Thread: Darkness and light (LeatrixSage and Silver Star)

Oh, so you are, then? Liora was genuinely surprised when the priest stood up and began to walk around the table, and she swiveled where she sat to follow his progress. Hes just going to try to fight you, too. Eventually her back was to the table and she leaned back against it while the priest kneeled beside the man to examine his wound. The Drow sneered at his back while he apologized to the drunk and then lectured him for how he had spoken to her. It seemed like such a silly waste of energy to try and teach the drunken wretch anything, particularly while she was staring down his twitchy friends a few tables over. While the priest worked, Liora gave them a wink and a little kiss, enjoying the way their pale faces turned bright red with anger or shame, or became even flatly whiter with fear, as one did before falling from his seat. The useless threats from the drunk brought the Drows attention back down to the pair by her feet. For not the first time, she thought that if human men spent more time at the feet of their women, their entire race would know a happier existence. Just as she had predicted, however, the drunk reached up to try to throttle the priest, still trying to fight despite his injury because the man was just that stupid. She was about to kick the man in the head when the priest looked back to her to wave her off. Rolling her eyes, she waved a hand at the drunk, motioning for the priest to get on with it, and then snatched her bowl to get up and ladle herself some more of the stew. As she came back, the priest had freed his neck from the drunkards grip and ripped the mans pants to get to the clean, round wound her stiletto dagger had created. Curiosity kept her interest enough that she kept an eye on the priest while she ate. Liora had seen many versions of healers among humanity, and they were limited in comparison to her own people. More often than naught, they had the strange idea that if they prayed and stuffed some common cooking herbs into the wound, the healing would be miraculous. Most ended up losing whatever limb they were trying to save, and most often, their lives as well. She was trying to decide which herb she thought the priest might be partial to when he began to pray and a soft faer light blossomed beneath his hands. Liora stiffened at the clean scent of ozone that sparked from the use of faer, or what humans called magic , and glared at the back of the priest as he worked. His prayer worked like chant, directing his energy to his goal much like a mage or wizard, despite how rare their ilk was on the surface. Her eyes narrowed on his back as she set her bowl down once more. It wasnt some god that reached down and healed the drunk, it was Aelir himself, and she was betting he had no idea how he was used and manipulated by the faith that had gotten their hands on him to support the existence of their God. She watched silently as the priest helped the drunkard to his feet with a sense of resentment that only grew as the drunk muttered an apology before he tottled back to the small bunch of men that had been watching the proceedings. Lioras bright red eyes jumped back to the priest as he swept his sleeve across his forehead, noticing the physical cost of his actions for the first time. It reinforced her assumption that the man was actually a mage of some kind that had been taught to use his gifts as if they were the actions or gifts of a God instead of his own, naturally talents. When he sat down next to her, instead of across from her, Liora nearly pulled away from him. She was not stager to faer, she used it herself from time to time, but she had a distaste the habitual user that made her uneasy about the priest. It was only by dent of will that she remained where she was in spite of her discomfort. While he made pointless apologizes about how he might behave sharing a room with a woman, Liora was watching the man he had healed and his companions while they gathered up their little party and began to stagger their way upstairs. Without the rowdy group, the Inn began to quiet to a dull, murmuring roar of polite conversation. A bard took up position by the hearth and started a little song about some yellow-haired woman, and a general calm replaced the tension of before. It was disconcerting how quickly the shift took place, and far from what Liora would have wanted. It reflected the fact that she was uncomfortable with calm, and far more at home in violence, and she resented the priest for curtailing what could have been a decent outlet for her stress over the situation she found herself in. It wasnt a miscommunication, Liora told the priest as she stood from the table. Iblith, it means shite, or excrement, and he was right, I was calling you shit the whole time because all humans are shit. The Drow patted the priest on the back before she began to walk away. I think youre safe enough. When you finish eating, our room is on the second floor. Leave the bowls on the table. With that, Liora walked away, still chomping at the bit for a proper fight but finding not a single taker as she made her way to the stairs. All eyes avoided her gaze, and her mood was turning dark when she was left with nothing better to do than to retire to their room. She left to door ajar for the priest to find his way and crossed the small space to drop her small collection of belongings on the straw bed. The last time she had slept in the inn she had found their beds were at least free from lice even if they werent the most comfortable, so she didnt worry about unrolling her own blanket over the worn sheets already on the bed. Evening was wearing on, the sun long past the horizon and the sky growing dark outside the rooms small window. The darkness was quite comfortable and familiar to the Drow, so she didnt bother lighting the candle that sat on the window sill, and instead set to unbuckling and unwrapping the layers of leather that served as her armor and dropped it on the floor beside the bed. It left the draw standing in light linen pants and shirt that were damp with her sweat and clinging to her dark skin. The inn didnt have a common bath, or tubs in the rooms, so she knew there was no point to asking, but she longed for hot water and a bar of soap. The best she could do for the time being was to strip the linen off and lay it over the end of the bed to let it dry and crack open the window to let the cool night air in to kiss the sweat off her skin. At least she did not stink so badly as humans, and she was able to find some comfort as she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled one of her twin blades across her lap. She sword was light and slender and slightly curved, but they were not directly twins of each other. The sword of black steel shown with a purple light as she unsheathed it. The back of the black was etched with many crawling spiders whose legs shifted and danced as if they crawled along the blade toward the handle as her fingers passed over it. Its blade ran along the outside of its curve, where as its silver sisters blade ran along the inside of the curve and shown with the light the color of freshly split blood. They had been made for her according to her fathers design before her mother had killed him for giving her a daughter when she had sought a son. Liora had only lived on some inconsequential superstition about Lolths desires. Her mother had promised a male sacrifice, and they had surmised that Lioras father had fulfilled that promise, and Lolth might be insulted by a powerful female baby being wasted. The spider Goddess of the Drow had been her savior, they told her. The only reason she was alive was the will of her Goddess, so she had given everything she was to the treacherous, deadly, and changeable goddess. In turn, Liora had reaped betrayal, and torment, and a list of sin so long that not even hell if such a place existed would have allowed her entry. Liora allowed the memories to rise, and the emotions that came with them. They swirled on the air, and then she let them pass through her as water through sand as she turned her attention to oiling the beautiful, black sword and its crawling, biting spiders until the purple shine shimmered like faer fire.