Dusk.

[Vengerak]

 A female fox, grey-furred, her middle-seasons bearing down on her, pads softly along the forest floor, the silvery discs of her scale mail vest reflecting dimly the red sun's ruddy glow.  

Her movements are agitated. Her eyes are bloodshot.  Her nerves are shot.  For two days she has been walking alone through the shadowy woodlands, her companions lost & her daggers long since abandoned.  She needed rest but she dared not sleep.  She was fearful of the alien, unfamiliar surroundings.  Here the forest was too dense, too untamed. The trees crowded close together, crowded around her, looming up on all sides, vast & foreboding.  Could she be sure she was going in the right direction?  Was she even in the vicini-

"Halt."

Her head snaps upwards immediately, her paws clenching tight around the dirtied, worn scroll she holds in them, her eyes flitting wildly from tree to tree, searching the forest's canopy.

Above her in the second-closest tree, perching easily upon a sturdy bough, is a figure clad conservatively in plated armour, the design at once simple & yet elegant, elegant & yet barbaric.  He (for to the vixen's eyes & ears the build of the torso & depth of the voice suggest a male rather than a female) holds an arrow nocked to bowstring, eyes that shine faintly in the darkness seeming to appraise her for a time.  There is hint of movement in the undergrowth off to the vixen's left.

They are not alone.

The taught bowstring relaxes in his grasp.  He leans forward, face emerging out of the shadow cast by the tree's thick, intertwining branches.  He (it was a he, she sees) is a polecat, by the look of him, his eyes hard & his expression grim.

"Why are you here?"

Her mouth opens a fraction, & she finds immediately that she is unable to speak.  She can feel her heart pounding, her breath quickening...wordlessly she holds up the miserable looking scroll towards him, terrified.  It was happening again.  Just like that night on trails...

The polecat glances briefly at the scroll, then back to the vixen's anguished face.  He seems to consider the situation for a second, & then looks over to the undergrowth beneath his right, eyes locking on something the vixen can't quite pick out before he jerks his head towards her in beckoning.  

A second figure emerges out of the bushes, clad similarly to the polecat, though his face is concealed behind a beautifully crafted yet decidedly menacing war helm.  The vixen, somewhere at the back of her mind, figures him to be a rat, shorter in height & stouter of build than the hard-eyed sentinel in the tree.  As the helmeted creature approaches, a short sword held loosely in his right paw, she feels her arms pressed to her sides, something seizing her from behind, & she gives a small yelp of surprise, startling.  The one in the helmet makes a displeased, slightly rasping sound deep in his throat, shaking his head.  The vixen settles slightly, willing herself to calm.  Standing before her, now, the helmeted creature removes the scroll from her white-knuckled grip, not unravelling it but rather looking to the flaked & dirt-encrusted seal set upon it.  Briefly his head turns towards her, & she imagines his beady eyes have a slightly irate look in them with regard to her charge's condition.

All at once realisation strikes, even as the beast who she supposed to be a rat nods to the polecat, & the paws clasped around her arms fall away.  These are soldiers of the old Guard.  Among the last of them, surely.  The rumors were true.  

She sags, her head dipping, a wave of relief mingled with a sudden desire to rest washing over her.  There is a muffled thud somewhere in front of her, the polecat dropping nimbly from his perch, most likely.

The guardsman behind her gives her a light prod with the behind of some polearm or other, urging her forward.

"Come.  Your return has been anxiously awaited."

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OOC:  Some ground rules- no purely OOC posts unless absolutely necesarry.  In fact, scratch that, no. None. Something you need to ask or whatever, send a PM.  Also, no butting in & doing stupid stuff.  Shael will, I hope, oblige me by deleting any garbage.

Kilk, Shael etc., basically, I'm going to play this out segment by segment whilst you do your quest thingy.  Mine shouldn't take long, I'm just looking to set up the scene a little, & then I'll turn to interacting with you a little more directly.

[Vengerak]

 The Northlands:

The weasel stepped back towards him, allowing Kilk to remove her cloak, as she looked around the room, taking everything in. She smiled. "It's a nice place." She moved towards the fireplace, stretching her paws out, warming them from the freezing temperatures outside

She dusted off her plain, light brown tunic, removed her sandals by the fireplace, and settled in the armchair. "I missed being here so much, it just made me happy walking around this place again." She commented, looking to Kilk. "Knowing that now, I'm supposed to live here makes me more content." She watched the fire for a few moments, before taking a quick glance at Kilk. "I suppose you're used to living here alone."

He gazed at the fire, standing still for a moment, reflecting on something before he spoke.

"To tell the truth, I'm no treally used to be doing anything. For a few seasons it was like I passed out of space and time, into my own little world. Odd thing really, but when I came back, I knew there was something undone that I needed to complete."

He sighed. "The Original Marauders were all dead or captured, but the Imperial Forces had been disbanded and were ready to return, and an army greater than all others flocked to me as all of the warlords that came here did. I don't understand why, but the moment I sent out envoys, they all came...Something big is going to happen. Soon. I can feel it, and I don't like it."

He looked at her. "What've you been doing for these seasons?"

Shael stood up and walked towards the mantel, paws clasped behind her back, looking up at the crossed scimitars, but not really examining them. "Nothing worth mentioning. Mostly roaming around the woods of Mossflower, occasionally venturing out over the Eastern plains. Mostly spent my time at the Headquarters though."

She looked down, watching the dancing flames. "So many warlords left too, while you were gone. Some have come back, but others," she paused, with a specific warlord in memory, "are unaccounted for."

The Emperor looks oddly at her for a moment, realizing what she was saying.

"Yeah. Raine is gone. He isn't coming back." He drew in a quick breath and reached into his armoir, drawing out a battered chain mail vest.

"He won't be coming back for a while I think. He was swept away in the crusades against the original Marauders. Missing, probably dead." He slides the mail over his head and now takes out a rough, travel-worn black vest, putting it over the mail, and fastening the ties in front quickly. Putting on a pair of thick black gloves, his red eyes glow with a fury unforseen.

"You can use the bed if you're tired. The only problem with my disposition is that I don't sleep." He moved for the back of the armoir, focused on one thing and one thing alone.

The ferret forceably moved the armoir aside and took a sword. The sword was in a scabbard, black with silver trim. The hilt stuck out the top, and was also silver, with the black wrapped around the handle. There was no stone on silver pommel. He also picked up a package from the floor, and unwrapped a storm-battered black cloak, wrapped around daggars of the same make of his sword, both already on a brown belt. He put the belt on swiftly, tying the end of the cord through itself, and attached the sword's scabbard to it as well. Throwing the cloak over his shoulders, he went for the door.

------------------------------
As he walked out the main door of his keep, he pushed the door bodily aside, striding into the well-lit night courtyard, stalking in the direction of the main gate. A guard from his post on the wall called to him.

"OY! Wot are ye doin'? 'O are ye?"

To this the ferret replied. "I am your Emperor, let me pass. Raise the portcullis. NOW!"

The guard, embarrassed and bewildered sprinted towards the gatehouse, and in a moment the heavy iron gate raised and the cloaked figure walked out into the cold.

His quest for Raine Valthurak had begun...He would find him or die in the process of doing so. The greatest ally of the Original Marauders had to be alive, or he had made such a demise that was worthy of knowing. Near the time of his reckoning, he needed the valiant actions of the only one of the Nine in the Militia he could trust.

It was time.

Shael stood, a bit bewildered, as she watched Kilk move swiftly through the door. She looked out the window, her naturally slitted eyes relaxing, her lips mouthing silent thoughts. The weasel watched Kilk stride across the courtyard. "Of course...and why not? One is already back from the dead..."

Excitedly, she raced across the room, pausing only to grab her cloak from the back of the armchair, and hurried down the stairs, fastening her cloak as she ran.

She reached the outside courtyard breathlessly, as the guards were closing the main gate. "Stop!" she shouted at them. "Keep it open!"

The guard, in an effort to redeem himself from further embarassment, answered skeptically. "Wot d'ye think yer tryin' ter do, missie? Y'don' 'ave any right ter order me 'bout like that!"

Shael controlled her breathing, and drew her sword threateningly, her eyes flashing. "Open that gate! I am the Empress, and none will speak to me in that manner! Raise it, now!"

The poor guard cowered under her stare and scuttled off to do her bidding. The young weasel sheathed her sword, and hurried outside onto the path. A blast of the night's icy wind caught her unprepared, and she drew her cloak tighter around her.

She spotted Kilk hurrying down the path, and ran to catch up with him. She stopped in front of him, barring his way. She looked down, the frosty wind stinging her eyes. "You're not going alone. I'm promised myself I would find him. I tried many times, and I never did. You can't leave me here." She looked up at him for an answer, ignoring the wind, her cloak fluttering wildly.

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

The ferret turned on his heel, his face contorted in a snarl until he looked upon her and took a breath.

"I cannot say no to you joining me on this quest, Shael, but it's going to be dangerous, and I do not need anything to happen to you...Though since you seem to need to, let us go together. It may benefit us."

He looked at her a moment, the black pupils of his dark red eyes contorting with the changing light. Kilkenne waited for her to get in place beside him.

"I'm warning you, we're traveling fast from here until we leave the North. I do not want the enemy forces to know that I've left the mountains."

He began a slow trot, gradually building up to a medium-paced jog on the path, which in most parts seemed to be an underlayer of old cobblestone of which the earth was trying to reclaim. The hooded and cloaked ferret was sure to keep her with him, but he himself ran quite easily, blatantly ignoring anything his body was telling him to do.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
(ooc: I don't know if you want to, but I'm going to go ahead a day or so)

They had been running for the better part of a day, stopping only out of necessity to eat what was availiable in the pine-woods along parts of the path, and to drink from the few sparse streams coming from the mountains. The fatigue of going so far in such a time frame was fatiguing as mentally as it was physically, his mind whirring with thoughts of the old KM, the new Empire, and what had become of Raine. If the rumours were true, he was living...Somewhere in a forest, or a swamp he had heard.

Finally, he stopped on the outside of a pine copse, breathing heavily, he turned to Shael.

"We'll be staying here for at least a day in the cover of these woods, 'love. Sorry for the lack of rest, but we needed to clear the zone of danger." He looked at the setting sun for a moment and then turned into the forest, walking slowly for a few silent minutes, then stopping abruptly at the base of an enormous dead oak tree, seemingly the only in the forest.

Drawing his sword, he prodded the tree once, and walked around it, looking at it hard, trying to see something that seemingly wasn't there. Suddenly, he put the sword half-deep into a knot and put his weight against it, a slim doorway appearing from the bark spot that he had removed. There was a set of steep stairs going downward below the tree.

Leading, he took a small piece of flint from a pouch on his right side and struck it against the hilt of his sword, while using a footpaw to hold a well-placed torch of grass and pine resin that had been left next to the door for just such use upright so that the sparks would ignite it swiftly, despite the amount of dust and fallen dirt.

"Follow me, 'milady, please, be assured to place that door in position before we go."

With his newly lit torch, he waited for her to replace the door, and began down the stairs, which ended abruptly after just twenty two steps. The ferret looked about in the one flickering room that lay before him, and then lighting each of three more torches inside in their turn.

The chamber was spartan. With a small bed, a place for making a fire, and nothing else, it was merely a place to escape the elements. He turned to Shael once more.

"This was used as a hide-out for one of my generals in darker times. It is ventilated through tiny holes in the ceiling as to let us breath and dissipate the smoke, as well as get us out of the elements." He threw off his cloak and laid it on the bare mattress and collapsed on it, moving over almost over the edge so if Shael wished she might have more than half if any of the small bed to sleep on. Kilkenne watched her, thinking hard, his eyes still half open, but fatigue weighing heavy on him.

[The Lady Shael]

 OOC: Got it. I split the other RP topic too, to make it easier to find RP-related posts. Might be a little confusing though.

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Shael removed her cloak and sword, and set them down by the mattress, too weary to take in much else of her surroundings. She lay down on the mattress next to Kilk, on her back, reluctant to take all the space on the bed he allowed her.

She put her paw on his for comfort, and through half-closed eyes, gazed at the ceiling, thoughts running through her mind. Old memories. The days when Stormclaw was Emperor. She turned her head to Kilk. "Do you remember the days when we were both in Empire? When Raine first introduced us?"

[Kilkenne]

 OOC: Sorry. I've been super busy lately. Not enough time to post...

----------------------------------
He drifted slightly into a daze, thinking harder than before, trying to remember, and then fixed his gaze back onto her.

"Aye. I remember it well. In a meeting between the two, I was helping lead that faction...We could speak of this tomorrow, as we are going to be walking, and not running starting then. G'night, love."

The ferret took one look at her, and closed his eyes to sleep. It was a half hour later that he realized that he hadn't slept since his return. Sliding his paw from under hers carefully, he moved slowly as to not disturb her, he rose, and immediately struck a fire in fire pit and sat, drawing his sword slowly and laying it across his lap, staring at the reflections of the flames in the blade, breathing lightly, still contemplating.

He sat through the night, and once he figured that she was near to awaking, the ferret sat back down onto the cot and lay there, his eyes closed in the intimidation of sleep, awaiting for her to wake up.

[Vengerak]

 He waits.  

He waits a minute of hope & days of hopelessness.  Sometimes he just waits, & there's no greater insult.  He sinks into his thoughts, & tries to blot out the cold, moss-encrusted granite of the aging audience chamber.  If he's lucky, sometimes it dissolves & he spends half an hour out in the open, beyond the walls and the hatred of his self-inflicted exile, home.  Sometimes he sees himself with the warlords he once engaged with so eagerly, just sitting together, talking of peaceful things.  

Other times his thoughts can poison him.  The Empire is denied him forvermore, the expected messengers never return & the rumors are false, in any case.  He remains waiting in the dank audience chamber for long seasons, his fur falling out & old grey bones becoming clearly visible through wasted flesh.

He used to count.  He had counted time though he had tried not to.  Counting presupposed an end to the counting, though he awaited something that might not ever come.  The counting had piled time on & he had watched himself begin to deal in hours in place of minutes, days in place of hours, weeks in place of days, months in place of weeks...  A day was a bad enough burden of time, but within that day even minutes could do damage as they piled up.  When one had nothing to do the worst thing to have was an endless supply of minutes.  It was like pouring nothing into a million little bottles.

Nothing had happened.  Nothing but the long winter.  He was not even engaged actively in attending to the day to day administration & running of affairs around the ruinous stronghold, & thus could sometimes go for days without talking to anyone, with nothing but eating, drinking & sleeping to break the endless cycle of bordedom.  He would just sit on the cracked marble throne & wait.  There was nothing more.  So the counting had stopped.

Thus the days went by.  Each day went by alone.  It crawled along like a dying thing.  Sometimes, if he thought about it, three days went by, but the third was the same as the first.  It was ever the first day because he could not say that three single days, counted, came to something they did not if they were not counted.  If, for example, he was serving twenty years in a labour camp three days might mean something.  It would be twenty years minus three days.  But he awaited something that might never happen, that had no assured ending point.  So there were only first days following first, now.  The third was the first, the fourth was the first, the seventy-fifth was the first...  Time piled up around him on every side, & there was no end to drowning.  Time.  It blew like a steppe wind into an empty future.  There was no end, no event, no news, no reunion.  The seasons came faster than the expected messengers.  The thought that they might sometime come made the waiting on them so slow.  So harrowing.  The waiting, he felt, was withering him.

He was so nervous, so irritable, so oppressed by his virtual imprisonment that he feared for his sanity.  More than anything else it was the crushing boredom that made him think he might go insane. The wind whistled through a hole in the stained glass window adorning the wall to his right.  It seeped in through the split glass & sank on him like some evil shadow, gnawing him.  A snowflake settled upon the end of his nose.  He made no movement, gave no reaction.  One of the stentorian, ever-vigilant guardsmen standing at his side shifted a little, uncomfortable.  He knew that it was whispered amongst some of the lower classes of beast that he was in a catatonic state, or even demented.  Evidently the rumors were spreading.

Sometimes, idly, he wondered if they were right.  If his mind was caught in a loop, stuck on the same day.

Most of the time he simply waited.

[The Lady Shael]

 OOC: *looks on amusedly* Only Raine can draw out the simple message of "I was very bored and very depressed." ^_^

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

Shael woke. Her eyes opened slowly, tentatively testing the light around her. The sun had not yet fully risen, and the embers in the fire pit were dying. She sat up, arching her back, stretching from well-rested sleep. She noticed Kilk still beside her, seemingly asleep.

She turned and watched the dying fire, still sitting on the cot, her legs drawn up to her chest. She tried to keep her mind clear, but couldn't stop herself. She wanted to be closer to him, to enjoy herself with him, but she just couldn't. He didn't seem to be letting her. Everytime she looked at him, he seemed to be far away, his mind too occupied with something no doubt more important. He seemed very intent on getting the journey finished in good time.

Wherever or whenever "finished" was.

Her thoughts switched tracks. What would happen if Raine was alive? She definitely believed this was possible, since she found out Kilk was alive, and that she believed anything was possible. She smiled, recalling a friendly argument she had with Raine not long before she became Empress. She loved talking with Raine. She remembered when she was a diplomat in EO, and when Raine was a diplomat in Ragefur's clan. How they would use the necessity of clan meetings as an excuse to spend more time with each other.

She was almost sure he was close to proposing. Very close, she felt. But he never did. Ragefur was dethroned, and Raine focused on other things, one of the last conversations they had being when Shael aided him with 10 billion dollars to help his declining economy, and gain entry to his clan, The Conquerers' League. Where she and Kilk first met. It was then, she mused to herself, when she started spending more time with Kilk.

If Raine was alive..., she began to think. She shut her eyes, not wanting to finish the thought. She turned back to Kilk, and knelt, gently shaking his shoulder to wake him. "We'll probably want to leave now," she said softly, "dawn will break soon." She stood, picking up her cloak and fastening it around her collarbone, then picking up her swordbelt, fastening it around her waist, keeping her mind devoid of any more thoughts.

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

OOC: Just giving some more background information.

[Kilkenne]

 ---------------------------------
The eyes immediately snapped open, the red retinas offset by the pure creamy white of the rest of his eyes. He rolled from the bed and immediately stood up, not bothering to stretch.

Picking up his cloak and throwing it about himself, he re-situated his belt so that his sword was actually at his side instead of at his front, where it had re-adjusted.

Waiting for her to clasp her cloak, he stepped over the bed and behind her, putting his paws around her waist and clapping them together around her midsection, holding her while resting his head on her shoulder.

"I apologize for my hostility of late, 'love...I wasn't thinking. We'd best be off though...Long road ahead of us." He held her for a moment, and then slowly let go, and set about kicking dirt from the floor into the dying fire to fully extinguish it, and taking a ladle to be found hanging from a torch holder to snuff out the dying embers of the torches that provided a small amount of light to the room. The ferret then made his way up the narrow staircase, and at the top, he put his shoulder to the door that really didn't seem like it was there, making it fall with little effort.

He took a step out into the cool morning air. He took in a deep breath as he waited for Shael to climb out of the hole as he picked up the bark and carefully replaced it on the tree once she had emerged from the temporary hiding place. Looking around to get his bearings, he set off back towards the outside of the forest, into a seemingly endless plain, and to the South.

[The Lady Shael]

 --------------------

Shael lagged behind a bit, taking a last glance at the hideout, and at the forest, marking the beginning of the end of Northern territory. Somehow, she felt, it would be a while before she saw those trees again.

She quickened her pace suddenly, and ran ahead a bit to catch up with Kilk. With his apology still in her mind, last night's thoughts eroded, even if not completely. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and continued walking next to him. Gazing around at the stretching, empty plains, she spoke. "Are you positive we'll find him traveling this way? What makes you so sure?" she inquired.

[Kilkenne]

 ----------------------------------
He gave a short laugh, lightening up a bit.

"D'you suppose there's another way to go looking? 'S not like we have wings, eh?" Again the ferret laughed.

"Besides, if he's anywhere, he's in the southern forests, and if he IS there, someone will know, because he's a pretty prolific character to be away like that..." He put a paw around her shoulder as they walked, realizing really that they'd be walking for 16+ hours a day for the next long while and he might as well make the most of it.

[The Lady Shael]

 --------------------

A few hours later...

Removing the hood of her cloak, Shael squinted up at the blurring afternoon sun. They were definitely in Mossflower Country now, probably even nearing the Southsward border. Behind them, only a faint, dark line marked the edge of the Northern forests. Ahead, there was still nothing. East, nothing, west, nothing. They were journeying across a field of nothingness. Most likely the southern forests were on the other end of the grassy green void, but how long it would take to get there was still a mystery to her.

On they walked, occasionally shifting swordbelts, or re-adjusting cloaks. Shael pressed herself closer to Kilk, suddenly feeling very safe, with his arm around her, and him being at least a head taller than she was. She considered herself lucky to be engaged to him. Funny really, how only a couple days ago she was rambling around the headquarters, believing him dead. Now, there's a possibility that even Raine is alive...

Raine. Invading her thoughts again. She blinked slowly. Raine, the one supposed dead ever since the final, brutal stages of the First Era. She remembered how afterwards she cursed herself for ignoring him when he ignored her. But of course, now she could forget all of that, right? She had Kilk now, or rather, they had each other, and she had the armband on her right arm to prove it...

She blinked again. The young weasel looked up at him, and nudged him a little. "What do you remember about Raine's old clan, Empire, from the First Era?"

[Vengerak]

 Boo.

[RazorClaw]

 To quote windy, "Spiffy spam".

[Guthorm Swordmaster]

 Why did you spiffy spam here?