Of Horses & Abyssal

As a matter of principle, Armageddon didn't generally visit Roxanne's estate very often. To visit what was essentially one's ex-in-laws was probably a breach of something, but seeing as the reverse had happened a number of times in the past couple of months... well. Here she was.

Sliding off the back of a rented horse, she'd had a mind to poke her head into the stables to see if there was any sign of the stablehand... only to be greeted instead by the sight of a stallion, black as pitch, chewing absentmindedly on what appeared to be the spine of a book. She squints.

"...Now, I don't know you, but I'm reasonably sure you aren't supposed to have that."

The horse looks at her. She looks at the horse.

What appears externally to be a psychic battle of wills begins.

***

The stables are quiet, a new status quo since late October when the years penance ran out. It stays quiet, now. When Ren runs out to down all sound dies with him, only the breathing of horses and the grousing of small animals. If Zak could fall in love it would be to this sound. Not harried and hushed voices in dark halls, or bitter shushing. This was freedom.

The sound of hooves beyond the stable rouses him from mental transpose. He steps forward, driving the saber in his hand through a perfectly aimed riposte through the air into an imaginary foe. He's dressed well; a soft blouse with a high, delicate collar of lace and stands perfectly still on the precarious edge of a divider between two stalls. Zak doesn't expect Arma to peek through those doors. He goes still, lowering his gaze on her as she passes the first stall without seeing him, then to the black horse Zak had been all but ignoring since the morn.

"Kor'Kiir was father's horse," Zakris says, monotonously. "He has a..." There's a pause for thought, words lingering in his head as he flourishes the saber still distantly poised with an arm behind his back, "listening problem. You wont get the book back, I've been trying all morning."

***

There was once a time where little would escape her notice, before her retirement... but now even a child was enough to startle her. It's not a particularly jumpy movement - her tail flicks behind her and her head turns to face the speaker's voice, brows quirking up as the recognition arrives.

"Oh, hey, kid. Good form." She offers an approving nod towards the saber; blades like that had never really suited her style of fighting, but she knew enough of swordplay to recognize decency. But his training wasn't the topic here (or why he was up there doing it, dramatic-ass family), this new nemesis and his lack of listening was. She turns back to the horse.

"...Mm." She clicks her tongue, thoughtful. "What have you tried so far? Just commands?"

***

It delights him—almost—to have the upper hand on his aunt, even if for a brief and masked moment. Armageddon suppresses her startle admirably. It does not, though, stop the gentle smirk from his lips as he casts his gaze downward and snorts, withholding the urge to roll his eyes and call her bluff. "Ren will be, back hands to noon. You can tie the mare up til then." The less time they have to spend together the better, he decides.

Zak walks slowly along the balusters, careful and poised as suits his sword-style. He stops on the edge of Kor'Kiir's stall and turns his gaze back to the horse wearing an old shade of irritation. "Everything shy of pry it from the beast's mouth," he growls, watching said beast shake its head to the sound of pages ripping. "I have a few ideas, though. What do they say, a hundred ways to skin a cat?" There's a mischief now in his voice, low and muttered, and hovers his boot above the latch of the stall with lazy intent.

***

Got one over an old woman, and now he's the cock of the walk. The familiarity as the boy snorts and struts about overhead gets a narrowly suppressed grin edging onto her mouth, and she leans on the corner of one of the stalls as he positions his boot.

"So you do. You may find your pages strewn over half the estate, though."

She shrugs lightly, though the effect is ruined by a pink nose snuffling into her shoulder from where the mare stood at the entry. She smiles, giving her a gentle pat on the nose and a few soft words before speaking up again.

"Why don't you let me get this girl settled in and I can see what he wants for you? Might save you some time."

***

Arma returns fire with a grin of her own, and instantly it takes the satisfaction right out from between his teeth. She leans forward like a lumbering animal, a chill rebuttal to his cruel proposition that equally makes his blood boil.

"As far as I'm concerned, the damage is done," he grumbles, shifting his weight back and forth. "I just thought I could expedite things for us both; You're here to see my mother, and I wish to see the beast set free."

His dark eyes flash to her without turning, that same mischief and cruelty in his gaze. "At least that's how I get her attention. It's quite easy for you, isn't it."

At length, he sighs to signal his yield. "Your way it is. Why has the old man accosted my fencing book."

***

Armageddon, not long after the day Reika had adopted, had honed an Expression that could perhaps be described best as the essence of 'come on now' distilled into a flat look. It is given while waiting for the recipient to finish speaking with the knowledge that their right to vent will be heard, it will be accepted, but it will not be getting anywhere with her. Not the glares, not the malice, not the misdirected anger.

And then he sighs. She nods, as per tradition. The transaction is complete.

"Thank you. I'll just be a moment." She goes to find reasonably comfortable place to let the mare rest nearby. She returns with the chain of her focus wrapped about her forearm, at which point she re-approaches Kor'Kiir's stall. She touches two fingers to her lower lip and whispers something in druidic, the old horse's ears flicking in response.

"...Now then." She clears her throat. "Kor'Kiir, why are you tearing apart the the young lord's book? Was there something you wanted?"

The horse snorts, heavily enough to blow one of the pages to her feet. She looks to it, and then the horse, brow furrowing in incredulity.

"...Spite?"

***

Ah. Sparrow had in fact described his aunt's many moods (in repetitious, and fervent detail), he knew this one right away. It was not her scolding, nor her disposition to view his antics as petulance, but her indifference that really set him off. He's so obviously digging his claws into wounds he doesn't understand are his own, that it escapes him why a fight, this does not ensue. His nails dig into the palms of his hands around the saber as he listens.

How easily she goes about her work. Ignores him. It doesn't surprise, but it does sting these self-inflicted wounds. He does though snort when at length she procures her answer. "Spite? Ren's worked me to the bone with this beast!" Hours he's spent learning to ride and cooperate with his father's destrier. It felt only fitting—despite Zak's own distaste for horses—that he take on this, too, in Sr.'s death.

"You tell him he's lucky he isn't glue." Zak crosses the saber over his body to holster it and hops from the wall, landing lightly—too lightly—to the ground with as much grace as the saber work. He wanders closer, and though still bitter a softer expression crosses his eyes. "But also that I'm doing my best. I'm not like Ren, I dont get them-" he gestures vaguely to Arma's mare, and then to Kor'Kiir, avoiding the eyes in the room as he leans his back against the stall and crosses his arms.

***

Her brow remains furrowed slightly as Zak speaks, something sympathetic of her gaze as he drifts to the floor and wanders closer. Bears his heart, in his small ways.

"Your spite is misguided, Kor'Kiir. Look at-- Look at this boy." She sets a hand on Zakris's shoulder. "He's young, but already so skilled at many things. Your temper tantrums and wanton destruction only serve to put greater pressure on someone you should take pride in working with." She huffs. "And if you feel he has something to prove to you before you offer him your respect, your coltish behavior shames you and whatever proud lineage you were bred from."

The destrier whinnies in the back of its throat and snorts heavily, hooves scraping against the floor of the stable. Armageddon stands up a little straighter, the empty gold of her eyes taking on a distinctly unsettling glint.

"No, I won't hear it. You are behaving as a miserable cur, and you will be fortunate if the teeth you now use to grab that book are not boiled into glue to re-craft the bindings you tore apart."

She moves her hand from his shoulder to the palm-up position of extortion. Somewhere, in the backbeats of her tone, one might swear to hear something... distinctly inhuman.

"Choose your next action carefully. I have hunted horses younger and swifter than you for sport, and your young master's benevolence is the only thing sparing you my teeth."

The slobber-caked remains of the book is dropped into her waiting palm.

***

The young lord's first reaction is to shirk out from under the hand that finds his shoulder, but in that moment all he finds he can do is wince. It settles there and is quickly redirected by the lecture that proceeds it. Gods its nice to not be at the end of a scolding, for once.

And so, he listens.

Zak... after a moment of absolute bewilderment and mental gymnastics as he listens to his aunt's verbal path of destruction descend upon his father's horse, laughs. It couldn't be called more than a chuff, or a chuckle, but the spirit of it is more than Zak has given her before, and in that moment caught off guard, it feels genuine.

He thinks to Ren, now suddenly just as thankful that his friend had taken his time in town and would miss this embarrassing, front row seat into his family's violent and strange affairs (not that he had not already, but Zak had done much to at least appear functional despite the dramatics)

"Mmh. You can take the demon out of her adventuring days, but you can't take the adventuring days out of the demon," the monotony is back in his dull voice but there's a curiosity in his eyes. "Arma, is it only Tieflings who can learn infernal?"

His eyes follow the corpse of the book as it drops in to her hand, equally in disgust as curiosity.

A page falls.

"Keep it."

***

"What a prize." Armageddon drones in a monotone similar to Zak's own as she watches yet another page flutter to rest at her feet. There's no real bite to it - she sounds faintly amused, if anything - though she shifts the book-corpse to drip towards the floor rather than pool over her palm as it has been. "If you could find me the pages, I might be able to salvage it... But its presence at tea may well be its own reward."

She spends another moment trying to figure out the best angle to hold away from her, humming as she considers his initial question.

"Infernal is a language of blood, so you'll not find it taught traditionally. Not easily, anyway." She glances over her shoulder, considering the boy a moment. "...It might be possible for you to pick up. It has rules like any other, but you may find certain inflections a little harder. It's a lot in the breath."

She tilts her head slightly.

"What interests you about it?"

***

"Yes, though... if you could not mention the swordplay to my mother," his voice trails off... "And the book."

It is humorous to see Arma struggle with the book, turning it this way and that to avoid the more soggy of pages. Zakris pulls a piece of cloth from the side of a stall, perhaps a rag of Ren's, and uses it to grip the edge of the binding. "Thank you."

He studies the horse over one shoulder who paws in his stall, anything to look distracted. "But not impossible," he surmises. "

Zak chuffs sardonically. "Does that surprise you? That I'm curious for curiosity's sake?" He sighs. "What interests me is that my mother might disprove," this time he really does grin, slow and toothy as he looks back to Arma. Then he kicks off the stall and begins unbuckling his saber to tuck away in a discrete corner of the barn, pointedly out of wandering-eye.

"But besides that, there are a few texts I haven't been able to translate... and for the sake of time, I loathe to ask for help. I want to read them myself..."

***

He's given a questioning look when asked not to inform his mother of his hobbies - wouldn't she be impressed to see he's been so diligent in his studies? - but she nods nevertheless, her mild confusion switching to relief as he reclaims the soggy tome for himself. The not impossible, similarly, gets a nod.

"Anything to pester dear Lady Montaret, mn?" She hums, something a little mischievous in her smile. "Such single-minded devotion. It's almost a little heartwarming to see. But in that case, it may be easier to adapt yourself to written rather than spoken."

She clicks her tongue.

"...Do you have any of these books - uneaten - in here? I might consider showing you a few basics...." She trails off, in a manner that implies a catch.

***

The look on Arma's face makes young Zak sigh. He elaborates with; "Should she think my aunt Reika's bad habits are rubbing off on me..." he shakes his head, bothered. "That, and I skipped an economics lecture this morning."

He folds his arms, rolling his eyes as he turns his back and wanders toward the tack room, obviously annoyed. "What else is there to do? I've never seen the world, and hardly the city besides its shops and father's meetings he'd bother to let me sit in." He's fuming a bit by the end of it, gripping his own arms with blunt, painted nails.

Her request cools him enough that by the time he stops before the ladder to the loft, he's taken a deep breath and regards her over one shoulder. " Cursed Idols & Relics of the Avernus Wastes? I've translated the covers of dozens, but the content would take too long." Teach a man to fish...

Zak ascends the ladder and disappears beyond the tall loft. Thuds and thumps rattle from the loft, books and scrolls and calligraphy tools moved and resorted. Zak returns with the cloth bound book, practically a tome. At first he makes to extend it to her... then suddenly--slowly--lets it fall again, his brow pinched and eyes distrusting.

"For what..."

***

"Economics?" She frowns, considering... and then nods. "...Sounds boring. I can't say I wouldn't do the same."

Trade was best learned through real-world application, anyway - it would be ingenuine to suggest otherwise. She moves in the direction he departs as he rants, but makes no effort to follow him too closely - close enough to listen, but Sparrow had been fine enough training in the art of not intruding on what a teenager likely saw as their own space. She doesn't enter the tack room, a vampire uninvited, until Zak turns to ask her about the title.

"You've managed to translate a few already?" Her eyebrows raised. Context clues, no doubt; or perhaps comparison with other languages. Written infernal was used to transcribe a few, if she'd remembered correctly. "That makes my life easier. Certainly."

She stands clear of the ladder as she waits, arms folded as she considers some of the saddles hanging over the walls. As the wood of the ladder groans under weight anew, she looks up, and... well, you know the rest. The pinch in his brows gets a warbling giggle out of her.

"Oh, don't give me that look. It should not be too difficult."

A wry smile.

"I require only your mother's permission." The hooked tip of her tail wiggles. "You may say I extended the offer first if you fear she will lecture you."

***

"Context, cross referencing and guides from travelers. There isn't a lot in the way of direct translation, but one finds a lot where he doesn't expect to. I wouldn't call them clear translations, or even that I know what the book is about, but..." His voice trails at the end, obviously lost in a long string of erudite thoughts he's long had to express beyond the confines of his own head. He's unused to an audience.

Oh, don't give me that look.

How can he not. His mother's permission? As if. If she knew what he were up to, she'd burn him at the stake, or ostracize him like aunt Reika. He can't escape her, can he?

"What if she disproves. Or worse, what if she wants to help." He doesn't know which is worse, her control over every aspect of his life, or the rejection.

Surely aunt Arma is being exceptionally cruel.

"A truce? We have tea, first. She's more agreeable over tea. And we avoid questions of interest. If she needs an explanation, I want to be a linguist. "

***

She listens through his ramblings, quietly a little impressed by his resourcefulness. It's a start, certainly.

As was his offer.

"Deal." She hums, satisfied. She moves to take a few steps towards heading back to the entrance of the stables, but pauses to wait for Zak before she goes too far. "Though if you make such a claim, you will have to be able to back it up. What other languages can you speak, and what drives your passion for them?" A pause. "Other than your mother's disapproval."