Tomorrow it is. I'll be early to rise, you can contact me whenever you're ready.
* * *
IT is the front end of a goat that is held to be traditionally dangerous, but it’s the back end that’s clapped a dusty, cloven hoofprint across the shin of Dick’s boot and set him to swearing. Quietly, under his breath, with his head bowed and his hands on his knees in the dark, he curses Thedas and the fence and himself.
But most of all, he curses the goat.
Past midnight, far too late to catch the Ferry to the Gallows, the goat has her horns tangled in the fence and has cut her nose and is mouth farting furiously through the wrapping they’ve muzzled her with. Her lead is tangled through her legs; the stink of goat piss prickles like lightning in the cold.
There is a gate nearby, the latch already open under the crescent moon. A few wary chickens bk buk buwk? amongst themselves from within their pen in the yard.
is not really some sharp response to something specific, or a warning of something new. It's just sort of offered, in general, a comment on the whole affair on the breath of a sigh. It's been a day, but look how close they are! Loxley is quick handed in snagging back up the leash while the goat is wrestling the fence, doing so in a way that loops it back from beneath a stamping hoof, although it still curled around one rickety leg.
Holding the leash means drawing some of it taut between his hands and kind of bending away so that most of him is outside of immediate horn swipe, a technique he has cultivated not from a lifetime of handling wildstock but a quick and dirty lesson cultivated just today. He has several bruises from this learning, and one rather concentrated on his ass, which he will have to explain to someone hopefully attractive at some point.
"Perhaps we ought to have sedated her," Loxley says, dry.
Doki is the least bothered of everyone here. If you stay far enough away from goats, they do not kick you, and you stay safe from bruises, and you have time enough to find eggs in chicken coops. Already she is holding one egg, so it is a good night. She spins the egg in the center of her palm as she watches the lack of goat progress.
"And then she would piss on you." Her smile is proud as she spins the egg in the other direction. "And you would not like that, I am thinking."
“The number of accessible herbs with sedative properties in Thedas is dishearteningly low.”
The italic slant comes with a jolt from the horns he’s gotten back in to wrap his hands around, all his wiry strength bent to levering back and away from the wire she’s tangled in. Scooting, scraping, painful progress and a gruff of air through his teeth see her chin bent down near to the lift of her forehooves off the ground. She blusters like an angry table being pushed back over a wooden floor --
and lurches loose.
She wrenches and springs to gore after Silas’ retreat the instant her hooves rake the dirt, but he too has learned much of goat wrangling in the past several hours and is too quick to catch. She’s left then to dig in at the end of her lead, dragging back to put enough distance between her and Loxley for a short charge.
With his hands on his hips, Silas takes this beat to catch his breath at Doki’s side, trusting Loxley is fleet enough to navigate these next few critical seconds on his own.
“You’ve been indispensable, Yevdoklya,” he tells her. “Thank you.”
With as much of a choked sound as if the leash was wrapped around his own neck rather than in his hands, Loxley lurches a step at the (by now not at all) surprising springback strength of the goat when she digs her hooves in and hauls backwards. Emboldened by this sign of give, she dances up on her back legs, eyes rolling wild as she twists at the end of the lead, giving off a ferocious bleat, tongue licking the air.
Bearings wrestled back, Loxley wrangles her back onto all fours, splaying an arm wide in some instinctive display of I'm-bigger-than-you intimidation which seems to stay her.
Barely.
All of this, of course, occurring in the blurry background of the conversation taking place a few feet away. Loxley reaches backwards, blindly grabs a handful of something twiggy and leafy, tearing it loose to offer the enraged goat, tsk'ing as he might a horse. The folioage is waved at her nose, and her nostrils flare. "There, that's for you," he says, voice bright and encouraging and whispered and slightly desperate.
Doki directs a sunny smile up at Silas Dickerson as she gives the egg another spin.
"I am the greatest," she agrees, "yes."
Out of the corner of her eye, she perceives Loxley: the big, big stance, the peace offering. She sticks the egg in a pouch at her belt with one hand, and with the other she begins loosening the pin that secures her fur-lined cloak around her neck.
"We will need to look big. Your friend is right. Hey, you are right!" The egg hand she cups to her mouth to yell over at Loxley. This is a nice neighborhood, but it is also a neighborhood that is smelling like goat piss, and will smell worse of it if the Avvar goat gets her freedom. That would be funny, to Doki, and not to the people who live here. "Look big! She will be giving that respect. She will think, oh, here is a big goat, I will listen. Goats do not give gifts. They give fear."
Her cloak is loose and ready to look like big wings. Doki gives a kick to Silas' ankle.
Already quite still, perhaps in the hope that he can recede enough into the darkness to avoid further contact with the goat, Silas holds his breath at the precarious balance struck between dashing rogue and hoofed mammal. As if the slightest sound might disrupt their bearing witness to this unique understanding.
Doki yells.
”Ssssst--” he turns sharply to hiss down at her, because this was (ostensibly) a stealth operation, only to catch a kick to the ankle for the effort. His near shoulder drops over a shuffled step, defensive alarm fleeting behind his eyes.
The hissing stopped as suddenly as if she dropped a bucket over his head.
Being on his shoulders sounds supremely unnecessary --
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-11-03 06:52 pm (UTC)We will need to smuggle her onto the property at night. They have a dog.
When can you travel?
no subject
Date: 2021-11-03 10:26 pm (UTC)We can leave tomorrow. Then I will be ready.
star wipe into action.
Date: 2021-11-04 02:05 am (UTC)* * *
IT is the front end of a goat that is held to be traditionally dangerous, but it’s the back end that’s clapped a dusty, cloven hoofprint across the shin of Dick’s boot and set him to swearing. Quietly, under his breath, with his head bowed and his hands on his knees in the dark, he curses Thedas and the fence and himself.
But most of all, he curses the goat.
Past midnight, far too late to catch the Ferry to the Gallows, the goat has her horns tangled in the fence and has cut her nose and is mouth farting furiously through the wrapping they’ve muzzled her with. Her lead is tangled through her legs; the stink of goat piss prickles like lightning in the cold.
There is a gate nearby, the latch already open under the crescent moon. A few wary chickens bk buk buwk? amongst themselves from within their pen in the yard.
and i'm here.
Date: 2021-11-04 07:20 am (UTC)is not really some sharp response to something specific, or a warning of something new. It's just sort of offered, in general, a comment on the whole affair on the breath of a sigh. It's been a day, but look how close they are! Loxley is quick handed in snagging back up the leash while the goat is wrestling the fence, doing so in a way that loops it back from beneath a stamping hoof, although it still curled around one rickety leg.
Holding the leash means drawing some of it taut between his hands and kind of bending away so that most of him is outside of immediate horn swipe, a technique he has cultivated not from a lifetime of handling wildstock but a quick and dirty lesson cultivated just today. He has several bruises from this learning, and one rather concentrated on his ass, which he will have to explain to someone hopefully attractive at some point.
"Perhaps we ought to have sedated her," Loxley says, dry.
as am i
Date: 2021-11-05 04:26 am (UTC)Doki is the least bothered of everyone here. If you stay far enough away from goats, they do not kick you, and you stay safe from bruises, and you have time enough to find eggs in chicken coops. Already she is holding one egg, so it is a good night. She spins the egg in the center of her palm as she watches the lack of goat progress.
"And then she would piss on you." Her smile is proud as she spins the egg in the other direction. "And you would not like that, I am thinking."
no subject
Date: 2021-11-06 08:54 pm (UTC)The italic slant comes with a jolt from the horns he’s gotten back in to wrap his hands around, all his wiry strength bent to levering back and away from the wire she’s tangled in. Scooting, scraping, painful progress and a gruff of air through his teeth see her chin bent down near to the lift of her forehooves off the ground. She blusters like an angry table being pushed back over a wooden floor --
and lurches loose.
She wrenches and springs to gore after Silas’ retreat the instant her hooves rake the dirt, but he too has learned much of goat wrangling in the past several hours and is too quick to catch. She’s left then to dig in at the end of her lead, dragging back to put enough distance between her and Loxley for a short charge.
With his hands on his hips, Silas takes this beat to catch his breath at Doki’s side, trusting Loxley is fleet enough to navigate these next few critical seconds on his own.
“You’ve been indispensable, Yevdoklya,” he tells her. “Thank you.”
no subject
Date: 2021-11-08 09:34 am (UTC)Bearings wrestled back, Loxley wrangles her back onto all fours, splaying an arm wide in some instinctive display of I'm-bigger-than-you intimidation which seems to stay her.
Barely.
All of this, of course, occurring in the blurry background of the conversation taking place a few feet away. Loxley reaches backwards, blindly grabs a handful of something twiggy and leafy, tearing it loose to offer the enraged goat, tsk'ing as he might a horse. The folioage is waved at her nose, and her nostrils flare. "There, that's for you," he says, voice bright and encouraging and whispered and slightly desperate.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-09 02:19 am (UTC)"I am the greatest," she agrees, "yes."
Out of the corner of her eye, she perceives Loxley: the big, big stance, the peace offering. She sticks the egg in a pouch at her belt with one hand, and with the other she begins loosening the pin that secures her fur-lined cloak around her neck.
"We will need to look big. Your friend is right. Hey, you are right!" The egg hand she cups to her mouth to yell over at Loxley. This is a nice neighborhood, but it is also a neighborhood that is smelling like goat piss, and will smell worse of it if the Avvar goat gets her freedom. That would be funny, to Doki, and not to the people who live here. "Look big! She will be giving that respect. She will think, oh, here is a big goat, I will listen. Goats do not give gifts. They give fear."
Her cloak is loose and ready to look like big wings. Doki gives a kick to Silas' ankle.
"I will be on your shoulders. Hold still."
no subject
Date: 2021-11-09 06:07 am (UTC)Doki yells.
”Ssssst--” he turns sharply to hiss down at her, because this was (ostensibly) a stealth operation, only to catch a kick to the ankle for the effort. His near shoulder drops over a shuffled step, defensive alarm fleeting behind his eyes.
The hissing stopped as suddenly as if she dropped a bucket over his head.
Being on his shoulders sounds supremely unnecessary --