Private Storms do not play nice

[Miyartha Torra]

Deep within Aresenal...

---

One of the few things Miyartha liked about Naya Vapna was how thoroughly it made her not care for appearances; of the countless praises her friends heaped upon Cloud's Keep, she believed around a fifth of them. Though they reasonably took her suspicion as distrust, Miyartha couldn't have been more loyal if she tried. No, what scared her was how good cities were at this, at blending stories into realities and convincing the masses of everything they're not. From an outsider's perspective, Naya Vapna singlehandedly quashed all worries about the Arshakan's Empire inevitable decline. What did it matter that the true Naya Vapna, its blood and guts, only confirmed the decay? Golden gears, sparkling steam; all horseshit. Consequently, she was not surprised to encounter trouble along her nightly stroll; the only cities without seedy nightlife were the ones in dreams.

Intrigued, a piss-drunk sailor shifted in her direction and waved, causing Miyartha to roll her eyes and veil her arms, as her left made her look weak and her right made her look rich. The result, however, was that she looked like an assassin, one shrouding a would-be dagger in their cloak, and to some extent, she liked this look. "Any problems?" Miyartha hissed in her best fuck off voice, staring needles at the drunk. "Speak quickly."

After a moment's pause, the man burst into raucous laughter, partly due to intoxication, partly due to how bad she was at sounding dangerous. Though she recovered rather quickly by shoving them aside, it came with a brief, but monumental carelessness: revealing to the drunk (and the surrounding street trash) an arm made of metal, magic and spite. The shroudstone embedded in the back of the metal hand tossed any doubts as to whether it was magical into the nether; almost instantly, the drunk switched gaiety with rancor. "Mehbe that shiny stick o' yours is whats making ya so bitchy," he growled, recoiling due to fear but still staring her down. "How'd you lose it? Accident, little girl? Was it an accident?"

Miyartha stopped dead in her tracks. She turned from the man to look at the other onlookers, some scornful, some fearful, all incensed. How was it that the Magitech city, she thought, could so hate Magitech? Perhaps the taboo is even stronger here: more than anyone else, they know the risks of physical augmentation. All without mentioning the liquor in their veins.

Though her lips were sealed, her glare was anything but. Miyartha wanted them to push the issue, she hoped they'd double down. If she couldn't get a quiet night, then this was the next best thing--backing down was beyond the pale. "Strike a nerve, hornkin?" spoke another, less-drunk engineer, this one a dwarf. "No...you've not any! That's the homunculi takin' control, y'know. Why else would you cut them off?"

Miyartha clenched her still-veiled arm. A part of her knew she should have already made her way, but how could she? "Not Devahni."
"Hah! What's the blue skin for, then?
"Not. Devahni. Am I speaking fucking Aetochan? You, no, you all know nothing--not about this skin, or this arm , and not what this arm can do to you." The slightest surge of electricity passed through the prosthetic. "Or maybe that's not enough for you lot, eh?"

This attempt at intimidation being much less fictitious than the previous, the harassers hastily sobered, backing away from Miyartha one after the other. Had she been out of earshot or the dwarf more discerning, the night would've gone without incident, yet as it happened, the dwarf found it appropriate to mumble one last thoughtless jab.

"Looks like some sorta Arshakan make. Figures..."

---

Without so much as a drop of rain, a white flash roared to life in the middle of a street, punctuated by an unsparing thunder. Rainless thunder in the middle of the night, accompanied by a hint of Shroud; no good could come of this. An investigation would yield the sight of a middlingly tall, blue-skinned woman hoisting a dwarf by the neck with a Magitech arm, one whose Shroudstones shone like stars. Even with the woman's other arm being wrapped in bandages, the scars underneath had a faint, but visible glow. Her fury beggared belief.

 

[Rowan]

Going out drinking was the sort of thing people did when they'd had a rough day. Rowan was having a plenty rough enough day. Another apprenticeship rejected at another atelier, just like the day before, and the day before that. She was wandering the street in a nonspecific way, pondering which tavern to mope around in about it. The Lost Dog was cheap enough she could spend the whole night there. Plus, the paunchy old men who frequented the spot were mostly harmless, just happy to have a fresh face to tell their stories to. But drinking alone was sort of depressing, wasn't it?

A flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder on a clear night broke her malaise. The cause didn't escape Rowan's notice. She could see the glow of Shroud just across the street, and more tellingly, a couple of sailors stumbling scared in the opposite direction. Sky sailors didn't scare easy. Even drunk ones.

Running didn't suit Rowan, so she crossed the street at a brisk walk, getting to the edge of onlookers just as the dwarf lost his footing. He kicked in the air and scowled, but a tight metal grip around his throat kept him from saying much. And at the other end of that grip, a woman who's eyes burned madder than the stones lining her arm.

"Holy shit, that gal's possessed!" Someone called out from a very safe distance away.

Rowan caught the spectacles hanging from the chain around her neck, and placed them on her nose. Seemed unconcerned by, or unaware of, how expensive the gold frames looked glinting in a grimy place like this.

"A street brawl with augmented limbs," she said in a blasé tone. She was looking at something just past the dwarf's head. "But your opponent doesn't have any tech. That's not fair, is it?"

 

[Miyartha Torra]

Between her initial dash and the ongoing choke-hold, Miyartha hadn't uttered a word; the shaking in her prosthetic arm said enough. A layman's eye would assume the trembling was the work of subpar construction, yet a closer look put this theory to rest. No, those sort of shakes were nerves: uncertain resolve, bubbling regret, the sign of someone too angry to let go but too soft to press on. Everything about the arm worked as intended; the point of failure lay within the wielder's heart.

She hated, no, loathed the indecision, the fact that only moments after attacking a man she would start to regret it. More than mere impulsiveness, Miyartha was obliged to attack him, for her sake, for everyone'ssake, for Pylos—yet those same motivations suggested she relent. A part of her wonders what her brother would think; another part remembers what killed him to begin with. Do you honor the dead or avenge their deaths?

A few more seconds pass and a bead of sweat rolls down her cheeks, one that her magically-altered body temperature should have rendered impossible. The only time such perspiration occurs is when voices other than her own speak within her head, and she knows it. Intentionally or otherwise, the Shroud seemed cunning; the only times she could feel its' influence was when her natural thoughts were conflicted, making it difficult to ascertain whose thoughts weren't hers. This, however, was one of the rare times she was confident which opinions were being manipulated. The Shroud did not compel her to attack. It did not fabricate her emotions. But it fueled them, nudged them, suggested them to take a route she knew in her guts was regrettable...

Before she could do serious damage to his neck, Miyartha's expression sours tremendously and she lets the man drop to the floor. She is no less angry, but the fury was now aimed at everyone: Rowan, the crowd, and herself beyond all else. Yet just as obvious as her anger was her anguish. She turns to face Rowan and growls from frustration.

"Is it supposed to be fair?" she said, incensed. Beneath her bitter, exasperated tone was a genuine sense of pleading. "Fuck, is this fair? This stupid arm? This stupid curse?" The fact that her breaths left icy mist despite the humidity may have clued Rowan in as to Miyartha's affliction. "Besides, I wasn't going to kill him, hard as that may be to believe from an Arshakan." The dry sarcasm in her voice was complimented with a quick glare to the now-mortified drunk she'd just let go of.

On the inside, Miyartha already felt embarrassed. Here she was, dependent on strangers to bring her back to her senses.

 

[Rowan]

The dwarf was released. He fell hard against the cobblestone, letting out a rasping cough. Calloused hands disappeared under his bushy beard as he rubbed at the parts of his throat made tender from the cold.

But Rowan wasn't paying attention to him. Behind her thick-lens glasses, her eyes tracked every movement that the other woman made. That arm of hers was tearing the shroud to pieces, and her frame shook not from the cold, but with anger. It was much worse than Rowan thought. It was worse, because the woman was right. She could tell from the waver in her voice, that the anger was earned.

Of course it wasn't fair. The people who were asked to let go, the ones always lowering their fists first, had the most rightful claim to wrath. It was never fair.

Not like you could say that to a stranger on the street, though. Rowan's face squinted up into a smile. The gold chain of her glasses clinked lightly against her jacket's high collar.

"Arshakan, huh? They say the same thing about us elves," she responded brightly. Something about the cantor of her voice left one to wonder whether the brightness was genuine. "Mademen -- made to kill that is." A wry look crossed her face, as she nodded sagely. "Oh, well. If that's how the stories go, guess it means we have to fight. My curse against your curse."

Rowan pretended to ponder this. Looked up at the starlit sky, crossed her arms and hooked one thumb under her chin. "Hmm, but I'm not a man, and I don't feel particularly bloodthirsty. Maybe they got some things wrong..."

Someone was picking the dwarf up off the ground. "Let's get out of here, Orgrim," he said in a hurried whisper to the dwarf. "Both these broads are mad."