Falling To Rise (Open)

[Allennia]

Falling To Rise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfvcPeWO8yk)


2971


Closed to Roht Mirage.

[Allennia]

Pride was a sin to many, but to Allennia, it was a shield. You could hide behind it, conceal ideals behind it, and rebuke the harshest of insults with its edge. A man could also fall beneath it, crushed by rhetoric and arrogance. In her time, Allennia had seen great men do just that. One in particular perturbed her. He served as example of why too much power is never good. It stood as a reminder that no matter how honest and righteous, anyone was corruptible.

“You are no different, Allennia,” she said. The image of the Magister, the grand mage of her people, turned her serene expression sour.

With a renewed grin, she gripped the hilt of her blade tightly. She trusted her sword so devoutly it was the one thing to sate her nerves. Her lightweight armour, forged especially for her, may as well have been cloth. Another weight on her shoulders made her feel tired and sluggish today. The weight of consciousness was heavier than any steel she could put on her back, and any broadsword she could swing in her hand.

“You escape no legacy by thinking yourself superior.” She set her eyes on the distant door. “Only strength, determination, and loyalty will lift you on wings to new heights.” Her brother’s words echoed in the thick air, the humidity adding warmth and fondness to the memory they inspired. He had spoken those words to her the night before he vanished.

She had used them to get through each day since.

The arena before her was a wilderness unlike any other. Vines wound tightly around crumbling columns. Jade grass danced in a soft, summery breeze. Wispy clouds trailed across the sky, resplendent with a midday sun’s warmth. There was no life in the arena, safe for the knight’s beating heart, but somehow, she felt connected to living. Wherever this was, it was a sanctuary from the outside world. It was a relic of a bygone age, a temple garden bedecked with white blooms and long forgotten idyll.

It contrasted the war that had wracked the countryside of Corone. Poverty was rife in the supposed ‘gleaming capital’. Everywhere she looked on her way to the Citadel, a building she recognised from the encyclopaedia and tomes in the Grand Library, there was destitution and broken lives. Her heart reached out to the people, who, if they had been of the Isould clan, she would have leapt of her horse and fed them from her own satchel. It was not her place, or her duty, to be a paragon here.

The doors opposite began to open. The heavy oak panels, bound in iron frames, swung inwards without fanfare. The portal turned into a gaping abyss, leading down into the stuffy antechamber where her opponent, or indeed, opponents, waited to test her. With a long, drawn out sigh, Allennia lifted her broadsword up and cocked it over her right shoulder.

Before she could do anything about the poverty all around her, she had to enrich her own life. She had to make do with what little she had, in physical and mental wealth, and find meaning in all the madness. Somewhere out in the world, her brother awaited her. Somewhere out in the world, someone waited to teach Allennia Isould, the Seventh Daughter of Seven Sons, what it meant to die for something truly worthy.

[Roht Mirage]

Roht Humility

In the alcoves of the Citadel, there are 'waking rooms' where the defeated return to the world that obeys such laws as death. The walls are bare stone, the bedding minimal, and the floor space would barely accommodate five people comfortably, less so with the large chest in the corner for possessions lost in battle. The rooms were a place to regain one's senses after brushing that unknowable verge, but also to quietly contemplate lessons learned and repercussions averted.

On this day, one particular waking room was host to neither quiet nor contemplation.

“What was it like?” the foreigner asked intently. Her loose brown coat draped from her slim shoulders as she leaned forward, gray eyes quivering with tightly reined curiosity.

The energetic young man sat up from the wafer-thin mattress so quickly he almost doused her with a full cup of water. “Bloody great! You should'a been there, Teer. He had a big ol' two-hander. This big!” Now, some water did spill. The young woman known (lately) as Teer managed to lean out of the way, cringing as if her creamy desert skin were allergic to fluid... or to his backwash. He had managed to take one sloppy gulp before the theatrics.

“Greghor, don't waste,” she scolded on instinct.

The lad flipped his ratty blonde hair out of the way and looked around for a confused moment. “Oh, sorry,” he finally said, then added in the midst of a noisy gulp, “Iz ju' wa'er.” He finished the cup and wiped his stubbled chin with the back of one sleeve, leaving a long wet streak on the material that showed not a sign of battle or blood.

Are the Ai'Brone tailors, too?

“An' I told you to call me Greg. Only my ma calls me the whole thing.”

“Greghor,” Teer said pointedly, “Continue.” She gestured 'onward' with her hand.

“Right! So, I was doin' good. I blocked all his swings. Er, well, some of them. I... backed away from most, really. But, I did good! Dodgey! Ever seen a weasel in a snare?”

Teer shook her head slowly as she tried to recollect if she had come across anything by that name since landing on the continent. Greghor's attempt to impersonate a panicking animal with one flailing arm wasn't very enlightening, either.

“Anyway, while I was weaselin' all over the place, I saw he had a gap in his armor. Kinda... middle?” He pointed at his hip. “So, I slashed him right through it when he was riding the backswing. I shouted 'first blood'! And he said 'final blood'. Then, he kicked me in the gut and slammed the giant sword right on my neck. My head must'a popped clean off!”

Teer was intent, again. “And then?”

“Then... you gave me water.”

Her chin met her chest as she sighed limply.

“Oh, I didn't say thanks, did I?” Greghor sputtered, “Thanks.”

Teer smiled wanely, stood up from her kneeling position beside the bed, and patted him on the shoulder. “Don't worry about it,” she said with the terse sweetness of a put-upon mother. “I just thought there might be a light or magic or... something to show how they do it.”

“Still scared? Don't worry! I've died a hundred times here. Hasn't hurt me a bit.”

That's a pity. It would be a good excuse for the stup- She forced her mind to silence. The venom there was new, and not just for Greghor. If Akashere were still around, he'd remind her that the best way to blend into a new culture was to appreciate it. “Look for the bright lights,” she could hear him saying as if he were right beside her.

“The Citadel... Well, a Citadel arena,” Greghor said in an unusually thoughtful tone, “I think, is the most dangerous place in the world, but also the safest place in the world. Know what I mean?”

Teer thought about it for a moment, then gave him a genuine smile with a pinch of bemusement. “That's... insightful.”

He blushed, “Yeeeah, well, I got a lot of time to think on patrols. Oh bloody piss!”

Teer's eyes went wide. “I haven't heard that one before,” she laughed.

Greghor interrupted her with, “What time is it?”

“Five spans past the high?” she guessed.

His face was reddening again, but it wasn't a blush this time. “In normal language?”

“After lunch.”

“Shit! The capt'n will put me on harbor watch for a week!” Greghor cried as he ripped open the chest, gathered two short swords, a shield, and assorted baubles, then ran out into the hall as he tried to put on his insignia-adorned overcoat without dropping anything.

Teer listened for the inevitable crash, but she only heard him shouting back, “Try a fight! It's safe, I swear. Radasanth guard's honor!”

A long reed staff, once set against the doorless frame, rolled with his passing and was on route to clatter against the stone floor. Yet, it didn't, instead jerking back in midair and finding a home in the foreigner's outstretched hand.

She stepped into the hall just in time to see Greghor disappear around the next corner, his form a blur of arms and sleeves and hilts.

Roh help this city.

~

“I'm... not even dressed for battle,” Teer stammered. She was hovering just to the side of the open door as if some beast within might see her.

An Ai'Brone monk (who had offered no name) stood patiently, his weathered hand easily holding the heavy door ajar. “I assure you,” he said in a voice equal parts familial kindness and calm dutifulness, “You are better covered than some women who enter the arenas.”

Teer looked down at her loose leggings and long white shirt, belted and draping to mid thigh. They wouldn't give a blade a moment's pause. Her open coat was thicker, yet misshapen with items smuggled within. It made her modest chest look more prominent, though somewhat deformed.

Not battle-ready. More like... frumpy?

“It may help you to enter the arena as your true self, child,” the monk added knowingly, though with a hint of apology for being perhaps a little too perceptive.

Teer's eyes went wide for a moment and she almost took a step back, but her surprise quickly faded. She answered with resignation. “You aren't the first to see through it. Do Coronians have special eyes?”

The monk shrugged, “Some of us see many things in our lives.” He smiled as if that were answer enough.

Something about him made her feel so assured. She found herself reaching for her forehead, but she hesitated and instead gripped the coat's collar. With visible effort, she stripped off the concealing layer and tied the sleeves around her waist, turning the coat to a half-skirt ending just below her knees. It wasn't exactly traditional, but it felt familiar. A pair of belts, stretching down either side of her chest from shoulders to waist, were visibly more worn than the rest of her attire, and the six narrow gourds they supported seemed battered from many a tumble. They were by no means a traditional accessory of her home. They were simply hers.

Reaching a slim hand into her coat pocket, now at her knee, she drew out a crumpled rectangle of crimson cloth. With an expert fold and flip over her head, she tied it into a head scarf, forcing her long, dark chocolate hair behind her ears. Unruly as ever, it still insisted on fanning widely behind her shoulders. She settled the front hem high on her brow, just concealing the hair line, then looked at the monk uncertainly.

“This place... its magic,” she began. The old man's kindly gaze urged her to take her time. She breathed in, then said very quietly, “Is it a god's work?”

Eyes full of jolly affirmation, the monk answered, “You might say so.”

“Do you think your god... talks to mine?” She could see her worry and shame registering in those perceptive eyes.

“My god does not look beyond these walls,” he answered in a whisper, then added with infectious certainty, “And no others may look in.”

She believed him.

The skin above her brow seemed to ripple, grains of sand lifting from pores and roiling slowly into the folds of the scarf. What lay bare on her forehead was a delicate design of ivory streaks and obsidian ellipses.

The monk, for all his varied experiences, didn't seem to recognize the Roht mark, but he didn't ask. He didn't even quirk a brow. He simply gestured to the open portal.

Teer -no, Astarelle Set'Roh, Faroh's fleeing priestess- plucked her staff from the wall and stepped to the threshold. As she passed, she leaned toward the gentle monk and offered quietly, “You, mar'kah, are one of the bright lights.”

~

How unlike sand, the encroachment of greenery. A desert could swallow a village in one night without paying it any mind and would bear no memory on the resulting dunes. The vines, in contrast, claimed territory with a slow, cloying insistence. They not only saw every detail of their host, they molded themselves to its shape. Astarelle imagined, were the plants free to stand on their own, they would remember that form even as the columns crumbled to dust.

It was an odd thought, leaving her feeling both comforted and crowded. The breeze carried the scents of sweet grass and aromatic blossoms, like an overpowering spring tea offered by a kind yet overbearing host. Her staff clicked dryly against the stones of a path that was nearly invisible for the blades growing through its myriad seams.

“I am very sorry for the wait,” she said to the woman across the garden, hoping her voice would reach. The air had a warm, heavy aura that did not befit shouting. She slid her hand over her heart and forward, palm up, with a small bow. “I am Astarelle. I assume you are my-”

Opponent?

It sounded too strange to say out loud. The woman held her sword easily, and her high chin easier, but there was nothing sinister about her. She was worlds away from Greghor's guillotine-wielding brute.

[Allennia]

At the heart of the teachings of House Isould, there was a simple, immutable truth. Death becomes us. It did not matter how, or where, or when – it certainly did not matter who suffered the change.

It simply happened.

Allennia grew up as a noble, by all means, but she lived as one of the people of the valley. She was akin to the paupers in the streets of Duggan Town, and at one with the merchants in the tree den glades and travelling caravans. She aspired to be a representative not just of her house, name, and lineage, but also of the populace. They were the people she swore to protect.

She gripped her blade tight and then tighter still. The emergence of her opponent did not faze her in the least. She shifted her weight from her left thigh to her right, judging her opponent and adapting her body to suit. Every motion in the Citadel’s arena was tell, sign, and opportunity to her well-honed senses.

“-Opponent?” she erred. She detected hesitation, or perhaps bemusement in the woman’s voice. It echoed through the decadent pillars and spiralling ivy inclines. “I am she, and so much more.” Allennia advanced.

Though she felt no strain from her armour, and her stomach turned with apprehension, the knight did feel the rising heat in the arena. She calculated the environment, regardless of her success in combating the woman’s projectiles, limited her time here. She cursed silently, but made her peace with the true victor here today - nature.

“My name is Allennia,” she continued. Her tone was civil, and without hostility. She restrained herself from the usual pomposity of a noble introduction. Her title meant nothing beyond the rocky borders of her homeland. She was far from the grounds where her claims would afford her any form of protection. “It is a pleasure to meet you Astarelle.”

When the distance between them closed to a hundred feet, the knight stopped. She set her sword low, held in both hands, tip extended to the right. She took a deep breath through her nostrils, swooned in a wave of jasmine and humidity, and then waited. She made no motion. She made no sound. She offered her opponent the first swing, shot, and conjuration.

[Roht Mirage]

That's it?

Astarelle's quick eyes, though trained more for social cues than combat tells, had no trouble recognizing the stance.

Exchange names and then... on to battle? This place is so bizarre.

She sighed aloud, though Allennia -a rather pretty name- would be too far away to hear. It seemed almost funny, seeing the woman slip into the flow of combat when there was still enough room between them to build a house. Astarelle doubted she could hit anyone with a pebble at that distance.

She remembered some of Greghor's stories; mages throwing fireballs as wide as a horse, demons flickering through the air. It all seemed too ridiculous to be anything more than attempts at impressing her. Yet, here was a woman who carried herself with dignity, whose stance shouted that there was a well of skill underneath, and she readied herself as if Astarelle might set the garden around her aflame with a thought. (Not that she would want to. It may have been damp, over-perfumed, and clingy, but it had its own alien beauty, like some of the local desserts that both enraptured and nauseated her.)

Unable to help herself, she started laughing without a hint of spitefulness or condescension. Just.. bewilderment. In Corone, the world was a stranger place than she had known in years, and she was ever so much a child in it.

“I'm new to this,” she said through raggedly-returning breaths as she calmly started to walk the distance. Holding her staff in the crook of one arm, she rubbed at watery eyes. “I promise not to spit hellfire. We can just... spar, right?”

'Spar' was a good word for it. It reminded her of Akashere's playful lessons for those occasions where a bandit needed a throttling or a leery-eyed lech needed a lesson in respect.

When she was four long paces away -a reasonable distance for two normal human beings to exchange strikes- she gripped her staff near its end and bounced, cat-like, almost onto the toes of her soft shoes. With a high kick of one tightly-muscled leg, she jumped forward with a nearly-vertical twist of the hips that sent her upper body into a tight spin. Her staff whipped over and down in a two-handed, white-knuckled strike, not towards Allennia's body, but at her readied sword. Just a poke. Nonetheless, she was ready to spring back the instant her feet found the earth again.

[Allennia]

The hollow echo of solid wood against sharpened blade rang out through the ziggurat’s vine smothered battleground. The speed with which her opponent moved shocked Allennia. She had to grit her teeth to bolster herself against the blow, as it was so unexpected, so deft, and so accurate.

“It is preferred,” she clucked. She stepped back, in case of a second attack. Her heavy boots, thick armour, and rambunctious blade moved with her. The sound of metal scraping against metal danced through the clearing, echoing between the palisades and unburned columns.

Allennia pondered on the woman’s comment for a moment. There was an ounce of doubt in her mind as to wherever or not she should expect hellfire. Magic, though part of her people’s heritage, was something she inherently distrusted. Its practitioners were prone to hungry, zealous flights of fancy, and her family were no exception to its allure.

“I must concede I am ill prepared for fire of any description,” she clucked. If her opponent chose to wield flame there would be little she could do to amount a defence. Her blade would turn to slag. She would boil in her armour.

The name of Isould’s would pass from the Citadel without fame and adulation.

Her death would be painful, futile, and acrid.

With a heavy heart, she levelled her blade at arm’s length. The woman had taken her by surprise once. Lady Allennia Isould promised it would not happen again. She took a step forwards, her movements lacking Astarelle’s guile and spring, but mirroring her determination and enthusiasm. When she drew nearer, she raised her blade, and swung downward with a cleaving arc that descended like a falling tree.

It was all brute force, no grace.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle learned two lessons very quickly.

Firstly, the nobles of Corone -she hadn't given a title, but it was obvious- could indeed smile and show amusement without shame. That was comforting. It meant that living, even with the mantle of responsibility, in such a dreary, sodden place wasn't guaranteed to drown one's humor. Perhaps, small step by small step, she might find it tolerable.

Secondly, and a far less comforting lesson, patrons of the Citadel did not know the meaning of 'spar'.

Astarelle shifted sideways and attempted to deflect the blade with her staff. She planted one end in the soft earth while her hand held fast to the other and her free arm braced the middle on the safe side. Too late, she saw the force with which the blade had been swung, as well as how imposing its size actually was at such close range.

An attack completely unlike one of Akashere's pulled punches struck her angled staff. It bent slightly; a rare occurrence, given the solidified sand that hid in the reed's pours. The blade caught on a ridge in the lataro, too forceful to bounce over it, and bore Astarelle downward. With a quick, panicked swallow of air, she released the staff a moment before it was clamped against the ground. For a heartbeat, she froze in a crouch. Her fingers were so close to being pinned under the staff that she could barely see the green of grass between the reed and her fingernails, and the tip of the sword bit down into the earth a mere one-eighth step from her left foot. She could smell the freshly disrupted soil.

Before the wicked edge of that blade could move again, she pushed off with arms and legs in a move completely unlike any dance Marra had ever taught her. No doubt, it would have scandalized, but not surprised her. Astarelle's penchant for “indecently leading with her rump” was the reason her lessons had fallen short of completion.

Through karmic justice, and more than a little panic, she landed unceremoniously on her indecent rump at two paces from her pinned staff and the woman who had commandeered it. There was no smile there, now. Her jaw was tense, her cheeks colored, and her hair just settling from a fierce tousle. Clearly, the whole of her strength had gone into that swing.

“You could have ki-” Astarelle began in a flood of regained breath, but halted it with a cough.

That's the point, sand-head, she scolded herself.

She gulped loudly as her own face grew pale. “How about... unarmed sparring?” she asked with a sweet, if shaky, smile.

[Allennia]

Allennia blinked. It was the only worthy response. Fortunately for her opponent, honour was paramount to her identity, and she did not take advantage of the opening Astarelle’s stumble afforded her. Instead, she retreated several steps, lowered her blade into an easy two-handed reverse grip, and watched the dancing blades of grass and spotted vine leaves frolic in the breeze.

“Unarmed sparring is an alien concept to me,” she said softly.

All the same, she looked up at the sky, and concentrated on her consent for a moment. By some strange magic, the monks that worked the Citadel heard her. With a soft release of her tense fingers, she let go of her sword, and it began to float upwards, as though dredged from an ocean on chains, towards the sunny clouds.

“I like the sound of it, though,” she added, a broad smile plastered across her face. “My fists are not a weapon,” she said, “but my armour is an extension of me, just like my sword, or my titles, or my personality.”

The broadsword disappeared in a flash of white light and a rush of heat. Instinctively, Allennia reached for her dagger, but realised she had left it in the antechamber. She had muttered some innate comment about not needing anything else, and chuckled at her naiveté.

“Now let us,” she licked her lips to moisten them against the scowl of the sun, beneath which she continued to swelter, “’spar’.”

She parsed her legs. She tensed her muscles. She bounced on the spring of her knees, to ensure she was ready for whatever bum rush or dancing vignette of pain came her way. With a cocksure wave, she gestured for Astarelle to approach. She kept her fists clenched and to the front, mimicking the stance her brother took when they had fought playfully as children.

[Roht Mirage]

In watching Allennia's sword drift skyward and burst with white flame, much like the palm-sized sun seeds her people set off on festival nights, Astarelle felt a dreadful premonition. She did not need to wait long for confirmation.

With the same steady force, her staff was plucked from its furrow in the earth and drifted toward the harsh light of the sun. She could not respond with the same nonchalance as the other woman had. Her lip quivered. Her eyes widened. She reminded herself -no, repeated as an internal chant- that both the staff and the precious sand contained within it would be awaiting her in a chest later. Regardless, she winced against the hot burst as it was erased from the arena.

Even as she tried to swallow the worry over ever seeing her most prized possession again, she felt a childish pang of guilt. There had been a sliver of subterfuge in her request. There were tricks she could have sprung so long as her staff and its contents remained nearby, underhanded but reassuring options. Now, denied. This spirit of the Citadel seemed to have the guile of a hawk-eyed parent.

How sadly appropriate; only after Akashere had passed from the world -and Astarelle from the swaddling of the familiar- did his wisdom show its universal truth.

Gods grant wishes with the back of their hands.

Allennia had regained her smile, though. If they could continue this encounter with that kind of geniality... perhaps it wouldn't be as horrific as Greghor's dumbly-enthusiastic tales. To that end...

As she stood and brushed torn grass from her half-skirt, Astarelle announced to both Allennia and that unseen witness above, “Body versus body. No secrets.” She unclasped the harness from over her chest and held it forward. The six gourds clunked heavily against each other, then hissed as streamers of sand snaked from their spouts. Unbeholden to any law but its own, the sand flowed through the air toward Astarelle's other outstretched hand. It enshrouded the limb from tip to elbow, one moment giving off the dull sheen of a solidly packed mass, and the next rippling almost as a fluid to accommodate the flexing of her fingers.

The sand settled, the gourds now knocking about hollowly, and Astarelle offered with a smile, “Each of us with our own armor.” The smile was for Allennia. The negotiating tone was for their overseer. She let the harness and its contents fall to the grass, but there was no crash. Instead, it drifted skyward on that same languid force until blazing out at that invisible ceiling. Her gauntlet of sand remained. Apparently, the terms had been agreed to.

Perhaps due to the thrill of unashamedly displaying rizak for the first time in many weeks, Astarelle felt an odd sense of home. The air seemed slightly drier, the breeze warmer as if still carrying the heat of their burnt-out equipment. It was an odd sensation to experience while her eyes still saw nothing but vibrant green and the delicate pastels of unnameable flowers over marble columns, but it was welcome.

Feeling an urge to commence their 'sparring' before the Citadel grew bored, Astarelle charged at Allennia. Her feet first found purchase on the stones concealed below the grass, only to be jarred as she hit the sudden softness of the unaltered earth. With slight unsteadiness, she brought her gauntlet back, her fist clearly rigid as the sand solidified to a near-metal consistency. Then, in a move that was part intention and part unpreparedness for the slickness of the grass, her feet outpaced her upper body. The last pace between them was traversed with a low slide on her hip, the coat-turned-skirt and her dark hair flaring behind. Both her feet shot out as she braced against the soft earth and heaved upward at the core of Allennia's armored torso.

((OOC: Grapple territory. I'm okay with a little bunnying. Should it come to that, play Astarelle as a surprisingly graceful rainbow trout.))

[Allennia]

Allennia began to regret her consent to Astarelle’s wishes. The moment the wily woman collided with her, all her enthusiasm for ‘sparring’ died. She stumbled back, winded, and sputtering curse words in a variety of ancient and archaic dialects.

“Well,” she wheezed, “that was not fair!”

Her protestations were trite and childish. She took herself back to the eve of her ninth birthday, when her brother had broken her nose in a ‘celebratory coming of age’ ceremony. She had bested him then by telling father. She doubted that trick would work her.

“Okay, if that is how you ‘spar’ were you are from…”

Allennia was not sure where her opponent was from. She doubted she would know, even if Astarelle said the name. All Allennia knew, was that wherever it was, the rules of engagement were radically different to those she was accustomed to. She set her feet wide, brought her forearms up in a shield wall, and watched the woman as she bounced from toe to toe.

“Then let us have a go at it.”

The two women instinctively second-guessed one another. Astarelle charged head first, and Allennia moved sideways at the last. Arms fanned out, and grunts echoed into the tepid sky. They began tussling, like greased pigs, and pushing into one another with strength, ferocity, and rage. The skill and guile Astarelle had drawn upon to heave into Allennia swift forgotten, fists pummelled, and nails raked whatever skin or grip they could claw.

“Not so good at this, are you!” Allennia cruelly roared. Her hair fell over her eyes, and she fought blind as the audience jeered.

The crumbling ruins crumbled some more, exhausted by the spectacle.

Astarelle cool as anything found the advantage she needed.

“You are heavy with pride,” she quipped, heaving up and backwards.

Allennia, despite her weight in her armour, found herself tossed through the air, up and over, and sharply into the rubble of the floor. Whilst Astarelle’s footwork had carried across it almost silently when she had charged, the knight made no such delicate progress.

The crunch of metal against stone, bone against swiftly formed bruise, and ego against reality filled the illusory world.

“Urgh,” she groaned, half-hearted through the pain, and writhing with shock and discomfort. Allennia’s vision blurred and she contorted her limbs to take the strain from her spine.

Astarelle, gracefully, turned and edged away a step.

“Get up and try again,” she said, in a reverent, teacher-like fashion.

[Roht Mirage]

Akashere's words. She had never expected to be on this side of the teacher-pupil divide. The words seemed to flow with some authority, even if inside she was fawning over her own sudden and heavy pride.

In the tussle, they had turned a half circle. Allennia now lay on the cracked, overgrown path where Astarelle had been before the exchange. She couldn't see for the blades of grass, but the stone sounded as if it had suffered another year of natural wear in a single impact. The woman, despite Astarelle's command, made little effort to stand aside from curling in her limbs like a beetle turned on its back.

Maybe... I went too far.

Astarelle took a step forward as her adrenaline dropped. Her knee dropped as well, demonstrating just how of-one-moment her strength had been. Her legs burned belatedly for having twice separated Allennia's armored body from the earth. “Bury me,” she hissed as she tottered to the side, made one and a half languid steps, then braced herself against one of the vine-swathed columns that attended over the ancient path. She sank heavily to her knees until she was sitting on her heels. Tendrils of greenery and dislodged blossoms filled her hands from their undignified scree down the marble.

She looked toward the downed woman as she began to shift noisily and slowly against the concealed stones. That playful smile was long gone, now a deeply-pained wince. “Sorry,” she found herself muttering. Allennia's eyebrow, quirked quizzically despite the difficulty of sitting up, told her just how ridiculous it was to apologize in this place. Might as well feel guilty over what happened in a dream.

Nonetheless, she did feel guilt. It was sharp as a spear point between the shoulder blades.

“I... trained my legs... a lot,” she rambled as her eyes traced one of the myriad lines through the overgrown stones. “I was a dancer, once. But, there was also an exercise my last mentor made me do. I would lay on my back with my... bottom...”

Roh help her. She actually blushed.

“...against a steep rock face. I had a big rock, wide as my hips, balanced on my feet, and I had to push it up and down twenty times. Then thirty. Eventually forty.” She planted a palm on the unusually warm column and extended two fingers upward in a crude demonstration. She wasn't about to swing her feet skyward for educational purposes. Dignity, more than her aching legs, made that decision.

“I was always afraid of it falling on me, but that was silly. I knew Akashere would catch it.” She shifted to lean her shoulder against the pillar as she raised her gauntlet of sand and added, “With rizak. He was much better at it than me. Everyone was, really.”

She paused to fidget at the limp collar of her shirt with her uncovered hand. Stupid Corone clothing doesn't breathe, she grumbled to herself as she felt sweat running down her torso and pooling at the lowest curve of her back. The column provided no relief, not even in its shade. I can't be this delicate already.

She scowled as she continued to pluck at the wetly-clinging fabric.

[Allennia]

Allennia looked at her opponent with a curious mix of remorse and pity. On the one hand, she had seen just how powerful a woman Astarelle was. On the other, she was now entirely certain she had no chance whatsoever to overcome her. She had grown up better than to simply lay low and admit defeat.

“I think all that trial and error paid off,” she wheezed. Her words strained between the waves of heat and the still ringing sound in her ears. She clapped loudly. Her gauntlets scuffed together, and dust loosing from her battered leather gloves. Something in the distance clicked, turned, and moved unseen. The sound of crickets and summer pangs droned and droned on.

“I like to think so too,” Astarelle said meekly. She did not sound convinced.

Allennia ached in sympathy. The memories and the vivid and fond reflection they implied made her miss home even more than she was doing already. She promised to keep her own childhood and upbringing close to her heart, and all the times her father had broken her back, and her brother pushed her temper to its limits.

Her instructions to the monks came full circle. She had set her plan in motion long before she had crossed the threshold, and it continued to make waves in the unseen catacombs beneath the arena. She pictured robed figures running back and forth, chanting incantations to remould the illusory world above.

The temperate battleground began to cool, and the sun faded from view behind a bank of swiftly formed cumulus. If she was going to fight on Astarelle’s terms, then the arena was going to meet hers in kind. Level the playing field, her brother had taught her, and you even the odds.

“Tell me…” She trailed off to lean against a column in a similar fashion. “Why wrestling?” Her question asked in earnest gave her time to reflect, cool off, and try to piece together a path to victory. Her sword, to her, was her everything. It was not just the clichéd ‘extension of her arm’, it was a symbol of her vows, her family, and her heritage.

Astarelle frowned. "It's because I'm stubborn." She nodded. She pictured the long line of people that put her down and pulled her back up again over the years. ""Akashere always told me I wasn't very good with my hands, so I'd better kick like a horse and hope they're behind me."

Allennia tried very hard not to laugh.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle felt her own embarrassed laughter building, but it suddenly cut off.

She had only shared that story with one other person. Lisere, another child chosen by Roh, and more importantly, her little temple-sister. Those with the Roht mark knew no kin but the other chosen. It made for a small family. The Kor'Roh as the cloistered child, the Set'Roh as the daughter among the people, and the Mar'Roh as the highest representative of Roh. That would make the Mar'Roh their mother? Inwardly, Astarelle scoffed. She felt nothing for that cruel woman but a bitter resentment. The love that, in another life, she might have had for her mother, father, and siblings... that was all for Lisere.

With laughter dead in her throat like a piece of dried fruit she couldn't swallow, she turned away from Allennia, faking a curiosity at the sky's sudden decision to pull a fluffy blanket over the sun. The coolness was unnaturally swift but ominously fitting, given the cold weight in her gut. Shame. A far different breed than the embarrassing story she had just shared with a complete stranger. This was a weight that she had trouble voicing in her own head, let alone out loud. But, in the eerie emptiness of the arena, where the natural laws distorted and even death itself was supposedly at bay, she felt a stillness in her mind. A vacuum that drew out the long-buried worry.

What has changed with my leaving?

There was the obvious; no more daughters of Roh would go beyond Faroh's border. A Set'Roh's 'education among the people' would never again include the gatherers. Akashere had the distinction, or shame, of being the last one to bring a Roht apprentice outside the veil. Never again would the rulers of her people have the opportunity to walk the lands of Fallien, disguised as one of the 'lower' people.

Lisere would not consider it a great loss. She had never shown any desire to set foot outside the city walls. Even the idea of leaving the temple, an inevitability when she left the role of Kor'Roh behind, she had regarded as a trivial, bothersome step toward the position of Mar'Roh. Astarelle had always hoped the lack of curiosity was just a matter of 'what you've never known'. Now, Lisere really would never know, the opportunity snuffed out like a flame. Her flight had caused far greater pain -death was gentle compared to what befell those caught up in Roh's fury- but somehow that dead flame seemed more tragic.

“I'm ready to continue,” Astarelle said without turning around. Her uncovered hand swiped at moisture below her eyes while her covered hand clenched into a fist, sand visibly seizing tighter until it gleamed like metal. Her frail fist contained within, sand molded to its pores, was the only part of her body not glistening with sweat. The drop in temperature was soothing, comparatively, but came far short of making the garden comfortable. A breeze danced high overhead in a gown of yellow and pink petals, taunting, but not shifting the muggy air around her. Floral fragrances hung limp and heavy like a spring tea that had steeped too long.

“To continue sparring?” Allennia asked behind her. The soft creak of armor announced that she had straightened from leaning on the column. Astarelle turned. Yes, the woman had a gleam of humor in her eyes that had been hinted at just slightly in the way she said 'sparring'.

Astarelle's mouth turned up into a small smile. Her eyes, slightly bloodshot, didn't hold the same mirth. “No,” she said softly, “I'm ready to fight like a warrior. We are in the sand-blasted Citadel, after all.”

She lunged on weary legs, crossing most of the overgrown path in two strides. With the second footfall, she pivoted to the side, aiming to slip, quick and low, past Allennia's hip. Her hardened fist arced high like a bludgeon toward the noblewoman's face, then shifted unconsciously to strike for her shoulder.

Not sparring, she tried to tell herself. She needed a battle. It would be a false battle, false pain. She had no illusions that a false death was any kind of penance, but it was all she could bring herself to do.

[Allennia]

Before she knew it, the idyll and respite between calamity and conversation were finished. The heat of the illusory world continued to addle her wavering senses, drawing her into a false sense of security, half-sleep, and sweating madness. The tips of the distant trees danced in a slowly growing breeze, which failed to dip into the ruins, and the sky trickled into crimson splendour, leaving swirls of the former glory mingling in its pattern. It was ironically beautiful, considering its purpose was to lay low a life, and bolster their ability to kill, maim, and profit from cruelty.

“Hmmm…” Allennia curled her lip with thought. “Very well, my friend,” the knight contemplatively said in reply. Her voice quivered with indecision, showing her wavering between action and rest clear as day.

She was now a sort of ready, and she embraced the inevitable and almost certain end she faced. Her opponent had all the guile of a phantasm, and in the hands of her quicksilver-limbs, Allennia portended broken bones and bruises egos. Her initial observations of the brawler should have warned her. Her senses should have given her chance to react. All her experience, on the other hand, was in the field of battle and those battles took place against opponents with weapons. She knew swords. She knew the spear. She knew the bow and arrow. She did not know the fist, the knee, and the rump.

It was too hot to adapt.

The sun flared on the horizon. It broke over the tree line and ignited the ruined spires and ancient temple domes with fiery convocation, a hubris of colour, and pathetic fallacy. A storm cloud grew to the east, tantalisingly brewing with a heavenly downpour.

It took little encouragement from Astarelle to snap Allennia out of her remembrance. She swift turned her attentions back to her true passion; battle. That eagerness, to her eternal shame, made her oblivious to the one thing she should have paid attention to more than her opponent’s stance and style. She should have adapted to the woman’s alacrity. Astarelle’s speed took the knight quite by surprise.

A blow to the face Allennia Isould could just about stomach.

A strike to the shoulder, on the other hand, left her pride shattered.

She ducked. She weaved. She spiralled on her heavy booted feet, and lunged.

“Gyahh!” her lungs roared, all the might of a bear emerging from her puckered lips.

Her own attack was lacklustre, compared to desert tempered brawn, but it served a solitary, unifying purpose.

It served to prove that Allennia Isould was not ready to bow own to the donkey woman just yet. It would prove only her ineptitude if it failed to strike Astarelle’s chin.

[Roht Mirage]

False pain my rump. The thought rattled around in her head like pebbles in a gourd-shaker, though no child she knew of could shake one so strongly.

Her head snapped back with a crack of teeth, her torso and limbs trailing like streamers. With a slightly softer crack -no stones hid under the grass here- she landed on one shoulder and tumbled over onto her back, limbs splayed wide. Pain swept in to fill the sudden stillness, ringing along the entire length of her jaw and running down her throat like thorn-laden honey. She gagged, spitting a cloud of red mist upward, then rolled frantically onto her front, limbs holding her aloft shakily as she coughed out what felt like a small river of blood.

“Thee? No goo' wi' meh hans,” she sputtered around a tongue that cowered like a wounded animal. By the depths, it hurt. She couldn't sense through the dizzying pain how badly it was damaged, but she prayed it was still in one piece. Nothing had left her mouth aside from blood, as far as she knew, so could she have.... swallowed a piece of her own tongue? She gagged up more blood.

Tentatively, she tried to speak again. “How... How do...” The words felt solid even though she had a enunciate as if talking through a mouthful of sand, or close to. She knew all too well what a real mouthful of sand felt like. “How do you people do it?” she growled from her hands and knees, blood running down her chin.

Finally looking up, she was almost blinded by the harsh glare of the setting sun, its round body pinched between the treeline and the low-hanging clouds like a narrowed, menacing eye. The columns and grass had taken on shades of red (though not as darkly as she had painted it with her blood), making them look aflame to her watery eyes. She blinked hard. There was no fire, but the air felt so much like a forge that a little bit of flame wouldn't make a difference.

“What do you mean?” Allennia asked as she took a step forward. Her face was dark against the sunset behind her, but she clearly sounded... offended. At the pulled punch? She had certainly demonstrated what she thought of that already.

Astarelle felt herself twitch as if her body wanted desperately to keep its distance from the advancing woman, but she gritted her floating, aching teeth against the impulse. She managed to stand unsteadily with only the quietest of whimpers, and she held her ground. Wobbling, bleeding, she held it.

“Corone... people. The Thitadel,” she snapped, her bloody lisp lapsing in and out, “How do you fight like that? Like... you could kill a th- th-... stranger.” She almost swiped at her mouth with her sand-gauntleted hand, its shell now soft but still as gritty as one would expect, then quickly switched to her other arm. The sleeve came away a rich and meaty crimson. “I'm not innocent. I've killed. It takes hate and... panic. But, here- How can you people be fine with killing someone who theems like a perfectly nice perthon? Thomeone who could be a friend if it weren't for thith thand-blathted Thitadel god, or whatever in the depth it ith.”

She spit a large globule of blood to her side, then winced out fresh tears at the fiery complaints of her shredded tongue.

[Allennia]

Allennia listened to Astarelle’s jumbled question, placing syllables, grammar, and letters into the blanks caused by her injury. At first, the knight wanted to launch into oration, forging a dichotomy of snobbery that would do nothing but paint in her a bad light. She shook her head.

“I ask myself the same thing,” was her only response. She shrugged.

Astarelle glared at her. Every pair of eyes still attending in the crowds beyond the illusory walls stared, transfixed, and full of incredulity.

“You do-o-o?” the brawler asked with a slur.

Allennia nodded. “The Citadel is new to me.” She gestured wide. It was the truth, this was her first time, and now, the knight knew, it would be her last. “I come from a kingdom west of here, far from this maddening crowd.”

In the valley of the seven, people settled their differences less amicably than the Ai’bron could afford. There, the houses of her kin went to war with less than honest intentions and every meaning to gut their neighbour. She could see now that Astarelle’s tarnished stance, brutal aggression, and unnerving beauty were a combination the girl had used to stay alive in the wilderness beyond Radasanth’s suppose civility. That fact alone cemented her as a worthy ally.

“I’ve killed,” she continued. She did not wish to drag out her exposition too long, but her upbringing lead her to answer questions tactfully, honestly, and appropriately. “Those deaths were on the battlefield. People sent to fight for their master’s bidding, their ego, and their supposed claim to title and land.” The valley of the seven, Allennia now realised, was no more just a place to kill than the sandy dome she stood in.

Her dark features, illuminated by the sun, continued to darken as she stepped forwards. Instead of taking the opportunity to gut Astarelle with a dagger, had she one, or to summon her sword with pious command and cleave her in in twain, she did something entirely unexpected.

“What say we end this?” she enquired. Her voice was full of honesty. Though her heart raced, and her legs wobbled, her hand remained forwards, palm flat, a gesture of friendship and cessation. “We can complain about these torrid rules and this abhorrent city somewhere more serving of friendship.”

Allennia waited, arm outstretched, free hand clenched into a tight fist. She would not fight on, regardless of Astarelle’s reply. The woman was clearly injured, and would bleed to death at the rate she was reddening her attire. That, Allennia Isould vowed, was no way for a woman filled with humility, virtue, and grace to die. She would rather fall on her own sword, and let her opponent rise in the deserved glory than take advantage of weakness.

[Roht Mirage]

Funny, how a tear already grown from pain could become one of embarrassed gratitude while on the cheek. Astarelle stammered, unsure even in her own mind what sound she was trying to make, as she tried to wipe away the tear she was suddenly so self-conscious of. Disturbingly, her hand left behind far more wetness, thick and warm.

“I'm a meth,” she said quietly. The sand of her gauntlet shifted and slunk up her sleeve like a nocturnal animal retreating before morning's heat. “But... thank you.” She reached out her freshly-uncovered hand, so pristine it seemed to belong to someone else, certainly someone not coated in grass, dirt, and blood, and she clasped onto Allennia's hand. A deep well of tension -she hadn't even been aware of it- suddenly drained from her body, causing her to wobble forward. Her blood-smeared hand clamped onto Allennia's armored shoulder, too slick to find any real purchase. The noblewoman's other hand gripped her arm solidly. “Thorry,” Astarelle said, not meeting the taller woman's gaze. She tried half-heartedly to flick blood off the armor with a hand that was nothing more than a red paint brush.

“Don't bother yourself with it,” Allennia said with a cheeriness that seemed comically inappropriate to their gory situation. Astarelle might have giggled if not for the blazing pain and the strange fuzziness warring in her skull. “The Ai'Brone will clean us up.”

Astarelle snorted, then coughed. Allennia leaned away from the spray and helped her hunch over to pepper the grass with red splotches. The fit lasted longer than before. She could feel her mouth beginning to fill again each time she thought it was safe to close her dripping lips. Somehow, whatever remained of her tongue had gone numb, which was little solace with the hurricane of pain screaming around it. “You thaid,” she gurgled during what seemed to be low tide, “We would... end thith.”

She looked up, swallowing blood just to keep it from interrupting her. “I'm not afraid to die. Not here. Gods demand tho much, but they don't break their own rules.” Blood caught in her throat. She lurched forward to hack it out in a spray that spread as high as her cheekbones. “Tho!” she snapped as if daring the blood to impede her again. “Th- th- so... if you have a better idea... thomething fa- faster than thpouting till I'm empty, I'm all e-ears.”

[Allennia]

You could only leave the Citadel in two manners. The first, naturally, was as a victor. As every victory comes with a loss, the second, of course, was death. At this point in the day, Allennia had gone beyond caring which she used to venture back out into the real world.

“One of us must leave a corpse, the other, a champion,” she said, her voice soft and wavering, a sickening feeling in her stomach turning her resolve into concern. “I care not which.”

She clapped. The white lights that exiled her blade began to reform around her limbs, dancing out along her fingertips and forming a hilt. It took no time at all for the sword to appear, and Allennia pushed herself into a rigid stance, blade’s tip in the grass, pommel a walking stick to aide her shattered body.

“I can end this, swiftly, if you would allow me the heavy burden of being your executioner.” She would not strike her down without consent. Whatever past Astarelle had, or whatever experience the knight had earned on the battlefield, she was still human; she was not going to become the monster the crowd wished her to be.

“You would?” Astarelle, though bloodied, near death’s eternal door, and stayed low, perked up. Whatever strength she had seen in her opponent become secondary to a sudden and burgeoning humility.

Allennia nodded. She tightened her gauntlet around the hilt of the bastard sword, to test its weight in her aching arms, and then curled her lip. There was another way. There was always another way. Her promise to fall to let Astarelle rise was steadfast in her mind.

“Of course, you could always show me you’re not just a fluke, and cleave me atwain for ruining your pretty face?” She held the hilt forwards, gesturing for Astarelle to take it, should she so wish.

[Roht Mirage]

Pretty?

Her mind pawed stupidly at the word for a moment. It felt like ages since anyone had said that of her face -her real face- not the angled, tucked, and polished sand disguise she so often used. Even then, the comment was normally in reverence to her Roht mark more than her own features. She wasn't sure if the heat in her cheeks was the sweltering air, the warm bloodstains, or an actual blush.

She wobbled, jostling herself back to the agonizing present, and cast her head down to cough once more. Her thoughts seemed to come so slowly, yet they danced away when she strained to pull them in. Unbidden, she saw Greghor's oafish grin as he proclaimed, “Welcome to the Guillotine Club! Way to go out in style!”

This is different, she argued belligerently against... herself?

Greghor's opponent had been a monster, something destined to stain the Citadel's hungry bowels. Allennia, though imposing in her own way, was nothing like that. She had a mind and a conscience bolstered by something far deeper than her noble birth. Astarelle could see in her eyes, this woman understood the impact that her offer would have... on both of them.

She reached forward with her clean hand, closing it over the hilt. Though she shook, she scolded herself to not lean on it. “I can't-” she began. Blood dribbled angrily from her lips. She wiped it away, for all the good that did with her crimson hand. “I can't...”

I can't ask you to do that.

“I can't lift it.”

Bury me.

Whether it was honesty or cowardice, she couldn't decide. Not now. Not with her head draining like an over-tapped spring. She expected to be coughing nothing but dust soon.

“Very well,” Allennia said. She sounded solemn, but there was a thick undercurrent of reluctance that even Astarelle's befuddled senses could read.

I'm so sorry.

She closed her eyes, schooling her face into a red-drenched tableau of serenity. As her last act, she would spare Allennia the final flicker of life in her pupils and the sudden fear that tried to pull her mouth into a whimper. She was as still as the flowers, wilted by heat, untouched by breeze.

It came in a whisper of wind. Just one more gust, so small, to join the hurricane in her skull. Like the darkening unto dusk, it was over. Astarelle was done with the Citadel.

[Allennia]

The monks stitched flesh, dignity, and skin back together, and fuelled tired, aching muscles with broth, wholemeal bread, and poppy wine. Allennia could not be sure how long she was in the infirmary following her unceremonious victory, for time stretched out into a tapestry of silent, contemplative loneliness. She was certain of one thing, however. She would not return.

It was no place for a knight. It was no place for a daughter of Isould.

Her brother had once been here, but it had been years ago, and there was no trace or taint of his disappearance in the sandy domes and cloisters.

The sun was shining when she finally ventured out into the open air. Abandoning her armour, Allennia Isould wore nothing more than a brown tunic, and long, dark green slacks. She tied her hair back in a loose ponytail, her face cleansed of make-up or the scars of war by witch hazel and pious magic.

“I did not expect to see you again,” she said, with shock.

Standing atop the stairs, which lead down to the city proper, was her opponent. Not so long ago, she had cleaved the woman’s head from her shoulders, after engaging in a somewhat comical brawl that had put the knight firmly out of her comfort zone. Se instantly admired Astarelle, for her grace and candour, but seeing her outside the arena made Allennia jealous. She was even prettier in the sunlight, a soft; undulating beauty surrounded her like an aura of divinity.

[Roht Mirage]

She had been on the steps a while, soaking up the real sun's rays. Its gentle heat and calming light were nothing like the demanding, infernal gaze of the Citadel's master. Her forehead shimmered with a healthy glow, her Roht mark concealed under a layer of desert-brown sand. The rest of her face was as bare and honest as she dared in public.

She paid little heed to the sparse tide of warriors parting around her on the stairs. Her mind was elsewhere, locked in a moment still fresh.

~

“Every last grain,” she confirmed aloud as she appraised the final gourd from the waking room's chest. The other five surrounded her kneeling form like children settled for their mother's storytime. She let out a long breath as she gently placed it down, then reached back into the chest for the harness.

A throat cleared awkwardly behind her. She spun on the balls of her feet, sending two of the gourds rolling haphazardly across the floor.

“My apologies, child,” said the monk who had ushered her into the arena. He caught the wildest of the gourds under one sandal, then stooped to pick it up. “I just thought you might have some questions. One's first time can be... confusing.” He offered the gourd to her with a smooth bow.

Astarelle stood and simply watched him for a moment. His eyes darted down in a show of humility, but there was a deeper concern there. You know blasted well how it went, don't you? she snapped within, but she couldn't bring the words to her mouth. He still had that age-ripened kindness in his features. An act? She didn't want to write off her first impression of him, not when it had seemed so pure, and still did.

“Thank you,” she said curtly as she took the gourd and knelt once more into the chest.

The monk clasped his hands against the loose overhang of his robes. “Some say that the Citadel is a magnification of the world,” he said wistfully. The line sounded rehearsed, but he brought a thoughtful honesty to it nonetheless. “Good and bad. Freedom and pain. They are all lifted to their purest form. It's... beautiful.” He paused as her back went rigid. “I think, at least. But, most of all, it's safe. It's a dream where no harm can come to you.”

Or a nightmare. Real nightmares can be easily forgotten. This... not so much.

She sighed, searching for words that didn't drip in venom. It was shameful how much of a stinger she had developed. She had to cut it off. There were good and honorable people here who didn't deserve such ire. “You can heal a shattered body,” she said as she folded down the harness, latched it around her waist, and began slotting in the gourds at belt level. “But, you can't heal a cracked soul. Some experiences only make the cracks deeper.”

She reached on still-wobbly ankles to snatch up the last gourd, then stood and met the monk's sad gaze. “I have family who still honor a god that despises and hunts me, yet I still love them. I won't judge someone for seeking the safety of a god's domain, if they are willing to pay the tithe... whether it's gold or blood or obedience. I've just paid so much already.”

The monk nodded solemnly. “That,” he said morosely, “is understandable.”

“What's you name?” Astarelle asked suddenly. He jerked his head up. “If you don't mind telling me, of course.”

His kind smile flickered back to life. “Hoak,” he said as if the sound of it had grown unfamiliar. “It's not a local name. I've traveled far. Yes, I have.” He seemed to lose himself in pleasant memories.

Astarelle left him in reverie for a moment as she tied her coat around her waist once again, hiding the gourds. Her own lips split in a grin. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Hoak. I am Astarelle Set'Roh. Though, when I leave this room, I'll just be a nobody foreigner named Teer.”

Hoak returned the grin, but quickly lost it in a sigh. “Then, I suppose, it's also my lot to go back to just being another Ai'Brone.” He looked down at his toes.

“That's fine,” Astarelle soothed as she touched a fingertip to his forehead and brought his eyes level with hers. “You'll still be one of the bright lights.”

This time, his smile stayed.

~

“Didn't expect to see me again?” the foreigner asked, her upturned eyes shining with mirth, “That's an odd thing to say to a stranger.” She ascended the few deep steps to the noblewoman's level, where she leaned on her staff and hitched her hips to the side, swaying the coat-turned-half-skirt. “You can call me Teer,” she said with a meek wave.

Roh help her, that look of confusion was priceless. Teer smiled widely to keep from laughing out loud.

“It's a long story. But, it's one I'm willing to share.”

[Skie and Avery]

Basic Judgement Requested - Feel free to PM me with any questions.

Plot - 19/30
Character - 22/30
Prose - 21/30
Wild Card - 7/10
Total - 69/100

Allennia Isould gains 920exp and 207gp
Roht Mirage gains 920exp and 207gp

[Mordelain]

Experience and gold added.