Such a pain in the neck. ( Alea & Yuros)

[Ximal]

35th. Winter. 512AV

Frost. Frost coated almost everything, in th past few days the cold had settled over everything making the water in the air cling to the bark of the trees coating them in frost. But when the sunlight caught it even in a brief ray the light that sparkled through the millions of crystals reflected like the many millions of stars in the night sky. Xi smiled lightly, the air around him was...calm, peaceful almost tranquil. The early morning of the day had given way into dawns early light and now the sun was beginning to tower over and above the trees casting down a gaze of warm but very sparse rays. Xi walked through the silent still ground of the spires sticking mostly to the clearings to make sure he could continue to track his way around the spires. The slow deep breaths he took drank in the air and then polluted it with thick steamy mist as it flowed back out. Slow methodical breaths, Clear focused thinking, and constantly on guard, twice now he'd been stalked by kelvics in this area, on very different days, would the same happen again? Xi trudged slowly through the frost bitten forest, the heavy foot falls becoming lighter and lighter the deeper he delved into the forest's woods. A clear cut and simple path lay ahead but all around him the darkness was pierced by bolts of those streaming rays. Even so it was still dark and difficult to see. Hearing above everything else would help Xi right now, just listening to the things around him, to try and make sure both he was safe and that any others weren't.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea was just on her way back from her day's work at Jakobi's yard when she caught sight of something that made her stop in her tracks. Was that...? It was, it was Ximal, that insufferable arrogant jerk who Alea had had the misfortune of meeting toward the beginning of the season. She froze as conflicting ideas warred in her head. The sensible voice (represented by Banir) begged her to just walk away, and pretend she'd never seen him. But that voice was so small, and quiet, and easily hushed.

She looked around, and a quick glance did not reveal anyone else in their immediate vicinity. Still, this was one of the main paths up into the Spires, and if Alea started something, someone else could come by at any time. But what was this? Ximal was heading off into the woods, somewhat off the beaten path. Curiosity trumping sense (as always), she tiptoed after him, keeping her distance at first. She was pretty good at keeping quiet, but the frost made things trickier, since a careless step could cause an obvious crunch.

She kept him barely within sight range until she thought she'd gotten the hang of stepping softly in the frost, and making sure she did not step on any twigs or dry leaves. (Such an amateur mistake would be so embarrassing). But if she was going to enact any kind of vengeance against Ximal (for being such a waste of breath), she was going to have to get closer.

Of course, going faster would make it harder to stay silent. She would have to risk being heard. Which meant she needed cover. It was pretty dark in these woods, which helped. And there was plenty of cover, which was really Alea's specialty.

Abandoning the semblance of a path that Ximal was taking, Alea ducked into the trees. She peered out to check his progress before darting to a tree further ahead. A slight rustling of leaves accompanied her dash, but once safely under cover, she held still and quieted her breathing until any suspicion was gone. She crouched low and peeked her head around the tree to check Ximal's progress, her lynx-fur hat and clothes helping her blend into the dark woods.

She kept up this pattern, darting from tree to tree, quickly gaining on Ximal, who was moving at a slow walk. Soon, she deemed she was close enough. Before the brute could put together what all those rustling sounds had been, Alea jumped out from behind the tree and sprinted at him, pumping her legs until they burned. She ran as fast as she possibly could, until she was close enough to jump onto his back.

She clung to his shoulders, trying to keep a good enough grip on him to be able to do some damage as well. Realizing that her arms were occupied with he important task of hanging on, she took one of her free legs and planted her boot right where she thought the kidneys might be.

[Ximal]

Xi walked slower thought the forest floor the trees and bushes now lightly swaying in the breeze however Xi didn't quite know what was going on. It was that feeling again. The feeling of being hunted however this time, he couldn't quite pin point the area, something about this "predator" was new. Xi couldn't pin the predator down it's not that he was beign circled but being stalked, he could almost feel it. However when the predator did emorgeAll Xi heard was the rusteling of the bushes and then the heavy pounding of feet towards him before feling a weight on his back. Hands grippign onto his shoulders and then the sudden impact of something hard in his back. Making him drop to one knee, the pain purst through his stomach but Xi just pointed his anger at the thing that had done this. Reaching his hands up to his shoulders to grab whatever was latching onto him before pulling them forwards and then tossing them and whatever the weight was over his head and into the ground...Hard. Sucking down a deep breath to quell the pain now bellowing out through his abdomen. Xi then spotted the cause of the person that had leapt upon his back, the little pain from the third. Damn it, he'd thought he was done of her. Clenching his fist he gritted his teeth before glowering down at her. I thought i wouldn't end up crossing paths with her again. Funny how that works isn't it. Let me out i want a chat with her. Please ? I promise i wont hurt her...too badly. Xi simply shook his head before glowering down at her and straightening out his back. Trying to alleviate the pain. Sucking down a deep breath he knelt down flipped her over before pressing kneeling behind her and pressing his shin over her legs and putting his body weight into it to pin her in place before collecting her arms together and holding them in place with both hands. "What the petch was all that about? I could have killed you you crazy person!" Keeping his eyes on her and his thoughts half marred as he held back the constant prying of liro and tried to make sense of what ever the petch had just happened. Why in the name of all that was divine would she just jump him from nowhere?

[Alea Davenport]

Being thrown to the ground wasn't so bad... hitting the ground was painful. All of the wind was knocked from her, and it was reminiscent of that time she'd been tossed by an angry Jamoura... but with less about-to-die-ness. But recovering her breath took far too long, long enough for Ximal to completely immobilize her. She struggled to free her hands, but even if she hadn't been at too awkward and angle to wiggle them enough, Ximal's grip was like a vice. Feeling worn out from the ineffective struggle, Alea went limp until she managed to get her breath back. In brute force she was outmatched; she'd have to think of some other way out of this.

His question was the obvious one of a person who didn't know what they wanted to know. Leaving it entirely up to her what sort of information she gave out... what an amateur. Her contempt for the man gave her a brilliant idea: maybe if she made him angry enough, he'd make a mistake! Of some sort...in any case, she didn't have any better ideas, and insulting him would be fun. She opened her mouth to speak, but coughed instead. For a moment, she was terrified that the muteness which had plagued her last spring had somehow returned, but she quickly reassured herself that coughing was a perfectly normal reaction to what she had just gone through.

She cleared her throat and tried again, with a slight chuckle. "Are you kidding? This is just how I say hello. Or are you so thick you can't remember what I was doing when we met?"

[Ximal]

Xi now held the commanding place, he'd subdued her with a single throw and a lot of weight. Pressing his shin a little harder into her legs he made sure she couldn't wriggle free of the current situation. And then her voice, gods above how he hated listening to her irritable voice. mostly because of the heavy air of sarcasm that hung around it. Xi simply shook his head and attempted to focus but the talons of liro dug in hard and deep gripping hold. Let. Me. Speak. To. Her. She's pissing you off and i can feel that, let me out I said i wont hurt her to badly. I'll just teach her some "manners" No Knowing you you'll do something to give me a bad reputation. Xi took a deep breath but could feel he was loosing the war. "What's how you say hello? Id really petching hate to see how you say you hate someone , then again if that's the case i might not be awake to see it. " Xi kept his eyes firmly planted on the captive in front of him whilst his mind did every single thing it could to pull off Liro before...shyke.

Liro smiled now feeling himself rush into Xi's body, feeling every ounce of Xi's strength become his own. Good. Now to push a message out towards the little shyke he now had pinned beneath him. Though now Xi's voice was a little bit higher and louder than before, noticeably so and his manner of speech had changed completely, purely because liro was in the driving seat. "Well...Alea...It seems that you need to re think your way to say hellow, eventually that could get you hurt...Rather...badly." Liro pushed slowly on one of alea's arms pushing them slowly up her back until they wouldn't go any further without a force to push them and the give them an extra slightly push before switching to hold both her arms in one hand. Then again it might get you caught into some other very.... undesirable positions. After all your a very vain young lady. You could do with fall from grace...I could do that. After all there's no harm in it...for me at least."

[Alea Davenport]

Alea grimaced at the pain of Ximal's weight and how far he was stretching her arms into positions they were not designed for. As usual, she found herself unable to even process Ximal's words, they were such a load of irrelevant shyke. All she heard was "blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah." Instead she focused on how she could possibly get out of this. Contrary to her behavior, she did not actually want her arms broken. She could not fully recall the pain of a dislocated shoulder, but she remembered enough to know she'd rather not repeat the experience.

She tentatively tried to push her arms in the opposite direction Ximal was pulling them, but it quickly because apparent that if it came down to a contest of strength, she would not even be able to hold her own, not from this angle. About the only thing she could move was her head. He knew what he was doing, she'd give him that at least. Her only weapon left was words.

She'd been around enough bullies that she knew the only way to get them to leave you alone was to make picking on you not be fun anymore. There were a few different ways to accomplish this, depending on the bully. She'd have to try a few things until she found one that worked. "Do you ever actually say anything, or is everything that comes out of your mouth a load of shyke?" she grunted.

[Ximal]

Liro grinned lightly having now taken over a live capture that Xi had made. useing his full body weight to simply hold her in place. And just smiled with a graceful malice, a focused and honed insanity. Still a simple smiling gesture was partially wasted on one who couldn't see it. Liro just perched over her and felt her feeble attempts to escape, though Liro just listened to the little girl spout her nonsense the words rolled out of her mouth like verbal diarrhoea. Still liro just led her in place and kept tilting his head back and forth. What, was she talking about ? Mostly it depends upon what a callous girl like you listens too. " Liro smiled a touch more and edged her arms further up holding them on the point where if he pushed any further both would pop out of their sockets. No this want torture he was just trying to let her know that maybe she should actually listen before she spoke. "Well if all i ever say is shyke how about this. Any more of that lip and i'm dislocating BOTH of your arms" The creepy thing wasn't what liro had said but how he'd said it, an air of supreme calm and courteousness, the insanity of liro fluctuated like a metronome from pole to pole however what came out from time to time varied more so that well any thing. "Now are you going to chat nicely?"

[Alea Davenport]

Alea knew what she was going to do next, and she begged herself not to. She was too stubborn for her own good, that's what her mother always said. But that didn't change the fact that when Ximal made his threat, Alea's priorities suddenly shifted. She found herself imagining contingency plans for if Ximal followed through on his threat. She did not want to experience that pain again if she could help it, but now that it had become a very real possibility, she instead found herself arguing that if she had survived it once, she could survive it again.

"Why should I? If you hurt me, I'll tell everyone what a creep you are, unless you kill me, in which case they'll find out and banish you anyway." She really hoped her logic would get through to him, but she then she realized, that sort of argument wouldn't even work on her, much less a control-hungry maniac. She was pretty much doomed. Threats weren't going to work. But what about bribes? "Tell you what. I'll start being civil as soon as you do." Of course, the effectiveness of that would all depend on what Ximal's game was. If she didn't figure out his end-goal soon, she was in a world of trouble...

[Ximal]

Liro smiled perhaps alea didnt realize how seep the shype she was in ? She'd assaulted a member of the guard of the spires, and gotten pinned to the ground right now he could do what ever the heck he wished. Liro just smiled and began to laugh with her words just letting them snake free with a poisoned tone of honeyed pleasantries but every single word carried both weight and meaning. When was i not civil ? Have i not been the very picture of politeness ?" Liro pushed with fake will on alea's arms should he just do one to get his point across ? or not do anything and see ? decisions, decisions. "You want to tell everyone how much of a creep i am ? Who was it who leapt from the bushes and attacked the captain of the guard ? Please your words carry as much weight as the wind. then there's the fact that a lot of people here know me to be a fine upstanding person. And what are you ? a trouble maker ? even your own friend banir knows this. So go on, call me a creep. i could have you locked in jail for a long time and pop both your arms out with a single push. So tell me, what exactly here is my incentive to stop being how i am ? " To almost give a hint as to how little he was playing Liro pressed the thumb of his free hand against alea's right kidney, hard enough to cause pain. "Go-on, play this game, you and i both know how it ends."

[Alea Davenport]

Ximal obviously thought civility was only about what you said, and not how you treated people. Otherwise he'd realize that threatening to dislocate people's arms was not very nice. But if he didn't get that on his own, no amount of arguing was going to convince him.

Before she could wrack her brains for another tactic, she sensed a familiar presence, approaching fast. Oh no, she thought. He must have sense she was in trouble; she could feel his fear for her. She should have thought of that, tried harder to not let Yuros realize she was in trouble! Now he was just going to put himself in danger in her place! She tried to will him to stay away. Her concern over her own situation was overwhelmed by fear of the maniac on top of her hurting him.

She was so focused on Yuros that she had stopped moving, stopped listing, stopped responding in any way to what Ximal was saying. If she was lucky, he might interpret her silence as a false sign that he had won their little contest of wills, letting her go to get him back under more prepared circumstances. But the way this day was going, luck wasn't exactly on her side.