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[OPEN] You've got your reasons / And me, I've got mine
WHO: Kit + OPEN
WHAT: Back from the Korcari Wilds, Kit kicks about town finding trouble.
WHEN: Towards the end of August.
WHERE: The Gallows, Lowtown, Darktown.
NOTES: Will update as they become relevant.
WHAT: Back from the Korcari Wilds, Kit kicks about town finding trouble.
WHEN: Towards the end of August.
WHERE: The Gallows, Lowtown, Darktown.
NOTES: Will update as they become relevant.
The Korcari Wilds were strange, and the experiences had within them even stranger. Kit still can't completely shake the feeling of persistent dread that has hounded him since that night spent around the Chasind campfire listening to the words spun for him and the rest of his companions by the shaman. Since his return to Kirkwall, it has been easier for him to eschew the company of the friends he's made since arriving, though he knows it's beyond unreasonable to avoid them forever.
I. THE GALLOWS - TRAINING GROUNDS
About a week after his return from the Wilds, Kit rouses himself early enough to get to the training grounds before the sun has decided whether it's ready to drag itself above the horizon or not. There are a handful of dutiful Templars and other Inquisition soldiers at work there already, either engaging in sparring or in warm up exercises. Kit stands out like the sorest of thumbs among all the humans, but he's used to that.
He heads over to a rack of training war axes and examines them, picking them up to test the heft, then hanging them back up again. Truthfully, he's not even sure what he's doing here without an Inquisition scout trainee in need of remedial lessons to attend to; sleep just wouldn't stay with him.
It's a pity he isn't human; he can't even blame nightmares for keeping him awake.
II. KIRKWALL - THE HANGED MAN
It's easier to lose his money than it is for him to keep it, and he's doing a great job of proving that to himself again tonight. Card shark or not, there's always bound to be a night where even your best poker face isn't good enough, and this is one of those nights.
He's seated at a table near the back of the taproom floor surrounded by a number of other dwarves who, judging by the clean cut of their clothes and their absurdly coiffed beards, are likely representatives of the Merchants' Guild. It's not exactly clear when the stakes of this game got quite so high as to include Kit betting his tiny, exquisite carving of Paragon Hrildan, but that's where he's at now.
He sits very still in his chair, examining the hand of cards he holds in one hand while the other keeps a lit cigarette within easy reach of his lips.
III. DARKTOWN
He ends up in Darktown like it's ten years ago and he's in need of a spell of quiet. The darkness, the stink, the distance people give each other in lieu of making trouble, reminds him with a pang of bitter homesickness of Dust Town, and he almost can't conscience how much he misses it for one shitty moment.
There's a single rickety railing that exists to prevent the idle wanderer from tripping over their own feet and careening down into the depths of the channel leading into the city, and that is where Kit stands, smoking a cigarette and watching the small, distant shapes of the barges as they move through the gates.
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Accordingly, he waits for the merchants to be well-departed before he approaches the table, feels out a chair, and takes a seat near his friend.
Still doesn't say anything, though, in part because he's got no idea what to say.
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He watches his friend in uncomfortable silence, then picks up his ale and takes a slow gulp from it. He exhales when setting it back down.
"Want a drink?" He can't figure out what else to say, either.
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"Yeah. Think I could use one." Between the nightmares, the feud with Vandelin, the sick unsteady feeling of everything solid in the world slipping out from underneath him--and now this--Myr's long overdue for a drink. "Whatever you're having."
He sweeps a hand over the surface of the table, feeling for puddles of spilled ale before deciding it's safe enough for his sleeves and leaning in to rest his elbows on it.
"What happened out there?" It's not the question he'd meant to lead off with but it's the only one that feels charitable toward Kit. What happened? How did it lead to this?
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"Nothing." It's not an attempt at evading the question, though he realizes as soon as he's said it that that's probably what Myr will think. He takes a steadying drag from his cigarette, then motions to one of the servers to bring over a couple of ales--yes, two, even though he's not finished with his current one.
"We didn't find anything--nothing useful, anyway. Couple of scraps with swamp wolves, but other than that..." He shakes his head, chews on his lower lip, then forces himself to keep talking. "There was this crazy old shaman down there, though. Some of the things she said, it felt like--"
Like she could see straight through him.
Kit swallows, then nods his thanks to the server who arrives with their drinks. Not a moment too soon, either.
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"'Nothing' is quieter than the alternatives." Setting the mug down he laces his fingers around it--briefly, stilling them only a moment before they're wandering the outside of the container, learning its dimensions. "Can't complain about having you back alive. Your leg holding up all right?"
Healing isn't his calling, but he's still got a little professional pride in what of it he can do. And it gives him an excuse to keep the conversation going, keep treading water while he works out ways to ask the more important questions. Like: "Are you holding up all right?"
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"Yeah, I'm all right," Kit says and summons up a shade of his usual smile for Myr, but can't quite hold it, can't quite lend the usual warmth to his voice; he's run out. He pockets the figurine he'd been clutching a bit too tightly, finishes off one mug of ale and reaches immediately for the second.
He doesn't want to answer these questions, and he doesn't want to be cruel. This is why it's always so much easier, he finds, to just make himself a little scarce instead. It's a gentler cruelty.
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But he's trying, dimly aware as he is that pushing too far with his friend(
?) might break things further. He takes another drink, marshalls his thoughts."Forgive me for saying so, but you don't sound all right. Not acting like it, either." His mug gets the full force of the hurt, puzzled frown he won't turn on Kit. "And I don't get--why."
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She'd said much else that he couldn't understand, the significance of which his casteless ignorance of such things meant he'd never be able to understand. But vengeance; that was something he understood. The weight of years, the weight of his choices--he understood that as well. And that for all of those things, a price had to be paid, eventually.
Kit is long overdue on that particular debt.
"...you don't sound all right. Not acting like it, either. And I don't get--why."
"Sodding ancestors," Kit starts, almost laughing, but the sound is too harsh, too bitter, to be real laughter. He immediately presses his lips into a tight line, his jaw clenching tightly as he struggles to tamp down the sudden flash of his temper. His head gives a tiny, tight shake. "It's--not something talking about is going to help, or change, just let it go."
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It's tempting to respond to the tone and not the words, to Kit's absence instead of whatever hurt lay concealed behind it. Tempting, but--
"So we don't talk about it. But I don't give up on people that easy." Meaning: Trying to simply avoid their friendship out of existence isn't going to work.
"You're not dead. Whatever's wrong can still be fixed."
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His heart is in the right place, but by the Paragons, he just doesn't get it.
"I've been dead since I was a kid. I should know--I attended the funeral and everything." It occurs to him that maybe he didn't divulge all the details about the Legion of the Dead to Myr over the course of their short friendship, but now isn't the time for sharing it. He picks up the tankard of ale and drains an impressive amount of it in a few deep gulps, sets it down, and starts to push himself up to his feet. "And I'm old enough to know that some shit is just broken, and salroka--you don't get to fix everything you do wrong.
"I'm going back to the Gallows." A pause, a grimace. "You need a hand getting back?"
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How well he knows. And yet--
"So what's the point in piling more wrongs on top of it?" Myr demands, frustration breaking through at last. "Fine--some things can't be fixed; Maker knows I'm not getting my eyes back--but isn't that a reason to hold to what you've got?"
He doesn't get it and Kit's not explaining (what does he mean, he's dead?), and that's what's so damned maddening about it. He thought he'd had someone he could rely on in all of this, and found instead another empty space in the fabric of the world. It isn't fair.
Life isn't fair; but of all the unfair lots in life one could have, Myr's had it easy. He breathes out a sigh, pushing his own half-finished drink away from him. "...Yeah." A single beat's pause. "I'm sorry." He'd said he wouldn't talk and he did.
He'll do better at keeping his mouth shut on the way back.
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If he were a better man, maybe, the kind of man they both deserved to have in their lives. But he isn't that man. It's better this way. "I'll walk you back," is all he says.
For a moment, though, he's paralyzed by indecision when he realizes he still needs to settle the bar tab, and has just enough coin left to his name to do that without a tip. He fingers the priceless figurine of Paragon Hrildan in his pocket--the last thing of Tad's that he still has to remember him by--but can't bring himself to part with it. Before the guilt can gnaw away at him, he leaves the last of his coin behind, and leads Myr out of the tavern, silent on the way back to the Gallows.
--
By the time they arrive outside the Inquisition's base of operations in Kirkwall, Kit's has wrangled his temper under control and has had plenty of time to regret being so sharp with Myr. He helps him out of the ferry and gives it one last quick onceover to make sure he hadn't left anything behind. Then he stands on the pier with his hands uncomfortably deep in his pockets, fingers itching for a cigarette.
On impulse, he suddenly says, "I want you to know--" A pause, then, "--I care about him. I do. I wouldn't have... not without feeling something." He swallows hard; this is difficult. "I'm just--I'm no good for anyone that way, and if he has to hate me or think I'm a user to not find that out the hard way, then I can live with that."
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But the damnable thing is he doesn't know how, no matter what angle he tries to come at the problem from. What was he supposed to say to a man as intent on escaping a problem as a fox gnawing its leg off to be free of a trap?
He doesn't know. And that keeps him quiet as Kit hands him up to the docks, and for a long moment besides once his friend's made an end of speaking.
"I'm just--I'm no good for anyone that way, and if he has to hate me or think I'm a user to not find that out the hard way, then I can live with that."
"Knowing Van," he finally says, words soft and considered, "I think he'd rather you give him the chance to find out the hard way. He always has." There's more he could say--about how Kit couldn't have hurt Van if Van weren't willing to be hurt, about how rare that was--but that feels almost as much of a betrayal of his cousin right now as simply letting Kit walk off unchallenged would be.
So. Best to leave it at that.
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"No," Kit replies, abrupt and instinctive, like a reaction to the threat of pain. "No, I couldn't--" Couldn't what? Couldn't stand it? Couldn't live with himself? His jaw works again, the words not coming to him, and ultimately he settles on a weak-sounding, "--I couldn't do that to him. I can't do this to you, either.
I'm sorry, salroka. You need help with anything around here, you know where I'm at, but..." He trails off into unhappy silence, then just gives his head a small shake and starts to walk off. The more he talks, the worse he makes this situation. Best to just go.
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Myr leans his face against his staff, sending up a silent prayer for understanding as he does. If nothing else he can try not to make this any worse than it is--try not to shut the door completely on the possibility of things going back to what they were. If not for his own sake, then for Van's.
Still. It's damned difficult not to respond out of hurt. "I know where you're at," he echoes, before Kit's gotten too far away to hear. "But friends are harder to find than help, Kit."
He won't follow, won't make this awkward. Better to let it rest for now--even if he still hasn't given up.