(cross posted in the Adenna folder http://rdi.dragonsmark.com/forums/viewforum.php"f=460 )

It had been a number of weeks since the smith had visited this particular tower on Twilight Island. As promised by its young keeper the doors opened for him. Her mannerisms stirred something strange inside of Kruger. He wasn't surprised by the fact; after all it had been the oddities of S"jira that had attracted him. It was that crazy vibe from Raye that had his attention that first time he met her. Let's not forget that enigma that was Taneth. Even the Keeper of the tower of Air had her quirks that drew him towards her.

Was he truly drawn to such frailties in the human condition, okay elven in some instances" If so, then why was he" Others took that strangeness with pity, or worse thought it a good reason for jokes. Kruger seemed to almost actively seek out those whose acts and actions singled them out in this strange melting pot called RhyDin. Perhaps he felt more kindred to them than to all those others who were rich, powerful, and not afraid to let a person know when they didn't make muster. True Nayun was not from RhyDin, Kruger didn't even know if she considered it as her home.

Regardless of what she thought, it was here that he had met her. Like so many of these meetings, he wasn't really sure how to take the girl who was so formidable in the rings. Inside the duels she showed precision. He enjoyed watching her duel, even when it was he that she was fighting. She took that precision nearly to a flaw sometimes, but it was always beautiful to watch.

The idea of perfect self was strange to him. He had learned in the pits with the gladiators. To him the battle had always been life and death. One could be precise in oneself, but the problem comes in expecting it from others. Most of us are flawed. If it is with conservatism, precision lacks a step or an inch. We pull back just at the point our strike is most powerful. Those of us afflicted with a more indulgent sense of precision tend to overstep the mark. In the interest of gaining power the strike is weakened. These were not what Kruger saw in Nayun. She knew where to step, and how. If there were any problem in Nayun's consistency of precise footing, and perfect blows it resided not in her, but in her opponents. The perfect strike would rarely come to Nayun, because she had yet to find her perfect opposite.

Kruger had out thought her once using this as his basis. She had him read very well over the last several weeks. He had rechecked every move he made in that fight. If his instinct had been conservative he deliberately gave more. Where he had been tempted to try and finish her, he stepped back to defend. It was these gross adjustments that won him the day. It was certain to be a situation that could never repeat itself so perfectly though. The best he could hope for would be that Nayun no longer made the usual assumptions about Kruger in their matches.

All these thoughts were in his mind as he travelled the corridors of the tower. He traced the path of the music's volume. The louder it got, the closer he was to finding her. From all he knew, which to be honest wasn't much, she would be training. In her own words she had told him that the fight was everything.

Kruger didn't marvel at the towers d"cor, he was in that cart horse frame of mind. The blinders were on to all but what he desired out in front of him. The door to the weight room stood open. The volume of the music changed to its loudest point as he turned into this room. Nayun was there, Kruger remained quiet as she worked through a set of squats. She wore a pair of loose black pants and a sports bra. Her back was to him, but he was sure that she could see him in the mirror that made up the entire wall. He thought he detected a small catch in her decent as she spotted him, but it was so brief that he could easily have been mistaken. Her expression had never seemed to change through that set her eyes never lost that what he would come to call a determined cast.

When she finished her set and placed the barbell back onto the rack she turned to regard him. Five feet of lean muscle greeted him almost expressionlessly, except for those focused eyes. Kruger took in her form calculatingly. Surely she was a warrior. He found himself measuring her with his eyes and outfitting her in different pieces of armor. Those sculpted abs had him thinking of creating a set that was uniquely her. He gave himself a mental shake to avoid being lost in possibilities.

"I was hoping that I could talk with you Keeper, if you have some spare time that is?" For once Kruger's outfit didn't make him feel ridiculous in a social environment. He enjoyed the t-shirts he had started wearing to the duels. It cost very little to have them made, and he could see that some were amused by them. This particular light brown shirt had a picture of a giant anvil crushing the duel rings, and a caption that read Let's Get Ready to Rumble. This was tucked into some medium blue jeans whose pant legs hid his old work boots.

His eyes of grass burnt by the sun locked briefly with her red orbs, before she turned away towards another machine. "Spot me!" were the words he thought he had heard from her. He moved to the bench press and into the spotter's position.

She looked up at him, but he could tell it wasn't the finger length hair she saw. It wasn't that wolf consuming the All Seeing Eye branded into his left cheek either. He was fairly certain she saw the bar, and the struggle that the next few minutes would bring her. "I was hoping to pick your brain a little with regards to fire and the adequate containing of it when temperatures become excessive."

She pushed the bar up as he spoke, but set it down quickly. Now those eyes move to him, but her response had nothing to do with what he had said. "More weight please!" Kruger nodded at the simple request. He moved to the weight rack and pulled another twenty pounds off of it in two ten pounders. These he added to her already laden bar and moved back into position. She gave a quick breath as she lifted the bar from its holders.

Her rhythmic cyclical breathing in through the nose on the way down, and out through the mouth in an explosion on the way up commenced. Kruger watched her for signs of struggle, waited to see if she would need a hand to give just enough to get her through. She seemed to have a handle on it though so he talked while she worked. "I find myself falling behind the curve in town. Other places seem to be advancing with the times easier than I am able to." Down goes the bar and back up, slow deliberate, still the eyes betray nothing. The girl is silent except for her breathing. The weights slow as she progresses; Kruger waits to continue watching her work through this repetition. When her elbows fully extend he helps her back into the cradle.

Nayun pulls herself to a seated position. "Why come to me?" The question comes as she makes her way to another bench; this one has no weights at it. It sits in a declined state and Nayun seats herself on the top most part of it.

Kruger follows her across the room. The music is louder here because the speakers are closer. "I am hoping to set up my own furnace, this place sits where no building should be able to. I want to understand why, and how."

"Hold my feet." Nayun put her feet up onto the bench and waited for Kruger to take her ankles. She began to do sit ups at this point. It was an improved position from what she would have had to do alone. The bench was rigged with a bar to hold her feet, but it took her out of the best position to do the job. She would twist at the top, or throw a punch past Kruger. He was amused by this, but he was also paying particular attention to her metal arm. He marveled at such a thing. He wanted to have one for study to see if he could possibly make something similar.

Nayun's breath still came steady and strong, but now it brushed at his hair and kissed his skin. She worked at length on this piece of equipment. Kruger thought perhaps she was thinking over what he said. Then again maybe she was just making the most of having someone here to assist her training. When she finished she slid forward toward him and off the end of the bench. Kruger backed away for her and again followed her back to that first piece of equipment.

"Put another twenty five on that side please!" Kruger complied with her request again. The weight was placed as she was doing the same. When she stepped beneath the bar and took it up on her shoulders, he moved in behind her to that spot position. He could see her eyes in the mirrored wall, he couldn't determine if she looked at him, or watched her own execution of the exercise.

He let her go for a little while, content to be watched if that were the case or just be there if she happened to need his help. Eventually the silence was broken by him. "I know there are probably magical factors at work here that will be difficult enough to explain. This is why I wanted to talk to you." Was that a grunt of effort, hard to tell with the music that was playing. He stopped talking and simply watched her go through the movements ready to lend her his own strength.

Nayun pushed through the final repetition, but Kruger felt that his hands on the bar might be necessary. When it went back into its cradle she turned to regard him across that single bar barrier. He didn't shrink away from her gaze. "The truth is Nayun, I need you."

There was a laugh from the doorway, a decidedly feminine voice that he had heard before. "Giving up your virginity so easily Nayun?? Seirichi stood there with an amused expression for her joke. Kruger stepped away from Nayun to look at Seiri. Her stature was closer to his; those brown tresses fell over a lean body. At once she was casual, and dangerous. The combination made her beautiful to look upon, like a tiger mid-leap.

The swift attack of Nayun did surprise Kruger. The fierceness of it had him ready to jump to her aid. Perhaps this woman was as bad as she had been reputed to be. She seemed to hold little compassion towards her attacker. Silently he routed for Nayun in this conflict as she went at Seiri with those perfect steps. He had understood that if she had needed him, she would have asked for him.

He watched the two women go at it with such an intensity that as one would strike his own body would give a reflexive quiver his mind telling the limbs to react in his own defense. It took great effort not to move with those reflex memories. He knew somehow that to do so would change the scene before him. Perhaps if he did make a sudden movement the two would become one against him. The thought both thrilled him and left him uneasy. His heart was pumping with adrenaline, and there was a part to his mind that kept uttering that he should jump into the fray. The savage finish to the fight did nothing to quell his heart from pounding in his ears.

He noted the softening of Seiri, and when she pushed her hair back he could almost feel it. He wanted her to do it again, just so he could watch. He was so enthralled with a simple action he nearly missed her talking to him.

Kruger raised a slightly defiant chin at her call for his name first. Instead he spoke of what had just transpired. "I believe she will take you one day, though it is some time away." There was no malice in his words, just a statement that he believed true. He moved slowly closing the gap between them. She was dangerous, and he had been flirting with so many dangerous things since his return. The drinking, and constant fighting were symptoms of what had transpired in Istandor. "I am called Kruger. I came to Nayun as the Keeper of the tower; please accept my apologies for I did not know the nature of your relationship with Nayun." He was close now, close enough to touch her if he stretched out his hand, inside his head there was the voice telling him it should be so; that the end of everything started with the smallest of touches. He pushed the monster inside him away. It would come stronger later, and he would need to dull his senses to keep from hearing it.

"You however are Seiri, from Adenna, though I have heard you called other things." He did not repeat what he had heard, she likely knew without him telling her. A sudden understanding struck him in the moment that he was told of his discourtesy. "You once insulted me, though it was without knowledge of the act, or if not then it was surely misunderstood as to my reason for being so. I was there the night you returned the Panther's Claw. I heard your words, and saw its condition"In truth I care little for the item, but the man it represents was a good friend to me." His voice hushed a little at the admission.

He was close enough now to see Seiri's storm cloud grey eyes, he spoke on fearing that if he stopped he wouldn't be able to begin again. "I say this not because I expect you to feel anything, but rather I need to remember that if I am to be able to ask for pardon from you, first I must be willing to impart it myself." He breathed in deeply through his nose hoping to catch a fragrance, but after hours in the forge this sense was usually his first to go. "My perceptions of you from the past are forgotten, those who speak them to me will speak to one who is deaf. It isn't much but it is all I have to give someone who already has so much.?

A fresh start she had said, for him, he wouldn't deny that to be the case. Though for him that start included both how he was perceived by Seiri, and how he would see her. It is easy to say I have changed and another to put it into practice. Kruger watched her appraise herself in the mirrors; a moment was all she took for this. She left it without ever betraying her thoughts in her expression. Kruger was amused that she thought him well spoken, and that the women of RhyDin were the ones with issues. More often than not he found his tongue got in the way of what he desired. This lack of eloquence that plagued him so often was not present now, and it seemed to be working against him. She dropped into an uncomfortable look seated position in front of him and seemed if anything bored by the conversation. Perhaps she was just bored with him, the thought made him wonder what it took to occupy her thoughts for more than brief moments. "What do you want?" Those were her words; in other circumstances he may have given a suggestive comment. He didn't think this would amuse Seiri, which would simply make it a wasted effort. He wasn't here to amuse her anyway was he" He thought it might be nice to be considered amusing by her, but the fact was that it was Nayun whom he had come to see. Had he known to begin with Seiri, it would have been through a missive, and perhaps this encounter could have been if not avoided at least made more comfortable. "From you, I require nothing. From Nayun I need knowledge, the ability to stay competitive in my field. I have seen the future, for me it is bleak without what I am hoping she can provide me." He was tempted to sit on one of the pieces of equipment, but the thought that this might be seen as a weakness inherent to RhyDinian's made him reconsider the idea. He wondered what she would think if he tried to imitate her seated position. He felt that it was likely she would think he mocked her, or worse that he tried to curry favor. Kruger found women difficult at best to understand and interpret, this one he found impossible.

"The truth is that I need help, though I don't like to admit that to anyone." The words were punctuated by the lowering of his eyes, but he breathed a little easier now that it was out in the open. Perhaps she would recall this with the same disinterest as her previous encounters with him. He noticed his boots as he stood there, and the way they indented the mats at his feet. Somehow this felt wrong to him, to be shod in this place. He knelt down and pulled them off one at a time, before looking up to Seiri once again. He sat back on his feet and tried to see himself through her eyes.

"I am not here to joust with words, I need what I need. What would you have me do to earn it?? He stopped himself from going further. It would have been easy to start citing all the things he knew and didn't know. He thought that it might be better to wait and see what if anything could be done to resolve this. If she gave him a task, he would perform it if he could.