A Bloody Good Time (Open, Tavern?)

[Stare]

A shiver ran down her spine as Stare thought about the process of how she had found out her people were from another world. Indeed, for now only she knew that. What remained of her family (basically, no-one now), and what was of her people still presumed that they were born of Keribas, brought over the sea by the guiding spirits they worshipped, the Kami, to escape the horror that they called the Kage. What books, research, and a certain god (i.e. her employer/master and voice-in-her-head, Vitruvion) had told her was the truth - that in fact her people were a discarded race from a distant planet. They had been sent here by a bored god, caught up in a fret of confusion and enslaved themselves. Then they had been taken across the sea to Akashima, where somehow along the line they had freed themselves and basically adopted the feudal society of their human neighbours. All they presumed now had been likely hastily made up by elders a long time ago, who had wanted to avoid the darker history. Who had wanted to make a nicer, happier image rather than a discarded species and enslavement.

Well that was an interesting night when we found all of that out, Vitruvion luxuriously drawled. Stare caught an image of the handsome man sprawled across a sofa. He had a goblet clutched in his hand and he was gazing out of a wide window to the ocean. The same ocean which Stare had floated across to go on her holiday.

Oh shove off, will you, she spat back at him. I thought you were going to leave me alone for this holiday?

I am leaving you alone, my dear little bitch. I am not telling you to come home. In fact I am taking a holiday myself. Cannot you see the lack of underlings around me?

Stare sighed and rubbed at her cheek, trying to listen to the alchmist as he finished his speech on medicines. He was asking her if they worked the same way as they did on humans or elves. Or so she thought. As she tried to think she realised she could still see the image of the almost naked man/god lounging back in Beinost, right at the back of her mind. It made her seethe slightly and the anger began to boil inside of her.

Just be quiet, please.

There was a moment's pause, as she was sent a single image of his face in defined detail, and a single raised eyebrow. A mildly warning gaze, but one she would deal with when she was back home. For now ...

"In all honesty I cannot say I have. Kenkus tend to live in their close knit community you see," she spoke fast, hoping that Nevin did not see the distraction in her eye and the steady picking up of her pulse. "In clans they - we - call flocks, each led by a shogun. There are classes, like a feudal system, as well as the karegeta, the classless and shamed ones, which I am from. Still they, though, live in the kenku community. I have lived there ... and then here. Not kenku community. Where I am the only one. I guess just ... I have no idea if I have or not. I know I smaller, lighter, and faster. I know I am more agile than the average human. As to where we are from," she looked down, her gaze staring hard into the brown frothy liquid before her, thinking of the true history of her people. "Only one man knows the truth of that, and he is a god."

[Nevin]

She seemed... distracted at one point - a flash where her gaze hardened, and if Nevin had known her better, or had known other Kenku, he might have been able to recognize the signs of irritation that ran across her face in a matter of a second or two. As it was though, he didn't know her, so only caught the way her eyes shifted for a moment, before turning back to him. He frowned and tapped his quill against the paper, humming in thought. That sounded.... lonely. For a moment he rubbed one hand against his sleeve, feeling the mildly raised lines that ran along his skin underneath the shirt and he bit back a sigh. He knew too well what it was like to... no, he wasn't going there.

"Well. No matter then - insular communities tend to change from the standard, so pockets may develop resistances and immunities at different rates from each other, even given a common starting point." Drumming the quill gave way to spinning it back and forth between his fingers. There had been some... anger to that last line, about the god. And Nevin was well aware that beings outside of the normal plane tended to be somewhat callous towards mortal beings. Finally he spun the quill around and pointed the feathered end towards her. "I'll be making some medicines in lighter doses for you then. The first batch will be on the.. well, house isn't quite right as I sleep in the attic above my shop, but no matter. It's a matter of gratitude towards you for sparking me towards making medicines more closely geared towards non-Human races. I'll likely be seeing enough of them as things progress. Now then - you said you live here, but are on vacation at the moment. So you live, perhaps, in Corone, but not in Stonevale? What brought you to this town then?" There - hopefully a shift towards a topic that wouldn't generate anger in her. He didn't know if it had been something he had said that had aggravated her before, but he didn't want to incite more irritation in her.

[Jethro]

The biomancer finished his meal in what could be considered record time. He had finished his meal and paid for the food and damages. Standing once again Jethro gave cold glare at the drunk miners who challenged him and then turned and gave a nod towards the raven lady and the alchemist. There was a small moment where his eye twinged (back to its normal blue green) as he looked at the gentleman. It was a pause almost a recognition but the biomancer didn't mention a thing and instead merely said "sorry bout the mess." He then made a quiet exit into the village proper.

((Sorry folks I can't keep up.))

[Stare]

Stare watched the tall man drift out, her head tilting slightly as she saw him much more satisfied than earlier. His brawling buddy still lay on the ground, stunned as a dumbstruck lover with no one to watch over him - though someone had now turned him over onto his side at least. She blinked a couple of times, thinking about the process by which she had precisely been led back here, to this small pub and coming from the street fighting ring. Faint memories of punches swung to the head, and then the sight of the crisp flakes of blood below her on the table reminded her just how in fact she had staggered in here herself, and how she had not ended up being made dull.

"You are ... offering me diluted versions of your medicines?" she looked back at Nevin, her brow raised. "What for free? Whatever for? You have barely met me."

A pause made its way into her speech, and she leant across the table, her eyes moving steadily over the words he had written. They traced over the word 'avian' a few times as if it were in a foreign tongue, and looked at the small descriptions he had thus far made. His hand covered part of the page so she could not tell if he had written down anything too recently of what she had told him. However, she captured him then, in a moment of her own intense curiousity, her gaze tracing over the structure of the alchemist's face, then down over how he held his body. Strong, studious though. Excited. He twisted his quill this way and that in a practised method, swirling and twirling it rapidly.

"So you have a shop then?" she continued to ask, now offering him the rest of the information he had desired. "Here, or elsewhere? I actually am on holiday here in Stonevale, believe it or not. It has a certain ... simplicity that intrigued me and it is far enough away from my city where I live."

She fixed her eyes on his. "Beinost. Raiaera. The city only half full and literally shoved in place just after the Corpse War."

[Nevin]

Nevin had noted the man watching him - and there had been a moment there, of something almost like recognition. Which.... bothered the alchemist, as no one should really know him in this town, outside of the blacksmith, and Elthas if he had wandered into town. he would have to look for that man later, and find out if one of them had managed to survive. That would be... problematic, at best. Then he turned his attention back to Stare, and shrugged slightly in response to her question.

"Do keep in mind that, at the least, the first batch would be somewhat experimental. I can safely say that they wouldn't hurt you barring an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients, but the downside is that there's no guarantee that they would actually be effective. The dose might be too low for example, or the ingredients may not work on you. In a very real way, you'd be a... test subject." He grimaced and shook his head. He'd been about to use another word there, but had hesitated and swapped it out. "And I'm offering because I've been, truth be told, getting a mite bored here in town. Barring my hunting trips, most of what I do here is brew a tonic for the miners to help with the stone dust in their lungs. While it provides a decent profit, it's not really, how should I say, engaging?" His experiments were probably all that had kept him from becoming extremely bored and wandering out of town - he was picking things up nicely from the blacksmiths, but that wasn't really enough to catch his attention.

Then she leaned over, reading his notes again, and was very much in his personal space. Muscles in his back stiffened for a moment at the sudden approach, and he swallowed softly as he got a close view of her beak and gleaming eyes, that were blazing with some emotion he couldn't place. He doubted it was malice though - if it was, she had had a very good opportunity to do something about it. Instead she just sat back and began speaking again, and Nevin shook his shoulders to disperse the tension and nerces that had crept over him while she was looking at him.

"Ah, yes. Ah-hem." He cleared his throat and ran one hand across the short hair on top of his head before continuing. "I do have a shop here in town, opened a... hm. A month or so ago? Little more than that for sure. I knew of the recipe for that tonic I mentioned, and I had recently become displaced, so starting somewhere my skills would be in demand seemed like a prudent idea." He didn't recognize the city that she mentioned, but shoved in place? That was and odd way of phrasing it. Maybe she had come here to Corone in order to avoid things that triggered painful memories.

"Well, it is certainly simple at that... outside of, well." He gestured towards the unconscious man on the floor. "Outside of excitement like that. I had a huge rush of gawkers when I first opened my shop,
as the first new arrival in town in some time who was staying more than a few days. Truth be told, it was mildly uncomfortable to be the focus of so much attention." There had been a couple points where he was sure someone would have started throwing accusations at him, but it had never happened - no reason for it to, but even so the fear had lingered. Nevin shifted and straightened his sleeves and tugged on his gloves, a subconscious motion he didn't seem to recognize happening.

[Stare]

Sitting back Stare watched the man for a while, her brow lowering as her eyes seemed to shift into an alternative dimension. It was something akin to that, for as her eyes glazed over with a dullness she switched into the focus that allowed her to truly gaze at the man before her. As she did so she began to see the green aura that surrounded him, the soft glow of his soul that made her see his true personality and goals. No matter how one might try to hide it, Stare could see a person's true intentions through her aura sight, for it allowed her to see into the very centre of their being. This man was green - slightly verging on the warmer spring green of a true neutral person. She could also tell that he was most definitely firmly male, with no deviation of any kind. He was also precisely twenty-one, which did not surprise her. By his outward appearance he seemed so. But most importantly here she could tell that he was not lying, was not hiding anything in any form or manner.

Usually for Stare green meant boring. It meant your run-of-the-mill ordinary background character who strode around minding his own business and simply existed. People she had met in the past who were awkwardly middle forest green had been ... less interesting than those of a more chaotic or unwittingly good nature. Even more social. Yes this man here had a tendancy towards the 'better' half a wholly unimposing creature, kinder and gentler, but he was still the sort of person that Stare would note down to avoid. Yet - yet, there was something about him despite all of that. His frank honesty, his openness and intrigue made him much more interesting as a person and -

And there was that. A flicker. Suddenly his aura shifted and a gaping hole appeared in it that Stare could only describe as a tear. Yet the edges of this rip were raw and tormented, so it was much like a slash than anything - a blank, horrid cut in the wavering form of his soul that made her heart beat faster than it had done in a long time. A moment, and then the mark was gone again, to be replaced by the soft shimmer of spring green emanating from him. It had been covered up, forgotten about. By him or by another?

Quietly she slipped out of the aura sight and leant over to the table, her eyes once more intense and bright.

"Has something been done to you?" she asked in a quiet voice. "Is there a reason why you have moved here just recently? You are ... you see I ..." she thought of how to explain it. "You have a ... scar on your soul."

[Nevin]

The staring had been.... Awkward. Nevin felt like his new companion had been studying him, staring straight through him like she was not even really seeing him sitting there. Her eyes had gone blank, and in a normal patient he would have said they were unseeing, like she had fallen asleep with her eyes wide open in front of him - but that was impossible, it came on far too quickly for that - and she seemed like she was far too cautious and canny to fall asleep in public with no one she knew around.

Then she spoke, and Nevin felt his blood freeze in his veins, his muscles suddenly stand on edge, his eyes shooting open in shock. This time the light would shine on them directly - showing that what looked black were instead a deep, dark red. He tried to school his features, tried to mask his shock, but he knew it was too late for that.

Damn it. I thought I had been careful. It took a few precious seconds before his thoughts caught up with what she had actually said - 'had something been done to him. And that was impossible for her to know, while he might have missed a person or two in those accursed rituals, something as unique as a Kenku he was sure he would have recognized and remembered.

A faint tremble in his hand was covered up by it snatching up his mug of water - the barmaid still had not brought him more money as - he drained it in one long swallow, his throatanll and mouth suddenly painfully dry. His other hand was pressing against the wood of the table hard enough to hurt. Finally he turned his eyes to Stare, who had probably kept watching him through this sequence of events.

"I'd like you to explain how you're aware of that, Miss Stare.
I am well aware that the outward signs are masked or easily mistaken as something else." There was a tremor in his words, as he swallowed again, trying to clear some of the tension from his voice. His eyes remained locked on hers.

[Stare]

Stare slipped quickly back into the sight, her eyes once more fading slightly in their brightness. Carefully she surveyed him again, watching that subtly light green. It wavered around him like a quietly flapping cloak. For some people their aura was something of a shadow, a faint trace of their true selves and for others it was a true dramatic air. Avis thought this was something to do with how pronounced they were, whether they were shy or powerfully confident - but that was something to be discovered. Nevin was the sort that ...

There it was again. This time near his thigh rather than his shoulder, so she needed to stretch her neck to see it. Blood this time was oozing in tiny rivulets down the edges. She gazed at it a while, watching as it cracked into presence and then went, it's fleshy edge a slice of previous painful experience.

Lifting her eyes again to his she looked at him a while and clicked her tongue against the side of her beak. Hardly did she know what to say, or how to explain herself. In all the times she had tried to describe what her eyes could do, she found herself trying to convince the listener that she wasn't purely evil.

In fact when she looked in the mirror she found she was rather just chaotically random.

Maybe this one would be different.

"You have your alchemy, I have my eyes," she grunted, waiting for him to call her a witch. The Evil Eye after all was something famously feared in the past. And on a being close to a raven, a traditional symbol of doom ...

She inwardly cringed, but outwardly sighed and began to stand. "Sorry I looked. I can see souls and crap like that."

[Nevin]

Nevin held out one hand in a placating gesture, indicating she keep sitting down. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, rubbing his left arm with his right hand, the black gloved hand flexing in agitation as he marshalled his thoughts together. He glanced around the table the two of them were sitting out - everyone was avoiding them, doing their best not to even look in their direction. Even the barkeep and the maid were ignoring them, gazes firmly locked on other customers. He looked back towards her and sucked in a breath, steadying himself before he spoke.

"There's.. no need for you to go, Miss Stare. I... yes. Yes, something was done to me, and it's not the most pleasant of memories. I am sorry for upsetting you." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes for a moment before laying one forearm on the table, hand just slightly above the varnished wood. His other hand came forward and pulled the glove off slowly, his eyes on hers. A revelation for a revelation."My old village was of a particular bent, an unpleasant one to a painful degree. Somewhere in the twenty years or so before my birth, they had all become enamored with an... unsavory... cult." At this point the glove was off, revealing his pale skin. The paleness was marred though, by violently crimson lines that stood up along his skin. They almost seemed like they were following the trails of his arteries and veins - but not quite, slightly off, and too numerous for the blood-carrying lines that would normally be in a human body.

"Then one day one of the 'couples' finally had a healthy child, after performing rituals to alter that child. This was momentous - every other set of parents that had tried, the child had died in the womb before birth. After that success, well, they kept going. Every few months, it felt like, they performed another ritual." His voice, though soft, carried through the hushed tavern, not quite penetrating the noise around the other patrons, but enough to carry to the Kenku. Abruptly Nevin stood up, slipping his glove back on, and placed a few coins on the table before looking at Stare. "I'm willing to keep speaking, but not in here around others. Following, or not, is your decision Miss Stare." He bowed his head to her and slipped outside.

Inwardly, he was in turmoil. He hadn't expected.. well, any of that. He hadn't expected someone to find out about the rituals, and he didn't know why he felt comfortable about talking with her about them. Not even his old teacher had learned about them from Nevin. But there had been that... not fear, but resignation, when she had started to leave. Like he would judge her and find her wanting, for her ability. Which, was in all honesty, a bit astounding - the ability to see souls? He wouldn't have believed her, if she hadn't flat out mentioned something that she would have had no way of knowing by normal means. Enough people had passed off his red hair as natural, and his eyes as merely dark brown or black, and he was an old hand at keeping the 'tattoos' hidden. He half hoped she would follow him out - but he wouldn't be too surprised if it was too much.

[Stare]

Her beak remained slightly ajar. The image of the pale skin with the angry red lines flooded her mind as she watched him get up. Her eyes, dark as they were, slid slowly closed and she cursed herself inwardly, entirely unsure if she should have even mentioned it at all. Clearly he was upset. Yet he was also quite open to her, not reacting to her powers like she was some demon from hell. Instead he seemed to immediately consider that he was the source of dark power, not her, and that her usual acceptance that people will hate her was reversed. Now suddenly it was him pricing her wrong and immediately presuming that about her.

Utterly mixed feelings of anxiety, confusion, irritation at herself for evening going into it all battles her body, making her feel like crap, making her feel like she had been the one that had done those terrible things to his body - charring, scarring, hacking, bleeding ...

Go with him.

She blinked. But at least she closed her beak now, her sense of being swimming to awareness and her eyes darting around. It was strange. She had almost forgotten him in that moment.

You can't ever forget me, my dear. There was no chance I was not going to listen to the rest of the conversation. In her mind she saw him now upright on the seat he had been lounging on, eyes piercing the lowering sun in the sky beyond the window. Now. Go with him.

I'm supposed to be on holiday, she answered, curling a hand into a light fist and physically sighing. It would have received some odd looks were it not for the fact everyone else in the pub seemed to be actively looking away.

You are on holiday until I saw so, was Vitruvion's conclusion. Consider it over for the next few hours. Or completely, depending what he is. I want to know what he is. Rarely does your aura sight give us someone whose very soul has been tainted. Now - follow him.

But - she began to protest, honestly annoyed now. Him? Steal her holiday? That was ... Perfectly within his rights as her master but ... Annoying.

I can feel your intrigue towards this all. He chugged back wine, letting the taste briefly touch over the connection between them, before it was snatched away. Now, I can make this an order if you like-

How much can I tell him about you? she asked quickly, not wanting to get into the matter of orders. In fact she was now getting to her feet. Lots of previous experience with the human-bound god who might as well own her - and there was far more truth in that than falsehood - told her that disobeying something he labeled as an 'order' was never a good idea. Vitruvion already allowed Stare a lot more freedoms than he could do. Their ability to insult and banter, for instance, had never gotten in the way of action, unless her banter had been too much for the situation.

Not the obvious piece of course, Vitruvion said. As Stare chugged down the last dregs of her beer she nodded. He was of course talking about his godhood - which a total of four beings, including himself and Stare knew about. The other two were his half sister and his captain of the guard Raevin. But that I may be able to be of assistance ... I will narrate what you can say. Let him know though that I am here.

She grunted and started to stalk towards the door, brow and determined pace set. No longer on holiday she had a job now to do, a purpose. Opening the door she gazed into the dimming daylight until she saw the young man, somewhere on the edge of 'willing to wait' and 'scarper'.

"So, where are we going?" Stare asked quietly, her right hand consciously now falling over the cuff jewelry on her left wrist. The one that was permanently there. That could never come off. "And by the way my master is listening to all of this. I can't stop him from doing so. I ..." She broke off. And thought how best to phrase it. "It's complicated," she spoke with distaste. "But I have to agree with him, he might be able to help you. He won't tell anyone, he is a master of secrets. So yeah. Coming with but you have a right to know he is there."

Thank you for such a rude introduction, my dear. Vitruvion hissed.

Oh don't worry, Stare replied dryly, He's going to get the whole fecking story.

Vitruvion shrugged and leant back. Be my guest. Clearly he has heard worse stories.