Private Tales Read between the lines

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
"I ordered it," Zana threw her fiance a dark look as he sputtered and cringed. The look said that she would make this pain seem a walk in the park if he caused himself any further harm, though in the moment it could have been interpreted as a look that implied she was annoyed he didn't think she was an authority. The Dreadlord glanced at the others and then back down to her task, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It was Blackforges words ringing in her mind that made her continue more quietly.

"I was the Commander, the fault lies with me for any and all disciplinary action," her eyes raised to meet Talus for a brief moment then looked away again. It took a few more moments of quiet work before Zana nodded to herself and stood up.

"Do you think you can ride? We can make a litter if not..."
 
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"It was a joke, dear." Talus said quietly, still aching from his wounds.

There was absolutely no way that he would write any of them up in any sort of reality. Not only because it would reflect poorly on them, but also because this was about to be a massive political nightmare. A third of House Tell had been here, four Dreadlords and who knew how many House Guard.

Once everything was discovered rumors would swirl for weeks. The Generals would probably have to be told, but they would not blame anyone either. Not if Talus had anything to say about it. "We need to work on your sense of humor."

He said with a smile, pulling himself up gently with the same grimace. Raaf stepping up on the other side of him as Zana moved to help him up as well.

"I can ride." Talus said, displaying all the confidence of a wilting sunflower.
 
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"Dreadlords don't have a sense of humour," Zana responded dryly, though the light in her eye and amusement down the bond said otherwise. She had let too much of the mask slip with the Guards already. It would be as dangerous for them as it would be for her if they discovered her secret. That her conditioning was gone.

"In a litter, yes I agree," Zana frowned as her arm slid around his waist once more. She glanced at Lola for help and the woman scampered off to make one without any further prompting. Grey was anxiously padding around the little trio as Talus was walked carefully to where the other horses were tethered.

Lola had fashioned a litter tied between two horses of the same height remarkable quickly and Zana and Raaf helped ease Talus into the hammock.

Her fingers lingered briefly.

"We'll be back soon, just a little longer," hang in there she added silently before mounting up. The other Guards did too and with Zana at the lead and Raaf protecting their rear the group set off at a steady pace.
 
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Talus watched the stars.

His mind wandered to a thousand places, a following a hundred different paths as he considered everything that had happened within the Keep.

A part of it had forgotten, or perhaps it had been chased from his mind. The fight had lasted only minutes, and the butchery even less. Once the four Dreadlords had died it had been easy to kill the rest, too easy. Every wound on his body had come from Jul and the other three.

All the others were from the torture they had put him through before.

His lips thinned for a brief moment. He remembered killing the guards inside. He remembered cutting the throat of a noblewoman. He remembered driving his broken sword through the heart of Frederick Tell. Slowly his gaze cast towards the blade still in his hand.

Vorak wwill be disappointed.
Talus thought to himself as he looked back up at the stars.

Strangely he did not lament the loss of his magic, whether permanent or temporary.

Perhaps a numbmess.
 
Zana had to resist the urge to turn around every few minutes to check on him but Grey at least stayed close by. Occasionally an offending went nose would snuffle at the mans boot or hair to make sure he was okay. She didn't force the group into anything similar to the headless gallop she had on the way here but she did keep up a good pace.

Vel'Anir came into view with the break of dawn. Zana led them not to the Guards but to her own home near the Luana Barracks. No tiny, pathetic House would dare come for him there.

"Go to the Barracks and ask for Noel, he's the Head Healer. Tell them Zana needs to see him now," she asked Jun. The girl seemed to hesitate. "He is a Dreadlord, he needs a Dreadlord healer. Go," Noel was also one of the Dreadlords who had begun to help with the revolution. Jun nodded once, snapped off a salute and galloped off. The rest stayed to help Zana get him inside and up to her room.
 
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It was clear that the men were Loyal to Talus, they hardly left his side any more than Zana did. Two of them did stay outside though, hand son their weapons, fingers at the ready just in case something was going to happen.

Talus wondered briefly how many would die when the Revolution happened.

It was a rather grim thought, but given his situation he was owed them. Fingers tightened for a moment, and he motion slowly to Zana. "Take this, will you?"

He said offering her the broken sword.

Only about a quarter of the blade remained, though it was still sharp and even it's shattered end could have cut through most steel. Talus was woe to lose it, but he was painfully aware that he should not be holding it in bed anymore.

If only because he could no longer feel his fingers.
 
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Zana ached to crawl into bed with him and hold him close against her. She wanted to soothe his pain, she wanted to take her anger out on the people who had done this, she wanted them to be free of this life already.

Instead she took the blade and looked over at Raaf and Lola who had stayed in the room with them. Zana might have won some of their respect and early friendship but it was clear in that moment where their real loyalties lay. She set the blade down carefully on the side and then carefully sat on the edge of the bed, fussing over his wounds.

"What did they do to you Talus... these aren't normal wounds from a fight. Not all of them."
 
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Talus grimaced slightly. "They tortured me for a time."

He was not entirely sure how long. The pain made it difficult to track in his own head, and in truth even if he knew he might not have told Zana. At least not now.

"One of the Dreadlords...Nek I think they called him had some sort of dampening magic." Talus told her. "I couldn't phase-walk for more than half a second and Jul always just shifted the bonds along with how I moved."

It had been coordinated, planned. That much he'd been sure of. "I only managed to escape when I spat blood in Nek's eye."

After that it had all been chaos. He'd used the distraction to kill Nek, rip out his soul and...he couldn't quite remember what he had done. Somehow Talus had used his soul, twisted and bent it for his own purpose. Yet he couldn't have said how.

"There weren't any questions." Talus said quietly. "Just pain."
 
Zana gently brushed his hair back from his face as he spoke. It was the only form of comfort she felt she could provide with an audience in the room even if she ached to draw him into a kiss.

"They're going to face justice for what they've done," she wasn't sure who they were but her anger needed to be directed somewhere in that moment or she might explode. Her fingers lingered against a nasty gash on his cheek and for a moment it looked as though she were going to throw caution to the wind and lean down and kiss him but Noel chose that moment to walk in.

He was a tall fellow with dark ebony skin and a shaved head. He looked as though he were better suited to a battlefield with his broad shoulders and muscles than a healers ward but there was a softness to his eyes that betrayed his craft. Zana stood and bowed smartly.

"Zana," Noel said slowly and then his eyes shifted to Talus. "I see why it was so urgent to rush back out in the state you were in," clear disapproval in the thinning of his lips but he would rebuke his patient no more whilst a new one in a more pressing state lay before him. Quickly he moved to Talus' side and began to examine him.
 
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"I think I already made them pay." Talus rebuked her quietly with a smile.

He was not entirely sure just how much of House Tell was actually left, or how much of their crimes could actually be proven. He would not take Zana's vengeance from her, but he would also not put her in danger.

Politically speaking anyway.

He shifted slightly as the doctor found his way to his bedside, murmuring under his breath as he looked up at the other man. A frown touched his features briefly, but he didn't let it linger.

For some reason he had never liked healing magic. It always made him itchy. Perhaps it would be different now that he'd burnt himself out.

The grim thought flickered through his mind briefly as he opened his mouth. "Believe it or not, ive been worse off."

Talus joked.
 
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That was the final straw for Zana.

"I'll be right back..." the Dreadlord squeezed Talus' shoulder for a moment, nodded to Noel who ignored her for the most part, then slipped from the room with Grey at her heels. She managed to make it back down the stairs before she broke. She slid down to sit against the wall of her kitchen out of view of the guards outside and anyone who would be coming down the stairs, pulled her knees up to her chest and sobbed.

It was relief of not losing Talus yet. It was grief over failing her own mission. It was the fear she might still have to do a large part of this - the revolution, the children - on her own if Talus had burnt himself out. Grey whimpered and pressed his nose between her legs to try and wriggle his way under her arms. At first Zana resisted: she wanted to be alone. But slowly her heart melted for the animal who had been with her through it all and she allowed him in, sobbing instead into his thick coat.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there just that it was until the sobbing had stopped and then a little more as she clung to her wolf.

"You won't leave me will you boy?" Her voice was as small and fragile as a childs. The response she got was a rough tongue over tear stained cheeks. Zana managed a wobbly smile before taking a deep breath and pushing herself to her feet.

Numbly she went through the motions of making some stew. She gave some bowls to the two outside first, much to their apparent surprise, then carried the rest upstairs.

Noel had made good progress. Like most Dreadlords he worked in silence but Zana could see the telltale signs of tiredness in his face and the set of his jaw. She walked slowly about the room giving out bowls of hot stew and warm, thick bread, before taking the last lot to Talus just as Noel straightened and let the magic drop.

"I have done as much as your body can handle. Bones, internal bleeding, the more severe cuts," he began to wash his hands as he spoke. "As for your magic... it is hard to tell this early. I recommend two weeks of bedrest and a month of not trying to use your magic for now," he frowned. "Then you will come see me and we will reassess the situation. Zana? A word," he motioned to the door, collected his things and left.

"Try and get him to eat," Zana passed Talus' bowl to Raaf then followed Noel out of the room, shutting it behind them. She raised a brow at Noel expectantly.

"We were not finished before you left, Zana. That taint... it needs seeing too. I can feel something in you," his eyes panned over her disapprovingly. "I'm going to have to report it, you know I am. See me in my office tomorrow morning first thing."

"Yes Sir," Zana bowed her head. The 1st Level gave her another look and then shook his head as if clearing a thought and left. When she entered the room the tense feeling of having an unknown Dreadlord was gone. Lola and Raaf had made themselves comfy on the bed with Talus, and Jun was sat on the floor with Grey who was on his back enjoying a good belly rub. There was even a bit of laughter.

Zana leaned against the closed door and allowed herself a small smile as she watched.
 
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A few hours later Talus and Zana finally found themselves alone.

The Guardsmen had not left the House completely, they had taken up station on the porch and in other rooms. Some had not slept in nearly a day and a half, but it seemed that they did not particularly care. Until Talus could return home he would be watched over.

At least that was what Raaf had said. Either way, Talus found himself and laying in the bed still, Zana's hand intertwined with his. "It's not all gone."

The Dreadlord said, his eyes half-lidded.

It was almost as if the words drifted from somewhere in the depths of his mind and through the bond rather than over his lips. There was an assurance to it, a confidence..

"Think he was wrong about that." He told her. "There's still...something."

He had not wanted to say, hadn't the strength to do so, but he could still feel it. The sense of it was not the same as before, not as it had ever been. It was not like he was trying to step through to the other side, no. It was a sight.

Something that had followed them from the Keep all the way back to their home. A shade that had lingered close to Talus and now stayed with them. It's face was familiar even in it's wispy ghost like form.

The Dreadlord he'd used to dampen Jul's magic.

Talus turned his head, looking back over Zana's shoulder and glancing at the shade as it stood in silence.
 
Zana lay on her side with one hand pillowed under her head and the other in Talus' hand that lay on his chest. She was still fully dressed though at his urging at begrudgingly taken her boots off. Clearly having the guard in her home was making her uncomfortable; she couldn't just be herself with them still here. Her whole body was tense as she listened to every creak of the floorboards on the landing, ready to fly off the bed and hide the true depths of their emotions or defend him if someone was stupid enough to try and hurt him here. The only reason the others had left him at all was because Zana had pointed out she had had an energy share from the healer and was best placed to protect a powerless Talus.

"Ssshh," her fingers brushed through his hair and down his cheek. "It doesn't matter, we'll figure it out," she gave a weak smile and leaned forward to brush her lips over his. "You need to sleep my darling," she shuffled a little closer but she didn't press herself against him, mindful of his wounds.
 
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Talus stared quietly at the specter ahead of him, frowning just barely before he nodded his head.

"I suppose I do." As his eyes closed, the ghostly mirage slowly began to disappear. It faded from sight, though Talus knew that it was still there. It was tied to him somehow, bound in some way not so different than what he had done with Zana.

The similarities however fell short.

There was no transfer of emotion, no thought, nothing of the sort. There was only control. A chain of magic around the specters throat that hung there even as he disappeared from view and Talus fell into a boundless sleep.

By the time Talus returned to his own cabin three days had passed. Thanks to the healing magic from the Dreadlord he could stand, and even walk, but there was no small amount of discomfort to how he moved around.

His phase-walking at still not returned, he did not know if it ever would, but the specter he had tied to itself was still there. His...experiments had shown that his command of it still worked, and that it's own magic was intact...though more faded than it had been in life. "Hmm."

Talus said quietly as he swung on the small porch.
 
"Hmm?" Zana repeated as she closed the door of the Cabin behind her with her foot. Her hands were occupied with the large tray in her hands that held steaming cups of tea and a series of different small treats both sweet and savoury. Noel had insisted that he keep eating in order to aid along the healing and told her for the 100th time in the years she had known him that magic only went so far to heal the body, it was the body itself that had to do the majority of the work.

She set the tray down on a small table and joined him on the swing.

Zana had been surprised to find the Generals had signed her off duties for the rest of the week when she had turned up at the Guards barracks. She wasn't entirely sure if it was Blackforge having seen the state she was in or Aldwaith considering what he knew of the two. A secret that was getting harder to guard. Noel had sensed something inside of her when he had done his exam and she had a worrying suspicion he had felt the children. When she had returned to his office the next day she had used every trick she knew to hide their presence and after a little frowning and muttering had declared whatever he had sensed gone.

She had to be more careful.

"What are you thinking?"
her fingers ran through his blonde hair with a smile. For now her main worry for Talus.
 
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He considered for a few seconds. "Magic."

Talus said quietly, his hand turning up and slowly turning over his palm. He traced a few of the lines within his hand and then looked back up at Zana with a smile.

"I may have burnt out one part of myself." He said quietly. "But I don't think it's all gone."

He shifted slightly, grimacing as some of his wounds stung from the simple movement even after all these days. He had told Zana of the specter of course, told her what he thought he had done, but it was all still rather knew to him.

Talus grabbed one of the sweets, taking a bite and smiling up at her. "Just wondering what I can do with it."
 
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A flicker of worry passed over Zana's eyes as he mentioned being burnt out again. There was a tenseness which suddenly appeared in her jaw and a tightness around her eyes, but she pushed them away.

"Wait, rest," she twirled her finger round a strand of hair and gently tugged to get him to give her a kiss. "You won't be able to do anything if you keep pushing yourself," a slight frown. It was hard to entirely keep the concern off her face and she guided his hand to her stomach. "Our children deserve to know their father, Talus," her voice sounded close to the point of breaking as she leaned her forehead against his. Without his magic was dangerous enough but a double burn out would mean death.
 
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He smiled briefly. "They will know him."

Talus knew that, kissing her for a brief second.

There was a certain amount of care to what he had done so far. He'd not tried to exert any control over the Specter, had not even given it a command. All he had done so far was to summon it and push it away. It always worked, yet so far...

That was all he'd done.

"I just..." He smiled. "Need to be useful still."

If he could not phase-walk, he could at least still do this.
 
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Zana nodded sympathetically; that she could understand. Despite Talus being a member of the Guards he was still a Dreadlord and they had been raised to be useful. If you weren't useful - if you weren't good enough - you died. That kind of mentality didn't just go away. She slid herself closer to him on the little swing bench to tuck herself against his side as tight as possible.

"Don't worry I'll set you to work on house extension, after house extension, after house extension...." Grey had stood up when he had smelt the food and now made his way over in the worst casual manner a dog could manage. He put his paws up on Zana's lap and gave her his best begging face and whined.

"You're getting too big for the swing baby, you'll break it!" she scratched his ear.
 
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"I'll build him a bigger one too." Talus said with a smirk.

He supposed she was right though. Talus knew that he would always be useful. Even without his magic he was one of the best swordsmen in all of Vel Anir. Not many knew, but those blademasters he practiced with did.

That would always be something.

A smile briefly flickered over his face as Grey panned his head to look at him. The eyes he was offered were begging, clearly wanting him to tell Zana it was okay for him to come onto the swing. His head shook in agreement with his dear love isntead.

"Best not, boy." He said softly. "You'll have your own at the new house."

Though the kids would undoubtedly make him share.
 
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Grey gave a huge sigh and dramatically left his large head in Zana's lap which she petted lavishly until he began to beat his tail in a contented rhymical thump. For a moment she sat there with a smile on her face enjoying the simplicity of their life in that second. Eventually she let the wolf go and he slunk back to his spot specifically on her feet so he could be as close as possible whilst being shunned from the seat. Her attention turned back to the matters at hand such as Talus and their future.

"For now I think it is best to focus on your physical wounds and strength, how are they today?" it was hard not to notice the winces when he moved or the quiet hisses of agony. She didn't want the cuts to get infected when they were close to sealing.
 
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"Better." He said with a frown, shifting his weight but not trying to stand.

Talus was not entirely sure how long it would take his wounds to heal, he could not remember the last time he'd been injured this thoroughly. He thought it might have been the Proctors who had done it to him, but such memories had faded.

The Dreadlord frowned for a brief moment, then he shook his head. "I'll be alright in a week or so."

He considered a moment more, leaning back slightly.

"I can't stay here forever." Talus said with a smile.
 
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"Please don't make me fight or lie to the Generals to let you come back sooner," Zana pulled a face. It was only half said in jest for she knew Talus would fight his own battles himself, but the Guard who had gone with Zana on the rescue mission with her seemed to consider her a better authority on when Talus should return to work than he was. She had suspicions that some of them suspected what was going on between the pair - especially Raaf and Lola - but nobody had said anything outloud. If they did suspect she was thankful they did keep their mouth shut.

"Noel made a comment I suspect was humour when I went for my check-up, he said how did we expect a revolution to happen when its leaders kept getting themselves injured with silly guard work?" there was humour in Zana's voice as she tried to copy Noel's serious tone and failed.
 
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"I won't." Talus said simply, though he had already been thinking about it in truth.

His teeth sank into his lower lip, but he did not say anything else.

They drew away when she made her joke, a small smile touching his lips. It did seem...rather true, but he'd never thought of himself as the leader of any sort of revolution. He supposed that Zana could take such title, but himself?

He was just an agent of fate.

"We'll have to piece ourselves together in the future, perhaps." Talus mused. "Keep rumors of our fragility from spreading."
 
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Zana took a breath and frowned.

"It is best if I try and avoid healer altogether. I think Noel sensed the twins," she grimaced. Of course she was not sure but healers examined a person inside and out, it should not have really been that surprising that he did think there was something different about her. It wasn't just two humans she was growing, her body was changing too. Only subtly for now but soon it would be worse.

"I'm worried about how soon I won't be able to hide the pregnancy... we need to push this revolution on. In the next couple of months. And with these.. these ghouls now posing a threat to the city..." she shuddered. Of course she had told Talus all about her mission with Blackforge and confessed her own grief and guilt at not being able to kill the twisted corpse.
 
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