Forge and Family Work

Evening has fallen across Alexandria, with a bit of mist blowing in off of the river and the ever-present heat and humidity coming with it. With the darkening skies, many have gone home or retired to evening tasks, meaning that the Temple District is a quieter than it might be at other times of the day.

However, the gods never sleep, and thus never do their temples. In this case, Rune has taken the opportunity to head through the district, making for the temple of Daeus. Not long ago, she might have avoided the entire district, but the rogue has seemingly come to peace with her relationship with the Sky-singer, and that means more comfort with the other gods as well.

It isn't a god that she is looking for, this evening. "Would Andelena be available this evening? If she's off spending time with her husband, I certainly wouldn't want to intrude on them, but I thought I would check here at the temple first." Rune asks of one of the temple guards.

Occasionally Andelena has great timing. As Rune asks the question of one of the Temple Guards, Andelena steps out of the Temple of Daeus, clad in her traditional mithral armor and white cloak, with a little sweat on her brow that's dampened some of her red hair. But the woman looks otherwise full of ambition, a certain light in her steel-gray eyes that's there until she spots Rune over by the temple guard.

"Oh, hey! Rune!" Andelena greets the half-sil with a little wave and smile. "Were you looking for me?"

"You're in demand today," Deliverance points out to Andelena, the maternal voice coming from the sword on her hip. "Hello, Leirune."

The poor guard doens't even have a chance to answer before Andelena, herself, calls out. "Well, speak of the Daeusite." Rune's lip quirks as she gives the guard a pat on the shoulder. "Nevermind, sorry for the bother."

Then, stepping around him, she cants her head a little as she takes in the red-head, "And good evening to you as well, Deliverance. Busy day?" She asks, one pointed ear twitching at the voice of the sword. After many encounters with Malefic, it is now habit to simply address talking weapons as people.

Her expression shifts to a smile as she inclines her head, "Hey Andelena. I was hoping I could catch you when you weren't busy." After a slight hint of hesitation she continues, "Remember when I mentioned appreciating the work you did on Dolan's weapon? Seems like I have a bit of gold burning a hole in my pocket and I was hoping you might have the time to take a commission or two?"

"Yeah, I was sparring in the Temple," Andelena replies to Rune with a grin. She rifles a hand through her hair. "Gotta keep my shit sharp and limber between Guild jobs, although that stuff back in Am'shere had me sitting out for a little bit to heal up again." The Sunguard had definitely taken a beating then, but she'd prevailed--and ensured that her allies would prevail as well.

She looks to Rune and listens to the request. When Rune's done talking, the grin returns to her face. "Well hell, Rune, I'd be happy to do work for you. As it happens, I'm free. I was sort of thinking of doing some work on my armor, but it ain't needed."

Andelena adopts a more casual stance now as they're talking smithing. "What've you got in mind for work? Swords? Armor? I can do both."

"That's definitely something I should look into, but a lot of those who would have been potential sparring partners have moved on from Alexandria. It's a shame. I was hoping to learn some from techniques from other lands but..." Rune shrugs softly, seeming used to the comings and goings of various people in her life. It isn't anything new. "I'm thinking of maybe working a bit with Harkashan's sister. She has similar fighting styles and capabilities to me, and... I doubt our troubles in Am'shere are over. Not by a long shot."

Reaching over, one hand scratches at her tattooed arm, "I could certainly use the help. Huian used to tell me that my fighting style isn't suited for the front-lines but... that's pretty much where I have to be to make a difference in a fight." The rogue smirks a bit. "Problem is, I tend to get my ass handed to me in the process, so getting better defenses is always a priority."

"Well, if you can do both, I certainly could use both." Rune answers. "Should have the coin for it, I think. I've got a Mithral shirt that could use further enchantments, and... a my second sword that could use some work, too."

"Hey, I'm always around if you wanna spar," Andelena replies, tilting her head a little as she offers Rune a smaller smile. "Bry's around for sparring sometimes too, but his schedule can depend on when his shoulder's bothering him. Sometimes the healers will have him off it or have him just using his longsword instead of the greatsword."

At the remark about Rune not being suited for the front-lines, Andelena gives a little snort. "Having seen you in action personally? You were doing _just_ fine out there on the front lines. But I'm not gonna go hugging a fire elemental out of the kindness and love of my heart anytime real fucking soon."

Then she adds, "I'd be more than happy to work on both. Gotta make sure you get home so you can see Harkashan and his family, yeah? Pretty much the reason why I work on my stuff. Although... My family's made some unexpected developments lately, so y'know, maybe you _can_ teach old dogs new tricks."

"I might take you up on that." Rune's brows raise slightly. "Hark is more of the... stand there and cast spells sort of person, and Skielstregar would put me in the dirt if things went wrong in a fight." Though Rune knows and trusts the silver-scale as one fo her closest friends, she can also acknowledge that there are certain dangers inherent in combat with him. "Your bou is a badass, but I'd also feel like an asshole if I accidentally hurt his shoulder."

Her expression shows a bit of amusement at Andelena's snort and the response that follows. "Well, I appreciate the compliment. It's been a rough few months, though. You've seen the weak spot I have across my back, and I think my shirt could use some reinforcement on the shoulders as well." The comment about elementals has her giving a small curse in Draconic. "Fuck elementals. Even my best blade can't do jack shit to them and it's frustrating as hell."

Family is something that does have Rune looking a little uncertain, "I'm just glad they accept me in some form or another. As a soft-skin, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd told me I was unworthy." Her lips press together. "My own family situation is... complicated as fuck. My dad hates Harkashan with a passion, but... that might be understandable figuring that Hark dragged my dead ass right to his doorstep."

Then, pausing, she raises an eyebrow again, "Gale?" As if taking a guess as to what sort of family developments Andelena might be talking aobut.

"Fuck elementals indeed," Andelena says, and then she looks thoughtful. "Y'know, I can actually improve a blade with an enchantment that makes them a little more effective against certain creatures. It's a bane enchantment, a nasty little thing if you fight a certain type of creature more often than not. Consider it as an option further on down the line."

She raises a brow. "Your dad? Hating Hark? Damn--I mean, I can understand not liking a guy dragging home your kid's body, but they say don't shoot the messenger."

The conversation turns to Gale, and Andelena nods. "We questioned him a while back," Andelena says. "Unfortunately, he was... Well, Dolan ended up carving him open, because Gale was a fucking idiot and he slapped me after some pretty stupid words." She takes a harsh breath. "I saved his life. After that, Gale and I talked, and... He kind of acknowledged that what Mother was doing to our family clearly wasn't the way forward. That he doesn't have to be beholden to her shit, either."

"A bane enchantment, huh?" Rune seems to consider it, her brows furrowing slightly. "It's... certainly a thought if we ever have to go back to that horrid place, or anywhere like it." Though they had eliminated the threat at Prion Prison, there still seemed to be some danger lingering there. Rifts between planes were not something to leave idle. However, Rune seems in no great rush to return and deal with that when there are more pressing matters at hand.

"For the time being, I was thinking of maybe an ice enchantment? I've got acid on my other blade, and having different elemental energies to call on helps deal with enemy resistances and the like." She explains. "Though... I'm not sure I fully understand all of it." Rune's knowledge of creatures and their weaknesses seems limited.

"My father... well..." Rune purses her lips. "He never wanted me to leave home in the first place. He sees anyone who has encouraged this path in my life as a negative influence. The... showing up at his doorstep with my corpse certainly didn't help." She rubs at the back of her neck and sighs, "I hope my sister didn't see that. The girl doesn't even know me so I'm sure that wouldn't end well."

Turning away from that particular line of thought, Rune gives a look of surprise at the tale that Andelena weaves of her encounter with gale. With a soft groan and a rub at her nose bridge she shakes her head, "He was really that stupid? What an idiot." Her brows furrow slightly, "So... care to fill me in a little? I mean, I caught a bit from Gale's rambling but I'd rather hear about your family from you than him."

"I didn't even know you had a sister," Andelena says with a blink. "I take it she's... younger? Older? Don't tell me your dad up and remarried right after your mom passed." She finds that distasteful, but it's a common thing to do within well-off families. One has to keep climbing the social ladder.

Which is a thing she readily reveals she knows a bit about as she nods to Rune and elaborates, "Yeah, I can. I used to be Andelena Calogref--sole daughter of the Calogref family, middle child of three kids. Gale's my older brother. Seb's my baby brother." The way she says the last phrase indicates an obvious affection for her younger brother. "My parents are... Well, my father fucks off most of the time to go riding and hunting with the Baron he serves as a knight, and my mother has always been allowed to do whatever she wants with the house. She had... very rigid ideas of my future. Mostly, she wanted to marry me to the richest and most powerful old widower she could find with young daughters of marriageable age, so she could secure my brothers' marriages to them and elevate the family's status."

Andelena snorts. "I don't have to tell you how fucking gross that is. Either way, she got worse as I got older, and I was a little hellion with more interest in beating up my older brother than I was in being a proper noblewoman, so she had me sent off to the Temple of Daeus in Ecclesia, where I met Bry. We were teenagers then--and when we both became Sunguard and Corona, respectively, he and I traveled around the Myrrish Kingdoms taking on low-level shit. Nobles not paying taxes, petty theft rings, other shit. We were in love, and when he asked my parents for their blessing to marry me, Mother had me disowned instead. And... sent a demon after Bry."

She sighs, shaking her head. "That's the simple version of it. Everything that's going on now has been discovering that my Mother's been controlled and probably manipulated by a fiend and the ex-Charnite noblewoman she's been best friends with for a very long time. Gale's an idiot and an unwitting accomplice, but he's not a criminal mastermind. In some ways, he's just as much a victim of all of this horseshit as I am."

"I... don't talk about it much." Rune admits, looking a bit sheepish about that fact. Rather than elaborate, she just reaches out and touches the tip of her nose with a finger, confirming that Andelena is right on the money in her assessment. "Younger. She'd be... just about an adult now, a year shy or so, I think. I was around when she was little but... let's just say I didn't exactly agree with my father moving on so quickly and made an ass of myself."

As Andelena starts to go into her own story, there is a scrunch of Rune's nose at the idea of the strong-willed woman before her being married off to some old noble. "Like... you're some piece of cattle to bargain with, rather than a person with your own thoughts and feelings that matter?" Rune chuffs, a sound that she has obviously picked up from her time in Am'shere.

The connection of all of this back to Charn has her brows furrowing, though. "What do you think this person hopes to accomplish? There must be something of importance to bother investing that kind of time into manipulating your family for that long."

Rune's arms fold across her chest, looking concerned.

"Yup, like a cow," Andelena says, folding her arms across her armored torso. "It's some shit, is it not? The way that people can treat their own kids and... not think of them as people, you know?" Her words and her look at Rune suggests that she empathizes a bit with Rune's own story, even if their circumstances are different. "Yours sounds wrapped up in himself, and mine... Well, mine's all about power and ambition. I'm sure that's why she started palling around with this woman. Lady Derwes--also known as Lady Aza Chidea."

She sighs. "She's linked to the devil that Bry and Telamon have been hunting down. Seems like she's shacked up with it and its master. My mother's money was used to help fund Marsward and the werewolf encampment--and now that's gone, we've got only one part to hone in on. My family has money, and some political influence in Selentia, and that's enough for a little fiend-caller to be interested. Bry's just being an amazing man and rooting out the problem so that I might actually have a family again at the end of this that isn't just me embracing his folks and siblings as mine--which I've done happily, they're good people, but... something _healing_ about getting the words you always wanted to hear from some folks."

The doors to the Sunlord's temple open again - they do this on the regular - but this time, behind a pair of giggling young acolytes, Dolan wanders out. A shirt with rolled-up sleeves and trousers suffices him today, the longsword on his hip, and he has foregone the vest that he so often wears. He's yawning hugely, with dark circles under his eyes, and he pauses once the doors close behind him, blinking at the sunlight.

Lips pressed together, Rune seems to think how best to frame her particular situation. "I've tried, for a long time, to try to see the world through his eyes. I thought it might give me some understanding of why he is the way he is." She shakes her head slightly, "Best I can come up with, is that living for hundreds of years, seeing people he's loved die time and again, he fills that void with whomever comes next. I was supposed to be the one to follow in his footsteps. To carry on his legacy if anything were to happen. Instead, I carry my mother's legacy instead." Rune lifts her shoulders.

"Found family can be just as important as blood, if not moreso in some cases." The rogue cants her head a little. "I'm glad for the bit of that I've managed to find. But I still would go to the ends of the planes for my blood kin, too. Despite our disagreements." She sighs at that.

The sound of giggling girls causes Rune's ear to twitch, turning in that direction. "Well, if it isn't the amazing man in the flesh." She lifts a hand and raises it in greeting, standing opposite Andelena. "So... what are the next steps in getting rid of her influence?" Rune asks.

"I can't fathom it--living for hundreds of years--but I guess that's a human thing," Andelena says. "We don't live very long compared to other people. And then there are people that don't live as long as humans, either."

When Dolan's greeted by Rune, Andelena turns to face him with her own grin. "Hey baby," she says, going to snake an arm around him in her usual fashion as she plants a kiss affectionately into his hair. "How you feeling? We're talking about the horseshit that my mother's wrapped up in."

She looks back to Rune. "Well, we figured out there's this house that my mother dragged Gale to back in Selentia, where I'm from--so Bry, Tel, and I are gonna go pay it a visit. Easier said than done considering some of the new shit we've found out lately."

To be quite honest, in this moment, Dolan doesn't look particularly amazing at all. What he looks like is _tired_, as one who slept very little in the previous day or so, and a man with a lot on his mind. Still, when he is greeted, he raises a hand in response, wandering over to the pair of them. He ends up on Andelena's left, and snakes an arm around her in turn, even as she does to him. "Brightest of days, Rune, hi baby." He leans up to peck her affectionately on the cheek.

The formalities concluded, he looks between the both of them. "Oh, the one that probably has a portal to the Plane of Fire? Yeah, we'd better finish laying in supplies for that, I wouldn't count on anything there being edible or potable. You can ask the Knight to create water, yeah?"

"Me either." Is Rune's response. Though she does have Syl blood in her veins, her lifespan is closer to humans than her long-eared relatives. Her existing brushes with death likely making it seem far closer than it might for others of her half-blood kin.

Leaving that to the side for now, she inclines her head, "G'evening, Dolan. You look tired. Everything okay?" The question is followed quickly with, "Well, as okay as can be given the circumstnaces." Apparently, she had heard some of those circumstances by the tone of the conversation.

"A portal to the fire plane?" Looking between them, Rune winces slightly, "Maybe you're the one who will need that bane enchantment more than I will. I imagine it's got a fair share of similar monsters to the ones we faced at the prison. Fire elementals and the like."

Then, as if to explain what she'd said, she adds, "I was asking your wife if she could do some enchanting work for me. Then we got a bit off topic." Rune smirks, "In a good way, of course." She looks to the red-head, "Well, if you consider shared family drama good."

Andelena chuckles a little, clearly in a better mood just for having Dolan next to her. "I won't keep us out much longer," she tells Dolan. "You look like you need a nice long nap at home with your cats." Oh, there's a tease there in that voice and in that grin. "Knight knows that Patches will purr away on your chest if you let her."

She nods to Rune's inquiry. "If it weren't for the fact that Livvie's special, I might consider it, but her whole deal is that she lives for skewering fiends. I think fire elemental bastards are kind of out of her purview--but apparently she's interested in halberds, too, so hey--"

"Andelena, please," the long-suffering voice of Deliverance interjects.

Andelena's grin is almost ear-to-ear now. "Anyway, yeah, Knight'll give me the ability to make water, thank His blessings. As well as the ability to resist the heat from being on that plane. I've got some scrolls to go purchase to make sure we don't get fucked five ways from here to next Eliday."

Despite himself, Dolan can't help but snicker, the mobile half of his face twitching. "Mine? Those two belong to themselves. Sunrise knows they do as they please. As for that story - I am so, so glad none of my swords talk, baby."

Rune's query earns her a half-hearted smile. "I'll be fine. Don't always sleep as soundly as I'd like. I won't deny she's the right person to come to for enchanting. She's damned good at it, and I've been the beneficiary. I've got means of handling elementals, or just about anything else. You coming with us?"

"Oh? I do happen to know a halberd with a very charming smile." Rune quips back, her lip quirking in the process. Then, with a soft laugh, there is a nod of agreement with Dolan, "I have to agree with you, there. I'm not sure talking weapons would work well with how often I have to try to go unnoticed."

"I'll try not to keep you too much longer, though." Rune seems to consider the time, though her focus is more on the two before her. "How about I bring the armor to you tomorrow, and we'll sort that out first. Then the sword afterwards." When it comes to priorities, Rune clearly views a good defense as more important than offense, it seems.

Then, Dolan's question catches her off-guard. "Me?" There is a look of uncertainty there as she glances between Andelena and Dolan, "I mean, if you think I'd be able to help, I'd be glad to assist. Though... Andelena saw just how little I can do against most elementals."

"Quite frankly, if we're going into another plane and expecting hostilities--which we are--I think we could use both you and Harkashan if Bry and Telamon are up for it," Andelena replies. "Bring by the armor and the money for supplies to the forge. It ain't far from here. I'll get it nice and fixed up for you. Then we'll see if I can't work my magic on your sword." She rattles off the address to the forge, which is right here in the Temple District, a space that's shared by the faithful of the gods to make works in devotion to them and inspired by them.

She looks at Dolan. "Considering Rune and I fought side-by-side on that assignment in Am'shere, I'm definitely in favor of it. You undervalue yourself, Rune--you got my ass out of the hearth several times when you helped me carve apart those fiery assholes."

"Never seen you not help, Rune. You always help. You and and the Deathsinger both. I'd be glad to have you, if you're up for it. Dolan's half-smile has faded, and he leans his head against Andelena's shoulder.

"I'm sure recruiting Harkashan wouldn't be too much trouble. You went out of your way to help in Am'shere when he wasn't able to, so I'm sure he'd be glad enough to assist." Rune, of course, doens't speak for the Makari cleric, but she seems fairly confident in her assessment.

As Andelena gives her the instructions for finding the forge, Rune takes a moment to pull out a bit of paper and write it down. Rolling up the bit of parchment she tucks it back into her belt and tucks the pencil behind her ear. "Sounds good."

Then, with a look to Dolan, she gives him a warm smile, "I'll let you two get going. Get some rest, Dolan, you look exhausted. We can talk about when and where we're meeting for your adventure tomorrow, too. You two have a good night, okay? Don't keep him up too long." She offers the red-head a wink.