Open Chronicles The Wolf and The Bat

[Ishar Morrad]

"No." Ishar corrected quickly. "It was merely a comment on the direction we are actually heading in."

He frowned for a brief moment.

The idea of himself in Alliria was...troubling to say the least. Not only because of all the people that could potentially be infected, but also because of the various organizations that killed beings specifically like him. Rangers, Templar, and even the City Watch. Too dangeorus.

"We'll stick to the wilds mostly." He told her quietly.

 

[Rose]

She nodded softly in wordless agreement. It seemed they were both on the same page for the locations they were and weren't comfortable in.

She pulled her knees up to her chin and settled down. "...You can sleep if you want, I'll... keep watch." Did they need that? No. But did it sound professional? Yes.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar shook his head. "Food first."

That was really the important thing.

"The wolf didn't eat." Ishar stated plainly, as if that would be enough explanation for Rose to actually understand.

Changing ate up his energy, moving around as a wolf more so, and changing back? It nearly broke him even if the wolf had managed to feed.

 

[Rose]

"Oh," she breathed, understanding in an instant. "I..." She glanced around, realizing they were without anything for him to eat. Well. Besides her. Which was a hard 'no please'.

She frowned, then pushed herself up. "Just... Just wait here. I- I got this." Looking troubled, the shadows crept over her form, dissipating like sand being licked up by an ocean wave.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"Relax." He told her with a wave of his hand.

Food was important, but there was no need to stress out about it to the degree that she seemed to be. It wasn't like Ishar was going to kill her over something to eat.

They had ample time to hunt and gather something.

"There's a stream nearby." He'd seen signs of it. "We'll catch some fish before moving on."

 

[Rose]

But that was really all she needed to hear. She dissipated entirely, a little faint shimmer skirting along the shadows towards the water's edge.

It was remarkably easy to catch the fish, she soon found out. To stand still... watch... then lash out and snatch it. It almost unsettled her, if she was being honest. It wasn't right that she could move like that. It wasn't right she snatch something up and eat it so easily.

The kicker to it all was she wasn't even hungry. After days of no food, there was still no ache, and she knew there wouldn't be. Still, she grabbed multiple fish and vowed to try, holding their wiggling forms inside the pocket she made out of the bottom of her shirt. She returned to him in distress, attempting to keep the shirt off her body all the while apologizing relentlessly to the still live fish inside.

"Ew ew ew, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She popped out of the shadow besides him and dumped them onto his lap. Quick steps backwards were taken, her shirt frantically flapped as if that would dry it.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar blinked, glancing at the ground and the half dozen fish that were not flapping around on the ground helplessly. His expression shifted slightly, frowning as he looked up at her and shook his head.

"How have you never dealt with fish before?" He asked as he leaned down and grabbed one of the fish, smacking it hard against a nearby flat rock. There was a loud snap noise as the fish died, and then Ishar quickly proceeded to do the same with two others.

"Were you a noble before..." The man cleared his throat. "This?"

It was really the only explanation.

Rose seemed to have little experience in the real world. A sheltered life explained that more than anything else.

 

[Rose]

Rose screeched, jolting back every time the sound of a fish dying filled the air.

She looked up at him at his question, her features pallid and horrified. If he didn't know any better, he might also think she was about to vomit.

It took her a few moments to find her words. "...No. Though- though- maybe? I suppose, to you." She slowly sat down, hands reaching out and feeling for the dirt underneath her, her gaze too far away to see it herself.

"My father ... was the adviser to the king. When him and my mother died, they- they made us their wards. Clothed us, let us tutor with the others."

"My brother trains to be the royal physician even now," she added, a spark of life to her tone.

"But no. I'm no royalty. I'm just... Rose." She swallowed hard, giving the dead fish a distraught glance before forcing it away.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"Close enough, I suppose." He had guessed the right of it.

Rose had never learned survival skills because she'd never needed to. In the blightlands such things were entirely unthinkable. There were no princes or nobles of course, unless one counted the Children of the fire Giant, but...well no one got away without learning to survive.

A frown touched his lips for the moment.

"How did you get bit?" He asked. "Was someone in the court infected?"

There were stories of Vampire Nobles. Men and women who roamed the courts of the southlands in order to gain influence and slowly corrupt those around them. Ishar knew they were just stories, but they had to come from somewhere.

Right?

 

[Rose]

"No. At least ... I don't think so," She amended.

She took a deep breath in and out, chewing on her lip as she thought on events she didn't like to linger on.

"There was an uprising. Some peasants- they were angry, the walls were failing, the streets had turned dangerous, the guards weren't keeping them clear at night so- well there was fighting in the palace and I-" She shrugged in an almost helpless and bitter manner. "I thought I could do something."

"I got bit instead."

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar ran a finger over the braided tails of his beards, nodding his head slowly.

"I see." A good heart.

He supposed that he knew that already though. Rose's action had proven more than once that she wasn't evil, a fact that made it all the more depressing she had gotten bitten. Eventually her urges would overcome her, the hunger digging deep into her soul until it could no longer be bared.

Not that he would say it to her.

"You have a lot to learn." He told her softly. "But at least youre a quick study."

 

[Rose]

Rose glanced up at him, her expression softening in appreciation at his final words. "I like learning. More than needlework, anyway."

She gingerly reached out and nudged a wayward, flopping fish his way. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna find more wood while you-" She made a vague whacking motion, still deeply uncomfortable by the notion. "Is that enough or do you need like- a deer too?"

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"It's fine." Though a frown touched his face.

He'd never much liked fish.

The Blightlands had them, but most of them were toxic. The Blight was infested with pools of toxic scum, remnants of the mines and metal works that made their way from Molthal. The fish there were inedible to say the least, leading to rashes and closed throats more than sustenance.

It was...unpleasant. "We'll move on quickly."

He reminded her.

"So don't gather more than we need." Another lesson. "Makes you easy to follow."

 

[Rose]

Rose couldn't help but to crack a small grin. "No one can follow me," she countered, her tone light as she let herself dissipate into the shadows again.

Regardless, his warning was well received. As she left him to his fish-murdering and subsequent cooking, she did not hunt for anything else. She returned only once they were good and cooked, a comical amount of wood in her arms again. She dropped them into the pile she had gathered, more than enough piled up for the night.

She flopped back besides him on the ground, groaning and stretching her arms as if they had suffered abuse.

She looked up at him, expecting condolences. Or praise. Both works.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"Anyone can follow anyone." Ishar made the comment almost as if the two of them had been talking in conversation the entire time.

The former Templar wasn't a man to praise, not usually anyway, but nor was he one to put someone down. The Blightlands had turned him into a hard man. Emotions and the like did not come easily to him, especially now that he had all but closed himself to the world.

"Just because you have magic doesn't mean you're safe." He chided. "There are many who can do similar things to you, some worse."

Briefly he wondered how anti-magic, the rumored ability of the southland Templar, would fare against Rose's magic.

 

[Rose]

"Puft," was her response. She sat up, brushing her wild curls out of her face and leaving a smear of dirt behind on her forehead instead.

"You didn't know I was in your pack. I bet I could escape from you easy if I wanted to. Especially at night." It was less cocky attitude and more a playful challenge, though Ishar might not know enough about teens to tell apart the difference. Either way the playful light to her eyes was abound, her chin raised stubbornly to him.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"I am not a mage." He said quietly, frowning. "Nor do I possess anti-magic."

Unfortunately, the Werewolf contained none of the required playfullness one would need to understand Rose's challenge.

To him this was simply a matter of safety, both hers and his. He wanted her to understand that there were limits to what she could do, especially given that he doubted she had encountered them before. Strength, speed, and magic were benefits that many would have killed for.

"If you're not careful you'll get yourself killed." Ishar was not good at being 'playful'.

Really not good.

 

[Rose]

Her brows furrowed, her mood soured in an instant. She bristled at him instead. "I am careful, I'm really careful. I kept you from eating anyone," recounted, half hurt and half indignant.

"I stole your wallet you never noticed. I ran from you in that hall. I practically turned fuzzy you into a pet! I'm not a child, I can take care of things."

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"I am just a normal man." He retorted, frustration brushing his tone.

"I cannot tear down cities with my hands. I cannot rip the soul from someone's body." Things that he'd seen done, things that he'd witnessed. "I cannot make a mage explode with his own power."

Anti-magic. "I am far from the only threat out there."

In fact, he was a pretty poor example. Ishar called himself a Templar, but he knew that he was more of a soldier than anything else. His crusade had been against Molthal, the evil concentrated there, not the darker more magical things in this world.

 

[Rose]

"Well. Okay. Maybe. But! I haven't seen any of them here! I haven't done anything-- I caught you fish and brought you wood, I'm not out there trying to make out with the closest stable boy," she argued.

She shoved back, putting space between them and crossing her arms, visibly agitated. "And even so, even if I did and I screwed up and ate him and everyone saw-- I could out run him and everyone in that town. I could."

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar pinched the bridge of his nose.

How in the hell did anyone live with children? How did they raise them? This was all but impossible. Taking a deep breath, Ishar steadied himself and sighed. For a moment he stayed silent, and then slowly began.

"I am not accusing you of anything." Maybe he hadn't made that clear. "I am trying to educate you."

His fingers tightened for a moment. "Your life is not as it was. In the eyes of many you're a monster, in others you're an experiment."

Like those in Elbion.

"Part of all of this." He gestured to himself, then to her. "Is learning the other parts of survival. The ones that involve people."

 

[Rose]

Rose's breath came out in a long, broken huff, still angry despite the misunderstanding that he had just cleared over.

"So, what-- you don't think I know-- you don't think I know they want me dead? Of course I know- of course I know what they could do to me, I'm not stupid." Huff.

"But I can't just sit here and dwell in it, I can't permit myself to sit here and let it take over my world. I-" She looked down and unclenched a shaking fist. Blood prickled to the surface along her palm, half moon crescents from fingernails that dug in with too much strength.

Her eyes shuddered close as she shivered, goosebumps erupting over her body.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"I'm not telling you to dwell. I am telling you to prepare." A small difference, but an important one.

For a moment, he watched her in silence.

The reality of the situation wasn't lost on her, that was something at least. Yet going around the world as thought nothing had changed, not watching yourself...taking risks. It was dangerous.

Had Ishar been someone else, had he been an ordinary man back in the village she very likely would have been strung up and burned as a witch. Perhaps worse.

"I am trying to teach you." He told her. "Part of that is being mindful."

 

[Rose]

Her breathes grew short, her whole body tense.

When she opened her eyes next they were heavily dilated-- a pin prick of black among the icey blue. "I'm trying," she practically whined, her hands shaking as she clenched them again. She squeezed her eyes closed again, recoiling backwards and kicking up more space between them.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

He paused for a second, taking a breath. "Okay."

Ishar wasn't sure what else to say.

He had never intended on raising children. He was a soldier, a Templar. In his time he'd trained his fair share of recruits, but all of them had been there for a reason, to attack Molthal, to kill one enemy or another, to do something. None of them had ever been there to just survive.

None of them had been in this situation either.

He knew that this was tough. He knew that for Rose it was likely an impossible situation, but he had no idea how to help with any of that. He simply wasn't equipped for it.