deercountry | House Log 001: Find me way out there; there's no road that will lead us back

Ah, that's easy enough. Rather, it's not really any more of an issue for Break than anything else is. There's the usual concerns about your blade getting caught on bones and not sticking too close to the aftermath, but Break has knocked heads off in one stroke before with no problems, and he's certain he can do it again.

Baltus guides him around, so that the draugr will be more focused on the falcon than Break when he makes his move. Then, in a move he's obviously had to use multiple times, he ducks underneath the creature's flailing arms, bringing himself close enough for a solid strike. A hit across the chest is forceful enough to send it flailing back, wide open, and before it can recover Break's sword is headed straight for the neck. It connects.

Lucius watches as Break slices the head clean off. The man's practiced at this. Lucius, who knows the general how of decapitation but has no personal experience (yet), notes everything he can. Before the unwieldy now-headless corpse begins toppling towards Break.

"Look out!" He's surprised to find himself saying it, the words out before he even registered them.

Very probably Break could get out of the way entirely on his own. He does not have a chance to try, because his omen decides to take matters into his own paws and launches himself at him, knocking Break out of the way and sending him skidding across the pavement again with a "Geh!"

He slides to a stop off to the side somewhere. The corpse falls horribly to the ground, making an unpleasant squishy sound as dead flesh connects with stone. For a few moments after, there's a ringing sort of silence, the almost alive sort that always comes immediately after a ruckus.

"...thank you, Baltus," Break says flatly.

"Boof," the omen answers. He helped.

Lucius can't help but give a small snort of laughter. Thank you, Baltus. Emrys, for his part, lands on the corpse, inspecting it to make certain that it's really most sincerely dead. After a few moments of close looks and exploratory clawing, the gyrfalcon nods in satisfaction. Threat eliminated.

With that confirmation, Lucius sheathes his sword and walks over to where Break lies on the cobblestones. "Need help getting up?"

There's a bit of a wry note in the boy's tone. But he can help somewhat less dramatically than Baltus just has.

"Let me think about it a moment," Break says, clasping his hands over his stomach and bringing one leg up so he can balance the other ankle over his knee. Mm, comfy, comfy pavement. "Sometimes it takes an old man a few moments to decide whether or not he's broken a hip, you know."

He is being snide as can be; there is clearly nothing wrong with him, especially compared to the first time Lucius saw this man. Break is well dressed now, too, garbed all in black save for his mask, which is all blue and purple butterflies and dangly shiny bits. Baltus ignores Break's own dramatics entirely, trotting over with his tail swishing high to greet Lucius properly. He recognizes the boy, of course, and is pleased to see him again. He's also not informing Break just yet, on the grounds that it's always much funnier when Break suddenly figures things out on his own.

"Are you alright? That thing didn't hurt you, did it?"

Ha. He's alright, then. In much better spirits than the last time they met, in addition to being in much better physical shape. After a moment of hesitation, Lucius reaches out and gives Baltus a scratch between the ears. The Omen has been very helpful.

"I'm fine." Aside from his pride, and the hit to his own estimation of his ability to get by here. But they're alive and unhurt. He'll learn from this.

Baltus, as always -- well, in every moment they've seen so far -- is happy to accept friendly scritches. For once, he also decides not to make Break work too hard to figure out just who he's speaking to, a little game the omen likes to play with his person. It's funny when it's something like keeping the identity of the mystery bird who helped him a secret while Break goes around making friends with random ravens over it, but this one is a kid, and Baltus knows Break will be inclined to keep an eye on him.

You know. So to speak.

Xerxes, we have met this one before, he announces, speaking aloud to both of them. Break had been swinging his foot around a little, and it goes still as he turns this information over in his head. A kid he's met before? A kid, a kid. A boy child. This is not Oscar. This is not Dipper. Who else has he --

"-- the boy from that first day?!"

He abruptly shoots into a sitting position. Yes, he is quite alright.

Edited 2022-01-03 00:13 (UTC)

He suddenly feels self-conscious - the alacrity with which Xerxes sits up seems to imply an importance Lucius isn't sure he wants. But there's no avoiding it now.

"Ah. Yes. Looks like you're doing better." Overall, he means, though it could also be applied to the immediate moment.

"Very much, thank you," Break says, sounding like a parrot repeating a stock phrase, almost. The struggle he is having is that of course he remembers the boy -- his memories of that first day are something of a blur, but for Break especially, a little kid guiding you off to dry land and helping to sort out a robe and things rather stands out. In long and quiet moments, often in the middle of the night when the rest of the house is quiet and Break has only Baltus to ground him, he's wondered whatever happened to the boy. Given how thoroughly absent the kid has been, Break hadn't even been sure he was still around. He's only been here a month and a half, but from what he understands, it's not actually uncommon for people to show up briefly and then head right back to the sea.

Two of the girls in his own household did that. Break spent most of September trying to convince himself they hadn't been eaten by something nasty, only to have them turn up a couple of weeks ago and inform him that they had been eaten by a giant fish and spent some time living in it. He deflates visibly.

"Tell me you didn't get eaten by a whale," he says, wistfully. Look, Break is a man with very specific problems.

As he watches the man's face, Lucius is, selfishly, glad that Break is blind. He's not entirely sure how to interpret Break's expression, and therefore not sure how he himself should react. Especially as Break slumps.

...But apparently not due to any thought process Lucius might have anticipated. "What?"

(Jonah and Pinocchio whomst?)

Geez, this one word as a reaction and now Break feels really dumb. He makes a horrible face about it.

"Look, look, two of my kids turned up with me that very first day and disappeared again right away. I spent the whole month telling myself not to worry about dumb things like drowning or getting kidnapped or getting swallowed by the local beastie monsters, only to have them come back a few weeks ago telling me they'd been living in a giant fish that had eaten them. They smelled the part, too."

True facts. This is an actual problem Break has had since Lucius left him unsupervised.

"Something like that didn't happen to you, right...? From the tone of that reaction, I'm guessing 'no'."

Edited (Makes tag better) 2022-01-15 04:10 (UTC)

Two of his kids? So he's a father, with family here. Lucius is, on the one hand, intensely jealous of those whose families have come with them. On the other hand, he is intensely glad that there are no signs of most of his family. All but one of his family, in fact.

"Nothing that exciting." Maybe an odd assertion given the circumstances they just found themselves in, but surely we can all agree that living inside a giant fish is weird even for a place where many of the people were and can still revert to being squids. "Just trying to learn this place."

Having to fight a weird monster in the middle of town isn't actually all that exciting for Break either -- in his own world, each monster was distinct and had its own unique power, and whether he knew for certain what he was doing out on the field depended entirely on how much information Pandora had managed to gather before they sent him in. Because of that he completely misses the notion that getting attacked by a weird ghost should be something that stands out. After all, the kid knew what it was and how to kill it. This was very likely a "normal" encounter for him, too.

"I get the impression that the more boring a life you can manage in this place, the better off you'll be," he drawls. Then he fidgets a little, feeling somewhat awkward. Break hates small talk, but at least he can navigate it well. What does he even say now...? "Mm...then, I'm pleased to find you well."

Edited (I forgot some words) 2022-01-31 13:29 (UTC)

It was in fact far from normal for Lucius, at least at this point of his time in Trench. He had been lucky, so to speak, in this case. He knew the lore behind that kind of creature. He's going to have to learn a lot more.

Though, indeed, a more boring life would be preferable.

Lucius's own self-consciousness returns in response to Break's awkwardness. What do you say now? "...You, too." It is...pleasant, to find that the man who had been in such terrible shape has recovered so fully.

"You fight well." He leaves 'for a blind man' unsaid, both because it is a statement of the obvious and because the man had fought well for anyone. A qualifier would be an insult.

"I should hope so," Break agrees, rallying a little. Fighting is a good and safe and easy topic. "Swordsmanship was -- the family business, you could say. I was younger than you when I began training, and it's been rather my job my whole life."

More specifically, knighthood was the family business, but we do not use the kn-word anymore if we can help it. It is not a word for naughty people who do things like sacrifice people to demons over impossible wishes.

Edited (fucking html) 2022-03-05 04:39 (UTC)

Perhaps many twelve-year-old boys would find someone's family business being swordsmanship to be exciting. Lucius takes this information in with a notable neutrality. A warrior, then. It's not a profession that inspires automatic distrust in Trench, as it would back in his world. But it's still not one that inspires trust, either.

Actually appearing neutral gets you nowhere, though. It's about time he switched to his more social persona. "Well," he says with a wide smile, "I'm lucky I met someone so professional."

Break wasn't actually trying to be impressive, which is perhaps why he picks up just a little on the insincerity behind the comment. Not looking for flattery so much as stating a fact, and all. He shrugs this off and blames it on long exposure to Oz Vessalius. That cunning little shit could wring blood from a stone if it suited him and is one of the only people Break knows who can play on his level. Of course he's suspicious of everyone else when he has to deal with that at the breakfast table every morning.

"You were having a go at fighting it yourself, right?" he asks instead, moving on and businesslike. "The wall was a good idea, for a creature in want of beheading."

It's praise of a sort. This kid doesn't need to have it pointed out that he is too small yet for most of the monsters here. He likely knows that, just as well as Break knew it when he was young, and decidedly runtier than his peers. Being taught to fight smarter rather than harder changed the direction of his life, and he'll commend that when he sees it in others.

It is praise, of a sort, and Lucius finds himself warming to it in spite of himself. It's different from the approval he's received from his father and his half-brothers. It's not praise for his speed or strength, his ability to fit into the Norse warrior mold. It's praise for how he had thought.

"...Thanks. Next time I think I'll have a better idea and stay inside."

Emrys, currently perched on the aforementioned wall, rolls his falcon eyes. No you won't.

That gets a laugh out of him. It's short and a little rusty, the sort of laugh that comes when you aren't much in the habit of it and every time the urge appears, it's because something startled it out of you. The sound pleases Baltus, who wags his tail to hear it. Likely it will be a while before Break gets back to his proper Hatter cackles and that's just how it is, but every little step in the right direction is heartening to the omen.

"These masks the locals are trading really do seem to keep the spirits from noticing you, as they claim. I've had no trouble myself." This explains the silly blue thing with dangly beads he's wearing on his face, a nice burst of foreshadowing against his black clothing. Getting his feet under him, Break hauls himself to his feet with exaggerated stiffness, patting nonexistent dirt from his trousers. "I don't mind traveling along to the edge of the festival with you, if it suits you to fetch one tonight."

Break also does not believe for an instant that this child will simply stay inside from now on. With a brat like that, stopping their adventures just isn't going to happen. In such a case, making sure they're prepared and protected is the wiser choice.

He does have a mask. He just hadn't been thinking clearly tonight (hasn't been sleeping most nights) and forgot to bring it. But Lucius is reluctant to admit that. Pride, perhaps, but more likely the fact that if people are prepared for you to make errors, you might surprise them when you have success.

Thankfully, Emrys doesn't out him on this.

"I think I could use one, at this point." A wry admission. And, well, he probably does need a backup, all things considered.

"Mm, alright."

Break can fight despite being blind. He also has no trouble navigating the city streets, it turns out. Aiming towards the distant music of the incessant parade, Baltus places his shoulder beneath Break's hand and guides him until they come to a landmark Break recognizes -- a hanging sign that makes a specific creaking sound in the breeze that blows off the canal. From there, although his omen keeps him from becoming overwhelmed in the crowd, it's Break himself who uses everything from the smell of a restaurant with a trademark dish to a specific loose slat in the stone street to guide them to the booth of masks he remembers.

The first thing he did in Trench, once he was recovered enough to start roaming around in it, was make it a point to learn it so well that he could go about his business without a fussy teenager on his elbow.

Blessedly, Break does not seem inclined to much fuss himself now that the initial danger of the evening is over. Once Lucius is sorted out, Break leaves him be, content that he won't find harm from any ghosts within the festival crowd and he'll get to wherever he's staying -- which is surely a reasonable and child-appropriate place -- safely, between his own omen and his new mask. Lucius is free to roam with true adult concern hanging over him for a while longer.

House Log 001: Find me way out there; there's no road that will lead us back

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