Fable - Ask Sticks and Stones

[Varo]

Varo began to walk before either of the women agreed, mostly because he was eager to get the fuck out of here.

The Watch might have been confident that the men wouldn't come looking, but the Half-Elf wasn't entirely sure. He had been on the other end of a beating from those fucking louts often enough that he wasn't going to risk it any time soon.

Certainly not today. "Yes we shall!"

He told Zulryn as he began to head down his road, wishing that he had a pack or something that he could actually have thrown some water in.

As he began to walk he wondered over Ayeliea's words. What she had described was almost a near echo of his own thoughts on things, though...he decidedly would have put it a bit better worded. A frown touched his lips as he considered, glancing towards the wildling.

"So you're from up north?" He asked curiously.

Zulryn too, he was curious about, but that would come later. He was not from Fal'Addas, but Ivradin was close enough to it that the cities had been friends for millenia.

 

[Aeyliea]

She fell in behind Varo, not walking so much as stalking. Whether aware of it or not, she moved with the grace of a lioness, such that one could almost see the slashing tail with the sway of her hips. Unlike either of her companions, she really was completely fine with the notion of meeting her assailants again. Just not in town or within earshot of town. She was not gentle like Zulryn seemed to be, and she was not the least bit concerned about losing control as was Varo.

She could practically smell the sharp, coppery odor of their blood riding the hot wind off the plains. And if that was to be, well...she would dance and paint the dust red.

She considered the question from Varo in silence as they wended their way out of town, eyes darting to follow every man and woman walking the streets. Betrayers, one and all. "Not north. From where sun dies," she said. "Far into the Sea. People...from cities, not go there. Only to kill, or to...to capture. Sell No'rei to other betrayers, never come back."

The cycle had been such for millennia. The first betrayal had led to the bloody rift between the People and the world outside, and ever since the debt had been paid in blood. The No'rei slaughtered any intruders out of hand, and the civilized lands branded them savages and barbarians - fiends to be slaughtered on sight, not treated with. And so it had been, time without end.

<<"Why will they not let me return to my home? What have I done to anger the Seven?">> The words were delivered in a flowing, somewhat harsh tongue as different from common as common was from orcish. The No'rei language held a savage beauty to it. Her words were accompanied with a bitter cast to her features.

She regarded the other two. "Why help? Why not hate? Outsiders only want kill, or capture. Or stare with dark look, wish to go away and not return..."

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

Throwing one final look at the town, Zulryn, Varo and Aeyliea left through the gate.

She silently listened as Miss Aeyliea talked about her home, before frowning in sympathy. Her home clearly didn’t have a good experience with outsiders, no wonder she doesn’t seem too trusting. “I am sorry, Miss. That is terrible.”

The words reminded her of some of the slave-markets she had seen through her journey—they were wretched places, and she never stayed too long in them. She was always careful to not get attention there, the warnings from locals and her parents fresh in her mind.

Her eyes clouded as she thought back to those places. Hopefully she won’t have to pass through anything like that again.

<<"Why will they not let me return to my home? What have I done to anger the Seven?">>

Though Zulryn couldn’t understand the words, she could understand the sorrow pinning them. She made a note to help the woman get to wherever her home is, if she asks for it.

She regarded the other two. "Why help? Why not hate? Outsiders only want kill, or capture. Or stare with dark look, wish to go away and not return..."

Zulryn paused in her steps, before walking again. “...I was not raised to hurt or hate others, and I certainly don’t plan to if I can help it. Hating others just because they are different is ludicrous anyway, and helping people is—well, it’s just the right thing to do, right?”

Falling silent, Zulryn took out her waterskin and took a sip, then held it out to the others. “Want some?”

Varo Aeyliea

 

[Varo]

Varo shook his head as Zulryn made her offer.

Water wasn't usually a problem for him, and in that moment he was more caught up in the other strangers question than anything else. A frown touched his lips, and he tried to think of a good answer. A way to make her understand.

"I've been an outsider all my life." He said quietly, the lie flowing from his tongue easily enough.

There had been a time where he had been the opposite of an outsider. When he'd stood as a Prince. He had friends, family, everything and anything he wanted. Even now he had the gang, Jayce and Itch and the others. But it...seemed right to say. "I know what it's like to have rocks thrown at me."

That wasn't a lie at least.

"Didn't seem right to stand there." He said in agreement with Zulryn.

 

[Aeyliea]

She snorted, continued to move along in that sinuous gate of hers. She did not necessarily agree with the notion that hating others that were different was wrong. Although...being completely fair, she did not dislike others for being different. She disliked others for the original sin their forebears had committed, and the stain of that sin ran like blood from the betrayers - the Sundered - all the way to their living kin.

"Not outsider," she said. They did not understand any of her culture, that of the plains people. They did not understand that names - such as hers that had been given to them - were more important than merely identification. Not a simple word to call another by. They all held a great deal of meaning, and they did not belong to their so-called owners, either. Or at least...not the the flesh. The soul was eternal, and Aeyliea had been alive many hundreds of time since the name was christened. All of the history associated to that name was hers.

And an outsider was certainly not one of those things she could be called. The white hair, the minimalist tattoo just below her collarbone, and the name she bore were all sacred and important. She was important. Or had been.

And might yet still be.

"Help is...thanks," she said awkwardly. She did not like to admit that it was appreciated, even if not needed. That lot could only have caused her minor hurts. Much beyond, she would have killed them. "Water, not need. Only need little. Scarce. No waste, Sea is very no water." She could go days without a mouthful of the precious liquid, and weeks without eating. There was a reason why the civilized nations had not managed to eliminate the No'rei in their thousands of years of existence; they were tough, sturdy, and stoic. They shared certain similarities with the Komodi people who often crossed their lands in those respects.

She continued on in silence for a little bit, before casting a sideways glance at her not-quite welcome companions. "Why in Sea? Why come to grass?" She still did not understand why the people form outside traveled within. The land was inhospitable to them, too dry to farm and too dry to support many people. And yet...still, they came. It surely could not only have been to capture slaves.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

Zulryn felt sad for them both. She couldn’t imagine being an outsider, and felt grateful that her community loved her so much. Hopefully they get to feel that too, one day.

She was putting the waterskin back when Miss Aeyliea asked the question. “‘Sea,’ you mean why travel here? I am just passing through honestly, going to Elbion.”

She will admit, listening to how Miss Aeyliea termed certain words interested her. It was not malicious, just curiosity.

Aeyliea Varo

 

[Varo]

Varo offered the tribal woman a slight smile, trying to make her feel slightly at ease.

He had never been...the smartest man in the world. There were certain things that he just didn't understand, and even now he found a few ticks of a second passing as he parsed through the woman's words. Yet he pieced it together well enough. "I'm just...wandering."

The truth, of course, was a bit more sinister.

He had been avoiding being in Alliria during his transformation.

The Half-elf knew that the best within would tear to shred entire crowds if left to it's own devices. Thus it was almost always better to be within the lands around the city. There were plenty of beasts to hunt, and it was easier to avoid people.

Not that he would ever admit as such.

"If you're headed to Elbion, a ship from Alliria might be faster." He said, then briefly glanced at his other companion. "Land routes can be..."

Varo trailed off. "Yeah, a ship might be better."

 

[Aeyliea]

She eyed the young girl with a sidelong gaze. The young adventurer was clearly green and not a little naive, and the Varo fellow clearly had picked up on the same thing. That the man was an experienced tramp was clear.

Once again, something stirred in the back of the Seer's mind: a scaled tail, a vertical-slit eye opening, yellow and reptilian. Alien. Unknowable. The presence regarded Varo without word or impression.

There was something about Varo that lie beneath the surface. The ancient beast that lay in her head, quiescent and deadly at the same time, breathed out a warning that included not a single word - only impressions. Sensations and feelings of extreme violence, of blood and death and madness that were as formless as they were unfathomable.

Varo and Aeyliea shared in something, although the aspects of their problems were different. Both had a thing to hide.

She stopped, lifted a hand, remained silent. After a moment, she turned to the others. "Trouble?" She said in a half question, and then turned to look into the grass beyond the road they walked. She did not feel comfortable being in the open like this, and for good reason. Such as this new reason. "Followed, we are. Behind. In grass to sides," she said in a hushed tone, eyes suddenly hard. Unconsciously, she slipped the buckler from her back and hung it on her crippled left arm, and took the short spear in her other hand, turning to face the way they had come.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

Zulryn nodded. “I will consider going by ship then.”

She almost stumbled when they halted, before tensing as Miss Aeyliea said they have a new, unwelcome guest. Her hands itched for her bow but she knew better than to alert whoever was after them.

She listened and heard the faint, almost unheard rustling of grass. Oh no.

Varo Aeyliea

 

[Varo]

Varo frowned. "What?"

He asked the tribeswoman.

The Half-Elf should have known by now that some of his senses were miles better than they had been years ago. Though the plague that now hounded him was the stuff of nightmares, it had it's own sort of benefits sometimes.

He should have stopped. Listened, but instead he spoke.

"I don't see anyone." He declared with a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't think there's anyone around he-"

Before he could finish speaking the bolt of a crossbow suddenly launched itself out from the woods. It was a rickety thing, the exact sort of weapon that a caravan guard might carry. The bolt launched itself, cutting the side of Varo's face and missing him by mere milimeters. "Oh fuck!"

The half-elf called as he suddenly bucked towards the side of the road and cover.

 

[Aeyliea]

She was hyper attuned to the wilderness round the great grasslands and the deserts to the west. The handful of stunted trees here made a good ambush point considering the lack of cover for miles round. Aeyliea had considered the notion when they had approached, deemed it unlikely...

...until her senses cried out the warn.

She could have told Varo that she had heard them and smelled them - the rank sweat of men (and a couple women) accustomed to working in the heat, sweating, and filling themselves full of beer. Even the slight tremble in the land - felt in the soul, not in the foot - had warned her that not all was right.

She dropped the split second after Varo opened his mouth and spoke far too loudly. Rolling in the dust, stifling a cry when she rolled over her scarred arm, she wish to curse the man for his bull-headed loud words. She came up from that roll, the bolt coming nowhere near her, with her spear in hand, crouched low. Her eyes traced where the attack had come from, and she darted forward with athletic agility. "Idiot," she said in thick common. Even as she darted forward, the bowman - bowwoman - stepped out from cover. It was none other than the woman with the man who had roughed the scaled plains woman up. The others of that crowd were there, too, stepped out from cover, armed and ready to do harm to ...well, everyone.

She did not have a chance. After all, they had all decided that they would just rough the white-haired one up, and then do the same to the other two for getting involved. They hadn't come here with the intention of killing the party of three.

Unfortunate, that. The spear-wielding Seer came at her as she would any enemy - especially one of the villages and cities of wood and stone. She knocked the discharged crossbow from her hand, kicked her feet out from under her...and then skewered her through the throat with a cold foot of steel. She went down first clawing at the blade, and then at the ruin of her throat with wide-eyed horror.

She was dead in moments.

"What....what the fuck?!" came the fellow that she had kicked in the nuts twice. He stood there as his friends advanced on the trio, unable to believe or process what had just happened. "We...Kill them! Kill her," he bellowed, first pointing at the others...then at the woman who had murdered his mistress right in front of him.

Aeyliea spun, faced the attackers, a look of wintry cold on her face, machine-like precision in her movements as she prepared to do for them as well. The coppery scent of blood already filled the air, but worse would likely come.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

Zulryn yelped and barely managed to dodge the bolt, which embedded itself in the ground nearby. Men and women, some of the same ones from the fight, stepped out, looking drunk with both beer and rage.

Before they could even do anything, however, Miss Aeyliea took the lead, neatly landing a killing blow on the archer in the group. Blood gushed as the opposing party cried out in surprise, rushing them immediately.

Zulryn felt more prepared this time, dodging a kick by one drunkard as she grabbed the offending leg and swung him down. The man was knocked unconscious, and she used him as a makeshift human club for the next one who came at her. All this happened in some moments, and she was left panting by the end of it. Not from physical exhaustion, but because of the adrenaline.

Aeyliea Varo

 

[Varo]

Varo did what anyone intelligent did in the midst of a fight; he ran away.

The young half-elf had learned long ago that most things were not worth getting into a scrap over. Sometimes there were street brawls like what had happened with Aeyliea, injustices that needed to be stopped. But something like this?

He had absolutely no interest in fighting men with crossbows and swords when he had little more than his fists.

So he did not rush into combat.

He did not engage the enemy.

Instead he booked it to the left. Direclty off the road and from what he could tell entirely away from the men who were attacking them. An action that of course almost immediately caught the attention of some of their assaillants.

"One of em' is makin' a break for it! Get him!"​

The shout echoed out behind Varo, and two men immediately booked it into the forest after him.

 

[Aeyliea]

Unlike Varo - and the culture that had raised him - Aeyliea did what any No'rei worth their salt did when violence broke out:

She waded into it with reckless abandon.

The culture that had borne her was a warrior culture, and one that put great store in honor. These fools had dishonored her before, but it was a thing that could have been ignored. But, cowards that they were, they were trying again with superior numbers. Dishonorable for them to attack, and dishonorable for her to flee them. If she'd even considered that idea, and she had not.

"Betrayers <<shall received no quarter. Honorless jackals, my spear will do for you presently,>>" she snarled at them. It was half anger, half joy - the thrill of the fight, of bloodlust. She charged the three remaining men on swift feet, without so much as a trace of fear. One had a blade in hand, and she easily turned aside the short sword as one swung with his staff. She twisted out of the way of it, snapping the haft of her spear into the face of the swordsman hard enough to splatter blood from a shattered nose and not a small number of teeth from his mouth.

The initial thug - the one that had roughed her up in town - had pulled an axe out and appeared to be considering how best to hew her down. She caught the staff again, deflecting it, and stepped in towards the axeman as he leaned back, readying his attack.

The swordsman was recovering his senses, blood dripping down his face, eyes dazed.

"Help! the No'rei snapped at Zulryn, nimbly jumping aside as the main event tried to cut her in half in a single stroke. She scored a bloody gash across his chest, but the enraged fellow did not seem to feel it. His woman, after all, lie cooling on the ground not far from him - and the image of the savage before him spilling her life-blood enraged him beyond reason. She snapped a quick look in Varo's direction, disgusted by the fact the man had fled. Or perhaps, he was simply a fool and thought splitting up would help.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

Zulryn bristled at Varo just…running away, though she understood. She wished she could do the same, somewhat.

Her bow stretched taut but trembled as she took aim at the man, who seemed to have gone mad from rage. The arrow embedded itself in his side, and he staggered back a bit. She screamed, “Now!”

She felt a bit relieved that she didn’t kill him. She didn’t know if she could handle that.

Aeyliea Varo

 

[Varo]

Running had honestly seemed like the best option, but now that he was being fucking chased it just seemed stupid. He should have stuck with the tribewoman, let her take care of the problem and then well...well figured it out elsewhere!

"THIS WAY!"​

The shout echoed out behind him.

His heart began to thunder, his eyes flickered back over his shoulder. Lips thinned and he let out a curse, rushing to the left and digging in his heels as he propelled himself forward through the forest. Branches snapped at him.

Then suddenly something snagged on his boot.

It caught the edge of his shoes, and before he knew what was happening Varo found himself thrown to the ground. The man behind him laughed, his toothy axe flickering in his palm as he stepped forward towards the Half-Elf.

"Should've minded your own business."​

Panic. Terror. Rage flickered through Varo. An odd shift, a change in his eyes. A snap ringing out as flesh and bone began to tear. "Should've left well enough alone."

A scream echoed out seconds later.

It was not Varo's.

 

[Aeyliea]

She held no such compunction about killing the bastard. In fact, she held few reservations about killing in general; the grasslands were a harsh, unforgiving wilderness that did not tolerate weakness in any of its inhabitants. The weak perished, and only the strong survived.

Aeyliea engaged the fellow, and he spun to face her with wild eyes bright with pain and rage. The feathered shaft that Zulryn had managed to gift him impeded his stance but, as it turned out, it did not matter. Aeyliea stepped forward as he swung, and she caught the axe on the buckler. The blow was powerfully painful, and spun her to one side a little. The buckler held, as did the bones of her arm. She shoved against his weapon, sending it wide. Opening his torso to attack, and his eyes widened as hers narrowed.

He knew he was dead. Aeyliea did not disappoint, either.

She slung the stained steel of her spear to one side, sending a curtain of fresh blood flying into the dust as she stepped back from the fallen instigator. Instead, she turned to face the last unwounded fellow - the staff wielder - that suddenly looked decidedly uncomfortable with his odds. All of them cast a backwards glance at the scream - pain and fear twisting together into a song that was sweet to the No'rei's ears. The bastard with the staff took a step back while they looked aside for the scream, and then dropped his weapon and bolted.

Aeyliea sniffed in disapproval and, with an almost disinterested huff, stepped forward and hurled the short spear in her hand like a javelin. Two dozen paces away and further, the weapon sank into the retreating man's back, and he went down hard with a cry of pain, and tried to rise. He could not.

"Go, see Varo," she said as she made her way almost casually to the fallen thug. There would be no survivors of this ambush outside of themselves by the time she was done.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

Zulryn looked around wildly. It seemed their ambushers had dropped as soon as they came, lying motionless on the ground or struggling to get up from it.

She glanced at Sir Varo. The man seemed to have completely changed, ripping into his opponent with a brutality that seemed to consume everything about the latter, leaving just a broken body and screams echoing out of it.

…What on earth is she seeing? The orc-elf stepped closer, seemingly approaching a wild animal, and stopping just out of arm’s reach. Trying her best to ignore what lay at their feet, she looked into Sir Varo’s eyes. “...Um.”

“Help Varo,” how? The only person that seemed to need help was her.

Still, she asked, trying to not turn the awkward air even more so, “You okay? Sir Varo?”

Varo Aeyliea

 

[Varo]

It wasn't a voice that answered her.

It wasn't the sound of the Half-Elf stirring, moaning in pain. It was the slight whimpering call of one of the men that had gone after Varo. Zulryn would stumble upon him. His face a mangled mass of flesh and torn muscle, horror on his face.

"I--I----I."​

The words stumbled over one another.

A single eye, remaining untorn, stared up into the air above. Fingers curled, reaching towards the woman walking towards him. He struggled, his voice a croak of rent torn vocal cords. Fear clung to him, his voice shaking as he spoke.

"R-run, girl."​

He whispered.

"R-r-r-un. There's-there's a monster here."​

The man. The tavern guard who had spouted hatred, anger. Attempted to beat the tribewoman in the street struggled to give his warning. Words punctuate by a low growl from within the wood.

 

[Aeyliea]

There was an efficiency of motion to the wildling as she went through the fallen of the brief battle, driving the point of her spear into the heart of each and every one of them to make sure that none would rise again. There was no mercy, only ruthless effectiveness. They were Betrayers, one and all, and worse - they had ambushed her not once, but twice. She would not allow such dangerous foes to come at her a third time.

And still, there was something wrong. The blood soaking into the dust was right and proper - returning the flesh of the Sundered to the broken world, and releasing their spirits to return to the Sea overhead. The wrongness had nothing to do with that.

A taint, an oddity in the air - unlike magic, unlike anything she herself had encountered before. She looked in the direction the girl and the half-breed had gone, stony eyes unblinking as the wind tugged at her braided hair.

And she began to walk that way, sinuous as a lioness on the hunt. The smattering of scales on her body caught the light in a luminous way; muscle well suited to the hard life out here in the wildlands rippled.

She found the girl not too far in, with the shattered remnants of a man lying in the dirt before her. It was patently clear that Zulryn had not done the deed - quite aside from the timid nature of the girl, she simply did not have the bulk to her frame to do such damage. Neither did Aeyliea, come to it. She slowly came to rest beside the half-breed girl, and stared dead ahead. Varo was not here, and the dead on the ground was not him, either. Perhaps the waft of magic was from something the man had done to bring about this death before her.

Perhaps not.

"Varo." The name was thick with the accent the others had come to know her for. She held a hand out to forestall Zulryn stepping forward. She did not know what it was she felt or smelled, but whatever it was it was not right.

And so she kept her spear ready.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

The only thing she felt was the chill down her spine.

Zulryn stared at the man who spoke before turning away, sickened by the sight. She felt relieved as Miss Aeyliea stepped in sight, putting out her hand in front of the girl. She called out into the forest, “Sir Varo? Can you hear me?”

Nothing answered her, unlike the growl from before.

Varo Aeyliea

 

[Varo]

The crunch of a fallen rotten tree echoed out.

It sounded like the snapping of a bone, a strangely sickening noise. It came as not Varo stepped forth from the darkness of the wood, but a creature near twice his size. It's face was mangled by as mass of scars in the same place as those upon the half-elf.

The creatures fur was a matted mess of blood and reddish brown, a mirror of the man who it once had been. Brilliant blue eyes shone down at the two women as the Werefolf stepped from it's throats.

Crimson stilled dripped down from it's claws, stained it's teeth. Jowls pulled back in a low growl, the monster staring at the two of them. Head cocking slowly to the side as though it were waiting, watching them expectantly.

It did not pounce for them.

It did not lurch into attack or try to rip them apart.

Instead it stood within that little alcove of forest. Close enough that it could bound upon them in an instant. Yet holding back for no reason that would bind any predator.

 

[Aeyliea]

The sight before her was...unexpected.

She came to rest, looking upon the falorienam, the Beloved of the Mother. Such beasts were touched by the Night - the domain of Lorien the Slain. Touched, but dangerous. They went where the Mother pushed them - especially when the Lady's Moon was high in the Sea of Stars. When the hand of Lorien was not upon them, they ran with the tribe as normal.

Assuming, of course, they were not rabid. She made a gesture with her offhand, the one not carrying her spear that yet dripped blood, to ward off the djinn of the wild. Their trickery and ill will was not needed here and now.

<<"There is no need for violence, Blessed One,">> she said in her native tongue quite carefully, the rhythm of her words melodic in nature. "<<What is Her will?">> She looked upon Varo with steady eyes, unflinching and entirely undeterred by his growl. She looked for an answer from the Seven in his eyes. Or, perhaps, just an answer from one in particular.

In the back of her mind, amusement oozed in from outside, but it was not hers.

 

[Zulryn Oknu]

ulryn struggled to not gape at the beast before her. If not for the blue eyes looking down on them with brilliant clarity, she would have never realised this was Sir Varo. However, a part of her still doubted his identity, so she stood, locked in one place, ready for a fight.

No fighting occured. The creature just stared on as Miss Aeyliea spoke in her tongue, voice calm. It seemed like they could understand each other. Zulryn kept quiet and waited with bated breath for something to happen.

Varo Aeyliea

 

[Varo]

There was a steady tension of calm within the air.

The beast that had once been Varo seemed to stay himself, lurking on the edge of the wood like the monster a whole world believed that he was. It was a feat, the two of them not attacking, running, peeling themselves away from the clearing.

It was a monster standing before them.

There was no arguing that. No saying otherwise. His fur bristled, his jowls rose ever so slowly. Eyes glancing between the two of them. Aeyliea spoke, and the Werewolves eyes flickered almost immediately towards her. There was a moment, a flicker of hesitation.

Then slowly the wolf turned.

It stepped off to the side, moving into the forest.

Steps rang out. Crushing roots, fallen branches. Even dropped trees with thunderous cracks as bones and flesh began to fall in upon themselves once more. A cry going up as the half-elf became himself once more. Collapsing onto the ground with a loud and exhausted thud.