A dull pounding from the north...

[Dead Eye]

 Now Dead Eye pulled out both rapiers and growled, aiming them at Ashyra "I called you as a friend. No threats, only kind words. I was trying to guard Kilk. You have gone to far to threaten me Ashyra. You will die with your skiffs. I will take them out myself!" Dead Eye's , um, eyes, were full of rage and hatred. Ashyra had blown him off, tsked him away, thinking she was all mighty. Now Dead Eye would fight her. While watching her he called for his captains.

"Take all our skiffs and leaders and murder Ashyras skiffs. Only attack her skiffs a few times, to show her we mean bussiness."

OOC: haha Ashyra. Just to prove a point I attacked you in regular. Just 1 attack. Only 54 land. But I really wanted to see. Granted I kept murdering your forces, but since expansion is tomorrow I wanted to see. I broke you once out of my 5 attempts, and took 59 land.  I am done with RWL until expansion, so attack me if you wish and take back the 59 land and revenge. But this is a point that you arent an undefeated Skiff master.

[The Lady Shael]

 Shael's narrowed eyes looked between them both disapprovingly, one paw on the belt to which her sword was strapped. "The reason we are all here," she began, "is to make alliances and join forces. This wasn't my- our," she corrected herself, looking apologetically at Kilk, "intention."

"If all the rest you're going to do is threaten each other," she continued, "you may as well come inside, and get a good night's sleep. I shall assume I am no longer needed here." She turned towards the entrance of the stronghold, and looked back over her shoulder. "That is only my advice. I'm not forcing you to follow it. It's just a warning. The wrong choices can lead us all down a blackened pathway." Her eyes wandered off, staring at the dark sky. "On a lighter note, you all have your own quarters inside, I suggest you use them." She looked off her other shoulder at Kilk, pausing shortly to see if he'd come along.

----

OOC: Yay, I can write decent role-playing posts again...I suppose it's because we were studying some more poetry in English today, analyzing a poem about seeking the light and avoiding dark pathways.

[Kilkenne]

 --------------------------
He raised a brow at Ashyra. "I could easily double, if not triple the guards at the shores. There is no way you could dock if that is how you want it, Ashyra, but I won't. Just consider the alliance."

The ferret looked to Deadeye, opening his mouth to speak, but only letting lose a get of steam as the cold north air assaulted what was going to come from his mouth.

He looked at the darkening sky, then at Shael. He reluctantly took a step forward and put an arm around her waist and led her back into the warmth of the keep, not saying a word until reaching the staircase leading to his quarters.

He stopped, looking for a moment at Shael. "Your quarters are directly down this hallway. I am retiring to mine. G'night, milady." He stated, quickly embracing her, and withdrawing, his mind whirring, half expecting her to follow for some reason.

[The Lady Shael]

 Shael turned to walk down the hallway, feeling reluctant to step away from him. She looked over her shoulder, noticing Kilk seemed to be a little hesitant as well. She turned around and called softly. "Kilk." He turned around. "Um, if you ever- I mean, if you need-" She stared at the floor. "-want me to keep you company, just say so. I don't really feel like retiring to my quarters at the moment."

[Kilkenne]

 --------------------------
He laughed awkwardly.

"Sure! I'm not too interested in turning in, either, come on up..." He waited for her to get level with him and stepped up the last few, opening the door to his chamber in a wide sweep.

A fire crackled in the large, plain stone fireplace, spreading light over a table strewn with maps, one with a daggar stuck through the middle, deep in the table. Unfinish letters were cluttering the desk as well, ink smeared on some unimportant parts of the maps. Other than that, the room was impeccably clean. The two crossed scimitars of the Ragingblade family rested above the fireplace, hung on two pegs. In the back of the room, the head to the wall, was a huge bed, ornately carved of a dark wood, spread with a large crimson sheet. The only other furniture in the room was a huge open armoir, full of armour, cloaks, and a few weapons in various drawers, and a single crimson, leather armchair, pulled up to the fire.

"It isn't much, but it's somewhere warm to sleep I suppose." He took off his cloak and tossed it over the back of the chair, unstrapped his armour, pulling it off of his arms and chest with little difficulty, putting the highly polished lorica segmentata on the map table, standing up, he undid his scabbard, putting it next to the armour. He stood up, in only his black leather tunic, made standard for all soldiers so their armour would not cut into them.

He reached to take her cloak. "Make yourself at 'ome..."

[The Lady Shael]

 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."

[Dead Eye]

 ooc: We got a love story going on.

Gotta kiss the girl! LALALALA! Kiss the girl!

A whole new world! A whole new point of view! hahaha!


Anyways...

IC: Dead Eye gave one more look at Ashyra then said "My dear, I am sorry. We must be allies. But if not, leave now. I will miss you though. But you are none of my bussiness now. Good Bye"

Dead Eye walked outside and into his guard lined up. There were one million  fighters lined up, with 10 captains out front. "It is good to see you! We have much work to do. Workers, Captain Ugla, start on making towers around Kilk's fortress. The rest of you captains set shifts. Captain Todak and Left Ear, take your forces and make an outer guard. Set up camps around. The rest of you set guards around the fotress!"

[Kilkenne]

 (OOC: It's 5:30 AM. In a stupor. Woot.)
-----------------------------
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?"

[The Lady Shael]

 OOC: Sorry, my mom was keeping me prisoner yesterday with my homework. :/ Note: When I say Headquarters, I mean the building I described up in the pinned topic.

BIC:

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."

[Kilkenne]

 ------------------------------
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.  

[The Lady Shael]

 OOC: Don't have much choice but just to follow along. I'm not going to stay locked up in a bedroom, you realize.

BIC:

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.

[Kilkenne]

 ---------------------------------
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.