Private Tales Dealings in Duality

[Zinnia]

Long days were becoming more and more regular now that Zinnia had graduated and been assigned a level. Such was to be expected; it was her duty as a Dreadlord to fight and serve on behalf of her country. What was less expected was the odd nature of some missions. While Proctor Salak had recommended Zinnia for a position as a stalker and she was oft assigned as such, there were times when she was instead sent out on border patrol instead, left to meander over well-traveled routes in search of threats to citizens who dared travel out this far...so, elves, at the edge of the Falwood.

What was even less expected than that was Zinnia's current company. Normally a lower level Dreadlord or a small retinue of guardsmen would be expected for such a task, but this day had seen her paired with an initiate. A "notable slacker" as the proctor who'd assigned him to her had put it. What any of that implied to Zinnia in terms of why she'd specifically been picked for guiding him along, she could hardly guess, but the day had gone without incident. The sun was beginning to set now, and out this far from civilization the pair would soon need to set up camp.

As for the boy himself, the "slacker"...Zinnia knew nothing about him. Nothing tangible, anyways. A bit older for an initiate, a bit scruffy. That was basically it. The proctors had not bothered to explain and they had not given her a file to read. Maybe they just wanted him "out of the house," so to speak. That hadn't left her with much to work with.

"So..." Zinnia spoke over the clomping of her horse's hooves. Even with the upswing in her confidence and downswing in her stuttering, idle conversation was still generally a challenge for her. "L-learn anything valuable yet?"

Kilien Basmarc

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Kilien Basmarc did not like riding horses.

Which was perfectly fair, because generally horses didn't like him either.

This entire ride had been painstakingly uncomfortable for both of them.

"Eh?" he looked up at his mission mentor - a girl that had nary a moonrise on him in years and looked like she might be flattened by a heavy breeze, "Yeah, don't kick and pull the reins at the same time."

He, himself, had nearly been unseated less than an hour ago after getting into a tiff with the nag.

"How bout you, Boss?"

 

[Zinnia]

Ah, right. That. Zinnia had never seen someone get along so poorly with a horse before. Initiates were supposed to have a good handle on riding from a fairly early age. Was that why Kilien was still at the Academy? Would they hold him back for something so small? Was that why they sent him out here with Zinnia? Kress, she hoped not...that would've been a terribly petty move on behalf of the proctors.

"That's...a pretty good lesson, I think..." she replied, eyes moving from him back to the tree line. Still nothing. "I've learned that elves are v-very good at not being seen when they don't want to be. And that maybe folks back home have been overblowing the problem out here..."

Her head swiveled back towards Kilien. She figured she could probably pick out a good spot herself given her general comfort with being out in the wild, but chances for her charge to engage with their "mission" would likely be few and far between.

"We should probably bunker down for the night s-soon. We won't be very effective in the dark, or exhausted. Let's find a spot that isn't too exp-posed, alright?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

"Sure thing, Boss," Kilien managed as he yanked the reins off to the side to get his horse to slow-up. It had been hounding the flank of Zinnia's mount for the last few miles in a bid for some kind of pity.

"But eh- you really think it makes a difference. If elves are so good with the landscape does cover really do much for us?" Not that he didn't love a good romp through the forest and he certainly wasn't scared of the dark.

 

[Zinnia]

Zinnia shrugged. He had a point.

"It's good practice. Plus there's plenty of threats out this way that won't be so w-wise to the landscape. Outlaws, wolves, maybe a t-troll or two," she couldn't help but grin as she watched the initiate struggle with his horse. "You're welcome to invite a nighttime ambush if you're that bored. I could use the workout, to be fair."

She rolled one of her shoulders to punctuate the point.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Kilien raised his brows at the girl, taken aback by the show of bravado, "Do I look like a guy that welcomes nighttime ambushes?"

He probably looked exactly like that and after a moment of self-reflection he raised his hands dismissively, "Don't answer that. You want cover, you get cover."

He kicked at his horse to usher it forward and with a few moments of stubbornness it gave in with a grunt. Kilien rode forward several paces, his own eyes adjusting in the fading light of day, and peered down the lane. After a few moments he called back to her, "How's a little shack in the woods sound to you, Boss?"

 

[Zinnia]

Zinnia's face turned bright red in an instant as her unintended double-entendre dawned on her.
"Th-that's--I didn't--that is n-not what I meant!" she protested, doing her best to contain her embarrassment.

Gods, some things never changed, did they? Grass grew, birds sang, and Zinnia made a fool out of herself. All was right with the world.

Kilien's hollering shook her from her fugue enough to get her to drive her horse to catch up with him. She nodded, impressed.
"Good eye. Hopefully no one else is making use of it."

With that, she took the lead once again, riding for their impromptu shelter. Short of finding an abandoned fort, the two of them likely wouldn't find a better place to settle in.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

THE SHACK

He'd have camped out on a spike covered boulder if it meant getting off the horse, but an abandoned shack was likely far more mercy than fate should have granted him. He chalked up their luck to Zinnia's presence and dutifully body-slammed open the boarded-up door to let her in. Ladies first.

It was certainly small. A hunter's shack by the looks of the trappings that remained behind. There was a small bed and a small fireplace and a small window and small cupboard full of small, empty shelves. No one had used it in ages and the dust made him sneeze.

"I'll uh, grab some firewood then, yeh?" he asked after her, "I can set up a perimeter while I'm at it."

 

[Zinnia]

"Dilapidated" would have been the word that came to someone more academically minded than Zinnia on getting a better look at the shack, but "seen better days" described the space a bit more politely anyways. "Cramped" also fit the bill. Whomever this place belonged to originally, it was clearly meant for one, and maybe a hunting hound.

"Right...I'll, uhh...try to make things a little more livable," she replied as she slipped by Kilien. "Th-thank you, Kilien."

Zinnia had an idea of the best way to go about that, it would just require a bit of finesse. She placed her hands on the bed and focused her magic. Wind was equal parts difficult to store in her battery and awkward to make use of, but a quick blast would likely help knock the dust off of things.

*FFFOOOMFF*

The hacking noises and clouds of dust pouring from every opening in the shack were the best indicator of Zinnia's results. Her plan had been, perhaps, a bit too effective.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

"No problem, Boss."

With the horses secured on nearby trees and pleasantly eating their dinner from feed bags, Kilien set out through the overgrown thicket surrounding the shack to begin the process of establishing a perimeter. His hand reached beneath his jacket, withdrawing from it a most curious thing for an Academy Initiate: a wand.

With a short flick he gave a scowl and a pensive grunt, brow furrowing just slightly, "Sleepy, huh? Well I'm a bit short on juice so we'll just have to make do."

A normal perimeter typically called for minimum of four spells. He had about enough mana for two. Could have taken some from his little mentor, but Kilien wasn't big on bad first impressions if he could help it. Sometimes he couldn't.

Okay, a lot of times he couldn't, but the odds were usually stacked against him rather unfairly.

He wagged the wand tip back and forth feverishly for a moment in the way one might a fountain pen that was running short on ink and then with a practiced flourish pointed it toward the canopy of the woods. No word, no incantation - were he a student of Elbion he'd be seen as highly advanced for his age. A faint shimmer spilled forth from the wand, arching upward in a full circle high into the air before plunging over and out all around him. It formed an invisible dome surrounding the shack, horses, and another hundred feet beyond to deafen their presence from the senses of those around.

"Right," he breathed with a heavy sigh as the tail end of the spell broke loose and lowered the wand, "firewood."

Walking the perimeter of the dome, he collected firewood and shot off a repeat of a second spell four times, creating hidden alarm areas that would set off should another being step through them.

 

[Zinnia]

Zinnia stumbled out of the shack, still coughing, just in time to see Kilien making his rounds. The fading billows of dust were still escaping the door behind her and her eyes were watering from the mayhem she'd just created, but with any luck the space would be much less filthy now. Hopefully. She didn't really want to have to blast the place again.

"Blech...that could've gone worse, I guess..." she thought aloud, to no one in particular. Then she saw the stick among her comrade's collection that was quite a bit fancier than the fallen chunks of detritus he'd gathered. "Is th-that a wand?"

She quirked her head, curious.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Trudging his way back along a deerpath, Kilien stopped short at the words and glanced down to the wand held in his right hand, "Yeap," he replied, "you got me."

He wasn't particularly moved to emotion about it in the way that most expected, though using it had certainly earned him a fair amount of ridicule not just from the other Initiates, but the Proctors as well. Despite it all, he was pretty proud of all that he could do with it and hit Zinnia with a lopsided grin that said so.

"I'm a college magic kinda guy."

 

[Zinnia]

"Huh. Neat," she supposed. By Kilien's grin it probably wasn't a sore subject, so...obstacle dodged! Still, even the other college-magic-heavy initiates she had known generally preferred to go without spellcasting mediums. All handsigns and arcane muttering for them. It was odd to see a wand.

Zinnia rubbed her arm awkwardly, an old nervous habit that hadn't fully died out.
"I...admittedly was never very good at it. M-mediocre as a sorcerer, too," she squeezed her eyes shut and sighed, then let them pop open with the biggest, most confident grin she could muster. No more feeling sorry for herself. She wasn't in the Academy anymore, she was a 2nd Level Dreadlord, darn it!

"So I focused on my self in the way I knew b-best!" she flexed an arm and thumped it with her fist, then thumped the same fist on her belly. Impossible to see any definition past all of the armor she had on, but she wanted to drive the point home. "Sharpen your strengths! N-nothing wrong with specializing, ya know?"

Internally Zinnia had no idea why she was trying to make a lesson out of what amounted to nothing, but the initiate was supposed to be out here to learn, right?

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

He couldn't remember the last time anyone had ever given him a pep-talk. Something vague and foggy burbled up in the far reaches of his mind, but he couldn't remember the details. Just the sentiment that it had gone more along the lines of: do you're fucking best or I'll fucking gut ye.

This was certainly more pleasant. Kilien's grin broadened at her and he offered a verbal chuff of laughter, "Naw, nothing wrong with it at all. Though... not sure bein a Dreadlord is really for me," his eyes winced at the thought of it, "that was my Great Grandfather's thing. Didn't really work out for him, either."

He stepped on through and back into the footpath that lead to the shack where he deposited the bundle of tinder and firewood just outside the door. Kilien held up his wand, now officially spent for the evening unless he managed to pull some mana out of thin air, and sniffed in thought before he stowed it back away beneath his jacket.

"You uh," Kilien reached for Zinnia's shoulder to dust them off, "got a lil' sumthin kinda everywhere. Did you tick off a pollen fae?"

 

[Zinnia]

For once, Zinnia knew better then to press at what was almost certainly a sore subject. Especially after she'd actually managed to have the intended effect with her encouragement.
"I'm...sorry to hear that. But I don't think there's anything wrong with f-finding a different path. I'm sure there's something out there that will work for you, whatever it may be," she replied, visibly softening.

Then the initiate bridged the distance between them and reached for her shoulder. Zinnia fought her gut instinct to flinch, instead observing what he was up to, and...ah. Fair enough.

"Oh, right, uh..." she hooked a thumb back towards the shack. "C-cleaning. Didn't go the way I was--never mind. Here, stand back for a sec."

She stepped away from both Kilien and the shack, closed her eyes, plugged her nose, and slapped her her leather breastplate. Another burst of wind rushed over her, her hair whipping around messily beneath her puffed up hood. Leaves and detritus scattered from around her, leaving what resembled a crater around her on the forest floor.

After only a couple of seconds the wind died down, leaving a substantially more clean (and fluffy) Zinnia standing before Kilien.

"There," she announced, satisfied with her work and walking back towards the shack again. "Shall I get the fire started?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

He watched her walk off with marked curiosity, head tilting to one side, and smiled in amusement.

"That's a pretty handy trick," and he didn't think he knew any collage magic spells that could replicate it. Not yet, anyway. His gaze went to her hair which was now rather exciting to behold.

"Sure thing, Boss. You get yourself good and comfy, I'll find a spot out here."

 

[Zinnia]

Zinnia had stepped inside by now but quickly peeked back out, an obvious look of confusion on her face.
"Huh? What d'you mean?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Kilien lifted his brows, eyes passing around to quietly see the obvious.

"Well-" he gestured vaguely toward the shack, "uh, occupancy of one an all. The shack is yours. I'll be fine out here."

Honestly it was one of the nicer places he'd made his bed for a night.

 

[Zinnia]

Well...that made sense, yeah, but it didn't feel right. Zinnia chewed her thumbnail in thought. The bed was a twin, there would be no sharing it unless the two were willing to get very...familiar with each other.

"I...hmm. I guess I figured I could take the floor. Um...I have some stakes, rope, and a tarp. We could set up a tent for you at least, if you're not going inside."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

"Listen, uh, I dunno what they told you about me," Kilien raised his hands in a show of guilt, "probably a lot of it is true but they usually neglect to mention that I'm actually kind of a nice guy. The kind of guy that wouldn't let a lady sleep on the floor."

He sniffed, looked her over once with the gumption to appear impressed, "Even if that lady is a badass Dreadlord. So, you use that bed and sleep real comfy."

A beat, "Ma'am."

As for the tent, he let his eyes drift skywards and peered through the treetops, "I'll be fine without a tent. Should be a clear night."

 

[Zinnia]

In spite of herself, Zinnia felt her body stiffen up and her cheeks flush red. Kilien seemed to bear a kind of effortless smoothness that she wasn't quite used to. For a moment she couldn't help but imagine what Livia might have said back at such a moment, only in her own voice:

"Would be more comfy if you were in it too."

This, in turn, only made her turn a brighter shade of crimson before she raised a fist to her mouth and cleared her throat.
"R-right! Well, um...then w-why don't we at least, uhh..." gold eyes darted about, searching for an excuse not to just call it right there. Oh, the firewood! A friendly campfire would be fine. surely. "There's nothing that says we can't build the fire out here, right? Why don't we get a bit of food in us, warm up a bit, all that, uh...good stuff."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Was she... blushing?

Oh yes. Yes she very much was.

It was with a great deal of self control that Kilien kept the creeping rise of amusement from his face and mischief in check. Adopting a friendly smile at the friendly suggestion, he gave her a nod, "Sounds good, Boss. I'll get us a real nice fire goin."

First things first: clear a site for a campfire, so that's what he did. Luckily whoever previously used the shack had a site set up already, though it was a bit overgrown and unkempt it didn't take long to make it useable again. In short order, and minus one jacket, Kilien rolled up his sleeves and got down to the dirty business. Soon the old firepit was relined by stone, cleared of debris and overhang, and had the firewood stacked.

Now where had he put that flint striker?

 

[Zinnia]

Easy, girl, easy...

A great sigh of relief pushed its way out of Zinnia as Kilien moved off to tend to making the campfire. She was no stranger to the fact that she wore her emotions on her sleeve, and how easy it would be for someone like the initiate to push her buttons. She was supposed to be the superior here, with all the professionalism that was meant to entail.

Having someone effectively under her command was something Zinnia doubted she'd ever adjust to. Kilien was cooperative and efficient, just not in the ways Zinnia had come to expect in her time at the Academy. Authority was an odd thing to wield.

Thankfully, an opportunity presented itself for her to participate.

"Oh! I can h-handle that!" Zinnia announced, stepping forward and kneeling next to Kilien by the unlit fire. She placed her fingers on some of the wood pieces, near their bases, and channeled fire from her battery.

One by one the pieces ignited at her touch, and before long the fire was going strong. She glanced over towards Kilien with a smile.

"There we go, no problem," she said, brushing some stray hair out of her face. "Oh, and th-thank you for getting it all set up, too."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Now that was another neat trick. She was just full of em. Even if he might've been able to light it with a spell and his wand had he the mana to spare, it was always interesting to see other mages at work. Such variety of power and skill and he'd yet to bore from experiencing it.

"I've made a campfire or two before," Kilien remarked back at her with a wink, "would rather be out campin' than stuffed in that tinder box of an Academy."

A place that seemed liable to explode for various reasons at any given time. He pushed himself back to his feet and meandered back over to the horses to rummage through the saddle packs.

"Now what have we got for some grub..."

 

[Zinnia]

Oh Kress, he winked. It had been some time since she'd last been flirted with...and Silas had been the one to do it back then. Even still, she found herself enjoying the attention. It came infrequently, and...well, Kilien was attractive. Like, really attractive. Gods, it almost felt unfair how easily he was making Zinnia blush at this point.

Stop it. Stop. It!

Zinnia shook herself and followed suit with Kilien by moving to her own horse. The pouches on her saddlebags were visibly different, more specialized, than ordinary ones. They were holdovers from the special gear she'd collected in her time as an initiate, several of which were designed to work with her magic.

"I've got this covered, too," she said, selecting a couple of specific pouches that popped free from the saddlebags, as well as her own backpack. She returned to the fire and began to take out cookware from her backpack, then butter and oil from some of the pouches.

"Okay so...d-don't judge me, but I work out. A lot. So I also eat...a lot. And I like my food to taste good, s-so I picked up cooking as a hobby," Zinnia explained as she prepped a big, shallow pan. Then she opened one of her larger pouches, cold fog rolling out of it, and slid a well sized slab of meat from within. "How's prime rib and vegetables sound?"