Plenty was happening, both within and without the kingdom of Terrastella, to draw the red stallion's interests away from the heart of the territory. Certainly there was no love lost between him and its sovereign, who in her own youthful romanticism had all of the energy in the world to champion lost causes and none of the sense she needed to see those lost causes for what they were.
It was quintessentially Flora, and at least he could not accuse her of selling her soul to better fit the crown. Still, he doubted her youth and inexperience in what promised to be dark times, and he much preferred to lose himself in the pursuit of his own intrigues.
But throw a party and you can bet Raymond will try to make at least a symbolic appearance - even if it's in Susurro Fields.
He was not a courtier, to don fancy garments and smize and curtsy while trading words with less substance than the air it took to say them, but such gatherings and such company were easy functions to exploit, and always fun to observe. For One Night Only™ the walls of both kingdom and citizen turned from solid stone to swiss cheese, and a thoughtful word was suddenly as effective as a jackhammer at penetrating them.
Tonight, though, the red stallion was content to stand - not apart, but alone amongst the gathering horses - and let the night develop as it may rather than injecting himself into a conversation. His tail blade was freshly cleaned and sharpened and lay in its usual languid arc at his back, no more menacing than an ornamental saber belted at the waist.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Anyone feel free to jump in, though I would love a chance to RP with someone I've not threaded with before on Novus!
Are we just killing time - just living year to year
In the short time he’d come to be here, in this world of strange ‘gods’ (though honestly, Quinn was still out on that entire thin), he’d heard several ideas, of words and strange things. He also heard way too many names and felt a little terrible he couldn’t remember them all but it was fine.
Everything was fine, right?
Quinn had come to the shindig that was being thrown by the monarch of the Court he was a part of. More to mingle with those who he didn’t know and learn, than to enjoy a good party. It was harder to do just that when he didn’t have his compatriots with him. Where was his sister when he needed her?
The boy gave a little sigh as he kicked at a clump of grass. It was only then that he saw the vibrant red beside him. Yet it wasn’t the brilliance of the Red of the man that drew his eyes but more so the tail and the end of it.
That was something he’d not ever seen before.
Quinn internally hit himself, realising he was staring. He flashed a somewhat (though not really) apologetic glance to the front end of the figure. Better to make sure he was addressing the actual owner of the strange appendage rather than his ass end.
Quinn, stop being such a git.
“Uh, hi there. Is that a blade on your tail?” He asks, no hesitation. There was rampant curiosity in his eyes.
Among his kind, seeing an armed individual out and about was as normal as breathing. With the exception of war veterans who had paid the price of victory (or defeat) with their blades and those for whom the maintenance of a scythe was more work than the tool was actually worth. They dulled their scythes rather than whetting them, a peculiar but not unwelcome sight.
Dedication was the rendari virtue of choice, not deadliness.
In essence, when you live in tornado country, the iron-grey anviltop brewing on the distant horizon may indeed be far more dire a warning than stormclouds elsewhere, but such danger becomes commonplace. Given time and exposure, even the Apocalypse starts to look like just another day on the beat.
But sometime around Raymond's fifth birthday he'd left tornado country solidly behind him. Quinn could be forgiven for never having seen a rendari warrior before, and the red stallion did not begrudge him a double take.
He met the young stallion's eye, grinning warmly. "Oh no," he chuckled. "When I was a stripling, I would hide behind my Old Uncle Sorrel while playing tag with the other foals. He was a big lug of a stallion and gentle as can be. But wouldn't you know it, one day as I was taking shelter good Old Uncle Sorrel took a step back and landed square on the tip of my tail, flattening it like a cow chip." He waved the blade theatrically. "It's grown this way ever since."
Perhaps one would find it rude to deflect an honest question with a dishonest tale, but Raymond was as much a performer as he was a fighter, and he meant it in the most good-natured of ways. He loved a good yarn, and the truth of a story was always the listener's decision.
"The name's Raymond. I don't think I've seen your face before, friend."
Raymond. "he's an outlaw loose and runnin'," came the whisper from each lip
"and he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip."
Are we just killing time - just living year to year
There was a series of expressions that must have ranged over his face during story time. Quinn did feel, absurdly, a brief sensation that he knew must have been relief that passed over his face when he realised that the tale being told wasn’t actually factual – at least, he assumed it wasn’t. If he could be giving an expression if he had eyebrows and binocular vision, he’d have one eyebrow arched so high that it would probably have exploded into space just by the muscle lifting it up.
All the same, Quinn’s eyes followed the blade as Raymond waved it.
Quinn’s face finally split into a grin as he reciprocated the greeting.
“Quinn. Nice to meet you, teller of tall tales,” he responds. He shouldn’t be assuming as he was, but it was a habit that the youngster was still learning how to break. He was used to it, but it was a habit he picked up from his sire – and he used it now to decide that with that blade, Raymond must be a fighter.
Even so, Quinn didn’t think he should try to put himself on the receiving end. That could be bad.
“Okay then but, how does stepping no a tail make something like that grow? Though, truth be told, your uncle for all I know could have had magic feet that turned things into organic matter. I suppose he’d be glad that was his hooves if that was the case,” Quinn added in, asking both a question but realising that where he’d been born, anything was possible – maybe it was out here? False story or not, Quinn enjoyed the fun of it.
What better way to get to know someone than to exchange strange stories?
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Raymond laughed heartily as Quinn took the story and ran with it in good humor. "Likewise, Quinn." There were few things that the red stallion enjoyed more than an engaging story, and truth in the matter was entirely optional (while truth is usually stranger than fiction, it's not always more entertaining - so it goes). Had he walked any other path in life, he would probably have found his happiness in the bardic way of life: jovial, bombastic, and lyrical.
Instead he merely entertained the hobby, stealing what few moments he could to build rapport with someone else by making them smile. He didn't regret the loss - it had burned to ash before he'd ever tasted its like for himself - but at times like this he wondered how different his path might have looked had he been allowed to entertain purely for the art rather than for social currency.
Ah, well.
"He had magic feet indeed," Raymond replied emphatically. The truth of it was that Old Uncle Sorrel had indeed been a fixture in the red stallion's youth, and before he'd gone long in the tooth and rather broad in the beam he had been one of the most graceful and deadliest dancers the clan had. His bladework couldn't have been better than average, but step into the ring with Silky Sorrel and you'd find out pretty quickly it didn't matter. You'd be cutting nothing but the breeze as he racked up points against you. But that was before his time; for Raymond, he'd always been Old Uncle Sorrel.
He continued, his voice growing somewhat more serious, "I was born to the blade, as are all my kind." It was the first time he had referred to the rendari aloud as his kind, but whatever the past he could not forsake his own blood.
The gathering was drawing down to a close, and with it Raymond's mind turned from Quinn's curiosity to other preoccupations. However pleasant this mingling was, the truth of things could not be denied.
Novus was changing. Something was moving - in the east, perhaps, or beyond - and when its waters broke it would bring with it a great unknown. Quinn, Raymond, everyone needed to be ready for when that moment finally arrived. He smiled at the colt, offered a casual salute of his bladed tail, and drifted back into the obscurity of the masses.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Closing this thread as it's woefully out of date. Nikki if you want to thread Quinn with Ray again, they can reconvene back in Denocte!
