WELCOME

Another day, another trip to Darktown. Flames, this was starting to become a regular thing! Why Aikia was certain people would start thinking she actually lived in this filth. Fortunately for her she preferred the solitude of the nearby woods and mountain. Originally Aikia had intended to come to this muck hole to find that mage, Diggory. The last time she had seen him he had been downright disgusting. She was certain there had to be a least a month’s worth of dirt on him, amongst other fluids she really didn’t care to think about. Her offer for him was going to be a simple one – she’d share her favorite bathing spring with him. Normally she’d consider this an awkward offer, but when a man stinks so badly that even a blowfly would reject him something had to be done.

This all of course had led her to her current predicament – finding said mage. There were only so many possible places a man could hide, let alone sleep in Darktown, right? Oh how very, very wrong she was. After what seemed like all day long, though really probably only amount to an hour or three she had found his resting place. A very out of the way hole in the wall, not her choice of sleeping holes.

“Diggory… Dig…?” She whispered a bit, though soon she devolved into gentle prodding with her boot. ”Drat, he’s asleep. Or dead.”Aikia found herself cursing in her mind. Really, his stench was that offensive to her delicate sensibilities. She would have preferred a corpse that had been left in the sun for a week to this. Well, he didn’t show any signs of rot, so this led to her proverbially plan B. That plan? A note asking him to accompany her into the wilds for a nice walk. Slipping her hand into the small linen sack she had brought with her today the elf dug around for the needed materials. After a few moments she produced a scrap of paper, a quill, and… no ink. Predicaments number two apparently. The revelation that she had left her ink back on the table at home left practically spitting tevinter curses. Mostly ones in reference to an act that couldn’t be named being performed on a genlock. It’s true, the tevinter have some fantastically colorful phrases.

And as they say, “When life forgets to give you ink, cut a shem.” Only this time the shem would be herself. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s had to cut herself for mundane purposes, just the first time it involved a note with a “sinister” purpose. Retrieving her small kitchen knife from the same linen pouch as earlier. One of the benefits of being a blood mage? Learning anatomy; she had come to realize that certain points on the body bled more than others without being anything near life threatening. Aikia used her knife to knick her wrist near a vein, a place that could easily be healed later. It took a moment or so before the blood began to weep anywhere near helpful.

After dipping her quill into her own blood she starting writing out her note. Her penmanship was decent, though it was clear several of her words were misspelled, or accented as if she was writing in her native tongue. Once she was satisfied she daintily folded the paper up and left it next to his head. Now on to the matter of her self-inflicted wound. Aikia had never cared to learn healing magic – just like primal it never really appealed to her. She would have to make do with what skills she had. Her spell of choice was also a simple, albeit school of blood based, incantation. Placing her uninjured hand over the slash she smiled a bit as a sickly red, warm energy pulsated off of her finger tips – it really did look like a perversion of Diggory’s “glowy fingers.” The elven blood mage could almost feel her own blood bending to her will as the bleeding slowed and the wound clotted. This would do for now.

Now that she was satisfied that everything was taken care of she left Darktown, heading to that warm secluded spring near the edge of her forest home. Hopefully Diggory wouldn’t take too long to respond to it.

Diggory awoke as he usually did-- sore and not feeling like he'd slept at all. Diggory didn't get much sleep to begin with, and what little sleep he did get was hounded by visions of the Fade. As such, he was usually rather cranky when he woke up.

He was made even crankier by the four stray cats that had seen fit to call his person home. He sat up with a yell, trying to spook the cats off. When they scattered, he smiled to himself, noticing a note floating gently to the ground.

Diggory picked up the note, reading it under his breath. He blinked. Aikia wanted him to--
was that blood? Did she write the note in blood?

Diggory seriously questioned the sanity of answering the message after confirming that, indeed, it had been written in blood. But he supposed it could have been cat blood, which could only have been a good thing. It only made it slightly less creepy, but Aikia was harmless for the most part.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the last bit. Clean clothes? Diggory hadn't worn a clean set of clothes since he'd left the Circle Tower! Even his current clothes were picked up "used"-- fetched from the body of some poor sod who just couldn't outrun the darkspawn. He looked down at the blankets he had stretched and scattered about the ground all around him. They were just as filthy as he was, perhaps more so... and now they were covered in cat hair! Wonderful!

He stood up, working the crick from his neck and the stiffness from his shoulders. With luck, Aikia wasn't propositioning him before he'd had a chance to bathe. If that was the case, he would certainly be lucky for managing to pick up a woman looking as filthy as he did!

Since she had time to spare Aikia took the liberty of bringing one of her favorite soups with her. It was one made with wild lavender. Hopefully Diggory wouldn’t mind the calming scent. Along with the body soap she had brought her own liquid mixture in a bottle. The cleaner, a secret recipe her mother gave her was designed to remove the scent of blood and other fluids from clothing. She never did ask her mother just how she learned to take blood out from clothes. That information might have been something she was better off not knowing. All that she needed was a blanket, and since she was unsure if Diggory would actually remember one, she brought a soft woven one with her. The elf wasn’t so sure what fibers it was made from; hopefully he wasn’t allergic to it.

Satisfied that she had everything prepared she rested on a rock near the road. Hopefully Diggory wouldn’t get lost and would show his filthy little self soon. And while she would track him down she honestly didn’t feel like being a maid and a tour guide in the same day. As she waited she found herself half-singing an older Tevinter poem. The story of it had always captured her attention, even as a small child. Back then she didn’t know what it meant for life to be filled with deceptions. Now an adult she could appreciate the subtle understory of the piece of work. Aikia wondered if perhaps if it was written from the point of view of a demon, luring mage children into their cursed embrace.

It was questions and thoughts like these that often caused the mage to lose track of her surroundings, and more importantly, who was nearby.

( http://youtu.be/MKlsUrfbiE0 is the poem in question.)

And so Diggory did show up at the little forest grove, after a bit of wandering. All the trees and such looked the same to him.

He noticed Aikia, and noticed she was distracted, and he strolled up behind her and gave a cough.

"So. I'm here."

Aikia spun around on her rock and greeted Diggory with a warm smile. Ah, here was her favorite shem and… Maker he still smelled like Darktown. She didn’t even bother to hide the face she made from his smell. The elf was pretty sure it was some newly discovered mix of dead rat, shit, piss, and possibly month old blood. She wasn’t too sure on that last ingredient. It could have been vomit too.

“Digg! I’m so glad you could make it. I hope you didn’t get lost. Did you run into bandits? Templars? Giant Spiders?” She asked though she was mostly concerned about the giant spider part. Recently there seemed to be a resurgence of the giant arachnids. Maybe it was the breeding season? Maker knows she’s had to chase more than one spiderling out of her house in the last two weeks.

“Now, are you ready for the greatest experience of your life my friend?

All Diggory heard was "run into bandits", "templars" and of course "giant spiders". He frowned and looked around nervously.
"Is... there an abundance of giant spiders here that I should know about?" he asked. Oh, how he hated being in the forests and the wilds. Even Darktown was a bit too untamed for his liking, what with all the vermin and cats running about.

Luckily, his trusty guard-puppy Chuweefabbu would take care of anything that tried to slip into his hole-in-the-wall while he was out.

After a moment of looking around some more, he cleared his throat.
"If you're looking for sex, I'll warn you-- it's been about a week and a half since I've had a decent bath... in case it wasn't obvious. Not that I'm not interested in you... though I've never been involved with a blind woman before, and I'm not sure how to accommodate your needs in that department."