The little creature warbled in excitement and wiggled on the captain’s shoulder. She leaned as far out as she could without leaving his shoulder and snapped at the juicy square of meat. It disappeared in seconds down a bright purple throat and the stranger still had all of his fingers. She nipped the air around her in all her happiness of having food (despite being fed earlier) and ran back and forth on shoulders and neck of her master. Several times she nipped at the captain’s ears and hair. When she finally got a hold of herself, the winged reptile settled back on her original spot, crooning softly as the captain listened to the stranger’s barter. 

The captain chuckled along with Darious but for different reasons. “I think you would be surprised by what goes on in this region…” He commented vaguely and absentmindedly brushed some fingers across the vest he wore where his heart lay, scarred and yet still pumped miraculously. His hand dropped back to his side while he watched the man pull out some luscious pelts that shimmered when the sun hit their furs just right. Their patterns were indeed strange with spots, stripes and others, and yet were beautiful at the same time and would have stoked a hungry greed in another merchant, trader or captain to push for a bit more. But Darious was dealing with a man who travelled frequently as well and possibly more than himself... and a man who lost his appetite for profit. The captain had seen the live animals of those pelts before and he looked unimpressed as he considered them. He pondered of their use, their purpose they could serve other than another piece of gold, and his experience with storing pelts…

The captain was about to pull back and refuse the exotic pelts when he remembered taking some aboard years back… He’d forgotten about them for a long while and they ended up rotting on his ship. It took him weeks to get that stench out; he didn’t want to deal with that again. But the winged reptile decided to partake and sniffed at one pelt then laid down on another with a chirrup. She shuffled her wings about her, sneezed into the soft fur then set her head on her front claws and closed her eyes with a purr. 

The deal was settled whether the captain liked it or not. 

“Aye. You have a ship. By the looks of it, I’ll be taking that one. Keep the rest – I don’t want them.” The captain of The Bloated Weasel shook hands with Darious.