(flashback) a meeting of like minds (cy and clem)

[Clement Reijnder]

“Mm,” he let out a noise that was a half-grunt, half-pleased thing. He wasn’t touching her to give her pleasure. He was simply distracting her from fighting him while he was trying to help her. So maybe in a round about way it was intended to make her feel good, but he wasn’t deriving any good feelings about it himself. In fact, he was rather disturbed by the whole situation. The pleased note in his voice came from the fact that the shirt covered her properly.

Then she nuzzled him again. His heart just… Well, it melted. His eyes rolled up to the heavens and he let out a frustrated sigh, silently asking what in the gods’ names was he supposed to be doing with this helpless little creature that he had in his arms. This helpless, little… Writhing girl.

Had she been older, he would have had the answers, but the truth was that he didn’t feel any urge to do anything but to make sure she was safe and taken care of. It caused him to scowl as he wrapped his arm around her waist tightly, moving his other hand to press her face into his shoulder.

“Shh, I’m going to take care of you,” he found himself saying. “Try to wrap your arms and legs about me.”

Great. That was sure to end well, but he didn’t want to draw too much attention by carrying off a limp, moaning girl into the city. While shirtless. His brain was quickly calculating the fastest, least crowded streets to take towards the little hovel he was staying at.

“I’m taking you home,” he explained gently in her ear. “We’ll get you some food. You can ride this through someplace safe.”

He never expected the word safe to be connected with the place he called home. Not that he really made a habit of harming people there, but he wasn’t above it. With a small grunt he stood up, tightening his grip around her so she wouldn’t slip if unable to hold onto him.

[Cyrah]

She looped her arms about his neck, as instructed, and just shuddered and shivered against him as he hefted her up. Her legs wound tight around his waist, and she buried her face in his shoulder, a spill of sable hair curtaining her back. His shirt covered her nearly to the knees, fortunately. Cyrah knew that this was profoundly bad. She wanted to shift again, to hide behind the jackal's face, but she couldn't get a grip enough on her own senses to even remember how to change. So she held onto this man, tried to ignore the soft feel of his skin against her cheek. She focused instead on the smell of him, memorized it just in case, and then let her senses drift further through the milling crowd of miserable peasants and desperate slaves. Their stench kept her sharp. Wherever he was taking her, she would fight to get away. If he hurt her, she would rip his throat out. Slurp up his guts like pasta. Turn his skin into a dress. She tried to cling to all these things even as she clung to him. It had been so long, by Cyrah's measure, since anyone had held onto her. Months, though they felt like years; she would have called them years, because she only barely knew the difference. Time held so little meaning for her. She started to relax a little when he began moving; the skim of the wind over her face, shifting her hair, it felt safer to be going somewhere. Away from the Pillars of Dust. “I'll eat you if you hurt me,” she mumbled. In case he hadn't surmised as much on his own.

[Clement Reijnder]

“I’m sure you will, love,” he said quietly. The Common he spoke measured and cultured. It was too smooth for some ruffian. “I don’t intend to bring any harm to you. Rest assured that if you decide to hurt me, I’ll be able to get in a few good licks before you eat me.”

He petted at her hair, rubbing his fingers into her scalp. It was rather pretty, though he imagined after this she might need help brushing it out. After that he wondered, again, what was wrong with him. Now he was thinking about playing with a girl’s hair?

It wasn’t to say he wasn’t afraid of her or was unmoved by her threats. He knew full well that she was serious. And capable. Save for the wild beating of his heart, which he also realized she could most likely feel, he didn’t show fear. He didn’t want her thinking he was weaker than her. He needed to be stronger both for his safety and hers. He had heard that these creatures could smell fear, much like any canine. He only hoped that whatever smell coming off of him that offended her so masked that.

Through the streets, he moved. In her ear he found himself murmuring a story that his mother used to tell him when he had been little and afraid. The storms would come in. He’d cry out and the servant in charge of him couldn’t seem to calm him. There had been a time when he’d been loved. He remembered. He knew what it was like to be a child and afraid. He assumed that she wasn’t any different.

Lost in his thoughts and the story – Some story of a princess finding love – he made his way home as quickly as possible. His home was some uninteresting place that he’d most likely found abandoned considering the faded fabrics and thick layer of sand and dust inside. He had to shift her to get her through the door.

Once inside, he got her into his bed. He laid her down so gently that it was hard to imagine him wringing the life out of some random Scorpion. The sheet was pulled out and used to cover her. He hoped it would give her some form of comfort and more decency than would be permitted otherwise. Maybe she would burrow under completely, so he could pretend she wasn’t there.

He brought out what he had to eat for her. The fruit was too ripe, but he cut it up to give to her anyway. Then he found himself piling onto the plate all the dried meat he could provide. He put it next to the bed.

Then he pulled the chair out and turned it so he could sit backwards in it. He watched. Waited. He rubbed at his mouth almost the entire time until his skin was almost tender from the abuse it took. He was rather certain he had never felt so helpless in his life.

[Cyrah]

First, she ate. Before he'd taken a full step back from the bed, she was sitting up, a tangled mess of sheet and shirt and coltish limbs, a sand-crusted hand reaching for the plate even as he'd begun to set things upon it. Pale eyes darted fitfully about the space as she stuffed food into her mouth; she had to remind herself to chew more thoroughly, to swallow carefully, that she couldn't just gnaw giant bites with such a delicate little girl throat. The long, dark lengths of her hair were near as tangled as the sheet now spun between her legs. A glance here and there of lamplight revealed the faintest few strands of gold threading out from her temple. Like a starved, wild thing, she ate. Nothing of the fruit made her feel any better, though she shoved the pieces he cut into her mouth almost as fast as he cut them. The dried meat, though, that made the ache in her belly subside a bit, and so she ate it all. Every last piece, and licked her fingers clean. By then, the worst of the mirage had subsided, and she was beginning to feel sick. Gently golden skin took on a shine of sweat, and she just sprawled back in the bed, breathing deep, intent on not vomiting up all the food she'd just eaten. “That was a stupid story,” she muttered, turning her face away and against the pillow. Clenched her eyes shut tight. “Who gives a shyke about true love anyway. I need to sleep.” I need to eat. I need to sleep. She seemed to measure her words mostly by what she needed and how quickly she needed it. Not the sort of girl to giggle over prince charmings or ponies; waste of time and thought. She rolled fitfully over onto her side and delivered him her back. But her eyes watched the shadow he cast on the wall, waiting to see if he moved to come towards her.

[Clement Reijnder]

He shrugged a little to her question, rubbing at his shoulder as he watched to see what she would do.

“Most girls approximately your age,” he retorted with deadpan precision, not skipping a beat.

I need. I need. I need. She was a demanding little thing, wasn’t she? But he knew the song of a child on her own. He’d been raised in the slave trade – Not as a slave, but as a slaver. He’d not had much contact with the business of it until he’d gone to Sunberth.

It was the children they brought in that had always disturbed him on some removed level. Many of them had been stolen from their families, sometimes having watched their parents be slaughtered in front of them. Sometimes, even worse, the parents had out-and-out sold them for whatever sick, selfish reason they had.

In those cases, he didn’t try to comfort the child. He didn’t tell them a story or stroke their hair. Instead he gave them food and a blanket. He didn’t beat them or rape them. Still there was the song of the orphan – I don’t need. I don’t need. I don’t need.

At least this one needed instead of denying herself what she really wanted.

He couldn’t help but smirk a touch at her with her back turned to him. Something about her toughness, her stubbornness, and her clear belief that she could care for herself seemed to amuse him. Most likely she could, too. At least until there was Mirage involved.

He found himself lost in thought. He found himself thinking about what he was going to do when the girl woke up, and he wondered if she was even going to sleep. Maybe she was just acting so she could get at his throat should he lose his attention on her. Maybe she was still hungry despite the fact that she’d just gobbled down a week’s worth of meat.

So he continued to sit. Wait. Watch. She’d need to wash her face. He had water. She’d need to brush her ratted hair. He had a brush. She was free to have his shirt. He’d buy another. There was a bit of concern that she might wake up hungry. He didn't have any more meat, save that on his bones. For once he cursed his build. He’d probably look like a very tasty meal to her when she had her wits about her.

[Cyrah]

A careful eye could tell, the longer he watched her, that she was not asleep. And she did struggle for as long as she could to stay awake, but as the drug slipped through her system it got harder and harder to stay conscious. Ravaged by mirage and feeling incredibly ill, she reached a point where all she wanted, all she was really capable of doing, was sleeping. So when the time came, she shifted onto her belly and buried her face in Clement's pillow, let out a noise that was undoubtedly canine exhaustion, and fell asleep. Cyrah's origins were her own, and nobody else's. She didn't carry herself like a former slave, nor did she have that particular, abandoned glint in her eye, like an orphan. A creature entirely her own, she may have been young, but someone had told her how to survive and she had learned quickly. Whoever that someone had been, their absence did not seem to eat at her, or upset her. One's time comes, she would've said, and then you have to fucking go. So you go. She had strange dreams that night, tossing and turning in Clement's bed, though her dreamings did not make a sound. Darkness and gloaming halflight, silver ribbons spun about a brightening star, and the enduring sense that someone was holding her close, though she largely did not liked to be touched. Or she hadn't been, until the mirage. She came awake with a blink and a shiver, shoving the blanket back and off her legs so that she could sit immediately up. It was just pre-dawn, a stream of gray faelight pouring through the grime-smeared window, and she lifted her face and gave the morning air a sniff. Her nose brought her attention to Clement, who had dozed off in his chair, and she crept down off the bed and padded over to him. Sober now, she scrutinized every inch of him, pale eyes roaming over his face and his form and weighing and judging him as though trying to actually decide whether or not his throat was worth ripping out. In the end, she wrinkled her nose in frustration, and turned, quickly hurrying out of the space. Clement would come awake to the resounding clang made when Cyrah set down a pale of food on his table. While he'd slept, she'd gone to her own home and washed, and dressed, and she didn't really wait for him to wake up completely, before she just shoved the pale towards him with a muttered, “Here.” Clean, she was a beautiful little girl. Would certainly have fetched a high price on an auction block. Caramel flesh and that ravens-wing hair, the gold in which struck out more now that it was plaited back from her face. She wore a simple linen dress in brown, the sort of wrapped affair that looked as though it could come off at a moment's notice – and it could. She shifted her sandal-clad feet and took a step back from the table, shrugging a little. “That's for you. Now we're even.” And that was all that mattered.

[Clement Reijnder]

He’d not meant to fall asleep. The problem was that he’d started off the day tired then he’d fought. Never mind carrying a writhing little girl through the city. Sadly it had all been done on an empty stomach.

So they hit a stalemate.

Since the girl was quite, he slept deeply and peacefully, though not comfortably. Clement did not dream, or if he did he never remembered it. Once as a child he’d been sick and dreamt of wolves. That was the only dream he remembered from his life. That night, though, with the girl in his bed passed out, he had a dream. What the dream was escaped him, but he got the distinct sensation that he was dreaming when suddenly he was jarred awake by the sound of the pail hitting the table.

“What the shyke?” he bellowed, sitting up straight. There was a deep line across his forehead where it had been resting for hours on the back of the chair.

As he blinked dumbly at the girl, he did his very best to put together a reason why there was a child in his home. He checked his belt to see if his coins were still there. He rubbed at his shoulder, realizing that his arms were looking rather bad. They’d been cut open, and it was clear that they were angry with sand in them.

He looked to her. Then the pail. An eyebrow lifted up as his brain finally shuddered to catch up with him and recall what had happened to get him where he was.

“What’s this?” He pointed at the food she’d brought him. Later he’d apologize if he needed to, but he had seen the girl eat a cadaver. With his luck she was bringing him the rest of the dusker. He wasn’t sure he was really interested in eating human, let alone human that had been out in the heat for a half a day.

He scratched his chest, narrowing his eyes on her. “The petch we are even. Where’s my shirt, kid?”

[Cyrah]

She pointed impassively to where his shirt was folded atop his already-made bed. A neat, tidy little girl when she wasn't ravaging into dead flesh with fang and claw. “It's fruit and beef.” The same as he'd given her. She wasn't stupid; humans rarely ate other humans – or any other person-race, as it were, though she'd heard of Myrians who drank blood from the skulls of their fallen enemies. But she wasn't about to go out and kill someone, and clean the meat, and cure it, just so she could hand it over to this man. No, he got cheaply-dried jerk-meat from the market, and some produce that ought to have been eaten quickly or it would spoil. They were even. Her nose crinkled again, renewed frustration. She didn't like him. Could see a meanness in his eyes, a coolness, and was certain that he'd helped her for his own reasons, not out of the goodness of his heart. Cyrah didn't think hearts typically came with much goodness at all, that it had to be cultivated, and despite her chosen profession, and the ways and means she constructed for herself, she had a very stalwart moral center. Such as it was. And Clement did not fit anywhere into that construction. The sodium-pale eyes that watched him said as much, icy and detached. No giggling or hair-combing, not for this girl. No more stupid stories or promises of safety. She knew better; even in that drug-induced haze, she'd known better. He was dangerous. “You've a stupid-looking line on your forehead,” she murmured. “I'm going now. Thank you for helping me.”

[Clement Reijnder]

“Please tell me you didn’t walk home naked,” he said flatly. The last thing he needed was his whore neighbors thinking he had taken to bedding children. He looked at his shirt, his bed, and how she presented herself. They were the only tidy things in the tiny room.

She was probably too young to recognize it, but the squalor this man was living in screamed of a rather miserable bachelor’s life. It told the story about how he had no loved ones, let alone friends. In the corner were a few broken beer bottles that had at some point been thrown and left. By his bed was an empty plate with dried out bread sitting on top of two very well-worn books.

“Yeah, well… You’re stupid-looking with your stupid…” He sort of trailed off, looking up at her. He was rather stupid-looking at that point - Almost as much so as he felt retorting to a little girl’s and somehow managing to fail miserably at it. He picked up a wounded hand, waving it about in her general direction though unable to point out anything specific. Then he paused, realizing something. “You might as well tell me your name before you go. I’ve seen your face. I know who you are.”

It wasn’t meant as a threat. It just sounded like one.

[Cyrah]

"Of course I didn't," she snapped. A blush spiked into the high, bronze slopes of her cheeks, reddening at the very idea. Nudity was a thing all kelvics managed, and it rarely even registered to her, but she distinctly recalled how very...friendly...she'd been toward him the night previous, in her undressed state, and maybe that had summoned the blush. Or maybe she felt like he was yelling at her, and she was young enough to be inspired to yell back. "I walked home in your shirt and brought it back to you. And I didn't have to come back -- I didn't have to bring back your shirt, or bring you food, I could've just left." That was as much as she'd said to him since they met, in one go. A frustrated noise escaped her throat, and she rounded the table to stand in front of him, glaring her very best. Her meanest. But in human form, it simply looked petulant. Her fists clenched like she'd take a swing at him, but they were little fists, not strong enough to cause as much damage as she would've liked. Her fingers loosened, and she leaned a little closer to him. Sniffed at the air that surrounded him, as though she could catch a taste of his soul that way. An awful lot of judgment in her eyes for one who'd barely lived a year. "If you tell anyone about this face, I'll claw your eyeballs out," she growled at him, eyes narrowing. "And I'm not stupid-looking. I said you were stupid-looking. And this place is disgusting. I'm not going to tell you my name, you don't need to know it. I said thank you, I brought you food, we're even and I don't want you trying to find me again.” She worked alone; she lived alone. He might try to find her to hurt her, to catch her, to sell her; there were innumerable reasons why she didn't want him anywhere near her. “And you still smell,” she added sharply, as if to further punctuate the fact that she was going to leave him to his messy, miserable life and never look back.