Private Tales Out of Towners

If there was one place in the world where the chained ghosts of her past would never think to look for her, it would have been Oban. Unfortunately, it was a place that was going to increase the number of those lost souls in her wake tenfold and quite quickly at that.

She would have asked the Seven to intercede if they weren't simply a bunch of beasts in the guise of deities.

The No'rei walked the streets of the city, ignoring the occasional affronted look from the men going about their business and the scandalous glare from the likewise occasional kept woman. She did not steer clear of people, walking through those that stood in her path. It might have been the hard eyes, or the way she stalked rather than ambled along. Weapons - knives at her hips, a notched and well-worn sword, the short stabbing spears favored by her people in their case on her horses' saddle, the short horn bow - also helped smooth tempers over.

Her own kin's fierce reputation, if they were even known so far east, would only add to it.

Surely there was a wayhouse somewhere along this street. She had only arrived that day. She quite honestly wanted to find a place to hold for the night before she got herself in more trouble; her pride was as stiff as they came and one too many slights had already been delivered in the short hour she had walked the city streets. She did not know how much more she could take before someone's blood was on her hands.

Voices caught her ear. Among all the people going about there business, two stood at the mouth of an alley. Her lips pressed into a line of disgust. It was a thing of the cities she could never understand and never accept: women selling their bodies for coin. She was not sure which rankled more; the woman debasing herself so or the cretin low enough to buy.

"Get a room, you should," she said as she came up on them, intending to pass them by. Derision dripped from every word.

She did not stop, only spitting to the side as she came level with the two.

She stopped at the first statement and turned to look at the man with. Her gold eyes glittered dangerously. She looked him up and down and turned to face him as he called a weapon into his hand from the stone wall he leaned against. If she was impressed by the casual use of magic, it didn't show. Her lips pressed together in a line again and her eyes flared.

She smiled at him, teeth showing and long canines gleaming in the gloom. "A fool you are," she said gruffly. "Perhaps less work should you give your mouth. Empty are your words and bluster."

She stepped forward towards him. She did not draw any of her varied weapons; she had spent too much time honing out the last set of notches and she was not in a hurry to add more, steel to stone. There was absolutely no fear in her stance or mien as she came within the reach of his blade.

The whistling of the heavy weapon as he swung as loud. She dropped to hands and knees as soon as he wound up and started his attack. As expected, the weight of the weapon made it difficult to control. In a fluid and well practiced movement, she swung her legs out, pivoting on a hand and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the ground maladroitly.

And then she was on him, straddling his hips and delivering blows to his body. She quickly disarmed him, delivering precise strikes to pressure points that deadened his hands before moving on to pepper his body. Each was calculated to strike something vital and painful. She might not have the strength of a man, but she had a lifetime of being utterly ruthless.

Which was not to say that the bastard didn't put up a fight. A powerful blow to her ribs elicited a grunt from her, and another to the soft spot below her ribs an expulsion of wind that might have staggered someone else. She returned the favor, though. The soft spot beneath his ribs and his throat and his spleen and liver received precise and powerful strikes in quick succession.

"Yield or die," she suggested, stopping to give him the opportunity.

She wanted to break his jaw and his nose, and there was the slightest hint of disappointment in her eyes when he yielded so quickly. It would be dishonorable to continue to beat the man after he had given up the fight. An argument could have been made he had tried to kill her, for which she would be perfectly within her right to end him then and there.

Except she had not treated the scuffle as a death match. She would not recant that position now.

"See that I do," she said as she got off of him. She remained ready to cut him down if he lied, but he did not. He stumbled away quickly instead, and she watched him go with impassive eyes.

Her head swiveled to take in the supposed woman. Up close, it was clear they were not. She could see how the mistake was made, though; it was not often she saw a man as small as he.

"The people of this place, they think poorly of the women." She showed her teeth. It was not a smile, and imparted no warmth to her features. "Know not the why of it, only the truth. Survive long they would not among mine own."

She stood taller, and stretched. She would have a bruise across her ribs where the bastard had struck her. The dull ache was set deep, but she ignored it. "What was he doing to you, if not what it seemed?"

"Fine I am. Broke nothing he did," she said by way of reply. As fights went, this one had been tame. No blood had really been spilled which was probably for the best. She didn't need any further trouble with local peacekeepers.

She nodded briskly once at the assertion. "A Talekeeper. Sing and dance ours do not, but tell tales they do." She shook her head, braid swinging like the tail of a cat. "Spend that coin on water and food, you should. And be here we should not, any longer. Come."

She turned and started walking back to the street and through it. If there were a few eyes that lingered a bit longer, uneasy, then all to the better. She might hunch a bit over the bruised ribs but she would be thrice damned if she allowed herself to show any more weakness than that.

She sneered at the idea of the way Oban operated. "If stop me from having to gut some mindless drone it does, then fine it is."

Her hand was not what one would expect of a womans. There were calluses on her palms and her fingers were rough instead of soft. Scars laced her hands as thick as that of a butcher; in fact up close the pale lines crossed her arms and face as well. She was no soft kept woman, well accustomed to hardship. Her words conveyed as much.

"Acceptable is a bite to eat," she said in that no-nonsense voice of hers. The cadence and tone might have been pretty if the woman it belonged to weren't as blunt as a club and just as subtle. "Days it has been since last did I eat. Know a place, you do?"

She grunted in immediate reply. "Then move we should. Trouble, it will find us soon."

Just because she had sent the one bastard packing and they were now more in keeping with the poisonous culture of Oban did not mean that they were free of problems. The bastard would come back, and with friends likely. And even though - in theory at least - they were a man and a woman, Sasha was so unorthodox compared to the citizens of the city. Anyone caught staring too long was stared down. Anyone offended by that experience only had to look at her for a few moments to let better sense win out.

Someone else would take care of her or show her the proper place. Didn't need to be them, after all.

"Picked up, do you need? More trouble that will cause." Although she was certain that the bard likely was unconcerned with the appearance of manliness any more than she was of fulfilling the proper role apportioned her in this particular city.

"Anything, it is fine," she said in her brisk way. She had been years away from the Sea, but some things never changed. Food was for the purpose of staying alive; the insistence of the people outside her home to see it as an experience to be had simply eluded her understanding.

The establishment in question was not a high class one but neither was it a place where the dregs of society might gather. She very much stood out among all the other women here, though. And from the men too as it turned out. She was very clearly someone for whom violence was a normal part of life. The patrons of this place were of the kind found in many cities - craftsmen and merchants and people of the stripe that supported the rest. Most were in comfortable clothing that reflected their trade.

The women were in dresses of modest cut. None were alone.

"Let us be about this, then," she said.