Leave Out All The Rest

[Vahn x Dimitri]

It seemed like it took forever for him to get even halfway through the forest and things didn't get any easier as the mountainous region before the actual town hit him hard. Truth be told, Vahn was still a little worn out from the confrontation with Ryan back in Warden and was having plenty of issues controlling his elements since he had no rest or time to himself that didn't involve him trying to get as far away from that prison as possible. As the sun was finally setting on this second day of travel, he decided now would be a great time to find a place to rest.

This forest was so dense and the mountains were so jagged that it was hard for him to set up a good camp that would let him get some kind of sleep. It was a mission for him to get to sleep considering that he had been in the academy cells for a couple of years now. A couple of past cell mates had kicked the bucket by his hands for trying to assault him in the night and tonight he could finally set up some kind of perimeter around himself so that he could have a better warning and time to get ready for an assault.

Finding a large tree that had seemed to dwarf all the others around it, Vahn realized that this would be the best place for him to call it a night. Standing firm in place, the layer of water he used to hide his weapons started to disappear as he placed it back into a small jug he carried around with him. His collection had grown quite nicely and was up to a wonderful nine weapons that he had taken from those who claimed to be better than him in battle. It was fun, and reminiscing about those days was something that he loved. It was also something he needed to leave for another time since he was already exhausted.

Letting the air around him expand, he pushed each of the weapons except one, the sword he had grown so fond of. The weapons spiked themselves into the ground while aided by his air manipulation and he prepared his comfort zone. He let a small draft of air flow between the circle of weapons like a small tornado, but it only had enough force to make a soft breeze that he could hear. This was something it had taken a while to get right. He honed his hearing to the sound of the breeze that surrounded him now and used it as a way to detect intruders. Any change in the sound of the wind and he would know that someone was coming. It was one of the blessings of being a light sleeper.

Walking to the base of the tree, he stabbed the sword into the bark of one of the roots that stuck up from the ground. He used the tree itself as a backrest as he started to attempt to get some sleep.

[Vega]

Vega was still very much disoriented. She had secured a short leave of absence from the Academy, in hopes of finding out just who the heck she was. Vega's booted feet made no sound on the floor of the forest as she walked along. Her tail was tucked protectively in her pants, wrapped around one leg rather than her waist. She wore a pair of baggy pants, a shirt, and boots. All of which borrowed from the academy because her armor was not something she needed to be wearing while going out and about in the world. She reached a hand up and touched the pommel of her sword, just to be reassured it was still there. It had to still be there though, it did not just hop off of her back. But, she had become paranoid since being unfrozen. This was such a new place to her.

She stumbled unwittingly into Vahn's camp. She was not looking for trouble of any kind, she was just trying to get away from civilization so she could focus wholly on her past and try to come up with what had happened so many years ago. She brushed herself off as she glanced around, luckily she had not tripped over any of the weapons now surrounding her. They were definitely interesting, but she would always prefer her Sword of Truth. At the thought of her faithful weapon, her hand again touched the pommel of the sword upon her back. She had had it for so many years, she would feel naked without it upon her back.

Her nose picked up the smell of a being nearby. She swung her head around before her gaze fell upon Vahn. Her hand gripped the sword tighter, but she did not remove it. She did not want to look threatening to the person on the ground. Then that would give way to a battle of sorts. She was a good fighter, but she did not want to fight. Not now.

[Vahn x Dimitri]

It seemed, at this point, that Vahn would never have the chance to rest. Not even five minutes after setting up camp and someone had already entered his perimeter. Things never seemed to went his way and obviously tonight was no different. He opened his eyes and watched as this intruder came in and was already defensive. She must have seen him and there was no going back at this point, but he wanted to avoid a fight as much as possible especially in this condition.

His voice was calm but forceful as without rising to his feet he began to address the girl. "You've come a long way out of your way and have stumbled into a place that you're not welcome." His sword was within arms reach and it also seemed as though she hadn't noticed the other weapons around her considering how focused she was on him. As far as he could tell, if a fight did break out he had the upper hand considering how little she knew about what was going on around her. Then again, he learned that judging people ahead of time was a problem and a huge reason he was already in no condition to fight right now.

There was really no reason to ask any questions to get this girl out and he needed to just get her away from him. "I don't care who you are or where you came from, if you leave now, I won't have any reason to take your life." He was banking on how little she knew about what was around her to scare her off, but she came in ready for a fight and lately he could hardly tell who was gonna fight and who wasn't.

[Vega]

Vega was silent as she gazed at the man. She smiled softly as she removed her hand from her sword then folded her arms across her chest. If you counted the years being frozen, she was so very old but as fit as a woman in her early thirties. She frowned somewhat at the man's words before chuckling lightly. "I have no wish to fight anyone. I am merely trying to figure out where to go for tonight so I can sleep,"[/b] she said. She usually slept in a cave some clicks away from the current area, but figured she should try another place just to check on how well she could sleep elsewhere. She rubbed at her arm a little as she gazed at him. Even if the man insisted on fighting, she knew she had the skills necessary to survive.

She heaved a sigh and shook her head. People were quite combative in this day and age it seemed. She unfolded her arms to place a hand to her head as a flash of memory burst in front of her eyes. She stumbled back until her back hit a tree behind her. She panted softly as she tried to get a grip over herself. She was not sure exactly what she had seen, but it was disconcerting she knew that much. They were becoming more frequent, and it was getting just slightly annoying for her to deal with. She did not need memories to just pop up willy-nilly. She bowed her head as she grabbed a hold of herself. She then glanced up at Vahn and smiled softly.

"If I wanted to fight you I would have attacked you by now,"[/b] she spat. She brushed her back off, getting rid of the tree bark and such. "Why don't you calm down before you hurt yourself, child?"[/b]

(Ryan Edit: Oooooooooooo, she TOLD YOU bro! )

[Vahn x Dimitri]

It was actually a relief that she didn't have any intention of fighting. Maybe things were actually turning around for him and he could probably get some decent sleep tonight. Maybe she was all talk about fighting him, but it was neither relevant or necessary to know at this point since her words declared she wasn't looking for a conflict. In fact, she was even in the same situation as him in looking for a place to rest. Trust was hard to come by, so he would have to see how the rest of this conversation went before he offered her the information of how they would be protected here. Even if it was just an alert, being prepared when the enemy wasn't aware was enough to end a confrontation quickly.

Almost on cue, she proved that she could also be annoying and conceited as well. "If I wanted to fight you I would have attacked you by now. Why don't you calm down before you hurt yourself, child?" That was pretty unnecessary, but he didn't want to instigate anything either. Maybe it was best for him to just let that one comment slide, but that really wasn't in his nature. What unnerves him a little was the random phase out that she did before she continued her meaningless insult on him. Maybe this was a way in to her good side. Enemies were easy to come by when you were on the wrong side of the academy and allies were few and far between.

He reached to his side and pulled the can-tine of water up and tossed it to her. "I don't know the area well enough to tell you of a place to stay, but I can tell by that unnatural thing that just happened and how you zoned out that you're running low on energy." He figured the drink of water would settle her down a little bit and get him on her good side, whether or not this went any farther than just a quick drink of water.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

A sound came. Faint at first, but growing. As it grew louder, it became more and more obvious - two people walking through the underbrush, with no kind of subtlety, talking without any kind of caution to their tones, raised to stressed levels - they were verbally fighting. One voice was softer, had a lighter, more girlish quality to it, the kind of voice a young mother would have. The other was deeper and fierce, but also unmistakably femenine.

Someone was coming up the mountainside, advancing quickly on the little campsite.

"-And thats why things are how they are, you glorified bonfire!" the girlish voice came, obviously pissed about something, but sounding confident, almost smug about... whatever it was she was talking about.

The other voice laughed bitterly. "Grow some legs, you overgrown worm, and then say shit like that - the hell do you know about it, just because your moth-" she started, and was cut off immediately, halfway through 'mother'

"Don't you even THINK about mentioning her, candle! I swear, sometimes I wonder how much sense you actually do have." the first came, sounding disgusted now. The respect for whom she spoke of was unhidden by the contempt she had for whom she spoke to.

Shei'ki stared straight forward, and did not, as she strode beside the woman in red that dwarfed her, ever-forward, make a sound. The dark-skinned Zelian girl, barely over sixteen, learned long ago... that trying to stop them without leverage was like staring at the sun to make it go down - it just exhausted and hurt your eyes.

The raucous, flamboyant voice belonged to the gilded woman in red, her long, stark crimson hair whipping behind her freely as she moved. The other voice, however, came from a large brown snake, the color of her skin with white stripes that seemed to glow, and black ones taht seemed to hold space in their loop, coiled around her. It might have looked silly, a beautiful woman losing an argument with a snake, but they sure didn't notice. Nor did Shei'ki bother to. She was the zen little center of the world.

"...." it took a good moment for the woman in red to swallow up her pride... and when she managed it, she bitterly focused on a point somewhere up in the mountains. "... Fine." and went silent.

"... Yes... obviously just enough... Thank you." the snake concluded, and curled her head around Shei'ki's neck, shutting her big, pretty eyes. The orange-robed girl's heart skipped a beat, and she grinned at last. This was the first time they actually stopped arguing. For the whole. Fucking. Trip.

And she froze - midstride, even.

There was a boot under her foot. She froze, and looked down, right at the face of Vahn. She'd walked the whole way up to the campsite, and had not seen it - none of them did. So it came at Shei'ki's immense irritation when the woman in red gasped suddenly, pointed at Vahn, and cried out "WAAH! You stepped on something!"

[Vahn x Dimitri]

OOC: Vega, It's been a few days so I'm gonna go ahead and post again and I apologize for the slight auto hit. I also got permission for the minor auto-hit on Shei'ki.

BIC: He saw the girl take the sip and slowly start to regain herself. She tossed his jug back and seemed that she was still distant. It was a wise decision to let sleeping dogs lie and let her figure things out for herself. If that would be the length of the confrontation, then things may have been looking up for him. However, for the time being he was going to stay still and rest. At this point, he was pretty sure that this girl would move on and find her own camp, hopefully far away from him.

It wasn't long before he could hear an pair of voices coming off in the distance with the sound of an argument. After a little while, the arguing stopped, but once again he felt his little field disturbed, but it wasn't by a pair, it was by three. Once again, Vahn had wishful thinking that they would just pass by and ignore him and the fact that the group may have just passed a good number of weapons. Then again, the night was coming in quickly and it was already getting a little bit harder to see as he could tell when a foot landed on top of his own and seemingly froze.

Instinct told him to take his foot back, and he did exactly that, retracting his foot away from the one that had landed on his. Little did he notice the results of such a swift movement of taking his foot away from her. This new girl started to lose her balance and fall forward and that was probably the worst direction she could fall in. All she had waiting for her in that direction was the root of the tree, or worse, the sword that was resting there. If she fell at an angle, there would be a lot more than just a bruise on her body. There could possibly be blood and a nice little cut, or gash, on this young woman. Vahn was never a goodie two shoes, but there was no reason for this girl to get hurt.

He leaned forward and towards the root and sword, holding out his arms. The young girl fell into his arms and against his body as he now thudded back on the root, but he turned his body so that she wouldn't get hit by the sword at all. Unfortunately, the back of his head was able to connect to the root. He was expecting it so it didn't hurt as badly as it might have hurt her, but it was still a valid pain. He winced as he spoke, "Are you okay?"

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

At the moment he pulled out his foot, three sudden things happened around Vahn - First, of course, Shei'ki fell forward - she had no choice in the matter, he was under the foot she was - she was going forward whether she liked it or not. Second, the woman in red cried out suddenly, and moved, if too slowly, to catch the girl. And last, the snake around the girl's body gave a surprised sound - the sound the girl probably would have made if she didn't end up with her face planted in Vahn's tunic.

The lady in red, who gave off at least as much warmth as the fire in that moment, stood deadly still, eyes wide, wondering what, in fact, she had just witnessed. The... very large brown snake was face to face with Vahn - her nose was but an inch from his.

The serpent's big, expressive blue eyes gave the man a slow blink, and her tongue flicked out reflexively, tasting the air, out of habit mostly, giving her a good mouthful of his scent. She only hesitated a moment before uncoiling from the girl, and growing, before Vahn's eyes, into a woman... well, not a completely human woman... but a woman just the same, with the long, curving lower body of a gigantic serpent, the upper body of a lean, scarred, and very surprised Zolian woman.

The naga stole Shei'ki from his grasp gently, freeing the orange-robed girl from his tunic enough to thank him for catching her and get a good eyeful of her savior as she leaned against the Naga, who offered her hand to Vahn to help him up again too, her expression kind.

The lady in red, who glowed faintly in the dulling light, still stood there, frozen in shock.

[Vahn x Dimitri]

As she was lifted off of him without much of a response to his question, he closed his eyes and leaned up a little, rubbing the back of his head. It was throbbing and pretty painful, but not something he could let himself focus on because he was still drained from so much else. Taking a heavy breath, he opened his eyes to a much different site.

There was a hand now, reaching to help him get up, but it was attached to a figure that wasn't there before and not something you see everyday. He took the hand, averting his eyes away from her topless form and coughing in response. Not that he was a prude or anything, but it was definitely inappropriate at the time. Taking a breath, he turned and made sure to keep his eyes fixated on hers as he replied, "Thanks for helping me up."

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

The night fell quickly, and it fell hard. Within ten minutes, all visibility was cut to near nothing beyond the range of the campfire. The fire was stacked up, wood was gathered (and chewed on a little by the lady in red), a shirt and sash was pulled from Shei'ki's pack (which the Naga hastily donned), and, as the Zolian girl and the lady in red got to setting up their tent... the Naga set to preparing a meal.

She pulled dried meat, a few herbs, wild onions, a crumbly white substance with a pungant smell, and vegetables from the zolian girl's pack, and set to preparing a dinner, all the while sitting close to Vahn.

Something about her presence was... palpably comforting. Her warmth, her bearing, the way she hummed as she worked, diligently, on the meal, it was oddly soothing - and filled the campsite. But she said nothing as she worked - just hummed wordlessly as she chopped onions and potatoes.

[Vahn x Dimitri]

They hadn't really taken the time to be verbally communicative while they set up their camp, but it was actually nice to have some kind of company. Vahn wasn't a monster, he was just treated like one. Not many people had the ambition of being the best and even less people thought of it as an endearing quality. Regardless, he decided to let himself relax around the camp fire. Maybe it was the peace in the air or the smell of the food, but he was really relaxing and it was all too sweet. He rubbed the back of his head, which was throbbing much less over the past hour or so that they've been there setting up and such. Odd as that may have been, he figured it was never just that serious to have been bothering him for so long.

After the previous incident, he had decided it would be wise to move the sword from the root and keep it at his side. It wasn't really defensive since he never really put a hand on it once he sat down. He leaned back on his elbows, observing the group as they each did their own thing. The other two were setting up their camp and the Naga who had helped him up was cooking for them. They seemed ordinary enough, despite the bright colors they wore.

There were a lot of questions that he could ask right at this moment, but only a few that he knew people would actually respond to. Maybe he should start with the simple questions and see how things played out. Turning to the Naga since she was closest, he addressed his question to her. "What brings you three out here on this evening?"

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

The Naga, whom the girls referred to as Deipthe (deep-thee), gave Vahn a cheery smile and turned her gaze on him, sitting back on her coils to relax a little as she poured some chopped vegetables into the stew, and started on some more. The pot she'd produced from that pack was clan-sized, it would make enough.

She almost began with the word Mistress. Time and again she'd been scolded for that... it was 'weird' for a little girl to be an owner of two adult women, Shei'ki always reminded her, she shouldnt use Mistress. But she'd not given any slip ups about what she'd almost said, so she didn't take more than a moment before replying

"Shei'ki is interested in some... dusty old ruins supposedly in this area of the forest, and we couldn't let the girl wander off alone - she might fall in a hole and eat a bug or something." she joked with him, and chuckled a little, offering him a piece of half-chopped carrot. "Mm?"

The spirited woman who wore crimson swore loudly, and their attempt at the tent collapsed pitifully. Shei'ki just laughed aloud from inside, and the pair set to working again. Deipthe shot them a kind smile, and her long, elfin ears gave an appreciative, expressive little lilt before perking again as she faced her cooking once more.

[Vahn x Dimitri]

He couldn't help but smile as they still tried to get the camp up and running. Nodding his head in thanks to her, he took the piece of carrot and smiled as he put in his mouth. He chewed it a few times and smiled as he rose to his feet, leaving his sword where it lay. Crouching next to the Naga, he looked at the herbs and took a pinch of some salt, adding it into the stew. "Try that now." That was the last thing it needed, at least by his account and he normally had a good sense of taste for these things. Then again, he also spent the past three years locked away in the academy's prison, so he could be wrong.

In a confident kind of way, he rose to his feet and started to walk over to the camp that they were trying to set up. There was a soft smile on his face as Shei'ki was inside the tent laughing, despite the other woman being completely frustrated at their attempts. First impressions were a big thing and from what he could tell, the Naga was definitely the calm one who made sure things were planned to a T. Shei'ki, who was the only name he had gotten so far, was still young and learning, but she was important to the other two since they accompanied her out here. The other woman seemed to have a little bit of a temper, or short fuse that she was getting so irritated simply setting up camp.

"Can I give you ladies a hand?" He asked confidently, thinking that if either of them was like their skilled chef, they would let him help. He was about halfway between them and the stew, so ideally in no man's land in terms of defense, which was pretty uncharacteristic of him, but he could still hold his own without the sword, not to mention other things he had up his sleeve if necessary.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

Deipthe blinked as the man put a bit of herb into the stew, and watched him move toward the other girls, her eyes wide as he walked off. She normally added a different herb at this point, but that one? She blinked, and tasted it, her ears splaying as she did. The moment her tongue touched, she perked again and blinked! It WAS good! Happy with the trick he taught her, she began getting the dishes ready... plus enough for the Saiyan girl who had wandered away from the camp a few minutes ago (I'm assuming) should she return.

The squirming mass of tarp and tent poles with a girl inside grunted, and poked her head out the front, vaguely turtle like in how she looked in that awkward position.

"Hrrrf... I... I think I'm stu-" Shei'ki paused when Vahn gave his offer to assist them. She was tangled up good, and Eiffe was about as helpful at setting up a tent as a badger. Come to think of it, they both were bad at this. It'd taken them four hours last time to set it up. Both of them were willing to let Vahn give it a shot, apparently, because Eiffe nodded.

"Sure. Why not. Show us how a man does these things." the nymph said, irritably, her body glowing a little brighter and exuding some... extra warmth as she stared at him, mostly annoyed about not being able to set up the tent herself.

[Vahn x Dimitri]

Well, this one had a temper on her as she granted him the ability to work on their tent. Taking a few steps forward he untangled the young woman and took the tent and poles away a few paces while he looked at all the pieces as a whole. He looked at the tent and flipped it around to make sure the loops sewn in were on the upper side and looking at how the poles were all of equal length. He started with one pole at each corner and laid them down to the loop in the middle and locked them in place with some pockets made for the pole ends. Very delicately, he flipped it over and used one of the spikes to secure one end and started to erect it from the opposite corner and lock in that end as well. The other two were just as easy and after about five minutes or so, they had a fully functioning tent.

As he started to walk over to the emphatic one and Shei'ki, he smiled in response to her sly comment. "If you start it face down, it's easier to lock the poles in place." As usual, there was a little cockiness in his voice as he walked past her victoriously and made his way back to the stew and his sword. He sat down in his original spot and smiled at the Naga. "Did it come out well?" He laid back on the ground and looked through the trees up at the stars of the night sky.