09-05-2016, 12:18 PM
If such toils were the payment for sins, Jai was someday going find himself in trouble.
She slipped boney fingers out of his palm. An ordinary gesture, except perhaps too lingering with their grazing away. Or perhaps his imagination added to an otherwise normal effect. But since when were Jai and Nythadri creatures of normalcy? The skin was soft, yes, and shades paler than his own. His healthy tan yet another perk of ritual, soaking up life beneath the sun while cannonizing the holiest of sword forms over and over again. Soaking up the sun from the waist up, at least; except for the colorless scar puckering up and across his torso in one elegant slash; that thing absorbed nothing, like the flesh of its father was sewn in for a permanent reminder for the failure of pride. Baked waist up in an Arad Doman summer. Asha'man or not, Daryen was not so keen on finding a man full on lost in a forms routine within his sunny chambers. Less so that same man be in not but his own skin, even if said man was rather spectacular to watch, on more than one level.
He barked a short laugh for Nythadri's payment for her sins. The same sarcasm capping it from being funny in a more wholesome way. That same laugh was his response to Daryen's rather forceful chucking of pants at his face also. For all the other man's faults, Jai wouldn't give over the sense of his explanation: a king's chambers are never truly private. Perhaps, but one would think a king could bloody well do what he wanted. But who knew with nobles? They were all a strange stock. And he had a point. They were his chambers. Suppose he had to give the guy something. Hence the sun kissing from waist up only. The only evidence was the hand that released Nythadri's for its color and a healthy face to match those shining pins on otherwise melodramatic black collar. A face that nodded an appreciative expression for sharing her name. Nythadri. For all his ire toward nobles, Jai did have a tendency to fall in with their looks. It may be unadorned black cloth, but silken wool threads were never overlooked. That scabbard may be old, but it gleamed under well-loved care. His only fault around so judgemental a crowd was for being too quick to smirk. Or glare. The whole of the Royal Palace was aware of Asha'man Kojima's opposition to the king's position on the Seanchan, for instance. Creatures he'd hunted for years. Creatures, so named because it was all too hard a task to replace the faces of those girls with humanity, girls as devoid of life as their grey smocks, then doing everything in his power to cut them down as fast as possible. Not to spare them excess pain, shamefully, but so he could check off the task completed and be gone from the memory of corpses. If there were corpses. There usually were none.
Girls that looked like teenagers haunted his dreams. Younger with their forever-youthful hatred stalked him in nightmare. Woken from slumber to an arsen their leashes condemned them to burning alive, he could hear their terror from outside. He could hear it just as clear in memory as he had sitting outside, waiting attenatively for any who thought to escape. Someone had to wait around to collect blackened metal, sometimes still wrapped around the dust of former bones. No bore through the Pattern could carry him far enough to outrun their final sounds. Best to not think of it.
"I know something of sins as well. I hope I get off as easy."
Another smirk and shrug off. Into the Oneness they went; where, ironically, were burnt away for a second; and third; and fourth, and fifth time.
Her hand, soft and cool and pale, grazed fingertips across his palm and suddenly an ordinary gesture meant so much more. Unpersued, unwon touch. It was reassuring. And sparked the kind of questions normal people pondered when meeting one another. Was she Cairhienin? Too tall for one, but the rest of her, down to those piercing eyes fit that nation firmly. Where was she from? Her trade? Married? Children? Hobbies? The remaining questions were left unasked. She, like himself, could only answer a few.
He could guess the answer to one question, though not so confidently as the height of these walls There was nothing to calculate in her fingers except how many there were, how many places those fingers could trail at one time. But there was little Jai did without some measure of confidence
"You play from memory or do they let you keep sheet music here?"
A hand with callouses on the finger tips grazed so distinctly from a hand calloused by a hilt. Jai would know.
For all the hope of it, normalcy dissolved, about as swift as it came. The dulcet sound of his own name. Only a handful of times did he regret such audibles parting beautiful lips. If it weren't for the striking sensuality which accompanied the sound this time, this loss of anonymity would have joined such situations. What a loss it was. Undoubtedly the names of the city's influential would be known to those educated by the White Tower itself. Kojima were known in Tar Valon; a family of powerful bankers. His smile was grim for their loss. It had been nice while it lasted.
A strong pivot brought the ungowned Sitter into full view. Ungowned in that the flimsy thing of yesterday at the tavern was replaced with a cut more suited to long riding. At least, it better be long. Hardly be worth taking the time if it weren't.
"Ah Fate."
There you are. Words turned quickly around, gone was the cynicism of reality, back was this game of distraction.
Perhaps, though, the Accepted could be sent away with something for herself. Repayment for the woman whose company carried him across sanity's threshold a few moments ago by thrusting some jab at the Sitter's already questionable reputation.
"Much longer and my tongue was about to forget you."
Overly innocent in all this, obviously. Jai opened an arm for her to lead the way, stifling the painful memory of the wager that brought him here in the first place. The dare to eat an entire ghost pepper; the one that ended up with him blind and in agony. "Shall we?"
Edited by Jay Carpenter, Sep 6 2016, 02:26 PM.
She slipped boney fingers out of his palm. An ordinary gesture, except perhaps too lingering with their grazing away. Or perhaps his imagination added to an otherwise normal effect. But since when were Jai and Nythadri creatures of normalcy? The skin was soft, yes, and shades paler than his own. His healthy tan yet another perk of ritual, soaking up life beneath the sun while cannonizing the holiest of sword forms over and over again. Soaking up the sun from the waist up, at least; except for the colorless scar puckering up and across his torso in one elegant slash; that thing absorbed nothing, like the flesh of its father was sewn in for a permanent reminder for the failure of pride. Baked waist up in an Arad Doman summer. Asha'man or not, Daryen was not so keen on finding a man full on lost in a forms routine within his sunny chambers. Less so that same man be in not but his own skin, even if said man was rather spectacular to watch, on more than one level.
He barked a short laugh for Nythadri's payment for her sins. The same sarcasm capping it from being funny in a more wholesome way. That same laugh was his response to Daryen's rather forceful chucking of pants at his face also. For all the other man's faults, Jai wouldn't give over the sense of his explanation: a king's chambers are never truly private. Perhaps, but one would think a king could bloody well do what he wanted. But who knew with nobles? They were all a strange stock. And he had a point. They were his chambers. Suppose he had to give the guy something. Hence the sun kissing from waist up only. The only evidence was the hand that released Nythadri's for its color and a healthy face to match those shining pins on otherwise melodramatic black collar. A face that nodded an appreciative expression for sharing her name. Nythadri. For all his ire toward nobles, Jai did have a tendency to fall in with their looks. It may be unadorned black cloth, but silken wool threads were never overlooked. That scabbard may be old, but it gleamed under well-loved care. His only fault around so judgemental a crowd was for being too quick to smirk. Or glare. The whole of the Royal Palace was aware of Asha'man Kojima's opposition to the king's position on the Seanchan, for instance. Creatures he'd hunted for years. Creatures, so named because it was all too hard a task to replace the faces of those girls with humanity, girls as devoid of life as their grey smocks, then doing everything in his power to cut them down as fast as possible. Not to spare them excess pain, shamefully, but so he could check off the task completed and be gone from the memory of corpses. If there were corpses. There usually were none.
Girls that looked like teenagers haunted his dreams. Younger with their forever-youthful hatred stalked him in nightmare. Woken from slumber to an arsen their leashes condemned them to burning alive, he could hear their terror from outside. He could hear it just as clear in memory as he had sitting outside, waiting attenatively for any who thought to escape. Someone had to wait around to collect blackened metal, sometimes still wrapped around the dust of former bones. No bore through the Pattern could carry him far enough to outrun their final sounds. Best to not think of it.
"I know something of sins as well. I hope I get off as easy."
Another smirk and shrug off. Into the Oneness they went; where, ironically, were burnt away for a second; and third; and fourth, and fifth time.
Her hand, soft and cool and pale, grazed fingertips across his palm and suddenly an ordinary gesture meant so much more. Unpersued, unwon touch. It was reassuring. And sparked the kind of questions normal people pondered when meeting one another. Was she Cairhienin? Too tall for one, but the rest of her, down to those piercing eyes fit that nation firmly. Where was she from? Her trade? Married? Children? Hobbies? The remaining questions were left unasked. She, like himself, could only answer a few.
He could guess the answer to one question, though not so confidently as the height of these walls There was nothing to calculate in her fingers except how many there were, how many places those fingers could trail at one time. But there was little Jai did without some measure of confidence
"You play from memory or do they let you keep sheet music here?"
A hand with callouses on the finger tips grazed so distinctly from a hand calloused by a hilt. Jai would know.
For all the hope of it, normalcy dissolved, about as swift as it came. The dulcet sound of his own name. Only a handful of times did he regret such audibles parting beautiful lips. If it weren't for the striking sensuality which accompanied the sound this time, this loss of anonymity would have joined such situations. What a loss it was. Undoubtedly the names of the city's influential would be known to those educated by the White Tower itself. Kojima were known in Tar Valon; a family of powerful bankers. His smile was grim for their loss. It had been nice while it lasted.
A strong pivot brought the ungowned Sitter into full view. Ungowned in that the flimsy thing of yesterday at the tavern was replaced with a cut more suited to long riding. At least, it better be long. Hardly be worth taking the time if it weren't.
"Ah Fate."
There you are. Words turned quickly around, gone was the cynicism of reality, back was this game of distraction.
Perhaps, though, the Accepted could be sent away with something for herself. Repayment for the woman whose company carried him across sanity's threshold a few moments ago by thrusting some jab at the Sitter's already questionable reputation.
"Much longer and my tongue was about to forget you."
Overly innocent in all this, obviously. Jai opened an arm for her to lead the way, stifling the painful memory of the wager that brought him here in the first place. The dare to eat an entire ghost pepper; the one that ended up with him blind and in agony. "Shall we?"
Edited by Jay Carpenter, Sep 6 2016, 02:26 PM.
Only darkness shows you the light.