Hold On [closed]

Tess Valcourt knew it wasn't time for her stroll in the marketplace yet, but lately an uncomfortable feeling had been causing her to want to deviate from her schedule. It was 10:45 in the morning and though every day, without fail, her journey to the marketplace would begin at 11, she felt… something, about it. The tension across her back and slight, perpetual frown coupled with a sort of never-ending sigh that wanted to escape from her chest didn't make her sad, per se, but that was the closest thing she could liken it to.

The fifteen minute wait was punctured with fidgety movement, Tess walking from one end of her sizable bedroom to the other, going to the window, sitting down, standing up, and sitting down again. She left a minute before 11 and felt slightly smug about that minuscule deviation.

Quinok was a bustling hive of trade and activity this time of the morning. Though Tess didn't need to, she liked to take on minor marketing responsibilities for herself and her father, and the hired help seemed amenable to her occasional overlap between the master's daughter and her self-appointed role of assistant chef. The placid, peaceful faces around her nodded in greeting and squinted in the distilled morning light, always a little too harsh but never quite bad enough to cause a headache. Tess took the long way around the heart of the marketplace where loud, but agreeable trade and bartering took place. The usual air of efficiency hung around the place and no one lingered too long to socialize. There were things to do, after all, and everyone had a place to be and a job to fulfill.

The tension-frown-sigh feeling returned, only very, very briefly, and Tess took an unconscious swig from her steel bottle of water tucked in her handbag. She wondered blandly if Mr. Sanders had potatoes on sale today or not.

The last week had been a riot of misery. As if the food and water deprivation wasn't enough, Rohaan Ja'aisen spent two days vomiting, not including the day and a half before that in which he fell ill. Two days of curling up in the secluded aqueducts where cool, sweet water tempted him, two days of wrangling a retching stomach that bucked more than a wild stallion despite being empty. He doubted his cause at first as it seemed much too absurd to be true. More than once Rohaan brought the flowing water to his lips and yet never swallowed. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong and now, now he knew. There was something wrong. Very wrong. 

He'd survived the worst of it. The violent withdrawals tortured his system in painful and unique ways that he scarcely believed possible. Yet there he was, clinging to life with beaming pride. He was, however, still struggling to put everything together. He did not remember how he became to be in this place, nor what it was called, or even how long it had been since he'd seen the other side of its walls. he barely even remembered the fact that he became sick inside the stony walls of a dark prison. The thought was there, but like a half remembered dream, it was faint. Rohaan praised his luck. If he never became ill, thus refusing to eat or drink, he would have never discovered the trouble that had plagued him.

The next few days were spent re adjusting to free life. Air felt cooler at night and hotter by day, the silky smoothness of water became as smooth as a shadow, and the harshness of stone became heavy and hard. Moreover, Rohaan remembered the joys of music--real music, not the kind the overlords fed their people. It was the kind of music to be danced to around a towering firewall into the night, the kind one listened to the night he had his first kiss, or the music that plays as a woman gains the courage to choose her soulmate. When he was far from this place and free to scream and holler and crash and bang as he pleased, he would reproduce such a song. Now was not the time. It was now time for Rohaan to make his escape from the walled in city--something he would have scoffed at before. Without food or sufficient water, Rohaan had become incredibly weak and his ability to morph his shape at will had not yet returned to him. No, muscling through it couldn't be done. He had to be sly.

The blonde crept out from the shadows, still damp from the aqueducts. His muscles quavered in protest but he urged them onward. From what he could tell from crawling through the belly of the city, his best escape was through the east gate, which was occasionally opened for messengers from other provinces. He headed that way, always mindful of his surroundings.

"But then, there are no.....th-that's him! That's the prisoner!" 
Rohaan heard the hissed words of a nearby soldier and immediately began to lead him and his two comrades on a wild chase.
"Ja'aisen! Halt, or we'll kill you! Ja'aisen!"
"By order of national law, you're under arrest!" another called after him. The three men were in prime condition and were well trained; naturally, they began to overtake him. Rohaan's legs starved for reprieve, wobbling under him like two sticks trying to hold up a lion. He even stumbled once, nearly falling. He needed a backup, needed a change of plans. Hoping for some camouflage, the blonde dove into the bumbling masses of people at the marketplace who had no idea who or what was in their midst. Yet.

Tess heard the commotion in the marketplace before she could spot what was going on. Even then she had barely a second of warning before the crowd parted and a bedraggled, staggering boy barreled straight into her path.

Though her first reaction should have been to avoid the situation by side-stepping, or to cover her face and brace for impact, Tess' arms shot open to help break the boy's fall. Some people were looking at them, frowning slightly, but outside their little sphere of confusion the rest of the marketplace continued to hum with oblivious, day-to-day activity. Tess looked over the boy to see what he'd been running from and spotted three soldiers splitting up to scour the area. They didn't seem to see Tess and the boy yet, as they were still packed rather tight into the crush of bodies during the morning rush.

Suddenly wondering what she'd just stumbled into, Tess looked back down at the newcomer, her brain having a hard time keeping up with these out-of-the-ordinary events. Though it felt like this had all taken place at an achingly slow pace, it had only been a few seconds.

"Are you alright?" she asked, an inane question but the first one that popped into her head. He was clearly not alright, his skin dirty, his clothes wet, and his frame starved for food. A dull flare of concern blossomed in her but was downgraded to a sort of uncertain curiosity before it could take roots.

Already the few citizens who had given the pair of them disapproving looks seemed to have forgotten and moved on. Tess didn't notice that her water bottle had fallen, spilling its contents out onto the packed, dry dirt on the outer edge of the marketplace.

((I'm not sure if this is helpful, but I can have Tess wearing a pin that bears the seal of the oligarchy or something so Rohann can spot that and realize that she's good collateral?))

Rohaan saw black infringing on the corners of his vision a little as he tripped over himself again. He needed to eat something, but he didn't trust the food here. He would need to hunt, but even that would prove to be difficult as his usual methods were of no use to him at the moment and the only weapons he carried were knives. He found that people on the road, when he did meet them, were cocky and less afraid of a man with no sword, axe, bow, or even a gun. They would drop their guard, assuming he would be an easy target for theft or attack. Truth be told, they never had any idea what they were up against.

In the split second in which he lost his footing, Rohaan foresaw the next few moments in growing dread: he would meet the warm bricks of the market square, his body would feel heavier than ever as he scrambled to right himself, and his pursuers would find him, overpower him, and force him back into the drugged stupor that had held him captive. Falling in what felt like slow motion, he saw it all and drew in a breath to groan at his misfortune when a pair of arms shot out from the masses to curl around his chest like ropes, suspending him from his inevitable fall just long enough for him to regain his footing.

At first, Rohaan wheeled back, ready to strike the assailant and slip away, but as he stood upright, he saw that this patron was no assailant. She was just a woman, an ordinary citizen of this twisted province. Her placid eyes looked to him with mild concern; for a moment, Rohaan stared back through tangled tendrils of shoulder-length curls the color of freshly hewn straw. It became immediately obvious that this man was not only a foreigner to this province, but he wasn't human either. His eyes were a wild blue, almost too dark and bright to be real and the spirited fire behind them was strong--something that in this province was not seen. Through his unkempt hair, a small braid that hung in front of his left ear could be seen; from the leather that bound its end dangled a small but hefty bronze coin--both appeared to have been there for a very long time.

"Are you alright?"
His answer came quickly. "A'ta, a'ta...ijai kelah....." It took him a second to realize the language he was speaking was that of his homeland, not the common tongue spoken throughout the mainland provinces. After some quick deliberation, he more clearly said, "I'm fine." Now standing an arm's length from her, he swiftly examined her features to find that they--most notably, her eyes--looked...dull. Not that she seemed to be a dull person, per se, but she had the look of someone who had lost all hope, who had given up on the pursuit of life, of love, of dreams and aspirations. She looked like every other person in this awful province. Rohaan's heart wept for her and her people's misfortune. To think that they either never had or would never remember true freedom or passion clawed at a deeply rooted fear in his soul. What's more, she bore the pin of a dignitary--from what he remembered, all dignitaries and their families wore them so that all who saw them could offer proper respect. She must have been the daughter of one of the nobles. What a pity that those sick dictators would poison their own children...

There had been enough quiet murmuring around them to draw the attention of one of the soldiers nearby; he gave a sharp whistle to beckon his two friends and they quickly began to close in. Two drew their swords, the other had an arrow nocked and ready.
"Don't you move, Ja'aisen! You're surrounded!"
"Look at him! He's pathetic! I hardly believe THIS is the thief of legend, the phantom in the night! Go on, Phantom! Disappear before my very eyes, amaze me." The soldier laughed.
"You laugh," Rohaan said, a wild, defiant grin creeping onto his lips. "But don't forget who managed to slip past your guard in the first place. You really ought to rethink your dungeons if you intend to lock up those of us whom you mean to oppress..."
Insulted, the soldier's smile faded and he lifted his bow, drawing the arrow back slowly.
With a strength that betrayed his wretched appearance, Rohaan's deft arms snapped outward, gripping the girl by first the shoulder of her dress and then by her long braid to bring her directly in front of his body. "Aa-a-aah, careful now, soldier. Don't want to miss your mark, do you?"
The soldier's composure flickered, but he held fast. "Wanna try my aim, Ja'aisen?"
"Up to you. But If I see that bowstring stretched any tighter...." he trailed off, smelling the girl's hair. "Mm. Exceptionally clean...she must come from a very wealthy family to have such nice soap. It's a nice pin she's got there, too..."
"You don't have it in you to kill an innocent girl!" His composure officially broke and he gave a sharp glare to the two swordsmen to keep them in place. Rohaan had him. "You're a gutless rat!"
Rohaan grinned wickedly and showed the knife that he drew from inside his leather jacket. "Wanna try my aim, solider? I Don't think you do. I tell y'what. This nice lass and I are gonna go for a stroll out the east gate. You're going to fetch me a strong horse with a saddle and bring it to the gate, then we're going to take a ride. If no one follows us, I'll let her go unharmed. If I hear the crunch of a boot or the whinny of a horse behind me, you'll have to explain to...someone rather powerful how his daughter was killed for your stupidity."

For a moment, none of the soldiers moved. The four of them were caught in a staredown to try and read how serious the other was about making good on his threats until Rohaan tested them by taking a careful step back, guiding the girl to follow by giving a firm but not yet harsh tug on her braid. "Keep quiet now," he whispered to her. "The more you cooperate, the less it'll hurt for you."

The soldiers were still frozen in place, even as Rohaan and the girl backed away slowly.
"What do we do?" one asked the archer in panic. "That's--"
"I know who that is....go fetch him a horse and saddle," he said in defeat.
"You can't be serious....you actually want me to bring him one of our horses? Those are thuroughbreds! For all we know, he'll kill it and the girl as soon as he's free of the walls!"
"Give him Jixo. That nightmare of a stallion will give him all kinds of trouble. Then we wait till nightfall to go after them. Now go!"

Tess frowned at the strange words the young man spoke, but after a moment he switched to their common language. Worried that his earlier utterances had been an indication of some sort of fit, she was scanning the crowds for one of the white uniforms of an off-duty medical worker when they were discovered.

The boy with the startlingly blue eyes at once turned from a wandering person in need of medical attention to someone she had gravely underestimated. Though none of his next movements caused her any physical pain, the unpleasant jolt in her center was something she recognized as fear. She had only felt it a handful of times, but it was recognizable to her nevertheless. While one part of her wanted to push away and run to the soldiers, another part of her whispered to stay very still and not put up a fuss.

She heard what they were saying peripherally, distracted by thoughts that were slowly accelerating from the peaceful, calm norm into a jumble of uncertainty. When they mentioned her pin she almost reached up a hand to cover it although that would be an exercise in futility at this point. Not once had it ever even crossed her mind that this emblem could bring her misfortune. Those who saw her either already knew who she was by her face, or could cast one look at the shining gold symbol she wore and give her their undivided attention and best service. Now it very well could serve to be a black mark that would lead her to an early grave.

Her own mortality was not something she had seriously contemplated since her preteen years, when she had a few close scrapes with accidents. Now the possibility of being shot in the back by an overzealous soldier or having her throat slashed by this boy she'd thought was almost too weak to stand just about floored her. How could something so life-changing and terrifying happen so suddenly? Nothing like this ever happened in Quinok--at least, not the Quinok she'd been raised in. But the dirt-streaked, desperate young man now using her as a human shield begged to differ. Somewhere in this town people like him existed, kept shut out of the public eye and guarded by soldiers just like these. She could not even fathom this reality as being in line with her own.

All of this was what raced through her brain while the men discussed her freedom, but at once her whirling thoughts refocused as he began to pull her away, farther from the marketplace. They'd mentioned the Eastern Gate--was that where he was taking her? The hot, painful spike of electricity she'd labelled fear made a second appearance, though it was almost exhausting for her body to maintain such feelings. Not sure why this should be the case, wondering if, on top of everything else, she was also sick in some way, Tess stumbled along with the boy as the tense group parted what was left of the crowd.

This, at least, got some people's attentions. Some faces were blank, but some had the start of wide eyes, furrowed brows. Some froze, not sure if they should intercede, but no one was able to do much of anything other than watch the proceedings.

It finally occurred to Tess that perhaps the boy could be reasoned with. "I don't know your name, or where you're from... or what you want," she began, trying to utilize all she'd been taught while being groomed for her future position as a Quinok diplomat, "But I can assure you if you work with me, my father will be more than happy to arrange to have any and all charges dropped."

She had no idea if her father would be able to arrange such a thing, but that was part of diplomacy--bluffing when the situation called for it. A wiggle of something that felt like fear but was a little less intense coursed through her chest, and she wasn't sure what to call that, either.

Softly, the girl tried to reason with her. Oh, she was well off, alright. Ordinary citizens were rarely trained to try an negotiate with criminals. Usually there was just the fearful blubberings of, 'please, dont!' or empty cussing and threats as he slipped away into the shadows. But this girl was trying to talk him down. He almost laughed at the thought, not because she was trying in the first place, for he could in fact be reasoned with if enough care was taken and respect was given. That was hardly the issue. No, Rohaan almost laughed because she apparently had no idea who or what he was and how little respect he would receive from her father the instant he showed any signs of relenting. Rohaan Ja'aisen was not only a criminal, known and sought after nationwide as one of the Cyradan's (as the bandit-troupe called themselves) worst, or best, depending on how one looked at it. Outranked only by its captain, Berlin Thalison, and his first-mate who was known to most of its crew as Shadow, Rohaan had led many an assault on treasuries, grain-silos, butcheries, and smithies to reap both necessity and luxury for the Cyradan. What's more, he had a reputation for being near impossible to catch, as he would often disappear under even the most watchful gaze. But more than that, Rohaan came from a race of shape shifters called Vokurians. Even before the fear of the non-humans reached it's peak, the Vokurians were feared. The chance to pin one down long enough to capture and kill, Rohaan knew, would be too sweet for this girl's father to pass up.

"It's sweet of you to offer, lass, but it ain't gonna help you. Your father, no matter how noble you think he may be, would take any chance he could to slit my throat. There's not much motivation for me to barter with such a man. Besides, you heard me tell the soldiers that if all goes smoothly, you'll survive this ordeal and laugh about it tomorrow. If you give me any trouble, I'll start cutting. Your nice hair will go first, and then it will get progressively more serious. Understand?"

Rohaan pushed the girl through the crowd until they arrived at the east gate, a huge, towering door made of heavy, bolted iron. They had already begun to open it a crack and one of the swordsmen was there, like he was told, with a muscular black horse held tightly by the reins. It seemed displeased to have to wear a saddle and submit to his authority and occasionally tugged in frustration at his bonds. Rohaan could relate.
"Good boy," Rohaan told the soldier. "You can come for her in two days time. I'll leave her somewhere along the road...that is...assuming you don't screw things up." Rohaan scooped up the girl in his arms, lifting her laboriously into the saddle. He managed to do it, but it took nearly everything out of him to do it and his muscles quivered. Knife still in hand, he used a piece of leather to bind her hands tightly to the saddle, then took the reins. Upon seeing him, the horse whinnied uncomfortably, his dark ears wheeling around. Whoever this man was, he had some kind of affect on animals, who sensed something awry about him. Once, he even tried to rear back and free himself from the stranger's grip, but Rohaan forcefully yanked the reins back down and held them there. To the soldier's surprise, the horse submitted.

Rohaan sort of awkwardly clambered into the saddle behind the girl; his frailty was beginning to show. But once he was in the saddle, he was in and he was confident in his ability to handle the willful stallion despite its uneasy whinnying and the occasional toss of its head. The soldier looked on in something akin to dull horror and disbelief as Rohaan kicked firmly at the stallion's sides with an assertive, "hyah!" and led the dark horse through the formidable gate and out into the wild world of open Ri'atal.

With Quinok now behind them, Rohaan's hunger pains increased, his muscled protested further, and the gravity of the situation began to sink in. No doubt, he was a man of mixed morals, but Berlin had always taught him to never sink to the level of the dictators that they so hated and kill heedlessly. Rohaan himself was a victim of injustice and remembered the fear of captivity and the uncertainty that it held as all he once knew was torn out from under him in one fell swoop. He was not about to damage this girl in any way that would last--he might cut her hair as a display of authority if she struck out against him, but nothing more.

Amidst the thundering of hooves against dry tundra, Rohaan leaned forward and into her ear he said softly and with a sincerity that was proof enough of his honesty, "I'm truly sorry I had to put you through this. I don't want to hurt you and wont if it can be helped. But there are forces at work here that you likely don't understand and won't...for the time being, anyhow. All will come in time. All I ask in return is cooperation. Can you promise me that?"

Gone were Tess' feeble hopes at negotiating. The words that met her attempts at diplomacy were not the random ramblings of a mad man. These were carefully thought-out responses, logical and understandable, and that was when Tess knew she was dealing with someone infinitely more dangerous than she could have ever hoped. The insane were dangerous in their own way, unpredictable and volatile. The sane were worse, though; the sane kept their faculties about them and pressed forward toward their goals, unmoved by promises and more resilient against manipulation. Tess was stuck.

Her increasing feelings of fear assailed her more and more readily when she was confronted with the prospect of riding away with this complete stranger on a horse that looked less than happy to see them. The initial bucking and braying caused her to hunker down low over the angry animal's flank, but its sudden obedience when confronted with her captor puzzled Tess. She stared at the boy, so hungry looking and so deceptively downtrodden, with even more curiosity and wariness than before.

Though she was unsurprised by the binding of her wrists, the panicky feeling inside her increased nevertheless. She wanted, more than she could ever remember wanting anything in her life, to look behind them at the dwindling visage of Quinok as it faded into the distance. She did not, however, feeling that somehow it would be a jinx. She had never been one for superstition and was not sure why they struck now.

Their ride was silent for a time, and during the silence Tess battled herself internally, fluctuating between fear and confusion, fear and confusion again. They seemed to be the only two states she was able to achieve, and the former contentedness and calm she enjoyed daily seemed to have abandoned her entirely. A new kind of uneasiness was growing slowly within her, though; she was hungry and thirsty. Why her body should be asking her for nourishment at a time like this utterly escaped her, but soon it was all she could think about.

His words broke her out of one of her confusion stages, and she paused for quite a while before she could reply.

"It isn't as if I have a choice, is it?" she asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything. A moment later though, her desire for water overcame her pride and nervousness and compelled her to speak again. "I'm very thirsty. Can we stop somewhere? A stream?"

The girl, no doubt fearful of him and the situation she'd been unwillingly thrown into, finally spoke up and asked him for water. Rohaan almost shivered. He remembered too well the agony of thirst he felt when he first began to come clean from the chemicals laced in the water. What was worse, his best hiding place once he escaped the prison itself was the city's main aqueduct. To hear the trickle of water and not drink it was painful. Thankfully, her fate would not be so cruel. There was clean, untainted water out in Ri'atal's wilderness and there would soon be food. If only he had been as fortunate....

"You're gonna get a lot thirstier, lassie. Just wait till the withdrawals start...we stop riding and make camp when you begin. You'll understand in time. As for that water..." Rohaan guided the stallion to a stop, surveying the land with a keen, knowing eye. The horse snorted, but Rohaan answered with a sharp, "Leiha!" the horse pawed at the dirt but he did stop. The control he had over that horse felt unnatural, as did the horse's aversion to Rohaan. spurring him onward, they rode down into a rift in the plains where a creek moistened the stones on its bank. He didn't let her off, but he filled his own water bottle and an empty wineskin he found in the saddlebags, which he gave to her after untying one of her hands. While she was occupied with that, Rohaan's knees buckled and he plunged his face into the cool water, lapping it up like a dog. He'd been living off of sparse amounts of dew the last week. This felt like paradise. Finally, he stood, the water dripping from his face like blood off the jaws of a wolf. But instead of immediately climbing into the saddle, he just leaned against it, mentally preparing himself for the exertion of effort it would take.

"We'll need food before sundown...well....you won't want it, but I need it. In a few hours your stomach will be doing loops until there's nothing left in it to vomit. I'll stay with you until you're stable enough to walk back on your own. I can give you that mercy, at least." After scanning the horizon, he turned to study his captive with his wild eyes thoughtfully. Something burned in his mind but he did not speak, not for a while, and even then he only said half of what he was thinking.
"You have no idea what's been done to you...to your city, to that whole province. It makes me sad. To think that someone would steal something so precious as the freedom of many thousand souls....ai, ijai lopora be'o ne taja...". ((trans: ah, my heart breaks for you))

With a sigh of finality, Rohaan pulled (literally pulled--his legs were too weak to make the climb on their own) himself into the saddle with a groan, situated himself, and spurred the horse onward again.

"Withdrawals…" Tess asked, her mind failing to wrap around the situation. "I'll understand?" She frowned to herself, muttering her three words under her breath and starting to reconsider her previous assessment on the boy's sanity. He certainly wasn't making sense right now. Her questions weren't enough to really fuel more conversation, and she remained quiet as he seemed willing to bring her to water.

Escape didn't even cross her mind as the young man handed her the water she so desperately craved. At once she drank more than she strictly thought she needed, but after a few seconds of guzzling it down she began to realize something was wrong. Though she had felt thirst, and though she was drinking to quench it, something about the liquid was not giving her the same satisfaction it once had. After a moment she stopped drinking and frowned at the satchel he had given her, opening her mouth to ask him if the water here was tainted somehow.

What she saw next stopped her in her tracks. The boy she no longer remotely trusted, who had spirited her away from her home, was now drinking from the stream as if his life depended on it. Remembering how weak and frail he had seemed in her arms, she wondered if this was true. Keeping her complaints to herself, Tess frowned off into the distance, hoping the thirst deep within her would be quenched soon, and waited for him to finish.

After he rested against the horse he began speaking what again seemed to her like gibberish. He was talking about things she had not done very often in her life—she had never had an addiction to suffer withdrawals from, and had only ever vomited a handful of times in her life. Now he was making it sound like these things would be part of her future very soon.

She waited to voice her questions until they had been on the road again for another few minutes. "I don't understand anything. You keep talking about something that's been done to me, something I'll go through. But I have no knowledge of any of it. What do you mean?"

When the girl finally spoke up again, Rohaan thought long and hard about what to say next. He couldn't just dump it on her...she'd never comprehend all that he knew. He was beginning to remember more and more as he stewed over these thoughts; the images came back to him quickly and neatly...

"There are too many, even for you, Iva'au'ri. You won't make it if you stay, Rohaan."
"And neither will you if I don't. Go, Berlin. Take the crew and get out of here before they catch you too."
"You expect to just ask them nicely for a trade? Your life for ours? They don't barter with us. And especially with the likes of you! Rheoaan Rohaan Rio Ja'aisen, do not fool yourself! They will take you down and rip you apart."
"I don't negotiate."
"Then what are you planning to do?"
"I'll give them the most spectacular fight they've ever seen. There's no chance of winning...but I'll make it out in the end. I always do."
"You say that, Iva'au'ri, but someday that will catch up to you. Someday you'll--"
"Berlin!" He gave the larger man a hefty shove. "I don't have time for this! Take Kirra and Achir down the east corridor, down the back stairs and out over the wall. Shadow's waiting for you."

Rohan blinked. Berlin! He never did find out if he and the other two crew members made it out alive. But one thing was for sure: they were not in that dungeon. Rohaan spent many countless hours in the night calling for them even in his drugged state, much to the guard's displeasure, and he never heard a sound. If they were not safely across the wall and outside the borders of Quinok--he also finally remembered where it was and why he was there--they were already dead.

"There's no way for you to fully understand yet. Those people you trust to rule your province, those same people who claim to keep you safe from the horrors of the outside world, they took your very mind away, your freedom. They did it to me, too, and it's by mere happenstance that I'm free..." Rohaan considered something for a while. "Your leaders, your very Governor funnels mind altering drugs into the city's water. I can't explain why--not yet. Not until you've found yourself a bit more and can think freely again. But I will say this: you have been dependent on these drugs for a very long time. To be ripped away from them is a terrible, terrible process that I fully intend to improve in any way I can. When it's finished and before I can send you on your way...I can't go in good conscience without having a little chat with you about how the Council really rules Ri'atal. After that, I leave your course of action in your own hands. You've served your purpose for me and I can't see any reason to keep you if you intend to go back to your home once this ordeal is through. I may be a thief, but I'm not a liar. Not...not when it counts anyhow."

((Back from a busy weekend! I'll let you know if I ever think I'll be unable to post for more than a few days, though :) ))

Nothing the boy was saying made any sense to Tess, but according to him, it wasn't supposed to yet. Frowning the whole time he spoke, she mouthed key words quietly to herself as if invoking a spell that would suddenly bring her clarity: drugs... water... Council...

Though she had had her fill of water, her thirst was not quenched. Though it sounded as if her kidnapper was deranged and confused, ranting about conspiracies, an irrational bubble of nervousness rose in her at this realization. Normally she felt best when well-hydrated, but that was usual for all humans, was it not? She ran her tongue along the roof of her mouth and shivered at the raw, uncomfortable feeling it elicited.

Pushing her frayed thoughts from her mind, Tess instead focused on brainstorming contingency plans should this young man go back on his word. Though he seemed to have every intention of letting her go once they reached a certain stage in their journey, she, like the rest of the law-abiding citizens of Quinok, had always been told to exercise the greatest skepticism possible when dealing with a criminal, reformed or no. It made those who had even the smallest black marks on their records something like second-class citizens in her hometown. They were made to wear a black armband to show that they could not be trusted with anything but the most heavily-supervised, menial work, and many of them wound up homeless, begging for scraps in the lower districts.

Tess stared at the back of the young man's head while they rode, trying to imagine what he could have done to land himself in jail. He was clearly willing to go to extreme lengths to escape and survive, so perhaps he had been wanted for theft or assault? It was impossible to know. Against her better judgment (for her father had also warned her against ever getting to know a criminal, former or no, too well) she asked the first thing that came to her mind.

"Who are you, exactly? How did you come to be incarcerated in Quinok?"

Almost the moment the words were out of her mouth Tess experienced a strange, full-body shiver that almost knocked her into the boy. Goosebumps shivered to life up her arms and across the back of her neck and she held herself briefly to rub some feeling back into her skin, a chill creeping up on her that had nothing to do with the weather.

(no worries!)


Rohaan let this news sink in, let it soak in her clouded mind for a while in the hopes that something might stick. As he looked back to see the walls of Quinok at a comfortable, fuzzy distance in the horizon, he found that his first and foremost objective of getting out alive had been fulfilled. He had to decide what his best course of action was, now. Obviously he wanted to reunite with his crew, but he didn't know how to find them. Sure, he knew where they frequented and understood how they moved and the way they operated as a group, but Ri'atal was vast. They could be anywhere, especially since he had no recollection of how long he'd been caged in the capital's prison. He doubted they waited for him, as a search party would probably have been sent out to find them after the stunt they pulled. Rohaan was determined to find Berlin and his crew, but he didn't yet know where to start.

So think of the more immediate troubles, he thought to himself.
This girl, this once 'privileged' woman was now his immediate trouble. The longer he kept her, the greater the chance that a pack of soldiers would come riding after him. But could he really just leave her? In her current state at least she was incapable of surviving the wilderness on her own, though he was certain that if he left her by the road with some provisions, soldiers would find her quickly enough and take her back home. Back home to the grandeur of Quinok's capital city, to her well-to-do family...to a darkness and oppression that she could never see. The thought tore at Rohaan, twisted something deep within him. Once more he was caught in the disbelief of an entire province caught in a lie. Drowning in it. In good conscience he couldn't cast her back into her comfortable prison. No. He had to get her clean, to get her to see the world as it truly was before giving her the choice to abandon her delusion forever. Rohaan had to give her that chance.

Finally, the girl asked who he was. He was surprised that it had taken this long, in all honesty. He twisted around in the saddle to look at her, grinning. "What, you don't know?" Not a second more and he realized that she couldn't have known. Her father almost certainly knew, but he had to remind himself that she had been smothered by oppression most of her life, if not all of it. "Mm, of course you don't," he said almost apologetically. "For the time being, you may call me Rio. I suppose one could say it was my name, though I've found that my people and the rest of Ri'atal have a very different understanding of how names work and what they're for...I'm known to most as Rohaan, which is also my name, but that doesn't concern you. For now, it's Rio," he said assertively. "Rio Ja'aisen. As for the why..." Rohaan thought about this for a while. The easy answer was larceny, for that was the reason he was in Quinok to be caught in the first place. But it was so much more than that--it had to be. Little boys whose only crime was staying up too late and chasing seagulls did not deserve violent capture and imprisonment, and yet that was how he came to Ri'atal mainland in the first place. Those people mistreated him because of what he was, of what he could do. Those wild blue eyes of his marked him as a deceptive evil in their minds, an evil that needed to be exterminated.

"Why..." he said again, deciding that she needed to not be sheltered from the truth. "Many reasons. Theft is easily my most frequent and known offense, which is why I came to Quinok in the first place. But when I was charged, they officially held me for not just larceny, but high treason against the Council, multiple accounts of murder and more instances of disturbing the peace than are worth counting. But that's not really why they wanted me locked up. It's why I am infamous, why I am known across the land, but my real crime is what I am, not what I've done. You might have guessed, but I'm not human. What I am capable of terrifies your precious council and all their drones. I say it's because they're jealous," he half teased, "but they don't like feeling threatened. Feeling inadequate. Out of control. It's not as terrible as they make it out to be....sometimes. But enough of that. I will tell you more about that when you have your wits about you. All will come in time," he said once more.

There was a spell of silence that drifted among them for a moment as Rohaan stood up in the saddle and sniffed at the wind. Changing course just slightly to the left, he asked, "What are you called?", for it was rude in his culture to outright ask for a person's name. A name was much more than a word to call a person back home and a full name was not easily given to just anyone. In his homeland, to demand the name of a stranger would swiftly earn a solid fist to the face for such arrogance. "And who do you and that shiny pin of yours belong to?"

Tess frowned at the young man as he seemed to come to the conclusion that it was at first surprising, then unsurprising that she wasn’t familiar with his face or name. At least now she had something to attach to him in her mind, now: Rio. Rohan as well, but Rio for now. Something about that second name buzzed vaguely in her mind, perhaps something she had overheard outside her father’s meeting chambers once or twice… but the more she tried to focus on it, the more it slipped away through the gray veil of dull confusion that was her mind.

She was unsurprised to hear that he was wanted for theft—she had figured that from the beginning, but what he said next was filed quickly away in her mind as “possibly psychotic ramblings delivered with a surprisingly clear and logical rhetoric.” That file also contained the “tainted water” theory. She was uncertain if the other crimes were all true—the murder in particular worried her—but his insistence that he wasn’t human threw her whole worldview for a loop.

Again he told her that he would explain more when she “had her wits about her.” He clearly meant his theory about the water being laced with some sort of drug, but Tess wondered if he’d ever judge her as of sound mind and body if he was indeed delusional. In spite of herself she was curious to hear more. If nothing else it would provide insight into his crimes once she returned home.

Back was the knot of fear in her chest—if she returned home.

That emotion seemed to kick-start another shiver through her, and now it came with a short, but very violent bout of nausea. Trying to hide this from Rio, lest he think his theory about water poison was true, she surreptitiously lifted a hand to her mouth in the guise of yawning. After a few rocky seconds, the queasiness passed.

When he asked her about her name in a roundabout way after a few moments of silence had passed between them, her feeling of illness was all but forgotten.

“I’m Tess. Tess Valcourt,” she said, figuring there was no reason to hide it now. He knew her father was well-placed and a lie might always be discovered later. “My father is Richard Valcourt, one member of… ah, as you say it, my precious Council ruling over Quinok.” She reached up to touch the pin he spoke of, sorely regretting wearing it today. In reality though, this encounter felt… sort of fated, somehow. She would never have dreamed of removing her pin, as she wore it every single day. There was no way she could have avoided being discovered as a Valcourt, and perhaps if she had left for the market early, as she’d wanted to this morning, she would have avoided this boy altogether.

After a short pause, she cleared her throat. “Rio. You say you aren’t human, and that’s why you were treated so poorly.” She could not deny that the shape he was in was the result of some serious abuse and neglect in the jails, and would be looking into this when—if—she returned home. The “if” caused another short curl of fear, followed at once by a punch of shivers in her stomach. Distracted, she was quiet for a few seconds before she finished her question. “I know you don’t want to tell me this until you perceive my condition to have stabilized, but tell me if you can. What precisely makes you ‘not human’?”

She had no sooner asked this when another full-body shiver took her by surprise, and she was utterly unable to stop this one. She hunkered down against an imaginary chill and waited it out, her face set in a hard, tense expression of suppressed fear. What was happening to her? This boy couldn’t possibly be even remotely right… could he?

"Valcourt?" Rohaan stopped the horse, pulling the reins to guide the willful horse to a jerky stop. Standing in the stirrups a little so he could twist around to get a beter look at her, he grinned. He had a fierce smile, but not a malevolent kind of fierce. No...it was bright, spirited, intelligent and wildly passionate--a look that belied his damp, dirty countenance. The look in his eyes was a mixture of immense amusement and shock as he laughed, quietly at first then louder and more heartily. "Valcourt!" he said again. "Ohh, I've gone and done it now. Berlin will have my head...if I ever find him again." After a moment of letting out some laughter, he explained, "Richard and I met once. Well, twice, I suppose. Once, many years ago when he was called to a gathering with other," he waved a dismissive hand, "important figures from different provinces, I suggested to Berlin--the captain of those I keep company with--that we rob them of their wine and brandy, for they always begin and end those meetings with feasts. Musta been in a good mood that day, because he agreed and led the charge. Being the angry, spiteful little boy I was at the time, I didn't just want his brandy, I wanted his cup, too. We caught them so off guard...I'll never forget he look on his face when I took it right off the table and ran!" Rohaan relished in the memory for a moment, then his smile faded as he continued with, "and then we met again. On his turf, this time. It was a brief encounter, but he wanted to be certain of who he had in captivity before deciding that a long, spiteful torture of intoxication would be more suitable than a hanging...." Now stony faced, Rohaan turned around and set his dark steed in motion.

"You know," he said at length, "When I mentioned the Council and their plan to overthrow Ri'atal's people by drugs in the water, I didn't just mean your council. I meant the Council. The other provinces are under the same oppression."

Rohaan pulled a piece of leather from his bandolier pocket and used it to tie back his tangled blonde curls behind his head, though the thin braid by his ear and one defiant lock from his forehead escaped its bind. It was unclear whether the braid with the coin was of symbolic importance or just an aesthetic touch, but it was apparent that it had been there for a very, very long time and he had no intention of getting rid of it. He also bore three pieces of metal on his left ear: one looked like a brass rivet had been stamped into the upper cartilage, the other, puncturing the ear just below the first, was a ring of steel that looked as though it'd once been painted red. The third was a ring of dark steel that went through his lobe. It was the same thickness as an ordinary nail and the area around it was scarred pink. Next to it was a white scar that touched the bottom of his earlobe; apparently at one point he had four earrings and not just three. Each one was recognizable as a prison tag from three different provinces. This man had seen the inside of many a dungeon and lived to tell about it.

Tess, calling him by his name this time, insisted on knowing more about what he was. At first Rohaan only sighed deeply. He did not turn to her, did not acknowledge her question in any other way and for a while it seemed like he wasn't going to say anything at all. It was a full minute before Rohaan pushed the horse a little faster, kicking him into a canter and guiding him to where a lone tree stood like a tower among the sagebrush and dry, brown grass. Dismounting, he hitched the horse securely to it's thin trunk.

"You want to know?" Rohaan offered up his hand to help her out of the saddle--a surprisingly civilized and chivalrous gesture, all things considered. "I'll tell you. Nay, I'll show you. But--look at me--you must remember what you see. Look at my face, my hands. My eyes. Remember who I am. Remember also my promise to you: I will not hurt you if you do not hurt me. I am a Vokurian--a race of shape shifters from the south. We can change any of our features but our eyes. Watch closely." Taking a few steps back, Rohaan took in a breath and focused hard on something. He could feel his ability deep within him resting dormant, but until now he had not been able to reach it. But the fresh water had done him some good, because he felt his strength growing. And then, after a few seconds of trying, his form changed. The transition was smooth; his teeth blackened like graphite and grew longer and pointed, his body grew and elongated until it was at least three times larger, and his hands had sprouted black claws.

Standing before Tess was a blue-eyed dragon creature with spikes down his back and scales that looked like they could have just as easily been feathers or skin. Laced into the surface of its obsidian skin, around the face, down the spine and along the top ridge of his wings were lines of bioluminescent red. It was a Cyradan, an ancient creature of old legend that was said to be extinct on this side of the ocean, and was also the namesake of Berlin's crew of thieves. His body, instead of being humanesque was now sleek and muscled, built for airborne speed. Raising his tapered head into the air, Rohaan roared. The sound was like a bellowing horn and the sharp note of struck-glass all at once. Jixo, the horse, neighed wildly and reared back in a fearful attempt to escape his tether, but to no avail. Now it was clear why the animal hadn't approved of him in the first place.

Rohaan's shape changed again, this time into something much less formidable and large. A quick, smooth shift and instead of a dark Cyradan, there was a blue eyed dog with luxuriously thick white fur. Then, with another shift, a mirror image of Tess...with blue eyes. Rohaan took a deep breath and returned to his natural form of a scarred, bedraggled thief. He smiled at some inward victory, but his knees buckled and dropped him to the ground for a moment; All he could do was breathe for several long seconds. When he was stronger, holding such forms would be easy. As emaciated as he was, to do so in that moment was no small feat.

By sheer will alone, Rohaan rose to his feet and began rifling through the saddlebags. Surely, there had to be something to eat in there... "Now you know," he said quietly, still kind of grinning. "You can imagine why people like your father are afraid of me. Of us. Aha!" There was an old loaf of bread that was crunchy and hard; Rohaan just splashed a little water on it and chewed it down all the same. It was far from being enough, but it would last him until they could make camp and hunt.

Tess slid down from the horse when Rio did, walking around the animal to get a better view of the young man. Nowhere near sure what she would be confronted with, she braced herself for the worst and felt pretty confident that nothing he could do would shock her.

She had never been so wrong in her entire life.

The first inklings of the shift didn't quite click in her brain as reality, and as a result she stood still, blinking rapidly to try to clear her eyes of whatever interference was causing the boy's image to waver. When it didn't stop, and in fact, only became more pronounced and obvious, Tess took a few sudden, faltering steps back until her back was flush against the trunk of the tree where the horse was tied. Her feelings mirrored Jixo's as the creature that stood in Rio's place reared its head back and roared. Tess lifted her hands to her face and hunkered down, making herself as small as possible. She wasn't sure if she made a sound or not. Even if she had it would have been drowned out over the braying horse and the bone-rattling roar of the beast.

She almost covered her eyes, but couldn't quite bring herself to let it out of her sights. The next shift was much less threatening, but Tess did not move from her new position curled against the tree trunk. Scarce able to breath, much less blink, she stared open-mouthed at the small dog, its eyes still that trademark blue. Her thoughts were a cacophony in her head much louder than the former beast's roar. That could not be Rio. This did not fit in her realm of reality and her mind struggled to reject what it was seeing.

Tess felt faint when the creature then transformed into something much more familiar--herself. Realizing she hadn't been breathing during most of this exchange, Tess sucked in a gasp and held it, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. It seemed extraterrestrial, something familiar taken and turned into an imposter. Her world spun a little and just when she was certain she could endure no more surprise, Rio was back.

He fell to the ground briefly and a part of Tess wanted to go see if he was okay. By the time she unlocked her legs, though, he was back up on his feet. She barely comprehended what he said to her, and it was only after many long seconds that she unstuck her tongue and managed to rattle loose a sentence from her paralyzed throat.

"That was--how can you--that's impossible." It wasn't her most articulate moment. "What... was that, magic? Or a trick of the light?" Even as she speculated, mostly to herself, she knew it wasn't true. A trick of the light could not have produced that roar, and no magician was that good. Tess had only seen a few of them in Quinok and their card tricks and sleight of hand always bored her. She was decidedly the opposite of bored now.

Finally regaining some iota of her composure, Tess pushed back from the tree and approached Rio on shaking legs. She wasn't sure what she was going to do until she was there, but almost against her will she reached out with the hand he had untied earlier and rested it against his forearm. Realizing that she'd just strolled right up to touch a random stranger who had just been three different forms, she pulled back and turned away, flustered and bewildered. He certainly felt real.

"They fear your kind... so there are more of you? How many? And where?" This bursting of questions and a burning, irrepressible desire to ask them all at once took hold of her before she could even dream of stopping it. "Why have I never heard... certainly someone in Quinok would have known, I mean, the things you can do..." Her ramblings trailed off as she frowned, looking at a point in the distance and buzzing with the energy of this new discovery. All thoughts of escape, returning to her home, food, water, or rest were temporarily purged from her mind.

Through the crunching of still-hardened bread, Rohaan laughed weakly. His condition had faded even since they'd first met and it was quickly clear why he had to resort to such desperate measures as kidnapping to get free. Rohaan was a fighter and a survivor; the level of energy he could bring forth when he needed it was surprising, even under the worst circumstances, but not even he could have held the guards at bay if they had caught up to him. Without Tess, Rohaan would never have made it out of the province alive. Berlin's last words to him rang clear in his mind: Someday, that'll catch up to you... Someday it would. He would run from it as long as he could, but in truth, Rohaan Ja'aisen had no dreams of settling down with a woman and a home, much less children. Not anymore. There was a day when he aspired to do such things, but fate was cruel and reality found him quickly. Now all that mattered to him was that when he went down, he wouldn't go alone. He would put up such a fight that people would write ballads about it and soldiers would quit the force after what they'd seen. Then he'd die in peace. To him, there was no other way.
Someday.

"No," he said, granting some distance between he and Jixo as he sat down against the trunk of the tree. "No magic. Well...kind of. We do have a sort of magic that lets us change our clothes as we shift--obviously, as I am still clothed right now. The rest is in our bones, our blood. In the same way that women can grow children in their bellies and old men grow beards, so do we change our forms. Anything we like in any way imaginable--except the eyes. And....I suppose the color of our blood--it's not red, mind you--but let's hope that's not very relevant for the moment."

The last of the bread disappeared; Rohaan looked at his crumb-covered hands in baleful disappointment before licking them clean. His stomach had been accustomed to the feeling of emptiness, but now that it had a taste of substance it snarled angrily at him. "Aye, there are more of us. How many and where they might be is unknown even to me...I haven't been home since I was a lad, see. And in the state my ruvi'aehir--er...tribe was in when we parted ways, I question if it still exists. But I know there at least used to be a whole island full of us. A small island down southeast. Far enough offshore that few bothered us for a while, but not far enough to be unreachable. There was an entire, as you say, tribe of us on that island, though we use the term ruvi'aehir. It means...um...something to the effect of Heart's Land...'home', if you will. I don't doubt that there were other ruvi'aehir scattered around the wildest and most hidden places of Ri'atal, but after what the national council had done to MY people, I can't say how many of them have managed to resist and survive. From what I know, the majority of us that are seen are solitary rangers. We're rarely seen with the resistance groups because we lead our own and we are rejected by even them more often than you'd think."

Rohaan turned to her finally, as he'd been gazing off into the horizon. His blue eyes burned with a passion not found among the placid faces of provinces, but behind them there was immense pain to fuel his fervor. He was a man who had seen it all, done it all, and been everywhere with the scars and stories to prove it. "The reason, Tess, you or anyone else hasn't heard of us is because people like your father try very hard to keep it that way. Why else are there fortified walls around each province? Why else would the water in your bottle taste much clearer than the water of home? They mean to bury us, Tess. Figuratively and literally. But we--Vokurians and the other rejects of this world--are strong. We will not go quietly." Rohaan smiled a little. "It's interesting," he said. "They try very hard to pretend we don't exist, but they do a fine job of acknowledging us all the same. Most people just don't know it....I'm sure you've been to the market and on more than one occasion been asked to show your eyes? Maybe a hat was blocking them, or a hood, or maybe it was dark? As I'm sure you know, it is against National Law to trade or barter with anyone who has their eyes obscured in any way that makes their color indistinguishable. That one's for us," he said, gesturing to himself. "We exist. We've always existed...they just didn't want you to know."

Using the tree for support, Rohaan pulled himself back to his feet. He unhitched the horse who tried to take the opportunity to run. Not on Rohaan's watch. "Anan...kilita emi...anan." The words he spoke were of a different tone and accent than his native tongue. In fact, it was a language hailing from the east where an ancient people, often called the horse masters of Ri'atal, used to live. Berlin was the only man Rohaan knew who had any sizable portion of their blood in him, but their powers still ran strong through him. Some of it was knowledge he could pass down to Rohaan and some was beyond teaching or explanation. "Kilita emi, len teilo. Anan, anan." Rohaan repeated this softly a few times and gradually the horse settled. "Mailon," he cooed in approval. "What do they call you, stallion?" Scanning the leather tack, he found a brass plate riveted to the bridle with the word, "JIXO" elegantly engraved upon it. "Jixo, hm? A fine name. Cooperate with me, Jixo--for the lady. You wouldn't upset the nice lady, would you?" The horse allowed him (albeit nervously) to stroke his velveteen nose. "You've seen too much of war, Jixo. Pity."

Rohaan hauled himself back into the saddle and offered a hand to Tess to help her do the same. "How do you feel, Tess? I mean your stomach. How is it?"

For some reason the fact that Rio did not have red blood came as almost as big a shock as the shifting itself. She tried to imagine what color it would be… blue, like his eyes? Green, a sort of earthy call to nature? Violet, as mysterious as his race? She snapped out of her thoughts as he continued, and the more he shared the smaller Tess felt.

A chill crept up her spine when he asked her about Quinok’s strange protocol requiring the eyes to be visible at all times. She’d wondered about it for years, but didn’t think much of it. Her working theory had been that there was some sort of criminal group who might have been branded by scarring around the face as a tell-tale sign of their affiliation. That had seemed a reasonable enough conclusion and she’d rarely devoted any time to wondering about it since.

Now, looking into Rio’s chemical-fire blue eyes, so different from any she’d ever seen not only in color but in intensity, her former hypothesis crumbled to dust.

At the mention of water her stomach turned, and almost without meaning to she took another sip from the satchel of water he had given her. She wracked her brain, trying to figure out if the water tasted different, but she didn’t know if she was imagining things, deep under some kind of power of suggestion. One of the few people her age lucky enough to have any kind of scholarly education, Tess vaguely remembered parts of her medical textbooks telling about an effect like this: if the patient believed he or she would get better, they would. Was she tasting subtle differences only because she was now expecting to?

One thing she did know for certain was that this water did not taste anywhere near the same as she could remember, and once again the flavor, though pleasing, was doing nothing for her thirst. The aching dryness in her throat and the unhappiness of her stomach had been put on hold during Rio’s demonstration, but when he asked her about it again she was reminded.

“I’m not sure,” she said, speaking before her real answer could be fully formulated. As a result she immediately followed that up with, “Actually, no. I’m not feeling well at all.” As if verbalizing it out loud had kick-started the symptoms, she felt a wracking cramp of what felt like hunger but couldn’t possibly be so. She had eaten breakfast late and there was no way she could be feeling this intensely famished after so few hours.

Though her traitorous body was in the forefront of her mind, concerns about these feelings were battling for dominance with another train of thought. If anything Rio had said could be even remotely taken for the truth, it made sense. She was suffering physically away from Quinok and the food and water supply there. He had transformed right before her eyes, so unless she was suffering from some sort of sudden hallucination, everything he had said about his race, and how they had been persecuted through the years, made sense. She hadn’t heard about them until today, after all.

What was hardest to wrap her mind around and accept was that her father had any part of this. It was hard enough to believe that the council of Quinok, or any other province for that matter, would partake in such monstrous treatment of an entire race based purely off of fear. Even if Tess could bring herself to accept that, and the jury was still out there, surely her own father could not be aware of this.

The story he had shared earlier about stealing from Richard Valcourt was one she had heard before, though. He downplayed it to her, but certain members of the staff had seen the incident occur and their version of events, though a little embellished here and there, matched Rio’s much better. If he knew her father, could he have knowledge of him that even Tess herself did not?

“I really don’t feel well,” Tess reiterated, a feeling of lightheadedness coming over her that was a combination of exhaustion and her strange new symptoms. “I think… I think I need to stop for the night soon. How much farther are you going to travel before you leave me for the guards to find?”

Even as she asked the question a niggling worry of doubt crept into her core. Would he keep his word? How would she know?

And beneath that, even more troubling; if he was right in all he told her, what really awaited her back home if he did?

"No?" Rohaan sighed a breath of regretful understanding. "My sincerest apologies for what's to come. Lucky for you, you'll have food and water available to you for when your stomach finally decides its done churning. At least, there better be food," he grumbled to himself. "Hold fast for just a little longer, Tess. We'll ride until we come across some kind of suitable shelter. I don't expect you'll want to move much after that, so we'll stay until you're steady. And then...if...If you want to go home, I'll take you to the nearest road. They'll undoubtedly be looking for you at nightfall." Rohaan made sure to say 'if'. A small part of him hoped that she would wake up, that she would realize just how wrong her home really was and come with him. Once he met up with the Cyradan, he could get her in contact with a resistance group. Berlin's crew was not a safe place for her.

Rohaan himself was not a part of any official resistance group, as he rarely supported more causes than his own. He agreed with their philosophy and what they were trying to do wholeheartedly, but he simply wasn't the sort to swear allegiance to anyone. Berlin and the Cyradan was a large exception, but that...that was different. When he joined their ranks, he was haggard and broken in body and spirit--the fact that he wasn't dead was startling to even him. Had he been left to his own devices for another week, he would have been, but as fate would have it, he found Berlin. And rather by accident, too. He boarded their ship in secret to search for scraps of food, but he was forced into hiding as they too, boarded...and shipped out. Berlin took pity on him and raised him as one of their own, and for the first time since he'd left home, Rohaan felt like he had a family.

They rode quickly. Darkness began its slow crawl across the uneven tundra, leaving a burst of orange and blue on the western horizon where the sun hunkered down for the night. They came across a shelf of rock that extended out over a lower level of the plains; at its foot was a scooped-out section of rock that had been home to many a wild animal. They made camp there, and with a little flint and steel, Rohaan started a tiny, flickering fire.

"Lay down and rest...you'll need it. My advice to you is keep drinking...when you start throwing up, it's better to actually have something to vomit out than to dry-heave. I'm gonna try and find us something to eat." Steeling himself a little, he shifted into a small coyote and trotted off to search for a meal. When he returned in his natural form some time later, he had two large rabbits in his arms and looked like he was about to black out at any moment. "How do you feel?" he asked, looking her over before beginning to skin his quarry.

Tess was worse for the wear when Rio brought them to a stop near the overhanging ledge and merely nodded to him, not really hearing much he was saying until the dry-heaving bit. She grimaced at the thought and gave him a weak, vaguely humorous smile as she settled herself gingerly down.

"Sounds delightful. I'll be here." It was meant to be a joke, but it was also true. The longer the day dragged on the worse Tess felt, and by now she was sure she'd get perhaps twenty feet before curling up on the ground to be dizzy in peace.

The entire time Rio was gone she lay like that, curled on her side and drifting in and out of a half-awake, half-asleep stupor. During one of her almost-dreams a series of images and snatches of conversation danced around her, but she ignored them for the most part. That was, until one caught her attention.

"That kid was in and out of there so fast! Did you see?"

"No! I didn't!"

"Told you he was fast!"

Tess had been young at the time, listening in behind one of the ornate pillars near the kitchens. She didn't quite understand what the staffers were talking about, but her curiosity burned and she inched closer to hear better. The staffers laughed to each other, their re-enactment of the scene bringing a grin to Tess' face. She wanted so desperately to know what they had seen, but all she was able to piece together from their talk, overlapping each other with their excitement to ask and tell, was that some kid had burst into one of the council meetings and taken something from her dad. She knew she should be indignant on behalf of her father, but all Tess could do was cover her mouth and giggle silently at the retelling, picturing the looks on the council members' faces.

It had been one of the last times that kind of laughter sounded through the halls, and one of the last times she had felt that burning flame of curiosity that had been so absent since. The staffers were gone the next day, and bit by bit Tess stopped wondering things: where they had gone, why she could no longer differentiate between certain colors anymore, why she no longer really cared about things like this anymore.

Her father's voice told her again, as it had told her time and time again, that she was merely growing up and maturing.

The staffers laughed and one imitated a flying dive over a tabletop. He almost knocked a dish over and the other howled with mirth.

Tess could have sworn the gown was not green and not blue, but maybe some color in between. Now it just looked blue, and dull blue at that. It hardly mattered, at any rate.

Nothing mattered.

Tess' eyes snapped open at the sounds of Rio returning to their shelter. She sat up the best she could, then realized she hadn't actually moved at all. She tried again, and this time her arm twitched a little.

When he spoke to her it finally seemed to snap her out of her waking sleep paralysis and she sat up in a sudden rush, worried she never would again if she didn't do it fast. Her heart was racing but she did her best to look normal.

"Disoriented," she finally said, the words like rocks in her mouth. Her head felt fuzzy and her stomach packed with sand. She stared at Rio's work, starting to feel a little queasy at the sight. She knew how food was prepared, of course--that sort of knowledge was another thing she had been taught in an academic sense. Hearing about it and seeing it were two entirely different things, though, and at the sight and sound of the rabbits being parted from their skin Tess suddenly darted forward, stumbled outside, and reunited herself with a whole lot of water as far away from the food prep as she could manage. Her braid dangled over her shoulder, dangerously close to her face, and she shakily tossed it across her back to get it out of the way. When she was done she coughed, spat, coughed again, then crawled away from the spot and groaned.

Unfortunately that brought her into visual range of the food again, and she closed her eyes in misery. "Sorry," she croaked, edging to the other side of the overhanging ledge to lean against the rock and face away from Rio.

Tess looked awful. Her eyes were like sightless orbs that made Rohaan, a man who had seen many horrors in his time, shudder. Few things pained him more than the loss of will and freedom. Death, he could handle. Pain, he could bear. But to be nothing--truly nothing...to have no opinions or passions, to not know of deep and tearing love or hate or sorrow or joy...that was a sight that was hard to see. In her eyes he saw a glimpse of it, a reflection of what she might have become had she stayed in Quinok. Maybe he'd done her a favor, after all.

She sat up suddenly, and thinking it had something to do with him, he quickly but smoothly lowered himself low to the ground, to his kees almost as if to show he was not there to harm anyone. It was an instinctual move, like a wolf rolling over in the presence of his Alpha male. "Easy now," he said softly, taking a seat by the fire. "Just rest. That spinning feeling will hit a peak and then it'll subside. The nausea will hit a wall eventually too. You'll know when it comes and when it does, take comfort in the fact that you're through the worst of it."

Rohaan watched as Tess suddenly rose and moved to the edge of their camp, recognizing the coughs and sputters of an all too familiar misery. "Te kelah," he said dismissively to her apology. "It's fine. Just make yourself comfortable. You're in for a rough night. Oh, that's right, uh...gimmie a minute to finish this. I have something for you that will help you. You keep drinking that water." Rohaan finished his skinning and put the rabbits on a makeshift spit made out of a stick plunged into the tough dirt. Cleaning his hands with water, he rummaged through a pocket in his bandolier, producing a bundle of dark green and yellow flowers. "Eat these. Just the top bits. They're bitter and frankly just disgusting, but they'll help settle your stomach a little. Dinner will be ready in a while but again, I'm not sure you'll want it." He offered the flowers to her and plopped back down by the fire, laying flat on his back with a heavy sigh.

"You've never been outside Quinok, have you?"