Compromise

The log Natalyn sat on shifted as Angzund settled next to her and started packing an old pipe, scored with runes and darkened with much use. It had a clay bowl, but something about the stem seemed more solid than wood. Both of them had arrived early to the meeting stones, though early for the giant, nocturnal Wrazg meant sunset.

Natalyn had traveled with her mentor, Kallias, and his fellow Ilaeran diplomats, resting in a small but well-supplied outpost less than an hour's walk from the nearest entrance to Umazk, one of the Wrazg's smaller cavern-cities. It was agreed on by all that the human visitors would be safer if kept away from the new modifications being built for the main passages. At least, that was the official story, and everyone gratefully pretended to buy it.

Angzund had assisted her in building a fire to better allow her fellow humans to see and to keep the chill at bay as the night grew, but his attention had been primarily directed at his temperamental protege. Natalyn had been fascinated to learn about the Wrazgish form of apprenticeship, which seemed to closely mirror Ilaera's. She wondered if that had developed on its own, or through the cautiously increased exposure to Ilaeran culture over the last couple of decades. So much of what she'd learned about the Wrazg was hauntingly familiar, and Natalyn had felt optimistic enough to offer to scout ahead for her mentor, hoping to observe any Wrazgira in the moments preceding the meeting. The possibility that being alone among monsters could end badly for her had flitted through her mind, but her mentor's entire group risked the same. A certain amount of trust was required to work with the Wrazg, and to the Wrazg's credit and Ilaera's surprise, that trust had rarely been violated. Her grandparents' generation had even forged a brief alliance with the Wrazg, and it had been hard to forget how it felt to fight alongside such powerful beings.

So far, Angzund and Marahk had been the only ones to arrive to the meeting stones, and the latter had been snappish and tense. Angzund's face and tone had remained neutral during their brief, growled exchange before Marahk skulked off into the trees below the overlook, but even Natalyn could see the tension in the older Wrazgira's big shoulders. Still, she wondered if he realized how disrespectful his smoking would seem to the Ilaeran diplomats when they caught up. Relations were strained enough without the annoyances inherent in dealing with a Wrazgira who'd seen fit to 'visit the moon' in the midst of a small trade agreement.

"Where did you get that?" Natalyn asked, looking up at him as he used a burning twig to light the mossy-looking substance in the bowl of the pipe. The firelight gave his gray, mottled skin a gold hue.

Angzund didn't look back, focusing. "Siege of Aevramun," he said out of the corner of his mouth, flashing a few fangs at he puffed. "Lost my arm, and the battle. Got the arm back."

"Ah." Natalyn could feel her eyes widening, and looked away once she recognized the pipe as a repurposed humerus. The Wrazg were infamous for their large stature, their disturbing form of sentimentality, and for their regenerative abilities. Angzund looked perfectly whole, if a bit grim and hardened, but in the brief time she'd known him, she'd noticed little quirks about his posture and movement; he would unconsciously favor injuries that had long since vanished in all but memory. She'd heard of ghost-pains in those who had lost limbs, but had never before wondered if someone could still experience them even after said limbs grew back. "So you smoke with it?" she asked, struggling to understand.

"Reminds me to appreciate the little victories," he said, gesturing downhill with the pipe. "Marahk makes them easy to forget. Doesn't know how to calm himself."

"Fine, but why smoke with it?" Natalyn asked. "I didn't even know your folk adopted the practice."

"Calms me," he said, idly touching his tongue to the roof of his mouth as he studied the faded treeline. After a moment that he seemed to count through, he closed his mouth and eyes, releasing a stream of smoke from his nostrils. "Helps kill my urges."

Natalyn frowned. "What urges?"

"To chase and eat you." An abyss haunted the space where Natalyn had hoped to hear sarcasm, and even the tiniest shred of humor withered and died without so much as a squeak. For all that was familiar about them, a chasm still remained - the only bridge, a strand of spider-silk for all that she could see. Sweat itched on the back of her neck in the cold.

"Oh."

"You're welcome."