"Vrunta!"

Everything hurt. Especially when that everything included his head. Consciousness did not come slowly and comfortably so much as fast and heavy, like being shoved off of a moving kint and slammed onto the cobblestones. Hard.

Things might've possibly been better if he'd have woken up less angry.

He didn't.

With a groan, the passive stirred, one hand straying to the opposite side of his aching face, unwilling to reach for where he knew hurt. Quite aware he wasn't alone, he wasn't concerned whether or not he talked loud enough to be heard. He couldn't bring himself to care if he woke Sarinah, struggling to sit up, head in his hands,

"How many more banders an' vultures're gonna crawl outta th'godsbedamned woodwork of th'Harbor docks t'show up on the'door step as long lost friends?" Tristaan's voice was hardly above a whisper, hoarse, and dragged across hot coals, full of a deep frustration.

He had to get out.

Everything here hurt.

Still grumbling quiet, angry things, he fumbled dizzily and noisily in the dark for dry clothing, gritting his teeth against the searing pain of movement, "Oh Alioe, from Vienda, too? Gods, I'm jus' one kov ... I ent sure what t'do jus' because someone can't tell th'clockin' difference between livin' an' workin'."

Sarinah wasn't asleep. She had been late up, finishing of auditions and closing the place up. Drying off in the bathroom, washing her face and brushing her hair, she'd perched on a crate near the window of their bedroom, looking out into the darkness and the steady rain. It had been a hell of a night, an awful night. She'd known he would wake loudly, maybe angrily...but not like this. The dancer jumped at the loud curse, turning her head to look at him with a mixture of relief and worry.

"Just relax hama, you-"



As she turned on the crate to hop down, the witch frowned. She'd only run into Viktor..right? Sure, that wick from Surwood had come to help...Harley..Harl..Harlin. But, he wasn't actually a friend. Sarinah lowered her feet to the floor. Watching him get out of bed and fumble in the dark, she moved to approach him, not wanting to see him get even more hurt.

"Balach, what are ye talking about? I-"



That hurt.

Freezing where she was, the wick dropped her hands to her sides, eyebrows drawing together and face a mask of shock and disbelief.

"What?" She asked in a high sort of accusary tone, heart pounding on her ribs. What did he just say?

There were some incoherent noises in response, noises which might have been words had Tristaan not been struggling to put on his shirt. Sure, he heard the tone of voice his own had produced, but he wasn't feeling very apologetic. What did he have to apologize for? He didn't attract attention. He didn't play along with everyone's whims. He could be self-contr—

"Don't act like y'don't know what I'm sayin'." He finally snapped, her surprise at his frustrated observations feeling like insult to injury, regardless of his understanding that he'd willingly invited what he'd received, "You're always workin'. There ent a difference between bein' on th'stage an' walkin' on th'floor for you. I can't keep up with that. Not if everyone's gonna clockin' come lookin' for you t'make good on it all."

The passive couldn't tell if he'd made all the buttons, squinting in the dark, bristling with a listless anger. Vision still fuzzy, he heard the rain pounding outside like his pulse hammered between his ears.

He couldn't think straight. Everything felt like too much—too much thinking, too much talking, too much hurting. Tristaan felt very helpless. He just wanted to get away, to clear his head, and he still had enough fight in him to claw his way out the door if he had to.

"Maybe I jus' don't understand, or maybe I'm jus' th'only one who fell for th'whole thing."

He wasn't a wick.

Scrap.

He didn't have anything left to prove.

"I'm goin' for a walk."

Sarinah swallowed back a biting retort, partially because she knew what he was talking about. There were times where, admittedly, she switched on. It was like a trigger response. But damnit, he knew that. She told him that. And for Alioe's sake, she'd been working on it. Tonight with Vik had been honest, open, friendly. No acting there, and no innuendo. And she wasn't working all the time, that she wouldn't agree with.

Did he really think of her like that. Like some sort of uncontrolable whore? Hadn't she prooved how much she loved him, and only him? Hadn't they had this discussion, heart to heart, on the riverbank in Surwood?



Her voice caught in her throat then, spilling out finally in an angry, hurt tyrade.

"Fell for it?! You think thats what I do Tristaanian? Lure men to love me with a shake of my hips and a smile, just so I can be kicked out of my home, spend weeks alone on an island wondering if they are dead, then move to the Rose....where I'll find some other poor tsuster?!" A disbeliving laugh shook her, and a finger lifted to point shakily at him.

"Ye think I'm some tumble? Some cheap witch who gets her enjoyment out of luring men into some sick game?" Tears had come now, and through grit teeth, she moved to block his exit, resting her arms on the door frame like a human barrier.

"Ne hama, we need to talk, now, otherwise its just going to be worse later..." Her brown eyes looked up at him definantly, the words "when you come back" left hanging.

"You don't seem t'have a pro—"

Tristaan shut his mouth, narrowing his eyes. He wasn't really mad at her ... or just her. Right now, he wasn't sure if there was anything he wasn't mad at. The fire lit by Carmine's words seemed to consume everything it touched, leaving him feeling unable to deal with any of it with a clear thought process. Everything had been tainted painfully with that ugly word, that ugly reminder of everything he wasn't, "Godsdammit. I ent got anythin' nice t'say right now."

The passive didn't bother making Sarinah move, but it was obvious he was listless in front of her, wavering a little with his dizzy, aching head, "We ent talkin'. I'm goin'. Jus' move."

The dancer held back the crying, her heart giving a little jump as he cut short his comment. Jaw jutting slightly, she lifted her chin. There had been a time when she was stronger, much stronger, than this. Now she remembered why.

"Ent the first time I've been accused of bein' a tumble kov, and it ent gonna be the last. Don't think you have to stop just t' save my feelings."

Ent like it mattered a minute ago.



Dropping her arms, the woman moved aside, brown eyes trained on him, tears pushed away, for the moment. Hurt, angry, defeated, she crossed her arms across her chest. The girls at Cooks had always told her, once you were part of their world, you could never go back. You could never have a relationship, because in the end, it never really was a relationship. It was a tenious agreement. A lie on a lie. It seemed, even though she'd escaped the city, the Place, she still had Cook's hand wrapped around her. It was fun to pretend that she was someone else, lie to herself and believe that things could be better.

But in the end, they were just the same.

Without saying a word, she waited for him to leave, face set. This wasn't his macha, the fragile girl he'd met in Vienda. This was Sarinah, the exotic dancer, the object of mens desires, and this was who she was.

She moved, but he didn't. Not right away. His face protested the scowl that creased into his weathered features. In their thirst for knowledge and power, maybe gollies were right to call his kind broken. Maybe there was something buried and inescapable in the very molecules of every passive that guaranteed a life as impotent and helpless and as cursed as their missing magic. Then again, maybe the only thing the gollies had going for them was perpetuating that process, ingraining every fieldless child with the need to live a life so filled with failure that nothing else was possible. So far, for this passive, it felt ridiculously successful.

Tristaan made it as far as the stairs, knuckles white against the banister as he leaned against it, pausing before he made his escape. Realizing his vision wasn't just blurred by the ugly swelling of one side of his head, the passive refused to look directly at the witch in the doorway, staring past her into the dark of their room instead. His voice was heavy with the guilty knowledge he'd been purposefully cruel,

"Sarinah, you're no more a tumble than I'm a wick. Th'difference is one of us will always have a choice."

Without waiting for a response, he made his way quietly downstairs. It was easy to pretend. It was nice to be lulled into believing he could have what he wanted and be someone he'd been told his whole life he wasn't allowed. It was a beautiful distraction to live someone else's life, but underneath it all, he still felt broken.

Watches could be tinkered with.

Bones could be mended.

Old buildings could be repainted.

Would his birthright always be the same?

Tristaan tugged on boots and his half-cloak, ignoring his hat or his weapons, eager to get away, to be anywhere else, to just go. Outside, the rain was no slow drizzle; it was hard and cold. Pouring, the street gutters were flooding with high water and everything that stepped out of cover was instantly soaked. It was miserable, but somehow it was better.

Having no idea what time it was, he could at least tell the Walk was still open. The docks weren't far, and having no destination in mind other than somewhere else, the passive wandered toward the sea. Surely the beach would be quiet, surely there'd be somewhere to be alone ... though what did he really have to think about? What did he really have to fix?

Sloshing and cursing under his breath, Tristaan walked aimlessly through the somewhat familiar streets in hopes of calming down.

Standing with her arms folded, the witch said nothing to his comment, watching him go down the stairs and listening to him getting dressed. The sound of the rain was louder for a moment, as he opened the front door, then, it was quiet again.

Closing her eyes slowly, Sarinah sighed, lifting her hands to her forehead and moving to plonk down on the nearest crate. Resting her elbows on her knees, she stared at the ground, as the world crumbled around her. How could he say he didn't have a choice. He'd choosen to live like a wick for years, now suddenly, it was just wrong? How had he gone from strong and determined to...to this...almost over night?

Angrily, the dancer jumped to her feet, striding to one of the smaller crates by the window. Grabbing the top, she wrenched it off, breaking a nail in the process. Throwing the wood aside, she reached in and grabbed a bottle of dark reddish brown whiskey. Pulling the top with a satisfying pop, she lifted it to her mouth, taking a deep swig, before coughing and gasping with a shudder. It burned, it tasted foul, but oh, it was good.

Moving, she walked to the window, hopping up on the makeshift seating there, looking out into the steady downpour. As she look another swig of whiskey, she felt the lump in her throat swell, and her eyes stung. Without so much of a warning, she burst into tears. Placing the bottle beside her, Sarinah pulled her knees to her chest, hugging her shins and resting her head down. Everything inside her ached, hurt. She loved him, Gods, she loved him so much...how could things turn out like this?

Things were wretched, things were lovely, he thought. In a way. In a very wretched and somewhat frightening way. In a way that made him clutch his shirt tighter around his shoulders and made him wrap his tattoo in so much sailcloth you’d have to go at it with a machete to make it all unravel and unveil the ugly truth and ruin the whole thing.

Things were lovely because by no savory means, Carmine had slept in a bed and taken a bath. Though he knew that no matter how many times he slipped his head under all that delicious (golly magic) heated water, or covered himself in a thick rime of (more expensive than your life) soap or toweled all his heat-and-teeth welted skin dry with his (so soft and fluffy-delicate why was he even--) towels, he would never be clean. Not to say that he was pure before the altercations of the past few nights, but at least his conscious had some clarity. Now, it was flooded in a smoke so thick he couldn’t see anything anymore – not that he wanted to. He did not want to dwell on anything like being righteous and moral, not when it was keeping his head housed and his flasks full.

So away, away. The boneyard was in disarray after the sudden torrential showers swept through and flooded the graves. Floating bodies and splintered caskets all had to be accounted for, or else there would have well been more corpses floating in the harbor. Long hours of dredging miniature mud lakes and boarding up the sides of new graves, dragging great sacks of gravel to line to the bottoms, to pin down the coffin lids. Carmine was soaked to the bones and mucked from head to toe, shambling back down the old rain fattened streets. His shovel didn’t clank tonight. It splashed, sending out little tides in his wake.

Trembling hands clung desperate-like to the slick curves of a flask, unsteady and slippery in his mud-greased hands. Swig after swig, keeping him hazy and warm on his long walk back…home. He would need it.

A strain of sweetness, a flicker of bright whistling piped its way betwixt sharp teeth, piercing clear in the din of the rain. An old golly showtune called up from the cobwebs of his youth to keep him company on his walk. Some pretty play done on the posh stages of Muffey where he was promised, one day long ago, he was destined to perform. The prelude to…to…the Star-Gazer Operetta, the Lonely Star-watcher’s Something-Something. Whatever it was, he guessed it fit. He was lonely, though not so much watching the stars as he was watching his boots on the dock wood.

So much as he was not watching the path before him.

The collision was quick, shoulder to shoulder, not enough impact to send him falling but enough to send him stumbling. The sharp clatter-splash of the flask metal striking the dock, followed by the sharp reek of whiskey floating up and swilling with the electrified ozone smell.

Once Carmine regained his footing, he dragged his shovel up off the ground, clutching it in two hands the way a child would clutch a large stick they’re determined to pummel someone with.

“Watch where the fuck yer walkin’, ye godsdamn –!“

A flash in the pan, the sharp puff of steam that was sudden recognition.

Carmine neglected to finish his sentence. His throat was too dry for that.

Tristaan wasn't watching where he was going, too lost in his own tumultuous thoughts and burdened considerations. It wasn't like he had anywhere to go but nowhere ... not unless he gave in to the rain and the flooding and found somewhere to get plum guttered instead. The broken whistling meant little to the swordsman who'd grown up on the streets and in a factory far from anything resembling a cultured life, but the sudden impact on his bruised, aching left side set his teeth grinding. It wasn't enough to cause him to misstep so much as fumble, one hand straying to his sore ribs under his cloak, grey eyes flashing in the dark to focus on the thing shouting above the rain, waving a shovel—

Bastard.

Only one eye really came into focus, the other an ugly red glaring out from under the heavy canopy of a swollen lid. He practically snarled to finish Carmine's sentence, tone of voice brimming with vehemence,

"Godsdamn scrap. That's what, eh?" Tristaan sneered, certainly unable to forget the marred visage of the gravedigger, heart catching in his chest, "I ent got any fight for you tonight, you son of a bander."

He ran a hand through his hair against the rain and took a few steps away as if he wanted to leave. He did. Sort of. That fiery hurt wanted him to finish what they'd started, to beat that word off the other passive's lips from nights before until there was nothing left but blood and mangled flesh. Somewhere inside, however, he didn't really want to be angry anymore. He just was drifting and confused. Carmine standing in front of him like some sorry-ersed drowning rat wasn't helping.

"Go clockin' cott someone else."

Carmine’s hand hovered in the air for a moment, grasping down by his hip for a flask he knew wasn’t there. In a moment, it slipped back onto the slick shovel handle, fingers clutching his knuckles into the pale. Narrowed eyes peered through the grey mist of the rain, narrow shoulders squaring like a ship’s cross-trees. Whoever the hell this man was, he seemed different. Alarmingly different. Carmine could remember the standoffishness from the few nights past, no real want for hurt. Carmine had to drag the violence out of him like a butcher flaying an animal. This was...strange. More natural, more comforting. This was restrained violence. He could handle that.

This time around, it was just a matter of not triggering it. Or – perhaps. He at least had somewhere to go now, if it were his whimsy to snap and stab and bludgeon all his frustrations and fears away, leaving himself a wreck of blood and flesh and endorphins. It was a purer form of existence than the fuzzy cloud of moral doubt he was wandering through now. Clear that smoke.

“I don’t see wha’ tha’ gets ye so fuckin’ pissy! It’s jus’ a word! Words ent worth shit!” he shouted over the din of the storm, stomping a few paces closer. “Godsdamn...I mean--”

A halt in what was sure to be a snarling ramble. He was never much of a talker, but there were so many little words stored up inside of him just pressing to get out. How hard had Brunnhold warped this bastard if he was gonna get all murderous over a stupid insult, anyhow? It obviously was still striking nerves with him, days after Carmine had spit it in his face. But he didn’t say anything about that. Words weren’t worth shit, afterall. Instead:

“—wha’ the fuck happened t’ yer face?” Not sympathy, nor delight. Just an edge of surprise, lips speared by splintery teeth, too-wide too-pale eyes blinking up at the thick swath of bruises painting one side of his face. This toffin erse had seemed too clocking dig-ni-fied to coax much of a fight from anybody.

Tristaan had opened his mouth to comment, to drive home the point that if the word meant nothing dripping from the lips of galdori students in green and their professor keepers on that godsbedamned campus he'd never set a foot on, it sure did seem to carry some weight when thrown from the chapped lips of starving, sweaty humans in factories who were more than happy to take advantage of demeaning the status of a child once promised something of a future. Either their circumstance or their semantics were vastly different, a divide of opinion like some gaping, open cut. Whatever the history, it was one thing to hear in disdain from a golly or a plowfoot, and another one entirely to hear the same words tossed without regard from between the lips of someone who should be kin by cursed heritage alone.

Obviously, Carmine felt no such camaraderie with other passives. Or, if he had once, he'd long since given it up. Tristaan, however, had not. Nothing had managed to beat the need for connection with his own kind, though it was surprising just how much the gravedigger's callousness burned—salt in a wound that always chose to fester instead of heal.

Jaw clenching, the swordsman considered ignoring the pointed questioning of the current condition of his face, especially under the disconcerting, interested gaze of the battered, dirty thing who had the nerve to step closer. Bristled, he kept his sneer, resisting the urge to turn the conversation into something more confrontational instead,

"Stickin' up for what's mine. That's what." Came the ambiguous, acidic response.

Not that it mattered much.

Was anything—anyone—really his?

He realized why he wanted to be alone, internally squirming under Carmine's accusatory gaze, knowing there was hardly any real violence left in him, "Some scum off th'docks of th'Harbor think I've got a tumble 'stead of a rosh an' figured I ent enough t'hold down th'fort against their wants an' needs."

He wasn't, but this thing pinning him down like a moth sure as the Circle was round didn't need to know that right now. Tristaan changed the subject, eyes straying to the shovel before returning to the other passive,

"Some words have plenty of meanin', 'specially ones that ent meant t'be used between folks that're th'same. No one's felt th'need t'call me that in a long time, not a one of them's ever shared th'same mark as me, neither."

The problem wasn't with the word so much as all it stood for—the reminder that he was allowed nothing, good for nothing, broken—no matter where he'd managed to stake a claim in life.

"Y'ent got any room t'be talkin' 'bout my face, judgin' from yours. 'Sides, I'm sure you've got somewhere clockin' better t'be than in mine."

Brittle blue eyes pinched in the corners, drawing into hard slits. A visible cringe flickered across his features, souring them further. It was the flutter of consternation one might see on the face of a chastised child. His gaze flickered down and away.

He didn’t want to know other passives. He didn’t want any cloying familiarity, no facade of intimacy shared across the tenuous bind of a genetic defect. Get too close and they’d find out every sick secret, every whisper from the kitchens. No thank you. You couldn’t trust a passive anymore than you could trust a human, sometimes even less so. Passives were too scared (‘clocking Harold—‘). Passives had too much to prove (‘clocking Petros—‘). And passives scared the hell out of Carmine.

“I...I ent like you...” he muttered. “Jus’ ‘cause the mona fucked our shit up don’t mean we’s the same. Tha’ don’t mean I gotta be sweet t’you.” His little hisses were drowned out by the hiss of the rain. They weren’t frought with any real sharpness, just childish posturing, really. “Tha’ mark don’t mean – tha’ fuckin’ word, it...it shouldn’ fuckin’ define ye, ye know ... I – aw, fuck it.” He halted whatever else he was going to say, shivery voice fading away into nothing.

There was a sick snort from him and then he spat onto the docks. The words weren’t coming out right, all his thoughts were a misty blur. All those words that seemed like they would have made sense just swirled around in his mouth, spluttering out in a half formed mess. What was he even trying to say? He’d distanced himself from his own passivity, held it at arms length. The galdori and all they entailed were locked in a hazy past that was more far away with every drink he knocked back. Carmine was a special little creature, above humans and wick, yet fathoms below a golly. Did that make this other man a special little creature, too? The pixyish eyes swiveling over the mottled bruises suggested that Carmine was contemplating it, and the answer was not so simple.

Fumbling words diverted the topic. Fumbling words that stank of whiskey covered in a rime of something sickly sweet. Carmine turtle-necked up the other man to get a closer look at the shiner marring his face.

“But...but shit, tha’ Harbor scum laid you out, didn’ ‘e?” he sounded appreciative, almost impressed. “A bit o’ smashin’ up’d be good for ya. At least I ent got a purdy toffin’s erse fer a face, fer fuck’s sake.” Carmine cherished his own scars and bruises deeply. Beneath all the layers of imperfection, there was nothing but pale pixie eyes and smooth freckled skin. And all of that was garbage.

“...an’ who’s yer lady? She the one who wouldn’t stop hollerin’ a few nights back? Shit. Yeh, nah. No good tumblegirl’d go yowlin’ like a cat over ‘er man gettin’ a knife waved at ‘im. Them are girls are made o’ better steel ‘an that,” he rasped before dissolving into a wet fit of coughing, burying his face in the crook of his elbow. It dawned on him that he was sick as a dog and that he shouldn’t be out in the rain or working besides, but he didn’t care. He didn’t seem to care that he didn’t have a coat, either.

He pointedly ignored the comment about him having anything better to do. Truth be told, he was looking for any reason to hide out in the storm for a bit longer.

Scrap wasn't necessarily what defined Tristaan, so much as it was a word weighted with the kind of unnecessary hatred that reminded the passive of everything he wasn't allowed to be. He didn't want to be reminded; he already knew well enough what and who he was. He didn't need someone else, someone just as much in hiding as himself, to point out the reality he was carefully keeping himself from being a part of. Some things were better when forgotten, though it seemed that he was destined to forever be trapped underneath the heavy shadow of his birthright.

That word meant plenty. It wasn't just a word. It meant that some time long ago galdori had decided that a man born without magic could never be whole, that his life was forever incomplete, forever destined to failure. It meant that in order to make this clear, it was necessary to enslave an entire people, to remind them of their brokenness by separating them from any possibility of a normal life, by keeping them from anything that could ever make them remotely whole through laws and oppression. Any hope that could be found in the freedom to love, any redemption for a genetic flaw stolen, and any opportunity for making something of himself torn away by a damn tattoo and an ignorant, stupid word.

Tristaan didn't need this red-headed scum to be kind, nor did he need his approval. However, in his mind, they were still the same. Carmine's tone was enough for Tristaan; the feral gravedigger was obviously just as desperate in his hiding as the swordsman. They'd just chosen very different paths, paths doomed to wash up on the same destination.

He didn't shy away as the other man invaded—laid siege to—his personal space, refusing to falter in his stance under the scrutiny of his battered face. Tristaan didn't dwell much on his features, considering the weathered evidence of his heritage a burden. Still, he wasn't any more willing to mar it up, to hide behind self-inflicted suffering. The scars of his own life weren't symbols of his own accomplishments so much as reminders of what he'd survived. If he was pretty, it certainly wasn't because he'd asked for it.

He took a moment to glance over the other passive, close as he was in the rain and the dark and the faint glow of gaudy phosphors. The feral thing was hiding, too.

The swordsman might have commented on this all, thoughts broiling at the smaller, grimier man's distracted ramblings ... but all he managed at first was a sputtered, angry hiss of disapproval once Carmine changed the subject to Sarinah.

"I bet if I went an' shot your ugly erse, you'd start yowlin', too. I ent sorry she ent a tumble, but you keep talkin' like she ent worth fightin' for an' you'll be nappin' with a bullet or two in your soppin' flesh." Tristaan wasn't surprised at the ire Carmine seemed so skilled at tapping inside, but all his helpless frustrations from the night before came flooding back once the gravedigger thought it his place to talk about the lovely witch.

"I been smashed up enough in my time, mujo ma. I just ent goin' about lookin' for't now that I ent in some clockin' factory sweatin' for someone else's coin ... and I sure as th'Circle's round ent hankerin' for broken bones on purpose like you are."

A soft snort of disdain, a small show of the thin dregs of nobility still etched somewhere in his veins.

“Ent no need t’go gettin’ defensive, ah?” he hissed, biting down the tattered curve of his lip. “I didn’ say a word about ‘er not bein’ worth fightin’ for. Yer dumb erse said tha’. Shit, if’n she can stick ‘round you, she mus’ be a fuckin’ Everine, mujo clockin’ ma.” The little bit of tek was stretched and purposefully mangled.

Again, another a flicker of the gentry. His bloodshot eyes rolled to the sky, lips falling open in the perfect image of a noble lady’s disdain. Tek was a dusty memory to him, something he was loathe to ever call up. There were too many soft little flecks of ‘epaemo, macha’ and ‘ne, ne hama -- daoa’s waitin’, ye chen?’ still clinging to his memories like cobwebs. He could barely tolerate all that guttersnipe speak coming from a pair of lips he'd loved, much less from a passive playing at something he so painfully wasn’t.

“Why the fuck d’ye talk like tha', any'ow? Ye ain’t foolin’ nobody, kov – oi, wait.” Carmine mocking ramble was cut short by his own consteranation. Caterpillar brows knit, head cocking in an almost childish way.

“When the fuck’d yer girl get shot at? She was screamin’ long afore any pistols started wavin’ ‘round.”

"After runnin' away from that godsbedamned factory in Vienda, wicks sorta adopted me—" Tristaan began distractedly, still obviously defensive, bristling at Carmine's slightly demeaning ramblings. The mention of the words factory and Vienda left a sour taste in his mouth, dusty like so many of those harsh memories. Hands curling into fists, the swordsman let his gaze slide away from the dirty, drunk thing and down the street, listlessly considering walking again, returning to his singular lack of destination.

Then, the gravedigger sputtered a question and grey eyes narrowed, jerked back to the other passive in a wave of shocked anger.

"Vrunta! What th'clock d'you mean when?" Came the confused snarl of a response. Yes, Carmine had been guttered then, too. Yes, they'd all been blinded by the spell. But, gods, did the feral excuse for a man not even remember his own fingers on the trigger?

"You shot her."

“Oh.”

A soft mutter, the bare bones of realization clear on his face. The expected course of action after hearing you shot a man’s girl was probably something along the lines of an apology, genuine or otherwise.

There wasn’t any real remorse there, just a flicker of bemusement. He’d had his baby out, that much he could remember. Pointing it at Sparkles’ naked erse, that much was clear enough too. And then – and then that wailing woman had thrown up dirty witch magic and set sparks in his eyes. After that camera spectra flash the world went black, like so much celluloid under a cigarette burn. Just a metallic slice in the base of his skull and the sound of something bursting open somewhere, but all was covered in smoke and sleep.

“Well, shit,” he pronounced gravely, after taking a quick stock of that night. A touch chagrin, a renewed flare of blush and hard eyes downcast. “I didn’ mean too...” Carmine hovered there in his own little cloud of blackouts and confusion, mind clumsily shoving the pieces of that night back together like so many bits of broken glass. The blank bewilderment in his eyes said it wasn’t going easy.

“Ent no reason t’go gettin’ fussy about it, I mean – I been shot on purpose fo’ a lot less. This one time, back in Vienda, I used dusted a coffee table with this tumblegirl’s nice dress. Wellll...” his eyes flickered away and there was a hazy flicker of a smile, as if he were calling up some cute memory. “Essie got sour ‘bout that, took one of ‘er john’s pistols, downed a fif’ o’ vodka an’ – well. I done wrong, she shot me, we moved on. Ya need t’ quit bein’ so uppity.” This wasn’t any sort of snide jibe or joke. Carmine was cool as ice. Serious. A sigh hissed through his teeth, as if Tristaan were the one being strange and unreasonable here.

After a moment, he piped up again.

“Tha’ girl arright, though?” There was a touch of grudging sympathy in there. Somewhere.

Tristaan hovered for a moment, slightly incredulous as his expression hardened into something calloused, distant, frustrated. What flashed momentarily as angry surprise in his grey eyes faded as he simply snorted and looked away, back toward the street with its overflowing gutters, trying desperately to filter the truth from the banter that seemed to flow without any real conscious effort (or conscious censorship) from out of the other passive's lips.

"Oes. Well, enough, considerin'." He grunted, tone grating and hard as he attempted not to take any offense from the feral gravedigger's comment that he was somehow uppity, that shooting a dancer in the leg was somehow an excusable misfire, "S'different gettin' shot by accident than on purpose. On purpose ... at least you asked for it."

Dragging his gaze back from the street, swaying slightly as if he considered walking away again, he added, "I ent sure you've got room t'tell me how t'behave. You don't know me from your next drink, anyways. "

Tristaan waved a dismissive hand, deciding that escape was the better part of valor at the moment, turning and beginning to slosh his way back down the street. He wasn't walking fast, but he had not extended the invitation for companionship, not expecting it to deter Carmine either way. If he was stuck with the thing, he'd try not to knock any more teeth out ... he just didn't need to stand still anymore.

"Sides, seems t'me like you need t'learn how t'deal with surprises better. If you'd have showed up on my doorstep," though the passive emphasized that word, it rang slightly hollow as if he wasn't sure if he had permission to mean such obvious ownership or not, regardless of what he knew to be true, "without all that fire in your gut, you might've gotten away with a roof over your head. Ent my fault you'd rather be a rabid bander 'bout that mangy cat of yours."

After a long stretch of silence and stillness, he sloshed off after Tristaan, heavy boots picking their way through the puddles like some great clumsy bird. He dragged his shovel behind him, the metal clattering on the dock wood.

Nobody, abso-fucking-lutely nobody walked away from him like that. Carmine wasn’t some annoying gnat to be brushed off. Carmine was a leech that burrowed his way into your flesh and suckered there with razor teeth. It took more than a frilly toss of the hand so shake him away. Whether this was a matter of monumental pride or a matter of crushing loneliness, he knew not. Perhaps some sickening swirl of both. All he knew was that seeing the other man turn away was like a cold fist wrenching his stomach. All he knew was that he wasn’t finished with this conversation, not by a long shot.

“Oi, ye toffin motherfucker! I didn’t come to yerrrr doorstep looking fer you, mujo clockin’ ma!” he snarled, voice aching to reach much more obnoxious volumes, but it cracked in his throat and faded into a renewed salvo of coughing.

“I wanted teh see Sparkles, but you ‘ad t’go an’ make it yer fuckin’ business. It wouldn’a gone noplace if ye hadn’t ‘ad th’ burnin’ need to be a high an’ mighty prick about it jus’ ‘cause ye thought I was some godsdamn hu-man.”

His voice kept right on withering in his throat, getting smaller and rougher with every shouted syllable. Without quite realizing it, he fell into step beside the other man, much too absorbed in scowling up at the aristocratic curves of his jaw and the slick cling of dark hair on his neck.

“An’ tha’ mangy cat is the on’y thing I got, ye ‘eartless bastard,” he growled. “He coulda been dead or hurt or out in the rain someplace.” Again, deathly seriousness, as if daring Tristaan to refute him. If the other man could get so easily riled at the mention of his lady, so Carmine would bristle at any sour mention of his Wink.

“Where th’ fuck ye goin’, anyhow?”

If Tristaan was surprised that the grimy red-head continued to follow him, it was certainly only a brief, faint glimmer across his features quickly drowned by weathered creases of further frustration. It was apparently impossible to escape the relentless turmoil, and while Carmine had little to no sense of responsibility for the repercussions of a single word, that deep ache of the broken bones of the past was a searing reminder that anything the swordsman felt like he enjoyed in the present was nothing more than perpetually cheating the heritage he'd tried desperately to hide from.

The gravedigger was a brand of fire in the dark—it was impossible to hide.

He didn't bother arguing, but he didn't quite feel compelled to answer, either. The passive let Carmine ramble brokenly on, soaked to the skin, cold, and still consumed with something dark and unquenchable. Tristaan wasn't heartless. It was just another stray cat as far as he was concerned, however. Not that he was about to speak up.

Truth be told, he had no clocking idea where he was going. Everything felt wrong, from the pain in his head to the water running too high down the streets. He didn't want to go home. He had no interest in facing the mess he'd made on purpose, the haunting insecurity of what he felt was the burden of his identity making any real conversation about his current feelings with Sarinah nothing able to be articulated. Now, if ever. He didn't really want to stay in the rain. Wandering the Harbor streets at this hour would eventually lead to nothing but trouble, the kind of trouble Tristaan was already wearing across the side of his face.

"Nowhere." He finally grunted, an exhale of capitulation through his teeth accentuated by some soggy, thoughtless shrug. Wilted under the weight of the curse he never asked for, one grey drifted to the marred face of the other passive, his tone hollow and tired, an uncomfortable vulnerability in front of something much more deserving of another beating, "Ent really had a plan since I stepped out. I jus' didn't want t'be where I was."

Carmine wavered in silence. Broken lips curled open to growl another string of bitterness, but they fell flat behind his teeth. He had a lot to say. He had a lot of nothing to say. So many grimy little feelings he was trying to rinse away. Washed clean in blood, perhaps? Scoured by the rain? He was filthy and tired and freezing, yet something in him still insisted on pushing those narrow shoulders back, hoisting his chin to the storm clouds. Little specks of patrician pride, even when mucked to the bones and layered in bruises.

If there was one thing Carmine hated (and there were many), it was feeling feelings. All these soft and stupid little things, threatening to regurgitate all over the dock. He didn’t want company. He wasn’t lonely. What difference would it make? Some brittle parts of him ached skiv a knife between this man’s ribs or bury a shovel blade into the base of his skull – but these were small parts, small desires. Things like that had lingered in his head all his life. Any violent urge was quieted to a low mumble.

Fingertips wavered somewhere around his hip, grasping for a flask he knew wasn’t there. Instead they curled into his palm, frayed nails biting hard crescents into soaked skin. It hurt. Not near as much as the urgent little teeth nibbling somewhere around his liver, but it hurt. Hurt was alright.

“N-nowhere’s alright.” He piped up after a stretch silence, breaking the vacuum where only the sounds of their feet and the water had been. “I ent been goin’ nowheres for awhile.”

Had it been from the lips of anyone else at any other time, Tristaan might have found Carmine's last comment almost amusing. It might have teased a smile from his dour expression, but instead, he only scowled more. The movement might have caused his face to hurt, but it didn't show, good eye watching his boots slosh an unidentifiable trail in the overflowing streets.

Gods, why did he ever agree to coming back to the Harbor? Two years here and he already hated it. Calli and the Circus had been an excuse to dust. To drift somewhere else. Now, here he was again. Back in this place that seemed to breathe nothing but violence on the salty air. Was there anywhere like Surwood? Where nobody cared who you were as long as you could dance, hold your liquor, and lose all your ging in a game of cards?

Still, somewhere in the back of the swordsman's troubled, aching mind, Old Rose was better than Vienda. Better than the Soot District. Better than that godsbedamned factory. Better than the streets. Better than being a passive boy in a home that already knew and resented him for it before he was even tested. Or at least, back then, they sure did act like they clocking knew.

Better?

By Alioe, it clocking well couldn't get any worse from here.

"By th'looks of things," Tristaan finally grunted, voice strained with the effort to make words, words that may have been able to carry a hint of humor in any other context but the now, "you've been goin' nowhere for a long damn time."

He could've been mistaken, but it wasn't even Carmine's first impression that left the dark-haired passive sure that the other had chosen a different path into hiding if his willingly marred expression was any indication. He might have wondered if he'd always been free or if he'd been shipped off to Brunnhold or if he'd been left to the streets like so much trash, but, he really didn't feel like thinking about it anymore.

Just like he really didn't feel like the rain.

A soft hiccup of a noise, somewhere between a cough and a laugh. He didn’t like that noise. It was a sick and far away sound.

“Ye got tha’ right,” he grunted, a faint waver making the words blurry. He speared a jagged tooth into his lip for that. Soft little things. Wisps of thought, a little flicker of wanting to tell him all about it, flood him with words even when he no longer wanted to hear. Carmine didn’t even want to say them. Just don’t shiver like that, don’t let your voice quiver like that. He wasn’t anyone’s shivering little flower anymore, and he damn well didn’t want to be. “But it ent like yous goin’ noplace either, holin’ up away in snazzed up brothel with tha’ witch.”

All this pretending to be confident and self-sufficient was exhausting.

“We –“ he hauled a heavy breathe into his wet paper lungs, spat a stream of spittle. It disappeared into the over-flowing waters enveloping the entire harbor. Carried away like a little bit of nothing, much like the rest of him. “You ent gotta stay out ‘ere. ‘eres...’eres always th’ Dove,” he offered. That was about as close to charitable he was going to get. He huddled down, all darting eyes. He dragged callused fingertips over the necklace of red welts at his throat, palm trying to hide them from the damning glow of the lamps.

"Ah, now—" Tristaan hissed, only to cut the retort that broiled up from his chest short against the back of his teeth. Was it ever really about going anywhere? Where was he going to go? He didn't exactly have a place, a destination—not with his life nor with Sarinah. Sure, he knew what he wanted, but he also knew what he couldn't have ...

Not really. Not legally. Not rightfully.

Or so he was forced to believe.

However, the struggle was if it mattered. To say it did kept him where it was, enjoying what he had while remaining forever bound to those godsbedamned rules he'd been told he deserved to live beneath. To say it didn't required him to do the one thing he'd yet to ... to turn his back on ever redeeming his broken heritage.

That was why everything hurt, why everything felt wrong.

Carmine's hint of an invitation elsewhere snapped his thoughts back to the moment, yanking them reluctantly away from his pained indecision with the wavering of the gravedigger's tone of voice. He snorted, tilting his head to turn his good eye on the other passive, "Rain makin' you play nice, eh?"

It bordered on taunting, but Tristaan was obviously no longer in the mood to fight. Anything was better than the downpour at this point, than the water in his boots, even if it required the shadow of the feral thing who'd previously been more interested in chivving him than drinking with him. Gods, he didn't even know the man's name—not that he felt it would make a difference.

He finally took a moment to notice the streets, realizing he'd walked farther than he thought. With another roll of his shoulders, he managed to grind out a few more words, surrendering to the understanding that wandering alone in thought was just not going to happen, "Indoors ent such a bad idea, I s'pose ... since this clockin' rain ent gettin' any lighter."

Drinking didn't sound like such a bad idea at this point, either, even if it required an unlikely compromise to include Carmine's presence.