• Closed • Had A Bad Night?

[Jinyel]

Jinyel was not on fire. Which was honestly their single victory, with how the night had gone.

Everything else was losses. Losses and injuries, and stones upon stones that had no end. He’d seen a street before, of course, but the streets of this place went on forever. One street became two, or ended in nowhere, or else they took him to the edge of the ocean with no way to cross it. Where was he? Not the Eternal Empire, he knew, but the midnight was cold and empty. Few people wanted to be outside at the turn of Vhalar, not when the ocean wind bit so bitterly, and he was so exhausted that he didn't dare risk even a moment's scuffle with a stranger.

But he walked, because he had no other choice.

‘Walked’ might have been too strong a word. Even staggering became too exhausting once he was out of sight from the Siren’s Embrace. Now he merely limped, one step after another, with a stolen fire poker to use as a walking stick. All he needed was shelter, a hole in the ground big enough to lay down in, a Fates-damned tree in all this stone. But everything was hard and jagged. It was all dead in a way that made his skin crawl. This was why he’d always avoided cities. Now that he was in one, he had no idea how to get out of it.

At Jinyel’s side limped Monya, holding her back leg off the ground as she matched his pace. The hunter and wolf were a sorry pair, but at least they weren’t dying. She’d taken a good hit, but the tiniest bit of magic made sure she wasn’t bleeding. That was the important part. As long as they weren’t bleeding, he could heal them tomorrow.

Tonight was the hard part. Tonight, Jinyel was slashed, torn, and half-naked above the waist. His bandages had been destroyed in the fight, exposing his most grievous wound of all: two square feet of raw flesh across his back, as if another hunter had skinned his shoulders like a rabbit. The weather was freezing, wholly unlike either Yaralon or the Eternal Empire. Or maybe he was just freezing to death on his own. Salt in the air, or just the thought of salt in the air, cold-burned his shoulders with every step. And the streets just… kept… going.

As the stars turned onward past midnight, Jinyel clutched the third member of the trio to his chest: Littlespark, curled exhaustedly inside an incense censer. Like Jinyel and Monya, the fire anak had spent all its strength to escape the Siren’s Embrace. A successful escape, by itself, but neither hunter, wolf, nor anak had ever been to this place before. They didn't know how to navigate it. They didn’t even know the city’s name.

And so they limped, alone except for one another, to find somewhere they could rest.

State of affairs:

Jinyel's appearance is as follows:

Shirtless, with long pants that are slashed in various places.

Broken nose.

Several lacerations on his forearms.

Burn marks on his left shoulder.

A letter opener sticking out of his leg (doesn't seem to realize it)

Walking with the aid of an iron poker.

Followed by a wolf with a hurt back leg.

Carrying an incense censer full of coals.

[Sade Sauterne]

What was better than a warm, cozy bed in the late hours of a frigid Vhalar night?

Having a half-dressed woman in it beside you. And even better?

Having two!

Well as it was – strictly speaking – the fellow to his left was about as far from lady-like as he could find at the price he could afford, but the sentiment remained that there were few things in the world that Sade would choose above this. There was, of course, the prideful thought that it was foolish to spend even a single coin on something he might have found elsewhere for free; this was ignored easily in favor of convenience. He was merely reintroducing funds into the local economy, lining the pockets of those who really, Sade thought as his fingers trailed lightly through the fellow’s long, dark hair, truly deserved it, as a token of appreciation of their beautifully molded forms alone.

He’d thought so, at least. Somewhere between pretending to fall asleep between them and trying to swipe the woman’s necklace, there had been some sort of misunderstanding. Sade had tried to explain himself – he’d noticed the chain was caught in her hair, or maybe he’d told her that he was worried about it digging into her neck? – but his efforts were for naught. The long-haired fellow didn’t like him so much either, after that. Perhaps if he’d paid them more, they’d have taken better care not to tear his shirt when they’d thrown him out! Didn’t they know how cold it was?

No matter.

Torn shirt and angry whores aside, it wasn’t his worst night. The stone path carried him away from the Siren’s Embrace, hands drawing his cloak tighter around himself when the wind nipped at his hands and face. Careless greed had urged him towards the girl’s necklace, but it’d been a lost cause from the start, and he knew that. The old silver ring in his pocket, however, had been an easier score, if far less worth the effort of having stolen it.

One day he would stop. Set old habits aside. They didn’t often get him anywhere he wanted to be. Just tossed a few more coins into his hand, until he stumbled into the next opportunity to scrounge for more. Sade kicked at a pebble, and for a few trills it took flight. Strong enough not to shatter when it was thrown by the force of his kick; light enough to fly gracefully away from danger. Then it smacked into the wooden siding of a building and with a pathetic little thud, it was done.

He hadn’t made it far past there when he elected to hide away and spend a while considering his next move in an alley between two other buildings. Going back to the temporary camp they’d set up meant going back to Pirvek, and as much as he longed for the fire, he wasn’t ready to give up on his rare night of freedom yet. Leaning with his back to the cool, stone wall, he pulled the ring from his pocket to inspect it further in the sliver of pale light that reached him in the alley.

Not the best, not the worst. It was… something. He slipped it on each finger until he found the one that fit, and turned his hand over, debating whether he liked it enough to keep. He hadn’t quite made up his mind when something dark went lumbering by on the street.

Something – wasn’t the right word. Sade tilted his head to peek out of the alley, catching sight once again of the odd silhouette. It was someone, or at least something close, and judging by the state of his appearance, he’d had a far rougher night than Sade. Dark eyes squinted to try and get a better look, and – was something jutting out of his leg?

Well, that appeared to be the least of the injured fellow’s problems. And as much as Sade would have loved to rush over and help, the animal at his side gave him pause.

“You’ve got something in your leg,” called Sade, leaning out of the alley, pushing the hood of his cloak off of his head. “Rough night?”

[Jinyel]

Jinyel didn’t know how anyone could live in such a place, much less sleep here. How long had he been walking? Too long for a man who hadn’t seen trees in… hours? A day? There was no telling when this magic had displaced him to, or what this magic even was. His newborn spark was silent in his chest, as close to ‘unconscious’ as a magical parasite could be.

His graft spark, though, wasn’t snuffed all the way out. Enervations pulsed within him, a steady, exhausted reminder of all the things wrong with his body. Not that he could fix any of the large things at this particular moment, but there was comfort to be had in knowing he wasn’t entirely powerless.

Monya helped. Even with a broken back leg, her ears were sharper and her nose more keen than his. Any lone thief in the night would have at least a second thought about making a grab for Jinyel’s possessions, as if he had anything of value to give.

Speaking of which.

Monya was first to notice the stranger. She came to a halt and gave a soft, exhausted whuff that was more curiosity than fear. She was too tired to be afraid unless absolutely necessary. Jinyel wasn’t much better.

“Hnn?” Jinyel stared at the man for a moment, in the blank-faced, uncomprehending manner of someone who had indeed just had one of the roughest nights of their lives. A high accomplishment in the type of life Jinyel led.

Leg. Something. In it. The hunter processed each individual word, managed to string them together, and looked down. There was something in his leg. When had it gotten there? Was that why his leg was so shaky?

Graft: Energize: Remove Pain.

Well, he tried to remove the pain. With so little ether left, and unwilling to risk overstepping again, Jinyel could only reduce the wound’s sensation to a dull throb. Like a deep bruise instead of a stab. Not pleasant, but something he could fight through.

Jinyel grabbed the handle of an Imperial letter opener, took a deep breath, and pulled it out with a grunt.

A spurt of blood followed. Dark, veinous, wouldn’t kill him. He’d expected that.

Graft: Energize: Repair Flesh.

Another half-spell that couldn’t complete its task. It stopped the bleeding. That was all. That was enough. Jinyel could do the rest tomorrow.

“Rough night,” he echoed back. The Common Tongue. Good. He had at least a slim chance of answers. “This. City―”

He tripped on his too-long tongue, on his too-sharp teeth, took a breath, and tried again:

“What city is this? Where are we?” And then, in sign language, Do you understand me?

[Sade Sauterne]

Injured men made good marks. The weak ones would believe just about anything for the promise of alleviating pain, or discomfort, or whatever else ailed them. Was that not what everyone wanted? An easy fix, a speedy cure. A bottle of water colored with turquoise sand, touted as a miracle elixir. Everyone wanted something; injured men just had clearer priorities.

They also made vicious foes. And based purely on what Sade could see of this one from his spot half-way in the alley, he wasn’t keen to make an enemy of him.

“Ah–” he started, cringing as the blade was pulled free from the stranger’s leg. Eyes darted aside, looking anywhere but at the dark crimson blot. Didn’t make much of a difference when the rest of the guy was so beat-up, he supposed, and he did it so casually that it couldn’t have been as painful as… well, the rest of him.

His voice drew Sade’s gaze back over, and he squinted, trying to get a better look at the stranger’s face. It was too difficult to tell from where he stood, but he didn’t think the guy’s mouth looked injured. Something else must’ve been forcing that strain in his voice.

“Almund,” offered Sade. Wary of getting within close range of the wolf that stood behind the injured man, he took a few short steps closer, just enough to see him better and speak without announcing his presence to the whole street. “Unless you mean the street, in which case, I’m as lost as you are…”

Loosely, he crossed his arms, head tilting slightly aside as he observed the stranger’s hands move in unfamiliar motions that Sade could only imagine must have had… some kind of meaning to him, but held none whatsoever to the lonesome traveler.

“Are you alright? You seem to be… missing a few pieces,” he said. The shirt could stay gone, Sade didn’t mind that. Underneath all that gore, he was probably an improvement on the fellow from the brothel. But there appeared to be a significant amount of flesh missing from his back, in addition to everything else.

[Jinyel]

Almond. Almond? Strange name for a city. This didn’t seem like a place where almonds could grow, but what did Jinyel know? Certainly no more than he’d known a moment ago, because he’d never heard of such a city.

“Where is Almond? Is it…” Jinyel looked around. “Is it in the Eternal Empire?” This didn’t look or feel anything at all like the Empire, but he couldn’t guess where else it might be.

The stranger took a few steps forward, but paused far out of range from Monya. The she-wolf whuffed again ― a question for Jinyel, alongside an insistent nudge at his hand.

Relax, he signed to her. No danger. Yet. They didn’t have the energy to guard against one man unless they knew he intended harm.

The stranger didn’t understand sign language. Jinyel had been foolish to hope. He’d never enjoyed speaking out loud, but desperate times called for desperate measures. If he could pull a letter opener out of his leg, he could stand to have a verbal conversation.

Monya gave a hopeful whine as she observed the stranger. Perhaps she assumed him to be some strangely-dressed tribesman of the Keha’al, who were always happy to give scraps when she begged. He wasn’t an enemy, at least not yet, and the wolf knew Jinyel had nothing to eat.

Stay, Jinyel signed, and then said out loud for the stranger’s benefit, “Monya, at ease.”

Missing a few pieces. That was a generous way to describe it.

“Hah.” Jinyel didn’t laugh ― he’d cough if he did ― but he said the sound like a statement. “Missing a few pieces. Gained a few extra. All the wrong ones, on both sides.”

Jinyel glanced toward the ocean, hidden behind streets and streets of rickety houses.

“Does Almond have trees? Is it nothing but streets? How does it have so much wood but no forest?”

He’d rather sleep on dirt forest than cobblestone. Civilized boarding-houses required money, and Jinyel had none. He doubted this other man taking a walk at midnight possessed safe shelter, and if he did, Jinyel wasn’t foolish enough to go trusting strangers. He barely trusted a stranger’s directions, if given a choice, but he had no choice. The last thing he wanted was to be wandering the city at sunrise after his chaos at the Siren’s Embrace.

[Sade Sauterne]

The Eternal Empire! Hah. Sade could have laughed. He’d never ventured out that way, hadn’t ever had a reason to, but that was beside the point. They were a long way from the Eternal Empire, and he was starting to think that this guy might have hit his head a few times too many.

“No, not quite,” came his answer, smoothed into something kinder than amusement. There was no reason not to extend an injured, obviously confused man a bit of patience in his time of need. “Try the north end of Scalvoris.”

The traveler’s gaze shifted from the man to the wolf, the one he called Monya. Sade’s own limited experience with such beasts left him reluctant to trust the animal, though he was not ignorant to the fact that it could have reached him by now if it had wished.

A curious thing. A tame wolf, an injured man that held a smoking object and spoke in cryptic inquiries. Or perhaps he really was just confused.

Touching two fingers to his chin, Sade glanced through the buildings around them, and began, “Well, I’d have thought all the wood used here might be the reason behind the lack of trees, but I’ve heard–...”

...a lot of these were made from old boats, he’d been planning on saying, but it occurred to him then that perhaps a long-winded discussion regarding local construction habits wasn’t high on the list of things that this man currently needed. Dismissing it, Sade waved his hands lightly and said, “No, no trees. Not until you get farther out. Can I help you get somewhere? I don't fully know my way around either, but...”

As innovative as it was, that iron poker couldn’t have been the most comfortable or efficient walking aid. Taking another cautious step closer to the odd companions, Sade offered out his arm, hoping that this decision might not come back to bite him as quickly as the previous few in the Siren’s Embrace had.

“I might at least help you stay upright, if you’ll let me.”

[Jinyel]

So this wasn’t the Eternal Empire. There was an amused slant to the stranger’s lips, but he kept it politely contained as he gave their true location: Scalvoris, the north end.

Jinyel had no idea where that was, either.

More north than I’ve ever been was a place to start tomorrow, if and when he found somewhere to build a fire. What he needed was a forest to rest in, because he knew trees better than he’d ever known a house, and the stranger seemed to have a direction for that. Whether it was within walking distance was another matter. ‘Further out’ could mean so many things.

But the stranger would not leave Jinyel to seek trees by himself. They were both lost, after all, so better to be lost together. So went the civilized opinion.

The man took a step closer, and Jinyel blinked at the offered hand. Was this aid? The hunter knew little of such things, or the social rules around them. The Keha’al tribe, bless them, had seen his bizarre behavior and offered aid without explaining the rules. Would this man expect repayment? If he wanted money, he would be disappointed. If he wanted something else… it would depend. Jinyel would cross that bridge when he came to it.

“I…” Jinyel examined the man’s fingers like a peculiar animal he’d never seen before. Thank you, he signed. “Thank you.” Poor fortune if you’re a thief. All I have to take is an iron stick.

There was comfort in the squalor, he supposed. A naked man had nothing to fear from pickpockets. The hunter touched the stranger’s arm experimentally, though he didn’t immediately grasp it. Jinyel had to explore first, to run his hand down the forearm and touch the back of the man’s hand. A warm, living hand through which to access the whole body.

Then, carefully, as if testing a bridge he wasn’t sure would hold, Jinyel eased some of his weight onto the stranger.

He didn’t hold the man’s hand, exactly, but he did grasp the back of it, fingers over fingers and thumb over thumb. A magical glance through the window to the man’s enervations, in case he needed it.

“I need to pitch a fire,” Jinyel said. “Somewhere with wood to burn and space to lay down. If you bring me to such a place, I will… I don’t know. Make your teeth stop hurting, if any toothache is bothering you.”

[Sade Sauterne]

There was a subtle shift in the lone traveler’s expression as his hand was not taken, not at first, but rather… examined? Considered? To try and decipher what exactly the odd, injured fellow was actually thinking would have been a far greater task than that of simply getting him to the woods. Fingers crept along the back of his hand, down his forearm, and the muscles beneath Sade’s left eye twitched at the unexpected examination. Small, barely noticeable. Sade didn’t take much notice of it himself, but it was there.

He thought back on the odd motions the man had made with his hand. The most recent of which he’d followed up on, and given their recurrence, Sade was inclined to think that maybe it was some form of communication. He’d heard of things like that, language conveyed only with signs. If this man spoke with his hands, it made sense that maybe he needed to touch things, to feel them, in order to understand just what they meant.

It was… interesting.

Odd.

Not bad.

Any real discomfort was fleeting, and once the stranger deemed him worthy enough (or just steady enough) to bear some of his weight, Sade nodded. Not knowing how to react, he chose not to, and started forward on the path while lending the strange form of help the man accepted.

“My– teeth?” repeated Sade, unable to stifle a small laugh.

That surprised him, more so than seeing someone as injured as the stranger in the first place, but it was enough to ease whatever awkwardness had gathered in Sade’s limbs and allow him to walk more comfortably at his side.

“That is… very kind of you, but I assure you, my teeth are well and fine. I think you’re the one we should be concerned with,” he said, glancing over at the man’s face as he did. “How are you not freezing? Or – dead, for that matter?”

How was he awake and moving at all? Sade was no stranger to injury, but if he had been missing as much of his back as this man, or cut up as bad as he was, he doubted that he would still have the will to walk anywhere at all by himself.

[Jinyel]

When they moved, Jinyel felt it. They took steps, they walked forward, because of course they did, but Jinyel felt movements he should not have been able to. The shift of man’s off-hand, the air around Monya as she trailed behind them. Some weightless debris floated on the breeze above their heads, something so small that Jinyel couldn’t see it with his naked eye.

It was as if a sixth sense had opened to him, some sort of skinless touch which extended ten feet in all directions. Within that space, Jinyel felt everything. An insect behind them. A window they passed which shuddered in the wind. The swish of his companion’s cloak, and the way Monya held her back leg.

Teeth. Were they talking about teeth? No, they were talking about how Jinyel wasn’t dead.

It took a few moments to figure out the answer. He’d never really thought about why he did what he did.

“Spite,” was Jinyel’s eventual, honest answer. “And poultices.” Magic, whenever it isn’t the curse that gives me the damned injury in the first place. “But mostly spite. The fire keeps me warm.” He tapped the censer held to his chest. “Teeth can be too good, sometimes. Your adulthood teeth, the… the ‘wise teeth,’ as they say it, have they come in for you? They can crack your other teeth if they grow in badly.”

His new companion spoke so easily, moved with such confidence that they would reach a reasonable destination, that Jinyel dared to think about what he would have to do tomorrow. He’d need another poultice for his back. Of all his various hurts, it was the one thing he couldn’t heal with magic, and he had no idea if the plants of Almond, Scalvoris bore any resemblance to the plants of the Empire.

“The shop for plants,” Jinyel said. “How is it called? Apathy? To get different herbs ― Monya, no.” Stop.

The wolf let out a whine and licked their joined hands again. She was hungry. She was used to Jinyel making food appear whenever she was hungry. She was used to total strangers giving her things when she was hungry, and the combined hands of Jinyel and a stranger would surely have a better chance for food.

My apologies. “Sorry. She doesn’t have manners yet. She thinks you have food for her.”

[Sade Sauterne]

Crack his teeth. How unpleasant. Within his mouth, the tip of Sade’s tongue touched along the rows of his teeth, suddenly suspicious of each one. Wise teeth, he’d called them? One more thing Sade figured he should have known about already, but didn’t. Almost everything he knew, he’d had to figure out for himself.

Hm. There was one less tooth on the lower right side, and a new thing to worry about settled into the bundle of twisted-up anxieties that lived within Sade’s stomach. He didn’t mention it – didn’t want to know what other horrors might await him if and when another tooth pierced through his gums. Besides, no one that had asked so extensively about his mouth had ever had genuine concern and not far more pleasant things in mind when doing so. Didn’t this man know that it was rude, to have good intentions?

Spite, though, that didn’t scare him. It was easier for him to understand than anything else he’d been able to garner thus far from the injured man.

“An apothecary?” he offered. His lips parted to continue, only for his eyes to widen instead when the wolf licked at their joined hands. More than once. And she wasn’t even trying to eat them.

He hoped.

“That’s alright,” Sade said, though the wind only felt colder now that his hand was wet with the wolf’s saliva. As unusual as the whole situation was, the wounded companions were almost endearing, he thought. While they pushed onward toward where Sade knew the city eventually gave way to the forests behind it, his eyes followed Monya for a few trills, slowly shifting from their natural hue into deep crimson.

“I didn’t know wolves could be gentle,” he admitted. He didn’t know nearly as much as he might have wanted to pretend he did, in most cases. He hadn’t felt the need to lie in this one yet, but this man hadn’t given him much of a reason to.

“But, yes,” he started, looking forward again, gaze having returned to the same indecipherable dark color it most often was. “There’s bound to be an apothecary about. I can find it once we’ve settled you somewhere, if you’d like.”

Anything to delay his eventual return to his own life.

“Not too much longer now. Look, you can even see a few trees there.”