Waiting for Dark (Open)

by **Sho** on May 1st, 2012, 2:04 am

67th of the Day, Spring of 512 A.V.

The frail little pale woman stopped to take a breath upon entering city walls, her exhausted and sore body hunched against the shadowed side of a stone slab, a rag had been tied over her nose and mouth—what little she could do for desert travel.

A human skull tinked against the wall she leaned on, and after several moments of repeated murmured apologies downward at the polished ‘prize possession’ she stumbled further within the city and taken up a place of resting. Delicately cradling the skull between both of her hands as she plopped on the ground between two buildings, her back against the wall and head tilted upward toward the sky with closed eyes.

Without looking she pulled her legs in close to her and sat Indian style, her tattered dark dress with varying holes was spread out around her, covering her body as best it could. Then and there, her posture and forehead glossy from sweat, she looked like she could have disguised herself easily as a homeless beggar, which was quite an unusual sight for a small Konti. Various rattling of bones she carried with her, dangling from her person and within one of her bags chattered as she made herself more comfortable.

Her cracked and peeling lips moved, murmuring in a whispered conversation under the cloth over her mouth, it was almost unbearably hot to her, with every breath her mouth felt like the fires of a furnace, and even when the air around her moved it practically brought tears to her eyes and smeared the black eye liner around them downward toward her cheeks.

“I’ll…find you.” This time she spoke somewhat louder than the whisperings of before and hot laughter rose like sand paper in her parched throat. Unconcerned if a thief or worse would find her in the shadowed alley she took shelter in, she continued to rest there, decidedly until the cooler hours of the evening.

Her hand stroked the side of the skull she carried rather affectionately, and her body began to sag. Her blonde head bobbed up and down as she drifted tiredly without even realizing it.

by **Brodon Windriver** on May 5th, 2012, 9:33 am

The closer it got to summer, the more the baked sand gave up dust to choke on. Brodon helped himself to another lungful as he made his way through the afternoon scorch. It didn't even feel as though there was air in the wind. Just dust and heat. He was getting used to the heat as he remained here, but every day was a little hotter than the one before, so it seemed he was only breaking even. But at least he no longer burned. The light billowing clothes and desert hood as much responsible for that as the weathering of his skin.

He stayed to the sides of the streets or alleys whenever possible. It didn't seem that anyone had followed him for weeks now, but you never knew, and the creeping feeling of watchful eyes set his teeth on edge. They might think him a Chaktawe, with his dark hair and eyes, if he chose to paint his face. For once he was glad he had not gotten his windmarks to mark him a Drykas.

He saw someone approaching whose demeanor suggested veiled purpose. A thief casing a home for later burglary, an assassin looking for a vantage point to stage his ambush, a married man looking for a prostitute, an agent looking for Brodon?

Brodon ducked into a nearby alley and hurried to reach the bend where it arced behind the building facing the street he had just left. An arched stairway cut into the alley wall led down from a common court serving a half-dozen businesses in an adjoining structure. He slipped into the archway and stopped halfway up to sit and listen.

As expected, workers on their afternoon breaks gathered at a few rough tables to badmouth their bosses. Each trying to outdo the others with exaggerations of their masters' harsh treatments. By the time the fourth man vented his woes, you'd swear he had been coerced into signing a contract to be paid in beatings and not coin.

After a few minutes of wretched recollections of unbearable tortures, Brodon decided the suspicious man was not, in fact, marking him and made his way back down the stairs to the alleyway. He turned to continue following the alley rather than returning to the street. No point in taking chances. He followed the arc to where he knew he was coming close to the far end of the alley and stopped short, instantly wary.

A feminine voice broke the soft, continuous moan of the dusty breeze, "I'll...find you", followed by rasping laughter. Brodon took a more centrally located "action" grip on his staff and stepped around the corner to see a short, blonde woman, sitting in the alley, in a dark dress that looked to have been used to beat out a fire.

Brodon made his way around her, wondering sourly just who she meant to 'find'. He doubted she was aware of him, judging by the repeated nod of her head. He moved to where a lean to the left would block the sun from her face, announcing his presence. If he felt compelled, he would lean back as her eyes adjusted to dazzle her with sudden sunlight.

He leaned to the left slowly, watching the shadow crawl across her brow, "Find whom, I wonder" he said, looking down with stern curiosity.

by **Sho** on May 6th, 2012, 1:22 am

The Konti's eyes cracked open, squinting upward at him through her lashes after seeing the shadow pass over her from behind her lids. Her hands held the skull in her lap more closely, cradling it under her arm and pulling it securely to the side, meanwhile the fingertips of the other curled like talons between the skull's eyes and thumb to the tip of what once was a nose to hold the thing remarkably similar to a bowling ball.

Her leg kicked out half-assedly in front of her toward the man with little judgment of how far he actually stood, and any thought for a swift enough strike to do harm was absent. The popping of her hip was audible in that lazy moment, before she dropped her foot to the ground and her 'prized possession' became a precious and delicate baby once again to be comforted and caressed to avoid displeasure.

Seconds passed as she held the pose, piercing gaze on Brodon with pupils that contracted to tiny little pin pricks and critically alert of any sudden movements. A blond lock of hair whipped in front of her eyes and flipped away in a hot breeze while she took note of him and his posture, quickly assessing him before deciding how to react.

Her head finally tilted forward as she regarded him with hooded eyes, and more of her blonde locks framed her face as the late afternoon began its transition to evening. Her shadowed eyes combined with her smeared makeup caused any chance to discern the way she looked upon his figure to be all but impossible to say with the exception of a highlighted glitter from their moistened reflection.

"....Don't..." Sho spoke toward him, licking her lips to moisten them as she continued to speak, and even rolled her shoulders slightly forward to lean closer to him without wasting any energy to make the actual effort of nearing him, as the words rose from her dry and delicate throat. "...Steal from me, child."

She blinked again, lids drifting slowly closed and opening, even though she did appear to be as coherent as she would ever be. A keen eye could see the slightest twitch at the corners of her peeling lips, the slightest hint of a smile reassured by the dimpling of her paled cheeks, as she quieted down to observe him with quite the similarity of a scientist observing the progression of a lab experiment and only just now awaiting results.

by **Brodon Windriver** on May 6th, 2012, 6:07 pm

Brodon tensed as her foot moved towards him, but relaxed again as he saw it would fall short of any significant impact. He scowled down at her.

"Two times do I thank you for one kind commenting, my lady" his bow mirrored the sarcasm of his voice, his narrowing eyes never straying from hers. "Your calling me both thief and child. Perhaps a mistake was made for my being your brother." Brodon grimaced at his lack of polish in the common tongue. Were he fluent, he would craft insults of such eloquence as to bring his targets to their knees, begging for a beating instead. "And what are you having that any is...any..one is wishing to steal? A dusty old skull and a filthy dress?"

She made no move or reply. Still, he was wary, he had heard of dark forms of magic, and the way she held the skull gave warning of a possible practitioner. She seemed only to study him, which only annoyed him further. "And I am not a child. I am sixteen!" he was seized with embarrassment by the very childish sound of his own retort. How he would have snickered at another for such a comment! "...going on 30, it is seeming..." he muttered, to seem less of a juvenile.

He was big for his age, and strong, thanks to his regular workouts with the iron staff he carried. 'Perhaps, if I kept my mouth shut more often, people might think me older.' he thought to himself.

It suddenly occurred to him that she had managed to sidestep his original question. When he had first heard her say 'I'll find you' he had thought the man in the street had tricked him into entering the ally, and she, as an accomplice, was waiting in ambush. But a quick look around gave no sign of the man, and she would hardly have been likely to announce any ill intent with such a remark if she had intended a surprise attack.

He moved to sit down on her right. He would leave a few feet between them, both as a courtesy and as a buffer in case she was truly ill-disposed towards him. "So, if a thief and child can be asking for twice, what is you...are looking for?"