Closed Newcomers (Rufio, Brocton)

[Rufio]

　　
　　　　" the Zith would want them?"

　　　　　　　　Waisana asked after her "bone magic".

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Rufio felt a wince inside her at the lie, though she held it at her core and let her freckled features remain in their dreading, fearful, stressed state to conceal it. It chafed lightly against the grain of her morality.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Useful.

Rufio took pause a tick. That word, useful, had shown up thrice now in the precious chimes that had passed since the Zith had carried the newcomers here, had ripped into the flock of frightened Drykas and declared a feast on the weak and wounded.

Understanding sunk slowly into her weary thoughts, fluttered subtly in the lay of her hands as she listened to Waisana. The Zith would kill her if she was not useful.

Rufio’s ochre orbs danced across the fierce beasts, trying to study her captors. Her dark brow furrowed as she let empathy take her into the gaze of the Zith; she tried to imagine what talismans or magics a Zith might desire.

They were ferocious warriors, hunters. Something within her took in their bestial demeanor, and the way they dove in to tear wounded captives apart, like wolves into the weakest of a herd. Yet they were a formidable foe to the Drykas for their cunning. Surely, they had society, even hierarchy maybe.

As Waisana tended to her ankle, the prodding and probing distracted her with a wince. She gestured useful, desirable magic. “I can make talismans for the Zith from the bones. Talismans that make a hunter best, or, or, give strength, to be the strongest of all Zith, or, I can, I can see the future!”

“Make Zith powerful.” She said finally in Common. Though she had spoken mostly in Pavi, letting Waisana translate, she faced the Zith that watched hungrily, gesturing strongly. I am not weak. She hoped her speech conveyed, while nerves fluttered in her gut.

The Drykas would come.
Ixzo would come for her.

“I can fix her-” Waisana called out, and as she suggested ways Rufio might heal quickly, the fortune-teller nodded along keenly. So, elevate her ankle and put cold rags on to take the heat out of it. Sure, get better quickly, rather than be eaten, she thought.

Her mistrust ebbing slightly, Rufio could see that the doctor, as broken and beaten as she was, was protecting her. Warmly she gestured her heartfelt thanks and made a promise. Hope keep, live, survive together, strong, repay some day.
　　

[Waisana]

Waisana had been trying to hammer home the significance of being useful in their current environment. She'd done her utmost to stress the fact but it took time for it to properly sink in. Bewilderment and fear sat upon Rufio's features, the potential for survival not seeming to reach her initially. She saw the shift to understanding as her eyes widened before flitting off to look at the Zith. She didn't know what the other was thinking as her gaze danced over the winged brutes but when the doctor had her attention once more, something in her had changed again. Her probing had produced a wince but she didn't think that this shift had been brought about by pain. When she spoke again, she seemed more sure of herself, more aware that she was selling herself through the blonde. The teen listened intently, ready to translate when she had the entirety of the message.

The Zith she'd spoken to had returned with the requested supplies and the she-beast watched Rufio with hungry and mistrustful eyes. Waisana busied herself with the treatment of the mixed blood's ankle, dipping the cloths in water and draping them over the swollen, reddened flesh to try to return it to its typical state. She heard the low growl but she didn't look up, allowing the beast to simmer until she snapped out a question.

"What is she saying? What does she hide? She knows we not understand that speak," she hissed, stalking forward to wrench at the doctor's shoulder, forcing her to acknowledge her and her anger. Flinching and grimacing in response to the nail tips that jabbed her flesh in a threatening manner. Her blue eyes darted up to the creature's face, wide with pain and fear and she stuttered some intelligible sounds before biting her tongue and allowing her a few moments to compose herself sufficiently.

"She hides nothing! She cannot speak Common! I asked her what she can do," she explained hastily, almost tripping over her words in her panic. "She has special magic for making Zith better hunter, better warrior. She uses bones for special magic. She says she can find out what will come, what will happen in days to come!"

The Zith weren't creatures who had much of an understanding of time in the future tense. They weren't overly concerned about the past either. They usually concentrated on the present but that didn't mean that they were completely ignorant that there was more to come. Often, they just didn't act as if it was going to happen at all. Considering how easily they could maim or kill one another if the feeling was on them, it wasn't all that surprising that they didn't tend to think of the future; they might not live to see tomorrow after all.

The she-beast cocked her head to the side, dark eyes narrowed as she considered the doctor's words. Her eyes slid across to the other captive, perhaps trying to determine if she had the appearance of one who could support such claims. The grip left her shoulder, a throbbing left behind as a reminder of its recent presence. Waisana massaged it quickly before turning her attention back to her patient. Raising Rufio's leg, she rested the young woman's foot on her own sore shoulder, praying to Rak'keli that the girl wouldn't come to harm at the near claws of the beast.

"She can make Zith better Zith? With bones?" the creature asked uncertainly. The blonde head bobbed up and down in enthusiastic assent, the injured limb jiggling because of it. Waisana smiled apologetically, resting gentle hands on the wet cloths to apply a slight pressure to the swelled joint. When the cloth lost its initial chill, she would dip it in the water again before reapplying it. As the Zith lapsed into silence, the blonde murmured softly to the other.

"I think she believes you." Say nothing, quiet, dangerous.

[Rufio]

　　
　　　　 when the Zith spoke (growled?), Rufio sensed the uncertainty there. The teetering, hovering posture that in a Drykas might have been mended into signs of seeking. As Waisana tended to her wounded ankle, though, the fortune-teller-now-fictional-bone-magician winced and hissed.

The doctor's apologetic smile eased her, though, and she smiled back, thankful. Like Syna's light etching warmth into ice-weary bones, Rufio's trust was melting, drip-by-drip. The fortune-teller wondered if Waisana hid her hope, let it be embers hidden within the charcoal.

For she saw it spark now, lit by the hope that the Zith believed Rufio. That Rufio might be safe, for a while at least. It glowed in Waisana's smudged features, from someplace within. She hasn't given up, not wholly.

Rufio thought through the haze of throbbing pain. A weariness seeped into her bones then, and she lay down against the uncomfortable rock. Against the bones of Semele, she marveled idly. The Drykas dared not speak yet, obeying Waisana's hush, heeding her.

With a subtle flicker of her ochre gaze, Rufio peered at the rest of the Drykas. The Zith had finished with ripping into the weak and bloody. They were huddling, now, against some ruined rocks, trying to draw mercy in their quiet whimpers, resting, for now.

Relief was ebbing gently under the thrum of fear that coursed in her veins, constant. Nevertheless, as Rufio looked at the cowering Drykas, guarded by a few Zith, her gaze was caught by the rocks around them. The crevices etched so neatly, as if- yes, Rufio's gaze widened lightly- as if they were put there by the hands of men. Or beast.

Huge bricks, laid slab against slab, crumbling with age. As realization struck her, she realised that within the natural curves of the cavern were the ruins of civilization. It gave her breath pause. "Waisana." Rufio's voice a murmur, nearly a whisper.

She gestured to the walls, subtly so as not to attract wandering Zith eyes. "Do you see the ruins?" A glimmer of hope kindled in her with the realisation.

Rufio spoke in Common now, trying her best to put memory into broken wording. "Here is story." History, her sign fluttered. "The story Drykas. Time big, in the past. My father-" Knew story.

"Big wind and rain. Syna, no many day." She spoke of the Valterrian, though she didn't know to call it that, instead, a Great Storm. "Story son to son to son." Passed down through the generations. "Drykas home here in the past." This used to be our home. Ancestors said her sign, a deep reverence to the shape of her hands.

Her smile glowed beneath her sweat-licked freckles with serendipitous superstition. Even stolen and torn from their people and their striders, the Drykas' might find survival in the bones of Semele.

Rufio could tell not what bell of day or night it was, whether Syna or Leth shone, but she yawned then, circadian rhythm not yet ruined by underground life.

As the night drew late, the bells wee, Rufio took Waisana's hand and asked with her eyes if she would stay with her on the cavern floor. "Waisana..." She whispered in Pavi, casting a nervous glance towards the Zith guards, in case they might approach.

"What happens to us now? What do the Zith want with Drykas they do not kill? When did you come here? How have you lived?"

　　　　　Rufio's voice was full of an odd kind of awe, wondering at how Waisana had survived the ferocious whims of her captures, for it seemed it had been a long time since she had seen Syna's touch. Though she could not stay awake to hear Wasiana's answer, if she did answer.

As adrenaline ebbed the fatigue of the battle and flight and all the terror that had gripped her since the fires made heavy her bones. As sleep crept in, her thoughts turned to the fires that had engulfed the steppe, rose up like roaring traps.

　　　　　Her thoughts turned to Ixzo.
　　　"Be safe, my sister." She whispered in Shiber.
　　　　　　　　Rufio slept, clutching her bones.

　　

[Waisana]

Rufio's eyes were on her, the new captive taking her cue from the doctor. She had told her to be quiet and she had obeyed but now she could feel herself being read
as the ochre eyes searched for what she should do next. Waisana tried to avoid that gaze, desperately trying to determine how she convey one thing to the girl and another to the Zith. The she-beast moved away from them but was still watching them closely, no doubt looking for signs of suspicious activity so that she'd have the excuse to pounce on them. The blonde had to keep her movements slow, her actions obvious, all of her body language screaming perfect innocence. As a result, it wasn't really possible for her to provide comfort and reassurance to Rufio without doing it furtively. As it was, she had no intention of filling her new companion of the hopelessness of the situation and so while she wouldn't exactly lie, she was likely to betray that she wasn't providing all of the information. That betrayal of body language wasn't something she could afford given that the Zith would spot it and likely misinterpret it.

The entire situation was one big headache just waiting to bow her down and leave her curled up in a ball on the floor, begging for the world to leave her be.

When the other finally spoke, the Drykas teen looked directly at her and had to suppress a wince as their eyes met briefly. She moved her gaze to see what Rufio was looking at and then nodded disinterestedly. She'd been here for quite some time at this stage and had worked out that they must be ruins. She'd wondered a little about them, wondering if the Akalak or someone else had built them out on plains. She didn't know where they were so she didn't really know much about it.

Rufio seemed to know something about it though and the teen listened with interest, her words a welcome change to the environment that she'd endured over the course of her captivity. Her curiosity was stirred and she listened closely, gaze flickering to Rufio's hands when she utilised Grassland Sign alongside her Common. The talk caused the she-beast to drift nearer, watching the through narrowed eyes before she grew bored and obviously perceived their conversation as harmless.

So this had once belonged to the Drykas and now in a twisted way it belonged to them once again. The Zith had moulded it to their own purposes and forced their slaves to live and work in it. They had literally gone back to their roots but she wondered if the structure had always been underground. She couldn't picture her people bearing to be away from the sky but then she couldn't envision them residing in solid, fixed structures either. Clearly things had changed over the years.

Rufio's questions surprised her and her eyes flickered furtively around her to. Are sure that no one was listening. She kept her gaze casually averted, trying to seem nonchalant to any observers while she contemplated how to answer.

"I don't know how long I've been here," she admitted in slow Common. "I stopped asking the day when new people came. I have had other thoughts, other things to do. It feels like a long time but no light. I do not see Syna or Leth. I do not know," she admitted, skirting around the question of what happened next. She didn't particularly want to discuss how she'd survived this long. The subject wasn't a pleasant one to her given that she'd done things or allowed things to be done to her that turned her stomach. Or worse still, she'd grown insensitive to things that had once sickened her so that she could now endure some things with an air of complete disinterest.

"When you are healed, they will put you to work. They make people move the stones, pick plants, whatever they need," she explained, glancing towards her companion as she prepared to take the bull by the horns and tell her those things she didn't want to voice. However, when she caught sight of the young woman, she realized that she'd fallen asleep. She leaned close and whispered Rufio's name and when she didn't stir, she covered the girl and set off in search of Massacre, determining to find the Zith before she came looking for her instead.

----

When Waisana awoke, there was no real change in the caves. Fires still burned, tended by various human slaves. The doctor looked over to where she'd left Rufio, her own bedding close to the new captive's; she'd ensured that they remained close when she settled down for the night--if it could be called that given the absence of features of day or night. The young woman had not yet stirred from what the doctor could tell but then looks could be deceiving. Most of the Zith seemed to be sleeping so it seemed to be day, which was not a time that Waisana was accustomed to waking at anymore. She didn't know if it was early or late in the day though or how long she'd slept. She felt rested or at least, she didn't feel as if she' could drop back to sleep. She wondered if the other girl was awake but hadn't stirred from her blankets yet. She'd be in pain so there wasn't really any reason for her to make an attempt at rising.

"Rufio, are you awake? she asked in soft Pavi.

[Kayak]

 

Waisana

Skills
Observation: 3
Leadership: 2
Subterfuge: 1
Medicine: 1
Persuasion: 1
Socialization: 1
Lores
Zith Captivity: Screams are an unsettling constant
Massacre the Zith: Doesn't like when humans scream
Kissing a Zith can be painful and aggressive
Rufio knows some herbalism
Rufio, Bone Witch, maker of talismans, see of futures
Zith: Untrusting of those that cannot speak Common
Ancestral Story: Ruins after a Great Storm
Zith: Living within ancient Drykas Ruins
Miscellaneous

 

Notes and Comments

CS Checkmarked: ✓
CS Reviewed by Me: ✓
Season Request was Submitted for Grade: Summer 517
Season Thread was Started (IC & OOC): Fall 516 & Fall 516
Is that Season's expenses paid?: X but was enslaved by Zith that season and includes the appropriate notation in ledger.
Eligible for grade? Yes

 

Brocton Firestone

Hello Brocton,

I'm withholding your grade since your character is retired. Should you return from retirement, send me a PM and I will release your grade.

Thanks!

 

Notes and Comments

CS Checkmarked: ✓ or X
CS Reviewed by Me: ✓ or X
Season Request was Submitted for Grade:
Season Thread was Started (IC & OOC): IC & OOC
Is that Season's expenses paid?: ✓ or X
Eligible for grade? Yes or No

 

Rufio

Skills
Intimidation: 1
Escape Artist: 1
Leadership: 1
Subterfuge: 2
Observation: 2
Socialization: 1
Lores
Zith: Feed only the special slaves
Zith: Wish to be entertained by slaves
Waisana, Doctor and leader
Zith: Will kill useless slaves
Ancestral Story: Ruins after a Great Storm
Zith: Living within ancient Drykas Ruins
Miscellaneous

 

Notes and Comments

CS Checkmarked: ✓
CS Reviewed by Me: ✓
Season Request was Submitted for Grade: Summer 517
Season Thread was Started (IC & OOC): Fall 516 & Fall 516
Is that Season's expenses paid?: ✓
Eligible for grade? Yes

A fun insight into the lives of those captured by Zith. Interesting to see what people will do to survive captivity (Zith kisser!). Well done! Please mark your post in queue as graded.

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