Title: It's the Least I Can Do...
Author: Ariana Lussier
Disclaimer: The world of Warcraft is not mine, I just play in it once in a while. Although the places, magic and other scene dressing are exclusively Blizzard's work, Kytha and Daerian are my creations. If anyone is feeling sue-happy (and happens to have the legal footing to indulge that childishness), you'd best not look my way. All I have to offer are three small children and a mountain of debts. Trust me, you'd rather have the debts.
Author's note: This story was born of my obsessive need to create a history and backstory for every character I play. Yes, I'm a roleplay nerd; part of why I finally left Silver Hand is because a supposedly roleplay server seemed to have been taken over by pvp nuts. Both girls can be found on Silver Hand, though I must admit I haven't played there in a long time. I am planning on transferring Dare to my current virtual home, though. Mild warning for a bit of gore, and yes, I did take a bit of creative liberty with one of the spells.
Kytha adjusted the plain brown shawl that covered her hair. A few sable strands escaped near her face and she tucked them back in with plump fingers. Her generous figure was contained with a sturdy bodice, which pinched and boosted in all the right places. The skirts of her unbleached linen dress brushed against well-worn boots and a large basket was hooked over one arm. Her apprentice trailed behind her, dressed in a similar fashion, as the two wove their way through the oblivious crowds in the market.
Every merchant, naturally, had the finest wares to offer. Breads and pies and fruits of all kinds were stacked in baskets and on rough wooden tables to tempt passing customers. Another sold beverages ranging from fresh, cool water to dark ale imported from the far away trade center of Ironforge. There were endless displays of dry goods, metalwork, and other items both basic and indulgent. Kytha paused at a graybeard selling spiced meat pies and paid four coppers for two, turning to pass the second pie to the girl that shadowed her.
"Thank you," Daerian said quietly. Her accent was soft, and Kytha could almost identify where it had grown up. Its home was north of Stormwind, she was certain, but not nearly as far to the north as Lordaeron. She held the hot pie gingerly in linen-gloved hands and nibbled it with care, her deep blue eyes watching the crowd. The apprentice seemed quite preoccupied with observing other people, a habit which Kytha approved. All too often, a mage stuck their long nose in a book and never came out again. The world of the arcane was woven into the world of people and animals and bad weather and piles of dung in the road. The mage that couldn't look away from his dusty books and scrolls was going to end up soaked in a storm, or ankle-deep in warm, sticky muck.
Knowledge is one thing, Kytha thought to herself. Experience is something else altogether.
She smiled at the slip of a girl as she bit into her own meat pie. Seasoned gravy spilled out of the golden flaky crust and Kytha quickly leaned forward so nothing dripped on her ample bosom. Old Fagen had a rare touch when it came to spices, and Kytha envied his inventiveness. She could taste the mingled flavor of sage, fireroot, okra and cinnamon - a combination she had never tried and would probably experiment with later. Best not to closely scrutinize the flavor of the meat itself, however; Fagen wasn't a rich baker by any means, and it was entirely likely that in place of beef or pork, the slivers of meat had come from a rat. Or the cat that had failed to catch it.
They had come to the market today to pick up a few staples for the pantry, and to see if the tradesman with odd and rare books had wandered their way again. Kytha gently nudged a curious chicken aside with her foot and licked a dribble of gravy off her thumb. She watched her apprentice observe the crowd, her faded gray eyes examining the girl's initiate robes carefully. The stitching was good, but the cotton had begun to fray where the hem brushed against the dirty cobblestones. It wouldn't do to neglect her student at all, so she quickly finished the meat pie and wiped her hands and mouth with a plain handkerchief. "Dare, love," she said. "We need to go by the tailor's stall to see about getting you a new robe."
At Daerian's questioning look, Kytha nodded towards the frayed hem. The girl looked down and blushed, frowning a little at the state of the thin fabric. Kytha chuckled. Such a thing wouldn't bother her at all, but Daerian was very meticulous about cleanliness and grooming. The small knife at her belt was used more often to carefully trim and shape her nails than it was used in defense. Kytha never questioned the girl about where she had come from or why, but during odd moments like this, when the girl's behavior or mannerisms contrasted with the tapestry of peasants they normally mingled with, the mage grew quite curious about her apprentice's past. "If you please," Daerian said, "I would very much like that."
And so polite too! Kytha's mother had been a mercenary sailor and taught her daughter every inventive curse in four trade tongues. The very day she'd adopted Daerian - no family name, conspicuously enough - Kytha had been cutting leeks and had sliced a shallow cut along the meaty part of her palm. Her immediate exclamation had shocked the poor girl into speechlessness.
No family name implied the girl was a serf, or perhaps a jumped-up peasant. A runaway serf was believable, as most people took the troubles the world offered in abundance and inflicted that misery on those beneath them, but not likely. By Dare's apparent age of fifteen, a serf girl would have obvious work calluses on her hands and already be breeding. Her apprentice was still girlishly slender and her hands were soft and smooth under her gloves. When combined with her automatic manners and fixation on personal appearance, the sum of the equation was likely nobility.
Kytha had figured this out within a week of taking the child under her arcane wing. At first, she'd just offered a meal to the frightened stray, but once in Kytha's cottage, the girl had stared at the books on high shelves with a hunger that rivaled any starving wolves. The mage had let the girl read one of the tomes on herbalism - nothing that had eldritch writing or bespelled words in it, heavens no - and when next she glanced at Daerian, the girl had one of the apprentice primers in front of her and was silently sounding out the words to the first cantrip.
Snatching the book away had been a moot point. Since the book didn't explode, nor did the girl's head, Kytha sighed and decided to see just how good a pupil her chance find could be. In seven months, she was not in the least disappointed. Daerian nibbled away about half of her meat pie, wrapping the rest of it carefully in another handkerchief before placing it in the basket Kytha carried. Her golden hair was covered with a similar shawl as Kytha's, the long tresses barely visible under the shawl's edge trailing down her back. Kytha had given her an initiate robe that she'd had locked in a storage chest, and while it fit well enough, the muted brick tone was unflattering against Dare's fair complexion. Kytha hoped the tailor had a choice of robe colors.
As they moved down the line of vendors, Daerian's attention returned to the merchants' wares, while Kytha's migrated back to the crowd thronging the market. She caught a glimpse of the book merchant across the square and gave the man an enthusiastic nod when she caught his eye. He smiled and nodded, understanding that she would be over to pick over his inventory soon.
She and Daerian both had to cover their faces with handkerchiefs as they passed the butcher's stand. The short, stocky dwarf had his own shop, but on market day he set up a makeshift stall to fresh-butcher beasts brought to him by farmers. Daerian paled and turned her head away as Gil hacked a quivering haunch from a pig. Behind the stall, in an improvised pen, were three aged sheep past their lambing prime. Kytha made a mental note to return later for mutton.
They hurried past the stench of blood and animal fear, which didn't fade from the air until they passed the potter. The tailor's stall was far enough away that Gil's work didn't intrude on their inspection of robes. Kytha saw the girl look longingly at several expensive robes of runecloth and silk and smiled. "Not yet, love. You need to do a bit of growing before you wear something that fine."
Dare sighed smiled wistfully, giving the beautiful clothes a last, long look before turning to see the linen robes the tailor displayed. Of the four robes fit for an initiate, one was far too big, another too long. The two that were left were just the right size, but one was a horrendous shade of cheese orange. Kytha laughed at the grimace Dare bestowed on it, and pointed to the dark blue one instead. "We'll take that one," she said, smiling at the grateful look on her apprentice's face.
As the tailor folded the robe, Kytha noticed a stoop-shouldered man lingering between the tailor's wares and the pottery vendor. She wouldn't have taken note of him, except that when she turned slightly towards him to fish a few coins out of her beltpouch, the man had quickly turned away. She glanced at his back as he took a great interest in a set of clay plates. Kytha's full lips pressed together and she turned nonchalantly back to the tailor, paying him for Dare's new robe. "Dare, be a good girl and go make sure Veden doesn't sell anything of interest before I get there."
Her apprentice nodded, her happy eyes sparkling almost the same shade as the robe and left to obey. The tailor handed Kytha the bundled robe, which the mage put into her basket. The man to her right had edged closer, and was no longer pretending a lack of interest. "Pardon me, marm," he mumbled, touching a hand to his ratty cap. "I couldn't help but notice what a pretty girl ya got wif' ya."
"My daughter," Kytha said. Her eyes raked the man and every detail seemed to be in place at first glance, but as he spoke, a bit of brown "rot" on his teeth flaked off and stuck to his lip. The muddy gray of his hair had a nearly unnoticeable layer of golden brown where each strand met his scalp. She kept her expression smooth, but inside a chill settled. This man was in disguise, and had some interest in her apprentice? Several spells were considered and discarded as being too showy or useless.
The man's brown eyes blinked, and for a moment the facade slipped as he took in Kytha's dark hair and ruddy features. It settled back into place quickly and he nodded, his head seeming overly large on his thin neck. "Aye. I've a son that's needin' a good wife, an' if she's na spoken fer-"
"She is my daughter," Kytha repeated, her words frosting over. "And quite dear to my heart. I'm afraid I cannot bear the idea of losing her. I'm sorry."
The bumpkin's mask slid aside again, as something in her tone warned him the jig was up. "Yer daughter," he said, his words smoothing and losing their rough, uneducated edges. "Forgive me, marm, but she's not lookin' anything like ya... and perilously close t' lookin' like someone worth findin'."
As he spoke, his large-knuckled hand slid into the opposite sleeve, discreetly drawing out a wicked blade. His eyes grew hard and his simpleton demeanor vanished altogether. Kytha glanced down at the knife, glad for once that the tailor was so easily distracted by another customer.
Part of her wanted to laugh in his face. What kind of idiot brought a knife to a mage-fight? Then she remembered her own clothing was indistinguishable from any other peasant woman's - giving this man no clue that she had command of the arcane. If he didn't know she was a mage, he wouldn't guess Dare to be anything other than her companion, let alone her apprentice. He'd seen the purchase of the robe, true, but the difference between an initiate's robes and flimsy dalliance robes was miniscule enough to fool all but the most discerning observer.
While the idea of dropping a fireball at his feet was attractive, Kytha disliked drawing attention to her powers. There was far too much advantage in being constantly underestimated and disregarded. Besides, such a display would panic the crowd, resulting in many more injuries than she cared to risk. She had to get him away from here, and then she could deal with this threat.
All this flashed through her mind in a matter of moments. She lifted her eyes back up to his, projecting every mote of barely-restrained alarm any woman would feel facing such a ruthless individual. "Please, sir," she said, pitching her voice to just this side of breathy fear. "I meant no offense, I swear it."
There was a touch of suspicion in his eyes, but the fingers on the hilt of the knife relaxed their grip slightly. He nodded once. "Much better, wench. Now, tell me what you know of your "daughter"."
Kytha glanced around furtively, feeling a surge of relief as she spotted Dare crouched next to one of Veden's crates, digging through the books with utter oblivion to anything around her. Kytha looked back at the bounty hunter. "I know she's running from something," she murmured, which was true enough. She just didn't particularly care what, until now. "And she's not the serf she says she is. More'n that, m'lord..." and Kytha looked about again, feigning a mix of wariness and avarice, "...is going to take more silver and fewer ears for me to recall."
The man smirked, evidently used to dealing with greedy snitches. "How much silver?"
Here was the tricky part. Kytha had never had to purchase information, so she had no idea what the "going rate" was, as the merchants would say. Nor did she have any idea what this man already knew, and placing an enormous amount of silver on her supposed knowledge could reveal that she actually had nothing to tell him. She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, and chewed her bottom lip as she "considered" her price. "Twenty silvers, and not a copper less," she finally said.
Her enemy frowned and for a teetering instant, Kytha was sure she'd fogged her ploy. His eyes bored into hers and she held his flat stare for a few moments, before dropping them. "Er... fifteen?" she offered.
She sensed the shift of his mood from deadly to coldly amused. "All right, wench. Walk ahead of me."
Kytha nodded and moved between the tailor's and pottery vendor's stalls, then continued towards a narrow causeway between the butcher's and an abandoned shop. Her boots made soft slapping sounds as the cobblestones gave way to packed earth. His made very little; she had to strain to hear his steps precisely timed with her own. Not as dangerous as some thugs, but he was no amateur either.
Behind Gil's regular place of business, he finally said, "That's far enough." She stopped, her booted heels sinking a little into the softened ground near the pens. Two cows and a pig wandered disinterestedly, sparing her only a brief glance before they returned to their meanderings. The noise and bustle of the marketplace wasn't silenced, but the distance and the buildings now between Kytha and the crowd had muted it to an easily ignored afterthought. "Now, tell me about that girl."
The mage nodded and turned partially towards him, the basket over her right arm shielding her left. "She's a runaway," she said, trying to put together the clues she'd observed into a coherent, and believable, tale. "And a noble," she added, noting the spark of excitement in his expression before he covered it. "
"Her name," he said. "If you say the one I want, I'll see you get a share of the bounty."
She needed a few seconds to focus on her spell. Casting without words was difficult to do, as a mage had to shape the words and inflection precisely within their minds, exactly as the incantation would sound if it were given voice. Some mages never did pick up the trick of precisely "hearing" their own voices in their minds. Kytha wasn't one of them.
"How much is she worth?" she asked, pouring a little more greed into her expression.
"You let me worry about that, wench," he sneered. "She's worth my time, and that's all you need to know."
The imagined susurration of the incantation flowed through her head, bringing with it a heady rush of power as the arcane energies responded to her command. White mist blossomed around her left hand, the vapor freezing as it formed. Her own stare turned to flint as she met his gaze again. "Not worth your life," she said in a low tone.
He blinked, taken off guard by the sudden shift in her demeanor as she dropped her own pretense. Rage flew across his face as understanding struck and his knife-grip shifted for attack.
Kytha flung the basket aside as a fist-sized bullet of ice shot from her hand, hitting the bounty hunter square in the solar plexus. He gagged and fell to one knee, gasping as fingers of cold reached from the point of impact to grasp his body in a freezing hold. He glared at her. "Witch!" he hissed. She bowed mockingly, and he growled and lunged forward, the knife glittering in the sun.
She froze his feet to the ground.
He gave a startled yelp as he pitched forward, his feet encased in icy shackles. Kytha backed away quickly, calling the element of fire to her command. Flames crackled around her hands, drawing his attention back up to her. The look of sheer panic on his face as the fireball formed was almost as intoxicating as the siren song of the flame. Frantically, he began to stab at the ice holding him in place as she released the fiery missile with a barked command.
It was a credit to whatever assassin had trained him, that he didn't scream as his hair and clothes ignited. He beat at the fire licking him with one arm, while still chipping away at the ice clinging to his boots. Kytha smiled grimly at him and released another fireball, almost enjoying the smell of crisping, burning flesh. This rutting sod wanted Dare? Not while Kytha could draw breath to chant. It was a real pity she couldn't afford to draw this out, showing him just how severe a mistake it was to target her apprentice.
By the time he'd worked himself free, his clothes were tattered and smoldering; the skin underneath was reddened and blackened, fused here and there to the remains of his clothes. His face was a grisly mask bearing more resemblance to melted candle wax than a human expression. He turned to run, his lipless mouth parting in a snarl as he fled.
Oh, no you don't, Kytha growled to herself, reaching out to the threads of arcane energy that wove around the world and yanking them to her will. She wound them into a net with mental fingers that were far more slender and nimble than her own fleshy ones. She added only one twist to the spell that her master, Ulric the Unchanging, had taught her. Kytha's mouth curved in a cruel smile as she cast the "net" around her fleeing opponent.
His clothes and flakes of charred skin fell away as curly white wool sprouted. He glanced back at her in terror, his body scrunching itself down into a compact, four-hoofed beast. He opened his mouth, perhaps to finally shout - or scream - and his face darkened, his mouth pushing itself out into a soft black muzzle. The lips parted and a frightened bleat came out.
Kytha kept that same icy smile as she began to walk towards him. He rolled his eyes and trotted away, desperately trying to widen the space between them. The bounty hunter-turned-sheep hurried back towards the marketplace, his tiny black hooves clattering on the cobblestones. He turned his head to glance back at her as he emerged from the alley. Kytha stopped, halfway through the alley, her smirk taking on a new degree of malice when Gil turned and saw the wandering sheep. "Aha! Thought you'd go for a walk, eh?"
The sheep bleated again as the dwarven butcher caught him and looped a leather strap around his neck to pull him back towards the slaughtering stall. Gil handed the strap to his assistant, who dragged the frantic animal over to a small wooden block stained dark red and crimson. Gil spit on his hands and picked up a gore-crusted maul, lifting it high over his squarish head as the assistant pulled on the improvised leash, stretching the sheep's neck to bring its head to the center of the block.
The sheep's eyes rolled wildly, the brown still human against the whites. Kytha blew him a kiss.
With a grunt, Gil brought the maul down, crushing the sheep's skull. Blood and bits of brain matter splashed up, gushing over the block as the body collapsed, twitching.
Ulric had a nasty habit of making his polymorphs permanent. He found it amusing that his enemies be buried as sheep, rather than allowing them to revert to their true forms when death took them. Kytha retrieved her discarded basket, feeling a sense of loss as the arcane energies retreated from her immediate regard. Her master had been as cruel as his method of arcane combat suggested, but not even he would have tolerated anyone that dared threaten one of his students. No mage worth their robes would stand for that.
Kytha tucked her hair back into place as she emerged from the alley beside the butcher shop. Gil glanced up at her with a cheerful grin, "Kytha, lass! Would ye like some fresh mutton?"
She smiled and shook her head as he chopped a leg away from the latest carcass. "Not today, Gil. I'm in the mood for pork pie tonight."
"Suit yerself," he said, nodding to his assistant to wrap a shoulder of pork for the mage. "Where are you off to now?"
"I'm on my way to Veden's cart," Kytha replied with a smile, glancing at the blood-drenched wool as the butcher sliced open the belly. Her smile widened. "Dare's likely decided everything he has is an absolute necessity."
The dwarf chuckled while she paid for the pork shoulder. "Young'uns are like that," he said. "That's why we love 'em. They drive us insane, then turn around and do somethin' cute." He grinned at her, two teeth cracked in past bar brawls. "Will ye be willin' to cook me up an extra pie, lass? Been doing brisk business sellin' mutton, but all these sheep make me hungry fer somethin' else."
She nodded solemnly, her gray eyes twinkling. "Of course," she said with all seriousness. "It's the least I can do for your service."