Family Business (Jarek, Thimblewhick, Zasrein)

They haven't seen Uncle Zaz for a while, him being perpetually 'away' on business or coming home late after haggling with the wizards for hours on end. So it's unusual for him to come down to the stables to visit Thimb and Jarek in the middle of the day.

He's uncharacteristically quiet today, slipping inside the stables instead of stomping in with fanfare and grins. Leaning silently against a bale of hay tall enough to tower over an orc, he watches with a smile as his niblings work with the chimera.

He's brought a paper bag with him, and occasionally his hand snakes in to pull out a street-roasted nut and munch on it. These are a particular favorite treat of the chimera and a wee little duckling takes notice, squirming through a tiny crack in its pen and waddling purposely towards the man who has not yet noticed it.

"Zazzels!" said Thimb brightly, with a creature that was half goose, half scorpion tucked under one arm (one of the more dangerous combinations they had had to date) and what could only be described as a contraption for milking the venom from the scorpion stinger in her other hand, her mage hand dangling a fish just out of reach to keep the chimera distracted as she worked. She was covered in soot and glitter for some inconceivable reason as she worked, her face alighting with a smile as she laid eyes on her uncle.

"What brings you to- oh! Watch out for that one," she said, nodding to the entirely innocent looking duckling that was waddling over to him, "it was spitting acid earlier," she explained, fastening a strap around the stinger of the scorpion tail. The goose head hissed and she rolled her eyes at it, "oh shush," she scolded it gently. It hissed again, but less enthusiastically, "Nobody asked you," she continued. It glared, because geese are not known to be timid creatures, but her utter lack of fear at it dimmed the beasts spirits somewhat.

Uncle Zasrein glances back at the duckling and makes an amused face. "Ah, nut-butters. Here you go," he says, tossing a roasted nut just out of the duckling's reach. When she toddles over to nab it, he scoops her up from behind in a careful hold that keeps her beak turned from him. "Back in the pen," he scolds, dropping her and another nut into the hay.

Turning back to Thimb, he brightens with a grin. "How's my favorite nibling, Thimbster?" he teases happily. "Gods, it seems almost quiet down here now that the molting has settled down a bit. That scorpion tail isn't giving you trouble, is it?"

"It's the cute ones you need to watch," she said sagely, heaving a leaver on the contraption she was wrangling which caused it to whirr to life as he set the duckling shaped chimera back in its pen. The goose head let out a startled noise as the canister started to fill with a bright pink liquid. "This one's pretty easy, even if it got me I'd just be on my back for a day or two, and, uh, not sick," she said with a meaningful glance to the canister being filled. It was uncommon but not rare for a chimera to end up with some sort of hallucinogen rather than something more... mundane.

"Hear that?" she shot to her brother with a wicked grin, "I'm the favorite. And I'm good, been weirdly itchy all day, no clue why," she said with a shrug. It was impossible to tell if she was sincere or not. "Certainly glad that molting has slowed, but for the adolescences it never really stops," a look was spared to the goose scorpion under her arm with a touch of exhaustion. She finally gave it the fish she had held aloft with her incorporeal magic hand.

"What brings you in here? Shouldn't you be-" she waved the shadowy mage hand vaguely, her meat ones occupied as she settled on a theory, "I don't know, bare knuckle boxing some wizard's uppity apprentice to defend the honor of our products since they're claiming the reason their potion didn't work is our agents, not their incompetence again?"

"It was a cage fight and gloves were allowed, but otherwise you're spot-on, Thimbles," he complains with pitch-perfect theatricality as he pretends to slump with exhaustion against the nearest wall. "Their latest complaint is that the last batch of lizard-milk wasn't a high enough fat content for their potions to bind correctly. I had to explain that we're not going to start force-feeding them just to muck with the chemical composition. Magical blow-hards, all of them."

"...excepting present company!" He rallies from his melodrama and gives Thimb and Jarek a dazzling grin. "And all my niblings are my favorite! Jare, how you doing? Still liking the whole 'living' thing?" he teases.

[Thread Close. You both get 50 XP.]