Tasslehoff Burrfoot (itchyfeet) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-10-14 21:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, she-ra: catra, ₴ inactive: tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who: Catra and Tas
What: Tasslehoff arrives in Vallo
When: September 28th
Where: The Forest
Warnings: Tasslehoff
”One final hint of caution, my brother,” Raistlin said coldly.
Caramon did not respond, he neither stopped walking nor turned around.
“Be wary of that magical time device,” Rastlin continued with a sneer. “Her Dark Majesty repaired it. It was she who sent the kender back. If you use it, you could find yourself in a most unpleasant place!”
“Oh, but she didn’t fix it!” Tas cried, popping out from behind the pillar. “Gnimsh did. Gnimsh fixed it! Gnimsh, my friend. That gnome that you murdered! I -”
“Use it then,” Raistlin said coldly. “Take him and yourself out of here, Caramon. But remember I warned you.”
Caramon caught hold of the angry kender. “Easy, Tas. That’s enough. It doesn’t matter now.”
Turning around Caramon faced his twin. Though the warrior’s face was drawn with pain and weariness, his expression was one of peace and calm, one who knows himself at last. Stroking Tas’s topknot of hair soothingly with his hand, he said, “Come on, Tas. Let’s go home. Farewell, my brother.”
Caramon took the pendant from Tas and began the manipulations that would transfer its shape from pendant to the magical time-travel device. “Thy time is thy own, though across it you travel… Grasp firmly the beginning and the end… destiny be over your head…”
There was a flash of light, and Tas screwed his eyes up shut against it. The ground under his feet shifted from the cold marble of Fistandantilis’ lab to the spongy ground of a forest floor, and Tas opened his eyes.
He didn’t recognize the forest he stood in now. It wasn’t anywhere near Solace, he knew that much: the trees were all wrong. It could have been the Forest of Waywerth, which would be interesting because the trees would definitely try to kill him if he hadn’t been invited - he wondered if Par-Salin knew that they’d come back - but the trees didn’t really look like the Waywerth trees either. Not that Tas knew those trees as well as he knew the trees of Solace, but he never forgot the face of a tree that tried to kill him and none of these trees looked like those trees. Maybe the trees in the Forest of Waywerth changed as often as the location of the forest itself changed. He waited to see if they would try to kill him, but none of them moved toward him, so he shrugged and started walking.
Except then a tree did lunge at him, all sharp teeth and gaping maws - which was also different than the way the trees in the Forest of Waywerth tried to kill him, but maybe they got bored with dragging people off and trying to tear them in two and were trying something new. He jumped back out of its reach, and pulled his hoopak from his back, and then he rammed the pointed end into the tree until it stopped moving.
“Caramon?” he called, beginning to walk, spinning his hoopak so that the leather thong on the top let off an eerie, haunted sounding whistle. “Caramon, where’d you go?”
Really, Catra ought to mind her business.
That’s what she liked to do, anyway. Keep to herself, move along - not get caught up in much. Except for the fact that she’s been part of this defense team since her arrival and intervening was the whole job’s deal, so while she was out and about doing her strolls and maiming the occasional rowdy beast that liked to harass forest locals she had come to accept the fact that minding her own business was not a luxury she could indulge in.
It was fine. Usually Adora was out with her anyway, and anything that needed to involve a sparkling personality with a dash of compassion and heroics - she’d proudly step up with an annoying (and cute) bob of her glowing ponytail while Catra picked at her claws with disinterest. Not that she was unhelpful but traditionally she wasn’t a people person, so. Leave it to the blonde with the Captain Save-A-Ho vibes.
Tough shit for Catra that Captain Save-A-Ho wasn’t around when she caught the sound of a voice calling for someone (and this whistle, the fuck was that), as if they were alone and lost in a forest chock-full of nasties known to shift around without warning. Could be a new Outlander, could also be a local, could also just be a dumbass.
She didn’t approach on bare feet. Instead, she made herself visible from a non-murderous tree - hanging upside down from a sturdy brand about eight feet off the ground with languid, flexible ease. “No Caramon around here,” Catra announced. “You from around these parts?”
Tasslehoff had stopped spinning the hoopak - the whistling stopped immediately - and had it ready to use as a weapon as soon as he’d noticed the movement above him, but when whatever it was didn’t drop down and start trying to devour him (how exciting would that have been?), he lowered it a little.
And then he giggled at the question. “Oh no, I’m not a wizard,” Tasslehoff said. “I don’t actually know any kender wizards, now that I think about it. I mean, I do magic all the time, but only with magical items, never on my own like-” Like Raistlin, he’d been about to say, but he faltered because never again would he ever want to be anything like Raistlin. “Like Goldmoon,” he said instead, “Or Par-Salian. Do you know any kender wizards? I bet if they exist, you must. Are you one of the guardian monsters of the forest? Did a wizard make you? Which one was it? I know a lot of wizards. I’m close personal friends with Par-Salian himself, you know. In fact, me and Caramon just got back from the mission he sent us on, so you’d better take me to him right now instead of trying to eat me.” He paused, only for a moment, and then said, “Though, if you have some particularly interesting way of trying to kill me I wouldn’t mind hearing about it.”
Uhhh. What?
Catra blinked, several times, trying to follow whatever direction this conversation was going as she continued to hang upside down. Maybe this was the worst position to be in to try and sort this out - lots of blood was rushing to her head so it was time to drop and view the world again rightside up. The transition was seamless because, hi, cat flexibility and once she was standing correctly in front of Tas (boy he was short), she pushed a mess of wild hair from her face.
“I literally have no idea what half of that even was,” she admitted with a frown. Well, aside from the wizard thing, yeah - magic was common, it was what ran this whole fucking island. “I’m not a wizard or forest guardian and I’m actually not trying to kill you?”
It could be more convincing if she didn’t phrase it as a question but there was a lot going on here. “I’m Catra and you’re probably not from around here, but I can take you somewhere that can show you a video and explain some stuff.”
“Well no, obviously you’re not a wizard,” Tas said, frowning up at her. He’d never seen anyone like her. She wasn’t any of the races of Krynn that he recognized - and he was pretty sure he knew all the races of Krynn.
“If you’re not a guardian, then why are you in the Forest of Waywerth? It’s pretty dangerous in here, you know.” As if to prove his point, he jammed the end of his hoopak into a small rock that had been trying, discreetly, to sneak up on them. “But it’s nice to meet you, Catra! That’s kind of a silly name though, did your parents name you that because you look like a cat? I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot, but all my friends just call me Tas! What’s a video?”
Yep. Okay. This little dude was fresh meat, and weird. That would be Catra’s luck with newbies though, wouldn’t it - it was like she was a magnet for oddballs. This one, in particular, liked to spew a million questions per second. Already she was beginning to feel a familiar, dull throb pulsing through her head.
Note to self: bring aspirin next time.
“Uh, look -” Catra sighed, bringing up a thumb and index finger to kind of just rub the pain in her brows away if at all possible. “You just took a trip across the multiverse and got plopped to this place called Vallo. It happens a lot. Don’t ask me about my name, it’s none of your business who named me.” My girlfriend did, when she was five. “ Can I - I can take you to a Waypoint and bring you to people that can explain this and get you set up better than I can, okay? They’ll give you money and find you a place to live.”
Being a helpful person sucks.
Tas stared at her for a moment, shocked into silence for all of half a second. "A trip across the Multiverse?" he asked. He didn't know what a multiverse was, but it sounded interesting. "Is that an ocean or something? Am I in a different continent, like Ithin'carthia? I've never actually left Ansalon before, but I've always wanted to. I just never got the chance, you know, because Flint always needed me to take care of him, and then there was the War of the Lance, and then I had to take care of Caramon and we went back in time. I only asked you about your name because it's pretty weird, especially with you being a cat and all, but if you like it then I guess that's fine. Why are they going to give me money? They're not expecting me to do something unpleasant are they? I mean, I will if it's something interesting, like fighting goblins or something, but I'm not an assassin or a thief or anything."
Kill her. Seriously. If lightning struck from the heavens and made Catra its target, she wouldn’t be mad about it. She’d thank it and die without a fuss. Her shoulders began to sag because these questions were seriously wearing her down, and a hand went to slip inside her pocket in search for her phone. “You can save all your questions for the official welcoming committee,” she sighed, and -
Wait.
Where the hell was her phone???
Catra blinked, patting her other pocket, and then spun around and crinkled her nose and looked at the ground because - maybe it fell when she was hanging upside down? “Have you seen this black square thing with glass that looks way too technologically advanced for you?”
“Oh, do you mean this?” Tas asked, pulling said black square thing with glass from one of his pouches. He’d thought it looked very interesting and while he hadn’t known what it was for, it looked interesting enough to warrant a full examination later. “You’re lucky I found it, you know. You should really be more careful with your things. What is it, anyway?”
He’d been examining it while he talked, turning it over in his hands, and he noticed, belatedly, the buttons on the side of it. He gasped with delight when the whole thing lit up, showing a blonde girl who might have been pretty, if she wasn’t sleeping with her mouth open and drooling all over her pillow. “Wow, she looks like she snores.”
“Did you just -” Catra bit her tongue, and hissed, and narrowed those odd mismatched eyes at him until the look could be very clearly interpreted as a death stare. Accidentally dropping it, sure - she expected that. Shit happens. But did this Tasslehoff Burrfoot dude steal from her?
She swiped the phone from his hands harshly. “First of all - she does, and she’s beautiful,” she snarled with a claw pointed at him as a thinly veiled threat. “Second - did you seriously rob me?? When did you even do that?”
Not much escaped Catra. Her senses were naturally heightened, and she excelled in being stealth thanks to her feline physique that let her slip around like liquid. She’d been talking to Tas this entire time and she was pretty sure he hadn’t put his hands on her at any point so, really, what kind of bullshit sorcery was this?
If Catra was trying to scare or intimidate him, she’d really picked the wrong person to attempt that with. Not because he’d take it badly, but because he was likely to take it far too well. He didn’t try to stop her as she took her phone back.
“Wow, your nails sure are sharp!” he said, leaning in closer to get a better look. “It’s the cat in you, isn’t it? I bet you can climb trees in no time at all! Is that why you were up there? I’m sure she is really pretty, when she’s not drooling all over everything. And I didn’t rob you,” he added, actually sounding offended at the implication. “I found it. If you don’t want people to handle your things, then you should take better care of them.”
Catra wondered if this was some strategic tactic to confuse and attack her or - something. But she didn’t really get any hostile vibes from Tas, and it seemed like he convinced himself of his own bullshit that there was no way to convince him that he did, actually, steal her phone.
Why was this happening to her? Was this karma? Is this because she played a hand in messing up Etheria for a good while? Because if that’s the case, then -
Yeah, that’s fair. Damnit.
“They’re claws you dumbass,” she groused and maybe bared her pointy fangs at him because she was irritated and had the urge to scratch him. But she didn’t, because she was reformed or whatever, so - she opted to just harshly grab him by the shirt and yank. “I’m taking you to the DOA and they can deal with you but if you steal one more thing from me again we’re going to have a problem.”
He grinned, wondering, now that she’d pulled him close, whether or not he should touch her ears. They looked soft. Not right now, he decided. Her claws did look awfully sharp, and he’d been scratched by a cat before. There was nothing fun or interesting in that particular experience.
“I didn’t steal anything from you one first time, so that won’t be difficult,” Tas said, pouting a little, but he still put his arms behind his back to show that he wouldn’t make another attempt. It was tempting though. Most people at Krynn tried to keep kender as far away from them as possible, they certainly didn’t pull them closer when they were falsely accusing them of theft. “You still haven’t told me what your magic box thing was. That was a really realistic picture! I don’t know anyone that can draw that well.”
It had to have been a drawing, he thought. He’d seen people through magic objects before, but they’d always moved, even a little. The image he’d seen on Catra’s magical device was far too still to have been a vision from real life.
This little fucker and his shit-eating grin, ugh. He really ought to thank her for her remarkable self-restraint. “It’s a phone,” Catra huffed out and began pulling him along with gentleness completely lacking. “You’ll get one - or maybe some magic book to write in, I don’t know. Whatever tickles your fancy. It allows you to access a network of communications so you can ask a whole range of people your questions and exchange nonsense with. Hurry up and move your little feet faster. I have things to do.”
She wasn’t going to dignify the claims of him not stealing from her because he definitely did, and she was onto his shit. Even if he seemed kind of harmless.
As much as people tended to avoid letting kender get too close to them back home, Tas was used to being dragged around in one specific instance: when the city guards were hauling him to the city jail, which was an occurrence that happened often to kender (in fact, kender passing one another on the street would often sit and review the city jail. Were the beds soft or terrible? Were there beds? How was the food? Were they kept clean? How much of a challenge were they to escape? Unsurprisingly, the more difficult a jail was to escape from, the higher it typically got rated in terms of entertainment value).
It meant that Tas’ natural inclination to getting dragged was to dig his feet into the ground, only reluctantly letting himself get pulled along. It wasn’t that Tas hated going to prison, though he was often too busy for it, but it was part of the fun of getting arrested. Not that he thought he was getting arrested now. Catra’d been pretty clear that Tas was going somewhere where people could explain to him what, exactly, was going on, and then they’d give him money (?? For some reason? Tas still wasn’t really clear on the why of that), and maybe they’d be able to point him in the direction of Caramon. But still, kender instinct can sometimes be difficult to overcome.
“I’d go a lot faster if you’d let me go,” Tas said pointedly. “You’re so grumpy. Are you hungry maybe? I think I have some…” he started digging through his pouches, gave a cry of triumph, and pulled out a roll from one of them. “Here, you could have this if you want! It’s better with a bit of jam or butter, but it's okay on its own too.”
Catra’s eyes rolled so far back into her head she swore she could see the inside of her skull. “I’m not hungry,” she snapped, so tempted to say something along the lines of maybe you’re just getting on my nerves you little prick but that was also kind of mean. Not his fault her patience was lacking, even if he had this eccentric personality that was a little (a lot grating).
So she switched tactics. Breathed through her nose, squared her shoulders and released him as they walked. “But thanks,” she added with a grumble and took the offered bread to sniff it suspiciously. “Who’d you steal this from?”
“I did not steal it,” Tas said, exasperated. He was tempted to ask if she had hearing problems or something - she didn’t seem particularly dense, though maybe she was just good at hiding it - but, after a brief argument with himself, he decided to let it go. She was trying to be helpful after all.
“I think I got it from some Hill Dwarves,” Tas said. “Or maybe some Dark Dwarves. It’s hard to say, there was a big fight and there was a lot going on, but don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I got it after Crysania healed me from the plague.”
Catra’s lips pressed into a flatline when he said from the plague. It didn’t smell funny or anything but - better not risk it. She’ll just, uh. Hold onto this and toss it over her shoulder once she ditched him. “Uh-huh,” she said with skepticism, continuing to lead the way through the winding path.
She only stopped when she reached her intended destination, and a few yards from them was human-height crystal glowing orange. Jackpot. “Okay, Tassels. See this giant shiny rock here? We’re going to go through it and I’m dropping you off to some important people for a proper Vallo orientation. You’ll be fine. But think twice before you decide to ‘helpfully find’ someone’s personal belongings - not everyone is as nice as I am.”
Hah. Catra. Nice. She chuckled at herself a little.
Tassels. No one had ever called Tasslehoff Tassels before, but he liked it, and he was pretty sure it also meant that Catra was obviously now his Close Personal Friend. Probably the best friend he had in all of Vallo. Not necessarily a difficult task, since she was the only person or thing he’d met so far that hadn’t tried to eat him, but still. It was important. He’d have to come up with a great nickname for her too.
“Thanks, Catra,” Tas said, beaming at her. “You really are one of the nicest people I’ve met in a while. I just know we’re going to be great friends.” He didn’t really know what the crystal was, or what it did, but he figured if they were going to go through it, he had to touch it, and so without hesitation he did exactly that - reached out and put his hand on it - and then looked expectantly at Catra, assuming she’d know the magic words to make it work.
One of the nicest people?? Catra’s chuckle turned into a laugh because - no, that can’t be right. “You’ve met some real assholes in your life then,” she grinned with a friendly sort of wickedness if at all possible. Fangs poking out and all. “Okay, weirdo. When you see these, just tell them where you wanna go - you’ll learn the geography here quickly. Right now, for you…”
She tapped it. The crystal glowed brighter. All she had to do was whisper The DOA, and she’ was free to fuck off and continue her day. Good luck, Tassels.