Hanna, who wasn't sure how long it would take, was not so pleasantly surprised by the uproar that was starting to gather attention in the village. Usually it was quiet, but...not at the moment. Pulling his cloak around him, he heads towards the sound, recognizing both voices as familiar.
When he arrives, it's with pursed lips, not entirely too amused, but at least appreciating that Maurice is a man of his word, and was trying to follow the instruction that he had given. He pulls his hood back, the villagers parting the sea of interested onlookers when they recognized him as the wizard of the town. It wasn't quite how he wanted to shadow, Maurice, but...he can hope that he's as slow as he seemed.
"Excuse me...but I know for certain it was thirty last week. Are times truly that hard?" He steps to the side of Maurice, so he can't see his face too well, eyes flashing with a dangerous light that showed more of the dragon within than most people who lived in the village had seen. The merchant was slightly aware of how dangerous his customer was though, and swallowed hard.
Both the oil seller and Maurice were getting ready to hop the counter when the wizard appeared. They both blinked owlishly at him, but the merchant was far more swift to know his place. He coughed and smoothed his apron.
"Sadly, sadly, leaves are a-changin' you know."
Meanwhile, Maurice was scrunching his brow at the wizard. Why was everybody looking at him like that? Why hadn't anybody looked at him like that. The prince settled on a sour frown and refused to step aside or move his shoulders to give the small man more room.
"Something tells me this man is full of horse shit." He felt sort of dangerous swearing like the common folk. Live big, Maurice. "My employer wouldn't send me out short, he knows this town!"
Hanna raised a brow, well aware that the price hadn't ever changed, regardless of season. "So if I wanted to buy some now, you'd charge me fifty?" His own purse appears, counting out coins, though, with a rather smug look on his face, raising his eyes up from the coins to the merchant, he sighs.
Curous faces crowded in. Maurice frowned as the coins were placed on the counter and he clutched his own purse closer to his person. The merchant began to sweat very loudly.
"N-not you, good sir! You've always been a valued customer! F-forty at the most! Thirty five if only it weren't for the rain clouds!"
"HEY!" The prince brought his gloved fist down on the counter, making Hanna's coins dance. "That's not fair!"
Murmurs of 'he's right' began to flutter through the crowd.
The merchant held up his hands. "I'm only a simple man! Like you--"
"I'M NOT SIMPLE!"
"--I put my trousers on one leg at a time," the merchant finished quickly. "If I sold it to you both for thirty each, I wouldn't even break even!" He looked to the wizard, pleading in his eyes. He swallowed again.
Hanna, who feels the slightest bit of guilt, playing with the man he's used for this certain product for quite some time, starts to pick his coins off the table, though leaves six, calmly tying his purse closed and back on his belt. "One then, at thirty six. If you can't do thirty five, then six is my final offer."
The merchant watched uneasily as Hanna counted out the difference. One vial then. He guessed it wasn't such a loss. He heaved a sigh.
Meanwhile, Maurice slowly figured out what was going on and rounded on the smaller man, his face still red from his argument with the merchant. What was this? Charity? Was this something people did?
"Hmm?" He pulls his hood back up, just in time for Maurice to round on him. While he wore a different skin, his eyes were telling for people who had seen him before and he didn't want to kill the act just yet. Perhaps once or twice more before he revealed himself to his apprentice.
"Did you have a problem?" He asks calmly, looking just about ready to leave, the crowd starting to dissipate now that he trouble was solved.
While the prince was foolish, it was wise of Hanna to hide his dragon's eyes. Maurice just stared down at the hooded figure, prompted by a cough from the merchant to start shelling out for the oil. As he placed the coins down, he kept his attention on the wizard.
"Why did you do that?" It was a little accusing, but mostly curious. This man wasn't even wearing shoes.
Hanna looks Maurice's way, but his face is hidden under the hood, their height difference making it more easy to hide his face. "Why not?"
He knows that answer isn't adequate though and checks his purse as he moves to head out. "You're trying to do good by your master, and that's honest work. I didn't want you to have to return empty handed, that's all." He smiles beneath his cloak, "It saves you grief, and helps this merchant out all the same since he doesn't have to deal with him coming down himself to get his oils."
If this strange man wanted to go around wasting his money and shopping opportunities, Maurice wasn't going to stop him. He took the oil and reached again for Sally's reins. He had a few more things to get before returning to the mountain and thankfully they weren't quite so exotic. The wizard had made sure he had exactly enough to complete the list.
The prince made an unsure grunting sound before leading Sally away through the muddy town, continually glancing back at the wizard as if he weren't entirely sure he had been there at all.
Dinner that night was another awkward one. Maurice had returned with the full list and an empty purse exactly the way he'd been told to. He made no mention of the mysterious shoeless man while they worked on labeling things and now that it was time to eat, the prince's hearty appetite was nowhere to be found. His chin rested in one hand while the other distractedly tore bit after bit of meat from the bone and scattered it around his plate.
Hanna had been around to follow Maurice the rest of the day, just in case there were other mishaps in the village. He was quiet about it, making sure that he was attending to business here and there, but he was well aware that Maurice kept looking his way. He wondered what was on his mind.
Back at home though, he wondered the same thing, giving him a curious look as Maurice pushed his food around. He was still orange, but tomorrow he could strip his color in preparation for returning to his usual pink, most of his potions he needed for it sorted out anyways and now in place. His tail flicked around, gently prodding Maurice and opened up with a question, "There are better ways to lose a few pounds, my lord. Far healthier ones than skipping meals."
The prince made an undignified honking sound as Hanna's prod dragged him out of a shoulders-deep groove he'd worried himself into while mentally pacing. He shoved at the spear tip if the dragon's tail, his little fire sparking back into life for the moment.
"I don't need to lose a few pounds!" He puffed out his chest and reached for his wine. "Living on this mountain top has me wasting away as it is. I'm...tired."
"Wasting away?" Hanna can't believe that. Actually working and eating hearty meals every night couldn't be considered wasting away. "I didn't take you for someone who tired so easily." Though he is well aware that a day of haggling can be exhausting.
Maurice hunched his shoulders and wondered if the beast was using some kind of mage or dragon trick to see into his soul. Part of him really wanted to come clean but another part of him still had its trousers in a bunch over getting water dumped on his head and didn't want to get laughed at again so soon.
Then he looked at his plate and his brows drifted upward. He'd made a huge mess of dinner and that seemed to make him even more upset considering what he was so pensive about.
"I've just been...thinking." His eyes moved around the room to the bottles, the scrolls that had drifted out into the main chamber, the tools, the furniture that this dragon seemed to have either bought with his dragon money or made with his dragon claws. "About...things." He winced. That wouldn't do. "About you. Beings like you."
Hanna is smart enough to start to put the pieces of the puzzle together. He follows his gaze down to his plate, a winged arm coming across the table to pick up a bone, opening his mouth and crunching on it easily. "Beings like me aren't for dinner, Maurice." He's trying to be gentle at least, because he can tell it's wearing on him. A young man like Maurice wouldn't skip meals otherwise, he's sure.
"There are beasts in this world that are just beasts. They are driven by instinct, and that alone, and they don't use a common tongue, it's mostly simplistic forms of communication." He settles, wings coming back at his sides and he nods to Maurice's plate, "Deer, elk, moose? Those creatures aren't the most intelligent. But, centaurs? Now, those wouldn't be cooked for dinner, I assure you. If I had to kill another like myself, something that relied on more than just instinct and thought for more than just itself and a sense of survival and reproduction? It would be given a proper burial and not roasted and served on a plate."
The prince braced himself, ready to be mocked or even punished for daring to compare the wise dragon to the side of rabbit at the table. Neither of those things happened.
It was a difficult thing to wrap his head around. For twenty something years he'd thought Hanna's kind were dumb troublesome lizards fit only to be slain, hung over the dinner table, and placed upon it. The Queen's Wings and all that.
"How can you be sure?" He quickly lifted his hands in a feeble attempt to assure the dragon he wasn't trying to suggest that he was stupid. Panic was obvious on the young man's face. "Absolutely sure? I know you've been around for a long time, but I saw at least ten strange things today that I've never seen in my entire life!" He ran his fingers through his hair and lowered his head again. Why was dinner always so stressful? "I won't be able to stand it if tomorrow I discover that elk are people. I promised."
"Living behind the walls of a castle, I'm sure you'll see a lot more, my lord," He says calmly, though the way Maurice is worried, he is concerned for his sanity. He's asking heavy hitting questions, and Hanna might not have an answer to all of them.
"I'm certain that I would be able to tell. There are intelligent beasts that look like elk, but they would much sooner kill and eat you than let themselves be food. If you're so incredibly concerned, I suppose you are a creature that can survive without meat in their diet, and I won't be offended if you don't eat my food, but I'm not going to prepare you salads for your conscience either." He's not sure how else to convince Maurice otherwise, nodding to him. "But I can promise you that nothing I cook and eat will be what you're worried they will be." He didn't even eat humans, so, as serious as Maurice is, he finds it funny he's worried about it.
Maurice lifted his head and looked a little stricken. There were dangerous creatures masquerading as elk in the woods? If he ever got ahold of a bow again, hunting was going to be so nerve-wracking. Maybe...he could live off of fish for a while. If they were stupid enough to fall for worms on hooks and feather flies, maybe they deserved to be eaten. He certainly had deserved it waltzing into a dragon's den with a weapon he wasn't trained in.
The dragon's mouth is drawn to a thin line, unsure of how to continue. He can't fault Maurice for any of this really, people were raised how they were and until they were able to see and think for themselves, that wouldn't change.
"No...You're learning. I can't fault you for asking questions and thinking. It's what anyone would do when they learn." He snorts at him, shaking his head, "You're coming to your own conclusions about the world, and to be honest, it's rather nice, hearing this from you. You have more of a conscience than I gave you credit for, and I am rather liking your train of thought, actually."
Something like a wary smile formed on the dethroned prince's face. Guilt and grattitude sat in an uncomfortable lump where his dinner should have been. This dragon seemed more like a person than even himself at times.
"Thinking is hard," he admitted finally. "I don't see how you manage it all day."
That gets Hanna to laugh, finally getting up and moving towards the reorganized potions, "I don't think all day. Sometimes doing magic takes about as much brain work as turning a spit over a flame." It was all just typical to him now.
"You'll get more used to it though, really. The more you use your brain the better anyways. It's the best thing a person can have, especially if you exercise it every day."
Maurice let out a breath he didn't really realize he'd been holding in. He leaned back in his seat and massaged the sides of his head.
"I hope so...while I was a prince, my job wasn't to think, it was to do what I was told told and look nice. Which I am fantastic at." He opened an eye and caught sight of Hanna's ugly, ugly scales. "Mostly fantastic at."
Guide that brain, Hanna, you've seen what it does on its own.
Hanna snorts, looking at himself when Marice amends his statement and starts to clear a space. It's easier really to use a rune to strip himself of his color than any potions, and since he's full up on dinner, he figures why wait till tomorrow.
He doesn't expect Maurice to get up just yet. "Are you actually going to finish your dinner now that everything is clear on your conscience or are you done?"
The prince's smile fades into a ghost of itself and he looks back at his plate. It would be a shame to waste it. He could start his weird spiritual adventure with fish tomorrow. He quietly started polishing it off in earnest.
"It was something not being recognized today," he throws out conversationally. It had been both scary and exciting. For one, he was completely in disguise...and for another, he'd never been under a spell before. "I can see why you work so heavily in illusions."
"If anything, it's good for those days when you don't want anyone to recognize you," He says with a secretive grin, "Hiding in plain sight is the best kind of illusion." If only you knew, Maurice.
Hanna continues to work on his rune as Maurice eats, the scraping into the ground soft at least. "Didn't have any trouble today though, right?"
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theattic2014-11-09 08:06 pm
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When he arrives, it's with pursed lips, not entirely too amused, but at least appreciating that Maurice is a man of his word, and was trying to follow the instruction that he had given. He pulls his hood back, the villagers parting the sea of interested onlookers when they recognized him as the wizard of the town. It wasn't quite how he wanted to shadow, Maurice, but...he can hope that he's as slow as he seemed.
"Excuse me...but I know for certain it was thirty last week. Are times truly that hard?" He steps to the side of Maurice, so he can't see his face too well, eyes flashing with a dangerous light that showed more of the dragon within than most people who lived in the village had seen. The merchant was slightly aware of how dangerous his customer was though, and swallowed hard.
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"Sadly, sadly, leaves are a-changin' you know."
Meanwhile, Maurice was scrunching his brow at the wizard. Why was everybody looking at him like that? Why hadn't anybody looked at him like that. The prince settled on a sour frown and refused to step aside or move his shoulders to give the small man more room.
"Something tells me this man is full of horse shit." He felt sort of dangerous swearing like the common folk. Live big, Maurice. "My employer wouldn't send me out short, he knows this town!"
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"Oh dear. Seems I only have thirty. Shame."
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"N-not you, good sir! You've always been a valued customer! F-forty at the most! Thirty five if only it weren't for the rain clouds!"
"HEY!" The prince brought his gloved fist down on the counter, making Hanna's coins dance. "That's not fair!"
Murmurs of 'he's right' began to flutter through the crowd.
The merchant held up his hands. "I'm only a simple man! Like you--"
"I'M NOT SIMPLE!"
"--I put my trousers on one leg at a time," the merchant finished quickly. "If I sold it to you both for thirty each, I wouldn't even break even!" He looked to the wizard, pleading in his eyes. He swallowed again.
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Meanwhile, Maurice slowly figured out what was going on and rounded on the smaller man, his face still red from his argument with the merchant. What was this? Charity? Was this something people did?
"Excuse me?"
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"Did you have a problem?" He asks calmly, looking just about ready to leave, the crowd starting to dissipate now that he trouble was solved.
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"Why did you do that?" It was a little accusing, but mostly curious. This man wasn't even wearing shoes.
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He knows that answer isn't adequate though and checks his purse as he moves to head out. "You're trying to do good by your master, and that's honest work. I didn't want you to have to return empty handed, that's all." He smiles beneath his cloak, "It saves you grief, and helps this merchant out all the same since he doesn't have to deal with him coming down himself to get his oils."
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The oil was placed on the counter.
If this strange man wanted to go around wasting his money and shopping opportunities, Maurice wasn't going to stop him. He took the oil and reached again for Sally's reins. He had a few more things to get before returning to the mountain and thankfully they weren't quite so exotic. The wizard had made sure he had exactly enough to complete the list.
The prince made an unsure grunting sound before leading Sally away through the muddy town, continually glancing back at the wizard as if he weren't entirely sure he had been there at all.
Dinner that night was another awkward one. Maurice had returned with the full list and an empty purse exactly the way he'd been told to. He made no mention of the mysterious shoeless man while they worked on labeling things and now that it was time to eat, the prince's hearty appetite was nowhere to be found. His chin rested in one hand while the other distractedly tore bit after bit of meat from the bone and scattered it around his plate.
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Back at home though, he wondered the same thing, giving him a curious look as Maurice pushed his food around. He was still orange, but tomorrow he could strip his color in preparation for returning to his usual pink, most of his potions he needed for it sorted out anyways and now in place. His tail flicked around, gently prodding Maurice and opened up with a question, "There are better ways to lose a few pounds, my lord. Far healthier ones than skipping meals."
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"I don't need to lose a few pounds!" He puffed out his chest and reached for his wine. "Living on this mountain top has me wasting away as it is. I'm...tired."
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"Truly, what's the matter...you seem lost."
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Then he looked at his plate and his brows drifted upward. He'd made a huge mess of dinner and that seemed to make him even more upset considering what he was so pensive about.
"I've just been...thinking." His eyes moved around the room to the bottles, the scrolls that had drifted out into the main chamber, the tools, the furniture that this dragon seemed to have either bought with his dragon money or made with his dragon claws. "About...things." He winced. That wouldn't do. "About you. Beings like you."
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"There are beasts in this world that are just beasts. They are driven by instinct, and that alone, and they don't use a common tongue, it's mostly simplistic forms of communication." He settles, wings coming back at his sides and he nods to Maurice's plate, "Deer, elk, moose? Those creatures aren't the most intelligent. But, centaurs? Now, those wouldn't be cooked for dinner, I assure you. If I had to kill another like myself, something that relied on more than just instinct and thought for more than just itself and a sense of survival and reproduction? It would be given a proper burial and not roasted and served on a plate."
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It was a difficult thing to wrap his head around. For twenty something years he'd thought Hanna's kind were dumb troublesome lizards fit only to be slain, hung over the dinner table, and placed upon it. The Queen's Wings and all that.
"How can you be sure?" He quickly lifted his hands in a feeble attempt to assure the dragon he wasn't trying to suggest that he was stupid. Panic was obvious on the young man's face. "Absolutely sure? I know you've been around for a long time, but I saw at least ten strange things today that I've never seen in my entire life!" He ran his fingers through his hair and lowered his head again. Why was dinner always so stressful? "I won't be able to stand it if tomorrow I discover that elk are people. I promised."
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"I'm certain that I would be able to tell. There are intelligent beasts that look like elk, but they would much sooner kill and eat you than let themselves be food. If you're so incredibly concerned, I suppose you are a creature that can survive without meat in their diet, and I won't be offended if you don't eat my food, but I'm not going to prepare you salads for your conscience either." He's not sure how else to convince Maurice otherwise, nodding to him. "But I can promise you that nothing I cook and eat will be what you're worried they will be." He didn't even eat humans, so, as serious as Maurice is, he finds it funny he's worried about it.
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"You must think I'm such a fool."
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"No...You're learning. I can't fault you for asking questions and thinking. It's what anyone would do when they learn." He snorts at him, shaking his head, "You're coming to your own conclusions about the world, and to be honest, it's rather nice, hearing this from you. You have more of a conscience than I gave you credit for, and I am rather liking your train of thought, actually."
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"Thinking is hard," he admitted finally. "I don't see how you manage it all day."
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"You'll get more used to it though, really. The more you use your brain the better anyways. It's the best thing a person can have, especially if you exercise it every day."
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"I hope so...while I was a prince, my job wasn't to think, it was to do what I was told told and look nice. Which I am fantastic at." He opened an eye and caught sight of Hanna's ugly, ugly scales. "Mostly fantastic at."
Guide that brain, Hanna, you've seen what it does on its own.
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He doesn't expect Maurice to get up just yet. "Are you actually going to finish your dinner now that everything is clear on your conscience or are you done?"
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"It was something not being recognized today," he throws out conversationally. It had been both scary and exciting. For one, he was completely in disguise...and for another, he'd never been under a spell before. "I can see why you work so heavily in illusions."
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Hanna continues to work on his rune as Maurice eats, the scraping into the ground soft at least. "Didn't have any trouble today though, right?"
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