Elemental Thief Part I : Child of Calamity

Cautious Allies

Davanos frowned, watching the closed windows for a long moment, before turning and looking at the odd human who remained beside him. His heart had soared earlier, when he had smelled Darya on the morning breeze. He had turned her way, hoping to speak with her, trying to reintroduce himself away from the pressure of the ship and their prisoner. To reassure himself that she was healing and that she would be fine, though he knew he had no place to demand to know how she was.

And then he had smelled her pain, and fury, right about the time her angry words had reached him, leading him to intervene in what he had assumed was yet another human noble harassing Darya because she was a woman. Which had led to him being just as much of a pain in Darya's side, leaving him even worse off in her considerations than he had been on the ship. At least on the Calamity, she'd been as amused as she'd been annoyed by his fumbling attempts at being useful at sea.

All because the human, Lord Cansal, had been annoying her, but had been right to insist that she was overdoing it. Because Darya shouldn't have even been out of bed, let alone walking outside on her own and squaring off against people.

The man was pretending to watch the window, but paying more attention to him, smelling of anger, a little bit of violence, but not of cruel motives. A man that smelled of the mountain air and cold glacier streams, who turned and levelled his gaze on Davanos then.

"You don't look like typical a Rulin." The man said bluntly, with an accent that Davanos couldn't place, looking him up and down.

He got the feeling that the Lord Cansal wanted to say something else, though that statement stretched between them. Davanos didn't need to respond to the man. They didn't need to maintain any sort of acquaintance, seeing as how Darya didn't seem to like either of them. And Davanos felt that realisation sting, though he understood that a lot of the edge in her words came from her pain.

But she had been guarded with Lord Cansal, ready to do battle, and that had transferred over to him when they both had focused on convincing her to go back to rest. She'd used words about chauvinism and sexism when responding to them, and it was only then that Davanos realized Darya was guarding against the closed-minded ways of a lot of Clairval's nobles.

And then Cansal's words to Darya came back to Davanos, and he forced himself to regard the man beside him anew.

He felt a draw to the man as surely as he did to Darya, a rightness of either friendship or otherwise, all Davanos knew was that this human, and the one suffering inside her room in the palace, were meant to be at his sides.

"I'm not." Davanos offered a shrug, frowning just slightly. "I thought you had hurt her. She was in pain and not happy with you. I jumped to conclusions, but you aren't like some humans I've come across here."

Lord Cansal looked taken aback by the words, the honesty, his expression softening just slightly. "I was trying to talk her into agreeing with me, so that she would think it was her own idea to go back. I realise I had fallen into something closer to how I would treat my little sister when she didn't listen to me."

Davanos laughed and shook his head. "It wasn't working." He paused, considering for a moment, before observing the man. "You humans, you treat your women with a great deal of disrespect. You say you do it to protect them, but you undervalue their strength, ridicule them for it, try to control them, as if they were incapable of half the things you are. You force them into gilded cages, treating them like dolls. Some may accept it, but Capain Darya, her sister, Duchess Tisaso, women like them, they are armoured against what you call chivalry."

"By the Gods." Cansal glanced up to the sky, letting out a couple curses and shaking his head. "That's NOT what I was doing. And that's not how I treat women. And definitely not how I treat a woman who did what I don't even know if I could do. She saved my life several months ago, saved the Princess' life. I watched her sailing into battle with pirates, behind the wheel of her Calamity, and knew that that was someone who could protect me from the entire world if she wanted to. She's a warrior. Brilliant and foolhardy, but a warrior. But she's hurt. I can tell that, even without smelling it. If it was you standing injured, swaying on the edge of a cliff, I would probably have done the same thing."

Davanos paused, considering it, and what he was reading off the man, before he inclined his head and offered a slight grin. "You would have even flirted with me?"

Cansal hadn't flirted, not in the way that Davanos knew from Rulin and Vayana, and he was convinced that humans didn't know how to flirt properly, but Cansal was clearly enamoured by Darya. Davanos could smell it on him, could smell the attraction increase as Cansal spoke of Darya.

It was fascinating to see the man's skin go from a pale tanned colour to bright red in nearly an instant.

Cansal's voice lowered in volume and octave, and he grumbled. "You need to turn that nose of yours off, Prince."

"I wish I could, but I can't." He shrugged, glancing at the window. "She will not like either of us after this."

Cansal sighed, offering a shrug. "She'll be angry, and considering how you took my behaviour, I will need to find a way to make a better impression on her. I'm not like the old, weak men that strut around this court like peacocks."

He paused for a moment, and Davanos thought they would part ways then, until the man gave him a sideways glance. "You allowed to spar? Or you just wear those weapons and shiny bits for decoration, your majesty?"

"My father has even taught me how to use a Longsword... but yours looks a little different." Davanos nodded to the blade on the human's back.

He had already sparred for the day, and he could tell that Cansal had as well, but that feeling of rightness, and knowing that there would be little to do with the Clairvalan council still trying Lord Corvin, Davanos was eager for a distraction.

"It's a bastard sword." Cansal offered a careful shrug. "You use it with one or two hands, depending on the fight you're fighting." He watched Davanos for a long time before offering a nonchalant smile. "If you want to spar with one of these, I left some of my soldiers at the training yard. I'm sure one of them would loan you a sword."

Davanos grinned slowly, giving the man a nod. "I will take you up on that offer. I'm never one to turn away from a challenge."

Cansal chuckled and shook his head, turning toward the sparring grounds. "Is that why you're here in Clairval? A challenge?"

Despite their rough introduction, there was something intriguing about the man, and Davanos had decided that he liked this human.

Davanos smirked at the other man and shrugged one shoulder, falling into step beside him. "In a nutshell, I suppose. My sister is the politician. I just convinced my father that I should be a part of the Rulin delegation that will see our prisoner back to Rulin for our justice."

"Your prisoner?" Cansal glanced his way for a moment, then frowned at whatever he saw in Davanos' expression. "It is frustrating to be here and have no reason to be here, I'll tell you that. I'm supposed to be getting experience with politics and the like, but I'm not in a position to learn anything from anyone. I'm not a peer, and being Clairvalan, I apparently don't warrant your trust."

"Clairval has not lived up to expectations of late." Davanos frowned as they walked, arching a curious brow. "But I have learned there are some worthy of trust. Perhaps you will be counted among those in time."

Cansal chuckled softly. "I've heard you can smell truths and lies. And you clearly can smell emotions, so I'm assuming that's how you do it. Wouldn't it be easy to know who to trust?"

The observation drew a grin to his lips as he glanced toward the city and the Wild that stretched through the island that he could feel, even from so far away. "Sometimes. But I have learned that just because someone tells you the truth when you ask for it doesn't mean you can trust their motives or desires. And just because you've been lied to, doesn't mean that you can't."

"Cryptic." Cansal shook his head and laughed softly. "Definitely like the Fey. Like your pointy ears lead me to believe, though you are remarkably tall and well built for a Feysha."

"See, now I can tell you're appreciating my body." Davanos barked a laugh and strode into the training arena they had approached, nodding to his guard that he was fine as Cansal scrambled to regain composure and catch up to him.