[img]http://i.imgur.com/MMhK4f8.png[/img] and [IMG]https://picload.org/image/rpocagri/markerjaelnec.png[/IMG]
The ride was uncomfortable in the extreme. Angora's adrenaline had by now worn off in its entirety, and by the gods her body ached. Her head was fuzzy still from Iridiel's heavy blow, and her muscles were sore and tired from overexertion. Added to her misery was the seemingly-constant, incessant rain. She was sodden to the skin, and what made it worse was the squire she was riding with, sitting in front. Part of her wanted to cling onto him to make sure she didn't fall off, and part of her realised if she did so... he might jump off. Again. Such a difficult one to anticipate... 
Well. She had just stripped off in the middle of the camp. Perhaps she needed to apologise for that. And for her actions. It was probably the best first step in trying to soothe flared tempers in the group. And yet she felt as though her speaking might aggravate things. The squire was not an easy one to judge, although he had most certainly judged her already. But judges can and should change their minds, given new evidence.
It had over ten minutes, with nothing but the clopping of hooves on earth. 
"Hey... Jaelnec, right?" Her voice was quiet, though it retained its ethereal quality and tone. "I uh... just want to say sorry. For first off... attacking you guys. Might seem pointless to say sorry for something you couldn't really control, but I want to apologise. And I'm not just saying that because it's the right thing to do. I mean it."

Jaelnec, meanwhile, was probably just as uncomfortable with the situation as Angora. Having a girl he had pretty much just seen naked sitting within touching distance, so close that all it really took for him to feel her against his back was a small dent in the road, was having a rather observable effect on the nightwalker. Or it would have observable, had he not arranged himself the way he had specifically to hide said effects. He kept himself as rigid as humanly possible, trying to keep as much distance as he could between himself and his passenger, and his gaze fixed on the path ahead.
It was horrible. Not only did he really not want to think of the murderess as a girl after what she had told them back at the camp, but now that he was, all manner of different chivalrous concerns came to mind. How he thought he should really offer to wrap her in his cloak, how it would be safer and more comfortable if she was hold on to him as they rode. Only, one of those things would remove one of the last physical barriers between him and her, and the other would make it extremely difficult for him to take his mind off what he had seen recently.
When she spoke his first reaction was to be grateful to have something to be angry about, immediately distracting himself from her femaleness by fixating on the fact that she did not seem confident in remembering his name. She continued before he could vent his not-entirely-justified anger, however, and he found himself somewhat unwillingly placated by her words.
“It wasn’t you,” he told her, reiterating what she had already been told. “And nobody got seriously hurt. Not... really. So it’s okay.” He wanted to say more, commenting grimly on how unusual it must be for her to feel responsible for her actions – particularly when those actions were not even hers – and that she had been hurt worse than any of them, but he decided against it. Besides, she had said “first off”.

Angora listened intently to Jaelnec's speech. The cold and the rain made her shiver, and she fought hard to keep her teeth from chattering - how she wished that the spirit's warmth still protected her! She readied herself for the condemnation - only for Jaelnec to take the exact opposite stance. He seemed to understand, seemed to acknowledge that it wasn't truly her, but something else entirely, using her body. "That's... good to hear. I know it wasn't [I]truly[/I] me that did this, but... it still feels wrong to simply accept that. It was my body, my form. But... Thank you, Jaelnec." The squire's words comforted her. Though he no doubt was still very angry at her, his declaration that he at least gave the image of forgiveness and understanding was a great burden off her shoulders. The first step on the road to reconciliation. Now to take the long jump into the unknown.
"I also want to apologise for my actions at the campfire." She let her words sink in slightly, and cleared her throat, trying to shift slightly on the horse as she did so, also trying to keep away from the squire - to respect his own personal space. She noted that he was as stiff and rigid as a wall - why? Was he injured? Was this how he rode a horse? If it was, it was a most intriguing style. Or was he hiding something? Oh... he might well be. And so, her thoughts moved to him. A striking figure for sure, with those deep black eyes... veritable pools of inky darkness. Like the darkness she used during her work, as black as the night sky. She snapped herself back to reality. "I, erm... didn't know you'd have such a reaction. I guess in hindsight it should have been obvious right?" She gave a nervous giggle, unsure what reaction that sentence would garner, but she pressed on regardless. "Sorry. If I'd known that would happen I would have changed over at the river. I guess I was, uh, only thinking about the practical matters at the time. Kind of a holdover from the spirit, I suppose."

He did not realize what she meant by her “actions at the campfire” until she mentioned his reaction to them, which to him removed all need for clarification. Had he not been wearing a cloak and armor she might have noticed the muscles in his back going taut at the thought of those events. She might have noticed his biceps and neck-muscles growing tense regardless; all he knew was that her mention of those events, the thought of what he had seen and the fact that he felt her shuffling about behind him made him [I]very[/I] keen not to move from the spot.
Even so he found himself a little indignant over her words. “Why would it have been obvious?” he asked, so distracted by what that assumption implied that he forgot to address her apology.

He tensed even more - in anger? Angora panicked, stammering out a sentence before she was able to compose herself. "No, no no, I meant... I, uh..." Angora sighed, wiping away the rain from her face to hide her embarrassment. [I]Pull yourself together, girl.[/I] "Damn it... I meant that I should have known not to do that, to be mindful of other people, right? I haven't had to deal with actual people in... however long it's been. I forgot that you can't just do things like that. People in the city don't go about in naught but their skin, right? I mean, unless things have really changed over the last few months, hehe..." Another nervous giggle. "I didn't mean anything negative by it. Just that in hindsight I guess I should have known better."
Shame. It was a new feeling to her. She had acted worse than a back-alley slut, a whore, and now she was feeling the consequences of it. She had been so blunt, so overt with herself, she felt... dirty. Women of the dockyards were better than that, by the gods...

Jaelnec slumped a little – just the tiniest bit – at that, and if she was paying attention she might notice the flush of crawling up his neck. [I]Of course[/I] that was what she had meant, it was, itself, [I]obvious[/I]. He had to stop himself from groaning in regret and shame for having immediately jumped to the conclusion that she had meant it as belittlement of him; that he was a prude, innocent, naive or some combination thereof... that he was a child. Suddenly he wished that he had taken the chance when he had it to escape this life and found the worm-people.
“Oh,” he mumbled awkwardly, too embarrassed with himself to be very eloquent. “Uh, right. Well, I guess that’s... fine. No harm done.” No physical harm, anyway.

For Angora, noticing even the smallest things around her was vital when she was in the city, and even more so when she was alone in the wilds of Rodoria. Suffice to say, it therefore should not come as a surprise to know that she noticed Jaelnec's abrupt change in attitude, as well as his change of posture. He seemed... deflated, almost defeated? Had she said something to upset him unknowingly once more? "A-are you sure? I mean, not to intrude... If you say so." Mutual awkwardness was abound in great quantities, the air so thick with it that Angora felt as if she was drowning, unable to breathe properly. Her chest tightened, her breathing quickening to an uncomfortable pace. She, too, began to freeze in place on the saddle, though her grip on the saddle itself tightened to such an extent that her knuckles were screaming in outrage. Yet she held on, hoping to find something to calm herself down with. Or at least, to ground herself in reality, to prevent anything untoward happening. Meanwhile, the Black Sword had begun to glow seemingly white-hot in her makeshift scabbard at her belt - the raindrops almost instantly vaporised into minuscule clouds of steam as they impacted on the flawless obsidite blade, rising into the air. The warmth was welcoming to Angora, who until that time was convinced she was at least suffering the beginnings of frostbite - how ironic, she thought, to get [I]frostbite[/I] in the rain.

“Yeah...” the squire exhaled, unsure what more to say. “I mean...” Yes? What did he mean? He was not even sure that he knew where his own thoughts were going.
He shook his head, chuckling quietly to himself. “I’ve been raised to be a knight for half my life, and though my master was a shameless womanizer, I always resolved to be better. That even if I couldn’t fight as well as him or be as smart as him, at least I’d be... I don’t know, a better person? And I try to be good, but...” He sighed. “I don’t know where I’m going with this. Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter to you anyway.”

"I... I see." Angora nodded slightly, perhaps understanding more about this man than he truly wanted to let on. That's why he had judged her so... harshly? That he wanted to hold people to account to keep people from falling into the depths of depravity, as his own 'master' had done. And that he did so because he held himself to such high standards, and couldn't afford to have those standards compromised in any way? Perhaps - it made sense to her. Knights to her were tyrants, men who ruthlessly exploited their power to benefit themselves, just like all the other lords and ladies, a hierarchy that she, as a burgher, was shielded from. The cities kept to themselves, paid their taxes and made sure the monarch didn't infringe on their old rights... right?
"...You try to be good in a world where good is almost overrun." She ignored his last sentences. It [I]did[/I] matter, by the gods, they were going to be [I]working together[/I], of course it mattered! Angora relaxed, slouching slightly in her saddle seat, though still careful not to make contact and reinforce the squire's sense of unease. He was but a couple of inches taller than her, though he was more well-built as of course men tended to be. He had quite the attractive frame, actually... [I]Stop it.[/I]
"I sort of know what you mean. Of course, I didn't have, like, knightly training or anything, but I grew up in a family, as you know, built on crime. Mama the chatelaine, Papa the goldsmith, bought and sold with blood money. You know... I didn't choose to be a Cleaner. I know it probably sounds, like, really outlandish and like I'm covering up for myself, but... I didn't."
Angora sighed and shook her head. "I... I shouldn't be saying this. But I will, because if you and I have to work together, you need to know things about me. My father is Erik Kelenwyn, captain-junior of the Dramburgh crime family. The Dramburghs specialise in Cleaners - which meant that I was practically trained to be one from when I could first hold a sword and bat my eyelashes. I do what I do because I'm [I]told[/I] to do it. The money... yeah, sure, whatever, it's nice and all, but you have no idea what happens if I say no, Jaelnec." Angora shuddered, memories of the one and only time she said 'no' coming dangerously close to the fore. "They break you, Jaelnec. They break you in ways you never thought possible. I can't say no. I said it once. I say it again, I die." She lowered her head, her sodden hair falling about her face. "They said they'd hand me over to the government. A good execution to prove that the city's government were tackling the problems. Or just a good way of getting the people's minds off things."

At first Jaelnec had no idea what Angora was talking about, but it did not take long to realize that she had taken his words even more heavily than he had meant them. He had thought simply to justify why he had reacted the way he had to seeing her in the nude, his conviction that it was his duty not to look, which he had failed at... and she thought he had spoken of so much more. Furthermore it seemed that she took the time to open up some more about herself, which Jaelnec instinctively dreaded, given what she had revealed about herself previously.
But then that one sentence – “I didn’t choose to be a Cleaner” – made him listen to her explanation with a new frame of mind. From the moment she uttered those words, though she likely could not see it from behind him, he frowned deeply, and when he felt her shudder at the thought of her past that frown turned to a scowl. By the time she finished her tale he was holding on to the reins so tightly that it hurt, biting down on his rage and just trying to stop himself from urging the horse into a gallop to get to Zerul City as soon as possible, to find the people responsible.
“They can try,” he told her, a dark edge to his voice that rendered it akin to a low growl. “People like that... the world is better off without them. I’ll die before I turn a blind eye to something like that!”
Then he sighed deeply, and this time he seemed to deflate all the way rather than just a little, falling into a more natural pose as he relaxed more than he had since seeing her naked. He let his fury drain into that sigh, and it, in turn, had made him forget about his reservations about her closeness. He felt tired, suddenly... but he knew the anger was still there, just under the surface. Only now it was not directed at Angora.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought...” He shook his head. “It’s their fault. They’re worse than... they’re the worst. They need to be stopped.”

"It's okay. I wouldn't have expected you to know, I should have made it clearer earlier. I don't enjoy what I do, even though it might have seemed that way earlier. I know of people who tried to leave the Firm, Jaelnec. One of them... well... [I]pieces of them[/I] showed up much later. I dread to think what they did to him - probably tortured him within an inch of his life and then hacked him apart. They sent pieces of his body to all the Cleaners - at least that's what they said. Part of me thinks it was a Cleaner that did it. It was meant as a warning to us all... nobody leaves the Firm." Angora drew her new cloak about her body, shrinking into herself in an almost-defensive posture. "This... this is why I do what I do. Not really for money. To survive."
Slowly, tentatively, she reached out and took hold of his back. "Y-you don't mind, do you? Not feeling stable..."

“I don’t mind,” he assured her, his voice much firmer than it had been since before the two of them met. He was too preoccupied with the Firm now to even think about what he had seen, or about Angora’s femaleness at all, beyond feeling grimly [I]responsible[/I] for her now that he knew she was a victim. For some reason he felt stronger and more confident than he had for a long time, filled with certainty that he would hunt down those who used people the way she had been used.

"Th-thanks..." Angora took hold of Jaelnec's back with the fullness of her hands, steadying herself on the saddle as she did so. Instinctively, she shuffled closer, so her legs touched his. She felt safer, more secure... and more reassured. No longer was she the object of everyone's scrutiny, no longer was she the villain. And no longer did she have to hide the crimes of the Firm. True, she was complicit in many of them. But they had taken control of her, they had enslaved her, chained her to the Cleaners, robbed her of her freedom. Jaelnec had made this all so... clear to her. She thought it was better than it was. They had locked her in a dungeon, tortured her, abused her. Memories she thought lost were re-surfacing, and she began to seethe. Now she remembered why she had taken the mission to claim the Black Sword. She had meant to use it to carve her bloody way through the Firm - such naivete was not unlike her - and cut her way to freedom. And now, she had found the most unlikely allies. The squire had gone from the judge to the enforcer, the defender... the protector.
Her knight in a shining cuirass of metal she had never seen before and a muddied face. How noble.

“Things like this...” Jaelnec mused quietly after a while of contemplative silence. “This is one of the things I never understood about my master. Freagon was [I]powerful[/I], the best fighter I’ve ever seen, and he was a Knight of the Will. Yet he knew things like this happened – this and so much more – but never did anything about it. He could have, I have no doubt, but he chose not to. I can’t forgive something like that. Who is going to stop evil if good people are content doing nothing?”
He looked skyward, letting the rain cool his face. “I’ll do something. Everything I can, alone and with my bare hands if I have to.” He looked over his shoulder. “I swear it.”

Angora nodded in agreement with Jaelnec. It was odd, truly. Barely an hour ago, they had been at each throats, and now, here they were, finding more common ground than either of them had perhaps even thought possible. She remembered something she heard from her education. "A philosopher once said... All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. And it is easier to stand by and do nothing, than to intervene and place oneself in harm's way. I guess your knightly master thought the same... and realised that he wanted to take the easy way out." Angora shook her head. "And if everyone does that, then evil will simply walk over them. I guess my own actions helped that to happen... I have much to atone for."
She looked up, and met his gaze. "I think we have some cleaning of our own to do when we get to Zerul, huh?"

Jaelnec nodded grimly, then realized the hastiness of his fervor. “After the Withering,” he conceded reluctantly, knowing that his quest was not one that allowed time-consuming distractions. Every day more people died to it, their souls swallowed by the plague. People like the Firm were horrible, but not even they could compare to the Withering. “Once that quest is at its end, we’ll make sure no one suffers at their hands again.”

"...We might not get that luxury, should some in the Firm want to kill me." Angora swallowed nervously, still looking at Jaelnec. "My family still has many enemies, in and out of the Firm. But, on a more positive note!" She said with another nervous laugh. "Do you have, uh... accommodation in Zerul and the like? I guessed you might have some pre-arrangements in place and such, but it never hurts to check, right?"

Even though he wanted to assure her that no one from the Firm would be allowed anywhere near her, he decided to respect her wish to change the subject. “I’m not sure, actually. One of our companions who apparently has some influence in Zerul went ahead of us and said he’d arrange for our arrival, but Aemoten and I are pretty much all that is left of the group he knew when he left. Maybe, maybe not... though if there aren’t, that’ll complicate matters a bit. Then we’ll have to find our next clue ourselves.”

"Hmm... mhm. Okay." Angora nodded and frowned in contemplation. She thought about matters for a moment - true, the Firm most likely would treat her with suspicion and subterfuge, but she could at least count on a few allies - and her family. An idea struck her. Her family! Of course. Erik might not be the most trustworthy, despite being her [I]father[/I] (something that vexed Angora something terrible), but her dear mama, her brothers... they could be trusted! And they could be used to build a base of operations, at least one that could operate with the outward protection of the Firm. She could use her father's position as a shield. For now. 
"You could always stay at my family's villa. We have plenty of room, stables for horses, a smithy if you need repairs or want to forge weapons and armour, et cetera..."

Jaelnec arched an eyebrow at that, puzzled by just how Angora thought staying with her family would be a good idea. “Didn’t you say your family were the ones who decided you’d be a Cleaner?” he asked, wondering whether he had misunderstood something yet again. The way he remembered it, though, it had sounded very much like her family were part of the Firm. “Aren’t they allied with the Firm? Do you really...” [I]want to be around people who corrupted you like that?[/I] “...trust them?”

"I don't trust my father, it was he who... predetermined my future, he who is the member of the Firm. But I do trust my brothers - Reikard is a sergeant-at-arms, whilst Yvann serves with the City Guard... I can trust them. As for my father... I will simply hope to the gods that his love for me transcends his desire to grow in stature in the Firm. If he doesn't, then... it'll be five on one." Angora's grip tightened involuntarily. "Mama I can trust utterly."

The squire frowned at Angora’s explanation. “It only takes one person to report to the rest of the organization, and odds could quickly end up [I]much[/I] worse than one against five. I want to deal with the Firm, but I don’t want to take the risk of your father summoning assassins to kill my companions in their sleep unless I absolutely have to.”

"I swear that I will do all in my power to stop that from happening. Just as you swore to do something. An oath for an oath, right?" Angora gave a warm smile, despite the rain. "I'm still a member of the Firm... and no member of the Firm can harm another without inviting some serious consequences, right? You're allies of mine. Any strike against you is a strike against me... even if it's from father. Word gets out, his standing plummets quicker than a lead weight, right?"

He was not entirely sure how much he believed that being around Angora’s father was advisable, regardless of the girl’s assurances. After all, she had [I]just[/I] told him that they might have no choice but to face off against the Firm in the near future due to the likelihood of someone from the organization wanting to kill her. Just how was Angora’s membership in the Firm going to protect them if the Firm itself wanted her dead?
Besides, one oath was not worth the same as the other, just as not every man’s word had was equally valuable. The oath of someone who made their living and name on honor, like a knight, was generally considered much more trustworthy than that of a thieving murderess. He wanted to trust her, but... there were limits to how far he was willing to go on blind faith in the goodness of another alone. He had believed that the good in Annabelle would triumph over the evil haunting her, and his belief had nearly gotten all of them killed. His faith in the good in people was exactly the reason he had stepped down as leader back then and asked Aemoten to take his place.
“I think it’d be for the best if we stayed away from anyone affiliated with the Firm,” he told her after pondering the matter for a moment. “From what you’ve told me it just sounds much too dangerous, especially considering that you’re carrying an artifact that we know the Firm wants. If they come for you I’ll stop them, but I think it would be better not to taunt them until we’re fully ready to face them.”
Pausing, he finally shook his head. “Of course, Aemoten might think otherwise. We’ll see what he says when he rejoins the group.”

"If he rejoins." was all Angora could mumble in response. "I don't know if your other comrades will be as willing to hear me out as you have been. Well... I mean... you probably weren't willing. You know what, forget I said anything, let's just get to Zerul, yeah?"