Closed Words Cut Like Daggers

[Cadicus]

47th Winter 512AV The Winter had been hard, long and cold: ice cold, and the chill came not just from the air or the famous Zeltivan wind, but from Cypress' eyes. Still she was slow to believe and slow to trust. Still she would not wholly listen to Cadicus' words that he spoke with a frightening conviction. For him to admit love was terrifying enough, but to have it received with a glacial chill was even more so. Cadicus, standing tall and thin with his bone white horns elegantly swooping from his temples, was discontent with his empty bed, his lack of love, and his being frozen in one spot. He had promised not to leave. And yet he was going to Darva. He sighed, running his hand through his brunette hair, flecked with the slivers of gold that marked his long-gone devotion to Syna. Striding from the World's Inn Grotto, where he spent his mizas, watching them dwindle on food, drinks and a warm bed for the night, his faithful dog Sodalis jogged along by his side, keeping up stride with his master. He did not know where he was going, or why he was leaving. He was avoiding East Street, that was for sure: his once-hunting ground had turned into the site of heartache, where enraged he watched prostitutes gather clients like trophies, and imagined his Cy doing the same. He was not to the Docks: the sight of the water with the boats bobbing in the ice-cold harbour was enough to make him run screaming from the city and out into the great blue somewhere, where he was not entrapped by cities and women and love. No, today Cadicus and his dog strode angrily to a place he had heard of but never visited: the Scholar's Forum. Cadicus wandered under the double row of the pure white columns, looking out over the cobblestone square. Few people lined the square, but those that were stood bent towards one another in intense discussion, their eyes narrowed and their hand gestures furious. A butterfly flew across the square, having survived through the Winter: Sodalis, seeing it, yelped excitedly and scampered over the stone to catch the insect between his snapping jaws. "Dalis! Heel!" he shouted, whistling and standing tall and imposing, his arms crossed. Sodalis hesitated in his chase, beside grinding to a complete halt in the middle of the square, the scholars in the forum watching disdainfully. As his pup hurried back to him, head hung low, Cadicus smirked. The pompous scholars had had their meaningless debates interrupted. Good. Let them know that they meant nothing. Let them see that nothing could be learnt except through losing everything.

[Philomena]

There is a certain light that comes in mid-winter afternoons, cold and bright and illuminating, while somehow managing to distill any of the kindly warmth of the sun into cold, still air. It was still, the particular day in question, an oddity for Zeltivan winters, which partook far more of the wildness of sea-winter, than the serenity of snow-winter. The storms had, temporarily gone to Laviku to sulk, and left only the mountains of their drifts behind as a sigil of their coming return.

The forum, being one of the largest areas of open ground of the University, was a conclave of these drifts, a great mother-drift rising in the center of the collonade, with a a ring of her daughters frozen in dancer's arcs around her. The groundsmen had come to wend winding salt-paths through the snow, and the students had followed, now, draggin the natural footpaths of hob-nailed shortcuts, cloaks once thrown down to protect and impress the owner of a dainty foot. The drifts survived, but lived now in a sea of raucously silent pitter-pats of the last night's creation - too late to have the tail end of carousals wending drunkenly along them, too early to have the repentant steps of the larger crowds of hungover students on their way to class. The walks were prolific, then, and sparsely attended.

Sparsely attend, but not unattended. The professorate took constitutionals, or stood enjoying the rare feel of still air, snipping irritably over the clumsy fellow with the dog, sipping mildly at kelp-tea, gossiping, always gossiping. It was a ring of pairs and trios, then, some meandering, some standing.

This made Minnie Lefting stand out - at least to an external observer. One who knows the University well would be surprised, honestly, to see the ugly dwarf-creature NOT alone on her morning walk. She was notoriously unpopular with the other members of faculty - a 'low woman', a 'shipper', with her uncouth slips into her childhood accent, and her hideous clothes and poor hygiene.

And then, with the plague, there was all the more reason to avoid her - when she passed, groups subtly shifted away from her, looking at her with a mix of pity and horror. The hand, bandaged tightly over an infected wound that not even the head of the infirmary had been entirely able to cut out, was clutched tightly to her breast inside the shifting folds of a battered Mackintosh. Her walk, even, had the air of sickness to it - slow, tottering, delicate in the way her joints shifted uneasily against each other.

She saw the dog, and just perceptibly took a sharp intake of breath.

//Dog... oh, god, not a dog... not this morning.//

Minnie had never liked dogs - no, that was not terribly true. She did not know, perhaps she had once, long ago. But then, she was too young then to remember. Since she was old enough to totter through the streets of Zeltiva herself, dogs had been not companions, but angry guardians, chasing her if she tried to snitch an apple, sometimes set on her and the other Kennel girls simply as a diverting amusement. She was grown now, and respectable - or at least acceptable, marginally - in society, and no longer had reason to fear, generally, the approach of a dog. But she had never quite gotten over that early impression. She had read the reams of poetry men had written throguh the years, about the loyalty of a dog, the love of a dog, the kind servitude of a dog. She'd never been quite able to believe it. Dogs, in her mind, were like soldiers - loyal to whoever threw them bread and circuses, fierce and wild to whoever you threw them up against.

She cringed slightly as the dog went running... straight towards her in her perception. There was no scorn in the look - it was not that she thought dogs worthy of scorn. Just terrifying. The dog barrelled along, as a call came into her ears, quite close to her, and as it continued on its beeline, Minnie actually audibly whimpered, and stumbled backward, hands before her face.

"No, no, no!"

But the dog ran past her at just the last moment to... just behind her, an attractive, but peculiarly horned gentleman behind her.

She looked up at him. He was not short, and she was not tall - it was a long, long look up. And she blushed, "Sorry... sir. Your dog, it startled me."

//Minnie Lefting, really? He doesnt' need you to apologize. That means he has to respond, now. He needs to just scurry off out of the way, you snipe.//

[Cadicus]

While Sodalis careened back to him, his head hung low over the disappointment of the butterfly, Cadicus' eye was caught by a short, older woman. Strange. The elderly had all but disappeared this season, succumbing to the plague that hung over the streets of the seaside city like men succumbed to the women on East Street. She walked slowly, her shoulders bent inwards, holding her old sack of bones tentatively against the cold: though perhaps Cadicus was unkind. As one who would never age, and as one who seemed to inspire looks of awe and inspiration from those who looked upon his near-perfect visage, he had not the kindest view of ugliness and age. And here stood a woman, her bones creaking, crow's feet by her eyes, and a bandage wrapped tightly around a hand, and while she was not entirely wrinkled and entirely incapable, the forty two year old Philomena Lefting (though of course he did not know her yet) was entirely too old for his liking. He was to turn away, to observe the foolishly impassioned, and the convicted in their worthless scholarly opinions, when he laughed aloud. Sodalis running quickly past her, missing the woman by a hair's breadth (though of course his pup had more control of his movements than the woman seemed to think), the terror overtook the woman. Stumbling backwards on unsteady feet, her bandaged hand and the other showing marks of age flew up to protect her less-than-handsome face, whimpering as she did so. Cadicus could not help but laugh; a merry sound, far too loud in this hushed forum of debate, drawing yet another round of disdainful looks from those too proud in their intelligence. He did not waste them a second glance. Sodalis run safely back to his owner, Cadicus' hand descending on his head, and the woman looked utterly like a fool, scared by one as friendly as Dalis. "Good dog," he whispered, patting him on the muzzle, the crinkle of mirth still lining his eyes, a merry grin gracing his gleaming copper skin. The woman spoke to him, and Cadicus was somewhat disappointed to find that her voice was not as gravelly as the elderly he had encountered before: perhaps more sick than close to Dira, then. "Well, I'm sure you startled Dalis, too. He's not used to woman screeching while he runs past. So you just apologise to my dog, and we'll be on our merry way." Smirking happily, he waited to see if she would lower herself so far as to apologise to a dog. He sincerely hoped so. The scholarly were so foolish.

[Philomena]

The woman caught her breath now and watched the man. The little sneering disdain in his voice, the curl of irony in his voice, the snippiness of his request, all of these lay Minnie's ears, and her mind cogitated them quickly. A verdict was easily reached, and quickly.

//What an arrogant little prick.//

She thought the words, not with the disdain of one in authority for an uppity young student, but rather, with a certain irritable hatred of the concept of arrogance itself. Minnie's history with the interfaces of the arrogant was not a short one, and her natural predisposition to place herself in the social category in which she was born into made her sense of the class of others vague at best. Her voice withdrew into the frosty corners of her throat, mixing with her general current misery, to come out sharp-cornered, and faultlessly, hideously crisp.

"Do you think? I should think young master, that the very essence of why men seem attracted to dogs, is that dogs are simple hearted enough to bypass pleasantries, and to ignore the nonsense requirements of human interactions, simply loving frankly those worth loving, and disliking those beneath their affections. Perhaps, however, you have a more temperamental dog."

At which point she falls into a clumsy, creaking, one handed curtsy and faces the dog, with a sour expression.

"I beg your pardon, Master Dogsbody. It would fill me with regret to learn my clumsiness has made a man's heart in you."

[Cadicus]

The elderly woman's words were sharp, crisp. Perhaps Cadicus was doing her a disservice in so constantly thinking of her as old--she was more sick than senile--but to one as able bodied and as proud as he, it was an easy way to differentiate the other from one as gilded as he. Very few attained the sort of physical perfection that was a daily reality for the Ethaefal, and Cadicus, though having cast off his mother goddess as she had cast him, still clung to that part of his identity: he may be frozen in the seasons, but he looked damn good all the same. Cadicus raised his eyebrows when the woman spoke, reaching to brush a strand of golden-tinted hair behind his bone white horns. Young master? Oh, perhaps he had been on this world shorter than she had, she with the bandaged hand, but he had touched the divine, he had spun through the ages and through Lhex's chamber to this very spot. He had lived in the Ukalas. He looked younger than she, thank Hell for that, but that did not mean age was something she could hold against him effectively. He was an Ethaefal. He had eternity stretched out before him, while Dira hunted her down like a dog. "You are right," Cadicus said, the words polite but his tone still carrying an unseen smirk. "Perhaps dogs are less temperamental than we, who demand such pleasantries from the society we build around us. But Sodalis here is one so very advanced that he not only requires your apology, but a curtsey too." Cadicus, grinning, adopted the formal, wordy tone of the woman, mocking her subtly. That she hid behind words to inflate her own sense of intelligence was laughable to Cad. Intelligence, he knew, was not something to be found in books, but only by breaking one's heart into a thousand pieces. It was only at the bottom of the heap of life that anybody learnt anything. Sodalis cocked his head to one side when the woman bent forward to apologise. His dark eyes looked into the woman's face, and with his tongue lolling out, he looked away, barely giving the woman a second glance. Cadicus laughed merrily. "Well then! He seems less than pleased with your apology. Perhaps, like me, he could hear that it was rather less than sincere... Really very disappointing. I'd expected more from one as learned as you." His voice was meaner, now, the disdain for the scholars of this forum showing ever further. One who insulted his dog was not one in his good books.

[Philomena]

The last week of Philomena Lefting's had been one of the worst she recalled. The nights were filled with hobbling exhaustedly around the city, seeking the ghost of Lanie, a woman who was, likely, thousands of miles away. The days, she had spent in the infirmary as often as not. Her hand was still fresh and raw as her brain, from the ordeal of sitting while the sick flesh of her palm was excised by Mistress Clara with the scrapes of a scalpel and rasp.

And now, this man had the sheer gall to belittle her on the forum. On, as it were, her own turf. On another day, this would perhaps have been beneath her dignity. The man was a bully, plain and simple. He craved attention.

But oh, how Minnie hated a bully.

And frankly, she would not have realized it herself, but she needed someone to be angry at. Who else was there? Lanie? Mara? Qalaya? No, none of them - not yet anyway. But an arrogant prick who had nothing better to do than bully a frightened old woman... well. There isn't too much guilt in dressing that sort of shyte down. This was becoming emotional now - her accent starts to thicken.

"Aye, tha' is true. I imagine a pretty boy who struts 'boot the Uni pissing on old women is a regular expert in the sincerities of regret, eh? Gotten your practice from being kitched off by the Loveless girls, non? No... no, that is nae fair, that, I must apologize. The Loveless girls have t'much dignity to do aught wit' ye but take your pay and snigger b'hind your back, Petchin' coward, bullyin' an old Mussy!"

[Cadicus]

The woman before him had been rattled by what he said. Her eyes narrowed, her joints stiffened: everything about her became sharper, more pointed, as she became more and more frustrated with the Ethaefal who jabbed such insults at her. Cadicus could not help but grin. With Cypress back in his world, it had been so long since he had let out his frustrations in any way. Perhaps insulting an old, frail woman would be just the way to do it. If he could come out on top, however. He would not be pleased if she should win the argument. As their words became more and more heated, as they exchanged more unpleasantries, they became more and more like the very scholars Cadicus so despised and ridiculed. Both passionately and intensely defending their position, lest the other side win. In the Scholar's Forum, Cadicus exchanged words with an old woman, and could not realise his own hypocrisy. His grin grew ever wider when the old woman began to splutter and speak. Her accent became that much thicker, and she lost any attempt at composure. Her voice was accented and strange, and Cadicus grinned, her insults bouncing off his thick skin, his golden glistening skin. Let it be known that Cadicus could take it as well as dish it out. "The girls at Loveless are somewhat friends of mine, dear old "Mussy"," he mocked her accent, laughing cruelly to shoulder off the sting of the insult. It was not that it bothered him so much. It was more than he had known a girl there... a girl he loved very much. "I assure you, I have quite the pick of the ladies there. Cannot be quite so sure if you have a pick of the men, though. Not even old Dalis could stand to look at you." The playful jibes began to sting more, as Cadicus look to hurt the woman. It had been a long, painful winter. The old woman was simply unfortunate: the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Philomena]

The woman smiled as the man spoke. It was a queer smile, a sour, empty smile devoid of any sort of mirth. She pulled herself forward a step toward the man, looking for just a glimpse, warily toward the dog. They stood perhaps a step closer now than was polite generally, Minnie staring past a tipped chin up at the taller gentleman (of sorts).

"Ugly! Oh, lairds and ladies of the heavens! He called me ugly, oh mine heart it breaks! Un' I were hoping to roll about the hay with the little teat-sucker!"

She laughed, more of a snarl than anything, and leaned just barely forward, her eyes trained sharply and quite close now, on his.

"Is this a hobby or an occupation, lad, the telling of simple truths? If its the latter, I dunny think you're likely to be making a great deal from it. If it's the latter, do let me know, as I'd hate to waste a wad of spittle on the face of a mere amateur. And if on the other hand, that were meant to be some sort of a braggart's work, my boy… bragging that a whore is willing ter sleep wid ye… well, I pity you to much to mock back at you."

[Cadicus]

His teeth bared like a rabid dog, Cadicus restrained himself from lurching forward at the same time as the woman. Cadicus, a man of hot blood and passion, was so used to punching a man in the jaw as a way to solve an argument. Though in this instance, he had gone to start an argument with her, as he felt his position slipping away and she gained more and more ground, he had to restrain the violent urges within. Life was much more simple when men spoke with fists, not metaphors. Looking down at her, he was suddenly struck by a realisation: that she was old and sick. Cadicus had seen that before, of course, but he had not fully processed it. Here was a women ending the near of her life, perhaps - whatever the Gods may decide - and Cadicus was poisoning her last days with malevolence and cruelty. If she was a dog, he would not hesitate to help. But in the prison of flesh, she garnered nothing but disdain. His grin slipped. Upon his face was a wry smile. But he would not, could never admit that he was wrong. He had been wrong too many times before. At the very least, Cadicus could continue to argue with this woman: and perhaps even afford her the victory. He did not laugh along with her, her voice high and strained, thin like winter wind, as she took on his insult and made it into something of herself. Moments before he would have hurled forth an insult almost as quick as lightning, but now the fury had passed onto the woman, and her anger swept away his responses like a tidal wave. Oh, but he would have been forgiving but for that last sentence. Suddenly his blood ran hot: that word. Those insinuations. And the fact that there was one whore, one absolutely brilliant whore who refused to sleep with him... Growling like a ravenous lion, Cadicus sprung forward. The tip of her chin would brush against his blouse, and his eyes bored deep into hers. ”Before, woman, I could brush off your words as easily as I do dust, for they mean nothing, and soon you will be as dusty as they. But you go too far. Do not insult the whores. They are better women than the likes of you.” And if, Cadicus thought to himself, his whole mind reeling, you were a man, I would slice you from nostril to navel for even daring to insult one aspect of Cypress.

[Philomena]

Minnie was not brave, but she was, perhaps, feeling what could be described as reckless. The man, leaping towards her startled her, yes, but at this, she maintained her composure, looking up at him with fierce snarl of a dog who takes a kick angrily because they no they'll be kicked again no matter how subservient they are, the sort of bitter hopeless fury of the spat-upon.

But the man's words change this. The implications of his speech make her obviously falter, her eys blinking, turning down slightly at the corners.

//Ah yes, Minnie Lefting, so petching proud of yourself, you little gutterslut, so petching proud. So god-petching proud.//

Her face fell. Her voice recanted, receding back into her throat. Her back bent. Her whole manner shifted, visibly, like a snail pulling into it's shell, to subservience, shame.

"I... I am sorry. That was a nasty... thing to say. I know a nummer o' the girls there, or... or did a few years ago... I have... I'm sorry. You're right. I'm nae but a duggery by 'em. I ne'er had nae the looks, poise, nae courage for it, and its a bitch's blow o' me to use them to make myself look lofty. Accept my apologies, for you, your dog, whate'er, I'm... I'm sorry."

//Aye, you low little shyke-in-the-fur-of-a-dog's-arse. That's right. Cringe and bow, and go on home. Better girls than you 'ave gone to Loveless. And you pissed on 'em, for what? For a bit of your own embarrasment. Scrape the petching ground.//

And with an abruptness that almost appeared like nausea on her face, she began to retreat backwards from the man.x