Ignorant Farmers and Smart Men [Hadrian + Keating]

[Keating Ash]

68th Day of Summer, 511 A.V. Locked in the fist fight, Keating focused only on the man that had offended him and not upon the few people that had stopped to watch. It was not a pretty match, or a showcase of grace and skill. It was ugly, base and violent. It showed men at their worst, dirty and unforgiving. And it was apparent that the small brawl had been going on far too long. Dusk was past gone, and the shadows grew longer on the small side street. Both men moved slowly, as their lungs labored for air, and their breath came heavily. The red haired man glared at Keating in kind, and bloodied fists flew once more as each man tried to land a solid, decisive blow. But Keating was the luckier this round, and he punched the man’s face twice in rapid succession. With the force in his muscled arm behind the blow, the nose broke against his fist and blood splattered. Keating looked pleased as he pulled his arm back for a third punch, but the man blocked it. With his free hand, the man swung wildly and connected squarely with Keating’s temple. Staggering back, the dark man’s own blood streamed from the cut at his brow, and his eye squinted painfully. Keating managed to get in a partial undercut to the man’s jaw, and the man reeled from it. Growling angrily, Keating lunged to try to knock the man off his feet, but the other man moved more quickly, and grabbed onto an old splintered board, grey from the elements. With a grunt of effort, he cracked it across Keating’s stomach. The dark eyed farmer doubled over immediately gasping, the air knocked out of him. Slowly he rose and staggered back. It was difficult to straighten himself. The two men circled one another, hatred palpable between them. One of the spectators called out nervously, “The Guard comes!” As if by magic, spectators scattered, silently and swiftly. Keating and the man exchanged wary glances, before both looked down the street. No guard could yet be seen, but they each backed away slowly, unwilling to continue their brawl under the watchful eye of Ravok’s supposed peacekeepers. The red headed man wiped his dripping, blood covered nose with the back of his hand, while Keating’s forearm hugged his stomach tightly, but they both stepped away as best they could. As Keating’s heavy boots fell, slowly and painfully he swore under his breath, “Ignorant farmer… my ass!”

[Hadrian]

One of the perks of magecrafting was that it didn't require one's attention every minute of the day, especially when one paid as much attention to the minutiae of planning as Hadrian did. Thus he had time to stroll the streets, wondering if he would have anything worthwhile to report back to the knights. Somehow he ended up wandering into the outskirts of a small audience to a brutal fistfight. When the man with the mohawk broke the red-head's nose, he remarked calmly to a woman next to him, "If he jams the heel of his hand up into the broken nose now, the shards will shove up into his brain and kill him." It was clinical, not bloodthirsty. He didn't start fights, but he had from time to time studied ways to end them quickly. The Flux was something he had learned for milder purposes, but if he could not use it to run away from a dangerous confrontation, he could increase his strength to the point where he might not get himself too hurt. His own Auristic sense determined that the Watch was on its way before anyone else. In fact, he muttered something about them and moved off to avoid getting into any kind of trouble. All notice was bad notice when one was under cover. But in his haste, he got a bit lost, going down the wrong alley that turned into a dead end. When he came out onto a larger street again, it was just in time to be bowled over by the fleeing man. Hadrian was taller, but much slimmer, and not incredibly balanced. Black clad arms and legs went flying akimbo as he landed with bruising force against the stone facade of a house.

[Keating Ash]

Keating stumbled and almost fell as he collided with someone exiting the ally. Slightly bent over, his arm was wrapped around his bruised stomach, but his greater, bulkier weight kept him on his feet. Threat evident in his low tone, he growled angrily, “Best look where you’re going or…” He was about to add, “or you’ll regret it…” but the fight had been released from him with the overly long fight. Keating’s normal confrontational reactions were left on that side-street, and the violent needs within had been satiated, at least for a time. Now, his mind was almost calm because of it. Squinting, as one dark eye turned black and puffy, and the blood dried against his cheek, Keating looked down at the young man sprawled on the ground. He was thin, long limbed, and looked like he would drop with one good punch. Keating’s black booted feet stood near the man, silent but for his intimidating manner. “Ah hell!” Keating finally said, and stuck out a filthy hand to help the man to his feet. Keating’s knuckles were raw and bloody, the skin streaked with crimson. “Here, get up,” he said gruffly, the accent slightly Sylarian, “before you bring the Watch down our throats… you don’t look like the sort that could crack a stick in half, let alone handle trouble.”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian was momentarily stunned, then cursed himself for not sensing the man coming. He would be no good to his people here in Ravok, nor as a spy, if he could not think on his feet. Laying there, he decided just to lay low until the man moved off, not standing off and giving him a target for whatever rage and bloodlust remained, or what desperation to avoid the watch. But of a sudden, the man offered him a bleeding paw and Hadrian accepted it, levering himself up with a bit of help. The man was definitely stronger than him, and djed began to Flux through his limbs as an almost automatic response to the fear and danger. He could run faster than normal now, and hit harder if that became necessary. He would also be more prone to injury, his body not capable of handling the strain of those increased forces without real practice. "Thank you," he said, his own dialect more of the Zeltivan intelligentsia than anything, and the only reason he detected a note of Syliras in the man's was because he had grown up there. But he didn't comment upon it. There was no reason to raise questions that were best left unanswered. A quick sweep of the area told him from which direction the watch was coming so he could reorient himself. He could even faintly detect the gist of their route to find the perpetrators of whatever breaking of the peace of Ravok their laws declared broken by a bit of a fistfight. Before he could flee the scene, though, he pulled on the man's arm. "This way."

[Keating Ash]

Keating grunted a low noise of dismissal in response to the man’s thanks. Upon first look, the man before him appeared to be one of those academic types that never got their hands dirty, or had never seen the business end of a pair of hard fists. If things turned ugly with the Watch, how could someone like that be trusted? When he didn’t even have the balls to stand without Keating’s hand helping him up… Holding back a derisive snort the farmer peered down the street. Had the Watch drawn nearer? Keating had no way of knowing. And though he had not yet seen them, he didn’t want to risk a chance meeting with any of Rysol’s men in his bloodied state. Their suspicions were sure to be raised, and questions would be asked. He’d seen the way in which Ravok’s peacekeepers asked questions before, and Keating wanted no part of it. Those men and women, he thought, were too much under the god of chaos’ sway to be impartial or even fair. Folks were taken off the streets all the time, often in cruel ways. The dark haired man didn’t want to be numbered among them. In his mind, Keating figured that two men on the street were less likely to drawn attention than one man, holding his stomach gingerly. With resignation, he looked at the hand that pulled on his arm. And he thought… a book-reader for sure. “Lead on… Professor,” Keating answered with a sigh, while he tried to wipe the bloody brow with the back of a rough hand. And he followed the thinner man away.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian wasn't the touchy-feely sort, so once the other man was ambulatory and following him, he let go. But he did pass him a handkerchief, nothing fancy, but something to wipe at his injuries, clean himself up enough that he might not look like a combatant at first glance. But with his Auristic sense spread out around them, he was able to lead his erstwhile companion through alleys and byways, over bridges and under tunnel-like bridges between buildings. Eventually, they came to a shadowed entrance to the Nitrozian Plaza, and they were far enough away from pursuit and the scene of the crime that they would likely go unmolested in the future. "That was some fighting," he noted as he slowed and stopped. "I don't know what caused it, but I'm sure you would have finished it." His smile was strange; they didn't usually come easy to him and he wasn't easy around people, especially strangers, especially in Ravok. But they had weathered a bit of a storm themselves in escaping the city guard, so there was that. But his smile was guarded too, half expecting the man to turn on him or deride him as a pansy scholar even if his skills and training had saved him a deal of trouble. He wasn't going to repeat what he had said to another onlooker back at the fight, about the quickest way to have ended it; Hadrian had no wish to fight or to die. "Anyway, I suppose you'll want to be off. I'll not keep you."

[Keating Ash]

Keating shrugged his broad shoulders, “That guy? He was unaccustomed to the finer points of farming. I enlightened him...” He said with a straight face. Keating did not appear the type to sit quietly down and have a debate over differing viewpoints; instead he was a physical man, with very physical solutions. This man in front of him was probably the opposite, the talking, studious kind, ready for a grand discussion on a moment’s notice. They were as different as could be in carriage and demeanor. And when the man handed him his handkerchief, Keating was surprised. He did not have much experience with men such as this. His brows lifted in acknowledgement, and he took the offered cloth in his dirty hand. The knuckles were scarred beneath the new cuts, and it appeared the farmer had worked hard during his life. After he wiped his face, his fingers tentatively touched at the red smeared gash at his temple, then pressed the newly bloody handkerchief against the cut. His eye squinted at the pressure. Keating pulled it away, and offered it back to the man, with a slight grin, “Thanks. You want this back?” His dark eyes jested. The farmer hazarded a guess, “Pretty familiar with the backways are ya?” He’d have been lost a couple times over. “And… come to think of it… you don’t sound like you’re from here...” He heard the man’s voice, the way he spoke certain words reminded him of Sylaris. The farmlands outside that city had been Keating’s home for a long, long while. Funny how he felt a rare nostalgia for it after all these years, and… always Rose. He shook his head once, almost violently, to jar the feeling of that dark haired she devil loose. “Name’s Keating.” He leaned back with his hands placed on his lower back. As he moved, a long and loud series of pops could be heard from the length of his spine. The fight had knocked him loose. “Bala! Sure did work up an appetite! And a thirst… Can you hold your liquor?” Keating wondered, looking doubtful.

[Hadrian]

"Hm," was his only response to Keating's explanation. They didn't shake hands, shared no pleasantries other than that quiet gift of concern that was silently acknowledged and allowed to pass by like the slow, turgid waters of the canals. "You can keep it," he added wryly. "Looks like you need it more than I do." Also, he wasn't the best at laundering things and didn't want to explain away the blood to some servant who might. He didn't want to call attention to himself, just wanted to absorb what he could and report it back to the Knights. "Name's Andry. From Zeltiva. I always find knowing the back ways helpful. Lots of sailors fight in the bars back home, and if the guard catches a man, he'll get questioned like as not whether he threw a punch or just ducked down out of the way to finish off his kelp beer. I've been known to throw back a few."

[Keating Ash]

“Suit yer’self.” Keating rumbled, pressing the cloth against his temple one last time. The bleeding had slowed, almost stopped, though the area was still tender to the touch. It was bound to turn much uglier with bruising as the night wore on. “Zeltiva? Spent some time there in Zeltiva a while back… it was a lotta years ago...” Keating had spent time in a variety of places, all in an effort to forget Rose and the terrible thing he thought she had forced him to do. But no matter what city he visited, or what he did to pass the time, nothing was able to ever erase those terrible memories. Finally, Keating nodded, “I’ve seen those bars. Even worked in a few...” He made a derisive noise deep in his throat. “And sailors… an unruly lot. Especially when they’ve been in port too long… I’ve thrown more’n a few out of those taverns.” He straightened his shoulders and clapped the thinner man heavily on the back with his large hand. “Well Professor, I’m sure you’re a down right heavy weight!” A jovial laugh rang out as he continued, “Why not put some of that back ally knowledge to use… and find us a tavern. And we’ll ‘throw a few back.’ For Zeltiva and those damnable sailors…”

[Hadrian]

He smiled and nodded, managing not to wince at the blow to the back. Soon enough he found them a dive bar. It wasn't the Silver Sliver, but he had been spending too much time there of late in any case. The man had called upon Bala, blasphemously or otherwise, and that made him feel marginally safer. While Rhysol was most certainly evil, not all of the gods, even those who opposed him, were out and out good. In any case, good and evil were relative, or so spake the professors of philosophy. Some of them. Others argued. Pushing in first, he felt for the first time almost as if he needn't look over his shoulder. His companion was scrappy, and it was almost like wandering from tavern to tavern with the muscle-bound Torc back in Zeltiva. Nothing could harm him then. They got drinks and a rickety table to rest them on, but no kelp beer. That was probably for the best. The stuff didn't travel well in Summer, but there might be shipments in the Winter that would taste all right. It skated on the knife's edge between rot and fermentation at the best of times. "So..." He drank.