Blackfridayrule

In Dark Seas We Sail

If Uban wasn't mistaken, Hana seemed slightly reserved as they stalked through the forest and chatted. Maybe reserved wasn't the right word. Embarrassed? Cold? Distracted? He couldn't put a finger on it exactly, but he was sure there was something there. Despite this, he did not press. After all, she was still new to them and he knew that not everyone was so open as he was about their life. So he let it go and didn't let it trouble him anymore."

"Soldier's wine, meant to be diluted? Oh, pity..." he said with mock disappointment. "Alas, whatever will this pirate do?" He flashed a grin and dumped his gatherings by the fire for her to use as she saw fit. Uban could fry bacon and was a master at butchering an animal, but he was a sore cook. A cool breeze wafted through and as Uban shivered slightly, he put his shirt back over his head. "I'm a truly miserable cook, but I can chop things," he said, pulling a knife from his belt and using it to slice the vegetables into a large pot. As he worked, he hummed to himself, but then he began to sing softly:

"Buried under my feet is a man I did meet
tally roo ta dai roo aah ayy!
He sullied my name so I put him to sleep
tally too ta dai roo aah ayy!

Buried under Oak Hill is a feller I killed
tally roo ta dai roo aah ayy!
I opened his throat for he looked at me ill
tally roo ta dai roo aah ayy!

Uban looked up at her with a shit-eating grin like he'd just told some great joke. "I wrote that in prison. The other inmates thought it was great fun, and a few of them would add their own verses, though I can't recall any of those."

Berlin and Pieter shuffled over then, the Captain with a drawn, sullen look on his face as he smoked his pipe. Berlin sat down, eying Uban. "You telling her the story of how you lost your finger?"
"No!" Uban said with a small laugh. "And so what if I was, anyway?"
"He's got a different tale for each person who asks," Berlin explained, his tone dry and distant, though there was a hint of humor there.
"I'll admit to nothing," the younger man said, though he was trying (and failing) to stifle a smile.

Uban studied Pieter and Berlin quietly for a moment before asking softly, "So...what's the matter?"
Berlin did not ask what made him guess something was amiss, he simply said, "Mm, you two missed it, that's right. Good news is I narrowly avoided a brawl between Rheoaan and Wheel. The bad news is I severely wounded Rheoaan's trust in me."
Uban, knowing, cringed a little. "How bad?"
"I won't know for sure till he comes back, but if you'd like to ask him, he's at the bottom of the damn ocean. And Wheel...you seen him? He's got thick skin in more ways than one, but he was no doubt irritated." Berlin sighed, then in a very informal tone he muttered, "Someone tell me we've got alcohol somewhere."

--

Rohaan watched the glimmering scales sparkle green in the sunlight (or was it blue..? Purple?) and once again felt himself drawn in. Not that he was thinking of it at the moment, but he could understand after this experience how even the most wary of sailors could be lured to their deaths by mermaids. He didn't blame them, either. But then she spoke and it snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked up just as she flowed away into the wide blue, her radiant hair streaking behind her like a furling banner.

And then she was gone.

Rohaan floated there for a few moments, watching where she'd gone before he even bothered to look at his quiet surroundings. They felt even quieter now without her there. Suddenly, he felt the ocean's chill as if for the first time and thought it might be nice to sit by a fire. He was blissfully drowsy, after all. So he skillfully surfaced, and after wiping his curls from off his face, he swam ashore. By the time he came close enough to see the expressions of his crewmates seated around the fire, he noticed Berlin's looked particularly tight and anxious. Rohaan didn't know it, but Berlin had expected him back at least two hours ago and had grown more worried and fretful as each additional hour passed. Rohaan looked up at the sky to find stars. Somehow that seemed darker than he thought it ought to have been, but it didn't trouble him.

The boy stepped into the firelight and found a place to sit beside Pieter. "I'm hungry. Is there food?" Was all he said to announce himself. Quite neutrally, Uban handed him some. Berlin (who released a great deal of his tension as soon as he saw him) was watching him, studying him, trying to gauge how best to proceed. He knew they had to air the issue, but he didn't want to force it either if the time wasn't right. Berlin thought that even as long as it had been, he was remarkably relaxed. He expected him to be sour and cold, but not quite so calm and cool as this. Briefly, he glanced to Pieter as if to say 'what did you do?'.

"Rheoaan..." Berlin began slowly, softly, like one would speak to a startled wild animal. "Will you come walk with me?"
Rohaan considered for a long while, then eventually took a final bite of food and stood, nodding. "Te."
Berlin was quietly relieved at his willingness to re-engage, but he made no sign of it. He led the boy along the beach, their toes occasionally slapping onto muddy, wet sand or were licked by the far reaches of broken waves. Where was he going to start...? How? He took a deep breath and tried, "You were gone an awful long time. You had me worried. Can I ask where you went?"
Rohaan blinked. "I was not. I was gone for only a little bit. Like maybe twenty minutes."
Berlin stared at him, concern written openly on his face. "No, Rheoaan. It's been hours. Don't you see the sky? It was afternoon when you left."
"Was it..?" He hadn't considered it, really. It hadn't mattered. He shrugged it off. "I didn't go nowhere. Just the reef."

Berlin had guessed when Pieter had gone off that he'd done something, and asking a favor of a mermaid was somewhere on that list of possibilities, but Berlin hadn't really thought that was the case. "Stars above.." he muttered. But he was strangely fortunate, and he didn't doubt that Pieter knew what he was doing when he asked a creature with powerful allure and a distracting nature to go find him. Rohaan was calm. He was not the skittish, feral creature Berlin expected him to be, and this would make things much easier. "You know I'm sorry, right?" When Rohaan looked up at him with a sort of dubious expression, Berlin continued, "I am. Truly. I never meant to do that. You know me. You know I wouldn't."
With an injured tone, Rohaan asked, "Then why did you?"

Whatever reply Berlin thought he had at the ready came out in a deflated sigh. The question was direct and both sought understanding and was accusatory at the same time. He deserved that, he supposed. "I...I guess I was scared. And so I did it without realizing what I was doing until after I'd done it."
"You were scared?"
Berlin almost gave a laugh, but he held it in. "Yes! Old men like me are scared sometimes too. Everyone has something. I fear seeing the two of you tear each other apart, or the rest of us in your attempt. I panicked, and I'm truly sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Rohaan considered it for a long, long moment. Long enough to make Berlin sweat. But finally the boy sighed and said, "Yeah, I guess so. I'm still kinda mad at you though. Just a little."
The man nodded, hiding a small smile. "I deserve that."

The two walked and talked for a long while, and Rohaan told him of the mermaid he met beneath the waves with a kind of reverent awe. They talked of the day's training, and of the mission ahead of them. And finally, Berlin coaxed him to tell the full story of his brush with the Barizians two years ago. It was a heartbreaking tale; if it weren't for Berlin's naturally cool and impassive demeanor, he might have been much more visibly distraught. But he saved that for himself for later where he could process the gravity of it. It explained some things, and not for the first time Berlin was glad that he'd been the one to find him. Berlin knew that those hurts could callous over into bitterness, and bitterness into hate. Rohaan would always hate the Barizians and that was just fine by Berlin. But if that had been his first real encounter with humans, and if he'd been left to his own devices (assuming he survived) the combination of power and hate would form a true monster, one that would give truth to all the tales told about vokurians and their horror.

Not this one, he thought.

The moon was very high when they returned, and though the tension between them seemed to have faded, Rohaan still wanted his space for the night. Berlin understood this without question and simply sat down beside Pieter with one arched eyebrow and whispered, "Mermaids..?" His tone was mockingly reproachful, but his eyes, his true and honest eyes showed thankfulness. That had been far easier than he expected.

Rohaan sat beside Uban and with the man as a buffer between them, he occasionally snuck glances over him at Hana. He did not feel in the mood to engage tonight, but there was a lot to be learned from watching.

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So actually here’s what I was thinking:

ThenAzurei are physically the ones doing the attacking. But they’ve been put up to it by a bigger clandestine faction of government. The fact that Azurei was involved will be readily apparent to Ridahne and likely to others that were at the scene, and they become the obvious bad guys. But our characters discover it’s more than that. There’s something bigger happening.

Which means that if they get taken in, there are two options:

1: the low level government that gets hold of them does not know about the conspiracy and pegs them with the incident out of genuine belief that hey did it.

2: they know. And they’re using our three as pawns to throw under the bus as if to prove to the public that something is being done, when really they’re keeping people from the truth.

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YAAAAS I support this idea. I would equally love a daring escape or for them to get captured, get interrogated with some unsatisfactory results, and then have them escape. it would give them a reason to stick together, too. sort of a 'we're all in this together' kind of deal.

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"Excuse me, Azurei, do you mind if I sit?" An elderly man gestured to the chair across from Ridahne. It was polite to address an Azurei as such if their name or title was unknown; the custom was reflective of a kind of unity the desert nation held, a notion that they were all one. More than that, it was a reminder to the Azurian in question that they, in that moment, represented their nation as a whole.
Ridahne blinked. She didn't generally give of the sort of vibe of a person others would want to approach, so when people did with any kind of politeness, it usually took her aback. Normally she would have outright refused, preferring to be left alone. But the shop was packed, and hers was only one of a few available seats. She studied him with her honey eyes, looking stately and serious despite the casual setting, then eventually nodded and said, "A'ea."

The man lowered himself to a sitting position slowly and with great care, and he was quickly served the hot milky tea. "I was once stationed in Azurei, you know." He said this with a soft smile, and she knew right away he was a veteran of the Ten Years War.
"Where?"
"High Khaileda."
Ridahne gave a very small smile, hidden behind her mug. "Poor bastard. Khaileda eats men alive if they do not know her."
"Yes..we lost many to her slopes. The locals were like ghosts, the way they just appeared and disappeared."
"We get that a lot," she said. And it was true. Azurei had never been known to have a forceful, large military. But they were efficient, trained, and disciplined, and they knew their lands.

The man idly watched the screen, sipped his tea, then looked back to her. "Can I ask where you are from?"
"You can. Atakhara."
"Ah...the wastes..."
"And the sea," she defended quickly. "But yes. The wastes also."
"Can I ask what brings you all the way here?"
"No." Ridahne's reply was flat, cold, and unmoving as stone. Her eyes did not meet his.
The man gave a slow, understanding nod. "Well. Whatever your reasons, it is good to see one of yours here, Azurei. Today, I mean. I know it's not...I know things didn't end as well for the Azurei as they did for some others, and I'm happy to see at least some of you here, even if it's not many. And...well, especially seeing an Eija, it's--"

Ridahne's gaze turned from guarded to cold and heavy. The man could feel it pressing down on him like a pile of stones as she straightened a little in her seat, showing (even while sitting) just how tall she was. Bright, fiery eyes bored out from a tapestry of tan skin and tricolored tattoos with all the fury of a dog showing her teeth.
"Do not presume to know me."
He could feel the chill in her tone. "I'm sorry, I just thought you had that air, I didn't mean--" An even sharper glare cut him off as she rose, finishing her drinks in long gulps before slamming them back down on the table. And whoosh. She was gone, leaving the old man alone at the table blinking and regretting his boldness.

Every so often, Ridahne could be lured into surface level chats with strangers, but personal talk was off the board. There were a lot of things she didn't want to talk about, much less reveal to strangers. Why people felt the need to pry was beyond her. She was walking now, briskly and without much direciton. She just needed to blow off steam a bit. Her head down, she moved fast through the crowd with a graceful efficiency that came with lots of practice. She did this for a while, but then something stopped her. It was nothing tangible, no sound or sight in particular that set her off, but something wasn't right. She could feel it in her bones. Ridahne looked around, but nothing exactly jumped out at her. What was it?

She caught a distant glimpse of another taja (one of two, for they always moved in pairs) and turned her face away so it could not be seen, though she didn't make a run for it, as they were too far off and focused on something else to pay her any mind. But that brought up another question that she'd failed to think of earlier: what were taja doing here? She could understand the presence of eija in a ceremonial sense, but taja could not be bothered with such trivialities as that. They were elite, the small and personal army of the Sota-Sol herself, or of any one of her five Sila-Sol beneath her. And never once had Ridahne ever heard of any of the Sol attending the Armistice festival. Never once.

A low, cold panic began to set in her stomach. She didn't know why, but she had a very bad feeling about them being there. Her training kicked in, then, and a strong sense of self preservation screamed over anything else she might be thinking.

It was time to go.

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Oh also yeah, feel free to toss stuff up onto the discord whenver for practice. Also don't focus so much on volume, focus more on substance :) that's really all you need. The rest will come naturally.

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Ridahne at least is in the thick of things. When the bomb goes off, she’ll make it out without serious injury but she’ll be like....in it. Plus people will try and tackle her, thinking she’s a culprit, so she has SO much motivation to flee the scene.

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*poke*

In Dark Seas We Sail

“Humble..?” The word caught Uban off guard for a moment, as if he hadn’t ever pinned that word to himself in any capacity. But with a moment’s thought, he seemed to accept the notion, then snorted derisively. “In Oak Hill? No. Unata as a whole is a kind of...err...rustic kingdom, as they go. But it’s got its urban spots and they got schools for learned folk. Nothing like yours, of course. But Oak Hill is very far from all that. We’re a simple folk. But that doesn’t make a man humble.” Uban gave a humorless chuckle. “Ho no. To be honest, i wasn’t always humble, myself. After all, humble men don’t get into deadly barfights over women and honor and pissing contests.” He smiled. And without a hint of self consciousness he continued, “Being locked in a stone box for two years changes your perspective on things though. Gives you a lot of time for thinking about your life, and once the shock of everything wears away, you start asking questions of the world. Wondering where stars came from or what draws the tides in and out. Those are not questions a farmer asks. He is too busy plowing his fields and feeding his livestock.”

Uban gave an easy shrug and an even easier smile. “I did find answers to a lot of those questions since I met Berlin. And pretty soon, once you see the world, you begin to realize how small you are. And if I don’t know about erm...particles in the air, well...” another shrug. “Not like it’s any fault of mine. I grew up a farmer. What was I supposed to do? Teach myself to read instead of doing my chores?” He looked at her, an almost childlike honesty in his still slightly gold-toned green eyes. “Lemme tell you, I done me a fair share of bemoaning my life and the choices I’ve made, stewing on the regrets I have. I have borne my shame until I simply learned to abandon it altogether. What’s left is quite nice, actually.” Another easy smile. Uban smiled so often and so quickly, it was almost like a reflex for him. Yet not one of them seemed disingenuous.

Uban helped her gather food as they stalked through the forest. He peeled out of his shirt and used it like a sack, filling it with mushrooms, tubers, and some chance herbs. This once more exposed his scars and his one crudely done tattoo to the open air, making him look more hard around the edges than he usually did. Hana bumped him and he staggered, laughing. “Elbari wine, you say! I ain’t never been to Elbar or had their wine, you’ll have to enlighten me.” His grin was devilish. “Is it strong?” He asked hopefully.

—-

Rohaan watched the sway of her hair in the soft, undulating current like a child dazedly watching a smooth pendulum. Back and forth. Back and forth. It spread around her like his own tentacles did around his soft body, swishing around gently.

Distantly, Rohaan recalled swinging from a hammock between two palm trees, sturdy and steadfast as mountain peaks. A fresh salty breeze cooled his skin and tickled the palm fronds above him to make a light hissing that sang in harmony with the lapping waves. A little bell chimed with each gust, the windchime adding its clear peals to the symphony. And somewhere nearby there was the sound of a woman humming, and of a man splitting wood.

He suddenly felt very drowsy. He could have easily have dozed off, anchored to a rock only by a set of suction cups on one tentacle, but she spoke again and her musical tone snapped him back into awareness. She had a lovely voice, like the sound a flower would make if it could sing.

She invited him to come touch her glimmering tail, and he found himself wanting to dearly. He did not approach strangers, let alone make physical contact if he could help it, though that didn’t seem to apply here. He knew also that octopus tentacles were marvelous for grabbing, but not for feeling. He wanted to know the true nature of how those smooth, glittering scales felt, so he reverted to his natural form and swam comfortably and easily to her. Rohaan had free-dived since he was a babe, so his ability to hold his breath was exceptional. Still, even he needed to breathe and so when he needed to, he shifted briefly to an octopus again to take a few breaths, then back again.

Rohaan’s blonde curls splayed about his head like hers, though his was shorter, wilder, and far less elegant. Without much hesitation, he reached out and petted her scales like one would the velvety nose of a horse. She was right. They were soft, not like he’d expected them to be at all. As he stroked them, he asked, “What’s your name? Mine is Rohaan.” If that was not proof of a mermaid’s mystical powers, then nothing was. Rohaan did not give his second name to any stranger. Even a crew member like Hana. Yet she had earned it in the space of a second.

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an uri is like a sarong. It’s a unisex garment but they are styled slightly differently depending on gender. Loose fitting, practical, a light fabric. Often in shades of blue, black, gray, or occasionally coppery red, though that would be like their equivalent of forest colors to blend in with the desert and are less common as something worn casually.

Women might wear a kind of half shirt like ridahne’s, men are sometimes seen in loose shirts or with none at all.

But that’s all traditional garb, so some might also be in jeans and a t shirt really. Most will have silver piercings in the ears/nose. The right ear is traditionally gauged and depending on the shape and material of the jewelry worn in it, it signifies region and family origins. All have facial tattoos—-they’re called ojih. Most have other body tats too. Dark russet/olive toned skin, golden eyes, black hair.

Also taja are a particular branch of the military—a tiny elite force. Common Azurei military is called eija.

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Hurricane! Goodness. Well here’s to hoping that doesn’t happen!