A Warning Not A Gift

The park is almost suspiciously empty given the weekend date and the silence is pervasive. There's no birds. Not even insects chirp now and again, as if every living thing has gone into hiding. The lone soul sits upon a bench in the district, a bag on his lap as if he is there to feed the birds that are nowhere to be found.

He is somewhat tall for a man of xian heritage, his black hair lightly touched here and there with gray and a singular short puff of white right in the front. He has a narrow beard on his chin and a thin mustache as well. Both give him a somewhat distinguished if severe look. His clothes are formal xian things, and he has a relaxed, open air about him. As if he is waiting for a close, personal friend.

GAME: Corey rolls Perception: (15)+15: 30
GAME: Harshad rolls perception: (10)+8: 18

Dressed in garments befitting a dockworker or laborer, Harshad doesn't seem to be intent on drawing attention. Instead, his eyes flick here and there, and he stops now and then to look around in confusion. Reaching up to scratch his hair under his conical hat (purchased from a vendor in Goblintown), Harshad seems to be looking for someone or something, judging by his demeanor. But he heaves a sigh, catching sight of the xian man on the bench.

Cor'ethil Cari'thana, ever-cheerful paladin of Gilead, notices the lack of birds before he ever notices other people. This is admittedly a side-effect of his occupation. An adherent to Gilead is typically noticing all the animals of the world before they ever notice a person. And even then, plants might be noticed before people. Nature in all of its splendor is an ever-beautiful thing... and the lack of it is a problem.

The smile on his face has already slipped, but something about the environment makes him frown all the more as he looks at the man of xian heritage. Corey seems all the more stiff in his armor, worn because he'd been returning from the Temple of Gilead. "Sir?" he asks gently as he approaches. "Are you aware there are people hiding nearby?"

The man on the bench takes note of Harshad, but quickly dismisses him by simply ignoring his presence a half-second later. Clearly he is not inviting the other man over or anything of the sort.

A moment later, the xian man smiles at Corey as the other man approaches. "Do not worry yourself about them Corey. It is Corey is it not?" The man pats the bench he is sitting on, offering a friendly sort of invitation that would be more welcoming if he was not demonstrating a level of familiarity with Corey that was rather odd for a complete stranger.

When someone mentions 'men hiding nearby', Harshad's pupils widen incrementally. Casually, oh so casually, he wanders behind a large tree, glancing right and left as he makes it there. Professional paranoia is something Harshad practices, after all. Cautiously, he takes a deep breath, before glancing back around the tree trunk, his other hand moving fractionally to the front of his tunic.

Corey looks like he wants to sit by the man about as much as he'd like to take a bath entirely out of roiling-hot oil. Or at least... He does for half a second before he lifts his fist and coughs politely into it, trying his level best to look like he's not mildly afraid of what he's just walked into. "It is," he says politely. Still not accepting the invitation yet. That seat might be the most dangerous one. "Are you perhaps related to Karasu?"

He looks at Harshad with a look on his face that ever-so-briefly reads of apology. The half-oruch is probably not involved with this. Right?

The man chuckles lightly. "Related? No. Karasu himself eliminated the vast majority of his close kin. I am certain he has told you this much... or had he not?" The man slides his hand back into his lap, not trying to force the 'sit beside me' issue. "I am familiar with him however. I am the one that... made him what he is today, for lack of a better way to put it." A small smile here.

Harshad keeps his back to the tree trunk, listening. After a moment, he actually starts to take a deep breath. This doesn't sound like what he was worried about, after all. Still... he senses the eyes on him, and forcibly moves his hand away from his tunic. Content instead to wait for the moment.

After all, information is as useful as gold to the right parties.

The small smile is, in no way, shape, or form, reciprocated. Corey looks like he'd rather fight the man in front of him rather suddenly, an intense look in his silver eyes. "You mean you're the one who made Karasu ingest poison as a child."

That accusation leaves Corey like an iron weight. His silver eyes grow all the wilder as he keeps going. "You hurt him. You made him eat poison as a child over and over again, and you broke his body and treated him like a weapon rather than a human being. Why do you come here with a smile on your face and men hiding to me?" His hands clench tightly into gauntleted fists.

The man only continues to smile genially at Corey. "Do you really expect me to do anything but deny such accusations? Why, I am a respected citizen of xian. A very respected nobleman with the ear of our highest. Such men do not poison children, or harm them." He folds his hands over the bag in his lap and looks at Corey with unpitying eyes. "Karasu was a wonderful boy. Exceptional. I pushed him hard, and like fruit he ripened quickly to my tutelage. Perhaps too quickly however."

Here he sighs regretfully. "I come for the expected reason of course. To ensure safety for mine. Is the gentleman behind that tree a friend of yours perhaps? A trusted comrade? Or a stranger?"

Well, this is embarrassing. Harshad is mentally kicking himself -- but hell, he's a city boy, how is he supposed to know when things are going awry in the gardens? He mentally reviews a couple ideas, before sitting tight for the moment. If he's called out, well, he'll just be what he looks like -- a day laborer who came to take his lunch here and wound up in the soup.

If not, well... there's always the second option.

One fist of Corey's looks for all of a long moment like it might launch out and punch the older man. But the paladin controls himself--especially when the question of who that man behind the tree is. Cor'ethil shakes his head. "I do not know him," he says, before turning to more evenly face Harshad. "May you come out? I promise that I will not let harm come to fall upon you; I am a paladin of Gilead. I am oathed to protect people."

He offers a smile that's actually more readily given. This expression is more at home on his face. "I apologize for getting you mixed up in this. This is a matter related to my beloved."

At Corey's invitation to Harshad, the older man grows quiet, waiting patiently for the other to reveal himself and either come forward, or... not. He seems endlessly patient.

GAME: Harshad rolls bluff: (17)+8: 25
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+15: (19)+15: 34

Harshad focuses his mind, and then puts a slightly dim look on his face. The expression that, unfortunately, many think the oruch-blooded wear a lot. Of ... well, not outright idiocy, but not nearly as sharp as they could be. And then he shuffles out behind the tree nervously, touching the brim of his hat. "I, uh... didn't hear nothin', your lordships. And begging your pardon, I'd like to keep it that way."

Corey frowns a little at the answer that Harshad gives, looking back at the older xian man. "I really don't think it's our place to keep him here? He's not anyone I know." He doesn't know that this is an ample enough excuse, but too ample and it might come off as suspicious... Even though he really doesn't know Harshad at all. "Certainly not anyone that Karasu knows, I think?" Although he can't speak authoritatively on that; Karasu had been in this city quite a lot longer than he has lived in it.

The older man smiles benevolently at Harshad, but there's a harder gleam in his dark eyes. "Well then, be on your way as you will. I have no reason to keep you, however you will be best served to leave the gardens in their entirety. You would not want to accidentally overhear anything else that you did not hear." The man's smile is almost predatory, showing a glimpse of something true for a change.

Still effusively servile (or at least, giving a good impression of it), Harshad tips his hat again before immediately making for the gardens exit. A trickle of sweat down his back, and as soon as he's clear he surreptitiously shifts the sheathed dagger hidden under his tunic. "Fucking damn it," he swears under his breath as he heads towards Goblintown. "I can't even take a look for more gemstone butterflies without stumbling into shit. Maybe I -do- need to get out of here..."

When Harshad finally slips away, Cor'ethil sighs softly in relief. The tension of having an innocent bystander get caught up in some place that they ought not to be didn't help his nerves any, and now that he's gone... Now is the tension of what it is that this man wanted.

Silver eyes settle onto dark eyes. Cor'ethil gives a nod. "So... Ensured safety. As we were speaking." What Corey doesn't say is that nobody's been given safety. Karasu has resigned himself to death. And this man... Is most certainly not safe.

At this the stranger smiles once again, his eyes following Harshad for a moment before he returns his regard to Corey. "Yes, yes. Time for the rest of it. You are going to abandon Karasu. We need him alone for our plans, not gathering allies. If you do this I will at least ensure that he continues to remain alive." The man rises to his feet gracefully in spite of his age and offers his bag to Corey. "Consider this incentive. These were... gifts from Karasu to myself. All offered willingly over time. So that you might understand that we are serious in our endeavor.”

He smiles more widely. "Or simply tell Karasu that Sōri visited you. He might well leave you - for your own good of course. Either way will accomplish our goal. And if you decline, then I will visit Karasu next; and remove from him his will to live." The smile fades entirely. "The choice is yours Warden."

Corey doesn't take the bag that's offered to him. Not immediately. _He continues to remain alive_ resounds in his head like the toll of a bell. Abandon Karasu, and Karasu can live. Abandon Karasu...

He's supposed to be a paladin.

He's supposed to care about people.

"No."

The word is a weight. "You don't care. You don't care about his well-being. You can promise that he's alive but he's not going to be happy. You don't care about what he is beyond that he's a tool to you. And I won't let you have him."

_Oh, Mother was right._ Cor'ethil struggles with that shadow self. It's as much as a specter of his Mother's time as Her Majesty's servant, haunting their family tree and making him like the woman who would have him dead if she had her way. "He's mine. He's my love. I will keep him safe from you. I will keep him safe from _everyone_ if I have to. From himself if I have to."

The man shrugs then as if Cor'ethil's words don't matter at all. "As I said Warden, your choice. You can dig your heels in like a child and say 'no', but it will not stop us; nor I." He steps away from Corey then, making to leave the other man behind. "Good day Corey." This last is almost mockingly spoken.

The Warden, as Sori has called him by his oathed vocation, glares at the old man. He has an undeniable aura of evil--the worst that men can be, the kind that almost, almost tastes of fiend-kind. If it weren't for Sori's enclave of agents... He might consider striking down the man here and now.

Instead, he chooses to go to Karasu.

He doesn't offer Sori a farewell. Instead, he leaves. Instead, he goes to the man he loves, because someone has to stop this. Someone has to put an end to this. He has to protect Karasu.

His eyes are stinging with tears. It feel like somehow he might already be too late.

-End