trans_9 | We Are Here to Do What We're Supposed to Do [open]

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We Are Here to Do What We're Supposed to Do [open]

In Hydroponics, there are various animals. Big ones, little ones, toothy ones, toothless ones. And as Nehaalista combed across the various paths carved through the artificial wood, she could pick out one or two creatures that were familiar to her. The ravagers clicked together on their insect legs, and a small herd of elekk, only three or four of the elephant-like creatures.

She paused to watch their progress, scritching the top of her white cat's head, when one of them in particular caught her eye. While it was missing the usual purple armor that her mount was known for (because Light forbid she ride that Light-given Horse that came with her abilities), Nehaalista was sure it was hers. It still had that old, green ribbon attached to one of its horns!

Hoping for the best, and preparing to be let down in case the creature wasn't hers, Nehaalista put her fingers to her lips and whistled sharply. The elekk lifted its head and looked around for the source of the call, trumpeting in reply. Nehaalista whistled again, and the elekk came rumbling toward her.

Ten minutes later, Nehaalista was riding on the elekk, stretched out on the wide back as it lumbered about hydroponics, her cat comfortably riding on its knobby head.

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Uh, question.

Did elekks step around relatively large books that were scowlingly supervising a minion gathering something that appeared to be fruit off a nearby plant?

Or over them?

Or possibly on them?

It's not a hypothetical...

No. No, they did not. In fact, Nehaalista's elekk stepped right on Zetta, twice, as they passed the minion. The elekk's stubby tail swished as they continued to progress down the path the creature had picked.

What the-!?

There was a startled moment of profanity that cut off before it really started as the book was rammed face(front) first into the ground. It was a minor speed bump at best.

Scattering fruit everywhere in her haste, the minion hurried over to scoop the Overlord up into her arms effortlessly -- though her expression never changed from a faint smile and businesslike calm.

Thus hauled up? The book was furious.

"YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?! GET BACK HERE! I'LL SHOVE THAT TRUNK SO FAR DOWN YOUR THROAT YOU'LL BE SQUATTING TO PICK UP PEANUTS!"

There were lots of things a Death Knight often didn't get along with. One of them happened to be animals -- being as unnatural as she was, most of them never received her presence well.

It was for this reason Seviilia kept to the treetops, hidden in their canopies as she observed from afar. It wasn't hard to see her -- the glow of her armor, weapon, and eyes gave her away long before anything else. Still, most of the animals seemed to be able to ignore her when she wasn't in immediate view.

She had honed in on the more familiar creatures and was rather unsurprised to find Nehaa mingling amongst the elekk. Instead of ruining the moment utterly, she decided to be a quiet observer until something spotted her from her perch.

Nehaalista sat up, and looked around for the source of the shouting. If they'd run somebody over, she'd know. An elekk foot on a person tended to be more crying and shouting to the Light than threats.

Glancing behind them, she sees a woman and a book. The woman looks suspiciously calm, and well, books don't talk. She tilts her head at them both, though.

This book? Totally talking. Admittedly, this book had a face -- in fact a lot of it was face, and given its size that made for comparatively high expressive area.

It was also shouting very, very loudly, as the girl carried it after the elekk at a brisk walking pace.

"I WILL TIE YOUR TAIL TO YOUR EARS AND ROLL YOU LIKE A HOOPSNAKE! GET BACK HERE!"

Nehaalista sat up and leaned forward on the elekk dangerously, scratching behind the horns of the large creature and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The elekk turned from the herd and started going off on it's own again, towards the shade. She'd wanted to get off, and it was much, much harder to do that when one wasn't in a saddle.

A ravager skittered past the trio, clicking and hissing as it went off to dig. Vaguely, she wondered if Stacy would miss one if she wanted a ravager dog.

She'd like to see that. Sliding forward to the elekk's shoulders, Nehaalista clicked and tugged on the creature's horns, turning him around to face the woman and the apparently talking book.

She pulled out her omnicomm from a side bag and typed out a message (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_channel/234249.html) before raising her eyebrows at the... shouter.

One of those ravager was about to have a quick end, as Humar leaped out of the shadows of the tree and ripped into its exoskeleton.

The ravager screeched and was silenced, but more importantly, it woke Nehaalista up out of whatever little reverie she'd found herself in. She sat up, half panicked and looked around for the source of the ---

Oh. Just nature at work. Carry on then. Nehaalista's white, half-grown cat hissed at Humar from the top of the elekk's head, comically spitting at the much bigger cat and puffing itself up to appear bigger.

The black lion roared back in a show of dominance. No kitten was going to cow the Pridelord.

Speaking of cows, Cowabunga eventually followed Humar out of the trees. "Ah, sorry if we freaked you out. Was trying to keep Humar out of the way of people, but he got away from me a bit.."

The kitten's ears flattened against its head and it spat again, before leaping from the elekk's head to Nehaalista. Almost as if to say, I HAVE BACK UP.

Nehaalista nodded at Cowabunga and lifted her hand in greeting. She squeezed the elekk's sides with her legs to get her to stop. As for the kitten, it watched Human from Nehaalista's shoulder, it's small head peeking out from between her curls.

Over at a nearby bush, Jamie is in the process of trying to figure out what the fruit on the low growing plant is. It looks for all the world like turnips to him, only they're yellowish-green and actually on the bush as opposing to growing like proper turnips, in the ground. He's plucked one and is studying it curiously when the noise of a moving animal draws his attention.

Not being familiar with Elekks, he stares at it for a moment before it occurs to him that he should maybe get out of the way before he gets run over. He darts off to the side, kilt flaring out for a moment with the movement, then turns back to watch. You can't really blame him - he's never seen anyone riding such a creature before, and he hasn't gotten a close look at the Draenei until now. It might come across as a bit rude, though.

Nehaalista sat up and clicked her tongue to the elekk, finally forcing it to a stop. It was much harder to do without the reins and not in the saddle. Still, her cat did not seem to mind as they came to a halt. Nehaalista tapped on its horns until it turned back around and started at a much more sensible, slower speed.

It was about then she noticed the human, gaping at a distance next to one of the strange plants. Nehaalista lifted her hand in greeting and waved. The elekk trumpeted.

He doesn't quite startle at the trumpeting, as he's used to things that make loud noises (mostly, himself). It was still unexpected enough, though, that it shows on his face briefly.

"Hello," he replies, lifting his hand to wave in return, not realizing it's the one with the chartreuse turnip in it until it's actually up where Nehaalista can see it. She might also see the grimace that accompanies in once he figures this out, before he switches hands and waves properly.

For a moment, it seems that he's about to let them pass by on their way, but curiosity gets the better of him. Closing some of the distance so he doesn't have to yell, he asks innocently, "Hey, what kind of beastie is that?"

Nehaalista looks down and blinks those lit, pupilless eyes of hers. Beastie? His accent reminds her briefly of the Ironforge dwarves, and she smiles. She clicks her tongue again and pats the elekk's neck before its long trunk wrapped itself securely around her hoof. There was a bit of balancing involved before Nehaalista was firmly on the ground again.

First things first, as soon as her relaxation was done here (which possibly meant tearing around the hydroponics again on the speedy elekk), she was finding her mount's armor. It never ceased to amuse her just how small humans were and she smiles down at Jamie before holding out her hand and pointing at his.

The girl came to a halt not terribly far from the elekk, setting the book down as it regarded the large beast. "Step on me, will you?" Zetta growled at the beast. Thus far he had completely failed to notice the woman on top. "Hyaaa ha ha ha ha! At least you see you can't run from the doom your actions have brought you! For your audacity, I'll grant you a last wish. Would you like to be grilled? Or rendered as lard?"

Choline had been trying to figure out how to tend a few plants in the shade of a big, weird-looking tree. Some haphazard tiger lilies and a couple bushes of lichbloom and icethorn were growing around. She'd actually found a seed-pouch when she'd found her belt and daggers.

Over the past few weeks she'd been out here, scraping at the dirt, using her dagger as a trowel and pruning tool, too proud to seek out those who worked at the Forge or who might have tools on-hand.

She was up to her elbows in turned-over dirt when she saw the elekks.

And Nehaalista riding one.

"Hey, neat," Choline called out. "Any more of 'em?"

She'd kept two back home. Bubbles the War Elekk and a little pygmy-type thing who'd never grow up named Peanut.

Well, the answers she'd gotten from the omnicom had proved both useful and irritating, and Nehaalista's elekk swung its trunk back and forth. It picked up Zetta for Nehaalista's perusal.

The draenei sat and glanced over the angry book. [Who? What?] she signed.

Nehaaslita shook her head as she clicked her tongue and tapped the elekk's horns to move it towards Choline. There was a flash of light from beneath the paladin and her mount, and suddenly, the elekk was moving a whole lot quicker than before. She stopped before the night elf and shook her head.

The elekk, however, helped itself to some of bark on the strange tree.

"Aw, I was hoping little Peanut would show up," she said, raising a hand toward the elekk and being rewarded with a trunk to the face.

"But this one's yours? Does he have a name?"

Seviilia watched the ravager skitter by, idly wondering if she'd be able to kill it from her perch. She decided against it as she heard the approach of the elekk.

Softly, the elf's eyes narrowed, fingers tapping against the bark. There would be no way they wouldn't see her once they got under the leaves. And if they didn't see her, they'd certainly feel the temperature drop.

Once Nehaalista's dismounted, Jamie is finally able to get a good look at her. He's struck by how tall she is - he'd have to guess that she's nearly of a height with Goliath. As he's not the tallest of men himself, he's used to having to crane his neck to talk to the gargoyle, so it's no bother to do the same with her.

"Say, ye don't talk much, do ye?" he comments. There's a rather odd sense of deja vu as he says the words, reminded of a long-dead friend who was also quite quiet. Jamie wound up talking rather more to make up for it, and he automatically winds up doing it again. "Aye, well, that's all right. I had a friend once who couldn't talk at all. His name was Kemel. He's gone now, but he was a good man."

When she points at his hand, he glances down at it for a moment, then looks back at hers, trying to figure out what she wants. While he was able to do this with Kemel in the past, it did take a bit of work before they could communicate. It might take him a while to get it right, and he hopes she doesn't mind too much. "Do ye want me to take your hand, then?"

Edited 2010-09-20 04:32 (UTC)

"What the hell....?!"

Sheer shocked outrage prevented Zetta from managing to do more than quiveringly question this turn of events. (For her part, the minion cheerfully released the book to the elekk without the slightest protest.)

Then, the Overlord took, like, two seconds to actually look at what was directly in front of him. "Oh, a rider. You must be the one responsible. I assume you've brought me up here to apologize for the whole, I don't know, STEPPING ON ME THING?!"

Man, that book can do an angry face. Really, really angry. "What the hell was that all about?! Were you not watching the ground, or declaring war against me?!"

Nehaalista touched the old green ribbon on one of the elekk's tall horns, and pointed to herself. But then shook her head. There was no point in naming something that belonged to her. Who would know? It wasn't as though she'd call it out.

Much like her cat did not have a name.

The elekk's trunk momentarily went searching for the herbs it could smell on and around Choline.

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