Bite me [closed]

[Haley]

For once Haley had caught Sabrina's Tavern at a good time. When she had entered the cottage in an effort to please Akuji's growling stomach the female had expected an assault of noise. Instead, she had been pleasantly surprised to find the place relatively empty, save for a spare Nimbus or two and the party of human garlanger in the corner near the entrance.

Haley didn't take long to drop herself into her favorite position in the far corner of the tavern, furthest from the other Fae as she could manage. Akuji, following closely at her heels, immediately jumped onto the only spare chair at the table, as was his duty, and scanned the room, his teeth bared. The African wild dog was mainly responsible for providing a reason for other Fae to avoid the table. In return, he would get a nice hot meal and Haley would get some peace and quiet.

"Yo. Sabrina. You know the drill." Haley's voice was brash, loud, and demanding without a hint of courtesy. She could have said please, yes, but she wasn't exactly in the mood. Over the past two weeks since her return to Alanor, Haley had maintained a distance from the court, not yet ready to make the Queen known of her presence. Thus, her activities had consisted of lurking outside in the snow, something Haley particularly hated. She wasn't well equipped to battle the cold that day either, and her attire showed it: black dress slacks, boots, long-sleeved white button down shirt, and a black vest. It was eventually Akuji who had convinced her (by practically biting a chunk of her flesh off) that it was time to approach the Queen. So, begrudgingly, Haley reserved herself to her fate come morning. For now she was intent to enjoy her last night as a free Fae.

Sabrina had started working on Haley's order the moment she had seen the female enter the premises. Within moments after Haley's somewhat rude command, Sabrina appeared at the side of the table, her tray laden with a large mug of her darkest ale, and a pot of steaming hot stew. She settled the items onto the wooden table, casually placing an empty plate before Akuji. Then, without another word, the pixie whisked herself away, off to serve another Nimbus that beckoned her.

Haley immediately set up the items left before her, using the spoon provided to label globs of the hot stew onto the plate. The food would cool to a tolerable level within moments after touching the slightly chilled glass. Akuji eyed it with impatience, drool dribbling from his lips and splattering the floor. Haley took notice and smacked the creature upside the head, "You're disgusting." Akuji merely ignored her and dug into the plate as she slid it across the table towards him. The nimbus barely had time to lean back to avoid the mess he made from splattering onto her clothing. A look of disdain curled across her mug before she lifted her glass of ale and downed it in one go.

It was Akuji's turn to wrinkle his nose in disgust as his bonded practically slammed her glass down and belched quite abruptly. It was entirely unladylike, and Akuji voice his displeasure with a low rumbling growl, his gums rolling back to expose yellowed canines. Haley rose an eyebrow at him, a smirk crossing her lips as she emitted another small burp, "Bite me." She knew very well the dog would take her up on that dare, so in order to appease him, she dished him out some more stew and then leaned back and propped her black boot-clad feet upon onto the table. With a soft sigh she pulled the rim of her black top-hat down to shade her eyes and crossed her arms, enjoying the warmth for the first time that day.

[nerr]

“Seriously now, what a long day.”

Nerr sighed as he staggered around, bored as hell. He need something challenging, something worth doing. When was the last time he had gotten anything worth while to defeat or to completely destroy? Everything these days just had to be behind the curtain. It was like everyone wanted to be a goddamn sissy all the time. Really, he did understand the fun in manipulating people, but where was the fun in doing it all the time? Didn’t they miss the adrenaline rush from a fight? Taking a look around, Nerr decided it was high time he found a place to just relax a bit and brood over his misfortune.

Unfortunately – once again – he found nowhere worth going and decided to go into a place that he had never seen before. The moment he entered, Nerr noticed a few things. First of all, it was relatively quiet in there, which was nice. Second . . . there was a rather strange woman to one side looking like she was enjoying herself. For some reason or another, Nerr decided to make a challenge out of this. Everything was so boring after all. Shrugging, he swaggered over to the fae’s table and took a seat.

“Hmm, this looks good.” Nerr pointed to her food. “Mind if I try some?” He didn’t wait for a reply. He almost instantly moved to take a spoonful without her approval. Nerr grimaced. “Never mind, that kind of tastes like shit, how do you eat that nauseating crap?”

[Haley]

It was Akuji's growing growl that alerted Haley to Nerr’s approach, though she saw him from underneath the rim of her top hat. The male’s straight forward, no nonsense walk immediately let her know that he was intentionally coming to fuck with her quiet time. Haley’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he pulled up a chair and rudely invited himself to Akuji’s food. The wild dog’s growl turned into a full blown snarl, his yellowed fangs completely exposed, the hair on his back standing on end. It wasn’t until after Nerr proclaimed his disgust of the stew that Haley actually moved.

Haley erupted instantaneously, though there was a sort of nonchalance to her actions. Without so much of a peep, though a sneer did scrawl its way onto her mug, the smaller female dropped her feet down off the table and in one fluid move proceeded to violently kick the piece of furniture over. The wooden table landed on its side, her glass mug falling – miraculously not shattering – and the wooden bowl half filled with stew splattered everywhere, creating quite the mess as it mingled with the shattered remains of Akuji’s dinner plate. The entire room elapsed into silence. Sabrina watched this unfold from behind the bar, her lips pursed as she decided not to interfere, though it was unlikely she would have had the time to stop what happened next.

The moment the table was cleared between them Akuji was given the space to lunge from his chair. The two of them worked in complete unison, as Haley also discarded her own chair and came into a standing position in a manner far faster than thought physically possible. Akuji let loose a voracious snarl as he shifted his hind quarters, bringing himself perpendicular and to the side of Nerr; the side opposite of his bonded. His neck retracted as her launched with his hind legs towards the nimbus, only to shoot out again, jaws wide and seeking to latch onto any flesh closest to him. At the same time Haley's arms darted out to grab the back of Nerrs chair and forcefully shove it forward, then backwards, to wrench it away from him. This would, quite possibly, send the male crashing down and directly into her mantel's teeth.

The remaining faerie in the vicinity could only watch in fascination. None of them could have anticipated the female nimbus of such a violent outburst.

[nerr]

The almost instantaneous motions all around him actually was far more than he had expected. But in the end, this was still the kind of reaction he wanted. Nerr almost grinned at the noise, the anticipation, the beauty of the shifts in objects and people around him. Things were falling, tipping, food was splattering, and this woman was lunging. The fae had to love the almost orchestral feel of everything. It wasn’t until his chair had been forcibly removed that Nerr finally decided to move.

It was in that instant that a movement burst into the room. The creature, as it turned out, was a Jaguar. In the moments that passed in an almost slow motion feeling, the Jaguar moved at incredible speeds, making it to Nerr in but a second. The Jaguar pushed off the ground, pushing Nerr up from falling into the woman’s Mantel. Everything happened in less than it would take to say asshole . . . kind of slowly. What ended up happening to the average eye, a jaguar had just burst into the room and saved Nerr from a horrid fall.

“Well, that sure was something,” Nerr said, moving a few steps away. “You sure are awesome.”

[Haley]

Since there had been no one to cue the slow motion camera, the incident that took place with the jaguar and miraculous dive that saved Nerr from certain injury was nearly invisible to the human eye. Though the faerie in the room were certainly not human, Haley was always under the assumption that they were as slow-witted and small-brained as the creatures back on Earth. This new Nimbus was apparently no exception to this.

After Akuji had missed the canine had gone to turn and follow the jaguar, nipping at its tail. However a nearly invisible sign from Haley, a small shift of her foot, caught his eye and he stopped and slunk over to stand beside her. In the meantime Haley dropped her eyes down towards the chair in her hands, her face apathetic, almost as if she had realized she had been holding it. She proceeded to nonchalantly toss it to the side, adding the wooden item to the glass and stew littered floor with a bang.

She immediately glanced over to where Sabrina was standing, ”Oi. Sabrina. Akuji’s meal kind of fell on the floor. Think I can get another serving to go?” As she spoke she began to pick her way through the mess, careful to avoid stepping on any stew. Nerr was completely disregarded, his words falling on deaf ears. To her, he didn’t even exist.

Sabrina watched at the Nimbus approached her and pursed her lips. Without so much of a word to the other, the pixie simply flitted to the back room to prepare something for Haley to take with her. As far as she was concerned, the quicker the Nimbus was gone, the better.

Haley nestled her elbows onto the counter of the bar and dropped her weight, her back bending as she shifted from one foot to the other. She stifled a yawn with one hand. The other patrons, considering the small scuffle to be over began chattering once more.

[nerr]

It was possibly the most fun that Nerr had all day. Considerably, he had made a stranger angry enough to attack him, possibly maim him, yet here he was, a grin on his face, because there was something worth doing, a challenge worth beating. In fact, Nerr had noticed, and with a bit of approval, the small motion that this other fae had done. She might not care for him at all, but Nerr certainly approved. But afterwards, the fae just completely ignored him. What was this? Perhaps she was done? Wanted to be rid of him? Maybe another approach would be better.

“So, you’re one hell of a fighter,” Nerr said, grinning. “I apologize for my rude behavior, was just really bored and needed something doing.” He paused and glanced around. “And you seemed to be the only person that had anything to give, I mean, what you just did just proved it.”

[Haley]

Why do I always get stuck with the crazies? Haley inwardly groaned. It had been the same way back when she was in the Air Force. While her personality better suited the Army, or even the Marines, Haley had entered the Air Force under recommendation from her father (adopted father as she now knew him to be). Though the regimen hadn't been as strict or demanding as she had wanted, Haley had excelled. Her faerie blood had given her strength far more advanced than many of the normal recruits. Her passion for the military combined with her good looks had brought her much attention from the military douchebags that had surrounded her. Haley had been happy to escape to Alanor, but now she was finding that apparently idiots were more frequent here than she had originally thought.

Slowly the relatively short female turned to look at Nerr, still casually leaning on the bar with one elbow. Her voice was sickly sweet, laced with a condescending tone that made it seem as if she were talking to a retarded child, "Hi. Look, I'm not up up to date on all the mental disorders floating around in faerie land, so I'm just going to hope that whatever you have isn't contagious." At that moment Sabrina reappeared and dropped a slab of raw meat wrapped in a napkin next to Haley on the bar. Haley didn't even spare it a glance as she shifted upwards and collected it with the arm that had originally been leaning on the bar. She shot a super fake smile to Nerr, "Now if you'll excuse me I need to find somewhere not so tainted with..." she looked him up and down, "You." With that said, she headed for the door, Akuji at her side.

[nerr]

Nerr always did over play his hand. Every time he found something worth doing, someone worth challenging or talking to, he over extended his quickness for a dispute. While his fiery and somewhat of a straight forward attitude worked in getting something out of someone, it didn’t always have the best reactions. Truly saying though, from what had happened, and how violently this girl at struck out, back at him, he’d definitely say that this was someone worth holding on to. Maybe apologizing?

“Hey, Hey, I’m sorry if I was a bastard,” Nerr said. “Being bored as hell isn’t good for the soul, and you just seemed like an interesting person.” He paused and shrugged. “I guess I was wrong when I thought you to be someone with a bit of flair.”

Following in stride with the young woman, Nerr grinned as she gave him a superficial smile. “I like that smile of yours, even if it mocks everything that can see it.” He jumped in front of her and hoped that she would stop to acknowledge him, but knowing her from her outburst, he really doubted it. “Well, the name’s Nerr, and I insist that I will do one thing for you, as long as it is within my powers.” Nerr sighed. “But you’re probably too stubborn and spiteful of me to take me up on any offer. What's your name by the way?”

[Haley]

“I guess I was wrong when I thought you to be someone with a bit of flair.”

Haley rose an eyebrow. Was he trying to egg her on? Because he was doing a super poor job. For the first time in faerie land, Haley was confronted with a male that seemed content to be a contradiction. He first apologized and then threw another insult at her. It almost made her smirk, but instead she merely rolled her eyes as he threw himself in front of her. What was this? Land of the desperate? Haley came to a stop and shifted her weight onto one hip, ignoring Akuji as he snapped at the fingers that held his meal. Wrinkling her nose at the Nimbus as he introduced himself, she inwardly snickered at his name. Nerr? What kind of bastard parents give their child such a horrible name? She could only imagine the amount of teasing he had gone through as he grew up.

As of this point, Haley decided to humor the poor creature. After all, he had to be pretty lonely if he was throwing himself at the first woman he saw. And that compliment on her smile? Haley held back the desire to puke. What was he doing now? Was that a come on or something? Whatever it was it was lame, but he had piqued her interest, especially when he offered to do something for her. Haley instantly shot her hand out and grabbed his, shaking it forcefully, "I'll take that offer." She didn't know how much the airhead would be worth to her in the future, but she was willing to take a gamble. At the very least she could use him as a meat shield.

"Haley." Her response was short and simple, ending with a slight hiss as Akuji managed to draw blood from her fingers. "Fine, fine." The female snapped and she dropped the meat onto the floor. Akuji tore into it, ripping the napkin to shreds as he devoured the raw meat.

(edited)

It didn't take long for Akuji to devour his meal, during which time Haley glanced over Nerr several times. Perhaps this male wasn't as stupid as he immediately came off to be. She would keep in contact with him, if not only to collect on their deal. Without waiting for Akuji, Haley went to sidestep Nerr, giving him a lazy wave of her hand, "I'll catch you later." And then she was gone, heading back to her room for some much needed sleep. Akuji quickly followed, baring his teeth at Nerr as he did, almost as if daring the other to follow.

END

(ooc: closing because the thread is almost a month old)