Arid Sea [Dark]

[Bee]

The market was a bustling one, with people bumping into each other, shuffling past, arguing with vendors over prices. The typical fare. Ananta slid through, quietly, with her knapsack and cloak around her shoulders—Face cards tended to draw attention, and that was the last thing she wanted.

She didn’t much need to bargain. She just stared at the vendor when he told her the price. He would fidget nervously. She would quirk an eyebrow. He would lower the price. She put a lot of stock in nonverbal communication; the general din of the area struck her as largely unnecessary.

She placed the dried apples in her sack. She hunted for most of what she needed, but the fruit and vegetables were a little more difficult to come by. The Wastes did not produce much, so most had to be imported, and it was typically expensive.

She fingered her coin purpose with a tight-lipped frown. She would never lack for funds. The wealth of over 100. She’d rather be poor.

[Dark]

He might have enjoyed the bustle of the marketplace—before—but now he couldn’t see the appeal. It was an overcrowded cesspool, full to bursting with a nauseating combination of a hundred different smells and noises, and the press of unwashed bodies made him twitchy. But the marketplace did offer something of value, and he would deal with the rest for that reason alone.

He was getting closer to ending this—there weren’t many left, though they’d scattered to the four winds, and become more cautious, better at covering their tracks. It just made it sweeter in the end.

Gopala saw him coming, and Dev felt a vague sort of pleasure seeing the feline’s face twist in panicked recognition. His men swarmed around him like fleas, sensing danger. It was—unfortunate—Dev hadn’t been able to catch the man alone, but his men were guilty simply by association. They wouldn’t stand in his way.

Dev smiled grimly, and summoned his weapons.

[Bee]

Her visit to the market had suddenly gotten a lot louder. A fight had broken out, and a bad one. She slipped away from the sleeping bundle she was contemplating purchasing, and headed in the direction of the commotion. She scrutinized it. A young man—a couple years younger than her, maybe—was being clearly overwhelmed, though he had…weapons. He fought with them too cleanly for them to be anything other than summoned.

She watched, trying to catch their faces, wondering what had started it. There was fear and rage on the part of the mob. They wanted this boy dead. There was no other reason to send such an unfairly large force on one person.

The only question was why.

Her sense of duty was getting the better of her. She wasn’t going to let a murder happen right in front of her, and the kid was obviously going to get killed soon if nothing happened.

She dropped her knapsack and summoned her blade, rushing at the backs of part of the mob. One neat slice, and the tendons in their legs were severed. They dropped in a screaming pile.

“The rest of you,” she said, coldly, Strife ready to strike, “can step back and drop your weapons, or I can cripple you as well.”

[Dark]

A moment of distraction—a stranger, facing down some of the mob; why?—cost him, and he pulled back with a hiss as someone got too close and tried to gut him. His arm reacted, curved blade whistling through the air, and took the man’s head. He couldn’t afford to be distracted; there were still too many people in-between him and Gopala, and a glance confirmed the feline was loosing his nerves. He’d bolt, soon. Dev couldn’t afford to let him go a second time. He pressed forward.

Someone got in his way, swiping with curved claws; Dev feinted, used the momentum to spin with blades extended. The attack didn’t kill his attacker outright, but it was unlikely he’d walk away from the encounter. And then he had reached Gopala.

“You shouldn’t have run,” he stated quietly, voice rough from the wound Gopala had given him all those years ago. Gopala attacked.

Dev wished he felt something when he cut the man down, bit by bit. Gopala’s death would not be swift.

[Bee]

The boy was focusing himself on one target—which was fine, but he was liable to get nailed in the back. Ananta set herself to crowd control—it was difficult to do anything but inflict fatal injuries with a sword the size of Strife, but she had practice, and she was confident that she was merely maiming them for life. She was uncertain of their crime, and had no desire to issue the death penalty. They would be brought to justice soon enough.

She sliced through them like they were little more than a training exercise, blocking their sad attempts to strike back, trusting her blade at them in return. Eight down. Ten. Fifteen. They were doing themselves no favors by rushing her.

Then, suddenly, there were no more targets. She was standing amid a pile of writhing, moaning bodies, and the boy had dispatched his intended victim. Brutally, by the looks of it.

She watched him, carefully.

[Dark]

Dev had been expecting interference, but it hadn’t come, and he hadn’t cared to find out just why that was until he was done. He toed Gopala’s corpse to make sure the feline was truly dead this time—no chances; he had learned his lesson—and turned. It would seem his uninvited help had taken care of the rest while he was otherwise occupied, and if most of them were still alive—well, at least he hadn’t had to deal with them. And they certainly wouldn’t be following him with injuries like that.

He let his weapons dissolve back into the ether, and ignored the woman in favor of checking his stomach wound. He poked curiously, and watched a fresh gush of blood matt his fur; that would probably need stitches. The rest of his wounds seemed to be superficial, though, and would just need to be cleaned. He thought he remembered seeing a stream coming into town—

His skin prickled as he was watched, and he turned his attention back to the woman with mild irritation; he didn’t care for complications. “Why?”

[Bee]

She eyed him mildly. He did not appear grateful for her assistance. Fine.

She unsummoned her weapon.

“One of these men would’ve gotten you while your back was turned,” she said, simply. “I won’t let a murder happen when I can stop it.” She wished, in fact, that she could have stopped the boy himself from killing his target. Needless death was a lesson she had already learned the hard way; apparently it was something this kid had not yet processed. It would happen eventually. She was vaguely curious as to what propelled him to kill his opponent so grotesquely. Maybe later she would indulge her curiosity.

She looked around. People were staring. Time to get them moving. She said, “Please fetch the local authorities to arrest these men and give them proper medical attention. I doubt they’ll be able to reach help on their own.”

There was a burst of movement. People disbursed. She looked at the boy.

“You should stay put too. You look like you’ve got a nasty one.”

[Dark]

She seemed rather certain that he would have been gutted without her help—charming. He appreciated not having to deal with as many opponents—truly, though he still questioned her motives—but he would have walked away from this fight, with or without her help.

That she disapproved of murder was—interesting—but Dev didn’t let what she was implying faze him; he was well within his rights to avenge his clan, and he needn’t deal with her particular brand of self-righteousness.

He glanced again at his wound as she mentioned it, derailed from his thoughts. It was a clean cut, and as long as he staunched the blood flow soon he would be fine; it could have been much worse, and he was more than capable of taking care of it himself. Sticking around for aid was pointless—more likely they would ask him questions that he didn’t particularly feel like answering than treat his wounds efficiently.

“It’s fine.” He looked around for the pack he’d dropped and spotting it, picked his way through the bodies to retrieve it.

[Bee]

He apparently appreciated the help even less than she had thought. Whatever vague maternal instinct that had prompted her to lend a hand in the first place was crushed abruptly under the weight of the dismissal. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with a belligerent teenager—she knew she wasn’t much older, but suddenly it felt like decades. She almost wished she could be angry. Mostly she just felt tired. Her eyes burned. (Rejection burned.)

She shrugged. “Have it your way,” she said.

She wasn’t going to force her help on him, since he clearly didn’t want it (though she wished, dimly, that he did; it had felt good to defend him, and to wield Strife). She picked up her knapsack and her cloak, her coin purse and the small bag of precious bones. The locals would take care of the wounded. The boy would clearly take care of himself.

She slipped back into the crowd as well as one can after having created such a scene.

[Dark]

She was gone when he looked up from retrieving his pack, and he couldn’t help but feel vaguely annoyed with the whole affair. What little satisfaction he might have derived from gutting Gopala--it still rankled that the bastard had gotten away to begin with, but he‘d gotten careless; he couldn’t afford to be careless--was tainted by a vague, uneasy feeling twisting in his gut.

Dev wasn’t in the habit of caring--or even particularly paying attention to--what other people might have to say about him, but the woman’s entire attitude just got under his skin. Helping a perfect stranger, and then condemning (however subtly) his actions and insulting his ability--annoying.

The entire thing really didn’t matter, though, in the grand scheme of things. What was one random opinion to him when he was so close now to avenging his family? Nothing else mattered.

He headed out of town before anyone thought to stop him. Tonight, he would tend his wounds and rest; tomorrow he’d start tracking the next man on the list.