• Mature • What We Tell Ourselves

[Kasoria]

11th trial, Vhalar, 722
Westguard

Through the mist, through the twilight, through the sweat and aches and burning breaths, he ran.

Around the rim of Westguard, he was a fleeting figure of pumping limbs and breath coming out in streams. Those up at that early break would flick a glance his way as they saw him. Beforehand, some had paused, their hearts skipping, buckets of water or horse brushes or brooms frozen as they recognized him... but he'd gone pounding past. Maybe afforded them a look, a nod, and little else. Now, after an arc, none of them gave him much thought. Just old Kasoria, making his run.

He saw them, though. All of them. He marked what they carried and what they did. Whether it was different that morning compared to others. If they were alone or with company, and if so, who? Even with his muscles aching and lungs sizzling, he noticed these things. He could not stop himself.

Old habits.

The old man turned a corner around some half-built barn and he was on the home stretch. He had no way to mark the time save for counting, and he didn't feel like boring himself that mightily. It was enough for him that when he stopped, he was still fit for a fight. That was the practicality of his training; the numbers and details were just the dressing. Already he knew this was... an improvement. His bad knee wasn't as sore this morning, and he could guess that when he got to the end of the road to his cottage, his lungs wouldn't take more than a bit or two before he was ready-

Wait.

A shadow grew from the mist outside his home. He recognized he outline before he saw the face but still his body snapped into that higher, colder gear it always went to when he suspected violence. Frankly, he'd expected someone coming for him, after a year living under his own name, no attempt to hide. Some enemy he'd left alive or aggrieved soul related to one he hadn't. But, against the odds, his past seemed to have left him alone.

Yeah. Right.

Kasoria slowed down as he took in the boy standing outside his front door. Close to a man, now. He'd grown an inch or more since he'd come back. The puppy fat he'd clung to for arcs had been burned off him by Army exercises and regular chores. He was running his own house, now. After his mother had died. He'd never asked Kasoria about moving in with him, of course. Kasoria never expected that, but Fates, it still hurt. That his own son didn't want to be close, after losing someone who meant so much to him.

Why would he?

The running man slowed to a jog, then to a walk, as he came closer. Thunder was stamped over the boy's face. If his hair was longer, it would be bristling. His arms were crossed across a chest that was steadily becoming thicker with muscle, although youthful appetite was also to blame. Another arc, maybe two, and he'd have the frame of a man. Taller than Kasoria, broader, with all the litheness and speed he'd kill to have again. No bad knee for Martyn, the lucky brat.

"Why did you do it?"

Kasoria came to a stop and, as expected, his breathing was... steady, but a little whistly. As if there were extra holes the air was working through. Fates, he wanted a smoke, but more than that, he wanted water. Yet his son stood before him and demanded, and he knew what for. He'd been waiting for him for... he'd say at least half a break, since he came over and found he wasn't there. Abandoned his duties and post and... wait-

"Ain't youse on duty?"

"Don't change the sub-"

"S'called desertion, boy, they fuckin' flog yeh fer that if yer lucky-"

"I asked Flightmaster Nader and he said it was find now answer me!"

Martyn was shouting by the time he finished. Even taken a dangerous pace forward, hands balling to fists. Kasoria blinked and sighed. He knew this was coming. Just... not so early. Not right now. He shook his head and walked to the bucket of water he'd left out, and wordlessly dunked his head in it. Icy and shocking and muffling anything else in the world save the blood in his ears and the yell he gave to the water. After a second he dragged his head back out and threw back his wet hair and-

-a hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around. He knew it was his son. He knew he was angry, and had a right to be. He still needed to repress the immediate instinct to put his arse into the mud and break that hand while he was at it.

"I'm talking to you, Kasoria."

The old man looked up into his son's eyes (Fates, he really is sprouting) as cold as his son had ever seen him. It was enough to make the younger man cool for a moment, nd slowly remove his hand.

"Dun' push the fact yer me kid too much, boy. That won't protect yeh forever."

"Is that why you did this?" He didn't touch Kasoria again. Instead he just stood in front of the door when the older man made to go inside. "To punish me? That's why you're forcing me to go with you to Rharne?!"

Kasoria stopped and collected himself. Remembered his words. He'd practiced them, after all. Because he was a planner, despite his own preference to just be a fighter, and he knew how his decision from trials ago would play out. He looked into his son's eyes and spoke them. Told him the first almost-truth of the trial.

"S'fer yer own good, boy. Not jus' mine."

[Kasoria]

Four trials before, Kasoria was picking from the grapevine. So to speak.

"Heard he's off East, join up with Jackman's outfit."

"Round Foster's Landing? Sounds bloody boring t'me."

"Aye, well, apparently things are getting interesting again, if you follow..."

An arc ago, they wouldn't have spoken freely around him. The room would hush if he walked into it. Some curious, unpleasant meld of fear, awe, and disgust. The younger ones saw him as a legend, a dark hero of the recent wars. The older one gave him a grudging, unspoken regard for his services, but remembered what he was before all that. A murderer-for-hire, catspaw of a gangster. The oldest of all, few as they were, remembered him worst of all. Betrayer. Oathbreaker. Soiler of the Black Guard cloak.

Seasons past. Then cycles. Eventually, they got used to him. Like a mangy half-wolf that had made the heart skip once, but now was just... accepted. Some even sat at his table when they ate. Rarely talking with him, save for reports or updates on the recruits. But it was a start. Kasoria had given them terse answers between mouthfuls, grating Oh'Pee accent always grinding against their more cultured tones. But talk he did, and soon they stopped seeing him as quite the monster.

Quite. But never not. Still... means they loosen their lips.

He blew on his soup and took care not to slurp it. He didn't want to miss anything. Andries and LeMark were on Nader's staff, and they always had juicy titbits to offer. Kasoria found he couldn't do much with what mess hall gossip they shared. He was a Mark, after all. Lowest of the low, and unlikely to rise much further. It was a cause of minor confusion, when the upper ranks heard that the chief instructor for a whole garrison was so lowly ranked... until they heard his name. Then it made sense.

"What about Alben? True about him and Geralt's wife?"

"Oh, true and then some. Why do you think he's been shipped off South?"

"Bloody Fates. Into the meatgrinder, eh?"

The Meatgrinder. The Wastelands. Disputed Territories, was the preferred term, but Kasoria knew the first was most accurate. From what he'd heard of the lands south of where Crosston once stood, it was largely lawless. Save for roving patrols and a few garrison camps, Etzori authority was tenuous at best. Between bandits, Morty fanatics, wild animals, and sheer lack of populace to properly inhabit what settlements had been there, the Southlands between Etzos and Rhakros were where recruits feared most to be posted. Chances of combat were high, and so were the casualty rates. The boys who did best in his classes, were usually sent there. To blood their blades and see if they'd truly learned his lessons. Others were to postings elsewhere, safer, slower, even if-

"The Flightmaster might be headed down there, soon."

"Sod off! Where'd you hear that?"

"Courier from the Big Rock. Brought new orders."

Kasoria's spoon froze on the way to his mouth. Nader had a staff. Martyn was on it. Where he went...

"Come off it, unless he saw the orders hisself-"

"He did. Got bored on the ride, snuck a peek." Their voices were lower now, but Kasoria's hearing was keen from a thousand hunts across cobbles and stones where sound could often be deceptive. Ten feet away he sat, and even whispers could be deciphered. And they weren't doing that. "Apparently he'd done so bloody good of a job, they're sending him where the action is."

"Fuck... that means us, too!"

"Ah, now that's where yer wrong. Only a select few, the rider said. They have to move out in a tentrial, so only his closest aides."

"And what's that say about us?"

"Well... if suppose they-"

Wood scraping quick and hash across stone stopped their words dead. By the time they both looked around at the sudden noise, Mark Kasoria was already walking away. Feet pounding fast across the floor, leaving his steaming bowl forgotten behind.

[Kasoria]

"Have you taken leave of your damn senses, man?"

Flightmaster Nader's voice was low and angry but he did not shout. He rarely needed to. His word was beyond contest in the garrison, and if you wore a uniform, you heeded it. So when a man - a Mark, no less - burst into his office, leaving a sputtering clerk in his wake like he wasn't even there, something was amiss. Then he looked up and ah, that explained it. His most effective asset and the bane of his bloody existence, all jammed into one short, compact, black-eyed package.

"Yeh takin' Martyn South wiv' yeh?"

Nader tapped the stylus on the desk a few times as he pondered. He really needed to do something about the gossip. He'd barely had time to read a new batch of orders before they were the buzz of the whole damn Shockflight. He supposed that Kasoria would have been tuned into the talk, too, but never really considered the man caring. As long as he had his duties and was close to his son, he simply didn't care about anything outside of Westguard.

But this takes his son away. So here he is. Without a damn invitation.

"I can understand your concern, Mark," he said, words carrying enough restrained anger to tell Kasoria his courtesy had found its limit. "But the orders come from High Command, and thus from the Citadel itself. If they say I go, if he goes, if any of us go, then we do. That's what orders are all about. Or did you forget you know wear a uniform?"

The man across from him clenched his fists... then loosened them. Much had changed in an arc. When first they'd met, Nader had done his best to have Kasoria beaten bloody and thrown out of the fort. Now there was... something approaching an understanding between them. He'd given Kasoria latitude to train the recruits his way, once he saw his ways worked. He'd been a good teacher to Martyn, and even shared the progress the boy was making. Damn him, but he wasn't a bad man. That way at least Kasoria could properly hate him.

"Sir... he ain't ready fer the South. Some other postin', leastways until he's a man proper-"

"You know what the Southern reaches are, Kasoria. What they have become. We need to get them back under control, and ore men are diverted there every cycle. Progress has been hard, but we're winning. Clearing out the renegades and traitors band by band." Nader paused, voice softening a fraction. "He won't be going into the... meatgrinder, I believe the men call it."

"That's not what they're sayin'."

"Soldier's talk, man. How reliable is that?"

"What outpost?"

"Excuse me?"

"The outpost. Which one are yeh goin' to?"

"You overstep yourself, Mark Kasoria."

The two men glared at each other across the polished wood of desk and floor. Behind Kasoria, the rest of Nader's staff made a big show of working and scribbling and certainly not eavesdropping, oh my, no. He knew his son was out there somewhere. A boy fifteen arcs in the world and handy with a sword but never, never tested in battle. He knew that would not last forever. Martyn wanted glory and to be of service to his people. That meant fighting, and killing. But so soon...

"... it's past Darington, innit?"

Nader didn't say a word. Didn't put down his stylus. Just stared back and didn't give anything away... until his eyes flitted to the window and then back again. His jaw worked uncertainly. Uncertainly! Of all the men in the Shockflight protecting Westguard, this one alone was always certain. But now, faced with this question... Kasoria's mouth slowly dropped.

"That's practically in fuckin' Rhakros!"

"That's enough!"

Now Nader's voice rose, and the man along with it. Hands braced on the table, shoulders hunched, eyes blazing. Damnit but he would not allow this man to be insubordinate in front of his staff!

"We have our orders. We follow them. Middlemark Martyn is one of my finest junior officers and he will be going with me to my new posting, come the time for a transfer. I wouldn't leave him behind just to satisfy the whims of you. Did you think he would stay here forever? What difference would it have made? Has he said more than twenty words to you in the last arc? A dozen?"

"That's none of your-"

"You are dismissed, Mark Kasoria. Guard?" Nader sat back down and barked out the command as he did. In a twinkling two men were at Kasoria's side. "We are through talking, and you are to remember the chain of command in future."

The men flanking him didn't get any orders. He didn't need to issue any. Their presence alone was declaration enough. But it was a bluff, and they both knew it. Rude and impudent as he was, Kasoria wouldn't risk getting drummed out of the only job he was fit for. Getting sent away from his son.

But he's going away no matter what.

Unless...

For a long, dangerous trill, Kasoria glared so hotly Nader felt the air around him sizzle. Then he snapped a salute and spun on his heel, clean as if he were on parade. The guards turned with him and he didn't look back. But his eyes snapped quickly to the boy at one of the desks, very deliberately not catching his gaze as he bent over the stack of forms he needed to finish. The boy who hated and resented him. Who would leave without a word of farewell of affection. Who would vanish into the abyss on the far Southern border, far beyond his reach and his help.

No, Kasoria told himself, not slowing, not stopping, and resolved. Shite... only one hand left to play.

[Kasoria]

Patron Lerrik,

I have thought about your offer. I accept it. Same conditions as before. I will pick the men on my crew. I have them already selected. They are to be given the same protection under our law as myself, as we spoke of. When we meet next, we shall discuss payment for us all.

Will all speed, give word to my commander here in Westguard that I am to be transferred to the Citadel, under your authority. As is my son, as we also spoke of. This is an iron letter. If Martyn does not come, I do not.

A fast rider can be here from Etzos in a trial. Given I am sure you are a busy man, I will expect your reply in three. W shall depart Westguard and meet at the time and place you name in your reply. By the time we do, I will have assembled the remainder of my crew, and we shall join you as one.

There, wherever it may be, they and I will pledge ourselves to the task you give us. Word and blade.

Kasoria

!

Message from: Pig Boy

Mark Kasoria: I request for your team's arrival at Foster's Landing, where the delegation along with the security team will board a ship to Rharne, a journey expected to last no more than 15 trials, and to arrive at Foster's Landing no later than the 32nd of Vhalar. Captain's share is yours to divvy up among your team as you see fit. There may be commands from the Citadel coming in from time to time that require attention. Your crew will be expected to fulfill these writs with discretion and professionalism. Sincerely, Patron Lerrik. (OOC: Bonuses for various gray jobs, espionage and the like, and helping local governments to shore up relations enough that they'll trust. When I make a note of those they'll range from 1 wp to 5 wp depending on the steps involved. For mechanical purposes in regular wealth threads you're still getting whatever it is you get from the wealth system, but this is an abstraction as you may be aware.)

[Kasoria]

"Kasoria?!"

Two trials after he sent the letter, front that one word and the tone it was hurled with, he knew the answer had been the one he wanted.

Won't make this next part any more pleasant.

The instructor turned away from his drilling students and looked at the man calling his name. Flightmaster Nader was hardly red-faced, ruddy, apoplectic... but only because it was not his way. Under the cooling suns of Vhalar, he looked ready to erupt from his eyes alone, the unnatural stiffness in his shoulders, holding in all that anger. Kasoria's black eyes flashed down, and saw why.

A letter. Gripped tight enough to whiten his knuckles.

"No-one told ya t'stop!" He barked at his students and marched swiftly across the courtyard. In his wake two dozen men and women jabbed and thrust and swung into the air, each movement accompanied with a ritual grunt or bark. Steady as a metronome. Almost as precise. It had been a long morning and cruel afternoon, but they were getting there. "Any fall outta step an' we'll be here past dark!"

Nader didn't waste time with pleasantries or questions. He just held up the letter, and Kasoria saw flash of scrawl at the bottom of it. Right next to the official seal of the Etzori Council.

"You had no right to do this."

"I'm his father. If I can make any odds t'where he goes, I'll make 'em, an' I dun care if that sticks up your clacker... sir."

Nader's teeth ground behind his pursed lips. He'd rarely seen him this angry. No... never. This had hurt the man, in a way Kasoria didn't think he could. All Nader had was his career, his post, his rank, and the next one he was chasing. A true professional, trying to bait or wound him in the usual ways Kasoria had in the past would be futile. The gap between them in the Army hierarchy was so huge the Flighmaster need never fear his efforts. But he hadn't counted on this. He was blindsided, and that only doubled his anger.

"Middlemark Martyn does not need to be attached to some brute squad you've cooked up as a security detail across the damn sea!" Fates, he could even hear the pleading in the man's voice. Faint as smoke on mist, but there. "A combat posting for a season, maybe two, would rapidly accelerate his career potential and-"

"Or he'd fuckin' die, in some shitty fuckin' ditch in the Southlands. For no bloody reason at fucking all-"

"He's a soldier, Kasoria! Fates, man, death is part of our job! We all accept that-"

The gesture was not violent. Not traditionally. But it was so thick and plain with vitriol that it stopped Nader as if he'd been punched. The students ceased their tight, brutal movements. There was silence in the aftermath of what Kasoria had done. Turning his head slightly to the side and spitting on the ground, hawking and filling his mouth with a hateful gobbet before emptying it in reply to Nader's sentiment.

"Fuck yer army," he whispered, in a voice so low and rich with exhausted disdain that Nader had never heard it. Thought that maybe, just maybe, even this monster of a man could find some scrap of satisfaction in serving his country. That the arc of tense but productive labor had molded him into something... not redeemed, for his crimes were beyond such a thing in Nader's world, but at least... softened him. Made him understand his place in the world. What a foolish thought. "An' fuck yer help. He's my boy. I keep 'im safe. An' there's nowhere safer in this world he'd be, than next t'me."

There was a long silence. The students seemed frightened to break it. Wide-eyed and unknowing, they watched the two men they feared and respected above all others in the garrison stare each other down. Nader seemed ready to draw his sword. Kasoria's body subtly, gently, reflexively tightened under him. Limbs ready to lash out, block, disarm, cripple-

"You selfish bastard."

Nader shook his head as he spoke those words, and tossed the letter at Kasoria's feet. Then he walked away.

[Kasoria]

That was the easy part, and he knew it. Dealing with Nader would be nothing compared to what came after. That prick could gnash his teeth and wail and whine... but he'd still swallow his ration of shit and follow orders. A career officer through and through, he'd sacrificed his ability to self-determine arcs ago. No matter how he cared for Martyn, how much he disagreed, he would toe the line. Martyn would, too, but first...

"You have no right to do this to me!"

And here he was again. Back from his run, sweating hard and not in the mood for this. His son stood across from him, blazing in the chill so hard steam seemed to rise from him. He wore the simple breeches, tunic, and cloak of an junior officer when off duty. No shave, no hair combing. He'd leaped from his bed when he got the news and ran straight here. Kasoria shook the last of the water from his head and swept his hair back.

"Nader said the same, an' I'll tell you what I told him: I'm yer dad, an' as such, I have the first right in this fuckin' world to decide what's best for yeh."

"I'm a soldier! I go where the fighting is! I pledged my oath to-"

"I'm not lettin' youse get thrown into some shitheap meatgrinder down south!" Kasoria snapped out each word like a curse, the frustration of trials and seasons before all spilling out at once. "To what fuckin' end? So you could be fuckin' battle fodder? Die gloriously, get a nice mention inna' dispatches back home an' then be forgotten? Is that what a father would want for his son?!"

"It's my life, I decide how I want to live it! An' Im'm not some helpless kid-"

"Yer a fuckin' brat who barely knows how to fi-"

That did it. With a grunt Martyn drew back his fist and swung-

Shite. Still so fucking obvious. And he thinks he'll survive a real scrap?

Kasoria swayed to the side and knocked the punch off course with one hand, then snapped it around the boy's wrist-

-other hand shooting out to grab Martyn by the lapel-

-hips twisting hard in the direction of the punch-

-pulling the boy forward and over his outstretched leg-

-landing him hard on his back in the dust of the cottage's yard. He went down but the fire in his eyes didn't fade. Not until Kasoria adjusted his grip and a spasm of pain stole the breath from Martyn's next curses. Eyes wide and suddenly fearful flashed to his thumb pressed hard to his wrist, this little man half his size pinning him with one hand.

"Let yeh get away wiv' that once, boy. Ain't happenin' again. Next time, it'll hurt."

He let go. But that was a long moment. Long enough to see how much the boy resented him. No... hated him. That all the evils of the world seemed to be distilled in him in Martyn's eyes. Everything he tried to do, the boy turned away. He didn't want to be part of his life. He'd lied to him for most of it, so who could blame him? Even on his back and helpless, that defiance never wavered. That disdain, so ugly and pure it had no place on the face of one so young. Kasoria stepped back and let the boy get up to his feet. Knowing his helping hand would just be slapped away.

"Gather yer things, an' meet me at the garrison tomorrow morning, dawn. That's when we leave."

A hundred curses were on Martyn's lips, but he didn't speak any of them. It's marvelous what a little physical reminder of where you stand compared to another, will educate how to talk to them forever after. Rubbing his sore wrist, the boy settled for looking his father up and down and shaking his head slowly.

"You think I'll suddenly become your son again, after a few seasons together?"

"Now there's an idea."

"It won't work. You lied to me. My whole life. You told me you were a good man and you were killing people for money-"

"Aye? An' youse don't get wages?"

Martyn found gall to twist a sneer onto his face. For one awful moment, every inch his father's son. "Even you don't believe that. You know better. You knew better. And you did it anyway. Then you came to see me and lied."

"We really gonna go over our whole his'try right now? Cuz I got shite t'do, boy."

He turned away and left the boy to his fuming. Uncaring what he had to say. The future was set, and he was content with it. Kasoria would be with his son in Rharne, and while there, he could teach the boy properly. Not just the battlefield bullshit, but the gutter sense and cobble wisdom that served a man out of uniform. How to read a room and know a man's truth from his eyes as he spoke. The myriad of weapons one could find in any room. The angles, like he'd told Maxine and-

"Is this what you think fatherhood is? Just one... manipulation after another?"

He stopped walking. Not the first time he'd heard those words recently. Granted, Maxine was quite a different animal to Martyn, and the situation had been... markedly different, but the tone was the same. The old killer frowned and looked over his shoulder. Martyn stood there. Diminished and defeated and still, sullenly despising. He had such plans for the season. For his first posting. He'd be going with Flightmaster Nader, a man he respected, and come what may, he would make him proud. Make his mother proud.

But not his father. Kasoria tried to squash the thought, but it took root far too fast. Never you. That's not going to change. Not like this.

"I... hate you."

He didn't spit. Didn't snap. Didn't whine them or sob them. He spoke the words like they were a curse. Something he could expel if only he said the words with enough force. As if doing so would drop the old bastard dead right there and finally he would be free of him. Kasoria stared at him, seeking some remorse, some scrap of thought that maybe he'd gone too far... and he found nothing. Just pain and sadness and anger.

Martyn turned away and started walking. He didn't turn back when he heard his name. He kept walking until the morning mist swallowed him, leaving Kasoria to his thoughts, and doubts he never knew were there.

[Max]

The end was near.

Maxine could feel it, that racing toward destiny and fate even as she sat still in the dark Westguard den. There was no signage above the front doors she passed through to get here. The way she spent her time and poorly earned coin brought her to its threshold, welcomed in the daylight breaks. She knew no names and greeted no vaguely familiar faces with more than a passing glance. She came here to this place with purpose. The addict was not alone in that.

There was a small group spilling about the "business." Some sat speaking lowly to one another at a stray table or two. A couple stood in the middle of the musty, dank place with nervous ticks and darting eyes. More were spilling like broken dolls across strange furniture in spaces of no design, unstirred and limp like corpses. Incense burned faintly as though it could snuff out the scent of the rabble and their activities here. A veil of smoke hung, and the light that filtered in was rare but golden. Some slumped sap, drunk or high or both, plucked a sleepy tune at his ancient lute.

The Rusalka was leaned forward on the edge of her chaise she'd claimed for the next couple breaks. She'd watched Sabrina enough times that she had learned to use a fix kit and prepare newly discovered vices herself. She held the vial of Katomise up in the sliver of sunlight that fought through a curtain behind her, carefully watching with a cautious eye how the light and color played with the liquid. When she was satisfied with the quality based off color and texture of the drug, she tugged the cork off with her teeth.

Desperate now.

She spat the cork onto the stained wooden floor. Her fix kit was open on the stubby little end table she'd commandeered and tugged in front of her seat. In short order but shaky hands she began to tie off her left arm with a tight belt. Often her eyes glanced back to the desirable blue hue.

Can't help it.

Max twiddled her left hand's fingers, feeling the tingly sensation of veins losing the flow of blood. She finished preparing her needle and her narcotic. She curled her fingers into a fist and let the muscles of her left arm tense some. Her right index finger explored her skin, bouncing off areas she hoped to find a place to stick. Sabrina had been good at not needlessly stabbing her and destroying viable entries for future use. Max wasn't quite so practiced, but she was a new enough user when it came to actually injecting Katomise that she hadn't wrecked all her veins in her arms yet.

I've exploited their debts and helped empty their banks. I've stolen the profits of their last large trade before the Cold Cycle, and with it their buffer. With the mine destroyed, their access to raw materials to make up for it is cut off. Kimber wants blood. The Guardians don't trust the stability of the arrangement. The Dorricks are nearly broke, save for property value.

Her fingers prodded a ripe vein.

They're panicked now. Afraid. Desperate men do desperate things. They're going to step out of line. I have to be ready and waiting.

The point of the needle broke the tension of her skin like a hummingbird into nectar, and Max exhaled deeply as she watched the liquid begin to flow toward her blood stream. It didn't take long. She loosened the belt and the Katomise rushed around the inside track of her body and brain. A flood of warmth and energy was the first thing she felt, familiar and expected. Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated, body tensing like the inclination to aggress just to put that rush of energy somewhere before it spilled over hit her. Her chest rose with a deep inhale. She shook her head quickly and rolled her shoulders back.

"I know you're there," Maxine murmured while she plucked the needle from her skin. "Just surprised you didn't do more than turn your head away when you watched." She packed up her fix kit save for the empty vial of Katomise and tucked it in her cloak pocket. Her leg instantly started to bounce upon the floor. "Shouldn't you be out there kicking the shit out of men half your age..."

Max fell back against the chaise with a risen brow and blue-tinging eyes.

"…Mark Kasoria?"

[Kasoria]

"Oi, dad, mebbe yer los-"

"Dun fuck me about, son. I ain't in the mood."

Little Harry had hardnuts and tearaways try lines like that on him almost every trial. He was sure some of them practiced them in a mirror, working out just how to stress the right word so it would sound dead scary. Problem was, it usually wasn't. It was just flowery and wasted on a man who was a head taller than most, and built far broader. All the pretty, clever, nasty, scary words didn't mean shite when you couldn't back them up. Given the sort that came here, and what they did there, they weren't about to mix it with Harry. Now and then some hardman thought he could dig into Bessy for protection, and Harry sent him on his way with a few broken bones. Word got about. Still the wankers came, with their silly words.

Looking down now, Little Harry swallowed heavily, and he stood aside. Black, cold eyes, deep and lightless as oceans he did not know and would never see, looked back unblinking. They stayed on him as he opened the door and practically ushered him inside.

"S-Sorry, Mister Kasoria."

The little man didn't answer. He just stared a trill longer. Just long enough to make it look like he was committing the man's face to memory, for some dark purpose. He wasn't, of course. Fuck did he care about some shebeen bouncer? Point made (or the illusion of it), he turned away and made his way into the shadows. Candles were sparse and short in there. Every expense spared, by the looks of it. Cheap booze, cheap furniture, smoke that both burned his lungs and made him chuckle by how much flour and pepper was cut with the herbs. He'd think with her recent fortune, Maxine could afford a better class of shithole.

Crown a pig and it's still smells like shit. She didn't want better; she wanted quiet.

Which it was. The place didn't even have a name; just a reputation. He'd heard about it before Maxine had told him where it was. He didn't know exactly, but word got around. Places like this sprang up like fungus wherever soldiers stayed for a while. Leeching off the wages and lusts of fighting men, even those who were just starting out. On the whole, Kasoria knew they were tolerated, much like Vorund and his ilk were in the big city. The time and manpower to stamp them all out would be wasteful, and they did serve a purpose... if an unfortunate one.

Kasoria stepped over a boy barely older than his students. If he'd been one, the former Raggedy Man would have left him stinking of terrified piss, fleeing out the door never to come back. But he wasn't. So he didn't.

"OI?" He snagged the arm of someone passing. "Lookin' fer someone." He reeled off a quick description and got a glassy stare in reply. He squeezed. Hard. "Tell me an' I'll leggo."

"Uh-Uh-Uh'vuh dere, fuck's sake...!"

He kept his word, and followed the stench. A half-dozen drugs in the air. Vomit and shit, too. Men and women sprawled, snoring, staring, huffing, smoking, snorting... he took it all in with dispassionate eyes. These had been the flotsam he'd moved in for two decades. He knew their kind better than Maxine did. The desperation and the low cunning. The endless excuses and rare flashes of doomed awareness. He'd grown callused to their woes long ago. He cared for but one, and winced as he understood the truth of it.

Not that he was, but that's what she was. If not already, then close to it.

Change of scenery will help.

Yeah. That's why you're doing this...

She was in a back room covered by a curtain. Pulled it aside quietly just as the needle went in. Looked on with those black eyes that didn't reflect light anymore; just sucked it into maws like they'd been gouged from his head. He forced himself to keep the disappointment from his face. The last thing she needed was him acting the father again, interfering again. Especially since he had an offer to make her... sober or otherwise.

"I know you're there. Just surprised you didn't do more than turn your head away when you watched."

The old man smirked and snorted softly. Even skagged out of her mind, she was sharp. The shite in her veins might have helped that. A few options ran through his mind as he pondered what it might be. Either way, he doubted the peak of her high would be a benefit to her in a fight. Maxine didn't defile herself to become a better warrior; she did so to forget, to hide, to make the pain go away by making herself go away.

He knew that feeling, too.

"Shouldn't you be out there kicking the shit out of men half your age... Mark Kasoria?"

"An' yet 'ere I am," he said airily, wordlessly knocking a barely-conscious junkie off a chair with the flat of his boot so he could sit across from her. The limb-numbed waste of flesh grunted and cursed in a Hiladrithi accent then scuttled off, one look at Kasoria's face warning him against retaliation. "Comin' t'treat wiv' yeh in such... fine an' fragrant circumstances."

The old man grinned. All teeth. Bleak and bloody in that manner she'd come to associate so totally with him. He rooted around for his pipe and packed it with a narcotic far milder and more socially accepted. He lit it with a half-dead candle and puffed for a few moments.

"Got an offer or yeh. Had a pitch t'give yeh. Good money, far from 'ere, new start, if yeh want it... an' now I ain't got the words in me 'ead. Cuz my boy tol' me somethin', an' it reminded me a' youse."

He hoped the mention of his son, and of anything she'd said that had stuck with him so much, would pierce the fug of intoxication she sat in. After she was focused solely on him again, Kasoria went on. Hands clasped in front of him. Hunched over. Beset with thoughts in a way she'd seen arcs ago, when first they'd met. That brooding expression he wore when his thoughts would not leave him be until he'd found some way to expel them.

"Wanna hear it?"

[Max]

Maxine smirked as she watched Kasoria spit his banter and evict one of her snoring peers from a seat. The amusement reached her eyes this time. That was likely the Katomise though, wasn’t it? Her world, dark with circumstance and dulled with narcotic abuse, had lightened a blue tint for the moment. She would take it, this euphoria real or manufactured.

This wasn’t a home, a tavern, an inn, or even a mistakenly classed up brothel. The place Kasoria found her in now was dank, dirty, reeking, and she was not out of place. Out there he had seen an Exalted Rusalka wielding Immortal-granted power to couple with the skills he’d taught her. Here, she was no different from any other sulking husk. Their every waking moments were dominated either by the high or the stark, misery of its absence.

This is where all her money had gone.

Max knew she should’ve been embarrassed. The moment she recognized his presence, she knew she should’ve jumped to hide the needles, the drugs, and the look on her face as she watched liquid relief trickle into her arm. This intensely elated feeling that hooked her staved her now. There was relief in its fringes too. There was no denying how far it had gone.

He’d seen her now.

The Rusalka’s knee continued to bounce incessantly like it was possessed. Her respiration rate was high, and even as the hot cycle had withered away, she could feel her internal temperature rising. She was still adjusting to the intravenous hit. It showed in the way she seemed incapable to sit still even as she sought to display her typical casual facetiousness.

"What you got?” Max laughed lightly when Kasoria finished his opening pitch. "That thing men your age get? Whatever they call it?” She watched the smoke waft in front of the Old Man’s face. "Da Mench Ya?”

The unconscious addict Kasoria kicked from the chair sucked in a roaring snore. Max frowned and nearly raised a boot to quiet the interruption. The sleeper went silent again on his own and she focused what attention she could divide back on the Not-Father.

"After calling my methods on the last job that of a ‘murdering cunt’, this is…unexpected.” She drummed her fingers along the chaise, quickly ending the idle fidget when she felt something moist on the chair fabric that encouraged her recoil. "You know I have unfinished business here.”

Max rolled her shoulders again. Her foot started tapping the floor in the same cadence her knee bounced. She tried to sort her confusion out in her head. Surely his ties to the military meant he had better, disciplined candidates for whatever he was after. Her head tilted. He seemed to believe she had a need for a fresh start, too.

He know something I don’t?

She grinned at him. The paranoia, skepticism, and obsession with The Dorricks was feted by this favorable Katomise ride. For the moment she found herself able to just…enjoy his company. Even here. Even if she didn’t understand what motivated him to make her this offer, let alone any.

"But hit me with it anyways.”

[Kasoria]

Never gonna let that just lay down and die, is she?

Maxine's natural vindictiveness and willingness to hold a grudge until the end of time didn't bother Kasoria. Just made him smirk in the half-light of the shooting gallery. She was as she was. He was the same. Her edges were harder and her skills had grown far beyond what he'd hoped (or dreaded) for her arcs ago, but she was still herself. Even there, capable of cracking a joke. The fact it was at his expense didn't matter.

Her glassy, lidded eyes did, though. Her knee hammering up and down and slamming her heel into the floor over and over, that did. He wasn't about to ask her for a light or a copper. He needed her paying attention.

"Godan offer, from the Council," he said, keeping his voice low and looking about himself suddenly. "Some nob, y'don't need t'know his name yet. Ah, 'ere we go."

He reached over and lifted a bottle of something amber with black flecks in it. Scalvoris markings on it. How appropriate. He kept talking as he hunted around for a couple of glasses.

"Bodyguard work. I know, fuckin' surprised meself. Made me a decent offer, lemme find men I choose fer the job. I've tracked 'em down... an' then, youse turn up again. Fucked up an' on a vendetta but still, here. Almost like the Fates had spun it so, eh?"

He chuckled darkly, and Maxine could likely guess why. The Fates were the only supernatural beings that Kasoria had ever professed a belief in, and she knew he had a low opinion of them. They were inscrutable, unknowable, and uncaring. They damned one man, family, village, nation with the same shrift as they elevated another. He didn't see a benevolent pattern in how history wound on; just chaos and machinations Immortal and Mortal... and luck.

"I turned 'im down," he filled one glass to the very top. The other halfway. That was the one he drank from. "Wanted t'spend more time wiv' the boy. Tired a' bein' some posh cunt's sword as well, y'know? Dun' matter if it was Vorund or the Council... same shite. Yer useful until yeh ain't. Then they throw yeh away an' find someone else. Usually the cunt that scratched yeh."

He took a generous gulp, held it in his mouth, eyes looking at the ceiling... then swallowed.

"T'ain't all dat bad, actually. Any road, I've 'ad a... well... I've changed me mind, anyway. Wuz gonna take Martyn wiv' me. F'm honest, that's why I changed it. They're transferrin' 'im south. Down there where it's still bad an' the war's gone, but the chaos ain't. My fuckin' boy, never got blood on 'is sword... an' he finks he'll be an 'ero."

Kasoria shook his head, slow, sad smile on his face. How many boys throughout history had been suckered like that? Fates, he thought his son would be smarter. But no. He was just as bloody bullheaded... and he'd helped him every step of the way. Training lessons, sparring, books, stories, all nudging him along to the Army. Where he wanted to go. And now, confronted with the reality of that...

You couldn't handle it. Not him leaving. Not even him being in danger. Losing him again.

You selfish bastard.

"He 'ates me more now than a'fore. Can't... thought I could work it out, onna road, onna voyage to Rharne. But the way 'ee looked at me this morning... nah... won't help. Just make the wound fester."

He paused for a long time. Words he knew needed to be spoken aloud, if only so he could make them real on his own lips. Because that was the second step to making something happen. Thinking, speaking, acting. And he'd known what had to happen all day.

"So I'll let him go. Cuz I wunt fit t'play a father. Not wiv' youse. Not wiv' 'im. Not anymore. That said..." His eyes flicked up. Black and lightless and unblinking. "I ain't done wi' youse, yet. An' while he dun' want fuck all t'do wiv' me, I can help youse. And aye, I know yeh have business wiv' these Dorrick cunts. 'tween me a' the Council wanker, m'sre we could... speed that along. So... inerested? Oh, and 'fore yeh answer-"

CRACK

Before the word had even echoed he stamped his foot on Maxine's bouncing foot. As her mouth opened to yelp, his body was already moving. One hand snatched up her full glass and hurled it straight at her face... mainly her nose and open mouth. He rose with the forward motion of his arm, dropping the glass as he covered the space between them in a half-trill. Ending up standing over her from the side, one hand shoving her down by the shoulder, the other slamming over her mouth and forcing her to choke down the booze, burning at her nose and throat-

And when he looked down, there was the Old Man from her past. Cold. Determined. Ruthless. But never without a reason.

"Need yeh sober fer this, girl. Dun' puke on me boots."

Then with a single flourishing movement, Kasoria let go and stepped away, letting her do just that... or try to kill him, of course. Either way, her mind would be in the right place for a proper decision.

"Yer welcome."