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[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

Gideon clarified, said he wasn’t sure he could climb the wall – as if, Aremu thought, watching him, that was all he’d said, or how he’d said it. He hesitated, chewing it over somewhat. It wasn’t as if men never spoke clumsily or strangely; it wasn’t as if, Aremu thought, he didn’t know plenty of men who’d changed their name and had trouble settling in to something new.

It didn’t matter, Aremu decided. He wasn’t interested in Gideon’s secrets, as long as they didn’t keep him from getting out of this ten-times-blasted cave; let him keep them, private, where they ought to be. Every man, no matter how cracked, no matter how unsettling, deserved the privacy of his own mind and his own thoughts within.

Aremu breathed in deep; the thought had settled him somewhat. Gideon was muttering to himself again; he turned, and looked directly at Aremu once more. Aremu looked back at him, still set against the wall, still holding himself in readiness; his right wrist rested easily against the inside of his coat’s pocket, and his left hand hung loose at his side.

Aremu shifted against the wall. Something bitter surged in his chest; he tasted it on his tongue. Any good at climbing. Gideon didn’t know him; Gideon didn’t know the first damned thing about him, but that he had only one hand, where he should have had too. Aremu breathed in, tightly, and exhaled once more. Can you do it, the other man had asked, contemplating the hole in the ground and the crawl through the tunnel they had guessed awaited them.

“Pretty good,” Aremu said, looking at the other man. He shifted. Would Gideon try to stop him…? He didn’t know why the thought even occurred to him; it wasn’t as if it’d make any sense to do it. But there was something in the other man’s gaze that pricked through him. He didn’t much like the idea of beginning the climb with Gideon watching him; he couldn’t imagine asking for a boost, even if it might’ve helped him get started.

I mean to get out of here, he wanted to say, like a warning. Aremu shifted his weight, lightly. He’d want to climb this one barefoot, he thought; climbing in shoes was never easier for him, and less so now that he needed to rely more on his feet. He didn't like the idea of taking his shoes off in front of Gideon. His right arm throbbed; not the scar, but the imaginary ache he felt, sometimes, out past the place where his wrist ended, like a hand he couldn’t unclench. All the muscles in his right arm, too, were tight; he exhaled, carefully, and tried to relax them, along with all the rest. He wasn’t sure when they’d tensed up again, or why.

Aremu glanced up at the circle of light, and back down at Gideon. His jaw shifted; he ran his tongue over his teeth. Slowly – slowly, he spoke. “I’ll throw you the rope,” Aremu said, carefully, “when I reach the top.” He didn’t expect the other man to believe him; he didn’t know why he’d said it. He watched Gideon, standing not too distant, and waited.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

'Pretty good', Aremu said. Peregrine nodded, jerky and sharp. Better than Peregrine would be, most like, even with only the one hand. Gideon had too much of a tremor in all of his muscles to be any good at climbing. Right now, anyways--some days were better than others. The good days didn't as tend to involve feeling as if they were about to be buried alive. They flexed their hands and used the thumb of one to crack all the knuckles in turn. The sound of it was too loud in the cavernous room.

Peregrine paused in their cracking somewhere between the middle and ring finger of the opposite hand. Their face was still, muscles slack, but their dark eyes were sharp and firmly focused on Aremu's face. Studying it for a hint of the lie they were sure was in the offer. Hadn't they just been thinking it would be unlikely Aremu would do just that--throw them the rope? Peregrine's eyes hurt; they remembered to blink, and did so slowly. At last they shook their head, halo of dark curls shifting around.

"You'll throw me the rope," they repeated. There was a disbelief so strong it was almost derision in their oddly-accented voice. What was he, this Aremu Ediwo, some kind of saint? All jumpy and snarling in the tunnel, and now he was standing here at the base of the wall that he could climb and Peregrine couldn't offering to throw them down the rope when he could just leave. Peregrine didn't believe it. Even now, Aremu looked as like to cut them as to help them. Or like he thought the same of Peregrine.

Peregrine took a few steps closer, not closing the distance between them. Just narrowing it a bit. Friendly-like, yeah? They took a step to the wall, too, and ran their fingers along it. None of them muscles seemed too strong or too eager to do the climbing. A rope would make the job easier. Assuming Aremu was true to his word, and didn't run off when he got to the top.

And if this was a ploy, if he was just waiting for the chance to pull one over on poor, defenseless Peregrine? Supposing they agreed. Aremu climbed the wall while Peregrine waited at the bottom, and then--instead of throwing the rope down, just left? Or worse, took it away entirely? Something else that Peregrine could see as was possible from their vantage point on the ground? Nah, they didn't think as they wanted to allow that possibility at all.

"Might be best if I try," they said slowly, gaze unmoving. "May as be I can do it--save ye the effort." They didn't think as they could do it, they really didn't. But they couldn't shake the thought that it would come back to bite them if they didn't.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

Gideon looked at him, unblinking, in the pale filtered-down light. Aremu held still and bore up beneath the stare. He wondered what an honest face looked like; he wondered if, to Gideon, he had one. He doubted it, somehow; the man had said he had been in Mugroba, after all. The fingers of his left hand ached, tightly, as if they wanted themselves to crack; Aremu held them still.

It was even harder to believe Gideon had been in Mugroba so long ago, looking at him now. Aremu put the thought aside, uneasily; it didn’t much matter, he thought, tiredly. Either he knew Mugroba, and he knew what it was he spoke to – a liar – or else he was Anaxi, and he would always expect any sentence might be a lie.

Gideon repeated his words back, slowly; there was something like a sneer curling the other man’s lips.

Aremu’s jaw clenched; he said nothing more. To protest – to say, hotly, I said I would, didn’t I? – would make him sound more of a liar, and not less, he thought. He knew something of how to lie and make himself believed; he had never, he thought, learned the knack of making the truth believable.

Gideon came closer – not all the way to Aremu, but closer, running his hand over the wall. In the light, Aremu could see it was shaking, just a little. He couldn’t have said why. He held, still, turning slightly to keep himself faced towards the other man.

Aremu turned, lifting his chin slightly to look up at the wall above them. His jaw clenched, once more; his head ached, and he relaxed it, swallowing, and exhaling out a long breath. “As you like,” he said, slowly. The wall loomed long above them; standing against it, Aremu was conscious of just how tired his hands and arms were – his shoulders too, and of the pulling tug in his side. He breathed in deep once more; he stepped back, leaving Gideon space.

“There’s not enough space to try together,” Aremu said, evenly. He was very conscious of the thin slit of light at the top; he didn’t much like the idea of trying to climb across to it, whether over or below another man. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, without the wall to shield it, but he kept his gaze on Gideon. “Would you like to go first?” His tone was neutral, even.

For all Aremu knew, it was all some sort of weird, strange feint, a bluff he couldn't fathom the purpose of. If so, he thought, grimly, he was calling it. He would have thought Gideon capable of the climb – he looked capable – but it was the other man who had said, unprompted, that he wasn’t sure if he could do it. It was the other man, now, refusing Aremu’s offer of a rope. Aremu kept his gaze on Gideon a moment longer, then turned back to look at the wall once more. It would be, he thought, godsdamned hard to pick out a route up in the half-lit cave; his eyes wandered up the wall, wondering which shadows hid deeper holes.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave in the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

They didn't trust nobody as far as they could throw them, and Peregrine couldn't throw Aremu all the way up that wall. The tremor in Gideon's hand hadn't abated. That might be a problem. They swiveled to look at the wall and not at Aremu. Clicked their tongue in frustration.

Nah, there weren't enough room to try together. Peregrine hadn't as thought about it, until Aremu pointed it out. But the man was right, and more importantly, they didn't want to try. Didn't seem as a worthy experiment. Peregrine heard that even tone of voice, even while Aremu still looked as like he thought Peregrine was playing some kind of game.

"Like to? Nah." Peregrine shook their head, then grinned suddenly and turned back to Aremu with a roll of Gideon's broad shoulders. "But probably should do. I get to the top alright, I throw the rope down to you. Make it easier for ya. Don't make it..." They shrugged again.

Peregrine didn't wait for more discussion. They had felt better, coming out of the tunnel. They were starting not to again. Seize the moment and all that, yeah? They turned to the wall. Couldn't do it in their heavy boots, made for keeping them from smashing their feet if they dropped something on them at work. No flex in them, couldn't feel nothing through the thick soles neither. So Peregrine leaned against the wall first. They carefully unlaced their boots and tied the laces together, then slung the pair over their shoulder. Happy to be wearing a pair of thick woolen socks underneath. The only pair like it they had.

Shoes sorted, Peregrine took a moment to think. Tried to map out where it was they were gonna go, but they couldn't see. Despite the light coming in from outside, what reached them was still thin and weak. Darker even against the wall, seeing as it were facing away from the source of the light. Nothing for it, they supposed. Just had to trust chance would favor them. Sometimes it did. Usually it didn't.

"Here we go." Determination, that's what they filled themself with. Determination and positivity. Those things took you far in the world, right? Yeah. Sure they did. They weren't feeling as particularly positive, but they could pretend. They were a good pretender. To that end, they started grinning at the wall as they began their careful ascent.

For a while, it seemed as it just might work. There was a lot of grunting and swearing, and Gideon's muscles trembled and threatened to give--but they didn't. Peregrine was starting to think their outlook had been unnecessarily grim. Weren't easy, nah, not easy at all, but they were doing it. They'd made it some ten or so feet up, even, although it had been slow-going and difficult. Ten feet was pathetic, ten feet was nothing--but they'd made it, and they were going to keep making it.

Maybe it was that damn overconfidence that fucked them up. Maybe it was Gideon. Maybe it was just bad fucking luck. All Peregrine knew is, they reached for a handhold that weren't there, suddenly--it had been a trick of the light. They'd over-extended their whole damn upper body to grab at it, too. The sudden panic of reaching for something and finding nothing wobbled them. Their foot scrambled, sock caught on a sharp bit of rock. Didn't even have time to swear before that trembling grip from their other hand lost purchase, sending them hurtling back towards the floor.

Peregrine twisted, or tried to twist, before they hit the ground. There was a sharp, hard impact on the wrist that Gideon put out to catch them, and a feeling like they'd shattered something. Not sure what, but something felt like it cracked somewhere in that arm. Wrist, most like, Peregrine thought in a daze. The rest of them didn't feel much better, but they had kept their head from cracking open like a fucking egg on the stone floor of the cavern. And that was something.

"Fuck," was about all they could manage, gritted through their teeth.

Rolls

Can Peregrine Climb the Fucking Wall:
SidekickBOT
Today at 9:40 AM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (2) = 2

Injury Severity:
SidekickBOT Today at 11:06 AM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (5) = 5

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

I throw the rope down to you, Gideon said, evenly.

Aremu’s jaw clenched tight; he said nothing. There were a number of things he might have said, none of them productive. Let me climb the flooding wall then, you condescending ersehole was somewhere near the top of the list, though not quite at it. What the fuck is wrong with you was also an appealing sort of thing to say, just then.

Aremu said none of it, acknowledging the offer with something like a half-nod. It’s not a game or a dare, he wanted to say, nor a challenge. He glanced up at the wall again, and his jaw tightened. They would have to hope it would not crumble, he thought bitterly, or trigger another cave in, if the other man failed.

Is it that I’m a scrap? Aremu wanted to ask. He could still taste the word on his tongue. Or that I’ve only one hand? Well, I can crawl as well as any other man – better than some, who wriggled on their bellies through the dirt – and I can climb, too, gods damn you, and I tell the truth, too, when I’ve no flooding reason to lie.

He looked away as Gideon removed his shoes; he couldn’t have said why it seemed obscene to watch. Gideon came up close; Aremu stepped back. The other man began to climb, with an enormous grunt, his shoes slung over his shoulders, wearing only woolen socks on his feet. He pulled himself up, hand over hand, slow but steady.

Careful, but not careful enough.

Aremu saw the fall coming, though there was nothing he could do. He watched, evenly. He thought perhaps he should look away – should let Gideon fall in privacy – but there was no avoiding it, really, and he felt a coward for not wanting to see.

Gideon came down, hard; the wall shuddered, and a few pebbles came loose, but nothing else fell. Aremu came forward, kneeling, collecting the other man’s shoes where they’d tumbled away and setting them down.

“Don’t move yet,” The imbala said. He hesitated; the last thing he wanted to do was touch the other man. His skin was prickling all over, just being near him; after a moment, he eased back and away.

Hurting one’s back or neck was the biggest risk of such a fall. Niccolette had explained it to him once – that there was a bundle of nerves which ran from the head down along the back, which, when severed, was almost impossible to reattach even with magical means. Paralysis, Niccolette had said evenly, as if reciting from a textbook, was almost guaranteed, if the breaking of a bone cut the spinal cord; the only question was whether it should be the legs only, or the whole of the body, and this depended on the height of the injury.

“Fingers first,” Aremu said, quietly, crouched some short distance away. “Wiggle them – then your toes. Don’t move anything else yet. Is there any pain in your back or neck?”

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave Beneath the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Don't move--yeah, Peregrine thought that was an easy enough order to comply with. Don't clocking move--where the shit were they going to go? Aremu had picked up their shoes though, which was fair nice of him. Pointless, but nice enough. He came close but not quite all the way.

"Do my best," they wheezed, near to laughter. Fuck if every stitch of them didn't hurt. Not just the wrist that they were almost certain was at least cracked in the bones--they'd done that plenty enough, in their time. They knew what a fractured wrist felt like.

Peregrine stared at Aremu for a moment, after those quiet instructions. Trying to figure out the extent of the damage--well this was hardly the first time they'd fallen. Acrobats tended to do that, when they was learning. Learning when they should have learned already, and had to pretend they knew what they were about. That was the last time as Peregrine had tried to step into someone else's life as well as face. Too many loose ends and little details to keep track of.

I ent that injured, they almost said--rolled the statement around behind their teeth. Ultimately they kept it there. They were fair certain, oes, but they weren't as completely sure. They wiggled the fingers of the hand they didn't think was injured; not the most enjoyable activity, but nothing unexpected from the tense climb partway up the wall. The other one...

"Broke this one. In the wrist." Peregrine waved the arm, or tried to; the effort of the theatrics made them grit their teeth in pain. Maybe more than the wrist, or they as did something else too. The toes wiggled too in their wool socks--it looked so absurd Peregrine smiled. Just a flash of one that fell off their face as sharp and quick as it had come, leaving all the muscles slack again. "Nah though--no pain in the rest. No more 'n you'd expect, leastaways."

They couldn't climb like this. They weren't even as sure that they could--fuck! They didn't think they could climb with the rope, like this. Peregrine rolled to their back and stared at the ceiling. They felt oddly calm, considering that was the roof of Gideon's tomb. If they couldn't climb the wall, and they couldn't climb the rope--should Aremu even choose to throw it down, which was also in question, but no point in adding that to the ol' hypothetical, yeah?--then they couldn't get out of this godsdamn cave. Peregrine and their fucking bright ideas. Gideon and his fucking tremors.

"Well," they said at last, staring still upwards from their back and not bothering to move, "dunno as I can climb out of here now." Peregrine's low voice was collected and matter-of-fact. Maybe it was just time to retire the face, yeah? They liked it, they really did. Hadn't even had it for long. But they wouldn't stay here and rot with it, no godsdamn way. As if to prove their point, they held up the less injured arm. Sure enough, after a moment or two the muscles started to tremble and twitch without Peregrine's say-so.

All this, because they were bored. Peregrine could have laughed at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation. Could have, so they did; it echoed off the walls and ceiling of that pit of a room that was to become Gideon's grave. Here lies Gideon Carver, dead of being too godsdamn stupid to not try to climb a poxy godsdamn wall. Peregrine's mouth was still pulled into that slash of a smile when they turned their head to look at Aremu again.

"If you got a knife, I would as appreciate leavin' it behind." They laughed again, a hysterical sound. They could hear the sound of a hole opening up to swallow Gideon inside of it. "Bein' Gideon is fun, but I ent as gonna stay here to rot. Nah, nah, nah nah nah. Not never again." They laughed again then, but there was no mirth in it.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

The fingers of one hand moved; Aremu watched them wriggle. Gideon shifted the other arm, although declined to move his hand. Broken, he said, in the wrist. His toes wriggled, one foot then the other in his wool socks. No pain, he said, in the rest.

Aremu exhaled out a breath. He sighed; and sat back a bit, crouching on the damp, rocky ground. He was silent for a moment, thinking it over, glancing up at the long wall above them. With the rope, he thought… he grimaced. He’d supposed the other man would climb up, hand over hand, feet braced against the wall. If he couldn’t manage that – Aremu ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling the prick of their sharpness, and thinking still. He had no harnesses here, but he knew well enough how to make one of rope.

He glanced at Gideon once more; he shifted. The other man extended his arm, weakly; it trembled. His injured arm he didn’t even try to move.

“Oh, fuck you,” Aremu said, then. He hadn’t meant to; he couldn’t seem to fucking help it. He grabbed his right sleeve and pulled it up, so the scarred, handless wrist glinted in the slender light coming in through the cave above. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Your hand isn’t your godsdamned life; why the fuck would you give up without even…”

Aremu huffed; he rose, and shook his sleeve out once more. He turned away from Gideon; he rubbed his face with his left hand, tired.

“I can throw down the rope or the knife,” Aremu said, finally. He looked back at Gideon, his jaw set. He would be sorry to lose the knife; he’d had it for a long time. “Do what you like, coward,” there was a bitter sting to the word, although he didn’t spit it with the same force as he had the earlier curse. “If you decide not to give up, I can talk you through rigging a harness. Ersehole.” He added, for good measure, thoroughly sick of the other man.

Aremu pulled his shoes off, one than the one; he tied the laces together one handed, and draped them around his neck, and he set himself to the wall.

He went; anger burned in his veins and cooled itself out, and left him calm and steady, focused. He began to climb; bare toes dug in to the rock, and fingers too, finding cracks and crevices. Unlike Gideon, he did not grunt as he hauled himself off the ground; he moved smoothly and evenly, holding close to the wall. His right elbow pressed into it as well; he used it as a lever, to balance, to hold.

Even in the dark, it wasn’t so hard to find a path.

Aremu could not have said how he did it; he knew himself for tired. He had climbed earlier – he had been stabbed, not two weeks ago – he had crawled through the tunnel – but it all fell away as he began to climb. There was only the cliff, and his fingertips and toes; there was the path which he had set for himself, and he held to it, and pulled himself along with all his strength.

The light grew closer, and closer still; Aremu pulled himself over the lip of the cave at the top, and rolled over onto his back. He closed his eyes, breathing deep; he let his legs dangle over the edge, and sighed.

After a moment, the imbala sat up, glancing around. It was barely enough space to sit upright; there was dirt and grass and flowers not more than a foot away. After a moment, Aremu reached out and grabbed a handful of it – dirt and grass and flowers, all together, and yanked them from the earth. He tossed them back over the edge of the cliff, down towards the ground below.

“What’ll it be, then?” Aremu called; he took a deep breath. “Shall we try to pull you up, or would you rather pity yourself to death?”

Rolls

Aremu climbs the wall: Sidekick
BOTToday at 10:41 AM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (6) = 6

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave under the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Because it wasn't their hand, they thought but didn't say. Because it was as easy to throw the face away as it was to throw away your socks when you'd worn a hole in them. Could slip right out of this one and into a new one, shiny and whole. Because they would rather seem a coward to a stranger than die underground alone in the dark.

"Ne, not m' godsdamned life," Peregrine agreed from their position on the floor. "Ent none of this my godsdamned life." They lifted the less injured arm and gestured broadly, as if to encompass everything Aremu saw and knew for Gideon.

Curious man, Aremu Ediwo. Peregrine had been fair certain he would have jumped at the chance to put an end to them. He was so jumpy and skittery around them, after all. Peregrine blinked owlishly at Aremu while he huffed and he puffed and he rose up onto his feet. Coward, he called them, and then: ersehole. When he began his own climb, it was to a chorus of Peregrine's dry scratching laughter.

Fair enough! Nah, yeah, all of that bile was fair enough, Peregrine thought. They were a coward, in other men's eyes. But they were alive, hey? And would be alive long after the men who thought to to disdain them were rotted away in the dirt. Returned to the cycle, the bosom of Vita, or nothing at all. Aremu couldn't be more than thirty-five or so, Peregrine thought. They had lived as the bookseller longer than Aremu Ediwo had been drawing breath. That was hardly the first of Peregrine's many lives, many faces.

So yeah, they were not above cowardice. Whatever worked, right?

Peregrine came to sit up, wincing as every muscle and bone in Gideon protested the movement. Aremu had made it to the top by the time they had sat up in full. Peregrine watched, quiet and curious. Aremu was a funny sort; Peregrine was fair certain he hated them, but they were fair certain too he meant it when he said he'd talk them through the business of a harness.

Aremu's legs disappeared from Peregrine's sight. Ah, now, here was where he was going to leave them for dead, with no friendly dagger. But Peregrine watched anyways, and after a moment heard a scrabbling sound. They were still looking up when the dirt and weeds came raining down on them; Peregrine threw up their good arm to shield their face and spat out the bits of it that got in their mouth.

Pull them up, or pity themself to death? Peregrine reflected. One was certainly easier. Slower though, and could be messy. They had no great affection for the slow process of starving to death, and if Aremu was truly as angry as he seemed he might well not be inclined to show them no kind of mercy. Not even the mercy that came at the blade of a knife. Peregrine looked up at the edge of the wall where Aremu's voice had come and grinned, feral and bright.

"Why the fuck not, eh? Yeah, yeah, let's--" Peregrine laughed again, "--Let's try. There's still the knife, in the end."

[Aremu Ediwo]

Mid-Afternoon, 37 Dentis, 2719
A Cave beneath the Cliffs, to the South of the Rose

Aremu was grateful, at least, that he did not have to tie the rope in front of Gideon. It was an awkward and ungainly process, unknotting the end of the rope from the metal hook embedded in the stone and retying it. It had been several years since he had tied knots on the Eqe Aqawe, and he had had little need to do so one-handed; it did not come up, as often, on the plantation.

But he remembered, if not perfectly than well enough, and he adjusted the rope, harnessed himself in, and send the other end down to Gideon; his hand was scraped already, and his back and side ached, but the ropes were tied. They were lucky, in many ways; it was good, sturdy rope, easy to tie, and not so worn through that Aremu thought it likely to shred itself against the metal hook jammed in the group or the rocks of the cliff.

The scrape of Gideon’s dry laughter had chased him up the wall; he had heard it again as he made his last offer, and Gideon accepted. There was much less laughter as Aremu sat on the edge of the cliff and tried his best to talk the other man through securing the rope to himself.

“Pass it through there,” Aremu said, gritting his teeth. “Yes – no, to the left - just – yes. There. Good. Pull it as hard as you can; all right.”[/color] He took a deep breath, passing his left hand over his face, and cradling it for just a moment. He straightened up, looking down again.

“Good,” Aremu said, after a moment. He climbed back; he shifted the rope, and pulled it through the series of knots and ties until it was taut in the air down to Gideon. “Whenever you’re ready,” Aremu said, breathing deep. “I’ll offset what I can of your weight, and keep it taut. If you fall – ” Aremu glanced down at the knots he’d tied; if he’d done it right, Gideon would fall and the rope would hold him taut, and Aremu would not be yanked down the cliff. "It should be all right."

There would be, Aremu thought grimly, little point in considering any alternative very soon. He checked the knots again, tracing his eyes over them; he settled himself in, breathing deep, oddly grateful that it was winter and both men somewhat decently clothed; it would help, he thought, to diminish the rope burn.

“Go ahead.” Aremu said.

It was slow; it would not be easy for Gideon to climb, with the shaking of his hands and whatever damage he had done to his wrist. Aremu pulled the rope taut, again and then again, shaking himself; his forehead was damp with sweat, and the palm of his left hand scratched and blistered, and he kept at it.

He did not trust the other man; he did not think him entirely sane. All the same, Aremu let out a soft laugh when Gideon came over the edge of the cliff, when Aremu could yank on the rope one last him and help him haul himself over the edge. He sat back, sitting rather hard on the top of the cliff, half on the rocks and half in the dirt, feeling the warmth of the sunshine against himself. “Godsdamn,” the imbala sighed, closing his eyes for a moment; he felt that prickle of fear still, with the other man’s presence, and he did not keep them closed for long.

“Well done,” Aremu said, grimly. He set about untying the knots he’d harnessed himself in with, his left hand cramped and shaking as he pried at the knots with dirtied, ragged fingernails, his right wrist propped against the ground; he glanced up at the other man, once, and smiled, meeting his gaze.

[Peregrine]

37th of Dentis, 2719 - Mid-Afternoon
A Cave under the Cliffs to the South of the Rose

Slow and awkward process, this attempting to truss themself up with the rope and only having one hand to do it. Didn't help none that the other was shaking like a godsdamn leaf, but what else was new? Lucky the rope looked like it just might hold, they thought. They weren't prone to optimism, but seemed as like it wasn't rotted clear through or nothing.

There was a lot of muttered, and not-so-muttered, swearing as Aremu guided Peregrine through what to do. Their laughter had stopped, eaten up by their concentration on the task at hand. The task was done in the end, at least. Aremu looked down at them and they looked back up; they didn't see nothing but a dark outline of a man.

"If I fall," they echoed. Should be as the rope would hold them. And if it didn't, well. Maybe they wouldn't as twist to catch themself next time. Maybe they'd just fall. At least the rope couldn't cut too deep into their skin; small mercies, hey?

Peregrine began to climb. The way was slow. It had been hard before, when they'd had both hands and the trembling hadn't started up so much in earnest. Now "hard" seemed too light a word for. Peregrine didn't put up with the effort gracefully. They swore and grumbled as they fair crawled up that godsdamn wall. The whole fucking time they kept expecting to feel slack in the rope, a sign that Aremu had gotten tired of playing at hero and had gone off to leave Peregrine behind.

Those fine hands, Peregrine mourned, were all battered up now. Scratched and battered and bruised to shit. They had been going that way already, it had to be admitted. Weren't like the docks were a place for the delicate. They couldn't help but feel regret for it though. Such lovely hands; Peregrine sometimes wondered if Gideon-before-they-was-Gideon had been a musician or an artist of some sort. They'd never bothered to even attempt to find out. Best to leave right after taking a new face; weren't smart to let the old life catch up. Sort of put a cramp in the experience.

Slow going was still going. At last, the top of the wall was there in reach. A final flurry of swearing and they pulled themself up over it, sweating and shaking. All of Gideon's muscles trembled; Peregrine didn't think it was the shakes from Peregrine losing control over the face. Just honest, clean muscle fatigue. They smiled, frenzied and triumphant. If they could have stood, they would have, and they would have turned to look back the way they came. Can't get me now, can't get me ever; fierce, gleeful refrain looped in their mind over and over. Never gonna be in the ground.

"Godsdamn," they agreed. The sunshine at the scrap's back hurt their eyes after so long in the dark. They wouldn't look away, not until their eyes watered so much it looked as they were crying and they forced themself to blink.

Well done, Aremu said. Well, shit, weren't that just so sweet. Peregrine smiled back, though they didn't think as it was anywhere near heartwarming. Fuck it, though. Not that long ago they thought they were going to slit their own throat to avoid dying in the dark. They didn't give a single godsdamn fuck if their smile was unnerving, now.

"Wouldn't as blamed you to have left me there, you know," Peregrine said after a moment. Their low voice was surprisingly light; amused. "Although I'm glad you didn't." They weren't real good at thanks; it didn't come up that often. Just needed to sit here a bit longer, until they got the strength to stand. Just a bit.