is waiting, in an overstuffed armchair, at home. Two of the kids are already asleep; two are not, and he was telling a story to one of them a few moments ago, to calm his own nerves as well as hers. (She’s the youngest; she’s -met- Salme a few times but she barely recalls it. She knows that Dad was really sad for a few months and that suddenly he very much isn’t but has joyfully had Some Wine and gave everyone extra hugs and said that Salme would be coming by.)
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#saint
#badri
stands outside the door for a few minutes, gathering her thoughts. She had barely got her companions settled at the inn before she had turned around and come straight here. The door is unlocked. She knows Badri left the door unlocked for her. She still stands outside, counting and breathing, before she comes in. “Hello?” she calls, as if she doesn’t know Badri is waiting for her.
looks up- and Emie is OFF LIKE A SHOT and Salme almost gets rockettackled by a tiny ball of energy with fox ears and a bushy tail before Badri is halfway to the door, and maybe now is not, strictly speaking, the best time for that but also Emie is extremely excited to see Salme again, who is VERY important, and Emie expresses this by hugging Salme’s leg with astonishing vigor. Badri, finally catching up, smiles apologetically. “Salme. Light, it’s… good to see you.”
laughs, prying Emie off her leg to scoop her up into her arms instead. “Hello to you too, Emie,” before looking at Badri. “You saw me not an hour ago.”
just chuckles and shrugs, as Josef peeks his head from behind a corner at the end of the hallway and peers with a smile he’s trying to be extremely cool as a cucumber about and failing abjectly to be cool as a cucumber about. “I’m going to keep saying it a lot, as it’s going to keep being true. Never… I thought. I’d.” He coughs. “It’s good.”
: “I know what you thought,” softly, not unsympathetic. She waves at Josef, then winks. “And I don’t blame you for thinking it. What I want to know is what on earth was said that convinced me to go in the first place, considering.”
lets out a slow puff of breath, and leans against a wall. “Tsemdrulukh discovered a message buried -in- the metagnosis of a common Rite-act. Didn’t know what to do with it, but knew… who burnt it in there. And had made some foolish promises to them, a very long time ago.”
: “That, and what that yeresh came to the King with.”
: “Yes, but.” She looks at Emie in her arms. “Well, that can be in a moment. What do you think about–all this.”
looks at Salme- looks at Emie, looks at Josef with the eyes in the back of his head Salme knows he’s always had. “You didn’t like it. The Mask didn’t like it. I don’t blame you. But… you… Light. Oh, Light chatoyant everlasting, Salme, you -came back-. You came back. You came back.” He shakes his head, slightly, from side to side, pulls out a kerchief and wipes his suddenly-very-bright eyes. Emie wiggles to be let down so she can go hug Badri’s leg because that is suddenly the most important thing to do in the entire universe. “This changes things. Ciet was right. All this time.”
lets Emie down. She almost goes to hug Badri too but stops herself, crosses her arms instead. “Were they?”
sounds almost -broken- when he says, “They were. And I thought they’d…” He stops, takes a deep breath. “It’s hard for me to even -think- about that shrine. I’m sorry.”
: “You never told me what happened there. Did you tell me before I left for the Tangle, or …?”
nods. Once. “…which means I can tell you again. Especially now.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, and starts going so he can’t stop. “They and Tsemdrulukh had figured out a way to tune Tsem’s ‘drinker half to… listen to gnosis. Crazy Lightdrinker stuff. Said they could hear the Worldsong in a totally new way. Wound up…” He shakes his head. “Listening to messages they said were from other -worlds-. Tapping messages through the walls like horn-signals. Longs and shorts, just like we do. And Ciet… felt called to go find ‘em. Join with them. Like… well. Like the six of you. So we went… it had to be the shrine. I’m still not -sure- why. They had a crystal on a leather strap that kept pointing that way. And.” He takes another breath, and Emie hugs his leg even harder. “…and it all went wrong. They. They got… there was something there. Like a mouth. Like a hungry, angry mouth, or a door to somewhere you don’t want to ever be. And they got… it pulled them in, halfway. They gave me the Mask. Told me it was up to me. And.” He looks away. “And the door closed on them, and I thought they were dead, and had left me alone, with…” He gestures, vaguely. “….and I was wrong. This. Whole. Time, I was wrong.” He looks up, and he’s crying, but he’s smiling, -fiercely-.
: “You don’t know that,” a little sharply, and then she shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been–the thing that took us, the man, the god, he was wrong. He was twisted. And he told us our worlds had all be destroyed. I thought Almachadta was gone, that Wolf and I were the only survivors. And then another thing or man or god came and told us it was a lie, shattered reality and–yes. You saw all this. But Badri, what if it is supposed to happen like this. What if stopping it is the wrong choice?” ⁂
is crying again, though more quietly this time. “I dueled you for the mask because I knew I could endure. But I’m not made for choosing. Not like this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
🙧
whispers, quietly. “I know. Oh, Salme. Oh, Light, I know.” He looks down at Emie, briefly, which was an error, and then closes his eyes, shoulders shaking, briefly. “You said the same thing then, and I agreed with you. But you needed to… know. To understand what was -there-. And I wanted to go in your place, and it would have been foolish of me to, because I’m a foolish old man with foolish dreams, and you’re the Sword-Saint, and that was the right of it. And then you were gone, and I thought that was that, that Tsem had been wrong again, that Tsem… and I… had broken us all.”
scrubs at her face, like she could scour away the shame of it–of shattering all Almachadta by getting captured with the mask. She wants to tell him she would have found a successor if she had died, but she’d hadn’t found a successor before she’d been taken. “It wouldn’t have been you or Tsem. It would have been me. I was the one who got taken, who wasn’t able to pass the mask on.”
: “We could argue about this all night, and we’re not going to. It wouldn’t have been either of our faults and I was a fool for kicking myself in the arse about it.” He says it like it’s a Rite challenge. A friendly one, but still.
does something ugly with her mouth, a frown that she forces into a neutral line. “I–” she isn’t going to duel him in a Rite. Not over this–at least not this time, though she remembers, suddenly, that they certainly have before–and not just when she won the mask. Badri, bright as the Centrelight, against her. She’s never said that she thinks there was a mistake, that she shouldn’t be the Sword-Saint–being the Sword-Saint is the only worthwhile thing she’s ever done in her life. But again she feels the gulf between them, Badri who is so good and safe and bright, warm-crackling fire and shady tree canopy and shelter from heavy rains all at once, and her. ⁂
: “I’ve almost told them,” she says instead. “Wolf–he. He’s everything right about this world. He feels it, the disruption, the wound. It hurts him and it terrifies him and I just thought I could tell him and maybe he’d find the answer. Or the others–I don’t know. Someone who wouldn’t care as much, who it wouldn’t hurt as much. I almost told them, and part of it was because I didn’t want to carry this alone.” ⁂
: “The only thing you asked, that the role requires, and I almost violated it because I was–sad.” 🙧
shakes, physically; leans against the wall. “Ah, Light. I almost told them. When I saw you, alive. I almost told the King. I almost said everything. I still might. Save you from it. You could tell that old plank it was my fault. You shouldn’t… have to… Light dimmed to flickering and stuck up a goobbue’s arse, I know Ciet was trying to save me from having to carry it alone.” A wry almost-smile. “I know you sure as bright embers had to win it from me fair and square.” He shakes his head. “You’ve dived deep? I know you have, because I would. And you didn’t see… ach. Seven years, and I still can’t say things where the children might hear.”
: “Yes well maybe if you collected fewer children,” she says, like it’s an old–argument-come-joke that they’ve had before. “I’ve dove as deep as I can. When I was taken and didn’t remember anything I was trying to see if there was something. The thing that took us–calls himself The Architect if you’d believe it–was trying to sell us some sort of story, and I was trying to see where it all fit. Later, when we got back and Wolf told us about the wound and the song, then too, trying to see if it was what we thought. And then–” she laughs humorlessly. “I was just trying to get back to you, and then we saw the grove and–my head’s such a mess. I’m surprised you could tolerate being in there.”
does laugh at that, and smile, while she talks, although he grows a little more somber yet as she continues. “If you’d like me to dive with you, I think I can handle a few more of its opinions on the matter in my old age.”
: “Yes. Please.” She looks at Emie who is still, somehow, clinging to Badri’s leg. “You probably should sit, though. I know I will be.” She reaches down and shucks off her boots, finally hanging her cloak. Her hair is still a helpless mess, and she wonders if she might convince one or two of the children to help her brush it later. Or maybe the Awoken would help back at the inn. That’s for later anyway. She helps herself to a bit of the wine Badri has sitting out, and then sits in the chair next to his. “Ready, old man?” tapping the mask against the chair arm, a little disrespectfully.
laughs, poured a glass for Salme and a smaller glass for himself, making himself nice and comfortable. There’s a table, in between the two of them, where they can put the mask and both comfortably reach it. Josef receives an unspoken memo and gets Emie to bed after another EXTREMELY insistent leg-hug to both Salme and Badri. And, finally: “As I ever was. As I’ll ever be.” And he puts his hand on the mask, fingers interlaced with hers.
she laughs and closes her eyes and … falls.
ꙮ Some time passes.
gasps, thunderously, for breath, immediately nearly has a coughing fit, which he controls at great effort and expenditure of will, downs the remainder of the glass of wine on the table without exacerbating the coughing fit. Shakes his head like a wet dog. Is crying tears-streaming-down-the-sides-of-his-face amounts. Seems… lighter, somehow, though. Leans back in the chair. Breathes.
lets out a long breath. She finds her own glass of wine and downs it in very few gulps. She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, holding herself tightly. “Tasna, a scholar. If you remember any other names Ciet spoke with, or if Tsem knows, we’ll need to know that. I’ll need to tell–as much of that as possible. Maybe all of it.”
buries her face in her knees. “I’m glad you don’t know either,” she mumbles. She considers getting more wine, getting well and truly drunk, but she doesn’t think that would be productive in any sense of the word. She already kind of wants to vomit.
scrunches up his face and shakes his head. “I know there were others, but it was mostly her coördinating things. Tsem might remember more. If… when they see you, they. I think they’ll feel a lot better about things, too. Ought to go say hello at some point myself, it’s… been some time.” He exhales, a long, slow exhale. “Please go get some rest? And then spend at least a day soaking in the hot spring and chatting with… one of -several- handsome admirers, it seems like?” Yup, still Badri. “Forest’ll be here, I promise.”
nods and straightens, cracking her neck unsettlingly loudly. “I don’t have several handsome admirers,” but her face is a little flushed when she says it. “Wolf is–a brother, I think. But point taken.” ⁂
adds, more softly, “get some rest too. And maybe visit the hot springs yourself. That cough seems worse.” 🙧
chuckles, smiles easily. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.” 🙧