divergentresolve | (no subject)

Entry tags:

aurus,
hakkyuu

(no subject)

Dust always had a very particular feel upon the tongue: a mixture of the instinctive need to spit out the taste of something that did not belong in the mouth and the awareness on every level that it was one of the flavours of defeat. Hakkyuu had felt the wrongness of dirt against his lips before, sometimes from gravity alone, sometimes with an angry pressure upon the back of his skull, sometimes mixed with copper and pain, but he had always resisted both the presence of it against his mouth and whatever the cause that had put him there. But as he lay upon the dry floor of the Crystal Desert so many miles from the confines of Ebonhawke and stared up with huge, terrified eyes, it didn't occur to Hakkyuu to think about the grit getting sucked in against his teeth with every panicked breath he drew in, nor to lift a hand to wipe a messy, wet trail of saliva away to rid himself of the wrongness in his mouth. There were more important things for his instincts to focus on in that moment, like the form hovering a short distance from him.

There was no part of that moment, winded and sore in an uncharted area, that did not feel like a bad dream to Hakkyuu. He'd watched from outside of the stronghold that he had lived his entire life in as the Elder Dragan swept up from the south and transformed the land beneath it to crystal and death in the wake of the breath of its thunderous roar and in the shock of bearing witness to the destruction he could only think that it had to be unreal because these were the kinds of images described in legend and book, not seen with the eye like a storm cloud rolling across the mountain. But watching fawner and charr forces instantly transformed to deathly moving formations of black and amethyst crystal stumbling their way from the scorched land that would soon be referred to as The Brand toward him instilled the only clear thought Hakkyuu could muster clearly through his shaken and shattering psyche.

Run.

And he had. A fast as he could for as long as he could, and then pushed even longer until he fell upon his knees and let the contents of his stomach burn up through his throat and hit the dust ground hotly between his splayed hands, the image blurring through watery eyes and the sounds of his own choked sobs muffed behind images of shambling crystal horrors.

After the immediate euphoria of throwing up wore off and the adrenaline that had sent him tearing from the Branded faded out, the shock truly set in and without knowing where he was, which direction he was headed, and with no sense of agenda, Hakkyuu walked. He didn't know how long or how far he'd walked after watching the dragon take flight, or how long and far he'd run after the Branded spotted him, and again, in the flats of the desert, he'd walk again with no clue how far or long he'd go with is sense of self held away from his consciousness as the haze of shock was the only force driving him forward.

It was impossible to say how long it may have taken until sheer exhaustion forced him to stop, but instead the encounter he had with another being was what interrupted the otherwise unrelenting forward path Hakkyuu had unwittingly forged for himself. The creature seemed to melt upward from the desolate ground, a bright flash of purple movement in the sandy backdrop, with golden spear in hand spinning to capture what little light poked through the clouds against the long edge of the blade and length of the hilt. The world spun, Hakkyuu's mouth felt dirt, and the image that swelled into view in his eye filled him with a third dose of the cold, unbelieving dread he'd felt in such a short space of time.

The figure loomed, tall and menacing and clearly not of--or no longer of--the realm of the living, and Hakkyuu choked on an attempt to get air into his lungs as his wide eyes drank in the sight of what he was sure in that moment was nothing other than glorious, fiery death. For what else could a creature formed of spun tarnish and flaming purple wings bring to him? What else could he possibly expect to find behind the metallic-looking face that bore three pairs of eyes and sharp protrusions like a beetle's mandibles? What else could he expect but for that golden spear to be the weapon used in his execution?

When the Margonite extended a gaunlet-esque hand toward him, the grey muscles in the bicep shifting unnaturally as a talon brushed upon Hakkyuu's forehead. He must have made some unholy sound of terror as a searing pain unlike any he had ever known rolled through every nerve in his body and drove him to his feet only to stumble and crash backwards once more against the sand. Perhaps he meant to say words to warn the creature off, perhaps he even thought he said them, but they were only guttural sounds of primitive distress as he waved one hand furiously in front of him as if to ward the Margonite away and grasped his head where the creature had touched him with the other.

He was going to die here. After everything, he was going to die in the desert, far from his home.

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Given how comparatively small the boy was, Aurus didn't struggle terribly much getting him back home. He was fatigued by the time he got there, of course, having walked through most of the night already, but his burden ultimately had only made his legs a bit more tired than they would have otherwise been.

The cave where Aurus made his home did not have a bed per se. Instead it had a naturally grown hammock of leaves and woven vines, suspended between two trunks that the sylvari had grown out of the earth. Shifting the boy into his arms as he entered the cave mouth, he lay him carefully down here, then set aside his weapons, stripped off his gloves, and set to work. Given how the boy seemed all but dead to the world, Aurus didn't worry about waking him.

He filled a bowl of water at the back of the cave and, using a cloth, wiped what dust and grit he could from his mouth. Then, holding him partially upright, he squeezed a thin slow dribble of water between his lips. This he had to do again and again so as not to risk choking him, but once he'd managed to get a full bowl down his throat he figured it ought to be enough to allow some manner of recovery. Beyond that, all he could do was put a cool, damp cloth on his brow to try and ease the heat of his sunburned skin.

Standing back to consider his "guest" for a moment, Aurus did what he could to try and figure out where the boy had even come from. There was nothing in his pockets that answered the question clearly. There were, he felt confident, no human settlements within easy walking distance of his home. But then if this boy had come from someplace within easy walking distance he likely would not be in the state he was in now. He obviously wasn’t Elonan though, so he had to have come from Ascalon—from Ebonhawke? It was a damn long way. Well, hopefully when he awoke he would be able to offer some answers.

Turning away, the sylvari went to prepare himself some breakfast and sit down to meditate. Wary that his guest might wake at any time and keenly aware that he did not yet know whether the Margonite’s touch might have warped his mind to hostility, Aurus carefully kept his weapons within easy reach and where the boy would not be able to grab them if he awoke. Several hours later, though, it seemed the boy showed no signs of stirring.

Aurus checked over him again, dripped more water into his mouth, felt his pulse and the temperature of his skin.

The sun was up now and rising in the sky. Though it was far cooler in the cave than it was outside, the heat was nonetheless rising in here too. It was the part of the day that Aurus would always opt to spend inside regardless, and since the boy still showed no signs of waking, he picked a comfortable seat on a broad sandstone shelf, leaned back into the smooth curve of the alcove, and lightly slept for a while.

***

Two days later, the routine that Aurus had established on day one persisted.

When he awoke in the morning, he checked on the boy, gave him water and some broth made from boiled cactus fruit. Then he went out to do his first circuit of his lands.

The first time he'd done this he'd worried about leaving the boy alone, lest he either woke while Aurus was gone or else lest something come to harm him while he slept unprotected. It was a risk either way: if, for example, the two remaining Margonites were watching from afar and merely biding their time, leaving the cave could give them their opportunity. But if Aurus did not make his usual patrol, it would take no time at all for his territory to grow more wild and dangerous again.

In the end, he'd decided to head out seemingly on his patrol and then double back and watch to see if anyone or anything approached the cave mouth. After half an hour, he'd been satisfied enough that no threat lay in wait, and he'd thus been patrolling at his usual morning and evening times ever since.

When he returned from his morning circuit, he ate, meditated, checked on the boy again, meditated some more, and then patrolled again before his evening meal. He'd also grown a second hammock towards another alcove of the cave a short distance away--at this point he had no idea how long the boy would remain unconscious or what he would do if he did not wake, but he still had to manage his own life within this limbo.

He'd more or less blocked off a five-day window in his mind: if the boy had not awoken in that time, Aurus was going to have to find a way to get him to civilization and into the care of someone who knew more about human ailments and medical treatments than he did. Because by now, Aurus had given him the best herbal tinctures he could think of, added a variety of remedies to the water he dripped into his mouth, and checked his body over for snake or spider bites, just in case (which had necessitated at least mostly undressing him). It all turned up nothing and so far hadn't seemed to make any noticeable difference in his recovery at all. The best that could be said was that his sunburn now didn't look so bad, a fact which made the stark paleness of his skin stand out even more.

Edited 2016-12-19 10:51 (UTC)

The safety Aurus provided Hakkyuu's unconscious body to recover from the physical shock and fatigue he'd sustained. That wasn't to say that he slept entirely soundly however--periodically, he would thrash and spasm slightly where he lay in Aurus' botanical hammock with faint noises of discomfort that rarely raised any louder than a low whine.

Aurus' willingness to incorporate being Hakkyuu's caretaker into his daily routine made all the difference in the boy's short-term recovery time. Over the days, as the sylvari diligently checked for physical damage and treated the small amount that marred Hakkyuu's body, it really was simply pure, concentrated exhaustion that kept the boy effectively dead to the world for as long as he was; Aurus' five-day window of time was generous.

When Hakkyuu awoke it was initially not even a whisper or a whimper, but a silent opening of his eyes to stare directly ahead of him. The moment he awoke, he happened to be on his side with the wall of the cave in his immediate eyeline. He blinked slowly, not to clear any hazy, lingering sense of grogginess from his head, but simply to wait for his vision to adjust to being closed for so many days consecutively and try to make sense of what he was seeing. He frowned, realising finally two things. One, he didn't know what he was looking at, and two, that he couldn't remember anything beyond falling upon the sand dunes in the desert.

Twisting his body in the hammock to start to sit up, the aches and pains in his muscles overtook his attempt to map where he was as he winced in a deep shudder and hunched over. It was a kind of pain that didn't have a single, easily-identifiable location, so he reached to his shoulder to rub his flesh, then move to his neck when that didn't seem to alleviate the soreness. This didn't work either, but it did allow him time to stare around from his newly elevated position and spot the entrance to the cave.

Soon, the information began to filter into his brain that he was somewhere that was occupied by someone, not a predator's lair littered with bones or consumed prey. That was a relief. He also figured, judging by the light he could see beyond the cave's entrance, Hakkyuu guessed it must have been the height of the day and the coolness provided by the cave was suddenly something Hakkyuu was quite grateful for.

Then, he noticed something else just on the edge of his vision and turned his eyes quickly to look more directly just to the left of the cave entrance. There, evidently, he found the cave's main occupant, and realising this the tension rushed into his body. He'd never seen anything like the figure settled silently on the slightly elevated sandstone; he could tell this was a creature of immense size compared to himself, even while sitting, but he had also never seen something with blue skin and fern falling from it's head and strange angles and textures to the face.

In Hakkyuu's mind, he couldn't entirely tell if this was or wasn't the creature that attacked him out in the desert and the uncertainly made fear and adrenaline swell in his chest, but while the blue figure was still and silent so was Hakkyuu, even as he stared at it with wide, worried eyes then started to flicker a look around the cave with a more urgent project in mind of how to get out in one piece.

For a long moment after Hakkyuu awoke Aurus sat in his meditation spot unmoving, crossed-legged with hands at rest on his knees. Presently, though, the change in the energy of the cave and the feeling of being watched reached him. Reaching out with his senses and not perceiving any danger, he allowed himself to surface back to the present moment gradually, like a slow countdown, and when he opened his eyes he looked ahead of him out towards the mid-day desert before turning his head and shoulders to look over at the boy.

It was, by then, no surprise to see that he was sitting up. It would have been more of a mystery had he not been, in fact.

"Ahh, you're awake," he said mildly, not moving from where he sat, though perhaps with the slight impression of someone who was judging all that he saw. "Good. I was beginning to wonder." (Not much though--the fact that the boy had shifted and sometimes moaned in his sleep had reassured Aurus that nothing too dire had affected him.)

The time it took for Hakkyuu to process the words that Aurus offered to him lagged behind the initial shock that it was speaking to him in the first place.

That, combined with the sharpness of the sylvari's eyes and the colour of them, did very little to reassure him even if his words were aiming to calm the boy.

Instead, he was frantically trying to place what this speaking creature was. He knew conceptually about other major races, but Hakkyuu had only seen asura and norn in small does, charr aplenty from a distance, and otherwise his main encounters were with other humans and skritt.

All the secondary realisations were starting to settle in, like how he could hear and feel how heavily his heart was pounding since the statue-like creature had started moving and speaking. His eyes flicked away from his dubious company briefly, partly looking for another exit (of course, there was none), some kind of weaponry (he didn't immediately see his boots which had the only, small flick-knife that he owned), or... something. He didn't offer any kind of reply back, but the way his face had twisted and his eyes had widened as soon as Aurus started talking probably said plenty, especially to reflect the panic he was feeling. He just felt no reason nor energy to mask any emotions or reactions on his face.

He then frowned and glanced down at himself, the crease in his brow deepening as it dawned on him how...lacking in clothes he was. But for all the short glances away he had, ultimately his attention came back to Aurus very quickly and steadily and he surely looked like he was ready to spook and bolt at any second.

"Hm."

Well it was perfectly apparent to Aurus that he was looking at pretty much flat out stark panic, or at least something teetering right on the brink of it. What was much less apparent was the question of how best to deal with it.

His gut feeling was that standing up and approaching the boy would probably be...less than productive. So instead he opted to "ignore" him, or at least to turn his back as though he wasn't terribly concerned with watching what he did. In point of fact he was still paying very close attention, so if his guest did choose to attack him he was by no means going to be taken unawares. By all appearances, though, he might just as well be about to return to his meditation.

"Your shoes are near the back of the cave," he said. "Do shake them out before sticking your feet in them. You can never tell what might have crawled inside."

Whatever Hakkyuu was expecting this... thing to do, diverting his attention from Hakkyuu was not it.

He blinked a couple of times, his shoulders starting to relax and release some of the tension that had rushed into them before he gingerly started to move his weight across the hammock to dip his feet over the edge.

Swallowing thickly, he teetered on the edge of the makeshift bed for a few seconds, staring at the back of Aurus' head and shoulders. He tilted his head slowly to the side, trying to gauge what was actually going on in this creature's mind, but of course he can't read anything.

After a good minute of trying to figure out what is going on, Hakkyuu steeled himself and let his weight drop off the edge of the hammock. His legs shake and wobble beneath his weight in a way that he wasn't expecting to, making him snap a handout to grasp the rigging of the hammock to steady himself. He scowled, as if the exhaustion in his muscles was a mild annoyance and inconvenience rather than something that is the effect of many hours walking non-stop.

He started to inch his way around the edge of the cave, palm braced against the wall to steady himself on the way to mouth of the stone opening. He can already feel the intense heat of the desert as he draws closer to the exit, but there is something far more pressing that he needs to deal with after sleeping for forty-eight hours. Even with the oppressive sun beating down, Hakkyuu has to piss something rotten. He briefly wondered, while he did exactly that, if the strange blue guy in the cave even urinated like other creatures.

When he was done, Hakkyuu hobbled his way back into the large alcove and sighed deeply from the relief offered both from the coolness of the cave after the moment out in the midday sun and from the lightness provided by an emptied bladder.

His attention moved immediately to Aurus once more as he rested his weight against the cave wall. He swallowed again, trying to see if his voice would serve him still.

"What happened?"

It was more of a rasping croak than what he'd usually expect to come out of his mouth, but for the moment it was better than nothing.

Edited 2016-12-31 01:46 (UTC)

Aurus had cracked an eye when Hakkyuu flanked him and headed out into the sun, but he'd also snapped that eye closed before the boy could see him looking when he returned. For all intents and purposes, it would therefore look like he'd continued meditating right up until the moment when the boy spoke. (In reality, he'd not returned to his meditation at all but had instead been carefully assessing how the boy moved, his steadiness or lack thereof, his apparent disorientation and how he handled it.)

At that point, with a wholly unhurried air, he opened his eyes and turned his very direct gaze on Hakkyuu, giving him an answer that was completely matter-of-fact and also completely devoid of all detail or elaboration:

"You were attacked. You've been asleep for two days."

He didn't repeat the length of time he'd been asleep aloud, but a look that flashes across his face showed that he wasn't expecting that answer. He lowered his eyes for a moment, giving himself a few seconds to think, though doing so made him starkly aware of the sound of his own breathing which felt loud and distracting.

Shaking his head, Hakkyuu realised that it wasn't the sound of his breathing that was bothering him, but the wave of dizziness that casually swept its way over him.

He dropped to a crouch, arms resting over his knees as he hung his head.

"... You didn't attack me." he muttered, partly a statement, but open enough to be a question.

With his eyes closed, a few images from the recent events began to filter back into the front of his mind. Hakkyuu lifted his head slightly to look at Aurus once more.

"That dragon. What happened to it?"

Edited 2016-12-31 02:58 (UTC)

"There's water in the back," Aurus said as Hakkyuu sunk down. It was by no means a direct confirmation that he hadn't been the one to attack the boy. Really, he didn't think he ought to acknowledge that it was a question in any direct way, since logic and all the evidence of his behavior now should be evidence enough.

When Hakkyuu asked about the dragon though, Aurus was quiet for a moment before answering. To him, there were two dragons involved in the events of days previous, and he had to remind himself that for this boy there was likely only one--a wholly different experience of the same set of events.

"Out there somewhere. It disappeared into the desert. Where I couldn't say."

At this point Aurus knew he could be certain of very little save that Kralkatorrik was by no means dead, and he wasn't going to offer any false assurances. Just because he'd not seen the crystal dragon in two days didn't mean it wouldn't emerge again.

Now, having answered those questions, he felt that he deserved to ask one himself: "Your name?"

Without lifting his head too much further, Hakkyuu set a strong stare on Aurus, trying to gauge as best he could what he could or couldn't trust from this creature.

Abruptly, he stood up though and walked, in as straight a line as he could manage, to the back of the cave to find the water Aurus mentioned having. The need for fluids was much greater than his desire to try and pry a hole of truth out of Aurus' skull under with his glare alone.

The knowledge that the crystal dragon was out there, somewhere other than where they were, was both a relief and not entirely, but for now 'not here' was a good enough answer.

Cupping his hands beneath the steady trickle of natural water, starting out drinking in slow, measured sips before he knelt down to collect the water that had gathered in the bowl on the ground in his palm to drink more quickly, though more messily.

After a while, Hakkyuu tilted his head back and let out a half-sigh, half-moan of refreshed relief before turning his eyes back on Aurus and rubbing the back of his palm against his dampened lips.

"What about it?"

Aurus turned his head very slowly to give Hakkyuu an unimpressed narrow-eyed glower over his shoulder.

While he didn't expect the boy to be immediately warm and chipper, he didn't think much of the deliberately obtuse act that he seemed to be pulling. 'What about' his name indeed.

"You should tell me what it is." There was just a hint of impatience to that suggestion, because really, he should not need to be spelling this out at all.

"Unless, that is, you'd rather I just call you 'boy.'"

With a sense that the large blue figure wasn't about to attack or try and eat him, at least not yet, so it left him with a small amount of defiance as he held Aurus' stare evenly.

"Do what you want."

He looked beyond him then, to the entrance of the cave in thoughtful, knotted silence and a scowl on his face. In that moment at least, Aurus could call him whatever he pleased.

There were a lot of questions rushing around inside Hakkyuu's head, but after a second he shook his head and rubbed his eyes.

"How far from Ebonhawke are we?"

The refusal of a name--not for any good reason evidently but just to be willful and contrary--gave Aurus a fair impression of the sort of person he was dealing with here. He gave a mild eyebrow raise, not of surprise but more simply an oh I see. He, however, was going to more wisely pick his battles and how he fought them, and this was one he would fight by simply ignoring. If the boy wanted to shroud himself in some kind of secrecy that was his business.

Just like it was Aurus's business to casually point out how futile protecting his name was when everything else he said revealed something more about him. "Oh, so you are from Ebonhawke. I'd wondered.

"It's a long way. You're lucky to be alive."

The somewhat petulant scowl deepened as Hakkyuu tired to decide, in this rather limited exchange, if he found this guy irritating or if it was the whole unfortunate situation that had his patience so low.

"What, you know any other human settlements this side of Lion's Arch?" he sneered, followed by a snort.

But then he looked down, quiet again as he thought hard about the implications of 'a long way' and how lucky he really was or wasn't. The longer the silence lay, the more that naming Ebonhawke aloud started to feel like he'd just dragged something spiky up through his throat and let it drop from his mouth onto the floor, leaving a rawness inside him in its wake. His features softened slightly at their hard edges, the exhaustion coming to the surface a little more clearly before he shook his head and dragged a hand down his face. And then all the softness was gone again as he looked up at Aurus again.

"Which direction is it?"

Edited 2017-01-02 12:54 (UTC)

It was no surprise to see the facade momentarily crack, given that it was no surprise that all this defensiveness was a facade. The boy was obviously no warrior.

Regardless, Aurus wasn't going to get into the particulars of the local habitations, the various smaller settlements and outposts, the possibility of nomadic bands wandering the region.

Instead he simply said, "North," and (presuming that the boy would probably not know one compass point from the next out here) pointed with one finger in the general direction, "That way."

It wasn't an offer of aid or even of real guidance. If the boy wanted that he would have to, if not ask, then at least indicate it. For the moment, Aurus was again facing forward, not bothering to look at Hakkyuu but instead seeming ready to just return to his meditation.

As far as Hakkyuu was concerned, he didn't need anyone's help anyway. He got here well enough, didn't he? (Barring nearly dying from exposure, being attacked, and only really being alive because of the actions of this stranger and the home he'd set up for himself inside the cave, but those were all minor details.) He could get back too. He had to get back. Presuming Ebonhawke was even still standing.

What if the walls had been shattered and the charr had overrun the place? What if the dragon's damage was so deep and destructive that there was nothing left to overrun? Even so, he had to get back and find Vrenille. No matter what the state of things, Hakkyuu was sure Vrenille was alive. He had to be. There was no other possibility that his mind could accept.

He glanced toward the exit of the cave again, a little disappointed that his unrealistic expectation that noon would have suddenly become dusk hadn't happened yet in the passing of only a few minutes.

"How long will it take to get there?"

"Two days walk if you make good time, longer if you run into trouble."

Trouble, in Aurus's opinion, was likely, and his tone of voice said so. Whatever state this boy had been in when he left Ebonhawke, he was undoubtedly weaker now than he had been then. He'd managed to make it here by sheer dumb luck, the chances of him making it back again were even worse, especially if did something stupid and set off unprepared like he almost seemed poised to do.

Again, though, he said none of this. If this boy was as contrary, stubborn, and headstrong as he seemed, it would probably be worse to warn him of these realities outright than to just leave him to his own steam and see if he had at least the slim amount of sense it would take to work them out on his own.

Aurus' observations were spot on: Hakkyuu had made it there through sheer dumb luck and didn't really realise as much, and he was about ready to just set off into the harsh wilderness at the drop of a hat.

However at the same time, little flashes of memory returned to him and as much as he wanted to just go, he was also equal parts apprehensive.

He swallowed, moving one hand to rub the length of his opposite arm before huffing as though terribly put out, though a pause followed immediately after, delaying what he was gearing up to say.

"... You got any food?"

"I do," Aurus said without moving at all, as though it was merely a statement of fact completely unrelated to a request of any kind.

Of course Hakkyuu had not directly voiced a request, even if Aurus very well knew he meant one.

It was only after a moment that he opened his eyes and turned to look at the boy once more. "Oh, did you want some?" He feigned complete ignorance and innocence, but it was an obvious feint--the whole point was to make the boy's presumption obvious, not to merely indulge it.

Well, that sealed it: Hakkyuu didn't like this guy. He narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth under his lips, but he kept whatever snappish comment he wanted to make to himself. Pride had given him an empty belly too many times in the past and this was one that he really couldn't let happen.

"Yes." Then, as a bit of an after thought he sighed through his nose and added, "I can't just leave at noon and walk for three days after not eating for two, can I?"

It might not have been a 'please' but it was logic, at least.

"I wasn't aware that you were planning on going, especially not at midday," said Aurus mildly. It was, equally, just simple logic, though it contained within it a bit of a jibe about the attitude Hakkyuu was pulling with him.

For his part, Aurus didn't actually dislike the boy. He had spirit, and spirit was worth something. But that didn't mean he wasn't stubborn and headstrong and foolish, all of which were traits that Aurus was by no means going to indulge.

Regardless, he would feed him though.

Getting smoothly to his feet, the sylvari crossed to the side of the cave where contours--either natural or carved and sanded into the rock--made shelves of a sort. On these sat a number of baskets, each of a different size and shape, most with lids on them.

"You've had nectar," he told Hakkyuu matter-of-factly as he took one of the baskets down, "and a broth made of cactus fruit for two days. There's been sugar and salts in that--something basic to keep you from wasting." He took a cactus fruit from the basket and tossed it to Hakkyuu--it was bright pink and about the size of a fist, and he was curious to see whether or not the boy's reflexes would be good enough to catch it or whether he'd have to pick it up slightly bruise from the floor.

"Here. You'll have to wait until later for something more substantial--I don't cook in the middle of the day. It makes the cave too hot.

"Don't eat the skin."

The sylvari's attitude made Hakkyuu bristle slightly whenever he couldn't quite tell if he was being intentionally obtuse or not; Aurus' brand of subtly poking fun wasn't something Hakkyuu was familiar with or able to fully identify just yet and the unimpressed scowl flashed over his face again for a moment.

Only for a moment though, because shortly after that, the sylvari stood up and... he was tall. In fairness, Hakkyuu was used to people who were taller than him, but every so often there was someone who looked like when they stood up they might just keep going and going and going upwards. This blue stranger was one of those people, even if Hakkyuu opted to follow his height with only his eyes and refused to crane in neck. There was no mistaking it though: that was one massive fucking tree-guy standing in front of him and moving across the cave. Briefly, Hakkyuu wondered what his chances of winning, or even survival, were it pitted against this man if push came to shove. He told himself he'd have a good fighting chance; he knew he was lying to himself.

Tracking Aurus' movements with his eyes and keeping a safe distance, Hakkyuu registered what he was told was put into his body while he slept without comment before the fruit was hurled at him. He wasn't as smooth with his catch compared to when he was fully alert and decently energised, but even with the look of slight surprise he managed to cushion the cactus fruit in the palm of one hand before it smacked him in the face. He turned the fruit over in his hands, gauging the weight and rubbing his thumb against the outer skin to gauge its thickness. He listened to the advice he was given about what part not to eat and wondered briefly if this guy expected him to savage the flesh of the fruit by ripping the skin off with his teeth or something.

He wasn't take far gone yet, he decided, and fueled by the imagined slight, he moved across the cave again toward his boots, feeling around for the blade tucked into a makeshift space between the sole and the heel. In time, he'd create far neater, smoother hiding places for weapons in his clothes, but as a teenager the concealment was a shoddy. It did its job of keeping the knife mostly hidden from anyone who wasn't paying close enough attention or didn't have a keen eye. Aurus surely saw the hilt protruding immediately.

After tugging the knife free, Hakkyuu plopped down on the floor at the opposite side of the cave to Aurus and started to try and slice away the skin. It was tougher than he expected, the knife edge slipping with only a poor scratch to the fruit's outer layer several times (barely missing his thumb) before he clicked his teeth and flipped the fruit over to instead stab the thing lengthwise and push the blade down. If he could split it down the center, maybe he could peel the skin off from the inside rather than the out.

Clearly, he was not going to ask for help as he worked, resting the fruit between his legs as he wiggled the knife back and forth to drive it deeper.

"... Thanks," he muttered after a moment. He might be uncouth, but anyone who handed over food just because you asked for it deserved some gratitude; the streets taught some codes of respect.

Returning the basket to its spot on the shelf, Aurus leaned his shoulders back against the wall of the cave and watched Hakkyuu with the fruit. He didn't bother trying to be subtle about it either.

Though the boy would probably not know it, Aurus was silently assessing everything he did. He had very well known that the knife was in the boy's boot having found it when he pulled his shoes off of him. He therefore also knew how sharp it was (not very) and how well made (also not very).

All of that factored into his assessments of Hakkyuu now: not bad reflexes, a fair degree of resourcefulness, decent common sense...bad knife skills. And minimal manners, but that last part mattered half as much as any of the others.

It was mostly out of an interest in testing the boy's patience and composure that Aurus opted to just stand and watch him though--he wanted to see what he would do. Which was also why he said nothing to the single word of thanks, giving only a slight incline of his head to acknowledge that he'd heard.

He was beginning to assemble a vague sort of image from the puzzle pieces this boy was dropping: he wanted to go back to Ebonhawke, so evidently he hadn't fled the place intentionally; he was rough and unschooled, certainly physically but also probably mentally; he had a fair enough degree of natural aptitude to compensate for the total lack of training; but the fact that he was alive right now? There was nothing that didn't further point to it being a matter of sheer dumb luck.

Hakkyuu may not know that Aurus was assessing everything he did, he was aware of Aurus' sustained attention on him, which he initially opted to ignore; he had more important things to focus on.

Aurus would therefore find that Hakkyuu had a surprising amount of patience, at least when it came to the cactus fruit. He worked diligently at the fruit with his loyal, though kind-of-dull knife in silence except for the soft creaking sounds of the thick skin slowly slipping further and further, until the creak became a crack and he could twist the blade sharply to split the fruit down the middle. He huffed, resting the knife on his knee for a moment as he took each half of the fruit in either hand to pry it apart fully.

It wasn't super neat, and he clearly wasn't going to be invited to work at a gourmet restaurant in Lion's Arch any time soon, but he got in and that's a start. He also doesn't try and shove the halved fruit into his mouth, instead using the knife to slice a section of flesh out from as close to the rind as possible.

As he lifted the slice of fruit to his mouth and started to chew, he finally lifted his eyes to set a hard stare on Aurus.

"What?"

Well the patience score didn't seem especially high, but given the situation perhaps it didn't seem especially low either.

Aurus gave the boy a mild sort of look. The sort of look that said What 'what'? without conceding that his consideration needed any sort of explanation whatsoever. He stayed right where he was, his posture unchanged. This was his cave, after all.

It wasn't worth just maintaining the silence for the sake of it though, and presently he decided to begin posing a few questions, as much to see the attitude with which they would be received as to learn what the answers would be. He started with an easy one:

"Do you remember how you got here?"