[i][b]STREETS OF RAGE! Starring Johnny Shaft and Derv McDuken[/b][/i]

One of the pleasurable things about fighting in a company was help was never far behind. Do'Karth had found himself in situations in the past, surrounded by rather hostile and quite unreasonable sorts that responded much better to violence than words, and this was looking to be one of those days. As skilled as the khajiit was at arms, even he didn't like his odds with this many people screaming for blood.  Jorwen, reassuringly, seemed more weary than threatened. Perhaps that was just his way; Sovengarde probably wasn't guaranteed were one to get trampled in mob violence, so it was nothing for a Nord to get excited over.

The dunmer Do'Karth had shoved away by the end of his staff bristled at the indignation, pulling a long, thin blade from his waist belt. "You shouldn't even be allowed in this city, [I]cat[/I]. Mind yer own business!" 

"Another step, friend, and this one will have to apologize for what comes next." The khajiit replied, staring daggers at the indignant dunmer, who accepted the challenge. A whirl of the staff brought the end of it hard into the dunmer's nose, breaking it with an audiable crunch as he fell backwards into the seething mass. "Sorry!" He called after him, rather insincerely. 

The argonian he had leg-swept to the cobblestones attempted to grab at his ankle, which Do'Karth responded to by driving his staff hard into the argonian's wrist, who shrieked in pain. "Mind your hands, friend. Perhaps you should leave to get that looked at? This one would not wish to see your injuries get worse." he said. The argonian stared at Do'Karth menacingly, but seeing the mercenaries at the khajiit's side, seemed to think better of it and the fight shrunk out of him. The lizard slunk on all fours, although minus one presumably cracked wrist, away from the melee. Do'Karth looked towards Jorwen. "This is a preferable change of pace from towering giants, no? How does one break up a mob in Skyrim, in your experience?" the khajiit asked.

"In my experience?" Jorwen looked to the men behind him and then to his drawn sword, "You wouldn't want my experience. I was hoping you'd thought of something."

The crowd was a mass of slurs, punches, kicks, scratching and any other manner of violence. Legs of tables, meat-knives, chains, hammers, any weapon one could think of was being wielded in this mess of furious lizards and mer. Jorwen wasn't quite fond of it. "Reckon a riot's like a battle. Find the leaders and the army unravels." His eyes scanned around and it was no surprise to him that he didn't find any individual that looked like he had thought up any plan past beating the next person they saw. Any leaders in this mess were well-hidden. "How in Oblivion did this even start?"

Do'Karth let out a cynical laugh. "So we start bashing our way towards the loud ones, this one can do that." the khajiit said, thrusting his staff towards an argonian who made to dash a dunmer's skull in with a roofing hammer. "In Do'Karth's experience, he's never been a part of a war, much less a riot. Normally, he would be content to let these idiots sort themselves out, but they would be much more useful holding the gates from the real enemy than turning on each other. As for how it started, who knows? Perhaps "return to the Hist" is simply street slang for Lifts-Her-Tail's bedroll and her mate caught wind of it."

The khajiit pressed forward, much less gently, allowing the pent up aggression he had building inside of him with the rage from such blatant stupidity endangering everyone's lives to come out full force in his thrusts, swings, and other strikes that he did not feel bad for in the slightest. He savoured the moments when someone actually charged him, or otherwise challenged him; the street rabble weren't going to have any hope in this world or any plain of Oblivion of reaching him before he dashed their aspirations. Any who weren't paying attention were caught with a sharp, painful strike, while the others were wise enough to give the khajiit room. The other mercenaries and guards likewise moved as a unit to press forward through the chaotic mass, bringing down anyone who still had fight in them. Still, going was slow and dangerous; at least two guards and one of the mercenaries were dragged down in the fighting, their fates uncertain. 

Jorwen followed Karth slowly, wary of his vicious jabs. The look on his face was not that of the peaceful and easygoing Khajiit he though Karth was. Of course, every man has a monster in him. Jorwen knew that to be very true. One Dunmer was pushed straight into Mire. The big man wrapped the smaller mer in his arms as Temper threw gut-wrenching blow after blow into the man's stomach. The poor mer was let go and was gasping for air as his eyes rolled back in his head. Jorwen raised a lip in disgust and shook his head. It was hard to feel bad for the mer. One Argonian hissed in his face and out of instinct, Jorwen smashed the pommel of his big sword into the lizard's snout. Another pressed in and Jorwen grabbed the Argonian with a meaty paw and threw him back into the crowd he came from.

As much as Jorwen hated to admit, violence was the most clear solution to this. He wished it were different, but it had already begun and spun far too out of control for him to change any. "I never took you for the type to go whacking heads at a moment's notice." Jorwen said. Truth be told, he almost couldn't look at Karth the same. Something in his eyes as they were going along and he was swinging his staff.

The khajiit was far too gone to mind his manners or disposition, his body almost moving on its own with a force and maliciousness he had long though buried within himself. Years of suppressing anger, from personal failures and endured racism alike, came bubbling at a head. These people [I]deserved[/I] pain, and Do'Karth felt himself enjoying it, the empowering feeling of being a warrior, a scythe through a field of wheat. He had always enjoyed a good fight, that had never changed, but an aspect of himself that he thought long dead was apparently more resilient than he had thought. "Never without a reason, Jorwen. Fighting is in this one's blood; do not mistake Do'Karth's refusal to kill as a hesitation to do what Do'Karth must."  the khajiit replied, shouting a feral battle cry as a pair of argonians went to grab the staff from his hands. 

The khajiit spun the staff in a quick arc, striking the reaching claws before savagely bringing the end of the staff in a back blow in the first argonian's face, the staff's momentum carrying past the staggered beastman and the far end coming down at a high arc into the other's collarbone. It didn't take a physician to know his shoulder was dislocated. The khajiit rammed the end of the staff into the argonian's shrieking throat, the sound infuriating him. Teeth barred, Do'Karth hissed as the argonian collapsed. "Stay down, or this one will make sure you never walk again!" He roared. 

"O'course, friend." Jorwen watched with a frown as the Khajiit went to work on a couple other argonians. A man should stick to what he's good at, Jorwen always had it. And that limp Karth had probably had a story behind it. Even Do'Karth's words were tinged with something. Jorwen had heard it in the words of every warrior he'd ever spoken to.

From behind, a band of warriors who may have been Braves charged into the melee on horseback, quickly giving pause to the mobs and breaking them up into far more manageable chunks. Those that didn't run off deeper in the city, anyway. It seemed the riots and looting went elsewhere, leaving those that were cut off from it stranded and alone. No longer protected by the mob, the thinned crowd dropped their weapons and surrendered. It was mostly Dunmer, with the argonians moving eerily together like swarms of bees through the city.

The Braves seemed to be charging after those who had fled, leaving the remaining mercenaries and guards to gather the rabble. Do'Karth did his part by collecting stragglers by coralling them with shoves, and making a show of removing weapons from reach with the end of his weapon. Few people wished to challenge the angry khajiit who, from the word of mouth of a few of his victims, was all to eager to break people's bodies. It wasn't long until the guard had formed a perimeter around the rioters and calling for someone to fetch some lengths of rope and chains. Do'Karth made way over to Jorwen, his features dark as he stared at the faces, dunmer and argonians alike. "Fools should have just let the argonian cowards go, let them be torn to shreds from the Kamal they refuse to fight. It would have spared a lot of innocent people today."

As Jorwen looked at the quivering leftovers, he felt nothing but anger. But there was a saying about the man who is angered by the foolishness of others. What was it? Either way, these were not warriors. They held no honor, no bravery but for the shouting of the mob. Like the bleating of angry sheep until they are sheared and left hairless and cold and shriveled. Jorwen spat. "Disgusting lot." Mire stepped up next to him and Karth.

"Just ignorant fools swept along by their anger." Jorwen was a bit taken aback by how those words struck him personally, knowing himself as well as he did. He only spat again and shook his head, "Hard to blame them. You spend your life in the shit while others walk on and spit at you, you'd want to break their heads open."

"Eh?" Mire said, "I was saying they were dock lizards n' all. But, I guess you've a point."

Jorwen frowned at the man, looking sidelong at him. He turned back to Karth who, despite the recent show, held a warmth to his company that none other seemed to have. Especially not Mire and his lot. "It's a sad fact but people tend to think their problems are the only ones in the wide world. They're like to blind themselves rather than face the truth." And as he looked at Karth, he found those words had something to them. He'd forced his own expectations and opinions into his view of Karth and it only did him harm. He wondered where the Khajiit had come from, what had formed him into the man he was. "You can't say it isn't true for yourself, even just a small bit." He let go a sigh, "I can't."

The craving for sugar to steady the nerves was becoming unbearable. Do'Karth chose to grip his staff in front of him, end resting on the cobblestone below, to allow his hands to resist the temptation to wander. "When the truth has been at the city's gates with countless dead the past two days? Their lack of fortitude is inexcusable. This one heard the argonians whining about something called 'The Hist' as their reason for wanting to, somehow, cross half a continent to return home." He said, staring daggers at a dunmer who dared look up at him. The khajiit's eyes didn't waver. He wasn't entirely sure how, or if he should, address Jorwen's last point. 

"Do'Karth knows what he has done, remembering it is what helps guide his actions. If you allow yourself to forget what you are, or who you were, then you are doomed to repeat your follies until perhaps you cause enough pain to remember the lesson you should have never forgotten. Allow this one to ask you something; do you really think the things you've come to regret would have changed who you ended up becoming, Jorwen? Would you have stood here talking to this one had you not faced those trials? Or Solveig. Would you have suddenly realized that she's the family you do not wish to lose?"

"Maybe I'd be mending skirts in Whiterun rather than bloody wounds in the Reach. And here. And a hundred other bloody fucking places besides." His voice had become an angry growl but he took a deep breath to steady himself. "I used to be a man you wouldn't ever want to be around. If I hadn't made some of the choices I have, maybe I'd have less dead friends and a better relationship with my daughter. Having her skull crushed in isn't the way I ever wanted to rekindle our relationship."

He shook his head and sheathed his sword, made fists of his shaking hands and squeezed them tight to try to fight against the tremors. Maybe Aelfgar was right, that there was nothing else for men like them, but to fight and make enemies until you died. There was always the chance of dying for any reason once you picked up the blade, even for no reason at all. "But the past is for the dead, eh? They can forgive, they can be forgiven. We've just got to go on." Jorwen frowned down at the cold stones of the street, "These days being what they are, I keep wondering if I should put down my sword and take my family away from all this. Pick a direction and just walk. That how you did it, left it all behind you?"

"This one doesn't believe the dead can forgive so readily." Do'Karth replied somberly. He slowly inhaled, exhaling through his nose to try and calm his beating heart. Jorwen was encroaching on territory Do'Karth had been ever so careful to avoid speaking about in truths, but now, seeing the man as a troubled friend and both well aware of their impending mortality, it almost seemed wrong to keep silent forever. Perhaps something would suffice, but the khajiit certainly wasn't ready to come to terms with it all. The dream he had the night before, just before awakening, was an omen. The past couldn't stay buried forever.
 
"Not as such, This one had everything taken from him, stemming from one mistake that Do'Karth has vowed never to repeat in his lifetime. This one has come within a few short breaths and beats of his heart of leaving this world for the next, and that is what it took to make Do’Karth realize that there was more to life than he had initially been conditioned to see. This one cannot go home, because he has no home. Not anymore. Anyone this one knows believes him to be dead, and Do’Karth wishes to keep it that way.” The khajiit said, looking towards Jorwen with a frown. “Believe Do’Karth when he tells you that you alone have more than he does. You have family that is worth fighting to keep; this one never did.” 

Jorwen only nodded, frowning. For all the Khajiit's dark sincerity, he still wasn't entirely convinced. What man's the bigger fool? The one with no family to forsake by wandering, or the one who forsakes the one he has for fleeting glory and a Name. Maybe it wasn't too late. Just one more hill to climb and then it'd be over. Just one more. "Reckon there's truth there." He said, hard-faced. "You've got some weight behind you, Khajiit." Jorwen nodded, "Some weight."

"More than you know. Perhaps it will be a tale for another time, but Do'Karth believes the guards have this in hand. It may be wise to patrol for some of those rioters who scattered; this one doubts they are done causing us problems. Shall we?" The khajiit inquired, extending an arm down the street as an invitation. The two men walked off in silence, leaving the carnage behind them, as well as some heavy air. It was just one more fight in a series of many of a war that no one had anticipated, and even fewer expected to survive. As far as Do'Karth was concerned, anything of importance to him lived and died with the city. There were worse places to draw a line in the sand.