apassingafternoon | hail of arrows

"It's Roland's story, really. Most of them are." Cuthbert shrugged, tucking his slingshot back into his belt. "He's the one with the great and noble destiny. The rest of us just tag along to provide moral support and sharp one-liners." He rolled his eyes, smiling, but there was a real bitterness in there. It wasn't easy, especially for someone as proud as Cuthbert, to know that you would always be a footnote in someone else's history. Even after the years he'd had to get used to it, it wasn't easy. It was just that the alternative was striking out alone, and for how much he loved Roland, that just wasn't possible.

Flopping down next to her, he draped his arms loosely over his knees and shrugged. "Story for a story sounds fair, though. Although I'm warning you, prepare to be horribly disappointed by a tale that mostly consists of Roland being an ass and me and Alain rolling our eyes into the distance."

"A story belongs to who the perceived hero is. And you don't get to choose my perception anymore than I tell you how to feel." Much like everything else that Kaine said it was without inherent malice or too much feeling, it was a gently spoken fact because that's what she believed it to be. The winners wrote history, but that didn't mean there weren't other sides and avenues to events.

"Besides, it seems that I like your one-liners, and you have very nice eyes." ... Wait, that might not have come out the way she wanted to. It sounded more like a come on than an assurance that he was more important than he seemed to think himself.

Well, damn.

Cuthbert blinked at her, snorting laughter. "And my opinion of your taste in men has changed not one jot," he commented wryly, and stuck his tongue out. "But thankee, nonetheless. Though while I won't deny that I am very pretty, nice eyes aren't generally considered a foundation block of heroism."

He laughed, lying back in the grass. For all that he'd come out here intending to shoot, he had to admit that this had its benefits, too. The fact that he didn't feel like his emotions were quite so raw and open was a big part of it.

"All right. Harrowing and endearing highlights. Where to start?" Cracking his knuckles dramatically, he squinted up at her. "Well, I guess the beginning's usually a good bet. And this one really is Roland's story, so I'll cut it short; he let himself be baited into taking his test of manhood when he was fourteen. Al and I told Ro' he was going to die, but you've probably figured out by now that trying to tell Ro' some things is like trying to knock down a brick wall with your head." He pulled a face, lacing his hands behind his head. "So he made the challenge, and by some miracle he didn't die or get sent west. Only that left us all with the tricky problem of the person who wanted him to lose, and that, my dear sai Kaine, is how we all ended up getting packed off to Mejis to count cattle."

That part, frankly, was the easy part to tell tongue-in-cheek. Parts of what had happened in Hambry - like their confrontation with the Big Coffin Hunters, or Mayor Thorin in general - were easy to put a light spin on. At other parts, notably most of those involving Susan, he got rather more morose. A few things - not least the whole existence of Maerlyn's Grapefruit - he excised as completely as he could.

After explaining how Susan had helped them escape from the jail, he sat up abruptly, hands still behind his head. "And then there was a rather bracing battle where we drove an entire army into the thinny, and then we went home. And they all lived happily ever after, the end." Because even Bert had limits in what he could talk cheerfully about, and the memory of everything after the battle was enough to make him shiver. Besides, Susan's death and Roland's grief belonged to them. They weren't his to share. That memory of brittle, greasy char and the hollowness in Roland's eyes was one that would stay between him and Alain, and that only because they couldn't be rid of it.

For a moment, that shadow passed across his face, and he looked rather lost. Then he pulled a face, scraping his fingers through his hair. "Okay. Your turn."

She might have mentioned that her ability to go on functioning didn't rely on his opinion of her taste, but everything else was far more important than useless quips. He laid down and she stayed right where she was, listening from beginning to end without any interruption. In fact her expression hardly shifted even during some of the parts where a greater reaction would have made sense. Kaine listened as much as she watched the way that he told her this very long, thorough tale.

"Mm …" She did owe him something, didn't she? Except the last thing on her mind was returning the favor. "It's normal for friends to comfort each other, isn't it?" She wasn't asking it in a way that required him to explain, it was for confirmation and nothing else.

"Depends on the friends. Roland and I, for example, are awful at it." He said it lightly, but met her eyes thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess it is, though."

"Alright."

That was about all she needed to go ahead and hug him. It was kind of a tricky thing since he was on the ground, so she ended up on top of him in a strangely not-friend-like way. But that's why the qualifier was there: This was a friend action, not anything else, so obviously neither of them would think it was anything else. She laid right down and wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, her head tucked a little awkwardly on his chest. If it was any comfort she didn't force the contact outside of the acceptable almost-minute.

"You're an idiot," But that might not have been what he was expecting to hear when she sat up. "If my taste in men is shit then your constant downplaying of your own actions and of how much you're needed is just as bad." And then she gave him his space once more, straightening out her top. There. She was comforting. "Keep doing this shit and I'll kick you in the shins, Bert. There isn't just one kind of hero in every world that happens to exist. There are a bunch of different kinds, and you are certainly one of them. And don't argue with me, either. I gave you a hug." So he couldn't argue you with her.

He laughed, a little shakily, and shook his head. "Do you know how many arguments I could have avoided if I knew that was a loophole?" he joked, sitting up. "Anyway, Rebecca's girls have left me in a position where my shins can't take much more abuse, so I guess I have to cede. I'm a dashing, smart, extremely attractive hero, and I can't possibly blame you for wanting to get into my pants." He considered for a moment, then leant in, kissing her high on the cheekbone. A chaste kiss, but a kiss nonetheless. "Thankee," he said, sincerely, then looked rather sheepish over his own sincerity. "All right, now it's definitely your turn."

Despite her lack of experience even she couldn't help thinking that a little battle might have been won there. Not the entire war, far from that, but it was something. And occasionally all anyone needed was a little something to help them get ready for everything. But apparently her own rules didn't exactly apply because while it was very obviously a chaste kiss, just as her hug had been without ulterior motive or thought, she still blushed and looked off to another side.

"You're welcome." At least they could agree that it was her turn, and she tried to think of something to tell him but nothing really stood out for her. "... My life has been really boring."

Horrifyingly so. "There was that one time I caught a drunkard who dressed himself up in a weird outfit and constantly made speeches?"

"Many different kinds of heroes, indeed," Cuthbert said with mock-sincerity, and laughed. "I don't believe for a moment that your life's been that dull. Not travelling with Nariko, anyroad, not from what I've seen of her." Shifting his weight, so he was kneeling rather than sitting, he regarded her thoughtfully for a moment.

At last, he looked up at the sky. It was coming on to evening; they'd been outside longer than he'd realised. Not that he was complaining. For all their to-and-fro, and for all that revisited pain, this was the most peaceful afternoon he'd had in ages.

"Tell me about where you're from," he said suddenly, after a minute or so. "I don't even know where that is, but I'm guessing from how you talk it's nowhere I've been. So. Start there?"

"Not a bad point, I guess. But I'm really not kidding, everything before her was just ..." She shrugged, "The way it happened to be. I don't know if she already told you but I'm really not from around here." But just in case it wasn't clear enough: "Your entire world isn't mine. In-World or Mid-World or whatever World, it's not mine. I ended up here by accident and Nariko's helped me not die. She was also the very first friend that I made."

She unfolded her legs and laid them straight, grinning. "Sixteen years and no friends. How sad is that?" Her shoulders lifted and fell back down. "It was always just grandma and I, y'know? People don't take kindly to a kid that can tell whose going to die or turn into crazy, terrifying ghosts that kill people. We lived in the house my great-grandpa built, where my parents lived until they were killed, it's actually not that bad a place, nice land, kind off of in a corner, it's just far away from everything else."

Her eyes closed and for the first time in weeks she appeared to well and truly relax. "We don't really have roads or big civilizations, but we have plumbing and that's pretty damn great! Also, hot water whenever we want within reason. My grandma sold jewelry - people weren't as scared of her as they were me - and I took orders for furniture. I guess that makes me a carpenter. Everything is quiet, people keep to themselves for the most part. Everyone began to open up a little when Nariko came around, I guess it helped them realize that I didn't really enjoy what I could see. If I ever go back maybe it won't be so bad."

But that was if she ever went back at all. "Oh, we have these things called paninis - they're like flat, ah, I think you call them popkins? Sort of like that. Flat popkins, and they're amazing. I can make this one with cheese and herbs and chicken, it's the best thing in the world with some tea."

He smiled sidelong. "Besides the people, sounds like a great place. Peace, quiet, and chicken popkins." Laughing, he folded his hands together, resting his chin on them. "Roland mentioned a little of this, after Nariko told him. But only a little. I don't think he's sure how much of it is his to tell. Do you mind me asking how you got from there to here?" He wrinkled his nose a little, shrugging. "Only the closest I've come to other worlds was the thinny in Mejis, and that thing set my teeth on edge from a hundred paces."

For a split second she almost told him that the people weren't really so bad. They had been cruel to her, of course, but they were perfectly giving and sweet to just about everyone else. But then there was Nariko's voice in the back of her head you don't need to defend them, and she kept herself quiet. They didn't deserve her kindness even if they had changed after Nariko's arrival, one day Kaine would be able to give that but not now.

"If nothing else it's good to know that we're all very good about keeping privacy," And though she wasn't smiling her voice sounded warm, even grateful.

"It's pretty much all her fault. Maybe a year after my grandma died we suddenly had the Spectres to deal with. It was easy to liken them angry ghosts, so that's what people considered them, but ghosts don't bleed and they don't try to speak. It didn't matter how many I cleared out from my land or near the city, a whole new horde would come back the next night. I wanted to fight smart, not hard, but no one would talk to me. I found Nariko floating in the gorge, about to fall over the edge. I saved her, and then she told me this unbelievable story about horses and Baronies, stuff I've only ever read in books."

"Eventually we got over the cultural exchange and made a deal. Nariko wanted to get back home but I needed someone to speak to our city's 'dinh', you could say. Even though she was foreign it was easier for her to go and ask questions, people always showed up out of nowhere in my world, and they always seemed to come from different places. Some were actually dead but they never quite looked it, hence my utter lack of popularity." Because a little girl asking why a rotting corpse was running around, when said corpse looked and acted perfectly healthy just couldn't go over well.

Cuthbert raised one eyebrow, considering this for a moment. "Should I be saving my questions for the end," he asked primly, "or is now a good time to mention that I understood maybe half of that? You have the advantage of me, seeing as I've never even read of your place in books."

Some of it, he could piece together, from her tone if nothing else. But he was curious by nature, and there was a lot that he was already wondering about. What Spectres were, for instance, or how Nariko had got there. Most of all, how it felt to know something like that. He was used to dealing death, and had grown perfectly able to face his own short life expectancy with good cheer, but that didn't mean he was comfortable with the idea of death itself; what she was describing sounded nightmarish to say the least.

But he shook his head, pulling a face. "Never mind. I'm a terrible listener. Go on, so you needed her to talk to this dinh...?"

She laughed a bit, and shook her head. She thought questions might be easier to ask in the middle since they were from entirely different places, since Kaine could never seem to learn how to change her speech or her mannerisms just right. It left room for that lost in translation effect, but if he wanted her to go on then she would.

"Right. Nariko went to speak with our 'dinh', and was told a legend. That our world had been made by a God, one that lived among us for a long time, long before even my great-grandparents, but that God died. Because that God was dead Spectres were invading our world essentially because there was no great force to keep the out. Like many stories, it was all very weird and jumbled." At least that was how it appeared to Kaine at the time and even now. Too easy, too idealistic, and her instincts had been correct as ever. "Anyway, our 'dinh', Matilda, gave us a map. If we went by that story we'd have to bring back some weird God on our Earth and then everything would be fine. None of us really believed that but, hey, we could get to where that person was supposed to live easily enough, and it wasn't as if there was anything else to go on. For good measure Nariko asked everyone around town, even went as far as Commerce - the city with the ocean - but everyone agreed on this story."

"So we had to get these four keys from monsters. The thing about my world is that it's filled with a bunch of things you might call strange, domesticated yaks, dogs and cats that can move themselves from one place to the next in an instant, and then especially large beasts that tend to guard certain areas. For each key there was a beast to kill, and a sort of," She waved her hands vaguely. "Temple-like area to go into where the key was. After we had all four it was easy to go on our merry way, to the final leg of a shit show that had already been pretty weird, especially when you remember that Claude had been following us the whole time. Mostly being an antagonizing little shit that wouldn't make any sense. He kept trying to get us to turn around but there's no stopping Nariko, and I was still pretty damn tired of fighting Spectres."

Here, Kaine paused, and though she tried to refrain from slipping into a heavy voice, it seemed inevitable. "So we get to this … Castle-like place, made entirely of glass, about the strangest thing I've ever fucking seen. That God, the Shadowlord is what Matilda really called her, wasn't dead at all, in fact she was up and moving around just fine. There we met Claude for a final time and since she was mute, he spoke for her. Most of that legend was pretty true, but the God never died, not physically, she just kind of lost her mind, might as well have been a moving shell of a thing. I didn't even think she understood what was going on. Apparently when she was normal - so back when I was about thirteen - she kept order just by being around, sort of like a grounding force for the entire world. But when she broke everything else did too. Spectres are people who couldn't withstand the force of her song, a kind of magic that's exuded off of her body or, more literally, as an actual sound. Imagine that hearing that noise from a thinny would turn you into a monster that didn't know if it was alive or dead, that could barely speak any language, and only wanted its suffering to end. That's a Spectre. That was what Claude allowed to happen. Some people could ignore that song and would be fine, but many more wouldn't. Because our world tended to pull in people from all over the place it was no wonder that they'd show up there, have no idea what was going on, and then turn into monsters. It was no wonder we kept ending up outnumbered."

"Anyway, what I haven't brought up is that this crazy God chick? Looked an awful lot like Nariko. I mean, maybe twenty years older and with different hair but, seriously, it was like staring into a mirror. We figured if we offed her everything would go back to normal, but Nariko couldn't do it, so I ended up saving her ass. Some other crazy shit happened, suddenly Claude and I were both here. I stayed with Nariko, and we thought Claude was dead but," Again, she waved a hand. "Of course he wasn't. Would have been too easy."

"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?"

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