Title: Like Chickens in a Coop
Time Period: January 7, 135 A.E.
Characters Appearing:Summary: The girls hunt two things: chickens and gossip.
Good to her word, Luna managed to cajole enough girls from the brothel to help set the farm to rights. It was the promise of a good chicken dinner and enough root vegetables to keep their bellies full for a week that did it. Not one for hard labor herself, the blonde along with the aid of her best friend, opted to go scouring for stray fowl. Armed with only a broom and an apron of grain between the two of them, they go poking around in the scrub.
"This is why people shouldn't be allowed to run around as animals… it's different if it's natural. Like you or my great gran, you're natural. But skinnin' something and then parading around in dress up, that's just right rude it is." Luna is somewhat insensed that she's had to help at all. In her mind, she would have been sitting back with a hot cup of tea and supervising the working force. "And all this, completely unnecessary. Just goes to prove that he either don't give a fig about what he runs through or he don't have his sense about him when he's got that fur on."
Mariah has taken up the broom, and the job of shaking out whatever fowl might be hiding in brushes and the like. Her skirts are tied up high enough to show bared knees over the top of her boots, but better for climbing around the in wilderness. "I don't disagree," she says, her tone sounding more tired than amused as she normally is during their gossip sessions. Maybe she's been working too hard. "It always struck me as an odd bit of magic."
The handle of the broom shakes a bush, but all that runs out are a pair of bunnies, and they dash away as Mariah straightens up. "Or maybe that he's as hot headed as any man when they get riled. Just a little more frightening with the teeth, you know. And the claws. Is she sure she had chickens?" A hand goes to her hip there and she casts a look about the area, like they might just pop up somewhere.
"Oh, yes, they definitely have chickens, I ki— saw them run. Right this way!" Leading the other woman a little further into the heath, Luna's march is a little slower. She doesn't fancy allowing her legs to be bared, at least in the cold winter months, thus she battles bits of bramble as they cling to her the way a tantruming child would to its mother. With a grunt, she rips her skirt away, tearing a bit of lace away from the cloth. "He should be made to pay retribution… starting with my dress."
Letting off a huff, she dips her hand into her apron and scatters a bit of grain along the ground behind them. Perhaps on the way back they'll find some of the stray poultry pecking at it. "Anyhow, I don't agree with this entire skin-walking business. It's offensive. As a descendant of a selkie, I find it highly disturbing that someone could be walking about in my grandmother's pelt pretending to be her."
Mariah watches Luna struggle through the plants, but she's patient about it, waiting for her to get free and continue the lead. Maybe a little too patient. "I hear that he's a man of honor. The militia seem to like him." She would know, after all, how a good portion of the militia feel about things. "I'm sure he'll try to make it right. Perhaps he'll stat with your dress. Just don't distract the tailor with your lace until he's done fixing my jacket." If it can be fixed at all, which he was a little iffy on.
"I dare say the bear isn't too happy about it, either," she says in wry humor. "Lucky he's not got your grandmother's skin, then. That could get a little awkward."
Wrinkling her nose at the other woman, Luna can't help but laugh a little. "Could you imagine Jorn Bucktooth in my great gran's pelt? A good thing about it would be that he wouldn't be able to do this much damage, aye? Kill more than his fair share of fish… but really…" She drifts off.
"Oh! Chicken!" The cry comes out as the blonde bolts for a low scrub, driving out a few fowl. "And eggs! She had a whole next in here, we could have scotch eggs for breakfast if we could wrangle some sausage from the butcher." Busily, she begins collecting the large speckled things from the mess of weeds. "Speaking of the butcher… have you seen Baizey since the other day? I want to apologize but— you know."
"I think the fish would see it differently, ey?" Mariah doesn't laugh herself, but there is a little, crooked smile. When the chicken dart out, Mariah drops the broom to go chasing after them. There are a couple of misses, but her hands scoop one up off the ground before long. She coos to the little creature for a moment, trying to calm it down some before she carries it back over where Luna is collecting eggs. "I don't think we came at this quite right. How're we to catch them all?"
Still, she hangs onto the one she got as she turns back to her friend with a lift of her eyebrows. "I haven't. I hope he's alright. I'm sure an apology would be… appreciated." Her own pending apology makes her frown there, but she turns away before her falling expression can get too noticeable.
"I suppose we'll be taking great pains, are there other ways to catch them?" Luna gets up off the ground as soon as the task is done. Using one hand to hold the eggs gingerly inside of her apron, the other brushes at the bits of snow and leaves stuck to the fabric over her knees. "Take them back one at a time, I suppose… Think we should have brought a pillow sack?"
Turning back toward the farmhouse, she glances over her shoulder to make a mental note of where they are. "What do you mean, hope he's alright. Why wouldn't he be?" The snow crunches under her flat boots as she tromps through it. "S'not like anything I'd say would affect him. Like water off a ducks back, he don't pay no mind to what I say or do."
"That probably would have been a smart idea, a pillow sack or two. As for other ways to catch them, don't ask me, I'm no farmer." Mariah looks over the little gaggle, and she frowns a bit before she looks back to Luna. "Put down some of that feed. I'll give you this one before I grab another. Don't let it get loose. We'll take two back and come back again."
Mariah lifts her brows again at the question, though, and she tilts her head a little. "I told you, he had needed rest. You don't see someone that dragged out exhausted without being a little concerned." She comes over to pass the bird over, giving her a gentle smile. "Doesn't matter if it effects him, it's the right thing to do."
"Piffle, men drag themselves out of your room in worse condition than that every night. How'm I supposed to know if that weren't the reason for him being there?" The blonde prostitute scatters a little more of the feed around their feet before Mariah approaches. "What? No! I can't ca— aaaaaahhh— I can't carry a chicken! I've never done it before! I'm a courtesan and the daughter of a merchant, I don't know anything about farm beasts except they're good for eating!!" Her nerves might be the thing that puts the fowl in a foul mood.
It catches in the long shawl Luna wears, binding itself up in a ruckus of cackles and crows. The blonde seems fairly impressed and gently nudges the lump of ruined yarn and feathers. "Or we could make nets of our clothing… By the by, how is your favorite client? Cas~"
"Not my fault if they can't keep up." Mariah laughs a bit at her protests, though, and she puts her hands on her shoulders. "I'm a courtesan and the daughter of a merchant, too. You'll live. And calm down before it pecks you." She's teases, a broader smile coming to her face there.
But it's shortlived as she brings up Cas, and Mariah straightens up a bit, as if suddenly uncomfortable. "We're not talking about Cas." And that seems to be her entire comment on the situation, because she turns to start after another of those chickens.
"Oh no, Mariah, what did he do?" Obviously, according to Luna, it has to be someone else's fault. Always. But her friend is already off for another chicken and rather than scaring them off, the blonde doesn't yell after her.
By the time she gets back, the subject of Cas is already forgotten.
"Speaking of clients," she starts again, tilting her head only slightly to give Mariah a coy look out of the corner of her eye, "I might have a new one. You remember that Mister Fogg I pointed out at the dance? The surly looking bloke with the hat and moustache? He'll be visiting me next time he comes to the Dovetail… He's so— English, isn't he? Very stern and stiff, perhaps a few romps with me will loosen him up a might, aye?"
"He didn't do anything," Mariah calls back, because she wouldn't want it to settle in her friend's mind that it was his fault. But her focus turns to the birds, and while this one turns out to be a little harder to catch, she manages, even if she comes back over a bit mussed.
"Mister Fogg? Oh, yes. I remember him quite clearly," she says with a nod. "If anyone can loosen him up a bit, it's you, Luna," there's a chuckle there, wry, like she's not sure the man actually can get loosened up. "Or it'll at least be fun to try it!"
"Well I know for certain that he don't like herbs, I made that mistake once already." Twice or three times might be more accurate. "He does like his drink though, he shared a sip or two of the fairy with me the first night I met him." And she stayed in his tent, without him.
Shaking her head a little and blowing upward from the corner of her mouth, Luna's attempt to rid her forehead of stray hair is a failure. So she blinks and twitches her head to the side to coax the tendrils over an inch or two. "The party for the new year was quite good… the beginning anyway. I didn't have so much of a good time toward the end, how about you? Did you dance with anyone interesting? You were out on the floor a bit too much to gossip with."
"Well, they you know wish to have in your room when he comes by," Mariah says with a half-smile, "In my experience, men forget a few first missteps if the company is good."
"It was good, I danced as often as I could manage it. Sorry about that." There's a pause for a moment, like she can't think of anything gossipy that happened. But, something hits her after a moment and she turns to Luna with an odd look, "You know. Jain tried to pay me to spill wine of Aislinn's dress at that party. I told him no, but that's a bit odd, don't you think?"
"Do you think he fancies her? A married woman! And quite happily at that, I don't ever hear of problems between her and her Edmund." Luna's smile is actually genuine when she speaks about the other woman, something that doesn't happen so often when gossiping. "But as you don't wish to talk of Cas, I don't want to talk of the brutes of the militia… Save one— maybe two. But not him."
When they finally reach the yard, Luna makes straight for the chicken coop. Its wire recently restrung makes a good rest for the tangled creature under her arm. It's dropped without much ceremony. Perhaps because it's dinner. "I didn't see Constance there, do you think she was embarrassed by my dance because she's too plain? Baizey said that the ugly girls were turning away in shame because they knew they couldn't compare to me."
"Perhaps. Odd way of showing it, although I suppose that is appropriate for him." Mariah looks over at her, her smile a bit apologetic. "Things are just sort of… complicated with Cas at the moment." Whatever the complications, she seems down about it.
She follows to the coop as well, to drop her own burden in. "I didn't see Constance, no. We don't exactly travel in the same social circles. And I was more interested in the men, you know." She does give a chuckle at the report about what Beisdean said, "I'm sure he was right. Even if you torture yourself with him more than a little."
"I do not! I don't even think about Baizey Skye!" Luna's yell sends the recaptured chickens into something of a tizzy, racing around their pen, cackling. It takes a few minutes before they finally die down again. The same with their conversation. With a small sniff, the blonde prostitute marches back toward the baskets that they'd brought with them. The eggs are unloaded with great care. Since they weren't found on the farmer's property, Luna considers herself their owner, even if it was his chicken that laid them.
"Come on, Mariah, the ones that are left out there are ours for the taking. If we can catch them." It's not their usual method, but the girls of the Dovetail will dine well for the next few days.
