Apathy for the Devil

[Good for Nothing Captain]

OOC: This thread is closed to Letho and all bunnying has been approved by both parties.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she asked, while the bitter gray snow fell.

"I don't know," Victor sighed, "she always looked kind of sad to me."

"We're all sad from time to time, but this is a time for truth, and not even the moon can save you."

Victor Valentine never felt so cold. Not in the winters of Salvar, nor the fronts of the 'War of Flesh.' He hadn't even felt this cold when Alla had saved him from starvation and frostbite. A volcano burst, somewhere nearby. On the planes of Tular, many possibilities blurred the lines of expectation. Nothing could save you here. No armor could guarantee your life. No sword could assure a victory. Not even traveling with Letho Ravenheart could promise you safe passage. Or even a return trip.

Chaos. Chaos raged; it swirled like a maelstrom. Kill or be killed. Live or die.

'Just like Archen,' Victor thought.

It was nothing like Archen. There was plenty for which the red-eyed man was ill-prepared. So much had happened that Victor did not see coming. Murder. Betrayal. Adultery. Even a music festival that would spell disaster for everyone. So many pieces. So many players to account for and lose track of. A man could only do so much. At some point, you just have to enjoy the view.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she said again, "No noise, no people. This high up. . . It's just us and the moon. Maybe now you can tell me why you let her die. We both know you had a choice. No point in taking secrets where you're going. Trust me," her eyes looked like the last time Victor looked into them. Her expression had been unreadable to him then, too. Victor's deepest fear had always been that Rose hated him. She saved him, and he could not save her. He couldn't keep Eliza safe either. Eliza would always hate him, he thought. How could she not? After all, she was sacrificed to a demon because his friend wanted power. And he was helpless. He couldn't save her.; didn't save her. He didn't save any of them.

'It all started with him,' Victor thought. But the start was elusive. And at the end of the day, the start is relative. For Eliza Day, the thirteen-year-old girl with orange eyes, the start was when she left her guild of assassins for a life of freedom and adventure. She met her fate at the torturous hands of a demon called Diadeus. For Rose, the woman who started a home for orphaned children and adopted the 'demon who ate flesh,' called Victor Valentine, age 4; her start was secret to all but the Gods. But Victor, he knew where his start was. Our 'starts' always connected to massive failures or successes. And Victor's began with a man on a boat and a carelessly tossed book.

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“Why even write the damn thing if all you’re going to do is ask questions!?” Victor yelled. He feverishly flipped the pages of a small leather book. Beside his dark boot lay a small bag, filled to the brim with obscure books and texts. Victor brushed the end of his long dark brown coat aside with a swift hand motion. He lifted the bag over his head and tossed it at an opening in the deck.

Annoyed, he turned to face the sea. The sun sat in the sky, waiting to torment the passengers. Victor thanked everyone he could think of that there had been enough clouds for shade. He sighed, but the sound was drowned by the relentless passage of the ship through the sea. The Jack-of-all-trades let the rocking of the ship soothe him. He thanked everyone he could think of that he did not suffer from sea sickness.

The trip to the Tular Plains across the Raiaeran Sea did not fill Victor with the thrilling sense of adventure. Boat trips, in general, were slow and tedious. Victor found a silver lining in that he would have time to read through all the reading materials he had found. It had been months since Eliza's resurrection. Victor and Artemis Eburi had faced off against a demon with the ability to manipulate souls. Somewhere in the bowels of the Citadel, on the spot where the demon had been magically trapped, centuries before its construction. The spirits of the heroes who sealed the demon sacrificed themselves to give Eliza's soul a body to which it could return.

It was only in confronting the devil that Victor realized Diadeus had been the one that possessed Alder Whitemane. So many people in his life suffered at the hands of the demon, and it was still out there. But the Jack-of-all-trades was ill-equipped to deal with Diadeus. So he did his research. Victor collected every book on the subject, old and new. But the information, or lack thereof, was the same in all of them. No one knew anything. A few words, however, did repeat.

Tular Plains.

Vla’torros.

Certain doom.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” a voice shouted at Victor. The man turned, lifting a hand over his eyes for shade. A man was climbing out of the opening where Victor had thrown the books. Victor stared, squinting. His red irises were like little droplets of blood. And the Jack-of-all-trades had lost all reason with his patience.

“Does this look like a dump heap?!” the man demanded.

“Use them for kindling,” Victor said coldly.

“How about I use you for kindling!” the crewman yelled.

“How about I shove those books down your throat!?” Victor yelled back.

The two men argued like children at the bow of the ship. Finally, the crewman elected to go back to work, deciding that his threat to withhold meals and water had found its mark. When he turned his back, Victor saw an opportunity.

’You forgot one,’ Victor thought, scowling. He readied his throw, taking careful aim. Victor unleashed his pitch, and the last, small book he held shot across the ship like a bullet. But the mark’s luck had been good, and the book sailed over the crewman’s head as he leaped below deck. Victor winced as the book flew for destinations unknown. A man with brown hair, turning to gray stepped out from the captain’s cabin. Victor shut his eyes as the collision approached.

[Letho]

As Letho exited the captain’s quarters, three things struck him almost simultaneously. The first one was the blinding light of the pale oceanic scenery, the brightness a stark contrast to the interior of the cabin despite the fact that the blazing white face of the sun was hidden beyond a layer of clouds. The second, much more pleasant one was the fresh breeze that wafted from the surrounding ocean, spilling over the decks and bringing with it the salty coolness of the sea. The third one was a blunt object that hit him square across the jaw, making his head jerk sideways from the blow. All of them worked in conjunction to snap the ranger out of the leisurely mood brought forth by the opulent meal the captain proffered.

His first thought, even as his head was snapping back in position and his body instinctively dropped into a defensive posture, was that he had grown lax on this voyage and someone was trying to take advantage of it. Ever since he had come onboard the Seaspear, captain Ekler treated him with utmost respect. Part of the reason for respect was the Ravenheart surname, of course, which ever marched before Letho these days like a herald whether he liked it or not. Some people responded with disgust to this shadow his fame cast, some were indifferent to it, and some like the captain responded with reverence.

The fact that Letho had brought a gift to the captain upon embarking – a mere trifle in the shape of an empty leather-bound journal and a set of quills – only further cemented the amicable mood of the captain. The old sea dog had found the unusual generosity surprising, but Letho had thought nothing of it. Boarding a ship was in many ways similar to visiting someone for the first time, and one seldom showed up at someone’s doorstep without a suitable gift. So ever since then he had been invited to the captain’s table for just about every meal. Letho had accepted the invitations occasionally; though captain Ekler was eloquent enough and the food was several cuts above what was served in the mess hall below, most of his stories revolved around the sea, for which Letho had neither much love nor patience. Today he got a leg of turkey for lunch, a tale of a venture in the far reaches of the northern Kebiran Ocean and a smack in the face for a digestif.

“What is the meaning of this?” Captain Ekler demanded as he shouldered past Letho, his pale grey eyes casting a sweeping surveying glare over the deck. There was a Corone Armed Forces military issue saber in his hand with an edge that looked like it didn’t see the side of a whetstone in a while. But by then Letho had already ascertained that there was no need for weapons here; his trained eyes saw enough in a single fleeting glance. He saw the black-haired man on the starboard side of the Seaspear with a cringe on his face, saw the sailor on the lower deck snickering as the pointed to the man above, and ultimately saw the object with which he was attacked.

“It is alright, captain. No need for that, I believe,” Letho said in a calm rumbling voice, giving his bearded chin a rub. While he appreciated the gesture, he was quite certain the situation wouldn’t devolve into a swordfight, and even if it did, he was quite certain he wouldn’t need the help of a man who looked about as past his prime as his saber did. Satisfied with the fact that nothing else was flying his way, Letho squatted on his haunches and picked up the projectile. Flipping the book open, he gave the first few pages a quick onceover.

Dharen Clarwis, the name on the first page said. On the Origin of Demons.

Letho couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Talk about fate literally smacking you in the face. Origins of the Haidian demons was the very reason why Letho had set out on this voyage to the Tular Plains. Having only recently been freed from the demonic dimension of Tar’Shak after two years of captivity, he was now on the lookout for any trace of them in the realm of Althanas. The connection to the demons of Haidia was the most obvious one to make, yet there was little concrete evidence to be found on the initial appearance of the Haidia demons. All history books ever spoke about was the Demon Wars and the demons surging from the very bowels of the world, but none of them really delved into where exactly did they come from, nor why, nor how. Letho hoped to answer some of those questions by visiting the Tular Plains and his old friend that still presided there. And now it seemed he wasn’t the only one interested in the topic.

By the time Letho stood back up, the man with the disquieting red eyes who clearly seemed to be the owner of the flying book had made his approach. “Young man, I trust this is yours,” Letho said, offering the book back, then added with an amicable smirk: “Must have been quite a dry read for you to toss it from way over yonder.”

Captain Ekler seemed less agreeable to a pacific solution. “I don’t care how dry it was. Do that again, and we toss you overboard.” The threat – an empty one, as far as Letho could tell; the captain didn’t seem like the type to throw people to the sharks over a smack on the cheek – brought a couple of chuckles from some of his men. The captain wasn’t pleased. “And what are y’all laughing about? Back to work!”

“Oh, I do not think we shall be seeing any more flying books,” Letho said to his attacker. “Will we?”

[Good for Nothing Captain]

"Come on Victor," she chuckled, "you make it sound like I was some kind of demon!"

"It's true," Victor laughed back, "we were all so terrified of you, that during our practice match when we heard you coming, we all ran off in separate directions, Petey tried to pretend he was a torch."

The pair sat on a grouping of rocks, just off of a winding mountain path. From their seats all of Tulur Plains stretched out before them, sprinting towards the horizon. It was a strange view, to a man who grew in snow and woods. The desolation, the red light melting to orange, reflected on gray clouds of ash as a volcano sneezed and rumbled. Their laughter continued as the roar of the earth subsided.

"Oh man, I wish you could have met her," Victor chuckled, wiping a tear from his pallid face.

"Your little, Eliza, sounds like a complete darling," the woman agreed, "it's a true shame she had to suffer so."

"Yeah," Victor let out a heavy sigh, " sacrificed to a demon isn't a good way to go. Still, we found her and saved her. I still think it's all a dream sometimes."

"I know what you mean," she smiled, "I lost so many of the children, it seems. I guess we both did."

"I lost them," Victor corrected, "I could protect them."

Another flash of light erupted from below the ground. Victor's shadow performed a lonely dance on the rock face behind him.

A breeze chilled him to the bone.





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Victor shivered as the breeze passed.



Flaming crap in my pie, that's that Letho?! Okay, choose your words wisely, he coached himself in the recesses of his mind.

The air was warm, and the spray of the sea pleasantly sprinkled Victor's sun dried face. Still, the jack-of-all-trades shivered, as he locked eyes with the infamous Letho Ravenheart. Victor cared very little for celebrity, and titles and passed deeds. But he had heard of the devastation caused by the infamous ranger.

"So. . ." Victor began, hesitating, "you all done trying to kill innocent civilians and old friends?"

[i]Perfect![/b] Victor yelled at himself internally. So is your next bright idea to run yourself through with his spear or will you ask him nicely?! Why the hell can't you ever show some tact, just once!? Is that too much to ask!?

INSERT LETHO'S RESPONSE

"Riiiight," Victor droned, "well, as long as I can get off this ship in as many pieces and with as many holes as I came on, I guess I'm happy." Victor maintained eye contact, hoping to determine the sincerity of Letho's words. At the very least, he was still alive. If this were the same man who laid waste to the heart of Radasanth, Victor would be able to smell the death on him. Victor squinted, trying to see past the man, into his intentions. Tired of trying, he shrugged and let the handshake end.

INSERT LETHO'S REPLY (MAYBE ASK ABOUT THE BOOK?)

"Yup, and here I stand at the vanishing edge of my comfort zone," Victor sighed, moving towards the ship's railing and leaning over it.

"I'm heading towards an unknown shore and deadly lands with little to go on. Just some names and directions. People closest to me have met with torment by something like demons from fantasy. Incorporeal beings with the power to manipulate energy and move people like marionettes. And I'm fairly done with being in the dark about the whole thing. So I'm looking for answers, but all I seem to find are more questions," The jack-of-all-trades turned, resting against the rail, his back to the sea, and faced Letho once more.

"So what brings you on the voyage of my discontent?" the red eyed man asked.