Thirty

Sebastian didn't answer at first, being too busy glaring murderously after the thing that had (thank the goddesses) ran off in a panicky hurry after the sudden outburst from a strange silvermaned creature.

He turned to Weft. "Do you know. Of all the things, it happens to be a chicken." Pause. Shudder. Well, it couldn't be... helped... "So, the sooner we kill it, the sooner I can chop it into tiny bits that nobody'll want to touch."

There was no mistaking of the murderous grin.

"That's a thing I like about you, Fox - always new nuggets of wisdom," Weft said, though he did have to pluck up the courage first.

"And I suppose after the months I spent employed to fry them for general consumption, I didn't want to see another chicken or any edible fish species ever again," he continued as they approached the fowl-headed griffin beast.

If Weft had been sadistic and conniving, he would have filed this interesting aversion of Sebastian's for later exploitation, but Weft wasn't conniving. He merely enjoyed co-kniving.

"Right then - fresh air. Lance, you too. Come on, make room for the furniture delivery." Suitov shepherded the innhabitants innsistently outside to the front, where Baskerville was lying on the grass verge. (He always seemed to materialise somewhere out of reach when there was washing-up to do.)

Baskerville rolled over and exposed his tummy as though this was the most brilliant and impressive thing a dog had ever done. He wanted cuddles.

"I heard yelled imprecations a few minutes ago," he said. "I think Sebastian fell asleep and Weft styled his hair."

Suitov stepped over him and went to clasp hands with a man who was making his way up the road. Though their conversation wasn't audible, they were obviously old friends.

The fowl beast was in for a ride.

That is to say, Sebastian was, much to his surprise, was scaring the thing with his mindnumbingly coarse cussing repertoire. It wasn't a part of his vocabulary he liked to use very often, but it seemed to work.

The thing was turning its head confusedly as it backed into a tree. "CAW!"

Part of what Sebastian said was not suitable for young ears.

The rest was nervous text. "Can't you just cut its head like so, Weft? It's giving me the look, the one that just dares me to throw an axe at it."

He didn't seem like he wanted to do so. It would have meant being unarmed. Not a good idea around chickenthings. At all.

The thing with using languge that would make a monk blush is that, in fact, it makes monks blush. The fact that the profanity was interspersed with whining was rather confusing to Weft.

Still, said monk was being fairly professional about things - it wasn't as though he could be anything else - and had coordinated his movements with Sebastian's, cutting off the most likely direction of escape for the strange animal with the feathered foreparts. The chickogryph was rolling its side-set eyes madly from trying to concentrate on both of them at once; its hindpaws were flexing and shifting without resolution. Its tail was fanned.

Weft had no qualms about killing what might well be a unique animal (at the very least, it was endangered) because, blushy or not, he was still Weft. Still, something was giving him pause. After a few seconds: "Wouldn't you like the honour of the killing blow? Since the animal seems so... offensive to you."

He wasn't really teasing. After all, murdering your phobias was supposed to be healthy, wasn't it? Yep, Wefty was positively bleedin' altruistic.

Sylvie ignored Suitov, and followed the noise. She could not believe anyone would take a hairdo that seriously, so help may be needed - or entertainment to be found.

"Hey, what's the matter?" she called, realising in the same moment that is was rather stupid if there was a serious danger.

"Why, I didn't think you'd want to be courteous at serious moments like this. Fine! Less talk, more blood!"

And with that cry, things went from bad to worse.

Sebastian began to throw the axe.

And slipped, miraculously managing to at least get the axe in the air with enough momentum to cause considerable harm. The aiming, however, was not at all well.

There would have been plenty to say about how badly a man can aim while throwing an axe, and plenty of how a man can look both angry and shocked at the same time.

There was less to say about the odds of a single hand axe cutting an already partially loose branch off an ancient oak tree, bringing the branch falling down on both chickogryph and a rogue with bipolar luck.

There was only one thing to say to the obvious question of "what does a branch falling in a forest sound like?" Why, not much noise at all, actually. But the half-elf caught under the light end of the branch, however, caused the following to be heard:

"Ow!"

The creature whose hindlegs were caught under the other end of the branch was rather more noisy - the poor panicked thing cackled up a storm and beat its wings furiously attempting to pull free.

A moment later Sylvie found them.
"What in the Kraken's name is going on here?" she asked sharply. What a shame, a poor chicken had not deserved -

Hm, not entirely chicken. Interesting. She stopped and wondered if she could manage a spell that calmed the creature down, or at least knocked it out without permanent damage.

Weft giggled. It's a slightly dry, unmusical sound, which some people (all right, a lot of people) find unnerving. However, it must be understood that just because this was his primary reaction to Sebastian's critical defoliation didn't mean he wasn't also replacing one nasty sharp implement, drawing one more appropriate for close-quarters hack-and-slashing and cautiously advancing a step or two.

Upon Sylvie's arrival, he gave the spellcaster a happy look. "Why, 'tis naught but a spell of aversion therapy. As you can no doubt see, all is quite orderly and entirely under control." That giggle again. His eyes kept darting back to the creature as he worked out an angle of approach. Another couple of steps.

On second thought, maybe the monk needed to be calmed down - or knocked out - more urgently than the creature. She stepped between them (between a panicking animal of uncertain temper and a possible madman, well done) and raised her hands, in a way that hopefully looked more like "I'm unarmed and really not looking for trouble" than anything else.

"Say, what is that, exactly? Is it domesticated? I've never heard of a chimaera like that before." She tried not to babble too much, but she guessed that someone advancing wth something sharp at an animal meant there probably would be no chance to have a closer look at the latter while it was still alive and intact.

"It's a nefarious scoundrel that has been very rude to my friend here and is on its way to drumstickhood." Weft looked disappointed by Sylvie's bodily intervention - well, his eyebrows curled closer together and his mouth narrowed, and presumably that means roughly the same thing in Wefts as in humans.

"Chimaera? It doesn't look as though somebody made it, but maybe someone did." The curved beak had begun to attack the branch. Something abruptly reminded Weft of a village idiot he'd known, though this didn't make him any less dagger-happy.

"Maybe it's not, which would make it all the more interesting, but it reminds me a bit of a kind... They combined chickens with goats, the idea being to end up with an animal that could provide both milk and eggs.

Either way, killing an animal like that just doesn't do." She noticed that she was using a tone that was more suitable for talking to someone half her age and annoying than to someone possibly twice her age and violent, and added apologetically, "Not before you know there are more where it came from, anyway."

She stretched her spiritual "feelers" and prepared for a quick defensive spell, in case it would be neccessary.

"You think there might be a nest... pride... a flock or whatever they come in? Good point. We might need artillery or doey fire and maybe more men." Weft frowned.

Sylvie rolled her eyes. "Or you could just shoot or trap some now and then, if they turn ot to be edible. I'm not so sure about the hindquarters. Why are you so set on killing it?" She was standing arms akimbo. Is he stupid or is he trying to make a joke?

There was a faint rustle. "Did you get hit on the head, Weft?" a voice betraying discomfort came from under the branch. "You sound... awfully heavy on the pun section, not to mention I thought I actually heard you cry," Sebastian continued in a tone that contained some amusement.

A pause.

"Please tell me it's not standing above me and about to eat my head, because - and I swear this to you by Lady Luck herself - I will scream like a young lady who has just figured out the unicorn was not so pure after all."

He let that sink in.

"It's not. It's stuck," Sylvie snapped. "And it's a chicken, it's too small to eat a head, unless you happen to be an earthworm."

Sebastian thought about that for half a second, which proved to be a mistake. Well, technically he was the scum of the earth... "...who the devil are you, and what did you do to Weft?"

Weft did not remember making any puns, was certain he hadn't cried and completely missed the remark about the unicorn.

Not that he normally understood above half of what Sebastian said, but this was a particularly low hit rate.

"I think you've hit your head, Sebastian. Er, but the feathered peril is trapped under the treearm too. It won't come any nearer." Confusion had made him temporarily forget the word for branch.

"Why, good morning, my name is Sylvie. I have impaled Weft on a spit and am planning to feed him to the chickens, as you may have guessed from his wails of terror."
She tried to get a look at the other weirdo. "And just what are you up to here?" She indicated the fallen branch with a sweeping motion.

"It takes more than you to impale me. Believe me, I've had direct experience."

It had taken a wall, or rather an entire side of a building, including railings. Weft had some deceptively unimpressive scars, internal as well as external, plus half a working liver to show for the experience. (But at least he had successfully rescued his employer's artifact from being crushed under the same wall, which was all that mattered.)

But Weft left the question for Sebastian to answer, since he didn't feel like reiterating we're here to kill this German-Shepherd-sized juvenile gryphon because Sebastian wants to.