Waldron and Emmalia IC

Waldron shook his head as she suggested going back for his sword "Too close to the mercenary camp." He looked around, grabbing some of his gear and slinging it over his shoulder "Well, what exactly is West, we'd need an idea where we're heading, wouldn't we?" He looked over to the West, sighing. Deeper into the forest and out into who knows what. He twirled Emmalia's shortsword. He really hoped he wouldn't need to use this. Waldron stood up, looking back at her and waiting for her response.
 
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"Next town were in we can get a map, but for now we follow the sun," she said evenly. It was their best choice, after all. They'd have to happen upon some road at some point. Both of them could survive in the wild too, so they didn't need to particularly hurry. As Emmalia stood, the cat sat down and watched her while it's tail twitched almost judgmentally. She waved her hand at it in a shooing motion, then started walking West. They hadn't gone a few minutes before she quietly said, "And please, let's not get too close to LaFaren lands...." She wasn't sure if he expected some kind of an explanation for what had happened with her family, as many rumors had spread about it, but she rather hoped not. Anything she could do to avoid thinking about her blood family, she would do.
 
Waldron shrugged "Fine, fine." He then took another drink of water. In a few minutes, they would be crossing the same river Waldron had approached earlier, and still had that odd sense of calm about it. He looked around again, taking in the serenity with a deep breath "Y'know, this may be odd, coming from someone like me, but I don't get enough of these moments." He took a few steps on some solid stones to cross the river, looking deeper into the forest "How do you feel about...'working'" The work he was referring to was no doubt, monster hunting and the work they had be doing for the past week or so.
 
Emmalia glanced back at Waldron over her shoulder. The work they did was strange, no doubt, and would probably give those doing it mixed feelings, especially after a long time. While she was curious as to why he asked, she simply shrugged and answered, "I think it's necessary, but sometimes rather unfortunate. For example, I'd have liked to have left that Wyvern alive. But we couldn't. It was going to kill us. Personally, I like the ability to travel that it gives - that's the main reason I started out. It also allows for a lot of anonymity. You never stay one place too long, so nobody gets attached to you. No loved ones. And..." Emmalia sighed and looked around the forest for a few seconds, then finished, "It's a hard life, that... if I do it, somebody else doesn't have to risk their life doing it. Like some father or someone who has loved ones, someone untrained and trying to just protect their own. Y'know?" The fact that she said this revealed that she didn't much care if she lived or died. At least, in her mind, someone who was loved didn't, hopefully.
 
Family, loved ones. Waldron had those once. As Emmalia finished speaking, he just nodded quietly, understanding completely what she meant. "Yeah, I definitely know. It's funny, I have almost the same reasons for doing all of...well, this kind of work. Protecting people so others don't have to do it." He sighed, taking a few more steps forward, still staying behind her, his heavy armor and her unnatural speed meant that it was natural for her to take the lead a few meters ahead. "Do you see anything...Well, anything besides trees and more trees?" Waldron admitted to himself that he didn't want to trek through the woods forever, of course the peacefulness was greatly accepted, yet that wasn't what the two really were looking for.
 
Emmalia shook her head. "There's nothing ahead that I can see." Eventually they would encounter a road or stray cottage or any sign of civilization, but it was not clear when that would be. Not to mention, Emmalia had to remember that Waldron had gotten rather abused the night before, so their pace would have to stay moderate. If he passed out, that would slow them down even more. To keep the conversation going, she asked, "So what made you start this lifestyle in the first place? It's not exactly normal, y'know."
 
He sighed, thinking for a moment "Well, I was actually sent out by my guild to actually start hunting, that's the only reason i'm here alone instead of with a whole bunch of other knights. But it all actually started with my military career, my family was low on money, and that paid well, so I started off with that. And after a few, well, tragic years, I went to the guild. And now here I am, without either of those two." He shrugged, looking at his canteen for another moment before pushing himself up over a small hill with a sigh "I don't regret it though, I'm where I am and I can't say I want to change anything."
 
Emmalia looked back at him over her shoulder and asked, "If I may... what happened to your family?" She liked hearing about other people's families. It made her feel better about running away from hers. It reminded her that she wasn't a brat for thinking that she deserved to be treated better than how they had.... Hell, in her opinion, even a pig didn't deserve to have to deal with her blood family. Now, her family after that... that was very different. But those memories hurt her horribly, so she pushed them away.
 
"I... I don't know. When I came back from the military back to my family's house, they were all gone, everyone just disappeared and I still have no idea why or how. Must've moved on. My family was not in a very good place financially when I left, which is actually the main reason why I actually went into the army." He looked at the shortsword he carried "Off to some damn battlefields to help pay for my family's living condition and when I find my way back they're not even there." He became quiet for a small moment, this thought troubled him; he still didn't know where his family could even be. His father, his mother and his brother... All just gone without even a warning.
 
Em stopped walking and turned back to look at him. He may have had a helmet on, but she felt she could see straight through it. In a way, he had been abandoned by his family after he had already given all he could for them. But that wasn't known for a fact, and that was almost worse than knowing for sure. He sounded upset by the thought, maybe bitter... but she was strangely certain that any bitterness was to cover for pain and abandonment, both of which were terrible feelings to have. "You don't know that for a fact, though. You may yet find them. Don't... please don't condemn them until you're sure. You don't want to ruin the memories you have of them with undeserved bitterness." Normally she was not one to harp on family being a gift or anything, but if he had good memories, he needed to hold onto those.

 
Waldron picked his head up, looking over at Emmalia "I know for a fact that I have no idea where the hell they are, and that's the problem." He shook his head, sighing "I can only assume your family life wasn't too great?" He wanted to change the subject badly, but the topic he picked may have been a bad one to switch to as well. But, it was too late, the words were out and he just sat there in silence, waiting for whatever her reaction may possibly be. He didn't know Emmalia's history, but he was damn sure just from his experiences with her that something awful had happened to her, it seemed to be a common thing with adventurers, well, the quieter ones like themselves, that something traumatizing happens that sets them on this course.
 
Emmalia looked back at him in silence, then shook her head and laughed bitterly. "I'm the 'run-away heiress'. I would have inherited one of the richest lands in the West, and even for that I could not stand them. That ought to tell you enough, but in case that doesn't, they were horrible. The servants used to come to me when something went wrong so I could break the news to my parents. I wasn't allowed outside of the Manor grounds most of the time. When I was little it was fine, my father wanted a son and I was good enough for him to drag hunting then taunt when I struggled because he didn't teach me right. Then the fucking courting...." She shook her head and looked off into the woods, then spat, "Fourteen. I was fourteen when they forced me to court this... male. I can't even call him a man." Em sighed and started walking again. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. They were horrible, but I had food, shelter, nice clothes and the Manor cats as friends. And of course I ran away too, however many years ago. Got me a new family...." Her voice trailed off and she stopped talking. Her adoptive family was a hallowed subject. It hurt her too much to speak of, even years after everything that had happened. If he asked about them... she didn't know what she could say. The truth, probably. There wasn't a lie she could think up about them - they were too dear to her for her to even tarnish in any way.
 
Waldron laughed to himself a bit "Noble life always seemed so easy to me, guess it really wasn't, eh?" When he was young, all he wanted to do was live among the noble courts, it wasn't until he actually became a knight did he realize most of them were down-low scumbags who didn't even stand for honor, or justice, or whatever they had claimed to uphold just so they could gain the people's favor. So the fact that Emmalia almost wholeheartedly despised the nobles she was raised among was a nice thought, at least he wasn't the only one that thought most of the counts and even other knights around him were liars and crooks, just with more money. And he finally said what was on his mind "I don't blame you for hating all that shit, it never seemed like a good life whenever I thought about it. Well, recently. I used to think it was good when I was a kid, not anymore... what with being busy with politicking and talking all day long, just not my kind of thing I suppose."
 
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Emmalia nodded. "Mine neither. It's worse for a lady, though... at least it is when you have a mother like mine. She chose my wardrobe, locked me up, took my meals - she killed my favorite cat because I told her she was wrong about something. Luckily I had friends among the servants. They taught me most of what I know about real living. The worst was the courting though.... Everything was a deal with my mother. Logical, emotionless, brutal just to be brutal. This guy she chose...." Emmalia looked back at Waldron, then shook her head. "You don't want to hear about this, I'm sorry." One thing that could get her talking, it was bashing her parents. At one time she'd not even have allowed Waldron to know who her parents were. Now here she was telling him about them. Though she knew it was partly because she had recently had human blood - it was pushing on her temper. It made her want to be aggressive, even if it was just by speaking about her parents.
 
Waldron snickered under his helmet as he stepped over a stone "Oh no, no please go on, tell me how absolutely atrocious this man was." He pulled his helmet off, taking another drink before putting it back on and looking over at her "God I can't tell you how fucking annoying I think younger noble-men are. They just whine and boss other's around until they get put in their place...somehow. Let's just say I had history with dealing with nobles when I was in the military." He relived a moment, one day one of the bigger men in the unit kicked a noble boy that was trying to command him in the groin, and no one said anything. Waldron laughed, Odrek laughed. Right, Odrek. Waldron still had no idea where he was or what happened to him after that attack. But he hoped he wouldn't come back for them again.
 
Emmalia grinned and shook her head. "Oh, I agree with you, completely. But they can do more damage than just whine or boss people around. This guy.... he...." Em paused for a few seconds, then slowly admitted, "My parents forced me with him. I couldnt stand him. Anyway. After a while it was unchaperoned. I was sixteen by then. And he took me to see a play then to eat and slipped a powder in my drink. I knew it, though, and never took a sip. He took me to a backroom, thinking I was drunk, and once the door was closed, I clawed his fucking face apart." Em chuckled darkly. For some reson, she was comfortable sharing this stuff with Waldron, even when not directly questioned about it. These were memories she hadn't dug into for a long time. "Somehow I managed to make him uglier than before. So bad, my mother asked me to apologize to him. Said he just got excited. I told her, and then him, that if he ever came near me I would castrate him."
 
Waldron stared at a tree for a moment, sure he had a personal grudge with most nobles and even purposely let one get injured on the field of battle, but laughing like she did after talking about clawing his face apart. He must have done something seriously horrifying to her to deserve something like that. Or maybe...No, she wouldn't do it for fun. From what she said, what he did was really in fact, awful. He cleared his throat "Well, i'm sorry to hear that someone did something like that to you, good thing you got him back though, huh?" That was what he was honest about, sure what she did sounded gruesome, but did he really in fact, most likely deserve it. Signs pointed towards yes
 
Em nodded slowly and grinned ruefully. "Yeah I did. He got it all mostly healed, but it was worth it still. I mean, I never trusted the fucker, so when he started taking me to the back room, I knew what he was going to try, so I just didn't give him the chance." She shrugged a bit. "This is the same guy who had describe to me how he was skilled for shooting a deer just right to kill it slowly, let it bleed out. I wish that incident was the last time I had to deal with him - the last time he tried to fuck up my life. It... wasn't." For a few seconds she stayed quiet. She didn't want to tell him all the other things that man had done - what he'd taken from her, no, who he had taken from her. That was all getting too personal. So it even surprised her when she rather suddenly blurted out, "I wish he were dead." A blush rose in her cheeks and she cleared her throat. "Sorry. I ought to keep my tongue in check more. You shouldn't have to listen to me ramble about this, my past and how I felt about it." There was a reason she normally kept almost completely silent. He surely didn't care about what she had to say or ramble about. And why was she even talking so much anyway?
 
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"Eh, it's fine. If people didn't talk about stories like that, talking would be a lot less interesting." He waved her apology away calmly with a slow movement from his hand as he pushed himself up another step of the hill, sighing "But if you want to stop talking about it, that's fine. I don't want you to stumble on something that will just end up hurting you." Waldron was familiar with that feeling, rather recently. Odrek and his band of mercenaries, that entire experience was painful, he never imagined he would see him alive. Yet, there he was, furious with Waldron, although that wasn't unexpected. He looked down at the floor rather suddenly. He needed to stop thinking about that, it would only make him weaker, looking back at painful moments in the past didn't help anyone.
 
"Thanks. You actually get it." Emmalia said soberly. It was nice to travel with someone who could understand the need to ignore some memories. Though, that in itself said that he himself had things better left forgotten. She had the rest of her near-immortal undeath to focus on forgetting things. He didn't, and seeing how they had just escaped from his past in a way...? That alone was probably rather upsetting. "Seemed like your bad memories stumbled on you, though. You don't have to explain if you don't want to. I'm sorry you had to go through that mess, though."
 
Waldron followed Emmalia out of the forest and onto the steps of a stone road, a sizable town a few leagues to their right. He looked over at her and shrugged as she apologized again "What happened is in the past now. All i'm hoping for is that I don't have to come across him again, and i'll be fine. Don't tell me that holding it in is bad either, as long as i'm not thinking about it, which i'm not, and I haven't been, I'll be fine and well." Waldron's tone was quiet and calm, he wanted to simply tell her that he didn't want to come across the issue anymore. He began walking towards the town, a night or two in an actual bed would also be beneficial and just nice, maybe they could find another job too. Being paid would help them considerably.
 
Finding an inn was easy. The rest of the day was spent restocking on necessities. In Emmalia's case, this was a few new shirts, so that anytime she bled she wasn't screwed when she next saw anyone. As she walked into the inn, a violinist was performing for the patrons having dinner. Em went upstairs and dropped her stuff off, then returned downstairs to have a drink of alcohol and watch the performer. As she played, Emmalia watched the girl's hold on the bow, how her fingers were on the neck, and she listened to how each note was played. To be honest, she was impressed: the girl was almost as good as she had been. Now she just had to wait for Waldron to join her - he'd been charged with getting them a new job.
 
Waldron was listening to a burly man in leather and scale armor, both seated at a small round table, perhaps another hunter or mercenary, what really mattered was what the man was telling him. Lizardfolk had been spotted setting up a camp down stream, and they needed to be dislodged or else traveling and fishing in the region would suffer tremendously. Waldron could only imagine that the river he was talking about was the one they had crossed earlier...It must get much wider further down, then. Waldron nodded after the man had given him the information, handing him a few coins and walking over to where Emmalia was, leaning next to the wall by her. "Lizardfolk spotted in a cave by the river. And not the small thieving kind...The big burly ones...Almost like someone made a humanoid iguana and made it really pissed off...All the time." As Waldron spoke, he looked at a fairly large warhammer in his hands, twirling it a few times before looking back at her, waiting for her thoughts on the situation.
 
"You mean the kind that are incredibly territorial and try to kill anyone that comes near them?" Em looked up at Waldron, then at his war hammer. "Nice replacement." She stood up and faced him. Her wineglass was empty, but she wasn't drunk. In fact, she looked better than she had in a while. But it wasn't herself that was the concern. "You sure you can do this, though? I found you passed out and gory from coughing up blood just last night. We can wait until tomorrow or the day after."
 
He nodded with a polite smile, despite under his helmet, at her comment about his weapon. He then turned to the other remark she made "Waiting until tomorrow might be a wise decision, it's not like those bastards are going anywhere." Waldron though for a moment, would they go anywhere? No...from what he heard the tribe had been there for at least two weeks. Nothing to worry about. He looked down at a sheet with directions on it, handing it over to Emmalia "We apparently just have to follow that river we crossed earlier South until it becomes significantly large and then there will be a cave nearby, with our targets inside. Easy enough." He walked off, finding his room to go rest in, something he would need if he was going to be swinging his warhammer around at humanoid lizards.
 
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