Placeholder Cornered (Trente)

[Wrenmae]

Spring 45th, 512 AV

Man, old man Beardy McSeaspray loves to show up when you’re having a moment, doesn’t he?

It’s been years, so why here? What value does that child have to the damn swell-god anyways?

Maybe Lavvie likes kids.

What a simple explanation.

I’m gonna be honest. I gave it pretty much no thought.

Typical.

Wren staggered, catching the wall and grimacing. Hound’s face grimaced with him and the hypnotist realized he hadn’t tried to morph back…realized he hadn’t done it automatically…realized that he might not be able to.

Still bleeding, huh?

Trente cut deep.

That’s what you get for being cocky. Why’d we even do this, anyways?

I’ve grown tired of trying to explain it to you.

I grew tired of listening WAAAAAAAAY before it was cool not to tell me anything.

Wren chuckled, coughing and sliding down an alley wall. He needed a break, just a moment or two, no more. The maledicted starfish throbbed against his skin as the cut slowly healed over. The blood had stopped, thankfully, but the damage was still being repaired…and so long as it was being repaired, he was weakening. “Stop.” He muttered, and the Starfish grew dull and silent. He could breathe again and the world didn’t spin so viciously.

How long since he left the swordsman…fifteen minutes, an hour? Hissing, he touched the wound gingerly and winced, standing again. He’d have to revert back to himself later. For now he couldn’t waste the djed trying to untwist his form. He needed shelter and rest, needed them soon.

So he pushed on into another alley, leaving nothing of his passage but the drying smears of blood.

[Trente]

*
Trente felt triumph at the tip of his tongue, baiting him forward through the breezing pre-dawn air with nothing short of reckless abandon, and untempered vigor. He had been outclassed, outmaneuvered, and even injured beyond what he thought his body able to bare, yet despite the pain and loss of precious heat and blood he had managed to out think the aggressive hound stalking the decaying streets of Zeltiva, worming through shadowed alleys and issuing duels upon those that had more precious crosses to bear. The question lingered as presently in the youthful father's mind as it did his enemy's. What value could a young untalented child have to Laviku?

All Trente knew was that only time would tell, time he had, and Hound did not.

It seemed unnatural the first time the searing hot hands of a Konti healer had pressed against his parted flesh, but in perhaps a perverse way the white hot pain had become somewhat exhilarating to Trente over the years, and the vivacious Lily's touch was no different. His alliehood to Hadrian had more proved a boon in the preceding hour than he had ever foreseen, even in his most wild fantasies of the young miracle worker.

In his mind relived that wicked moment again and again, the sensation of dagger blade meeting gnarled flesh, the emptiness his blade felt as Hound had pulled himself away. Trente knew better, even then, his blade was bloated with possibility, with power over the superior bladesworker. One drop, and an unsettling taste had been all the furious professor had needed to point their small troupe in the direction of the bitter blood's fleeing progenitor.

And how fitting it seemed, thought the excited hunter, when he spotted the first smear of thick drying blood on stonework, in flickering fading lamp light. How perfect that it would be he that would find Hound first, that would have if but a few minutes to gloat and strike before the others finished their search of the area and found them. The furious worry he had felt when the mage could only proximate their prey's locations faded into a fitting faith that finally events were going to fall in his perhaps less than deserving lap for once.

There were copious amounts of blood, though perhaps less than Trente had shed caring his son to safety. The parasite was heavier than he appeared, and more stubborn than Trente himself had been at that age. Still, Trente felt some swelling pride at the pulses and smears of crimson trail left behind for him to hurriedly follow. Had he really struck so deep? The idea of an ambush had occurred to him, but his heady state allotted for so very little doubt. He pushed on, and let his blade slip from his sheath yet again that night. How sweet justice would taste. How sweet.

He turned the last alley corner and saw the form, barely silhouetted in the diminished moonlight, dwindled away particle by particle by chilled misty air pregnant with salt and the will of Laviku.

"Hound," His blade splayed boldly forward toward the figure as he recklessly approached with even bolder words, "Murderer of The Righteous, Enemy of Laviku, and Exploiter of The People, you have nowhere to run. I am not alone now, and will not let you slip away into your cowardly obscurity. The people have come to see you answer for your crimes, and answer you will." The smirk on his face teetered on giddy as he passed nearly half way to Hound's side and showed no sign of stopping till he was close enough to rightly demand the man dis guard his deadly blades.
*

[Wrenmae]

He had almost gotten back to the University, pausing to breathe in an alleyway when he heard the sure strides of feet behind him. “Stop.” He muttered, deadening the maledicted starfish. His body was wracked with the rigors of his evening. The fight with Trente, Laviku, and the starfish exhausting his Djed. If it was the waveguards, perhaps he could speak his way out of it. But when he turned it was Trente striding up to him, arrogant and grinning. Footsteps behind him. Surrounded. Somehow he had been tracked but more alarming yet, Trente seemed almost unharmed from their encounter.

Wren’s eyes narrowed in Hound’s face, but even as his hand went to his dagger, Trente’s rapier was casually drawn to the song of other steel behind him. Four men waited in the alley behind, some others behind Trente. They were grim, prepared, and tired as he was, Wren doubted he had the ability to evade them.
Trente slapped the back of the hand resting on his weapon and Wren let it drop to his side. He looked at the duelist with undisguised loathing and sneered mirthlessly, “I thought I’d left you with some healing to do, boy,” he growled, “You have a healer on call?”

A blade roughly tickled his back and Wren put up his hands. His cloak and weapons were removed from him in a moment, one guard pausing to examine the strangely carved starfish before handing it to Trente. The swordsman looked to Wren for an answer without saying a word, and Wren shrugged his shoulders helplessly, “We all need our tricks. Picked up that junk in Sunberth, supposed to be a good luck charm, only it aint.”

Both Wren’s hands were forced behind his back, shackled, and through the whole of it he stared at Trente with something akin to murder in his eyes. “Well boy…if you can’t succeed at being a father, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to be a dog.”

[Trente]

*
Trente let the trinkets pass from his hands to his assistance, forgoing his vice of greed to indulge in sweet wrath.

"Professor," he said clearly over the howl of wind, "the knife." The dim glint of already bloodied steel slipped from one shadow to another and Trente motioned to have Wrenmae pressed firmly to the dark wall.

Elbows pinned strictly, Trente stepped forward to the nearly stripped man, unarmed and exhausted. He drew close enough that the two shared breath before he spoke in an authoritarian voice, that hint of haughty playfulness altered to something deeper and all together more intimate.

"Hound," the word came without fear, but a surprising degree of respect. "If I had died, another would have come in my place. When you hold a knife to the throat of civilization individuals become superfluous. Debts are paid on a larger scale. Debts that you don't have enough drops of blood in your body to pay. No charms nor magic can fill a man with enough blood to repay that kind of debt."

Altogether Trente hadn't the clarity of soul to speak such truths, his crimes were never against civilizations, never against the greater of goods, and so he felt dignity, supremacy. Perhaps unjustified. The words were threatening, intense, but the tinge of dirty aggression that had tainted his childhood seemed somehow diminished, replaced by righteousness of apparently pure intent. Even Hound, the expert he was, could scarcely place the origin of this light in the shadowed heart of the shadowy man in that shadowy alleyway.

Words attempted to spill from Hound's mouth and so Trente hesitated not to bring the chilled blade to his throat. "I'm not done, and you don't need your tongue to testify with a quill. So shut the petch up."

Trente's eyes closed, centering himself in the darkness, before slowly sliding open again. His heart pounded, and an overwhelming thrill filled his stomach. It made him nauseous, yet exhilarated. "Destiny, however, stands me here, healthy, and unstricken in the place of some skilless Wave Guard you wouldn't know the name of, because justice is a present power in our city.

You will see sunrise, Hound, and you will meet trial before the masses, so that the voices of Zeltiva will call out your fate to that justice above. And I sincerely hope an entire host of the gods emerge from the beams of sunlight tomorrow and cast you into fitting bonds of punishment."

If possible his voice grew quieter, and more intimate as he continued on with his steam of poison laced words, twisting from righteous to foreboding intensity.

"Tonight, however, in this darkness you pay a personal price. I want you to pass into Dira's forgiving arms with a particular peace of wisdom." He drew closer now, lips drawing close to his ears so that the wind ran no risk of buffeting them away. "Blades are not toys, and societies are not playfields. You point your blade at a man and you ask for battle. You point that blade at a child and you ask for war. Dignity is the crux of a warrior, and without that dignity you have lost whatever message you wished to deliver to our people.

A man who stands tall and delivers death with grace and precision can sway the hearts and minds of cities. A man who slaughters with abandoned, dirty in the alleys, and cold hearted on docks is no more than a monster to the people. You will sway nothing in Zeltiva. Instead they will look to the gods, and you will be drown in the bay. Drown and bloody."

He then swiftly drew himself away, withdrawing several paces to gain clarity again, to take in the nearly frozen air. With the blade removed from Hound's throat he could speak without risk of Trente devocalizing him immediately, but Trente looked in little state to receive threats or discouragement. Trente himself was unsure what sensations he felt, that twisted inside of him with a degree of pride but as much self loathing. He hurt, could barely breath, and for the life of him could not place why, so he buried the emotions, let them whisk away in the salty wind. He had one more thing he must do before they took the murderer to his cold dark cell, to face the sunrise of his judgement day. He sheathed his rapier and turned toward Hound for the last words he ever wished to lend him.
*

[Wrenmae]

Wrenmae said nothing when the blade was pushed against his throat. He could feel Trente's words, vibrating through the blade against his own throat. In a certain way, he was almost saying them himself.

The knife still shone with his blood, muddled and dried. Before it was raised to a point he could not see, a startling sort of revelation dawned on him. Hadrian in the background, looking on with muted wrath...Trente here with a dirty blade.

Oh Wrenmae you fool...they followed your blood. Hadrian the Aurist.

But he said nothing, only felt the strong hands of the guards against him, the wind ever present at his back and sides. This? This was nothing. Once upon a time he had been dragged into a dungeon and tortured in a lightless place. These soft civilians with their tarnished honor...

They would not hold him. Nothing would again.

So when Trente leaned back, sheathed his blade, Wren fixed him with a calm face, but his eyes simmered in a fury that thought to ripple out of him, push them all to their knees...destroy them all.

"Dignity and wisdom from you, Trente," he answered, his voice husky and cracked, "I remember how we fought Trente, and it was not only me who placed that boy in danger. Tell these people the truth of yourself...that you're no better than me."

The guard forcing him against the wall pulled him back and smashed him against it for his impertinence, jarring the wizard as he dropped to his knees. "We are no different, Trente, and in time you will come to see that."

He was yanked to his feet, blade pressed into his back as they moved him toward the mouth of the alley. "Take care, boy," he called back to Trente, "The gods have not seen fit to stop me until now, and I wonder at their conviction."

[Trente]

*
Hound's word tore at Trente's insides, producing aggravated exposed anger in their wake. Trente gripped the blade in his hand firmly as turned with a clear glare painted against his face, so accustom to haughty stoicism, by the first ambient glow of pre-dawn light.

"Stop!" He demanded with copious amounts of venom. He strode more than walked to the end of the alley and stepped before the entourage, reaching his free clothed hand out for Hound's forehead. With unnecessary force he wrestled Hound back against the closest wall, leaving the guard to struggle behind with his arms to keep him firmly under arrest.

"Matilis is my son, you psychopathic conniving bitch." With a jolt he slammed Hound's head back against the bold Zeltivan stonework, leaving him dazed but conscious, then held skull firmly against stone as he began to draw his blade upward again.

His voice suddenly halted again, strained with severity yet hissingly quiet. Shudders of cold ran through his body, not from the pain of his own seeping words, rather than the bonesnapper whipping loudly at the mouth of the alley. "He did what he had to in order to protect our family, as did I. You dare compare your methods to those trying to survive your wickness again and I will bring justice down on you myself.

You are a peace of shyke," an abrupt globule of quickly cooling saliva flew from Trente's mouth to meet just above Hound's clenched hairless eyebrows, only to steam downward, framing his piercing stalking eyes. They would haunt Trente and his family forever, and even in that moment Trente knew it, but he defied with rage.

"The gods and the people will see you pay. Tyveth," the name came piously with an abrupt jolt of proud projection, strong enough to pierce outward of the alley, to reach into the slowly brightening streets. "This day Zeltiva shall hold a hearing for this murder by the name of Hound, I beg that you oversee this and assure that the people see fact when they hear his awful name. That they turn their ears from lies, and know only truth."

He then raised his clenched blade, causing a unified and unsettled jump from his companions as he left a jagged and deep gash running from the centre of Hound's nose to the very bone of his jaw. Blood pulsed and poured from the man's cheek, in a steaming stream from cheek to neck, soaking outward into his mundane shirt. With an outraged scream he invoked the next name. "Viratas! I implore you, let every family wronged by this cruel man suffer not the beat of his heart longer than we must. Let ever drop of his hot blood spill on our doorsteps, and soak into our beaches as he would our children. Let those that have had their family chain's shattered by his hands know this transgression, and boil their blood to action with certainty and conviction. Bloody, and final."

Panting, and glaring into Hound's eyes he tried desperately to show mastery over his breath, and his fiercely beating heart. Oh, how long it has been since he felt such passion. "Yahal," He said clearly through his panting, and gasps for air. "Please, look down upon this mark," with a tremoring hand he reached his blade to Hound's cheek again and left, with finely peeled parting flesh, and severed tissue another vertical line, intersecting the first. An "X" was left bloody and gaping open, one line formed by the hasty hand of a frantic father, and the second by a man clamoring desperately for control of his own existence, seeking after purity long lost. "Let all that see this mark also see his crimes, with clarity and surety, so that they must not suffer his defiling presence. Let us see the dirt that must be swept from our sills, and returned to the soil to let grow purer things."

The last prayer left him inexplicably empty. He pulled himself away from the bleeding man, and his heart settled with a numb stillness within his chest. He nodded at looks offered him by his companions and offer forth from his pocket a simple white handkerchief, pressing it firmly against the man's cheek and letting another watch over it to assure he didn't bleed out before reaching his rightful sentence.

He did not trail after the group, the Wave Guard would hear of his involvement, everyone would. He turned to the opposite wall and leaned against it, emptying his stomach's contents into the corner as he relived the sensation of parting the man's face open with his own hand. The hand now leaving it's crimson print upon a wall of Zeltiva.

With diminished strength he said to his one remaining companion, still looking after him in the morning light, "I want the plaque to go here." He straightened up and looked to the bloody hand print upon the wall. "Let it read that the Weak Slasher was captured here."
*

[Paragon]

Wrenmae

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Medicine	1
Intimidation	1
Intelligence	1

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Spitting Upon Gods

Trente

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Tracking	1
Rhetoric	1
Intimidation	1
Unarmed Combat	1
Tactics	1

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	The Capture of the Weak Slasher
•	The Hound's Haunting Eyes

Legend Becomes Reality

I like that this wasn't needlessly long. Did just the trick, and beautiful exposition from the both of you! If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can work from there.