zenderael_rl | [EVENT]

"I figured," he said, with a shrug that meant 'Don't worry about it.'

Nadir suddenly moving forward to catch Jordan surprised him, and that was when he noticed Ezra and Rhys walking off with--wait, was that the security guard who'd saved him and Jordan before?

"Where are they going?"

She jerked forward, honestly not expecting to be stopped, then craned her neck to throw Nadir a confused look. "Time for what? Why is he going with him?" she asked, barely concealed panic in her voice.

The grip was firm, but not tight. He looked at her briefly with something like pity before he looked away. He himself seemed lost.

"They're going to stop the siege."

He heard the main doors crack under Rhys' assault, and the three of them disappeared outside. Nadir kept hold of Jordan's wrist, however.

"So, to Bastan."

Duncan stared at him, not believing the words. "...You're joking, right?"

How did they expect to stop the siege? ...How did they expect to get to Bastan?

But then he remembered that Nadir had come over from Zen, and maybe people going into Zen didn't seem quite as hard to believe.

Her mouth parted to protest, but the cracking of the ice pulled her attention away. Jordan caught the tail end of the trio leaving, stared at the empty spot where they'd left for another second before returning her attention to Nadir.

She jerked her wrist away, trying to break free of his hold. "They're trusting him?" she demanded, angry and surprised. "He's--" With XDAV. Yes, everyone knew it already. (Well, mostly everyone.) "He could be taking him to the greycloaks! And why the hell is Ezra going with..."

undead

him

dead.

Stop the siege.

The color drained from Jordan's face. Her hand went limp. She swallowed. Then she turned away, rubbing her eyes with her free hand. "Fuck."

The utterance was barely louder than a breath, but there were a number of emotions behind it. Worry and acceptance, but namely defeat.

"I hope not," he said to Duncan. He wasn't entirely sure himself. He didn't entirely trust the X-DAV employee. "...but it isn't my place to question the decisions of guild leaders. Either of them."

He looked down to Jordan, and let her go, almost gently. "Ending the siege won't work if the Spenta or the Ahura are missing. Of course they have to go together."

Nadir looked around, shifting to take in more of the scene with his left eye. "...I have to deal with the body in the kitchen," he said, almost as a means to distract himself, and he walked back to the kitchen.

He did a double-take, gaping at Nadir. "Wait, what?"

Guild lea--guild leaders?! Rhys and Nadir? Body in the kitchen???

Holy shit. Duncan mind = blown. He couldn't even process this shit anymore. Since when were Rhys and Ezra guild leaders? Did that mean--they'd eaten god-organs, then? Was the body in the kitchen...? Had they been the ones to kill Kharveryos?

Too many questions. No answers. Couldn't even force himself to ask for answers and Nadir was already walking away.

So he just stood there, unbelieving, until something drew him out of it.

Jordan didn't see Nadir walking away, but she heard his footsteps recede. There was a small part of her that felt like following, seeing the body for herself. Why, she couldn't think of a reason. It certainly wasn't for the purpose of convincing her, but it felt heavier than simple morbid curiosity.

Small, though, and easily lost in the murky numbness creeping over her. Rhys and Ezra were following the berserker. They could be following him to their deaths, not just from the greycloaks or XDAV, but from the very conflict they were trying to end. They were soft. They were weak. They were guild leaders, but against what? Even a new trainee, less than a year into their respective guilds could probably outmaneuver them. The difference wasn't power or authority, but experience.

Against that, Nadir's sword lessons meant precious little.

"Fuck," she said again, falling into a crouch. A rekindled sense of worry, warped into an anger, but they were embers, fading as quickly as they had come.

"Idiot!" she hissed, slamming the floor with her fist. She thought of Rhys first, but realized she felt the same of Ezra. "Idiots!"

But no, she wasn't angry at them. They were jumping into a huge unknown. What if they ended up like the previous Ahura, dying in an alleyway? Like the previous Spenta, in a fucking kitchen?

Jordan shoved herself up, inhaling deeply to quell the growing turmoil in her stomach. Another "fuck" was released in the exhale, but it was the last; she began to walk away, to the kitchen.

Duncan recoiled at Jordan's sudden outburst. He stared as she ran through her emotional tirade, and at some point forced himself to slowly edge away so she wouldn't turn her anger on him.

That was also the reason he stayed dead silent until she walked away.

He let out a sigh of relief, staring after her a moment before turning back to the doors.

Guild leaders. Fucking really?

Maybe he could contact Rhys inside the game and ask for an explanation...? That sounded ridiculous, but at this point what didn't?

For now, though, he had friends to check up on. He pulled his phone out to ask after their locations and started searching.

He didn't stick around to answer Duncan or Jordan, though he could hear her ranting from behind him. He kicked a little at the kitchen door before it would open again, something behind it having fallen in the way- probably more kitchen equipment. As the temperature dropped it started to stink. It wasn't the first time he'd come across such a scene, unfortunately, so he ignored it and moved back in towards where the body lay.

"I never took you for a stupid man," Nadir sighed as he crouched down. Blood soaked into the ice on the floor and was starting to melt it faster than the warming air. He found his knife beside the body where Ezra had left it and used a section of unbloodied cloth from the man's tunic to wipe it clean. He'd have to do a better job later, once he returned to Ezra's place.

His place, now.

He looked up to see Jordan in the doorframe, and he didn't try to hide the body from her, didn't deny anything that had happened or try to make excuses for Ezra or for Rhys. He reached out and shut the Spenta's eyes, then took out his sword again. Without a word he thrust it into the mauled stomach and called fire once more into his blade.

Once the body and all the flammable bits of cloth and armour had been burned away, short work for a magic user, he stood and wiped the blade clean and looked back to Jordan.

"I'll walk you home," he said. It wasn't a question, it wasn't even really an order. He had nothing to talk to her about on the way back, he didn't want anything from her. But he owed Rhys that much. It was the least he could do.

[EVENT] - Kharveryos

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