[Event] Scales of Light and Dark (Akeya/Leila Vergious)

Event Details:

Being a rather cautious creature by nature Akeya wasn't entirely sure whether visiting Clover Town for another festival was that smart an idea. She and Leila had one of their biggest fights there, one which at the time had the dragoness on pins and needles regarding how far it would escalate. While the goddess afterwards claimed that there had been no real danger the assassin couldn't easily shake those memories that she might have to use violence to take down her friend before she harmed the inhabitants of Clover Town and wreaked havoc on the city itself. Of course the main issue with that wouldn't have been that Akeya cared much on a personal level but that if Leila became known as a threat to the populace the rune knights would hunt her down, and given some of the entities that the government employed even a goddess wouldn't find that a pleasant experience.

However it appeared that Leila wanted to try again, and after much contemplation Akeya had decided that she didn't want to deny the goddess that request. Worries aside Clover Town was one of the better places to enjoy the human festivities, given that it was both prosperous yet rather remote so there was plenty of festival to enjoy without it being overly crowded. In comparison Crocus was a horrible place to be during a festival if you didn't like bumping into someone every three seconds.

Which was why the dragoness was now once again flying through the skies, veering towards where she could hear the sound of many people gathering to enjoy time spent together. Given that Clover Town was located on an island in the middle of a lake there wasn't really a lot of harvest involved, but tradition was tradition and they were going to celebrate the equinox either way. While it was a peaceful city the inhabitants could be rather stubborn about things like that.

WC: 321
TWC: 321/1,500

Sensing the familiar ocean of magic that was Leila's aura Akeya began her descent, moving down towards wherever the goddess had decided to locate herself in wait for the dragoness. Spotting her mate next to a bonfire she allowed herself to practically fall out of the sky, speeding down like a comet before disappearing in a burst of darkness and reappearing out of Leila's shadow without so much as disturbing the air flow. Of course she wasn't doing this to surprise Leila, who she doubted would be caught off guard that easily, but because even in her humanoid form her using her wings to slow down her fall would have resulted in a large gust of wind threatening to knock over the silver-haired woman and anyone else standing close enough.

Ignoring the startled looks she was thrown by some of the bystanders Akeya stepped forward untils he was standing right next to Leila, staring into the flames for a moment before turning to face her partner directly. "Hey. Were you waiting for long?" As she asked this she studied Leila's outfit. It was one more oriented towards being cute than being beautiful, with frills and loose-hanging cloth to help Leila look smaller and prettier. Akeya personally was more fond of clothing which helped emphasize one's impressive body such as form-fitting attires or simple flowing outfits (or just something which showed plenty of skin), but she had to admit that Leila pulled it off rather well.

"I see you've matched your clothing to the occasion." She tilted her head to the side as she studied Leila for several seconds longer before flashing a light smile. "It looks good on you." You were supposed to compliment your mate on stuff like that... right? Well, she was just being honest, so there was little harm in doing it. Of course Akeya herself had once again stuck to wearing what she always wore, showing a stunning lack of interest in fashion or dressing up. She could count the amount of times that she'd dressed to impress for a specific occasion on one claw, and those had been formal events where showing up with a top and a loincloth could get you into real trouble with the important people.

WC: 374
PWC: 695/1,500

Akeya ignored any stares she might receive from the onlookers, as she was currently focusing on Leila. There were a few people here who still remembered her from back when Blue Pegasus was still around, but that was only a minority of older folk. To most she was a dragon woman who showed up out of seemingly nowhere, although given that she showed no sign of hostility or even interest in them most of them eventually wandered off after the initial shock had faded away.

"Good." Letting people wait was something even Akeya could understand as rude. She herself wasn't fond of having to wait, although given her line of work she'd learned to cope. You couldn't have assassination as part of your profession without becoming used to waiting for long periods of time, because even with magic that controls both light and dark there were times where your best option was to wait for a weakness in the target's defences.

Given that she was paying close attention to Leila she picked up on a sensation coming from the silver-haired woman. It was minute, almost certainly not worth mentioning, but the dragoness kept it in the back of her mind if only because there wasn't currently anything which required her full attention. She could converse with Leila while memorizing things after all. Although her smile turned into a mild smirk as she saw that her mate was embarrassed by the compliment. "Just saying it like it is. And I suppose I could, but I've grown used to not bothering with the extravagance of clothing that humans often bother themselves with." And most of the other mortal races, although it also seemed to be a cultural thing... She knew of some remote places which probably would become popular very quickly if they were well-known and more easily accessibly by the outside world.

"But if you think I'm showing too much..." Snapping two taloned fingers the midnight blue scales that covered a good portion of her body rapidly multiplied, within seconds covering the dragoness in her entirety. Of course this also meant that her appearance now became distinctly less humanoid, especially since her eyes already were reptilian. "I don't have a change of clothes with me, but at least this way I'm not showing any of that skin people are fascinated by." The dark scales also made her fangs stand out more as she opened her mouth to speak.

"Now that I'm aware that you find it important for us to stick together I'll tell you if there's something I need to you. Hopefully it won't come to that." She genuinely had not realized last time that Leila would find it so hurtful for the isolationist dragoness to do her own thing. She still was a bit puzzled by it. "As for beating up little pests... technically I didn't do that last time either." The joker had challenged her to dunk him into the water, so she did. However the dragoness rolled her eyes. "But yes I'll leave them alone this time. Although you'll have to give me something to help take my mind off of it if they get on my nerves too much."

Planting a claw on her hip she looked around. "So, any suggestions of which part of the festival we'll be part of? There's games and puzzles and competitions so we've got plenty of choice. I'd say that we try our hand at some of the games but I'm guessing you wouldn't want to taunt fate any more than needed."

WC: 592
PWC: 1,287/1,500

The member 'Leila Vergious' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

---

'Monster Dice' :

The member 'Akeya' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

---

'Normal Dice' :

"I could possibly consider it for the next time that we spend time together, but I'd assume you don't want me to fly away to get a new outfit right now." Akeya replied rather dryly. "Since it would mean leaving you alone, which you just said you'd rather I didn't do given how that worked out last time." The dragoness cast her gaze to the side as she noticed that some of the onlookers had begun staring this time, and this time the amount of them which might have some measure of lust in their eyes was noticeably fewer... but still present. While for most humans skin was a turn off and scales were a turn off not everyone followed that line of reasoning.

"As long as I don't disappear and reappear suddenly it should be fine." As scary as she might look people tended to retain most of their composure if they were exposed to a scary creature for a while without anything bad happening. She watched as Leila surveyed the festivities, raising an eyebrow when she noticed that the goddess appeared to be attracted towards a cooking contest. While she wouldn't say it was out of character for the Silver Wolf mage it also wasn't something she'd experienced before from her mate. When Leila asked her if she was interested herself the dragoness shrugged.

"I know enough to keep myself healthy, but I'm not an expert. You can go and try, I'll watch." As mentioned before, an assassin (or any kind of predator, really) had to know patience. Akeya didn't mind waiting for Leila to try her hand at winning a cooking competition. While the goddess got herself busy with the contest Akeya found herself a spot where she could watch the proceedings, a bit away from the rest of the onlookers so they wouldn't make some kind of dramatic show out of giving her space. While her original guess that they'd calm down once they saw that there was no real danger still seemed accurate that didn't mean they were entirely comfortable in her presence.

She smirked slightly as she saw Leila blatantly abuse her magic to give herself an edge in the competition, although given that apparently she was up against a professional cook maybe she needed that edge to be on even footing. At the end of the competition when the food was judged Akeya listened with some curiosity to the whispers the judges shared amongst themselves, noting how apparently presentation and performance was included in the rating rather than just looking at the taste. When Leila won the competition the dragoness tilted her head, wondering what the mortals would do to congratulate their mate for an occasion such as this.

Eventually she settled for waiting until Leila had returned to her, then patting her on the head and resting that same clawed hand on the goddess's shoulder. "Good job. As for that... I wasn't bored, but if you wanted me to eat your meal I guess I might as well go and get it." She pointed towards where the eating contest would be held, unsurprisingly not far away from the cooking competition. The dragoness gave Leila a rather smug smirk before walking over the competition area and getting herself seated next to the other contestants... who clearly hadn't been expecting a dragoness to join in.

Once the competition begun Akeya's task was pretty straightforward: locating Leila's dish. While the other contestants were stuffing themselves as quickly as possible the dragoness first cast an inspective gaze over the table of dishes, then once she found the one prepared by her goddess she twiddled with two talons of one claw. The dish and the plat it was on sank into its own shadow, reappearing in front of Akeya, who after sniffing it began to devour it at a fairly rapid pace. While she wasn't acting so barbaric as to shovel it inside with her bare claws apparently she wasn't up for using cutlery, since she was using tendrils of darkness to lift the pieces and throw them into her gullet.

Of course given that this was a competition to see how much food one could eat she also had to eat things other than Leila's dish, resulting in the dragoness summoning some other dishes to her side of the table as well. However it was at that point that there was a gasp amongst the other contestants. Turning her head Akeya blinked as she saw that several of the dishes were now bereft of their dishes, not because they'd been eaten but because the food had apparently decided to fly off on its own. As they all watched this occur one of the floating pieces of meat froze in mid-air, then smacked one of the contestants in the face.

At which point all hell broke loose. As if the sign to start the rebellion everyone in the area was now under assault of an automated food fight, quickly breaking up the competition as the contests were as busy dodging as actually eating. Akeya for her part smacked the first piece that tried to strike her away with her tail, then raised one talon and formed a ball of light which then appeared to rupture into a luminous flare.

Once the light had cast a shadow behind all the flying pieces of food Akeya pulled all the shadows, and the corresponding dishes, towards herself. Forcing them to move according to her whim she began to eat at speed, releasing several other mild flares to help keep the shadows in place. that it disoriented the competition was just a bonus. Honest.

When the last flare subsided and there was no more food left to eat Akeya left the competition having devoured most of it. Being a dragon meant having an immense appetite, even if she usually kept it in check. And the flying food meant that the other eaters were distracted, which allowed her to get a lot more food on her plate than if they were also eating as best as they could.

"Your dish was pretty tasty, although I suspect it'd have tasted better without the flying part. Given the panic I'm unsure whether that was an intentional part of the competition or not." She scratched her chin, then shrugged and looked at Leila. "So, do you have a suggestion for what to do next?"

WC: 1,069
pWC: 2,356/1,500

Trophies: 2/3

Akeya snorted when Leila commented on the fact that the dragoness had escaped from the magical food fight unscathed, the tip of her tail twitching as she looked back at the other contestants over her shoulder. "Thanks. But the day that I can be ambushed by flying food is the day you can start calling me a lizard." One might argue that Akeya's nature made her difficult to interact with because she was practically always on guard and coldly analytical, but if there was one thing that it was good for it was making sure she wouldn't be caught off guard. Even if it was by something as silly and unexpected as flying food.

She had to admit that watching Leila get all flustered after a compliment was both cute and amusing, although she wondered how long it'd take before the goddess would get used to it. Was it because of Akeya, or did she not get a lot of compliments usually? Maybe a little bit of both, although the dragoness figured it that it was something worth looking into. If it was the latter that meant Leila might be suffering from self-esteem issues, which Akeya would rather deal with as quickly as possible.

"If you're up for it I'm not going to say no, but as you can imagine I'm not hungry right now." While she had the appetite of a dragon she still did eat a lot just now. It didn't make her feel bloated but it definitely meant that for a while at least she could go without a meal. She nodded in confirmation of the goddess's request, following her around as the silver-haired mage decided to explore the rest of the festival a bit. As they walked she cast her gaze over their surroundings, once again comparing the modern Clover Town to the one she'd been familiar with years ago. The atmosphere was largely the same, but to the attentive eye there were a lot of little differences. A shop which had been taken over now had a new name, some houses looked a little more worn while others clearly had been renovated. And of course the giant guild hall which had dominated the town in the past was long gone.

Looking around as such she could be excused for not immediately noticing the one-eyed man sitting on the stump, sharply turning around when he called out to them. Raising her eyebrows she watched as Leila at first appeared to be just as confused as her, but then answered what apparently had supposed to be a riddle. Given the man's reaction she guessed that her mate had the correct one, but before she could comment on this entire situation she saw the eye now focusing on her as another riddle was asked in a rather odd voice.

"What goes up every year, but never comes back down?"

Akeya tilted her head as she studied the man, who just gave a rather odd smile as he kept peering at her. She remained silent for several seconds as she wondered whether to play along or not, along with the answer to the riddle, before shrugging and answering with a rather uninterested tone. "Age."

The smile grew wider as another trophy was kicked off of the pile to roll over to the dragoness's clawed feet. The assassin stared at it with some suspicion before picking it up with her tail, lifting it up to eye height to inspect it before looking at Leila. "Let's find something else to do." She didn't think the strange little man was malicious or anything, but she found the entire situation rather odd.

WC: 609

Trophies: 3/3

Akeya, who had been paying attention to the man the entire time, did actually see him disappear. It was a strange thing to watch, because it looked a lot like his form was dispersed by a gust of wind. Not picked up and carried away: one moment he was there, and then both he, his trophies and the trophies he'd been hoarding like a dragon dissipated into a million motes, which in turn almost instantly faded away into the darkening sky. While it was hardly unusual for mages and other tricksters to have interesting ways to disappear from a scene she had to admit this one left an impression, if only an impression of suspicion as she still had no idea who this guy really was.

"It looks like it, although I hope we won't see that one again." She couldn't say that she felt like the man was scary, but he was odd enough that she would rather leave him alone. There were types of odd that piqued the brain, which motivated you to dig to the bottom of it all and figure out what was really going on. Many great discoveries were made by someone coming across something really odd and digging deeper and deeper until they found the answers to their questions. However there was also the kind of odd which didn't seem to have any worthwhile answer to it, which you'd be better off leaving alone.

Walking with Leila through the town she was a bit more on guard this time. Even if there was no hostility or malice she didn't want an entity such as that man to get as close to her without her noticing again. She saw the other stalls and events that were meant to keep the celebration lively until well into the night. The glint of metal from the blacksmith puzzles caught her eyes, but she didn't feel like playing with those things right now. She'd told Leila she'd try to avoid bullying tricksome stall owners, and the easiest way to achieve that was to not get involved with any game which could easily be rigged. Those metal puzzles were meant to be confusing, which made it child's play to slide in some puzzles which weren't just confusing, but completely unsolvable.

When they came upon the maze she came to a halt, staring up at the arch which served as the entrance before looking at the remainder of the maze. It wasn't very big, but she could feel magic emanating from it, subtly but distinctly there. It covered the hedges like a spiderweb, countless invisible threads interlinked and forming a great net that spanned more more surface than you'd suspect at first. Looking up Akeya calculated how much time they had left before night would have fallen, by which point they'd have to be on the other side to enjoy the bonfire and the fireworks.

"I think we have enough time to go through. I'm curious what kind of tricks they've set up to compensate for the size." She was certain that Leila had also picked up on the fact that the maze was magical in nature. Leading the way this time the dragoness stepped into the maze, expecting Leila to follow without need for invitation given she was the one who gave Akeya the choice here.

Once they were both inside, however, it quickly became clear that the assassin's insight had been spot on. What first looked like a simple maze quickly seemed to expand on itself, the hedges twisting, growing and shrinking. Walls formed and disappeared, a light fog covered everything, and Akeya could swear that in the distance parts of the maze were simply no longer obeying normal physics.

Before long the two of them were standing at the entrance of a structure which could have been used to trap a minotaur. If minotaurs could be detained with hedges. Akeya looked behind to see that the entrance was still clearly visible and accessible, but in front of them there were a variety of passages which all quickly twisted away so you couldn't see what lay deeper inside of this twisty maze. "Spatial deformation... They really are putting a lot of effort into this one." She looked at Leila. "We can still go back, but if you're fine with it I suggest we press on." If the goddess didn't voice any objections the dragoness would choose the path forward, quickly leading the two of them into the kind of passageway where all the walls looked the same and you'd have trouble telling which way was back and which way was forward.

WC: 772

Trophies: 3/3

"Their preparation time might actually have been quite short, if they know what they're doing." Akeya commented as she inspected the maze that now had sprung up around the two of them. "Space magic might be one of the most difficult of magics, or at least one of the rarest, but just like any other magic if you stick with a known technique you can learn to skip most of the time spent memorizing, calculating and chanting." Still, even with that in mind it was impressive to what extent they'd managed to expand such a small area into a much bigger one. And she suspected they did so without disturbing the surroundings, given that the two of them couldn't possibly have been the first ones to enter the maze.

With the goddess firmly stating that she wished to move on ahead Akeya smiled. "True enough. It would be rather embarrassing if we retreated from a challenge that even children are willing to take on." Of course one might also argue that a challenge which could be completed by a child wasn't worth the effort, but now wasn't the time to debate which stance was the more mature one. Giving a firm nod in response to Leila's comment that she could navigate through communication with the maze if nothing else worked the dragoness stepped forward to lead them into the depths of the labyrinth.

"It wouldn't be as elegant as your ability but I think I might be able to create a three-dimensional image of our surroundings by sensing the various light intensities." Light and dark were, at the end of the day, two opposites of the same spectrum. Even if the two existed as actual forces. "But it might be better to practice that another day." She hadn't ever done anything like creating a full-blown representation of the world around herself. She'd sensed bursts of strong dark or light in the past, but this would be a rather complex piece of magic which could easily have errors in it if performed hastily.

As she led the way into the labyrinth she looked around with keen eyes, her fin-ears spreading to catch more sound while she occasionally sniffed the air. At the very least she could easily track where they'd already been by catching their scent, but the ones who created this maze had done a good job making it a hassle to navigate through. Every turn and every crossroad had next to nothing to identify it by, so if you didn't know what you were doing you'd quickly end up thinking you'd traversed the same piece of maze a dozen times over. And maybe you had.

"I think we're making headway, although it's slower than I-...that's odd." Turning another corner Akeya came to an abrupt halt as she looked at what lay ahead with raised eyebrows. There was a little clearing there in the maze, with several simple wooden benches. It almost looked like a place to rest, which begged the rather obvious question... "Who placed a resting spot in the middle of the maze?"

"They're probably highly specialized. I'd imagine that when it comes to other applications of spatial magic they wouldn't be nearly as capable." As entities who travelled the world and dealt with issues such as rampaging monsters and mystical fountains it was easy to forget that there were plenty of magic users who utilized their abilities closer to home. People who had mundane day to day jobs, who saw their magic potential as a way to get by rather than a convenient excuse to go gallivanting. Of course in the case of Akeya and Leila there was also the fact that neither of them was human in the first place, so while they both knew what a human upbringing was like there was that additional disconnect. "And spatial magic isn't your primary talent anyway." Whether those were meant to be words of comfort or just an observation was to be left up to the listener.

Akeya considered Leila's suggestion as the goddess pointed out that it might make sense that there'd be people who'd want to take a breather after traversing this labyrinth for a while. "I... suppose that does make sense." She admitted this with mild reluctance, although she quickly shook that off as she instead raised an eyebrow at the offer to sit on Leila's lap. She stared for mere seconds before folding her arms and pointing at herself with her tail. "Wouldn't it make more sense if you were the one sitting on my lap? I'm significantly bigger than you after all." While her current form was one meant to allow her to interact with the mortals on their own level and utilize their tools she still was taller than most folk, including Leila. While she could fix that without much issue she found her current size comfortable.

Walking over she seated herself next to Leila, folding her wings and silently offering some word of thanks to whoever designed these benches for not including a backrest. Mortals often didn't consider the nuisance that was a tail when they made their furniture, which more than once had resulted in some annoyance for the dragoness. Her tail also wasn't one of those whip-like things which could easily be pulled out of the way. Of course she could alter her shape to just remove the tail, but she'd rather avoid doing that since it was always difficult to get used to.

"Now that I think about it, I wonder if they included any measures to prevent someone flying up and traversing the maze right over the walls. Or climbing the walls for that matter." She looked at the green hedges that formed the labyrinth. They looked pretty normal, although given that currently the entire maze was covered in a net of magic that didn't necessarily mean much. It could be that the moment one tried to climb one of those walls the magic network would once again activate to throw them off or something like that. Although that still left the possibility of flight... "Not that I would do it unless we were in a hurry, but it'd say a lot about how prepared they truly are."

Akeya quirked an eyebrow at Leila's statement, the dragoness contemplating it silently for several seconds before responding. "Please explain." While it may have no impact on their performance during missions Akeya was a dragoness with a strong interest in magic, so learning more about someone's magic was something she could enjoy for the sake of satisfying her curiosity rather than to serve any practical purpose. Although if this were pointed out to her she'd argue that learning more about magic was always practical, given how big an impact it had on the world they lived in.

The olive-skinned assassin noted that despite her pointing out that her lap would probably be better suited as a pillow the goddess didn't take that as an invitation, but she didn't dwell too much on it. Instead she gave Leila a rather confused look when her silver-haired partner argued that since this wasn't a professional competition they wouldn't have much reason to protect the maze against cheating. "I'd think that whether it's a competition or not the makers would want to ensure people go through the maze rather than over it." The dragoness looked back at the walls around them, studying them with some puzzlement. It might just be her preferring to be thorough and cautious, but if she was the one responsible for the maze she'd have put up some guards against cheating regardless of whether it was a competition or not.

As she thought about this her tail slowly curled around Leila's waist. While it was true that her dragon scales were hard and tough they were also smoother than those most dragons had, and they were small but numerous rather than big plates of armour. Because of that Leila might find having Akeya's scale-clad tail around her waist a bit more comfortable than if it had been another dragon's tail, for more reasons than one.