“Hah! Now that’s something I could help you with. I got the lightest fingers in three cities, and certainly between the two of us.” He grinned wider, seeing an opportunity. “I don’t do much pick-pocketing anymore. People see a six foot tall elf with one good eye and they tend to shy away, pretty girl like yourself… well-” He shrugged, acting nonchalant about it. “You could clean up, keep your fingers too. If you want me to give you some pointers.” He didn’t know if it would work, what her history was, if she wanted much more than knives. But it was another way to needle himself closer and closer to her might me closer to what he waned.
“Nah, bugs are everywhere and they’re too different. It’s sleeping while it’s raining, or camping next to a river. Eventually you just tune that sound out. What’s weird is if it’s too quiet. Means something bad is in the air if, don’t it? If even bugs won’t stick around.” He shuddered, been around the world enough times to see some scary places. Being on the sea with Yue, there were just
“Shit… yeah…” Oggy didn’t know what to say. He just stood there, awkwardly, clicking his jaw in silence. Revered and hated by her tribe–this wild girl had a lot going on that he just sort of stepped his foot right into. It was far removed from Oggy’s relationship with magic and the gentle ‘oh you have a special gift like mommy let’s take you to mages to learn to control it’ that he rebelled against in his younger years. It was embarrassing to think about how much time and anger he spent on that compared to this. No wonder she didn’t want to teach or think about her magic. “That’s- sucks…” Gods he wished he just said nothing, but he wasn’t about to go ‘there there and pat her on the back. Even the wolves seemed to catch on how lamely he dealt with difficult emotions.
“Yeah sure, okay!” Oggy threw up his hands, exasperated and almost happy to have something to be angry about again. “Your wolves are very special and have their own special wolf powers, it’s just- well that’s an awful poetical way to look at things for a wildling. You must’ve known what I mean, didn’t you?” He sighed. “It’s not like wolves go around- I dunno’ shooting out knives of ice with their eyes or setting fire to things with their paws as ther run. Powers, those kinda powers, mind-reading, earth-shaking. If we’re talking about the power to make somebody piss themself then I got that sure.” He laughed too.
“All I gotta do is smile at people wrong.” He demonstrated, waiting for her reaction. Not even acknowledging the rest of what she said. Cause of course she was right, he’d leave the forest not getting what he wanted anyhow. Oggy just didn’t want to let on he knew he was wrong.
“Creepy smile, and they’re scared, creepy smile, and they’re scared.”
He calls her pretty and her first reaction is a thought of sending another arrow through his other shoe. She had mud on her hands and her face, her hair braided and matted. She didn’t take care of herself, and sure as hell wasn’t going to let any of the elders who tried to do it after her mother left the world. Instead, she stares at him blankly, “I’m good. I don’t like being around people.” The cities were poison to her, too much stimulation, sounds and smells, she.. hated it. “People aren’t kind to wildfolk up here.”
She thinks she understands that sentiment, and she’s thankful that it’s just the wolves she hears, and it’s only pulses of feelings that she can put words to. She wonders what it would be like to have an actual conversation with them. They were quiet enough but she would miss them terribly if she didn’t hear their comforting howls at night. “Their thoughts are simplistic. Nothing like a human. I would live farther in the woods if that were the case.”
She ignores pretty much everything else he says, ignores his spark of anger and frustration, almost as if a bubbling stream filled her mind. Mostly because she let her mind wander to images of wolves spitting fire and ice as they danced in the moonlight. They find themselves amused at Indi’s thoughts and she has to shake the thoughts away, embarrassed.
“I think you’re getting sick from the cold,” she says, a brow raised because she’s not.. even sure about anything anymore.
