[Flashback] Money Where Your Mouth Is [Arvalyn]

[Aurin]

16 Searing 119
Noon

The Velvet Cabaret was open, even in the middle of the day. It moved more slowly, only revving up enough to keep those clients who were there happy. Food was available, as well as drinks and all the other intoxicants one might prefer later. A scantily clad woman was standing on the stage and singing a sweet song about her poor, lost pussy.

If a travel-weary young man were to let himself in, clearly fresh—metaphorically speaking—from the road, nobody would glance askance. The bartender on duty would wave him over, offer him a seat and ask his poison, would tell him what was on the menu because he looked more hungry than thirsty. If he asked after a man named Aurin, he would be offered something to eat and something to drink on the house. Sometimes Aurin's name could be a code. Sometimes the folks working for Madame Lunaria just looked out for each other.

If he could stand being fed and watered—or something stronger than water—he would then be told that Aurin had worked late last night. That he wasn't in. If the young man looked disappointed or defeated, a kind bartender might suggest a red-roofed building in the alley. Walk out the front door, he would say, turn away from the Peacock, toward the Crane. Around that way. Easy peasy. When he found it, it would be much as he described—not a mansion in Antiris, but a cottage in the Plaza of Jeweled Arches, its red roof long since faded from garnet to something else. In any case, it had been an outbuilding of the Cabaret until he bought it off of Lunaria, so if it was a little faded, it made the roof of the Cabaret stand out all the more to horny bird boys flying overhead, though she stopped short of having someone paint huge letters spelling out C U M I N S I D E.

If he tried the door, it would be locked. If he cased the joint, the windows would be barred, heavy curtains drawn. High up under the eaves, though, wooden slats were open to let breezes through, carrying out the hottest air as it rose to the top. Clever. Through them, though, all that could be heard were the faint sounds of sleeping.

If he knocked, a sleeping voice would shout, "Go away!"

If, nevertheless, he persisted, fumbling sounds would approach the door. It would unlock. A familiar face, rumpled with not enough sleep, would peer blearily out at him. Hazel eyes might smolder with something like self-loathing, or it could just have been sleep. The door was open enough to reveal about half of his body, a sheet held around his waist. His chest and arms bore scars. Some of them might even be the ones that helped make unexpected touch so jarring.

But his mind was quick to wake, a survival skill. As soon as it did, he said, "Arvine."

If Arvine was listening through his mother's bequest, he might be overwhelmed by the jangle of mostly negative emotions that hung from something perhaps even more jarring: joy.

Then he made three obvious observations: "You made it. You're here. You're alive."

Then, "See, I didn't lie about not having a mansion. I'm... sorry about how I acted." His voice hushed as though he didn't want to be overheard. This was his doorstep, not a random tavern in a city far, far away. "I didn't mean to leave it like that, but I understand why you wouldn't want to meet me. But I'm glad to see you."

[Arvælyn]

There was a time when Arvine Venasyr had imagined a glorious entry into Kalzasi. He'd envisioned himself as a conquering prince or a visiting dignitary. In more realistic moments: a tourist. He'd imagined visiting this foreign city and taking in the sights about which he'd heard. He might try their local cuisine, take in the architecture of their entertainment venues... maybe even go 'bird boy' watching. Such as things had panned out, he arrived under less glamorous circumstances on a bright, Searing day after weeks of travel.

Aurin had correctly presaged the fate of the boy he’d seen as a second self. The copper-topped human had foreseen a sudden shift in the Arvine’s fortunes, which had come in the form of a constabulary raid of the only home he’d known since he was thirteen years old. His dodgy approximation of a father-figure and most of his sibling substitutes had been apprehended. Arry himself had been captured and it was only by the grace of his ‘inheritance’ coming to life in his true moment of need that the half-blooded pickpocket retained his liberty.

Cast to the wind, he spent his first few untethered days as an aimless vagabond. He couldn’t stay in Antiris- the only city he’d ever known, but he had no sturdy connections elsewhere. His mother in Sol’Vallen had made it explicitly clear that he wasn’t welcome, and that the extent of her participation in his upbringing would be laboring him to life and scrawling the sigil that marked his left wrist. The only other option, and it seemed like a tenuous one to hope for, as it was originally offered by a man who’d bade against hope, was The Velvet Cabaret in Kalzasi.

Oh, he’d thought about making the journey to that Western freehold many times. He’d had every intention of meeting Aurin in front of a certain taphouse three days after their fateful meeting, as promised. Circumstance, in the form of his erstwhile faux-father Demitrov, had seen fit to detain him on that day, and so the opportunity slipped him by for two long years.

Now here he was. Kalzasi in the balmy heat of a Searing afternoon. He’d always envisioned himself arriving at night to be dazzled by the lights of the city. But he didn’t arrive in some stage coach, ready to take in a show or take on the world, he arrived on tired feet in clothes he’d been wearing for days.

He found The Velvet Cabaret and it was both nothing and exactly like he’d imagined it. There was music playing as he entered, but he simply hadn’t the energy to regard it as much more than underscoring to his delirium. He was passed the point where food and drink might help steady him- what he needed was sleep- but that didn’t stop him from accepting the meal as it was proffered. But he didn’t try to stretch that inch into a mile, this time. Instead he made his way toward the spot to which the barman had directed him, and he ultimately found himself in the doorframe of the man he’d been seeking, in one way or another, for the past two years.

It was odd to see him, after all this time. It jarred him to think this person, who had become such a central figure- a symbol in his life for years, had been someone he’d only ever spent an hour with. They might have met yesterday for how it felt to see him again.

“Look.” He pointed to his woolen cap, which was hunter green rather than fading brown. “I got a new hat.” He reached up, without even realising he was doing it, and tugged it off his head revealing the ashen hair and blade-like ears he’d spend his entire life tucking away. He smiled wearily.

“I made it.” He rasped. “I really made it…” He sounded awed as his knees buckled beneath him and he fell forward into Aurin.

[Aurin]

Aurin started to laugh at the kid's joke—well, he'd be eighteen now, so not a kid, though he still looked like he could stand to double down on a few meals for a while. When he started to topple, reflex took over and he caught him, only partially getting tangled up in his sheet toga. He paused. Arvine was breathing, so that was a good start. No visible injuries. Sweet. Well, perhaps this was a good thing. It would avoid a little bit of awkwardness.

"Hey, ladies?" he called. "Could you give us the room?"

When his companions had quit the space, he was able to pull up the covers and lay Arvine out. He got dressed and, on second thought, pulled out some clothes he didn't wear anymore for Arvine to wear later. His own looked travel-stained and worn. He could score some nicer castoffs from the Cabaret's stores, or he could take him to get some new stuff of his own later. He hadn't forgotten Arvine and he hadn't forgotten his promise. He would make good on it.

He put the kettle on, but drank the entire thing and still Arry slept. He busied himself with a lot of little tasks about the cottage that needed doing. Still, he slept. He didn't stir at any point when Aurin came and went, though he told him he would be right back as he hurried back and forth from the Cabaret with more food, more bedding, more clothes. He even brought boots that might fit, having held his own against Arry's to try to size them. The place didn't look homey, really. He kept it rather spartan. If anything could be called a decoration, it would be, perhaps, the various peasant tools that could also work as weapons that hung from the walls. In fact, he was sharpening the blade of a kama, considering something for supper, when he thought he heard the kid murmuring.

It was getting dark, so he turned on the aether-fueled lamp that would give steady light but blessedly little in the way of heat as the searing season gave them plenty of that.

He put the kettle on again, not trying to sneak, but make enough safe noises that the golden thief wouldn't be startled more than necessary in a new environment.

[Arvælyn]

The Arvine of today was slightly taller but no heavier than the Arry of yesteryear whom Aurin had met two years earlier. Aurin had doubtless carried heavier figures to bed over the years, and this one tumbled onto his mattress like a sack of turnips. The road had been hard on the half-elf. He'd never travelled so far in his life, and the heat in his baggy clothes and woolen had under an unforgiving, Searing sun had drained him of his energy and his wits.

The first leg of his sleep was an imitation of death but, about three hours in, his body trembled and writhed at the command of fell dreams. The nightmares that wracked and assailed his form only seemed to last for an hour or two, then for the remainder of his sleep he only twisted and turned a few times. When he finally woke it was with a jolt.

"Ng!" He sat upright and appraised unfamiliar surroundings. He wiped at his forehead, which was drenched in cold sweat with his usually light hair darkened by the moisture that matted it to his sun-bronzed skin. He groaned, swinging his legs around the edge of the bed and burying his face in his hands as he hunched forward with his elbows on his lap. By this point he remembered where he was, and lazily lifted his head to take stock of his surroundings. He hadn't actually seen this room, as he'd entered in unconscious in the arms of his erstwhile saviour. Speaking of whom...

"Aurin?" He called out, though not loudly. He could hear activity outside the door, but he was a bit anxious to wander through the other man's property. He'd proven easy to offend, when last they'd parted and for all Arvine knew Aurin was just on the other side of that wall tending a herb garden with that bar boy he'd been flirting with at the time. Stranger things had happened, he mused, as he rolled his neck and rubbed the nape with slender fingers.

[Aurin]

Aurin wasn't sure if he was imagining hearing his name, but as he opened the door with his hip, arms full of wood from the woodpile around the corner, he saw Arvine was awake. For all that he had been watching over and preparing his home for Arvine all day while the lad slept, his smile was still wary. He had tried to apologize immediately, but Arvine had gone and fainted, probably from exhaustion. He may have used his dirty trick to peek, verifying that Arvine hadn't come to die on his doorstep.

"Hey, kid," he said, managing to sound nonchalant as if his presence had been expected. "Woke up in time for supper. Late supper, anyway. Hungry?"

He stacked the wood in the metal cache near the hearth. His kitchen didn't get a lot of use; he did store some food there, but mostly grabbed things to eat next door at work. He kept less in the summer as things didn't keep as well in the heat, but he remembered Arvine being an eater and he didn't know if he was going to have the strength or will to go next door, and so he had stocked up a bit. Trips back and forth had kept him occupied in the intervening hours while Arvine slept.

Not sure about the care and feeding of the young, he just started setting the table for him. There was only the one chair at the table, but he could eat standing up. It was basically a recreation of what they had shared two years previous. He couldn't say why he remembered it in detail. The stew had been simmering in the hearth. A small cask of ale was still cold from the wine cellar next door. There was tea as well, because who knew how the lad would feel. There was even a small lemon cake with a pot of honey. He just kept adding things to the spread, hoping Arvine would come sit and he could make up for being a shithead.

[Arvælyn]

"Hi..." Arvine rasped faintly, and looked up at Aurin with curious eyes. He hadn't changed much in the intervening years. Not on the surface, at least, according to his bleary eyes.

"I could eat." He replied, attempting an ironic smile. He was certain if he'd left any impression on Aurin at all, apart from being a thief, it was the wanton gluttony that had doubtless cost the man near as much as had been purloined from him. Arry let out a heavy exhalation and pushed himself up- his weight suspended by wobbly knees. Dizzy and dazed he stumbled his way to the table, which he used to brace himself as he took the seat.

"You probably won't believe me..." He began, feeling the need to address the elephant in the room straight away. "...but I didn't get cold feet." He leaned forward, elbows on the table and half-lidded eyes followed Aurin about the room as he prepared. "I had every intention of being there. Out front. At noon." His eyes followed the mug of ale as it was delivered to the table with a bowl of stew.

"Thank you." He reached for the ale first, and gulped down half the contents before taking a breath and wiping the foam from dry, chapped lips and the tip of his sunburnt nose.

"Demitrov caught me packing. I should've just left everything, honestly. I ended up losing it all anyway." A thought crossed his mind, and his hand suddenly shot up to his neck where he felt around for a thin strip of leather served as a necklace with some unseen charm hanging against his chest- covered by his shirt. At least he hadn't lost that. He relaxed again,

"He detained me. Wouldn't let me go." He picked up the proffered spoon with a shaky hand, and dipped it into the stew. He lost a lot of the haul between bowl and mouth, but he did manage to get a few vegetables onto his tongue. He smiled creased cracked lips,

"I remember you said I made you feel nostalgic back then." He gestured to the stew, "Now you've returned the favour."

[Aurin]

Aurin listened quietly, let the ghost of a smile light him up for a moment as the nostalgia he had provoked. Then he cleared his throat, ladling some stew into another bowl for himself. He leaned against the wall, not quite remember how to be with someone who knew he was full of shit.

"I didn't think you were scared," he averred. He admitted, "I was an asshole. You were too smart and your eyes saw too much. Felt cornered and my crazy came out. Lashed out. Tried to hurt your feelings and I guess I did. I am sorry." He shook his head. "I should've made the offer contingent on you not going back. I know how those scenarios play out. Thought about going back, but... I didn't. Water under the bridge, I guess. I hope. I mean, here you are. Welcome to my home."

He made a gesture from another place, his fingers touching heart, lips, brow, and then out. It wouldn't mean anything to the half-elf, but it did to him.

Glib Aurin didn't really know what to say. It was so rare that he actually connected with a person that he remembered a day two years previous in a faraway city as if it were yesterday, but he realized he didn't really know Arvine. He just recognized similar patterns in their stories. He shouldn't make assumptions. Perhaps he would get to know Arvine finally, instead of pushing him away or keeping him at a safe distance. He knew safety wasn't a real thing. For all that he was good at playing a person at the Cabaret, he wasn't very good at it outside its walls.

"You made it, though. On your own. I respect that. Now that you're here, try to relax. Eat, sleep, explore the city. I'll help however I can. Like I said I would."

[Arvælyn]

"I don't want you to think I gave up easy, either..." Arvine bade, " When I say 'detained', I mean 'set a few of the bigger guys to kicking me until I couldn't walk for a few days.'" He didn't sound particularly resentful of the act. It was, as Aurin had just put it, 'water under the bridge' for him. All those involved had been long since punished now, though not by his hand. Yet, more than anything he felt bad for them. Demitrov had been the closest thing he'd known to a parent since his father died and his mother did... Whatever it was she did. Arry certainly didn't know.

"Anyway..." He took another spoonful of stew, and tried to use his powers of concentration to steady his hand. Hadn't he once boasted to Aurin how steady a hand he wielded?

"Is that what crazy looks like in Kalzasi?" Arry glanced up with a weary, but impish grin, "Just seemed to me like you were being a right bitch." The grin expanded into a chuckle, which only pulsed three times before transitioning into a dry cough that doubled him over his bowl for a few moments. He took a swallow of ale, once it had subsided.

"You don't owe me an apology. You don't owe me a damned thing. I'm not your kid... And I think we both know that, even if I were, parents don't always get that magical sense of nurturing that they're s'posed to. Anything you've ever given me was because you wanted to, not because you felt you had to. That's why I came here... why I trust you." He scooped his spoon into the bowl.

"It's tried and true, now. You'll give me all the help you want to," He lifted the spoon as if in a toasting gesture, and lost half its haul in the process. "And you'll dismiss me when you've had enough of my shit." And with that he took what remained of the spoonful into his mouth.

[Aurin]

One hand still cradling his bowl of stew, the other spread wide. His smile was tight at first, but he loosened up as things went on. The shaking and the coughing, though, he hoped were temporary, things that he could sleep off. Perhaps if he were more practiced with his dirty trick, he could tell for certain if there were some underlying illness that needed addressing.

"I guess I'm a right bitch, then. And, well, when I've had enough of your shit, I'll just go back to work." He laughed. "And when you've had enough of mine, well... Leave if you want, but you can come back." Being an actual human person was infinitely more difficult than playing at one next door, where he had a clear purpose and function, the tools of his trade old and comfortable now."

Anyway, logistics were a necessary conversation, and easier than whatever else they might have talked about. Indicating the far corner of the cottage, he began, "There's water in the ewer there for washing up. I've got some old clothes and boots of mine that might fit you. Brought some from the Cabaret's storage too. If nothing works, we can go get you some things of your own when your wandering feet have had more rest."

Toward the hearth, "Plenty of food and water for a while. We can always get more next door, too. One of the good things about this gig is perks like that. Better baths next door as well, but I can't smell you from here, so that might not be a priority yet. Maybe take you to the Crane soon. Best baths, massages. They'll make you feel like a mountain of gold. Help you recover from your journey, hey?" He paused. "You're just exhausted, I guess?" He wanted to pry, but he was hoping that more of their time together would be pleasant than the inevitable clashes of personality. Clashes were fine; friends could work around those. Well, he didn't know if they were friends exactly. Maybe someday.

"If that cough lingers, we'll go see a healer."

[Arvælyn]

"Whatever you need to do, mate!" Arvine laughed, lighter this time as not to prompt another coughing fit. "If you're right and we're quite alike, it naturally follows that I'm a right bitch, too. I'm just glad you don't need a break from me yet." He let silence pass between them, stew slurping notwithstanding. He found his hands steadier working in concert, and brought the bowl to his lips to welcome the broth. After a few savoury swallows he placed it down.

"I was testing you, just then, you know." He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, out of habit- not even noticing the serviette. "I didn't really know if you'd shown up on the day. I thought maybe..." He squirmed a bit in his chair, "...with the way we left things..." He trailed off. It didn't matter now. It was clear enough from Aurin's reaction that he'd followed through on his promise, even though he was mad. Not everyone did that. Not even most, in his reckoning, so it really meant something.

"Thank you... I didn't mean to drop in out of the blue and impose on you like this. I-..." He paused abruptly, an amusedly incredulous expression commandeering his countenance. "Wait- Did I get to your door and immediately faint on you?" He tipped his head back, unable to temper his laughter at that freshly recovered memory. He'd been too groggy to focus when he'd just woken, but now he remembered greeting him and his knees buckling and then a bed. He coughed a bit more amidst the peels of laughter, and covered his mouth with his forearm.

"I'm sorry, that is too dramatic. Did you think it was a prank?" The laughter subsided, but the smile remained. "It's nothing, really. Just a lot of nights without a roof or a full belly. I'm not proper sick."