Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-10197675-20131104175500/@comment-3293219-20131107093305

(If this is a case of TLDR, then I'll put a * at the start and the end of the flashback, you can skip those sections if you want...)

*

During a dull, Morndas morning, Nish and Manja were practicing archery in green area that didn't appear to be being used. They were using a circular bale of hay for target practice; it had a blue circle and a smaller red circle inside of it.

Nish's arrow struck the blue circle; it was just on the verge of hitting the red circle.

"Does that count?" Nish asked, lowering his bow.

"Does shooting someone in the ear, count as a headshot?" Manja asked, looking around.

"Point taken..." Nish muttered, retrieving the arrow.

He tried it again, this time he was way off and didn't even get it in the blue circle.

He sighed and went over to get the arrow.

"Try aiming it to the left a little bit, you've got to take the wind into consideration." Manja advised.

"Okay..." Nish muttered, he aimed a bit to the left and managed to hit the blue again but this time it was nowhere near the red.

This time he just sighed, without going to retrieve his bow.

"I bet I could hit it, with a potion of true shot." Nish suggested.

Manja raised her eyebrow "I bet that the potion of true shot could hit it but you wouldn't be hitting it..." Manja replied.

"Sure I would, I'd be holding the bow." Nish pointed out, taking the arrow out of the bale and trying another shot.

"No... you wouldn't, think about it. If you hit that thing now, even if it takes a week you hit it! You get doped up on some potion before firing it and it would be the potion that hit it, not you. Then you'll forever be in that trap of being reliant on them." Manja explained.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Like T'yargo with his skooma?" Nish asked, going over to take his arrow out of the bale.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Not exactly... I mean, he gets the shakes and stuff, which wouldn't happen with the potions that you were talking about." Manja said, pulling herself onto the wall, behind her.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"So what's the problem?" Nish muttered, making another shot.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Let's pretend that you've mastered the art of potion fueled accuracy and then some jackass is running at you with the tiniest head, you've ever seen. You reach for your potions and you've used them all up.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">What do you do then? You can't hit him on your own, you've already established that when you took the potion."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I see your point..." Nish sighed, retrieving yet another failed shot.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Besides, you'd have to go down into the ratway to get it." Manja mocked.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Erm... I'm not afraid of the ratway." Nish lied.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Oh really? You aren't afraid of the cannibals?"

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"There aren't really cannibals are there?" Nish asked, somewhat fear stricken.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Oh yeah, I heard the guards talking about them a few weeks ago, said that a woman went missing and they only found her hand." Manja said, holding her hand in front of her face and wiggling her fingers.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Are we safe?" Nish asked, concerned.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I guess, we're safer on the surface than down there." Manja thought for a second, before continuing. "Though that woman was on the surface when she went missing."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nish fired another shot; it didn't even hit the bale this time and hit the wall behind it.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I think you're getting worse..." Manja muttered.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"These mistakes are deliberate." Nish bragged, "I'm going to impress everyone in a minute."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Sure..."

<p style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nish tried several times, the arrow could never hit the red, Manja got bored and began to read.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"What book is that?" Nish asked, faking curiosity.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"The lusty argonian maid..." Manja muttered, flicking the page over.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I don't get it, why are you into such filth? The late night bards, the dirty books..."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Oh yeah, 'cause you're an avid reader aren't you?" Manja smirked.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Sure I am..."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Cut the crap Nish, I know you can't read."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I can!"

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Want to prove it?" She asked, closing the book and handing it to him.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Well, I can read sometimes." Nish confessed, firing another shot.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"You aren't missing out on much, the most common books in Riften suck ass anyway."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"How did you learn to read?" Nish asked her, turning to her. He'd never thought of it before but Manja never attended school.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"It was before I met you... I got a private tutor."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Bollocks, you couldn't even afford arrows before you met me! Damn, we got these by hanging around the barracks and swiping them after the guards had fired them into the targets." Nish laughed.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I didn't say that the tutor was hired to teach me... He was here to teach an imperial noble girl, who kept sneaking out of her lessons."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"And he thought that you were this 'imperial noble girl?" Nish was trying not to laugh.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I put on an act, between my charm and sophistication and his spell of 'couldn't be arsed anyway." I pretty much was the genuine article.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"In rags?"

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I told him they were pajamas..."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Imperial noble girl..." Nish laughed, still not believing it.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"I can speak in a proper manner, if I desire." Manja said in a mock imperial voice.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Yeah for the first three sentences..." Nish sniggered.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Oh, Serah Nish, you just don't understand what it's like to be important. I grow so incredibly bored."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Oh, you do, do you?" Nish replied, playing along.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Indeed, yesterday I grew so bored, that I ordered the stable boy to pleasure me in the rose garden."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nish burst out laughing, as he fired, he moved slightly as a result and arrow didn't go where he originally aimed it. Instead, it hit the red circle.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Well I'll be..."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Quite..." Manja muttered, still trying to keep up the accent.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Now, it's time for my afternoon tea. Would you be so kind as to escort this young lady back to her quarters?"

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Woah!" Nish stood back.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Look, I could believe the whole accent thing and the ability to read but... you? A lady?

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I'm sorry but I think we're going beyond the realms of fantasy here..."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"You little git!" Manja attempted to hit him, Nish dodged it and laughed.



<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(To clarify, this is where the memory/dream turns into a nightmare)

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nish heard the call of crows, again.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Manja, you hearing?"

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">She was gone, everyone was gone.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">He looked up and saw a black cloud, descending upon him.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"What the bloody..."

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The cloud was a murder of crows, which quickly swarmed him; they cawed, clawed and pecked at him. He tried to beat them off but it did not good, he couldn't hit them and he swore that his hand was going right through them.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"Get off!

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Off!

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">NOW!"

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nish woke up, gasping for air as if he had just come out of the water, he felt as if he had to.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Sweat running down his face, chest and back in a way that he'd never experience before.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">He got up and ran over to his wash basin, washing his face in an attempt to cool himself down.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">That's when he noticed it in the reflection.

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">His face and forearms had scratches all over them; good thing that he wore long sleeved shirts... but how would explain the face?

<span lang="EN" style="color: rgb(213, 212, 212); font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">He left his room and went down to the inn; he needed a shot of something to calm himself.