:: Murder Clue Eight :: Continuation

the Rift

[PRIVATE] :: Murder Clue Eight :: Continuation

Torleik the Bloodskald Posts: 354

Outcast atk: 4.5 | def: 8.0 | dam: 7.5

Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 11 HP: 66.5 | Buff: SWIFT

Irelyn :: Plain Griffin :: Molten Dagger RedGod

#19

01-18-2015, 11:24 PM

Torleik the Bloodskald

The entropy is pushing me deeper down into the storm

She'd looked up at him, eyes piercing him with their emotion, asking - he thought - for his aid, for him to prove he could come alongside and bolster her instead of abandoning her like he'd unintentionally done once before. So he'd tried. He'd spoken from his heart, releasing the truth he felt in his soul to the vibrations of the air so that others might hear and comprehend.

"HAH!"

The noise was like she'd gagged on something odious, the repugnance of what he felt honor-bound to proffer too great for her constitution to digest; so she retched it back up for all to see. Though Torleik's face remained utterly impassive, like a carved sculpture eternally bound to one visage for the rest of its days, he could not stop his ears from practically becoming one with his skull.

Why.

If she leaned on him, needed him, pleaded him with her fucking eyes, why would she then humiliate him in front of this crowd? His ego, caught unawares and stabbed fiercely like fateful Caesar on those damnable Ides of March, bled and gasped on the cold marble floor of his shame, disappointment, and hardening anger. It seemed, then, that he was to be a silent scaffold for her power; something strong and steady but without voice; a rock upon which to build her foundation of self-decision, immobile, unquestioning, tacitum subsidium.

Willing each millimeter his ears returned to their upright position, the Bloodskald let his glacial gaze frostily cool some unimportant spot in the distance, his hearing vaguely taking in everything everyone else said. Ophelia didn't seem to give two shits about his ideas for fairness; yes, the clues pointed to Gaucho and yes, the overwhelming evidence did lead Torleik to think it was the firewashed brute, but there was still doubt - and that doubt deserved to be explored. Condemning someone for a crime was a serious decision in his homeland and was not taken lightly. A man's reputation was everything.

Reputation and justice did not appear to be woven into the same tapestry in Helovia.

Tinek was tugging on his braids and to be truthful, the snow-dusted rabicano barely noticed until he was apologizing. "S'alright, Tinek," the words murmured distractedly past his lips. He'd chosen to check out of this situation for the time being and he could not come back; not so soon, because if he did, his temper would crack like two icebergs kissing in the night, and lash out like the giant sheets of ice sheared off from that clandestine but thunderous meeting.

Words passed over and through him like wind.

"...court of our peers, as Torleik suggested..."

“We should call the gods, if we can."

"...all of Helovia should have a hand in if it is justice that we seek.”

"...our mob-demands? Our thirst for blood? Eye for an eye?"

An involuntary snort left his muzzle. That was not at all what his tribunal was meant for, but let her bastardize his idea further. After all, who was he to have an opinion?

"...the more voices you involve, the less rational..."

"...the false guise of 'justice', 'honor' and 'gods'."

The Bloodskald's icy facade, so unknowingly similar to the one he hated most here, cracked for a split second and a hoof lifted a fraction and smacked the ground. The false guise of justice, honor and gods? Perhaps the Lady of the Basin was making a vocal admonition of the fallible nature of mortals and their propensity to corrupt everything they touched, but her prior attack on everything he'd said didn't set the stage well for that little performance.

To the warrior's credit, he soldiered through it all and never once pulled his shoulder away from Ophelia's. Let it not be said that he did not support her in this moment; let it not be said he wasn't by her side. So she claimed, as did the other mare on Gaucho's defense team, that they should meet with the gods, and Torleik's stomach churned. That was utterly the last thing he wanted. To see the Sun God, who spurned him when he tried to be reverent; the Moon Goddess, whom he'd pledged himself too and hadn't the faintest idea when or what she'd call on him for; the Time God, who...he banished that thought. Only the Earth God was one he didn't find detestable or threatening. Quietly, he sighed. He had little choice. Ophelia had made hers and he'd been caught in her riptide. Now he was being dragged out to sea.

At least he knew how to swim.

He hoped.

"talk talk talk"

OOC: Offended Torleik is offended.

Art by araxel @ DA