• Mature • [The Hollow Sea] Sailing on Ice and Shadow (Maxine)

[Kasoria]

He knew it was cold. He could feel it. Not just on his skin. In his bones. In his lungs. His joints. It wasn't just a chill or a briskness that made a man bundle up tighter. It was aggressive; it was bitter. It came with such force and depth that you felt beaten down by it, your breath stolen, limbs made numb and leaden. And it lasts. Fates, but it had lasted. Trial after tentrial after season, since they'd voyaged past Andaris and up into the frozen north of Idalos, where none of them had been before. Not even their most traveled and storied member.

All that was bad enough. The complete darkness plunged it all into a new level of abysmal.

Careful with that word. You'll wake the beasties.

A smile tugged at his lips. He could hear the ice frosted onto his beard crackle. The crew of the vessel they'd charted in Viden were all Scalvoris scallies, happy to be headed home. They'd told them about the monsters of the last depths, leviathans and behemoths that were large as castles, could swallow cities. But they slept up in the north, buried under unfathomable tons of ice and snow and water so cold drinking it alone could kill a man. But be too loud make too much ruckus, and one vast eye might open, curious as to the din... and decide to find out what it had been missing out on.

Kasoria thought it most likely it was a clever way to get the kids to shut up at night, but still... he'd seen stranger things.

He breathed in, slow and deep, so long it took the best part of a bit to fill his lungs. Three entities danced through his limbs. The meditation brought them into sharper relief. The more his mind parted from his body, the clearer they became. Not personalities as a human would possess them. More like the varying traits of animals. The eldest, suspicious and careful, always throbbing, waiting for use. The middle sibling, eager and jabbering, pacing restlessly, feeding him whispers of oak and pine and spruce and iron and all the Dolphin's Horn was made of. The third, youngest, loudest, quickest, crackling across his fingers and the bare skin f his torso, eager to be let loose.

Which he'd partially indulged. He was floating two feet off the deck, after all.

He exhaled. Breath steaming like a dragon. Gust of icy wind whipping against his bare flesh and making it tighten... but not shiver. Even as he drifted from his mind, he controlled his body. He was too old, too canny, and had fucked up too often to leave that gate open. He bit down on the urge mentally, and focused on his breathing. Always his breathing. Until the push and pull of his lungs were all that existed. Just a blank soul in the darkness, with some organs attached... and three Sparks running up and down the skeleton.

He came up here every trial, after all checks and reports were complete, and pushed himself just a little further each time. Utilizing one of his Sparks to do... something. With Transmutation it was blindly disassembling and remaking some item, bathing wood or iron over and over from oar to comb or pick to sword. Abrogation was a somewhat cousin to Sovereign, and he used it to raise himself up, or bolster shield after shield until the snow couldn't pierce the layers and even the cold was dimmed.

Sovereign, though... that was an easy one.

There was noise from the cabin. Someone coming to deck. Not one of The Band. The last he'd heard from them, it had been Vaul, grumbling under layers of shirts and cloaks and blankets, words shuddering out from blue lips.

"Daffy bastard."

Kasoria had smiled at that. He didn't need to cock his head a little as the new arrival joined him. His ears were sharp enough, and practiced.

He listened to the stride, the gait. The crunch of boots on wood. You could learn much about someone, if you knew what to listen for. At this one, the weight alone told him it wasn't Mikiros. The speed, not Raand. Belial, perhaps? With his hunter's tread... but no. Of course not. There was no disparate, unmistakable clunk of a wooden leg, no matter how much his actual pace was unaffected by his loss.

Besides... this wasn't a human hunter the steps brought to mind. It was that of a panther, light of tread and poised in every footfall. Kasoria smiled as the unseen figure stopped a few feet from him, and gave her caustic opinion of his little ritual.

He'd missed the fucking girl. Even now, seasons after Yaralon, after the Dock, that mad rush and bloody day, he felt... relieved.

Good to be back.

[Max]

Void.

That's what she felt right now. Even against the cold and the wind, she felt dark and bitter and nothing at all. She steeped in the abyss from the discomfort of the crow's nest of the ship. Up here the elements were especially brisk and brutal. Part of her was seeking that, to feel anything from the outside while she was numbed within. She was away from strange eyes this high up with the clouds hanging and sky dark. Hood pulled tight against the wind, Maxine wore no face other than her own.

Since they landed in Viden there was an agreement made amongst The Band and the delegates. No Maxine traveled in their rank anymore. There was an Ophelia. She was horribly plain with a face like a thousand others one passed in a trial. There was no shine to her hair or singular feature that stood out on her bland visage. The homely disguise she wore was thanks to the strange gem she was gifted, which changed her appearance entirely so long as she held or wore it. Ophelia was a woman of no name, history, or consequence. Completely contrary to Maxine, a controversial figure with a very wanted status in Scalvoris last she knew.

Ophelia was safe.

Maxine was dangerous to everything and everyone around her.

Most of all, as the Rusalka knew, Maxine had a past that demanded consequences. The closer the ship sailed toward the island, the heavier the darkness that settled over her. The sins she had been running so very far away from were about to be laid right in her face. People best forgotten were about to be very real and their presence very felt, try as she might to avoid every essence of them. Her track record was jam-packed with stupidity. Somehow, this might've been one of the dumbest things she had ever done.

She belonged in Yaralon. Chrien had given her a mission. Vielkrontier had emboldened her to complete it, although she suspected that his favor did not hinge on that small city. Her plan had been to abandon this party up until the moment Kasoria's arrival forced her onto the departing ship. It was that or the slaughter by the swords that had been in pursuit of him. Good was deep below deck still guarding the precious gift the dragon had granted her along with the dragonet. The egg she hid well. Malice, on the other hand, had proven to be unwilling to do anything other than force friendship upon the crew. Miki seemed to enjoy him especially.

Maxine looked away from the horizon and down toward the deck. He was still there, probably freezing, but meditating from where he floated above the lower deck all the same. Kasoria was what kept her here. Kept her alive, probably, but kept her doing anything with purpose or anything that might even be sometimes misconstrued for "good." For so long, when she was much younger, she spent endless trials trying to please him and impress him. All she craved was his praise and approval. Max was starting to believe he truly was grasping what she was now, a wretch so very far from the path he or anyone else had paved for her. Still, it was impossible not to consider the island would change things. Like a child she had the inkling toward finding a way to hide it from him. Some things just couldn't be hidden...and maybe they shouldn't.

She sighed and buried where her racing thoughts were leading. Max was no expect in even her own psyche or emotions, but she suspected this inner void was not one to last. When they got closer and all prospects of escape were slammed shut, she expected what laid latched shut inside would violently come to the surface. For now she would revel in this calm before the storm.

"Scalvoris," Maxine said softly. She needn't yell even over this howl. She knew his keen ears would hear even at his age. "Ever been?" She smirked. "I think you're going to hate it."

[Kasoria]

"Scalvoris."

Kasoria smiled as he thought he heard the undertone in her voice. Maxine no longer held the wonder or romanticism of that city anymore; was was too old and wary, intimate with the true, cruel nature of the world. Many a young one her age spoke that word and a ribbon of fantastical tales and archaic legends and thousand-fold exaggerated barroom tales came to mind. It was a place of pirates and mages, renegades and outcasts, simple sailors and fishermen and inventors and scholars and politically-minded kingmakers.

He wondered if Martyn had heard the tales, and believed them. Often he did such, when Maxine entered his mind. The comparison was as innate now as it was unfair.

"Ever been?"

Kasoria shook his head as he simply extended his legs through the empty air under him, going from cross-legged meditation to standing. His feet almost touched the decks, and a moment later he recalled his Sovereign to close that tiny gap. He hissed as the freezing wood nigh-burned his soles with its frigidity. Hell's Fuck, how did this tub not shatter into ice shards under every strong wind, with cold such as this seeping into every plank and beam?

"Could a', long time ago. Dint go dat way."

"I think you're going to hate it."

This time the old man laughed, pulling his cloak back over his head and tight over the rest of him. Meditation was over, after all. The cold tested him, focused him. It didn't mean he enjoyed perpetually having his cock frozen up into his pelvis. He stepped beside the girl - woman - and looked into what passed for the horizon. The whole world was stars. Above and below. No cloud this far out, no suns, no moon. Just the endless carpet of blinking diamonds... and it was only where blinking became shimmering, that Kasoria could tell the sky became the sea.

Twenty-two more trials of this. You'd think I'd be used to it by now.

"Yer faith in me welcomin' nature warms my soul," he said, studying the stars as he spoke. "An' yeh might be right. Yeh know be better'n most. But I heard the place got summin' fer ev'ree'one. So, we'll see..."

He left the rest of the sentence unspoken: "when we ain't doing our job". That hadn't stopped since Yaralon, and wouldn't stop until they went through the Eastern Gate of Etzos. The delegation had been two Amaris and Viden since Yaralon, spending the most time in the latter. Kasoria didn't follow too intently what was being traded: mostly furs, timber, and some new trade routes, along with the usual discussion of migrants coming to Etzos. The Band and he had done what they were hired for: watched, observed, looked menacing, and kept guard.

Nothing more. Kasoria had learned the lesson of Yaralon and Rharne. No more machinations from merchant princes, no more doing favors for spies and schemers. Manclin had been told as much, and the ambassador had wisely agreed. Not because he was cowed, but because he could see the problems interference would lead to. Had already led to, in fact. With such gory evidence presented, he thought it best to stick to the "bare bones".

Kasoria smiled a little wider to himself. Not the same man he'd met in Foster's Landing. Harder. Shrewder. Less of the jolly highborn, perhaps, but that had been tempered with a better understanding of just how tricky the world could be outside of his towers and tomes.

We all changed. Some a little, some a lot. And you stuck around to see it, for once. For the better.

"I know yeh got history there. Probably been thinkin' on what yeh could do when yeh get back. Made any decisions?"

The pause was long enough for Kasoria to look at her. His tone was... different, and even he knew it. So much had changed, since Rharne, Korlasir, then Yaralon. Every new city had some challenge and disaster to be beaten back. Most of it wasn't even to do with the delegation, a crowning irony that was not lost on him. But Yaralon most of all... it burned in him. Not just the fact they'd been had by some Lisirra-praising cunt. Not just that he'd lost control and nearly got them all black-marked by the Burho Beneath.

She'd tried to warn him. Begged him, and Maxine did not beg. He'd ignored her. Stayed on his pigheaded path, convinced he could walk it no matter what. That had lasted as long as it took for him to learn what Zemos truly was. And then...

"Spent arcs tryna' tell yeh what t'think, what's right an' wrong," he said, voice low and strong as she remembered, but edged with regret. He looked away again, starlight dancing briefly in his black eyes. "I never asked what yeh wanted fer yerself."

He sighed. There was a lifetime of poor choices and roads not taken in the simple exhalation. Made all the worse when that knowledge comes when you have more arcs behind than ahead.

[Max]

His laugh was almost enough to start to tug her out of the bleakness. It was as welcomed as it was rare to hear. Max peered down from her crows nest perch as he ascended beside her. A gust of wind threatened to toss her hood over her head.

His mirth had almost made her smile. His lamentation over her intimate knowledge of the island they sailed toward made any hope of one vanish. She nodded solemnly in response.

Oh, yes. Something for everyone. I’m sure it has…something…in mind if it discovers me.

There was a time she had run amuck of the island, before things had gotten so unbearably ugly. When she first arrived she had tried to carve a new life for herself. Really, she had tried. Max had learned how to survive alone in a new land with new people. She’d moved into the first place she could call her own. She also learned too many times, and the hard way, that a stool made a formidable weapon in a tavern brawl. At the end, before it all really came crashing down, she opened her very own business.

Scalvoris was a bastion of many of her “firsts.” For better or for worse. The darkness often suffocated the light, but that didn’t mean she had forgotten it. She could still vaguely remember that early feeling she had when her boots hit the sand of its shores: hope. If only she could find it again.

But, there was no hope to be had here. Not for Maxine. Ophelia wasn’t starved for it either. She was but a plain pawn dedicated to the Etzori Delegation detail. Ophelia was a blank page with no past and no future. Most importantly, Ophelia was merely passing through. Maxine would wear her skin again when she convinced herself to quit freezing and return to the broader company of the ship.

"I know yeh got history there. Probably been thinkin' on what yeh could do when yeh get back. Made any decisions?"

Maxine propped her forearms on the railing and leaned into it. Her eyes hardened on the horizon. She glanced toward him and shrugged, quickly returning her gaze to what laid ahead. The sigh that slipped from her lips was a puff of icy vapor.

Strange. The weather being so miserable but the views so…pretty.

She always loved being on the water. She loved the rock of the ship, the feeling of wind filling the sails, and the smell the salty air long after some started to get sick of it. The night was even better. The glisten of moonlight and starlight on the water was as eerie as it was beautiful. That dark horizon was like a shield, hiding from her what she feared looked just out of view.

"Spent arcs tryna' tell yeh what t'think, what's right an' wrong. I never asked what yeh wanted fer yerself."

"Y’know," the Rusalka started to observe distantly. "I couldn’t tell you the last time I did either. No one had asked me that until just a little while ago."

Vielkrontier, the great dragon, had posed that very question to her that perilous trial she tracked him down in Maiden’s Refuge. Her life had hung in the balance over her answer. He accepted the answer she gave for it had been the most honest one she could give. Vielkrontier had asked her what she sought.

"Freedom, the only way I know. I want to be strong enough that no mage, no immortal, can force their will upon me. No more chains. No more fear or helplessness. If I can only be free through power and blood, I want it.”

Her jaw tightened and she shook her head. A long, pregnant pause had fallen between them. She dug her thumbnail into the wood, picking at it.

"I think I know," Max said cautiously. "The price is high. Maybe too high. I don’t know if I can pay it."

An unintentional lie, she knew as soon as the words rolled off her tongue. The price was not a monetary one rooted in her ability to wield economics. It was one paid by the soul. Her rap sheet was a literal scroll when she was committed to Slags Deep, and that was a long time ago. Now, it would keep rolling out the door and down the stairs, edges soaked in blood.

"I don’t think I’ll know until…I know. You know?"

Max pulled her cloak in tighter against her skin as another bluster struck them. She knew how she sounded. She also feel certain Kasoria understood, in a way, even if he could never truly know.

"What I do know is this island is just about as superstitious as the lot of you. Choking on Immortals and their ilk though. Think you can lock it up this go?”

Maxine shot him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

"It’ll be impossible to be Ophelia if you repeat history and force me to be…Max."

The business with the Lisirra worshipper in Yaralon couldn’t happen here. Mostly because she feared he’d choose a category more elevated, like a mortal born of some sort of status, to ether-rage on. There were plenty of those to be found and it would sow political suicide for the delegation.

"Either way, best you do the talking to keep me from temptation."

[Kasoria]

There were, if had had to put a number to it, three people alive who were as close to him as Maxine had become. Two of them were on the boat with him. The other wanted nothing to do with him. It was a telling ratio, and an even more revealing number. One he'd guess wasn't much higher for her. They'd both come from or been enmeshed in worlds were trust simply wasn't a thing, an option, a virtue. Everyone could and would betray.

You told her as much. After setting those rats on her. Knew she'd survive, and win, but you knew it would hurt her.

Kind of the point.

"I think I know. The price is high. Maybe too high. I don’t know if I can pay it."

Kasoria turned to look at her. Seeing the way her eyes unfocused just a touch. Looking back into the past as clear and easy as if she were in the Emea. He grunted, soft enough it was almost a sigh, edged in gravel. It wasn't coin, she was talking about. Few people with a working brain talked about a "price too high" and referred to gold or silver or gems. There were more precious things... and worse concessions. He knew all about that. Making the deal, speaking the oath, taking the chance, and where had it left him? Bound to a gangster for most of his son's life. Trapped in a life where every remotely good thing he could have been and done was replaced with The Raggedy Man.

He gazed deeply at her, black eyes an obsidian sparkly under his hood. There was much she had told him. So much more she had not, and likely never would. But now she was home, and Kasoria knew one thing: what you didn't know, could kill you.

"I don’t think I’ll know until… I know. You know?"

Another sharp bark of a laugh. "Well, dun' get more fuckin' simple n' that, does it?" He laughed again and hoped she joined him. By the time he stopped, he was nodding, all the same. "Which ain't t'say y'ain't right..."

Another silence. One of those pregnant ones where you can hear the other person looking for words. He'd done it with Martyn, too. Tried to pass it off as enjoying the quiet, but secretly tearing through his mind to say something, anything so that moment of clarity wouldn't be lost. Which, of course, was when one usually blurted out some shite that sounded wise but a half-bit musing on could tell you was bloody stupid.

So stop trying. You're not her dad, she ain't your daughter.

She wasn't waiting for him, though. Probably thinking the same thing. In fact, the conversation turned to him, and it was enough to put a scowl back on his face (not like one was ever far, to be fair). That fucking necro... no, he couldn't play that game anymore. All his preaching of being smart, being patient, being ice instead of fire, and he'd blown like a volcano and horse-fucked them both. Acting like some berzerk from a band of renegades wouldn't help anyone against the Morties and their slaves. Not him, his charges, Maxine, or Etzos. This was what he needed to be: a protector, not an avenger.

"Suffice t'say, learned me lesson," he growled, fishing around for his pipe and baccy. If only to thaw out the ice cave his lungs seemed to feel like. "Clustered fuck from beginnin' to end..."

He didn't need to hash over old wounds and recent mistakes, even if they weren't so recent. The voyage from Yaralon had been long enough to tell her about the deal he'd cut with the Burned Emperor, the favor in Sutton he'd done to keep the flow of stone and gems coming. He'd not told her about the real fate of those kids in the mine, though. Part of him wanted to, for reasons he didn't want to examine too closely, but he knew the First Blades needed his silence. It was the best hope those children had, the world believing them dead.

"Aye, well summin' tells me if youse're takin' center stage, yeh'll give yerself up sharpish, anyway." Kasoria gave another chuckle. "Yeh've a way about yeh, girl, an' the world's fulla' magic. Fugitive usin' a wee bit t'change her face? Wouldn't shock some people. Some might even look fer it..."

He sucked on the pipe after he lit it, letting the smoke trail away into a sky so dark and deep it could be a foot above his head or a million miles away. Once the grey spirals were gone, it could have been either. It was that pitch, that impenetrable, absolute in a way one would assume only poets could imagine. Kasoria caught himself wondering, maybe that's what awaited him. Maybe that was what his Crossing would hold, after the boat ride and the judgement. Nothing but oblivion, without form or end, until his being shriveled into unmoving, unchanging, uncaring-

Fuck me, you're getting maungy in your old age.

"Whatever youse decide..."

His words trailed off. He'd sounded so confident before. Shoved so much crap in her head and in her ears that he never stopped to question if it was what she needed to hear. She wasn't Martyn; he'd learned that the hard. She was her own woman now, and had been for a long time. The mistakes she'd made... they were hers. He couldn't save her from them, and he didn't need to mold her like some new recruit or problem child. So what else was there? What was left, that could be said and be of use?

"... we're here." He waited for her to look at him and gave a shrug, gesture coming with a wry smile. "Me an' the lads. If yeh need us. For the rest, well..." He took a good long pull and blew out twin jets that seemed to melt the freezing air in front of his face. "Yeh'll know, when yeh know... apparently."

[Max]

There it was again: his laugh. She let the sound fill her ears and dispel some of the weight in her mind. Only he could bring light to a conversation as heavy as the undertones of this one. Only he could offer this smidge of relief even if it didn’t last.

It was just as important that he could offer her some confirmation, other than their melodramatic and violent courtyard spat, that he had made a mistake in Yaralon not to be repeated again here. The cost had been great. Revisiting it would bring calamity. As much as she seemed to herald calamity, it wasn’t exactly her intention. Maxine had no plans to shed the skin of Ophelia.

The best thing I could be is just about anything other than myself.

Kasoria had dug around until he held his pipe in his hand. She watched as he packed it with fresh tobacco and lit it, his face illuminating while he protected the spark from the wind. He puffed a scent into the frigid air that smelled like childhood. She smiled to herself. It was the smell of the hovel after a long trial of work, after the stew bowls were empty and their limbs were settling into their soreness.

Strange, how a smell she associated with a killer instantly brought the child in her a sense of safety.

"Aye, well summin' tells me if youse're takin' center stage, yeh'll give yerself up sharpish, anyway."

Maxine let out a stark laugh at that truth. She had the capacity to be very subtle. Kasoria’s harsh and disciplined training for those couple arcs ensured that. It wasn’t often showcased though. She didn’t have the right personality to maintain it, and she knew it.

"Yeh've a way about yeh, girl, an' the world's fulla' magic. Fugitive usin' a wee bit t'change her face? Wouldn't shock some people. Some might even look fer it..."

"Yeah," Max conceded. "Yeah, I know. No big appearances. No market runs. Home security it is."

Kasoria had dug around until he held his pipe in his hand. She watched as he packed it with fresh tobacco and lit it, his face illuminating while he protected the spark from the wind. He puffed a scent into the frigid air that smelled like childhood. She smiled to herself. It was the smell of the hovel after a long trial of work, after the stew bowls were empty and their limbs were settling into their soreness.

Strange, how a smell she associated with a killer instantly brought the child in her a sense of safety.

"Whatever youse decide...we're here. Me an' the lads. If yeh need us. For the rest, well...yeh'll know, when yeh know...apparently."

Maxine stared at him while he continued to puff on his beloved pipe. She drank in his words in silence. Her hand gently reached out to find his arm. She gave it a small squeeze and tried to hold his gaze.

"Thank you…" For once she left it at that. No argument, no skepticism. "Just…thank you. For all of it."

She released her grip on the man who would never let her call him father. Because he wasn’t. He never would be…but he was the closest thing to one she’d ever known. He was the only family she ever had. Morality of how he came to take her in and what he taught her to become aside, Kasoria gifted her with a handful of traits and skill that kept her alive. Even to-trial, without him and his stubborn persistence, she’d more than likely be rotting in a stinking Etzori drug den.

Maxine owed Kasoria more than she would ever be able to return.

"Now what of you?" the Rusalka watched the black waves roll under the ship. "This babysitting gig is bound to end. What’s next for Kasoria? What do you want?"

[Kasoria]

For all of it.

Kasoria gave one of those smiles that only she seemed to see. Not one of hungry malice or restless excitement or bleak humor. It crinkled his eyes more than they did. Tugged up at his lips until she almost saw a flash of teeth. It was a smile that spoke to a feeling coming straight from the soul. Commanding more than just an empty movement of the mouth. What a smile should be. Yet for him, the Old Man, there was always an edge t it. Even in these genuine moments of mirth, there was bleakness, and sorrow.

"All of it, aye? Hey. Yeh've a forgivin' nature in yeh after all..."

All of it? All the way back? To when he heard the scrape of boots on cobbles and knew a ragged little rat was tailing him? When he'd battered what he knew into her, from bladework to street-watching to stitching, while the rest of her friends were collecting trash and apprenticing? All of it... that went far back for them. Back to the Orphanage to her, and that tight, bare house he called home. Nights when he'd almost been a human being, an inkling stirring of what he could have been if he hadn't let rage and grief damn him years before. A father with a daughter, when he couldn't be with his son. Yet she became more than a substitute. So when she ran, and he was alone again...

Then she came back. And you fucked it up again. And yet...

He felt a pressure on his arm. He didn't stiffen. Not for a moment. Decades of instinct to physical contact slumbering when it was her. Just felt it and blinked for a touch longer than usual. It wasn't forgiveness. She wasn't one to offer, and he wasn't sure he believed in the shite anyway. It was... understanding. Which was a start.

All of it. What was. What is. What will be.

"Yer makin' me fuckin' maudlin, girl. Y'know old folks're weak t'that inna' first place."

True to form, she didn't wallow much longer. Her thoughts were on the future, as one young in years should be. Kasoria huffed out smoke and steam and blinked a few times, like he was trying to see through a fog bank. They still had a good arc of this "babysitting" ahead, if he guessed correctly. More like two. Scalvoris was the edge of the world, literally. They couldn't just keep sailing east and eventually hit the Western Continent, like the world was some sort of apple. They had to turn around, go back around the coast, probably southward, through other lands, maybe even the Southern Isles...

Two arcs. Maybe a few seasons more. Than you'll be home again... in your fifties.

Fates, but didn't that just make his bones ache?

"While back... woulda' said it'd be wiv' Martyn," he said, taking his time, thinking of his reply. Perhaps Maxine would be more struck by the fact it was the first time he'd mentioned is son in seasons. "Like it was before, y'ken? Back to Westguard, workin' fer cunts that hated me, stayin' useful. I'll go back, anyway. Prob'lee sell the cottage, tie up loose ends... but nah. That plan..." he shook his head, grimace showing his inward disapproval "doomed f'fail. He ain't like me. Got him own path, in... inna' light. Gotta let him walk it..."

The old man hesitated. Looking out into the darkness as if he could ascertain or interpret the shimmers and flashes of things not seen and hinted at in the eternity. Gaze so focused it was like he turned his whole mind to a new history yet unlived. It had to be girded so; it required him to leave so much behind. The last person in the world he loved, beyond the rough camaraderie of those scarred bastards below deck and the passion for his home he knew could never be reciprocated. He'd faced it before. His final farewell to Martyn. Knowing the boy would hate him even more now, carry that in him for arcs, until he either let it drain from his soul or it diluted into regret.

But he couldn't be there. He'd only be in the way. So, what did that leave?

"I'll head back to the Big Rock," he said eventually, and there was a noticeable change in his tone. Iron was in there now. None of the softness and reflection of before. This was the Kasoria she'd first met. All business, taciturn and efficient. His gaze hardened, too. Now he saw not his boy growing without him, but a city denied his aid. The former was something that was necessary; the latter he could not abide. Too much had been lost and sacrificed for her survival. "She's weak, is the old smoky bitch. A'fore we left, heard tell of trouble. Relics from Lisirra, from Sintra, from before... no matter how tough y'are, when yer wounded, when blood gets in the air, jackals come sniffin'."

Kasoria spat over the side and smoke drooled from his mouth with every following word.

"So I need t'be there. Make sure the cunts're skinned an' staked onna' gates so the next ones know what happens when they have a crack. An' that... that'll take a long time. Maybe all the time I I'ave left." He shrugged. That Etzori fatalism she'd become used to exuding from the gesture. "Shoulda' died arcs ago. Been dead before. Ain't nothin' f'fear. An'... an' I owe it. So that's what I'll do."

There was no noise but the wind. Creaking wood. The occasional muted splash of something sightless coming to the surface for scraps. Kasoria sniffed and the scent of something once dry being lit assailed his nose. Ah... time for breakfast, apparently. They were heating the pot. One trial closer to Scalvoris. One closer to home. He tipped back his head a little, gazing up at the stars. That was the one benefit to Cylus, especially out at sea. There was no way to miss them anymore. And they shone so brightly.

"Stay 'ere a while longer." He said, resting his elbows on the railing. Managing one of those rare smiles again, as future and past went away and the twinkling present was there to be enjoyed. It was all moments, after all. If you didn't take some relief in them, there was naught but toil. "Watch the stars with an' old man."

[Max]

Maxine scoffed but smiled nonetheless. Leave it to him to try to ruin the rare moment of softness by poking at her nature. Forgiving was likely the last adjective she’d assign herself. She was hopelessly vindictive and they both knew it. Once in a while, for one another, there were moments of grace.

She saw his mind vanish somewhere else. There was no need to inquire. For the briefest moment, she went to the same place. Arcs ago, lifetimes ago, back to a time both wrought with strife and still somehow simpler. Back when a girl and her mentor sat at a table quietly at the end of a long trial, so comfortably so a stranger could’ve peeked in and mistaken them for something like family.

But it would still be a mistake.

Kasoria was always so quick to correct any other sentiment.

Max listened in silence while the Old Man let his mind wander to the future. She raised a brow at mention of Martyn but said nothing. She let him work the thoughts out. She frowned at the idea of the cottage being sold off like another tether of what was gone in the wind. The Rusalka let no protest be known. She gave him his time until he found his answer along the way.

"Back to your roots then,” Max observed with a nod. "Back to shadows, killing Morties, and cheating death until your luck runs out.”

This was what he was. This is what he had always been so long as she knew him. Yet, somehow, the answer granted a new layer of melancholy. She looked out upon the dark ocean and failed to understand why.

Kasoria spoke again, this time bidding her to stay. She turned her head to look at him and smiled. This time it reached her eyes.

"I’ve no other plans,” she teased him. "Or maybe we’ve both just gone soft tonight.” Her eyes, gentle and light, peered toward the beauty of the shining shiny against the pitch black blanket of Cylus. "We aren’t far now. I want to be myself in my own skin for just a little while longer. Until I can’t anymore.”

That was the truth of it. The moment she climbed down from this crows nest, Maxine had to return to exile and Ophelia was at the helm. Her raven hair would be traded for the bland straw of her disguise. Her scarred face would clear and the tattoos on her skin would fade to oblivion. When the ship landed in the harbor her sense of self had to be abandoned for however long the delegation had business here.

"What of the men when this is done?” Max looked down at the empty deck. Only one or two sailors meandered it’s surface. The smell of food and the threat of morning would wake the Etzori men in no time. "You’ll take them with you, won’t you?”

[Kasoria]

Kasoria smiled gently at her summation of his coming arcs. She was right, in a way. The result would be the same, he supposed, and a few arcs ago, the motive would have fit the words perfectly. But now, after his failures an fuck ups and unwilling introspection, there was another dimension to them. Something new in the flavor, but old in the roots. Mayhap he just... never knew how to word it before. Maybe his all-devouring hate for them, for their slaves, for himself, had blinded whatever shred of good there was in him.

"To protect," he said simply, finding some amusement in her wordless reaction. "Killin's jus' part a' that. Has t'be. Some folks jus' dun' get the message 'less yeh take their heads off first. But alla' blood an' pain an' fear... s'not fer itself. F'it was, what'd I be? Nothin'. Not even un'animal."

He sighed. But that's what he'd been, for a while. Once Vorund was dead and coin was no longer his sole regard, it had been for revenge. Like The Band, in their own unique ways. But that was the problem with revenge: once you had it, or the target of it was gone, you had nothing after. So you had to think beyond it.

"Ain't about killin' Morties anymore. S'about keepin' Etzos free. Them's ain't the samr thing. An'... s'gonna be a right cunt workin' out how best t'do da. I'mma little old a dog t'be learnin' new tricks."

The old man took a deep inhale and seemed to swell with the gesture. The smile stayed in place. Inscrutable black eyes became pools of reflection, just for Maxine to see. Looking past shadows and gutters and schemes to a city rebuilt and prospering, churning out goods for the world to buy, taking in food and wealth and people. Towns and villages rebuilt, fields resown, the scars of war and famine and plague swept away... and no mark of the Immortals to mar them. His home, the land of his father and his mother and son, strong and free again.

Worth a life. What's left of one, anyway.

"Killin' fer the past ain't no way t'see the future," he said quietly, shaking his head at the cryptic words. Fates, what was he turning into in his dotage? "Gotta plan beyond it. Gotta see more. S'what I'm tryna' do."

The melancholy between them lasted when she mentioned her own plans, or lack of them. Not only that, but having to subsume herself once they arrived in Scalvoris. Kasoria knew it was a necessity: her face was too infamous, her crimes so grand that it was carved into posters and walls and minds. They couldn't rely on time to dim memories. All it took was one keen mind with a head for faces and they'd be done. They could claim she was protected by her association with them, that while in Etzori service she was immune from prosecution, but Kasoria did not want to test the legality of that. Manclin would hardly be inclined to go for it, either, if protecting one single fugitive could wreck relations with one of the greatest maritime powers in the world.

The Band would have... differing opinions, he was sure. Vaul would stand aside. Probably Belial. Raand would be upset. Miki, well...

He'd need talking to. Likely all of us at once.

"We'll still know," he reassured her, shrugging at the simplicity of the statement. "The face'll change, an' the name. But we'll know our Max, an' it ain't ferever."

She mentioned "the men", and it wasn't hard to guess who she meant. The Band. His little quartet of bastards and brutes. He snorted at the idea of "taking them", as if they were just weapons or dried rations he could snatch up and stuff into his ruck. Funny thing was, in the times he'd thought of his future, they had been there. Surprising as it was, for a man like him, so used to operating alone, preferring it, in fact. But since leaving Etzos... no, since Rhakros, he'd learned the advantage of numbers. Not just hiding behind chaff, either, but operating with dangerous sods just like you. It made things a lot easier... and opened the doors to tasks you'd never considered before.

"I ain't forcin' them inta' nothin'," he said firmly, as if it were a reminder to himself as an answer to her. "They got paid fer the job wi' the delegation. Once we get back home, contract's sorted, they're free t'go. They wanna, they will, 'less I make 'em another offer. An' what I plan... dunno how much coin there'll be down that road."

It occurred to Kasoria, fleetingly, that The Band with stick by him for loyalty alone. Because he was their High Mark, if not quite their friend, and he'd steered them through fire and blood before. But... no, no he'd failed them in Yaralon. That stupid burning for vengeance had nearly incinerated them all. They weren't stupid, they knew that. He couldn't imagine them trusting him so blindly again.

"Like I said: yeh gotta pick yer path. I cannae pick it for yeh. Same goes fer them. If dey cross again some time down the arcs, well... Fates were kind. F'not..."

He shrugged. Didn't suit to ponder the future too deeply, he thought. You planned for the worst as far as you could be certain, but beyond that? You had to trust the path you'd chosen. And learn from the past, to make sure you were capable of choosing the best.

He straightened up and shook his head, clearing them of all these soft, brooding thoughts. The "trial" was about to start, darkness or not, and slowly the ship was waking. He squeezed her shoulder and tapped out his pipe on the railing, sparking, hissing ashes rolling and heaving like flying fire until the dark waters ate them.

"C'mon, lads'll be up soon. Fact I'm-"

Something low and rumbling issued forth from under the deck. Even they heard it. Kasoria shot Maxine a quick look and at once, his manner changed. Like ice dumped on his head, all his senses shot to overdrive, Sparks awakened, hand sliding closer to-

"Miki you dirty fucking bastard!"

Kasoria's eyebrows slowly traveled up his brow, and just as they heard that familiar, bass, sawing laughter, he sighed.

[Kasoria]

Rewards Requested

Notes/Warnings: Just a chat between Ol' Kas and his Protege. Chill (literally) and groovy, hope you like! No Skills used by Maxine, just XP for us both, por favor and gracias!

Thread: [The Hollow Sea] Sailing on Ice and Shadow (Maxine)
City/Area: Surrounding Waters & Landmarks

Collaboration: Yes

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	Done!