Private Tales A hunter in the streets

[Wren]

"Maybe I've forgotten something..."

Finding the small notebook in her hand brought the process to a pause while she gave it a considering look. The object still felt fractionally forbidden to her in the way that a private journal or diary would be. Like the lunar roses in mother's garden alcove. It was his life - or at least, it was this part of his life. Wren gently set it on the foot of the bed and returned to all the myriad buckles and straps holding him together.

"I need to know what he is-" a sharp tug at his side, she gave him a look and a motion of her gaze toward the door, a silent reminder that they did not know who might be listening.

Wren kept her voice hushed, "If there is one thing I know about nobles," and she didn't know much, "it's not to trust their help."

Eli'Ina could very easily and quickly take any of her suspicions about them to her Master.

"We should go back into the town and speak with the Presbyter. Get more info on her while playing to her own posting."

 

[Rainer]

Golden irises lifted towards the door. It was true, the moment of open honesty had gotten the better of him. While his Vedymin senses were giving him a high level of confidence regarding where the Duke was, or more importantly where he was not, Rain was having trouble tracking the young servant. Part of him expected that that was a symptom of her binding.

He grunted in agreement. "It's settled then." He whispered. "Once the sun falls, we'll convene with the Duke once more. And then we'll make our way into town. I'm not intent on staying here any longer than what is required." What was required based on professional and unspoken agreements of accord? Or, and more likely, being obliged with old customs of wood and bread?

A fisherman and his superstitions, not easily broken by even the Vedymin strain.

"This will also give us the chance to vet this claim of the Presbyter and her otherworldly ties. So..." He shifted his attention from the door back to Wren. "Not entirely duplicitious."​

 

[Wren]

"One of them is the real monster here," Wren replied quietly, tugging free the last of the buckles at his side, "we just don't know who, yet."

She wasn't making any bets this early. For all they knew, the little girl was behind everything - not that that would have made any sort of sense. But rarely did monsters make any kind of sense. She set to work on her own armor strappings.

"Nn," Wren made a face, "we need to figure this out soon, not sure how much longer I can sustain on cow's blood. I'm getting the sudden urge to chew on grass."

 

[Rainer]

"You may not have seen it but on the carriage ride up, the entire trail outside of the town was covered in this lush..." He gestured outward. "Swaths of flowing rye. From hill to glittering water. You know..." He thought for a moment or at least made of show of it.

"We could stop and pick some up for you on the way to town tomorrow."​

 

[Wren]

"Oh, fuck off," she yanked the side of her breastplate free and tugged the piece off over her head, "I couldn't see anything outside of that carriage. His daughter may be immune to silver but she's certainly not immune to sunlight." The plating flew lazily through the air to join the rest of its silver-covered kin on the floor, as if to firm up the point.

Wren turned back to the bed as she loosened the drawstring of her cuirass along the side of her ribs, "She's curious. Never spoke, but she understood everything perfectly. You could see it in her eyes."

 

[Rainer]

He watched her move away and toss the armor, stifling a laugh if only to further sell the sincerty of his grass comment. Lazily, his hand moved to unclasp the buckles against his sternum to undo the thin gambeson.

"Lack of sensitivity to silver is uncommon. Ability to withstand light is rarer still." He unclasped the final buckle, leaving him with a tunic and breeches as he sat down at the foot the bed, laying the gambeson down flat. "Alternatively, that whole ride could have been a charade to prove lineage. Why else guess at my intentions during dinner? Though admittedly..." He turned, placing his weight against one arm as he pressed into the comforter to test the bounce.

"The Duke seems more the type to avoid the truth, rather than bend or break it to suit his needs. More inclined to still his tongue than risk telling a direct lie."​

 

[Wren]

Thunk. Her cuirass landed atop the pile of plate and leather and Wren took the first full breath of the evening unrestrained. She joined Rainer on the bed, taking up his journal first before falling back onto the mattress. Her weight rattled the frame and sunk down into the cushion, leaving a rise of down-filled comforter about her sides.

Wren lay there for several drawn out moments, Rainer's words about the Duke and truths completely ignored, and took in the sensation of the bed now cradling her body.

"Wow," she said at last, "so that's what a real mattress feels like."

 

[Rainer]

While he could easily recall the moments of staying in keeps or castles such as this, likely on account of the various bounties tied to the dwelling, he could not recall any specific moment of sleeping on what Wren might have considered a 'real' mattress. It wasn't that he had never done so. It was just that he could neither confirm nor deny the experience. It just evidently had not left a lasting impression.

Letting out a soft groan, he leaned back on the bed and settled in next to Wren. "I'm not sure I like it." He admitted. "It's puffy and soft and bunches on the sides. God's forbid the two sharing the bed are doing so on account of necessity and not want, they'd end up angrily cuddling by dawn." He shook his head and chuckled, studying a bit of the mud and moss that was used as sealant across the blocks of the ceiling.

Taking a long and satisfying breath, he wove his fingers together and tucked his hands behind his head. "Did you buy that story about Preston Garvey..." He whispered. "I've never heard of anything like that."​

 

[Wren]

"I didn't realize puffy and soft bedding was a pre-requisite to disdainful cuddling," Wren remarked back to him absently. She lifted the journal over her head to page through his notes for anything either of them might have missed. Something he might have encountered previously that he wasn't recalling?

"Did you buy that story about Preston Garvey? I've never heard of anything like that."

Wren grunted, "I've lived long enough to be witness to all manner of insane and barbaric human ritual. Willingly standing as a vessel of sustenance for a lofty vampire Duke doesn't strike me as too out of line for them." Not that this made his blood any less repellent to her.

"If you keep making drawings of me in here you're going to run out of pages for actual note taking."

 

[Rainer]

He couldn't recall having spent too many pages on sketches of her but, admittedly, he had never taken the time to count. Sketches felt like the natural remedy for a man who could not often quiet his mind. And it also made sense that his pages would be saturated with sketches of the things around him.

And Wren had been around him for some time.

"Pages well spent then..." He returned, idly. "Besides, a life lived through the bindings of a single sketchbook is an uneventful one. And ours are anything but..." He looked over. "I'll get a new one when I run out room."

Looking away, he scratched at the back of his neck. "Barbaric human ritual...like the ones that were rumored, the original purpose of our visit to Bur'tyga."

 

[Wren]

The drawings in question were really quite good. He had an eye for detail and texture and light, which lead her to believe that this was a skill he'd honed not just in this life, but his prior one. A holdover of the man that had come before the monster. She closed the journal after reaching the first of the blank pages at the back and casually slapped it down on his chest.

"This whole landscape is fucking weird," sitting up, Wren shifted her way further up the bed to the down-filled pillows to plop herself down on her side with a sound of expressed comfort, "if we don't start getting some answers soon I won't be held responsible for any broken noses or cracked skulls."

 

[Rainer]

He didn't move up the bed as she had. Admittedly, he was comfortable and exhausted enough to fall asleep in the standing position and given a warm bed with suitable company, it was only a matter of time. It seemed the days prior were threatening to catch up with him.

Taking the book and thumbing through it, he patted her on the knee with it.

"No revelations than? No secrets notes or inscriptions to help you navigate this landscape?" He flicked a couple of pages absentmindedly a settled on a creature with the titling of 'flayer.' "Is it a one or other sort of thing? Do you dole out broken noses and cracked skulls separately based on offense or..." He paused and feigned patting down his tunic. "Hold on, don't answer yet. Let me find some graphite so I can take notes."​

 

[Wren]

Well she had been feeling the ease of contentment while settling into the plush of the mattress and pillows. Utterly ruined by the jokester sharing the bed.

"Fuck - off -" she shoved at him with her offended leg, a soured grin taking her lips as she continued to push at him, "you are such an ass."

 

[Rainer]

He grunted at her first shove. He grunted at her second.

"Stop it." He whispered. "I'll bruise..." He stifled a chuckle and fought off the urge to grab the offending leg to prevent any further assailing.

"Listen." His tone played at seriousness. "Limits are important. A snide remark? That's a broken nose. Scuffing the silver armor? Could go either way." He held up his hand, postured in a way as if holding a phantom pencil. "I'll stop. I'll stop."

He decided he would scoot further up on the bed, resting on a pillow. He was in a rather good mood, despite the nights previous events. "Not really sure fucking off is an option at this hour..." He stated, somewhat idly, confirming that he was, in fact, an ass.

 

[Wren]

"Shut up," Wren snickered, sneering at him from her pillow, the loft of it hiding the scarred half of her face.

"Not really sure fucking off is an option at this hour ..."

"You'd just end up bruised and sunburnt." With neither of them having fed from a vampire in several days, she was beginning to doubt their ability to daywalk at all now. At least for anything more than an hour or two. Cow blood certainly wasn't going to help in that matter.

"I'm not tired," the admittance came after several moments of simply laying there. Their travels had put them on a diurnal schedule, and while she was generally fatigued from the journey, she didn't think she'd be able to sleep now. "Do you think he has a library here?"

 

[Rainer]

He groaned softly, though it came out somewhere closer to a muted croak.

"Yes, probably. That was, afterall, my initial suggestion for sorting out what was up and down in this place. It's likely where he houses his legers - unless he has a personal office space within the Keep. They may be one in the same."

He pushed himself up, somewhere between laying down and sitting up, and looked at her. "Why?" His eyes narrowed. "Wren, why are you asking about a library?"

He was just starting to get comfortable with passing the time in slumber, waking up to shake off the Keep and sort out the truth of things in Bur'Tyga proper. And her came Wren, likely prepared to toss a wrench in the plan. In fact, with her talk of busting heads and breaking noses, he could only imagine that she would have taken a bit of joy in it.​

 

[Wren]

He was talking. Well, he was responding, but Wren wasn't listening. The more he talked, the more her thoughts wandered.

Where was the ringer for the help again?

Why?

Over by the privvy didn't she say?

"Wren, why are you asking about a library?"

Her lips pressed together, forming a thin line of consternation as she looked at him and quickly pushed herself up from the bed. Driven by this sudden desire to know, Wren floundered on the spot by the bed for a moment as she cast her eyes about the chamber. "...bellll..." on the privy frame she said. Her eyes found the hall and off she went.

A few moments later she was ringing the bell.

 

[Rainer]

He motioned towards her, befuddled, but words escaped him. And perhaps for the best seeing as they were ringing on deaf ears. The bell chimed like sharp brass, dancing and darting against the stone, as if it were light itself and had pinned through the walls, finding endless points of reflection.

He sighed heavily at the disturbance, finding the peace they had shared moments ago slipping through his fingers like sand. With hardly any passage of time, a light knock racked against the door.

Knock knock...knock.

The response had happened so quickly that he was certain that Eli'Ina had been there the whole time, listening to their conversation. Her special properties, whatever they may have been, still allowed her to evade his senses.

"Miss...Mister..." The silence followed and Rain wondered, in perhaps the sudden and impending dearth of sleep, whether they had ever formally introduced themselves to those living within the Keep. "'Ow can I be of service?" Her accent was thick but her words were swift, as if the language was not her own but she had been forced a long time ago to adopt it with a measure of profiency.

 

[Wren]

That was fast. Wren was faster.

She was at the door and yanking it open just as the words "Ow can I be of service?" exited the woman's mouth.

"Library," Wren said abruptly, staring down at the woman with intense curiosity, "is there one and may I have access."

 

[Rainer]

Eli'Ina's dark eyes darted from Wren over to Rain, who had plopped himself back down on the bed in a fit of dramatic exhaustion. "Aye. The Duke has many books. And he's not expressly forbade welcomed guests from reviewing the papers...so I see no reason that you shouldn't have access."

She stepped back and pointed back towards the spiral staircase. "Second floor, third door on the right. But...fair warning. The Duke prefers a gentle breeze with his bindings. You'll find the sun's warmth in that library...as well its light. In case that isn't to your liking."

She bowed her head and smiled. It would have been an enchanting expression but it seemed to lack something, like biting into an apple only to find the core missing. "Is any other service required?"​

 

[Wren]

Wren was ... pleasantly surprised. She was prepared for, well, she wasn't sure what. An argument about being allowed in to a library, maybe. Mostly she was feeling the jitters of the cows blood, which was strangely odd given that it was only simple cow's blood. Felt like three cups of coffee.

"No," she replied, "thank you," and shut the door.

"Are you coming or are you being useless?" shot at Rain over her shoulder.

 

[Rainer]

Part of him really wanted to ignore her question, stay in bed, and drift off peacefully. But as much as he wanted to, he understood that he would also get little rest while worrying about Wren - traipsing about through a mysterious keep.

"Those two aren't mutually exclusive." He uttered, standing up slowly and straightening out his breeches and tunic. "So...yes?" He shrugged and approached the door.

"You know we don't do well without our sleep." By we, he meant Vedymin. But he wasn't inclined to name their strain while the ears of the Keep were so close about. Instead, he placed his hand on the door handle. "Well let's go, I suppose."

He clearly was thrilled to go on this particular adventure.​

 

[Wren]

Useless company was likely better than no company. Not that this was part of Wren's train of thought, but given their ... relationship, the idea of him joining her was more appealing than the alternative. Hadn't been too far distance-wise from the man since the day she met him and she wasn't about to relive the torrent of emotions that was his day of dirt.

Her mind briefly drifted to that farmhouse and the bottles of apple wine - the instant churn of disgust in her stomach nearly made her gag.

"Ff-" she waved him out through the door with a nod and off they went.

Down the spiral staircase. Second floor. Third door on the .. right? Left was locked, right opened easily into the apparent study. A golden haze of sunlight met her and she winced in the dreary dimness of the hall. There weren't any immediate splashes of sun to walk through, but the sudden adjustment of her eyes would take a moment. Wren stepped in and gave their surroundings a cursory glance, inhaling deeply the scent of paper and ink and leather book bindings and everything that went with it.

Her mind flooded with feelings of nostalgia and memories unbidden.

"Oh I miss that smell."

 

[Rainer]

He couldn't recall if he had ever put much stock in the written word, scribed across parchment or some other various medium, before his fateful night in the shallows. He couldn't even recall if he had known how to read. For a local port fisherman, there was little value beyond the scribbling of shapes and the memorization of crossroad signs. But after his change, he had grown quite fond of the libraries, academia, and taking notes beyond sketches. It was through this study that understanding of mundane magic and the ways of demons and monsters came best. The written word, as it seemed, had some utility.

But it had been some time since he were around colleges or mages, willing to lend them their resources. Now with them walking through a well maintained and kept library, he felt a sudden sense of vertigo and used a nearby bookshelf to steady himself. Even the stagnant air, kept immotile with closed windows yet warm with the kiss of the sun, felt more studied than the dregs of his sleep addled mind.

Looking towards the bookshelf, he thumbed across the bindings to ward off his sense displacement, and settled on a book wrapped in green tinted leather. He withdrew it and pressed his fingers against the gold foiled title.

"Apocathartic Remedies, Healing for the Body and the Mind." He looked towards Wren, jeeringly. "You think there's a floral remedy for sour tempers?"​

 

[Wren]

If Rainer was adrift and displaced here, Wren was grounded and at home. Though it had also been quite some time since she'd stepped foot into a fully realized library, her lapse of memory of the last decade or so of her life ... or perhaps longer, allowed her to believe it was not as long ago as reality said. Long enough, still, to have missed it regardless of actual or perceived time.

She felt awed enough to spend the first moments enthralled in simply taking it all in. She wasn't scanning for anything in particular, but marveling at the rise of memorialized emotions attached to the sight, the smell, the feel. Wren might've been a historian of her people were it not for the matter that she was a halfblood. Disallowed to take on such an honored role, and permitted only to read and learn that which wasn't held dear to the secretive minds and hearts of elves. Couldn't have the world learning their unknowns from a glib half-human.

The hand of battle suited her better, anyway. She would have been bored sitting in the stacks - or so her mother told her.

Her feet carried her into the nearest nook between two standing shelves where she let her eyes drift over the bindings in much the same way Rainer was. Pointed ears caught the tail end of his words and she snorted in mock humor.

"You would be so lucky to find a flower to cure my temper..." she just so happened to come across a rather large tome on the history of the keep. Interesting. Pulling it off the shelf she began to page through, finding diary entries of the various Lords of the keep. Mundane things, mostly.