Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone

[strikefirster]

Who: Johnny, Daniel, Ortus, Gideon Nav's Exquisite Corpse, Paul, Kaworu, Deku, Harrow, Maybe more?
What: Kidnapping, Forced Adoption, Getting these kids away from the Emperor
When: Shortly after boatgate
Where: The Bone House and Cobra Kai

Content Warnings: Probably references to Murder, Manipulation, Johnny Lawrence.

Prompts and Mingle will be in the comments.

Comments

you! yes, you, behind the bikesheds! stand still, laddy!

[butnotyet]

[ There's a point, when nearly everything is loaded up, when nearly everyone is loaded up, but not quite yet — that someone else from the house is waiting for Ortus.

Augustine has made no attempts to keep anyone from moving out of the house. (Well, one — but he hasn't actually tried, after all.) Augustine himself has only been gone from the house very briefly, once, to the Archives, to recover a single specific book — and no matter that he looks like absolute shit, the longer he spends in the house, in close proximity to him. Lyctors — necromancers, but given that Palamedes Sextus has long made his opinion of this house and its master plain — aren't meant to spend time in close proximity to Heralds. ]

It's good that you're getting them out.

[ He gives Ortus a nod, respectful — with a touch of a wry smile at one corner of his mouth. There's nothing mocking here, no matter who might be looking: just someone who's spent most of the last twenty-four hours constantly on the edge of flinching at every buzzing, rattling, clicking noise in the house.

There's a crate in his arms; it is, predictably enough, made of thin-lacquer bone, given that Ortus has already calmly repurposed every box that was already extant throughout the house, to move everyone's things out. There's not all that much in it. The bottom layer is carefully-nestled jams, made by Paul and whoever else was willing to help him, last month. There are a few notebooks — simple things, unwarded; chapbooks, hymnals, anatomical atlases, from throughout the Age of Man. And there's a small box under them, too, still sealed up with tape, covered in dust, the word ORRERY just barely visible through the grime — a sticky note attached to it has Augustine's handwriting questioning birthday? without specifying whose. He isn't even aware this is in here; Alfred added it when he was still sorting through the prayer books. The orrery inside isn't assembled, of course, but the neatly-labeled instructional book ought to make it very easy to get things in working order. ]

Good you're getting out, too, I imagine.

[ He's not used to this. (He's not used to any of this.) ]

Thanks, I suppose.

[ He shoves the crate at Ortus. Look, just take it. Make good use of what's inside. Everything is so very well labeled as to its purpose. ]

[noniad]

[Even as a poet, Ortus does not quite have the precise turn of phrase for the irony that is this: as God has plummeted in his estimation, his Saint has risen. The pecularities of the Saint of Patience have lost much of their ability to torment Ortus in their passing acquaintance, in part because he has come to witness the only relations between two people he has ever seen more fraught than those between Harrowhark and Gideon.

Then came the ship, and the beach, and his witnessing of the Saint-as-tether on the hideous wrath of God and his blackened soul. Augustine acted in aid of the children. That is not a thing that Ortus will forget. It is a thing that absolves much, as aqua regia does gaudy gilding over clean and lovely bone.

He accepts the box readily, untroubled by its construction. If anything, it shows a thoughtfulness he is beginning to suspect has always been there, concealed under the opacity that the Saint makes of himself.

(Does Ortus not know what it is to don a mask? To swallow one's grief and loneliness as bitter water until one has become inured to its sting? To make of oneself's a nothingness, untouchable, burying all that once felt beneath indifference? A strange thought to entertain, but these are strange days that he inhabits.)]

Would you come with us, Saint of Patience?

[The words come soft and unbidden to him. He knows what the answer will be even as he asks the question, for the same reason that he could not have left this place while Harrowhark and Gideon called it home, but there is something to the asking.]

[butnotyet]

[ For a second, if Ortus is looking at just the right angle, he might see one of those masks crack and fall — in all the shattered heartache and weariness of a man who has seen it all, done it all, grieved it all, lost everyone and everything he has ever cared for, one way or another, as years stretch into decades into centuries into millennia and then keep going, with each new loss scoring a new and deeper wound into his heart, until it no longer even exists, because how could it? — something about the set of his eyes, the shock and vulnerability of someone who was absolutely not expecting such a question — ]

Oh, please — after all this time, the least you can do is call me Augustine, isn't it?

[ His tone is lighthearted enough, playful enough, dismissive enough, as to indicate disinterest, disinclination, distaste — except, of course, for the simple fact of what he's offering. ]

Anyway, I'm sure I'd be simply delighted to come along, at least as much as everyone else wouldn't be to have me join you where you're going, but... [ a shrug, a glance across the yard, marking each person finding a place in the truck, packed in with just as much care as all those jars of Paul's jam. ] Not yet, I think.

[ His smile is a flicker, the corner of one lip only, as insubstantial as a flame, as his gaze fixes on Ortus again. ]

I realize you're having something of a crisis of faith, and under the circumstances I think it speaks well to your sanity to be having it — well.

He was worth loving, once. He deserved it, then. Everything that built up around that came after — I'm sure at least a third of it, in the first few centuries at least, was my fault and everything — but somewhere at the core of all of it was someone who —

[ He cuts himself off, shaking his head, and pulls out a cigarette with hands that are if anything too steady, in the way of one who is concentrating very hard on forcing steadiness. There's the faintest rustling-and-slithering sound, as well, as his brother-Omen emerges from nowhere at the small of his back, coiling up and around his shoulders, in a shawl or a hug; when he's finished lighting his cigarette, his hand rests against a coil for a moment, providing comfort to one of them, or the other, or both.]

I made my promises too long ago to give up on them now. And anyway, I suspect if I leave, there won't be anything to come back to, here.

[ A bleak and resigned certainty. ]

[noniad]

[Ortus beholds the Saint of Patience - Augustine - with his sad, heavy gaze as his snake Omen curls in cool comfort around his neck, and he meets the serpent's eyes with a certain look as Augustine brushes lightly across his scales. It is a look he has shared only a handful of times before, one he did not recognize the first time that Sir Magnus Quinn shot it at him behind his lady-wife's back, one he learned to return in time.

It is a look of fellow feeling. It is one that says, wordlessly, that whatever their necromancers may do, they are cavaliers, and there is an understanding of their duty between them; that in absence of any compelling reason not to be, they are comrades in common cause of care. It says look at what we put up with, half-exasperated and half-proud. It says, in this case, look out for him, will you?

Ortus knows what Alfred is, after all. He knows the terrible price that Augustine has paid for his Lord once before, and he has begun to understand what it means to cherish one who does not offer themselves up easily to such care.]

Augustine.

[The name trips off his tongue as softly as the Saint's hand rested on his brother. He speaks to him as he would speak to his own necromancer, with gentle manner and a quiet solicitousness that is so retiring as to be easily dismissed, if Augustine cannot bear it upon the brittle strength of his surface.]

I do not think you would find yourself as unwelcome as you fear. My Lady would intercede on your behalf. [He adjusts the box in his grip, glancing downward.] As would I.

But it is beyond me to ask you to shirk your duty, or forsake your House. I bear no ire against you, whatsoever lies between the Ninth and the First. [He looks up from beneath his long, dark lashes, solemnly.] I thank you for your kindnesses. I would return them, if I can.

[butnotyet]

[ For some, snakes are terrifying creatures, all fang and scale and murder; for some, even those with little enough experience with reptiles, it's surprisingly easy to recognize when a snake/omen/brother/cavalier is smiling back at you, replete with a sorrowful fondness and a hope that maybe, in this generation, things could be better; maybe Gideon is dead, maybe Ortus is dead, but are either of them truly dead? can both of them not stand together to support poor frequently-overwhelmed Harrowhark? are they not both, in their own ways, learning to be the immovable objects she needs at her back?

But Augustine — Augustine looks like he isn't listening, as Ortus speaks; Augustine looks like he's watching skeletons pick through the dead and brittle weeds in the yard, five-minute looped patterns of autopilot, good enough to fool someone walking down the street into thinking they're actively at work and wretched for anyone who's spent any real length of time watching them: it's a cheap trick, profoundly unimpressive to anyone who's watched the farmers of the Ninth House at work, and only about as interesting as an endlessly-flying-into-the-stars screensaver to someone from the First.

Augustine is listening to every word, every aspect of each word's timbre, studying those phonemes with every bit of fascination that slowing down the universe might offer. Augustine already knows how much he'll need to replay them, in the coming days, when he's wondering what the fuck is wrong with him, that he chose — is choosing, now, in this exact moment — to remain here. ]

Well. I suppose there's always the chance of visiting for dinner sometime, perhaps. Wouldn't need to be formal, [ he adds, quickly, eyeing Johnny Lawrence, askance. ] At some point, in the future.

If the weather holds, you might say.

[ He hesitates another moment, gaze flickering away from the skeletons and back to Ortus Nigenad, Cavalier Secondary of the Ninth, as he smokes silently, with those hands that aren't shaking. ]

If nothing else, I hope you'll send me an invitation the next time you're doing a reading somewhere in town, whether or not — [ Again, cutting himself off, using that cigarette more like a crutch than a drug, or maybe it's both —

It's a different voice that finishes the thought, as the snake's expression turns markedly more rueful. ]

«God used to be very fond of poetry.»

[noniad]

[Ortus wonders how long it might have taken Augustine to cultivate the immensity of distance that he may so readily occupy, a shell much more resilient than the brittle, calcified haughtiness of his Lady or the brassy boldness of Gideon Nav. His own reserve cannot touch it, could not even begin to brush against its sides.

But once the nature of what it is has been seen, he cannot unsee it. It is a bizarre thing, to feel pity for a Saint, and one whose acts have brought such grief to his House. One who remains even now devoted to a God who has forsaken his First House and its peoples to chase a woman-beast on the sand, allowing his last subjects to be stolen away under the brazen glare of daylight, by his own most precious disciple's leave.

He turns. He sets the heavy box on the bed of the truck and turns back, brushing the front of his robes indifferently, though not a speck of dust besmirched them.]

I will extend you an invitation.

[He does not care if God once was fond of poetry. He cannot find that within himself, not with Gideon's body cold as the sea she drowned in. But he can muster compassion for the two souls who still do, entwined as they are with each other, and with Him.

Delicately, Ortus extends his hand, an offer shocking in its disregard for Augustine's elevated station above the likes of one such as Ortus.]

Let us not call this farewell, then.

[butnotyet]

[ There's a moment, as the Saint of Patience regards Ortus's hand, stretched out before him — a moment of expressionlessness, a moment of befuddlement, a moment of sheer and uncomplicated surprise, a moment of doubt that compassion might be so readily offered, after so many conversations in which Augustine only pretended to be unaware of how uncomfortable he has, surely, always made poor Ortus Nigenad —

There's a moment, as he stares, and then he puts his cigarette in his mouth, shakes his hand in midair as if attempting to be rid of a cramp, or stray dog hairs, or maybe just the very fine cloud of tobacco particulates drifting away on the breeze outside — and then he clasps the hand of the Ninth (Secondary) in his own, holding it with a firm affection that lasts several seconds longer than the gesture actually requires. ]

There was a language, once, that I think I knew, as a child, [ he offers, in an all-too-casual tone — just making conversation, as you do. ] It made a point of differentiating between different forms of farewells, different closing statements — highlighting the differences between what you'd say to someone you expected to see in a few hours, or the next day, or at some uncertain point, or not until after you had both died and found each other somewhere in Heaven's copious acreage.

[ The expression on his face might, charitably, be called a smile. On the other hand, Ortus is assuredly no stranger to the rictus grin of a death mask. Perhaps this is somewhere between the two. ]

Au revoir, then, my dear boy; I do look forward to the recital — probably more than to the dinner party, unless young Paul recovers enough to take charge of the kitchen.

[ His accent's not bad, on the French; he has no idea at all if the words will translate, but that's not the point, now, is it? ]

[noniad]

[Ortus has been more ill-treated for far longer by those more dear to him than Augustine. It has been little obstacle to his affections for them. It poses little obstacle to his consideration of Augustine, whatever discomfort has arisen at the Saint's overfamiliarity and innuendo.

There is more than one way to construct a barrier between oneself and the world. Ortus attempts to imagine the Saint as a child, all those thousands of years ago, and finds that he may not, because the image that comes to him of a child is one that is small and knobby kneed and skull-painted, with wide eyes of indeterminate color and a muss of pale hair.

The gift of translation in this world smooths the edges of the foreign words, this language that the Saint once spoke, a language as long dead as that imagined child, and Ortus comprehends.

He thinks that over a myriad, one must say goodbye many times, and always knowing that one such time will be the last.]

Au revoir.

[He echoes the words with utmost gravity, which ought to be unsuited to their lightness, but he finds a way to make them suit. He did not aspire to the title of bone skald unready for it.]

I will see to the well-being of my charges, in the meanwhile. [Not quite what Augustine has said; not quite implied, but perhaps meant.] May you find your own such duty not so onerous.

[butnotyet]

[ Funny, really, given what will happen in a mere three days, regarding Duty, and (uncapitalized) duties becoming less onerous — but neither of these two are those who might read the future, to know what is yet to come; Augustine knows only what he intends, and the likelihood of the cost he will bear as a result.

No use crying over milk that not only hasn't been spilt yet, but hasn't even formed in the cow, however. ]

Small enough chance of that, I fear, [ light-heartedly cheerful as his tone may appear, ] but I'm certainly not opposed to being proven wrong in the matter.

Do let me know, if anyone finds they've left something behind by mistake — although you do appear generally quite well-equipped in the detail-orientation department, amidst the lot of you — and I'll have Alfred drop it by.

And otherwise, well... I do hope that poetry reading will be soon, my young friend. You've certainly got enough work produced and polished to carry it off; you'll just have to whittle down your selection to be an appropriate length to allow for questions and answers, I suspect.

«Or for signings,» [ Alfred interjects. ]

[noniad]

[ A brief absurdity: Ortus wonders if this is what the fabled tales of worried parents sending their cherished offspring off to their first Cohort rotation are all about, and if he should expect to find lemon candies and a fresh change of socks tucked somewhere in the box that Augustine has handed over. It's not an unwelcome thought, but it is a sad one.

He does not care for God's loneliness in his emptied nest. He finds he cares, with the ache of a bruise, for Patience's.

Perhaps he will drop something inside of his own. A pen, or a strand of polished knucklebone, or a few scraps of notation. Another reason to lure the Saint, or at least his cavalier, out of this place. ]

Perhaps I shall provide a brief background to the audience to avert some of the more common questions about bones. [ He resists the urge to place a hand on Augustine's shoulder, but only just. ] To leave more - space for 'signings'.

[ He is struck by the terrible and touching knowledge that there will be those who will insist on such a thing. ]

Do not be a stranger.

[ That is how people say goodbye in stories. Ortus nods to them both in turn, necromancer and cavalier, Saint and spirit, Augustine and Alfred, before he turns away, making his way to the truck being loaded now with the young alongside their belongings. ]