“I’m glad you remember me Alice, you look gorgeous by the way…maybe you could tell her I’m not her enemy. I was just trying to have an evening getting drunk and watching the city torch the Burning Man…she started a fight. Being fair I distracted myself and she ended it…then that man smashed a bottle on the back of her head. I’ve already been told how I’ve never enjoyed a woman, in very pointed ways…drinking and smoking is apparently all the vices I have left. Can’t even enjoy those…petching city” he muttered the last words, groaning slightly as he shifted to let Alice tend to Bron, rolling over and pushing himself slowly to his feet, grabbing the last bottle he had and opening it before downing a generous mouthful.
He offered it to Alice, who took a lighter sip before passing it back and looking over her friend.
“I don’t know, she was pretty staggering when…Avery was it? When he brought her. Just kept feeding her I think, I didn’t realise how bad it was getting. He…when she passed out he went for his trousers…so I sent him off…left his jacket…she pulled the damned vial from it…and here we are” he sighed, drinking another big mouthful.
He listened to Alice for a while quietly, turning her words around in his mind and finding that he was possessed of a cold within that he hadn’t really known before – that was new from his memory. Perhaps the seasons had changed him, perhaps he was just getting tired of the city never wanting to better itself, or perhaps he was just tired of himself and wanted to try to make the world better, even if it meant doing something terrible. But the words formed upon his lips before he could really think about stopping them, which wasn’t surprising given his inebriated and semi-concussed state.
“I could just kill him, if you think it’d make the city better. Make her better. I already killed half of one drug group for her…what’s one more?” he shrugged and drank more deeply, casting his eyes around the area and finding it more full than he remembered from before their fighting.
“Druva…she said her last name was Druva,” he told Alice thoughtfully, “I think that’s a Knight family name…Syliras. Seem to remember some Svefra getting drunk and babbling about them. Import fees and so on. I know that there’s a few dotted about, doing their own version of good in this gods forsaken city, keeping quiet about it no doubt. Didn’t know she was one though…amusing given the state she’s in. As for place…I have no idea…and she isn’t about to tell me I don’t think”
Either way it seemed a good idea to get Bron back to somewhere safe, and make sure she was secure for at least one more night before she would, no doubt, go about trying to get herself killed once more. He had felt that deep, cold, hollow within her…and he didn’t know how she was still alive. She felt so…terrible. He could appreciate now, why she used the dust, but he also knew it was making her worse. She wasn’t this bad that first time they had met, not by a long shot. He was at a loss as to what to do, and he hated feeling helpless. When she was brought around he grit his teeth and tried to ignore the barbs as best he could, setting his face carefully and pushing back his emotions so that his face was as cold a mask as he could make it.
“I’ve tied her down before, but first,” he said, squatting down so that he was level with the guard and looking her in the eye for a few moments, ignoring the curses and wondering what was best to ask, deciding that as she had done that family would be the best tactic, “Samantha Druva…your sister? She is missing? What do you know? I will ask around” he asked, letting her answer so that he had something to go on that might give her a path, should anything turn up, out of her downward spirals.
“Druva is a Syliras family? Right? Which means your big daddy has somewhere to be contacted. Bases...right? Camps? Where is the closest?”
“That is all I need to know, but you can shut up and listen now Bron. You are beautiful enough, when you aren’t spitting feathers and trying to kill me, but my path is my own. But there are things about me you don’t know. I can’t be what you want me to be. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t help you…if you need it. Or want it. You were right, I could have tried harder. But I never claimed to be perfect. Spit at me, hate me all you like, even after the Tears wear off…but nothing changes what I agreed when we first met. But…you need to stop this self-destruction. Otherwise it will be the end of you”
He met her eyes for a while before nodding and looking at Alice, finishing his drink and throwing the bottle towards the Burning Man – he wasn’t going to get to see it this night it seemed. He would wait for Alice to get Bron ready, get her up, and then help her drag her back to Brega’s, there to tie her down if needed. But, mostly, he just felt saddened that it had all come to this, and he would remember the lesson for a long time to come.
