LORE: Training a Hell Hound (MATURE)

[Emora Deen]

Tenele looked at Vlad as she slid her sword back into her sheath. She stumbled back, not deliberately, she meant to just step back, and she fell up against a palm tree, giving herself some support. “Rest,” she scoffed, a soft smirk coming to her lips. “I left my things back there. I guess they’ll be fine.” She ran her hands through her wet stringy hair several times, combing the silver strands. She looked at her feet, covered in sand. They’d dried, so she reached down and dusted the sand sticking to her skin off. The air was getting much colder, as it often did in the desert at night, and the wind didn’t help. She stood against the tree wearing nothing but Atul’s tunic shirt, which came to rest just a few inches above her knees. She was too tired to care what was lady like, and from what she’d seen of the Outerland attar what she was wearing could be considered modest by some.

“You’re leg needs stitching. It’s a holy wound, and as I remember they don’t heal quite as fast as your others,” she told him as she eased off the tree. “So you have two choices. Either I stitch you, or Atul does. Take your pick.”

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad managed a smirk. "It is difficult to say which of those I should dread more," he said. He was about to insist it would heal fine on its own when a large black figure came bounding toward them from the tents. It had several long ropes and chains hanging from its neck that had apparently been snapped through, and it was making a very direct line toward them. The hellhound burst through some low brush and bounded up to them, leaving a cloud of sand that annoyed several men trying to make use of the area.

When it reached them, it stopped first beside Vlad, looking up at him with an darkly intelligent stare before making its way over to Tenele with a long, graceful stride. The beast took up its post at her side, standing close enough to brush against her as it instinctively took note of her weakness.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele sighed heavily as she looked at the hell hound at her side. She reached down and patted him reluctantly on the head. “Oh, there you are Stalker… Look, there’s your master. Go on boy, stalk him for a while. You don’t have to follow me anymore.” She knelt down and started pushing the large wolf towards Vlad, even as she was scratching him behind his ears. He might have aggravated her, but she had grown used to his presence.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad smirked at the name. "Stalker, eh?" He reached a hand out, and Stalker turned with what almost appeared to be reluctance before trotting swiftly to its master's call. The animal stopped just in front of his hand, watching him with gleaming, intelligent eyes. Vlad bent just in front of the creature, surprised that it seemed so content after being trapped in the mortal realm for so long. You have done well, he thought to the hound through their mental link. He raised his hand to summon the beast's return portal, but then he paused and studied the wolf for a long, skeptical moment. A conversation appeared to be taking place, though neither of them moved a muscle. It figures that you would come to love her, too, he finally gave in, lowering his hand. "It seems 'stalker' is going to stay," he scoffed as the wolf returned like a magnet to Tenele's side.

[Emora Deen]

She laughed softly, as Stalker came back to her. “What? Do you find attacking Talon that amusing?” she asked him as she returned to scratching him behind the ears and down his back. After a minute she slowed her scratching, because she was suddenly very tired. She leaned forward, the wolf big enough for her to lean against.

Atul stepped out of his tent, looking a bit disheveled as if he’d just had an argument. He calmly made his way over to them, watching Tenele. “I see you didn’t drown.” He wiped the look he had from his face and replaced it with a cool smile. “Am I going to have to drag you to my tent to get you to rest?”

“You’ll drag me no where unless you want this wolf taking a nice pretty chunk out of your ass,” she warned him, draping and arm over Stalker’s back. “I’ll go on my own when I good and damn well ready.” She was being stubborn, as she always was. “Which just so happens to be now,” she added. Tenele managed to get to her feet, her legs pressing against Stalker as she steadied herself.

She suddenly didn’t know what she wanted to do. She knew she should rest, but she didn’t want Vlad to be left out in the cold… Especially when she couldn’t stick up for him. “Vlad should stay in the tent as well. Your men seem to want his head on a pike.”

Atul cast a chilling glare on the vampire. “We’ll make room for three, then. It will give me an excuse to donate some of that stuff to the others.”

“Four,” Tenele added as she pointed down to Stalker.

“I’m sure we can squeeze in.” Atul apparently didn’t trust Vlad in the same tent as Tenele, or maybe he didn’t trust his men not to rush the tent to get to the vampire.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad didn't miss Atul's cold look. He canned the urge to comment and just looked ahead, avoiding the prince's gaze. Stalker began guiding Tenele toward the tent, and Vlad kept up with them at a limp until they reached it. Once they were all inside, Vlad dropped into a flat cushion on the ground toward the back of the room. It appeared to be the only seat in the tent and was probably Atul's, but he took little reservation to claiming it, leaving the soft bedding that was rolled out in the corner for Tenele.

[Emora Deen]

When they were on the inside of the tent Tenele dropped to the soft bedding and fell over on her side, grabbing the covers and flinging them over on her. It would be colder as the night wore on, she she’d take what she could get… which was everything at the moment. Maybe that was greedy, but she was too tired. And Atul didn’t need blankets apparently, since the cold didn’t affect him. Tenele thought for a moment and tossed Vlad one, before leaving one out for Atul. She had to be a little nice.

Stalker came to rest against her back, between her and the tents siding. He always slept close to her. If not on the floor or trying to sleep in the bed. She wondered idly if Vlad would fight him for the spot, should they make amends.

And why shouldn’t they? Tenele closed her eye for a moment. What he had done had been cruel and mean, but weren’t the reasons for his actions what counted? She wanted to be mad at him, to not forgive him, but that was a childish thing. He had done everything, including lie and break her heart to save her life. To save her from him. So didn’t that put everything into perspective? Couldn’t she forgive him for that?

Yes, she thought she could.

Tenele realized that Vlad had taken the last cushion, and left nothing for Atul. As he was coming through she sat up and tossed a pillow at him. It hit him square in the face as he was standing up, bounced off his nearly perfect features, and skidded across the floor.

“What was that for?” he asked, taken aback.

“I’m weak,” she said faintly, placing a hand across her forehead as she laid there. “It throws off my aim.” Then, pulling the covers under her chin she settled into a perfectly content and comfortable position. “Alright you two, play nice while I’m sleeping.”

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad watched Tenele's still form for a few moments before turning his eyes to Atul. How many times today had he been put face to face with someone to whom he had no idea what to say? He didn't even know how many people he'd killed, or if the families of those men earlier had been among them, but they had all been under Atul's leadership and protection. But then, Vlad had been the one to drag Atul up out of the dirt when the prince had his own run-in with Verin. He'd taken the rap for it, too. Still, nothing Atul had done that night even approached the scope of the damage Vlad could only assume he'd done under Verin's control over the past week.

And what was there to say to that?

"Our queen has taken steps to control Verin's influence over me," he informed Atul, if only to clarify that he wouldn't be a liability in his tent. He indicated the collar by running a finger along his neck, the shields clearly up in his scarlet eyes for whatever the prince had to say to him.

[Emora Deen]

Atul gave Vlad a long stare as he motioned to the collar. “Well,” he began. “Isn’t that nice.” Atul couldn’t help if he was feeling cold towards Vlad. He, who’d preached of fighting Verin’s call, had been completely taken over and slaughtered hundreds, maybe even thousands. “But, if it doesn’t work. If you lose yourself again, no matter how much it pains her, I’ll kill you. I won’t have you slaughtering more of my people.”

[Soran Nightblade]

"Fair enough," Vlad agreed, looking away. He didn't try to correct Atul about his relationship with Tenele. "I messed up with Verin," he finally added, "I let him get to me, and I played right into his hands. I'm sorry, but I don't remember half of what I did. I just got enough flashes of clarity to know it was messy. Verin probably let me see it on purpose, to prove that I couldn't turn back. That it was impossible to fix." And it still was, he thought.

He rolled his eyes at his own longwinded talk. It didn't seem clear if he was apologizing or venting. The latter made no sense. Atul was not a friend; it made no sense to explain these things. He sort of wanted to discuss it and have all the bad blood between them out on the table, while at the same time wanting to pretend it never happened.

His eyes flicked to the deep slice in his leg. "Do you have some thread or something?" he asked, wanting to change the subject and using the wound as an excuse.

[Emora Deen]

Atul reached over from where he was sitting with his back against on of the supports for the canvas tent. He grabbed the brown roll of cloth and tossed it too him. "You really did a number on her," he muttered. "I'm a bit sorry that all she managed to do was stab you in the leg, after you stabbed her in the back. Literally this time." Atul was blaming Vlad for what Verin did, because Tenele hadn't mentioned who'd done that. "Despite what you told her, despite all you've done to her, she still loves you." Atul's expression was strange. It was a mixture of admiration and jealousy. Or maybe, it wasn't jealousy at all. Maybe it was pitty. Pitty for Tenele, who he knew would eventually be the victim in this battle between immortals.

[Soran Nightblade]

"Stab me yourself if you want, but the one thing I never did was harm her. That was the whole point," Vlad said, trying to read the prince. There seemed to be some misunderstanding going on, and also more protectiveness toward Tenele than he would have expected. He wondered with a numb sense of realization if the two had become intimate in his absence.

[Emora Deen]

“You’re lying even to yourself,” he muttered, shaking his head. “She was sitting on the floor of a library bleeding to death while she waited for your queen to cure you. She was willing to fight Verin just to bide you a little more time so your queen could protect you. Unless, Verin suddenly came up with a way to harm humans…” Atul’s expression changed for a moment as the idea struck him, but he pushed it aside. “I suppose a soldier could have wounded her while she was escaping with you.”

He reached up and pulled his black hair back into a tight pony-tail and he sighed heavily as his eyes fell on Tenele. It wasn’t his place to be so over-protective of her. She was not his to covet. Her heart would reside with Vlad, as much as he didn’t think it should be there. “You haven’t got anything to worry about Vladimir. She’ll forgive you. A woman who’d risk so much for another not only does it for duty, but something more.”

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad narrowed his eyes at Atul. He was annoyed with him, but prudence told him not to boast of Verin's immense power to someone who had finally gathered the courage to fight it. Atul had come a long way from when he'd seen him last. The more he defended himself, the greater the risk of harming the young prince's confidence. So he turned the subject to safer, though equally unpleasant, waters. "You seem to consider yourself an expert on this subject. I don't believe you understand what we had, or what we've lost, well enough to assign such meanings to her actions. And though you have every right to be angry, you don't know me well enough to say such things of me, either," he said in a low, calm voice. He used his teeth to snap the floss and thread the needle Atul had afforded him.

[Emora Deen]

Atul wanted to hit him, for Tenele’s sake. “Oh, you stubborn ass,” he muttered under his breath. “I know enough.” He almost said more, but realized this whole conversation was making him irate. He wanted to hit Vlad, for more reasons than just because Tenele should have. “I have things to do.” He stood up and left the tent quickly, the flap slapping back against the outside of the tent before falling back into place. The sudden movement startled Tenele out of her rather deep sleep. Her green eyes flashed open and darted around for a moment, but she was too tired to move.

Her eyes rested on Vlad, and she noted what he was going to do. “Want me to do that for you?” she asked him softly.