The Realm of Terreille, Thursday Night.
Surreal SaDiablo was not a fool.
It had been three years since she'd come home to find her mother, Titian, murdered, and the walls screamed for Surreal to take her Jewels and run. Three years she roamed the streets, her child's body and unusual looks a beacon to the most sordid. But her skill with a knife was not unknown, and it became common knowledge that a wise man paid Surreal in advance.
She was fifteen. Three years. Then one day as she was slipping down an alley she'd already probed to be sure it was empty, she felt someone behind her. Whirling around, dagger in hand, she could only stare at Daemon Sadi as he leaned against the wall, watching her. Without thinking, she ran up the alley to get away from him, and hit a psychic shield stronger than her Green, holding her captive until he grabbed her wrist.
Whatever spell his reappearance had put on her shattered, and Surreal let out an ear-piercing scream and dug her heels in. "Let me go, you misbegotten whoreson!" she shrieked, doing her best twist her way free. Daemon paid her no attention whatsoever, instead stepping - sideways - was the best way Surreal could describe it. It was so completely disorienting that she stopped yelling, and it was all she could do to simply hold on until Daemon came to a stop.
An hour later she was sitting at a real kitchen table in a furnished loft in another part of the Realms. Tersa hovered over her, encouraging her to eat, while Daemon drank his wine and watched her.
Too nervous to eat, she flung the words at him; "I'm a whore."
"Not a very good one," Daemon replied calmly.
Incensed, Surreal hurled every gutter insult at him that she knew, and made up a few more to boot.
"Do you see my point?" he said, laughing, when she finally sputtered into silence.
"I'll be what I am," Surreal growled. How dare he judge her? Where the hell had he been the last three years? Where the hell had he been when Titian had needed him the most?
"You're a child of mixed blood. Part Hayllian blood," he pointed out, toying with his glass. "Your mother's people live - what - a hundred, two hundred years? You may see two thousand or more. Do you want to spend those years eating scraps dumped in alleys and sleeping in filthy rooms? There are other ways of doing what you do - for better rooms, better food, better pay. You'd have to start as an apprentice, of course, but I know a place where they'd take you and train you well."
Daemon spent several minuets making out a list. When he was done, he pushed it in front of a wary, but no longer hostile, Surreal. "A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think."
Surreal stared at the list, uneasy. There were the expected subjects - literature, languages, history - and then, at the bottom of the page, a list of skills more suited to the knife than to paid sex.
As Tersa cleared the table, Daemon rose from his chair and leaned over Surreal, his chest brushing her back, warm breath tickling her pointed ear. "Subtlety, Surreal," he whispered. "Subtlety is a great weapon. There are other ways to slit a man's throat than to wash the walls with his blood. If you continue down that road, they'll find you, sooner or later. There are so many ways for a man to die." He chuckled, but there was an underlying viciousness in the sound, and Surreal couldn't help a cruel smile of her own. "Some men die for lack of love...some die because of it."
He tapped the list. "These first. School and lessons first, then the apprenticeship. Do we have a deal?"
Surreal cheerfully regaled him with what she thought of his father, his mother, what his cousin did with his mother and a pot, and what his mother had done with a large reptile. All of which, while highly anatomically improbable, were possible, and more than a little lewd. And Daemon had not ever heard of one using an egg in that fashion.
Daemon blinked. "That's...actually one I haven't heard before," he mused. "I'll have to share it next time I find myself at Court."
Surreal just flipped him off.
[OOC: NFB, NFI, Establishy. Sections of text swiped from Daughter of the Blood.]
It had been three years since she'd come home to find her mother, Titian, murdered, and the walls screamed for Surreal to take her Jewels and run. Three years she roamed the streets, her child's body and unusual looks a beacon to the most sordid. But her skill with a knife was not unknown, and it became common knowledge that a wise man paid Surreal in advance.
She was fifteen. Three years. Then one day as she was slipping down an alley she'd already probed to be sure it was empty, she felt someone behind her. Whirling around, dagger in hand, she could only stare at Daemon Sadi as he leaned against the wall, watching her. Without thinking, she ran up the alley to get away from him, and hit a psychic shield stronger than her Green, holding her captive until he grabbed her wrist.
Whatever spell his reappearance had put on her shattered, and Surreal let out an ear-piercing scream and dug her heels in. "Let me go, you misbegotten whoreson!" she shrieked, doing her best twist her way free. Daemon paid her no attention whatsoever, instead stepping - sideways - was the best way Surreal could describe it. It was so completely disorienting that she stopped yelling, and it was all she could do to simply hold on until Daemon came to a stop.
An hour later she was sitting at a real kitchen table in a furnished loft in another part of the Realms. Tersa hovered over her, encouraging her to eat, while Daemon drank his wine and watched her.
Too nervous to eat, she flung the words at him; "I'm a whore."
"Not a very good one," Daemon replied calmly.
Incensed, Surreal hurled every gutter insult at him that she knew, and made up a few more to boot.
"Do you see my point?" he said, laughing, when she finally sputtered into silence.
"I'll be what I am," Surreal growled. How dare he judge her? Where the hell had he been the last three years? Where the hell had he been when Titian had needed him the most?
"You're a child of mixed blood. Part Hayllian blood," he pointed out, toying with his glass. "Your mother's people live - what - a hundred, two hundred years? You may see two thousand or more. Do you want to spend those years eating scraps dumped in alleys and sleeping in filthy rooms? There are other ways of doing what you do - for better rooms, better food, better pay. You'd have to start as an apprentice, of course, but I know a place where they'd take you and train you well."
Daemon spent several minuets making out a list. When he was done, he pushed it in front of a wary, but no longer hostile, Surreal. "A woman with an education may be able to spend more time sitting in a chair instead of lying on her back. A sound advantage, I should think."
Surreal stared at the list, uneasy. There were the expected subjects - literature, languages, history - and then, at the bottom of the page, a list of skills more suited to the knife than to paid sex.
As Tersa cleared the table, Daemon rose from his chair and leaned over Surreal, his chest brushing her back, warm breath tickling her pointed ear. "Subtlety, Surreal," he whispered. "Subtlety is a great weapon. There are other ways to slit a man's throat than to wash the walls with his blood. If you continue down that road, they'll find you, sooner or later. There are so many ways for a man to die." He chuckled, but there was an underlying viciousness in the sound, and Surreal couldn't help a cruel smile of her own. "Some men die for lack of love...some die because of it."
He tapped the list. "These first. School and lessons first, then the apprenticeship. Do we have a deal?"
Surreal cheerfully regaled him with what she thought of his father, his mother, what his cousin did with his mother and a pot, and what his mother had done with a large reptile. All of which, while highly anatomically improbable, were possible, and more than a little lewd. And Daemon had not ever heard of one using an egg in that fashion.
Daemon blinked. "That's...actually one I haven't heard before," he mused. "I'll have to share it next time I find myself at Court."
Surreal just flipped him off.
[OOC: NFB, NFI, Establishy. Sections of text swiped from Daughter of the Blood.]