After the Storm [Lion rawr!]

[Lion]

Agrian didn't answer.  He couldn't.  He just couldn't find any words to speak as they passed by the guard and he led them out through the dungeon tunnels.  Funny how things seemed bleaker right before one was about to die.  And the walk to the headsman's block was very different than walking into the Arena.  At least in the arena you had a chance, some possibility of survival..

This...their fate was sealed.

Or was it?

"You are to be seated in the guardsman's rows, just below," the guard said as he led them out into the bright sunlight of the courtyard.  "To get a decent view.  I hear it's going to be a good one."

[visualspice]

As the Arena began to fill, and the murmur of the crowd washed through the air like the call of waves, it appeared the Shah was no where to be found- her tented area and plush seatings vacant. But it wasn't quite time for the execution, though, by the growing restlessness of the crowd, it was getting close.

[Rhindeer]

Agrian's silence only heightened the fear clawing within her, and Yasmin's heart beat faster. He was supposed to say something like, "don't be so grim, Yasmin!" or...or...something! He wasn't supposed to validate her here! He was supposed to play along! It was easier to be brave when you made a big joke of everything.

Her mouth went dry as they stepped out into the light, and for a moment she was blinded by it. But when her eyes adjusted, the headsman's block loomed straight ahead before her, and she suddenly found it hard to breathe--because she was breathing too fast, short, quick breaths that didn't fill her lungs enough to get the proper amount of oxygen.

This was it. They were dead. Oh Hakeshna. Had they at least sharpened the axe? She heard it sometimes took several swings--the spine was tricky, and--fuuuuck. Her hand trembled on Agrian's shoulder, and she started to feel light-headed--probably didn't help she hadn't eaten for over twenty-four hours!--and that was when the guard said something strange.

Yasmin blinked.

"To...to...get a decent view?" she repeated slowly, walking woodenly to the guardsman's seats. She plopped down onto the bench as though her limbs had stopped working. She rubbed at her neck. "Are we, uh, are we being executed or...?"

[Lion]

"Executed!?"  The guardsman gave Yasmin an odd look.  "If that was the case, I hardly think the great Shah would waste the spectacle on a bunch of slaves.  I was instructed to lead you to the seating.  What happens next, I cannot say."

Agrian said nothing to Yasmin still.  He bowed his head to the guard, though didn't thank him and grabbed Yasmin by the hand, pulling her into the trenches where benches had been placed to allow for seating and he stepped up onto one of the higher seats rather than planting his ass on it, to get the best view he possibly could.

"We could still be executed. Best to not make a scene," he said to Yasmin at last.  But his expression wasn't a comforting one and nor was it meant to be.  "This is going to be something to remember."

[Rhindeer]

It was a miracle Yasmin's legs worked well enough that she didn't trip and fall on her face! As Agrian took her by the hand and lead her further up, she rose and followed, surprised at how steady her legs were. Because she had felt about ready to piss herself back there--that, and she had started to seriously consider making a scene, to calculate the likelihood of taking out a guard or two as they dragged her to the block.

Stepping up beside Agrian, she put a hand on his shoulder to hold herself steady.

"I'll be a perfect gentlewoman," she breathed, still in shock. "Why, I even solemnly swear that if we get out of this with our heads still attached, I'll start saying my noontime prayers. I'd been skimping. This might give me a reason not to."

[Lion]

Agrian looked at Yasmin grimly, wishing he could smile at her joking attitude.  But something in the moment robbed him of that sentimentality.  He looked out across the courtyard, still unable to speak, holding his breath as if believing that at any moment, that might be him heading towards the headsman's block.

That's when he saw him.  The little fat man, stumbling, being dragged along with great protest.

[Rhindeer]

"They're really gonna do it," Yasmin said in a near whisper, still unable to believe what she was seeing as Agrian's former master was dragged to the block. This was actually happening. The Shah was truly serious. This man, this slave-holder, this citizen was being executed for their crimes.

And the headsman stood ready for him, his face covered save for his grim-looking eyes. In his hand was a great axe, the blade gleaming in the light. It looked very, very sharp, and Yasmin wondered how many swings he'd need to get it through that horrible man's thick neck.

Even as she thought that, she brought her hand to her own neck and swallowed as she rubbed it, reminded of Agrian's words. They weren't safe yet.

This might just be the warm up.

She lightly nudged Agrian, bothered by his silence. Making light of grim, impossible situations was how she coped, and he was just making her more anxious. "What are you thinking?" she asked as the guards plopped the man before the block, forcing him to kneel.

[Lion]

Agrian winced, he didn't mean to, but he did.  When he saw the little fat man falling to his knees, Agrian winced and he blinked in silence as he watched him cry out in pain.  Maybe he hated the poor bastard; he wasn't the best master.  He only wanted Agrian because he could fight well and he made good coin betting on him in the Arena.  But he didn't see his former master for a few seconds.  He just saw a man, facing the end of his life, and the desperation that came therein.

He almost felt sorry for him.  In fact, the feeling was stronger than he originally thought it would be, and he simply stared at him as a priestess came to give him his last rights before the ax would be raised.

And without realizing it, Agrian had reached for Yasmin's hand and gripped it hard, his palm sweaty, his eyes glossed over.

[Rhindeer]

A hand found hers, gripping it tightly, and Yasmin sucked in a startled breath before a quick glance down confirmed it was only Agrian. Agrian? She lifted her eyes from their hands to his face, and her stomach twisted.

She wished she saw hate in his eyes. She wished she saw the same disgust she felt, the same anger, the same hatred, but instead she saw...sympathy? Pity?Why? The man was a monster. These slave owners didn't care about them. They used them like objects and cast them away like old toys--and worse, so much worse, though Yasmin had been lucky. The bastard deserved this! Agrian should be happy, relieved, celebrating this moment, even! The tables had been turned, the roles reversed. Shouldn't he be savoring the sweetness?

It surprised her for a moment, taking her off guard, and Yasmin drew her eyes away and looked back to the sobbing, crumpled man before them as the seconds ticked down for him with every word the priestess spoke. And in that moment came a startling, terrifying sense of clarity as she looked, really looked, trying to see what Agrian saw--and in doing so saw the human behind the monster: just a man, frightened out of his wits, moments away from losing everything. Just a man experiencing the same terror she felt every time she entered the arena. The same terror she'd felt upon seeing the block he was now leaning over.

Yasmin started to feel sick.

She had long ago promised to remember every life she took, to never forget their faces, to always remember their humanity, to never view the people she fought as the animals their masters wanted them to. She wore the memories in her flesh, inked into her skin like blood on her hands, stains that would never come out. She never wanted to become like the people that enslaved them.

Had she been losing sight of that here?

No different from a spectator in the arena, thinking bloodthirsty thoughts as she waited for his head to roll...

She squeezed Agrian's hand back, tightly, and didn't let go. Her own hand trembled a little, and this time, as the priestess drew her words to a close and the headsman lifted his axe, she let the silence stretch.

[Lion]

The man trembled, whimpering, terrified, likely sweating in the hot sack on his head.  One moment, his shoulders were shaking, the next, they were still.  There was a thump, a roll, then a loud slump as the body went limp against the headsman's block.  Agrian was still, staring at the headless body and realizing only then that a tear fell down his cheek.

He turned to Yasmin and said nothing for a time.  He wiped his eyes through the slits in his helmet, shaking his head and trying to remember the inhumanity with which his master always treated him.  He was an animal, and saw Agrian as less than that...  But...he was still a man, no less a man than he.

"Hakeshna have mercy on him," Agrian said as he looked to Yasmin.  "Thank you.."

[Rhindeer]

Yasmin looked up at Agrian as he turned to her, and...was he...was he crying? Was that why he was rubbing his eyes? She didn't ask, nor comment either way, and felt yet again that little prickle of shame when she realized her own eyes were dry. Hakeshna, this was fucked up, fucked up that she no longer even knew when she should cry and when she shouldn't, didn't know who she should cry for.

But tears or no tears, no matter who that man had been, seeing that had been hard. She saw plenty of death, as Agrian did, but it was different when people had a fighting chance, wasn't it? Even though, sometimes, those "fighting chances" were just as hopeless.

Yasmin gave his hand another squeeze in response to his thanks. "You holding up okay?"

[Lion]

"I will be fine," Agrian said, pulling himself together.  He shook his head, not sure what exactly came over him.  It passed soon, however, and he looked out across the courtyard as the man's head was plucked form the basket and placed onto a pike.  Agrian held his breath as he watched his body thrown into a cart, likely off to be fed to lions or some other hungry beast.

But then his eyes looked out to the Shah, viewing her in all her regalia and that all of his sorrow, immediately vanished.  "Look at her," he said, a husky growl coming from his throat.  "Looks like she has something to say about the spectacle.  Not every day a lowly slave gets to hear the word to 'Hakeshna' herself through her Glorious Vessel...  What bullshit."

[Rhindeer]

"Oh, jubilation," Yasmin said with a roll of her eyes, not sounding the least bit enthused. She looked where Agrian was looking.

"She's just a person," she said with a firm nod, as though trying to convince herself. Which she was. She had grown up in Essyrn, raised under the belief, all her life, that the Shah was Hakeshna's avatar. It was hard to shake off that indoctrination, and no matter how cynical she'd grown, that still lingered in her mind, the what if?? factor.

"We saw that last night. She's just a scared little girl, no different from us. Well." She looked sidelong at Agrian with a crooked smile and pat his hand between her own. "Noooot to say you're a scared little girl. I guess we should feel pretty honored, anyway. Us lowly slaves even got a personal visit, and now we've practically got private seats and a great view of the gore. I'm feeling pretty special!"

[visualspice]

OOC: So like my last post here totally said arena but just nix that and presume I meant the um- courtyard? 8D
---------

It did, in fact, appear as if the Shah was to speak, in fact, it looked like something to be expected as the crowd and condemned man all turned to her. But instead of saying a word, the Shah simply rose and gave the signal for them to cut.

[Rhindeer]

"Or maybe she won't say anything at all..." Yasmin said slowly, as silence followed, making her feel uneasy.

[visualspice]

With all of those accused, now dead, the Shah made her way away from the fray of chaos and whispered just one single command to her guards, "Take the slaves back to their prison. We can handle their fate tomorrow morning."And with that, she disappeared back into her grand palace, while men were quick to approach to give the orders for Agrian and Yasmin to be brought back inside.

With a kick and shove, the guard commanded them gruffly, "ALright, not anything else to see here. The Shah wants you back inside, slaves!"

[Lion]

In the end of it all, their fate remained unchanged.  The man had been executed as an example to all the others, to keep order of their slaves.  And what of them?  Time only would tell.

Agrian resumed his place in the cell, laying down on the hard cot, staring up at the ceiling and trying to make sense of it all.  It wasn't easy, and the silence was perhaps the sharpest knife of all.

[Rhindeer]

Back in the cell, Yasmin flopped onto her own cot.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire," she said with a sigh, and rubbed a fresh bruise on her hip where one of the guards had kicked her while she'd been sitting. Jeez. They'd been so much gentler escorting them to the place than escorting them back!

"I think the anticipation is the worst part. I'm not sure I can take another day and night of this!"

[Lion]

"You'd better!" Agrian said suddenly, half-growled really.  But he cleared his throat and rubbed the sweat from his forehead.  "I mean, if you start going nuts, who the hell can I rely on?  Shit, Yasmin.  You've got to keep it together.  We both do.  If we die, or if we're sold off, then at least we faced it like ....like...   Shit, I don't even have words for that."

[Rhindeer]

Sitting up at his words, Yasmin flashed Agrian a small, but genuine, smile. She tried to hide its warmth behind some false cockiness or smugness, but the effort failed--because she was legitimately...kind of touched.

Which was an awkward, vulnerable sort of emotion for her.

"Awww, Agrian," she said, pressing a hand to her heart. "Are you telling me you need me?"