Curiosity ( Broken Knight x Tristeza)

[Tristeza]

It was half past midnight, and the night life was on for a good start. People on the streets, wandering from bar to bar, groups of girls laughing, groups of boys checking out said groups of girls, loud music booming here and there, hammering the ears of bystanders and dancers allike. Not even the cold weather stopped the stubborn party goers from having their fun, some shielded against the wintery wind, others so scantily clad one'd wonder if it was even legal to walk the streets like that.

Past the noise and the neon colors, a feminine figure waltzed through alone, having just sidestepped to avoid being trampled by a pair of drunk jocks. "You cold babe? I got something to warm you up right here!" One of them yelled, her step rushing to get away from them. Stupid college boys. Odds were those two were going to end in her service that night. Alcoolized youths were a dime a dozen in the ER. Not that she was that old herself, but at least Aida knew her limits.

It was only on a less populated bar that the 25 year old nurse stopped. A pink gloved hand pushed the door open, and the warm air of the pub styled bar envelloped her in a welcome she'd longed for even before her shift was over. The day'd been rough, and a distraction was more than welcome. Aida took her regular seat by the counter, taking one stool for herself and another for her things: the dark gray, thick long coat, the pair of pink gloves and a matching pair of earmuffs. Hey, they'd been a present from her niece, and they were warm...

"Hey Aida, no friends tonight?" the bartender asked, leaning on the counter for a moment, watching her get settled. She was a treat of a woman, everything in place, a lovely hourglass figure that was somewhat concealed by the purple wool turtle neck shirt she wore. The jeans shaped her booty just fine though, to compensate. "Nope, tonight's only me. The usual, please." Her hair cascaded in waves to her mid back, dark brown, contrasting with her fair, slightly freckled skin and pale green eyes. The glass of Bailey's presented before her was a welcome sight, her thin lips drawing a sip almost instantaneously. Now that was what she called heartwarming.

 

[Broken Knight]

The wolf, an ex-special forces from the military, sat at the bar. There was at least five feet perimeter around him that no one would get near him. Wolves like him were extremely rare, even in the military where they were simply a genetic soldier. He'd been discharged with honors for 'services in the line of duty', and secretly, any regular human would've been given the medal of honor. He wasn't considered human, something subpar, lesser than.

He had gorgeous black fur, it was meticulously taken care of, his own personal pride. To the touch, it was soft and silky, but there were no female wolves like him. He was a genetic clone, mixed with DNA splicing, a test tube with no mother or father. Bred for nothing but fighting in the army. Now that he was even out, he didn't know what was worse. Being in and yearning for freedom, or being out and yearning for something to do.

The wolf set the small glass down, the ice ringing off of the glass softly. The bartender, with a frown, poured him another glass of whiskey for him to sip. The bar wasn't particularly busy, but it wasn't exactly empty, either. His tail flicks slowly, watching the news on the war on the television in front of him.

The news flicked over to the war, the woman started rambling about how a whole unit of his kind were wiped out, adding that it did not add into the death totals in the war, due to the fact that they were not human in kind and were just the laboratory test tube breeds, without any sort of parents, made by genetic cloning mixed with DNA manipulation.

Upon hearing this, the wolf's facial expression didn't change, but the glass in his paw cracked, the whiskey in it dripping onto the bar. Setting it down on the bar, he gave a sigh, trying to calm himself down.

 

[Tristeza]

It was only after her first taste that Aida's eyes roamed the bar. Other than the blaring tv in front of her and the soft jazz music in the background, there wasn't much noise other than the occasional low rumbling of someone chatting or the laughter of a slightly more lively table. Other than that, not much went on, and the vast majority of the usual crowd were of the older, mature sort. That's why she liked this place. A relative peace where one could lounge without being bothered by stupid young studs. Urgh. But that wasn't the only advantage.

The nurse had noticed him for a couple of weeks now. The massive, muscular form, the black fur that seemed just as soft as velvet even only by looking at it. A wolf, the newest elite soldiers, another miracle of modern science. Aida'd heard about them a while ago on the news, and immediatly her curiosity was sparked, especially given how she hadn't seen any yet! Yet, here the unnamed stranger was, again, just a couple of seats away. When her friends were around, all Aida could do was glance, unable to muster the nerve to speak to him in front of them. Now, her eyes rested on her drink, watching the floating ice as she stirred the glass slowly. To talk, or not to talk...

The annoying voice of the news anchor nudged her attention, raising her gaze to the screen. The way the woman was talking disgusted her. It didn't matter who a soldier was. They were still defending her homeland. They had the right to be treated, if not equally, even better than a standard citizen, just like the other soldiers. Aida took another sip from her glass, shaking her head. "Disgusting idio-"

Her self muttering was interrupted by the distinct sound of glass breaking, instinctively looking at the source. While everyone else remained with their noses on their own business, not even sparing so much as a second glance, Aida was by nature a much kinder heart - and a nurse. Looking the other way when someone got hurt just wasn't part of her persona. Getting up, she approached the wolf softly, gently laying a hand on his arm. "Are you okay?" Her voice was as gentle as her touch, but had a sort of underlying authority she'd gained from her profession. "Do you have a first aid kit, Jack?" The barman nodded, briefly disappearing to fetch the case.

 

[Broken Knight]

The wolf sits there, the shattered glass on the bar. Ignoring it, pouring himself some more whiskey, he sits back down and calms himself down. To know that the whole unit was wiped out and that the better part of the populace that they served largely didn't care was infuriating. Sure, his kind weren't human and they were bred in laboratories, but they were giving their lives for these people. What was worse was that he couldn't do a damn thing about it except drink whiskey and collect the check that the government gave him to live on, because God knows that no human would employ him.

Sitting back down with his drink, he drew in a deep breath. Pouring some more of the whiskey into a new glass, ignoring the mess of glass and whiskey in front of him, he stares at the TV. The news was going on about some accident on the 22 turn pike, but he wasn't listening in the least. The wolf was trying to calm himself down. He was out of that life, but his mind always went back to the flashes of the battle that he'd been honored for. Specifically when the explosive went off right in front of him, striking him in the eye. He had a long scar from brow to cheek bone, his eye destroyed, a patch over it. Even after that, he'd gotten back up, a metal shard sticking from his face, setting the explosive and taking out the bridge. He was the only one that came out of that alive, and he was sure those humans were just as indifferent about their deaths as they were on the news.

When he felt the touch on his arm, he let out a loud growl instinctively. "Yeah, Jack, you got a first aid kit?" He asks, the bartender turning a stark shade of white before shaking his head and making his way to the other end of the bar. When Rio heard her voice talking to him in particular, he stopped growling, tugging his arm away from her. Showing her his hand, the pads of his paw were soft, but thicker than skin, he wasn't bleeding at all. "Don't concern yourself with the broken glass, I'll pay for it." The wolf says moodily, turning back away from her.

 

[Tristeza]

Aida was amazed to see that there was no damage on his hand, but before she could touch it, the wolf turned away. "I wasn't concerned about the broken glass, I was concerned about you." She watched the barman practically flee, the last glance he gave her one that she remarked as being a silent way of calling her insane. Damn, all the talk of tolerance between humans, religion, race, whatever, but not for wolves. Part of her wanted to tell the wolf he'd been wrong at lashing out, but on the other hand, with that treatment... who wouldn't? The nurse sat by the ex-soldier's side, looking down to the counter. She'd been wanting to talk to him for a while, and now was her chance. Even if this wasn't the best of circumstances...

"I'm sorry about your comrades... they should be heroes for their sacrifice for our safety. Anybody else would be..." She knew the pain of losing someone in the war. Her brother, dead after a terrorist attack on a convoy. When he sent news home, he'd talk about the strange wolves, not with the indifference or even hate some people expressed, but with the admiration for someone who carried out their job till the end, and many times saved them all. In the end, her brother had died on duty. One more statistic for the body count. One that the wolves didn't even figure in.

 

[Broken Knight]

"Don't talk to me about my kind and their deeds like you care." He told her rather roughly. She was sitting on his left, so all she could see was his bad, damaged eye. No amount of good nursing could've fixed it, though I might have been nice to not have to pull a piece of metal out of his face on his own. Aida could see from the deep scarring of the tissue from her training as a nurse that it had never been properly treated. It might not have been such a bad scar, had it been cleaned, stitched and bandaged. All he had was a piece of cloth and nothing else. His fellow soldiers had been killed in the line of duty. When he'd gotten back, again for the third time from a suicide mission, the humans were astounded. Truth be told, he wanted to kill each and every one of them, let them die slowly, in cries of agony, just as his own friends had.

A couple minutes passed in silence between the two of them as he sat there, in thought to himself. He'd grabbed a towel and bundled up the shards of glass and cleaned up the bar. Rio sat and watched TV idly, though she was still there. This girl hadn't left yet, and at least she'd cared enough to look at him. Others just stared in disgust, amazement or fear that he'd come to ignore.

"I was there for three years." He says, the silence suddenly shattering with a statement that usually would have been mid-conversation. "That's how old I am, by the way. Old, for a wolf." Rio said sadly. She could hear the tone in his voice, although she couldn't see his good eye to really confirm it. "Practically my entire life, all I did was fight and fight and fight. To my men, I was a hero, to the people and government of Elona, I'm a disgrace. Not a citizen, but not really an foreigner. The small check the government gives me, because God knows none of you humans..." He sighs a little bit at his brash comment, though he doesn't take it back. "...would hire a wolf to actually work, pays for a small apartment, a little food, and my supply of whiskey to keep my thoughts to myself."

"There. Now you know it all. Feel better about coming over here, yet?" Rio asks her, taking a long drink of whiskey, pouring more into the glass once he set it down.

 

[Tristeza]

Aida didn't jump or flinch at his snapping, instead looking up to him, to his blind, destroyed eye. Her medical curiosity compelled her to touch it, to examine it, to see the extent of the damage. Not to treat it. There was nothing she could do at this point, too old a wound, too pointless an effort. Plus she was an ER nurse. Non compliant patients were a dime a dozen, with no time to get phased by them all. And care? Of course she cared. If Aida didn't, she wouldn't be that close, that was for sure. She could feel the fearful eyes of some of the other patrons on the back of her head, but she didn't care. They had settled in their loathing, fear and disgust. Their ignorance. They. Not her.

The silence passed, only cut by the blaring tv and subtle noise of the shattered glass being gathered, while Aida thought about what to say. It was probably odd for him to accept that a human could care about him and his situation. Probably an explanation was due. In her mind, thoughts crisscrossed in a frenzy, trying to piece together her reasons in a way he wouldn't find an offense in her words, for she desired none. The wolf's relationship with humans, though, was most definitely shaky... and it'd do Aida no good to have her conversation cut short because of her lack of tact.

When it seemed she'd gotten it all straight and her lips began moving to form up the words, he began speaking, and Aida's words instantly died before they came to life, listening intently to the low, weathered voice. Three years... and yet he seemed older than most of the people in the bar, herself included. While the majority of the humans would never know the violent reality of war, it'd practically been his day to day living for his short life. Her pale eyes shifted to the glass, her silence lingering as he took his drink and refilled.

"Not really. I didn't come here to feel better about myself, after all." Aida took a deep sigh as she reached for her things and her own glass, taking a sip of Bailey's. "I came to the bar to feel better about myself, but I came to you first to know if you were alright, and then, since you were indeed alright, to talk to you." She shrugged as if it was the most natural thing to do, to go up to a stranger and spark a conversation, but not only was the other person not the most normal type, she wasn't exactly the most talkative either. Professionally, yes, she'd wrestle with bears if need be to do her job. Outside? Well, it was usually her friends that made their late night strolls into this very bar lively and noisy, lets put it that way. "I see you always here by yourself... so I thought I'd join you, since I'm by myself tonight too..." A light blush tinted her pale, freckled cheeks, the half empty glass of Bailey's suddenly a very interesting object to analyze, as Aida's abbility to look directly to the wolf dwindled. "... to keep you - and your thoughts - company. I think I'm doing a terrible job at it though..." The remainder of her glass's content disappeared in one chug, hoping it'd calm down Aida's nerves.