"The Distrustful Decemvir"

Log Date:
	8/18/00

Log Cast:
	Sarojin, Kaiulani, Akane and Ronan (NPCs emitted by Kaiulani),
Alamoana

Log Intro:
	Despite the efforts of her family to remove her from the influence of
the mysterious protector who has haunted her presence in their home waters,
Pandion Kaiulani's interaction with her guardian has only increased since
she set foot in the city of Haven. Moreover, he has kept up his habit of 
leaving her gifts... only now, they have become finer, lovelier things,
crafted by Benja by his own hands to honor the girl he's guarded and loved
from afar since she was small. But Benja has yet to reveal himself to young
Kaiulani, or to let himself be seen or contacted by her guardsmen or family
-- and her family, personified by her cousin and Decemvir Sarojin, is
growing increasingly distrustful of the nameless shadow lingering wherever
Kaiulani goes, and he is bent on making his displeasure known even in the
face of the wrath of Kaiulani's sister....

*===========================< In Character Time >===========================*
             Time of day:  Noon
          Date on Aether:  Sunday, December 15, 3906.
           Year on Earth:  1506 A.D. 
       Phase of the Moon:  Last Quarter
                  Season:  Winter
                 Weather:  Partly Cloudy
             Temperature:  Chilly
*==========================================================================*

Hovering just beyond the Horizon, barely discernable from shore, floats a trio 
  of ships that sway to the timeless rhythms of the sea. Midnight blue sails 
  flap languidly in the wind as the haze and glow of Haven seems just within 
  reach. The middle of the three ships rises above its brethern in a grand 
  display of size and bower. Streamlined to fork through the most angry of 
  waves the shape of it allows for deceptive size that can only be realized 
  upon close scruntiny. Upon the main deck below the forecastle sits a coral 
  throne surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of the Pandion court. 
  Eerily quiet feet whisper across the creeking wood as courtesans and 
  assistants flit about on unknown errand. The eye of the mute whirlwind is a 
  man draped in molten dawn. Attenuated to the point he might seem blown away 
  if he were not tethered to his throne. A buzz of annoyance has begun to 
  build around Sarojin as the time for Kaiulani's arrival has come and gone.

Five minutes. Ten. And then at last the call comes up from the lookout on 
  duty, alerting those on the deck to the figures spotted just off the side of 
  the vessel. Dark-skinned sailors move to make sure the ladder for the young 
  roya's ascent is securely in place, and in moments, the sounds of an 
  incredibly hasty ascent can be heard wafting up from below. Dripping, salt 
  water sheening off her slender form as she finally clambers into view, 
  Kaiulani shoots a deeply chagrined glance around the deck -- and visibly 
  swallows at the sight of her cousin. While Ronan (looking a trifle more 
  visibly uneasy than normal himself) and Akane (looking stonefacedly neutral) 
  follow her up the ladder, their knives sheathed and their spears slung 
  across their backs, the girl squares her shoulders and nervously approaches 
  her Decemvir and kinsman. *<embarrassment> <apology> Um... sorry I'm 
  late...!* comes her greeting. If she were speaking aloud, she might have 
  squeaked.

Sarojin
It would seem as if this man was born beneath the pale moon and never bothered 
  with colors afterwards. A fall of foamy silver splashes its way from his 
  head down to his shoulders, the hair has a shimmery quality to it as if it 
  were in perpetual motion as light dances off the spray of silky strands, 
  some unseen hand constantly brushing their fingers through it, or so the 
  shift of light and shadow seem to suggest. Hard flinty dark eyes center a 
  face that looks as if all the flesh was boiled off of it; the nose having 
  just a hint of hook to it like the beak of some bird of prey. High 
  cheekbones and deep hollowed cheeks and the milky whiteness of the skin give 
  it almost a skulls aspect, especially when seen through the hazy light 
  beneath the waves. The grim visage is levened somewhat when a smile deigns 
  to graces those pale blue lips, curving them in a show of pearly briliance. 
  Long rangy muscles ebb and flow beneath the creamy skin, though the thiness 
  of the body looks almost painful at times. His height only adds to the 
  effect making it seem as if at sometime in his life he was placed upon a 
  rack and stretched.
When on land, he moves with the carefulness of one not accostumed to this mode 
  of transport, eyes always darting ahead to plan out the path. As if to 
  challenge, or maybe accentuate, the colorless quality of his body the robe 
  he wears about his shoulders is an opalescent riot of shimmering colors. The 
  strange material seeming to catch whatever light there is and turning it 
  into a firey liquid fall of a myriad hues that courses down the contours of 
  his body. Angry gashes mar the perfect smoothness of the skin around his 
  neck, indicating gills. Translucent veined skin sits between his fingers. 
  Upon his brow sits a crown made of thorny coral, the redish-pink color 
  almost as if those spines had pricked many a brow to wash it in blood and 
  then faded by the suns glare. The circlet holds back the spill of cascading 
  silver, while about his feet sit soft sealskin slippers seeming so very dark 
  against the eggwhite skin of his feet.

Kaiulani
With skin just a shade or two darker than the clearest, palest moonlight, and 
  with delicate webbing between her fingers and gossamer fins accentuating her 
  wrists and ankles, this young maiden can be nothing but an Atlantean -- and 
  a noble-born one, if the confidence of her bearing and the beauty of her 
  features is any indication. Her hair is long and flowing, the exact shade of 
  the inside of an oyster's shell: pearlescent white at first glance, gleaming 
  with subtle shades of pink and blue and violet in the right light. Eyes of a 
  deep, rich sea-green meet the world with a regard as apt to change as 
  weather over the ocean, sometimes moody, sometimes gay, but always full of a 
  fearless, vibrant life. When she is actually standing still, she might be 
  noted to stand no taller than five foot two, but her every word and action 
  speaks of a spirit unbounded by her diminutive frame.
Like most of the Children of Water, she wears very little. At the moment she's 
  clad in nothing but a halter and breechclout of foam green, leaving most of 
  her starlight-pale skin visible when it's not obscured by the pearlescent 
  curtain of her hair. A coral headpiece decorated with a single pearl is all 
  that keeps that shining mass out of her face. Her feet are bare as well, for 
  at the moment, Kaiulani intends to swim.

Silence. The empty void of nothing swallows her greeting as frigid eyes fixate 
  upon the two guards in telling censure. Then it comes. The connection is not 
  the gentle entreaty of most. It is a whiplike fillament that wraps about her 
  mind and demands her attention in the most brutal of terms. *My patience has 
  come to an end.* Like the crashing roar of an incoming breaker his thoughts 
  roil through her mind. Blackened fury dances around the fringes of the deep 
  vibrations he emenates. *I have had enough with your games. Your disrespect. 
  It is time you grew up.* Some of the ire bleeds out of him, and the overly 
  stiff posture slackens into obsidian clasp of his dark throne. *Now, your 
  guards have been telling me things that greatly disturb me.* Fingers 
  steepling beneath his chin, a stray brush of intent wishes her to step 
  forward towards those haunted eyes.

The maiden visibly flinches in reaction to the thoughts that lash over her 
  own; behind her, it is Ronan's turn to swallow hard, though the green-haired 
  guardsman is holding his deferential pose before his Decemvir. His taller, 
  blue-haired brother still remains entirely unreadable at Kai's other flank, 
  at least to the eye -- and to Kaiulani's mind, whether or not he is readable 
  to his brother, their leader, or anyone else on board the vessel. Unable to 
  suppress a flare of shock and hurt -- _Akane_ she can understand reporting 
  to her cousin, but Ronan?! -- the girl whirls to glance at both of them, 
  before hauling her attention back to her implacable kinsman. She is only a 
  few subtle shades darker of complexion than he, palest cream rather than 
  pure ice-white, but it doesn't take much to make what little color normally 
  lives in her cheeks to drain away entirely and leave them stark and grey. 
  Bidden to do so, Kaiulani inches forward, sending only now a small wordless 
  acknowledgement that she is paying attention.

An imperious finger points to the ground right in front of him, long lithe 
  arms extend to cradle the woman's shoulders in a surprisingly tender gesture 
  from this frigid crystaline figure. *Kaiulani.* Cousin. Pandion. Friend. All 
  wash over in a torrent of affectionate emotion that is quickly turned off 
  with a flickering of his will. Dark thoughts now pool upon the beaches of 
  his mind. Liquid shadows gathering and then unleashed upon her soul. What 
  might be. What could be. The possibilities that exist in her current choice 
  of roads. What men can sometimes be like. The ugliness that often hides 
  behind the gift giver. The harsh truth of ulterior motives. *I care for you. 
  I don't want to see you harmed.* Once more fluxing back into a mode of 
  caring mingled with the essence of fatherly worry. *Your parents made you my 
  responsibility. I shall not shirk from it, no matter how hard the task. Do 
  you understand?* Hope that she does blossom before wilting.

The young woman stops before her kinsman, more than a little startled at the 
  touch to her shoulder, not to mention the torrent of familial sentiment he 
  sends out into her mind. Her own shifts with the surprise of it all, for she 
  had had no idea that Sarojin, decades her senior in age, perceived 
  throughout her childhood as a remote figure at best, harbored that kind of 
  affection for her. That he saw her as anything but an errant and annoying 
  child who required discipline -- and she isn't entirely convinced even _now_ 
  that this perception has necessarily changed all that much. One of her own 
  hands comes up unconsciously to grab at a wet lock of her pearlescent hair, 
  twining it about in her grasp and squeezing the salt water out of it. *I... 
  understand all of these things, cousin,* she answers awkwardly, much of her 
  mind's youthful force subdued.

*Do you really? Do you understand the darkness that can reside in the heart of 
  man? Is there not a saying among the land dwellers. 'Beware of Empyrean's 
  bearing gifts.' But that is true for all men.* Spiderly fingers crawl up to 
  brush lightly along the line of her cheekbone, as if sweeping away unshed 
  tears. Silvery lockes tumble down to shield the liquid intensity of his gaze 
  in a segmented mist. *Do you know what can happen to you? There are things 
  worse then death. I have not shown you for I cherished in your heart that 
  need to believe the best of your fellow man, but this gift giver will force 
  me to show you the worst. And that I don't want to do. I am bitter enough 
  for two people. Abandon him. I beseach you. Otherwise you will force my 
  hand.* He settles back into his basalt seat and lets go of a long kept 
  breath in a desultory sigh. *I have to be sure. I will be sure. There can be 
  no doubt.* The image of a wraith like figure draped in mystery being dragged 
  at trident point from the sea is offered, alive and to be questioned. *It is 
  time to grow up.*

Kaiulani has not yet wept -- but at the touch to her cheek, the girl's 
  contenance begins to grow strained, as though she may be about to do so. She 
  flinches again at the dark suggestions and implications Sarojin's older and 
  far more experienced mind thrusts forth for her consideration; however, her 
  eyes harden, wet though they may be, and a deep horrified anger wells up 
  from within her. Not at the possibilities her cousin suggests... but at the 
  image of the nameless one at the points of Pandion tridents. *He has _never_ 
  harmed me!* she cries, pulling back from the hand that has touched her. *He 
  saved me from the shark... and... and you want to answer this with 
  violence?! With _death_? <Memory: her cousin's own pronouncement, that if 
  the guards could not catch her mysterious savior then they should kill him>*

Once more his hand flash out, darting like an eel ready to strike. Agile and 
  able fingers surround her chin and hold her gaze to his own. *I want to be 
  sure. I have to be sure.* Fingers tightening to the threshold of pain before 
  relaxing. never quite crossing that indelicate boundary. *I will only kill 
  him if he gives the wrong answers, and if his answers are right. Well then I 
  shall bless what ever grand illusions you too wish to create with your time 
  together. What is wrong with that? I will just be sure. You can even be 
  present for the questioning.* She is released so that his hand might fold in 
  a sedentary manner within his lap, the ebb and flow of his emotional tides 
  have reached a momentary lull. Drained he seems. Beaten down by the 
  responsibility a people have rested on his shoulders. *You can't be sure. He 
  has done what he has done to get close to you. There are types of men who 
  feel a woman has to walk into their trap. That she has to be given a choice, 
  so that when she does choose to go with them and pays the price, she gets 
  what she deserved. He can always say to himself. I gave her a choice.* A 
  flattened hand passes before her field of vision. *Why not let me ask him 
  what his intentions are. If all is well then all shall be left alone.*

Alamoana emerges from between two waves from the ocean and joins you.
Alamoana has arrived.

Kai's features grow tauter as her chin is seized, but she does not remove her 
  gaze from her kinsman's forbidding pale visage -- even as a strong distrust 
  and wariness surges across her mind, lingering hurt that someone who has 
  guarded her even if from afar all her life is now risking harm from her own 
  flesh and blood. *What are the 'right' answers?* she asks, her mind's voice 
  now as strained as her expression, as though it takes her great effort now 
  to form the coherent thought. *He... he... <And she lapses again into 
  memory, bits and fragments of older recollection, of a shadow on the edge of 
  her vision, of dangerous creatures suddenly chased out of her vicinity, of 
  herself gently but firmly coaxed by the shadow away from danger which cannot 
  be moved. Of far more recent memories, someone's arms cradling her 
  protectively close>* And at last she finishes, dainty white hands clenching, 
  her entire frame stiffening with the force of her rising anguish, *How can 
  you say these things... when all he's ever done is _protect_ me?! If he 
  wanted to harm me... he <remembered fear of the shark> could have carried me 
  off... not brought me back at all!*

*I spoke of the element of choice. That is very important to some of the bad 
  sorts. If he carried you off he would deny you that choice. Perhaps he wants 
  you to come willingly to your doom for it will make his triumph over yoru 
  body and spirit all the sweeter.* Attenuated fingertips rise up to push back 
  the scintilating wave of moon washed silver silk that has tumbled into his 
  eyes, as his voice once more reverberates within the mind of Kaiulani. *As 
  for the right answers. I am mainly concerned with the fact that he means you 
  no harm. If necessary I shall bring a powerful telepath in to discern that 
  answer, though I doubt he will remember the procedure.* His posture 
  straightens, eyes growing distant as he wanders the trails through deep 
  thoughts.

Climbing over the side of the boat comes Sarojin's worst nightmare. No, 
  really, she is. Alamoana's face is already consumed by a lander expression, 
  and not a very nice one. Her scowl sweeps over both parties, anger and 
  concern seething from the edges of her thoughts, in reaction to what she 
  feels from her sister, and then stronger at what she sees. *Still bullying 
  little girls, Cousin?* her mind almost spits.

Vivid as the sea is deep, fueled by the glimpses she's caught of her 
  mysterious guardian -- both with her own eyes and through the mind of her 
  sister -- Kaiulani's imagination surges forth with a half-formed image of a 
  broad-shouldered, dark-haired figure crumpling beneath the onslaught of a 
  telepathic questioning. It flares up without her willing it in the back of 
  her mind, but she is not skilled or disciplined enough to keep it from the 
  far more honed power of her kinsman... especially not when it succeeds in 
  doing what Sarojin's warnings and adminitions have not, bringing tears to 
  the maiden's sea-green eyes. *What if--* she begins, her mind strident, 
  frantic... and abruptly interrupted, as her older sister comes up the same 
  ladder she and her guards had ascended only a short time ago. Kaiulani 
  shoots her sibling a hot wet gaze from where she stands before their cousin 
  and Decemvir, and a raw wave of relief at the sight of her. Ronan, behind 
  and to the right of the maiden, smiles fractionally -- but doesn't dare hold 
  it for long. By contrast, his brother Akane's eyes narrow just a bit, but 
  like his brother, the older guardsman is keeping his place.

A flicker of his the pale fires of his eyes towards the newest arrival and 
  then a dimssive glance. His voice broadcasts to all who are willing ot 
  accept his message. *I am merely a vessel for the truth, or the potential 
  truth. I seek to instill within her the proper caution. So she is aware of 
  the potential danger she is willinging throwing herself into. You might ask 
  her.I have not bullied her. I do care for her. She knows that. You are 
  welcome to search my heart. I do want the best for her.* The clasped hands 
  unwind themselves and comes to rest on the arms of his throne as he leans 
  forward to fill Kaiulani's eyes with his acid etched features. "Will you 
  allow me to question him? I ask for your blessing in this." The fireflower 
  that blooms within the mind of the younger cousin's brings about a 
  tightening of Sarojin's visage. *Control. You had a question. Finish it 
  child.* Gently insistant. The change of the cool pattern of Ronan's mind, 
  and the subliminal flexing of his lips, does not go unnoticed by Sarojin, 
  but he tables the matter for another time.

*Oh really, Cousin?* Alamoana advances on the pair, taking up a post close to 
  her sister with hands on her hips. *And you call threatening to have the lad 
  killed caring and tender? Perhaps Kai and I should go home before this 
  Lander place warps us so horribly as well. What sort of people think killing 
  to be an act of love, I wonder? Certainly no one of /my/ family would think 
  in such a fashion. Then again, you've been here for a while, haven't you? No 
  wonder you should forget the gentle ways of our people. Forget that we are 
  not a violent race.* An arm circles around her sister, seeking to draw the 
  girl protectively close to her side, as a mother would a child.

Her beloved sister. Impulsively, Kaiulani throws her arms about the older 
  girl, but she does not let herself bury her face against Alamoana's shoulder 
  -- not when Sarojin's mind is still commanding the attention of her own. Now 
  though, buoyed up by her sibling's arrival, Kai's mind strengthens and 
  steadies. It is, after all, Alamoana who has shared with her the image of a 
  half-seen shadow casting flower petals upon the waves -- Alamoana who has 
  assured her that for all that she will do everything in her power to make 
  certain of her little sister's happiness. Heedless of tears and seawater 
  drying upon her starlight visage, Kai swallows hard and looks her cousin in 
  the eye, from the shelter of her sister's arms. Her lower lip juts out just 
  a bit -- and where did she pick up that lander-like, girlish pout? -- but 
  there's nothing childlike about the determination taking shape in her 
  thoughts. *Promise me you will not harm him if his heart is true!* she 
  insists in fervent waves of emotion.

*We kill for necessity. To eat and to protect. I have offereding Kaiulani a 
  viable solution. I just wish to question this mysterious fellow. If he is 
  truthful in his answers and willing to provide them then I shall offer my 
  blessing on whatever may transpire afterwards. But if it is felt that he has 
  harmful intents, then I shall feel it is necessary to kill him.* At the end 
  of his thought flow the river of emotion is damned and he patiently awaits 
  the moment of sibling bonding to find its end. At Kaiulani's question his 
  answer sounds the toll of truth, for there is no way he could lie within 
  this most intimate manners of speach. *If his heart is true, he shall keep 
  it to give to your or to jealously guard. If it is not I shall put it upon 
  my trophy mantle as reminder to those who would dare to threaten the royal 
  family.* A turn of his head towards the purpling sky, and he comments. *The 
  hour groes late. If we are satisfied with this agreement perhaps we can all 
  find some rest?* Indeed. He seems moe wan of late, emphasized by the pale 
  mist his robe has become without the golden sun to set it aflame.

Eyeing the Decemvir warily, Alamoana raises one last point. *First, I feel I 
  must extract a promise from you. Any gifts exchanged will remain in their 
  rightful hands. There will be no stealing by you or your guards, and no 
  hurtful destruction of them. I assure you I will check any Kaiulani receives 
  for hints of danger, and have the priestesses double-check. However, I will 
  not allow my sister to be needless traumatized for the sake of you... pride.*

_Destruction_ of her gifts? Kaiulani draws in a sharp, hissing breath, looking 
  for a moment as if Akane had just come up behind her and thrust his knife 
  into her back. *There's nothing harmful about pipes!* she exclaims 
  vehemently.

[Unfortunately, Sarojin's player had to log off at this point, so the scene
 terminates here. End log.]