"No," Jaako agreed with a wolfish grin, "but I really do want to."
There are dignified ways to make an exit--storming out, turning on heel. Walking.
Being bodily thrown is not one of them.
If he wasn't quite so damn scrawny, it wouldn't have been so easy. On a good day, when he hadn't been beaten on the night before by one of the best bladesmen in the known world, Jaako wouldn't have been able to get his hands on him. But it wasn't a particularly good or dignified night, and so it was that Vadim found himself flying through the air after being quite literally hurled by a bear of a man who was already turning back to his drink.
"Tell your Master you're only allowed to hustle a day or two out of the week before we start charging and taking a cut!" The man added over his shoulder as Vadim found himself, rather unexpectedly, hitting a woman rather than cobblestone and sending the both to the ground.
He would.
A scuffle and the cry of a child as she turned a sharp corner had taken Olga off her guard for a split second, if a poorly timed split second. Though she had senses enough to roll a shoulder rather than extend hand to catch herself, weight and momentum conspired against her. Too much momentum to be just an attack -- it was clearly a freefall.
And once on the ground, it only took her another second to recognize the hair, the slightness, the angles of a face --
"Vadim?" Her astigmatic eyes squinted with scrutiny. She was already pushing him off, using the strength of her core and legs.
If she was pushing him off, he was scrambling. It would be her. Of course it would--who else? "Apologies, my Lady, I had hardly meant--you aren't hurt at all?" Once on proper ground, he stood fast enough for him to have to stifle a hiss through his teeth, his spine and side <>aching. Still, he offered her a hand up and and bowed his head, half embarrassed and half to hide the rather unsightly combination of marking he currently sported.
Breathe. It never did to lose one's reserve, especially in error, and he'd yet to determine how grievous this error might be.
Her leather-sheathed hand touched his, but she stood with her own strength, dusting off her shoulder and tugging on her pale braids, making sure all was in place, pigtails woven into a crown from one ear to the other.
For a moment, she looked like she was going to berate him for wasting time debauching himself with liquor and rough company. Then her constant squint softened, and she gestured to the bar.
"Gamorath... She has you brawling?"
Hesitating slightly, he nodded. "Good practice with my fists." Though his voice was dry, there was a slight wetness to his tone only explained when he made a face, held up a hand--give him a moment--and spat a bit of bloody slurry to the ground below.
"Apologies." He managed, wiping his lips before looking back to her and straightening. He was quite a sight, though not all from tonight--the cut across his cheekbone looked fresh, as did the split in his lip, but the heavy bruising at his temple was a bit severe for a bar fight and the force it took to keep his back straight was impressive. "Here and there, my Lady. I take it you are on your rounds?"
The paladin nodded, and gestured Vadim to follow as she set into a stride. Her fingers graced the hilt of her blade absently.
"I remember those days fondly... Though I suppose things were different for me. Killing and brawling are two separate disciplines. I excel at one, and the other...is best left to those gentler than I." A whistful sigh.
Falling in stride behind her, he shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Gamorath suggests that I brawl, I brawl, my Lady. I expect if there was killing to be done, I'd be doing that too, but such things are rarely acceptable for a Squire." The hint that he was gentler than she did not go over his head, but he did let it slide as best he could. There was no point in being upset by it.
"I take it the streets have been quiet?"
"Strangely so," she murmured. They travelled a number of paces in silence. Taverns passed, noises from within swelling and dissipating, lights and faces blurring into a mead-stinking haze.
"...You needn't call me 'Lady'. I am hardly your elder and I am no mentor to you. Soon I will be your shield sister and the houses of our birth will be irrelevant between us."
He walked with a bit of difficulty he tried very hard to conceal. Stiff back, solid posture, even pace--even breathing. "Force of habit, I'm afraid--etiquette does not come naturally to me. What would you have me call you?"
Never mind that she was his senior in the ranks, in age, and the daughter of house Ostrantzalka. She likely even warranted the title. "And are we headed anywhere in particular, my--" He caught himself. "Or are we continuing on your patrol?"
"Ahead a half mile or so, there is a gang called the Bellow Brothers. They have been extorting businesses and killing the owners when they cannot pay. This makes them thieves and murderers," she relayed, calm as fresh frost.
"Tonight I seek to punish a small group of them that meets in an old distillery. Do you wish to aid me?"
Blinking, he nodded swiftly--something to do sounded painfully wonderful after all the time he spent training for doing things. "Certainly. Are they to die, or are we taking prisoners?" His own voice mirrored her calm, but his step became a bit stronger. With something to focus on, it was much easier to ignore the pain.
"Shall we spare their lives and kneel to the laws of Belorien and Thellondel? Let them and their families wait for the executioner's axe?" The road grew darker. "Or shall we act as we would if this was V'ostrantzalka?"
Her question was not rhetorical -- it was a matter of law and logic, a puzzle for the squire to solve.
"I kneel badly, I find." He said simply, shrugging from behind her as he followed. The truth of the matter was that the laws of Belorien--and indeed, those of V'ostrantzalka--mattered dangerously little to him.
"If they deserve death, let them have it."
Olga positively beamed, her pace and blood quickening as her fingers grew fonder on her hilt.
"That makes what we do much easier. Though there will be repercussions. Do you fear them, Vadim? Are you prepared to live in the shadow of courage?"
The real problem with Vadim was that it was never a question of how courageous he was.
"If they need to die, let them." He said once more with a slight shrug. "Should the matter come up with the authorities, I'm sure reason will be seen."
They turned a corner and her footsteps fell silent, silhouetted thugs casting shadows in the light of a barrell smouldering with tinder fueled embers. The meeting of Bellow Brothers numbered four, and they were throwing bottles of ale, hooting and jeering. Utterly ignorant of anything more deadly than themselves.
Olga pulled the squire into an alcove, as intimate as a lover.
"Can you take two? Ladies first or gentlemen?"
The proximity between them was...disconcerting, admittedly. At the same time, he'd gotten a good look at them--drunk hooligans, used to the simple oppression of those willing to use violence on those unable to.
"Yes," he said quietly," two will be simple enough. I can lead the way, if you prefer."
And with that, he stepped back out into the alley and started towards them once more.
Olga watched from the shadows, wondering how long the boy could go without her. Without a shred of envy she wondered just how brave Gamorath's squire was, knowing skinny legs and a pretty face had nothing to do with it. She just wanted to see how he could move with a blade in his hand.
This, really, was what he lived for. An honest battle, for once--so much more than a duel with his father, than a fight with a drunk. As he stepped towards them, he found the corners of his mouth twitching in a slight smile.
"You are the Bellow Brothers, correct?" He said as he drew closer, eyes on the men as he sized them up. Aware, his breath coming easily, his hands calm... perfect. "Quaint."
One hand fell to the pommel of his blade, and if Olga was following him, he didn't much seem to care.
"I've been told that you're murderers, and that you prey on those unable to defend themselves. Is this true?"
A wave of laughter crashed through the lungs of them, one after the other settling into grotesque cackles, thick rib cages heaving and steel sliding from scabards.
"N' who are you? Pretty little Northern shrimp... I oughta put a skirt on you an' -- "
A flicker of the shadows and a spray of blood. Olga was upon him, feet planted in his fat rolls and a hand hooked in his collar before his weapon was drawn. He bucked like a fat, angry ape, but her blade only cut deeper, slipping around his neck as he pulled conveniently against her weight. She fell off the man, and moved just as he stumbled backward and crashed against the wall.
It was surprising, to see her leap from the shadows like that, but in other ways it made things simpler. There was less to talk about now, certainly, and while on the one hand he wasn't positive of their guilt, they had at least implied a willingness to do him harm.
And suggested putting him in a skirt.
With a single, surprisingly fluid motion, his blade was out of it's sheath and buried six inches deep in the diaphragm of the Brother closest to him. If he hadn't ambushed them from the shadows, his technique at least was excellent.
In the fray, one of the slimmer ones had crossed blades with Olga, and she spared with him fairly. He made bold swipes at her, each as easily dodged as the last. She toyed with him, casting weak feints and letting him believe he had the upper hand.
"Pale little bitch," he growled, and in a rush to pin her stuck his sword in the beam of the building behind her. Olga thrust her blade up and under his breastbone, strafing away as his heart burst and his body slumped.
Vadim wasted little time cleaning up--a quick slip and the blade left the man to die. He moved on without watching Olga, tempted though he was, and rounded on the final member of the gang. It was satisfying, somehow, that to do so he had to parry the man's cut to his head. It would be a shame to have caught and dealt with them without even a brief exchange.
Unlike Olga, however, he wasted little time playing with him. It was quick and bloody, as it was meant to be--the man's blade slid off to the side, across his parry, before Vadim stepped in and brought the hilt into his temple with a quick twist of his arm. At the same time he pushed him back against the alley wall with a sharp kick only to pin him there with the tip of his blade to the man's throat.
"I had hoped for more." He admitted, staring to the man with dry eyes. "You mentioned that this was only a few of them, my Lady?"
"Vadim," she said sternly, her heart and breath soaring just beneath her words, not touching them so much as shading them. "You needn't call me that."
Olga approached, and the man's eyes rolled in his head. She was already wiping her blade with a rag. "Spill what light he has left. For the sun over Belorien and the sun over V'ysalka are one. The moon knows and your heart knows."
"Give me a reason not to kill you." Vadim offered the man, motioning for Olga to wait a moment. "Your allies did not. You've one chance."
"M-my son!" gasped the gangster.
"Your son lives in your darkness. Let us purge you and give him to the light." Olga's eyes were stars, burning nightmares in the flickers of the fire.
The man whimpered and begged.
There was a moment as he looked to the man, really looked to him--
He extended his wrist, a single smooth motion, and slipped the length of his blade through the man's neck. He died quickly, at least, and painlessly before he withdrew it and wiped the blood from the blade.