Right on Time (Arken)

[Beshira]

Time Stamp: 22nd of Winter, 512 AV

Whenever Trista left home to go somewhere or get something done, Beshria would, at times, rove about the streets to get a better feel of the city. There wasn’t much incentive for her to gaze into shop windows and visit taverns considering much of her kicks came from exploring the wilds, but even an adventurous soul such as her could grow wearisome of it once in a while. She stopped in her tracks, a faint, enticing aroma filling her senses. Under normal circumstances she might never have picked it up, but being an avid hunter, she often utilized scents as one of the ways she used to work her way around.

Stepping into the White Swan, Beshira felt herself overwhelmed by its tightly packed but elegant nature. Taking a cursory walk inside, the place reeked of strong alcohol and elitist snobs, the disgustingly pompous atmosphere suddenly disquieting her need to roam the rest of the city, let alone this inn. The setting was perfect; it was almost all too easy to run the scenarios through her head. She would sit down and order a meal. Then, some highbrow prick would come up and ask if she would favor a drink, and then she would bash his smug face in and get herself thrown out like a complete idiot. Needless to say, she simply didn’t have the money on hand to afford goods at such a lavishly set inn, either.

She was getting ready to leave when she felt a familiar presence entering through the doorway from behind her.

[Arken]

Arken slowed his pace as he walked closer to the white swan inn. A Black cowl and red scarf still as usual concealing the lower portion of his face as he walked. Pulling his cloak closer to himself with one hand and adjusting his belt with the other hand. He stepped into the front room of the inn the smell of expensive wine and a sense of elitism filled the inn. He gazed around unsure whether this was the appropriate place for him to get a room for storage. He ordered a tray of fruit and bottle of wine and begun walking to the dinning room.

"This whole being undead thing yet trying to appear somewhat human is a bit tedious to say the least but pretending to eat is pry the least difficult part."Thinking that he took a seat at a empty table and popped open the bottle of wine pretending to sip at it. Setting the bottle of wine back on the table he set his gloved hands together and waited for Beshira to enter the dinning room and probably take a seat. After a few seconds had passed Arken got a little anxious and decided to be the one to approach. He went walked up to her and begun firing questions at her.

"We didn't exchange names last time, my name is Arken yours?" He put one foot behind himself to give himself something to for lack of a better word fall back on in case she shoved him or something cause he asked the wrong question or was about to. He extended his right hand this time now covered in a leather glove for her to shake being as they didn't meet in the best of circumstances. "Where are you from?" he looked around as people shuffled passed them and then said in a much lower voice to her "perhaps we should take this discussion somewhere more private." detaching a small bag from his belt untied the string around the bag's opening and stuck his fingers inside as he looked for enough mizas to get a room or two.

[Beshira]

It’s him, Beshira thought, lolling her head to one side. The man she’d accompanied on her way back from her hunting trip a few days ago. She couldn’t remember much about him when she thought back on it, though it had become clear again that he had been relatively secretive in his approach. She considered staying a while and humoring him for a bit before leaving.

“I thought you were a more reserved type of person,” she said, disregarding his initial questions as she subtly gestured the inn’s classy disposition. The man put out his hand but she declined the shake, resting her hands on her hips. “What do you need me for?” She watched as his hands trawled through his coin bag, perhaps thinking of picking out an open room. “I suppose I’ve got time to kill for a little talk,” she shrugged. “Shoot.”

[Arken]

Arken pulled out some money from his coin sack and set it on the front desk the money was just enough for one room here at this in. Arken then put the string back around the top of the bag closing it and tying the string in a knot then placing the bag back on his belt. He looked back to Beshira"I know I usually stand in the back but your habit of accepting rides from random armed strangers made me different. I fear for your safety."he braced himself for what he figured was going to be a angry response but before he waited too long he then said"I've ordered some wine and fruit."

He shifted his weight to his other foot he felt very uncomfortable being talkative he preferred to observe but his desire to help made him come out of his "shell". He sifted ideas of what her response would be around in his head when he decided not to wait. Going back to his table where the food tray and his bottle of wine where he picked them up and started walking to the room where he'd ordered and set the food tray on the nightstand and the wine bottle next to it.

Assuming Beshira had followed him to his room Arken said"Where you effected by the storm this fall?" taking a seat in a wooden chair he pulled it closer to the inn room door which he had kept open.

[Beshira]

"I know how to handle myself," Beshira snapped. "If I needed any help, I would never have made it this far." She knew that was a lie, though for the most part she liked to think of it to be true. And it was, to an extent. She'd traveled aimlessly for years, alone and scared, but determined. Nobody was going to help her, and she would have to learn to live without guidance. Of course, everything she knew had been flipped around when she'd met with Trista Alvarez, but that was a different story. One she wasn't very fond of telling. "I had to stay indoors for a while," Beshira said when Arken had asked about the storm. "I would've gone, too, but...I needed to stay at home to appease a friend of mine. She really doesn't let up."

[Arken]

Noticing the increase in tone in Beshira's voice as she snapped at him he tried to make a somewhat startled expression on his face."I'm sorry."He shifted and fidgeted around in his chair and then stood up walked across the room and grabbed the wine off the night stand and pretended to sip at it and he grabbed a pear and pretended to nibble at it. Sitting back down he wracked his brain for something to say and it took him a minute or two before he came up with something to say."You erm never told me your name."he said somewhat nervously unsure what he should do.

With his eyes he looked about the room rapidly looking for something to do when he noticed the light purplish curtains looked quite nice he walked over to them.He removed his glove from his right hand and started feeling the silky smoothness of the curtain with his hand.

[Beshira]

"Beshira," the girl said crossly, glaring at him with a look that could be taken to mean she was less than amused. "You put food to your mouth so you can eat it, not so you can act like you're eating it." She sat silent for a moment, tossing her hunting knife in the air catching it again to keep her mind occupied. "So you're worried for me, huh?" she finally said, not believing his slander for a single moment as her eyes followed the blade's rise and fall. "You really expect me to believe that? What am I to you? Justification for your impertinent high-horse attitude? A half-hearted lie that you made up because you thought I was easy?" She tightened her grip around her knife and shot him a vicious stare. There was nothing she hated more than empty words, self-righteous worms that thought they knew people, that thought their words were more than flowery language and baseless claims staked on a false sense of honor and justice. "I fear for your safety," she echoed dryly. "Show me you're not a coward. Show me you really care."

[Arken]

He rubbed the bottom of the curtains and rolled the fabric around in his fingers and played with the fabric as he ingested Beshira's words. He then turned to his guest and slipped his glove back onto his hand and stopped messing with the curtains. Following the knife with his eyes while he thought up a reply "What can I do to show Beshira I'm not just some stranger trying to get his rocks off or something and that I'm actually just looking out for her." He put his hands together and imitated a human cracking their knuckles to waste time while he thought.

"Gold or religious factoids or ....."He slung his backpack off his shoulders setting it on the ground and opened it. The desperate man took a second to look through his backpack and then pulled a small brown sack a bit weighted out from underneath a pound of soap a flint and steel and a wooden comb and wooden hairbrush. Shutting the backpack with his left arm and extending the bag out to Beshira with his right arm he spoke in a voice vastly different from her's. While she snapped at him with a small amount of anger he replied calmly and cooly. Though he was a bit nervous of what her response was gonna be.

"Four hundred and twenty two gold mizas in this bag and nine silver mizas in this bag."Not trying to seem disrespectful but sorta bracing himself for some kind of physical response he tilted his head back over to the curtains.
"If I am sincere and want to help you then I'd offer up all my money if I'm just a somewhat wealthy guy throwing out money willy nilly then I guess I can't persuade you that I'm not. I just want to be your..."he trailed off for a second"friend I guess."

[Beshira]

Beshira opened her mouth as if to say something but simply closed it again, slouching forward and resting her hands on her knees. She couldn't think of anything to say, any word to describe him other than strange and unfathomable. It hurt her brain to think about it. What's he trying to prove? What's he saying with this? It wasn't a difficult concept to understand, but she couldn't make sense of all the factors and ideas that were thrown into the melting pot that stirred up these circumstances. Letting out a deep breath, she lowered her head and tentatively curled a lock of hair dangling over her eyes.

"You don't want to be friends with someone like me," Beshira said quietly, casting her eyes away from the man. "Believe me when I say that it won't be good for you. If you..." She trailed off, biting her lip and turning her face away. "If you want to go help someone, if you think you can do some good out there in this miserable hellhole of a world, then find someone more worthwhile. You're wasting your time and breath on me. I'm fine." At least that was what she wanted to believe. Trista changed her in ways she could never possibly have dreamed off, but what she couldn't touch was her rotten, twisted core. She hated people. Everything about them made her sick, and the few that were even worth a damn she'd somehow always manage to drive away.

She hated people, but not as much as she hated herself for being that way. It was a struggle to keep her untapped emotions locked inside, the aggressive, violent nature she thought she had long since left behind in Wind Reach. It was real, and it would never go away. Nobody could fix that. It was a pathetic thing, her overwhelming fear of death constantly clashing with her wanton desire for self-destruction and the ruin of everything that she had ever cared about. She didn't like to think about it, and being in such a conflicted state, she found it easier simply to dissuade people from coming near or approaching her by forcing her assertive demeanor onto them. If she was feeling in a lighter mood, she might let that urge slip past every now and then. This was generally not the case, and she must've sent out some kind of misconstrued image of herself when she accepted the ride from him. But there was no way she could say that now. Not when she was feeling so vulnerable.

[Arken]

Arken seeing that she refused to take the money extended his arm back to himself and then reopened the backpack and tossed the bag back inside. He then slug the backpack back over his shoulders and shut the door to the room. Then he sat down back at his chair. He looked to the bottle of wine and the fruit tray and pointed to it with one finger indicating it was alright if Beshira was hungry he wasn't planning on actually eating it anyways. He reached his arm over his back and flipped open the top of the backpack and pulled out the wooden comb.

He removed his cowl and pulled his hood down but didn't release the scarf's grip on the lower portion of his face. He brought the comb up to his head and ran it through his hair thinking of something to say."Man this whole good guy thing damn it. Why do people refuse help when others offer it? It might not be needed in all cases but if that was what was occurring then she would have left by now. Maybe I'm wrong in my thinking that people will readily accept a hero especially one who hides his face under a cowl scarf and cloak hood and dressed all in black.Then he reanalyzes what Beshira told him.

"Why do you believe it wouldn't be good if we were friends? How many people do you know in this city that really have your back in times like this. Yeah I know it'd ridiculous to readily accept that I'm offering to protect you for nothing in return when I haven't known you for more than a day without taking a grain of salt to it. But hones-"he cut himself off as the comb hit a snag in his hair and not wanting to tear the hair out he stopped combing.
"I mean it's it's..."he repeated the word it's a few more times and then cut himself off again.

He stopped to reanalyze what she said again and then stood up and walked across the room to her and stretched his arms out to her in the way a counselor might hug their patient. "Why is it that you think you're not worth my breathe?"He stopped a moment"er that is sorta insult...""you don't have to answer that." he shivered for a moment trying to imitate the fact that he was a bit uncomfortable.