Hunting the Hunter Ch. 06

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Enithermon
Enithermon
1,049 Followers

It was a look she should know...but she hadn't seen it in a long damned while. In that moment it was never so apparent to her how long she'd been away from Vardenfell. Was she getting soft out here? Prick. She stuck her tongue out at him, and the corners of his lips curved slightly upward, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking even if she couldn't reciprocate. That just pissed her off more.

The door was weighted, and drifted slowly behind her as she left, denying her the satisfaction of a nice loud bang.

There was a familiar Orc standing in the mud out front with a terrified Dunmer caught by the scruff in one of his meaty paws. He eyed her suspiciously but nodded in recognition. She nodded back.

"You can let the song bird go, Bazur. They came to terms inside and there's a round being poured out that you might want to get in on." He didn't move. "I'm not messing with you. Your boss said he could go." She smirked. "Besides, that poor bastard will be around if you change your mind in five." He paused another moment, then shrugged and released the drunk to his own legs...which faltered immediately. Inanna grabbed his arm and pulled him over to be propped against the wall beside her. When the door had shut completely behind the Orc, she roughly patted the Mer's face. "Hey, come on..." He looked at her dazedly and she held up two fingers and pointed them at herself, indicating that he look her in the eye. He did, but with some difficulty. She opened his palm a slapped a couple of coins in his hand and closed his fist around them. He frowned at her.

"I ai..ain't...I'm not a beggar...you know. I don't want your--"

"Shut up, babe." She interrupted gently. "You take that to your friend...Llevara...or whatever her name is."

"Llevana?"

"Yeah, her. I owe her. Tell her I told her I sent you to pay for it for me. Got it?" He looked down at his hand and nodded. "She'll wanna do what's right by a messenger, you hear? Like we do back home. You're not going to be rude and deny her what's proper are you? Don't want her insulting me by not taking care of my messenger." The poor fetcher's story was a sad one...one of those fellows who go and lose someone close and just can't take it for some reason. They start drinking, hard drinking, and that's the beginning of the end of the story. It's a common story in the empire...less so at home. But, as the impersonal and centralized imperial mindset expands to the outer reaches of the empire...it spreads other problems as well.

"C-course not."

"Course not." She slapped his shoulder. "Go on with you." He turned and she called out after him. "I hope those s'wit let up on you sera. Keep off the street and don't give the fetcher's the excuse." He paused at that last remark and turned to look at her from the middle of the street. His shoulders tightened.

"Which fetchers do you mean?" He looked suddenly clear headed...and there was a dark look in his eyes.

"All of them."

"Muthsera." He graveled with a nod, and turned back into the cool of the evening. Inside the Inn the clear, staccato notes of a Vardenfell lute rang out. The Inn keeper kept one handy behind the bar, as any Dunmer tavern owner must. That, at least, was right and proper. Inanna leaned back against the plaster wall of the Inn and smiled as she watched a troupe of noisy gallants exit the high class joint across the way. One of the youngsters paused long enough to give her a passing, disdainful glance, but for the most part they took their way without noticing anything but their own magnificent persons. She leered back at the one who'd sneered in her direction and winked at the youth. He looked quickly away, tugging and straightening one of his silky looking sleeves.

The door opened beside her and she declined to look, opting to watch the play knights as they strode off toward conquest and glory...or more booze money from daddy. You could never tell with those boys.

"Who are they then?" A soft, voice graveled from her left.

"The Count's son and his entourage. Flowers of knighthood all." She added dryly.

"Hm."

She blinked and there was suddenly a Hack-lo leaf cigar before her face, held aloft by long, dark fingers. She did smile at that and turned her head towards Hassour. "You're a sweet fellow, you know that."

"I brought them for you."

"You remembered."

"Of course. I was going to save them until you invited me to your house...but it sounds like you'll be busy for the next few days...and you looked like you could use one now." She plucked it out of his hand and ran her fingers along the length.

"Nice. Whose are they?"

"Ahemmussa tribe."

She shrugged. "Well at least they do something right."

He chuckled. "Be kind. They're good for my business." He pulled out another cigar and bit the tip off, turning away to spit out the end.

"I bet. The sell outs."

"You should talk." He lit the end with one of his fingers, making her chuckle. He pointed it in her direction with a wink. "May I?"

She slid the cigar under the edge of her leather cuirass and shook her head. "No offense meant, I'm thrilled you brought these, but I don't think I've the stomach for them. Something's off with me, and I find the thought of smoking this right now makes me feel a bit queer."

He raised an angular brow at her, causing the lines of his tattoos to shift in interesting ways. "Would you like me to put mine out?"

"Oh no...I love the smell, makes me nostalgic. I seem to have lost my taste for a number of things lately. But I'm sure it'll pass. No doubt it's the hormones playing havoc with my inside bits. They've been doing a real number on me."

He grunted. "Nirai makes me cook trama root in bittergreens. Says she craves it. It's worse when she's pregnant...she starts mixing scrib jelly with it...raw."

"Ew."

"It's repulsive. But when a waste witch tells you to jump..."

She chuckled and took his arm. "Come my well whipped friend, let us take a constitutional, and you may smoke and tell me of your Ashland love." He smirked but obligingly folded her arm over his.

"I'd be delighted, Muthsera."

"Let's make our way castle-ward tonight." she pointed her free arm towards the high arch of the castle courtyard, its towers only partially and intermittently visible in the growing mist. Dusk and dawn alike saw a good deal of fog in this city, and as the air became suddenly cooler with the setting of sun, so the air would stir and thicken.

"Rain stirred mud, is rain stirred mud, my dear, the direction it lay in makes no difference to me."

"Ah, but this is most certainly a better quality of mud, it's courtly mud, you see." At that moment an attractive Dunmer woman in fine green velvet crossed the way ahead of them, keeping to the grassier areas and thus out of said mud.

"So you say." He murmured, his eyes briefly darting after the light-footed figure.

"Court mage. Highest paid official in the city after the count...at least on the books. Recently admitted to me a longing for the alchemy of the ancestral lands...and the rare ingredients which might be imported from thereabouts." she offered, causing his fleeting glance to turn more fully on the retreating figure. For the briefest of moments she caught a flashing glimpse of the turning wheels behind his eyes.

"Hm." He replied indifferently and turned a bored gaze on a flower covered gazebo to their right. "That's a handsome little alcove."

She sighed happily and leaned on her cousin's arm. "It is indeed, Muthsera. It is indeed." Morrowind: sometimes she still got a pang or two.

**

Feric noticed Inanna leave, and would have preferred to be out in the quite of twilight with her, but he was still trying to finesse the situation with the Orc, and Desdemona wasn't making it any easier. She kept them in conversation much longer than he would have liked. By the time he was able to extricate himself, the other Dunmer, Hassour, had returned, and Inanna was no longer with him.

When Feric gave him a quizzical look, he shook his head and automatically answered his unspoken question, "We walked for a while, but she said that she needed to clear her head, and went for a run."

They both returned to the table, but neither spoke. Hassour didn't seem to feel the need and Feric couldn't think of anything to say. He was too busy contemplating whether he should go after her, or simply let her blow off steam her own way.

"Play another one!" someone called out, and there was light feminine laughter somewhere behind him.

"I need a moment. Hassour, why don't you regale us with some of your Ashland poetry?"

"I'm sure it wouldn't be to most people's taste."

"Nonsense. Come let's hear something new."

He looked at her a minute, then raised his hand, gesturing that she give him the instrument she held in her hands.

"Fine, I'll play one new of mine, and one somewhat new, from another." He took the instrument and though the Orcs were still loud in their corner and oblivious, everyone else turned to watch, including Feric.

Desdemona settled next to him. "You can't claim the name of Ashlander if you aren't a poet at heart. They have a surprising flair for the dramatic when they want to."

As if in reply to her words the Dunmer ran his fingers up along the unusually long instrument, and pulled a sound from it which was very much like a cry of anguish. The room suddenly became quite, and Desdemona looked supremely pleased, and not a little smug, as if she'd been expecting the response and was happy to be proved right.

The next note warbled from a whine to a groan and back again. It wasn't anything he'd heard before, and it wasn't 'pretty' as one expected music to be...but it was arresting. The continued silence proved as much.

When he added words, Dunmeri words, Feric couldn't help but be reminded of Inanna. There was that rolling, undulating gravel which echoed in her quicksand voice, and her smooth rolling undertones. That language, punctuated as it was by the sometimes soft, sometimes sharp twang and groan of the strings shuddered down his spine. His mind conjured red eyes flashing at the other end of a drawn arrow, how they had burnt with the fury of the fight, and a split second later, flashed with recognition and curiosity. He recognized her in the music, and wondered if it wasn't something that all Ashlanders shared: that quick movement from body to mind, from ferocity to playfulness...and back again.

The words died off, only to pick up again, this time in Imperial.

"There are voices here in the storm:

faces here in the shifting black sands.

Some say they are the lost souls:

the demon ghosts of the lost people.

But I can only hear your voice.

I can only see your smile.

And I wish I were these baked sands

polished hard and smooth

to be your mirror so that you

would always gaze upon me.

I wish I were the red wind

to wrap myself around you

or the rain that washes your body

to trace the cutting line of your cheek.

I wish I were the gray ash

that I could kiss your feet

and feel your full weight upon me."

A murmur and light applause rose up. Even the Orcs seemed respectful enough. Though, one muttered something about "Girl stuff," and loudly enough for it to reach the table.

That brought a slight twitch to the Mer's lips and a glint of humor to his eye. "Well, I can't argue with that," he murmured with a chuckle. He glanced at Feric, "Would you like to hear one of Inanna's? She's given me license to play them." He added quickly as if someone might object.

"I...yes." He would, actually, but it surprised him. "Hers...as in, she made it?"

"Yes. We both share a passion for Ashland poetry...I suppose it is something that keeps us Velothi tied to our roots."

"Velothi?"

"The homeless, house-less Dunmer. There are more of us than one would suppose." He didn't add to that, but returned to the instrument, this time somewhat less dramatically. It still had that heart tugging moan to it, but there seemed to be more melody this time, and the words seemed more like an unending and rolling wave, so that it became unclear where one statement began and another ended. This time, however, he did not repeat it in common. When he finished, he turned back to Feric with that same small smile he had before.

"Aren't you going to translate for the plebs, darling?" Des asked with a smile.

"I would if I could Muthsera, but the words belong to another." He paused and turned to the room at large, "So you will have to make Inanna sing if for you again if you want to know what it means." He chuckled and handed the instrument back to Des.

"Did you like it?" Feric asked her conversationally.

"Certainly, though it's a bit melodramatic for my tastes...but that's Inanna for you. Has she given you any of her Daedric speeches yet?"

"Daedric speeches?"

"Yes. I've heard at least half a dozen, though my personal favorite is the one about Boethia—"

"Oh yes," Hassour interrupted with a chuckle, "the one about the joys of hand to hand combat? I'm partial to the one which posits our race as the mortal acolytes of Azura myself. The bit about the winged twilight only really applies to women, but the notion is amusing."

"I think I may have heard that one..." Feric muttered with a frown, remembering the night she'd chewed him out before they'd reached the hunter's base at Wariel. "Those are 'staged' then?"

"Well not in so many words." Des tapped her chin, "They're rather 'performative,' and are similar in the retelling—"

"—But she means every word." Hassour finished. "I've noticed that they usually come out when she's worked up about something..."

"Her way of explaining the world to herself again, focusing on what makes sense, in order to tune out the shifting, mutable din that is existence. Or at least that's the answer I came up for the phenomena."

"She has a very good one on Hircine, the hunter." Hassour added.

"Oh? I haven't heard that one...She usually gives me the Sanguine lecture." She made a sour face at that.

"Isn't he the Daedra associated with lechery?" Feric asked, with a half smile.

"No, well yes, but not only...and just because something is sensual or sexual doesn't make it lecherous thank you very much."

The Dunmer chuckled. "Do I detect a defensive note, Muthsera?"

"Hush. Both of you. Where is our 'dark lady' anyway?"

"Out running apparently." Feric answered. "I think I might just go see if I can't find her." He stood and held out a hand to Hassour who accepted it, then to Desdemona, bowing slightly. "It was a pleasure meeting both of you. Till next time."

"A clear evening to you, Feric. If I don't see you before I leave, then it was good to meet you as well. "

"Sweet dreams, darling. Ta."

"Goodnight to you both."

**

The air was unseasonably cool, outside the walls of the city as well as within. More so without as there was no added warmth provided by the clusters of buildings, each adding their own fractional share of heat. Inside or out, the same shifting mist flowed over the low, damp earth, obscuring the path even as the growing moonlight attempted to illuminate it. It was a valiant effort...but ultimately unnecessary, at least for him.

Even in this form Feric had heightened senses and could have tracked her easily, but that wasn't necessary either. He had caught her scent and noticed the Inanna sized footprints in the soft moss as she broke off of the road and headed north, but that little tugging at the back of his brain already had him moving toward her, and these signs were only the physical confirmation of what he already knew.

Not far from the city, a little way beyond the ruins of another ancient fort which looked down on the city from a small hill, he found and followed the undulating spine of another, higher ridge. The trees were fewer here, and those that remained were the gnarled and brave sort who made an art of clinging to the rocky side of cliffs and mountains. The mists were gone as well, unable to make the climb as the twisted fir and pine had...and the occasional, especially daring, cedar.

He couldn't help but notice, as he followed the scant path, that one such cedar was a favorite with the local wild life and bore the scars to prove it. The top half had a few telling bald patches, likely from black bears. The lower half had been made a claw sharpener for the small cats in the area, who weren't usually much bigger than a large wolf. These northern wild cats, unlike their southern cousins, were solitary creatures. The fact that there were multiple scents on the tree meant that this was a boarder region between territories. Neutral ground.

Not far from the communal tree, he spotted her.

She was sitting a ways along the ridge, overlooking a narrow valley, at the bottom of which lay a winding network of small lakes and pools. Below, the mists continued to rise off the surface of the waters and here and there the eerie glitter of flitting willow wisps flickered blue and white through the swirling grey.

He caught her in profile, sitting much as she had been that night by the waterfall, after she'd pulled herself naked from the water.

Her arms were wrapped around her long legs, and her body leaned forward against her thighs, only this time she was dressed. Though, to be honest, her slim legs where more than appealing, regardless of whether they were naked or wrapped in studded leather. She'd shucked her usual leather up top and was wearing instead a light sleeveless thing...no doubt the silk she wore under her armor. Apparently it was a common trick in Morrowind to wear silk beneath leather, though not for the luxury of the thing...it just made pulling arrow and spear heads out of your body that much easier.

Her hair was pulled up as well, into a messy knot at the back of her head, leaving a few strands to trail down as they list. He knew that too was pragmatic, no doubt to keep her hair off her neck as she ran, but the image it created was no less appealing for it. Just as the way the silk folded around her, and the way the worn leather shaped itself to her curves. It brought a purr to his throat every time he let himself pay attention to it.

He didn't feel completely free to enjoy the view, however. Something about her seemed off. Her head was bent forward, and her forehead was resting on her knees. He could see her eyes were open, and staring sightlessly. There was something forlorn and sad about the posture and it concerned him to see her like that.

He needn't have worried. When her head rose, the eyes that met his were calm. She smiled softly and held out a hand in welcome, indicating with a wave that he join her.

He smiled back and made his way toward the tree she was leaning against.

"What brings you out here, handsome?"

"Just looking for you."

"Anything wrong?"

"Nothing new."

"Hm." She patted the ground next to her and stretched out her legs. It gave him an idea.

He sat, but turned and leaned back with his hands behind his head until it was resting in her lap. She blinked at him, then laughed lightly. He grinned, satisfied that he'd gotten the reaction he wanted, and refolded his hands over his stomach, allowing his head to rest fully in her lap. She grinned sideways at him a while, but made no attempt to shove him off.

"Aren't we suddenly comfortable?" She chuckled.

"Very."

"Feeling like the big dog, and now you want to mark your territory?"

"Excuse me? Dog?"

She laughed again. "Alright bad analogy, but you know what I mean."

He grunted and closed his eyes as her stomach trembled with silent laughter. "I've marked you plenty. And it's gotten me in enough trouble." He grumbled under his breath. Fingers brushed against his temple, and slid lightly into his hair. "That feels good." He opened his eyes to find shining rubies looking back into his. "You have beautiful eyes." She was still smiling that small, soft smile.

Enithermon
Enithermon
1,049 Followers