The Bite and the Bark (Closed)

[QuisalysX]

Closed to Anke/Varg

A fight in the dark. The highlands. The brutally cold and savage Salvic tundra. All these, and more, were the stories of battles fought in The Citadel. At least, those were the ones Fel's heard of the ancient arena from all those who've ventured there.

Yet now, standing in front of the massive double doors, the short woman--reaching only nearly half the doors' height-- could only see the simple designs of vertical lines melting into flowing curves at the top of the doors to represent leaves of a tree. Vaguely, she'd remembered her adopted father mentioning the strange magic that flows around and within The Citadel, and confirmed those words with similar thoughts of her own. She stepped closer now, reaching out to push the doors open, only to feel a tingle of a breeze seemingly wrapping her calloused hands. She marveled at it, wiggled her fingers around it, and the breeze danced with her, growing into a stronger wind that slammed the doors apart.

Silence greeted her. Darkness loomed beyond the leafy threshold. And curiosity took hold of her, guiding her feet into the arena.

Fel blinked at the rapidly growing brightness and the strong, salty taste on the wind. Around her were wooden planks, arranged in a similar fashion to the ships she'd seen moored at the harbor she'd visited only a year ago. She stepped forward now, with all the confidence the small girl, clad in simple leather armor and fur vest that made her all the more tiny, could muster. Three green, horizontal lines marked her otherwise dirty face--Fel had been wandering, after all-- and a small fluff ball hung loosely from her left ear. Her long, black hair, braided loosely down her back, matted into thick strands from the mixture of dust and oil. Two short scabbards, complete with their sharp occupants, hung on top of each other from from her right hip, and a slightly larger one hung from her left.

"Sway's forsaken underfoot, ori!" Fel exclaimed as she finally took notice of the seemingly bobbing horizon, flanked vertically by the clear, blue sky, and the dark blue waters of the ocean. More profanities streamed out of her lips when she realized that she really was on a ship; she ran over to the railings and peered down, confirming her earlier doubt.

"Bloody sorcery this is, ori. Puttin' a gal's stinkin' feet on a ship, ori, wit' no food around to eat!" As if on cue, her stomach began rumbling softly, reminding her just how far she'd gone since her noontime meal. "Gots to feed now, ori, so doors be open," she grumbled loudly, hoping whoever controlled The Citadel would perhaps sling her something to eat. She shook her head slowly, regretting the fact that she'd left her broken bow with her father to fix. "Gots to feed now... been an hour, ori," Fel muttered as she moved towards the ship's only door.

Just as she placed her foot in her first step, however, she froze. A hunter's instinct commanded her to be still and ready. Fel slid her hunting knife and one of her daggers into both of her hands, and skittered away toward the ship's stern. "Bloody sorcery, ori..." she whispered as she stared intently for whatever is beyond that deceivingly plain door.

[Anke/Varg]

Rouge and Leper were anything but seafaring travellers. Whilst the enigmatic duo were well versed on the culture of Scara Brae, the criminal world of Radasanth, and the narcotic trade across the many continents of the world, they had always travelled by the preferred route of magic. The sea, they had both decided, simply did not agree with them. For them both to be sat at a rickety, but grand captain’s table on a ship that was bobbing to and fro on an alien ocean, then, was an ironic twist neither were willing to raise a chuckle at.

The table was positioned lengthways along the rear wall of the cabin, by a large, ornate set of gilded windows which looked out over the rear of the ship at the long trail of white froth that was left in its wake. Leper sat awkwardly on a small stool on the left end of the table, and Rouge perched on a crate on the right. Along either extreme of the space there were chests of drawers, trunks, and crates, and in the centre of the chamber, where one might have expected a captain-like desk, there was a large glowing circle set into the coarse floorboards.

It was more an elaborate cargo room come restaurant than a room you might find a salty old tradesman, or a fierce, rowdy and terrifying pirate. Rouge began to pick through the variety of strange artefacts nestled between tall crystal flutes of claret, and heavy, distorted decanters of what she could only presume was rum. It smelt raw, unrefined, and most likely immensely strong. She wrinkled her nose as she leant over and scooped up a sextant. She sat back onto the edge of her crate, and tinkered with it in curious silence.

“You. Did. Not. Have. To. Come.” Leper said softly, the gears of his lung cranking to life after several awkward moments of purring away idly. The thief did not look up from her seemingly fascinating piece of navigational equipment, which leads Leper to believe that, though she did not want to be there, she was not going to give him the satisfaction of using it against her. He cocked his head, pleading with his pale white dinner plate wide eyes, but gave up quickly.

He turned his attention to the chamber. Between sips of coarse rum he silently mouthed the names of the various lands depicted on the maps and charts which were pinned with dagger and tack to the walls either side of the singular door that served as the quarter’s solitary entrance. Whoever the illusory owner of the ship was, was clearly well acquainted with the far flung reaches of Althanas; there was a map of Fallien, Dheathain, the Northern Provinces of Nippon, and Leper was almost certain there was even a chartered map of the underground ice rivers of Berevar half stained by blood and sunlight by the porthole on the right wall.

Reflecting back to his request to the Ai’bron monk, the dapper gentlemen realised his mistake. He had described his ideal environment with a simple, hammer blow list of traits. “Turbulent. Educated. Luck. Enclosed.” He repeated, which made Rouge glance up at him, a perturbed expression on her wry, shrew like face.

“You certainly got that,” she snapped. With one hand, she slammed down the sextant onto the yew table top, and with the other, she scooped up the nearest wine glass and downed the extraordinarily rare and century old merlot without so much as batting an eyelid. “Now I have to get drunk, just to stop myself from hurling up our rather expensive dinner into a non-existent body of water.” She flounced, in a way only a woman knew how, and walked across the dusty red carpet to inspect the row of crates on the left wall from the door. Her stilettos echoed with hallow contempt.

“Enjoy. The. Spectacle.” He replied with a steam riddled smarm. He tapped the rim of his diamanté whiskey glass with a delicate rattle of his mechanical hand’s claws and smiled. “We. Have. Much. To. Learn. Here.” He added, remembering that the best way to sedate his companion, after many years of trial and error, was to make everything they did together relevant to the mission; to their life, to their pay, to the Scourge.

“I hope the spectacle you are referring to,” she glanced over her frill lined doublet shoulder and flared her nostrils, “is your untimely and wholesome fully delectable death at the hands of some young upstart who has no idea who we are.” She turned back to the crate and set the wine glass with a chime onto the adjacent twin. The wood was cracked, stained with ink and clearly old. Rouge wondered if whatever was inside would last beyond the arena’s exit.

“You. Are. So. Kind.” Leper chuckled, though through his many mechanical parts, half deflated left lung and half steel jaw, it was more like a wheeze and a splutter. Rouge knew what he meant, and she rolled her eyes in contempt.

“Just hurry up and be done with it already, so we can retire and return to Scara Brae. I have had quite enough of this fucking city,” she grumbled, whilst prying open the lid with her knife chipping at the lock.

Leper finished off his drink and set the glass down onto the table.

“It. Will. Be. Over...quicker than a fight in the pits,” he replied, finally freeing the stiffness in his jaw with a steel breaking snap and a hiss of steam that vented up from beneath his well to attire.

With gentlemen like poise, he pulled down his waistcoat, so that it was creaseless and comfortable, and then crossed his right leg over his left. He was positioned facing the door, and Rouge to its left. The chamber was large enough for the gentlemen and his companion to respond to any opening line, and to any imminent danger that was about to crawl into shelter from the cold, hostile, and salty perils of the wide open oceans of Althanas.

He grit what remained of his natural teeth, a strange mix of bone on bone and gold on bolt, whilst he made a mental note of his surroundings. Something was not quite right about the glowing circle on the floor, which, to Leper, reminded him rather too closely of a fighting pit he had once taken part in against bears and dogs in the under belly of his homeland. He realised his witty retort at his companion’s growing frustration might have been a little premature.

“Oh dear…” the gentlemen said, as the beast within him started to rise from the depths of his shattered and alcohol addled mind.