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[img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220927/23fb834f443fddf069b302a80ffae13a.png[/img]
[img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/220927/713c9ea7f90a3bccf2680492bc93671a.png[/img]
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[h3]...Feat. [color=228B22][b]Iyen[/b][/color][/h3]
[color=1E90FF][b]Time[/b]:[/color] Evening
[color=1E90FF][b]Location[/b]:[/color] Banquet Hall
[color=1E90FF][b]Interactions[/b]:[/color] Kalliope [@Tae]
[color=1E90FF][b]Mentions[/b]:[/color] Killian [@Oso]; Alibeth [@Princess]
[color=1E90FF][b]Appearance:[/b][/color] [url=https://i.postimg.cc/Fzw1wZ8n/alkalinestingray-Portrait-of-a-South-east-Asian-Chinese-sailor-52c337e9-3211-44db-8828-5fdc1044bd39.png]Sjan-dehk[/url]
[color=1E90FF][b]Attire[/b]:[/color] [url=https://i.postimg.cc/0QCZ6rQj/alkalinestingray-Watercolour-painting-of-an-outfit-for-a-male-s-312f5cf8-c1fd-4b90-8f64-d292f9b1da7f.png]Sjan-dehk[/url]
[color=1E90FF][b]Equipment:[/b][/color] 
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Sjan-dehk:
[color=1E90FF]Sword and pistol hanging down his right thigh[/color]
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[color=#8D3B72][i]“You’re important to me too.”[/i][/color]

[color=#8D3B72][i]“But not of you. Never of you.”[/i][/color]

She did it so naturally, so effortlessly. It almost felt unfair.

With just those few, simple words, spoken in that silk-soft, flower-sweet, and yet steel-strong voice of hers, and in a tone as gentle as a breeze at dawn’s breaking, Kalliope had lifted the weight that’d been sitting on Sjan-dehk’s shoulders, as if it were naught but a mere clutch of feathers.

Well, most of it, at least. There were still one or two things whispering from the edges of his mind, but they weren’t much more than vague murmurs, and easily ignored. He couldn’t focus on them even if he wanted to, anyway. Not with how her slender fingers brushed so lightly against his wrist with their warm touch. Not when she had that look upon her face—that subtle smile, that expression that reflected both an inscrutable mystery, and yet also a raw openness that tantalised with a silent invitation. He saw her lips part, as if she had more to say.

Or perhaps it was time [i]he[/i] said something? 

What could he say, though?

Or rather, [i]how[/i] could he say what he wanted to say? For deep in his heart, he already knew that he wished for nothing more than to share with her the confusing mess of emotions that’d been troubling him since the start of the banquet and, if he dared admit it, that’d been growing since the day he first met her. He wanted to tell her that he felt…Things for her. Things he neither knew, nor could name. Things that he wasn’t even sure if it was [i]right[/i] for him to feel. 

But they were things he wasn’t sure he could hide for much longer. He shouldn’t be hiding them in the first place, not from Kalliope. She had every right to know. 

In short, he wanted to tell her everything, and come what may.

But not here. Those words, and whatever consequences they wrought, had to be kept between the two of them. They were to be said far from any prying ears or watchful eyes; far from any rumour-monger, or any would-be gossip. 

And so, Sjan-dehk cleared his throat, and made to ask Kalliope whether they could meet some other time, at a more secluded place. But before he could get a word out, the banquet hall’s doors swung open with a low, grinding groan. He looked towards the source of the sound.

Immediately, his lips curled in a frown, his eyes narrowed, and whatever light-heartedness that’d filled him vanished, replaced by a mix of unease and displeasure.

A man walked in. Tall, sharp-eyed, and moving with the sort of languid, relaxed confidence that suggested some degree of skill in some form of combat art. But Sjan-dehk didn’t think him important—not enough for him to give the man more than a few, mere seconds of attention before shifting his gaze to the person who shambled in after him. The lady in a tattered dress, bound and gagged, bound by chains, and dragged into the hall as if she were nothing more than livestock to be put on display.

Sjan-dehk’s jaw tightened. What, by the Abyss, was going on here? What was this man playing at?

[color=228B22][i]“What the fuck is this?”[/i][/color] Iyen’s whispered words, a hiss laden with venom, echoed his thoughts. 

[color=1E90FF][i]“I don’t know,”[/i][/color] Sjan-dehk replied darkly. [color=1E90FF][i]“But I don’t fucking like it.”[/i][/color]

[color=228B22][i]“Shadowed Green help me, I’ve half-a-mind to teach these uncivilised cunts some manners.”[/i][/color]

[color=1E90FF][i]“You want to fight every guard in here, and out there?”[/i][/color] Sjan-dehk asked sharply and shot Iyen a glare that was just as pointed. [color=1E90FF][i]“We’re good, but not that good. Kills me to say it, but we can’t do anything but sit here with our thumbs up our arses, for now.”[/i][/color]

Iyen scowled and folded her arms across her chest. [color=228B22][i]“Would be worth a try,”[/i][/color] she said. [color=228B22][i]“Lady Adiyan’s going to want to know about this, I’m sure.”[/i][/color]

Sjan-dehk nodded. [color=1E90FF][i]“Let’s see what else we can find–”[/i][/color]

He stopped abruptly when he felt Kalliope give his hand a squeeze. [color=1E90FF][i]“Kali?”[/i][/color] He asked, looking back at her, concern etched upon his features. She let go of him, her hand dropping into her lap, and although her face was impassive, and her expression had hardly changed, Sjan-dehk’s instincts told him that something was wrong. Something, or someone, had done something to Kalliope. He noticed her eyes fixed upon the man, upon the bound woman. Were they part of the danger Kalliope had been so worried about?

[color=1E90FF][i]“Kali?”[/i][/color] Sjan-dehk repeated, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. 

[color=#8D3B72][i]“Stay close,”[/i][/color] was all she said.

That didn’t make Sjan-dehk feel any better, or make him worry any less, but still he nodded. [color=1E90FF][i]“I’ve no plans to be anywhere else, Kali,”[/i][/color] he said. He squeezed her shoulder again, his hand never leaving her. It was as if he was trying to will a sense of calm into her through that physical link. [color=1E90FF][i]“If anything happens, or if you’re going to do anything, I…I mean, we won’t leave you alone. We’ll be right behind you.”[/i][/color]

[color=228B22][i]“Please, someone start something,”[/i][/color] Iyen grumbled.

[color=1E90FF][i]“Quiet,”[/i][/color] Sjan-dehk snapped, right as the Queen started to explain the sight before them. The man followed suit with his own words. 

And Sjan-dehk had to be honest, he would be hard-pressed to think of greater load of nonsense he’d ever had the displeasure of hearing. 

Even if the bound woman had indeed committed a crime, what was the point of putting her on display? An act of intimidation? Or perhaps reassurance? Neither was particularly good. If it was the former, then there was the question of just why the Crown saw a need to intimidate its own people, and even dignitaries from Caesonia’s neighbours. If it was the latter, then surely it suggested that law and order in the Kingdom was in a state so dismal that even its upper echelons of society needed reminders that lawbreakers were being made to face justice.

[color=1E90FF][i]“Raging currents beneath, calm waters above; such is good governance,”[/i][/color] Sjan-dehk recited in a low, quiet mutter. Then, realising that Kalliope might have heard him, he cleared his throat and quickly followed it up with an explanation. [color=1E90FF][i]“Ah, sorry. That’s a quote from [/i]The Book of Dialogues[i]. It’s an old Viserjantan text.”[/i][/color]

The man’s words were just as laughable, but they were also a greater cause for concern.

For one, Sjan-dehk thought it ridiculous that he claimed that this wasn’t a spectacle. What else could it be, to drag a poor woman, bound and gagged, through a crowd of nobles, if not a spectacle? If not to prove a point, to make an example? 

Then, there were his words about magic. About how he saw it as corruption, how he saw it as—in his own words—an ultimate threat to his kind. One could almost believe that he didn’t see those able to commune with the arcane as people. Such words weren’t unfamiliar to Sjan-dehk, albeit in his experience they were aimed not at magic as a whole, but at specific groups of peoples in the Commonwealth. Suffice to say, the ones who spread such vitriol were no friends of his. He'd put many of them in early graves, in fact, and they were probably one of the few groups he would have no qualms of fighting and killing.

[color=1E90FF][i]“They hunt the arcane here, it seems,”[/i][/color] he said in a low voice, glancing sideways at Kalliope, quietly asking for confirmation, and the look in his eyes telling her that he wished to be proven wrong. [color=1E90FF][i]“Magic’s seen as a threat of some kind. This bastard talks as if it’s a disease to be wiped out.”[/i][/color]

[color=228B22][i]“Fuck him, then,”[/i][/color] Iyen growled. [color=228B22][i]“And all of his friends. We shouldn’t have anything to do with these fucking primitives. Let them drown in their own uncivilised filth for all I fucking care.”[/i][/color]

[color=1E90FF][i]“Iyen!”[/i][/color] Sjan-dehk snapped.

Iyen looked across at Kalliope. [color=228B22][i]“No offense,”[/i][/color] she said half-heartedly. 

Sjan-dehk shot her a look, then turned to Kalliope. [color=1E90FF][i]“Iyen’s people have…Strong opinions about what your people call ‘magicae’,”[/i][/color] he said. [color=1E90FF][i]“A lot of us in the Commonwealth do. We don’t…Well, the arcane is not to be treated like a disease, and the people who can use them are, well, people like us. The idea of…Doing what that man says is just…Well, wrong, to put it simply.”[/i][/color]

That was also putting it lightly.

Just by announcing his intent to eradicate the arcane, this man, this close-minded, short-sighted, and—as Iyen put it—primitive man, had made himself, and his ilk, an enemy-by-obligation of many, many peoples of the Commonwealth. Jafins such as Sjan-dehk, Sudhrayarns such as Iyen, and Sedarahans such as Yasawen, amongst them. And by extension, that made all of the Commonwealth an enemy to these self-proclaimed hunters of the arcane. 

Sjan-dehk shook his head. Lady Adiyan certainly needed to hear of this. And things certainly just got a lot more complicated.