Fate - First Reply The Lies That Bind You

[Aeyliea]

"...!"

The white-haired savage sat bolt upright from a dead sleep, and did so quickly enough to stir the dust on the ground with her rising. Fragments of the dream still swirled in her head, haunting things that made little sense to her while sleeping and were now too fragmented to even attempt to interpret. The only thing that came through clearly upon waking was a disquieting sense of betrayal, heart-wrenching loss and grief.

Flashes of gold eyes, inhuman and incomprehensible...but filled with the same pain.

Aeyliea waited until her heart had slowed to a normal pace and her breathing with it to get to her feet. It was very early in the morning, and a mist clung to parts of the grasslands, obscuring the signs of civilization clinging tenuously to the land. This far east, the Sundered had much more of an impact and a greater claim to ground that did not belong to them. The wild herds that roamed in the wilds did not do so here so easily, and often under the watchful eyes of man.

The Seer bent to pick up the spear and bow from the ground, tossing the latter on her back and carrying the former in her right hand. She turned and looked westward, back towards home. The clouds that marred the horizon from one side to the other looked as bleak as ever, and even at the distance of a hundred miles she knew that the storms they represented thrashed the plains with uncharacteristic ferocity for the time of the year. She frowned and made a sign to ward off evil with her free hand - frail and weak, much like the arm was deformed and twisted by an injury.

The storms were not natural. Couldn't be, when they stayed near the horizon when she headed east, but if she turned to head west in any way, they blew up from nowhere and threatened to finally unleash their fury on her.

Aeyliea was a Seer of the No'rei, and no stranger to the arcane. The shamans of the tribe, the Seers were those with whom the Seven would treat and, if persuaded to, grant their power to. She absently touched the bone of a hawk that she had woven into the loose braid of her hair, one of the few totems and charms she had claimed since the disaster with the Vel Aniri some months prior. With that bone - or the feather in her hair, or stone beads, or braided grass, or a mouthful of water - she could treat with the Seven and use their power.

Aeyliea was also something else. The People believed in reincarnation, after a fashion - they did not call it that, of course, referring instead to the fact that skies overhead with their multitude of stars in fact represented the Sea of Souls and that, on death, they would return to the heavens to look over the endless sea of grass once more. All souls were that of the ancestors long gone come again.

In fact, it was one of her tasks as a Seer, the naming of a soul. A child born to the people would be visited by a Seer such as herself, and the name of the soul gifted to that child ascertained. Later, at the ritual of adulthood, that soul would be confirmed and it was then that the ritual markings would be applied, forever naming that man or woman and setting their place in society. Her own markings, intricate tattoos on the sides of her neck, marked her as who she was - Aeyliea ap Tiel'an.

A hero out of time, from an age long passed.

Mine own child, I bid thee listen...

She shivered as though someone had walked across her grave. The memory of that aetherial voice, seeming to drift across the span of time from the very beginning, filled her with a primal dread that no enemy with a blade in hand ever could. Mortal threats meant very little to her or her kith and kin, after all; death was but payment for a return to the stars, to a place where time did not exist in any meaningful way. Only the wait to return to the world, as she and others had countless times.

It was just that being a Seer meant she dealt with things that warriors did not. You could not fight what was in your head, and you could not grapple with things that existed between the Seas - the Sea of Souls, and the Sea of Grass. In the place between, horrors that defied understanding or logic dwelt, eager to destroy the souls of the People and deny them their rebirth, now and forever.

That eldritch voice had warned her away from her people. That eldritch voice had hinted that she open her eyes and see the truth.

Looking to the east, the only route given her, she saw that the settled lands began in truth. This was the border, as between the seas, between the savage lands of the cities and their men in iron...and those that kept the faith on the arid grass. She stared that way, not liking the path set before her - not one jot.

***

Stray was one of those frontier towns so romanticized in popular fiction that, in the gritty real world, was as far from romance as it was from a bar of soap, let alone a bath.

The rutted streets were not cobbled, and manure was left in the streets wheresoever a horse decided was a good place to relieve themselves. The buildings were all of mud brick with thatched roofs. Raised wooden walks lined both sides of the main street of the town, which hosted a hotel and a saloon, not to mention a general store and other assorted businesses. And the business of this place was, quite naturally, trade.

Cattle driven in from the ranches on the edge of the great open mingled with all manner of goods bound over land to Vel Anir and Elbion, heading to Alliria and Dornoch and Oban and all points beside. Stray was but a wide spot in the road, a watering hole and a place to hold over for a night before continuing on to better places - which was to say anywhere but there. To call Stray a den of thieves and villainy would have been flattering it with words too kind to be deserved.

She looked distinctly out of place among caravanserai guards in their steel and leather, among cattle drovers and the various followers and, ahem, servants for such people as populated Stray. She wore traditional clothing, but it was worn and stained from weeks on the road, and it had been ill fitting before she had started on this journey to begin with. Bow on her back, unstrung, and short spear beside it, she could almost be taken for one of the guards. Almost. Here, though, the No'rei were certainly known of, and the scales on her arms marked her as clearly as carrying a sign would have.

Or would have, had she been anywhere other than here.

She looked round at all the oathbreakers, and scowled - which earned more than a few stares from the people here. Standing in the middle of the road, she stood out like a sore thumb. It wouldn't be too long before she started attracting the wrong sort of attention from a place like this, and there was no telling what kind of trouble would follow after that.

She had no idea what she was supposed to do, only the idea that she was supposed to be here.

 

[Matthias Peligrade]

Such a filthy town... Stray, was it? Aptly named since it simply MUST have gone astray from whatever sort of civilization it was supposed to mimic. Sure, he reflected that it might be a bit unfair to judge it so, that was simply how the world worked... But he grew up living quite differently and couldn't comprehend lowering himself to live in a place like this.

Matthias simply wasn't suited for this sort of place, much less the savannah to begin with.
He stood out like a fly in pudding, his finely tailored and clean clothes a stark contrast to the veritable roughs and rags the local wore.
Dust coated his boots of black leather and dirtied the hem of his hooded cloak which he wore hood up and wrapped protectively around himself. He cleaned the dust from his spectacles with a clean cloth for what seemed to be the thousandth time and replaced them on the bridge of his nose.

Honestly... What did he do to deserve to be sent to a place like this? At this point he was starting to think his professors and the higher-ups at the college simply had it out for him. After he's finished here in the savannah he's supposed to follow his mission to the steppes, almost on the other side of the world!
He grumbled as he trudged along the dusty street and picked his way around piles of horse dung, his blue eyes peering from behind his glasses as he scanned the different store signs.

Some roughneck the size of a horse strode out of the Saloon focused on a piece of paper, he bumped into Matthias as he grumbled by, the light tap was enough to send the willowy build boy reeling quite a few steps but just shy of knocking him down into the dung filled street.
He windmilled his arms to regain his balance for a moment before he recovered. Without thinking he shouted, "Watch where you're going to hulking brute! How dare y-"
He immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, realizing his mistake too late. He reacted on instinct like he would have in Elbion where his station mattered...
"I-I apologize sir, it just came out on habit, I didn't mean anything by-"

The huge man shoved the paper into his coat, grabbed Matthias by the front of his shirt and lifted him into the air. Utter terror filled the boy's face as he watched a huge fist pull back and release directly into that same terrified face with enough force to send him flying into the street.
Matthias could only lay there for a moment as the random local spat on the ground and went on his way, his face firmly planted in a horse patty. His face screamed in pain, his nose was probably broken but he prayed to whatever gods were listening that his glasses weren't.

Spitting blood and feces he slowly pushed himself up and dragged himself to the side of the street where he propped himself against the wall of the general store and tenderly began checking his injuries. His fine clothes were most certainly soiled now, but everything around him was now a blur which meant his glasses weren't on his face.
He prodded his nose, it seemed it was indeed out of place and blood flowed freely from it, the feces on his face smelled absolutely hellish... He remembered seeing a few rain barrels around but it was a tossup if he'd be able to locate one without his glasses which were probably back in the crappy street.
He groaned and rested his head against the side of the building, closing his eyes to avoid straining them.
"Just... had to open your mouth didn't ya?"
He laughed to himself which only made the pain in his nose flare up and turned his chuckle to a groan.

He sighed, "Guess I deserve that one... damn..."

 

[Aeyliea]

She moved from the street to avoid being trampled by a trio of mounted men that were bent hell for leather to some place in town. A backwards glance was all they afforded her as she stepped quickly out of the way, her voice raised in a few choice imprecations that were as much a mystery to them as to most of the people nearby, spoke in her native tongue as they were.

She took shelter on one of the wooden walkways, bronze skin and blue-gray scales gleaming dully in the sunlight. That sun held little warmth; the seasons were changing, which was the source of her confusion with the weather westerly.

She supposed that what she needed to do now was find a way to earn a living, albeit temporarily. She could not be kept away from her home indefinitely, after all. Sooner or later, the way forward would open and she could return to it.

The trouble was, she did not understand the society this people lived in, or how it worked. Money was a foreign thing to her - even among the traders, it was goods that were bartered for, not money. Gold and silver had been offered in the past, of course, but it was only ever taken for the creation of the jewelry that were popular among the Mothers.

A sudden commotion caught her attention, and her head snapped in its direction. She snorted as the Sundered boy took a fist to his face and went down like a bull auroch with an arrow through the head. She was not surprised to find such a weak specimen of the city-people here, despite the fact that he was obviously out of his depth. The sight of blood running down his face made her want to laugh aloud.

She shook her head at the antics, but thought little more of them. They had little to do with her and - she, unlike the bespectacled boy - had much less to worry about in that regard. The man would have tried to have hit her, and she would have gutted him like any other Sundered swine.

Of course, that was frowned upon in the 'civilized lands', but that would be a lesson to learn eventually.

 

[Matthias Peligrade]

This was no good, he needed to get moving.
Summoning all of his resolve and courage he brought both hands to his nose, and before he had a chance to talk himself out of it he shifted it back into place with an audible pop... Followed by very audible groans of pain that brought tears to his eyes.
Patting around his belt he found his handkerchief and used it to get some of the crud off his face and then to soak up some of the blood.

Opening his eyes he tried to focus through the blurry scene before him. He had to locate his glasses, without them he was practically blind as a bat without echolocation. He could somewhat make out the colors of the street, and possibly his trail where he dragged himself through the dust and crap. If he could retrace his path he might find them.

He grimaced and consigned himself to crawl on his hands and knees to search, using his hands to sift through the dirt and dung to locate the round lensed glasses.
"Stupid... Backwater... Feces riddled... Damn, they're not illiterate but that would have been a good one to use..."

Matthias wasn't ignorant, or at least he tried not to be. He knew how people often saw nobility or people of wealth, and he couldn't blame them for their hostility but... It's just so inconvenient at times!
He continued to grumble and groan each time his fingers met or squished through another wet mass.
Well... I can officially say I've done something nobody else in my family has ever done... Rooted through feces to find my glasses...

He sighed and sat up on his knees to take his nose away from the ground for a moment... He felt like such an idiot, next time he's just putting a charm on his glasses so he doesn't lose them again!
After a few more minutes of searching his fingers touched the familiar shape of his glasses. He let out a sigh of relief and stood up with his prize.
As best as he could without being able to see he cleaned them off and prayed that the lenses weren't cracked.
he placed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose and blinked rapidly, looking around at his surroundings.

Just as he suspected, he was standing right in the middle of the street covered in feces and dirt and looking like an idiot.
He grit his teeth in embarrassment and moved to the side. He wiped some more blood and dirt off his face, he certainly didn't strike the image he had hoped to portray for this mission, but it didn't look like his connection was here yet. Perhaps he had time to clean his clothes once he'd found a place to stay.

But he was woefully out of his depth here, he could see that plain as day and he knew that he could never survive here without some sort of equalizer.
Protection.
It would probably be too much to ask that some mercenary for hire would be out here on the streets... He looked around the various faces that wandered about their mundane tasks, herdsmen mostly, they were generally tough stock, he might be able to pay one off to become his bodyguard while he remained in Stray... Then his eyes alighted upon someone that stood out almost as much as he did, he was surprised he hadn't noticed her before.
Even from this distance he could see the shadows and highlights of her muscles standing out from the sun on her exposed skin. She even carried weapons on her, even of a crude craftsmanship, this was a woman who knew how to fight... Although, she seemed to be a tribeswoman of the plains, he didn't know what sort of valuable he could offer her, he heard the tribes were still very much uncivilized.

Swallowing his misgivings that she might just decide to kill him for talking to her, he brushed off some more dirt from his clothing in the most dignified manner he could muster and marched up the street towards her.
He stopped about ten feet away from her and smiled, "Greetings and salutations, miss. My name is Matthias Peligrade. Might I discuss a business proposition with you?"
Here's to hoping she spoke common, if not, he had a linguistics charm he could activate to translate for them.

 

[Aeyliea]

She did, of course, but her command of the language was fairly weak. They did not treat with the people outside the Sea with any regularity, not much beyond traders in any case. Most else they slew out of hand, and the peddlers were at best tolerated.

She turned to face the foppish young fool, eyes as hard as stone. She tried to parse through his words with some difficulty - they were big words, even for the run-of-the-mill vagabond in Arethil, but almost all of them were words she did not understand.

"Business," she said in extremely thickly accented common. At least that was a word she understood, because the peddlers often used it. She sneered at him, condescension writ large on her face. "Your...fight? ...not mine. Find other to fight for you <honorless hyena's rump>," she said, switching to her native tongue at the last. Despite the relative warmth of the day, it felt as though the temperature had dropped several degrees.

 

[Matthias Peligrade]

"Business," she said in extremely thick accented common. At least that was a word she understood, because the peddlers often used it. She sneered at him, condescension writ large on her face. "Your...fight? ...not mine. Find other to fight for you <honorless hyena's rump>," she said, switching to her native tongue at the last. Despite the relative warmth of the day, it felt as though the temperature had dropped several degrees.

Crap, she seemed to somewhat understand him but seemed to miss the promise of a mutual agreement with mutual gain.
Even though they could communicate on a basic level he refused to settle for that. He tapped the charm on his broach and hence forth spoke in her native tongue and could understand her in turn... For the next five minutes.
"Wait! Please, do not misunderstand me miss. I don't want revenge, I just wish to prevent further acts of violence against myself! I assure you that I can pay you, or perhaps we could barter a service for a service? Perhaps there's something else of value that you want in return?"
He made sure he didn't seem desperate or flustered as he tried to keep her from walking away off the bat.
"I am very aware of the fact that I am weak, but I'm unwilling to simply die. So please, let me use your obvious strength to compensate for my lack."

He spoke quickly, making calming gestures. Stepping closer to her showed him her imposing strength in greater detail, and it very much showed in his body language that he didn't want to provoke this amazonian creature with scales on her arms and shoulders, his posture bent slightly to lower his height and not present himself as a threat in any way.

It went against his noble breeding, but at this point he had left his pride back in that last pile of horse manure.
He opened his dirtied cloak and tapped a small purse on his belt that clanked with the hopeful sound of coins.
"What do you say? Can I buy your strength? Or shall I serve you in some way in return?"