Private Tales Honing the Edge

[Nym]

"It is.." she agreed, and joined him to follow his gaze across the barren expanse. Scarlet, then amethyst emblazoned the enormous sky before quickly darkening to obsidian with no clouds to hold onto the blush from the sun's rays. She cast a smile up at him and dragged her fingertips across his stomach as she turned to wander back to her bedroll.

"I'm looking for someone called Kaphiri, he's a beastfolk. He was the one who turned me over, but I'm guessing someone paid him to do so.." her shoulder shrugged and she combed her fingers through the waves of her hair as her gaze grew distant in thought..

"He's the only lead that I have, so i'm hoping he has a loose enough tongue and doesn't cause us too much trouble." she sighed and settled her back against a rock to take another long drink of her wine.

"Thank you.. for coming with me. I appreciate the company." she smiled softly.

 

[Halul]

"Even the tightest lips can be pried open," Uvogin darkly mused, still facing the sunset.

The Captain stood there, hands on his hips, thinking. If he was a beastfolk, then he wouldn't be hard to find. And if he was as close as Nimra, then he shouldn't be expecting the pair to come after him. A few questions to narrow down the search area, and they'd corner their prey in no time. He sighed and turned on his heels to return to their modest camp.

"Of course," though being as much of a killer as he, Nymeasha still displayed such cuteness to betray that notion. Uvogin returned her smile as he knelt by the firepit. He lowered his hands to the kindling and snapped his fingers. A spark shot out from the friction caused by his fingertips towards the kindling, where a small fire began.

"A small cantrip," he explained before the Princess had a chance to ask. As far as he knew, Nymeasha had no clue that Uvogin could do magic, even if it was small things like causing a spark of flame. "One of many little tricks."

 

[Nym]

Nym's eyes raised to look at him, casting her mind back to the night she'd met him, how he'd snipped off her finger without hesitation. Such things, she knew, didn't phase him at all. She could still summon the pain, the whistling, how she'd flinched when he'd snapped the shears so close to her ears simply to frighten her. Goosebumps bloomed over her skin and she cast the thought aside... She knew him differently now, but she'd be a fool to forget what he was capable of.

Her gaze widened as she watched his cantrip, her lips parting as she had indeed been about to ask about it but he answered too quickly for her to get the words out.. "I didn't realise you could.. I'm trying to learn. Medja has offered to teach me." her gaze narrowed thoughtfully and her head tilted. He became more intriguing to her by the day.

"What other tricks do you know?" she smirked and lifted her wine skin, the warmth of the growing fire quickly smoothing the goosebumps.

 

[Halul]

"A few runes," He wryly smiled, "other little spells. Though, under Medja's tutelage, you'll pass me up in no time."

He moved across the camp and sat next to Nymeasha.

"But, I only have a working knowledge for it, and even then only make practical use of it." He dismissed the topic with a wave. "As for other tricks, you've seen them all."

The sun fell farther and farther beyond the horizon; the stars shimmered above, and Uvogin tilted his head back to look up.

"Hard to believe only a couple years ago I camped every night under the stars, whether it was in a tent or on the dirt. You know, for the first few months after Gerra became Emperor, I couldn't sleep in a bed? It was too comfortable."

 

[Nym]

Nym laughed under her breath at his assurance and her head shook "I wouldn't be so sure. My father tried to have me taught magic when I was younger, I was hopeless.. I'm much better with weapons." she smirked and offered him the wine, a grin curling on her lips as he mentioned other tricks..

"Yes well, those are quite impressive." she mused, and followed his gaze toward the heavens. The never ending blackness consumed everything but the Cheshire moon and stars, like a million spangled glimmers of hope that pierced through the veil, like the eyes of angels in the distant darkness.

She looked back at him as he finished speaking, her expression soft and her eyes distant as she considered what his life must have been like.. "I didn't realise there was such a thing as too comfortable.." her brow arched and she returned her attention to the sky, studying the milky swirls of distant stars and the patterns they made..

"I slept in the barracks.. I had my own room, of course, and it was comfortable.. But I didn't have what I have now whilst I lived in Salitra.." her lips pursed in thought.

 

[Halul]

"At least as a mercenary, I had a cot. Eventually, my own tent. As a slave, I had nothing."

Perhaps if others lived in his shoes, slavery would have broken them. To be thrown on the front lines of battle, facing certain death, any normal man would have shattered. It only hardened Uvogin. Scraps for dinner. One battle after another.

And now he was here.

Uvogin took the wine from her and sipped from it. His past didn't bother him as the present did. But, out in the desert with nobody but Nymeasha, he could forget even that.

"I'm glad I came with you."

 

[Nym]

"Hm.. I am too." she answered warmly as she pulled her gaze from the skies to settle on his face, the beauty of the view not entirely incomparable. She settled herself down and propped herself up on her elbow

Nym's brow dipped briefly and her jaw clenched to think of him as a slave, a feeling that caused her stomach to churn with guilt, recalling his stories of when he'd been only a child.. "Where did you live?.." she asked cautiously.. "In which cities, I mean.."

 

[Halul]

"I was born a slave of Cerak. One of hundreds. Maybe even thousands. When I survived the Pits, I was bought by a Kaliti warlord. Never stayed in one place too long. One of my former masters was a nobleman from Ragash. Lived there a year before I found freedom." Following that were his days as a mercenary. A freelancer for some time, he eventually fell in with the companies and accrued experience that way. Then he landed himself in the Order of the Bronze Claws, one of the most reputable mercenary companies in Amol-Kalit.

Then to the Immortals.

"I was good at it. Battle, that is. Feels like ages since I've found myself in the middle of a war waged between men I don't know."

He wrung his hands together. One could say that peace was a good thing.

Uvogin merely felt empty.

 

[Nym]

Nym watched him intently as she listened, a part of her glad not to have heard Salitra mentioned. She fell silent for a moment and frowned.. "I often wonder..If I'd truly known what my father caused, If I'd realised what sort of man he really was, whether I'd have tried to stop him. I like to think I would have.. But I doubt it. I didn't really realise the power he held over me until he was gone.. Not that I regret my part in things, the people he told me to kill were all as corrupt as he was, some more so, but they were all guilty of something." her shoulder shrugged, and she tore a little dried meat to chew..

"Do you miss it?.." she asked, a brow arching curiously as she thought of battle. "I've never fought in one. My jobs were always much cleaner, but I was good at that too. I suppose it is still, my job, whenever Medja decides to put me to use." she sighed and flopped over onto her back to gaze up at the stars again. She hadn't had to kill in months now, the last person she'd attempted to kill had been Gerra, and even though she'd stabbed him in the heart he'd lived.

"He was the first one to survive me." she smirked and glanced at him and cleared her throat.. "He had me dragged to Annuakat a couple of weeks ago.. To spar with me. I'm not sure whether it was an opportunity to find some common ground or for the sake of hurting me.. " her head shook with a light smirk.

 

[Halul]

"I can't say I enjoyed them, but I found myself in them." Silence hung between them. "I do miss it."

The Captain couldn't quite understand how it was for Nymeasha, to have somebody like her father over her. Or, perhaps he could. One could point out the differences between them all they liked, but one fact connected the two. No matter how much water they used to clean their hands, they would forever be stained with blood.

"And? How did that go?" His gaze fell from the stars and landed on the Princess.

 

[Nym]

She nodded slowly. Nym understood. As horrible a job as killing people was, it was a job, and she enjoyed being good at something. She missed having that sense of purpose, the praise and gratitude that came her way each time she'd done her father proud, each time someone looked at her with fear because they knew what she was capable of.

A sigh escaped her lips at his question and her gaze remained on the sky, wandering from one constellation to the next.. "Hm. I suppose we both got a chance to hurt each other a little." she answered, subconsciously trailing her fingertips over her ribs.. "We spoke, he apologised for the way he's treated me and I apologised for the things I felt I should apologise for.." she pursed her lips.. Almost killing him hadn't been one of those things.

"I told him I didn't like him.." she laughed under her breath.. "But we found some mutual respect. He thinks we're...alike." she told him with a frown.

 

[Halul]

Uvogin nodded along, not looking at her but still paying close attention as she spoke.

“And,” he met her gaze, “do you think you are alike?”

He did not know Gerra’s past, and it seemed what he knew of Nym’s only scratched the surface of the complex, young woman. Who was he to say they were or were not alike? Only she could decide that.

“To loathe, yet respect another is a mature decision. We do not have to like each other,” we being those that sat on the Divan like Mago, Uvogin, and Medja, and those like Nymeasha who worked closely at the top, “however, we must work together.”

 

[Nym]

Nym tore off a piece of dried meat in her teeth and chewed as she thought. When Gerra had suggested it she has almost choked on her wine.

“In some ways, I suppose we are. But in some ways so are we, in some ways I am like My father, like Medja, like Lani or Kailyn..We’re all alike in some way what matters is how we are different and I am different than he is in so many ways.” She frowned gently and sat herself up to take a long drink of wine.

The air had quickly cooled, and Nym shuffled a little closer to the fire and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders, pulling it tightly.

“Are you happy?..Working for Gerra, I mean? Don’t you ever want to leave?..” she asked curiously, her head tilting as she watched him, the warm flickering glow of the flames illuminating his chiselled features.