#kyner

“ROSTINE!”

Gentle daylight pierced the stained-glass windows, scattering brilliant reds and golds and greens across the master bedroom.  It was probably close to noon, based on the angles.  Whoever’d used the bed last left chaos in their wake, and it was all tangled sheets and nested pillows.  Wait — did the pile just stir?  Was there actually someone under there?

”LORD ROSTINE!  SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD!”

The exquisite double doors were practically thrown off their hinges.  ”Kyner!” hissed Ejava, skittering across the floor.  Her tail swept away discarded clothing as she went.  “Kyner!  What are you doing?”

“Mm.”  A pale limb jutted out of the bed’s dressings; a miscalculated kick.

”Get up!” she snarled, starting to claw at the thick comforter.  “They’re here, you idiot!”

The comforter snagged under some resistance.  “Who’s here?” it seemed to murmur, retreating back to the center of the bed.

“The Draken!”  She redoubled her efforts.

A pillow was disturbed, revealing a glimpse of white hair.  He quickly tugged it back in place.  “Your sisters?”

“No!  The Draken from last night!  The ones you said were weaned on Aurin milk as pups!”  Her face twisted in frustration and poorly masked contempt.  “Or did you forget about that with all you had to drink?”

The pile gave a noncommittal sound.  “… have Xocoyol tell them to leave.  Or do it yourself.”

”Kyyyyner,” she whined, thumping the linens with her fists.  That elicited another groan.  “They insulted my honor!  You must destroy them.”

He sighed.  “I can’t.  I’m hungover, and I have a headache.”

“You always have a headache!”  She walloped the spot she thought his head may have been with a throw pillow.  “GET OUT OF BED YOU ANEMIC LITTLE WORM!”

A gangly figure tumbled out of bed, presumably in an attempt to escape her wrath.  Kyner screwed his eyes up tight again the light; his head felt like it was going to split open.  “I’m up,” he muttered.

A trio of Draken stood on the immaculately groomed lawn.  Their bodies hung with heavy ropes of muscle, and their weapons were great and forged from the bones of great beasts.  When their hosts stepped out to meet them, they exchanged glances and snickered amongst themselves.

Ejava was as beautiful, lively, and spiteful as ever, but the man she was propping up at her side looked even more pathetic than he had the night before.  His white hair was long and wild — though it somehow still managed to hide his right eye perfectly — and his angular face was rough with two days’ stubble.  He only wore a pair of pants and a cloak over his shoulders, apparently not having the time or coordination to get fully dressed, and he barely seemed capable of walking a straight line.  The ensemble did a woefully poor job of masking his physical deficiencies.

“Lord Rostine,” grumbled the head of this pack, who had massive horns and a tally scratched into his right pauldron.  It was fairly extensive, as far as tallies went.  “Good of you to join us.  Perhaps you are not a coward and simply a fool; or did the woman you are so clearly undeserving of drag you out here, to salvage what is left of her dignity?”

Ejava flashed a viper’s smile at them.  “Insolent whelps!  Cretins!  Fucking fools, all of you.”  She traced the tips of her claws along the Cassian’s slender chest.  “Ejava of Dunemaw and Kyner of Rostine do not suffer threats from mewling little salamanders.  Make demands of us, and you will only get your bloody, still-beating heart in your hand as a reply.”

The troupe didn’t seem terribly impressed; in fact, the one farthest in the back barked out a genuine and very ugly laugh.  Ejava’s hand vanished inside the cloak and withdrew a medishot.  She jabbed it into Kyner’s neck, engaged the delivery mechanism, and the 20 milliliters of clear fluid were gone in a soft hiss.  Then she shoved him forward with both hands, and he barely caught his balance in time.

The Draken seemed unsure of what to make of all this — was she offering him up as a sacrifice, or something?  Their leader grinned and hoisted his sword, and then it was no longer in his hands — no, it was orbiting around the Cassian’s wrist, like an oddly shaped, fine-edged satellite.  He’d called it there, beckoned it with a finger, and it’d been like pulling an invisible string.  Both the lackeys gaped as Kyner rotated it in smooth circles, tilting his hand, as if testing the weight of the six-foot sword.

“You… you feeble little… human.”  Rage painted the Draken’s features as he bared his sizeable teeth.  “We will break your bones!  We will drink your blood!  We will take your wards for ourselves!  And when there is nothing left of you but your wretched, stinking soul, even that we will commit to Shezka for a millenium of torment!”  He roared, flinging spittle in every direction.  “GIVE ME BACK MY BLADE.”

Behind Kyner, Ejava hopped from one foot to the next, bristling with anticipation.  She looked very excited about something.  “Here,” said Kyner, his tone disinterested and distant.  “Have it.”

He made a sweeping upward gesture with his arm, and it all went away.  The Draken, his sword, Kyner’s cloak — the nearby bushies, potted plants, cobblestones — all of it rocketed skyward, first tens, then hundreds of feet into the air.  A series of intricate gestures brought the massive weapon to life, and as they soared, it indulged its violent desires against the helpless forms of its master and his clanmates.

What returned to the ground was mostly gore and property damage, along with the scattered weapons and armor.  Their leader was still alive, and for a brief moment, Kyner held sympathy for him.  That was not a clean cut.  Apparently he really did have a lot to drink last night, not that he remembered much of it.  He stalked forward and knelt next to the mostly-held-together Draken.

“Dominus calls your spirit home,” he said, and placed a cool hand on the scaly forehead.  It was covered in sweat.  Kyner knew the look in his eyes — that reckoning of one’s own end.  “Will you take His hand?”

“G-Go… to… hell,” groaned the Draken, and spit his lifeblood in the Cassian’s face.  When he reached up to wipe his face with a bare hand, effectively smearing it across his features, he caught a glimpse of his other eye… except an eye it no longer was, ruined, and all his hair seemed to hide now were a trio of scars that looked like stalker claws.

“Very well.  May your gods be more merciful than I.”  He broke his neck with the snap of his fingers.

“YESSSSSS!”  Ejava howled from where she’d been standing, about ten yards away.  “NEVER FUCK WITH US!  NEVER FUCK WITH USSSS!”  She clapped her hands and sneered at the groundskeeper who appeared, visibly shaken.  “You.  Clean all this up.”  She gestured vaguely to the assorted viscera and ran over to embrace Kyner, where they shared a fierce — if brief — kiss.

Then he slipped away from her, and began to hobble back toward the manor house.  “Where are you going?” asked Ejava with a blink.  “Going to get washed up, I hope.  We have a function in two hours.”

Crouched artfully on the armrest and back of said bench, Astoreth’s many sharp teeth gleamed as she grinned at him gleefully.  “Greetings, Kyner of Reinhart,” she growled with entirely too much satisfaction in her tone.  “We meet again.”

“By Dominus, why do you do that?!” Kyner gasped, his hand clutched to his heart as if that might help slow its pounding beat to a more reasonable tempo.  “And I – I asked you not to call me that.”

“You did, Kyner Reinhart,” the stalker acknowledged with a charitable nod of her head.  “But old habits die hard, as they say.”

“Old habits?  We’ve known each other a week!”

“The habit predates my knowledge of you, Kyner Reinhart.”  She peered at him closely through her strange slit blue eyes.  “We are new friends, yes.  But I think we are both old souls.”

Friends?  That was putting it a bit strongly, Kyner thought.  He sighed.  At least she dropped the preposition, when reminded, and his pulse was gradually returning to normal.  Baby steps.  “I don’t even know what that means,” he told her, reaching for his book.

“You do not?”  She cocked her head to the side.  “I think you do.  Perhaps you have different words for it.”

“Maybe.”   He didn’t feel like arguing.  “Anyway, what do you want?  I can’t imagine you came out to the Gardens just to scare me.”

Astoreth grinned at him as she slid into the bench beside him, crossing her powerful legs.  “I was passing through when I saw you.  I thought to tell you that Xocoyol received the gift you left for her, and seemed to appreciate it.  Ejava remains uninterested in your comings and goings and thus remains uninformed, as per your request.”

“Thank you,” he nodded.  “I appreciate your help.  But you know, you didn’t have to frighten me to deliver that message.”

“No,” she agreed cheerfully, with a shake of her head that sent her black hair swinging.  “That was for me.”

Kyner scowled.  “You never answered me.  Why do you do it?”

“Why not?” she shrugged.

“That’s not an answer!”

“Because it is fun to scare you!”

“That’s not an answer either!” he retorted.  “You don’t do it to Blanche, or any of the others.”

“No, Kyner Reinhart,” she said, reaching a lanky arm towards him.  “It is fun to scare you.”  She tapped the middle of his chest with one clawed finger.

He blinked, and furrowed his brow.  “Me?  Why?”

“Because,” she said, lounging back, “You react so fantastically.  Blanche would have her Mechari shoot me.  Any chua would shoot me themselves – Sforze would also shoot me.  My sisters are fierce – and hardened by years of such games – and would not flinch.  Another draken would be unimpressed or would challenge me, and both are boring.  I would not dare play these games with the Nobleman Rostine – I would certainly come out of that the worse, from multiple angles.  Machiavelli would…”  She frowned.  “I do not know what he would do, but I predict it would be unsatisfying.  But you!” Astoreth closed her eyes, smiling widely.  “You flounder and fling your arms about, and your feet go up and the rest of you topples down, and your eyes widen, and your lip trembles, and you stammer and whine that I have scared you to death.  And you do it every time!  No matter how often I do it to you, each time is like the first.  And I love it.”  She licked her lips.  “Why do I do it?  Because you give me what I want, every time.  It is what your psychologists – your headshrinkers – call positive reinforcement.  And you are very, very good at it, Kyner Reinhart.”

Kyner ran a finger over the bruised spine of his book, and scowled.  “So if I stopped reacting, you’d stop doing it.”

“Not right away,” she admitted.  “The first time would be an anomaly, and I would only be more determined to scare you the next.  But over time?  I would grow bored, yes, and move on.  It is not as if such prey is not plentiful, and for these games I would find greater satisfaction in easier marks.”

He considered this.  “Well… you’ve delivered your message.  If you would, please tell Xocoyol it was my pleasure, and if she is interested in other volumes I would be happy to provide.”

Astoreth nodded her head sharply.  “She will hear this.  And as my mission is completed, I will leave you to your book.”  She rocked up onto her feet, and made a sign with her open hand and fist that could have as easily been a salute as the draken equivalent of the bird.  “Good hunting, Kyner of Reinhart,” she said.  “We will meet again.”

Kyner sighed, and watched the draken woman saunter away down the cobble path.  He waited until she had left – until the last tuft of violet hair on her swinging tail had passed through the concrete arch before frowning and opening up his book again.  He sighed deeply, as he began flipping to the page where he had left off, and as he began to relax something resembling a smile began to play at his lips.

“One more thing!” hissed that same contralto, behind his right ear.

Kyner grimaced.  His shoulders tensed, and his knuckles whitened as his grip on his book tightened, but he kept his teeth together and he did not scream nor flinch.  He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and let it out through tight lips before he turned a dismissive gaze worthy of Montgomeri Rostine on his adversary.  “Yes, Astoreth?” he grumbled, each syllable carefully paced.

Her eyes darted back and forth across his face, and slowly her lips parted to show her sharp teeth in a too-pleased grin.  “You learn quickly, Kyner,” she chuckled darkly.  “We may make a warrior of you yet.”