Have I Been A Fool? (Open)

[Ruby]

A song sung slightly is sumptuously solidly subtle. Ruby La Roux bounced around alliteration in her mind to prepare her linguistic talent for the trials ahead. So much pressure was being levelled at this single moment, she did not want to crumble beneath the salty talons of the ocean’s waves at the first drop of a hat. The sky glimmered, jewels cascaded down in a perfect moment, and the rolling waves about the rickety wooden platform at its epicentre spiralled and bobbed to and fro.

The gang walk that had allowed her to walk across the sea from her entrance was long gone, leaving only it’s mirror twin on the far side ominously fading into what would soon be another door as a mark of the impending confrontation. She smiled at the beauty of the falsehood environment, for this was the Citadel, and these waves were only ripples in the ether, conjured by arcane hands with millennia of experience beneath their lacklustre robes.

For this odd occasion Ruby had chosen to wear her usual crimson dress with leather underlay and heavy strapping, it was a piece she was comfortable in, and of course, one she could move in without inflicting upon herself a concussion or queasiness. Her neck was exposed, with the absence of the necklace she often adorned herself with, so in its place she’d wrapped a delicate silk scarf of an equal blood shade to that of her dress. She hid her hands in her bosoms to keep them warm whilst she waited. Waited for death to arrive...

She thought of her setting for a moment, the sea and the sauntering aura she tried to sell, and considered turning back to the place where the great oaken doors had been. With a glance over her shoulder she crushed any hope of escape, for her, this was it, her trial had begun. She would fight this fight as she’d intended, and see if the plan she’d hatched with her sister Lilith would have any impact on the machinations of her progression. Songs were mightily sung indeed in her lungs, and in the past year, she’d seen the Phoenix Rise and the Empires of Sand fall beneath the chords she’d wrought; beneath the melodies she’d inflicted. Hate and death and burning agony were hers to proclaim in a note and flourish. “Today,” she clasped her belt buckle and adjusted her corset so that it sat loosely above her diaphragm, “Today we shall see.”

“Today we shall see what we shall see,
Across the waves of anarchy,
Love this wave of revelation,
Hate the movements of the nation.”

The song verse lifted into the atmosphere and caused the falling rain to turn into droplets of wine and liquor and liquids more associated with love than hate, or perhaps in some relationships, both. Silence descended with the weather, and Ruby felt the tingle in her stomach and the flocculating beat of her heart form a song of it's own.

Today, she would sing a song of war, and war for once, would reply with vigour.

[Peacemaker]

Duke sat cross legged on the forest floor. His erect spine kept his airway open, allowing him to breathe deep to the bottom of his lungs. In, out. A gentle breeze tickled the the tree tops far above. In, out. The leaves shuddered in response, rattling lightly. Their percussion provided a rhythm. Duke chose a chord and strummed his guitar in time. In, out. The clean air brought energy, desire for life, and action potential.

The slim teen stopped strumming his guitar. It dropped into his lap, nestled like a friendly cat. He let his upper body slowly fall backwards, uncovered abdominals rippling like low ocean waves. The leaves and loam on the cluttered ground scratched the skin on his back. He felt them sticking in his long, messy hair, but couldn't bring himself to care. One golden brown arm stretched out, a luxurious gesture, and plucked the hand-carved wooden pipe from his haversack. He lolled, held the pipe aloft and examined it, backlit by the sun shining through his nimble fingers. Duke had whittled the pipe himself years previously. They had a long history together.

"Dear pipe. Sweet pipe... what shall we do today? I do declare, if I may dare, it's a perfect day to play." The youth spun the pipe through his fingers and around his wrist as dextrously as a circus performer. He sat up and pulled the haversack closer. It was nearly identical in color to the forest floor, and so as he packed his pipe from two seperate pouches, a passerby might have thought he prepared to smoke leaves and grass.

In fact, a mixture of fine tobacco and sticky cannabis soon filled the pipe. Duke struck a bright chord on four strings and hummed along with it until his lungs ran out of air. Then he seized a book of matches from his pack, struck one, and sparked the bowl. In... out. His smoke rings swallowed the sun as sensation massaged his mind. As the plant matter in the pipe turned to ash he puffed intermittently, the nub clamped in his molars. His hands drifted back to the guitar as if existing seperately from his mind.

The song he played had no refrain or specific rhythm, but it captured the beauty of the present, of the moment he lived in perpetually.

"Pipe!" He exclaimed suddenly, muting the strings with one calloused palm, "You have gone too long without a name. Today... we shall find out what you are called." Duke strummed one last triumphant chord, and in a shimmer of magical energy, disapeared.

~~~

Duke sat cross legged on a forest floor which suddenly wobbled and was made from wood. His eyes saw what his mind could not quite believe; the ocean, sprawled all around him. His nose, rebelling against all reason, supporte the eyes' outrageous claim, for the tang of salt water filled his sinuses. Then he heard the song, a woman's beautiful voice.

He was not immediately certain how to proceed. Naked, his only chance at decency was to stay seated with the guitar in his lap. How he had arrived could be determined later. As always, Duke followed his instrinct and his ears. He strummed quietly at first, then faster, harder, keeping time with the woman's song. He hummed harmonies and observed her beauty.

The thick sea air made moisture on his skin, a subtle reminder of how much of his skin showed. Worse still, caught up in the music, he found himself attracted to the woman, felt himself growing as hard as the guitar's wooden hide. His fingers flitted over the strings like butterflies, pretty movement to distract the lady's eyes.

[Ruby]

A man jittered into existence, and suddenly Ruby’s song felt solemnly inappropriate. Her instant reaction was to freeze, to become utterly still and devoid of life, as if the motionless would trick the strange arrival into thinking she did not exist.

Seeing that such a gambit did not indeed pull any weight, that his eyes were addressing his own questions, Ruby spread her legs to steady herself as the aftershock of the additional mass on the rickety platform reached her. It wasn’t every day that someone attractive, she gulped, and naked dropped by for casual violence.

“Y-you will forgive my abrupt and observational remark good sir,” she adjusted her robe and held out her right hand to cup some of the diamond rain into it, collecting the nectar of the goods to seductively sip it, tilting her head back and arranging the red feathers that grew from her hair to one side, “but I cannot help but notice you are somewhat...under prepared for the battle and trial ahead?”

Lilith and Duffy had explicitly told her to take under her wing the mantle of a warrior, to learn to defend herself using more than her charm and the spell singing she seldom understood, even after so many years. Even if she’d been given a sword, shield and helmet with which to protect her feeble assets, erect nipples and perfectly dishevelled hair were far beyond the ability of steel to parry, or iron to deflect.