A Candidate Still

[Requiem]

In the hubbub after the hatching, Mutasim had quietly slipped away, never intending to attend the feast in the main hall. He was smarter than that. A fire flickered in the hearth of the common room as the lone boy hunkered down before it. Absently, he removed the wrappings about his hands, damp from his nervous sweat, his nose wrinkling at them in distaste. The raw scars left from a turn of bondage and abuse stared up at him, mocking him. He locked down the surge of emotion before it could overcome him.

The mark of the shackles would never leave him. Mutasim let out a weary sigh. He'd come to the common room, seeking out some form of company that might protect him, but no one was here. Still, if anything did happen...it was far more likely to be noticed here than in the room he'd been assigned, his roommates now weyrlings. It was better than the feast. No one would have noticed a small boy they hardly knew disappearing. Not long now. The Lordholder's men would realize he was missing from the crowd, and then they'd come here, if they could get through.

Gleaming in his lap as he knelt, head bowed, the dagger lay within easy reach. He had come to accept it over the last candlemark. Somehow, Bitra's ruler had managed to locate him, and he could hardly expect the weyr to bother itself over a fugitive who just happened to be one of the candidates who hadn't Impressed.

He would fight. And hope the Lordholder would hang him to avoid any other escapes in the future. That was all he could do. Listening for the men who would be coming for him, Mutasim watched the flickering flames soberly. He'd forgotten his wrists were still uncovered. But, really, did it matter at this point? There was nothing left to conceal.

[neeuqtar]

He had no intention of going to the Hatching Feast. Walking off of the Hatching Sands had been a complete nightmare, with the awkward murmurs and pitying glances of the guests, pity for the Candidate and his freak of a dragon who couldn't stand the light. Uu'n hadn't let his beloved feel the emotion, but he... he had felt... ashamed. And they had made it that way. Shame became anger, that anyone who hadn't ever felt the power of Impression would even dare to judge those who had accepted the bond. All well and good to say that you would reject a bond with an "imperfect" dragon and condemn them to death--but they had never been faced with that choice, not truly.

After settling his new blue to bed in the sparse (and currently echoingly large) weyrling room, Uu'n had slipped off, taking two meatrolls and some dried fruit from the storeroom in the kitchen before making his way to the Candidate Barracks, unaided by light. He didn't need light, not after so many years in the mines, and thieving was nothing new to the weyrling. His eyes stung with tears unshed as he shoved his belongings, few though they were, into a a sack: some clothing, a pair of moccasins, his black nail-paint, and his treasure, a many-facetted firegem, gleaming with internal fires, a soft yellow green. It gave off no light but held it all within, and was about half the size of his fist--and he had large hands.

It was stolen, of course, on the day his two younger brothers had been ordered down into a mineshaft and never come out, along with the four others with them. Uu'n grinned. The Masterminer had been furious, and had all the boys whipped. But he didn't know how many boys there were, so it had been no difficulty to slip away until the furor had died down. Maybe Adith would like to see the light without screaming in pain. His smile vanished, and the young man sighed, tucking the stone into his sack, though its gleam could be seen through the rough weave.

Uu'n rolled his sleeping furs up--he could carry much more, and easily--and slung them over his shoulder, the thick fur making a quiet sound as it fit itself to his shoulder. Grabbing the sack (which really looked like nothing more than a hideous old pillowcase) in his other hand, Uu'n left the room, this time just taking the normal route. Hmm? There was someone else there.

"Done eatin' a'right?" he asked, feeling as if he should say, well, something. The child looked almost devastated, with a dagger next to him. Uu'n couldn't know how it felt, Standing and not Impressing, since... well... he'd Impressed, only a few days after he had been Searched. "I'ma 'spectin' anyone," he added, looking a little contrite. "Candid', yeh?"

[Requiem]

He looked up, staring at Uu'n with his characteristic emotionless expression. The weyrling seemed nothing if not uncomfortable. Mutasim found himself beating back the familiar aversion to men in general, particularly large men...He nodded in answer to the older boy's question. Yes, he was a candidate. Not that he would have traded positions with Uu'n. He didn't see how Impressing a handicapped blue would keep him any safer than not Impressing at all, and he was already less than whole. To lose more of himself with the dragon died...Better to have not Impressed.

The candidate smiled a cold smile, the expression feral and vastly unsettling in so young a face. He looked very much like a ghould with the dim light flickering on his dark features. "You think I intend this for myself, don't you?" He nodded toward the dagger, the surreal scene grown stranger at the pleasant tones of his seldom-used voice. It was ridiculous, really. If he'd had it in him to suicide, Mutasim would have been dead long ago. He ran a finger lovingly down the flat of the blade, causing it to flash for a brief moment. "It will kiss another's breast tonight."

For a long moment he withdrew into himself, then his eyes flashed up to Uu'n's face, pure intensity. "Get out of here, while you can." He had sought safety in numbers. Two was not safety. Uu'n might have a respectable force to bring to bear, by his look, but he did not have the desperation of the streets. And two simply would not be enough. Mutasim had enough death on his conscience without adding another to that monstrous number. The small boy went back to studying the dagger in silence.

[neeuqtar]

Uu'n dumped his stuff onto a nearby table and glowered at the Candidate. "Don't b'idiotic," he informed Mutasim. "Yahs think killing will solve aught? Fool," Uu'n spat at the boy. "Death begats death, al'ahs. A kiss uv'steel will find yahs with steel deep in yahs chest," he said, eyes narrowing. He shook his head angrily, cropped platinum hair like some sort of strange halo. Uu'n didn't know who this boy would want to kill, but he had the look of one who had seen cruelty far beyond his years.

...And then it hit him, who that niggling resemblance was to. Mutasim... he... it was like seeing Layned again. His brother had lived in far darker parts of the mine than Uu'n had. The young man had been slight and effeminate, which translated to all sorts of horrors. The day before he had been sent to his death, along with Yaaleh, Layned had slit the throat of one of the Headminers, one who had posessed a taste for graceful young boys.

"I've been nothin'afore," Uu'n informed Mutasim, crossing his arms, a wisp of a thought solidifying into reality into a moment. "Adith is t'be mocked, and with me. Yahs think I care aught t'yend a murder?" he asked, all anger gone from his body and voice, replaced with ice. The stone is your lover... He didn't have to live within the stone to be part of her. Rock could not be moved, not be thwarted. No matter how much you cut into the living stone, there was always more. Not invulnerable, but implacable. Mutasim would have a good deal of work to do to get past Uu'n.

[Requiem]

Mutasim huffed through his nose. What did Uu'n know of death? Death, the friend that always stuck close to his side, granting his favors to those who looked up to and opposed Mutasim alike, but never, never to the small boy who could not find within him the means to end his own life. To reach out and snag death. He should have hung with the rest. Or thrown himself from the roof with her. But no, somehow, in the subconscious that keeps its secrets and reasonings from the rest of the mind, the quiet voice that was always right forbade him from doing anything but suffering in silence. He had. His opportunity had come. And now it had gone.

All was futility.

And the knife, gleaming malevolently up at him, mocked him for his cowardice. Yet still he could not contemplate that thing called suicide. It was a foreign animal to the boy. Survival. That was all he'd ever strived for, and, even cornered and terrified, he would fight for it.

His dark eyes fell on Uu'n, equally unmoved, though there was something both softer and more feral in their unwavering gaze. "I have no desire to seek out a man to murder. No, they won't call it murder." His voice had taken on a distant quality. "They will call it justice, whether for him or for me. Justice." He laughed, the sound coming bitter on the quiet. There was nothing of justice in this whole thing. Condemned for stealing when all other means of survival are cut off is not justice. Dying at the blade of a desperate child, simply because a corrupt lord ordered it, is not justice. Yet that is surely what they will call it. Such fools.

He heard the scuffing on the quiet. Mutasim slowly stood, the dagger grasped loosely, resting out of sight behind his wrist as his dark eyes watched the doorway. "Do you understand now?" he asked Uu'n, not ungently. "They will come to me." Indeed, the shadowed figures crossed the threshold, five in number, pausing to take in the small Mutasim and Uu'n. "You should have left," the boy murmured softly. "You should have." There could be no witnesses.

***

Jessereth slept. Z'hin came to the candidate barracks, in search of the few things he possessed, as he planned on spending this first night - and many more thereafter - at the side of his dragon. All was quiet. Even those who usually watched the barracks must have left to join the feast. He stepped into the dark, silent place, musing to himself as he made his way down the hall. That was when he noticed movement before him. Halting, he stared at the shadows that, one by one, disappeared through the opening into the common room. Five. His eyes narrowed, a sense of foreboding creeping up his neck. He edged forward to get a closer look.

[neeuqtar]

"I'ma never leav'a good fight," Uu'n said with a dry chuckle, settling into a fighter's crouch as two daggers seemed to appear, one in each hand. One was clearly stolen, with a fine wire hilt and the rippled steel of a magnificent blade that cost far too much for a weyrling to own. The other was likely stolen as well, given Uu'n's history of striking out at the leaders of the mine by thieving their most prized possessions, though this one was simpler, though longer, a dirk as opposed to a dagger. "Show yahselves, 'snakes," he said, and spat on the floor near the threshhold, the traditional challenge from the mines. Water was precious; to waste it in spitting meant that you were furious and ready to spill blood.

Adith, stay away from here, Uu'n warned his dragon, who had woken up and was wavering at leaving the specially-shrouded weyr, despite the light. I won't die. Then he cut the connection, eyes watching the figures in the shadows. Shadows and close-range fights he was no stranger too. At least there was a little more room than in a mine tunnel, and it seemed that these people were after Mutasim, however odd that seemed.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled as the five figures moved, and carefully he put himself in a defensible postition, back to Mutasim. "Stay back t'back," he told the younger boy. "Theys will s'round us, I'ma think," he added in a lower whisper. "Watch my back, I'll watch thine. Sign of Arelsk." Uu'n's swift eyes picked out a sixth figure, but whether friend or foe he could not tell. Clumsier than the five; no doubt they had seen him already.

[Requiem]

The typically reticent Mutasim didn't respond verbally to Uu'n, nor did he visibly show the mild surprise at this weyrling's reaction to the intruders. Maybe this boy knew something of the life he'd led after all...Obediently, he placed his back to Uu'n's, though the decision was more one of pragmatism than any actual faith in what orders the blueweyrling might give. He simply recognized a good idea when he heard it. Mutasim deftly flipped the dirk in his grip. He didn't crouch as his companion did. Instead, he stood ramrod straight, though his head of dark curls was still below Uu'n's despite that.

True to the older boy's prediction the five encircled them, three concentrating on the older, formidable-looking dragonrider while two moved in on Mutasim. The boy didn't wait. His dirk flashed, the movement of his arm so quick it could not possibly be seen, as the long knife was buried deep in one of his attacker's throats. Poor bloke. He could only gurgle before he dropped dead where he stood, his hands having feebly fluttered near his neck before they fell still.

The other man rushed Mutasim. Banking on the fact that these men likely had orders not to kill him, the boy stepped toward the man, ducking under the blow meant to catch him in the temple as he stomped on the basher's instep with all his might. The man let out a snarling hiss, reaching for Mutasim through his pain. Again the small boy evaded him, this time aiming a kick for his shin.

Z'hin watched the glinting blades and heard the grunts of a battle, staring wide-eyed as he struggled to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He was taken unawares from behind. Apparently they'd left another two men to guard the entrance to the barracks, a small sound being his only warning. The brownweyrling whirled, catching the blade on his arm and deflecting it, a snarl of pain escaping his lips. In a moment his hand had lashed out, catching the first of his attackers in the wrist, the sound of snapping bone loud, even amidst the struggle. Then Z'hin settled in for the fight of his life. He had a powerful frame, but no weapon to speak of, and these men were trained.

Mutasim was doing fairly well for himself, but without any cold steel at his disposal he was at a distinct disadvantage given how very small he was. There just wasn't a lot of force behind his blows. The boy's knee connected with a man's groin, but he wasn't quite fast enough, the enraged man catching him about the neck and flinging him into a wall as he bent, breathing heavily through his nose, hands on his knees. Mutasim lay stunned. The man was on him quicker than he could react, fury in his eyes.

[neeuqtar]

Silence was Uu'n's method of fighting, and apparently Mutasim's as well, as the duo went to fighting with naught but the sound of breathing, footfalls, and flesh on steel. Uu'n trusted the boy enough to think he could protect his back, and dirk flashed out, opening a long slash in one man's arm, enough to cause serious damage. Dagger struck next, burying itself in an eye, and steel opened a cut on Uu'n's collarbone. He didn't even grunt, killing the man, who'd sloppily left an opening in his stabbed. So, trained with steel, but not well. The weyrling bared his teeth in a snarl and stabbed the other two viciously, leaving a very dangerous opening that luckily was not exploited, as the other man was busy with Mutasim... oh, shells.

Uu'n turned, blood coating his arms slickly, to see a killer descend on Mutasim, dagger out and fury in every line of his body. He leapt, hearing the sound of bone snapping and connecting it to the other figure. Sharding stone-hearted cold-withered crackdust bastard vicious deadglows-- He stabbed at the unprotected back of the man, the dirk biting deep, only to feel excruciating pain as the fist of one of the men he'd thought dead connected with the small of his back, startling a yelp out of Uu'n and tossing him back against the wall. He thought he'd cracked his head, he felt dizzy, but wasn't sure. Shells shells shells-- His dirk was buried in the back of the man slumped on Mutasim, through the man on Mutasim, and a dagger was little protection against a furious man.

With a roar, Uu'n charged the man, an idiotic move for most. His attacker settled into a crouch, an evil smile crossing his face. At the slash he knew was coming, Uu'n ducked, skidding across the bloody floor, and kicking out sharply, with enough force to break his attacker's kneecap. The man stifled a howl and fell, rising with hatred in his eyes. Uu'n didn't see it. He was too busy colliding with one of Z'hin's attacker's, dagger held in reverse position and stabbing hard towards the first figure with a knife that came into his range.

[Requiem]

The body slumped on him. Heavy. Too heavy. For a brief moment Mutasim panicked through his haze, but then he noticed the body had stopped moving. Grunting, he pushed at the weight. It didn't budge. The small boy tried to half sit up, then began wriggling his body, slowly inching out from underneath the corpse. He finally extricated himself. Clenching his teeth, the boy forced himself to stand, noticing immediately that he'd pulled something in his ankle. All things considered, that was better than he could have hoped for. His keen eyes dissected the darkness. Five figures still struggled. He recognized Uu'n and one of the candidates who had recently Impressed a brown. Mutasim bent to retrieve dagger and dirk with a calm that only someone raised in such a struggle might affect.

Z'hin had absolutely no idea what was going on. All he knew was that one second he was just getting his things, and the next he was embroiled in a fight for his life. The swarthy man did not have the same fighting style as Uu'n, swift and aggressive and deadly. Nor did he have Mutasim's precision and evasion. He found himself mostly on the defensive, biding his time for an opening that would allow his not inconsiderable strength to come to bear. As a result, cuts were opening up all over his body. Superficial, yes, but still distracting. Then he saw his opening. Evading the slash of a blade and ramming his shoulder into the second of his attackers, throwing the man off-balance, he landed a punch square across the first's jaw. Bone splintered again. The man dropped like a log. Z'hin turned to face the one he'd shouldered aside, hissing as a blade slashed across his ribcage. Had the angle been better, he might be drowning in his own blood right now.

He noticed Uu'n, then, already descending on the man who'd slashed him. Behind him loomed another man. The attacker had hatred in his eyes, and Z'hin knew he'd reach Uu'n before the bluerider could react. He opened his mouth in warning. Just then the man stopped, his eyes widening. He slumped forward. Z'hin stared at the handle of a dagger protruding from his back, eyes moving up to snare on the small candidate he'd hardly noticed since he first came to Selenitas. There was something very disturbing in that boy's eyes as he released the dirk, the longer blade screaming through the air before it settled in the man's forehead who Uu'n was about to engage.

Swallowing, Z'hin straigthened, staring first at the other weyrling, then at the candidate. "What in Faranth's name was that all about?" His words came out in a breathless rasp.

[neeuqtar]

Uu'n stabbed the man, desperately turning to counter a body behind him before he realized that Mutasim had taken care of the assailant. His dirk sprouted in the eye of the man who's hand held his dagger, and the blueweyrling wrenched both from the flesh with a sickening sound, wiping the dark blood on one of the assailant's clothes before tucking both into his belt, in full view. They needed to be seriously cleaned before they went back into their hidden sheaths, that was for certain. And his dirk had bitten enough bone to need a good sharpening. He turned to the other two, eyes dark and angry.

"The earth demands explanation for the blood spilled on her stone this eve," he said harshly, the accent he usually bore gone, clipped into the formal speech his mother had taught him so long ago. He spoke miner-cant normally, with the harsh lilt of that form of speaking, but in times of great stress he tended to revert to the mannerisms he had learned as a child. "As do I," he added, in a voice that brooked no argument. "What fell spirit possessed, that one sent such force against a Candidate, in the Weyr?" A soft crunch and the slurping of innards could be heard in a corner, where Uu'n's slasher fed on the viscera of one of the dead men, a wary eye on the trio. Uu'n didn't seem to notice.

[Requiem]

Mutasim's eyes flickered to the blood-soaked blades, his movements calm as he removed his dagger from the back of the man who might have killed Uu'n. The small candidate wiped it on his trousers and returned the blade to the sheath at his back. Apparently the blood didn't bother him. Nor, it seemed, did the bodies that now littered the common room of the candidate barracks. He had no intention of remaining here long enough to have to answer for the mess. And Mutasim wasn't the sort to care about either of these weyrlings who had gotten involved in his fight of their own volition. Without them, he probably would be dead by now. Or worse. Still, he hadn't asked for their help. Let them deal with their own decision.

Still confused, and just a bit annoyed that he was bleeding from a handful of shallow cuts along with the one that had got his side - not to mention the fact that he was having a hard time suppressing Jessereth's worry - Z'hin stared at Uu'n incredulously. Was the taller man claiming that seven men had come for this boy? His eyes flickered to Mutasim. The candidate returned his gaze, and suddenly Z'hin realized what bothered him so much about the child. His eyes were filled with death. Not just death from a bloody past, but the death of a spirit, such that he seemed more like an animated corpse than a real human.

Then Mutasim shrugged mildly. Nothing was spoken, even though Z'hin thought he himself would have trouble not responding to such a tone. Limping slightly, the candidate made as if to leave the room without a word. Annoyance flared. Z'hin stepped to block his path, glaring down at the odd child. "No. It doesn't work like that. I don't walk into a mini war and nearly get myself killed without you offering some sort of explanation. Why were they after you?"

The candidate's hand drifted behind him, Z'hin's eyes narrowing warily, his muscles bunching for an attack by the boy with his surreal accuracy, but then Mutasim seemed to change his mind. "They were ordered to bring me back." The brownweyrling waited for Mutasim to continue, but there was nothing more forthcoming. It seemed as if the candidate was merely waiting patiently for Z'hin to step aside so that he could go about his business.

[neeuqtar]

"Pretty," said Uu'n scornfully, slipping back into his normal speech patterns. "Take y'back where? What not y'telling us?" he said, lip curling into a sneer. To think he had taken the boy's side. How dare he just stand there, like some dead creature, and expect them to just let him lark off to go kill whoever he had intended to kill in the first place? Justice indeed. Uu'n shook his head angrily.

"This's a Weyr, brightwing," he reminded Mutasim, calling him after the brightly colored birds the miners kept in cages. They sang constantly, and their silence--their death--always had a story and a warning. "Y'tell us, y'tell th'Weyrwoman, an'y'don't deal justice--" his voice gave it a sour sound-- "by yahs own." He framed his left eye with two fingers, the sign of Aleesa, also called the wher-salute: an indication of absolute truth by one who lived underground or with whers. And he waited.

[Requiem]

Mutasim did Uu'n the courtesy of actually looking at him as he spoke, though that was the extent of it. He wasn't an open person. He'd never responded well to scorn. And he really didn't care to converse with an idiot who hadn't even been able to understand what little Mutasim had spoken. It was hard for him to believe that a person could be this daft. Hadn't he said, plain as day, that he had no intention of murdering anyone? Hadn't he commented that they'd come to him? Which they had. Three lay dead at his hand, just as he'd said. How could it be any clearer?

Of course it would be seen as justice either way. No one could blame three boys for defending themselves against armed men. Nor could one really blame a ruler for recapturing a fugitive. Mutasim may not have mentioned that part - and hells if he would - but, even so, this level of confusion was just ludicrous.

"Hold on." Z'hin had broken in, not particularly comfortable around the candidate, but not truly believing he was quite as Uu'n seemed to think. If anything, it would seem like that was entirely too much emotion for the boy with the dead eyes to dredge up. He let his arm fall to his side, though he still didn't move from where he stood blocking the exit. "You'll have to give us a little more than that. Who were they? Where would they have taken you? Why were they here at all?"

Mutasim didn't want to talk about it. How much did he have to give them, until they were satisfied? Maybe just a little bit more and they could infer the rest. Unless they were just complete deadglows. "Bitra. Back to one of the gambling houses in Bitra. The Lordholder had me sent there, before I escaped." More than he would like to have said. The boy moved to try to push past Z'hin, who let him go, his face having paled slightly. He'd seen Bitra. That - that explained a lot.

[neeuqtar]

Uu'n wasn't as slow as Mutasim seemed to think--he was merely very, very unversed with Pernese politics. Living, as he had, as a virtual slave in mining systems was not something very conductive to understanding much besides the political ideas in a mine, and they were very different, as were the idioms and slang. As far as Uu'n was concerned, when Mutasim spoke of "justice," he meant killing the ultimate authority responsible for his wrongs. After all, that was what justice meant to him, and that was why, someday, he would find and kill the master-miner, the cruel overlord that had sent his brothers to their death and had tried to do the same to him.

But the mention of Bitra was enough for him. Justice... well. Death was the best that the Bitran Lord could hope for. He had never been there, or at least never been anywhere in the Hold, but he had heard tales from the convict-miners, those not nubile or attractive enough for gambling-dens. The scorn and anger dropped away from his body, water flowing from a cracked jar, and Uu'n nodded assent to the strange child, stepping back.

"Stone keep yahs," he said, lifting his bloody right hand to touch the first two knuckles to his forehead in farewell, leaving a smear of crimson on the pale skin as the strange boy walked off into the night. Lowering his hand, Uu'n turned to Z'hin, finally recognizing him as another of the new weyrlings. "Bitra." The word was clipped and harsh, and the blueweyrling spat on one of the corpses disdainfully, before looking back up at Z'hin, eyes cold.

"We'm as telling th'Weyrwoman," Uu'n said softly, shaking the tenseness from his shoulders and settling back. He lowered his eyes to the ground for a moment with the same air as one lifting a prayer to the heavens, then shook his head with a sigh. "Best'n worst, all-a day."

[Requiem]

Z'hin was lost in his own memories for a moment. They'd made the mistake of stopping in Bitra, once, and were lucky to leave the place at all. If Mutasim had...Shaking his head, the brownweyrling put an end to those thoughts forcefully. Would the boy vanish now? Possibly. He would, in the candidate's place. Glancing curiously at Uu'n as the taller boy spit at a corpse, Z'hin could understand the sentiment. Well, he certainly didn't regret his own part in this, knowing what he did. Speaking of which...Z'hin fingered his side carefully, exploring the depth of the cut with his fingers. Painful. Bloody. But little more than that, he thought. And, despite being somewhat close to Kali, Z'hin hated infirmaries and healers as a general rule.

He didn't know if he wanted to be going anywhere near Shmee. They couldn't just leave the bodies there, though, bleeding all over the candidates' common room. And there was no candidate master to go to, to run interference for them. Maybe F'rah...? Everyone was at the Hatching Feast, though. The last thing Z'hin wanted was to walk into a huge crowd, much less cause a commotion in that crowd. He worried his lip. Watching Uu'n silently, the holdless man turned dragonrider questioned softly, "You alright?" He didn't ask as to the reason that Uu'n had been here; most likely it had been for much the same reason as he'd decided to return.

With something of a heavy sigh, he gestured to the seven bodies littering the ground. "And what are we going to do about this?" He didn't know how much clout the Bitran lord had; surely everyone must be aware that the man's business was shady at best. Could he move against Z'hin and Uu'n? Or would it be suicidal for him to admit that his men had been those found here? It all depended on current politics, something the brownweyrling knew nothing about. Though he was generally an honest and straightforward person, he was rather inclined to just get rid of the bodies and have done with it. That still left the blood, though...