[IC] Swords Beneath the Starlight

Barnabas and Lain

Barnabas frowned for a moment, grumpiness about the matter showing through and he looked away, shooting his expression into the floor.



"Disturbed?... Yes, I suppose that is a word for it..." his voice rumbled deeply, shades of anger bleeding into it, a minuscule spread of fur encroached over his skin. "I find that my people from afar are barbaric killers, a homeland of ancient heritage of my tribe, overrun by those who worship the act of spilling blood rather than the reasons why it must be done. That view your kind as the worst of yours view us. Little more than walking meat. Evil runs through them hot and unrestrained and this is so perversely common and matter of fact by those of good that it is seen as an unfortunate reality that they commit moral crimes that debase them gleefully. The first time I see my kin in months after my family fled from slavers and pillagers and raiders, from the burning and theft of my home, with only the absent gods mercy to protect them, after my own failure to protect any of them, forced to run from them too lest join them in chains, and then, finally, my own blood tried to eat me!" The words twisted ferally in his extending mouth towards the end.

Barnabas's features were fighting against shifting, hands clenched into themselves as the nails grew as he spoke, rage and hurt and pain spilling out from him, like a scab picked off too early, raw and bleeding. Wild and wide grey eyes turned to Lain, and regret and fear instantly filled them, shrinking away from her.

Airitech and Barnabas

He sniffed the air, his hackles rising a bit, giving Airitech another odd, confused look.



"Like I said, nothing definitive. The general gist is either before or after she was exiled, she fell in with beorcs, and her sympathies aligned with them. In some she carved out her own realm to rule, more about egotism after a slight in her own lands, in others it was merely the act of love between her and a beorc soldier, and with that love their blood spread down through generations. A few were about the hope that one day through her deeds and rule, she could construct a bridge between our people again."