Owner	Pose
Amanda Sefton	The dragonflyer hunt has begun. Or maybe it's just Amanda's regular jaunt into the Ways. Whatever the case, she opened a portal from her little pocket dimension off the apartment onto the Winding Ways themselves. It's a bit of a headtrip here. Pathways of light, tied to the leylines on Earth, throughout the Nine Realms, and beyond, crisscross and interweave amidst an everchanging landscape that sometimes is little more than a mandelbrot fractal constantly in motion and other times is some sort of strange refraction and recombination of places and realms nearby but just out of reach. There's a certain Escherlike quality to the place. And when she steps upon the path, Amanda seems to glow for a moment with its power. It sinks into her skin, leaving her fainly luminous. Garbed in the rune-inscribed leathers that she has adopted of late as her 'battle dress' -- rather than the circus performer spandex of her youth -- she, unusually, has actually brought a full length staff with her in addition to her bag of tricks, with its potions, spell components, wand, and power rod. The wire-wrapped stone embedded into its head glows with the same faint luminance, running through carved lines that weave symbols all the way down its length. It's a sorcerer's staff, to be sure, and not something she breaks out often. She turns to her Asgardian companion. "Ready, then?"
Brunnhilde	Brunnhilde predictably carries a bottle, and not much else. Her beloved dragonfang is still missing, stolen. And it doesn't seem right, putting on the armor without it. She looks at the Winding Ways, the impossible paths of light that ignore the laws of physics. And blinks, shaking her head slightly. "Hang on," says the ex-valkyrie, pausing at the threshold, holding up one finger. And she drains her bottle of it's contents. Then, belching, she tosses it away. "Now, I'm ready," she says. "Let's go."
Amanda Sefton	Amanda supresses a snirk, but not her wry smile of amusement as the bottle is disposed of. She wonders, briefly, what magical cargo cult will come of it, and then starts walking ahead on the path. "Did you bring the clippings from Spikes?" They'll help her track the flight across realms, if they've passed through the Ways -- which is likely, since she does keep her tiny realm attached to them.
Brunnhilde	"Nails and scales," Brunnhilde replies, holding out a small sack dragonfly lizard parts. All harvested with as little harm to Spikes as possible. With no harm at all actually. The scales and thin claw casings are all natural shed. She only had to collet them from the stables before they left.
Amanda Sefton	"Perfect," Amanda says, just as pleased by the harmless leavings as anything else. She wasn't really expecting any need to draw blood, after all. She opens the flap of her satchel with one hand and fishes around in it by touch for a moment before she pulls out a small copper tin. Flipping its hinged lid open with her thumb, she extends it to Brunnhilde. "Just pour them in there," she tells her. That way she doesn't have to fuss with how to hold her staff and everything else at the same time.
Brunnhilde	Brunnhilde upends the leather bag, the detritus falling into the tin with a light sprinkling of sound. Which turns into a soft melody that swirls around the two women. "Huh," Brunnhilde says with a slight shrug.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda smiles as the music swells and fades. She snaps the tin closed and gives it a small shake as she murmurs quiet words in a Romani dialect. Dark lines etched into the tin begin to emit a verdigris glow. The light ripples along the lines, randomly at first, but slowly synching up to flow across the copper with a directional pulse. Amanda's head turns to look off in the direction of the pulse. "So... that way. Alrighty then." Not, of course, that "that way" is necessarily easy to navigate. They still have to follow the paths of light, which are meandering and anything but straight lines. But it's a start.
Brunnhilde	"Right behind you," the Asgardian woman says with a nod. "This is your thing. If something tries to kills us, that'll be my thing."
Amanda Sefton	Adjusting her satchel at her side, Amanda gives Brunnhilde a flash of a smile and then starts off on the path that appears to lead in the right direction. The Ways wind, as they do -- they do have their name for a reason. And Amanda snirks softly as she watches the light waver and shift ahead of them. "Okay," she says dryly. "So, we're going to have a detour or two along the way. Hope you don't mind walking." In the distance, the sound of falling water can faintly be heard, the splash of water against rock. She's not quite sure where it's coming from. But, then, detours usually come up unexpectedly.
Brunnhilde	"As long as the drink lasts," Brunnhilde says with a wink. But truthfully she doesn't mind. She falls into an easy loping pace that implies she could walk to thr end if the Nine Realms -- if not forever.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda chuckles again, companionably. Still, the water grows louder as they continue forward. She checks their de facto compass and her brows crease. "Water's getting louder, and the compass isn't shifting. I think we're gonna get wet..." And, really, she's not wrong. The water grows loud enough that it sounds like a cascading waterfall -- too loud to speak over. Suddenly, so quickly even Amanda can't anticipate it, the light they walk on falls away, becoming the waterfall. They tumble down, pulled under and spit up into some sort of dark river that sweeps along between ghostly trees and cliff faces.
Brunnhilde	Laughing, the Asgardian throws herself into a dive, jack-knifing to point her body face first towards the river. She cuts into the water with barely a splash. And rises to the surface with an unabashed grin. She could grow to like the Ways. Swimming towards Amanda, her arms and legs propelling her forward with a powerful crawl stroke, she shouts, "Where to next?"
Amanda Sefton	Amanda surfaces, soaked to the skin and drawn along by the current until she can gather enough power to use her staff to form a boat out of eldritch energies and help Brunnhilde over the gunwale. "Follow the river for now," she says, pulling her hair back from her face and peering out into the darkness. "I think the Ways have something in mind." She speaks of them like they're alive. And maybe they are.
Brunnhilde	Wordlessly, Brunnhilde offers Amanda her bottle to drink from. Miraculously, she managed to keep hold of it during the tumble. And it seems to be uncontaminayed by the Ways water, as if it had a magic all its own. She settles into the boat and prepares to enjoy the river trip for as long as it lasts.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda takes the bottle with a smile and nods of thanks, swigging a mouthful back before she returns it. The boat drifts along on the currents, the energies slowly solidifying into something that more resembles wood and pitch. There aren't any oars or paddles or a sail, mostly because Amanda's staff and magic is sufficient for now. But at least it feels a little more like a real watercraft and not just a glowing projection of light. The impression of a forest rises up on either side of the dark river, more shadows and weight than anything real. But it feels real enough. There's a sense of life to the shadow, regardless. It can't be heard or really seen, but it can be felt. The boat drifts deeper into the shadow world until the river widens into a lake and an island rises from the center of it. There's a structure on it, though it's hard to make out in the gloom, mist settled low on the shore.
Brunnhilde	Quelling the impulse to immediately scale the island, Brunnhilde cannot restrain herself from sitting up eagerly. She jumps out of the boat as soon as they reach the shallows and starts hauling it up on the beach. Old habits. It doesn't occur to her that it's a craft of light and magic. She sets about securing their vessel.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda steps out onto the black sand of the island and raises her staff with its light on top to see if she can cut through the mirk. The light reflects back off the mist, so she dims it again. Waiting until Brunnhilde has secured the craft to her satisfaction, she falls in beside her as they turn toward the interior of the island and the lone tower that pierces the gloom. "Looks like an open invitation to me," she says with a grin. Because, well, it's there. They're here. And this is apparently where the Ways want them to be. As the pair begin picking their way over rocks and scree, making their way inland via narrow footpaths and winding climbs. (Which, yes, Amanda totally cheats on. Because she can fly, damn it. And she can levitate Brunnhilde with her as she goes.) When its out of sight, the boat, so carefully attended, evaporates into motes of light. Perhaps it will reappear later. Perhaps it won't. It hardly matters right now. Eventually, they come to the base of the tower. Thorns and brambles climb the walls, obscuring whatever entries may be there. Most of what might pass for windows higher up are little more than arrow slits, though there may be access from the roof, if they care to fly that far.
Brunnhilde	As they approach the tower overrun with vines, the ex-valkyrie regrets the loss of her blade. And the notion of finding an interim replacement is banished as soon as it appears in her thoughts. There is no replacement for her Dragonfang. With nothing to cut through the obscurung flora, Brunnhilde, instead wrappa her hands with strips of cloth, torn from her clothing. And after testing that the brambles will hold her weight, she hauls herself upward, beginning to climb. Occasionally she pauses, searching for a way in.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda watches the Asgardian begin to climb. She considers the problem, herself. It could be the Ways wants them to climb. It could be, the Ways don't care. Since the brambles don't *yet* appear to be trying to skewer and eat her companion, Amanda decides to take a slow amble around the base of the tower, probing with her magic to see if there is, indeed, a way in, or if this is one of them many inspirations for Rapunzel's tower. Ultimately, her search proves fruitless, so she suspects Gothel's architech was involved. Summoning her eldritch power, she drifts up the side of the tower to where Brunnhilde struggles to pull herself higher. "Find anything promising?" she asks, keeping a lazy pace in the air beside her. Her blue eyes sparkle with some amusement and mischief as she does.
Brunnhilde	"Maaaaaaaybe," Brunnhilde grins. Climbing a couple of feet higher, she suddenly kicks into the wall. A hollow shattering sound echoes from beneath her boot. With a self-satisfied smile, she swings her body through the opening, not bothering to look inside first.
Amanda Sefton	As Brunnhilde smashes her way in, Amanda suppresses the urge to laugh. Some things are guaranteed. And that's one of them. She conjures a witchlight and sends it in after the Asgardian to illuminate the room within. A stair case curls around the outside walls, but the center appears to be a fairly sizable chamber -- if not a well-kept one. There are stains on the dark wood floors and areas that look just a little suspect. It may not be rot, but Amanda isn't willing to put *her* weight on it, nevermind the denser Asgardian's. She drifts into the room through the hole and weaves a reinforcement over the floor... just in case. "I always wonder about abandoned places. Who was here? Why?" It's more idle conversation than anything else. "I'm not seeing heavy magic usage -- at least, not very recently."
Brunnhilde	The Asgardian shrugs. "Well, whoever it was didn?t die here," she offers matter-of-factly. As if that's some small comfort. "What do you think?? Brunnhilde asks, cocking an eyebrow. "Up or down?"
Amanda Sefton	Amanda laughs at the question. "Since Gothel's Architect seems to have had a hand in this place, I doubt there's much more upstairs than a strange princess' bedroom decorated with painted stars." Is she serious? No. But it amuses her. "Down's the way into the deeper mystery -- why have no door? Perhaps the worst we'll find is a wine cellar."
Brunnhilde	The fastest way down would be through the now reinforced floorboards, if the sorceress hadn't had her way. Wondering if she can effect the magic of this place, Brunnhilde thinks it couldnt hurt to try. And so as she places her foot over the first stair, she wishes for the steps to collapse into a slide.
Amanda Sefton	In making her decision, Amanda lifts the magic closer to the stairs -- though not so much in the center of the room. Of course, the magic of the Ways is as fickle and capricious as a Fae Queen's whim. Thus, when Brunnhilde stomps on the stairs, wishing for a slide, the stone crumbles and collapses, tumbling into a cascade that sweeps down in a draining spiral. Amanda reaches out with a hand, rippling her fingers in a quick gesture. A piece of wood peels up from the floor, tumbling through the air, and falling lightly across Brunnhilde's inevitable path. It's not to stop her fall. Rather, it becomes a sled board to ride the wave of sand. For her own part, Amanda follows in an eldritch float that she deems the safer method by far. But why deprive the Vakyrie of her fun?
Brunnhilde	Brunnhilde's mouth splits into a wide grin and she lets out a loud whoop of joy as she surfs down the tumblings stone wave. Speeding past the lower floors, the ex-Valkyrie doesn't spare them a glance. She's too intent on maintaining her wild ride to the ground. As she skids into the floor, a loud laugh escapes her lips and she looks back to Amanda, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda twists in the air, sliding down alongside Brunnhilde, but using the spiral motion to propel her lower. As they meet at the bottom, she throws up a witch light to reveal their surroundings. The room is broad, as a tower base might be expected to be. The floor is earthen, hard packed and littered with the sand that once was stairs. There are torches on the walls, unlit. There are cobwebs and roots and broken things. Carefully, the sorceress touches down, letting her flight spell dissipate. "Well," she says, meeting Brunnhilde's grin with a smaller one of her own, "this seems terribly anticlimatic." Could they really have come all this way to find... nothing?
Brunnhilde	"Turn up the lights," Brunnhildw suggests, nodding at the torches. "Or I can start poking the walls for hidden passages." She flashes another grin at Amanada. "There must be a cellar. Maybe even a secret tunnel..." She is =gracious enough to wait for Amanda to possibly kindle flame to the torches before sprinting off in search of architecture of potential.
Amanda Sefton	Breathing a soft Romani word, Amanda brings the torches to life with a flick of her fingers. The ruddy light bathes the dark stone in shades of orange and crimson, but provides more than enough illumination for the two to see. Still, she doesn't extinguish her witchlight, the little orb providing a cooler cast of light to augment the torches. The sand from the stairs pools in mounds that partially block what was likely a door hidden beneath the stairs, its wood still sturdy, if stained, after all these years. (Well. They're assuming it's 'years'. Who knows? Maybe this is an intentional decorating choice. Some people are weird like that.) There's also a gap in the stones on the curve of the wall opposite the door, one that would require crawling to get through. Amanda's ears rise faintly with curiosity. She glances to the door and uses a light eldritch wind to shove the sand to the side. But then she sends her witchlight toward the dark gap on the far side to cast some light into its cramped confines.
Brunnhilde	Without a thought for the door hidden by the detritus of the collapsed stairs, Val follows the witchlight. She shoves her head inside the gap. Despite the cool pulsing illumination, blackness swallows the little ball, dimming its reach; and engulfs her sight. The space before her feels large and open. A slight movement in the air caresses her skin, bringing with it the mineral taste of a cave system. And the faint scent of decay. Val wriggles her shoulders and the top of her torso through the hole. Were she to consider the proper door at all, she would dismiss it as a storage cupboard. Or something boring, like an office. She would be wrong.
Amanda Sefton	Indeed. Amanda crosses to that door beneath the erstwhile stairs and lays a hand upon it. She's not sure what's behind it. Something is. Could be a friendly, blue-haired caterpillar warning them away from the castle at the center of the Labyrinth. Or it could be some unspeakable eldritch horror. All Amanda knows is that it's there. Waiting. And Brunnhilde is going the other way. So, she lets her hand drop away and follows after, crouching down to peer into the hole after the Asgardian woman. "See anything interesting?" The gap leads to a narrow tunnel that's cramped and damp and requires crawling on hands and knees at best, slithering on belly and thighs at least half the way. But it opens into a larger cavern -- at least, that's what it sounds like. And possibly smells like, though mostly it just smells earthy and musty and damp.
Brunnhilde	"I see dead people," the woman intones as the witchlight swirls ahead, skating over skeletons on open biers, revealing remains laid out in inhuman body-shapes. Trust the psychopomp to find a crypt. "Well maybe people. Definitely not human, but maybe people." At least this time the corpses aren't animating. There is no lifeforce in these old bones.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda doesn't particularly enjoy having to slither forward on her belly to reach the far end of the tunnel her companion has chosen. There, however, she sends the witchlight soaring ceiling ward, encouraging it to grow to illuminate the crypt. "Well," she says dryly, "unless there's a civilization out there that thinks dead beasts are worthy of the same care given to dead people... they're probably people, yes." She peers a little closer at one of the skeletons. "Definitely not human." Thus, she steps back a pace or two. It's not a specieist reaction. It's a sorceress understanding that, even without an animating lifeforce to reinvigorate them, the dead are best given a polite berth. She brushes the damp earth from her leathers and runs her hands through her hair to clear any debris from it as she continues to look around. "Going out on a limb here, and saying these aren't the folks that built the tower." Hell, they may not even be on the island anymore, the Ways being as they are. For all she knows, they've taken a wrong turn somewhere and are now somewhere else quite entirely. There appears to be another doorway up a broad set of cracked and broken stone stairs across the way, however. Perhaps that's a way out. More likely, it's just a way deeper in. The massive , heavy bronze doors that hang between the carved pillars sculpted into the cave walls suggest, either way, that this place is not really meant for casual lingering. "I'm disappointed," she says mildly, eyeing the ex-valkyrie sidelong. "You didn't find the wine cellar."
Brunnhilde	Val's eyes light up. "D'ya think there's a wine cellar?" It's enough to spur her forward to the heavy bronze doors. Once they're close, the witchlight illuminates the decorative embossing. It's covered in dragons - thin lizard-like dragons crawling atop each other; almost equine heads peeking out over wrapped batlike wings, obscuring the bodies within; thin tails curl and coil around corners linking long limbed monkey-dragons; round porcine dragons with huge sharp tusks and impossibly small wings; dragons of all shapes and sizes and strange configurations. Suddenly the range of impossible bodies starts to make more sense. Briefly the Asgardian imagines the taste of dragon-wine. A small smile flickers over her lips and her tongue darts out in anticipation: sweet, she thinks, and spicey - a soothing fiery liquid to warm your belly with heady alcohol, rich and red. She hopes there's a wine cellar waiting beyond. The doors move easily beneath her hand, so incredibly well balanced that she doesn't even need to exert her superhuman strength. Her footsteps echo as she passes over the threshold into the room beyond. Which is not, as she had anticipated, a large meeting hall or vast entryway, but rather something wilder. The witchlight soars high above her head and, catching in the crystals embedded in the cave walls, refracts and clearly exposes the space around her. Colors dance around her, split into rainbows that shift as the light moves.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda steps perhaps a little more carefully through the bronze portal than Brunnhilde. But her witchlight spins upwards, refracting off the crystals and turning the room into a fantastical discotheque. The room is massive, ledges tiered into the walls. It is also far from empty. At least, it's not empty to a sorceress with the Sight and a psychopomp, no matter how disgraced she may consider herself to be. Indeed, the room is full of spectres -- the ghosts of dragons and dragon kin, gathered for a feast. "Sorry," Amanda says, raising a hand in greeting as dozens of astral eyes focus upon them. "Didn't mean to crash the party."
Brunnhilde	"Huh?" The Valkyrie asks. They are not her dead, nor are they, like the biers behind, the physical remnants of death; and so take a moment to resolve before her eyes. "Oh," she says, eying the incorporeal crowd. "Huh."
Amanda Sefton	In the midst of the misty throng, a coil ripples and undulates, the large spectral face of a particularly impressive wyrm manifesting only a few feet before them. ~*It's so rare to have visitors,*~ the creature purrs, its voice more a shiver down the spine or a whisper in the back of the mind than audible words. ~*Are you here to honour our kin?*~ Large nostrils flare and Amanda can sense the stirring of the aether around them, as if it were really the wind moved by the creatures great breath. ~*You have the scent of the Aeshnyx about you, but bloodless.*~ "Aeshnyx..." Amanda repeats the word slowly. She looks at the vast throng of draconic ghosts and for a moment searches for meaning. Then, it occurs to her. She's carrying a magical tracker made from the sheddings of Brunnhilde's dragonflyer. "Oh!" A hopeful smile touches her lips. "Yes. We're looking for them." She glances back to Brunnhilde and then to the large spectral eye that's facing both of them for a closer look. "We found one and we're looking for its flight so it won't be alone any more." "That is kind of you." The speaker that approaches them now is humanoid in form, though the slitted pupils of his eyes and the scalar patterning around his jaw and throat, beneath his pointed ears, suggest he's dragonkin nonetheless. He's tall, but no more so than an Asgardian man, and slender, more like an elf. "It still lives?" "When we left it, yes." "Is it in danger of dying?" "We hope not. We left it with renewable food and water, and in shelter. But we do think it's pining for its flight. So, we're seeking them." Amanda watches the reactions not only of this new presence, and the giant who first addressed them, but the rest of the crowd, too. It really wouldn't do to piss off a horde of dragon ghosts. The dragonkin gestures to the center of the room and somehow the light and substance of the chamber shifts from incorporeal to quite solid -- as bright and vibrant as any meade hall in Odin's domain. "Then, you should join us for the feast. And after, if you have not sought to deceive us, perhaps we may be of assistance."
Brunnhilde	"That's what I'm talking 'bout!" Val has found a goblet in her hand and raises it to toast. After drinking deeply, she belches and then wipes her mouth with her forearm. "Sooo...You guys know Spikes?"
Amanda Sefton	"Spikes?" The dragonkin looks mildly confused by the ex-valkyrie's question. He looks briefly to Amanda for support. "The Aeshnyx we're trying to help," she says, ignoring her friend's inevitable enthusiasm for free food and drink. "Ah. If I do, it's not by that name." He gestures to a table where they might sit to enjoy this feast, and she moves with him, glancing briefly at Brunnhilde as she does. When they reach the table, Amanda spreads her hands and conjures up a small image of Spikes as she remembers it, perhaps a little fiercer than the lonely flier they left behind. "This is Spikes." The dragonkin nods, examining the illusion. "May I?" he asks politely before he somehow manages to take the illusion from her and cast it further about the chamber for the others to see. "We'll see who may know where Spikes comes from soon enough."
Brunnhilde	"Okay, that's pretty cool," Brunnhidle admits. "You're alright, you know that?" she tells the dragonkin. Then sotto voce to Amadna, "And the drink's not bad either." She drains her goblet and waits patiently for it to be refilled.
Amanda Sefton	The realm is full of dragon magic. And this is a dragons' feast. So, it takes little time for Brunnhilde's goblet to refill -- whether by a visible hand or not. Amanda moves to slide into a spot beside Brunnhilde as Spike's image is spread across the room. She hears the sibilance of the dragon tongue as their tale is spread across the feasthall. "Well," she says to her friend. "If you wanted an adventure, I think we found one." There's a smile on her lips and a sparkle in her eyes. She glances to the dragonkin. "Have you a name we can call you by?" she asks now. "I am Amanda. This is Brunnhilde." "Menaleus," he says with a smile, joining them at the table. "A pleasure ladies. Truly."
Brunnhilde	Feasting is one of the Asgardian's special skills. Along with quaffing. And brawling. And from the atmosphere of the company, all three could be called upon before the night is over. Brunnhilde grabs a leg of mutton from a large platter and begins to devour it, tearing into the meat with her teeth. After washing it down with a long swallow from her goblet. "Soooo, do you all get together often Menaleus?" she asks, gesturing to the table with her meat-filled hand. She smiles to the dragonkin in return.
Amanda Sefton	"Not as often as some would like," Menaleus replies, as roars go up on the far end of the hall where some sort of draconic amusement has broken out. He smiles at that, but returns his attention to the women. "Tonight marks 1000 years since the fall of Kulsh'kha. Have you heard of it?" Amanda shakes her head. "No. Was Kulsh'kha a person or place?" "A mage," Menaleus admits, eyeing the witch sidelong as he says as much. "He sought to conquer all dragonblood, believing that would elevate him to godhood." A slender brow arches above one of Amanda's blue eyes. "That... is never good." The dragonkin shakes his head, grining lightly. "No. And very difficult to accomplish. We do not submit to anyone easily -- something he learned to his detriment, in the end." Amanda reaches for her drink and raises it. "Then... here's to the fall of Kulsh'kha."
Brunnhilde	"I bet he had a stupid hat," Brunnhilde says quietly, but with absolute certainty. And then she roars Amanda's toast. "To the fall of Kulsh'kha!" The cry is taken up around the table, until the noise becomes almost unbearably loud. Dragons are not quiet creatures, especially when they're in the their cups. The cave walls blur with the vibrations. Or maybe that's the drink. The ex-Valkyrie wraps her arm around the sorceress's neck, pulling her into a crushing hug. "She's a good one, ya know?" she assures Menaleus, only slurring the words slightly.
Amanda Sefton	The fact the dragon ale is sufficient to slur the Asgardian's words at all, is all the warning Amanda needs to watch how much she drinks. Not that this is a surprise to her. She grins, however, laugh turning into a cough as she's all but crushed by the ex-Valkyrie's enthusiasm. She sways a little when Brunnhilde finally releases her, rolling her head and shoulders to return bloodflow to her muscles. Menaleus roars along with his kindred in reaction to Brunnhilde's toast, and nods his head in acceptance of her vouchsafe of the Sorceress. "You've been vouched for by an Valkyrie," he tells Amanda. "That's quite an honour." While Amanda is fairly certain Brunnhilde will correct his oversight, she chooses not to -- simply because she doesn't want to either belittle her friend or draw attention to the assumption. She's no doubt though, the dragonkin has read the Asgardian's aura, much as she has done. And she knows: What is... Is. Nature will out. But there's no need to highlight it. "She's a friend," Amanda tells him. "And she keeps my life from being boring." She grins at that.
Brunnhilde	"We're on a quest!" Brunnhilde declares. "Or two quests. She's helping. 'M not really a Valkyrie. Not anymore. Don't gotta sword. Don't gotta mount. Unless Spikes stays. Stupid punchable Strange with his stupid punchable face. He got my Dragonfang stolen. Prolly a good thing right now. Might be rude to bring it to a dragon feast..." She stops herself before she asks Menaleus if anyone has teeth to spare.
Amanda Sefton	There are probably lots of dragon teeth kicking around, really. There *does* appear to be some sort of draconic graveyard attached to this place, anyway. Whether or not their owners would be willing to part with them, given the nature of sympathetic magic and the power in dragon spirits, is a whole other question. Menaleus clears his throat softly, an amused smile on his elfish features. "Odin made very specific bargains with my kin to be allowed to forge and keep those swords," he notes. Whether Odin culled them from the maw of fallen drakes or traded for them doesn't really matter. Get enough of them together and the drakes take notice. There were definitely *negotiations* at some point. The amusement fades some to something more sober. "You should find yours." "We're trying," Amanda says. "We need to find Spikes' flight for his sake. But the Dragonfang was last known to be in the possession of an Asgardian sorceress of considerable skill."
Brunnhilde	Brunnhilde nods emphatically. "Tha's quest number one. Dragonfang. 'S how I know she's a good one. 'S been helping me. Spikes's friends is quest number two. Only now we're doing quest number two first. Like a side quest? You know?" She hasn't stopped drinking, despite the apparent effects.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda is careful in her consumption of drink, but she does indulge in the food provided. Her lips purse faintly and she looks at Menaleus. "Do you think it's possible to use Brunnhilde's connection to the sword to find it?" she asks him. "It's a powerful artifact." She glances to Brunnhilde. "How long have you had it?"
Brunnhilde	Furrowing her brow, the warrior considers. "Most of my life," she says finally. "Over a millennia." She tears into the lamb shank again before falling despondently quiet. She chews with great melancholy. "I miss it." The once great warrior shrugs her shoulders as though settling a phantom limb.
Amanda Sefton	"It very well may be," the dragonkin tells Amanda as Brunnhilde admits the length of her possession. Even for a dragon, a millennia is a good length of time. Time enough to imprint, certainly. "You think to scry it out?" Amanda gives a non-committal half-shrug. "Maybe?" A wry smile touches her lips as she takes a sip of her wine and, recognizing its power, sets it aside politely. "If it's possible. I would more expect the dragon's aura to overpower it." And there are many more dragons with equally strong auras partying all around them. (The noise is impressive, actually.) Menaleus purses his lips. "Perhaps," he says slowly, eying the valkyrie, "we should see whose aura resonates with *hers*." As Amanda's brows rise, he chuckles. "I imagine the toothless one Odin took advantage of is gone from the mortal world." He looks around at his assembled kin. "They could very well be here." "I... don't know why I hadn't thought of that," Amanda admits with an owlish bink.
Brunnhilde	Lost in her moroseness, Brunnhilde has stopped listening to the chatter and revelry of the feast. Only the tail end of Amanda and Menaleus's conversation registers. "Huh? I mean, most any deal Odin strikes will favor him. He is not easily cheated or fooled. But neither, so I hear, are dragons. And I was not there when the bargain was struck." She shrugs again. "But Dragonfang is the best of weapons," the self-exiled Valkyrie continues. "So the donor of the tusk must be a fine specimen of your kin." Her love for her blade shines clear upon her face before she buries it in her cups again.
Amanda Sefton	Amanda regards Brunnhilde speculatively for a moment. Her lips purse faintly before she smiles to Menaleus. "Shall we find out?" she asks him. With a gentle heft, she pulls up the rune-scribed leather satchel she carries and sets it on the table. After a few moments of searching through it, she pulls out a round metal box that looks like worn copper or tarnished brass. It is ornately filigreed and decorated, with a fairly robust clasp for its size -- which is to say it's good enough for an object that's just a little bigger than an average man's fist. Amanda sets it gently on the tabletop and works the clasp loose, tilting back the concave lid. Inside is a coarse silvery black powder that to mundane eyes is reminiscent of crushed pencil lead. There's an inconsistent quality to the grind, more like sand than spices. Menaleus watches over her shoulder like an inquisitive cat as she sets up other small objects around it -- a candle, a mirror shard, and a trio of small crystals. Finally, she reaches out to clap Brunnhilde on the shoulder. "Tell me about the sword," she says, smiling to her friend. "All that you remember of it -- its weight and heft, length and decoration, knicks you've never quite been able to buff out... whatever you think of."
Brunnhilde	What comes from the Asgardian is an outpouring of meticulous, though jumbled, description. Her hands wave to clarify dimensions as she attempts to explain in a straightforward and clear manner the physicality of the weapon that has remained a part of her since she became a Valkyrie. One of the few things she brought with her to Midgard. It's difficult to give words to the purely physical sensations of the sword sheath's angled across her back, its weight between her shoulder blades. "About as long as my arm, all told," she says softly. "The blade was carved from a dragon's eyetooth. Sharp as obsidian, stronger than any forged steel, she glows with the fury of the Valkyrie in battle..." Brunnhilde stares at her lap as though she can see Dragonfang resting across her knees. Her fingers wrap around the memory of a hilt. Her left hand slides down a blade invisible to all but herself as she recounts not only every blemish and scar, but the skirmishes that inflicted them. Her voice is low, her movements tender. A small smile curves her lips. And in a brief flash of revelation, Amanda is certain that Brunnhilde has never recalled a lover with anything approaching the reverence that Dragonfang calls forth in her. A soft burr warms her cadence as longing fills her as the tales continue to spill from her. Until finally there seems nothing left to say and the words die away, echoing in a now much quieter cave. Embarrassed, the ex-Valkyrie clears her throat. "At least that was her condition when I left her with Strange for safe-keeping. I, um, I don't know if that's all still true."
Amanda Sefton	At some point early in Brunnhilde's description, Amanda sets the candle in the powder box and lights it with an old Roma word. The coarse substance beneath it glitters as if infused with a myriad of tiny crystals, which it likely is. She sets the mirror in the sand with the candle, behind the flame, but reflecting Brunnhilde in its narrow, bladelike surface. Her fingers gesture lightly and the three small crystals rise into the air to spin and dance at first around the circumference of the bowl, but gradually rising to spiral around the flame itself -- albeit at a distance that puts them outside the diameter of the bowl. Throughout all of this, Amanda's hand does not move from Brunnhilde's shoulder. Her touch is warm, gentle, and firm. There's an almost unnoticeable tingle in it. Her eyes glow faintly with eldritch energy, her body a link between the Asgardian and the small spell altar she's made. As Brunnhilde speaks and Amanda weaves a scrying spell augmented by illusion and hypnosis, that allows her to pull every last detail from the Valkyrie's mind -- not that Brunnhilde needs the boost. Soon enough, an image of the sword hangs above the altar, sparklingly in ethereal glory. And by the time the woman's ode to her missing weapon is complete, there is the shadowy form of a dragon curling around it, a simulacrum of the body of drake from which the blade was forged. ~*At least, Odin awarded the blade to a warrior deserving of it,*~ an unfathomably deep voice rumbles. The sound seems to come from everywhere at once and thrums through body and bone. It is not loud, however. It is more like the settling of rocks deep in the earth, sliding into molten rivers far beneath the mantle of the world. And in the corner, one of the shadowy revelers in the chamber stirs, flowing with unnatural grace between the others toward them. ~*Someone who respects its strength.*~
Brunnhilde	Startled from her reverie by the bass rumbling throughout the feasting hall, Brunnhilde looks up, shaking her head to clear the longing from her face. She rises from her seat, almost as though transfixed, letting Amanda's hand slide off her shoulder unnoticed. Slowly she moves towards the shadowy voice. And as the dragon reveals itself, she sinks to one knee before it, her right hand balled into a fist against her left shoulder in a salute of profound respect. "The honor is mine."