Miro x Gulo

     Miro sits quietly into the night writing endlessly.  His day had been consumed with his tasks of training Doomwing and then scribing scroll after scroll.  As he worked occasionally he would sit back and sigh.  Doomwing would shoot him incredioulious looks as she continued her spell assisted writings.  "Its not enough.  Perhaps if I forwent the sigils of sincalla in favor of runes of Kai I could finish sooner and enact another scroll."  Standing Miro looks over to Gulo and his newly aquired friend.  The cat lay almost completely curled on Gulo's broad shoulders purring in its sleep.  Miro smiled not impishly but genuinly this time as he observed the gob.  "Perhaps there is hope for you yet."  He says as he makes his way to the bar for another tea.  It had been the only saving grace of his day was the strange and new earthy styled tea he had gotten here.  He would have to purchase some of the ingredients for the tea here and return it home.  He gathers his tea and makes his way over to Gulo's table.  "I would not sit if not welcome, but I am between tasks and inlight of no other company,"  Miro waves a hand across the rather empty common room.  "I would take any company to relax my mind abit before returning to finish my tasks."

Gulo casts his gaze at the mage, thinking of what he has planned, and what to do to counter said plans. "You must be truly desperate if you are talking to me Herr Miro, I know you do not enjoy my temperament, do not deny it Herr Miro it is beneath a man like yourself."

Miro chuckles softly and bounces his head from shoulder to shoulder slightly.  "Desperate and bored stiff are often dance partners, on always calling the other to the floor.  Though I would not say denying it is beneith me, for I am not on such a pillar to look down at much of anything."  Miro leaves a few small spaces to allow his pun to take effect.  "The Cat seems to have taken to you, a comfort considering the walls you have constructed today may leave you isolated yet."  Miro says refering to the blowup between Gulo and Synovia earlier that day.  "What I can not understand Herr Gulo is why you seem so intent to eat your own boots... and if that is not the case why you seem so intent to remain alone for the rest of your life?  Yes, it would seem this riddle will give me enough of a parting from my constructions to rest my weary hands."  Miro sits down and pulls his pipe, placing in it the sweetly incensed stuff people attribute to his presance.

Gulo is silent for what seems like an eternity, before bursting out into uproarous laughter! "oh mein Gott, ich sehe einen Geist eines lebenden Menschen!" Klug jumps off Gulo in a panick, letting out a grunt of discontent as he goes towards the fire. Gulo takes a moment to catch his breath "Danke Herr Miro, I was suspect of your intentions but that was very much needed."

Miro cocks a brow from his pipe in Gulo's direction and simultaniously looks to Doomwing to insure the cats safty.  Brow still lofted and the pipe lit with a snap of his fingers Miro takes a long draw and exhailes creating the beginnings of the haze between them.  "I am glad I could goad you into a laugh, it was not a sound I thought you could make.  However do not take my words as a jest.  Your presence here slips on ice as we speak Gulo.  You have been rude to both Vrinn and I, and while that may be easy, it is not as easy to get under my sisters skin.  Had she bristled further I would fear it your funeral rites I would be saying now.  However be it luck, or the skill with which Balor is training her to be a better leader, you still sit here drawing breathe.  So I ask, what is it that drives you so head long into self-destruction?"  Miro levels his full gaze upon Gulo now as another plume of smoke lazyly exits the tiny man and billows about the room creating the fog of a cigar parllor one draw at a time.

Gulo wipes his eyes, returning to his default state with only the hint of a smile "You misunderstand Herr Miro, I do not laugh at your words, it is simply as you spoke, and still speak, that you remind me very much of an old friend. As for Synovia, I will not be the last person she will meet who has an opinion she finds distasteful, it is good she is getting practice dealing with such individuals, and as for Herr Vrinn I have not attempted to be rude to and apologize if I have offended him."

Miro shakes his head softly.  Another long pull.  "It is as if words to not reach you.  I can not tell if you are blind or deaf or both.  You have offended him, You have offended me, and now you HAVE offended her.  Can you not see Gulo.  Your need to be .... unbending is costing you your welcome.  An amazing feat as it was us who called for the acceptance of the Goblins.  You who were cast from you own kind, you who found a home else where, and you who seek another home now.  And do not tell me this is your first instance.  Because I can not accept your being well received in lastwall if this is what you brought to the table.  You are the displaced one Gulo, and it is YOU who must change, or die alone, with a cat......"  Miro looks to the fire quietly.  "My sista gave you advice today that was full of more wisdom that even I think I could muster.... a tool.  Not a suggestion, not a hint, but an actual tool to help you gain some measure of introspection, that you may see the world in a different light...... And in your haste to remain .... stagnant, you blew off what is equates to your only friend here.  I lived my entire life in the darkness of loneliness that you seem so hell bent to shroud yourself in, and I can tell you Gulo, those are not strong walls you have erected, but a noose..."  Miro looks over to the Hob his eyes narrow and dark from the shadows cast from the fire.  

Gulo pulls out his pipe, loading it with Tobacco, he takes a long drag, the smoke escaping his nostrils "Finnian, the man who you remind me so much off, who spoke with the same passion as you, thou not the same words, I asked him a question that I too ask you now, what does it matter? I hear your words Miro, I hear them because I have heard them before, and you both may be very well right that I have built a wall around myself, that I am unbending in my beliefs, that what I say can be harsh to some. But it does not make me any less loyal, any less competent, and any less of an ally to you, Herr Vrinn, or Synovia. I am what I am Herr Miro, I have been it for over 20 years now and will be it until the day I die, I cannot change who I am more then you can stop the magic that flows in you." Gulo smiles a bit "I must admit Herr Miro I do rather enjoy these arguments we get into, it is an excellent exchange of opinions, however after Synovia I would prefur a simple conversation, as I am sure you would as well no?"

Miro closes his eye for a moment and thinks off into the distance elsewhere.  "What was Finnian's answer?  Your question bares much weight but it broken in its own conceptions.  I wish not to tread all over the wisdoms of another if it can be helped so tell me now... what was Finnian's answer to you Gulo?"  

Gulo chuckles a bit "I do not agree with what you say Gulo, not now, not in a millions years and not even after that, your head is like stone that I doubt that even commander Signus could crack, and I think you are all the more foolish for being so stubborn. But I can't deny you had some points, so I say that, for now, we agree to disagree, but I know I'll make you see differently some day."  Gulo looks towards Miro "So Herr Miro, is what you would say be much different then him?"

Miro digests the words and peices the conversations between the two together as if working some puzzle.  Seconds turn to minuets and many of those stretch on as he thinks.  Puff after puff like a slow cooking smoker go by filling to common room with the haze of smoke as the two scents do battle above them much like the two below it.  The acrid smells of Gulo's pipe coming on strong and staunchly refusing to part but the incense of Miro's tobacco slowly mixing, forcing a change that takes the sting from Gulo's smoke until the two columns mix becoming a like a strong coffee yet still with its hints of sweet.  Miro looks up finally at Gulo.  "That you are afraid.  More than that you are a coward.  Your fear of being abandoned again has forced you into a shrivelled raisen of fear and distrust.  Yes you put up font of general acceptance for the sake of getting by, but deep down inside you are the biggest coward I have met.  So afraid are you that you construct these facades around you.  It is easier.... no safer, for Gulo to live behinds his walls of adimantine than it is to move past them.  Not only are you a coward, but you are also lazy.  So lazy that it has become easy to live in your fortress of ignorance and obstinance instead of rising back to your feet and enjoying the world around you before it is gone from your eyes forever.  Lazy in that it is easier to recoil back to what is safe than it is to seek what you know you are missing..... And that in and of itself is my second answer.  The problem is that I am not certian how effective a lazy coward can be at defending that which I hold dear.  My home and my friends are enough that I would throw myself to the blade in order to save them.  My passion to see my sister and my brother become greater than they are now, to bask in the light that I promise you will shine like a thousand Starstone's.  To know that even if I may die before them that I had a hand in them, that my influance will live on in their greatness.  It is not what you are Gulo, that makes it a problem.  It is what you could be, that you knowingly and intentionally destroy that saddens me.  To know you yourself could be more than this shriveled, Cowardly, Laggart pains me and angers me..."  Miro turns to look to the cat and then to the ceiling above them where his family slept awaiting their next leg of adventure.

Gulo laughs, a laughter filled with venom, then cut off with a grim face "You do not know me Herr Miro, you cannot possibly know the things I have done and seen, and if we were not allies I would have shown you what a "Shriveled, Cowardly, Laggart" could do! I have seen how you acted, you are petty a little man who doubts his own abilities, so wounded by Herr Vrinn saying someone had made better muffins then you that you resorted to destroying them! If I am a lazy coward wasting his potential then you are a vain fool with a sense of self worth so low that even the smallest slight sets you off, someone who needs to flaunt his superiority of others to feel better about himself. I am not a feather to add to your cap, and I will not ply your already leaden ego you pathetic little creature!"  

Miro looks over to Gulo and smiles a soft and quiet smiles.  He pulls his pipe to his lips and makes one last deep pull.  Still smiling up at Gulo Miro dumps the contents of his still lit pipe into his hand and the smell of the thick smoke is replaced with the acrid smell of burned flesh.  Miro closes his fist over the contents stamping it out as the smell of his burn wafts through the air.  "I know you all to well Gulo.  For you forget yours is not the only broken past amoung us.  I have seen your type time and time again.  You receed into your shadows and quietly wait out the day your master comes to see you placed in the pyre for your lackings.  You convence yourself that it is the only outcome befitting you.  But worst yet, you are unable to see the pain you cause those around you.  So convenced of your own self worthlessness, so blinded by it you can not see those throwing you a rope every chance they get.  You need not "Ply my leaden Ego" Gulo, you need not even rise in the morning.  For all I know or care you could meet your maker this evening and it would go without notice.  But know this Gulo.  When I die... people will mourn me.  People will be sad, and tell stories of how I lived.  Would you receive such a parting?  I know my self worth.  I am a slave, a peice of property, who was not scared.  Who was not lazy.  I cast off my chains and made myself a man.  I have sought a life from behind the bars of my birth and situation.  The same can not be said for you." Miro rises and makes his way to the desk with Doomwing who had long since fallen asleep in her diligence.  He strokes the bird softly and pulls a kertchiff over her tiny form.  "You see Gulo, the meaning of life is all about the lives you affect around you.  Not your skill in combat, not the waves and ripples you produce on its surface, but the lives you affect around you.  The lives they affect around them.  That is the only legacy that outlives us all.  In that I am secure."  Miro sits and returns to his scribing.

Anger is boiling inside of Gulo, anger at a pompous little toad of a Halfling would dare to insult him, to the throat first, make sure he can speak then go for the-no, he wasn't worth that kind of anger, he was an ally after all. He simply looks to Miro and says "Herr Miro, do you know what a Walking Eagle is?"

Miro sighs and sets down his quill.  "No Gulo, I do not.  I am certan it is an off reference topic you need to skirt away from the awful truths laid down before you.  But I will humor you... what is a Walking Eagle?"

"A bird so full of shit it cannot even fly." Gulo get's up, making his way towards the exit "Guten Nacht Herr Miro, if you wish to have an actual conversation do let me know, until then, I'd say rot in hell but I would not insult Asmodues in such a way."

Synovia, intending to take her tea outside, hears the gist of the conversation, rubs her temples and mumbles to herself "I'm going to regret this,"and heads to Miro and Gulo. "Why do I feel like I just walked on to a childs play ground?"

Miro looks to Synovia and shakes his head.  "Gulo had to answer for his insult today.  He bared his teeth at me only to find that I too have fangs.  He did not like what I had to say."

Syn sighs and sips her tea, "has it occurred to you that he does not mean to insult?" She turns to Gulo, " I have spent the hours since our conversation racking my brain about why you seem so hell bent on alienating everyone,even the one who has tried her damnedest to be your friend. I realized a few things. Number one, I was basing my reactions from a human viewpoint. Expecting you to react as if you were human. You're not, you were raised with a whole different value set, and two I really put Ameiko and Balor through hell" She turn back to Miro, "You, Miro, expect to much. We have known Gulo what a week, and he is supposed to change his whole viewpoint on life. You are just as pig headed as he is."

As no one responds she continues "Miro, our past experiences and how we are raised influences how we deal with daily life. Everyone at some point, we all make poor decisions based upon our past. Remember the first time at the Oasis? I would ask you brother, to curb your judgemental attitude and find a constructive way to help Gulo adjust his view point." She turns to look at Gulo "and Gulo, try observing, and talking with the people of Sandpoint instead of making harsh and often wrong assumptions about people you don't even know. " She gives them both her best "You better work this out Ameiko look" and takes her tea outside.

Gulo sighs, looking towards Miro "You we're right about one thing Walking Eagle, your sister DOES have more wisdom then you could ever muster." he makes his way up to his room, shooting Miro a snide grin "Gutennaught, Walking Eage."

All the while observing the interaction while hidden in the shadows cast by the flickering light, Vrinn can't help but wonder how wise it is to drink tea in the rain...

As she steps outside into the storm, She welcomes the wind and rain as it mirrors the thoughts running thru her mind. She breathes in the fresh air and lets her mind wonder back to Sandpoint and Imahnee. A blush creeps onto her face and a smile crosses her lips as she remembers the last time they were togather.