You Gotta Fight For Your Right to...stay alive? (Nel + Doc)

[Liminal]

1 summer, 510 AV

It wasn't Tall Johnny who came to the quarters where Nel and Murdoch were staying, but one of the stone-faced Akalak guards. "Your fight is in ten bells," he told Murdoch, though he gave no information about what kind of fight it might be, or whom Murdoch might be fighting. He was impervious to questioning, and he left as quickly as he had come.

Shortly after he left, there was another knock on the door. But it wasn't the guard, nor was it any of the other Casino staff. Rather, it was a red-haired girl with green eyes and a cheaply-made brown dress. She didn't look like she'd spent much time putting herself together that morning, and her eyes were intensely, almost inconsolably sad.

"Eh, hello," Gemmy said, shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the next. "I thought that, if'n you ain't busy and all, I might stop by to say that...well, to say that I'm sorry. I ain't always the type to ask questions, and maybe I ain't did pick the right time to do that. Or not do that. Whatever." She seemed clearly to be distressed, and sounded little like the confident chatterbox that had accompanied Murdoch from Syliras.

[Murdoch]

Doc didn't bother trying to question the guard - he'd learned long ago what loyalty Tall Johnny could inspire in his people, mainly because he'd been one of the few who'd betrayed him. He was a cautionary tale, and no one would so much as look at him.

When the guard left, Doc poured a fresh batch of water into the washbasin and cleaned himself up. When he opened the door to the second knock, he was still shirtless, hair dripping water and a towel thrown oner one shoulder. All his scars were in evidence, a wealth of them covering his forearms as proof of his skill at knife-fighting. The worst of them began just above his sternum and looped past his neck and up over his shoulder, the unmistakable mark of where his brother had tried to slit his throat.

"Gemmy," he said, surprise clear in his voice - he hadn't expected to see her again. But he offered an ironic sort of smile and he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. "You've no need to apologize. You had a job to do and you did it. I started this a decade ago, and was a fool to think I could escape it." He sighed, and opened the door wider, waving her in. "Come on, might as well meet Nel. I've a favor to ask you anyway."

"Nel?" he called over his shoulder. "You remember me telling you about Gemmy. With any luck, she'll be the one getting you out of here."

[Nel Sayo]

Nel had been abnormally quiet since Murdoch had arrived in her suites. She didn't meander around down in the casino anymore, or perch by the tables to yammer at the gamblers and offer advice, and she didn't seem even remotely interested in making any friends. She'd begun to treat the casino like the cage it was, and was slowly turning into a mouse that occupied it. There was a dying flicker in her eyes that she recognized, though it had been so long ago now when last she'd seen it. Syon had spurred it to a bright flame, and kept it from guttering out, but the slave she'd been had never really gone anywhere but deeper into her own skin. She paced out of the adjacent bedchamber when Doc called for her, a sylph in black, pale eyes watching her feet until she came to a stop a few feet away from them. When she looked at Gemmy, she tried on a smile, which looked like it ought to have suited her, but didn't. “Hi,” she muttered. “Nice to meet you.”

[Liminal]

Gemmy's own smile didn't look much more natural as she passed it along to Nel. "Pleasure's mine," she said quietly, scuffing one shoe on the floor.

Then she looked back at Murdoch. "Eh, but it ain't supposed to have ended like this, you know? Usually if'n Johnny's upset enough at someone to have 'em killed, he just sends someone to do it, and I ain't interested in those jobs. But when he brings someone here -- well, he cuffs 'em up a bit occasionally, but it ain't standard to do this to 'em."

She still looked distraught, but the fact that Murdoch didn't seem to be angry at her seemed to do a little to revive her spirits. "And if'n you need someone trans-ported someplace safe, I can do that, ain't no problem. I'll take good care of her if'n --" Her voice caught momentarily, despite her attempt at optimism.

"-- if'n the need arises, you know?"

She seemed unusually at a loss for what to say next. So she didn't say anything, just scuffed her shoe on the floor again, her red bangs falling over her forehead.

[Murdoch]

Doc chuckled a little to see Gemmy looking so regretful of her part in this little scheme - truth be told, he was a bit surprised by it. She'd seemed nice enough, but he'd assumed she was Johnny's creature and wouldn't give a damn about what happened to him. Seeing her so put out was a little startling, and he wondered just what he'd done to earn her good graces - or if she just didn't like the idea of tricking a man into slavery and eventually death.

"I'm hoping it doesn't come to that," he said, waving her into the room and offering her a seat. "And so long as I'm alive, I'm not going anywhere without Nel," he said, eyes darting over to Konti girl - it was what they'd agreed, after all, that they'd get through this together. Which meant he had to stay alive. Not that he hadn't considered throwing himself on a dagger and having Gemmy drag Nel out by her hair - but knowing Nel, she'd find a way to drag him back from death's door just so she could tell him he was an idiot.

"What we really need," he said, coming back to himself and refocusing on Gemmy, "is to know why he's doing this. There's got to be something he can gain from it, something he wants. Who's the bloke he plans to sell me off to once I can't fight anymore, and what's the price?" he said with a shrug, rubbing at his newly-shaven cheek. "You heard anything you're willing to share?"

[Liminal]

OOC: Erm...I'm just gonna go ahead with this rather than wait for Nel

Gemmy looked thoughtful. "Ain't heard much, sadly. Johnny and I, we had a bit of a tiff over this job, and though it ain't serious enough to keep me from coming here, if'n you can't see, it does mean he ain't been using me as a confidante lately. All's I know is that he's been seen talking to some men from Lisnar who've been looking for treasure hunters. Well, that and that, if'n the rumors are true, Red-eyed Pete is back in town."

She shrugged, wishing that she could make any sense out of such limited information. "Ain't much, sad to say, but maybe some of that means more to you than it does to me?"

She took another breath in, but at that moment, one of the Akalak guards came around the corner. "Visiting hours are over until after the fight," he said neutrally. Gemmy squeezed Murdoch's hand, and then sauntered off towards the guard.

"Well, I ain't thinking I ought to keep my shining presence all bottled up in here, if'n you take my meaning, so perhaps I'll take a breath of the outside air." She mock-bowed to the Akalak, who somehow managed to keep a perfectly straight face, and then she was gone.

Now Murdoch and Nel would be left to their own thoughts and devices until the fight.

[Murdoch]

OOC NoteSO SORRY! I replied to this when we first talked a few weeks ago, but apparently just looked at the preview and never posted. X( Here's the post again!

He studied Gemmy as she shared what she knew, and felt no twinge from his mark; she was sharing what she knew, and wasn't using it to manipulate him so far as his meager talents could tell. That was something, at least. An ally, even here.

"Lisnar?" he murmured, and then pursed his lips in a silent whistle. Lisnar, Lisnar... where do I know that? "Wait, the Alahean outpost? Ancient ruins, buncha nutjobs looking for bits of old-timey shine?" He hadn't even thought of Lisnar since he was a boy. But every kid on the streets of Sunberth had at one point or another fantasized about going to Lisnar and finding some elaborate treasure that would make them rich for the rest of their lives. Of course, most kids grew out of such wild flights of fancy well before their balls dropped. He'd never heard of anyone actually getting rich, but it was a story that just wouldn't die.

What would treasure-hunters want with him? There were probably a thousand men in Sunberth just as skilled in picking a lock. Why go through the expense and trouble of dragging him back from Syliras for this? "Shyke," he murmured, rubbing at the back of his neck as he tried to figure this whole stupid thing out.

His lips pulled down at the corners as the guard cut the visit short - gods, but it was surprising what a difference it made to his morale to know he had at least one friend in this gods-forsaken city - but he just lifted Gemmy's hand to press a quick kiss to her knuckles, followed by a teasing little smile. "Always a pleasure, m'girl," he said dryly, for he hadn't thought that the first time she showed up in his room.

And then she was gone, and he was left to ready himself for the fight. So he pressed a kiss to the top of Nel's shining curls and padded into the bathing chamber to prepare himself. Prayers to Ovek and Tyveth - who usually wouldn't have heard a word from this particular thief's lips, but the god of Truth and Honor had gotten him out of worse messes. Wouldn't hurt to keep him apprised of what his little meat puppet was up to.

Then he dressed himself and began tucking away his weapons: the assassin's dagger in its sheath on his belt, the older and less-used dagger from his childhood shoved into the sheath inside his boot. He even went so far as to hide his eating knife in his other boot, dull though it was, and to slip the hook-nosed lockpick into its hiding place in the inside of his belt. Anything he could stab someone with, really, because the gods alone knew what was in store.

Then he went back into the main room and curled up on the bed with Nel, and waited to see what Johnny had in store for him.

[Liminal]

At the appropriate time, the Akalak guard returned for him. Murdoch was not checked for weapons, so apparently it was a sort of come-as-you-are fight. He was ushered down the hallways, through the dark room where fighters waited for their turn on days with multiple matches, and then out into the blinding light of the cage.

The Akalak remained for a moment by Murdoch's side. Across the cage, another Akalak stood with Murdoch's opponent. He was a scarred man in his late thirties, wiry, and with the obvious state of hyper-alertness that characterized people who'd been a long time in Sunberth. He had a serrated knife some seven inches long in one hand.

Above them, in the crowd seats, Johnny was introducing the fight. A fight to the submission, between Bryson Tallstone and Murdoch Kin'rath, weapons permitted, no time limit, on and on. It was an introduction of the type that Murdoch had heard hundreds of times before, though never from down in the cage.

If Murdoch were to look up at the crowd while Johnny was speaking, he would see that the seats were nearly all occupied. Near the front, Gemmy was looking on intently, her face glum and her red hair tousled. Some others Murdoch would recognize as well, faces from a time that should have been left far, far behind.

As Gemmy had mentioned, Red-Eyed Pete was there too. His sandy hair fell to his shoulders, framing his eerie, glowing eyes. He seemed not to have changed at all since the last time Murdoch would have seen him, all those years ago.

More interesting, perhaps, was the person seated next to him.

She was not fully opaque, and the edges of her form were blurry -- telltale signs that she was not one of the living, but a ghost. However, even the swirling of her soulmist couldn't completely obscure the bronze of her skin, or her tall, graceful figure. As opposed to Pete, who looked entirely comfortable, she bore a desperately sad look, a sadness beyond Nel's, beyond Gemmy's, beyond even whatever Murdoch bore in the unacknowledged corners of his heart. It was a look of wounds that refused to close, of a constant pain with no hope of solace, and it was imprinted indelibly on her face.

Her face. A face so familiar to Murdoch, though not one he would have expected to see again.

Ydretha.

"Gentlemen!" Johnny's voice rang out over the noise of the crowd, and the Akalak handlers moved back to the door of the cage. "It's time to begin!"

[Murdoch]

Murdoch stood stock-still just inside the door of the cage, muddy eyes glued to the wraith that waited beside Red-Eyed Pete. She looked exactly the same, just as she had that fateful night when Doc's world had come crashing down around his ears.

'Ydretha," he whispered, unheard above the roar of the crowd.

Fifteen, they'd been, and while he'd aged a dozen years she'd remained unchanged, frozen forever when she'd been murdered by the man who even now called out Doc's name. He met her gaze - and felt his heart shred beneath the sadness of it. He was dizzied, couldn't draw a breath. He'd had half a lifetime to regret what had happened to her, to tear himself apart from the guilt of it, but he hadn't even touched the sort of hopeless desperation that was etched into her ghostly visage.

He was shaken suddenly from his revelry when the Akalak guard who'd escorted him had to forcibly shove him out of the way so he could get out of the door. When he dropped his gaze and breathed again, the sadness and heartache transformed itself into a rage unlike any he'd ever experienced - cold, quiet, and all-encompassing. It didn't burn the way his anger always had, didn't steal his reason and set his hands to trembling. It simply filled his veins with ice and flooded his tongue with the bitter taste of hatred. This was not even about vengeance anymore. This would be a reckoning, a settling of all the blood debts Tall Johnny had accrued. Murdoch would end this, or die trying.

Even as Johnny drew breath to speak the words that would begin the bout, Doc's eyes locked onto him and his own lips moved in a whispered prayer. Tyveth, if you really are the god of justice, that piece of shyke right there needs your full attention. And I've a hand you can use to give it to him.

The noise of the crowd built as the call for the fight to begin was given, and for the first time Doc turned his gaze towards his opponent. Didn't see him, though, not in the way that one usually sees a man; didn't even focus on Bryson. Murdoch saw him the way a man sees a tree in a forest - recognizes what it is, acknowledges that it's in his way, and never again turns his thoughts to it. Before he would have seen the man as a threat. Now he was simply an obstacle, unimportant, just something standing between him and his goal. He'd told Nel that he would survive - now he had a reason to.

Whatever his opponent (or the crowd who'd come to gawk at this throwback in Sunberth's history) might have expected, it likely wasn't the cold, methodical man who now drew his blade. The dagger was smaller than Bryson's by at least two inches, though both its edges were razor sharp, made to separate skin and slip between bone with a minimal amount of effort. He widened his stance a little, planting his feet firmly, and held the blade just above waist-high, his other hand hovering beside it in preparation.

"Let's get this over with," he said calmly, waving the man to make the first move. He was not his brother - had never been the sort of showy fighter Rakess was, and certainly wasn't the sort to initiate contact. Truth was he had no idea how to attack someone straight-out. So he waited, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, and tightened his grip on his blade.

[Liminal]

Though of course he could not hear her, Ydretha mouthed Murdoch's name from her vantage point high in the crowd.

Bryson half shrugged at Murdoch's statement. "It's never over with," he said -- a statement that only a man with years of experience in Sunberth's cages likely would have made. But he raised his knife anyway, holding it in his right hand and turning his body so that his right side was facing Murdoch.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, with two quick shuffle steps, Bryson was almost on top of Murdoch, his blade aiming for the other man's stomach. Bryson didn't appear to be the strongest opponent, but he was fast, and he was attempting to make the best use of his advantages, such as they were.

The crowd roared, more at the sight of some action than for any other reason. But they weren't Murdoch's primary concern just at the moment. After all, they weren't the ones chasing him with a knife...