Solo The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Caspian runs into an old flame.

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A lawless town of anarchists, built on the ruins of an ancient mining city. [Lore]

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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on June 8th, 2022, 1:33 pm

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2 Summer 522


Despite his general disposition, in which he very rarely says no to things – especially new things, amusing things, things that promise to lead him down captivating avenues – there are some things Caspian hasn’t done.

And one of them is visiting a brothel, specifically with the intent to utilize the establishment for its express purpose.

Even then, he’s no stranger to them. Back in Ravok – the memory thudding a little too keenly in his heart for something so far and away – he’d spent many a morning, afternoon, and night at his friend Saticath’s apartment, across from the Plaza of Dark Delights. Saticath was a beautician, and most of her clientele were the hosts and hostesses from across the way. Maybe that was a hint, one of many that he had chosen to sweep under the rug, that he was never going to escape the underclasses. That the veneer he had tried so desperately to craft, when he’d run away to Ravok, of a refined, upstanding citizen was futile. History and experience tell him now - he was always this person, was inevitably going to return to this. It takes a certain kind of individual to be this at ease in the murk.

Someone’s been following him for the past few blocks, and the brothel just up ahead is the closest escape available in his immediate surroundings. He would have preferred – anything else, really, but he dips in anyway, crosses a threshold painted in candy stripes of pink and white, brushes past a curtain of bells and ribbons that ring damningly loud and clear. Tries to feign, with his body language, that he’s not someone becoming increasingly anxious about what he suspects is behind him. That this had been his destination all along.

The parlor he steps into is standard fare. Dim, reeking of tobacco. Brightly dyed feathers and silk flowers meant to distract one from the peeling paint. Three women of varying levels of boredom and listlessness are draped on the couches. Caspian accidentally makes eye contact with the man filing his nails in the corner, who based on his general lack of clothing, clearly also works here. The man’s up on his feet immediately, making a beeline towards Caspian, like a magpie after a shiny coin.

“Nope,” Caspian says flatly, holding one hand up.

“Nope?” The man raises a dramatically thinned and arched eyebrow, painted blue.

“Nope.”

The man crosses his arms, sizes Caspian up. “If this is part of your game, know that convincing you will still cost you by the minute.”

“No petching game, friend. I just –” Unable to help himself, Caspian steals towards the window, peers out at the street from behind the curtain. There are plenty of people out, strolling by. But no one appears to be waiting and watching for him to emerge. Still, he can only see so much from this vantage point. Whoever’s been following him could easily be just out range, loitering one house further down the block. “Petch,” Caspian growls to himself, not very much in love with the prospect.

“If you aren’t going to pay – ”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Caspian turns back to the man. Glares at the three women on the couches, all of whom –

Nope.

Still lolling half-asleep, and entirely uninterested.

“I’m sorry,” Caspian says again, with less ire. “Someone’s been stalking me for the better part of a half-bell. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s the case. I just want to throw them off. Do you have a back door I can use?”

Blessedly – Caspian really doesn’t have the patience for it today – the man ignores the very obvious opportunity to make a lewd joke.

“We might,” the man says, crossing his arms. “But it’ll come at a price.”

No surprises there. “I’d be disappointed in you if it didn’t.”
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Last edited by Caspian on July 9th, 2022, 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on June 19th, 2022, 5:29 pm

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“One gold? You want one whole massive entire gold just to use a door? A door that’s already open? I won’t even touch it, look, I don’t eat many square meals a day so I can just slip right – “

The blue-eyebrowed trollop grabs him by the collar and yanks him back with surprising force. “It’s more than fair.”

Caspian narrows his eyes. The tramp may be decked in blue, but he still hasn’t given up lining his lids with – well, as coincidence would have it. Gold. “Let go.”

“Coin.”

Please let go?”

Coin.”

“You’re just a charming one, aren’t you? Rake in all the cash that way, do you? Can’t say I go for bullishness myself. Though it’s a fine line between confidence and yourself, which is being an absolute barnacle –“

Caspian’s attempts at persuasion go nowhere, and he flails like a ragdoll in the man’s grip.

“Fine! Petching hell, fine, let me just get my wallet –“

In the man’s relaxing of his hold – all he needs is a second, a fraction of an opening, one drippy little drop of weakness – Caspian flips around, bars his forearm against the man’s windpipe and shoves him against the wall. But the man’s a lot taller than him – a feat not too difficult to achieve – and shoves back. Down goes a spindly table with its faded checkerboard cloth, a standing rack empty save for two dusty bottles of wine, a line of salt and pepper shakers all shaped like livestock.

Miraculously, nothing breaks.

The table was built to be collapsible, and folds along its hinges. The bottles roll dully down the length of the kitchen floor; so this house is slanted east-ways, and Caspian isn’t just imagining that tilt. The bric-a-brac goats and pigs and sheep and – is that a cow or a Dalmatian? – clutter and clatter against the tiles, largely unharmed.

But Caspian –

“Holy hell,” Caspian groans, muffled beneath the checkerboard cloth, which from his latest inhale is a little too dusty and possibly moldy for his liking. “All for a petching door?” If only he, like the man, also wasn’t wearing pants. It’s a mobility thing. Clearly that’s the only reason he’s being made a fool of in the neglected kitchen of this two-bit brothel.

“You did this to yourself,” the man replies, and – no, given how often that tends to be the case, Caspian can’t say he’s wrong.

But he’s also not going to give up that easily.

Bounding to his feet, Caspian feints to his left, dips towards his right, zips back to the left again and dives for the open door and –

The man catches him around the waist, tackling him back to the ground.

“Don’t they feed you here?” Caspian groans, twisting like a ferret and elbowing the man in the face. He’s still half pinned under him.


“Doesn’t whoever manage you feed you?”

Not wrong again; both their ribcages, in certain lighting, could make one wince.

“I will not be managed,” Caspian grits, a knee digging painfully into his kidney, “not now, not ever – “

The pair freeze at the sound of a crash and a shout from above.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on July 7th, 2022, 2:34 pm

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Arms splayed out across the kitchen tiles, Caspian looks from the ceiling to the man who still has both hands around his windpipe. “Now that sounds like an emergency if I ever heard one,” he rasps. Only belatedly does he realize that their positioning means the man could, well, spit on him if he wanted to. It’s a very specific thought to occur to him, born unfortunately from plenty of prior experience. But there’s another scream and a crash, and the girls from the front room are scampering up the stairs, and the man lets him go to follow suit.

Rubbing his throat, Caspian sits up blearily, frowns at the commotion upstairs. Considers the mess around him, and the back door.

Which way should he choose?

Upstairs promises – well, a situation. And though voices and stamping filters down, none of it’s clear enough for him to determine what might be going on. And not knowing – that’s what gets him, always and forever. A locked box should be opened. He can’t help himself from flipping the page.

But he did just get the thing he originally asked for, which was an escape, and all for the very wonderful price of free.

So the responsible thing to do, firstly, is stand up – great, yes, he’s done that, and all his bones seem intact. In fact, being slammed on the ground by that man had done wonders for realigning his spine. And this begs the question – how responsible is one, really, if one has just scampered into a brothel on the mere inkling that one is being stalked, and immediately caused property damage?

“No baby out with the bath water today,” he says to himself with a sigh, forcibly peeling his eyes away from the ceiling to head for the back door.

They have a nice little patio out here. A little weed-infested, with a collection of rusted rakes and shovels propped against the wooden fence, but all in all not unpleasant if one wanted to kick back in the sun. He crosses the yard, dried nettles pricking at the exposed skin between the hem of his pants and his shoes, and pitches himself over the fence. Said fence wobbles dangerously, and for a minute he imagines and possibly even feels guilty for the prospect of all of it crashing down. But he hauls himself over, landing ungainly on one foot and one knee, and then he’s up on his feet again and quickly trotting down the lane.

Only when he’s a healthy half dozen blocks away does he allow himself to slow to a walk. Sweating is unpleasant; so are the dried prickly golden bits of grass stuck to his palms. As he rests in a shaded nook of an abandoned storefront, he picks them out with a frown, wipes his palms down the front of his pants.

He should be thankful for his good luck. Even someone like him deserves a break every now and then. But something about it doesn’t sit right with him. It had been too sudden, too well-timed. Far too convenient.

As that feeling of unease grows, he catches a glimpse of a shadow passing into the alley behind him.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on July 10th, 2022, 1:27 pm

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From then on, everywhere Caspian goes, things just seem to work out.

First there’s the silver watch he spies dangling on a teenage girl’s wrist. In proximity to Sunberth’s gated community, it’s not unusual to see that sort of shimmer. A few yards behind her in the lane, Caspian spots a woman who might be the girl’s mother, strolling ahead with an older girl – a sister? The teenager with the watch also happens to have a dog on a leash, a yappy little mutt overly enthusiastic about a scrubby-looking butterfly not so much as flying but being shunted this way by the wind. The watch band is made of silver links, and that’s why Caspian had noticed it in the first place. Had it been made of a darker leather, leaving only the watch face to shine in the light, his attention may not have been so arrested. But all of it’s sparkling, and glinting, and conspicuously loose on her slim bones. He doesn’t miss the way she holds it up to the sun every now and then, how she tosses her hair back and tries to straighten her gown whenever the dog gets too riled and musses her. He shoves his hands into his pockets, continues at easy meander, watching her all the while. It’s not her watch, he’d wager. Maybe her older sister’s, or her mother’s, which accounts for how loose it is. Perhaps she’s out here on their promenade, imagining herself older, as a dame with all manner of fine things at her disposal.

The current object of his fancy should be easy enough to just slip off.

But how?

Were the girl as old as she was possibly imagining herself to be – and here’s the validation of the theory, for Caspian spots an excess of rouge on the girl’s cheeks, clumsily placed – this would be a lot more straightforward. He might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he does have manners – no thanks to this place – and were she an adult he wouldn’t be remiss, at this juncture, to try and charm her. But she’s essentially a child, and he’ll have to take a different tack.

Though a compliment – the careful kind – might still do the trick.

The dog’s giving her a world of trouble. It isn’t very well-trained, and zig-zags despite its being tethered, its attention flitting between anything that moves. It drags her, makes her lag behind her presumed mother and sister. The mother and sister don’t seem to care much, caught in an argument up ahead that’s steadily growing more heated. Caspian takes a few strides forward, catches up to her breezily, makes it seem as if this had been his stride all along.

“That’s a pretty pet you have,” he says, nodding towards the dog. “You know, I had one just like it growing up. Dotty. Dotty was a wonderful friend.”

The girl startles a touch at seeing him, but recovers. Still playing grown-ups, she tosses her hair behind her shoulders, tries to rein the dog in. Give some semblance of having any control over the situation, which he can tell she doesn’t, really.

The watch glints at him in the sun.

“This is Fritz. My sister called him that because he always seems to be on the fritz. He’s up morning, noon, and night, pawing and chewing at everything. I can’t tell if he’s happy.”

Fritz was gnawing on a log.

“He isn’t bored, that’s for sure.”

“I’m Caspian, by the way.”

The girl glances uncertainly at her mother and sister up ahead, then back at Caspian. No, Caspian urges her silently. There’s nothing to worry about here, beneath all this sunshine, with all those ribbons in your hair. “I’m Darla,” she replies. Not so smart, this one, talking so easily to strangers.

“I do miss my Dotty,” Caspian goes on, eyeing the dog. “I wonder – oh, is your shoe untied? I could hold on to Fritz if you needed it. If you wouldn’t mind indulging me for a moment.”

Flustered, the girl pauses, is nearly dragged forward by the excitable dog. It’s hard to see her shoes from her viewpoint, with how long her dress is. But she takes Caspian’s word for granted and hands him the dog.

The hand with which she’d been holding the leash – that’s where the watch had dangled. Here’s his chance. It’ll be quick, and she may not even notice; and if she does notice, he’ll just let go of the dog, which will surely bolt away, and he’d bet she’d ultimately go chasing after it than him.

But this is when the mother and sister decide to look back.

“Darla?” the mother calls sharply, her eyes all daggers for him.

Right, this doesn’t look very good at all.

“I just need to tie my shoe – “ Darla begins, but it doesn’t matter that she’s handing Caspian the leash. He doesn’t like having two more pairs of eyes on him, even if he could still make a run for it.

And that’s when a pack of wild dogs, howling and snarling, come streaming out of the alley between them.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on July 19th, 2022, 11:10 pm

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This isn’t the first time an actual horde of wild dogs have come across Caspian’s way. It occurs to him now, from a detached and slightly concerned point of view, that there seem to be dogs around him, everywhere and all the time, no matter the city he’s lived in. Except, perhaps, Ravok, but that was only because most of the citizens who bothered to have pets kept the little mutts inside. (Who could blame them, right? Imagine one’s yapping investment tipping headfirst into a canal, and being swallowed alive by any of the countless creatures that surely lurk in the deep. One’s wallet can feel heartbreak too.) But he’s forgotten the fear that comes with this, when there are so many more of something than there are of you. What they have in common is that they’re all mangy and snarling; what doesn’t help is the ways in which they vary. Some of their eyes are yellowed, some bloodshot; some dashing around with only one eye in the first place. Their fur has taken on that particular greenish-gray of Sunberth mold and slime, but it mottles in different ways, spits out different combinations depending on what color their fur originally was. It’s a rolling, erratic, teeming mess, and he’s forgotten what this feels like, the terror that strikes him. It’s all the noise, he thinks – all the barking and yowling in discordance that speaks only of trouble.

Further down the lane, even with the relative safety that distance brings, people are scattering. Smart move. Leagues smarter than what he’s doing, which is standing stock-still with his jaw dropped, because that is a tactic that’s been known to help anyone. The stream of dogs spilling out into the street feels more like a river, a rollicking wall between him and the mother and older daughter.

Which leaves the younger daughter, and that silver watch, squarely on his side of the lane.

The mother had seen Caspian for what he is. A no-good scoundrel preying after the small and weak and frail (pathetic, right? Wouldn’t a grown man have a worthier target?). Perhaps the older daughter had too.

But the young one stranded with him?

She still has no clue, and with the pack of dogs now dispersing, some certainly in their direction, she’s not going to do the simple arithmetic and come to those same conclusions about Caspian.

So Caspian does the only thing he knows how to do, sometimes – not thing, and just go.

“Step lively, Darla dear,” he says to the girl, taking her firmly by the elbow and steering her off down the lane the way they’d first come, away from her family, and most importantly for both of their immediate situations, the disease-infested mutts yowling and snarling all over the block.

“But – “

A dog nips at her gown, snagging at one of the bows sown at the hem. Caspian kicks down, hard, and the girl lets out a yelp, as if she was the one he’d hit.

“He looks like Fritz!” she exclaims as Caspian tugs her along.

Right.

Fritz.

The dog is running as fast as it can on its stubby little legs, but its stride isn’t enough to keep up with two humans. Nor can it outrun its kin, who haven’t spent the majority of their lives pampered indoors.

The easiest thing to do is let go of the leash he’s just been handed.

But will Darla see? Would that be enough for her to finally understand that Caspian isn’t the kind of company she should keep?

She does love that petching dog.

Sighing, Caspian stoops down, scoops up the wriggling, madly yapping dog into his arm. His other hand is still firmly clasped around Darla’s forearm. But that doesn’t look very good, even under duress, so he makes a snap decision and –

Another of the swarm snarls towards them. Caspian kicks – misses. Lets go of Darla and kicks again, striking it squarely in the ribs. It’s slightly bigger than the first and doesn’t just crumple in on itself, but it’s enough to deter it. Taking advantage of the opening, he clasps Darla’s hand with his – a genial gesture, visibly less coercive than grabbing her by any other part of her body, he hopes – and speeds again down the street.

“My shoe’s still untied!” she wails, stumbling but thankfully righting herself again.

“Not important!” he replies. Stealing a look over his shoulder, he can see that more than half the pack, for whatever reason, is heading their direction down the lane.

He’d like to run faster, but Darla is already huffing and gasping, and Fritz, tucked in his other arm, seems to grow heavier by the minute.

Regrettably, he hadn’t been thinking ahead about the configuration he’s in now. It’s all backwards, with Fritz leaving him to take Darla by the hand that doesn’t bear the silver watch.

Is he lousy enough to pause, toss Fritz, whirl the girl around, and yank the watch right off her?

Something about doing it right in the middle of the lane, out in the open, feels excessively vulgar.

What about in any alley?

But will Darla and the masses of her skirts be able to squeeze through?

Unhelpfully, he remembers a street magician he’d once witnessed pulling a dozen colorful handkerchiefs out of his fist.

Nothing seems viable; everything comes across as squarely unattractive. And maybe that’s his problem, his lifelong one, the particular wound his stepfather and Zhassel and his sister have never ceased needling him for. For whatever reason, he still thinks some things are beneath him. That doing or not doing something have some bearing on who he is, where he’ll be, what the afterlife will treat him to.

What a purgatory this is, and one he tends to continuously build.

Something has to give. And at this rate, it’s not going to be him and his three decades of lingering indecisiveness. Darla, her impractical shoes, and general lack of physical aptitude are going to make the choice for him.

Just as he readies to catapult the dog over his shoulder and shove the girl behind an abattoir, a pair of iron doors up ahead swing open.
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Last edited by Caspian on July 29th, 2022, 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on July 29th, 2022, 10:45 pm

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Instinctively he races towards the doors, hustling his charges, both of them loudly whining. Admittedly he isn’t thinking, not at his full capacity. There’s just so much going on, with the pack of wild animals behind him, all of which are surely host to a dozen highly infectious diseases. The thought doesn’t make him like or trust Fritz much, and he didn’t have much affection for the lapdog to begin with. It makes him want to drop the furry bundle all the more. But they’re at the iron doors, and were he in a better state of mind he might have fully acknowledged the fact that it’s odd, real odd, for two doors to open at once, in perfect synchronicity, and with no one entering or exiting.

He takes the event as a lifeline. Why shouldn’t it be? He’s had strokes of good fortune before. There’s not much else that can explain why he’s wormed his way through nearly thirty years and still has all of his limbs intact.

Said lifeline turns out to be a carriage house. That explains the iron on the doors, and as he passes through them he notes, distantly, that they’re not all iron, just a good deal of rusted filigree nailed to dark wood. There are three carriages in the building, though only one seems fit for function, though that’s a bit of a stretch. One of the spokes on the back left wheel has been punched out, and the driver’s box is in splinters. The other two carriages are in clear states of disrepair, bundles of timber and nails held in semblance of their original function, half-mummified beneath canvas tarps.

The barking of the pack of dogs echoes down the street, floods into the building, zips right to his eardrums. With his hands full he hadn’t been thinking properly, hadn’t considered the fact that the very same doors that had allowed him inside could also enable the very creatures he’s trying to escape.

“Petching petch,” he growls, to which Darla makes a noise of affront. “Hide,” he hisses, dropping her arm and finally passing off her wretched dog.

“Where?”

“What do you mean, where?” he snaps – again, without thinking, and he immediately regrets it, for she’s got a glimmer of something in her eyes now that says she’s starting to see him in a new and unfavorable light. “Please, quickly!” he says, softer but still hurriedly, pushing her as gently as he can muster towards one of the destroyed carriages in the corner.

He pivots sharply. If she gets torn apart because she can’t figure out how to shimmy beneath some lumber and a tarp, it isn’t his fault.

Now, the doors –

He takes a step forward, meaning to shut them, bar them, lock them and throw away the key - whatever it takes to drown out the howling and baying. It’s one of those moments where he’s keenly reminded of the fact that he’s made of flesh, and flesh can so very easily tear.

But with a loud screech, the doors slam closed on their own, leaving him, the girl, and the dog in sudden darkness.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on August 30th, 2022, 5:53 pm

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“I’m scared,” the girl immediately declares, which almost has Caspian rolling his eyes despite his own misgivings about the situation, that’s how blisteringly predictable and well-timed it turns out.

Free-hauling and free-wheeling; that’s how he likes living, and that’s very much not what’s happening here. But – he thinks with no small amount of baleful ruefulness - he wouldn’t be here to begin with if it weren’t for the girl and the dog; but he reminds himself he’s here because of said girl and dog, chiefly for the very shiny watch still around her wrist.

Said watch that he can’t presently see because they’re in the dark.

Now, then – wouldn’t now be the perfect time to strike?

But this series of thoughts comes in a jumble, not necessarily in that order and not entirely so quickly, and in the dark the girl and dog scamper, and with his own nerves on haywire he’s not sure what direction they fled. Thankfully it only takes a few more seconds for his eyes to start adjusting, and eventually he can make out the outline of the double doors they’d just run through.

“Dana –“ he begins. Shakes his head at himself. Wrong petching name. “Darla,” he says, louder and sweeter, though it comes out strained. “Darla, darling, are you alright?”


“Mister – “ the girl begins, some yards behind towards his left, but her voice immediately goes up an octave and is cut off into a shrill squeak.

Caspian wheels around. The girl had been there, he’d pinpointed her the moment she’d spoken, and suddenly it was as if she’d vanished.

As if someone had come along and wiped the slate clean where she’d stood.

And what happened to the petching dog?

There’s a flurry of movement behind him. He wheels around again – then there’s another sound, yet again in his blind spot, and he’s turning again, gone round in a full circle, and there it is again and he’s whirling around after it, and he’s becoming quite terrifyingly sure it’s not that petching dog, it was never that adroit, and –

“Petching hell, I wish you could see how ridiculous you look right now.”

Caspian freezes, falls over right into a wet patch that he hopes is just mud, though given their being in a stable is a futile idea. Someone’s laughing – cackling, wildly, and in his overwhelmed state he has no idea where the source could be. He scuttles backwards, the outline of the doors in view but still very much shut, knocks painfully into piles of lumber – one of the broken carriages? – and half-rotten bales of hay.

“Who the petch are you and what do you want?” he snarls into the dark. His hand scrambles for his dagger, but even though he holds it aloft, it doesn’t help anything if it’s so dark he can’t even see his own blade.

There’s a sound of friction, a snap – and suddenly a lantern glows before him. The person holding it isn’t a specter; frankly, not nearly so ghastly a visage as the more paranoid parts of him had begun to imagine.

It’s quite good-looking, and eerily rather familiar.

“Petch, Caspian. Have you been away from here for so long that you can’t take a joke?”

Caspian’s memories surface and shuffle, piece themselves into resonance and manifest in the man before him. Send his heart bursting rabbit-quick, no less afraid of his situation, even as he now knows part of the answer.

“Taroko?” he says.

His once-friend, once-something-more grins.

And just like Caspian remembers, it doesn’t meet his eyes.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on October 15th, 2022, 2:15 pm

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The hand that’s offered to him wavers in the air when he lets it hang there unmet.

“Caspian – “ Taroko begins.

“I’m fine, I don’t need your help, I – “ As Caspian drags himself onto his feet his purchase on the muddy ground slips, and he stumbles, landing painfully on his knees. “Petch off,” he says when Taroko’s still there, still insistently hovering, that hand held aloft to him again. Taroko makes the offering seem so easy. As if the years that had passed had meant nothing, as if the reasons they flew by and with such a distance between them are few and negligible.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Taroko says, and he’s grabbing Caspian right under the elbow so there’s nowhere to go but up.

Immediately this is something Caspian resents. So many things are rushing back to him now, all of Taroko’s tics, the artificially padded sighs – always the one in the know, the only one in control - and how his mannerisms always had the air of a lope. This will not go unforgotten, how he’s helping Caspian onto his feet. There’s a ledger that’s kept between them, one Caspian loathes. Taroko’s responsible for all the small things that are on it. It’s not just a hand up; it’s a red tally, a debt that until Caspian rallies up, will conspicuously regard itself as going unpaid. And because Taroko sees the world that way, one of checks and balances, when he and Caspian intersect, Caspian can’t do anything but go along with it too. But it’s never equal, never without context. Taroko will always be the more capable one, the one with both feet on the ground.

And Caspian will be the one swiping mud off his shoes.

“Are you okay?” Taroko asks, and he’d get away with playing doctor if you let him.

“Nothing a brush and a little lye won’t cure.”

“Hit your left knee pretty hard though, didn’t you? Isn’t that your bad one? Now, what was it that happened to you?” Reaching back years as if he’s thumbing through pages; he’d go back centuries if it meant he’d come out looking better for it. “Wait, was it that time we snuck past that garrison and you fell through the roof?”

It had been a gardener’s shed that Taroko had insisted they climb while they waited for a certain group of rabble rousers to pass. They must have been 16, maybe 17 years old, and Caspian had seen the flimsy excuse for a roof and known it was a bad idea, had his heart in his throat even as he succumbed to the pressure to climb anyway.

And then, mother of all surprises, it had caved in and he’d landed in a terrible heap on a pile of bricks.

“That kind of thing doesn’t get better with time,” Taroko says, and that’s a bit irritating, because – are they going to acknowledge the circumstances, the painful choice Caspian had made one day after another to avoid him?

Or are they just going to dance around the subject until Taroko gets bored enough to prick at him sideways, like he’s doing right now?

“I want to go home,” Darla suddenly wails from a far-off corner in the dark that Caspian still can’t see.

Right.

He forgot the reason he’s shut up in this barn in the first place.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on October 16th, 2022, 2:33 pm

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Though Darla’s voice echoes through the barn in a confusing muddle, preventing Caspian from pinpointing her exact location, Taroko’s momentary glance towards the southwest corner gives it away. Caspian reflexively starts in that direction. Pauses.

Shoots a look back at Taroko, the long shadows splayed across his face, wavering with the flame in the lantern he still holds aloft.

Had Taroko given away Darla’s position on purpose?

And if so, why? Would going after her mean he’s walking into a trap?

But what kind of trap could Taroko have possibly set up in a barn, and with no advance notice?

They’re far-flung questions, paranoid strummings in his mind. He knows they’re farfetched, that following this train of thought isn’t helpful, nor does it make very much sense. But with Taroko he’s learned to expect the worst. He’s been made into a fool enough times that even if Taroko were to hand him a prettily wrapped present on his birthday with a thousand apologies, he’d toss the thing down the street and watch for it to detonate.

There’s no material item in this world that Taroko could give him that would do anything towards making amends. And as far as the subject of apologies goes, they’re too far gone for anything like that to matter.

When Darla starts crying anew, a look of severe irritation crosses Taroko’s face. “Interesting pick you made for the day. You just wanted – I’m not sure, to be honest.”

“That petching watch,” Caspian hisses back. “It wasn’t supposed to get this complicated.” Though at this point in his life he can say that about quite a few things.

“Well, I think we both know how we can simplify.”

A chill shoots up Caspian’s spine. In the lantern-lit dark, Taroko watches him with a certitude, a ghoulish promise.

“Don’t,” Caspian says.

“Don’t what?”

“What you’re about to do. Just don’t.”

“You’ve been away for a long time, Cassie. How can you be so sure of what I will or won’t do?”

Taroko makes the slightest of movements – not a step, just the barest gesture of one, and bursts out cackling when Caspian jumps and throws himself forward.

“She’s crying awfully loud,” Taroko says, too calmly for the situation, his voice unnervingly level for the rising sobbing from the back of the barn, and the trepidation spiking in Caspian’s heart. “These walls aren’t soundproof, you know. She has a mother and sister, doesn’t she? I wonder how long until they come looking up this street? And what do you think they’ll do, Cassie, once they find their little girl? What do you think that little girl will tell them?”

No matter what Darla says, it won’t be good, and none of the goodwill that Caspian’s fostered will mean anything. Not when his presence and involvement have just led to the girl being trussed up in what’s essentially an abandoned horror house.

Taroko takes another step, and Caspian raises his dagger high. The end quivers, and it’s not lost on either of them. “Don’t,” Caspian says, more firmly this time.

For Taroko’s right – too many years have gone by for Caspian to know exactly what Taroko will or won’t do.

But that goes both ways.
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The Wish and the Willing Pt. 2

Postby Caspian on October 19th, 2022, 2:05 pm

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Taroko’s blade whips out quicker than Caspian expects it to.

But so does his.

As their daggers clash, the ringing of steel echoing throughout the barn, the facts of the matter race through Caspian’s mind. It should have been obvious from the start, not anything worth surprise or the time he’s spending to process this, but – they’re both grown now, and that means they’re faster and stronger and more than willing to play dirty about it.

Taroko feints to his left, pivots, almost catches Caspian on the right shoulder with a hammer of a downward slash. Another heavy movement to the right, Taroko’s boot slapping down wetly in the mud as he lunges forward, and Caspian sees this coming too, throws himself backwards and – yes, that one had been a farce just like the first, and Taroko tries to slash him from the right. Another miss, though the tip of Taroko’s blade whistles a little too close for comfort past his nose.

“What’s the matter, Cassie?” Taroko says. “Did you bring a knife to this fight, or a toothpick?”

The comment shouldn’t grate Caspian as much as it does, but Taroko gets the effect he’s looking for, and with a snarl Caspian stabs forward. Once, twice, three times – Taroko dodging and sidestepping each movement with ease.

“Tired already?” Taroko grins, the expression corrupted by the lantern light. There had been a time once, where Caspian had found it welcoming; had believed that being on the receiving end of it was where he wanted to be. And those days he had searched for that smile, gone the distance, even to his own detriment, to find ways to see it as often as he could.

But those days are gone.

“Tired of your shyke, maybe,” Caspian replies through gritted teeth. He tries again, swinging wide – north to south, east to west, a feint to the left, a stab in what should have been right into Taroko’s gut. But as if Taroko is made of shadow, he dodges each attack, seemingly melting and reforming from the darkness surrounding them.
Years ago, this would have discouraged Caspian, the feeling coming upon him with an unhelpful quickness. So often he had defeated himself, just by counting himself out early in the game. But that was then, and this is now – and it occurs to him that Taroko is just a man, one without any special ability. There’s some ability that’s clearly been honed, sure – but between the two of them, Caspian’s fairly certain that only he’s in possession of a magic blade.

Taroko thinks he can hide in the shadows –

Wait until he finds out that Caspian can become shadow itself.

Leaping backwards, putting at least two yards of distance between them, Caspian holds his Obfuscate dagger – and goes very, very still.

“You done, Cassie? Is that really all it takes?” Taroko jeers.

It only needs a moment, the magic imbued in Obfuscate – and then Caspian knows, from the sudden hiss emitting from Taroko, that he’s disappeared from sight.
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