Nuada Silverlance of Clan Bethmoora (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whyfearthedark) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
taxonomites2013-02-12 10:59 am
whyfearthedark) wrote in taxonomites2013-02-12 10:59 am
Entry tags:
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?
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?
[location]
"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?"
[location]
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?"
[location]
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.
[location]
"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?"
[location]
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."
[location]
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.