taxonomites | 02: Who says you can't appropriate a forge?

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02: Who says you can't appropriate a forge?

If there's one thing that can be said for Nuada, it is that he does not suffer idleness. Since his arrival he has gathered information from Long, traded for tools with Glitch, found a friend in an upside-down skull monstrosity under the delusion it's a canine companion, proposed a bargain with a werewolf - and generally made quite a nuisance of himself.

He has a standing arrangement with the barriers surrounding the city, for instance, and he knows for certain there are two residents here who would like nothing more than for him to make an untoward move. Or, well, one of them; the would-be knight, the tarnished champion of the 'peaceful' residents. The other one, the woman, he's not so sure would raise a hand unless it served her own agenda.

If she sets her filthy paws on his crown, he'll rip her voicebox right out. That goes for anyone, human or simply a fool.

But, all that aside, as mentioned, idleness sits very poorly with him. Having ventured into the Northern district, it seemed to him a natural progression to see about weapons. The Extra patron wasn't too happy about relinquishing his forge, but Nuada can be very persuasive.

And so, one elven prince can be found in the Medieval village's forge, day or night, fashioning himself a pair of blades. Bare from the waist up and perfectly covered in soot and grime, handling the metal and the heat as if he's done so a thousand times before. Perhaps so. But a more relevant question is this:

Do you dare approach?

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Idle hands, so the saying goes, do the devil's work. Well, perhaps. In Horst's experience, it's rarely true; he finds that in most cases, a productive pair of hands is often just as serviceable and twice as fruitful when turned to wicked ends. Lazy people make poor villains: their sort of chaos is on the order of skipping university classes, or not bothering to put their garbage properly in the wastebin. Industrious people are the only ones that hammer ploughshares into swords.

No, it's an idle mind you have to worry about. Tedium breeds listlessness, and everyone has their own way of coping with that, making busywork for themselves. For Horst, who's toured much of the western shore of the city and chosen a new residence for himself and thus done about as much as he cares to for one (very harrowing) day, this means he's left to spend the remaining small hours of the night wandering Taxon's borders to better acclimate himself to it, an endeavor which hasn't gotten him very far. The unfortunate truth of vampirism and its nocturnal lifestyle is that even when winter nights run long and you get nearly thirteen hours of darkness, after a certain point, city or no city, you start to run out of things to do. Many of Taxon's residents are sleeping, and even more of its stores are closed. Things are very quiet.

At the ostensible northern border of the city proper (according to both the orientation of the city map as well as the relative progression of the patterns of stars overhead), however, he finds the faint glow of lights, and distant sounds coming from across a long bridge, and he makes his way in for a look.

A very odd-looking . . . individual is working hard over the anvil, hammering out some sort of blade, one glowing-red section at a time. Everywhere else in Taxon has reminded Horst that he's hypothetically in the future. This place is the opposite.

The silver bracelet on the pale creature's arm, as well as his look of eerie concentration and his easy air of command over the other people standing by him, all mark him out as different from the people assisting him, who look tired and a bit quailed, but endlessly compliant in that sweet, gormless way the non-braceleted people of this world have. Whatever he is, he's not human -- the deep shadows framing his eyes and staining his lips are neither red blood nor make-up, and the draping of his hair looks somehow more like spidersilk than not, the ends of it dipped in pale gold. None of this bothers Horst overmuch -- he's spent too much time in the company of sideshow hellspawn to be put off by milky skin or a stripe across the face -- but the fact that the steel he's hammering away at is very clearly on its way to a blade is mildly concerning. More worrisome is the fact that he and the people he's recruited are working through the night to complete it. He's either very bored, or in a very great hurry. Neither of these bodes well.

Horst approaches carefully, taking a slow and visibly circuitous route so as not to startle this very resolute creature whose blade, while still lacking a grip and unfinished, is heated red-hot and already sharp enough to be a social deterrent. The rest of the village is quieter, though he can't imagine the noise is helping its villagers sleep, but the ground below Horst's feet is well-trodden. In the dirt underfoot, partly stamped on with a muddy footprint, he finds a crudely drawn poster:

LOST PRINCESS! REWARD BEYOND YOUR WILDEST IMAGININGS!

Horst picks the poster up thoughtfully, dusts it off a bit, then folds it into his waistcoat. He waits at the border where the dirt floor of the forge gives way to grass, and raises his voice to be heard above the rhythmic clanging of metal. "I beg your pardon," he says with his clear German accent and his best English manners.

Should Nuada deign to look up from his work, he'll find a man of his apparent twenties standing some safe distance away, wearing the better part of a deep purple suit, minus its more obviously dated frock coat, standing at ease with his hands in his pockets. The harsh and inconstant glow of fire and torchlight is forgiving to Horst's undead complexion at the moment, casting him in unreadable yellows and deep shadows that make it less obvious that his face isn't flush and peachy with the circulation of live blood. Nonetheless, there's more than enough about him to suggest his unnatural inhumanity to any observer who's paying attention whatsoever: while Nuada may or may not be stripped to the waist as a concession to the heat of the forge, as his own needs may be, Horst has been out wandering Taxon without benefit of any heat source: by all rights, no true human being would make a casual practice of strolling around of a midwinter's evening in their waistcoat and half-rolled shirtsleeves.

"Is this your village? Have you lost your princess?"

There's death on the wind tonight, whispering its sweet promises of finite possibilities; Nuada can taste it, like copper and decay on the back of his tongue. It serves a bitter reminder of the more poetic death of his campaign on Mankind - here, in a confined city with little else but insects underfoot (kind enough, willing enough to please, skittish like a startled flock of birds). Extras. Filler. Suitable as work horses, but that's as far as he'll go. And the others, the braceleted ones, the other captives. Twenty-odd people, and quite a number of them magical or otherwise non-human, which is and always will be preferable to the opposite.

Filthy, stinking, hollow husks of wanton greed - and are they any different, the captives with their ludicrous, scrambling attempts to build a life for themselves? It all hangs in the balance, and now that death is in the air, Nuada lays down his hammer. Death approaches...and is immediately deemed wanting.

Oh, well. He supposes an avatar of death could take on any number of clichés - why not that of a dapper young man snatched out of his day and age?

"My village." He repeats the words with some measure of incredulity laced through his (perhaps unexpectedly) soft voice. Why raise it when you've so rarely a need for it.

"Have you lost your mind?"

The swordsmith, it turns out, is at least twice as unfriendly as he is naked. That's quite unfriendly indeed.

Horst smiles, which is all you can really do in the face of such bald coldness (if you're Horst Cabal). Two black marks in Horst's book against the swordsmith already: his current, violence-oriented travails and the fact that he is, most decidedly, not what one would call a 'people person.'

That the other man is, arguably, neither 'people' nor 'person' is philosophically moot, of course. This is set aside, however; Horst prefers to do his armchair philosophy aloud rather than contain it to his head. Case in point:

"Perhaps," he allows, showing no visible damage from the insult (though perhaps it lodges, unseen, somewhere beneath his armor, cutting a small wound that will bother at him later). "That remains to be seen, I imagine. After all, it could be that none of this exists except as the fiction of my own fractured mind. Perhaps -- you know, there's a thought -- just perhaps I'm still entombed in the dark of the earth, and all this -- " he gestures -- "is an illusion I created for myself after so many years, so much long time spent waiting, always waiting. If that's so, I must confess I'm disappointed with myself: I flatter myself I could have imagined something better, larger than whatever this absurd, paltry world is. If, as you suggest, I have lost my mind. Which I graciously allow as a possibility." He shrugs.

He takes a few steps forward, less to inspect the sword at close vantage (though he makes a show of doing so) and more to inspect the man crafting it. "If, on the other hand, I've not lost my mind, then I hope you'll forgive my unintended slight. I've seen elaborate farces of this scale before -- I didn't want to assume its fabrication was beyond your abilities, since you at least seem to find a use for it. You treat these people with an air of authority."

It puts Horst in mind of trucking with a demon, and there's no winning with demons: if you guess at their demesne and you underestimate it, they're insulted by your disrespect; if you overestimate it, however, you embarrass them by forcing them to acknowledge the shortcoming. The end result is that demons are never happy with any introduction -- so Horst hopes that his apology will be of any use; otherwise, he has no idea what else to try, and the prospect of failing so spectacularly at a social encounter is horrifying. His pride doesn't cope well with people disliking him.

Edited 2013-02-14 00:18 (UTC)

What now thinks Nuada with the dry, brittle sense of resignation stemming from spending innumerable years watching humans hither and dither from the sidelines. Philosophy got old before Socrates drained his poisoned cup and was dead (to Nuada's mind) several centuries before the Museum of Alexandria burned to the ground. That a reanimated corpse would think to deliver quasi-philosophical musings strikes him as simultaneously gauche and something he never would have thought to bear witness to; the latter becomes a saving grace of sorts, as immortality breeds such lackluster dullness and boredom that experiencing anything new is something of a treat.

So. Philosophical ramblings aside, he gives the man the one token of acquiescence he can think to give: the slightest inclination of his chin. "They know me for what I am, which is more than can be said for most of the prisoners."

It's nearly inevitable that, at some point, two individuals as unalike as Nuada and Horst will find themselves at cross purposes (and then Horst might learn for himself the difference between being the actual prince of the Fair Folk, and being just another vampire). Delaying the inevitable, however, is the irrepressible nature of Horst Cabal, whose heart is apt to bleed at the slightest provocation, and who is entirely too apt to project his own motives and feelings onto other people. A more decisive person might have already written Nuada off as callous and hostile by this point. To Horst, though, he still might be simply tragically misunderstood.

And what are you, then? he wonders -- but the pale man at the forge has already indicated he dislikes this place, and yet he still chose it for the sheer relief of being recognized, so answering that with Horst's own lack of recognition would likely just make him unhappier. "By what name should I call you?" he asks, working to make sure the grammar's correct. It's not quite the same form of the question he's used to asking -- but things do seem to be a little more complicated.

Unbeknownst to Horst, a similar line of thought runs through Nuada's mind. What is it, who does it think it is, what is its purpose. He's seen the display at the so-called museum, and this man here is obviously not that - which begs the question of where he differentiates himself from the rotting mob of seeming mindless determination.

As previously noted: new. Treat. Perhaps there's some manner of magic involved, or a pact, or any odd-numbered other things a young man can find himself falling headlong into.

At least, Nuada surmises, it knows manners. "I am Prince Nuada Silverlance of Clan Bethmoora. 'Sire' will suffice, if you prefer standing on formality. Having said that, I've no dominion over you nor this place; I couldn't possibly tell you what name to call me by."

'Sire' means something very different to Horst than it does to Nuada. Nuada Silverlance of Clan Bethmoora is most certainly not Horst Cabal's sire: a distinction reserved for Sophia Druin, who's long been hammered heart-first into dust in a crypt very, very far from this place.

"I'm rarely slave to propriety . . . but there's a certain elegance to the respectfulness of formal address between strangers which I've always found charming. It serves my purposes well enough. Euer Durchlaucht," he offers instead, with a small bow and a smile on his face that says no one holds dominion over me anymore, even Death itself, but I do like for things to be done in a certain way, hands clasped behind his back. Let it never be said that Horst Cabal cannot change face a bit for whatever he thinks the situation requires. Nuada Silverlance may find him lackadaisical and prone to whimsy -- but also a trifle more mysterious than Horst actually is, he hopes, which is what Horst credits to the otherworldly prince not having attempted to dismiss him thus far.

"You keep uncommon hours," he says in a neutral tone of voice. "Surely the men helping you are tired." To Horst, they look tired already. He doesn't know the blacksmithing business remotely, nor how long these men have been at work or how much of their sweat is from the heat and not the labor -- but to him, they certainly look relieved for this small reprieve. (Horst has certain natural biases towards people who look at all sad about anything.) "Is your work urgent?"

"Euer Durchlaucht," echoes Nuada softly to himself in perfect intonation and crispness of phonemes; how long since anyone addressed him in such a fashion. He watches the quaint antics with faint amusement, lips drawn into a black-and-white smile.

What a treat, to be given too much credit and too little of it in nearly the same breath. He tilts his head, glancing back over his shoulders at the workers. Skilled workers, that they are. For now, they are useful, and Nuada needs know aught else.

Back, then, to the living dead man. "Uncommon. I would hesitate to deem either one of us 'common' by any distinction."

The head tilts the other way; the yellow eyes watching, unblinking: one brand of killer sizing up another. "You ask a lot of questions. Would you be so brazen with your own crowned regent, or the highest official of your government? More to the point: you would make my affairs your own?"

Horst nearly answers -- yes, I would question my own regent: who better than one's own citizens to judge one's decisions; but, perhaps more to your point, I am not your citizen -- but then something else occurs to him, and instead he laughs, amidst this otherwise grave situation. "My own crowned regent sits a throne of fire, heralded by a choir of the screaming tortured, and conspires after the souls of the innocent. I daresay I would have somewhat stronger admonitions for him, given an audience."

He meets Nuada's eyes, though, his eerie, scouring yellow stare; his own expression sobers considerably. "I would make their affairs my own," he answers, inclining his head toward Nuada's workers.

Edited (where have all the good apostrophes gone, and where are all the gods) 2013-02-27 15:45 (UTC)

In the light of the forge (warm red and orange and white), Nuada's yellow eyes widen, seeming to soak up the fire and heat. Laughter, at his expense? He tilts his head to the side like some manner of reptile; so far during their conversation he has kept his moderate distance out of something akin to respect, but now he closes the distance like a diabolical stop motion puppet. Horst talks, and talks of the devil, and oh isn't that so very amusing; the corded muscles of Nuada's arm twist and bend as he brings it down and up in an arc, landing bare knuckles to one high cheekbone. His other hand shoots out, grabbing the dead man by the buttoned front of his waistcoat. Lips curl menacingly over too white teeth that, while not pointed still give the impression of inhuman sharpness.

"Of all the insolent fools I have suffered in my time, you insignificant little cur, you speak of the devil on his throne as if he is your master. Satanist! Christian!" He snarls, hisses, enunciates every word. "You were not always dead. When you still drew breath, a mere child, and you stood before a darkened hallway, why do you think your spine tingled in dread? The hairs on the back of your neck would stand up, your heartbeat would begin to race, while you told yourself to be a big boy.

"The devil didn't make you afraid of the dark, he never scratched the floor beneath your bed at night; he never lured anyone into a bargain they couldn't resist. I did. My people did. And you lecture me?"

Horst isn't expecting to be hit at precisely that moment. He's usually drastically better at dealing with people than this, and congratulates himself on being not much of a man of violence. When Nuada moves up into his space, Horst has an opportunity to stop him, or move away, or at least try -- but where Nuada, in the same situation, might've prepared for a fight, Horst's instinct instead is to wait and see what he does. He is, after all, a vampire: it makes him a bit apt to risk afterlife and limb on the belief that nothing can really harm him.

His cheek stings where he was struck, and Horst stands there, blinking in surprise at having actually been hit.

When he gets over his disbelief, he finds Nuada still in his personal space, clutching him by his waistcoat. That doesn't bode well at all.

It's been quite a while since Horst has had cause to fear the dark, or the things that lurk in it -- before he became one himself -- but it does stir a flicker of memory or two: as a boy, scuttling up the stairs sideways like a crab once, so he could put his back to the wall for fear of an unknown assailant slipping a knife between his shoulderblades; Johannes crawling into Horst's bed to curl up in a tiny ball against his back after the first time Mother stopped letting him leave the lamp lit till he fell asleep; creaking noises in the gloom that father explained were 'just the house settling its bones.'

Horst lays a hand over Nuada's wrist where he's still holding him by the waistcoat and offers a cool, polite smile. "I think there's been some misunderstanding."

"Yes, mein Herr," Nuada whispers, too close already to Horst's pale face to warrant further familiarity. "So ist es."

He can see the calculation in the dead man's eye, and could he smell anything other than death on him, he rather imagines to smell those internal cogs at work amidst fire and brimstone. Satanist or Christian: terms don't matter, and those in particular are merely two sides of one coin. Both have abandoned the old gods and the old ways, both acknowledge the same new god - and somewhere down the line, aliens were suddenly accredited the abductions his kith and kin had prided themselves on for millennia. Even here they speak of aliens, which is a slight in and of itself. But to laugh in the face of someone whose peoples have been subject to the devil's tithe since his dominion grew and theirs diminished - no. It will not stand.

Nuada lets go of the soft, sumptuous fabric, pushing the little man away. A 'misunderstanding' indeed. "Good evening to you, sir."

And with that, Nuada returns to the forge and his hard working volunteers, sparing Brauer not a single glance more.

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02: Who says you can't appropriate a forge?

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[location] :o~ shiny shiny tag /pets it

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[location] sorry about the delay!

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