Private Tales For What Do We Bleed?

[Elijah]

Nem looked at the mercenary incredulously and then to Elliot with a have you ever seen the dictionary definition of stupid before? look before turning back to the buffet laid before them.

"How you manage to put your socks on in the morning is a marvel," she muttered dryly to a few pops of laughter from some of the others standing in line who had happened to overhear the conversation. It was a motley crew who broke their fast together today; soldiers, criminals and mercenaries only here for coin. Not the usual kind of company yet a fragile kind of peace and companionship had settled over most. Nem led the little band over to one of the less busy fires and the witty back and forth slowed so they could eat.

It wasn't long after that that Elijah appeared looking several shades of Hell.

He seemed to drop rather than sit on the floor with his own food and a grunted good morning for the group before launching straight into business.

"We leave in an hour," most of the camp was down. "A scout just informed me they have eyes on Stannis' troops on the move. If we want to keep our lead from her that's the longest break I can give the injured. So, are you staying or going?" he asked, not bothering to look up as he spooned some porridge into his mouth.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

"Careful," Elliot said to Taros. "You'll upset our equine friend." Then a knowing glance to Nemythia. No, of course you're not going to get upset by our frivolous banter.

"In actual fact," Taros said, glancing with a tight smile from Winnipeg to Elliot. "I believe I'd pay good coin to see how a centaur puts socks on their hind legs."

"Make a wager then," Elliot said, collecting up onto his woven plate a variety of things more appetizing than the traveler's flatbread. They made a facetious bet together, him and Taros, about whether or not centaurs could even get socks onto their hind legs unassisted by tools or other people. Neither truly had the intention of seeing the wager borne out.

Taros, meanwhile as they all sat and ate in a loose circle, considered his plan. It was good that Elliot had said "our" equine friend. That the two of them were fraternizing together. Such would make it easier to capture him, when the time came. Trust, in whatever measure, was a deadly weapon, after all.

Then came the captain, looking exactly how one would look being in the tender care of Gloria Stannis for several days straight. For all of Elliot's misgivings toward Elijah, he nevertheless felt a touch of sympathy for the man's haggard condition. Now if only he could see that this was exactly what he was condoning upon other men of Dornoch. That he was an active participant in perpetuating their suffering.

Elliot answered his question. "I'm still here, am I not?"

Then, after taking a bite of some freshly cooked meat, Elliot said further to Elijah. "You might like Oban. You can be the one wearing the boot for a change."

Instead of merely assisting its crushing efforts.

Elijah Lyssia D'avore

 

[Elijah]

Elijah's lips pressed into a thin line. Yes, he was still here. He'd hoped quite fervently that he wouldn't be for it would keep his conscious clear but the Gods seemed to be sending him test after test. He was stirring the porridge when the other man followed it up with his next comment and the Captain raised his eyes to fix him with a dark, unfathomable look.

He was not quite the blind fool that Elliot seemed to have pegged him off. When he patrolled the streets he was not blind to the inequalities in life. Dornoch was praised because of its strong female leaders by half a world which oppressed its women. Simply turning the tables around and putting the other gender down as the oppressed was not to be lauded. This, Elijah knew. Yet he did not consider himself to not be wearing the metaphorical boot Elliot spoke of. In his position - a position he had earnt - he could change things. Had change things. The ranks of the army were now more open to men because of him. Their decorated shoulders were because he had paved the way and proven their worth.

Oh, the Captain wanted changed. He just didn't see it coming from Elliot's methods.

He turned instead to Lyssia and his expression softened somewhat.

"Will you be ready to leave within the hour?"

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Elijah's appearance managed to shift her from her introspection, but it was not necessarily for the better. The haggard way that the man moved sent ice picks of guilt through her heart, and made the ice in her guts even colder. She watched as he moved through the camp, his physical distress as palpable as a slap to the face.

To her, it was. No matter how he protested that it was his decision to get involved in this nightmare, that it was his duty to stand in the proverbial fire...she could not simply forget that it was she who brought him into the fold in the first place. If not for that, he would remain relatively ignorant of the troubles that boiled below the surface of the Dynasty, and would not have stuck his foot in the mire of her own making.

Of course, had she not, then there would be no reason to be near. In the beginning - hazy as it was now, with the weight of her own ministrations at the hand of Stannis pulling her down - in the beginning, she had not wanted his help. In the beginning, she hadn't wanted anyone's help. And now...

Elijah's icy eyes fell on her and for a moment she found herself locked eye to tired eye. Such a mixture of emotion rolled through her then, and she turned away with her cheeks aflame as though the look was a gentle caress. She wondered, suddenly, if he remember that she had shared his bed but the night before. The memory made her even more uncomfortable, and stirred that simmering pot of feelings inside a little more. As if she needed that among all the other problems here.

The camp. The soldiers that thought so little of her - and probably rightly so. The mercenaries, the thugs and criminals that thought even less of her - and the Erdeniin soldiers - than those selfsame soldiers did.

Stannis, somewhere behind them. K'ionte, in Dornoch at the center of her web.

Unsure if he was talking to her, or to the others, she nodded while deliberately not looking him in the eyes. "If I'd had another hour to sleep," she said in a low voice, but shook her head. "I'll...I'll be fine. Be ready," she said. "I won't slow you down and hold you back," she said without really believing herself. She longed to be on firmer ground, to be in a place where she could be useful. Her place was not in combat or in the field.

No choice right now, though. Gloria would not waste any time, and she had to trust in herself that she would not get them all killed. The weight of what Elijah had done already hung heavily on him, and she wished with all her might that she could be something other than a burden to him; the others didn't matter to her.

Just him.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

Elliot took some satisfaction in seeing captain's strained expression--the pursed lips, the dark look. It was a base and indulgent thing, this satisfaction, "unworthy of the disciplined mind's consideration" as the Dreng'toth would say, yet he felt it all the same. Perhaps the captain was finally having difficulty wrestling with his decisions in life. But, being a sycophant, this rare moment of clarity would erode in timely fashion, and he would snuggle back into comfortable bondage soon enough.

Despite his low estimation of the captain in other regards, he was, at the very least, willing to fight--willing to kill--if it became necessary.

Elliot glanced to Lyssia. There truly was not much more to be expounded on concerning her. Elliot expected hear at some point in the future news of her death, her foes triumphing over the final nail hammered in the House of D'avore's coffin. Inevitable, her focus on peace to be crushed by her foes' focus on war--there would come a situation in which even the captain could not save her, his bloody hands overmatched. She had a laudable awareness of this. And so she said she would not slow the captain down or hold him back.

"Good," Elliot said. Chance might hold her to her word, or it might not. Even if she lived and made it across the Strait into Dalriada, she couldn't be counted on to achieve anything. And so Elliot's own plan would continue along, remaining the single best hope for both Oban and Dornoch.

He rose up from his spot on the ground, Taros watching him. Elliot had no mount, no traveling gear, and so there wasn't much for him to do in preparation save wait.

Lyssia D'avore Elijah

 

[Elijah]

Elijah held her gaze prisoner as he searched their depths for the truth behind the words. Exhaustion was the prevailing thing he saw but all of his men were, and the stragglers they would now also apparently have to drag along behind them. He couldn't slow things down because of her least they all get caught. The thought of returning back to that box, to that tent, and the knives was not one he shirked from per see but it did turn him cold. Eventually he released her with a firm nod. He would have to take her at her word.

"Divide the spare horses out to the new men joining us," he said to Nym as he turned back to his porridge. The Centauress has actually laid down much to Taros odd joy, to eat, but she rose now onto all four hooves and gave a stomp of approval. "See that they carry some of the load," lessening the weight amongst them all would make their moving quicker.

"Yessir," she clapsed a fist over her heart, bowed and then set off at a trot to bark orders.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Some imagined grain of doubt flickered in Elijah's eyes, an her worn mind took that poisonous seed and planted it somewhere fertile: within the nest of self-doubt that lie within her soul. Here, it could grow wild and unchecked.

It was but a matter of time. The Captain's nod released her from the spell of his gaze - one that she did not wish to break and couldn't wait to in equal parts. She looked on as he gave his orders, then returned to eating what was probably the first thing to enter his mouth in days. The mere thought of food upset her stomach, such as it was.

Instead, she went over her own troubles. The burns on her wrists hurt abominably, the marks likely to be as permanent as the vicious scars on her arms would be. If they ever healed. Blood wept from one of the unhealing cuts even then, and that from getting up and simply brushing it against something. No amount of binding seemed to keep the lacerations closed; they needed stitching, but the last set of stitches had burst and there had been no time to do anything about it before everything went completely insane.

And so she sat in silence, and waited. She did not know the way of a martial camp and so stayed out of the way as tents were broken, gear was stowed and packed onto the back of pack horses. A woman eventually turned up with a horse, the reins wordlessly handed over to her before hurrying off to deal with some other detail of departure; for her part, she simply struggled to mount the beast. She was short, and it was taller than she was at the withers.

All there was to do was to wait.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

"I'm not riding backsaddle."

Taros, mounted on his own horse, again patted the saddlebag behind himself. Half in jest, half serious, his offer to Elliot. "I made sure to pack it with balls of cotton and blankets woven by your grandmother, just so it would be extra comfortable. What's the harm, eh?"

Elliot stood steadfast in his decision. He leaned lightly against a tree, his arms crossed. Others around the camp were tossing bags onto the backs of horses, mounting up themselves. Traces of the campsite were being covered up, evidence dispersed, as best as possible within the tight timeframe--the finishing touches before they were all officially on the move.

The sight of Lyssia struggling to mount the horse provided for her caught Elliot's attention. He watched for a short moment. Impassive, dry observation. Then he looked back up to Taros, smiling lightly.

"I'd sooner walk." He nodded toward the two sellswords behind Taros, each with their own loaned horse. "Or shoot one of them and take theirs."

"Hey," said one of the sellswords defensively.

Elliot ignored him. Said to Taros. "So I'll wait."

The last of the spare horses were currently still being distributed.

Lyssia D'avore Elijah

 

[Elijah]

"Here."

Elijah had disappeared as soon as he had finished his meal. He got the sense that a cloud hung over Lyssia and had the more unsettling sense that it had something to do with him. Feelings and issues that he simply didn't have time for when he had a band of nearly forty now to command and lead to safety. They believed in him and his job was to be more than just Lyssia's support through this treacherous path of treason. So once he had an excuse not to be sitting he was off. Here there and everywhere. Packing down tents, shouting orders, ignoring Nym's disapproving glare when he wasn't resting or saving his strength.

He had just nodded Elliots way when a young stablehand had asked who the roan mare he was holding should go to, when he spotted Lyssia.

"Let me," she didn't weigh a lot and it was easy enough to give her a boost up onto the tall leggy black horse with a single white sock that had been given to her. Once she was on he offered a weak smile and patted her thigh. Someone better probably would have offered words but he was no wordsmith. The pat would have to do. His pretended to be fiddling with her girth as he continued.

"Elliot knows Oban well... he could be of use on the crossing. Do you trust him?"

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

She blinked at Elijah's words, unexpected as they were. A rude hand on the rump to get her up onto the back of a horse clearly too large for her left her feeling equal parts grateful and mortified at the familiarity the Captain showed her. Almost, some traitorous part of her mind - quiet until now - whispered its ironic song, as though you did not voluntarily sleep on the same cot as him last night. She had to look away to hide the burning of her cheeks, cursing herself for some foolish girl fretting over some boy she liked.

It wasn't like that, anyway. He was either below her station or far above it, depending upon the viewpoint. Anyway, he wouldn't have returned any feelings for her for basically the same reasons.

The next familiar touch only made her cheeks burn all the hotter, only tied the knot in her guts even harder. The question he asked was a blessing in disguise, a way to turn her thoughts from truly girlish worries to more important things. A sobering thought, almost enough to drive the ever-present question surrounding Elijah away.

Almost.

"He...," she began, and finally looked back towards the Erdeniin Captain. Traces of red still stained her cheeks. "I do not know," she said slowly. Slowly, but not finally; given something to think on other than her own troubles, she threw her mind into gear and chased down some kind of an answer.

They had spoken, and she had gleaned something of the man. She was not necessarily worldly, but she was trained in the subtleties of people. Elliot tickled a certain sense in her, hinted at the kind of man he was.

"I trust him to follow his convictions, wherever they lead him," she said at last. "It will make him much more predictable, less likely to do something completely unexpected." She spoke with a sureness she did not feel, but she at least felt that the shape of the criminal's mind and his motives were accurate. "I personally know less and little of Oban, so...his knowledge might be helpful. And with that horrid woman behind us..."

She shivered. The ministrations Elijah had suffered were more severe, but the scars on her wrists and the ones in her mind and her heart were no less real than the physical ones Elijah bore. Gloria had not broken her. She hadn't! And yet...there was fear at encountering the woman and being at her mercy again. "I can speak less of the other criminals we picked up." Her eyes flickered towards Taros, head unmoving. "Of the mercenary, I can speak nothing. But of Elliot...he is a man of some principles, driven to his own goal and he won't betray those. If we can maneuver to keep our goals aligned until we have no further use of him..."

It felt dirty to employ the same tactics that their enemies did - to use people to their own ends and cast them aside - but there were few options. Especially given that the man in question was completely willing to kill - not by his own hand, but by his actions - tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of souls.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

Riding the roan mare, Elliot fell in line to the eventual file that formed from the departing force of soldiers, sellswords, and criminals. Not completely to the back (this was subtly not allowed by a rearguard of centaurs), but close to it.

He'd not heard a word of the conversation between Elijah and Lyssia, nowhere close enough to even catch a portion of it before the force had started on the move.

Without (yet) any quips or commentary from Taros, Elliot had a moment to himself. Provided all went well and he found himself across the Strait and on Obanese soil, he'd have to consider his next moves carefully: how best to capitalize on his momentum. He'd secured a useful false identity in Oban, struck a deal with the powerful Lamia Nysia, recruitment of more free men and women was steady, and now he also expected to have a clearer picture of how Stannis and her minions would operate on "the day." He still needed some components--trained griffins, stolen uniforms and insignias, strictly alchemical explosives, intelligence on key targets within Dornoch, and of course ever more resources, coin, to make it all happen--but things were proceeding along. Elements were slowly coming together, coalescing into an actionable plan.

His gaze settled on Lyssia for a moment, before trailing to the road ahead once more.

Another difference between them. She was stumbling in the dark, tripping over her own ideals instead of being empowered by them, accidentally making progress if she indeed happened to make progress at all. She had no plan, and essentially confessed as much when he had asked her about it. Without the captain, she would have nothing at all.

Hers was a road to nowhere. Elliot had no doubt that everything he told her would prove prophetic, though he would take no pride in it. What good would it do for the sons of Dornoch and the daughters of Oban if Lyssia failed, where instead she could have been profoundly successful and brought them the betterment they deserved?

A chance. That was what Elliot had to offer. A costly chance, but one that could end centuries of tyranny if the downtrodden of Dornoch and Oban seized the day.

Lyssia D'avore Elijah

 

[Elijah]

Elijah mulled over Lyssia's thoughts on the matter as the group moved out. They had to go at a slower pace than he might have liked due to the injured among them - himself included - but it at least gave him time to think over what to do next. It made sense to use Elliot whilst he was here; getting into Oban had nearly killed them last time. Using his contacts might go against his better judgement but... when the need was righteous. Gypsy pranced under him, stretching out her wings then folding them in in the way she did when she wanted to fly but he couldn't let her.

"Sorry girl," he murmured then guided her over instead to Elliot with a nod for Lyssia to follow him.

"As you are sticking with the party until we get to Oban, what was your plan in crossing?"

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Elijah gave no indication of what he thought of her idea, and that suited her just fine. For now, at least. Her thoughts were not really on Elliot at the moment, in any case; they were on the twisted woman that lie somewhere on the road behind them.

Gloria. There were probably more people of a mind with that harridan than Lyssia was prepared to admit to, especially in Erdeniin. Zealots that believed in the world being a certain way, and that everyone had a place in that world that was determined by birth. That Lyssia had shared some part of that view at one point - nobility were better by birth, more deserved of the privileges they held simply by better pedigree - only served to rub salt into the open wounds so recently laid open. Unknown to her, she still held to those notions - that there was a place for each in the world. The difference was that she felt that the fall from grace had left her a spoiled, worthless thing. Maybe not consciously, but somewhere below the surface that idea remained.

But something railed against that idea, railed bitterly against it. The silent war within her soul went on without her direct notice, and that was just as well.

Lyssia booted the gelding under her gently and with the practice of one used to riding, and the beast responded by cantering on, riding to the left and slightly behind Elijah - an unconscious concession to the status she was earned and only doubled down on since being cast aside.

When they caught up to Elliot, the girl could only sit back and look at the man through hooded eyes. Her mind ran in circles, trying to think of a way forward. Unfortunately, taking charge of the situation was a fools game; Elijah had the rank, Nem and the rest of the soldiers saw her as a burden at best, and a traitorous threat at worst.

Oh, and Elliot seemed to believe that she was either a fool or a delusional servant to some dark empire.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

The captain came beside him, and Elliot glanced over.

Matters of their present course. Perhaps Stannis had caught them all by surprise, Lyssia and the captain and their rogue companions, and making a hasty crossing beyond the Strait was their best option now. Had it not happened, Stannis's coalition befalling them, what was their plan here in the lands of Erdeniin, Elliot wondered. They were all enemies of the state--an admirable position. Yet, so far as Elliot could tell, their rebellion seemed to amount to little more than aimless wandering and fantasizing about idealistic goals achieved through unrealistic means.

Then again, it made sense that Lyssia would have spoken as she had yesternight, and that the captain strictly adhered to a code of silence sparingly interrupted by as few words as possible. They revealed nothing, and of course. It was only thin and extraordinary circumstance which made Gloria their enemy, Elliot their ally. He didn't delude himself on this matter. Where it not for Gloria's looming presence, Elliot had no doubt that the captain would've tried to take his head.

Nevertheless, here they were.

"There is a town to the southeast, Tsagaan Ereg. I know someone there. A smuggler. This person will not be happy to see you."

A look back to Lyssia. "And less so to see you."

Back to the captain. "It's a small town. Large quantities of people or contraband is not their specialty."

And Elliot gave a side nod up toward the front of the column, to the other army rogues. "There won't be enough room for everyone."

Lyssia D'avore Elijah

 

[Elijah]

A mental map unfurled itself in Elijah's mind as Elliot named the placed he had intended on crossing - where they were all crossing it seemed, now. Maybe Nym had spoken to Elliots new best friend or one of the other criminals because it was the same name she had given him that morning when he had asked her opinion about where best to head now. He had thought at the time it was because it was one of the narrower stretches of water. He had to smile, albeit faintly, when he mentioned his smuggler friend would not be pleased to see him.

"You might be surprised, I imagine our faces are on wanted posters alongside yours. Being wanted makes people desperate, it's good for his kind of business," it was perhaps a rather insightful comment to be made by a Captain who should by all accounts rebelling at the idea of using a smuggler after his clear dislike of using the likes of Elliot. But he nodded with deep consideration at the rest of what Elliot had to say and even appeared to listen to it.

"Not everyone needs to cross," his voice rumbled deep low to keep their conversation between the three of them. His eyes flickered to Lyssia. "It is only really important myself and Lyssia cross to meet our contact."

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Dangerous.

The idea was dangerous, but nothing about what they had been doing since leaving the capital had been anything but. Separated from the soldiers that marched with them now, they would be at the mercy of Elliot and any other undesirables that might happen to be about. The disgraced noblewoman had quite lost her appetite for adventure long prior to this point; her arms ached from the slow healing wounds, her flesh dragged at her like lead weights. All around were enemies, save for Elijah. The soldiers? The only thing that kept them from binding her and hauling her back to Gloria was Elijah's firm hand, and the respect he had earned from those he commanded.

Just a slight twinge of jealousy, that he - a lowborn soldier - could command such respect when she herself commanded none. That, and a traitorous pride somewhere in her heart that he should command such loyalty.

Aloud, she did not say any of this. "As like to get a knife in the ribs from our contact as your smuggler friend," she said as calm and matter-of-fact as she could muster. She disliked the grey-skinned man, and made little effort in hiding it. "And that with or without the soldiers alongside us," she added.

Not her soldiers. Elijah's, but not hers. But for him, she would be utterly alone here...and even then, there seemed to be a distance that could not be spanned between the two of them, for all the travails they had endured on the road to this moment.

"He just needs to get us across the waters and we can go our separate ways," she said after a moment.

***

"Ereg." A pause, and a glance back toward the gathered soldiers and criminal scum. Truth to tell, they were all criminal scum, and deserved of little more than an ignoble death.

"Yes. They will attempt a crossing soon. You have been following parallel? Good. It should be little trouble."

A pause.

"Yes, mistress. There is no need to capture them, I understand."

Another, longer pause.

"The water we shall dye with their blood," the woman said to whoever it was she was talking. She looked back to Elliot, Lyssia, and Elijah, and smiled darkly. It was a shame that loyalty could be bought in so many ways, and while she was not truly going to enjoy some of what she had to do...well, the traitorous bitch being gutted like a fat carp was fine by her, and Elliot's blood would serve to whet her appetite for vengeance over that which she was being put through.

She turned, and walked away. A bird, black as the night, took wing and lofted itself skyward.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

Elliot had to wonder how the captain and Lyssia regarded that fact, their faces being on wanted posters. They had to loathe it. Lyssia especially. In no way did Elliot believe that either of them came close to regarding such a status as he himself did, that to be wanted dead by a corrupt regime was something akin to a mark of honor.

Not everyone needs to cross...only...myself and Lyssia...

"Good," Elliot said. "That will make negotiations easier."

Lyssia spoke, and Elliot glanced back her way. He smiled a little when Lyssia said "he."

But Elliot addressed what she had said prior. Their contact. First mentioned by the captain, then again by her. Someone with a fair chance to stab the two of them, so was Lyssia's estimation.

A touch amused, Elliot bantered, "Be sure to hide behind the captain when you meet your contact. While he's being stabbed, you can sue for peace."

Lyssia D'avore Elijah

 

[Elijah]

Elijah sighed.

Not this again.

He supposed to ask Elliot to not talk to Lyssia in such a fashion, and vice versa, was to ask them both to betray who they were as people. But gods was it annoying. He had enough of a headache that he didn't really need for this argument to rear its head as it had last night in the confines of his tent.

"At least it will not be the worst thing to have happened to me this week if so," he said before Lyssia could snap back. He also held up a hand in the hopes the physical request to cease stopped them both like petulant children. "None of us may see eye to eye, our reasons for doing what we are doing are different, but can we perhaps put that aside so we can have an easy journey?" There was a hint of a plea at the end of his sentence. A soldier used to nobles bickering and making his life harder on the road no doubt, and who had hoped not to find it here among these people of all places.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

She blinked at the comment, not recognizing banter for what it was. The look on her face might have been comical to those that did not know her well - essentially, everyone who was not the Captain at this point. The blood drained from her face, before being replaced by brilliant crimson in her pallid cheeks. Her eyes flashed.

One might have mistakenly thought she wasn't minutes from collapsing from exhaustion but a moment before.

Elijah's smooth interjection staved off an immediate, acidic retort. Given the extra moment to clear her head of the fiery vitriol she was ready and willing to unleash upon the crass fools head, she chose to bite her tongue and settled on glowering at Elliot malevolently. If looks could kill, they would have needed a spatula to scrape him off the trees hereabout.

"There will be no easy journey in present company," she remarked; the bite in her tone still carried the weight of sleepless nights in it. "Best to be about it and cut this as short as possible," she added, glaring at Elliot side-eyed.

To punctuate the remark, she kicked the gelding on which she sat into a trot - nearly toppling from the saddle for her efforts. This simply made her more angry and not a little embarrassed, and so she moved head of the pair of men. She wanted to scream in frustration over all of this - the beatings, the abuse, the lies and deceit, the framing, and the humiliation. Elliot simply served as a salt poultice for her wounds, and were it not for Elijah and the soothing effect his presence gave her, she might have already lost her temper and done something regretable.

They needed to get to the crossing, and the sooner the better.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

Elliot chuckled hearing the captain's response. "Right. Stannis favored you most with her tender mercies."

He could only guess as to why he hadn't suffered the same. Maybe it was that Stannis wanted her prize to be pristine (more or less) upon arrival into Dornoch, thinking it to make for a better showpiece prior to his inevitable execution. But Elliot did have a fair reckoning of why Stannis had been so fixated on the captain. Where Elliot was a criminal, despite his infamy, and Lyssia a traitor, despite her infamy, the captain was something that Gloria hated most of all: a man who dared be out of his assigned place.

The captain made a suggestion. In Elliot's case, it was redundant. If he had not put aside his misgivings, the dawn's light would've seen the camp vacated of his presence. No need to restate the obvious.

Lyssia, however.

Elliot watched her pull ahead, what inkling of mirth he had entertained flattening out into a neutral face. Her anger was hers to deal with--it would have command over her so long as she allowed it to. As such, it bothered Elliot none. He wasn't the man he had been in Dornoch, the man before learning with the Dreng'toth.

He glanced over to the captain, "That's a tall order for the resident noble."

A small shrug.

"I suppose you should go talk to her, and tell her you're not actually going to be stabbed."

There had been some facets of Lyssia's reaction that Elliot had recognized. Recognized, because he'd seen them before. Most notably in the Erdeniin dynasty member who had used him for her pleasure. The very same who had been killed.

Lyssia D'avore Elijah

 

[Elijah]

Elijah grimaced as Lyssia's retort and watched her trot away with that stiff back that screamed anger.

"My father once told me never to lie to an angry woman," he'd been nursing a bruised cheek sat on their back porch step when he had come home from what had passed as 'school' in those days for the street rat boys. It had turned out his mother had socked his father a good right hook for catching him in a lie about where he had been (not nursing his ailing mother in law as promised unless that meant pub in another tongue) when she had already been in a bad mood about the neighbour using their joined fence as her laundry line.

Women.

Eli glanced over to the other man with a raised brow.

"Unless you can promise I'm not going to get stabbed," his voice suggested how likely that was. Still, with a sigh that was the universal sound of a man getting ready to have his ears boxed in, Elijah nudged the pegasus into a trot to catch up with Lyssia.

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

Murderous rage crept in at all sides, despite her best efforts to suppress them. Elliot seemed quite capable of bringing out the worst of her temper, and she felt that he wasn't even trying to do it. The Erdeniin-born elfkin had a decidedly Obanese viewpoint of her and those who ruled in the Dynast.

Well, not quite; from his own words before, the oppression offered by Oban was seen little better in his eyes. Unless it was her and those who ruled the Dynast being put through their paces, anyway.

Men, she thought to herself with no small amount of rancor, exist to torment me. She scowled ahead, looking down a road mostly overgrown and little used. Erdeniin traffic to Oban was, unsurprisingly, infrequent. The road wound through the hills and patchy woodlands as it slowly descended to the sea. The morning sun glimmered off the water in the distance, the surface cut by chop as the wind rolled across the water from the north. The strait was narrow here, and from this higher elevation one could just - just - see the other side, a line blued with distance, low against the water. Nearer, where this winding track met the waters' edge, a town sprawled.

Tsagaan Ereg was, as Elliot had promised, not large. Perhaps twenty miles further south was the larger port of call, where ferries crossed the strait and the majority of trade made its way from the countries of the steppe and easterly and those of the Savannah and the Falwood and points west. Thisp lace was primarily a fishing community with just enough...other sources of income...to warrant some travel through.

Smuggling. She scowled all the harder. Nevermind that she had been involved in some rather illicit activities herself in the recent year...but that had been because she had no choice. The fact that some of those smugglers were no different than she she willfully remained oblivious to.

The sound of hooves crunch on the rocky soil behind her raised a flurry of irritation and unease, and she cast an eye back along the way. The rest of the group was far behind by now, but Elijah had made his way out at a brisk pace. Men, she thought darkly to herself. Something else in the back of her head laughed at her singular thought; she could not hide the truth from herself even had she wanted to.

Mostly couldn't hide it. She could - and certainly did - ignore the truth as an inconvenient bit of baggage she did not need at the moment.

"You can take any idea of being agreeable with that...that...," she began when he was within earshot, but words failed her. Her hands gripped the reins of the gelding so hard her knuckles popped and turned white. "...uncultured oaf," she finally managed, "and stuff them into your smallclothes." She bristled at the mere thought of dealing with Elliot again, and sawed the reins on the nameless gelding - who had done nothing to deserve the mistreatment - and wheeled the animal round.

Nearly unseating herself in the process.

"I would...I would never use you as a shield," she said quite suddenly. The tone was odd, almost as strange as what swirled round in her head at the mere suggestion of such a thing. Her arms burned, chest aflame where steel had carved into her once before. The memory of the pain and the terror - of her cowardice and inability to save herself - was not enough for her to resort to such a vile thing. The mere thought of putting Elijah into such a situation only served to stoke her anger further.

 

[Elliot Aldmar]

"Just confidence in your skill," Elliot said in parting response to the captain. The latter man then rode his pegasus forward, intent on catching up with Lyssia.

If anyone was getting stabbed in this whole affair, it would be Lyssia--at least the captain could wield a sword and doubtless had practiced a clean parry. Ah, this would have made for a great jest, but Elliot wasn't in the company of those he was most accustomed to, the sort of rough men and women for whom such jests and jabs were an inevitable way of bonding.

Speaking of.

"They'll never understand us," said Taros, who came alongside Elliot on his horse. He nodded his head toward the front of the column, toward Lyssia.

"I've held a notion like that longer than you might think, brother."

Taros gave a carefree shrug of his shoulders. "Women, nobles...sidhe, might as well throw that one in there. All of those are true in their own regard. Not a one to grasp what we do, and why." He smirked. "And yet, when a problem arises whose answer involves a handy blade or a flashy spell, they need men like us. The world needs men like us."

"Hmm." Neither assent or dissent from Elliot.

Taros reached across the gap between their horses and nudged Elliot's shoulder with a fist. "Oh, come now, my fair-haired friend! I thought you'd jump all aboard that!"

"No," Elliot said. "I'd say that those who engage in wrong action need those who engage in right action, be they men, women, lowborn, noble, human, sidhe. Inspiration to right action can be had in witnessing those who engage in it, but the power of correction lies solely within the individual. It can only come from within."

Taros, with a cordial smile, inquired of it, "And if no correction takes place?"

Elliot returned a grim look to him.

"Then nature sorts it out."

Elijah Lyssia D'avore

 

[Elijah]

"I know," Elijah said simply. He didn't bother to try and talk her down or change her mind. He didn't even try to tell her she was being irrational (another thing his father had taught him never to say to a woman). He listened to her hysterical words with all the calm he could muster with how tired he still was, and only gave voice to what she really needed to hear from him; that he didn't see her in that way. It cared little to him what others thought of her, and he wished she was able to realise it too.

"All causes no matter how great call for a sacrifice of some kind. In this case it is one of morals. The bedfellows we find ourselves in the company of are the best ones to help us achieve this next step and isn't that what is most important right now?"

He glanced at her then ploughed on before she could answer.

"It is best to ignore his jabs."

 

[Lyssia D'avore]

"You think I don't know that?" she said in bitter tones. She liked to think that she did not care what other thought of her...but it was a lie, and one that could barely be concealed. Elijah's stoic refusal to bend to social pressure was one of the many admirable qualities about the man. "I...don't think you know the lengths I have gone to, trying to expose the rot in the Dynasty," she added. Oh, he knew some of it. "Fighting for a country that has written me off as the daughter of a traitor and now a criminal in my own right..."

She had sold some of her principles, sacrificed them on the altar of expedience and necessity. That slope was as slippery as they came; at what point did pure necessity degenerate into willful laziness, to becoming that which you despised? She had no answer for it. Whether or not her countrywomen saw her as an unpatriotic charlatan seeking to bring the country to its knees or not...there were some principles that couldn't be compromised on.

"His words mean nothing to me," she lied. At least she had the decency to look away, the gelding dancing beneath her in a circle as Elijah approached. She came abreast of Gypsy, her own mount keeping distance to be free of the winged horse' wings. "I can suffer through them," she said, immediately contradicting what she had just said a moment before.