"Oh, woe is me," he moaned, leaning upon one wing, while the other was placed on his forehead. Sniffling, Calhoun rubbed his beak, his poor nose sore from sneezing. This was worse than his pop's farm! He had the odd allergy or two when working, nothing he couldn't handle, but this? Oh, this dust was eternal! It was everywhere! What's that? Dust. What about over there, beyond those trees? Dust. On his feet? Dust.

Dust, dust, dust.

He sneezed again.

"Woe is me," he repeated, wiping his beak with his feather. Blinking, Calhoun had felt another sneeze coming, and just as he opened his beak to let an atrocious one out, Wyan spoke. Clamping his mouth shut, he turned to his friend, "I don't know if the wagon is tearing apart. It surely sounds like it, but do not fret, Wyan! If it falls apart, you may land on me!" See? Calhoun had a solution for everything. But oh, his words fell short when Wyan claimed he was parched. "Somebody, anybody, he needs water!" Turning to Wyan, Calhoun had begun to fan him with his wings. "It's alright, Wyan. Just a little longer," he sobbed, stressing for his dear friend. Honestly, these were awful traveling conditions. Positively unheard of!

Fanning him, Calhoun suddenly paused, hopping up onto his little legs when he was requested to fetch Wyan's paper and drawing utensils. He had take two steps before falling, deciding to crawl the rest of he way to the other end of the wagon. Feathers grasping the thick paper and supplies, he began to his journey back, teetering around as he made his way back to Wyan. "There you go." He had placed it alongside of his good mate neatly, adjusting it so that everything was just perfect.

Slumping back onto his rump, Calhoun released another sneeze, his eyes tearing up. He cursed everyone! Why was this happening to him? Nothing short of a gasp had escaped his beak when he espied Colette grab hold of a kerchief. "By all means, ignore the ones that truly need it," he had hollered, releasing a dry hack. Shaking his head, he glanced to Wyan. "We sure know their priorities, don't we." Sniffling as he was patted on the back, he resembled that of a blubbering child. He truly needed that break right about now.

He had not caught onto the water idea until Wyan hissed in his ear, to which he jumped. "What did we say about personal space," he mumbled, swatting away his friend before turning to him once more. Couldn't he see that he was suffering? "What?!" He suddenly replied upon the second calling of his name, this time, the urgency causing him to turn. Leaning towards Wyan, he turned his ear towards him, only to put a wing up to his beak. "Get rid of you?" Gasping, he listened closely. It all made sense! "I believe you're right!" Oh the horror! "Maybe.. maybe they're going to drown you instead of use it to wash the blood off! Worse, they'll make me watch! Why else would a chicken go near water? I mean, we're not designed for it!" A pause. "They certainly won't make us stop to drink it, will they?" He gasped. "What if they're going to torture us first for their own amusement?"

His wing had smacked onto his dagger, clutching it to his chest with a trembling grip. Eyeing the group with a wary eye, he shifted away from them, body quivering. No! He didn't need to show them his fear, so, Calhoun forced himself still, his dagger being held onto for dear life. "We need a plan, and a quick one. Shall we run?" They were larger than them, surely they'd catch up almost immediately. No, they needed something else.. another form of plan..

"Perfect!" He whispered to Wyan, nodding in agreement to his idea. "The geese can outrun them. As for driving, sure! I've seen my pop drive some when plowing the field. It's a cinch. Why, it's in my blood!" Truly, how hard could it be? "We need to take someone to interrogate, but also to blackmail the others into not following us." He paused again. "You take someone hostage, I'll focus on the geese." Already, Calhoun prepared himself, rising onto his legs slightly. He eyed Bantam, narrowing his beady eyes at him. He had spoken to him before. He was a nice fellow, but anyone can be nice. So, with suspicion, Calhoun continued staring, waiting for him to slow the wagon.

Glancing to Wyan, he nodded. "Ready whenever you are," he whispered back, ready to pounce.

Bantam Orpington // 27 // Rooster // Driver // Mentions: All

Bantam was very grateful to have a fellow chicken to be humiliated by the awkward silence following his joke. At least if this group wasn’t cultured enough to understand a fantastic joke like that, Bantam and Calhoun could stand together knowing one other person got the joke. Those were the truly lasting connections in life. Bantam’s second and simpler joke, unfortunately, flew right over everyone’s heads like a chicken running from the sun. It did, however, prompt further American Buff Goose fandom from Calhoun, which caused Bantam’s feathers to puff out in excitement. He stroked his goose feather, and had he had eyelashes, he most definitely would have fluttered them. Calhoun requested to touch the feather, and Bantam leaned back graciously. “Certainly,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “If you think this is something, you should try feeling down.” But before Calhoun had even started stroking the feather, there was an explosive sneeze which shot Calhoun in the opposite direction like a speeding projectile. With the quickness of an even faster speeding projectile, Bantam whipped his hat off of his head, trying to save it from the snot-filled air. He brushed it off and went back to Colette, assuming that the sneeze meant the conversation was over.

Bantam’s focus slid back and forth between Colette’s cheerful cluck and the mosquito-like gripe of young Wyandotte. It was fortunate for him that, with twenty-four younger siblings, he had learned the elegant art of ignoring annoying background complaints. With his full attention on Colette (and a little tiny tiny bit on the fact that he was driving), he nodded fervently in agreement. Nodding fervently about goose-related things was his second-favorite type of interaction besides flirting, and he had already racked up in his brain a million excellent answers to all comments and questions. Unfortunately, Colette punctuated the end of her last sentence with a large sneeze, which was grammatically incorrect enough to derail the conversation. “Good health!” said Bantam cheerfully in reply to her sneeze. Seeing her in the desperate position of being kerchief-less, Bantam started fishing around for his own handkerchief, but he was saved the trouble.

“Alaric, ho there!” said Bantam, turning to the side to give him a greeting wink. He took his eyes off the road for just a moment, but certainly long enough to risk making some of the more, uhm, Wyandotte chickens holler at the top of their lungs. He gestured to Colette, sitting beside him. With his impeccable self-taught manners, he cut right in and introduced Colette for her. That way he was saving her the trouble of talking. So gentlemanly. “This is Colette O’Flintshell, our chef for this journey - probably the best one there is, mind you. A goose connoisseur and lady of style. Gingerbread,” he said, addressing Colette. He paused with wide eyes, like a dramatic storyteller, and then caught a sneeze in his wing, muffling it so that all that came out was a quiet snrk. “Excuse me. And this is my friend William Alaric Brewer the Second.” He seemed to have forgotten that Alaric had already introduced himself. “The devilishly good-looking. He’s a guard. Not quite as glamorous as an anatinae, I know.” He laughed. “Now you’re acquainted, I’m sure you’ll be the best of friends. We were just discussing sweese, Alaric.”

Unfortunately, just then Wyandotte exploded in some sort of mess of unhappiness that went right past Bantam’s ear holes without leaving a single mark. The conversation he had been looking forward to - most certainly full of adventure, mayhem, and varieties of swoose breeds - was killed off as Colette turned to comfort Wyandotte. Bantam, who was fond of Colette but not enough to endure royalty for her, immediately snapped his attention off of her and addressed Alaric. “So, plenty of lovely hens here, aren’t there? A couple of nice guards around your age.” Satisfied with his masterful subtlety, he was going to ask Alaric a bit more about what he’d been doing lately, but in the lull in conversation Clawdia mentioned that they might stop by a creek soon. “Ask and you shall receive,” Bantam replied to her, giving Alaric a nudge and nodding towards Clawdia. As they moved on, he made some small talk with Alaric, throwing a few more compliments back at the ladies.

Finally they reached the next stream, and Bantam brought the geese to a halt. “All off for Nameless Creek!” he said, looking back at the group. He hopped off, twirling his parasol slightly, and made a snap decision to sweep over to Jackie and offer her his wing to help her down from the wagon. And then, feeling that the other ladies might feel neglected by his blatant favoritism, he said to Clawdia, “I hope you had a comfortable journey? You certainly don’t look any worse for wear.” He lagged behind to tend to his geese for a moment, making sure they were settled. Then he strode over to Patch and tilted his parasol so that it shaded her slightly. He gave her a sideways smile, twirling the parasol slightly again. She was the one who had confused him most during this trip. He was almost certain she didn’t like him, but she had neither told him this nor dramatically slapped him in a bar because, as it turned out, that rooster was not her father but her husband - just as an example. Bantam was determined not to miss a single thing so that he could piece together the mysterious puzzle of Clawdia. He paid no attention to the water, having mostly forgotten why they had stopped, and he unaware of the ominous plotting going on behind him.

Patch Capon | Soldier (Knight) | 24 | Female | Mentions: Bantam, rest

The minute Bantam announced they had arrived, Patch folded up the map and dropped it back on her seat as she vaulted out of the wagon and onto the ground, grateful for the stop. A small but mighty cloud of ochre dust flew up around her as she shook herself violently, so violently in fact that she lost her balance and stumbled. A shadow passed over Patch, and she glanced up to see Bantam angling his parasol over her with a charming glimmer in his eye.

Patch lowered her beak and flared her ruff feathers, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Such a gentleman,” she cooed, playing coy. Scanning the area, her gaze fell upon the price and his friend, the latter of which was still sneezing furiously. Hopefully now the main source of the dust had disappeared, the poor kid’s allergies would give him a break. The rest of their party were looking various shades of weary and brown as they departed the wagon. It was as if they had all fought an incredibly dirty monster of some sort. Patch had heard of some chickens who took baths from the dust, supposedly it was good to keep off things like mites and ticks, but she just couldn’t imagine the layers of grime accumulating in her feathers, much less putting them there on purpose.

The water of the creek flickered like liquid sunlight as it ran down its path, winking enticingly to Patch like a mischievous nymph. It was crystal clear, and most likely cool and crisp as well; the lukewarm water of Patch’s waterskin had sufficed to quench her thirst, but nothing beat a drink straight from the source. The fresh sounding trickling of the creek was tempting her to take a quick dip as well and wash off the dirt from the trip, although it could work to her disadvantage if they continued down the same road and turn her into a muddy mess instead of just a dusty one. Maybe she would just wade in to the beginning of her drumstick fluff.

Patch turned to Bantam, beaming. “Now, I don’t know how short we are for time, but it is a beautiful day, our party is looking black, blue, and brown, and it would be a sore shame if we had the time to spare yet passed on this opportunity to have a brief respite in spite of the raptors at our heels.”

Realizing she could probably see for herself, and she had a lot of these “oh, duh” moments, Patch pranced back to the wagon and picked up the map. She spread it open in the grass, pinning one end of the parchment down with her hat, and moved to the side so that Bantam could see over her shoulder. Low clucks emitted from her throat as she began to assess their options.

“If we continue along this road at our current speed, we will be able to make it to a place of boarding or at least an area of relative coverage by nightfall with enough time to spare for a break. However, we can possibly afford to take a short cut through these woods, here,” Patch announced to the group, brushing a forefeather over a rough path through a collection of trees, “and save ourselves the dust. It may also help conceal the wagon from any surveling skybirds, and make it harder for the enemy to track us.

“It will delay our arrival by about an hour though,” Patch paused for a moment to make sure she was right, and then nodded to herself. Those hours bickering with her professors at the academy were finally coming to use. She looked to the rest of the group for their opinions, but mainly the more experienced members.