War of the Lost Kingdom

The voices quiet. There are several heartbeats of silence...

Greta burst through the door, shedding light into an already scantly lit mess room. Coming into the room from outside was much like walking into a layer of hanging dust, with the air in this room comparably stuffy and dry. The tables were askew, as if jostled by several moving bodies. The light was coming from a single lantern on a table near the middle of the room. Two people were sitting at the table. One, a woman, whose back was to the group, and another - a large, scruffy form - that of Toyachek.


Both stood at once, with the former knocking over their chair and brandishing a heavy looking one-handed hammer, and the latter carefully standing without knocking anything around, but kept their arms by their sides, fists clenched. As if in punctuation, the door Greta had knocked open slammed against the stones, which echoed into the large mess hall.

The blacksmith had loosely and messily bound black hair that was just a bit too short for it to be effective, and wore a leather apron unwound from their neck, giving it more a look of a leather skirt or a waist apron. Her scrunched face was covered in some sort of grime, obscuring her average features and matching her dark eyes.


The larger Toyachek was curiously shirtless, with baggy pants that covered his hooves. In the light, even the unobservant could see that most of the fur from his left shoulder to the middle of his chest was blackened. He seemed to visibly deflate, sighing in relief. "Normal people. Thank Janni."


The blacksmith woman looked unconvinced. "Axu?" she curiously asked, through a thick, if otherwise general and nonspecific accent.

The blacksmith snorts and takes her hand. "Venna," she says in a rasping, airy tone.

Toyachek squints. "Oh... yes, we did meet, didn't we?" Toyachek sits back down, while the blacksmith remains standing. She was taut, as if ready to fight or flee despite apparent peace.