I’ve been itching to write something like this for ages and just didn’t but I’m gonna do it now. Heads up for sylvari and also Mordremoth being a shitter as if Elder Dragons are ever not shitters.
I’m basically bored and want an excuse to write about one of my favourite stupid Soundless characters and what probably happened when he heard the call go out.
Truly, Lion’s Arch was starting to get back onto its feet. The city’s renovations had done wonders for the tourism industry; a fact that both amused Rasiel and left him questioning how half of these people had even survived Scarlet’s vicious onslaught across the Tyrian surface.
A bigger and better Lion’s Arch, they claimed. Hah. A likely story; all that had really happened was the big merchants that had been able to salvage any remote kind of business had since come back, and come back in style. From the ruins of a city they had plucked gold from any poor sap they could, and from there they had gone on to build this glorious little empire.
Not that he minded much.
As a self-proclaimed master thief, after all, good business was always good for him. Rasiel thrived when money was being made, because only when business was good were more valuable items exchanged. More risky moves in the game of merchant’s chess, when the merchants felt their wallets were fat and times were on their side once more. Rasiel would have been positively stupid not to firmly establish himself in Lion’s Arch once the renovations had been completed.
Reckless though he was, stupid he was not.
Midday was a considerably busy time of day for the thief. Perched atop one of the many rooves that overlooked the likes of the Asura gate collection leading to the other main cities, Rasiel let his gaze flicker to and from each person in turn. Some coming, some going; a few faces he even thought he recognised. His goal was little more than to find a target he could knock into and nab from as he did so, perform the good old “bump shoulders” technique that was still so much more successful than it had any right to be.
And upon spotting one such target, the sylvari hopped along from roof to roof with a grace so natural he made it look almost too easy. The day was, frankly, as good as business had been.
It did not remain that way.
“A... A-are you all right? Sir?”
Rasiel blinked once. Then twice. Droplets of honey orange sap dripped from a cut on his forehead, likely gained from where he had fallen so ungracefully to the hard concrete of the street. It was, however, less of a bother to Rasiel than the sickening feeling within his very core.
Without even needing to think much on it, Rasiel could have described it as feeling diseased.
The sylvari looked up at the unfamiliar face of some human, who was in turn staring at him with some funny mix of perplexed concern. Was it the fact he was bleeding? Maybe it had been because he’d fallen out of the godsbedamned sky.
He’d been vaulting from roof to roof, happy and content to follow his chosen victim for the afternoon and work out a bit more about them, when something had changed dramatically. Soundless as he was, Rasiel had not once heard the voice of any sylvari unless they had verbally spoken. Had not felt any emotion besides his own.
So to hear a song mid-jump had been terrifying. The song hadn’t just been some music, either, but instead had been like some physical sensation manifesting from an ungodly, deep rumble. His whole being had reacted to the sound, thought, whatever it had been. One moment, Rasiel had been content and half way through a jump. The next he had been robbed of thought and had dropped like a stone, fighting the feeling of vines wrapping around whatever soul a sylvari could be called to have and frankly wondering if he might have been suddenly drowning.
“Sir?”
Rasiel blinked again. “... Can I help you?”
“I... um, no. N-no, not really, I just wondered if you were doing okay. You’re bleeding.”
Moving to stand, Rasiel winced at how his very body seemed to groan a little. “I have never been better. Well, no, that’s not true, I have definitely been better,” he answered then, and although he dug deep to try and find his usual charming tone, there was a quiver in his voice that he couldn’t manage to kill. The human likely noticed it, because she gave him a brief stink-eye for his initial lie and then looked suspicious of any motives he may have had. To try and reassure her, he raised his hands up, fingers spread in a manner of sheepish defeat. “Been a while since I slipped off a roof.”
“Right. Yeah,” she countered flatly. “Well, uh. I’ll be going then, if you’re okay.”
And as she left, Rasiel knew for a fact she’d muttered about how sylvari were all much too weird and that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if they just generally ceased to exist altogether.
Perhaps what was worse than hearing the insult, in that moment, was the fact Rasiel found himself agreeing with it for a reason he couldn’t explain. Yet he did, as the dread swelled in his stomach and he brought one hand to his head. He agreed. Something terrible was happening, had just happened, and Rasiel could not shake the sudden and sickening feeling that sylvari were at the very heart of it.
Please tell me I’m not the only thief this happens to. :’C
Or maybe it is and I’m just bad. Regardless, enjoy!
(I haven’t linked the WHOLE video because I can’t imagine my poor editing or bad taste in music is something anybody wants to watch. But hey, if you want to.
So I happened to record some PvP matches recently because I’m just derping about in a new video editing program and also making posts about it on another forum.I don’t profess to be any good at thief but these matches I felt I did really well bar a few fuck ups. This... this being one of them.)
