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 Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 11:42 pm
"Fine," he said, his tone once again resigned, "maybe he's still alive." Under his breath he said, "I doubt it."
She slapped him, except it didn't hurt like he thought it would. It was actually... Kind of nice, he thought. First a kiss, then a slap. What next?
"Well," he said, grinning, "I'm not moping, but if that's what gets me a beer, I'll mope all day. Get me something strong."
Two days left to live seemed harsh, but he didn't bring it up. He would never die, and she would. He wondered if he could make her Immortal.
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 11:55 pm
Charging her way to the bar, Jóna replied matter-of-factly, "The day after tomorrow are my trials. I'm getting tossed in a cage into the mouth of a cave with something truly evil inside. My odds of survival are pretty low. I didn't even start training until last winter, and even now I'm terrible. So I'm going to die, like most elven youths before me." She smiled cheerfully. "But no moping. Especially not you, mage." She fixed Lance sternly with her finger, following it up with a cheeky grin.
At the bar, she waved to the waitress, deliberating what to get. "Pitchers of ale, if you please."
She didn't let it show, but the thought of the trails made her mouth go dry and her knees start to shake. She didn't want to die alone in a damp, endless cave system. Her heart squeezed and her palms dampened as she imagined it over and over again.
That what was the drink was for. To make it better.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 12:02 am
"I thought I was being sent to my death, but I ended up here instead," Riasha says slowly to Jóna. "I was going through the door of my cell, but the rest of the castle wasn't on the other side; this place was." She shakes her head. "I don't know what that means, but I'm glad I'm not dead yet." She looks the woman over. "If these trials keep killing the young elves, why do they keep going into them?" she asks, innocently enough.
Lance gets a funny look. Riasha really hadn't expected that a slap would cheer anybody up, much less the magical fellow. There's something about him she just doesn't understand, but she can't quite put a finger on it.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 6:23 am
"You could still live," Lance said, ignoring the human girl.
Pouring some of the ale, he drank it down fast before the taste could stick around in his mouth. Grinning at the decent quality of the alcohol, he found himself drinking more. He didn't want the human to start drinking because he figured she might be a sad drunk. And he. Well, he was getting happier by the moment.
"You don't have to be the best," he found himself saying well after his third cup. "You just gotta win, right? So outsmart the damned thing. Who knows. Maybe it's a cat. Just eat it then."
His stomach gurgled with bubbles, but he couldn't be feeling better. Stretching his arms over his head, he breathed a happy sigh.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 12:46 pm
Jòna raised her glass in a toast to the confused young girl. "Well, here is to being alive for today. That's all we can ask for, right?" After gulping about half of her pint, she lowered it with a sigh and topped it off with some from the pitcher. "It's an ancient tradition to thin the weak and unworthy. I could choose not to do the trials and live another good twenty or thirty years until my natural life ran out, but I...I don't know. I guess I'm crazy. I guess I want my heritage or to die trying, even if the odds for death are stacked so high."
Her stomach clenched achingly. She hated thinking about her options, but she wasn't a coward. She would go into death with open arms.
She summoned up a grin from deep inside of her to cast toward Lance. "If only. The cave complex contains a Grootslang. Giant snake bigger than the ancient trees that touch the sky and faster and smarter than the queen herself. There is a way to escape his den without ever even facing him, but I'm probably not clever enough to figure out what it is. I'm going to do what I always do. Close my eyes, charge ahead down the middle with complete disregard to strategy and tactics, and...well, probably die."
This was why she had disappointed every tutor she ever had. She was awful at using her head. Nor was she particularly strong or fast. She didn't have the natural athleticism of her father or the brains of her mother. Her older siblings had gotten those traits in spades, and yet the trials defeated them all.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 2:26 pm
"I was adopted," Riasha said to Jòna quietly. "But that never bothered me growing up; I have no memory of my real parents, so for most of my life, my adoptive family was my heritage, and I knew exactly where I stood with them." She shakes her head. "Now, I'm not sure. The man who came for me, he works for people who think I'm something important." By the tone of her voice, it's clear she doubts this. "At least you know what you want to do, and what's expected of you, even if it's to die. Then you can make a decision based on what you know. I don't even know what they want from me." She shakes her head. "Maybe you'll take the creature by surprise with such a blunt tactic," she says hopefully.
Then she looks over at the man. She goes over and sits beside him, approaching him from the side of his dark eye. "I don't understand you," she says. "The first impressions you gave were of kindness, but then you turned so blunt. I'm not sure what to make of this," she states candidly, making an open gesture with her arms.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:13 pm
Lance cocked his head, and said, "Well. What if you could never die? What would that battle be like, I wonder?"
His eyes automatically went to his tattoos on his body. It wouldn't be too difficult. Just some ink and a little ritual, and she would live forever, just the way he would live forever. And with a little magic, that snake wouldn't be so tough to beat.
He inwardly sighed at the human girl's talk of adoption. What did that even have to do with anything, he thought. Humans had a strange knack of dragging their personal stuff into other folks' issues. His expression remained blank.
To the human, he said, "I think it would be best not to analyze my behavior."
Slightly irritated, he drank more ale.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:38 pm
Taking the pitcher, Jóna filled a tall mug for the girl and passed it over to her, hoping that a drink might relax her a little bit. "Maybe you are something important," she suggested with a bright smile. "And better yet, if you don't know what's expected of you, do something unexpected. Be creative." She thunked the girl in the center of her forehead with her slim index finger. "Use this and take them all by surprise."
They two didn't seem to understand the trials and she realized she had explained it poorly. "The point of the trials is to survive, not to kill. You can't defeat the Grootslang. There is no killing it. There are two passable exits from its den. When I'm sent in, I'm expected to walk out of either of them. I simply have to get survive that far."
The man talked of immortality and she wondered what he know. Curiosity piqued, she cocked her head and studied him. "This is the whole point of the trials. As long as I can keep myself alive, I earn the right to never die." Of course, she had to continue keeping herself alive long after the trials ended, but from that point forward she would be permitted to claim and consume hearts to extend her lifespan for as long as her body contained breath.
Smiling again, she also used the pitcher to top off his glass.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:54 pm
"Bend the rules a little," he scoffed, draining his mug of ale once again. "Is there anything saying you can't already be completely immortal before you enter? Show off a little and walk out unscathed."
Hell, that's what he'd do, at the very least. He drank a little more, feeling a little tipsy. But at least it was a good distraction.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:58 pm
Jóna frowned toward Lance. "What would be the godsbedamned point of going in if I was already immortal?" she shot back, taking another long swallow of ale. It sat warm in her belly, which was nice, considering how chilly the building felt to the climate she was accustomed to.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 4:09 pm
Expecting a human to not be human is...an exercise in futility. Especially since humans seem to have such a variety between them. Oh well. Besides, this particular human is not from the same world as Lance. "I wasn't analyzing it. I was just saying that I didn't understand it," she says meekly, bowing her head in contrition.
Blinking, she goes faintly cross-eyed as though she's trying to look up to where she was jabbed in the forehead. "I don't think they have the patience for me to try anything too far fetched. They're part of a rebellion, trying to overthrow a tyrant. A lot of people say he is completely evil." She shudders. "I was about to find out personally if this was true right before I came here." Then she presses her lips together for a moment and tries to brighten her mood.
Smiling faintly, she takes the drink and looks somewhat surprised after having a sip. "This is rather cold," she notes with mild delight. ((Actually, I have no idea how ale is served; I don't drink RL)) "Usually we drink hot drinks." Taking another sip, she pays more attention to the taste this time around. Not her usual, but then, she wasn't generally offered alcohol at all. "Cold, but burns somehow," is her secondary assessment. "Thanks."
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 4:10 pm
"They wouldn't know that. If you had the chance to be the coolest person in your society, wouldn't you take it? That groot snake couldn't ever hurt you even if it wanted to," he said lightly. "You could do whatever you wanted. People would revere you. Wouldn't that be fun?"
He sipped more ale.
To the human, he said with a heavy tone, "I don't know your story, but I know mine well enough to know that it's hard for other people to understand. And I don't feel like talking about it, anyway. Drags the mood down."
His clouded eye focused lazily on the elf before it drifted off again as he considered that the human was doing a great job on her own of bringing the mood down in the room. Looking around with his black eye, he tried to think of something funny to say. His mind was numbing from alcohol.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 4:29 pm
Landing in a chair, bracing her feet up on the table in front of her, Jóna figured she wasn't going to get anywhere with the meek little Riasha. "Do what you have to do," she said with a shrug, taking another swallow of the bitter ale.
To Lance, she started laughing, genuinely amused by his persistence. "Oh, I would love to see anybody revere me, queen and all. Wouldn't that be the day! But that sounds like a bitter way to live. To take something by force that others rightly earn. A tempting notion, but one shadowed by loneliness. I think I would forever be jealous that the others went into the snake pit with fear in their bellies and yet emerged unharmed, where I went in and came out in out of some useless pattern of habit, untouchable, taking what I want instead of earning it through blood and sweat just as every one of my ancestors has done. That seems like the ultimate way to prove my unworthiness."
She took a long drink of ale, almost emptying her glass, growing annoyingly pensive.
"I might be afraid to a die, but I'm not so much of a coward that I would submit to that way to live."
Slamming her glass on the table, she clapped her hands together and rubbed them. "Let's talk about something more cheerful, then, eh?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 4:36 pm
"Have it your way," Lance said, shrugging. It didn't make any difference to him whether she lived or died.
He threw back more ale and followed up with, "Let's lighten this up. It's too serious in here."
He drummed his long fingers on the table as he thought of something to say. Chances were, she wouldn't understand any of his jokes as he didn't think they were too universal.
"What's up with the clothes?" He asked. The ale was taking over his mouth. "Looking for a husband?" He winked at her. He was joking. Or at least he hoped he was.
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