He Answered
Log Info
- Title: He Answered
- Emitter: Dolan
- Place: A10 - Temple of Daeus
- Summary: The Sunguard Andelena meets her ex-fiancee, nowadays known as Dolan, again at the Temple of Daeus while he's training. Their conversation touches more in depth about Dolan's guilt at leaving Andie and his justification for doing so, but it also touches on Andelena's struggles with her emotional state and how it's begun to interfere with her work as a Sunguard. They strive to work together--and to go out for a drink.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=<* A10: Temple of Daeus *>=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
The temple of the Sun Lord glitters golden beneath the same. Rather than walls, the majority of the temple is composed of what appears at first blush to be a raised round platform made of one of the largest slabs of marble likely in existence. Columns rise into the air as if to hold some massive ceiling, though instead of a normal ceiling, one finds the deep blue sky, studded by a disconcertingly close canopy of bright stars. One should not worry, however, as the rain never falls, and the wind never blows on this particular temple, but for a gentle breeze, whatever the weather outside may be.
Despite the austerity of the columns, warmth suffuses the grounds. A grand, marble statue of the Shining Knight stands a the center, a hand outstretched in benediction. Beside Him, the statue of Althea, their hands clasped in love. The central position of the temple to the others gives view to all of their children, and the two look upon one another with the solemnity of love that has been the center of so many tales and legends.
Masterfully designed mana lamps provide further soft, golden lightning where needed, their pedestals carved in the form of the Dragons of Light, over which Daeus is said to have dominion in His form of Draco Solis. Majesty, justice, and welcome suffuse the temple grounds. Around the central temple are a series of smaller buildings, each with a simple function and form. One houses the sacred book depicting some of the earliest known translations of the Laws of Light, which pilgrims from near and far come to visit. Another houses the well-appointed quarters of the Sunguards, and among all the ground bristle the Sunblades.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Dramatis Personae =--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Andelena 6'0" 180 Lb Human Female Redhead with steel-grey eyes and powerful build. Dolan 5'10" 174 Lb Human Male Brown-haired human with scars down his face. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
Probably, the single biggest draw of Daeus' mighty temple in these months is the fact that it is neither icy nor freezing cold. Bright and cheery sun under a wan winter sky may reign without, but inside the courtyard, it is warm and comfortable this afternoon, without the brisk wind that whisks the plaza outside. Plenty here take advantage of this, whether in conversation, meditation, prayer, or simple watchfulness, the mighty courtyard is far from unoccupied, and from one side, the clash of blades is audible, along with the shouts of instruction.
"One! Two! Three! Four! A little higher on that, do it again. One, two, three, four, good!" a salt-and-pepper-but-still-fit Sunguard barks, and the clash of blades comes to a halt. "Now, let's try the other side. Same positioning, the other side. Remember, it is positioned the same way."
Dolan, stripped to a sweat-drenched shirt, trousers, and boots, nods, and returns to a ready pose, opposite from his usual handedness, the massive greatsword in both hands primed and ready. His hair is cut back short into the neatly trimmed cut that Andie will remember, and a eyepatch covers his right eye. Piled with harness and cloak to one side is a bright green gem mounted into an arcane-etched steel rim.
Another Sunguard strides into the temple, her white cloak billowing with the wind as it usually does with her confident stride. She removes her helmet and shakes out her mop of copper-blonde hair which comes to rest at her shoulders in somewhat untamed waves. Andelena looks over at 'Dolan'--she's still getting used to that name--with that usual steel-grey gaze of hers.
She's always watched him, and there's always been something in her eyes that seems to ask one question of everyone she watches: "Impress me." It's this question that she bears as she stands to the side, helmet held in the crook of her arm.
"Back to the old haircut. I like it," Andelena remarks with a smirk on her face. She's just watching them--for the moment.
It is the instructor who looks over at Andelena first, and the look directed back at the woman reads hush and watch. "Now." The Sunguard raises her own blade - a much smaller one - and begins again before Dolan can turn to the newcomer. He repeats the exact same pattern on the other side, which happens to be his now-blind side. "One, two, three, four, where's my blade? Straighten your shoulders, do it again! One, two, three, four!" He appears to be running through a drill, over and over, and Dolan is keeping up, with the biggest blade she's ever seen him wield.
The pattern repeats again and again, with the instructor drawing it out an inch or two further each time. Dolan doesn't appear to change his own pattern in response, at least until the smaller blade meets his at the very tip. Then, he appears to respond, moving forward, but in a way that suggests that he isn't sure where that blade is.
Andelena has the slightest hint of a smirk as she's told to hush and watch. "Where have I heard that before?" she murmurs under her breath. Brydion had been witness to many a time where Andie butted heads with wiser and older Sunguards.
But those were older days, and Andelena just watched, analytical intent in assessing his fighting style with the larger blade. She bites her lip as she watches him find the blade unknowingly. Concern flashes in those steel-gray eyes.
She keeps quiet for now.
The fighting style is good. Different, but good, and he seems to wield the greatsword with ease enough. Certainly it suits the brashness she'll remember, and he certainly doesn't hesitate. He seems to know where his blade is, well enough - it's the other blade he does not seem to be able to track. Up, down, left, yes, that seems okay, but he appears to struggle when it goes to the right past a certain point, and when it goes forward or back, to or away from him.
"Good, good, you're getting better at that," the older Sunguard says approvingly at last, after several more repetitions of the drill. "Remember, usually from set, your opponent's shoulders will give away where the blade is. Keep doing it, and eventually you'll know where it is. That's enough for today, go talk to your friend." He nods over towards Andie, and Dolan turns himself a little more fully to see her. "Andie, brightest of days," he greets, warmly but not without caution.
Andelena smiles a little as she observes his brashness. Perhaps it reminds her of something. Perhaps it reminds her of their first sparring match together. Perhaps it reminds her of their first time taking down a bandit ring together as Sunguard and Redeemer. Perhaps she's simply smiling to see his ability despite what he's been through.
The smile doesn't disappear when she's finally addressed. "Like I said, your haircut looks better. Your swordwork isn't as bad as I anticipated it to be, either. You've been putting work in."
She walks closer to him. It's not to look at him, however, but his blade. She picks his sword hand up by the wrist, which is an awfully familiar gesture considering their recent rift, to get a look at the sword. This is another Andie thing she's always done--perhaps one of the many things that drew him in to begin with. She was always somewhat handsy, never afraid to get into things. "So this is your partner these days," Andelena says, a thoughtful note to her voice.
The smile draws Dolan's smile in return, and he hefts the blade, not-so-subtly pulling his wrist away from her hands and laying the flat of the blade across his other arm so she can examine it, adjusting the distance to it for her after a moment. He's never been offended by the handsiness, and he doesn't seem to be angry this time either. "Careful, that's heavy," he warns. It looks it, too, and well-cared for - he's always taken good care of his gear. "You like it? I let it go for a while there." Whether he's talking about the hair or the sword is unclear. "I always wanted to learn how to wield one of these," he admits, "and the reach gives me more room for error."
The instructor looks on for a moment, putting his own blade away, but explains to Andie, "He's been putting in a lot of work. The depth problem will just take time to sort out. You know about that, don't you?"
Dolan nods at the instructor, a flash of a cheeky grin coming out to play. "I'll explain it to her, don't worry. Thank you, Zein. I will see you here tomorrow?"
"Yes, same time. Take a break and stretch, remember."
"Yeah. I will." With that, the instructor takes himself off, leaving the two to talk, and Dolan offers the sword on his arm a little closer. "What are you doing here in Alexandria?"
Andelena gives a nod as she looks at the blade. The nod seems to be for both the blade's quality and his words. "I do," she says, looking up at him. Like him, she seems to be answering for one of or both the questions he's implied.
But she draws away and crosses her arms as he asks the question. There's a look on her face--a slight sense of bewilderment, even offense. "What am I doing in the city? Well, I feel like that should be kind of obvious, Bry. I came here for you and to try and pick up my life by not being in a place that... constantly reminded me of us."
She sighs. "Really, though, I came here today to get some sparring in of my own and check in with the others. Alexandria's just a city, and like any city, there's places of darkness that need the Knight's light... so I came here to kick some ass and look for you while I was at it. Just didn't expect to find you before I got to get into any trouble."
"You got lucky, Andie." Dolan straightens a little. "Look, I'm sorry I had to do that. The ring I was chasing turned out to be a demon cult, and when they summoned it, I saw it, and it saw me. I had to keep it away from you. It's the worst thing I've ever had to do. They found me ... two days later? Three?" He doesn't sound sure. "But at least they didn't find you. They brought me here to replace what that thing did to me. Speaking of-"
He lifts the sword away from his arm, lowers it, and steps back, turning not-quite-unerringly towards the pile of his gear. "I take it out to train, so that I can fight without it, but I hate not having it. At least now you'll have me to get into trouble with? At least for city stuff?"
"I remember what you told me last time. Trust me, I don't hold it against you... Well, I do. My head doesn't. Heart's a different story." Andelena shakes her head. "You know how it is. Wounds take time to heal and all if all you do is bandage them."
She takes a glance over at his gear when she points to it. "I was wondering about that," she says, looking back at Dolan for a moment. She puts her gauntleted hand to her chin and says, "I don't know. I think the eyepatch looks good. Gives you sort of a 'don't fuck with me' sort of feeling." Andelena smirks. Classic Andie, really--always the type to tease and poke to try and cover up her emotions. It's always how she's dealt with things, even after being disowned by her parents to marry Brydion.
Somehow that "I do" of hers from earlier takes on another meaning for it.
"But yeah. We can get into trouble, Mr Guardsman Dolan. What's your full alias these days, anyway?" Andelena asks.
"Yeah you do, and I know it as well as you do. There's no way you'd let it go so easily." There's the Brydion she knows, beneath the fear he'd displayed, calling her out on her lies, just like he did with kids and petty thieves. "Someday I'll make it up to you." Suddenly, he looks away, and that cloud of fear returns, just for a moment.
He shakes his head, sharply and hard, and turns back to her, but it's still hiding behind that one chocolate-brown eye. She can see it there, plainly. He's always been a terrible liar himself. "Maybe I'll use it when I need to scare someone, but ... seriously, Andie. I'm completely blind from here," he holds out an arm in front of him at about 1 o'clock, "over." The arm sweeps to his right side. "Without that, I don't see depth, either. Everything looks flat. I don't like it. I miss things."
It's true, at least judging by the look Andelena gives him as he calls her on it. She won't let that pain go, not so easily. But the conversation turns just as quickly as his old self shines through and the moment is gone. Her steel-gray eyes relax a little with the turn in subject.
"I wouldn't like it either," Andelena says. That's a truthful statement. After all, she looks into his eye as she says it instead of staring into the one he doesn't have. "And the gem. Does that do anything to help? Don't tell me they just gave you something that's purely for looks--and I mean it looks like it's begging for a hungry orphan to lace your drink and pluck that thing out of your head before you even hit the floor. I'll go get your money back from whatever artificer sold you that if that's the case."
Dolan nods immediately at the question, meeting that gaze. There's gratitude there, but he turns away, going for the small pile, and the green gem among it. "Yeah, with it I can see okay. It doesn't do anything else yet, but if I can earn some money, they told me it can be enchanted to do other stuff, like I'd be able to see magic all the time." He turns then to face her, laying down the sword at his feet.
He pulls off the eyepatch, then. It's not a nice sight, really, in some ways, but he could definitely use it to his advantage in intimidating people. Set into what is left of the ruined eyesocket is a bronze-and-steel contraption with a myriad of tiny, interlocking gears inside it, and several metal stops. "It's artifice, so anything that stops magic can target it, and I'd be blind again." So that's why he wants to learn to fight without it. He turns the gem in its ring over in his hand, and it proves to be more than a ring, a steel-and-bronze setting with arcane runes, more like, with matching stops and notches. These are clearly meant to fit together, and he turns the setting carefully and slowly. It goes in a little, and he turns it back the other way, all the way around and then some. It goes in further, and he turns it again the opposite way until it clicks securely and settles into place. The whole process seems to be a lock of some sort, and takes him a full minute to do, but when it is done, he blinks as if to readjust, and regards with eyes both natural and unnatural, seeming relieved. "You like the eyepatch, then?"
"We can earn some money," Andelena says. It's said both firmly and softly at the same time in a paradoxical sense--the conviction is there and yet there's a sad look in her eye that flavors her syllables, too. "I don't really have a need for it other than to keep the rent paid at this point."
She looks down to her left hand for a moment, but she brings her gaze back up to look at his face. She allows herself to look at the ruined part of his face despite a seeming reluctance as he explains the contraption.
"Yes, but I also like you being comfortable," Andelena replies after a long moment, her voice now fully soft. "Doesn't always matter what I think. Not on something as... important as your sight."
"Andie. As long as you fight on my right, we'll be fine." Dolan gives her one of those cheeky grins, clearly trying to lift her spirits. "I was hoping you'd never have to see this, but, now that you have, I can cover it if it bothers you. It's all right, so long as I don't have to fight with it. I know it's a lot." He reaches down to pick up the eyepatch and, leaving the naked blade on the pile, makes his way back over to her, reaching for her hand. "If you'd rather I cover it-" he starts, the look in his human eye softening as he looks up at her. "I don't want to be the source of any more nightmares for you."
Andelena stares at him for a long moment--him and his outstretched hand, the soft look in his eye. Finally, she says, "You are selfless to a fault. Even if it hurts people. No, don't wear the eyepatch."
She looks away. It's a glance, really. "It just inspires me to find that demon and keep him from hurting you again. If I'd come home sooner..."
A 'tch' leaves her, as though she's chiding herself for even letting the last bit slip. Andelena looks back at him and takes his hand. "You need my hand so you can walk, right?" she asks, a smirk spreading on her face. "Convenient excuse, but I'll let you have it."
Dolan blinks, clearly surprised that she accepted, but he squeezes the hand, and holds it loosely, letting her pull away if she wants to. The cheeky grin this time reaches the one eye, crinkling it into laughter. At least half of his face is its old self. "You keep right on telling yourself that." He takes the teasing in good part, which is to say that he ignores most of it and laughs at the rest. The eyepatch he lets dangle forgotten from his hand. "You're right though, it might be useful with certain people." He squeezes the hand again, more gently this time. His grip strength has definitely improved, and if anything, it's more callused. "I swear Aneirin enjoyed keeping us all late just so he'd have someone to talk to. Let me guess, he was prattling at the lot of you again."
"Yeah. That day, he was. I don't even remember what it was about." Andelena admits. She looks down to their hands. She'd given him her left hand without thinking, clad in her customary gauntlet and armor. One had to wonder if she'd really ever taken it off for anything aside from sleep.
She looks back up at him. "I just remember coming home. Wondering where you'd gone. Then I noticed your things were missing--then I saw the ring on the bed. No note. Nothing. Just like you'd vanished into thin fucking air." She hisses the swear, even squeezing his hand for a moment, but she sucks in a breath and her grip turns back to normal shortly before she lets go and she looks away. "Sorry. Like I said before, I just... struggled so hard. I still feel like I've been abandoned even if that's not what happened from your point of view."
The squeeze doesn't feel good, but Dolan/Brydion doesn't complain, letting his hand drop to his side when she drops it. All trace of smile is gone at her obvious pain. He just watches her, guilt flooding him. "I - I can't change that," he says finally. "Nothing I can do can make what I did better." He, too, looks away. "All I can do is never do it again." The demon, he leaves aside. That doesn't matter anymore. There's a fear, hiding in his eyes with the guilt, but he doesn't mention it.
"Yeah. You're right, Bry." Andelena sighs. She adjusts the helmet she's been holding in her other arm the entire time, almost looking as though she's going to put it back on and storm out of this holy place on that sour note.
But she doesn't. "I could just yell at you. I almost did back at the hospital. But judging how I felt just now, I don't think that'd do me any good. I don't think the Knight would approve, either. After all, what's the point of being a Sunguard--even if I was never really anyone's shining ideal of a Sunguard--if I don't live by his ideals."
She finally looks back at him again. "What's a Sunguard without compassion?"
All Brydion-Dolan can do is watch her, one hand held half-raised in front of him, in the way of one who wants to reach out and doesn't quite dare. "One ripe to fall," he answers, in that low, steady, gravelly tone that says that the Redeemer is speaking for the first time since she met with him again. "We can't have that. You're too good for that. If anything, you're better than I am."
"I don't expect you to forgive me immediately, or at all. If you do, it'll take time. Just - knowing how much I hurt you, trying to keep you safe - I won't do it again."
"And I don't want to fall," Andelena responds to the Redeemer. "I don't. I see a man who hurt me but he's also hurting. It's my job to try and move past that. So I will forgive you. After all, I asked Daeus in my prayers at night that, as Justice, he would give you to me so that I would know why you abandoned me."
She puts her helmet back on. Those given to poetry and happen to be bowled over by Andelena's height and build might call the hiding of her hair underneath a helmet like extinguishing the sun. Maybe Brydion felt that way--maybe he still feels that way. "He did, so now I have to sort out honor and compassion. Let's start... by getting a drink. I will, of course, drink you under the table." Just like old times. She smirks.
"He answered, Andie. He answered. Never doubt that." Dolan doesn't crack a smile, but he does relax just a little. "Always go with compassion, when there's a doubt. You taught me that."
And then the drinking challenge is laid forth. This time, the grin does come back, the sparkle of challenge in his eyes. "Oh really? Maybe I'll get that helmet off of you before I go. Maybe I'll even surprise you. You're way too cocky, Andie." He turns away to gather his things, sword in harness, eyepatch in pouch, and before long, he is ready to take her up on that challenge.