stormaktstiden | Test drive post for demeleier

[It's been a few weeks that she's been in Demeleier now, and since a while ago she has accepted that she won't be able to leave immediately. She might not even want to, now that Kíli has arrived as well. There is a difference between knowing that a reunification with her family can't be further than a few decades off and actually having one of them around. Still strange, but still just as precious and full of wonder and joy. To have her youngest back, it's a thing that she doesn't want to leave behind. ...And even if the word that no time passes back home while they are here is a trick to subdue them (and that is a constant worry), there is a certain reluctance to desiring a way home. Not that, should a path open itself, she wouldn't immediately take it. She has a duty to her people, and while she is certain that they would not let the lord of the black messengers blackmail them into anything should he claim to have taken her as a hostage (though avenging her would be an entirely different story - she might not be a king, but her blood is still among the most noble of all dwarves in Middle Earth) she would not leave them in times of need if she could help it. And times of need they are.

But she is needed here as well, by her son and maybe others as well, and looping back to this point she opens the feed. She has an announcement to make.]

I've now set up everything in the smithy to be able to do proper work there. [As opposed to the above average but in her eyes sub-par work that she could do with an anvil and other things that were simply too large for her.] As such, I will now offer the services of a smith. [She won't mention that her smithwork is, by default, far better than any human's (though she does consider Matsue very capable. But. For a human apprentice), because that should be clear to everyone who knows dwarves and the others will see, no bragging needed - those are her thoughts, anyway.] Contact me if you need anything. Even if the item in question is unfamiliar to me, I might still be able to work with it. [Or maybe collaborate on it with the other woman or her son, two or three brains can think of more than one. She almost mentions payment modalities out of habit, but then stops herself, no. Things work differently here (and that unsettles her, but what can you do).]

[ooc: All of this is absolutely not supposed to be game canon, but simply a throwing together of something for the sake of a test drive. She's been in Deme for 1 1/2 months, Kíli arrived a while after her, and she gets along with Matsue. Everything else is up in the air.]

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[She remains tense, but stands her ground, not moving even as her hand comes to fully rest on the dagger, which is drawn when Janine turns back to her.

But it's not pointed at the dino, instead just firmly in her hand, pointing downwards. A warning, not a threat. Her eyes slide over the body, swiftly, trying to keep that head in the corner of her eye.]

A necklace, maybe.

[She won't turn her back on the being, but she won't refuse to equip them with the much needed defence against the fairies, either. Nobody wants a being like that in the hands of a fae.]

[Janine's inner pterosaur stirs and gives her a rapid wordless assessment - prey is (by dinosaur standards) unarmored, has a large fang or claw, looks difficult/dangerous to subdue - and subsides again. Well, that was disquieting. She doesn't fear the blade. Janine's beak is far larger, and with her neck her reach is considerable. Still, being attacked would be no fun.

She heaves a very deep breath and, ponderous, lies down on her chest, wings crooked at either side of her body, legs stretched out behind her. A kind of peace gesture, though she doesn't go so far as to lay down her head.]

:Sure. I might have trouble with the whole 'touch something with it and it'll go away', but I plan on mostly flying, anyway.:

[The lying down puts her at an uneasy peace - the being is so strange, she doesn't know what to think of it nor its ability to move.]

Should you have the means to touch another being with the iron, was it fastened to another part of your body?

:Maybe. These aren't quite like your arms.:

[Still lying down, Janine shifts one wing. The claws on it make a padded, three-fingered sort of hand or foot. Laying like this she can't use them like hands at all, or almost. The structure of her arm is very inhuman.]

:If I can take up something in my beak, I can manage. Carrying stuff so I can get to it while still being able to eat is always an issue.:

[It would be a challenge, but that only makes it actually interesting (and her mind lapsing into thinking about this makes her relax a fraction, tension being redirected to thought) - she lets her eyes wander over that beak.]

I could see to fashioning something you could wear which would attach the iron to the peak of your beak.

[Unless she makes it sharp, it would probably not change the basic danger that lies in it.]

:Could work. Be nice if I could take it off and get it on myself, that's why I was thinking about a pouch.:

[Janine scans her surroundings again, though not as effectively since her eye level is about at that of an unusually tall human while she's lying down. Still no danger.]

:I mean, iron gets rusty if it has to do with water, and I've got a lot to do with water.: [She makes a kind of gesture with her beak - starting with it pointed down at an angle, she flicks it upwards.] :Fishing, you know. It's more certain than trying to find rabbits or whatever you have to eat here.:

[She'll have to see about that; maybe a contraption that would be fixed but the metal part of which could be removed, or one that would provide this being with a way to put in on and off...

She makes a curt gesture in the direction of the smithy.] Come with me.

[While turning her back on this being is not a thing that she will do, walking alongside it where she can still see half of it will do.

Fish and rabbits...] You do not eat larger animals than those?

[It takes Janine a few seconds to scramble back up. She's big, and scans again, and then lowers her head back to shoulder level. Janine usually walks on all fours, her back sloping.]

:Haven't tried, here. But, the things I eat...: [She pauses, and then scratches some lines in the dirt with the claws of one wing. One long line for the spine and tail, a rough box for the body, shorter lines for limbs. It's about the size of a fox.] :I might go for something about that big, maybe. And I bet I could eat a snake longer than that. Carrion, too, if it's on the fresh side. Nothing that talks, and I'm not going to go for people's housepets or chickens. Eggs sound good, though.:

But you could kill larger beings, should you want or need to?

[This, mind her, is something that applies for a lot of people in the village, at least among those not from here - there is a good number of warriors and others who are capable of fighting among them.]

:Thought about it. Never tried: [Janine makes a sort of gesture with her head and neck, like a shrug.] :It probably depends on the larger being. My - people don't tend to get bothered much, even by the tyrant lizard kings.:

[yeah she figures that will be more illustrative than saying 'T. rex'.]

:Dunno if that's because of the flying or strategic use of beaks, though. And I'm not full grown, so I probably have more to worry about.:

[The description makes her think of something entirely different.]

There are dragons in your world?

[Now Janine moves her ponderous head and neck in something like a shrug.]

:Not really, or they're the boring metaphorical kind, or it's just what people call big lizards. Names. If it's just names, I'm a dragon. I'm an azhdarchid, and those're named after a dragon.:

[Dear lord let's be glad she's less prickly about this than some elves. But she still disagrees. Names do carry meaning. Even more in this case.]

To call yourself a dragon might easily call attacks upon yourself.

[Janine 'shrugs' again, though with a dismissive flick of her beaktip at the end.]

:Then I won't. I don't put the kind of stock in words and names people do, and I'm not a fighter.:

Test drive post for demeleier

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