RP between Degu, Coltara and Rigby
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Degu — 09/10/2020
Something had rattled the faewatch at the forest fort, sundown. They’d spotted a fae child approaching the border but then he was gone. The next time he was spotted he was disappearing past the houses towards the city…then when the guards had tried to chase him down, shouting and calling to one another, he was gone again. The alarm bell at the fort was rung and then when heard the guards in the town rang their bell, and then the next and then the next until the city was alerted to a threat. Not one of the watch truly believed an unseelie child to be only what it seemed. The citizens of the town panicked and took shelter in every nearest building aside from the few idiots who wanted to watch and those who were ready to help the guard.
When he was finally seen again, he was emerging between two buildings close to the slums tavern. The little boy with iridescent wings glimmering in the fading light made his way towards the bridge that crossed over into the town square. He looked disorientated, squinting with gaping lips. He was charcoal skinned with bright yellow eyes and short hair, along with tiny nub-like horns atop his head. Guards closed in on his location, one particularly large man already brandishing a sword and bellowing to his men ”HOLD! This reeks of a faery trick!” and so they did. Behind his path and in front.
As the boy crossed the bridge he burst with a purple and gold kaleidoscope of colour and aged swiftly, his strange armour growing with him. A gangly preteen with longer hair staggered sideways into the railings and nearly fell into the canal below “Evren..” he rasped breathlessly in a hoarse, pubescent voice. Carrying on he aged again and fell to his knees, panting as he reached his late teens.
[8:30 PM]
”An Unseelie Lord, In the city!” yelled another large guard furiously, raising his sword and moving forwards, ripping a cold iron horseshoe from his belt. Carneiros knew what it was in an instant and immediately his growth was stunted as the man approached. Humans? Humans.
He fumbled for his own sword, stubbornly rising to his feet and regarding the man approaching him with cold derision even in his weakened state, even feeling the searing iron coming closer.
”EBERHARDT you are acting against orders! HOLD! This is for faewatch to handle!” The one question on their minds as they prayed for faewatch to catch up to the situation? What did this lord want. No one dared get close, they knew the tricks of the fae well by now.
Rigby — 09/11/2020
With her father and remaining brother of-age out among the guard, Richa was told to look after the House, as she always was.
It was her orders that delegated some of Aiolfi's soldier-mercenaries to lock down the compound and another few for Grimani. It might not have exactly been wartime, but it certainly wasn't peace, and any arrangements between the two houses had held.
Unusually, the Lady was ready, herself. Should this Lord have brought armies or reinforcements, Richa, too, wielded weaponry.
-
Marcello led a squad of Aiolfi's own guards. Some of these were from his compound and some, too, were Faewatch; the heritage of the mercenary Aiolfo worn proudly and the distinction marked by wolves and tygers curling around their own insignia, depending on the age of the wearers and the age of their armor.
"Unseelie Lord, you say," Marc called out to the guard who dared get closer, his own hand on his hilt. 'Eberhardt' was more of a name for his father to have known, but madness and illness never made for good stories. Or a particularly attentive parent in general.
"Ease up; he's just one." He'd sounded maddeningly sure, the 'suggestion' quiet but laced with command - even in the face of this fae, and any possible fae tricks.
And he stepped forward with purpose, yet strangely with an air as if compelled, slinking, leonine, eyes locked onto the strange teen.
"Who are you, and why have you come?"
-
Evren had searched. She'd kept ears and eyes open, sent Idris skulking through the shadowy corners of forests and cities alike, on the prowl for anything even more out of the ordinary than the tenuous status quo the city and the forests held between each other.
But that was all she was able to do. She couldn't create; the library held no appeal. They couldn't write a book on the kind of rebirth Cassius might have expected, for that would require someone having to write up its rules. And rules weren't in her lover’s nature.
She’d sprung to life for her children and the barghest, enthusiasm rallying for them as they'd visited, or as she'd take them out on various exploratory trips. But it only appeared to mean Evren’s usual animated nature drained even more whenever they'd part again, and she'd often find herself alone, letting the sand and ashes of long-extinguished fire signals and pits sift through her fingers, sometimes closing her fist around it in vain attempts to hold onto it all, and only vaguely aware she was doing any of these things.
No disturbance was chaotic enough, no egg was strange enough. She'd felt she would've known, though did accumulate far more awkward stories of her checking the eggs of various creatures magical and mundane than she otherwise would've admitted to most. Except the kids, of course. They got the funnier ones.
She'd hated the funk, tried in vain to work her way out of it, out of sleep and out of the dreams that followed, as the only ways she knew how to distract herself - but even she did not realize how deep of a mire in which she’d sunken until she'd heard the city's alarm bells. It was the first gasp of clarity she'd felt since she'd driven the knife home.
Hastily, she'd grabbed her baton and set out with a single-minded focus: follow the guards, and hurry.
(Though she'd called out effortlessly any hiding places certain sons would have attempted to stake out to watch the drama while on her path!)
Degu — 09/13/2020
Harpur thrust the horseshoe into Marcello's hand if he'd take it, sneering from inside his helm "Just one?" anger laced his tone. He resented younger men like Marcello, allowed to climb the ranks of faewatch and in HIS opinion: far less worthy or experienced than him. Still, a young man all the same. Outranked, all he could do was linger close and give a brief line of advice.
"Anything a fae does to confuse us is a distraction. Where one lord is, an army follows. Just be careful, lad." he rumbled and finally submitted to the faewatch's higher command, waiting for his orders... as close to the faewatch as he could be. He would fight WITH them, he WOULD be faewatch.
----
"He's right you know. Tricksters, these fae." Came a voice from beside Marcello, a fellow faewatch guard except ...it wasn't, it was the same Fae right up ahead of them smiling coyly over at himself with a hand on his hip. "You know, just like humans are all colonizing, blood thirsty slaughterers" he purred playfully, piercing eyes fixing on Marc, a smirk curled upon his thin lips. In a blink he would be gone and no one seemed to have noticed. In his place was just a fellow guard, the man who'd been there in the first place.
----
Carneiros leaned on the railing of the bridge and sat down, his body sapped for now and unable to regain itself as quickly with that damned horseshoe held nearby...a cruel weapon.
"I am here- " his jumbled mind was a swarm of confusion and chaos, but he knew why he was here "I live here. I'm looking for my family." He could've been a fae returning a few hundred years late to a war, that might seem less strange than the reality for many here.
"My fiancé, my Evren. Where is she?" he rose up... why couldn't he remember where their home was? was this even Thornmouth? He rose up and started to walk towards Marcello steadily, wincing and halting before sneering and pointing towards that horseshoe "Get that AWAY from me!" his voice BOOMED across the city square.
Coltara — 09/14/2020
The commotion summoned enough idiots into the streets as shouts turned to alarm bells, although most wisely kept their distance from the growing scene. That did not stop more curious bodies from leaning out of doorways or faces from pressing up against window panes, smaller groups outside of nightly establishments lingering just far enough away that the guards wouldn’t bother them.
In this gathering crowd was a face unlikely to be recognized by the currently present: a shorter woman with big green eyes and ginger hair. It seemed she had already been out that night and had not panicked like the large majority of citizens. A large jar of fluttering moths was being carefully held by top and bottom between both hands and the muzzle of a fluffy, reptilian creature peeked out from her cloak at shoulder, where it casually chomped away on a less fortunate insect.
It gulped and disappeared when the unseelie lord raised his voice to shout across the square.
This woman wouldn’t deliver any commentary to her fellow gawkers or try to intervene in any way (although her freckled features did express some concern), but she was there among those brave or foolish enough to watch.
Rigby — 09/14/2020
"Just one." The echo was odd, the stare unblinking and wolfish.
He tensed, set his jaw, but did not round on or draw any weapons on the place where that Fae appeared.
"Talking with my father, I take it." THAT was finally rueful, and seemingly a murmur only for Harpur. It was a lapse brief and fully as surly as something more befitting of his age. Even if the older men had talked, gone over fae business and brutal stories time and again, his father didn't do much talking, anymore.
After a beat, a tiny jerk of his head, a come-follow-me gesture to Harpur (and, if they'd caught it, his men), he'd stepped forward.
Marc held up an empty hand, very visibly made a deal of tying the horseshoe to his side, and finally appeared to lay his arms to rest at ease at both sides (though 'at ease' looked like it could still grab that sword at any moment!)
He'd caught the horseshoe with an ungloved hand; it had parted with some fragmented resistance, in a motion not unlike the peeling of a near-healed scab. When raising both hands, the sharp-eyed might have noticed that slivers still remained. Here was where to the observant the mask would falter slightly - that brief moment to surrender to unexpected pain and a brief and petulant what the fuck in those unblinking eyes was entirely natural.
"You live in the city. Tell me your name." He was sure he'd known it, anyway "And we'll bring you to her. Private escort, if you will. Except for the private part, you've made a mess of that already."
There was something between alarm, confusion and a sneer Who in this city would marry you - and despite those thoughts never fully articulating, never mind voiced aloud, someone still answered.
For one wild moment, that someone considered taking full dragonshape, wanting to leap right over the crowd, separate Cass from whatever-growing-taurshit this was, and leave these guards so gloriously dead or confused that it'd surely ruin their whole day.
But shoving through the seas of gawkers - hopeful, angry, unstoppable, baton in hand - would have to do.
*"Evren is RIGHT HERE."*
Degu — 09/16/2020
Harpur huffed "Your father knows what he's talkin' about. Smart man." he rumbled back before falling in line with Marc when gestured to follow, along with Marc's own men. He was thrilled, secretly, he was where he belonged: among the faewatch. Perhaps luckily he hadn't noticed the younger man's reaction to the horseshoe, focused like a hawk on the lord ahead of them.
Carneiros stared back at them. "Ca..." he caught himself. What if his name was well known? there were fae here, he just wasn't keen to risk the attention of any who might know the name "Cassius. My name is Cassius." he said smoothly, it wasn't a lie as much as it wasn't the truth.
"We've no unseelie lords or ladies living here in the city. We have never, not beyond our queen. We cannot accept this, we know it is not the truth! There have been no winged fae here!" he urgently whispered to Marc, perhaps Carneiros could hear it because his eyes turned cold and narrowed at Harpur, gauntleted fingers resting on the hilt of his sword "Not peaceful, Marcello, they're never -" Harpur was abruptly cut short.
Evren's shout cut through the crowd and Cassius' head snapped in her direction "Evren!?" he called out and turned, leaping up onto the railings in a way that defied the laws of gravity. He ran along the railings towards the crowd on the other side and there were screams from the gawkers and chaos ensued as they tried to scatter. Harpur practically surged forwards without a command "He's going to attack the crowd!" the guard bellowed and apparently other riled guards believed him because swords were drawn and bows snapped back ready to release.
Carneiros slowed to a halt up there on the railings, slowly raising his hands and looking around. He didn't want Evren to end up in the line of fire. He couldn't help sneering, wings lowering and folding against his back. Yellow eyes went back to scanning the crowd, not realising Harpur was getting close behind unless Marcello pulled rank and told him to stop. "Evren? I'm here!" he called out to the panicked crowd.
Rigby — 09/19/2020
"Hurt it now and the rest will turn violent." It was a wolfish snarl, barely wrangled into a controlled hiss. No mercy. But they wouldn't be the catalyst either.
But his initial plan of bringing him to this 'Evren' would have to wait. The fae's hand went to his sword before he sprang up to the railings, and Marc was loosed like a bolt from a bow, springing after both Harpur and the Fae alike.
"HOLD" was a bark, but he didn't tell them to lower any weapons. "Follow him. Sights on him. Harpur, back."
---
The scattering gawkers at least helped the woman to move forward, and she'd continued to shove past them. The tail was out, this time, though she held back on the wings for the time being. At long last, she stumbled into a small clearing among the shifting onlookers, tail vanishing beneath coattails with a whisper of illusion, and barely a flinch. Had it ever been there? She whipped out that baton, the item dancing around her forearm to leap into her hand, and she held it before her, horizontally.
"I'm gonna need everybody to just CALM DOWN."
It didn't help that a good handful of the more hair-trigger faewatch turned with a snap to train their weapons on her at that last shout, too, and for a moment she just simply stared at all of them. A beat, a restrained roll of her eyes and a grim smirk.
"Oh, fine."
And with another whisk of illusion and magic, two red and membranous unfurled from her back, curling in anticipation, clothing subtly adapting as if they'd always been there.
"Let him down, give him safe passage. Let me take him home. Or I'll come up there."
Degu — 09/22/2020
Harpur snarled in frustration and held before falling back. He was a loyal, dutiful guard if nothing else, he'd listen to the faewatch that outranked him. He stayed at Marc's side now, eyes narrowed as he moved forwards only with the other faewatch.
Of course he saw that baton from the woman across the way and growled "She has a weapon!" his own weapon pointed with the likes of the faewatch only to take two steps back her wings unfurled "A dragon! she's a damned dragon!" he hissed through his teeth to Marc. He wasn't afraid, he was alarmed, everyone here had seen now and then the devastation a dragon could cause and while outsider dragons were welcome in the city very few of the guards probably liked the omen of a fae lord and a dragon queen turning up in the same place inside the city. "Aren't we going to take them before the king?" he should've said 'and the queen' but it was the subtlest way in which he protested the existence of the fae queen.
---
If allowed safe passage, Carneiros would nervously eye the guards before hopping down from the railings and walking swiftly over towards Evren. As he approached her, young man that had looked 19 aged up with a shimmer of purple magic shedding from his body, gaining a little height and harsher features, looking far more serious and imposing then. His hair grew even longer, hanging like a beautiful curtain between his wings.
He wasted no time, throwing his arms around Evren with desperation and laughing in breathless relief as he pressed his nose up alongside hers and bumped his forehead to hers "Evren, my love" he whispered with wet eyes and tears making tracks down his cheeks. His head tilted, lips pressing repeatedly to hers in quick, urgent kisses that said all he was feeling in his heart.
I missed you. I made it back.
--
Harpur stared on and growled in Marc's ear "Disgusting." before spitting off to the side. "What are we supposed to do with this? Just let them live here?"
Rigby — 10/02/2020
The dragon-woman's wings unfurled, and one now-very-literal bolt whisked harmlessly into the sky as Marc leaped with a snarl to push the aim of a nearby guard's crossbow out of any potential war-mongering paths. A reflexive reaction tempered by an almost impossibly, inhumanly reflexive response.
"Unfortunately, yes." It was stiff.
He'd watched the scene with unusual tension, pulling a glove back on and wrapping the horseshoe around it, much like a brass-knuckles or caestus sort of arrangement. Nothing stuck to him when there were gloves. That hand, too, went to his hilt and remained there. Gloves also meant nobody could see the white knuckles.
The dragon queen and the fae lord embraced and Marc set his jaw, weighing options, rueful that today ended as a day in which he was leading Aiolfi's group of guards and Faewatch. First on-scene, it fell to him. He was ill. This was strange. And he wished his father were well, and were here. It may have left open a strange window of vulnerability in wholly listening to the big guard.
His first plan was selfish; lead him to their house, keep the peace. Know where they live. Picking a fight with two powerful beings, here and now, would snowball without knowing more about them. But such power should also be kept in check.
"But that doesn't mean we don't let the king know."
--
Carnieros approached and as he'd moved forward, Ev's wings remained raised, stiff and terse and occasionally sparking with restrained magics, twitching as her fiery eyes flicked from guard to guard, from boy to man, and always, always returning to lock on the approaching fae.
It was only when he finally reached her that they both deftly folded against her back and vanished once more with a whisk and whisper of an effortless, experienced shift and charmed, illusive magics. Baton was dropped and she was Evren the woman, once more.
And Evren, the woman, not caring one bit how this looked as usual, rushed forward to embrace Carnieros, her lord and equal, wild and winged, burying her face into his neck and hair with a grateful sob that left her as more of a laugh, fingers intertwining with the strands. Their lips met and she'd melted into their embrace, their kiss speaking where words would've failed.
Degu — 10/06/2020
Carneiros cradled the back of her head for a time, and kissed her lovingly after so long apart. He hadn't wanted to leave her wondering if he'd ever return, adrift in a sea of uncertainty. "I'm so sorry, my love." he cooed to her in a whisper once their kiss broke and then held her tight to his chest.
He jolted a bit as he heard the whip of a bolt, although it was upwards towards the sky. Turning his head he narrowed his eyes at the group and then honed in on Marc, who seemed to be giving the orders. "I am a citizen of Thornmouth. I entered before my rebirth, I've a home here, I've papers to prove it. Hopefully you all swore an oath to protect your citizens when you entered the guard." There was a pregnant pause where he drew a breath "We are citizens and I assure you we are not feeling very protected from the guard. We mean no harm to the people of this city, now if you'll excuse us, we are going home." and with that he'd protectively turn Evren around and walk behind her in case any stray arrows or bolts came their way, but encouraged her forwards so that they may walk.
---
Harpur growled under his breath "Fae aren't citizens" he hissed, a dangerous rhetoric to spread among the guard but some murmured in agreement. Tensions with the forest and the west had always been strong and many resented their queen being fae too, Harpur was only too happy to stoke those tensions.
His eyes widened furiously as Carneiros threw some stern words their way and then tried to walk away from the scene. "They're just leaving-!" he huffed furiously "Marcello-!" he seemed like he was about to step forwards but halted himself to avoid being put in his place again, glaring after the couple and silently praying for a command that would never come.
Rigby — 10/09/2020
No matter how much Evren had tried to rationalize things in the wake of Cassius' death, she'd yet found herself overwhelmed by the strangest grief she'd felt in decades and decades. She'd spent so long without him; having done the deed and held him until he was dust and then nothing at all, this new Carnieros was far too welcome and solid and real. She held him, clung and relished his hold on her.
And when she'd finally managed to tear herself away from him, she'd held her head high with the same stubborn haughtiness with which she'd entered the scene, but Carnieros got right to the point in much the same way she would have. So she'd capped it off with a rather daring little smirk, making eye contact with each and every guard, before nodding once.
"Good evening."
---
Marc was exceptionally pale, jaw set tight, stare locked and precise boring straight into Evren and Cassius, sweat pulling little black strands across his forehead, as if this was something far more strenuous than it had been.
His breaths were terse, his posture predatory one hand was outstretched to his side, fingers splayed. Hold. He did not blink once until they were well out of range, but still continued to watch them and note where they were heading...
His words fought to pretend they weren't labored. "We don't want a war. Not now. We tell the king."
Degu — 10/22/2020
Carneiros glanced sideways to appreciate his partner's haughty demeanour, smirking briefly before regarding the guards more seriously again "Good evening" he echoed and turned to leave with Evren on his arm. "You're such a dragon." He mused to her softly as they moved out of range, though he had many more words he wished to share with her once they were finally safe. He'd made it back to her, or rather... all of him had made it back, no more mirrors, no more reflections. Just him.
----
Harpur glared after them as they left, the vein in his neck throbbing with how tightly his jaw was clenched. He didn't trust this one bit, every instinct in his body told him to go after them, to kill them...but he couldn't.
But after all that his eyes shifted to the side to see Marcello, tense and strained as well. He listened to him and reached out to grip Marc's shoulder with a firm squeeze. "I'll go with you, lad." he rumbled more affectionately than seemed characteristic.
"Y' welcome to join me for drinks after, too. My place." he offered as he reached out a hand and asked for his horseshoe back. Heh, people had thought he was paranoid for carrying that around, too!
Something had rattled the faewatch at the forest fort, sundown. They’d spotted a fae child approaching the border but then he was gone. The next time he was spotted he was disappearing past the houses towards the city…then when the guards had tried to chase him down, shouting and calling to one another, he was gone again. The alarm bell at the fort was rung and then when heard the guards in the town rang their bell, and then the next and then the next until the city was alerted to a threat. Not one of the watch truly believed an unseelie child to be only what it seemed. The citizens of the town panicked and took shelter in every nearest building aside from the few idiots who wanted to watch and those who were ready to help the guard.
When he was finally seen again, he was emerging between two buildings close to the slums tavern. The little boy with iridescent wings glimmering in the fading light made his way towards the bridge that crossed over into the town square. He looked disorientated, squinting with gaping lips. He was charcoal skinned with bright yellow eyes and short hair, along with tiny nub-like horns atop his head. Guards closed in on his location, one particularly large man already brandishing a sword and bellowing to his men ”HOLD! This reeks of a faery trick!” and so they did. Behind his path and in front.
As the boy crossed the bridge he burst with a purple and gold kaleidoscope of colour and aged swiftly, his strange armour growing with him. A gangly preteen with longer hair staggered sideways into the railings and nearly fell into the canal below “Evren..” he rasped breathlessly in a hoarse, pubescent voice. Carrying on he aged again and fell to his knees, panting as he reached his late teens.
[8:30 PM]
”An Unseelie Lord, In the city!” yelled another large guard furiously, raising his sword and moving forwards, ripping a cold iron horseshoe from his belt. Carneiros knew what it was in an instant and immediately his growth was stunted as the man approached. Humans? Humans.
He fumbled for his own sword, stubbornly rising to his feet and regarding the man approaching him with cold derision even in his weakened state, even feeling the searing iron coming closer.
”EBERHARDT you are acting against orders! HOLD! This is for faewatch to handle!” The one question on their minds as they prayed for faewatch to catch up to the situation? What did this lord want. No one dared get close, they knew the tricks of the fae well by now.
Rigby — 09/11/2020
With her father and remaining brother of-age out among the guard, Richa was told to look after the House, as she always was.
It was her orders that delegated some of Aiolfi's soldier-mercenaries to lock down the compound and another few for Grimani. It might not have exactly been wartime, but it certainly wasn't peace, and any arrangements between the two houses had held.
Unusually, the Lady was ready, herself. Should this Lord have brought armies or reinforcements, Richa, too, wielded weaponry.
-
Marcello led a squad of Aiolfi's own guards. Some of these were from his compound and some, too, were Faewatch; the heritage of the mercenary Aiolfo worn proudly and the distinction marked by wolves and tygers curling around their own insignia, depending on the age of the wearers and the age of their armor.
"Unseelie Lord, you say," Marc called out to the guard who dared get closer, his own hand on his hilt. 'Eberhardt' was more of a name for his father to have known, but madness and illness never made for good stories. Or a particularly attentive parent in general.
"Ease up; he's just one." He'd sounded maddeningly sure, the 'suggestion' quiet but laced with command - even in the face of this fae, and any possible fae tricks.
And he stepped forward with purpose, yet strangely with an air as if compelled, slinking, leonine, eyes locked onto the strange teen.
"Who are you, and why have you come?"
-
Evren had searched. She'd kept ears and eyes open, sent Idris skulking through the shadowy corners of forests and cities alike, on the prowl for anything even more out of the ordinary than the tenuous status quo the city and the forests held between each other.
But that was all she was able to do. She couldn't create; the library held no appeal. They couldn't write a book on the kind of rebirth Cassius might have expected, for that would require someone having to write up its rules. And rules weren't in her lover’s nature.
She’d sprung to life for her children and the barghest, enthusiasm rallying for them as they'd visited, or as she'd take them out on various exploratory trips. But it only appeared to mean Evren’s usual animated nature drained even more whenever they'd part again, and she'd often find herself alone, letting the sand and ashes of long-extinguished fire signals and pits sift through her fingers, sometimes closing her fist around it in vain attempts to hold onto it all, and only vaguely aware she was doing any of these things.
No disturbance was chaotic enough, no egg was strange enough. She'd felt she would've known, though did accumulate far more awkward stories of her checking the eggs of various creatures magical and mundane than she otherwise would've admitted to most. Except the kids, of course. They got the funnier ones.
She'd hated the funk, tried in vain to work her way out of it, out of sleep and out of the dreams that followed, as the only ways she knew how to distract herself - but even she did not realize how deep of a mire in which she’d sunken until she'd heard the city's alarm bells. It was the first gasp of clarity she'd felt since she'd driven the knife home.
Hastily, she'd grabbed her baton and set out with a single-minded focus: follow the guards, and hurry.
(Though she'd called out effortlessly any hiding places certain sons would have attempted to stake out to watch the drama while on her path!)
Degu — 09/13/2020
Harpur thrust the horseshoe into Marcello's hand if he'd take it, sneering from inside his helm "Just one?" anger laced his tone. He resented younger men like Marcello, allowed to climb the ranks of faewatch and in HIS opinion: far less worthy or experienced than him. Still, a young man all the same. Outranked, all he could do was linger close and give a brief line of advice.
"Anything a fae does to confuse us is a distraction. Where one lord is, an army follows. Just be careful, lad." he rumbled and finally submitted to the faewatch's higher command, waiting for his orders... as close to the faewatch as he could be. He would fight WITH them, he WOULD be faewatch.
----
"He's right you know. Tricksters, these fae." Came a voice from beside Marcello, a fellow faewatch guard except ...it wasn't, it was the same Fae right up ahead of them smiling coyly over at himself with a hand on his hip. "You know, just like humans are all colonizing, blood thirsty slaughterers" he purred playfully, piercing eyes fixing on Marc, a smirk curled upon his thin lips. In a blink he would be gone and no one seemed to have noticed. In his place was just a fellow guard, the man who'd been there in the first place.
----
Carneiros leaned on the railing of the bridge and sat down, his body sapped for now and unable to regain itself as quickly with that damned horseshoe held nearby...a cruel weapon.
"I am here- " his jumbled mind was a swarm of confusion and chaos, but he knew why he was here "I live here. I'm looking for my family." He could've been a fae returning a few hundred years late to a war, that might seem less strange than the reality for many here.
"My fiancé, my Evren. Where is she?" he rose up... why couldn't he remember where their home was? was this even Thornmouth? He rose up and started to walk towards Marcello steadily, wincing and halting before sneering and pointing towards that horseshoe "Get that AWAY from me!" his voice BOOMED across the city square.
Coltara — 09/14/2020
The commotion summoned enough idiots into the streets as shouts turned to alarm bells, although most wisely kept their distance from the growing scene. That did not stop more curious bodies from leaning out of doorways or faces from pressing up against window panes, smaller groups outside of nightly establishments lingering just far enough away that the guards wouldn’t bother them.
In this gathering crowd was a face unlikely to be recognized by the currently present: a shorter woman with big green eyes and ginger hair. It seemed she had already been out that night and had not panicked like the large majority of citizens. A large jar of fluttering moths was being carefully held by top and bottom between both hands and the muzzle of a fluffy, reptilian creature peeked out from her cloak at shoulder, where it casually chomped away on a less fortunate insect.
It gulped and disappeared when the unseelie lord raised his voice to shout across the square.
This woman wouldn’t deliver any commentary to her fellow gawkers or try to intervene in any way (although her freckled features did express some concern), but she was there among those brave or foolish enough to watch.
Rigby — 09/14/2020
"Just one." The echo was odd, the stare unblinking and wolfish.
He tensed, set his jaw, but did not round on or draw any weapons on the place where that Fae appeared.
"Talking with my father, I take it." THAT was finally rueful, and seemingly a murmur only for Harpur. It was a lapse brief and fully as surly as something more befitting of his age. Even if the older men had talked, gone over fae business and brutal stories time and again, his father didn't do much talking, anymore.
After a beat, a tiny jerk of his head, a come-follow-me gesture to Harpur (and, if they'd caught it, his men), he'd stepped forward.
Marc held up an empty hand, very visibly made a deal of tying the horseshoe to his side, and finally appeared to lay his arms to rest at ease at both sides (though 'at ease' looked like it could still grab that sword at any moment!)
He'd caught the horseshoe with an ungloved hand; it had parted with some fragmented resistance, in a motion not unlike the peeling of a near-healed scab. When raising both hands, the sharp-eyed might have noticed that slivers still remained. Here was where to the observant the mask would falter slightly - that brief moment to surrender to unexpected pain and a brief and petulant what the fuck in those unblinking eyes was entirely natural.
"You live in the city. Tell me your name." He was sure he'd known it, anyway "And we'll bring you to her. Private escort, if you will. Except for the private part, you've made a mess of that already."
There was something between alarm, confusion and a sneer Who in this city would marry you - and despite those thoughts never fully articulating, never mind voiced aloud, someone still answered.
For one wild moment, that someone considered taking full dragonshape, wanting to leap right over the crowd, separate Cass from whatever-growing-taurshit this was, and leave these guards so gloriously dead or confused that it'd surely ruin their whole day.
But shoving through the seas of gawkers - hopeful, angry, unstoppable, baton in hand - would have to do.
*"Evren is RIGHT HERE."*
Degu — 09/16/2020
Harpur huffed "Your father knows what he's talkin' about. Smart man." he rumbled back before falling in line with Marc when gestured to follow, along with Marc's own men. He was thrilled, secretly, he was where he belonged: among the faewatch. Perhaps luckily he hadn't noticed the younger man's reaction to the horseshoe, focused like a hawk on the lord ahead of them.
Carneiros stared back at them. "Ca..." he caught himself. What if his name was well known? there were fae here, he just wasn't keen to risk the attention of any who might know the name "Cassius. My name is Cassius." he said smoothly, it wasn't a lie as much as it wasn't the truth.
"We've no unseelie lords or ladies living here in the city. We have never, not beyond our queen. We cannot accept this, we know it is not the truth! There have been no winged fae here!" he urgently whispered to Marc, perhaps Carneiros could hear it because his eyes turned cold and narrowed at Harpur, gauntleted fingers resting on the hilt of his sword "Not peaceful, Marcello, they're never -" Harpur was abruptly cut short.
Evren's shout cut through the crowd and Cassius' head snapped in her direction "Evren!?" he called out and turned, leaping up onto the railings in a way that defied the laws of gravity. He ran along the railings towards the crowd on the other side and there were screams from the gawkers and chaos ensued as they tried to scatter. Harpur practically surged forwards without a command "He's going to attack the crowd!" the guard bellowed and apparently other riled guards believed him because swords were drawn and bows snapped back ready to release.
Carneiros slowed to a halt up there on the railings, slowly raising his hands and looking around. He didn't want Evren to end up in the line of fire. He couldn't help sneering, wings lowering and folding against his back. Yellow eyes went back to scanning the crowd, not realising Harpur was getting close behind unless Marcello pulled rank and told him to stop. "Evren? I'm here!" he called out to the panicked crowd.
Rigby — 09/19/2020
"Hurt it now and the rest will turn violent." It was a wolfish snarl, barely wrangled into a controlled hiss. No mercy. But they wouldn't be the catalyst either.
But his initial plan of bringing him to this 'Evren' would have to wait. The fae's hand went to his sword before he sprang up to the railings, and Marc was loosed like a bolt from a bow, springing after both Harpur and the Fae alike.
"HOLD" was a bark, but he didn't tell them to lower any weapons. "Follow him. Sights on him. Harpur, back."
---
The scattering gawkers at least helped the woman to move forward, and she'd continued to shove past them. The tail was out, this time, though she held back on the wings for the time being. At long last, she stumbled into a small clearing among the shifting onlookers, tail vanishing beneath coattails with a whisper of illusion, and barely a flinch. Had it ever been there? She whipped out that baton, the item dancing around her forearm to leap into her hand, and she held it before her, horizontally.
"I'm gonna need everybody to just CALM DOWN."
It didn't help that a good handful of the more hair-trigger faewatch turned with a snap to train their weapons on her at that last shout, too, and for a moment she just simply stared at all of them. A beat, a restrained roll of her eyes and a grim smirk.
"Oh, fine."
And with another whisk of illusion and magic, two red and membranous unfurled from her back, curling in anticipation, clothing subtly adapting as if they'd always been there.
"Let him down, give him safe passage. Let me take him home. Or I'll come up there."
Degu — 09/22/2020
Harpur snarled in frustration and held before falling back. He was a loyal, dutiful guard if nothing else, he'd listen to the faewatch that outranked him. He stayed at Marc's side now, eyes narrowed as he moved forwards only with the other faewatch.
Of course he saw that baton from the woman across the way and growled "She has a weapon!" his own weapon pointed with the likes of the faewatch only to take two steps back her wings unfurled "A dragon! she's a damned dragon!" he hissed through his teeth to Marc. He wasn't afraid, he was alarmed, everyone here had seen now and then the devastation a dragon could cause and while outsider dragons were welcome in the city very few of the guards probably liked the omen of a fae lord and a dragon queen turning up in the same place inside the city. "Aren't we going to take them before the king?" he should've said 'and the queen' but it was the subtlest way in which he protested the existence of the fae queen.
---
If allowed safe passage, Carneiros would nervously eye the guards before hopping down from the railings and walking swiftly over towards Evren. As he approached her, young man that had looked 19 aged up with a shimmer of purple magic shedding from his body, gaining a little height and harsher features, looking far more serious and imposing then. His hair grew even longer, hanging like a beautiful curtain between his wings.
He wasted no time, throwing his arms around Evren with desperation and laughing in breathless relief as he pressed his nose up alongside hers and bumped his forehead to hers "Evren, my love" he whispered with wet eyes and tears making tracks down his cheeks. His head tilted, lips pressing repeatedly to hers in quick, urgent kisses that said all he was feeling in his heart.
I missed you. I made it back.
--
Harpur stared on and growled in Marc's ear "Disgusting." before spitting off to the side. "What are we supposed to do with this? Just let them live here?"
Rigby — 10/02/2020
The dragon-woman's wings unfurled, and one now-very-literal bolt whisked harmlessly into the sky as Marc leaped with a snarl to push the aim of a nearby guard's crossbow out of any potential war-mongering paths. A reflexive reaction tempered by an almost impossibly, inhumanly reflexive response.
"Unfortunately, yes." It was stiff.
He'd watched the scene with unusual tension, pulling a glove back on and wrapping the horseshoe around it, much like a brass-knuckles or caestus sort of arrangement. Nothing stuck to him when there were gloves. That hand, too, went to his hilt and remained there. Gloves also meant nobody could see the white knuckles.
The dragon queen and the fae lord embraced and Marc set his jaw, weighing options, rueful that today ended as a day in which he was leading Aiolfi's group of guards and Faewatch. First on-scene, it fell to him. He was ill. This was strange. And he wished his father were well, and were here. It may have left open a strange window of vulnerability in wholly listening to the big guard.
His first plan was selfish; lead him to their house, keep the peace. Know where they live. Picking a fight with two powerful beings, here and now, would snowball without knowing more about them. But such power should also be kept in check.
"But that doesn't mean we don't let the king know."
--
Carnieros approached and as he'd moved forward, Ev's wings remained raised, stiff and terse and occasionally sparking with restrained magics, twitching as her fiery eyes flicked from guard to guard, from boy to man, and always, always returning to lock on the approaching fae.
It was only when he finally reached her that they both deftly folded against her back and vanished once more with a whisk and whisper of an effortless, experienced shift and charmed, illusive magics. Baton was dropped and she was Evren the woman, once more.
And Evren, the woman, not caring one bit how this looked as usual, rushed forward to embrace Carnieros, her lord and equal, wild and winged, burying her face into his neck and hair with a grateful sob that left her as more of a laugh, fingers intertwining with the strands. Their lips met and she'd melted into their embrace, their kiss speaking where words would've failed.
Degu — 10/06/2020
Carneiros cradled the back of her head for a time, and kissed her lovingly after so long apart. He hadn't wanted to leave her wondering if he'd ever return, adrift in a sea of uncertainty. "I'm so sorry, my love." he cooed to her in a whisper once their kiss broke and then held her tight to his chest.
He jolted a bit as he heard the whip of a bolt, although it was upwards towards the sky. Turning his head he narrowed his eyes at the group and then honed in on Marc, who seemed to be giving the orders. "I am a citizen of Thornmouth. I entered before my rebirth, I've a home here, I've papers to prove it. Hopefully you all swore an oath to protect your citizens when you entered the guard." There was a pregnant pause where he drew a breath "We are citizens and I assure you we are not feeling very protected from the guard. We mean no harm to the people of this city, now if you'll excuse us, we are going home." and with that he'd protectively turn Evren around and walk behind her in case any stray arrows or bolts came their way, but encouraged her forwards so that they may walk.
---
Harpur growled under his breath "Fae aren't citizens" he hissed, a dangerous rhetoric to spread among the guard but some murmured in agreement. Tensions with the forest and the west had always been strong and many resented their queen being fae too, Harpur was only too happy to stoke those tensions.
His eyes widened furiously as Carneiros threw some stern words their way and then tried to walk away from the scene. "They're just leaving-!" he huffed furiously "Marcello-!" he seemed like he was about to step forwards but halted himself to avoid being put in his place again, glaring after the couple and silently praying for a command that would never come.
Rigby — 10/09/2020
No matter how much Evren had tried to rationalize things in the wake of Cassius' death, she'd yet found herself overwhelmed by the strangest grief she'd felt in decades and decades. She'd spent so long without him; having done the deed and held him until he was dust and then nothing at all, this new Carnieros was far too welcome and solid and real. She held him, clung and relished his hold on her.
And when she'd finally managed to tear herself away from him, she'd held her head high with the same stubborn haughtiness with which she'd entered the scene, but Carnieros got right to the point in much the same way she would have. So she'd capped it off with a rather daring little smirk, making eye contact with each and every guard, before nodding once.
"Good evening."
---
Marc was exceptionally pale, jaw set tight, stare locked and precise boring straight into Evren and Cassius, sweat pulling little black strands across his forehead, as if this was something far more strenuous than it had been.
His breaths were terse, his posture predatory one hand was outstretched to his side, fingers splayed. Hold. He did not blink once until they were well out of range, but still continued to watch them and note where they were heading...
His words fought to pretend they weren't labored. "We don't want a war. Not now. We tell the king."
Degu — 10/22/2020
Carneiros glanced sideways to appreciate his partner's haughty demeanour, smirking briefly before regarding the guards more seriously again "Good evening" he echoed and turned to leave with Evren on his arm. "You're such a dragon." He mused to her softly as they moved out of range, though he had many more words he wished to share with her once they were finally safe. He'd made it back to her, or rather... all of him had made it back, no more mirrors, no more reflections. Just him.
----
Harpur glared after them as they left, the vein in his neck throbbing with how tightly his jaw was clenched. He didn't trust this one bit, every instinct in his body told him to go after them, to kill them...but he couldn't.
But after all that his eyes shifted to the side to see Marcello, tense and strained as well. He listened to him and reached out to grip Marc's shoulder with a firm squeeze. "I'll go with you, lad." he rumbled more affectionately than seemed characteristic.
"Y' welcome to join me for drinks after, too. My place." he offered as he reached out a hand and asked for his horseshoe back. Heh, people had thought he was paranoid for carrying that around, too!
