Awkward 'Family' Reunion? - [M] Rating

When a classic job does not go the way you hoped it would.

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A large forest in Central Anaxas, the once-thriving mostly human town of Dorhaven is recovering from a bombing in 2719 at its edge.

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Caina Rose
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Wed Jul 31, 2019 6:19 pm

Woven Delights • Anaxas/Vienda
on the 22nd of Loshis, 2719 • during the night
C aina wanted to laugh. Poor Flo… She could imagine Flo now, in that same house she’d always lived in, with a husband and children and her family’s business to run.. there was a pang of jealousy echoing around Caina’s chest, when she thought of that. There had been a time, long ago, where Caina had wanted that. Someone to hold her, working alongside her father, and children that she’d spoil rotten. But all of those things were gone now, out of reach, and Caina wanted to laugh. Poor Flo? Poor everyone else.

Caina was saved from answering the loaded question by Tom’s arrival. She didn’t move as he entered, didn’t say a word; just remained knelt on the ground, eyes on the bandage as she finished wrapping it. She refused to look up, too terrified by what she’d see. Hatcher had never looked one of her victims in the eyes before, not really. Not when there wasn’t the shroud of darkness to separate them. And Ava’s backroom was too bright, especially for this time of night. Too warm, too cozy.. too much.

She still didn’t move, even as she heard the clink of glass against the wooden table, even as she heard him walk away and shut the back door behind himself. Only then, once she was sure that they were alone, did Caina glance at the table, recognizing the red ship and black sails on the label. It had been a common drink in the Rose, and one of the only ones that Caina had been able to stand when she’d first started drinking, at that age of 13. She’d never taken a liking to alcohol, hating the way too familiar numb sensation it spread over her limbs. Caina liked to be in control of her body. But when she did drink, Tom had always kept a bottle of Long Haul in the cabinet for her.

She stood suddenly, pulling her gaze away from the bottle and Ava’s now-hidden wound.
“You should be fine for now. Might need to see a doctor in the morning.”
She spoke too quickly, voice harsh from the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat.

But Ava’s question still hung in the air, and Caina took several deep breaths as she thought.
“Call me what you must- although I’d prefer you didn’t discuss this incident with anyone else.”
Anyone other than the room’s current occupants and the ghost sitting outside, that was. She did not want Tom to know what she did- under any circumstances. But it was dangerous to use her real name, even if those that might care were far away from Anaxas.
“My name is Marianna.”
She said after a moment- it was the name she used at the Inn, and at most business that didn’t require her to wear her current garb. It was Marianna’s blue dress tucked into her closet, and it was Marianna that had worked at a party during the Spring Equinox.

With that, Caina grabbed her cloak, tying it around her throat but leaving the hood down. She stuck out in the harsh lamp light of the room, but would disappear as soon as she went out the door. Caina paused at the door, glancing back at Ava where she sat, and nodded at her before walking out. It was the best she could do, lest she break down there in that room. An apology, a thanks. A way of telling Ava that she wasn’t angry with her, that she wouldn’t tell Serro or anyone else what had happened this night.

Ava might notice that the bottle of Long Haul had disappeared from the table, only a small circle of rainwater left to show it was ever there.

Once outside, Caina shut the door and paused, quickly scanning the darkness for the new familiar form of Vauquelin. She stepped quickly, not caring whether he noticed her approach or not, and leaned against the brick and vines at her back. There was a quiet pop as she opened the bottle and then silence as she drank from it. Then, words. Well, word.
“Explain.”
It was quiet, but demanding. Offering Tom a chance to speak without interruption, without someone else there he might not be so open with.

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Ava Weaver
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Wed Jul 31, 2019 9:20 pm

Past Midnight, 22nd Loshis, 2719
Woven Delights, Painted Ladies
Ava didn’t pull back from the question, even when Caina was slow to answer. She would have waited, perhaps indefinitely, but then Tom was at the door, brushing the hangings aside, moving Anatole’s body into the room stiff and clumsy with cold.

Ava looked up at him, and now there was none of the warmth she had shown Caina, not even the faintest hint of a smile. There was no anger either, no stiffening of her posture, no ticking downwards of the lips or crinkles at the corner of her eyes. She sat, as comfortable as if there was nothing strange about any of it, her spine as straight as a rod, and looked at him with the smoothest face she could muster.

And then, Ava looked away, turning her head slightly, and fixing her gaze on the distant wall. She couldn’t bring herself to watch Tom fumble through taking the bottle out, clutching it with those clumsy hands. Did the cut from the porcelain still pain him? Had he kept it clean, at least? Ava didn’t look and she doubted she would have been able to see even if she had.

Tom mumbled a few words; Ava might’ve thought his tongue thick with cold, if she hadn’t already known better. There was a choked sound to his words that she didn’t - couldn’t - bring herself to try to identify. She looked at him again as he made to leave; she looked squarely at him, unflinching and unyielding, with no more emotion than if he had been still a stranger to her.

The more fool she, that he wasn’t.

In that moment, Ava wasn’t sure if Caina reminded her of a hingle, frozen and quiet with fear, hoping that if it didn’t move no one could see it. Or else an osta, hunting silently from the shadows; they cultivated stillness too, didn’t they? Not fear, but power, coiled in a small strong body.

Caina rose with a sudden, easy swiftness. Ava looked up at her, and suddenly felt terribly small. “Thank you,” the smile for Caina was easy enough - not a big, happy smile, but a small, soft sad one, a smile of shared secrets and shared sorrows.

Ava nodded at Caina’s request that she not discuss this with anyone. “Of course not,” she promised. She never would have, but she appreciated the gesture all the same, and she took it for Caina’s word that she, too, meant to keep silent about this too-strange Loshis night.

“Marianna,” Ava repeated, quietly. “I’ll remember.” Not quite a smile, this time, but a softening and a warmth, and her gaze followed Caina across the room. She nodded back to her, and let her slip away.

Ava took a deep breath and rose, slowly and carefully. She took a step, careful, easing her foot down against the bandages. It hurt more than a little, but she could bear it. It was only pain, after all.

Ava took another step, slow and careful. Not to the stairs, although she would need to face them in time. Instead, she limped to the wall, brushed aside the hangings, studied the secret door. She didn’t hesitate; Ava locked the door behind the other human.

With that, still slowly, the shopkeeper limped her way back to the stairs, up towards the room she had left so recently, and yet so long ago. She doubted she could sleep, but she thought doing anything else even more unlikely. With each painful, aching step, she left Tom, Marianna, and all the heavy weight of their secrets a little further behind, at least for now. Before long she was at the hatch; before long she was inside her little studio, and the fabric hung smooth once more against all the walls in the little room below.

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Tom Cooke
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Thu Aug 01, 2019 3:19 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
After Midnight on the 22nd of Loshis, 2719
He hadn’t expected the door to open again. Standing out there, head awhirl, he’d been thinking where he might go next – home, or somewhere else. How it’d feel in the long run, a few days later, weeks, months, knowing he’d seen Caina Rose again on this fever dream of a night, just a glimpse, not knowing where she was or how she fared.

A shaft of light trickled out into the alleyway, washing over the wet stones. Out came Caina’s shadow, quick and silent. Then the door shut, leaving them in the dark.

Even the streetlamp was low. He could see the outline of her, a painfully familiar shape. He could see a faint sheen on her black hair, and he could see the glisten of eyes in the dark, the blurry pale ghost of a face. Struck him funny, how tall she was. He felt her eyes on him, searching him out in the shadows, and he wanted to step away, turn away and hide.

Then the hollow pop of the cork and more movement. Right out of the bottle, hey? It almost – almost – brought a faint smile to his face, if a sad one. A worried one.

He watched her, then found the glint of her eyes, met them when she looked back at him. A few moments was as much as he could take. At the sound of her voice, he looked away, eyes wandering back up the alleyway toward the street. He thought he saw the wiry shape of a stray slip from one side of the opening to the other, a dancing little trot, too busy to spare them a look.

“Uh.” He took a deep breath, then let out a sigh. Then shrugged. “There’s either not much to explain, or too much. Don’t know which. It’s me, though, if you can believe it; it’s Tom,” he went on, as if he could hide all his feelings underneath his matter-of-fact tone, “or what’s left of him. I’m dead or somethin’, I reckon. Dead or somethin’ worse. Don’t remember much about any of that, bein’ a ghost. Sounds fuckin’ mung just to say out loud, ghost – he wrinkled his nose – “but that’s the closest thing. An’ bein’ honest, in a world with all that poetry an’ shit gollies do, it can’t be that hard to believe, can it?”

Another shrug.

“Mostly, I’m as much in the dark as you. After I spent some time denkin’ around, I found this,” and with a wince of distaste, he gestured loosely at himself, “an’, uh… moved in. Can’t tell you how I did that, either. A soul needs a body, an’ it ain’t like possession. There’s more I could tell you, but it’d take a hell of a long time, an’ it wouldn’t explain much. There’s a group out there, religious folk in Hox that research this, that’d call a kov like me a raen. We ain’t ghosts, exactly, but we’re souls that don’t die right, an’ we have to go an’ hide in somebody else’s body, since ours is dead.

“Either way, I didn’t know any of that ’til recently, ye chen? Didn’t know what I was doin’, else I might’ve picked – dze. Bit golly for my tastes, but it’s breathin’, ain’t it? ’Less you came out here to fix that once an’ for all.”


He let out a snort, burying his hands deep in the pockets of his coat.

It was hard, awkward-feeling, but he managed to look over at Caina again. He didn’t reckon there was any point in apologizing, not for tonight or for their fight of a few years ago. The latter’d sunk in him like a stone ever since; it was one of his sharpest, clearest memories, its jagged edges picked out of the mists of his life in hard, unforgiving light. He regretted it, but he figured she knew that. He was hurt, and he hoped she knew that, too, for what it was worth, but it didn’t matter so much anymore. He was drunk, and he was tired, and small, and old, and more than anything, he wanted there to be something tonight that he hadn’t made immeasurably worse.

He frowned. “You’d be justified,” he said more softly. “Ain’t askin’ for you to believe me. Almost wish you wouldn’t. I know I don’t look like me, an’ I don’t sound like me, an’ this can’t be easy. I probably shouldn’t be tellin’ you all this laoso shit, but I respect you enough to tell you the truth. I owe you the truth.” His voice got even softer, and a little rough. “It’s – good to know hama’s knife found its way to you. I always wanted that.”

Tom cleared his throat awkwardly, then, and looked away.

With a pang, he thought about Ava behind that door. Would she go upstairs? He pictured her working her way up on that bandaged foot, and it made his frown even deeper, but there was nothing he could do.
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Caina Rose
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Fri Aug 16, 2019 2:07 am

Woven Delights • Anaxas/Vienda
on the 22nd of Loshis, 2719 • during the night
S he didn’t speak, not for his entire rambling spiel. Just breathed and drank a little and let the voice wash over her. It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but it was close. Familiar enough in the words and pacing that she relaxed as it went on.

“I’m not going to kill you.” She said finally, once it was clear he was done. “Would be like killing a baby.” She was testing the waters, poking and prodding like she used to, even as her wall stayed up. Tom might noticed that she was tense, even though her body seemed relaxed against the wall. One foot up, bracing against the brick, while the other provided balance against the cobblestones. Her left hand held the bottle, but her right was hidden, close to the blade in case Tom tried to end her, instead of the other way around.

That knife. Caina debated telling Tom how exactly she’d gotten it. There was so much that he didn’t know, she realized. It had only been a few years and she’d changed immeasurably. That girl from the docks wasn’t her anymore, but she still held those scars- couldn’t turn away her past as easily as Ava had. Even her dead still haunted her. Literally.

“Went back to the Rose, ‘bout a year ago.” She couldn’t recall exactly when it had been. She just remembered the way the clouds had hung heavy in the sky, and the sea was dark. “Ran into Ish. On his way outta town.” She’d walked into the house as he was packing, actually. The once cluttered and cramped living room was empty of everything that had once made it home. “Didn’t tell me where he was going, but he left it for me.” She’d watched him leave, Tom’s ratty coat bundled around his shoulders, and just stood on the doorway. One hand on the wood, and he had walked down the street and around the corner and she knew she’d never see him again. Then she’d turned to see the knife abandoned, handle tilted invitingly her way, and she tucked it into her coat and locked the door on her way out. Everything had seemed so much smaller than it used to be, in that house.

It had been a fitting end to their tumultuous relationship. Caina and Ishma had always fought like cats and dogs. But she still felt mournful, when he was gone. And she was standing in an empty kitchen and thought for a moment about her father’s house, on the other end of town and similarly abandoned. ‘You ruin everything you touch, Caina Rose.’ She’d thought, and fled.

It must’ve been the alcohol making her like this, Caina figured. All sappy and nostalgic. She deftly wiped a hand across her eyes, hoping that Tom wouldn’t see. He likely wouldn’t say anything if he did- Tomcat was always good like that.

“Don’t know if I believe that Hox nonsense,” She mumbled. “But I haven’t heard of anything like this before.” She coughed, voice tight all of a sudden. “I’ll be heading over there soon enough, myself. Got some business.” If this had been the real Tom, she would have told him what sort of business it was. But right now it was like talking to a shadow, and you couldn’t have a proper conversation with one of those.
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Tom Cooke
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Fri Aug 16, 2019 1:50 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
After Midnight on the 22nd of Loshis, 2719
Tom felt wrung out, even tireder than before, like all that meandering talk had sucked his soul out. It was awhile before she said anything, but the quiet was welcome. When she did reply, he snorted this time, proper. “Easier than that,” he shot back. “Babies’re cute. That ship’s sailed for me.” A pause, thoughtful. “Epaemo, by the way. For stealin’ your mark.”

Then he laughed, good and full, Tom’s sharp, bitter laugh. Shrugging his shoulders, he shifted his weight. He settled against the wall, resting his head back against the damp brick.

He waited ’til she took another drink, ’til she spoke again. His head was still dizzy, clouded with the dregs of drunkenness; the soft slosh of the wine was like an itch at the edge of his mind, at the edge of his sight. He wanted it, and he didn’t want it. He didn’t know. Praise be to the Circle she didn’t seem to be in a sharing mood.

He stayed quiet for awhile after she explained the knife.

“I looked for him. Hama. He, uh – he take my coat with him?” The rain’d started up again, but light; it pattered like fingertips on glass. “Miss him.” It was just two words. Offhand-like, casual, almost. There was so much pain in them that they couldn’t sound anguished; if he’d let all of what he was feeling out, he felt like it would’ve swallowed them both, would’ve drowned the world.

So he just said it like that, and he didn’t look at Caina.

Was like a cat, Tom thought. You didn’t goad a cat; you didn’t beg it to come closer. Not even if it knew you, not even if it’d once been your friend. You could leave out something that’d been yours, hope it still had the scent of you. Hope it still recognized the sound of your voice. Barring that, you let it come close at its own pace. You sat quiet. You acted casual. And if it wandered off, if you never saw it again, you had to just accept that.

Caina’d always been like that. Up ’til the end. Tom still couldn’t account for those two months. Whatever she’d got herself into, whatever she was into together with Ava, he reckoned she was still in it. He didn’t have a right to ask, but it’d hurt, back then. She’d always talked to him, even if she couldn’t tell him everything. He’d thought he’d see her again. Thought he’d find that moment when the wall melted again, when he was just Tomcat – that mung, nanabo nickname he’d always loved so much, despite himself – and she’d tell him, whatever it was.

That’d never happened, ’course. He’d waited, but she’d never come back. She’d been a stray, and he’d given her a warm, dry place for a little while, and then she’d wandered off, he’d thought. Or died, more like.

He’d missed her, too. So godsdamn much. But you move on, if you can. Despite himself, Tom’d always been bad at that part. He didn’t think she knew how much.

A cursory glance showed him the smallest glisten in her eyes. It was hard to tell in the dark, ’course. It was always hard to tell in the dark, and it might’ve been the rain. And there was nothing he could do. He still wanted to light some of Ish’s incense, to get her a cup of tea. But maybe she wasn’t that lass anymore, and he didn’t think she’d appreciate him calling attention to it, anyway.

Funny, though. He recognized the way she leaned on that wall, one foot up, tense. Cool, but ready to bolt. That was pure Caina. But for the first time, it wasn’t just her he recognized; it was him, too. Something about the cadence of her words. He’d never noticed that before.

“You got business in Hox, lass?” He glanced over at her with a quirked brow, then back away, at the opposite wall of the alleyway. He let out a low whistle. “Places to go, kovs to scrag. I get it,” he added, dead-serious-sounding.
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Caina Rose
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Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:56 am

Outside Woven Delights • Anaxas/Vienda
on the 22nd of Loshis, 2719 • After Midnight
That was Tom’s laugh. It really was, and Caina relaxed even more upon hearing it. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him until that moment, and it hurt more than anything had in a while. It echoed off the bricks and back to her, like music. Or a bullet.

When he stopped laughing, she looked back up again. And nodded as answer to his question. “He was wearing it, I believe. Probably hadn’t taken it off since you.. You know.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, stupid boch-at-heart that she was. But apparently Tom was a boch at heart too, because he pulled a layer away to say what he said next, to admit that he missed Ishma. There was simultaneously nothing and everything in his words, and despite herself Caina reached over, searching in the dark to grab his hand and squeeze. She didn’t turn her head either, just kept staring straight ahead. She could feel his field as she grabbed on, but forced herself not to pull away. ‘This is Tom. It’s okay.’ Was repeated like a mantra in her head. ‘This is Tomcat, next to you. Not some wrinkled old golly with hands like ice.’

But in the end, it was still too much. She pulled away, tried not to jerk like she wanted to, and pushed herself onto both legs. Tom didn’t know the details, she was sure- but he knew that she didn’t like to be around gollies, and he’d likely guess the reason she pulled away. Or he might blame himself. “Yeah,” She said finally. “Same story, different characters, it seems.” She coughed again, mostly to fill empty space, and pressed the neck of the bottle into his hand. “I’ve had enough for tonight.”

Caina took three steps away, then paused and turned back. “If you need me, let Ava know. She can pass a message along.” There was so much more she wanted to say, but it was late and she was tired. It felt as though his field was still clinging to her fingers, and she resisted the urge to scrub her hand on her pants.
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Tom Cooke
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Mon Sep 23, 2019 6:35 pm

Woven Delights The Painted Ladies
After Midnight on the 22nd of Loshis, 2719
He felt Caina grab his hand. It sent a little charge of shock through him, ’cause he could feel her in his field, too, could feel the gap with his ley lines, the mona buzzing round her in the dark. He knew how it must’ve felt; he remembered the way she’d always kept Ishma at arm’s length, the way the brush of a stranger’s glamour in the street’d always made her stiffen, like a cat with its hackles raised and all its hairs on end. Like a cat that’d been mistreated. Tom had never asked about it, seeing as it had never been his place, but he had noticed. It was fair hard not to.

But she leaned closer, close enough to feel it – to feel him, close beside – and she grabbed onto his hand in the dark. Her hand was bigger than he’d remembered, or – his hand was smaller, now, he reckoned. Smaller and bonier and colder. He wondered how hard it was to remember who she was holding hands with, and he shied away from the thought.

Still, he gave it a squeeze, like he would’ve any other time. He held on tight, and he shut his eyes. He swallowed another painful lump in his throat, trying to fight down the rising heat in his cheeks. Tears pricked at the edges of his eyes, and he was damned grateful she couldn’t see him too well in the sparse light. Against the backs of his eyelids, he thought he could see Ishma, draped in his coat, and he held onto Caina’s hand like a lifeline. Steadily, the weight lifted.

When she let go, it wasn’t hard to guess why, and he wasn’t hurt. He didn’t see as he could be, with the way she did it; disentangling her hand slow-like, or slow enough to be polite, or slow enough he didn’t feel like she was scrambling away from him, like maybe she must’ve wanted to. There wasn’t much room for hurt in the flood of gratefulness, of tentative relief. And pain, and worry.

Tom opened his eyes when he felt the neck of a bottle in his hand. He looked down at it, brow furrowing. He was just starting to sober up, and he tried to imagine what Ava’d say. “Ah, fuck it,” he muttered finally, taking a long swig out of the bottle.

He looked back up at Caina with the quirk of an eyebrow. She’d taken a few smooth steps back, and he couldn’t see her face too well in the gloom. Just the glitter of eyes in the dark, the sheen of distant light on dark hair. “Same story, different characters,” he repeated, sucking at a tooth. He was curious about Hox, but he wouldn’t press. “If that ain’t the way of it. Fuckin’ moony when you find the same characters in a different story.”

Gruff as ever, but there might’ve been an edge to the way he said it. Something like concern, maybe. Like he hadn’t missed the way she’d said, since you… you know, like the ghost of how they’d left it was lingering in the air between them, in the shape of a knife at Caina’s throat, or in the shape of warm mint tea for two and wordless hugs and a secret hollow full of books underneath the sagging sofa.

He gulped down a draught of guilt and let it settle, then took a step back himself, teetering, hesitant. Nodded, brusque-like; started to turn away. Then looked at her again.

“I’ll be in touch. Maybe we’ll play a hand sometime, catch up, hey?” A bitter, wry quirk of a smile, and he opened his mouth, then shut it again.

And he wanted to say, I’m proud of you, Caina – he did – so proud, I missed you so much, proud, proud, proud, hamaye – but it wasn’t even stuck in his throat; it was stuck somewhere in his chest, underneath his heart, and it hurt. He just smiled sadly, and took another drink of Long Haul, raising the bottle like a farewell wave. Then, shivering into his coat in the damp cold, he turned and began to shamble away.
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