ORIGIN - Parkour

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It was, amusingly and maybe unfortunately, Furud who got the joke. Where the others just stared serenely for a moment (albeit with Mirzim murmuring "What's a rhubarb?" to Adhara) Furud let out a mighty snort. "BECAUSE YOU DON'T SEE ANYTHING!" he crowed, amused rather than mocking. The other heads all swung to him in horror, protesting and sputtering.

It all died down after a moment, bar Furud's hissed protests along the lines of "What? What, it was a JOKE," trailing off. But the rest of the hydra was now clearly a little... uncomfortable. Stiff, solemn. Mirzim cleared her throat. "Of course we'll come with you."

They stepped forward, wings arching up in a mighty flex, and one hind foot lightly pushed the remains of their meal (what little there was, tufts of short fur and a cloven hoof) out of the way of foot traffic.

Adhara let out a little laugh at the remark about their eyes, though. "We have--sixteen?" It was said questioningly, the voice changing slightly as she angled away to look at her companions. She turned back with slightly embarrassed humor in her tone. "I don't think we've ever actually counted before. Four for each of us. Four heads. Sixteen?"

Furud could be heard quietly counting under his breath (starting over twice) as Wolfhound plodded up to follow Aurelle.

@Aurelle

Aurelle did not seem horrified. She'd made the joke, after all. Actually, she seemed quite elated that Furud got it; her face lit up, and a grin split her face from ear-to-ear, making her cheeks dimple. "Yes! Because I don't see anything," she echoed delightedly, clasping her hands together. When she realized the three other heads were uncomfortable, she sobered up just a little. "Ah, yes, it was just a joke. But I'm glad you thought it was funny, Furud."

She meant it, too, of course.

Orion wasn't too difficult for her to navigate, considering she lived here-- but a little bit of magic always helped her realize where she was, exactly. She could sense Wolfhound's big, stupid frame following behind her as she began trotting her way back home, through rows of dilapidated homes.

"Sixteen eyes?" She said aloud, thoughtful. "Are there many things with more than two eyes per head? Ahh, I feel as though I've only met people with two." She dipped into a home lined with fungus and soft drapery at the windows, taking her bag. If Lichen were in there, she'd rather not disturb the dragon's nap.

She pulled the backpack onto her shoulders. "Ahh, here it is," she said. "Do you like fruit, ahh, berries and things?" It was a question for all of them (except Furud, perhaps, who ate everything).

@Wolfhound

Furud was still counting under his breath as Adhara answered, thoughtful. "We don't actually meet all that many strangers. But... I think so? We've seen quite a few with glowing eyes, and those seem to often have quite a few. Err--were you always blind? Do you know what light is?" she asked, curious. She'd assumed so, but she wasn't sure how the hell to explain the concept of "glowing" to someone who had never seen light, before.

Wolfhound as a whole paused at the entrance to the home. Furud stopped muttering now seemingly random numbers (he'd gotten distracted by something on the way) and all four heads examined the place, with the drapery and fungus, with interest.

"This is a more permanent home than anything I have seen. We... tend to wander," Sirius said. It bore the tone of someone musing aloud, more than anything. But it was true: Wolfhound hadn't ever considered the idea of a... house. A personalized, customized space. They lived like an oversized animal, wandering where instinct and whim took them.

"We prefer meat, but we can eat most things. But we've just eaten," Adhara hastened to add. "We'd rather help you, of course." They'd offered to help Aurelle gather food; it seemed pretty rude to eat from her stash on the way back out.

It was only now, exceptionally belatedly and with bright and slightly suspicious curiosity, that Furud spoke up again. "What's a bag?" he demanded. His head snaked around, all his eyes wide and his tongue flicking at his teeth, as he examined Aurelle's backpack.

@Aurelle

Glowing eyes? Aurelle wondered what they needed to glow for before she answered, "oh, ahh, no. I could see when I was little, but I didn't very much enjoy it, to be honest. I know what lights are, and, ahh... if you stood up behind a light, I'd be able to make out your shape. But it hurts quite a lot to look directly at the lights." She much preferred darker rooms, for that matter. Orion was nice and dim. The fluttering lights and the like in other rooms could really agitate her eyes.

She stepped back and began walking to where she just about knew some berries would be due to ripen soon. Or, at least, in the general direction of it. "Oh, ahh, I used to wander, too," she told Sirius. "It's a lot easier to get around with a more permanent home, though-- at least for me, it is. I do miss exploring, though." She did enjoy sniffing out new things, as long as they weren't vile.

To Adhara, Aurelle wafted a hand around in her vague direction. "A taste won't hurt," she assured. "If we find a cherimoya, you should definitely try a bit. They're my favourite. They're, ahh, very soft and sweet on the inside."

She'd kill for a cherimoya about now.

"A bag holds things!" She said excitedly. "Ahh, you can carry even more things home with you, or put things inside so you can use your hands. Or, ahh, mouths, if you carry things in your mouths. They're very useful."

@Wolfhound

Wolfhound clicked along amiably beside Aurelle as she led the way, their wings towering over the pair. If it rained, hey, free umbrella. But in the meantime, they nodded along and murmured vague acknowledgement of the conversation, for the most part: taking part, but not interrupting further.

Furud hadn't stopped staring at Aurelle's backpack, head twisting this way and that. They walked along, and he kept trying to get closer to it. He wasn't biting at it or anything, but the other heads glanced at him with confused concern, probably for Aurelle.

"A 'cherim...oya?' I don't think I've heard of that," Adhara was musing, right as Furud's rampant thoughts finally exploded through his mouth.

"But it has no HANDS!"

Sirius, who probably understood how the bag was meant to work, snorted into loud and rumbling laughter, the masculine voice reverberating off the rock ahead. Furud rounded on him, eyes narrowing, and spat like a cat. "It doesn't! She said it HOLDS things but it HAS NO HANDS!"

Adhara winced and leaned in toward Aurelle. "I apologize for him. On behalf of... all of us."

@Aurelle

"Oh, no, ahh, no need to apologize. He hasn't done anything wrong," Aurelle said. She slid the bag off her shoulders and opened it up. "Oh, ahh-- be gentle with it, mind, you're very big-- but it has a hole in it. You put things inside and close it up, and it stays inside. Like an egg." She held the open back up for Furud to inspect, and she fully expected him to try to stick his whole face in there.

She then explained to Adhara, "it's, ahh, a fruit. It has a tough, sort of scaly skin, and it's very soft and sweet on the inside. It's almost like an apple? Have you tried an apple before?"

Presuming that Furud would be done inspecting soon, Aurelle closed the bag over and put it back over her shoulders. "Have you ever gone to Scorpio? The tavern?" She asked the heads. "Ahh, they have nice meals for coins. They make something called bread, and that's really nice, too."

@Wolfhound

Furud thrust his blunt snout for the bag and very nearly did stick his whole head in, but paused abruptly as if expecting some kind of trap. Glowing nostrils flared as he sniffed, and then he looked to Aurelle for a long moment. "Why an EGG?" he asked, at length.

"Interesting. I should like to try one, some day. And no, I don't think we've been to the tavern?" She looked to the other heads, who either shook themselves or muttered in the negative.

And then the bag was returned to Aurelle's shoulders.

"May I ask what a 'coin' is?" Sirius asked, rather primly. Wolfhound went back to walking sedately alongside the smaller elf, heads scanning the cave around them, Furud appearing distracted. Mirzim cleared her throat, politely but briefly interrupting. "What sort of things should we be looking for? -For your bag?" she asked.

@Aurelle

Aurelle was quiet for a beat. "I suppose an egg was just the first thing I thought of that, ahh, has something inside it," she said. She was also getting a little hungry, so perhaps that's why an egg was the first thing that was brought to mind. She could go for an egg. Some kind of omelette or quiche...

She shook her head a little, hair bouncing. Not the time for eggs, she assured herself.

"Oh, ahh, I could take you there sometime," Aurelle suggested. "A coin is like, ahh... a little round stone that you give to people for goods or services. If you hand in something that the tavern is looking for, they'll give you some coins so you can eat or buy a room to sleep in for the night. They're quite comfortable."

Ahh, right. Foraging. Aurelle wafted her hand around. "Anything, really, ahh-- berries, fruit, vegetables, mushrooms. As long as they're not poisonous, which, ahh, some of them are." She'd learned that one the hard way. "I can usually tell if they're gross based on how they smell and feel."

@Wolfhound

"A room to sleep in? ...Large enough for us?" Mirzim was struggling to understand that concept. To her, room was synonymous with a cave, or maybe another big space, but this sounded small? No one was going to give them a whole cave for a night.

Wolfhound as a whole was taking the foraging advice to heart. Furud was squinting around, teeth bared in a grimace of concentration, before eventually shaking himself in a dog-like fashion and muttering "Magic."

Wolfhound's eyes already glowed, but now they seemed to brighten--all of them--with a reflective green sheen. They plodded alongside Aurelle, and Adhara began to muse aloud. "Have you been to... ahh, the place between Andromeda, and Pisces, I think they're called? There's a place there I might call a 'room,' but I don't know if it is. It is very peaceful," she added, glancing warmly to Aurelle, as if recommending it for a vacation. "A quiet stream, flowing around a little island, with places to sit and rest. And a large tree, with red leaves, sheltering it all. It's worth a visit," and at this point she was interrupted by Furud suddenly crying out, "THERE!"

The hydra shuffled away, moving for a cluster of boulders not far off and some plants that were growing, straggly and bush-like, out of them. But... there were berries, at least.

"Err... Aurelle? There's berries, here. But I don't know how to tell if they're edible." Adhara sounded... mildly concerned; surely the elf wasn't about to just eat-test it for poison, right? Hopefully she'd already know if they were safe or not.

@Aurelle

"Well, ahh, it'd be a little discriminatory if all their rooms were the same size," the elf said thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "But admittedly I've only been in one, and, I'm not very big at all. But lots of people are very large! Enough that it'd be a problem if they didn't have, ahh, rooms that can fit you." That made sense to her, at least.

As they walked and looked (Wolfhound looked, Aurelle had not magically regained sight in the last few minutes) around, Aurelle hummed contemplatively. "Andromeda and Pisces... I'm not sure," she admitted. "Actually, I'm not sure I've ever heard of Andromeda at all. But, ahh, I have been to somewhere with a stream. It was near... Cepheus. It has a big palace." Not that Aurelle was entirely certain she knew what a palace looked like.

When Furud bellowed, Aurelle started with a little "oh, goodness gracious," though she did turn to follow them. She pat around until she found a berry, picking it off the stem and crushing it to give it a sniff.

It smelled a little sickly-sweet, with an undertone of bitterness that had Aurelle's belly turning. "Oh, ahh, that's bad," she said, gently wiping the berry-juice off her fingers on the boulder. "It'll give you a tummyache. But, ahh, it was a good find!"

@Wolfhound

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