Post by Joliette Thorne on Jun 23, 2007 9:16:50 GMT -5
Tenebrae was apparently wandering about at random, the tavern door pushed ajar for a peek in, that aperture closing and re-opening in short order. Stepping inside, after that moment's indecision, the vampiress trod a quiet path toward the bar, a look of resignation melding to her features.
Redhale tips his head to Tenebrae.
Tenebrae acknowledged the man's polite greeting, and in the fog of her former reverie, which draped still about her mind like a flimsy pall, she fancied a moment of familiarity. "'Ello, pet." Her smile was slightly wan. "How've you been?" It was one of those questions you might ask when meeting with a person whose identity you probably should know, but cannot, for the life of you, remember.
Redhale gives Tenebrae a quizzical look as she moves in and out of the tavern, "...Good evening..." He manages to speak with little conviction. "I've been... fine enough. Yourself?"
Tenebrae 's brow furrowed softly. "Oh, busy, thankyou for asking..." Her lips pressed together as she studied him more minutely. "Look, I'm sorry if this appears terribly rude but.. we have met before, have we not?" The woman was clearly discomfited by having to make the admission, but did so with the air of someone becoming used to needing such embarrassing enquiries.
Redhale smiles uncomfortably, "Don't worry, I've been absent a long while... Though, you do seem somewhat different to how I remember you... I'm Redhale..." He trails off again, thinking for a moment, then with a sigh, "Just Redhale."
Tenebrae smiled, her frown abating, and something of an excited flicker firing in her eyes. Her tone was measured, though: "Pleasure, Redhale. Er... remember me, you say?" Her eyes were focussed on him sharply, an almost desperate edge to the gaze.
Redhale looks a little troubled, "Well, not to say I knew you all too well but I do seem to remember you as a little more... lively..." He absently scratches one arm, "You, you don't... Do you remember yourself?"
Tenebrae lowered that keen gaze a second and shook her head. "Oh, no, I remember -myself- for the most part. It's just..." She really had no clue why she felt able to speak a thing to this stranger that folk close to her had been left guessing, but there it was, she supposed. "I just don't remember the same person as everyone else."
Redhale sits back in his seat, interested, "Oh? And who do you remember being? If I may be so bold..." His mouth hangs open for a moment, "And how would such a thing happen?"
Tenebrae 's shoulders shrunk inward a little in a semi-shrug, and she slid to a seat at the bar, pack hefted to the floor with a thud. "Bit of a story, I suppose, but one I'd like to tell, if only to get it a bit clearer in my mind.." Her look was apologetic. "I'll buy you a beer, if you'll spare me the time?"
Redhale shrugs with a slight smile, "I'll spare you the time anyway, I have plenty to spare, and I suppose I do enjoy the odd story. There are less exciting things I'd be doing instead."
Tenebrae paused, as though gathering herself, before sliding a few coins across the bar. "Two beers, Mesthak." There was nothing of a former arrogance, nor ill-will toward the dwarf, who raised brushy eyebrows at her, snorted gently, and fulfilled the order. "Well," said the vampiress, as the bottles were placed on the bar, their corks already pulled. "Perhaps I'll begin with my own introduction." She looked sideways at the man. "They call me... that is, my -name- is... Joliette of the Bloody Wire."
Redhale takes the beverage with thanks, "An interesting name, though I do believe you are known as Tenebrae..." He shakes his head, "I'm sorry, continue, please." He takes a sip from the drink, though not before pulling out a small scrap of paper as if to check something. With all this done he turns his attention back to Tenebrae.
Tenebrae nodded, that troubled look returning to plague smooth features. "That's precisely my problem. I.. don't really have a lot of idea -who- Tenebrae is. Or.. was." She sighed, took a sip of beer. "See, I have a sense of it, and some events and people are crystal clear, in parts. I knew Leo, for example, and how I loved him." She realised she was beginning to ramble, and paused again. "It all started, from what I can piece together, with the news of his death."
Redhale is slightly startled, this being the first he had heard of the man's death, though for lack of knowing him little grief is shown. He waits wordlessly for the continuation of Tene's story, taker a slightly larger drink from his bottle.
Tenebrae observed Redhale's surprise, and raised a hand to wave negation of the natural assumption. "Oh.. no, Leo was not dead, you see. Merely - and sincerely - believed so, by the one who informed... me. I can recall the words, but not the face. Anyway, there was a time when I thought the bats and flowers were whispering to me, and I was mad, I'm sure of it, but turned out Leo was alive, barely, in the desert." That scene, to judge by the sorrowful twist of features set to her face then, was probably one she'd sooner forget. "He is recovered, now. But when I came out of this fugue, things were different to the world I recalled. I wasn't just an urchin on the streets of Vailkrin. People looked at me like... I was -somebody- and I had wealth, beyond my dreams, and..." Her voice lowered to a hushed tone. "... I was a vampire. I almost starved, and went mad again, figuring that bit out." Another quick swig of beer, the dew of it wiped from her lips with the back of a hand. "Last I can recall with any clarity, I was running through Vailkrin with a guard on my heels, after Garath and I had liberated a merchant of his excess jewels. Then, all was grey and there were bats, and little flowers, and all I could see was a great Lion, and knew that he was the reason I lived." Her smile was wan. "I didn't even know his name, right away."
Redhale peeks down the neck of his bottle and decides to finish it off before producing something else to drink from a small bag on the floor next to him, "I'm still a little confused, how can you think you were someone else?" He averts his eyes almost immediately, "I'm sorry, if you want to simply continue you may..." He takes a sip from his new, as yet unidentified drink, the sharp smell wafting from it not quite placeable to you.
Tenebrae shook her head. "But.. I'm not somebody else. I think. I was always Joliette, 'of the Bloody Wire' - it was the title Garath gave me, the last summer of my mortal life, or so I gather." She shifted her eyes sideways a moment. "Because I so deft, with my garrotte, you see. But that is the name I was born with, and carried until... well, I don't remember all that well. But clearly, at some point, I took the name 'Tenebrae', and was not much like myself." She thought about that a moment. "Well, somewhat different, at least." She too drained her bottle to the dregs, and peered to her recovered acquaintance. "Since you knew her.. me... then, I wondered.... would you tell me something about her? I have been too embarrassed to ask anyone."
Bane said to Tenebrae, "You cannot have his corpse."
Tenebrae turned her eyes to drow. "The King of Roads will be very cross with you. Don't fancy your chances." Disregarding him utterly, then, she turned her attention back to Redhale.
.
Bane said to Tenebrae, "Heh, Kasyr said the same thing."
Tenebrae snapped her attention back to Bane, annoyedly. "He was a child. Next, I dare say, you'll meet the King." Clearly wanting no more of the conversation, she sniffed slightly and looked to her companion again.
Bane speaks to Tenebrae again, clearly not caring whether she wanted conversation or not, "I'll tear his soul from his body just like I did Kasyr. Tell your king I will await him, and he too will realize the power of the drow."
Tenebrae laughed softly, though her eyes did not return to the dark elf. "....soul. Haha."
Redhale sighs and drinks still more from his own bottle, perhaps feeling a little unprepared to tell this woman who she was once, "Well, and remember I said I didn't know you..." He stops, "Her? Very well... But I gathered... Tenebrae, to be a proud woman. Somewhat fierce on occasion too. Very intelligent and curious, at least from what I gathered, and very set in her ways." He stops again, knowing there is surely someone else better suited for this task. He takes another swig of drink, "You, she..." He sighs, "Always a pleasure to talk with. And I suppose she was a bit of an adventurer. Again I didn't get to spend much time with her... You... But I'm sure... she had... your fair share of excitement." He repeats his sigh-and-drink. "One thing I do remember clearly was your loyalty and care towards your clan members. It seemed like a nice thing to have. And uuhm..." He trails off, unsure of what the woman really wants to know, offering only a shrug.
Bane tears Ouroboros from its stolen sheathe. The weapon pulsates with a different light, ebon and azure dancing gracefully around its sharp blade, as the one armed drow waves it in front of his face, "This is what is left of Kasyr. And it will be this that tears the life from your King. Tell him what I have said. Let him come seek death."
Tenebrae continued to listen to Redhale, as though Bane had simply.. ceased to exist. Enraptured through the speech, she nodded occasionally - the clan loyalty having been a trait of her former self she'd met with, several times, along wth other clues he'd mentioned. "Sound about right and..." She sighed, softly. "Sounds a lot like me." There was a moment of silence, before she offered, "Another beer, for your trouble?"
Redhale shakes his head and puts up a hand in polite refusal, "It is no trouble, I assure you. I'd rather stick to my own anyway..." With that said he apparantly finishes his sharp beverage with but the slightest cough. "I hope I have been some help. I do still enjoy talking with you, and from what I've seen you are still yourself." He pulls another suspicious drink from his bag and raises it in the same way one might when giving a toast, inclining his head.
Tenebrae smiled her thanks, the words coming after. "I'm very grateful for your candour, Redhale, it has been of more help than you know." She sniffed again, wrinkling the pert tip of her nose. "If I might be so rude.. what is it that you are drinking?" It was a handy shift of topic, the subject prior a weight too heavy to bear long, as though she were some fragile caryatid praying for release of her duty.
Bane grins slightly as Tenebrae ignores him. Slowly he replaces Kasyr's sword in its sheathe and with a simple word of power the archaic assassin vanishes.
Tenebrae rolls her eyes a bit.
Redhale looks to his bottle, "...Home made. Tastes terrible but does what it was made for. One day it'll blind me and I'll regret it but for now it seems to be just fine." He smiles wanly and takes another swig.
Tenebrae pursed her lips briefly. "I see. But.. why drink it, if you know what damage it may do?"
Redhale raises his eyebrows, "Because I enjoy it. My eyes, my health, my life, all is of little matter to me if I can't enjoy it. It makes things better, and I enjoy it." He nods, the matter apparently so simple to him.
Tenebrae frowned again, and her lips parted, possibly to point out the lack of reasoning in his point of view, but did not continue the thought. Rather, she simply smiled. "Well, you have my gratitude, in abundance, for what it is worth." She shifted in her seat, planted her feet to the boards. "I must be going. But I'll be back sometime. Perhaps it'll be your turn, to tell a tale." Her smile was warm as a summer lake before she nodded in return, and turned toward the door.