• Graded • Turkey Wars

[Gangui]

Meeting up with Zipper was nothing new. It was what they always did. Meeting face to face in order to exchanged proffered words. She probably didn't want to speak to him --and she probably never would, if it wasn't for the obligations of the forlorn contract Gangui had with the Black Guard. They had… words over the seasons and each time Zipper came in more and more agitated.

They had nothing in common it seemed, except for their hatred for immortals. In Etzos, it was an link that served as the glue that bonded the fragile society with a simple uneasy understanding. Though it was only a single dark connection between the two, the steely chains of this anti-immortal belief tethered them together, whether she liked it or not.

"I was right about the bounty," he said with a heavy sigh, already tired of the bureaucratic sludge she was about to sling at him. Stalwartly he refrained from his typical belligerence, disciplining himself enough to endure any battering she could speak.

“Eventually,” he heard her mutter. If she knew something of the unwieldy process that kept his bounty against joker in limbo, cancelled it, sent it back into limbo, and finally reignited it again, she did not seem to feel very inclined to share. “You got your war, Mister Gangui.” she said bitterly. “I hope you’re prepared for it.”

He proceeded, without second thought to her sudden wisdom. According to honor, one merely need follow the correct principles to guarantee victory. “Toryvn arrives tomorrow to fund construction of a fort." He was no fool to Zipper’s cynicism, nor ignorant to what it meant. He would have a fort and he had proved her wrong thus far.

“I’m surprised he’s coming down himself.” she said. Surprise’ in her case clearly meant annoyance. Her face darkened when he heard the name.

Gangui eyes turned sideways for a moment, quickly firing back as they ambled, “What do you fear, chastisement from him?”

“Chastisement is both too strong and too weak a word to describe our general dynamic.” Zipper said. “Let’s just say we agree enough to disagree.”

Gangui breathed noisily again, his whiskers fluttering, “I'll forgive you out of habit... for letting your emotions get in the way of pragmatism,” he didn't quite know if he was on the mark, but he drilled the point into her boldly. He was correlating her fear of her master and the stifling of Gangui's efforts to tag the Prince with a 10 thousand nel bounty.

“Pragmatism was not starting a war with a unknown entity with unknowable resources and an unknown stronghold.” Zipper said, staring at him sharply. “Pragmatism was-”

“Intelligence is your job.” He said curtly, turning on a dime to confront her piercing stare, “I am the savage war dog.” Wasn't this point clear yet?

“Then maybe the savage war dog should listen when Intelligence tells them the time isn’t right,” she said.

[Gangui]

“What do you know?” He said softly, but with a serious tone. Like a question Finn would ask, but this time with gravity of the man who stood before her. A man who'd seen the field without her and his pain far different from any understanding that she would have. He could not feel any shred of connection with an insane sorcerer who could have aided him in the field, who could have expedited his efforts a thousand times over with the little slips of power she so eagerly tried to hide, but chose instead to sit at a desk working paper.

“I know there’s a balance between the jurisdiction of the Black Guard and the criminal element of Etzos,” she said. “What we have here is a, uh, microcosm-”

“High words like that mean little in the field.”

“-It means smaller. A smaller version of it. What we are cultivating here is a smaller version of that balance: your arrest some mooks, they resist a little. The war is trapped in a stalemate - for now. You build until you’re able to comfortably tip that balance in your favor. We may never achieve that in Etzos because it is what it is, but Foster’s has long served as a possibility, a model town for such change - and you completely flashed your hand with that bounty.”

“I battled the Prince already, yet here I stand. He won't last this. My hand wins. My hand has the support of your masters.”

“Superiors,” she corrected him even before he finished the word. “It is my understand that you have been courting the hand of a bird?”

“Deflect, deflect, deflect. Can't you admit I was right?”

“Can’t you let me finish the point?” she said. “I’ve received the heads of 4 half-avriel in the trials since - when will your-” He suspected she knew the name; she was just feigning searching for it to make it seem like she wasn’t keeping such a close eye on him. “Ellen, yes? Ellen be next.”

Hand shooting out, he grabbed at her in venomous anger. The ongoing construction efforts going on around them got very, very quiet. His thumb slipping off her breast, pinching her momentarily before the cloth was seized within his grasp. All the eyes made him reconsider. Breathing heavily, he let go and waited quietly until the working men turned back to their labor.

Composing himself in this situation was a struggle, “You… know nothing of Ellen,” he wouldn't tell her that he had Turkey retainers escorting her, but his reaction revealed it all.
“Touch me again,” she said, her tone eerily even, almost polite, not the shrieking hag he had expected after that stunt. She dusted off the bit of her blouse where he touched her. “And I will fry you in that armour where you fuckin’ stand.”

“It will be the last thing you do as I crush your skull in an agonizing death,” he said matching her tense attitude, waiting for her to break under his gaze, “Your just trying to fuck with me, arn’t you?” The tiniest sapling seed of humor escaped, if she was not blind in a rage. Her veil being her own magic .

“Try me again and find out,” she said, not breaking the gaze. “Just as you tried this Prince. If he is as dangerous as you claim, do you think the few men you have squandered on Ellen will save her once he ferrets her out - to say nothing of those who have already attacked her out of spite, some misguided idea that we will provide a consolation prize for any avriel period, or simple bigoted opportunity.”

The murderous urge to strange the woman to death filled his body. Hair prickingly on his back at the raw emotion that was the anger that Zipper knew about Ellen’wyn. He had been betrayed countless times. His life a nightmare of enemies assaulting from all sides and now Zipper. He wasn't cut out to be her underling, he despised her too much now.

Without a word he walked away. He would fuck Zip just has she fucked him. Toryvn would be his new boss tomorrow and Zipper could continue to eat the shit out of buttcrack for all eternity for what he cared.

Eyes on the back of his head and hand resting on the hilt of his magical sword, all he expected now was to be blasted to his death, but anything was better than listening to the vile scorn of a woman's whose heart had turned black long ago.

[Gangui]

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The resulting moments where crucial one’s indeed.

Just when he thought he was starting to make head way with his own discipline, he erupted like a Sirothellian volcano.

Bounding towards the point of mustering, Gangui called upon whomever among the men-at-arms where ready to go. The piercing glare of his intense wrath was a telltale sign. No explanation need be offered. Four of them jumped up at the ready and followed.

Armed with tooth and nail, loyalty and courage followed in his wake. They ran upon the exit of the compound following Zipper.

Gangui had been dragged through the shitter enough by this woman.

He wasn’t going to allow a “double-crosser” in his midst. She had spied on him. She spied on Ellen’wyn. Something deep inside told him that Zipper would lead to Ellen’s death. The fiery beauty had nothing to do with all this. She was innocent.

Gangui always went with his gut feeling when he could not muster the logical comprehension. Action was better than no action. Righteous momentum is all that would save them from the moral disease that had infected the glorious state. This breach in trust with Zipper was something that he had not calculated in his mind. It was one thing to deal with the disgusting eels out in the field, but it was another thing to rest your head next to such dishonor.

Catching up to her, the warrior wasted no time interrupting her departure, “Fiona Zippomaria O’Connor!” Gangui hollered as he marched in long strides towards her, brandishing open sword in hand, “You are under arrest for espionage against the Black Guard!” He didn’t care who was listening anymore.

“Stop in the name of the law!” He echoed righteously and waited patiently. Anticipating a flurry of magic, he kept one hand on the hilt of his magic weapon until she made her next move.

[Zip]

“What.”

Irritation, surprise, and a desperate prayer upon the altar of her tolerance all poured into one single, loudly spoken word. It was all she could muster in the single trill where everything went to shit. Gangui was erratic, loud, and had the social grace of a bull in heat, but this sudden, hostile grasp for her attention was of a new sort.

She didn’t like new when it came to him. She didn’t like it when he started to think. “Thinking” being an inadequate word to describe his lack of brain matter. It tended to have the opposite effect of what the word would imply.

She eyed the four men blocking the exit; tall, strong, armed, and able enough with the blades they carried. They would no doubt be able to easily subdue her should she resist.

In a land of opposites maybe. In a land where Zipper wasn’t the top etherist amongst the few serving under the Ministry of Advisors.

She stared at the steel in their steady hands, the armour so proudly emblazoned with that loathsome, ridiculous turkey sigil. Even with all this ridiculousness, still somehow Gangui was alive and successful. It boggled her mind to death sometimes.

“Now, what.” she said, turning around fully to match stares with him. “What new game is this? Do I get to know to know the fuckin’ rules or are we making them up as we go along?”

“You heard me, Zipper” Gangui rumbled with his sword now pointed at her face. It was the first time he had directly threatened her. “You’ve been overreaching your power, time to pay for the consequences. You’ve been spying on me and innocent people. That’s a gross violation of the principles of our great society. Or laws if you prefer a simpler term. What do you have to say for yourself?”

There was silence for a few trills, and when it was clear this was indisputably not an attempt at some kind of extravagant joke, she considered for a moment lying to him; telling him she had seen them exiting a tavern or entering the state’s tower and getting rejected by the immigration minister or the time they went to Sunnyslope or any number of other too-public interactions in too-public areas. She would spin a story of a concerned onlooker chancing upon the pair and leaving them their privacy, and assure him that whatever their disagreements, she would never, ever break the concord of privacy that was afforded to him in his insane fantasy world. She would swear upon the ether, the free market, and whatever twisted, primitive Foster ideologies these port-folk slaved under and she would end it on a rare, heartfelt smile.

She also considered a second course of action: fuck it.

Guess which one she went with.

[Zip]

“I say I’m going to walk out that door. I would advise you to make it happen.”

“If you submit,” Gangui bellowed, his mustache fluttering, “you probably won’t be executed, but if you murder my men openly, you will be drawn and quartered, and I will distribute your limbs across the city to remind everyone the price of betrayal.”

That wouldn’t do; it would make Torvyn a very happy man to get her out of his non-existent hair.

“I do submit,” she said, nodding along mockingly. “I submit your applications, your formal requests, your permits, your applied subsidies, and your-”

“I’m sure there is someone waiting in line right after you to fulfill that position right? Isn’t that how bureaucracy works? A long line of people waiting for their turn at power?” His face full of anger at her mannerisms, “Nay. I don’t care for your position. Right now, justice will be served,”

“That long line of people will not take too kindly to the hanging of an official government-” she stopped herself. She wasn’t going into his web of semantics; he was incapable of looking past the five things he knew in life. “And who I am to get in the way of justice, Mister Gangui? Go on. Have at it. Shout it for the world to hear.”

The warrior’s eyes lit up offended, “I’m not going to hang you Zipper-”

“Praise the gods! I’m saved!” The mockery in her voice contained no enthusiasm.

“But you will face a judge for your crimes,” He looked at her now in disdain, “Why does it always seem like you are so damned smart, but lack a drop of common sense? Come on.”

“A judge in the pocket of the bureaucracy, Mister Gangui.” More of her mocking nodding, but now she added the wag of a finger. “No, no, this won’t do. This will not be a fair trial in your favor, my friend. Is that not another way to see JUSTICE,” She spun around suddenly to shout that word in the face of the four Turkeys behind her. To their credit, only one of them jumped. She returned her gaze back to Gangui and shrugged. “Done.” The word was as much a condemnation as any swear she could muster.

[Zip]

“Yes, I have no power over the choice of the judge Zipper,” Gangui almost laughed, but held his composure, “But I have the power of honor, meaning, the moment you don’t comply with me, is the moment you lose the power of the state bureaucracy to back you. Why are we spelling this out verbally? I told you lacked common sense.”

His thoughts might have came from an errant track, but he was not wrong about one thing: ignoring even the miles of paperwork it would take to sort out the mess of Gangui Munzorig, she could not afford any more major failures to Master Torvyn’s face. The bounty was a huge embarrassment on her part, even if someone on high had eventually came through on it - and a repeat on that would be unacceptable. The moment the Sons did the bare minimum to bypass the contractual clause and find the proper, stable footing in Foster’s, she was out and into the wind, away from this port hell with its archaic customs and horrible people.

She needed to move to that stability soon, with or without this madman.

Now more than ever, she considered refunding Noth the 300 GN and letting his talons find the neck of their collective problem, his more so than hers… were it not for the fact that the half-avriel had already failed in open combat against the moustached warrior. A hand lost, so the stories went, and a Gangui alive so the facts told. She didn’t even dare contact him even with the matter of Vorval settled until she had a satisfactory offer on the table to sweeten the deal.

“As you say, Mister Gangui.” she said, not even trying to make sense of what he had just said. “As you say. You are absolutely correct and I am completely at your mercy” She wasn’t completely sure where she was going with this, but she felt it, felt that little crack at the end that would drive him somewhere where she could get this shit out of the way of a very long, very unpleasant season. “-but a judge will not find me guilty, Mister Gangui, for a task by which my job requires. No, this is a matter of principle and must be settled thusly. The law will give you no reprieve there.”

[Zip]

The leader of the paramilitary faction finally showed some signs of unease on his face, the boiling anger rising in his eyes, “We could have a Trial by combat. It is in the contract.” She blinked - and then remembered: disputes of a personal matter to be settled by duels should needs arise.

Suddenly his face dropped just as quickly as it rose, the voice of reason interrupting the fury of the madman in Gangui’s mind, “But, Zipper. Our men shouldn’t die over this…”

She turned to the four men behind her. “Honorable men,” she said, she half-stopped herself from laughing and failed badly. “I am a frail woman who works with paper rather than cold, biting steel and your leader has demanded that I defend myself against his blade. Please save me!”

“I have demanded nothing of the sort!” Gangui said, “I am done with this, guards take her away, lock her in the jail-house!” The usual abrupt reaction to darted words. The idiot’s ego was more sensitive than a wounded cock dipped in salt. That’s what got her in this mess in the first place.

One of the Turkeys moved forward to apprehend her, though stopped and stared at his unmoving comrades, then at Gangui, then back again when he saw no one else join him. Whether they feel uneasy moving on what they believed to be a superior from the big city or had apprehensive thoughts about this whole deal, she couldn’t really care.

Gangui scowls and puffed, “Do I gotta do everything myself?” He stepped forward, still armed, “Turn around Zipper, put your hands on your head and kneel down on the floor. Submit!”

“I will not spent a single night in a jail cell,” she asserted, her gaze steely, any mockery in it vanished. “If you want your Trial by Combat, it will have to be this trial - I am no warrior though, and I hope your men will find some morale in you cutting down a woman-”

“I said submit” hatred and anger flashed on his face and he poked his sword at her and her anger rose to a tempest, no longer held back by tedious mockery. She slammed her head into the point of the sword and the tip chipped right off from the impact, her immunity oweing to the Steel quality she consumed combined with a little bit of quick corrosion making it seem like she had just headbutted off his sword.

“I submit a lot of paperwork,” she said, baring her teeth. “But not to you. Trial by combat today, fearless leader.”

“Very well! Who is your champion?” Gangui said immediately, no second guessing required.

[Zip]

“I name Brandon the bard,” she said.

“B-b-brandon the bard!!? That’s preposterous! He would never champion you and he can’t fight!” Gangui bellowed, blinking in disbelief.

“Neither can I,” she said. “But here I am forced into a position to choose either a minstrel who will not champion me or warriors inferior to yourself.” she looked back at the four turkeys apologetically. “No offense.”

“Don’t lie, we all know of your… capabilities, so why don’t you stand for yourself then Zipper?” Gangui said. It was no secret to him her handiwork in a fight. She had displayed her power to him at the Inverted noose in Vhalar.

She pressed a hand to her chest and gasped in astonishment. “Mister Gangui, I make trinkets and find wonders in the world. Some small talent does not a warrior make.” She turned to the Turkeys again, her captive audience to play off her jibes. “To accuse me of-”

“Lies! You’re always lying!” Lifting the sword up, he backhanded swung it at Zipper. She didn’t even lift up her hand to block or throw herself out of the way. Her eyes deadened fully a split trill before the sword smashed fully against her head and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces that rained down all over the ground. The Turkey men gaped and pointed, and their hands went to their swords.

“Witch!” one of them said. “She’s a witch of swords! The steel dies by her chant! Hang her!” Gangui motioned for them to calm down before continuing into a tirade.

“See men!” Gangui said looking at the Turkeys, “She didn’t even flinch,” He tossed the handle on the floor, the only thing that remained from the steel weapon, “She’s a sorcerer! See that? She’s a liar. She’s been playing us!”

He unsheathed the magical sword now, and the way she involuntarily flinched at the sound and sight of that one must have told him everything he needed to know: he could hurt her with that one. This must have been thrilling for him: a lone man raising a magic weapon against a dragon to he had to slay for the good of the people. “She hides under the guise of a woman, but is actually a monster! She might have transmuted her own appearance in order to seem more innocent. We will never know, but we do know that she’s been lying about everything and spies on innocent families. She has no honor.”

[Zip]

“I swear I’m not a man.” she said, putting up her arms as if in defense of his words. Again, she turned to her Turkey audience who were, for the first time, much, much less divided over who to side with. “Yet I will use none of the imagined sorceries Gangui seems to think I possess in this fight. I make trinkets; I am no more a beguiling serpent than the honest smith.”

The warrior expression widened as he looked around trembling in anger at her words, “Were you born with a serpent’s tongue and cannot speak truth even when it’s been revealed to everyone around you?”

Her hand touched her chest again. “Do you not see the proud element makers defending our harbor from pirate scum,” After what Robin did to her brother, this was the one bit of condescending bullshit that truly galled her to say. “Just as the the waters caress them, so too does steel protect me.” And even without that incident, to compare the sentimentality of her magic to the Rawr Rawr thump thump of Defiance was vomit-inducing. Sages did not sit at the same table with monkeys. “When he cuts me down in the Trial by Combat ahead, you will all know you have condemned a true servant of our great city to - HAHAHAHAHA.” Zipper’s laugh was her to the very core: loud, monstrous, and haughty. This whole thing was absurd at every step of the way. “I can’t. I fuckin’ can’t anymore. Let’s just do this, Mister Gangui.”

It was a joke crafted by a jester who thought himself king.

But she was going to show him what a real punchline looked like.

[Gangui]

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“What we are fighting is a spiritual battle." Gangui said to the men in response to Zipper. "It might sound funny at first, but it's real." He felt death coming over the horizon, it even showed in his face. Zipper, on the other hand, seemed to be treating this like a particularly unpleasant nail-cleaning session; good, her overconfidence would, if he played him right, earned him some ground.

The warrior had nerves of steel, but even his discipline would be drawn to its limits. The air between Gangui and Zip was tense. Everyone knew that a confrontation would eventually occur between the two. Not so quickly as anticipated though impeccably timed nonetheless. The consequences for losing such a battle with the mage went beyond his own death.

"Good versus evil is real. Pain is real. They will try to convince you otherwise. But remember that you must remain steadfast and resist the psychological inoculation. If you are not aware of these things, they will seize victory. We need to win even in my death, so call together all your courage!" Gangui yelled these words in a last ditch effort to impart some final wisdom upon his disciples. He also used this little tirade to buy enough time to plot his strategy in the trial by combat.

"This is our last opportunity in our timeline to save our liberty. You must keep pushing -- in honor -- and let the human spirit will guide the way. All you need to do is follow the principles. Liberal Pahrnism is what started this great nation and aligning yourself with this will eventually lead us all to the promised utopia without the Immortals! I have my experience men, but what drives this is the energy you bring to the table each and every day, even if I am no longer with us!”

“Even?” Zip said with a small laugh. “My patience certainly isn’t with us anymore.”

Maybe now he was finishing, "I say all this to you as it is my duty to train you in the best manner I can and laying you out the truth that is Turkey Co and our Justice movement." Gangui took a deep breath, knowing that no matter how much he talked it would never help him personally figure out the situation he had brought upon himself.

Indeed a trial by combat was legal in this situation. Everyone double checked. Gangui squared up with Zipper, prepared to battle. His muscles stretched and his anger harnessed.