"On the Care and Feeding of Young Mongrels" Log Date: 3/6/00 Log Cast: Nox, Richard Log Intro: Just as quickly as they had arrived, so House Nemea has left Haven once again -- taking with them the young daughter Richard had never known until a few short months back that he had. And so the Rook has stepped up his night-time activities with a vengeance, eschewing even the company of the Mongrel beauty Rory and employing what trusted friends he can to see to the safety of his wards Roki and Elette. For Richard is on a mission -- the acquisition of enough goods to sell to finance a trip back into the Empyre. Back to his home, where he intends to locate and liberate his child. Moirae has told him that she wishes to live with him in Haven, and for all that he has his doubts about exposing yet another child to the risks he takes for his chosen trade, Richard has no doubts whatsoever about the risks of leaving her in the hands of his brother Erasmus. Therefore he steals, he sells what he takes, and slowly but surely he gathers what monies he will need to take back his daughter. So caught up in his personal quest for vengeance has he become that Richard has also avoided contact with a potential source for much help indeed: the Outcasts. But for him, this is no hardship, for he has no interest in dealings with a woman who has called him a fool to his face. Without the slightest shred of remorse, the Rook has stayed out of the way of Cynara and all who are connected with her, though it is inevitable that one of her associates -- the one he can almost name a friend -- will eventually once more cross his path.... *===========================< In Character Time >===========================* Time of day: Morning Date on Aether: Thursday, February 18, 3906. Year on Earth: 1506 A.D. Phase of the Moon: Waxing Crescent Season: Waning Winter Weather: Sleet Temperature: Cold *==========================================================================* You enter the door into the Gem, a puff of warm hair scented strong with spices and various exotic foodsorts immediately assaulting your nose, whilst laughter, singing and conversations in various levels of volumes reaches your ears. Your sight, meanwhile, beholds.. The Gem Inn - Haven Muted jewel colours decorate this large, square room. The walls are of a highly polished golden brown oak with colourful tapestries of Varati history hanging from them in regular intervals and large windows, deeply set, sporting coloured glass. The floor is mostly covered by several plush wool carpets in saffron yellow and cayenne red, squeaky clean despite this being the restaurant room of the inn. A big portrait of a summer scene from the Varati mountains hangs over the bar mirror, nearly covering that entire short side of the room. The bar is a sturdy old oak thing, the surface nearly as reflective as the mirror, apart from some nicks and scrapes through the varnish. From the ceiling hangs a black wrought-iron chandelier with thick beeswax candles in it, scenting the air with a light waft of honey. The rest of the smells in here are mainly from the exquisite foodsorts being prepared, spices, sweet and strong, along with dried fruit and herbs lingering in the very wood of the inn. Contents: Nox Obvious exits: Small Door Spiral Staircase Out Morning leaves the Gem inn at relative calm and peace, only a few Varati men coming down from the staircase now and then, looking very hung over. The tables are scrubbed clean by demure-looking, veiled serving maids, brushing away the remains of last night. Nox sits in one corner of the bar, his bow leaning against the sturdy wood. An untouched mug of ale rests in front of him, and at his side sits a sturdy, plain looking mongrel with dark skin and working clothes. The two men converse in hushed tones, not allowing much of their conversation to pass to listening ears. The Gem Inn is one of the places the Rook has been haunting more often as of late -- fewer people know him in here, on the average. After a long night skulking through the Empyrean quarter going about his usual nocturnal business, a place where he can drink in private and have a fast extremely late dinner -- or perhaps an extremely early breakfast, depending upon your point of view -- the peace of relative anonymity is all to his liking. And thus Richard slips into the place, thinking of kaffe and something of the stew family to give him a bit of sustenance before he finally seeks out his bed and collapses into it. Nox falls silent, giving the robust man he's talking to a grave nod. The two peer at each other silently, but all the more intensely for a moment, then the mongrel spits into his hand, before he shakes the smaller one of the Empyrean. "Houdin," sounds the deep, rolling voice of Nox through the near empty room. The mongrel returns only with an expressionless, "Nox," before sliding off his stool, heading towards the exit. The winged one's gaze follows him there, only to land on Richard's figure. "Richard," he offers softly. "You look tired." The exchange between the other two men does not go unnoticed, and in fact, Richard might be seen to pause a moment or two as he espies Nox's distinctive white-touched ebon wings. Then he casts a glance after the departing Mongrel, before returning his attention to the young Empyrean and smiling faintly. "Apt," he drawls, "'cause it's tired I am." Nox does not seem to notice Richard noticing. A slight gesture goes to the now free stool. "Care to take a seat? Or were you thinking of heading upstairs immediatly." The edges of his lips move a touch upwards, to return the smile faintly. "I dinnae go upstairs here," Richard returns lightly. "I'm only here for a drink and summat to eat, mostly, before I'm off for home. But I'll sit a bit, aye." He gestures across the room to signal the attention of the 'tender (yes, indeed, he does want a bit of something, but he's going to sit first), while folding his lean frame into the chair Nox's prior conversational companion has just deserted. Nox's voice drops considerably as Richard approaches. Not to an overly paranoid, hushed whisper, but to a lower, quieter tone that does not carry as far. "Mhmm. Never ate here before. It's not a type place I usually hang out at." Like Richard couldn't guess that this Empyrean prefers to eat, drink and sleep at the Siren's Song. "Though I come to those people who got work for me. And pay." He arches up his eyebrows, "You're one of them? How's your business going...busy night again?" "Aye, busy enough." The older man smiles, just a touch. "Though little enough has come of it, so far." With his voice dropping down to match Nox's in pitch, something of Richard's street lilt seems to ease away... maybe. It might simply be an oddity in the way that velvet tenor falls so softly upon the ear. 'Ye're still wantin' work from me, then?" Nox sighs, his own accent showing little Bordertown influences here and there. Not enough to erase the traces that the Empyre has left upon his speech, but at least as much to show that he's clearly not one of them anymore. He has never hidden either of it, after all. "Business' going low. You know your job and paid good enough so far." He rolls his shoulders in a shrug, "Suppose I got plenty of offers I could make you, but the bottom line's that we'd still need the money. 'sides, not sure wether yer' interested." Richard's black eyebrows arch up. All he asks is a succint "We?" -- though he suspects he knows what 'we' his off-again on-again partner might be meaning, still, he would like a bit more confirmation before he confirms or denies interest. Especially if Nox's 'we' is who he thinks it is. Nox gives Richard one of those 'you know what I am talking about'-looks. "I've never pretended to work only for myself, Richard. And you know it. If you want to be a part, the offer is still up." It doesn't sound like Nox really believes that the thief will take up his offer. Richard shows no obvious outward sign of having received the confirmation he'd wanted -- and that, perhaps, is enough sign that yes, he is aware of the identity of Nox's 'we'. "Asking for yourself," he inquires point-blank, "or your employer? Last I checked, man, she considers me a fool." Displeasure glints in those twilight eyes, though his voice remains amiable enough. Nox chuckles lightly, genuinely amused by one term that's been used. "Employer? I'm a free man, Richard. Some of us just happen to have common goals. To answer your question, I'm asking for myself." His wings rustle at the last declaration, and the displeasure is reflected with a dim light of curiosity. "Why'd she say that?" "Because I wouldn't let her educate the children under my care." Richard's tone turns ever so slightly cooler now, and there's a touch of wariness in the gaze he's got settled upon the winged young man sitting near him. "We haven't spoken since that topic came up between us." Nox remains thoughtful and calm, his tone losing nothing of its casual politeness. "She can be very emotional about some things," is his only explanation. "Have you asked them? Or thought about it?" It sounds like a neutral, unbiased question, at least. This time, it's Richard's turn to wear an expressive 'and you're asking me this _why_?' sort of look. His raven brows wing down low over his eyes, and he answers gruffly, "Of course I've thought on it. The children wish to stay wi' me as much as possible, and that isnae what Cynara wanted of them. She apparently decided that I cannae provide for them without her help -- an offensive enough attitude, I might add, without the fact that I dinnae believe she gives a fat flying swine's damn about either me or my bairns." No doubt about it -- _now_ Richard is perturbed. Nox listens quietly, watching the older man calmly as he speaks himself into an annoyed mood. Still keeping the touch of a smile, he asks, "What makes you think so? Caught her in one of her more icey moods again, m-hmm? But apart from that...do you really think that she only thought of herself when she offered you to help out your kids education? Do you think that she wants to make them work as slaves for her own amusement?" "Do _you_ think she'd make such an offer to me out of the goodness of her heart?" Richard snaps in return. "Gods, man, she had the gall to ask for those children when I asked if she'd--" And all at once, quite abruptly, he catches himself. Something that appears very rarely within the Rook's countenance -- chagrin -- abruptly casts the faintest trace of a blush across his elegantly sculpted cheeks, and he shoots his gaze off sideways, scowling. Nox smiles brightly, nodding to Richard's rhetoric, angered answer. "Yes, I actually think that she makes that offer out of caring and goodness of her heart. I'm sure she really believes that she can help to provide those children a better future." The shifting of the other man's attention is so obvious that Nox simply cannot evade noticing it. A lightly curious, "Hmmm?" escapes him, still hoping that the uncompleted sentence will get finished. And, perhaps only by chance, his own wings flutter out a bit, brushing ebon feathers against the bar's wood. This elusive wingless thief isn't exactly a forthcoming man. But neither is he really one to back out of a mistake once he makes it, and so although he continues scowling in self-directed irritation off across the room, he makes himself complete the sentence that had burst out of him before he could halt its utterance. "When I asked her to repair your wings," he says, low and taut and hoarse. Nox blinks nonplussed, his carefully guarded, cheerful facade shifting to an expression of utter surprisement. "Richard..." he mutters in a confused way, his voice throaty. "...my wings? Why mine?" His wings fold back quickly to his back again, and he admits, now showing a hint of chargrin, "Thank you for caring, though." It seems to take Richard a moment to figure out exactly what sort of answer to compose, and once he speaks again his voice is strange and distant, with just a touch of ever-so-slightly bitter humor. His half-averted gaze has turned dark. "Let's... just be sayin'... I ken just a bit how it feels t' have yer wings ripped up, eh?" Nox lets a few long moments drift pass, allowing only the quiet breathings to be heard. Searching intendly for Richard's twilight eyes with his own darker ones, he says in a soft, warm voice. "I know. And I appreciate that you tried to help me. But I have already told you that Cynara would take care of me." His eyebrows raise. "Yet...don't you think you should care for yourself first? I know she offered to you what you were asking for me. Yet..." Instead of finishing the sentence, his eyes just flickers briefly over the Rook's shoulder, as if expecting to find something there. Of course, he does not. The gaze the younger man seeks does return, though it is shielded, unreadable. "Ach, but that's the difference between us," he answers, almost amused, though it's a grim kind of humor that colors his words now. "She's do ye for free -- and, I might add, she didnae tell _me_ that till after she asked for and was denied my bairns. Me, she'd only do for a price, and I willnae turn my back on a vow I've taken, even if it puts me in the sky again." On his last sentence, Richard's street lilt falls away entirely -- perhaps, just perhaps, because he knows that the other man already understands what lies beneath his outer mask. "I swore to Jacob as he died that I'd care for those children, and that is by Tyche what I'm going to do." Nox catches himself again, the near-always present hint of enigmatic irony and amusement creeping back into his voice. "You don't know what price I have paid to receive this for free, Richard." A pause, before he notes thoughtfully, "Sometimes, caring can mean giving up. It means doing whatever is best for the other person." "If Cynara can ever prove to me that she gives a damn about my children" -- and Richard states this now as if he himself had sired Roki and Elette, rather than his plague-slain old partner -- "because they're Roki and Elette and not because they're just a couple of fresh young minds she can train up in her service, I might consider her offer again. But until then, I'll keep them safe, I'll keep them fed and clothed, and I'll get them taught." He pauses then, gaze keenly intent now, studying the other man's features. "No, I don't know," he admits. "Do you want to tell me?" Nox narrows his eyes. "What do you think the Outcasts are about? Do you honestly think that this is all an attempt of Cynara to have people serve up to her? Do you think that she pours all of her energy into providing a better life for them for a feeling of personal glory?" His voice stays quiet and controlled, yet has taken on a sharper edge. "She has taken up this position because, deep down inside, she cares. And so do I. Of course, we have visions and goals on how to make this a better world, but all of us start with learning how to work as a community to support each other and help each other in times of need. With how much surety can you make the same offer to Roki and Elette?" The second question is either forgotten or ignored, as the dark winged Empyrean tries to rectify the Rook's opinion. "If she's so bloody selfless," is the unwavering reply as Richard leans forward ever so slightly in his chair, one lean hand propped before him on the table and clenching in his annoyance, "why'd she demand my children for a task you tell me she'd have bloody well done in the first place? Why the feinting with me, eh, Nox? If she wasn't honest with me on that, how do you expect me to believe her to be honest about having the best interests of my children at heart?" Scowling more vigorously now, his intent to eat and drink in this place forgotten, the Rook rises from his chair. But he doesn't quite leave yet; instead, he shoots a slim finger at Nox's chest, concluding, "She can have all the noble intentions in the world, but until she starts demonstrating a little honesty and loses that white-wing superiority of hers, from where I sit there's not a whole lot of bloody difference between her, Thomas Murako of Avalon, Khalid Atar, or the bloody fregging Empyror himself. I intend to raise my children to not have to follow anyone until _they_ choose to do so. If that makes me a fool in Cynara's eyes, or in yours, so be it." With that, he whirls, and stalks for the door. Nox stares after Richard after he leaves his place. A dark mutter escapes him, following the other man on his way out, "Neither Khalid nor the Empyre makes you offers if they want something of you, Richard. Keep that in mind. And they already follow you, it seems." The older man is several strides away, but not so far away that that cryptic murmur doesn't still reach him. Almost as annoyed that he can't make a suitably irate exit as he is that he's had this argument in the first place, he pivots back around on one heel and demands, "What's that supposed to bloody mean?" Nox stays seated, his cool gaze pinned on Richard, "You care to sit down again, so we can talk like reasonably rational people? Or prepare to storm out after you heard what you don't like to admit?" Twilight eyes sparking, Richard eyes the dark-skinned, ebon-winged young man before him, and after a moment he stalks back to the chair he'd just abandoned. He doesn't sit, but he does at least compromise enough to lean a foot onto the chair. That dark blue gaze of his pinions Nox, and he growls in a husky tenor, "I'm listenin'." Aware of the commotion of newcomers entering the Inn, he summons his street accents back into his voice. Nox glances briefly to the newcomers, a very brief nod of recognition given to Ashai and Wanderer, before he refocuses his attention back to Richard. Amodini is not even granted that much attention. His smooth facial features show a cool, analytical facade, devoid of any amusement or friendliness. "'ve said it before. You were supposed to care for the kids, all right. You don't want them to follow anybody, scared they might usurp'em. Yet, by that alone, you choose their path alone. Have you ever considered that what you can do for them might not be the best for them in the long run?" "Of course I have," Richard shoots back, just barely managing to keep a civil tone -- after all, the man with whom he's arguing _is_ his off-again, on-again partner. "But given that I'm all the da those bairns have, that's _my_ call to make. Not yours. Not _hers_. My da turned his back on me, and I'll be _damned_" -- and the Rook's fist slams the table before him, punctuating his words -- "if I'm gonna abandon Jacob's little 'uns!" Flawless, the way he's slid back into the vocal cadences of the streets, pulling his outer mask back into place, though it does not conceal the fire of determination or -- one might daresay -- the paternal fervor beneath it in his dark azure eyes. "An' with all due respect to you and yours, this community ye're speakin' of ain't hardly the only one in Haven -- and it damn sure isnae th' only way to bring up a bairn or twa to take pride in what they are. Now are ye gonna explain that crack about th' Empyre an' the Varati, or am I gonna leave here of th' mind that ye have no more respect for a man choosin' to bring up his bairns as he sees fit than _she_ does?" Nox takes his time to answer, letting a few breaths pass. He still manages to keep his deep voice low, lacking the agitation of his past partner. "I never tried to take them without your approval. I don't force people to do what I say, but I try to give them at least the chance to choose." He places one hand on the top of the bar, flexing his biceps, showing that he might not be quite as scawny as one could think at first impression. With a voice of conviction, he states, "I never hid of who I am and of what I am. And I see no reason to be ashamed of it. Can you say that of yourself as well?" A slight reinforcement of his tone, as he catches out of the corner of his eyes how the pretty, intellectual angel spreads her wings. "If you can honestly say that you know you are doing the right thing with bringing up your kids the way you do, and that you can see a future for them, I won't grudge you. It's not disrespect I have for you, Richard. I never did. But if you claim the children, 'cause Cynara just wasn't nice to you, you might think twice about that decision." Another man might snarl, with the kind of anger that grips the Rook. But Richard is not the sort of man who snarls when he is in a high wrathful anger; instead, in total contradiction to the street patois he is affecting, his bearing is as lofty as any nobleman's, his eyes flashing sapphirine fire, his tone touched with the barest hint of frost. "I repeat," he declares in low, ringing tones, "I'll bring up my bairns warm and safe and fed. I intend to teach 'em to be proud of what they are and what they can be. I'm bloody well insulted that ye an' your lady can't seem t' bloody well leave it _be_ when a man makes a vow, an' ye cannae trust him to raise children _right_." As he speaks, color drains out of his face; something Nox has said has struck home, even in the midst of his fury. This is reflected, too, in the brittle tone his voice takes on as he finishes coldly, "An' I dinnae see that what I am has anythin' t' do wi' it." Nox leans back against the bar, sliding his elbows over the wood. "...what they can be..." he echoes Richard's words faintly, the deep, sonore voice nearly drowned in the other conversations. "Roki mentioned to me he wanted to learn how to defend himself. You're going to teach him?" "Aye," is Richard's immediate reply. He remains on his feet, perhaps surprisingly light-seeming of stance for all his Mongrel look, as though he might at a moment's notice hurl himself at Nox -- or perhaps whirl gracefully around again and take his leave. "And Lettie too, if she wants it. I'm fair game wi' a knife -- ye bloody well should ken that, by now. They're gettin' their letters already. An' my trade if they want it. Or I'll point 'em t' someone who can do a different trade if they choose. In short, I bloody well dinnae see nothin' that yer people can do that I ain't already doin', an' I'm bloody well sick o' havin' t' defend myself for choosin' to be a father t' two bairns I happen to love!" Nox shoves himself abrubtly off his stool, snatching his bow back while still looking up at Richard. A dry smile curls around his lips as he replies lightly, "Good to hear that, Richard. Love'n a good education are so important for kids. Glad to hear that at least somebody can provide it." This time it's the Empyrean who, not waiting for an answer, turns around to stalk towards the door. Fine. Great. Don't explain that crack about the Empyre and the Varati, then. Richard's face twists, for a fraction of an instant, with something like pain; he didn't want to have this argument with a man he almost calls a friend. But he's tired, so very tired, and so he doesn't bother to stop the darkling as he takes his leave. Instead, taking the time to force his fine-boned features into something better resembling composure, the Rook simply stands by the table, his back to the door, as his erstwhile partner calls his own halt to their vehement disagreement. Nox catches Broadshoulders gaze and only offers a wordless nod. His wings spread partially, to curl around his lithe frame as he departs the inn in silence, without looking back. Any time for patching up may come later. Nox exits the inn in favour for the street outside. Nox has left. Only when he is certain that Nox has gone does Richard finally turn, something of the mask he's put on slipping -- revealing the exhaustion of the man beneath it. And something, too, of the lingering acute discomfort that he's argued with a friend. Stoic, and perhaps even a little lonely, the Rook's blue gaze stares out hollowly from behind that intangible mask of his even as he takes wing... without wings... into the street. [End log.]