Awakening of the Soul - 1
Sorry for the short prologue.
The wind seemed to cut through her cape as she walked. It wasn't necessarily from any cuts in it though. The material was thin, a dull teal that was frayed at the edges, making it even shorter than it was when she had first bought it some years ago. It still managed to cover the back of her elbows as she walked down the winding road to her destination. But it didn't do much about that wind howling around her, ears and the back of her neck only protected from it by the drawn up hood.
Even though she had taken her pills, had dressed like this, she still felt someone would recognize her as a Claymore. She didn't even have her sword on her and she couldn't get rid of the feeling that her presence in the area wasn't a secret. Hopefully, it was just some young curious yoma instead of the Organization, but then again she had checked if they had been tracking her for the past few days and found no signs of Ermita or a fellow Claymore following her trail. So it had to be her mind playing tricks on her.
Miria checked that the two knives still resided in the 'pockets' of her skirt on both sides of her waist. Feeling the cool metal beneath her fingers was reassuring. Even without her blade the usual yoma she found out on her travels and in villages wouldn't take her long to deal with.
She relaxed when she could see the wall surrounding the town she had been looking for. Not much longer and she would finally have some answers, she hoped.
Her fingers slid her hood further down as she walked, moving to the small pocket attached to the bronze belt wrapped around her waist to retrieve a few more pills and pop them into her mouth. Perhaps she didn't need to take more than usual, but after coming this far she didn't want to be detected by another warrior, regardless if they were out on an assignment or trying to track her. She also needed to keep her eyes from turning back to their silver hue.
It would be a dead giveaway to the villagers what she was if they saw her and they talked without concern of who heard them. If the Organization got wind of her being so far away from her assigned location she would be in trouble. It was simple luck that her next assignment was along the border of her designated area. She could make it there in time if she ran fast enough without having to access her yoki powers.
She glanced down to the dull color of her outfit. It didn't hurt looking like she was just a traveler either. The fabric of the outfit was a cranberry red, except for a thin line of bronze skirting the top of her breasts. The colors were no longer bright enough to draw much attention to herself. Her boots were the same bronze as the belt draped around her waist, metal buckles a darker tint of teal than her cape.
An older woman had stopped her once, mentioning how lovely the outfit must have looked when she first bought it, and she had agreed. She had used it perfectly as a ruse before when dealing with some more experienced yoma in her early days, drawing them out with the appearance of a human woman lost on an old path cutting through forests and along sheer cliffs only to run her blade through them when they came at her. Those days had been so much simpler compared to this.
Miria stopped at the edge of the town just inside the walls as her gaze flickered from one building to the next. She was suppose to meet her contact at a pub. One called, Ume Buranchi.
There it was, further down the street. She walked down the cobblestone road, wishing for the familiar clicking of her metal boots but those were only worn by Claymores. Her presence here was to remain a secret.
As she stood at the door she debated slipping another pill into her mouth and after a second plucked one from the pouch as she opened the door, pushing it past her lips as she entered the building so no one would see her consume the little dark pill.
She walked straight up to the bar, leaning against the wood counter. "Excuse me, but I'm looking for someone."
"Hm?" The bartender turned towards her as he cleaned a out a glass with a cloth. "Our town is pretty small. I should be able to point you in their direction if I can get a name to work with."
"Actually, I had planned to meet with them here, in one of your back rooms."
"Oh. So you were what he was waiting here for the past few weeks?" Few weeks? She supposed she had sent word about wanting to meet up with him that long ago, but she hadn't expected him to come straight here to the meeting location. Hadn't the messenger told him she wouldn't likely be able to make the trip right away? "That explains it. Jivra, get over here."
Miria bit her tongue to stop herself from trying to correct him. If he wanted to believe she was a prostitute of sorts that was his business, and better for her anyway if he assumed as much.
"Yes?" A young woman came over, short black hair wound up in a small bun atop her head.
"Take this woman to the back room of our resident scholar. She has some business with him."
"Of course." Jivra gave a short bow before turning to Miria. "Follow me, please." The walk to the room wasn't particularly long, going around a bend in the establishment to enter a hallway beyond the bar, kitchen, and sitting area. Jivra led her to the third door on the left, opening it after a moment of hesitation. "Excuse me, sir. Your guest has arrived." She slipped into the room after Jivra as the waitress started walking around the room. Her gaze slid to the man though rather than the furniture.
She couldn't see his face at first, just dark strands of hair as he drained a glass of wine held in one hand. The blood red liquid was running down the goblet to disappear between his lips, not a single drop escaping to land on his pale skin. When he set the glass down though and seemed to regard her she just stared from beneath her hood.
He looked younger than she had expected, a lot younger. As if he was only in his young twenties. Was this really the man she had been directed to talk to about the history of this land? The villager she had asked to find a suitable lead for her to talk to had said he was the best scholar he knew. She wasn't entirely sure she should have believed him though. He didn't look old enough to have studied for very long, much less know the information she wanted. If he even had it. She had been expecting an old sage, someone with scrolls and books piled around the room they chose to stay in.
She hadn't spotted a book or even a scroll around the room when she looked around more carefully. This was the last time she trusted her source back in Rivengrad.
Jivra caught her eye as she stood at the chair opposite of the young man, gesturing for her to have a seat. After a moment Miria walked forward to sit down. She might as well after her journey getting here, but she doubted she would find out anything interesting from this 'scholar.' "Would either of you like anything? Food? More drink?"
Her gaze fell to the empty glass he had just set down, she couldn't spot a single drop of liquid in the glass. How much had he been drinking before she even walked in here? Would his speech even be coherent enough for her to distinguish words if he did happen to say something interesting?
"I'll have another glass," his voice came out soft, not slurred, just soft. "A slice of rare steak to go with it would be lovely." His gaze moved up from the glass then, looking straight at her and she very nearly jumped when his eyes seemed to connect with hers. "What about you?"
For a moment she couldn't find it in her power to speak. His eyes... they were like blank slates, a pale blue reflecting the surroundings but... he couldn't possibly see anything, could he? He had to be blind. "I'm not hungry," she managed to make her tongue move, to get the words out.
It was a good thing he couldn't hear her earlier thoughts, but with the way he was 'looking' at her it felt like he was seeing into her very being. As if he could tell that she what she had been thinking. But that was ridiculous. She supposed it was just unnerving her, those eyes of his. "You made quite a trek to come all the way out here to see me. Surely you're the least bit fatigued?"
His question made her glance up sharply, eyes raising but holding his gaze, somehow. The way he had spoken just now... did he know? That she was a Claymore? She supposed it was possible, she had met with her contact both in her Claymore attire and civilian outfits before. It wouldn't be too outlandish to suspect that the contact had told him about her identity, just troublesome. If he knew he couldn't possibly expect her to order something. The woman though... "I'll take a glass of wine and a bowl of fruit, if it's not too much trouble." That should take care of her human appearance to the woman.
"Not at all," Jirva said with a smile as she began to pour wine from a bottle into the scholars' glass. "What sort of wine would you like? We grow the grapes right here and make the wine as well so I can vouch for the quality. As I'm sure this man here can as well." Jirva laughed at her own joke and Miria couldn't help but give a small smile in return, even if the woman wouldn't be able to see it.
"I'll have the same as him, then."
"Excellent."Jirva moved away from the table still holding the bottle of wine, retrieving another glass that she filled to a more normal level than the man's and set her new glass down on the table. "I'll be back with your food in a moment." Jirva set the bottle down in a bucket of ice before it depositing it on the table and then taking her leave.
After a moment she reached up to lower her hood, glancing from her glass of wine to the other one across the table. His was filled to the brim, and she to wonder - yet again - how his speech wasn't slurred. If he was having his glass filled like that and then downing it much in the same manner she had seen him doing so when she first entered the room he had to be nearly drunk, even with the small alcohol content in the drink.
Still... he could know something, but she couldn't imagine if it would be helpful to her cause or not. He wouldn't have seen anything odd himself, but maybe he had heard of something she hadn't given his occupation. Perhaps even though he was young he had good mentors in the subject that were now dead. Maybe that's why she had been told he was the best at his-
"Ah," the small sound made her look back to him quickly. With his condition it seemed even more important to keep eye contact if they were to be talking. "If those pills you took didn't decrease your yoki abilities I would say you should use them more often. The natural color of your eyes is divine."
What? He could see? But how? An operation, perhaps? But... how did someone even go about doing that? It couldn't be possible... No. There had to be an explanation. His eyes must have gotten like that from an accident. If he really had been blind there was no way he could see her. It just wasn't possible...
"Do you usually talk such nonsense?" She was tempted to roll her eyes to further prove her point as she looked back out to the cliffs.
"Nonsense you say?" Even without her gaze on Dae she was sure he wasn't smirking anymore, and for that she felt a rush of satisfaction. She had finally found something to shut him up for the time being. Now he just needed to leave her in peace.
"You can't sense intimacy, and it's even more foolish to think any of us Claymores would know of such a thing. It's as you said just now, our bodies to others are horrendous. No one would want to get close. In fact, they would run away. You're no exception to that rule either, you're just patchwork." Her lips twisted up. That should be enough to get him to leave the area now.
"Heh." Low chuckling came from behind her and with a scowl she turned to look at Dae, who in all honesty looked even more like a monster than when she activated her yoki powers. "Interesting."
"It's a fact. There's nothing interesting about it." Why was he still laughing?
"Not to you, perhaps. But it's very interesting to me. Can you not think of one thing that wouldn't care for the scar?"
She could feel her jaw set at his continued pestering, but she had to force her eyes from narrowing directly at him. "No," the lie fell easily from her lips. "I can't think of one thing that wouldn't care for the scar," even as she said the words she could feel phantom lips pressing against her stomach, against her scar.
So, did you like the different pov for that one scene? Liking the story so far? Let me know :)