Legend of Ransera

Khyan was prepared to stalk off as soon as Tiaz was reclaimed, and he made for the door, but paused before reaching it. He didn't turn to face her as she began to speak of her sacrifices. His shoulders lost some of their tension, but he remained still, otherwise. Not softening beyond that.

He considered her position. It sounded as though she had as little as he had, only she'd been suffering for longer. Where today was the first time he'd wanted for connection enough to seek her out, she'd looked for him every day since they'd met. Even during his descent, he had access to little lifelines that seemed abjured from her. He looked at his wrist at the mention of the bracelet, and only after that did he turn to regard her once more.

"I am sorry for your sundry losses. Truly." Khyan replied, "But I am no woodland wolf nor desert jackal." To demonstrate, he blinked and squeezed his eyes shut for a lingering moment. When they opened the whites had gone a greenish yellow and a black, vertical slit bisected each one seeming to add an otherworldly intensity to the gaze he fixed upon Hilana.

"And the serpent is strong in solitude." He bared his teeth and his fangs extended. Unable to completely shut his mouth while they were protruding this way, he spoke with a pronounced lisp as he continued:

"The viper's might is in venom, so mark that my words might drip with the same if I am mishandled." Brusque and impatient as Khyan could be with other humans, he was passing patient when handling animals. He gave them the same deference he might afford an elf of Re'ha. After allowing his words to sit for a moment, he retracted his fangs and blinked his eyes back to their normal array of colours.

After a moment, frozen there, he sighed and trudged back over to the table, taking a seat and grabbing the mead bottle by the neck.

"If I want your advice I shall ask for it." He asserted, lifting the vessel and shaking it a bit to assess how much liquid was left within. "As you asked about what to wear in the Umbrium which- I reiterate- not copper, hm?" He took a gulp of the mead, and offered the bottle back over to Hilana.

"We are at peace again. Drink with me and... Ask me questions before launching into diatribes. Or, you know, do what you want, Domina." He chuckled grimly, "I am but a servus." He tapped his finger against a collar forged of enough precious metal to pay for a domus.

"Thank you." Khyan acknowledged her apology with a nod, and found himself reminded of an old Vastian saying about the hot-headedness of their people.

"The Vastii erupt so that Sorokyn needn't." He let out a sigh and shook off the body tension he'd built up in his ire, "I'm only sorry Tiaz had to see me like that." He was half in jest, but he did cast an earnest, apologetic look toward the python.

He did chuckle at her self-deprecating joke about the pickaxe that complemented his less kind jest. But his fangs were retracted now, and laughter was a 'Sweet Remedy' appropriate to their environs to balm rankled spirits.

"You are kind to say so..." Despite of her emphasis, Khyan seemed sceptical of his worth or his potential to emerge from his current situation. It might improve somewhat, it might worsen a great deal, but he couldn't fathom the wheel turning so far that he found himself as high as he'd been. Gods, how he wished he'd appreciated how lucky he was while he was still lucky.

"The wheel may turn, but not terribly quickly... At least not here." There was much he loved about their homeland but, steeped in millennial and older traditions, it didn't often course correct within a human lifetime. "It is of Elven make." And elves had longer lives to amend their ways. It seemed especially unlikely that he would find himself exonerated because he'd been sentenced by the Princeps Prætor himself. This hadn't been some lowly, human magistrate whose rulings might be overturned at the whim of the right Re'hyæan. This was the chief justice of the nation.

"Semblance." He confirmed her second guess. "Had I been more focused, I might have taken up with the Sentinels. That might have spared me my fate, but instead I-..." His eyes fell to the bottle of mead, "Well, I did this." And with that, he downed what remained.

“If I can get back here that soon…” Khyan didn’t express any aversion, either overt or subtle, at the notion of feeding rabbits to Tiaz, but he did have to assert the reality that his days were not really his own. The Forum of the Luxium was riskier to both his safety and dignity. He was for more likely to encounter uncomfortable souvenirs from his former life here, to say nothing of the greater likelihood that the eyes of the Argenti were on him so much closer to their demesne.

“I’m the same way with alcohol.” He offered with a chuckle, when it was implied that the way to Tiaz’ heart was through his belly. He’d evinced as much quite recently, having gone straight from mead to amends.

“Well, I wouldn’t say they take anyone per se, but certainly someone of my education and natural arcane talent. If…” And here was the rub, “my life was my own. Cetus does a lot and and already risks his father’s wrath for me. I am rather certain the Consul would not suffer him to release me into the protection of the Vigilia Argenti.” He wrinkled his nose and, indeed, reached for the second bottle after counting to ten.

“I’m nineteen.” He replied, flatly. “What of it?” He narrowed his eyes slightly as he regarded her visage. If she was his elder, he didn’t imagine it was by much. He knew he had a baby face. Likely one of the subtle ways in which his elven ancestry presented itself. His father would have looked young to sire him if he were solely human. He wondered whether he’d have a few extra years tacked on for his heritage. Lately, he wondered whether he’d have even wanted that. If the wheel continues at so leisurely a pace, he might prefer an early demise to extra time in bondage. A thought to drink on, if ever there was one, and drink he did.

“Not so great a toll, that…” Khyan offered his rattling hiss for the snake’s benefit. Hopefully it would aid in Hilana’s conciliatory endeavours, but it did him no harm either way.

He stared blankly for a gravid moment after Hilana punned, then shook his head slowly- pendulously.

“That…” He began, with an air of solemn candour, “…was ghastly.” And with that his countenance broke in laughter.

“If you ever wish to advance in the ranks of your caste, snacks and spirits ready at hand are fundamental- I dare say paramount!” She’d opened the door with her jest, so he didn’t consider himself a hypocrite spewing unsolicited advice.

“Fair enough.” Hilana’s answer satisfied Khyan that she hadn’t been questioning his maturity with her query, and thus his eyes un-narrowed.

“Well, I suppose I was in something of a hurry…” Not that he’d put any exceptional amount of effort into his Craft. Still, he liked to take personal responsibility for his talents- even if they had come to him as second nature.

“I am only a Dryadalis Quartum…” As good as a full-blooded human in the eyes of the elven elite, “There’s no telling whether my Platinum ancestry will offer me additional years, so it seems wise to make the most of my time in the world as if I might be fed to Sacred Mount at any moment. That’s one lesson I learnt of late and hard came that grim education…”

He shuddered,

“Anyway, what else would you know of me? You know my age, my castes present and prior, my magicks, a bit about my family, my drinking habits and you’ve had a taste of my temper. How may I further accelerate our acquaintance?” He smirked, self-satisfied at his own purple prose.

"I did not." Khyan replied, still chortling. "I did not like it." He shook his head.

"Is it?" He considered her talk of the nomadic life the Old Order Vastii practised in distant desert reaches. Subsequently, he blinked at her volley of questions- He might have expected such an abundance of rapid-fire inquiries when he'd opened the door to them.

"I was a Searing baby." Khyan replied, "I rang in 103 Steel by coming into the world on the First of Sundered Rise." He nodded to the second question, "I have indeed tried honey comb. It was often served with the cheese course at supper, and at parties.

"I've spent passing little time outside the city... We have-... er, well I suppose had- it would be our cousins' property, now. But we used to have a villa in Tertium. Not right in the city, but on the outskirts... The heights right along the beach. Founders, I loved that place. Anyway, we always took barges up the Vasta to get there, so even then we didn't really traverse the desert. I'm a city boy through and through..." He tilted his head, "Although, I did train to ride various mounts, so I've seen more of the desert from above than I have from the sands themselves. The view is glorious on wyvern-back, do you ride yourself? You're a member of the equestrian caste, it seems you should at least know your way around a horse or camel..." He nodded,

"I am aware that magpies can imitate speech, though their physiology is so different that I myself have not been able to form words. I'm pretty sure I tried to speak with you the night you found me, but it's a challenging thing to, um... Speak with a beak." Khyan, it seemed, was not above a bit of a pun himself.