Flashback Jilted Affection

In Which A Hat Dies A Warrior's Death

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Considered one of the most mysterious cities in Mizahar, Alvadas is called The City of Illusions. It is the home of Ionu and the notorious Inverted. This city sits on one of the main crossroads through The Region of Kalea.

Jilted Affection

Postby Kit Rowan on August 25th, 2013, 1:20 am

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506 AV, Season of Winter, Day 60

" . . . Darilava?"

"What, girl? You said you wanted a new target. You ask and I provide!"

"But, isn't that Whet's hat?"

It was indeed Whet's hat. Or at least, one of them—he went through them like a debter went through promises—It was a tall hat, this one, with an upturned brim, with a colorful sash around its middle. A vivid purple that jarred with the featureless wall it had been laid up against.

Darilava crossed his veiny, too-long arms. "Your powers of observation astound me, girl." He said. "Yes, that is one of his collection. Or, it was. Now? It is your target. Throw. Throw, or I teach you nothing!"

That, at least, got Kit's attention. She reached for the throwing daggers on the table next to her and weighed them carefully in her hand, got the feel down, ran her thumb across its edge, tested its weight in her hands. "Good." He said, though there was no praise in his words. They were clipped facts. "Know the knives well. Feel the balance, test it. Do you remember how to throw?"

Kit did. What was it Darilava had said before? Not like throwing a ball or stone, but like shaking a hand, ready to let go at any time. She held her arm perpendicular to her body and pointed the knife straight down. "Acceptable stance." He said. The pale spider stalked around her, watched her from all angles. "Throw!"

The girl kept her arm straight; twisting, no jerks of her arm. It wasn't her whole arm that powered the throw; Darilava had told her she didn't need to. What she needed was to make it fly straight and true, and that meant no twists that might skew or flip the dagger too far. She released just then, and the knife sailed through the air, once, twice, embedding itself into the wood just above the hat and quivered.

She heard Darilava tch. "Again."

This time it hit the hat square along the top of its brim, tearing through and pushing it askew. Darilava gave a satisfied grunt. "Amateur," he said. "But acceptable. Take two steps back, and try again."

Kit did just that. Part of Darilava's training with her to was to make she she knew her way around throwing daggers. She could throw a dagger into an apple or orange or fruit in general while someone else held it, could perhaps one day be comfortable enough around them to juggle them. Never said but always implied was that perhaps one day it would prove convenient to pull a dagger from a coat and pierce something from a distance for other reasons.

The distance between her and the target mattered. No matter what she did to mitigate it the dagger would still spiral into circles. It was a careful art, to be certain that at the proper distance, when you threw a dagger the SHARP end went into what you were aiming at. Kit breathed deep and swiped her hands!

Again it missed the hat, to the left this time, but it embedded itself into the wall and quivered there. If her aim was off, at least she had the cycles down. She spared a glance at Darilava. He stared at her dagger as though it had done some great offense to him personally. But then, he stared that way at everyone. That he said nothing at all was a good sign of her progress. "Again." He said.

This time Kit's dagger caught the hat square in the middle, crumpling its shape. Behind her, Kit heard a door open. Before she looked, she saw Darilava smile a satisfied little smile, looking behind Kit.

When she turned around to see, Kit saw Whet framed in the doorway, staring at the tattered remains of his once great hat.
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Last edited by Kit Rowan on September 9th, 2013, 7:43 am, edited 3 times in total.
Unless Otherwise Stated, Expect Kit To Have Already Disguised Herself With Illusionism As 'Shy' In Every Ravok Thread.
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Kit Rowan
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Jilted Affection

Postby Kit Rowan on August 25th, 2013, 9:47 am

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Whet was dressed, as ever, more richly than his means made reasonable. His coat fell down below his waist and flared out to the sides in fabulous oranges in reds, his pants and shirt fine tailored, his hat—because of course there was a hat—was too tall and set at a slight angle on his head. Kit's knees buckled together and her eyes went wide.

Whet's gaze locked on the hat and his mouth opened big, his hands flickering and flitted frantically about his face. "Oh," he said. "Oh, oh!" He shoved between Kit and Darilava and ran to his hat. He snagged it off the pedestal and hugged it comically close to himself, never even bothering to remove the knife. "My old friend," he spoke to the hat. "I will miss you dearly." He kissed the top of the hat once, twice, thrice . . .

Darilava rolled his eyes. "Gods be good . . ."

"Why Darilava?!" Whet wailed in the pretense of mourning. "He was so young!"

"You do not need more than one hat. You do not even need one!"

And just as suddenly as it came on Whet dropped the false sadness and pointed his nose into the air. "Well," he said. "That is because you have no concept of style. Little fox!" Whet set the hat back down, turned toward her and closed the distance. "With your feminine touch, I know you understand how sadly blind this man is!"

Kit bit on her lower lip. ". . . Are you making fun of me?"

"Yes!" He said, and gave her a jovial slap on the back hard enough to make her stagger a step. "No! Maybe so!"

"It is your turn with the girl," Whet. Darilava growled, turning away from the others, already marching off to find some other thing to occupy himself.

"So it is. So it is!" He clapped a hand on Kit's shoulder. "Come, come little fox! This is a terrible place to practice lying!" Already he was dragging her toward the door. "No more stuffy indoors, we need to be outside. We need people. We need an audience!"
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Kit Rowan
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Jilted Affection

Postby Kit Rowan on August 25th, 2013, 12:14 pm

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"I'm sorry about your hat."

The pair made their way through Ionu's twisting, twining streets without reason or rhyme. "Oh, that?" Whet waved her concern away. "Darilava gets this way, sometimes. It's in his moods. Best to go along with it. You seem to be getting along with him just fine."

Kit scrunched up her eyes and stared sideways at Whet. He was staring straight ahead, thumbs tucked behind his belt. He started whistling. Kit shook her head, said, "He tells me I'm a waste every day."

"Trying to mastermind your life is just how he shows he cares." Whet shrugged. "He's still teaching you, isn't he? If he really didn't like you, he'd have just taken a bite by now." Whet turned toward Kit, bared his teeth and took an exaggerated bite out of the air, his incisors meeting with a click.

The redhead pushed her hands into her pockets, turned to look down the street. "Do we . . ." She licked her lips, squirmed a bit. "Do we really have to practice here?" Kit looked around at the people mingling and passing by her. "In public?"

"Of course!" He said, like a ringmaster conducting a show. "You will be asking these beautiful, terrible men and women for their money!" He spread his hands wide. "I've taken steps to chase shame out of your soul but it's not enough!" He pointed a finger to the sky, and some of the passersby watched with wry smiles as they walked on. " Until you can dance at parties, until you can beg with a smile on your face, my work is not finished!"

Kit grabbed his arm. "There are people staring!"

But he just ruffled her hair and laughed. "And yet you care! Until you are cured of that, you will be Alvadas' poorest performer. Onward, little fox! We have much to do."
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Jilted Affection

Postby Kit Rowan on August 26th, 2013, 1:42 pm

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"A proper busker doesn't worry about who makes them feel silly or stupid! They only care about the ones that will give them money. That's why I said no shame; you know why you are busking and if someone will think ill of you for it then they weren't whose attention you were trying to grab in the first place."

"And that's I'm doing this?"

"Of course!"

Kit shifted uncomfortably where she stood. ". . . Not because you're mad at me?"

"Yes, no, maybe so!"

They stood to the side of an acceptably busy street in Alvadas. Kit's arms were wrapped around her body, clutching herself close, while Whet stood proud as evil, hands on his hips and smiling wide as a man who'd uncovered a million mizas. "It's about confidence, Kit!" He said, slapping her on the back again. "You need to have the nerve to approach people, to talk to strangers, or you'll be hopeless as a busker!"

"Look at you!" He said, gesturing up and down her body with his hand. "Look at your back! If you were any more hunched over, you'd be kneeling! Stand up straight! You've nothing to be embarrassed about! What did you tell me?"

"I," Kit said, squirming again. "Am . . . The best damn acrobat in this petching city."

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow. "You don't look it. You look like a little girl afraid to talk to their crush."

"Shut up!" Kit hissed, but she knew he was telling the truth. She took a deep breath and made her back straight as she could. She uncoiled her arms and let them fall at her side.

But still Whet rolled his eyes. "Now you look like you went out to buy some bread. Show me some spirit, little fox! Show me the confident, sly little rogue you want to be!"

KIt's cheeks bloomed with color at this. She bit down on her lip for a moment before propping a hand on her waist. Tried to smile. "There she is! That's the girl they need to see." Whet said, clapping his hands together in punctuation. "Now, hunt!"
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Jilted Affection

Postby Kit Rowan on August 26th, 2013, 8:15 pm

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Kit examined the crowd as it passed her by, person to person to person, trying to find an acceptable target. The ideal, she decided, was someone about her height, and not too ugly. They wandered by one by one; most were just too old, she needed a kid like her and there weren't all that many to pick from. She saw a dark haired boy run through the crowd and made a dash toward him. "Hey!" She called out, waved, but he didn't even spare her a glance. Just ran straight on by. Kit scowled, kicked the ground and waited a little bit longer.

The next one that met Kit's criteria was a girl, with short-cropped boyish hair in a blouse and colorful skirt. Kit frowned, tapped her foot against the pavement a moment. This one wasn't running; Kit could catch her. Kit felt her innards twine themselves into artful shapes at her nerves. Just wait, wait a bit, wait for someone else, someone who looked more friendly . . . Kit turned around and looked at Whet.

He was grinning a smug, easy grin. Whet raised his eyebrows up and down at her, taking utter pleasure in her discomfort. Kit stiffened her back and marched into the crowd, put herself in the girl's way. "Excuse me?" Kit asked, clasping her hands behind her back and trying . . . failing to put on a relaxed smile. "C-could you kiss me?"

The girl blinked. "What?" She asked, politely, and from the look in her eye Kit knew that she believed Kit had misspoken.

She hadn't, though. "Could you kiss me?" She asked, again. "Right now?"

"Ew!" The girl's face knotted up in disgust, and Kit felt a stab a shame in her chest, real and hot as a knife. "No way." She pushed past Kit, walking briskly forward and not looking back.

Kit looked over at Whet again, a scowling, but he just gave her both thumbs up. She turned back toward the crowd and kept on waiting, and when Kit saw someone else, she tried it again.

"Um, no."

"No!"

"Stay away."

"You drugged?"

Whet had set this up as punishment, Kit was certain, her cheeks blazing hotter than Syna herself. If it were possible to die of embarrassment, she would be dead! "Hey," she step in front of a half-isur with a greenish left arm. "Hey, could you kiss me right now?"

He stared and shrugged. Stepped forward, slipped an arm around Kit's back and pulled her close, locked lips as though it were no less intimate than a handshake. Kit's eyes got big, and she freeze completely where she stood. A few ticks later he pulled back, brushed her shirt and adjusted her collar. "That good enough?"

"Um." Kit couldn't quite manage verbal communication just then. "Ah . . ."

"Okay then." Green-arm nodded and kept on walking. Behind her, Kit heard Whet's sharp, congratulatory whistle. She tried to rub the red off of her face . . . so much for the romance of the first kiss! Kit couldn't help but giggle a little.

She asked again and again. Most said now. An older girl kissed her on the forehead and ruffled her hair. A younger boy kissed up and tried to excavate her tonsils with his tongue. A girl with stunning green eyes and short dark hair held her close and kissed her the longest. A boy who acted older than he looked raised an eyebrow and kissed her on the cheek. A younger girl had pecked Kit on the lips and run off giggling when she heard Whet call from the sidelines; "Bell's up, little fox! You're done!"

Kit crossed her arms and marched back toward the wall, careful not to look at anybody. She couldn't stop the laughter or smile from slipping out. She heard Whet say; "See? Asking them for their money doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore, does it?

"Shut uuuuuuuup!" Kit ran her palms over her face and held them there.

"Though now, those poor children! I would have been been happy with one or two." Whet wrapped his arm around her and hugged Kit close to his side. "Gods help me, you're smiling! You enjoyed that! Little fox, you've taken their hearts and put them in cages! Playboys like you have to take responsibility! What if they get with child?!"

"Hate youuuuuuuu . . ."
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Jilted Affection

Postby Kit Rowan on August 27th, 2013, 6:38 pm

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"Guess we oughta head back now, playboy? What do you think?"

Kit gave Whet another venomous look and took a deep breath. "I think," she said, turning her eyes back toward the ground. "I think I want to stay here a while." She expected more taunting, more ribbing, more mocking from Whet. But what she got was nothing. Kit peeked up at her mentor through her hair. His eyes met hers.

Whet reached down and ruffled her hair. "Alright then," he said. "We'll wait a while." He leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes and smiled at the shape of his own thoughts. Kit watched him, traced the serenity of his expression with no small awe. She fell back against the wall and let herself slide down the side until she was sitting on the floor, crossing her legs and watching the crowds pass from a lower perspective this time.

"So who was the best kisser?"

Kit leaned forward, planted both her hands in the space between her legs and stared accusation up at Whet.

But he just rolled his eyes. "Oh don't give me that! You were grinning wide as the world by the end of it."

"I wasn't having fun! I've never been so embarrassed in my whole life!"

"And look!" Whet knelt down and let a hand rest on her shoulder. His smile seemed . . . kindly. "No holes, no blood, no harm, no nothing. You gotta learn, Kit, embarrassment doesn't have any teeth. All it'll ever do is keep you from doing what you might like." A long pause. Kit looked down again, twiddled with her thumbs, tried to sort through the mix of relief and shame and hysterical thrill that had grown and festered in her chest. "Was it the half-isur boy? Big, strong . . . Probably had a lot of practice, too. It was him, wasn't it?"

Kit's toes curled in tight. The corners of her mouth betrayed her, curling up into a grin. ". . . Second best," she admitted, wringing her hands like a dishcloth.

"Really then?" He stood up. "What lucky lad gets the medal?"

"GIrl," Kit corrected, tilting her head peeking sideways up at Whet. "The green-eyed girl."

He chuckled, ran a thumb up the side of his neck and stared into the crowd. "Darilava's mission to make you a housewife was doomed from the start, wasn't it?"

"I didn't like her," Kit said. "She's just the best kisser, is all."

He took this chance to turn away from the crowd and toward her. "That so?" He laughed. "Maybe so. You'll find out either way, I suppose."
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Kit Rowan
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Jilted Affection

Postby Elysium on November 27th, 2013, 12:28 am

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Kit Rowan

XP:
Weapon: Dagger +2
Busking +4
Observation +3
Flirting +3
Rhetoric +1

Lore:
Dagger: Getting to Know the Weapon
Whet: A Man of Many Hats
How to Build Confidence
Rhetoric: The Best Damn Acrobat
The Green-Eyed Girl

Notes: Ooooh, this was truly adorable! I awarded you points in Busking because this was a very well-written, if indirect training session. If you have any questions, let me know!

and so, the journey continues...
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