[hider=Distractions]

Mar was pacing around the Den, ignoring the fact it had became like a tomb. The silence, stillness, and lacking social company was starting to get to her while she dug her own groove into the dirt. Retracing each path over and over, until she could easily see the actual evidence of her movements before her in the dim, bluish light. Her jawline tightened to ignore it as her head flipped back, her tail coiling about when she tossed herself upon the bed. The feather down within the mattress fluffed and her body sank within the soft bedding, through it hadn’t changed her depression seeping into her core. 

She huffed quietly at the realization she never used to be this way. In the school’s earlier months, she was pleased to be alone and isolated but now… It was much different, a clear fact now to her mind. Her tongue flickered out to scent the air and caught the heavily mixed scent of Althalus’ musk and Alaria’s scent entering into her room. Mar’s nose wrinkled in protest as her torso raised, half wondering why the latter would end up visiting her when Lyn wasn’t around. Her sight rested on Althalus with an raised eyebrow to inquire the reason why there was no halfling. 

Althalus entered the Den, looking around to find Mar, his hair a mess from wear Alaira thumped his head and tousled , her scent on him. As he spotted her, his eyes immediately found her fresh wounds in her arm. [color=00aeef]“Another nightmare?”[/color] He asked, settling close to her, his eyes noting the pacing marks left on the floor. [color=00aeef]“It’s a good thing I finally got away from that crowd. Sorry I took so long, but Alaira had to go talk to diplomats and I had to make sure she didn’t hit any of them. Hugging her, you should note, is really effective in keeping her from hitting you or someone else. She doesn’t quite know how to react to it.”[/color] He gave a mischievous smirk.  [color=00aeef]“Especially if you just tried to steal her shiny new spear. Honestly,, I’m surprised she still considers me a friend. They’re getting worse, aren’t they? The nightmares.”[/color] He reached out carefully with one arm, gently hugging Mar too him.

Mar shook her head and replied, trying not to flinch at the touch. Her mind hadn’t yet established it as something to accept and her tail unwillingly twitched, yet it only pulled harder underneath her body. Where it stayed much to her relief. [color=lightsalmon] “Many would’ve said the same about you when it came to me. And yes, though it’s only a minor one this time. I doubt they are getting any better but I can’t… I can’t shake the feeling they are important.”[/color] 

The assassin raised an eyebrow. [color=00aeef]“With my devilish good look, your beauty,  and the way we just immediately hit it off? How could anyone say that?”[/color] He winked flamboyantly at the Naga, before turning to the more serious topic. [color=00aeef]“Have you considered going to Ovak, I hear he’s up at any rate, Ssarak, or Satori?”[/color] The last name was said with considerable distaste. [color=00aeef]“They might be able to find the source and tell you what they mean.”[/color]

Mar wasn’t sure if a smile fitting the situation so her eyes merely soften and her tail, gently, wrapped about Althalus’ leg back to hold him closer. Through using no where the fully crushing power she could apply in her fury. Her eyes studied Althalus a moment or two, debating over the option even though she knew his dislike toward Satori was a personal one. A fact he suggested it was something she couldn’t fathom why but let it slip through her mind for the moment while he finished up. 

[color=00aeef]“Regardless, I think I’ll stay in here for the rest of the day. Lyn’s safe with Tyrael and all the teachers, and I don’t really like crowds that much anyways. We’re going to be alone for a while…”[/color]Althalus waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Mar, settling more comfortably on the floor. He had long ago gotten used to the floor, and it was far more comfortable than some of the other places he had slept in his lifetime. 

Mar rolled her eyes at his hinting toward his favor past time: messing up the bed. It was something he had told Lyn when she became old enough to acknowledge their nightly activities and asked why they made ‘funny’ noises, requiring Althalus to jump to the first thing that came to mind. It was slightly a flawed move when Lyn wanted to join in on the fun as well. After that scene, she was often sent to spend the night with Alaira, Tyrael or Uicle, allowing them a little time to themselves from that point on. 

She leaned into his ear and hissed, softly. [color=lightsalmon] “I’m not making love to you while you’re smelling like that.”[/color]

[color=00aeef]“Point taken.”[/color] Althalus murmured in reply, shrugging helplessly. He couldn’t very well just jump up and run to go wash himself off.

Pulling back, Mar continued to comment on earlier suggestions. [color=lightsalmon] “I’m not sure who Ovak is, and I’m not familiar with him. Ssarak, I’m not sure if a novice, as careful as he might be, should be experimenting with something like this. Through I will consider telling him about it. Satori might be our only option in the end.The strange thing… they don’t feel like mine.”[/color]

Her head lowered to the bed edge, her body now removed from it to sit beside Althalus. Her chin came to rested on his shoulder and stared off into the background while her thoughts rattled about in her head.  

[color=00aeef]“Ovak is the Archmage. Supposedly very powerful in all the magics. I haven’t seen him display this, however. He is very old though, I can tell you that much for certain. Ssarak, well, you have a point. I’m not even sure he would do it if we were willing to risk it. He doesn’t seem to like taking unnecessary, in his eyes, risks.”[/color] Althalus sighed in reluctance. [color=00aeef]“We’ll have to go to Satori. The second she does something she isn’t supposed to I’m stabbing the bitch.”[/color] Althalus glanced at Mar, a half smile on his lips. [color=00aeef]“Don’t point out the lack of logic behind knowing if she’s doing something she isn’t supposed to, I’ll have Ssarak or someone watch with her.”[/color]

[color=lightsalmon]“You realize Lyn does hang out with Satori, and our daughter seems to adore it. At some point, you’ll have to end up burying that ideal of getting even which makes me wonder why you’re so hell bent on it. What did she show you?”[/color] Mar’s head lifted a bit to look Althalus’ face for implication of guilt in some fashion, her brown hair strands gliding down to slightly hid her eyes as she studied him.  

Althalus sighed, eyeing Mar . [color=00aeef]“I know. I can hope though. Maybe Lyn will grow up, realize what a hateful bitch Satori is, and then I can figure out how to kill her.”[/color] Althalus was still for a moment, turning to face Mar more before he spoke. When he did, it was in a quiet tone. [color=00aeef]“She made me relive my family’s murder. Only, rather than watching my [i]brother[/i]”[/color]the word was said with a hateful, mocking, sarcastic emphasis. 

[color=00aeef]“I was killing them. She made me act like [i]him.[/i] She made me kill them, all for some fucking power that shouldn’t have even existed. He was crazy enough to chase legends and murder family to get power. Port Slaughter has one rule. Family sticks together. And he broke it, and then tried to kill me. I am [i]nothing[/i] like him and I will [i]never[/i] forgive her for playing with my memory and emotions like that, not to mention all the other students. You were right next to Aramir.”[/color] Hatred, unlike any except for when he was talking about Xyden, colored Althalus’ tone. 

He glanced back at Mar and relaxed, albeit forcibly. [color=00aeef]“But that’s in the past. I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”[/color]

[color=lightsalmon]”You and the goddess in my dreams would’ve known the same pain. It was her brood that died, thousands slaughtered, ending their lives in various stages of life. Their corpses setting out in the sun to dry out and half eaten by the wildlife. A child about eight years, a boy, was clasped to her chest as the winged one kept the land from her wrath.”[/color] Mar said calmly, recalling how much the land looked like her, through it was one small detail she left off when telling Althalus. It was enough to give her nightmares, why she would want him to worry over its meaning? [color=lightsalmon] “I don’t understand why anger is important or needed. Then again, I wasn’t raised under such expectations. So I can’t fully understand it. It’s likely best that way in the end as you’ve seen me out of control.” [/color] 

She seemed to admit something to herself when she drifted from Althalus’ shoulder, leaving the warmth to linger, and brushed over the femur bone left in the far corner. She hadn’t touched it since it appeared within her den and several individuals, Val, Tyrael and others, had examined the thing. It was harmless though no one could explain how it got past the college defenses unnoticed. 

Unsettled by the bone, Mar turned away to redirect her attention on a topic yet to have been touched on: Althalus’ past. [color=lightsalmon] “We still need to have that talk from the mission.” [/color]   

[color=00aeef]“Indeed. The pain of losing family is easy to recognize.”[/color] Althalus noted, before giving a slight half smile. [color=00aeef]“Those emotions again. Anger is often useless, but lets you know when something wrong has happened. Something that doesn’t make you feel grief, but rage. You tapped into that with the Yarosmerian and it was...impressive. There’s nothing wrong with anger, so long as you can control it. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually want to die or be beaten up by you.”[/color]

The teasing look on his face dropped as Mar brought up something he had partially been hoping she would have forgotten. Resigned, he asked, [color=00aeef]“What do you want to know?”[/color]

[color=Lightsalmon] “All of it. From the point I know about your family’s death, to your arrival to the college. So you be so kind, start from there.” [/color] Mar pulled up closer, her tail coiled under her as she leaned against the bed’s edge. Listening. 

Althalus sighed, then jumped right in. [color=00aeef]“After my brother cut my throat and I stumbled out of the house, I collapsed in an alleyway. I was certain I wasn’t going to wake up and the next person I saw was going to be Gaurot judging me. Imagine my surprise when I see this terrifying mask looking at me and some man saying something along the lines of ‘you’ll do.’ After I’m fully brought back to health, and I had gotten your favorite coin from my father’s corpse, this man started training me to do one simple thing: kill others for money. Men. Women. Children. Orcs. Foreas. Naga. Dwarves. If they were living on Tiien, he knew how to kill them and he taught me how to kill them.”

“It wasn’t long before he started taking me on missions, and by right of me not dying I became rather good at it. Eventually he got paranoid that I was going to betray him and I had to kill him before he’d kill me. I took his mask, and his job. A few years pass, my mask accidentally getting caught by an artist and spread throughout  and beyond Port Slaughter. The contracts began to get more variety then. Some people wanted a message, a sign that the ‘Terror of Port Slaughter’ was with them and no one would get away with whatever the person they wanted dead did.”

“Other’s wanted it nice and quiet, a simple unexplained murder. Most of those were attributed to me, much to other killers for hire’s delight. I got contracts from gang members, the barons of Port Slaughter, Guardsmen, merchants, nobles. They all wanted someone dead. A father in the way of power. An inconvenient child. An Orc making patrons nervous. A rival gang leader. A gang follower who was just a bit too popular.  With all these contracts, I needed more than one person to get them all done. So I made a minor guild of assassins to help me out. We lasted about a year until my brother found me again.”

“The assault was brutal and sudden. Hired mercs and hired muscle stormed our little base, and what followed soon after was a blood bath. I barely managed to escape with the aid of my natural magic, and decided that heading to the College was a safer bet than wandering around or trying to kill my brother. I walked there, met you and Tyrael, and the rest you know.”[/color] A slight smirk crossed his face. 
[color=00aeef]“The rest you know [i]very[/i] well. Any questions?[/color] 

Mar was quiet, her eyes fixed on Althalus’, calmly determining her own judgement as she pulled back at his subtle hint of foreplay. She gave him a look and shook her head, her hand shifted her hair from her eyes before she spoke. 

[color=lightsalmon] “And what’s to stop your brother from once again ruin your life? To destroy your life again as he’s done twice?[/color] Her voice was calm yet held a hint of chilly unemotional ice to it. 

Althalus shrugged helplessly and shamelessly at Mar’s look, before looking back at Mar. [color=00aeef]“This time? I’ve my own magics by the time he gets here or we leave the College. Not to mention, I doubt Satori or Tyrael or Uicle or any of the other Masters will just let him start trying to kill me. Gods help him if he tries to go for you or Lyn. I said I hated killing mages. Not that I didn’t know how to. He tries again, he’ll die. Painfully.”[/color] Althalus watched Mar carefully, detecting the chill tone of voice. 

[color=lightsalmon] “It might not matter if Lyn keeps growing,”[/color] Mar’s body turned to the bed, her torso lowered to rest her head onto the edge, and mind settled into deep thought. It was true. At the rate Lyn was growing, she wouldn’t last very long in what Mar or even Althalus considered a normal lifespan and that scared the Naga. More than facing down the undead child or nearly dying in the mating ball, her arms creating a resting cushion for her chin. [color=Lightsalmon] “Athalus, what if she never stops growing and her life ends within these walls? In a few years?”[/color] 

She couldn’t bring herself to utter the next words forming in her mind. [i]What then?[/i] Yet it was clearly there in the air.  

[color=00aeef]“She won’t.”[/color] Althalus spoke softly, but firmly, reaching out to run his fingers through her hair. [color=00aeef]“But if she does, we’ll do our best to ensure that she knows nothing but love and kindness in these walls. She doesn’t need to know what a cruel place the world is, or that her father is a murderer. Those things don’t need to bother Lyn.”[/color] A slightly bitter, self mocking smirk crossed his face.  [color=00aeef]”She won’t die though. She’ll slow down eventually and live a long normal Nagaish life and you can tell her how devilishly handsome and dramatically charming I was. How you were so wrong about me at first, and how you always regretted never telling me how right I was in every argument we had…”[/color]He trailed off, smiling at Mar. [color=00aeef]“Need I go on?”[/color]

[color=Lightsalmon] “Please, no. I just hope you’re right, Althalus. I’ve...never had my own child and I’ve heard, from my mother, that losing your first brood is often the hardest. It will make or break a Naga in the end. Over time, with each new brood, a mother will grow numb to the loss. However, I’m not sure I want to.. anymore.” [/color] Mar admitted, her words carefully chosen with the emotion she felt strongest. [color=Lightsalmon] “It doesn’t feel right anymore. Through emotions still frighten me and I can’t see their purpose as in being positive, or helping me survive, being hollow doesn’t seem suitable either.” [/color]

Althalus listened carefully to Mar, worrying over her. She had gotten control of most of her emotions, true, but that didn’t mean she knew what to do with them. [color=00aeef]“You shouldn’t want to be hollow. Emotionless. It should hurt. It lets you know that you loved them. And with loving them, it makes you all the more willing to fight to keep them alive. If you’re numb to the loss, what’s to say you won’t just simply accept a seemingly inevitable fate for one of your brood? By the way, let's at least get Lyn out of the Den before you start having me work on the others of the brood.”[/color] Althalus grinned and winked at Mar, before opening his mouth to continue. 

[color=lightsalmon] “That’s the problem, Althalus. Most Naga mothers, before they lay their young to hatch, end up creating a Den in the isolated desert and sticking around for only a small time. When they hit around a certain age, the mothers are suppose to leave. Letting the young live or die as nature declares. It’s only early years they… we feel deep attachment. When my own mother returned to retrieve my brother and me, she was a stranger to me. Just another Naga. If I had raised Lyn correctly in the Naga way, I should’ve left the moment I had shown signs of being pregnant without saying a word. Males, as you’ve realized, are usually apart of the child’s life until his or her return to the city. Even then, it’s not a sure thing he will want to be apart of it. Mine never was.”[/color] Mar stated simply, interrupting Althalus before he could continue.  

[color=00aeef]“Yes, we’re both well aware of how you trying to raise Lyn in the correct Naga way ended. All six months of it.”[/color] Althalus replied, dryly. [color=00aeef]“Much to your irritation, I refused to act like a male should and we argued for what seemed like years about it until Lyn was born. You’ve decided not to raise her in the Naga way, Marya. If you had, you would have taken her and left as soon as you could, or even simply left without her when she started growing this large. Whatever our course is, it’s already set.” [/color]

Mar gave Althalus a raised eyebrow and a frown, her expression rather disappointed in his observation and assumption. She wanted to reach her hand up to swat him on the head back but resisted, instead, her tail twitched and wrapped about the man’s legs bring him to face her. [color=lightsalmon] “Althalus, I couldn’t leave without Lyn. The attachment takes several years to fade and at the rate my daughter is growing, even when she’s an adult, I can’t help but look at her as my child. At least until or if she reaches the maturity age of my kind. A fact I know is true because even among the College, I can’t seem to stay away for longer than a day. At least without worrying heedlessly.”[/color]

Althalus raised his own eyebrow at Mar, turned around and trapped by her tail. [color=00aeef]“I hate to break this to you, Marya, but aside from the ‘attachment fades after several years’ part you just described what I feel and what every parent of every child ever will feel. It’s apart of being a parent. You worry needlessly and heedlessly, even though you know you left her in safe hands, it’s natural and unstoppable.”[/color] He placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. 

Mar’s fingers tightened about her arms, feeling deep inside he was right. Her chest exhaled to release both tension and worry as she raised her hand to cup Althalus’. It was a comforting gesture she had learned watching others which on experimenting herself,  it seemed to be rather soothing in her mind. Her mind considered to object against the logic but even she couldn’t fully accept her argument for it. 

[color=00aeef]“I can’t adequately explain why emotions are necessary and positive, but I can tell you that simply sealing them up isn’t good at all. You saw what happened when you let go of a rage that had been bottled away for who knows how long. Still have bruises from that, by the way. We’ll address the future when it gets here. For now, lets get the past out of the way and then focus on the present. Anything else you’d like to know before I get that mask smelted?”[/color] He gestured to the ‘Terror of Port Slaughter’ mask, hanging in the den and collecting dust. 

[color=lightsalmon] “None I can think of right now, though I can’t promise none will crop up in the future. To pretend is impossible and unfair, but that still leaves the issues of the dreams to settle now.”[/color] Mar stated, sighing lightly as she realized she was unable to settle the matter currently and it would bother her for a while.   

Althalus nodded. [color=00aeef]“Fair enough. I’ll answer them to the best of my ability.”[/color] He gave a slight smirk as Mar spoke about her dreams. [color=00aeef]“I may have a temporary solution.”[/color] He said, slipping free from Mar’s tail and sliding behind her, arms going to cuddle her. Gently he began to kiss down her neck and spine.

Mar tensed as she felt a familiar arousal creep over her skin, making it flush with heat that lead to Lyn’s creation. Her eyes turned back behind her shoulder and glared, mildly, in Althalus’ direction when he purposely used her favorite touches to his advantage. [color=lightsalmon] “You really don’t take no for an answer, do you Althalus?”[/color] 

Her tone was slightly loving in her comment, even when she tried to be firm in her reply. Her body pressed across the bed, the mushroom light dimming and plunging them into the secluded darkness of his suggested distraction.

[/hider]


[i]Althalus[/i]

A loud knocking sound jerked Althalus from sound asleep to wide awake. One hand immediately went for a dagger that wasn't there, while he listened to the voice outside, relaxing when he heard Alaira's voice. [color=00aeef]"Hold on, I'm coming."[/color] He muttered and carefully disentangled himself from Mar's sleeping form. As soon as he was sure he had escaped without waking her he began searching around for his pants. Finding them, he walked to the door of the den, opening it up to look blearily at Alaira. He looked like a mess. Hair everywhere, pants clearly put on in a hurry, and no shoes or shirt. Still he gave a smirk up at the large Forest Elf. [color=00aeef]"Shh. Mar's asleep. What can I do for you?"[/color]