General Mayhem

[Meldawen]

Eledhe's expression was a study in perfectly mixed emotions. The one half was a laugh desperately trying to be suppressed, and the other was growing discomfort with the decidedly displeased look on Liell's face. He still had his blade out, too.

"Brave enough to take me on or would you like to go hide behind your little boys?"

"Oh, you're asking if I'm brave enough?" Eledhe sneered. "Who has the supposed advantage?"

"Don't expect it'll mean much more than a ruined career when you go back missing a hand or -"

"Don't pester me with empty threats. Oh, I'm not going to be missing a hand - what, are you scared?"

This bout of posturing, luckily not observed in its snarky glory by anybody other than a pair of preteen boys under a log - and one of them wasn't exactly in a position to observe - was interrupted when Phaerin yelped loudly. Liell froze.

"Pig's entrails! Dark gods, Eledhe, you're a stinking liar -"

"Don't even think about it." Eledhe leapt to stand in between him and the endangered pair, one hand floating in the area of her pouch of throwing stars, her eyes narrowed to slits. "Or I'll cut you into so many pieces they'll go down the underworld seperately."

"Who's got the empty threats now?" he sneered, getting closer. "Harpy! Dragon's dung! What, do you love the little kids? Think you might move away and start a family?"

There was a moment of silence. Then - "I'll split it with you. Thirty-seventy."

"Coward!" crowed Eledhe triumphantly. "I'm taking it all."

"How about," began Phaerin, crawling out from under the log with his fingers in his mouth, "we go home and talk a lot about how you kidnapped us, or you take us home right now?"

Eledhe was fairly certain they wouldn't be able to breath a word, but Liell spoke first, with an uneasy look at his quarrelsome partner. "All right - thirty-seventy!"

"Fat chance!"

"You can have the seventy, then!"

Eledhe considered. If she didn't, he'd follow her around until the world ended and she'd never get anything done. "I want eighty," she haggled shrewdly.

Liell gave her such a murderous look, he might have copied it off Eledhe herself. "Fine."

"Lovely." She sheathed her scimitar and shot him a dazzling smile. "Isn't it nice how things work out?"

[pirateoftherings]

Kjan hopped up from their impromptu hiding spot and stood next to Phaerin. "Hi!" he said cheerfully, waving at Liell. "You're joining us again?"

"Apparently," Liell ground out, still glaring daggers at Eledhe.

"Great!" Kjan lied with a fake grin. Sure, he didn't like Liell much, but he wasn't about to tell that to the man who seemed to have a weapon concealed in every place imaginable, was he? In a conspiratorial whisper, he added, "I think it's her phase of the moon - she's been in a really bad mood today. Don't take it personally."

Liell gave a noncommittal grunt before finally sheathing his sword and leaping back onto his horse. "Let's go, then."


They walked for nearly half an hour in utter silence (a feat that was noteworthy for Kjan in and of itself). Unless one counted the looks being exchanged between Eledhe and Liell, each of which spoke volumes on its own. Kjan, having grown tired of counting the number of times the vein on Liell's left temple pulsed in the span of a minute, decided on a relatively neutral topic for starting a conversation.

"Are you two getting married? 'Cause Aran and Ylaine fought like you do for a long time, and then suddenly one day they got married. Which was weird, since I always thought they hated each other."

[Meldawen]

Eledhe jumped like she'd been scalded with something and cast Liell a look that would have been different only by a small margin if she'd been examining excrement. The beginnings of a snarky exchange surfaced with simultaneously voiced, horrified, "Marry him?" by Eledhe and "Marry her?" by Liell.

It was Eledhe, however, who lengthened the distance between her and the mercenary opposite with a patently disgusted look. "No," she very pointedly shot over her shoulder at Kjan. "Dark gods, if you weren't worth money..."

Phaerin took that opportunity to poke his friend and signal that they should maybe be quiet.

Eledhe and Liell, however, were not. There was so much bickering over the next few hours - along with name-calling that Phaerin tucked away for later; he'd never heard half those words - that the boys could have passed for the adults of the foursome. Eventually they lapsed into silence, fuming on Eledhe's side and waxing slightly violent on Liell's side.

This was probably not the best moment for Phaerin to say (distinctly against his earlier advice to Kjan) "Are we there yet?"

[pirateoftherings]

Phaerin's inquiry was met with stony silence and two eerily similar glares.

"Are we certain their parents wouldn't pay us more for killing the kids and saving them the trouble?" Liell muttered, though it wasn't clear whether or not he was actually addressing Eledhe.

"Actually, my father's threatened several times to-" Kjan started, only to be cut off by a second pointed glare from Eledhe. Effectively discouraged from talking (for the moment, at least), Kjan settled for whistling cheerfully.

This endeavour lasted for roughly thirty seconds before it was abruptly ended by Eledhe placing a hand on the hilt of her scimitar and looking pointedly back at him. Frowning, Kjan muttered something under his breath about the phase of the moon and drifted closer to Phaerin.

"I hope they're taking us to your home, not mine. I'm not sure I can walk all the way to mine before my feet fall off."

[Meldawen]

From what Phaerin knew of Eledhe and Liell, they were primarily concerned with money. At twelve years old he knew, however vaguely, that his parents had rather a lot of money. Therefore it only made sense that they would go to the place with more money rather than less. "I don't think you should worry," he opined confidently. "Mother probably isn't. And Father probably drank so much he doesn't know or care where he is, let alone where I am."

Eledhe snorted, up in front, and muttered something that sounded like, "Filthy nobles."

"Bet you don't think their money's filthy." Liell, it seemed, had an unfortunate penchant for always having the last word.

"Shut up."

"You shut up!"

And so it continued through the afternoon, and as the sun sank into the jagged mountainous horizon to the west, and when only the faintest of glows remained, until Phaerin was about ready to demand if they were quite finished. He didn't, solely because he was still learning new words as the pair waxed more inventive, but it was a close thing. Close, that is, to having his head bitten off. Eledhe's mood got darker at the sky did, and by the time there was a dark hump far off that was probably the Grey estate, she was in such a violently bad temper that it was patently astonishing that Liell managed to even stay alive.

[pirateoftherings]

Kjan spent the remainder of the trip listening half-interestedly to the exchange, once looking up in surprise as he heard one of the words that Aran had shouted after his horse had stepped on his foot. It was probably just a coincidence, though, as his mother had assured him that no such word existed, and that Aran had probably made it up. He'd have to ask once he got home.

Even Kjan, though, seemed to have enough sense to shut up as Eledhe's mood grew progressively worse. By the time they'd actually reached the estate, no one was talking, and everyone was giving the brooding mercenary a wide berth of at least ten feet - even Liell.

Another staring match ensued as they stood in front of the door, though the cause of the clash of wills wasn't quite evident. Finally, with an air of long-suffering, Liell stepped forward and banged heavily on the wood.

[Meldawen]

A silhouette leaned over the wall, ostensibly supported by the small ramparts flanking the gate of the Grey estate's perimeter stone wall, and shouted, "Who goes there?"

"Phaerin, Master Kindon," piped up Phaerin from the back of the small group. "And Kjan, and -"

"Liell and Eledhe Darkstar," finished Liell, and neatly intercepted Eledhe's sudden jerk towards him to demand what exactly that was for. "Cattle dung, we're not mar-" she hissed in the darkness, and was forcibly made to be quiet with a hand over her mouth. Phaerin was frankly astonished she didn't cut off his hand then and there. The whole scuffle that ensued lasted an entirety of three seconds in which Liell whispered furiously, and when Eledhe broke free, she glared like anything but, to Phaerin's eternal amazement, didn't set Master Kinson straight.

"We came across your young master and his companion here in the woods," Liell called up. Evidently their momentary discord had gone unnoticed in the darkness. "He gave us directions here and we thought to see him safely home."

A small gate to the right of the larger one opened, and the shadow wearing leather armor with a Grey crest - who, upon closer inspection, was a greying man of his mid-forties who looked on wayward Phaerin and Kjan with surprise - came out. "Why, you were at the Armadur estate," he said, scanning the foursome. "That's a good day's journey from here - how long have you been lost, lad?"

At a warning glance from both mercenaries, Phaerin somewhat unwillingly answered with a noncommittal, "Uhm...I don't know."

Kinson surveyed him a moment longer, then looked at Liell and Eledhe with a resigned air. "Well. You want lodgings for tonight? It's late to being going back to...? Where you hail from?"

[pirateoftherings]

"Y'rydha," Liell answered. "We were journeying to Vidyr to visit some family when we chanced across the boys. We're in no particular hurry, so we decided that we couldn't very well leave them alone to fend for themselves. If we may so impose upon you, though, lodging would be greatly appreciated."

"You found them in the woods?" the man repeated.

"Yes."

Kjan opened his mouth to object but said nothing as he was met with a discreet-but-deadly glance from Eledhe. And besides that, even if he had been allowed to speak, he didn't seem to be able to come up with quite the right wording in his mind.

"Do you make a habit of cutting through the wilderness in lieu of traveling along the main road?" Kinson asked, eyeing the pair dubiously.

"We prefer to take the scenic route," Liell replied without missing a beat. "Better exercise, and as I said, we are in no hurry."

"Indeed," was Master Kinson's only noncommittal response as he began to usher them inside. "Very well, then. Lord and Lady Grey are not yet home, but they are due to return in the morning. I shall have a servant prepare baths for the young masters-" cue a groan from both of said boys "-and one of the guest rooms for our visitors."

The moment Kinson had turned around and begun walking, Liell smoothly drifted toward Eledhe, who seemed on the verge of violent objection. In one fluid motion, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and placed a hand over her mouth, at the same time forcing some semblance of a smile onto his own. "Deal with it," he muttered.

[Meldawen]

Several options drifted through Eledhe's mind, including the tempting propositions of biting him, removing an important appendage in a rather painful manner, and kneeing...upward. Into a somewhat sensitive area. She very nearly did the last one just for the sheer pleasure of seeing his reaction, but Liell was smarter than that. He'd also known Eledhe even as she waxed more violent, and had every reason to be wary. Especially in view of current circumstances.

Kinson was already moving off, ushering the boys ahead of him into the manor, and upon chancing to glance over his shoulder he saw nothing but the pair of them walking slightly behind, apparently talking. They were, in fact, trading ever more venomous insults behind fixed smiles.

"Pig born of incest," muttered Eledhe, made particularly vicious by having to endure the grievance of his arm still around her shoulders.

"Harpy." He was grinning slyly and utterly insufferably. Eledhe very nearly got out the throwing stars then and there.

"You will not be sleeping tonight," she hissed. "Because if you do I will take it as an invitation to send one cursed Liell Darkstar into the underworld to join his ancestors."

Liell had his mouth open to respond, but at that moment a servant girl arrived to look down her nose at the pair of them, despite being shorter than both. And freckled, observed Eledhe viciously. The last time her mood had been this bad, the Guild hadn't stopped hearing about the incident for weeks. Master Kinson jerked his head at the mercenaries. "Guest chamber," he said, and handed off the progressively gloomier boys into the hands of the housekeeper, who immediately began to scold like a mother hen.

"Phaerin Grey, when I tell your mother what you've been up to -!" she started, shaking a finger. "I daresay you won't sit for a week, young master, and Kjan..."

Eledhe threw the boys one last warning look as they disappeared. But she had her own problems, thanks to the idiot beside her.

[pirateoftherings]

The servant girl dutifully went about making the guest room usable, turning down the linens on the bed - yes, bed, in the singular - and performing other minor tasks such as filling the wash basin with water. The whole while, the two mercenaries simply stood there and tried to look even slightly tolerant of each other. Finally, the girl finished and curtsied quickly and darted out of the room, as though able to sense the mounting tension.

The moment they were alone, Eledhe shut the door, locked it, and whirled to face Liell venomously.

"You. Are. Dead."

---------------------

The boys, in the meantime, were quickly ushered into one of the bathing rooms, where they were promptly stripped of their dirty clothes, handed soap, and forced to scrub away in their respective tubs until both were declared passably clean. Each was then handed a set of clean nightclothes (which were rather too large for Kjan, being Phaerin's) and escorted to Phaerin's bedchamber, ostensibly to sleep.

Which, of course, explained perfectly why, an hour later, they were both running around the large room brandishing wooden objects that looked suspiciously like the equipment for Phaerin's fencing lessons. Kjan hadn't begun such lessons yet, but one didn't really need to teach a young boy how to jump around and hit things with a stick.

"Hah!" he exclaimed, jumping up on the bed and waving his 'weapon' grandly. "I've got you cornered now, you filthy rebel! Surrender and your worthless life may be spared!"

[Meldawen]

Liell, fully aware of the fact that it wouldn't do their cause an iota of good if he was dead in the morning, dropped into the nearest chair with an overdramatized yawn. "Like to see you try."

"Oh?" snarled Eledhe, hand drawn to the hilt of her scimitar as if magnetized. "Don't have to persuade me."

"Really? So you'll kill me, and explain that in the morning how? Thought you wanted your eighty." Dark gods curse him, he even had his eyes closed! Eledhe balled her hands into fists and went to the window. The worst of it was that their story wouldn't hold up if she indulged her overwhelming temptation and did some physical damage. They both knew she was capable of it.

"We could just use the bed, you know," he suggested lazily.

Last straw. Last. Straw. Eledhe wrenched her scimitar out of the sheath.

---

"I am no mere rebel!" proclaimed Phaerin grandly, springing up on his side of the bed garbed in an oversized rusty helmet stolen from a suit of armor. "I am Phaerin Grey, and I shall vanquish you and your scurvy rapscallions! Take that!"

He attacked enthusiastically, with very little form and even less balance - it was a bed, after all - and said contemplatively, in the middle of a haphazard lunge, "I'd need a different name if I was a rebel, or people would know who I was."

[pirateoftherings]

And thus, half an hour later, any servants who had entered (the door was locked against this very event) would have found Liell gagged and bound securely to the bedpost by an excessive amount of rope. Eledhe, in the meantime, was sitting in a chair in the opposite corner and calmly sharpening one of her myriad blades.

------------------

Kjan blocked the blow just as haphazardly, then randomly dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed. "Yeah..." he said distractedly. "At least Grey's pretty common....not sure about Phaerin, though. You'd have to change that." He seemed to consider for a moment more, then added, "Don't think I could use a new name. Too hard to remember."

Hopping off the bed, he looked up at Phaerin contemplatively. "You'd have to get something fierce-sounding though. Like a real rebel."

[Meldawen]

Liell was working quite diligently on getting free, Eledhe observed. She wondered vaguely if she should be worried, and reassured herself by spinning the dagger she currently held between her fingers. It caught the moonlight somewhat ominously. She grinned, cat-like, and looked up to catch Liell's eye.

It struck her that at this point she would have been seething with rage, but she couldn't honestly say he looked to be doing something similar. He was still working at those ropes. Stretching lazily, she went over to make sure her knots were holding. On the way, the dagger left her fingers almost idly to embed itself in the nearest thick tapestry.

"Don't expect you'll be wanting to pretend matrimonial ties to me again, then?" she said sweetly - which, for Eledhe, meant dangerously - and went to test the knot.

Several things happened in quick succession. Eledhe got a blurred impression of floor and ceiling and wall strangely blended, and then breath left her in a painful thud as she landed, flat on her back.

This, she remembered, was why she hated stone floors. And other people's quick reflexes. And while she was at it, Liell.

Who was currently in a position she would rather he wasn't. Namely, pinning both her wrists to the floor. Eledhe's first reaction was to attempt an upward kick into a sensitive area, which was thwarted (for the second time that night). Then there was a moment of contemplation on both sides: Eledhe's of deepening irritation and Liell's of self-satisfaction, and perhaps a slight air of surprise. He also seemed at a slight loss as to what to do now that his plan has succeeded.

"Get off," she snarled, struggling. Nothing. She eyed him. "Right, you did it. Got any plans beyond this?"

---

"Like what?" said Phaerin contemplatively. "I don't think you'd have to change your name. Cause I'd be the rebel leader." He stood up self-importantly and adjusted the helmet. "Grey's a color, too. What things are grey?"

In a bit of a rakishly imaginative mood, he strode up and down the room. "It's too bad blood isn't grey. I suppose swords are silvery grey. What about...Grey Blade?"

He struck a pose, then dropped it doubtfully. "Nah."

[pirateoftherings]

"I'm certain we could come up with something together," Liell replied, smirking teasingly and leaning in closer.

This time, Eledhe's knee found its target. Quite forcefully, in fact.

As Liell writhed on the floor and struggled to retain some shred of dignity, Eledhe quickly took the rope that had been binding him to the bedpost and laid it out lengthwise, effectively dividing the room - and the bed - in half.

"My side. Your side. I'm not responsible for anything that happens on my side, so stay off."

------------

"I could be a rebel leader just as easily!" Kjan insisted indignantly, following a step behind as Phaerin continued to pace across the room. "And lots of things are grey. Rocks and rain clouds and armor and those snakes we found and Bibsy's hair and...ghosts?" he finished lamely. "The Grey Ghost?"

[Meldawen]

Liell drew himself up, seemingly having recovered, and a staring - or rather glaring - contest ensued. Eledhe was sitting cross-legged by her side of the line, expression set, and hardly moved a muscle for the next five minutes other than to fold her arms in front of her and stare him down so forcefully that she might well have been looking through him to the wall opposite.

"Fine," he eventually snapped, losing with poor grace. "Bed's on my side."

This was true, but Eledhe had foreseen correctly that there was going to be no sleep on either side. No matter how elaborately comfortable he pretended to be, Eledhe was certain that beneath the coverlet he was as awake as she, stiff with readiness to spring at the slightest movement.

"Idiot," she muttered, just to be inflammatory, and got up to go to the window, which was conveniently on her side. A rustle indicated his shifting to watch her. "I'm aware that it's a bed," she snapped, not turning around. "Comments to that effect are not appreciated."

'Not appreciated' was a gross understatement, but he knew that. She wondered for a moment if he happened to have a convenient dagger handy, useful for stabbing in the back people who were standing by a window, but as turning around would make her seem afraid of that very thing, she determined not to do so.

---

"That makes me sound old," said Phaerin scornfully. "Ghosts are always old people." It wasn't as if he was any authority in the subject, but he sounded certain enough to give an impression of such. "And I can't be Young Ghost Grey, that's just...well, have you ever heard of someone called Young Ghost?"

Having tired of the fencing rapier, he tossed it aside and clambered back onto the high four-poster. "If I'm ever a rebel, you can be my second-in-command," he offered generously, seemingly oblivious to Kjan's earlier assertion that he could be a rebel leader. "Second-in-commands get to do all the fun stuff anyway. I mean, I'd have to fight the villains, but you could fight all the villain's...minions."

Stretching out on the rumpled coverlet, he crossed his arms beneath his head. "Betcha Eledhe would make a good minion."