Many Places of the World

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Meryg returned the smile, albeit briefly.

"I can't ask you to leave without knowing what will happen. Things have to be planned better than this. Besides, your parents were angry with you when you left the castle. Can you think of how angry they'd be with you, and me, for you leaving the...world, universe? No, I think, as much as I want to feel the wind in my fur, it's best to stay here. For now. ...put it away."

With that, he quietly made for the balcony.
 
"Be careful on the balcony it's a little over grown today, I was thinking of leaving it like that, which means you'd have to sleep in here with me." Roxanne bows politely and when the liquid is done, it seems to congeal and she dumps it into one of those jars of hers and puts it in her icebox before following him out to the Balcony. "I wouldn't mind leaving you know...we're supposed to. Mom traveled the realms while she was the special one that the Gods spoke to." She spoke of it with a longing that she couldn't help her two colored eyes gazing far off over the mountains; where you could see smoke rising far in the distance in the mountains. "I...can't believe something so bad happened yesterday and...I don't know anything. Can I really..." She goes quiet and looks down over the balcony not finishing her sentence.

With a sudden smile she glances at Meryg and giggles. "I hope my parents have a son soon...they've been trying for awhile now. I don't think the King can see me leading the city, which is probably why." It didn't seem off topic, because it was what she had been thinking and about to speak of a moment ago. "So...the question is, if they don't have a son, could I...the only one else who could take on the task of keeping the city calm...could I really do it? I personally don't think so..." The last part is a quiet mutter, mostly meant for herself but she hadn't said it quietly either and she seemed to stare off into space as she let her mind wander.
 
The gnoll looked off into the distance as well. "I don't know what reason those people had for doing what they did, but they must think it's a fairly good one. There's two sides to every story. Then again, perhaps they're unreasonable. I know even less than you."

Meryg took a moment to lean upon his spear and sigh. He looked at the princess and smiled faintly. "I do know that you would be a fair queen. The people would love you, Roxanne. I only met you a small time ago, and you had me putting out fires, risking my life, in a city to which I owe nothing. You handled the whole situation better than most sheltered princesses would, I imagine. Besides that, I doubt you'd have to worry over the city on your own. I know you don't think so, but I'm certain there're plenty of men who would enjoy ruling beside you."

"I could never rule anything, personally. This mouth of mine could run an empire into the ground," he noted, trying to make light of the situation.

"Changing the subject," he began, "I don't think it's wise that you leave Roserust. Whenever I go, I'm going alone. I'd never forgive myself if--" he trailed for a moment and sighed. "Your parents would be angry if something happened to you," he reiterated quietly.

He moved to gather his bedding so that he might take it inside. He was a bit nervous at sharing quarters with the princess. He knew nothing risque would come of it, but parents had a way of disapproving of a strange man sleeping in the same room as their only child, a daughter at that. He could only hope that the king did not need a new rug.
 
"A 'fair queen' huh? Hmph it's hard for a sheltered Princess to find anyone when she's stuck inside all the time!" There was a slight anger to her but it settled quickly as she sighed. "It's not that...It's not just you coming here that's made me think of this anyway Meryg. I want to learn, that's why I studied the roses to much, I want to see these other places. I can see them in my sleep, through the connection I have with all the other 'specials' in the places; none of them are as sheltered as I am. None of them. I've seen them in places, amazing places. There's this place it's a whole huge volcano and the people live inside, their bodies are so hot that lava feels cool on their skin and their skin is bronzed, no one makes better weapons than the people there! I've seen a place filled with endless plains, a place that's so dark you can't see unless you have these amazing violet eyes, there's another place where people live in a world filled with water, their skin tinted blue they can breathe underwater! I've seen a world in the sky where people fly and their hair and eyes change colors with their emotions...I mean...who wouldn't want to see these places?" Her duel colored eyes light up with the excitement, of course she had talked about the beauty of these places more than anything, but she knew there were dangers associated with them, though you wouldn't know it from the way she talked of the places.

Roxanne had ignored his comment on a man willing to rule with her. She didn't particularly like the idea. "You see the problem I have with that is they would only see me as 'the princess who was sheltered and doesn't know anything', they would try to be in charge all the time and I hate even thinking about it. Someone has to understand me and see my point of view...I'm also more than willing to see another person's point of view but would they be willing to see mine? I don't want to be like my mother who doesn't really let herself think on her own." With an unladylike growl she follows Meryg into her bedroom and sighs finally stopping her rant. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable...but...well I've been keeping you near me selfishly..." She blushes a bit and looks away making a face as she glanced at Meryg out of the corner of her eye.
 
"Maybe," he began, "the man would see you as a strong-willed woman who knows what it's like to rule from a castle. Maybe he would encourage you and help you to be a queen of the people, so to speak. You think so positively of places you've never seen, but so negatively of the place you know best."

He derailed his own train-of-thought for a moment as he put his bedding down. "Selfishly?" he asked as he put his spear upon the floor and knelt down to straighten his pallet. "How have you kept me selfishly? You're the only one in Roserust I know; the only one I can trust. If anything, I've stuck to you like a scared little whelp. Still, how're you being selfish?"

He was curious now. Something seemed amiss.
 
Roxanne turned a darker red as she muttered her response. "I-...I've seen you before..." She takes a deep breath and continues to be nervous and possibly shy. "It was through the eyes of some female gnoll; I don't know who she was but...Um...we're all connected...all of us specials, I said that just before and we can all see through the others eyes; but...that's not all...we can feel what they feel at the time...I don't know if this was recently but I remembered you the minute I saw you; even if I didn't know you're name or what you were...I remembered you because of that one person and she...well she loved you, so I'm sure...she's worried about you."

Roxanne rubs her wrist a bit and sighs, "You probably wouldn't remember her, from what I heard you two talk about she was low-class as well; though don't ask the details of the conversation, I can't remember, although, you may remember her, she would have worn something around her neck to hide the mark, since she had fur she wouldn't want to show bare spots that were scared don't you think?" Roxanne smiles at him and laughs gently. "So...since I knew you as soon as I saw you...I didn't even think twice when I offered to keep you near me, selfishly I want to keep an eye on you and help you, because feelings like that leave a mark; even if they aren't mine." She scratches her cheek a bit and giggles nervously knowing that this was going to explain a lot about why she had been willing to help Meryg so quickly.

(It was a sudden idea. owo' I hope you don't mind it. <w<' If you do I'll change it; I'm not trying to control anything about him...it was a sudden idea like I said and everyone has a past love or something...I would assume...^w^' again if it bugs you I'll change it.)
 
[OoC: I actually really like the idea. c:]

"A'Lyra?" he said quietly, the sandy-furred female's face clear in his mind. He smiled faintly at the thought of her. She was always in the market when he went, helping her father sell whatever wares he might be pushing that particular day. She was bright and, well, different than the others. He and A'Lyra had always shared that in common. "She loves me?"

His smile turned to a confused expression. "So...are you her, then? In some sense of it, I mean? You see through her eyes. She sees through yours. You must be the same soul, then," he reasoned, trying his best to put together all of this new, confusing information. He looked at Roxanne, attempting to find A'Lyra's face in the princess' own face.
 
(Good I'm glad you do!)

Roxanne giggles at the thought of them being the same. "Although it's true, there is a special reason why we are chosen as being special; it's all entwined into our lives but somewhere we were related; or possibly could be a future or past life. It's all confusing because I swear the worlds are all different time eras of the same world...while also being very different from the original world; makes me wonder what the original world was..." Roxanne waves a hand dismissively. "That aside this A'Lyra...was it? Surely loves you, I could feel it, of course it hasn't messed with my own feelings, that's the good thing about me, unlike some of the specials I can keep myself separate from the people who's eyes I see through, at least when I return to my own head."

"That is the reason I wanted to help you so badly though. I knew who you were. So while we hadn't officially met until a few days ago I knew you to a degree." She smiles at him before going to sit on her bed and tapping her foot lightly on the floor. "I'm not sure what to do with my time now though...I should probably satisfy Mom and practice something feminine...but what? I'm not feminine by nature!" She falls onto her bed with an exasperated sigh then blinks. "Maybe...Hey, Meryg!" She sits up quickly and stares at him intently. "Think you could teach me how to use a spear; I'm not going to attack anybody. I just...can't stand sitting still!"
 
"I don't suppose there'd be much harm in it. It's not feminine, but knowing how to work a weapon or two could definitely do you a lot more good in a pinch. That is, unless your sewing needle is...very large," he said, smirking as he tapped his spear upon the ground. He nodded. "All right."

Moving into a more attack-ready stance, the gnoll gave the weapon a spin. "A spear like this is for thrusting, medium to long range melee combat. You can use it short range for slashing, but it's real potential is to disorientate and impale. See this?" he said, taking a moment to take a bit of brightly colored fabric and beaded tassels at the end of the spear into his hand, "This is to disorientate your enemy."

He put the spear out at an invisible attacker and moved the tip about in what looked like a random motion. "The movement catches the eye. It takes their head out of the fight in front of them, even if they don't realize it. They strike, you parry them to the side, then you deliver a clean jab to a vital area. It's quick and it's done. It's much less messy than an axe, than a sword or club."

"Here," he said, holding the weapon in front of him for her. "Give it a try, then. I know there's no one to test your movements against, but get a feel for the weight. It may be a bit big for you, at that. Try to manage."

[OoC: Sorry for the wait. Among the power going out last night, I've just been doing non-internet things a bit. How goes the new job, by the way?]
 
(It's fine and the job...mm...It goes okay, I only just started, tomorrow I start dealing with customers. @w@' I'm not bad with people honestly, I just don't like most of them...)

Roxanne gingerly took the spear, immediately dropping it with a squeak as it was heavier than she had thought it would be. Feeling nervous and slightly worried that Meryg was going to become angry with her she picked up the spear and lifted it with both hands turning a deep shade of red. "I am...SO sorry Meryg...Please don't get angry at me..." She squeezed her eyes shut and held onto his spear tightly, it was indeed too heavy for her to wield but the weight wasn't unbearable for her either, though she knew she wouldn't be able to move it much. "I...I might need my own...more for my strength...which is...like exactly none..." Her face turned beet red as she mentioned this and she looked kind of adorable now that she wasn't being confident and a good 'Princess' image, she was being shy and nervous twiddling her thumbs together a bit. "I really didn't mean to drop it...it's just...heavy to me."
 
[OoC: Awesome. You sound like my boyfriend. Haha. He doesn't do so well with customer service himself.]

Chuckling lightly, the gnoll took his spear from the princess and smiled. "It's had a lot worse done to it than that, Princess. There's nothing to be upset about," he said in a matter-of-fact manner before he set his weapon to the side.

He looked about the room for a moment before his ears perked and he retrieved a wooden broom from the corner near the balcony exit. "This should do nicely enough. It's a little on the shorter side, but it's more your size than my own spear, that much is certain."

Handing the broom over, he stood opposite of the princess with his own weapon. "Now pretend there's a blade on your handle-end. I'm charging you headlong. You've no one to rely on but yourself. You make one wrong move, and you die, Roxanne. This is no practice session, this is real."

It wasn't near real, of course, but this is how gnolls were taught. You were thrown in to the mindset of battle. If you died in your training, you died in your training. Things were not taken lightly. Then again, he did not want to scare the princess.

"Of course," he muttered with a wink, "it's still just for fun between us."

He flipped his own weapon about so that the blade was not facing Roxanne, and he gave the motion of a side-to-side slash, though it was very much slowed down for her benefit. "Parry this with your own weapon. Deflect my blow and deliver your own."
 
Roxanne had the mind for combat, because of her explorations of the worlds outside, even through other people's eyes, she could set herself into the mindset of battle...Her eyes narrowed and she somehow seemed to forget that she wouldn't be in any real danger. Her steps were quick but unbalanced, while she had the mind set she had issues with the skills of the movements, she was in a restricting dress of silk and tight binds though, the dress was an oddly pale purple. It was tight, she couldn't move well but still when she shifted the weight of the broom handle to knock his spear's handle away it didn't take her much to flip it around with a spin, the broom's head catching the end of his spear and lifting it as she swept at Meryg's legs with the handle.

Of course as she did this her dress ripped causing her movements to jostle, she caught herself in the head with the broom on top of the fact that when she began to fall she held her arms out to cushion her fall the back ripped as well now and she hit the floor. "Ow and crap! I tore up this dress, I'm gonna die. Mom is gonna kill me..."
 
The broom handle tapped against the gnoll's legs, but did not topple him. After all, it was only a broom handle, and his center of gravity could handle a heavier strike still than that. He chuckled when the princess fell and he extended a hand and helped her to her feet. "Are you all right?" he asked mid-chuckle.

"Do you think she'd buy that it was faulty stitching? If not, I suppose there's no better time to practice sewing than now," he said. "That aside, and hitting yourself in the head aside, it was a good strike. You could stand to plant your feet more firmly. Though," he murmured now, "perhaps a spear is not your weapon of choice. Someone small like you could benefit from a bow and a thin blade."
 
"Probably not considering Mom made it herself..." Roxanne actually seemed a bit distraught at how much damage she had managed to do to the dress and she sighed as she got up and pulled it off over her head and pulling out a sewing kit from the closet that he had pulled the broom stick from. "A thin blade or a bow huh? Honestly I think I could do almost anything if I was just taught how. Oh yeah, did you know the legends of the worlds? That when a world is truly in danger a weapon will reveal itself, the weapon; whatever it is, is only designed for one person's use, and when that person dies the weapon dies. It's like the world makes these weapons and takes them back into their core, as if the weapons were living things too. It's really quite an interesting thing, and the weapon can be anything! A blade, a huge tall broad sword; I think they're called claymores...a bow, or a whip. Whatever the user will need the most. It's really amazing."

She smiles a bit as she lightly begins to sew up the dress, sitting there in a white under gown that was lacy and slightly see through, she didn't seem at all bothered by Meryg's presence though. Instead if one paid attention to her hands they were deft and quick sewing the tears up beautifully, she seemed to sew rather adeptly and she wasn't really thinking about it either. "I've always wondered who would get the weapon in Roserust...I feel like my Father would be the one to wield it, whatever it is." Roxanne raises her eyes a bit for a second to stare out at her over grown balcony and she smiled a little though she managed to stab her finger tip with the needle; because she had let her mind wander too far. "Ow...That always stings more than it hurts." She puts her finger in her mouth to stop the blood from getting on her needle or her outfit and she stays like this for awhile, her cyan blue and lime green eyes staring off into a distant place; it was the second or third time in as many days that her gaze seemed to stare far away.
 
Meryg did not avert his eyes from the princess' state of undress, but he did not linger upon her thinly veiled form either. There was, to his people, certainly a sexual aspect to a nude body; however, when there was no plan of sexual relations in the first place, then there was nothing to be ashamed of where nudity was concerned. He and Roxanne were not partners in that sense of the word, so his eyes did not see her body in a lustful manner. It was that simple. She was beautiful, but she was not his to admire. Either of them becoming attached was not a good thing.

"Do you think your father would have it? Is there not a warrior better equipped than Roserust's own king? ...a bit shameful," he said, muttering the last bit. That, of course, was just his cultural opinion. Kings were supposed to lead their men into a battle, but having only your king to wield a weapon of legend in defense of his people was concerning.

"What if it was yourself, Princess?" he asked after a moment. He then noted her far-off gaze. "Princess? Are you all right?"
 
Roxanne blinked to awareness and glanced at Meryg; "Oh! Y-Yes...I'm fine...just lingering memories...erm...it's actually getting close to the anniversary of my sister's death...I need to make her a plushie, I do it every year...That's all it was. I think I'll do a Gnoll this year and tell her about our meeting." Roxanne smiled a bit before pulling her finger out of her mouth which was still bleeding and she couldn't seem to get it to stop. "As for if the weapon chose me we might have a problem, in case you didn't notice the way I screwed up...though..." She looked around a bit nervously before laughing. "Well it's nothing, a spear wouldn't be what I can use I don't think. A whip maybe, but yeah Roserust isn't known for combat, we are known for our technology and inventions."

That explained one of the reasons for her far away gazes lately, the other was probably the fact she didn't have her things to study the roses; which she kept looking at with a slightly longing expression. "Anyway that aside Meryg, I'm sorry about this, I can't sew this up with my finger bleeding like this...Though I'm actually surprised you aren't bored...Or are you and you just haven't told me? I do apologize that you ended up in my world also...I know it's nothing like your Plains of Eternity..."
 
The gnoll smiled and removed a bit of the cloth from the bandage wrapped about his left ear and forehead. "It's a clean bandage, don't worry," he muttered as he moved forward and knelt in front of where the princess was seated. He gave another faint smile and wrapped the little scrap of cloth about her bleeding finger. "It's not to cover any nasty gash I've gotten. Not recently, anyway. So, like I said, it's clean."

"And no, I'm not bored at all. Restlessness might be the word for it, but no, not boredom."

He looked at the princess. "You've got nothing to be sorry about, Roxanne. This wasn't your fault; far from it. Besides that, you're the only one helping me. If I'd have landed in another place and time, they might have just put me down as a monster. You knew me, you wanted to help me."

Shrugging his shoulders coyly, he spoke again. "That...that's something, you know?"
 
Roxanne blinked and stared at the gnoll crouching in front of her, she couldn't prevent it, had no way of stopping it when her face flushed slightly red as he wrapped her finger up, she seemed a little more aware of him than she had earlier, of course she shook it off at first and hopefully her blush faded before Meryg would notice it, though she attempted to distract him by saying something else, "Restless...that I can understand, how do you think I've felt cooped up in my room for all my life, not knowing anything about my own world and barely seeing anything of other more amazing worlds."

She listened to him, she didn't have to be sorry about it, she knew that she had just been feeling so mixed up about so many different things and had apologized without thinking or needing any real reason to apologize and she couldn't help it again when the blush painted her face once more. "S-So...I'm weird like that...I-I can't always help it!" The comment about her actions meaning something to him made the blush turn darker and she kept her eyes away from his now a little nervously, she wasn't uncomfortable just...a surprised that he'd said something like that to her, a Princess who knew nothing at all.
 
"Worlds, if yours is anything like The Plains," he began, "can be a very dangerous place. I don't know if it's the case in Roserust, but there're all sorts of beasts in my home. It's easy to die where I come from. Too easy. I'd be dead now if not for being brought here. I don't know why I was brought here, but there's at least that part of it to be thankful about."

Meryg shook his head and sighed. "What I'm saying, Roxanne, is that you may be missing out on some things, but you're protected from the nasty things. And there're a lot more nasty things than there are good things. Usually, at least. Like the explosion in town. We found good things that day, but one bad thing nearly ruined it all."

"I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened to you. I couldn't. And I'm not just saying that because you're my only hope of getting home. I mean it."

He stood and smiled, then moved back over to his pallet and took a seat.
 
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