Fable - Ask Grievances & Regrets

[Chasmine]

Falwood
Gilram's Hidden Fortress

Though no longer confined by the physical walls of the living realm, Chasmine still held herself to the virtues of propriety and manners she'd been taught long before she'd ever arrived at the Dreadlord Academy. So when Gilram requested her presence, the specter arrived at the door of his study and announced herself gently. There were no guards stationed here for protection of the ex-Archon. No Proctors prowling the halls to determine the worthlessness of Initiates within reach or eyesight. Here the occupants lived freely, respective to one another as a family might be.

Of course Gilram's word held the most weight, but Chasmine had yet to find his words forceful or neglectful.

"Lord Gilram," she spoke, "it's Chasmine. You called for me?"
"Come in, Chasmine," she heard him respond within.

The image of her faded slightly as she stepped forward through the door and found the man sitting at a desk off to the side. There was a fire lit in the fireplace, crackling with a warmth she could remember, but not feel.

Chasmine approached Gilram where he sat and smiled at the amiable face he afforded her in greeting. In all the time she'd known him thus far, he'd never looked upon her with anything resembling the disgust or distaste like those from the Academy. It hadn't taken long for her to learn why he had so many followers.

"Do you have another mission for me?" she asked. By now they'd met like this often enough that Gilram did not need to offer her a seat. Chasmine reached for a chair in the spirit realm and moved it to match the place as that of an open chair in the living realm, then took a seat to his right.

"Soon," replied Gilram, "but that's not what I've asked you here for." The man took a moment to settle his papers and quietly closed a journal he'd been writing in, then looked to the ghost with a thoughtful furrow of his brow, "How well do you know Gaage?"

A surprising question. Chasmine raised her brows over a faraway look as she thought back to the days she'd much rather forget, "Not very well, Sir."
Gilram frowned, immediately causing Chas to stiffen and roll her fingers into her palms at her knees, "I am sorry, Sir. Beyond our classes and training, Gaage was one of the many I tried to avoid."
"I see," said Gilram, his gaze narrowing in thought as he considered her quietly for a moment, "he was unkind to you?"
Now it was her turn to frown, "No more than the others. I was a bother or a target to most everyone. It was best that I kept to myself when I could."
"In your training with him, was he a capable participant?"
"Oh yes," she nodded, "I do not recall that he did well in our foundational studies, but Gaage is a formidable combatant. He was quite competitive and ... enthusiastic."
"Did he often fail at tasks or missions?"
"No, I don't believe so. As you know, I was very rarely sent on missions, but I do not recall ever hearing about a failure. He was always rather determined in training."

Gilram sat back in his chair and seemed to mull something over, his large hand lifting to run over his beard.

"Sir?" Chas asked with uncertainty, "Has something happened?"
The man pondered his next words carefully, "Yes. An unfortunate mission failure. One by your testimony is out of character for him. I wonder if you might find out what happened."

There was something curious about the ask. Something off. Chasmine couldn't quite place her finger on it but she had a hunch that perhaps Gilram thought Gaage was trying to sabotage his efforts. The discomfort of her task must have been quite visible, as Gilram leaned toward her a bit in the way that a father might when moving to place a hand on a child's shoulder in reassurance. He couldn't do that with her, but he could evoke the sentiment all the same, "You have history with him and you have a way with words. Plus," he Gilram continued with a small but warm smile as he leaned up again, "I trust you have the best interest of us all at heart."

"Of course I do, Sir," she nodded, smiling back meekly, "I will talk to him. Or, perhaps I will talk to Delaney first. They seem to be quite close and she was one of the few who treated me well."

"Mm," Gilram grunted, "I haven't seen her about but perhaps I just don't know where to look."

"No one hides better than Delaney," Chas tried a brighter smile this time.

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

This shit used to be so fucking easy.

Gaage Eberwhit hadn't realized just how nice he'd really had it, all things cond, until it all scattered to the god-damned wind. The Red-headed man looked out over Gilram's compound from the top of a hill, looming out over the hidden haven like it was some dramatic set piece. Sometimes it was used as a lookout, but the long trek up here meant most of the others preferred the easier posts.

Suited his needs well enough, which right now was being as far away from everybody else as possible. Gods, that was so stupid. He hadn't even thought, just done it even while the others told him not to. Blown their whole operation. That wasn't what bothered Gaage most though, no... What really got under his skin was that he didn't care. For the first time in his life, he didn't care that he'd failed.

The hell was wrong with him?

He knew the answer. It'd been staring him in the face ever since he got here. Ever since Gilram's words failed to resonate with him, ever since Laney left him behind. He'd gone from a simple life of going around and busting heads with his friends to something he didn't even understand. All these politics, the pandering from that gloomy jaw-flappin' fuck, the lot of them acting like they were so much better than the Academy when they were basically doing the same bullshit under a different banner. It was so stupid.

Gaage didn't want this. He didn't want any of this.

"Hope you're doing better than I am, brother." Eberwhit muttered down to the fist-sized rock in his hand, painted with a splatter of blood from when Zael Castomir had beaned a particularly juicy sharp ear with it. It made a nice keepsake, but lately, he found himself wondering if he'd been better off staying with his best friend.

Instead he'd chased after love. Fat lot of good that had done him.

 

[Chasmine]

"I did not know you had a brother."

Chasmine's gentle voice sounded from Gaage's left where the spectral form of the young woman slowly materialized out of thin air.

It had taken some time to track him down, but her newly developing skills in using the Leylines was beginning to help in such things. It was far easier to tap into the spiritual trail of a living person than a dead one.

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

If Gaage hadn't spent the last month around the weird ghost woman who seemed to pop in and out of existence at the drop of a hat, he probably woulda jumped out of his skin at the sudden presence standing to his left. Chasmine had gotten him good a few times when he was still new here.

She usually only showed up when she needed to, though. Why was she bothering him? You couldn't get much more "I want to be alone" than up here on the hill.

"I don't." Gaage replied, without looking over at her. Quietly he slid the bloody rock back into his coat, his eyes looking down at the dirt beneath his feet. "Had somebody I thought of like one though." Not anymore, apparently. Seeing as he was here and they were there.

"You want something, Chasmine?"

 

[Chasmine]

"Back at the academy?" she questioned gently, though it seemed more rhetorical than anything as she continued, "That sounds nice."

As if the whole idea of having someone close enough to consider family was uncharted territory for her. Which it was. Sure, Delaney had treated her well enough, but they'd never been close. Not really. Not close like herself and Dorian, but then that relationship had been something else entirely. Something that wasn't allowed to be known. A secret.

A guilty pleasure for him, perhaps, that he'd been too embarrassed to let come to light. Azzerin suspected as much when Chas had told him of their private affairs.

You want something, Chasmine?

"Many things," she admitted with a faraway smile that was as fleeting as a feather in the breeze. A sigh followed and the ghost tipped her head askance to look up at the taller not-Initiate, "I heard what happened on your mission."

A statement that said more with the words left unspoken than those that had. The ghost studied the young man unintrusively, her gaze sinking no further than what he allowed to show at the surface. Often people hid behind false faces, and that was fine.

"Why did you join Gilram?"

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

It wasn't until she mentioned his recent failure that his amber eyes finally moved to look at her, a bitter sneer barely holding itself back, and not well enough that she wouldn't see it. "He sent you to question me, didn't he?" There was a spark of anger behind his tone, but it wasn't aimed at Chasmine. Couldn't really be angry at her for doing her job, could he?

She'd been a background character for much of his time at the Academy, but Gaage had never had an issue with Chasmine. She was strange, sure, but agreeable enough. Something had definitely changed since then, the girl he remembered from back then... it was hardly the same person.

"It was a stupid mistake. That's all there is to it. Shit happens."

A lie. Shit doesn't just happen when it comes to Dreadlords. They were taught better than that.

Well, he wasn't a Dreadlord anymore, was he?

Gaage waited for some time after she got to the point, mulling over whether or not he wanted to say a word to her about his motivations. It wasn't that he minded telling Chasmine, but if she was just going to go repeat his words to Gilram, he had to cherry-pick what he shared.

"Thought I had a reason. Turns out I didn't. I'm an idiot who got caught up in his emotions."

 

[Chasmine]

Under the accusation of acting as Gilram's lackey she made no outward inclination of apology. Chasmine didn't need to explain herself, nor did she need to tell him he was right. That he was intuitive enough to know the truth of it was enough to answer the question alone.

It was a stupid mistake. Thats all there is to it. Shit happens.

"Does it?" she didn't believe that and Chasmine wasn't sure he really believed it either.

Thought I had a reason. Turns out I didnt. Im an idiot who got caught up in his emotions.

Silence for a time, the ghost's pale gaze shifted out over the castle and the lands beyond. It had been some time ... perhaps a few weeks now, since she'd seen Delaney. Didn't take much to piece together the answer here.

"Then Delaney is gone..." and for that statement, the spectral girl did issue a frown. Perhaps she'd not had as much control of her shadows as she'd thought. Perhaps the taste of freedom away from the Academy had given them reason to rebel against her. Perhaps they were threatened by Gilram's obvious power. Or, perhaps Delaney had simply lied to Gaage as an assurance of her own safety.

There was a vast array of possibilities as to the girl's fate, but Chasmine did not feel compelled to pursue them any further than mere thoughts. Unless Gilram tasked her to track Delaney down, her departure would be the end of it.

"So why do you stay?"

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gone.

Yeah, that was one way of putting it. A more polite term than Gaage would have used. Nothing, no goodbye, no explanation or anything. "Fell asleep with her next to me a few weeks ago. Woke up and she was gone, all her things too." A slight warble in his voice at the end of his sentence gave away how painful that had been for him. The Academy trained them for a whole lot of awful shit, stuff the ordinary person wouldn't ever fathom encountering.

They never trained them for something like heartbreak.

It had started off as a fling. A way for the two of them to relieve some stress between missions when nobody was looking. The longer it went, the more often it happened, and the longer the nights became. It'd taken him a while before he really understood what the strange feeling Laney had given him was. Telling her that he loved her had been the most nerve-wracking things he'd ever done, and he'd gotten the shit kicked out of him by a fire giant.

Eberwhit coulda swore... he felt like she loved him too. So why? Were those dusty pre-rev Proctors right about things? Was he not supposed to feel that kinda shit? Too many questions that he'd never have the answer to, and it pissed him off beyond belief.

Now he was stuck. Why was he here? Gaage just shrugged, not sure what she wanted to hear.

"What else is there for me? I'm a dirty traitor now. All I'm good at is killing shit, and now I'm even fucking that up. I shouldn't have been so damned stupid to fall for some girl who was willing to give me some and kept it in my pants."

He winced a bit at his own vulgarity, muttering an apology for it. "Sorry, Chas..."

 

[Chasmine]

Fell asleep with her next to me a few weeks ago. Woke up and she was gone, all her things too.

A sad story and one that Chasmine knew well enough herself. First Dorian, then Azzerin. The former never returned from a mission, though she had her suspicions that he lived still and that he'd fled into exile. The latter? Chas had no way of knowing what had become of the demon. One moment they had grown close, the next he was gone. The abandonment still rather haunted her, especially since it was Azzerin's fault she was ... well, dead more or less.

But she had no words of pity or compassion for Gaage. Both emotions had run out over the last year of her life. Azzerin gave her the means to understand just how poorly she'd been treated, how little anyone had ever cared, and how useless pity and compassion would be to her if she had any hopes of attaining real power or strength. Things the Academy should have taught her, if only it had taken the right approach. Alas...

"Dorian left me," she offered in solidarity, a sadness shadowing the pale glow of her translucent face, "he left everything. One day he was there and the next ... it was like he'd never been there at all."

Her brows pinched slightly, eyes narrowing at the sting of pain brought back by thinking on it all.

"It still hurts."

Chasmine brushed a hand over her face, gently pushing away pale ghostly locks, "At least you're good at something. You'll always have that."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Dorian? They were a thing? He knew they hung out a lot, but for some reason he'd never put it together that maybe they were... "For the first time in my life, I felt like I believed in something. I wasn't just fighting for the sake of fighting." Gaage didn't know what the hell had happened to Chasmine, but it was more than obvious she wasn't about to cut him any slack just because she could relate.

Good. He wasn't asking for pity. At least not out loud.

It had been so invigorating to have something to fight for that he threw all of his weight behind it. Even when it meant leaving behind people he cared about, he kept his promises and gave her everything he had. So, when she disappeared, it left him to fall flat on his face. "You didn't deserve that. We weren't friends, but you were always a sweetheart. Think that's why I was surprised to see you here with these people."

It would have made him sad if he'd been closer to her. As it stood, he had enough regrets on his shoulders. Her final attempt to offer a silver lining earned a huff and a roll of his eyes.

"I didn't ask for this. Being a walking death machine wasn't my choice. I told her that, before we left. That I was... scared. Of being useless outside of a fight." He sighs, shaking his head. "This shit isn't fun anymore. Now we're all fighting each other.

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine did not interrupt him, not even when he paused to collect his next thoughts. She'd spent enough time alone, in her own silence, to appreciate it and respect it where it naturally occurred. Even in the breaths between words. Even here, speaking more to Gaage now than she had in the many years they'd trained together at the Academy. His speech was different than she imagined it to be - he had a curious accent she couldn't quite place.

"Gilram is kind," she stated plainly and without a defensive inflection of someone who might have argued against Gaage's opinion. In the end, his opinion made no difference to her, Chasmine knew where she belonged - he was the one that did not.

"He has shown me more respect and care than anyone I have known since being taken to the Academy. He's helped me when no one else would and never demanded anything in return. If he is a monster," her solemn gaze left Gaage's face to look out to the horizon, "then what does that make everyone back the Academy?"

It wasn't an answer she needed, and to impress the point she continued, "For what it's worth, I think you could easily find purpose beyond conflict and war. The Academy would have us believe we are just tools made for killing, but we're much more than that."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

"I didn't say I thought he was a monster, Chas." It didn't take an Archon to see that Chasmine was extremely fond of Gilram, and Gaage wasn't trying to change the way she felt because he didn't feel the same. "I just think... He's keeping us around for his own reasons. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he's not the most transparent with his endgame." Story of their lives, he supposed. It wasn't as though anybody they worked for was in the habit of being totally honest with them.

Her confidence, whether genuine or not, in his ability to find a new path was appreciated, though not shared. Maybe if he had a gift like Noel's metal bending or Henk's flashy light tricks he could find a more practical use for his talent, but what he did best was ripping and tearing flesh and bone. What made him feel alive was to fight and bleed, and yet still he hated it so.

"Why are we so worried about the Academy, anyways?" Gaage tossed a stone over the edge of the hill, watching it as it tumbled through the tall grass and over roots and rocks on its journey to the bottom. "If we're better than them, free from them, and rejecting of their ways, why are we so stuck on fighting them? It'd be just as easy to wash our hands of the while shitstorm over there, wouldn't it?" Well, maybe not. Unlike Chasmine, there were still some people Gaage well and truly cared about over there. Zael, Evie, and Yoh... fuck, Yoh would kill him. It was only looking back that Eberwhit realized why the blonde girl a year under him was so attached to his hip.

Poor thing. He'd likely gone and broken her heart. Now he knew how that felt.

"I don't give a damn what they think of me, but killing is what I do better than anything, and It's not like I'm in the position to take up a pottery class."

 

[Chasmine]

That was fair, he hadn't really spoken ill of Gilram, but that seemed to be the way the conversation was going. Chasmine made no effort of apology with words or expression, remaining silent while Gaage let his thoughts free. In the end, she didn't have all the answers for him, nor did she feel that she had any truly good advice. Her own stake in this world now so severely limited, she had begun to find speaking on the affairs of the living quite tedious.

And draining. It occurred to her that she'd not rested recently and it was beginning to take its toll.

The geist slowly took a deep breath, becoming noticeably more ephemeral as she did so.

"You could leave," she offered quietly after a time of silence, "he will not stop you, if that is what you truly want."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

She didn't seem to have any real response to what he'd said, just a frank reminder that he wasn't being held hostage. It was a point that had been repeated to him by every other exile in this damned place. It wasn't the point, but at the same time it was a fact that threw his own moral struggle into jeopardy. Why hadn't he just left yet?

"S'what everybody keeps telling me. I don't believe in him, so I should just leave." Gilram made the 'freedom' to leave sound like a gift when really it was an easy way of getting rid of those who wouldn't do him any good. "It ain't that cut and dry, no matter how hard you guys try and make it."

He'd snapped a bit, but he turned his head away, silence falling over the both of them again for a moment. Why was she still sitting there? She wasn't enjoying this any more than he was. She wouldn't' have even bothered talking to him if Gilram hadn't asked her to.

"Funny he sends the emotional zombie to try and give me a therapy session..." It was a mutter, followed by a clearer question. "Let me ask you then. Why are you here? I know you like Gilram. He was the first person in a long time not to treat you like garbage, and you owe him for that. Fine, but what do you believe in? Vengeance? You wanna kill the people at the Academy?"

 

[Chasmine]

Emotional zombie. That was a new one ... and ironic when directed at a ghost.

But he seemed to be missing a very large and important point, and she felt rather put-upon that he was. Even Edric hadn't missed it, and he missed most things when it came to emotions.

Chasmine looked over at him and abruptly stuck her ghostly hand straight through his chest. He'd feel the plunging cold of her presence - like intangible ice that sapped the warmth from his body and the strange essence of ethereal, spectra energy within. But beyond that? Nothing.

"I cannot kill anyone," she said to him before withdrawing her hand. Visually Chasmine appeared to take clearer form again after having siphoned away some of his energy, but her somber expression remained.

"And I do not wish to. What good is vengeance to someone who cannot even pass on?" A frown pulled at her expression, worrying and weary of her struggles. "I want to live again, Gaage. I want to be strong enough to fight my own battles and help others. I want to see my family again and hold them. I want to be free of my fear and my pain..."

Her spectral figured shivered slightly as she held back a sob. So many strong emotions boiled beneath the surface.

"I don't want to run from my tormentors anymore. I'm tired and I need help. Gilram promised to do anything he can to help me."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gaage didn't move as she reached through him, his eyes looking down at where her hand vanished into his chest slowly following her arm back to the ghastly pallor of her face. Gaage wasn't totally numb to the feelings of others, nor did he truly think that Chasmine didn't have her own conflicts hidden away within her. She wasn't giving him much to work with until he'd pressed her buttons a bit though. In order to get her to open up, he'd applied some pressure.

It was a trick Lennox had taught him.

There was a slight tug, miniscule amounts of his being drawn towards her before she pulled her hand away again. The angry, indignant, unaffected look in Gaage's eyes melted down to something sadder, more malleable as her 'touch' drew back. His own arm raised from his lap and moved to hover just above her shoulder, as close as he could come to a comforting gesture.

"The politics between power players in Anir... We're all just casualties of it, Chas. We're pawns." They'd never had any true agency; If one side didn't utilize them, the other would. Freedom wasn't a true choice; even if they left, they would always be tied to Anir, to the Dreadlords. It was an unbreakable connection, no matter how hard they tried to pretend otherwise. "I ain't gonna pretend I know whether or not Gilram can help you or not..." Gaage had heard some of the awful shit that guy had gotten up to in the past. Was it possible?

He hoped for Chas's sake it was. He saw that tempest beneath the surface. She was struggling. Every bit as much as him.

"...But I'm starting to realize that shutting down and not trusting anybody ain't the way to go. Delaney never really trusted me. Not enough to tell me how much she was struggling. Don't put all your hopes on one person, is what I'm trying to say, because if he doesn't come through, what'll be left? I don't give a shit what side you're on, Chas, but I don't want any of us being exploited anymore."

It was, perhaps, a roundabout way of offering his own support.

But it was an offer nonetheless.

 

[Chasmine]

Only the remnant of his physical energy could really be felt at her shoulder from his hand. Like the tingling sensation of heat after cold. A year ago she might've leaned into it, might've felt some kind of warmth or inspiration. But Chasmine had been let down and cast aside too many times now. She felt nothing.

"If you want to help," she began without looking over at him, wishing not to see his expression when he inevitably decided none of this was worth it, "then find a reason to stay. I don't want anyone here against their wishes."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

That face. Goddammit, it was just like...

"Alright." Gaage exhaled. Maybe Chasmine hadn't meant to or didn't realize it, but she'd just made his choice a pretty easy one to make. Removing her hand from his presence, he folded both of them in his lap for a minute, sliding his eyes shut and taking his deepest breath in months.

"I'm staying." He watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Long enough to help you. Once you're flesh and blood again, we'll revisit this conversation."

Chasmine was one of them, in the end, and Gaage would be damned if he was leaving her fate up to Gilram alone. Maybe he hadn't been able to save Laney, but Laney had loved Chasmine.

So he'd just have to save her instead.

 

[Chasmine]

Such kind words. Such good sentiment.

"There is a severe lack of compassionate people among our ilk," Chasmine replied, moving to stand and looking down at Gaage where he sat. Perhaps she should have been smiling gratefully for his promise, but plenty of promises had been made to her before and all of them had been broken. That was how she got here. Why she was the way she was.

"For your sake, I truly hope you will not ever look back on this day or decision with regret. I would hate to become part of that list."

Her figure flickered in the breeze on the hill like a candle flame, nearly dispersing entirely for several moments before reforming as a fainter haze, "I must rest now. Tomorrow I leave for a new mission. I will inform Gilram you will be joining me."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gaage wasn't expecting a thank you. There was nothing to suggest his words weren't empty to somebody so used to being lied to. That was fine, he preferred to show his work anyways. Eberwhit looked up at her as she stood, shrugging his shoulders at her approximation of their kind. "Maybe, but I've seen a lot of us do good things for each other, even the assholes. We're all capable of it."

Her desire not to be a regret, though, that got a laugh from him. He leaned back, falling onto the grass of the hill and yawning. Chasmine continued on, deciding she'd be taking him along for work tomorrow, and Gaage peeked up at her with that smug-ass grin he'd lost for a moment.

"I got too many regrets, Chas. I wouldn't be tagging along with your transparent ass if I thought it was a bad call. I ain't a masochist." He laid his head back on the grass, watching the sky as it turned sunset-orange overhead. "At least not an intentional one."

 

[Chasmine]

The amusement, smugness, whatever it happened to be, was taken with a world-weary face. There were certainly good moments to speak of. Instances in her life at the Academy where someone had stuck their neck out for her, but they drowned in comparison to the vast majority of every other negative thing she'd lived through. Now, with plenty of clear-minded days spent alone for time to reflect, Chasmine had come to see that those few good things had mostly been farce. Benevolent deeds acted out with ulterior motives.

Even now she did not believe Gaage truly wanted to help for any reason other than the fact that he could not decide what to do with his own situation. Tending to another's problem was an easy way out of having to make an immediate appointment with destiny, but in the end she supposed it didn't matter. Chas was already expecting him to abandon his word - but that was on her broken faith in others, not on him.

"I will find you tomorrow morning. Good night, Gaage."

With that, the geist simply dissipated into thin air. Her report back to Gilram made for an interesting conversation, at the very least.

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gaage had trouble sleeping that night, but not for the usual reasons. For what felt like months he'd been haunted by thoughts of what he wasn't doing. What he could have done. Yeah, it was all bullshit, but it wasn't the kind of thing you could force yourself not to think about.

Now, though, now he had something else to think about. Something else to focus all that pent up energy and aggression on. Granted, tryna bail-out ghost girl wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind, but hell, why shouldn't he? She was just like all the rest of them, all her choices had been made for her. As far as Gaage was concerned, they were on the same side no matter who they worked for.

He was excited, for the first time in way too long, and after a brief nap, was up and ready to go in the early hours of the morning. Taking a quick visit to the food stores, he'd 'borrowed' a particularly old side of beef and had it hung up on a tree not far from the base of the hill he'd spoken with Chasmine on yesterday.

It was here she'd find him, extending his hands towards the slab of meat, gritting his teeth as he twisted and malformed the chunk of beef, working all the bones out and piling them on the ground underneath one by one.

It'd been so long since he'd really put in any effort that he hadn't, you know, used his magic for a while.

 

[Chasmine]

"Does this help to tenderize the meat?" Chasmine's airy voice sounded quite suddenly from beside him where the ghost materialized within thin air beneath the shade afforded her from the tree. Her appearance was completely unchanged, such was the limitations of her state of non-living, and so she looked only as lively as she had the day before.

Which, given the circumstances, probably did not look very lively at all.

"I'm afraid we will not be expecting much in the way of physical dangers on this mission," she hazily eyed the hank of mangled meat, "but I will require your hands."

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Alright, this time she'd gotten him, but only because he'd been so focused.

Gaage nearly jumped out of his boots at the sudden sound of her voice stumbling forwards towards the carcass and catching himself with a gloved palm to the wet pared flesh. "Sheeeez!" He exhaled, holding his chest and turning around to face the ghostly visage he'd spoken at length with the night before. "Alright, you gotta give me a little more warning if I'm busy with something, Chas."

Collecting himself and wiping the blood from the meat off of his palm on the side of his pants, Gaage steps closer to the phantom woman, kicking over the pile of bones as he does so. "I was just practicing. I haven't actually used my magic in a while, and I wanted to sharpen up a bit, just in case." It sounded like it had been for nothing, given the apparent lack of physicality on their upcoming mission, but her vague request raised an eyebrow.

"Could you possibly phrase that to sound slightly less threatening and ominous for me?"

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine stared after his reaction, unmoved and unamused by something most others would see humor in. Her delicate hands gently folded at her back, faintly visible through her ghostly figure, as she observed the hanging meat and once-Initiate. It was good he was at least showing some interest in continuing to better himself. Even Gilram had noticed the exceptional lack of motivation in the young man, which Chasmine took as a reason to give Gaage a purpose.

And given the fact that the only reason he'd come out here to begin with was a girl, well, perhaps it wouldn't be terribly hard to find that purpose after all.

"No," the laconic reply came through pale, parted lips beneath risen brows, "I have asked Gendry to ready a horse for you, our destination is about an hour north into the Falwood. You should be going."