Forged in steel

[Ycharley]

The thing is that Lumina knew the feeling, she was a freak, her servants knew it, most of the town knew it. She didn't stand out because of an eye or scars, but because of a curse, and how easily she could lose control. Lumina sighed, thinking, "I dont think I want jewels, just script and that pendent," lumina said. Her hand subconsciously moving to the scar of the self inflicted stab wound as things he said brought back old memories. She finished off the bottle and was glad to feel the alcohol start kicking in.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen shrugged. "That's fine. I find that a blade with too many decorations is just gaudy, but a fine script can make all the difference." He began using fine steel wires, heated in the forge then twisted into shape, to form a cross-guard. The wire continued down into the grip making it seem the grip and the cross-guard were one. this process took a full hour and between each wire he worked he drank a long swallow of the potato liquor. Before getting to the pommel he stopped.

"At this point I'm too drunk to see straight the rest I will do in the morning. I say tonight we drink away our sorrows!" He made the announcement proudly, but, between the extremely potent potato liquor and the wine and mead he'd had earlier in the day, he was too drunk to stand straight and tapped his hand against the hot forge. "Yach!" The wound healed almost instantly but the burning sting continued for several hours. He was ready to talk to this woman about his life over a keg of liquor and not much was going to stop him.

[Ycharley]

Lumina walked closer to him and sat down, her last bottle in hand. "Sounds like a plan to me," she replied with a smile. Lumina almost always got drunk alone, being with someone might be refreshing. "We'll as long as you supply the rest of the alcohol, this is my last bottle," she added with a chuckle.

"So have you ever been married?" She started, her body seeming to relax as she continued to drink.

[Dreamwolf]

He nodded compliantly until she mentioned marriage. At that the sputtered his drink into the hot forge, causing a burst of hot flames.

"Never. I'm not against it or anything, I just don't like the idea of being tied down to anything. It was asked for once. Some Forest Spirit girl I see as a sister. She and I traveled together for a few months and she was always flirting with me. If she weren't so reckless I might have had time to realize she was good looking, but she was only fifteen and as curious about the world as a toddler, always touching things she shouldn't touch. She tried to steal a bar of silver from a merchant I was buying from just because it sparkled in the light." He burst out into laughter for a moment. "I'm sorry she was adorable in a way, but no, I've never even seriously considered marriage before. What about you?"

[Ycharley]

Lumina laughed, taking her a few moments to gather self before she could talk. "Me, married, most guys won't even talk to me, let alone try to court me," she sighed, her laugh turning sad as she looked down. "It has to do with my curse, I get mad, even if it's something small, I can lose it and go absolutely crazy and go on a killing spree. Then in a few hours, I wake up, covered in blood and surrounded by corpses. Not many men are willing to risk life and limb for a pretty face and a bad attitude," she finished before taking a long drink.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen nodded. "I can see that. Most women see the scar on my face and think I'm possessed or cursed, or commonly, that I'm some kind of demon or evil spirit. I've found two or three that don't see my eye as something other than a birth defect. I'm not worried though, I've lived through some really painful things. I've been impaled twice you know. The first time on a sword, the second on a bull's horn. Plus I cut my own finger off while sharpening an old sword. Regrowing it was more painful than cutting it off really. Pretty sure that if you don't cut off my head I'll live through just about anything, but that'd be hard since I've hardened the bones of my neck to prevent such a thing."

He treated his own death as a joke, not mentioning the fact that he had once tried to cut out his own heart to prove he was human as a child. That wound had healed on its own, like so many others. Anything life threatening healed itself quickly and completely. In truth he would have welcomed death in the past.

[Ycharley]

Lumina sighed, "I stabbed myself in the heart once, it left a pretty nasty scar. Other then that I have been able to avoid any criyical enjury. I have more incentive to avoid it though, I can't grow things back," lumina replied with a slight chuckle. She soon finished her bottle, tossing it behind her for the moment. She started forming a ball of light in her hand, playing with it.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen gave her a look. "I tried to cut my own heart out to prove I was human and had one. The wound kept healing before I could show it to the disgusted onlookers. We're both a couple of monsters in the eyes of others, aren't we." It was a statement not a question. He felt they both knew what the answer was.

Seeing her play with the ball of light he manipulated the flesh of his right hand into a dragons claw, complete with scales, he then mad each scale stand erect and turn into a feather.

"People fail to see the beauty of our gifts. Though a good number of women enjoy the charms I make. They'll give their souls to demons for eternal youth it seems." He grinned darkly, clutching the now feathered talon into a fist that looked like it could crush stone and crumple steel.

[Ycharley]

Lumina started laughing when he said women enjoyed the charms he made, her mind completely in the gutter."I'm sure they do," she said with a wink. Lumina crushed the ball of light, it busted into glowing dust that fell to the ground. "I stabbed myself in the heart after I killed my mother in my first rage caused by my curse, her goddess took pity on me, healing me, and giving me that pendent," lumina looked down and sighed. "Can I have a glass of that?" She asked softly, pointing at the alcohol.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen poured her a glass wordlessly. "I know something of what that feels like. I was born in Northern Connloath, when I was eight my powers manifested, I broke my arm and it healed in just a few minutes. My parents tried to run with me and were hunted down like rabid dogs. They hid me in this very cart without the owner knowing and were killed down the road. I still remember how badly their bodied were cut up. Just thinking about it..." He crushed a stone he had picked up in his hand, reducing it to dust.

"I stay out of Connloath because my face is too recognizable. My eye would give me away in a heartbeat. That and if I ever saw someone being chased like me and my parents were I'd end up killing everything that moved against me for miles around. In a way if I'd never been born my parents would still be alive. I've always felt responsible, but for you it must be worse. You did it with your own hands and had no control of yourself. For that I express my sympathies." He formed his right forearm into a long thin blade of bone, slicing the grass at his feet. If he wanted he could take on the form of a true demon and scare people absolutely lifeless. But he didn't, for the sake of being accepted.

[Ycharley]

"My gift is good for nothing but distruction and chaos, yours is different, you could be a healer, or smuggle mages out of harms way, I on the other hand can do nothing but kill and light up dark places," Lumina replied with a shrug. She then thought about how to lift the spirits of the conversation. She sat in silence for a few moments, trying to come up with something to say

"I would suggest strip poker, but I have no cards, and I would hate to scare you away with my scars," lumina joked.

[Dreamwolf]

He chuckled slightly. "You'd think so wouldn't you. I could never be a healer because of what I am. I'm not some beaten dog. I'm a wolf who has been speared by an arrow. I tend to dislike people and actually enjoy killing so much it sickens me."

He caught the attempt at changing the topic. "I could fix those scars. It'd be easy. The fact you haven't asked me means they are important reminders, like mine, right?" He didn't wait for an answer, instead he offered a change of topic in a safer direction. "How old were you when you first thought you'd fallen in love?" His smile was sad, but mischievous

[Ycharley]

"You don't have to be a beaten dog to want to heal." Lumina replied softly. She sighed, seeming to think on his question for a while. "I have never thought I was in love. Never let myself get that close to someone," Lumina answered with a sigh. 

Lumina then looked back at Fen, "What about you, you seem like a ladies man to me," she said winking.

[Dreamwolf]

"Not once. I've fancied a girl or two, but never really thought of it as love. I like that little wolf girl, but she's more like an annoying sister than anything else. Of course, I'll admit, there was Kilana, a mage escaping from Connloath, for her I would have done almost anything, but it turned out to be a charm she had placed on me, so I don't feel it counts." He drank another mug full of the distilled potato juice.

"How about embarrassing moments, no one has a lack of those. Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."

[Ycharley]

"Well when I go into my rage fits I always wake up completely nude, so that always leads to interesting moments," Lumina said with a chuckle. "Though I think my most embarrassing moment was when I was fifteen, I had found a boy who fancied me and didn't know about my curse. I had got him into the house unnoticed, or so I thought. Well we started getting a little frisky, and my dad walked in, and lets just say certain things were exposed. My father laughed at the poor boy, and I don't mean a little laugh, I mean like full gut, bent over laugh. I was mortified, but the boy got the worst of it. He teared up and ran out, and refused to speak to me after that," Lumina said with a nostalgic smile.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen laughed out loud. "Reminds me of my first time with a woman, well she wasn't really a woman, but I was fourteen and my adoptive father, Callus, was doing business in the north. Well I met this girl and we got went into the hayloft of the inn where me and Cal were staying. He comes in shoutin' for me to get dressed and head out because there some some spirit molesting young boys. My girl jumped about three feet in the air, turned into a cat and ran!" Fen was now shaking with laughter. "Callus started laughing so hard he soiled himself."

[Ycharley]

"Damn," Lumina said busting into laughter herself. She continued to drink, enjoying the warmth in the bottom of her belly. "Was that your most embarrassing moment, or is there a better story?" Lumina asked as she finally caught her breath from the laughing fit his story caused.

"Why did you call her your girl by the way, possessive much?" She jabbed with a slight chuckle. She reached up, running her hands through her white hair with a sigh. She pulled it to the side and started braiding it. Her turquoise eyes slightly glowing as it grew dark.

"Being a traveling man, you must have been with quiet a few women, or at least that's my knowledge of traveling salesmen," Lumina said as she leaned back, watching Fen's face.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen grinned. "It was by far not nearly as embarrassing as getting caught with a nobleman's maid in his bed. But that story ended not so well, since I was accused of being an incubus, I was burned at the stake. If I hadn't been protected by the fire charms that most ssmith's cary it would have been worse than it was."

He smiled at her as she made the remark about his possessive nature. "I'm like a wolf, they say. I own my women, until they own me."

[Ycharley]

"Until they own you? Hmm, sounds like a lot of talk to me, in my limited experience men are rarily more then words," Lumina replied, one eyebrow raised. She hasn't ever had a serious relationship, not because she didn't want one, but because she could see through lies and hidden things and had no problem calling them out. Not many men could handle that. Lumina took anouther large drink, her breath perminating with the smell of the liquor she had drank.

[Dreamwolf]

Fen quirked and eyebrow. "Means once I get married I'll be an obedient husband who will probably be as docile as a shepherd's dog. And if you've only had that kind of experience with men I feel slightly sorry for you. I now men can be a tad untrustworthy sometimes, but there are good ones out there. Don't count me as one of them though. You can trust me not to lie to you in most situations, but I'm not a good man."

Fen himself as getting quite drunk, in fact if he attempted to stand he would find himself unable to. And in the morning he would find himself suffering one of his rare hangovers. "So, you like animals? E ver had any pets?"