RP:And This is Why They're Xenophobes

Grasslands, West of Venturil

It's good to be away from the city, where it feels to Raidh as though all the people are like their horses - glad to be locked in stables, exchanging freedom for a false promise of security. The air itself seems to fill her lungs more easily, and while this stretch of grass is not the endless plain of home, it certainly has done much to restore the girl’s spirits. Long miles ahead, and a wounded mount, good reasons for unfolding the felt pad which served for a saddle, using spear and long-handled axe for tent poles. Perhaps sleeping a little, once Nidrun’s dressing is changed. The mare is left free to wander and graze at will after that, her bridle merely a cord which slithers free with a tug of a knot. “Not too far, Amma,” Raidh tells her horse, whom she calls grandmother. The request is redundant; the mare will ever keep the human foal in sight. A small, smokeless fire roasts a pair of ground-squirrels. The tiny yurt is strung at it opening with wards against evil. In her tunic and breeches, the young woman sits, musing on what has come to pass while migrating flocks of pigeons temporarily darken the blue above, like great swift-moving clouds.

Xersom didn't have his faux-face on of the dragon's body that he was reincarnated into; his face had no eyes, but rather two voids of abysmal pits of darkness that seemed to be both bottomless and impenetrable. Cursed writings were carved all along the flesh of his facial features, yet they bled as if fresh despite the language of the wounds dating back to the days of his master, Arrecation. What drew the reborn Sacrilus from his wanderings and travels throughout Lithrydel's vast terrains was the sight of a flickering, smokeless fire; like a moth, the general of wraithen armies was brought toward the edge of the illuminated vicinity, where the glow bathed against his wretched face in revelation of whom he is. But he didn't encroach closer, and made his presence known with a single phrase, "Please stop playing." In the revealing burn of the fire, the creature appeared garb in simple, unremarkable clothing, tattered and worn perhaps like Raidh's own nomadic people. The only thing about his attire that could be distinguishable from any other traveler, aside from wraithen features, was the blade at his hip that seemed to suck in the very light around it. One hand lifted with some sort of fleshy cover along its palm, to softly press a 'mask' of sorts over his cursed face, and X pulled away his appendage to reveal a very handsome face both unblemished and with surprisingly intense green eyes.

It is Nidrun who senses the utlendr first; not with eyes nor ears, nor with scent, but with that uncanny equine instinct that will send a wild herd thundering into the distance moments before a cunning predator reveals itself. The mare, swinging her handsome head, snorting with un-ease, returns to Raidh’s small camp at a high trot, her flanks quivering and ears lain flat. “Amma,” Raidh glances up from her sparse meal, mouth slightly greasy – those squirrels were good and fat. “What troubles?” The girl places the meat back on her shield, currently employed as a platter, wipes her fingers down her breeches, and in the dimmer light of burgeoning eve glances around the open grassland. Only those rare, lonely trees break the long view, and she sighs. “Amma. You would startle at a rabbit, sometimes.” She drops back into a squat, taking up her dinner once more but this relief is momentary, for several things happen at once. A sharp wind strikes up, a narrow breeze which bends no grass but shakes the bones and teeth on her yurt’s protective amulets. A sudden voice – for she had her back to the ancient – strikes her like Othinn’s fist, and before Xersom can finish his words, she has long knife and short axe in hand, her squirrel-portion abandoned to the ground. Braids flying, she whirls toward the stranger – utlendr, unknown quantity, potential danger – though does not yet move to defend; he has offered no harm to this point. Still, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck are prickling, and Nidrun is snaking her head, pacing a wide circle around the camp. Raidh fastens her left eye, her aiming-eye, hard on the stranger and says in small, tight voice, “Playing? What mean you by that?”

Xersom 's now handsome mask of a visage had its vision set upon the braids and alluring features of the woman out in these greenland plains, though they weren't so tempting in the fashion of one groomed to be so; she had a certain seduction in the life of the land, where calloused palms signaled a good meal far over dainty hands ill-equipped to even tie rope. Fortunately, the ancient being had neither intention of forcing the female nor slaughtering her; it wasn't made blatant, but rather subtle with the calm manner that he held himself. A few fingers lazily gestured toward the yurt which was previously strummed to ward off evil, but even such a tiny superstition kept the general of Arrecation's wraithen armies at bay; not from a lack of ability to break it, but rather from a lack of effort. Both palms were lifted to expose weaponless hands, "Your playing holds me away," and certainly it seemed he gave the instrument a bit of a berth. "But I'm hungry, and as you can see," one of his hands thrust slowly toward her horse in indication before returning to bare and revealed palms, "animals know when I approach.

Raidh frowns at the man. Instrument? She possesses no such thing, and the reference confuses her. It does not occur to the girl that the utlendr might be referring in some wry way to the music made by charms in the door of her felt-fabric tent, in the way they clacked and rang in that fell, chill breeze. Instead, she suspects him to be a wandering lunatic, which does nothing to ease her wariness. She casts a quick glance to Nidrun, who is just as suspicious; the mare flinches from that gesture made toward her only slightly, her species’ natural flight responses quelled by generations of breeding for courage, and the near-uncanny intelligence of the mare herself. Yet the command to battle has not yet come, and Nidrun keeps her hooves and teeth to herself. Raidh does not disregard the horse’s agitation, and thus does not lay down her weapons, yet. “I wager that they do, stranger,” she says in reply to the apparent man. Backing away from the fire, where the last ground-squirrel crisps on its spit, she nods to the fire. “Take that meat, if you’re hungry.” The word ‘take’, in this context, and in the manner of all plains peoples. implies that Raidh offers him hospitality only insofar as the meal goes, and expects him to be on his way.

Xersom returned those intense green eyes toward Raidh although he kept his palms exposed and where she could see despite the sword at his hip that seemed to suck in the very light around it, "I am grateful." It was an acknowledgement to the woman's hospitality, but it would appear the context of the word 'take' might have been lost on the wraith lord reincarnated into an ancient dragon; the human-disguised creature lowered his hands to move across the way and seat himself cross-legged before the fire. One hand lifted in order to grasp hold of the end of the offered spit, and the creature yanked it from its moorings in order to bring the crisps to his eyes in scrutiny. Satisfied, the other hand eagerly plucked one of the bits from it and popped it into his mouth. While chewing, the male spoke, "I have never seen a tent like that before," came his words partly muffled by chewing, "Though many of these cities are still new to me."

Raidh’s lips press tightly together, words which would make plain the vast displeasure she is feeling at the utlendr’s refusal to get the hint trapped behind them. Among her people, the mad are set loose to fend for themselves; they are said to be touched in the mind by the gods themselves, and the Riddarnir are happy to let the gods take care of their own. Thus, that a madman wanders is only natural and, despite the cold sensation in the pit of her gut, allows the man his rest. Perhaps the gods would favour her for the kindness to their pet lunatic. His words bring her gaze to the yurt, and she nods, understanding at least that he is no plainsman despite that he is garbed like one. “Horsehair, felted,” she says curtly, “It is also my saddle.” The dark is growing about them, the small fire seeming brighter for nightfall. The flames reflect off the large, dark eyes of Raidh’s mare, who has grown still now, sullenly watching the man who smells not at all like a man, but like something which trips her ancestral memory, something dangerous, outside the perils of ordinary men. But her actions as always are directed by the young woman with the long, fair braids, and still the girl-foal has made no command. Raidh herself does not sit, but watched the lunatic enjoy his meat. Cities? New to him? She sees this as an expression of his madness, and chooses to humour Xersom rather than challenge his statement logically, for what would be point of that? “I have just come from Venturil, myself,” she offers, “and from here I return to the great Western plains - to Riddrheim, land of my people since the time of the great wars, many centuries ago.”

Xersom snorted briefly in his own curt way in dismissal of Raidh's pride of her homeland while he chewed eagerly on the squirrel crisps. "Great wars, you say. Betwixt who? Arrecation and the gods, Sven, Hind, and Lore? Or perhaps before even that, between the Dark Lord's father and Uncle, Khasad and Elazul, against their own fathers, Syven, Hindus, and Loraeth?" The ambience of the crackling fire and the crickets chirping downplayed the weight of his words alongside the sound of his teeth crunching on the squirrel bits. "No, certainly not, if Venturil and the lands west of it were involved. So what great war have I missed since then?" Those intense eyes brought themselves toward the girl curiously.

Raidh is staring at Xersom with her mouth slightly open, unsure of quite how to continue the conversation. She has, after all, lived a highly insular life until quite recently, and while wandering madmen are known to her in principle, she has never actually met one. And now she is beginning to understand –why- they are sent away… Still, she continues to humor him, long-knife in one hand by her side, short-ax in the other. For he appears to be a story-teller, albeit one who’s clearly more than a little confused about his own role in said tales. Still, madness or no, she might glean a new story from him and these are valuable currency to the nomadic horsemen of the West. So Raidh will not drive him off, just yet, though Nidrun bares her teeth every time the utlendr opens his mouth. “There have been many wars,” she begins. “Since the times the gods walked the wide grasslands and beyond. Lesser wars than those you’ve mentioned, of course, but worthy of tales nonetheless. The war I speak of concerns my blood-fathers and –mothers, who are now in Othinn’s long-house, who protect us from the evils which sometimes leak through from Draugheim, the land of spirits.” There is an incredible irony here, which will escape Raidh if not her erstwhile guest, for Xersom himself is of the very creatures which first drove the Riddarnir from what is now Venturil and out to the plains, where a man can see his enemies coming. “There were once dragons here,” she continues, not exactly relaxing but warming to the idea of exchanging tales. “Remnants of those first, greatest dragons, much in decline but still capable of vast slaughter. Wars raged, and raged for untold years until each had nearly succeeded in making the other extinct. Great are my ancestors, but no match for the last of the Great Dragons, who flew forth to defend his dwindling race. And he burned us, and he snatched us up, as though horse and rider together were merely ..” she looks at the bones of Xersom’s meal, “.. squirrels. A fell beast, fat with magics, which chased us from these lands near here out to the open plains which would in time become Riddrheim. Eventually, the dragon was slain by the first of our shamans, who weakened it with magic drawn from Draugheim itself. A worthy enemy, it gave us the wanderlust, for a people who are never still may never be anticipated. It gave us many things we value, as all men should value a great enemy in defeat, and to this day my father wears on his shoulders plate made of its scales, impervious to iron.” The girl takes a long breath, “There have been other wars.. but the Riddarnir were not involved, and the memory of them haunts neither our bones nor our songs.”

Xersom actually tilted his head in order to more keenly hear the words pressed by the woman that could be considered nothing if not a true shield-maiden; 'dragons' was the word that the antic was cued upon and being a creature of such a race that could be considered, even by their saurian standards, 'ancient', he was curious to hear more. Those first great dragons; surely she meant the dread lords, of which derived along his own lineage -not sibling, but perhaps distant cousin to broodmates that called themselves Solaris and Kaizer. Were his memory of sound nature in the expanse of time that the creature had existed, perhaps Sacrilus' new form itself was one of those dragons that first drove the Riddarnir from Venturil and out into the plains, though neither he nor any written legend could be certain; Xersom himself would've been considered lesser at that point among more powerful of his scaled kindred. "It is interesting..." And here the wraithen lord and voice of the damned took upon a strategy of rather peculiar and mostly shadowy motive, by being mostly forthright with the woman, "that you are feeding a member of your kind's greatest enemy, if not one who was present when you were driven from Venturil and into the western plains you travel now. It is a kindness that will not soon be forgotten." The male reached into his pack, which was slung at his hip in common travelling fashion, in order to pull forth an old dragon-tooth, which was carved to hollow out the inside like that of a short-burst horn. The age of the item, if taken to some appraiser, would perhaps be older than anything that the Riddarnir currently possess, and it was held out to Raidh. "A kindness that will be repaid. If ever -ever- your people find themselves against overwhelming odds, simply blow into this and look to the heavens." The faux face that covered his true, horrific one smiled.

Raidh’s hand shakes, but only slightly for she is mentally forcing it to remain steady while she reaches for that hoary-aged artifact. Just for the merest sliver of a second, Xersom struck a seaxe of terror straight through her mortal heart with his wild claims, and indeed the man is strange enough to senses, mundane and otherwise, that his story is half believable to her. But of course, he cannot be so for, were he dragon, she and her horse would be char and splintered bone by now! She takes the tooth gingerly, but with an aspect of appropriate reverence; it is clearly, truly the fang of her people’s greatest foe and not an insignificant example of its kind, by its size and weight. Her blue gaze lifts slowly from the fang-horn, wide and wondering, for where would a mere madman obtain such a valuable and rare thing? Never look a gift-horse in the mouth is not a saying her people know, but they hold to the same sentiment as strictly as they do all their customs, so she refrains from asking though the question burns her tongue like a hot coal. Raidh is young, and has lived all her life in a world where the reptilian Lords of Air and Fire are only stories, if honored ones of true history, and these days a distant threat to lands not their own. Thus, she forces her mind to quell the very idea of Xersom being, in fact, a dragon, sticking like glue instead to the idea of him being just a madman, so there’s a smile on her lips albeit as shaky as her hands had been. “I cannot accept such a treasure,” comes her hoarse reply, through a throat which will not quite unconstrict until she swallows, hard. “from a man whose name I know not.”

Xersom merely kept those faux but intense green eyes upon Raidh in some sort of amused patience as she betrayed both her wondering and inkling of fear at what the man what proposed. When the item was taken from him he withdrew his hand to cut off any sort of attempt to return it, the other having brought up the stick that impaled the last of the squirrel bits cooked upon it in order to take hold of the meat between teeth and yank it off the item. Which was discarded in the midst of chewing, only to open his mouth once the food was swallowed in order to respond to the hoarse reply with a curteous, albeit thoroughly amused smile as charming upon his 'handsome' features like that of a painting; both unreal and too good to be true. "Some call me the Face of the Damned when they look upon me, some proclaim me a demon, some cannot even comprehend what or who I am. In legends my names have been numerous; Sacrilus, one of the Eight, among others. But you, strong maiden, may merely call me 'X'. I'm afraid with such introduction, I must depart, for even if I know not your name, I've never forgotten a face." And the man lifted himself for a bow, exuberant and flourishing, before turning upon his heel to walk away. After just a few paces, he broke his simple gait into that of a sprint; sprint turned into loping as his features twisted and violently changed. Soon, there was a simply -massive- green dragon in flight, echoing a roar so loud that not only Raidh, but her kinsmen would hear it, as the darkness silhouetted the otherwise majestic sheen of draconic form that shrunk as it moved into the distance.

“I am Raidh…” she says, but he is already loping away before she can manage to voice her surname with volume enough for a man to hear at such a distance. Holding the precious relic to her chest, she watches him run, both very glad and perhaps a touch sorry to see him go, for he is so strange and yet to her, a riveting mystery. And while there is a part of her, deep and tamped hard into abeyance, which suspects the stranger spoke more truth than delusion, nothing in all of Lithrydel and the stars beyond could have prepared Raidh for the monumental and horrifying change wrought in his flesh.. The dragon’s roar is the last thing she hears, blended with Nidrun screaming and the thudding of hooves, before she wakes from a subsequent and shameful faint all - alone in a sea of golden grass, the fanghorn still clutched against her breast.

Raidh will pack up her tent and lug it herself as she trudges after her terrified mount eventually. And the shock she has sustained will be forged into the belief that she must have suffered some kind of blow to the head… She keeps the proof of the truth of it though, the relic she secretly names Fanghorn, hidden in her saddle-bag where she can pretend for now that the gift never happened either. But for many nights to come, she will wake slathered in sweat, and the dragon soaring in her mind’s eye…