Violence and Tea

Log Info

• Title: Violence and Tea

• Emitter: Auranar

• Characters: Auranar, Ravenstongue

• Place: Market District

• Summary: Ravenstongue and Auranar are out shopping and decide to duck out of the awful weather, but are beset upon by muggers. The situation quickly turns violent, and while the two sorceresses are slightly scraped and bruised, they prevail quite quickly over their assailants. They stop into a nearby shop and brighten their spirits over a cup of tea.

The rain and snow is falling heavily together, making a slush that falls down and piles up in frozen hills on the sides of the road. Even cloaks offer little protection from the elements, and the driving wind has a tendency to pierce right through all but the thickest of paddings. Auranar, is thus shivering as they make their way through the market district. The place is not very busy, most of the commerce that usually is done here driven off by the abominable weather.

"I say we head into the next shop, whatever it is and get out of this rain!" Auranar states loudly over the rain and snowfall to her companion. Her cloak is drawn tight around her, the gray color making her blend somewhat to her urban environment. "Or maybe grab a snack at one of the stalls that has indoor seating?" She sounds hopeful.

Cor'lana is not shivering quite as hard as Auranar, but she doesn't look happy at all with the awful weather, even with a relatively high-necked black dress that leaves only a portion of her curuchuil mark exposed--and that's made all the more difficult to spot with the deep violet cloak she wears. "Yeah, I'm wishing I had Grandfather's feathers right about now," she quips. "Let's go next door to the next shop and wait for the winds to die down a little."

She hooks her arm around Auranar's, because it's clearly windy enough that she's worried that either of them might blow away at any given point, and walks quite briskly--or as briskly as she can manage.

If anything Auranar seems grateful for the arm, clinging to the other woman and matching her steps quite easily. They hurry toward the shop in question as quickly as they can manage against the wind and Auranar tries her best to still her shuddering. She is most certainly more adept at handling the heat of summer than she is the chill of winter, and this unseasonable storminess is not to her liking at all.

As the pair make their way toward the shop, a trio of men come out of the woodwork. Not literally of course, but they almost seem to appear out of the rainfall. Surrounding Auranar and Cor'lana. "Hey there ladies." One of them greets lazily, and the rest tighten the net. "Spare a coin for some hungry lads?"

Cor'lana notices the men surrounding them first before she looks at the man in front of her, and she fixes him with a very unimpressed spare. "I can't imagine what you're hungry for," she says dryly as she looks at him. "We've got nothing to give you. Let us pass, please."

Her arm linked around Auranar's tightens a little in a protective fashion. Meanwhile, her other hand flexes a little, as though she's preparing to cast a spell in the event these 'hungry lads' decide what they really want to eat is a spell.

For support Auranar lays her free hand on Cor'lana's arm. She eyes the men cautiously, clearly less inclined than her companion to cast a spell. In fact the wideness of her eyes suggests that she's quite afraid and she starts to take a step backwards just to avoid being terribly close to any of the men.

She's surprised then when her half-movement backwards has another man who was sneaking up from behind them grabbing ahold of her 'free' arm and jerking her toward him. The men laugh in near unison, and the 'leader' looks at Cor'lana drolly. "Think we'll have to take what you've got then!"

GAME: Ravenstongue casts Enemy Hammer. Caster Level: 13 DC: 23
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Intimidate: (6)+21: 27

Cor'lana goes from unimpressed to full of incandescent rage within the blink of an eye as she realizes Auranar's being touched. She brings her hand up, murmurs the incantation, and the man who's trying to paw at Auranar gets ripped from her and thrown into the man talking at him.

"You can leave now, or you can leave with broken bones and blood. Your choice," Cor'lana snarls. "You messed with the wrong women today."

GAME: Auranar rolls Intimidate: (13)+4: 17

Auranar is at first intimidated and then enraged herself as the man grabs her arm. She isn't sure what she would have done about the situation, but Cor'lana is much faster, blasting the man and shoving him into his companion. The sorceress gathers herself to her full (but fairly unimpressive) height and points a finger at the would-be thieves. "She's quite right. You chose the wrong marks. Go home and rethink your lives."

"They must be adventurers!" One of the men exclaims looking afraid and ready to bolt, but the leader is rising to his feet, determinedly.

"Think of all the money they must have then!" He says, grinning and the other men nod, still hesitant until the leader pulls out a long blade and armed he rushes Cor'lana. This spurs the rest into action, their fear making them stupid rather than retreating.

One of the men tries to grab Cor'lana's hair, the leader tries to sink his knife home, and the other two rush Auranar intending to bear her to the ground by brute force.

GAME: Ravenstongue casts Hydraulic Push/Quicken. Caster Level: 13 DC: 22
GAME: Ravenstongue casts Hold Monster. Caster Level: 13 DC: 24

In that moment, Cor'lana has to pick and choose what she's doing: helping herself or helping Auranar, but she knows that it will be easier to help Auranar once she's taken out the two assaulting her.

So magic flies. With an incantation, she blasts the leader lunging at her with a knife with a powerful torrent of water, and she snaps back and murmurs one of her more powerful charming spells against the man going for her hair--

But he grabs her. Cor'lana's teeth grind together. "Unhand me," she orders, already weighing whether she has to kill this man or not in her head.

GAME: Auranar casts Liberating Command. Caster Level: 4 DC: 15

Auranar starts a spell, meaning to deal with the pair rushing her, but she sees the second man grab a handful of Cor'lana's hair and... Well that's just not okay. She takes a half-step back and works her hands in a complicated pattern. Arcane words flow from her lips as the spell builds up inside her and flows through her hands. "Let go of her!" She demands, knowing that the spell will aid Cor'lana in freeing herself from the ruffian.

Unfortunately her spell leaves her utterly defenseless against the other two, and they easily pile on top of the poor woman and bear her to the ground with a rough surprised noise.

GAME: Ravenstongue casts Enemy Hammer. Caster Level: 13 DC: 23

Cor'lana's liberated, sure, and she looks infinitely grateful that Auranar's freed her, but seeing the men pile onto her is deeply unpleasant, and guilt wracks through her violet eyes--but it's replaced quickly by rage. "Get off my sister!" she yells, weaving another incantation that pulls one of the men off Auranar and slams him into the man who had been trying to grab Cor'lana's hair.

Auranar is not going out without a fight. There's two of them and one of her but she's not going to give up. Still, she's entirely grateful when Cor'lana's spell pushes one off of her and leaves her with only one remaining to growl at. "GET OFF OF ME!" She yells at him, and aims a punch for his face. She's not very adept at hand-to-hand combat, and the best she manages is to surprise him, but she'll take it.

The lone remaining ruffian isn't aware (yet) that his companions have failed to bring down Cor'lana. So focused on his own task is he. "Be still!" He warns Auranar, but she punches him in the face and he growls, returning the favor and punching her in the face hard enough to rock her head backwards. "I warned you!"

GAME: Ravenstongue casts Feeblemind. Caster Level: 13 DC: 24

The moment the man snaps at Auranar to be still and he punches her, something seems to visibly break within Cor'lana. Immediately, her hands go up, the incantation rips from her lips--

And she robs the man of all of his intelligence. "You, not me--not her," she snarls. Tears already beading up at the edge of her eyes as the magic energy left behind fizzles from her hands from the spell that had been used on her by a certain necromancer months ago.

Auranar scoots away from the man even as he sits there dumbly, staring off into space. She then climbs to her feet, rushing to Cor'lana's side and wrapping her arms around the other woman. "It's okay! I'm okay." She assures. There's a bit of a bruise beginning to form on her face, but she's not badly hurt by any means. The rest of the would-be thieves are running. Those that can. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

Cor'lana's hands are shaking now, the violet eyes looking at Auranar in a panic--and then she tightly hugs Auranar back, just holding her. "I hate that spell," she murmurs. "I hate it so much. I..."

She shakes her head and draws back from Auranar a little, just enough to give herself a once-over. "I--I don't think they hurt me." There's a tear in her cloak, and her waves of dark hair are no longer neat and tidy, but she looks otherwise unharmed. The tears in Cor'lana's violet eyes spill over as she looks back up at Auranar and takes her by the arm. "We need to go, now," she insists. Apparently the idea of waiting for the Guard to come doesn't sit well with her. Judging by the look of panic in her eyes and the shake of her arms, that is, unless there's more to that reaction than is suggested by the words.

Instinctively, and without thinking, Auranar pats some of Cor'lana's hair back into place, but it'll need more attention than she can give it for the moment. Instead she gives the other woman a quick squeeze and takes her hand. "I know you do, but I'm grateful for it at the moment. I..." Best not to think what might have happened. She hurries away from where the man is sitting dumbly on the ground, and toward the shop that they'd been heading to. She doesn't even notice that her hood's fallen down until they're inside and she automatically puts her hand up only to find wet hair instead of cloak.

"Here we are. Lets get some warm tea." She looks at Cor'lana and nods to herself, picking a table off to the corner and further from the fire than she'd like. Much as she'd prefer one closer there just aren't any.

Once they're inside and sitting down, Cor'lana seems to relax a little, although she still keeps peering at the door of the shop from time to time. "Tea would be nice," she says softly, putting one hand down on her lap. She closes her eyes and... she sighs.

"Assholes," she says, more conclusively. "No, they deserved it." That's said in the most firm and quietly angry way that Auranar's ever heard her say anything.

Auranar takes charge, waving for a waitress, and ordering tea for the both of them. Normally she wouldn't presume, but Cor'lana seems a bit out of it initially, and a pot of tea to share sounds exactly to her what the doctor ordered. She orders something a little special and unusual, simply to make the other woman smile and the waitress wanders off while Cor'lana gathers herself.

"I'm glad that we were able to chase them off." Auranar admits to the other woman. "I've... I've had worse luck with those that have ill intent. "They certainly deserved everything we gave them and more." She says this firmly herself and smiles fondly at Cor'lana.

"You were so good at that. Weaving your spells and standing up to them like you did. I was impressed." She laughs lightly.

Cor'lana does seem a little intrigued at the tea that Auranar's ordered, which seems to do a little to begin to lift her out of the mood. She peers at Auranar when she admits that she's had encounters with random men before. "That's happened to you before? I mean--I had a soldier attack me at random before, about a year ago, but that's not the same as a group of men attacking."

There's a little flush of color on her cheeks with the compliment, too. "I'm... Well, I'm like Grandfather. You don't know this yet about him, but he's very protective of his 'favorite people', and... when he's angry, he is terrifying. I've found that I do the same thing. And... I was okay until that man told you to be still and hurt you."

Her violet eyes grow dark. "That's what... he told me. When he broke into our house to take me away." But she shakes her head, her expression turning into a defiant one. "That's why I know that spell now. I told myself if I had to use it against him or someone like him again--it'd be me or him, and it's not going to be me again."

Auranar glances downward at the mention of a group of people confronting her. "Yes. I... They beat me up pretty badly. I don't know why. I - I was alright." Clearly that's not the whole story, but she focuses instead on Cor'lana's and she reaches out to touch the other woman's hand. "I'm so sorry that happened to you. That man... He was terrible and if he comes back, if you ever see him again... Promise me that you'll blast him and ask questions later?"

She offers a half-hesitant smile as the tea comes quickly. She's pleasantly surprised by this and eagerly motions to Cor'lana as the woman puts down a clear glass tea pot with a round little bead of tea in the middle. She pours the hot water from the kettle into the tea pot, and the little bead quickly begins to bloom into a flower. "Isn't it beautiful? Like magic!" She laughs, thrilled.

The dark glint in Cor'lana's eyes remains as Auranar discusses the group of men that hurt her. It's clear that she's not happy with the idea of these people who hurt Auranar potentially being out and about, either, just as much as Auranar is trying to comfort her about Karan'taara. But she nods. "I will," she states, iron in her voice. "Because when I'm done with him, there won't be a next time for him to hurt me or anyone else."

The chill from that remark is replaced with curiosity as the tea's put down in the form of a bead--and then the flower blooms! Cor'lana's eyes go wide. "Oh wow!" she exclaims, a laugh leaving her. "It is! I've never seen tea like that before." So quickly, the darkness has been replaced by wonder and excitement.

Auranar is distracted by the lovely tea also, letting the bloom steep; it leaks tea-color into the tea water and she sighs happily. "It's amazingly lovely, and on top of that they taste really good too!" She has to wait a little bit, but once the color has a chance to spread she pours Cor'lana a cup of tea from the pot. "Would you mind pouring for me? It's custom where this tea is from that it's bad luck to pour your own first cup from the pot."

"Of course!" Cor'lana is more than eager to pour, carefully taking the pot and pouring Auranar a cup. "I didn't know tea could do that. Maybe we'll have to take Grandfather here. I'm sure he'd be more than delighted, too."

Then she seems to think of something and snickers a little. "Knowing my luck, he'd want to work here if he liked it enough. Like with the bookstore. He only worked there for the Crimson Pen discount."

"Better yet, bring him the tea!" Auranar offers, wrapping her hands around the cup and looking at the tea fondly. "We could have tea parties together on the regular. I used to dream of that when I was younger. Having tea parties with my family."

She smiles fondly and looks at Cor'lana. "Of course I never imagined I'd have to fight off a bunch of thieves to get to the tea." She teases, really this part? Is a dream come true for her.

Cor'lana grins brightly at Auranar. "Well," she says, "our family's odd and full of interesting people. Naturally, we had to do some interesting things to get to the tea. But I promise not all of our tea parties will involve bloodshed first."

She puts her teacup up to her lips and says, "On that note, although I think Grandfather and I have told you explicitly as much: Welcome to the family, Auranar." And she takes a sip of her tea.