RP:Kindness of Strangers
Along Kelay Way
Trevalyn wiped his chin off with the back of his hand, sliding his waterskin back into his pack. The man was still wearing the same worn armor which Kanna had last seen him in several days prior at the Bardic College. Judging by the dark circles under his gray eyes, he hadn’t slept much since then either. All the same he was clearly alert, showing no signs of sluggishness commonly associated with fatigue. It was there in his smell though, for those who could detect such things. He’d bathed at some point though because his skin was cleaner. He had the air of something wild about him all the same and it wasn’t hard to imagine him staking out his work in Chartsend and Venturil to the west. He was heading from the west now when the familiar scent of the Bard caught in his nose. Like looking at a painting or familiar sight, the scent was as vivid in his brain as any visual input would have been. Trevalyn’s head snapped up and he looked for the source of its presence.
Kanna has been lost in thought since she fully regained her wits about her, as much of a contradiction as that seems. Dressed in the same eastern Lithrydelian clothes that's common for the area, the human bunches up the topmost layer of her skirts as she turns her head side to side. With a worried expression that bears the same hallmarks of sleepless nights that Trevalyn may have seen before, Kanna scans the edges of the street as though searching for something. Now in the common grounds without the mysterious auras of the Bard's Guild to mask such things, the scent of wildflowers and blood can now be pinpointed as coming from Kanna's aura. Seeing a pair of legs in the road out of the corner of her eye, the bardess looks up to see the familiar scruffy face. Like a true actress, her expression masks her worry and replaces it with a carefree cheer. "Oh, I remember you! You were in Vailkrin not too long ago, right?" As she talks, her eyes drift to the sides of Kelay Way again.
Trevalyn offered the Bard a polite smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and nodded his head. He remembered well the power of her performance and the magic she’d imbued into it. Ah, how nice to be remembered though! Of course, that seemed only natural because in his not-so-demure opinion, he was very memorable. Once upon a time, he’d have expounded on that but his travels had tempered some of his earlier, youthful exuberance at word play. Banter was a perishable skill, unfortunately, and he’d had so few opportunities to indulge it these last few years. “Indeed; and I remember you in turn. The show was an unforgettable one. I feel I was rather ungracious in that I had to leave so soon after without properly lavishing my appreciation on you. My apologies if I offended.” Of course, he’d also seen her scanning the road, as he had eyes and was attentive. He could smell the wildflowers and blood on her and he stepped closer. “Forgive the forwardness but are you injured or pursued by another?”
Amidst a cooling Zeyvann breeze, the gust of playful wind heralding late evening's chill march, a sable cloaked figure plots a careful path, her light steps measured to avoid the well-traveled road's mud and muck. The voluminous hood that masked all save a slight frown and sharp, pale jawline served well to offer the anonymity Esyra so often sought, and by virtue of this veil of safety did she travel at ease - or at least so much as a singular traveler might afford. Still, she was given pause here; the breeze had promised night's comfort, but also a curiously mingled scent, and the richly metallic allure with which it was blended. Eschewing the downward gaze that discouraged approach, her hooded face lifts to observe the world with a pale green gaze, alighting upon two figures ahead. She mused a moment, here - it would be a simple thing to turn about and leave them to their sport, but a lingering curiosity soon won over, and soon Esyra resumed her approach, hood falling back ever so slightly to grant a more reasonable view of her ageless countenance, painted with a faint bemusement.
Kanna lifts up the corner of her skirt and returns the man's apology with a slight bow. "Nonsense, if I feel that one does not resonate with my music, I know that there is someone out there who does, and they needn't lavish me with anything for it." She perks up slightly at Trevalyn's inquiry, her lips quirking upwards to suppress a laugh. "Injured or pursued? I've been pursued my whole life, but I do not believe that anything has quite changed today, and my wounds are not the kind that medicine can heal." Her eyes stray to the other side of the road, and that is when she realizes why he has asked this. "Oh! You see..." Her intuition forces her to halt, as though her instincts are warning her of something more worrisome than meeting a stranger outside of the safety of a guild's watchful eye. Kanna turns her head, her forget-me-not eyes locking onto Esyra's own. There is something in Kanna's expression that indicates that she knows she is in the presence of someone more powerful than herself, but it is quickly replaced by a smile as she steps back to the side so she can address both strangers at once. "By chance, have you seen a dire raven carrying something it perhaps should not be in this area? An instrument?" The birdsong of the forest is plentiful in the waning light, but to discern a singular cry amongst them when combined with the chattering of a village would be near impossible for a human like her.
Trevalyn was prone to being cautious on his good days and outright paranoid on his worst. Let one raptor sneak up on you, even once, and you quickly learned the merits of being mindful of your surroundings. All teeth and claws, those things were. He admired and respected them for it. Anyone who said lycans could only be hurt by silver had clearly never received a face full of angry, hungry raptor. Being a lycan just meant he’d -survived- said encounter. Now, as if his caution were a tree to bear fruit, there approached a black-clad woman with pale skin peeking out from beneath her hood. Said head covering fell back to reveal a youthful face. His nose twitched faintly as he inhaled her scent as well, noting the differences between her and Kanna’s persons. What was that about a dire raven? “No… afraid not, m’lady Bard. No fiddling dire ravens to be seen but if I do happen to catch sight of one I’ll happily report on it.” Kanna didn’t seem overly alarmed, though she too was certainly cautious of (he could see), the approach of the third. “Unless this be the shapeshifted form of your dire raven. Not sure I ever gave my name the other day… lot of head trauma in my life, memory slips at times. I go by Trevalyn.” It was said loud enough and in such a way as to clearly be said to both women.
"Esyra," the woman returns in a softly lilting tone, having drawn close enough amidst the previous discussion for her voice to register against human perception. The wary response to her approach did little to put the woman at ease, and with the drawing down of her voluminous hood, amidst the dark locks that tumbled about her shoulders and back, so too did her bemusement fall, to be replaced by a sympathetic curiosity. "Fret not on my account," Esyra offered in a familiar poetic cadence, "to guard oneself 'gainst threat unknown is fair enough an act, but here I stand before you plain, amidst the calling raven there..." Here, she pauses to lift a delicately gloved hand, motioning in an eastward direction to a copse of trees set beside the road, "who beckons with strange melody." The barest brush of a smile warms her otherwise cool visage, a face she turns now to level an inadvertently intense gaze to each in turn.
Trevalyn could feel the weight of the miles he’d traveled weighing down on him. As fascinating as he found the current situation to be, the tavern was just north and he was in danger of falling asleep on his feet. That wasn’t a good prospect to happen out here where anything could happen. Trevalyn didn’t fancy waking up in a holding cell for vagrancy or being abducted by a blind, love-sick minotaur who liked the way he snored and broke all his limbs on accident while investigating. An oddly specific phobia, perhaps, but he was still alive because he’d seen, and learned from, some things in his time in the world. “Begging your pardons, loves, but I’m near dead on my feet despite my robust and no doubt impressively ragamuffin outer visage. I’d love to break bread but if I don’t scuttle into that tavern then some neer-do-well may cart me off when I collapse right here. M’lady Bard, Esyra…” Why did she remind him of someone he used to know? Ah but that wasn’t too hard to figure out. There were certain qualities of their scents they’d shared, this Esyra and… well, he didn’t want to think overly much on her at the moment. Different yet similar. Like blue and violet. How to explain how his nose interpreted it in words? Trevalyn didn’t try. “Verily my senses are too dulled if there’s music piping and mine ears can’t hear it.” With a half-bow to both, and a lingering look upon Esyra that bordered on the familiar, he adjourned in a northerly direction.
Kanna looks in the direction that Esyra points with a curious tilt of the head, then looks back at the vampiress with a smile, a genuine one this time. "Your help is greatly appreciated, that instrument happens to double as a key to place that's important to me-- oh!" The bardess straightens up to keep her balance as a group of rowdy elven children barrel past on their way to make their sunset curfews. As soon as she is sure that no more gallopers are imminent, she relaxes with a soft laugh towards Esyra, only to pause as she realizes Trevalyn has already begun to trudge away for the night. "Oh, Trevalyn, my name--" It is no use, though, as the lycanthrope disappears behind the tavern doors before she can finish her sentence. Kanna puts her hands on her hips and turns to face the woman clad in black again. "I suppose I will only tell you, then. My name is Kanna, no surname worth mentioning unless you'd like to give me yours. I had given him the same line when he visited the Bard's Guild, but the poor man had fallen asleep at the end of my performance." For a good moment, it seems that Esyra's comment regarding her presence has gone unheard. As the bardess rummages through her satchel, her eyes turned downwards and away from Esyra, she adds, "Although first impressions do well to warn us when we are in the midst of dangerous company, I have spent many turns of the moon amongst the vampires of Vailkrin, enough to know when one is approaching. Only after that am I able to discern whether they mean harm or not, and for you, I definitely sense no malice." Having seemed to have found what she was looking for, Kanna withdraws a single black calla-lily from within, its stem being longer than the entire height of the satchel, and looking as though it was only freshly plucked. Kanna holds it out to Esyra as a gift. "Until you hear me play an even stranger melody, Miss Esyra."
Esyra arches a dark brow, offering a gentle dip of her chin by way of appreciation for the assumed gift. The flower is lifted, held fast between thumb and index to bear the weight of her scrutiny ere attention once more resumes a focus on this strangely forward human, to which she remarks, "A lovely gift, this lily - its like I've never before seen. A curiosity, I imagine, native to this continent, and one that serves to justify my efforts thus to explore." Here, a proper smile is seen, one that reaches the softspoken woman's eyes - yet fails to part the curve of her lips. "Kanna - and mine, Esyra as before mentioned, of a house far removed from these troubled lands, Del'avor. I would fain witness your song, and rare it is I take to sleep 'midst such offerings as talent might provide." The latter of Kanna's comments gives Esyra momentary pause, and with this a smile that parts the veil, the barest tips of her perfect fangs visible beneath the soft pink of curved lips. "None here, save apart from my own bearing, might offer you offense lest you offer it in kind. But evident your manner would suggest akin to peace in this encounter, to the benefit of all. I fear I cannot in turn offer a suitable gift, for little remains of my home save myself and the madness that lingers there still." She adds here with a hint of a tease, though the intensity of her emerald gaze remains fast, "Though should you be inclined towards experimentation, I could well offer you a taste of my sustaining brew. It is an experience I doubt you would soon forget."
Kanna smiles warmly as the woman examines the flower. "It is a pleasure to meet you then, Esyra of Del'avor." She shuts her satchel with a satisfying click of the bronze clasp. "The black calla-lily is indeed native to the forests of this place. Unlike their brightly colored sisters, this flower only blooms in the moonlight. The flower itself is dark in contrast to the center so that the pollinators of the night are able to see their meal better. I am a bard by trade, but I also have a love for beautiful flora, and your black cloak and pale skin reminded me of this." Forward indeed, the bardess says such compliments without shame nor the undertones of those who drip honey from their tongues to lure in flies. Rather, she speaks the comparison as casually as one would remark about how the tavern's walls were once painted blue instead of gold. "I have had quite the nightmarish few..." Her facade slips, a hint of weariness and disorientation on her expression before it is replaced. "Years? A sustaining brew sounds lovely. Would you like to watch me catch the winged bandit?"
Esyra exhales a soft laugh, though the momentary break in composure is covered in part by a raised hand. A touch of her cool air returns, but in a strange contrast to the now cold breeze that would cause the weak of constitution to clutch the seam of cloak or coat alike, the warmth of amusement remains in the vampire's reply. "By rights you are a woman brave, and many I have known, for few would accept an offer thus of stranger's flask save at death's door. Still, you bear a wit to serve as evident in wary pose adopted earlier 'midst my approach - and so shall I accept your courage as true." From within a rather well hidden seam at the lefthand inner side of the voluminous cloak, Esyra produces a silver flask of breathtaking filigree, woven together amidst shining leaves and vines to create a piece of antiquated art. She offers it thus, palm outstretched, even as the woman takes a half pace closer. "Here, then - and may the shock serve to wash away some few years of torment in the moment's sated curiosity. I will join you, yes, and offer aid should recovery prove difficult. I've little else to do, and no better company to share." She quickly adds, "A compliment, I assure."
Kanna covers her mouth, her eyes widening in embarrassment as though she has misspoken when Esyra teases her. "Would you fancy that? I suppose I failed to learn a thing after all if I would still accept kindness from strangers without a second thought. Rather, despite the hardships, I am still myself. I wonder which one would make for better storytelling?" Her lips crack into a smile that dimples her cheeks as she muses on it and accepts the flask. "Though, if it is my fate to be poisoned in the broad sunset by a vampire without a home in these lands after all I have endured, perhaps other bards may speak of it in turn as a cautionary tale." With the vampiress at her side, Kanna steps down Kelay Way, past the open air market as final sales for the day are made, and towards where the dirt path becomes faintly cobbled on the main thoroughfare to the mountains in the distance. "I think I hear it now." Kanna stops, looking up at the trees. Sure enough, the dire raven perched far above, turning the silvery pan flute over in its talons to caw through the pipes. "I believe I know what bardic spell to use to get him to come to me, but choosing a melody is always the hardest part. What sort of song are you in the mood for?" She asks, turning her head slightly to look at the vampiress with a mischievous glint in her eye.
All that the bard earned in reply was a mischievous tilt to Esyra's smile, as if such a gesture contained all the answer the vampire thought her companion should require. On steps just a shade too quiet for the woman's modest weight, Esyra followed along behind Kanna, though not so far back as to fade from her companion's peripheral - after all, it would not do to threaten what tenuous trust had formed, and there was no denying that she very much played the part of wolf to sheep in such a place as this. She nods an affirmative to Kanna's guess, the smile returning to brighten her countenance as the bardess's question is posed, and in a tone full bright for such a creature dark, responds, "It's well and good you ask ere the satisfaction of your thirst, however potent it might present. Pray, perform a melody of sea and sky, if such art rests within your purview - too long has it been since its kind blessed my ears, and fair I trust would it entreat your familiar to join us." Here, the vampire grants her companion a bit of space, choosing instead to settle lightly upon an outcropping of scarred stone, a boulder beaten by years of idle passerby. Still, it proved firm, and so she turned her gaze skyward to the playful raven, a somber stillness settling through her form.
Kanna is quick to correct with a pout, "This thief is no familiar of mine; I had taken everything out of my satchel at the outdoor tables to reorganize and clear away things that were no longer needed, and it took an opportunity to grab the shiniest object on the table as though it has the brain of a magpie." As though it knows what she is saying about it, the raven lets out a loud croak that sounds far too similar to a laugh to not be at least somewhat unsettling. Kanna stands in the middle of the road, being sure to look down either side for carriages. She takes a deep breath. "That sea went on forever, into the blue distance... That road went on forever, continuing outside existence... Summer comes again, shining hotter, Our shadows reflected on the water..." Kanna's singing voice is soft and lyrical, a sopranic soubrette that sounds as though it was always the music of this forest. A faint glow of magic appears on her fingertips as she gestures upward in time with her lyrics. No sooner than the moment the glow fades does it appear again on the raven. It stops its fiddling with the pan flute and visibly deflates as though letting out a sigh. "Even if I were farther away than anyone else, would you still smile for me from here? I have so many memories that I almost don't need anything else, and when I close my eyes, I am with you again under that summer sky..." The raven opens its wings and glides down, instrument clasped in it's feet. Though she claims this is no one's familiar, the glowing raven lands on her outstretched arm as effortlessly as a trained carrier owl. Kanna takes the pan flute from the talons, and chides it softly. "That was not nice. An elf would have made you its dinner for that. From now on, you will only take things that are offered to you." The raven bobs its head up and down, and with a smile from Kanna, the spell ends. Looking around as though it has snapped out of a daze, the raven startles and flies away into the trees.
Though still as the grave in body, a brow still arches in evident surprise. The song had soothed, there was no doubt, though the glow it produced struck Esyra as strange. She made such a comment after the spectacle had played out, leaning forward to adopt a marginally more casual posture to a lilting, "I find myself surprised, in truth, to find a song so pure and calm along a road like this. But such is the joy of travel, and the delight of the sociable - even in such a manner as my feeble attempts might provide." The vampire motions towards the gathering of trees to which the raven took flight, "Still, there was more than simple song, and magic made manifest in lifted hand did call the creature 'gainst its better nature. What else, I wonder, might you coax through such power? 'Tis akin to empathy, or aught else I do not understand." A disquieted expression furrows her otherwise lovely features, though there is no evident displeasure. Aloud, she murmurs beneath her breath, a quiet musing, "Perhaps less divides, and more connects, the disparate arts we share - though by means of life, lost to me." And louder, this, her gaze returned to focus with a soft smile upon Kanna. "But I fear I must soon depart - though hope, in truth, to soon meet again - for I have needs to satisfy, and your presence does little to aid their satisfaction. Make not a stranger of yourself, nor will I." And with that, she rises from her seat, flashing a sweet smile that reveals only the very tips of her fangs, and after a moment's pause is gone into the night. Perhaps a spell was used, or a simple affinity for the night, but a search would yield naught of her presence.