Username: 
Password:    
Remember Me

Search by :  Username E-mail Region Interest AOL IM ICQ Number Yahoo! ID MSN Username Jabber

Tasslehoff Burrfoot is not a thief (tas_wanderlust) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-03-10 08:54:00

Who: Tas and Anna
When: Backdated to sometime in January.
Where: UCI
What: Hanging out!
Ratings/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete


Anna begged Tas to come and meet her at UCI. The poor girl had very little time between her classes, homework, study groups and whatever else to socialize with people who weren’t in said study groups. Thankfully, Tas agreed to come and hang out with her on campus for a little while, and Anna was excited. She was in the cafe waiting for him to show up, with a couple of milkshake-like coffee drinks on the table in front of her. The wind had picked up, and it’d rained a bit, but it was still perfect weather to go on a fairy hunt. Or… whatever.

Anna wanted to hear more about the dragons.

Tas hadn’t actually been to the University before, but he was always up for new experiences and being on campus seemed as good an experience as any. He got lost a few times, and had to ask for directions once or twice, but he eventually found Anna. Albeit, a little bit late.

“Anna! Hi!” Tas said. “This campus sure is big! I had to ask like, ten different people how to find the place.” He didn’t seem to upset about it though, and he slipped into the chair, grabbing one of the drinks without bothering to ask if it was for him. She wouldn’t have ordered two for herself after all.

Anna glanced up and beamed as Tas came in and slipped into the chair opposite her. She brightened at the sight of him, since that was her way, and nodded. “It’s huge! I get a lot of exercise tromping around from one glass to the next. It’s a bit crazy. Hope you weren’t too lost?” She asked, then sipped from her own drink. It was good to see him!

“Not too lost!” Tas said cheerfully. It was good to see Anna too. “Do you have to go all over the place for your classes? You’d think they’d put them all close together so that you didn’t have to.”

“I do! Sort of. I mean, all the science classes are together, mostly, and the math ones, and the english ones? But like, they’re all across campus from one another. So if I take one math class and one english class, I have to walk all the way across campus to get to them.” Anna explained. “I mean… it’s not that bad. Unless it’s really rainy or snowy… but that’s so rare that it’s almost not worth mentioning. Except I did mention it.” She grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Or if there’s gremlins running around!” Tas said cheerfully, as though gremlins running around campus was the greatest thing he could imagine. “I bet things like that happen way more often than snow or rain! Do you ever have to fight your way to class? Because that could be a lot of fun. Unless you don’t like fighting, I guess. But then you could always just call me and I’d be happy to come and escort you!” He’d had a ton of fun dispatching Gremlins in his apartment with Raistlin not long ago, and he was kind of eager to do something like that again.

“That’s very true!” Anna agreed. “They weren’t that much fun.” Anna didn’t like the monsters. She even got a scratch by one. Stupid things. “No, I’ve never had to fight my way to class… I wouldn’t be much for fighting. It’s not like I know anything about it.” She said, shrugging her shoulders. “Are you a trained fighter from your Dreams?”

Tas frowned thoughtfully at the question. “I don’t know about trained,” he said after a moment. “I guess someone must have taught me. Unless I just figured it out for myself! But I know how to fight. In my dreams I have this thing called a hoopak staff - all travelling kender have them - and it’s really fun. It has like, a pointy end that I can stick people with, and it has a sling on the other end, and I can make it make this really creepy sound that scares people sometimes!” He took a breath. “And I can use knives and stuff to fight too! But I’m not really one of the fighters in my group. I mostly scout ahead and tell them when things are coming. And I look for traps too. Sturm and Tanis and Caramon and Riverwind are really the fighters in our group. And Raistlin knows magic - I got to see him use it in real life here too when we were fighting the gremlins - and Goldmoon heals people! She’s a cleric! The first one since the Cataclysm, which was three hundred years ago in my dreams!” The fact that Anna might not be able to follow half of what he was saying didn’t even cross his mind.

Anna totally didn’t follow. A lot of the words and descriptions and names went right over her head, but she liked the bit about magic! Her eyes brightened at that. “Wait, you guys used magic against the Gremlins? Damn! I should have gone to Elsa’s place.” She frowned just a little, though on Anna it never lasted. She was smiling again only moments later. “I just hid behind my vampire roommates when those things came and attacked. I got a scratch, too! But it’s mostly healed now.”

“I’m glad to hear it’s mostly healed,” Tas said. “They say that gremlin claws are covered in venom and that sometimes people die from infections if they get scratched!” In this case, ‘they’ referred to Tas and only Tas. “But if it’s mostly healed I bet that won’t be a problem for you at all. It was mostly Raistlin who did the magic though. Well, only Raistlin. I got this dagger from my dreams - Caramon told me that it would only be good for slaying rabbits so we named it Rabbitslayer - but it slayed Gremlins just fine too.”

As he spoke about Rabbitslayer, he gasped. “Oh! I got to see a real life dragon in my dreams! It turns out they’re not extinct after all!”

Tas’s Dreams were starting to sound more and more like Tolkien to Anna. She’d read all those books, so she was somewhat familiar with … fantasy. And stuff. Even though there were no Dragons in her own Dreams, she knew of Sting and Smaug and all that.

“Wait, what??” Anna asked, brightening. She sat up taller, her eyes went as wide as dinner plates. “REALLY? What was it like? What did it do??”

“It was really big. Like, as big as a mountain,” well, probably more the size of a house, “and kind of scary. I mean, I wasn’t really scared, but it gave off kind of an eerie feeling.” And all his companions had been scared stiff. “It melted my friend Riverwind, which really had me worried, but then our other friend, Goldmoon - that’s Riverwind’s girlfriend - she took him into the temple of Mishakal, who was one of the old gods, and she just healed him right up like nothing had ever happened. It was really amazing!”

“Wait, your friend got melted??” Anna asked, eyes still very wide. She was gasping with shock, hanging on his every word. “...Woah. That’s amazing magic! Were there trolls there? Because trolls have pretty amazing magic.” A grin broke out across Anna’s face, then she sipped from her mocha milkshake thingy. “By the way, Riverwind and Goldmoon are the best names ever.”

“He did! It was really gross. Like, the skin was melted right off his face, and you could-” Tas stopped himself, realizing, perhaps belatedly, that Anna might not be the kind of audience who’d appreciate a full description of it. “It was amazing magic though! No one’s been able to heal anyone like that in over 300 years, since the Catacalysm - that’s when the God’s abandoned the world - but I think the gods came back to Goldmoon so she could heal him. It was all really romantic,” Tas added with a wistful sigh. He really wasn’t interested much in romance stories, but it had still been really nice. Kind of like the power of Goldmoon’s love had saved Riverwind’s life.

“They are great names! They’re barbarians, you know, and barbarians have some really pretty names.”

“...That sounds really Indiana Jones.” Anna smirked a little at the thought. Faces melting and awesome names? She might have been a little bit jealous of his dreams. “Aww, it sounds really romantic,” Anna added, giving a sigh to match his. She was much more into romance than she let others think. “Wait, Barbarians? Aren’t barbarians… bad?”

Tas’ dreams were pretty amazing. He was quite fond of them, all in all. “You think so? I’ve never seen Indiana Jones, but I wouldn’t mind the hat and the whip.” He mimed cracking a whip, even adding in a “wuh-TSCH.”

“Oh no, Barbarians aren’t bad in my dreams,” Tas said. “They’re just people who live on the plains instead of in the cities! Sometimes they’re called Plainsmen in my dreams too! And Goldmoon is one of the nicest ladies I’ve ever met, so there’s no way she’s bad!”

Anna laughed. “I can see you with the hat and whip!” She nearly cheered at that thought. “Wait, I wouldn’t mind the hat and whip, too!” She said, and mimicked his movement. The sound wasn’t as good as Tas’s, though.

“Oh. I see. I dunno how I’d like to be called a barbarian. But Plainsmen sounds kinda cool. I guess.” Anna broke into a bright smile. “You like her, do you? Or is there someone else for you in the Dreams?”

Tas laughed. “Then we should get ourselves some hats and whips!” he said cheerfully, which attracted the curious gaze of a student who happened to be walking by at the time. Tas waved cheerfully at them.

“Oh, I like everyone I travel with in my dreams,” Tas said, oblivious to any other meaning behind her words. “Even Riverwind and Flint and Sturm, even though they’re all kind of grumpy.” Liking Raistlin went without saying - he was Tas’ very best friend in this world, after all - even if he was the meanest out of all of them.

“Shut. the. front. door.” Anna said, leaning in. She wore a bright, devious smile. “Can we really get hats and whips? I’m holding you to this, you know.” She turned to glance at the other student, then lifted her drink to sip from it.

“That’s so good.” She added, setting down the drink. “Sturm? That’s an interesting name. I travel with a stinky guy named Kristoff and his reindeer. I don’t know which smells worse.”

“Promise,” Tas said. “And I never break a promise!” Unless he forgot, or the promise was supposed to stop him from doing something really fun and exciting. “I’ll find us the coolest Indiana Jones hats and whips ever.” He wondered where he’d find something like that. The OC was a big place though, and he’d probably be able to wrangle some up somewhere.

“Oh, there’s lots of interesting names in my dreams,” Tas said cheerfully. But he had to giggle at the mention of Kristoff and the reindeer. “He has a tame reindeer? That’s so cool! It’s like Santa Claus! I guess it probably doesn’t fly though. Or does it? Do you ever get to ride it? Oh, I wish I could fly on a flying reindeer in my dreams all the time!”

So far Tas had kept all his promises to Anna. She had no doubt this one was going to be the same.

Anna laughed. “No, it doesn’t fly. And yes, I’ve ridden him. His name is Sven.” Anna explained. “And my friend Olaf thought that Sven was both Kristoff’s and Sven’s name. It was funny, he could just call out one name for both of them.” Anna couldn’t help but grin at the mention of Olaf. How could one not love Olaf? And sometimes Tas reminded her of him.

“It’s too bad he doesn’t fly,” Tas sighed. That really would have been great. “I guess if they both responded to both names, then that makes sense. It might have been easier if he’d combined the names though. Like Sventoff or Krisen. Speaking of flying reindeer, have I ever told you about how I got to fly on flying horses?”

Anna’s expression turned sour. She shook her head, trying not to feel nauseated at the next thought. “No, that sounds too much like a ‘ship name. Like Brangelina, or whatever.” But then the happiness came back to her eyes and she shook her head. “No! Tell me about the flying horses!!”

“A ship name?” Tas asked, frowning. He had never heard of any dreams called Sventoff or Bradgelina. “I thought most ships were called things like The Queen Anne’s Revenge and The Lady’s Mast or something like that.”

He smiled widely when Anna said she wanted to hear his story. Most people didn’t like to sit and listen to them, so finding an audience wasn’t as easy as he might have thought it would be. “Well, after we put out a man on fire with Goldmoon’s blue crystal staff, we had to run away. So we ran away to Darken Woods, which is a really haunted forest that most people don’t come out of again.”

Anna didn’t bother correcting him about the ship names. She was more interested in the Darken Woods. She leaned forward on her arms on the table, her whole attention on Tas sitting across from her. She drank in every word. “...It sounds scary!”

“Oh, it is!” Tas started. “At least at first!” But, he wasn’t going to get ahead of himself and ruin the story. Usually, he tried to cram as many details into a story before would interrupt him, but with Anna’s rapt attention, Tas knew he’d be able to tell the whole story properly. “It started when me and my friends took out a whole army of draconians…”