Open Out Into the Rain

[Ninus Aurellius]

The Prince of Rats 1st of Summer 513 AV Ninus sat on his bedroll, gently stroking the oily fur of the great black sewer rat on his lap. He spent most of his days in boredom, staring blankly at the wall when he wasn't mixing his poisons. He had been stroking the creature for hours, his other hand tapping endless patterns on the stone floor. The noises echoed and bounced around the streets, accompanied by the sound of water flowing and dripping. There was a rainstorm going on in the city, and it was making thunderous noises as sounds bounced around the stone walls of the buildings. Water accumulated on the paving stones, though Ninus had carved a tiny drainage ditch angling the water away from his sitting spot. The last thing he wanted was to be drowned out. It also meant water for Ninus after the initial glut had washed the streets clean. The water dripping into the bowls, pans, and cracked pots was slightly murky, but it would have to do. He lifted up the rat in his hands and stared the little thing in the tiny, beady pair of eyes. "I should go to where the rain becomes thickest. Become clean. It is that time of year, isn't it?" he asked the rat, looking up through the darkness at the handmade cieling of his little hovel. "I don't like the world up there. The sky yawns like a dead god, open and raw, a wound from which the earth weeps." The rat in his hands squirmed and squeaked, thrashing unhappily. Ninus clutched it a bit tighter with his stained, cracked fingernails. He was nervous about going up to the street level. He would have to use his exit to the Bazaar. He set down the rat, allowing the poor creature to scuttle off into the darkness. He stood, his skinny body barely illuminated by the light of an oil lamp in the darkness. He tucked a peculiar weapon into his shirt, a brass syringe filled with a most fearful poison. It would protect him outside the maze of the safer road, where he didn't know the streets so well, where men roamed. He slid away from his small shelter, following the carved marks in the darkness. His spindly fingers ran over the stones, booted feet padding in the wet. He scrabbled, his fingers sounding so much like the hordes of rats running about his ankles. He smirked when his fingers ran over a very familiar mark, and then over an adjacent exit into a larger street. He peered around the corner, seeing the Bazaar still open. It was hard to see, but another mark was worn down in the cobblestones next to the alley mouth. The sign of home. "A rat's home, down in the darkness, darkness to turn one's fur black." he mumbled, looking around the alleyway. It emptied out into the thriving Bazaar full of men and women crying their wares. Ninus stared at the chaos beyond the alleyway, selling even in wind and rain. He felt the water begin to wet his clothing, running down his stained fingers and matting his hair to his skull. He took a step forward and walked out of the alleyway. He could see the murky water flowing off of his clothing. He had needed a bath. He eyed a guard as the man walked by, armored to the teeth. Ninus suppressed a hiss. He disliked the knights...they fouled his business and killed his clients. What use was a dead assassin to a man who sold poisons? He sneered at the guard's back.

[Enys]

Enys had, quite simply, been sulking in the deluge. It was the type of weather that insisted on a petulant mood, as her mind meandered to seasons past, corralling dormant memories better left dead. She had abandoned her offspring on just such a day, and she was ashamed. No farewell had parted her lips, or tears. She hadn't even ventured past the nursery's sign, which hung by rusted iron nails and read 'FOUR' in economic, off-white lettering. Often she debated whether her polluted blood had robbed her of natural instincts, or worse. She was not Inarta, and she was not Human. She was a mongrel, and what this entailed remained obscure.

The rain plastered Enys' threadbare cloak to her skin, lending her the appearance of a half-empty bag of grain. Dull braids coiled within the confines of her sagging hood, with the occasional miscreant hanging limp over her shoulder, as lifeless as a decapitated snake. Amid these coils, Ruin nested. The magpie's one good eye stared out at the world, malice and dismay reflected therein. An occasional quork attested his displeasure. He hated the rain as much as Enys, perhaps even more. Nothing ever shined in the rain.

Enys lingered at the edge of the bizarre, marked as an outlander. Her head was canted sideways, ear proffered to the crowd. The irregular, guttural syllables spilling from merchants' mouths were gradually becoming familiar. A baker was arguing that his sodden wares were still edible--indeed, the rain made hardened heels easier to digest. Then there was a different cook, who lugged an iron pot to the edges of the market every morn to stew rats. A woman complained that his 'lordly recipe' had given her son the shits, pitching her voice loud enough to dissuade potential customers. Enys had tasted that soup three days past. It'd been tolerable, and certainly hadn't given her the shits.

"Mine, mine!" Ruin screeched at a passing beggar.

Enys swiveled her head, attention magnetized to the vagrant. Repulsion clenched her stomach, offset by a profound pique of curiosity. Ninus was not the breed of man typical to Stormhold Castle. Then again, neither was she. He stank of waste, mold, and peril. The dark stains and pockmarks that riddled his hands did not evade her unwavering stare, hidden as they were by the muddied water dripping from his elongated fingers.

"No, Ruin," Enys crooned in Navi. "His fleas will gnaw your innards to dust."

In the back of her mind, she wondered vaguely if he provided the cook with rats.

[Ninus Aurellius]

The Prince of Rats Ninus heard the magpie growl at him and shifted his attention from the passing guard to the woman. The rain washed away her scent easily, and was drenching them both, but Ninus was motionless. He was here seeking food; water was being taken care of by the sky. The baker howling about his burned loaves might have been a good recourse if not for the cook that smelled of his brethren. The rats had been fleeing to him in greater numbers lately; now he knew why. They had spoken to him in hushed voices, crying, begging. His eyes locked on the reprehensible creature stewing the rats. He was skinny, as were all residents of Syliras' lower class. Most likely trying to make use of the most reliable and fresh meat source. Ninus himself ate rats, but they were his disobedient servants he ate raw and screaming to show to the others. He felt something nudge his ankles and scurry off. The rain meant baths for them all, apparently, and his intent to get clean had laid a feared enemy at his feet. The girl, however, was concerning. If he was going to kill the rat cook, he needed to do it swiftly and scurry back to the alleyway. Would her bird make noise at him if he did kill the man? Would she call the knights? She was certainly not from here and almost certainly lost. Who took a vacation in the worst part of Syliras, the part separate and ignored from the knights who shrieked about justice and honor. He flared his nostrils. Nothing. The rain made the entire city smell of dust and wet rot. He snorted out the breath he had taken in and decided to sleep well tonight. He approached the rat cook. Even in the rain he smelled of rats. "You touch that which is not yours to kill or sell." Ninus growled in a low voice. "Sleepless nights, tossing, turning, listening to shrieking. Begging cries clutching at cloth in the darkness, beseeching hands touching a father's face and asking why he does nothing. You drag this before my doorstep, the feast of Andronicus, showing me my children cooked and eaten before my eyes." His speech was slow, broken, but carried every note of anger in it. His hand went to his pocket as he spoke, clutching an oblong object within.

[Ehati]

She was always watching. She had to be. There would be no reason for her to stand in the muggy rain and be pelted down in the miserable conditions if she wasn't there to do her job.

But even the eyes of the Knights were blind to some matters in their home fortress. And she was no different.

She had to patrol the musty crowd, listen to the cajoling voices of the multitude as hagglers argued and merchants squawked their protests. Some things quieted as she passed, fell into the back of the minds of the troubled, and were forgotten lest problems too mundane gained the attention of one of the Sylirists. Her very presence enforced order, as it should, but it did not stop the would-be thief from trying to nick a loaf of soggy bread from a stall. She caught him beneath the dour glare of emerald eyes unamused by childish naivety and sent him on his way with a warning that next time he would not benefit from his innocence. The merchant accepted the return of his loaf begrudgingly but did not argue with the Knight that did not smile. Her red hair was plastered to the metal of her armour, her face was smeared by the water, and she was too hot in the shell she wore. One knew not to argue with a knight that did not seem in the mood for an argument.

She moved on with a farewell the merchant did not expect, wandered over to a man making stew and being besieged by angry customers.

She did not expect to find somebody selling stew from the flesh of dirty rodents, not in this city.

"Do you sell rat meat here," the question was dull and insinuated many different outcomes depending on his response. He might have thought selling rat meat was acceptable, but Ehati could feel little but disgust for the thought that a man would dare allow people to eat something so foul. Her words cut across the words of those nearest, sharp and unforgiving.

[Enys]

Enys was a woman that 'saw', with very little escaping her shrewd, molten gaze. It was one of her most useful eccentricities, which she relied heavily upon. She knew when a man was complacent, breathing languidly between parted lips, and she knew when a man thought he was clever, with eyelids narrowed by finite degrees. So it was, that she knew this vagrant intended violence. The taunt muscles lining his weak jaw. The flare of his nostrils. The hunch of his spine, as he hid pockmarked hands in sodden rags. The ragged lift of his chest, as lungs sought rank oxygen in the midst of adrenaline. Men were always betrayed by their bodies.

The grating clack of metal, diffused by the constant smattering of rain, barraged her ears. A knight in the slums. An Inarta. Her heart galloped in her chest, pulsing with a deep-seated resentment of the privileged, made more intense if they were crowned by fire, as she herself was. Why was this woman harassing the least among men? Asserting her wealth in the slums, where the destitute struggled within their own hierarchy of survival and wit? Her lips stretched, revealing slightly crooked teeth in a feral sneer.

The pair posed a choice.

She decided.

Elongated fingers pinched the hem of her hood, dragging it down to release smoldering tresses that remained doggedly plastered to pale skin. A concise sweep of her palm over angled cheeks and sunken eyes dislodged aging grime, imparting Enys with a more respectable appearance, even if by a paltry measure. Ruin marched the breadth of her shoulders, his claws piercing her threadbare cloak, quorking irritatedly with every decisive pivot. Thus dispossessed of her shroud, there was no mistaking her shared heritage.

She was prepared.

Travel-worn boots delivered Enys to the Rat cuisinier, amid the assembled crowd. She was bent double. The copious folds of her cloak dragged against the cobblestones, staining the hem with filth. Open palms were pressed against her diaphragm. Cheeks were flushed red from exertion. "Ser!" The Common word tumbled from her throat, between breathy gasps. "A brawl. By tailor's alley. My husband. Help me, help me," her plea, imbued with urgency and concern, was spoken in Nari. A hooked finger was extended in a southern direction, directing the knight's attention away from the Cuisinier, who was, at this very moment, a considerably unfortunate man.

A demented pleasure warmed her stomach.

[Ninus Aurellius]

The Prince of Rats Ninus froze when he saw the knight. His first instinct was to shrink from her, fearfully. He despised and hated knights, the so-called honorable creatures in this city. He supplied poisons to men who murdered, men who wanted revenge. The knights didn't look kindly upon poisoners. He eyed the woman, but stood his ground for the sake of the rats he protected. He wasn't surprised to feel a comforting presence crawling up his leg and sitting herself on his shoulder. Cricet was a giant rat, a creature about the size of a small dog with a head bigger than his fist. She was a vastly intelligent little creature, and sniffed the air surrounding the man who cooked rats. She fluffed up her fur and Ninus lifted a hand to rest on her shoulders. He understood, but what could he do? He had been planning to murder the cook in cold blood for harming the rats, but the knight was in front of him and she was only drawing a crowd. Then the woman he had seen before had started to scream for the assistance of the knight. But he had seen her walking calmly before...why would she just now cry an emergency? Something was up. Was she drawing the knight away so he could kill the cook. He eyed her, frowning.

[Ehati]

Sharp was the look in the woodland eyes that were shrewd as well as observant, but as the woman ran forward in seeming fright the knight had eyes only for the merchant selling rats to the people and his apparent unhappy customers. His face had coloured at her words and the sight of the clanking knight but he did not croak a reply as to why he was selling rat meat to the people who deserved far better than that.

She could feel the disquiet her appearance caused weighing heavily upon her thin shoulders the longer she stood there and inflicted her own self-righteousness on these poor, squabbling, miserable people. She could feel dislike and discontent and was angry because the people aiming sharp glares at her armoured back did not understand that she was there for them.

She had half the mind to turn on them and let them know exactly whose side she was on. She was on edge for the atmosphere did not allow for her to be calm and unwary. This was the district that was kept in worse condition than the others. The ungodly crowded streets home to people with darker interests that could afford to slip between the lawful arms of the knightly order. They could afford to fight back when a single knight encroached upon their self-entitled territory. It was because she was on edge that she drew her sword, perhaps far too foolishly, once she reaslised somebody was hurrying towards her.

She expected treachery, not the visage of somebody in distress. She did not trust the huddled form of the woman crowned with fire as Ehati was. She could not place her finger on where the distrust emenated from but supposed, in the current situation, she could afford to be wary. The words were listened to, the Inarta was rapt and cast her full attention on the one that spoke her language with little she could do to not acknowledge the language spoken. Nari brought back the memories she would rather have forgotten, tormented the creature that she was beneath her honour and justice.

"Where?" The Knight's words were also in Nari: chirped and quick, as Nari should be, although formal with the loss of her true Inarta accent.

While she was loathe to be drawn away from the rat cook, she could not allow herself to be ignorant to the woman's apparent distress. She was stuck, then, for there were two choices she could make and she did not want to let either slip out of grasp. She glanced back at the cook, saw the way his slimy tongue crept over his lips, and grimaced before reaching for the smallest coin purse tied to her scabbard. Tossing two gold rimmed coins to the nearest boy that seemed of some calibre, she left him with the instructions to keep the merchant close and under his watch. Then, she returned her attention to the woman.

"Lead on," she said.

[Nivel]

Ehati : XP Award: 1 Interrogation 1 Observation Lore: Location: The Great Bazaar of Syliras Rat Stew? not in my City! Ninus the Rat King Enys the Inarta half breed. Shield Points: 1 for Patrolling Notes: Too bad this was cut short Ninus Aurellius : XP Award: Example 1 Example 2 Lore: Example 1 Example 2 Notes: I'll Fill this out when you get back Enys : XP Award: Example 1 Example 2 Lore: Example 1 Example 2 [/list] Notes: I'll fill this out when you get back Additional Comments: if you have any comments or concerns send me a PM