The Two Naughty Granitees

23rd of Cylus 718

Once an isolated and dying township, an influx of academics, adventurers and thrill seekers have made Scalvoris Town their home. From scholars' tea shops to a new satellite campus for Viden Academy, this is an exciting place to visit or make your home!

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Vega
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The Two Naughty Granitees

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23rd Cylus 718
"Arlo?" Vega called as she ran down the stairs in the Wanderlust. She was running, but not in a bad way and her voice sounded happy and eager, far from panic stricken. "Are you here? Oh, there you are!" Catching sight of him, she dropped her bag on the floor and flung herself into his arms. She'd been gone maybe two breaks, but since the situation with the death forged rose (otherwise known as Wilma the Wonder Weed), Vega had been more prone to being demonstrative of her affection. Very sure that he would catch her as she jumped into his arms, she concentrated on kissing him, but she had a grin on her face. "I bought us stuff. An' I made you somethin', I hope you like it."

Looking at him, she raised an eyebrow, "What are you doin'? You looked awful innocent, an' that's never quite right." She beamed at him, bent to scoop up the bag which she'd taken out and moved into the small living area they had. "So, I've been to the Spirit of Adventure. The shop that Friell, him of the doe eyes, stinky cheese owns?" Arlo had expressed all sorts of negative thoughts about doe-eyed Friell, which Vega had thought was just him being difficult. "Cos, I figured, we're gonna be gone from here soon, so it was worth to see what other good stuff 'e had in his shop. An' there were a few things." In fairness, though, she'd been going out every trial for the last ten-trial at about the same time. Why that might be, she didn't say yet.

"So, he had some stuff that I think we could find useful, so I bought it." Vega rummaged in the bag and pulled out a small gem. "This, it glows whenever it's pointin' north. Plus, it's pretty." She put it in his hand and watched his reaction. She genuinely thought that this might be simply useful for them both. "And this.. look." From the impossible bag, she pulled a staff, with a fist-sized rock on top of it. It was glowing. "Whenever it's dark, it glows, like a campfire sort of light. I thought that could be useful indoors, save 'avin' candles in places, that kind of thing?" There were other things, she said, she'd bought some clothes for them both, from Friell, but then she'd gone somewhere else.

It was a strange little tea shop, Vega said, filled with books. "The Scholars' Nook, it's called. You been there?" The woman there, Caz, who owned the place and her brother Flea had been very kind, Vega said. She'd spent some time there, over the last few trials, and Caz had helped her with some books that she wanted to get. Those were what she pulled out next. Five books in total. "They're books written by people who travelled Idalos, stories of what they saw, where they went. Some of them are well old, but that's just more int'restin' innit?" There were scrolls of maps, too, of places over Idalos, six of them in total. She gave him time to pour over those, let him look and then, she frowned and shook her head. "That's only five books, 'ang on, I missed one."

That one, she put into his hands. It had been a blank journal, much like the ones he had. But it had writing on the outside, engraved on there somehow and it was that writing which might draw his attention. He'd been working with her, after all, and he recognised Vega's writing by now. Her progress in reading was slow, but steady. She found it hard, harder than it should be and she had to work in short bursts, because chasing the letters around on the page was so difficult. They moved in front of her eyes, she told him, like they danced. But slowly and with a lot of patience on both their parts, she was getting there.

Written in her careful and still almost child-like writing on the front of the book were the words:
"Geoupagus & The Two Naughy Granitees"
Inside there was written, painstakingly slowly over a ten trial period, the story of Geoupagus as he'd told her it once, but it went beyond that. First, it was illustrated, though Vega was quick to tell him that she hadn't done the drawings, that was a woman called Maz in the Nook. But the story told of two naughty granitees, Plonker and Dweeb were the granitees in question; there were illustrations of them, Plonker being a stone with a lot of very red hair and Dweeb wore a very specific tri-corn hat and had an eyepatch. Those two granitees were very naughty and had lots of adventures which Geoupagus did not approve of. They fought a Spurmalurma in Desnind, they chased down bandits in Ne'haer and met a Bruxon. Through the two granitees, with a number of spelling errors and mis-placed letters, Vega had written the story of them as two naughty rocks, travelling the world together. "Caz helped me loads, an' it took forever an' there's loads of mistakes in it, but I wanted to say thank you." Vega looked, because she was, completely serious. It was a rare expression on her face. "For never givin' up on me, bein' my rock an' for all the adventures. There's loads still to come, too, look. There's room."
word count: 935
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Vega's skin has a reflective metallic sheen with a red glow. Her eyes still swirl biqaj colours, but one colour is always bright red which glows like fire. She has a bright red glow in her chest, situated directly under the mark of a heart (Daia mark) in the middle of a glowing silver dragon on her chest (Xiur). She's unnaturally warm to the touch
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Arlo Creede
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The Two Naughty Granitees

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Vega found Arlo in the cabin they shared aboard the Wanderlust. More specifically he'd heard her calling and curious, was on his way out when he met her in the doorway, and she flung herself into his arms. It wasn't often that he'd seen her so excited about anything, and it caught him by surprise when she jumped into his arms and kissed him. Not so surprised that her momentum was able to knock him off his feet, but he did take a few backwards steps in response.

"You've been shopping?" he asked. He'd been out himself and hadn't really known where she'd gone off to. Only that he hadn't caught sight of her anywhere before he'd returned to their ship. "Nothin'," Arlo said with a grin when she asked what he'd been doing. Truth was he hadn't been doing much just those trills and bits before. It was before that, when he'd been out, that he'd been busier. Though truth was he hadn't planned to be.

As for her having been to the Spirit of Adventure? "I thought they were soulful eyes," he quipped while she dug into her sack. Whichever they were, he didn't care for the owner of the eyes on principle. Not a bit. And come to think of it, she'd been going out fairly regularly lately, at regular times. Not that one had anything to do with the other probably, but it was still worth noting. "That's nice," he exclaimed, eyeing the gem that she pulled out of her sack. And when he held it up, generally in the direction he knew to be true north, the thing glowed just as promised, "Now that'll come in handy for sure," he said with a grin.

Plainly Vega hadn't stopped there but had purchased clothing and other things. And that staff? Arlo smiled curiously as he wrapped his hand around it and braced the end on the floor between his feet. Looking up at it then, he wondered, "It never burns out?" That too would be uncommonly useful. "I've been there a couple times," he added when she asked about the Scholar's Nook. "Not recently though. So that's where you've been?" The books though, well, Vega knew him very well.

Certainly Arlo preferred doing to reading about doing. But as a storyteller, there was no question that he enjoyed hearing or reading about the adventures of others. The same, where the maps were concerned. "Thank you Vega," he said and kissed her. But he was also curious. "Why've you done all this?" The last thing Vega pulled out of her sack though, no matter how much any of them might have cost in nels, made the other things seem like trifles.

He recognized what it was, just by glancing at the cover and he gingerly ran his thumb over the title that was engraved there. By now, Arlo knew Vega's handwriting. "You did this?" he asked in wonder as he opened up the book. Of course she had. He recognized the story too that she'd written out herself, and she'd changed just enough of it to make it theirs. That in effect was what good storytellers did. That she'd written it in her own hand made it priceless in Arlo's eyes. He knew how long and hard she must have labored over it.

"Plonker and Dweeb." He laughed, kissing her before turning his attention back to the book. "Vega, this is the finest book I've ever owned." There was no question that he meant it wholeheartedly. Every bit of her was in those pages after all. "We'll have enough adventures to fill a dozen more books. A dozen more than that. This though will always be the best book," he told her and kissed her again. "You know, what you did with the tale, you're as good a storyteller as anyone."
word count: 676
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Vega
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23rd Cylus 718
He liked the gem and the staff and Vega beamed in pleasure. "I thought they'd be useful for us, so I got them." The books and maps, they were very much his. Vega didn't think she'd ever just read for pleasure, but more and more she was able to do so as she needed. He asked her why she'd done it, though, and Vega grinned. "Cos it's an important trial, to-trial." She grinned at him and shrugged slightly, not explaining any more for a moment. Instead she let him look and she couldn't be more pleased than she was at his reaction to the book. When he kissed her, she pulled herself close to him and buried her hands in his hair. Her eyes darkened as she looked at him and her smile was uninhibited when she watched him looking at it again.

"Nah, I jus' wrote what I knew, what already was. You made up the story to begin with." Besides, she said, she knew what a good storyteller was. He was. Cassion was. She could repeat tales, give them a twist. Others, they could make magic. "Speakin' of stories, though. Towards the beginnin' of the book, Plonker an' Dweeb meet Cassion. He was a rock." There was an illustration of that particular individual too. Vega looked away from the book and turned her gaze to his deep brown eyes. So changed since he drank that potion and yet, so much the same. "An' arc ago to-trial, we sat around a campfire in Desnind, an' shared stories with Cassion," she said. An arc ago, therefore, Cassion had kissed her and that had led to something quite astonishing to her. "I was so angry, Arlo, an' all I could think was what you must be thinkin' an' feelin'. I knew then, though I didn't admit it, that I was yours." So, she said, she'd made him a book. It was no big deal and Caz had helped a lot. "But look at this! I got this from Friell, too."

From the bag came a quill. It looked like an ordinary feather quill, but she explained that it would engrave on anything. Even the front of a book, or its spine. That was for him, she thought he'd like it she said and handed it to him. But there were other things. "I got us these, cos I thought you know, sometimes, we might jus' wanna fit in places." She pulled out a dress for her, and a pair of trousers and shirt for him, then a pair of cloaks. "The outfits are called duplicity suits. It can change what it looks like twice a trial. It'll always be a trousers an' shirt, but it can be rags or riches, any colour or cut you want. Same for me with the dress. An' the cloaks they hide weapons. So long as they're able to be covered by it, the cloak 'ides it, which I thought might be well useful."

That was all she'd bought, she said, except for this tea which Caz had introduced her to. Scalvblack, it was called and she thought that it was quite the nicest tea she'd ever tasted. She'd really liked the Scholars' Nook, she'd felt really relaxed and chilled out there. It was a good place filled with good people, no doubting it. "So, mostly, I went to the Spirit of Adventure, cos I'm lookin' forward to leavin' and tryin' the good ship Wanderlust out. I thought, maybe we could start lookin' at this place we're gonna go to. Plot a course, that kind of thing." What did he think, she wondered. Planning a journey wasn't as good as taking it, but it was fun in its own right.
word count: 646
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Vega's skin has a reflective metallic sheen with a red glow. Her eyes still swirl biqaj colours, but one colour is always bright red which glows like fire. She has a bright red glow in her chest, situated directly under the mark of a heart (Daia mark) in the middle of a glowing silver dragon on her chest (Xiur). She's unnaturally warm to the touch
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Arlo Creede
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The Two Naughty Granitees

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Arlo smiled back at Vega curiously when she maintained that this trial was an important one. It was probably a universal concern among men, past, present or future, this sudden worry that he might have forgotten something critical and there'd be heck to pay for not remembering. It wasn't his birth-trial after all or hers either. He didn't question her aloud on the topic however.

"You expanded on the story," Arlo insisted when Vega doubted her skills as a storyteller. "Being able to do that well, that's a valuable tool for a storyteller. It's how legends grow out of rumors or silly tales." Just as the story of Geoupagus and his Granitees had been from the start. He grinned though when he eyed the figure of Cassion in the book. A rock, just like all the others. Somehow he thought the Immortal wouldn't mind a bit. But that was what this trial was. It was that one.

He remembered that kiss though. That moment that Cassion had grabbed Vega up into his arms and kissed her. And Arlo hadn't known what to do with himself. Hadn't known what to do or think. Except that he had known and didn't want to admit it. "You were mine?" he said, leaning forward to kiss her again before he admit it. "I didn't like it. No matter that he's the Immortal I worship and follow, I didn't like it. I was jealous," he said with a shrug. Back then though, he hadn't acknowledged it even to himself.

But the pen that wrote anywhere and the clothes that could switch to suit the occasion? Arlo laughed and shook his head. "You know I think Scalvoris' shopkeepers are going to be sorry to see you go." And just when he was about to turn to the topic of where they'd go when they set sail with the new season, he remembered something and dipped into his pocket. "I almost forgot. I was out earlier. I'd only been back about a break before you got here." Showing her a ring, a plain band in the palm of his hand, he added, "I found this when I took a short cut through the park, but not in the usual way."

She knew already, how he was able to see ghosts, hear them, speak to them, Arlo explained. But usually he had to be actually looking, and wanting to see. This time though he'd just been distracted, his thumb was hooked through his sword belt and he'd been drumming his fingers, including that['/i] one, on the leather scabbard. "Well I came round a turn in the path and there was an old man standing there in the middle, pacing, waving his hands at me to stop." Surely, he added, this was a ghost that recognized that Arlo could see him, plain as the trial. An old man, with wild white hair, mismatched clothes....Looked like a mad scientist might. Or a mage that had been the subject of too many spells that had backfired.

"Anyhow he was going on and on about a ring that he'd dropped in the park a decade or more ago. Said that he knew roughly where he'd lost it and could show me if I looked some more." Handing Vega the ring, Arlo sat back down on the bed and shrugged. "He said it was a special ring. That he couldn't move on until he knew who's hands it was in. Someone who wouldn't abuse the power and he figured I looked alright." So, he added, he'd agreed to search for the ring and after a break or more had passed, then sure enough he'd found it. "And just a little bit later, he was gone."

The way the ghost explained it, Arlo went on, was that the ring would enable him to imprison an adversary temporary, by moving earth and rock and encasing them in it. Or on the other hand, he could protect himself or someone else in much the same way. "Won't last long at a time, he told me. But long enough." It was curious thing, and once the old man had gone Arlo still wasn't sure if he'd been a mad scientist during his time, or a mage inclined to too many mishaps. Then again, maybe there wasn't much difference between the two. At any rate, smiling, he grabbed one of the many books filled with maps, and opening it up, pushed it over to Vega. "Ivorian. That's where Cassion says there's a bookstore that's worth a visit."
word count: 793
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Vega
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23rd Cylus 718
He'd been jealous of the kiss? She would have teased him but he had at least as much to tease her about. Besides, she was more interested in the embrace they shared now which meant that, as they kissed again, she had trouble thinking about much of anything at all. "Yours," she whispered and grinned, "from my freckles to my frowns, all yours." Immortals help him, she thought with a grin. When he laughed though, and said that the Scalvoris shopkeepers would be sorry to see her go, Vega shrugged, although she had to admit the truth of it. "Friell seems to 'ave a bit of a soft spot for me." Vega said and grinned slightly, vaguely uncomfortable with that as a truth. "But this place is full of unusual stuff, an' I wouldn't want to miss it. Besides, it's jus' money, we'll get more if we need it an' frankly, you can't eat it any'ow." They were things, useful things maybe but just things and they were transitory and unimportant to her.

But then Arlo showed her a ring which he'd been given while she was out shopping and Vega looked at it in fascination. Listening to his tale about the ghost he'd seen and how he'd been given it, Vega raised an eyebrow. "You 'ave the weirdest adventures, you do." It was about as far away from a criticism as it was possible to be, but it warranted saying, she thought. "This is awesome, Arlo. Like, it's got a real 'istory an' stuff to it." The power in the ring sounded amazing to her and she held it looking with fascination in her eyes. "I wonder who made it," she said, taking his hand and slipping it on to his finger. "Might jus' save a life, you know? Yours or mine or someone else's. It's plain, not fancy, I think it was a man who it was made for originally. It looks like a man's ring." Was it a gift to him, she wondered aloud, from a lover or concerned wife? Maybe he made it because he was paranoid. But either way, what intrigued her was that it was offensive and defensive without being deadly. That was rare, but a very good thing as far as Vega was concerned. She wasn't averse to killing someone if they really needed it, but having the choice was good.

Looking at the map she grinned. "Well, look, we can sail right there. It's an island, much the same size as this one." Looking at the map she frowned and pointed with her finger. "See, along the far north, we could go across there, past Viden an' all that, an' then down. Or we could go down an' then across. North'll be quicker, cos we 'aven't got to navigate round this bit here. The.." Frowning, she turned the paper slightly so that she could read it better and when she did, she did it slowly. "The Hot Lands an' then that there's, Athart?" What was progress there was not that she read the words ~ they were fairly easy ones after all, but her eyes were not brown at the moment, yet she read well enough and that was new.

"What'cha think? Why am I askin' you? We take North cos it's not the usual route, it's the path less travelled, it's not the soft option an' Cassion would go that way?" Of course, Vega thought, that was the answer. "So, show me again how to plot this?"
word count: 609
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Vega's skin has a reflective metallic sheen with a red glow. Her eyes still swirl biqaj colours, but one colour is always bright red which glows like fire. She has a bright red glow in her chest, situated directly under the mark of a heart (Daia mark) in the middle of a glowing silver dragon on her chest (Xiur). She's unnaturally warm to the touch
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Arlo Creede
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His, Vega said. And hearing it brought a new grin to Arlo's face when they embraced. "There was enough of me that knew I loved you already, that I wanted to tell Cassion that, back then. Or maybe just protest on principle," he teased her. Since he was the first to admit that he'd been a long time coming to knowing his own mind and heart. "I think he's not really the kind to ask permission first though."

But Friell? It was much more than a soft spot, Arlo suspected, but didn't bother to say aloud. She'd probably say that she couldn't see it herself. The man presumably wasn't blind though, or dead from the waist down either. But there was no point in letting the prospect bother him. Arlo trusted in Vega as much as she did him, and so long as there were other men in the world, there'd be sets of eyes looking her way.

When she slipped the ring back onto his finger, Arlo studied it with a thoughtful expression. "He didn't say who it was that made it, or mention where he got it or when. I think it's really old though." It was the ghost's clothing, he explained, that made him think so. They were nice enough even if they were rumpled. But they looked old too, as if they were from another time. Either way, the ring and what he'd been told it could do, that was a real find. As she said, it could easily be used to save their lives.

When the conversation moved on to where they'd go once they set sail, both of them looked over the map and Arlo nodded. "Right. Athart, the Hot Lands. Neither of them were places he was especially interested in going, at least not in the very near future. But it would be interesting to have a look from afar as they sailed along the coast. "You guessed it," he said though with a grin as he pulled out several empty charts, his navigation tools and something to write with.

Spreading it all out on the surface of the desk, he made room for Vega to stand beside him as he plotted what their course would be. "You see how these charts are different, one from the other?" he asked Vega as he leafed through several sheets for her to see. "Different types of chart, different purposes." Sailing charts for example had a scale of one to six hundred thousand. They were used for determining positions along the coast when approaching from open ocean, or for sailing between different ports.

General charts though had a scale closer to one per hundred and fifty thousand, and were primarily for coastal navigation outside of reefs and shoals. There were others for bays and harbors, large inland waterways, and so on. "One of those books should have some coastal maps," he told Vega, asking her to find him one for the region around Ivorian, or really, anywhere else along the way. "It's easy enough to plot a course," Arlo explained. "if everything along the way was clear and smooth sailing."

But they'd be going into waters they hadn't sailed before, and before he could plot out a proper course, they'd need to know in advance what sort of obstacles were known to lay in the way. Published maps for those regions would help in identifying reefs, shallows, small barrier islands that didn't show up on larger maps, and so on.
word count: 602
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Vega
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23rd Cylus 718
"You know, you're dead weird, Arlo Creede," she said and her words spoke one thing but her tone of voice and expression spoke entirely another. "I mean, old dead guys givin' you random magic rings in the middle of the street. Dead weird." She smiled and squeezed his hand but then shrugged slightly. "An' I'm glad you didn't say anythin' to Cassion. I'm glad he did it. Made me start to realise that it wasn't what I wanted, an' to understand what I did. So, he did us a favour." With a wicked grin and a bump of her shoulder against his, she added, "though you might wanna not mention that, next time you see 'im." Just in case he felt like repeating the favour or some such. She didn't want to thump Arlo's favourite Immortal into the briny sea, she explained, but she would do so without hesitation if he tried that with her again.

So, on to the maps and she listened to his explanation. Of course he wanted to take the road least travelled, it was Arlo Creede and she really didn't know why she'd thought that she needed to ask. So, they'd take the northern route, through some of the icy waters around Viden and across the northernmost area of Idalos. She grinned, "Maybe, rather than the coldest place on the whole of Idalos, next Cylus, we can go to the Hot Lands?" She gave a slight grin, her eyes shifting colour slightly as she added, "or the Cylus after that, or the one after. I don't mind when we go, really." that they would go together was not in doubt and Vega shook her head slightly. "Who'd have ever thought it?" Whatever it was, she didn't elaborate, but instead she rifled through the books.

And of course, she didn't pay attention to what she was doing, she just did it. So, whilst her reading was slow, it happened and continued to happen. "Ken... no.. Central Idalos. This one?" Once they'd found as many of the charts and maps as they could, Vega frowned and poured over them with him. "Look, there, those lines are closer together in the drawin', what's that mean?" Looking at it, she tried to work out the key and then pushed it over to him. "I think that's sayin' that the water's shallow an' there's rocks there? If so, we're gonna need to go round that way." Turning vivid green eyes flecked with orange to him, she smiled contentedly and then blinked, white pinpricks swirling into her gaze as her face showed her surprise. "Audrae's skimpy knickers, Arlo, I read that stuff." She beamed at him. "I'm ready for my degree now, tell the University, wouldya?"

And with that pearl of wisdom she pointed to the map again. "An' stop lollygaggin'. Is it shallow an' rocks?"
word count: 500
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Vega's skin has a reflective metallic sheen with a red glow. Her eyes still swirl biqaj colours, but one colour is always bright red which glows like fire. She has a bright red glow in her chest, situated directly under the mark of a heart (Daia mark) in the middle of a glowing silver dragon on her chest (Xiur). She's unnaturally warm to the touch
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Arlo Creede
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The Two Naughty Granitees

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"You'd be bored if I wasn't." Weird, that was, and Arlo grinned, kissed her and turned back to their maps. They'd both be bored, probably, if either of them was ordinary and predictable. Bored at times, maybe, if that was the case. But Arlo couldn't begin to imagine a scenario that would cause him to love her less. He did more in fact, with each trial that passed. When Vega talked of Cassion though and bumped his shoulder, Arlo grinned again and snorted. "It's probably better altogether not to cross words with an Immortal. Besides, much as I'd rather he hadn't, I couldn't begrudge him wanting to kiss you back then."

Rather too cold than too hot. That was Arlo's stance anyway, so far as visiting the hot lands. "It's a dry heat you know. That's what my stepfather always said. And a dry heat is a miserable heat." In fact unless he was to hear about some sort of wonder that could only be seen and experienced, was one to do it in the Hot Lands, well, there just wasn't another scenario he could think of. Then again, he had to admit that Vega was right. Eventually they would go, because just as he'd resolved long ago when he'd left home, there ought not be a place on the map that he would't see eventually.

"That's the one," he said, referring to the map that she had currently clutched in her hand. And he grinned, mostly to himself at the realization that she was doing just fine with her reading. Not perfect. But compared to what it had been before? She'd come a very long way. Of course reading maps was different, not just a matter of reading words and numbers. She was right though. They'd need to plot their course according to what was known already about their destination, and everything in between. They simply couldn't plot the journey according to how the crow might fly...more or less. There were any number of obstacles to doing that.

His compass from Cassion ought to help as well, along with the abilities that had come with the blessing. Intuitively for instance, he ought to sense the quicker ways to get where they were going. Nonetheless he'd already begun plotting the course, and was currently altering it slightly, so that they wouldn't run aground on a small, unnamed island along the way. "You read that stuff," he repeated with a grin, and turned away from the charts long enough to take her in his arms and kiss her. "Shallows and rocks. You know how proud I am of you. I knew you could do it, and so you did," he told her.
word count: 473
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Vega
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The Two Naughty Granitees

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23rd Cylus 718

When he said that she'd be bored if he wasn't weird, Vega looked at him with some consternation on her face. Was that true? She thought about it for a moment and then, with the kind of casual violence that she was probably never growing out of, punched him. "No I wouldn't, you steaming plonker," she said, with a half amused, half exasperated expression. If he decided that the travelling life wasn't for him, she said, if he longed for the routine of being a banker and he yearned for a nice little house with a picket fence and a dog? Well, she shrugged and explained that they'd just have to do that half the arc, and be adventuring around the other half. As long as they were together, she said with a grin, well mingled with an air of disapproval for him having said the wrong thing, well she wouldn't be bored. "Irritated? Probably. Despairin'? Almost certainly. But tinglin' to my toes?" Her expression turned wicked, a crooked lifting of her lips coinciding with a darkening of her eyes. "Always."

His unique perspective on the Immortals notwithstanding, Vega grinned at him but said no more. If they met an Immortal who thought that he, or she come to that, Vega wasn't sexist, thought that she was free for a liplock without her consent, she'd get testy. That was that. Thankfully, Vega was firmly of the belief that Cassion had only kissed her because she was the only woman under eighty in the vicinity so it wasn't likely to be an issue. "You know, you've said that before about dry heat. I don't think you really know what it means, do you?" Tormenting each other was too much part of them for her to even have to think about it these trials, it just was.

It was hard to express her delight, though, when she realised that she had read the words. All of her life she had found reading difficult and she thought she always would but now it was not impossible. She wasn't too thick to do it. He wrapped his arms around her and she beamed in delight as she returned his kiss with enthusiasm. "We did it," she whispered and touched her nose to his. "I've tried on my own, an' never managed it. I'm a better person 'cos of you, Arlo Creede." The sentiment was entirely heartfelt and yet, she couldn't resist. "I'm much more patient than I was, better at tidyin' up boy-mess. I'm stronger, too," there was no way it was going to be positive, of course, "after all those times I've 'ad to jump in front of you an' save you. Yep. Much better person, me."

Nudging him back to the maps, she frowned slightly. "If that island don't 'ave a name, can we name it?" Vega didn't know how one went about naming things other than just calling them it. "Like, write it in there, an' stuff? If so, I reckon we should call it somethin' like Nella's Pearl or Nella's Jewel. An' we could stop there an' plant a tree for 'er, maybe dig a pond. If you think she'd like it?"
word count: 559
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Vega's skin has a reflective metallic sheen with a red glow. Her eyes still swirl biqaj colours, but one colour is always bright red which glows like fire. She has a bright red glow in her chest, situated directly under the mark of a heart (Daia mark) in the middle of a glowing silver dragon on her chest (Xiur). She's unnaturally warm to the touch
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Arlo Creede
Approved Character
Posts: 1386
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:15 pm
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Cassion's Champion
Renown: 820
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Wealth Tier: Tier 5

The Two Naughty Granitees

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When Vega told him that she'd never be bored, told him why and then kissed him...and he kissed her, he grinned as they parted but didn't let go. "Always," he agreed. "I have a hard time seeing either of us though in the future, content to sit in our rockers behind white picket fences with a cat in our laps."

"Of course not," he added then, regarding dry heat, what he knew and what he didn't. Frowning over the map they were drawing though, he shrugged and gave it a shot. "If there's dry heat, then there must be damp heat. Dry air is lighter than water, therefore there must be such a thing as light heat." More tolerable than heavy, Arlo guessed.

When she said that they had done it together, her learning to read, Arlo realized that he'd been some help. But he still disagreed and told her so. "Maybe I helped. Helped you to look at things differently maybe, suggested things you could try. Maybe even helped I guess by sitting beside you. But it was you that did it. Your determination." And it had paid off clearly, she could read and Arlo couldn't have been prouder of her. He snorted though and laughed when she maintained she was a better person. "I think we can probably agree that we're better, both of us, together."

As for that little island in the middle of nowhere? Arlo smiled as he looked down on it, and considered Vega's suggestion. "Nella's Pearl. I think she'd like that. A tree, a little pond, a bench under the tree where passersby can sit and wonder about the woman that the island was named for," he decided. Of course in order to do any of it, they had to get there first. And so the mysteriously little island was added to any number of points along the way.
word count: 326
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