Private Tales Old Wounds, New Blood

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Rahma

Rahma

The Mongrel
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82
Character Biography
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Brotherhood. Camaraderie. Family. That was what had been promised to Rahma in exchange for his service. Well, that and a subsubstantial paycheck. Rahma had said that the only reason he was joining was for the latter, a convenient lie that he had told even himself, but...well, a lie was a lie.

Those values that had been touted in his face like freshly cooked meat on a string had indeed caught his interest. Years of lonesome self-reliance had a way of doing that to a person, making them long for something more. So then, what was that 'something more' at this particular juncture?

Rahma's upper, jackal-like ears twitched a couple of times in the warm air and waning light of this Kaliti evening. He was standing on a street corner in a sector of Ragash that somehow managed to be both pretentious and seedy at the same time. According to the Sapphire that had doled this task down upon him, there had been several mysterious murders that had occurred in the area in recent weeks and local authorities hadn't managed to figure their shit out yet. So, here stood Rahma, waiting for his supposed 'assigned partner' to show up while he played lookout.

Hundreds' sake, this was basically just glorified patrol duty. Rahma let a long, exaggerated sigh loose. This was going to be a long night, wasn't it?
 
Oliviana knew where her skills lie, she also knew where her heart lie, and it was not with investigating murders. That was not her job. Well...her job was technically whatever she was told but this was not what the Imperial Hands were used for usually. The poor local authorities must have been having a truly hard time to ask for help. The other thing Oliviana preferred was to work alone so, of course, she had been assigned a partner.

Rahma. She had never met the man...woman...other...it didn't matter. She planned to get rid of them as soon as possible.

Oliviana, being the bitch she was, had been watching the street corner for quite some time. She saw the white haired Granite Hand show up and she watched him for a good half hour before she finally deigned to uncross her legs and stand from her bench. She had not been hidden but she wanted to size him up before she went over.

The black haired woman crossed the street and just smiled sweetly as she approached. "Rahma?" She asked as her eyes wondered the length of his body and back up to his face.
 
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Long ears flattened and swiveled backwards towards the sound of the man's own name.

A face only familiar via proximity approached Rahma. He'd noticed the woman, but hadn't thought to make any attempts at getting her attention; after all, she just seemed to be enjoying the view from her seat. Now she was getting his attention. He turned towards her and resisted the urge to visibly cringe. This wasn't his partner, was it? Please no.

"Who wants to know?" He asked in return, cocking a brow as she seemed to scan him, stem to stern. What was it they were supposed to do in situations like this? Flash the emblem or something? May as well, he decided.

From beneath a loose, indigo sleeve a small, metallic emblem slipped into Rahma's palm. A sigil of the Imperial Hands, though the nails and iris of his were blocked in gray to denote his status as a Granite. For the moment, the disarming smile earned no geniality from Rahma.
"You s'posed to be here?"
 
Oliviana did not need to see the sigil but she nodded at his and pulled her own up and out of her pocket. It was the same as his with the same gray blocks instead of the colors of the other groups. This was her partner and he seemed about as pleased as she was to be here.

"Yes, my name is Oliviana and I am your partner for these," she raised her hand and fluttered her slender fingers, "murders. I am not really sure how the local authorities have not figured their shit out but," shrug, "whatever."

Rahma seemed extremely standoffish and she couldn't blame him. She lived her life in a way to not get hurt or stabbed in the back. You do not trust anyone. Ever. Period. "How long have you been with the Imperial Hands?"
 
Godsdamnit. Gods. Damn. It. Right, so, this was going to be a very long night. This...Oliviana...had barely said three sentences to Rahma and already his skin was crawling. What was Medja...or, you know, whoever put this together thinking?

"...'Kay. Great." It was not, in fact, 'great.' Still, he attempted a smile, an abnormally long canine poking down and shining in the glint of dusk. "I think the Sapphire lady who put me on this job said something about, uh...'making the streets secure' or some shit."

He imagined the only reason any of the higher-ups actually cared about this particular section of the city was the bar it happened to be in proximity to, the Viper's Den. It hadn't taken Rahma long to figure out who owned the joint, that being good ol' Mistress Medja herself. He wasn't entirely sure of what to make of that information yet.

Unfortunately he didn't have much time or ability left to focus on that anymore. The question grated on the bestial man like nails on a chalkboard.
"Does it matter?..." He winced before sighing. Right...'family' and all that junk. Not s'posed to start shit with the other Hands. "Few months, I guess. I'm sure I'm the newest shmuck in the bunch. I'll be sure to brace myself for the hazing. You?"
 
Awwww, now it made sense why Sameera had given this job to her. She was supposed to watch the little baby Hand. He was lucky that she took her job seriously and she was not the hazing type. She was sarcastic, petty, untrusting, cold, and bitchy but she did not haze people. Period.

"Eight years," she replied and looked around the empty street. It was too early for anything to happen. They had at least three hours before anyone of interest entered this section of the city. That wait meant that she and Rahma were about to go get a drink and get to know each other.

Her eye twitched at the thought of small talk and being nice.

"Come on," Oliviana said and started to walk. "We are going to get a drink while we wait. Nothing is going to happen for a few hours still."

She was headed straight towards the Viper's Den, which happened to be her favorite and most frequented bar.
 
Eight years?! Fucking hell, a veteran. The jackal's nose instinctively curled up into an irritable sneer. Either Rahma was wildly unqualified for this particular foray or this was the most ridiculous softball-pitch of a mission ever. Neither was particularly appealing to him.

"Aww, fuck..." Rahma grumbled aloud, though quietly. He buried his hands in the pockets of his tunic and reluctantly trudged after the woman. "Yeah, sure. Sounds fuckin' great."

Some big, muscleheaded bouncer was standing at the entrance and waved them inside. Apparently it was still too early for any big deal to be made about entry or for covers to be demanded. Through a door and up a flight of stairs and suddenly both of them stood in possibly the single most seedy looking bar Rahma had ever witnessed. That was saying something given that he'd probably seen every watering hole on the poor side of Salitra. This was on a different level; this was professional skeeziness.

The lowly lit place had an assortment of cushion piles and hookah pipes for those more interested in lounging, proper booths and tables for those wanting a more private meeting place, and...dancers. By the Six were there dancers. Dancers of every species he'd ever encountered and then some, male and female, all equally gorgeous. Some performed on stages, others hung around individual customers, but Hundreds be were there dancers.

Smoke hung thick in the air and light from the outside barely filtered through the few windows that existed within the space. The bar proper managed to catch Rahma's eye in spite of the smorgasbord of eye candy to drink in. A stiff drink actually didn't sound too bad right about now.

"I'd offer to buy the first round, but somethin' tells me you make a lot more money than I do." He jested at his new acquaintance, offering her his first genuine smile since she'd set up camp watching him.
 
Oliviana could appreciate Rahma's sarcasm. She didn't throw him any snide looks though. No, she would never glare at someone for sarcasm. That was her first language, really. The other four that she spoke were secondary to sarcasm.

It wasn't that it was too early for the bouncer to care, it was that Oliviana spent way too time and money in here. She smiled at the bouncer as they passed him. He was not the only person she acknowledged either. She said hi, nodded, or smiled at a bunch of people. This was one of the only places that nice Oliviana came out. This place contained information that she needed and she knew how to play the games.

"I do," she replied nonchalantly with her own smirk. It wasn't rude but one wouldn't call it friendly either. It just was. The Granite Hand debated asking him what he liked but she didn't. She ordered for them. Two viper bites and two amber ales.
 
So, apparently Oliviana was intimately familiar with this place. A regular, at the very least. Rahma almost felt out of his depth. Or he would have if he hadn't gotten multiple sidelong glances from a few of the dancers as they passed by him. He puffed air from his nose and smiled, in spite of himself. What a place...

"I do,"
Unsurprising, really. She at least seemed willing to return the serve, so to speak, so that was...a start. The drinks would certainly help. Social lubrication was always welcome in Rahma's book. He settled into a booth, kicking his legs out across the seat lackadaisically. It was a comfortable position and it prevented anyone from sitting next to him; win/win!
"Strong stuff," He grunted with a sniff of the alcohol as a server delivered the glasses to the two of them. It might've stung the nose of a human or an abtati; it singed the hairs from Rahma's demihuman nose. He smiled. "The bites, anyways. You seem like the type that can hold her drinks, though."
 
Alright, Rahma was growing on her. Well...he was going in the right direction at least. Complimenting her was a good way to ingratiate ones self to the Granite Hand. She made a face that said you're probably right along with a small shrug of her shoulders.

Oliviana picked up her own shot glass and held it up, "to new partners." They would clink their glasses together and take the shot together. It was great. It was perfect. It was her favorite.

"I am curious if you can hold yours," she said as a sly smile curved her lips. Sameera would kill her if they got off track but, at the same time, Sameera knew what she got when she stuck Oliviana with a newbie.

This. This is what she got. Step one: get the mission, step two: meet new partner, step three: spend the first evening getting the new partner drunk and finding out everything about them, step four: getting to the actual mission. This had been going on for many years now and it was Oliviana's favorite night.

"Because I already ordered another round..." A single, manicured brow rose in question.
 
Under any other circumstances, that toast would feel presumptuous. However, Rahma knew he was working for Medja of Ragash now. When Medja of Ragash requested, demanded, or ordered something, she got what she wanted. For whatever reason, that happened to be Oliviana and Rahma being partners. At least for now.
"Yeah...cheers." He hazarded, following the woman's lead as though he'd practiced it a thousand times. He kind of had...just not with her, specifically.

Rahma downed the shot and hissed, then chased the burning liquid with a few gulps of ale. It hit the spot, and the edge was definitely being curtailed by the booze. If the several years of drinking the half-beast had already done were anything to go by, Rahma knew his physiology let him last a bit longer than the average person when it came to being a lush.
"Don't need to worry 'bout--" He had started to reply when she revealed that yet more booze was on the way. A wickedly sharp canine revealed itself as Rahma offered the woman a crooked grin.
"Something tells me that we're not going to be very productive tonight, miss." He smirked, putting a playful stress on the title, a teasing nod to her seniority. He knocked back the remainder of his ale.

How odd. Oliviana was undoubtedly female, but she was she was certainly no prim or proper lady. In fact, she was actually managing to put Rahma at ease. That was...incredibly rare, especially for someone he'd only just met. Feh. Must've been the booze.
"I can handle my alcohol," He assured her, finally finishing his earlier thought. There had to be a point to all this, some ulterior motive. A test maybe, he didn't know. Finding out might be fun, though.
 
Oliviana felt the burn down her throat and into her stomach. The warm swirl that meant it would be a good night. Rahma seemed sure he could keep up with her and she was ready to play. She had so many secrets and stories locked inside her head. So many tidbits that came to her on these drunken nights.

"It's a tradition. A hazing, if you will. Although I will not make you strip down and leave you in the desert at night. I am the gate you must get through in the Granite Hands, sir." She returned his tease on the title.

Six shot glasses were placed on the table between them and Oliviana gave a playful wink to their server, Grace. The Hand scooted three towards Rahma and three towards herself.

"Tell me," she started as she picked up a shot. "What made you want to join the Imperial Hands?"

Oliviana brought the glass to her lips and the liquid was gone in a blink.
 
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A single, snowy brow slowly crept up Rahma's visage.
"Tradition, huh? Heh..." The half-beast watched as the waitress delivered the extra shots and clocked Oliviana's familiarity. Interesting. "Alright, fine. I'll play ball."

"What made you want to join the Imperial Hands?"

Shit. That might've seemed like an easy pitch of a question, but to Rahma it was not. It was something he did not want to admit to himself. He'd been swept up in the radiance of the idea, and part of him was tired of being alone.
"Pay's good. I figure being close to the Empress ain't a bad place to be, either." He lied. Lied to Oliviana, lied to himself. It didn't feel good. The alcohol was a blessing.

"I'll trade softball for softball on the first round," He offered after a moment of silence, slamming back his second shot while letting his eyes follow a well-sculpted dancer as he passed by their booth. He knocked the glass back down against the table and returned his gaze to Oliviana. "Same question to you. What's got you shacked up with this weird little 'family?'"
 
Did Oliviana believe his story? Nope. Was she going to push him for a truthful answer? Nope. She just stored the information for later. There was a story there and she would get it from him someday.

That evil little half smirk was back on Oliviana's as she watched Rahma take the next shot. She loved that he was willing to play her game but she was not sure how she felt about answering questions. Fair was fair so she would let him volley back to her.

"Pay's good," she responded with a wink. "I followed my sister to the Empire." It was a half-truth. It was all he was getting out of her. She kept her mission to herself since she never knew who she could trust in this place.

Oliviana picked up her next shot and brought it to her lips. She tilted it back and took the shot with a whew at the end. The shot glass was added to her pile of three now.

"Where are you from?" Easy question. No reason for either of them to lie.
 
Feh. What was that saying? "Turnabout is fair play?" The veteran Hand threw Rahma's tactic right back in his face. He frowned at her, but couldn't help but let his lips up turn. That was a pretty funny move, he couldn't lie.
"Fair enough." He replied. He didn't know why he cared, but for some reason he was invested now. If he wanted to get any actual details out of her, clearly he was going to have to be more detailed himself.

The next question was just about home. Simple enough.
"Salitra. The slums. No permanent place of residence. Feel free to follow up on that one, no charge." He smirked at her again. He would've told her that one regardless of the drinks, honestly.

He half wondered if maybe she'd miscalculated. He didn't need to ask the same question back, right? He blasted through a his third shot and exhaled with a loud "aaahhh." She clearly wasn't Kaliti. He'd figure out where she was from later.

"What brought your sister out here, then?" Rahma asked back after letting the booze settle in his gut. He had a nice buzz going by now.
 
Oliviana almost cursed. She knew bringing her sister up was going to lead to more questions. "Work. She wanted to be an Imperial Hand," at least that was the story that the family had been told. Oliviana had not discovered anything to point to otherwise...yet.

She took her last shot and added it to the pile. Her hand raised and once Grace looked over, Oliviana signaled for more. Another four shots this time. Two each. Once again she divided them evenly and then leaned forward on the table.

"If you could undo one thing from your past...what would it be?"

The questions were getting a little harder now. A little deeper. Could he go at least two more rounds?!
 
Rahma felt so smart, outwitting a Hand eight years his senior. His shit eating grin was a sure sign of his pride, until she ordered the next round. Then that confident smile faded into a slowly calculating stare. By the fucking Six, this chick drank like a fish. They hadn't even finished the last round yet!

As expected, her next question prodded a bit deeper, a bit more introspective. He leaned forward with a growl and wrapped his long-nailed grip around his fourth shot. She wanted to get personal? Fine. He'd give her more personal than was comfortable.
"I'd have stopped my mom from slitting her wrists."

He sloppily knocked back shot number four, but accidentally inhaled towards the bottom of the glass, sending him into a sputtering fit. After a few burning coughs, he cleared his throat with an aggressive growl.
"You ever lost somebody close to you?"

The question was posed pointedly, humorlessly. By now Rahma's upper ears had flattened out a bit, betraying his irritation if his tone hadn't done so already. His head was swimming a bit. A little voice told him that this was probably not a wise escalation. Yet, oddly enough, he realized he was still grinning. Why was he enjoying this?
 
Oliviana just stared at him as he answered her question and then proceeded to choke on his shot. Fuck, she thought. Had she gone too far already? She was feeling slightly bad until he shot his question at her. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared as she glared at him.

It was on now.

"My sister," she replied in the same steady, humorless voice he had asked the question in. "She was murdered. No choice in her death..."

Oliviana didn't let him say anything back before she took her shot and slammed it down a little more aggressively than needed.

"What is the most disturbing urge you have ever had?" One brow lifted at the end of the question. He had 2 shots left. She had 1.
 
So tragedy seemed to run in both of their families. That was something they had in common, at least. Whatever. He'd succeeded in ruffling her feathers, and that was enough. Who decided to set the room spinning, anyhow?
"My condolences." He mumbled out in as respectful a tone as he could muster, given the circumstances.

Oliviana's glass struck the table with a loud *clack*, and Rahma knew she was about to throw another curve ball. The question hit both sets of his ears, and the top pair flicked for a second as his inebriated brain tried to catch up with the sound.

Then he cracked a wicked, devious grin. There was only one answer in his mind. It didn't matter if it was true, it was the only correct response...because it was hilarious.

"Hard to say. Maybe the urge to bend you over?" He smugged harder than he had ever smugged before, trying and failing to resist the snickers that were trying and succeeding in escaping him. He drank down the next shot, more slowly than the previous ones. This one took a few gulps to get through, and some of it spilled down his chin to dribble onto the bare portion of his chest.

He could feel it. His limit. He was at it already. The bar around him refused to sit still, instead waving to and fro like a ship in a storm. Loose, ivory hairs drooped into his face and he blew them away. A drunken lack of creativity and an ironic need to throw back to that first, simple question bred his next, slurred statement.
"Same question to you, sweetheart."
 
Oliviana let out a howl of laughter at his answer. She even leaned forward with what she thought was a smug look but she definitely just looked like a ridiculous drunk woman. "Is that so disturbing?" She whispered to Rahma. It was no whisper.

Oliviana thought she was fucking hot so how was it disturbing to want to bend her over the table. Kress, she was thinking too much into it.

He took his shot (though most missed his mouth) and threw her question back to her. She had plenty of disturbing urges that were actually disturbing but she liked this game.

So, while she was still leaning forward over the table, she answered him. "Perhaps it's the urge to let you," she winked at him and let one of her feet travel up his leg from under the table.

The room was spinning for her as well as she picked up her last shot. She downed it and completed her tower of six glasses.

"Last question," she declared. "Would you actually act of your urges?!" A giggle fell from her lips.
 
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Rahma laughed with her, though less confidently. Wait. That wasn't supposed to make her laugh. Maybe she just had a good sense of humor? Then she leaned over the table.

"Is that so disturbing?"

The half-beast blinked twice. What? No, that couldn't be right. She was fucking with him. Oh, Hundreds, she was close.

"Perhaps it's the urge to let you,"

He saw the wink and felt her foot climb his leg. He froze, a hard blush forming on his face. His body went stiff; something else stiffened. His mind was fighting a war with itself in this moment. Trauma battled with primal urges. Boy fought with beast.

Then he heard her final question. Heard that tittering laugh usher forth. His gaze narrowed, one clawed hand dug into the table, the other grabbed her leg beneath it.
"Maybe..." He replied, low and slow. His anatomy began to shift, muscles growing leaner. Fur grew over parts of his arms and legs and the back of his neck. His liver and heart worked in overtime, sobering him for just a moment before he downed his final shot as well. Aaahhhh. Oliviana might've been able to see the growth of Rahma's canines as he exhaled.

"Wanna go somewhere private?" His hand slid across her leg as he asked his final question, wolfish eyes staring intently across at her.
 
This was not usually how her little initiation nights finished. Ever. Usually they were passed out before the first round of shots were gone and she left them tucked in nicely in one of the VIP rooms for the night. This was a pleasant surprise that her sober brain would have been saying no to. He was her partner. She had just met him. They had to work together after tonight.

But Oliviana's mind was not sober. It did not think of the future beyond Rahma's hand sliding up her leg now.

She bit her lower lip and nodded. She very much wanted to go somewhere private. Grace just walked by the table and dropped a gold key on the surface. Oliviana grabbed the key and scooted out of the booth. She held her hand out for Rahma with a look that told him exactly what she wanted him to do to her.

"I think that is a perfect last question in our game..."
 
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What a fucking turn this had taken. No way in hell Rahma thought that this was where he was going to end up when he was sent out here. Holy shit. That nod. That lip bite. Was this really happening?

The waitress dropped a key off. Oliviana stood and offered her hand. Holy shit it was. Alcohol and bestial instinct swirled together in his system to make him far bolder than he would be sober. He took her hand and hopped up from the booth before sliding hip-to-hip with the woman and wrapping a hand around her waist.

Rahma, standing over half a foot taller than her, side-eyed his companion and shot her a devious smile. He knew the look he had given her. He was all to eager to begin.
"Then by all means, lead the way."
 
Rahma wrapped a hand around her waist and she looked up at him with a smile. Should she grab a bottle of something? No, they were drunk as fuck. So she did indeed lead the way to the VIP room upstairs. She unlocked the door and swung up open to a bedroom that did not look like it fit in with the rest of the bar.

It was actually a decent sized room decored in dark greens and golds. There was a plush looking bed in the middle of it against the back wall as well as a couch and a couple chairs. Options.

Oliviana shut the door once they were both in the room. A click told Rahma that they had all the privacy in the world to get into trouble together. She leaned against the door and looked at Rahma with a very suggestive look.

"So this is my private room here..." She smiled at him then. "It's where I tend to pass out when I am too drunk to walk home."
 
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As the pair walked in, Rahma looked the place over. Fancy. Nice furniture, too. Medja seemed to take good care of her servants. Hopefully she didn't mind the mess that the two of them were about to make of the place.

That *click* sent an electric jolt through Rahma's brain. He met Oliviana's look with one of his own, those wicked canines glimmering in the low light of the private room. Gold eyes burned like cinders as he turned to loom over her.
"Well now...don't I feel special."

The hand that had been on her waist slid upwards, over the top of her clothes, feeling the contours of her body through her outfit. Onwards and upwards the hand traveled until it came to lightly clasp around her throat. His other hand, meanwhile, grasped at her hip.

He leaned down and in, the heat of his breath close enough for her to feel on her skin. Hungry eyes stared deep into Oliviana's. His lips came so close to hers that he could taste them. He wanted to claim her in that moment, but he knew she was strong. So he waited at the starting line, silently daring her to pull the trigger.
 
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