hail of arrows

[apassingafternoon]

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.

Comments

[apassingafternoon]

"I'll be waiting with baited breathe," She laughed rather thinly at her own attempt at humor, mostly because it sounded pathetic to her own ears, but for all that she felt it was difficult to be as ... Reserved around Cuthbert. Maybe that was why she had kissed him. She waved a hand at him and simply answered with, "The sooner you do it, the sooner it's done." Her grandmother used to say that all the time, but Kaine didn't necessarily think it was true.

Nor did she mind waiting for him to come back. It had little to do with Roland Deschain, Kaine didn't see the point in actually following him where others could see her doing it, that was all. The only person who was allowed to tease her about this strange and vaguely unsettling development in her life was Nariko. Everyone else was liable to be punched in the face, and that might not end so well.

Whenever he returned - it could be two minutes or ten, she wasn't going to worry - he would find her resting against a wall, eyes closed and arms folded loosely like a cat resting in a patch of sun.

[askthelookout]

He actually paused for a moment to watch her, a little embarrassed at doing so. But at that moment, she looked genuinely relaxed, and there was little enough of that around at the moment. So he hung back for a few seconds, hands in his pockets, regarding her with a faint smile at the corner of his mouth. Then, shaking off the moment, he cleared his throat.

"The dragon has been tamed," he announced grandly, "and I am free to go. Let's go shoot some poor innocent targets." With a little flourish, he offered his arm.

[apassingafternoon]

It wasn't that she didn't notice his stare it was more that ... Well, it didn't bother her. In a way it could be deemed nice, maybe flattering if she knew the specifics, but she doubted that was a part of his look and she didn't care enough to interrupt herself until he did it for the both of them.

"That's what you meant? I thought we were going to chop wood..." On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most pathetic, how pathetic was it that she was a bit sad? Ah, well, whatever, she could watch him shoot things if it pleased him. It wasn't as if she had anything world saving to do and though she would sooner chop off a limb than admit it aloud, she didn't want to be alone right now. ... But she still gave his offered arm a very critical stare, but it wavered into something else as she looked up into his eyes and then promptly blushed. "Why are you so confusing about this?"

He had let her kiss him, but he had avoided it before when they had been alone and she had thought ... Well, she could have been wrong, probably had been, so she rested her hand on his arm but there was still a good bit of space between them.

[askthelookout]

"I'm confusing about a lot of things. You're going to have to be more specific." Cuthbert's voice was light, his mischievous smile as easy as ever, but there was a weight in his look which said he knew exactly what she meant, and was cursing himself for it. And here he'd thought that Roland was the only one of them stupid enough to get himself into this kind of situation. That's what you get for arrogance, maggot, he told himself in Cort's voice, and chuckled aloud.

[apassingafternoon]

"You aren't, you're just hardheaded and avoiding the topic." And since she had already laid her hand on him she pulled him in the direction of the training grounds. Or would have if it wasn't the exact opposite direction that they needed to go in, she wasn't entirely used to the geography of this place but it wasn't stopping her.

"Look, I get it, I shouldn't have done it or I'm not your type," Kaine sounded far more mournful about the possibility than she meant to, but in her emotion she wasn't listening to her own voice, "that's fine. But where I'm from this," She actually wiggled his arm in her grasp as she looked up at him briefly, "Is more romantic than not. So maybe just clear this up and you can go back to just being a nice guy."

That she wouldn't mind kissing again.

[askthelookout]

"Uh-uh. I'm not getting pulled into this." Cuthbert wagged his finger, but his smile had faded a little. Disentangling his arm from her grip, he ran both hands back through his hair and turned to face her. "Look, this whole business... I'm very flattered. And you're very misguided."

Ugh. Emotional frankness. He pulled a face, rolling his eyes to the heavens as he tried to find the best way to say this. At last, he put up one hand, ticking off on his fingers. "Okay, so there's the four of us, right? Roland's a hopeless romantic with the whole stoic hero thing going for him. Alain's sensitive and sweet and cries over dead puppies. Jamie's an asshole, but he looks after people and he actually gives a fuck about them. What I'm saying is, you had three-quarters of our ka-tet to choose from, and you chose the one whose idea of a lasting relationship is breakfast together afterwards. Not to mention that my life expectancy's about six months at this point. So, yeah. Going to keep avoiding the topic. And the practice field's that way."

[apassingafternoon]

She looked briefly to the direction she should have gone in and pouted briefly, but then settled her eyes back on him. "So, what I heard is that you'd sooner be terrified of anything romantic because you're pretending its not in you. And on top of that you're using death as an excuse, as if I'll live any longer hanging around Nariko, let alone the rest of you idiots. What you are really saying here is that you're scared, and you would rather control it and be scared by yourself than be scared with someone else and let them help you." She quieted for just a second, as if rethinking something. "It would have been easier if you just thought I was ugly. You can't choose who you're attracted to, but you can choose to let yourself have something that might be good, for however long it's there."

She looked in the right direction and shrugged, shook her head. "Are you coming? I've never seen anyone but Nariko shoot."

[askthelookout]

"What I'm saying," Cuthbert retorted rather grumpily, "is that you have terrible taste in men, and I refuse to be a part of your frankly insane life choices. I have my own frankly insane life choices to make." Tossing his hair back overdramatically, he turned on his heel and started to stalk towards the practice fields. "Don't start telling me what I feel. I get enough of that bullshit from Alain."

Which wasn't to say that she was wrong. Only that he wished she was. If that wasn't obvious enough from his manner, it could only get more obvious from the way his smile was fading into something much less easy and cheerful. It wasn't quite one of his dark moods, but it certainly wasn't his usual happy-go-lucky approach, either.

[apassingafternoon]

She had never seen a man do that so well and in any other situation it would have been utterly hilarious. But she did answer her own question: It was definitely the hair. Kaine didn't follow immediately, she lingered in place and then quietly trotted after. She didn't keep her silence to make him feel better or even to let him sink back into his pleasant space. Kaine didn't give a single fuck about any of that because that issue, his desire to remain as far away from anything good, predated her.

"In any case," She was quiet for that span of time because despite all of that factual talk hearing him confirm her words had hurt. True, she had only wanted him to kiss her again and nothing more than that, but it still poked at her insides, seemed to pull at her organs. "I wanted to apologize for before. When I said that Roland was throwing a fit. It upset you, right?"

[askthelookout]

Cuthbert shook his head, heading down the hill towards the targets. "I was already upset. What it did was piss me off." He turned to look at her, pushing back his hair with one hand. "You seemed to think he was angry because he was jealous, and over something stupid and petty like her lover showing up. Ever since you came here, you've acted as if he's some imposter for claiming her, and then you turned around and shamed him for being angry, as if he hadn't had every right to be on edge."

He let out a deep breath. He hadn't meant to spew that much of his irritation out, but sometimes it was hard to stop. "He's my dinh. More than that, he's my friend. I don't always agree with the things he does, but I'd follow him past the gates of Hell, and if he won't get angry when people insult him, well, I'll do it for him." Shaking his head, he smiled crookedly, shrugging one shoulder. "I guess maybe it did upset me, a bit. Anyway, apology accepted."

[apassingafternoon]

"He is an impostor for claiming her, because he doesn't love her. And I know that it's something they both chose in their own right, that she didn't have to say yes and neither did he, and that something like this can happen at all has nothing to do with either of them. But she's my friend, she's someone I thought I was in love with, and I have to sit and watch him hurt her every single day, and I can't do anything to fix it. You can stand there and say 'well that's just how Roland is, because of what he's gone through' but it's difficult to accept something like that when your friend is being attacked, isn't it? No one else will pay attention to what's hurting her so I have to."

Not for the first time it occurred to her that she and Bert had matching positions. They were protecting people who viciously tried to shake off the idea that they needed protecting at all. It didn't make anything better, of course, in fact it might only mean there was always a wedge between herself and the man that had, for whatever reason, currently stolen her attention.

"I don't hate Roland as a person. I hate that he doesn't seem to want to try and understand what she needs, which has nothing to do with being in love with someone or not." But it did have to deal with being close, and that seemed to be Roland's obstacle. "... But you forgave it before I could say the rest of that, so the timing is sort of off."

[askthelookout]

Cuthbert was quiet for a moment, walking on in silence. It wasn't until he'd reached the firing range that he stopped and turned to look at her. He wasn't smiling now. "Didn't," he corrected her. "He didn't love her. Which was probably easier on both of them. Not to mention on my nerves."

Which was the closest he was likely to come to admitting just how jealous he was. This was worse than Susan, in a way. Loving Susan, in the end, had been Roland's choice to make. Now Cuthbert was finding himself jealous of Nariko's closeness to Roland, without even the salve of knowing that Roland himself was happy with it. Jealous and protective. It wasn't a good mix.

Sighing, he took out his slingshot and one of the steel balls he kept in a pouch at his belt, loading the sling and narrowing his eyes at the target. "It's not because of what he's been through. Not entirely. He's also just an ass." The steel shot whistled through the air, striking neatly in the centre of the target, and Cuthbert loaded another. "Besides. He is trying. He's trying very hard. It just so happens he has all the sensitivity of a stone wall."

[apassingafternoon]

He was kidding, right? And yet she knew he was at such a point that there was no such thing as messing around. Not about this. He was implying that Roland was already in love with her and though she wanted to refute this, nothing came out. He knew, and she wouldn't refute that. As a result they were both a little quiet all of the sudden. It didn't make any sense to her. The man loved her but he wasn't even staying with her most nights. Didn't couples at least share a bed? Had Kaine been lead astray with that idea?

"Everyone's an ass. I'm an ass, Nariko's an overly sensitive bitch sometimes, you're emotionally closed off on purpose. I can get over things like that." But it was much harder for her to understand the intricacy that Bert felt, that Nariko constantly talked about. It was like listening to people talk about in not just another language but a dead dialect of it.

"You told me to not tell you how you're feeling, but my general assumption here is that you're about as alright with all of it as I am. And I don't mean in the sense of whether they love each other or not." She meant the jealousy of it. Feeling as if you were losing someone vital to your being to a villain. Except that person wasn't a villain at all.

[askthelookout]

Cuthbert shrugged, sending the second shot to join the first in the middle of the target. "I don't own him. It's none of my business what he wants to do with his own marriage, so long as it doesn't end up with us all in jail this time." A ghost of his usual cocky smile crossed his face as he fired off a third shot. "Not that I'm against free bed and board, but I could've done without that deputy's terrible singing. Half an hour of that and I was starting to look forwards to being hanged."

After one more shot, he lowered his slingshot, sighing, and turned to face her. "It doesn't matter if I'm alright with it, or if you are. It's done. Ro' would call it ka, I call it bullshit, but either way, there's nothing we can do to change it. And if I can hold off disliking Nariko for what she's doing to him, you can hold off making sharp comments about Ro'."

[apassingafternoon]

"Or you could tell me what it is that she's doing wrong or, better yet, speak to her yourself and then some part of it might be fixed. Especially since she likes you quite a bit, Bert. She'd probably cry at hearing that you even vaguely disliked her." Which made her laugh, though it might have been a cruel gesture. "But I won't be so harsh, that's why I apologized. The sooner everyone can try to," What was the word? "Agree with one another, the happier we're likely to be." She paused again and laughed again. "Sometimes I say things in a way that's much to harsh, so if I do it again I hope you'll tell me, and then we can make it better, too."

It was that simple for her. Kaine knew that she could be difficult, blunt, and even crass in her own way, and while some of that was her responsibility she would right as soon as possible. Which was partly why she was here with Bert to begin with.

"Why were you ever in jail? Aren't gunslingers law keepers or something?" A slight diversion in topics might not be a bad idea but at least it was a very genuine question.

[askthelookout]

"Aye. And therefore, not the most popular with lawbreakers." He seemed to relax more than a little at her laugh, some of that darkness receding from his expression. "Here's a fun fact: the only thing Farson's men like less than gunslingers is fourteen-year-old gunslingers who show them up in a fight. Another fun fact: angry mobs are remarkably gullible."

Maybe it was crazy for him to be joking over this. God knew that joking didn't make it any less raw; Roland hadn't been the only one changed by their experience in Hambry, or the only one who grieved what had happened there. In all the war since then, Cuthbert couldn't think of a hollower victory than the one they'd won in Mejis. But Kaine didn't have to know that.

"Long story short, we got framed for murder and conspiracy. And then we blew ten kinds of shit out of the assholes who did it, which, I have to tell you, was extraordinarily satisfying. But it did instill in me a certain horror of what happens when Roland falls for people."

[apassingafternoon]

She raised an interested brow at that, not only because some of the lightness seemed to come back to him, but because it was genuinely interesting. No, it didn't sound like the sort of thing to joke about but Kaine did understand why some people needed to process things that way. Her grandmother had been that way. Hm.

"How thoroughly would I have to beg to hear the harrowing and endearing highlights of that tale?" What she really wanted was to hear the whole deal, but that might be too much for him. In the meantime she plopped herself on the ground, thankful for the good weather and the hard ground underneath her, her legs crossed. "I would trade it for a story if that interests you, as nothing about my personal life is very worthwhile."

Coming from an entirely different world, ending up in this one, managing to survive ... Not at all worth talking about.

[askthelookout]

"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."

[apassingafternoon]

"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.

[askthelookout]

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."

[apassingafternoon]

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.

[askthelookout]

"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."

[apassingafternoon]

"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.

[askthelookout]

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."

[apassingafternoon]

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?"