apassingafternoon | hail of arrows

hail of arrows

To graduate from utter silence to the constant roar of Gilead was something else. Though she had been here for over a week now, and would stay for much longer, Kaine was not used to the constant noise. Even at night it felt as if she could hear every shuffle of bodies in sheets and night clothes, every fuck whether positive or not, and all those conversations that were never suited for daylight. It all made sleeping outside difficult, but even lying beside Nariko didn't make it any easier to deal with the walls all around her. They were suffocating. At night and in the day, they threatened to drive Kaine out of her mind.

So she took to wandering around because there wasn't fuck else to do around here, not for her.

Which might have explained catching sight of him towards an edge, around a corner. The specifics weren't relevant, that Kaine saw Bert and spun on her worn down heel and followed him was relevant. It should have also been worrying for her, this unnatural and constant fascination that was tempered by the occasional bout of good sense felt odd. It was a ... Not a problem, but not exactly good. Crushes on men that you hardly knew, that hid the way Cuthbert did, that never let her finish talking the way Cuthbert did couldn't end well.

She followed anyway, and not with any real ounce of subtlety or control. Eventually one of them would have to say something and in her own way she knew he might take that responsibility first. So she followed, and even if Kaine happened to be wrong he was pretty interesting to stare at anyway. Maybe it was the hair.

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"That, I have been told." He grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck. "We're expecting him in the next few days, I understand. At least, Roland thinks so, and Roland's usually got a good instinct for that sort of thing."

He shook his head, looking thoughtful. He wasn't particularly keen on the idea, rather thought that Roland should have let Nariko go and fight the guy herself if she wanted, but he was willing to concede that it wasn't his choice to make. For now, he just sat there, uncharacteristically quiet for a few moments, frowning. "It sounds unbelievable," he said at last, with a crooked little half-smile. "Glass castles, beasts guarding keys, gods with the faces of friends... sounds like a story for children. You seriously think that's dull?"

"It isn't," She conceded without an extra thought, "But it isn't my story, it's not something I went and did. It was Nariko who ended up with the map, Nariko that saved my life multiple times, that convinced me to move back into the house, Nariko who figured out how to open the castle doors with the keys, and Nariko that brought me here. What part of that sounds like it belongs to me at all?" She had just been there, the one that needed help and really nothing more than that.

She shrugged, "Besides, it's just like you said. It's a story for children, it's something so unbelievable that now, when I try to do normal things, I think it must be a wanting dream I had. A desire to be important that somehow became real, if anything, it probably makes me sound pathetic."

Kaine flicked a rock from the ground and put herself back together. It wasn't Bert's fault that she felt useless. "But, that's how it happened. Before that I just did my best to survive." And it was what he had asked, what she had answered, so technically it was fair.

Cuthbert laughed, openly and without malice. "And you have the gall to accuse me of not giving myself enough credit? If you want to put it that way, you don't have a leg to stand on when you say Hambry wasn't Roland's story. By the sounds of it, you did one hell of a lot more to set yours in motion - all I did was get us all framed for murder, if you'll recall."

Smirking, he leaned over and punched her very lightly on the arm. "Either we're both important, or neither of us are. Either way, it sounds like we've both had it easier than the people we're following, so let's be maybe-heroes together, hey?"

She stared at him with both brows raised, utterly disbelieving. Nothing that she had said was particularly complimentary. The difference was that, in Hambry, it sounded as if Bert had helped Roland not be an unbelievable idiot, and he was important in a battle that sounded unbelievable to her ears. Kaine just sort of tagged along with everything. But she knew better than to argue too much and accepted that well meant punch (because there really could be such a thing).

"I guess those are fair terms." And she didn't think they were logical, not in the least. But if it helped him understand why she saw him a certain way, Kaine would push her own self-doubt aside. "Both important maybe-heroes together, then."

It sounded so ... Ridiculous, so why did she keep smiling?

So far as Bert was concerned, it didn't matter why she was smiling. She was, and that was victory enough. He smiled back, grinning from ear to ear, and hopped to his feet. "It's getting dark," he observed, stretching. "And I'm getting a mite hungry. Shall we head in for something to eat?"

"Everything happens so quickly here." By now she had long accepted that it wasn't a strange illusion, and that was probably enough. "But food is probably a good idea. Do you think they'll let me cook? Or do I have to let them do it?" This was only one of many, many different things she had wanted to ask. "Not that I'm ungrateful or anything, I just didn't know if it was rude to do it myself." She snapped her fingers a bit suddenly as she got up and followed him.

"One time I went to make breakfast for Nariko and I, I got halfway through it and Travis, the cook, chased me out with a knife!" She looked oddly proud of this story, but added: "Of course I kicked his ass and then we had something of a cook off. My eggs were better. That's a much better, personal story!"

"Some things happen quickly. Some things happen slow." Cuthbert shrugged. "Things are growing soft around the edges, whatever that means. But it's never been so hard they won't let you cook. At least, not if I make puppy-dog eyes at them." He grinned again, shaking his hair back. "When we were little, I always used to beg all the best sweets off them that way. And then I used them to bribe the rest of our class not to tell Cort when I was making faces behind his back." His laugh was rather rueful. "It didn't work. I swear that man had eyes in the back of his skull."

A personal story for a personal story. That was fair, right?

She couldn't begin to parse what that was supposed to mean, but it sounded slightly far off from what she had said, or at the very least meant to say. It was easy to let go of as she listened to his story, he must have been a very cute kid but Kaine wouldn't ever say as much. "That's adorable." ... She wouldn't say as much until she did. "I swear, everything I hear about this man named 'Cort' makes me think he must have been my grandmother's soulmate. Or at the very least a comrade in snapping kids to attention."

Yes, a story for a story and, yet speaking easily came to her now. She had worried about what she might say or do, but it came out of her so easily. Looking at her with Bert no one could guess that she was genuinely shy with most everyone else that wasn't Nariko.

"I missed my parents all the time and that was a funny thing, missing people you don't remember correctly. When I was little I would cry over it and my grandma, she was so awkward with it. By the time I was eight she'd start clopping me with her damn cane, 'the soil doesn't need your stupid ass tears!' that's what she'd always say. I'd get so mad at her, I could never understand why she would say that. It made me think she was never upset at losing them."

Of course that wasn't true, not at all. She was grown now, and she understood that her grandmother had probably never felt their loss as deeply as she did when Kaine hadn't been able to restrain her emotions. "I wonder if we would have gotten along at that age."

"Probably not," Cuthbert said cheerily. "I was a little shit. I kept getting Ro' and Al in trouble, too. Mostly Ro'. Boy never could back down from a dare." He smiled, rather nostalgically. His own childhood had, for the most part, been idyllic, which only made it harder to look back on. "Once, I persuaded him it would be a great idea to sneak around in the crypts. Alain was too scared, but to be honest, he won on that one. We got caught, and that's the story of how I lost two baby teeth from getting my ears boxed so hard."

He laughed, sticking his hands in his pockets, and started up the hill towards the main building. "Didn't teach me my lesson, though. By the time we got our guns, I'm pretty sure Cort had given up on beating any kind of sense into me."

"I get the feeling that you only learn lessons when you feel like it," Which wasn't a good thing by any stint of the imagination but rather a simple, unavoidable fact of Cuthbert Allgood, as Kaine knew him. "I also wish I was surprised that there's a crypt here but I'm really not." Nor did it amaze her that Alain had been smart enough to avoid it. Someone with that extra Sense probably shouldn't wander around with the dead.

"This is what they call easy communication, isn't it?" She looked up at him briefly, head tilted curiously. "Usually when I talk to people I'm thinking about punching them in the face. Unless it's Nariko." That was a whole different set of thoughts that played in her head while her friend spoke or ordered her around, or cried about something. "It's very easy with you."

And she wasn't thinking of punching him, either.

"I try." He bowed comically, without missing a stride. "Alain's the sensible one to talk to, Jamie's the harsh one, Roland's the honest one. Someone has to be the easy one. Although," he added, after a moment's thought, "if you're not thinking about punching me in the face, you're in the minority."

That wasn't to say he wasn't glad to hear it. Part of him wanted to refute what she'd said about him only learning lessons when he felt like it, though. That dark, sullen part of him wanted to take her aside and explain that there were some lessons you couldn't help learning, lessons that drove their way deep into you and wove into your life, lessons he had learnt the hard way. That if he chose not to learn other lessons, it was only because the weight of the hard lessons was enough already, and sometimes the best way to move on was to refuse to do what was expected.

Part of him wanted to say that. But part of him thought she might know already, and if she didn't... well, then it was better for it to stay that way.

Instead, smiling, he shook his head. "As for the crypt... there's been a city here since the time of the Eld. He's down there himself, somewhere, although we never found him before we got caught. We've had to put our dead somewhere - wouldn't it be more surprising if we didn't?"

If he wanted to say something or other then he was allowed to. Whether she knew it or not wasn't important, it was that he felt the desire to tell her in the first place. "I guess so."

It was clear that she had never really thought about it, but what he said made sense. You had dead people, you had to do something with them, after all. "I guess it's just that …" This was one of the few topics that she had trouble speaking on, and she was never one to speak without thinking ahead of time. As a result a full moment passed before everything clicked the way it should.

"You know, that family - Nariko's - they've got this belief that things that die don't ever really go away. You do certain things, they stay and it's a negative effect, you do other things, they stay and it can be good. But I think the longer you have things like that near the harder it is to move away. Hard to get out from underneath a shadow when it's always underneath you."

But even now she wasn't entirely sure that it made sense, or maybe it was too emotional a though, but it was all she could come up with.

He was quiet for a moment. When he did speak again, it was thoughtful: "I guess maybe that's why. Here, we..." He shrugged, lapsing into silence for another moment before continuing. "They're our fathers, and our fathers' fathers. Arthur Eld, and all his knights. All the gunslingers of our past. Maybe that's a shadow we want to keep with us."

For a moment, he looked pensive, as if he was mulling it over, and then he pulled a face. "Well, I don't know. I leave ghosts and beliefs to Roland and Alain. All I know is, there's been plenty of times since my father died that I've been glad to have him near. And sometimes I've found myself down there, when I've been in need of his guidance."

He shrugged one shoulder, looking rather embarrassed. He didn't make a habit of talking about things like that. More people knew about how he took flowers to his mother's grave, and even that was awkward enough. Telling anyone outside his tet about his trips into the crypt... well, if they were swapping personal stories, that definitely qualified.

"I guess when we move away, we like having something to come back to."

He had a very good point there, one that seemed to physically hurt her as she took it in. Kaine was quiet, creating yet another unplanned space of silence and even worse than that it didn't do her any good. No matter how she tried to rework her thought process. He was right. Of course it helped more than hurt to have something to come back to. Of course it helped to hold onto those people and their shadows. That was what helped everything move along. She had only ever told herself otherwise to help stave off her own pain.

"That makes sense." But she almost wished that it didn't.

In any case it hadn't dawned on her that he had told her such an intensely personal fact, but even if she did realize it Kaine wouldn't have known what to say in response. She didn't have anything of that caliber but, hey, at least she could make great sandwiches.

If he'd been Alain, he would have known what to do with that silence. If he'd been Roland, it would probably have passed him by entirely. Unfortunately, Cuthbert was neither of those people, and so he saw that he'd upset her, without having any idea how to help. He settled for touching her arm, feeling profoundly clumsy, and giving her a sympathetic kind of smile. "You alright?"

"Yes." No. "I'm just thinking," Certainly a dangerous prospect, all things considered. "Even though it hurts to have lost people, it's nice that you can still go and speak with them that way."

It was something she lacked. "Even though they're gone you're still shaped by them a little. It's nice." For them. For people who had shadows to walk in and grow from. But what exactly did that mean for anyone without that legacy? "... Apologies." She tried to smile, and it only faltered gently. "Or, as you would say, 'cry pardon', I'm just being emotional."

Which was hardly like her, but she would think over that issue later on.

"Hey." He stopped, taking her arm, and frowned deeply at her. "You're allowed to be emotional. One of the perks of being a woman, as I understand it. But, look, alright... I'm not Roland, I can't say this the way he does, but I'll try." He took a deep breath, letting go of her sleeve. "We're all shaped by them. That's what it means to remember the face of your father. As long as you do what's right by those who loved you, do your best to make them proud, they're always a part of you and what you do. You're still shaped by them. You don't have to know them to be shaped by them."

He wrinkled his nose, looking profoundly frustrated with himself. "Told you I couldn't explain it like Ro'. Took me until a couple of years ago even to figure out that forgetting the face of your father wasn't just some bullshit catechism."

"You really must not have been listening to that whole thing about my grandma." Or maybe it was a sizable difference in her upbringing. It was never that she had been explicitly told not to be emotional, it just wasn't ... Comfortable to do so. "And to be fair, I would never really want Roland to say anything greatly personal to me unless it concerns Nariko." Frankly she thought he sucked at anything more than staring intensely. If anyone was talented in communicating themselves it had to be Alain or Nariko.

"... But you're probably right. It's still difficult to imagine. I didn't know anything about my parents, or my grandmother, not really. But maybe it's the sort of thing you figure out with time anyway." She looked off to one side, scraping her heel along the ground, a nervous habit of hers. "Something you learn to figure out when you're given a little help."

"You underestimate Roland's ability to explain," Cuthbert said gravely, but there was laughter dancing in his eyes again. "And his ability to get so wrapped up in honour and ka and the face of his father that he forgets little things like eating and sleeping. If you want care and kindness, he's not your man. If you want an hour-long lecture about how it's all meant to be, well..." He tilted his hand to and fro, laughing. "If he'd ever opened his mouth in philosophy lessons, I think he would have been Vannay's favourite. Come on, you owe me a cheese and chicken paneen."

Because when in doubt, the best thing to do was to distract.

Kaine wouldn't say so for the most obvious reasons, but she very greatly preferred Cuthbert to any long talks about honor and other shit. But at least the topic got him laughing, and by default that helped her smile, which made everything else much better.

"'Panini'," She repeated without any real weight, the hint of a grin in her voice as they came that much closer to the kitchen. She still had little idea of where it was so she was more than grateful for Cuthbert leading the way.

"Pah-nee-nee," Cuthbert repeated with exaggerated care, and snorted. "Better?" He, of course, had no trouble finding the kitchens - not only had he lived here his whole life, but, as he'd mentioned, they had been a favourite haunt of his as a child. He still rather liked them, in a nostalgic kind of way that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with childhood. He breathed in deeply as they approached, smelling the spices and freshly-baked bread. It smelled like home.

"Much better." And she even had it in her to sound-mock proud of him! Although it might not have actually been all that mocking since Kaine was the only true Queen of cultural differences. But one constant between all people, seemingly in all times, was the kitchen. Some of it was still a bit strange to her but she had been around long enough that orienting herself wasn't difficult.

"Okay ..." She looked around, thought to herself, and then got to work, idly throwing behind her shoulder: "Sit somewhere! This doesn't take long! Or at least it shouldn't."

Her push-bread thing needed electricity which, of course, her home had but not so much here. Well, she could figure it out.

"Yes, sai," Cuthbert said with exaggerated meekness, and hunkered down by the door with a grin, waving to one of the cooks. "Hile, Anis. Smells like miracles and magic in here."

Anis, a young woman of about his age, blushed openly and obviously, much to Bert's apparent amusement. Smirking, he settled back against the wall, draping his hands over his knees, and watched Kaine with some interest. He wasn't much of a cook himself - he could skin a rabbit and roast a bird if it came to it, but not much beyond that - so he was genuinely interested.

... Could they have been more clear about it? Kaine could be a little dense at times but to miss the way Anis blushed at Cuthbert would mean that she was blind. And to miss Kaine's very obvious pout, the telltale, sharp turn of her head as if she had seen nothing - but of course she had - would mean one must be blind, too. It bothered her enough to create a little crashing and banging, and Kaine refused to ask Anis for help, but she hardly needed it.

A kitchen was kitchen, you only needed the pattern. Besides, cooking was ... A relief. It wasn't exactly easy and she wouldn't claim to be particularly amazing, but it was a fun hobby that she could lose herself in without any trouble.

That didn't mean Anis didn't get a look or two. What was so great about her, anyway?

Cuthbert bit back his amusement. It was cruel to find that funny, and he knew it. It wasn't even as if he'd set out to flirt, exactly - it was just very hard to resist teasing Anis, when she made it so easy. He'd made the mistake of forgetting who he was with, in part because they'd fallen into conversation so easily for a while there. So he did have the decency to feel bad.

At the same time, though, it was funny, and he couldn't quite hide the little twitch of a smile.

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jealous Kaine gives me life and I don't feel bad about it

i thought that might be the case. which is why i did that. so glad i was right. :p