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It's a lovely day in Ala Mhigo, and Fordola is scowling.
Today has been a day of petty inconveniences and not-as-petty disrespect towards her and her skulls, and the fact that she can not openly complain about either only serves to deepen her foul mood even further.
She stalks through the streets of Ala Mhigo, carrying the missive that dumb Garlean dignitary pushed into her hand without so much as looking at her. As if she is naught more than some messenger girl, to be ordered around without a second thought. This latest act of being looked down on simply because she was born here in Ala Mhigo rather than in Garlemald makes her gnash her teeth, but the path to respect doesn't lie in yelling at dignitaries. In the worst case scenario, it might get her banished from court, and that won't do.
She will gain the Garleans' respect, and then make sure it extends to her fellow Ala Mhigans. She will—
The missive is snatched out of her hand. There is a honk, and when Fordola looks down, she sees a large white bird waddle off, a piece of paper in its beak.
For a moment, she stands still, mouth agape. Then she sprints after the offending avian.
“Get back here, you filthy animal!“
It's a day in Ala Mhigo, and Zenos really doesn't care.
He has opted to have his breakfast in the courtyard today, for no other reason than that he has grown tired of looking at the same wall as he eats day in, day out. Not that the view from here is any better, of course. The city walls are every bit as dull to look at as the interior of the palace.
He reaches out and blindly grabs an item of food. It's all the same to him what he eats. His servants have long since stopped asking what he would like them to prepare, and now simply defer to what they think a prince of Garlemald should be served for his meals.
He doesn't taste a difference, no matter what they cook up.
Quiet footsteps on the stone floor, or something akin to it; the pit-patting doesn't sound as if they are being made by any of the spoken races he knows of. Thus, they don't matter to him. If it is not an assassin out for his blood, then he does not care.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watches a white avian waddle up to his breakfast table and snatch a piece of bread from it. Then, with a honk that can only be described as 'triumphant', it waddles off into the distance.
Zenos continues eating.
Strangely enough, the bird does not swallow the piece of bread. Instead, it slows down after a few steps, turns around to him and honks again, louder this time, while flapping its wings. When he continues not acknowledging its presence, it drops the bread where it stands and waddles away, mutedly honking to itself, as if it has grown bored of carrying it.
That, at least, is a sentiment Zenos can relate to.
It's a sunny day in Ala Mhigo, and Aulus doesn't even know it, as he has been holed up in his Resonatorium all night and morning and has no intention of stopping anytime soon—not when the breakthrough is at his finger tips.
“If we can find a way to increase the amplitude...“ he murmurs to himself as he pores over schematics piled on his desk. If he can only do that, he thinks he will be able to craft a machine exactly to Lord Zenos' specification. It's the final problem to be solved—and by the Emperor, he will solve it or die trying.
(A soft rustling and an equally soft 'honk' comes from the other side of his desk. He does not notice.)
He needs the template he's drafted a few days ago. After rifling in vain through the papers close enough to be in reach, he rises and circles the table to try the other side. It has to be somewhere around here, then.
(There is a quiet pit-pat, and then the rustling resumes on the end of the table he just vacated.)
Where is that template? It's somewhere on this desk, he knows he's put it down here, but he can't seem to find it. Maybe his incompetent assistants misplaced it. He will have to give them a stern talking to later… In the meantime, it seems he will have to do without the template. No matter. There is plenty of other material he can work with.
He returns to his seat and frowns. Where did the document he's been reading go? It must have gotten lost in the stacks of paper he rearranged while looking for the template. So he goes back to searching, but it, too, is nowhere to be found. Did it drop to the floor? He crouches down and looks for the table, where, inexplicably, a plain white feather rests on the tiles.
He needs to have a word with the cleaning staff too, it seems.
Right after he's found his mysteriously vanishing documents.
It's a normal day in Ala Mhigo, and Regula is busy overseeing the preparations for their departure on the Gration.
His soldiers are busy carrying supplies into the carrier airship that will ferry them to the Gration itself, while Regula stands to the side and checks off items on his list as they are loaded. He could easily delegate the work, but he doesn't mind it. If you want something done properly, do it yourself.
Another soldier comes up, carrying a heavy crate that holds conserved food, according to its label. Regula nods approvingly; this one isn't dallying or wasting time, unlike some others he has already reprimanded.
Then he frowns. A white bird is waddling behind him, approaching the ramp leading into the ship's interior. As the soldier has no hands free, he walks up to it and waves his arms. “Shoo. Go away.“
The bird honks at him and flaps its wings, but then waddles away without making a fuss. Good. He doesn't need to waste his time chasing around stray animals.
It's a long day in Ala Mhigo, and Varis hates every second of it.
He is here on a stop during his journey to Abalathia's Spine, and the desert heat and his idiot son wear his patience thin. Oh, certainly, the province is still in one piece, and the savage population is sufficiently cowed, but, interacting with Zenos is so… so irritating. During their meeting the day before, his son watched him with the usual bored, disinterested look that never ceases to make Varis' blood boil. The way he answers every single question in such a way that it's technically sufficient but never quite satisfying—the way he provokes Varis almost intentionally—it's insufferable.
Right now, he's stalking towards the airship port van Baelsar installed in Ala Mhigo upon conquering it. The Gration isn't moored there, being far too big, but smaller ships refuelling and resupplying it come and go from there. He means to get a status report on when they can finally leave this horrid place.
That incessantly honking bird he sees waddling across the street does absolutely nothing to lift his spirits. And where did it get that rope it's carrying around anyway? Filthy pest. He will make sure to tell Zenos to be more proactive in combatting such nonsense in the future.
An airship rises from the port up to the hulking shape of the Gration. Varis looks after it. That one probably carries the food supplies—fuelling should already have been completed by now. Once they are done here, they will continue on to Azys—
He trips, his foot snagging onto something in his path. He manages to catch himself before falling to the ground, but his crowned helmet clatters to the ground, where the selfsame bird snatches it up in its beak and quickly waddles off with it.
The ignominy—
With grit teeth, he stalks after the bird. Somehow—he does not know why, he does not know how, but somehow this is Zenos' fault.
He just knows it.
The soldier salutes upon coming to a halt in front of Regula. “That was the last of the crates, sir!“
Regula consults his list. Yes, it appears they have finished loading in everything they will need in Azys Lla, and then some. He nods and gives the soldier and his companions leave to rest for the remainder of the day. They have worked hard, here in the desert heat, and deserve some rest.
Then, just as he is about to give the order for the airship to depart, the white bird from earlier—or perhaps one looking just like it—hastily waddles into the plaza and towards the airship ramp, again. This time, it seems to be carrying something…
Regula frowns. That looks very much like His Radiance's crown. And indeed, but a moment later, a red-faced Varis emerges from an alley way and stalks after the bird.
How did this happen?
But thinking about that can wait until they have retrieved the crown. He breaks out into a run—His Radiance is wisely concerned with not displaying haste unbefitting of his station, but Regula is not bound by such constraints—and attempts to corner the bird. It changes direction and is now moving away from the airship, but it's hardly fast. He will catch it in no time.
It drops the crown and walks off, honking loudly and—he imagines—indignantly. Varis catches up to him as he picks the crown up from the ground and wipes the dirt off.
When he looks up again, the bird is nowhere to be seen. Well, that is fine too.
As long as it doesn't cause any more trouble, he doesn't care where it goes.
The goose sits in the loud vibrating place. It doesn't know what this place is, exactly, but the loud big featherless thing didn't want it to come here, and so it came here.
No loud big featherless thing will ever deter it from doing something.
Especially not from pecking at all the pretty blinking things in this place.
Honk.