((The first rays of dawn creep over the mountains, sweeping the darkness of Barovia before its advance; monsters of the night hunker down in their holes to sleep before the next night's hunt, while ordinary folk wake to another day of tasks. In a well-appointed private room at the Blood on the Vine Inn in the Village of Barovia, a young man pensively sits on the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but a pair of thin woolen sleep pants. The candlelight softens the extensive scars on his exposed torso as he turns to glance back to the sleeping girl, Barovian as they come in body but something else entirely in mind. A small smile lights his features for a moment, but thought overwhelms him again as he looks back at the floor between his legs, returning his face to its carefully guarded neutrality.))
I really don't get women. I don't think anyone does. I don't think -they- do, for iadul's sake.
I found a girl begging on a streetcorner. Covered in filth, dressed in rags, looked like she hadn't eaten in at least a day or two. My bunica told me that giving a beggar a coin just lets them eat to beg tomorrow, and that if you really want to help someone, you give them the means to make their own coin. Madalina, she said her name was, and she was eighteen. Eighteen. Same age as me, and yet look how different we were. I brought her with me, cleaned her up, gave her a meal, gave her some gear, and offered her a job as my 'squire'.
What? It's just a joke. I'm no knight. This isn't the first time I've hired someone to help me, carrying packs, holding lanterns, helping me with my armor and such, it's a good way to get people back on their feet and help them realize how brave they can really be.
She was... a lot more than I expected. The very first night, she confronted me about my drinking.
I hadn't slept a full night since the Decimation unless I was passed out drunk. I couldn't. The faces and the taste of Dalca's blood and Lord Wachter's whimpers and that... that voice, that terrible voice, proclaiming us traitors... they grip me as soon as my eyes close... only the bottle kept them at bay. She couldn't be made to understand that. She couldn't possibly understand what it was like that night, what it was like to bury them, watch your lord beg like a child, walk away from everything and everyone you knew yet again...
Well, she might understand that last part. She called me out. Called me a coward, used Anca against me. I was furious. She nearly walked away... but she came back. Gave me a piece of her mind. I'd never had a woman talk to me like that before that wasn't my grandma. I was speechless... all I could do is ask her what I should do, if I couldn't drink myself to sleep.
She held me in her arms, all night. It worked.
And then, in the Mist Camp, a templar, a... paladin, doamna Imrae... I'm not sure what she wanted exactly, but it was clear she was lonely. And in pain. I did what I could to help her with my words, despite the carnival of idiots that parades through that iadul place constantly barging in on the conversation. I'm... I'd never been with a woman (at that point), so... she made me nervous when she touched me, smiled at me, told me my atrocious Tradetongue was cute, but it went no further. I pity her. She's a stranger in a strange land, and she is simply trying to do what she thinks is right. I explored some of the possibilities of her circumstance, gave her what advice I could over the course of a few conversations...
Ha. Her god help her, ME giving ANYONE advice.
The witch Nelithia, however, is starting to concern me. I don't like her, and that's fine. I don't need to like everyone, and not everyone needs to like her, but in her mind, me not immediately accepting all of her vraja strangeness and thanking her for her selfless sacrifice is enough to warrant threats. She's... she's like a child, holding a flintlock, stomping her foot and pouting while waving around something that could kill either or both of us. She admitted that she'd put out a price on the head of all the Wachter Estate garrison at one point, but claims to have rescinded it. A feyblooded bounty hunter turned up at the Mist Camp once, claiming that someone had paid him thirteen THOUSAND fang for my life but he'd turned down the job... he didn't know who'd posted the contract, and it was pretty old, but I think it was her and I fear she could easily offer it again simply because I refuse to stroke her ego.
I took Madalina with me when I went to Port-a-Lucine... and that... was a good feeling, I'll admit. Seeing her eyes light up at the sight of the sea, the size of the buildings, the brightly clothed foreigners warmed something in me that had lain frozen since the night I told Anca not to come back. I wonder if I looked the same the first time I came there... probably not, I was too preoccupied with the job, and tend to have a perpetual scowl when I'm working. The business transaction fell through, so we camped on the beach outside the city that night. She wanted to swim, and so we did... I felt a strange fear then. The dark sky and the dark sea all around me reminded me of the night in the sun cult temple, when Old Night ripped half the roof off the sanctuary, and crushed that caliban... I had to get out.
I went to sit by the fire to dry myself, and she joined me. We talked quietly, then, of things that had come before, and then plans for the future. I confessed to her my vendetta against Dimitrijie Wachter, my intent of being steadfast in a deadly purpose. I made it clear that my story would not have a happy ending, and that she could leave at any time. She knew enough, had enough to make her own way. She said she'd be there til the end... not if I can help it, but I didn't tell her that. It would be stupid of her to throw away her own life on my vendetta.
And then, in the Mist Camp while we were waiting for a vardo back to Barovia, she kissed me.
Again, stunned. Why? Was it pity? "Because you're a good man, Toma, and I'm very attracted to you," she answers with a shrug, as if answering why she picked rye bread over barley.
And then we were here, in the room.
And...
Let's just say I found a better way to fall asleep.
This complicates things, though. I can't let her distract me from Dimitrijie. I can't let feelings get in the way of my mission. I don't... I don't want her to care about me enough to hurt when I'm gone. Iadul.
Women.