Another Tale from Gynka

[HolyKnight]

((Closed Thread for now, using this as character building for Leland. Thank you PO Tyan and Yridia for the inspiration! Please read the awesome story they have going on!))
((Perilous Facts- viewtopic.php?f=4&p=713723#p713723))
((Leland Introduced- viewtopic.php?p=713656#p713656))

The canary, Marley, slept on his bare chest. Her steady breathing paced his thoughts. She practically begged for these moments, her mood soured if he didn’t afford her enough alone time. Leland had hoped she’d have hardened a bit by now; alas, she still considered their exploits to be a game— risqué interlude. In the end, perhaps it would be for her, given her father’s influence. Leland would be the pariah and Marley the beguiled youth, still distraught by her mother’s untimely death and her own coming of age.

Failure played out in his dreams, if ever they came: cornered in a dead end alley by the townwatch, the navy keeling over his fleeing vessel and fishing him from the sea to be shackled, and many other horrors of his imagination where unsavory men are apprehended. Visions like this stole him from sleep and formed tired circles under his eyes- the remnants flagrant on his pale face. The gods had blessed him to be easy on the eyes, but the world had been harsh to him. A missing pinky finger to the first knuckle for stealing a bread roll, knife wounds- too many to count, the scalded flesh up the left side of his neck and touching the under curve of his jawline, and now; he had tired eyes and unruly grooming habits.

The stress and effort to outwit and outmaneuver his usurer, rivals, and the endless crop of factions wore him to the bone. In the sprawl and melt of Gynka clan life, guilds, and deep family lines were all means of security. Flock mentality, protect your own, were unspoken mantras. The city’s reputation proceeded itself, there were countless thieves; cutthroats; and the taint of civilization vying for supremacy, but few in the rat race were freemen. Few made their own choices day after day. You served, everyone served, one way or another. Going against that grain was laborious and tedious when established organizations could bring you into the fold: teach you, arm you, feed you, but at what cost? No price too high for free will and choice. Beit as it may, these groups had a firm foothold on wealth, prosperity, and influence, but contrary to popular opinion and rumor, their control was not grossly disproportionate to the civil members of society and the institutions they served. The plight of poverty, however, was as real as drought in the desert.

With nothing but his surname left to him, Leland Niall rose from the dregs of the poor man’s cup. From the backwood squalor of a run down orphanage to the bustling streets of Gynka, Leland struggled and survived, day after day; month after month; and one year to the next. The toil, not honest; the danger, surreal; and fiends and vices; a many. Only by a stroke of gambling luck against an Illarion merchant had Leland’s fortunes changed. Everyone in Gynka sought an edge against the competition, his had fallen into his lap in the form of a magical stone. The merchant called it a slight ruby, and it spared the poor bastard’s life. The fabled stones were real, and Leland’s life was never the same.

He could have sold the precious stone that smoldered like fire under its dazzled surface, paid off all his debts, provisioned himself for a journey to Illarion, and began the new life he yearned for day and night. But, the stone meant too much to him and became something of a lucky charm. He wanted to pay back his debts on his own, for no man leaves Gynka with debt— you’d be found before departure or hunted abroad. Up until now, focusing on individuals with ties to Illarion sustained him. He never went hungry, and the riches in his strongbox grew even while he paid off his pitiless lender.

Vexed by the toll and Marley’s temperaments, he yearned for change. He’d made his canary a woman, but he didn’t love her. More than a year ago, he’d seduced her without an ounce of reservation. She was the easiest path to her father, nothing more than conquest— a twofold challenge to ensnare a bonny fair lass and turn her into a source. He’d gotten more than he bargained for with the lassie though. Mixing business with pleasure had been a curse, foretold a hundred times by anyone with a degree of wisdom or experience— ignored.

Apart from information she bled from her father, Marley’s worth began in the bed and ended when she woke. She wanted to be handfast, she wanted her father dead, she wanted too much, and gave too little to soothe or comfort a man. When demands weren’t given, expectations unmet brought her fiery temper and scorned rage. On more than one occasion she thought bewitching other men against Leland would teach him a lesson. They died with a dagger in their gut and he attempted to humble her, but she reveled in his violence. Poisonous, toxic, were words well enough to describe their one sided affair.

She loved danger, same as he but proved an uncontrollable liability. Willing to stab a man one day with cold rapacious hate, then beg Leland to kill her or turn her in the next— knowing he wouldn’t, then enticing him to take her into some dark corner. Thrill and ecstasy paired with self-absorption and an ill-temper. No doubt, most akin to their story would have no sympathy for Leland. Taking another person’s innocence, in any form, for selfish gain came with obvious risk and ill-fated stars on the horizon.

Given the choice again, he’d play the same cards. After all, Marley Venneberg with her hair of tendril twine, lips of the rose on her full heart shaped face, and voluptuous physique was a beauty beyond her age. She looked and felt like a woman— if only she could act likewise. Tired phrasing perhaps, her skin had the texture of a rose petal. When she slumbered, her warmth and the closeness of beating heart permitted him to think. As he traced fingers over her back wondering how Urris and crew were doing, he hoped his canary would never wake. He had business to attend to and couldn’t handle her catty mood swings today.

He sorted his thoughts a bit longer, embraced by her body and a brewing storm outside. Eventually he snuck out from her— fully aware she’d have him by the nether region later. Black leather tricorn hat over his mess of hair and matching trench coat would protect him from the raging elements outside and keep him dry to the rendezvous point. Urris knew better than to show his face when Leland had Marley’s company. Through a storm worthy of the sea, what information would Urris have for him today?