Screeching Steel in a Silent Wood (Larcen)

[Dimitri]

Spring 18, 511 AV

Dimitri approached the stables, the sun on it's descent down the sky. His sword hung from his belt, his shield on his back. He talked to the squire and borrowed a paintedmount. He preferred to ride bareback. He approached the mount, and noticed it whinnied nervously. He calmed the horse by rubbing it's snout and neck. "Shh girl. Easy. I won't hurt you." The horse appeared to relax a bit, and Dimitri moved in next to it. He climbed up the side of the stall and climbed over onto it's back. It's back was narrower than he was used to, so he would have to be careful or he would get some severe bruising.

Steering with his knees and propping up using his thighs he drove it out of the stable, nodding at the younger squire who stared at him as if he were already a Knight. He flashed a smile, and lead it into they yard. He walked it into the road and lead it to the main gates. The gate guards nodded at him as he walked it out of the protection of Syliras' high walls. He then had it go into a trot and followed the road into the woods. He trotted avoiding potholes and debris, checking citizens as he passed, conversing with patrolling Knights. He then took it off the road on a whim and road it over logs, leading it through the trees. He arrived at a small pond, when he heard a thunking sound. He looked around to find the source of the noise suspecting another person nearby.

[Larcen]

Whumpf.

The peculiar noise of cold steel thudding dead-on into gnarled bark rang through the air. A madly-vibrating dagger of a Sunberth design stood pierced in the bark, shaking violently with the convulsions of the mighty throw that had launched it lackadaisically into the dead tree. In quick succession, two more daggers soared through the air, spinning forward in rapid arcs to join their embedded fellow.

Whumft!! Thunk!

Two more gleaming blades joined the first in the tree, shaking madly just as the first dagger's aftershock vibrations died away. The shady trees rustled noisily seconds after the three knives had been thrown towards the dead tree being used as a dagger target. From the dense canopy of forestation, a low meowr sound could be heard, and shortly after a handsome tabby cat leaped from the topmost branches towards a lower branch, perching itself there contentedly. It pawed at one of the daggers curiously, meowed in a haughty sort of way, and then settled into a lying position just as the shrubbery parted to admit a most shady character. Dressed from head to toe in the colors of the night, with a hood over his head, a mask draped across his face, and a lengthy cloak worn over his body, obscuring grayish leather armor studded with pointy rivets, the grim figure halted before the tree and observed the sight of it with three daggers buried into the bark.

"Meowr," commented Mister Fluffy.

"I agree," Larcen mused. "The last few throws were more accurate. Think I'm losing my edge?"

"Meowr!"

Larcen blinked, then shrugged. "Need more practice you say? Perhaps. Perhaps."

The tabby's ears perked up as the black-clad man approached the tree. "Meowr?"

"No, there's no need to move from there, Mister Fluffy. That's it for today." Reaching forward, Larcen plucked the daggers out one by one, with some difficulty, for his throw had been the hard, unskilled fling of a long-time amateur rather than the honed toss of a true veteran. As soon as all three daggers were extricated from the bark's grasp, Larcen begun pricking stray bits of bark off the blades' surface, then slipped them into his belt one by one. It was then he heard the familiar clop-clop of a horse. It sounded like it was nearby. Wild? He doubted it. This wasn't raw land roamed by the barbaric horseclans. That meant there was a rider on it.

Instinctively, Larcen ducked behind the tree he had been using seconds before for target practice, and stealthily shuffled his body out of sight. Mister Fluffy leaped off the tree branch he was on, and landed neatly on the ground on all fours, then proceeded to pat away at the ground to conceal his master's footsteps and eradicate the tracks. Larcen might choose to show himself. He might not. It all depended on who it was who happened to be visiting. A pursuer? Likely. A friend? He had none. A stranger? Hopefully. Like as not, they would notice the grooves in the tree where the daggers had been.

[Dimitri]

Dimitri rode into a small clearing in the trees. He wondered why the birds in the area were silent but shrugged it off. He was beginning to enjoy the fresh, woody air of the forest. His horse crunched along the ground. Then Dimitri saw a cat near a tree. It looked quite out of place. Wild cats weren't uncommon, but this one didn't look like a feral, wild cat. He merely assumed maybe it was a housepet that got loose.

He ignored the cat and was about to continue onward, when a strange sight caught his eye. The surface of a tree appeared disturbed, and looked rather recent. He rode his horse up to the tree, and saw it pocked with long, deep slits. They didn't look like the holes of arrows, so he assumed some sort of smaller blade, a dagger perhaps. He noticed the bark around the slits was pulled away, obviously when the weapon was removed. He saw flecks of wood down on the ground possibly from sticking to the blade and removed. He began looking around making sure he wasn't about to be ambushed. He hopped off his horse and drew his sword and shield. Maybe he was being paranoid but he began looking around for any other sign of a person.

[Larcen]

From the sound of the clinking of armor and the disciplined halt of the steed as soon as the rider dismounted, Larcen was guessing he had just bumped into the worst possible kind of stranger. A knightly one.

And, judging from the sounds of passage getting closer to him, it was also an inquisitive stranger. Damn it all. What a horrible time to get in a pickle. The black-clad man edged against the tree bark as the squire approached, trying to stay out of sight. His mind raced with possible options to this situation, none of them looking too good in prospects. Whistleblowers, they were, these squire types. And likely to be suspicious of a well-armed man dressed in black prowling about the forest. How could he pass this off? He was amiable towards the Syliran Knights, but they had always been rather guarded towards him. What to do, what to do ...

Shwinngg.

Oh and look, now he had drawn his weapons. This was just fantastic. Larcen fingered the hilt of his dagger, but thought the better of it. Drawing a blade was likely to make a jumpy squire turn into a hostile squire. The best approach, he supposed, would be to remove the squire's suspicions and prove himself as a mere wandering mercenary type who had stopped by the woods to train a little. He clicked his tongue, loud enough for Dimitri to hear, causing Mister Fluffy to bound towards him, then leap up onto his shoulder and set his paws on Larcen's head for support. Thus peculiar, Larcen stepped away from the tree and made himself known to the squire, walking into sight with a forced casual-looking gait.

"Odd place for a squire to be," he queried in a hoarse, distinctly scratchy sort of voice. Mister Fluffy meowed at Dimitri in a lackadaisical manner, as if disinterested. "What brings you out here this day, my friend?"

[Dimitri]

Dimitri watched the darkclad man walk out from behind the tree, the cat he saw earlier sitting atop him. While Dimitri hadn't seen the man doing anything illegal, the fact he was hiding behind a tree. While he lowered his sword, he kept it ready and didn't put it away. "Odd place to be hiding, I appeared to have interrupted some training? Mind telling me with what? As for what I'm doing, I'm merely riding and patrolling, looking for dangerous beasts and suspicious activities. Like hiding."

While Dimitri figured this man was totally innocent, at least for this particular moment, he had to harass him slightly. A man in dark clothing could be anything. A man practicing a throwing blade of some sort, in dark clothing, could be anything. But when that man hid, he immediately became a man with a secret, a man with a reason to hide. He figured nothing would happen or had happened, but better to keep these types on their toes and worried about consequences than thinking it a lawless land outside the walls. But Syliras influence extended far beyond it's wall. And it was up to patrolling knights and the occassional curious squire to keep it that way.

[Leviathan]

Thread Award! Dimitri   Skills Skill Gain Info. Riding 1 -- Observation 1 -- Interrogation 1 --   Lore N/A Larcen   Skills Skill Gain Info. Weapon (Throwing Knife) 1 -- Observation 1 --   Lore N/A