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“Do I not seem calm to you?” Jack asked Eona. He was down to his skivvies, wide-eyed, and crazy-haired. He let go of his breath and slumped his shoulders before picking his clothes up from his seat.
“How does it work?” He asked, genuinely this time. He started to put his pants back on.
He couldn’t outright ask her if she had to touch him during the spell, not without sounding like a loony. Why wouldn’t a man such as he want a woman such as herself to touch him? He wished he knew how the ‘halfbreeds’, as Jhanandra had put it, worked when it came to his curse.

If Eona explained to Jack that she would need to touch him, he would say that he felt much better already and that there was no need to make him feel better now.
“Can’t feel any better than best!” He would say.

If Eona explained that she could help him from afar, he would take the offer graciously and wait for its effects. Once cast, it was sure to feel as though he drank a couple of pints and calmed his nerves right down. He would look at his hands in perplexed appreciation.
”I could get used to that!” He would say.

"Do not rely on magic to see you through... if you seek strength, look to yourself and those around you. Cantrips and curses will not save you from that rune- you must see this quest through to the end." Bold of the human male to strip in a prison, fortunately he was in better company... this was a poor day indeed, she'd seen her fair share of blackmail and compelled service but this time she had others to look out for- or watch out for. "If the runes were visible, would you not see mine upon my flesh as clear as day?"

"I just hold out my hand and send the spell to you," she told Jack. "Works much better than having to, like, touch someone or something when they're angry or upset. If you were injured I'd have to touch you to heal you, but this isn't really healing."

"You're right," she said to Jhanandra, "finding inner strength is better than relying on spells or potions, but sometimes a person needs extra help, and there's no shame in it"

The calming had truly eased Eona's nerves for the first time since she'd been arrested. She hadn't used one before this because she'd been able to handle it. And helping someone always brought out the best in her, so she was feeling more confident than she had in days. There was finally something to do instead of having to just sit around and wait.

“Use it if you got it,” Jack said to Jhanandra with a shrug. He was quite experienced in the art of relying on substances to get by and didn’t see the harm in it either. With how Eona’s magic felt, it wasn’t too far off from the delectable euphoria of alcohol, and one would seldom find Jack without it. Like, if he were in jail, for instance.

To Jhanandra’s question about seeing the runes on her skin, Jack said, “Not if it were under your bit of clothing.” Then he stared at her, brow raised, as if waiting for her to undress.

"Don't get excited now, not every one is that ready to part with clothing. And might i add i don't exactly believe that it was put directly on us, as my clothes don't show any sign of being taken off as for one there'd be a lot more confiscated off me than there was. So it be best not to worry about finding it and i don't know slicing it off or something, But still i get the need to worry as that dancer girl just got dust-ified. Still it's no time to be frantic and worrying" he says before standing up.

"Now clearly they got me so i don't need to have this on anymore" he says before a loud popping sound can be heard as he slips his hand out from one of the hand locks. more popping noises as he sets his arm back into place, reaching up under his coat and into his vest sliding a small knife out. Then jabbing it into the keyholes of the contraption before it pops off with a loud DUNK, then doing the same to his ankle shackles. "Ah much better with that thing off" he says stretching and rolling his shoulders and neck before sitting back down.

Jack’s attention went from Jhanandra to Murcary when the man spoke and his expression dulled as he buttoned his shirt up. He was going to ask how the guy would even know if his clothes had been removed and put back on, but he continued to talk. The guards were dolts, Jack knew, but they weren’t that stupid, were they? To not be able to dress a grown man the way one would dress a toddler. Perhaps there was simply more to it that Jack didn’t know.

“I think it’s the perfect time to be worrying,” Jack told him just before Murcary stood. “Gods above. I knew I could die at any moment, but this–”
His hazel eyes had found Eona, the only other person in the room that he could tell was as scared as he was. He bit off the rest of what he was going to say and sighed. If anything could make him feel just an ounce better, it was protecting someone else. Be it physically, or mentally.

“Well, they obviously need us,” Jack said instead, flipping his own mindset and hoping to flip hers. “They can’t afford to lose another one.”
Then Murcary began to undo his restraints, making Jack’s heart fall into his ass. Just like with booze, he could feel the effects of Eona's magic just about slip away as this new, distressing situation trumped it. “What are you doing, man??” Jack hissed at him, his eyes frantically darting to the cell door. Now was not the time to show off! At least that’s what Jack’s ego screamed. “You want to be turned to dust?? What bigger lesson do you need?!”

Wow, the other human male was actually going to give the bonds a go- this should he interesting at least, trying the chancellor's patience was certainly a plan. Dust or no dust- she had to keep the others alive at least to better their chances at completing their sentence- so that she could get back to her ways...

"Well," Eona said after a little while, her voice wavering with nerves, "it's looks like it's just the three of us now. I think..." she took a breath to try to calm herself, "I think someone asked what our skills were before we went to see the Chancellor," she continued, her voice a bit more steady. She desperately needed to think and talk about something else, something that might help. "Like I said before, I can change into any animal I've ever seen, though it does tire me out if I do it too often or for too long. I'm a pretty good healer as well. And I know how to use a bow, staff, and daggers." Her voice had gotten more confident as she listed her skills but then wavered a bit at the end. "I've never really been in a real fight though."

When the guards marched in, unsurprisingly to Jack, and one pointed his weapon at him, Jack almost got upset and he would have if he didn’t look around to see that everyone had a guard on them. ’We weren’t the ones shrugging off our chains,’ he still thought, petulantly. Then other guards came and took care of business, hauling Murcary away and slamming the door behind them.

The unease didn’t dissipate in the silence they left. Rather, it felt cripplingly loud and Jack wished someone would say something. He would, if he knew what to say. His brain was being a real negative nelly right now, so he kept his unhelpful thoughts to himself. Luckily, Eona spoke and would hopefully force him to think about something else.

“Looks like it,” Jack replied to Eona’s observation of there being only three of them now. It was just as ‘helpful’ as his thoughts were. Then she continued and he was grateful again.
“Any animal you’ve ever seen?” Jack asked, surprised and impressed. “What’s it like? Can you see colors? Can you smell the ocean from here?”
He couldn’t help himself. He was genuinely curious and he was also rearing at the chance to talk to someone as if they were simply meeting in a tavern and not in jail at the hands of a sadistic chancellor.

"I know what he's thinking," a new voice said, projecting well ahead of her nearly silent tread. The voice was full of mirth and a touch of mockery.

The young woman with raven black hair being escorted into the cell area was dressed in nothing but a canvas sack more apt to carting potatoes than it was clothing. She had pale, fair skin and elfish gestures but her eyes and ears quashed any though of her being of the seldarine race.

Most notable of all was the empty cavity where her left eye should be, just a puckered scar at the back of an empty eye socket.

"He wants to know if it's considered beastiality if you turn into a goat." the one eyed young woman said.

A voice slithered into the cell like a serpent and seemed to coil around Jack, who froze in fright. What in the blue bloody blazes was that? He was hearing voices now too?? Then the footsteps of the guards could be heard, further confusing Jack until the door opened and he could see the true source of the voice. Her lack of an eye caught his attention first, and he would have felt sympathy for her if she hadn’t gone on about him and goat-Eona.

“Well, that’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” Jack asked her with sarcastic sincerity. He was not willing to let a woman wearing a potato sack get the better of him. “Goats can’t smell the ocean.”

Another one gone... another to take their place... there were going through companions like chaff. "Another one dredged up for the glory of the Crown." The barbarian remarked sarcastically. "I kill with weapons, that is what I do, if you care for more I am over 500 years old and have been walking these worlds for most of my life."

"He is just making conversation- the situation is getting to him. Druids are a diverse lot, some gain animalistic traits even in their true form- many others do not."

The guards escorted the potato sack girl to the cell door where she waited patiently for them to open the gate for her.

While doing so she locked gaze with him, her expession wry, mischievious, even as she locked her eerie gaze with his own.

"You presume that goats have no sense of smell or do you presume there are no goats near an ocean?" she asked and then raised an arched brow over the empty socket.

Eona had been about to answer Jack when the other voice spoke, and the response shocked her so much she almost forgot to be afraid. Impossibly, her eyes seemed to just get wider and wider as the conversation continued. How was she supposed to answer any of this?

"Um, my body becomes the same as the animal, but my mind stays mine. Well, I don't know that for certain. I mean, I know the mind stays me, except if you hold a form too long that is. There was a man in my Druid circle who got tired of being a human so he changed into a bear one day and never changed back. But as far as the senses, there are some changes. Like if I turn into a fox I can smell better, but colors do become more faded. They don't turn black and white, it's just like everything is tinted greys. If I turned into a goat and was near the sea I could smell it, but I think it's too for from here to be able to smell it as most things. My cousin swears that hedgehogs have wonderful senses of smell, but I've never turned into one so I don't know." She was babbling, oh gods was she babbling, but she couldn't seem to make herself stop. But there was absolutely no way she was going to answer any questions about sex when she was an animal, she didn't want to think about it and tried to forget she had heard it

"Could you become a male animal?" the still un-introduced young woman asked jovially.

The woman might have winked. It was hard to be sure since her eyelids were mere flaps hanging loosely over empty space then she languidly, so as not to alarm the guards, made her way across the cell to slide down the bars.

Jack had been expecting a simple eye roll or maybe a smile from the dark haired woman, but instead she went on to actually talk about goats. He wasn’t sure if the joke had flown straight over her head or if she was prolonging his little quip to make a fool out of him. He would wager on the latter and countered her raised brow with a blunt look that read ‘unamused’. He would have explained to this one-eyed woman that people don’t generally think of ‘goats’ when concerning a strong sniffer and that her assumption was artlessly absurd, but he wasn’t going to take the bait. He was glad when Eona spoke, for it was her answer he had wanted to hear in the first place!

And then she spoke and spoke, and spoke. Jack stared at her throughout, slowly nodding his head at her explanations and reiterations. It was apparent that this new woman’s crude comments really flustered the redhead and Jack wanted to laugh. He knew he couldn’t since Eona hadn’t said anything funny and he wouldn’t know how to explain himself, so he bit it down. It was adorable, what could he think? Then the sack wearing woman spoke again and Jack looked at her confusedly.

There was more worry in his face than the situation called for, but he was suddenly very suspicious of her. Did she know he had the curse of donkey legs and was flaunting this knowledge, knowing he could say nothing about it?! Something in him, something faint, told him that he could tell them his secret, that it wouldn’t be so strange to beings such as them, but no- No, it was far too embarrassing.

She winked at him, a sad excuse for a wink, and that sealed the deal. She knew and she was messing with him about it. He watched her walk to her seat on the floor and narrowed his eyes at her the whole way.
“What kind of powers do you possess?” Jack asked her pointedly. He would have to apologize to Eona later, for seemingly bypassing their conversation.

Juveniles.

She was trapped in a cell with juveniles talking of beasts, wild magic and poor attempts at humor- oh what she would give to be around a roaring campfire amongst mercantile company, trading real stories instead of immature jabs. "Yes newcomer, the rest of us are at least acquainted with each other- tell us of how you got here." Finally- a change in topic.

Eona nodded in agreement with Jhanandra. She was so far out of her depth with these people that she felt like she was drowning. How was she supposed to keep up with them?

"Your only as powerless as you let yourself be..." her father's lesson came back to her. She had been coming out the worse in a training contest one time and was feeling discouraged. She had felt that the person she was competing against was so much more able than her. But when her father had said that it gave her new strength to keep trying, and she had ended up winning. Her father had believed in her then, now she had to believe in herself.

She stood a little straighter She could do this. She could. She had to. "And what's your name? I'm Eona Morrit."

"Hello Eona. I be Reign," the young woman replied, "Y'ah bunch of sourpusses. If ye must know I steal that which is important, that which leads to power. I steal secrets and I steal magic. It's a very meticulous line of work."

It would be. Stealing from wizards was dangerous. A single fallen hair, anything left behind at all, could be used to scry out the one that had robbed them. Afterwards retribution would be swift. There was an ancient saying, "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger." This was definitely true in Lore.

Reign told them she stole secrets and Jack’s eyes widened before he concealed his expression, massaging his temples with a gloved finger and thumb.
“I guess it's no mystery why you’re here then,” he said.

Jack looked up, his expression null. ’Save face in case she didn't steal your secret and all that stuff she said about.. about things we can't even think of, were just a big coincidence! Yes…’

“I’m Jack,” he told Reign. It was all facts and no flourish, as he didn't want this presumably human woman anywhere near him.
He looked at the oak door, hoping another man would be thrown in. This woman was raucous and immoral, and Jack wanted that attention on someone else.
’Why couldn't I have just suffered jail in peace?’

“Is there a reason you’re not wearing.. people clothes?” Jack finally asked Reign and her burlap sack, after trying to keep his mouth shut for any length of time. He just couldn't help it.