Best Of

--- Bottomless pit ------------- 4:11:0 0 ---
The noonday sun shines down, tinged grey by its passage through the thick clouds above. Surrounded by dark grey sand is a large, ominous pit that descends deep into the earth. The loose sands on the edge make for dangerous footing, but a few solid stones have been positioned along the sides. A few ragged plants jut out from the walls of the pit, growing down into the blackness that seems to have no end. The foaming ocean sweeps over the shoreline, cascading into the pit during high tide. A chromatic column commands the area, chaotic candescence churning at its core. Ominiously silent, a red and white warhound stands here, teeth bared. Ominiously silent, a sandy warhound stands here, teeth bared. Ominiously silent, a red warhound stands here, teeth bared. Cayn subjects a flat stone
by the pit's edge to his weight, sat there smoking and blackness-gazing. He wields a lit faded,
pitch-black cigarette clawed at its end in his left hand.

Naos stoops to pick up a stone a few paces back from the edge of the pit, something small enough to fill the palm of his hand. With an underhanded toss he lobs it into the blackness and immediately cranes his neck to see, standing on tiptoe to watch its descent. He doesn't get -too- close to the edge though, he's not -that- stupid. "Second time I've found you here, Mudd. This where you come to cry?" Any excitement from the toss is gone, and his focus slides over to Cayn.

The icy skewer of Cayn's sole functional eye slices aside to find you as soon as the scuff of your boots across the sands is carried to the brute's ears. From his grounded ring-side seat at the arena of blackness, he leans forward a little too, but there's nothing. Nothing to see, nothing to hear. The seashell-or-whatever that you just hucked in there is simply swallowed and disappeared. As the hairier of the pair settles back into his original languid position, smoking arm draped over a bent knee, he tosses back an easy, "While whacking off at the same time usually, yep." Ah yes, the old cry-and-jerk. Classic. He's not doing either right now though. In fact, he looks... Pretty chill. A rare thing.

Ruqayya arrives from the northwest.

She is a typical Mhun, easy to overlook with her diminutive stature. Reminiscent of the Mhojave dunes on a moonless night, her dark hair is just as arid and bundled up carelessly atop her scalp like a dusty cactus fruit. Her hairline is the border past which the sun touches, her complexion aglow with life in the russet shade of desert rock. Simple but proportionate is the landscape of this digger's face, the topography ranging from a scruffy ridge of brows to cavern-dark eyes, a humbly sloping nose to lips like a parched canyon, set neutrally enough that her face rests with a blank look. Just from looking at her, she gives off the impression of one who hasn't bathed in weeks.

(hanging from the shoulders) : a ruined black cloak
(student hazard) : a suit of academy splintmail
(bloodstained and battered) : a reinforced charcoal surcoat
(worn over the shoulder) : an antiquated pirate shoulder pack
(ripped through wandering) : a tattered dress
(barely holding together) : a pair of rugged folded down boots

Naos rolls his shoulders in a quick shrug, a very, 'it happens' kind of acknowledgement to Cayn's over-sharing. "You ain't gonna jump, is you?" Emory takes a few steps closer to the edge, still carrying himself like he has far too much to lose when it comes to the very dark, potentially very deep hole. "Can't think of any other reason you'd be playin' coy around Sapience's unicorns." He finally reaches his own sturdy seeming rock along the rim of the pit and squats down onto the balls of his feet, trying to catch a further glimpse over the edge.

From a distance, a voice rings out like a rough shard being jabbed into the ears, growing louder as its source draws near, "... aaaand I don't haaave any more woooorms... worms, worms, woooorms..." Not -too- tonedeaf but definitely not pleasant. The form of Ruqayya arrives at a lethargic meander, only to halt abruptly as soon as she realizes that Cayn and you are, in fact, sentient. Lips sucked inward, she holds her head shamefully down and trudges closer to the pit herself, boots sinking into the sandy dirt. Neither of the two men are approached; she is here to do her own business, it seems.

Cayn see-saws out an indecisive 'ehh..' That in no way rules out the possibility. His shoulder makesa lazy half-shrug of its own, a blank space reserved for a more definite answer. "Only just got spat back out of it last week..." He muses almost to himself. Up comes the stick of
smouldering herbs for a harsh drag, filling his lungs. On the exhale, laced in smoke, he finishes, "We'll see, I guess." When that annoying shrill comes along, Mudd first looks directly upwards, ready to blame a passing gull. But no, it's Ruqayya, and he realizes that just as she comes into view. "...Can't go nowhere without some skirt chasing after you, huh, Emory?" He tsks, annoyed. Because clearly, the appearance of strange girls is your fault, always. A smoker's rattle clears his pipes before he calls across to Ruqayya, "...You gonna try to fill it up with piss, kid? Maybe we can tag-team it -- must be a whole sea of mine down there by now."

Naos' attention is drawn towards the sound of the strangled cat - or Ruqayya if you want to be technical - even as Cayn poses the facts of life to him in the form of a question. His eyebrows make an intrigued climb up his forehead at the mention of a tag-team, and the slight tilt of his head might even suggest that Emory considers something related to just that for a moment, though a quick shake seems to send the idea tumbling from his mind. "Don't blame me for this one, ain't seen the unicorns in my life." He spits messily out through his teeth, vacating a thin stream of dark, inky liquid from his mouth as he looks Ruqayya up, then down. "Wouldn't kick her out of bed, though," he admits.

Ruqayya doesn't bother to pause her step at Cayn's crass invitation, a meager snort puffed out her nostrils. With the back of her hand, she swipes across the whole of her nose, face scrunched up like she were stifling a sneeze. Thank the gods, the sneeze doesn't go through. In a half-hearted mumble, she tells him, "Can't today. I left my cock at home so that nobody gets hit by me swinging it around." A flat look moves over you after his comment, following a blatant roll of her eyes and a mutter under her breath. She finds herself a spot away from the two men to squat on her ankles, skirt carefully wrapped about to keep herself decent. From here, she peers down into the darkness of the pit, tentatively taking a whiff to see if there truly -has- been progress turning it into a well of pee.

"I would," Cayn clips back to you without pausing to ogle Ruqayya or think about it. With a lift of his bristly chin, he sneers, "And I'd tell her and all my other tiny little grandkids to shut the
unicorns up or else eat bardiche." There's a half-hearted attempt to send a scattering of ash down into the pit to float in the urine well, but the whole lot just plops straight onto the foul-mouthed old unicorns's boot. He doesn't bother to shake it off. There's a grunt of something suspiciously close to amusement when Ruqayya explains the whereabouts of her detachable cock, and Mudd slyly side-eyes you as he suggests, "Maybe you oughta try that sometime." Menage a trois is supposed to be at home anyways, it's in the name! The brute shifts a bit, rearranging his legs so he can straighten one out and wriggle the pins-and-needles away, all while being nosy at Ruqayya some more. "Hey how old're you? Twelve-ish, right?"

'Grandkids?' Emory mouths, looking back to Cayn. "Cai been shittin' out little ones?" He blurts out. He looks.. A little dejected. "Don't get me wrong, she looked like she /unicorns/, no doubt about, but I wouldn't have minded gettin' in there before unicorns got all turned inside out." Naos chucks another stone over the edge, obviously lamenting his unfortunate timing. He looks back to Ruqayya even as he's fumbling blindly for anymore stones that might be near to hand. "You a funny little gash, hey?"

Peering about where she's half-sat, Ruqayya makes a scrutinizing perusal of the dirt before she deems it to her satisfaction. Without further ado, a teeter backwards sends her behind plopping down nice and comfy on the cushion of sandy earth. "Nuh," she answers Cayn without looking his way. Her boots accidentally erode the edge of the pit as her legs straighten, tattered skirt just barely doing its job. Not like there's much to see there, anyway. She isn't a leggy sort. "I'm actually in my eighties but blame it on the magic of grub masks," she follows up all matter-of-factly at Cayn, pronounced with a healthy peppering of sarcasm. You receives a wry little 'hah' as she goes, "And you think -you- are. That's just.." Head shaking. "Marvelous." Something makes her shiver for a moment, her study interrupted by a hasty rub up and down her arms. She squints upwards as though to the wind.

Ruqayya just thought:
Ruqayya blames the weird noises on the wind. Because. That's what it usually is. Unless it's wailing spirits or grieving prisoners or whatever other lovely inhabitants Bloodloch has.

Where many fathers might take great umbrage about their belovid daughters being spoken of in such an undignified manner, Cayn... Doesn't give a unicorns. He just twiddles his cigarette and foists an uncaring, "Dunno," onto you where he's sat nearby. "But I didn't even know about Cai until she showed up in 'loch. So, who knows? I figure, amount of whoring I did, I've probably got at least thirty grandkids out there in the wide world." A liberal application of his glacial gaze weighs you up for a second before he decides, "And *you've* probably got at least a hundred." Whatever it is in the weather that sets Ruqayya ashiver gets him too, a light shudder that makes him shake his free arm out like a hind leg after doing the business he mentioned earlier: peeing. After that, he's content to just sit back and watch you and the girl sass one another while he finishes his cigarette. Just a merry trio of assholes crowded round Sapience's deep dark unicorns. What a pretty picture.

Naos' been drawn back to the fascination of the hole at this point, his level of attention to the conversation plummeting as soon as mention of Cai leaves the picture. He shuffles another inch forward, then another, still crouched low on his toes, until he's balanced a half-step from the edge of his own stony lifeline. He spits again, this time managing to get some serious distance at the expense of some of the black spittle dribbling down his chin and neck. Not too fussed, he drags an already grimy sleeve across the offending bodily fluid, watching his inky expulsion fall slowly into nothingness.

Ruqayya is quite content to keep to herself as the limelight falls back to the least likely thing to ever be lit up: the assho-- ahem, the pit. As Cayn continues to duke it out on you and the latter puh-tooeys his responses back, she gets right back into her original purpose. Legs folding in, she scoots a little closer to the edge of the pit just before the soil starts to give way. No regard is given to any manicure she'd been sporting - and she'd been sporting none - as she digs her digits into the earth. Perhaps the most stereotypical thing for a Mhun to be doing anywhere, ever.

Well, who can blame anybody for tuning out when sour old bastards start talking about - bass drum -CONSEQUENCES. At least Cayn's prattle about his glory days doesn't last long. And neither did the glory days. C'est la vie, amirite? Since the entertainment just dried up with the two neighbouring smartmouths mutually shutting up, Mudd settles for watching you make some yuck happen in the form of spit. "Nice," he approves as that glob goes soaring. The stub of his cigarette chases after it, flicked off into the abyss. Anyone paying close enough attention would mark the way he's eying your shoulder, slithering all over the younger guy in unconscious calculation. So close at hand... How precarious a perch... It wouldn't take much... He shivers again and this time not from the breeze.

Then Cayn starts shoving up onto his boots with a sigh. There's the clinking of his belt buckle, some careless tugging at laces, and then tinkle-sprinkle. While the stream is strong, it actually does make it into the pit. The rest just ends up getting blown across his left shin by the coastal winds -- and in your direction, whoops. Oblivious, Mudd squints across at Ruqayya while he empties his bladder, but doesn't pipe up to ask wtf she's doing over there.

"Oh unicorns the unicorns off." Emory moves like quicksilver, or maybe just a man getting urinated on by another man, and comes surging to his feet. He plays the most dangerous game of hop-scotch he's ever played, hopping one sturdy looking stone away from Cayn, then another, finally moving out of range enough to avoid most, if not all, of the wind-borne stream. Naos' trusty sleeve comes to the rescue yet again as he roughly scrubs at his face with the back of an arm. The wetness, mixed with the dirt and grime he wears indifferently across his face, manages to make a faint, muddy streak across his features. "Prick," mutters under his breath. His glare of accusation isn't the only emotion he wears though, as it wars with a even mixture of curiosity, then appreciation, as he catches sight of Cayn's endowment. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

"I'm leavin'," Naos finally decides. He doesn't sound too torn up about getting peed on. He's probably worn worse. He turns away from the pit, planning his route back towards solid, not-sandy ground.

Be it the sound of tinkling or the glitter of light through the yellow stream, something draws the Mhun's attention back up. We can all give thanks that they are not on opposite ends of the pit, for that would be such a scarring sight. Rather, Ruqayya catches the quarter angle view, and once again her dark eyes dull into a 'kill me now' sort of stare. Chapped lips press into a fine line before a very dead-inside smile at the urinating man and the plight he gives to his acquaintance. But unlike you, she does not check out his equipment. "I hear that's one word for it in the common tongue," she dourly quips after you calls it out. Prick. That is what it is. Still with an arm half-sunk into the soil, she looks it over like it had suddenly grown foul. Not knowing what to do with herself for a moment, she just grabs a handful of that dirt and smells it because gods forbid if Cayn might've sprinkled some on the topsoil, too.

Yes, unlike Ruqayya, Mudd didn't leave his cock at home today. This prick's prick resides within thecoarse wilderness of overgrown black hair downstairs, doing what it does, and shameless in it. "Mm?" Cayn prompts as he transfers his attention from Ruqayya to you to discover the source of his bitching. Oh. He coughs, like he just swallowed his cigarette instead of casting it away. But it was just a cough, of course, and that's not a smile underneath his beard. Once recovered enough, half in the act of stuffing his bits and pieces away again, he rasps out an in no way believably innocent, "Bye-bye, *Ser*..." And he slings a salute to your departing back. With his gloved hand. Not anything else. Promise. As for poor Ruqayya's patch of dirt, who's to say if it's been watered today or any other day? Mudd's urine may have been spread as far and wide as his seed, after all.

It takes Naos two stepping stones out from his previous perch before he's walking comfortably once more across the sand. "Later, Mudd." He doesn't look towards Cayn at all, he doesn't need to, he's already seen more than he's paid for. What a win. "Enjoy your cry and wank." For Ruqayya he tosses a grin, a jerk of his head, and a lazy, "Later dirt-girl." You know, because she's Mhun.