Fears And Fantasies (Tinnok)

[Razkar]

30th of Spring, 514AV

Walk by a mirror, and you'll find it's pretty hard not to look at it. Or you, rather. Not that you're expecting to see anything different, of course, but... it's always a little weird. You only see what the world reacts to, after all. When you laugh or cry or plead or are stuck dumb, you only have their reactions to go on. Your eyes are incredibly complex lumps of jelly and goo, but they're not on stalks.

Still... all you see is you. After all, who else could it be?

Which is why Carl nearly shit a bloody brick when he flicked a glance into the tasteful Pre-Valterrian reproduction frame and saw-

Scars that pitted, whitened and stretched dark skin. Tattoos, snaking and carved with sharp needle or with ash worked painfully under the skin. Black eyes that stared back in naked challenge, teeth filed to point curving back. Piercings that seemed like something living had exploded near him and the bones had just flown into his face, right before it screamed-

"Fuck me!"

-then everyone looked at the cursing idiot and Carl in turn looked for a hole to dive into. Or something sharp to throw himself on. First, though, he glanced around in desperation, hoping for a similar expression on anyone...

No. Apparently it's just you who... must be feeling bad.

The fair-skinned human scratched the messy thatch of dirty blond hair and looked at his feet, biting his top lip. OK, OK, don't panic, he coached himself as the open-air market resumed business around him, no-one's approaching you, no-one's pointing or laughing. You just... saw something. Just get on with the list.

Ah, yes, the list: his anchor of responsibility in a sea of boredom... and latent madness, apparently. He unfurled it again and his lips moved silently as he tried to re-decipher Miss Pearl's handwriting. Gods, she needed to get someone else to do this for her... but that was why she had him, wasn't it? To attend to these chores. He owed her, after all, and what with her daughter passing...

The young male's lips twitched from side to side at the thought of that girl: what she'd been, and what of her had died.

Bananas, all fresh... and two pounds of beef for the festival week... salt for preserving... corn... half a pount of butter.

As he read, head bowed, his eyes flickered to the side again. She was still there. The girl she's seen before. He couldn't place her, but something was niggling from some corner of his mind like a termite at an oak tree: tiny and insignificant, but eventually, it would make its mark.

She was not... what was the word? Hot? Fine? She probably wouldn't elicit the stunned males with jaws on the pavement and cat calls everywhere she walked. Maybe she wouldn't be in any man's mind when the candles got blown out and there was only one thing left to do before sleep.

But Carl couldn't look away. That was the... beauty, she had. It was so scuplted and wonderful and... it was almost like an addiction for the eyes. He had to drink her in over and over and eventually she'd-

Shyke!

-look over and Razkar's head jerked back to his list. He managed a shy smile and shrugged.

"Good morning," he gestured to the mirror like it was no big deal, struggling as always for small tak, "I should do that less. Next time my reflection might break it."

Oh, very smooth, you... wait. "Razkar"? Who is "Razkar"?

Good question. He wasn't Carl, surely. Carl had only ever held a practice sword, and that was for civics class and the older kids had taken it afterwards. Stupid excuse for a play, anyway. He wasn't a warrior, or a savage, and the tattoos? He didn't even like shaving.

Who else could I be but me?

[Tinnok]

She was handling an apple. She turned it around in the light, glistening and gleaming, then put it back and picked up another, then another. She probed the fruit with thumb and forefinger, then found it unsuitable and replaced it. Frankly she didn't know the first thing about picking a proper apple, but people did this sort of thing all the time, and she figured it was worth a try. It did make her feel a bit important, as if she was the supreme judge of the- oh who was she kidding?

Olivia grabbed up one particularly red specimen with just a tiny spot of green erupting like a stray upon the side of the apple. Sunlight leaked in through a window, giving it a perfect sheen and she looked into the twisted reflection of the apple for a moment...and saw the strangest looking eyes she had ever seen in the depths of it. They were long and twisted and...sad. She wasn't that sad. No Olivia was never sad. She had everything she could ever want, yet she spent far too much time at this little store, and was pretending to have control over apples.

She discarded the fruit with a sigh, deciding the whole point was moot and glanced up to see...They barely made eye contact, and then his head was back assessing a grocery list. She squinted dark eyes at him for a moment. He was familiar, in fact, it was like she always saw him here. He was cute, certainly, his hair always a bit messed up. She opened her mouth. How many times had they seen each other in this store and never a word?

But Olivia had no need of men, no her work was enough for her. Men were too much work for not enough gain. She barely had the time of day to think about them (so she told herself), and they rarely ever gave her a second glance anyway. Since the last one....No better not to think of that.

She brought her basket closer to her elbow, glancing in the nearly empty contents and suddenly forgetting everything that was on her list. She turned, but found her eyes being drawn back to the man. You know you can trust him. The thought popped up unbidden and unwelcome. Trust him the nervous looking gentleman she had never even acknowledged existing outside of this grocery store?

She began walking briskly down the aisles toward check out, but her stomach was for some reason in a knot.

[Razkar]

Stop her! She's getting away!

From what?! We're not on a hunt!

Yes, we are! It's been ages since you-

Shut up, we've got work to do!

"And no I'm petching arguing with myself!"

"Pardon, dear?"

"Oh, sorry, Mrs. Crandon. Just, ah... reminding myself of something."

The old lady smiled and in doing so gave birth to countess fresh wrinkles. A thin, cold hand reached out and patted him kindly on the shoulder.

"No shame, m'boy. I do it all the time. How's your landlady?"

"Oh, she's fine I'm sorry I have to go bye!"

The last words came out in one ragged, breathless rush as his eyes nearly crawled out of his ears trying to keep that slim, pale body in view as it walked away, rest of his body following suit and rushing over-

-a little loudly-

-so that when she turned around at the unexpected commotion, she found a tall, somewhat over-excited young man staring at her without the use of his tongue. Carl stood there, frozen, eyes flickering around, hoping for something, anything-

Stop over-thinking!

"Hello!" Yes, wonderful start, and don't shout. "I... I know you don't know me, but I see you in here now and then." Every time, and you watch her from behind the shelves each time. "Well, that's... that's not important, but the thing is, well... would you..."

Stop scratching your hair!

Butt out and let him do this!

Carve piem, lad, like the Ancients said!

"Could I walk awhile with you? Perhaps until your next store? It would be an honor... for you, I mean, no, not for you, because you're already, well... ah..."

He was foundering and knew it, but it's amazing how much clarity you can find when he's in freefall. After all, every care and concern in your life has no been reduced to one inevitability... so why worry about them? How much worse could you make it?

Carl's green eyes flickered up and captured hers, then he saw something beyond her-

-just for a tick. Less than that, maybe. Almost like those images you see after you wake from a dream, between the blinks. They're so fresh, but only there. Only for shards of fragments of ticks... but they're real in those tiny portions of time.

He could feel the humidity, choking and so... alive. Wetness that made every leaf and vine glisten like it was sweating. Things moved there, in the trees and on the ground. Lithe and strong and powerful and ruthless and beautiful.

Carl had never seen a jungle in the flesh; just woodcuts. He should have been confused... even scared by such a rampant and merciless example of Caiyha's power.

He wasn't, though, and that was what gave him the strength in that tick.

It made him feel strong.

His green eyes found her again and a wry half-smile pulled up one side of his mouth. He gave a little shrug and held a hand out to carry her bag.

"You could do worse... well, I might be a little biased on that, but still... would you mind?"

Carl waited, and he felt the stirrings of his thudding heart... but it didn't paralyze him anymore. Not for the moment. He thought of that fragment, so lush and otherworldly and...

Home?

[Tinnok]

She was almost to the end of the aisle when she heard it, turning she noticed the tall gentlemen, the cute one, right there...a bit too close if she was going to be honest.

I remember him being shorter...

Remember...what?

Were his eyes always so pretty?

I wouldn't know.

Yes you never thought about it.

Her mind strained, trying to figure out why this man seemed so familiar when she knew he was a stranger. One of her dark eyebrows rose at an angle as he began speaking before she forcefully shoved it back down in line with the rest of her face.

He is not a smooth one.

I always found him quite smooth, for a male.

Olivia cocked her head to the side, waiting until she was quite sure he was done before proferring her response, one slender pale hand reaching out towards his.

This guy is clearly a psycho.

Oh shut up, you love it.

"Perhaps an introduction is in order. I am Olivia..." She gave just enough of a pause for him to give an introduction in kind before continuing.

"I would like to walk with you, though I would like to be the judge of whether or not I could do worse than you, if that's quite alright with you."

It was when their hands touched that she felt it. His hand, Carl's hands were smooth, or relatively so, but the hands she knew were rough and calloused, bumps at the base of each finger upon the palm from handling weapons, scars ran up those arms, scars, ink, bug bites. She could hear those bugs even now, though a tick later she'd realize those were the chittering of children in the next aisle.

Chocolate brown eyes gazed into his for a moment, then turned away, her hand seperating from his.

"Well, can't walk until we pay for our stuff right? Right. Right...riiiiiiight." And then she booked it to the cashier, items thrown beofre a bewildered grocer, practically throwing money in his face.

Whose the psycho now?

SHUT IT

[Razkar]

Olivia. Yes, it had to be something like that. Carl had always imagined something smooth and soft and exotic, reeking or Syna-kissed beaches or silk and those spices all the way from the desert.

Very apropos... and she's not running! Or calling the Knights!

That happened once, stop over-reacting.

That was nothing compared to when she touched his hand, though. An actual physical connection! Carl's breath died in his throat and he had to remind himself to resume it. Gods... fine, those hands. Immediately he felt like his own were too pink and workshy to be worthy of them. She was probably into... well, the Knights, obviously.

What female isn't, lets be honest?

Pfft. Sha'lokk.

Carl froze. Where did that come from? And he meant that literally, for never before had he even heard that tongue, those syllables, that ugly, grating, gruesome language. Was it possible his mind had just... created it, from nothing?

But why the scorn? the derision behind it? I heard that, I felt it, I... I...

But before he had an answer she had paid, shopkeeper's hands nearly catching fire as she rushed him and then they were outside and she cleared her throat pointedly. Carl looked over and gave himself another mental headbutt.

Quit being so self-obsessed! A beautiful woman on your arm and you're... making up words!

The termite was back. Now he could hear the scratching.

"So!" He said perhaps a little too loudly, offering his arm to her like a true gentlemen, and gods help him, actually checking for rogue stretches of jungle as they ambled down the street. "I am Carl, Olivia, and it's nice to meet you. You work around here? I just... never seem to see you elsewhere. Not that I'm looking for you everywhere, no, not that you're... um..."

Carl did not know the jungle... but he went there. He knew what it gave him, and that was what he needed. He breathed in, horse shit and vegetables and sea salt becoming Jakare Blossom and tiger droppings; distant roars and high hoots from parading monkeys.

What's Jakare Blossom?

"Have you noticed I'm no good at talking?" He said finally, finding his voice and his peace again in self-deprecation, gait become casual, careless and confident. "Must be around a pretty face..." He knew it was a bold move, but, well... he felt enlivened. "... perhaps you could point her out?"

Olivia - yes, he'd enjoy putting a name to that face - looked at him sharply and his emerald eyes glinted.

"Oh! There she is..."

[Tinnok]

Gods what is wrong with me today?

She stood outside, waiting for Carl. It was a simple man, but she liked simple...wait no that wasn't right. No Olivia enjoyed the overly complicated, the tortured souls, the men that could never love her and ate the hearts of their enemies raw.

GODS, what the petch?

Then he was beside her, being awkward, but if she focused on that, these strange foreign thoughts could stop invading her mind. Like the fact that she felt far too cold even though it was a perfectly balmy summer day on the cobbled streets. An image of her curled up like a cat for a nap in the crook of a giant tree the humidty so intense it was stifling invaded her mind.

"Work? Yes I work...uhm. Well I'm a seamstress."

Goddess, don't bore him with that droll tale, tell him you can down a stag in a herd of deer, that you can track a leopard over streams and through thickly wooded jungles.

I definitely cannot do any of those things.

"I like taking walks through the city, so where I work is rather far from here, but I've always liked it so I put up with the walk. It's nice sometimes, just listening to the world as you walk..."

Nicer if there weren't all these buildings, or people, or city.

Their gait was comfortable, slow, but that was fine. Olivia glanced up, smiling softly at admitting his own awkwardness, and found her hand reaching for his, though she was able to play that off well at snatching a stray dirty pigeon feather from the air and throwing it behind them. The compliment took her by surprise.

You're no beauty, just a dirty Skurak.

Skurak? What did that even mean? She looked up at him, he even made his words go further, and his eyes...

"Yes, she is a fine specimen." Olivia smirked, lips quirking, but Carl would notice her gaze slid past him, over across the street where a blond with too much cleavage to spare was leaning over a table at a man, doing Gods knew what to get his attention. She cleared her voice, and when she spoke again it had jumped an octave and turned reedy.

"Oh yes, sir my mother married a famous knight, Ser Butthole. He was the most pompous and self-serving knight you ever met, and everyone was shocked to discover that I took right after him, thank goodness I got me mum's breasts though."

You should have been an actress...

[Razkar]

Stone under his feet. Bricks all around him. Milling men and women on errands, walks, business so important in their enclosed little world. It was Syliras, all of it: a place of stone and metal and human industry.

But in between the blinks, it was-

Bleached stone with vines and trees jutting through them. Bones, bones, endless skulls on street corners, doorways, spikes. A whole race of sullen-eyed savages, barely clothed, females with tight, pert breasts exposed and all around this barbarian citadel and endless jungle that-

Carl screwed his eyes shut and willed it away. Gods, did he need a healer or a damn priest?! Was he being possessed? He batted down the images and focused on her. Her hand in his that put an extra jot of iron in his stride and his confidence, her voice-

-that made his guffaw through his lips as the blond gave a shocked little gasp, stiffening like some garish bird with its feathers ruffled. The two young people sped up their pace as she stuttered something about "inappropriate" this and "scandalous" that and when around the corner he felt daring enough to lean closer and say:

"That alone made my day, Olivia. Needed doing, too. I fear."

Worthless example of a female. Too much meat on her chest. Incapable of drawing a bow, moving swiftly... hands soft and never knowing honest hardship. A disgrace to Blessed M-

Carl yanked himself from his mind and the shock nearly made him grunt, sway on his feet, free arm reaching out for the wall-

-and she kept her grip on his other. He looked at her and found a genuine concern for him. Him, the stranger she barely know, and she... cared. He wanted to stay with her. He didn't want to... go, anywhere, even inside his own head.

It was better there... no, here. It had to be here! Syliras was his home. He was... bon there. His father was a woodcutter and his mother a fishmonger. They lived frugally but in their industry they could afford to have him educated, so their son might not stink of sweat and fish all day when he made his way in the world.

Carl knew this, because it... happened. He could remember.

Can you?

"I'm sorry," he said, clinging to her and trying hard to hide his desperation, "Just... headaches, I think. Maybe a bad fish this morning-"

Don't lose this! You won't get it again!

"Would you like something to eat? There's a tavern just around the corner. Tables outside, if I recall." He dropped his eyes for a moment, immersing himself in the civility of Syliras to stave off the termite that was burrowing deeper, bringing friends, growing stronger. "I would not want you to come inside such a place, a lovely lady like yourself. But if you would, ah... honor me, I would be happy to pay."

Carl looked at her brown eyes and blinked-

-yellow and black, the latter bisecting the former, aged far beyond her Summers in the world, hard as obsidian and lacking any warmth and he knew her, he knew her!

"Please." He managed to say. "I want to stay with you. I'm sorry, this sounds-"

He went to the jungle but found it dragging him now, pulling him into a gaping green maw. The boy pulled himself back and focused on those brown eyes, anchors in this place he far preferred.

"Maybe an ale would help, too. Nothing like an ale on a hot day..."

[Tinnok]

She giggled like a petching school girl then, grasping his hand tightly as they fled down the streets, her chest feelign light and airy. She made him laugh, he thought she was funny, a little clever too.

He'll see through that false bravado to the inside, how weak you are, he always knew how.

She shoved the thought aside because he was stumbling then, one hand clutched in his, the other clutching his opposite shoulder.

"Are you...?"

She found her lips quivering, unsure of whether to stay serious or smile when he said he was fine, just some food he ate. For a moment she stayed put, his eyes locked with hers and in that green she could see the lush jungle that was her home, the noise was deafening, but all biological. No clatter carts, bickering traders, or crying children. There in his eyes were birds, bugs, and monkeys. More types of fish than you could ever count, and trees that stretched higher than the tallest building in the city.

He's trying to ask you out and you're just staring at him like a buffoon.

"Food, ale?" She grinned though the expression wavered somewhat. "I'm in."

She linked arms with him, partially because why the Gods not? And perhaps to make sure neither of them collapsed again. She remembered something like this, walking, but not with shoes, nor...very much clothing at all for that matter. The stones were plants, all grasping at her feet and legs, but he was there...but not him, and not her.

She shook her head.

"Perhaps inside is better...I think the sun is...I don't know, perhaps I ate something bad this morning as well."

So when they reached the tavern it was she who requested the table and ushered Carl inside to a secluded booth, two pints of ale brought out promptly and placed frothing between the two strangers...if that was the best term.

"So Carl, what do you do when you're not picking up girls you find shopping at stores?"

[Razkar]

The ale helped. It kept him tethered to himself, if that made any sense, and dulled those images that were sloshed at the rim of his mind and threatening to pour over the side and out his eyes.

Olivia helped even more, without knowing it. What he did? Ruined his wrists for eight bells most days, but Carl would happily talk about that rather than face in inside of his skull right now.

"I write letters," the young man said, unable to keep the quiet pride from his voice, "Well, I'm, ah... training to, anyway. I've learned my letters and I write for people who can't, teach them sometimes... oh, that and work at the stables for a few extra mizas. Can't complain when you have commitments, right?"

He smiled. She returned it, eyes dropping demurely, just for a moment, enough for Carl to feel like the World's Greatest Lover. The youth took another sip and stole a glance at himself in the dirty glass of the tavern window.

Not bad, really. Could stand to lose some pounds from that mid-section and trim down the thatch from your head, but... yeah. Could be worse.

"You know, I've been wanting to ask you here for a while," he said suddenly, emboldened and feeling more at peace with this place, with her, and most of all wit himself, "But I could never find the courage. Oh, don't give me that look. I find it impossible to believe one looking like you has no idea she's beautiful..."

Another fine bit of flattery that helped by being completely accurate and Razkar stole another look at-

Razkar again? Who's-

I am.

-fanged teeth filed to points. Glaring, unblinking tattoo on a dark, rough forehead; black eyes underneath it like midnight opals. Bare torso etched and rent by images and faded scars in a dozen places, all crowned by long black hair with bones threaded into the braided.

The image mouthed something. Carl hand an inkling of what it was and-

-jerked his head away, back to Olivia, struggling to keep the terror from his eyes.

"Ever... have a day when," he started uncertainly, letting his hand rest hopefully on the table close to hers, "When you just weren't quite yourself?"

The young male smiled softly and didn't dare so much as twitch his neck if it would swing his eyes back to that reflection. He wouldn't; couldn't. He didn't want to listen to that silent command.

I don't want to wake up. I am awake!

Are you?

[Tinnok]

She smiled as he talked about his work, her mind going back to his first words to her. You could do worse. Well he was certainly right about that. Her father was a scholar, most of his life spent teaching in Zeltiva, but he had made sure she knew her letters. She had always suspected he was a bit disappointed in her, she had never caught onto reading and writing with a quickness that he surely had, but her mother was always there to comfort her.

My motehr never comforted, never coddled, and you never knew your father, do not pretend you did.

She glanced into the window pane and saw not Olivia's dark eyes, nor fair skin, nor the beauty mark a bit off from the corner of her lip. There, staring into her soul were two watery golden eyes, black slits slicing them in half, staring forlorn, but determined into her heart. Her skin was a few shades darker, her shoulders bare, ink on each arm, though one was more intricate than the other. Her skin glistened as if she was wet...

She turned back in time, her breath caught in her throat to see Carl with a similar expression on his face, his hand sliding slowly across the table, and Olivia snatched it right up, squeezing a bit too hard for people who had only just begun to get to know each other.

"On any other day I would say no..." She smiled softly, sympathetically, then her lips parted and her eyes looked pained as if she was already regretting what she hadn't yet said.

"Does the name...does the name Tinnok, sound familiar to you?"

This is crazy.

Trust me, I've done far crazier things

She felt a shiver go up her spine, and she focused her eyes on his.