RP:The Love of Strangers

Skylei still despises Frostmaw. It’s a terrible choice of location for a half-elf with poor circulation, so poor in fact that even the relatively mild winters of Chartsend are too cold for her to tolerate. Add to this the fact that war has officially broken out between the city and the exiles and you’ve got yourself a pretty miserable city. But Skylei has a purpose here. With wolf-fur lined cloak wrapped around her body, the half-elf steps out from the tavern and begins weaving through the paths that lead her towards the fort, or at least that had been her plan. Somewhere along the way, thanks to the falling snow and the blankets of white that cloak every building and road leaving everything appearing unhelpfully identical, Skylei had taken a wrong turn. As she realises this she swears in the most inelegant fashion and attempts to retrace her steps in her mind before taking them herself; she has no desire to get even more lost in the city of death.

Tyler staggers through the harsh terrain of Frostmaw. The man's skin a near purple from the chill as his lack of clothing proves to be quite the downer. His arms are crossed across his chest as snot trickles down his nose despite multiple violent sniffs. He too, is lost. He had returned to this region is hopes of finding the woman known as Hildegarde, to detail to her the incident in the city of Cenril in hopes of her offering him refuge for a few more nights. Despite his best efforts the man seemed to have quite the struggle in finding friends among the citizens of Hollow. To prevent himself from chattering his teeth too violently the man holds the bottom bead of his amulet in his mouth and uses it as a guard. As Skylei comes into focus, he quickly finds himself facing familiar ground from Josleen's assault. A random woman moving along the streets, a casual greeting, followed by the loss of a satchel, a struggle over his only possession, a onslaught of assaults from her purse and a firm punch in the nose. Still, he finds it hard to contain a greeting as the duo come in contact. The amulet drops from his teeth to be caught by the sterling chain as he smiles and nods to the woman offering a simple "Evening", before attempting to continue down the frozen road.

Skylei almost doesn’t look twice at the man as she offers him a nod of her head and a greeting in return, “Good evening, sir.” In fact the only thing that makes her look twice at the scrawny human is the fact that he is a scrawny human and is clearly underdressed, in a city populated by mainly giants. Tyler’s lack of physique betrays him as something other than the norm and scholars are always fascinated by the things that don’t fit the pattern. Casual glance aside she turns back to her direction planning. If she takes the second left and the third right she thinks she might be… wait. Those caramel eyes. She knows those eyes better than she knows her own name. Blood drains from her face and she turns as white as the snow. She knows him. It’s him. She’s seen Tyler’s ‘ghost’ before. She sees him walking down the road, she thinks she hears him talking in the next room over when she wakes in the morning but they are never real. They’re simply wishful figments of her imagination. Her arm reaches out to confirm that it’s just another of her mind’s tricks but her hand makes contact with his frozen, nearly purple skin. He’s real. Oh gods, he’s real. She can’t believe it and, in a moment of utter weakness on the part of her self-control she lets his name fall from her lips, “Tyler?” Then, Skylei is speechless. Then she starts to laugh as though she has gone insane. She must be insane. Tyler is dead. DEAD. The dead don’t walk (unless you’re in Vailkrin and let’s not even get started on the possibility of Tyler being amongst the ranks of undead and vampires that plague Hollow like an irritating chest cough) so that man cannot be Tyler, he just has Tyler’s eyes. Maybe he doesn’t even have those and she is simply imagining his features onto poor, unsuspecting travellers. He’s just another human wandering in the cold of the frozen city. She reiterates the ideas to herself; you’re imagining things, Skylei. You’re losing your mind. Grief does funny things to a person. And, most importantly, the key fact: Tyler is dead. So, if he stops at her question or at her touch, she offers him an apology, “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone I knew.”

Tyler halts as Skylei stands before him and examines his eyes. His heart skipping a beat, fear of another attack running through his mind. Then his name escapes her lips to which he replies with a shaken; "Yes?". Just as the word escapes his lips she provides an explination of her touch (the warmth is welcomed at this time) and brushes him off as someone she knew. A smile crosses the man's lips as he provides a chuckle and reaches up to push his (now long) hair from his face. "Oh, no worries. You aren't the first one to say that actually." Another laugh as he tries to suppress his shivering. "As a matter of fact, you're the third person to have me confused with some other Tyler. I mean, there's this whole crazy story about him offin' himself, leavin' some poor girl alone and..." He stops himself after noticing he is taking this woman's time. Waving his hand and shaking his head to dismiss the conversation he exclaims. "Ah, sorry. Rambling I guess. No harm done though. I'm sorry I've confused you."

Skylei :: This man talks with Tyler’s voice. He has Tyler’s face. And those eyes, it is the eyes that bother her the most. Without a doubt, she knows them better than anything else; she has lost herself in them countless times. And he’s telling her story with his voice as if he couldn’t give less of a crap about the ‘poor girl’ who’s left alone. The very same poor girl that walks the streets of Frostmaw clutching at straws for explanations. That stings and threatens to bring tears to her eyes. It must be him and it can’t be him at the same time. The gods are mocking her. Sven is sitting up in his plane looking down and laughing at her torment. It’s either that or the fantasies her mind can imbue are growing more and more realistic. She realises that she is still staring into his eyes, like an insane person might and she shakes herself out of it, “I’m sorry, T-“, She can’t say his name. Tyler is still called ‘He’ or ‘Him’ in all discussions of ‘The Event’ that had occurred nearly two weeks ago. She can’t make sense of this and yet, she can’t have him, real or imaginary, walk away just yet. So she clutches at straws again fighting to buy time, “You look so cold. Will you… take my cloak? As an apology? I didn’t mean to bother you.” Unless he immediately refused she would begin to untie her cloak, revealing an unbuttoned coat with leathers beneath. Of course, if the eyes were careful, they would spot a particular piece of jewellery hanging round her neck. Skylei is still wearing both that and her engagement ring; denial is a comfortable place to live.

Tyler remains still as Skylei continues to gaze upon him. The human finding a heavy blush setting in as the moment goes on before she finally snaps herself out of it. She begins to apologies again and he simply shakes his head again, though before he can speak she offers the cloak. His initial reaction is to decline the kind offer but his body begs and pleads with him to take the clothing and so he offers another smile and thanks to the wood elf. As she hands him the cloak he begins he catches sight of the amulet and his eyes narrow for a moment before he exclaims. "Oh! You've got one too!?" His expression is overjoyed as he quickly fastens the cloak and pulls it around himself excluding his right hand that springs for his amulet and holds it up to show Skylei. "That's so cool! I haven't seen anything else like it, I thought for sure I was the only one to have one like this!"

Skylei thinks little of giving her cloak away to a strange man freezing in the cold. Was it not her unprompted generosity that brought the pair together in the first place? As he settles it around his shoulders, Skylei would smile approvingly before she’s distracted by his words about the amulet. At first she tries to laugh and play it off as if it is nothing. Little does Tyler know that this amulet is the thing that matters most to her in the entire world. Skylei would sell her beloved bow or every one of her books should the need arise before she would even consider parting with her amulet, “Oh, but you can’t. It’s basically unique.” And then he shows her the only other amulet that matches hers in the entire universe. And in spite of all of the proof, Skylei needs more. So she thinks of him, as though she’s trying to communicate with him and he is very far away. She thinks of her Tyler, the love of her life, the only person she could have imagined spending her life with, and the amulet around the neck of this new Tyler glows. It’s him. They are one and the same. She speaks once more whilst fighting back tears of confusion. Though her words seem stern her tone only betrays how broken she feels, “Stop it, you bastard, this isn’t funny. I can’t do this.” Whether she’s talking to Tyler or some god that she believes is playing a cruel trick on her isn’t entirely clear.

Tyler 's excited smile falls as Skylei addresses him in an aggressive manner. He looks worried and allows the amulet to fall from his hands, then he takes note of the glowing. His eyes narrow as confusion besets him and the man begins to bite at his lip for a moment, resisting the urge to move away from the upset woman. "I-I'm sorry?" He inquires while his hand reaches up to unfasten the cloak, ready to hand it back to the woman before sprinting away. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just - I just thought it was cool is all..."

Skylei can’t cope anymore. This pretence that everything was new and strange to him, that -she- was a stranger, that he didn’t understand the significance of their amulets stung like the snow falling on her numb skin. There is no doubt in Skylei’s mind that the man with the caramel eyes is the same man who got down on one knee a month ago and asked her to be his wife, “Stop it. Stop pretending, Tyler. This isn’t bloody funny. This isn’t like an orc by the fountain or necromancers in a garden. How could you let me think you were dead? DEAD.” At this point she loses all control and simply starts screaming. It’s not an angry scream, it’s a mournful scream, “You know what these are. You made them! You bloody made them for us! You’re supposed to… you’re supposed to…” What Tyler was supposed to do is glaringly obvious. He was supposed to love her and in this moment he has broken her heart worse than even the thoughts of his death. Her legs don’t support her any longer, her eyes can’t hold back tears and she simply collapses onto the snowy path and sobs like a child. Where Sky had been so prone to anger, often physical more than merely emotional, now she falls only to sorrow. This entire incident has destroyed a part of her.

Tyler continues to fight the urge of flight as Skylei falls. Her words mirror that of Hildegarde and Josleen, proclaiming that Tyler was some menace. A being of evil or something of the sort. He ponders for a moment before kneeling down before Skylei despite his legs shaking violently, he manages to keep his balance. Extending a hand he places his curled index finger beneath the wood elf's chin and raises her eyes to his. "Look. Lady... I'm sorry about whatever you're going through... I'm assuming it's rough. From the looks of it, I'd say you're that 'poor girl' from the stories." Adjusting himself to sit down he never moves his hand from her face. "And while I'm not sure of what you're going through, or what this other character has done but I am sure that I'm not the guy you think I am. I wouldn't hurt someone like that, I wouldn't off myself like a coward." A smile comes forward before he takes note that he once again might simply be bothering the woman. A sigh is given as he shakes his head and picks himself back up to his feet. He pulls the cloak from his shoulders and lays it across Skylei's. "Clearly, I'm bothering you. So I'll leave. I'd offer you some place safe but I'm afraid I don't have the faintest idea of where the hell I am right now..." He finds himself eyeing her amulet once more. Maybe there was some truth in her story. After all, the man couldn't recall how he'd come into possession of the amulet, or, well, much of anything but he felt the need to reassure her that her thoughts were wrong. "Besides, I can't use scissors properly, much less make an amulet." He provides one more chuckle before patting the woman on the back and continuing down the road despite something urging him to turn back and help her.

Skylei isn’t listening. From the moment he calls her ‘Lady’, she is deaf to his words. In fact she sits there silently sobbing into her hands once she has wrestled her chin free of his hand. She can’t look at him, she can’t listen to him. This is a nightmare. She will wake up soon and Tyler will be dead again and she’ll be able to mourn him in peace. She doesn’t even react as he lays her cloak back across her body. Snow has soaked into her clothes, chilling her skin and she doesn’t care. It’s only as he leaves that she’s able to speak again. What if she never sees him again? In spite of it all, there is one constant factor in her mind. Skylei loves Tyler. So her last words are simply borne from desperation, “I know you. And you know me.” And then one last word, perhaps he won’t hear it over the wind but she needs to say it, she needs to hope that he knows it, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that he knows nothing about her. She tells him her name, “Skylei.”