RP: The Right Kind of Ghosts

Leoxander was not always an easy wolf to find, but he was roving Rynvale once again and occupying the reestablished warehouse more and more. Tonight being one of those nights. No rain poured down from the skies but the wind was powerful enough that palm fronds occasionally rolled along the beach like tropical tumbleweeds, sometimes colliding with the metal siding of the building while oil lit hanging lamps attached to the beams of the roof swayed ever so slightly. That current howled like a pack from Fog Forest with the swish of trees and crash of waves added to the island’s anthem, but inside beyond the two metal doors the turbulence was muffled and muted. A fire crackled in the cast iron stove in the common room, ribbons of light blinking through the vent holes, while the kitchen and basement remained dark. Leo was the only occupant and for once not working on lists or maps or brooding to the bottom of a bottle. It would seem, since his return, not only had his appearance improved from the sickly and depressed state he’d allowed himself to depreciate to. His overall attitude would never be ‘welcoming’ per se, but he was as healthy as a lycanthrope should properly be, his mental game once again on track and some life in once again blue eyes. The pirate stood at one far end of the large room facing the other, away from the door, compound bow in grip and quiver propped on a chair nearby, once again loaded with arrows. It may be about when those doors might open that he was in an archer’s pose, steel laced strings drawn back and crow fletched arrow nocked near his chest, aimed for the crude target board used for throwing knives and hatchets in the past. Whether she was the cause of his attention being pulled or not, his gaze shifted toward the entrance before he released the missile to peg slightly off center from a bullseye, which he hadn’t hit with the two previous shots taken, either.

Rilla had often been called back to Rynvale and her other stomping grounds from the past. Ghosts of allies long turned called her name on the daily and like a sailor to a siren, she followed. The wind whipped up around her as she crossed the familiar wharf, tugging stubbornly at auburn curls that were barely tamed in a braid over one shoulder though pieces fell around her face. She hesitated outside, listening for sounds that the wind fought to carry from her before she decided it was likely safe to go inside. Her back pressed to the door as she let herself inside, a gust followed close behind and Rilla let the door shut hard behind her although she knew he’d notice either way. Her arms crossed over her chest as she watched with a tilted head and an amused smile. “Guess you’ll need three out of five.” She quipped, offering a smile of greeting to the wolf though her lips did not pull back to show her teeth. She crossed to the bar and produced a bottle of whiskey from within her open leather jacket, setting it down on the bartop before she turned to Leoxander once more. One thin hand rose, pushing her hair back and away from her face. “Figured it might be time for me to actually bring the drink.” A smile flashed and she crossed to stand by Leoxander, studying his target and then his bow before she finally settled on his face and wrinkled her nose. “Shaking off rust, are we? I found that knives are almost as good as a bow and far more discreet.” Slender shoulders shrugged, the little gold ring on a chain around her neck shifted in the hollow of her throat. “There’s something to be said for being able to walk in armed to the teeth with no one the wiser.” Eyebrows flashed up as she produced a throwing knife from within her jacket, holding it loosely between her fingers, she let her pointer finger trail along it as she sent the smooth-handled blade flying through the air (as she had done many times before), landing it alongside Leoxander’s last arrow, edging closer to the bullseye. “You’d do better to practice with more range if you’re trying not to get caught.”

Leoxander lowered the obsidian weapon as she crossed the room and presented her peace offering, summoning the shadow of a smirk on his rugged features, easier witnessed now that he’d had an uneven trim to his hair. He lowered the range weapon to rest against the same chair that held the pack of steel point arrows and watched her display and skillful throw, not at all surprised by her precision. Anyone who haunted that island had to have some sort of talent for protection, and despite her immortal good looks, she’d survived enough years to have acquired that artistry. “You have a point…” He mused, and was not so bold as to go reaching into her jacket, but held out a hand to borrow one of those many concealed knives from her. If she didn’t hand one over he still procured one of his own from a sheath strapped at thigh or boot, and couldn’t help himself from testing the balance and weight for a second before pitching the blade toward the beat up target board, a satisfied ring sounding as it struck and both weapons clattered to the ground. He clearly wasn’t rusted over, entirely. “But I also fig’er some distance and a scope ain’t gonna hurt if we’re trackin’ and huntin’ a cargo ship.” Tongue clicked against his back teeth with a half wink her way, before he’d go to retrieve both separated knives and handed over any belonging to her as he returned to the bar. He inspected the label on the bottle she’d brought along, should there be one, then reached over the counter to collect two tumblers, setting them down to let her do the honors of pouring her gift. “Not much to be done about range in this weather. What’re you out an’ about for?”

Rilla laughed at Leo’s next words, shook her head as she produced a second thin, smooth handled black knife. Light and meant for throwing, she pressed it into his hand and watched with amusement as the blades clattered to the floor. “Earning that drink I see.” She followed behind Leo to collect her blades which were promptly tucked into their place hidden inside of her jacket. “Different weapons for different purposes.” Rilla shrugged, watching as he turned the labelless bottle over in his hands. The glass was heavy, the drink inside nice though not a fine aged acquisition. That was saved for harder days than these ones. She stepped up, leaning on a seat at the bar with one boot on the leg of her new perch. “If you’re looking for a ship you’ll want the bow, but I know you can make that shot no problem.” She licked her lips, looking from where he’d been stood to the target and then back to Leo with a shrug. “If you can’t then we have a lot more work to do with you yet.” She clicked her tongue, eyes bright with amusement and laughter that she held back. Taking back her bottle, Rilla unceremoniously poured them each two fingers of the mahogany liquid. She set the bottle back on the bartop with a soft clink and looked back at the man. “Figured I’d drop by, see if my favourite wolf was in his den.” She winked, swirling the glass with her wrist gently before taking a sip (followed immediately by a deeper one that drained the glass) and setting it down too. “Why the indoor practice anyway? Nothing better to do with your evening?”

Leoxander also took a lean rather than sit, his ribs against the edge of the bar counter in a sideways slouch while his fingers closed around the glass. He afforded her a lift of the tumbler in thanks without the matching statement and took a swallow before he hummed on a selective word. “We…” He finished the glass off in a second swallow and set it down, leaving it her decision whether she’d be generous enough to pour seconds. “Guess we’ve both decided to stick around a while, huh?” Not that he had much choice, without his main means of transportation from ‘world’ to ‘world’, or continents, as they were. “Actually, I got more to do than I have in a long time, but… I also got a lot to think about. This place used to be hard to come back to. Lotta memories, here.” He paused for a moment, free hand in bandages scratching the stubble grown on his jaw. “I guess it’s gettin’ easier. To remember, an’ to forget.” His gaze eventually lifted to his friend from what seemed a lifetime ago, and although some things had changed, her personality was still familiar. He was still getting used to that smell, though. After a thoughtful and distant look, Leo presented her with a very random question. “You remember the dog?” Had they gone that far back? “Black one, couldn’t get him off my heels. E’rybody loved the hell outta that mutt.” Strange, he hadn’t allowed himself to pull up that memory from the bottom in so long, and here it surfaced for her. Hopefully she’d refilled his glass so he could work through the lump in his throat and ease an ache in his chest with the refreshing burn of alcohol.

Rilla shrugged and tongued her cheek as she looked away to the door, hesitant to answer. “For now.” She agreed with a nod when she did look back to him, refilling his glass automatically and then her own as he spoke. Her hand rested over the top of her glass loosely, pinkie finger tapping lightly against the side in time with the thudding of Leoxander’s heart. She couldn’t tune it out despite not wanting to eat the only person she’d found who remembered her before who happened to be very much Not Food. She nursed her thoughts as she took her glass once more, fingertip still tapping along quietly as she studied the familiar face pensively. “You’re the first person I’ve met who remembers anything at all.” She admitted, her smile turned sad, bittersweet, and then she looked away. Her free hand tucked a curl behind her ear, she licked her lips as her elbow rested on the bartop. When she looked back she studied him for a long moment, making note of how he’d changed too. Likely less than her, but nothing was really the same anymore. “I remember the dog.” She said wistfully, in a smooth motion she brought her glass back to her lips, eyes closed as she took a deep drink. Her nose wrinkled, she bit her tongue. “And I remember when this place was *the* place. Good to see it’s somehow still standing.” Her sombre tone broke into soft laughter as she shook her head. “It’s the strangest thing to come back and realize that somehow everyone’s forgotten my biggest mistake. I didn’t expect to be of note, but I figured there had to be someone who remembered something.” She downed the rest of her drink calmly and set her glass back down. “I had a few mutts of my own, though I don’t think they ever met ‘im. Sometimes they choose you.”

Leoxander wouldn’t have recommended it. Dragon blood would kill, for sure. Lycanthrope blood wouldn’t do much better in her diet. Or so he’d been told. Maybe he’d wondered the same for vice versa a time or two. Maybe he’d even answered the question for himself at some point. Like she could hear his heartbeat, he could hear her lack thereof with wolf-sharp ears. His expression sobered a bit, softer than the usual natural and perhaps intimidating stare of glare that came from the criminal and former captain. He also looked down at his glass for a moment. “There’s a…” He hesitated, reluctant to open up on that weakness to someone he’d only recently united with. But she had more or less been his oldest friend rediscovered, since others were hibernating for a season or two. “It’s like someone tore out a piece of a map. I know my way around what’s there, but I’m lost anytime I come to a missing trail. And… a lot o’ things I remember are gone with it.” He didn’t want to know the answers, or so he reminded himself. Boldly, he reached for the bottle to help himself to a third pour without asking for permission. His eyes strayed across the area that looked empty in the lantern lights, lacking the musk of smoke and the noise, but he could almost envision ghosts of acquaintances, partners, patrons, playing cards and drinking at tables, laughing, arguing, over any of it. Back then, he was either one of those gambling and pocketing profit or behind the counter, only to never bartend. “I wonder if it’s just too late to ever have that again. Time’s a fire and we’re burnin’ in it.”

Rilla had never been one for feelings, it was easier not to talk about it. She’d let her past die and had to live with it, her return was to a place that didn’t know her other than this one wolf. Her brow furrowed while she watched him, she drew a slow breath, nodded her understanding as he spoke. “How much do you figure you remember?” She asked softly, expression soft and she nodded as he took the bottle, pushing her glass towards him to ask the same. “About everything, I mean. I find myself walking down streets that I used to know and turning corners into people who were never there before. Places I used to live don’t exist, probably haven’t for years. It’s strange how some things disappear without a trace.” It was all still fresh and strange, her return too recent for it to be routine yet. She pushed herself upright, snagging her hopefully refilled glass and burying one hand in her pocket as she walked through the room quietly, considering his question with a tilted head. “This place still has good bones and the right kind of ghosts.” Rilla turned to Leo, shifted her weight and offered a bittersweet smile on rose-tinted lips. “And you’ve got plenty of time yet, provided we don’t all get killed by thralls after all the hassle.” Shaking her head she laughed, “it’s a long story, and the world is always ending here for one reason or another.” Drink still in hand Rilla crossed to the target still set up, a crooked smile lingering on her mouth. “Either you’ve been practicing a lot lately or this is practically vintage. When was the last time someone used this?”

Leoxander tongued at the inside of his back teeth with a slight separation of lips as he continued to stare into the empty space of the room a moment longer, debating how he would answer her question. Honestly? Or dismissively..? He finally looked back her way, distracted a few extra seconds as whiskey sloshed the bottom of the tumbler, and he filled it a little high on both accounts. To their good health and poor memories. “Fire…” He met her shifted eyes with their resin like bleed of gold into blue, before glancing at his bandaged left hand. “Most of it, up until fire. But…” He paused, which gave her time to speak again, the exchange of conversation flowing well between the two. He only continued when she stood to wander with drink in hand, turned to rest elbows and mid spine on the bar. He could recognize a purposeful change in topic when he heard one. “I’m takin’ back this island.” He said bluntly to her. It wouldn’t matter if she told others. Not that he didn’t trust her, but the sooner he stood up against any challenge, the better. “Maybe we’ll wake a few ghosts, on the way.” Lanterns periodically caught his eyes as they shifted to follow her path toward the worn wood, paint faded with red and black circular lines. Only some of the parchment and posters on the wall had survived, a lot torn or withered with age and layered in dust. “Like you said, this place used to be alive. Everythin’ in here was well used.” He secretly wondered if that applied to them, as well. Upright and turning to down his second glass in one pull, he took a deep breath into his lungs, a sidelong glance returning her way. “Where you headed from here? You gotta place?”

Rilla nodded slowly at his words, letting the easy flow between them calm her again from the tension that had risen in her throat. Her guard was down; trust had to be extended to someone at some point. She fixed him with a stare at his next words, sizing him up though almost-innocent bright blue eyes. Leo had to know better by now, Rilla was loyal to a fault, but would never win prizes for her moral compass. “I figured as much, and that you’ll bring it back to being a place that might be worth being.” She shrugged nonchalantly and looked back to his target, at the injuries to it old and new for another moment before she moved to study a poster on the wall pensively through the dust. “I don’t.” Rilla admitted, looking over one shoulder at Leoxander before she turned to face him once more, leaning up against the wall as she shifted her weight. “Sometimes I stay at Vigilanti Semper, others with a friend in The Sage. Sometimes I just sleep outside.” She laughed, downing the last of her drink and crossing to set the now empty glass back atop the bar. “Nothing new, I was on the run for a couple years before I landed back here.” She waved a hand dismissively, the other rested on the bar beside Leo. She considered her words for a moment, levelled blue eyes with his. “This place is still alive. Same as you.” Rilla said finally, holding her gaze for another instant before she looked away, rocked back on her heels to lean up against the stool behind her.

Leoxander wasn’t a man of too many words, so it wasn’t until the last of hers that he spoke again, turning his glass with his fingers with just barely a shot left in it from whatever he’d poured. He met her dual-toned gaze without a glare, just calm as she, nodding quietly to the last statement she made. “It’s a start, either way.” Finishing off the whiskey, he turned the glass over in habit to indicate he was done, which explained why there might be so many faded rings on the wood at that third seat from the end. “I d’know if you met the Ace, or remember her. Lita… worked Red’s place at the Tumbler and sometimes filled in, here.” Standing upright, he rounded the bar in order to wash the glass he’d used, and hers, unless she craved more of that not-quite-top-shelf but decent-enough whiskey. It was rare for someone else to bring -him- a drink. “That place down on the beach? I used to stay there. An’ she ain’t been in for a while. Long as you keep the place up it’s good enough for shelter ‘gainst a storm. You tell her I put you there an’ she’ll understand. If you want it. For now.” Leo wasn’t lacking for a place to rest his head. Between he and his partner in crime, they had a few holes in the ground, better known as stolen or borrowed residence, map to map. The offer would show that he cared enough to show some slight concern.

Rilla breathed a laugh at the mention of Lita, watching Leo as he cleaned up again. “Ah, Lita.” She shook her head in amusement. “She spends some of her time in the mountains now. I came through that way and ran into her at a cabin. Doubt she’d put me out if she found me there.” Although she fell silent, she mouthed a ‘thank you’ to him. Rilla was still another moment before she stood, and started to turn to leave before she reconsidered and fished one of those thin black knives out from it’s hiding place. She set it on the bartop with one hand and slid it towards him. “In case you don’t have any decent ones - next time you can try to hit me with it.” Leoxander had not asked for her help, he likely did not want it, but Rilla was going to give it to him either way. One hand rested on the bartop a moment longer before she turned and made for the door. “I’ll think about the place on the beach, thanks for the tip. Might need something local.” And with that Rilla would once more head out into the wind, the door openly loudly as she tipped her hand to Leo with an easy smile.

Leoxander watched her retreat, her pause, and her return without moving from his spot, eyes following the placement of that gift on the counter. He met her blended stare with a slight nod of acceptance, a hint of that smirk coming through again. “I’ll be around.” He reassured her in a low spoken promise as she made her way for the exit, feeling calm with the thought of an old reacquaintance in his corner. Only after the doors closed behind her and she escaped into the windy weather outside did he pick up that blade and very nearly smile.