Recent content by Alphonse Duyarte

SAALIM "I may not complain of pain, nor of suffering. I must never." "You mustn't? My master would have said otherwise, for vows of silences and flagellations are pitiable in that they only serve to create another victim of one's actions." He frowned for a moment. "It's satisfying only to...

SAALIM The sun came from over the horizon like some avenging god, wrathfully banishing the dark in its wake with a flood of dizzying hues and blanketing the landscape in its nigh forgotten embrace. Even a little bit of the chill fled at the onset of the new day, thankfully. Saalim's first...

SAALIM His knuckles against the tanned leather of his chin, he watched this Hahnah observe the proprieties with some amusement; even when the pain from her injuries evidently made it difficult to sit the way she did with any degree of ease. A strange creature, he did not think to mention the...

ALPHONSE DUYARTE "I believe that you mean it. If you do then I suggest that you rest, there will be little of it in the city, I think." Alphonse added his branch to the last of the kindling, letting the flames lick lazily away at their quarry like a lion does its chops. His back turned, he...

ALPHONSE DUYARTE He could go no further by the time he heard the rest of the party come upon him, his body seemed to have had enough. His eyes and his mind wandered then as well, leaving all except his long-legged mare unable to follow the path that must be tread. They would make camp, he...

SAALIM Could you love someone as if they were your own blood; embrace them without any distinction from one to the other? How silly of a question it seemed to him the first he heard of it, as such a thing was most definitely not a moral or ethical conundrum in many familiar places. There were...

SAALIM Saalim, having seen Hahnah smile for the first time since they met, had felt oddly compelled to do as well in turn. Her answer was definitely not the one he had expected, yet it still brought that smile to his face to hear it all the same--to want to believe it, if only in wanting to see...

SAALIM The sun was not meant to set for some time yet, but already there were long shadows cutting into the landscape and splitting their forest into fragmented tendrils like so many grasping fingers. They continued nonetheless, their pace set. There were some apprehensions about the veracity...

SAALIM To hear a confessed murderer state both the undisclosed fact of being a killer of innocents and then her subsequent regret over what she had done immediately after left Saalim without the necessary words, intimate knowledge of this elf's justifications, or indeed any other recourse to...

SAALIM To ask Saalim of what Oban was like, as opposed to Alliria or any of the other venerable eastern bastions of civilization and culture was largely an exercise in futility. Having been no further from home than the Cortosi Coast to the south and the great central plains and savannahs to...

ALPHONSE DUYARTE Their three horses snorted and stirred in the clearing, an enthusiasm borne out of idleness that any creature would feel, lashed to trees for the past half hour as they were. "I will not hinder you," "I'm thankful for your assurances. These past few days have seen little of...

SAALIM Saalim was given pause at first, but he soon came to conclude that the name he was given seemed fitting for the unusual elvish woman. Amongst her oddities was the claim to having been a ranger of some strange place, but to him many things as of late appeared strange. He did not think to...

SAALIM Who these three were; it was a warranted question that still gave pause lest they invite these strangers, unbidden, into affairs that they had no purpose involving themselves in, simple farming folk they were. Saalim still did not skip a beat in answering as judiciously he could after...

ALPHONSE DUYARTE Alphonse Duyarte sat hunched in the shade of a lumbering oak. Having stewed what remained of their rations of dried jerky and grains in a cast-iron pot convenient enough to haul in their saddlebags. Saalim graced their unenviable mélange of ingredients with what little nuts...