Mirtul 18 1370 dr

[child_of_bhaal]

Who: Syeira and YOU
Broadcast: Nope
Action: Varric's bar on the Iskaulit mostly
When: Directly after the shuffle.



She has been checking on the roster listing nearly compulsively lately. Things have just been rough for her. Losses upon losses. Regaining Anders, only for her friend to not know her. It piles up on top of everything else.

Everything else being Sam falling into a sleep only to wake and nearly do something horrible to Cas. And she got to take a lovely swim in Sam's blood for that, a delightful bonus to her kill deprived self. And then Sam is hurt, again, on her watch. Cas fell into a sleep immediately after. She's been ill from the planet nearly all the time. Coil had a melt down. Arthur turned into a tiny teenager. And of course, Robin revealed to her she not only had a Calibration, but when he was in it, he saw her murder her own mother.

She had asked Robin not to shut her out again. That was the mistake. She'd admitted her fragility out loud where Atroma could over hear it. She'd told him she couldn't stand to lose any more friends. And now he's just gone. Removed, like so many others. And she quite simply cannot take one more bit of horrible without doing something about it. But there's nothing to fight. She's not going to trash her room. The thing that's left is rather obvious.

She goes to the Iskaulit, to the tavern that feels like one from home. She has a small pouch full of credits. She managed to pull out enough that the pouch weighs at least five pound. There's a hefty amount of money in it. This she takes directly to whoever is tending the bar, places it purposefully down on the counter, and gives them a dead serious, almost empty look.

"I would like to drink, until I physically cannot anymore, or the money runs out. Whichever comes first." And by the look of things, the money won't be what runs out first. "If it's the former, please feel free to keep whatever is left over for your troubles." Because she imagines it will be annoying to shove her out into the hall when she's fall down drunk.

And with that, she will start drinking. There's dedication in it, because she wants to obliterate everything in her head. Blot it all out until all that's left is alcohol poisoning.

[ooc: Feel free to tag her at any time during this. And please note, she did not notice Zhas has returned to the fleet, and I request that no one tells her. Thank you!]

Comments

[bythewaves]

"I do not require you to smile." He says gently. "That would be a little much, I think. Nor to deny what you are feeling now. But there is no reason to suffer unduly, either. You may drink as much as you please tonight, if that is what you wish - but if I can ease a little of your physical pain tomorrow, then so much the better."

[child_of_bhaal]

She pushes the food away, just enough to fold her hands and lay her head down on them. She lets her head turn to the side, so she can see him. She's tired, of so much, and it shows. But this is like resting a cramped muscle, so you can hold it tense again. Sometimes you need to be weak to be stronger.

"You think you're so far gone, but we barely know each other and here you are, taking care of me. You don't know anything I've done in my past, but you think I'm worth your kindness. You underestimate yourself, Maglor."

[bythewaves]

"You have stood by my cousin." He says simply. "And you have been kind to me, a stranger. My family always repays its debts - and those of kindness are a joy to repay."

[child_of_bhaal]

Oh, that is perhaps not the right thing to say to her. Not while she's feeling so terrible, and her rationality is compromised. She looks hurt, sits up straight again. Is that how he feels?

"You don't owe me a debt. Friendship isn't commerce. It's not something that needs repaying, or purchasing. It's just given. I give it to whoever I see fit. You don't owe me anything."

[bythewaves]

He does not roll his eyes at her but he reaches across to tug her hair again.

"I did not mean it that way, and were you not drunk, little fire-hair, you would know that. But you are wrong about owing - any who my cousin takes into his heart must needs be guarded also by me."

[child_of_bhaal]

Hey. She gives him a mildly disgruntled look about the hair tug. Mostly for its intent and not the action itself. She knows a scolding when she sees one.

"Is that what you're doing now? Guarding me."

[bythewaves]

"If you let me, I would." Maglor tells her gravely.

[child_of_bhaal]

"Not tonight," she counters somberly.

[bythewaves]

"Then at the least, little fire-hair, let me keep you company tonight."

[child_of_bhaal]

"If it'll make you happy." She'd walked over when he'd beckoned, stayed when he'd parented at her. If she was going to send him away, she'd have done it by now.

[bythewaves]

The tug turns into a gentle ruffle before he withdraws.

"It does. Now finish your water, if you are not hungry."

[child_of_bhaal]

That earns him a mildly irritated look, as she smooths down her hair. It's wild enough without his help.

"Some advice them. I've filled the roll for stand-in father figure more than once, and it's never ended well. Maybe Sutton for a different part." She says, somewhat rebelliously, as she drinks the water anyway.

[bythewaves]

He chuckles softly.

"You are already an adult, little fire-hair, unless I miss my guess. I do not think you need a father, hm?"

[child_of_bhaal]

"You're the one going all parent-like at me." She says, drinking the water like he told her to, illustrating her point. Or something close to it.

[bythewaves]

"Hm, perhaps. Or perhaps I am simply indulging my instincts as an older brother."

He observes in mild amusement.

"Or even a concerned friend."

[child_of_bhaal]

You sounded like a dad, Maglor. But she'll drop it because her attention span is very short at the moment.

"How many siblings do you have?"

[bythewaves]

"Six." Maglor says with wistful fondness. "All boys. I am the second of seven - above me was my elder brother Maedhros, and then in order was Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, and the twins, the Ambarussa - Amrod & Amras."

[child_of_bhaal]

She props her face in both hands and gives him a dreamy, drunk person smile. "You have a good relationship with them?"

She makes it a question, to get him to go on. Tell her all about your brothers please, Mags.

[bythewaves]

"I loved them fiercely, and I hated them equally so." Maglor says softly, voice dropping into the sing song tones of a storyteller, conjuring the images for her as he describes them.

"I grieved for them and I was glad when they passed into the peace of death, and I envied them the silence even as I feared for their souls. I love them. They were my stars, my joy, the complimenting notes of my song. Maedhros was my rock, bold Maitimo, with mother's hair and grandfather's canny political bent. He was the tallest of us all, and so protective of us. I remember him singing me lullabies when our parents were too busy as well as I remember his ferocity in battle, the way the orcs fled from his gaze. He could command and sway opinions with the sheer force of his presence, and even until the end, I would have followed him but that he forbade me.

Celegorm was wild, our little brother with our grandmother's fair hair. He seemed to have inexhaustible energy as a child, and from the beginning he got along better with bird and beast than he did with humans. Lord Orome took him in, taught him to hunt. It must have hurt so badly when my brother took those skills and twisted them. In Middle-earth he was feral. Always so very loyal to us, but wild, wild, so very wild and lethal.

Dark Caranthir was the middle child. Quite and many folk thought him sullen, with his explosive temper, but it hid a heart that cared so greatly that emotions simply erupted from him. He had our grandmother's skill with the needle, and if we had stayed, who knows what tapestries he might have created? Instead that skill went to weaving banners and clothes for war, and the sharp mind and stubborn will he had made him an excellent business partner for the dwarves, who appreciated his bluntness, I think.

Curufin! Oh Curufin. He was the very image of father in his youth, but Curufin had something that father never had, for all his madness. Father was blunt, like Caranthir, a fact people often forget. Oh he could convince and inflame, but father never cared for politics. Not like Curufin, who could argue you around in circles until you no longer remembered where you started. He was so clever, was Curufin, in the forge things of immense beauty and terrifying practicality seemed to form under his hands with barely any effort. But all everyone ever saw was father's copy, and that made him cruel.

The Ambarussa were the babies, twins as alike as they were different. The only other of father's sons born with mother's hair. They were hunters, but where Celegorm hunted for the thrill as well as to feed his family, for them it was ... a game. They looked at life and rejoiced in it. Until... after...."

[child_of_bhaal]

She listens, drunk as she is, with a rapt attention. As if she's trying to focus harder, so the drink doesn't wipe away the details. Questions form. How tall is 'the tallest'? What does Martimo mean? Who is Lord Promo? Caranthir? What was his grandmother like? And on and on. But the story is tinged with sadness, regret, and she's reminded that his father wronged him and his brothers with his selfishness. That's why Maglor lost them.

"I'm sorry you lost them." It's so little to offer, but there's not much else she can say that wouldn't be worse. She wants to know so much, all of his story, all of theirs, but not at the price of making him relive painful times.

[bythewaves]

He smiles at her, and if it is a little tinged in sadness, his voice never reflects it.

"Thank you for saying so - but they have been gone a long time now, and probably our world is better for it."

But you miss us all the same, eh, Makalaure?

[child_of_bhaal]

"Your world isn't. That's what matters. My world would be so much better off without my family in it. But I still miss my sister. I'd still do anything for her. Turn the world inside out if I had to."

Family.

[bythewaves]

"It is." He says softly. "Better without me too, I should imagine, the last of our madness cleansed."

A quiet smile. "Family is like that. I would have killed for any of my brothers. I did. And they for me."

[child_of_bhaal]

She makes a soft, humorless chuckle. "I would kill for her, but what does that mean for a bhaalspawn? I kill because it's what I do. What I was born to do. Family. Friends. It's just a justification so I can sleep at night."

She smiles, just the corner of her mouth ticking up. It's more of a smirk, derisive and directed utterly at herself. "Except I don't do that either."

[bythewaves]

"And if you do not, then I think your earlier statement is false." Maglor points out mildly. "For it is clearly not what you are born to do, if you chose another road."