[EA5] Casual Shark Do Do Dooo Do

[Phroth Lissken]

Phroth has returned to the city fairly early, making sure to stop st a food stall slinging food on a stick. Having devoured his meal of several skewers, he took the time to wander the streets. His cloak was drawn about him, keeping himself obfuscated, but hiding someone of his stature was all but impossible.

[Meiyokashi]

On a nearby set of steps leading up to one of the many buildings a lone woman sat at the center. Arms crossed over her lap her hands linked as they rested in the air. Curly blonde hair dangling down around her shoulders over average street clothes. There was a familiarity to her that Phroth couldn't place but found it hard to ignore. Sitting there she stared up into the sky as if the off-color orange it currently was held answers he couldn't determine.

[Phroth Lissken]

The Karkarodon turned to fully look at tbe woman. He stood tall, observing the calm with how she regarded the sky. He often felt that he had that own look himself.

Screwing up his courage, the Seeker moved, making his way to where she sat.

[Meiyokashi]

For a minute it seemed like she didn't notice his presence, and then suddenly as if they were talking all this time she said, "I think it's just starting, getting ready to rain. I'm thinking a few weeks."

[Phroth Lissken]

"There's definitely something in the air." He noted the red sky, before looking back to her. "Storm, feels like. Maybe give some relief from all this dry heat." Phroth replied, without so much as missing a beat.

[Meiyokashi]

"Rain will be welcome. This planet is a long call away from Kakaris for certain," she looks up to him, a simple smile. Laying a hand out she pat the stair beside her, scooting over a little to make room for him despite the amount of space.

[Phroth Lissken]

"I haven't been on Karkaris in.. a long time. A long time." He was almost wistful as he said it, before noting her gesture, and the movement. He paused, contemplating, before taking the seat. It was a tight fit, and he tried to not intrude too much.

"It's like a dream, really, when I think abour Karkaris. I wouldn't even call it home."

[Meiyokashi]

"That's a good way to think about it.." she smiles, looking back up toward the early afternoon sky. There were few birds that made their home within the city limits, but a couple of those few passed overhead in the moment. "I have a few places like that. Dreams."

"So, where is home for you now?"

[Phroth Lissken]

"Don't have one. Not really, anyway." It was the first time he said it out loud, and it made sense. "At least, no system I call home. I go where I'm needed, never really putting down roots anywhere. I suppose the closest thing to anything feeling like home is when I'm around beings I care about." His amber eyes were still focused upwards, watching the birds.

"For now, home is here, on Bellionas, but when the time comes, I'll move on to where I'm needed."

[Meiyokashi]

The woman laughs, it's brief and she cuts it short, "It's funny to think about. How similar we are, considering how we're complete strangers," she continues to watch was the birds circle one another in the air high above them. Soaring over toward a perch where they rested together.

"Just two beings going where we're needed in the galaxy. Sharing a stoop of some building here on a planet which is so hostile it would be rated as a rather poor destination for tourists but actually receives fairly good ratings because that's what the Empire wants."

[Phroth Lissken]

"It has its charms." He didn't comment on the Empire's desires. "Honest, hard working folk trying to get by. Salt of the world types." He nodded; smiling at her laugh. "I think you'd find that maybe a lot of people share that in common. We just happened to meet, as the galaxy and time moves like a stream." He kept his voice low, relaxed.

"No beaches, though. At least, nothing where you could lay out, or really go for a swim. Seems good for hiking, though. And long rides on a speeder bike."

[Meiyokashi]

"Just be sure you don't forget a weapon packed into your kit before you set foot out there. Not frequent I hear but.. when people are attacked by the local fauna they don't tend to come back. Creatures distantly related to Rancor, some believe, and ambush predators with venom that'll stop the former in its tracks," she brings her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them and wrapping her arms around.

"A stream.." she wonders on that for a moment. "I've learned most things happen for a reason. Maybe it's like a stream sometimes, but- often it's someone else's design I think. Though I often wonder if there's a difference between the two, and does it matter if there is?"

[Phroth Lissken]

"Really now." He made a mental note. "I've been something of a big game hunter, something like that sounds right up my alley." He grinned at the thought. His head tilted, looking to her as she seemed to curl up upon herself.

"I don't know about that. Not that someone has some grand design and is accounting for every thing. But..." he pondered, mulling over her words.

"The difference would be if one is trusting their instincrs, letting go and just being in the moment, or not having any control at all, because they're being moved."

[Meiyokashi]

"You would find plenty large beasts here to risk your life against. Some that might even claim you," she looks to him alongside her knee, there's a calmness to her that is powerful enough to be infectious. "I wonder.." she says, looking back toward the sky, those birds still perched there.

"You are a hunter, so you would understand. When you hunt something you learn about them, everything you can, and then prey upon those instincts to use all you have learned to bring them down. There are many in the galaxy who go on believing that they're trusting in their instincts, letting go and being in the moment, and to them it looks like freedom. But in another's eyes they are watching the beast follow the scent of blood into a trap."

[Phroth Lissken]

"All depends, I guess. Beings aren't entirely like creatures, though. Trusting in instincts, sure, but they aren't enslaved to impulse." He leaned back on the stoop, webbed hands bracing him as he looked to his companion. His head tilted again, offering a smile. Far too many teeth to truly be comforting.

"Are you here hunting, then?"

[Meiyokashi]

"Not all creatures are enslaved to their impulses either.." she smiles, looking to him with an air of feeling like she caught him a word-trap of her own. "But you would know that, wouldn't you? Most big game hunters I have interacted with in the past claim that hunting those creatures which are not entirely enslaved to impulse is the real challenge, the real danger in the bigger game."

That smile naturally lessens in her expression as she looks back up, the birds having taken off and now out of sight, "Not currently. I abhor sweating needlessly and this planet is too dry to waste it."

[Phroth Lissken]

"Very true. It's a test, one will stand, and one will fall. Something just as cunning, if not even more so. That yearns to live hust like any one else." He nodded, breathing out slowly.

"You're right on the too dry part. Seems I'm downing liters of water every day just to not feel like my scales aren't gonna flake off. Hopefully the rains will be here sooner, rather than later. Maybe make every one feel less on edge."

[Meiyokashi]

"I doubt it," she says, reaching a hand up into the air as if she were reaching to catch raindrops. "I feel that rain will come but there is a tension in the air which is not so easily washed away, and it only grows thicker with each passing day," her fingers curl into her hand and she lowers it back to her lap.

Setting her feet down on the step below she opens the space in front of her, laying out that same hand in the space her knees once rested and looking up to him, "Would you give me your hand?"

[Phroth Lissken]

He watched her, sitting up as she adjusted. Looking down to her hand, then her face. It didn't take long. Fingers splayed out, the webbing between them extended as he put his hand into hers, as she asked.

"Sure." He spoke softly, then remembered himself. "I'm Phroth."

[Meiyokashi]

"Phroth," she repeats, a smile creeping up. Bringing her other hand over his she lays out two fingers and begins tracing the lines along the palm with gentle strokes. As one line ends she would find another, and follow the path of it along his hand, "Interesting."

"Born a hunter, chosen a hunter, your life follows a path that keeps you firmly trapped between two places. Between something you aspire to be because others told you it was what you needed, and your truth.. the truth you always return to when you are uncertain of what path to take. The one that comes alive on a hunt as you stalk your prey."