Completed A Fly in the Soup

[Faramund]

The dawnling blinked, took a breath. The pursuant's words were like a great weight being lifted from his shoulders. Faramund knew he wasn't out of the woods yet. For all their convening, this "trip" they had planned for him might well prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Either way, it would be the end of one saga of his life's story and the...

Dawn of a new, he finished, smiling at the way his thoughts ran. 'Well! I can't say that I have the faintest fuckin' clue what a Nymphaeum Chamber is,' he said, cradling Helena's gift against his side. 'But it's better than idling my life away here.' Faramund paused, tilted his head to the side.

'Like a wise dusker once said, what choice do we have?'

Letting the question rest for a moment, Faramund made to brush past his brother-in-arms. He tried to ignore the sudden pounding in his head, like the effects of one too many pints on an overconfident drinker. Tried to ignore the bad thoughts that had crept their way to the forefront of his mind at the mentioning of what they had planned for him.

After all, Bebin Theros was his closest friend in the whole wide world. Why ever would he want to kill him?

'There's probably little point in me asking but when, exactly, do you and the Dusk Captain intend to make this dive?'

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A grumble rumbled from the Basilisk's throat. "True to your word, at least today" he said, unable to help but grin at the man. "You fool ass,"

There was no denying it. Bebin loved the idiot who stood before him. That Faramund quoted something he had said whilst they were both measuring the odds of killing each other, only made him love the fool all the more.

"Sooner the better," Bebin said, simple and to the point. He looked down at the little box still in the Dawnling's hands. "No telling how long the process will take and," his brow furrowed as he continued to escort the man. "There are actions beyond that thick skull of yours that need our attention,"

Yes. Even Faramund's. The bastard was good at what he did. Bebin knew that more than most.

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

'Mean to tell me the world doesn't revolve around me?' Faramund asked, affronted. 'I'm hurt! Truly!' He grinned some, made like it was nothing. That's twice now, he thought, reflecting on Helena's words from the night before. Am I really that self-centred? Turning away from Bebin, the dawnling meandered on. Figures strolling beneath shadowed eaves called out greetings and salutations.

Odd, how warm that made him feel.

'Sooner would be better, though,' he agreed, brown eyes bouncing about the open spaces thoughtfully. 'For all involved, I think.' Did that include his passenger? Faramund didn't reckon so.

Nor did It.

Looking down at the package he had clamped to his side, the dawnling pondered some. His mind wavered, and his throat went dry. 'Bebin,' he said, a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. 'I don't think I want to deliver this gift.'

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A sharp curl of the lips as the Dawnling played along, and they moved on.

"Agreed," Bebin reported, words an arrow on their mark.

He took no joy in knowing what awaited them. A dive into a place as inhospitable as the Loch. Filtered through the same gunk Bebin had worked through inside of Faramund's mind. What he once thought was nothing more than a natural magick resistance. An anomoly that occurred within those born so far from the touch, they were like a stone amidst a stream.

Yet, Bebin had found ways in. Loose threads that more stuck and rooted, than flowed.

Gruelling work that had taken months of effort. A year entire before a single word could echo across that brick housed behind granite. Feelings. Suggestions. Communication.

Had it all been a ruse? The Dusker could not help but wonder. No result of their tandem effort, but the whimsy of whatever lurked there in the Dawnling's eyes. That thing that slithered. Or was that therein, the jaws of their enemies trap.

Doubt.

Bebin,

Came his friends voice. Strung and full of nerves. Bebin's eyes cut to him. Dark as obsidian. "A change of heart?" he grumbled as he came to stop amidst a shaded hall, the Captain's office, not but a flight of stairs away. "Or realization?"

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

'Realisation?' Faramund huffed, amused. 'You know me, Bebs. Tall as a castle wall, and twice as thick,' he tapped his temple to drive home the point, his smile a ghost of what it once was. 'I don't realise things until after the fact, and by then it's usually too late to do anything but live with the consequences.' Shrugging, the dawnling held up the small box in his hand, offered it to Bebin.

The gift felt... light. Weightless, almost. Nothing like what he thought it was.

What did he think it was?

The memory eluded him. He was sure he had been down to the village, just as he was sure he had stopped by Silvia's trinket shop to buy Helena's gift. What was it he had bought? A necklace or a... a brooch?

Faramund could almost see it. Silver disks, embossed with snarling wolf's-heads. Simple in design but well-crafted and meaningful. And practical. Something Helena might actually be pleased to receive, he thought, churning a slow path through his own memories. A stranger's memories. Maybe she'd even wear it, use it to fix her cloak.

Brooches. Definitely brooches.

'Fuck, just take a look, will you? If not to put my doubts to rest then to laugh at my shoddy idea of a gift.'

Bebin Theros

 

[Helena]

"Take a look at what?" A voice called out from down the hall.

Helena stood with papers in hand, out of her office, turned toward the wing that would take her to the Sanctum of Operations.

Bebin laughed, clapped the Dawnling on the shoulder, and made away into the shadows without a word.

Helena's brow quirked, as she stared at Faramund from across the distance.

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

Bebin's laughter echoed through the empty halls, callous and cruel but no less full of life. Watching him go, Faramund cursed the bastard to his back, vowing swift retribution to any god that hadn't grown wary of listening to his shit over the years.

Fighting down a sigh, the dawnling turned to the woman stood just down the hall from him. Helena looked different from the night before. No less beautiful, just... less likely to catch cold.

'This!' Faramund held up the small box in his hand, still wrapped despite his best efforts. Bebin was a real shit sometimes, but the fact he hadn't checked showed how much he trusted Faramund, whoever he was these days.

The gesture wouldn't be forgotten.

Weathering Helena's scrutiny, the knight shortened the distance between them in a matter of steps.

Drawing close, he stared down at the papers in her hand. 'Didn't catch you at a bad time, did I?' He asked, his gift balanced neatly on an upturned palm. 'I can come back later, if it suits you... well, better.'

Helena

 

[Helena]

A brow quirked with question, and she tucked the stack of folios beneath her arm as Faramund approached, her eyes on the small box he held, and the cloth that kept it secret.

She smirked at the question, eyes still on the dainty little box there in his hand. "No, I wouldn't call it a bad time," she said, and rest her free hand on her hip. Her chin raised up some as her eyes looked for his. Almost a challenge. "Why so shy all of a sudden, Faramund?"

The man could be a bear trap at times. Yet she had never known him to be meek. But then, so much was set to twist and turn these days. She let out a long breath, and her stare softened some. "I take it Bebin's told you the news?"

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

'Yeah,' Faramund almost sighed. 'Has to be done. Sooner the better.' They had matters in need of addressing, after all. Whatever he was, now, Faramund had always tried to be an asset to the Order. Whether it was his own will or the will of his passenger that drove his actions, well... they would know soon enough.

'Here,' he offered up the box, 'I got you something.'

The damn thing was starting to burn a hole through his palm, though thankfully not in a literal sense. 'I wanted to apologise,' he said, meeting Helena's eye. 'For last night. For the words we shared,' he paused, took a breath as the guilt cut him up inside.

'And those I didn't.'

Helena

 

[Helena]

Her brow knit together upon his acceptance. Confusion, mixed with worry.

At his acceptance to the circumstance. Easy. Almost.

Didn't it worry him? Wasn't he scared? Fool idiot, he-

He always seemed to twist her up. Work her into such knots. And now he was offering her a gift. She huffed. More mad at herself than him. She let a breath in. Cool and calm as she reached out and took the gift from his hand with her left. Brought it to her chest, and looked down at it.

A tender sadness writ across her face. "Faramund, you, you didn't need to do all this," she said. Shook her head, and looked up at the big brown eyed Dawnling. Held the gift close as she searched for the right words. "I, I wasn't fair to you either, and," she looked down at the little box. Felt its heft in her hand. "I care about what you have to say, your words,"

Couldn't he have left it well enough alone?

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

'No, I didn't,' he agreed, 'but it felt like the right thing to do. Something that needed doing.' In the end, that was what it all came down to, really. Doing the right thing. He had tried to hold to that oath, no matter what it cost him. Oh, how he had tried!

'I know.' Faramund grimaced, saddened by the look on Helena's face. He had hurt a lot of people over the years. To see her hurting, now, in this moment...

'I love you, y'know?' He smiled, even as something in his chest started to ache. 'I'm a fool, Helena. A fool... and a liar, it seems.' Faramund looked away. There was a voice, there, in his mind, yelling at him, telling him to stop talking. But that was the trouble with him, wasn't it? Never know when to shut up.

'But this much I know.'

Helena

 

[Helena]

The words struck her like a splash of ice water.

Loved her?

Her fingers felt tight around the small box between them. Whatever anger had sparked up inside her, the heat of its memory there in the pit of her heart, drowned now. Felt cold and sober.

"Faramund, I," she searched for words she felt she wanted. Words she knew were warm and good. Comforts that soothed the sold. She found nothing more than the twist of guilt. "I cannot say that I know that much," she said, voice full of a fragility that felt so foreign to her.

A smallness, that made her feel confused. Like a creature cornered by something far larger.

"With all that is happening, with," she shook her head. Her eyes fell from his turned away face. Again, her fingers held tight the box. "It was not right for me to come to you last night," she said plainly. Her eyes rose up to see him again. "Not as I did, and I am sorry for that," she knew that much.

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

'Don't be. I appreciated the company, even if I was a real shit about it at the time.' Closing his eyes, letting out a breath, Faramund was surprised by how... relieved he felt. As if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, he turned to regard Helena in a new light, hurt by her words though no less accepting of them.

'It's unfair of me to drop this on you so suddenly, I know, but... after what Bebin told me, I thought, if not now, when?'

He had become increasingly fatalistic of late. Both betrayer and betrayed, his mind had made enemies of those he knew to be his friends. Kind of ironic, really, knowing what the Order did to its enemies. 'I didn't want to face the unknown without making sure things were okay between us first,' he shrugged. 'Got enough damned regrets as is. Call me selfish.'

Glancing down, Faramund tilted his head ever so slightly.

'You, uh, going to open that?' He asked, a small grin surfacing amidst the storm that made up his emotions. 'It's not a wedding band or anything, no need to be alarmed.'

Helena

 

[Helena]

A breath pushed out of her lungs. Cool with relief.

A smile, soft as fresh fallen leaves come the turn of the seasons. "Thank you, Faramund," was all she could think to say once the Dawnling gave words to how he felt. Gave reason to his thinking.

His eyes flicked down to the gift, and she started with the question. "Oh," she said in a small and airy voice. Felt the weight of the small gift again, there in her hand. A little warmth crept across her face. "Suppose there is no harm in a gift," she thought aloud, and began to undo the twine.

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

"Suppose there is no harm in a gift..."

The fear returned, then, grasping Faramund by the heart. He hummed, acknowledging Helena's words, agreeing with them. No harm in a gift, he thought, willing it to be so. Bebin hadn't bothered checking. Fool that he was, he trusted Faramund. A great deal, it would seem.

Had he been mistaken?

The string came undone, package spilling open to reveal...

Little of consequence. Just snarling wolf-heads on a pair of small silver disks. No curses. No contact poison. 'I hope they're to your liking,' said the Mund, his relief writ plain on his face as the brooches slipped into the Captain's hand. 'I recall you having a particular fondness for wolves. Or maybe just magical tea sets.'

Helena

 

[Helena]

Helena smiled soft, as she held up the gift. Watched the heads twinkle as they caught in the magelights that lined the halls. The false gold of flame spheres painted the cool moon-glow of the silver wolves.

Teeth bared. Eyes fierce. A pair.

"Both, I'll have you know," she teased, and clutched up the wolves in the palm of her hand with a quick bounce. Held them to her chest. "They are appreciated," she said with a slight bow of her head. Looked to his eyes again, a warm and delicate look upon her expression. "Might be, more so, had you given them without our spat," she smirked, and tucked them back into their little box. Sealed them away. "But I am grateful all the same,"

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

Faramund nod, relieved. 'Can't change the past, only try to make up for it,' he replied in turn, basking in Helena's warm radiance for as long as it lasted. 'I suppose I should let you get back to... whatever it is you do,' he grinned, had the good sense to look away.

For once, he had nothing left to say.

Not a fucking thing. Except- 'Take care, Helena. And thank you!' Sparing her one last smile, Faramund brushed past the Captain and walked away.

Helena