sir rictor cassul, korporal. (templars) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-03-09 23:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, cecilia fennes, rictor cassul |
i've been waiting on the fault line.
Who: Cecilia Fennes & Rictor Cassul
What: Some accidental heroics as a curious bystander almost falls into the pit.
Where: The crevasse in the noble's park.
When: Backdated to morning of February 26th.
Rating: Tame.
Status: Complete!
The sound of the earthquake hadn’t stirred him at midnight. No, Rictor had slept right through it like a rock, before rising at dawn for his usual morning workout. It was only then that he realised something had happened: there were murmurs at the corner coffee shop, an unsettled look to the streets and the few carriages moving through them, and the rumour mill was already gaining momentum, even this early in the morning. So the knight had followed the signs of damage like a trail of breadcrumbs. It grew worse and worse as it moved through the districts, a few cracked windows turning to shattered cobblestones to fallen street carts—until the entire street was torn up beneath their feet, like some enormous plough had passed through overnight. A furrow had opened up the streets, ripping right through them, eventually turning to a deep crevasse in the park. Curious bystanders stood at the edge, peering in and exchanging hushed, excited mutterings. Rictor stood alone. If he’d known the extent of the curiosity, he would have fetched one of the other Blades, probably the Vizekorporal… but instead he surveyed the damage by himself, brow creasing in thought. This had happened in the Nobles District, where his little sister lived. He’d have to go check in on her after this, see if she was alright. Still thinking of Seloria, he noticed a glimpse of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye. Like everything that Cecilia had encountered, it was strange. The earthquake, of course. Strong enough to rip a hole right through the seam of the city but not enough to touch anything else with destruction’s heavy hand. There were marks of its damage everywhere, but they were not as interesting to the young mage as the idea of a hole leading to - somewhere. Nobody knew where the hole led or ended. The knowledge, or lack of, snagged on Cecilia’s curiosity and tugged her towards it. She had only managed to wait until morning before she rushed out of the tower, not even waiting for breakfast. She was pressed up with the crowd of people trying to look in without getting too close. They rimmed the hole like a makeshift barricade. Just lines of heads, all looking down into the dark deep. Cecilia, who had never been in the Nobles District, found herself worming around men in expensive suits and women dressed in fur still on the animal, little glass eyes staring beadily up at her. Normally she would have been taken with the idea. How strange that something so macabre in idea could be so fashionable. But it was the hole that was important now. She pushed against a gentleman in a hat, hoping to get a closer look, and felt her foot slip on a loose piece of rubble, pitching her forward. The sound of skittering rocks tumbling against the sides of the hole broke the otherwise monotonous morning. Everyone’s ears pricked up, and Ric’s attention snapped fully to the girl he’d already been half-watching. She’d taken a misstep in trying to maneuver past the crowd, and— He felt a flare of adrenaline, sharp and dizzying as if someone had lit a match in his ribcage. Others let out startled cries, but the noblemen and -women tossed up their hands and scuttled backwards in impractical heels and slippery shoes. The Silver Blade leapt forward instead, battle-honed reflexes leading to his hand snaring into the back of the blonde’s shirt, fingers tightening in the folds of her mage’s robe (blonde mages were a particular point of interest). Her falling weight threw them both askew but Rictor yanked her back, extending his other hand against the girl’s waist. Politeness and decorum were both temporarily banished in favour of saving her from an interminable fall. “Good show!” one of the nearby men cried out, voice thick with the accent of the Valendian gentry. Rictor rolled his eyes but continued to drag her back onto assuredly solid footing. “Fucking hell,” he said, shaking his head. He detached from the stranger and dusted off his hands, now trying to regain some semblance of etiquette. For all he knew, he’d just manhandled some duchess’ daughter. “Are you all right?” Cecilia had watched the world around her suspend itself into a slower time. She would never be able to explain it well to anyone who asked, especially since time was such a relative thing - her plays at bard-in-another-life only stretched so far in terms of her storytelling ability. But she had felt as if someone had just cast Slow over her. Her arms had reached out for one long moment. But no, she had not been terrified. What was there to be scared about? She only felt uncertainty, ready for the darkness to swallow her up head to toe. But it had not happened. The next moment, people were chattering around her, circling her for a brief moment. She felt dizzy. She was dimly aware that someone had grabbed her, pulling her backwards. She had come so close to finding out what was in that hole, she was almost angry that someone had decided to play hero and “save her” as she heard from a few admiring voices. She looked up at the stranger. Took careful note of his appearance. Broad and muscled, a good half foot taller at least. The light hair, shorn close as it was, reminded her of the boys back home - though none of them were as heavy with strength as this man appeared to be. “Yes,” she said. There was nothing else for her to say. She looked at him, clearly interested in what she was seeing though for entirely different reasons than one might initially guess. Perhaps she should have said thank you. Maybe she could have complimented him. Instead, she said, “You’re quite a big man, aren’t you?” without an ounce of teasing in her tone. Just another observation, as if she had not just fallen into possible death at the bottom of a mysterious hole in the Nobles District. The unusual comment struck Rictor into incredulous silence, eyebrows arching in surprise: really?, they seemed to ask. “I get that a lot,” he said, bemused. But though her comment was the same sort of thing Lex spouted so often, there were no barbs in this other girl’s voice, no sly humour and fake exasperation veiled beneath the tone. Instead, her voice was blank as a slate, wiped clean as if she were remarking on the weather. After a pause, the man bowed slightly, tilting his body at an angle. (It seemed wise to err on the side of caution now, particularly considering their surroundings and all the nobles milling about them.) He then held out his hand. “Korporal Rictor Cassul. A pleasure to not have to scrape you off the bottom of a chasm. They should’ve put up railings once all these bystanders popped up, honestly.” She looked down at his hand, then up at his face, before reaching out and taking it and giving it a good shake. Her grip was firm. After one up and down, she let go and let her hand fall immediately to her side. Cecilia did not know much of people - she didn’t care for them in a genuine sense most of the time, though she liked to watch them and interact with them. She was not good at gauging things like intent or personality. The knowledge always came to her especially slow. For Korporal Rictor Cassul, she was already forming a picture in her mind of what she thought he might be like. Very much the image of a beloved knight of Emillion, tall and handsome and aware of the people around them. His bow did not slip by her unnoticed, though it was unnecessary. She was as common as the dirt they were standing on. “You think there is a bottom?” she asked in that same even voice. She turned her head to the hole, then back towards him. “I just thought people came out the other side.” “It must,” he said, choosing to take her seriously; if this was some utterly deadpan sarcasm, he was missing it, as he so often did. “Everything has a bottom and an ending, eventually. Might not be able to see it or hear it, but that just means it’s deep as hell.” There was an uncomfortable prickling in Rictor’s shoulderblades, a worry whether this counted as heresy—could it be Hell? some fiery abyss with a monster ready to loom out of it and swallow the city whole? but it hadn’t, not yet, and so they seemed safe for now. The girl’s attention to niceties was perfunctory, a far cry from the elegant schmoozing he received so often at balls. It was as if she were executing them from a script, a prescribed list of actions—and one with a gaping hole missing. Ric cleared his throat. “And you are…?” he asked politely. He was charm incarnate now that he was meeting someone new; less the foul-mouthed, colloquial soldier that crept out from his noble upbringing amongst friends and loved ones. Each blink of her brown eyes seemed deliberately slow. Around her, Cecilia could notice people were losing interest. She felt relief come over her as they went back to their original center of their interest - the hole - and each other. She felt safer and more secure lost in the multitude, though she could feel eyes still sticking to her in - harmless - curiosity. But it felt like pinpricks in her neck to her, their gazes warm and gently suffocating, like pressing a pillow over her face. “Cecilia,” she said. She was not looking at him; her eyes focused over his shoulder, away. That was her habit. “Do you need a last name?” Her tone was genuine, smoothing over the abruptness of her question. “Nah, I guess not. Especially if you’re disinclined to give it.” He gave Cecilia what he hoped was a reassuring smile, before following her gaze to glance over his shoulder. Finding nothing of interest, Rictor looked back at the blonde, still slightly taken aback. In trying to find his footing in this slippery conversation (rocks skittering out from underfoot, so to speak), he found there was something oddly familiar about it. He wondered, briefly, what that might be. (Siri. It was Siri.) “You’re not from around here, are you?” Ric asked, seizing his own abrupt question. She felt the corners of her mouth tilt upwards into a small smile when he looked over his shoulder. Her gaze focused back on him, allowing her eyes to meet his like matching crosshairs. Despite the rank of Korporal - and she was not familiar with the positions used in the Fighters’ Guild, had never been interested enough to remember or look it up - he did not seem the kind of man whose dealing with the law could be heavyhanded. He had not scolded her, after all. “No, I’m not. What gave it away?” It was a surprisingly calm, mundane conversation, considering what had happened minutes before and the bubbling excitement and babble around them. The knight still seemed to be waiting for the girl to look and sound more surprised or even startled by her near-fall; perhaps the lack of reaction was shock, but he was increasingly starting to consider the fact that it wasn’t. There were stranger ways of meeting someone, but this one was certainly up there. “You just reminded me of another out-of-town mage, is all. And possibly the surname issue. Plus, I’ve been around for a few years but don’t think I’ve ever seen you around.” His standing—in both noble matters and religious—meant he knew many people by name and acquaintance if not intimately, seeing them around the shops or at gatherings or at church. And much as Rictor hated to admit it, being connected to Aspel Cassul also carried a certain cachet within this city. But Cecilia hadn’t batted an eye at the surname, had given no glimmer of recognition. “I have no problem giving my surname,” Cecilia replied. “But you didn’t know if it was needed.” He cocked his head. “I didn’t know if you wanted to know,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.” “Ah. Then my apologies. I made an assumption, took a gamble.” Ric’s face tugged into another smile, mildly bewildered as he was. “But you are new to these parts, then.” “I am,” she said and did not offer more to say. She did, however, allow her gaze to settle on his face - clearly she had no issue with him noticing that she was staring. Taking his appearance into account, or memorizing it, or just clearly becoming conscious of him - whatever fogginess had been in their interaction was being cleared away. She spoke again, slowly, “Do you know the way from here back to the Mages’ Tower? I’m not familiar with the streets in this district.” “Aye, I do. And I’m on my way to the edge of the district anyway, if you need some escorting. Make sure you don’t fall down any more bottomless pits.” It was a wry joke, an attempt to elicit some sort of response (one thing always held true: give Rictor an impassive wall and he would knock himself against it). So he started walking, gently leading the way and weaving through the stragglers in the park; Ric always paused and waited enough to ensure Cecilia kept up by his side, however, rather than lag behind like some wayward duckling. “Welcome to Emillion, then. And so where do you hail from, if you don’t mind my asking?” He thought he could detect a slight Ordalian undercurrent, but it was faint enough that the man shied away from making another assumption. Her steps, though smaller in distance, were quick, so she kept up with Rictor as best as she could. Occasionally, her head would slowly turn, attention snagged - she kept her eyes focused on the objects of her attention until she was forced to rip her gaze away and face forward. Little things: a stray cat curled around a watering can. A woman selling flowers. A child peeking out of a shuttered window. “Just a small town,” she said, “near the border. In Ordalia, technically. You can hear my accent, can’t you?” As with all things, she didn’t see the point of beating around the bush unless necessary - certain topics she had learned were taboo. But the things that weren’t, she didn’t have the inclination to play coy about it. She continued, “You seem very interested in the fact I’m not from around here. What about you?” Rictor was facing away when she said it, so the small chuckle went directed to a nearby street cart rather than the mage. Caught out on his tendency to harangue, to drag out others’ personal details by sheer persistence like a dog worrying a bone. “I’m not, either,” Ric said by way of explanation. “Kerwon born and bred, and I spent some ten years in Reinberg.” The region capital, a bustling southern hub: his own accent came out harder when he spoke the name of the city, with its rolling R’s and clipped consonants. “Apologies if I pried. I tend to.” “I don’t mind.” She didn’t, so long as he didn’t go snooping too deeply. What was appropriate in Tarlev was not always appropriate outside of it - she had learned so much from observation, though she couldn’t claim to understand it. But asking about that in itself was another taboo subject as well. Normally there would be some sort of follow-up question. What was Kerwon like? or a statement like, I have never been there. But instead, Cecilia just let the conversation lull into silence, seemingly unaware that it had. Or perhaps just simply disinterested, though she kept occasionally glancing at Rictor as if she might say something. She did not. He felt those glances crawling over his shoulder-blades, catching sight of them out of the corner of his eye, and he filed the detail away. (Was she shy? Or just another one of the tower’s dazed scholars, head too far in the clouds and lodged in the books?) The Korporal was accustomed to navigating such silences, instinctively filling them up himself with aimless chatter—but this time Rictor let it happen, sinking in like a particularly scratchy cloak although Cecilia seemed unbothered by it. It was an interesting enough diversion, but he had other places to be, people to see, other blondes (familial and not) meriting his attention. So in that not-entirely-comfortable silence, they turned another corner in the streets and came into view of the familiar spire of the Mages Tower—only the Grande Cathedral matched it in size and scale. Cecilia felt comforted by the way it cut up across the tops of the buildings, sticking up like a hand out of a crowd. Ari had told her that she would never get lost getting home, so long as Cecilia could see the top of that spire. With it in view, she knew it was simply a matter now of navigating the few streets left so she could go in and do her research like a good, proper mage should. She would probably not mention to anyone her little hole excursion nor the knight who had kindly escorted her home. He was the first one to speak, Cecilia turning towards him automatically. “There you go,” Ric said, as crisp and satisfied as if he were a watchman concluding his duty successfully. “Disaster averted, safely delivered home.” “Thank you,” she said, “I hope the rest of your day goes well.” The words were said with the loose care of a stranger, but he had pricked her interest - she would remember his face. She did not look back as she walked away. |