A Pious Animal

[Razkar]

[Note: Dialogue in red is spoken in Myrian

3rd of Fall, 512AV

"I don't like it, Kala. I don't like it at all."

Kala looked up from the steaming bowel at her... well, she couldn't say "husband", would she? Employer would be more accurate. But after ten years as Namseer's nakivak, she had grown very fond of the tall, brooding warrior who had left that life behind to open a tavern. Even now she could still see embers of that fire she saw when she was first contracted: the tightening of the jaws, making his blue skin paler around the lips, the eyes fixed and angry, bushy brows knitted and intense.

The human sighed and left her cooking for the moment. Ms Remi wouldn't complain if her food was late, the good soul. She walked around the table and put a hand on her... friend's shoulder.

"We've had worse sorts in here."

"Really? Name three."

Kala cocked an eyebrow and started reeling them off: "That pirate who stole the curtains, the drukas who bought the constables to the door, the nuit who left pieces of his-"

"That was different!"

There was iron in his voice now, but time had since erased any fear Kala had of it. He may have been near seven feet tall and still had all the muscles he did during his campaigns, but Namseer no longer scared her. In fact, she just chuckled and massaged his knotted neck.

"He paid upfront, remember? Quiet, keeps to himself... and he's always been respectful to me."

Another derisive snort. "They're women-run, Kala, you know that. And he knows if he wasn't respectful, I'd kick his arse out onto the streets!"

Kala decided to remain quiet on that one. The Myrian was more than a foot shorter than Nameer, and less broad, but some unknown, frightened voice in her said that she would not want to see that confrontation. There would be no guarantee that Namseer would survive.

Because whatever else he was, Kala knew on sight that this "Razkar" had killed and killed again, more times than he could probably remember.

She sighed, brushing auburn hair out of her face. She didn't want to think of this. It upset her, and Nameer, and that's not how she wanted to spend her evening.

"When there is cause to worry," she said, dropping her face next to his ear and pecking his cheek, "we worry. Until then, we do not. Didn't you tell me that once?"

Namseer grimaced, but there's a good-natured glitter in his eyes that made her smile. He sighed and got to his feet, towering over her.

"You have an unfortunately good memory."

"Yes, I do."

[Razkar]

Razkar remembered all of them. He had to. For if not, how would he have been able to properly make his offerings?

His hands moved in darkness, but surely. The gloom of the bare room was a summer's day compared to the darkest crevices of the jungle canopy, where sunlight rarely touched and moonlight was unheard of. In that world, sound and smell were your chief weapons, not the eyes too many hunters took for granted.

A match flared in the darkness. A bobbing teardrop of orange flame moved slowly, carefully, touching the candle provided by the inn's owners. It was, as the woman had said, part of the lodging fee. Twenty gold mizas, paid out of his purse, for five days lodging and meals. The female, Kala, was not the hard and merciless kind that had raised him. This perplexed the Myrian, even moreso that her mate, the huge blue-skinned Akalakian, seemed to own the inn.

A male owning property, and dictating orders. This truly was a strange world.

"Goddess... ancestors... here my words this eve... words I bring... with humble offering..."

The grating, guttaral words were cut off by the sound of metal over flesh, a faint silvery glint of metal and then a darker, oozing reflection. The latter shimmered and slid in the dark room, then dripped onto the offering bowl before the candle.

"Goddess... look upon my steel with favor... know your servant will claim scalps and lives... will send you the souls of warriors... will give you cause to rejoice... in the honors you bestowed..."

[Razkar]

She did not speak. She did not make a sound, save for the low, stalking rustling of her gown. Razkar did not dare turn, as if to gaze upon his Queen would turn his eyes to stone balls in his head.

He stared instead at the bowl, the broad basin filled with blood. His peoples' life force, the accumulation of hundreds, thousands of Myrians who had stood where he stood, offered what he had offered... proved what he had proved.

Her hand dropped into his line of sight. Flawless, bronzed, skin tight and sinews hardened after centuries. Two fingers tipped with sharpened fingernails pointed to the red pool.

"Razkar of the Shorn Skulls... drink..."

He dipped a hand into the blood, amazed that it was still warm as that which had sprayed across his face in the heat of battle. He cupped it, drawing a mouthful towards his lips... and drank...

The same he had drunk many times with his clan, on the battlefield or during their rituals. Coppery, tangy, hot and sweet to his Myrian tongue. It was just blood... but it was hers, too.

He swallowed and felt the burning. At first he panicked, hand dropping to the edge of the basin, eyes widening, but the Council and his clan-elders bid him calm with their stern glares. Razkar obeyed, and endured.

He grit his teeth as fire scorched the back of his neck. It felt like a torch run across his skin, pressed hard and etching... forming something.

And then it was done. That first breath and he felt his sinews tighten, his eyes sharpen. He felt reborn.

"Razkar..." the voice slithered into his ear, sweet and irresistable as a snake's stare, lethal nails running over the gnosis, as he knew the mark to be, "You have taken our blood... my blood. My son... my brother... my warrior... But now, you just give... balance the gift I have bestowed on you... Honor your Queen, your Goddess and your people with blood and victory... Razkar..."

The last words were whispered, so close that he felt the breath from her mouth and the awful majesty beyond it. Myri the Usurper, the peasant who became a queen who slew a god and thus became one. She who had forged their people into one nation and purged their lands of the barbarian, inferior races. She that was their strength and their succor, the beating, bloody heart of the Myrian race.

"... do not fail me..."

[Razkar]

"Ancestors... smile upon my works... know your son is worthy of his place among you..."

More drops fell into the bowl, spattering across the fine porcelain, crimson splashes in the virgin basin. The voice continued with strength, Razkar feeling as he always did at these times: renewed, but restrained. Prayers and offerings were necessary and proper, but true piety?

That was done with steel and sinew, skill and timing, and ended not in words, but feasted organs and bloody scalps.

"And our Queen... will be honored... in your son's offerings to her..."

The blood sloshed in the bottom of the bowl, and Razkar raised it to the west, where his Goddess-Queen reigned from atop her pyramid, its side stained with the blood of countless enemies. Then he drank, tipping the bowl up so every last drop was returned to him, and to her.

Knuckles on wood rapped him out of his reverie, and his jackal-like head snapped to the door.

"Mister Razkar?"

[Razkar]

Kala wished Nameer wouldn't hover, it truly annoyed her. It would have been bad enough a human doing it, but when you're seven feet tall and blue-skinned, you didn't exactly blend into the background.

Added to which, they were in a hallway that wasn't wide enough for this.

"Would you go back downstairs?!" She rasped, exasperated, tray of meat, bread and cheese in her hands. "I'm not in any danger!"

"I'll decide that."

"You're being-"

The door flew open and a dark-skinned figure stood there, framed by the darkness beyond him. Naked from the waist up, scars and tattoos snaking up and around his torso. Bones protruded and jabbed from his face, his mouth hung open slightly and cold, impossibly black eyes stared furiously at the intrustion.

"... silly."

"Huh?"

"Your dinner, Mister Razkar?"

The Myrian blinked and remembered himself. He was speaking to a woman, after all. He nodded and accepted the tray, voice no less grating when he spoke in Basic.

"Thank you, Mistress."

"Is there anything-"

"No. No problem, Mistress." Razkar glanced at the blue-skinned giant behind her and sized him up in one long look. He would be challenging... but the Goddess would be so pleased. "Thank you."

"Oh... well... if you need anything...?"

"I ask." Another bobbing, respectful nod, but nothing like a smile or even a change of expression. "Good night."

The door slammed shut again, and Kala blinked a few times. She's halfway down the corridor when Nameer finally spoke.

"Did you see what he had on his lips?! That was bl-"

"He was praying, Nameer! It's their custom!"

"Animals." The Akalakian snarled, hands twitching, yearning to pull that little monster from his clean room and throw him away from his nakivak and his children, playing just a floor above them. "Nothing but animals."

He stormed away and Kala, knowing him of old, let him go. He needed to burn it off. She swallowed and sighs yet again, wishing that night was not so complicated.

"Even animals need their gods..."

[Razkar]

Razkar heard, but not everything. He understood one word, though.

Animals.

He ripped and tore the food like a wolf, grinding it between his teeth and gulping it down, fuel for a fire deep inside him. Let them think what they will; it made no difference to him. Besides which, they're wrong.

Did they know the glory of Myri? Had they been blessed by her power and her loyalty? They judged what they do not know and feared what they could not control or easily destroy.

Just like animals.

He grunted, licking his fingers clean. His prayers were done; his goddess and his ancestors would watch his actions. He would rise tomorrow and go looking for recruitment again, escaping this prison of civilization and kindness that he did not understand.

War. He understood war, and he would find it. He would not fail his goddess. He would bring an legion of scalps and a river of screaming red to her blessed feet.

The Myrian grinned in the darkness. He was an hour from sleep but already he dreamt with his eyes open. May it be so...

[Gossamer]

. Character: Razkar Experience: Ritual Design +1, Observation +3, Planning +1 Lore: Nakivaks: Riverfalls owned companions, Akalaks: They owned property and gave orders. Holding Ritual for Myri, Communion with Myri Through Blood, Strangers are ignorant. I am patient of Ignorant Strangers. Myri would be pleased with Akalak blood. Additional Note: I really loved the feel and vibe of this thread. It gave a great insight into Razkar’s view and what he’s thinking while both revealing what the outside world was seeing to the reader. I loved the play between the worried Akalak and the understanding Nakivak. I also enjoyed Razkar’s respect of the woman and yet his deep dark seeded need for violence not for the violence itself but as explained to the reader in a way that really made it ‘unique’ – his drive was for pleasing Myri. I think that’s what makes this brief glimpse special. I’m sorry I could not award more XP. What I did award was a stretch. But I think any reader will see that its more of a mental thread than anything else and we don’t give XP for contemplation or really gently exposing a PC to a vastly different and new environment. But that seems to be what it was… it was as if Razkar was a bareskinned child tentatively sticking his toe into the water to determine if it was the right temperature for a dip. Loved this. .