The limelight had never been in Yndira's plans. It was not a dislike of attention that kept her from it, but the need for discretion. She couldn't very well sate her appetite if she remained a wealth of intrigue. She would be restricted to mundane roasted, grilled, stewed, baked, fried meats and she was not to have that. And yet, she intended to speak with a playwright. Or rather, the recently named Duke of Oakleigh.
There was a method to her madness that she was sure would make perfect sense even to herself at a later point, but what did matter was her need to leave Andaris as far back as she possibly could. It had taken a caravan and a boat, both unpleasant in their accommodations, but vital to her travel. Her legs still ached from long hours of sitting and more of wobbling about on the ship. The carriage she sat in was nothing fancy, either; plain and inconspicuous. Good, but not entirely so. The Naer ached for the comforts of luxury, but she must save nel. There was no guarantee that she would be received at all, turned right away to repeat her journey.
Sending word ahead of her arrival did not seem like something worth attention. It would not be so pleasant a surprise if some nameless commoner showed up at the Lord Venora's--had he changed his surname? She did not think she'd heard news of it--estate. And while she might bear the semblance of wealth, she was still not a figure to note the presence of. This was as far a reach as she had dared in the arcs she'd lived this life. Heart thundering and breaths quickened, she exited the carriage hurriedly. The light she cared to cart around with her was pulled out by the driver and handed to her unceremoniously. The many gifts had been tossed, save the few that she had been pleased with. It was better that way. Less for her to carry and be tied down.
Yndira had decided that she would approach the matter as plainly as possible. Face devoid of khol, neck bare, and fingers without the twinkling of jewels, the glamour of her lifestyle had been packed away neatly. The simple blouse was tucked neatly into her skirt, a button or two undone at the top. Her boots felt heavier than she remembered them to be; too much material holding it all together. As she lifted the bag full of her few possessions, her rings and necklaces clanked together towards the bottom. They must have slipped down while in the carriage.
Walking up to the doors, she set the bag down once more before lifting the knocker. In short span of the trill she took to knock, she considered her potential to walk right back to the carriage and forgo this whole plan. It would seem, however, the thought was much too late. A moment or two later, her knock was answered by a servant. Her unannounced arrival afforded her an curious look.
The servant didn’t greet Yndira as she arrived at the gate quite unexpectedly. He just stood there somewhat stiffly, crossed his arms over his chest, narrowed his eyes and looked at her appraisingly for several moments, and then he curtly told her to wait while he informed the duke of her arrival and asked him if he would be willing to meet her.
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Unlike Yndira Tristan had always wanted to be in the limelight because you got money, great food and girls (not necessarily in that order) when you were in the limelight. He had never thought it would happen this way though, that the king would give him a duchy because he had helped save his life. No, he had thought that he would become famous through his art which had, in the past, involved making naked sculptures of celebrities and writing musicals about queens trying to murder their kings, among other things (Zanik had blessed him for the latter).
Being Duke was fun, but it also involved a lot of work – more than he had thought at first – so Tristan was sitting at his desk, trying to catch up on the history of the Eastern Settlement and the people that lived there (he needed to know how this place functioned if he wanted to have any hope of lasting longer than a season or two!) when a servant informed him that there was a woman at the gate, a woman with very strange, bright eyes, probably one of those Naerikk. He furrowed his brow as he heard that, looked at the servant, at the book in front of him and then back at the servant and informed the man,
“Let her in and tell her to wait for me in the sitting room. I’ll be with her shortly. Oh …” he added just as the man was about to leave. “… and be nice to her. It’s not her fault that she’s a Naerikk, and she probably has a good reason for coming here, you know?”
The man nodded somewhat reluctantly and left to do what he had been told. Once he was out of the door, Tristan slammed his book shut, rose from his chair and let out a deep sigh. He was a bit tired of all the reading and the complicated political stuff, so the distraction was definitely welcome!
On the way to his destination he went through all the possible reasons for a woman to visit him – ranging from telling him that she was pregnant with his baby over trying to persuade him to marry her because, really, there was no better wife in all of Idalos to cutting a few body parts off because she needed them for her magic (it had happened before!).
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Yndira had been waiting in the sitting room that contained, among other things, three comfortable armchairs grouped around a table where a bottle of wine and a few snacks (which unfortunately didn’t contain any human meat) stood for a few bits when the door was finally being opened, and Tristan entered, dressed in a fine black tweed suit. “Welcome to Oakleigh!” he announced with a smile on his face, walked over to her and plopped onto the chair opposite of her, studying her with unmistakable curiosity as he did so.
“You don’t look pregnant, and you don’t have a knife either, so I assume you are here because you want to talk politics or business and not because you want to hurt me?” he guessed. “I’ve never done business with a Naerikk before, so I’m really looking forward to it!” he admitted. Having said that, he gestured towards the bottle. “Would you like to have something to drink before you tell me what exactly you want from me? The wine’s from Oakleigh, and I assure you, it’s quite excellent!”
Left to wait for the servant’s return, Yndira stewed. This was, to say the least, a risky idea. The duke could easily hand her over to proper authorities once the tale was told, or perhaps would even see her sent away before she spoke to him. It would only force her to reconsider her options.
The man returned and she was instructed to come in. He lead her to a sitting room, once more leaving her to herself. Her being a Naerikk must have been off putting; it made sense the servant would not want to remain in the same room as she. Imagine if it had been pitch black--then there would be real reason to fear her. But her purpose here was not senseless killing or even indulging in her more bizarre tastes. The dark haired woman sat her bag down beside one of the three armchairs, lowering herself down into it. A cursory examination of the snacks produced little interest in trying any, although the wine did catch her attention. Maybe she’d try some, at some point.
That point would have to wait, as the Duke of Oakleigh strolled into the sitting room and greeted her jovially. All serious impressions she had begun to gather were dashed as he plopped down in the seat opposite her. His appraising eye would find, hopefully, a tired woman with little intention of violence. It turned out, however, that his greatest concern was whether or not she was with child. A thin brow rose in response to this observation, though she wondered how he might overlook that she always had weapons present: her nails were quite useful in parting flesh.
There was no precedent for his interactions with those of her race. Good. That would make her all the more memorable, and his excitement would make him more inclined to focus on her. Yndira offered him a smile of her own as he gestured to the bottle of wine she’d been eying before. “Yes, please." For just a moment, she considered the effects of inquiring for a translator. It would certainly make speaking easier. But, would it really matter? Likely not; she was confident that she could get the basics of her story across.
“Truly sorry for disturbing you," she began, words delivered with a calculated hesitance, “I come from Rynmere; hear a lot about your play.” Her gaze dipped from his face to the floor, flickering up once more with purported indecision. As if she were not sure if she should continue. A few trills went by before she looked up again, leaning forward with sudden seriousness.
As he heard Yndira’s words, Tristan immediately uncorked the bottle and filled her glass and then his own. “If you want more”, he remarked. “Just tell me. If there’s one thing that Oakleigh has in abundance, then it’s wine. The Raglans own the biggest vineyard in the whole area.” Having said that, he raised his glass in a toast, took a large gulp and let out a content sigh before he put it down again and studied the Naerikk some more. She looked tired, he observed. He wondered if he should comment on it or if it would be impolite to do so, and then he decided that he just didn’t care. He didn’t want any of his guests to potentially pass out to due exhaustion, etiquette or not!
“How did you get here?” he thus asked her. “If you’d like, and if you don’t have a means of transport, I can arrange for somebody to take you with them, at least part of the way, when you leave the city again. There are carriages coming and going all the time! As for disturbing me, you aren’t! I was just doing something extremely boring, so you might actually have saved my life!” He laughed as he said that, and then he turned to listen to her again.
“The Royal Tragedy?” he inquired and raised an eyebrow before he nodded. “It was pretty popular, probably in part due to the fact that the king was almost assassinated during the premiere, and Zanik made an appearance and blessed me!” As he said that, he mentally sent a quick prayer to his favourite male Immortal. He really needed to do something to honor him again. It had been a while since he had done so. Maybe he would work on a new play and dedicate it to him so that he would be happy and have something to look forward to.
It seemed as if Yndira had been reading his mind, or maybe it was just coincidence. Either way, Tristan smiled all over his face and exclaimed, “If you want to be a star, I’ll make you a star! You could be in my next play. I just need to come up with a plot. No, wait … you could be my next play! I’ll write it about you. Writing about humans all the time is boring. I don’t think anybody has ever written a play about a Naerikk before!”
“Do you do anything interesting?” he wanted to know and then added, because nobody would probably want to watch a play about a Naerikk doing the dishes, going shopping and engaging in other mundane activities, “Otherwise we’ll just have to make something up!”
Tristan...Oakleigh? Venora?--whichever it was was irrelevant unless he went along with what she wanted--seemed like an excitable person. She could deal with that; she’d dealt with it before. “It is alright; I will find my own way back when the time comes,” she stated, dismissing his offer with a smile. Her mode of transit was another irrelevant topic.
His delight at her statement, though, was what she focused on. He could make her a star. Good; that was the point of her being here. A play about her? He wanted variety, and he was getting it. The smile over her lips was something else. Not tired or weak, but not a wide grin. Just a smile, plain and simple. Her head lolled slightly to the side as she pretended to contemplate what there was that would be of interesting. She took another measured sip of her wine before continuing.
“I eat people.” Three words that she felt neither relief or regret for sharing. Most of the concealment around her dietary habits was a matter of protection, but so was this. No one would believe preposterous play done by a newly-dubbed drunken duke as a work of truth rather than fiction. It would be a fantastic play to watch, indeed, but that would be all it was to the viewers. “Mostly men..”
And with that, she drained her glass of wine and smile genuinely. “More, please.”
Tristan didn’t run away screaming as Yndira claimed that she ate people. He didn’t call for the guards either. On the contrary, he smiled and leaned forward a little so that he would be able to hear her better. His new play would be awesome, he thought. It would have everything. It would have a mysterious, exotic (and beautiful!) protagonist, it would have scary stuff (mainly the cannibalism), and it would also have a lot of psychology and insight into human Naerikk nature.
It would be complex! It would be violent! And it would be an even greater success than A Royal Tragedy!
“Why mostly men?” he wanted to know once he had gotten over his initial excitement and furrowed his brow a bit because that didn’t make a lot of sense to him. That she might be pulling his leg never occurred to him. He didn’t doubt her claim one bit. Why should she be lying? “Wouldn’t women and children be a lot more tender and easier to digest? Is it a sexual thing? And do you just eat the men raw or cook them and add seasoning?”
He paused briefly to refill her glass and then poured himself some more wine as well and immediately drank it. Hearing about such interesting things always made him thirsty!
“If I had known that I would be meeting a cannibal today, I wouldn’t have picked these snacks”, he apologized and gestured towards the bowl on the table. “If you want to, I can have one of the servants bring you a bloody steak. Or maybe some liver or a pig's heart. That’s almost as good as human meat, right?” he asked hopefully. He really wanted to be a good host, but he also didn't want to kill somebody for her.
"What's your name by the way?" he wanted to know.
It was just then that he realized that he had been starting the interview the wrong way. Her eating habits were fascinating, but if he wanted to write a play about her, he needed to know her story!
“I’m sorry”, he murmured and shook his head. “I should have asked different questions. We should have started at the beginning. Can you tell me how you became a cannibal? Were you brought up that way or did you just decide to start eating men one trial?”
He drank from his glass again and smiled slightly because he was really looking forward to hearing her answer. He wasn’t too worried that she would see him as food either. He was probably too skinny to taste good!
Her brows rose at his reaction. Not what she had expected, and for a trill she was worried that things were going south. The Naer's worries, though, were quickly decimated by his flurry of questions. Yndira blinked, trying to understand as best she could. Few words stuck out to her that she could piece together.
"Women cautious, children loud, men stupid." She ended this observation with a shrug, having decided that her initial cautiousness with Tristan would be unnecessary to continue further. The man clearly didn't care much for etiquette and that was quite alright with her. "Make easy targets." His other questions had not been to clear. Cook was one word that stood out to her, though. Perhaps he meant to ask her how she ate? Her answer was simple, assuming he gave two options. "Both."
The origins of her dietary habits was not something she considered entirely notable. It was an intended act of cruelty gone wrong by her father, and there were plenty of those that she could recount. They would be in that sitting room all trial if she had to explain just how pathetic her father was. At least, if she had to do it in Common, of course. But still, he'd asked and this she had to answer.
"It was my father's idea of a joke. He cooked my mother."
“Oh“, Tristan made as Yndira explained why she ate men. “I’m a man as well though, and I’m definitely not stupid”, he pointed out, thus giving her another reason not to try and take a bite, besides the fact that there wasn’t a lot of meat on his bones. He noticed that she didn’t speak Common very well which made the whole interview process a lot harder. Unfortunately he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it yet. He unfortunately didn’t speak Naerikk (did the Naerikk even have a language of their own?).
“Do you have a favourite recipe?” he wanted to know as she told him that she ate her victims raw and cooked them. He couldn’t help but wonder if there were cannibal cookbooks and if cannibals ever got together and talked about their favourite ways to prepare human meat. He knew that he should probably find the notion disturbing, but he did not! It was all so very fascinating. How many people in Rynmere had ever met a cannibal without getting eaten?
When Yndira explained how she had become a cannibal, the noble just furrowed his brow and looked at her for a few moments because he didn’t know what to make of her statement. Finally he remarked, “Cooking somebody’s mother doesn’t seem particularly funny to me, but then I don’t know a lot about Naerikk humor. Was your mother mean to your father? Or was your father mentally ill? And did you really eat your mother and what did she taste like?”
That was, as far as he was concerned, a rather important question. Had she been manipulated by her father or had she actually developed a taste for human and Naerikk flesh?
He realized that she still hadn’t told him her name, even though he had asked her about it. Maybe she was trying to protect her identity? In that case, he decided, he would just make a name up when he wrote the play. He also finally knew what to do about the language barrier. He had just had an excellent idea!
“You know”, he said to Yndira and smiled slightly because he was so proud of himself. “If you have a problem communicating something to me, you can just write it down in your native language, and I’ll try to translate it later on – or have it translated. I have paper and a pen somewhere.”
Knowledges
Cooking: Cooking people
Etiquette: Offering people the food they like
Linguistics: The difficulties of talking to somebody who doesn't speak Common well
Linguistics: Asking somebody to write something down in their native language in order to have it translated later on
Politics: Reading up on the history of your duchy is important
Research: Why Ynidra became a cannibal
Research: Interviewing somebody for a play
Writing: A play about a Naerikk
Writing: A play that has everything!
Loot: N/A Injuries: N/A Renown: Small (+10) For being the origin story of the play.
Points 15
Comments: This killed me. Yndira was so forward and blunt. Oh, you know. I eat people. Tristan meanwhile just doesn't care; he's the ballsiest thing alive. “I should have asked different questions. We should have started at the beginning. Can you tell me how you became a cannibal? Were you brought up that way or did you just decide to start eating men one trial?”
