#voidtouchedblue

How harsh her words are that it almost angers Astarion. How dare she act as if she knows him? How dare she pretend as if she knows anything of the man he used to be before Cazador turned him and doomed him to a life of misery.

He's not even sure who he used to be, if he is entirely honest with himself. A startling realization, honestly. Time and memory blurs, he doesn't remember much of his human life anymore. He has lived far too long.

One day.

Just one day without the drama of the fight would be okay in his book! A day when he could happily glut on a 'sack' full of donuts ['sack' being a relative standard of measurement determined by his mood of the day], crash down on a stone wall somewhere, warmed under the heat of the sun [or better yet, in a sun 'circle!] to nap peacefully, or perhaps do nothing at all, feet kicked up, arms behind his head and eyes closed, ignorant to the world beyond his lids!

Striving to clench a lazy day like that was perfectly acceptable - actually OBTAINING it was another struggle entirely.

Alas, such was the folly of having such an unbelievable price on his head. Everyone and their dog sought a taste of that incredible prize. Hope was a sorry counter to reality, but they 'hoped' they had the skills necessary to achieve what had, up until that point, become the impossible.

And it was still 'impossible' being that he remained 'free.' Not unscathed, however. FAR from it.

He’d been doing good until the heat of adrenaline began to stagnate and cool, transforming the numb aftereffects of battle into a blazing something or other. His body seemed composed of concentrated pain, bruises on top of bruises, blood dribbling from what felt to him to be a hundred thousand uncomfortable paper cuts in all the wrong places. 

Yes, there absolutely was a right and wrong place to suffer such afflictions! For example: the cuts at Vash's knuckles kept breaking open as he gingerly peeled the stocking off his feet. Or SOCK as the peasants called them. …. at least he hadn’t broken any toes. He hadn’t broken any bits at all! 

So far as he was concerned, that was a point for team Humanoid Typhoon!

He let out the breath that he totally KNEW he’d been holding [the burning lungs was one small indication that he should likely inflate those things with the oxygen necessary to keep on keeping on], letting the stocking fall to the dirt at his feet.

So what did he learn today?

Probably shouldn't have done the 'thing.'

He learned that his head made an odd hollow sound when it bounced off the ground. And that he might, inexplicably, house a choir of mice up there, as loudly as they were twittering afterwards.

Sigh.

He wiped at his bloody lip with the back of his hand, now suddenly contemplating how the heck he was now supposed to pull his boots back on? He leaned back against the palms of his hands, one 'organic,' one metallic, eyes gradually falling on something that---

---- well, one thing wasn't like the other, tha twas for sure.

A Plant pod? Out here?

His eyes drifted left. They drifted right. There was no power source attached to it. To his naked eye, it looked to be just the pod, like it had dropped from no where right there at that very moment, conveniently situated for him to discover.

He swallowed, mouth suddenly painfully dry.

That sounded like a Nai trap, if he'd never heard one. But---

After errands were done early into the afternoon, Yuri was planning to just laze the rest of the day away. Yesterday had been busy and almost tiresome, and even the knights had shown up with their whining complaints. If Hanks hadn't stopped him, Yuri might have spat a few choice words. Today was calmer so far, and frankly, he was relieved. For once, he wasn't sure he had that kind of energy in him.

Hopefully he wouldn't need it, because he did spot someone unfamiliar in the Lower Quarter. People didn't just show up here. Visitors entered the Public Quarter, and most of them wouldn't deign to come down to the filthy rathole the nobles would shoo them away from. Everyone here knew each other, even if it wasn't on a personal level. Faces were enough as far as knowing who lived here.

This person was also hiding their face. Yuri couldn't deny that he did not like seeing a hooded person in the Lower Quarter. Shady people did hang around the Public Quarter, but it was never anything but trouble when they came down here. The person didn't seem to have a destination in mind though and appeared to be more... wandering. And... were those horns? Accessories? From the distance between them he couldn't really tell...

For a good few seconds, Yuri debated confronting them. Strangers showing up here was almost always nothing but trouble. If they showed up here on accident looking for the Public Quarter, he could probably say something and direct them on their way. The only thing throwing him off was the hood, but... it was probably better he dealt with it than anyone else. Actually, probably not, but at least if they needed to throw hands he was the best option, right?

He's far from what he used to call home, past the unending forests into the southernmost of Wallachia. Craiova they called it. He'd never been but there were rumors of something stalking the good people, the usual. That hadn't been what piqued his interest.

It was the strange absence of death which followed the night creatures usually reported upon. No deaths meant secrecy. Secrecy meant yet another god forsaken fucking plot to bring about a greater evil.

And so he'd went in search of tales, sightings, reports. A hand barren when proffered. No one could concede the look of the beast, no one could fathom the terrors it brought because none of the citizens had witnessed any. All present, all accounted for.

It had made Trevor's skin itch in the way the brush of a poisonous plant did. The only antidote was to investigate. He'd left the others back home, they had a town to build after all. Their legacy to leave behind.

And now, sitting out in the middle of fucking nowhere the night was drawing long and he had become bored.

"If it's going to fucking do something, I wish it'd get on with it already." Something spooks in the underbrush at the sound of his voice and his hand slips down to the flap of leather strapping his whip to his side.

"Alright then...you've heard me. Come on...a little closer..." There is a scent in the air he is unfamiliar with, a strange little waft that tickles his nose and he remembers it too well. Beneath the blood, gore, and guts, the stench of the Corridor was choking. As if all life sucked into it breathed its miasma and stained with its odor.

"Fucking- Where is that little rat bastard?!" Saint Germain. That's his name. This has his doing all fucking over it. Squinting hard through the thick shadows he scans his surrounding to find something outlined by the meager light of the field beyond. Something....well it looked a fair enough size, tiny but not smaller than an average human.

But Night Creatures came in all shapes and sizes. None less deadly than the last. Give it a little warning, see how it reacts.

@voidtouched-blue

Even if Yuri himself didn't have ill will against her, it still made him... uncomfortable. When he'd met her before, she didn't seem threatening so much as skittish. Didn't seem like she was interested in harming humans. To know she thought, even if at the time, that killing humans was the right thing, by now he was just... tired of all that. He didn't want to argue about whether it was right or wrong to participate in the war. He himself couldn't have known how he'd feel had he been older when it happened, because he'd only been a child at the time - about eleven, twelve years old.

"Aren't you past it? Isn't everyone past that yet? I don't want to hear about this anymore." In a way he felt bad for feeling snippy toward her, but on the other hand... it almost felt like what he'd known of her way back when had been a lie. Her interest in humans and the way she treated him like any other person, when she had really taken part in the war and hated them only a few years prior was almost haunting.

Maybe it wasn't a lie in her mind at the time, devoid of proper memories as it was, but she may not have been so open and understanding with him otherwise. Was that to say, her real self would have hated him back then? Back during a time when... Yuri had been so accepting, understanding, giving...? Was it just a lie, then? If that had been the real her, would she have slaughtered the Lower Quarter?