Private Tales Finesse

[Rafael]

Rafael was shivering violently, despite the warmth of the sun and the humidity in the air. His entire body shook, as though he were enduring the worst type of cold.

His head shook from side to side. "I-I don't know why it took us out here."

The Cortosi admitted.

"It's smarter than the wolves." Though hardly common, most people were at least aware of werewolves. Though there were all sorts of afflictions of a similar nature, all of the stories always tended to be about Lycans. Perhaps because they were the most vain. "P-p-pro-probably knew it wouldn't be seen."

Rafael remarked. "B-but-"

He stopped suddenly, catching a scent in the air. His head turned, and he glanced down at Tulio, as if the dog would confirm something.

"I-Shit." Rafael said, taking in a deep breath. "Th-The monster, it's been here...a lot."

The Cortosi remarked.

 

[Trix]

Trix gripped the hilt of her sword and cast her eyes around their surroundings searching for any sign of the monster. The forest behind them was quiet though and ahead stretched rolling plains and mountains beyond. The only other thing of note was a tiny little hut that sat alongside the river that looked to be a fisherman's out post. Even from here it appeared abandoned. Could it be going there to meet with someone in secret away from the city?

"Here," she sighed and let go of her sword to peel her shirt up and over her head leaving her in just her corset beneath. "Your teeth are chattering so loud the monster could hear us a mile away," she frowned and handed out the balled up shirt.

"Come on, let's go check out the hut. It's the only thing around here."

 

[Rafael]

Rafael shook his head. ”N-n-not c-cold.”

The mercenary explained with a shake of his head, though notably he did not stop Trix from stripping herself. His hand was still shaking as he took her shirt, a small, although rather pathetic smile on his face.

”Ad-ad-adrenaline.” He explained. ”Hormones, c-can’t regulate well after the transformation.”

It always went back to normal after a day or two, but directly after his body tended to be a mess. His muscles became either much stronger than they usually were or rendered themselves entirely useless. His sense of smell sometimes more on point, or so sensitive as to be painful. His eyes?

More than once he’d gone blind after transforming, though after he’d gotten Tulio that had become less of a problem.

Though he held no particular distaste for Silver, or a plant like wolfsbane, Rafaels transformations came with their own host of problems. Not to mention his beast was more intelligent than any pup.

”T-tulio h-had my change of clothes.” The Guard had taken that too when the hounds satchels had been confiscated. ”But, y-es.”

Rafael said as he slipped on the shirt. ”Lets g-go.”

 

[Trix]

Adrenaline? Trix tucked that nugget of information away. He looked as though he might trip or fall at the slightest bump in their path so the Dreadlord stayed close in case she needed to catch him or hold out a hand. Not that she would have been able to do much with her own injury if it were a bad fall unless she planned on going down with him. Still, it seemed... the right thing to do. That kind of conscientious thinking did not come naturally to Trix but she tried to follow it when it did present itself.

Each step was agony and by the time they reached the cabin her footprints were a mesh of blood and earth behind them. She waved at the ground to disperse it tiredly lest the monster find their scent.

She drew her sword as they approached the door.

"Be ready to run," she said half heartedly and pushed open the door.

 

[Rafael]

Rafael tried very hard to ignore the blood left on the ground.

His head was already swimming, but the scent was strong. It made his hackles go up, and despite getting rid of the shakes, Trix's blood made Rafael about as tense as could be. When she glanced over her shoulder and told him to be ready to run, the Cortosi only chuckled.

"Sure." He said, though the way the word sounded was hardly encouraging to the actual prospect happened.

A loud thud echoed on the door as Trix knocked.

Seconds passed, and then no sound could be heard. A frown touched the Cortosi's lips, and with a gesture he motioned for Trix to stand aside. He took a breath, his bare feet shifting, and then he kicked the door in. There was a loud shattering thud as the werebats strength came to bare, the door shattering and falling in.

The inside of the house was quickly revealed. A small, cozy cabin with only two rooms. A small fire had been made in the corner fireplace, and on the bed lay a figure; humanoid though...off somehow. Cuts, bruises, and bandages covered him nearly from head to toe.

In an instant, Rafael caught the scent. "It's him."

He said simply.

 

[Trix]

"That shadow thing... is him?" Trix looked at Rafael in disbelief. She had known he must have had either a master or some other form, but the sight before her was a pitiful one not suiting the monstrous beast who had nearly killed them both. She was almost angered by his meekness.

Her hand tightened on the hilt of her blade.

"Hello? Can you hear us?" She stepped inside, her foot squelching in her boot.

 

[Rafael]

Rafael almost seemed to flinch at the squelch of Trix's boot, taking a long sidestep away from her. "Yes."

He said, confirming to the Dreadlord that the demure figure trapped upon the bed was indeed the man who had been chasing them up and down this little slip of land.

"I've never been more s-" He seemed to shirk slightly as he took a step closer to the sleeping man, the beast in his head suddenly thrashing against whatever mental trap kept him in place. A hand immediately snapped out, catching against a nearby chair as Rafael steadied himself. "Sure."

The Cortosi finished, Tulio letting out a concerned whine.

As Trix shouted to the figure on the bed, she would notice it stay completely still. His form never stirring or even moving in the slightest. Deep wounds decorated his form, some bandaged, others left open to the air. One apparently abandoned mid treatment.

 

[Trix]

"Well, he's breathing. Just," Trix said after feeling for a pulse and counting the thirty seconds required. It was weak but there. She skimmed the wounds but her talents did not lay in the art of healing beyond herbology. Nothing she knew about that would heal gaping holes in chest cavities though. Instead she looked for other medical supplies and found bandages, setting rods and pliers that were red with the man's blood.

"Whoever was patching him up left in a hurry. Maybe they sensed ... you..r bat approaching," she eyed up the setting rods then seemed to note Rafael's pinched face.

"I don't think you should be in here with all this blood... Why don't you wait outside? I need to... set my foot," she grimaced. It would have been better with two but she would rather not have it chomped off by a bat.

 

[Rafael]

Rafael, through deep labored breaths, observed the unconscious man upon the men.

His wounds were bad, worse than he’d thought he’d done to the man. Briefly he played the scene through in his head, but found only flickering flashes of memory. Small scores of movement as he peered through the monsters eyes.

”It must have torn into him pretty bad.” He said, frowning. ”No wonder he ran.”

The mercenary said, looking down and offering Trix a glance as she suggested his absence. A frown touched his lips for a brief moment, but after a second more he nodded. ”I…yeah…probably a good idea.”

Rafael said, frowning at the unconscious man for a brief moment more before he slowly turned away. His vision blurred as he moved, and he could feel the tension flickering through his muscles. Slowly fingers unfurled, clutching onto the back of a chair as he hobbled his way out of the shack.

Pressure began to build, and as he reached the door, his hand seemed to stall upon it’s frame.

 

[Trix]

"Err... Raf?"

Her foot was half out of her foot but she had stopped everything when she had noticed he had not taken the final step outside. He seemed to shudder as though fighting something... something inside to get out. Did the bat not want to leave? Did it want to finish off what it had started? Or did it only now intend to try and eat her? Her fingers eased to the sheath against her thigh where her dagger rested. If the blasted thing tried she would give it the worst indigestion of it's life.

"You need to go... out the door."

 

[Rafael]

Raf felt a spike of bile in his throat, fingers tightening on the back of the chair as he drew in a hitched breath. He ignored Trix's voice. The willpower to even speak escaping him as he focused entirely on the task at hand. Swallowing, he moved to take another step forward through the threshold of the door.

As he did so, his skin seemed to crawl.

Goosebumps rose over his flesh, and he could begin the tearing of his muscles. "Fuck."

He knew the signs. Knew what was happening. Briefly he wondered why the damned thing had even bothered to transform back in the first place. Why had it bothered to keep Trix alive? Something was-his knees suddenly fell out from underneath him, legs weakening in an instant and sending him crashing to the floor.

A pained roaring screech escaping his mouth as his body began to twist and change.

"I don't think…" Raf said, dragging himself against the floor. "I don't think it wants to go…"

He complained.

 

[Trix]

Trix let out a string of vulgar curse words and forced the boot back on over her rapidly swelling ankle. Agony made colours bloom behind her closed lids but she cursed her way through it. Cursed more as she gathered the supplies she would need, and continued cursing all the way as she stomped out the door. Well, stomped was a generous way of describing the angry limp.

She didn't stop until she was a good distance away then flopped down onto one of the scattered river rocks. There she finally allowed herself to take off her boot and examine her ankle. Bone had punctured through the skin and jutted out in a way that made bile rise in her throat. Her father would never let her hear the end of it if he heard she had broken her ankle from falling off a horse. Her. An Umbra. She groaned and then with clenched teeth dunked her foot into the cold river and gave a strangled cry of pain.

Followed by even vulgar curses.

 

[Rafael]

A few moments after Trix sat herself down, uttering the string of vulgar curses, Tulio came loping up behind her. The armored plates upon the dog clanked as he trotted up to the Dreadlord. His tail wagging and his mouth open in a soft pant. Tulio sat himself down besides Trix, looking at her with a rather happy puppy smile.

Just a few seconds later, a blood curdling scream echoed from the cabin back in the clearing.

 

[Trix]

"I have nothing for you," Trix looked at the dog who rested his head on her thigh and deepened the puppy stare. "You can blame him, he made my horse fuck off with my supplies," still, she scratched him behind the ears and whilst it was not the treat he was scrounging for his tail thumped enthusiastically. The Dreadlord couldn't help her smile.

She was just working up the courage to remove her foot from the river to bind when the scream ripped through the clearing. Both she and the dog whipped their heads towards the sound.

"Why do I not think that that was Rafael..." she asked the dog who merely looked at her innocently.

 

[Rafael]

Tulio let out a low whine at Trix's words, but the sound didn't not mask the second scream which echoed out not a short while later.

After that, silence loomed. Only the sound of the rivers water flowing by.

It was almost thirty minutes after the screams stained the air that Rafael appeared once more from the cozy little cabin. He wore clothing, this time, though it was stained and torn. He hobbled, just as he had on his way down from the mountain, though somehow even worse.

He looked haggard, broken. As though a strong breeze was enough to knock him over.

Tulio's head rose as the Cortosi approached, though he did not move from Trix's side. His tail began to wag at an almost incessant speed, and if one had a knowledge of helicopters they might have thought he was about to take off.

As he reached them, Rafael sat himself down. His hand first stroked slowly over the Hounds head, smiling down at the little dog.

"Hey buddy." He said softly, his voice a rasp. Then he looked over towards Trix. "Think this belongs to you guys."

Raf said, offering the former Dreadlord what he'd been holding in his other hand. What appeared to be a small patch which would usually be sown onto a jacket, a patch depicting the symbol of the Dreadlords, though different.

A change which Trix might have recognized, and labeled this particular symbol as belonging to the Forsaken.

 

[Trix]

Trix used the time to bind her foot.

Pushing her bone back into place was the most agonising part that threatened to send her into unconsciousness, but once the pain passed and she could breathe without feeling as though fire lived in her lungs, she was able to bind it in place. It was a botched job and a mockery of any skilled healer but for the field it would do. It had to do. She was just cleaning the blood off of her hands when Rafael returned. She watched him warily for any signs of the turn but none came, though she still shifted down a little on the rock to put space between them. Not that it would do much good if he became a bat but it helped.

Her whole face changed when she beheld the symbol.

"That's not..." the forsaken such as they had been had been disbanded and amalgamated into the Guard. Sure, their work meant they joined ranks and orders where they would not meet with people, but the cruel Forsaken unit that had existed before was meant to be gone. Buried. Yet the word possible died on her tongue. Clearly it was possible for it stared at her now.

"What did you do to him?"

How much did he know?

 

[Rafael]

Rafael belched.

"I didn't do anything." The Cortosi said, scowling slightly, looking down at his feet and letting out a long haggard breath. Tulio looked up at him, shifting so that he could lay down on Rafael's lap as if commiserating. Resting easily as the werebat stroked a hand over his fur.

"The bat didn't like him." Rafael murmured. "Framed us for murder, tried to take a chunk out of us twice."

His lips pressed together as he shrugged. "Damned things too fucking smart."

The words were quiet, a curse for himself, not for Trix.

 

[Trix]

Trix gave him one of those wary, side-eye glances that lingered as though she were trying to see beneath the flesh to the bat within to judge for herself just how tightly that thing was locked up. Thank Kress her blood was gone now, though from the smell of the mans breath she didn't think he would be hungry for long. Her stomach clenched at the thought.

Swallowing her bile she looked down once more at the badge in her hand.

"Do you know what this is?"

 

[Rafael]

For a long moment Rafael didn't say anything, he only stroked his fingers slowly over Tulio's head. "Saw one like it once."

He said eventually, more than a few minutes having passed. His voice didn't shake anymore as he spoke, probably because of the heavy cloak wrapped around his shoulders.

"Battlefield outside, Salesia." Rafael glanced briefly over towards Trix, waiting to see if she knew where it was. When he saw the recognition in her eyes he continued. "I remember who was wearing it, struck me as strange at the time."

He reached up and flicked his ears. "She had some pointy ears for one of yours."

Rafael shrugged his shoulders.

"She was a pretty thing, but didn't think I was faster." He chuckled. "Never asked many more questions than that."

His eyes glanced towards Trix. "Don't really want to either."

 

[Trix]

Trix held his gaze and seemed to weigh up his words alongside whatever she saw there. In the end she must have deemed it enough for she slid the patch into a pocket in her breeches and let the magic that had been brewing suddenly vanish.

"It raises a lot more questions than it answers," she frowned as they watched the river roll past. "The monster was hired by someone - someone with access to a group that doesn't exist - meaning they are very important," she took a deep breath. The last she had heard the Forsaken had been swept into a specialist unit that could continue the shadowy work they had done under the old ways. Just with a false sense of new freedom. That didn't mean those important enough couldn't access them too.

 

[Rafael]

Rafael continued to gently stroke his fingers over Tulio's fur. "Probably."

He said with a shrug, figuring it was above his paygrade.

Framing him had been a move of convenience, that much they could figure easy now. The whole thing had probably happened by accident, and had only been solidified due to the convenience. This whole ball of yarn had never been meant to be unraveled.

Yet here they were.

"I didn't look through the place." He offered. "It's a bit..."

Rafael frowned. "Messy, but looks like he'd been living there for a while."

Meaning he'd probably left something behind they could use.

 

[Trix]

"And you want me to look because of that," she resisted the urge to pat her pocket. Trix couldn't say she blamed the lad for thinking that way; if she wasn't a Dreadlord she would keep out of anything that resembled as such. Especially when it had come from a creature like... that. She let out a suffering sigh through her nose and then forced herself up off the boulder. Her foot was agony but she managed to limp her way back across the mossy path to the house once more.

She cast one glance at the bed to make sure Raf had finished the job properly, then turned her attentions to the rest of the room.

There was little in the way of a desk which was always the best place to start looking. Aside from the bed, however, and the table of medical supplies, there was little else there. A shabby living area and a blackened pot over the meagre fire. A bookcase with barely anything on it. Hunting gear in the corner. She drifted to the bookcase and flicked through the few volumes there were.

 

[Rafael]

Rafael shrugged. ”Figure it’s really none of my business.”

He was a mercenary, he didn’t care much about anything except for himself…and his dumb little dog.

A small smile touched his face as he looked at Tulio, reaching over to scruffle the hounds neck as Trix gently pulled herself up. He motioned towards the dog, and without a whimper or bark the four legged companion quickly followed after Trix.

By the time she began to inspect the bookcase, Tulio was sniffing around the room. Seemingly searching in assistance of the Dreadlord.

As she began to peruse the shelves however, she would find not works of fiction or study, but instead record books. Dozens upon dozens of ledgers and assorted documents. All seemingly connected to a corporation named simply; A&R Enterprises.

A corporation seemingly operated out of the Anirian city of Arnim. Just a few dozen miles from where they were now.

 

[Trix]

Trix frowned as she reafed through ledger after ledger. There was information about shipments, supplies for things such as food and medicine, but nothing that would scream out important enough to steal. At the back of her mind, however, that name niggled at her. She pocketed the latest ledger and then turned to the rest of the room. Her eyebrow rose when she saw Tulio with his head in a large woven basket snuffling at something.

"Get out of there, you're going to get your head stuck," she sighed, limping to the dog and hurling him out by the scruff. What she saw inside however gave her pause. Slowly she withdrew the jacket folded up neatly under piles of sheets and stared at the insignia on the arm.

"Fuck."

She was outside a moment later, hobbling her way to Raf minus jacket and Tulio in tow.

"We need to leave. Now."

 

[Rafael]

"Uh oh." Rafael said, as he pulled himself up from the little grassy patch of ground.

Tulio looked up at him, tail still wagging. It was clear the hound didn't exactly understand what was going on, but he was pretty happy to be included. The wide smile that spread over his snout told that story easily enough.

Even with the hint of panic in the air coming off of Trix, the little dog was just happy that his human had made a friend. "What's going on now?"

He asked.

"More of them?" It was a joke, but...not really. That would be just their fucking luck. Four more of those monsters coming down onto their heads. He was sure though that they had gotten the one that attacked them, and the one who had 'framed' him.

So what could it possibly be she was so worried about?