OPEN

[dragonmount]

WHO: Rand & you!
WHAT: Event aftermath
WHERE: Greentruth and Godsblood
WHEN: Late Soviseri to early Firaseri
WARNINGS: Will add as needed

GODSBLOOD

[ he lays low.

after vaeka's execution is prevented, after things start to quiet, he risks one trip to the building where he'd been living. he isn't there long: enough to check on eleanor (and dodge questions about the fading bruises on his face), enough to speak to the person he rents from, and enough to vacate his apartment. he doesn't return there. he doesn't visit any of his usual haunts, before or after the kenoma leave the city, nor any of the handful of places that'd gotten used to giving him odd jobs. the idea is to effectively vanish, and he does a decent job of that.

if asked, he isn't totally unavailable, especially to fellow aions. he's avoiding the kenoma, yes, but he's just as much avoiding the godsblood locals who know him. so: if asked, he'll admit he can be found at ernesto's. and he's not unwilling to meet people in the city, either, so long as they avoid some of the more populated areas at busy times. caution isn't his native language, but it's one even he can use sometimes. ]

GREENTRUTH

[ once things settle further, once the kenoma envoy finally leaves godsblood, he starts chancing trips back to greentruth. carefully, of course; after however vaeka was found out, they have to tread carefully. and the safe haven in the forest is more important than ever, now that the regent has seen fit to remind them that godsblood is technically under their domain. he'd never do anything to jeopardize it.

more saliently, after getting stabbed in the leg by a surprisingly strong girl and her huge magic scythe, getting around isn't as easy as it usually would be, even with healing. those with an ability to use or see magic predating their arrival in horos might notice, at moments, the faint glow of a weave wrapped around his bad leg. he only uses it while standing still, mostly — the logistics of getting this small magic to move with him when he walks aren't currently in his skillset — but it helps him be more stable on his feet than he really is. and he's here, after all, to work.

he still offers instruction in archery and related skills, can be easily found carving bows and fletching arrows (sitting, usually) or else correcting stances and generally providing advice for anyone who wants to learn. his own lessons in swordplay unfortunately likely have to wait till he's better, but that doesn't mean he never wanders over to borrow a training blade and...you know, start getting ideas. recent experiences in godsblood might have made the prospect of becoming a swordsman more painful, but not enough to stop him.

but maybe the real difference is that now, not infrequently, he practices channeling. usually some safe distance from more populated areas, but not impossible to find, he'll find somewhere to sit and — those aforementioned with an ability to see the Power will be able to notice a swirl of light and darkness around him. those who can't will only be able to see the effects of his channeling. he likely looks strange, often frowning at his hands before,

an orb of light appears between them, floating through thin air,

or a gust of wind blows around the area, (though hopefully not too violently? but also: no promises. weirdly, no matter how violent the gust, his hair and clothes stay completely unruffled),

or thunder seems to rumble overhead, briefly,

or, just maybe, he accidentally shoots off a fireball in your direction.

in any of the more dangerous cases, he'll scramble to his feet hastily, wincing, and dispel the magic with frantic apologies. see: ]

Sorry! I'm sorry. I didn't see you there.

WILDCARD

[ hmu if you'd like to plan something! the intent is for this post to be a catch-all for the month of august. ]

Comments

[warmare]

[Hayame would prefer it to look as if she were just here for more arrows.

She would also prefer if no one asks her about her injuries, which the dark look she shoots to anyone who looks her way might be taking care of. Her approach is slow and measured, limping on a left foreleg with a swollen shoulder and heavy bruising that her dun coat is not dark enough to disguise. Her left shoulder (the other one) is likewise stiff, and uncharacteristically she is wearing a sleeved shirt. No amount of fabric would disguise the deep cut on her haunch, though- probably from a sword, judging by the length. A wound that still weeps, because each step disturbs flesh attempting to scab over and heal.

Never mind that.

Beside Rand, Hayame carefully drops her depleted quiver (disgraceful, but she can’t bend well to place it gently), followed by two of the feathered lizards that roamed the forests of Greentruth. Fletching. An offering.

She opens her mouth to ask him… how he was. What happened in Godsblood. If he was hale. What comes out is-]

Did you know that your apprentice is trying to present himself as able to make arrows under your name?

[/Nailed it.]

[dragonmount]

[ hayame gets one of her wishes, at least.

though he winces at the state of her, he remembers how she'd looked after getting back from venera the first time. and at least in this case, he has an idea of what might've happened to her — she all but announced she'd been killing achamites on communion, and there were of course a swarm of kenoma aions who'd descended on venera, looking to fight this time. but he doesn't have any healing to offer her, nor a certainty in how to suggest she get healing without potentially raising her hackles, so he lets the matter rest.

he opens his own mouth to thank her, as he reaches for the lizards, but he pauses with his arm partway extended at her question. ]

My what?

[warmare]

[At least this time... her shoulders and lower spine haven't gone bony with the beginnings of starvation. Each limp, swelling, bruise, and cut comes from something intentional and earned- indeed, from the many Kenoma aions who had come to Venera to hunt rebels only to find themselves hunted instead.

Carefully, she tries to... No, she isn't going to be able to get to her belly without displaying too much of her weakness, without making herself vulnerable and unable to get back to her feet quick enough in response to a threat.

Instead, she pulls her bow from her shoulder, carefully beginning to undo the bowstring.]

Your apprentice?

[Why did he sound confused?]

Black hair... no topknot... dark eyes... not good at talking?

[... Says Hayame.]

He said he learned how to fix arrows from you.

[dragonmount]

[ it takes him a moment, eyebrows drawing together as she continues with her description, but then it clicks. ]

Ryunosuke. [ who isn't his apprentice, surely, any more than he's a master; but this makes more sense, at least. ] He has been learning from me. [ and, now that he's thinking about it, ] He does good work.

[warmare]

["Ryunosuke". A name that was supposed to bring a sense of familiarity, but hadn't really at all. She had to stop expecting that just hearing names that sounded like they belonged to the world she'd come from would mean the person actually understood anything about her nation or her culture. Even if some of them were still called "Japan".

... This isn't the response she was really expecting, but. She should have expected something different. Unlike her, Rand was... The type of person who had allies. The type of person who had friends. So though she has a far more scathing comment sticking in the back of her craw... Hayame swallows it down in favor a simpler,]

Hmm... Surprising.

[That someone as excitable and flustered as the man she'd met could do decent craft work? Perhaps. But it leaves her with groping for something else to say, because she cannot just... humiliate him by asking him how he was doing and implying he might be weak? Beginning to inspect her bowstring for wear, estimating if it needed a waxing, Hayame falls sullenly silent.

She'd described Ryunosuke as bad at talking, she can't just-]

... Your bow has held up well.

[dragonmount]

[ sure, ryunosuke might be a beginner.

but rand had been a beginner once too, even if it was a long time ago. and he still isn't as good as his father, either at bow carving or at shooting. he's a beginner at other things, the swordplay he's been trying to improve on, and the channeling too. so he's sympathetic, especially to someone who's trying so hard and earnestly.

which applies to hayame in this moment too, doesn't it? there's a flicker of a smile at her assessment of his opinion on ryunosuke's ability, and then at her praise. because of course it's praise, coming from hayame — and even in general. who wouldn't want to hear that a thing they made has been serving its purposes? ]

Thank the Light for that. I'd hoped it worked well for you in Venera.

cw: beheading

[warmare]

[Hayame had been a beginner once… and until she wasn’t a beginner she had been hit, belittled, and punished for every mistake until she had learned not to make them. Now, there was no finer archer in the Miyatsuta Stables. … “Now”.

Perhaps Rand came from a kinder world than she did. … Perhaps many aions did. Perhaps that would explain some of the disconnect she feels when she tries (those rare occasions) and often fails (making them rarer) to interact properly with them. But no, that’s not it.

Something like reluctant, begrudged shame crosses her face, though it is mostly hidden by the tightness her bodily pain brings to her expression, that she’s struggling to keep subtle even as she forces her fractured shoulder to move and reach for her string wax.

Matsukaze wouldn’t have said that. Just like how he’d grabbed her arm and prevented her from striking the young jinba in her charge when she sought to discipline them for playing with their bows rather than dedicate their minds to practice… he would have said something kind. Like he had then, when he’d firmly grasped her wrist and chastised her, telling her to teach like you wish you’d been taught, not how you were.

… But Matsukaze isn’t here. He might not even be alive. The shame isn’t strong enough to win out against darker things.]

Mmm.

[Like her failings in Venera.]

I was able to take only three heads… but that was no fault of the bow. It performed admirably… I could not claim a shard, but it knew Kenoma blood well enough.

[She had always imagined it would feel different. Is she supposed to feel vaguely nauseous when she recalls the weight of the severed heads held by strands of hair in her fist? Is she supposed to feel this empty, when she’d always thought it would bring her honor? It hadn’t even brought her respect like it was supposed to-]

- I ended five, I just could not retrieve two. The Achamites kept in groups most times.

[Perhaps if she upped the number, even if doing so admitted she had only been able to fell them and not to properly claim the kill?]

[dragonmount]

[ there was a time, he thinks, so recently and also increasingly long ago, when it knew kenoma blood well enough might have alarmed him. now, he simply feels that he's not sorry to hear that. he's learned lessons about dealings with the kenoma by now, the place that mercy does and (mostly) doesn't have. ]

Five is a lot. [ is not a condemnation. it's not praise, exactly, but it is acknowledgement. if his tone is a little absent, it's not her, only the topic of conversation and what it reminds him of. ] So is three. [ uh, heads ] No one could say otherwise.

[warmare]

[The ironic thing is... Hayame was actually trying to capture them, rather than kill them. Not because she didn't want to kill them, but because she had promised to cooperate in Estinien's plan to capture their shards and try to find ways to cleanse the black sludge's influence. But it would be far easier to bring them back as captives in shard form... and if this world is to be this sick and twisted that the dead would not die, then she could use that horrible fact to her advantage in this one instance.

His words are... not praise. She shouldn't expect it, because she had no lord, she'd only just begun to think a life could be lived without one... and then she was here, where she'd had to cling all too fiercely to what little made sense to her, the life she'd once known, rather than go insane, and any progress she might have made... perhaps it's lost. Perhaps it wasn't the only thing lost.

... Five probably wasn't a decent enough number. Not for glory or notice in a place like this.]

... I heard that Vaeka woman was saved.

[An invitation for him to tell of his own exploits in turn, if he wished, as she fastidiously tends to her bowstring.]