The Midnight Prince

[Rokag]

Rokag takes the hand, struggling to get the coughing under control. She had a pretty strong grip, too. It took a few moments of having a steady hand before she could manage getting anything out. "H-how (cough) name?" She didn't remember giving the Midnight Princess her name.

[Shisou]

"Uh--" she stammers, before recovering, in a more bardic tone: "I know many people's names, citizen."

A moment later, having hauled Rokag onto the boat, she adds in a more normal tone, "plus there aren't many half-orcs working at the menagerie."

[Rokag]

Rokag took a few breaths of very nice air. Fuck...that's...a good point. Still, it made her feel a tad bit exposed...well, a tad bit MORE exposed. Apparently The Midnight Princess now has a very naked half-orc in her boat. "Sorry I....thought I heard voices and wanted to make sure if I needed to run."

[Shisou]

To her credit, she flushes, glancing away. "Y-yeah," she says, and for a moment sounds almost familiar. "Nope, just me," she corrects a moment later. "Me and Carbonne."

The lizard slips out from under a bench in the rowboat, shaking xirself. "Who's this?"

"The one who patched me up the other day while you had a little nap," chides Soushi-hime.

[Rokag]

Rokag looked at the lizard and then at Soushi-hime....and then back at the lizard. "Um...okay....so is that actually talking or are th...um...shit." Rokag frowned as she tried to puzzle something. "Okay, I'm not really sure how to ask what's going on without possibly making something that doesn't look dangerous but might be angry."

[Shisou]

The Midnight Princess blinks in confusion. "Carbonne is my familiar. Of course xe talks."

"Hey!" argues the lizard over top of the girl. "I am your spirit guide."

[Rokag]

"Alright so...che talks." Rokag shakes her head. "Right, so that makes...kinda sense, at least if you believe a lot of the stories people pass around." Which was mostly that people who lived on the islands were sometimes blessed by spirits to some destiny or another.

"Right, um.....so, you don't sound like your ribs are trying to kill you...so I'm glad the bandage worked."

...Great, and now I sound like something's wrong with me.

[Shisou]

"Well enough for me to find real healing," she says, with a smile. "I mean -- thank you. You saved my life. I won't soon forget that."

[Rokag]

"That IS real healing. Least if you don't have the coin to get a preist or something." Rokag actually looked a little miffed at that. It'd saved her life more than a couple of times. Especially since you had to do completely different things if you sprain something versus...."A-anyway, it's fine. Don't worry about it." And then there was another pause.... "Um....also sorry for eavesdropping. Kinda thought it might have been someone planning something with the menagerie and wanted-" to know if I should get out while I can. "To make sure I was hearing it right."

[Shisou]

Soushi-hime waves a hand. "It's fine. I'm sure you didn't mean to. I should have known better than to assume I was alone out here."

There's a brief pause, then, "Um... you didn't hear anything personal, did you?"

[Rokag]

"Um.." That you seem to know about the tigers? "I don't think it was personal. Just sh...things about people sending bad gifts and the like." Rokag shrugged. "I figured it was just something the Families did. Get gifts to kinda show how they can get something. Kinda like...some other stuff I'd seen." Probably don't want to talk about the small gangs on the Shore that she helped now and again. It was better protection than her own two hands sometimes and they didn't usually ask much.

[Shisou]

"Well, you work in the menagerie, don't you? Didn't it seem a little... There's three children of Kuronue, not two. But two of them are pretty girls, and one a boy with a stammer. Seems a little on the nose, to donate two tigers from a family with two sons."

[Rokag]

"Well...yeah. He didn't seem like he deserved that, either. I mean...I don't know anything about them, but he seemed...kinda like he didn't want to be there." Rokag looked away for a moment. "At least it looked like it."

[Shisou]

"I think you're right," she says softly. "But that's his life, unfortunately. The extra kid, the one that's not good enough. I feel bad for him, sometimes. Of course, then I remember he's rich and it's hard to feel too bad for him."

Carbonne eyes Soushi, but doesn't comment. For now.

[Rokag]

"Seems alright to me." Rokag wasn't going to go into how she got this job, but she wasn't just going to just.  "Don't know much about the Tiger clan anyway. Other than apparently the two sons are very hot and that they want them to 'take them away'." She rolled her eyes. "Pretty sure there's more than that."