[East] You can count on the Sun to rise.

Akara had taken to wandering. 

Well, he'd taken to it years ago, once destiny decreed that he was no longer bound to his fate in Chiaroscuro. But in an immediate concern, when it came to the festival, he was a-wandering. Akara didn't often get the chance to feel like a member of a community; the danger of returning home was recognition, the hazard of working for the Cult of Illuminated was that he was often sent abroad on his lonesome, to work on his lonesome. Stoic soul that Akara was, it wasn't a thing he often complained about. In fact, most of the time he rather enjoyed not having to trust his decisions and decrees to committee. But sometimes, it was nice to belong. Humans, Exalted or otherwise, were not made to walk Creation alone. That was why they formed villages, in his opinion - and why they held festivals. Festivals where any lonely soul could walk in from nowhere and feel like they belonged, if only for a day.

Akara chided himself forgetting caught up in the concerns and thoughts that aught to be the province of old men - he wasn't old by any stretch, after all! Simply prone to deep thinking. Here he was, in a fine new festival dress, cocoa in his hands, watching the proceedings go on without him. There was nobody to blame but himself if he wasn't having fun.

In about five minutes, Akara had found something to do - spinning about the dance pavilion in the middle of the festival grounds, being passed from handsome stranger to cheerful native. Very few outside of the northern coast of the South had any idea what a dereth was, after all - and this far east, he might as well be any other young woman out to laugh and enjoy herself. Heck, most people this far east hadn't seen anyone with skin quite so brown or hair so black, the norm in these parts tended towards green. Who wouldn't want to dance with an exotic beauty losing herself to jaunty string music? And what more fun was there in a festival in, again, feeling for just one day that you belonged?

Twirled about in the arms of a lanky, busty woman with an intoxicating accent, Akara happened to note someone who stuck out from the proceedings? Gorgeous, with brown hair and black armor, fully armed and looking bemused. Possibly - most likely - another traveler just passing through, but anybody with that kind of armament was worth making a mental note of. In such things, the young peace officer and slightly older Lawgiver were in agreement. Akara might have taken more than a moment to size up the addition if he hadn't had his attention stolen away by a furtive kiss from his green-haired dance partner and been sent spinning away, dizzy and laughing all the while, to enjoy a sweet offered to him by a child intrigued by his exotic appearance and graceful dancing.

In war as at court, even a Solar not trying too hard was bound to make an impression. Akara accepted the treat and fuffed the child's wiry green hair, before bodily scooping him up and taking him onto the dance floor with a cheerful laugh. The woman in armor had already passed from the Lawgiver's thoughts, and would remain so until something shattered the peace he was enjoying so openly. 

The child wasn't a dancer, but what he lacked in skill and capability, he made up for in enthusiasm and joie de vivre. Akara approved, entirely, though it was with a grin that he set the boy down with the intention of enjoying another drink and taking a more passive role in the festival for a bit.

At least until he picked up that wet, 'thunk' sound of a blade sheathed in meat, and meat falling dead to the ground. Screaming. It was a good thing he'd decided to stay in town. Akara sent the boy on with instruction to find his parents and hide, then went looking for the source of the commotion. It wasn't hard to find - the woman in her black armor, standing over the body of a festival patron. She looked like she was having fun.

Akara interposed himself between the woman and the fleeing crowd, adopting the stance of a trained martial artist. His red sash fluttered around his waist, all not-even-five-and-a-half-feet of curvy, pissed-off Dereth tensed and ready to strike. "Drop your weapons and surrender to the authorities immediately." He ordered his stance reminiscent of a snake - balanced on the balls of his toes and ready to strike. "This is your only warning."

His foe brandished metal, bearing graven and threatening imagery - it seemed there would be no peaceful resolution to this murder. Akara took a half step forward, head back, and flourished his sleeved wrists in a half-windmill around himself. Essence flowed through his body, and it went to task - making his strengths stronger.

Finally, standard martial arts posturing compete, he faced the woman with his hands in narrow points like the edges of knives, his movements prenaturally smooth and flexible - mimicking the fluid, striking power of the cobra. Sash and dreads fluttering with wind and movement, eyes narrowed and attentive, focused.

Almost imperceptibly, his forward hand twitched twice in an upwards curl - 'come at me'.

In came the lunge - thankfully, when your opponent was using a sword, you were usually well-served to expect being stabbed. Especially if it was a straight sword. The lithe martial artist flowed around the strike gracefully, his midsection twisting away from the strike just enough to avoid getting his kidney aerated by the woman's brutal attack. That was close! He ended the dodge with one leg off the ground, and closed in on Steel Eyes by stepping forward onto that foot.

His kick came up as his hips turned, the strike aimed for the Abyssal's jaw - it went wide, but the intention was to overwhelm more than skillfully strike, in this case. "I don't know what you are-" He began, his body twisting around on his toes, sash twirling.

The second kick came low, aimed for the woman's ankles - as soon as he'd touched the ground, he'd dipped low, placing a palm on the stony plaza floor and rotating like a dancer. "-but I'll tell you now-" The imperious Dereth promised, as his sweep was skillfully blocked in some appropriately awesome, Abyssally manner. That was fine. He'd striked high, he'd striked low, he wanted her defense to be flustered.

Akara rolled back and to his feet, as quick as a flash, then lept forward. "-these people are under my protection! Begone!" The jab was as quick as a serpent's venomous strike, a jab with those pointed fingers intended to strike the throat, the clavicle, with overwhelming force and speed. Had his opponent been a normal mortal woman, the strike might have felled her where she stood. Had she not been wearing ancient plate armor, it absolutely would have given her pause. But as it stood, even Akara's talented fist wasn't enough to penetrate artifact armor on it's own.

That was fine. He could hold this woman off for hours - maybe days. Hopefully by then, there'd be nobody around worth killing, or a Wyld Hunt would come in to take them out.