Nothing to Talk About

[Kysis]

Kysis found it hard to remember not to pick at or scratch his stitches.  They were an irritant in his skin, an oddity his hand had never felt before.  Yes, his torso remembered stitches well, sometimes he felt as if they were still there.  But now, they were on his hand.  His sword hand.  Which, in turn, was attached to his sword arm, meaning that he could not practice as he usually had a habit of doing.  It was troublesome, sitting without movement, or even standing in stillness.  Kysis wanted to be in action, an ache that only intensified with his current condition.

Slowly and with much care, worn old gloves were pulled up to conceal his hands.  They were off thick, soft leather, able to cushion and shield the injury all the same.  Usually they were worn for practice, but...  Part of Kysis told him to hide the wound.  What kind of weapons merchant could not handle his own fare?  It was depressing, to say the least, how much work had been put in to the exhibition only for him of all people to make the first mistake.  Kysis doubted the crowd had noticed, watching the flashy show of spins and whirls and that dangerously flying blade.  The show must have been entrancing to the common mind.

The guards, however, were not simple when it came to weapons.  They knew how to use one.  They could tell when someone else knew how to use one.  Kysis felt he might have shamed the Liari family with his slip, as slight as it was.  Had anyone seen?  Obviously Lam had, but she was trained to notice these things, and Kysis had tried piquing her interest in the whole subject.  If she hadn\'t noticed, he might have wondered where her attention was.  A long sigh escaped his lips.  Did he always have to bring her up?  His mind kept finding ways to fit her in to everything, serving as a painful reminder of the past week.

Kysis flexed his hand, feeling the stitches pull a little.  His hand went back to stillness.  The less he fussed with it, the quicker it would heal.  However, the want to lift up a sword kept creeping up on him, Kysis almost having given in a few times.  His sword was propped up against the wall, lonely looking, some dust on it.  Kysis knew that if he went to clean it off, he would end up using it.  Time ticked by slowly, Kysis looking from his now covered hand, to the sword, back again.  Then he looked to his other hand...

With a frustrated sigh, Kysis stood, quick strides carrying him over to the far wall.  His right hand wrapped around the sword\'s hilt.  The wire-wound length was a bit longer than would fit just one hand, but the pommel made it so not two could fit.  There was room for extra push in a stroke, but Kysis rarely used both hands, just his left.  It was awkward lifting the sword in his right hand.  His wrist wabbled a moment, hand trembling as he pulled it from the sheath.

The first few slices in the empty air were clumsy.  Kysis had tried with his right hand before, using a shortsword only, a longsword in his left.  He had no real use for the off hand at the time, not using it once in all the sparring he did, so he stopped that rather quickly.  One weapon in one hand was faster, more orderly.  Kysis had stuck with it, and was now finding the giant stone wall it placed in his furtherment of skills.

The next few came with more ease, Kysis changing each motion as per the weight of the weapon and the strength of his arm.  The strikes were more fluid though still slow, blade angled such a way that it would be useful.  Kysis tried switching hands, finding immediately that he could not even clutch the hilt of his sword.  Luckily he had tried slowly, not tearing any stitches out in the process.  Moments later he was back to his right hand, determined to get this right.  It was his duty  to know the equipment he sold, so Kysis was not about to give up.

It was the same way with writing.  Kysis had yet to figure out a way to hold a quill with his left hand, or balance it in any useful way.  He had to write somehow, taking time while he was in the shop (and there were no customers, of course) to teach his right hand on how to do it.  Letters were coming along well.  Kysis had always had a sharp scrawl, somewhat decorative but still jagged in an off-putting manner; it was a lot like him.  Though he was pretty on the surface (which he was still fuming over being labeled as such), there was an edge to him, which warded people off for the most part.

Not everyone skirted away, as Kysis had learned.  Of course, she had yet to see his handwriting.... and it was not like she had been around for long.  Kysis let out a frustrated sigh, taking another swing mid-lunge, blinking as it made the hollow wail his normal, left handed swipes did.  A breath was held, Kysis half turning with another slash, finding the same result.  A smile broke on to his lips.  Nodding with a new reassurance, Kysis launched in to one of his training regimines, taking it at half the pace he could with his left, but he was learning.  He was actually learning.

Life did not look so bleak any more.

[Existentially Odd]

Captain Wilson approached the Liari residence with a steely reserve that showed in the grit of her teeth and which belied the terrible fluttering of nerves pounding about her insides. She was there on official business and had come dressed for the occasion; she wore all but the helm of her suit of plate armour. When she and the four guards accompanying her were allowed onto the grounds by the Liari guards, she strode confidently up to the door and knocked firmly. She didn\'t bother removing her gauntlet, finding that pounding settled something wild about her mood.
 
She\'d conducted herself in much the same way for the past week. Somehow, she\'d managed to put herself in situations where confrontations were bound to happen, assigning herself to routes that she hadn\'t trod in a long while - not since she\'d split with Dagger, at least - policing the more desperate areas of Oberon, at the most controversial hours. Since Kysis had advocated a business-like relationship between them, she had thrown herself into the thick of her work, ensuring that she wasn\'t there when he visited Matthew to have his stitches looked at because her hours had suddenly become inescapably long. The Gods knew, if she saw him in any other capacity... well, she figured it was simply best to let that go.
 
She turned to check that her recruits were standing still behind her, supporting the small chest of gold - which had four long, steel arms for carrying it, each held by a guard now - between them. Nearly four hundred of the coins had been issued by the king\'s treasurer that morning, as payment for the order of Liari daggers and shortswords they\'d ordered and the pressure of having such an enormous amount of wealth hanging about the guardhouse had been too great to leave it there for long. A runner had ascertained that Lord Liari was not in his shop, so she and her four strong companions had despatched themselves for the manor, figuring he had to be there.
 
"Captain... uh... you have, um... blood?" the female - Recruit Brown - guard hesitantly told her, briefly waving a free hand vaguely about her mouth as she watched something on her superior\'s face.  She quickly returned to supporting the gold; it was quite heavy, after all.
 
"Shit," Lam swore, realising that her lip had opened up again - no doubt because she was holding her mouth pursed in such an angry line. Oddly, she hadn\'t even tasted it. She raised a hand to swipe it away, saw the unforgiving steel of a hinged gauntlet and hesitated, knowing it would do no good. She couldn\'t easily reach any material beneath her armour to soak the blood up either, so she did the best she could; swirling her tongue out over her extremely puffy bottom lip, she caught as much as she could, sucked it back in and leaned over to spit it delicately into the nearest bit of Liari foliage. "Shit," she said again as she straightened, peering at Recruit Brown questioningly. "Did I get it all?"
 
Guard Brown shook her head, pretty blue eyes wide and a gloved hand coming forward nervously. She raised her eyebrows and Lam gave an impatient gesture with her hand, silently approving the wordless request to wipe the Captain of the Guard\'s chin free of blood. She gave a nod of approval when it was done and Lam spun away with a sigh, pounding on the door again.
 
Overall, she looked very little as Kysis remembered her - except for the bun, of course. She\'d had numerous physical skirmishes over the past week, but the one two days ago had ended her street patrols early - and for quite some time to come. In the early hours of the morning, she\'d come upon a drunk hassling a young woman in an alley just near the Falcon\'s Mask Inn. She and her partner - a relatively new guard but a big, strong young man not long off the farms - had approached at the first squeal and Lam had ordered the man to release the girl.
 
He had, but only to growl at her that she ought to mind her own business.  He was so drunk that he didn\'t seem to note that she and her partner were in uniform.  The girl ran away at that point, angering the man and causing him to take a swing at the nearest one, in his frustration. The nearest, of course, happened to be Lam.

She\'d stepped in to meet the challenge happily, finding the drunk was marginally more co-ordinated than she\'d expected, but not bothering to end it quickly, as she should\'ve.  He\'d scored a large, hairy fist to her mouth on his third swing; she\'d replied with a strong left hook that had sent him stumbling.  He\'d come back from his crouched position to grapple her, and scored a headbutt that split the skin over her left eye, caused her nose to swell almost instantly and pain to blind her.  Luckily, her right elbow hit its mark and knocked him down.  As she\'d stepped over him (her partner practically wetting himself in his horror that his Captain was brawling and feeling he should be gallant and save her... but she was a superior... who was doing alright... but she needed backup), the drunk had got the last word in, leering up at her and inviting her to suck his dick.  She\'d responded with a powerful, angry downward-thrusting right that had left him in an unconscious heap and smirked as she\'d said, "No.  You suck mine."

Her face was cut and swollen; his nose was broken and he\'d lost one of the precious few teeth that had been remaining, as well as scored an arrest for assaulting an officer of the city.
 
Of course, Freddy had taken one look at her - lips mashed onto her teeth, puffy and streaming blood, nose ballooned, bruised and bleeding and both eyes turning a nasty shade of purple in the corners around her nose - when she\'d brought the unconscious man in and had had a few stern words with her in private.  She\'d responded as defiantly as she could - considering it was so damn hard to speak - but had conceded she\'d stick with more sensible duties from now on.  She\'d already scored a cut right eyebrow, bruised right cheek and eye, and scratches down her left cheek (who said men didn\'t fight like women when you were kneeling on their chests, trying to cuff them?), so she looked quite the battle-weary soldier.  With the judge\'s dinner a few nights hence, she\'d agreed with her lieutenant that yes, she did need to take it easy so that makeup might at least start to cover some of the damage.
 
So far so good, anyway; the black eyes were heading for brown (from purple), the nose only looked slightly thicker (though there was the cut across the bridge to consider) and the rest of the cuts were healing quite nicely.  Only her shredded lips continued to bother her, bleeding frequently and still fairly swollen.
 
She sighed.  Not only was standing around enduring the apprehension of seeing Kysis again agony for her, holding all those gold coins was no picnic for her workers, either.  Despite the land being guarded, she couldn\'t help but cast frequent glances towards the fence line, expecting an ambush, as she\'d been trained to do.  She then looked back at the knocker on the ornate door, considering it for a full minute... before she dismissed it and raised her fist to bang on the pretty wooden surface again.

[Kysis]

Who banged on the actual door?  There was a damn nice knocker, and Kysis wasn\'t sure why that seemed harder.  Sighing, Kysis reversed his grip on the sword, sliding it cleanly in to its shealth and attaching both at his side.  There were no guests slated to be over ever, unless Alia had just forgotten to mention something, which was a possibiliity.  She was like Marcos, telling him important information at last minute and expecting him to take it stoicly.  No, not this time; his swords practice had yet to burn off that amount of steam.

Moving quickly, not caring if he was in a simple loose tunic, work boots and plain pants with a weapon at his side, Kysis headed down the stairs, bouncing quickly down him.  He wanted to get this done and over with, as quickly as possible.  There was more banging.  Kysis gritted his teeth a little, hoping like hell the door would not show any wear for it.  Whoever had the nerve...  Kysis reached for the door and swung open one side.

Kysis could not say anything, glued as he was in place.  He felt like he was trapped inside of a statue, mind trying to get the marble limbs to budge to no avail.  It was a few long moments before he could even speak, and that was after clearing his voice twice.  The voice that came out was scratchy, close to a whisper.  Luckily it was quiet enough to carry, "The shipment is a day late.  We can\'t send the weaponry yet."

Though he considered just closing the door and walking off, right then and there, he stood stoic, looking at everyone but Lam.  She looked terrible.  Kysis had to fight off the urge to ask her what was wrong, what happened, why have you been avoiding me, amoung things.  The young lord must have looked like hell, too, with clothing a bit sloppier than he would ever liked normally, clean but still a little disheveled.  His hair had been chopped at just an inch longer than shoulder-length, looked as if it might have been done with a dagger or some other piece of weaponry.  Kysis made no move to tidy himself up though.

There was paperwork to get to, practicing too.  There were wages to pay, a custom request to send off, a few new designs to approve.  Kysis did not have time for this, and the impatience of his stance, arms crossed before his chest was sure to show it.  And if none of them had taken the hint...  Kysis had thought the Guards better than that.

[Existentially Odd]

His aggressive reaction baffled her somewhat - was it not he who only wished to meet on business terms? - but it gave her the time she needed to swallow her heart, clear her throat subtly and smooth her expression into one of haughty disdain.

"That\'s fine," she answered crisply, "but King Kestrel has approved the transfer of the funds now, so if you\'ll step aside, my guards would like to complete the delivery of it?" she queried, already moving back so that the four guards would be able to wrestle the hefty package into the foyer of his home.  She didn\'t give a damn if they left it there or whether he directed them where to put it, but she wasn\'t leaving the household with it.  How could she explain to the king that Lord Liari didn\'t wish to take his dues?

[Kysis]

Kysis nodded slowly, still refusing to keep his gaze upon her in more than passing.  Deciding he had no choice in the matter, a gloved hand was waved, gesturing them to follow.  The young lord was quick in leading them, down the length of the foyer, straight ahead.  Kysis opened the door, passing through the long dining hall quickly before opening another door, a large office.  There was a neatly kept desk within, charts and maps on every all, sketches of weapons concepts riddled in here and there with them.  This was where he elected for them to put it, seeing as it was the safest place and the head of whatever guard was sent with the shipment would be brought there for the verification process on all the goods delivered.

Once that was done, Kysis closed the office door gently, locking it before leading them back in to the foyer, keeping a while back from the door when he stopped walking.  Though he took a moment to look Lam over, it was a quick one, assessing what damage had been done to her and pondering how the hell it had happened.  It almost seemed intentional.  The fact that her lip was bleeding... Kysis wanted to felt a towel, a brasin of water and offer them both up, but forced himself to be still, gaze going quickly to the floor, his own lips persed in a straight line.

Kysis wanted them to leave.  He knew he would have to be around Lam for the reception gathering, but still...  If it weren\'t for business and how much trouble the whole event had caused him thus far, Kysis would have canceled out.  That was what he wanted to do, state that he could not go loud and clear.  But no, he refrained.  It seemed one thing was already soiled.  Kysis would not throw another one to the fire, too.

[Existentially Odd]

When the four guards turned to let her precede them through the front door, she frowned and gestured them out.  "Return to your posts, you\'re dismissed," she told them perfunctorily, closing her eyes briefly as they all saluted in unison and gave a hearty, "Yes, Captain!"  Recruits were decidedly too enthusiastic for their own good, especially when coming down from the excitement of such an elite mission - even if it was only delivering a chest of gold.  It was not an every day occurrence and she understood the esteem with which they now beheld themselves, but honestly...

Once they were gone, she took the liberty of closing the front door and turning to face Kysis, forcing herself not to bite her lip in case it started spewing blood again.  Her hands hooked into her belt - used primarily to hold the mace on her left hip - as she stepped towards him.

"I need to talk to you," she said in a calm voice, expression clear.  She was a professional and she\'d faced worse setbacks than him not wishing to claim her publicly; she could conduct a simple meeting such as this with dignity (and if she couldn\'t, woe betide their appearance at the dinner together).  "Do you have a moment?"  Still, politeness always had its place.

[Kysis]

Kysis did not like the looks of this.  He could have been paranoid of course, or just not comfortable alone with the Captain.  She was currently on duty, and for as kind as she sounded, Kysis had a feeling her words were not overly friendly.  Sighing, he shrugged, "I have a moment if you could follow me."

Tugging off his left glove, he turned quickly back towards the dining hall, not glancing over his shoulder once to see if she was following.  If she didn\'t, well, that just proved her business was not that important.  If she did follow, he was all ears while he got busy with something else.  His other glove got removed, both set down on a countertop in the manor\'s small kitchen.  There were some bandages he had boiled not long before, hanging up to get some of the dampness out of them.

Slowly, carefully he started working the old bandages off.  Blood had soaked through them, Kysis forced to clean up the wound first before getting to work rebandaging it.  The laceration was not healing right at all.  Kysis had done everything he could to keep the hand immobile, but somehow it kept reopening itself.  Yes, the stitches were still in, but all they did was hold the skin together.  It had yet to mend.  Kysis was starting to get worried, but did not show it, face void of any emotions as he started to rewrap it.

[Existentially Odd]

She didn\'t give a second thought to following him, doing so as quietly as she could in heavy armour, thumbs still looped nonchalantly in her belt.  She watched silently as he attended to his wound, unable to prevent a frown and a flare of worry as she saw the state of it from where she leaned against some furniture diagonally from him.

"You should go and see Matthew and get that looked at," she chastised before she could stop herself, knowing he\'d only been once to visit and not again.  She\'d asked every night or morning when she got home.  "It looks terrible - have you been training on it?"

[Kysis]

"No.  I\'ve started training with my right hand."

Kysis flinched as he pulled the bandage a little tighter.  He did not mention how unwelcome he felt going over that one time.  Matthew seemed to have absorbed that same attitude as Lam towards him, so Kysis decided to care for the wound himself.  All of his other ones had healed that way, so why this one refused to, Kysis did not know.  He tried not to use it at all, he kept fresh bandages on it.  Had his mending luck ran out while he was not looking?

Sighing, Kysis finished patching it up.  He almost wanted to remove the stitches, but knew the wound would just fall open again like it had been on the day he first injured it.  Frustrated, Kysis leaned on the counter, pulling a lit candle closer.  He kept telling Alia to snuff the things before leaving, but she had yet to figure it out.  The windows gave enough light during the day anyhow.  For a moment Kysis considered just doing the flame healing, but quickly dismissed that.  Yes, it would be healed, but he would also not be able to use it afterwards.  At least this slow and excrutiating way had some chance of him using a sword again.

"It wasn\'t very welcoming over there.  I can take care of it myself."

Someday, Kysis\' stubbornness might get him killed.  This was not that day, hopefully, so he stuck to it, holding his ground.  It was the warrior\'s thing to do, not give even an inch.  Keeping emotion from his voice was a lot harder with Lam than it was with everyone else.  Kysis felt betrayed and it was showing through despite how hard he fought to keep it bottled up.  If only it were so easy.

[Existentially Odd]

"Horse shit," she argued succinctly.  "Apart from the fact that the evidence on you looking after it speaks for itself, you\'re not unwelcome in my home, nor does Matthew have any desire but to help you get better.  You\'re imagining things if you think he wasn\'t welcoming," she explained derisively, certain that Matthew would have held his tongue and done nothing overt to offend Kysis after having felt the lord\'s disapproval at dinner.  He might not have said much, to avoid such an eventuation and she therefore believed that that was what the blonde had perceived as hostile.

[Kysis]

"Not unwelcome?"   Kysis leaned on his lower arms, fiery eyes finding Lam.  Though his face was stern, all of his emotions were on clear display in those sapphire optics, in the low tones of his voice.  Dammit, he could not just stand there and deliver anything in that cold voice he used with others.  It just would not work, not here and not now.

"Ever since that ride, you have done everything humanly possible not to see me.  What, a man tried doing exactly what you say you want and that still isn\'t good enough?  I tried asking how you were and got naught but air in responce."

His good hand was run back through his hair, shoving it back as a few strands decided to obscure his face.  Kysis wanted to pace, to practice, something.  There was just a broiling overload of energy, and he was trembling.  Perhaps he was just some blind, foolish young man who should have given up back in the tavern the first time he offended her.  He would have been fine if he\'d just walked away then.  All of his time would have been spent on practice.  Kysis might have made that catch if he hadn\'t been so nervous.

Kysis swallowed nervously.  He had paid for a vase full of winter roses to be delivered to her three days ago.  Had they even reached her?  Kysis would like to have faith in the florist he spoke to, the young man seemed to know exactly what he was talking about and was overly glad to help.  Perhaps it had just been the prospect of coin talking...  Kysis knew his patience was waning, "How is that welcoming?"

[Existentially Odd]

She blinked rapidly, mouth falling open but so affronted by his accusations that she couldn\'t get a word out for a few moments.  Instinctively, she stepped closer to him and her hands curled at her sides, feet braced for the fight.

"How, exactly, have you done what I want?" she asked incredulously, ignoring his reference to asking Matthew about her wellbeing.  Of course Kysis had got nothing but air in response; would her servant tell him that she was doing her level best to forget him by getting herself knocked senseless, repeating a pattern she\'d indulged in ever since the first time she\'d found out Dagger had nailed some pretty little strumpet behind her back?  Of course not!

[Kysis]

"Exactly?  Here, let me tell you, exactly.  You were fretting over me going as your date, how that just could not be.  You did not want anything to do at all with a public image with us.  So, being the inconsiderate ass I am, agreed to it.  I figured you put up such a big fight about it for a reason, so in my usual manner of not thinking I decided to go with your spoken wishes instead of forcing my own upon you."

Kysis took in a deep breath, knowing full well just how sharp his voice sounded.  He could not stand still any more.  Straightening himself, Kysis went to cleaning the old bandages, setting up a pot of water for them to boil in.  Next to the cooking fire there were some potatoes sitting neglected, a glass jar of honey, a bowl with a cloth cover over it.  There were a few utinsils out, too.  Kysis had planned on making something for Alia, seeing as he was the only one in the house that could cook, and they had yet to find someone to do it for them.

Once he had the bandages going, he went back to what he was supposed to be doing when he had been practicing instead, getting out a large stone-ware bowl, pulling a knife from where it was hidden beneath his sleeve.  He dipped the blade in the boiling water for a bit, sure that it got heated up good to be sure it was clean.  Back to Lam he got to skinning those potatoes.  It was one of Alia\'s favorite foods, so... he had better get working.  Kysis had promised to make it over a week ago but failed to deliver.  It seemed like he was doing that a lot lately.

[Existentially Odd]

Something was terribly wrong with her face.  Apart from the fact that it hurt like a whore\'s... well, apart from that, she couldn\'t keep it still.  His words kept tumbling through her mind, breaking apart and coming together again, but never making complete sense.  Every time a section of them repeated, she flinched in some way; a frown, a mouth opened to say something, large green eyes blinking in confusion.  She was awfully confused and while her mind sorted through what he seemed to be saying, she let him fiddle with whatever he was doing at the stove.  It was rather peaceful with only the sound of a knife biting into something crisp, and the murmur of boiling water on a fire, to fill the air between them.

Still, the twitching kept coming, until she forced herself to speak through them, over his... whatever he was doing.  "Wait a minute," she began dumbly, still trying to come up with a coherent objection.  It was just so difficult when he seemed to be reciting the complete opposite of what she remembered happening in the grove.  "I didn\'t want nothing to do with a public image, you did."

It was the best she could do, after a cascade of tics had overtaken her head.

[Kysis]

Kysis paused, one of the poor potatoes sitting in little cubes now.  Blinking a few times, he glanced back over his shoulder, eyebrow cocked.  Wait, what?  It took a few moments to process her words, and then he set down the knife and the second potato, turning around to face her, "You said that....  but...  I thought...  You did not want to put us out in the public, you said that.  About what everyone would think if you came with a date...."

He had calmed considerably, whether it was form mutilating the potato or her words was anyone\'s guess.  Slowly, he took a deep breath, trying to process the fact that this all might have been one big, large, stupid misunderstanding.  A lot of things got lost in translation between a woman\'s thoughts and what a man heard, which Kysis had heard quite the earfull on.  Was this all over...  Kysis shook his head.

"It just seemed like you were arguing so adamantly against it...."

From there he could hear the front door opening, so he quickly picked up the knife and potato, working on skinning that one, too.  It was one of the guards, the clank of armor heading down to their quarters on the bottom floor.  Kysis had no idea when Alia would be back, knowing only that this meal had a large preparation time.  It was one of the few he had an inkling as to how it was made, too, not helping his case any.  She\'d expect it ready for consuption once she got home...

"You weren\'t, were you?"