RP:Stay Away

Tyler enters the Frostmaw tavern with little attention from the locals. The man is extremely underdressed and his pale skin is more of a snowy white from the frigid conditions outside. He is garbed in only some ragged, torn clothes that are stained with a mixture of blood that is his and isn't. There is nearly no meat on his bone and a hole in his shirt reveals a dent in his ribcage signalling a broken bone within. He had travelled to the frozen district in hopes of finding Hildegarde so that he could request some aid in mending his wounds. He was positive she would know someone who could help, and after all she seemed to be the only one around that didn't want to lob his head off. However, the man feels his hopes drown as the knight is no where to be seen. He decides to hang around for a bit and warm up before wandering out to find her, though as he approaches the bar his heart drops. He finds a familiar face at a table near the center of the tavern and he halts at the sight. It's the woman who had assaulted him with the purse in the giant city to the east side of the little lawless village. He begins contemplating his next move very carefully as his grinds his teeth back and forth, his jaw making an audible pop. He drops his gaze to the satchel tightened around his waist, the one he had thrown at her in the streets, his hand falling to the bottom of the strap and gripping it tightly. His mind is made. He moves to the table where she sits and pulls out a chair in front of her, quickly claiming the seat as his own. He knows if he is going to get a word out he must do it now, and he does. As soon as his bum connects with the seat his caramel gaze locks with Josleens' and his words spill from his lips before she has a chance to react. "What did he do, for you to hate him?" He catches himself just as the sentance concludes and takes a long blink and inhale before correcting himself due to the woman's ignorance on the situation. "I, do. What did I do, for you to hate me?" His expression is of genuine confusion as he awaits her reply. He half expects her to reach out and stab him with the nearest object, and to be blunt, that'd do just fine. However, he needs her answer. His recent ongoings with Skylei had left the man with plenty of questions as to who he truly was, or, who the one who inhabited his body prior was that is. He -had- to know.

Tyler is wise to speak before Josleen verbally bulldozes him. "You fu-" But he continues, and she listens. Well, she hears him, anyway. It's hard to know if she's listening or preparing her next assault. Alright, if you need the truth, she is preparing her next assault, but luckily for Tyler, Josleen lacks the gonads and aggression to follow through on her fantasy - to throw her mead in his face, possibly follow up with a hocked loogie. Although Tyler would be rightfully skeptical to believe it, the bard isn't violent by nature and especially not in public. What happened in Cenril speaks to the blinding rage the illusionist provokes in her - a rage so powerful it provokes atypical behavior. Right now, Tyler looks close to death. His appearance shouldn't please her, but it does. It's a mark of justice served, albeit incompletely. Her schadenfreude is shortly lived, however. "You Sven-damned, idiot," she growls. "Come on. We're going to a healer. If you insist on being alive, then [beep] you, you asshole. I hate you, you roach with a thousand insigificant lives." She isn't making much sense. Anger does that. Bless her, she's torn over her good heart and ethical obligation to give a rat's ass for all living things even if the living thing in question is inferior to a rat's ass (she would argue this is a matter of objective fact and not opinion when it comes to Tyler). "I hope they accidentally swap any medicine with poison and you die, you miserable turd." She leads him to the healer's tent on a leash of insults. Every other step she finds a new slur, invents a new colorful diss. The good news for Tyler is some of the answers he seeks are peppered in with the insults. "Who the hell do you think you are? Pretending to commit suicide in front of your fiance, you spineless sludge." "... Telling her she beat and kidnapped and helped you sell an innocent woman into slavery. The [beep] is wrong with you, you vile parasite." She's been voluntering with the medical ward in Frostmaw and can guide him where he needs to be. Her skills are limited and the bulk of Tyler's injuries must be seen to by a shaman, but Josleen is left to administer any painkillers. Let's hope she doesn't mistake poison for painkiller.

Tyler isn't sure why he allows himself to be pulled behind Josleen. It could easily be faulted to fear. It isn't until the two arrive at their final destination and Josleen mentions slavery that the man snaps out of his daze and yanks himself away from her, his voice raised in a sharp tone commanding her to silence herself. "I did nothing!" His words hiss from blood stained teeth as he locks sights with her with a legitimately furious glare. "It wasn't me you ignorant little witch! I don't know who the hell you are, and I don't know what the hell he did, but I'm not the evil mutt you think I am!" The man begins to back away from her and the patrons of the ward. His expression now that of a lost dog, scared and defensive. "If the bastard did that, then fine! You're justified in hating him. But that isn't me!" Some of the workers attempt to take hold of Tyler and calm him which only causes the male to freak out. He pulls and pushes, fighting the lot of them but his fatigue is quick to take over. He keeps shouting toward Josleen. "It wasn't me!" until he is finally knocked upon his ass to the rough floor with a thud. Tears falling from his eyes as his broken rib sends a sharp pain through his entire being. They continue to pull on him, they try to help him, but he fears them. He tries to throw punches and even goes for a bite, but it fails. He's too weak to continue and is eventually left sitting in a ball while those around him stare to Josleen with confused expressions waiting for her instruction.

Deja vu. Josleen dragged Tyler in Chartsend, and here she drags him in Frostmaw (though less physically so). Josleen fetched Tyler medicine in Vailkrin, and here she does the same (though with considerably less good will). She entertains the fantasy of poisoning Tyler, but these thoughts never evolve from entertainment to temptation. Would her life and Skylei's life be made easier if Tyler was conveniently dead? Yes, undoubtedly so. However, he isn't. He's alive. That's all it takes to for Josleen to behave in a manner counter-productive to her personal happiness. Morality is such a chore. Tyler is lucky she's so soft, even if her tongue is sharp. She assails the medical staff who manhandle and restrain Tyler, barking "Be careful! Take it easy, sir! You're going to further damage him." Tyler insistence that he did nothing wrong buys him some of Josleen's patience. Her position softens from hate to annoyance. "Oh for goodness sake, Tyler, stop resisting, please," she grumbles on the edge of relenting. When Tyler curls up into a ball, Josleen shoos the crowd to give him room to breathe, cry, whatever he needs in a private moment. "Let him breathe. He'll be fine. He won't hurt anyone. He's a coward, not a savage." Not the best ally Tyler could have in this moment, but, as they say, beggars can't be choosers. Josleen reheats an already warm kettle and brews Tyler a very mild sedative and painkiller tea. In the minutes it takes for the water to boil and tea to steep, she doesn't address him. Her body language suggests she isn't done with him, but is simply giving him space to cool down. All hostilty has been muted; she's figuratively armed, but not poised to strike.

Tyler is relieved when Josleen manages to have the staff leave him be. The human offering a sharp stressful sigh as he continues to twitch and panic on the floor. He brings his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. Blood red coated caramel eyes dart around the room in confusion and anticipation as Tyler continiously lets his sights fall onto Josleen, unsure of what she is doing. After he's had a moment to calm down the silence begins to ring in his ears louder than any shouting could muster. He parts his dry cracked lips and offers an explination. "It wasn't me. The other guy might've done whatever you think I did, but it wasn't me." He continues to shift his gaze from the safety of the floor to risk a glance at the bard on multiple occasions but breaking as soon as he feels threatened. "I'm not the p-person you think I am. I don't know what happened to the other guy, all I know is I'm s-stuck in his skin now." His tone is exhausted and carrys a hymn of truth about it. Where as Tyler used to be frantic in the presense of strangers, and even more so in the presense of Josleen, this version held little more than fear. His confusion was clear and though he wore the flesh of a once honest man turned villian, he had little else in common. He picks at the burned flesh around his arms that Skylei had attempted to mend, causing some bleeding as he peels back dead skin. "I'm sorry I punched you." He claims, still seated on the floor, tucked away in a corner that he gains some false protection from.

Josleen doesn't look at Tyler, but does keep him in her periphery. Before she was simply hearing the noises flapping out of his mouth, but not she is listening. Maybe this is Tyler up to some trick. Maybe this isn't Tyler and this new man speaks the truth. Maybe the truth is outside these two possibilities. Stranger things have happened and the bard has been witness to quite a few. "Stop picking at that or it will never heal," she states in the least hostile tone she's taken with this man since they first met in Cenril. To call her tone kind would be wrong. "Take this. It will help with any pain and calm you down." She hands off the mug, and if he doesn't take it immediately, she rolls her eyes and sets it down on the floor beside him. "First of all, I know you, or former-you, didn't," her voice drops to a whisper, "sell anyone into slavery" the resumes a conversational tone, "because I went looking for evidence and found none." This is hardly conclusive proof, but Josleen and Skylei wanted to believe what they wanted to believe. Self-inflicted lies are the most powerful illusions. She takes a seat near Tyler and looks down on him over her daintily crosses legs. "Second, let's pretend you aren't a lying sack of turds and you truly aren't Tyler, the most cowardly bitch to ever grace Hollow, may he rot in hell. Then who are you?"

Tyler indeed takes the mug when it is offered, but he doesn't drink it's contents right away. Rather he simply stares at the liquid as Josleen speaks. He contemplates the possibility of more harm than health coming from the brew but eventually relents to the horrid pain in his ribcage and take a long draw from the mug before setting his sights on Josleen when she sits near him. He gets the feeling that perhaps she isn't the biggest fan of his former being, and to be honest, neither is he. After all, the bastard has done nothing but cause him harm since he awoke in the frozen city. At her question he hesitates before taking another drink of the tea and offering a shrug to the bard. "I don't know... well, I do, but... I don't." He sighs in an effort to calm himself and gather his thoughts. He feels Josleen would get annoyed with his difficulty speaking and his jaw begins to twitch and flex as he pauses. Finally, he continues. "My name is Tyler Dyalus... At least I think it is. I remember waking up, in the outskirts of this frozen hell a few weeks ago. I was starving, and living like an animal before the tall knight lady found me. I was eating a wolf that I'd found on the side of the path when she brought me here. She told me she knew me. I didn't believe her." He looks up and locks sights with Josleen. "Then I started to come too, have memories, of my family. I know that I'm not from here. I had come to this place for work and had been drugged or something on the boat, and dropped here. So I made my way to the city... Where I ran into you." Tyler becomes aware of the amulet around his neck and raises his left hand to cup the artifact and rub at the glass heart filled with blood between his index finger and thumb. "Then I came here, and ran into the woman named Skylei... I figured with three nuts all proclaiming I'm someone else that maybe there is some truth to it. That's when everything started to seem like a fog." His eyes fall to his burned arms and he grits his teeth and begins grinding them together making an ungodly pop as he readies himself to continue. "I started sleeping in the forest near the lawless village... I started having dreams with the Skylei lady and some other odd things in them." He moves his hand from the amulet. "I think this thing is causing them... but either way, I wake up one night and my arms catch fire. It's how I got the burns... the Skylei lady later tells me their illusions and if I don't believe they're real, they aren't." He stops to berate himself. She'd also told him not to tell others his powers were just a ruse, but perhaps it didn't matter in the end. Setting the mug to the ground he opens his satchel and pulls out the notebook within, flipping it open to the page with the necrolyte temple and some odd scribblings about it before tossing it to the floor in front of Josleen. "I don't know who I am. The other guy did something to put me in his body... I've been looking into it and I might have a way to see what he's done, maybe even reverse it." For the first time he offers a smile. "Then you can kill the right one yourself." His eyes avert to the floor yet again as the man becomes very aware of his situation. He thinks of the previous night with Skylei when they had snagged the satchel and journel... the alleyway. He pushes the thoughts from his head and concludes his story. "So in short, I'm nobody. I'm damn sure not the guy everyone seems to hate around here, and if everything goes well enough I won't be here long enough for you to have to deal with me anymore." He moves to pick up the mug to finish it off, but his hand stops short. The pain in his torso becoming a crutch as he decides he likes the feeling of being alive, to know that it's him in this body. Not Tyler. His hands fall to his lap and he repeats his earlier statement. "I'm sorry I punched you..."

Josleen sneers derisively at the given name. Same body, same given name, what a co-inky-dink. When Tyler describes Hildegarde, with whom Josleen has already spoken to about Tyler, Josleen states the name, "Hildegarde." At the name Skylei, Josleen stills and leans forward, staring Tyler in the eye as he speaks. Her face hovers inches away from his in an invasion of personal space. It's a bardic ploy to scare the truth out of him. The toss of the notebook moves her back to a more comfortable distance. "What other guy? Original Tyler, or a third person?" She ignores Tyler's apology for the second time. After he answers her first question, she asks a second. "Do you really not know who I am? I know about that amulet, I know about beta-Tyler's illusionist powers, and I know Skylei a hell of a lot better than you or Tyler ever did. Do you know why Skylei matters?"

Tyler may've seemed uncomfortable at Josleen's close proximity but he never faltered in his story, not even a hiccup. He resists the urge to roll his eyes as Josleen continues to address him like he is scum beneath her boot insisting that she knows Skylei more than he or the previous holder, which to be fair, is true, but it still manages to get under his skin a bit. Calming himself by picking at the burn again he would nod to her question. "She's the one he left behind." He taps his thumb to his ring finger. Before pressing his legs out to stretch them, his ankles in close proximity to Josleen as he relaxes a bit. "The reason I asked why you hate him, is because I wanted to know what he'd done. Why people hate him. Why he put me in his place to suffer for his own crimes." He stares to her for a moment, taking in the bards complexion for the first time since they've met. She wasn't a bad looking woman to be honest. Crazier than a drunken ogre, but pretty none the less. His tongue runs across his lips to try and ease the sting from their dryed state. He raises his hand to her and waves his hand in dismissal. "I didn't know you and the woman were so close. She seemed broken when I came around." He pauses, taking a moment to accept the fact of what he's about to say, a soft chuckle given to his own stupidity. "If it makes your life easier, and hers, no matter... whatever happens with that crap." His finger falls address the notebook. "I'll make sure neither of you see he or I, again." His hand falls and he looks at the amulet wrapped tightly around his neck. He proceeds to massage the glass again for a few seconds before taking hold, pulling the artifact from his neck and handing it to Josleen.

Josleen doesn't waste a second in snatching the amulet from the man. She sucks her teeth as she stares down her nose at the amulet in her open palm. One tiny piece of jewelry imbued with so much significance, and with the power to hurt. "Thank you." With the amulet in hand, Josleen's mood eases considerably. Suddenly the man sitting before her isn't the enemy anymore. The real Tyler never would have given her the amulet. This is proof enough that the men are not the same. "He did leave her broken. You want to know more about him? I'm not sure what to say. To be honest, I didn't dislike him until after he "died."" She air-quotes sarcastically, the amulet's chain hanging limply from her closed palms. "I was never very impressed with him. I always thought Skylei could do better, but he wasn't the bad sort. Just a bit slow in the head, which isn't a crime and there are certainly worse flaws to have, eh?" Thoughtful pause. "He was a talented illusionist. I'll give him that. But more importantly, as far as I could tell, he seemed to have a good heart and loved Skylei, but boy was I wrong." Her tone grows rueful on the last phrase; lips purse, head shakes. "He told her she committed heinous crimes by his side, then scrubbed her memory. Told her he beat her, and again, scrubbed her memory. Then allegedly committed suicide in front of her, but well." The man before her is evidence to the contrary. Her eyes run up and down the length of him as if to say 'here you are.' "So I was wrong. So was Skylei. As far as I know, no one suspected Tyler to be anything but a goof with love for Skylei, but he tricked us all, didn't he? I don't care if you inabit his body, but you better not let him come back. If you want to stay here, stay, but keep your distance from Skylei."

Tyler feels a different kind of pain as Josleen happily takes the amulet. His stomach churns as he begins to question the price of what he's just done but never-the-less he remains with his decision and tries his best to avert his eyes from the artifact as Josleen waves it about. He listens with intent to her story of Tyler, at bits he has an urge to defend the deceased but quickly corrects himself and presses on beliving that Tyler was indeed the cold bastard she described. 'But he tricked us all, didn't he?', her words echo in his mind and he forces a slight smile and nod. "Ye...Yeah. Yeah he did." There is is again, the pain in his chest as Josleen warns for him to stay away from Skylei. Another false smile and chuckle as he attempts to reassure the bard. "You don't have to worry about me lady..." His eyes cast down and a moment of silence ensues before Tyler presses his palm to the cool floor and begins picking himself up. He winces at the rib and is forced to grit his teeth until he has finally gained footing. His hand falls to his ribs and he provides a final nod to Josleen. "Thanks for the tea..." He starts to manuever around those in the ward and heads for the exit. Any further attempt at his well being would be met with refusal as he seeks to escape back into Frostmaw.

Josleen eyes Tyler as his body and expression pinches at the loss of the amulet and the warning to stay away from Skylei. Many may miss these tiny cues, but the socially astute bard thrives on the signals others flash consciously or subconsciously. She nods at his gratitude. "There's more here if you need it." As he leaves, she calls after him, "Stay away from Skylei!"