"Your woman. You say that like she's been gone for some time. You must miss her terribly. Is that why you're travelling through here?"
That prompted a sad smile from the Myrian (though, frankly, it could have been the needle), but she could see it was tinged with an affection that bespoke of something more precious: hope.
"She has been, and I do. More than you can imagine. But she is walking her path as I am mine; when we decided to leave, we both knew that they would not be the same. Her way is one of... the mind, I suppose. Intellect. Learning and knowledge and broadening what that may be. Me?"
He snorted softly and gestured to himself as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The myriad of tattoos and scars, the fresh wounds and the blades on the harness planted next to him.
"I walk a different path. Strange and wonderful, is it not, that two so different can still love so deeply..."
The thought was a pleasant one, and memories of his beloved numbed him yet more as he finished with the gashes on his shoulder. The one on his chest, though... he could get away with just bandaging it, he supposed. He rifled in his kit for the roll, sighed at how pathetically thin it was becoming...
And then the mood darkened.
"Yes. I've been....Stuck. Here. For two years."
Razkar's fingers paused around the roll when she spoke, but they did not still. Only a fool would miss the pain making her voice tremble, and when he turned to her, the guilt writ large on her features...
She was not there. She should have been, but she was far from her people. Traitor. Deyhan.
The male shook his head furiously, dispelling such pointless, hateful thoughts. Myrians were under siege in their own home, did they really need to be hating each other in the barbarian lands? Did she know what would befall their land in her absence? Of course not. The Storm swept across the world with barely anyone knowing it would happen, and certainly no Children of Myri.
"You didn't know," he said, blunt but oddly neutral. She didn't, after all. "It was over in a day, female. There was... little that could have been done by anyone."
"You were there. You saw. Didn't you?"
His hands stopped. Black eyes glazed over as memories far worse and unwanted boiled forth from the dark corners of his mind. The present seemed to... mute. Walk away from him and the roll of bandages became distant in his hands. He wasn't really seeing it anymore...
He saw the night become an inferno of colors, impossible formations of cloud and lightning that made the horizon a realm of chaos for hours.
Hundreds of Myrians wandering the streets of Taloba, blind, screaming, begging, minds shattered as sure as their white, sightless eyes.
Dozens of Tskanna, the most gentle beasts he had ever known, transformed into insane, lumbering beserkers, trampling and ravaging swaths of the city.
The jungle becoming a roiling nightmare of snapping vines and bloodthirsty animals as even Caiyha seemed to be driven mad by the rampant djed.
All of that cut Taloba deeply. But it was all but a taste of the horror suffered at the Zinrah Blockade... where Ayatah was stationed.
Razkar blinked, hard, crows feet becoming stark as he crushed his lids together and forced the images back into their hole. A shifting next to him, concern radiating from the female... and a tight smile struck his face.
"Yes. And let us leave it at that."
His hands sputtered back into life and he began winding the thin, absorbent material around his chest.
"Another time, perhaps. Anyway... what drew you to this land? Two years, you say?" He snorted, smile returning and something of his former good mood returning. "Long time to be among the barbarians..."
That prompted a sad smile from the Myrian (though, frankly, it could have been the needle), but she could see it was tinged with an affection that bespoke of something more precious: hope.
"She has been, and I do. More than you can imagine. But she is walking her path as I am mine; when we decided to leave, we both knew that they would not be the same. Her way is one of... the mind, I suppose. Intellect. Learning and knowledge and broadening what that may be. Me?"
He snorted softly and gestured to himself as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The myriad of tattoos and scars, the fresh wounds and the blades on the harness planted next to him.
"I walk a different path. Strange and wonderful, is it not, that two so different can still love so deeply..."
The thought was a pleasant one, and memories of his beloved numbed him yet more as he finished with the gashes on his shoulder. The one on his chest, though... he could get away with just bandaging it, he supposed. He rifled in his kit for the roll, sighed at how pathetically thin it was becoming...
And then the mood darkened.
"Yes. I've been....Stuck. Here. For two years."
Razkar's fingers paused around the roll when she spoke, but they did not still. Only a fool would miss the pain making her voice tremble, and when he turned to her, the guilt writ large on her features...
She was not there. She should have been, but she was far from her people. Traitor. Deyhan.
The male shook his head furiously, dispelling such pointless, hateful thoughts. Myrians were under siege in their own home, did they really need to be hating each other in the barbarian lands? Did she know what would befall their land in her absence? Of course not. The Storm swept across the world with barely anyone knowing it would happen, and certainly no Children of Myri.
"You didn't know," he said, blunt but oddly neutral. She didn't, after all. "It was over in a day, female. There was... little that could have been done by anyone."
"You were there. You saw. Didn't you?"
His hands stopped. Black eyes glazed over as memories far worse and unwanted boiled forth from the dark corners of his mind. The present seemed to... mute. Walk away from him and the roll of bandages became distant in his hands. He wasn't really seeing it anymore...
He saw the night become an inferno of colors, impossible formations of cloud and lightning that made the horizon a realm of chaos for hours.
Hundreds of Myrians wandering the streets of Taloba, blind, screaming, begging, minds shattered as sure as their white, sightless eyes.
Dozens of Tskanna, the most gentle beasts he had ever known, transformed into insane, lumbering beserkers, trampling and ravaging swaths of the city.
The jungle becoming a roiling nightmare of snapping vines and bloodthirsty animals as even Caiyha seemed to be driven mad by the rampant djed.
All of that cut Taloba deeply. But it was all but a taste of the horror suffered at the Zinrah Blockade... where Ayatah was stationed.
Razkar blinked, hard, crows feet becoming stark as he crushed his lids together and forced the images back into their hole. A shifting next to him, concern radiating from the female... and a tight smile struck his face.
"Yes. And let us leave it at that."
His hands sputtered back into life and he began winding the thin, absorbent material around his chest.
"Another time, perhaps. Anyway... what drew you to this land? Two years, you say?" He snorted, smile returning and something of his former good mood returning. "Long time to be among the barbarians..."
