[PM to Join] [Mature] Hooks and Jabs

[Meraki]

The other man looked like he was in a lot of pain, and Meraki wanted to help but he wasn’t certain as to how. The wick nodded when he heard the thanks. He forced himself to look away, a frown on his features. He’d gotten scuffed up, but not anywhere near as bad as Aremu. For a moment, he considered if he hadn’t come around… if he hadn’t happened to turn down that specific alley… his frown turned into a glower. He slowly brought his legs up and rested his forearms on the knees, then stared at the sky instead.

He wasn’t a healer, he reminded himself. Not a useful one, anyway. He didn’t want something to go wrong with the mona… his field trembled around him, as if aware of his conflicted reluctance.

When he heard where the other man was from, he looked over again. The frown left, for his eyebrows rose high, and he quietly repeated, “Thul Ka? That’s a long ways… isn’t it?”

Meraki didn’t have the best grasp on where places were. He knew that carriages and wagons and airships went back and forth. He’d seen maps before, but if someone were to ask the tsat to point out where Thul Ka was on a map… he’d probably hesitate for an awkward length of time before making some awful guess. Mugroba was across the sea though, he knew that much. The wick turned slightly to look out at the nearest glance of harbor water. Moonlight reflected off the waves, and Meraki admired it for a moment. He wondered if he looked very hard, off into the distance, if he might be able to see the other foreign land from here or not.

He turned back when he heard the same sort of question returned to him. Meraki nodded. “Not too far… not as far as Mugroba. I’m from Brunnhold. You know it?” He waved slightly in a random direction – as if Brunnhold was right over past a few of the buildings. Meraki looked toward the roof’s edge, then back at the other man.

“Do y’ got anywhere to… go? Or… I’ve only been about the harbor for a few days, don’t know any nice guys and all yet. But if you got somewhere, I can lend a…” Here, Meraki paused abruptly. He glanced at the sky, cleared his throat, then concluded, “…help ya get there.”

The wick wouldn't make a move without knowing that Aremu felt confident to go, whichever direction they might be headed... but he also worried that the thugs below might figure out where they were hiding. His fingers tapped nervously as he kept his arms crossed over his knees. He wanted to smoke, but knew that'd be a dead give-away if he did.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 21 Dentis, 2719
A Rooftop, Not Far from the Wharf

Y es,” Aremu said, quietly, though he knew he did not need to speak. “A long way.” He thoughts of all sorts of distance; he thought of the long flight over the glittering sea and sands, of the waves white-capped beneath and the thin lines of blue and green that wove paths of their own through the desert. He thought of the harsh sounds of Meraki’s consonants, and wondered what the other man thought he was - if he had thought at all.

Aremu nodded slightly at the mention of Brunnhold. “I know it,” he did not look at Meraki; he did not let himself think of the heavy stone walls raised around the campus, the pinched worried faces inside, the moat that traced along the edges of it and the bridge that stretched between the two, the Stacks and the campus. Meraki would never have crossed it, Aremu thought; he did not know what to make of the knowledge, or the strange new discomfort it brought up in him.

No, Aremu did not think Meraki had realized.

Aremu snorted, suddenly; he couldn’t have explained it. It didn’t hurt. Perhaps it should have. It didn’t; there was so much else which did, clean lingering sharpness of bruised and cuts, the deeper throbs of aching bones. The snort aches through his nose, his cheekbone, the sensitive skin around his eye, through all the bruising and swelling, and nowhere deeper; nowhere which mattered. “Lend a hand,” he filled in with a grin, glancing sideways at Meraki. “It’s all right.” He looked down at his lap, the hand and the wrist; he closed his fingers gently over the stump, feeling the edges of the long recent scar along his forearm. There was scarring on the wrist too, thin and faded now, where the years that had passed had worn them down.

“I’ve a place,” Aremu said, then, the last of the grin fading. He took a deep breath. Niccolette would be home in the morning; perhaps they would think to look for him in Quarter Fords, in the end. He was not sure if he hoped they would; he was not sure he wished to think of what she would do to them, if they did. Not lingeringly, at least. But tonight - tonight, he could not be found. He doubted he still had the strength to wield his knife, though he knew well what adrenaline could do.

“It’s not too long a walk,” Aremu swallowed against a dry throat. There was still the descent; there was still the night. He shifted slightly, and stopped at the faintest beginning of a creak from beneath him, settling carefully back into place.

“I’d be glad for the help,” Aremu admittedly, wryly. He closed his good eye, breathing in all the pain and discomfort; it knotted like a fist in his chest, and he exhaled, and let it relax open.

[Meraki]

Meraki scratched at the back of his head some more, the strands of his copper-blond hair fluffing from the touch. He heard the other man’s snort, and the finishing of the statement that he’d managed to just barely stop himself from saying. A ruddy blush rose to the wick’s cheeks. He cleared his throat and sheepishly shrugged. He looked over, and caught the other man touching the stump and the scarring near the wrist.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen such things before. Amputations and the like were common among the factory workers in his neighborhood. Legs were worse than hands, in Meraki’s perspective, because being unable to walk was one of the worst things. Didn’t make the loss of a hand any better either, that was a close second. Eyes were probably next…

He kept this to himself, though. Best not to say anything about it and keep his damn mouth shut. Meraki nodded when Aremu said he had a place for them to go, and that it wasn’t too long of a walk. The wick slowly shifted on the roof as well, then winced when it also creaked. He gnawed on his lower lip and looked around to see if there were anything that might help make their inevitable attempt easier or safer.

Maybe it’d be better to wait a little longer. Meraki looked over and mentioned this, “Few more minutes, maybe… they’ll get antsy, or think us gone, or…”

The wick patted his hands against his knees. A sense of impatience started to gather in him, so he asked, “You uh… Would you have actually killed 'em? You think that would have been smarter? Like I say, I’m new to the harbor and… still learnin’ the place.”

Meraki paused, to listen to the response and consider it, then he said, “Whenever you is ready, Aremu. You need me, whatever it is. I'm feelin' not so bad, not as bad as you look, anyways.” He hesitantly grinned, and looked over at the other man to see if he'd get a smile from his jesting tone when he'd said it.

He crept over to the edge of the roof, cautious, and glanced at the alley beneath. Meraki got a survey, then returned to Aremu and said, "Don't see any of them, no more... Not even the hurt ones."

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 21 Dentis, 2719
A Rooftop, Not Far from the Wharf

Aremu felt a ripple of tension through him when the roof creaked beneath Meraki as well. He exhaled, slowly, glancing away, and let himself relax; to tense would only make it more likely for the roof to creak further, if he was fool enough to stir again.

The wick’s question interrupted the silence that had settled over them once more. Aremu was quiet; he felt the ache of his bruises, the weight of the knife at his back. They were very different questions, he thought; would he have killed them? Should he have killed them? “You should not draw a knife on a man unless you are willing to kill him,” he said, quietly, gazing over the edge of the roof.

“That does not make it smarter,” Aremu continued. He did not look at Meraki; he looked out over the distant lights, the smear of them blurring in his unbruised eye. He took a deep breath, conscious of the aches in his ribs, the throbbing tiredness in his head, the sharper pains in his face. I would have lost, he knew; he did not say it. If Meraki had not come along – if Meraki had not seen him – he was not sure, in the end, whether he would have yielded Niccolette’s money or his life or both. He knew how she would rank such things; he knew the money meant nothing to her, and that he meant a great deal. That had not been enough, in the moment; perhaps it should have been.

“I don’t know,” Aremu said, hoarse. “It cannot be undone, killing.” He swallowed against the ache in his throat, the bitter taste of too much of his own blood; his stomach ached with the swallowing. I’ve killed enough, he thought; he did not say. “Better their lives than mine. But short of that-.” He said, finally, still looking away; he shook his head, faintly, rather than finish the sentence.

He was just as glad that Meraki took his thoughts in silence, and returned something like a joke. Aremu did not quite smile, but he nodded, faintly; his frown did not worsen, and perhaps it lightened in time. Meraki went to the edge of the roof, and said he thought they had gone. Aremu nodded again. He inhaled, softly, glancing around.

They did not go back through the hatch; it was over, instead, creeping quietly across the metal, trying to avoid the aching creaks beneath their feet. The side of the building leading away from the wharf was not against an alley or street, but tight against another roof just below. Aremu eased himself over the edge; the fingertips of his left hand clung tight to the roof edge, and he lowered himself, all the muscles in his body screaming in agony; he dropped the last foot, and stifled a grunt against his fist as the pain wracked him. For a moment, he was doubled-over, shaking; there was sweat slick against his forehead, all down his back. His eyes focused again, slowly; he grunted, and breathed, and straighted himself up.

Another roof; no drop, this time, only a climb over the barrier between them. There was a hatch in this one, but it was locked. Aremu went to the side, looking down. There was a drain pipe, he thought, aching with imagined pain, into the alley on the far side. It was empty, below, as far as he could tell, without even someone searching for shelter against the night. The gap between this building and the next was wider than he’d have liked; he knew he could not jump it.

“Down, then,” Aremu said, quietly. What choice did they have?

He climbed; he used his feet and his hand and his wrist, too; he went down, hand over wrist and foot over foot, clinging to the metal bits that held the pipe in place, clinging to the pipe itself. Every inch was agony; every inch brought him closer and closer.

When he slipped – as he had, almost inevitably, thought he would – it was not as bad as it could have been. He fell the last few feet; he knew a thing or two about falling, after so long. He crumpled himself as he hit, rolling sideways onto the ground. He could not get up, then; he lay there, shaking, curled onto his side. His breath whistled through him, a faint, aching keening sound; his eyes were tightly shut.

He had to get up, Aremu told himself. He had to get up.

He did not move.

Rolls

Aremu's descent: SidekickBOTToday at 8:53 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (3) = 3

[Meraki]

“You should not draw a knife on a man unless you are willing to kill him.”

And a man shouldn’t draw a knife unless he’s willing to be killed, thought Meraki, but he did not say such a thing. Only because Aremu wielded a knife as his choice of weapon. Blade users were always such a distinct sort of people, he found. At least from his neighborhood, they were. As if they thought sticks of pointy metal made them invincible, as if a knife in hand was the same as a full suit of armor. Often, that proved a mistake for them. Disarming knives was a crucial priority in brawls, and Meraki had a sharp instinct to get rid of blades as soon as they appeared. It was why he didn’t usually carry a knife on his own person. Better to not even offer the chance of something like that.

While Aremu looked out at the distant lights, Meraki brought his gaze back to look over the other man. Aremu answered his question, in a hoarse voice, and an almost reverent tone about the subject matter. So, he was a thoughtful sort, this Aremu. Willing to admit when he didn’t know something as important as to the merit of killing men, despite being the one who had suggested it in the alley. He knew it couldn’t be undone though, killing. Everything about the answer informed Meraki that Aremu had killed before… probably more than once. It was a different way people tended to talk about such things, once they got enough blood on their hands.

“Better their lives than mine.”

Meraki held his tongue. He managed to not say anything, but he thought plenty. He tried at a joke to lighten the mood instead, before he slid to the edge of the roof to get a look below. Meraki hoped that he wasn’t missing the thugs from some shadow or angle, but that the injured ones were out of sight seemed like a fair tell they went to lick their wounds elsewhere.

The wick followed Aremu without question… not that he disagreed with the route. It seemed reasonable to him. It was more difficult, though, to be quiet while climbing down onto the other roof. He landed softly, careful to balance his weight, then looked over and saw… the other man in pain. Meraki moved closer and said in a quiet voice, “We can rest some more, if you need to?”

Regardless of whatever pause they took for the other man’s sake, they continued to the next roof after. Meraki considered the lock on the hatch, scratching the back of his head. Did he dare another spell? Not with how the mona had denied him light earlier. Better to not even try. Then again, Aremu didn’t look like he was faring well.

“Oy… you sure?” he asked the other man when he looked down the drainpipe. He surveyed the surrounding area, then sighed. Meraki considered that he might go first, but Aremu seemed certain about it. He kept an eye on the surrounding area, in the case something went wrong, and he didn’t start down until Aremu had gotten far away as he didn’t want to cause any undue weight to the pipe. Meraki saw the slip and heard the faint sound of the fall. His eyes widened when he saw that the other man wasn’t getting up afterward.

Swearing under his breath, Meraki started down the drainpipe. He went quick, partly sliding down the pipe, until he reached the bolted sections. He swiftly climbed over the bulkier spots, then slid the rest of the way with incredible ease. It took hardly any time at all for the lithe brawler, then he jumped down in a simple and quiet landing next to the other man.

“Mate? Mate, are you okay?” The wick knelt beside Aremu, and set a hand gently on his shoulder. “You’re breathing, that’s good. That’s good. Here…”

He wrapped an arm around the man’s waist, then tried to shrug him to rest against his shoulder.

“C’mon, mate, we just gotta get to wherever your place is, then you can rest all you want.” Meraki swallowed dryly. He wetted his lips, thinking maybe he should try something… try a spell to help… no, no, why did he keep thinking that would make things better? There was a good chance it would only make things worse. Whether he had to carry the other man completely or not, even if he had to lift the human against his back, he would get them wherever they were going – without magic.

Rolls

Meraki’s descent
SidekickBOTToday at 11:13 AM
@Lazulum: 1d6 = (6) = 6

[Aremu Ediwo]

Evening, 21 Dentis, 2719
An Alleyway, A Little Farther from the Wharf

Aremu could hear Meraki speaking to him, although he couldn’t make out much of the words; they were a rush of noise somewhere above the pounding of his heart, the rushing in his head, somewhere beneath the distant sound of footsteps and the churning of carriage wheels.

The other man’s arm around his side and the pressure of being lifted went sharp shooting pains through his ribs. Aremu grunted, but they gave him something to hold on to, and he held tight. He found the shape of his legs beneath him; he pressed one foot into the ground, and the other knee, and pushed himself up with Meraki’s help. He was shaking, he knew, and clammy as well; there was sweat beading on his skin, sticky and cold in the autumn night.

He could walk, some, with Meraki half supporting him. The walk passed; that was perhaps the kindest thing Aremu could have said of it. He could not think of anything but the next dragging, aching step, but the weariness and the pain. It ebbed and flowed like the waves; sometimes it drew back and left him dry, and that was almost worse, because he could not know where he was, without it.

He knew the streets, still. He did not know quite how but in time he looked up, through one bleary eye, to see Quarter Fords. “This way,” Aremu mumbled, tasting blood on his lips. He straightened up a little more, took a little more of his own weight on his feet, and led Meraki down a side street, and then another. It was quiet, here; the road was paved beneath their feet. Trees overhung the road, screening the houses behind them from view; lights flickered beyond, dim and wavering through the branches.

In time, Aremu turned; in time, they went through one of the gates, onto a small path lined by trees. The house before them was large and dark, old but well-maintained, all silence above the path. Aremu slumped against the door; he fumbled with his hand beneath his shirt for the heavy key, and, slowly, unlocked the door. He eased the key back into his pocket, shaking; he held against the door a little longer.

Aremu glanced back at the wick over his shoulder, breathing hard, unsteadily; each breath whistled through his nose, and they were uncomfortably shallow. “You can stay here,” Aremu said, looking at the other man, “if you like.”

He knew there was something he should have thought of; he did not know what. He doubted Meraki had the skills to crack Niccolette’s safe, if he could find it. If the other man wished to search and rob him, perversely, Aremu half felt he was welcome to it. Certainly, he would meet no resistance. If Meraki meant him harm, he had had no shortage of chances already; Aremu could not summon up such paranoia.

Aremu turned the handle of the door and stumbled inside. He slumped against the walk, even his good eye half-closed. He took a deep breath, and staggered past the coat rack and the empty hall table, opening a room just off the hall. There was a neat bed inside, well made; moonlight pooled on pale blankets through the curtains and a shut window. There was a small desk, too, and a trunk against the wall, all of it neat.

Aremu dropped his bloody rucksack on the floor. He stumbled, once; he caught himself, and then slid, slowly, down the wall, collapsing across the floor.

[Meraki]

“That’s it,” whispered Meraki as the other man managed to press up to manage walking with the help. He started in a direction, then followed where Aremu instructed him to go. Meraki knew pain, and he recognized it in Aremu’s breath and the tension of his body against him. He tried to support the other man the best he could, without causing any undue pressure or going too fast in pace.

As they entered the Quarter Fords, Meraki realized he hadn’t explored this area before. Not all that surprising, considering it was about his third day in the harbor, but he glanced around through the night’s dark with an eye to remember what he could. They went onto a proper path, past a gate, with trees and a house ahead of them. Meraki was slightly surprised. He’d been expecting…

...not this.

He stayed quiet though and watched the injured man with an eye to help if he could. He glanced at the heavy key. It looked like a nice key… a proper key… a key that went back to Aremu’s pocket and Meraki memorized exactly which pocket it was.

“Almost there, kov,” he encouraged the shaking, injured man. “Y’ need any more help or…”

“You can stay here, if you like.”

Meraki blinked, then he simply nodded. “Let’s get y’ laid down, then, eh?”

He followed the other man into the house, ready to offer his shoulder again. The wick made sure the front door was shut and locked behind them. There wasn’t a room too far away though, no stairs required which was good. He lingered, expectant that the man might make it to the well-made bed… when instead, Aremu stumbled and collapsed to the floor.

Meraki swore under his breath. He kicked off his boots, so he wouldn’t be tracking anything in, then hurriedly took off his socks. Barefoot, he walked over to the man and knelt beside him. “Kov? Oy… Aremu? Y’ there?”

The Mugrobi still breathed, though with some struggled whistling due to the injury. He sighed, then, gathered him under the arms. Meraki hoisted Aremu to lean against him, as he dragged the effectively unconscious human to the bed. He balanced between holding the man, and throwing aside the blanket that’d been far too neatly tucked in.

He laid Aremu down onto the bed, careful to use the pillow to prop him on his side. Meraki glanced around, searching, until he found an extra pillow and returned to help lift Aremu so that the man’s head was further elevated. He looked over, then started to remove any excess clothing that might impede sleep. Meraki emptied the pockets, setting everything he found on the surface of the small desk.

After a moment more, he went out to the hall and listened. It was silent. No one else lived here? It was such a big place though… maybe others were away. That seemed more likely. He glanced around, then started to search for a washroom. On the way, he made note of the rooms he did come across and what looked to be inside of them.

Meraki gathered a small basin with warm water, and a couple towels. Not even rags. This place had proper fancy towels. He made his way back with the items, drew a chair up to the bedside. Careful not to wake Aremu, as the man needed to sleep off the fight’s injuries, he dabbed away blood, dirt, and sweat from the velvet dark skin. He set a warm compress over the side of the man’s face that would likely swell terribly if left alone.

He hung the clothing on the bed frame, nearby enough to grab. Meraki loosely set the blanket over the undressed man, not too tight that he might get tangled in it while sleeping. Then he picked up the bloodied basin of water and left the room. He kept the door slightly open, with only a sliver to peek through if needed.

Meraki poured out the water, looked over his own injuries to see if any were immediate (they weren't), then he went out to the hall… turned slowly around to survey the quiet house of many rooms… and a slanted grin graced the wick.