Private The Meeting of Teeth

[Rois Sinclair]

​

Summer came in swathes, layer after layer. The baked earth in darkness still rose like ancient bread beneath the moon, finding no reprieve in the cooler night air as it crackled and snapped underfoot; the scent was of newly born blossoms and old oak and the dying streams breathing their last as they collapsed into an ever-thinning mist. Humidity clung to living things the way dew did the morning grass, and he, sweaty and huff-puffing he, cursed quietly beneath the stars as leather creaked betwixt calloused fingers and threatened to bite beneath the thick, twisted skin there if he was not gentler with the reins.

Hauling was always a task for the night, for when the roads were quiet and more oft it was common to spot the wilderness in the way of animals creeping forth from the fringes than the form of some human-adjacent being wandering about. It simply could not be done through Altalusia’s dark, thick forests. Winding roots as girthy as the trees themselves and rough forage bursting from every plane of the earth, kissing the neat edges of farm-lands made for a harder journey with a flat-sled, a piece of wood with an open box atop-- and Rois hadn’t wanted to use the sled, but the wheelbarrows had been occupied. Pulling a rough-shod rectangle, half covered in steely constraints, made for a loud and persistent clattering as it was dragged over stone and pebble and sand all congregating as one… but the thing about the dead is that you had to move with purpose. The wetness of the air threatened rot, rot begot decay, decay begot a loss of time and energy and profit and he was not in the business of 'loss'. He was in the business of the dead.

And the dead in question were partially covered in the thinnest of twirling lace to keep the flies away; finger pads against soft cotton, delicate and as white as the speckling of wild-flowers that clung to the hedges. Hands reaching upwards as if begging for salvation from the Celestials above, crooked-fingered, marred by blue and blackening veins creeping downwards to where flashes of deep red flesh made itself pink against the fabric above. Every now and then as the covering caught the shimmering of the moonlight, a statuesque hand would see still fingers almost claw at the sheet with every uneven section of road, the quiet, almost delicate sloshing of something underpinned only by the creaking of wettening wood as the box’s nethers grew fluid-stained. Patch by patch, inch by inch, pinkish water wept through tiny cracks and turned to a crumbling black against the base… two non-gutted people. Four arms, two torsos, four legs, the rise and fall of marred skin and the cracking of dead-bone restlessly jostled, and Rois gave a sigh of discontentment, because these were big people and the effort of dragging their hacked up pieces across the landscape was making him tired. Tired and hungry and agitated and hungrier still, the half-man had chewed vicariously open a strip the hardening, creamy fat of the woman’s thigh before leaving like a starved dog to a moist steak, but now the male lamented not affixing some more to his persons in the way of a satchel or sidebag; more to carry? Extra effort? Why oh why had they not added wheels to this damned thing yet?

The ruckus of the box came to a standstill as Rois took a pause to catch his breath, pushing sore hands against rolled up sleeves to keep them up by strong shoulders, letting the warm breeze roll over the now bare again lengths of his arms. It didn’t matter, the discontentment didn’t matter, because the meat was almost back to the camp. Intrusive thoughts yearned to reach into the haggard box for naught but the smallest bite to snack on, but were brusquely burned away by the man’s own steely self restraint, letting a pointed tongue flicker over salted lips; the ever-hungry beast bit at his stomach in a protest that was gallantly ignored. It was that same beast that saw breath leave him in the faintest of clouds, as if every huff was an exhale of fine smoke from an invisible pipe, that saw streaks of sweat run down the bronze of his bare chest and throat in visible wet lines that caused his loose fitting pants and shirt to cling to him desperately. The bandages tight against his face were soaked and circles smeared. And Rois despised summer, he hadn’t in his youth, but now even in the dead of night summer made him feel like he was trapped within a cage of his own skin, all afire with the feverish desire to do nothing but eat and sleep and let his head be graced by iced water before the horror of the sun crawled its way back into a radiant sky… but his business was the dead. You had to move with purpose.

The cow-hide reins creaked again as the half-beast pulled them taught, swallowing down an indignant grumble. Hauling was the task. Like an ox to a wagon he set forward again, letting the white noise of the clattering sled lull him into a state of mindlessness… a state that saw one foot in front of the other over and over and over again.

 

[Osytha]

It simply could not be done. Not with the dead weight of a sled, so deep into the night, through this pitch-drowned maze of an unfamiliar forest.

Something rustles softly away from Osytha through a patch of lady-fern. A young summer fox, judging by that bushy hint of tail she spies the moment before it disappears entirely. Otherwise, there’s little enough noise, even while the oaks and hornbeam about her crawl with life. But she can hear the odd, low, groan and scritch of a woodcock out there enjoying the feast of creepy-crawlies.

She and Guffers hold still a moment, Forbítter’s reins in her hand, listening to that sound. Eventually, she glances behind at the figure atop her horse, a wry twist to her mouth.

“Quite t’surprise back there, wasn’t et?”

Osytha faces ahead. She signals the horse to resume his pace with a soft click of her tongue, and then they’re slowly on their way once more.

“Well. Moreso for yersen, ’appen,” she continues, so gently it might not even reach the rider behind. “Can’t say Ah expected you to pull that first, mind.”

There is no response.

“More fool me. Ought’ve kenned you might be interested in more’n jus’ my purse. Coin purse, Ah means — well, you ken what Ah means.

“Or you would. If you wasn’t dead.”

No, it simply could not be done, not like that. But if you had, say, a well-trained horse and something to muffle their hooves, plus a bit of rope; if you’d been trained from childhood to navigate these Wylds, maybe even done a little reconnaissance on this particular forest beforehand; if you were a dusker with a handy drop of Owlseye in amidst your lotions and potions… maybe, if you had all those things, you could discreetly shift a corpse through here without walking into a tree every half-dozen steps.

“In truth, Ah quite enjoyed laikin’ at a travellin’ tea-peddler.” Osytha rambles on, seemingly undeterred by the conversation’s one-sided nature. “Mebbe Ah’ll do that again. Et’s nice, ne havin’ folk stare at your scabbard t’whole while you’re talkin’ to ’em. Wonderin’ if that sword’ll be comin’ aht should they speak ane wrong word…”

Silence flows in for a little while, broken only by the careful tread of hoof, paw, and shoe over loamy earth. A contemplative sort of quietude, while thoughts churn away in Osytha’s busy head.

“… but you quite liked that bit, din’t you Gilles?” A sigh. Then, disappointed tutting. “Tch, tch, tch. Threatenin’ a defenceless young lady like that, gettin’ handsy. An’ you bein’ a reeve an’ all. What was you thinkin’?”

It’s not exactly smart to be talking on like this, even in this soft murmur. Osytha’s not sure why she feels the need to do so in the first place. Just sort of… feels like she’s working through something here. At least she’s pretty damn sure there’s no one around to overhear her in this thicket, and even the roads should be relatively safe. Not much cause for folks to be out and about this time of night. Besides, don’t you know? It’s dangerous if the reeve of Hyldesdale catches you after dark.

Osytha glances down. She’s back in her knightly attire of gambeson and hosen, the glimmer of buckles and blades all dulled by soot-black. “Ah’ll be needin’ a fresh kirtle if’n Ah wants to try at that guise again,” she laments. In this summer heat, getting to wear skirts had been a refreshing change. “Petticoats, too. Shame. Yon teal suited me nicely, Ah thought.”

She looks over again at the tied-up corpse slung across Forbítter’s back.

“Sorry if et’s a bit of an odd fit. But you was bleedin’ all ower t’place, an’ that dress were already ruined. Besides, you’re t’ane as wanted to get unner my skirts. Got your wish now, din’t you? Manner of speakin’.”

It had been quite… messy, in the end. Osytha knows she’ll have left quite a trail to the edge of this forest. Made another hell of a scene beneath a proud old oak, where she’d strung up and bled Gilles Despenser’s corpse the rest of the way. And hopefully, with a few more manoeuvres behind her, that’s more or less where the trail will end. Time will only tell. Just another couple of hours until she reaches the knucker-hole, however, and then no one will ever see the erstwhile reeve of Hyldesdale again.

Woman, horse, and hound come to a stop. Moonlight swells beyond the next few trunks before her, bright and clear. From a certain angle, Osytha’s eyes shimmer with the stuff — a dull red glow in amidst the impermeable shadows. She listens for a moment, for the sound of footsteps, of hoofbeats, the creek and roll of a cart beyond the treeline. Nothing. Nowt besides the trill of crickets, a touch of robin-song, and a mosquito whining in her ear.

“Ah does reckon t’soft teal’s more viewsome on missen,” she whispers, setting forth. “Saffron’s your colour, Ah’d say. Mebbe even chartreuse, an’ that’s a tough ’un to pull off, don’t you know.”

Osytha stares hard into the silver-and-tarnish world as she steps out past the forest’s edge and onto an abandoned road.

“No. Guess you don’t—”

She freezes. Because, suddenly, it’s not so quiet any more. And this road isn’t actually all that abandoned.

Osytha stands there, still with the reins in her hands, and snaps her head toward that heavy trundling noise to see a powerful figure at the harness of a sled, having just resumed his efforts of heaving it along this bumpy country road; his loose shirt sodden with the sweat of it. Man must be as tall as Syr Faramund, and nearly as built, too. Head obscured some by a wrap of bandages. And, unlucky for her, he’d been blocked from sight by those oaks until it was too late.

That’s the first thing Osytha sees. The second are those gossamer-draped dead hands clawing up at the sky behind him. Out here in the open, underneath Khurun’s brilliant heavens, even her human sight would be enough to get the gist of what she’s seeing. Augmented as it is now, the details are all too gruesomely clear.

She sweeps her gaze back to meet a pair of eyes which, with herself currently unable to perceive red, only appear as an inky black.

Fuuu—

 

[Rois Sinclair]

He hadn’t seen or heard her coming at all.

So lost in a sea of melancholy thoughts was the man that they span about his head in an endless carousel, questions, memories, plans, they worked together in a turbulent throw to keep the monotony of trudging at bay; and it worked. He did not know where the last half an hour had gone but the stars had shifted and the moon rolled forth across its flickering blanket playfully, its blinding white form now at its peak, moonlight like streamers in the way of shafts through the trees all blazing in unison-- and mayhaps if it hadn’t been hot it would have been beautiful. The song of insects rising in a chorus against gently ruffling leaves formed a nostalgic lullaby, the clattering its baseline, it remedied the storm clouds that had been gathering against his skull and chased away the ache of the action gently but persistently. It was numbness, a good emotion to have stock in, a learned response to the calamity of an ever tumultuous world that waited for no-one and nothing, but one that most would not value when walking against the backdrop of the dark wildes with the threat of mystery afoot. It led to an unawareness, that calming lack of danger, and it unexpectedly saw him delivered right in front of the strange sight of a horse, a dog, and two figures all blinking into sight in unison… it took a moment to stop. To realize. To gasp aloud--

--What?!

Rois flinched hard in a startle, eyes becoming round as the man became statuesque on the spot-- the song of the night had new singers all of a sudden as the melody turned to a ruckus. The animals at the woman’s side began to turn as if possessed by something intangible in the air, a vision, something normal folk could not see, and with a tail partially tucked the dog began to bark in a repetitive pitch whilst hugging the newcomers leg, head tossing too and fro in feverish alarm. So too did the horse exhale in the mimicry of a dragon, front hooves working the ground as it backed ever so slightly but ultimately stayed with blown rectangular pupils and a turned skull towards the man afar, the two cried out in their own respective languages, leave, not to Rois but to Osytha herself, leave, now.

It had taken a pregnant moment to recover. It was not so startling that another person was out at this time-- unexpected, but there was always some chance it would happen-- it was more so that the other donned what was clearly the glossy and proper apparel of a knight. Of course, of all the things to be delivered to his sight it would be the entitled, the morally corrupt, the spoon-fed image of a lay-about called upon in dire times to serve as a sword against the 'rebellious'; and at first he thought there were two of them. The red-head did not speak, instead choosing to cast rapidly narrowing eyes to the bound figure upon the horse as it jostled there with the animals uneasy movements, so much so that the beings head lulled heavily to the side and exposed the burns of rope like teeth biting lines against the throat… ah, it all made sense. No, Rois’s mind did not go to any illegal activity, immediately it leapt fearsomely to the accusatory, spurred on by personal prejudice and malice and the burning memories the half-man always struggled to keep down,

“Well, what have we got here.”

A person could not bristle in the likeness of a feline enraged, but if they could, he would have done so in that moment. Nothing about his posture seemed ‘friendly’, from the tightening of large hands against the reins to the sudden sureness of his standing, growled out speech somehow retaining a level of horrid emotion-- anger? He was hauling a box of dead peoples parts, and the prevailing emotion was… anger?

“A little knight, and… a dead body! I do wonder what he did to deserve such a fate. Steal a copper?” The teasing was callous, words poisonous. Rois took a single step forward but stopped the moment the tension of the animals reached a level which warned of bolting, it was palpable, the dog shied in an instant with its yowling warbled as its haunches bumped the knights legs, the horse knickering in uncertainty with a back step and a swaying to its massive form, and he did not want them to run. Because if they ran, they would for sure scramble back to whatever crumbling hold their company held with words of a deranged killer in the forest and would return with tenfold men-- trouble. The box was not hidden, it was laid bare beneath the eyes of the moon, and he offered her a stern warning with a singular hand rising to relieve damp skin of the itching produced by a bandage line,

“Run away, and I promise you I’ll take that mutt of yours and skin him alive before your very eyes. Stay exactly where you are.”

 

[Osytha]

—uuuckfuckfuck—

She can feel her heart squeeze in alarm as the animals go into a frenzy around her; Guffy shrieking his little dog barks from between her ankles, his hackles all the way up, and the urgent fight she feels from Forbítter through the reins as he fills her ear with maddened snorts.

Something is wrong. More wrong even than a corpse-filled box in the night. Whatever the beasts sense in this man, it is driving them wild… and that alone is enough to send the icemelt of terror trickling down Osytha’s spine. Never mind that predatory gaze which holds her, transfixed.

But she can’t let it show. If Forbítter sees that fear of hers, she might not be able to stop him bolting.

“Whisht” she commands, low. Firm. The yapping by her feet settles to a vicious growl, one Osytha knows is made as threatening as possible for want of any actual teeth to it. Then she feeds out more of the reins, directing Forbítter to walk in circles around her. Too short a lead will only make him feel trapped — give him more cause to panic. Letting him move and feel some freedom, that gives his anxiety an outlet. And meanwhile, Osytha holds herself as relaxed as she can manage, despite the rapid pounding in her chest.

“A little knight, and… a dead body! I do wonder what he did to deserve such a fate. Steal a copper?”​

“Easy, now…” Osytha murmurs to her courser, soothingly, as the animal takes agitated steps sunwise around her. She looks back to the imposing figure along the road, holding her own tongue. Still trying to figure out what her options are.

Normally, this kind of situation has an easy solution: take the man smuggling carved-up humanoid carcases into custody, and present him to the local authority. Unfortunately for Osytha, said authority happens to be an ex-sanguinated lump of meat slung across her horse’s back.

She could just kill him. Might fix all her problems, actually. Add Gilles to the other bodies in this man’s sled and let him take the fall for it — posthumously, of course. Given what he’s hauling behind him, he’s probably the kind of shady character her order would come into conflict with sooner or later, anyway.

… a shame that ‘probably’ isn’t good enough, then. If Osytha tried that, it wouldn’t be because it’s the right or just thing to do. She’d be doing it because it’s convenient. But she need only look at the cloth-wrapped silhouette jostling atop Forbítter to know how hypocritical that would be.

“Run away, and I promise you I’ll take that mutt of yours and skin him alive before your very eyes. Stay exactly where you are.”​

Besides… that’s all assuming the fight would go her way. Her beasts’ reactions give her the uneasy feeling that it wouldn’t. If he’s more than he seems, even trying to mount an escape might be an exercise in folly.

Think, thou daft besom. Osytha hasn’t made it this far by charging danger head-on. That’s a luxury enjoyed by better Knights of Anathaeum than she; the Syr Hectors and Syr Faramunds among their number. Syr Osytha only makes for a fair-to-middling Sworn, perhaps a decent one if you catch her on a good day (which it doesn’t exactly feel like she’s having right now). Yet, a Knight she is, and a responsibility she holds. An oath sworn.

“Ah’ll kindly ax of you t’same,” Osytha warns, trying to put as much steadiness into it as she can.

Forbítter finally comes to an uneasy stop after one more lap, with his big horsey head sticking forward over Osytha’s shoulder. His nostrils yet flaring with high-strung wariness. Keeping her eyes on Rois, the woman gives her steed a few scratches low on his neck. The big beast leans into the touch whilst his twitching ears slowly, hesitantly, lift up from being held perfectly flat.

“Now, Ah can see we’re both in positions to land t’other in a spot of bother,” Osytha continues. Her left hand makes a deliberate, ponderous sweep down to her side, where it hovers over the waisted grip of her longsword. “… but what Ah doesn’t see is why we might want to do that.”

That hand continues past. Palm opens up, fingers splayed, as she then holds it a meaningful distance away from her weapon.

“Doubt mekkin’ more mess aht ’ere will do either of us any good. Or… we could figure aht summat as works for both of us. Nay?”

 

[Rois Sinclair]

“A ‘spot of bother’? You don’t seem to realize how much danger you’re in, girl.”

Contradictions. When the man spoke he breathed fire and flashed fangs, tensed strong arms and raised heavy shoulders with red eyes gleaming like rubies in the night aflame with thoughts of violence… but he never came closer. In fact, the encircling of the equine actually made Rois step back half a measure in a subtle movement that he hoped was not spied by the other, quiet, quick and entirely unconscious on his behalf. Osytha couldn’t know that the half-man took no pleasure in harming animals and that the barked aloud threat of before came with a hazy and muted undertone of reluctance, could not know that like the knight herself he had oaths he had to follow, wilde-birthed laws about conduct and savagery. The talk could be talked, it could be cried out with as much fury as the wolf on the hunt, but teeth were never destined to reap the warm reward of soft flesh against the maw of the aggressor-- the camp doctrine was clear.

She had to attack first.

And so, he goaded.

“Hmm, didn’t your Ma’ teach you to be more submissive to strange men in the woods?” The voice that floated across the road as almost a coo, a teasing melody that fell from his tongue like a well practised song, “That armor of yours does not belie what you are underneath; it would not save you from being tossed flat on your back. I wonder if it would defend your dignity, or whether you’d turn as easy as a bath wench without it…?”

Rois snickered cruelly with heavy red lashes framing slitted eyes, the way a heavy hand swept the top-side of his arms was the action of a man pumping himself up to do something; and no doubt, it would be an easy affair. The yawning gap between their height and weight, the physique, the thickness of Osytha’s thighs gave the impression of feminine strength (sharp eyes had briefly flickered to them when the lady’s fingers had hovered about the weapon dangling from her hip) but his was the body of a laborer. The slickening of dirtied clothes to hot skin gave no false impressions, this was large shadow of a being that lifted and butchered and hauled for a living; and he could see her denting the earth with a splayed form ravaged and weeping from multiple points, held down and kicking and huffing, teeth grinding as bones whined beneath a solid form of heavy flesh and muscle-- but it would not happen. Not just because Rois had absolutely no taste for the action, but because contradictions, the act was important but so was the business of wiping beads of crystalline sweat from richly hued skin, a motion to skirt the underside of his eyes, hot. That was all his arm posturing had been, an act of temporary relief.

A normal person would be warm, but abnormal, Fiend-heated he kept letting hastily knocking thoughts upon his skull seep in, bath, the voices yowled, water, water! Be calm, Rois knew he had to be calm because the hammering of his heart was only serving to further fluster him, coils of sanguine hair bent beneath the moisture, Gods, how could the man let this woman go after seeing what she had seen, knowing she’d--

“You’ll just run back to your company and report me. How am I supposed to let you simply walk away from this? Am I supposed to trust a knight not to do their ‘duty’?” Haughty laughter, a hand raised to scritch at the collar adamantly kissing the stark lines of his throat and not letting go, his pulse surged, hot, “I will not invite the ire of some Lord upon my house and persons. It is better for me and mine if you die here. I do invite you to act, however, with words or with that weapon of yours.”

Attack first. Because he could not conceivably think of the self righteous to be as brazen as to also haul corpses in the night, because the dead mans sagging form leaning haphazardly above them both in the saddle had to have been someone trialed, found guilty, and then hanged before an audience, executioner and faiths-man. No, in his hectic mind this was not a woman caught but one mewling to save her skin, for a knight without a band was but a person in steel, and steel could buckle and break as easy as bone did under the weighted grasp of power. Very aware of humidities march upon the jutting body pieces in the box, Rois added imperiously,

“-- And speak clearly, you talk like you have a cock in your mouth.”

A reminder of a version of himself from the ever-looming past and the painful road to self-actualization… and he hated it so.

 

[Osytha]

“That armor of yours does not belie what you are underneath; it would not save you from being tossed flat on your back. I wonder if it would defend your dignity, or whether you’d turn as easy as a bath wench without it…?”​

“Funny. Owd mate ’ere also reckoned ’e could try that on.” Osytha narrows her eyes at the towering butcher. “Guess ’ow that turned aht for ’im. But, if you’re that set on windin’ up t’same way, be my guest.”

Don’t you fucking dare. Steely tone and steadiness at odds with the rattle in her heart. One bastard putting his hands all over her this evening had been bad enough, but at least Gilles had underestimated her; hadn’t suspected her to be Astenvale-trained. He’d also been but a man. Osytha doesn’t know what this devil’s true nature is, and honestly, she’s afraid to find out. All she knows is that she can’t afford to wind up in his power like that, because then there’d be absolutely nothing to stop him from adding her corpse to the others.

She doesn’t want to die. Maybe that’s not very knightly of her, but please Gods, I don’t want to die. Osytha doesn’t want to just disappear from the lives of everyone at the monastery, to leave her mother waiting for word of a daughter that will never come. She doesn’t want to simply end; for whatever had once housed the living, feeling thing called ‘Osytha’ to become like all that butchered flesh sloshing in the back of this man’s sled, to wind up Toils alone know where.

“— And speak clearly, you talk like you have a cock in your mouth.”​

Osytha blinks. Surprises herself when a sniggering little ‘pfft’ escapes her lips — an unthinking, nervous slip at this piece of absurdity. She guesses that was meant to be an insult?

“Ee, Ah’m spokken jannock enow,” she retorts, not without a glint of spite. “’Appen tha’rt nobbut daffly if’n tha canst ne mek nowt on ’t. But if you need me to knack¹, then, fine.”

That brief touch of impishness disappears as the steel comes back down over her. She watches Rois with that hard stare, as the pieces slowly come together in her frantic mind. She notices he’s yet to step any closer, despite all his threats. Possibly figuring out how to close the gap without sending Forbs and all that incriminating evidence running. Possibly for some other reasons, too. Again… if this person is more, or less, than human, who knows what urges are driving them; by which rules are they governed.

“I suppose I am curious as to why you’re so convinced I’m a knight. Gambeson and sword, do not a syr make. You see any surcoat? A coat of arms on my escutcheon?”

Indeed, the shield slung with her saddlebags is barren of any motif, nor are there heraldic colours displayed upon the woman’s effects. Syr Osytha is in fact very careful about cultivating that kind of ambiguity, as the barons around these lands — the Hvithelms, the Lekanders, the Rodhans — oft extend cold welcome to Knights of Anathaeum. The only indication of her allegiance is a small, discreet chrysanthemum pin kept hidden away, shown only to whom she must, when she must. But without that, she could be all sorts of things; a man-at-arms, a mercenary, a Cazadore, a well-to-do free woman, an outlaw — or, yes, a knight.

“Now, I could run off and report you to the lord of this land, sure,” Osytha says, laying her hand out on the table. Praying to the Eight that it beats his own — and he doesn’t see the bluffs she’s making as well, even though this bit is true enough. “And you’ll most likely hang for what you’ve got there… but not before you point the finger back my way for this one, I’ll wager. And, maybe it won’t amount to anything. Maybe it’ll just get brushed off as a last-ditch bit of malice. But I don’t like betting my life on ‘maybe’. Maybe someone will think to ask some very awkward questions for me. Maybe I wasn’t as good at tidying up as I thought I was. ‘Maybe’ doesn’t sound so good when I look at it like that, you know?

“So I’d rather skip that sort of palaver altogether, on the whole. Fact is, I’ve a body as needs getting rid of, no fuss, and I assume you have a means. What you don’t have is a horse to pull that thing for you, or an extra pair of eyes in case there are more silly buggers out and about when they really oughtn’t be. Now, what’s it to be — mutually assured destruction, or do many hands make light work?”

---

¹ ‘To knack’ is to speak in an affected manner, to try and perhaps come across as more refined — like happens when, say, a self-conscious young prospect tries to iron out all the rural from their accent once they get to the monastery.

 

[Rois Sinclair]

“Tch.”

Rois has no response for-- what sounded to him-- like a drunk minstrel slurring out whichever and whatever words came haphazardly floating to mind. There was a slight and sassy rolling of the eyes and the scarcest hint of a thought, what if she is making fun of me, hurriedly pushed aside before that roiling temper of his came to snatch away the last of the man’s dissipating rationale… the encounter could not be allowed to reach a fever pitch. There was too much at stake. With each bluff the half-man lost inch after inch of bite and settled back more and more onto words to carry the threat of action, for now that preciously tense form had loosened into a stand with loose reins dangling from curled finger-tips,

“I suppose everyone can afford a fine, trained war steed, these days.” A thumb was jabbed in the direction of the tenacious stallion and its critical eyes, the tone of his voice was sarcasm, “Oh, and I bet in the nearby villages they all have the coin for well-fitted under-armor and unburnt steel from the forge, too! Heraldry does not a knight make, but I am certain the free knights that rape and kill and pillage would disagree whole-heartedly. Do not take me for a fool, bitch. I have been around your kind.”

Nothing distinguished knights and bandits but the price of their wear in his eyes. They were kin, huddling together like a pack of wolves eagerly awaiting the hunt, abiding by laws that they pushed mercilessly upon others, taking and taking when there was nothing else to take, oh, how he knew knights. Memories came crawling like worms turning the earth, tampered beneath Rois’s feet as the male tried desperately not to remember the thick, dark mud of Crown’s hold and the way they came to temper the efforts of the poor begging for alms at the wall; horse-hoof, the back of a hand, the frenzy of people with nothing to lose howling out at gleaming figures in full plate-- full plate, for beggers-- goosebumps ran across his skin. The bent body of some wretch caught beneath the legs of a mount. They did not stop. They saw her and did not stop as she turned in the sea of slurry with the whites of her eyes gathering red and yellow, an open mouth and bent teeth loosened from the pressure of the kick and they tumbled out and people had screamed and, and… Rois had a hazy look upon his face all of a sudden, like he was caught amidst the beginnings of a sneeze as Osytha began to plainly speak her reasons.

He remembered holding a carved bowl up to a figures waist, mewling, his own pitiful reflection caught in the pristine steel. The knight did not acknowledge his existence, not ever. And this was because they did not care for any but their own…

… A point proven by the woman in front of his very eyes and her very dead companion.

“... You must be desperate.”

It was better to think about anything else. It isn’t obvious in the way she barters, but the fact she was attempting to barter at all. Revealing that some crime had been committed on the ladies part was some kind of hilarious show of faith that none in the underground would ever allow to happen, but to hear that the bound fellow was the product of a kind of injustice did not surprise Rois at all; in fact, it only reaffirmed his prior thoughts about how underhanded her kind could be. Do not think about it. As he attempted to wrangle the run-away hatred that burned in the forefront of his mind the butcher ran his tongue against his fangs and allowed the heavy, hot silence to hang for longer than it should with a hand curled upon a cocked hip, pretending that the moment was but a pause for contemplation when really, in all honesty, if what she said was true then… the encounter was won. A sense of subtle revenge? Gratification for the terrible memories? Instead of burning with the past’s fury, could those emotions turn like the waves into something dangerously… playful?

... Perhaps more fun than outrightly slaughtering a knight was having one tangled amidst the devious twisting of your claws. Oh, yes.

“The fact you actually want to resolve this together tells me that you don’t have any other option, and if you do, they’ll most likely wind up with you dead.” The man’s voice was composed, ringing with a sudden sense of clarity as he nodded his heavy head, “Let’s presume we did come to an agreement. Well, you make it sound like I have far more to lose than yourself… so I will not accept any terms that do not go my way.”

The smallest up-curling of the corners of his lips.

“In order for us to skip those ‘maybes’, you will have to abandon your saintliness and come into my camp; because I am not allowing your horse to pull my sled, and I’m not willing to haul that body of yours, too. Neither am I going to butcher a corpse here on the open road. You will be out-numbered. You will be defenceless, in a setting you are entirely unfamiliar with, surrounded by those who know how to wield weapons well. I promise you will make it out of this alive and unharmed… but only if you surrender, first.”

The indifferent, stoic knight would look down this time.

 

[Osytha]

When Rois mentions her ‘fine, trained war steed’, Osytha can’t help but spare an affectionate look into Forbítter’s beautiful dark eye. Her young man here is indeed a terribly fine specimen of a courser; a little too fine at times, as it happens. But, no. Gazing upon him now, nuzzling and pestering her for more scritches, Osytha just can’t regret her choice in horse.

As for the rest? She supposes she could say something about her kit, agree that hardly everybody who plays at soldier can afford to match a knight — just the really good ones, see if that gives him pause. She doubts it would do much. Man’s got it in his head she’s a knight, and still doesn’t seem much intimidated by the matter. At this stage, belabouring the point otherwise is probably just going to work against her; the lady doth protest too much, kind of thing. The fact that he’s absolutely right about her only makes it more frustrating.

There’s something else, as well. Something in the way he speaks about those of chivalrous bent. It feels… raw. Personal, maybe.

When Osytha looks back over to Rois, her carefully blank expression has changed slightly. She’s holding a little less steel, perhaps. A touch of contemplation in that reflective blue gaze.

What dealings might he have had with ‘her kind’? To put that vitriol in his words at her. Anything like the tender mercies she herself has witnessed, she wonders? Homes and livelihoods razed to the bare earth, fields sown with salt, waters poisoned. Corpses strung up in rows along the road, turning in an early spring heat. Tattered families huddled in the aftermath, their hollow stares, always missing something, someone; left unwhole.

Her order may be better than most others out there, but even so, the Knights of Anathaeum are hardly saints. They have their share of callousness, of cruelty — their number of Syr Grenmerries. And they don’t always get things right. Whether someone came to defend or plunder, what difference does it make if they send your village up in flames either way, your little Yanu along with it?

No. These days, Osytha is a bit leery of so hastily acting the judge, jury, and executioner. Be that as it may, however, a haul of hacked up body parts isn’t something she can let slide without further investigation. And while the situations isn’t… ideal, it seems she’s won a chance to get closer to this man and his business.

She wants to get a better look at that curious headwrap of his, as well. Those inscriptions — the more she looks at them, the more they make the hairs on the back of her dusker neck stand up…

While part of Osytha ruminates away, another watches change come over the dread figure before her. That agitation bordering on rage is gone, or at least taken a back seat to something else. He’s composed himself some. And begun to smile, which honestly, is much worse. Osytha may have cause to fear for more than her life, here. There’s a cruelty in those lips; a vicious glee coming together.

But what choice does she have?

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘surrender’, exactly.” Osytha glances once again to the grisly tableaux of the sled, and continues, “But you’ll forgive me if I’m a tad hesitant in relinquishin’ my arms to a man who was only just waxin’ on about my rape and murder.”

Though it doesn’t escape her notice that he’d gotten a little tricksy with the semantics. There’d been no actual threat made to her of either one, not outright. Perhaps he’d carefully picked his words so Osytha would interpret them as such, whether he meant them that way or not. She should know; she’s been doing it as well. What’s your game here, big man?

“I can promise I’ll do no harm to you and yours, ne baht— beg pardon, I mean, bar in defence against a clear and immediate threat.” Not that she likes the sound of her chances if it gets to that point, whether she’s armed or not. “If your word is good enough to assure my safety, then mine ought to be good enough for yours. Especially since I’m a knight, apparently, and a knight is bound by her oath — somewhat renowned for it, in fact. Well… that, and slayin’ dragons, I suppose. But the only dragon I know is old Norvyk, and he’s an alright sort, really, even if he does get a bit tetchy when he’s sheddin’.”

 

[Rois Sinclair]

“Surrender. Not physically; you can keep your arms.”

To surrender; to give ones self up completely and totally, body and mind. There had been many a war where the white flag raised by some fallen commander kneeling in the dirt had quivered against a blazing sky, and still men turned their blades upon themselves simply to flee from the idea of losing. Defeat was scary and ominous and held no promises. Some were so spurred by the sin of pride that it cost the lives of themselves and their kin, and when Rois thought of knights he thought they embodied said sin so clearly that the figures delicately painted upon aging walls by scholars about the world of a bleary dark figure possessing mirrors and false crowns ought to be replaced by people who believed-- truly believed-- that the world was black and white. Right and wrong. Justice and punishment.

And there was understandable hesitation flitting about Osytha’s face, but the tangible worry wearing the mask of confusion in the woman’s words was delicious. She had wandered from the peaceful dark of black and the ringing clarity of the light into a strange world of shadows, the grey, the muddling of good and bad, a place where everything and anything looked different depending on the position you stood about it. Dragging ‘proper’ folk into these familiar spaces always held a kind of thrill-- the lady afar was almost there. Almost in the proverbial net and ready to be metaphorically tugged into submission, and he would seek to drag her further into the pale space with unavoidable truths.

“Your oaths mean nothing to me.” Plainly, with only a touch of fire from before as the man rose a hand to rub at the ever tedious clinging of bandages to cheeks flushed from the heat. “Under those tedious, universal laws I would be hanged, but not because I am a murderer. I did not kill these people; I cut them to pieces, aye, but that is because I am a butcher and they themselves sent for me.”

Rois released the reins; he had not meant for the motion to be harsh, but the leather snapped gently against the warm earth regardless when they fell from black nails. The reward retrieved from his pocket was a folded note on what appeared to be the worst conditioned paper of all, the beige-brown kind that cost pennies, and with a single toss it was thrown to her feet with a slight roll forward in its disheveled form. If opened, Osytha would be greeted with the scrawl of one who could barely write, large letters, misspellings, smeared ink, lopsided handwriting--

​

TO THUH CRAWCODIL BUTCHR,​

​

THUH CUMING WAX MOON, ME ANT MY WIEF WILL DIE.​

​

NURTH PATH FRUM RODLIN*, EAST AT CROSSROOD, RIGHT PATH FRUM MAIN, LOOK EAST​

​

YOU WILL FIND OS. TURCH THUH HOWSE.​

​

TAKE OS. ​

​

WE WILL NUT ROT. WE DU NUT WAN THE HOLE.​

​

REGAWDS,​

​

AISLY ANT SERONE.​

For those caught in the lower middle of the economic turnings, those who held their own small estate and land, there was no purpose to private burials. They were expensive, and if buried upon the small holdings one had, there was no guarantee that corpses would rise once again to glimpse the stars above as their bones and withering flesh were hauled upwards, only to check if they had been buried with something, anything-- if one was too poor for town walls, if none would tend to the stones, what was the point? And if one did not pay, what was left…? The hole, the nearest villages pit, lifeless bodies huddled together whilst black smoke billowed from their earthen confines, no, that was an indignity shared by the forgotten and penniless. They had not wanted such a fate. With a soft ‘hmm’ing sound forming in his throat, the man afar drawled,

“I do not deal in dragons, I deal in people.” The touch of emotion this was spoken with was a mix of audacity and disbelief in the existence of dragons entirely. “As for my own hanging and the law; I am not a rapist, but I am a cannibal, and some would somehow argue that is worse.”

The entertainment of seeing one oft dubbed holier-than-thou stranded in the grey of the world was worthwhile; perhaps even more was the look on the faces of those confronted with the idea of a cannibal. Rois watched eagerly, the glint in ruby eyes harsher. He hadn't really cared about the extra flesh before, but now the half-man actually wanted the body as payment for standing around in the open and the heat...!

"The longer we stand here, the more likely it is we both get caught. Give up your bravery, already. I simply wish to say, I won."

---

* Rodlin is a sizeable village, almost a town to the middle-south of Altalusia. What stops it from being of real importance is its remoteness in the wildes, causing a lack of real vendors. Most of the residents are on the older side, and it's biggest claim is its inn, to which many adventurers stumble across and bless in the middle of dark, dark nights.

 

[Osytha]

It’s another moment’s work to keep Forbs under her thumb when he sees the motion from Rois, and the unknown little thing flit their way through the air. Osytha soothes his raging horsey mind back down with hushed words and careful hand, before she steps forward, crouches, and retrieves the note. Flips its creased form open and angles it to catch the brilliant moonlights. Sovereign, Beast, Mirror, and Fiend each shine a little silver down for her.

“‘To thuh…’,” Osytha mouths as she stands up, translating the scrawled pidgin of the pseudo-literate. She glances to Rois. “‘The Crocodile Butcher’?”

A gentle frown crinkles Osytha’s brow as she continues to read. Eyes scanning the haphazard plea, while her ears are awash in Mr Crocodile’s words.

THUH CUMING WAX MOON, ME ANT MY WIEF WILL DIE.

I did not kill these people;

YOU WILL FIND OS.

I cut them to pieces, aye,

TAKE OS.

… but that is because I am a butcher…

WE WILL NUT ROT.

… and they themselves sent for me.

WE DU NUT WAN THE HOLE.

The Hole. Wherever you have enough people, there’s always a ‘Hole’; a pauper’s pit. Because building pyres takes a lot of time, and work, and fuel, and apparently not everyone is worth the effort. So you carve out a deep, deep hole, with nice steep walls, no handholds, and make sure someone’s always watching over it, just to be safe. And that’s where all the poor sods who pass away without the funds or family to give them a proper cremation go.

Osytha had looked down one of the cursed things a while back; walked on up to the lip and peered in with daylight beating down bright. She couldn’t quite process what she was seeing right away. Scores upon scores of dead faces gazing blankly back. They followed her as she walked around the edge, like a field of sunflowers tracking the sun across the sky. She could hear lye-scoured tendons and vertebrae crackling with the movement. That’s how you stop the bodies piling up so high they start climbing out, you know? Sometimes folk pour pitch down there when and as there’s a bit to spare, until enough has built up that it’s worth chucking in a few burning coals on top. The huge plumes of black smoke you see appear outside a town’s border, you quickly learn how to recognise them and stay away. The one Osytha investigated had used lye instead — none of that damnable, choking death-smog to deal with. But lye takes time, so you get corpses spanning all different stages of disintegration depending on how long they’ve been down there. Some of them like molten carpets of flesh and bone, all melding together, and still, what was left of those skulls would twitch and snap to keep their empty sockets on her.

No. No one wants the Hole.

She reaches the signature, and that gives her pause. ‘Aisly’ and ‘Serone’. She knows those names, doesn’t she? No faces to go with them, but… yes, two names in a list of many, spoken to her some days ago by anxious voices with a plea of their own.

But, how had this couple known they would die? Osytha looks away from the note, behind her at the shape of Gilles’ body wrapped up and bound. Could it be connected, she wonders? Driven to some sort of desperate act, perhaps, only to find there was no escape to be had after all. No way out bar for one. Aisly and Serone would hardly be the first, if so.

That possibility turns her mouth into a tight, angry line. Briefly, but then the Crocodile Butcher is talking again.

“I do not deal in dragons,” says he, and Osytha turns her gaze back upon him, “I deal in people. As for my own hanging and the law; I am not a rapist, but I am a cannibal, and some would somehow argue that is worse.”

Cannibal.

Osytha’s gaze goes a bit yonderly, there. She glances back down at the note; TAKE OS. Somehow, they had known. I am a butcher and they themselves sent for me. Aisly and Serone had known, not just about their fate, but also about this Crocodile Butcher and his… services. They’d made preparations. Whatever other evils had befallen them, at least they could avoid the Hole.

Assuming this letter is to be believed, anyway. Osytha can’t help but notice that Mr Crocodile doesn’t deny the ‘murderer’ part, either. Even so — this is all looking more complicated than it first appeared. One of those cases where every answer you get just spawns two more questions.

“The longer we stand here, the more likely it is we both get caught. Give up your bravery, already. I simply wish to say, I won.”

Osytha looks into those kino-dark eyes, and understands there’s to be no more stalling: she has to decide. She might still have a shot at escape, even if Gilles there would make things a bit awkward. She could try and fight instead, but Osytha doesn’t like going up against unknown quantities. More word games, maybe? Saying “Yes, you won” isn’t the same as “I lose”; if Osytha simply isn’t playing, then the only person Mr Crocodile beats is himself…

… funny. He may be a cannibal, probable murderer, and who knows what else, but the thought of trying to weasel her way through this still feels inexcusable. Not just in spite of him being those things. Because of it.

Well, she wanted to know, didn’t she? If there might be another way?

“You’re right,” Osytha says, letting the iron drop. “No more faffin’ about. Unwelcome discovery side, we also don’t want these ’uns wakin’ up on us.

“Alright. If you extend that promise to my animals here as well — the promise to let us go, alive and unharmed, once our business with each other is done — then, aye. I surrender myself to you.”

 

[Rois Sinclair]

The lady speaks, words dappled in unanswered questions, and to her announcement of his title the man performs a petty and half-hearted bow,

“That would be me.” The shining of teeth, a faux smile, four thick fangs interlocking in unison.

As Osytha’s eyes are snatched away by the scratchings upon the paper, Rois takes it upon himself to drag his blunted claws against the back of his arm and itch an ankle with another foot swiftly, not willing to show any sort of weakness to the woman, even if the furious motions were birthed from a desperate need for comfort. There was a foul taste in the back of his throat even thinking about how foolish it would be to completely trust her, soothed quietly by imaginings of how good it would be to eat a knight, and then killed once again by rationale. The best outcome was this… a type of ‘peace’.

But… it would be fantastical to eat one. The humans forked over to serve as stock for the business were almost always poor, once before they had gotten a noble and so good was the fineness of his meat that he had not been served as mere slabs upon the fire but as slices cut as thin as ham, savoured; that body lasted them all but a month, and Rois had regretted since selling any part of it. Just glimpsing the memory in his mind of bright, sizzling meat melting in the pan without the use of butter, ah, between the teeth it had fallen apart into a medley of strong overtones and soft textures that could make even the sanest man drool if it were anything but the flesh of their fellow man. He could have drooled in the moment, the usual hunger pangs like tacks at his middle, adding to the continuous waves of discomfort that had captured him wholeheartedly in the scene… but not for long.

‘I surrender myself to you.’​

Those words were the sounding of a horn-- Go-- and the reins were swiftly snatched up from below to once again be pulled taught against the steel rings of the boxes front. He was approaching her. Not close enough to be within the distance of a grapple, but most definitely near enough to use his height and size to his absolute advantage as the box once more began its dreary groaning. Wild eyes with pin-prick pupils, bright and scarlet and somehow still so dark, were peering down upon her head from the inky blackness of shifting shadows caused by Rois’s bangs… and the animals are no longer freaking out. They react to him as if they were simply seeing a stranger now, cautious, tentative, the butchers face split into a broad grin with bandages shifting and fangs clicking,

“... Good.” That tone-- like a master to a pet-- at this breadth her ears could just about catch it, beneath every word in the depths of his throat there was a murmur, the far off growling of a wild animal, unnatural. “... And I want you to know that I am known in many places… it’s simply that your kind does not cast its eyes down enough to notice.”

It’s ego.

Telling her in essence that he wasn’t just anyone-- the entire ‘surrender’ affair too-- was merely a product of wanting to look down on Osytha: which Rois was doing both in the physical realm and with his voice, the man’s dark shadow falling atop her like a sinister quilt, blacking her out against the shimmering pelt of her looming horse. Could he, should he, splay fingers and wrap them harshly about her throat…? Capture her against the ground and bring teeth to her flesh, let hot blood run about his mouth as she screamed out to no-one…? Pleasure came like cooling water to the half-man, he could, but he wouldn’t, yet if he wished it so it would be so, and that was the beauty of power and being strong enough to wield it. Playing games with words was enough for now, the statement of surrender had felt good-- no, more than that, it brought him glee to know that this little creature now had to rely on him to get anywhere; and the hushed moment only feels dangerous for a few seconds. Like that gap between them could be crossed in an instant. It never is, however. Filled with a renewed sense of happiness spawned from the good lady’s words the man began dragging the box back in the direction she had come from with a snuffle and a now breezily chated statement as the distance between them grew once more,

“Your animals are fine, by the way. I am just a little scary looking in the dark.” As if the light did him any favours, either. “No-one will harm them. Thankfully, we only have a little way to go… but it will soon be an off-road journey.”

 

[Osytha]

The second Osytha’s words leave her lips, that butcher is on her — cargo rumbling behind, stalking up until he’s blotted out the moons, and she’s staring wide-eyed into a face which cuts through Khurun’s bands above. She fights her hands away from going to the handles of her daggers; no room to draw the sword now. But she can’t keep her every muscle going tense in readiness, or her foot from shifting not-so-subtly backward, widening her stance and grounding her.

—fuckshitfuckingfuckbuggerbum—

—and strangely enough, now the animals are less scared than she is. Osytha hadn’t seen it before with the moonlight properly on him, but now, so near and looking down at her from out his own shadow, she can see that the man’s eyes glow.

“Good.” Voice like the stripes of a tiger’s coat. She can hear the growl underneath — or is that just the blood thrumming in her ears? And his heat; even through the heavy summer air, even at this distance, she feels it radiating off him. Sweltering across her face, prickling down her neck.

For too long, that basilisk grin drips its venom down on her. Osytha tries to keep her balance on the brittle cusp of a broken promise, while every instinct screams at her to strike first strike first he’s GOING TO KILL YOU STRIKE FIRST—

—and then Mr Crocodile is picking the up the reins again and plodding off. His sled jolts with a sickening slosh, and the rich fug of warm, blood-like purge floods into Osytha’s nostrils.

“Your animals are fine, by the way. I am just a little scary looking in the dark. No-one will harm them. Thankfully, we only have a little way to go… but it will soon be an off-road journey.”​

She continues to stare after him as he walks away. Still processing what she’s seen, still coming down off a sudden adrenal spike. His eyes. The change which had come over Guffy and Forbítter as soon as she’d capitulated. His eyes. What if… what if her offer of surrender is binding in more than mundane ways? What kind of power has she really just ceded to ‘the Crocodile Butcher’? And his eyes glow. Sure, Osytha’s kind of do as well, at least when they catch the light just so, but that’s only from the owlseye ointment. She doesn’t think it’s the same for him.

It occurs to Osytha that she may have made a big mistake. Obviously, yes, this was a mistake. But she’s starting to understand just how completely, utterly, right-through-the-mattress badly she might have shat the bed.

And they haven’t even begun.

She somehow still hefts up Forbs’ reins and follows after. In truth, Osytha doesn’t quite know how to do anything else. There’s a lingering touch of agitation from her horse, an irate flicking of the ears and shaking of the head. Guffers likewise seems fairly tense, halting and snapping his head around at noises she can’t even hear. But neither beast are anything like they were before, a hair’s breadth away from all-out flight-or-fight response.

Osytha gulps. Then, reluctantly, she urges Forbs pick up the pace, and draws abreast of Mr Crocodile. The possibilities ahead of her are not much fun to think about, but Osytha would rather eat glass than cower behind in the butcher’s shadow.

She can get through this. If these promises have power, one’s been made with enough to see her to the other side. Whatever happens, so long as Osytha can just find a way to stick to hers, then she’ll survive this.

Won’t she?

 

[Rois Sinclair]

Her face, her stillness, her fear-- it had all been so, so sickly sweet. Rois wanted to frame the moment in his mind forever, the moonlit night where one of the sword-and-shields of the realm had cowered before him.

And the situation was about to become hilarious to the man in all honesty… because there had partially been a ruse at play.

The aforementioned camp would be nothing like the man had verbally built up, nor the kind Osytha would have expected.

Their proceedings were in silence, now the clattering of wood was fringed by hoof and paw and the brief scattering of animals fleeing the din as they wandered in a line towards the known and unknown about the lonely path. The man was focusing on the passing of trees to note the marker which indicated the turn; and upon spying above the curving of a youthful beech’s central branch he produced a murmur-- here-- and took the parade from stone and sand to trample the crackling, thick undergrowth that danced about raised roots. Now the only thing to check was behind, not to her but to make sure the butchered parts were not tumbling from their clothed retreat (the sled now faired very poorly and had become a nuiscence of noise and motion extremely quickly) and to the subtle path the box had carved when they had first set out… it was dark. Very dark. The speckling of moonlight only served gaps in the trees heavy crowns and they were few and far between, but after a solid twenty minutes of non-verbal trudging, the telltale signs of some sort of civilization could be spied in the way of a warm orange dot that grew bigger and bigger and multiplied into grounded starlight. When trunks became parted and the ground became stable, the full, lit view of what should have been a bandit camp, mercenary holdings or a den of relative evil became clear to the naked eye… this all looked expensive.

First noticeable were four mules of differing hues, black, piebald, grey and dun, tied by longlines to a stake and huddled about a drinking trough, though the slackness of their ears and the dullness of their large sweet eyes made it obvious that they were asleep standing in their pretty red halters. Their wagons, two of them, were most definitely custom built for purpose. Twice as long and opening only at the back the large rectangular boxes bore the sigil of a grinning crocodile painted in red against its wooden sides, elegantly spoked wheels rimmed centrally by steel-- side by side they formed a wall on the northern front that would obscure most but the glowing of enclosed torchlight should any advance from that direction. A little way away from the bright, burning heart of the camp in the dark outskirts tents baring the same dark colours were pitched amongst the bushes, their triangular tops jutting out from the wilderness with a size that exposed their worth, these were not the tents of vagabonds fleeing but the kind one could almost stand in, five in total… his own was the only that remained central. And it was obviously his because it was definitely the kind one could wander around inside with its size, the woven linen doors were closed but its quality in red tassels and proximity to what appeared to be a large table bearing the scars of knifework, the light shadows of multiple tools and the staining of old blood scrubbed was notable.

And the smell was… lovely. Upon a fire encircled by stones was a pot of something, furling clouds of steam from a large iron bowl that was composed of a strong touch of game underlined by leeks and chives, the savory of potatoes completed by a creamy mix of milk and cheese. Close were round, mosaic cushions in scarlet and gold in the telltale style of Suldaza’s southern deserts, and just beyond the grandeur of Rois’s central tent was a round steel bath complimented by cotton towels hanging upon an ‘F’ shaped rod beside, expensive and proper, from the dishes stacked neatly into piles of ‘used’ and ‘unused’ in their own old-wood containers to the scattering of large chests coiled in burnt iron beside the wagons yawning wheels. Beneath the glass-ensnared torches Rois gave a heavy sigh of relief as he set the box closer to his hooved workers and remarked to Osytha,

“Tie your beast up with mine; they are darlings, they will not mind him.” The tents afar were evidently spaced that way so that he could work whilst others slept uninterrupted by the sound of bone saws and banging-- and this was a good thing. It not only allowed them to talk without whispering, but it also meant that if someone were to approach they would hear them a good measure before they saw them… and this is exactly what happened.

And this was the armed brigade Osytha was supposed to fear…?!

The rustling of ferns and the snapping of twigs, a spindly figure came rushing towards Rois with determination, but it was no man armored to the teeth and looking to point steel in the poor knights direction… it was a young elf in a pretty looking ruffled night-dress, completely unarmored and without any weapon of any kind. No more than nineteen physically, the short female was wearing an expression of joy composed of a bright grin framed by pearlescent white hair and glimmering ice-blue eyes, arms waving up and down sporadically--

“Croc-o-dile!” She sang with the trill of a songbird, coming just short of her leaders towering frame; it looked like she had just been about to wrap arms tightly about his middle in a cuddly manner. The motion was cut short as at the last second she decided against it, knowing there would be a scolding if it had actually happened.

“You can start working now, Feliene.” The poor thing was met with indifference from the half-man and a flat voice, nodding his head towards the direction of the box. It didn’t seem to dampen the excitement of the elf’s swaying form. “I didn’t mean to take so long…”

“Ohhh, you found a lady! Hi hi!” Osytha was subjected to a flurry of enthusiastic waves…! “Ah, are you two going to fuck?”

“Work. Now, before I clap you around the head.”

“Got it! Also, your bath is ready--”

“I am obviously not going to have a bath now, so, work.”

“Al-righty then! ‘Tis time to get busy…!”

The woman in white half-pranced, half-scuttled over to the part-laden load, tossed the now pinkish cloth aside and began to pick up pieces of moist, pale limbs, transporting them one by one away to the back of the wagon at a pace that was somehow both speedy and jovial yet slow and clumsy, never letting a smile fall from her pretty expression despite wandering about with an arm or leg hugged against her chest. Rois ignored her. His focus was upon the stallions prize up on high, the body teetering there precariously-- but there would be no move to grab it. The horse clearly had some kind of innate attitude outside of its first spooking, and the butcher did not fancy being walloped ferociously in the chest, whether tied to the stake or not. To Osytha he asked simply,

“Mind unfastening him from the stirrups? I’ll carry him, but I do not trust your horse.”

… And then perhaps a flickering of accusation, a question that had the beginnings of amusement in it, he seemed so harmless now,

“... You never answered me before, by the way. What exactly did this man do to deserve a hanging…?”

 

[Osytha]

“No, I did. I guess it just got lost in t’owd dialect there.” Osytha ties her horse to one of the spare hitching posts, and begins to unfasten some ties lashing the erstwhile reeve in place. “I don’t know about ‘deserve’, mind you. That’s not my place to say. And I could have lived without the coin he took.” In fact, she had rather banked on Gilles helping himself to her money pouch. “But he wanted more’n my brass — somethin’ I weren’t prepared to give him. He didn’t like hearin’ ‘no’. When he tried to force the issue, he liked losin’ the tussle even less. That’s when he brought his knife out. Well, you can see he lost that fight, too—”

The corpse begins to list her way, slow at first, but accelerating fast. Osytha quickly reaches up to break that topple and guide the body down, catching him across her shoulder.

“—oof,” she grunts, taking his full weight. She’s definitely smaller than Gilles, but still manages to bear the latter by her own strength. Osytha turns around to Rois, and adjusts her grip to help hand him over.

“… the kicker is that I got not witnesses to back me up, and, well… I don’t reckon things would go my way if it went to trial. So here I am.”

Stupid fucking Gilles Despenser. Why couldn’t he have just taken the bait, like she’d hoped for? She had wanted a nice, lawful solution. Man had been vile and greedy and, as she found out too late, the thing that Mr Crocodile apparently is not. That didn’t necessarily mean he needed to die. Even if it does still solve the problem.

But he’d drawn a blade against her, and she had been able to tell he was furious enough to use it. Thus, the story of Hyldesdale’s reeve came to an end.

Osytha’s attention flits to Feliene as the lass bounds up and grabs another limb off the sled. The young elf catches her glance, and Osytha responds to her upbeat smile with a friendly little nod.

“Feliene seems nice,” she remarks to Rois, while the other woman bounds away. “Very… chipper. Very direct.”

Not especially squeamish either, she guesses, watching Feliene clasp a fat, joddering leg to her chest like she’s hauling a log of firewood. I suppose I’ve seen worse, and all. But she sure seems fond of you, Mr Crocodile Man.

“You’re right about my horse, by the by — could say you and he share a bit of a palate. I try not to encourage it, though, so maybe mention to the others they’re best off steering clear? I really would hate for the lass to lose a finger.” Osytha thinks for a second, then adds: “One of her own, I mean.”

 

[Rois Sinclair]

The small glance of muted surprise Rois spared her showed that he hadn’t believed her prior answer upon the trail what-so-ever. There is no comment made about it however, and there is a pause to actively suppress thoughts about the subject, lest he reveal something personal he did not want to let loose.

“... You and her share something in common, then.”

The attention is redirected to the vague form of the elf barely seen adjusting things by the back of the wagon diligently, but it isn’t further elaborated on as to what they share-- the directness? The niceness? The event?-- as he relieves Osytha of the dead-weight bearing down upon her shoulder without any delicateness or trouble. Funnily enough the man’s presumptions about women in general meant that he was also a bit surprised that the knight did not simply crumple like paper beneath the stiffening body of the hung man. Starting off towards the table with an air of thoughtfulness about himself,

“None’ll bother your steed any, and I am not a horse person. They are too flighty. I have always preferred mule and hinny, they are intelligent but sacrifice no strength for it and work hard all the while-- they remind me of myself.” A hilariously honest statement with a touch of fondness that actually manages to bring a small smile to his lips, a genuine, un-toothy smile that Rois evidently does not want the other to glimpse as the butcher gets ahead of her to unceremoniously toss Gilles’s body harshly against the cutting table with a swift turn away. The tools clatter and chime in disturbance. The many teeth of the bone-saw flash silver in the light beside the curve of large, matte shears, sharp scissors and the gleaming points of scalpels in many sizes. Familiar was the broad breadth of the most seen sign of a butcher, the cleaver, and even more familiar still to one that held a sword was the ashy grey of the whetstone block ever eager to turn any blade dulled into something dangerous and precise.

His attention was not upon the tools, however.

Rois’s speed towards the brightly illuminated bath-- which appeared to be a large stock tank for cows in the field repurposed-- was only a little desperate as nails roughly caught and pulled his beige-now-veering-on-brown work shirt over his head and tossed it to the entrance of his tent with vigor, Gods, it felt so good to be absent of the constant wicking of fabric to warm, damp skin. And perhaps 'warm' was an understatement, when a towel was plunged beneath the cold waters crystalline surface and brought to sit about the back of his neck once again comes the opaque furling of steam fleeing into the night, the sort one would see beneath the saddlepad of a well-run horse who’d been hosed… a heavy shiver was swallowed down, but the butcher could not hide the measure of relief washing over his still-bandaged expression. Bliss. Ecstasy would be actually getting in the damned thing as planned, but there were other matters to attend to first before one could find peace in a star-filled night soothed by the icy waters birthed from magicks.

Big man. He is ropes of hard muscle shifting beneath bronze skin, gleaming with the intermingling of sweat and water running against the strong lines of his chest and stomach, winding down to gather like rain-drops against the hem of his pants. Nothing about that body was soft. Now bare arms are crossed starkly by the bulging lanes of veins that disappear towards broad shoulders, just to reappear again beside the bump of an adams apple set against a thick, solid throat, and again at his shaved lower belly, crawling downwards beneath cotton in a manner quite devious. The only places not shaved were the back of said arms in fact, where there would have been coils of red upon his breasts there is instead the subtle darkening of a flush against his heart from a persistent heat that affected he and he alone; Rois produced an open-mouthed sigh with white curling about his canines, heavy chest heaving with the motion. Bath, food, nicotine. Eden was but a works hour away.

“... You do not have to stay to actually watch this, you know.” The red-head sets broad hands against the table with black nails slightly curved against the wood and bends forward there, leaning his weight against the poor furniture enough that it groans quietly in protest. Gleaming eyes had been inspecting the bondage of the corpse, but they briefly flicker upwards to meet Osytha’s. “I just needed you to bring the body here.”