[PRP] We're a Long Way from Mishkan

[thyPOPE]

SETTING:

WHERE: Shyregoad, where the paths of two travelers headed in the same way cross.
WHEN: Winter melts slowly into spring; the day is a few hours past high noon.

with Scarlet Espostin and Leander di Laurentis  

[thyPOPE]

There was a word for what Leander di Laurentius had been doing since that winter meeting with Emperor Rine, and it was thinking, and not traveling. He had planned to be back in Mishkan by the time spring's first flowers reared their heads, but he was long past that deadline.

Did it matter?

He couldn't say that his life had lost meaning; of course, now his strange and battered token seemed more precious than ever. It had not seemed especially precious before, except to recall a sometimes fond and usually humorous memory, but now it seemed to hold his life in its ancient, rusted...well, eyes (it lacked hands). Perhaps in its horn. Unicorns, after all, were known for their healing abilities, and those healing abilities were known to be centered upon the horn. But it felt strange to know that his emperor and that noble Guard would strip it from him when it seemed all that lay between himself and doom.

He'd felt it before, of course: he'd known he was doomed when the Rosa docked back at Mishkan and only a dozen still struggled onwards. He knew it more now, and wondered constantly: was he, even now, being advertised to Panymium as a traitor to their illustrious empire? He knew, rationally, that it made no sense. He had served Panymium faithfully for years, and it had expected far more from him than his life, once. And he had never asked questions, and never expected answers, then. So why had he hesitated to volunteer his own plague, at the meeting? Why, then, had he been such a coward that he hadn't even voiced his thoughts?

He rode, then, discontented. Horses were an expensive indulgence, but they'd always been one of the few he'd allowed himself. They had a practical use, Leander reminded himself. And his brother stabled his mare, usually, with the stipulation that he provide for some of her keep. He'd do it again, certainly, when Leander returned. If Leander returned.  

[Syusaki]

Scarlet didn’t like Plagues. They were the cause for her younger brother’s death, after all. He had been wounded, yes, but it was ultimately the illness that had done her precious Carnelian in. The redheaded woman couldn’t forgive the devilish creatures. Or perhaps she didn’t want to forgive them because she was too gosh darn stubborn to move on from her sibling’s death. She could recall meeting a man who studied the things, but she couldn’t understand why. No, more like she couldn’t understand how he could bear with holding them, dead or not.

It was the meeting with the Emperor that made her curious, but it wasn’t a good kind of curiosity. No, Scarlet felt she could label it better as suspicion. She had clung to her brother’s memory for so long; it was beginning to border on unhealthy despite her normal behavior. Scarlet functioned normally. She did the things she had done for years and years. The only difference was her dislike of Plagues and the bow she zealously kept strapped to her back excluding the times she practiced archery. It hadn’t been a wise choice to keep her brother’s weapon, not when it had been drenched in his own blood. It was dirtied and stained in ways more than one, but still Scarlet clung to it like a security blanket. She had always thought the bow to be a normal bow. It was just Scarlet who had petty archery skills. She could never compare to her brother when he held the bow, after all. That is what she had thought until the meeting, but now she had doubts. The meeting had been for Plague holders. Did that mean she herself held such a cursed item?

Hood over her head, her eyes drifted to the side as the bow entered her thoughts. It had her brother’s blood, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it had the blood of the other boy. The boy that had been sick. Scarlet closed her eyes, but kept walking even as the sound of hooves clattering against the road filled her senses. She only turned slightly to curiously stare at the passerby.  

[thyPOPE]

Leander was not so concerned with Plagues themselves: he found himself confounded by magic, never mind that it had been around for so long, and was not sure what made them work or what exactly they had to do with the plague, other than being a means of spreading it. To him they were rather more exotic items to be avoided - with the exception, now, of the unicorn's bust which fit itself so snugly into his possession. It seemed to have protected him thus far, although he wasn't sure at what cost, or if that protection would hold.

The disease itself, he could hate. He could see it working, and its effects. The plague had brought pain to many, and many of his kin, as well as his closest comrade, had fallen to it. It made every human life precious - well, or nearly every life, at least. Each time he passed someone he wondered when the Plague would come for them: it seemed inevitable. Someday, too, Leander might lose his own Plagued item, and then he, too, would be taken. Like his crewmates had been - with the exception, perhaps, of Mr. Umesh...

He almost didn't notice the lone figure ahead of him on the road. Too slender, he thought, to be male, but hooded, so that he could not see her face or discern any farther features. Leander slowed his mare. Was she traveling alone? That sounded dangerous. "Salutations," he called.  

[Syusaki]

Scarlet stared back at an old man with dark hair streaked with bits of gray. She took in his aged face filled with years of experience she had yet to acquire, took in his bright eyes and kind face. At least, he seemed like the kindhearted sort. Thin lips curled into a thin, polite smile. “Salutations,” she repeated, amused. The greeting felt so formal to her, so unusual when she was too accustomed to something more brief and casual. A breeze passed, but she reached up to pull down her hood to reveal her messy, dusty-orange hair. She ignored the wind nipping at her cheeks.

“Fair weather, don’t you think?” she noted as she looked to her sides. “There’s still snow, but I think it’ll melt quite soon.” An easy smile. “That would be wonderful. I’m not very good with cold weather.” Scarlet laughed as she continued walking, trying to pick up the pace to match the mare’s speedier trot. As her cloak billowed in the wind, she pulled it closer to herself. “Ah, since it appears we’ve struck up a conversation, how about we introduce ourselves? I’m Scarlet.” The younger woman eyed Leander once more, her eyes curiously taking in his outfit and belongings, searching for anything glittering or glimmering. She looked away, blinking. It would be obvious if certain items of his disappeared out of thin air. Far too obvious.  

[thyPOPE]

Leander remembered his youth all too fondly: there was the thrill of going on campaigns, and packing for travel, and racing to stand at the front or bear the flag, and of course there was Jonathan Baines, the youth - no, the man he'd served and served with. He remembered the ease with which he'd been able to smile then, and the way he'd felt as though he could win, champion all manner of environmental change, and he could not fault Scarlet's seeming recklessness. He had a strong frame, and was not battered about easily by the wind, but he knew to keep a cloak that closed tight around his body and held the warmth in and he knew that inclement weather did not bode so well for himself (no matter the dual fortune and misfortune his brother's unicorn brought).

"Fairer than it has been, in my travels here," Leander allowed. "I've weathered far worse, and yet I'd rather it be warmer." Shyregoad's cold was a far cry from Mishkan - Mishkan, his home and his heart. He slowed his mare to allow the woman to walk beside him. "Leander di Laurentis. It's a pleasure to see a fellow human out here." If he saw her shifting gaze, he did not seem to care, or perhaps he mistook it for the innocent once-over any traveler should apply to a stranger on the road, no matter how aged and seemingly incapable. He performed this check upon her now, although he knew concealed weapons would betray precaution far more readily than they would danger. These were dangerous times, even past the plague.

"Where are you headed?" Leander asked, once this was done. Should he offer her a ride? He wasn't sure as to the etiquette of travel when applied to women, especially when they weren't, to his knowledge, fellow Guardsmen.