ItIsJustMe

"To Wear the Throne"

Melody's head jerked back as Kengetar's fist glanced off her jaw and cheek. His momentum took him into her, and the both of them were soon hitting the floor. Kengetar tried to grasp Melody as they were slamming to the carpet covered dirt, but again her quickness prevailed; she rolled away from him and once again slashed the back of her hand at him, catching Kengetar square on his nose.

The pain shooting through his face and head must have been disorienting, because Melody was able to pop back to her feet and assume a fighting stance while he was only just righting himself to look up at her. His nose was bleeding; she lifted a hand to her mouth to find it bleeding as well.

"So, are we done yet?" Melody asked with a laugh that send red spittle out onto the carpet. She stepped closer and offered a hand, asking, "Or are we going to continue this until one of us actually gets hurt?"

"To Wear the Throne"

As she watched Kengetar shed his gear, Melody suddenly realized that her heart was pounding. When was the last time she'd been in a Luftë me grushta ... a fist fight? And with a man, no less!

"You're going to wish you had your bodyguard," he taunted her, raising his fists again.

Melody loosened her body a bit, shifted her feet, inched just a tab bit forward as her head and upper torso tensed up. Kengetar threw the first punch, to which Melody nimbly avoided. She smiled wider, then chuckled; Melody knew that he hadn't been trying to hit her but had been gauging whether or not she actually knew what she was doing.

He repeated the jab at her head with one hand, then swung the other upwards toward her belly. In a flash, Melody blocked the punch while simultaneously spinning almost all the way around; her other hand, still clenched in a fist, swung through the air as if it were a mace on the end of a chain, contacting the Sedent's jaw solidly but not with enough force to do much other than make him stagger ... and possibly mad?

Melody regained her stance again, smiled, and laughed. She decided it was time for her to do some taunting: "Maybe I should go get Elbara to stand in for you ... barbarian. She looked to have a little bit of true warrior in her."

Her confidence was building, though whether that was a good thing or not was questionable. She surge forward quickly with a goditje e mesme e lartë, a mid-high rounding kick that she'd learned in her martial arts training as a child. It didn't connect with Kengetar, though, missing his lower rib cage by just an inch. That wasn't the worst part though: she hadn't considered the carpeted floor beneath her feet, which was over unleveled ground, and the maneuver left Melody off balanced and leaning well into the man's reach.

"To Wear the Throne"

"You're not afraid of a fight?" Kengetar asked.

Melody stared down the man for a moment, unsure of where he was taking this.

"Then prove it," he added, clenching his fists.

The Yallan smiled at the Sedent, then chuckled. "You must be joking."

But it was obvious that Kengetar was dead serious. Still with her eyes on him, Melody tilted her head toward the tent flap, knowing that Broon was just outside and likely already crouched and ready to attack to protect his Lady. "You will not enter this tent under any circumstances, Kapiten. Is that understood?"

The flap opened a bit more and the confused voice of Broon asked, "M'lady...? Are you sure? What are--"

"Is that understood, Kapiten?" Melody repeated as she reached to her waist to unbuckle the belt that held her coin purse and, particularly, her dagger's sheath. She looked her Captain in the eye and stressed again, "Is that understood?"

Broon was on the verge of disobeying Melody for the first time since he'd first been assigned to her in her late single digits ages. The little girl had wanted to peruse the stands in the marketplace of a town famous for kidnappings of girls of all Classes, and to prevent this, Broon had given her the same treatment Kengetar had given Frandy earlier. But after looking to the Sedent to see if he, too, was discarding his weapon as Melody had just done, he saluted his Lady and said before closing the flap, "I am your servant, m'lady. But, if he scars you, it will be my honor to do the same and more to him once this ... idiocy is concluded."

Melody waved him away, looked to Kengetar, and raised her own clenched fists as she took a single step closer. Smiling wide, she asked with humor, "You're not afraid of getting your ass kicked by a girl are you ... barbarian?"

"Us versus Us": seeking writer(s?) for post-WWIII survival

1x1 or small group role play. Either works for me.

The basics of that for which I am looking:

• 1 writer, male or female, to write 1-3 characters.
• Length of posts is unimportant so long as you move the story or current scene forward. If it only takes 2 lines, post 2 lines. Seriously.
• Looking for at least 10 posts per week.
• Proofreading is a must: spelling, grammar, punctuation. (Mistakes will be made, but checks for such should also be made.)

The story:

• A limited nuclear exchange between the US and Russia has left our region in mayhem.
• Rather than facing a foreign invasion, though, our city is overrun by home grown militias.
• Murder, rape, torture, enslavement, theft and hording of life saving needs, and other terrors make life hard for anyone not willing to pick up and use a gun.
• So ... we pick up guns and use them.
• Our story begins a week after the nuke attacks, with our town in a state of pseudo-civil war between the government backed National Guard and a consortium of local militias.
• Before you begin thinking that there is a good side and a bad side in this conflict, don't!
• To survive now means to consider you and yours as the good and everyone else as the bad.
• Let the horrors begin.

Battle for the Known World -- A tabletop story of magic, monsters, and mayhem

The Wanderer

• Image
• An as-of-yet unnamed Wizard.
• May reside in the town of Riverbank; may not.
• 1st appearance: here, in the town of Riverbank, where she barbequed three of the local Lord's warriors with some sort of magically created explosive ball of light ... and then went back to her roasted pork and ale.

Battle for the Known World -- A tabletop story of magic, monsters, and mayhem

PRIMARY CHARACTERS

• The Wanderer

"To Wear the Throne"

Melody's heart was pounding by the time Kengetar finished. Was it anger or fear or a combination of both? At the same time, though, she was feeling a third emotion: regret.

She looked to Broon, who by now had his second hand wrapped about the handle of his sword and the weapon pulled out of its sheath just enough to loose it from the tension that prevented it from falling out in the case of a fall or other disorienting situation. She asked and -- when the man didn't move -- repeated, "Kapiten, will you excuse us?"

As the reluctant officer turned and unhurriedly departed -- moving only barely out of the tent and keeping a crack in the flap's opening to watch the happenings inside the tent -- Melody turned and paced about slowly a moment, considering her response. In a much softer voice than before, she said, "It was not a bluff, Kengetar. I am not playing at conquering warlord ... for two reasons. First, I have made no attempts to conquer anything in Sedent territory.

"The incident yesterday ... it was tragic and regretful. If I had been with the party that initially rode to the camp to speak with your leaders, the massacre -- and yes, I admit, it was a massacre, a regretful massacre on the part of my people -- if I had been present, it would not have happened.

"I made a mistake in not preventing my force from attacking you," she continued, her tone sincere. "I ... I reacted spontaneously; my people were attacked, so ... I returned the favor. I spoke with a Sedent woman today, a woman I believe you know ... Elbara. She says she was within earshot of the exchange between your people and mine. She says each side said some things that were ... inciting. She claims the fight was the fault of the Sedent, but ... I think she believed that was what I wanted to hear. I must admit this: I sent the wrong men to speak with your Chief ... and people died."

She hesitated a moment, then addressed more of what Kengetar had said. "Yallans may not be Sedents, but they are soft. I have no way to prove this to you at the moment other than to put one of my warriors in the Fighting Circle opposite yours. I won't do that ... not here, not now." Her lips spread a bit before she added, "Maybe after the Capital."

She began walking back toward the man again, addressing one last point that she felt had to be made. "You are my guest, Kengetar ... you and your people ... not hostages or slaves or prisoners of war. And I will treat you like guests, as opposed to the other possibilities."

Now, close to him and looking up into his pale grey eyes, she said in a low but firm tone, "But I am the leader of Clan Yalla. My people look to me for guidance, support, and -- when the time calls for it -- courageous and unflinching leadership onto the battlefield. They will not follow me if they think I am weak ... and you, here tonight, chastising me with my Clan's most important officers and Elders within ear shot simply cannot happen again ... whether I am right or whether I am wrong makes no matter. If you cannot show me the respect in front of the others that those others show me..."

She hesitated again, stepped back, and swept a hand toward the tent's exit, finishing, "...then I regretfully ask you to return to your people ... and to your village. I will seek my revenge on my own. I will die in doing so, of course. But in contrast to how you may think of me ... I'm not afraid of a fight."

"To Wear the Throne"

Melody had no idea as to what Kengetar was speaking, of course, and she didn't particularly enjoy his tone. If he had been one of her people and had talked to her like that, she would have called Broon in to have the man strung up for lashing, castrating, or worse.

Instead, she stood to face him, saying, "First ... I did not send for you ... leash or otherwise. Second, I appreciate that you saved the life of one of my servants, which ever one it was."

Melody actually had an idea that Kengetar was speaking about Frandy. The girl was promiscuous and indiscriminate about who man she allowed inside her ... or even if it was a man who was involved in her search for sexual satisfaction. As she began a slow walk toward the barbarian, Melody called out, "Kapiten!"

In a flash, the ever dutiful Broon was inside the tent, saluting and saying as usual, "Yes, m'lady."

Melody didn't address him but instead simply moved up close to Kengatar and growled in barely above a whisper, "And third ... if you ever speak to me in that manner again ... I'll have your balls cut off ... stewed ... and fed to your people ... before I have them executed as well."

She gave Kengetar a moment to respond, unsure whether that response would be words or the sinking of his dagger into her chest. Presuming he didn't kill her or simply excuse himself from her tent and from her duty, Melody would ask him to explain himself.

"To Wear the Throne"

Earlier:

Frandy got excited when she thought she caught sight of Kengetar moving through the shadows of the thick woods ahead of her. She called out softly at first, then louder: "Kengetar...? Kengatar! It is me ... Frandy ... come to be of service to you."

By that, of course, the young and rather promiscuous slave girl meant sexual service. It meant nothing to her that she'd only met the man yesterday; it meant nothing to her that he was, by Yallan definition, a barbarian. Frandy simply wanted to pull her dress up and Kengetar's loin cloth off and find some escape from her dull life of service.

That wasn't going to happen, though. She was suddenly screaming out in surprise, then fear, as she was grasped about her torso by powerful hands. In just seconds, the man she'd assumed was Kengetar emerged from the woods, and Frandy got her first look at a new sort of barbarian.

The Roki were not the Sedent; Frandy knew that in an instance from their clothes, their tattoos, and their treatment of her. The Sedent -- even after the Yallans had destroyed their village and killed many of their people -- had not raised a hand against their attackers/captors, despite their reputation for being barbarous people. Frandy couldn't know whether or not the tales of them had been stretched; she couldn't know whether or not they were biding their time, waiting for the right time to attack, to kill all the Yallans, to eat them from the inside out like so many tales from the civilized world seem to portray them.

But these barbarians, they frightened Frandy to no end. She screamed out in terror as one arm and hand grasped her painfully about her belly and the other arm and hand held her higher, with grasping fingers digging into her tit in a way no man had before this. She continued screaming out in terror, knowing that she was about to be raped, beaten, raped, killed, raped, and finally eaten.

And then, suddenly, it was over: Kengetar was there. Frandy didn't see her barbarian kill the first Roki, and she was too deep in shock to really understand that the other ferocious animal had simply ran away in fear. Later, when she recalled of the moment, she thought she remembered Kengetar saying "Boo!" But ... no, that was ridiculous, right? Did he really frighten away a barbarian rapist with a word from a mother-infant peekaboo game?

When she realized that it was over, Frandy set her eyes on her savior and tried to smile in joy, though, honestly, she wasn't entirely sure whether or not the expression had actually manifested.

He asked her, "Why did you come out here alone? Don't you know it's dangerous?"

Frandy didn't immediately recognize that she was being chastised for her dangerous silliness. She was about to confess that she'd come into the woods to find him ... to flirt with him ... to seduce him. Then, she realized that she was being dressed down for her ignorance of how dangerous these lands could be.

She lied to him instead: "Melody sent me to find you. She says you have to come back."

Frandy had no idea that after a full day of interactions, Kengetar would not have heard her Lady's name or even used it on occasion. But, when she'd recall this moment, Frandy would realize that the actual name Melody was only rarely is ever spoken. Melody was m'lady; that was what people of all natures called her.

She explained who Melody was an introduced herself, and a moment later Kengetar was helping her to her feet. She smiled, once again near to the man who had previously been naked and oh-so-impressively-so the last time they were this close. A chill of sexual excitement ran up her spine, and she was in the process of considering what words to use to tell the barbarian that he could have her, here and now and repeatedly ... when suddenly she was over his shoulder and being carried out of the forest.

"Don't talk until we're back at camp," Kengetar said as he headed down the trail.

Frandy understood immediately that this wasn't part of some mating ritual; the barbarian was doing the least barbaric thing she could imagine, taking her home, untouched and still fully dressed. How disappointing; and what more, how embarrassing. Before she knew it, Frandy was on her feet again at the edge of the camp ... and after telling Kengetar where m'lady could be found, once again all alone.

She watched the object of her sexual fantasies hurry off toward Melody's tent, where he rapped on the tarp covered wooden frame, waited, then entered. In her now-dark fantasies, she imagined her Mistress laying there on her soft, thick bedding in a practically see through silk gown, lifting it for the convenience of the barbarian who had already stripped off his loin cloth and was hurrying forward to find his joy.

In reality, Melody was sitting with Broon, his Juniors, and Groya, the Elder who typically spoke for the non-military men and the women and children of the tribe in times of concern. The group had been near the end of their meeting as it happened, and after Melody dismissed them, she looked up to Kengetar and asked in a somewhat unenthusiastic, almost bothered tone, "What can I do for you?"

Melody had many things on her mind and, of course, she hadn't asked for the Sedent's presence after all,

"To Wear the Throne"

The little clearing in which they pitched camp was barely large enough for the four tents and a central fire pit; the carts were left in a line on the trail they'd traveled, and those not assigned to a tent used the limbs of the trees of the surrounding forest to erect simple lean-tos out of their tent covers. Broon approached Melody after the tents were erected to inform her that sentries had been posted and scouts had been dispatched.

"And Kengetar?" she asked, knowing that her Captain was sensitive about the barbarian having not only so much freedom but a weapon as well.

"He slipped off into the forest a few minutes ago," he said, showing no more concern that he already had been. "I believe he is looking for a way around the slide."

"Or making contact with some Sedent relatives who will sneak out of the trees in the night to slice our throats?" Melody asked wryly, raising a questioning eyebrow. When the officer only stared at his Lady, she told him, "Feel free to keep an eye on the Sedents, Kapiten. But you are forbidden to take any action against them without my expressed permission. Do you understand? You are primed to not trust Kengetar, and I do not want that to lead to a misunderstanding that will deny me my revenge."

"Yes, m'lady," Broon said, saluting before being dismissed.

Melody's Captain hadn't been the only Yallan keeping a close eye on Kengetar, though, the reason for this person's attention had nothing to do with whether or not the man might want to slip away or slit a throat. Frandy had done her part in setting up her Lady's tent before telling the more senior tent slave that she needed to tend to her Moonblood issues. Haanya gave the younger servant a confused look; the two women worked so closely together that Haanya knew almost to the day when Frandy was next expected to bleed, and today was most definitely not that day. Still, she said only, "Hurry back. There is still midday meal to prepare."

Frandy milled about the spontaneously erected camp, searching for the barbarian with the impressive manhood, only to learn from overhearing her Lady and the Captain's conversation that the man had slipped off into the woods to scout ... or run? She hurried back to the first cart, the last place anyone talking about Kengetar had seen him. Acting as if she was only searching the cart for goods until no one was looking her way, Frandy suddenly turned and sprinted into the undergrowth. She hesitated to look for prying eyes, saw none, and hurried off into the forest, following a deer trail she hoped would get her to the man who made her so warm and tingly in all the right places.