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[Swordstar]

"You're what I have to work with. If I can't do my job effectively, I've failed. I'll do what I need to do to make sure we complete this."

[SeriousConcentrate]

It didn't seem anyone was in a hurry to move on, so Taft followed Miki downrange.

"So... you wanna do this horse-grooming now? Because I don't know what I'm doing, and we got enough time for you to show me so I don't hurt the thing."

[Gaterhyme]

Miki was in the middle of extracting an arrow from a hay bale.

"Here. I think this one's yours. Still good. One of mine somehow splintered down the shaft."

She made a face at that. Stood up. Brushed herself off.

"I already groomed her this morning, but... we might as well make sure the job's done well."

"And don't worry. If you're not careful, she's the one that's gonna hurt you."

On that cheerful note, she headed off to the stables.

[SeriousConcentrate]

Taft sort of fell into step by Miki. He had to walk a lot faster to keep up, for obvious reasons.

"I'm a dwarf. We're naturally tough... though I hear moose are very dangerous as far as quadrupedal ruminants go, even for us."

He put the arrow away as he jogged.

"Anyway... I've never been a fan of horses. They're too damn high up. How do you humans tolerate the things? Wouldn't riding make you feel sick?"

He didn't like the idea of being jostled around constantly while moving. Bad enough that people bumped into him all the time in a crowd - well, mostly bad; it was easy to pick their pockets when they did, and then THEY apologized to HIM that they didn't see him - but also being bounced up and down at the same time sounded sort of queasy-ish. Maybe it was just latent dwarven instincts but he much preferred solid stone and earth underneath him, not some easily frightened prey animal.

[Gaterhyme]

She wasn't much taller than Taft (if a whole foot or so counted as "not much"), but it definitely made a difference in their strides.

"I've never really thought about it! It's tough to get into the saddle when you're short, sure, but when you gotta move from place to place to survive, nobody walks all the time, you know? So you get used to it."

Pushing open the stable door, she headed over to her horse's stall, slowly letting both of them in. The horse regarded them with dark brown eyes.

"...Hey, Song. Easy now. Just talk to her, let her know you're here. Horses get spooked by things they can't see - short things, sneaky things - surprise them, and that's how you get clobbered. Oh, and stay calm."

"They can smell fear."

[SeriousConcentrate]

Taft chuckled darkly.

"I don't get scared. I just get more pissed off!"

The dwarf sized the horse up as he neared it. The shoulders of the damn thing were further from the ground than the top of his head. He reached out and placed a hand on one, patting it and feeling like an idiot for treating an animal like it was a person.

"Right, then. Easy there... Song?"

He looked over at Miki and raised an eyebrow.

"Riding must be more of a country thing. I rarely go outside of cities."

He turned back to the horse and patted it some more. It was warm under his hand, and the hair covering its body wasn't unpleasant to the touch. He could probably do this without getting mad. As long as it didn't kick him or something.

"Eh... honestly, this is the closest I've ever been to a horse. There was that one we used to pull a cart when we tried sneaking across the border, but someone else got that set up. I only had the reins."

For a moment Taft wondered what had happened to it. Had it run away? He couldn't remember. He had been too busy kicking doors in and stealing shit (and relieving stress by breaking shit when there wasn't actually anything to steal) to pay much attention to non-combatants.

"I'm going to guess grooming a horse means more than just touching it...?"

[Gaterhyme]

"I guess you could call the desert 'country.' I haven't seen a lot of cities out here yet. How was yours?"

"And no, silly. Grooming means you gotta groom. Here, gimme a sec."

Miki navigated her way to the other side, running her hand along her horse and speaking softly as she did so, before retrieving a horse hair brush and a metal comb from the pouches she wore.

"The comb comes first. It gets all the dirt out. Then you just brush it off. Like this." She gave a small demonstration, moving the comb in small circles and the brush in short flicking motions, then held out the tools for Taft's inspection. "Here, you try. Start from the neck."

[SeriousConcentrate]

Taft took the tools, then looked at the horse's neck, then looked at Miki.

"I'm guessing a stool or something else to stand on is out of the question."

With an irritated groan, the dwarf reached up, standing on his tiptoes, and started to work the comb in gentle circles on the horse's neck. It wasn't too bad. Sure it was annoying to stretch his hand up that far, but there was something relaxing in easy, repetitive work.

"Hey, uh... You like that, Song?"

He clearly didn't know how to speak nicely to people and was even less prepared to do so to animals, but he was giving it his best shot. He had made a bet and lost and his pride was on the line to do this right. In any case, Miki had asked him a question, and maybe it would be easier to answer that than address the horse directly. For all he knew it didn't care what he said, just as long as he was talking so it knew where he was at.

"My hometown, huh. Well, I come from Kerth, in Tairani. It was a fairly large city, with high stone walls enclosing it on the sides not bordering the ocean. Lots of sturdy buildings - not a whole lot of ramshackle huts and homes around. It was on the northern coast, so I mostly remember the smell of the sea permeating everything, and thick fogs most times. Which was useful for thieves like me."

Taft switched to the brush and used short, quick strokes to get the dirt out.

"I mostly went between the industrial area near the docks - our group made its home in one of the warehouses - and the upper-class housing on the other side of the city. Didn't pay much attention to the redlight districts or the common people, unless I followed someone there, because I did my part for our money by stealing and selling secrets from one rich guy to another. It's funny. They all knew I was screwing them over too, but as long as I was able to sell them something they could use against their rivals, they were all too happy to deal with me."

Taft paused for a moment and petted Song on the lower neck, near the shoulder.

"For what it's worth coming from me, I guess it was a nice place to live. Dangerous for us criminals; the magistrate was a bit... noose-happy, but most days, it was all right."

He resumed using the comb, moving around the horse to get to the other side of her neck.

"What about the desert? That sounds like a boring place to live. From what I hear it's nothing but sand for miles."

[Gaterhyme]

"Well, she hasn't kicked you yet, so you must be doing all right. Gotta get her whole coat done, then we'll look at her hooves."

In truth, Song was one of the more docile mares in her tribe's herd. She could be stubborn - and with mares, a rider always had to let them at least think they were getting their way - but she was otherwise dependable, calm, and even-tempered. Not that Miki was going to tell Taft or anything.

"Tairani, huh? I rode through there a couple weeks ago. So many trees. And mountains! Do you have spirits that live there, too?"

She vividly remembered the last time they had ascended the mountains in the southwest of Dantin, her grip tight around her mother's waist, her siblings' chattering drowned out by the wing beats of the sand pegasi they rode. Then they had reached their destination, and a reverent silence had fallen. It had been a pilgrimage, of sorts. Sacred ground.

"I guess I wouldn't have left the desert if it wasn't a little bit boring. But it's my home. Sure there's sun and sand, but there's also the wind rushing past your face when you ride, and the oases that give everything life. It's not easy, but... we all work together. It's really different from what you did for a living."

[SeriousConcentrate]

"Spirits?"

Taft moved on from Song's neck to shoulders and sides, grooming her industriously and patiently as he went.

"Not that I know about. I know some people believe in things beyond life, but I'm not one of them."

Miki had mentioned how differently their lives were, and he thought about this.

"I can't exactly gainsay that. A fellow thief is as likely to look out for you as they are sell you out; it mainly depends on which way stands to profit them more."

"There's no such thing as honor among thieves. At least, not for most of us. Some of us do have principles, and I've never abandoned mine."

[Gaterhyme]

Miki seemed deep in thought for a moment, then chuckled as Song tried to nuzzle her and she gently guided her horse's head away.

"Try not to let her groom you back. Our skin's not thick enough for that."

"But, um, believe?" She considered that for another moment. "I guess I never thought of it like that. For us, the spirits exist. They're there, whether you... believe in them or not, like how the mountains don't disappear if you deny that they're there."

"And now you've got me curious about what principles you mean. Here," she said, retrieving a cloth from her pouches. "When you're done with the coat, wet your hands in the bucket in the back of the stall and rub her over, then shine her up with this."

[SeriousConcentrate]

Taft had just finished up with the horse's flanks when he was offered a cloth. He handed the brush and comb over, then tucked the cloth into the belt for his quiver for the moment and wet his hands.

"My principles are easy enough. I don't lie to my associates. I don't cheat or steal from them. I keep my word. Other than that, everything is fair game. That's why I've been doing this for fifteen years and I'm still alive to talk about it."

The dwarf worked the moisture into the horse's hair, taking his time about it to ensure it was done right.

"So what about you? I can't think many law-abiding citizens would willingly join up with a group of thieves and march into danger if they didn't have to."

[Gaterhyme]

"Danger? More like adventure!"

She tucked the brush and comb into her pouches.

"I didn't know you guys were thieves until you told me, really. The king might've said something about it, but I wasn't really listening."

"Apparently when people drag you in for poaching, you can't get out of it by just asking them what the word means. They're not very clear on what exactly counts as owning a herd around here." There was a lot she knew she had left to learn about the world outside Dantin - even things that Taft had mentioned casually like 'magistrates' and 'red-light districts.' The latter at least sounded interesting, enough to check out whatever it was on her return trip through Tairani. She quite liked the color red. "Well, you can imagine how that turned out, and I figured I'd try something different for a change after that. What're thieves doing marching into danger anyway?"

[SeriousConcentrate]

"To be honest, I wouldn't call any of those people with me thieves. They're mostly outlaws and outcasts who can't cut it in normal society. I'm the only one who knows how to pick a lock."

Taft grumbled to himself for a moment.

"...Anyway, it's all because of a botched job. Apparently we'll all get full pardons if we can recover the Fire Emblem, and they're holding the guy who led the job hostage to make sure we do it. Not that I know him much. He was an acquaintance of an acquaintance at best."

This would naturally lead to the question of why the dwarf hadn't just left as soon as he could, and Taft wasn't sure what the answer was. The prospect of getting out of the underworld was tempting, but it wasn't like he knew any other life.

"So poaching, huh? I guess that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' bullshit happens here too. Figures. You give anybody a bit of power and they'll abuse it mercilessly. What'd you get, a deer? Who's going to miss one deer?"

The dwarf shook his head as he rubbed Song down with the cloth. That was the trouble with people who had too much already; they weren't about to let go of even a bit of it, whether or not they needed it.

[Gaterhyme]

"On the bright side, they didn't miss the bear."

She patted Song's neck. The horse's ears swiveled in Taft's direction when he began venting, the only other apparent movement a slow swishing of her tail to keep flies away.

"Even though you'll be pardoned too, it's still nice that you're not leaving your boss out to dry. Anyway, almost done. All we have to do now is pick her hooves."

Taking out a somewhat makeshift bent piece of metal, she bent down and gently eased her hand down her horse's leg. When she reached the fetlock, Song lifted her hoof and Miki caught it in her hand. She examined it for a moment, considering the amount that the hoof had worn down in the course of her journey. Still good, for now.

"I already picked her feet earlier so there shouldn't be too much to do, but you can see there's some dirt that she picked up in the meantime. Just pick it in the direction away from you, from heel to toe." She demonstrated that, facing towards Song's tail. "Then you can brush the dirt and rocks that get picked out if you want. Your turn with the other three!"