1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of ... (#6)

Redskin Plains

Lallie isn't used to company when she travels. Or rather, she's used to Leathin teasing her, knowing full well her myrecat side could gut him if she lost her temper. She'd hated it, maybe as much as he hated her mothering.

Waislen, by contrast, rarely even acknowledges questions put to her, much less fills the air with chatter. She moves with a steady persistence beyond what Leathin ever had.

But then, Leathin had been imprisoned, before freed from slavery. Waislen, like most elves of Marsdenfel of the time, had worked harder than they should've had to, while suffering malnourishment and other abuse. She's earned her endurance. Small wonder she keeps her ready focus, even when having to scramble on loose soil.

Less than a stone after the scent of rain hits Lallie's nose, her ears pop. She tenses, recognizing warning signs of a tornado, and lets her magic find a crevice they can take shelter in.

Waislen lets her take over without protest or query, either because she trusts Lallie wouldn't without reason, or because she herself can tell.

As Lallie figures out how to get to the shelter her magic identified, the wind kicks up, whipping about something sharp and shrill in her ears. It flings hail the size of peas, plenty large enough to leave bruises, though not to kill.

Reaching the crevice brings relief first. It's about the height of two men, plenty large enough for her and Waislen to shelter in.

Disquiet settles in Lallie's stomach. She isn't sure why, but she doesn't sense anything dangerous, not even when her boot slips on mud, revealing silt. Maybe that's what's bothering her? The water?

But her feral side isn't protesting.

Puzzled but aware of the dangers tornados can bring, Lallie settles beside Waislen against the soil wall.

And then, once they're settled, as sheltered as they can be from the coming storm, she realizes what's bothering her.

Waislen prefers the intimate company of other women.

The elf casts her a contemptuous glance, as if hearing the confusion that Lallie doesn't give voice to.

Lallie sighs. "I know. I'm just..." Bewildered and cognizant that it would be unkind to admit that. "I haven't had anyone I know tell me before, so I've not thought about how it would even work."

Waislen snorts, settles a bit into her crouch. A smirk tickles her lips as she glances at Lallie again. "Would you like a demonstration?"

Usually she's the one making the uncomfortable comments in a conversation. "Um."

The elf relaxes, thankfully responding to the no that Lallie doesn't want to rudely voice. Weariness actually shows on her face as she smiles, so it's at least partially genuine. "Leathin was an idiot."

"I think he was more ignorant than anything else," she manages to say evenly despite the myrecat's urge to growl at the insult to Leathin. The myrecat inside her is already unhappy at the climate, weather, and enforced close quarters, but Waislen has the same right to her opinion that Lallie does. "I'm not sure we helped. Not really."

Waislen purses her lips. "You mean we didn't pay enough attention to what he did know and didn't?"

She shrugs. "I'm not sure he let us. But maybe we could've done better."

"Perhaps," the elf allows. "That's part of why I'm here."

"Oh?"

"One reason other realms have been were unwilling to help Marsdenfel was the risk of starting another full war among the races. The rulers of Grehafen did enough harm with the Shadow. What if they were seeking necromancy or other red magics? Elves created all that."

"I thought humans did." There's some human religious order with an entire military branch devoted to hunting down necromancy, though Lallie's only ever heard of them. They don't seem to come to this continent, or maybe they've just stayed out of Salles because Aldrik's been the sort of king who doesn't warrant their attention.

Waislen snorts. "Humans saw the effects, assumed the causes were either natural or unintended results of experiments gone wrong, and responded accordingly. After all, elves are pretty and wise and so obviously love life in all its forms."

The sarcasm is comforting despite its acid. The elf woman has always had a sharpness like obsidian, brittle with a dangerous edge that was difficult to recognize until you saw the effects.

And it was far better for her to direct her anger at others than herself.

Lallie's gaze catches on scars on the back of the other woman's hands. She frowns. "I don't remember those."

"Cosmetics and slight of hand," Waislen answers immediately, adjusting the angle of her grip on her cloak so the fabric buries the marks. "Pity gets old, after a while."

Pity could also be useful, which perhaps explains why the elf hasn't bothered masking her scars, out here on the plains. All elves are naturally far too thin for their frames, compared to a human, where an elf had to be a glutton to reach a human-ish size. The scars would only increase how harmless she looked, with her rail-thin size.

And Waislen has much similarity with Jenna, beyond the fact that both women have administrated realms. Both first were unwilling mistresses of rulers, though Jenna had been to the crown prince of Grehafen, and Waislen to Leathin.

Both also have fairly mercenary sensibilities that make them quite skilled at navigating the social manipulation inherent in politics, with acumen beyond that of the rulers they've served. Evonalé heeds Jenna more than Leathin did...anyone, really.

Lallie considers her words carefully, all too aware that Waislen isn't tolerating her company without a calculated reason. "So you're looking to destroy all the sources of the contagion that creates revenants. You think the Plainskin will notice and retaliate at some point?"

Lallie's hard to kill and able to protect Waislen. Is that why the elf is allowing her to linger, to follow?

Waislen scowls. "Making a zombie does require a revenant."

Necromancers, then, and people interested in such magic—that's what she's concerned about. The fact that Lallie's magic renders her immune—so there's no danger if Waislen does die and become a revenant before she cures herself—probably only helps in that.

"I see," Lallie says, and she lets the growing storm keep them from further conversation.