Behind Those Golden Eyes

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"Mmmm." Tal shrugged noncommittally. He had his reasons for the way he had acted and behaved back then and he had his reasons for the way he acted/behaved now. He felt no need to apologize or particularly change. In short, he was stubborn and opinionated. He turned and lifted the chair out of the impressive pile of hair and used the tarp to carefully dump it all in the trash. He may have snuck one long lock into his pocket for some reason though. Either way he quickly packed up his hair cutting stuff and glanced over at her. "The make-up might take a while, did you want to eat first?"
 
There was a long silence between them while Tal was taking care of the hair. Aisha let her hand go through the short hair numerous times, it felt so different. It was definitely a good different. It didn't feel as heavy, even though she never actually had thought about the weight before she had cut it. It wouldn't be able to get stuck in things, which had happened a lot in the past. And it would most likely not be a monstrous mess every morning. But she couldn't deny that she felt a bit sad over her cut hair. Even though it had been a pain in the ass, it had still been times when she really enjoyed her long hair. Like when one of her friends braided it and gave it unique looks every time. But it would eventually grow out again, so it wasn't like she would never be able to get it styled again.

Tal woke her up from her sudden hair fixation. "Food!" She exclaimed immediately. "I'm about to starve to death. Being in a carriage for hours is so exhausting, no wonder I'm so hungry." It was a bit funny how she always seemed to be hungrier on days when she barely moved around at all, and then she barely ate during days she had tons of work on. Not because she couldn't find the time, but because she never noticed that she were hungry.
 
"You get used to it. Or you'd better. I try to do as much of my traveling as possible by carriage." Many a person had called Tal lazy through the years. He freely admitted to it. The fact that he had put hours and hours into his sword work and various other skills was nothing short of amazing to the people who knew him sometimes. "Let's go-" He paused and frowned. "Actually, no let's eat up here. Stay here and I will be back in a moment." No need to show her off any more than necessary.

He quickly left and headed downstairs to order some food. He returned a few minutes later carefully balancing the two platters on one arm and two bottles of wine in the other hand. "Aisha open the door." He waited until she did so and slid inside. "Be sure to lock that behind me." It wouldn't really stop anyone after them but the noise would be an indicator that some fool wanted to play.

He set the platters and wine down and straightened with sigh. "Waiting on people is not one of my favorite jobs." He had disguised himself as a waiter a fair few times but that really didn't make it better. "Hopefully your palate hasn't changed too much since last I saw you." He gestured towards what he had brought, which was a rice mix with a bunch of vegetables and eggs covered in a cheesy sauce. There was a large thing of pieces of bread on the side. Tal had something that looked like Curry over his rice and vegies with chunks of beef. He pulled the two wine glasses he'd brought closer and popped open the white wine, pouring a generous amount for them both before settling down on 'his' side of the table.
 
The thought of traveling by carriage were almost boring her to tears. She didn't mind it too much if they had something interesting to talk about, but that would probably not always be the case. As he said, she would just have to get used to it. Or maybe she should try to make him appreciate walking a bit more.

Aisha waited for Tal to come back with the food. Sitting there alone, waiting, thinking, watching. Suddenly reality hit her. She had left her hometown with her childhood friend whom she hadn't talked to for years, he was also a demon, whom probably kept a ton of secrets from her, and she thought it was completely reasonable for her to trust him. Another part of her mind was going in a different direction. She had left her hometown with her childhood friend whom she hadn't talked to for years, so far he had payed everything for her, tried to make sure she was safe, and taken her with him even though he thought it was a crazy idea. At least that was what she speculated. Was she out of her mind? How could non of that had occurred to her before?

"What am I doing?" She asked herself. Just running away from her home and letting another man providing for her, and that man was an assassin and a demon. She wasn't sure if she should be ashamed for the fact that one thing felt too natural, or afraid for another thing that had been there ever since they were children even though she never saw it. It wasn't too late to turn back home. She could walk that distance, even though it would take a while. Her mind was suddenly filled with doubt, and she wasn't sure what to do with it all.

"Aisha open the door" She heard Tal call. She had to actually hit herself to pull herself together. She was just in panic because of a rash decision. She didn't have to decide immediately if she should leave or not, because if she did she might regret it for the rest of her life. 'Calm down' She told herself in her mind.

She opened the door for him and locked it just as she was told. Hopefully he wouldn't notice that she were a bit nervous, she really didn't feel like explaining how she first now realized what she had been doing since the other day. And if he thought she had doubt of being around him, would he think she weren't up for whatever his world would throw at her and then send her back home? She wouldn't tell him no matter what, not before she knew for certain what she wanted to do. She could always turn back.

"Are you kidding me, this looks delicious." She exclaimed excitedly at his comment, hiding her confused feelings as deep inside her as she could. "But since I am the person that though roasted grasshoppers looked delicious I guess it doesn't count for much." She then commented. There were few edible things she didn't think looked delicious, though there were quite the amount of things she refused to eat a second time. Usually just weird things nobody ate on normal occasions anyway.
 
Tal glanced over at her and tilted his head curiously, as if he could sense something might be off but couldn't quite put his finger on it. In typical Tal fashion he shrugged it off and decided he didn't care until it came to light as something relevant to him. "That was truly disgusting, Aisha." He grimaced a bit at the memory. He was not a picky eater, he did however have a bit of a 'refined' palate and bugs did not fall on his menu of things he would actually like to eat. "Well enjoy your dish then." He tipped his glass back and slowly swirled the wine around in his mouth for a moment. "Hmm…not bad I suppose."

He leaned back in his chair and surveyed his companion. He was no mind reader but as a demon he did sense auras, it was how he almost always knew someone was around. Auras could tell you a lot about a person's intent and current emotional state. And hers was being very distracting. It was grating along the edge of his senses. He ate in silence for a few moments while he pondered what could be the cause of this sudden distress. And of course once he thought about it the answer was obvious. He took a bite and then leaned forward to fix her with a piecing stare. "It finally hit you did it?" He smirked at her. "All day with me talking about all the precautions I want to take and only now are the implications of what you said and are doing finally sinking in?"

Tal found himself a bit torn about it as well. After all the planning and preparation he had put in to taking her with him, and having pretty much unconditionally accepted that she was going to follow him around, it stirred up a weird reaction in him to think that she was having second thoughts now. "I guess better now than even farther along. I was afraid it wasn't going to hit you until I was surrounded by dead bodies after an attack and you ran away screaming."
 
She giggled a little at his comment as she sat down in front of him, taking in the scents of the food. It didn't smell too bad, and if it didn't smell bad then it most likely didn't taste bad either. She was not disappointed as she took her first bite. It was delicious. Which didn't mean too much since she pretty much thought that everything that didn't taste bad was delicious.

Just as Tal, Aisha kept silence as she ate. Still thinking about what she should do in the future. How far could she go with him and still be able to turn around? Would there come a time when she wouldn't be able to go back to her old life even if she wanted too? She tried so hard to not let her face give her thoughts away, but somehow Tal were still able to pick up everything she had been thinking about.

She stared at him for a good minute or so before she were able to speak. "If you were to be surrounded by dead bodies after being attacked I would first of all make sure that you were alright." She corrected him, a bit offended that he thought she would run away in that kind of scenario. "For how long have you been a mind reader anyway? If you're going to sneak into peoples heads then at least warn them first." She then continued.

She didn't completely believe that he had read her mind, but it felt weird that he had just known. And she wanted to change the topic. Fast. She hoped to get him onto another topic and make him forget about him ever bringing that up.
 
Tal raised an eyebrow; both amused and surprised that that was the thing she decided to respond to. He let her stew for a bit, for no reason that he could explain while he had a few more bites of food. "Mind reading is giving me a bit too much credit." He grinned. "And that will be the only time you ever hear me say such a thing so enjoy it." He took another bite and chewed away while he tried to describe just how the aura sensing thing worked.

"So I'm sure you've heard about aura's at some point in your life. For most humans it is a fascinating non-factor as the by far majority of humans have no idea they are there, let alone have enough spiritual energy to do anything about it. Being what I am…well one of the many things I can do is 'sense' these aura's. I can tell when someone is around and roughly where they are using them, even identify them if I am familiar enough with the aura. It's…kind of like having a special local area map overlay in my head, but there is one added bonus. Even if I don't know them I can determine emotions and sometimes intent. Things like intent to kill are very evident, I don't even have to try to tell someone is around to kill me. Emotions are a bit trickier, but you have to be a skilled aura user to control your aura enough to begin to mask your emotions let alone your presence."

Tal had a feeling it was a distraction topic and he was just as happy not to really touch on the topic himself. What would happen would happen and he would go on doing what he did regardless.
 
It took a while before he spoke. At first she got more worried, believing he would try to prey the answers out of her. But eventually she realized that he weren't that much of a demon. He didn't care to mention that she were evading the question, which she was fairly certain he knew. Instead he just told her what she wanted to know. As he spoke, she relaxed more and more, almost forgetting everything she was thinking about just moments earlier.

"Hmm... So if I were to decide that I wanted to kill you, you would know about it. I better come up with quite the plan to get past that security system of yours." She said with a smirk. Of course she wouldn't kill him, and she doubted there would ever come a time when she would actually want to. But it was still funny to remind him that she now knew his strengths, at least some of them, which meant she might be able to figure out his weaknesses, some day.

"You do realize that in the past couple of days, you have gone from douche-bag childhood friend, to a misunderstood demon, and now you've ended on fortune teller.... or aura reader. So now I'll predict that by tomorrow morning I'll find out that you are hiding a tail." She wasn't certain what she could expect to come next, but a tail wouldn't be too surprising. Even if he had wings it wouldn't surprise her anymore.
 
Tal chuckled at the thought. He would love to see her try. "A tail?" He put his fork down and glanced behind himself. "Well if that happens I think both of us would be rather surprised." He honestly hoped not. A tail would throw his balance off terribly and that would just be bad for both of them. He turned back to his food, which he was now downing with a great deal of gusto. Somewhere along that huge speech he made he found himself getting rather hungry. And also other things that he was not going to deal with right now because while he might be able to justify bringing someone back to their rooms with it was rooms plural but while they were sharing a room it was just not going to happen.

He rubbed at his eyes tiredly once he was done and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. He didn't know if he really felt like doing all of the make-up but it needed to be done either tonight or tomorrow morning. And it would probably be better to get done ahead of time. So he sucked it up and pulled her into the bathroom once she was done with her food to show her the magical process of applying make-up to make yourself look more like the other gender. Once he felt she had at least a basic understanding of the process though he would probably be helping her out for a while.

After that Tal flopped on his bed and passed out, assuming that she would do the same. He touched up her make-up in the morning, put a hat on her head and nodded with satisfaction. They endured another long carriage ride, another night in even more cramped quarters before finally arriving one town over from their destination. Tal paid off the driver, found a private place to change into less obvious clothes, rubbed some ash into his hair and his clothes before putting a wide brimmed hat on. Staring at the ground was unfortunately pretty much the only way he could hide his golden eyes.

"Alright, it's now time to get serious." He murmured to her as they started down the path to the city in the distance. "For the moment I am your brother, Arty, and we are here to order some new farm items for our father. Your name is Alish. Once inside we will find the most average looking tavern possible and set up there for the night. I will have to leave you at that point to get the lay of the land but so long as we manage to get inside under the radar you should be fairly safe for a day or two."
 
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After dinner, Tal taught her how to do the make-up to make her look like a male. She tried hard to remember what he told and showed her, but truth be told, she would probably need some help for at least the first couple of weeks. After that, Tal pretty much passed out immediately. Aisha laid down herself, but didn't fall asleep before long into the night. Thoughts was occupying her mind, and decisions screamed after a solution. A solution she weren't ready to give yet.

The next day they endured another long carriage ride, this time she slept through almost the whole trip, as she had gotten way too little sleep the other day. That day ended without excitement, and without fights or arguments. The day afterwards they arrived in a town very close to their destination.

She was quite surprised as he told her his plan. Not because the plan itself was surprising, but because he didn't tell her before they had arrived. "Well that shouldn't be too hard, you have always been like an obnoxious brother to me, Arty." She murmured back to him with a smile. She didn't like the fact that he would leave her alone, but she knew that it would happen sooner or later. Now she was fairly sure that he at least wouldn't get killed too easily, but that didn't make her less worried. Not only because he might get injured, he might just decide to leave her. It would most likely be a long time before that fear would finally escape her mind.
 
Tal smirked and jabbed at her side playfully. "Obnoxious brother? If anyone was the obnoxious one it was you Alish." Aisha might be surprised to learn that Tal was pretty much winging the whole disguise thing, which was of course why he hadn't told her anything about it earlier. He had done this so many times that he did not waste a lot of time plotting out the details to a disguise that he was using just to get into the gates. He would of course be dumping the farmer's son act and becoming whatever would work best for him to get to his target as soon as they were settled in the Inn.

"Oh and in case we get separated for some reason on the way in or if anything happens after we are inside the gates go to 'The Eagle's Inn'. It's a place frequented by the idiotic Knight types so you're less likely to run into trouble there. I will come meet you within a few hours, a day at most depending on why we ended up separated." He was spending a lot more brain power on how to deal with any eventualities they might have to deal with while inside. And he needed to do it quick as the road was slowly filling up with more random people as they got closer to the gates of the big city. "Hmm…what else? Oh yes, how much money do you have on you?" It hadn't been a concern up to this point as Tal had been paying for everything but it would not do for her to have no money if they did get separated.
 
"I have never been obnoxious, I was just childishly charming." Aisha corrected him. She wondered a bit what was running through his mind. What did he think would happen that would separate them for a whole day? Was he expecting someone to attack him in the middle of the day with witnesses all around?

"Enough to last a couple of weeks on my own, maybe a month at the most." She answered him. Half of it was her own savings, the other half had come from her father. In case she ever regretted it and wanted to return home then she would have the means to do so. At that point she had thought of her fathers words as ridiculous, but now it started to make more sense. She didn't want to leave, but it could happen at some point. She hoped it wouldn't though.
 
"Good." Tal nodded and felt a bit more comfortable then. If anything did happen where she needed to be on her own for a while she would be alright. He couldn't think of anything else that needed to be planned for at the moment so he fell silent while they continued their walking, his now changed subtly from that of a predator to a more normal heavy type stride you might expect from a farmer. He made these changes without too much conscious thought. Much the same with his usually refined accent once they were in front of the guards.

"State your names and reasons for entering." One guard repeated boredly. Tal took a shuffling step forward. "Arty, Sir." He murmured in a rough voice, just slightly slurring his words like he might have a hangover. His slightly punched posture and his squinted downcast eyes seemed to support the idea as well. "That be my brother Alish and we be here to buy seeds and other gear for pa's farm." The guard scribbled it down on a sheet he had and waved them through.

Tal moved through the gate with the assumption that Aisha would continue following him. He didn't speak for several streets away before stretching and looking around. "Alright, this should be far enough." He gestured to a near-by Inn and led the way inside, grunting at the innkeeper for a double bed room and then stumbling up the stairs to their room and dropping his stuff on one of the beds, all traces of the hung-over farmer's son gone. "That seemed to go well. I do so love uncurious guards." Tal grinned at her as he started washing the soot out of his hair.
 
Aisha became very nervous as they came to the gate. If they were caught lying to the authorities they could get into big trouble. Though it was a bit ridiculous of her to think that an assassin would care about such things. What he did wasn't even legal, so he would be in more trouble if he didn't lie. At least she didn't have to say anything, even the laziest of guards would notice that she was lying, at least when she were that nervous.

She followed Tal until they got to an inn. Once inside she dropped her bag and sat down with a sigh. "Me too, I would have gotten a heart attack if they had questioned us." She said, not the least entertained. It was just to get used to it if she were to travel with him, she was well aware of that fact. But it would take time to adapt to it. Making a small white lie to a stranger didn't feel like a big deal, but lying to guards whom were supposed to protect the country felt wrong. 'Get used to it' She thought to herself.

"So, for how long will you be out sightseeing?" She then asked him. As if his trip to learn how the town looked like were some kind of fun little adventure. Well, if she thought of it that way, then she would at least not be too worried while he was gone.
 
Tal chuckled lightly and gave his hair one last look in the mirror before deciding he was satisfied with that and started working on his exposed him. "You'll get used to it. At least half the people walking through that gate were lying about what they were doing anyway." He added the last in the hopes it would reassure her a bit. He dropped the rag he had been using in the basin and went over to his bed, pulling a new set of clothes that now looked more like an average townsman's. Without even thinking about it he started pulling off his farmer outfit in front of her while he answered her question. "Probably for not much longer than tonight, depending how much trouble I have finding Bodi. I am somewhat familiar with the city and where he should be but this wouldn't be the first time someone isn't where they should be." He glanced over at her with a grin.
 
As Tal glanced over at Aisha, she had already buried her face in her hands. Only her red ears proved her embarrassment. "Well that's good then." She replied with a much too high pitch in her tone and her voice muffled by her hands. She wasn't sure why she was so embarrassed over seeing him changing clothes. It had never bothered her when her brother did it. But even so, her heart was suddenly beating at an incredible speed and her face was almost as red as a tomato. 'It's just Tal, he's like your brother! Calm down Aisha.' She thought to herself. Why was she so worked up over it? Tal had always been like a family member to her.
 
Tal tilted his head, momentarily confused by what had caused such a reaction in her. Then his brain kicked on and suddenly that same smile from when he'd been flirting with her in the carriage had returned. "Aisha?" He said playfully as he dropped the new clothes he was going to change into and instead approached her in nothing but his tight black boxer-briefs that left little to the imagination. "Aisha~ why are you hiding your face?" He reached out and took her hands, gently but firmly pulling her hands from her face. "Surely you've seen it all before?" He raised his eyebrow archly and leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "How do I compare to your brother?"
 
Aisha didn't like the tone of his voice, he sounded too suspicious. Then all of a sudden she felt two hands gripping hers and pulled them away from her face. Her eyes were flying everywhere, from his face to the ceiling, to the floor, to the walls, back to his face and of course she couldn't help but pass his body now and then.

"W..what are you saying. Stop joking around and put on some clothes already." She knew very well that he were messing around with her, but even though her brain registered that, her body didn't seem to do the same and her heart seemed to turn up another speed level.
 
Tal could just bask in the heady combination of embarrassment and what he registered as arousal (though she probably had no clue) radiating from her aura. Unfortunately for her this obviously was doing nothing to encourage him to stop. His mission forgotten he was entirely focused on her now. "In the end it doesn't really matter." He continued softly in her ear, stepping up so he was just starting to press against her. "After all, it's not so much size but a matter of how you use it." Tal licked lightly up the curl of her ear. "And I am very good."
 
If it was a joke, then he had taken it way too far for Aisha's taste. "Stop it." She shouted as she pushed him with as much force as she could muster. "Go do your job instead of fooling around, stupid demon." Her embarrassment had started to turn into anger and she rose from her seat and went to the bathroom, locking herself in there so that she wouldn't have to see his face, (nor his body while he put on his clothes).
 
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