Faith and Lamplight (One shot, Closed)

[[OOC: I have a lot of learning to do D:

This is set after round 1 and the day before round 2]]


The Inn’s rooms had been listed as ‘quaint’, and with ‘views of the Garden’ whilst having running water and a complimentary breakfast…but only the water part was so far correct. Lask realised that in real estate terms, ‘quaint’ meant ‘not enough room to swing a cat’ and ‘views’ meant the inn opposite them with one couple who had no idea about privacy and decorum.

Of course, it was his own fault for looking up at that time and it was morbid interest that kept him there, but all the same – there were standards. Even in spousal battles, there were standards.

He sat on his haunches in the corner of the dinghy little room with its pale, mottled walls, his tools laid out over what the Inn classified as a table, and he understood as a crate. They were at it again, but it didn’t sound like anyone needed to be called to intervene and he could work on his explosives without being surprised by any sudden cries for help. As for the other occupants of the Inn, they did what they did best – occupied, ate, paraded themselves and went on with their lives.

Tuning out, he let himself fall into the noise of the Tournament Village itself, absorbed into the microcosm of the street down below, full of markets peddling the latest in combat technology (hah), potions and lotions guaranteed to make your muscles larger (and help you last longer too) and the usual cries of the food sellers and the local molls. He was considering going out to eat tonight, there was a seller who made remarkably good dinners at a good price as long as he didn’t ask what meat was in it. Where was the pin for this one, eh? Had he dropped it on the floor or something?

“Laaaask?”

He ignored the wheedling tone, leaning to the side and carefully touching the floor with his broad, calloused fingers, looking for the tiny piece of metal that made everything possible. He brushed by Tiddles in his search, who was curled up at his feet, and smiled faintly when the cat sleepily rolled onto his back – and consequently onto Lask’s foot, whiskers curling around his nose in a very adorable fashion – and he paused for a moment to caress the damnable animal before going back to his search.

There was a splash to his left, hidden by a draped, mouldy curtain.

The other issue with the room was that it had next to no privacy. He was used to working in such conditions and sharing sleeping space with everyone else, because there were boundaries and even your most stupid of henchbeasts understood that. You got on with everyone and everyone got on with you.

“Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaask.”

The bathtub squeaked indignantly.

Nirvana was something completely different, and for the umpteenth time since he’d come here he found himself thinking sour, angry thoughts. He hadn’t wanted to be brought out of his meditations – alchemy was a precise art, and any minute now-

A sponge hit his head. With great decorum he looked up, slowly blinking as the sweet-scented suds crawled down his scales and into his loose, comforting clothing. He could see the silhouette of her, backlit by the lantern she was so protective of curled up against the edge of the high-backed bath, and knew that next shed' be peering over the edge to fix him with that stare of hers that he couldn’t say no to. This was bad in itself, and even through the protective cover of what passed for a wall here, he could feel it’s blinding glare building up and ready to pounce.

“Yes?” He asked, in the tone of a tired school teacher who loves his kids, really, he just wished he could spank the little bastards.

A hand was pressed against the curtains, looking for the opening. It took a few tries but Lask was surprised when it was gently pulled aside and for once, Nirvana wasn’t climbing out, wasn’t frowning and wasn’t acting like a general child. This made him sit up and take notice – he didn’t see the woman that often, most of his experience with the tactless raven-haired bitch reminded him of a particularly frustrating and angry teenager.

“You’re still mad at me, aren’t you.” The tone was matter-of-fact. She was leaning on the edge of the metal tub, chin in the palm of her hand and framed by twin pieces of black silk. Well, almost. A disobedient strand of hair still wavered above her head, not wanting to join the rest of its sopping wet – and clean – kin.

Carefully, Lask began to siphon the blasting powder into the casing of the third bomb of the evening. “What makes you say that?”

“Because you haven’t spoken to me all night, you’ve not even let me look at your tail and you have frown lines.” She illustrated her point by running her index finger of her free hand across her forehead. “Big ugly ones which are uglier than your usual not-so-ugly ones. Oh yes, and that aura of extreme frustration.”

There was no point beating about the bush. He raised his head cautiously, to make sure she was at least partially covered. “Can you blame me after the fiasco in the coliseum?”

She didn’t say anything, but her expression – and those dark eyes – watched him with a kind of deep thoughtfulness that made him uncomfortable. And then, just when he had started to squirm in his seat, she looked away and slid back into the warm water again, haloed in steam.

“I wouldn’t call it a fiasco. You and the little asian number battled well. And let’s face it, it would have been hardly fair if you’d had explosives.”

“It might have put down the opponent a little better.”

“You think this is about fighting?” A pause. “May I have my sponge back?”

“Of course.” He tossed it lightly, mildly surprised when she caught it without even looking – simply raised a hand and there it was. “And yes. The Tournament of Champions is about fighting, about strength, and wisdom and-”

“Waving your penis at the opponent in an effort to show that you’re a bigger wanker than he is.”

Lask fixed her with an amazed stare. “I beg your pardon?!”

“This fight was never about how good someone is at the actual battle. It’s about how showy, how traditional you are when it comes to the conventional sense of sword and magic. It’s a show, my dear lizard.” Nirvana looked over her shoulder at him. “Not a fight.”

“It felt like a real fight!” He snapped, pointing to his bandaged tail. He’d had to change the dressings twice since the fight ended and night had slowly approached.

“I admit, your lot did seem to want you dead. That in itself is probably not fair, but the whole thing’s either rigged or someone knows the outcome and wants to place the winning bet. It wouldn’t have mattered what I did yesterday, you still would have failed.”

Her words drifted into the quiet anger of the room, stirred only when an armour seller below got into a bidding war with a bartering customer and carried further when a trinket seller started to sing.

In a voice that was quiet and full of menace that Lask didn’t know he had, he watched her. “It doesn’t change the fact that what you did was wrong.”

“And let this sorry charade drop where it stands?” Counter-acting his frustration was a smile of girlish charm – and complete mischief. “Are you mad because my magic changed your precious equipment…or are you mad because I found a way to get you two back into the match?”

“If Yuka finds out you stole our chits-”

“She’s a smart girl. She lost one, but she made three more. You think I want to see people in that playing silly buggers with their toy swords? You think any of them have actually gone into genuine combat and understand what it is?”

He slammed his hands down onto the table to quieten her, inwardly surprised at his own forcefulness. “And what makes you say any different, you, you…” He broke off, knowing it was useless. Those eyes, watching him over that milky shoulder, were older than anything he’d seen and Jomil Herself had intervened on several occasions. Nirvana was a selfish beast, frustrating, confusing and downright fight inducing, she was the rudest bitch he’d ever met…

…but you didn’t question her on some things.

Looking into those eyes – crimson irises swimming in black – Lask found himself questioning many things about himself, not her. She’d seen a lot more than she let on, and who was he to question when a deity decided to slum it with the peons? There had to be a reason. It didn’t have to make sense either.

So he hunched his shoulders instead of continuing, allowed his face to fall into a frown of thought and misery, and distant throbbing pain. He looked down on the baggies of powders, the crumpled, light metal he used as the casings, the wires and his long since cold mug of cocoa which he’d found waiting for him at the table. It had turned up just before he’d come in from the Inn’s rather slow Healer. It had been a measure of kindness he hadn’t expected, rare from his tactless companion.

All seemed rather useless, really.

She was right. He knew that. He’d known that from the moment he’d stepped onto the stage. This was all a show. There was nothing inside it, no honour, no glory, not even the honest beating-the-shit-out-of-each other, it had to be a fair, graceful dance, a lie in the face of honest combat.

“For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean for your equipment to be affected. I hadn’t meant to enchant it. My natural abilities do seem to gain a life of their own when I’m inebriated.”

The silence stretched out again as he turned that thought over in his head. There wasn’t much to say on that, especially when your train of thought is derailed by a cat that starts furiously cleaning itself and ends up licking your shin as well. He leaned down to lightly scratch Tiddles behind an ear with a stubby talon. “…I know. Just…no more in the way of drinking challenges, please. I know you were happy when you’d found we’d made it into the tournament, but that doesn’t excuse you drinking until dawn with Gods know how many people, contestant or otherwise, then waking me up early the next day. It was hard, you know. To concentrate and all.”

“But you did. In the end.” She was now examining her toes, her leg extended out of the water and she wiggled each pink little piggy in the lamplight. “You have to have faith and recalibrate your thinking to accommodate the obvious – dance the dance. Do it for the money and the fame, that’s all you’re in it for. Think of the workshop. Think of your machines.”

“It feels wrong.”

“And when you open up your own tournament and employ your own healers you can have an actual battle. Until then Lask you will have to dance to the tune of those that run this shoddy joint.” The other foot now. Nirvana grunted softly as she stretched her leg out just that little further, before collapsing back and giving Lask a delicate, cat-like yawn. “Look honey. Had it been me? It would have been so much more explosive. I would have taken out half the crowd. I don’t care for rules, you know I wouldn’t have made it to the actual rounds before they dismissed me. But it’s you. And you have something that’s at least interesting – you’re an alright guy and you’re also not human, something far different from the mostly human-shaped minions they got going. Oh sure we have an orc or something, I think I saw a goblin in the waiting room and fairly sure we have a demon – not to mention your shape-shifting friend from earlier today – but it’s allll novelty. Pass me a towel.”

He straightened slowly, wincing as his knees cracked, surprising Tiddles and making him leap for the window sill to watch them both with big blue-green eyes. “Uh. Right.” Flinging the threadbare piece of cloth at his companion, he turned his head away to let her get out, humming herself as she stepped onto the cloth so as not to get the floor wet. A moment later he heard a strange thrumming sound and a quick blast of heat that caught him by surprise – it always did – and he made the mistake of glancing back as she fluffed up her now dry locks and gave him a wicked, yet innocent grin.

“Now what have we learned?”

He looked away hurriedly, frowning and watched the remains of the spell earth themselves in the metalwork around the window and gas lamps, as well as his own tools. “Play nicely with the other kids.”

A few steps were all it took for her to cross the floor and lean on his muscular arm. “Pardon?”

“Could you put some clothes on?”

“Why?”

“Because. Because it’s not socially acceptable for someone like you to go around naked.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m in the room with you and we both know you have about as much sexual interest in me as you would a splintered plank of wood. Nudity should not be a problem.”

“Old news, but people can see us from their rooms.”

“Good for them.” She wrapped her tiny hands around his great paw and squeezed it. He was reminded vaguely of his mother and with a sigh turned to face her, smiling up at him through a maddened tangle of still warm hair. “You play their game. You might not like their game, you might not like their rules, but a dance is still a dance and that’s what you have to do. The flash for the cash, my dimwitted friend.”

He snorted at her, blowing the hair back a little. “Find your clothes. It’s unladylike.”

“I’m not a lady, Lask, and my clothes are still drying after I threw up on them last night. it was very hard to clean them!”

“Serves you right for being such an idiot. Use one of mine.” A pause. “And don’t mess it up. I don’t have much.” Another pause, longer this time. “I should tell Yuka.”

“We should.” She shimmied into one of his shirts which was more like a dress for her, and belted it just as quickly. He didn’t even have time to react as she ferreted around by the bed for what passed for a medical kit, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “But first, I need a second look at that tail.”


/end