usir | closed

Character(s): Shura & Daud
Status: Closed
Location(s): City of the Free Peoples
Date(s) May 9-ish
About: Daud pays Shura a visit to discuss
Warnings: Possibly mentions of cannibalism

Someone's broken into her little shack again. Of course they had. Shura expected her more-than-humble abode to be broken into, but she wasn't expecting two break-ins in such a short period of time. Things were calming down, why was someone bothering to break into an occupied home--

Oh. It's Daud sitting at her table, looking as constipated and grumpy as ever. Shura should have known. Billie had to pick up her habit of breaking and entering from someone.

"What do you people have against knocking, jeez!" At least she had taken Aconite with her, hidden under the guise of a winged kitten clinging to Shishi's back. If Daud isn't going to give her the heads up that he's coming by for a social call, then Shura isn't going to give him any sort of formalities or courtesy in return, closing the door behind her motley lot and setting a bag full of green herbs and other plants on the table and beginning to unpack the bag. The winged kitten stares at Daud, mostly quiet, but completely intrigued by the stranger.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a change of topic that Daud wasn't expecting, but his only reaction to it at first is a slow blink before he leans forward slightly in his seat.

"What mirror?"

“Gimme a sec.”.

And with that, Shura will turn to retrieve a small chest from the top of a shelf, setting it on the table in front of Daud. Aconite stops in her game to watch; she isn’t allowed on that shelf, and so she’s naturally curious. There’s nothing about the chest that stands out on first glance. It is warded, and it takes Shura a second to navigate the spell, unlocking a side drawer and pulling a small bundle of worn cloth from it. Shura slides it on the table to Daud, sitting across from him at the table.

“I got a piece of it, too. A present from Alice while she was in hiding. Look at it for a bit.”

If it were someone else asking, Daud wouldn't be so quick to comply, but Shura's not played him false before, though he notes the precautions she's taken with it. He pulls the bundle closer to him, peeling the cloth apart with care, speaking as he goes.

"A present?" His lips thin. "Did she say where she got it?"

"No. It was her animas that delivered it to me, and I haven't had the chance to ask her about it. But the enchantment on it checks out." Slowly, very slowly, Aconite begins to move from her spot. Shura gives her a quick glance, and Aconite freezes in place. Better to ignore her, Shura decides, looking away. Aconite continues her (relatively) quiet approach.

"I assume it was whole when she first saw it. Whether or not someone dropped it or if she broke it on purpose to share, I don't know."

"If she did break it, that's seven years of bad luck she can't afford," Daud murmurs, without much inflection, careful with the mirror's edges as he lifts it to take a look at his reflection. Like Shura, he elects to ignore Aconite -- visibly, anyway. He'll be quick to move the shard out of her way if it looks like she might be about to pounce, but for now, his concentration's on the image in the glass.

"Maybe a little bad luck could tip the scales in her favor," Shura replies wryly. That's how it worked, right? If Alice had enough bad luck piled up, maybe fortune would take pity on her.

But Shura doesn't have much to say, caught between watching for Daud's reaction when his reflection changes for that bare second and listening to Aconite's claws softly click on the floor. The dragonet is taking her time and being surprisingly quiet.

That's most assuredly not how that works.

"Maybe it doesn't matter since she's living on borrowed time," Daud comments, not adding, like the rest of us. He doesn't want to reflect on that too much, so he focuses on the mirror shard instead. He can sense the enchantment on it, recognizes its general shape, but he doesn't catch onto its actual nature until he blinks and sees, for a bare moment, the flash of scales fanning out on his cheeks.

The reaction is subtle, but immediate. His eyes narrow, and his tail stiffens as he forces himself not to do anything as dramatic as throw it across the room, but he does lower it to the table, shaking his head.

"Fortune has a cruel sense of humor."

"Fortune's a bitch," Shura replies, sliding the piece of glass back towards her and moving to wrap it back up. It isn't a priceless relic, but it has its use and she'd rather it not get shattered again.

"Dunno what exactly it means. Dragonborn hafta to agree to the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure a corpse rotting in the ground for a century couldn't consent to it. But I don't like the alternative." Undead scaleskins, what a great idea.

Aconite stills for a moment as she nears the table, then sprints, jumping from the dirt floor to Shura's chair, then to the table. She reaches her goal, and she's just so amazed and pleased with herself that she just about forgets what she was after in the first place, looking to Shura with what is probably a gleeful dragon face. Shura is less than impressed, turning her head just enough to look at the dragonet, raising a brow. "What do you want?"

"At least we aren't going mad from pain," Daud points out. That has to count for something, doesn't it? His brow furrows slightly, voice going dry.

"But dead dragons can't give their consent either. We know that making a dragonborn requires consent from both; the lack of it creates a scaleskin." He pauses, lingering over the thought. But what if neither of them could give consent? If they were both just functionally objects bound together? He doesn't like the thought of that.

In any case, the dragonet isn't an effective distraction from dark thoughts, but it's one he'll let himself take for once, watching them both silently.

"Not yet, at least." It hadn't even been a year; who knew how long whatever spell this was was going to keep them in one piece.

Still, at this point, it's all conjecture and theory, things Shura didn't usually have much patience for, so she'll take care of whatever it is Aconite wants instead. The chest on the table is fascinating, but so is the piece of mirror that Shura was just messing with. She reaches a little claw out to the fabric and tugs at it. Shura remains entirely unimpressed.

"It's a mirror, you've seen this thing before." Well, maybe not this exact mirror, but Shura had procured a small hand mirror for herself, and the dragonet had spent plenty of time looking at it. Shura's explanation doesn't satisfy Aconite, and she continues to tug at the fabric. "Seriously? Fine. But you better not touch it."

If Daud wants to stay silent, then Shura will busy herself with keeping the dragon entertained. Aconite's reflection fascinates her, but it is something she's seen before, and she'll turn her attention back to the chest to find her next amusement.

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