The Cat's Meow (Hayle/Nayru C)

[Hayle]

After the last couple of days, being able to relax in the comparitive safety of a wooden chair next to a roaring fire in a quiet inn was like heaven to Hayle. With Sere nestled on his lap purring contentedly, what remained of a meal cooling slowly on a table next to him and a half full tankard of ale in the hand not petting the cat, he could almost convince himself that the whole spiderpocalypse thing hadn't happened.

Really, the downtime was more than welcome. Hopefully his companions were taking the time to relax too because who knew when the next disaster would strike. Though honestly, Veigue was probably off somewhere practicing his swordsmanship and Nayru, well... Hayle didn't really know what to think of Nayru. Ever since he'd met her in that snow covered town near the border, his life had changed dramatically. Which was quite a feat considering what he'd been through up to that point.

But really, that was fine by him. He really couldn't talk when by his very nature, he wasn't one to really spill his life story for all and sundry, so giving the same respect to everyone else came easy to him.

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

She couldn't help but feel a bit unsatisfied with how things had turned out in the forest. Yes, they had come out alive, and that was good, but they still had no idea where the arachnid lair was, and it was clear from the local garrison's response that they were aware of the threat, but unable to do anything about it - even keeping the road clear was hard enough given recent drops in morale after soldiers saw other members of their patrol being dragged screaming into the forest by eight-legged nightmares, never to return. Humanity might eventually launch a proper response, if pushed, but it would only be when ignoring the creatures was no longer an option.

She had seen Salvation Point. She knew what happened if the beasts were left to their own devices, to procreate endlessly, with a steady supply of food. Nayru knew little about the world before the Scouring, but she had heard tales of sarms so great that even dragons had to work together to quell the tide. How long could the situation in the forest simmer before it came to a breaking point? Was it already too late? What would Elibe do if ten thousand carriage-sized beasts suddenly erupted from the shifting shadows of the forest to launch an overwhelming attack that consumed all Lycia before bringing the waking nightmare to other countries as well?

Maybe she was just overthinking this. Certainly there hadn't been anywhere near that manym nor that large, that they had encountered. But the possibility of what the nest held, what manner of beasts might be biding their time for the moment to strike, left her thoroughly unhappy.

She didn't even notice Hayle until she was almost upon him, focused more on the fire than what manner of purring beasts be reclining near it. It might be plain, but sitting next to a brightly burning fire had always been one of her favorite things to do. And she wasn't even a fire dragon! Something about the dancing flames and waves of heat was just relaxing. And Hayle certainly seemed to be pretty relaxed. "The two of you are enjoying the downtime, I see."

[Hayle]

The mysterious miss herself, appearing from out of the blue, somewhat absentmindedly it seemed.

With the warmth of the fire infusing his body and the briefest of smiles on his lips, Hayle gestured with his free hand towards the chair opposite his.

"Please, sit. After what the three of us went through recently, downtime is something we could all use, even if only for a short while."

Admittedly, Hayle was yet to really understand Nayru. As a leader she was fairly reliable, but still almost... naive in some ways. If he had to venture a guess, he'd have to say she was a highborn lady of some sort. Though, all the highborn ladies in all the tales he'd heard couldn't fight like that. Her fighting style was primal, almost evocative of a wild beast, lurking beneath the surface.

That said, she was rather handy in a fight and her prior knowledge had saved their collective bacon in the forest.

Yes, she was definately someone that he could rely on in a fight. Even if she did seem to lead the trio into them more often than not.

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

"Hm? Oh, yes." Her mind was still caught somewhere midway in between her previous thoughts and the new procession. She took to the chair without argument, not really having planned anything for the afternoon - or was it evening? she had lost track of time again - besides some introspection and planning. Of what, she wasn't even sure.

But with Hayle here, sitting morosely by herself forever wasn't really an option. Which, to be fair, was probably for the best. She wasn't complaining, at any rate; just hadn't expected him to be there. Him and his cat, who the dragon was now reasonably certain could have slept through the Scouring and not cared a whit. Whether that was impressive or worrying - well, that was all a matter of perspective, she supposed. Hayle seemed to take after it to some degree if his calmness during the spider issue was any indication.

Without any brilliant ideas on fitting conversation, but not wanting to sit there in silence until the end of time, Nayru settled on the first makeshift topic of conversation that came to mind. "Was that your first encounter with beasts of their kind? You handled yourself far more coolly than most mortals would have."

[Hayle]

"Me? I've never dealt with anything larger than a house spider until we came across those monstrosities."

Idly petting Sere, he took a moment to ponder the question posed to him. Should he come out and be honest? In his old life, the most ferocious thing he'd ever had to deal with was maybe a boar, or a bear roused from its winter's sleep.

"I really couldn't say that I was calm throughout that whole ordeal, but one of the first things I learned as a child was that in times of stress, losing ones head often, invariably makes the situation worse."

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

"Nonetheless, it takes an unusual degree of mettle for a human to confront something so far outside of the natural. Creatures drawn from legend... for most people, it would be like confronting a living nightmare." Nayru quirked a smile. There was nothing metaphorical or figurative about that comparison; Baels and their kind were quite literally the stuff of the most terrifying of children's bedtime stories. ...Much like dragons. Her smile faded a little.

...She actually didn't know what to talk about. Had she the time to plan a discussion she would likely have done better, but as-is Nayru was a little lost for words. She could never quite tell if Hayle kept everyone at a distance or if it was simply her interpetation of his words and their meaning, but while he often alluded to past events he rarely went into more detail.

Which was pretty much what she did. But unless he was secretly a dragon - and she didn't think there were many dragon archers - he probably didn't have the 'hundreds of years' problem going. Without much better of an idea where to go with the discussion, she decided to focus in on his comment a little more. "What in particular taught you that lesson?"

[Hayle]

Hayle let out a long sigh. Thinking back to his past was still painful, the reminder of everything that he would never see again still fresh as the day it was inflicted upon him.

"To be brief, a bear and I had a run in many moons ago when I was small and that lesson was nearly all that kept me here today."

"What about you though? You seemed to have some prior knowledge of the beasts, perchance have you encountered them before yourself?"

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

"A bear." She didn't sound disbelieving, but there was a slight undercurrent of amusement to her words. For some reason she had the mental image of a bear attacking him, and Hayle just turning around and exasperatedly telling it to sod off, and then the creature just turned around and walked off shamefully. Nayru wasn't entirely sure why, but it sounded... surprisingly fitting, honestly. She wasn't sure if that was a compliment to Hayle, or a testament to her own insanity. Maybe a little of both. "Well... I can honestly say I've had little experience bear-wrestling, but it sounds like an interesting experience nonetheless."

His question was, perhaps ironically fittingly, a little harder to answer. Not painful, as such, but it did dredge up a few memories she would have preferred to leave buried. Her... disagreement with Aerious some time after the battle at Salvation Point, and worse, how she had reacted to the male human at the ruins. She couldn't well remember his name, but he and Aerious had gotten along extremely poorly, and to her discredit, she had automatically taken her counterpart's side rather than attempt to defuse the situation or be objective about it.

But Hayle didn't really need to know any of that. Besides, there was enough story to tell without delving into the more sordid side of the tale. "Yes. I last ran into them several months ago, at the ruined fortress of Salvation Point. It was... rather a large nest, and my companion at the time and I were hard pressed to survive, much less defeat them. We managed to defeat the broodmother together, but I was insufficient for the rest of the task and he had to finish the job alone."

Ah, good times. She had never actually been hit so hard she got knocked into the earth like a hammer smacking a nail into gelatin, and that was probably the closest she had ever come to having her arms turned into a gelatinous mess. "Trust me when I say that our escape earlier was fortuitous beyond belief. The size and ferocity of their elders are beyond compare, and I fear I could not have protected you both had one appeared. If or when we return to finish the job, it ought only be after some experience."

[Hayle]

"Ha. Twas less wrestling the furry beast and more cowering with fear as far up a tree as I could climb until my father rescued me. Even I was a child once, afterall."

Even just talking about it a little bit was helping to put things into perspective. Sometimes a little humor, even at someone elses expense was enough to reframe memories into a better light.

Of course, it was but one of many small memories in the melancholy book of tales that was Hayle's existance, but everyone had to start somewhere.

"Hmm... the ones we faced were bothersome enough, but having to face large quantities at once could prove to be somewhat troublesome."

"Of course," said Hayle with a faint smile on his otherwise stoic face, "we could always just set the forest on fire and take care of them that way. It is only a small one and Lycia is practically covered with trees... they won't miss a few, surely?"

"But in all seriousness... perhaps we three alone are not sufficient to take care of that threat. Certainly, you and your stalwart swordsman companion could hold yourself in a fight but I fear that my inexperience would only serve to be a hinderance. Of course, that isn't to say that more training wouldn't help either but one would think that finding a magus of some small skill with fire would serve better than I."

It was a little self depreciating, but it carried the ring of honesty. Hayle did not want anyone else suffering on his account and fighting was a terribly unforgiving business. After all he'd been through before, losing more people he was growing fond of and knowing that it was in part his fault... not something he could live with.

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

"One has yet to live until a scrabbling mass of cat-sized and smaller arachnids are crawling up your battered body. Truly a sensation everyone should experience once in their lives." Sarcasm? Nayru. Naaaaaah. "They seem to begin as little larger than common house spiders, albeit uglier, then grow tremendously with age. I know little of how quickly they age, but it is certain they reach the size of a house given enough time. Perhaps in the years before the Scouring... I know not what the largest on record would be, but now I find myself curious."

Nayru's eyes and tone alike had a dangerously questing glint to them, the exact sort of thing that the old saying about how curiosity killed the cat was supposed to warn people away from. But she couldn't help it. After so many centuries spent questing for knowledge, all the more ironic given how little attention she had paid her studies in Arcadia when she DID have easy access to all the world's knowledge, not even the beginnings of her newfound common sense were enough to remedy that part of her.

Setting the forest on fire? That would be about her speed, if not for the whole... dragon... stealth... thing. Certainly she had considered it at the time, even if she hadn't mentioned as much to Hayle or Veigue. But that would be causing just as much trouble as it would be worth. Hayle was joking though, probably, at least she thought so. "We may not be ready now, but how many humans are?" Her words were - not arguing, but driving, challenging.

"How many people have the strength, both of will and at arms, to face that menace? You saw what happened with the town guard. No one wants to throw their lives away. Placid survival in a world slowly growing too strange to recognize. These people would rather ignore the problem until it surges forth in a tsunami of evil and flenses them from this earth. The occasional screams of their neighbors as they are dragged yet-alive into the woods are but a trite concern, one to be ignored until it is too late. These men are not heartless, but neither are they suicidal. If not us, then whom? Are all the king's horses and all the king's men to ride into those dark woods, never to return?"

Nayru abruptly stopped, sitting back in her chair as the intensity of her diction faded into nothingness and she regarded the fire in quiet contemplation before resuming in a much quieter manner."Sometimes heroes are merely those who do what is right, rather than what is easy. We need not cast our lives away on the morrow, but the longer we allow that infestation to grow, the more difficult it will be to overcome. Whether we are to find allies, surmount that trials under our own power, or the combination of the soon... we do not have time to waste. The horrors I saw at Salvation Point were less entrenched than those creatures, and they had already drawn other varieties of monsters to them like moths to a flame."

[Hayle]

Hayle pondered over Nayrus impassioned words, fire crackling slightly in the background.

With a resigned sigh, Hayle realised that he did in part agree with what she had said.

"You are... right. To a degree at least. At the very least, we are morally obligated as good and just people to try and help, but neither at the same time should we rush in likes fools. One does not accomplish anything charging in blindly, not without either divine proctection or supernatural luck. To move in without a plan, well, it's akin to throwing yourself into the dragons gullet. It does naught but give it a free meal."

Hayle leant back in his chair after finishing, a wry smile on his face.

"Of course, we do still have the option of setting the forest on fire and taking them out that way. Hardly the heroic option but it would certain take care of the problem, albeit in overly dramatic fashion."

Hopefully the somewhat teasing tone would assure her that he was not in fact seriously considering setting a large forest on fire to take care of a small arachnid problem. That would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

"Don't get me wrong, I am willing to help take care of this problem. I would just feel far better about the whole situation if we were to take along extra help. There is only so much a good bow, a strong sword arm and well... your tendancy to survive everything that gets thrown at you can do."

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

"Your counsel holds wisdom," Nayru allowed after a moment spent swallowing her pride. She might not be in lockstep with most dragons on a great many issues, but there was a certain degree of personal pride almost unanimous among dragons, and she was no more immune to that curse than the rest of her kin - accepting that she was too weak to simply go and solve the problem herself, even with Veigue and Hayle's aid, was grating at best.

Blind charges never really helped anyone, though, and failing to acknowledge that weakness would merely make it harder for her to overcome. But that didn't mean she had to like it, dammit. "If my actions cost either of you two your lives, I would be hard pressed to bear that responsibility." She was not strong enough, they were not tough enough, and between them they could do little now. "For now, we must hope that our warnings are heeded by the commonfolk who live here, and in turn, apply ourselves to solving the issue permanently... though I know not how. Without knowing the true extent of the infestation, it may already be too late for even an army."

That would be a pretty depressing scenario. "I suppose it does not really matter. If it is indeed already too late, our actions matter little. If it is not, then there will be hope so long as we act. But how to act, or where to find an army... I am no leader of men." So then, what was their path to be? Was it a task they could undertake themselves, given time? How much time? Certainly there must be other humans who could aid them, men with the strength and conviction to put their lives at stake to protect their kin, or she had sorely misjudged humanity in her travels. But finding them - that was the tricky part.

[Hayle]

"Leadership is a complicated matter. How one leads is dependant on the qualities of those who would be lead."

The tone of the conversation was turning serious, and time for brevity was over. If this was a problem they were truely dedicated to solving, it would take more than a single discussion over beer.

"If all you simply want are men, then send out the word. Hire mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, freebooters whose only aim is to find enough gold to survive another day. With enough gold, one could buy an army. They wouldn't fight for honor or justice, but an army you would have."

"Finding men with conviction, women of honor, those who would fight not for pay or glory but merely to do a good deed, to protect others, now that is the real problem. Such people are uncommon and to be treasured when you find them. To find them is to find something precious."

Of course, whether or not they could find one person like that in time to stop their little spider problem, let alone enough to let them stand a chance of winning was yet to be decided.

But then, the odds of finding people who would help for helpings sake were probably better than Hayle and co suddenly finding enough gold to hire mercenaries. One mercenary was expensive enough, 50 or 100 of them, enough to take care of the problem. Even if that were enough people, they'd still have quite the fight on their hands.

[Nayru Al-Saiduq]

Precious... yes, they were, weren't they? Hayle might not see himself as fitting into that category, but even if her... goal had fallen through, Nayru still coult not help but see potential in others, rejoice in helping them realize it. Elly, Hayle, Veigue - whether or not they saw themselves in that light, it was people like them, perhaps even them individually should they seize the day, who could lead humanity into a different age. "Few and far between, perhaps, but each a bright light that beckons to others, to each other. A fire that once lit can never be extinguished." A wildfire that would grow as it consumed all in its path, bringing forth new life in its wake.

Or simply consume Elibe whole, leaving nothing but charred cinders and blackened corpses as the shadows drew long across a dying world. Greatness and greed often walked hand in hand, after all; lovers that could be separated for a time, but ones who would always find their way back into the other's embrace given the chance.

"Those who play with fire often end up burnt," the dragon eventually returned in an even tone, not exactly responding to Hayle's commentary so much as her own. Maybe sitting in front of a fireplace was the explanation for all the fire-related philosophizing, she thought, staring into the flames, but perhaps it was simply an attempt to have something akin to the conversations she had with Aerious with someone new; Veigue was certainly smart enough for it, but less prone to such discussions of his own accord.

"Unfortunately, I doubt my jewelry would account for the sheer cost of hiring an entire mercenary company... they do not come cheaply in these troubled times, emboldened by the prospect of good business in this world gone mad we call home." As if to illustrate, Nayru lazily raised one perfect hand languidly, the light glinting off the gold encasing her alabaster wrist. There was also the minor issue that her dragonstone was currently acting as jewelry, and a dragon without any powers whatsoever was not much of a fighter in themselves. "Unless Sere is in truth the cat that lays the golden kittens, I fear that path is closed to us. But there must be adventurers willing to join us, if only for the sake of adventure and perhaps fame... humanity wallows oft in the dark, but there are those willing to rise above their kin, even if their reasons are not entirely altruistic."