Private Tales A Name From The Past

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Fish-men. Men-fish.

What was the difference? she wondered. Her knowledge of fish was ... vastly lacking for reasons.

What about fish-women?

But a mage making the inner realm of a whale his home was a fairy tale she'd never heard before and would have liked to listen more. Her people had never liked water. In fact, they were rather averse to it entirely. The ocean was such a ... foreign entity to most, though she had seen it and swam in its waters. Lorelei could not, however, claim to have ever seen a whale.

Apparently they were quite numerous in the waters surrounding Kuait. She was rather looking forward to the day she laid her own eyes upon them.

Five years.

Only five years.

"Barely a breath in your lifetime..." she commented before taking another slow pull.

Her eyes dropped from his as she wondered on a thing to share. So many things came to mind, of course, though indeed her life had been riddled and, at times, ruled by politics and land grabs. She had ventured across Arethil in her years, seen things that had long since disappeared from the face of the planet. Witnessed wonders no living mortals could even dream about.

"I lived alongside my great-great grandchildren," Lorelei said after a time, "watched them all come into this world."

And watched a plague take all of them away years later.

She blinked and looked back up at him through a fresh plume of smoke, "Why only five years?"
 
That was the question.

Why only five years? It could have been fifty, a hundred, it would still be just a gasp to them. A mere blink that passed by so quickly.

But it hasn't been a hundred or fifty. It had been a measly five.

Fane didn't plan on being honest about it.

"I don't do well with peaceful and communal living." The truth came out of his mouth regardless. "I lived in a small fishing village. There was a woman as there always is. She had a boy. Her former husband dead from whiskey and a nightly boat trip that had gone wrong."

Eyes turned clouded for a moment as he looked back in time.

"I came back one day to the village burned down." Fane blinked and was back with her again.

"I could have protected them if I had not been Fane the Fisherman, but Fane the Warlord. Alas. I was fishing while they were being butchered. I haven't touched a fishing pole since."

His foot retreated from her ankle as he glanced to see if their food was coming along.
 
Tragedy had a way of changing the course of one's life. While he was most certainly picturing the face of that woman and her boy and the faces of the people with whom they had lived among in that small village, she could see the faces of her coven. Family. Loved and dear ones. Buried deep beneath the armor of their souls, letting only the mere glimpse of soft and vulnerable bellies once every lifetime.

It was easy to recognize it in others that shared these seemingly neverending stories.

She said nothing and gave him silence in that moment of measured grief for this nameless woman and her nameless son. Had he come to love her in those five years? Had her son grown so fond of him that one fell day he'd let slip the word father while Fane taught him how to clean a fish or chop wood?

Gods how she missed the sound of her own children's voices.

Their food arrived within the reverie of nostalgia, blinked away in an instant when the scent fully registered. A hearty slab of sirloin steak, nicely marbled with fat and lightly seared on both sides. Before Fane: a platter of braised lamb rack on a bed of local veg.

"Wine?" asked the servant as she set down their utensils.

Lorelei declined with a shake of her head, "Water will do for me."

Fane, of course, would ask for whatever drink he so pleased.

"I have never seen a whale," she admitted as she took up knife and fork, even if he hadn't turned the game back to her.
 
Indeed the scent of the meal did wonders for his mood (and his appetite).

But these were just moments.

They always passed because they had to. A five year period of joy shattered in tragedy was world-defining for some people, but for them it was just a Tuesday. He had as many tragedies written on his soul as there were stars in the sky. Something told him Lorelei Darke was the same way.

It should have made him feel closer to her. Instead it just made him more cautious.

"An ale's fine." He said with a nod while studying his food with obvious relish. "Oh, in that case you are in for a treat. The oceans around Kuat are full of them. I can't promise you we will land in one of their stomachs, but we will certainly see at least one before the job is done."

Back to cheerful and larger than life.

It came natural to switch gears like that.

"So, another story from you, let's hear it."
 
Lorelei couldn't say if the prospect of seeing a whale, or whales as it sounded more likely, excited her or made her anxious. Despite having gone against the grain of her people and learned to swim (the vast majority of them could not), she still held a deeply ingrained fear of deep waters. The idea of moving herself and what she hoped to be a future coven into the middle of the great ocean was hugely unsettling.

But a challenge to herself to overcome. What was life without doing just that?

As for another story, she had to chew on that one a bit. Not just to think of one he might actually find interesting beyond her several lifetimes spent thick in politics and land grabs, but to also cut into her meal while it was still hot.

Tender. Sumptuous. The kick of spice at the end was a nice touch, especially as it lingered.

"I traveled a great deal in my youth," such a strange term for them. How did they quantify their youth? For her, it was before her first husband when the world was still very fresh and terribly new. Before she took on the mantle of leadership to others and instead only followed.

"In the eastern wylds, I discovered a race of reptilian bipeds that I do not believe walk this planet anymore. They were called the Xaltuom, and they lived in pyramids as tall as mountains. Their capital called Ixchel, for which the wylds were named after, had an entire temple plated in gold. They believed I was their Fire Goddess, Zivashtu, incarnate, and took me to the underbelly of their temple."

"The heart of it, Ashka, lay so far beneath the earth that you could feel the heat of their afterlife in the walls. They took me to a gemstone that was taller myself and broader than you, as red as blood with a fire living at its center. I've never seen another of its like. My Gods, I wish I knew then what I know now of magic and sorceries. There was something about that stone that shook me to my core."
 
He listened with clear interest. He had never heard of a race like that or a civilization like it, but that didn't say much at all.

This world of theirs was large.

They lived several lifetimes but there would always be something going on in one corner of the world that they weren't aware of. That is... what made it beautiful. That is what made this moment more special too, because it allowed them both a glimpse into that other corner their eyes had not seen.

"Sounds fascinating." He murmured. "I wondered what happened to that stone. Never heard of anything like it in my travels." He tore into his own meat as he considered her story, but Fane couldn't help but notice something that was a bit funny to him.

Eyes flicked up again.

"Have you ever chosen to be anything less than what you are? A farmer, a servant, a needlewoman? It sounds to me that your life has been dominated by the games of politics and by your inherent stature of power."

Even the lizards had considered her someone that ought to rule over them.

Lorelei Darke
 
A strange question. Had she chosen to live beneath her stature?

"Could a dragon choose to be a lamb?" Some could, she supposed. But why would they?

"I have held many titles throughout my life but I was born to privilege and power. I may adapt and learn new skills to thrive, but inevitably it has always lead to my ascension above others. Why fight the current when I'm so good at using it to my advantage?" Some people were born to rule, some were born to follow, though not all people were born in a station that allowed them to achieve what they were meant for. Lorelei had yet to find herself in a place, people, or situation that she could not overcome or command.

"I have grown and harvested the plants that have sustained my society. I have sewn my own clothing and darned the holes in that of others. I have served my Gods, my Empress, and my Coven leader - I have even served other Kings for a time, when it served my own purpose to do so. But I am as meant for the life of a farmer, needlewoman, or servant as you are meant for a life of peace and community."
 
He smiled lightly at her explanation. Fane didn't truly agree with it. Everyone could find their way in a lower class.

But there were some arguments not worth having.

Trying to convince a creature that been a monarch of one degree or the other for centuries that there were interesting things to learn by serving would be an exercise in futility.

"Mm, so is that what you are. A dragon?" Fane murmured with a warm smile.

"I don't see the scales." His finger slowly reaching out to run along her jaw. "I don't see the maw with a million teeth..."

Watching her lips with interest.

"Do you breathe fire?"

Oh, yes, Fane was enjoying the tease.

Lorelei Darke
 
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The lips pursed faintly as her eyes tracked the hand. An arc of bemusement curved a red brow upward.

There existed such a spell that she could use to take a dragon form - she'd never done it, the expense had been far to great for such a frivolous, self-serving venture. Though given the right impetus... she could be convinced to sacrifice an entire city of innocent people to do it.

"Well I could," she said after a moment, mirth filling out her eyes, "but you don't like magic."
 
"Mm... at least not the kind that blows me up with hot air and leaves my hair frazzled." He said with a little smirk in response, letting go of her chin for now.

"I once snuck into a magical academy. Incognito, of course. The mages of the continent would love to get their hands on my body to figure out how I keep coming back." Fane said, reminiscing a little. "That's where I learned a host of very useful tricks."

He snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared between them.

"See? Neat." But then a shrug as he drank from the ale. "I don't use it all that often though. Feels like cheating."

Lorelei Darke
 
That was a rather common magical trick, if ever she saw one, though it was interesting to know he was actually capable of using magic himself. Up until now, she'd figured him one of those few that had been tainted by it, but wasn't able to wield the power that had cursed him so.

"Cheating," she echoed as she took another bite, savored the taste, and pondered the idea of magic being cheating.

Cheating in what? Life?

"Is using ones hands to craft a home cheating? What about a bird using its wings to fly? A dragon using its flame? Magic is natural, darling," the woman leaned back in her chair and took a fresh draw from her Sten, "as natural as my fangs and your size. Is using your strength to win battles cheating?"
 
"Of course, it's cheating." He said with a heavy laugh. "Ask a scrawny man standing opposite of me five seconds before I crush him with my bare hands if it's cheating. He is certainly gonna say it is."

And it would be true.

Because cheating was in the eye of the beholder.

"Besides, nothing natural about summoning flames from hell between your finger tips or being able to fly without wings."

He licked his lips at that memory.

"Sure is fucking fun though. You ever fly?"

Lorelei Darke
 
She snorted. "What is it the humans say... a dog-eat-dog world? A smart scrawny man would not find himself in contest with someone like you if he knew he could not win."

Survival of the fittest or the most adaptable. Being fit did not always necessitate being strong, either. A scrawny man could best the beast seated across from her if he was smart about it and willing to use the available tools to his advantage. Sometimes being the fittest meant knowing how to pick one's battles.

She'd seen plenty of presumably weak beings rise to the top simply from that tactic alone. Wit should never be discounted.

Her brow pinched at the oddity of his question, "Of my own accord?" Had to think on that one. She held her Sten aloft while she mired in her own smoke, breathing in the fumes of ease and contentment.

"Can't say that I have, though I can jump very high and far." Not quite the same thing. "I have flown on an airship."
 
He would have argued with her about any weak man winning against him, but luckily she didn't voice that part. They'd be here until the next day otherwise.

"Mm, the spell is pretty involved and draining. But you can fly like a bird for a stint."

His eyes dreamy for a moment.

"Nothing quite like soaring through the sky and seeing the world beneath you."

Then a blink and Fane was back again.

"How's the steak? Spicy to your liking?"

Lorelei Darke
 
She could recall the time spent aloft in the airship, though it had been a very long time since then and such far-back memories were not nearly as clear without actively meditating on them. The experience stuck more than the visual and in a general sense of what she could remember mostly she remembered -

"Clouds," she wondered aloud in response to his question about the steak, having lost herself in that brief moment of memory sifting.

Spicy?

Oh, the steak.

"Yes," Lor said with a visible amount of pleasant surprise, "its not a common palate for my kind... I wonder how it would do in a batch of blodwyne..."
 
Clouds?

Fane looked at her curiously, but then she responded belatedly and he decided to let it go. They each had lifetimes of memories. It would not surprise him if she found herself lost in them much as he did sometimes. The waking world and the dream one could be difficult to distinguish.

"Well, if you wish, we can order some to go. Then you can give it a try?" He finished his tankard of ale and began to rise up once Lorelei indicated she was ready.

A slow stretch as he patted his stomach with a satisfied groan.

"Always a pleasure, having good food and lovely company." Looking up at her. "If you don't have anything pressing, I'd enjoy to spend more time with you. Have you been to the beach here? It's quite fun to watch the waves break against the rock."

Offering his elbow and unless she disagreed, he'd start leading her out.

Lorelei Darke
 
"No, that's not necessary..." and it also wasn't how it worked for crafting blodwyne. What she needed was spices, but would it flavor more powerfully in the first or second stages of distilling? Or perhaps ingested by the source? She'd known farmers to feed powdered garlic to their cows and horses to help keep flies at bay. The scent of it carried through their sweat and permeated the skin, but she never knew it if could be tasted in the flesh.

The variations would require quite a bit of experimentation. Alas.

Her plate was clean and several clean plates sat before and around her companion. Now he was after an afternoon stroll on the beach.

"Well," Lorelei stood and took a moment to straighten her outfit before looping her arm through his and giving him a faint smile, "if you say it is fun then it must be true."

Having little experience with views or visits to the shore, Lorelei could only imagine such things and she was certain she did so poorly. But she suspected it wouldn't matter too much either way, this was less about sight-seeing and more about the time spent and the company with. His, she was coming to find, was not so unpleasant as expected.

It wasn't a far walk either, and soon enough she was unlacing her boots to walk bare-foot through the sand at his recommendation.

"This may be only the third beach I have purposefully visited in my life..." she admitted, "my people are not fond of large bodies of water. Most of them could not even swim."
 
Once she undid her boots he took them from her without comment.

Carrying both of them at once.

It seemed the thing to do.

"Really?" Eyebrows quirking up there. "Any particular reason your people don't like it??" Curious as they walked by the sea. Unless she purposefully wanted to walk near the water, he'd have positioned himself between her and the water, once she said that her people didn't enjoy large bodies of water.

"I have always loved the ocean. I can't really remember the first years of my life... but I believe I was born near the ocean." Thoughtful as he moved a bit to the side, so the wave could wave over his ankles and he could feel the water between his toes as they walked.

"Always loved the water and everything to do with it."
 
"Has to do with our origins," Lorelei raised her brows as she looked to him and then past him to the waves now gently, serenely lapping at the shoreline. It was beautiful, she had to admit, the way the froth topped the wavelets like snow topped cold mountains.

"Where we come from, the water was so dangerous as to spell certain death for our people. They learned to fear it, avoid it at all costs. We cannot even eat from its bounty without potentially fatal results..." she did not even know the savory flavors of the sea.

"Despite leaving those lands, moving to a place far safer than before, the aversion remained ingrained into us, in our blood. It takes great control of will to face it..." and she wondered, too, if this may have been one of the origins for the stories of vampires being incapable of crossing moving water.

She paused, letting her feet sink into the sand and soak in the warmth it radiated from the sun. Gaze turned to the ocean and the horizon before them. In the distance she could just make out the faint shape of Kuait - a place surrounded by open water.

"I learned to swim from my father when I lived with him in Ixchel among the reptile people. He took me to a cenote in the jungle with water so clear you could see all the way down into the gullet of the cavern. It was... blue like a sapphire. Strangely cold, but no fish. I did not see an ocean until long after he died."

Listening to his fondness of the sea gave her a strange sense of irony. She supposed he was quite good at swimming, quite at home amidst the waves.

"Why do you not return to it? Become a pirate and find your battles among the tides?"
 
Brows furrowed up again.

"That sounds... unhealthy." He said quietly, thinking about it. "I cannot imagine not being able to lean on the sea to support us and thrive."

But it made sense that if it was so dangerous that they'd avoid the bounty of the sea.

Fane settled besides her, watching the shape of Kuait in the distance.

"Is that why you picked Kuait as your prize? To avoid others of your kind from approaching it?" It was a strange choice after all. Even if she learned how to swim from her father. Fearing the sea and then picking the kingdom surrounded by the sea to try and rule it.

He thought about her question.

In response to it Fane stepped deeper into the water, letting it go to his calves, rolling the pipes of his trousers up to avoid getting them wet.

"Out here on the land, I am a bloody killer." Finally said quietly. "I wanted to keep that separate from the ocean, where I always found peace." Then a glance over to her shoulder. "I also think I'd be too good at it. A man should know his limitations and not try to push past too many of them, don't you think?"

Lorelei Darke
 
She did not approach the water. Not yet, anyway. Rather, she stayed back just beyond where the waves faded against the sands and watched him wade out and roll his pant legs. It was such a novel thing to her, like a scene from a children's tale leading up to the man being taken by the creatures of the deep. Her blood sang of paranoia, though her mind knew better than to listen now.

Blackburn Fane said:
"Is that why you picked Kuait as your prize? To avoid others of your kind from approaching it?"
Click to expand...

A chuckle caught in her throat that she had to shake her head to, "Not... quite." Brows furrowing as her gaze dropped to the sand where she drew her toes through it to enjoy the strange and new sensation. Soft yet coarse, a curious feeling of being wrapped in warmth as if sunlight was made tangible.

"My sister and I may be the last of our kind," her gaze shifted back to him shadowed by the grief she carried, "a lot happened in the centuries following our meeting on the battlefield."

But she didn't want to talk about that right now, it would just bring down the mood. Instead she took silent again while he explained his own reasons. They drew out a wane smirk from her and she was glad for it to distract from the darker thoughts, though it dissipated into a faint frown beneath a pinched brow.

"Am I not forcing you to break that treaty by bringing you to war out on the waves for Kuait?"
 
Turning around there and watching her quietly.

"As someone who is the first and last of his kind... my sympathies." It wasn't exactly the same, of course. Lorelei was part of a wholly different species. But Fane was no longer a human either. He had stopped being a human several lifetimes ago.

Because being human wasn't just what your body was made up of. It was also experiences that shaped you into being.

What human could experience what he had?

"You are." Calmly without beating around the bush. "But I have decided that it is worth it." His eyes... slowly flicking down her body and back up again. Taking her in. She was... pretty. When she wasn't as regal. With her feet bare, toes curled into the sand. Her hair swept by wind. A little smile playing on her lips.

He didn't say it. She was already arrogant enough, no sense in making her head grow.

"You are pretty." Guess Fane was saying it after all, without even thinking about it. "The wind against your hear, smile curling your lips."

"I am glad I got to see you like this."

Lorelei Darke
 
Yes, she had not expected sympathy from him and fixed him with bemusement for his non-effort. Lorelei subdued a snort and looked away with a breath of a sigh, pushing hair from her face as the sea breeze ruffled it about. Took the time to take in her surroundings a bit more, appreciate the view of it and the strangeness of it. Felt like a different world here, and not just visually. It felt different - the energy here surrounding her from the sun to the waters.

It would take some getting used to and it almost made her worried about how her sister would handle it. So long as she had something to set her mind to, that would hopefully provide Aris with an anchor.

No pun intended.

The compliments drew her gaze back to him, brow knit curiously at the words. Skeptical, almost, that he was making fun or attempting to pick at her as he seemed so fond of doing. But his expression looked genuine and his tone sounded so as well. Lorelei Darke did not blush but it was clear she did not hear earnest words of that nature very often.

"A far different creature than the one you met in armor," she returned, watching him for a moment longer before her eyes dropped to the water lapping at his calves. Lor leaned down to gather the length of her dress skirt and knotted it up loosely above her knees. She stepped forward onto the wet sand, brows curving up as the wavelets lapped over her feet, and pressed on further until she found herself standing alongside him once again.

Her gaze panned out to the waves beyond and the blue-green glimmer of the ocean. The breeze, the scent, the sounds - she soaked it all in.

"This is your peace?" she asked him again, just to be certain.
 
He laughed softly and she didn't often hear a laugh from him that wasn't filled with derision, sarcasm or self-congratulatory mirth.

This was uncomplicated.

This was being in the moment.

"Mm, I might like this one more." He says with just a soft little tease. A gentle tease, not a biting one. "But there is place for many faces... many lives in one person." Once she stepped up next to him... his arm drifted... and slowly settled around her waist.

"Yes... my peace." Fane murmured softly, watching the sunset together with her, the way the waves go.

Perhaps it could be their peace... for a time anyway.

Lorelei Darke
 
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Unexpectedly pleasant, the sound of his laugh. His arm found no resistance where it settled, though he might've noted an underlying tenseness of her stance. An active control of will to stand within the water beside him, fighting against instincts ages old. The warmth of contact suffused the body, granting momentary ease to sinew drawn taught.

Lor placed her matching hand over his, "Keep your peace, then. I will find another way."

For there were just as many ways to usurp a Kingdom as there were to skin a cat. She would not ask a man of countless ages to give up the one thing that gentled his mind and soul.
 
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