In chess, a desperado is a piece that seems determined to give itself up, typically to bring about a stalemate.

January 29, 2010

One day had just traded off for another. Thursday had become Friday only a short twenty-five minutes ago. The Arena was emptying out from another long night of duelists hacking and slashing at each other with weapons of various sorts.

Dueling had become his life this past year. Now that his home life had strangely turned into something more domesticated, fighting was the only struggle left to him, and Salvador Delahada could never stop doing that. He was built to fight. Carnage and bloodshed, the art of war, even if it was only him against another, or many, was programmed into his very blood. Without a battle before him, there wasn't much else worth living for. Except for those he cared for, and for them he also fought.

Everyone else was gone, except for a couple stragglers. One was drunk beyond the point of no return, and the other was an old man who liked to sit around munching pretzels and coaching people from the sidelines. Salvador didn't know the man's name, but he found him amusing enough.

That left only himself and Rekah heading toward the stairs to take their leave. Salvador had just ended his night in a rain of glorious mess. The orc he had fought last had made it a point to damage him severely, and that was generally the way the fae child liked things. The gaping wound in his chest wasn't anything he couldn't heal, given the proper materials which awaited him at home. And until he got there he was capable of keeping the blood from gushing out all over the place. It just took concentration, which he thought he'd be able to accomplish with no problem whatsoever.

For the first time, he had agreed to let Rekah help him. Up until now he had always avoided the issue of how he fixed himself up. Most people didn't need to know how he did it. His methods were shameful to him in their way, and he didn't like the possibility of people thinking lesser of him for finding out. Sivanna hadn't thought lesser of him, though; she understood. So had her husband Alec, and even Neo. It took months for him to work up to this point of finally letting Rekah in on the secret. She of them all was one she expected to think lesser of him, to run in horror and have nothing to do with him ever again, but an interruption to the plan stopped him short from ever finding out directly that night.

Salvador stopped at the base of the stairs, hearing Rekah stop behind him. He slumped against the edge of the wall against the stairwell and turned slightly to take a gander at what had caught her attention. He coughed again, a couple of times, wetly, then spat aside another thick dollop of blood and saliva. He really didn't have time for distractions.

There across the room was a figure who looked intensely familiar. He had vaguely felt the shift in the atmosphere and was only just now tasting the ebb of magic sliding over his tongue. The head turned, features shrouded under a heavy cowl, but two glinting iridescent, incandescent eyes of blue peered out from the depths to fix the figure's attention on Rekah. He barely heard the girl ask him, "Do I need to carry you home?"

The figure's robes billowed about the man in currents only those attuned to magic might feel. Too, he radiated more than shadow, darkness ... like a black sun, or nebulous nimbus of swirling shadow. Salvador knew that presence; he had tasted the flavor of it once or twice before. He didn't like how the man's attention was fixed on Rekah, but he didn't let it show.

Instead, at first he laughed, mostly breathily, and shook his head. "No, no," he said, flapping a hand downward to dismiss the notion. "I can walk. Just... All this sh*t in my lungs needs to come out." He hated it when they got pierced, even just a little. Eyes still aglow with the power in him active to staunch excess bleeding, he squinted hard at the figure that had materialized, and slowly his vaguely amused grin tapered off into something more like a frown.

The robed menace's attention shifted immediately after the query hit the air. Now, by the set of the cowl, Salvador was certain the man was looking at him. Though the weight of those eyes seemed off. It was almost tangible, and the sensation grew stronger the longer those eyes remained fixed on him, slowly stifling.

Rubbing at her arms to keep off the weird chill that just sort of set in, Rekah turned another look to Sal, then back to the cowled figure with a frown. "Do you know who that is?" she asked quietly.

Instinct urged him to slip a hand under his open jacket and around to the small of his back, where there it gripped the hilt of the hidden blade he always kept on hand. Foolish instinct, even he knew. Not much a tanto could do against that much power unless he could actually get in close, even if it was necessary. He was wounded, that was certain, himself. One big hammer blow of a gash in his chest where an axe had smashed down on him very recently in his last duel, but it wasn't bleeding. Not anymore. "I've seen him," Salvador said just as quietly aside to Rekah, though he didn't take his eyes off the wizard.

The first time he had seen him, the man had stuck his tongue down Tara's throat. He had been rather confused by the entire situation. Usually, Tara making out with anyone was no big surprise, but her reaction in the aftermath had been. He couldn't forget how she had thrown up on his boots.

The second time, the wizard had conjured up a hand to trick Tara into making contact with. He had sat watching while the contact resulted in her getting deep fried by an electrical current. Like a bolt of lighting, an act of God, had been dropped soundly on her head. But it took a bit more than that to dispose of Tara Rynieyn, of that Salvador had been certain. It had almost been comical, but deep inside it troubled him.

Still, as he had trained himself to do, he did nothing. He had only watched. He had played his mother's role as the offstage observer, taking mental notes and trying to keep himself uninvolved, to remain unseen. The less attention he brought to himself, the better. He had always preferred the element of surprise, but there was no ounce of that now. There was no turning away and pretending not to exist. He and the mage were stuck in a visual deadlock, and it took all of Salvador's will to keep himself from acting on instinct, lunging forward, and ramming the blade of his tanto deep into the man's throat.

"Let me teach ye something boy." The mage spoke to him, directly. He spoke in a trinity of voices like the muted howling of a sandstorm heard from inside a sand and brick desert temple. "If ye wish to survive the next few moments, I would keep mine hands where I can see them, where I in your current state."

Rekah straightened up and took a step closer to Sal, looping her messenger bag over her head.. Hands were then set on her hips, with a toe tap. Damn. Why did she have to be here?

A muscle ticked tight in his jaw, a sure sign of teeth clenching. His eyes were dimly glowing a shade of rust-orange still. His first reaction was of course to tighten his grip on the hilt of his weapon, but he knew... He could See it clear as day. This man had him dead to rights. Very, very slowly his hand unclenched and he slipped it back out from under the fold of his jacket. Shoulder to the edge of the wall, he lifted both hands slowly, smeared bloody and palms out. Oh yeah. He knew. On general principle, he hated wizards. Can't ever trust the bastards. "I want no trouble, se?or."

The fabric of the hood fluxed, a nod issued, eyes still visible in the blackness of that voluminous cowl. The draping sleeves of the mage's robes hung at his side, but as Salvador's hand appeared, a sharp click sounded from the right of the man's body. The violet glow, able to be seen briefly illuminating the interior of his sleeve, suddenly snuffed itself out. His hand seemed to unfurl from within it, and came into view.

Salvador was distantly aware of the other two in the room, the old man and the drunk. The latter was creeping closer to them, stating how he just wanted a better view of the action. If he had anything to say about himself, there would be no action, but the fae child kept those thoughts to himself. The old man was trying to coax the drunkard into being rational, and it was the mage who said, "Listen to ye friend. His observation may arrest a ... mishap."

The eased exhale came out through his nostrils, and Salvador blinked slow, the first to relent in what may have been a staring contest. Hard to determine with a cowl in the way. He lowered one hand to his side, palm low toward Rekah, and tipped his head just slightly to speak quietly to her. "Go, mi amiga. I'm right behind you."

Rekah obeyed him after one last, reluctant look to the mage. He could sense her retreating up the stairs, taste the scent of her on the tip of his tongue. But the rest of his attention was on the mage, who likewise directed his own to him.

"As for ye," he said. The cowled menace pointed with the right hand, that same arm in which his interior sleeve glowed for that faint moment, as if he concealed something hidden within. Piercing the roiling nimbus of darkness orbiting him, however, was as difficult as trying to see the bottom of a murky pond. "Ye friends from the other night share another fate from the one ye travel. I would take caution in following in the footsteps of the path they've taken. Tis a dark and perilous road."

Of course, it is a well known fact that Salvador is a big fat liar. He shifted to push off the wall and stand upright, but he did not turn to follow Rekah up the stairs. He didn't even walk backward up them. Not yet. He had just wanted to get her out of the direct line of danger. "Which friends might those be?" he asked, inclining his chin and narrowing his lit up eyes a bit haughtily.

"Ye stepped closer to mine position yestereve. I did nae see it so much as felt it. Closer still ye may have lost something more precious than ye life. I would advise ye curb foolish bravado and unwise habits. They may one day get you destroyed, or worse," the mage said.

It is the mark of a fool or a crazy man to laugh in the face of danger. We'll let you decide which of those Salvador Delahada was. Baring his teeth in a sharp and amused grin, he let slip a nasal chuckle that was caged tight behind his teeth but audible. He lifted a hand to smear it, drying blood be damned, over his mouth and physically attempt to wipe the grin away, but it refused to be gone completely. "Bravado," he repeated. "You tight ass noble bastard types always accuse me of that."

"Ye woman, I presume." He directed his finger to the wall, where it started to meet the ceiling, behind it, the landing. In fact, he was pointing very near to her current position, though there was a solid construction between them. Rekah had not gone straight home as Salvador would have preferred. Stubborn girl.

Salvador turned his head slightly, and there the amused expression faded, mostly. ""Not my woman, but she is mine," he said, looking back at the wizard. Not many understood the way his relationships worked. He was rather used to inaccurate assumptions being made, and explaining the truth had never been his strong suit.

The wizard did not linger on the subject of Rekah very long. "Ye saw what I did to Tara, yestereve, did ye nae?"

The fae child nodded shortly, and said only, "I did."

"Then we have an understanding," said the man. The sands roared in the trinity of voices, their sound a horrid symphony that promised a slow and painful torment for a time indeterminable. The comment more suggestive than a question aught to be.

A strobe of blue-white light flared beneath that hood, as lighting deep within, behind the luminescent frost and ice, streaked just behind his gaze. Something hungry was there, deep within the dark of that hood. Deep within the dark of the Wizard's soul, or what might be termed such by ignorance. It coiled within, as if a well of power were suddenly a serpent ready to strike.

"Mmm." A cross between a thoughtful hum and a perhaps even slightly aroused noise. Salvador's eyelids twitched down partway to hood his glinting eyes. Not as completely hard a squint as before. "I understand you could rip me apart with a thought if you wanted, but what I don't think you understand is that I'd let you.... If it kept your attention off those I care about and on me instead."

Salvador did not fear pain, nor even dying. Threats of harm against his own person never really worked too well to discourage him from any course of action. He knew death; he knew her personally. Entropy had been the one to make him, and he knew full well what sort of afterlife awaited him. He also knew that he had died twice before, and here he stood today, living and breathing as if those times had never happened. Though he never forgot them.

"Then I will help ye understand this," said the mage. "Provoke or threaten me again. Try to interfere with what I am doing. I swear an oath, I'll have something of ye from the slight. Be it a pound of flesh, or one of those whom ye profess to care for so much. It will be mine. Ye will be powerless to stop it." There was a somber gravitas in his tone, like a voice from beyond the grave. "I assure ye of this...."

Rekah was still there, he could sense her. The girl was being unusually quiet and still. She had flattened back against the wall and didn't move a muscle on the landing up the stairs. Salvador went on as if she wasn't, pretended not to notice her. Keep the mage's attention on himself, he thought. That was best.

"Fair enough." He lifted a hand, and only one finger. "Then you know this. Provoke or threaten any of those I ... profess ... to care for so much--" He paused, because let's face it: Salvador really isn't much for big words and big talk. "And I'll cut that pound of f*cking flesh right off myself and hand it to you when I come to deliver a knife to your throat." On the surface, the fae child was a cocky son of a b*tch.

"Are ye smart enough to comprehend the meaning of mine words, or do I need to prove mineself by exhibition?" asked the mage. He spread his fingers with a celerity that was the epitome of everything unnatural. The invisible currents stirring his robes picked up, causing the hem to snap and lick at the air frantically as the hood took in air and blew back from his head. His lustrous white hair was wild, blowing and swaying like tendrils of moonlight around his dark complexioned features.

"Well," Salvador drawled, tilting his head with a roll of his eyes and turning that hand out. "I am a high school drop out." With a slow blink, he dropped his hand back to his side. Blotting out the dim illumination for a tick of a second before he was squinting again at that power display. But a careful eye might have noticed something by now.

The slow slither and crawl of a thready brown substance was creeping across his skin. Out from under the sleeves of his jacket, over the backs of his hands. Across the impact wound visible under his shredded and bloody shirt. Creeping up along the side of his neck, over his throat, and joining together in a solid mass like a second skin. Reactionary to the display of power before him, Salvador's carapace was sliding into place all across his body.

The mage himself had a look near elvish, though there seemed a peculiar wildness that was more akin to sidhe. Whatever he was, he appeared decidedly eldritch. Perhaps he was Unseelie. Perchance of the Gentry. Perhaps he was something else entirely. His features were impassive to the point where they were indecipherable. Salvador was reminded very much of his mother while looking at him.

That iridescent gaze shifted to the boy's eyes; they narrowed. Salvador could just barely feel the brush of him tickling against his skin, even from this distance. A crackle of energy surged through his synapses, warning him about something uncertain. He could hear the out of tune flicker of static in his ears, much like those days in Florida he had experienced some years ago.

Something unseen reached out to him from many places at once. The feeling of being watched was a comfort compared to this. It was as if from other dimensions, planes, tendrils extended to touch and probe. The Wizard's eyes remained fixed. Now, for the second time - first seen - his nostrils flared slightly.

Salvador had no pointed ears, but the stink of his blood would confirm it. If not also the spread of that exoskeletal carapace locking into place on his skin. He was only half human, the body that half. In his blood was the taint of Entropy, infused in every cell, of an old Fae creature that Herself was purely energy. Except in cases in which she chose to manifest as something more solid.

Truth be told, he had nothing to compete against this wizard at his disposal, though, except for balls. However, yes, there was the static. The buzz singing in his ears at the feel of the magic in the air, licking across the skin that was left exposed. His face. The palms of his hands. Under his clothes it was hard to tell, short of X-ray vision and a Sense for such things. The soles of his feet left bare too. Beneath all his not so fine finery, he was coated completely in that natural body armor now.

"Glamour...." So the mage mused. He lifted his head, smirking. The probing resided. "I look more the part than ye," he said cryptically, chuckling.

Salvador was used to cryptic conversations. His mother was a master of it. She never spoke plainly, and he hated that. He hated people who spoke in riddles and were never, ever clear. He hated people with large vocabularies who used big words and successfully managed to confuse him. But he knew what the mage meant with that statement. He knew, and only one part of it he found insulting.

"Glamour is fairy magic," he said, sneering. "Essence is the word my mother uses." The glow in his eyes was fading in hue from the sharp rust-orange and trickling closer to a yellow. More the wizard was likely to note. Tapping into that side of himself had its limits, being a half born, or technically made, bastard as he was.

"As ye say," said the wizard. "I shall call ye Dandelion, for ye are such a dandy little lion. So ferocious." The voice that spoke now was one, with enough bass to carry across the room.

Salvador barked a sharp breath of a laugh, flexing his fingers at his sides. Now capped in short little claws thanks to the carapace. "Ah. Cute." Rolling some more blood around in his mouth, he spat down between them. Crude creature that he was. "Dandelion it is." He didn't care. Looking up, he asked, "What should I call you then? I'm no good at coming up with names myself, se?or."

"Ye may call me Arcadian Wooj... I care not what term ye fancy." He seemed to be appraising the boy now, like a carpenter might a chair, or a smithey might a tool. The appraisal was brazen, forward, and unflattering. Salvador got the sense he was being looked over like some recently interesting random inanimate object for all the care the Wizard gave to his personal space - even from so far away as ten meters.

The fae child was well accustomed to this, however. Truth be told, he was a tool. Even thought of himself as a tool. And quite frankly he was used to people looking down on him in such a condescending way. Especially those from his mother's side. "Arcadian Wooj?" He stressed the repetition carefully. "That's a bit long for someone as simple as me, sir." He tapped the side of his own head with a sharp little claw. "Got anything shorter? Maybe Pete? Or Dick?" Oh yeah. He went there.

The wizard leaned forward, as one might before he raked his claws across the face, opening a mortal's head like a ripe melon from the ears forward. He then spoke a name that fouled the air with blackness as it escaped his mouth, reality began to ripple around the sound as it flowed forth like a plume of smoke - only to dissipate as the sound faded. "Veighnnulz...."

Reflex and instinct had Salvador leaning away, drawing back his chin and growling through his teeth like a rabid dog. The dog without his master on hand to yank the chain, surely. One foot slid back as the power of that name coiled around him. He'd held his breath until the surge of it was gone, and then exhaled. "Veighn," he repeated. Mostly. The second part didn't want to let itself be spoke again. And that was a simple word, a single syllable, that he could deal with much easier than the whole. Besides, he rather liked it for sounding just like another word being part of the human body.

"If that is what ye can muster forth with that muscle ye call a tongue," said the mage. The latter half, well. There was, afterall, power in names. Only a portion of a true name, from a powerful entity was needed in order to wield it for whatever whim. Wizards were sometimes known for taking on the partial names of forbidden gods in order to enhance their power. Perhaps this is what this being had done. The Lunithaylian smiled a cruel smile to the boy just then.

Yeah, that had been the main reason why he shortened it. Slowly uncurling his capped fingers, he untensed, just a little. "Like I said, se?or: high school drop out." He cut a sharp little grin of his own. A fool's grin to be sure. Or, as previously mentioned, a complete and total lunatic's grin. "If you get tired of calling me Dandelion, others around here call me Sal." To be fair. He gave a name. It was most assuredly not the full name. No sir. In that respect he was not stupid. There wasn't even a trickle of power at all to back it up.

"Not quite a Changeling.... peculiar abomination." Still the wizard continued to study him. Salvador was ever the curiosity, even amongst his own kin. The mage turned his head in a cant right suddenly. "I'll take mental note of that, Dandelion, should it come to pass," he said, about the name the boy had provided.

"Abomination," Salvador agreed, declining his chin in an almost respectful fashion. Eyes not completely down, but enough to finally show an ounce of respect to a superior. "Yes, I am that." He had been called just such a thing several times before. The whispers in the dark, beyond the Veil, always spoke the word when he passed them by.

"Fate is but a whore to be wenched when in want of something. As such, she has a twisted sense of humor. The rutting has brought a note of irony to the fore, it seems. Ye may take ye woman to her rest, Dandelion. I'm tired of smelling her stench." He dismissed him, a flick of his wrist and his obsidian black, spindly, talon-tipped hand shooed the air before it.. and in the space between.

Here, Salvador twitched his head aside. Her scent was receding. That actually eased him further, the moment he sensed she was gone. "Seems she's a step ahead of you, Dick." He cut another sharp little grin and turned aside at the onset of that dismissive gesture. "Ah. Sorry." He dipped an apologetic and respectful nod. "I mean Veighn." Never mind the grin still stuck. He forced a short bob of something like a servant's bow to a lordling, and then turned to prowl up the stairs himself.

He did not look back. Looking back would have been a sign of weakness. He did not run, because that as well would have been a sign of weakness. Though he pulled himself up the stairs by the wall, and by the time he reached the top, stepped into the common room of the Red Dragon, only then did he let the weakness claim him.


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(Taken from live play with thanks to Lord Veighn Yhaull and Rekah Illyriana.)