Oooooh, someone's in trou-ble...
Kasoria rested his head back on the stone behind him and wished his brain would just shut the fuck up for a trill. He felt like a boy sent to the headmaster's office. He was even waiting outside one, sitting on a hard wooden stool, while raised voices volleyed back and forth beyond the door. Fates, but he'd been stupid. He'd risen to the damn bait. Allowed himself to be goaded until letting slip the full force of his Abrogation.
Well... not all of it. But I doubt they'll give a shit.
He sighed again, staring up at the ceiling. Nader would jump at this, he was sure of it. He'd come an inch away from killing those two wankers a break ago. Would have, too, had he not been stopped. A solid arc of work and effort and lessons and telling himself every trial not to make waves or provoke needlessly, and here he was. The only surprising thing was that he wasn't already in irons.
Then he dropped his head back down to stare at the face across the room from him. Also waiting.
Well... the second surprising thing.
The four guards that Heinneheim had put into the yard with him were arrayed along the opposite wall. Every one of them bore expressions that screamed savage murder. If thinking alone could conjure reality, the room would have been a torture chamber worthy of the most savage Immortal. Kasoria ignored them, and with little effort. He'd been stared down by scarier sorts. The only one he gave his true attention to was the ax-wielding prick who'd tried to kill him. And that's what it had been. No way to talk around that. You didn't hurl an ax into a man's back to knock him out.
Aye, he thought, locking eyes with the man and smirking slightly at the livid red ring around his neck. Come try that shite again when you're ready, cunt.
BAM
"-solutely not the bloody point, Nader!"
Heinneheim's roar was half-swallowed by the sound of his fist crashing into the desk of the office. Kasoria flicked a glance at the door, as if looking at it would improve his hearing. He could make out Nader, still calm and clipped, not rising to the bait of his superior's outrage and thinking (wrongly) that admitted him some of the same. He was too savvy an officer for that. Kasoria could picture him, standing to attention, absorbing the Shieldarm's anger and indignation and clinically making his points without hurry. Fates, but he was almost starting to consider admiring the man.
"Mark Kasoria? Enter!"
The former Raggedy Man lurched upright and gave a slow, deliberate wink at the Ax-Man. The man bared his teeth and started up but his friend held him back. Not now. Not with the bosses only a door away. Unable to stop himself, Kasoria gave them a grin by way of a final spit in the eye, then squared his shoulders and stepped inside.
The scene was much as he had expected. Heinneheim had annexed his subordinate's desk and as quietly fuming behind it. Nader stood ramrod straight in front of him. His only movement was a brief snap of his eyes, acknowledging Kasoria's entry, then going back to staring intently at a space half a foot above his superior's head. Kasoria walked up next to him and stood to attention. Which of course looked like a lax, louche, indifferent attempt next to Nader, but still... it was the thought that counted.
Heinneheim seemed to note the difference immediately. He scowled at Kasoria as if he were the core of all his worldly woes. But Kasoria sensed some... conflict, across his face. As if he weren't giving full vent to his disdain. Hiding it behind discipline and... reluctance?
"You could have easily killed those two men, Mark Kasoria. And I don't mean that you could have easily accidentally killed them. I know your reputation. It was only my personal intervention that stayed your hand."
Kasoria wasn't about to argue the minutiae of that statement. He stared ahead and kept his answers short: "Yessir."
"I would have thought a man of your... experience-" Oh, just say 'old', you tedious twat. "-would have learned well enough to restrain his abilities so such incidents did not-"
"Yer man tried to plant an ax in my back, sir."
The air turned yet more frosty. Heinneheim's jaw tightened. Kasoria met his gaze.
"Name me a liar if t'ain't so, sir."
There was a long silence. Broken only by the shouts of instructors and the exertions of recruits. Seven trials out of seven, the garrison trained boys and churned out soldiers. Kasoria could even make out certain names he recognized. Even there, in that office, in that moment, memories of their strengths and flaws came unbidden to him. This was his job, after all.
"... you are not, Mark Kasoria. Whatever else you are."
Couldn't help yourself, could you?
"My man will be reprimanded for his behavior totrial. This was to be a demonstration, a training session with a plot, as it were. Instead he turned it into something worthy of a court martial through his stupidity. I doubt it will go so far, given his distinguished record, but for what it is worth..."
Kasoria waited patiently for an apology. None came. Much as he had suspected. Because that man was of a "distinguished" background, a veteran of Rhakros, a hero of Etzos. He was just the Raggedy Man, and even a blatant act of attempted murder could be... overlooked, if the man attempting it was of the right sort. He ached to spew all these thoughts and more, but held his tongue. He took Nader's example, damn him, and let it go.
Because it isn't forgotten. It's remembered. Just like how you chose not to kick up a fuss is remembered. Nobs appreciate that shite. A man who knows his place.
And didn't that burn most of all?
"Your demonstration was, by the by, quite impressive. And that was but one of the disciplines you have mastered, yes?"
"Yessir."
"Transmutation and Abrogation?"
"Yessir."
"You can use them both at once?"
"Yessir."
A longer pause between the next question. "You could have killed all four without even moving, couldn't you?"
"Yessir."
No pause.
Shieldarm Heinneheim had to struggle not to squirm in his seat. Those black eyes made him want to hide in a hole. The constantly roving blue-white mass prowling under the man's skin. The writhing black chains on his bare arms. Odds were something horrible was under those gloves he never removed, too. He was magical power and mundane lethality both, but it was his gaze, his manner than worried him most of all.
Thank the Fates he's killing for us, he thought to himself.
"Would've drained some outta me, sir. An' I'd have had t'move, as in, me arms and such. But I wouldn't 'ave needed any weapons. An' I doubt they'd put a scratch on me."
Heinneheim stood abruptly, if not forcefully. Some decision had been made in the canny old sod's head. He cast a last look at Nader... and gave a sigh hat managed to be both sarcastic and congratulatory.
"You have my answer, Flightmaster. You were right. We are unprepared, and this knowledge needs to be disseminated amongst the rank and file."
"Yessir."
The man spared both of them a look, then stood to attention and gave them a salute. They returned it as one, and kept it up until he was out the door. Only when it closed again did the air seem to thin, the tension drain from it, and they permitted themselves to almost sag away from each other.
"Arrogant sod."
"Aye, an' yeh knew that when yeh hired me on, so-"
"I was talking about him, Kasoria."
Now Kasoria was officially surprised. The silence after Nader stretched to after he sat back in his chair, after he tidied up some papers, and until he realized Kasoria wasn't going to give him a response. So instead he sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and explained himself.
"We're not friends, Kasoria, and we never will be. But you're under my command, and when some bully-boy general staff thug tries to murder one of my men, I take that seriously. So of course I took your side when he wanted you drummed out. And I'm as bloody angry as you, knowing that disgrace Jagdson-"
Jagdson. Jagdson attached to the staff of Shieldarm Heinneheim.
"-won't even be going up on charges for it!"
He was practically shouting by the end, and Kasoria's expression said more than his words could. Nader managed a tired chuckle and a a hand through his hair.
"Still... our objective was accomplished. He understands the need to expand basic training to include mage combat."
Kasoria sat without asking if he could. He started rummaging for his pipe without asking, either. But he still bothered to ask, "Permission t'speak freely?"
"Ganted."
"Dunno what good that'll do overall, sir. Best tactic fer a normal man t'kill a mage? Don't try. Run, and find a way t'scratch 'em when they ain't lookin'. Onna battlefield, though? When yeh can't do that? Jus' have t'advance and face-to-face it?" He shook his head slowly. "Youse saw me out there. That didn't work for 'em. Even when they got dirty an' all I had wasn a stick."
"Not all mages are at your level of skill, Kasoria. You are a master in two fields-"
"Even an expert or a sharp-minded middler could be lethal t'those boys out there. Distance an' blindsides, dat's how yeh fight mages. Unless youse 'ave yer own."
Nader settled back in his chair. If they had been friends, he might have smiled in that moment. But they weren't. So he didn't.
"Lucky we have you, then."
"Aye," Kasoria said, lighting his pipe. "Yeh are."
