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Date Posted: 01:06:00 11/26/01 Mon
Author: Tristan
Subject: No more word games
In reply to: Barry 's message, "Ya wanna know the chant on ol' Barry, eh?" on 14:23:46 11/25/01 Sun

Tristan was liking Isobel less and less. Of course…well, he hadn’t really liked her in the first place, but that was really beside the point. She used strange words he didn’t know, which rather ticked him off, since he didn’t like feeling dumb. He wondered if the others knew what those words meant. He thought she must be asking Rowan for a favor, though she pronounced her syllables horribly wrong, and referred to a man scarcely five years older than she, if that, as a senior. He snorted. Looked like they picked up another one with a few screws loose. She could keep Corum company, then he wouldn’t want to hang around Marz so much and make him do stupid things.

Which maybe would have been a reason to like her if it weren’t for one thing. Sure, she was trying to put everybody off with those fiery glares of hers, but it didn’t seem to be working. He silently applauded her efforts, because a good hard glare was a difficult thing to master, and she had it down pat. Yet the other men, particular Marz seemed to find her haughtiness all the more alluring.

He never looks that ecstatic when I glare at him, he thought with a frown. The expression deepened when Marz pulled his leg away and gave him a funny look before actually pulling his chair closer to Corum’s. Without sparing Tristan a further glance, he then focused his attention fully on Isobel and explained to her the details concerning the trip for the queen’s branches.

Tristan’s jaw almost literally fell open. So the selfish little jerk wanted to show the new girl he was still on the market, huh? With a loud, angry scrape, Tristan moved his chair away even more, crossing his arms and legs like a stuffy young noble and tossing Marz a scalding glare to hide the hurt he was feeling. Well, that was just dandy. Let Mr. Ladies’ Man flirt his pretty ass off with the new girl if that’s what he wanted. Then let’s just see if he got any affection in private, let alone in public!

Through the haze of indignation surrounding him, he heard Isobel speak up, agreeing to join their group. He threw the woman a disgusted look, letting her know that not all the men were happy to have her become one of the gang. True, he did have a strange propensity to dislike all newcomers on principle, but he particularly despised young, beautiful, female newcomers who managed to capture and hold the attention of every male within a five mile radius with a mere bat of their pretty eyes and one intoxicating smell of their feminine aromas. (Well, maybe the others couldn’t smell her, but any dragon could. And, he had to admit, she smelled rather good, but no one had to know that. Besides, with Justin in the room, the scent of any other human was like smelling a garden of roses in comparison.)

Before he was able to really work himself up into a huff---and his huffs were usually pretty noticeable, seeing as the smoke would always start puffing angrily out of his nose in little gray clouds---something entered the room to distract him…and it sure as hell wasn’t the queen. He had to blink a couple of times to make sure he wasn’t seeing anything. Not the queen, not one of the zombies, not another stupid drop-dead gorgeous vixen crawling in from the desert, but a…skull. A flying skull, too.

He looked quickly at Yorik, almost as a reflex, and then felt immediately silly. Of course, Yorik was still where he was supposed to be. That meant this thing was an intruder. This time when Tristan’s hand pounced on the pommel of his as yet still sheathed sword, it stayed there. His eyebrows came together in annoyance when the thing immediately opened its mouth and blabbed out something about cutters and planes. More utter nonsense! Tristan scowled; he was really getting fed up with these lunatics who waltzed in here trying to astonish everybody with these little made up words of theirs.

Erlic, naturally, was the first to stand and address the…skull, and, after explaining about the Prime Material Plane, asked him---for the skull’s voice was clearly masculine, though devoid of intelligent speech and manner---what he was doing here.

He sighed when Corum jumped up and demanded an explanation from the skull concerning Yorik’s inability to speak. “If Yorik can't talk,” the cheeky skull countered, “why in the blazes were you babbling to it a minute ago?” Tristan couldn’t help it; a little snicker escaped him, though he didn’t like to see anyone picking on one of his friend’s like that. Yeah, Corum, tell us why you talk to that staff of yours like a real person, he thought, stifling another smile, but sadly the floating skull wasn’t finished blabbing its mouth off. It went on and on about cutters again, and dames and berks and holy molies, its toothy jaw just flapping up and down like a regular person’s. The more it talked, the more Tristan hated it, and by the time it got to the part about not having a body, he was one fairly pissed off dragon. It hadn’t helped his attitude any that Marz had scooted away from him to flirt with a foreign beauty, but hey, he had never been good at holding his temper---or his tongue---when he was angry.

“Enough’s enough,” he growled, uncrossing his arms and standing up with a predatory quickness. “Either you tell us what the hell you’re doing here,” he said more loudly, pointing a warning finger at the skull near the ceiling, “Or I’ll help ‘tumble you to the dark.’” He dropped his hand, but his other was still hovering over his sword. “Maybe,” he continued, his teeth grinding together, “You could start by talking more about that cleric of yours. The three of us,” he nodded to Marz and Corum, “Already killed all the lousy clerics in this gods forsaken city yesterday. So if you got anymore, I’d be more than happy to dispose of it for you.”

Tristan tapped a finger impatiently on the table, waiting for the skull’s answer, and ready to leap onto the table and split the thing in half with his sword if it tried anything funny. He realized he’d really jumped out of his element here, standing up alone and demanding something from a stranger, but maybe he was learning to be more assertive. Nevertheless, he could still feel a blush creeping into his cheeks, though maybe the others would think he was just becoming red with fury. His eyes were turning red anyway, the sparks of crimson flashing strangely within the somber black. He hoped Marz would at least back him up, else Tristan would really feel like a dork. The only reason he was probably so pissed off about this lousy skull was because Marz was flirting with that Isobel creature…so really, it was all his fault, anyway!

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