you look great in bloodstains. [p]

<blockquote>
ooc.
Mia 12th, 81382. Private for Jynx.

ic.
"Don't move."

The gun was held to the arden's head at arm's length, and Attrius's pale blue eyes were as blank of emotion as colorless ice. His teeth were gritted, four-inch-long claws out, each wickedly curved and sharp enough to sever flesh and bone without the least resistence. They were in a backstreet Bhim alleyway, settling a dispute over a payment for nujeq. "One-hundred-eighty Bhijan, or you give me the rest of the pot," he snarled, a growl of perfect anger scorching the air.

Atti was a chimera, as his mother and father had been, and as his grandfather had been. 'Rius was strong, and fast, and a lot of what he did know was out of instinct. Instinct had shown him how to use knives and teeth and claws and guns; experience taught him the weak spots and how to exploit them. It helped having a slight twinge of madness that had not yet bloomed in him. He prayed to some higher power it never would.

Heaven help them if it did.

"Fuck you," spat the khell. Atti cocked the gun with an unnatural clicking sound.

He had become a creature unstirred by history, no longer moved by the present, just hungry, blind to emotion and at long full of mindless wrath. Such behaviour was totally out of character for Att, but since Pyemme had gone missing, he'd begun to slowly return to his old roots. It had been almost a full quarter since she'd dissapeared. She was his rock, his goddess - without her, he was a shadow and little more. "I'll blow your fucking brains out if you don't give me the money," he hissed between his teeth.</blockquote>

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>ooc.
Powerplay isn't allowed at RaL. :/

ic.
Had nothing prepared him for this? This place where no eye would find him, no ear would hear him, among pillars of rust, where hawks haunted the sky, where night would weave its teeth around the khell’s throat, even as it raped his mind, dismembered him, piece by piece. And in the continuing turn – for turns never really stop turning – void out all he was, all he ever was, once meant or didn’t mean.

Here at long last was his darkness. No cry of light, no glimmer, not even the faintest shard of light to break free across the hold.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw an arden move.

There was a way out - there was always an avoidance to every attack, but it would be hard. The other arden would have to be quick, for when Att moved, he moved as an adder would. Vipers, the quickest creatures in all the world for striking enemiesÂ… he emulated them when he could, for speed, agility and intelligence won battles, not brute strength. Until now, he was silent. But now a rumbled, low-toned, incensed snarl poured forth from the deepest parts of him, like the rumbling roar of a million hoofbeats. It was savage, brutal, feral-sounding, and were a nioti to hear it, they might have just pissed themselves from fear. Attrius was attuned to motion, reflexes, movement, suggestive glimpses. And he simply waited as Gyethym came at him. With that motion came a fury that the dark half-Yki had not let loose in a long time - the danse macabre.

The khell had run, and in moments, four-inch, razor-sharp claws reached forth to try and catch his opponent on the face, the gun cocked and firmly held in his right hand. He moved, black against black.

"Baby," he said quietly. "ShhhÂ… we donÂ’t have to fight."
</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>
ooc.
You said that he'd tackled Atti, rather than saying that he'd lunged at him or tried to tackle him. But, itÂ’s okay. :]

ic.
He stood there tingling all over, a dangerous clarity returning to him, ancient bloodlines colluding under what he imagined must of been the very aegis of Fiddekh, his fingers itching to weld into themselves, while directly beneath his sternum a hammer struck the timeless bell of war, a call to arms, though through all of it he held himself back. He winced as he heard the sickening crack of a breaking bone.

Moments later, Atti finally composed himself, claws sheathing and his fists loosening themselves. "I’m sorry about that – I really didn’t mean to hurt you. I just… ah, lost my temper." His face twisted into a frown. "The khell took my money and some nujeq that he owed me, and you just frightened me a bit." The half-Yki lowered himself to his haunches and attempted a half-smile at the assassin. "I have a Journeyman’s in healing and medicine, and I know some healing magic, so if you’d just let me look at that wound, maybe I could help you."</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>
Perhaps he'd find that the awful dread that gnawed at him day and night after Emme's disappearence was nothing more than the shockwaves caused by to many crude chemicals rioting in his skull. Perhaps by cleaning them out of his system he'd come into a clearing in which he could ease himself into peace.

His hands were trembling from the nujeq, his black pupils slightly dilated, but his heart and his mind was steady. Atti gave the other arden a firm handshake before sliding his shoulder-pack off his body and let his fingers brush the wound. "It doesn't look okay," he murmured. "The bone is fucking piercing your skin, and if you go on acting like a little nioti and saying that it's okay, and you don't get help, you're gonna die." His words were blunt and crude and somewhat cruel, but it was what he'd been raised to do.

"My name is Attrius Infernus - call me Atti, The Antichrist, The Dark Prince, King of the Damned, whatever." </blockquote>

 

<blockquote>
Attrius let one finger run hesitantly over the laceration before pulling away. He withdrew a medical scalpel from one of the interior pockets of his bag, running his fingers over the sleek handle. He suddenly grasped Gyethym's hand, turning it over to see the palm and squeezing it reassuringly. They were his least favorite part of the body - naturally creased, tough and easy to hide, like a gum painting on the bottom of a school desk with only a few days left in it.

His ice-blue eyes searched the wound as he let go of the arden's hand. There was movement in them, like something dark stirring beneath the surface of a murky, green-brown pond - his every thought spelled out in an unwritten alphabet. Transparent. He locked them on Gyethym's like the crosshair of a hunter's rifle.

"I'm going to have to cut it open so I can weave the bones back together - I hope you don't mind."
</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>
Att's hand held the knife as one held the bow of a cello or a tulip - by the stem. Not palmed nor gripped nor clasped, but held lightly, with the tips of the fingers. He touched it to the spot where the bone pressed out, and like a slender fish, it waited at the ready - then, go! It darted across the skin, followed by a fine wake of red. The flesh parted, falling away to yellow globules of fat.

He chanted a slow spell to still the blood and stop the pain, and then one tapered fingertip brushed across the ragged end of the bone. He found the other end broken as its brother, and slowly nudged them together as, with his mind, he willed them to weave back together and settle into their normal places. The half-Yki, sealed the wound with two fingers and a few syllables of Ykili. "There," he said. "Is that better?"</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>Atti noted the brief flash of - something - in Gyethym's eyes as they moved to his. Was it panic? Fear? He couldn't identify it - couldn't really put his thumb on it - and it bothered him. "Are you... okay?" he asked. "What was up with you attacking me like that anyway... some sort of predatory instinct?"</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>His eyes look like Aare's.

Then something powerful tore through him, like some ancient, gigantic root, the kind that split apart granite in chunks the size of small houses – except now, instead of the granite, it was him. His chest hurt, and he felt funny all over, suddenly realizing he was about to start crying. Atti had only cried a few times in his entire life, and he certainly wasn't going to start now in front of some stranger. So he swallowed the pain and clenched his fists.

"Let me ask you a question - have you ever killed? That look in your eyes when you struck me... it looked like you were trying to."</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>ooc.
I believe this can be archived after your next post. :3

ic.
His early life had been an awful thing, blushed with rot, threatening but always failing to fall from the vine. He was no longer suspended in that way of foulness, in an insanity so cloying he had sometimes needed to retch in order to breathe.

"I know - " He stopped himself. Talking to a stranger about that kind of shit would only hurt him. I know how it is. He rose to his feet and turned. "I - I have to go now. If it doesn't heal properly, then the nearest clinic is to the north of the Market."

And he walked away.</blockquote>