Deliverance
Log Info
- Title: Deliverance
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's apartment
- Summary: Andelena's freaked out by her sword--it feels weird, for one, and, as she discovers, it shakes in disapproval every time she swears. Dolan's just trying to oil his armor as he witnesses Andelena's sword being a weird sword and offers his commentary (and laughter). Andelena names the sword Deliverance and decides she can live with a sword that seems to want her to destroy the Tyrant's servants--but is less enthused by its opinions on her choice of language.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Dramatis Personae =--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Andelena 6'0" 180 Lb Human Female Redhead with steel-grey eyes and powerful build. Dolan 5'10" 174 Lb Human Male Brown-haired human with scars down his face. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
"If you stare at it long enough, it might stare back at you," Andelena mutters to herself.
The sun couple had returned from their excursion out into the world, which means that the off-duty Sunguard now has all the time she needs to just stare at the sword that has been giving her no small amount of grief the last few days.
Andelena gives it a look for another moment, turning it over in her hands for the twentieth time or so before she sighs deeply. "Bry," she calls over her shoulder, "am I thinking about this too hard? Is something just... getting to me?"
Brydion, having ditched his sword and pack in its usual corner with her gear, but left his armor unceremoniously on the floor in front of the couch and disappeared into the back room, now emerges, shirtless, barefoot, and in a different pair of trousers, with a handful of rags in one hand. His right forearm is tightly wrapped, the gashes left by devil claws pinned together for the moment. He'd poured a small vial of something into the wounds, and it appeared to help with pain along with whatever else it did.
"What, the sword?" he asks, tossing the rag pile atop the armor and going for the bottle of oil that he uses to clean and care for it, a thing kept on the shelf near the blades. "You're looking at it like it's about to eat you."
Andelena makes a noise like a snort. "Well, yeah--maybe it does," she says. "It was acting really weird while we were fighting that fiend. I mean, it kept fucking--"
The sword vibrates in her hand, but just for a moment. This gets another wide-eyed look from Andelena as she stares at the blade again, staring at the blade like it did, indeed, try to take a bite out of her. "See! It just... Swords don't do that, Bry!"
She holds up into the air, carefully looking at it in the light. Squinting. "Auranar said that there was something about this blade, like she thought that maybe it was gaining... a life of its own? You ever hear of anything like that?"
Retrieving the bottle of oil, Dolan pauses to frankly stare at the sword for a good few minutes when it vibrates in her hand. "No," he says frankly and without beating around the bush. "I've heard of intelligent artifacts, souls trapped in things, but not a sword that vibrates if you look at it strangely. Is this why you've been looking at it funny?"
"Yeah," Andelena says, although she's still squinting at the sword rather than looking back at her man. "It just also feels... Weird. When we were fighting that cult, and I called on Daeus to bless my blade, it seemed to..."
She pauses for a moment, lowering the blade and scratching at her copper-blonde waves. "You know how some people shiver when they anticipate something's about to go down? It felt like that. Like it was encouraging me to go triumph over evil."
Andelena pats her hand on the flat side of the blade. "And if it is encouraging me to go fuck--"
The sword vibrates again. Andelena grimaces. "What? Is it..."
She looks at Dolan. "I think it doesn't like it when I swear."
That gets a hearty laugh from Dolan. "It's your mother, Andie, all over again. You can't get rid of her!" Still laughing, the Redeemer carries the oil back over to the couch, sets it down on the floor, and dabs the topmost of the pile of rags with the oil in clear preparations to clean it. He quickly turns his face away from her, but quickly enough shifts so that he pins the piece down with his right hand and cleans with the left.
Andelena just sighs deeply. "Yeah, I would end up with a... weird fucking--" She grimaces as the sword shakes again. "A weird sword that nags me like my own damn mother!"
She grumbles a little as she walks to the couch, still holding the sword. Andelena sits down, flipping the sword over in her hand.
"This thing's holier than my mother ever was," she says. "I think... It wanted me to take down that cult. And it responded to being blessed like it was the most natural thing in the world."
"Is it shaking?" Brydion had looked up from his work when Andelena spoke, wstched it as she came to the couch, and now stares incredulously at it, with a small laugh. "It's like it's shaking a great big finger at you," he observes. "So - it's responding to what you say?"
Andelena nods, her eyes narrowing as she stares at the sword like she's locked in another glaring match with her mother. "Yeah, seems so. I wonder..."
She lifts the sword up into the air. "I, Andelena, Sunguard of Daeus, am sworn to fight evil wherever it may be with this sword, and I will deliver the people from the pain of the Tyrant."
As soon as she finishes her sentence, the sword shakes again, particularly on the word 'deliver'. Andelena narrows her eyes again.
"I think... It liked that." She smirks. "Least we know it's not an evil sword, probably."
"Hells, I like that." Brydion looks up from his work as she delivers the proclamation, and grins cheekily up at her, his lone brown eye bright and warm with admiration and affection. "You're turning into a regular noble knight," he adds teasingly, the grin brightening still more.
He dabs more oil onto the rag and continues his cleaning work, attending to leather and metal alike; Andie will know this as a means to protect the straps from rot and the metal from rust, not to mention removing dirt and ichor that it has been splashed with. Previous oilings make this an easier job, even when he works with his off hand. He's done that before, too.
He stops again, though, as if he's had a thought, and sets the rag down atop the breastplate in his lap. "Holy Knight, show me that which is anathema to You." Again, a thing Andelena will have seen many times, usually muttered much more quietly.
Andelena just gives Brydion a look, but she can't help but roll her eyes and give a laugh afterward. "I'll take that kind of being noble," she says. "The other kind where you sit on your ass and wait to get married off to a man twice your age with about five dozen fat rolls between his chin and his gut doesn't appeal to me."
Then Brydion compels the Knight's actions with his words--and there's nothing evil to be shown about the sword. It's quite the opposite--it feels like a sword that aligns perfectly with Andelena, and with him. It's an odd thing to experience, but the sword has already proven its oddity.
"Alright. I guess if this thing has... a life to it," Andelena says, "like what Auranar was saying... It gets a name."
She looks at Brydion after a moment. "It seemed to like the phrase 'deliver the people from the pain of the Tyrant'. So... Deliverance? That's a pretty badass name."
Whatever Brydion saw when he stared at the sword, it doesn't seem to alarm him. Instead, he leans back on the couch with a snort of laughter. "You name it, it's yours, baby. Think it's yours anyway." He stares at the blade, turning his face fully towards Andelena and Deliverance, and regards them both. "So long as it delivers, sounds pretty good." A smirk of approval goes with that acceptance. He goes back to work on the armor, turning it and pinning it down to continue his work.
"As much as I can own a weapon that's apparently gaining a life of its own, anyway," Andelena replies, looking at the sword carefully. "It's settled, then. Deliverance."
She pats the sword on the hilt. "We'll fuck--"
Andelena grimaces as the sword quivers its displeasure at her swearing. "We'll mess up the enemy together, but you gotta let me swear. Don't grow fangs and bite me."
The sword makes no promises, judging by its lack of response. Andelena just sighs and gets up from the couch, putting the newly-named Deliverance back into its usual waiting spot. "Can't fucking believe the sword won't let me fucking cuss. Fuck," she lets loose, walking back to her spot on the couch. The sword, of course, buzzes from where it is, like a stern mother roaring her disapproval from across the room, but Andelena ignores it.
"What's it going to do to you if you swear, turn around and bite you?" Brydion chuckles, turning back to the work on which he is now intent. "It can't even talk. If all it does is vibrate, who cares?" Laughter sings through the flippant response.
Andelena grimaces again at the idea of it talking. "What if it learns how to talk? Gods, that'll be the end of me. It's already annoying having it vibrate at me every time I cuss."
She rubs her hand down her face. "I'll take having an ally in the fight against evil, but fuck--"
Another wiggle from the sword.
"Yeah, I know! Fuck off!" Andelena grumbles, which earns her another irritated wiggle that she just ignores. "Anyway, it'll just be something I have to account for when I'm wielding the blade. A minor annoyance."
"It's a sword, Andie. If it learns to talk, you've got bigger problems than a sword that wiggles when it's angry." Brydion does't sound even a little bit concerned, and doesn't look up. "The edge of its blade does all the talking it gets to do." Scrub scrub, He's making progress, even though he grimaces. No, he doesn't entirely get it. "Let it be angry. You don't answer to it."
"Yeah, yeah. You're right," Andelena says, looking at Brydion in the middle of scrubbing at his armor. She watches him do that for a long moment.
And then a grin crosses her face.
"So... when's it my turn to get scrubbed down like that?" she asks. It's not the first time the question's been asked and it probably won't be the last.
That's a request, of a very specific sort, and well Brydion knows it. His answering laugh smolders, although maybe not with quite the same enthusiasm he usually does. He discards the filthy, oily rag atop the bottle of oil, sets both aside, then sets the breastplate in his lap next to it. "You know, you're right, Mama always said clean the dirtiest thing first." That wicked grin only expands, and he stands up to face her.
Andelena grins back at him, wrapping her arms around him to pull him into a tight hug followed by a kiss on the lips. "Well, let's go do that, then."
The sun couple proceed about 'scrubbing down'. Deliverance presumably does not approve of the language that accompanies the act.