high_seas | Men vs Woman

It was impossible not to hear Elissa's shout, goodness, she must have thought him a great distance away to require such volume. He glanced over the edge of the precipice he was on before dropping down to the nearest beam and walking along it until a good landing place on the deck was beneath him. A tuck and a roll soon found him on the solid boards of the deck again and walking in her direction.

"Boris? It was you who had me concerned."

The woman's mouth curved into a wicked grin. "You were concerned about me? I am touched, Haytham," she flirtatiously said with a wink before sipping from one of the mugs. "I... was having a difficult *time*, if you understand my meaning."

The other mug was held out to the man as Elissa's eyes became strangely intent. "I thought you might like some of this. Tis some kind of mixture of goat's milk, cacao, and cane sugar. Lenalee made it and it is quite tasty."

While Elissa had no trouble holding to her own mug, the poisoned one offered to Haytham suddenly shook just a bit and her expression blanked for that split second.

Oh a warm drink... with goats milk in it...
As appealing as that sounded he did hesitate to accept. Not only was the strange concoction some what foreign to him, ~~though chocolate was a secret favorite of his~~, but her every movement just seemed wrong, her wild grin and shaking hand among the symptoms that caught his attention.

"You secreted yourself away in your room, I assumed you might have been struggling with something."

It was an opening, trying to give her the chance to speak on what the issue might have been.

Another sip of the drink was taken as Elissa listened to Haytham's response. "I was having trouble sleeping. Nightmares. Come, try the drink? Tis hot cocoa, I think she said. I milked the goat, myself, since she is still accustomed to me being cook."

The Voice was so loud inside of her head that Elissa lacked the strength to try to fight it again. KILL HIM. KILL HIM. KILL HIM. HE MUST DIE. IF HE DIES, I WILL BRING BACK YOUR FATHER. YOUR FAMILY IS WAITING. KILL HIM. THEY CAN LIVE AGAIN. The phrases were babbling and overlapping and echoing in her head to the point that Elissa wasn't sure how she could hear anything else. KILL HIM. HE WILL NEVER CARE ABOUT YOU. YOUR FAMILY LOVES YOU. KILL HIM!

It would not shut up.

He stepped forward to take the offered mug. Though he didn't drink yet. It was still a bit too warm from being heated on the stove and needed a moment for the steam wafting from the liquid to lessen.

"You could have said so. We might have been able to find a physician that could make you something to help you sleep."

"If only that was true," she murmured half to herself. "The best sleep I have enjoyed in a long time was when you shared my bunk in the cold," Elissa said with another if those wild grins. "But I doubted I could convince you to share it again."

Take a drink.
No!
Do it, Haytham. Drink it.
No, do not!
Drink it! There are others waiting to die.
Please, please do not drink it. I am so sorry.
Shut up and drink it, Kenway!

"I. SAID. NO!" Elissa very suddenly and shakily burst out. She staggered forward as if barely in control of her own limbs and tried to spill the contents of the man's mug. Or did she? At this point, she was no longer sure what was real.

The mug was fumbled from his grip as Elissa roared her completely out of place statement and whacked the glass from his hand. So suddenly had the strike come and so oddly directed at the mug that Haytham himself was caught unaware. He stumbled a pace back and favored her with an expression not unlike his son's 'kicked puppy' face.

"Elissa?"

"Poison," Elissa said with a different intensity than before. The words were quick and frantic as she tried to get them out while she could. "Help me. So sorry."

"You should have tasted it, Haytham," she drawled as her posture changed again to something far more alert and dangerous. One hand reached back toward her sword as she added. "It is far less messy, but now we get to have some *fun*."

His sword was drawn as quickly as hers. Damn! And here he might have taken some of the drink if only she hadn't warned him. But, why warn then draw a weapon? If she wanted him dead the perfect chance had just been split across the deck.

"You are not yourself right now. Put your sword away and let us discover what might be done to free you from this..."

"Awww, what is wrong, Ser Kenway? You do not want to spar with little old me?" she said with a smirk as she twirled her longsword. "After seeing you fight those Navy men, I have wanted to have a go at you. Is now a bad time?" Her dagger was soon in her other hand. Both blades glistened with an oily sheen - likely more of that poison.

That smug expression faltered for an instant as did her posture - but only for an instant - and then the smug, drawling one was back in control.

Avoiding being cut was one of the cardinal rules of swordplay but if there was poison involved it did take on a new importance. Not that he knew the sheen on her blades was poison, he only knew she had mentioned the substance earlier.

"I was rather more under the impression the go you wanted to have at me was something more intimate."

Again he fell back a pace if only to place more distance between them.

"Be reasonable. This isn't like you."

Oh, the laugh that escaped her at his retort was wicked. "Why should I not want both?" was her response as she danced forward a few steps while watching him with a shrewd eye.

"I am being perfectly reasonable. Sparring will do us both some good."

The Voice in her head was no longer quite so loud. Now it was lulling and speaking just as reasonably as the voice that Haytham was hearing, pushing her ever closer to the edge. Elissa had been struggling with this mental invasion for the past week even while trying to brew the concentrating agent for Quiet Death from scratch in her cabin. Don't you want to see your Father again, sweet girl? Hear him call you 'Pup' and look upon you with affection? All you have to do is kill them. Kill those that do not belong here and I will restore your family to you. All of them. Not just your father. Don't you want to see them all again?

They were dead. They were all dead. How could she possibly promise that? But... Father. Even her nephew Oren. Alive again. But Haytham and Harlock and Boris and Ban? They are all alive. They are here.

Haytham could see her falter once again as that internal debate continued to rage. That smug masked slipped once again just long enough for the old Elissa to look through those grey eyes with a sudden sorrow that was gone almost as quickly as it came.

"One would be difficult to do should the other be accomplished."

Assuming the poison she had mentioned was intended to kill... which, why wouldn't it have been? There was no mistaking the murderous intent. He'd seen it so many times before, usually in the eyes those he was facing right before his blade made it to their throat.

"Stand down now. It would be a shame were I forced to kill you."

He couldn't hear the same voices she was hearing or any of the thoughts that drove her to this action. Haytham could only see the struggle in her movements. Sometimes she was quick and light full of purpose and at other times she... there hesitation!

Seizing the chance he lashed out quickly with his sword, hoping to disarm his opponent before she could make good her threat to 'spar' with him.

It was the perfect time to strike. The internal struggle was more than enough to distract Elissa from Haytham's movement until it was too late, but even after the longsword went spinning from her hand, she still had her dagger. Masking her surprise, she reacted in reflexes as well-honed as the Templar's and ducked away from him before he could strike again.

"Well-played, Kenway," Elissa drawled in grudging acknowledgement of his timing. She tossed the long dagger from her left hand to her right and used her left to pull a hunting knife from her belt. "I will not let it happen again."

He had no way of knowing, but she meant the hesitation and not his strike. It was so tiring to keep fighting with the Voice and its alluring offers even if the price to pay was so very, very steep. It had been impossible to sleep and now... she just wanted to rest. Elissa did not want to see anyone on the crew die, especially at her hand, but she couldn't fight it anymore. Not when her father kept calling her. Pup? Can you hear me, Pup? I cannot find you. Elissa?

I am here, Father.
And the visage that was facing Haytham very slowly... smiled.

"You could just surrender and save us the trouble of this meaningless battle."

The first strike was always the easiest, it was the one least expected and therefore the one that could be the least prepared for. The next would have to be more cautiously done. Holding his sword between them, Haytham kept it pointed at Elissa as he paced around her, hoping the movement might cause her to present another weakness he could exploit.

"Why are you doing this? You've nothing to gain by this senseless attack."

The betrayal burned in his mind but he tried not to focus on that. It wasn't Elissa who betrayed him it was this... this condition that caused her to act as the others had on their ships. He tried to think, what had been said of that over the journals...

"You are feeling paranoid, confused... like you must attack us in order to gain, what?"

"More than I ever thought possible," Elissa replied with narrowed eyes. She kept pace with Haytham, lightly moving on the balls of her feet as they slowly circled the deck. "You thought you won, Howe, but you did not and you never will. My father was your best friend and you betrayed us in the worst possible way. I will never forget the night your men attacked our castle after Fergus had led most of our army to assist the king at Ostagar."

Her voice was full of cold venom and she was looking at Haytham in a completely new way - with undisguised hatred. "That night still haunts my memories and my nightmares, but you have not won! Your men broke into Fergus' room to kill his wife and slay my little nephew. You tried to kill me, but four weren't enough against a Mabari and a half-naked Cousland." She struck out at Haytham's sword, wary of his wrist and their hidden blades though she was seeing Rendon Howe.

"I left my Father to die in a pool of his own blood while he held in his guts with one hand because he made me leave him and Mother. But you didn't win."

"I am going to get him back. I'm going to get them all back."

She was coming undone right before his eyes, descending down into the madness of her past and he in her mind had become that other man, the butcher of her family, Howe? Haytham frowned despite his best attempt to remain disconnected from it all. During a fight like this he couldn't afford the distraction of remembering his own past or the twinge of jealousy he felt in that at least she had known the name of the man who had destroyed her family. How long had he been searching for his father's killer?

"Elissa!"

He shouted even as her dagger slid along the length of his sword before being directed away from his body with a twist of a wrist.

"That man, Howe, he is not here! Come to your senses woman!"

With her dagger sliding off the tip of his blade into the nothingness of air his wrist swiveled again, using the momentum of deflecting her attack to produce a counter attack. She was wearing armor but the her stomach was the most convenient area of attack. He zeroed in there trying to at least land a hit and begin the process of wearing her down.

She was wearing armor, true. Studded dragon hide armor with a hole in the left shoulder - and now the dragon hide deflected most of the damage offered by Haytham's sword, but not the strength of the blow. The breath went out of Elissa when that fierce blow hit, but did not fully penetrate the hide. Dancing backward, her expression darkened.

"SILENCE! I will no longer listen to your lies. My father trusted you!" Elissa darted forward with a flurry of attacks from her short sword-sized dagger and her hunting knife. The lengths of the blades were shorter in this configuration than she was used to wielding and she had not yet fully accomodated for the shortened range of attack. Most all of the blows fell very short, though they did put up a flashing, slashing screen.

His voice... was different. He spoke her name in a different way than Howe's dripping disdain. Well, well. Bryce Cousland's little spitfire. All grown up and still playing the man. said Howe's voice in her head, an echo of that last night at Castle Cousland before it was set aflame by betrayal and death.

The diminutive length of her weapons was a weakness exploited to the fullest. The longer blade was countered with his sword while the shorter quicker weapon was dodged mostly by benefit of the distance he was able to keep between them. Haytham kept her at bay but her hacking and slashing did keep him at bay too. There was no real way to do much but defend until her furious attack subsided... or a means to throw her off could be found.

"Those things you are seeing are not real! They happened in the past! It's over!"

With a quick jump backward he landed on the other side of the mop and pail left on the deck behind him by a careless deck swabber, Connor maybe? Whether it was or not he'd have to remember to thank them later as he managed to kick the pail when he landed right into Elissa's pathway, giving her the obstacle of a bucket to dodge and the soapy water to make the deck slippery.

She managed to leap the bucket, but landed awkwardly on the spill, foot slipping enough that she tumbled forward into a somersault. "It isn't over until the last Cousland is dead, Howe," she said in a calmer tone that still held a threat. Each step carried her toward Haytham, though now she was unhurried and focused.

The rational part of Elissa's mind was gone now or she would have realized she had already killed Howe months ago. It was that part of her mind that made Haytham into Howe when she snapped, however, because it was too difficult to keep killing those she'd come to care about since arriving here. Murder was necessary. There was no escaping it. The Voice insisted upon it.

Spoken of in an earlier conversation this was the worst case scenario. Elissa was armed and well beyond the reach of reason. With her knowledge of weapons and poison there really was only one other option available.

How quickly the fervor of the moment gave way in his mind to a sense of serene calm. Not that this is what he wanted or wished for he simply fell back on the skills he had been cultivating since childhood. Acted on instinct and skill instead of the mind's little doubts or the heart's gentle weaknesses.

Haytham knew what to do and how to do it. It was only a matter of timing and skill to see it done. Elissa stumbled and rolled but was on her feet again far too quickly to act. As her dagger swept towards him again he caught the blade and forced it and, by virtue of her holding onto it so tightly, Elissa backwards. It was only a pace and it took a good deal of strength to accomplish but it gave the Templar the time to draw and aim his pistol. Left-handed, granted... it was an awkward way for a one who favored the right hand to hold a gun, but he hadn't dared drop his sword. Not with her blades still so very close to him.

"I give you one last chance to stand down."

If she so much as twitched he would fire.

"Tis more than I shall give to you."

Elissa threw herself closer to him, lashing out with her hunting knife at his pistol in an attempt to direct it outward even as she utilized her dirty fighting skills by trying to knee 'Howe' in the groin. Compared to her normal self, Elissa's grey eyes were all wrong now, oddly glittering with madness and a deep, unrelenting hatred. The warmth and good humor of that night spent warding off the cold was nowhere to be seen.

He fired.

The bullet flew towards the broken panel of her armor but the aim was off. It was too high. The pellet only creased the surface of the plate upon her shoulder, leaving a streak of black powder in it's wake but no damage of any value and no injury to the target.

Even if he been able to keep the gun in his hand after Elissa's dagger wrenched it away from him it was useless now. The flintlock musket only held the single shot. With it's payload gone the weapon was little more than a paperweight.

The whole of his action had been a clumsy last ditch attempt to save her from herself, thinking her recent bought with a gun might have been a deterrent for her attack. He had been wrong. In her madness even the fear of another gun shot had proved ineffectual... and he was paying the price for that now. Doubled over in pain from the accuracy of her knee he was now open to an attack himself.

Elissa kept pressure on her dagger in order to keep Haytham's sword locked against it and out of the way. She loomed over his pained form with her wickedly sharp dagger. "Shall I stab you in the back as you did my family? Or gut you like the pig you are?" she spits at him - literally.

Once, when Elissa first communicated with Ban via the journal, she'd threatened to split him from ball sac to thyroid, if he made good on his threats to her crew mate Harlock. She was perfectly capable of doing so, even if that had mostly been an empty threat.

Now, however, the possibility of it was very real, though Haytham's broad back made a much better target while he was hunched over in pain. Light glinted from the razor sharp edge of her hunting knife as the Warden raised it over her head with one hand in preparation to stab it through the Templar's spine.

A high-pitched cry of an eagle pierced through the air, a faint wind followed, then it was as if the light rustling of feathers could be heard. This avian species would be unusual to find this far out at sea but that didn’t explain away its characteristic call. Yet, if anyone looked toward the sound, they would detect nothing with the eyes.

In an instant, Ratonhnhaké:ton materialized, seemingly out of nothing as he placed himself between the combatants. He threw his weight against Elissa, encouraging her to fall backwards to the floor. Normally, he wouldn’t have hesitated to release his hidden blades and finish the job, but this woman had been one of their allies only a month ago. He still wanted to attempt reason, like it had been discussed before.

That did not mean, that he would let her off so easily. Noticing the chink in her armor, he swung his tomahawk soundly toward her left shoulder. His sudden arrival, and the pain that would derive from that blow should be enough to buy him some time in terms of deciding how best to disarm her.

If there was any chance that the battle between Haytham and Elissa would proceed unhindered, it had been shattered by the explosive nature of that firearm.

He wanted to comment on the compromising position he’d found his father in but he was too focused on this woman to risk splitting his attentions.

Edited 2014-01-15 10:14 (UTC)

Men vs Woman

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GDI XD. Let's all hold hands and get along

Would that we could

Tried doing that in the other thread! XD

We did XD

THREAD HOP!

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