Black Reign (Yaotl)

[Ulric]

79th of Spring, 512 AV

Memories, tumbling sullenly through his head. They crowded his brooding, fettering and deceiving. Empty, infused by the turgid, crinkled wither of cherry blossom drifting through murky canals, those jet mirrors plaited by curtains of brick, rock, and spars like the fickle net of a retiarius. They drowned him, forcing a sullen disbelief of the slender, tapering crafts that butted through the gentle swells, carrying cargos of cloth-wrapped bales and flesh. There was a lifting of smoldering, restless eyes. Partly clasped by lids, implacable depths soaked by pitch. They prised over ranks of clay amphorae, the quilted mantles and strakes of yellow pine yet clung by globs of milky resin, banded by rusty metal.

And then, a fat drop pelted the surface, sundering its placidity to lapping ripple. Then another, drizzling in shreds of a deeper gray. They fell like strings of pearls, gently undulating. The pewter-gray mists draped the lake, bleakly shrouding the lofty smear of aspens, firs, and cedars limning the distant, stony strand.

Ulric furled away from the wharf, heavy fur cloak towed in his wake as he clanked for a projection of pared rock, encased by layers of dented plate and pocked ridges of scales scarred black. Harshly in a scuffing of heels, a rolling of shoulders. He gazed over marbled shrines and spires, inlaid by bas-reliefs. Tangles of vines and creepers scaled them like latchkeys at the night, barbs chafing at pastel crusts of purple and green lichens. There was refuge here, under lurched rocks under whose blunted eaves bristled myriad awnings of brown, faded burlap. The poles and cables quivered, shaken by balmy gusts. They cowled a parcel of vendors, and a sprawl of fruit baskets, bronze trinkets, sticks of incense, and clay idols ranged over grimy rugs.

Tautly, the edges of his lips crooked back in a grin, and he trudged to the twisted, flanged cage of a brazier. Nesting in the sooty confines was a nest of ember worms, infested by roasting chestnuts that a tubby man picked out a pair of tongs, wrapping them in a sheaf of parchment. Drawing near, he flung over the tarnish of a few coins, plucking his cone from pudgy fingers. Intoning a few words, he turned away, reaching a gloved hand into the piping mass of nuts. They were piping hot, if not scalded by the coals, ringlets of acrid smoke lifting under the canopy. Idly, he began to survey this tiny empire of cheap cloth, swiftly dredging into a fleshpot. The drops kept plunging, though without any great alacrity, beading on fringes of fur and subjecting him to the stink of soaked wool and leather, lankly folded over chests.

“Y’know, I’ve had just about enough of this weeping,” he grunted, frowning at the woman by his shoulder. “You’d imagine the drowned god might’ve surfaced by now, rather than cowering from a fight.” Even as the words erupted from his chest, he was glaring at a bunching of guards further along the way. The pink tip of a tongue projected as he looked over inky cloaks and high, iron-shod spears.

Fresh meat, he mused.

[Yaotl]

There was a steady drizzle of fine water splitting the murky depths of the canals as Yaotl walked. The hood of her cloak was shield enough for now, but as the chill of the uncommon weather settled into her bones she knew the protection would last only so ling as it didn't last long. A glimpse of the grey heavens caused a sigh to be blown past soft lips. Yaotl resigned herself to the fate of being soaked by the end of the day, but that did not mean she would be pleased about it. Her green eyes were as stormy as the bleak sky, the lack of true sunlight sapping their brightness and leaving them as yawning, hungry depths of deep emerald. Hungry for pain, for pleasure, for screams and cries. Hungry for the warmth that would soon be sapped from a body that had grown accustom to a pleasant warmth. She swept between bodies, parting the crowd with gentle nudges and outright pushes. The errand Yaotl was running was too important for her to play nice with anyone dressed more expensively than her. The bodies that darted to and fro on the rocky bridges were mere challenges to overcome, and if one or two tipped precariously over into the black waters, who was she to care? In the moving mass of bodies, there was one that was still. He stood hunched over a brazier, furs and leather draped over the large build of his body. The dreary, dull city moved around him, and he was content to idle his time staring into the depths of red and orange and muse over his fate. She was intrigued, and despite her urgency just a moment before, she couldn't help but sidle to his side and look down into the hot bed. Whatever he was seeing, she saw only a bed for burned flesh and molded metal. He addressed her then, but she refused to look up into his gaze. Perhaps the magic of the brazier would reveal itself to her, but when it hadn't by the end of his statement, she scowled and stepped back, tilting her face up. "So you fancy yourself strong enough to challenge a God, drowned or not, and be worthy of his attention?" Yaotl hummed quietly under her breath. She felt the beginning of a smirk creeping across her face as she turned her head to glance at the guards with him. Oh, she recognised the symbol sewn most beautifully into their cloth. She couldn't regret her interest in the man now if he was so hungry to fight a god, he would turn to Rhysol for this honour. "You don't seem the sort to be dim witted." Yaotl looked back at him, slanting her body backwards a foot and allowing him a clearer line of sight to his quarry. "Yet you seem to be hungry for the taste of Ebonstryfe flesh. That is a dim witted way of killing yourself, or, I should say, going about snagging the attention of their god. Perhaps you'd be better off fighting the god of fish than the god of Ravok." She eyed the black of the guards idly. Today, the city was only dull shades of black and grey splattered on an canvas of bland brown. The beauty was diminished in the steady fall of trembling water. Considering how bland it all was, perhaps she shouldn't be trying to dissuade him from taking out his anger on a bunch of men crowding against the wall of a vendor. "Maybe one of them knows where your drowned god is hiding?" Whomever the hell his drowned deity was, anyway. The wise person would say someone like the goddess of rain or what have you would surely cower under water from a fight, but Yaotl had hope it was something much more grand than some mewling water witch.

[Ulric]

Ulric’s jaw gave a jerk, incisors baring in a crooked grin. The ballet has begun, he grunted. There’s comfort in this japery, I think. The jumble of intonated meaning, swirling like a dusky mist around his scarified ear. The twists and surfeit of flimsy pretense. His coals pried over her, all skin, bones, and furls of fabric that misled his glance, capped by a tressed luxury. That crinkled his brow, for those damp locks might’ve veiled a bay of twisty gorgons.

But he’d play.

“You mistake me, girl,” Ulric brushed the base of his thumb over a chestnut to chafe away flecks of cinder. The husk was scanty, yielding to a decayed center. Inferior, but who’d blame him? Ulric gave it a flick into the slurry of a gutter. The kernel sank into a mossy rivulet, flushing over rock. “Though it’s tempting, large men don’t brandish their axes at the gods. That’d be imprudent, don’t you think? There’s always a chance, though. The craggy peak of a wager.” 

Idly, he plucked at the cloak, heavy fur clasped by graven bone. The inlay of tarnished silver. “Make the knuckles clatter, and you’re just as likely to lose,” he grunted.

Ulric dredged at her jade eyes, as if trying to consume their power. The splay of disused intonation kept up, scraping like a wheel crushing over grist. “That’s why the cunning man’d just butcher the priests, zealots, and kneelers, so there’s scarcely a buzz of prayer intoned through marble caverns. That’s how you defeat a god. Take away his churls. They need us, y’know. They’ve got a craving for love, hunger over our constant devotion. That’s why lonely gods are weak.”

“But we’re always swift to forget.” 

Harshly, he chuckled. Though he’d found the confines of his weakness, he was gloatingly cognizant that those soldiers were chaff before him. There wasn’t any posturing in the wag of a hand, his coat of scales shifting, with a vague, tinny shriek. “Three? That’s not enough. They’re beaten of ruddy metal, rigid and impassive in the melting, but just another, brittle tragedy. They’d just shatter. That’s the rub. But me, I erupted from these bowels of decaying bricks, belching sulfur and brimstone. I’ve not been inside the temple for many years, though. That’s a pity.”

Ulric lofted his chin, eyes limned by remnants of an unfocused gray. Their focus was the sprawl of temple, like a vast, rocky spine defying the drapery of mist. “Thirty men, maybe,” he grunted. The shreds of disruption faded, and bulky shoulder climbed in a shrug. The greasy sheaf yanked at her. “Nut?”

[Yaotl]

The intonation of his low voice provided more than enough amusement for her. Yaotl could eat his words, his growling cadence, and put it to use for herself. He offered her entertainment but provided something even more useful: information. Perhaps he offered only the point of view of a man who failed one too many times at summoning a god to fight, and telling her that there was only a bare chance of succeeding in defeating a god in battle, or perhaps he knew more than she assumed. Whatever the matter, he was food for her goals and fodder for her plots. She would play this word game with him. The word to kill the faithful brought pause to her replies, and her eyes glittered darkly in their sockets. She couldn't believe it would be that easy to knock a meddler off his pedestal, but even the liars had truth in their words. Value was in the eye of the beholder. She could always make use of words, even the word of the dishonest. "Are you so sure in your strength that you wouldn't take the challenge of three men?" Indirectly implying impotency. That would work, wouldn't it? "You could prove your... manhood by meeting them in battle on their territory, clash steel to steel, and shake the city. It would be hard to contend with the wounds to the Temple that I am sure would find some purchase in your heart. The rubble is clearing now and the damage to the beauty is becoming apparent." Her words died out, her expression somber. She looked at him as he offered a nut to her, reaching to take one in thin fingers, rolling it in her palm idly, unsure of how to react to that scorched hull. "Thirty men would be enough to knock old White-Eyes down a step, don't you think? I'd be interested in seeing thirty men fall to a single sword, but perhaps that can wait. Maybe you'd like to see our Temple instead?" No gratitude expressed, merely a thin smile as she awaited his words to continue this game.

[Ulric]

Ulric licked partly chapped lips, his fissured grin reduced to the sliver of a scar. He’d missed this unkind delving. Have you heard enough, little bird? For an instant, his gimlets were limned by fever. Would you like more? Taking another nut, he popped it into his mouth, rupturing its husk under his molars. This was a jape, sloshing around insinuation like a leaky jug, anything to provoke.

Brashly, he screwed his vigil over the guards, fettering them with a glare. They’d not do anything about it. They were tired, and despite their repute, they weren’t overly decayed and despotic. The bylaws were, and if they gnashed in discord, your hide was better off being scarce. This wasn’t the time for agitation, he though. The girl was trying to pluck his strings, and her efforts were hardly deft. There wasn’t anything convivial about her intonation, the intimations skewing more from ennui than any concerted curiosity in his presence. The lack was vaguely insolent.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Idly plucking the last nut, he flipped greasy parchment over the sweep of cinders. It splayed in a corner, bleakly lolling in a jetsam of refuse. “I doubt it’ll conjure any vast regrets, though,” he snorted, ignoring the jilt. They stung, though. They always stung, always made him boil under his cage of ribs, breeding visions of crushing faces. There was an instant of brooding, closely lidded, and presently it passed.

Every man is impotent, he gave a shrug. Every man has limits.

Ulric craned his neck, trying to elicit a satisfying pop of vertebrae, yet failing. “There’s no reason to unveil my steel,” he resumed. “ Thing is, I’m not trying to ruck up your skirts. There’s idle boasts, and then there’s not giving a shyke. The only thing I’d like to verify is my knack for guzzling wine, but you’d only want me to purvey a few mugs to your lips, maybe string in some giggles.” 

The soggy crowd jostled for space under the awning, but he jostled back, sinking a pair of fingers into the tender swell of a man's ribs. There was a gasp, and then an interval of temporal isolation. “I detest the din of giggling,” he finished, “and skinny girls are just a waste of coins, but perhaps you’ll guide me to what’s left of the temple?”

Ulric settled on an unruly grin, offering his mailed elbow like the grungy jape of a courtier. “If you can fathom it, I’ve not paid my… respects for a brace of years.” 

[Yaotl]

The faintest expression of distaste crossed Yaotl's features as her companion plopped another nut into his maw, squeezing her fingers tight around the one in her palm in response. Poisonous little bastards, murder in a shell when it came to her. There was a reason stuff like nuts weren't allowed into her house. They would choke her, slowly and horribly, and where would there be a healer like her brother to help her in Ravok? Snorting in response to his question and lifting a hand to brush strands that dared peep into the drizzle aside, Yaotl covered her instance of disgust with a quick smirk. "Yes, I believe I would like that," she said, almost cruelly. "I don't blame you for wanting to avoid a confrontation. There are quite the number of them, and more are bound to pop up around here somewhere, don't you think?" Now she could have just been teasing him after realising her ploy to provoke him had failed. She could salvage the situation in less redundant methods, but she wasn't one to give up on a goal easily. The frustration of failure just egged her on to try harder, and she would. He spoke again before she could dredge up another reply, and she took refuge in his words to cover uo whatever false sympathy she was going to summon forth just for him. However, his words brought several unpleasant thoughts to mind, such as what it would mean if she would rut a man in old clothes who liked the taste of acorns. "Believe me, my dear friend, you would not hear my giggle any day before Dira took you, or any day after. You're just not my type." Yaotl was in her coldest voice yet, speaking frankly and directly. Why honey it up? Yet, she brightened up considerably when the man jabbed his fingers into a sudden swell of people, rewarding them both with a man's gasp. She could gave giggled then, if she hadn't already told him she woukdnt giggle. Giggling itself was truly a nuisance to her as it were. "So you'd like to visit our merry little Temple?" Yaotl raised her brows as he offered his arm to her. She didn't like the thought of taking his offer, but what choice had she, really? She curled her arm beneath his and rested her palm upon his forearm lightly. Best not to press to close to him. They began on their way, the rain pittering and pattering around them as they cut their path through men and women. Yaotl hoped that as they arrived at the Temple and the man saw the remaining rubble of the Djed storm, that he would react in some pronounced way. Maybe he could vice her insight into why he had avoided the Temple if he was a local? Everyone in Ravok should have known by now. "So, what was your name? I'm afraid it slipped by, if you said it already." Yaotl spoke in an attempt to keep the conversation running. "I am Yaotl, of Nyka." Not a local at all.