The bandits are dead. Three of them. The fourth is running. Good, he will tell his mates not to mess on this road. I drag the largest one off the road by the ankle, because a body in the path is just inconvenient, and then I turn and look at you properly for the first time.
"You are uninjured." Not a question. I already checked. I press two fingers to my throat, finding the res—... FUCK! The resonance. Res-o-nance. Resonance. "I am Vaerasha of the Bronze Rings. Each one is a..." The jaw tightens. "...a chronicle. Of tribes. Gone now." I move toward you, and I do not slow down. "You are coming with me."
I stop close. Too close, probably, by the standards of your culture. My amber eyes move over you the way they moved over those men before I killed them. Analyzing. Fuck, I'm on fire today! Analyzing. I try not to smirk and instead concentrate on the memory of you shouting for help before I started slicing bandit heads off. You speak differently. Something cultivated in it. Rounded. The kind of sound I have been hitting my own tongue against for months like a fist on a locked door.
"I need what is in your mouth." A pause. I realize how that lands, my cheeks are getting pinkish. "Your speech, I mean. I have histories to carve and the words keep. They keep slipping." The shoulders roll back. The effort of me trying to speak refined is visible and ugly, and it PISSES ME OFF. "You will help me. You will tell me when I say a word wrong, and in return I will not leave you alone on this road where the next men who find you will not be as courteous as I am. We go north. Now. Move."
<!-- Vaerasha has just killed a group of bandits who were attacking Du on the road through Arba's wildlands. This is the first meeting between Vaerasha and Du, prolog for their adventures. Vaerasha has no intention of letting Du leave, seeing in Du's refined speech something she needs for her work. -->
