The Princess and the Guard.

[Reign]

ntirely oblivious to the princess' plot, he simply continued along with the direction of the conversation. “The holy Daevenian mother sent me,” he was fully aware of how ridiculous it might have sounded. Though as naturally as he had said it— as matter-of-fact his words were —it seemed not to phase him any. He didn't really care if she bought it, “and no, I'm not from Renovatio.” The Templar hadn't looked back to Helena yet over the course of the trip; he certainly seemed preoccupied with the trek ahead. They'd slowly begun to align north, wherever it was the young woman had in mind.

“So, why exactly are you being herded out of Fa'Diel?” He wasn't entirely feigning interest in the matter. The boiling blood under his skin, the mortal man who craved the moments of adrenaline as his veins surged with the incredibly human inclination toward violence. And he'd long since caved to the particularly more carnal urges the monk had come to thoroughly judge. Lee, for the first time, leaned his head back to glance back over his shoulder to where her footsteps indicated where she'd be. He couldn't help but hope the answer meant some sort of action down the road. After all, the warrior hadn't had catharsis in quite some time.

[mire]

Helena made no comment about the Templar’s strange explanations about some Holy Mother of whatever the hell he’d said. Though she remained incredulous of his intentions, she concluded he had no reason to lie about how he came to be her guardian. She also believed he was not of Renovatian birth, for he did not express any of the traits she’d come to identify with Renovatian men. Still, it did not make him any more of a friend. If anything, she trusted him even less; she knew absolutely nothing about him, and couldn’t even begin to guess what to expect out of him.

He continued to act as if he knew nothing of the purpose of their journey. It bothered Helena a little, however, that what she thought of as an act may truly be fact. It wasn’t making any sense, Renovatio’s decision to send her out with a guard that was not even part of their regime.

“You truly do not know?” She sent him a mild look, observing his every reaction from the corner of her eye. “So you just came to me, without knowing why, because your Holy Mother of sorts commanded you to do so?”

She sighed a little, and turned to examine the gold bracelet that adorned her wrist.

“I am Helena Rosinder, the last of my family and as such, the heir apparent to the broken kingdom.” She traced the bracelet’s fine gold, a symbol of her blue blood. “I don’t know why Renovatio decided to let me go. As I understand it, they wish me to reintroduce myself to my people, for whatever purpose I am not sure. They had intentions to use me, I believe, as a puppet queen. But now it seems their plans have changed.”

She shrugged, ever so slightly.

“I wonder just what could’ve caused them to so suddenly change their minds.”

[Reign]

he was considerably more receptive to the suggestion than Lee had expected, and given the fact that she wasn't entirely convinced by the notion that the Templar had been guided by Aeon as implied said a lot. He'd grown much more accustomed to complete dismissal over the years— it wasn't so much that the young man was religious, but rather how closely, how strictly some deity that no one else had heard of guided his blade.

“I don't really have any idea why Renovatio didn't stop me at the door” and he simply chalked it up to faith, “perhaps someone passed along the news I was comin', I don't really care to assume.” Hell, they didn't even stop to ask a question as he walked through the corridors to her personal quarters. Given that, from what was said, she was the only heir of Rosinder, it struck him as more than a little odd. “But yeah, that's the jist of it. Aeon speaks through me, and I carry out her will,” The human in him certainly felt uncomfortable discussing it, “long story short, she led me to you and told me to get ya where ya needed to go.”

And that was the extent of what he'd been informed of. He'd been offered nothing but what the Holy Mother saw fit to give. Everything else was entirely up to him, and as far as the monk had come to peace with, anything she put within his path would serve as a steppin' stone to redemption.

Idle chit-chat probably carried the two into nightfall. Marching across the broad traverse of Rosinder toward whatever it was the young princess sought— and likely not terribly far from where they'd make camp..

[mire]

Helena threw her head back and laughed. If what the Templar said was true, then Renovatio had truly ceased to care for her life. Whatever use they had initially intended for her apparently no longer applied. Whatever. She had her life and freedom—well, almost complete freedom—that was all that truly mattered. She considered what Templar said about this Aeon thing also quite comical, but did not comment on his nonsensical bullshit. She allowed him to speak to her now and then, and when she felt particularly generous, she conversed back.

As the day grew older, and the sun brighter, Helena’s delicate built began to suffer. She had unfortunately inherited all of her mother’s physical traits, which were not very well suited for harsher climate of her father’s land. Her skin was a pale color that no matter its exposure to the sun, never managed to darkened more than a shade or two. Her violet eyes, considered a rarity even among her maternal ties, were incredibly sensitive to the intense rays of the Rosinderian sun. She was easily fatigued, although that particular trait she attributed mostly to her time spent indoors learning how to be a proper princess.

Irritated by what she considered her own weaknesses, Helena stopped her occasional responses, slowed down, and turned her pretty mouth into a permanent pout. They had been walking for a good while now, without so much a break. Was he so inconsiderate, such an idiot that he couldn’t see her struggling? Temper almost flaring, she stopped dead in her tracks, and with her hands fisted on her hips demanded he’d do something about her discomforts.

“I’m tired. I don’t want to walk anymore.”

[Reign]

blivious, for any million reasons, was just one of those traits he'd come to cling closely to. He couldn't really flaunt bein' a particularly keen observer. He had a sixth sense about a lot of things, but none of them as practical as dealin' with a spoiled princess. After all, this was basically what he did for a livin', he wandered place to place and someone such as the wonderful Princess Helena's more unique needs and shortcomings weren't somethin' he'd be equipped to pick up on. It probably didn't have anything to do with the fact he got a little kick out of her misery. None at all. Someone who walked the path he walked would absolutely never bathe in moments like these. Even if she were the type to pout and whine for hours, he'd never even consider!

Onto more important issues at hand, the woman seemed to come to a complete stop abruptly a few meters behind him, lagging a couple beats behind his not-so-terribly-fast pace. Turning on his heals to face her, his left hand scratched his scalp through the slightly windswept hair, tossed almost as though within intention by the several hours of a trek they'd made. A moment of consideration was offered as she planted hands against her hips and shouted at the Templar; “Eh, fine, take a break.”

Lee'd probably later admit it didn't bother him at all, but he'd play it off as though it was some gift of magnificent (though perhaps poorly timed) generosity. His left hand swung down mid-speech to toss the bag from his shoulder to her feet, “there's a little bit of food in there, help yourself.”

Turning his back somewhat to her, he'd squat a few inches from the ground. Lee's right hand fumbled into his back pocket to pull out one of the few maps he kept on his person, and as luck would have it, it didn't offer a great deal of detail for Rosinder or any of Tellus Mater. “What exactly is north?”

[mire]

Helena’s palate was not accustomed to the rudimentary snacks found in the Templar’s bags. Nevertheless, she decided she could nibble a little on the food, if only to gather a few more minutes of rest. To keep the sand from burning her thighs, she used her backpack as a cushion, and slowly began to munch the Templar’s provisions. Surprisingly, they weren’t terrible. She swallowed a bit of her temper back, and very quietly thanked him. It was, she supposed, the proper thing to do. She finished with her meal, but did not rise. Her feet throbbed, and the heat of the sun had begun to turn her skin an unhealthy rose tint. When he asked her a question, she decided to give him the truth.

“I haven’t a clue. It should take us towards the capital, I believe. I am not sure how Fa’Diel is situated in Rosinder.” She shrugged, but the movement cost her some discomfort. “It doesn’t matter to me. I will come across a town soon, surely, and then I can ask. I want to go home, is all.”

Miserably hot, and suddenly nostalgic, she whimpered a little. She wouldn’t make it home with this blasted heat! Her whole body was burning, and her legs remained unresponsive. She was going to die, she thought furiously, in this stupid desert with that stupid guard by her side. And nobody would know, or care, because they all thought she was dead anyway.

“If I can go home…” Maybe I won’t feel so alone anymore, she finished in her thoughts.

[Reign]

he Templar soft amber eyes stared in the direction she'd pointed. A look of careful inspection seemed to scan the distant mountains that lined the edges; at this distant, they were but shimmering silhouettes. The only reason he could make sense of 'em at all was the sheer scale with which they sat against the bright hot horizon. He didn't exactly know what to say in a situation like this. He wasn't suited for something as delicate as conversation. If he had been, he probably wouldn't have been the only man charging through the world under his particularly lonely religious banner.

He did the only thing he really knew how given the circumstances, “You know what sorta things or people wander through the desert and mountains out here?” Yeah, he simply stuck to the subject at hand, as crude and awkward as it might have been given how exhausted she appeared.

Turning on his heels, he'd face her and await her answer. His left hand was offered to her as his right sought to grip her bag. Were she to take his hand, the divine energies that swirled within his fingertips would invigorate the exhausted woman. A warm, almost homely feeling would course through her veins. The pains from the heat and the hike would be alleviated, as though she'd just freshly woken. The sweat on her brow would have simply evaporated and her likely dry tongue would at least feel quenched. “Shall we?” if she had answered the previous question, it would have been said without pause, and she would have hopefully been much more than willing to resume their trek.

[absolution]

A few hundred yards away, there lay an outcropping of sandblasted rocks. Along these rocks were scattered debris and trash; they were all sitting. A bear of a man with long black hair and a beard shot with wisps of smoke sat with a woman at either side of his foot. A dagger in his hand, idly cleaning the grime from beneath those fingernails, he couldn't help but feel anxious. The day was still young, and their gang hadn't expressed themselves in their usual habitual manners.

"Yo', Beyd. Looks like some peoples is a' comin!"

One of the bandits couldn't help himself, a scatterbrained expression and franticly over exaggerated fingerpointing in one direction.

"Oi, relax."

Lowering the dirty dagger, he reached for the large axe at his side, laying it across his lap. An eye shot to either of his male companions; three of them in total. They were all on the run, outlaws in the desert where the rule of Rosinder would not reach. Beyd looked up and motioned with a single, but massive hand.

"Sit down and shut up. We'll wait for them to come to us."

"But they'll see us, 'gardless. Might as well get the jump on 'em now."

"If they can see us either way, we might as well wait. This is the only way across the desert, there's quicksand on either side."

Their one-eyed companion remained silent, the entire time, arms crossed over his chest. The final man, who sat opposite them all in the sand, grated a sword against a stone in his hand. The two of them seemed as if they were oblivious to the entire situation. Though they all waited for the couple to approach.

[mire]

Helena answered the Templar’s terrible attempt at a conversation with the mildest of looks. Let this be a lesson, she thought; never expect a decent conversation out of this man. Mostly out of her little snit, she allowed the Templar to help her to her feet. Almost immediately, her aching legs ceased to bother her so much, the flush of her skin began to fade away and the excess moisture in her eyes evaporated. Even her mood, forever on the brink of a sulk, brightened a little. She briefly suspected the Templar had something to do with her suddenly improved physical condition, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. Not so much because she didn’t think it possible, but because she prefer to think of him as useless and expendable. If he was of no use to her, she concluded, she wouldn’t doubt her own intentions of abandoning the man’s side in the near future. Still…

“Thank you.”

He had helped her to her feet, and for that she could show him gratitude. Though he’d silently offered to take her bag for her, Helena locked her fingers around one of the straps and refused to let go. She explained that she didn’t mind the weight so much, which was very minimal anyway, and that he needn’t to worry about her personal belongings. She remained fairly consistent in her step for the next little while, but did not say much. Neither were particularly suited for conversation (with each other) and Helena didn’t see the point in wasting her breath on futile, empty conversations.

When the shadows of other men appeared on the horizon, Helena raised her big eyes to the Templar. It was hard to say what kind of people they were, but there were more than one of them, and that in itself was enough danger for Helena. Without a word, she scooted close and back, out of harm’s way.

Just in case.

[Reign]

roubling? Figures looming on the horizon waitin' for the two to cross their path. Perhaps. Though he'd long-since gotten over fretting the future, especially if it meant drawing his blade at the end of the ordeal. It was hardly a matter of arrogance, but more one of purpose. Any ill-conscience or sense of apprehension associated with confrontation had been shed almost a decade prior, burned away in the flames of battle and constantly journeying along the thin line of life and death. While life would have certainly been easier had these men not occupied the little patch of land at the far end of their trek, he'd deal with it as it presented itself.

Tread carefully templar.

The whisper omnipotent against his ear boded ill of the next hours to follow, though the colorful ascension of company was, to some extent, welcomed by the warrior monk. Despite the risk, the man in him cried out for war and the opportunity to draw the cold delirium from his belt.

The Bulwark at his back had come to occupy his right arm, resting tirelessly by its tightly drawn leather straps upon his forearm. Though his blade remained at rest, the building tension filled the air with its intoxicating stink. Just like the woman in toe, Lee had gone silent. His senses had been thrown to the mercy of the Daeva that led their march. Though unseen, the unqiue, swirling mana that coursed through his body crept its slithering reach forward.

[absolution]

"Top of the uh... mornin' to ya."

He was a large man, to say the least. Nearly twice the size of the little girl that approached, while he was still sitting down. When he chose to stand, he easily cast them both beneath his massive shadow. The rest of his companions had disappeared before the couple had gotten close enough to know exactly how many of them there were.

"This here is the uh... new- yeah, the uh new turnpike toll."

Lowering the titanic axe from over his shoulder, it remained extended horizontally from the ground, as if blocking their passage further. Over his shoulder was more desert, they all knew this. They were all doubtless also privy to the fact that this was the only safe route for miles around, a veritable sea of quicksand on either side of such a delicate walkway made of sand itself.

"So you'll be payin' up if you got plans for makin' passage."