Chased awake by shadows

[Vega]

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What time would have been better?

It all turned around on that question, on those six words. It stopped being an argument and she just looked at him with disbelief in her eyes that he was even saying that. She hated that sentence, those words and that tactic. He'd used it before and she hated it. Last time he'd used it had been when Mixiebelle had appeared and he had listed the times ~ this time, he just asked the question, but it made her blood boil at the same time as hitting her in the chest. Vega didn't answer, didn't shout back, just stopped until the creature was dead. Or, more precisely, all of them were. "You've hurt yerself," she said, the red in her eyes fading out in the sweep of turquoise. "Let me check you." She didn't really ask so much as demand and if he squirmed then she'd thump him till he stopped. "Yer gonna be black an' blue tomorrow, but nothin's broken." There were a thousand emotions dancing in the flecks of colours swirling in her eyes, but Vega said nothing. Not a thing.

But then, he told her it wasn't about hiding the truth. Which it obviously was, as far as Vega saw things, anyhow. Sometimes, she thought, she lived in a different world to him. Lifting her arm, she sighed as she saw that the sleeve of her dress was sliced right through. There was none of the strange glowing stuff on her, though, which was good and the thin cut on her arm stung. Like a paper cut, she supposed. "I'll bandage you up, it'll support you. Put some o'that arnica stuff on it, bring out the bruise." Moving back to the tent, she grabbed the medical bag and motioned for him to perch himself on a rock. "Please don't tell me yer fine an' don't need it. I'm done arguin' with you." If he let her, she'd bandage him up, but if he argued or didn't want it, she'd shrug and let him be. All she did with the cut on her own arm was pour some of the antiseptic liquid, which stung like a beast, over it.

"Ever since I've known you," she said, closing up the stopper on the bottle and paying attention to what she was doing. "Cassion. It's always been about Cassion for you. You remember when he marked you the first time? You came chargin' home. Back to the ship, I mean." Vega smiled, but it was a sad expression, when she remembered how he'd been the first time and how very much had changed that he didn't do it the second. "I know how much 'im marking you a second time must have meant to you." But they had more important things going on? Oh, he was on a roll and her eyes swirled anew. "Nothin's more important to me than you, Arlo, an' I'm sorry that you seem to think anythin' would be." She could feel emotions happening which she really didn't want to have, she wasn't going to allow herself to get upset here, no. Not happening. So, she stood up and started to put the crates and boxes back to some kind of order. They were heavy and messy and she could just focus on that, the physical movement."He suggested to you, he told you, whatever. He said it migh' be best not to tell me, an' you didn't." Shrugging, anger being replaced by something quite beyond her understanding, she shook her head.

"I get that you were doin' what your Immortal told you to, an' if that meant hidin' things from me then it did, an' that's what you'd always do," she got it, she accepted it about him. It wasn't the same for her, but then she had no wish to change him or his priorities. He was who he was and she loved him for it. "An' maybe he was tryin' to protect you, an' who can blame him? It's fine, it doesn't matter." Yeah, she was done talking about this because this was all far, far too emotional for her to communicate. Even the Immortals were trying to protect him from her? No. Not a conversation she was going to have. "Lets get teeth an' claws an' stuff, shall we?"

[Arlo Creede]

Vega's eyes were a dead giveaway. They were an instant access indicator of how a discussion was likely to go, after any given argument or comment he made. And chances were, during any given argument or lively debate, he was going to say something wrong. Not that Arlo believed at all that his remarks were ill conceived. It was more that there was frequently a disconnect, or a gaping chasm-like divide, between what he actually said, and what Vega heard. Arlo's mother had taught him a lot, like how not to cook well, but having been a woman herself she at least could have warned him. Damned conspiracy, that's what it was. Women.

But even the instant change in eye color tended not to clue him in to exactly how he'd apparently gone wrong, or how to correct it. Which made it not that useful after all, come to think of it. If Vega had been the type to throw the china at him, then at the least he'd get a heads' up and know when to duck. "I'm fine," he grumbled, but offered no more than that as he let her look his ribs over. He'd live, undoubtedly and was more concerned that some foul trace of something might have gotten into that scratch on her arm.

"I know that Vega," he said, busying himself with putting the camp back in order. "But you seem to think that because I didn't tell you sooner, that I don't feel the same way." Her being important to him that was. And in fact it was largely the reason he hadn't told her before. She'd have worried all the more about certain urges that were bound to have been increased yet again after a second blessing. As it was, she'd tried to serve him up another woman as if offering her up on a silver platter? How much more would she have worried if she'd known?

"You think that's why I didn't tell you? Because Cassion suggested I don't? You think I follow that blindly? And how do you know he was trying to protect me? He tell you that?" he asked. "He's thrown me into and at any number of things now without a thought, not that I didn't go willingly. It occur to you that it wasn't me he was concerned about? And I only took that advice because later, I thought it was the right thing?" Cassion had known something was going to happen, that was for sure. And it had. "I had nothing to do with hiding it from you. Not like that."

And it did matter, Arlo added. It mattered because she leaped to conclusions regarding thought processes that weren't his. He should have chosen a better time, he admitted. But if he'd told her yestertrial to next trial or a ten trial sooner or a ten trial later, she'd still be angry with him. "If I tell why I've done something, that's why I've done it. I love you. I chose to wait not because he told me to but because I thought it was better. And because it wasn't what mattered to me at the time. It's that simple. Don't complicate it by thinking there's some hidden meaning between the lines. There isn't" he said as they began collecting the teeth and claws.

[Vega]

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The thing with men, Arlo especially, was that they were just stubborn and stupid. Even her father. Every man she had ever met, come to think of it, was a stubborn, pig-headed, idiot and she hated them all. Especially Arlo. Except, of course, the problem was that she loved him to distraction and he could hurt her much more easily than any horned weird looking beast. So, she felt her temper continue to rage and she tidied up the camp with much too much force for anyone to be in any doubt just how irritated she was. But, when he let her look at his ribs, her hands on him were gentle. "You could've been really 'urt you idiot," she whispered, loud enough that he'd hear. It was a sign that she was calming, although it was a slow process.

While he spoke, she didn't answer, didn't say anything. She just listened, which was probably what she needed to do in fairness. He spoke about what he'd done and why he'd done it and she listened to him. Then, she sat down. On the ground, where she was, she just sat down. Looking at him, she spoke in a relatively calm voice. "I was irritated you hadn't told me, an' you're right. I always would be. Because you should 'ave." That was an unarguable, irrefutable fact as far as Vega was concerned. He should have told her. "I wanna share everythin' with you, Arlo. All yer triumphs an' tragedies an' everythin' in between. All of me, all in expects all of you, all in an' that means no secrets." Her eyes betrayed her, she knew, they always did. Always told him what she was feeling and she was of the opinion it was damned inconvenient. No matter what the reason why, although she thought she understood, secrets were bad.

"You were tryin' to stop me worryin'. Or to stop me pimping you out like a two copper floozy," she smiled slightly and the hues of her irises swirled with a range of shades. "I understand that, an' I appreciate it. I do." He knew the next word, of course, "but Arlo, it's not what should be between me an' you, qau'ma." Plucking at the grass, she frowned. "Truth is, though, that annoyed me an' I'd have already been punchin' you and demandin' the story. It weren't that what got me well riled," that was very much a Vega-ism. Annoyed was shouting and punching, but laughing too and really, just slightly irked. However, well riled? That was what had just happened. "It was you askin' when would have been a better time."

She looked at him and gestured in a vague, over there and in the past direction. "You asked me that when Mixiebelle came to the ship. When you'd carried me up the stairs an' I was scared witless that was goin' to be our lives. When should you 'ave told me she kissed you, you asked an' you listed all the times an' reasons why you hadn't said somethin' before. Vega's voice didn't sound angry, she wasn't annoyed any more she was just trying to explain that it upset her, without using the words or admitting to the feelings. It was harder to do than she would have given it credit for being. "It's been hard, I know that. But when you asked me when would 'ave been a better time, it felt like you were just about to list all the reasons you haven't been able to share this amazin' news with me, an' all the ways that I push you away, or jus' need lookin' after." She'd hated that, hated that he'd had to help her in so many ways.

"It hurts my feelin's, an' I don't like it." Yep. Really difficult to say. She'd spent so long being weak, feeling weak, she didn't want to feel it any more. Especially with him, of all people. "An' I know I over reacted, an' jumped to all sorts of places, but it was your fault an' I'm not sorry," she smiled at him, her words as sincere an apology as could be. Especially when accompanied by the very gentle punch to his shoulder. "So come on an' tell me, then. What happened?"

[Arlo Creede]

"And so could you," Arlo grumbled quietly when Vega said he could've been hurt. And he couldn't have stopped her from charging in any more than she could have done for him. But at least she wasn't shouting anymore. "It wasn't a secret Vega," he added when she sat down, and he found a place on the log that he'd righted and dragged back into place. "There were more important things to think about." And they'd been much more important. Not because she was so damned determined to believe she'd been a burden on him, ever, but because he loved her and anything else came second, third, or farther than that down the list.

"It wasn't a secret, and the mark wasn't going anywhere." He grinned though, albeit briefly when she reminded of how she'd tried to push Fi off on him. As for the words he'd said that had triggered all this upset? Or at least most of it. Arlo didn't say so aloud, it would be for nothing. But he firmly believed that what he meant when he said it, was something completely different than what she was hearing. "That was more aggravation than anything else," he admitted, referring to Mixiebelle in particular. The kiss that was. "I didn't tell you about it because it was so unwanted and inconsequential that I hadn't given it a second thought."

If Vega would think back, she'd also remember that it was that night, after that unwanted kiss, that he'd returned to the boat before her. Schubert had come to collect him for Cassion's game that night, and when he'd finally returned, Vega was gone. He'd had much more important things on his mind then than trying to remember something that he'd neither asked for, wanted or been moved by. Arlo didn't say any of those things of course. They were reasons but not excuses. One thing was for sure though. "You've got to get it out of your head that you've ever been any sort of hardship or burden. It's not true and never was."

The knock to the shoulder seemed to signal the end of the disagreement though, and as signals went, Arlo would take it. "You remember the ice caves where we saw the ice statues?" he reminded her. "That's where we went, except before we got there, there were other things. Like wolves made of fire. In fact, all the elements." Of course that was just part of the story though he had a scar on the palm of his hand that served as a ready reminder. But he'd made up a story about those statues, Arlo reminded her. Except the truth was much stranger and more tragic than that.

He told her the story then as Cassion had told him. He told her what he saw and described the pulsing lights and what controlled them, all the sights that strangely had been concealed from them, last time they'd been there. "Their souls had been trapped there for centuries and would be for centuries more. Men, women, children, and they couldn't ask for help. It had to be freely offered. By a mortal." He'd known the risk he was taking, Arlo told Vega. But then how could he not? He couldn't have lived with himself if he'd walked away and left them. "It might be another hundred arcs, or never before someone else happened along." And they might have believed they were only statues, very artfully done.

He told Vega then what he'd done, how he'd done it and what had happened. How it had all seemed to go wrong, until suddenly it went right. "Cassion was surprised as me I think," he said, remembering back with a curious expression. "I think he might have put things right for me but he didn't need to." And left behind, were two ice statues of himself, the old and the new. "They were let free. But you know what it was that saved me" he asked her with a lopsided grin. "It was that damned potion I'd swallowed. The one we'd argued over after I'd done it." Not that he was saying I told you so. In spite of the temptation, well, Arlo just wouldn't dare.

[Vega]

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Vega sat and watched him, perched there on his log. Always, with the log. Ever since she'd met him, he'd had a fixation with sitting on logs. She'd even made a perfectly lovely bench but no. Arlo sat on his log. One side of her mouth lifted in amusement at him and his strange habits, her eyes showing the intensity of the emotions she felt by the speed of the movement and the vividness of the shades. Not all negative ones, though, as he spoke. She listened and he made sense and she knew it, but there remained a simple fact. "I'm a hypocrite of the worst order, Arlo. I know I am." Vega looked at him when he told her that she needed to stop thinking that she was a burden.

It was hard to explain and she was rubbish at doing so, she was quick to point out, but she'd try. "If you got hurt like I did, it would change nothin' about us. I'd carry you up every mountain, if that was what it took, like I know you would me. An' we'd make it work an' I'd care only about you hurtin'." She leaned forward and touched his ribs. "I'd worry about you, of course I would, and I'd feel useless as all Billy-oh for not bein' able to fix it for you. But what matters to me is when I'm with you, I've got all I need." Wherever they were, whatever they did and no matter what happened. She smiled slightly and gestured to her legs. "Same rules don't apply the other way around. An' I know that isn't fair or right." She knew it also wasn't true she told him. Or, at least, her head did. Her heart still had some catching up to do.

"I've never met no one like you. Even before Cassion's blood was in yer veins. I want to see the whole world with you, be part of it. Part of you." She glared at him as she said that, "an' I hate bein' that soft on anyone. But I am. We couldn't climb the mountain in Viden so you didn't. I hate that. I know that I'm not a burden to you. I jus' hate feelin' like one an' that feelin' comes from me, not you." She knew that, she didn't doubt it. The feeling of frustration was in not being able to be what she wanted to be for him ~ there was no perceived lack on his part, it was all hers. "An' if it was you, you wouldn't be one an' you'd be stupid for thinkin' it, even for a trill." Her expression told it all, she knew how contrary she was, she understood it but she equally couldn't stop feeling what she felt. She was no good with words, he knew that she told him, accusingly, but the bottom line was simple. "I know what you'll always choose, but I don't wanna take all the fun out of adventurin' alone an' then make that yer only choice. I wanna be the one who makes our life the best, most adventure filled an' best lived life you could wish for, like you do for me." Shrugging slightly she glared again. "Well, you do. Shurrup."

A thump to his shoulder and he spoke of what had happened to him when last he travelled with Cassion. Vega listened with rapt attention, her eyes widening in amazement as she listened to the tale. The statues were people? Vega frowned and her eyes welled with unshed tears at the thought of the people trapped there. "Arlo, they must've been so lonely." That he'd offered himself for them to be set free didn't surprise her at all, nor did it upset or concern her. Of course he did. She held on to his hand, her fingers entwining in his as he spoke of what had happened and tears glistened in her eyes still, though she didn't cry, but pride shone out of her. She didn't say anything, just listening to the tale he wove and then one eyebrow raised in some surprise as he said there were now two statues of him. One young and one older?

But at the why? Well, Vega's gaze on him was stern, unyielding as she saw the slightly smug beginning of a 'didn't I tell you it was no big deal' and even a smidge of 'it was a good idea' crossing his face. "So, Cassion 'ad a plan to save you cos not even he, the Immortal of Adventure and Stories had considered that you could be that stupid?" She was teasing him, mostly, but also not. "Way to impress yer Immortal, Arlo." There was no doubt that she was proud of him, everything about her told it, but she said it, too. "You did a brave thing, an' the right thing, too. If you'd been stuck down there, I hope Cassion would've come'n told me, an' I could have talked your head off for the next eighty arcs." Looking at him, she reached up and tugged at a piece of his hair. "I know what you hoped I'd be doin' for that time, but you'd 'ave been sorely disappointed Creede." She'd have stayed there with him, no matter that he'd have wanted her to do different.

Looking down at their hands held together, Vega smiled suddenly. "An' yer right, you know. If you had told me, I'd have been askin' Fi if she had another sister, so's you had a spare." Her cheeks flushed at the thought, she was more than embarrassed by that particular suggestion, unsubtle as she'd been about it. "I jus' hate the idea of not bein' everythin' you need, you know? An' then I hate the idea of wantin' and needin' to be that. It's very complicated livin' in my head. But I'm right proud of you, Arlo, an' the choices you made. It must 'ave been an amazin' sight." Scooching over to sit next to him, she leaned herself against him and nestled herself there. It was one of the few places she was ever still, she thought, in his arms. That thought caused a grin to cross her face, which he undoubtedly felt as she leaned her head against him. "An' can I jus' say. Of all the ways you've woken me up in the middle of the night?" She lifted her head to grin at him. "That was my least favourite."

[Arlo Creede]

A hypocrite? Well that much was true, just as it was true for him in some cases. In everyone's case, Arlo figured, to some degree or another. Still, he grinned and teased her. "I'm detecting a distinct imbalance in this arrangement we've got between us," he quipped. And yes, it was all about the log. Always had been. As long as there were trees that fell either because they'd fallen on their own or been cut down for some reason, there'd always be a chair or bench to sit on.

"I know you would," he added when Vega vowed that were the roles reversed, she'd care for him, even carry him. And just like her though he wouldn't say it, he wouldn't want her to have to, and would feel like he was a burden. And yet she'd never been that. Not even close. That mountain would always be there though, Arlo told her. If not that one then another, and another. Those sorts of things endured the test of time, just like the two of them did. But yes, "They were lonely. They'd been tricked, made to believe that their sacrifice would save the lives of countless others. So they went willingly, to the extent of condemning their own children with them," he said sadly.

Except that they'd been lied to and their sacrifice had only been for the sake of someone else's greed and lust for power and a sense of immortality. In effect the sacrifice had been for nothing. Squeezing her hand, he smiled. He'd known that no matter how awful it would have been had things gone wrong for him, Vega would have understood why he'd one it. And he'd known then, she'd have done the same thing. He hadn't gone in believing that Cassion would save him had things gone the way that he'd feared they might. But still he couldn't have done anything else. He'd have had to live his life knowing he'd abandoned them.

But she'd have been there, nagging him for so long as she lived. Arlo grinned and shook his head, snorting in amusement. He didn't doubt it for a trill. Vega was just that stubborn and determined. "He did seem taken aback," he confessed, and laughed, remembering Cassion's reaction when he'd told him about the potion and who'd given it to him. "You're everything I need Vega. Always have been. All that I've known I needed and more. The things I hadn't even thought of and don't know how I got by without them."

Some trial, he told her, they'd go back to Scalvoris and visit that cavern again, and she could see the place where two perfect renditions of him had joined all the others. But now? They truly were just a bunch of lifeless statues. As for now, he could only agree. There were countless better ways to wake up side by side, than to a rampaging beast bent on tearing them limb from limb. But she had to admit, it wasn't a dull life they were leading.

[Doran Cooney]

Eva "Vega" Lei'nox

Knowledges
Acrobatics: Drop to dodge an attack
Acrobatics: Tumble and stand in one movement
Blade Combat (Longsword): Put strength behind a thrust by pulling your arm back.
Blade Combat (Longsword): Thrust forward and put your weight behind it
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Starlight to guide you helps with aim
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Maintaining aim when the ground is shaking
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Work in partnership with another -aim for different but related places
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Shooting true even amidst distractions
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Grab, aim, shoot is good in an emergency, but not great.
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Continuous shots will kill even a hard to kill critter
Dancing: Utilising a dance move in combat
Dancing: Spin on the back foot
Medicine: Tending to bruised ribs.

Loot: Carcass of 3 x thundermaw (shared with Arlo)
Injuries: Small, thin cut on her arm - just a flesh wound
Renown: N/A

Points 15

Arlo Creede

Knowledges
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Starlight to guide you helps with aim
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Maintaining aim when the ground is shaking
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Aim for the soft flesh of the throat
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Swing your bow to change aim quickly
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Work in partnership with another -aim for different but related places
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Shooting true even amidst distractions
Ranged Combat (Shortbow): Grab, aim, shoot
Endurance: Being knocked off your feet.
Endurance: The pain of bruised ribs
Medicine: Small wounds can have nasty stuff in them
Rhetoric: Giving news at an (in)opportune moment
Rhetoric: Stating your feelings
Storytelling: The tale of how Cassion marked you again.

Loot: Carcass of 3 x thundermaw (shared with Vega)
Injuries: Badly bruised ribs. Will be in pain and uncomfortable for the next 12 trials.
Renown: N/A

Points 10 15

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That was either the most calm combat thread or the most action packed heart-to-heart in Rharne; either way, good expression of really different concerns and having the PCs work through their misunderstandings to a place where they could share their legitimate concerns - and excitement!

Please edit your grade request, thank you!