RP:Bear With Me
Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc
Summary: Brennia thinks she is up for a relaxing night by the fire, but Kahran has other plans.
Eastern Eternal Forest
Walking briskly along the dirt path, you see many dark shapes lurking in the undergrowth. The trees themselves seem malevolent, and the air is foul. Suddenly, you trip and curse. Quickly pulling yourself to your feet, you look at what tripped you up. It seems to be a yellow rock of some sort, yet the shape is familiar. Gagging, you back away; it is the remains of a human skull, belonging to one of the unfortunates in that ill-fated expedition. Shaking, you hurry on. West the forest continues, south is an intersection of sorts.
Brennia had been living on the road, off the nature and in disguise quite successfully thus far. She was moving up in the healer’s guild as ‘Susie’ and getting aid from the Rogues guild to keep herself hidden. As she came upon a common camping sight she’s set up, as she’s careful to not stay in more than one place for too long, she slips off the cloak which distorts her facial features and laid it over a hammock. Her traveling companion gave her a kiss on her forehead before he went off to hunt for his dinner, but she was still unable to eat meat and decided she would rather relax in the hammock after their long travel… This walking thing was the pits! Her wings magic’d away so she wasn’t easily spotted and her large knit sweater slips just slightly off shoulder when she kneels down to start the fire with a soft bardic note… A glance around to make sure no one was around just then - still trying to remain hidden as the bard’s guild leader. Standing back up to her natural six foot two height and wrapping her arms around her (now) narrow middle, a picture of a true lanky and fragile avian.
Kahran had been quietly scouting Larket's wild edges, for nefarious reasons of course, when by most remarkable circumstance he should stumble upon an avian in exile. At first, the illusionist is inclined to doubt his *own* eyes, so rare a sight are those telltale wings. It's only a fleeting glimpse through the trees, a brief telltale moment before Brennia magics away her third pair of limbs. Himself, the dread sorceror wears a chameleon blur to cloak himself, but even this cannot hide the devilish grin that blossoms like pale nightshade in the twilit woods. As Kahran approaches, he stealthily oppresses her with spookcraft, the subtle art of weaving a nightmare's chill into the waking world. He conjures the shadows deeper, the trees taller, the campfire louder and suddenly sinister without explanation, for in a dream no explanation is owed. For Brennia, the question is this. Is it more terrifying to fall victim to the illusion and believe the lies that your eyes tell you? Or is it worse to see through them and know you are being stalked by one who is used to abusing the minds of his victims? "Now surely," the campfire suddenly roars in a brilliant column of apocryphal purple, and out from the illusory blaze steps Kahran himself, cruelly handsome and clad in sheer, glistening robes that breezily cling to his statuesque figure. Atop his head, like the olive laurels of a victor, sits a simple crown of feathered wings, the pointed tips standing like white devil's horns. "Don't tell me the orcs have missed one! I'll have them light the fryers." His bright eyes narrow in sadistically playful suspicion. "Or had you thought you'd evaded me, senator?" Behind him, the fire settles down, and the shadows pull tighter around the two.
Brennia wondered if maybe she’d been mistaken and they had traveled into the twisted forest of Valkrin, but that cannot be right as she watches the trees seemingly grow taller and the crackling fire blocking anything else from what she may hear with those elongated pointy ears. She pushes some shoulder length dark wavy hair behind her ears and takes a deep breath for this isn’t the first time she’s felt this sinking sensation as if the world was trying to flush her away… She really wasn’t supposed to be here after all. A couple of steps back as the fire blazes up before her and those heavy lidded teal eyes inspect for a sorcerer nearby trying to play tricks, but no… Not at all. She’s never seen this man up close, but she sure a sh- heard tales and soft leather traveling boots stay rooted to her spot out of fear? Out of paralysis? Out of determination… Her lips don’t move to match that deadpan face. This had been going so well, she finally let her walls down with one or two people and reforged herself to alliances she thought were lost. It was when he called her senator which caused her brow to raise before she gently cleared her throat, “excuse me? Senators don’t lose elections,” her heartbeat steady and her arms uncross with one roll of her shoulder to secure that sweater securely over her caramel shoulders. She cut herself off from him and crosses her arms once more as she taunts the man in a dry sarcastic joke, “are you a genie come to grant me three wishes?” She doesn’t step back from him, she doesn’t seem to cower and she simply looks unimpressed. A head tilt to play into the taunt as if she were thinking, “wish one: to end world hunger, wish two: a piano, wish three: more wishes.”
Kahran throws his head back in a giddy laugh that stifles dead before it can even leave his throat, and he presses his palm to his forehead. "So rude of me to forget, you've lost your city *and* your title. Forgive me for seeming unsympathetic," he smoothes one eyebrow, still grinning, and shakes his head, "it's just that I find you hillariously pitiful." A laugh creeps up, and he makes a false show of trying, and failing, to stifle it. "Oh, the wishing game is it? I doubt you'll like it." Kahran dismissively waves the loose sleeve of his robe at her, an obnoxious gesture meant to distract her as his other hand makes a brief ancane gesture. The night sounds of wind and leaves contort into a forced, tuneless piano melody, if the man tinkling of notes could even be called such. "Can't even tell a joke without parading your noble causes. And do you think there will be anyone hungry by the time I've gotten *my* wish?" Kahrahn conjures an apple and tosses it to her; if Brennia catches it, it turns to white ashes and blows uselessly away. "You're in the wrong camp, if you're serious about changing the world."
Brennia looks as if she was boredly listening to the man, unamused, not even a smirk on those shapely lips. He didn’t really apologize, but as she’s ever the smart ass, “apology accepted.” She ignores his tricks and keeps her gaze steady in his eyes, appearing to be unafraid. Simply sidestepping from the apple as it is tossed to her and her gaze everstill. “If wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets... and, really, that’s all you’ve been doing.” She takes one step into him and those teal eyes narrow just a centimeter, but it was just enough to show the own fire flickering within them, “you’re just a coward hiding behind your little parlor tricks and false promises to lackluster unloyals. You don’t scare me,” she’s seen death, she’d been at rest and being back on this ground already felt like hell. “I’m so pitiful? So why are you here,” she gives a shrug, “you could have snuffed me out instead of flapping your gums, but here we are… So, what is it you want?”
Kahran holds both hands upward, palms out in supplication when Brennia takes a step toward him. "Spare me the tongue-lashing, and I'll spare you the gum flapping. How's that for a parley?" His nose wrinkles in snide condescension. The illusionist begins to see that his spooks and spectacles have only managed to stir Brennia's ire, not her awe, so Kahran cuts to the chase. "I'm giving you an undeserved opportunity. Abandon this doomed world and join me." His gaze levels with the avian's. "Here, you are a failure and an exile, wasting your talents and ambitions in a struggle against the inevitable. Give your childish, misguided attachments and accept the new order of things."
Brennia used to let a darkness stir within her heart and on her dewy skin as a tattoo, but those days were long gone and that power has been recognized, then allied… Yet, she found herself saying, “kill Orra and then get back to me.” Another head tilt, “it’s not like you are loyal to such a being. Are you? Does that heart beat? Do you really care?” A step back taking the man’s favorite scent with her and a dry chuckle, “I’m no child… I’ve been around for a little over three hundred years. I’ve had two lifetimes to see fools like you rise then fall even harder,” it was then she heard it, a low growling coming from the tree line, but her expression didn’t give it away. “You would not know loyalty or friendship and that is the true pity,” just then a large dark furred bear with its sights set on Brennia leapt over her, to which she ducked, and toward Kahran to let out a booming growl to the villian. If Kahran hasn't disappeared by now the huge bear would charge at him with murder in it’s eyes.
Kahran wags his finger at Brennia. "You're hardly in a position to make demands," he remind her. "I'll be outlandishly kind and overlook this slight. Just this once. For now," Kahran peers over Brennia's shoulder and points, "you might want to watch out for the--" The bear. Brennia ducks. Her gaze is only averted momentarily, but when she looks up again, she will see only her campsite as it was before Kahran's arrival. Except for the bear, though. That wasn't Kahran's doing, and Brennia will have to find her own way of dealing with the big fuzzy forager. Hopefully it doesn't want wings for dinner.