Fate - First Reply The Wanderer's Late Night

[Exisarl]

​

The moonlight poured out across the city streets like a burst dam of pale, cool glow. Quiet had gripped the late evening, the hustle of wagon wheels and bustle of hawked goods dulled hours prior. Instead, the air filled with faint, far-off melodies that drifted away from tavern bars and drinking halls; it lilted with the even more distant calls of the wilds beyond Alliria and her borders. Calm, peaceful. These were operative words for the young man's surroundings.

Ressver found himself settled on the ascending stairway of his keeper's home. An ironwrought railing safeguarded the stair's travelers as it clung to the exterior of the building. Below, through a gate and into a fenced area, was a forge that crackled lowly and infrequently as its fire burned. The work had ceased hours ago but the forgemaster insisted that the fire remain stoked and alive throughout the night. He was an elderly man who had taken Ressver in as his ward some time ago. The blacksmithery was nestled on the ground floor of the forgemaster's home. Its base flooring was red stone-brick which rose to create the cauldron that acted as the forge's heart. Through a similarly built wall was the first floor of the house and was where the old man kept. Ress had the privilege of taking the second story; a repurposed attic space which he shares with a nest of owlings and a clutch of scantily fed rats. The most comfort he's ever experienced.

A long, exhausted, content sigh escaped him before the bottle met his lips. They were dry and gently cracked from working through the intense heat of his occupation. The liquid was cool. The kind of cool and wet that moistens your throat and lets you feel as though you can breathe again. It stung, too, as all good alcohol should. The drink was some variety of mead, though Ress never pretended to know much difference between booze. He rarely drank as it was.

Tonight felt different. A kind of different that pulled him from his routine, perched him on the highest stairs of his humble homestead, and beset him with an unbeatable view and the warmth of a bottle. He pondered the inextricable desire to stay up instead of getting his well-earned rest. He pondered as he pulled his lips from the glass mouth, quenched by his hefty swig, and he pondered some more as his eyes softly scanned the sights before him. From his stairs he could all the way to the furthest walls of the Outer City. His eyes followed the deep canals that carved through the city and created aqueducts with their aged bridges. He thought they looked as clouds looming over their watery heads. He saw the local children, a sister and brother, playing with dolls by candlelight through their bedroom window; he could tell from their hunched demeanor and stifled giggles that they, too, were up past their bedtime.

He thought hard on a notion as it entered his mind. In all his years living in Alliria - this may be the first time he's ever truly seen the city. He's seen its dark corners, sure. He's seen its cruelty and its bleak face, even it's beautiful gardens and earnest communities. But now, more clearly than ever before, could he see this creature for its sincere reality. It was a living thing and all living things need their rest. Their sleep and their slumber.

A soft chuckle gave rise as he thought what a silly idea that was. He had never fancied himself the poetic type and yet here he was. He went to press the bottle to his lips once more but froze as his gaze fell upon a figure at the base of the building. The stairs led not just into the gated lobby of the forge, but also to a conjoined alleyway which split up and through the block of city with rested at an awkward and steep angle. The figure was foreign to him and not be readily identified from this distance. Had the alley been host to this figure the whole time? Perhaps they needed aid.

At this pretense, Ressver stood. The soft clink of glass on stone cut through the general silence; a preamble to the sound of his voice. Calm, but affirming, he spoke.

"Hello, are you well? Is there something I can do for you?"


{Ressver Gildenblade}

 

[Vilen Blackhart]

The shadows always did a disservice to Vilen. They turned his features gaunt and strange, red eyes soaking up any lantern light and reflecting it back with flashing glint. To counteract this effect, he usually whistled an aimless tune, or kicked a stone solidly down the middle of whatever path he was following. But Vilen had gotten lost in thought, and had made the mistake of turning the corner too close to the wall, his expression somber, and his steps silent.

A questioning voice from atop the staircase startled him. Squinting up at the speaker, Vilen spent a moment trying to place who it was doing the asking. A young man, ordinary looking, and with an earnest enough lilt to his voice. He relaxed at the sight, and pulled his hands out of his pockets as a sign of good faith. He wasn't carrying weapons or wearing armor, but he was dressed darkly, and it was difficult to tell what he had on him.

"Could be doing better, to be honest," Vilen, who was almost always honest, said in response. He moved to stand at the base of the stairs, and raised one finger to tap the corner of his eye. "Been searching for something rather illusive, but I've yet to catch a glimpse of it. Only comes out when the moons are bright like this --"

He stopped himself mid sentence. A curious look tilted his head to one side, as Vilen continued to gaze up at the top of the staircase. "Actually, your view looks pretty good, there. D'you mind if I come up?"

Exisarl

 

[Exisarl]

Ress smiled down at him, at first thinking him a woman before he spoke. He watched as the man squared himself to the base of the ascent with interest but also a relaxed demeanor. The horns atop the man's head shown briefly in the sporadic flash of the forge's light, and stuck out as odd to Ressver. The strangest thing he'd ever seen in the same vain were the tusks of orcs from his homeland. He spoke with a warmer tone, a youthful charisma to his words.

"Sorry to hear it, stranger. Maybe finding this hidden treasure of yours will prove the ticket to regaining some of that lost peace, hey?"

He had no reason to doubt, mistrust or fear the man and sat back down on his step. He scooted closer to the wall and gave him room to either plop beside him or move past to the very top of the stairs. A small balcony sat at the top and, with the strange incline of the alleyway, hung some twenty feet from the ground. The young man was comfortably sat three or four steps from this balcony and figured an even better vantage point for his search. A grin graced his lips one more and his eyes softened, an expression of invitation.

"Come, then - I don't bite. You can see all the way to the walls if you look hard enough. Be my guest."

He took up the bottle once more and took a minor swig while waiting on the other's ascent.

{Vilen Blackhart, Ressver Gildenblade}

 

[Vilen Blackhart]

Despite his prior bellyaching, Vilen was in a good mood. He even let out a laugh when the man insisted that he didn't bite. "Interesting, that's usually my line."

At the warm invitation, he took the staircase up, stepping past the other man onto the balcony. Grabbing the iron bars and heaving himself up, Vilen came to squat atop the thin railing that lined the balcony. His tail flared out behind him to keep his balance. Little hums and haws escaped him as he looked near and far. He seemed to be scouring the waterways and canals mostly, trying to decipher the reflections of lamplight and moonslight that scattered across their surface.

Eventually, he clicked his tongue in a dissatisfied way. "No luck." The railing creaked and wobbled alarmingly as he jumped off it, landing back onto the balcony. "Oh well, guess I'll just have to be patient."

Instead of being on his way, Vilen came to sit on the steps next to the kind stranger. He inhaled, a contented smile on his face as he continued to look out at the city below. A faint heat emanated from the brickwork of the building, and he could smell the mix of metals that marked forgework. Vilen was always happy for a good fire.

"You work the forge down there," he remarked with too much confidence for it to be a question. The man smelled just like the fire, and he couldn't think of any other reason why. "Isn't it tiring, keeping the fire burning all night? Most people don't bother with that old tradition anymore."

 

[Exisarl]

His smiled flared to a brief whisper of childlike wonder as he passed, spurred by the realization of a tail poking through the stranger's robes. The toothy grin was invisible to Vilen as he rose to the balcony and gave Ressver enough time to wipe it cleanly away. He watched only briefly as the tiefling pounced about like a cat showing its dominance and marking the territory. He watched only briefly. After a while he turned back and reclaimed his own recreational vigil of the city.

His eyes fell back to that window where the children had played prior; inside the candlelight as snuffed and sent wispy echoes of its life out the window. He scarcely made out the outline a woman's lower half in the upper region of the window. Perhaps mum heard little Suzette and older brother Timothy playing and came to lay down the law. A soft chuckle escaped him before realizing Vilen had spoken.

"Your trinket may, perhaps, unveil itself in the light of day. Or, perhaps, patience is only half the battle."

He turned on his hips to lean his back against the brick wall as he hear the other come to rest. He extended the bottle with half a grin and eyes that showed the happiness of having company. His one leg bent at the hip and knee to make room for Vilen, and the other hung limply down the next couple steps, bobbing side to side on his ankle when it found purchase below. And it did bob so.

At the remark of the forge, Ress took in a hearty breath through the nose. He shrugged, shook his head, and smiled. The burn had become so familiar that he almost couldn't feel much of any sensation. Smell had been scorched out of his repertoire of sense! He released a chuckle and spoke with a similar confidence as his opposite.

"Tradition has nothing to do with it. My master is simply too stubborn to restart the fire each morning. He does it this way under the guise that it 'helps temper the metal' because 'the flame remembers,'" he stifled a laugh, "Have you ever heard something so silly in all your life?"

{Vilen Blackhart, Ressver Gildenblade}

 

[Vilen Blackhart]

With a nod of thanks, Vilen accepted the offered bottle. Unfortunately he still had the bad manners to sniff at the brew, before taking a sip. The little bit he imbibed was cool and yeasty; a mead of middling amber, that might as well have been ale for how indistinct its fragrance was. Still, Vilen was fond of anything that burned on its way down. He took a deeper draught before passing the bottle back.

"Thank you," he said. If the other man didn't grab it right away, he'd set it on the step within reach. "It's Vilen, by the way."

There was a comfortable space between them. Vilen was a slight thing, and his tail was discretely wrapped round one of his legs, to stay out of the way.

With a funny glimmer in his eyes, Vilen watched as the other man recounted his master's words. He caught the stifled laugh and turned it in his own happy hum. Had he ever heard something so silly? "A few times, yeah. People make up all kinds of things to feel better about this strange world." He pouted his lips and pointed a clawed finger at himself. "You wouldn't believe what they say about me. And I'm glad of it! It's nice to have met such a sensible fellow this evening."

Eyes squinted up as he let out a grin, but then Vilen's face went flat just as quickly. Not so much out of somberness, but instead a kind of reverence crested his brow. "Unfortunately, the thing about the fire is completely true. I can tell sometimes, when a flame's alive."

 

[Exisarl]

With gentle analysis, he watched Vilen's nasal inspection of the bottle before sipping it sheepishly. His hand raised gently at the offer of the bottle, quietly encouraging him to keep it or do with as he pleases. It then came to rest on his knee in a limp fist. A cheeky grin graced his lips.

"Villain? Like an actual villain, a bad guy?" His grin grew into a full on shit-eating smirk before waving away his joking tone, a hand extended in an introductory manner, "I'm Ressver - Ress if your mouth is feeling lazy. It's my genuine pleasure to meet you."

If he'd taken the offered handshake, Ress would smile warmly and return it to his knee. His words, after losing their taste of joviality, became sincere in a rare way. His heart had taken its place as his mouthpiece and spoke its truth - it was nice to meet someone that didn't immediately think less of him, didn't think him an urchin or a whelp or a freeloader. And this someone was such an exotic being at that!

He leaned in with every word from Vilen's mouth. He hung on ever syllable. His interest had been quietly piqued by his reply that the world was strange and often harsh to boot. Ress found comfort in the solidarity of commiseration; a comfort that deepened as the tiefling shared the sentiment of meeting a non-oppressive figure tonight.

Then, as quick as rain pouring from the heavens, the tone became tense. Ressver recognized Vilen's sharp turn of intensity and narrowed his eyes just slightly. A flame being alive? Was this some talk of magic and sorcery? Such affairs flew so high above his head he'd mistake them for clouds.

He chuckled, somewhat nervously, unsure of how to navigate.

"I think he'd like you, the old bastard. He could talk about fire and the forge and all their accompanying attributes till the sun gave out. Moreover He's good at taking in strays."

 

[Vilen Blackhart]

The hand offered by Ressver was taken cordially. Rough and dry as the other man's grip was, Vilen couldn't help but soak up the warmth provided, even as his name was poked fun at. "Uh-huh, exactly like that. Easy to remember, yeah?" he agreed cheerfully enough, though his returning smile was stretched too thin to be completely natural. Two shakes, and he let go.

The change in mood wasn't noticed by Vilen, even though he was the cause of it. If he had been back at the monastery, what he'd said about the fire would have been perfectly ordinary. Warranting a still moment of reflection on the Pursuits, and nothing more. The fact that Ressver seemed to grow uneasy in the quiet was curious to Vilen.

Eyes never left the other man as he listened to Ressver's nervous chatter. Vilen's tail uncurled itself, twitching lightly at its end.

"Hm," he hummed. "And if I would to talk to you, instead? The sun's already gone down, after all. I'd like to know what you'd tell me about, till it rises."

Suddenly and without mercy, realization washed over Vilen, pulling the hum out of his voice. "Wait a moment, did you just call me a stray?!" The flick of his tail deepened, and he turned his chin upwards with an indignant tilt. "I'll have you know I'm gamely employed. Even get a stipend and everything."

It was clear that Vilen didn't know what gainfully meant, nor did he realize that he had gotten the phrase wrong.