Grading Note: Originally intended to be a collab, but posted with the player's permission as a solo.
3rd Day of Ash, 120th Year of the Age of Steel
The Spinning Coin was drenched in hope.
Urs felt it, bright and yellow, a delicate brilliance that burned at every aura he scanned. It collected in hands, as they held their cards and threw dice. Hope clung to their mouths, stuck in old patterns, as they soundlessly prayed to their gods for luck and miracles. As they played and lost, Urs watched as hope died in their eyes.
“Ludwig,” he said, “Grandmother wants you to quit the legionnaire.”
“You can’t just quit the legionnaire, cousin.” Soft. Sighing. The heavy hooded eyes stared back as impassively as the young woman who set down their drinks with a dull thud on the tiny table between them. “It’s a commitment.” Urs’ cousin paused, left brow arched for a half second before he added with a dismissive mumble, “Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“No,” Urs agreed, shrugging. “Not that I’d want to,” he reached for the heavy metal cup, bent and discolored with use and wash, the liquid inside sloshing at the rim. He took a sip, closing his eyes, tasting the color brown, bitter. “Haven’t you repented? Fought enough monsters to be a hero?” He offered his cousin a smile, soft and easy. “It’s not like we couldn’t find the money to buy you out. You’ve managed to attract some heavy wallets, even here.”
His own cup untouched, Ludwig continued to stare, expression somewhere between weary and annoyed. “You’re as irritating as ever,” he returned. “Leaving, quitting, worming my way out with money… all nonstarters.” His expression shifted, more tired now than bothered. “So, again, ‘no’. And ‘no’, and ‘no’, and ‘no’, Urs.”
Urs frowned Ludwig’s aura as still as always. It frayed at the edges, curling in, the colors faded - old things, the same things, nothing new for him to use. “I don’t see why you --,” he breathed, closing his eyes, “Fine. Nonstarters.” He drank again, drinking deeper. “No to leaving, no to quitting, no to money. All fine.”
Urs looked back towards the crowd, towards the games, “I need you to come back, Ludwig. They promised me another year, if you did.”
The corner of Ludwig’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t say anything right away. When he did, the pendulum had swung back in full force into outright anger. “That’s not fair.”
“I’m desperate, cousin,” Urs sighed, “I’ve only managed to buy so much time on my own.”
“Then leave.” Cold. Frustrated. Plenty of frustration. “You want to be… what’s it again? ‘Free’?” Ludwig had never cared for Urs’ incessant claims they were prisoners in their own family. He’d just been one of the few to put up with it. “Get up, get out, and go. Grandmother only has so much patience to waste. Go far enough and even she’ll give up.”
“Oh, sure,” Urs laughed, “It’s that easy. Get up and go, unseen, unnoticed, survive the wild until I reach some godforsaken town and settle down as the local fortune teller, live a few nice years in squalor before the superstitious townsfolk burn me for the witch that I am. Cringe.” Another drink, only a bit of ale left now, “Or, how’s this: Grandmother gets wind of my little escape attempt and breaks our deal, which she’s only entertained so far because I’m still working with the family, and marries me off at discount. Or, even better: I try to make it out, only to find out the idiot who I hired to take me somewhere with a population that isn’t incestuous was paid off by Grandmother to tie me up and push me into the sea.”
“She wants her money and she wants whatever reputation she’s kept that way it stands, Ludwig,” He sighs, “Don’t condescend. Cringe. If I thought it was as easy as just leaving, I’d have left.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Ludwig’s tone had calmed some. “It is that easy. What’s not easy,” he continued, mug still untouched, hands calmly folded on his lap, and piercing gaze unrelenting, “Is living outside of wealth and on your own means. Don’t pretend this is about whether it’s possible or not; you just don’t want to lighten your purse and trade in your silks for sackcloth.”
He sighed. Back and forth between those two near-constant states since they’d sat down. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway. I can’t help you this time, and I think you knew - and know - that. Once you join the Legion, you’re there until they let you go. That’s the entire point.”
“Fine, whatever. Cringe.” Urs downed the rest of his drink, waving down the bartender for another. His cousin wasn’t wrong. A large part of his wanting to still deal with his family was the comfort it afforded. “So you won’t be convinced. What’s the Legion like? Monsters as bad as they say?”
“Yes.” Ludwig’s posture slouched a bit. “Humblingly so.”
“And the things that live down in the caverns? As bad as the monsters in the Legion?” He asked, his lips threatening to break into a smile. It was a stupid, Cringey comment, immature, a petty reminder of how Ludwig found himself with the Legion and a small slight for refusing to help Urs out. It earned a dry huff of amusement from his cousin’s nose.
“So, what are you going to do now?” Ludwig leaned a bit more into his chair, gaze carefully gauging. “You could always join me, you know. Make your prison a bit more… prison-like.”
“Now? Drink more, probably.” Urs smiled as someone brought him another cup of ale, the liquid a bit more...solid, than the one prior. “Cheaper here than the places I usually go.” He sniffed it, and his magic scoured, tasting the bitter aftertaste, but he didn’t detect anything rancid. With his eyes closed, he took a long drink. “Oh, could I? You’d let me join the Legionnaires? Isn’t - don’t you have to know how to fight first?”
“Let you join the Legion,” his cousin muttered with that familiar annoyance bristling at the back of his tongue. “You don’t need to know anything first, unless you want to, you know, not die.” His own cup still untouched, and presumably never to be touched, Ludwig stared at Urs’ for a few seconds before he settled his steady gaze once again onto his cousin’s face. “I’m a worthless drinking partner so: was there anything else or are we finished here? Cringe.”
Urs sat, still drinking, his eyes closed as he chugged the rest of the beverage. “Could always use tips, cousin.” He burped, loudly, the sour-sweet stench of beer on his breath. “To be honest, this isn’t the first time someone suggested the Legion to me - as a joke, obviously, but I figured why not look into the last resort?” He wiped the froth off his lips, “I signed up with a mercenary team to find a missing person. Cringe. Any tidbits on how to best not die in the lands below?”
His cousin’s lips curved in quiet amusement, but after a few seconds, his brow furrowed. “You’re serious?”
“Would I lie to you? That’s pretty cringe.” Urs smirked. Ludwig opened his mouth, but Urs cut him off before he could fire off whatever smart-aleck retort he had planned. “Don’t answer that, but yes, I’m being serious. I’m the ‘eyes’ for the party.”
“Then blind them.” There was no humor in his voice now. “Gouge them out, if you have to. My ‘tidbits’ on how best not to die would be to never go down there in the first place.”
“They are paying me a lot,” he shrugged, “Enough that I don’t have to worry so much about my upcoming deadline. And it’s only...what did they call it, the first level? Not so dangerous is what they said.”
“Hard to be paid if you’re dead,” Ludwig returned. “I can’t stop you, so if you’re really going to chase some coins down into hell, my advice would be stay a step behind the front and if they go down, you run the opposite direction.”
“Figured as much.” Urs sighed. “But that’s it from me, then.” For the first time since they’d sat down, Urs was quiet for more than a few moments. “Goodbye, I guess? I mean, it’s not like I’ll see you at the next family function. Cringe.”
“You might.” His cousin didn’t look especially hopeful about it the whole thing, but it didn’t stop him from quietly elaborating. “Whatever else, I’m not officially a criminal. I have the choice. I just…” His shoulders slowly bounced. “Choose not to, usually.”
“Anyway,” he continued, pushing up out of his chair and onto his feet. “This wasn’t fun, and I don’t really care to do it again. It was nice to see your face again, though.” His smile was more sad than teasing, in spite of his tone sounding the reverse. “Maybe next time it won’t even involve favors and commands I can’t follow through on.”
“I’ll try not to involve things you won’t agree to,” Urs offered his cousin a quick smile. “Or maybe next time, you’ll be the one who comes with questions you already know the answer to.” He stood from his chair, legs knocking against the table awkwardly. “Be safe, as much as you can be.”
