Castle Shyr

YAY!

For those of you following my journal and all the damned quota stuff - this is the chapter I\'m working on. Yeah.. only chapter four. :ghost: Granted my chapters are all really long - it\'s still only frickin\' chapter four...

Well! That\'s what the quota thing is for! To keep me on track!

Anyway - We open up with a bit of a time jump, which Johan readily explains.. Mmm... Johan and Noya funnies... \'Cause the two of them are great.

-Troydt\'s Secret-

“If you keep whining, I’m going to give you another scar - a deeper one.” Noya growled, narrowing her eyes at Johan from across the loft. “It’s not like it makes your face that much worse to look at.” She snickered, flopping back onto the hay and folding her arms behind her head.

“Oh, har har har.” Johan hissed, turning the hand mirror again to see the scars on his face. “You would think that with all that damned salve the doctor made me use, it would have taken away the scars.” He continued, ignoring Noya’s mocking voice. He reached up and traced the middle of three diagonal scars running down his face, most of them just barely missing his left eye.

“At least they let you wrap that hideous hair.”

“You’re not helping, not in the least.”

“I wasn’t aware that was my job.”

“I should have let them sew your mouth shut.”

“I don’t think he would have. He seemed to like my mouth.” Noya said, making a strange face and sitting up on her elbows. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand the way the Nanion mind works.” She draped one arm over her stomach and fingered the fabric she’d been loaned disdainfully. She wore a strange tunic with long pants and straps over her shoulders, her breasts were covered by a simple wrap - she wasn’t modest in the least.

“Most especially these Nanion. They’re worse than the ones in your village.” Noya raised her eyebrows slowly as Johan lowered the mirror to give her a rather vicious look. She felt a strange pang and looked away, shutting her mouth for reasons she didn’t begin to understand.

Johan set the mirror on the ground beside him, pulling a leg up to his chest as he leaned back onto the palms of his hands and let his head fall back. His village. It had been close to two months since the attack on Crawyn, his pain hadn’t ebbed at all. He still held strong to the belief that Kyin and Rhin were alive, and his hair was beginning to reflect that - returning slowly to it’s grassy-green color.

Nicloth was a nice enough village, but it was so strange, so different, that it only made his pain worse. Troydt had served as a marvelous host, but it made Johan ache every time he talked to the man - this was his village, and his home, and he was so comfortable here. Not to mention the fact that he was the great-great grandson of Nicloth’s founder. He was rich - by village standards - and wouldn’t have to work a day in his life if he so chose.

Johan heard rustling from across the loft and he looked up, startled out of his thoughts.

“Where are you going?” He barked as Noya stood, stretching her arms over her head. She snorted and gave him a strange look from over her shoulder.

“I’m going to the window - where I will jump and end my miserable life.”

“Don’t make a mess.”

Noya didn’t even bother giving him an answer as she made her way to the casement, leaning onto the sill with a small sigh. She found that in spite of all her attempts to dislike everything about the Nanion, this always amazed her - their windows seemed to show images of happiness, of health and beauty. Their views were nothing like those in Tev buildings, windows which showed nothing but death, decay and the endless swamps which threatened to swallow them all.

She crossed her legs at the ankles, and reached up to set her hair behind her backswept ears, listening intently to Johan as he rummaged around through his things muttering like the imbecile he was. He couldn’t ever find anything - his things were always in such miraculous disarray that by the time he actually found what he was looking for, he didn’t need it anymore. It didn’t help that after he’d pulled everything out of his bags, he just tossed it all back in without rhyme or reason. She had half a mind just to go over and fix it for him, just so that she wouldn’t have to listen to his ridiculous curses as he tossed junk over his shoulder.

“-ake it anymore.”

“What do you want me to do? I cannot change anything!”

“I do not know - I just.. Do not know.”

Noya’s attention was called away from Johan and his mess-making by a pair of vaguely familiar voices just outside the loft window. She craned her neck to get a better view, but upon realizing she cast a shadow, pulled in and decided to listen instead.

“If I could change the rules, I would - but there is nothing I can do about it. I do not have the authority!”

“But you have the love and devotion of everyone in Nicloth, Troydt! Your grandfather could not withstand the vote of the entire village!”

“Lib, the word of the village, no matter how many voices strong it is, is not going to stand up against a hundred-or-so year old tradition. It just does not work that way. I have three older brothers; the privilege lies with them.”

“B-but Troydt - our chil-”

“Shh! Lib, please! Not so loud!”

“This is what I mean, Troydt! You have already broken the rules - twice! There is nothing they can do about it now!”

“Yes- yes there is. They could exile us. Or they could exile me and force you to live in solitude with the Worshippers in the mountain. They would take Reefa and Zeke from us in a second - and who knows what they would do with them.”

“Troydt, they are only children! Surely you do not think your family and village so cruel as to harm innocent children!”

“I do not know what I think they are capable of, Lib, but I would rather live this lie then endanger their lives.”

“So would I! But - is this any kind of life for them, Troydt? They do not even know you are their father.”

“They are not supposed to know - I am not supposed to be a father.”

Noya cocked her head to the side as a long pause was broken by soft sobs. Troydt began a soft ‘shushing’ sound, and judging by the way Lib’s sobs became muffled, he’d pulled her into an embrace of sorts. In any case their discussion was over, and Noya’s view of the land obscured by her hesitancy to give herself away.

What rule were they talking about? It certainly sounded as if Troydt wasn’t permitted to have children, but what kind of idiotic rule was that to place on someone of his status? Then again - these were Nanion.

“What’sa matter, Noya? Chicken out at the last minute?” Johan said, as he looked up from his mess, a tangle of scarf and necklace in his lap.

“If I wanted to commit suicide, I would have done it a long time ago, boar-head.” Noya spat viciously, even as she sat down across from him and snatched the tangled objects. “Our host and Lib arrived and I didn’t feel like inviting them up here.”

Johan cocked his head to the side as Noya began working feverishly at the knots, doing a marvelous job of separating the articles without doing damage to either. It took him a moment to process what she’d said, and he shook his head when he did.

“You don’t get to invite them up, remember? This is her loft we’re staying in, and he is our host. If they want to come up, they can come up.”

“Fine - then after eavesdropping on their conversation I got bored and decided to pester you. That better?”

“You were eavesdropping?”

“Tev.”

“Right, I forgot, that’s what you do.”

“Here.” Noya grumbled, tossing the necklace at him, followed by the scarf. She then flopped onto her back in the hay once more, knowing she’d regret it later while she tried in vain to pull the stalks from her hair. She tilted her head the slightest bit and raised one eyebrow as she watched Johan, a strange expression on his face, as he began putting things into his bag with a bit more care and order.

“What’s wrong with you all of the sudden?” She grumbled, lifting herself up onto her elbows.

“Nothing.” He snapped shortly, though his voice wasn’t sharp, merely quick. Something about having her help him like that, so casually, made his skin crawl - made his skin crawl because he thought, maybe just for a moment, that she wasn’t that bad.

“Gods!” Noya shouted, sitting up all the way and tossing her hands into the air in frustration. “You confuse me to no end, you know that?! It’s frustrating!”

“I’m not here to keep you happy, you know. You are my prisoner.”

“Only because I haven’t decided to kill you yet.”

Johan looked up and met Noya’s eyes, holding them steadily, with a strange sort of determination that Noya had never seen before. She finally snorted and looked away, crossing her arms over her chest.

The silence that followed was completely unnerving. Johan pretended to be carefully re-packing his bags, trying to maintain some sort of order amidst the mess; Noya began to braid her hair, something she hadn’t done in ages, but at least it gave her something to do. They had remained silent for days before, but recently an awkward sort of tension fell over them, as if both felt they needed to break it, but niether was willing to admit they had a soft spot.

Johan frowned and decided to mess with his bags later. He flopped onto his side in the hay and folded one arm under his head, staring into the empty loft ahead of him. He had things to work out in his mind, none of which he was looking forward to.