[h1][color=yellow]Otios'yyia'thala[/color] & [color=c4df9b]Talit'yrash'osmax[/color][/h1]
[sub]Location: On the march from Loriindton to the town of Belfleur[/sub]
[sub]A collaboration between [@Tackytaff] and [@Fetzen][/sub]
[hr]

Their departure was hurried.  Talit had hoped for time alone, a short reprieve to level herself - come to terms with the events of the past few days.  But of course she couldn’t leave everyone behind. Otios and Jaxan left the city with her the same day as the funeral.  Adric and Esmiin both stayed behind to help organize the battalions and give directions when they followed.  Their presence was replaced by a dervish named Tantor, a thickly muscled man who barely reached six feet in height.  None made complaint of the hard and fast pace Talit set. They rose early, ate rations on horseback, and barely had the energy to set up camp before sleeping at night. On the third day, however, her horse lost a shoe. The animal needed binding from Talit while another remade a new shoe. It was in this one quiet moment of respite that Otios approached her. She’d known she couldn’t hold out on explaining forever, but her mouth still went dry and muscles tense with nerves.  

“I suppose you have questions.”  She turned to face him before he had the chance to speak, her eyes scanned the others in their small party.  “The others can finish with this, follow me,” She added, moving with as much speed as possible around where they’d latched the horses and upwards of a nearby stream where the running water would help cover their hushed tones.  

“What do you want to know?” Her crutches receded into the wood of the tree she leaned against, arms folded as she finally looked Otios in the eye.

Otios had been rather silent for the first days of their journey, but at least the most erratic parts of his newfound electromagnetism had found their way back under his control again. He no longer delivered serious electric shocks to anyone and anything conductive he came in touch with including himself, but any compass needle laying around in his vicinity would still go haywire in the entangled mess of fields invisibly surrounding him.

[color=yellow]"How about everything for a start ?"[/color] Otios snapped back. He still felt the surge of adrenaline and aggression inside him, originating from a source he himself completely failed to identify. He didn't want to come across this rude, but frankly had not so much control over his own mood at this point.

[color=yellow]"Okay, first things first. Do you happen to know what happened to Lyen ? I have very much ruled out the possibility of her still being alive in the prison for then some sort of trial would have continued, and I also don't think she'd ever decide to stroll around in the wilderness lonely when we are actually the only one's believing in her innocence. So I've spent the last few days blaming myself for her death in Eskandr hands, imagining that she was taken completely by surprise in her cell and never had a chance to decide whether she wanted to engage or make a run for it."[/color]

Otios folded his arms in front of his chest and his tone became a tad darker.

[color=yellow]"The more I am able to think clearly again however, the more I realize that a prison is just as good at keeping unwanted guests out as it is good at keeping desired guests in and that by far not all of Loriindton was even affected by the attack. So somebody must have liberated her and she died outside, right ? I did have a very good spot to observe things on a high tree though and neither me nor those around me up there did see her fighting. So I'm finding myself pretty dumbfounded and wondering…"[/color]

Talit listened worlessly, watching closely as her companion's frustrations surfaced, barely contained. To be directed where? Had it not been his hand that picked and placed the poison that started it all? One more lie, she conceded to herself. A final retelling, and then she could forget.  Her hand trailed down to the folded seam at the end of her stump.

[color=c4df9b]"I killed her."[/color] She said simply, honestly, but her shoulders remained rigid and chest tight. [color=c4df9b]"I had hoped she would use the distraction to escape - to flee Loriindton. But,"[/color]  Her head shook, and for a brief moment, she drops her gaze from Otios; entranced by a loosened stitch between her fingers before looking up again.

[color=c4df9b]"She was [i]angry[/i], vengeful even, or maybe just paranoid."[/color] Talit shrugged. [color=c4df9b]"My stories about the time walker... Unsettled her.  And when she found Dyric-" [/color] That part did catch in her throat. Stupid, thoughtless Dyric.  Dead and nourishing the trees of their home. [color=c4df9b]"She killed him. Then the timewalker."[/color] She splayed her hands to Otios. [color=c4df9b]"I didn't want to, but she was worsening her case. [i]Perrence's[/i] case. And my brother..."[/color] The tears that pricked her eyes were real, and she let them stay. If he was going to interrogate her, she would make it as difficult as possible. [color=c4df9b]“I had no choice.”[/color]

Otios felt the ground beneath his feet disappearing and plunging into a free fall. Had Lady Talit lost her mind right now as she told him all that, or had she lost her mind the moment she had actually witnessed and done all that she was telling him about ? He had not really known Lyen very well, just from the joint fight against the Eskand around Relouse and then from their subsequent journey, but extrapolating from that, the maledict having gone on a killing spree was uncomfortably far off the way.

A bit too uncomfortably. The Yasoi’s eyes narrowed into slits as he took considerable moments to think about his next words: [color=yellow]"How does one just kill a time walker ? She was able to foresee what I was about to do with the Eskand army minutes before I actually did it. So how did Lyen kill her ?"[/color] Not that time walking would have been required to get sort of an advance warning if Lyen had indeed killed another person just moments before, but Otios didn’t mention that.

[color=c4df9b]"How should I know?"[/color] Talit said back, her voice betraying her weariness. [color=c4df9b]"Why would she let a monster take my leg? Even timewalkers have to die eventually..."[/color] She trailed off, looking upward at the foliage. They were nearly out of the forest now, the sky was visible through the canopies. 

[color=c4df9b]"There were signs,"[/color] She finally said, if he wouldn't let this go she'd at least give him someone else to focus suspicions on. [color=c4df9b]"Or maybe I saw glimpses of her- Rae, a greyborn I knew from Loriindton. She was in the timewalker's home too.  I know it. Maybe she helped."[/color]

Otios looked up into the skies as well, initially suspecting that there was indeed something important to see. He couldn’t find anything though, so his eyes were back on Talit again. [color=yellow]”How should you know ? I was under the firm impression that your eyesight is still perfectly intact, so… Did Lyen stab her ? Did she poison her ? Did she shoot her with some projectile, magically or not ? Or no, I already know the answer: The timewalker fell off her balcony or out the window somehow.”[/color]

Otios felt suspicion inside him reaching new levels. That had been a very simple question, yet Talit had made a verbal detour out of it without actually providing a real answer. Should he pin her on that right away ? The Yasoi opted against it, even though his mimic clearly told a story about how nonsensical, yet intriguing he deemed her answer to be.

[color=yellow]”Well, the timewalker’s been an ignoramus, I agree. She could have done so many things differently using her knowledge, but she did just watch. You very much distrusted her from the very beginning, otherwise you wouldn’t have tried to send me to uncover whatever dirt I can find around her. You sold me that whole thing as if it was about trying to prove Lyen’s innocence and liberate her, but… Was that really just about that ? The mentioning of your leg very much sounded as if you’d hold a very personal grudge, too.”[/color]

It made no sense – or rather it did only make sense in a way Otios really didn’t like…

[color=c4df9b]“What answers are you looking for Otios?”[/color] Talit looked down to meet his gaze again.  [color=c4df9b]“I went to the time walker's home only to find her and my brother’s bodies laying outside it.  My friend still standing high in the tree home looking down.  There was nothing else to be done.”[/color]

[color=yellow]”Answers to questions I’m asking myself since I know about Lyen’s death and have seen a few other things. Answers I hoped would ultimately confirm or falsify that I alone am guilty of it.”[/color] The rogue made a brief pause and his eyes turned down towards the grass around their feet. [color=yellow]”It seems I have found them.”[/color] he added, deliberately leaving behind the vagueness in his words. The answers, they had both improved and worsened his situation. Lady Talit ? His mind silently assigned her a new status – that of a volatile variable he should not turn his back towards all too frequently.

“So glad I could sate your curiosity.” Talit replied with venom. She began drawing crutches again, the others were sure to be finishing up at least, and she hardly trusted them to come looking for her; more likely they were taking her absence as time to rest.

“It was an ugly thing, what happened.  But it’s done now.” She managed to keep pace with the taller, two-legged man with surprising ease.  “All that left to focus on Eskandr and the war.”  She nodded along with herself, not even looking up at her companion anymore.  “We have a Yasoi army with us now.  Have to prove their faith in us isn’t misplaced.”