4th-5th of Ash, 4621
A breath of hot air filled the space between him and the remains of his meal with a cloud of wispy condensation. He wasn't full; he never felt full. The blessing made it so that he always craved that feeling of gorging himself, but he could never really attain it. After filling the space in his gut with broken bones and scraps of muscle and tendon, he had to quickly think of something else to have his mind from delving into the desire for another.
It wasn't out of compassion for his victims that he tried to limit that which he ate, but out of his own self-preservation. Fayeth had taught him well; one missing human was enough to be concerned with. When multiple went missing, it implied that external forces were afoot. He had to be careful, especially in a place that he was unfamiliar with.
Partly satisfied, the rathor licked the dripped mess from his hands and lips, then used his blood magic to leech whatever he missed, and shaped a small ball of blood in his claws. A glance to his wrist affirmed that his wound from earlier was coagulated; it might even heal over before the morning. His ankle was worse for wear, however. In his haste to eat his meal, he'd dropped from the third story and injured it on impact to the ground.
Cautious yellow eyes peered from the Brush as Arkash examined his surroundings for the first time; he was in the fortress's courtyard. Tall stone walls guarded him against the rest of Valtoria, like something of a prison. His night vision allowed him to see clearly, and he spied several sentinels along the walls, some in the watchtowers. Arkash sighed; they took their security seriously, at least on the outside. He did just kill a woman and throw her out the window before eating her.
How was he to make it beyond the walls? he supposed he could try and risk climbing over, but then he imagined he'd create a second disappearance. The rathor sighed. There really was no way he could make it to the top of those stark white walls without being seen, was there? He weighed the light pollution versus the line of sight from each watchtower and the time it took each of the sentinels to walk from one of the ramparts to the other, but it didn't weigh in his favor.
The rathor sighed. Sheki was out there somewhere, and she hadn't eaten or anything since he was captured a few days ago, he imagined. He had to get to her... unless he tried during the day? No, too many eyes. There were always too many eyes. With a deep exhale, he turned and began to rub the plate armor of his victim with mud to remove the shine. He planned to leave it there for the time being. If the sun managed to hit it beneath the brush, the metallic shine would alert anyone who passed by. The slight coating of dirt helped to remove that. When he was done, he crawled with his belly to the grass out of the brush, then furrowed his brow as he looked on to the ramparts.
He began to wish he was back in Lorien; his solution there would have been to use the sewers to navigate under the walls, but Daravin wasn't nearly so advanced. They used chamber pots and the like, similar to lower tiers of Rien commoner. he hadn't seen any toilets while cleaning out the dormitories, or the lord's chambers... Sewers weren't an option, he believed. But what of storm drains?
He'd heard of storms so sudden and severe that the streets flooded because the dry dirt wasn't able to drink the water faster enough; flashing floods, they were called... He thought. So, he spied the edges of the wall, then crawled along, belly to grass, to the back of the fortress. Whenever he heard a sound, he'd tuck close to the brush and shut his eyes so that his darker eyelids might conceal the misty yellow that would give him away.
Nothing walked by him, thankfully. They must have been confident enough with their wall defenses that they didn't need to worry about the grounds. With thanks to that shortsightedness, he eventually found the storm drain that was sure to guide water from the grounds into the river. Quickly, he crawled up close and inspected the bars that guarded it. They almost looked as though they were wide enough for him to squeeze through; it was quite well that his growth was stunted while he was young; it meant that he could fit places that others could not.
Despite that, however, the bars were still too narrow for him. He pressed his shoulders against them, and fit his head through. Even when he turned on his side, it was no use because of the horizontal bars. The rathor sighed, then carefully squeezed his reptilian head back through. he could just create a blade with blood, then cut through the iron... But that would definitely raise alarms if it was discovered. He wasn't a metalsmith, he couldn't repair the bars if he cut them down. A deep sigh followed his stuck thoughts, then he measured the bars with his eyes once more. An idea struck, but it was a long shot...
Quickly, he began to undress, then stuffed his rags through the rusty bars. Once he was bare, he began to shapeshift once more. His limbs shrunk and his body streamlined more as his head and neck adjusted to look directly up. He was made to take on his Faunis form for the first time in a while, and with it, he became narrow enough to fit through the bars. His scales brushed the rust as he climbed through, but with how rough and thick they were, it didn't bother him any.
Once he was on the other side, he collected his rags and navigated through the grass until he was far enough away from the fortress that he was sure he wouldn't be seen. once again, he re-assumed his true form and got dressed in his burlap rags before he began to follow the trail of landmarks that would lead him to the hut where Sheki hid.
Along the way, he listened for heartbeats. There were bound to be all sorts of critters scampering around at this time of night. Sheki, representing the animal she was, would certainly eat just about anything he waved in front of her nose. When at last, he caught the heartbeat of a bunny, he furrowed his brow, gripped the grass with his toe-claws, and threw his weight in its direction in a full-on power sprint. The brown-grey rabbit immediately took off, but Arkash was much too fast. He caught up to it in a matter of seconds, swung with his claws, and...
Soon enough, he arrived at the hut Sheki was meant to be hiding in. It had been something like three days, he imagined, since he left her? Arkash took a deep breath, then looked to the night sky. He saw no flying warriors prepared to snatch him that time around. Again, he listened for any heartbeats in the area and found no surprises. It sounded like Sheki was inside, still. So Arkash opened his eyes once again, then gently pushed the door open.
There she was, in all her bright green scales. Her coils laid over the floor in such a way that he bumped her tail with the door when it opened. "Sorry," he spoke to announce himself, then stepped over her tail and turned to face her. She was asleep; the Cobra beastalt was snoozing away on just about every piece of broken furniture in the tiny, cramped room. "Sheki!" he whispered harshly, then bent down at the knees to tap her tail.
At once, the serpent lashed out with her tail in an attempt to ensnare Arkash. He leaped on the spot, throwing himself over the winding coils by pulling his feet close to his chest. The reaction was purely reflex, and he hadn't thought of a follow-through for his evasion, so he fell on the pile of tail anti-climactically. "Arkash!" She called and flicked her forked tongue as she fully sat up, then helped him to his feet with her coils. "I'm sorry! You startled me!" she spoke in their native tongue
The young rath blinked as he steadied himself, then shook his head both to clear it and dismiss her apology. "I'm the one who's sorry," the younger rath returned in the same language. "I've been gone for a while, how are you holding up?"
The snake took a moment to look him up and down. "...What happened?" She quizzed. Right, Arkash had resolved to travel through Daravin in his human form in hopes it would make him appear less like a foreigner. And last they were together, Arkash was wearing his full expensive Rien attire. Now, a few days later, he was in his true form, wearing rags.
"It's a long story," he returned, then looked to the rabbits in his claws, both held by their ears in one hand. "I bring a peace offering, an apology for being away without letting you know."
She crossed her arms and gave a sort of look that implied she was unimpressed. "...So you left on purpose?"
Arkash sighed. "Sheki..." he started.
"It's because I'm too big, isn't it?"
"No, Sheki..."
"Admit it, it was a bad idea for me to come!"
Well, she was right. He'd said so many ties before they left. It was impossible to smuggle her through cities, but she insisted on coming anyway. They'd nearly been caught a hundred times already; they'd only made it as far as they had because Arkash was especially stealthy in urban areas, and helped Sheki with that. "That's not it, seriously," he returned, but it was too late. The snake was in tears, head in her hands. "Sheki, it's not like that, listen!"
To the Beastalt, Arkash began to explain that he'd left early in the morning to find them some food before they ventured through Valtoria, but was apprehended on the road there. They figured him for a Rien noble, given how he dressed, but found none of his belongings to confirm that. He was brought to a Veir, which he explained was a sort of Daravinic noble, whom he discovered was a powerful necromancer. He then went on to explain that he was branded a slave, but was okay with that because he would be able to learn necromancy from the Veir's study when no one was looking.
"Oh," he continued when he remembered one more detail. "And that necromancer agreed to remake my face if I gave up the location of all my belongings."
"I saw them," the snake returned. "They were all at that shack, bagging all your stuff."
"Yeah... but it's okay. Fay and Az won't recognize me now."
"She can still smell you," the snake reminded.
Arkash paused. he hadn't thought of that. "Well, yeah, but I already have a counter-plan for that."
"Which is?"
"...Cologne?"
"Which you're going to buy with what money, again?"
Well, he could just steal it. That was his intention when Sheki brought it up, but she didn't know he was a sneak thief or a killer... Much less a dranoch and a blood mage. The things he did in day-to-day life made petty theft look like a saint's practice, and it was reflected in his choices.
"...I might need to borrow some farthings," he admitted.
Sheki rolled her eyes, then gave the rath coin enough to get him what he needed. In return, he gave her the rabbits he'd caught. "...So that's the plan then? Hang out here until you learn necromancy?"
"..You might want to find a better place to hide, just at night so no one sees you."
The serpent agreed with a nod, then sighed as she looked to the door. The starting of a sunrise bled into the horizon, which was barely visible through the wooden planks.
"Yeah... I better get going before the other slaves wake up and notice I'm gone," he declared, and moved to the door.
"Be careful," the serpent warned.
The rathor simply grinned in return, shrugged, then nodded. Like that, he was gone, and high-tailing his way back to the fortress. As quick as he was, he managed to make it back to his cot just in time for the slaves around him to start waking. The rose early, it seemed. He imagined they had morning duties that he hadn't seen the day before. When they started moving through the kitchens, he discovered that he was right to his dismay.
