Packing Bags and Asking Questions
Log Info
- Title: Packing Bags and Asking Questions
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Dolan's apartment
- Summary: Andelena and Dolan are packing for their upcoming 'trip' (much as Andelena thinks using the word is weird considering its purpose) to Quelynos, the land of the fey. Andelena stops mid-packing and starts asking Dolan the hard questions: why didn't he interrogate Balderdan for the knowledge he alluded to knowing? Dolan eventually tells Andelena that there are things he knows that Balderdan has told him, but cannot reveal to her. This answer partially satisfies Andelena, but she demands to be given permission to know things, too. Dolan promises he'll work on it, and more conversation follows: the odd dreams and injuries that Dolan's had since attuning to the statue, and a discussion on getting engaged again. But the two Daeusites agree: they're going to follow the path they've been given.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- 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. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
Packing was never Andelena's favorite part of preparing to go just about anywhere. The Sunguard would almost always put it off without fail unless Brydion intervened--and that holds fast even now, as Andelena finds herself staring at a halfway-packed bag.
She looks over her shoulder at Dolan and sighs, abandoning her packing. Sure, she's had a few drinks, but she's still a Sunguard...
Which is why she says, "Hey, Bry. That whole deal with Balderdan and the others... Not once in all of my damn years have I ever seen you abstain from needling someone with questions if they weren't telling you everything. Why was it different that time?"
Brydion, on the other hand, has been only too eager to get packed and gone. As is his usual habit, he'd seen to provisions and minor odds and ends, including for him a quiver and spare of crossbow bolts, sharpened and wrapped in leather. Now, he's emptied his pack all over the couch, piles of odds and ends everywhere to be packed. Andie's share of the provisions have been set aside within her reach.
When she asks the question, he looks up, and tenses a little. "Balderdan? He knows what he's talking about, Andie. I wasn't kidding when I said he's got access to stuff maybe most people don't know about. I can't talk about it too much, but I know he does."
There's the steel-grey stare settling on him again. Even with the haze of 'liquid idiocy', as Andelena sometimes referred to it when dealing with people so piss-drunk that they decide on only the stupidest of actions, that gaze of Andelena's is a weighted one when she gets to asking the tough questions.
"So... why can't you talk to me about it?" she asks, a hand going to her hip. "I can understand not wanting to talk to the others about some stuff, Bry, but... This is us. And we agreed to be partners again. To do everything together again."
There's a moment in her tone of voice where she sounds genuinely a bit upset, and she seems to realize it, too, because she sighs and shakes her head. "I can understand Balderdan not telling me shit. He doesn't know me much better than anyone else. You're kind of a different story, though, Bry. I just..."
She struggles to find the words and shrugs helplessly, almost bewildered. Spit it out, Andie. Or choke on the words. That's an option, too.
"I haven't got permission to tell you, Andie. It's not my decision, all right?" Brydion sighs and looks down, looking a little hangdog. "I'll see if I can get permission to tell you. I'll try." He spreads his hands. "That's all I can do." He reaches down and starts to re-pack his firestarting tools, wrapped in a leather roll. "I want to tell you. I don't have permission to."
Andelena looks at Brydion for a while longer, letting a silence hang in the air. It might seem like she's upset if one's only listening to the conversation, but in reality, there's a thoughtful look in her eyes--and it's almost certainly not about the packing.
"Ok. How do I get permission to know, then?" she asks. "Whatever deal you've got going on with Balderdan--I want in. We do everything together. That's what we said we'd do, Bry."
She's still not packing. This conversation's got her whole attention.
Brydion stops what he's doing, and walks over to her, reaching for her waist with both hands. "It's his secret to tell, Andie. I'll ask him. I don't mind doing that. Because you're right. We're in this together. But, that doesn't extend to other people's secrst. Would you like it if I shared your secrets with anyone else?" His gaze is direct and open, and yet there's a little bit of guilt there.
"That's the thing," Andelena says, leaning her head against Dolan's and pressing her nose down to his. She closes her eyes and sighs. "It's... Besides the information thing, Bry--I just... the idea of you having secrets--and I'd consider a secret that you and Balderdan share a secret you have--that you keep from me is... I don't know. It unsettles me. Hell, just... packing my own fucking bag unsettles me."
Then comes the line, delivered off-the-cuff but revealing so much more about Andelena's head than she'd likely ever intended. "Last time I packed my own bag, you weren't there to help."
She opens her eyes and looks at Brydion, seeming to realize what she's said again after it's been let out into the air. "Just... Yeah. I trust you like nothing else, Bry--I've been letting go of all of my little instincts that keep telling me to hold on so tight to you. I just... There's little things here and there, like tiny fucking leeches. ...You understand, right?"
Oh. So that's it. Brydion reaches up towards the flaming red curls, and tenderly tucks it back behind her ears, but behind the chocolate-brown eyes. "Yeah. I get it." He wilts, though, his hands dropping, and he turns away. "There's shit out there I hope you never see, Andie. I don't want you to see it, because you'll never forget it. It'll change you, and the idea of living through that -" He can't finish, and just shakes his head.
"But I want to," Andelena insists, her hand going to Brydion's face and holding his cheek in his hand--the cheek on the ruined side of his face. She doesn't ordinarily touch that side of his face--but she does this time, steel-gray eyes looking at both the survivor and the farmboy. "I want to because you have to, because you've seen things... And because I want to walk where you walk. Right in the Knight's rays. I know you love me and you want to spare me, but..."
She laughs a little, shaking her head. "Gods damn it, Bry. Look at me. I'm not some fragile little flower, and you don't have to take shit all on your shoulders if it means you're going to buckle beneath the weight like a stack of fucking cards--if not now, then later."
And she doesn't let go of him. Her hands are warm and calloused from years of handling steel and living without life's luxuries--the ones that she walked away from to be with him. And those eyes of hers are just as warm. "Nothing's changed about how I feel about you, Bry. It really hasn't. I love you. All of you. I tried saying that the other night in front of all of those people so you'd believe me but... It came out all fucking wrong."
Nothing has changed. Nothing will stay just the same.
"No, it didn't." Brydion still can't meet her eyes, not yet, and there's a haunted look there. "I knew what you meant. I knew what you wanted to say. And I know that. I just don't think you know what you're getting into. You remember yesterday, when you had to heal all those scratches I came out of that dream with? That it didn't work when I tried to do it myself? That's because those were made by demon roses." Now there's an odd concept. "That's the kind of shit that demons do to people." Somewhere, his gaze has drifted back to her face. "But - I've given you my word. I'll ask. I don't know what else to say."
"And I'll keep healing you, Bry, no matter what. And if I get hurt, then you heal me, or we find another way--and I won't cry, bitch, or moan, because I signed up for it. But you know--they call them sun rays because there's more than one of them. You need more than one to light up the whole damn world." Andelena's smile is gentle, now. "I'm just asking you to..."
She snickers, putting her forehead against his. "I was about to ask you to put faith in me, but that seems like the worst thing to ask a Redeemer. I mean... I just want you to believe me. That I can handle this. That I'll crawl through shit and danger to have your back again."
"I told you, Andie. I'll bet on you. I'll ask. That's all I can do, right this minute. That, and pack your bag for you, since you aren't going to do it yourself." Some of that cheeky grin returns, and his hands slide around her waist to squeeze her rear end. "I'll ask before we go."
"Now, what else did you want to know?"
Andelena laughs again. "Okay, okay... I was going to ask you to help, because if I do it myself, shit's just gonna get shoved in and it's gonna be a fucking wreck. But that's not the only other question I had."
She looks away for a moment, flushing again in that rare way that Andie hardly ever does. "...You think that once we're... back from this... I don't want to call it a trip, because that makes it sound like it's a vacation out somewhere with a view to fuck each other's brains out, but you get what I mean... This thing..."
She looks back at Dolan. "...I dunno, go shopping for some new rings?" Despite the wording choice, it's evident she's been thinking about it for a while.
Yet another thing that hasn't changed. Brydion has always been the better bag packer, and he grins cheekily up at her. "I should have asked. Of course I'll do it." He squeezes her waist one more time, considers pinching her butt again, but thinks better of it. If he does, the bags will not get packed until considerably later.
Instead, he pulls away and sets both bags up against each other, back to back, like he's done a thousand times, and unpacks both of them completely. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I had a specific idea in mind. How do you like the idea of platinum rings?"
"Platinum rings?" Andelena echoes, looking thoughtful for a moment again. "Yeah, I'd like that. They'd also be expensive, but eh--if you buy the right metal and take care of it, it'll last for life. Better spent on that than wedding cakes and frilly dresses, at least."
She doesn't dare try to touch the bags now that Brydion's working his magic. The man has a process that she's witnessed probably a thousand times and still doesn't fully understand it. She just leans against the wall. "Speaking of demon roses... What exactly happened that other night with those cuts I healed? You slept right through the morning prayer and I couldn't shake you awake? If you can tell me, that is," she says. "More of that weird-ass hunting dream?"
Something in Brydion's shoulders relaxes - relief? Probably. He continues laying out both bags with his usual practical precision, pausing not at all at the question. "No, the dream was completely different. I can't even call it a nightmare. It was more a dream that was super real. Keep in mind, I used blood to attune an object whose real home is the Dream Realm. Can't expect it wouldn't pull me closer to the dream realm." Provisions get stashed into each bag, one layer put in and covered with a rolled outfit of clothing. "I dreamt I was in a great crater, surrounded by blue and black roses. Someone - a woman in white - came to me, but warned me too late about the roses having thorns. Turns out those thorns are the teeth of Cara-" He hesitates, then says, "The Hound." "The blue ones are Althea like we thought, but the black roses are a construct of demons, and in this case, they were tied to the Hound directly."
He reaches for soap and rags, a chunk for each bag, contained in a wooden box. "The woman showed me what was happening, and when I mentioned the name, we heard a howl. He's close, and he's trying to consume Eluna. I think - the woman was an avatar of Eluna."
He is quiet for a moment. "She took me to where the girl was in the dream realm. The roses were starting to reach her. I woke uper up trying to get to her, and she ran, but they know where she is. That's why we've got to move. The avatar promised me a piece of Herself would lead me to the girl."
"She was leading you to the gir--"
Andelena stops for a moment mid-sentence. "Do you think," she asks, "that this could keep happening? That the moon could keep losing pieces and we'd have more pieces--more girls to find, more 'parts' of Eluna to retrieve? Or is there something truly special about the girl?"
She shakes her head. "Damn it, I just don't know enough about... Shit like this. Honestly, I'm expecting this... journey, whatever you want to call it, to continue to not make sense. I mean, fairy shit. It's not gonna make sense."
Finally, Brydion pauses in his packing, the flexible half of his face pursing as he thinks. "She said she'd touched her and given her many gifts. There's definitely something special about her," he says slowly.
He sets aside the packing, then, instead turning towards Andelena. "I don't either. We'll follow the trail one step at a time until I find the Nightmare and put an end to him. We don't have to know the whole road to be able to follow it. Take one piece at a time, Andie."