Inane Verbiage

XVII

"So apparently it's a good thing you still haven't done the horizontal tango then," I tease Eros as we watch Az stir to life, having bid the unicorns a tearful (well, on their part) goodbye after they'd frozen simultaneously at a silent call only they could hear (and thrown me forward in my seat, muffling me in the strong flowery cologne smell of Silnyí's mane) and announced mournfully that they had to go home for dinner 'otherwise Ma will sic her dogs on us and they're scary!'.  "Otherwise we'd probably still be stuck being ripped to little pieces by MeoWR the Tacky Ribbon Cat."

"Shut up," he mutters, scowling as he places the oilskin pouch on the (now-yellow) ground and digs through it for the gold coin Caoimhe had given us earlier. "Krasivyí scared the crap out of me, and you know it."

I grin unapologetically in reply, puckering my lips and flipping my hair as I coo at him in a mimicry of said female unicorn's tinkling voice. "Oh my brave, brave god!"

"Don't be mean," The 'brave brave god' chastises, flushing at the memory. "She didn't sound that gross."

I snort in reply. "Of course she didn't. But she wanted to run me through with that shiny horn of hers, so I think I'm entitled to be a little bit biased."

A smile creeps up Eros's face, and I have a feeling that it has nothing to do with the way Az is finally sitting up and looking groggy (and not dead). "Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were jealous, Toilet Girl."

"Of a horse that prefers using her magical horn to skewer people into kebabs instead of healing injured ones? Hardly," I scoff, reaching over and plucking out the golden piece from the corner of the pouch and handing it to him. "And here. You've been spending your time scouring the wrong places, Diaper Boy."

"Thanks." He takes it gratefully, rubbing it absentmindedly. "Didn't see that - and oh Az you're up!"

Said merman rolls his eyes at that, pushing himself to his feet. "Been awake for a while, actually - you were too caught up with Latrina there to realize, that's all."

Eros chooses to ignore that comment - smart guy. "How's the leg?"

"Good as new, actually." Az blinks in surprise at that, as though just realizing that he is nowhere near dead. "Didn't you say  that cat claws are lethal, though?"

"A unicorn healed you," the god replies simply, as though that explains everything. (Which it technically does - unicorns were unicorns for a reason, after all)

"Unicorn?" Az's brows raise in surprise as he whistles lowly. "Damn I wish I could've seen that!"

"They went home for dinner, sorry."

"Oh." He deflates visibly at that. "Oh well." That's when he apparently realizes that we're not in the same spot as we were when he lost consciousness - though why it took him so long to realize that we are in a nice little clearing now, I don't know. "How did we get here, anyway?"

"Unicorns."

"…oh."

"You were lucky you weren't awake when they were around actually," I can't help but interject, shuddering at the memories. "They were very… interesting creatures." The type that I'd rather not ever meet, even if they did save me from MeoWR. "They were like puppies on crack."

Eros lets out a bark of laughter at that image. "No kidding. Very, very serious crack."

Az just blinks at us. "What's crack?"

I don't know why that is so funny - because frankly when you think about it it really isn't, yet somehow Eros and I practically bust our guts laughing helplessly at that.