Surcease Of Sorrow (Kaie and Buras)

by **Kaie** on March 10th, 2014, 11:07 pm

"What better way is there to learn than through failure?" The female answered the unarguably beaten man's off hand remark, arching a slender brow. Razkar's explanation was reinforced with a slow nod of her head in agreement. It seemed their kind were always looked to for a bit of battle advice once they crossed the Suvan. She herself had survived for a short period of time due to nothing more than racial reputation, having been picked up by chance when she had first arrived in Syliras. Not even now would Kaie ever claim she had been a trainer. Not a real one anyways. In retrospect, she served nothing more than a glorified babysitter paid to clash branches with a wealthy child to play to her fantasies of knighthood rather than real metal. Sadly like everything else, the Djed Storm had taken that little girl too.

"So I see not much has changed since we last met then, Razkar. New nickname but the same hopeful fighters-to-be circling you like vultures," She teased him with a curious gaze after his call to the man about another round for another day. She remembered the blonde Syliran with the cutlass that came to him after Kisetukai wandered off to lick his wounds (and his pride). How he managed to deal with the constant flocking right after an often gruesome win, she hadn't a clue.

"I swear you'd make out like a petching god from them all if you stayed in one place long enough." Already expecting him to shoot her a look for that thought, she flashed him a cheeky grin. "What? You don't see it?"

As if any Myrian wanted to spend their days wasting away around Deyhan cities playing teacher...

by **Razkar** on March 10th, 2014, 11:37 pm

"So I see not much has changed since we last met then, Razkar. New nickname but the same hopeful fighters-to-be circling you like vultures."

Again she drew a wry chortle from him, and a smile to go with it, but they vanished as soon as they appeared. A mask of stoic grimness seemed to hover constantly over the fierce, confident male she'd once known. The crowd outside the bursting tavern around the corner from the Pits half-parted, half-scrambled out of their way as he entered, taking a corner table that was suddenly miraculously vacant.

Aside from the half-empty cups and partially-finished meals. Clearly the occupants had guessed where The Scalper was heading.

"They try and try," he said, voice nearly a sigh as he eased himself carefully into the seat, lips tight and white as his chest growled, "But this far, none can send me to Dira. The others who come to learn, well..."

Again his eyes took a glazed, haunted look. The innkeeper's wife managed to serve them foaming tankards without ever getting too close to the table, scurrying off before they could order food. Razkar barely noticed; he did notice, however, the alcohol.

Whatever numbs the pain. In my chest.

Yes. Of course. Your chest.

He gulped and guzzled as much to drown that voice as to quench the fire around the wound in his chest. By the time he'd wiped his stubbly chin clean, she'd fired off another barb and earned a whimsical eyebrow raise in return.

"And you? They have a word for females like you, in these lands. 'Amazon'. Some kind of warrior tribe from history." He looked her up and down, taking in the scars not there when last they met, the extra layer of worldly mistrust over her face. He shrugged, rising tankard just covering the gleam of smiling teeth. "Probably just talking about Myrians and didn't know it yet..."

He barked out a laugh that wasn't quite right when she trotted out that gag about becoming a god. Again the pall fell; again melancholy seemed to rule his features and Razkar stared morosely into his drink.

"No god to see here, female... just a man who can't find the one to..."

Kill him? Was that what he'd become? A mad seeker of Dira's embrace without care to the occasion she gathered him at? No... No, that was too simple. Too self-pitying. He fought and he slayed and he willed his body to heal, every night, though it ignored him.

Penance. That's what you seek. But without Myri's guidance nor your own judgement, you've twisted that into self-flagellation, and these witless pit fighters are your flail.

The male winced at his insight and finished his tankard, gesturing for another and picking through the scraps of food and drink until it arrived. He spoke without looking up, finding a promising turkey leg (or what he assumed was turkey).

"And you, Daughter of the Cutthroat Shadows? How many amorous barbarians have you had to make into women since arriving?" He tore off a chunk and gave her a quick wink as he chewed. "Or is there some... deeper purpose to your presence in this rat's nest?"

by **Kaie** on March 12th, 2014, 11:43 pm

The perks of a fearsome reputation indeed, She thought to herself as the alcohol was hurriedly served to them. No time was wasted before the female hand her fingers wrapped around the handle and had her taste of the drink. The froth was almost soothing as it bubbled through her lips until it traveled down her throat, the bitterness of the ale following soon after. After one generous gulp, the tankard returned to the wooden table with a careless tap.

"Amazon..." She repeated slowly with a quirk of her brow as if tasting the new word upon her tongue. So strange was it to find a term used outside their word to describe them other than the orthodox slurs. "I've not heard of these Amazon females before, brother. Then again I never wondered what we called ourselves before the Valterrian and Myri's rise. I figure it's high time they came up with something else anyways. 'Savage' is starting to get pretty old." Kaie shrugged her shoulders, glossy eyes still fixating over the new information for several ticks over her tankard. That is until his next response caught her attention.

"No god to see here, female... just a man who can't find the one to..."

Amber eyes flashed up from her drink to stare at the face of the one of the damn few males she silently admired. They searched his face for the duration of his pause, finding some sort of pain or strife that she could not name. Her face twisted into some emotion, her lips parting as if to speak, but just as quickly as it came it was gone. Instead she remained silent with the help of the tankard and the bitter drink within it. There was a time where she debated slowing down, but when the male had his finished and was already calling for another, the container was sucked dry hardly a chime later. To their bar maid she shook the empty tankard to signal her request, and then placed it upon the table and leaned back to the corner wall.

"I've had my fair share of course," She jested with an amused roll of her eyes, though even in her alcohol induced elated mood there was a strange shadow that came to her gaze. Picking up barbarian men wasn't such an easy task when they knew what she was. Then again sometimes it added to the thrill. Those were always the interesting ones to deal with and usually ended the bloodiest. "Like I told you earlier, Sunberth was never my chosen destination. I didn't really have a choice in the matter." A pause came as her eyes shot down to her empty mug, which she rocked back and forth on its edges along the uneven table surface before she chose to go on with it.

"I got caught up trying to avoid Nyka. Ended up right on the doorstep of the bastard's son. There is... much I realized I have not seen of this world, Razkar. I know that now." Kaie's eyes flashed up to lock with his in the moment. Slowly she leaned forward to lean her forearms onto the table, hands still idly playing with the stupid mug. And all the while her mind flashed images from the season before she hardly succeeded in repressing for the time being.

"But what of you now, Shorn Skull? Add any new skulls to your back?""

by **Razkar** on March 13th, 2014, 1:00 am

She was there, but he... well, he felt like he was becoming one with the stains on the seat. He mused in that idle, distant, drunken way that it was probably not the best idea to mix hundred-proof Sunberth grog with blood loss and weariness, but... it helped.

Whatever you need tell yourself, boy.

Razkar managed a grunt of disgust at the mention of Uphis, though, like any good Child of Myri. Ruros' bastard was universally reviled by his race, partially because of his heritage, but mostly because after centuries of ruling his little slice of the barbarian world, he still hadn't found the courage to avenge his father.

Apples and trees, he thought drunkenly, followed by the sickening realization that, oh holy fuck, he really was getting drunk! And in front of a female!

Kaie bought him back, though, intentionally or not. Her amber eyes speared him and the internal panic stilled. She... truly had grown into herself since last they met. Back in Syliras she was still green in many ways; she'd reminded him of the new day recruits in Taloba. Lot of energy and drive, but without the skills to back them up.

Now she was telling him she had journeyed wide, to distant cities, across the desolate Wildlands, and now she was carving out her name in Sunberth. Much like him, in fact, only with... purpose.

"But what of you now, Shorn Skull? Add any new skulls to your back?"

Ah, that seemed to pierce his self-pity. Some touch of his former, brooding bravado returned in his smile. He patted himself on the back - literally - and gave a careless shrug. Say what you will for false modesty: at least it masked your other obvious pitfalls.

"Plenty, Myri be praised. Few warriors worth the label, though," he said with a deep but genuine sigh. "One makes do, however..."

There was the customary awkward silence over the table as new topics were thought of, discarded, and new ones were pondered. They sipped their brews and avoided eye contact for a chime... then Razkar turned his gaze back to her, new curiosity in them.

"In town with anyone in particular? Or are you still for hire? There is much opportunity here, I have seen. One of the big... syndicates, I think they call them, the criminal armies that run this place... fell into chaos last year. The scum have been fighting over the scraps ever since. Hardly a war befitting Blessed Myri but..."

He shrugged again and turned a corner by politely refusing a refill from the gently-quaking tavern wench.

"It is some arena for us to ply our skills-" the last word came out as a wince when his chest heaved again from the inside, gash sending licks of flame across his chest like a surface-based heart attack "-aside... from the one I just came from..."

by **Kaie** on March 18th, 2014, 9:52 pm

It felt like nothing other than a dream, a false reality her mind might've conjured up like some twisted defense mechanism. For the first time in a long time she felt...safe. Not once had she gotten that all too natural inkling to check over her shoulder now and then, worrying about the amount of alcohol she consumed for fear of whatever insidious bastards lurked nearby like a pack of hungry Akila Hounds in the shadows. Instead she was there lounging carelessly back in her chair with a mildly blissful expression. Even with his scarred and bloodied appearance, Razkar always smelled like home even. How strange it was that the tiniest details had become the ones with the most potency.

"Hard to find people worth trusting in this line of work. Sometimes it's easier to go it alone, especially in cities like these. Better not to be held...responsible for the life on another," Kaie admitted with a passive shrug of her shoulders though her eyes held a strange coldness for but a tick. She studied his face for a moment, searched his eyes as a question budded from her thoughts, but she swallowed it before it could be voiced.

His woman, Ayatah, is she still studying in Zeltiva? Does she still live?

"Ah, the gangs. I suppose when the world's set on fire there's always someone in the aftermath trying to rule the ashes. I hear talk about the beginning of the end for one of them. People still talking about some execution a season ago. Apparently it was a big deal, huh?" The young woman took another long drink from the tankard and settled back into her chair. An amused smile twitched at the corner of her lips as he suppressed a gasp mid-sentence. "They think us some kind of psychotic, reckless animals the way we wield our bloody swords with such zealousness, getting ourselves within an inch of meeting Dira only to sow ourselves back up and do it all over again without a tick of hesitation. They don't see that death and war can be beautiful." Perhaps the alcohol was starting to get to her after all. Yet she paid her own errant rambling no thought and instead found herself laughing at the grim notion. Naturally even in her current state she wouldn't show the broken pieces of her subconscious to Razkar. Showing weakness to a male was still unthinkable no matter who it was, even if she still saw the damn woman they killed in those woods every now and then like some kind of omen.

"At least we fight for more than a shiny piece of metal, hm?" The gently tipping woman procured a single Gold Mizas from the inside of her cloak and held it up for her own inspection. When the bar maid returned again and Razkar refused the refill, she was quick to accept it instead. The coin was held out toward the nervous woman whose eyes lit up in momentary disbelief, then she quickly snatched it and refilled the tankard. Within a chime or two, the young Myrian woman's eyes were undeniably glossy.

"Do you plan to return home soon, brother?"

OOC:Sorry for the delay! Internet issues were persisting but I've gotten it taken care of now.

by **Zandelia** on April 12th, 2014, 5:49 pm

Kaie :

Buras :

Notes :

Any questions about my grade? Feel free to PM anytime. Keep Writing!

Open Surcease Of Sorrow (Kaie and Buras)