divergentresolve | (no subject)

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aurus,
hakkyuu

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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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"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?"

There was a decent chance that Hakkyuu was being contrary purely for the sake of it, but he was also assessing Aurus, in his own way. Maybe not with such an eye with the same kind of awareness as the sylvari, or the same experience, but he was gauging matters all the same.

He chewed steadily, determined not to act nearly as ravenous as he felt.

Swallowing deeply, he then went to cut another slice from the fruit almost as if he wasn't going to speak at all.

"I walked," he said matter-of-factly, then after pulling a sliver of fruit free he added, more quietly, "I guess."

He started chewing again, but this time he wasn't silent as he pushed the morsel into his cheek to speak.

"I was outside when the dragon flew over. I don't remember which way I went, or how long I walked for. I don't know how long it's really been."

Aurus waited for the silence to stretch to its end, knowing that at some point his patience would pay off, just like waiting and watching had won him that "what?" a few moments before.

When the answer finally came, he "rewarded" it by filling in the gaps:

"Four days total, as of today."

He could ask the boy whether he remembered the creature that attacked him, but he elected not to for now, curious to see how his young "guest" would conduct himself without any leading questions to guide him.

Hakkyuu had started to slice into the fruit again as Aurus spoke and for a second both his chewing and the movement of his knife stalled before he continued again as if the knowledge of how long it had been hadn't shaken him.

"Four days, huh..." he muttered as he tore out another chunk of fruit flesh and brought it to his mouth, this time biting the piece in half rather than just shoving it all in.

He looked up at Aurus all the while he chewed, then after swallowing he narrowed one eye.

"What are you anyway?"

Aurus let the question sit there for a solid five-count before answering, very flatly:

"I'm a sylvari."

He wasn't offended, nor honestly even terribly surprised--he hadn't stopped in Ebonhawke on his way south just like he presumed others of his kind also had not, if they'd ever even traveled this way (it was not a foregone conclusion). So he could easily believe that this boy had never seen a member of his race before, but he still wasn't going to just offer any elaboration. If Hakkyuu wanted that, he would have to request it specifically.

After Aurus answered, Hakkyuu didn't immediately go to eat the other half of the fruit slice he'd made, instead just kind of staring for several long seconds.

"Like... The plant people? That plant race off--" he waved the knife a little "--off... somewhere else?"

He didn't know where sylvari were from. He'd never seen a sylvari. He wasn't sure this guy really was a sylvari yet, but he had nothing else to compare to and what reason was there to lie?

"What are you doing out in the desert on your own? You got house-plant friends that are just out somewhere else right now or what?"

Aurus gave the boy a very mild look that nonetheless managed to convey pretty clearly how completely ridiculous that whole "house-plant friends" turn of phrase was. He didn't bother to comment on it though, since it really wasn't worth getting sidetracked.

"The Maguuma Jungle, mostly," he said. Yes, he was indeed a very long way from home.

"I live here." It was also an answer lacking in almost all elaboration. Oh, except for one bit: "Alone."

"Alone." Hakkyuu echoed in a deadpan then he shook his head and made eyecontact with his fruit again.

"What kind of idiot would come out to a place like this intentionally..." he muttered, mostly to himself, but when you say something out loud you are saying it to someone. And there were only two of them in the cave.

...Okay, he was saying it to Aurus directly.

Aurus was as disinclined to be impressed by that statement as he was to be offended, and the steadiness of his gaze probably said as much--just the same expression of mild judgement that he'd had already, his brow perhaps rising half an inch. Really?

His answer was as dry as the air around them. "Evidently the same kind who will rescue helpless lost boys from being attacked in the desert," he said with the unsubtle implication that Hakkyuu ought to show at least a modicum more gratitude for the fact that he was here and alive.