[Vitrax] Steam. (Rycust)

[Damijan]

Note for the Moderator.Please feel free to join us! This is a training/let's-be-friends-or-at-least-not-enemies thread for Damijan & Rycust, but Mod participation is always welcomed. And please feel free to point out if I'm RPing anything incorrectly -- I'm still learning the city. 30th Spring, 510 A.V. Damijan hated being home. There was just an unbearable...homeness...about it. Nothing ever changed; everything was always the same. Ravok, the lake city, with its bright lights to cast deeper shadows into every corner, where the uglier things crept. But they were familiar ugly things that Damijan had grown up with; so few surprises lurked within the city for him. It felt suffocating, like he'd claw his own throat out if he didn't get a breath of something new, of something unexpected. Things were built up and torn down, politics knifed and bled; power shifted here and there, but nothing particularly notable. Rhysol still held the city in his invisible vice-grip; the Ebonstryfe still skulked through the streets like feeding cockroaches. He didn't have anything against the Ebonstryfe; they were just boring. Probably they were only boring because he came from a family full of them; they were uncreative. Predictable. Sure they were terrifying in their precision, horrific in the firmness of their belief and unyielding in the task of broadening their master's dominion, but he'd always scoffed at the idea of a religious army -- privately, of course. Rhysol wanted power, but he used his little minions to do the dirty work. Damijan wanted his own petching power, thank you, and his own minions, and he wasn't opposed to dirty work, frankly enjoyed the occasional blood beneath his fingernails after a bender through the abattoir. Not to knock Rhysol for style points, 'cause he certainly had them, but this son of Lazerin had no intentions of striking forth in the name of anyone but his damned self. But there was to be no striking out in the foreseeable future, not for Damijan. The hideous scar marring the left side of his throat, though covered over with a thick, intricate black tattoo, was fresh enough and angry enough to give pause to his dreams of overachievement. Which only served to make him more pissed off than he was on a daily basis. Stuck, then, in this city of canals and carnal bullshit. Trapped beneath his parents' roof -- the ever-extending, sprawling ceiling, that seemed, to him, to take up the entire sky above the city. Caged once more in his own name; bound by tradition and legacy and pinned beneath the eyes of Rhysol and all his followers. Shit-eating cocksmack, he decided. Fucking douchebag god. He prowled through the Training Hall of The Vitrax that morning more out of boredom than anything. He grew agitated when he grew bored; the lingering lack of purpose and the dull ache of shame in his heart didn't improve his already blackened disposition any either. He wasn't a soldier, but he moved among them like he belonged there – a fighter, at least, a noble son of Ravok with every right to pace down that hall if he so chose. Arrogance in the tilt of his chin just so, and aggression in the shift of his shoulders; months, he'd spent, recovering from the wound that sped him home. For weeks now, he'd been storming around his family's estate, infuriating anyone who got near him, and so at last the physicians said he was well enough to turn loose on the rest of the city. So he did, and in style. Clad in black and red, the clothes tailored and artfully fit, he may have been, at first glance, too beautiful to appeal to one's sense of self-preservation. The scarred cutlass slung low on his hip spoke to that fear, to the danger he presented. A fight; he wanted a fight. Something to remind him of who he was, what he'd once been capable of, before idiocy and weakness had damned him back to this carnival of frippery fuckheads and self-righteous power-mongers. A younger Ebonstryfe soldier clipped his shoulder as he passed (though he may have actually instigated the blow), and Damijan pivoted on a heel and growled, “Watch where you're fucking going, shithead,” like it was his training hall, which of course it wasn't. Rhysol would forgive him. Or he wouldn't, but either way, the young Lazerin would still get the fight he sought.

[Rycust Erryt]

Rycust traversed the Vitrax with a new sense of pride and ownership. His chin was held high and there was a solidity in his step that wasn't there before this Spring. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that he belonged here. There was no questioning whether he deserved to be here. This place was now as much his as it was any other person's on Mizahar. He earned the right to walk this way, at least through the Vitrax. His newfound sense of pride and confidence carried over into his appearance as well. He had just taken a bath and had his hair styled in a composed kind of disarray that lent itself perfectly to the nature of Rycust and his order. His clothes were fully cleaned, but they were covered by his imposing, black, studded leather armor. His armor was also in perfect condition, with the steel studs polished and the leather underneath as black as Rhysol's soul itself. Recent events had led him into battle and he found that fight with armor and without it were two very different things, and he hoped to increase his endurance with the former. Thus he strolled through the Vitrax, confident in his step, searching out a worthy opponent or teacher with whom to conduct this day's training. It was during his initial stroll through the Ebonstryfe training hall when his shoulder was rocked by a passing man. An anger rose in Rycust, as the blow was most certainly not an accident. As he turned, he put his hand on the hilt of his short-sword, thinking that it was some inexperienced hot-head, from whom he could scare an apology. As he met the arrogant prick's gaze, the instigator had the gall to spout an insult "Watch where you're fucking going, shithead." Rycust was surprised to see that it was a nobleman spewing the insult. Well, surprised ins't exactly the word. The nobleman's type was well known to Rycust. This piece of shit thought that he owned the place just because he was born into a famous family. His type was hated in the Ebonstryfe. These men could achieve a prestigious station in half the time it would take a commoner, with half the skill, just because of his surname. Rycust's own arrogance led him to retort, "How about you watch your petching tongue before I cut it out and feed it back into you worthless mouth, you piece of shit." Before his challenge was finished, Rcysut brandished his 2 and a half foot long blade, and took a fighting stance. He bent his knees into a half-crouch, leading with his left foot. He tried his best to appear intimidating. Fear was an undeniable advantage in a fight. A fight, Rycust thought, getting himself excited. His adrenaline spiked at the idea. He could practically feel his blade sliding through soft, noble flesh. He could feel the life leaving his body and Rycust's filling with it. He sprouted a grin, no longer seeking an apology.