Private Tales Little Stove on the Prairie

Awareness was unwelcome and inevitable.

She opened her bloodshot eyes, and turned her head very, very carefully. The light streaming in through the windows was that of early morning just after dawn. Through the dusty glass she could see a sky stained purple and pink and blue, reflecting on the odd cloud here and there. Some hopeless romantic might have described it as beautiful. The concept was beyond her this morning.

She sat up and stifled a groan. Every joint ached, and a dagger pierced her skull behind the eyes. The sour taste of vomit lingered in her mouth, and the even more sour taste of stale beer and wine.

So, another night trying to avoid the serpent in her head.

She got out of bed with the cold efficiency of her kind, stripping sweat-rimed clothing and washing herself down with the pitcher of water and tag end of soap from the last two nights spent here. That done, she just put on the same dirty clothes miraculously clear of anything but road grime and headed out into the hallway and then down the stairs.

Maybe today they would finally leave this fly-bitten, hot and dusty, latrine sinking hole. The strange man that she had been hired to escort and serve as a bodyguard for had declared that they would stay in Overlook "for a little bit". Ever since, he had stayed inside the strange cauldron-shaped carriage of his, answering only one time to give her a purse to make accommodations for herself. Swathed in leather and cloth, it was impossible to read anything from the employer that she still did not know the name of.

She had spent two nights - no, three now - crawling into a bottle and trying to come to terms with having a demon in her head. Having her perception of the world challenged and destroyed did not help, either. Throwing herself into work had served to distract her until this newfound enigma had sought her out specifically for ... whatever. Going out into the Sea and staring at the dirt in a few places and then spending a day or two holed up inside their traveling contrivance while the greasy feel and tinny taste of magic swirled round it.

She scowled. If it wasn't for the staggering price he had offered, she would have been gone by now. More than just money.

"You want to know what that friend in your head is all about, don't you?" He'd said that when she accepted his coin and had stopped her in her tracks. He had just smiled when she asked, and said that she would know later.

She stepped into the common room. The place was the sort used by caravaneers and their guards to stay for the night, Cheap, loud, dirty and often violent late in the evening. There were a dozen men and women of various races already seated at tables, some of them looking greener even than she. Her patron was not among those in attendance. Moving carefully to spare her head, she found a table and sat heavily at it, rubbing at her left arm. Scarred and twisted by an old injury, it ached fiercely sometimes and especially when touched.

She stared at the table, mind blank and eyes empty. The people behind the counter did not approached yet, eyed her warily from safety.

Her guts churned and spun, a particular affliction after a night spent drowning what little bit of her sanity and sense she had left to her. The thing in her head, quiescent, had turned its attention elsewhere days before. Aside from the sense of a serpent coiled round the base of her spine, the demon was a barely noticed companion.

Except she could never forget it. Even now, staring at the table, she could see the dust-haunted cavern she and another had entered. She could still see the half-rotten corpse of a great wyrm twisted in pain upon a shattered dais. She could still taste the betrayal hanging in the air, the animal rage and deadly sharp intellect buried beneath it.

Demon, her mind supplied. But another voice whispered in her ear: victim. Betrayed. Dragon.

Mistress of the Moon.

She shook her head to dispel the second voice. The demon had told her things, shown her things that unmade her entire world. Better to believe that the voice was false, the demon merely one of the dispossessed souls that did not return to the Sea of Stars on their death.

Better. Cleaner.

But is it?

She squeezed her eyes shut, and looked up as something brushed against senses other than physical.

Deeply underscored eyes regarded the stranger wending his way towards her coldly. Even hung over, even feeling half-dead from lack of sleep and the ever-present haunting of the past, she is still ready as this newcomer approaches. A lifetime spent on guard of her life has definitely left the mark of awareness upon her, and she is very aware that there is something otherworldly about this stranger.

A stirring in the back of her head. A single, reptilian eyes lazily opening and regarding Duanar with curiosity at first... and then bored amusement. Lidded eye shut, attention drifting elsewhere again - not far afield, but not here.

Her stony eyes locked on his, but she did not speak. That overture would have to come from him, and with her staring like a lioness coiled and ready to pounce at the slightest hint of threat. A very...No'rei trait.

The closer he came, the more ill at ease a part of her became.

A large part of the training afforded a Seer had to do with the spiritual realm, quite aside from the Sea of Stars and the cycle of souls between the world and the heavens. A great deal of arcana instilled in initiates, a greater awareness of the arcane world. Something about this unwelcome and unwanted stranger tickled the part of her attuned to the occult. Magic of a kind seemed to swirl around Duaner - a kind and flavor she was not as familiar with. She had dealt with magicians and sorcerer's from beyond the great Sea of Grass, but this felt different.

Her senses were duller than usual, though. Alcohol had cut them in half (along with cutting her skull in half). Even so when he sat down uninvited, she visibly tensed. There were no weapons on her - her spears were in her room - but they were far from her only weapons. Blood-shot eyes regarded Duaner balefully.

She blinked at his words, dipping her head to smell herself without taking her eyes off of him. She had no idea what he meant by her smelling at all; the scent of old blood and sweat and leather and the newer and less pleasant scent of sour beer and a trace of vomit couldn't possibly be a familiar odor for anyone.

Except maybe a mercenary. This man did not have the look of such a one.

She stared at the hand offered but did not move to accept it. "Manners?" The word was delivered with a thick accent. "Scent of other world, you have," she added in a somehow thicker accent, the words butchered to the point of being as indecipherable as it was irritable. She offered him a smile with no warmth, long canines gleaming in the pale morning light streaming through one of the few windows. "What do you want?"

Were she not hung over and regretting every decision in her life right then, she might have tried to delve into his nature. As it was, she had the most tenuous grip on her abilities and did not really wish to test her ability on drawing them forth. Also didn't particularly feel like fight, what with a splitting headache and all. A truly unenviable situation for someone born and bred to violence.

She tensed when he reached into his jacket, every nerve poised for immediate violence. When he withdrew a vial of liquid instead of a weapon, she only relaxed a fraction. She stared at the vial as though it were a quickstep viper, made no move to touch the thing and certainly no move to drink it. Her eyes glittered with incredulity.

Amusement rolled through her from that unwelcome spectator in her skull. Which only made her more irritable, not less. "Headache because drink Lochin-touched water," she said flatly. "Gone soon," she added, and indicated - quite carefully - an arc with one hand. It might suggest the passage of the sun across the sky, in an amount that might have been an hour or two. "Yours, not trust. Liars in bone and blood. No trust." She gave him a smile that was all teeth, ignoring the wave of disapproval in the back of her mind. The creature (undying ghost demon dragon serpent danger DANGER!) did not speak directly to her often. Did not do so now, either, instead communicating through the sense of emotion.

So the silver-scaled beast was unhappy with her insistence on calling the Oathbreakers thieves and liars. A single vision from an undying beast was not enough to convince her that everything she knew was wrong.

Keep pushing, child.

Aeyliea blinked, bronze skin paling a few shades. She could not help the superstitious dread that crawled along her spine, but she could pretend like she did not hear the voice in her head.

"What you want?" There might have been a touch of fear underneath the low key hostility, but it clearly wasn't because a devil of sorts sat across the table from her. Not that she really knew that, which was probably the only reason she had not resorted to violence.

That and a pounding head.

She sat there stone-faced, regarding him coldly across the table. It wasn't as if she were very friendly to begin with. This morning was certainly no exception.

She cocked her head to one side, baffled at his statement. Boredom was not a thing she was familiar with, likely out of necessity. Life among the clans and tribes was never boring; dangerous, brutal, and short? Yes. Boring? Never. Ever since she had been captured and the entire chain of events following had come to pass, things had slowed down. More manageable, less dangerous.

She opened her mouth to snap at this unwelcome stranger that put off some strange aura she could not understand, but she was interrupted before she could say whatever was on her mind.

"Boredom? Boredom?! Imagine such a thing!" Her head snapped to the side and left of Duaner, her stone-cold mask slipping for a moment in discomfort. The strange fellow that had hired her was there. She had not seen him come in, had not seen him come close to the table, and more importantly had not sensed him. Or her. Or whatever it was. The voice this time was that of a young woman, and they tittered at the look on her face. "The clock is ticking, tick tock, tick tock. Oh? Oh!"

How she wished she could see this creature. The mask concealed all but the eyes, the food hid the hair. When they laughed again, a delighted chortle, it was that of a gravelly man's voice, but the words that came next were that of a boy. "What a delightful creature you are! Such a delightful imp! I can practically smell the sulfur from here!" They winked at Aeyliea, who scowled. She opened her mouth to speak, and her nameless employer raised a single finger in warning.

"If you seek a cure for your boredom, fair Lord, then look no further," they squeaked, voice changing again. It was unnerving. "I can offer you entertainment. I suspect you have no need of coin?"

"Not need help," she grated, and the eyes of their nameless guest flicked from her and back to Duaner. Something like mischief gleamed in them. "My arm all you need," she added gruffly.

"When seeking delight eternal, always seek the company of the infernal," they said, pirouetting delicately despite the heavy cloak. "Coin is my name, but can you guess my game? Somewhere out there a memory cut in twain, lost and buried on the ancient plain; tis that which I seek - surely you can speak?" Something like a whisper of madness tugged at the edges of her consciousness, and the other unwelcome guest stirred in agitation. Aeyliea was keenly aware that whatever that scaled beast had been, it was paying close attention to the harlequin that had hired her.