The Beetle and the Bone

Valain

My very first Aetolia RP log!

Valain ran into @Noruinel fighting diseased people in a hut in Raim. Being the duty-bound Templar Page he is, he made to help what he perceived to be a young girl in distress.

And then this happened.

Interior of a fetid hut.
A stench of death so strong that it is almost tangible permeates through this little hut. A small bundle of furs lie on the dirty floor, serving as a bed, the hut's only adornment. The furs, the floor, and the wall, are dotted with globs of viscous crimson-hued goo in the shape of hand- and footprints. Dried blood is smeared on the floor as well. A small brown nightingale perches nearby.

Noruinel thrusts a vicious black dhurive at a diseased man viciously.
Noruinel steps in, slamming the haft of her dhurive hard into a diseased man's chest.

Valain cruelly stabs an academy longsword deep into a diseased man.
The final blow proves too much for a diseased man, who expires, pitifully.

l noruinel
She is a typical Tsol'aa, stunted in height, gangly-limbed but shoulder-slouched with the grace of something feral and, perhaps, easily agitated. Sun-touched, her skin is darkened with the warm, golden tones of someone who might otherwise be naturally pale. Though she is generally hygienic in both scent and appearance, her chestnut hair tangles in wild disarray, standing out ajt all ends in knots likely snaggled more than a few times by toothy branches and briers. Large eyes shine with emotive life wherever they look, their coppery depths nearly feline in both colour and focus.

(relatively unburdened) : a rugged outdoorsman's rucksack
(haphazardly criss-crossed) : reinforced umber leather leg wraps
(wound about one bicep) : a leather tribal armband
(forgivingly fitted) : a sturdy leather bodice
(falling from the waist) : a supple loincloth
(hooding her head, draping her shoulders) : a soft suede and cotton hooded scarf

l valain
He is a hardy Tsol'aa, his lithe form fair-skinned with the faintest hint of a tan, his skin drawn taut over what little sinew covers his body, which would be short and slight even were it more heavily muscled. Two mismatched eyes peer out of his face, an amber one on the left and an olive green on the right, each of them large and almond-shaped with gaze that tends toward the penetrating. Adorning the space between them, a smattering of light freckles crosses his straight, thin-flanged nose, just barely dusting the top of its long bridge and almost non-existent on the pronounced, angular cheekbones that stand out to its either side. Glossy black hair gathers into a topknot over the back of his skull, pierced horizontally by a bleached bone worn in adornment, itself unremarkable save for that one end has been honed into a crude sort of dagger. Beneath it, the rest of his ebon locks spill untamed past his jawline, falling about the sides and back of his head in thick waves that turn into ringlets as they descend his face. He walks with the boon of Damariel.

(worn on the back) : a plain grey pack
(tailored with an airy fit) : a layered, gold-embellished uniform
(tied about his waist) : a sash-belted, embroidered azure surcoat
(wound about his waist) : a knotted, crimson silk belt
(polished and impeccably maintained) : polished, sword-emblazoned full plate armour

Valain bends at the waist when diseased man falls lifeless to the floor. Fists resting on his knees so that the blades of his longswords cross before them, he watches Noruinel with penetrating, mismatched eyes more alive with curiosity than concern. Only a couple seconds afterwards, his chest still heaving a bit from the exertion of the fight, he tilts his head to the side to indicate the corpse of their enemy and asks in courteous tones, "Are you all right, girl?" His gaze flits down to find the double-bladed weapon she carries a moment later, and before she can answer, he lets out a surprised, "A dhurive." His eyebrows rise with the revelation.

Flitting away from Noruinel's side, a diminutive nightingale takes a perch upon the upper rung of a chair's broken back, hopping from foot to little foot to avoid the viscous gobs of crimson-hued goo which slathers the locale before it finally settles down, feathers puffing.

A low, tormented moan echoes throughout the settlement, originating from an unknown, but nearby, source.

Eyes glinting with blood lust, Noruinel bares her teeth in a bestial snarl at Valain as she crouches over one of several cursed, wretched men she had taken out herself. With a vicious yank, she jerks her vicious black dhurive free of the body and kicks its arm behind her with crude, careless roughness. Death permeates the air, filling her flared nostrils as she pants and studies the interloper to her hunt. After a long, mistrustful silence, she lets her shoulders slump forward and her grip readjust along her weapon's shaft. "Yes," she answers, violence cooling in her tone as well as her posture. "Kill. Not from forest." She gestures sharply toward Valain with a clipped, "Who?"

Valain's response is to straighten, very coolly himself, and move into a fighting stance with a lazy kind of grace. One sword held high, the other low, he surveys Noruinel calmly, mismatched eyes flitting up and down to take in her form. "A little young to be a Sentinel, aren't you?" he asks in placid tones with just a hint of strain in them. But then a faint half-smile, dawning slowly but inexorably, curves one corner of his lips. "In answer to your question, I'm a member of the Templarate - a Page, still. I thought you were in trouble. It's my duty to defend those too weak to protect themselves."

An audible rumble growls from Noruinel's midsection, causing her to grimace and plant her lifted hand on her belly. "Shh," she hisses down at it. In contrast to Valain's straightening, she herself settles into a crouch. Her weapon's shaft sits flush to her forearm, while one obsidian blade lightly grazes the ground behind her, puncturing a sanguine globule. "Small, too," she points out, addressing Valain with her lifted chin. "Too small for metal skin." She bares her teeth in a grin of challenge, but another complaint from her gut causes it to crumple. "Nn," she whines. "Food. Give to Nori."

A stark white raven flutters in towards Noruinel, gliding over her as it drops a letter into her hands before flapping away once more.

Valain's face contorts into a scowl at the mention of his own size. His diminutive body tenses and his lips part to speak a response, but then something about Noruinel's request for food causes it to die before it can be uttered. Several seconds pass in tense silence. Finally, canting his head and narrowing his eyes slightly as though in an attempt to read the knots in Noruinel's hair, he remarks quietly, "That's an interesting name." His head turns at the arrival of the white raven, his mismatched eyes flitting over to follow its flight. When they settle once more on the stunted girl before him, he allows his arms to fall - to sag so that his weapons no longer wait at the ready. Straightening yet again, he offers a distracted, "Let me get that food for you," and reaches back to pull his pack around.

Letting her vicious black dhurive fall to balance against her thigh, Noruinel reaches out abruptly toward the stark white raven which flies in, grabbing the package which drops from its hands. By the time Valain begins to put in the effort to hunt for some food for her, she's busily, greedily, tearing into the wrappings to reveal its contents, which she devours ravenously and whole. "Mmmmmm," she says contentedly, smears of sauce staining the skin about her lips. She pats her stomach, leaving greasy smears over it and the leather bodice too. Her eyes lift once more to Valain and widen, surprised to still find the other tsol'aa still present. "Uh...Page...I like Page, too," she offers politely.

Baked upon a light, airy bread, this pizza has a size fit for a single person; however, it has been topped with a sizable variety of sliced meats that could likely feed another. A layer of cheese coats the centre of the pizza, its brown-spotted surface cooked well done. Breaking through the layer of cheese are various bits of bacon, beef, sausage, and pepperoni, their tips baked to near perfection. Sat upon a white plate, the pizza has been evenly proportioned into four diminutive slices, tomato sauce leaking from where the crust was cut.
It has 2 weeks of usefulness left.
It weighs about 2 pound(s) and 0 ounce(s).
It bears the distinctive mark of Seir.

(Taking a slice of the fluffy pizza into your mouth, your tongue is beset upon the gooey cheese intermingled with the meat toppings. After finishing the first slice, it doesn't take long to devour the rest, eventually leaving nothing behind.)

Valain raises his eyebrows at the open and savage display of gluttony. Faltering in his intention, he lets his arm fall back to his side, then a moment later seems to think better of it and sheathes his longswords in a knotted, crimson silk belt with a fluid grace. His lips twitch into an uncertain smile as he watches Noruinel eat, finally settling on the expression with her belated attempt at politeness. "It's Valain, actually," he manages at length, each syllable suddenly coming tentative, as though he were testing their sounds for the first time. "My name's Valain."

"No." The single word scythes through the air, harsh and cold, and suddenly, all politeness and good-natured ease melts from Noruinel's frame, replaced by ice and snarl. "*Not* Valain." The Sentinel finds her footing again, moving slowly, shoulders and head bowed forward as the tip of her rear dhurive blade scrapes against the ground. Her weapon lifts to point at Valain; her eyes do not follow, remaining fixed upon the ground instead. "Page."

Valain tenses in the face of the obsidian blade. His gaze flits to its sharp point, then back to Noruinel's countenance, while all the while his hands make slow progress through the air, until finally they alight on the grips of his two swords again. "You said your name was Nori," he begins slowly, each word once more tentative, strained as though they have to be wrenched unwilling from some place deep within him. His eyes widen as he speaks, a haunted cast coming over their mismatched irises, as if all at once they've come to truly *see* the stunted Tsol'aa before him for the first time. "Not... Noruinel?" he asks in a tense breath, bearing down on the final syllables of her name with special emphasis.

Noruinel seethes on her next exhale, her shoulders climbing up to her elongated ears. Both hands flex about the haft she grasps, and her feet, bare save for the wrappings which bind them and her legs, slide into a stance chillingly similar to the one Valain had found her in whilst engaged in bloody killing earlier. Her nose crinkles as she snarls. Anticipation gives way, and she lunges forth, muscles uncoiling, bodily angling herself and her vicious black dhurive toward the Templar. Her gaze lifts, but without analysis, without cunning. She is a cauldron of boiling emotion bubbling over.

Valain is slow to react. Whether because of shock or his own rudimentary training, all he can do at first his raise his eyebrows further and tense his shoulders at the feral girl about to leap at him. And then fear grips him, and his eyebrows widen even further. He backsteps once, twice, moving with impressive agility, but too late. Obsidian rasps against steel as he leaps away, twin longswords hissing free of a knotted, crimson silk belt as he extends them once more in a stance of readiness, one blade high and the other low to defend him. "Noruinel?" he probes again, now circling her with practiced footwork. The name is still a panicked breath. Hesitation shows in the way the muscles of his face tense again, and then he asks, "That's your name - that's your name, isn't it?"

"NOT VALAIN," Noruinel shrieks in answer, her voice a knife screeching against metal. She brings her weapon to her side and turns her body. Braving the two swords bared at her, she drives her shoulder suddenly into Valain's metal-encased chest. A dull thud rings from it, and she stumbles with a cry, her toes slipping in the crimson ichor underfoot. They leave impressions on the ground everywhere they dance as she strives for footing, leaving her unbalanced and dangerously unguarded.

Valain hesitates in the face of Noruinel's charge. He should move to keep her at arm's-length - to trap her or defend himself with his sword. But he moves them in a lame, token display of resistance, and the feral Tsol'aa evades their blades with easy agility. The impact knocks Valain staggering back, but only for a moment. Then he drops his swords, letting them clatter to the dirty floor of the hut, and lunges forward in turn. He grapples with Noruinel, reaching around her and attempting to wrest her dhurive from her with a gauntleted hand, to pull it away so she can do no damage with it. "Valain," he insists, his mismatched eyes flashing fiercely and his voice bordering on a growl. "I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead." His words pitch louder with that last assertion - and angrier, too. Even in the midst of his fear, they burn with dark emotion.

Valain drops an academy longsword.

Valain drops a silvered, crimson-hilted longsword.

Twisting her dhurive-wielding shoulder, Noruinel writhes forcefully, stopping just shy of dislocating it herself with her self-imposed pressure. Her feet skid against the disgusting, red-slimed ground as she struggles for purchase; her slight, bodice-bound chest heaves from exertion. Eventually, with Valain's words and his grapple, she relents, sagging heavily for such a small body. "Not dead," she complains, her words halting and stilted. And then she growls with one more half-hearted jerk of her arm, "Not *dead*." Twisting her head beneath her hooded scarf, she casts her fiery glare at Valain and heaves a pant. "Not weak. Not dead. Like wolf, find teeth."

"I see that," Valain pants, his body deflating as the tension seeps out of it. Slowly and with an utter lack of urgency, he disentangles himself from Noruinel's own, then takes a short step back, so that once more the two Tsol'aa stand apart - even if very little space now separates them. "I'm glad," he informs her, his voice taking on a cold and decisive edge. His two mismatched eyes hold her resolutely, anger still contorting his face - although he doesn't direct it at her. "They were weak, Nori - all of them: our parents and all of the others. None of them were willing to admit what the world was; none of them were willing to do what was necessary to survive in it. That's why they died."

With a light, wet pitter-patter, Noruinel hops back herself, settling back into a crouch as she pants yet. She yet wears a scowl, but it's less one of her earlier fury, and more one of disappointed, unsatiated battle-thirst. As she brings her vicious black dhurive across her knees, her free hand reaches across to knead her shoulder through the fabric of the scarf which drapes it. A vexed noise sounds in her throat as she listens, grudgingly lifting her coppery eyes to fix upon his face and watch his mouth move. "World..." she mumbles under her breath. It takes her some time, her parched lips parted as she considers words, her mien perhaps lacking the emotion the pronouncements ought to have produced. Finally, slowly, she announces, "All die. Rhythm. Mm." Lips pursing, she traces a circle in the air with her free hand, then the little scout reiterates, "All die. Even strong."

Valain stiffens at the pronouncement. His gaze still holds Noruinel's, but his fingers tense, then contort, and then finally ball into fists. "That doesn't mean I have to let them," he fires back, his tone if anything grown even fiercer in the face of her placidity. "They'll all die eventually, but that doesn't mean I have to let it happen now; it doesn't mean I have to let them just... just kill them - just let them kill *us*, the way they killed you... the way I thought they did - that *it* did, that *thing*, that *creature*." His knuckles are white now. His voice pitches more and more hysterical as he babbles, and the delicate lines of his face contort into a terrible harshness, an anger that seems poised to consume him. And then, all at once, his expression softens, his fists unclench, and he just whispers, "I can't..."

With Valain's initial backlash, Noruinel winces, cringing in on herself like a chastised, uncomprehending animal. But she remains fixed in place, listening with a twitch of her ears, her eyes reading the Templar's words on his face if not quite making them out from his lips. When his gabbling quiets, she remains quiet, too - still and silent and unblinking, still watching Valain. When nothing further seems immediately forthcoming, she rolls to her feet again, and, dhurive still held balanced against one arm, her other reaches to her ruck sack, pulling free a small bit of something round, smooth, and golden. Cradling it in her palm, she offers it forward for Valain to see, though the slight, protective curl of her fingers indicates it is not an offering for Valain to take. It is amber, and encased within, frozen forever in time, is a little beetle. Her gaze lowers fondly to it, then, after several moments, flickers back up to watch her counterpart keenly for reaction.

Valain's expression may have softened before, but now all the harshness melts out of it: all the anger and all of the hatred, until whatever emotions remain in his mismatched eyes - whatever it is that causes tears to well up and begin streaking toward his cheekbones - there's no longer anything in it that resembles the savage rage that took him before. He dips his head to Noruinel, in a slow nod that mirrors the understanding with which he meets her gaze, and then steadily raises his hand until its own fingers curl over hers. Gently and without rushing the gesture, he closes them over the ball of amber until they eclipse the beetle within, and then just as gently withdraws them, reaching up and back until they seize upon the bone worn in his topknot. Slowly, he draws it rasping from his ebon locks, and cradling it in his palm, brings it forward until it too rests between them, where he offers it to her in the same way she did with the fossilized resin.

Fingers tense beneath the bead of amber, but they don't jerk away. No - Noruinel holds steady, if slouched with her casual, animal-like ease. Her eyes pinch slightly as they watch the rivulets forming over Valain's cheekbones, drawing in with empathic pain and a low, hushed whine that finds itself short-lived. When her hand is released, she carefully tucks her prize away, hiding it securely among her scant few survival tools carried with her sack. One eye, it seems, is kept forever fixed on Valain's movement, her weapon-wielding arm shifting its heavy burden slightly. When she finds the bone held in Valain's hand, her eyes widen with recognition. She reaches her free hand forward, her reverent fingertips daring to graze the hair ornament. When the small Sentinel lifts her gaze back to Valain's own, she whispers, "Valain."

"Nori," Valain breathes in answer. His mismatched eyes flit between Noruinel's coppery ones, blinking every so often to clear away the tears. His lips twitch upward again, into a slow, uncertain smile that broadens moment by moment. Briefly, for a fraction of a second, his brow creases in some errant thought, but whatever it is that troubles him is short-lived. "You're alive," he whispers, at length, still sounding stunned by it. "What... what happened? What happened… after?" He pauses between his words now, taking care to enunciate each one clearly. "We were hunting."

Either Noruinel still does not understand Valain, even with the careful pronunciations, or she cannot find the words to answer. She remains still and silent, staring at the Templar with her large, seldom-blinking eyes. Eventually, she gives his hand a little, encouraging push, and uncertain how to react in the face of Valain's emotions, she offers a hopeful smile of her own. "After," she says, "Duiran. Live with Duiran. Live with Pride. Live with people. Relandroc. Speaker Lin. Seir." Each name she offers forward is sung, each to its own small, short-lived melody. She hesitates, then puts forward an eager declaration, one burgeoning with excitement and bordering on a demand. "Live with Valain!" She gesticulates, indicating the man before her. "Live with Duiran, live with Pride, live with people, too. Live with Nori."

"Duiran," Valain echoes, nodding steadily, blinking beneath onslaught of words. "The Heartwood," he offers, and then his smile falters, and his eyes turn sad again. Shaking his head very slowly, he explains, "Valain lives in Enorian now, with the Templars - the Knights. We protect the weak; we fight Shadow and Corruption - kill vampires and Carnifex and Nazetu. Maybe one day Valain will come to Duiran, live with Nori. Valain likes Duiran, but..." The corners of his lips twitch upwards again, and then they part, letting out a soft soft that's half laugh and half sigh. There is no joy in it. "I want to become Knight, Nori; I have to become a Knight. I will visit - often." He brings his free hand up and places it over Noruinel's, giving it an affectionate squeeze. "I promise."

Noruinel blinks slowly as she listens to Valain, her expression blank but her brows furrowing. Something drives into her, though, with far more force than likely intended. 'Vampires'. She hunches her shoulders and gives a positively feline hiss. She still listens, but a black rage burns in her again, and she seems to barely hear the rest of Valain's explanation by the way her eyes grow distant. She demonstrates an impressive patience, all things considered, waiting for Valain to finish, and then giving a few moments of silence before she growls, "Nori eat vampire throats." Her wrist flicks quickly, easily finding its way out from beneath Valain's hand in order to find a place to latch about Valain's own. "Kill," she urges, then gives that arm an urgent jerk forward, in closer to her. All social niceties bleed from her, and her words approach a chant. "Kill, hunt, *kill*." Turning, she lifts her vicious black dhurive and points outward, then arches a brow at him inquiringly - invitingly.

At first, Valain's eyes widen at Noruinel's reaction. But then they narrow instead, and he dips his head in a slow nod of acquiescence. He squeezes her hand, then allows himself to be drawn in by it, only to hesitate a moment later when she starts to chant. "Kill," he echoes in agreement, the violence in his own voice no less present despite its lack of unbridled ferocity. "But first, swords." He gestures toward where his weapons lie with a tilting thrust of his head.

Noruinel directs a scowl down at the weapons, fingers clenching tighter where they grasp, if anything. At length, though, they slowly relax, joint by joint, digit by digit, until her hand drops back to settle beside the other upon her vicious black dhurive. She steps about the grime and muck in the room and takes up an impatient post near the hut's exit, eyes staring wordlessly at Valain.

Valain offers Noruinel a wordless smile in response. He sweeps around and bends at the waist to pick up the longswords, only turning back when he wields one in each hand. Then he dips his head again, another slow nod to convey his readiness, and falls in behind Noruinel. "Kill," he echoes again.

Valain picks up an academy longsword.

Valain picks up a silvered, crimson-hilted longsword.

Valain starts to wield an academy longsword in his left hand.

Valain starts to wield a silvered, crimson-hilted longsword in his right hand.