RP:Lie

Part of the To Haunt A Hero Arc

Part of the Thy Kingdom Come Arc

Summary: Lionel meets the heroic knight Hildegarde. Their first, fateful encounter is interrupted by the arrival of Caedan, who has other ideas in mind -- and who will learn an invaluable tool here in this tavern.

Hanging Corpse Tavern

Hildegarde had only ever been to the Hanging Corpse tavern once or twice in her life, having met her liege lord here when eldritch creatures roamed the streets and threatened the occupants of the tavern so very long ago. It seemed like a different era. It was, really. She had changed from happy-go-lucky girl who wanted to be a knight to seasoned battle-commander. With every step, she clanked and clinked under the weight of her armour; the butt of her halberd tapping against the floor with each step. The knight passed the bar, spying the armoured man nursing his pitcher and nearly doing a double-take. He looked familiar. But he couldn’t be the same man, surely. That man she met so many years ago looked like a homeless vagrant, he looked like a man in need unlike this armoured man now. Perhaps he was a relation? Or perhaps, since she had lost her eye, her vision was not quite what it was. The Silver claimed a spot at the bar a little bit away from Lionel, waiting patiently to place an order.

Lionel knows pitchers. He knows their shape, their size, the best way to hold them. It is in fact their handle. He knows when they’re wooden, he knows when they’re tin. He even knows when they’re glass. But above all, what Lionel really, truly knows is what goes in them. Now this is a fine pitcher; it’s full of mead, which really ought to be nursed in single goblets, or at least poured into one if a patron is so bold as to order this much. Yet there is no goblet here; rather, there’s a man, wounded at the cloth-covered shoulder in resplendent armor of ebony allure, drinking highly potent golden alcohol from a pitcher made of pewter. In walks Hildegarde, a woman whose face he can’t remember, but she carries herself like a knight, and she looks like a knight, and sits like a knight, and she’s got herself a great big matching halberd to go along with all that knightly get-up. She’s here for a drink, he figures, and that’s all well and dandy. Here in the Hanging Corpse, where the dead roam the streets, the ale’s cheap and there’s so much silence. Lionel breaks the silence with a single, simple word. “Yo.”

Hildegarde might walk the walk and talk the talk, but she didn’t drink the drink. She had only been drunk once or twice in her life and she found it quite a frightening – albeit exhilarating – experience. To have so little control over oneself seemed risky and dangerous, particularly when one possessed a most lethal skillset! Instead, the knight requested a pale ale because this tavern didn’t have much in the way of non-alcoholic drinks that weren’t blood or seemingly ritualistic. A nice pale ale in a plain tankard and a plate of steak to go with it, the only thing she didn’t seem to mind being bloody. “Greetings,” she replied with a little smile, though she doubted Lionel would take his attention away from the pitcher to catch said smile.

Lionel doesn’t take his attention away from the pitcher to catch said smile. He takes another shot of it, lips at its spout to bring in a most blessed honeyed taste. Some might say such behavior is not befitting, but then, Lionel has enough voices buzzing about in his head to block out the nonsense. When he’s had his fill – for the moment – he sets the pitcher down and stretches, although the stretch is cancelled midway when he groans at a sharp pain in his still-healing fourth left rib. There isn’t much to say, really; Lionel is isn’t the wordy sort these days, not like he used to be. He’s damn near stoic now, and his looks sure sell the part. No matter how he might play at pitchers, he’s every bit the dark knight of legend. Whereas once he fought against that fate, now he wears it well, although it would be foolish to say call that pride. After all, he’s fucked all that pride, living now only to vanquish evil until he is vanquished, himself. A moment passes; Lionel beckons the bartender and gestures at Hildegarde. “Fetch me one of those steaks, Steadmen, not so bloody though.” Steadmen bristled. “Fine, bloody as you like. No one here seems to understand the point of eating anything that isn’t oozing, anyway.” When Steadmen steps away, he lays out too many gold coins by tenfold in payment for his purchase.

Hildegarde has no right nor place to question what a man will pay for steak, so she passes no comment on it. Instead, she watches Lionel for a while. He winced; so he was wounded. He drinks, but is it to forget? “We’ve met before,” she finally says to him, hesitating for only a moment. He wouldn’t remember her. She wasn’t exactly that memorable and she had changed much since then! “It was a few years ago,” she explained quickly, before he could protest ever having met her, “and you were outside the tavern in Kelay. Meditating, if I remember right.”

Lionel bristles. Insofar as his chaotic mind is concerned, he’s not been back here for eight years or more. In truth, he had been making annual visits for a scant few days at a time, to keep abreast of any great menaces that might have plagued the realm. Particularly those of Immortal design. That was how they had met; he’d come here, dressed as a commoner to dispel societal awareness that one of their so-called heroes had returned, so that he might observe. As he did so, he had been almost more wizard than swordsman, moving about like some awfully-young ascetic. At times, he’d let slip entirely the truth of who he was, depending on what he’d had to drink the previous eve. Nothing grand ever came of it, gods be good, but at one point in time he did in fact meet a younger, less traveled Hildegarde. Lionel won’t remember it, though. He can’t remember it. He cannot be made to remember that he was watching Hollow for Immortals when vengeful demons set his homeland ablaze in his absence. “Are you sure?” His words are so carefree. So unlike his countenance. “Come on, now. I have one of those faces.” He really doesn’t.

Hildegarde did not reply for a time. She had seen that it had made the man uncomfortable and that was never her aim, truthfully. So instead of lying or persisting, the knight offered him a smile, “Perhaps you do,” she said in response; allowing him this victory. “My pardons for interrupting your dinner with the assumption we know one another,” she excused herself, “will you, perhaps, stow away your gold and allow me to pay for your meal? As recompense for my terrible memory!” her tone was light and hearty, as if to say she was quick to laugh and slow to anger.

Lionel cocks a brow, giving Hildegarde a thorough glance for the first time. This woman has seen things, he senses. There’s something in her eye. She’s known war. He feels a bit foolish now, although who’s to say why? He’s positive they’ve not met before, even if she does look eerily familiar. That’s probably just his reflection talking. He’s seen men and women of war and they all have a bit of a commonality to them. His steak arrives and he starts to cut, wincing at all that blood. It’s a funny thing, Lionel’s aversion to bloody cow. “Think nothing of the mistake,” he mumbles between chews. What a charmer. “But think nothing of the cost, either. I’ve got all this gold, right? And I’ve got nothing to do with it except buy steak. Grim times, eh?” He shovels another forkful into his mouth; this time he chews and swallows. “I’ll tell you, though, I wouldn’t mind a little uh, intel on the what’s-what around here. Would you describe current events as involving countless hordes of malevolence wreaking havoc upon people? Anywhere? Like, here to Venturil, there to Rynvale, anywhere in-between? Forget the Underdark, though. Lost cause, that. Trust me.”

Hildegarde ’s face was not something people could look upon for a good period of time. She was plain ugly. Or at least plain of face and just terribly scarred. Her left eye is covered by an eyepatch; the mottled flesh of her right jaw and cheek implied she had been burned terribly at some point in her life; her nose is crooked and red looking, it was an angry and hideous break from what could only have been a particularly rotten fight. “Hm. Intel,” she repeated the term before taking a forkful of her own meal, though she is forever careful to chew and swallow before speaking again. “Knowledge is power and all that,” she said with a cheery little smile, before taking a little gulp of the pale ale as if that would aid her in talking a little. “There has been some creature unleashed in Xalious. Evil thing. But it has seemingly disappeared; chased off but still alive. It’s connected to some sort of… Order, I believe. I unfortunately do not know as much as I would like to know, but civil war has occupied my thoughts lately,” she said the latter almost absent-mindedly, ignorant of the froth of ale on her upper lip. She’s a real knight now, with a foamy ‘tache.

Lionel contemplates that last bit of information, putting a hand up to his chin and staring off into the rafters. Hildegarde’s visage, it should be said, hasn’t escaped him; but rather, he’s seen demons scurry about with their heads inside-out, he’s seen spider-women with a head for every leg, he’s seen talking eyeballs foam at the ill-fitting mouth, skinless high elves talk through their hands, and he’s even seen Mesthak in love. He’s seen everything Hollow at its ugliest; next to all that, Hildegarde remains a woman of considerable beauty no matter how mottled. That’s the way of it for Lionel O’Connor. “Thanks.” Surprisingly, the man still owns a modicum of decency about his manners. “That helps a fair bit. What is this civil war over?”

Hildegarde dipped her head graciously at his thanks, “You are welcome,” she replied, before stuffing her mouth with a few bites of steak to chew on until Lionel poses his next question. What was the civil war over? Well, it felt as though it was over her very life at times! “My kingdom,” she replied gently, “and my people. I, er… I shan’t bore you with the details, but my people are endangered and bullied by a brute of a man. A man who has an army when I am but one. If I run off – as much as my heart wishes me to – to face him, I will die and my people will suffer under the rule of him and his line. But if they suffer now while I gather strength… they suffer now to know freedom soon,” she reasoned, though it embittered her to know her people suffered. Though she had seen war, the woman hadn’t shaken off that unmistakeable optimism of a new knight. That young knight who believed deeply in virtue, honour, justice. The young knight who felt they could make that all happen.

Caedan appeared from the north.

Caedan trails into the tavern from above, slinking down the stairs one slow step at a time, a sword gripped in her right hand trailing behind her, scrapping down each wooden tier. She shuffles past the once-sentient fireplace, dark gaze fixed on where Lionel and Hildegarde hold discourse over steak. She makes her way to the pair and reaches Lionel first. Her free hand lifts to trail over his armor-plated shoulders, a slow, fluttering caress. But it’s Hildegarde that holds her attention. She stops next to the knight, her sword still gripped in her right hand, blade dragging along the floor. “No,” she answers, responding to some unasked question. “You can have your meal.” She slices a sharp glance at Steadman. Steadman shakes his head at the psychic. “Caedan, the cow has been dead for years now. We don’t have any milk.” The psychic seems to vibrate in place, her grip tightening.

Lionel could have been told any number of things by this battle-hardened knight, this woman Hildegarde, and they would have gone as he’d predicted – age-old retellings of the same bitter blood feuds and crude awakenings of vicious predatory warlords. There’d been a civil war in Larket on that long-ago day some thirteen years past when he had first arrived upon Hollow’s shores, even, and he wouldn’t have doubted that her description might mimic events from that very conflict. What Lionel has not anticipated is that Hildegarde will speak to him of something that is so reflective of his own origins. It needs to be stressed – Lionel is a haunted man. It can’t be mentioned enough. When the psychological manifestations of all the dead he’s failed don’t fill his vision with fear, when he isn’t holding idle conversation with a close friend who’s been slain for years, he’s doing everything in his power to forget. Certain words, like ‘lover’ and ‘damned’, play at his mind like a harp, stringing him along into memories he wants gone for stray seconds at a time. This, though… this is too much. He snaps out of his delusions and fixes the knight with a steely grimace. Gone is his whimsy, his cynical discord. All that’s left is a man and his demons. “You can’t let them suffer,” he speaks quickly, diligently. “You cannot let them suffer. I lost Catal. I lost my entire realm. I lost them all. I thought as you did. I did so much here. I am Lionel. You may have heard. I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought and I fought, woman. And then I fought some more. And while I was fighting, my people, they were suffering. You cannot let that fate befall them. For when they are done suffering, they will die. And you will not be able to live with it.” He’s about to carry on this tirade when his wounded shoulder sends shockwaves through his body. By now he’s suited for war; he feels it, numbing his compassion and building on his killer instinct. Then he sees her. Caedan Navarre. That girl he rescued who hates him dearly. Her chat with Steadmen goes in one ear and out the other. His jaw drops.

Hildegarde would not shrink back at the first hint of a man ranting. The whole rant doesn’t bother her, though that use of ‘woman’ made her eye twitch a tiny bit. She had pummelled lesser men into the ground who thought her to be weak of body and weak of mind and heart just because of her gender. But she has also been there, in that grip of trauma and fear and terror; when the world has all but spiralled out of control and the faces of the dead haunt a person during night and day without relent. “I will not let them suffer,” she said it firmly, “I gather strength now. I’m gathering it quickly. But I will not let them suffer. I will protect my people,” she assured the older warrior and warrior of great acclaim. She’s even ready to reach out and offer her forearm to grasp in the sign of the warrior’s shake, but she is distracted by the scraping of blade on wood. The thudding of footsteps and sudden presence of a strange and intriguing girl. Her hand caressed the knight briefly, until those strange but intense eyes were upon Hildegarde. ‘Will I ever enjoy a meal in peace?’ she had begun to wonder, only to have Caedan answer her question aloud. There’s no doubt what Caedan was answering. The knight stares at the girl, but there is no disdain nor discomfort in her gaze. Only that concern and yearning to help if she could, along with a good dollop of confusion. “Hello.”

Caedan tilts her head as she studies Hildegarde, silently scrutinizing her. She flicks a brief glance toward the ale the woman drinks before back to her marred visage — which she doesn’t seem to fixate at all as her stare seems to rest solely on the knight’s eye. Abruptly, she smiles — a rehearsed, put-upon smile that’s not very sincere … but it’s not malicious or insincere, exactly, either. It’s more like a very concentrated effort to not deviate from social norms. “Hi.” The smile fades, just as abruptly, but her expression still lacks the malice it had when she’d approached Lionel with so gentle a greeting. “I have a home.” Perhaps another answer to an unasked question. “You worry too much for your own when you will return there so soon.” Without looking, she extends to Lionel her sword, because she needs someone to hold it, and as much as she hates his very being, she knows he will be the last to use it against her. There are children here and they make her twitch, but she swallows and forces herself to keep her attention on Hildegarde, aside from a brief, telling glance at her former clan mate.

Lionel comes and goes from that mental brink. He’s spoken his piece and revealed far more than he’d intended. He can’t recall all that he has said, because his mind won’t seem to let him. When Hildegarde reaches out, having spoken her words of confidence, it delivers him back to something more like reality. His shoulder hurts, that’s for sure, but the look he gives her is one of sudden understanding. ‘It’s not that simple, though,’ he thinks. ‘You’ll never know when it’ll all fall apart. I pray you truly never know.’ He reaches out to that extended forearm, and feels as if he’s brushed it, maybe, but won’t check to be sure. By now, however, Caedan is talking of having found a home. Without looking, Lionel accepts the offered sword; with Hellfire standing upright beside him like some massive pulsating tournament blade, he’s free to place it at his lap protectively. He doesn’t know how long he’s expected to wield it, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Caedan has her way. It’s a strange, spontaneous devotion, one which he had not anticipated projecting. Go in. Get the girl. Leave. That’s how it used to work, anyway. Except when it didn’t. That hurts to think about, so he swallows down quite a bit of that mead of his. “Ah,” he answers Hildegarde. What a stupid thing to say.

Hildegarde glanced at Lionel when he prayed that she never need know when it all fell apart. But she knew all too well the feeling of being haunted. Perhaps not to the scale and same effect as Lionel did, but she had known it well enough. Too many had died while in service and in friendship to her. War was an ever hungry beast. But now Caedan was once again looking at her, smiling in what was probably a very odd manner. Like someone was stretching her mouth into that pose before letting go again. ‘Does this girl have somewhere to stay…? Is she safe?’ Hildegarde is already asking these questions in her head, as her sole eye roams over her form to assess her appearance and wellbeing. Ever the one to want to help, the knight is feeling it now until Caedan once again answers her mental question. “W… What?” she asked, taken a tad by surprise! Before it could have been a coincidence; that the girl would say things in answer to what she could guess Hildegarde was thinking but that was all. But it seemed difficult to support that reasoning now. The knight clears her throat a little, “You are very wise, aren’t you?” she asked Caedan, smiling a little. Had she offended her in asking what she had meant? What was her name? Who was this girl? Did she need something or some kind of help from the knight?

Caedan ignores Lionel to the very best of her ability — and she’s rather good at it, like she’s had many years’ practice. She hones in on Hildegarde, her full attention taken solely by the knight. She leans in, invading Hildegarde’s space, which is less dangerous now that she’s down at least one visible weapon. “One of your allies is considering betraying you. Do not trust the one you want to believe in. Listen to the very small part of you that wants to think ill, to think the worst. Do not throw away your kingdom on the perceived goodness in another, Hildegarde the Silver.” She takes a step backward, so that her back is close to Lionel’s shoulder. Her gaze remains set on Hildegarde’s single eye. “And this man wants to kill you.” She sweeps an arm toward Lionel. “You should kill him before he does it to you.” And just like that, evidently Caedan has learned to lie — and she is now using it to her greatest advantage.

Lionel is having himself a nice bit of steak. He’s lost in his own little world just now, with his big giant sword, and then with Caedan’s significantly smaller sword at his lap, and this piece of meat fast approaching his lips. He’s using a fork, too, because that’s how he eats steak. He doesn’t like that it’s bloody, which we’ve covered is ironic, but he needs to finish this meal before it all runs cold. Caedan’s spouting nonsense and he’s oddly taken in by it. Now that she isn’t beating him with every fiber of her strength, he’s free to realize she’s crazy even in the best of times. Lionel opens his mouth, hears her lie, and flicks his wrist just as the fork goes in, sending it slamming into the grooves between his front teeth and piercing his upper gum. He drops the steak, spins about in his barstool, and stares her down, hard look of disapproval replacing whatever forced casual air he’d tried (and likely failed) to exhibit beforehand. His mouth stings, his shoulder aches, his cracked rib throbs as he twists. Lionel has known a thing or two about Caedan, indirectly, for a while now, but he’s never been told she can lie. In fact, when he and Quinton had so briefly shared an existence together, there was a distinct sense that she couldn’t lie. Now here she stands, innocent as can be, profiling him as Hildegarde’s would-be assassin. To wit, he has but one thing to say, one golden peerless defense: “Nuh-uh.”

Hildegarde listened intently to Caedan as she spoke of allies and a possible betrayal. She didn’t have an awful lot of allies so far… who would dare to betray her? Why would anyone? There was little to be gained in betraying Hildegarde. Then suddenly she is being told that the man she had just been speaking to wanted to kill her. It seemed… odd, to be sure. The knight looked between Caedan and Lionel once again, silent for what must have felt like a long time until she finally shrugged her shoulder and said: “If he is to try to kill me, then so be it. But I shall not strike a man down without a just reason.”

Caedan blows a sigh of frustration when Hildegarde does not relent and attack Lionel, especially after Caedan has so kindly warned her. “You can’t be sure,” she murmurs to Hildegarde, voice quiet, gentle. She reaches up to tuck a strand of Hildegarde’s hair behind her ear, tenderly, like someone who knows the Steward intimately might. “You can’t ever be sure. One day you will learn that to survive is to strike first.” She wheels on Lionel and grits her teeth. She can’t contain herself. His very presence is this awful, grating pressure on a mind that can’t withstand much more. She needs a release..something. She stares at him for a second before she lashes out, a sucker punch meant to impact his broken rib — maximum pain with minimal consequences for her.

Lionel is hurt in a few key places. He notes Hildegarde’s calm, collected rebuttal and makes a point to thank her for being Donovan Keane reincarnated, when next he gets the chance. For now, though, all he can do is gaze into the mental oblivion that is Caedan as she rants and raves, all-too-close-like, insisting in her utterly captivating manner that he’s a terrible human being. It’s funny because it’s true. At that, he snickers, and then he laughs uncontrollably. He reaches for his pewter pitcher, that soothing vessel of mead there to ease his tortured spirit; speaking of spirit, it’s right about now that the violent thing that is Halycanos, Lionel’s very own monster-within, begins sending out dim red spirals of flame to encircle Hellfire in something like a warning. It isn’t that the dark knight is unaware of the signal; he’s had thirteen years to make peace with his sentient blade and thirteen years to slay his enemies with it. Moreover, he simply does not care; come what may, he isn’t flinching. Caedan’s aptly-titled sucker punch rings true, shoving his bandages deep into his abdomen and forcing the Catalian straight off his seat and onto the ground. He wheezes for a breath that will not rise, his rib screaming at the rest of him. Caedan’s sword does not escape his grasp. He is silent and makes no effort to defend.

Hildegarde hadn’t expected Caedan to unleash her fury upon Lionel, the man she had entrusted her sword to and had touched so delicately. It seemed as though striking him was the last thing she would want to do! “Hey!” the knight exclaimed, surging out of her barstool to stand upright though she made no move to apprehend Caedan or anything of the sort. Indeed, rather than apprehend the very odd girl, the knight instead crouches down to try and assist Lionel. “Are you all right?” she asked him gently, ready to lend her immense strength to help him up onto his feet. Should he accept her help, she would see him to his feet and try to assess his health. Should he reject her help, she would still stand close by in case he changed his mind. Regardless of what Lionel did – accepting or rejecting her help – the knight would glance between the two of them, flexing her fingers around the shaft of her halberd. “I ought to be going… but I hope we meet again,” she said. To the both of them.

Caedan stares down at Lionel as he falls. She knows she didn’t hurt him that badly, that she wasn’t strong enough to knock him so cleanly from his stool just like that. There is something more at play here. Hildegarde surges past her to assist and Caedan doesn’t interfere. She watches quietly before shaking her head. She stalks away, hands lifting to run through her hair in frustration. “You do not understand. You have to strike first. You have to. It’s the only way to survive. You’re being tricked. They are going to put you in a very small, dark room for the rest of your life and you’ll have to account for your sins and there will be too many to remember! So you will be there forever. And it isn’t where you belong. You don’t understand.”

Lionel waves a hand to reject Hildegarde’s offering, gritting through his teeth to force himself up from his pathetic sprawl. Still, it wouldn’t do to say nothing at all. That’s the thing about Lionel; he showcases a measure of salvation at the oddest times. Maybe the things Donovan used to snap at him about had really struck true, to some sliver of a point. Or perhaps it’s Alexia, from beyond the grave. She had always told him to mind his manners, after all. Alexia... he sees her now, judging him. Weighing his actions. He retracts his hand before Hildegarde can respond and allows her to ease him up. For that warm fraction of a minute, Lionel is as he once was. Proud. “Thank you, knight, and we may indeed meet again,” he speaks. So formal. So rare. Caedan rants. The words are familiar; the words are Lionel. The dark knight tilts his head and returns to his seat, her sword in his lap. “Caedan,” he says. And then he stops. He stops and he looks at her, really looks at her, for the first time. “I do understand. I really do.” He sips of his pitcher of mead. “Let me know when you’ll be wanting your sword back. Stab me with it if it suits you. I hope you’re enjoying your new home.”

Lionel looked at Caedan.

Caedan gestures and paces wildly near the staircase, gesticulating in violent circles, even as Hildegarde leaves. But it’s her name that makes her stop, spoken by Lionel, in the tone that Quinton would use when he wanted—needed her attention. She stills and closes her eyes, willing Lionel to stop there, to stop, just stop. But he continues. She keeps her eyes closed. “I don’t want it back. Death would just be a release for you and I’m not that kind. I don’t have a home.” Another lie (to Hildegarde, currently she is speaking truth) — this one told a tad less skillfully than her first, but she’s learning deception on a curve, making up for lost time. “If killing you would bring my brother back, I’d do it in a heartbeat. So now you must suffer with the rest of us. That is your fate. You suffer like you’ve made your people suffer.”

Lionel grimaces hard. Without a word he kicks off from his seat and fixes Caedan with another steely stare. He wants desperately to leave, but she has him in check. There is nothing about this woman that isn’t calculated, yet there is nothing about her that is. She is the biggest contradiction Lionel has ever met. He wants to leave, to step out that door into the chill eve and be anywhere but here, but he’s holding her sword, and there isn’t a single thing he will not do for her. The weight of his realization hits him harder than Caedan’s frenzied punch; he sighs and steps over to the fireplace, clumsily leaving his fabled Hellfire over by the bar. “My people, “ he repeats. “Why won’t you take it? Why won’t you take your sword?” He won’t ask her. He knows already, she has won. In every conceivable way, she has claimed victory here tonight. “I used to duel ‘em, you know.” Who is he even talking to? “I used to duel ‘em, and that’d shut them up right fast, wouldn’t it? Some poser in a black cloak, come to this land looking to slaughter. I’d kill ‘em. That’d be that. They’d die. They’d be dead. Now all I see is dead. I don’t want to see it. And I can’t just duel you, because you know I’d rip my heart out hurting you. But I’ve hurt you bad, so bad, so bad, so bad.” He’s just muttering incoherently by now. He collapses by the fire, a shadow of the man he once was. Absolutely pathetic. Caedan’s crazy. Lionel is crazy, too.

Caedan crosses to Lionel, staring down at him and finally, finally she takes back her sword. But she only takes it enough to put the hilt into his hands. She places the pointy side of the blade against her stomach and menaces down at him. “Then you should finish it. If death is such a release for you, who are you to withhold it from me, Lionel O’Connor? Who are you to keep me from peace? Who are you??” She pushes into the sword angrily, not enough to puncture, but to feel the dullness of the blade. She knows he’ll be scrambling to stop this any second. “I’ll tell you who you are. You are a landlubbing coward.” It is the worst insult she knows.

Lionel panics, but he spares a split second to regard the woman cynically at that ridiculous insult. It just goes to show, Catalians come in all shapes and sizes, even if all that’s left of them is crazy. He pulls away quickly but softly, careful not to dig any deeper. Wouldn’t that just be the icing – Lionel inadvertently murders Caedan. Indeed, there’d be two dead Catalians here tonight, and the thought of it is briefly appetizing; his face flickers an array of emotions, but finally settles on stalwart. “I’m a madman doomed to survive by your own holy decree, o princess of the nether-sense, but I’ve still just enough of me left not to kill an innocent.” He spits at his own description; calling Caedan ‘innocent’ feels off somehow. But she is. She absolutely is. “Torment me day and night, woman. Find me in the morning and kick me in the face. At lunchtime, tell tall tales that I’m plotting to do all those things I once dueled to end. When dusk comes, hand me your sword and try to make me pierce you with it. Do whatever compels you. Just leave the rest of these people out of it.” He gestures to the crowd. Half of them are undead; he’s picked the wrong tavern for this argument. “Who am I? I am Lionel. And you are Caedan. And I failed to save our realm. And I am sorry.” He spits the word. “I am sorry.”

Caedan stares hard at Lionel, emotionless, but for an expression of disgust, which she wears like it’s the natural set of her features. She releases the sword, surrendering it to Lionel. “Your apologies,” she seethes at him, trembling in anger, “…mean nothing to me. They do not bring my brother back. They are just words. And for many years, that’s all you’ve had. Just words.” She leaves, disappearing up the stairs. If Lionel should follow her, he would discover that she’s simply appeared to vanish from the establishment entirely.

Lionel does not follow Caedan.