RP:Take Me To Your Leader

From HollowWiki

Part of the Thy Kingdom Come Arc


Summary: Hildegarde finds herself in Larket in search of some figure of authority, but is unable to find anyone at that present time. Instead, she opts to visit the Larket arena and train with Mikael there but takes on a minor injury. Sabrina, the local healer, stumbles upon her and offers her aid. Sparky introduces himself to Hildegarde.

Arena

Hildegarde had departed from Vailkrin in order to continue the search for allies who might aid her quest to retake Frostmaw. She hadn’t been to Larket in years. When she had last come here, she had been the guest of the Duke Jon and then finally ran into Javier at the stables. She hadn’t heard or seen anyone since who might be considered a head of state, someone who was in charge or who she could directly question in regards of an alliance. Rather than allowing the journey to be wasted, the knight had instead made her way to the arena where she – fortunately – found it to be empty. The emptiness of the arena meant that the knight could train in peace with her giant companion, Mikael, who certainly didn’t go easy on her. They battled for at least an hour, weapons clashing; grunts sounding and blood splashing the sand covered stone. However, during the course of their friendly bout, Mikael’s blade had ripped through Hildegarde’s eyepatch and sliced at the mutilated eyesocket that lurked behind it. That was when they had called it quits and retired to the row of steps. Mikael tentatively attempted to remove the eyepatch, only for the knight to hiss with pain. “I’m sorry, Hilde,” he apologised meaningfully, his face a picture of guilt. “It’s fine, Mikael. A good fight. With that kind of fighting, we’ll take Frostmaw with no problem.”


Sabrina traveled in the direction most likely to find the hound. Bastard ran off the night before and didn't even think to check on her. She would find him if she followed the sounds of clashing metal and grunts... the faint smell of blood that forever lingered here. And there he was, twin tails swaying behind him and without so much as a hello he would jut his chin toward Hildegarde and her companion. And what timing it was when Sabrina's eyes took focus on the carnage that was Hildegarde's face. Her hands come up to her mouth, almost feeling the pain first hand but not really; her gift didn't work that way. She gracefully clears the steps toward the two; heeled boots making no sound as she took them two at a time and stopped an nonthreatening distance to address the woman in particular. She gestures toward the warrior's injury. In elvish first, a second round in horribly broken common if she failed to understand. “Do you want me to take a look?” She looked harmless enough with a frame built for staying away from actual battle and floor to neck leathers that kept contact with others to a stark minimum.


Sparky had traveled to Larket originally by accident, but that had been a week ago, now he had run out of money and was out of anywhere to stay. During the night previous, he had stumbled around larket on a copper pole he had lugged around since his visit, now he sat by the Arena, and was now tempted to go in struggling with lifting himself he slowly climbed the steps. By the time he reached the seats closest to arena floor the fighting had stopped. Disappointed but not emotionally withdraw he took a seat, leaning on his pole. Observing.


Hildegarde understood the Elvish words and peered at Sabrina. Mikael was evidently on edge and ready to deal with Sabrina if she proved to be a spy or assassin sent by Balgruuf, but Hildegarde seemed to be a little more trusting out of the two. Her face was grotesque, though. Her nose was crooked from an old, nasty break; the flesh of her right jaw and cheek was mottled from an ancient and terrible burn; what had once been her left eye was now nothing but a disgusting and mutilated old wound. She was the picture of a seasoned warrior. “I think your smaller hands would be better equipped for this task than Mikael here,” she said with a little smile, ignoring the throbbing of her eyesocket as best she could. Casting a glance around the arena, she spotted Sparky. But given that he was only observing, she too would only observe the strange man.


Sabrina : The hound made his way down the steps, awkwardly since he was far too large to master human sized arena steps and gravity is rarely a two-ton beasty's friend. After a bit of noise he would find himself where he needed to be, by his Elfess' side and if he had to he would push his way between the giant present to do so. Sabrina would bend down; with gloved hands she would take in Hildegarde's injuries with a look of stern study on her face. She frowned. “I can't regrow the eye, it is missing.” For her to repair any damage at least some tissue needed to remain intact. She pushes around the socket, it was inflamed and the blood she could manage to squeeze from the wound was dark, indicating it had been sitting some time. That would not be an issue. Sabrina would not acknowledge Sparky, for now he proved no threat and besides that the unholy halfbreed had him in his sights if action needed to be taken. He was a lot like Mikael in that aspect; untrusting and ready to enforce his wrath if he so much as looked at his Elfess crosseyed. “Headaches, fever?” She suspected some infection, but these questions were necessary to properly treat the wound.


Sparky eyed the dog. How he hated those things, in cenril he had to flee whenever he saw one because they loved chasing seafood. He mentally kicked himself for even thinking about it. He tried to stand and ended up dropping his copper tube, and accidently flipped over the side of the wall onto the ground. "Ow" he exclaimed in his squeaky voice.


Hildegarde shrugged her shoulder as Sabrina mentioned that the eye could not be regrown, “This is an old wound, m’lady, I would not expect it to be repaired to such an extent,” she replied in fluent Elvish. As the healer pushed around the socket, though, the knight let loose a low and very inhuman growl. Clearly, this woman was not a mortal woman. She was something altogether different. Perhaps Sabrina would have sussed that already or she could put two and two together by the feel of Hildegarde’s cold flesh, the little scales here and there on her ears. “Nothing, I’m as fit as a fiddle,” she assured the healer. “Though I can say that as a warrior, I’m always wounded and bleeding at some point!” Her words were grim but her tone was happy-go-lucky. The sort of person who could find humour in most things. Yet with the squeaky ‘ow’ and the creak of the copper tube, the knight shifts slightly out of Sabrina’s grasp and probing questions to look upon the odd little creature. “He might be hurt,” she murmured gently, already beginning to stand upright, “Are you all right?” she called to Sparky.


Sabrina would nod and agree to any information given to her, and she had noticed the indicators that the woman was far from human though she wondered why she would remain in this frail form. She removed her gloves. Despite what most believed; that she was as heavily covered in scars as the one who currently sat before her, she was not. Her skin was pale but smooth, and her nails impeccably clean. It suited her entire appearance, a constant presentation of cleanliness and order, aside from one stubborn strand of hair left unbraided and consistently wandering into view. She would lean forward, her scent of sandalwood and vanilla calming in itself when she give Hildegarde a look that apologized for the pain that would soon follow. But nothing would come as the warrior stands to address the clumsy individual on the steps above. She too would turn, though the exclamation of the seaborn would be met with a judgmental eye as the copper piece clinged and clanged down the side of the wall. Noise. She would cringe in anticipation of each resounding noise until it came to rest in perfect silence. She sucked on her teeth in distaste. She did not enjoy noise. By now he had gotten the hound's full attention, luckily Rohk did not see him as a meal and luckily Rohk did not give chase to beings smart enough to clothe or arm themselves without good reason. All eyes were on Sparky, and the odd silence did nothing to distract from that.


Sparky was shaking his head his eye crossed as they usually did following a fall, he quickly put up a hand as the female knight moved closer, "Please don't come any closer, I can't control it, I don't want to hurt anyone," He said loudly still with his distinctive squeak. "I am dizzy, but otherwise fine." He tried to stand but fell again this time with the a shower of sparks from his body which exploded in all directions up to five feet from him. "Can somone retrieve my tube, it would be safer for all of us."


Hildegarde’s oath and code of honour came before her own wellbeing. So when Sparky said he needed the tube, the knight would acquiesce to his request and fetch it for him. “I’ll fetch it for you,” she replied, before looking to Sabrina, “I’ll be back in a moment. This man needs help,” she said to excuse her sudden departure from Sabrina’s immediate presence. The knight takes the steps two at a time, feeling as though the seaborn lad needed the help urgently, rushing down the steps in order to fetch the copper tube and then approach Sparky. Not wanting to throw it or get too close to him per his insistence, the knight held the tube out to him at arms length; her hand sliding down the pole so that the majority of the copper pole was offered to Sparky and still kept a considerable distance between the two of them. “Here you go, sir,” she said politely, offering him a little smile of reassurance. Though her smile was probably not as reassuring as she’d like it to be, what with the blood oozing from her mutilated eye.


Sabrina didn't get up to help. She wasn't as diplomatically positive as the warrior and her code only applied to healing the wounded- not fetching their sticks. While he appeared dizzy there were no indicators of harm and simply put she could not fix crazy. She understood Hilde's position, on that same note she had a tendancy to help those in the order they are received unless under extreme circumstance. Reluctantly she calls up to him “If you want to have a seat, I can see about aiding you when I am done.” At first glance he didn't appear to have anything wrong with him, aside from the spark of which she assumed was normal for his kind. When Hildegarde offers her version of a smile Sabrina couldn't help but make a face, it was not an inviting or pleasing sight with the macabre written all over the warrior's visage.


Sparky rose his hand as the copper tube was held out to him, but he froze. "Toss it," When she had he used it to help himself up. He shuffled along the wall before coming to a seat, trying to give a wide berth. He smiled a soft smile, "You look like you've been through a fight with a Blemie."


Hildegarde would toss the tube but gently, as if she were afraid too strong a throw might hurt the man. “A Blemie? What is that?” she asked, though she seemed intrigued to know what it was rather than offended. She knew she was an ugly woman. She never took offense these days when it came to her looks! Assuming Sparky wouldn’t mind, the knight would return to the company of Sabrina: sitting down and mouthing a little apology to her for having interrupted her attempt at healing.


Sabrina couldn't help but notice that the Seaborn seemed to have business with the woman she happened across. She felt a little rude standing there and interrupting their conversation and as proper etiquette and manners would have her she cleared her throat to excuse herself from her self-invited position. But then the knight returns. What little the elfess did understand about social intercourse was leaving her at a complete loss as to what was going on. She shrugs off the whole ordeal and summed it up to oddities on their part and not hers. She wasted no time as her thumbs prodded the socket and immediately Hildegarde would be filled with a distinct feeling of nothing- not the kind of nothing that filled an absence of something but a cold and empty nothing that would numb her senses and calm any nerves that stood strong. It may have been a sickening sensation but it would soon be replaced with an intense and manufactured aura of serenity. These tools of transference were not without benefit as she found most patients to appreciate the gesture of her newly found bedside manner. She was already working, by the time Hildegarde would have been able to recognize the enforced emotions being given to her the work was half done. He warrior's breeding alone would help her to not only recognize the infiltration of emotions that did not belong to her but also overcome them as she learned to separate those feelings from her own.


Sparky unable to see if she knew what he meant, he was about to take his leave, "What i call Blemie many call Lamprey, where I have been some get big enough to where they go after the eyes and suck blood directly from the socket, Surely you are a very brave person to have endured such pain, I shall hope if we meet again, I will have something for you by then." Turning he acknowledge the healer, and staggered off out of the arena, with a limp.


Hildegarde, subject to the numbing sensation Sabrina had placed upon her, did not make a sound or so much as wiggle when Sabrina began to work on the eyesocket. “What is your name?” she asked in Elvish, having noted that this was the healer’s preferred language. As Sparky talks of lamprey, the knight smiled slightly and replied with humoured confidence, “I’ve had lamprey pie before. No lamprey can withstand me!” She hoped her words amused him a little and soothed his hurts, but she was no healer. She was a woman of war.


Sabrina replied in monotone concentration. “Sabrina Skadji” Her brows furrow as she dips the woman's head down to peer into the socket and the pressure there would cause a fair amount of pain. Beneath he surface Hildegarde would feel pieces of her own flesh worming their way across the void in search of its mate, like spaghetti dancing along the cavern of her socket with faint noises of wet tissue fighting amongst themselves to be the first to become one with its other self. The elfess' tongue protruded from her mouth as she shifts her grip to ensure it healed evenly in case foreign element should decide at some point to make a home within the ravine of scarred tissue. It wouldn't have taken long before she let go, admiring her handiwork and studying other areas of Hildegarde's flesh to make sure the job itself is complete to the fullest. Her concentration failed to award her the acknowledgment from the departing creature but he was offered a sneeze from the hound that had been silently waiting this whole time.


Hildegarde could understand that the healer would want to remain silent. Such fine concentration was required after all for such fine and careful work. As the flesh of her eye socket wormed around, the knight’s face was clearly uncomfortable: her shoulders tensed and Mikael watched with intense wariness; searching Sabrina’s face for signs of foul play. The noises of wet tissue squirming and squishing together was unpleasant at best. “You are from Larket?” the knight asked, attempting to make some kind of conversation to take her mind off of the healing process.


Sabrina replied. “Aye...well. Nuduin. But I hail from Larket these days.” She forgot too often that people on the mainland referred to her homeland as Cairbara and not Nuduin. She would clarify that point if the warrior was not well-traveled to the extent of knowing the pirate city intimately. “And you? I do not see many new faces in these parts and yours I am sure I would remember.” Rohk simply shakes his head, she could've left that last bit to herself. But she didn't intend it to be mean, she was far from malicious. It was simply a fact when someone with distinct markings makes themselves known people rarely forget. As if to make her home more specific to the makeshift island she adds “Three docks east to the Rynvale port of Iggrissas.”


Hildegarde had no idea where that was. She had always wanted to travel, but her duty to Frostmaw had kept her there and dashed that little dream. Though she couldn’t complain, she loved her duty and she loved the people. “It has been a long time since I have been in Larket,” she confessed. Would this woman know who Hildegarde might contact for political help? “I was born in Xalious, but I live in Frostmaw. I am Hildegarde the Silver,” a name that had unfortunately become quite well known, “a simple knight,” she was anything but, “with a messy face!” she smiled. Self-deprecation was a skill of hers. Once Sabrina adds in Rynvale, the knight makes an ‘ahh’ of knowing. She had been to the island once before, but had sadly never explored it fully.


Sabrina perked up at the name, but not more than Rohk. “We've heard of you before. Rohk here has a thing for your Queen.” It was clear by her tone that she didn't keep up on current events outside the Winter Games. Rohk stands, twin tails lashing about as if he was just offered a prime scrap to his plate of love, the razored ends would swipe dangerously close to the giant standing guard. “I think it is your men that saved my Ro a few years back.” She looks up at the ghastly creature with more love and adoration a mother would her own child. “Eliason led the search, and brought Ro home from a nest of Ice Devils off the western cliffs.” She had not traveled to Frostmaw's true western edges, but as far as she was concerned a cliff was a cliff. “Ro here has pledged his life to your Queen, incidentally our lives are bound so...” After several years it only dawns on her now that the hound had pledged her as well. She seems distraught.


Hildegarde glanced to the hound, spotting Mikael’s acute interest in the beast. He wasn’t put off by the spiked tails, but he was intrigued. Consider him like Hagrid: seeing the good in otherwise terrifying creatures. The knight listened as Sabrina explained the situation, remembering Eliason well and knowing the dangers of Ice Devils. “Satoshi is… well, she isn’t around any more,” the knight said, a hint of sadness in her voice and expression. She missed her Queen. “I would say that she would not hold you to that debt.”


Sabrina thought hard about the news, and it brought a darkness to minty reflections. “Well then I suppose our debt is transferred to you. You are the knight appointed Steward, yes?” Again, her knowledge and basic understanding of political anything was slim at best. Rohk gave a very human nod of confirmation, if his love was no longer present to accept his life debt then it would in turn be owed to her successor. He even huffed a verbal opinion on it, stabilizing that his truth was undeniable. Sabrina laughs. “Truly, we insist.” While she was not much to look at in combat the Queen herself had told her that different people possessed different strengths and there would always be a need for someone with her talents. The hound on the other hand, standing at five foot at the shoulder with twin razored tail and tusks plated in steel (an accessory to hide the fact that one had been broken of a few hundred years prior.) His obsidian plates leading up to near shard-like hackles made him an impressive weapon- that and his complete lack of remorse when dealing with those who hurt his things. He gave Hildegarde a smile, filled with several rows of jagged whites- even puffed up his chest a little for good measure. And, was that a wink? Hard to tell with three sets of eyes that swirled in a never-ending abyss but pretty sure the hound just winked at the Silver.


Hildegarde nodded in confirmation, “I am, yes,” but what did that mean now? “But I suppose that is meaningless now,” she said softly. “I have fled Frostmaw. It is in the grip of a giant known as Balgruuf… a horrid man. But I will take it back,” she said with confidence, “so I am glad of your help, m’lady,” she said with a little smile. “Although I can’t say I know how best to employ your help, beyond your healing skills. That’s something to discuss at another time, I suppose. I had came here to try and find some… some kind of leader, but finding you has been a success.” The knight looked to Rohk, smiling slightly at the unusual nature of the beast. What a strange yet lively hound. “Well. You will excuse me, m’lady, but I do have business to attend to! But I should like to meet with you again.”


Sabrina stands, respectfully.”I will not keep you. If you are in need of anything you can send a raven to the House of Ara here in Larket.” She looks to the beast who appears sad at the mention of her departure, as sad as a beast can look given his ungodly appearance. “I hear the person to talk to about Larket business is the witch Artia” She cringes “From what I understand she is taking a personal interest in all things Larket though I am not sure how much good that will do you. She is a twit at best.” Yep, no hostility there. “I suppose you can be the judge of that.” There was clearly some bad blood between the two but it is the only help she has to offer.