Homegrown Confessional

Lower Trades, just before Goblintown. Midday.

On a lightly rainy day, where the Trades and the chaos of Goblintown meet lies a narrow two story abode with a little iron fence, waist high gate closed yet no lock is present on it.

On the front porch, sipping from a porcelain mug with a copy of the Tribune in hand is none other than a middle aged Eldanar man in slouchy pants and a grey shirt.

The front door flies open, two teenagers peeling out: a human girl and a arvek nar girl. "Dadwe'regoingtotheriverbebacklaterIhavefoodmoneyloveyou!"

He sips loudly without looking up. "Don't drown!" he shouts back at them. He turns a page. "And here I thought the alligator would deter that but... eh."

The two teens are three blocks down and out of sight, not even stopping their dead sprint despite the slippery walkways.

The high gate creaks, which is more than enough warning for a former guard to be alerted. She would have liked to say hello to Cynthia and her boon companion, but she was a little late for that. Her silhouette can be difficult to recognize at first as her slicked poncho is hood up and quivers covered against the rain as well, but the bundle of equipment reads very clearly: Adventurer.

Warrick's favorite kind of people. The soft-foot padding of the ranger barely seems to leave even a mark. "Hey Dad." The deeper voice is recognizable at least, as is the eventually exposed face when the hood is pulled back, Carver's long trailing headband now spilling out alongside her hair. "Uh, do you have time to talk?"

Warrick squints at the article that he's on. What's this about a prison break? From the arcane dungeons? Fiends? Well shit. A journal is opened on the nearby coffee table, thumbing out a map and cross referencing-

Creak. He glances over at the gate, folding up his newspaper and closing the book. "Can I help-.." he trails off. Silently reading Carvers face. She wouldn't go out of her way to come talk to him if it wasn't something serious. "Yes. Let's go inside, Cinny's out for a bit."

He rises, shouldering the door open and holding it for Carver.

Inside is a warm yet comfortable abode. It spills immediately into a living area with a large sofa and an artifice powered heating contraption running with a low hum. Past a doorway is a well worn kitchen, and to the left is stairs that are in dire need of a new coat of varnish. The walls are filled to the brim with paintings of different parts of Alexandria, of Warrick when he was much younger, as well as Cynthia when she was a child. Another woman dots the paintings here and there, looking strikingly like an older Cynthia.

"Feel free to sit anywhere," he grunts, kicking off his house shoes and meandering to the kitchen. "Want anything? Coffee? Water? Beer?"

"I would not min' a beer." Carver says, stepping inside the warmth of the home. First time for her, and she hesitates, looking about. She has gotten used to the ideas of home but as a Dran, and then as a refugee, it was not something she had. Or had much understanding of. She reaches to her cloak, removing it, followed by the pair of quivers. Silver here, Cold-Iron there, a strange new one whose feathers smell softly like dreams. Though that makes little sense. They are hung with the cloak with the bow the last to be sat aside. Larger than her last one, made of a soft white oak of rare beauty with decorative feathers of some-many bird of preys.

Her hands wring anxiously. She looks about for a lead. How to comfortably broach why she's here. Her gaze hesitates on the unknown woman, recognition from assumption coming quickly. "She... was very pretty."

"You got it," Warrick calls from the kitchen, bottles clinking and corks popping. He returns, offering an opened bottle (clearly something from the TarRaCe nearby) and drops into the couch, the spot fitting him near perfectly. He's eyeing the new weaponry with a interest. But any question he may have asked is countered with an observation from Carver. "Yeah, Persephone was," he nods with a wistful sigh. There's no pain in his face nor tone. "Cynthia is practically a copy of her, despite not really knowing her that much. She passed about twelve years ago. Had a sickness from since she was a kid. Loved art. Terrible at making plans."

He laughs. The sternness that seems to always come from him is absent. "Battle Maiden preserve her, she forgot that our wedding was happening until we were walking up to the church of Serriel."

He takes a drink. "It's alright, Carver. She's at peace. I'm at peace with it. Cynthia is at peace with it. Hell, she's probably going to come back with a cold, and if Persi was here, Persi would have a cold too from joining in jumping in the river during rain. And that's alright."

He doesn't make a nudge for Carver to speak about whatever it is that she wanted to talk about, instead making the abode as inviting as possible.

"My Mada, she wasn't so pretty. I got her nose." She reaches up and touches the tip of it, tracing the severe slope with an absent smile. For those gone. For what they leave behind. "Uh, righ'. Sorry." She turns away from the painting with her bottle, slowly joining him on the couch with a slow uncoiling of tense muscles.

She sips from the bottle mindlessly, without appreciating quality or even aware of the taste. "I think... well, do you remember the Elune's Temple job? Weird crystals, fiends in the walls, god's blessing and all. The heroes, the uh-- like, Telamon's wife and that tall Deathsinger fought and killed a Lich? I was there. I wasn't much use. Very humblin'." She looks down at the bottle.

"Anyway. I was there. While fightin' it, I touched something, and it made me experience somethin' that really effected me. I saw me, thousand times, lived many lives. Some of the memory sticks but most faded. I thought it would all pass. You tol' me to go to Soldier's Rest an' I didn't. Sorry. I never listen. It always jus' worked out if I kept moving things woul' be fine. Until yesterday."

"We killed during that little Princeling's revolt but not like what happened. I was in control. Yesterday, I wasn't." She examines her callused palm. No answers there. Just dirt under the nails and fading bruises.

Warrick shakes his head. "I'd complain to my father about not giving me the last few inches to be just all enough for six paces but he'd bar me from getting goods from his general store for a week," he jokes back, tapping his nose.

He looks up to the ceiling, thinking. "Yeah, I remember that job. Remember when you just got out of it too. Had a snowball battle with me and Cinny."

He turns to face her, arm slung over the rest, legs cross. Listening. Wincing slightly, not in discomfort, but in empathy as he rubs his scarred arm. There is but a brief glance to the newspaper, the article of the happenings seen. He idly flips it over to a TarRaCe ad.

"Didn't feel like it was you pulling the strings?" he asks, raising a brow and leaving it open ended.

"I wasn't. It's not the firs' time." Carver admits. "It was the worst example of it. Recently, especially when dealing with really... unpleasant foes, or those I feel personally adamant about hurting, it feels like another 'ME' snaps into place. I don't really know how to explain it." She reaches up and rubs her brow. "So I am aware of everythin' but it feels like I am equally observing than anythin' else. Yesterday, we tracked down some Fey nobility. Lord and Lady 'Tamlin'." She scoffs at the name. "Petty little troublemakers who worked through a patsy. Long story, but... when chasing one, I meant to just take his knee out. Hobble 'em."

"Next blink, he's dead." She mimes a body falling over with her hand with a flat affectation. "I killed before. Got used to it. This noble, his little games? They led to people dying. But..." Well, she shot a fleeing foe to kill. A Fey Noble at that. "I killed him in the Summer World. No More Springs." Dead-Dead.

Warrick listens. Truly. "I know what you mean about snapping-to. Did that in the guard. In the military. Have to make snap judgements on reflex all the time. Some of them there's no winning."

A breath. "What makes this different? Was it because you meant to maim, but instead it was a kill? Or...?" he asks, looking into his own drink. "Ending something that is supposed to be never ending?"

"I dunno, both?" Carver says. "No... jus' that it didn't feel like I made the choice. It wasn't my reasoning. I wanted to take him alive, but between that though' and the actual action, it's like that didn't matter anymore. That I had to kill. 'Cause they were a monster and that's what you do." She sets the bottle down. "An' that's the thing. It wasn't my choice. Or it didn't feel like it was. Even now I feel it. Like little scraping thoughts. That murderer got free into Alexandria an' even now, I got this thought wriggling around that I shoul' be hunting. Not to get him back in jail. Not even to kill. 'cause /I/ am a hunter." She scowls,

"Mos' people. They think I am. I'm not. I was a guide. I led people across the wilderness. I hunted sure but it's not like it was any callin' of mine. Until after whatever happened in the temple. Now I want to find monsters. Seek them out. /Hunt/ them."

"Sorry... I dunno what I want to hear. That I'm crazy. That I'm not."

Warrick takes a moment to think in silence, staring out the rain spattered window. He takes a large breath. "Maybe you knew, deep down, its what needed to be done in that moment. The other selves, while you may not remember them easily, all still impart wisdom and knowledge unto you. Knowing how dangerous a rogue fey being, or a fiend."

He shifts, sliding over to the coffee table and sitting on it across from Carver. "I was just a guard. Breaking up petty brawls, solving complaints, wall duty-" mentioned with the driest of tones, "-but more bad shit kept happening in Alexandria. Was in a bad rut at that time, Persi was gone. Had to keep Cinny safe, so I went with the military. It was the best of times, and the worst of times."

The once-guard looks directly at Carver, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Everyone has moments that make them crazy. I have my own demons too. But ask yourself this: you were a guide. But now you, be it the touch from the temple or spurred by it, want to hunt monsters. You need to ask yourself why you want this. Is it to keep yourself and others safe? Is it because they are abominations? Or something else?"

He gives the shoulder a gentle squeeze, slate eyes softening. "You're young. You're growing. You're trying to figure out what makes you, you. And frankly, you've gone through just as much shit as I have at way too young, and that makes it all the harder or try and swallow all of this."

He gives a wan smile. "What you want to hear differs from what you need to hear. And what you need to hear is- it's alright to feel crazy. But can you understand the crazy enough to make it not feel like that?"

"When I foun' out Mudgett got free, I remember... I was scared, but I was also so glad. Scared cause I know what he can do an' how much harm he can cause, but I knew that this time, I would be the one hunting." Carver admits. "An' I felt pleased. An' I hated it. An' like a little drunk, spent two days digging and rooting for his trail even after it had long gone cold. I was doin' it. Right when I saw your house." Warrick isn't a priest and she has not been seemingly very religious but here she is, full confessional. "I felt it when I chased down that Fey too. An' I hated enjoying it."

The hand on her shoulder has her flinching, looking up and expecting judgement. She listens. Some life bleeds back into her eyes. Maybe he just is saying this so he can report the future Mudgett before she can become like him. He touches on something. Why does she want this? Finding out why is her goal. She smiles at him, a flash of big buck teeth and painfully young still. Baby fat still there.

She invades his personal space suddenly to wrap arms about, squeezing into a hug. Can you understand the crazy?

"I can try."

Warrick nods along as Carver confesses her sins. "I understand. There's a certain feeling of control that since you are on the job, it's not going to go wrong. You can't have it go wrong. As long as you keep yourself rooted and are aware that you feel like this, you can work on keeping that in check."

He grins as he sees some life fill her features. "Even if you don't wear a damn helmet."

The hug completely catches him off guard. But it's quickly and readily returned, and has no lack of warmth, many years of fatherly perfection. "Trying is all I ask," he murmurs.

He holds it for it a while, then pulls away, relaxed. "Feel free to crash on the couch now and whenever you want. Siding on the house next to the door is loose, spare key is in there. Just knock before you enter. You want some food?"

Does she have a home now? Carver considers the offer, then nods. "I'd love somethin' to eat." The helmet thing? Well, kids are stubborn. One thing at a time.

-End Scene-