This is Trium

[Monochrome]

[This encompasses both characters since it's the closest I'll ever get to mixing Jace's green to Axel's gray]


Axel wormed his way through the crowd, slowing as he got near his friend. In passing to go to Jace's left, he snagged the bottle and made himself comfortable, foregoing a seat and leaning against the bar. He ignored the glare Jace shot at him and knocked back a mouthful of the drink before settling it back in front of the other night elf. Jace kept his glare trained on the younger of the two and took a swig. At first this behavior had shocked a lot of persons in the bar, the way Axel would act. But Jace took it in stride. They were practically brothers after sharing just about everything for the few years they'd spend in Dredlin.

Axel grinned at Jace, meek features looking uncomfortably mischievous. Axel hailed the bartender and ordered one of his own.

"So what's on your mind?" the green eyed elf asked, opening his own bottle with the use of his hair blade. He handed the bottle over to Jace who took his own mouthful as payback for the highway robbery he was victim of. Jace handed the bottle back and returned his attention to his own drink.

"Thinking about travel," Jace said over the music after a few beats.

Axel raised a brow and shifted his weight to his left leg, and crossing his arms over the bar, left fingers curled protectively around his bottle. Just like any bar he'd ever been to, it was wise to keep vigil over one's drink. No one knew what someone else could slip into it.

"Oh yeah?" Axel took a swig. "Where?"

Jace rarely had any kind of fancy that he'd voice out loud. Whenever he did, Axel was sure never to poke fun at the other night elf. At least not right then.

"I'm not sure," Jace hummed. Axel had to read the other's lips to catch what was being said. Jace wasn't really one to raise his voice, but when he did, it never lasted long. "Probably take a stroll through Fae."

Axel was about to take in a mouthful of rum, but the bottle stopped half way, his mouth fixed as if to kiss when the name Fae left Jace's lips. Axel's face went from slightly amused to incredulous in no time flat. Green eyes widened almost comically in a poor imitation of barely suppressed horror.

"You fuckin' nuts?!" He demanded, barely managing to avoid the mindless splutter he was nearly reduced to. If it was one thing he prided Jace on, was the man's ability to see reason. This -- this talk about going to Fae was not reason.

Jace glanced at Axel from the corner of his eye before taking a drink from his own bottle. He was definitely serious about it.

"You barely made it out of the Unseelie Court alive," Axel went on. "You're in freakin' Dredlin. It's like Unseelie on steroids. How the hell are you--."

Realization dawned on him. "You're going to the Seelie."

Jace nodded once, almost imperceptibly. The gray eyed night elf spared his friend another glance and carefully hid a smirk. The poor night elf standing next to him looked fit to faint in the bar. But the urge to smirk vanished when he saw the other's eyes go unfocused, bottle hanging limply in the supposed rigid grasp.

The world had faded to nothing around Axel at the thought of Fae. Immediately, thoughts of his younger sister filled his mind, but he shook them away. Of course he wanted to see her again but really. What could he tell her? That he was in a land of outcasts and fiddled around with killing for a living? Please!

Axel frowned and took a rather violent pull from the bottle of liquor.

"You're insane," he said simply.

Jace eyed the other night elf warily. "You're worse than I am, so this should be perfectly normal."

Axel shook his head, not even cracking a smile at Jace's twisted logic. "I can't go back there," he said, glaring at the bottle.

"Then you can stay here."

"And let you get mauled out there by yourself?"

"I made it here alone, I can make it back," Jace pointed out.

"Like hell," Axel turned his glare toward the older elf. "I'm the only one capable of watching your back and you know it."

"Then I guess you're tagging along," Jace said, standing and leaving a few bills on the bar for both their drinks. "Good, get packing."

Axel stared dumbly after the retreating figure. When it all came back to him, he cursed and downed the rest of the beer before following the hoodwinking bastard of a brother figure he had toward the exit of the bar.

 

[Arashi]

Something was strange. She wasn't sure what it was, but something was definitely strange. Was it the fact that she couldn't remember where she was, where she had been? That probably was part of it. Maeren was in the hazy place between asleep and awake, closer to asleep until something cold touched her face. It was that and the voice near her that finally brought her around.

Opening her eyes helped nothing. She still didn't remember where she was, and normally she would have stayed still until figuring that out, but she was startled by the red orbs near her face and the shadow leaning over her and scurried clumsily to her feet. A wall had the nerve to get in her way as she was stumbling back, and after thumping against it she felt like a mass of angry bees had stung her in the back. Then she finally held still and examined the situation until the stinging in her back subsided. There were bandages all over her... had she been wounded? Must have been; she hurt all over, though not unbearably. Just like she had gotten into a rough fight.

Bewildered eyes found and stuck onto Kyle's. She seemed to remember red eyes from somewhere. The red orbs she had seen upon awakening were probably his eyes, she decided. But still; where was she?

"Who are you and how did I get here?" she blurted. For someone who had been passed out only minutes before, she seemed rather lively.

 

[Falief]

Kyle gaped at the woman as she somehow got up, With those wounds I would've thought she'd be asleep for hours,he thought, standing up. His arm shone slightly in the firelight as he held up his hands in peace, smiling at her. "My name is Kyle," he said, his voice soft and silky. "I am a former monk from the..." He stopped for a moment, he actually didn't know where on earth he was! "From that way," he said, pointing vaguely to the West. He removed a canteen of water from his waist, the clip making a small click as it came free. "You were injured in a fight and stumbled to this building. You collapsed on the wall and passed out." He handed the canteen to the woman, holding her gaze with the smile, "I used what I could find to bandage your wounds. I apologize if I offended you, but I had to remove some of your clothes to reach your gashes."

Kyle sat back down next to the fire, his staff next to him in an easily accessible place, he didn't know exactly what this woman would do to him if he let his guard down, he had of course seen the fangs earlier and presumed she was a vampire. However, why distrust one that has not harmed you, or so the saying went.

"If I may, Ma'am, who are you?" he asked interested, looking at her, his white skin making him almost translucent in the room.