Open To Market [Razkar]

In which masks finally drop and two barbarians meet in a place of business.

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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Rosela on May 27th, 2013, 2:28 pm

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Timestamp: 90th of Spring, 513AV

She was so, so pretty. The prettiest in the world.

The only sound was the quiet ‘shick-shick-shick’ of her sandals on the cobblestone road as she spun in place. Her skirt – the black one, with the lace overlay – rippled around her. She slowed to a stop, letting her arms, hair, and dress slow to a stop around her.

Rosela looked up at the Eyktol sun, and felt it warm her skin. She wasn’t in Eyktol, but she felt Syna knew she was looking down on a little piece of it when she shone over Riverfall. Around her was a marketplace, a strange hybrid of the Zhongjie Warrens, where she’d spent so much time after arriving in the city, and the marketplaces of Ahnatep, bursting at the seams with colored linens and spices.

There was one major change from either of these venues: she was the only soul around.

‘Shick…shick…shick’

She walked slowly down the center of the never-ending market, taking in the colors and allowing them to disappear into the nothingness behind her. There were stalls crammed with odds and ends, each more unnoticeable than the last. What was she looking for?

The very question twisted the stalls in her peripheral, and she turned abruptly to see…pottery. Ugly pottery. The single stall widened to fill her vision and she walked towards it, disgusted. Every piece seemed to be as one in its ugliness. Cracked. Dimpled. Deformed.

Cheap.

She could buy this entire stall and demolish it. Better yet, whatever simple-minded cretin had spawned these useless creations should pay her to demolish it. She leaned over the counter and saw into the chasm behind, a writhing darkness of sunburnt backs and downcast heads. They’d never look up, never see her; they wouldn’t dare. One of her hands slipped to the shelf next to her, a row of indistinguishably ugly tiny pots lining it. A single, filed fingernail tipped the shelf backwards, and the tiny pots wobbled, and fell from the shelf, shattering instantly on the table, despite their fall of mere inches. A lone pot survived the fall, rolling to the edge and teetering over the mass of slaves. She could have stopped it, could have reached out and plucked it from the edge, but didn’t. It rolled over, and broke deafeningly over one of the backs toiling below.

The slaves didn’t look up – they didn’t dare – but the noise seemed to echo like a thunderclap and Rosela immediately snapped away from the stall. Someone had heard the crack, she knew it, someone who would ask her why she’d broken it, and didn’t she care how much time had gone into it? Didn’t she know the maker was important, and why would anyone important buy the clothing of someone who broke pots?

She backed nervously into the crevice between the stalls, eyes darting at every moving shadow that held a whispering voice, and judgment. In her hands was a figurine, stolen from the pottery shelf, in the same ugly red clay as the pots. A mark on what would be the wrist showed the figurine to be an Ahnatep slave. Her own jaw jutting in anger, she slowly twisted her hand around the head and snapped it off the little clay shoulders. Grinding the pieces together in her hands, she was simultaneously thrilled by the feel of the pieces falling through her fingers, and terrified someone would see her.


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Last edited by Rosela on May 27th, 2013, 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Razkar on May 27th, 2013, 3:01 pm

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Razkar had heard that to know one was dreaming was to kill the dream. The mind was no made to have such control over what it perceived, and thus would drag one's consciousness back into reality, where logic and physics and the gods (sometimes a combination of all three) would rein in such formative power.

The Myrian knew this, but he also knew that this was definitely not Syliras.

The market was not the Great Bazaar, flanked and oppressed by towering stone walls and buildings. It was not Taloba, with the grass of the Greak Market under his feet and the chaotic whirl of stalls an insane labyrinth stretching out before the Temple. Was it the Warren? That strange place in Riverfall that was like a vertical collection of stores? It could be... and yet... there was sand. Sand and the aridity of somewhere... like a desert.

He blinked. This place was all those things, yet none of them. Shifting, Mutating. Morphing. Mocking him with their inconsistency... and with its lifelessness.

"Why are these places always so confusing?" He muttered, marching over to one of the stalls, selling strange, bulbous objects that had pipes on tubes sticking out of their tops. "It's my mind, after all! You'd think it would be more... familiar."

Razkar glared over the edge of the stall and found a trio of shaking, shadowy figures. Their heads were bowed in terror, hands shaking in positions of obeisance, and Razkar felt a snarl curl his lips. It came unbidden, and the lack of control concerned him for a moment.

But only a moment. Then the purr of their fear stroked his skin like a cat, and he narrowed his eyes further.

"Where is this place?" He barked, Common words growled in that guttural accent, each word like a slap. "Not be afraid! Answer me!"

Yes, because that will work perfectly. They're already frightened! What do you think this will accomplish?!

"Petch it, then-"

He reached over the table and dragged one of them up by the hair, rough fingers closing around black locks-

-jerking his head up-

"Goddess!"

-finding only a featureless mask of tanned flesh "looking" back at him-

Razkar reacted before he thought. He'd seen monsters before, but this thing spoke of something beyond bone and flesh and logic. There was a blur and a flash of steel and then two feet of it were impaling the... thing, gladius stiff in his grip as it pierced...

... what was he even piercing?

No blood. No shock. No pain. Nothing but that same inane, trembling, wordless terror that was gripping the other two, who hadn't even looked up. Razkar looked down in shock and twisted the blade, expecting to see a second mouth ripped open...

Nothing. Just a hole that tendrils of shadow snaked from.

"Fuck!"

Like men the multiverse over, the worse the situation got, the coarser his vocabulary became. He threw the man backwards and he crashed against the shelves, knocking those weird pipes to the ground, shattering, smashing, but the faceless coward just fell back to his knees in a moment, still shaking.

"... where is this place?!"

Silence answered him and Razakr felt that well of anger boiling, rising, frothing behind his lips. It had been restrained too long in the waking world, and some gleeful darkness in him rejoiced that here, he could release it. Here he could be himself, and take away... his... mask...

Razkar frowned. Fractures of memory danced in front of him... and in this place, they really did dance. A woman with six arms, her ugliness hidden behind exquisite beauty. Capering and... vanishing...

"I... do not... LIKE THIS!"

Razkar roared and swept his short sword across the shelf of the stall, sending hookahs and pipes crashing dozens of feet away from him, shattering into countless fragments. The table went next, lifting with one hand and thrown aside, revealing the cowering figures-

"Fight!" He roared at them, filling his other hand with his ax, enraged now beyond measure. "Fight, cowards! Get to feet!" Nothing answered him, and the craven display only enraged him more. "Fine. FINE!"

Metal flashed and rose and fell and with every satisfying thunk of iron on flesh, Razkar expected a fountain of crimson glory... but nothing came. He howled his outrage, his anger at the cruel denial and swung through the neck of one-

-knocking him down-

-but the head remained, hanging by a shadowy thread... all of them did...

"Fuck this!"

The Myrian stalked away and had managed only a handful of steps before he heard an almighty crash. Pottery and wood... life! Some life! Something and someone beyond these cowardly, silent shades and this sweltering bazaar! He ran towards it, feet pounding on sand and grass and cobbles all at once as they shifted under him, skidding around a corner-

A galaxy of broken crockery greeted him. Someone else was apparently not happy here...

Shuffling. He raised his weapons and saw a familiar figure snap the head off some crude little doll.

Such a tiny gesture. Inconsequential. But Razkar's eyes were drawn inexorably, perhaps against his will, to the point of that destruction.

Her eyes. Shining with that ecstatic, impossible mix of enjoyment and fear, the knowledge that yes, you were being bad and by the gods, it felt right! He should have asked what she was doing here, why she was hear, what had happened to the stall... but thoughts are as malleable and changeable in this place as the architecture, and that urgency... slid from him...

A sound. The birth of it was low, like distant wind. Then it became louder and there was... mirth. But of a harsh, vindictive sense, glorying in the shame of another. The Eypharian turned and found the Myrian grinning with teeth more like fangs than ever, shoulders shaking in malicious enjoyment as he sheathed his weapons.

"Feel good, doesn't it? Break just because. Shatter just because." He shook his head at her shock. "Because you are strong, and they are weak. Because... why not? Mask is gone. Is this you? It is..."

Razkar grinned impossibly wider, eyes flaming even as their onyx orbs remained.

"Repulsive beautiful..."
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Razkar has been cursed by Yahal, and as such finds little acceptance from others; they will instinctively view him as being deceptive and traitorous. However, when close to one blessed by Yahal, the effect is negated. The curse is etched onto his left pectoral, and viewing the mark causes others to feel dirty and unclean.
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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Rosela on May 27th, 2013, 5:04 pm

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As Rosela’s fingers closed tighter around the dull red mass, the clay crumpled sweetly in her hands until it was almost unrecognizable. She could do this to every piece on the shelf and be happy.

A voice startled her, and two hands clutched the remains of the doll to her chest, the other four wrapped around herself to hide it from view. The damage was done however, and as she looked up into the black eyes that had found her out, there was a moment before her thrilled fear turned to anger. Of all creatures to pry into her moment of weakness and destruction, it was him.

The barbarian.

As before, he seemed to see right into her, past the fake smiles and the distraction of her work, to the bad part of her. As though he could see to the part of her that had…that had…

”Because you are strong, and they are weak.”

“…Repulsive beautiful.”


Once again, as before, he too both repulsed and drew her. ”This,” She held out the figurine, now a broken handful of red clay, and with a final twist of her hands, let it fall to the dirt between them. ”Is what’s repulsive. The mediocre filth of the world. They deserve-” Her mouth clapped shut behind a hand and she peered suspiciously out from her dark corner. Had he brought someone to see her in her low place? If someone heard her, who would want to buy from her now-

There was no one. The market was as empty and unending as before. She straightened and looked the barbarian full in the face as she stepped boldly out from the shadow, the act giving her nearly the same thrill as when she’d snapped the head off the doll. Syna could see her now, but no one but the shadows and a barbarian had seen her hate.

He had left the city long before, and even so, no one would care what he said he knew about her. ”What are you doing here anyway?” She walked past him, a hair too close for comfort and scowled up into his dirty, tattooed face as she moved by. ”You left Riverfall. You left me in the middle of the street, short 2 gold mizas, and without lunch or a story. I resent that.” She stopped in front of the stall on the other side of the narrow street, littered with bulbous creations of cloudy glass. She snatched up one of the largest, nearly as big as her arm, and whipped around, fully prepared to dash it on the ground, glaring at him as though he dared her to do it.

”I-I don’t care what you think of me, mask or not.”

She lost her nerve at the last moment, and turned away again, leaning over the counter to hurl the glass structure onto the backs of more slaves below. Glass shards and shining red blood erupted from the crash, and movement spread through the slaves like a ripple. The sight of the blood twisted her stomach and she wasn’t sure if it was sickness or excitement.


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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Razkar on May 27th, 2013, 9:37 pm

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”I-I don’t care what you think of me, mask or not.”

Her indignation was like food and drink to Razkar, or at least the side of Razkar that had apparently been given free rein in this place. The hesitation in her voice, birthed as her stutter, the way her eyes teetered between sadism and shame... all made his mouth just widen in enjoyment.

That... and something else.

She reminds you of her. But more... barbaric. Not the smoother features of a Myrian in her blood, the brown eyes and copper skin. No... this one is more like... nobility. Sharp features, cold, commanding eyes...

Razkar slid behind her, movements oddly sinuous in this place, more like the Dhani he despised than the smooth but bipedal movements of a Myrian. She saw his shadow flicker and heard his feet on the sand, but then his hand had shot out from behind her and gripped her wrist-

-other hand at her waist, holding her in place-

-mouth a mere inch from her ear, face unseen, words slithering in through guttural Common that he... knew... for some reason.

You've always known, remember? Your mind does, anyway. Here it does...

"Oh, don't try and put on mask now, mistress," he whispered, relishing her disgust of him and yet feeling her heartbeat race and breathing hitch, "You don't want to care... but you do... and don't you hate that? Still the coward, Mistress Rosela. Still afraid to embrace..."

He guided her hand behind him, grip firmer than she would have guessed, movement... fluid. That surprised Razkar, actually. It seemed like corruption seemed a talent in this place. But as much as it shifted and mocked the static and forthright, why would that be so bizarre?

"Feel that?" He whispered, and she did. "That... is a lakan."

He closed her fingers around one of the weapons sheathed at his back and bought it back around in front of her... hovering before the kneeling, black-bleeding slaves. His words became even lower, like smoke creeping under a door.

"Why care? This is not real... is it? I do not know... hut who will know, hmm? No witnesses... no consequences... are we not free... to be as we are...?" He gripped around her fingers, letting her feel every contour of the hilt... and then let go. "All on you now, mistress... take away the mask... listen to that voice you've been ignoring for far too long..."
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Razkar has been cursed by Yahal, and as such finds little acceptance from others; they will instinctively view him as being deceptive and traitorous. However, when close to one blessed by Yahal, the effect is negated. The curse is etched onto his left pectoral, and viewing the mark causes others to feel dirty and unclean.
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Razkar
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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Rosela on May 29th, 2013, 11:15 pm

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Rosela watched the blood and glass fade away like raindrops beneath the surface of a pond. There was a moment of silence between the crash of shattered glass and she felt a warm body sidle up behind her. She saw the shadow move on the shelf next to her before she even registered what the barbarian had dared to do.

”Are you out of your- Ugh!“

As her dominant hand was accosted, the two others scrabbled at his wrist, but she lacked even a fraction of the strength needed to force him off and her fight was short lived. She refused to turn and look at him, to give him the remotest validation that he was, quite simply, in control. Even worse, as he pulled her hand back, the action was strangely, humiliatingly, sensual. Her neck heated and with a strong male body behind her, she smelled the embarrassing scent of her own pheromones.

She grasped the heavy lakan like a lifeline and as suddenly as he’d come, he stepped back and the warmth was gone. She couldn’t help but glance back, to see if he’d disappeared completely.

He was still there, leaned back in a comfortable, cocky stance as he watched her.

“All on you now, mistress…”

Mistress. Mistress Rosela.

”I don’t hear voices.” The refusal came out petulant. ”And I don’t have a mask. I mean… It’s not… Whatever I do…it’s none of your business.” She moved the lakan to her chest and turned slightly away, as though she'd taken it and he meant to grab it back. It was so much heavier than the little stiletto she’d bought and never used. She felt almost as though she’d denied the poor thing something. The lakan, however, was hot and ready and waiting. She could do…something. If she felt like it.

With a casual air, she turned back to the stall, and saw a slave close enough to touch on the other side of the shelf. The glass and blood from her previous outburst had disappeared, as though it had never happened. The sunburnt back before her now was blistered and scarred with dozens of horizontal slashes, and she’d seen enough punished slaves while growing up to know whiplashes when she saw them.

He – and of course it was a ‘he’ – was dark skinned, from a lifetime of toiling in the Eyktol sun. His body was slightly raised up from the others, and as Rosela drew the lakan close to her chest, she realized the tedious rhythmic motion of his labor was slowing, stopping. He was stopping what he was doing…and when he did, he meant to look up at her. The filth meant to look up at her, had the audacity to look at the face she so carefully manicured, not for the likes of him, but for those so, so much better.

His motions came to a stop slowly, and she gripped the lakan tight, sweat forming against the handle. Two other hands clenched into the hem of her shirt, fingernails biting into her palms. She glared at his downturned face, daring him to show it. Razkar was all but forgotten as she waited to see if this creature had the gall to insult her.

He did. It was only a twitch of the head in her direction, but it unloaded her fury like a spring.

”No, filth!” Hardly willing it at all, the dagger lashed out, drawing a hot red line across the side of his head. Blood seemed to explode from the wound and the body stumbled, letting out an animal’s terrified bleat. ”Shut up!” The noise set her off again as she imagined eyes turning to the bleeding creature, and she holding the bloody- ”Shut up, shut up, shut up!” The dagger whipped back and forth three times before the bleating died down into a whimper. The sight of blood spatters on her chest and arms halted her anger immediately and she stumbled back a step, swinging wildly to the side as she remembered Razkar behind her. The blood was on her, evidence of what she’d just done practically glowing in the sunlight.


”Look what you did…” She glared at Razkar before realizing she was in the wrong tongue. ”Look at what you did!” She held out her blood-spattered arms, one still shakily gripping the lakan.


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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Razkar on May 30th, 2013, 2:48 am

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Her revulsion was palpable, but almost as soon as he felt it, his senses were filled with the scent of her pheromones, released against her will, he guessed. Another thing she had in common with another Eypharian, somewhere far removed from this... place.

Razakr inhaled deeply as she broke away from him, marveling perversely at that strange mingling of emotions both of them seemed to feel. Naked disgust for each other; her for his barbarism, him for her hypocrisy. But something else... not... affection. No, that was not the word. An attraction so negative it came out on the other side of lust and went somewhere else.

A hateful bond, if ever there was one. And he couldn't help but smile...

Razkar heard it as he watched her raise the knife and bring it slashing down at the shadow-slave's head. A pitiful yelp from the shade but she ignored it, shrieking at him as she slashed again and again and again...

The blood stayed, and the Myrian found himself... jealous. Her actions seemed to have more import here, for she was stained. Marked. She, apparently, did not feel the same way and Rosela whirled on him, bloody knife and bloody hands and the same fury in her eyes.

”Look at what you did!”

Razkar's lips curled and twisted into a grin, her rage bouncing off his expression like rain off armor. He walked towards her as he spoke, more and more resembling some predatory animal than a thinking being.

"I did? What did I do, Mistress Rosela?" Gods, the scorn he put into the last two words could have soured milk. "I wasn't lying, mistress. All you. Your want. Your desire. Your hand."

His own shout out and gripped around her throat, but gently, almost caressing it despite the fear that leaped into his eyes and made his own black orbs sparkle.

"That is why I despise you barbarians. You act civilized but have same darkness running loose in you heart. You sneer at my people, at me, and say savage. Say monster."

The smile grew wider and he drew his face closer to hers, black eyes soon becoming her whole world.

"I am free, Rosela. You are slave."

Another barrier inside her was shattered and her hand moved fast, still holding the lakan-

-but his was already intercepting it, practiced eye and experienced hand deflecting her quick stab towards his gut and knocking it away, grabbing her wrist... caressing it...

"Ah... some skill with blade, hmm?" Now his voice dripped with amusement, studying her eyes, her face, her reactions... boring into her as if her soul were just words to be read. "Not the first time you have used. I saw how you used on the slave. Very firm... what was last time, hmm? Your own country?"

Rosela's eyes flared and Razkar grinned wide.

"Yes... Yes, I think so..."
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My Words | Your Words | Myrian | Fratavan | My Thoughts
Razkar has been cursed by Yahal, and as such finds little acceptance from others; they will instinctively view him as being deceptive and traitorous. However, when close to one blessed by Yahal, the effect is negated. The curse is etched onto his left pectoral, and viewing the mark causes others to feel dirty and unclean.
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Razkar
War Is The Answer
 
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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Rosela on June 5th, 2013, 1:26 pm

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Rosela’s arms retracted as Razkar approached, but she forced herself to stand her ground. Two hands started to smear away the blood droplets on her arms but only succeeded in spreading it around to dry up in ugly brown flakes. ”You…you have me the blade. I-I wouldn’t have-” The lie was poor even to her own ears and she hated herself for not having better words. What had happened wasn’t her fault, she knew it, but at the same time… How long had she stood at that shelf? Chimes? Or bells? How long had it taken for her to… Why hadn’t she stopped? Why had it been so wonderfully easy for her to…

Suddenly his hands were at her neck and once again she pulled uselessly at his wrists as she tried to turn her face away. He did not squeeze, however, and though she knew he could easily snuff out her life – if it was possible in this place – he didn’t. He was so very close, and despite his filth, her traitorous mind wanted to glance at his broad shoulders, put her fingertips against the hard, tattooed pectorals. When her pheromones rose again, it only made her angrier and she kept her eyes resolutely on his.

"That is why I despise you barbarians. You act civilized but have same darkness running loose in your heart. You sneer at my people, at me, and say savage. Say monster."

”You are a monster,” she grit out furiously. ”A barbarian. My people live in towers, with silks, and jewels, and baths. This kind of behavior might pass in whatever cave you crawled out of, but you’re no better than animals. The lowest of slaves doing what they have to just to get by.”

He was unimpressed with her insults, as though he had been expecting them. "I am free, Rosela. You are slave."

”A slave?! You filthy…beast!” A furious tremor ran through her chest and into the pit of revulsion writhing in her stomach. She suddenly remembered the lakan in her hand, forgotten in her focus on the hand around her neck. Oh, he deserved this one. The stab was weak and a noise of disappointment escaped her as it was so easily knocked aside. The heavy lakan twisted out from her hand and hit the sandy cobblestones with a tinny clatter.

"Not the first time you have used. I saw how you used on the slave. Very firm... what was last time, hmm? Your own country?"

Of all things for him to say, she wasn’t expecting that one. There was a moment of shock that she prayed didn’t give it away, and she struggled to cover it with indignation. It was a pointless struggle however, and as he grinned with those awful pointed teeth, she felt her secret slipping away.

”Think what you want, beast, I have never used a blade against someone…before now.” She acknowledged the awkward addendum with a jut of her chin, repeating her matra of ’he deserved it’in the back of her mind. While her assertion was technically true, her mind, unbidden, attempted to recall the accurate memories. Her cheeks reddened as she stared down her attacker and tried to keep the memories away at the same time.

It may not have been a dagger, but it was a bow… And the blunt end of a torch. And fire.

Abruptly, to push away the memories, she shoved the heels of two hands into Razkar’s shoulders. ”Release me, beast. It’s none of your business. Who are you to judge me anyway? I know why you left Riverfall.” Neck still held fast by a single, meaty hand, she glared back into the mocking black eyes. ”Tell me, did those two men deserve to die too?


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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Razkar on June 8th, 2013, 7:47 pm

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Razkar's laugh came out as a short, brutal bark, vomited in her face stinking of scorn and rotted flesh from deep in his guts. His filed teeth seemed longer, crueller in this place, and his eyes danced with malice.

You said you are free... and in this place, 'tis true. Now... does freedom make you a man? Or a monster?

"Every word more and you show how naive you are," Razkar said, shaking off that irritating inner voice and and despite his snarl, the words were... almost amused, "Deserving? Of a reason? Petching barbarians. Always looking for a reason... for a line between one act and another-"

He let go of her suddenly and the Epyharian staggered back a few feet until the front of a stall stopped her. The Myrian leaned down and retrieved his lakan, waving it around lighter like a teacher with a pointer.

"They got in my way, female. Between me and my victory. But you make them sound like... what? Victims? Sellswords, female. The same as me."

The lakan flashed up like he was holding up a finger, stalking closer to her. His eyes weren't just dancing now, they were raging, unleashed and laughing in a place without consequence.

"Ah, but I see scorn in your eyes. Understand... Understand. What about others, hmm? Well-"

Razkar's hand shot out towards her, no, besides her, grabbing a handful of hair from a cowering, shimmering shade. Never taking his eyes off her... he thrust the curved dagger into the middle of its face... and twisted.

"What. About. Them?" He let the body drop, still whimpering even as blood dripped and flesh knitted. "Why attach this... value... to those lives? Why you think I think that? Arrogant. Naive. Barbarian."

Something growled far away, high and looming, like thunder before the storm. Razkar's flesh seemed to... ripple, before her eyes, as if something were trying to escape. A hush fell across the market, a nameless and halting whisper rushing through it... and the shades began to vanish...

Leaving her alone.

"All are for the Goddess-Queen." Razkar said, voice lower now, not barking or snarling, but slithering like a snake into her ears, as the back of his hand caress her cheek, "In battle. In slaughter. It does not matter. Only her children matter to her and-"

Liar.

The Myrian's face seemed to stall, like a horse rising to full gallop only to have its legs shatter all at once. His eyes wove from side to side, looking for conviction, trying to find his grounding, his tempo, the dark amorality that had-

Fool. Murderer...

"Shut up."

The words came from nowhere, and before Rosela could question them his hand jerked to the back of her head and grabbed her hair, pulling her head back as he pressed a wickedly-curved dagger to it with his other hand.

"Shut up!"
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My Words | Your Words | Myrian | Fratavan | My Thoughts
Razkar has been cursed by Yahal, and as such finds little acceptance from others; they will instinctively view him as being deceptive and traitorous. However, when close to one blessed by Yahal, the effect is negated. The curse is etched onto his left pectoral, and viewing the mark causes others to feel dirty and unclean.
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Razkar
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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Rosela on June 18th, 2013, 3:16 pm

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Rosela’s nose crinkled and her face twisted away, as far as it could, from his putrid laugh. A beast indeed, all of the respectful tone that had been so endearing was long gone. He shrugged off the differences in their ‘cultures’ and Rosela felt her scorn rise higher. Just like a stinking jungle beast to underestimate the value of a good bath.

He released her suddenly, and all of the force that she’d been pulling against his hand propelled her backwards as her nails slipped from his wrist. She stumbled briefly and felt a hard thunk against her back. She put her hands against the wood to steady herself and get her mind back to stable ground.

”Reason is what separates us from the mindless creatures that crawl the earth, looking only for food and something to reproduce with.” She kept her back straight against the post of the stall, refusing to back away further, even as he approached again. ”If you have no reason…then I’m right. You are a beast.”

She flinched violently as his hand shot out, but two hands gripped the pole behind her, willing herself not to move away. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, give him the satisfaction of chasing her down. Their eyes locked and she didn’t need to turn to know he’d pulled a slave from the shadows, dragging the lowly creature uncomfortably close to her. Her shoulders jerked as the knife plunged in and she tried not to look at the gory mess in her peripheral. He was killing it to make a point, and while she didn’t truly care, she had to stand on principle.

Whatever she’d done…she’d done for a reason. Not just because, as any beast would do.

...There it was. It was her her shining justification, and it swelled up inside her light a righteous light, burning away any doubts that he might be right. Whatever she'd done, she’d needed to do it. They’d deserved it. She really was different than him, better.

The shadow slid off the knife and hit the stall shelf with a wet thud. Rosela congratulated herself for not flinching again. Their lives have value proportionate to their use. They may require…less of a reason to do away with, but there is still a reason.” She tilted her head up to look down her nose at the taller barbarian. ”You keep calling me the barbarian, but I think you keep pointing your finger at me just so you can forget who the real beast here is.”

She moved slightly away from the pole to stand fully on her own before him, as always, too close for her comfort. Something terrible was welling up in him, maybe even in them both, and his very face seemed to ripple like a crocodile about to burst from the water. As though fleeing the predator, the shadow-slaves vanished, and she was suddenly, painfully unprotected.

Though she immediately dismissed it as irrational, her first thought was that he was speaking of Akajia. The shadows of this place, the impending darkness…but no, he had to be speaking of Myri, the battle-goddess. She sneered as his hand touched her cheek, but refused to move away and give him the satisfaction. She felt no more affinity for Myri than any other god, and she knew beautiful Akajia would agree with her in looking down on this brash, barbaric representative. Rosela opened her mouth to tell him so, when Razkar abruptly…stopped. He seemed shocked, disoriented, and somehow this was more frightening than when he’d put his hands around her neck.

”What are you-“

She let out a cry of pain and shock as he grabbed her hair – her beautiful hair with his grubby hands – and pulled her head back. Two hands latched onto the arm now covered in her splayed hair, and the remaining four dug into the wrist now pushing a blade into her throat. Her upper arms shook as she pushed as hard as she could to keep the blade away.

”I didn’t say anything you-you…psycho!” Tears sprang to her eyes as the blade edged painfully into her throat, and through the hot pain, she wondered if she was bleeding. ”Just like a rabid dog, aren’t you? Snapping at a civilized hand at a moment’s notice!” A terrified tear ran down her cheek and her voice came out high and wobbly.


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Rosela
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To Market [Razkar]

Postby Razkar on June 22nd, 2013, 3:48 am

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The world shook as if in pain, but Razkar could find no sympathy in his soul for it. The Epyharian's hateful, pious words poured over him like water over rock, buffeting it but leaving that core f brutish resolve untarnished.

”I didn’t say anything you-you…psycho!”

But his control... his control was questioned, and Razkar did feel that shake him. His blade wavered but his grip did not, wide and furious eyes centered around cold black pupils boring into the female, lips peeled back from his teeth.

Who is talking? Is it me? Who else haunts this place?!

Just you, Child of Myri. You and all the hate and bile sloshing in your breast.


”Just like a rabid dog, aren’t you? Snapping at a civilized hand at a moment’s notice!”

The blade moved half an inch, but that was enough. That beautiful face contorted in shocked pain as blood trickled down her neck, the merest cut causing agony in this place. But Razkar's soul swelled at the sight of it, gorged like a man dying of thirst thrown into a river. So easy to keep pushing, cutting, sawing, until only bone stopped him and everything was-

"NO!"

He threw her away to smack into the market stall... but it was no longer there. The street, the buildings, the sand, all became as insubstantial as mist, just the two of them solid. Thoughts and emotions gave this place form, and now both of them were bleeding into it...

And memory.

A desert. Shadows and shades of a fight, dirty and confused by torchlight. A bow fired. A man screaming high and uncontrolled as a torch sizzled against his skin-

-then Razkar gasped as desert vanished to jungle, a clearing filled with roaring, slashing figures, Myrian and Yukmen, his mother hacked down before his eyes and her killers butchered by himself and his father, but too late... too late...

"Enough!" He moaned, low and keening as if dying, clutching at his head even as the blade in his hand scratched at his skull. "I do not want this anymore!"

The world... groaned. It was like thunder, like wind, only some terrible voice was beyond it, and all was chaos save the two form figures of her and him. Razkar's eyes snapped open and he leveled the shaking blade at her, trying to catch some thread of sanity, concentrating on her words...

"Civilized?! You... You who buy and sell lives! Who kill freedom in years and call it value? Who... justify. Oh, yes, how I love to hear barbarians justify!" He spread his arms wide, showing every inch of his savage form, words and smile dripping venomous sarcasm. "Such moral creatures, are you not? Pissing down on me and mine while... while..."

Another shuddering tremor seemed to shake their world and Razkar went down to one knee, eyes fixed and overflowing with with hatred, seeming to come apart at the seams before Rosela's eyes and reform himself purely by vindictive will.

"Barbarians... all of you... with your slaves and airs and speeches and... and lies! All of you built on lies because you cannot face yourselves! I am a Child of Myri and I KNOW WHO I AM!"

It made no sense. None of it. Words screamed into a hurricane that blew around them and then the world and the dream and the space fractured like a thousand shattered mirrors.
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My Words | Your Words | Myrian | Fratavan | My Thoughts
Razkar has been cursed by Yahal, and as such finds little acceptance from others; they will instinctively view him as being deceptive and traitorous. However, when close to one blessed by Yahal, the effect is negated. The curse is etched onto his left pectoral, and viewing the mark causes others to feel dirty and unclean.
User avatar
Razkar
War Is The Answer
 
Posts: 1795
Words: 2242619
Joined roleplay: October 8th, 2012, 12:04 am
Location: Sunberth
Race: Myrian
Character sheet
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Plotnotes
Medals: 9
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (2)
Trailblazer (1) Overlored (1)
Donor (1) One Thousand Posts! (1)
One Million Words! (1) 2013 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)

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