far distance, a haphazard catastrophe of buildings with no clear central street. If Velle knew what a fire code was, she might point it out.
<I don't like it.> Alazar spoke clearly through the Bonding. <Flat like a prairie, elevated like steppes. Too many crevices. City of crevices.>
<Sucks to have an audience you can't escape.> Velle knew something of what that felt like; though she would never accuse the dragon of using their Bonding against her, there was also no way for her to fully escape it outside of death.
<That's a city?> she pointed as the city came into view in the
Elven forest-enclave.
A pulse, just enough of a feeling that Velle sent across a curious ping, and then it was gone from their little mental network.
<What kinda name is Puck?> Velle asked, bemused.
<I have never been to a city,> the dragon mused while they flew on. <Every one I hear about has been destroyed by the insects.>
Velle grumbled mentally. Each flap of his wings brought them closer to this city, and she'd hardly even thought about what a city might look like. A human city, not her
Do you fight for yourself or for those around you?
"They kill and kill and kill. Drove us out of the forests of my people. All of us."
She wasn't going to argue. Velle took the canteen and drank from it, then let it hang off her belt.
"Bugs? Big. Bigger than either of us. ... violent."
Images of the horrific aftermaths of many battles flashed through her mind, and the few she'd personally survived, somehow.
The feeling of three other voices in her head made her toes curl. She had to be more disciplined with her thoughts now, and the wind whipping through her hair and face made her focus on the path ahead once more.
Alazar's voice echoed through their minds.
<What dangers will we find in this city?>
back.
<Think at me and we can talk like this. Just raise your hand off the glyph if you don't wanna hear no more. Got it?> Velle's voice reverberated through Priscilla's mind, unless she had some form of psychic defense against it.
After 54 seconds, two pinpricks of thought would blossom within Priscilla's head; one, Velle, a strange mix of child and war-hardened adult; and the other, a knot of tangled emotions and strange perceptions about the sun, the sky, gravity, the wind, and the two much smaller humanoids talking on his
// Here's all that motherfucker's accounts if you want to block them
bsky.app/profile/did:...
if she managed a hold on it, would slam it onto the glyph to the immediate right of Priscilla's saddleseat. "Give it a minute to work!"
"Forgot you don't know what the Egg is!" Velle shouted, then pressed her hand on a small glyph just to the right of her saddle. "Put your hand- oh you can't feggin' see! Vishala's feggin' buttcheek! Here, grab my- aw you can't see that either!"
Velle reached back and grabbed Priscilla's hand, then
non-violence while there wasn't an agitator on either side. "Figure everything needs water, eventually."
"Great," Velle grumbled, "another voice in my head. I'm Velle. If you're no bug like the bugs I fight, then, well. ... guess that's somethin' for me to consider. You want something to drink too?" She thrust her canteen out toward the taller figure, still not trusting them outright but embracing
|| me be around today for replies
that back at the Egg."
Despite their roaring through the air, they could hear each other during flight if they spoke loud enough. Velle's voice was just below shouting.
Velle and Alazar share a significant look, then the Elf shrugs and Alazar's wings spread wide. The air around the dragon shimmered with cold air and they took off into the air, wind rushing through their hair as they're propelled into the sky.
"So you're blind and not-blind. I knew someone like
tattered and threadbare, and she wore no shoes. Light scars covered her feet and lower legs and her exposed, muscled arms.
"What are you??" she demanded. "You're like no feggin' bug I've ever seen before!"
A bug would certainly not have offered her the fallen canteen. She scrambled onto her feet, and then looked from the tall creature, to the canteen, and then to the tall creature. She snatched the canteen back, then held it tightly in her hands while she studied the tall being.
Her own clothes were
dragon's back and situated herself, then turned back to Priscilla.
"Do you need any help gettin' on? I got no idea what you can and can't see with that thing on your eyes."
back. The harness was made of rough wool and had three distinct seat-shaped curves in it where people would put their butts, and then two leather handles to either side, where the passengers would lean forward and grab on if the dragon had to do some fancy mid-air maneuvers. Velle climbed onto the
They looked at each other, and then back at her. "Long as you're not likely to stab either of us while we're on the flight, it's feggin' fine with us." She shrugged, then Alazar folded his wings up against his body, which made for a convenient stepping path to get up to the 3-person harness on his
"Have you got any bread to spare?" she asked @thyorpheus.bsky.social with a few assorted coins in her hands. Mostly copper, with single silver piece, but it was all she had since coming to this strange place. "I've need of it to quiet the rumbling in my feggin' stomach."
The Elf drank deeply from a canteen, and when she lowered it and opened her eyes, @branching-paths.bsky.social towered over her. She nearly gagged on the water in her throat and cast herself backward with a strangled yell, the canteen landing with a dull 'thud' on the dirt to her right.
roleplay meme like for an interaction
The Elf, and the dragon now sitting beside her, stared at Priscilla, and then Velle abruptly realized she probably didn't know they were staring.
"Mind tellin' me what just happened with your voice? Sounded like you got something wedged in your throat."
Why couldn't someone else have been there to explain? Velle sighed.
"I dunno how to explain it. I don't *command* him, though, I'm... he's- if I tell him to do something, he'll do it if he agrees, but if he doesn't agree then we might fight over it." She tapped the side of her head. "Up in here."
Velle visibly squirmed at his phrasing. "Alazar is... he's not mine. Or if he is, I'm his. And he's mine. But not like- we're not giggling in corners, swapping kisses. He's...?"
How could she explain it? Bonded at a level she could barely comprehend?
"He's like clothin'? No, that's a bad example."
sunder
the majority of my accounts engage in long, thread-based roleplay and I am not often on a single account for more than a few minutes. Timeline banter is exceedingly scarce but I am always open to random improv threads.