Legend of Ransera

The Umbrium did not favour the young Vinicius Nykara Khyan as much as it did the foreign vampyre embarking upon its silver lit streets for the first time, but it was more familiar to him. Increasingly so.

With a thick, golden collar rounding his slender neck and a simple cream and blue tunic that served as his livery, the Servus was on his way back from the Underforum with a basket on his arm. Covered in cloth, the wicker vessel was heavy with bottles of strong Umbrian red wine. His master’s alcohol budget had needed to go up to help assuage the woes of his current property and former schoolmate. Fortunately for Khyan, Cetus was appeasing to a point that verged on pampering.

Ahead on the street, he saw long blonde hair that would seem to betoken one of the Dryadalis Aureum. At the best of times they’d been his social superiors and so he lowered his eyes as he drew closer, but something pinged about his Aura. Even passively, something broadcast alien elements that betrayed this was no elf at all.

Lifting his dark eyes to regard the man’s face, his mundane senses confirmed what his ætheric ones suggested. He hadn’t the delicate features of a golden elf of Re’ha. He wasn’t unprepossessing, but he wasn’t really pretty after the fashion of an elf. He looked like a human to Khyan’s eyes, but the Rune at his neck told a different story in assessing his Aura.

Once more he lowered his eyes as he passed the odd stranger, drawing his basket a bit closer to his torso and increasing his pace as he made his way through the Sanctine District toward his master’s domus.

A collar of gold was no trivial thing in Solunarium. A tempting thing, though it was, for high-sighted thieves looking to make a quick fortune, it was also a stark warning in a realm where justice was severe. It broadcast that this was an expensive piece of property worthy of being adorned by an expensive accessory. It made perfect sense that a foreigner lacking that context, might take the ensuing scuffle for an attempt to acquire the collar. Indeed, the collar came into it, but lacking knowledge of the local language, the stranger misperceived the scenario playing out before him.

"Fæx..." Khyan muttered to himself, as one of them called out to him. The drunken men who approached Khyan from behind were known to him. He lifted his voice in response, "Salvete, amici."

"Amici tui non sumus, Nykara." The leader of the three replied, sharply, grabbing the belt of Khyan's tunic and causing him to halt. The slave turned sharply to face him, and the larger human tapped his collar with a smirk. "Saltem dominum tuum video te auro ornatum."

"Nonne nimium hac nocte vinum habes?" Khyan wondered, which caused the other man to snarl and raise his voice.

"Noli mihi æqualis servus loqui!" He grabbed Khyan by the collar of his tunic, and drew him close to his face as the others chuckled while flanking him. "Me Dominum vocas!" He demanded with a grim smile. Khyan quivered with rage. These men who had been his lessers were now made his superiors.

"Ut vis, Domine." He said through clenched teeth. "Tamen..." Khyan's lips curled into a grim smile as he parted his teeth and two fangs flicked down suddenly, startling the assailant enough that he released the youth. "Ego sum res Gens Argenti. Rem alienam tangere non debes." The man stepped back, clearly startled by the fang drop.

"Etiam! Quid hoc est?" The lead aggressor took a few hasty steps back from Khyan, to put distance between himself and those teeth. Clearly he hadn't expected that. Remaining tentative, but not ready to retreat the man bore his own, less impressive, teeth in anger. He parted them to speak, when a strange interloper suddenly descended upon them speaking Common.

"Quis est iste cunnus?" The would-be assailant, regarded the apparent peregrinus with disdain, and Khyan looked at him strangely as well. He recognised him as the fellow he'd passed on the street, but he didn't recall having met him before and, being a master of Semblance, he was pretty sure he'd have at least remembered the Aura of the chap.

"Uhh..." The servus looked from the unfamiliar human to the small group of harassers, none of whom seemed to comprehend Common. Khyan knew the language enough to understand what the blonde man was saying. At least the content, if not the intent behind it.

"I, uhh... do no know you." Khyan's Common was broken and very thickly accented. More so than usual, in fact, as he had a bit of a lisp when his fangs were extended. "They no speak Common. You try help me? I theenk I have thees een hand."

The leader of the posse, snarled.

"Quid ais huic peregrino, Nykara?"

"Rogabat directiones." Khyan retorted dryly. "Viam ei dixi ad domum matris tuæ." He added with a fanged smirk. The leader seemed angry, but a few of the others actually laughed at Khyan's jape.

"Eamus modo!" One of the others urged, and the leader grunted angrily, but conceded muttering, "Purus", and backing away. He cast an angry glare to the strange-looking human who'd intruded on their discourse, and then the little party started off away from the pair. Watching them depart for a moment, Khyan then glanced over to the peregrinus.

"Who are you? Why you want get eenvolved?"

Khyan blinked as the stranger's eyes began to glow an unnatural hue. It wasn't odd in Solunarium to enhance features with magic, but this didn't seem to be that or else why would he have done it just now and with such obvious purpose. Unsettled, he took a reflexive step backward. The intensity of his ostensible ire faded, and he turned his no-longer-glowing gaze upon Khyan- the expression becoming more appraising than wrathful.

When the man bared his fangs, Khyan promptly withdrew his own- His teeth returning to the appearance of being perfectly normal.

"Psychologeecal slave?" He knitted his brow, "Where ees your homeland, Peregrinus?" His comprehension of Common was far better than his pronunciation, so he'd gleaned more nuance than the man might have expected. There simply wasn't much cause to practise the language here. It had mostly been reading and he didn't speak it enough to have the grammatical intricacies at the tip of his tongue when he spoke.

Relaxing slightly, and resting back on one heel, he arched an eyebrow. He could Semble that, despite of the man's alien intentions, he was not posing an immediate threat. He glanced down at the offered hand, and hesitated. After a moment's pause, he tucked the handle of the basked under his left arm, before stepping forward and gripping him at the wrist with the right- Which was how Vastii shook saluted one another, as opposed to palm-to-palm as was done elsewhere in the world.

"Salve, Dræfus." He replied, "I am called Khyan." The slave looked the alleged former slave, appraisingly as he withdrew from the greeting.

"Why you come to Solunarium, Dræfus? I see you are, um..." He wasn't sure of the word in Common, "Sanguisor?" Unsure if that was clear, he tried another Vastian term, "Vitalisi?"

Barely perceptible clouds of sliver began to float in Khyan's eyes like the reflections of something he was observing, more than something behind his retinae, as he deepened his scan of the man's Aura. It was immediately noticeable that the man was not a Sembler himself, nor a Mesmer. This much was a relief.

"Zaichær? You are long way from home..." He arched a brow. He'd met a Northerner not long hence, but one from their rival city. It seemed there was in influx of foreigners to coincide with the fall of his house. It was odd. Were he better situated, as he'd been before Lex Agni, he might have been excited at the prospect. Though this man was not like Finn.

"You have friend een Solunarium? Who ees thees friend?" Khyan wondered. His neck tensed ever so slightly beneath the gold collar that rounded it, as he caught a twinge of murderous intent in the stranger's Aura. It was a passing fancy, but it was clear this man was a killer and to so casually brook so pernicious a whim suggested a dangerously unstable personality. He quickly softened his expression toward a smile, as if nothing amiss had revealed itself to his preternatural senses.

"Of course we have Sanguisori. But eet ees not common..." He hesitated a bit at Dreyfus' offer to escort him home.

"Umm..." The notion of spending more time in the company of this mercurially malevolent figure was a daunting one, but based on his assessment it might have been more dangerous to deny him. Volatile personalities could be quick to rage when they perceived a slight, so Khyan reluctantly consented.

"Very well." He hung the basket on his arm, and headed down a street on a westerly course.

"Have you been een Solunarium long? How are you, uhh... staying fed?" It was a delicate question, but it seemed a pertinent one. He was glad they were in public, but the man clearly wished to know where he lived, which was not ideal. Hopefully he was well sated for the nonce.