Obscene Symphony

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_{@Scribe of Thoth @Hero}

Lienna was well on her way to dozing off waiting for class to start when a meek, quiet "What are we doing?" sounded from the seat next to her that she previously thought was empty. She visibly jumped at the sound, hastily smoothing her hair and skirt to play off her surprise when she saw who the voice belonged to. It was Rudolf, whose name she only remembered because of a big, burly Fraldarius soldier by the same name who shared exactly nothing in common with the skinny, red-eyed boy looking sullen beside her.

She was actually relieved at the sight of him; the two of them saw more of each other lately in the new Crest class, as well as their usual small-group magic lessons with Professor Tomai, and Rudolf was always content to sulk to himself, rarely saying more than a few words when the class demanded it. Lienna was happy to return the favour; mutual silent focus was the kind of calm, unintrusive coexistence she could get behind (if only her Housemates shared that sentiment). Besides, she couldn’t deny some fascination with his entirely foreign, Imperial style of magic, so fundamentally different in form and function than her own, and his impressive control over it.

As such, Lienna was uncharacteristically unbothered by Rudolf’s presence, and simply shrugged at his question. “Couldn’t tell you,” she answered simply, a bit of northern slang showing through. Or maybe it was a lowborn saying – all she knew was it was something she didn’t usually hear the highborn students saying. “Those ones seem to think it’s some big group exercise,” she added, glancing over to the chatting strangers behind them. “Not sure who invited them.”

They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Shortly after a few more students trickled in, the geography professor (whose class was interesting enough, but whose name Lienna never bothered to commit to memory) launched into a spiel about dissidents and hostages and the Knights of Seiros. And surprise surprise, almost as if her previous musings had predicted it, their mission – which they would accept – was yet another illustrious and philanthropic death charge in the name of the Church.

Lienna’s mood soured as the professor asked for volunteers, the girl sinking back in her seat with arms crossed and gaze icy. Sparkling petals of frost bloomed over her fingertips and forearms as she bristled, seemingly responding to her agitation. Obviously she knew the whole “defending the faithful from the wicked” thing came part and parcel with her Officers’ Academy education (something she had come to find out was so respected by the nobles of Faerghus that not even pleading letters to her mouldering fiancé could get her out of), but she was still no fan of sticking her neck out for strangers that would probably never do the same for her. She knew their type; she grew up with them. Run, run, run, save yourself and maybe your children, take what help you can get and to hells with anyone else in the way. It made sense in Hima, maybe even here too, when you were lucky enough to be the one being rescued, but it did not extend to becoming the rescuer. It simply wasn’t in their nature. And it wasn’t in Lienna’s either.

At least the last interference had been coincidence (or so they’d been told), but apparently Garreg Mach made a habit of pushing throngs of barely-capable teenagers into the phalanx right alongside the Knights of Seiros. Lienna almost laughed, wondering how the famous Knights lived up to their fearsome reputation if they needed help from cushy highborn students bound for lives of luxury at the end of the year. And of course, once more Lienna wondered what the smallfolk of these southern valley villages – or the Knights themselves, for that matter – had ever done to deserve her own blood spilled on their behalf, and once more came up empty.

The room was quiet for a moment after the professor finished her brief, presumably the sound of every other student asking themselves the same question Lienna was asking. Then, to her surprise, the first to pipe up was none other than that showboating layabout Deer leader who fancied himself a ladies man. However, instead of the sexually-charged quip Lienna expected, he just about barked that he’d apparently go anywhere he wouldn’t be inconvenienced by the suffering of commoners.

Reflexively, Lienna bristled, ready to decry his callousness as the typical highborn attitude, happy to let his lessers suffer and die as long as he couldn’t hear the screaming from his castle tower. However, in an admittedly rare moment of self awareness, she realized that his thinking, pompously phrased as it was, wasn’t entirely unlike her own. Sure, his reasoning was undoubtedly rooted in highborn arrogance, and his foolhardy thirst for excitement and danger born of a sheltered life unacquainted with real suffering and death, but the end result was the same: neither of them were interested in dying for a village full of strangers to whom they owed nothing. She supposed she had to understand that, if not respect it.

Of course, her preference of battle station was opposite. While Blondie there didn’t want the wails of widows in his ears while he played hero, Lienna just wanted to be as far from any fighting as possible. After all, she didn’t come all this way to die defending thatch-roof houses in a field somewhere miles from home.

“I’ll hang back with the hostages, thanks,” she spoke up after Blondie. Less chance of skewering allies that way, probably; she’d made some progress with her control, but seeing as she was happy anytime the magic went forward, keeping her out of the fight was probably best for everyone involved.

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_@Hero

To Jorah’s considerable surprise (and delight), his day, for once, did not start with a thunderous rapping on his door by a certain red-headed morning church bell. As such, although even this seemingly late hour would have been considered inhumanely early when he was still living at home, he was allowed to sleep blissfully well further into the morning than he could usually manage since his arrival at Garreg Mach. So, instead of bells or hurried door knocking waking him, he was able to sleep until the sun streaming in his window passed over his eyes, rousing him just enough to make him stir.

While he would normally have been content to pull the sheets over his head and go right back to sleep, Jorah was unfortunately roused just enough to notice that something was bothering him. He kept his eyes stubbornly closed in hopes that whatever that nagging feeling was would get tired and go away, but something still felt… off. Was there something he was supposed to do today? It wasn’t like he was one to stress over shirked responsibilities. Someone he needed to meet? Sadly no; the usual gaggle of comely maidens was a bit harder to come by in Garreg Mach, considering they were all either tight-laced daughters of lower nobility who’d probably been warned to steer clear of him or otherwise pristine young ladies in preparation to give themselves over to the Goddess rather than him. Did he have somewhere to be, then? Class, probably, but that never really bothered him before—dammit, the meeting!

Audibly groaning into his pillow, Jorah was even more tempted to shove his head under his sheets and dive back into sleep knowing that this was the morning of their special stupid meeting before class. He had more than an inkling what the meeting was going to be about, and seeing as how the last one ended with an unbecoming cut on his cheek (that still hadn’t completely healed, to his dismay) and half his House lucky to be alive, Jorah wasn’t exactly eager to get to this next one.

Goddess above, he should have bolted when he got the chance.

Against his better judgment, Jorah levered himself out of bed and splashed some water over his face, pulling on his shirt and uniform in a sleepy yet frustrated daze. He kept the buttons at the top undone in protest – or what would have been protest if that wasn’t how he normally wore it – and walked out the door, leaving his shoulder cape behind. Truth be told, he kinda liked the thing – it was flashy and excessive, both qualities that suited him fine – but he was a little too irritated this early in the day to want to draw even more attention to himself. The thought made him smirk; Clarissa would run a victory lap if she heard him say that out loud.

He made his way across the Monastery in such a way that he looked like he was rushing without actually going much faster, taking a detour to the dining hall to grab a soft, colourful fruit the attendant described as hailing from Morfis. The skin had flamboyant leaves sticking out from it and the flesh inside was brightly coloured and almost pasty, and tasty enough for Jorah to immediately add Morfis to his adventuring bucket list. He was forced to roll his sleeve up as pink juice dripped down his arm, but that just gave him an extra second or two to linger outside the Blue Lions classroom, flicking off the worst of it before he crossed the threshold.

Jorah took care of the rest with a yellow handkerchief produced from his pocket as he took his seat near Clarissa and… some others he didn’t recognize. Er, wait—was that one of the Gloucester boys? What was it… Ermes? No, Ezra—Ezekial! Yes, that one. A bit of a snob ever since his father died, but it was hard to blame the kid for that. Still, Jorah always did give him a wide berth; as much as he held himself together, his emotions always swirled around him like a dark gathering storm that made it hard for Jorah to relax in his company. Besides, he was always picking arguments even before his father passed, and that was just plain irritating. Maybe that was how Jorah managed not to hear that he was attending the Officers’ Academy.

He’d arrived just as the alluringly stern geography teacher – who was here, for some reason – started asking for volunteers, and Jorah visibly deflated. He missed the briefing, but it didn’t take much to guess; the map of Magdred Way on the board and the cloud of mixed emotions fogging up the room told him all he needed to know.

“Saint’s taint…” he murmured sourly, rubbing his temple and realizing that he had forgotten to paint his face in his half-hearted rush. A sign that this mission was just as damned as their last, as far as he was concerned. A wave of dread, some from others and some his own, washed over Jorah; as pissed as he was about Kayden’s reckless behaviour last time, he still hadn’t forgotten – nor fully gotten over, if he was honest with himself – his own poor performance. He’d clammed up when it mattered most, paralyzed by the fear and grief and panic of those poor townspeople as they watched their homes burn around them – and the ones they couldn’t save.

He felt his fingers brush over the mark on his cheek, not having realized he even raised his hand. He’d managed to snap out of it that time, sure, but not before some lowlife bandit came within inches of putting an arrow through his skull. What about next time? If he froze like that again, he very much doubted he’d get so lucky a second time. And making matters worse, there was nothing he could do to stop it! Crest classes had only been underway for a week, and though he’d been looking into ways to control his sensing ability, nothing yet was bearing fruit. He’d be helpless in the face of such a wave of emotions again, and it would put not only him, but his House and who knew who else in danger.

Who ever thought it was a good idea to put him on the battlefield?

Jorah exhaled sharply through his nose, a mix of feelings both foreign and domestic racking his nerves. The mix settled on irritated, and his wine-coloured eyes flashed with agitation as he crossed his arms, shrugging with a huff. “Fine; if this is what we’re doing, just put me far away from any screaming civilians.”

The Shattering of Aegis

_{✧ Location: Soft Haven Bounty House ✧ Purse: 12 copper ✧ @McMolly @Trainerblue192 @Hero ✧}

Kyreth noted in passing the… well, passing of the hedgeman, pushing past himself and Lilann on his newly determined way to the Bounty House at the end of the bridge. It should have given Kyreth some comfort that the armed stranger had apparently lost interest in his Tainted hostages, but it didn’t - his nerves still buzzed like a head full of wasps in this strange, too-still place, leaving him again wondering if it was his own timid inexperience with the world at large working him up, or if something else entirely was at work.

He didn’t have to wait long for his answer, as no sooner did the hedgeman pass than Lilann hitched herself to the railing, pulling Kyreth’s eye down from the finely worked stone of the building and bridge to the still, murky waters below.

Kyreth didn’t need Lilann’s explanation to realize immediately that his nerves were indeed justified. Although she put it in flowery, esoteric terms he almost didn’t understand, any child of Buscon knew the legends of Wander’s Warning, even if he’d been lucky enough never to see them himself.

Well. Until today.

Gods above, he thought, he really was well and truly cursed. Either that, or Selene had taken pity on him and deigned to send a clear and present warning to her new and clumsy child; sailors did say the lights would sometimes bloom on ships as harbingers of coming storms. They were also said to be the souls of dead sailors trying to steer their kind away from doom, the lights pulsing like blood through the veins of panicked, dying men. Still other tales said they were the vibrant, pulsing warnings of spiteful spirits telling anything near to keep away and promising vengeance on intruders. In any case, the message was clear: “Here is death; go no further.”

Kyreth’s hand found the iron charm on his chest before he even had the chance to remember it, his lips moving of their own accord with a nearly-silent prayer as his eyes latched on to those dread lights in the lake. But for all her own eloquent warnings, Lilann didn’t seem nearly as scared as Kyreth thought she should be, something that seemed to come as habit to her in the short time he’d known her. She acknowledged his fears as legitimate, but despite her words, the giggle that followed as she gently pried his hand from her bicep betrayed little caution.

Kyreth had half a mind to turn tail right there; from the claw marks to the hedgeman and now these horrible lights in the lake, the gods or fate or whatever pulled the strings around here was practically shouting at him to run. If he pressed on now, well, he’d probably deserve whatever gruesome end awaited him, having been fool enough to defy the countless warnings the powers that be so generously gave. Foolhardiness wasn’t like him; quite the opposite. A lifetime in Buscon taught you to run and run fast, run quiet and run agile through choking, twisting streets and dark, smoky taverns full of sleeping beasts. You only fought if you were really good at it or had your friends behind you, and Kyreth was neither strong nor popular back home. More than anything, you did not, did not go looking for trouble; it’d find you plenty well on its own, there was no need to tempt fate any more than that.

So once more, just like back in the woods, Kyreth thought of running.

But once more, just like before, he didn’t. And the reason was the same, too: he didn’t want to leave Lilann, who’d shown him so much kindness, who was so confident in the face of danger but just so small, to face the danger of this place alone. Of course, despite his many efforts over the past months he wasn’t an entirely changed man; he still didn’t much like the idea of delivering himself into the maw of whatever made the lake and forest and the animals here hold their breath. So he struck a bargain with himself: he’d see Lilann delivered safely to the Bounty House and then leave, divesting himself of the silly notion that finding an honest life would be just as easy as walking up to an establishment and asking for a job. At the very least he could do that, he thought.

Of course, for all his meagre mustered courage, Kyreth still just about jumped out of his skin when a voice much louder and much less gentle than Lilann’s sounded from mere feet behind him. He whirled around to find the shadowy-haired boy staring incredulously up at him, asking questions.

Kyreth consciously exhaled, letting his shoulders fall as some unconscious part of him noticed just how much shorter than him the strange-looking boy really was. By all accounts, he really could have grown up in the depths of Buscon; he was as skinny and sunken-eyed as any child in Urchin’s Run, with a familiarly wary look about him, pale like those kids who ran errands for the bawdy girls and never got much sun. Maybe he came from another big city somewhere else; hell, he might have come from Buscon if not for the fact that Kyreth was decently sure any kid there with inky shadows in place of hair would have been thrown in the ocean as a bad omen, or else kept in a dark and private place as a display piece. For a second, just barely a second, Kyreth’s nerves took a backseat to a sudden curiosity about this weird kid, and his brow knit together in bemusement.

But that second passed quickly, and at last remembering himself, he forced a personable smile. “Just… saw something in the water,” he excused lamely, rubbing the back of his neck under his cloak. He could feel the fabric tug on his horns, and raised his other hand to steady the hem of his hood. “Forgive us. We’re just a little nervous, is all. Far from home; you understand.” He inclined his head to the elvish woman trailing behind, not wanting to offend her if she was indeed this boy’s guardian, as it seemed she was.

Clearing his throat, he offered no more explanation, instead glancing to Lilann with a nod before setting off once more down the bridge to the Bounty House. “At your lead,” she’d told him. And if he kept his hand close to his knife under his cloak and his eyes always scanning as he did so, well, that was his business.

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

By the time Auberon’s knock sounded on her door, Lienna was already awake, albeit wishing she wasn’t. She was no stranger to early mornings, but she’d been able to convince herself to sleep in enough times since coming to Garreg Mach that it was always a slap in the face when old habits came back to drag her out of bed even earlier than Auberon did. At least when he did it, she could blame someone else.

To add insult to injury, Auberon’s knock came even earlier today than expected; the sky was barely light when he arrived at the door, and she held her breath until she heard his footsteps resume, hoping he’d assume she was still asleep and not bother her about it. She was already irritated from waking up so early; she didn’t need the first face she saw today to be Auberon’s.

By then, her fruitless attempts at going back to sleep had succeeded only in frustrating her, and Lienna reluctantly got out of bed and went about her routine. Truth be told, she didn’t feel as bad as she expected to, and a look in the mirror showed the usual shadows under her eyes had begun to fade. Probably because, for the first time since arriving at Garreg Mach, she’d slept… relatively soundly. Normally she was hounded by confusing, distorted dreams and started awake in the dead of night with the same urgency as any Srengese raid, haunted by that ever-present feeling of being watched as she tried to lull herself back to sleep. But while her sheets were undeniably twisted from tossing and turning, she never did wake in a cold sweat, and she didn’t feel the eyes on her back with the same intensity as before. Why would that be?

The thought tumbled in her mind as she went about her morning routine. Was the increased guard presence around the Monastery finally quelling her dread? She had never found much comfort in guards before. As she pulled off her nightgown, she noticed the new smoothness of her arms, looking a little less corpselike than the sharp bones she was accustomed to. Her ribs were a bit less easily counted, too. No doubt the new abundance of food and shelter was the culprit; Hells, maybe her new lifestyle was making her softer in every respect.

That was fine by her. The sooner she could start taking survival and safety for granted, the better. Dipping her hands into her wash basin, she was distracted by a thin sheet of ice forming over the surface, blooming out from her fingertips like blood on snow. She watched with interest until the whole basin was covered, the paper thin skim of ice taking on the filigree pattern of frost on a window. She poked a few exploratory holes in the ice, her routine momentarily forgotten.

Maybe that was what had her at ease all of a sudden; these new Crest classes had her mind abuzz, not to mention her extra meetings with Tomai. More and more she found herself too busy thinking about Crest theory and sorcery techniques to worry about how many times a day a hidden assailant might jump out from the shadows to abduct her.

Honestly, it was a welcome change, if not a smart one.

Having had her fun, she finished getting ready, buttoning her bishop sleeves and tying her scarf around her waist in a limp bow, as had become her habit. She wasn’t out of her room quite as fast as some others, but the dining hall was still empty enough when she arrived that she could have a hearty breakfast in peace and make it to class without being the last one to arrive.

In fact, to her surprise, she was almost the first to arrive – or the first of the Rose Unit, anyway. Lienna initially thought she had the wrong classroom when she was greeted to three unfamiliar faces and her geography professor, and almost turned and left before she saw Tomai and Michail at the head of the room as well. Not hiding her look of offended confusion, she simply slipped past the strangers (and Clarissa, who was talking to them) and took a seat far enough away that she hoped they wouldn’t bother with her. She tossed an especially disapproving look to the girl scarfing down danishes as she walked past, giving her a wide berth as if to avoid any splashback of pastry from her churning jaw. Maybe she was just biased from growing up hungry, but it was awfully irritating to see someone go to town on their food that… excessively.

She tipped her head in silent greeting as she passed Professor Tomai, looking grumpier than usual. It would be funny if she didn’t share his frustration, albeit possibly for a different reason. He was probably put out over whatever they were doing this morning, which didn’t bode especially well, but Lienna figured some of that discontent must have been coming from their… less-than-successful meeting yesterday. It had been mercifully short, only about an hour compared to their usual three, but what it lacked in length it made up for in absolute dead-end unproductivity. Tomai had it in his mind that her lineage might be the key to her “abnormally presenting Crest”, so the evening was spent with Lienna being reminded how little she really knew about her family and Tomai being frustrated there wasn’t more information to be had. Shock and awe, turns out coming from a fractured family wasn’t super uncommon in the Faerghian region ruled over by redheaded manwhores.

Macuil’s heels, she could have told him that in five seconds and saved them both a lot of time.

Content to let that debacle live in history, Lienna turned her focus to the geography professor, already hard at work drawing a detailed map on the chalkboard. She somehow doubted that they were called in early for a special cross-unit geography lesson, so why bother with a map? The other students were speculating that it was a field training exercise. Lienna wasn’t thrilled at the prospect, but she hoped that if that was indeed the case, they’d have at least warned the newbies to give her a wide berth. With any luck, the professors wouldn’t soon forget what happened on their last little excursion.

The Shattering of Aegis

_{✧ Location: Soft Haven Bounty House ✧ Purse: 12 copper ✧ @McMolly, Everyone ✧}

Kyreth was thankful for the distraction the newcomers seemed to provide the swordsman in their midst, following the group along the path without a word. He kept his eyes peeled for trouble, of course, and stuck close to Lilann, but all he saw was beautiful scenery; lush foliage, singing birds, sunlight filtering down through green leaves, a pristine lake and a beautiful building sitting in the middle of it. He’d never seen anything like it in the Dregs or on his travels, all stately stone and creeping vines jutting high into the sky. He’d probably seen crooked wooden buildings taller than it, but with no other urban clutter pressing in on the sides, the Bounty House looked like a monument rising to the heavens.

Even the gate guarding the bridge was decadent by Kyreth’s standards, an iron arch clearly worked with a skilled hand and more extravagant than anything he’d have seen back in Buscon. The sleeping guard, on the other hand, was a familiar sight; anyone in uniform in the Dregs was usually either bleeding in a gutter or blackout drunk in a bawdy house, unless they came in groups to drag someone kicking and screaming never to be seen again.

As the rest of the group discussed the sleeping man in hushed tones, Kyreth stood by, shifting anxiously from foot to foot and scanning his surroundings. He thought his nerves would calm as they neared the Bounty House, but he felt the opposite; his fingers were close to shaking, his skin practically crawling with agitation he couldn’t quite place. It couldn’t just be the swordsman, his attention was more divided than ever and Kyreth had been in much tighter spots before and kept his cool. No, something else was going on, and he didn’t want to stick around to find out.

Growing antsier and antsier as the group delayed, Kyreth eventually got tired of waiting and swept forward, his steps quick and silent as he took Lilann by the arm and slipped the two of them past Jenson with barely a sound. Moving with stealth born of experience, he sidestepped the shadow-headed boy and kept going, making it a few paces down the bridge with Lilann in tow before stooping over to explain.

“Sorry,” he whispered, glancing behind them but not releasing his grip on Lilann. “Something feels off here, I can’t tell what but I’d rather get to the Bounty House before I find out and I didn’t want to leave you alone with that guy.”

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_{@Achronum@POOHEAD189}

Clarissa didn’t stay long, but it was just as well; she was overcome with righteous indignation as she got back up, which suited her much better than gloom in Jorah’s opinion. Class ended soon after, but Jorah was in no rush to follow – by the snippets of shouts he heard from the courtyard, he figured it was best to keep his distance for the time being. He didn’t hide his smirk, snickering a bit at the tongue-lashing he imagined Professor Lysander was getting. It served him right, for sure, but what made it even more entertaining was that Jorah himself wasn’t on the receiving end this time.

He dearly wanted to sneak a glimpse of Lysander’s face before Clarissa was done with him, but in an uncharacteristic show of restraint, Jorah refrained. This was a touchy subject for her, and although he knew more than anyone else, she still deserved her privacy.

Which of course begged the question: why was Prince Eagle over there snooping in the doorway?

Jorah quirked a brow in the Imperial prince’s direction, openly examining his cartoonish posture, peering out the door and breathing shallowly like a child who thought his hiding place was foolproof. Leaning on a pillar, Jorah watched, shocked as Kayden drank up Clarissa’s whole exchange without even a hint of shame, before telling his classmates he was going to “gather information.” What the hell was he up to? Jorah had given the Eagles the benefit of the doubt, assuming they’d manage to be normal for the duration of the year, but it seemed he was wrong. Apparently, the Empire never stopped scheming.

Following Kayden out, he caught his odd appeal to Clarissa, the Prince apparently blind to the fact that she was upset. Jorah knew other people didn’t have the sense for emotions he did, but couldn’t he tell when it was best to leave someone alone? Or had the Crown Prince of Adrestia just never had an interaction blow up in his face? “Excuse the intrusion” his ass; more like excuse the blatant eavesdropping. Besides, his proposition was just… weird. He sounded like Raimund when he first learned to speak Fódlan, all excessive formality and strange syntax. Maybe Jorah was biased, but everything about this rubbed him the wrong way.

“Well well, isn’t that polite of you!” Jorah remarked loudly, sauntering over and inserting himself into the conversation. He stepped slightly between Kayden and Clarissa. “And here I thought Imperial royalty never asked for anything. How wrong I was; your lovely fiancée must have given me the wrong impression.” He smiled jovially at Kayden, his distaste evident.

“I know what you mean, though; I’ve sorely missed riding myself lately. But I gotta say, the saddles here are not the best.” He punctuated the statement with an exaggerated stretch. “The horses are great though, Goddess bless them. Shame I can't say the same for the equipment; probably not up to royal standards.”

He shot a glance to Clarissa, one that she’d seen a hundred times back home in Derdriu that roughly translated to “please end this conversation.”

“Anyway, what’s this I hear about a ride?”

The Shattering of Aegis

_{✧ Location: Soft Haven Cemetery ✧ Purse: 12 copper ✧ @Everyone I guess ✧}

If the armed stranger disbelieved the lie, he didn’t argue it, instead correcting his comment on “aetheric entities.” Kyreth couldn’t help but frown. Their “essences” stood out to this man? That was the talk of fortune telling swindlers, not a rugged hedgeman who looked like he’d never walked the streets of a city in his life. Kyreth had to wonder what on earth the man was trying to sell them, but he spoke earnestly enough to satisfy the Tainted boy that he was telling the truth. Or his own understanding of the truth, anyway.

Kyreth’s already-frayed nerves were piqued further as the plucking of an instrument reached his ears from all around, just loud enough to be heard over the rustling of the underbrush. For a moment he wondered where Lilann suddenly found the confidence to start playing her little lyre, remembering how it plucked itself the night before. But far as he could tell, its strings laid still on her hip, and the sound came from no discernible direction. It made Kyreth uneasy – or uneasier – but it was soon drowned out by the clomping and creaking of a cart approaching on the adjacent road.

Kyreth gasped when Lilann suddenly halted, but she was only scoping out the road, donning a painted mask before she broke the tree line. A clever disguise, it hid her eyes well enough to mistake her for a tall halfling – or a short human – but he wondered if the mask itself had ever gotten her into trouble. People were distrustful of those who covered their faces, after all. But evidently, it worked well enough to get her this far.

While the other two broke out onto the road, Kyreth stayed behind, lingering just a few feet back from the tree line. Securing his hood with one hand, he watched the exchange on the road; they’d come across a strange trio indeed, though he supposed the same could be said about his little party. Most notably, there was a frightening green-skinned woman towering above the rest, speaking with a deep voice the likes of which Kyreth had never seen nor heard before. She was talking to a blonde, elvish woman who looked very much out of place, her looks and posture speaking of high breeding and clothed in some of the finest traveling garb Kyreth had ever seen. An official from Soft Haven, perhaps? Maybe checking on the Bounty House? That might have explained her presence, but her companion was her opposite in every way – skinny and sunken-faced, he looked like he’d fit in well in Urchin’s Run if not for the swirling mass of black shadows clinging to his head. Now that looked more like an “aetheric entity”.

Contrasting Lilann’s caution, the stranger – as yet unnamed, not that Kyreth cared to get to know him after having been on the business end of his sword – walked out onto the road with all the confidence of a normal traveler, asking for directions. If the scrawny kid’s comment was anything to go by, it seemed they were all headed to the same place. It occurred to Kyreth that this was his chance to turn around and leave this tense hostage march behind. A year ago he would have taken it, turning tail without a second thought. But to his surprise, his feet stayed planted; he wouldn’t leave Lilann alone with their dubiously sane ‘companion’ after all the kindness she’d afforded him.

Hey, maybe that was progress.

Nerves still positively buzzing, Kyreth forced a deep breath and mustered the courage to step out of the trees, pulling his hood down over his eyes as best he could. “Yeah, we're on our way there too,” he answered the teen in passing, barely loud enough to be heard as he shot an apologetic glance to Lilann for making her wait.

The Shattering of Aegis

_{✧ Location: Soft Haven Cemetery ✧ Purse: 12 copper ✧ @Mcmolly @Scribe of Thoth ✧}

As frustrated as Kyreth was, he wasn’t blind to the situation unfolding around him – one of very few merits of a childhood in the Dregs was a sort of beaten-in situational awareness. As such, his complaints were momentarily forgotten as he noticed how Lilann’s posture changed from alarmed to merely cautious, and how the armed newcomer peered sharply at the pair, deep in thought as Lilann confronted him. Kyreth almost gasped when she brushed the man’s accusations off so nonchalantly – surely she knew the gravity of the situation? Either she was simpler than she looked or she knew something he didn’t.

On closer inspection, it seemed like the latter was true. Kyreth had been so focused on the worn and polished edges of the newcomer’s blade that he failed to look beyond it; the man himself was dusty and a little disheveled, just out of order enough to have the look of someone who’d been on the road for a while. His clothing didn’t bear any of the hallmarks of uniform garb, no particular colour scheme or emblematic markings, and while Kyreth didn’t know Soft Haven’s standard well enough to pick their uniform from a lineup, he doubted any settlement would equip their guards as inconspicuously as this.

Kyreth was largely deaf to the conversation as the tense exchange dragged on, heartbeat still swooshing in his ears as he waited for the situation to inevitably deteriorate. His and Lilann’s heads snapped to the sound at the wall in unison, though he kept his eyes trained on the yellow-garbed visitors, ears straining to pick up their voices on the wind.

“We do the checks, we make sure nothing was distrubed…”

“Gunther’s gunna be pissed…”

Kyreth’s former panic came crashing back when snippets of the distant conversation reached his ears – there was no way those halflings weren’t talking about the mess they’d made, and as guilty as he felt, he did not want to be around when they looked up and found the culprits. It seemed he and Lilann were of one mind as she hastened up her conversation with the armed adventurer, rushing to appease him and get moving. Kyreth didn’t dare interrupt lest he disrupt the uneasy peace Lilann had managed to establish, and though it felt like an eternity passed, the adventurer eventually sheathed his sword and allowed Lilann to lead the way into the woods.

Kyreth followed without comment, his discomfort at letting the armed stranger walk at his back outweighed by his urgency to escape the graveyard as quickly as possible. Not until they were comfortably in the shade of the trees did he allow himself to breathe again, although breath still came shallow as he snuck constant nervous glances at the man behind him.

"So what were you doing, sleeping in that graveyard?"

“The inn was full,” came Kyreth’s stock reply, so immediate and automatic that it took the Tainted boy a moment to realize he’d said it out loud. Small wonder – that was the least conspicuous excuse he could come up with in the back of his mind – but not for the first time he was disturbed at how easily the lie flew off his tongue. A few years ago he might not have questioned it, but nowadays it was yet another unwelcome reminder of how naturally deceit came to him. He thought it was a trait native to his kind, but to his surprise, Lilann had yet to fall victim to the same impulse; even in such a tense situation as this, everything she’d said so far had been truthful.

Then what was he doing wrong?

Slowly, he tugged his hood down even lower, more careful than ever to keep his horns hidden from the stranger. It was stupid and dangerous to let quandaries like that get the better of him right now – especially when he had no way of knowing the man’s intentions. It was awfully convenient that he happened to be bound for the Bounty House at the same time as them, moments after brandishing his sword and asking after demons. Kyreth had to fight the urge to palm his knife – partly not wanting to fall to his gutter habits again, and partly fearing the move would prompt a response from the stranger – and his eyes flicked suspiciously over the trees, searching for anything out of place. Not like he knew much about forests, but if a group of thugs was lying in wait to jump them, he wanted to know when to run early.

Lilann was probably thinking the same thing; she walked on ahead casually enough, but the tense set of her shoulders and the way she tried to keep herself between himself and the stranger gave her away. She was just as tense as he was, just hiding it better. Kyreth wasn’t sure if that was a comfort.

Yet to his chagrin, the stranger marched on as casually as could be, chatting absently about “aetheric entities”, whatever those were. An awfully abrupt change from brandishing a sword moments before, but at least he wasn’t outright hostile anymore. Still, his ill-fitting nonchalance rang all of Kyreth’s alarm bells; he never knew humans of any stripe to be this comfortable around a single Tainted, let alone two. Lilann’s disguise was good, and his own worked well enough from a distance, but this close up, their eyes would be unmistakable. There was no way this guy didn’t know what he was walking with. So why so calm?

All those thoughts flashed through his mind in a fraction of a second, but just as soon as they came, he shoved them aside. It was smart to be observant, but letting his imagination run away to dark places would only make things worse. What was the stranger talking about again?

“I’m not sure what those are, but let’s hope we don’t run into any,” Kyreth commented flatly, sounding an awful lot like a teenager who wanted to end a conversation. He was tempted to ask if these “aetheric entities” had anything to do with the demons the stranger had mentioned, but something told him that was a route he didn’t want to tread. Hopefully idle chatter could keep the peace long enough for them to get within earshot of the Bounty House.

Obscene's Scratchpad

The Shattering of Aegis

_{✧ Location: Soft Haven Cemetery ✧ Purse: 12 copper ✧ @Mcmolly @Scribe of Thoth ✧}

What little glimmer of hope Kyreth had that this was all just a disturbing misunderstanding was dashed when Lilann confirmed that the marks were not her doing. While she didn’t seem nearly as unsettled as he thought she should have been, to no surprise she did share his fear of being blamed. Every Tainted had an instinct like that; wherever they tread, accidents and misfortunes magically became their doing.

“Bounty House, then? Before someone shows up with flowers for their nan and sees what's become of the place.”

“Y-yeah,” Kyreth nodded anxiously, peeling his eyes off the marks on the ground long enough to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. He tried to smooth over one of the gouges with his foot as Lilann got her things together, but it was no use – the marks were too deep to be hidden by well-placed grass. He shuddered to think of how much work it would take to fill the gaps, and even then it would probably take weeks for the ground to settle properly. And that was to say nothing of the insult to the dead. Placing his hand over his pendant, Kyreth offered a near-silent prayer of apology to Selene for attracting the damage; she may not have been quite the right god to pray to on behalf of the dead, but the other gods probably wouldn’t accept a prayer from him anyway.

He was jarred from his prayer by the sound of footsteps coming from the forest, although the culprit made no effort to hide his presence. Instead, Kyreth's heart jumped into his throat as the shieldbearing stranger pointed a well-loved-looking sword in their direction and leveled the same accusations Kyreth was afraid of – albeit in an unexpected way.

“Su—? N-no!” Kyreth quickly stammered, taking a reflexive step back. Summon— like, summon a demon? Kyreth knew the Tainted were associated with the unholy, but the idea that someone would think they’d called on unholy forces to vandalize hadn’t crossed his mind. He thought they’d assume they desecrated the graveyard by hand – not that that was much better, but at least it wasn’t as serious as communing with demons right outside the town walls!

“These were here when we woke up,” he insisted hurriedly, trying his best to keep the wavering pitch of his voice in check. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened but I’m sure I can— I don’t have much money, but I can probably…”

Despite his efforts, Kyreth’s words got quieter until his voice died completely, the sentence hanging awkwardly in the air as he realized how hopeless the situation was turning out to be. He highly doubted this guard – or ranger, or whatever he was, touting a shield around like that – would believe him, and he was sure Soft Haven would rather hang him from the wall and leave the graveyard in shambles than allow him to repair the damage. His panic was replaced with sour regret as his pupil-less eyes fell to the ruined ground, Kyreth cursing himself and whatever foul curse of bad providence hung over him. Dammit! The bruises he got in Straithmoor hadn’t even fully healed yet, and already his chance at a new start was gone! Had he really sinned so badly that he was still being punished?