Fate - First Reply True Grit

[Maranae]

"If its work you are looking for, girl, I have none to offer," said the proprietress in a flat voice. She stood in the common room with both hands on her hips, a disapproving sneer on her face. The effect lost a little of its punch when considering that she had to look up at the erstwhile 'girl'.

The object of derision and denial stood before her, ratty red hair a knotted mess. Her clothing, while not dirty, was not clean either; old stains washed out time and again were apparent. Some of them were suspicious in nature; maroon-brown faded with many washings spattered across the threadbare shirt and pants. At least she didn't stink, but it was also clear that she was a transient of some kind. The proprietress had never seen her before today and - with the grace of the heavens - would not see her again afterwards.

For her part, Maranae smiled and turned away. "Okay," she said without a trace of disappointment or discontent. Back into the room she went, heedless of the eyes that followed her and back out into the street.

She did not really understand the concept of work. She did not really understand the concept of money, either; some tenuous link between the idea of work and money was all she knew, and that people expected to be given money in exchange for things. Valuation was not a strength of hers. In fact, her only real strength seemed to be the ability to survive in the wild places, places where men did not live. With a constitution similar to a komodo, it wasn't as if survival was a particular challenge; she could drink tainted water and eat rotting meat (preferred fresh killed, though), and the elements - at least here on the plains - proved little challenge.

She could happily live out the days of her life in the wilds, never coming close to human habitation...were it not for the burning questions in her mind.

Who am I? Where do I come from?

She was not a very bright girl. All she knew was that she had been in a bad place, and that bad place had wanted to make of her some kind of weapon. The concept of weapon was easy enough for her to understand; the claws that tipped her fingers and toes served well, better in some cases than her rudimentary understanding of blades and bows. She was a chimeric creature, although she did not really know that. She just knew that she had been made.

That should have been that. A creature made for war, to do what she was told and not to think, to postulate, to opine on her existence. But, as with so many things that people had a hand in making, she was flawed. They did not get the unthinking beast they wanted, but rather some broken creature that could think for itself in some limited fashion. Enough to question and to fret about simple concepts, but not enough intelligence to make any progress on the burning questions that plagued all of humanity.

There were...memories. Memories of a time that she did not know, fleeting images of a place. Of faces, of the idea of being loved and loving in return. Vel Anir, whispered some nameless voice in her head. Home. Whatever home was.

The sun outside was a fair bit stronger today, and provided enough warmth that the clothes she wore weren't necessarily needed. Resistance to the elements did not equate to immunity, and while she could withstand the cold it was not necessarily pleasant. The wind out of the south brought with it the scent of the turning of the season, a welcome thing after recent months. It also kicked up dust and grit she had to squint against the dirt rain that pelted from the dry streets. Even the manure of horse and ox had dried out; it had been months since the last moisture had fallen here.

Not much longer, though. The wet season was on the horizon.

One place denied her, but there were at least a half dozen such places in this seedy trade hub. Didn't matter to her that they would all likely turn away a threadbare vagabond; she hadn't thought that far ahead. There were trades here that she could get at the drop of a hat, but she was not really wired that way and might never be; lascivious looks were lost on her, and even assuming such an awakening ever came, it would be to breed and little else.

So the tall redhead worked her way up the street to the next place where they could tell her no, and was blissfully unaware of the heavily armed bounty hunter trailing her a few dozen yards back. The fellow had his mind on his money and his money on his mind, and it was walking ahead of him in blissful ignorance.

 

[Lysander]

Lysander had been called upon to go and handle a small disturbance. Some fraud in Vel Anir had messed with the wrong person and said person had created such a stink about the whole thing that Lysander was sent out to go and handle it. Not to kill him, that wasn’t allowed anymore. He was to find him based on the rough sketch he had committed to memory, and then bring back to Vel Anir to face a trial that was practically guaranteed he’d lose.

The dreadlord couldn’t really complain though, a part of him did appreciate being outside the walls. It reminded him of a much simpler time when he was merely a dreadlord apprentice at the academy and could only worry about being the strongest and subordinate enough to not be punished. The only time he got a reprieve from constant needling of anxiety was when he would go on missions. They were brutal, bloody, and violent missions, hardly any time for sight seeing unless one was lucky and got placed with a more lax proctor or dreadlord, and even then it was kept to a minimum.

If one were to be a weapon then they should be treated as such. No one sent a sword on a vacation.

Thankfully, things were different. More lenient. Lysander enjoyed it, being one of the very few dreadlords who supported the revolution and felt no fear in bearing that fact. Of course, he wouldn’t need to feel fear. Many knew of his magic and understood that if he so chose, he could push them all the way to another continent if he so chose. Even without his personal magic, Lysander was still a force to be reckoned with, like any weapon the academy produced.

Walking around the stalls and hearing the calls of vendors, Lysander moved past people and wasn’t even touched. Agile movements like a cat allowed him to slip through people or to step aside at just the right moment. His dull gaze straight ahead as he continued walking forward. He had received intel that the scammer was here, on another job of some sort. He hadn’t been given much info on the person in general, only knew his name and his face and where he would possibly be. Nothing more and nothing less.

He couldn’t help but feel that perhaps the captain had purposely chosen Lysander for this mission to somehow punish him.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Yarik had been working this industry for decades, an admirable feat only possible due to the longevity of his people. Well...one side of his lineage, anyway; bastard son to a drow slave-whore, he would live for several hundred years and be in his prime for many of them. Profitable, that. Just as well, since the only thing he lived for was money.

Broken homes did that to people. Did lots of things to people.

The wench had stepped inside another watering hole in this gods-forsaken hole of a trading post. She still seemed unaware of his presence, which was just as well. This one required caution, however; the amount of coin on her head might turn heads, but the fact that the bounty had stood for two years without being claimed was concerning. The girl looked as placid and hapless, as naive and world-wise as a child...but there had to be something more beneath that facade.

There might have been a thousand souls that lived here during the height of the trading season, a month or more away. Now? Now, there were five hundred, all preparing for the major caravans that would come in the middle of the wet season. The usual riff-raff associated with such places were in their winter homes, having followed the trade elsewhere. It made tailing someone unseen more difficult. But not impossible. Not impossible.

His kind were not unknown in this kind of place. His appearance and demeanor might cause some passing comment, but people would not get in his way. So it was that he just decided to step right up on the wooden walk along the front of one stretch of buildings - in front of the one his mark had gone into - and wait.

Hand on hilt, blade undrawn, tensed like a coiled spring.

***

"Ok," she said in her happy little way, and turned away from the man at the counter. He watched her walk away, and shook his head.

Why will no one give me work? A question another might have asked themselves, but she did not even think to ask it of herself, let alone anyone else. She wended her way through a common room completely empty of customers, and stepped outside into the sun. The wind blew ever harder out of the south, but aside from the irritation of the ever-present grit carried with it she seemed completely unconcerned with it.

Another day, another town, and another waste of time. She considered just walking across the plains herself, heading home - wherever that was - on foot. But...she did not know the way. Vel Anir was burned into her mind, the only whole memory left from a time before her sundering and ... and all that came after. Flickering images of pain and fear. Darkness, eternal silence, cut by blinding light and new life. A monster, that was what they called her - an inhuman beast with the semblance of humanity.

Maybe it was because she was a simulacrum that she couldn't get work? Some fundamental flaw in her being that others could see or sense that she could not? Maybe that was why-

Her ears twitched. The sound of steel being drawn, close to hand. She spun without thinking about it, and with inhuman speed, saw and recognized the threat for what it was. And took action.

The blade that Yarik had drawn was a narrow short sword, efficient and workman-like and currently being gripped in one of her hands. Blood dripped from the cut to her palm, but she displayed no hint of pain. In fact, the blade had hardly done much damage considering how hard he had swung it at her.

"Ouch," she said in a conversational tone. "Why did you hit Mara?" She cocked her head to one side, looked at her blood dripping from her hand, and then to the owner of the blade. For his part, he had the decency to swallow and look very, very contrite.

She should have been angry. Anyone else that had been attacked in such a way would have been furious. Instead, she simply stared at the man, blade gripped tightly in her hand. He tried to pull it away, but not only was she much stronger than he was, she was also much, much heavier than she looked. The density of her muscle and bone that allowed her to withstand such a hit made her very heavy.

"Um," Yarik said. There had never been much in the way of bravado in him before, but there was none now. This creature was dangerous, and now he understood why. He released the sword - he was not going to wrest it from her anyway - and drew the pair of heavy bladed knives at his hips. By this point, others had taken note of the altercation and were hurrying away. Except the ones that weren't and were in for a bit of blood sport.

"You are going to be coming with me, lady," he tried. She looked at him almost as if she were slow witted, and then dropped the sword in her hands.

"No," she said, making the word sound more like a question than a declaration. He grit his teeth, preparing for a fight that he was suddenly a lot less sure of winning.

 

[Lysander]

Lysander noticed that people started to be moving away. His lips twitched down in a slight frown of confusion. Was he over thinking it? But then there were those whispers, that hint that something more was actually going on. Usually when people seemed to move away from a place as briskly as they could without causing attention to themselves, it meant something big was happening. And what would be bigger than a fight that no one wanted to be in the middle of?

The dreadlord began moving against the flow of traffic, aiming to head to that spot that everyone wanted to flee from. He pulled his dark cloak up and over his head, making sure it was secure. There was a possibility that his mark was the one causing the scene and if so, he wanted to keep some semblance of stealth if possible. Although if it was his mark and they tried to run, he would have just pulled him back. If it wasn’t his mark though, then Lysander would move on. However, if there was an issue, he did want to know. After all, it could cause a slight issue in his own mission.

Finally Lysander saw what was going on. A very tall woman and a man who was clearly not fully human. Lysander’s blue eyes flicked over the woman, seeing that she had just grabbed the sword and didn’t even flinch. Amazing. Really, it was. Lysander couldn’t imagine having something so useful. To barely be damaged by a swing of a sword? Immensely useful.

He paused, however, listening to the two share words. Or, hardly any words at all. The way the tall woman spoke was unusual, Lysander could easily pick that up. His time at the academy had shown him quite a few cases of children who were stunted due to the torture at the academy, and the way they spoke showed it. It was if a part of their brain had just stopped growing while every other part did. He was thankful that such a thing didn’t seem to have happened to him or his brother. At least as far as he knew.

Lysander glanced at around him, even the few stall keepers around this street seemed to be moving away as well. A hand was on his sword, though thankfully his cloak covered the action a bit. He moved forward. Because really, considering the new teachings at Vel Anir and mixed in with some of Lysander’s instructed racism against anything with pointy-ears, he was supposed to be making sure people didn’t die. Somehow, Lysander knew, this woman with that childlike innocence evident on her face and voice, that woman wasn’t a transgressor. At least not one that frightened Lysander.

“It’s not wise to start a fight at someone’s establishment.” The dreadlord said, his monotone voice and apathetic eyes making it seem as if he had just told them that the sky was blue. “Move it along elsewhere.” It was a command, although still, there was no infliction in his voice and his eyes remained steadily indifferent.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Always had to go like this, didn't it? When the mark was a woman, it always went this way. Delicate flowers, maidens in distress - all manner of trite cliches told in fireside tales and in books and in song. Did no one realize that bounties of the magnitude on offer here were not acquired by being dainty and demure?

Well, not often anyway.

Maranae stared at the fellow warily, but did not move forward or away. At one point, she might have run from an assailant. At one point. However, she had discovered - much to her delight - that not running decreased the likelihood of being chased a considerable bit, and that most people who sought her in this fashion were not really as much of a threat as they made out to be. She did, however, turn her head slightly to take in the latest arrival. So close, the vertical pupils were starkly inhuman, and the long canines - nearly cat-like - stood to further separate her from normal human stock.

Those eyes were unreadable, amiable in their own way.

"People do not own the street," the bounty hunter settled on, finally. His eyes shifted between the overly tall simulacra and the blue-eyed intruder. "At least, not the owners of the establishments. You are sticking your nose into business where it is unwanted, stranger," he added. A hint of warning in his voice, but it was tempered by uncertainty at the odds offered for an altercation.

"Why did you hit her?" Maranae repeated, eyes swiveling back to the bounty hunter. The fellow stared back without moving. "Is not nice," she added, waving the wounded hand in his direction. The injury had already started to heal.

"Because you are dangerous," he said, and then looked back to the other fellow. "Listen, I do not know if you think you are helping a woman, but this creature isn't human," he said to Lysander. "She is an escaped experiment. She is very, very dangerous. Move along, boy; this is between me and the beast." Dead or alive, dead or alive, dead or alive. The owner of this abomination did not carry if it was brought back to them in one piece or twenty.

Yarik considered simply knifing the wench and then dealing with the unknown stranger after. It would honestly be the smartest way to go about it.

 

[Lysander]

Lysander once again picked up on the woman speech. Yes, very childlike in nature, as if somehow she didn’t have a very complete notion of self. Or perhaps she did and it was skewed. After all, Lysander did listen to Yarik as he spoke. How much of it was truth? How much was fiction or false beliefs? He looked back at the woman, assessing her. Her wound was already healing, but she did have a point. Yes, it wasn’t very nice at all.

But was she dangerous? If she was dangerous wouldn’t she have attacked back? All she was doing there right now was standing there, confused. She didn’t strike the man or even try and disarm him. Childlike response, more curious about the why and almost just accepting actions.

Lysander was silent, staring straight at Yarik with a leveled, unblinking stare. He could walk away. Should he walk away? He had his own mission he needed to complete. Not only that but he was Anirian. Why should he care about protecting someone that wasn’t even human. The better look he got of Maranae accentuated this fact: her teeth, her eyes, her high level of healing and strength.

“An escaped experiment.” The dreadlord murmured, “a beast.” He shook his head, blue eyes narrowing ever so slightly as his dark brows dipped down. “She hardly seems dangerous. You’re the one holding the letter opener.” An insult, one of the few that Lysander would ever make in his life.

“Who exactly claims her as their own? Slavery is outlawed in more places now.” Lysander stood where he was. He wasn’t going to leave. At least, not yet.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

"Some lordling of Vel Anir owns it," the hunter stated flatly. "No name given. Not uncommon in my line of work, you understand," he added.

He spread his hands, knives in them, in contrition; he did not really want to fight both of them. He didn't even want to fight one of them; a simple retrieval was far more appealing than a bloodbath in the streets. The amount of coin on offer, though...

"You cannot have a rock as a slave," Yarick replied to the dark eyed fellow. "Nor a dog, nor a horse, nor a cat. Just because a thing looks human does not mean it is; just because it can talk is no proof, either." There were birds that could speak, as well as other animals that could mimic it. The creature before him had asked a question, but even if it wasn't mimicry and it was a genuine question...what of the thing lurking behind those inhuman eyes.

Was it a monster of some limited intelligence, or was it human.

Maranae seemed a bit agitated, now. Bared steel bother her more than a little bit. Too many had used it on her. She still did not understand why they attacked her; defending herself typically made things worse and not better. "Is not dog. Not slay, not rock," she said, mispronouncing the word slave and not understanding it in any case. She stood a little taller, inexplicably becoming a trifle more intimidating. "Is Mara, not thing. You...go away," she said - making the statement something of a question.

She took a step forward, and he took a step back, eyes darting between them.

"This thing is more dangerous than you know," he said one last time.

 

[Lysander]

“Dangerous,” Lysander said, looking straight into Yarick’s eyes. “Then if she’s so dangerous perhaps I should handle her.” It was then that Lysander stopped diminishing his presence. He had to be so monotone all the time, he could never let his emotions get the best of him, after all, the destruction he could wreck would be massive. But just this once, he would let it be felt. The incredible power he wield, that force only he could control and command like it was a part of him.

The palpable tension that was between Lysander and Yarick began to ripple with actual, true pressure, emitting from Lysander. It was a handy trick he had learned, focusing on push. Constantly pushing everything away from him, every time he took a step closer to Yarick the bounty hunter would feel that pressure increase. The reverse of a gravitational pull.

“After all, bounty hunter, I am Lysander, a second-level dreadlord from the kingdom of Vel Anir. Soon to be a first level, my promotion got delayed due to my participation in the revolution.” He said evenly, his gaze still dull, still no sort of infliction within his voice. But there was no need to show emotion for now, Lysander understood that his presence should be enough.

After all, if this bounty hunter was worried about dealing with this woman who was far kinder than Lysander, he should follow his instincts and choose self-preservation. Lysander then brought his somber gaze to Maranae.

“Mara, that is your name?” Lysander asked, now completely ignoring Yarick. If the man wanted to try and fight him then Lysander would make sure he’d give him one last good fight— a quick and simple death would be his reward.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

The man said nothing to the dreadlord. He felt the pressure that the man exerted, but it was muted; neither he nor Lysander knew, of course. One would assume their efforts were felt in full measure, and the other did not even know the full measure of that affect.

Because Mara stood between them. The effect was...diminished...by her very presence. Even Yarick did not really know the full story behind the beautiful creation before him; in so many ways, her creators had failed in their ambitions. But...well, in so many ways, they had succeeded. Maranae was a weapon, true...but one hand-crafted to destroy the man who even now stood in her defense.

"Do what you will, pup," Yarick said, relatively unfazed by the man and his muted power. He would not fight both of them, and especially not a dreadlord. The man would not be around forever, and the beast would move on, as she had done so many times before.

He stepped back, stooping to pick up the blade that Maranae had taken from him and discarded. He did not let his eyes wander from the dark fellow or the girl, either one; the people who had watched on as all of this unfolded sighed and began to drift away. Yarick backed away, too, not wanting to put his back to either of them. At least, until he was far enough away and then he simply...melted away.

Maranae watched him go with inhuman eyes, unblinking. She then turned to Lysander, completely and utterly ignorant of whatever power he had allowed to be displayed. She cocked her head to one side. "Is her name, yes," she said. She grinned at Lysander, the tips of her canines just visible. "Vel Anir? You are...from there?" She seemed to perk up at the mention of the name. "Mara is from there! Mara's family is from there!"

She wanted to dance and caper about, but she resisted the urge - barely. Instead, jade eyes lit up with delight. Inhuman eyes, inhuman features.

A beast in the guise of a human...or a human in the guise of a beast.

 

[Lysander]

Lysander had no idea— at least not yet or a solid idea—that Maranae had such passive power to dull his own. Besides, how could he know better when Yarick had conceded and let them be for the time being. Lysander had no doubt that he wouldn’t just leave, if anything he’d make himself scarce and then strike and that most opportune time. Unfortunately for Yarick, Lysander was forever on edge, always guarded and ready to fight, even when he didn’t want to. The academy of the dreadlords had made it so he would never know a true day’s peace, in the back of his mind was that whisper telling him to be careful, that every step, even every blink mattered.

“Your family is from Vel Anir?” Lysander questioned, no longer using his magic. Mild interest could be seen on his features, the most expressive he could afford to get. His power was a great one and with it came many sacrifices. Of course, Yarick had mentioned that some lord of sort “owned” her. Is that what she considered her family to be? Or were there others just like her running about? Frankly, he didn’t like the idea of these strange humanoids being unleashed in his beloved city, if steel didn’t harm them then what was keeping them in line?

Lysander slowly began stepping up towards her and reached out a hand. He felt trepidation doing this, mostly because even he felt her awesome might and understood that she could potentially crush his hand. But there was that childlike essence about her, something that just reminded Lysander of Kalix when he was younger.

Perhaps she was bit dumb, but it didn’t make her cruel.

“Mara, are you looking to go back home?” Lysander asked, looking up at her, his blue eyes being reflected in her strange pupils. “You’re very far away from Vel Anir if you are.” He commented, not to mock her but merely just stating it as a fact.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She nodded happily at his question. "Yes, yes!" she said, turning to face him with the grace of a feline. Unlike him, she was entirely without caution regarding this strange man that had stepped forward on her behalf. The single thread of hostility that had been rising ever so slowly for Yarick evaporated as soon as that worthy was out of sight.

Out of sight, out of mind, apparently.

She watched as Lysander offered a hand, and stared at it questioningly, unsure what to do with it. There was no weapon in it, so it was clearly no threat to her. She looked up at him, head cocked to one side.

"Home?" she queried uncertainly. In her mind, the idea of home was a vague thing...but there was an image attached to that notion, that idea. It was blurry and indistinct, fragmented and broken - a relic of the time before, when she had been a human. A cobbled street, a wooden door, and two people - one looking after her, the other gone most of the day.

Mother. Father. Home. Whispered words with a meaning she could just about grasp...just about reach.

She shook her head as if to rid it of cobwebs.

"Was taken from Vel Anir," she said slowly. "Taken and...and magicked in dark place with no sun." Magic was a thing she did not understand. She only knew what little she did of herself from the things that were said in that dark place. A lair, wherein she and other subjects were subjected to experiments of sorcery and science at the twisted end of their respective arts.

"Mara needs money to go there, but no work," she continued, looking back up with those inhuman eyes of hers.

 

[Lysander]

Lysander’s hand fell down to his side after a moment, realizing that Mara wasn’t going to shake it or even reach towards it. It would’ve been something he’d note as rude on the other person’s behalf but considering that Mara seemed more confused by the gesture than anything else meant that he felt no sort of bitterness towards her.

Of course, her mention of Vel Anir and the brief description of what had happened to her there caused Lysander to think carefully. Bringing her back meant that most likely, he should put Vel Anir first. Yarrick’s words were not one that Lysander himself would heed extensively, but he was certain: Mara could harm others.

Didn’t mean she would, but Lysander would never risk the livelihood of Vel Anir’s citizens to face such a threat.

“I have money Mara.” Lysander said. “The city of Vel Anir is my home as well. Of course, the kingdom of Vel Anir reaches many places, I cannot guarantee that the city is your home.” Or that he could guarantee that he would not be ordered to kill her right on the spot.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

The threat of impending death was lost on her. She did not understand the nation that Vel Anir was, or its ways any more than she did this man, or this little town. Or the concept of a job, or of money. To her, it was some shadowy thing etched into the back of her mind, a memory of a memory. A trace fro ma life that had been ended and returned, transmuted into something else.

Mara shook her head in denial. "From Vel Anir," she repeated. She could almost remember where in the city - could probably identify it if she walked through the neighborhood, at least. So much of her real life was gone, dust in the wind and borne away into the wilds.

And then, almost as an afterthought: "But home is where bad men are." A pause. "They...they killed Mara," she added. Their words, not hers; the concept of death was strange to her. A word she understood, and a meaning for it - the cessation of movement, the end of words. She had brought that curse to some few people, and the very thought of it sickened her.

Mara had killed to escape, to live. She did not want to be anyone's weapon...but she was a weapon, all the same. It was what she had been made for, and she could be nothing less. "Is quiet man a Hunter?" she asked of him, quite suddenly. She eyed him apprehensively, as though the answer to the question might necessitate further action.

 

[Lysander]

So she was from the city? Lysander wasn’t sure how to handle this bit of information, and he especially was unsure of how he should take into consideration one of Mara’s many strange statements, that they had killed her. It was easy to believe that someone wanted her dead, she wasn’t human, her eyes and stature and overall abilities made that apparent.

Of course Lysander wasn’t like the dreadlords of old who were xenophobic. He truly believe any creature, whether human or humanoid or even a eight-foot tall fire giant, deserved a chance of a contented life. As long as they didn’t harm people. But Lysander shook his head at his thoughts and squared his shoulders. The one good thing about Mara was that she seemed rather forthcoming with information. He could delve deeper in how she was killed but still standing before him.

Necromancy. It was something that Lysander knew of, and one of his classmates had been rumored to dabble in such a thing. But necromancy was entirely frowned upon. And far fetched from it being used on someone like Mara who seemed so alive and didn’t need to be close to her handler.

“Quiet man? Me?” He asked, cocking his head briefly to the right and even pointing at his own face. Was it him or the bounty hunter? It made more sense for it to be him, did it not? “I am not a hunter, no.” He said slowly. Well, technically he wasn’t a hunter although his mission did seem very similar to that of a bounty hunter’s. “I am…” Lysander trailed off. It’s not that he had an issue with lying, sometimes it was very much so needed. But hadn’t he informed Yarrick that he was a dreadlord? Best to keep on going with the truth then.

“I am Lysander from Vel Anir. I am a dreadlord. You’re from Vel Anir, Mara, do you know what a dreadlord is?”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Her head tilted to one side as she considered the question, her eyes gleaming in the light. A quiet curiosity and strange intensity shone within them, but the spark of brilliance was certainly absent. "Dread...lord," she repeated slowly, head tilted to the other side much i nthe same way a dog might when its master spoke. Tangled red locks fell first one way, and then the other. "Mara..."

Fragmented memories. Unknown to even her, she had been quite young when those who had made her did their deed. Most of Vel Anir knew the dreadlords, of them at least, and while they were of and for the city in their own way, they were certainly not celebrated by the small people.

Some fragment of that notion must have made its way into her head, some impression from a life before. "Bad...but not bad...," she murmured, eyes going distant as she tried to chase down the thought. "She...does not know much. But bad people said Mara is 'a present' for dreadlords." She looked up to Lysander, mildly confused. "Mara does not...understand what cage-man meant. Maybe Lysander-man knows...?"

 

[Lysander]

Lysander was proud of his status. Despite what being a dreadlord represented: a weapon for the kingdom to use, there would always be a hint of pride within the man. He had survived. The brutal academy, the harsh years, the killing, and all that blood— he had survived. And his morality had managed to stay intact. He had participated in the revolution, had killed many more, many of his classmates or those who had once been his senior or junior. All to make Vel Anir. All to make it a republic and a chance to give Kalix a better life.

So Mara’s words caused the dreadlord to be still.

“I’m sure they meant they wanted you to kill dreadlords, Mara.” Lysander said. The only thing that gave way to his true feelings was the fact that the hair on the back of his neck rose. A sense of fear and adrenaline began to build inside him. He continued to stay level. “But there was a revolution. Vel Anir has changed. It’s a republic now. Rules are different, now.” Another slight pause. He didn’t want to hang on this topic, not longer than he had to at least.

“Mara, are you hungry? Would you like to come with me to get something to eat?”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Were it that they could sit and talk deeply of the subject of being a weapon. Lysander's pride in his status as such was at strong odds with Maranae's dislike of violence; he had been born a human and forged into a weapon, and she had been born a human as well - and then forged into a weapon by completely different means. The boy Lysander might have been given a choice; she had not. She had been taken when she was young, and then...

She wrinkled her nose at his words. "Mara does not want to kill people," she said in a disgusted tone. "Do not know why, but...is not right?" She could not put to words the reason behind her reservations. Hurting people was sometimes necessary, but never killing. You only killed your food, after all, and she did not eat people.

Speaking of eating...

She perked up and he mentioned food. Mara often thought with her stomach first and let other considerations come up later. Her eyes gleamed at the thought. "Hungry? She is always hunger. No food in wood place with many people-" ...town... "-so Mara must go to tall grass for dinner," she happily explained. While she did not like killing people, there was a certain satisfaction - a rightness to the world - when she ran down the various quadrapeds of the Savannah. Or anywhere; the thrill of the chase, kill, and the delightful taste of red meat...

She was salivating at the thought, her stomach grumbling now, as though it had been forgotten and suddenly remembered its purpose. "Yes, yes!" she chortled.

 

[Lysander]

Lysander could understand the sentiment. He personally thought that have some sort of remorse when it came to killing was a good thing. This did not mean that he did not think that killing was never necessary. For him, it had always been necessary. He liked to think that he only killed bad guys when it was necessary to do so.

Deep down inside he knew that to be incredibly false. The real reason he killed was to survive. He had put his life and the republic’s budding success before those he had faced off against. But now wasn’t the time for semantics. If anything, Mara’s answer was naive to Lysander but a good and suitable one all at the same time. The sort of answer one would expect from a child.

“There’s food here, Mara,” Lysander said, cocking his head to the side a bit before shrugging. Perhaps there technically wasn’t food her her though. She did… look strange. Even outside of Vel Anir were people were generally much less racist and more diverse, she would stand out. And people often were fond of those who seemed different.

The grumbling of her stomach was the final push.

“Then let’s leave here, and you can hunt. I’ll take you back to Vel Anir.” Lysander said, and without waiting to see if Mara would follow him or not, he pivoted on his heel, beginning to head to the outskirts of town. “I’m a decent hunter myself.” He said, looking straight ahead. “For the most part.”

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

"Not food." Her words were flat and held a certain degree of disgust to them. She'd tasted what they considered to be food, and it made her ill to even think of how well it had set on her stomach. "Place of wood gives Mara 'food' that makes her not well," she said. Cramps, vomiting, and even worse things than that. What they called food here was poison.

Lysander-man began to walk away, and she followed him with her eyes for a moment...and then pranced along behind him. She might look like an adult, but she was really too much a child in her mind; she danced round him as he walked, trusting him - a stranger - in a way only a child might. Of course, she was far more capable of protecting herself than a child might be. "Going home, going home!" she chortled as she danced about, a spectacle in and of itself. It didn't draw much attention, though; people here were more concerned with being about their business than the antics of an obviously slow-in-the-head woman dancing round another stranger.

She perked up at the word hunting. "No animals near town," she said matter of fact. Away from the city, her intelligence was far more apt. She did not belong in the civilized world, really...but there, just beyond town, where the sea of grass washed up against the orderly buildings, that was her home. "Maybe this far," she said, and made a gesture with her hand, a sweeping arc of perhaps twenty degrees. Her own cryptic way of telling time, by the sweep of the sun across the heavens.

It proved there was some intelligence in that pretty skull, but how much was uncertain.

 

[Lysander]

The dreadlord kept the brisk pace and was honestly quite surprised by how easily Maranae could prance around him in a childish dance. It lacked uniformity and was reminding him more of a galloping foal than a sinuous snake, however, it was natural nonetheless. Perhaps he was just slightly jealous of the fact that Mara could boast being over six foot while Lysander couldn’t get away with saying he was a inch taller. Someone always seemed to recognize the fact that he was shorter than the average Anirian man.

“Perhaps it is the way they prepare the food, Mara,” Lys suggested, thinking that maybe they hadn’t cared much when serving her so it was undercooked— or overcooked— or even the spices could have upset a stomach. However, as Mara explained, it seemed that she preferred her own style of cooking. Lysander figured that since she was a bipedal-thing there was no way she was going to eat food raw, right? She wasn’t a beast but some sort of human… right?

His blue gaze went up to look at the arc she made with her hand and tilted his head, unsure what exactly she was referencing to. The sun? A range of an area? Or just a gesture she picked up? He would have his work cut out for him, understanding her just enough so he could bring her back home to Vel Anir.

When they came to the tall grasses, Lysander would pause. Of course he could hear little rustles here and there, but he must definitely couldn’t hear anything. He then glanced over at Mara.

“Do you need my sword to hunt?” He asked her.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Lysander was wrong, and just how wrong he was would be illuminated soon enough.

Walking out of time, the chimera seemed to relax even more than before - if that was possible - as the possibility of hunters diminished. She still moved with a nearly feline grace, a sinuous flow that was almost alluring (until the chimera opened her mouth, that is.) "Not-food is green and orange," she remarked to his comment about preparation of food. Maranae was, after all, an obligate carnivore through the process of being made. The creatures that had been melded into her flesh were predators, one and all.

She had been born to kill, and like it or not, she was good at it.

"Sword?" She looked at the weapon at his waist, and shook her head, red hair quivering. "No, Mara need only hands." She displayed those worthies, each finger tipped with a claw that didn't seem large enough to actually do significant damage.

She slipped into the grass. In so doing, a change overcame the friendly beast, a thing that any native of the wildlands would recognize on sight. The sinuous movement became a stalking, and the air of pleasant affability shifted into a feel of concentration. She stalked forward, now that she was in her proper element, ears straining and sniffing at the air every so often, seeking prey and doing so without a word.

It did not take too long. So close to a human settlement, wild things tended to keep away. But with predators leery of human protection of their livestock, so it seemed that ruminates tried to remain relatively close - close enough to use the humans as a shield, but far enough to not end up in a human stewpot.

The animal in question was a young kaizua. The beast, perhaps a thousand pounds of flesh and horns, grazed at a patch of green vegetation amid the tall, dry grass; a seep of water sprang from the ground here and made it possible for an enticing meal such as this.

It was clearly unusual for such a beast to be by itself. Even Mara knew this, but the fact that it was made it an offering from the heavens as far as she was concerned. She crouched low, alert. If she'd had a tail, it would have been switching; if she'd a cats ears, they would have been alert, as her eyes were.

"Hunger..." she whispered in a low, near growl. It was a big enough beast that both could eat from it, if only barely. She looked back to Lysander, seeing if the man was prepared. She did not really understand that he was incapable of killing in her manner, and that without the use of his singular abilities, his contribution to this kill would be purely of moral support.