how hungry...

"Ohhh, my goodness!"

Azzar had had many a prime chance to observe, in the past week or so, how fully and often Lora indulged in the exuberance of human fatigue. She reminded it of Addam, and it thought this with a mild amusement, because Addam's various grunts and groans were always so odd and perturbing, until one remembered that Lora was like that, too. It was just that the rest of them were either so overwhelmingly polite and reserved (Hugo, Haze) or so overwhelmingly appalled by the prospect of someone seeing them experience something so normal and human-pedestrian as a body movement (Brighid, Mythra).

Azzar was a very quiet Blade, so it did all its sundry shudders and stamps in relative peace, without anyone really taking notice. Of course, its working theory was that they wrote it off as a sort of natural feature, so that was why it never came to mind.

Case in point, Lora's next exclamation: "I'm so hungry I could eat a- well, you!"

Azzar stared at her, admittedly bemused. "Eat me?"

"No, not you, you, I meant-" Lora waggled her arms, gestured vociferously at the general idea of whatever it was she apparently did mean. "You know, it's an expression?"

And she wasn't being condescending nor patronizing when she said so. In fact, she seemed rather apologetic.

"I'm sorry," said Azzar, matching that tail end of her energy. "I don't catch your meaning."

Its approachable visage of confusion remained still, patient, until it was mightily jarred by the clap of a hand on its back: Addam, making his presence known and bugging his child's wide-set eyes out in one smooth motion. It was impossible for Addam to spook anyone, except when he was intentionally trying to get Haze, so Azzar didn't jump half the same way it did when Minoth snuck up behind it. It did gag and boggle, a bit, though.

"We'll have to teach you idioms, my friend!" the prince exclaimed in his own quaint variation of gentle and gender-neutral parenting. "After all, just imagine a horse, sixteen or eighteen hands high." For those in the twenty-first century, this might be rather like wondering about tires and rim sizes on a strange brand of truck driving you by in the next lane. "Imagine how hungry you'd have to be even to think about eating the whole thing."

You'd have to be in a very particular state, actually, to think about eating a horse. (Whatever that was, in all honesty.)

Addam's explanation was sensible, and Azzar did sort of start to see the larger picture, but if they were so insistent on calling it a horse, and pointing out its hooves and its ears and its sturdy demeanor, dressage and all, how could they possibly conscion speaking of such...cannibalism?

Lora was looking on with a bright, hopeful face, one that Azzar honestly hated to disappoint. Its temperament was a moody one, yes, but not in the traditional way that one might expect. It could actually be startlingly congenial, when it wanted.

Even just now, it couldn't see a straight path from the current point of conversation to the point at which it would snap at Addam for his poor taste in figures of speech. Now, though, if it found one, it would take it. Being direct was a virtue for any animal, man or beast.

"I suppose Lora should find herself something to eat, then," said Azzar. "It's not my problem. I don't like to think about being eaten."

Lora frowned. "But we're not-- Oh, no, I'm sorry. I see how that could have upset you. I suppose."

Everyone supposed. Pursing her lips together lightly, Lora shared a look with Addam that Azzar found offensively visible. Was it pity, then? Did they think it stupid? Unobservant? Outright objectionable?

"I'm still standing right here," it said, and snorted.

That didn't stop the nervous, covert glances. If anything, it enhanced them. Addam's frown started as a tell of annoyance, irritation and agitation, but it morphed somewhat into a thing of pity, then a sign of self-recrimination. How to help Azzar? How to adjust this disagreeable behavior, on both parts?

Azzar was willing to let it go, or mostly, anyway. It wasn't about the one instance. It was about the pattern.

They never muttered like this when all were gathered around the campfire, the girls working at battle-aid handicrafts and the lords fashioning equally useful artifacts for another time. Azzar liked to ply at metalwork, twisting wire and rods into sculptures to attach to the end of its staff or leave spoked into the ground at intervals along their route. Concentration was necessary for the smaller, trickier elements, yes, but when one was just sitting there gradually bending a stiff piece of wire into a spiral, then one had plenty of listening to do, especially when there was plenty of talking to be heard.

Azzar, in fact, knew everything that everyone said about anyone, in this group. Its eyes were usually closed. Its ears were always open.

So its quarrel with Lora, here, was less about the idiom itself and more about the lack of judgement that caused her to roll her eyes at it right where it could practically see.

Well, but whatever. It wasn't worth fighting them about.

There were other folks to consider - folks like Haze, who was voluntarily vegetarian to counter Azzar's continued motif of the obligate, all done up in ribbons and bows. She ate her veggies five times daily, better able to focus than Lora was (even if only in these mundane little ways, certainly distractable as any) and thus better suited to a regular schedule.

Haze wouldn't complain about something so natural and normal, non-negotiable. Haze had finer things to worry about.

Aegaeon, too. Aegaeon was a serious fellow. They stayed in a constant state of meditation, all the readier to face oncoming threats. If they ate at all, beyond a bonbon here or there, Azzar hadn't seen it. Maybe this was by design. Sugar was a beautiful variety of plant.

But some were not so sweet, and still they held themselves up. Jin didn't complain. Jin never complained. Brighid didn't mince, not about this.

(It wasn't complaining, you see. It was just a matter of differing personalities. Azzar lumped the lot of it in together.)

Mythra most definitely complained, but she curtailed the brouhaha at hyperbole. That was why Azzar liked her; she was so straightforward, so damned sharp. So unafraid.

But enough about that. Azzar rolled its head some generous measure of degrees about its neck, and walked on.

Meanwhile, Lora whispered to Addam, "Well, what else can I eat? An Eks?"

"I hear Jagron are popular candidates lately," the prince noted, ever wise and appraising even in his pretended gravity. It was a crucial debate, when one considered Lora's penchant for the heartier things in life. Sure, Addam was a man with an appetite just like the rest of them, but his eyes were very often bigger than his stomach. (Maybe that was why he groaned so much.) Lora's never were, and she was smaller than him.

Back to the wildlife, though. Lora nodded. Jagron, slithe and otherwise. Great for deadlifting, or other activities. Also Griffox. "And farm animals are out completely, I'm sure."

"A shame. I think it was coming slaughter time for Gibson."

Lora's mouth had begun to water, of course, just at the very mention of some genuinely accessible meat for the savoring. Now, to think of that humongous Ardun, just parading itself and its toxic tank march about on the moor, terrorizing the militia keeping watch... It had to be dealt with! And to the (happy) victors would go the (delicious) spoils, of course.

But at the same time, well, it still was a delicate topic. What of Feris and Volff? What of Flamii and Rhogul? Lora had no inklings of becoming vegetarian herself, but when the boundary between human and creature, predator and prey, was blurred, then it came into the territory of moral quandary. She needed her protein! Was that so wrong? Or was she small-minded and a terrible person? Just like the toxic, rampaging armored Ardun.

"Do you think it'll help?" she mused, drawing on a motive question.

"I'm not sure." Addam's eyes were still on Azzar's steadily departing figure, his hands on his hips. "That's...a horse of a different color."