• Mature • Expectation vs. Reality

[Kasoria]

14th trial, Saun, 721
Westguard
Dawn

It ended as he knew it would. Without forgiveness, but not without some kindness. As much could be allowed, anyway.

As much as he deserved.

He died badly, that must be said. Whatever composure and grace he swore to himself he'd show in the last walk deserted him when the lonely, immutable sight of the gallows and noose rose before him. Silhouetted against the clear dawn sky, rising light slowly waking up the world. Mayhap he realized that this, this would be the final dawn he would see. This light, these suns, he would not see them set. Not with eyes that had sight, anyway.

"No... No no no nononono..."

He struggled, after that. Refused to walk. Tried to lean back into the two guardsmen flanking him, until they had to drag him across the dusty ground, kicking feet tears furrows into the ground as he went. His voice cracked and he was sobbing before he climbed the stairs. Well... carried, more accurately. He tried to hold onto the railing, and had to be pulled off it. He was crying without shame, tears dribbling from his nose and cheeks. His eyes cast around the crowd for some shred of liberation.

The scarce parcel of beings that had come to bear witness had no promise of that. They saw the brand above his ear, and many had been to his trial the previous trial. They knew what he was, what he did, the blood he had on his hands. Some had friends and even kin that had set forth from Westguard, and simply never returned. Their names and descriptions of their faces had fallen from his lips, the day before. Those few, that knew he was to blame for their worlds' being darker and lonelier places, because of his greed and callousness, stared back at him with stark, hungry hatred.

Justice being done. The ugly end of it. But not without procedure, prudence, and reason.

The condemned man's eyes stopped on one in particular. One intimately familiar to him. This... this almost made him laugh. How many men had he killed? A dozen? Less? Always in service of a robbery, never for enjoyment. It was just... business. Work. Some men farmed fields, he farmed the roads of Etzos. A man had to eat, didn't he? But that man, the one who looked up at him now, had hundreds of souls waiting for him beyond The Crossing. A battalion of damned bastards eagerly awaiting him. Yet he was not up here now. It was just him.

Where was the justice, there?

"Please... please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

The hood was the worst of all. Then he felt the noose slip over his neck, and the darkness had seemed like a blessing instead. Thick and cold, it hung about him like lead. He couldn't breathe. He was already choking, he was sure of it. The sentence being read out was just noise, white and jagged, muted by the blood rushing in his ears. Then, a flare. Light above and beyond the burlap over his face. The sun. Cresting the rude wooden and tile roofs of Westguard.

He wanted to see it. Just one more time. Please. One more-

His mouth opened, and the words never came. The lever was pulled and with the vanishing of the floor-

CRACK

There's the kindness.

Kasoria blinked once as he heard One Ear's neck snap. A clean drop, that. The hangman knew his job. To end life, not to prolong suffering. The bandit wouldn't be kicking and choking and puking and shitting for trills or even bits. He was already dead, long before he would stop swaying. People were already walking away. Sentence carried out. Judgement delivered. Justice earned.

Kasoria nodded, then turned away. He brought the man here. Spared him a knife through the heart, the wild but fair justice of the wilderness, so he could be brought before an authority Etzos had empowered. A strange thing for him to do so, and he knew it. So did everyone watching. But still he had, and kept an eye on the prisoner the rest of the way to Westguard. But even after he'd been taken off to trial and (of course) execution... he supposed he should see the ending.

You wanted to change, so you did. But you own all that change. The good and the nasty.

Now he had, and he'd not think of it again. Not when he had a son to see, and a life to live anew.

[Kasoria]

He had dreamed of this. For the trials and seasons and cycles and arcs leading up to it, this last walk had brought him peace in slumber. He didn't twitch or sweat. Old enemies and frozen dead faces did not trouble him. The world, his world, of pain and fear and blood and darkness, fell away. There was sun and light above the cottage. The smell of cooking food and the sound of simple living from within. The only thing missing was a woman who loved him and he loved in return. Jessye and he, well... that was never going to be their arangement. Carnal from time to time, maybe, even affection and respect forged from shared past and shared love.

But the object of that love... that made this place home. More than home. More than bricks and thatch and domesticity. It was his objective. His motivation. His guiiding light no matter how dark the path became. He had crawled through a mountain of corpses and dragged his scarred body through burning glass to reach there. Always he had been sidetracked, waylaid, distracted. Cast as a player in someone else's designs.

Yusef. Sintra. Parhn. Among others.

No more. No longer. Never again.

Kasoria thought the words and smiled. Really smiled. With no hint of dark enjoyment in the showing of his teeth. He walked the dirt road and felt the Raggedy Man slip from him with every step. The weight of the past lightening as he approached. So much that for a moment he cast his black eyes about, sure there was some trick or trap. Maybe this was but another dream, and he'd awake in his dilapidated home, in the Underground, on some nameless field between civilization.

"Mama?"

But he didn't. He heard his son's voice, and the sound did not shatter the world into glass and send him gasping to reality. He stopped before the doorway and collected himself.

This was real. This was happening. Now.

"... shite. Okay..."

Three arcs. That was how long he'd been away. Had he really changed so much? Did it matter? The world had changed. Everything had changed. Etzos was... unrecognizable. As he reached for the door, he saw the glimmering wink of ether slithering about his arm. That constant shift and slide of his Transmutation mutation, forever prowling under his skin. He blinked and remembered his eyes were jet black, from tear ducts to his pupils. There were scars on the back of his hands... that were eyelids instead. Martyn would stare at them... and after a while, they would stare back.

You're a monster, old man. Like they always said you were.

Fingers questing for the door latch curled into a fist. He beat down those mocking words, the hands seeking to drag him backwards. Fates, it would be so easy to just walk away again. At first, anyway. The path of least resistance was always the easiest, after all. Clue was in the name. But within a dozen paces he'd feel that gnawing loss yet again; a dozen more, and he would stop, turn... so he didn't bother.

You've been across the world and back. You have scars and stories for him. You don't need to leave again. Nothing's left to drag you back.

"Find your fuckin' balls, old man," he growled to himself, reaching out again. "Time to act like a bloody-"

"-forget to pick up... the..."

The door swung open so fast and hard he barely got a chance to blink. Someone close to a stranger stood there. With his son's face and eyes and hair, but... taller. But quite a bit. Almost taller than himself. Filling out across the stomach and arms, in clothes he hadn't seen before that looked oft-repaired and enlarged. The boy turned to the doorway and his confusion was quickly replaced by shock-

"... Father?"

This. This moment. For however long it lasted, Kasoria cherished it. He dared to let the smile spread across his face. To hear just that one word from that one soul in all Idalos. It was returned. Disbelieving eyes suddenly alight, seeping down into a smile that came with a confused snort, as if he couldn't believe it either and then just as Kasoria stepped forwards-

His son stepped back.

Afraid.

Eyes darkening.

"R... Raggedy Man."

And like that, the dream was over.

[Kasoria]

"Who've you bin talkin' to?"

Which, of course, was the perfectly wrong thing to say. No shock, no confusion, no blinking, stuttering blankness. Just cold anger and a growled demand for information. Exactly what one would expect something like "the Raggedy Man" to say. And Kasoria realized this. He saw the realization harden in his son's face, enlightenment bringing a creeping horror, and he suppressed his own despair. Because he'd left this behind, damnit! He had! And now it was chasing him out to the one place he had kept clean-

"Answer me!"

Martyn started as if struck; flinching at the one-two impact of the words barked at him. Now Kasoria could see his mistake, through the haze of anger and the silent fear it grew from. The boy was bigger now. Taller, broader, arms starting to thicken up and face losing much of the fat it had before. Not just because of the war and the lean arcs after, either. He was becoming a man... but he was still standing before his father. The man who had put him on his arse before, who could move with more strength and certainty than he could dream of.

The man he realized he'd known nothing about. Nothing true.

Kasoria saw his mistake, but when he stepped closer-

"Martyn? Martyn?!"

He bolted. Ran for the back of the cottage like a rabbit. Kasoria growled for a moment and stepped inside, kicking the door closed behind him. He could barely hear the footsteps pattering over old wood. The blood in his ears drowned out all else. He tossed down his traveling page without even looking; stomping and stalked after his son, feeling like an invader, and intruder in this place that should have... should have...

"Gods fuckin' damn you, boy, who've you bin-"

He turned the corner and came to a room that was painfully white. Everything was... blinding, in its sterile perfection. Not all of it, though. The floors and the walls, they were the same stone and wood as before, the same with the thatch roof and wooden rafters, but everything that could be touched or sat on or reclined against... white sheets, well-cleaned. A bed occupied the center of the room, with white sheets and white pillows and in the middle of it...

"Kas?"

Kasoria stared at a woman so diminished from the vision of his memory that he almost staggered. Her cheeks were hollow. Her eyes quick and bright but... sunken. Tired. So tired. Every breath seemed to rasp as it came out, dry as old paper. She was shuffling and pushing herself upright, somewhere between angry at the commotion and frightened for her son. Martyn, though, was not afraid.

He moved in front of them. Blocking Jessye from view.

"Jess, what-"

"Get out." The words came out spiteful and short, biting and venomous. "Leave us alone."

He took a breath. Held it. Reminded himself who this was. Old, bone-deep instincts to intimidate and break this young pup had to be forced down. He had to ignore the impulse to let his manner and gaze turn reptilian, sliding his black eyes over the boy in a way that told him just how little his threats counted. But he didn't. This was his son. He would not, could not think of him that way.

But the point remains.

"What's wrong with 'er?"

"None of your concern."

"Dun' test me, son-"

"Kas!"

As is so often the way in these things, it took the one cool, feminine head in the room to restore some kind of order. Even if it was the order that an absence of further hateful words could produce. Both men turned to see Jessye up the side of the bed, swinging legs so thin Kasoria almost winced. This was... there was a word for it... advanced. Whatever ailed her was eating her alive, chewing up muscle and mass and all the vitality in here. But when she spoke, both men listened. They knew of old that tone in her voice, when she was past being polite... not that she ever bothered with that for too long.

"Mum, you need to-"

"Quiet! I know bloody well better'n you how sick I am, an' whatever y'think of this man, he is your father. An' while this's still my home, you'll not be actin' the man of it. Not yet!"

Trapped between boy and man, Martyn stewed. Kasoria knew well that look; every man did, when he got old enough. That frustration, that seething, restless aggravation that the world wouldn't just shut up and listen! But even as Martyn balled his fists and scowled, he couldn't hide the fear and the worry leaking out of his eyes. Everything about him softened the moment Jessye spoke. It hardened up again, when the word "father" came up (good luck with that, old man), but still... he was a boy who loved his mother. Who cared for her and tended for her.

Who's had to watch her die for fuck knows how long... alone.

"Martyn?" Nothing. Just the boy's back facing him, so he made his voice softer than he had in years and tried again. "Son-"

"Don't-" Martyn spat the word over his shoulder. All softness gone. All prickly anger and disgust bleeding from his eyes. "-call me that."

"Martyn-"

No more words, not from man nor woman, could hold him back anymore. He stomped over to the back door and tore it open, heavy steps betraying the muscle he'd put on... or at least Kasoria hoped that was it. He'd gone through a chunky phase himself and he didn't wish that upon his boy. The door crashed behind him and the odd though was vanquished. Just the two of them now. Jessye already breathing heavy from her angry words, resting herself back on her back with a wry, dry chuckle.

He helped her. Flitted across the wooden floor and how quickly, how naturally the impulse came to him... it surprised him. He held her arm and helped her down the rest of the way, every wince and hiss of pain seeming to make him flinch in hidden places. Finally, Jessye was at rest. She smacked her lips and like a flash, a cup of water was before her. She chuckled again and he watched her drink. Sip. Barely.

"Jess..."

"Aye... I know..." She was tired and wasted and dying... but those eyes were undimmed by all. Enough to make him smile back at the ghost of a smirk on her face. "Probably not what youse were expecting, huh?[/googlefont]

[Kasoria]

"We couldn't stay. It was suicide. I knew that before most 'round here... 'cause of you, I think. You always told me, be ready to move. Be ready to run. Have bags packed and money ready so you could just go, whenever the time came. Just... never expected it to be a fucking Morty an' her army a' monsters. More..."

She paused. Flicked the man sitting next to her a meaningful yet almost apologetic look. More like him, she meant. Someone who would gut a mother and son like animals at the market, without even a hitch in his breathing. The man didn't correct her. He just listened.

"You remember what it was like. The panic. The rumors. Then people started flooding in from the south, and all the nightmares were real. A fucking Morty was leading an army into Etzos, and she was destroying everything. Not like men would, though. With poisons and plagues and monsters... stuff that killed the land, not just the people. The magic... we had mages in Westguard. For a while, they couldn't do anything. Not a spark. Not a whisper. I noticed that, and when we heard the news a few trials later, I guessed that was when she invaded. An' y'can't fight something close to a god without that shit in yer scabbard."

A coughing fit stopped the next part of the story. The man leaned over and gave her more water. Held her hand steady as she drank, until she slapped away his hand with a fussy snort .

"M'not a... kff... fuckin' invalid, Kas... fuck's sake... anyway... That was two arcs ago. We went west, before most others did. It was... like an adventure, for Martyn. A grand trip, to a whole new city, whole new country! He heard bad things and he was afraid... children don't like big changes. They like order in their little worlds, and new things only on their terms. But he held it in. He didn't want to worry me. He had to be strong for me."

The man caught the silent admonition that she would never dream of making. Because you were not here. She was not his wife nor would she ever be and he had never thought to ask... but that still made his guts twist a little. His son had to cast away so much of his childhood, all the carefree time he should have enjoyed, because of some spoilt fucking mutant... and him. His own father.

"We got to Hiladrith, and... well... we lived. I got a job. So did he, just down the street from me. Ain't gonna waste much breath on that. Wasn't home, but... it was nice, to go somewhere new. Hear a different tongue, y'know? Let the boy see the world beyond Etzos. But we knew we'd come back. S'home, isn't it?"

She paused, caught her breath. He watched the rise and fall of a chest gone from bosomy to skinny, almost flat. Fates, how much had this thing taken from her? He didn't push or prod or even clear his throat. He wanted everything, an avalanche of information if necessary, so he could get after his boy... but he knew better than to pressure this woman. She was so tired. The exertion of talking alone was making her eyelids heavy. She saw him looking and gave a rattling cough.

"Don't fret, Kas... ain't gonna nod off on ya... so... after Hiladrith... well... you just want to know how this happened, don't you?"

She gestured with her thin arms at her body, wasted down from the healthy form he remembered. She was never a large woman. Not fat, anyway. She had curves, as his father would say. Muscle on her arms from a life of hard work, every trial of it. Even in the lean times, she had that heft to her. Now... now he saw someone shrunken away. Being devoured by an enemy they couldn't see, couldn't grasp, couldn't stop. He managed to nod, after a few moments.

"... I dunno when it started. What I got it from. Coulda' been on the road back, or from, or when we returned. Early trials, folks were careful, 'cause it was so... obvious. Dead animals. Dead crops. We cleared it all away, tried again... an' people still got sick. Martyn an' me, we were careful, too. But..."

Something cold and sharp squeezed around his heart. What if...

"I dunno, Kas," she said, reading his eyes like she always could. That same fear brought tears to her eyes for the first time. Not for herself. "I... We tried... Now everything he eats and drinks... I do everything I can, I swear to you-"

He reached for her, and wrapped his hand around hers. She choked back a breath and it wasn't until she heard her name that she met his eyes again.

"I know yeh'd die a'fore lettin' anythin' happened t'him. Always have." There's something under his beard. A twitch that grows into a smirk. Something so trite and minute to ease a fear so great, but it's all he can give her. "None a' this wuz yer fault, Jess."

The woman was silent for a long time. Letting her cold hand warm within his. Finally she let her head sink back to her pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

"Yer gonna need t'fix this with him, Kas. Dunno how, but yeh must." She paused again, but barely. A woman who'd made peace with the most obvious fact of her future, long before she'd stopped blaming herself for the past. "It'll be just you soon. I can... feel it. Every trial, weaker an' weaker. I'm fightin' it, but this... this ain't somethin' I can put off for long."

Kasoria sighed and let go of her hand. Stared at the floor for long moments. Of all the possible nightmares he'd feared upon returning, this one was the worst of all. No enemies to slaughter, no monsters to slay, no petty problem to bribe or intimidate away... this was his son, hating him, and for a damn good reason. For arcs of lies and broken promises. For letting him believe his father was... worth something. Worth admiring. All blown to pieces now, revealed as not just less than the truth, but the polar opposite.

How the fuck are you gonna do that, old man?

Slowly, bones creaking and feeling every trial of his age, he levered himself upright. The sun streamed in bright through the window, telling him there was plenty of the day to go, hot and humid out here in the country. He could smell the heat in the air; hear the sounds of threshing and harvesting from distant fields, and the industry of a town even closer. Westguard was being rebuilt... but some things would remain, he'd wager.

His eyes fell to the hills out the window, and he squeezed her hand one more time.

"I know where he is."

"Kas? Be gentle. Can't bully yer way outta this one."

The little man sighed with his back to her. "Aye. He's a man now. Gotta start treatin' 'im like one..."

Continued here

[Oberan]

Review Rewards

The absentee father

Points awarded: 10

Knowledge: None requested

Magic: No magic exp

Other: N/A


Notes:
And thus, the idyllic life Kas pictured for himself crumbles to dust... a daydream mercilessly shattered by reality.

I loved this thread. It's not a typical Kas thread, and that's why I love it all the more. The entire post of Kas reminiscing builds up the reunion with his family so much. You are with Kas, feeling the same longing he does, dreaming the same dream... only to be rudely awakened at the end of it. A shock. A perfect gut punch, delivered to the Kas and the reader both.

And Kas says exactly the wrong things, unused to being a father, a stranger to his son. They don't know each other. They're not a family. Martyn denies him, refuses to accept him, and it is not something Kas can fight his usual way. He can't slice the problem to tatters with his karambit, or crush it with magic chains. The pain it caused ol' Kas was brilliantly done.

Perhaps Jess can give Kas a crash course in parenting, but even that won't be enough to close the distance between Martyn and the monster that is his father, I feel. There's rough times ahead for Kas, and I am very much looking forward to where you take it next.

The one negative I can think of is that I am uncertain if the first post should have been part of this thread. Don't get me wrong, I loved it just as much as the rest, but I'm not sure if it fits. I think you were setting up a mirroring between the end of the One-ear's life and desperate hope for mercy, and the death of Kas's expected homecoming? The link between the two events wasn't that obvious to me. Maybe I missed something. Either way, I feel it'd have served better as a separate thing altogether.


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