compyuutah | woah what a boona log without mer chaos

[Blades slice through the air with a whistle and get batted away easily. disappointing but still effective. The dog was catching on. In a way, that made it more fun. With a faint grin, Baroona follows up, darting under the glaive as it knocks the other blade away–his free hand snaps the cord back so the knife will return. With his other blade he stabs deep into the jackal's thigh and slices out. Tear some ligaments, muscles, something. By the way the creature howls and falters, it seems to have worked.

A snarl forewarns him–he looks up, the other side of the glaive comes down. Baroona leans back just in time. The blade enters his thigh–an eye for an eye–where it would've met his back. Fatal blow avoided, but he still barks in pain as the end is pulled out. It starts to swing down again; Baroona doesn't wait to move. Pushing off his back leg, he shoves the jackal to the ground in a tackle, wrestling and cutting with it until–with a knife buried in its throat–it stops moving.

With a heavy sigh, Baroona sits up straight, wiping the sweat from his brow and fixing the cloth around his face. On the corpse's armor, he wipes his knives clean, draping the cord around his neck as he pushes off its body to stand...

And promptly falls over into the sand. Great.

Frowning, he tries again; fails again. He keeps it up, if only because falling helps him close the distance between himself and the well nearby.]

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[There are a couple telling things said there that Baroona files away for later. Future knowledge and whatnot. For now, while his limbs feel heavy, he asks the easy questions.]

Elven blood? Is that like having a god's blood?

No. It's just the blood of elves. It's a race of people.

[He answers it calmly enough. Or at least professionally enough. He's used to being in audience with the King and other high authority figures where mildly irritating questions can be written off as a lack of knowledge.]

They have a better connection with mana, the source of all life, so they can manipulate it into magic.

[But only gods can use magic. He's close to saying it but bites his tongue. Reluctantly forces himself to admit that there... might be other worlds here. Other customs, religions. It just makes things harder to understand, which is frustrating in itself. He falls silent trying to surmount that particular challenge.]

So... They're the only ones who can use it?

Elves, half-elves, and those who descended from elves... Yeah.

[Unless you eat a magic rock, but details.]

But you're not any of those.

[HE'S JUST TRYING TO UNdERSTANd.]

I have a bit of elven blood in me thanks to those magic injections in Tethe'alla I was talking about.

[A blink. That catches his attention. He raises his head.]

They put it into you?

[That earns a pause in the flow of conversation Zelos had been keeping until now. He gently rests a palm over his lower knee, shrugging lightly after a moment.]

...Well, yeah, if you want to put it like that.

[A silence as Baroona mulls over the new facts. After a couple minutes, he speaks again.]

did you agree to it?

...You sure ask a lot of questions.

[A comment to stall, really, as true as it is. He's curious about it, but he's not sure how to answer that question, and it gets him thinking more serious thoughts anyway.

And here he thought he'd be able to escape darker thoughts at night by hanging out here.]

Yeah, I did.

[Whatever frightened or startled Baroona seems placated by that answer. He visibly relaxes, easing back into his previous position.]

Alright.

[...Man. He had been worried? It sort of makes Zelos feel a little sick when he thinks about the truth behind all of his lies. How he ingested that rock to go along with Cruxis' plans so they'd take away his title as Chosen. How he was running away all that time and agreed to so many stupid things.

He closes his eyes as he thinks, head resting back against the rock as he tries to disguise it as resting. ...Even when he couldn't even if he tried right now.]

[His own exhaustion weighing on him, Baroona watches Zelos' movements through half-lidded eyes. A sore topic, huh? Baroona could recognize it well.]

What happened to keeping me company?

[He'll play along for now. Maybe if someone else believes he's tired, Zelos will fall for it himself. doubtful, but there's no harm in trying.]

[He opens one eye at that, chuckling.]

I thought I'd wait and see if you had any more questions to pull out of nowhere for me. [Teasing. He opens both eyes now, leaning forward to give him a more pointed glance.]

I'm surprised you haven't passed out yet.

[His expression changes back to something unreadable, the only clear marker being the exhaustion that plagues his entire body.]

I told you I'm good at it.

[Experience is a good teacher.]

[At that, Zelos reaches up and flicks Baroona right in the forehead.]

Geez, if I have to deal with you all day tomorrow looking like this, I might give up. [Sitting back up, he smiles at his own teasing.] I dunno if I'd call that 'good'.

[He flinches back at the flick and scowls, swatting the hand away.]

I've fought for days and barely slept. I'll be fine.

[A bit more information than he'd like to give but if it's enough to get Zelos to stop bringing it up, it's worth it.]

Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.

[Waving off that reason with his hand, he grins a bit more. Finally his arms retreat back to himself and cross over his chest.]

I guess a lifestyle like that explains the scars. You fight for a living?

Mercenary.

[What he wouldn't do for a cigarette right now.] You couldn't guess?

[Back home, it's blatant enough to keep most people at bay. But then again, there were few things this place held similar with back home.]

That much fighting could mean a number of things.

[He shrugs simply at that. Though mercenary was on his guess list, it was always easier to act clueless and fill in the blanks with more solid details as he went.]

So can a mercenary.

[Soldier, bodyguard–his job held a lot of subtitles. But that was the least of Baroona's concerns. If Zelos had been looking at his scars, he'd been looking at his tattoos. Those were usually the first topic hit–the fact that they aren't this time disorients him. Just not in a bad way. Maybe he grouped it into the same realm as the scars–signs of a job and nothing more.

So long as it prevented questions, Baroona didn't mind.]

True, true...

[It was a vague title, after all. But the more comments he edged out of him from his own idle thoughts, the more he found out. And while those tattoos did in fact stand out, he wasn't sure of the meaning behind them at all. So the questions would wait until he had more clues to go off of. So he had an angle to ask from casually.]

[That's that, then. No added questions, no prying concerns. That's how he would have it anyway. Accepting the silence growing between them, he looks out from the camp, weariness weighing on him and eventually bringing him down. Or at least, his eyelids.

It takes at least forty minutes, but he ends up leaning against Zelos' shoulder, fast asleep.]

woah what a boona log without mer chaos

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