All That Glitters (Open)

[fuelingfire]

Who: Lahabrea, open
When: 6thish of Feoveuer
Where: Various Jewelry Shops
What: Acquiring some cursed sparklies!
Warnings: Contains sexy cursed sparklies. If someone puts one on who knows what might happen. General warnings for Lahabrea being a constant raging jerk.



It is the first time Lahabrea has ever gone out in public since arriving in anything but all concealing robes and crimson mask. He has been informed that doing so makes him stand out considerably more than he otherwise would, which he still begged to differ given he was brilliantly scarlet and gold in the dead of winter and was going to stand out no matter what he did. But he'd decided to allow it for ONE venture out, replacing comfortable black robes with ... equally black pants and a rather ruffly black shirt, brightly colored plumage ruffled up against the wind and snow, and gone shopping.

Which is where he can be found right now, in fact. He'd heard rumor of good prices to be had of some fairly expensive jewelry, and it surely wouldn't do any harm to increase his small hoard any.

The only problem is he's having trouble finding anything he feels is exquisite enough.

At one such pop-up ramshackle shop in the entertainment district, the half-changed dragon picks silently and deliberately through the offerings of jewels and finely wrought silver and gold, expression fixed in a scowl. He's slow about it, examining this one or that one, occasionally placing it against crimson feathers to see how it looks before setting it back down, tail a slow steady sweep behind him. Although he hasn't finished his changes yet, the ascian turned dragon certainly looks very nearly so - the only thing that would be needed to complete the image is a pair of wings, but the rest is there, from horns to fangs, to curved ivory claws delicately laced in amongst the treasure in offering.

The shopkeep doesn't seem very pleased by his silent scrutiny. No .. maybe extremely nervous is a better suggestion, by the beads of sweat dotting his brow as Lahabrea examines his wares with excruciating care.

All of the jewelry in offering certainly looks amazing! It flashes in the light, it glitters temptingly, it looks to be of artisanal craftsmanship, and the prices are absolutely phenomenal! What else could be asked for? Except maybe that all of it wouldn't be cursed, but Lahabrea's oblivious to that particular ominous looming threat.

Very slowly, a chain of braided black, silver and sapphire stones is held up. Examined carefully under the shop's less than amazing lights, and the dragon finally speaks, his voice a dry, unpleasant rasp.

"Do you have this in garnet and gold..?"

... Well, if it's good enough for a dragon..

[OOC: Will match format!]

Comments

[fuelingfire]

If she survives, she's going to have to learn something very important: driving off any customer costs cunes. And if that customer is just being alarmingly suspicious, deal with it until currency changes hands. "Rule number three," the shopkeeper mutters with an apologetic glance, shoveling goods into boxes, "Don't fuck with Dragons."

Not only is that a good way to get horribly murdered, dragons tend to be very, very wealthy. And what's good enough for a dragon, inevitably lures in other interested eyes that might look to see what's left over. Or had been, until she decided to cause problems and the more clever locals know danger in the wind when they smell it and are getting out of the way. No matter how unpleasant the dragon, cunes are why the shopkeeper is there, and there will be far less income should that potentially rich patron is driven off. He never wanted the dragon driven off without a sale first - afterward is fine but before... well.

In this case it's a mistaken estimate. Most dragons may indeed be ludicrously wealthy but Lahabrea's only really got enough currency for one or two items, but it's not a bad estimate to take ordinarily.

"You know as well as I your compliments are naught more than a farce. Pray shame yourself no further by attempting to continue it." Genuine flattery in theory works fine - but this reeks of deliberate efforts to get under his skin, and so it can't be anything genuine at all. Nobody goes from hatred and hostility to that so quickly, and if Mettaton either played at someone else's game OR wanted the item for himself, it changed the deception not at all.

Lahabrea stops at the front of the second shop, setting his hands and leaning a bit on the display stand. It creaks under the sudden pressure. He never once spares Mettaton a glance, which might not be for the best given the mechanical idol's fondness for humanity. "And this ... senseless creature saw fit to sic you on me like a dog, knowing not two moons' turn past a pair of dragons flattened part of the city over a desired item. Deliberately trying to get you to provoke those selfsame instincts, knowing any dragon would attempt to kill anyone foolish enough to try to touch something they felt was theirs ... is a calculated attempt to incite murder. You're a machine, so mayhap she thinks none would care. You MIGHT escape my claws, but what about everything and everyone between us?"

And that just encourages Lahabrea's own shopkeeper to work on boxing up a little faster, shuffling several out the back flap and to who knows where. The dragon leans a little harder and the entire booth begins to list with a creak. "Nay, you don't yet have my ire, retrieve your prize and go; I will address this dire insult to both of us. She will survive it, this I swear."

That should be a lot more reassuring than it sounds.

[metalcrusher]

Mettaton laughs.

"A FARCE??? YOU'RE TOO SUSPICIOUS OF ME, DARLING!"

But he doesn't get much of a chance to elaborate upon his Complex Feelings (involving how Lahabrea would outshine the piece; that he did think golds and rubies matched him handsomely; that he was still not "green with envy") in this moment, what with the growing tension. It's a missed opportunity, all in all, all thanks to a shopkeeper's rookie mistake when dealing with Dragons—and when trying to win merchant friends.

The woman shopkeeper balks at her cohort, who just... packs his things and leaves. The nerve! But she hadn't realized her mistake, valuing his distress and comfort over the fact that he was willing to endure for the sake of a sale. And now... She fixes her attention on Lahabrea in full, realizing that the things he's saying are a direct threat toward her. Not upon her survival, apparently, oh how fortunate. But her livelihood... What would become of her? If not her, her wares? She frowns, eyes glassy and wide—an apparently novice at doing business, incapable of disguising her feelings of fear.

Mettaton doesn't like what Lahabrea's saying, championing humanity as he does, and abandons completely his pursuit of shinies. His screen glows crimson, and he emits a low buzzing sound akin to an old computer chewing on a floppy disk.

"I KNOW FULL WELL WHAT OCCURRED BETWEEN SOREN AND EREN. THEY ARE MY FRIENDS, AFTER ALL. IT WAS A DISPUTE OVER A COVETED POSSESSION, AND NONE OF THESE ARE YET YOURS," Mettaton decides, pointing at her things and the fleeing shopkeep's. "ARE YOU SAYING THAT JUST TO PROVE A POINT, YOU INTEND TO HURT HER?"

Mettaton's ears remain tall and alert, and he plants his fists on the boxy equivalent of his hips. Mettaton makes a quick veer on his singular wheel and...

launches himself atop the vendor's booth. Mettaton blocks the shopkeeper from view with all 5+' of his chunky metal body on the determined tabletop, which creaks in protest of 300+lbs of robot. He even settles upon all of her jewelry, as though he belongs among the finest collection of jewels.

Despite the ridiculousness of this scene, Mettaton continues boldly, wagging a finger at Lahabrea.

"I WON'T ALLOW IT! EVEN IF SHE'S MADE A GRAVE ERROR IN THE CODE OF BUSINESS, I WON'T LET YOU HURT HER. DO SOMETHING ELSE."

waiting room tag please forgive typos or formatting or icon

[fuelingfire]

"Like so many others, you only hear part of what's said." He already explained himself, in detail; maybe Mettaton's okay with being set up as a murder victim, so sure is he of his ability to escape, but Lahabrea is not anywhere near as forgiving over someone trying to set him up as the killer. He chooses who he wants to murder and when, not someone else, not when they're going out of their way to try to abuse the instincts he didn't like having anyway. And had that necklace indeed been something hoard-worthy.. "Rewind a little and re-process it and mayhap you'll find some answers."

He doubts it; if there was anything he could rely on it was the decisons of others to take everything he does and says and simply ignore three quarters of it. As Mettaton sprawls on the rows of jewelry, Lahabrea genuinely expects for several moments for the machine to extend a booted, humanoid leg upward out of nowhere, it was the proper pose for it - and the wheel is somewhat lacking in comparison.

The dragon frowns, brows pulling the red and gold stripes along his eyes downward, visible feathers ruffling up as if by an unfelt breeze. It looks almost ridiculously fluffy, the brief snap of electricity in a huffed breath not helping any; it creates little static sparkles across those same fluffed up feathers. "Time and again I offer you favors - a promise to not kill you, the pineapple, how to care for the thing, the necklace you claimed you coveted, and time and again you insult my efforts." All this, because once upon a time, Lahabrea didn't find a machine sexy! And never would, his tastes simply lay in far different directions. But he genuinely thinks he's been outright generous and obliging until this point with a machine he didn't much like, even though his attitude and bearing has made any such generosity a backhanded gift at best long since. "I have gone out of my way to aquiesce to your whims more than enough at this point. This is the last time I will extend you any such courtesy. But there is still a price to be paid for attempting to incite murder, and bring this entire area to ruin. I will give her too a taste of what she asked for, in my generosity."

Lahabrea doesn't have his full strength as a dragon, but three hundred pounds is trivial to a fully changed beast. He isn't - not yet - but he has enough of that strength to dig his claws into the very tabletop Mettaton's sprawled on and heave the entire thing upwards and over in a sudden explosion of scattered jewels and glittering gold and silver, ornamentation scattering every which way. The booth had had enough pressure with a 300 pound machine on it, this further abuse is more than it can handle, the entire thing buckling in a shriek of twisting metal and shattering wood. He knows damn well Mettaton's going to be fine, he doesn't have the strength to toss the machine like a ball just yet, and the woman isn't likely to stick around either, but that booth, and all its sparkling treasures, are going to be going in every direction.

An enterprising young harpy darts in to snatch one of the flying jewels in one hand and flees off with it. With one person doing so, a couple others are edging in to see what can be pillaged as well.

[metalcrusher]

The leg would have come momentarily, had the opportunity not been so utterly upended. Along with the table.

A table which Mettaton slides himself off of like butter, landing on—oh there are those legs, which he chooses to land on. Two heels erupt from where his wheel once was, the click of heels on rabbit-shaped feet hardly at all a distraction to the shopkeeper as she ducks for cover. Her goods are picked from, shinies attracting all manner of shiny-inclined Monsters—and human passersby aren't above picking from her collection, either.

Mettaton doesn't bother gazing skyward, too confident to care about where that abused table might land. His ears bounce up, alert, then lean back, showing their tops as they fold.

"WELL. IF THAT'S ALL, THEN... I APPROVE."

As the sparkling jewels begin to rain from the sky, Mettaton strikes a pose. The shopkeeper desperately tries to catch her cursed jewelry from the deluge in her arms, her livelihood in shambles. But hey, she wasn't physically harmed. More importantly...

Mettaton's stance returns to something more neutral, but he's back to being uncomfortably tall once more, a box standing atop shapely, long legs. He gestures animatedly toward Lahabrea with the point of his finger, continuing to pay attention to only what strikes him as most crucial. Such is the nature of fast-paced interaction, in Mettaton's fast-paced way.

"BUT WAIT! DARLING, THE PINEAPPLE... THE HELP. COULD IT BE?? ARE YOU LAHABREA?????"

He seems most shocked about this, screen flickering with his every syllable.

[fuelingfire]

Would it really be all? Would Lahabrea be satisfied with the destruction of her livelihood - or at least this small portion of it? Was he simply biding his time, memorizing a scent and intending bloodier retribution later? There's really no telling, but even this little ruination certainly soothed a little of the constant agitation and fury that he contended with.

It would be much nicer on fire. All of it. As it is, there's more than a few people taking advantage of the situation who might well deeply regret it later as the various curses and flawed spells kicked in, but if Lahabrea were aware of any of THAT being a risk, he'd have taken his cunes elsewhere a long time ago. As it is he does absolutely nothing to any of them, the slow thump of his tail against the ground in a dull, muffled drumbeat no deterrent as soon as it's clear he's not suddenly going to turn on them. Nothing quite drew his interest enough.

Which was a damn shame, he'd hoped something would prove appealing to that strange dragonish sense of painfully specific greed, the beast within despaired at the tiny size of his collection and wanted far more than what he'd provided.

Maybe it was for the best given the puca's presence. Who now had legs, to go with the box and the rabbit ears. Puca were shapeshifters, he knew that much, but why would anything choose to be a box with legs. It keeps him from going anywhere for a moment mid-reach for the rest of the booth, fully intending to continue his destruction right up until that moment. There is a level of sheer improbable ridiculousness that even an Ascian might struggle with it.

A box with legs qualifies. And heels, he notes absently.

Of course there's heels. Why wouldn't there be heels to go with the legs. It makes as much sense as anything else does at this point.

Although his expression is schooled into something like neutrality, when he's pointed at, and then seemingly finally recognized (though he's certain that's been a thing long, long since now ... whether or not Mettaton had last seen him as an unchanged hyur, clad head to toe in dark and concealing robes), his changed ears flatten against his hair so much they all but disappear into the blond, a hackle-like ridge rising down the spine of his tail. It doesn't at all give him a more intimidating look; maybe if fate had chosen to give him spikes instead..

His claws close on the booth's remaining sides. It gives him something to dig their points into besides flesh or metal or the scattering of glittering, tempting jewels and precious metals. They glint and shine where they lay, a trove of cursed treasure.

"And others tell me I have such a distinctive and recognizable voice." His tone is flat, humorless; if somehow Mettaton hadn't recognized him before, well, now the particular shame of his changed appearance was hardly a secret anymore was it? "I fear your prize has been somewhat lost in the shuffle."

Yes, shuffle, as if Lahabrea hadn't tossed it all like salad in a bowl and then stood there and done nothing as shiny-seekers crept around them to take advantage of the free situation.