OOM: All Skate Skellig Dream Magic Weirdness? -Part Two

[brave_kreyu]

Kreyu intended to dance in the sky with Skellig the very next day, but events have conspired to prevent that from occurring. A raid on the village by former soldiers meant many wounded to heal and much damage to fix. Akatan's sister, Neferet, has a definite crush, an infatuation, with Skellig. She hasn't done anything but look and exchange some friendly words, but it still makes her brother FURIOUS.

For all that Euripedes was from a different time and place, a line he had Medea speak in the play of the same name still rings true: "I would rather stand three times in the line of battle than once bear a child." Even with Kreyu's magic, with Taweret's skill, childbirth is incredibly dangerous. There are reasons why Taweret's goddess image of She Who Is Great has elements of the hippo, the lion, and the crocodile, a fearsome appearance to drive off the many threats facing a woman giving birth. The second birth in a week began this morning and was still going on when the sun began to set. Not a good sign.

Skellig, trying to burn off nervous energy while Kreyu was working, happened across a few of the village men drinking. They said things about Kreyu they should not have said. That he was FEEDING on Kreyu, drinking her blood. There...may have been a fight. At least they don't think he's a demon anymore, you can't give a demon a black eye in a brawl with your fists!

It is truly night now, and Skellig can hear Kreyu's tired footsteps on the road...

(OOC: Warning for explicit adult content starting around tag 194.)

Comments

[brave_kreyu]

She laughs softly. "Perhaps they will be wiser, in the future. It makes me glad that Akatan does not drink so much, I would be patching him up all the time."

[27_53]

"If one is not careful, it can definitely lead to...undesired consequences."

His tone is not prying as he speaks, merely observational.

"Your brother, Akatan - he seems to care deeply for your wellbeing. It is a good thing to have one watch over you so closely."

[brave_kreyu]

"He does," she replies. "We are very close, he and I." She sighs. "I just wish he would be a bit less overbearing about everything."

She rolls her eyes. "The last few moons especially, he's been...difficult." A few moons ago was when Kreyu kissed Akatan, as Skellig might remember her telling him.

[27_53]

"I do not have brothers," he offers with a hint of sympathy. "But I have encountered many, and I think they are all...that way."

Once she has filled one her jugs of water, Skellig automatically - thinking nothing of it - steps forward to lift it (it is heavy, after all) and replace it with another one of hers which is empty.

"Difficult...how so?"

[brave_kreyu]

"You may be right about brothers."

She flushes, pleased at his help.

She lowers her voice. "Moody, irritable, wanting to control everything, everyone. He's used to everything going how he wants, and when it doesn't..." she trails off.

[27_53]

Akatan's list of 'symptoms' are added to a running list that Skellig is keeping tidy in his brain (as tidy as his brain ever is, anyhow) and it matches with what he knows about the timing of him making a move for Kreyu's attentions.

Someone is Frustrated that they did not land the beautiful woman.
And now that he has shown up...

"He is prone to anger," Skellig answers quietly. "You are perhaps right, in that it is wise he does not drink as much as other men of the village."

[brave_kreyu]

She nods, understanding at what he isn't saying clear in her eyes. "He hates you," she says, voice even quieter. "As I've never seen him hate anyone before. He thinks you a demon, and I shan't repeat what he's said about you and Kreyu."

Her water jars are almost full.

[27_53]

"I am no demon," he mutters, voice equally as quiet - though he is careful as to not lean any closer to her in this space, as he is certain that the others will already talk, and word will get back to (and might already have reached) Akatan about them 'conversing' at the well. "I am merely an old friend of Kreyu's, who has found himself here upon my travels."

He pauses, to collect her second jar for her.

"And I have heard what he has said - at least, enough of it. It is lies, and nonsense." A glance. "But you should not worry of my safety, with him. I can hold my own."

[brave_kreyu]

"I'm glad," she replies.

Speak of the Devil, Akatan strides into the square, every line of his body stiff, all anger, attack.

"You," he snarls at Skellig. "Taweret's apprentice not enough to sate your appetites, demon?"

Neferet casts him an apologetic glance, picks up the water jars, and moves quickly away from him. If something is going to happen, she doesn't want to be in the middle of it!

[27_53]

The crackling, screaming energy of anger attack threaten dominate that Akatan brings scrapes hard against the inside of Skellig's skull, grating and unpleasant.

Skellig does not bother to hide his look of discomfort, though it is likely seen more as one of disgust. He briefly contemplates simply walking away and leaving Akatan to his ramblings, but he cannot. Instead, he closes the distance - staying out of striking range, for now.

"She has a name," he grumbles in response. "But you would not speak it off your tongue."

And that is an order.

"I would have thought by now that word should had gotten back to you, of what your 'friends' learnt yesterday eve? That I am no demon, simply a man..." he shrugs. "Same as you."

[brave_kreyu]

Akatan bridles at Skellig daring to give him an order, at him claiming to be an equal. "They didn't see the corpses of those bandits, I did. A hunter knows what marks a beast's claws leave - no man's hands tear through flesh and bone like that."

"Kreyu must have been a witch all along," he sneers, her name turned something foul and poisonous on his tongue. "Since she's knowingly laying with a beast night after night." (There's an echo there, about knowingly laying with a beast, an echo full of old sorrow and old shame. Kreyu's voice? But it can't be.)

"In the capital they'd burn her when she died, rather than bury her, so she wouldn't poison the earth with her unclean flesh after death."

[27_53]

Any remaining distance between them is closed, and Skellig feels his own anger rise up to the surface, a bitter taste in his mouth and throat. He has no desire to be this close to Akatan - but some things cannot be avoided. He lowers his voice, deepens his tone - but keeps his pitch within the reach of 'human', for now.

"You were not there when the bandits attempted to carry off a child," Skellig growls. "Did you perhaps miss that entire event, somehow? Only to emerge once the coast had been deemed clear?" He looks Akatan over, glancing at his entire form - clearly judging. "You may look as if you are made of stone, but clearly it is your mind which is hard and useless."

He keeps the distance close.

"Believe what you will of me. Call me a demon, a beast." (He hears the echo in his head, Kreyu's voice - it can't be her, she has not laid with another.) "But you will not," he is threatening now, this is not an order, this is try me and find out what would happen in his voice "Spread rumors and lies of Kreyu." He glances sidelong towards the direction he knows that Neferet moved off once her brother showed up in the square, not fully turning his attention but it is obvious who he is looking for. "Or of any woman."

[brave_kreyu]

Every word out of his mouth winds Akatan's rage tighter, but it is Skellig looking For his sister that finally makes him snap.

There are no more words, no more thoughts in his head except to make Skellig HURT. He's a better brawler than the three last night, but there's only one of him. He aims directly for Skellig's face, wanting to hit the unblackened eye.

[27_53]

The sound that Akatan's fist makes as it contacts Skellig's face (flesh meeting flesh, and those close enough might hear the crack of bone - whether from Akatan's hand or Skellig's orbital bone is unclear) is loud enough to catch the attention of anyone in the crowd that might not have been paying attention. The initial flash of red-white-red in his vision is enough to very briefly stun him, and knock him off balance, and he stumbles back.

Someone yells.

He can feel the swelling in his (previously good) eye almost immediately render that side of his vision useless, but he shifts his focus to his hearing - he ducks the second punch, and then shouts, slamming his own fists into Akatan's torso one-two before he feels himself get hit in the chest.

(He could easily let his talons out, let himself shift into his true form, but he doesn't - because he wants to do this 'fair'.)

Another hit in the face, and then Skellig lunges to tackle Akatan, intent on taking him to the ground.

[brave_kreyu]

Skellig makes the tackle, knocks Akatan to the ground. He's bigger than Akatan, which helps. He's probably been in more brawls than Akatan too, even if he can't remember them all right now.

Akatan tries to hit him in the kidneys, knee him in the groin, anything he can to get Skellig off of him!

[27_53]

The shot to the groin does not go unnoticed - he'll pay for that later, same with the fist to the right kidney that lands over an older scar - but Skellig doesn't react.

After another few blows, and more shouting - some of the villagers are trying to get closer, to maybe help break up the fight - he simply hauls back and clocks Akatan hard with a stiff right-hook in the face.

With the way the man hits the dirt underneath them - it's obvious that Akatan is going to need a minute before he gets up.

Skellig pushes himself off, to his heels, then climbs to his knees - shaking slightly, though that's more the adrenaline surging than pain or weakness. He can't see out of his left eye, and it causes his balance to waver slightly before he shakes his head and adjusts his hearing.

[brave_kreyu]

No one tries to stop him, no one approaches him at all.

There is one familiar heartbeat as he adjusts his hearing. Her heartbeat, steady like a drum, still in Taweret's house.

[27_53]

It takes an enormous amount of restraint to keep from spitting on Akatan's prone form laying in the dirt at his feet, but Skellig merely wipes his nose with the back of his hand and turns, walking away.

(People are wise not to impede his path.)

He has traveled this route once before, but despite it being unfamiliar, he uses her heartbeat and the echoes he is hearing (voices, villagers talking amongst themselves, the gossips already spreading the news like fire) to locate Taweret's house, her heartbeat just within reach.

He swallows back a mouthful of blood and spit and knocks on the door.

[brave_kreyu]

Kreyu answers the door, and when she sees him her eyes go violet, the wood of the door latch creaks at the strain her hand is placing on it.

She steps back, too quick, to let him enter. It's best that the village not See, right now. Heqet is safely asleep, Taweret dosing where she's leaning against the wall.

"Where?" She can smell the blood, wants to stop it, HAS to stop it.

[27_53]

Skellig has sensed both Taweret and Heqet (as well as the babe) asleep, so he keeps his voice low, not much above a whisper.

"Eye." He points first at the rapidly darkening and swelling bruise and edema around his left eye, then flashes his teeth at her, pointing his finger at his mouth - there is blood puddled there which he swallows back again, oozing from a split lip that is bleeding eagerly as his heart still hammers in his chest.

[brave_kreyu]

Kreyu only has one way to heal him quickly. She TAKES the wounds, the pain, onto her own flesh. She feels EVERYTHING for a moment, then forces the karma from her necklace to knit her flesh back together. It still has one charge left, she shouldn't need more than that any time soon.

There won't be anything left but the faintest surface bruising.

"Did I get everything?" she asks softly.

[27_53]

He nods, without speaking for a moment - placing his hand on her shoulder, letting some of his Light flow between them. It is less than he could usually manage, but there is still anger and Dark clouding his mind.

There is gratitude, in his touch.
Love.
And apology.

"I would not have knocked, if I had known Heqet and the babe were here," he whispers. "But I did not know what else to do, except find you."

Not only to seek aid to heal his injuries, but simply to find her. Protect her.

[brave_kreyu]

"I need a name, this time," she says, voice quiet but firm. "Four hours, we've been apart, and already harm has been done to you again."

[27_53]

Skellig shifts his jaw, a phantom ache radiating through his face and neck. He does not wish for her to fight his battles for him, and this battle was for her.

He also would not anger her, in this space. He tightens his grip on her shoulder, willing her to stay calm.

"Akatan."

[brave_kreyu]

"I should have known," her voice is bitter, tired. "It seems he took my refusal of his attentions more poorly than I had imagined."

"We'll deal with it, with him, in the morning. Once everyone's had the chance to cool off a little." She leans in to kiss him on the forehead.

"I'll let Taweret nap another hour or so, finish things up here. If you could handle things at home, that would be a big help."

It looks like his willing her to stay calm worked!