Unlearned Lesson (Lucillius)

[Yoona]

The Chaktawe woman made sure that she wasn't outwardly smiling as the lawyer continued to stumble about in pain, his legs shuddering like leaves. Ah, the glories of the easy-to-reach male weak spot. Procreation aside, surely some great God somewhere must have placed them there to give the opposite sex an advantage over their male counterparts. It was like a great big incapacitation button.

Once he seemed to have gotten his balance back, Luc sent a glare her way, his eyes tinged with anger and lingering pain. Yoona gave a meek, innocent shrug in response. 'He can take it as the warning that it is,' she mused, blinking at him as he began to speak. How interesting, to hear the man speak of gratitude... Oh yes, he had a point; she was thankful to him for sparing her from a ghastly punishment at the hands of Issac and his Stryfe companions. She couldn't imagine that she wouldn't have suffered somewhat from striking a man, let alone her own "master," and Issac was a cold, unpredictable man, which made the situation all the more worrying. Luc had stepped in of his own free will and lied for her. So yes, of course she was grateful. She also wasn't a fool, and doubted that his "act of kindness" had just been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Either the man wanted her to be in his debt, or had some ulterior motives he was tending to by aiding her.

Yoona fully intended on finding them out. "People see slaves as weak. Helpless," she replied after his comment on Ravokians and slaves. "Most slaves no threatening, no trouble. Most slaves too afraid. Animals, maybe, but weak ones. I okay with being vicious animal."

Indeed she was. If the Chaktawe woman couldn't be seen as just as much of a human as the remainder of the city was, then she'd settle for the next best thing; for others to see her as a wild, threatening beast. A force to be reckoned with.

Refocusing her gaze on the lawyer, Yoona watched as bits and pieces of the frustration ebbed away from his features, leaving a slightly exhausted smile in their wake. She raised an eyebrow at him, cautious, still, but curious. Was he going to ask her to hit him, again? When he spoke after a few ticks, she was somewhat relieved to hear that he was addressing her question. It sounded as though he planned on staying true to his word of having her stay at his "estate," if she so desired. All in all, she was being given a sort of freedom for the next four days.

Yoona stayed rooted to her current spot, her arms still crossed as she stared at him and watched his eyes as the words flew from his mouth. Eyes tended to say what the lips and tongue couldn't. There was no vehemence in his voice, however, and she wasn't getting the sense that he was trying to lie to her. He just wanted her to cooperate. To tolerate him, and recognize his actions as the help that they'd been.

Reasonable enough desires. The mistrust was still there, floating around in her head and sending pulses of caution through her brain, but it had lessened considerably.

"...Hmm. 'Owe' you. What that thing people say? 'Give credit where credit is due?'" she asked, narrowing her eyes a little at him. Then she let out a sigh through her nose, and sent a quick peek down at the knuckles of her right hand. The light purple discoloration from earlier was still there, the tendons and fibers still reeling from the force of the blow. The Chaktawe woman then looked back up at the lawyer, her expression neutral, and slowly extended a hand to him. "I no hit you, anymore. Even if you ask. And you say your name, first, so now I tell you mine. It's Yoona."

Then, as an afterthought, she added, "'Estate'...and your name, I've heard before, somewhere...you have a lot of money...?"

"Tawna" | "Common" | 'Thoughts' | Ruki

[Lucillus Nitrozian]

Lucillus Nitrozian

"People see slaves as weak. Helpless," the slave woman began, drawing Luc's curiosity away from his own scheming. "I okay with being vicious animal." She proudly declared, and the man couldn't help but give a bemused "Huh," at the statement. Say what one likes about the girl - that she's rude, stubborn, hotheaded and too brash to be considered truly intelligent - but she isn't stupid, and she isn't weak. There's a fire in her bones that isn't going to go out for a long, long time. Though the attitude that she boasted was really staring to piss the lawyer off, he also couldn't help but be entertained by the woman's rebellious spirit. I wonder if all desert folk are built this way, or if she's also considered exceptional by her own people. Maybe it was that arrogance of hers that first drew the slaver's eye... he probably got hard at the thought of stamping out the rebellion he saw in her gaze. Luc also pitied the girl, and not just because of her status as one of the dregs of Ravok. That attitude is just going to bring her more pain and suffering than give her any amount of joy. I know that I'm not the model for successful living, but even I can see that she's digging herself a grave. "You know what people do with vicious animals in this city?" He murmured, shaking his head. "They either beat them, or put them down. The animal never wins. You're going to hate it, but I advise you start acting weak while you still can."

At least the angry bitch finally got around to offering him the civility of a decent handshake. Nodding his head firmly, Luc took a quick step over to her and accepted the handshake, fearing for the safety of his delicate fingers, caught in those massive hands of the slave's. "And you say your name, first, so now I tell you mine. It's Yoona." The woman then said, prompting a smile from the vindicated lawyer. Yoona. Rhysol, but these foreigners have strange names. What kind of vengeful old woman would be so cruel as to name her poor daughter Yoona, of all the terrible things to be named? "Yoona is an interesting name," he exclaimed, his face brightening and his eyes adopting an intrigued glint. "And you must be Eyktolian, but petch me if I can't figure out exactly what you are. You aren't... Benshira, are you?" Shrugging the question away, the lawyer then listened as Yoona asked him another question: "'Estate'...and your name, I've heard before, somewhere...you have a lot of money...?" Luc was actually amused by this query more than anything, for he never figured the slave to be the type of girl that would ask about his material wealth. Women never change, though, not really. "An estate is a like a big, big house, where a whole family lives. It's very expensive and very lavish. As for my name, Nitrozian... that name carries a lot of weight in this city. My family is very big and wealthy - they have a great deal of money."

"I, on the other hand..." Chuckling softly, Luc walked past the woman, head out into the main street, and beckoned for her to follow. No sense in them lingering about the streets like beggars, when the delights of home were beckoning to him. "I used to have a lot of money," he explained, looking back over his shoulder to Yoona. "Used to, but not anymore. My money came to me in an - an allowance." Do desert folk know what that is? Does she even know the value of money? "An allowance is when my relatives give me money because I am part of their family, and I get to spend it however I please. But they don't give me that anymore, because of some perceived wrongs and slights and... you know. Instead of the allowance, I have to work for all the money I have, like a regular person." Unsure of how much of this talk she was absorbing, Luc then decided that he didn't really care - everything that he said was meant to lull the woman into a state of ease, into a place where she might finally start trusting him. That's when the fun can begin. "I am very, very good at getting people to accept deals that I offer them, so the Nitrozians gave me a job as a lawyer. It keeps me afloat, at the very least."

Thankfully, the city streets were starting to cool down at this hour of the day, as the afternoon continued to wear on and citizens confined themselves to either their business or their homes. Luc only suffered a few curious stares as he marched down the street with the bizarre slave in tow, nearly a foot taller than he was and muscled from head to toe. How am I ever going to keep her at the estate? He wondered, trying to devise a plan for getting her inside his home. Figuring that he would come up with the details when pressed, the Nitrozian took the pair to a small dock and whistled at the nearest ravosala to come and let them board. Stepping onto the boat and waiting patiently for his slave companion to follow behind, Luc then paid the ravosalaman his bloated fee and asked that they be taken to the Noble District of town. "Feel free to take your time," he then added, figuring that a brisk pace would only alarm the woman and make her suspect some portion of his wrongdoings. The ravosalaman, servile as always, nodded his head fervently and lazily pushed the vessel into the canal. Smiling at the swiftness at which the man obeyed his commands, Luc sat himself down in the boat and gestured that Yoona could sit wherever she liked.

Inside of his mind, the Nitrozian delighted in the fantasies that he entertained of what he was going to do with Yoona. Issac bet that she couldn't be reined in, but I'll be petched if I don't take up that challenge. And Yoona herself is a real firecracker... might be I can get her to set off some fires in the direction I want her to blow. Slowly but surely, that same adrenaline high that he had so lusted after earlier started to come back to him, the difficult task of breaking the woman before him reinvigorating his otherwise tired mind. But he tried to make sure his face was as devoid of these dark emotions as possible when looking at her, instead opting for a more friendly, personable expression. "Tell me about yourself," he murmured as they sat in the ravasola, "and how you got in this mess. I understand if you don't feel like sharing, but if you've got the strength for such a tale, you'll have yourself a pair of ears."

[Yoona]

"You know what people do with vicious animals in this city? They either beat them, or put them down. The animal never wins."

The Chaktawe woman merely grunted at the lawyer, the sound alone suggesting that he had no idea what he was talking about. Of course she didn't expect him to understand her reasons; she didn't expect anyone to, other than Ruki, who could at least peer into her mind and see where her logic was coming from. Wild animals were natural threats, yes, and people dealt with threats the way they needed to be dealt with. But it wasn't like the situation that she'd been dragged into was some sort of game to be won. There were no players or teams, no rules or limitations. Games began with each participant having an equal, fair chance of succeeding. At this point, Yoona recognized that she was brought into this realm with an apparent disadvantage.

She had no desire to be a winner. She had no desire to even be liked. She just didn't want to trudge through her days with her tail between her legs and a sorry look on her face. Her pride needed to stay intact.

Their handshake prompted a smile from him, which Yoona took as a decent enough sign. She still didn't trust the man, but it'd be less of a hassle to deal with him if all animosities between them dissolved. "Eyktol, yes. Chaktawe," she replied, the corners of her lips twitching a bit in the beginnings of a frown at the man's mention of their neighboring desert people. Yoona had nothing against the Benshira, and could recall a few times that she'd met one while traveling with her parents through the rolling plains of sand. They seemed like a lively, kind people, but she didn't think that she looked like any of them. Her eyes seemed to be the give-away to most people who knew of the Eyktolian races. Luc probably wasn't one of those people.

As they walked, she listened to the man as he began to explain his riches to her. Yoona had only asked about it because she'd been curious; that, and the fact that the Nitrozian name tended to be thrown around in conversations she overheard. It seemed as though the family had a good amount of influence on the city. Then again, rich people had those powers. They didn't have to work for anything. Luc seemed no different, though if she was understanding him correctly, he couldn't handle his money well enough, so his family stopped coddling him. Simple enough. 'He probably spent it all on whatever weird stuff has messed up his head. How responsible.'

They walked for a while longer, eventually reaching a ravosala section of the docks, where people rented the tiny boats and perused the city at comfortable speeds. Yoona had never been on one, herself, but couldn't say that she had ever wanted to; the Chaktawe woman had grown to harbor a deep dislike of boats, along with all other craft that floated on water. Perhaps the Almighty Rhysol was instilling that fear in her, to further keep her in his accursed city. Perhaps it was all merely too unnatural for her to be comfortable with. Either way, Yoona was hesitant as she made her way into the boat. She found a sturdy corner, by her own standards, and nestled into it, pressing her knees together and letting her arms rest on her elbows.

A hand absentmindedly made its way to the ravosala's edge as the craft was given a push, the Chaktawe woman's fingers digging themselves into it. 'Petching, unbalanced things...'

Her gaze drifted over to Luc, and for a moment she was put off by the attempt at friendliness in his eyes. She couldn't tell whether or not it was something forced. He asked about her life, her "origins," and the immediate urge to tell him to mind his own business was pushed away. Yoona figured that there'd be no harm in telling him things, considering the fact that she'd have to hang around him for the next few days if she wanted to keep from being thrown into the Hole. So she leaned forward a little to put more of her weight onto her knees and elbows, rolling words around in her head as she thought about what to say. It wasn't often that she was asked about herself.

"Okay. I live in Eyktol my whole life. My family, my mother and father, we travel the land with our tribe. ...Chaktawe people made of three tribes, and ours was Suli. Vulture people."

The red vulture, to be exact. The Suli's chosen symbol of aggression, power, cunning, and strength. Yoona considered explaining the way the tribes worked to the lawyer for a moment, but then decided against it. She couldn't possibly use what little she knew of Common to explain such a broad thing. It was more likely that she'd get frustrated and give up half way through, only to slip back into her native tongue.

"I was out on hunting trip with friends two seasons ago, tracking a herd. Some strange men came in wagons around time that sun was starting to set. Men had traveled from somewhere...we knew they weren't of Eyktol, and were ready to fight if trouble came. Well, the men attacked with knives, and we too far from our other tribe people to call for help, so friends and I stayed and try to chase men away. But they strong. In end, my friends get hurt and go back home. I tied with rope and thrown into wagon with other friend. Never saw her again, never say goodbye to my mother and father...the men take me out of the desert. I deal with many more of them over the seasons, going from city to city. And now I'm here."

It felt weird, giving this stranger a brief overview of her life. In all honesty, there were plenty of other things that she could tell him. Like about how her parents taught her to stay cool in the merciless onslaught of heat, and how her father had taught her how to fight while her mother had given her a sense of self-worth. Or how she'd put up a hell of a fight when those strange men in their wagons came from over the sand dunes, with hunger in their eyes and corded ropes in their calloused hands. She'd fought like a demon, for herself and for her friends. She'd fought and fought and fought, but it hadn't been enough, and the one friend who'd been captured along with her had vanished.

She could have told the lawyer all of those things, if she'd tried. She wondered, for a moment, if he'd even care.

"Tawna" | "Common" | 'Thoughts' | Ruki

[Lucillus Nitrozian]

Lucillus Nitrozian

"Chaktawe", Yoona had called herself earlier, and that word kept floating through Luc's mind as he watched the woman settle uncomfortably into the ravasola. She's desert folk, so it only makes sense that she doesn't like boats too much. Watching the girl hold onto the vessel's railings for dear life was pretty funny, and it brought a completely genuine smile to the lawyer's face. A Chaktawe of Eyktol. I'll have to remember those black eyes and webbed feet for later... might come in handy one day. He wondered if all Chaktawe made such difficult slaves, and, if that was true, why anybody would ever bother purchasing them. Hopefully Yoona is the exception when it comes to their defiant streak... unfortunately, her freakish sense of rebellion probably coincides with her abnormally massive body. The way my luck works, the rest of the Chaktawe are going to be servile, but be thin as reeds and barely able to solve the age old question of what "two plus two" is. They'll be a race of gentle lambs, and I get dumped the only interesting one in the flock, that happens to be a wolf in disguise. Typical.

But as Yoona spoke, and imparted her story to him, Luc was able to muster enough respect for her to stop making wry observations and instead to actually listen to what she had to say. I only asked her because I wanted her to feel at ease with me, to get to dropping that hostile act she puts up... but I can't help but wonder what exactly brought somebody all the way from Eyktol to Ravok. He bent his head forward and clasped his hands on his lap, staring down at the bottom of the boat and nodding occasionally as the slave talked. "My family, my mother and father, we travel the land with our tribe. ...Chaktawe people made of three tribes, and ours was Suli. Vulture people." She began, telling the tale that Luc had heard a thousand times before. Really, every slave's story was the same at one point; no matter who they were, where they had come from, or what they had done in their past life, their journey into enslavement had robbed them forever of the world that they used to know and made them adopt a secondary identity, one that was more comfortable with chains and restraints. All the slaves that he had known throughout his life had created this dual persona, one which echoed their true feelings and desires, and the other that sought to appease the master. Yoona hasn't done this yet, but she will. With enough time, anyone can break. He wondered briefly what the significance of the vulture was to the Suli - perhaps they behaved like carrion and feasted off the dead, or else flew like birds over the desert sands - before deciding that he really didn't give a shyke.

The next part of her story - the abduction - was the part that really interested him. "Some strange men came in wagons around time that sun was starting to set. Men had traveled from somewhere...we knew they weren't of Eyktol, and were ready to fight if trouble came." From the sounds of it, the slavers that she first encountered couldn't have been Ravokian - Ravokians enslaved with contracts and sour business deals, not by attacking a woman brazenly and carting her off in a wagon. It was probably thugs from Sunberth that nabbed her, he thought. "In end, my friends get hurt and go back home. I tied with rope and thrown into wagon with other friend. Never saw her again, never say goodbye to my mother and father...the men take me out of the desert." At this, Luc felt something... strange echo within him, a feeling that he wasn't sure how to place. Yoona certainly was no great storyteller, and her tale, told through poorly-understood Common, wasn't in itself affecting. But he sensed more lurking beneath her surface, more than just a matter-of-fact retelling of how she came to be enslaved. There was anger there, black and twisted anger as dark as Rhysol's own heart, and tragedy as well. His imagination wandered, to conceive of the other horrors that had befallen Yoona on her journey to Ravok, and the thoughts he entertained chilled him.

And as he sat there and listened to the end of her story, a compulsion to speak came over him. While he tried to justify this as another attempt to control her, to usher her into a state of peace and amiability before he began his work to pacify her, Luc knew that he was only lying to himself. "You know," he began, his voice unexpectedly soft, "I once had a slave my parents picked out as a mentor for me. Kiala. She was a Konti, and pretty - unlike you, she was pretty in all the soft ways. Delicate. Graceful. She had this look about her, as if she were a work of glass that could shatter from a nasty drop. Because of that, I always thought Kiala was a push-over, and never really thought she had a fire in her. Then one of her fellow slaves started taking liberties with her and assumed that she would just buy into what he was selling. She grabbed a knife and stuck him three times in the chest." Of all the expressions that could have come to his face then, it was a smile that dominated Luc's features, as he shook his head with an air of nostalgia. "They chained her up in the cellar for that, and while she was imprisoned, I went to go talk to her. I asked her, 'Why did you attack that man, Kiala?' She had tears on her face, and for a while told me to go away. But I didn't leave, and eventually she gave up trying to hide me from the truth."

"She told me of how she had first been captured. While on her - her quest or Call or whatever it is the Konti do, she found herself visiting the city of Syliras. You gotta know about Syliras; it's big, huge, and policed by a group of knights that are probably worse than the Stryfe." He shook his head then, wary of getting off point. "But it's safe, safer than most of the world by a great deal. Kiala loved it, up until the day when she ended up enslaved. She had been visiting the region's forests - the Bronze Woods, they call them - when she struck upon a group of loggers that had set up a big camp near the trade road. The loggers invited her to their fire and shared their supper with her, and she became deliriously happy among their number. They even offered her a place to stay the night, which was an offer that she was glad to accept. And, for a while, she was at peace." He took a deep breath, dreading to recite this next part of the city. "Then, halfway through the night, the first logger stumbled drunkenly into her tent, with fingers that were too friendly and lips that couldn't keep to themselves. She got him to leave through persuasion, but wasn't so lucky with the second one... Kiala had to fight that beast off. And the third - well, she didn't manage to fight off the third, or the next one after that, or the next one after that. When all was said and done, she was left crying on the borrowed bedroll and thought she was going to die, and wondered how a place like Syliras could be host to such vicious animals. Then the morning came, and she found herself getting passed like a sack of flour into a stranger's wagon. The loggers, you see, ran to send word to a slaver that was operating in the Bronze Woods, and ended up getting paid a nice fee for simultaneously capturing and 'breaking' in a new Konti girl."

But the loggers were paid for deeds they didn't end up committing. Kiala had been bruised... but never broken. Staring off into space, his eyes lazily following the buildings that surrounded either side of the canal, Luc eventually shifted his gaze to Yoona and offered her a quiet smile. "You remind me of her... sort of. It's that spirit you have. You don't back down from somebody because he's better armed than you, because he's got more friends, because he's telling you he's your master. The rules of his world, the rules that he plays by, aren't something that bothers you. You make your own rules." The lawyer nodded slowly, playing idly with the handle of his scrollcase. "Kiala taught me to do that. She said, 'This world is never going to make sense to you, so there's no logic in believing the truths of others. All you should believe is what your heart tells you.' And I've always followed that advice. I mean - " He wanted to say more, but the presence of the nearby ravasolaman, as well as the indecision that lurked within his own heart, crippled his efforts to speak. Frustrated, Luc fell into a sombre silence, biting down on his lip and abstaining from sparing glances at the nearby Yoona.

[Yoona]

Despite her discomfort, and the sickening way that her stomach seemed to lurch whenever the boat swayed a little, Yoona settled into her seat and listened to the lawyer's story. The tendency to smile that the man had wasn't as annoying or off-putting as it had been chimes ago. Now, his smiles seemed to be more...genuine. Real, as if they were coming from some kinder place deep down inside of him. A less scary, less threatening place. Maybe if they weren't on a boat in the middle of an ungodly amount of water, the Chakawe woman could have managed a smile, herself.

Yoona didn't know much about the Konti people, besides the facts that they were all female, extremely pale-skinned, and "pretty in all the soft ways" as Luc so eloquently put. She wasn't sure whether or not the "pretty" quip was a compliment towards her, but chose not to mull over it before she gave herself a reason to snap at the man. He was telling her a meaningful tale, and she soon found that she was actually interested in hearing it. The Chaktawe woman gave slight nods to show that she was following and understanding, along with an especially affirming one when he mentioned his slave having stabbed a man in the chest. Obviously, it was in self-defense; the man had been too reckless around the woman, and she had given him what he deserved. Yoona could see herself doing the same thing, if not more discreetly. That the woman had been chained for her actions made the Chaktawe woman frown. 'He says that she was delicate...I wonder if the woman tried to fight off the ones who chained her? ...No, probably not. She knew what she was doing when she struck that wretch. She knew the risks, too.'

Yoona kept listening, leaning forward enough so that she could rest her chin on an open palm while the other arm stayed on her lap, her void-like eyes set on the lawyer. And the frown upon her face only grew as he recounted the slave-girl's horrifying ordeal. The woman had met kindly strangers and given them her trust, only to be ultimately betrayed in the end and taken advantage of. Violated by drunkards and sold off into slavery...what a horrid twist of luck. Yoona could feel herself empathizing with the girl's plight, but within ticks that empathy began to morph into white-hot anger. It showed on her face a little, her gaze hardening and her lips drawing into a thin line.

Those filthy roaches...the Chaktawe woman couldn't help but put herself in the woman's place for a moment, mind wandering to conjure up all sorts of things that she would have done to the men who touched her. Not a face would have been un-bruised, not a finger un-broken, by the time that she'd been taken away from that house.

Then the lawyer said something that roused her out of her thoughts, bringing her attention back to his face.

"You remind me of her... sort of."

Yoona blinked at him, unsure of what to say. He went on, talking about spirit and how she'd chosen to play by her own rules. This Kiala sounded like a wise woman; the world was indeed a confusing, disorienting place, with hundreds upon thousands of ways of life and rules that seemed to change everywhere you went. Why waste your time trying to follow such things, when it was so much easier to make your own way? Why depend on anyone else's sense of reason above your own? In the end, the best idea was always to believe in your own abilities, and believe in your own logic to lead you through things. People deceived other people. Those who wished to survive didn't deceive themselves.

All of a sudden Luc seemed to stop himself from talking, turning away from her in favor of staring at the ground. Yoona raised an eyebrow at him, confused. She kind of wanted to hear what else he was going to say.

The silence went on for around a chime as she waited for him to speak, again. Finally, she decided to step in and say a few words. "Your Kiala was very smart. My pride and my power...they only things I have left, only things I really own. My home is taken, my family and friends are gone...I can't lose other things. I can't let people take those things, too. So I follow my heart, and do what it tells me to do. It good way to live."

Just then, a wave of seriousness swept over Yoona's face, and her gaze turned intense.

"I can trust you...? Be honest. You help me, and I want to trust you, but I don't know."

"Tawna" | "Common" | 'Thoughts' | Ruki

[Lucillus Nitrozian]

Lucillus Nitrozian

Luc had always figured that he had a knack for analyzing people.

It was a gift that had made itself evident in his earlier years, when strange, insightful comments from the outcast boy of the Nitrozians made servant's heads turn and his father's gaze widen. Usually it would be a glib remark of some kind, meant only to cajole and amuse himself, but sometimes the comments he made bordered on the cruel and the explicitly manipulative. He didn't know when he had first started dissecting people en masse to try and discover their secrets, work out how to make them tick, but he knew that it had been his favorite game to play for years and years and years. He had a talent for making his family members pissed off, appeased, or frightened with just a clever twist of a phrase or lift of his voice.. at least, that was how he chose to remember his childhood. And that talent had persisted throughout his life, making itself invaluable to him in his legal profession. While he was, admittedly, no master at the craft, and often proved to be wrong more often than he thought himself right, Luc still felt as if he had a good insight into how people behaved. He had, after all, thus far managed to play Yoona in almost the exact manner he wanted to push her, barring the odd kick-to-the-crotch. Analyzing the emotions of others came as almost second nature to him...

but when it came time to figure out the way his own head worked? Petch me, I don't even understand why I get up in the mornings.

So Luc sat frustrated in the ravasola as it continued to make its way down the canal, completely lost as to why he had even bothered sharing the story of Kiala and what he had been hoping to accomplish with the telling of it. Taken at face value, the event wasn't much to get troubled by; the Konti was just another slave, one of the many he had known throughout his life, and her history did not affect his own present circumstances. Logically, he should have no trouble disclosing the tale... but his relationship with the slave girl had never been based on logic. Kiala's past, and later fate, were secrets that Luc held tightly to his chest and didn't like to let go of, even among his more familiar confidants. To think that he had just flippantly told this random slave, as well as a gossiping ravasolaman, the tale was insane to even consider. What was I thinking? He kept asking himself, digging two fingers into his temples. I didn't really just tell Yoona all of that to gain her trust, right? ... Why am I even hoping to gain her trust? What the hell am I doing here? His emotions were askew right now, scattered as if they were the contents of his scrollcase caught in a summer whirlwind.

The Chaktawe wasn't making things easier. "I can trust you...? Be honest. You help me, and I want to trust you, but I don't know." She said, the comment striking Luc unexpectedly and making his head perk up, his eyebrows lifting and his mouth going slightly agape. "Ah," he breathed, his tongue pregnant with pause. The easy thing to do would be to say that yes , I can be trusted, even though I know for a fact that isn't true. The temptation to lie was very, very difficult for him to shake, especially with how difficult sorting through the rest of his emotions proved to be. The Nitrozian took a few moments to think, falling silent and staring once more into that idle space between the background and nothing, the lights in his ears dark and flickering. Can Yoona trust me? He asked himself, and he honestly wasn't sure what the answer was. Part of him wanted to break her rebellious spirit and delight in her troubles, for she posed a defiant challenge to him that he would relish combating. Another part wanted to bring her along to the estate, butter her up with sweets and gifts, and then enjoy the simpler pleasures of life with her on the bedroom floor. And another part entirely wanted to become friends with her, and see if he could make the bitter slave girl laugh. More than anything else, he wanted to go hit up a drug den and see if he couldn't descend into a wild and mind-numbing high, to wipe clean the painful memories of Kiala. "I-"

The sudden rocking of the boat cut him off from speaking, as the ravasola abruptly stopped travelling through the canal and halted at a set of well-maintained wooden docks. "We're here," the ravasolaman intoned, gesturing with his oar at the now-looming Nitrozian estate. Luc, in his drifting state of mind, hadn't noticed the ravasola pass the more lavish, expensive buildings of the Noble District, and certainly didn't see the high walls of his estate approaching in the distance. Now it stood before them, tall and opulent, its many large windows lit from within with warm candlelight. Of the three structures that composed the estate, the ravasolaman had dropped them off at the first and the grandest, the building that actually provided lodgings for blooded Nitrozians. There were no guards that patrolled the outside, but instead a set of double doors that lay open, waiting for them. Beckoning like the gates of Hai itself.

Nodding to the boatman and stepping out of the ravasola, Luc hauled himself onto the docks, stood tall, and breathed deeply. Now that we're the estate, I'll have to find a good spot for Yoona to hide out the next few days... and see if I can't prevent her from garnering any unwarranted suspicion... and figure out if there's anyway that I can use her services in the next few days. The steady, dreamlike quality of traveling in the ravasola had worn off for the adventurous lawyer, who no longer entertained thoughts of whether or not he was trustworthy. There was only the now that he had to prepare for, and he was privately excited about how much trouble he could get into for the next four days with Yoona hovering around. Turning to the slave girl still stuck in the ravasola, since he was standing in her path, Luc stepped back and offered her a hand. "You can trust me," he murmured, his smile full and bright. "I understand you, and you understand me. What could go wrong?"

[Nemesis]

Lucillus Nitrozian

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Investigation	+1
Negotiation	+2
Observation	+2
Persuasion	+3
Rhetoric	+3
Socialisation	+2
Storytelling	+1
Weapon: Knife	+1

Lores

*Chaktawe: Desert Folk
*Yoona: Chaktawe
*Yoona: Slave of Ebonstryfe Soldier

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*+1 slave for four days

Yoona

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Brawling	+1
Investigation	+1
Negotiation	+1
Observation	+2
Rhetoric	+1
Running	+2
Socialisation	+1
Storytelling	+1
Unarmed Combat	+1

Lores

*Lucillus Nitrozian: Ravokian Lawyer
*Lucillus Nitrozian: Problematic
*Rumour: Giant Fish

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*None

____________________________________________

Notes

*Lovely thread, guys!
*Looking forward to seeing more interaction, possibly another thread four days hence? :3

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