Rest for the Wicked

[Aurin]

The Commons, Kalzasi
38th Searing, 123 of Steel

my one heart hurt another
so only one life can't be enough.
can you give me just another
for that one who got away?

► Show Spoiler

Aurin was as good as his words; at least, he was so far when it came to Dhruv the time-tempest-tossed. He followed up the following day, and then his visits grew slowly less frequent, allowing the elf to recover and explore Kalzasi without interference. Nora took care of Dhruv's needs, and, when he could, Aurin brought little scraps of dragonshards leftover from Torin's runeforge so Dhruv could get little tiny boosts to his depleted aura.

As his aura slowly recuperated, the strange signatures of temporal magic became clearer to his sembling trick. The fox-faced man was decidedly not a scholar, so study might have been too strong a word for what he was doing. Casing might be better, the way a burglar cased an edifice before burgling. Not that there was anything to steal, but knowledge was power.

It was a bit early for supper, but people were beginning to gather in Nora's taproom. Not knowing if Dhruv was at home or about, he settled into a seat with his back to the wall where he could watch the stairs leading up to the rooms as well as the door that let back out onto the street. Nora cast him a raised eyebrow when she saw him and he just motioned for a drink. If he was paying for Dhruv's room, he still afforded him his privacy. Best let him be comfortable, feel as though he was king of his tiny kingdom, especially while trying to grasp at whatever straws of control over his life he had after tumbling through time.

Later, he could make that tiny kingdom contract, tighten the bonds of debt - Dhruv's words, not his - and get what he wanted or needed from him at the time. But that seemed an unlikely eventuality. The elf wanted to repay whatever debt he felt he had incurred, continued to incur, and Aurin wasn't normally vindictive - not without cause.

Nora also kept him apprised of Dhruv's words and actions, at least those that happened within her earshot. Whenever she brought his drink, he would ask after the elf, whether he was at home or not, and plan the rest of his evening accordingly.

[Dhruv]

If one heart can mend another
only then can we begin
so won't you hold on a little longer
don't let them get away
I’m so alone now

The Half-forgotten Inn – or The Forgot-Inn as Dhruv had dubbed it, much to the delight of the proprietor – slumped so casually in a worn corner of the Kalsazi Commons that it may as well have surfaced from the sands of time along with the mysterious hytori for no other purpose but to greet the weary time traveler. Within a week it was almost as though the inn could no more survive without the sad-eyed elf than it could without its yawn of mahogany bar, ancient and hand carved, purposefully polished and too well scarred. They were both of long lost worlds.

Everyone became friends with Dhruv. It didn't matter what faction they were part of, who they were employed by, or if they were here for a day or for the rest of the indefinite tomorrows. The elf was an exceptionally good listener. He rarely passed judgment and he would walk you safe home even after he kicked you out for starting shit in Nora’s bar. He had one of the rooms upstairs with a window that kissed the city’s star-gazing curve. Nora would let the other rooms out from time to time, for a night or a month; but she had started asking Dhruv to “handle it” when he proved an earnestness in looking out for her best interests. He could be strangely picky about who could stay, and at what price; but any appeals to Nora over Dhruv’s decisions were deferred back to the elf. Everyone figured she just liked his face. Afterall, he was charming in an odd but consistent way. And everyone was welcomed into his friendship and to a pint when he manned the bar. But the astute might eventually realize that nobody really seemed to know Dhruv. Not even Nora. Where did he come from? Who was his family? Why was he here, with fists full of an unbelievable nothing, with no apparent affiliation or loyalty? How did he know Nora? What was his last name?

None of your business, was Nora’s answer for everyone except Aurin. The streaks of silver in otherwise dark hair made Nora appear older than Dhruv, but her mind was nothing if not sharp and Dhruv didn’t seem to notice or care that she reported on him to his original benefactor. Maybe he hadn’t caught on. Maybe he had nothing to hide. Maybe the sand that scraped beneath his bootheels to get caught in the cracks of the floorboards or be swept out into the street was the figment of an over-active imagination.

He stuffed his handkerchief into the pocket of worn black slacks. They slumped over scarred boots and he wore a matching shirt. Muscled, broad shouldered, and lean, he had some ink on his arms that looked like an artist had started a strange song on his skin and never finished, hardly hinting at the sheer symphony of sigilry hidden by his clothing. Golden brown hair was getting a little long, tousling into eyes that the unimaginative called hazel. Naturally bronzed skin held a hint of pallor today, but nothing that would give someone cause to notice unless they were trying. He slumped ignobly at the top of the stairway and a mug steamed between his hands, smelling of bourbon and honey.

He eyeballed the door, debating. Or waiting. Yeah, waiting. That was the other thing about Forgot-Inn and the elf who now helped Nora run it. It was welcoming and comfortable and familar, and underneath all of that was a stillness of sign posts at crossroads, or sentinels at castle walls. A waiting. A watching. But for what? Or for who? Maybe just forever.

His eyes cut straight to Aurin, drawn like a moth, and their corners crinkled with a smile that maybe should not have been so warm. Maybe it only seemed to be in contrast to the cold that had crept into his bones the day before, conjured at the howls of a frost elemental. He quaffed enough of the drink to keep it from spilling before jogging the rest of the way down the stairs. Spying him, Nora swallowed a sigh and reached for the steaming carafe so she could pour Dhruv a refill when he slid to a halt before her.

“Did you get all of it then?” The canny innkeeper arched an elegant eyebrow. The corners of her mouth twitched, bemused, as she watched Dhruv gather up his fresh mug and Aurin’s glass. Dhruv rolled one shoulder in a shrug.

“And more.” He winked and turned about on his heel even as Nora’s grin flared, making his way through the tavern in a loose hipped swagger to Aurin’s table whereupon the pint glass was set down and he availed himself of the seat across from the man, seemingly heedless of the fact that it placed his back to the room. After all, Aurin was there to watch it. Wasn’t he?

“Cheers,” he muttered and elbowed down to nurse his drink, studying the man through wisps of steam. “Are you hungry?” He asked at length.

[Aurin]

Aurin was well-placed to see Dhruv coming, and while he never looked bothered, his usual casual smirk was perhaps a touch softer for the elf marooned by fate and time. Surely, there was opportunity there, and his life had sharpened his sense for opportunity to a razor's edge. When one spent so long wanting, one learned to be resourceful. He wasn't evil, though he was only too happy to tell people he was a bad man. Nature fed upon itself. Violence cleared the way for new growth. Times were always hard for somebody; he just aimed not to be that somebody, not ever again.

The quick-witted hytori seemed to have found himself his own well-worn clothes, which was all well and good. He needed his cloak back. It seemed Dhruv had made himself indispensible to Nora even faster than Aurin had made himself indispensible to Lunaria at the Velvet Cabaret years ago when he first emerged from the Midden. Huh. There were similarities between them; he couldn't deny that. He only hoped the newcomer wasn't quite so ruthless as he had been, at least if it were to be cast in his direction.

"Thanks awfully," he said of the pint, raising it in silent cheers before quaffing a bit. His eyes were certainly all over the place, more often on their surroundings than on Dhruv himself. This was a safe place as far as such things were calculated in his head, but all the same, safety was a more insidious illusion than anything he could weave out of aether and thin air.

At the question, he put his free hand to his flat belly. It was a curious thing. Sometimes he ate like he would never eat again; others, he forgot to eat until he became a right bastard to everyone around him. When asked, he sincerely didn't know until he turned his attention inward. As if he had asked it a question, his stomach responded with a hungry growl.

"Aye," he acknowledged. "What's Nora cooking today?"

As if he were some summoner trying to conjure her, he fished a little linen bundle tied in a ribbon the color of her eyes—the better for him to remember who it was for—and he set it to the side for whenever she came to see him for the news or a request or a report on something interesting she had observed.

Aurin squinted at Dhruv. The unimaginative called his eyes hazel, as well; poets or the infatuated might call them bronze.

"Are you eating enough?"

[Dhruv]

“Are you expecting someone?” It was a question quietly posed while Dhruv watched Aurin’s eyes, how they were alert and wary in their regard of the taproom. It was starting to fill as the night crept out from the feet of the mountains, and near the stone hearth someone was tuning their fiddle in a slow moan of strings.

From behind the bar, Nora’s part time server Janey bounced down one side and up the other, slinging drinks and chattering merrily to those who elbowed down to the bar. Dhruv slumped back, arm slinging over the back rise of his chair so he could tilt his chin to take it all in, let his regard find the same pathways as Aurin’s before refocusing on his friend.

“Oh-aye.” The elf’s grin returned. “I’ll be full fluff before too long, all the biscuits madam needs testing. Call on me tomorrow and there’s gingersnaps in it for you and like as not the whole of your neighborhood, you like.”

A shrug meandered through the strong line of his shoulders and he took another long swallow from the steaming mug. Nose wrinkled, he rubbed a sleeve over his mouth and considered. “There’s ham pie if you think you can stomach my cooking,” he offered. “Madame has been teaching me and I have to tell you that I’ve improved. Be glad you weren’t about for my first attempt. I think Janey is still regretting it.”

Unvoiced laughter loitered in the corners of his mouth, dripping into that archaic accent like molasses. He left his mug on the table between them while bounding to his feet. “Be right back –” He sidestepped his way around the beginning of a card game and bellied back up to the bar at its end. Watching the elf, he seemed at ease in this place. It was as if he had been here forever, a fixture who received a few nods and a whack on the back by the regulars as he collected up fresh plates from Nora’s hands. In short order he was sliding one of the plates in front of Aurin and resuming his seat with a plate of his own. The savory pie smelled delicious, and was perhaps surprisingly good considering who had thrown it together.

“How goes everything with you, eh?” He wanted to know while digging a fork into his dinner. It was used as a pointer or a wand to gesture vaguely. “Business has been good for madame. But I’m telling you there’s no room here for the new rug merchant’s apprentices. They are, eh, gros écœurant.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “So I showed them out and won’t be letting them back in.”

[Aurin]

"A man is only paranoid if everyone isn't actually out to get him," he reminded the elf, who had made himself at home. It made sense, he supposed—a man out of time had to make himself adaptable, make himself indispensible, else he was liable to be a ghost untethered from the present, useless, out of fashion, out of date. But he let his bronze gaze linger on the elf he had saved from the Midden. It wasn't a good idea to let people know one was a do-gooder, soft and sentimental-like. So he would use Dhruv, just as he used Nora. If Nora were asked, she might say the yoke was gossamer light, but he wouldn't thank her for saying so. Good people were easy marks. The good died young. It were better to be a bad man with unknowable vagaries, occasionally benevolent, but unreliable in his munificience.

"Gingersnaps in the summer months?" he asked as if he would clutch some nonexistent pearls. "Aye, well, with this neverending winter..."

Someone nearby heard him and groused a sort of agreement. The unnatural eclipse seemed to be slowly receding, but not fast enough to save the harvest if it were not magically sustained. Portions for Foxes, Aurin's keiretsu, had acquired the rights to quite a bit of foodstuffs, and he was primed to make a profit off of its sale.

"Janey's just a girl who can't say no," he said. She ought to know better than to taste a novice cook's first pie. She also ought to have known better than to let a drunken Aurin into her bed, but at least he had paid the necromancer for the abortion. "Hm, ham pie, though. All right."

If all Dhruv amounted to was a cook somewhere, he would still hear things, and information was what Aurin most desired out of the world and those who owed him anything. It didn't even have to be the sort of information that could ruin a person, but rather the sort of information he could use with other information to make business choices that led to an unreasonably good return on investment. He would own Kalzasi someday, buy Great House Veyl and end the oppression of the Avialae. Or he would find some other mad scheme for information, money, and power that would make him feel a little bit safer in an unsafe world.

"Oh, apprentices..." He shook his head. "Overgrown boys as think they are men. Handed out a few bruises, I hope. Those lessons last longer than winehead."

When the bite of ham pie was cool enough, he gave it a careful bite.

[Dhruv]

The line of the elf’s mouth slanted sideways at Aurin’s remark that the Forgot-Inn’s regular bartender cum waitress was just a girl who can’t say no. He forked a bite of the steaming ham pie into his mouth and slumped a little further forward, considering. For a moment it seemed he was contemplating the outcome of his cooking experiment – after all, dredging his memories resulted in the strangest flotsam buoying to the surface. In this case, the flotsam came in the shape of a cold, clear day set somewhere in his past. He had no idea of the actual sequence, only that he could feel the sharp blade of winter clearing his lungs when the smell of frying ham had greeted him at the kitchen door this morning. It was said that scent was a powerful conjurer, motivating many a recollection to make its way up. It was with these crumbs that he raided Nora’s larder and gathered the ingredients – some a lucky guess, at best – and set about the day’s work of rebuilding himself. Or rebuilding of self.

Aurin was watched as he took his first bites for his reaction, although Dhruv was beginning to suspect that his trust in the man would have come as a surprise to people who had known Aurin longer. That did not make the elf uncomfortable or impact his good opinion, and maybe that in itself was telling. He was broken, but not dull witted. And his experiences, whatever all they were at this specific point in time and space, did not incline him toward judgement in this regard.

“Women who can’t say no are typically built by men who can’t take no as an answer,” he remarked mildly. He gave a glance over the rise of his shoulder to the bar where the woman in question had paused in her work to listen to the fiddler, a dreaming gleam to heavy lidded eyes. There was no edge to the elf’s words but it would be easy to assume he had developed a crush on the bartender, which would neatly explain his clear integration with the day to day dealings of the inn.

Of course, that was not true either.

“Well. We will see how many pies of any kind I’ll be able to make in another turn of the moon or two.” He swallowed a hearty bite before laying down his fork, for once not scraping his plate clean. He must have already eaten, and had seconds. At the rate he was going, he would be full fat by the time they ran out of ingredients for pies or any other foodstuffs. “Do you know what, if any, sort of plans there are for sustaining the local food supply through the, ah, true winter?”

As time – that thief – widened the pass between Dhruv and his abrupt arrival in the Kalzasi sewers, his considerations too broadened. Although he remained far from his full strength, physically as well as magically, he was no longer so very discombobulated. He still suffered from bouts of illness and the great yawn of his memory could still occasionally come back to at a thundrous roar that left him shaking and irrevocably changed. He hoped it would return quickly and in full. He also hoped it would go slow, absorbed drip by drip in a painless rennaisance. Sometimes he was determined to lead what life allotted him here in ignorance of both his origins and his fate. Sometimes.

There was a ghost with gold eyes who flew through fog. There was a wayfinder with a sword like a ticking time bomb and a hydrangea sky that stretched above so blue it could break a soul. Yesterday, for a handful of hours, Dhruv remembered that he was both ghost and helmsman.Today, he recalled the guardian and the clan leader. Who was he to think he could impact the outcome of a food shortage on the people of Kalzasi? What right had he to such a presumption? At the end of the day, Dhruv did not so much as imagine he could change things for the good, only that he should try. He had never been much for permission anyway, preferring the route of forgiveness when the cause was clear. Always a man of action because he was constantly running out of time.

“Had a run in yesterday with a pair of ice elementals who’d been soured by the dread mists,” he offered at length, quite as if he did not realize how deep he had buried the lead. Maybe he didn’t. “If that sort of madness is what we have to look forward to in the coming seasons, the people of this city are going to be hard pressed to handle it until Glade.”

[Aurin]

"The world is a shithole," he informed the elf. "The strong prey upon the weak far more often than they protect them."

Even if he nominally agreed with Dhruv, he wasn't going to suffer even the hint of a lecture from someone he had saved from the literal gutter. His gaze followed the tarnished hytori's to the bar; well, there were worse "ladies" to form an attachment to.

"Most of the plans are magical in nature. Great House Senue especially has the fattest granaries. Great House Briathos has the most mages making magical fixes, although I don't know how much they can assuage the needs of the populace. I'm too uneducated a fuck to grok the maths when it comes to square feet of arable land to hungry mouths to feed. You might not be surprised to know that I know a guy who knows a guy who isn't associated with any noble fuckwits or the poncy Circle of Spells. Got a line on fresh produce if it's needed. Nora gets some of her goods through me. It's a matter of who you know in crises like these."

Aurin wasn't a philanthropist, but he wasn't a profiteer either. He was making some coin on transactions, but he wasn't scalping people within an inch of their worthless lives, and he was largely tossing that coin toward improved infrastructure for his leads.

"Keep making your pies. You won't run out of meat, and I can say with a clear conscience that it won't be the flesh of my enemies." His smirk was comically feral.

But his nose wrinkled at the news of the frost elementals gone bad. Nora was one of his, and he had a claim on Dhruv as well. No mistbegotten fucks were going to fuck with his pawns on the gameboard of life.

"I guess you know a thing or two about protecting yourself if your cock wasn't lost to frostbite," he allowed. "What do you need?"

His question was oddly intense, but it would be difficult to tell if they were in a cutthroat negotiation or a heartfelt desire to equip him such as the new normal required.

[Dhruv]

“Potatoes.” Dhruv’s voice slid under the swollen ascent of the fiddler’s strings, automatically calibrated to be heard but not travel beyond the breadth of their table. How many hours had he spent in bars and backrooms such as this in his youth? “You need about twenty to twenty-five square feet per person for potatoes.”

The elf trailed off. It wasn’t an answer and he well knew it. It was just a fact, bobbing up from the giants depths of his chaotic memory, to present itself. He found it discouraging, a reminder of how busted his brain was The steam had long since cooled from the lip of his mug but he drank deep of it all the same.

He shook his head at himself, elbow down to the table so a long fingered hand could curl about his chin. His smile quirked, eyes meeting at the intensity in Aurin’s question. “Good thing I know you, eh? Else starve. Potatoes.” He snorted at himself or perhaps at the comment regarding his cock.

The strong prey upon the weak far more than they protect them. Shadows spilled like curtains against the backdrop of his memory and he imagined for a moment he could feel the beating of hooves in the pit of his stomach, reverberating through the meat and bones of him. Seeking a route out.

His smile flickered, then faded. The fiddler’s song seesawed cheerfully through the inn’s main room in strange counterpoint. “I need a ring that was fashioned for me an age ago,” when the accent with which he spoke was only old and not yet dead. “So perhaps for my memory to flesh itself out, restore what’s faded both naturally and by illness. I don’t –” He cut himself off and the frustration fletching his words along with it. He took a sip of his drink and began again, more easily. He contained multitudes.

“Aye, I am able to defend myself well enough. Though ice elementals such as those would have seen me gone for reinforcements. I’m not so foolish as to take them on alone.” A beat. “Like this.” As there was an age where he absolutely would have, and been not altogether too worried. He was much diminished. “I accompanied the Dawnmartyr.Talon and the red dragon were more than capable of handling them without me. Aurin –”

Strong shoulders tilted forward, eyebrows drawn. “Do you think some element of history could carry over? That something from the times I’ve lived could follow me forward, here, to this time? If only I could know. I’d not want my body to be the bridge for something like the dread mists.”

He did not really expect Aurin to have an answer for that, and perhaps it was obvious. He didn’t expect anyone too, really, not anyone living. His last hope ought to have died when he lost that interminable clock, or maybe with the death of the last aeternus mage. But time was funny that way, wasn’t it? And time magic stranger still. He might even see his old lover one day, in a far flung future she’d no hope of ever returning from. Dhruv didn’t like to imagine things like that, however, because it kept him balanced on little but longshots when he needed to be grounded in the inevitable – the only way out was through.

[Aurin]

After a pause to assimilate the bit of agricultural lore, he said, "...noted," dry as anything, and moved on. His own fingers were wrapped around his mug; even with his cloak of comfort keeping him warm, as soon as his hands came out of his pockets, they felt the chill.

"A ring," he mused, picking details about it directly from Dhruv's memory as thoughts of it rose to the surface, easy enough to semble. He might ask for more details, or he might just prove himself a right magician if and when he found the thing. From what he knew of Dhruv's story, this one might take him a while, might even take him back to Sol'Valen where the high elves would bless his heart and send him back to the non-elven ghetto when it got close to curfew. Even Aurin wanted to at least seem like "one of the good humans" when in the heart of hytori power.

As for musings about deep, dark, lost magics like time manipulation...

"Shit, I dunno. But if you're rubbing elbows with Arcas reborn and his dragon wife, you've got a line on it that I sure as mists don't. Let me know what they say. Talon did me a solid and etched the warding trick into my skin, so I can maybe ward your curse from... others... potentially... It'd be trial and error, though. I only recognize timey-wimey magic from you, and so I could teach the ward not to let that connect to other people... I think. But again, Talon's got more experience and definitely more power in that arena.

"But I could also put you in touch with a hytori mage here in town who might be a resource to you. Well, half-hytori and half-dratori, but don't go all high and mighty on him. Hytori supremacy doesn't carry much weight outside of the "Boundless" Empire." He actually forsook the heat of his mug long enough to make quotation fingers around Boundless. They had their kingdom and their court of princes right enough, but they weren't the lords of Ailizane, let alone Ransera, let alone distant worlds, not anymore.

"Name's Sivan. Len'Myren to you, Sunrunner if you're nasty. Err... Dratori. Works as an alchemist alongside Torin Kilvin the runeforger up in the Plaza of Jeweled Arches."

If Dhruv had cozied up to Talon and Aoren, he would likely be safe. He'd also likely be put into the line of fire more often, but Aurin wasn't exactly a babysitter, he definitely wasn't Dhruv's mother. But he wouldn't mind a pair of eyes and ears attached to the Novalys highlord and his husband.

[Finn]

Review

Experience: 10 xp for use at your discretion

Injuries: n/a

Loot: n/a

Notes: Putting a pin in this since it takes place in Searing 123 and we're currently in Searing-Ash 124. Suffice it to say, Dhruv is making a place for himself. He did manage not to be found out by the spy Ailuin sent to seek him out back Glade 124, but people are looking for him. We can figure out what he's been up to and start a new thread soon.