own shirt to try to get out of a puddle of extremely sticky purple. A third lies on the ground unconscious, looking as if he'd been smacked in the face by a glittery rainbow bomb.
Slowly Piper arches one dark eyebrow, silently impressed. He'd taken down half of them all on his own, and she kind of wishes she'd been here to see it.
But alright, then. ]
[ For run of the mill bandits they seem to be pretty self assured. Then again, maybe self assured isn't the right word choice, since they feel the need to outnumber and surround one guy to get what they want. One of them, a tall fellow with a snaggle tooth protruding from beneath his top lip is the one making demands. He jabs a meaty finger at Varian, a malicious gleam in his eye and sandpaper in his voice. ]
ENOUGH! I've lost my patience! Now hand over the gadget, kid, before I start BREAKIN' things, like your hands!?!
[ He takes two steps forward to make good on that threat, but before he gets any further a dark shape drops from the trees overhead and lands on his shoulders, sending him pitching face first into the dirt at Varian's feet.
The figure that straightens up is actually no taller than Varian himself, covered by a plain, somewhat tattered and hooded dark brown cloak that continues to obscure her face from view. An apple, half eaten, rests in her free hand, the other at her hip. ]
You guys have got to be the ugliest tax collectors I've seen yet. Do the local authorities know you're out here on the King's road harassing his subjects?
[ Piper can practically feel the big one's growl down to her bones. She makes him as the muscle of the group. The shortest fixes her with a scowl, but seems more focused on getting whatever is on that cart, under that sheet. ]
I'll take that as a no. [ Beneath her, the head of the leader shakes with a groan. The shock of the remaining two wears off when the smaller one snarls out an order. ]
Don't just stand there, y' idiot!
[ That apple? It doesn't stay in her hand for long, because she turns and lobs it full on at the big one's face. It beans him in the forehead pretty harmlessly, but frees up her hand to draw out Katoptris, which she holds up assertively, turning to face the group and standing decisively between Varian and his attackers. ]
Oh yeah, by all means. Come and get some. Who's first?
[ There's so much confidence reverberating in her voice (and a quite literally disarming smile that Varian can't see) that it actually makes both men pause. Varian's rescuer doesn't wait for them to make good on her challenge, taking the initiative and charging in quickly. There's a scrape of metal, then both men find their swords flying, landing point first in the dirt. She sweeps her leg hard and manages to catch the bigger of the two enough off guard. He yells as he goes crashing onto his back, hard, and in that same moment she's already turning towards the other and punching him square between the eyes. Pained, HE crashes backwards into the tree just behind him and smacks his head, sliding down to the ground, breathing but not moving.
Piper shakes out her hand and stands over the big guy once again, a very sharp point aimed at his face. This time there's a definite command in her tone, coloring her words with compulsive magic that someone could easily mistake for her simply being extremely persuasive. ]
Take your boss and leave.
[ Strangely enough (or maybe not so much) that's exactly what he does, scrambling to his feet and pulling up the half-conscious bandit over his shoulders so that the two can beat a hasty retreat. The ones who managed to free themselves from Varian's traps are also getting while the getting is good. Suppose they've had enough of being beaten up by alchemists and little girls for one day. ]
[ When she left home she didn't have a specific goal or direction in mind. She'd only wanted to get away, clear her head, break the cycle that had become her life at some point- she wasn't sure which.
Honestly, some days it feels too much like a damned fairy tale for her own liking, with monsters, and adventure, bandits, and now even gods turning up on her proverbial doorstep. Most people would have run screaming in the other direction, but somehow to Piper it felt right, natural. It was the life that she was built for. Even if it wasn't the one that she wanted she can't deny that it feels like she's really starting to thrive for the first time in forever, finding herself in every new, dangerous encounter. A life safe behind walls, seated at a desk in some classroom in one of the kingdom's most illustrious boarding schools, wearing corsets and learning how to be a "lady"- no, thanks. But this? Fighting brigands and sleeping under the stars? Wondering where she'll end up the next day? Yeah, it's an improvement. That's the thing she continues telling herself.
Of course there were some pitfalls to her new lifestyle, like being on the run from beasts all the time, and never really knowing anything about the place she ended up, but she's had some very pleasant surprises along the way. Corona is one of them. What made her turn left at the fork, towards the coast, she couldn't say, but something inside definitely felt drawn there. It's only been a few days since she turned onto the path and she's happily made meals of apples plucked straight from the trees as she went along. She was halfway through her second one of the evening when the sound of commotion up ahead causes the hairs on the back of her arm to prickle. It's not hard to pick up on the cues of a struggle. Someone is in trouble, and it sounds as if they need help.
Immediately her hand finds the hilt of Katoptris,and Piper ducks into the shadows of the trees at a fast pace towards the sounds of the struggle.
A group of three roughshod looking men have a younger guy (maybe around her age, it's hard to tell in the dark) in goggles at a standstill. Judging by the expressions she can gather what's going on. The scrawnier guy (compared to the rest!) is standing in a defensive position in front of a cart, its contents covered by a sheet. The other three have him blocked off from continuing down the road. Where it gets interesting is the colorful mess scattered around the area BEHIND him. One thug is pinned to one of the trees by a glowing mound of orange goop, and another is in the process of ripping his own shirt to try to get out of a puddle of extremely sticky purple. A third lies on the ground unconscious, looking as if he'd been smacked in the face by a glittery rainbow bomb.
Slowly Piper arches one dark eyebrow, silently impressed. He'd taken down half of them all on his own, and she kind of wishes she'd been here to see it.
But alright, then. ]
[ For run of the mill bandits they seem to be pretty self assured. Then again, maybe self assured isn't the right word choice, since they feel the need to outnumber and surround one guy to get what they want. One of them, a tall fellow with a snaggle tooth protruding from beneath his top lip is the one making demands. He jabs a meaty finger at Varian, a malicious gleam in his eye and sandpaper in his voice. ]
ENOUGH! I've lost my patience! Now hand over the gadget, kid, before I start BREAKIN' things, like your hands!?!
[ He takes two steps forward to make good on that threat, but before he gets any further a dark shape drops from the trees overhead and lands on his shoulders, sending him pitching face first into the dirt at Varian's feet.
The figure that straightens up is actually no taller than Varian himself, covered by a plain, somewhat tattered and hooded dark brown cloak that continues to obscure her face from view. An apple, half eaten, rests in her free hand, the other at her hip. ]
You guys have got to be the ugliest tax collectors I've seen yet. Do the local authorities know you're out here on the King's road harassing his subjects?
[ Piper can practically feel the big one's growl down to her bones. She makes him as the muscle of the group. The shortest fixes her with a scowl, but seems more focused on getting whatever is on that cart, under that sheet. ]
I'll take that as a no. [ Beneath her, the head of the leader shakes with a groan. The shock of the remaining two wears off when the smaller one snarls out an order. ]
Don't just stand there, y' idiot!
[ That apple? It doesn't stay in her hand for long, because she turns and lobs it full on at the big one's face. It beans him in the forehead pretty harmlessly, but frees up her hand to draw out Katoptris, which she holds up assertively, turning to face the group and standing decisively between Varian and his attackers. ]
Oh yeah, by all means. Come and get some. Who's first?
[ There's so much confidence reverberating in her voice (and a quite literally disarming smile that Varian can't see) that it actually makes both men pause. Varian's rescuer doesn't wait for them to make good on her challenge, taking the initiative and charging in quickly. There's a scrape of metal, then both men find their swords flying, landing point first in the dirt. She sweeps her leg hard and manages to catch the bigger of the two enough off guard. He yells as he goes crashing onto his back, hard, and in that same moment she's already turning towards the other and punching him square between the eyes. Pained, HE crashes backwards into the tree just behind him and smacks his head, sliding down to the ground, breathing but not moving.
Piper shakes out her hand and stands over the big guy once again, a very sharp point aimed at his face. This time there's a definite command in her tone, coloring her words with compulsive magic that someone could easily mistake for her simply being extremely persuasive. ]
Take your boss and leave.
[ Strangely enough (or maybe not so much) that's exactly what he does, scrambling to his feet and pulling up the half-conscious bandit over his shoulders so that the two can beat a hasty retreat. The ones who managed to free themselves from Varian's traps are also getting while the getting is good. Suppose they've had enough of being beaten up by alchemists and little girls for one day. ]
Comments
Ah, that's because they weren't normal traps - and definitely not some kind of magic potion! [He's grinning, clearly so excited to get to talk about this.] What you see back there is an alchemist's handiwork!
Seriously? I had no idea alchemy could really do all that. That's pretty amazing. How'd you get into it?
[ She's reminded of some of the legends that she's read, about things like Archimedes spheres and automatons, and Asclepius, a demigod who used alchemy to create legendary medicines and cure all's. ]
[He chuckled, but at her second question, he stopped in his tracks and smiled over at her sheepishly. No one had ever asked that - not even Rapunzel. In fact, even his own father saw alchemy as something that had "cropped up" at some point, it seemed... And Varian was pretty sure Quirin wasn't too happy about it, still. He fluffed up his hair, taking a moment to fiddle with the blue section.]
I read a lot. And when I found a book about alchemy, I just saw so much potential to change life in my village.
She's even more baffled by the reaction once she actually hears it. ]
So you picked it up to help your village? That sounds like something to be proud of to me. I've met a lot of people who'd only think about how to use something like that to get rich.
[ She grins, too, because- ]
I read a lot, too. Mostly about myths and legends... I've never done anything that cool with it, though. Just... helped my dad study for roles.
[ With some concentrated effort she manages to keep the smile in place without it looking too strained. The memory of her father is still a touchy subject, one she doesn't think about much on the road. But she doesn't want to shift the subject to her, let alone so abruptly. ]
So. Self taught?
Myths and legends, huh? I mean, that stuff's cool, too!
[Honestly, his favorite works have always been non-fiction - and The Tales of Flynnigan Rider, which he long thought were in that category as well - and having his reservations about magic means he sees myth and legends and not having much truth to them. That said, he's read up on some of these, and they're still interesting to him, in their own way.]
Self-taught? Yeah, I guess so! It's - heh - a lot of trial and error. But it's not boring! [He rushes to add this.] It's anything but boring.
She can't help laughing at the rushed addendum, shaking her head a little. ]
Who in the world would think that's boring??
[ Granted, she's seen the finished result, but it's still an interesting idea, getting to play around with trial and error. Maybe she wouldn't be able to keep track with the minor details, but- ]
Would you mind showing me some, when we get there?
Y-Yeah, of course! [His excitement is palpable.] I'd be happy to - as soon as we get you set up in the village, I can show you my lab!
Sounds like a plan, goggles.
[ It slips out, not that she regrets it. ] So, speaking of which: What's under the sheet, anyway, that those guys wanted so badly?
Oh, that! It's the invention I brought to the expo in the kingdom today. It's used to create the new mineral I discovered.
[He pauses for a moment.]
And sometimes cause small disasters, when people don't know what they're doing.
HE REALLY JUST SAID THAT. ]
So let me get this straight: You discovered an entirely new mineral AND someone used your machine to create a natural disaster? That must've been some expo!
It... Happens a lot, actually. Not the mineral thing, that was an exciting discover, but uh...
[He presses his lips together, trying to decide the best way to explain.
Maybe the best way is not to explain.]
...Well, like I said: A lot of trail and error.
Is that really such a bad thing? I mean... You probably don't want to know how many times I had cut myself learning how to use my dagger. And besides, that's what science is about, isn't it? Trying new things until you make a discovery, or figure out how to make it work?
[ It's her genuine opinon on the matter, but also her way of trying to say that she doesn't see anything wrong with trial and error. ]
... You know, Greek history is filled with all kinds of accidental discoveries, and people who became legends through trial and error. Have you ever heard of Hipparchus?
Not... Really? I mean, you're right. It's not a bad thing. It's the only way to learn anything, but...
[He shrugs. This is so complicated, and he's glad when she mentions something that - while still relevant - can divert the focus off him specifically.]
Is Hipparchus the kid who flew too close to the son?
[They do sound... Slightly similar...]
No, that was Icarus, his dad invented the wax wings. Hipparchus is the founder of trigonometry. He ALSO incidentally discovered the precession
of the equinoxes. There's no way he could have done all that without making some mistakes along the way.
[ Honestly, the fact that Varian had already discovered a new mineral- I mean, she could've stopped there, but he seemed more comfortable with the focus off of himself. ]
I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's nothing wrong with making mistakes... Think about where we'd be if people didn't.
[ Though now she feels like she's maybe being a little preachy, and now SHE's feeling self conscious, hoping she didn't just make a fool of herslef, ooooor make it worse... ]
[He gives her a small smile. The kindness is appreciated; the attempts to build up his confidence are not what he's used to, exactly. And that means he's not totally sure how to respond to it, but it doesn't mean he dislikes it.]
Anyway, I can't help wondering - You said you taught yourself how to fight with that? That's definitely cool, but... How did that start?
When the topic returns to her at first she tenses again just a bit, but opening up should go both ways, and it's not like HE makes her uncomfortable. Just, talking about herself isn't something she's used to. But where does she START? How much does she tell? ]
I didn't really have a whole lot of choice. This was a gift from my mom, the only thing I have from her, actually. Once I was out on my own I had a lot of opportunities to practice with it. The roads beyond Corona can be kind of dangerous.
[ Her smile is awkward, and small, but sincere. She's a little nervous about scaring him off by telling him "Monsters hunt me, I kill them.". This is honestly the first chance she's gotten to spend any decent time with someone her own age since she took off. Varian's cool, besides. ]
Yeah, I don't remember mine much, either.
[He says this very casually, so much so that it indicates he probably really doesn't remember her; enough not to be bothered by the fact. He just keeps smiling, and gestures behind him, to indicate the shuffle they'd gotten into.]
Well, I can't argue about the danger on the road, obviously. So it's good that you've learned! [A self-deprecating chuckle.] Maybe I should, too, although I think my dad would freak out if I owned a knife or anything.
She does make note of the way he makes an almost passing observation about his mother, and she definitely gets the sense that he was too young to be upset by his lack of memories. She'd only been a baby herself when her mother left her more or less on her father's door step, but she'd asked about her at every chance she could get. Even so, she doesn't correct him. More personal matters, it's complicated, and she'd rather not explain why her mother's only tangible gift to her was a blade.
No, much easier to focus on the present line of conversation. She smiles a bit, raising an eyebrow. ]
Maybe he'd freak out less if you had someone to teach you how to use it? But I think you should find something that suits your style. This... well, honestly anyone else you asked would say this was just for decoration, a ceremonial dagger. Maybe your thing isn't blades. Maybe your thing is staffs, or archery, or spears, or even nets.
[ ... She's studied a lot of Greek and Roman culture alright? ]
If you want we could trade. You show me your lab and tell me more about alchemy, and I'll show you what I know about self defense and tell you more about that kind of stuff?
[The confusion is short-lived. He absolutely beams at her offer, plenty excited. It almost doesn't sound like a fair trade, because he's already delighted to have someone who's actually interested in his alchemy, but she wants to learn - the fact that he also wants to teach isn't the point.]
Yes! Uh... Yes, please. I think that's a great idea. Thank you.
[It comes out a bit stilted as he tries to dial his enthusiasm back. He may not be the best at reading people, but he's been flat-out told that he can come on too strong in social situations.]
[ Piper replies with a rueful chuckle, a grin, and a shrug. And hey, wouldn't you know it? There's another smile after, expression shifting from bemused to pleased. It may be too soon yet for her to pick up on his holding back for her sake, but she's definitely looking forward to their little exchanged tutoring program now. ]
Then it's a deal.
That's great! [He laughed a little, excess joy spilling out as he struggled to contain himself.] And to start, I can teach you the concepts behind this!
[He gestured with his free hand to the wagon.]