Hera (Implied)

((The formatting, somewhere along the line, got...well, bent all out of shape. Centered the alignment of some paragraphs, for example >-> *Shakes fist at Firefox* Hopefully, it doesn't make it too much of a chore to read.))

Anywhere that houses people, for a while, starts to take on a life of it's own. In a way, the wood and walls themselves mold themselves to their occupant. The owner and the roof that sits above his head soon seem to share a personality, a peculiar sort of connection between bricks, boards, and blood--with never a word passed betwixt the two. It hardly hurts when one is a mage, as well. When the boarder is within, the home truly comes to life; an individual in it's own right.

And when the people are scarce, the house abandoned? Like a seashell on a beach, the form remains, but the presence and warmth of it's life has vanished.

Normally, at least.

The rules of his existence were simple things, truly.

He could not leave the bounds of the Woods. He could not deliberately destroy the fabric of the prison that held him, though he'd found ways around that precept quickly enough. And, after a daring, rigged gamble, he was no longer allowed to harm Poet when the feeble rhymecrafter entered his domain. Infuriating checks to his power, stumbling blocks at his feet. Chains that held him at barely a fingertip's distance from what he deserved.

But they change. Bending. Tonight, I break them.

Jakobus tensed as the shadow pushed himself lightly away from the wall, slowly walking to the center of the small clearing the scholar had found himself in. Surrounded by decrepit buildings, the stench of piss, and a variety of unsavoury sounds, he felt himself almost engulfed by the living, breathing creature that was the Row – not merely a region of the city. From atop several of the surrounded houses he could make out the glint of steel meeting the sunlight, and here and there the creaking of a bow held at tension and the cocking of hammers. Troublesome, indeed.

A stray piece of paper growing more ragged by the day that seems to float around Nagrand in the general vicinity of Clan Watch.

A young elf thrashes against a wooden floor like a thing gone mad.

I smile, tucking my note into the frame of her mirror before snatching my stave. A glimpse of bright green eyes and the flash of my grin dart across the glass as I limp towards the door. I know I'm smiling like an idiot. Hopefully, she'll be doing the same soon enough, when she returns.

Moving quietly and having a gimp leg tend to be mutually exclusive activities. Stands to reason.

Doing it in the dark, with only the smallest of glows from the decorative crystals in the room to guide you whilst you hobble about? Or the wane light of the pre-dawn peeking through the curtains? Peak of idiocy. Invitation to disaster.

That is, unless you've had years upon years to practice.