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 Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 12:41 am
"ISIIIIII!"
The shout was probably loud enough to wake up anyone who made the mistake of sleeping in the reserve.
"Isi, Isi, Isi!"
Scampering to the elder Famine's dwelling, Mahir wasn't exactly an uncommon sight, merely an unwanted one. He was wringing a few of his shadowy hands together in lieu of his actual ones, hidden beneath his many-layered robe. He had reverted back to their ancient and far more comfortable language, one that was comprised of just as many hand gestures and shakes of metal bracelets as hisses and insectlike clicks. On the outside, he was trying to appear as friendly and likeable as he could.
"Oh hello Isi it is so wonderful to see you again, really it is, have you done something new with your hair? Love the new beads. And I'm not just saying that. What are they, made from the skulls of your enemies? Fantastic. And look, you've redecorated! You know, I love that we get to talk like this. Just two horsemen, talking... about things... friend."
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 12:51 am
He knew which brat had come calling before the chittering started, and Isi-Ngoma slowly set down his quill, levelling a beady stare on Mahir.
He began counting off his reactions on one hand, his face pinched. "One. No. Two. Yes. Three. No. Four. Not friends. Five. Where is it?"
The elder Famine pressed his palm to Mahir's chest, shoving him backwards enough to get him out of Izzy's space. "This is the third one this month."
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 1:06 am
Mahir immediately began to wither under Izi's judgmental gaze.
"She - she looked so lonely and sad. I thought maybe I should take her out for a little walk. Just to get some fresh air and a few bugs. But I learned from the last time! She needed a leash. So I took her out to put a leash on her, and that's when she made her daring escape." The whole thing was accompanied by pantomiming in several layers thanks to having a good deal more arms than average. One set was even trying to create a spidery shadow puppet with moderate success. "But really, have you tried leashing a tarantula? Wait. Of course you have."
"Um." He shuffled his feet uncomfortably "How do you leash a tarantula?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 1:13 am
Without breaking eye contact with Mahir, Izzy smacked one of the shadowy appendages that had flown too close to the sun (read: his face) away.
"What have I told you about personifying the experiments?" Isi-Ngoma replied tartly, tsking under his breath with a series of harsher clicks than usual. He turned on his heel, swooping away to go mark the terrarium A-26 as empty and in need of a new inhabitant. "They serve to be harvested, not played with. It is a noble cause for darker mechanisms. Must you turn everything into a game?"
Isi turned back to stare further at Mahir at the question of how to leash one, and promptly waved both of his heavily robed arms furiously. "You do not! There was no need for a leash! They do not require walkies!"
Fortunately, incoherent rage in any amount stemming from Isi-Ngoma's hive was nothing unusual. His neighbors merely sighed, and watered their bio-luminescent garden.
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 1:37 am
Mahir just looked confused and hurt, like a heartbroken puppy. A puppy with glowing yellow eyes and many spindly moving limbs.
Maybe it wasn't a great time to mention he'd also been a teeny, tiny bit distracted by the far-off whispering that plagued him. He withdrew his hands even farther inside the cover of robes. Nobody really understood.
The tarantula certainly hadn't been very understanding either.
His gaze flickered between Isi and his sandal clad feet. It was time for plan B.
Groveling.
The famine horseman dropped to his knees and began grabbing at the hem of Isi's robe with every available hand.
"Pleeeease Isi please I need to borrow another just one more I promise I won't ever take it for walks or or enter it in tarantula races or attach miniature weapons to its back or try to feed it an experimental growth potion or leave my distortion crystal out where it can eat it! Please please please! Just give me another chance!"
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Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2013 1:50 am
He was just so young, it was infuriating. Mahir embodied every trait Izzy hated in a horseman: young, foolish, and distracted. This would be the third tarantula lost this month, but the seventh in a long suffering exchange that still somehow compelled the Famine horseman to help his ...
Not quite protégé, because protégé would imply that it was a willing partnership.
"Eugh," is all he said, tugging away his robes like a conservative demon tugging their skirt away from a begging scareling. "Don't do that."
The same tactic always won out, with Izzy, and the beastly little colt knew how to take advantage of it.
"Fine." He rolled up a sleeve to shake an ink-stained, bony, finger at Mahir, his green eyes still narrowed. "But this is the last one." He walked the length of his lair, fingers dragging against the stone in between terrariums. B-5. Male. This one would do. He produced a basket from somewhere within his sleeves, and gently tucked B-5 into it, and offered it to the younger Famine.
"If you ruin this," he said, sounding more pleasant than he had the entire meeting by far, "You will be doing all of your work here. In my lair. Where I can see." Tucking both hands back into his robes, Izzy tossed his head, the various beads within it rattling menacingly.
There was no need to ask if he was understood. Mahir, for all his flaws, was not an idiot. That was the only reason Isi-Ngoma put up with his...idiosyncrasies.
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