[Flashback] On the Road (Wrenmae)

[Yanessavhanet]

Vhanet smiled at Wrenmae as he moved beside her, and she leaned slightly in his direction. Not enough to be leaning on him, but close enough so that their shoulders brushed against each other lightly as the wagon occasionally bumped or rocked in its travels. Brunwick's glare only grew more pointed, but before the man could say anything the merchant at the head of the caravan called for him. With one last glare at the pair the grumpy guard made his way up to the front of the small caravan.

"Intriguing," Vhanet replied to Wrenmae's description of Alvadas with a bright smile, "I cannot wait until I can look upon the city. Living there certainly would help keep you quick on your feet, no?" as she spoke her hand slid down to rest on the small bench, her fingers brushing lightly against the outside of Wrenmae's thigh.

"Ahnatep can be a frightening city, even more if you are not an Eypharian. They run the city, but even if you are counted among them if you do not have rank it can be a very hard life," she gave a soft shiver, a show of unpleasant thoughts, "The city lived through the Valterrian, but change much. A great portion became buried, and a great amount of the water dried up. But if you have money or rank the city can offer much in the way of entertainment and enjoyment of many a form."

As she finished speaking Vhanet gave another shiver, this one more prolonged and a bit more real as the coldness of the air was starting to get to her. Pulling her fur-lined cloak tightly about her she gave Wrenmae an apologetic smile, "Forgive me, I am not comfortable with the chill in the air here yet. The one thing I long for from Ahnatep be the warmth."

[Wrenmae]

It was cold, the Unforgiving peaks almost breathing themselves. Growing up in Alvadas, Wrenmae could sympathize with the woman, though the cold had become more of a companion than an enemy. Not many outsiders lasted long in the Kalea ranges...the peaks were the foreboding dagger maw of some unimaginable beast. More and more were digested between its fangs, and few were recovered.

Somewhere out there, a wagon sat in an icy pass...

Wrenmae shivered, but not from the cold.

"Ahnatep sounds preferable to here," he finally mentioned with a smile, "Even too much warmth would do wonders for someone unused to the icy climate." Her shoulder touched his, a brief point of contact sending fires along his veins. Her effect on him was obvious, almost too obvious, and Wrenmae pulled himself just a bit away from her in embarrassment. Human contact was almost assigned a monetary value out here, and being alone had done little but fed an innate hunger for conversation, warmth, and company. She represented something he could never have...all the sexual thrill of intimacy. Her sensuous language, body, and eyes glittered with sultry fire and yet Wrenmae could not touch it, know it, or understand it.

He was a plague carrier, and had forbidden himself from such pursuits.

Noble, but ultimately harrowing on his own spirit.

"Would you like my coat? I'm a bit more used to the climate than you...and I wouldn't want you to get sick." He shivered, taking the coat from his back and putting it on her with a wan smile. "Getting sick out here, even a little, can slow you down...make it easier for the Unforgiving to get its grip around your neck."

[Yanessavhanet]

Wrenmae's movement away from the contact was not lost on Vhanet, and neither was the effect she was having on him. She didn't push it, at least not yet, but she filled that bit of information away for later. She still wanted to find out the secret to how he had so easily joined the caravan.

Still, that didn't mean she couldn't have some fun pushing his buttons, "I know what you mean. By the way I feel I think I would even be happy to walk the Burning Land naked for the warmth," she gave another little shiver for added effect.

"You are very kind," Vhanet said with a sweet smile to Wrenmae as he placed his coat over her, "But I don't want you to be cold either. Maybe," she flipped open her cloak on his side, revealing her long skirt and blouse underneath, and she slid over a littleso there was room on the empty cloak for Wrenmae to sit, "We could huddle together for warmth?" she gave Wrenmae an inviting smile, "That way we could both be warm."

With Brunwick gone Vhanet would have to find some other way to pry into Wrenmae's secrets, and it was looking like she had an excellent weapon in her feminine charms.

[Wrenmae]

A lifetime ago (As though he had lifetimes beneath his feet) Wrenmae would have welcomed a chance to be so close to an obviously interested female. Her accent was a bit sibilant, reminding Wrenmae of wind pulling through bullrushes at the side of lake streams. It was pleasant somehow, and the bouncing of the trail was familiar in the most instinctual of senses. For the first ten years of his life, he had bounced as he did now.

Of course it was mostly in the back, then, or in the arms of his blazing haired father. But that time was neither now, nor pertinent to the current situation. The thoughts had clouded his mind, driven him into an almost daze. It was brief, and he pulled back.

Smiling at the woman, Wrenmae tried to keep his head. She was leading him by the nose, an easy bobbing carrot of sex appeal held just beyond his grasp and coaching him onward. A smarter, stronger man would have gotten back on his horse, denied her the advanced.

Wrenmae could not.

"Err, no," he forced himself to say, putting up a hand and closing the fur around her, "I've lived through worst seasons in the mountains, and I'd only disperse the warmth you're already building. For the time we travel, I'll let you have my coat." He had nothing to worry of getting sick, Vayt saw to that. Although mildly uncomfortable, it would mean a world of difference to the female to avoid skin contact with the plague bearer. A cold might be fatal in this atmosphere, especially with her background.

But gods...did he want her.

"The Burning lands holds an almost morbid weight doesn't it?" He asked with a smile, shifting the topics, "Your people could not think of a more...hospitable name?"

[Yanessavhanet]

A faint hint of a frown graced Vhanet's lips at Wrenmae's rejection of her. It wasn't that she thought she was irresistible, she had been rejected in her advances before, but the fact that he so clearly wanted it but still refused. There had to be some reason. Something he was hiding and her curiosity about it meant it would be a very fun game indeed.

She looked at Wrenmae for a moment longer, letting confusion show on her face before she cleared her throat softly and wrapped her cloak and his coat tightly about herself, "Well, my people did not name the Burning Land, and it can be very appropriate. The Eypharian named it, and between the heat, lack of water, and lack of cover it can become hot enough to cook a man alive if they are not prepared thoroughly," she gestured at the harsh land about them, freeing a slender arm from her cloak, "Much like here, called the Unforgiving, no?"

As Vhanet's dark eyes touched on Wrenmae again a thought occurred to her as to why he might be so reluctant to take her offers. A very delightful thought. Turning her gaze away in a show of bashfulness she softly asked, "Wrenmae... Do you have a wife?"

[Wrenmae]

The last question nearly choked the breath from his body. It was forward, unabashed, the sort of question one did not ask lightly. She was interested in him, some sort of strange attraction to the unknown or mysterious. In a way, Wrename felt the same. Of all the hardened merchants and guards seen around the small caravan, she was the most mysterious member. Her skin carried the delicate exotic hint of distant lands. He imagined he could smell them, distant sands and palm oil. The sun followed her, seemed to dwell in her eyes and around the curve of her smile.

Perhaps there was a bit of desert to her, a hardness chiseled beneath the apparent gentle swell of her cheeks and breasts. Although his eyes lingered, he was seeing the distance between the two of them, the worlds apart their experience was.

He reached into her aura.

Puncturing personal aura was easier now, it came with a sort of expected ease, as though plunging into a cool pool of water. He knew how to swim now, no longer floundered with the basics of keeping afloat. In her mind he could feel the swell and turn of emotions, the secrets beyond his grasp. Maintaining eye contact, his own dark eyes on hers in a hypnotic sway, Wrenmae touched her mind and whispered only in the hopes of improving their already budding relationship. As a combination of a trillion factors, human lives or sentient beings were a product of their own thoughts and imaginations. For true Hypnotism to work, nothing must be disturbed in the sort of way one might lift and move an object. Instead, the entire room must be slightly pushed. Bit by bit it would reshape her own thought process. It was the same with most.

He played only to her emotions, letting the Djed flow from his eyes and into hers, a cascade of calming and almost erotic sensations that pushed against the wellspring of her experiences and seeped into her thoughts. It was a subtle process, one marked with decidedly low saturation, but expectant pushing. He would not strain himself this time, only seeking to lighten the air between the two, up the ante for desire, chemistry.

In a way, Vayt may have always wanted Wrenmae to travel down this pass...but the moment was too intoxicating to be spoiled with a phantom's name.

Calming himself and his own reactions, pushing and pulling at her thoughts with the gentlest impression of his Djed, Wrenmae breathed calm into the girl, heightened curiosity, and a hint of erotic attraction flickering at the air between them.

"No, no wife," Wrenmae said at last with a low chuckle, "I'm a bit young for one, especially out here in such a place. Why do you ask? Have you a husband?" It was a teasing ploy at small talk, something he was starting to enjoy more as they spoke together.

Isolation had changed him a bit, made him want it more, want to speak more.

And so he would...and damned if his former hesitance in Hypnotism would stop him.

[Yanessavhanet]

At Wrenmae's words Vhanet turned her gaze back to him, and as their eyes met she felt the slight tingle of an actual attraction. There was something about him she had not noticed before, a hidden hardness and danger, and it quickened her pulse with desire. She'd certainly not expected to find a human who sparked her desire, and that only incited her curiosity more.

"No, no one hasss claimed me asss wife or a proper mate... yet," Vhanet gave a wink and a hint of a grin to Wrenmae, no longer trying to hide her accent or play the sweet and innocent woman.

Now that she had noticed that hidden edge to Wrenmae there was no need to treat him as prey or food, but as a possible equal and a person of great interest. Sliding back along the bench to get closer to him once more she trailed her one free arm slowly along his arm as she softly whispered, "Tell me Wrenmae, how isss it you are ssso easssily persuasssive with the merchat? Do you have a passst with him, or maybe sssome sssecret knowledge about him? I almossst had to promissse myssself to him to get a free ride. If it hadn't been for my sway over ssstupid little Brunwick I would have had to look elsssewhere."

She doubted he would want anyone else in the caravan to know what knowledge he had, but there was no one nearby other than the two of them, and Vhanet just HAD to know the answer to that question. Any other fun could wait until afterwards.

[Wrenmae]

Crossing his arms against chest, Wrenmae shivered inadvertently in the cold mountain air. Her touch sent whispers of passion down his spine, but for the moment he held himself back from falling in. For a moment he considered that he might be hypnotized, that she had infiltrated his mind. The thought was somewhat sobering and he shied from her fingers almost immediately.

Her tone dropped the pretenses she'd been carrying, a hissing sibilance slithering through her sentences. Personally, Wrenmae wasn't all too familiar with her kind...or even what she really was. Something about the confidence of her poise, the control of her movements, and now her hissing speech seemed to indicate he had been initially bamboozled, or perhaps had been the entire time.

"I have my ways," he murmured, averting his gaze from her eyes "But it seems we're both hiding our true natures, aren't we?" Brunwick spurred his horse in closer, his frown now an expected facial reaction. His eyes burned on Wrenmae, dissected his guise, ran him through a dozen times behind the safety of fantasy and hurled his body into a gulch.

He wasn't comfortable with such blatant aggression, his own physical prowess hardly worth mentioning at all. Despite his better judgement, he pushed closer to the woman. He didn't know if she could stop Brunwick from killing him, but she seemed to hold a modicum of control over the brutish guard and that itself made her a better ally than none at all.

"Perhaps I'd be more inclined to be honest had I a better idea of who you really are," he said at last with a small smile, "After all, we are both oddities here are we not?"

[Yanessavhanet]

Vhanet gave a soft and hissing laugh at Wrenmae's answer to her question, and as he pushed closer to her she let her hand fall lightly upon his thigh with a faintly teasing touch. As she turned to lean over and whisper to Wrenmae she caught Brunwick's murderous gaze, a look that was familiar to her. Though she had little enough reason to fear him she didn't want him disrupting her ride to Alvadas.

Sitting back up Vhanet removed her hand from Wrenmae's leg, and motioned Brunwick over to her. As he moved closer he continued to stare hatefully at Wrenmae, and his gaze didn't even turn away as he asked, "Yeah, Vhanet?"

"Brunwick, you look very angry," Vhanet cooed softly, leaning towards the man on the horse as she subtly opened her cloak with her arms to give him a view of her cleavage as her blouse fell forward, "Do not fear, I am only talking with Wrenmae here in a friendly manner. I only want you though," she gestured with her hand, beckoning the dumb guard closer so she could whisper in his ear, "If it will make you feel better, why don't you join me in my tent tonight? We can keep one another warm..." she drew out the last word, letting her lips brush against Brunwick's ear and sending a shiver down his spine.

With a dirty grin Brunwick nodded, and then cast a triumphant look at Wrenmae before trotting his horse off again, confident he had won. Vhanet smiled faintly to herself as she sat back, drawing her cloak and Wrenmae's jacket tightly about herself once more, and then leaned over to speak softly to Wrenmae, "Now where were we... Ah yesss, you wanted to know who I really am," she paused a moment, and then with a faint shrug continued, "If it will get you to relax around me I'll happily ssshare. My name isss Vhanet, asss I sssaid, and I am indeed from Ahnatep. My kind are known asss Viper Dhani. Maybe later I can ssshow you my true form, but now it would caussse usss both much trouble."

Not wanting to remove her arms and expose them to the cold air just yet Vhanet instead gave a soft nuzzle against Wrenmae's shoulder with her cheek before she spoke again, "Now, mysssteriousss Wrenmae, won't you ssshare with me your sssecret?" she leaned over some more, aiming to kiss the side of his neck lightly, "Or do I need to provide you with sssome more... encouragement?"

[Wrenmae]

A Dhani. The word struck him oddly, with a half imagined idea that he knew what she was talking about. Dhani were obviously a people, and adding 'viper' conjured the image of deadly snakes. Certainly she would not have been out of place among the scaled creatures, sizing up her kills and manipulating them with cold eyes...although perhaps she was too warm blooded for it. Yes. Snakes elicited an image of cold and meticulous killing. Of death, of merciless guile. She was far too passionate in the seat beside him, too brimming with energy and vice.

But he liked that in a girl.

Brunwick, sated now with the idea he would have more than he likely would, alleviated his murderous glare. Released of the pressure, Wrenmae could settle with a bit more safety into the seat and against Vhanet. Her touch was addiction, a heady force of passion centering in his cheeks and groin. Trying to ignore it, Wrenmae only gently eased his neck away from hers...but it was hesitant, unsure.

"I did not lie before," he said, pushing himself into himself, almost hunching over the sense of lust lapping at his control, "My name is Wrenmae, and I am a storyteller and traveler by nature." He knew the answer would not suffice, sighing through his nose and shrugging. "I am a fair hand at Hypnotism," he breathed at last, the words just tickling her ear, "It tends to open doors that were not there before."

It felt exhilerating to get it off his chest, a bragging assertion that he could handle himself among most society.

"Your true form..." he finished, imagining what she might mean...imagining the addictive feeling of the body warping, shifting, morphing..."I think I would be interested in seeing that."