Feeling extremely out of place in this stone house for living gods, Sy'yll fell back a few steps behind the others and, folding her hands respectfully before her, regarded the alien structure with all the wide-eyed, overwhelmed awe of a small child.
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Sy'yll's customary cool impassivity crumbled for a heartbeat as she passed through the walls of the utterly-foreign temple, and for a moment something---a mixture of sadness and awe, perhaps---crossed her features. Then it faded and she closed the door behind her and hurried for a few steps to catch up with the others.
Gazing briefly up the length of the pillars with a completely blank face, Sy'yll murmured, "Big". Then, a breath later---"Do we simply go in? I do not know the customs of your holy places."
"I would hardly call seeing dead Cryxians an 'encounter'," Sy'yll murmured. "Although I do confess, I most certainly hope to never come any closer to a true encounter than that. Abominations in death... I would not like to see them walking." A light shiver trickled down her spine, and she reached into her pocket for coins as they approached the ferryman, eager to leave this disturbing place behind.
Sy'yll cringed a little internally at this 'love' but, distracted as she was, it was more out of habit than any true sense of dislike. She responded absently to Ashleigh’s inquiry as she hurried to catch up with the two men, tilting her head slightly in his direction but unable to tear her eyes completely away from the gruesome scene behind them. "Yes, I lent my sorcery to the patrols of my shard for some years. There are few better ways to learn one’s profession than in the field, as I am sure you well know."
Sy'yll watched Galbraith's bulky retreating form for a moment, hesitating, and then her eyes darted sideways to Ashleigh. "I do not wish to intrude upon you and yours at the Temple of Morrow; I know you have lost some companions and have business to discuss besides. But do you mind if I accompany you? These matters settle heavily upon the mind. And this woman... the jaw... I would rest better if I were to know the outcome of this business."
Sy'yll saw no particular reason to take the item from Ashleigh's hands again. At his request, she hovered at his elbow for a moment like a pale, grim ghost, studying the mechanical jawbone a second time with more than just her eyes. Her nose crinkled in distaste after a moment and she nodded curtly to the human. "I do not know why I did not notice before. Yes, the item is most definitely magical in nature; more necromancy and a touch of divination as well. Also," she indicates one of the bodies before them with her chin, "you may notice that it is of a far finer quality than the parts on these foul parodies of nature. I wonder if the item was even truly intended for use… although I cannot imagine why it would be designed in such a way that its form would not match its function…” For a moment she thinks, staring at the bodies scarring the ground before them with her lower lip caught gently between her teeth. “When you and yours fought these monstrosities before, did you perhaps encounter a Cryxian of higher rank than the rest of this lot? Some sort of… war leader or… or officer?” she asked.
Sy'yll held the jaw in her ghost-pale hands and turned it slowly over, scrutinizing it from back to front, but it was to no avail; no amount of nip-nibbling, brow-furrowing concentration could reveal its secrets to her. "It is a strange object... I have never seen this language before. As far as I can tell, it does not appear to be magical in nature, but other than that... I simply do not know." She returned it to Ashleigh, feeling somewhat relieved when the strange jaw's cold, metallic weight left her hands. Once again wiped her palms slowly downwards on her thighs, shaking her fingers lightly for an instant afterwards as though to further dislodge an invisible impurity. "I certainly hope one of these Cryxians was carrying a...a spare jawbone. Otherwise, I am not so certain all the assailants are accounted for..." she told the others grimly. Curious, she walked back to the bodies, glancing at the half-men one by one to determine if any had modified themselves with sharp-toothed, metallic jawbones, or if what counted as faces among them were even the proper fit for such a device.
Sy'yll came to stand a few feet away from the other two and crossed her arms as she watched Galbraith inspect the item. "What do you make of it?" she asked, then reached her hand out toward the man-at-arms. "May I? There is some writing there..."
Wiping her hands slowly on her pants as though to rid herself of some physical manifestation of corruption, Sy'yll rose to her feet and shook her head at Claudian. "By far the most interesting thing about the corpses is that they're dead; I have found nothing of import." Looking sidewise at the man and the body by which he sat, she stepped away from the scene toward the guards, clearly preferring their all-too-human company to that of the dead.
"Other than the magical emissions from the engines?" Sy'yll frowned as her eyes raked over the corpses and sighed. "I'm afraid not," she admitted as Mr. Thatcher approached one of the wagons. Watching Galbraith poke and nudge at one of the Cryxian bodies with his weapon, Sy'yll took a deep breath for a moment against her disgust and knelt beside the body which had only moments ago ceased to jerk and shudder. With a light but deft touch, she folded back the edge of abomination's clothing and began searching the body. As she performed a quick inspection, she wondered, Did these Cryxians have wives like other men and women? Children? Or did they value naught but suffering and destruction?
The Nyss elf stood, arms crossed over her chest, coolly studying the failing magic before her. As she witnessed the tremulous necromantic spark in a Cryxian corpse sputter and fade before her eyes she breathed a long sigh of relief, but only after all movement and hints of magic in the creature had stilled did she dispel her own magic and turn her cool gaze to regard Galbraith and Mr. Thatcher. “There yet remain some weak traces of necromancy,” she explained, “but they are thankfully fading. Soon these others”---she gestured at the remaining twitching bodies---“will join their fellows in the true stillness of death. With luck, they will not be able to rise from it anew...”
Listening to Galbraith's conversation with only one ear, Sy’yll frowned at the scene before her. The idea that the twisted things might not bear any hint of magic whatsoever seemed incredulous to her, and so, careful still not to drift too near to any of the Cryxian corpses, she strode closer to the carnage.
Sy’yll had seen bodies before. Nine years of service on the patrols guarding the borders of her people’s lands against foreigners had brought her face to face with death on more than one grim occasion. But there was a vast difference between seeing the slain body of a Nyss comrade or an Iosan trespasser---which, loved or hated, were natural---and resting her eyes upon the perverted mockeries of life scarring the already terrible scene before her. Grimacing as one of the unnatural corpses shuddered and half-rolled into the eviscerated body of a merchant, she took a couple hesitant steps away from the others toward the eerie scene, and tracing a small circle in the air before her eyes with her right hand, uttered a few words in Shyr to allow her to .
Clutching one side of her greatcoat and lifting it slightly as though it were a skirt as she stepped off the ferry, Sy'yll followed Mr. Thatcher onto the dock and paused for a moment behind him to straighten her garments and readjust the claymore at her back. She waited patiently for Galbraith to join them, lost for a moment in the dark labyrinth of her own thoughts. Images of charred Cryxian bodies rising from the ashes of their death-pyres to skulk off into shadows or twist the minds of good, loyal men flitted through her mind. Mr. Thatcher was right; magic was magic, but in the hands of the corrupt... A small shiver that had nothing to do with the night air passed through her waifish form like a wave and to end the trail of her dark thoughts, she turned her attention to the stern, young human guard. "Have the bodies of the Cryxians all been accounted for and then thoroughly destroyed?"
The rise of one slender eyebrow in Mr. Thatcher's direction was the Nyss' only response to the request for credentials.
Disgusted blue eyes followed the arc of viscious fluid from the hulking human's lips to the sidewalk, where it came to rest, glistening in the dim glow of the street light. The Nyss flicked the bottom of her greatcoat sharply to prevent its hem from sliding through the glob and took the smallest of steps away from her lumbering companion. She tore her attention back to Ashleigh. "You saw all of these Cryxians die? Every last one? And did you say that you watched as all of the bodies were consumed by flame?"
Pulling her claymore over her shoulder and tugging her long black hair out from under the weight its strap, Sy'yll trailed a half step behind the others. "Mr. Thatcher," she asked as they passed beyond the doorway and out into the night, "Where was it that you encountered these Cryxians, and how long ago?" She walked quickly for a moment to catch up to the other two and fell into step next to Galbraith. The large man's odor was strong and sour, not unlike that of a good deal of the Rusty Jack's patrons, and the Nyss breathed lightly through her mouth. At the moment, she trusted the scarred man-at-arms a far cry better than she trusted the smooth-talking Ashleigh Thatcher, foul scent and all.
Gazing after the woman's retreating hulk, Sy'yll sighed, then turned to regard the others with her unfathomable blue gaze. She nodded curtly to Mr. Thatcher and Galbraith and tilted her chin toward the door. "Shall we, then? The night grows ever shorter."
Sy'yll turned over her shoulder as she joined Galbraith and Mr. Thatcher and raised an eyebrow at Yfel. "Do you wish to come? Or are you going to retire to our room for this evening?"
Sy'yll nodded slowly and thoughtfully. "You are right. The pure sounds of the Shyr language are, at times, difficult for foreigners to pronounce. I once heard it said that there is a fundamental difference between the anatomical mechanisms of a Human's and a Nyss's capacity for speech. That being said... my name is Sy'yll Abidne." She drew out her name ever-so-slightly for his benefit, pronouncing it Sigh-yill Ah-bead-neh.
Sy'yll gaped at Galbraith for a moment. "Wait... what, now?" she asked incredulously, thinking suddenly of the comforts of bed and what was assuredly about to become the lack thereof. But the hulking man had already turned away toward the door before she could frame more than this stuttering protest, and Mr. Thatcher was asking her for her name... again. Sy'yll chuckled to hide her irritation that he'd already forgotten and began reluctantly to gather her belongings. "But Mr. Thatcher, I already told you my name!"
"I..." Sy'yll's eyes cut sideways to Yfel, whose face at this point was positively beet red with anger. The elf paused awkwardly for a moment, unsure why, precisely, Yfel was suddenly infuriated. Was it the ugly man's suggestion that they join in on this madness? The manner in which he had communicated his suggestion? The mere fact that he had dared speak to Sy'yll's rough companion at all? Sy'yll wasn't particularly sure what Yfel was suddenly feeling so murderous about, and frankly, she wasn't entirely positive she cared at the moment. At this particular moment, the idea of making sure that these Cryxians were now gone before she decided to stay in Corvis another day seemed important than the large woman's unfathomable, rough-cut sensibilities. Offering up a silent prayer to Nyssor that Yfel's anger wouldn't find its release through the burial of an axe in her delicate Nyss head, Sy'yll nodded to Galbraith. “Yes, I for one will accompany you. If I am to remain in this place any longer than strictly necessary, I would prefer to verify for myself that the Cryxian threat is over.”
“You ask nearly as many questions as the esteemed ‘small one’ himself,” Sy’yll rebukes jestingly, but is scrutinizing Ashleigh as she speaks. “I do not believe the prying Mr. Thatcher is happy, to tell you the truth. Knowledge that the Cryxian presence here is at least partially the fault of his fellows---and then having the blame levied upon him by this pompous military man---cannot possibly bring joy to his petty little heart. At least I should hope not; he is an infernally irritating individual but I did not get the impression that he is of a poor character. However, that rather indolent smile appears as though it is just begging to be knocked off his face by this Colonel Graves, deservingly or not! “As for whether or not Mr. Thatcher and Ms. Applebury are... mating... to be honest I have not thought on it and would prefer not to. The notion of humans engaging in their sexual practices…” She shivered lightly and a look of utter disgust crossed her face.
"At least this should, in theory, encourage him to focus his attention elsewhere than upon our rather fascinating and outlandish personages," Sy'yll comments lowly, rolling her eyes at that last. She sips her ale once again and then continues contemplatively. "Still... although I am certainly weary, I am suddenly not so very eager to retire. I must confess myself curious as to how this petty human drama shall play out. Go if you must, then, but stay if you will; I would appreciate the company of one who is of a like mind and hear what your thoughts on this spectacle are."
When the Cygnaran officer thrust his way through the tavern door and straight across the inn into the face of Mr. Thatcher's companion, the strained smile on Sy'yll's face finally melted away entirely, to be replaced by curiosity rapidly followed by mild annoyance and then outright apprehension. Terrified when the gun came out that this situation was going to erupt into violence, she backed up a half step from where she'd been leaning with her hands on the table a moment before, ready to listen to Brianne, and glanced sideways at her claymore where it rested now, upright, against the wall in the corner. However, when it gradually became apparent that, between Mr. Thatcher's diplomacy and Galbraith's menacing-yet-righteous mien, that lives would likely not be lost this night, she stepped yet further back away from the table and into the relative obscurity of the shadows crouching in the corner and, with a gentle tug on Yfel's sleeve, drew the other woman back toward her. Speaking in Khadoran, she inquired in an undertone, "These men---knowingly or unknowingly---provide harbor and transport for Cryxian necromancers? Perhaps, my friend, this is not the kind of company we wish to keep." Her eyes, when she glanced sideways toward Ashleigh Thatcher and his friends, were narrowed slightly in suspicion.
It took every last drop of self-control Sy'yll possessed to keep her face from falling when the excitable human, this "Ashleigh Thatcher", invited the enormous, ugly man-at-arms to join their conversation. Although at first she couldn't help but resent the intrusion of the overwhelmingly jubilant Ashleigh into her quiet and weary evening, at least he was a cheerful, interesting sort of individual. The sullen, towering lump of scars that had the audacity to call himself a person, on the other hand, did not appear to be anything even remotely close to pleasant company. What had that man done to himself, to become marked so? Her smile felt a little strained as she nodded her head in acknowledgement of Ashleigh's introductions. "Well met, Ashleigh Thatcher." She inclined her head toward the other Jackals. "Brianne Applebury and Sir Faro Degrata, it is good to meet you as well. And you also... Galbraith. Please, do join our table. There is ample room for all of us and Yfel and I would love to have you, for we have had little company beyond one another for nigh on three weeks now and it would do us both well to see some new faces and hear new stories. Perhaps Ms. Applebury would be so kind as to grace us with a song? My name is Sy'yll Abidne, by the way, and I too am a student of the arcane arts, Mr. Thatcher. Now please, if you would be so kind... why is it that you refer to yourself and your esteemed company as the Jackal's Grin?"
"Why not this city?" Sy'yll replies with a raised eyebrow. "I do not have anywhere in particular to go, and so... here I am..." She pauses, for the man seems to be fairly distracted, seeming to listen to her with only one ear while eavesdropping on the conversation of the ugly human at the bar. Sy'yll sighs quietly and waits for his eyes to return to her, hands folded before her on the rough tabletop, the perfect picture of patience. When he finally deigns to swing his gaze and his attention back to his tablemates she continues. "But tell me, Goodsir I-Did-Not-Catch-Your-Name, what is it this most valorous of men speaks of?" Her eyes flicker briefly toward the scarred man-at-arms and she allows no hint of distaste to leak into her smooth voice. "What precisely are 'Strangelight folk' and why would anyone wish to abduct them?" She takes a sip of her ale and grimaces only slightly as she swallows.
Sy'yll answers with playful sarcasm. "Not from Corvis? Us? However did you reach that conclusion?" She lazily points a slender finger at herself. "I am Nyss, as I am sure you have noticed. Born and raised among my own people far from this place. And she..." She raises an eyebrow at Yfel. "She I picked up along the way. Her history is her own, and I leave her to tell it---or sign it!---as she so chooses."
Frowning, Sy'yll regards Yfel for a heartbeat, struggling to determine how best to explain the joke. Finally, she decides not to. "That was, er... a joke, Yfel. A jest." She repeats the word in Kedoran and laughs softly. "Nevermind my friend, it is not important." She turns away from her companion and fixes the newcomer with a steady gaze. "I believe you spoke of ale, good sir."
Glancing in towering dismay from Yfel to the newcomer, Sy'yll struggles to keep her pleasant smile on her face. It seems she is forced, by virtue of her ability to communicate in any manner that makes a modicum of sense and Yfel's decided lack thereof, to serve as a sort of intermediary between her outlandish friend and this unfortunately very social man. After all, it's clear the newcomer isn't simply going to go away and it certainly wouldn't be fair to leave Yfel alone with him. "You'll have to forgive my companion," Sy'yll says, with an affectionate smile at Yfel. "Cygnaran is not her mother-tongue. You will find that she communicates very well with her hands, however." She glances down at the other woman's axe. "And with that, though in an entirely different way. Yfel's prowess in battle is unequaled by anyone I have had the good---or poor---fortune of witnessing during my life." Her smile widens slyly and she lays a hand on Yfel’s shoulder and winks conspiratorially at the man. “One day she shall make some lucky man a very fine wife.” She gestures toward the table. "Please, take a seat," she invites him, noticing wryly that he's more-or-less already invited himself. She removes her claymore from the seat of the chair he has marked his own and leans it against the wall so that he might have a place to sit.
Sy'yll couldn't help but notice the heavy gaze of yet another of the Rusty Jack's curious patrons. This one, however, didn't seem to have any intention of going away, but instead stood there with what she felt must surely be a mocking---or worse, acceptance-seeking---expression upon his face, as though waiting for her to deign to notice him. She tried to ignore him, glaring first at the map stretched out before her, then at Yfel, then into her half-eaten sandwich. She scowled and chewed, hoping he'd see she was busy and uninterested in his company, but still he stood there, waiting. Finally, she swallowed the last dry bite of her sandwich and gave up. If you can't beat them... she thought, rising from her stool and emerging from behind Yfel with a polite smile on her face. "Hello," she offered in her dulcet, sibilant Cygnaran, folding her hands before her and lacing her fingers together. She stopped a cautious distance away from him, worried that he might be yet another of the grasping types so many humans seemed to become when intoxicated. "How are you this evening?"
The dour-looking elf cannot help but laugh at her companion's antics, but she grasps the other’s wrist nervously, as though expecting to pull Yfel’s meaty, axe-wielding arm down. Her slender fingers are unable to completely circle the wrist and the massive arm does not go anywhere, but Sy’yll doesn’t seem to notice. "No no," she chuckles dryly with a cautious sideways glance about the tavern. "Although most here would not like to test you, that one" --- she juts her chin toward the lounging scarred man --- "would quite possibly give you a scar or two to match his own! Let us finish our meal---in peace for once!---and retire for the night. Here." She releases Yfel’s arm and grabs her own untouched beer by the handle, pulling it across the table toward her companion with two clean, trimmed finger tips. "Nurse that for a while, and I’ll attempt to derive something akin to nourishment from this... unpalatable slop." Her expression is grim as the grave indeed as she bites into her own somewhat-stale sandwich and begins to chew unenthusiastically.
It has been a long, exhausting day, and Sy’yll simply isn’t in the mood to endure the wide-eyed, prying stares of the humans around her, let alone to try and ease their discomfort with her usual pleasant but guarded smiles and kind words. Placing both of her long, deathly-pale hands on the map before her, she leans forward to speak to her formidable companion, allowing her long raven hair to shield her irritated expression from casual view. “The endless, insatiable curiosity of your kind never ceases to amaze me,” she hisses in quiet, slightly lilting Kedoran. “Have your negligent mothers not taught you that it is rude to stare? What is it these troglodytes expect to see? Shall I try to strangle this overly-stuffy place with ice, just to satisfy their ridiculous, primitive fears of that which is different?” Her fingers drum a testy, impatient rhythm on the worn map as she speaks, but when she is done she takes a deep calming breath and abruptly relaxes. She feels a little better at having gotten that bit of bile and venom out of her system, and so long as she doesn’t overdo it with her unsympathetic estimations of human kind, she doesn’t feel the need to fear the heavy axe of the large woman before her. Yfel has put up with the Nyss’ prejudices for over two weeks and still hasn’t sundered the elf in half… yet. Still though, Sy’yll knows it doesn’t do to offend the large woman. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that Yfel is just as human as the subjects of Sy’yll’s rants. Even if the two women’s cultures do share a surface similarity that allows for a surprisingly easy ability to identify with one another, Yfel cannot possibly appreciate her companion’s constant criticism of human kind. And so, feeling somewhat guilty, Sy’yll sucks in another calming breath and attempts to grasp after the last unraveling threads of civility. “Forgive me, Yfel,” she sighs. “As usual, I’ve allowed my tongue to run away and have become guilty of the same lack of courtesy as those I accuse. It’s just been a long day and I’m tired. Let us get back to the task at hand, then, and then go to bed. Here--” She stretches her thin torso across the table and places her finger on a spot in the upper part of the map-- “is where we are. That says ‘Rusty Jack’, O Illiterate One. And here---“ She indicates the Quad, “is where we probably need to go to repair your armor and purchase my scrolls. We can venture that way tomorrow morning… unless, human, you feel it is pressing that we do so this evening?” She fixes the formidable woman across from her with a sleepy dark-blue gaze.
Btw, considering this seems to be the ONLY fair-skinned, black-haired, female elf icon out there... meet Sy'yll. :) I think she's fairly appropriate to the character... yep, works for me! |