Long Paws
| Also known as | Flint Paw |
|---|---|
| Species | Digguno |
| Affiliation | The Sarakyan; Albertuous and Company |
| Weapons | Bombs |
| Companions | Piercio |
| Status | Last seen defending Galecrest |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Long Paws is the four-armed blue dog who juggles lit bombs blindfolded as the closing act of Kantankerous Albertuous's travelling circus, billed there as Flint Paw alongside Piercio's Metal Mouse.[1] She belonged to the Sarakyan before that, with Piercio and Aero Ellisvat, and she came back to it: sacked from the circus, she blew a hole in the wall of Elmryn's Castle to get the others out.[2][3] She stayed behind to defend Galecrest when the rest of the party left the city.[4]
Appearance
Long Paws is a giant blue heeler looking dog with a scruffy white chest, and she walks upright on her hind legs.[1] What made Reagan Hideaway lower a scope and ask what she was looking at was not the standing but the four long arms and the enormous paws that go with them.[1] Her own guess at what she was looking at was "Some kind of dog-centipede thing?"[1] At full height her head reaches a foot taller than Aero Ellisvat's.[1] Seeing her across a burning plaza in Galecrest, Bea took her for Bowmidge Talorn, only taller.[5]
She is a digguno, which Piercio says out loud when he wants the backstage crew to feed her. The bestiary appendix describes diggunos as bipedal, four-armed and dog-like, found in all corners of Eslura and coming in all shapes, sizes and colours.[1][6]
On stage she wears a crimson cloak matched to the bandana around her neck, and drops the cloak for the act.[1] Under it, in the castle tunnels, she wears a belt strapped with bombs.[3] Her claws strike a spark hard enough to light a fuse.[3] Her ears perk and her brows furrow, she stifles a laugh behind a paw, and she frowns and lowers her ears when she is told her plan will not be enough.[1][3]
Personality
Long Paws is the easy-going half of a double act with a mouse who is not. She lets Piercio ride on her head and shoulder, flicks him off when he goes too far, and calls him 'Cio, which he has asked her many times to stop doing and which she goes on doing anyway.[1] Told off for the material, she puts the blame where it belongs: "Take your complaints to Tank. I don't make up the show."[1] Told he could do better, she answers "I don't see you juggling bombs anytime soon, so I don't want to hear it from ya."[1]
Her nose and ears do a good deal of the party's work underground, and she is candid about which one is working: "I certainly don't smell it, but I hear it," she said of the Nelazgians coming down the tunnel, and once the party was out on the hillside she put her snout up and said the fire smelled close.[3]
She is careful about the Sarakyan name in a way that suggests she has reason to be, telling Tab not to say it aloud even inside her own tent.[1] When the fighting comes anyway she does not wait to be asked. Her offer to hold Galecrest is that she has "more than enough bombs on me to show these Nelazgians who they shouldn't be messing with", with the addition that she has had enough of Piercio and Alpin Loomin bickering.[4]
Background
Long Paws joined the Sarakyan, Elmryn's company of Eyearke Stone hunters, along with Aero Ellisvat and Piercio. Aero's account is that the three of them were nobodies and outcasts with nowhere left to go, who joined hoping it would lead them to good fortune and nothing more, while for Tab it was a family.[2] Elmryn's murder ended the company, and the name stayed dangerous long afterwards.[1][2]
She and Piercio went into Albertuous and Company's Circus of Marvels and stayed. Their act closed the show. Albertuous announced it as "the pyrotechnics of Metal Mouse and Flint Paw", Piercio worked the crowd, and at his call the flames rose around a stage on which Long Paws stood blindfolded, holding bombs just large enough to fit between her claws.[1] Piercio lit the fuses, she juggled the bombs and launched them over the audience, and they burst open and poured out bioluminescent river spores instead of shrapnel.[1] The two shared a blue-striped tent with two beds, one of them smaller than Reagan's foot.[1]
Story
Sacred: Eslura's Calling
Tab, Aero and Reagan came backstage after the show and found Long Paws collapsed on the floor of the crowded backstage area with Piercio standing on her head, shouting at the cast to get her something to eat. She was fed a muffin by hand, then lifted Piercio off her head, set him on the ground and stood up.[1] In their tent Tab said she wanted the Sarakyan back together. Long Paws' first answer was that Tab should not say that name, not even in there, and her second, once she had seen the Eyearke Stone around Reagan's neck, was to put a paw over her own snout.[1] Piercio refused for both of them, and Tab left.[1]
They changed their minds. Trapped in Elmryn's study behind a door full of Nelazgians, Reagan, Tab and Aero were dug out by an explosion that shook the books off the shelves, with Long Paws standing in the hole it left.[3] She and Piercio had followed the trail of Nelazgians setting fire to the streets, and admitted Tank had fired them: "let's just say he didn't agree we deserved a raise."[3]
She led the party out through the castle tunnels and overruled Piercio at a fork by pointing out an indent in the wall she remembered, until he gave in and told everyone to follow her.[3] When the Nelazgians broke through she opened her cloak on a belt of much smaller bombs, told everyone to plug their ears, snapped her claws at the wick, and brought the tunnel roof down between the party and its pursuers.[3] She, Piercio and Aero held that side while Tab and Reagan cleared the other.[3]
She crossed the Galecrest plaza with Piercio on her shoulder as the city burned, and at the breakfast Millennium Loftwind laid on in her castle the next morning the two of them ranted about their time in the circus.[5]
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
Long Paws sat at the great hall table in Galecrest watching Piercio and Alpin Loomin conduct a silent stare-off whose rules she could not work out either.[4] When the captain of the dragon riders brought word that a Nelazgian force was flying in on dragons, Millennium Loftwind said she had to stay and defend the city, and Long Paws volunteered on the spot.[4] Galabear was sent to join her, and the rest of the party took the lift down out of the city.[4] Neither book says what became of her afterwards.
Relationships
Piercio is her partner in the act and her constant company. Aero, seeing the two of them together again, said he was pleased not much had changed between them.[1] Piercio climbs her leg and belly to reach her shoulder, and she flicks him into a pile of pastries when he is rude about her juggling.[1] They are separated for the first time at Galecrest, when he goes to Morgaedion and she stays.[4]
Aero Ellisvat was in the Sarakyan with her and speaks for her past when she does not.[2] The three of them held the rear together in the castle tunnels.[3]
Tabitha Glowdish recruited her twice, and got a yes the second time without asking. Tab's verdict on the circus act was that she could not say she was not impressed.[1][3]
Kantankerous Albertuous employed her, wrote the act she performed, and sacked her over a raise.[1][3]
Behind the scenes
Book 1's pronunciation guide prints Long Paws with no pronunciation beside it, as it does for the plainly English names in the list.[7] Digguno is listed separately under SPECIES, as Dig-goo-no.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 Book 1, Ch. 21.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Book 1, Ch. 23.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 Book 1, Ch. 25.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Book 2, Ch. 3.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Book 1, Ch. 26.
- ↑ Book 1, "The Many Creatures of Eslura".
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Book 1.