Private Tales A Name From The Past

[Blackburn Fane]

ALLIRIA
Lorelei Darke

Blackburn Fane has lived many lives, but they always end the same.

Death.

Dream.

Then a mouth full of dirt as he wakes up from a shallow grave.

He has been a bandit, a warlord, a bodyguard of a skeleton, a wanderer and right now a tavern brawler. The issue with not being able to die is that things just kind of lose their haste. He could easily spend days at a time at a tavern, because at the end of the day (yes) even a week meant little. Not when you can spend years building a marauding army and then die in the middle of your campaign.

Once that happens enough times (and it has happened to Fane quite a few times already) you kind of lose interest in being important. Or to try and crown yourself King. Or to amass enough wealth to live like a Royal.

You just wanted a nice drink in your hand and to have some amusement.

That's how Lorelei would find out about the infamous name from her past. A man, big burly and with a booming laugh, making trouble at a tavern close to her current residence. Word has it that the town guard was planning on making a move on him soon. He was causing a lot of property damage. The issue was that running him through with a sword only temporarily gave him pause.

He was always back the next day.

How do you deal with something like that?

 

[Lorelei Darke]

The Elder Darke did not attend taverns. There was no point.

But a wealthy and connected merchant looking to change the stars for himself and his brethren? Yes, he would quite readily walk into that very bar and look upon that very brawl with a brazen will, given the appropriate impetus of course.

Impetus had been provided in spades.

So there he stood, Merchant Zeviir, looking for that telltale face in the crowd and biding his time for when said face drew nearer amidst the flurry of fists and the hissing of verbal abuse.

When it happened, Blackburn Fane and the four men presently engaged in non-sexual coitus would find themselves the target of a full barrel of water.

"Blackburn Fane!" called the komodo as the tornado of testosterone suddenly melted in wails of sopping surprise, "My friend wants a word with you."

 

[Blackburn Fane]

Lorelei Darke

Cold water had a way of taking the wind out of everything.

It also took the bite out of the alcohol running through his system. Not that he had had a lot of it. Only two drinks in and someone already took offense. From words it escalated into fists, which was practically one of the few fun things left in Fane's opinion.

He stood there in the circle of combat, except that the other men were sputtering and whining, and he was just blinking owlishly.

At the... not quite human interloper.

"Do they now? And why should I care about what your friend does or does not want?" Taking the opportunity to sit back down on his stool and grabbing a tankard of ale.

His attention was still on the Komodo however.

 

[Lorelei Darke]

The komodo stood there with his now-empty barrel, calmly smug under the grumpy glares of the soppy brawlers. The barkeep sighed, though it was not clear if it was a weary sigh or a thankful one. At least the water would make it easier to clean up all the blood and spilled drink.

Zeviir reached into a pocket, pulled something from it that glinted gold, then flicked it at the man in question.

Whether Fane caught it or not, he'd find himself faced with a gold coin, stamped by an empire that had not existed for several hundred years.

"She hopes you might like to chat with a very old acquaintance."

 

[Blackburn Fane]

He caught the coin and looked down on it.

A blink signified his surprise. It had been a long time since he had seen that symbol. It was a different time then, more... glorious. Back then the battlefields had meant something. Fane still believed he could carve his way into influence and power.

"Does she now..." Then a nod. "Fine, I don't have much to do here anyway. Lead the way."

For good measure he grabbed one of the full tankards and followed Zeviir out.

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

Blackburn needn't walk far on the heels of Zeviir. The komodo merchant stopped alongside an oversized carriage of black. Not one terribly resplendent in glamor or decor, but simple and stark enough it could have been mistaken for a funerary ride for a single occupant in a large wooden box. No such macabre results today. When the komodo pulled open the door, inside sat a woman of such vibrant red hair that it seemed to provide enough ambiance and illumination within that nothing else was required.

"Fane," said a voice he may not have recognized now that it was no longer echoing forth from behind a blackened helmet, "join me."

 

[Blackburn Fane]

He didn't immediately step in. Instead he took that hair in and blinked lightly. "It is you." Fane finally said as he rumbled into the carriage. His sheer size and bulk causing the vehicle to groan under the new added weight while he sat down across from the woman.

"You are one of the few people I had to crane my neck for."

Fane leaned back and watched her curiously.

"Your man interrupted my fun and drenched me in water." The latter bit would explain why water was currently dripping down her expensive carriage and pooling around his feet.

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

Lorelei offered no hint of amusement at what was likely meant to be a small bit of humor on offer. Height notwithstanding, she had become accustomed to looking down on people for nearly the entirety of her life. Rarely did she meet others not of beastly origin that stood above her, though recently the chance encounter with Afanas had provided such a novel experience.

She did not yet know if he fit the category of beastly in origin. That meeting was scheduled for another date.

Green eyes skated briefly over the man still presently dripping from his impromptu bath.

"That was for the smell," the woman replied, head tilting and eyes narrowing faintly.

The carriage bumped loosely as it pulled off into the street and set off toward the next destination.

"I have a job for you, so long as your faculties remain intact. Or are you now pacified by midday bar brawls and imbibing your weight in ale?"

 

[Blackburn Fane]

"My smell is just fine, woman." His nostrils flared as he sniffed and then brows furrowed. "Well, someone smashed a glass of ale against me, it could not be helped."

A slow head tilt.

"It takes more than some brawls and ale to pacify someone like me." But Fane did not exactly look convinced, truth to be told he was still curious how the fuck she was here to begin with. Was she an immortal? He hadn't met many of those, at least not his particular flavor of it.

And back then there had never been even a hint that she was anything like it.

"How are you here? You should have been buried many times over."

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

A skeptical stare returned the rebuttal on the smell. Perhaps it was just fine to a simple human, but for someone of her enhanced senses it was nigh overbearing and for certain it would linger for days in this carriage. No doubt forcing her to pay for professional cleaning. A terse, short sigh filled the silence between his words.

"That information is hardly relevant to the job in question," and no such information was so easily attained simply for the asking. Lorelei wasn't about to dance around it either, instead she pushed forward with her agenda.

"I mean to end a royal line and commandeer their Kingdom," spoken as though she was telling him her plans to start a raised bed garden in the back yard, "are you or are you not still a creature of blood and warfare?"

 

[Blackburn Fane]

When she refused to part with that information he shifted in his seating arrangement.

Was it her imagination or did he make sure to get as much water over her luxurious leather as possible? No, certainly a man of his age and reputation was not that petty.

He raised his hands to her.

Palm forward.

Hands that were made for killing and had done it well for years and years. "I will always be a creature of blood and warfare, Darke." Then a smile that held little warmth for her. "The question is do I want to be your creature for the duration of the job."

He had taken her plans in exactly the way she put them down.

As if it was nothing more than cleaning out a room or cooking a meal.

"What does it pay?" He wondered if she'd offer gold. Most of them did. It was such a lack of imagination that inspired them to do so.

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

"If you prefer the doldrums of bar fights and drinking, then by all means pull the chord and we'll let you out at the next tavern. Surely you haven't worn out your welcome at every tavern in Alliria..." There was no need to waste time on reciprocative barbing. He did not need her job and she did not particularly need him, either.

But as the saying often went, it wasn't about your resume so much as who you know. Lorelei had seen him in action and even fought against him. It was what she knew. There was little in the way of risk in hiring the man to do what he did best.

"There are options for payment," her gaze slid along the newest darkened spots of shed water, unamused, "position, authority, residence, continued employment..." a hand gestured loosely to the unspoken etcetera, "what is your current flavor?"

 

[Blackburn Fane]

A slow growl escaped him there.

The taverns and bars did grate on him. He had to restrain himself so. Every fiber of his being wanted to keep smashing his fists into skulls until they gave way for the liquid red. But Fane didn't want to starve to death in a prison cell to find himself buried elsewhere.

That was a boring way to go... and not too pleasant either.

"Mm..." Smiling as he leaned back, watching her with interest. "Are you married these days? I seem to remember a husband all those years ago."

It didn't take a genius to figure out which direction this conversation was heading for.

There were only a few options on that path.

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

The eyes narrowed again, slits of acidic green sitting among the waves of crimson. This subject of family stung a deep, fresh, and unforgiving wound. Though with an ironic sense of luck, her most recent husband had passed with the plague and had not been one of the bodies she'd woken up to just a year ago.

"My late husband has been gone for some time," she deigned to admit. It did not take any level of genius to see what angle he was reaching for, though to what end she could hardly imagine.

"Are you even capable of siring children?" Many acursed creatures could not and she would not waste such an offer on someone who could not help her rebuild anew.

 

[Blackburn Fane]

A snort in response.

"If I wish to." And truth to be told he never had the desire for it. The good part of being mortal was you didn't have to bother with your children and grand-children past expiration. Being an immortal meant you had to bother yourself with your whole lineage.

"As you might imagine I found a charm early in my days to prevent such things from occurring without my say so."

Eyebrow went up.

"Can you imagine more of me running around?" Fane wasn't even sure if his curse would be passed through the line, but it was not something he would so casually allow either.

"You wish children then? How many?"

Continuing the trend of discussing important and large subjects with the casualness of discussing the weather.

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

"Many."

Her gaze did not waver but her voice could not possibly put a number to it. That she had lost so many already to war, to plague, to cataclysm - that latter two entirely out of her control and entirely unavoidable. To think now of replacing them, to even think such a thing at all. She felt sickened. Lorelei lifted a hand to rub at her left temple.

"To what end would marriage provide you if not progeny?"

 

[Blackburn Fane]

He didn't say the truth.

That it was boredom and for amusement sake. He had married a few times over generations. But never a Queen and never someone who was old enough to have a level of understanding of what Fane went through. If Fane had been honest about this she would wave him off from the start.

At least that is what Fane assumed from her body language so far.

Remarkably emotional about these matters.

"What use do I have for titles, wealth, land?" He shrugged there. "I have held them, they offer little to my appetite these days."

Leaning in there as he watched her.

"But you would be a prize worth killing for." Perhaps a smidgen of truth. "And if you wish many children." He shrugged there. It wouldn't be him having to go through bearing them. "I will perform as you desire or you can annul the marriage later on."

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

"What use do I have for titles, wealth, land?" He shrugged there. "I have held them, they offer little to my appetite these days."

She had a feeling that would be his response. What do you offer someone who persisted ad infinitum? Someone who had seen and done, likely, everything under the sun and both moons? Many had come up against this very quandary when dealing with herself. When one lives as long as she has, as he has, material things become superfluous.

Ideas and experiences were often where the value maintained.

What could you give me that I have not already achieved myself?

A marriage to a Queen.

Her expression watched him right back, jaw set at the idea of being thought of as a prize. Still, she didn't hate the idea. He'd proven himself on the battlefield in strength and ferocity. That she did not know of or understand the nature of his prolonged years was not especially bothersome to her. It mattered little since any child she brought into this world would be long-lived regardless.

What was one more husband on the docket? Though this one she wasn't so sure she would outlive... and she would likely need to find new battles to keep him entertained once the Kingdom was under her rule. Tedious, but war would be his battlefield and raising a new coven would be her own.

"Very well," Lorelei said at length, "once the Kingdom is secured under my rule, my sister Priestess will oversee the wedding ceremony."

 

[Blackburn Fane]

He smirked there and leaned back once more.

"It is not an easy thing to forge a Kingdom, as we both know." Fane said airily while watching her. "I do hope you do not expect me to wait until I carve my way around whatever territory you have set your sights on." He raised his finger to forestall her counter-argument.

"Not the marriage part. That I can be patient about." To one degree or the other. Long lives meant patience was a commodity he had in spades.

Both of them really.

"But my hunger runs deep, Darke. And blood will not satisfy it completely."

Lorelei Darke

 

[Lorelei Darke]

The look he garnered from her had few in equivalence. An offended dragon, perhaps.

"To be perfectly honest," she gave the man a solid look over, nose wrinkling at the pervading aroma, "I find your current presentation and lack of charm strongly unappealing."

The carriage came to a stop and the sound of boots hitting the ground heralded the opening of the carriage door.

"The city archives, Lady Darke," Zeviir announced, holding out his hand for her to take in exiting the carriage, which she did so with the dignity of a woman who was equally as comfortable in a blood-soaked suit of armor or a gown and matching crown. Upon stepping down, she paused outside to straighten her current ensemble of pressed black business coat and dress before looking back to him.

"Perhaps a flophouse floosie might be more amenable to sating your cravings."

 

[Blackburn Fane]

He chuckled softly at her expression and her words.

Prickly.

Fane was certain he had a wife like that in the past. He'd have to review his memories to be certain of it, which certainly wasn't the time for it now.

"Don't you worry, Darke." Fane said airily as he followed suit, stepping foot on dry land and his neck craning a little to look up into her face. He wondered if he should get on his tippy-toes. But Lorelei Darke was a humorless creature up until now.

He doubted she'd appreciate it.

"I wasn't planning on jumping you now or even next week." Slowly stretching as he looked around where they were now. Why they needed the City Archives was beyond him. "All I am saying is, if you desire to wait until the wedding night, tell me now."

A campaign like she was proposing would take time. Even if they got lucky and everything went right. Patience was not the issue. He could have waited until the sun went out in the sky. He just would prefer to walk into expectations with both eyes open... and perhaps decline if expectations weren't what appealed to him.

"So, what are we doing here anyway?"

 

[Lorelei Darke]

No response was forthcoming on the query of sexual relations pre-wedlock as she pressed scarlet flyaways into place.

What were they doing here?

"Making ourselves informed," she replied shrewdly as she gestured to all of him, "but this won't be allowed anywhere near the stacks." He was still dripping, which was partially her fault. Given the likelihood that he'd even take her offer, it had been a gamble at best that he'd make it this far and not be summarily ousted from her carriage en route.

An oversight easily remedied but not so easily corrected. The correction would require a trip to the bath house, barber, and tailor at the very least. By the Gods, this man was expensive. A second gesture and murmured incantation formed a lick of white flames at his feet that very quickly surged upwards into a pillar. Air and dry heat swirled upward around him for several moments, lingering even should he choose to flail, and the quick-service drying funnel died out.

Blackburn Fane no longer drip-dripped at all. His clothing, hair, and self dried but not terribly freshened. The odor still clung but she wasn't wasting magic on that.

"Now that is a neat trick," Zeviir grinned toothily.

 

[Blackburn Fane]

This.

He was about to retort with something but then she did her magick shit.

Outwardly Fane did not respond other than another low-seething growl. By the end of it his hair was cast in every witch way. His beard was blustered around, his brows too. And he looked quite annoyed at her as the magic died down around him.

"I hate magic." He said calmly. Which was a ridiculous thing to say for more than one reason. Him being immortal because of magic, yes, but also something else that Lorelei Darke would have noticed while she was practicing her craft.

His very flesh seemed to be imbued with it. Layers on layers of the craft burned straight into the meat and bone of his being.

Magic at its very essence was the application of one's will onto that which was around them. Conjuring fire into the palm of your hand. Twisting the mind of those opposite of you. Blasting a door with kinetic force. Lorelei would realize there and then that while she could lift a boulder and smash Fane to bits with it, it would take a ridiculous amount of effort to try and penetrate what seemed to be ancient wards etched into his body.

"I am starting to think the marriage proposal was the worst mistake I ever made." As he, presumably, followed the fire-haired hag into the Archives.

 

[Lorelei Darke]

Did she know he didn't like magic? Lorelei had a decent memory but nothing readily sprang to mind. If she had known, it likely hadn't been important enough to dedicate to long-term. That she'd heard of his name circulating the gossip vine in Alliria at all had been something of a miracle. Mere happenstance had her in the right place at the right time to overhear a bunch of local guards bitching about having to deal with the man.

Yet again.

The humor finally surfaced in the form of a pleased sneer so saturated by mirth one might've been able to bottle and sell it for profit. The irony of his words were not lost on her.

"And I hate red hair," she rebuked, brow lofted, and gave no further indication as to the truth of that proclamation, "but here we are."

"I am starting to think the marriage proposal was the worst mistake I ever made."

"That makes two of us."

With Zeviir in the lead, she followed the komodo inside and back through the expansive halls and chambers of the archives. In a short amount of time she was seated at a large oak table and presented with several maps. Those of the Allirian straight, those of the waters and shores beyond, those of the entirety of the Bayou Garamarisima, and those of an island nation situated just at the northernmost point of the Bayou.

"The Sovereign Fortress City of Kuait," Zeviir smoothed the map open, "not the most current map, but all the main structures provided here still exist in the same state today."

"This is the target," Lorelei informed Blackburn as she scanned the lines demarcating the island sheer cliffs and the fortifications therein.

 

[Blackburn Fane]

Well, you sure make it look good on you.

But he didn't voice it because she didn't deserve even a smidgen of praises after blowing him up like that without permission. He snorted to her latter words and followed her inside, standing at the edge of the table and curiously watching the map being unfolded.

"You want to conquer an island kingdom?"

He should have asked for more than just her hand in marriage.

His hands settled on the table as he bend over to look closer at the map. "Not impossible, but a pain in the fucking arse alright." Through his memory Fane tried to recall if he had ever tried to carve his way through a fortified island.

Once, at least, on a place that was now swallowed by the tides of the ocean. It had been bloody then. It would be worse now with the march of technology and magic continuing on its way.

"What do you have in terms of an army, navy, magic users?" His eyes shifting to her. He certainly hoped she didn't expect him to conquer the island on his own. It would take him thousands of deaths carving through that place, hardly something he wanted to experiment with.

Lorelei Darke