The Outsider

[Godhand]

Every breath he took scalded his lungs. Godhand had been running for what seemed like days. The deep fear had taken a hold of him; the mercenary could feel it squeezing his lungs like a large shadowy claw. Every so often he turned his head back, looking for any sign of movement in the forest. Every twig snapping or bird chirping set him running again. The moisture in that damn forest clung to him, mixing with his sweat to form a sickly sheen that made his clothes heavy and his eyes sting. His hair was pasted to his forehead by it. He couldn't keep it up. He was too tired; had run too far and there were just too many of them.

Suddenly, hope. There was a clearing up ahead. A chance for him to lose 'em. Duck and weave; get lost in the underbrush. No way that many guys could follow him through vegetation that thick. The swordsman picked up as much speed as he could. He hissed as a sharp root protruding from the ground gashed his right leg. That was it; he couldn't go any further. He tripped and fell, the soil from the forest clinging to his body. He swallowed loudly, trying to summon up what strength remained. With a final burst of drive and clarity he got up to his feet, limping over to the clearing. His right boot made a wet squishing noise every time he put weight on it; the damn thing was filled with blood. The mercenary briefly wondered if he'd nicked an artery.

No time to worry about that. Only twenty feet left to the clearing. He used the adjacent trees as leverage to avoid putting too much weight on his right leg. Fifteen feet. He had just once chance. He had to take it. Who knows what they'd do if they caught up to him? Eleven feet. No, he knew. He knew what they'd do. Seven feet. But it was out of their hands now. He was going to sink into that underbrush and never be heard from again. Get a place on some godforsaken island near Berevar and never look back. Five feet. Someplace surrounded by sea monsters that no one would ever go near. Two feet. He was home.

BANG

His relieved smile turned into a strained grin. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't even move. The pain was like almost nothing he'd ever felt before; the bullet had gotten into his lung and even the smallest shift in position or breathing caused the agony to spike. He couldn't even feel his leg anymore. After so much bloodloss it was probably gone for good. His eyesight was going in and out as well. Seeing spots. It was all over. But he noticed the river out of the corner of his rapidly dimming eye. Fuck 'em. Let 'em earn their pay chasing his body all over the Goddamn Eiriagh. He hobbled over and grinned as his pursuers approached, flashing them a big bloody smile.

He dove in.

[Lasair Anubail]

There was a stillness in the deep rainforests of Luthmor, one that the city of Donnalaich never could accomplish with its bustling streets. It wasn’t that the wind did not move the trees. It wasn’t that there were no animals lurking within the branches, behind the thick leaves or underneath the moss, the grass and the rot upon the forest floor. It was something else, something that could only be found in nature. A natural stillness that seemed to burrow deep into the soul of any that found themselves within the deepest and darkest areas of that place. Where feet seldom travelled, where the only cries heard on the gently blowing wind was that of the local creatures.

Here was one of those places. But here the gentle sounds of the forest were replaced with an oddity, an anomaly upon the land that was neither welcomed nor unwanted. It was a familiar patron to these woods and it respected them, understood them and felt more at ease within them than anywhere else on the entire face of Althanas.

“Oh my goodness, a Sleam!” The voice squealed into the silence of the forest with a particular delight that most children could barely muster.

There was no reprieve after it either as the sound of breaking branches and crunching leaves erratically erupted throughout the area as one tiny little Fae burst through the underbrush. Her target was a small Sleam—a wyrm—that looked to be barely over two years old and two feet long. It was resting upon a low lying branch, bathing in the sun that was filtering through the high canopy. The navy blue scales that covered its body practically glistening as if covered in water as the light shone off of them and its neither slender nor pudgy form looking quite cute and cuddly to her eyes. But the moment it laid eyes on her, it twitched its long tail and spread its wings wide, jumping from the branch and gliding to the next tree over.

“Wait Mister Sleam!” She shouted after it, nearly tripping on a branch. “I just want your scales; I promise I won’t hurt you!”

It didn’t appear to be listening and as she tried to catch up to it, this time her bare foot did snap upon a gnarled root, sending her flying face first towards the forest floor. Her long flowing, green skirt went flying all around her as her hands braced her fall and scraped across the wet and rough ground.

A giggle came from behind, “I can see your undergarments.”

Pushing her skirt down, the tiny Fae was about to stand up when her golden eyes noticed a particular plant that was practically right under her nose. It was a low growing moss that was only around in the right conditions and when the right tree was rotting and at the right time of the year. It was fuzzy and soft and the colour of the sky right when the sun was beginning to set.

“Aiseirigh!”

She sat up, brushing aside the thick mass of her blood red and golden hair as she reached into her Never-Ending rucksack. She had changed the straps on it before leaving, turning it into a side bag that she wore on only one shoulder and across her body to her opposite hip. Pulling out a small knife she worked it under the moss and eventually pulled a good chunk of it away, but leaving enough so it would easily grow back. It was a strong healing herb that she could use to practically bring someone back from the brink of death. It wasn’t call Aiseirigh for no reason, which to those speaking Common and Tradespeak meant resurrection. She proudly held the dirty mass in her hand and showed it to her twin sister who smiled and began moving deeper into the woods. Lasair placed the moss into her rucksack along with her knife and followed.

“There’s a small brook up ahead where we can rest for a bit.” Lasair said as her eyes scanned her surroundings.

“Good, we’ve been walking for a while and I’m getting kind of hungry and thirsty too.”

The trees thinned slightly, replaced by vine covered stone walls, the remains of an ancient structure that could have once been a house to someone. There was so little left of it now that she could only guess what these walls had originally held within them. Walking around the edge of one of them, she spotted the small brook, it pooled in from a stream that ran off the River Eiriagh, one of the largest rivers in Dheathain and one that ran right through the entire region.
But something was wrong.

Half floating and half submerged at the edge of the brook was what looked like a body to Lasair. Feeling her steps slow and then suddenly quicken, she called out to Aileen as she approached what looked like a human male. Her feet slapped against the increasingly wet ground and splashing into the brook, creating a shower and spray of the fat drops as she rushed into the clear water. Grabbing him by the shoulder, the tiny Fae began pulling him up to the bank, her sister quickly coming to her aid. By the time they got him out of the water, both of their hands were stained in blood and they were soaked in up to their thighs.

Feeling the beat of her heart increase and an almost state of panic come over to her, the Fae knelt next to him and turned him onto his back and began checking to see if he was alive. Breath left his slightly parted and blue lips but very softly and his body was pale and cold. He had lost a lot of blood.

“Aileen, go get Tristram!” Her sister looked from her, wide eyed and fearful to the body of the man and then back again. When she hesitated to move, Lasair told her again much more forcefully. “Go!”

As her sister shrank down to a being no more than six inches in height and took off like a fiery little ball of light through the forest, Lasair turned her eyes back to the dying man in her arms. She washed the blood from her hands in the brook and reached into the bag for the moss she had just harvested. It was going to help him much more than her right now. Ripping it off in small pieces she hesitantly patted the side of his face.

“Mister... Mister, can you hear me? Can you wake up at all?”

He made no response.

“Mister?”

Not entirely knowing if he could properly swallow in his state at all, Lasair knew she had no other choice but to try. Pulling down on his jaw and opening his mouth, she placed a small amount of the moss within and the closed his mouth waiting and watching as he slowly swallowed it. Smiling softly, she did it two more times before she was pleased with the amount he’d ingested. Then she began examining his wounds.

-----------------------

The sound of a gentle hum filled the room. It rose and fell in tune with a song that only the person humming knew as small hands quickly began doing work that they were growing more accustomed to. They ran over smooth, soft skin, covering hard packed muscle as they removed white bandages covered and stained in blood and replaced them with clean ones.

The dark purple sheets on the bed were pulled off, revealing the completely naked human beneath them and the four areas on his body that she was tending to. His thigh, his stomach, his back and his chest and Lasair was currently checking on each of them to make sure their healing was coming along. She'd even had to pull some kind of strange metal object out of his stomach wound. The human had been brought back to her home on the outskirts of Donnalaich thanks to her friend Tristram. She had placed him in her guest bedroom and had been treating him since yesterday. He had yet to awaken but it looked like he was going to live, most likely thanks to that moss she had picked up in Luthmor. Otherwise he might not have even survived the journey back to her home.

[Godhand]

It was a real rough scene. Ambush. One minute they were pasting explosive putty to a safe and the next all you could hear was the flat hollow boom of their guns going off. Godhand had just barely managed to get out of there; the only one out of four guys. It'd taken some fancy ducking and weaving and a bit of of dare-devilry but he'd been able to escape his immediate death. They had crept up behind them without making any noise; more than likely they were already there from the moment they'd arrived.

It was some fucking thing. A job for a friend of a friend or something like that. It was supposed to be real simple. They went in, got what was in the safe, then got out. Now Godhand wondered if there had ever been anything in the safe in the first place. Plenty of well-connected people wanted him and those knuckleheads gone. Good guys; all of them. Now they were good and dead. Those fucking animals hadn't even waited for them to turn.

Chik-chik

"Wha-"

BOOM

Godhand ran. He ran as fast and as hard as he could. Those poor bastards. There was nothing worse than being shot in the back; not being able to see the rotten son of a bitch who did it. If he hadn't been crouching in front of Jones who was a bit of a fatso ("Fuck you, buddy") he probably would gone down with 'em. But they weren't going to let him go that easy. Godhand could have sworn to Christ they were using hounds to track him. Every so often he'd stop and try to catch his breath but as soon as he did another gunshot rang out. They'd got him in the stomach about two hours before the river. Can you imagine trying to clear a forest while being pursued by assassins, all the while having a bullet in your gut like a broken beer bottle? No way of shaking them even if he hadn't gotten clipped. Wounded? No chance at all. He'd finally gone down at the Eiriagh.

The mercenary was sure that was that but here he was. He'd been awakened by some sweet melody; he was still far too out of it to know what it was. Through the fog of exhaustion-triggered sleep he was still able to make the room out, however. It was a homey place. Filled with little handmade crystals shaped like dogs and horses and the like. The walls were made of uneven grey stones and he could smell the dying embers of a fire from the chimney in the corner. It was a bit cold, but it felt...Safe. He hadn't felt that at ease in a while. Godhand wanted to go back to sleep and never wake up but he knew he couldn't saddle some good samaritan with something like that. The guy would probably insist on paying for the burial; make a headstone that read something like "Here Lies John G. Anonymous" and visit him on weekends. He couldn't lay a trip like that on some stranger. With a dull groan he propped himself up on one elbow, his back and chest throbbing, and looked at the young woman tending to his injuries. With that cute expression on her face, he could have kissed her right then. But better not tip his hand too early.

[Lasair Anubail]

She pulled back the bandage on his stomach, grimacing at the wound. It looked better than it had before, she knew, but it was still a ragged and torn hole in his skin that sickened her stomach when she looked at it. All of them did. The one in his back and chest was the worst. Whatever it was that had caused such a thing had gone straight through his back tore a hole in his lung and then come out the other side leaving a rather large gaping hole in its wake that she could have stuck two of her little fingers in, not that she was about to try. Looking at them was bad enough and having to treat them turned her insides into knots and made her want to smack whoever did this to him with something blunt and heavy, repeatedly. And Lasair was not one prone to smacking people with blunt objects.

Leaning back in her chair, the tiny Fae sighed. She hadn’t slept very much last night, in fact she’d barely slept at all. She’d spent nearly the entire day and night in this room and every time she’d accidentally fallen asleep, she’d come to with a start as her eyes sought to make sure his chest still rose and fell.

Tossing the bloody bandage in a small little ceramic garbage bowl, she reached for a jar resting on the dark wood of the simple nightstand. Twisting the top off, she grabbed herself a fresh set of gauze and tape and was applying her Wound Be Gone when she heard a rather dry and dull groan permeate the silence of the room. Turning her head sharply she watched as the human started awakening, his body shifting and his bright red eyes roaming around the room. Oh, she had never seen a human with red eyes before.

A large smile was just beginning to tug at the corners of her lips, until she realized that he was trying to get up. Now that just wasn’t going to happen.

Placing the gauze and jar back on the nightstand she reached over and placed her hand in the centre of his chest. His body was much warmer now then when she had first found him and his skin no longer looked like that of a corpse but was already regaining its normal colour.

“Oh no you don’t! You need to stay still, there’s no way I’m letting you ruin my nights work by trying to move around.” To put emphasis on what she was saying, she pushed down upon his chest with her palm.

He didn’t move an inch.

It was like pushing against a stone wall.

Turning her face into what could possibly be considered one of the cutest, angry and frustrated and I’m-gonna-get-my-way scowls ever, the tiny Fae took a deep breath and pushed down against his chest again, harder this time. And once again he didn’t even budge, not a centimetre; not even a millimetre.

“Aww, that’s almost adorable.” He said to her, his voice a little hoarse and dry.

She blinked and turned her eyes to his face as he reached up and ruffled the blood red locks that cascaded down the sides of her face and back, and then he compliantly lay back down.

“Thank you.” She said rather cheerfully, leaving him to decide if she was thanking him for complying or for saying she was almost adorable. “I just have to finish checking your wounds...”

She grabbed the jar of Wound Be Gone once more and the soft sounds of her humming entered the room. Trying to ignore the fact that he was awake now, she poured some of the cream coloured liquid onto his stomach, right over the wound still red and angry looking, but scabbing over. It probably stung a bit and the tightening of his stomach muscles was enough to prove that to her, but he didn’t say anything. Quickly covering the wound with the gauze and taping it down, she moved on to his right thigh next. She removed the bandage first and took a look at the jagged and torn rip in his skin, which she guessed was cause either by a branch or a rock in the river. The man was quite lucky that none of the wounds had become infected; then again he was lucky enough to be alive.

Placing some of the think liquid upon that wound as well, she quickly placed fresh gauze over it and taped it down so it wouldn’t move. Once she was done the humming stopped and the room fell into a soft and comfortable silence. From the large window against the far wall light streamed in, bright and beautiful in the morning and making every crystal sculpture within the room shimmer in a rainbow of light that bathed the stone walls and the wooden floors. And the sculptures were everywhere, along the nightstand, the small table in the centre of the room, the book shelf and it’s neatly lined tomes. But they especially covered the mantle over the fire, creating a fierce battle of dragons and one could well imagine them actually being alive the way the light reflected around them.

“My name is Lasair Anubail; I found you out in Luthmor off the Eiriagh and brought you back here to my home! You almost didn’t make it though because of the holes in you...” Despite the fact that she didn’t know him, didn’t even know his name or a speck of information about him, her face looked genuinely concerned and sad over that fact.

[Godhand]

Godhand watched helplessly as dragons, monsters and all manner of strange creatures danced along the wall. The light being refracted off the crystals twisted their shapes and increased them to monstrous proportions. To the mercenary's addled brain they seemed to be locked in a battle. He could have sworn he saw the shadow of a dragon grin as he consumed a helpless sheep. Jesus Christ, what a horrible trip to lay on someone with a belly full of holes! He shut his eyes and tried to convince himself that it was just the bloodloss screwing with him. There was of course no way those crystals were eating each other. He warily opened one of his eyes only to sigh in relief when the room stopped spinning and the shadows fell still once more. He vaguely noticed that his keeper had given him a name. It seemed only proper that he give one in turn but he was far too shaken to come up with a good one on the spot. Instead he chose to give her the name of a relatively unknown boxer he'd seen fight a couple of years ago.

"I'm, uhh..." he ground both his palms into his shut eyes, "Race. Harley Race." He paused at this and smiled when he remembered the man's full billing. "You can call me Handsome Harley, though." She laughed softly and smiled. Her laugh calmed him; it was like a wind chime. Soothing when you had been fighting for your life not too long ago. "Harley...Race. You humans really do have such strange names. But it's nice to meet you, handsome." Godhand couldn't help it; he gave her a small wink.

"It's-" he gave a hiss when he felt the sting of the salve. Sinking back into the bed, he muttered, "I love it when you hurt me, baby." "Gah...Wh-what?" She blinked at him a couple of times. Cute kid. They hadn't gotten to her yet. The bastards hadn't gotten to her yet. He chuckled again and gave out a short, harsh groan as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. "It was damn kind of you to pull me out of there, kid. Damn kind." He noticed he was naked. Normally he would have scrambled for something to cover himself with but after that little experience it was like so what? "Listen, you wouldn't mind giving me my clothes, would you?"

"Yes, I would." She said rather firmly as she stood up. "If you don't stop trying to move, I'm going to sit on you and if that doesn't work I'll poke that hole in your chest a few times." "Now don't be," he paused, clutching his chest with a slight wince, "Don't you be such a rough customer, darling. I'm a wounded man! And like I said, it was damn fine of you to pull me out. Most people would have seen an old stiff like me bobbing up and down in the river and they wouldn't have bothered to fish me out. I appreciate it. As a matter of fact, if ever you should find yourself in Radasanth you just ask for a friend of mine. Godhand. Bit of a rough customer himself but he can sort out most of your troubles. Right now though, I really need to get my clothes and see if any boats are sailing to Corone today."

"You'll never make it to Talmhaidh in your condition..." Shaking her head, Lasair crossed the small distance to the bed and then plopped her little bottom right onto Harley's stomach. "I told you I'd sit on you if you didn't listen. Next, I start poking." She didn't really want to, but if giving him some pain made him realize just how bad off he was right now, she'd do it.

He grit his teeth as she lay on him. The pain wasn't that bad; hell, it wasn't much at all compared to having an enormous Goddamn bullet shoot through your chest just above your arteries. But even though he was a bit of an old man he was still a man, and had the natural reaction a man would have when a beautiful young woman in a skirt straddled him. Jesus, she probably already felt it poking into her lower back. With a short grunt he pulled up the deep purple sheets and began wrapping them around his waist, carefully pushing her off and trying to hide 'it'.

"Alright honey-bunny, I ain't a pushy guy. I'm not stubborn either. Keep the clothes. Hell, I think I had a bit of money with me when I went down? Keep that too! But I am going to need these-do you know what a pistol is?- I'm going to need these..." He made a gun shape with his fingers. She looked at the bundle of sheets he had wrapped around his waist -at this he squirmed- to his hands and then stared at him rather blankly. "I don't want your clothes or your money, I have plenty of those things. And you can have your... pistols. I just want you to be okay, which you wont be if you insist on moving. Please! You need to rest..." She was starting to plead with him now.

"Oh Goddamnit," He'd had enough. He couldn't drag a Goddamn pixie into a fight with some of the meanest sons of bitches that the underworld had to offer. "Sorry sweetheart, but when you gotta go you gotta go." He ruffled her hair even as she protested and picked up his pistol belt when he found it coiled next to the door. Without any money or clothes he was probably going to have to sell one of the revolvers to pay for his passage back to Corone. He hated to part with one of his babies but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She tried to pull him back by his arm but even wounded he was still formidable; no way a wispy little thing like her could slow him down. The swordsman finally reached the door and pushed it open, walking out into a cobblestone path in her garden. He could see a road nearby but in his way was a mountain of a halfbreed. "Stop him!" shouted the girl. "Wait," Tristram responded by pressing a hand to the mercenary's chest. Blue and red stars flashed in front of his eyes and he dropped the gun belt in pain, his knees buckling and quickly becoming wobbly. With his last bit of strength he gave the half-dragon a short crack across the stomach.

They hit the ground at the same time.

((OOC: All of Lasair's words and actions were written by Witchblade. Assume this of all of my posts until the end of the story.))

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair didn’t know who she should help first, the unconscious and injured human, or her best friend who had been sent stumbling to the ground in one punch. She’d never seen anyone capable of doing that to Tristram before. The human must be incredibly strong, either that or Tristram had not been expecting the human to attack him at all, maybe his guard had been down. She often heard him and the others he fought with say something about guards being down. His must have been; odd though that she didn’t see any guards on him. He was just wearing his usual black vest, black pants and an overcoat that kept away the slightly chilled air that seemed to slide through her garden.

Taking a few tentative steps out into the garden, Lasair watched as Tristram slowly brought himself to his feet. His long dark, blue hair was a mess around his face, which he quickly swept back with his hand.

“What the fuck was that, Lasair!?” he growled the words at her, his lips pulling back into a sneer and revealing straight white teeth and canines that were naturally too long.

“He was trying to leave.”

She wasn’t at all put off by his tone, she’d heard it many times before and though she didn’t appreciate getting yelled at by her best friend, Draconians were just like that.

“Then let him leave.” He said a little more calmly, though the words were just as harsh.

Running his hands across his shirt and jacket to straighten the mess they had turned into, the tall Draconian reached down and wrapped his clawed hand around the dark wood of his discarded spear. She hadn’t even noticed him carrying the weapon, but then again he never went anywhere without it. Good thing he hadn’t tried to use that against the human though, otherwise she would probably have more wounds to attend to at the moment instead of the ones he’d stubbornly reopened.

“He’d never make it right now!” She said rather defiantly as she moved closer to his downed form. She could see blood already beginning to seep through the white bandages, staining them a red that nearly matched the colour of her hair. “He hasn’t healed enough.”

“He’s not your problem, let him leave and let him die if that’s what he wants. It’s his life and it’s his choice.”

He said it so nonchalantly, as if he really didn’t care about the life of the human and in all honesty, he probably didn’t. She knew Tristram could be cold sometimes, harsh even. It was just the way he was, he cared about few people but she knew those he did care about, he cared with all his heart. Despite the fact that he wanted half the world of Althanas to know he had no heart.

“Just help me get him back into bed.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so!”

His eyes went wide for a brief second as she yelled at him, then he grunted and walked over, hefting the unconscious and bleeding human onto his shoulder with one hand. She reached down and grabbed the leather belt that he had tried to leave the house with, the one with all the shiny metal objects in it. Probably the pistols he had wanted. Sadly, the damn thing weighed more than she thought possible and she ended up having to drag it across the grey stones, up to the porch and back into the cool air of her home. The fact that he wanted them so badly, made her wonder what exactly they were. But now wasn’t the time for her curiosity to take over and go snooping through this things. She had to attend his wounds once more.

Instead of following Tristram into the guest room, Lasair dumped the leather thing in the doorway and then ran down the hallway and up a flight of stairs rather quickly, her bare feet slapping against the polished and clean floors as she went. When she got back downstairs and into her guest bedroom, Tristram had placed Harley on the bed and was standing over him, glaring, as if waiting for the human to wake up just so he could do some more damage to him. He had also taken off his jacket, revealing the tightly coiled wings resting against his back and the dark blue scales that peeked out from under his vest around his shoulders, and his left arm.

“Oh, get over it.” She said as she walked into the room.

He turned sharply to face her, his pitch black eyes narrowing, “Get over what? And what the hell are those in your hand!?”

Tristram really did need to learn how to use his indoor voice sometimes and stop yelling at her. “They’re manacles.” She said as she showed him the metal bindings and the chain that attached them together. She had brought down two.

He sighed as he watched her move closer to the bed and attached one of each cuff to separate bed posts. “What are they made of, ‘cause this one’s pretty damn strong.”

“Titanium.” She said rather proudly.

He balked, “What do you need manacles made of Titanium for?”

“Because Draconians are rather strong.” She said with a mischievous smile.

“Oh, for the love of Cosain, I feel like I just learned way too much information about your sex life.”

“Yeah, you did, now flip him onto his side so I can check his back.”

Reluctantly, Tristram did as she asked and Lasair began meticulously checking each of Harley’s wounds. There hadn’t been any serious damage done to them. Unfortunately for the human, when she ran her fingers lightly across his forehead a short time later, she noticed how warm his skin was and the slight perspiration forming there. When she was done, she slipped each of his wrists into one of the manacles, adjusting the size to fit him since the last time they had been used, well, they had been used on her.

[Godhand]

When Godhand opened his eyes a he was overcome with a strong feeling of dejavu. Same bed, same ceiling, same terrible crystal statues. The only thing that was different were the chains binding him to either bed post. Another thing that was new was a general sense of malaise about him. Before he had just been dizzy but now he felt genuinely ill. The swordsman's throat was terribly dry and he eagerly swallowed the drops of cold water that were rolling down his forehead. He looked to the side to find the person tending to him, once again an angel, soaking a washcloth. He groggily deduced that was the reason his forehead was so pleasantly cool. The young girl turned over and absently pressed the cloth on his head before yelping in surprise when she realized he was staring right at her. Godhand gave her a feverish grin.

The girl shrank for him, big beautiful eyes like a doe scanning him up and down. In his haze he basked in the attention, imagining fat cherub babies shooting arrows tipped with hearts into his brain. Jesus Christ, just how sick was he? The mercenary vaguely noticed the young woman approaching him again, hesitantly extending a hand. She seemed more and more unsure the closer her tip of her fingers got. Godhand bided his time, pretending to stare off into space until just when she made the slightest contact, before whipping his neck to face her and barking like a wild dog. She gave the cutest little 'eep' before leaping into the air and putting some distance between her and a prone Godhand. His eyes softened when she peered at him over the hands she'd cupped over her face in fright.

"Oh God, I'm sorry sweetheart. I didn't mean to scare you; I was just having a little fun. I'm just a little...Just move on back here. I won't do it again." She hesitantly walked back to the bed, balling her fists just below her chin. She was the very image of feminity. How much of this was he hallucinating? "I'm...A little thirsty though, honey-bunny. How about you just let me suck on that cloth for a second?"

"Oh!" She said, the translucent wings on her back, shifting and shimmering, "Let me go get you something to drink." With that said, she quickly left the room and returned less than a minute later with a large glass of water in her hand. "I'm not supposed to let you go though, so I guess I'll have to help you..."

"You're far too kind." Even in his drugged-out state, or perhaps because of it, Godhand could truly appreciate the girl's beauty on many different levels. He probably fell in love with her then, as she carefully brought the cup to his lips. The mercenary drank greedily, holding the cup there with his teeth to keep her from pulling it away when she thought he was done. At this she gave a small giggle. Once the swordsman had drained the last bit of moisture from the cup she placed it on the nightstand and picked up the washcloth again. Godhand sighed when she placed it on his forehead, sinking deeper and deeper into a state of contentment. When he felt her hand slightly lower to dab at his eyebrows he absent-mindedly tilted his head back and kissed her on the wrist. There was a reason the man didn't let people see him when he was running a bad fever. In that whacked-out state he was as soft and docile as a puppy.

The breath hitched in the fairy girl's throat when she felt his lips upon her skin. Perhaps it was the novel facet of taking care of a member of a race she'd never even seen before then or perhaps it was the strange aura that radiated from him, but she began to feel an interest in him. She pulled her hand away and stared down at her wrist for a moment before she sat down upon the floor, resting her arms on the edge of her bed and her chin upon them. "Are you really a human?"

"I...I guess. I hope that's not a problem. Are you really an angel?"

She smiled, "No, it's not a problem... I've just never met a human before. And I'm not an angel, I'm a Fae."

"You're very pretty." His brain felt like it was swimming in an endless ocean of cold milk. Every once in a while the milk would get warmer and he'd see a small ripple and the slitted eyes of a herd of crocodiles, waiting to devour him, but then she pressed the cloth against his head again and they disappeared.

A light tinge of red ran rampant across her cheeks and down her neck, "Thank you..." As she pressed the cloth once more to his forehead, she lightly brushed back his grey hair, running her fingers through it. Godhand gave a contended sigh, his eyelids feeling heavy. Almost as a natural response he nuzzled her arm in gratitude. He could barely even remember what it was like to have arms. It just seemed right, you know, to lay helpless in a bed while a beautiful pixie took care of him.

Aileen ran her fingers lightly down the side of his face and across the rough stubble appearing along his jaw. "Human..." She said softly, as she leaned over the side of the bed and softly kissed him. Godhand merely lay there, stoned way past anywhere he'd ever been, shut his eyes and kissed her back. The pheremones began rolling off his skin more intensely than ever before an unwelcome sound forced them apart.

BOOM

They'd found him.

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair looked at the leather holster she had left on the ground. It didn’t seem very important to her or even very special. It just looked like another weird belt, albeit nothing like the ones she had seen so many of the Draconians wear with their swords and axes nestled within. Perhaps they were magical weapons, or maybe they weren’t weapons at all.

Out of habit, Lasair glanced around the kitchen even though she knew she was alone. No one would see her go through his stuff and if she put it back exactly the way she had found it, then she doubted anyone would be the wiser, especially the human, that stubborn idiot of a human who insisted on trying to kill himself by moving before his wounds had properly begun to heal themselves. Honestly, her Wound Be Gone was strong and worked really fast on sword wounds and the like, but these deep holes inside of him were another story. They seemed to be taking far longer to heal and the fever he just came down with was only going to make it worse. Good thing she knew just the right recipe to help get rid of that. The right herbs and ingredients, all blended together in a tasty soup. He wouldn’t even realize he was eating medicine. But it needed a little longer on the stove, so in the meantime she could play.

Kneeling next to the holster, Lasair reached out and wrapped one of her small hands around what looked like a handle and pulled. The metal object weighed far more than she thought it would and then she remembered she’d had to drag the damn thing into the house when he’d dropped it. Wrapping her other hand around it as well, she gave it and quick tug and pulled the thing free from its sheath.

It didn’t look like a weapon at all. At least not to her eyes.

It was rather large, made of some kind of metal though she wasn’t entirely sure what kind. Could be steel or it could be Titanium and looking down the front of it was a large cylinder kind of thing, but it was dark and she couldn’t see what was at the other end. There was some weird kind of depression mechanism on the underside though...

-------------------------

It was a slow, lazy kind of kiss. The kind she didn’t want to stop, or even speed up but just lose herself in. Then she just felt it change, the curiosity that had taken her to kiss him and the lazy haze behind it became something more, something unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was like a deep heat that pooled somewhere in her abdomen and then spread throughout her whole body. It heated her blood and made her heart beat quicker within her chest. And she wanted more of it. Letting out a soft moan, Aileen intensified the kiss. She felt like crawling on top of him and being far bolder than she ever had with a man before.

BOOM!

The sound ripped through the air, ringing in her ears as she pulled away from the human, a little dazed and a lot of worried. Her wide and golden eyes were searching around the room as if it held the answer to the sound, as if she could see the source of it. Then she felt the pain rip across her back, her head and especially her wing and immediately she knew what was wrong.

Lasair! Oh, please be okay.

Without saying anything to the human named Harley, she turned, her small feet quickly carrying her across the floor and towards the closed door. Hearing the sound of rattling chains and straining wood, Aileen turned back just in time to see the human bending and then breaking the bedposts as if they were sticks and not three inch chunks of wood. Her jaw nearly dropped and she didn’t know if she should be running to Lasair right now or running away from him! He appeared to have very little interest in her though, his completely naked form tossed the sheet off and barrelled out of the room as if the meanest wyrm was on his tail, not that he had a tail.

She left right behind him, her eyes searching the hallway trying to find the source of the sound, instead all she saw was Tristram quickly running down from upstairs and towards the two of them.

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, where’s Lasair?”

“In the kitchen.” He growled, his eyes roaming over Aileen before turning and narrowing on the human.

Tristram hurried after Aileen as she went ahead of him. Her small form was practically running through the hallway and then disappearing into the first door on the right. He followed just a few second behind her, entering Lasair’s rather large kitchen. Dried herbs and plants hung from a rack in front of the kitchen filling the room with an almost forest like smell and pots and pans hung in the centre of the room right around an island. There were various cupboard lining the way and large stove against the far wall, not to mention a table too big for someone who lived by themself.

The first thing he noticed was the leather belt he knew did not belong to Lasair and the metal objects within it. There were only three, before there had been four. The second thing his eyes found was the slumped form of Lasair against the far side of the island. One of the objects was just a few inches away from one of her hands, now slumped at her side and her head was bowed, her long blood red hair covering her face from his eyes. But he could smell blood in the air. Aileen was already at her twin’s side and Tristram was right behind her. Kneeling down next to the Fae, Tristram reached out and gently cupped the side of her face with clawed hand.

“Lasair? Come on, sweety...”

She moaned softly and shifted, then let out a soft whimper. He noticed then the steady stream of silver dripping down from her right wing, it looked like she’d torn it open somehow. Knowing that Fae could very easily bleed to death should their wings become torn, he turned to Aileen.

“Go get me some of Lasair’s Medicine, Aileen.”

She nodded her head, standing and moving past Harley as she did so. Tristram had nearly completely forgotten about the human’s presence until that moment.

"Jesus Christ, its happening isn't it? Does this place have a second floor? Bar the doors with furniture, I'm going to see if I can't snipe some of them off!" He went for the gun belt.

Tristram turned his pure black eyes to the human, “What are you mumbling about?”

Lasair shifted again, drawing Tristram’s attention away from the human and back to her as she slowly opened her eyes and glanced towards him with a slightly dazed expression. Her hand moved and smacked against the handle of the revolver near to her side.

“Went... boom and fly... kind of hurts.”

He chuckled softly, “Yeah, I bet it does...”

Godhand vaguely understood that she had done this to herself. "How...Why would you-?" He leaned over to try and hold her but instead pulled back his hands when he noticed the silver blood. He looked at the mercury on his hands and his throat went dry again. What a horrible trip.

She smiled softly, starting to come more around from the bump on her head. “You seemed... like they were important so I wanted to see why.”

Just then Aileen came back into the room with a jar of Wound Be Gone, which Tristram quickly took from her and twisted the top off, applying the thick liquid to her wing. As he applied the medicine she knew would heal her wing easily enough, Lasair watched as Harley stumbled to a corner of the kitchen and sat down, starring at the silver blood on his hand.

[Godhand]

Godhand's mouth was dry again. He was breathing loudly in short sniffs, swirling his tongue around his mouth. This whole place was screwed up. Magical monster crystals, girls with fire-fly wings and silver blood shining on his hands. The mercenary probably couldn't have handled it if he was straight. Loopy on a fever? No chance at all. But his instincts remained unhampered by the sickness and right now they were telling him to go back to the bed and lie down. He obeyed them. The room was just how he'd left it, more or less. He grimaced at the shattered ends of the bed posts before dusting the splinters off the bed and laying down. Soon after his hostess returned. The swordsman didn't know quite what to say to her so he simply started with the first thing that came to mind.

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"Ahh... yeah, we're twins, though I bet you already figured that out." She said to him, a little awkwardly. "Sorry for... playing with your pistol..."

"Are you alright?"

"Oh, yes!" She said, her little voice returning to it's normal cheerful manner. "It just sent me flying back into the kitchen island when it went off and my wing got caught." She twisted her head around to stare at the shimmering wing which rested a little strangely against her back. "But it's doing fine, within a few hours it'll be all healed and better!" She turned back to him, "I'm more worried about you though.... and how did you--" She noticed the broken bed frame right then and the fact that the manacles were still attached to his wrist.

"It's got a bit of a kick to it doesn't it?" He chuckled. "Oh, yeah. Sorry about your bed." He noticed where she was looking at the bedposts and became apologetic. "I just heard that boom and reacted, you know. I'll be happy to replace it for you. I think I got that kind of scratch on me." She laughed softly.

"Boy does it ever have a kick to it! I think it would be fun to try again, can I, Maybe later? Can you show me? Oh and no worries about the bed, I'll get one of my friends to make a new one and move you to another room."

"Hell no you can't try it again! Those bullets cost money!" Godhand was surprised with how lucid he became. "Do you think molten death just shoots out of the barrel by magic? That's not-" He paused, "Okay, that might actually have been a fair assumption on your part but it doesn't." Her wings dropped a little on her back and the large smile across her face faltered and fell.

"Okay... where does the molten death come from then? And umm... h-how are your wounds doing?"

He softened at her expression. "Listen, maybe you can go ahead and try just like once or twice but you can't make a habit out of it. And the bullet is fired because..." He struggled to put the explanation into words. "Okay, when you pull the trigger it sets off the hammer. The hammer drives into the firing cap causing a spark which causes the gunpowder to ignite and the pressure to build until the bullet is ejected by the gas." The whole thing seemed impenetrable to him even as it left his mouth. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes, trying to think of a simpler explanation. Soda foam sprang to mind, but just as he was about to elucidate she interrupted him.

"Oh, I get it! So you're using a driving force and a build up of pressure to propel something at great speeds towards a chosen target, right?" He blinked a couple of times as he stared at her.

"That's...That's right. Wow. That's impressive." She giggled and smiled at him.

"Thanks. Now that I think about it, the whole design seems rather simple... I bet I could make one..." She suddenly became pensive but quickly seemed to shake it off when she realized something. "Oh! But you avoided my question about your wounds." She gave him a mock glare, "Are they any better?"

"It's not that simple. Materials that can withstand that kind of pressure are actually rather hard to come by and the engineering needs to be exact or it can lead to a disaster." He looked a bit sheepish when she asked about his wounds. "I'm doing a lot better now, I think. I have to thank you again for taking care of me."

"My pleasure! And I have soup on the stove for you, should kill off the last of your fever. Would you... like some?" She fidgetted a bit with her dress as she waited for him to answer. He laid back. Geez, how long had it been since anyone had made soup for him when he was sick?

"You're a real angel, you know that?"

"And you look really good clad only in a sheet." Before he could respond, Lasair turned and left the room, heading towards the kitchen. Out in the garden she noticed Tristram and Aileen were having a rather angry looking conversation, but she decided to stay out of it for now. It may be personal. Godhand had jumped as soon as she made light of the fact that he was basically naked, scrambling about the room trying to find his clothes. They had actually been on the left hand side of the bed from the beginning; he probably would have noticed them if he hadn't been so screwed up. He jumped into his briefs before unceremoniously pulling up his pants and zipping up. That was all he had time to don though as Lasair entered the room once more. She smirked and gave a minute "aww" before offering the soup. Godhand leaned over and picked it up the bowl, taking a long deep sniff of it's contents. "When you're done eating, I'll help you upstairs. Can't have you resting on a broken bed."

"Mmm. Smells good. Goddamn has it been a long time since anybody that I didn't pay cooked for me."

"Really? That's a shame, nothing like a good meal cooked by someone that cares." That comment gave pause to Godhand. There was a reply that was just begging to be said but it was the sort of sappy self-centered drivel that the mercenary loathed. He could actually feel the hate he had for people who said those sorts of things resurface as he took his first sip, clearing the everything-is-right-with-the-world haze from his mind. This was strong stuff.

"Delicious. You know I bet this would go great as maybe an accompaniment to a pasta or maybe like a really mild fish; you know like something that is vaguely fishy but doesn't beat you over the head with the fact that it's seafood." Godhand paused immediately after he spoke. "Oh man. I'm sorry; I'm not implying that you should make me dinner or anything. I was just thinking out loud what kind of a position this soup would have on a regular diet and not as sick food." He shut his eyes and furrowed his brow as if he'd just been stuck with a needle. "Not that I'm saying it tastes like sick food! Oh, Goddamnit..." She laughed at his words and his mannerisms.

"I've never seen anyone get beat over the head by seafood... don't worry though, I do plan on feeding you dinner and if fish is what you want, I can make it!" Maybe it was the fact that she was taking such good care of him or that he was still relatively weak in self-control, but he just had to put the question forward.

"...Maybe some pasta instead?"

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair gave Harley a soft smile as he requested she make him pasta instead of fish. She had no problem with that; he was the one recovering after all. She’d make him whatever he wanted without complaint, as long as she knew how to of course. And pasta was quite easy and she had a number of different sauces she could put on it too, though she was unsure of what exactly he liked eating. She’d have to grill him and find out his favourites when she prepared herself to make dinner. But that was hours that still hadn’t passed. For now, she just wanted him to finish eating his soup and then get some more rest. No more running around trying to leave when he wasn’t supposed to and no more playing with his pistols. That only caused pain. And she wasn’t very fond of pain. It hurt.

Leaning back in the chair, Lasair watched silently watched him as he continued to eat the soup she had prepared for him, none the wiser that it was medicine. He was probably already starting to feel better, in fact the incident in the kitchen seemed to have snapped him out of the majority of his feverish stupor, but whatever was left would soon be chased away. Homemade soup could do wonders after all.

Noticing a large tome haphazardly thrown onto the ground, the tiny Fae leaned over in her seat to pick it. It looked like one of her many books detailing the kinds of plants that lived in Dheathain and exactly what they did depending on the area of the plant you were using. She had no idea why Aileen would want to read such a thing, but she didn’t mind. As long as she didn’t bend any of the pages. Then she would be mad. These books were hard to come by and harder to replace.

As she hefted the heavy, leather clad and worn book, the sound of voices echoed through her home and carried to her ears. Perking her head, she turned to the door as she heard them growing louder only to watch as both Aileen and Tristram practically burst into the room. Aileen looked somewhere between scared poop less and downright agitated and Tristram just looked angry. Then again, he always looked angry when he argued. The tanned skin around his face was red with his frustrations and his hands were balls into tight fists at his side, though occasionally they rose and poked a finger in Aileen’s direction.

“He has to leave!” The words of Tristram rang into the word, anger punctuating every letter.

“This isn’t your house, Tristram; you don’t get to decide that. It’s Lasair’s choice whether or not she wants to keep him around and personally, I’m siding with her. The man is clearly injured and in need of some help, we’re not just going to leave him on the street to die!”

Lasair couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Aileen stick up for her like this, especially in a conversation she wasn’t entirely sure she was following. Though it appeared to be about Harley.

Standing up, Lasair placed the book on the chair and turned to her twin and her best friend. “What’s going on?”

It was only then that the two of them appeared to notice their argument had taken them directly into the guest room that Lasair had set up Harley in. Aileen flushed with embarrassment right away, but Tristram only sneered towards the bed and the figure that was looking a little too cosy within it in his mind.

“I want him out of here, Lasair.” Tristram said his voice was a little calmer but the anger was still there. He spoke in a way as if he actually expected her to just bow down to his words and accept them. As if she had no say in this matter.

Resting her small hands upon her narrow waist, the Fae glared right back at the Draconian, who was easily over twice her size. “He’s not well enough to leave yet and I don’t remember giving you say in who comes and goes in my home.”

“Is coma liom sa diabhal!”

She didn’t switch over to Dheath when he did. She saw no point in doing so; Harley would not be able to follow the conversation, which was about him so he should very well know what was being said during it.

“I don’t care what you think!” She snapped at him, surprised by the own rising notes of anger in her own voice. Tristram and her argued a lot, but he generally seemed rather set about this whole Harley situation. She just couldn’t figure out why. The man had done nothing to her or Aileen or even him. He should have no problems with the human; after all he clearly needed their help.

“Mallaigh coimhthioch leannan, faigh bas ag tigh eisean.”

Her eyes widened as her mouth opened to speak but nothing came forth from it. Her fingers tightened around her waist, digging into the soft skin that lay beyond the thin material of her dress. As Tristram only continued to stare at her with the same expression on his face, her lower lip began to quiver and her eyes filled with unshed tears. Even Aileen seemed rather shocked by the words that had just come from Tristram.

As he watched her countenance fall, he seemed to realize what he had just said to her. The harsh lines of his face softened and the snarl that seemed to have formed over his lips turned into a worried frown.

“Las—” He tried to reach for her.

“Imigh...”

His hand stilled at the word, but he opened his mouth none the less to say something to her. She wouldn’t allow it though, he had said enough.

“Imigh!” She screamed the word at him as two tears stained her cheeks.

The Draconian steeled his face, the hard mask of indifference once again finding its way onto his features and then without saying another word, he turned to leave.

[Godhand]

The soup was pretty damn good. It tasted something like tomato but it was creamy like chowder. Godhand was really wolfing it down because when he wasn't paying for a meal, he never knew when it would get snatched away from him. He needed to get as much out of it as he could before then. The girl was sweet and had a good heart but the halfbreed was a rough customer and he didn't want to cause any trouble. Just then, maybe it was the soothing effect of the soup, he started to feel a lot better. A lot more optimistic; like there wouldn't even be any problems. These hopes were soon dashed however when Aileen and Tristram burst into the room. They were talking fast and loud; both were pretty excited. The dragonian wanted him out of there. Well, that had been obvious since the start, but now he was really getting pushy about it. He wanted him gone now. That was fine with him, but just as the mercenary was about to get up and leave Aileen stood up for him. She was a mousy girl, and from her sister's reaction Godhand guessed that she didn't usually defend herself. The swordsman didn't know how he felt about her putting herself out there for him.

Before he could even work it out though the dragonian shifted to some crazy moonspeak native to the region and started yelling at Lasair. She had the common courtesy to keep speaking the common tongue, for which he was grateful, and out of her side of the conversation he could more or less piece together what was going on. Godhand was just about to step in and say his piece, that they didn't need to fight over this. That he wanted to leave just as much as the big guy wanted him gone and that there was no reason for this to turn into a thing. But before he could Tristram said something. It had to be pretty hurtful too because both sisters seemed shocked. That, and now even Lasair had shifted to Dragonian or whatever the halfbreed's language was. The man pulled himself up to his full height, trying to look dignified, before walking out the door. Normally the swordsman would have let it go but the moment two tears streamed down Lasair's face he shot up from the bed and chased after the Dragonian.

Tristram was just about to turn around to see what all the loud stomping was but before he even could Godhand leaped into the air, grabbing the back of the halfbreed's head and slamming it into the ground during the fall. His head bounced off the wooden floor like a damn basketball and right away he was out of it. The mercenary always loved using the one-handed bulldog; nothing was quite as satisfying as catching someone who really deserved it with it. Nevertheless he grunted in pain when he landed and immediately checked to see if he had reopened any of his wounds. He almost expected a big spot of blood to form on his bandages again but luckily for him he was fine. The swordsman pulled himself up to his feet and considered hitting the dragonian with a death valley driver for good measure but decided, once he got a look at his dazed expression, that he had done enough. Godhand dragged the man outside and shut the door.

To the hitman's surprise the dragonian started beating on the door to get back in. What balls on this guy! Did he really think Godhand wouldn't kill him if it came to that!? Just as he was about to open the door and lay an unholy beating on their unwelcome guest, Lasair ran in front of him and opened the door. The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, neither saying a word, but just as Tristram opened his mouth Lasair hurled the spear, easily a foot longer than her, out into the yard and shut the door. She locked it afterwards this time. She slumped against the door, sniffling, while the Dragonian shouted all sorts of curses from outside. Most prominent was "I can't believe you're kicking me out but letting him stay!" Godhand thought about going out there and smacking him around a bit but he knew the girl wouldn't like that. For now, he didn't know what to say so he said nothing.

[Lasair Anubail]

The door was something sturdy to lean against. It was something that could hold her up when nothing else seemed able to. Why Tristram had said such a hateful thing to her, Lasair didn’t know. He was supposed to be her best friend and though he lost his temper from time to time, he was never outwardly cruel to her. He may stomp around and pretend like he owned the place and everything he said was law, but that was fine, he was a Draconian. They all had a rather bad habit of doing that and she usually found a way around it, but for some reason he was being overly zealous with this whole Harley issue. And why, because he was human? So what? There were more and more humans coming into Dheathain every day thanks to Daroch and the Fae council opening the ports of Talmhaidh to outsiders. And yes, some bad things had happened, but that didn’t mean that every single human who stepped foot on Dheath soil was evil or bad.

After no less than a minute, the shouts outside the door slowly began to grow quiet until Lasair could hear the heavy steps of Tristram moving away from her house. He’d be back. There was no doubt in her mind that he would come back, but whether or not she’d let him in or even listen to what he had to say was a completely different story.

Lifting her head, Lasair reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks, she didn’t want Harley to see her cry. It was embarrassing enough to have a fight with her best friend about him while he was standing merely a few feet away, but then to have him say that... she just didn’t want to worry the human. After all, he was supposed to be recovering not throwing enraged Draconians out of her house after having tackled them to the ground. Normally, she would shy away from such a blatant act of violence, but in her mind Tristram had deserved it. He needed to be knocked off his feet sometimes so that someone could show him he wasn’t standing on the highest mountain in the known regions of Althanas.

Stepping away from the door, Lasair moved passed Harley, but when she went to move passed her twin; Aileen reached out and laid her hand along Lasair’s shoulder. It stilled her, but she said nothing. She just wanted to forget that the entire incident had ever taken place and that Tristram had never come here today. Nodding her head to Aileen, Lasair slipped into the guest bedroom and began tidying things up. She placed the large tome back on the bookshelf with all the others, picked up the discarded bowl and placed it upon the nightstand and then began cleaning off the bed. It had a multitude of small shards of wood around it, which meant the sheets and the comforter needed to be washed and she had to get in touch with one of her friends to see if they could make her a new bed, but which friend?

While she was in the room, Aileen hesitantly moved towards Harley. Her hands were clasped in front of her as her fingers nervously ran over her smooth skin.

“I’m...sorry for Tristram’s behaviour.” She said in a small voice. “He’s not usually that, umm... pig headed I think the word is. And Lasair... well, when she gets upset she tries to brush it aside and keep herself busy so as not to worry others.”

The man just looked rather sheepish and uncomfortable with the whole thing. Maybe Lasair should have just let him leave even if he wasn’t yet fit for it. “Hell, I’m just sorry for causing so much trouble.”

She didn’t doubt that, he certainly looked like it. “It’s not really trouble... Lasair and Tristram fight all the time; I don’t understand how she can stand to hang around him and all those Draconians. He just said something extremely hurtful to her, I’m sure within a day or two they’ll be back on good graces.”

Aileen felt slightly uncomfortable with the clearly larger man standing before her, but she tried not to let it show. When he raised one of his hands, Aleen tilted her head to the side and watched as the chains still attached to his wrists clanked and smacked against his back and shoulders.

Wrapping the ends around his hands, he turned his attention back to her. "Listen, sweetheart...You wouldn't mind getting these off, would you?"

“Oh... umm... but Lasair might want to tie you down again—I mean make you helpless again—I—I mean, I’ll, I’ll go get Lasair!” And without wasting another second, the small Fae practically turned and fled the hallway, slipping into the guest room where Lasair was.

[Godhand]

Godhand didn't expect to be bothered by that Tristram thing as much he was. I mean obviously it upset him when anyone was rude to a lady, but that weird back-and-forth moonspeak thing had really set him off. It was probably because he didn't understand a damn word of what the halfbreed was saying and was free to fill in the blanks with some of the worst things he could imagine. And that was something you should never say to a lady. But even if the Fae hadn't told him to let Tristram go, the Dragonian was too far away for the mercenary to catch him now. Maybe if he were back in Radasanth, but stuck in some city he didn't know and his quarry did? No chance. Plus tracking a guy across a port town just to slug him was probably a bit much.

The swordsman wrapped the chains around his hands and began to test their durability with his fingers. He didn't want to break them because, strange as it may sound, they technically belonged to Lasair and he didn't want to cause the girl any more grief. It was to his surprise then that he realized he couldn't break them. It was strange that she possessed such powerful bindings. They were stronger than Mythril, anyway. Did half dead mercenaries drop by often? It really wasn't much use ruminating on it, however; he had to get Lasair to take them off. He couldn't very well walk the city looking like an escaped convict.

When he reached the guest bedroom he wasn't really surprised to see her busying herself with menial work. That was probably the best thing to take her mind off her friend's betrayal. Nevertheless, Aileen was still rubbing her sister's back and stroking her hair. It was somehow beautiful. The mercenary hadn't ever really been part of a family. At least, not a "family" in the traditional sense of the word. Thus, this sisterly display tugged at something within him. He couldn't say what.

"I, uhh..." He hated to interrupt but the manacles were a matter of relative urgency. Lasair perked up almost humorously and ran forward to undo the locks. To Godhand's surprise she didn't use a key but instead pressed down on some area of the mechanism, he couldn't say where, and then both cuffs rolled off his wrists and collapsed into a mound of chains on the ground.

"They're made so you can take them off yourself," the Fae explained quickly.

"Well, don't I feel silly?" She seemed to be in slightly better spirits so Godhand ventured forward. "Am I to understand that these are...Recreational bindings?" He gave a minute wink to the girls.

Lasair blushed sheepishly before replying with a quiet "yes". Delightful.

"You know, I wanted to thank you again." He was tentative this time; it seemed like he'd already thanked her a hundred times. But it seemed like she wouldn't let him go unless she was sure he was healed. He had to prove it somehow. "I feel a lot better, you know. And I want to pay you back somehow. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I'm glad you're feeling better." She said with a smile. "And umm... well I suppose you could come to work with me tomorrow if you want." She could always use some muscle to help her, after all she had been wanting to move that book shelf...

"That'd be grand."

[Lasair Anubail]

The inside of Lasair’s shop was unique to the say the least and to say the most was she tried for something mysterious and strange and only succeeded about halfway between the two of them. All the windows in the shop were covered with heavy purple curtains that didn’t allow even the briefest glimpse of light to filter in. All the wood, the floor, the counter and the countless shelves lining the wall and tall bookcases were constructed of dark wood that was clean and easily perceived, but left it to blend in with the deep shadows around the large room. On top of that, the only sources of light inside in the place were crystals placed everywhere. Besides book and strange items that were both successful experiments and complete and utter failures. She kept them all and tagged them with a list of ingredients that she also kept in a book so she knew what worked and what didn’t. One of her more prominent failures was a steel claymore mounted behind the counter of the shop. It seemed like a normal sword except for the fact that he blade was drooping as if it were made of rubber.

Lightning was such a tricky element to enchant with and steel never co-operated.
A small pieces of paper stuck to the wall beside it listed off all the ingredients that had come together to create such a failure too. Beside that was a shelf unit covered with jars that had glittering powders, green gooey water like stuff and a few animal parts if one wasn’t mistaken. Beside the front door was a large book shelf over two feet taller than Harley and would make any person wonder as to how she could even reach the top of it. Small crystal creatures lined the spaces where there were no tomes and other kind of items fell in front of them, like Algora teeth, which she had plenty of.

Closing the door behind Harley as he slipped into the shop after her, Lasair moved over to the window and flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN, in hopes that she might just lure in someone to work with today. Her bare feet moved across the dark floor as she drew in a deep breath and prepared for another day of work. The place always smelled of the woods and something else, like magical residue that she doubted any regular human would be able to detect. At least it would be entertaining with Harley here to keep her company and hopefully Aileen would stop by around lunch time. After all, Lasair had packed some really yummy treats for them all to eat. Then again, if Aileen didn’t come to here, she could always go harass her, herself. After all, Aileen ran the Crystal Manipulation Shop, which was attached to Lasair’s Synthesis Shop. There was a small door nestled in the back room that none of the customers ever got to see, which allowed her and Aileen and move about freely between the two stores. Just in case they ever needed anything from one another or just wanted to talk. For the most part, they usually shared lunch together and talked about whatever customers they got that day, and then they closed together and went to their separate homes, only to do the same thing the next day! It was fun, but the routine of it all was one of the reasons why Lasair had began exploring other lands of Althanas. She wanted some adventure in her life. She wanted danger and monsters and good looking men coming to her rescue with sword drawn!

Aileen had always seemed happy and content to keep moving through her life in the same way almost every day, but Lasair found herself wanting more. She’d read a lot of stories about warriors who did amazing things in their lives and she wanted to be part of that herself. Though she knew she would never be a true warrior, all warriors needed someone to back them up and help them and Lasair knew she could be that person.

None of it had really turned out that way yet. Though she’d had some interesting adventures. Especially if one counted being kidnapped and ransomed off to Imperial, only to escape the evil clutches and save the day!

“Oh, wait right here Harley, I’ll be back out in a minute!”

The small Fae rushed passed the heavy purple curtain behind the counter, the one that separated her shop into two very distinct rooms. Of course, her hurried behaviour resulted in a light squeak and the sound of a few things tumbling over as she forgot she’d left out some stuff. This was followed by some ‘ows’ and then finally ‘I’m fine!’ before everything went silent back there once more. She was only back there for a minute or two, no more. But when she returned her rucksack was no longer around her shoulders. There were things she had brought in it that she wanted to work on, something for Harley and something for herself. But for now, there was that blasted bookshelf and maybe she could get him to help her with some of the heavier stuff in her backroom. She never ever let anybody back there, but she supposed if it was Harley it would be okay. And she did keep running into that shelf unit and there was the one time she smacked her head off it. Man, that’d hurt... a lot.

“Well, what do you think of my shop? I’ve been running it for...ohh, about thirty years now.” She said rather proudly.

[Godhand]

"It's nice."

At one point Godhand might have been taken aback by a claim like that, but after all the crap that'd gone down, her lizard friends and fairy wings, he was prepared to take her word for it. Hell, if those pointy-eared elves could live forever then why couldn't she? The shop itself was kind of a weird mishmash of styles. It had the curtains of an opium den, the dark wooden furniture of a dungeon, some strange glowing crystals that provided all the light in the room and she topped it all off by lining basically everything with post-its. He picked a random one off a shelf only to read:

Tooth of Dragon + Wing of Bat + Mandragora Root = : (

Another one sort of looked like a drawing of a dolphin with a laser strapped to it's head with the heading "Oh no! Sharks!" Each little post-it seemed stranger than the last until Godhand finally gave up on trying to understand them and deposited the fistfull of notes on a nearby shelf. They'd gotten a little clumped together but somehow the mercenary doubted Lasair would need to consult them in the future.

"Thanks!" She said rather cheerfully as her own eyes began looking across at all the shelves and the book cases. "I kind of missed it when I was out adventuring...synthesizing things is just so much fun!"

"I'll bet. Thirty years, huh?" Godhand was rather uncomfortable. He was never any good at making small talk and had actually been expecting something more like a bazaar stall, with many people coming and going at once. Something to keep him busy.

"Yeah, I used to run the Crystal Manipulation shop with Aileen, since it belonged to our parents. But, I enjoy synthesizing more, there's an excitement to it because you never quite know what will happen. Would you... I mean, since it's still early and I probably won't get a customer at this time of the morning. So, would you like me to show you how I synthesize?"

"Crystal Manipulation?" The mercenary had never been much good with magic, which conversely meant that he wasn't very good with magical regions. He was much more at home in Alerar or Corone than in, say, Raiaera. The Red Forest in particular, with it's technology-negating, was a prominent thorn in his side and a place he despised with all his being. Still, he lightened up somewhat when she asked if he wanted to see her go to work. Might be fun. "I'd like that."

"Yay!" She practically danced around him, "I've never shown anyone other than my closest most trusted friends and certainly not a human. So, I hope you can keep a secret." She winked at him, then grabbed him by the hand and began leading him towards the back of her shop.

[Lasair Anubail]

Organized chaos. That was the best way to describe the back area of Lasair’s shop. Things were all over the place, but in neat little piles that seemed to represent something to her and though almost all the shelf space was used, it was used well, leaving everything with a certain place among the others. The floor was a little different though. Most of the floor was left clean, albeit there were traces of some stuff here and there that looked a bit like ash or soot...or possibly even carbon? Who knows, it basically looked like the remnants of something, most likely the after effects of however it was that Lasair made those wonderful little synthesis toys of hers.

In the centre of the room was a very large circle painted in white along the floor with what must have been an extremely steady hand, hers. Within that circle was another one, slightly smaller and between the two of them words were painted in Dheath, flowing in beautiful lines that most monks would envy. And then further more inside of that one was a series of complex lines and shapes that would have most people twisting their eyes backwards, forwards and finally rolling into their eye sockets trying to figure out. It was basically a spell that she had created herself and painted upon the floor, one that helped her channel her energy and allow the synthesis process to be much easier for her to accomplish. Without it, she sometimes found herself nearly passing out after combining items together. But with it, she could synthesis many times during a day without having to worry about depleting her own energy.

Letting go of Harley’s hand—which was so much larger than hers it nearly swallowed it—Lasair moved towards the circles on the floor, her rucksack already resting beside them. But first, she grabbed a few things off some of the shelves; a clear crystal, two red dragon scales, a small jar with some really pretty looking dust and a small chunk of metal that she knew just happened to be Titanium. Her initial thought had been to use Prevalida for something like this, considering the metal’s uses when it came to magic, but she decided Titanium would be better since it resisted heat more.

Placing the items inside of the circle, Lasair looked around to make sure she had everything.

“Oh!” Running over to one of the shelves, she picked up a pair of glasses with blackened lenses in them instead of clear ones and then turned to Harley, giving them to him with a smile. “You might want to wear these. They’ll protect your eyes when it goes flashy, flashy and then kaboom-boom!” She said to him with a giggle.

Moving back over to the circle, Lasair knelt down next to it and took in a deep breath. All her child-like disposition suddenly melted away, leaving one very serious looking woman currently sitting on folded legs. For once her quiet demeanour and calm personality reflected her age, making her actually seem quite beautiful instead of just cute.

Reaching out with her right hand, the small Fae rested the tips of her fingers along the edge of the outer circle. The moment her fingers touched it, the paint around then began to glow a light blue colour, which quickly spread until it encompassed the entire circle. Then it moved on to the beautifully scripted letters, infusing each one with her own energy and making it glow as well before moving on to the inner circle and finally those intricate designs the items sat upon. Not all of them were set alit though, only the ones she would need for this synthesis. And as the last of their brightness filled the room, the glow grew brighter and rose up from the floor and floated just a few inches in the air.

The items rose next, as if gravity within the circle no longer existed. Her small body visibly tensed at that moment and her brows drew down in a slight frown as the items began to break and crack and mingle with each other. Then a sudden and intense flash of white erupted from the circle, pulsing throughout the entire room before slowly dissipating. Wobbling a bit, Lasair slowly opened her eyes and looked down at the items lying within the circle. There were small bits of left over and unused items, all of which looked like chunks of coal, or dried out and dehydrated black fruit. Even the jar the powder had been in was still there, unused and perfectly fine. But of course the more interesting items were the six small chunks of red crystal, the bottom of which was encased in Titanium and oddly enough they all looked exactly like the bullets from Harley’s gun...

Smiling, Lasair reached out and scooped them up into her hands before quickly standing and turning to the human.

“I made you something fun to play with.” She said to him as she extended her small hands towards him.

[Godhand]

The backroom seemed even more messy than the front, if that was possible. There were the standard post-its, but also every failed experiment she couldn't bring herself to get rid of. Of particular interest to Godhand was what looked like a spider with a glaive fused to it's back. There were eight spindly legs coming out of the metal, kicking uselessly in different directions. Too heavy to move. At first the mercenary judged Lasair cruel for keeping it alive, until he considered that he wouldn't really know how to kill something like that either. It was sort of like giving an anvil wings. After pulling something like that, you couldn't just throw it in the ocean.

He absently accepted the welder's glasses from Lasair, never taking his eyes off what he dubbed the Throwing Spider. He almost reached out to touch it, but was distracted by the ruckus going on behind him. The tiny fae had put together a small and seemingly random group of items on the glyph she'd painted on the floor. For synthesizing, she explained. Pretty soon the objects were floating and shining and Godhand braced himself, just in case her "kaboom" prediction came true. But apart from an alarming white flash, there was nothing to really concern himself over. The experiment had been a success, and Lasair presented him with what looked like ruby bullets. He gingerly accepted them.

"What, uhh...What are they?"

"They're red crystal bullets, unless you want to give them a better name. When they hit their target, they'll explode in a great show of fire and flying shards of crystal. Probably hurt a lot and if the initial shot doesn't kill the person, that probably will."

Godhand smiled before reaching forward and pinching Lasair's cheek, slowly pulling her head back and forth. "Well you're just the gal that keeps on giving, aren't you?"

Lasair tried to smile around his strange pinching motion, but it didn't turn out too well. She did manage to giggle though. She'd never had anyone pinch her cheek before. "I like giving people presents."

Godhand chuckled before plucking her up from the ground bride style. He gave a quick spin, Lasair giggling all the while, and looked down at her. She was so adorable. He couldn't help himself; he leaned down and pecked her on the forehead. She blushed, her cheeks quickly becoming stained in a light red color as she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. With a bit of hesitation, she leaned up and kissed him.

The air seemed to get thicker around them. He almost thought to protest when she kissed him, something about being a gentleman, but somehow the words didn't come. He leaned in close, paused, then kissed her back. The kiss slowly got more desperate, their hands roaming hungrily over each other. He loved how she tasted; light and soft and sweet. He placed his hand behind her head and deepened it, before grunting and pushing her up against the bookcase. He squeezed her ass while pulling up her leg. It was almost like tango. Godhand nuzzled her throat and growled hungrily, breathing her in.

Lasair whimpered softly as her hands clutched at his body. Her small fingers digging into the flesh of his back, somehow having moved under the material of his shirt. Behind him, she noticed something shift and her eyes were drawn to it, finding the figure of her twin sister standing in the doorway clearly shocked and stunned having walked in on them. Lasair tensed a bit and pulled herself away from Harley, not that she had anywhere else to go since he had pinned her to the bookcase. "Uhh...Aileen?"

Aileen shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, her golden eyes wide as her hands nervously played with the fabric of her dress. She hadn't meant to... she didn't know...she'd just come over so... "I... uh... sorry to have interrupted, I'll come back to another time!" Then she went to turn and leave them so they could resume they're...stuff she didn't want to picture in her head.

Godhand sighed, smacking his lips as he nuzzled Lasair again. She curled against him, purring like a cat. God, she was warm. Finally, and with great reticence, the mercenary pulled back. "I think we better do this some other time, sweetheart."

Lasair moaned as she watched Harley pull away from her. As much as she didn't want him to, she knew it was probably for the best. She also knew she should go over and say something to her sister. Nodding her head, Lasair slipped her hands out from under his shirt then leaned forward and gave him one last, quick kiss before she moved to go after her twin.

[Lasair Anubail]

What horrible timing her sister sometimes had. It wasn’t like she’d exactly planned for that to happen with Harley, but really, couldn’t Aileen have come looking for her an hour from now? Or perhaps longer. Then she wouldn’t have seen anything and she wouldn’t have looked so darned upset and stunned by it. Honestly, she knew Aileen was extremely shy when it came to stuff like that, but she knew her sister had partners, mostly Fae. So it shouldn’t surprise her to see Lasair in the midst of something like that. Well, maybe a bit surprising, but she had acted rather strangely. Lasair would have silently turned and left allowing her sister to continue with whatever, not making a whole scene out of it.

Pushing passed the curtain separating the two rooms, Lasair quickly caught up to her sister just as she was reaching the front door. Running over there, Lasair grabbed the door and shut it before her sister could leave. The sound of the wood slamming closed resounding throughout the too quiet room as Aileen turned to face her. For a moment or two the two of them stood there, starring into each other’s golden eyes without saying a word. Was Aileen really that upset about what she’d just seen?

“Aileen... are you all right?”

“I...” Her sister turned her face from her, breaking off eye contact.

Lasair sighed, “C’mon... it was just a kiss, and you’re not upset about it, are you?” The fact that her sister didn’t answer her right away gave her enough of an answer to that question. But really, she’d only left Aileen alone with Harley once and only for a few hours while she prepared that soup for him. Not to mention he’d been unconscious and running a fever. Plus she seemed far more intimidated by the man than anything. Perhaps something had happened while she’d been watching him though. “If you like him, why don’t you just admit it to me?”

The question made Aileen’s lock eyes with Lasair’s, like she knew it would as she looked at her in indignation, as if trying to deny the accusation. It was a familiar game that Lasair used on her twin often, because she knew how she would react either way, though Aileen clearly had yet to learn this. Not that Lasair was going to complain about it, it just made reading her sister that much easier, as if it wasn’t already easy. They were twins after all, not only did they know each other better than anyone else did, but they were connected in a far deeper way that anyone else would ever understand.

“Who said I like him?” Aileen threw back at her, just as defensively as Lasair knew she would. That was the answer she was looking for. Now, if she continued to push the subject, she knew her twin would get rather angry with her, a bit embarrassed and flushed and then eventually just leave. But that was not what she wanted, not right now anyway.

Smiling, Lasair decided to throw her sister a balled curve. “Well, we could always... you know.”

At first Aileen just stared at her rather blankly, her brows furrowing as she tried to figure out what Lasair was saying to her. But the moment it finally dawned on her, her eyes shot open, her face flushed red and she practically tripped over her feet, despite the fact that she was standing still. It caused Lasair to giggle and made Aileen practically straighten herself up to her full height, which was no greater than Lasair’s.

“I...I would never!” The wings on Aileen’s back fluttered as she practically squeaked the words at her sister. Of course, they were a lie. There had been the one time the two of them had... well, not really wanting to get into details but they’d definitely had fun with this one Draconian they’d both fancied. Possibly one of the only Draconians Aileen had ever come to like.

“Yes, you have and if I remember correctly you enjoyed it immensely.” Lasair reached out and flicked the edge of Aileen’s nose as she said that, the large smile still pulling at her lips.

She watched as she sister stuttered something unintelligible as she caught her in the lie. It only made her laugh and then wrap her arms around her, holding her close. Aileen merely hugged her back after a second or two.

“Th-that was just a one-time thing, Lasair.”

Pulling out of the hug, Lasair held her sister as arms length, her hands resting on her small shoulders. “Not anymore it isn’t.”

Aileen’s jaw practically hit the floor. But before she could answer, Lasair opened the door, allowing a flood of bright light into the room that was quite painful to her dark adjusted eyes. Squinting, she began to usher her sister outside the door.

“I’ll see you tonight!”

Even as her closed the door her sister was still standing there quite stunned and not entirely knowing what she should be saying or doing. But Lasair had already made her mind up and though it wasn’t something she had planned on doing with Harley, she saw no harm in it. Heck, he might actually enjoy it, that Draconian sure had. Humming a merry little tune to herself, Lasair skipped towards the back room where she’d left Harley, the look on her face rather akin to that of the cat who just stole the milk and was very proud of it too.

[Godhand]

Godhand didn't know quite how to feel, standing there alone after that little interruption. He'd picked up on the fact that Aileen had been hurt by their actions, which he regretted, but at the same time he couldn't remember ever leading her on. She was cute, and he liked her, but she seemed far too terrified of him for the mercenary to approach her in any sort of romantic fashion. Still, it was strange. Godhand wasn't the type of person women just fell in love with at first sight. He'd had to have propositioned her somehow, but he had no idea what she could have interpreted as him wooing her. It was then that he realized that he was a stranger in a strange land; the customs here were probably completely different from those back home. It was perfectly likely that holding a door open for a lady in Dheathain was considered courting rather than courtesy. It was as Godhand weighed these facts that Lasair skipped back into the room, chirping and smiling and acting like nothing had ever happened. He briefly considered asking her if the situation had been resolved, whatever the "situation" was, but opted against looking a gift horse in the mouth. The gunman simply stood there and stared at her as she darted back and forth across the room, straightening this and retrieving that. She finally turned to look at him, tilting her head and blinking curiously.

"So, about that bookcase..."

"Oh, right!"

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. He'd stared down a belligerent Draconian, but that was the most action he got all day. Pretty soon it was sundown, and Lasair and Godhand made their way back home.

---------------------------------------

As soon as they both entered the house, Lasair sprang into the action, humming the same strange tune she'd been ever since her talk with Aileen. Godhand walked over to the bathroom, pulling up his shirt and checking his bandages. It was still just the dried blood from the morning. The wounds were healing up real good. Soon he heard the tiny fae shout at him from the kitchen.

"What do you want for dinner, Harley!? Anything you want as long as I've got it!"

"Whatever's good, sweetheart!"

There was some banging and clanging as Lasair began rummaging for different utensils and ingredients, and then another shout.

"Oh, how are your wounds doing!? Any better!? Need medicine!?"

"They're fine."

Lasair squealed and hopped into the air when Godhand pinched her bottom. She quickly spun on her heel and playfully punched him on the chest.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry, sorry."

"By the way, could you hand me that pot?"

"Huh? Sure."

As Godhand reached over to get it, Lasair pinched his ass. Now it was the mercenary's turn to hop. He shot an accusatory glare at the Fae, but she merely whistled innocently. It was then that the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" Sang Lasair.

Godhand hissed when he heard Aileen's next words.

"Aileen! Come in!"

God, this was going to be akward.

[Lasair Anubail]

She hadn’t expected her sister to show up so early. It did not change her plans in any way, in fact it may be better that she had decided to come around dinner hour instead of waiting until afterwards. Considering what Harley had started in the kitchen if her sister had waited then she might have come a little late and would have missed out on all the fun. And despite the shocked look on her face and the little complaints and reasons she tried to throw at Lasair telling her she didn’t want to, she knew otherwise. Aileen never truly did anything she didn’t want to. She was just naturally very shy and as such didn’t want to admit to such a thing.

“Oh, stop looking like a wyrven caught between two spears and not knowing where to run.” Lasair said with a smile. Her sister merely levelled a cool look from golden eyes upon her, eyes that held flecks of black which Lasair’s possessed but in far less quantity. It was one of the only ways to tell the two of them apart if they weren’t talking, besides the fact that Aileen was slightly ‘fuller’ than Lasair who was... well just a bit of a stick with some very subtle curves.

“Speaking of wyrven, that’s what I plan on cooking for dinner and you’re just in time to help me out, come on!”

Not even bothering to wait for her sister to respond, Lasair grabbed her hand and led her back into the kitchen where Harley was still waiting. Oddly enough he looked rather uncomfortable and she didn’t know why. Did Aileen’s presence bother him for some reason? They barely knew each other though and had interacted without her around for a very short amount of time. Oh, it would be bad if he didn’t like her, especially considering what she had in mind. But she didn’t get that feeling from him. He just seemed uneasy about something.

“Just relax, Harley.” Lasair said with a large smile on her face as she set about gathering a few more things from the ice box. “Aileen and I will take care of everything.”

One of the things she took from the cool area happened to be a clear bottle of a slightly green coloured liquid. It was wine made from really sweet leaves that grew only in Luthmor. It was a bit sweet and very smooth and happened to be one of her favourite drinks. The fact that it had a high alcohol content was only a plus in the mind of the small Fae. Grabbing three glasses from a cupboard, beautiful crystal classes that had a swirling effect of colours which twisted and turned almost looking like a tornado had created it, she poured three glasses. While she was doing that, Aileen looked sheepishly over at Harley and when her golden eyes happened to have met his red ones, she turned beat red and quickly turned away. She busied herself as best she could, filling a pot with water and with a simple word lighting a fire in the burner on the oven. Then she began cleaning the vegetables and cutting up the fruits that Lasair had already left out.

Lasair left one of the glasses on the table for Harley and placed one next to Aileen while she kept one for herself and immediately took a small sip of the liquid, enjoying the taste as it swirled over her tongue before she swallowed it. Sighing, she too began to prepare their meal with her sister and two of them quickly forgot about anything that was going to happen tonight. They fell into a practiced routine in which sometimes small pieces of food were occasionally thrown between them, their light voices and laughter echoed in the room and every now and again once of them broke out into a light tune. The meal was easy to prepare and before long a few pots were boiling and simmering upon the stove and one covered pan was baking in the oven. While that required little attention, the two Fae sat down at the table with their house guest and a small platter of cheese, hard bread, crackers and what would probably be considered exotic fruits to the swordsman.

“So, Harley...” Aileen began as she swirled the contents of her third glass of wine between her slim fingers. “What exactly are you doing in Dheathain? Not many humans come here, well to Talmhaidh sure for trade... but Luthmor is rather far from there.”

[Godhand]

"Oh, you know...I got lost."

Godhand was starting to feel really good about the situation. It was a real charming scene; two loving twins who did everything together. He hadn't really come from a loving home, so this sort of thing always made him feel like an outsider looking in. He remembered winter in Radasanth, and how some of the slum kids gathered around a family's windows to see what the holidays were like for normal people. Godhand never did that; he never really even gave it much thought. He just stayed focused. Kept his head clear and the blood running cold.

The mercenary took a sip of the wine. It was a little sweet, but it seemed to fit the evening's mood. And anyway, the girls could have poured him rat piss and he'd still have acted like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted. They were so Goddamn adorable. Getting confrontational with them would be sort of like kicking a puppy dog; he didn't know how that half-breed had done it.

The swordsman had finished his drink without even realizing it. Lasair eagerly poured him another glass. The evening seemed to be going well; the girls looked like they were having a good time, at least. Soon afterwards Godhand was on his fifth or sixth drink. He was really pouring them down, and the twins didn't seem to have a problem refilling his glass again and again. The mercenary gave them a drunken grin.

"Are you girls trying to take advantage of me?"

Lasair let out a little giggle, something between a laugh and a dismissive "hah", and the night just kept on going. Before he knew it, Lasair leaned forward and gave him a deep kiss. Godhand was too messed up at that point to do anything but kiss back. It was then he remembered Aileen, and hesitantly pulled back for a moment, intending to apologize to her for being so blatant with her sister. Just then however, the tiny fae approached him and gave him a kiss of her own. He could taste the wine on her lips, and feel the girls' hands running over his chest. The mobster was in a daze and didn't know quite how to handle the situation, but he could already feel some primitive part of his brain taking over. He kissed her back, his hand roaming up her leg and squeezing her thigh as he deepened the kiss. He'd always been a leg man.

He suddenly felt Lasair's hand, or maybe it was Aileen's since he couldn't really tell at that point, running up his inseam. He suddenly stood up with a grunt, and the fae gave a surprised eep. She got over it pretty fast though; they both grabbed an arm and led him over to the bedroom. At this point, Godhand wasn't too proud to admit that they had done most of the work. What came next was...Amazing. It seemed less like they were twins and more like they could read each other's mind. Every move or action one did seemed to compliment those of her twin, and it was all he could do to hold on. Lucky for him the alcohol made him last a bit longer; he felt like he had hung in there pretty good and given them an alright one. Well, as much as one man could when set upon by two predators.

By the end, they were all spent. The girls collapsed upon the bed, and Godhand himself was gasping for breath. He hugged them close to him, a sister on each arm. Lasair cooed in his ear and he squeezed her shoulder tenderly. They fell into a deep sleep.

[Lasair Anubail]

Lasair slowly stirred. A large part of her didn’t want to move at all, but she could feel he sun touching her skin and knew it was time to get up and face the world all over again. She needed to open her shop and get to work. After all the weary get no rest, or was that no rest for the weary? She had no idea; she never really had been good at figuring out those human terms. Most of them just made no sense in her mind. Hanging out with Harley was certainly beginning to help; he said lots of strange things to her.

Thinking of Harley made Lasair remember everything that had happened last night. The thought of it only made her smile softly and stretch out on the bed, curling in towards the big source of heat she was lying beside. Cracking open her eyes just enough to see, the small Fae realized she was curled up against Harley’s chest. He was sleeping on his side and she could only assume that Aileen was on the other side of him. Or she hoped anyway. Her sister got really uncomfortable really easily. She bet that when she finally did wake up, she’d do this cute little mumble sputter thing and then turn this really funny shade of red. That wouldn’t happen until she got up though and Aileen usually slept more than she did.

Maybe she’d just close her eyes and go back to sleep for a little bit. No one would really be upset with her if she opened her store late, would they? She didn’t exactly have a shop that received emergencies, so she supposed it would be okay.

Shifting her position a bit, the small Fae rested her head on Harley’s arm and closed her eyes to go back to sleep. The sun may want her awake, but that didn’t mean she had to be awake. Just as she settled down to sleep, a sound like thunder ripped through the sky and her house. Her eyes shot back open just as another boom echoed throughout the area, followed quickly by two more.

Lasair realized by the third—or was it the fourth—boom that it wasn’t thunder. It was the same sound that had come out of Harley’s little silver thing, what had he called it again? A Gun? Sitting up in bed so fast it made her head spin, Lasair looked over at her twin sister. Aileen was sitting up as well and had an extremely fearful and confused look on her face. What was going on? Were there more people out there with guns like Harley? Why were they shooting them like that? She didn’t understand.

[Godhand]

The hair on the back of Godhand's neck stood up before the first shot was ever fired. He'd been in the business a long time; too long. He could smell the gunpowder in the wind. Could feel the murderous intent of the animals from a mile away. Jesus, and he'd woken up feeling so good, too. The warrior had been pretending to sleep for about a half an hour by then. He'd awoken surrounded by this...Warmth. It was nice, having a nymph on each arm. And Christ did they ever smell good. Like wood and wine. And sleep. Godhand buried his nose in Aileen's tresses, stroked Lasair's arm and thought about the sea. Sometimes life cut you a break.

Not this time though. The warrior sat up as soon as the first gunshot rang throughout the village. The mobster grit his teeth and sprang out of bed, eliciting a small exclamation from each sister. He hurriedly pulled on his pants and burst out into the house's main corridor, swiping up the gun Lasair injured herself with along the way. He kicked open the door and took his first step out of the house only to be met with a hail of gunfire. Godhand hurriedly stumbled back into the house, narrowly avoiding getting shot twice by the same people. He was damn shocked they'd managed to get a bead on him so quickly. It was more than likely they'd tortured somebody on the outskirts of town to see if there had been anybody new coming into the area. Probably a Fae; they were so trusting that they would have let them come into their house without much trouble.

He figured after taking care of that they would have started stalking over to the house, loading up their guns all the while. Why they had fired and given themselves away, he didn't know. They had probably been stopped by some surly Draconian and asked what their business was. They'd have shot him once, maybe twice, in the gut and then put a bullet in his head just to make sure. They were pros alright. But he was meaner and looking for the big payback.

The door was pretty battered from his kick, but he knew a good deal when he saw it. Godhand ripped the oak from it's hinges and got a good grip on the handle before cautiously walking out of the house, the wooden door set up to block any attack from the direction the bullets had originally come from. There was some sporadic gunfire which he blocked, but he knew all that meant was that his assailants were starting to position themselves for a more tactical assault. He knew he couldn't waste any more time; if they managed to organize then he was done for. Gripping the doorknob in one hand and his revolver in the other, he threw down the door and shot the first killer in the head.

It was a lucky shot; he was only guesstimating his position based on where the gunfire came from. Suddenly a bullet whizzed past his ear and he roared, blasting away. He hated that, that buzz when it went by. He almost preferred getting shot. Like a mosquito; during that buzz he instantly felt all his opponent's bullshit and cowardice and it filled him with a terrible rage. He started in a dead run, too quick for his assailant's to hit, and right away he knew where everybody was. He swung his revolver to the side and fired it once at a shooter hiding behind some barrels. The Magnum easily blew the wooden obstruction and drove into his chest, the powerful round collapsing his left pectoral. His gun didn't carry a lot of bullets and it was heavy as Hell but when he fired, guys went down.

[Godhand]

A bullet nicked him in his right shoulder and Godhand dove forward, twisting in the air and firing about twice at a guy who'd somehow managed to set himself up on a house's balcony. The first missed but the second one one managed to catch him in the wrist and practically blew his hand off. Godhand smiled and took careful aim, pulling the trigger when the man's head got within his ironsights but dumb fucking luck, he'd run out of bullets for his first gun. He'd forgotten to replace the round Lasair had fired. The swordsman ducked behind a nearby porch and fished inside his pocket, thanking whatever God was listening that he hadn't taken Lasair's bullets out since she had given them to him. He licked his lips, sweat running down his face and stinging his eyes, and haphazardly placed the crimson shells into each of the cylinders. Swinging the cylinders back into place he aimed at the wounded attacker, grit his teeth and pulled the trigger.

What followed was a spectacular display of firepower. The bullet exited the chamber and fired as normal, but once it embedded into the mobster's chest it detonated and the entire balcony was blown apart. Confident that that would have distracted whoever was still attacking him, he peeked his head out from the corner of the porch and saw another one of the bastards, they were all dressed in black, and without thinking about it fired twice at him. The entire area ten feet in every direction of him blew up in a staggering ball of fire. He smelled the blood in the air now. This was the climax.

Visibility was darkened by smoke. Both the fallout from the bullets and the charred remains of his enemies made it hard to see anything, but he knew enough was enough. He shouted, loud enough so that the whole damn town could hear it.

"Enough!"

Godhand walked out into the middle of the road. The smoke cleared, and he could see his final enemy on the other end. He dropped his gun. The mobster did the same. They began walking towards the other, slowly at first but then it turned into a run. Just as they were about to collide, his attacker went for a clothesline. Godhand ducked and let the man's own momentum spin him around. By the time he was coming back, Godhand greeted him by snapping his hand forward, sticking his index and middle finger into the man's left eye socket and the pinky and ring finger into his left. The mafia soldier gave an ungodly scream and the swordsman dug his thumb into the roof of his mouth. The man fell to his knees. Godhand held the man's head, got as good a grip as he could with the hand that was on his face, his fingers underneath the bone of his eyesockets and finally gave a mighty pull.

The result was nothing short of gruesome. The mobster's head looked like his brain had suddenly turned into a shotgun and fired. The blood and bits of bone came out in one big spray then dribbled down. Godhand released the grip on his head and he collapsed, dead.

And there he stood. Handsome Harley Race. Barefoot, half naked, covered in blood and king bastard of the whole damn place.

[Lasair Anubail]

Neither of them knew what to do. The moment the noises rent the air, Harley was on the move faster than Lasair or Aileen would have expected. As if the very flames of the dragons licked his feet, he jumped from the bed and dressed in his pants so fast the small Fae worried he would rip through the seams simply from shoving his foot within. Once he was out of the room, the twins looked at each other perplexed and very worried. Lasair knew that sound, Aileen knew it too. The gun Lasair had taken from Harley’s belt and fired in her kitchen had made a remarkable similar sound, even if these ones were slightly more muffled. But no one should have any of his guns, then again, when the two of them had found Harley he had multiple holes in his body. Lasair had never thought much of it, Aileen had shrugged it off. Now they realized he had probably been shot by those cylindrical things that came out of his weapon. If that was so, then that meant there were more people out there with the same thing; more humans. No Draconian or Fae would ever dare to use such a weapon as that.

Quickly, Lasair scrambled out of bed, throwing the sheets off of her and rummaging around on the floor for the dress she’d been wearing last night, she couldn’t go out there naked after all. With hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, of fear or of adrenaline she didn’t know, the small Fae managed to find her long blue dress and quickly slip into it, giving herself some semblance of decency.

“Where are you going?”

In her mind, that didn’t justify an answer. She planned on going outside to help Harley, even now as she stood here she could hear the shots ringing out throughout the air and her ears and for all she knew he could be hurt and in need of some kind of help. Even if she didn’t have any fighting skills and she couldn’t pick up a sword for the life of her, there were still things she was capable of doing. Besides, she had a good stock of ice bombs somewhere... if she could find them then she could throw them at the enemy and distract them so Harley could move in and finish them off.

“Outside to help him, he’s probably going to need it.”

Her sister tried to protest, Lasair could see it on her face, but before she even let the first word leave her mouth Lasair turned and left the room. Her bare feet slapped on the hardwood floor as she rain down the hallway and nearly tripped as one loud explosion seemed to rock the very air let alone the floor upon which she walked. Her mind raced and her heart thudded in her chest and somewhere reason told her that came from one of the bullets she’d made for him. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew. Balling her small hands into tight little fists, Lasair forced her shaking limbs to keep going and before she knew it she burst out of the shadows of her home and into the blindingly bright lit of the day. What met her eyes left her speechless and frozen.

The air smelled of fire and blood. All around her white wisps of smoke were beginning to clear as heavier black fumes rose from smouldering piles of what might have been the side of a house and what might have been the edge of the forest less than thirty feet away from her. She could see random and charred body parts on the ground, in one instance a human finger which lay no more than two feet from where she stood. Splatters of blood marred wood and grass and dirt alike and standing amidst it all was Harley. Lasair nearly called out to him, until she realized he was still fighting and running towards another man, she wanted to help him, moved to do so until her bare foot landed in a sticky pile of blood and she felt her stomach drop. Then she heard the scream and watched in horror as Harley ripped the man’s face and part of his skull right off, leaving a bloodied trail that fell to the ground in one big splat. He let the man go and the body fell to the ground with an audible thump, leaving the only other sound to be the cracking of fire and her own heart as it thundered within her chest.

“H-Harley!”

She began walking towards him, her steps slow and uneasy at first, taking her through the remains of her once bright and beautiful garden, now trampled and covered in things she didn’t want to look at. Quickly though, her pace began to build into a jog that brought her no less than two feet away from him.

“Are...are you all right?” There was so much blood all over him that she couldn’t tell if he was hurt or if it merely came from the others, the others she didn’t want to think about it.

Behind her, Aileen hid in the shadow of the doorway, the skin of her face drained and pale as her wide, golden eyes looked out at everything scattered across the road and the front lawn and the remains of their neighbour’s home. Her small hand clamped itself over her mouth as she stared out in mute horror, unsure of what to do or what to say, all she managed was keep her stomach from spilling its contents on the floor.

[Godhand]

Godhand knew the jig was up. With that last move he'd revealed a tendency towards violence that lay somewhere between excessive and completely fucking unhinged. He ran his slightly less bloody left hand through his hair, letting out a low hiss as he felt the muscles in his back unclench. Once the adrenaline passed, that was probably the most unpleasant part of a fight. You never really pay attention to the small stuff when you're in the middle of a shootout, but after the danger passes everything suddenly comes back real sharp. The smell of blood, even though he was used to it by that point, wasn't actually very appealing to the mercenary. He especially didn't like getting it on his hands; a strange quirk, yes, but the sensation of someone else's fluids clinging to his skin upset him. It didn't really bother him when it was his own blood; he believed himself 'clean', so to speak. But when it belonged to swine like that, it put him on edge.

The swordsman knew Lasair had asked him something, but was unable to reply with anything other than a quiet nod. The kill fog was still swimming in his mind. Living idyllically with the twins for those few days had apparently made him forget what kind of man he was. He held out his hand suddenly, mutely asking the Fae to take him back to the house. She, belonging to a naturally empathetic race, picked up on this quickly and gently led him back to her home. Aileen gave Godhand a wide berth, his final display making a deep impression on her.

The rest of the morning passed quietly; an almost surreal monotony blanketing the usual proceedings when you considered that a massacre had very recently taken place on their front lawns. Godhand knew what to expect after that whole mess, so he took a quick shower after making his way inside and calmly arranged his belongings. Neither of the twins knew quite what to say, so they didn't say anything. After a couple of hours there was a knock on the door and a Fae gentlemen flanked by several Draconian bodyguards made their way into the house.

He nervously explained to the mercenary how his actions had brought great danger unto their town and how the fight itself caused massive property damage. Not nearly as important as the life of his countrymen, he quickly clarified. Godhand's hunch had been right; they'd taken out a couple of stragglers on the outside of the village. And that for all these reasons, he had been forced to banish the gunman from Donnalaich. Godhand glanced at the Draconians; those animals were chomping at the bit to get a piece of him. It was subtle, mostly just stance and how tight their jaws were, but if you knew what to look for then it was plain to see. Well, the swordsman wasn't in the mood for a fight. He stood up, a movement which caused two of the Draconians to ready their spears, but the Fae scolded them. He gave the diminutive man a small nod to express his agreement to his terms, then slowly walked over to the door. Lasair was waiting right by it; Aileen was still nowhere to be seen. He quietly knelt down before the girl, squeezing her small hands, before leaning in and kissing her to show his thankfulness.

With that, he stood up, adjusted his gunbelt and walked out the door - and continued the walk until he had made his way to the docks. He could feel the fear and loathing of the villagers during the first few miles of the trek, but paid them no heed. Once he reached the town, it was relatively easy to negotiate passage back to Corone.

He stood on the bow of the ship as it left port that same day, memorizing the outline of the lush countryside.

He doubted he would ever return.

Spoils: None

[Lasair Anubail]

A soft hum filled the air and carried gently across the wind. It rose and fell to a common and soothing tune that many Fae knew since they were children; it was the song their mothers usually hummed for them when they were little. No one even knew the words anymore or what it had originally been about, but no one cared. The song itself seemed to calm those who heard it and that was all that mattered. She had sung it before recently when she’d been tending to a human’s wounds as he lay unconscious within her guest bedroom.

It had been a week since he had been removed from Donnalaich and she still missed him. Though the man had not spent much time with her, Lasair couldn’t help but to feel a little something for him. He’d been so nice and helpful and considering the things that had happened while he’d been here; she’d grown a bit attached. She hadn’t wanted the council to call him an outsider like that and remove him from the region; she’d wanted him to stay. But she knew that asking for it would be above anything she could hope from the council. He had been the cause of much strike within the safe walls of the city and on top of that she’d heard rumours of what him and some of the other humans had been doing in the region; stealing. It was why he’d been all full of holes when she’d found him. Apparently something had gone wrong during one of his little missions into someone’s home. Still, she couldn’t help but miss him. He had seemed like such a nice person and had shown her and Aileen nothing but kindness, which was rather impressive for a human considering their base natures.

With her song in the air, Lasair cheerfully went about her gardening. All around her were the sounds of wood being hammered and cut and carefully placed into damaged homes. The voices of those working to repair the damage done during the gun fight filled the air and brought with it a sense of mirth that everyone needed. In the end, two Fae and one Draconian had been killed, three more Fae injured as well as two more Draconians, one of them being Tristram. He’d noticed the humans while heading towards her house to try and talk to her. When he’d stopped to talk with them, they’d turned on him easily enough but thankfully Draconian scales were tougher than human skin. The bullets had gone damage to him, but had just barely missed vital organs. With her medicine he was mostly healed and already working on repairing her home behind her as she straightened up her ruined garden. Thankfully many of the plants that had been destroyed were just part of her flower garden and not the vegetable one that grew on the other side of the house.

Reaching out to grab another potted plant, Lasair’s hand went right through the air and hit nothing but dirt. Blinking in surprise she looked over only to notice that she’d run out of those pretty blue rose bushes she liked so much. Scrunching her nose up, the small Fae glanced around and spotted a few more of them all the way on the other side of the garden, ready and waiting for planting.

“Godhand, can you get me one of those blue rose bushes, please?”

“Sure thing.”

Smiling softly, the small Fae looked up from her dirt covered hands and watched as a large clay-potted plant picked itself up from the ground and moved towards her. Once by her leg, it set itself down on the ground.

“Thank you.”

From the other side of the pot, a twelve inch and cloth replica of Godhand Stryker walked out, dusting his little hands off. He looked exactly like the real thing, right down to the crescent scar on his chest and the small gun belt with four little guns holstered in it.

“No problem, sweetheart.”

In the end, Lasair had had no choice in her mind but to make a plushie of Godhand, considering how much she’d missed him. And she’d had all those bloody bandages just lying around the house tempting her with it too. Of course, when the little guy woke up and she called him Harley, she quickly learned that had not been his real name at all. In fact, he was the man Harley had mentioned in Radasanth, if she ever decided to stop by there of course. Though it had hurt her a bit to find this out, she’d soon realized he’d done it to keep her and himself safe.

Picking up the plant, Lasair went back to gardening as Godhand grabbed a large board of wood and walked off to help the others with the repairs to her neighbours.

]SPOILS:

Godhand Plushie

Height: 12 inches
Weight: 5 lbs including all equipment.

Appearance: The Godhand plushie stands slightly taller than her regular Tristram plushie and looks exactly like the real deal. He had messy, silver/grey hair with deep, red eyes that most of his enemies find rather menacing. He wears a pair of dark brown trouser, brown gun belt with four small guns; replicas of the .500 magnum revolvers. He also wears a small brown trench coat with a plate that covers the area over his heart. Upon his chest is a small crescent shaped scar that Lasair does not know the origins of.

Skills and Abilities

Strength: Inheriting the strength from his original form, the Godhand plushie is three times as strong as an average human even when made of cloth.

Marksmanship: Average

Brawling: Above Average

Equipment

Replica .500 Magnum Revolvers: He has four of these replicas attached to his waist, which are more than capable of firing. They shoot off small, pea sized bullets that sting, bruise and occasionally break skin.

Ammunition: 20 rounds of regular ammo, 5 rounds of Lasair’s personally made exploding ammo. These pint sized versions explode into balls of fire two inches in diameter and can burn away small chunks of flesh as well as set flame to things.

I am more than willing to sacrifice all of my GP to acquire this little guy.

[Ataraxis]

Quest Judging
The Outsider

Well it’s finally up, so you can stop twiddling your thumbs! I figured I’d use up this day of freedom to complete it, so I hope you’ll both find it helpful or that it reflects and thus supports what assumptions you already had. Basically, it was a smooth ride like another chapter in the life of Chinaski – sans the green smocks and penis hats. So here’s the judgment that’s ‘longer than the damn quest itself’ that was requested!


STORY

Continuity ~ 8/10.

Godhand’s introduction into this quest was in medias res, so it’s normal that I couldn’t get much out of continuity until the later posts. You went on to describe the job fairly well in the kind of simplicity you’d expect from a mobster for whom an allegedly easy task went terribly awry. The people he was working with, the details as to how they were dispatched from behind and Godhand’s instinct to run and dive in river after being shot a second time was a very thrilling way of setting the story in place, and also provided you a plus in the Pacing category. You also gave the reader a little insight into his past before being a mobster, when you have him mention the tug on his heart when he witnesses good family relations and how he never grew up with that.

Since Lasair and Aileen are in their hometown, it’s not a real mystery why they showed up when they did. Though you didn’t actually mention it in the first post, Lasair’s actions and the following posts on the Synthesis Shop explained quite a bit on what they were both doing there, looking for Sleams and moss panaceas. You also did good by mentioning their past and how they took up their parent’s business, though I would have liked a bit more information on that. In any other case, I would have assumed that they were dead, but considering how long-lived (or I believe, immortal Faes are) their deaths must have been anything but natural and might have warranted a passing mention. Still, this is a detail.

There was also the part where she called his synthesized bullets ‘red crystal bullets’, but later on referred to them as cylindrical things as if she didn’t remember the word. She also called Godhand’s pistols as ‘guns’ when he only called them ‘pistols’ during the thread.

Setting ~ 7/10.

Your styles complemented each other here, with Godhand sketching the scenery with moving shapes and colors like an impressionist and Lasair defining it more accurately, bringing a certain focus in it all. As a whole, I didn’t read the most ground-breaking portrayals of a forest or a city (though I thoroughly enjoyed the part about dragon sculptures coming to life and battling on the walls). The gunfight near the end could live purely on the action though, so that didn’t need any additional nudge toward Setting.

Individually, I’d suggest to Godhand a few more passages that describe the setting, and just so that it doesn’t break away from your style, describe it in that cynical understanding of how the world really turns and that down-to-earth empathy that’s so preponderant in your writing (the empathy moreso than the cynicism). Something similar to Palahniuk, like telling that the flowers in a field that goes by are really just the genitals of different life-form.

For Lasair, I believe you’d do even better if, every time you tell yourself you need to describe the place your character’s in, you simply excised the superficial. Ignore what’s extraneous, the things with which you know you can’t write any sort of evocative description that won’t fly under the reader’s radar; merely mention the ordinary (chairs, tables and the like); focus on the objects of importance (paintings that bear as symbolism, mementos, dust here and there that shows housework neglect, a 200 pound swordfish on the foyer).

I know some of the things I just mentioned seem superfluous, and they very well can be, but depending on the plot of your story and your character’s history, these things can suddenly become rather enlightening. Not a lot of people can flawlessly recreate a complex scene in their minds, so focusing on the first things someone would notice upon seeing it helps – it’ll basically end up looking like a theater stage, with the simplistic décor, the props and the Chekhov’s Guns.

Pacing ~ 7.5/10.

You both did well with the introduction and the conclusion, making them fast-paced without stinting on the descriptions that breathe life into your written worlds – in Lasair’s post, it might as well have been young Natalie Portman, digging a hole for a memento houseplant in the backyard. It was nice.

The in-between fell away a bit, and the plot seemed to stagger from between Aileen kissing Godhand and the suggestion of a threesome. The post that followed, what with the newlywed atmosphere, seemed almost out of character and made me quirk an eyebrow more than once. It might have been because I imagined him pinching a 4’9” girl’s ass-cheek… and that 4’9” girl pinching his – a feat of stretching and contortion on both their parts, I’d assume. I also wasn’t sure what the argument with Tristram contributed to the plot: did you simply want him out of the way? I’d have thought he would play a bigger role here, considering how you introduced him and threw him out.

In any case, I did understand you wanted to set that clear ‘thrown into a strange new world to live a few days of idyllic, almost dreamlike peace’ ambiance, so that you could suddenly crush it with the return of the original bad guys from Godhand’s ‘old life’ and that banhammer to the back he got from the government. The development could have progressed better with three or four fewer posts, all in all.


CHARACTER

Dialogue ~ 8/10.

It was a funny thing to see Godhand in such a homey situation, being nursed back to health and talking about pasta and fish for the soup. That was a nice bit, by the way, which would have been unbalancing were he not recovering from delirium and two gunshot wounds. I got the same feeling when he felt so futile, trying to describe the mechanics of a firearm to Lasair, which might have been an accidental symbol of how he imagined his world and Lasair’s to clash. And to that, Lasair’s reply was rather interesting, as it denoted that she didn’t live for 86 years without growing some brains behind her foolish façade. Nice detail, having him call himself Harley Race and telling Lasair to look for Godhand if she ever wandered to Radasanth.

As I said in pacing though, the I Love Lucy bit near the end, with all the honeys and sweethearts… both of them felt a bit out of their element, felt surreal in that comical, nervous laughter sort of way. Also, Lasair’s dialogue could at times feel a bit excessive on the cutesy, bubbly, scatterbrained side, a bit too cartoonish, but you did compensate well by mixing into her lines that focused gravity when she works and the lewd playfulness when… you know.

This goes for Godhand too, and I was a bit surprised how quickly he was attracted to Faes that weren’t taller than most eighth graders, calling them angels and honey-bunnies and all. Aileen and Lasair seemed like the types of girls he’d call ‘Kid’ or ‘Kiddo’, even if that would be inherently wrong. I’m guessing since Draconians participate in intercourse with Faes on an almost day to day basis, though, they must have something… adult about them.

I don’t know who wrote the ‘Tooth of Dragon + Wing of Bat + Mandragora Root = : (’ and the ‘Oh no! Sharks!’ bits, but that was very amusing and fit Lasair perfectly. And then there was the ‘I’m a leg man’ part, which was just rich. Nice tip of the hat to Bukowksi there.

Action ~ 8/10.

The quest was spotted with a slew of instances where Godhand’s decisions gave an impressive deal of insight on his empathy. For one, when he was faced with the conundrum of slipping into a comfortable death or raging against the dying of the light. All that, just so that the poor bastard who had picked him up wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of burying him, taking on all the paperwork and extra emotional baggage that would come from him going gently into that good night.

The action-packed blockbuster that was the shootout near the end was full of this, in both the broadest and the literary senses of the term. Every little detail that makes Godhand Godhand came up during it, as he literally thrives under combat pressure. Licking his lips as he sweat and reloaded his gun with the fire bullets

Godhand being ‘a bit of an old man, but still a man’ describes him well, and there’s proof to that claim. A real man reacts when he’s straddled by a nymph(o), and no real man would refuse being brought into a bedroom by libertine redhead twins, and so Godhand is a real man. Some would even say, a(n) hero.

Lasair’s curiosity was made fairly obvious when she tried to understand how the pistol worked, and how she didn’t seem to shy away from it after being thrown back by the recoil showed a level of adaptation that’s probably necessary in her unpredictable line of work. The clumsiness of the cute was possibly overplayed here, but it’s nothing bad. Otherwise, I didn’t get a lot of the little things that make Lasair who she is, or of the quirks and foibles that make her body language stand out.

The races of Dheathain are very sexually inclined, which you show very well not only by mentioning Lasair’s light-bondage fetish, but her and Aileen’s multiple partners. How playfully the idea of a threesome that deals with libertine values, hinted bisexuality and twincest also shows a culture clash, since for them it’s a casual, innocent and harmless (though perhaps a bit odd and a rare enough occurrence), whereas anywhere else this would be behavior observed only in brothels or disturbingly dysfunctional houses.

Persona ~ 7.5/10.

When Godhand reflects on how adorable Lasair and Aileen are as a family, sisterly love and all, the reader understands that he’s not that novelty anti-hero who despises all things emotional and avoids them like the plague in fear he stains his cool-jacket. You showed that he’s not stone-cold when he’s reminded how he never had a real family of his own, without making him whine and bawl and all wangsty. And that part where he talks about homeless children in Radasanth looking into windows to see what a real holidays looks like, and how he never really did that? That was a good downer.

The differences between the personalities of Aileen and Lasair were clear-cut, as you mentioned how Lasair was restless and wanted to explore the world at large while Aileen was the unassuming kind of Fae, content with the micro-cosmos she’d always known and come to love. Hell, I could literally read the Myers-Briggs test results on their foreheads. The only thing I could criticize here is how you have a small tendency to tell the reader their personalities, rather than to show them through their actions.


WRITING STYLE

Technique ~ 7/10.

-There’s the Chekhov’s Gun I mentioned, which I saw coming a mile away when Lasair synthesized those exploding bullets. It’s not a bad thing since it was well done at the end, what with Godhand thanking the powers that be after finding them in his pocket during the shootout, and simply using them in very gruesome ways.

Godhand’s style is like Bukowski’s, which is fast-paced and doesn’t linger on the details (as in, the details that don’t make a difference in the understanding of his story and writing). Unlike him, however, you also manage to pain a picture in that sketchy kind of way that tells us where things are generally standing, something you do without wasting time on the exact name of the color, or the composition and surface temperature. Facial expressions and gestures are also described briefly enough to be clear while conveying the right message, to the point, like ‘flashing them a big bloody smile’. The only thing is that, when you’re pressed for time or lacking inspiration/motivation, it becomes readily obvious in your writing, and it falls from that solid style to one that feels like a comedic tribute that doesn’t kid and see itself as anything more. This didn’t happen often, and never during a whole post, but an example would be the faux-newlyweds post.

Lasair’s style is a more classical form of writing in the sense that you describe things fully, accurately. It’s very good, and all you have to be careful about is over-describing things. Describing a facial expression shouldn’t take over two lines, as you then lose the ‘flash photography’ sensation of a short, well-delivered description. Also, your writing can get technical as sometimes, it feels like you’re describing the paths that your characters take from point A to point B in a three-dimensional frame. Well, that’s a bit exaggerated, but here’s what I mean:

Basically, describing things just because a part of you tells you ignoring it would be an amateur’s mistake, making things less clear to the reader and making you as a writer less credible: hell, I fall into that trap on a daily basis. Basically, the best thing would be to excise the super-superfluous, the information that’s accurate but doesn’t actually provide anything actually important, like the exact positioning of characters in a room or in reference to one another and all.

Mechanics ~ 7/10.

Two pages of notes (albeit, some of them are notes rather than mistakes and I do tend to be rather wordy) for a 27 post quest, that’s a little over what I’d expect from this. Most of the mistakes were due to thinking of the wrong word (strike rather than strife), typos, incorrect punctuation and a few run-ons on Lasair’s part. All of that’s in the appended notes.

Clarity ~ 8.5/10.


Everything was clear enough, tough sometimes long descriptions got in the way of my understanding the meaning behind a sentence. Also, at some point I thought Godhand had kissed Lasair first, when it was Aileen. In one post, Lasair’s shackling Godhand to the bedpost, in the other, Godhand’s sweet-talking Aileen, but her name’s only mentioned near the end, which led to my confusion.

MISCELLANEOUS

Wild Card ~ 6.5/10.

If you’re wondering, this is actually a pretty high Wild Card according to my standards. It was a good read, enjoyable and quick, which surprised me considering its length. This should be called: ‘The Outsider, or Gunfights and Threesomes’. How could I not like this?

TOTAL ~ 75/100.


EXP Rewards

Godhand gains: 4376 XP! I included a bit of extra experience for the lateness of the judgment, and because you asked for no spoils.

Lasair Anubail gains: 1015 XP! I also included a little extra experience for the lateness.

GP Rewards

Godhand gains: 292 GP!

Lasair Anubail gains: 0 GP!

Other Rewards

Godhand gains: The crabs, the crabs, they gave you the goddamn CRABS!

Lasair Anubail gains: The Godhand Plushie with al of its specifications! Final approval of this spoil, of course, goes to the RoG moderator who will supervise your approaching level update. I do suggest you write him as 1.5 or 2 times as strong as the average human though, because 3 times mixed with above average brawling can make him stronger than most other level 0 PCs. Just, really, really don’t go overboard with it.

FINAL NOTES

Unless you also want me to write the libretto to an opera, this’ll be it! Good work to the both of you, and I’ll look forward to more of your writing, joint or individual!





The navy blue scales that covered its body practically glistening as if covered in water as the light shone off of them and its neither slender nor pudgy form looking quite cute and cuddly to her eyes. (2) Not a single punctuation mark here. I had a very hard time following the idea behind this sentence. It took me a few reads to realize that it’s a fragment, too. ‘Glistened’, and I think ‘looked’ would have been correct here.

feet slapped against the increasingly wet ground and splashing into the brook, (2) splashed into the brook

Placing some of the think liquid upon that wound as well (4) Think? Thin, I think.

The fact that he wanted them so badly, made her wonder what exactly they were. But now wasn’t the time for her curiosity to take over and go snooping through this things. (6) wanted the so badly made her wonder… through his things.

a little dazed and a lot of worried (8) a lot worried or a lot of worry. Sounds a bit awkward either way.

Jesus Christ, its happening isn't it? (8) It’s. I’m guessing Godhand writes his own lines in your posts like you write yours in his, though, so I’ll attribute this to him.

“You seemed... like they were important so I wanted to see why.” (8)They seemed? Or is there a missing fragment, a discontinuity on her speech because Lasair’s still a little dazed?

watched silently watched (10) r.w.

dragonian (11) Draconian. Shows up a lot.

stomping was but before he even could Godhand leaped (11) a comma between could and Godhand would clarify things up a lot

Did he really think Godhand wouldn't kill him if it came to that!? (11) I know !? is used for style, though I just want to point out that it’s technically incorrect and usually disliked punctuation. IT wouldn’t fly in most styles, but considering you have this kind of Bukowski style going on (even having two people speak in the same paragraph), it doesn’t feel out of place.

tears from her cheeks, she didn’t want Harley to see her cry (12) semi-colon instead of comma, or ‘not wanting Harley to see her cry’.

but when she went to move passed her twin; Aileen reached out and laid her hand along Lasair’s shoulder. (12) comma instead of semi-colon. Also, ‘move past’ rather than ‘moved passed’.
hands, Aleen tilted her head (12) Well. You know.

A small pieces of paper (14) small piece. And just a detail, but the paragraph this was in is stuck with the one-liner above it.

to Imperial, only to escape the evil clutches and save the day! (14) their evil clutches?

deposited the fistfull of notes (15) fistful

But with it, she could synthesis many times (16) synthesize

so they could resume they're...stuff (17) their… stuff

Pushing passed the curtain separating the two rooms (18) past

stood there, starring into each other’s golden eyes (18) staring

Even as her closed the door her sister (18) as she closed

It was then that the doorbell rang. (19) I’ll just assume you meant an actual brass bell on the door, rather than one that plays Westminster Chimes or the 1812 Overture. I guess Faes would have something so convenient.

"I'll get it!" Sang Lasair. (19) sang works, since it’s an interpolated clause.

Godhand hissed when he heard Aileen's next words. "Aileen! Come in!" (19) I’m guessing you meant ‘Lasair’ the first time.

beautiful crystal classes (20) glasses

now and again once of them broke out into a light tune. (20) one of them

He'd always been a leg man. (21) Haha, tipping you hat to Bukowski there. Nice.

but she could feel he sun touching (22) feel the sun

what had he called it again? A Gun? (22) Technically, he only said ‘pistol’. I’m guessing he could have mentioned the word ‘gun’ sometime during a hard-day’s-work montage.

Guesstimating (23) While some people would jump on you for using it, I realize that portmanteaus are a big part of what makes a person’s style, and this one suited yours well.
Just pointing out that it’s an iffy topic and the source of many a debate.

the bastards, they were all dressed in black, and without (24) long dashes (equivalent of double dashes) would make the sentence flow better than the commas.

Note: she called the synthesized bullets ‘red crystal bullets’ but then refers to them as cylindrical things, as if she doesn’t know the word for them.

on the hardwood floor as she rain down (25) ran down

blindingly bright lit of the day (25) bright light

while he’d been here; she’d (26) comma rather than semi-colon

cause of much strike within (26) much strife, I think

[Witchblade]

EXP and GP added!

Lasair reaches level 2!

Thanks for the awesome judgement, Ataraxis. ^^