Grey sat eerily still as the chaos unfolded around him. Within what seemed to be moments, a happy reunion turned into the beginnings of war. He heard Masef, a voice from far in his past shouting from another room, as well as one he couldn't quite put a finger on. His face turned to a sour grimace as violence broke out around him. Instinctively, he dropped his cloak and took a firm hold of Jael and Zarall's hilts. A fury burned behind his eyes, strangely dry in these moments, as his knuckles turned white around the cold steel of his weapons. Grey let out a deep sigh that seemed to shudder the very mass of his scarred flesh, before he let go of the weapons, still in their hilts.
In almost any other circumstance, Grey would be roaring for battle, the element in which he thrives best. But this was certainly a different case for Grey. Though many would find having the news of their 'father' coming to an untimely end enraging, the news was sobering to Grey. Experiencing the same shock one might after a particularly nasty debilitating blow, Grey stood amidst the fighting, making his way to the door. He knew not what his goal was -there would be no true gain in walking away at this moment and he would likely be walking into more violence. Yet still, he needed to do something, and he couldn't trust himself to fight. In this moment of raw emotion, could he really fight off these aggressors with restraint? He didn't dare test his willpower.
He brushed through the now frenzying crowd of entropic bodies, cloak grasped tight in one arm, dented tin cup in the other. Sickly sweet ale still dripped down his hand as he walked, eyes low to the floor. Amidst the fray, one of the brigands found Grey in his sights, and charged with a vicious downward blow of his sword. Grey let out an angry shout as he responded in force. His hand rose up to meet the blow, fist sliding just to the side of the blade so the blow was deflected off of his metal plated wrist, as his other hand pulled back quickly simultaneously dropping the crumpled pint. The adversary found his face hitting the ground on the same beat that the trashed flagon rang across hard wooden planks.
Almost immediately after the savage blow, Grey found himself kneeling by the man as blood pooled beneath his face, streaming from his nose. Grey turned the man on his back, and looked him up and down with an expression of fear plastering his face. He had let go of his self control, and this poor sap had paid the price. A sigh of relief escaped Grey's ajar mouth when he saw a ragged breath stagger the mans chest. With a grunt, Grey lifted the man from the floor, and shifted the limp body to a chair, grimacing as the head swung wildly. A locket containing a portrait of an innocent young face had escaped the man's bosom in the fray -Grey took care to tuck the golden trinket back beneath the unconscious man's clothing.
A shout from behind warned Grey of danger, and he turned rather wildly to meet it, fists raised, only to find it wasn't directed at him. A man fell to the ground, his blood painting a picture of death on the floor beneath -the brush a long wooden arrow. Grey looked to the air to find the shooter, taking far too long to realize that the killer was one of his own kin. He narrowed his eyes as they locked on the figure of Ashira shifting around the rafters. He mightn't have even noticed her had it not been for a telltale beam of light that broke through the ceiling. Though his stomach churned at the image of death that surrounded him, he forced himself to accept that it must've been necessary in self defense. He had to, for his family.
With a grunt of frustration, Grey turned his back and began again his march to the door, wading through the discord. It was a quiet voice that stopped him, and seemingly the world, as he was mere paces away from making his exit. The voice ran through his body like a ripple through a pond, both agitating and calming him. The speech itself was impressive -the results even moreso. Grey turned to face his kin as the garrison filtered away.
Grey's steely eyes narrowed as he stepped closer, putting his face directly in a beam of light. "Best we put our turmoil to rest, before we attempt toppling a king." Grey muttered, voice strained as that of a man who had trekked a desert only minutes earlier. "Thank you, Kiera." Grey said to the dark elf, his voice heavy with a strange mixture of sincerity and fatigue. His eyes shifted throughout the group as he put his cloak on once again, rubbing at his blocking arm. It groaned with a numb pain, though surprisingly less than he had expected.
