A Prelude of Poison

by **Helen** on April 1st, 2013, 6:23 am

She was one face among many, lacking features that would normally make her stand out. She was as suspicious as her fellows but kept to herself rather than mutter openly. She tried to stay out of sight which kept her also out of range of hearing, so she neared and circled around some stalls to get closer and look like she was just shopping. She didn't seem to be the only one, but she was the one that remained there longest and that didn't immediately lose interest or back away out of fear as more joined the group.

She eyed them warily and listened to their words. They had accents and she had to pick through some of the sounds of their words to hear what they were saying, but she understood the general sound of recognition. Them knowing eachother didn't bode well, in her opinion. She half wanted to call out for a monk but had to backpedal quickly as one of the women moved towards the stalls in a quiet moment as the other two went their own way. She retreated around another stall and crouched, unsheathing her twin tamo reflexively as she peered around the corner. For a single tick, her heart plummeted as it looked like the woman saw her, but then she felt relief as the woman looked away. She craned her neck in a futile attempt to see the couple, the two of whom she was more interested in, until a flutter at her peripheral drew her eyes to the woman again.

Clothes were dropped, Helen covered her mouth in appalled shock, and she was revealed to have a mass of markings along her body, dominated by the waves upon her arm. She couldn't see others clearly, but the blemishes showed against her skin from this distance. Were they scars? Who had a tattoo like that these days? Helen had never seen anything like that.

She was horrified even further as the woman's body began to... change. From someone slender and pretty, if marked unusually, to a man of long build and strong chest. She saw everything both forms had to show and flushed with embarrassment and anger. Magic! She cursed it, and him/her.

"Just what and who are you," she muttered. She was tempted to shout out in alarm, raise arms against the... man, start a mob and toss him to the blessed oblivion of the Aperture.

She ran out after the man had dressed, admittedly too afraid to approach him in secrecy like this, and followed him out to where there were eyes to maintain the peace. And then she reached to catch his arm, hoping to make him turn to face her, and then brandished one of her daggers in his face.

"Magic," she hissed. "I ought to have the monks on you right now. Who are you?"

by **Apos** on April 2nd, 2013, 4:07 am

That explains the difference, then. He thought to himself as he learned from Zandelia that the woman to his right actually wasn't Ana.

"I got here by carriage for most of the trip..." Apos said as he trailed off. With a stranger in his presence he didn't want to give away to many details of whom he was. When Zandelia asked to get out of plain sight, Apos was more than delighted to oblige, both because of the monks and because he didn't trust any of the citizens of Nyka, Evalin included. With a trained population of citizens who have been conditioned to run to the Monk's protection like moth to flame, Apos didn't even have the slightest thought to argue with Zan. When she grasped his forearm he calmly followed her into the shadows so as to not draw anyone's attention.

"Zan, Zan, calm down." Apos said, realizing she was asking the questions back to back. The Myrian softened the muscles of his face and talked in a relaxed yet quiet tone attempting to reassure Zandelia he was safe. "Don't worry, no one knows I'm a Myrian. I made a bit of a commotion the night I got here after meeting a contractor, but the monks are looking for a cloaked goggled man, not a-" Apos grabbed at his clothing. "-robed, blue-eyed guy." He said warmly. Apos couldn't possibly express how it felt to know he had friends who were concerned about him to an extent, but he wouldn't say it aloud. Zandelia was a powerful and intelligent ally, and ever since he'd known her she'd always extended her hand to help guide Apos along. He wouldn't dare gamble any of that on something as fragile as his feelings. Under his father's dark tutelage combined with feigned indifference, Apos came to the realization of his emotional frailty years go.

“I will help you if I can but tell me everything about what you are doing, where you are staying and so on in Nyka. Quick, quick man!”

Apos would fail to tell Zandelia about the home he'd plundered before getting to his current location, but he was comfortable enough to tell the rest. "I'm actually at the Hostel." With only leaving his room at night, changing his attire, and only interacting with people he had to, Apos could see why he might not have seen Zandelia before. "I started working as an assassin not long after I left the Spires, but as to why I'm actually here in Nyka?" Apos paused and pursed his lips before opening and letting the low-raspyness of his voice exercise again. "Sister, I ain't got a clue." He said tiredly.

by **Wrenmae** on April 2nd, 2013, 6:37 am

The moment skin touched arm, Wren had already begun turning...the sound of quick footsteps ringing in his ear. He had expected Zandelia again, not this...girl, but the way the blade caught fire in the sunlight definitely held his attention. To her provocation, he stepped forward, throat against the blade as his own hand drew his long dagger, poising it gently at a diagonal between where their two bodies almost met, effectively hiding the blade she could feel against her abdomen.

"Well now," he said quietly, the air between them thick with the beating of hearts, "What a brave girl to present herself so brazenly before me...and with a blade no less." There was no fear in him, no give. He'd been threatened by gods and wizards with the power to incinerate him in an instant. She did not frighten him, though the implications of a drawn blade would draw attention.

"The blade I have pressed against your abdomen is poisoned. If you think it a good day to die in the market for a stranger you've only just met....if you feel that you can scream before I perforate something you won't live to regret losing, then by all means, try. But I don't think you want to die today. My name is Trente. I am not from this city nor am familiar with their policies on magic. Evidently they feel poorly. Fair enough, you've caught me in my natural form and so there is no need to fear." In emphasis he pressed the blade ever so lightly against her.

"I'm in Nyka only a few days. Rest, resupply, and leave. Surely you can put away your terror for a few days till I am outside your walls forever? It's either that or perish, and I doubt either of us feel the circumstances matter enough to bring death into the mix, don't you?"

With the smile, he conveyed a calm strand of hypnotism, woven in a shawl that fell across her brain bit by bit. There was much to worry about, the dagger at her belly perhaps, but the hypnotist conveyed that he spoke truth and that perhaps today wasn't the best day for brandished blades and wild accusations.

If they held this way much longer, someone would intervene. He didn't want to prick her, poison her with Vayt's blade...but he would if necessary. The whole of it was a fiasco he wished he had the fortune to avoid.

But fate did not favor him today.

The choice was up to Helen.

by **Helen** on April 2nd, 2013, 7:50 pm

The press of the blade to her abdomen was expected but nonetheless received poorly. She wouldn't allow herself to submit to a stranger with a poisoned blade and was half tempted to step closer to him to prove this point. No word if the other two had caught on to this exchange, but that barely mattered.

"Fair words to hear, Trente." She spoke of the threat, of the promise behind it. She bristled with the thought of relinquishing him and admitting something that would sting her pride. Instead, he was answered with a firmer press of the dagger against his throat, backing up her own wordless threat. "Maybe we should bleed for eachother, see who has time to shout out for help."

His words instilled some kind of trust in her, easing her hand on the blade back to a more amicable distance against his collarbone. What he said did make some sense. It didn't make her likelier to just let him wander off. She had the sense to let him go, withdrawing her knife and waving it at him mockingly.

"If you changed the way you looked just a bit, you might actually look like one of us, Trente." She took the liberty of removing herself from the blade at her stomach, just in case he thought to poke her with it anyway. She wouldn't have minded getting her hand on it and learning just what kind of poison was behind it so she could try to copy it and do her own daggers. She even went so far as to relinquish his arm but she didn't back so far away as to let him.think she was suddenly disinterested. It was very likely he would facechange again and disappear entirely. "Don't you at least want to say goodbye to your friends over there before you go running off?"

With a tilt of her head she gestured to the two of them still talking. The smile on her face was greatly amused. She could see he wanted to escape.

by **Wrenmae** on April 3rd, 2013, 5:04 am

"Them?" his eyes trailed to Zandelia and Apos, but only briefly, flickering back to her. His dagger vanished in its scabbard as snake-quick as it had emerged. "You're mistaken. They aren't my friends, simply mistook me for someone else." She had removed the threat from his space but that didn't mean she was any less threatening. He would need another disguise before this was done...and such shifting would begin to wear away at any semblance of identity he still clung to. But...why cling at all? He could be who he chose to be and perhaps taking a more Nykan appearance would be beneficial.

"Unless you are ready to die, never draw your blade against me again." he eyed it with obvious distaste, "Life has enough dangers without you throwing yourself at them headlong. My word to the wise would be to forget what you saw. Follow me, seek me, expose me in any way and I'll make an end of you."

He did not turn from her, more to the side of her, walking away without turning his back completely. "Find me again when my face is different and perhaps we can have a more amicable meeting. But I've had my taste of violence and wordplay." A faint grin meandered across his face, "Even mages grow tired sometimes...and ignorance to arts misunderstood is what keeps this world divided. Think not of the fear in what you saw, but of the possibility it lends. Reflect on that, find me again, and we will see if we can not have a meeting of friendlier minds."

by **Helen** on April 4th, 2013, 3:18 am

"I'm nobody's ally if they are an outsider," Helen said softly.

She let him walk away, something of her most menacing smirk upon her face. Once he was at an adequate distance, she turned her head to glance back at those two people still having their little meeting, and called out.

"Hey, that girl you're talking to is getting away while you guys have your own little conference." She used a loud voice to trumpet the news for both Trente and the two to hear, as well as anybody else that would take notice and be curious. "She looks like a man now, right there." She pointed to wear he was with her still held dagger, following her own gesture, and then she backed away, taking his threat to heart. She would have fun looking for him later and seeing how this meeting they might have had went. She wouldn't go alone either, she would make sure of that. She hoped somebody would go after him. If this all failed, she would be in an unfair amount of peril for her disobedience. It was a good thing to be learned, however, that one shouldn't make threats to a local in their own home. It was better his 'friends' than her monks.

by **Wrenmae** on April 4th, 2013, 3:49 am

ooc :

He paused at the cuff of her words, almost turning. But with everyone crowding the market place, she was pointing to everyone and no one at the same time. He continued walking. There was no point in acknowledging her, some jabbering slack-jawed idiot waving a dagger around in the market place. If Zandelia had any sense in her head, she'd read the obvious signs of inability. And besides, even if she was curious, he could cover for that. By now he'd melted into the stream of people looking through the market place. Eyes followed him, but with a twist, half turn, and another he had effectively lost sight of his pursuers.

As he moves, his body shifted with subtle morphing. He ducked a corner, his hair was dark, nearly black, longer now. He paused to examine wares, face bent over. When he rose he was shorter, pudgier, stomach pushing out at the fabric of his clothes. He had a longer nose, a withdrawn chin. In a matter of several feet down the marketplace he'd lost his identity and replaced it again, all the while moving, shifting, watching.

Next time, he would kill her. There was no doubting that. He'd slice her with Vayt's blade and let the little witch die like the petching brat she was. No...no. He calmed, took a deep breath.

She was worth less than his time. If he found her again then, yes, provided it not expose him...he'd send her to Dira. But for now he had other things to do, and if the monks came looking?

Let them.

He was everybody and nobody...and he would not be known.

Open A Prelude of Poison