The moment the woman starts coughing a clawed hand raises as if he was about to snatch it from her; to spare her, or to spare the wasting of the precious substance…? But the next time comes smoother, quieter, and he disregards the notion that Osytha is a child playing with a toy that doesn’t belong within her curious clutches. And it does not taste good, but the smoke forces a warmth within the lungs that is almost soothing, a little prickly here and there-- and its harshness against the throat is a touch unforgivable-- but one could envision a gentle mist rolling about behind their ribs coming to slowly warm tired bones. And the more she smokes it, the more the nicotine high comes to greet her, a slight dizziness in the skull, just enough to be felt as a spell of minor light-headedness that makes the body feel a little weightless, pulse-rate rises, her heart does little skips in merriment, how could something that tasted essentially like dirt and ash cause such a bout of giddiness? It was a magic spell smokers knew too well, these fuzzy feelings were too soft, the lesser effect it was having upon the knight was too small, they wanted more and more and more-- to burn within, to feel spun about, to feel alive.

Such was the well-known trap of the cigarette.

“All… us? Who is Nick?” Rois asks in perplexity, it was funny that whenever she slipped back into her old mannerisms of speech he always briefly spoke with a hint of an accent himself, the curling of Suldazan like paint coming to colour the water of speech. Admitted with squinted eyes, as if the action would cause sound to become clearer, “I am… having trouble understanding you. I do not know ‘Nick’.”

And his common-tongue is excellent, bilingual to an expert degree, but when accents became a thing and words twisted in the mouths of people he did not quite know what he heard, not one hundred percent. The idiot has not connected the dots to ‘be yourself’ and her speech patterns just yet, but thankfully Osytha’s hacked up phrases are not as twisted as they had been upon their first meeting. The gist is sort of gotten. Sort of.

Only the good Lords themselves knew who Nick was, however.

“... You understand my intent, however. Because I walk around unarmed always, some people take it as a challenge that they can try to intimidate me, and then if a fight breaks out, well…”

… Self defence!

“My plan is, if someone that looks like me is seen with a sword it will never get to that level; it’ll be frightening in itself. The problem is, I have not only never been trained to use one but I also do not know a thing about them-- if I go around asking questions then I am going to be ripped off. They will scam me into buying whatever, because I do not know any different. So I needed an expert with no connections to this place. And that is you.”

Because running off to sword masters in a town stuffed with both mercenaries and blacksmiths alike whilst calling every differing shaped sword ‘a sword’ would cause them to palm him off to whoever they had connections with, buy my things, they are better than the man’s around the corners! He won’t know if they are, all he knew was that the best place to buy a weapon would be in a location that specialized in making them. Filly had gone to knights school or wherever, surely she’d know! Surely she’d be able to tell when something is badly made or not right for him or costs far too much for what it is! The first question is the harder one to answer, the butcher hadn’t drunk a lick all this time and takes a moment to gulp down the contents of his own glass like an animal from the desert finally upon the brink of an oasis,

“I want… a sword that is long, the kind you use two hands for.” Commented with a pleased sigh at the coolness in his belly, the childish thoughts of how cool the man would look with a greatsword of some imagined type makes Rois sound a little chipper, “And I want it to be silver, not with gold or jewels or anything like that, so that enemies know it is not a prop. And then people will not be eager to start fights with me, because they will fear the fact that I might actually use it.”

Fingers tentatively to lips, an upward look,

“A pretty thing… the thing, a sheath, maybe I’d get it custom made after a while…”

… The half-beast doesn’t know anything at all. Not about balance or sword play or swinging the damned thing and definitely not about Nick, he seems more concerned about the sword looking good than actually using it. His staff had weapons but the red-head did not fancy the appearance of Rakkar’s oversized scimitar or whatever Vitri’s curved shotels were called (Rois could not conjure up a word for them if he tried his hardest). It has become quickly clear why the butcher, who was great with a cleaver upon the dead, would need someone who knew things to help him buy babies very first weapon…!
 
“Ee… beg pardon.” The knight takes a sheepish toke, still mostly working it with her mouth than her diaphragm. “By ‘allus’ I mean to say ‘always’,” she explains, smoke semaphoring out to ride the shapes of her words. “As for ‘Owd Nick’, that’s, er— you know what, maybe let’s unpack that one later. It en’t important right now.”

Osytha doesn’t know how prevalent the concept of ‘the Devil’ is beyond Hræfn Leah, and it would be a lot more comparative theology than it’s worth wading through just to explain a silly euphemism.

“A pretty thing… the thing, a sheath, maybe I’d get it custom made after a while…”​

He sits there, his pitch-black nails light to his lips as he stares off through the window of imagination. Osytha knows that look. She wore it herself quite often, from around the ages of, oh, five to ten. Back when swords were reight grand and she couldn’t wait to ride around on a big old horse and belt ne’er-do-wells upside the noggin with one.¹

“Alright. Aye, I already have some ideas. But I have to warn you: showin’ off a sword can just invite a different kind of trouble instead — hence my get-up for this mission, in fact. Bein’ armed makes you a more obvious threat, which encourages folks to skip the whole “stand and deliver” bit and jump straight into tryin’ to kill you. Never mind all the laws and mandates about who can carry what sorts of arms and where…”

While she talks, Osytha’s gaze wanders over to the window. Light from a couple of moons is strong enough to turn its ledge into a ghostly, silver-bright stripe against the darkness, but thereafter it diverges to throw two overlapping squares of color into the foyer. It’s an odd effect to look at, like the double image of an out-of-focus shape which refuses to resolve itself, no matter how hard you squint.

“I’ll help you pick out a blade,” she confirms, nodding. “You don’t even have to pay me, but I understand if that would make you feel…” less indebted to me “… better about it. Either way, though, you have to promise you will learn how to use it. So that when your deterrent fails — and sooner or later, it will fail — then you can actually back up the threat.”

So you can hopefully protect yourself, and Safya, and Vitri, and Feliene, and all the other names I don’t yet know, she adds to herself. A sword you don’t know how to use is even more dangerous than the one you do.

The hiss of tobacco cinders is almost too quiet to hear. Osytha isn’t getting any more used to wilfully filling her chest with acrid smoke, exactly, but the louder noises of coughing and throat clearing have lessened now she at least has a better idea of her limits for it. Limits which are admittedly meagre, to look at the modest progress she’s made on the cigarette.

Osytha looks back over to Rois instead. “What do you say?” she asks. “That sound acceptable to you?”


¹ Which is technically still in the job description, but composes a much smaller portion of a Knight’s workload than young Osytha had pictured, and nor had she known it would instigate as much paperwork as it does, either.
 
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“Oh, Filly. I am a criminal working in the black market,” A pleasured smile, arms stretched long against the table with a quiet shiver rolling up his spine from the release of pressure, a soft 'hmm' of contentment, “I do not care about petty laws or mandates or trouble. Trouble finds me. There are a lot of men with a lot of things to prove… and there is nothing more dangerous than a dog with his pride on the line.”

Of course he was not going to back down from threats, everything about Rois’s being screamed escalation, if others were not willing to put muscle behind their words then he would. The man was an outsider, especially the further north he went. Visibly foreign, strike one, humanities greatest problem was finding ways to ostracize others based on the most minor of differing traits-- strike two, there were plenty of big men around and their egos were as sizeable as their muscles. Every woman knew at least one, some meathead ever-eager to swing to prove they were top-dog, to flaunt themselves before the masses as the king in some imaginary competition; and he was the same. There was however a critical difference between big headed males throwing themselves against each other like beasts vying for power over lovers.

“But… I do swear that this is an attempt to stop the path of violence I walk so often.”

They knew when to stop.

They were always so shocked when the butcher kept on going, it was supposed to be a squabble, not an actual fight with consequences. Bloodied noses and broken bones were not enough, strike three, with his barbed tongue and inflammatory nature and the inability to let things slide and assumed enemies everywhere it became critical to know how to back up the nasty things you could say to people with action. And action came indeed, traumatic, unfixable injuries or death swiftly followed, the mania of the kill and the frenzied scent of blood and the screaming of on-lookers fleeing, he was top dog! And just like a canine he sits before the woman and her determined attempt to finish the flickering stick betwixt her fingers with the puppyish glee of a mutt about to gain a new toy, but it is not so simple. Rois knows it isn’t, it is why ‘morals’ were mentioned, arming him could swing both ways… and there was no way to know which way it’d swing until the idea was carried out.

“If threats come… then they come. If they don’t, then all the better for it. I feel like people see an unarmed man and figure he’s easier to jump than an armed one, I would not even have to unsheath it, hm?” It is almost like he is searching her for reassurance with those questioning eyes, she is the expert after all. They do not linger upon Osytha for long, attention is turned to the coin purse that had been dutifully fetched in the middle of the ferocity earlier and slid haphazardly in her direction; the stiff leather tips and spills gold clinking before her thoughtful gaze in the way of coins in all their beautiful glory. The mintage is not free-state, northern or southern or from the stranger continent afar, the embossing of a hammer striking down against deep lines amidst a broken circle is very specifically Munas Kuvakian.

“It is worth less outside the city… probably somewhere around half, but here it is treated in full.” Her mentioning of not being paid is swiftly ignored of course, because if the stray knight did it for free then it would be a favor, and favors had to be repaid. “I’d suggest buying something here, but it is your decision.”

… Those are nine gold coins before her. Ninety silver. Nine hundred copper. Families lived on wages of twenty silver a month, and those were the lucky ones; even if carried beyond the threshold of the town, to anywhere that would accept any sort of mint, that is quite a nice bit of pocket change for something he’d describe as 'easy'. A rested temple against the curling of fingers sees him staring at her sideways through locks and bandages alike in that oh-so free way he oft did, so quietly relaxed, a far cry from before--

“And I also think that, when I get my sword, you show me quickly how to swing… it will not take long at all, right? You turn the sharp end on people you wish to harm,” An amused chuff, why, is that a genuine laugh? Sure, it is about hurting people, but those ruby eyes sparkle with mirth at the mere prospect of learning how to ‘learn how to use a sword’, “It cannot be that hard…?”


Quick note: I'm using the standard DND system of coinage and have been looking at other peoples posts to see how money is used, that his how that specific amount came to be (plus some help from in disc lol). And even more minor note, it is worth around half (maybe closer to 3/4? Somewhere between the two) elsewhere due to the fact it is gold smelted with silver and copper to stabalize the metal (like they did in ye olden days and probably do elsewhere IC) plus the price of inflation that exists within the town plus the lack of credibility that comes with not well-known mint stamps!
 
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