Everyone loves angst, right? (Nel)

[Liminal]

77 Spring, 510 AV. Evening

"Nel Sayo."

It was evening, and foot traffic on the street was light. Despite the relative lack of noise, Nel would not have heard anyone approaching behind her, though the voice came from a spot no more than a foot behind her head.

If she turned, she would see a well-dressed man with a walking stick and a light traveler's cloak. He had sandy brown hair down to his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed hat that was pulled down over his eyes. He would be completely unfamiliar to the Konti, though he seemed to know her name.

"My apologies for the interruption, my lady," he said with a slight bow. "But I've come a long way to have the opportunity of speaking to you. It's my understanding that you're acquainted with a man named Murdoch, an old friend of mine. Am I correct in my knowledge?"

His voice was smooth, and his manners impeccable. He shifted his walking stick to his left hand and waited for Nel to speak.

[Nel Sayo]

Nel had stopped to nab herself a honey-cake for dinner, and she was licking a dribble of honey off the heel of her palm as she turned around, blinking up at the stranger.

Her eyes shifted from him to the dwindling citizens still wandering around the street. The gentle roll of evening across Silyras struck the city with candlelight patches and the leaning fall of moonshine. Nel herself was little more than a sylph, half damsel and half damn-the-torpedoes, a creature caught somewhere between cold beauty and castaway. A shift of her hips as she turned, leather trousers creaking, and a glint of the elegant rapier slung on her hip caught lamplight prettily.

"How d'you know my name?" she wondered, tiling her head. A topple of pale curls, spun here and there with braids and seashells, a menagerie of travels. "And how far is a long way? Like are we talkin' you came from the mountains or like...Falyndar, 'cause distance is really relative. And I know Murdoch. I knew him. He's prolly shaft-deep in one'a the whores at the Golden Dragon or something, go look for him there."

Manners didn't go very far with her; she was a pirate. Negotiation, barter or outright threat, well, that was the sort of language she spoke. But there was something unerringly amiable in her pale blue eyes, a shimmer of unstoppable good humor that laughed at the gentleman even as they regarded him -- not meanly, just like she thought it funny, unbelievably funny, that he would ask her about Murdoch.

[Liminal]

"Ah, I'm afraid you mistake my meaning." The manners were still there, but a sudden chill had come into his voice, as certainly as if the Bonesnapper had suddenly blown between them.

"My business at the moment isn't with my dear friend Murdoch -- it's with you." He tapped the ground with his walking stick. "It's for you that I've come from Sunberth, and it's there that I believe we'll both be returning."

Sunberth. For the past five hundred years, the number of times that something positive had followed that name could probably be counted on one hand. The former mining center of the Alahean Empire had become a black, festering sore of filth and degradation, characterized by a complete lack of order or organization. No one in their right mind went there, and the city swallowed up almost everyone who did venture in that direction.

"We can discuss the circumstances under which the journey will be made," the man said smoothly, "but I do believe that you should plan on being absent from Syliras for quite some time."

He still hadn't drawn a weapon or made a threatening move, but he sounded deadly serious, and there was no hesitation to indicate that he thought that any other outcome than the one he had indicated was possible.

[Nel Sayo]

That focused her attention narrowly on this strange gentleman. A pale eyebrow rocked upward, but she made no move either towards or away from him, her figure going perfectly still. A pass of her tongue over her bottom lip, in thought.

Sunberth. Doc had told her never to go to Sunberth. Great. She weighed her options. Knew just from this man's stance and tone of voice that he was likely faster than she was, stronger than she was, that he'd catch her in due course if she tried to run, or get her by the throat if she tried to scream. A pass of her eyes across the street; there weren't any Knights nearby anyway. There were never any bloody Knights when you needed them.

She glanced up to the darkening sky. Stars were beginning to pop across the blanket of violet evening. She sighed, and her eyes dropped back to the gentleman across from her.

"I guess it doesn't really matter that I don't wanna go to Sunberth," she said conversationally, after a moment. "Or that I'd like some kinda reassurance that you're not just gonna slit my throat and throw me into a fire or something. I'm a generally easy-going kind of person, but I'm not anxious to die or anything, and Sunberth is kinda...known for that. Sudden deaths and stuff."

[Liminal]

The man smiled thinly. "I'm afraid that your preferences as to our destination can't be taken into account at the moment, no. But I certainly can give you an assurance that no throat-slitting will be involved. If I were interested in that, I would have done it before you saw me, and you'd have choked on your own blood before you'd have gotten so much as a whimper out. I tend not to have conversations with people I'm looking to kill, and I abhor wasted motion, so I certainly wouldn't bring you somewhere else just to kill you there. I'm a busy man," he added with an inappropriate-sounding chuckle.

"At any rate, it's time to go, so if you'd walk to the gates, I'd be much obliged." He did not lead the way, but took a position slightly behind Nel and to her left. It didn't look unusual, but Nel might notice that if she were to try anything, he would most assuredly have the drop on her.

It was a quiet night, and there wasn't anyone around to take note of the pair anyway. Not that that would likely have helped Nel anyway...

[Nel Sayo]

She bit back on a sarcastic comment about what he would have done if he'd just wanted to kill her. Not unfamiliar with scare tactics, and having listened to Syon deliver such paragraph-packed threats of violence not-to-come, Nel had been duly impressed by him before he'd started talking. Now it was like he was rubbing her face in it, and that was just unnecessary.

"I get it," she sighed, eventually. "And I've seen people die of a slit throat, I know how hard it is to breathe and scream when you're drowning in your own blood."

Rubbing a hand across her mouth, she rolled into motion with him, quickly noting where he was walking, and not stupid enough to dismiss why. That, though, she wouldn't stand for. So she stopped, and twisted to look at him, a pale eyebrow rising.

"I'm not gonna run. If we have to, like, do this, you could at least be nice about it and walk next to me so I can talk to you without feeling like you're checking out my ass the whole time." The gentleman found himself the focus of a pair of bright blue eyes, the color of the sky reflected back across seawater on a cloudless day. Frank eyes, guileless. "And also, I really don't like horses. Are you gonna make me ride a horse?"

[Liminal]

The man stopped and turned toward Nel. Then, without a word, he removed his hat.

His face was normal enough, except for those eyes...

They were a deep, livid red, with no visible pupils or irises. Indeed, it was impossible to tell which direction the man was looking, although it was clear that, despite their appearance, his eyes were fully functional. There was something...wrong about them, and the expression on his face was enough to make even a very brave person's blood run cold.

"Ma'am." His voice was now as icy as his appearance. "I've been as pleasant as I know how, but let's make no mistake. You haven't been murdered, or raped, or mutilated, or poisoned, or even struck once. Given the circumstances, I think I've been as 'nice about it' as I can reasonably be expected to be. Besides, there are wenches in Sunberth who could wax the floor with your looks, and as such, my standards are fairly high; I'm not interested in you or any portion of you, so you can rest easy on that count."

He put the hat back on. "And no, I don't have an interest in watching a Konti try and ride a horse." He motioned for Nel to keep walking, finished with the conversation for now.

The gates were close now. The knights on duty seemed to find nothing unusual about the man; indeed, they hardly gave him a second glance.

[Nel Sayo]

She swallowed a thick knot that had formed suddenly in her throat, and did as she was told, turning about to carry on towards the gates. Unsettled by the man's eyes, and pretty sure she'd just pissed him off, she actually stayed silent for awhile. Which was incredibly difficult for this particular girl.

And there were lots of things she wanted to say; most of them would probably have surprised him. It had been a joke -- the comment about him staring at her ass; she regretted saying it, and not because he frightened her (though there definitely was that) but more because she hadn't meant to insult him, or his tastes, or suggest that he was going to be meaner to her in the future, which of course she had no way of knowing, but she did like to believe the best of people. Even people with terrifying red eyes.

"Sorry," she mumbled, eventually, and spared him a glance over her shoulder. She was genuinely sorry. "I didn't mean -- I mean, I wasn't saying -- I'm sure your standards are higher than me, I just meant -- and you've been very nice, all things considered, I was just trying to --" A shrug. "-- Sorry."

A blush spiked into the high, narrow slopes of her cheeks, and she just kept walking.

It was gonna be a long trip to Sunberth.

[Liminal]

The pair slipped through the gates with no difficulty. The night seemed even larger and less friendly than usual once away from the safest city in Mizahar.

The man stopped and looked back at Nel. "Hard as it may be for you to believe, I don't bear you any personal ill will. And I imagine that your life up to this point has left you ill-prepared for this particular moment. I simply recommend that you not say things without thinking carefully about them. In Syliras, that might simply make you offend someone, but in Sunberth, it's likely to leave you dead in some particularly painful manner."

Some four or five hundred yards down the road was a small carriage, drawn by a pair of horses. It was painted entirely black, and looked to be heavily used. The man opened the door, and indicated that Nel should enter.

Inside was a single seat covered in faded black leather. There was no lamp, and it was even darker inside than outside. There was a single window, set in the door that Nel had entered. It was streaked with grime, but the vast Syliran wilderness was still visible outside. There was no handle or latch on the door; it only opened from the outside.

The man did not follow Nel inside. Rather, once she was in, he jumped up onto the driver's seat and snapped the reins. The carriage lurched into motion, slowly picking up speed, and began making its way down the long road to Sunberth.

[Nel Sayo]

"It's not that hard to believe," the lady pirate said, blinking at the red-eyed man. "I mean, I don't know you or anything, so I can't imagine I've done something to piss you off that bad...that quickly. You know, to garner...ill will."

She was unaccustomed to people disliking her; but then, this man seemed to be very particular in what he did or did not like, so she tried not to take it too personally. And took the note to watch her mouth with just a nod, as though to prove that she could do it.

The silence followed them through the city gates, and out beneath the wide yawn of twilight.

When she saw the carriage, a frown twisted her mouth. Walking would've been better; Nel liked wide, open spaces. She liked to be able to turn in a circle and let the horizon follow her; cities were fine, sometimes, a port in any storm, but she recognized a cage when she saw one. For all that her scarlet-gazed companion presumed that life had not prepared her for this sort of thing -- he was wrong. Life had prepared her, only she'd chosen to ignore it all in favor of a sunny disposition and an open heart. So it was with notable trepidation that she approached the carriage, and a swallowed sigh when she saw the latch on the door. Paint it whatever color you like, use wood or fabric instead of bars, but a cage was just that: something in which one might be trapped.

"Well thanks for the ride," she mumbled, as she climbed in.

And then he closed the door, and she was left alone, in the dark, with miles and miles to go.