charlottemaunqmal-blog

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Tendrils

As soon as Charlotte woke up, she knew it was going to be a bad day.

Some days—and as time went on, more and more of them—were not bad. The world had color in it, and the people moving about in it had substance. The job of convincing them that she was a real, living person was sometimes tiring, but her gift for performance was one thing that hadn’t deserted her. You got into a rhythm, that was all, and after a while it sustained itself, and carried you along with it.

Then there were the bad days.

Charlotte’s apartment was small and dark, cramped in among its neighbors in the back corner of the Commander’s Quarter, and the only thing it had to offer was a view over the city through its single porthole window. Through it, Charlotte could see that the sky was blue, that the sun was pouring into the streets of Lions Arch and glaring brilliantly off the white stucco and glass awnings. She saw it, yet to her it was grey, as though she looked through a curtain of rain.

The Mists were sticky, Charlotte had discovered; less like mist and more like cobwebs. You could not walk through them without carrying some away with you. Tendrils wrapped themselves around you and clung, and no matter how hard you pulled, you could not get free of them all. On bad days, Charlotte felt them strongly. She felt them around her body, constricting her movements, making her heavy. She felt them in her mind, turning her thoughts pale and formless, dissolving her essential self until she, too, was nothing but mist, through which dark and unidentifiable shapes moved.

The apartment was a bit of a wreck, nothing like the tidily, charmingly cluttered place she had once lived in. The old Charlotte’s home had been an expression of herself, a carefully created aesthetic in which every object said something about its owner, reflected her taste or her refinement or her whimsy. It had been the project of a woman who was not quite sure that she existed, and worried about it; a woman who had to write herself upon the ether in order to give herself substance, who had to proclaim herself over and over again into the void.

The new Charlotte didn’t worry about whether she existed, because she knew she didn’t. Her home was utilitarian, and unkempt; it was a staging area and nothing more. Clothes littered the floor, and bottles the kitchen counter. Sometimes Charlotte remembered to feed herself (though she always remembered to feed the cat) and the remnants of her efforts were stacked in the sink, waiting for the day she remembered to wash them. Today would not be that day.

The contents of Fred’s file were spread across the table, where she had left them the night before.

Why do you care? she asked herself now, staring dully at the pages. Who cares who he was or what happened to him or why he does anything?

Yesterday it had felt important—worth going to some trouble for, in fact. Yesterday she had reveled in the idea of, finally, getting the drop on him. On showing up where she was least expected, armed with all the things he didn’t want her to know, dragging him to places he didn’t want to be. Yesterday the thought of turning those tables had delighted her.

Today she went to the kitchen counter, picked through the bottles, discarded those that were empty, and found, at last, one that still held some quantity of forgetfulness.

She took it with her back to bed.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Plenk

Fabia's heavy footfalls echoed in the near-empty corridors of downtown Rata Sum. Thud. Thud. Thud. "What was the apartment number again?" she asked Charlotte, eyeing a single asura passerby who flattened her ears at the sight of the human and charr.

"57A01-B-57," Charlotte answered, looking at the buildings. "I have no idea what that means, though."

Fabia rolled her eyes then stopped to squint at a holographic street sign. "57A0...2... A. I think we're on the wrong street. Must be close, though, right?" She glanced at Charlotte with genuine concern showing on her muzzle, for once.

Charlotte pursed her lips at the sign and looked around. Spotting the asura they'd just past, she backtracked. "Excuse me!"

The asura froze in place and her ears twitched. There was a palpable pause for consideration before she decided to turn around, huge eyes blinking several times. "May I assist you?"

Charlotte gave her a ditzy smile. "I'm soooooo sorry to bother you, it's just your city is so confusing! I think we need some help figuring out where we're going. I'm sure you have better things to do, but do you think you could help us find this address?"

Charlotte pulls a piece of paper from her coat pocket with the address written on it and shows it to the asura.

The asura did a poor job of masking her indignation and sighed as she reached up to take the note. "You're very nearly there, actually." She pointed, as she handed the note back. "One avenue forward, and one left, and it will be in the subsequent complex. You'll figure it out from there on, I'm certain."

"Oh, wow, thank you so much! No wonder all you asura have advanced degrees." Charlotte laughs as she shoves the paper back into her pocket and turns back to Fabia. The dopey smile falls immediately from her face.

The asura mutter something like "quite" and wanders off down the street, somewhat hurriedly.

Fabia shakes her head a little and starts to head in the direction Charlotte was told. "Maybe if they gave their roads names, like normal people..." She kept her eyes up to look for the apartment complex as they neared.(edited)

"Honestly," Charlotte says, sounding intensely irritated. She walks fast, as though this is a task she wants to dispense with as quickly as possible. "I can't fathom why he'd have an apartment here. I think I'd go mad."

The building loomed into view, lit by hovering diamond-shaped lights. A holographic callbox glowed by the front entrance, with numbers and names listed on it.

Fabia curled her tail around a leg to avoid whapping some random asura as people began to slowly, quietly fill the streets again, coming or going from their lunchbreaks. She narrowed her eyes as one of the asura approached the building in question and began tapping on the callbox.

Charlotte stands a little aside from the doorway. She's pulled the paper out of her pocket again and is squinting at it as thought still a lost and confused bookah. She waits for the asura to finish typing in her code and open the door.

The door hissed as it slid open, and the little asura woman toddled inside without a care in the world as the charr and human lingered nearby.

Charlotte waits until the last possible moment to stick her leg in the doorway, stopping the door from closing. It hisses back open. She ducks her head inside to make the helpful door-opening asura has moved on.

The little woman was nowhere in sight, probably already in her apartment.

Charlotte waves at Fabia to follow her and enters the hallway. She consults a glowing sign on the wall. "Fifth floor." She looks up and down the hallway again. No sign of stairs.

Fabia's horns clattered loudly as she stumbled her way through the little door. She spat a curse in Charr.

"Hey, careful," Charlotte chides. "Keep your head down or you're going to gouge tracks in the ceiling. I don't think they'll appreciate it." She turns right and follows the corridor to its end, looking for a way up.

"Well I don't appreciate their shitty ceilings, so it's even," Fabia growled, electing to pad about on all fours as she followed Charlotte.

Around the corner Charlotte finds a staircase leading up. It's ceiling is even lower than the corridor, and Charlotte has to stoop a little to go up. "By all the gods," she mutters under her breath. "I hope Fred IS here so that I can punch him for making me deal with this bullshit."

Fabia just stared at the tiny staircase.

"Come ON," Charlotte urges irritably as she starts up. "And don't gore me in the ass."

"Then get your ass up the steps quicker, because kitten's gonna have to go sideways." Fabia eased into the stairwell, head turned to the side to keep her horns from getting stuck in the walls.

Charlotte hurries up the stairs, grumbling all the way about short risers and claustrophobia.

As mathematically illogical as it may seem to a non-asura, the door labeled 57 was the first one at the top of the stairs.

Charlotte stands in front of it, slightly out of breath, and straightens her coat as she waits for Fabia to catch up.

Fabia clattered and thudded and scrabbled and finally popped out of the stairwell like a toy snake popping out of a can.

Charlotte blinks and steps back to make way. "All right, there?"

Fabia laid on the ground for a second or three, then stood up on all fours again and turned around. "Do not speak of this moment."

Charlotte suppresses a smile. "Heavens, no. Upon my honor." She reaches out to knock on the door.

The annoyed cry from inside the apartment was followed by those stompy kind of angry footsteps a mother makes on her way to scold a child. The door hissed open and a furious-looking asura man stood there, about to yell at Charlotte's kneecaps, then he was startled and had to look up.

"Oh," he said, and frowned, looking between Charlotte and Fabia a few times. "You're not college students."

Charlotte blinks, looks at Fabia, looks back at the asura. "No," she agrees. "We're not."

Fabia crossed her arms.

The man's frown turned pensive, then outright intrigued. "Are you Charlotte?"

Charlotte's eyebrow quirks up. "Yes," she says cautiously.

The man glanced past them into the hall, then stepped aside of the doorway, beckoning them in. "Come in then, hurry. Who are you?" He asked of the charr.

"Fabia."

Charlotte steps into the apartment and looks around.

Mercifully, the ceilings were high. There were huge windows, too, but they were covered with blackout curtains, which then had blueprints and pictures of buildings tacked all over them. Short, but expansive tables filled the room, with even more blueprints on them, some paper and some holographic. The door to the bedroom hung open, and it looked perfectly tidy in there, whereas the couch was covered in empty food packets and the pillows wrinkled to flattening.

The man hurried toward the kitchen, where he grabbed a pitcher from the hands of what looked like a tiny countertop golem made of ice. "Would you both like water? Lemon or lime?"

Charlotte peruses the blueprints and surreptitiously checks out the bedroom. "Fred told you to expect me?" she asks.

"No," the man said.

"I'll take lime," Fabia said with a shrug.

"I'm Creator Plenk," the man said as he poured water for Fabia and tossed a lime to a little golem that went to work slicing it up for him. "Currently training to be a Lightbringer. I specialize," he said as he took a slice from the golem and placed it on the lip of the glass, "in obfuscated architecture."

Charlotte frowns. "What are you doing here? The files listed this as one of Fred's places." As an afterthought, she adds, "Lemon."

Plenk handed the glass up to Fabia and went to prepare another for Charlotte. "I've let him stay here before." He tossed his slicer golem a lemon. "We were friends, of a sort. But after I finished a project for him as a favor, he ceased contact with me."

"Did you know he's gone missing?" Charlotte asks. She perches on the arm of the couch to avoid sitting on the food wrappers.

Plenk shook his head a little as he placed the lemon on Charlotte's glass and carried it over to her. "I can't say I'm surprised." He realized there were wrappers all over the couch and tsked at himself, then went to work clearing space for Fabia.

Charlotte accepted the glass with a nod of thanks. "Why's that?"

"He nearly left the Order years ago." Plenk paused to look at Charlotte. "You were his partner. You didn't know?"

Charlotte grimaces. "He wasn't exactly forthcoming. I knew he had... issues with the Order."

"Mm," Plenk hmmed in agreement, and fluffed a pillow on the couch. He patted a cushion and looked to Fabia, who just stood there and glowered while sipping her lime water. So Plenk shrugged, and went to grab a remote from a table. "I built him an underground fortress, of sorts. Not that large, of course, but it had scrying shielding, magic null fields..." he stopped to sigh, and pushed a button on the remote which made the blackout curtains rise, letting light in the room. "A sylvari down there probably wouldn't have heard Mordremoth. One of my best works."

Charlotte glances at Fabia and then looks back at Plenk. "That's a pretty big project to do as a favor, especially for someone you describe only as a friend 'of sorts.'"(edited)

Plenk cleared his throat. "I owed him. It was also a passion project. Most Order-sanctioned safehouses don't allow the utilization of experimental technology, especially related to scrying... they do like to spy on their own people." He smiled humorlessly.

"I see," Charlotte says drily. "How did you know who I was when you opened the door?"

"I've heard your description," Plenk said with a light shrug. "Although I thought you were supposed to be blond." He waved a hand and set his remote down, picked up a holographic blueprint and offered it out to them. "Here, Fred's base is based on this. Only one manual entrance, all other entry points are via one-way gate."

Fabia went to take it. "But where is it?"

Charlotte stands and walks over to Fabia, looking around her shoulder at the hologram.(edited)

The hologram showed, in 3D, a cube-shaped room with a single staircase leading to its ceiling. The walls appeared to be covered in screens of some kind, and there was a platform in the middle.

Charlotte shakes her head faintly in bemusement and repeats Fabia's question. "Where is it?"

Plenk put his hands on his hips and looked up at them. "I'm not sure if I should tell you."

"You've already told use enough to get yourself in trouble," Charlotte points out. "Be a shame if I had to tell M and ruin your chances of making Lightbringer."(edited)

Plenk grinned. "He doesn't scare me."

Fabia finally sat on the couch and it groaned in surprise at her weight.

Charlotte looks at Plenk for a long moment, considering. "You aren't really set against telling us or you wouldn't have brought it up. So what do you want in exchange?"

Plenk ran a hand over his bald head, then looked between the two of them. "A favor for a favor seems fair. If I need help from the two of you in the future, I'll cash in."

"It better not involve donating body parts to science."

Plenk laughs, genuinely surprised. "I'm not that kind of scientist."

Fabia set her glass on a table and kept spinning the 3D blueprint around in her hand.

Charlotte raises an eyebrow at Fabia, wondering what she thinks of this favor-for-a-future-favor deal.

Fabia shrugged a bit, flicked a switch on the side of the holoprojector to close the blueprint, and tossed it onto a table. She stood and went to Charlotte's side.

Plenk eyed them both. "Something of equal importance and/or risk, of course. Nothing mad or dangerous."

Charlotte taps her finger against her lips pensively. "What's your security level?" she asks Plenk.

Plenk quirked a brow. "Five, right now. I'll reach six if my interview with a preceptor goes well, in two days."

Charlotte smiles. "How would you like to be owed two favors?"

Fabia raised her paws. "I don't need to see the file. I'll pass on this one, and just take the one favor."

Plenk smiled faintly, looking from one to the other. "Charlotte, if you can guarantee I pass that interview, I'll use my level six access for whatever it is you need."

"Who's the preceptor?"

"I don't know yet," Plenk said. "But there's a new one--some kid no one knows much about, just made it to preceptor. If you can find a way to make sure she's the one who interviews me, I'm sure I'll make it. The veterans are too well studied; they'll make it harder on me."

Charlotte thinks a moment, then nods. "No guarantees, but I'll see what I can do. If I can swing it, I want to see Fred's file. The complete file." She points at the holoprojection cube. "And for the location of this secret lair, we'll owe you one. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Plenk said, smiling. "It's in his farmhouse."

Fabia facepalmed.

Charlotte shakes her head. "I fucking knew it."

"There's a lamp in his bedroom on the second floor, and one above his gun case on the first floor. The bedroom has to be dark and the gun case has to be lit. That allows a switch behind the gun case to be pressed," Plenk explained, going to pick up the 3D blueprint off the table. He opened it up and pointed to the staircase. "Leads down to this. Be careful though--who knows if he's armed any traps since I built it."

Charlotte heaves a sigh. "Knowing Fred..." She finishes her lemon water, seems ready to stand up and leave, but then pauses. "Why'd he almost leave the Order? Before?"

Plenk shrugged. "I don't know. He and M got into some kind of debacle."

Charlotte nods vaguely. "All right. You've been very helpful, Plenk. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you get your promotion."

Plenk folded his hands behind his back and nodded. "Looking forward to it. If that's everything...?"

Charlotte stands and starts for the door, then stops. "One other thing, actually. Did Fred ever mention a woman named Helena? Or maybe Jewel?"

Plenk takes an honest amount of time to try and recall. "No, sorry."

Charlotte nods. "Thanks for your time, Plenk. I'll be in touch."

Plenk nods again and goes to close his curtains again.

Fabia follows Charlotte in gruff silence.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

The Cemetery

The sun is starting to set by the time Charlotte and Fabia reach the city. The streets are crowded with people heading home from work or out to bars. Charlotte weaves through them without bothering to check whether Fabia is keeping up. As they approach the burial grounds, the crowd thins and eventually disappears, leaving them in alone in the twilight with the dead.

Fabia's breath is labored and rather loud as she stalks around on all fours, looking at the headstones and crypts, eyeing the heraldry on them. She mumble-growls something about wings and stonework.

"Not afraid of ghosts, are you?" Charlotte asks as she walks through the sepulchres, looking for the one with swans.

Fabia looks across a row of gravestones to blink slowly at Charlotte, ears flat.

"Sorry. You're sensitive about it."

"I killed my first ghost when I was 8, you numbskull."

Charlotte laughs. She comes to a stop in front of a crypt with a family seal engraved into the pediment--two swans with their necks intertwined. "This is the one."

Fabia slowly galumphs over and dusts her forepaws off. "What's inside?"

Charlotte glances around, confirming that they're alone. "I'll show you," she says, and presses the swans' eyes with her thumbs.

The front wall of the crypt begins to sink into the ground. It makes a grinding sound, like there's a sifting of dirt in its gears. Charlotte glances around again.

Fabia snorts. "You poke their eyes out. I love it." Whether she's being sarcastic or not is a mystery.

"Yeah, he guess he must have something against swans. Come on, before we're seen." She enters the open doorway and gestures Fabia inside. The first few steps of a descending staircase are visible in the dim purple light of the evening.

Fabia wraps her tail around her leg to make sure the doorway doesn't close on it. She blinks to help her eyes adjust.

Charlotte looks down into the darkness. "Last time there was--oh." A light comes on as the door starts to close. "There we go." She waits until the door finishes closing noisily, then listens for any sounds coming from below.

Fabia grumbles something about magelights and turns all four ears toward the stairwell.

There's nothing but silence below. Charlotte heads down the steps, lights turning themselves on as she approaches them. At the bottom is a stone room, more or less as she remembers it. There's a desk cluttered with papers; Charlotte goes there first.

Fabia barely fits down the staircase and her horns make grinding sounds on the low ceiling. She passes Charlotte to continue down the hall, hackles prickling every time a light turns itself on.

Charlotte impatiently rifles through the papers, looking for anything useful. The maps are too generic--no handy secret hideouts marked on any of them. Lists of innocuous supplies. Finally she finds something she recognizes as being discernibly Fred's; she still recognizes his handwriting. Her face goes still as she reads. She turns to check on Fabia's whereabouts, and seeing that the charr has continued on down the hall, she quickly folds up the half-finished letters and puts them in an inner pocket of her coat, then goes to follow.

Fabia splutters as she walks through a cobweb, tail flicking in annoyance as she starts picking web from her mane.

"Nothing here," Charlotte says, exasperated. "I don't think he's used this in a while."

Fabia turned to come back, hissing at the webs as she picks them off her horn tips.

Charlotte steps back to avoid getting trampled, then turns and heads up the stairs herself. "This is pointless," she says irritably. "A wild goose chase. We haven't got enough information to go on. He could be anywhere."

Fabia growls as she follows. "Well, he's probably not in the Black Citadel or the Maguuma Jungle. Those are the most dangerous places for humans."

"I'm not convinced," Charlotte says. As she nears it, the stone door starts to open on its own. "There's a chance he has a deathwish."

"Orr?" Fabia offered through a growl. "The Brand?"

Charlotte presses both hands to her temples as she steps out into the cemetary. "Fuck if I know." She blows out a long, frustrated breath. "Rata Sum was on the list of known hangouts. We'll have to try there. If we come up empty again, then it's time to talk to M. If he actually wants Fred found, he's going to have to give up a little information."

Fabia flattened her ears at the thought of Rata Sum. "Is he really the only person you know in the entire Order with clearance to... that other part of the file we saw?"

"No," Charlotte says. "But I haven't figured out how to convince anybody else to grant me access. They're not going to contravene M just because I ask nicely."

Fabia chewed the inside of her cheek for a while, squinting at the rows of headstones. "Then ask mean?"

Charlotte eyes Fabia. "Are you making a joke?"

Fabia sighed. "No, I just don't know how to help you." She wandered toward a particularly large headstone and crossed her arms to glare at it.

Charlotte is silent a while. "I'll think about it. There's probably a way I can get into the file without M's help, but I can't keep avoiding him forever. He's going to want a report."

Fabia nods, still looking at the headstone, tail swishing.

Charlotte sighs. "Let's head to the Arch. We'll get a decent meal and a night's sleep."

"Finally," Fabia said, heading for the cemetery gates on all fours, shoulders drooped.

Charlotte follows her, lost in thought.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

The Ranch

Charlotte strides across the Chantry of Secrets, the heels of her sprung leather boots clocking against the stone floor. She means business.

She heads straight to whatever part of the cave holds the records.

Fabia has no trouble keeping up, with her huge, bear-like strides. Her tail was stiff and ears low--still uncomfortable around so many uniformed agents, being new as she was.

"Swefred Cutteridge," Charlotte says shortly to the person minding the records desk.

The asura at the desk looks Charlotte up and down. "You look more like a Jessica to me."

Charlotte gives him an "are you shitting me" look. "I want the records. On Swefred Cutteridge."

The desk guy turns, hiding his smirk--he thought he was funny--and used a hologlove to flip through digital files on a screen. "You want a hard copy?" he asked as he reached the C section.

Charlotte thinks for a moment. "Hard copy."

The desk guy pulled up a file marked "Cutteridge-A-S" and tapped the holoscreen a few times. A printing press nearby clattered to life and began to print out some pages.

"Here are the rudiments," the desk guy said. "We got some classified intelligence in here, so if you want that you'll have to bring a permit from a Lightbringer with a level 6 or higher pass."

Fabia quirked a fuzzy brow and looked at Charlotte.

Charlotte scowls but doesn't look very surprised. She takes the pages off the machine and skims them. "Well this is useless."

Fabia points at a sheet with a big meaty claw. "Says Queensdale there. That helps."

Charlotte takes a second look at what Fabia is pointing at."That's his ranch. But he wouldn't just... go home and not report in. I suppose we can go see if he drank himself to death or something."

Fabia sneers at the paper. "Can we save the Sum for last? I hate using the damn doors in that place."

Charlotte smirks a little and looks up, scanning the faces in the Chantry. She tosses a disinterested "thanks" over her shoulder at the desk asura and shoves the Fred papers into the pocket of her coat. She indicates to Fabia with a jerk of her head that she wants to leave before she says anything further.

Fabia falls in line behind her senior, silent and skulky.

Charlotte pauses at an unoccupied desk--its usual attendant presumably on an errand or maybe a pee break--and rummages until she finds a piece of blank paper and a quill. She jots something quickly, folds it into thirds, and continues on her way before anyone asks her what she's doing there.

Outside M's office, the desk is attended. A young man is bent over some papers with furrowed brow. Charlotte tosses the folded note into his in-basket without slowing and heads for the exit.

Fabia ducks her head before the secretary can make eye contact with her. She bores her eyes into the back of Charlotte's head. Cats and curiosity, you know.

Charlotte strides through the asura gate without slowing until she comes out the other side in Lion's Arch.

She takes the papers back out of her pocket and peruses them again while she waits for Fabia to catch up.

Fabia's shadow looms over Charlotte within moments. "So..."

"I wanted to get out of there before M saw me," Charlotte says, not looking up from the papers.

Fabia growls briefly in acknowledgement. "What are you thinkin'...?" she asks, with a bit of excitement sneaking though at the idea of a new mission, glancing around at passersby.

Charlotte bites her lower lip pensively. "This isn't much to go on, but if M intended to let me know what Fred was up to before he disappeared, the file would have been flagged. So I guess we have to start with the low-hanging fruit." She looks up. "Let's go to Queensdale."

Fabia snickers under her breath at something.

Charlotte arches an eyebrow. "What's funny?"

Fabia clears her throat with a growl. "Nothing," she says, stonefaced as usual again.

Charlotte gives her an I-don't-believe-you look but lets it go. She shoves the papers back into her pocket. She's off and heading towards the next asura gate.

***

The first building to come into view over the hills, riverbeds, and patches of trees, is a great wooden barn, with paddocks stretching off in every direction. Beyond it, several off-buildings and a small, cabin-like house with only one floor.

Moos could already be heard in the distance, echoing off the trees.

Charlotte surveys the scene carefully. She's lost some of her businesslike air--walking more slowly now, as though out for a nice walk, hands in the pockets of her leather coat. She keeps an eye out for workers in the barn and paddock area, but aims in the general direction of the house.

A whooping and hollering came from a paddock, and suddenly a herd of cattle with enormously long horns poured out of a little wooden gate. Some of the cattle saw Charlotte and began to trot over to her, while most of them headed for the trees.

Charlotte braces herself at the sight of the longhorns coming toward her. She would really hate to start things off by slaughtering one of Fred's cows, but if it comes down to that or being gored...

Three of the cows slowed to a stop a few meters from Charlotte. One sniffed the air near her.

A guy on horseback wearing a straw hat finished leading the cattle out of their paddock, and saw Charlotte with the three lollygaggers.

Charlotte eyes the cattle warily and tries backing up a little to put more space between them and her. Cattle are not really part of her life experience. She notices the man on horseback and feels a little tug of familiarity, but while the dress and bearing are reminiscent of Fred, she can tell even from a distance that it's not him.

Keeping a close watch on the cows in case they spook, she lifts one arm and waves at the guy. Help! Distress!

The man tapped his horse and it walked around the cattle. "Get," he said to them, calmly, and they all turned and wandered off to join the rest of the herd. The man clambered down from his horse and dusted his hands off, approached Charlotte, considered offering a hand, then decided he ought to be more wary of strangers, and just crossed his arms. "Can I help you?" he asked, as the horse went to graze.

"You already did," Charlotte says cheerfully, with a self-deprecating laugh. "I wasn't expecting the cattle onslaught and I wasn't sure what to do. I guess they're more amenable to persuasion than I gave them credit for."

The man scratched the back of his neck, looking confused. "They uh, yeah. That's... yeah." Then, disarmed by her laugh, he walked up to offer a hand. The sunlight snuck through some tears in his straw hat and showed bright blue eyes. "Payton," he said.

Charlotte smiles as she takes his hand. "Charlotte Smythe," she says. "I'm sorry I wandered through your pasture. I'm not very familiar with the area. I was actually coming out to look up an old friend."

"Oh," Payton said, and brushed at some of his sand-colored hair that had glued itself to his forehead with sweat. "Well, what's their name? I been here all my life, I know pretty much everyone who lives here, or near here, or... yeah." He chuckled awkwardly.

His horse raised its head and looked toward the house, ears up.

"Fred Cutteridge?" Charlotte says. "I think his place is out in this direction."

Payton suddenly brightened, and his eyes glittered with intrigue. "You know Cousin Fred? Well gee," he said, eyes wandering off past her for a moment, then snapping back. "This is his ranch, I work for'im. Wanna come up to the house, get some shade? I think we got tea, and... stuff."

Charlotte looks delighted. "What are the chances that the cattle that almost gore me would be Fred's? I'd love to come up to the house, if it's not inconvenient. I don't want to interrupt your work."

"Well they weren't gonna... ah never mind them, just gimme a second to get Carl to watch the cattle while I walk you up there." He walked a few feet toward the paddock. "CARL!" he screamed.

A faint "what" came from somewhere out of sight.

"COME WATCH THE CATTLE FOR ME!"

Charlotte smirks to herself while his back is turned.

"A'right," Payton said, turning back to Charlotte. "It's uh, you wanna ride there? Bit of a walk." He started walking toward the horse, which turned to look at them, nostrils twitching.

"Oh!" Charlotte looks surprised. "I'm not exactly what you'd call a horsewoman."

"Oh she's real sweet, she won't kick you off or anything. I let my little baby cousins ride her sometimes," Payton said, yanking on the horse's saddle to straighten it. "But if you're nervous you don't have to."

The horse craned its neck to sniff Payton, knocking his hat crooked.

Charlotte eyes the horse only a little less distrustfully than she did the cattle, but after a moment she takes a breath and smiles at Payton. "Why not! I'll give it a try."

Payton stepped around to the left side of the horse and straightened his hat. "All right, you just gotta put your left foot in the left stirrup," he said, patting said stirrup. "Put all your weight on there, and swing your right leg over her back." He made vague hand gestures in the horse's general direction.

"All right." Charlotte approaches the saddle and grabs the horn and the back of the seat. "You'll catch me if I fall, right?"

"Yup!" Payton said, standing right where he'd been, and held an arm out. "Just stay real calm. She can tell if you're scared, and then that might make her scared."

Charlotte lifts her foot into the stirrup without trouble, but wobbles artfully as she vaults into the saddle. She plays up her incompetence with a little gasp of dismay.

Payton holds the horse's head in one hand. He grins up at Charlotte. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Oh, she's quite tall, isn't she?" Charlotte grips the pommel of the saddle in both hands as she looks down at Payton. She returns his grin. She might even blush a little.

Payton laughed a bit, looking down and away. "She's actually one of our smaller ones," he said. "You wanna lead her with the reins, or want me to?"

"I'll do it, if you tell me how."

"Just... hold 'em kinda loosely, so you don't give her false directions on accident," Payton said, giving the horse a scritch on the nose. "Pull left to make her go left, and right to make her go right."

"Okay." Charlotte takes the reins in her hands. "Err... how do I get her to go forward?"

"Your feet," he says, stepping out of the way. "Just give her a squeeze to tell her to go. Harder you squeeze, faster she'll run. You can also give 'er a li'l kick to get her started if she's not paying attention."

Charlotte cautiously pokes her feet into the horse's ribcage.

The horse begins to walk forward, which happens to already be toward the house.

"It's really beautiful out here," Charlotte says as they amble along. "You must love working here. How long have you been at it?"

"Oh gee, it must be like, ten years almost," Payton said. "Well, I've been working on ranches ten years. Cousin Fred hasn't had this one that long, only about uh, I think five years?"

"Did you grow up out here?" Charlotte holds the reins in one hand so she can pat the horse's neck.

The horse's ears flicked about and its mane twitched at the touch.

"Yeah, a bit south...east of here, where my parents have their farm," Payton said. "My sister still lives out there with them, taking care of what they still have. They're kinda letting it go, though, I think they want to retire but don't wanna admit it." He looked up at her with a half-smile.

Charlotte smiles back. "Which side are you related to Fred on?"(edited)

"Oh, funny thing actually," Payton said, looking ahead to the house. "My parents took him in when I was a kid. He's not actually blood-related, but I still call him my cousin, 'cause we were raised together and all."

"Oh, of course. Fred mentioned something about that," Charlotte says vaguely.

Payton looks up at her. "Really? I can't get him to talk about -anything-." He slowed as they reached the house, and pointed out a hitching post near the porch.

"Your parents must be very kind, to take in a stranger." Charlotte aims the horse toward the hitching post. She smiles down at him. "I can see it rubbed off on you."

"Aw, well, thank you, you're gonna make me blush," Payton said, as he took a rope that was lying across the hitching post. "Pull back to make her stop," he said, approaching the horse's front.

Charlotte tugs gently on the reins and takes advantage of Payton's diverted attention. While he hitches the horse, she scrutinizes the house.

It's ugly, unless one has a taste for unpainted, sunbleached wood logs, and nearly-flat roofs with metal gutters so rusted they didn't shine anymore. The shaded side of the house had dead grass and a few thornbushes framing it, and all the windows had what looked like handmade shutters, most of which were closed, except for the one right next to the front door. It just had a blackout curtain with a hole the size of an eye.

Charlotte furrows her brow a little at the unfriendliness of the place. It looks as prickly as Fred himself. Then she turns her attention back to Payton and looks cheerful again.

"Need help getting down?" Payton asked, just as a shutter on the second floor flew open, startling him.

"Maybe a little," Charlotte admits.

Payton held out an arm for Charlotte and watched the window, where a woman was sticking her head out.

"Who's this?" she called down, suspicious, perhaps, but not unfriendly, as she waved at Charlotte. The wind caught the woman's waves and waves of dark brown hair, and she ducked inside just as quickly as she'd appeared--presumably, so her hair wouldn't parachute her away into the yard.

Charlotte uses Payton's arm for stability as she slides out of the saddle. She's taken by surprise by the woman in the window, but regroups. "Fred's going to be surprised to see me," she tells Payton. "I didn't send word that I was coming. I hope it won't be an inconvenience for anyone...?"

"Well that's the thing..." Payton said, noticeably quieter. "I'm not sure he's here right now. He kinda..." he does a wooshy motion with his hands. "Comes and goes without saying anything." He stepped to the front door to let Charlotte in.

"Oh," Charlotte says, with a faint air of disappointment as she follows Payton to the door. "What a shame if I've missed him!"

"Well you can always come back," Payton said, walking through and keeping the door help open for her.

Inside was the most quaint, undecorated bachelor pad in Kryta. A heating stove gathered dust in a corner, there were no rugs, or pillows anywhere to be seen, and the one couch in the middle of the room faced a blank wall, its cushions covered in books.

Everything was wooden--the floor, the walls, the trim. The trim was painted, thank Lyssa, though it was probably just to hide the sealant.

An untidy kitchen could be seen through a doorway, and carpeted stairs smelled of smoke. But lo, there it was, the only item of decoration in the house so far--a gun cabinet by the stairs, but not just the kind for storing. Handguns and rifles, polished to glittering, filled the cabinet, with a lamp hung directly above it, making it also the brightest part of the room.(edited)

Charlotte steps into the room, the slightest hint of a sardonic expression on her face as she takes it in. Whoever the lady in the window was, she wasn't the cleaning lady. Charlotte turns toward Payton. "It looks like he's been gone a while...?" she suggests.

"Prob'ly?" Payton said, walking toward the kitchen, and turning on a lamp in there. "You want tea? We also got... ooh, lemonade."

The woman from the window came down the stairs tying a silk robe around herself--her entire, incredibly curvy self--and it looked like she had pajamas on underneath. "Hello," she said to Charlotte, "I didn't know anyone was coming over, sorry," she said, and must have been talking about the pj's.

"Oh, no, please don't apologize," Charlotte says with a pleasant smile. "I dropped by unannounced. I'm so sorry to trouble you. I just thought I'd pay Fred a visit, but it looks as though he isn't here." She approaches the woman and offers her hand. "Charlotte Smythe."

"Helena," the woman said, and shook her hand briefly. She glanced to the kitchen where Payton was. "Sometimes my friends call me Jewel," she added quickly, as Payton walked into the room with glasses of lemonade.

Charlotte smiles politely and is glad that Payton's reappearance spares her having to figure out which of the woman's names she's expected to use. She accepts a glass of lemonade from Payton and goes to look at the gun display. "These are lovely," she says. "Of course, I've seen Fred shoot. These must be his prized possessions."

Payton sips at his own lemonade. "Yeah. I think he likes 'em more than he likes people. Jewel, d'you want a drink too?"

"No thank you, sweetie," Helena said in a motherly tone, and followed Charlotte toward the display. "They are impressive, aren't they?"

"I saw him win a prize once at a shooting gallery," Charlotte says conversationally. "I'm sorry I missed him. Do you happen to know when he'll be home?"

Helena looked away and made a thinking face.

"He usually shows up once a week, even if just for the night," Payton said amiably. "I know the guy who runs the inn near town if you wanna stay in the area."

Helena wandered toward the stairs again.

"Oh... maybe," Charlotte says vaguely. "It was really just a whim, coming to see him. I haven't seen him in a long time." She eyes Helena's retreating back, making a quick calculation. "We used to be very close."

Helena paused by the stairs.

"Yeah? How'd you know each other? I forgot to ever ask," Payton said, going to sit on the couch.

Charlotte notes Helena's reaction with interest and turns toward Payton. She laughs softly, as though reminiscing. "We met in a bar in Lions Arch, many years ago. Practically another lifetime."

Helena sits on the steps and brushes her hair over her shoulder to watch Charlotte, listening with genuine curiosity that nearly overwrote her lingering suspicion.

"A bar huh? So are you -that- kind of old friend?" Payton asked, laughing good-naturedly.

Charlotte looks both amused and chagrinned. "Well, you know, we were younger then and... unattached." She keeps her eyes on Payton so that Helena is in her peripheral vision. "But I doubt Fred would thank me for telling those old stories about him. As you said, he isn't really one for sharing. I've probably already said too much."

Payton put a hand over his mouth, eyes round as plates. He looked to Helena, then back to Charlotte. Then he laughed, and slapped his knee. "No kiddin'?"

Helena looked far less surprised, and almost like she was about to smile.

Charlotte looks rueful and turns back to the guns, as though they are the closest she can get to Fred. "I guess it doesn't surprise me that he never spoke of me." She takes a sip of her lemonade. "It was probably a little silly of me to even--well. Probably for the best that he wasn't here; one of those fate things. How many days did I miss him by?"

"Just one," Helena pipes up. "Sorry."

Payton nods, sips his lemonade.

Charlotte turns to them. "Really? He was here just yesterday?"

Helena nods, then looks off... somewhere.

Payton sighs. "It's annoying too, because now Carl and I have to start moving this herd all on our own, which I mean, we -can-, it's just annoying."

Charlotte looks disappointed. "Well. And you say he probably won't be back for a week?"

Payton and Helena both shrug.

Charlotte gives a small, apologetic smile, mostly aimed at Payton. "Probably for the best," she repeats. "I'm sorry to have taken up your time." She sets her half-drunk glass of lemonade down on a dusty table.

"Oh," Payton said, standing. "The inn is just past Fred's ranch, if you keep going the direction you were when you got here," he offered.

"Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?" Charlotte asks. She turns to Helena. "It was lovely to meet you. Sorry again for the interruption."

Helena smiles, and it's a strangely bright and cheery smile considering how quiet she'd been before, almost as if it was a trained smile. She gave a little wave as she stood to go back upstairs.

Payton led Charlotte out the door. "It's really not that far a walk, but I could let you borrow a horse if you want?"

"No, that's not necessary." Charlotte pauses on the porch and touches Payton lightly but earnestly on the arm. She continues in a low voice. "I don't mean to be intrusive, but that woman in there--is she Fred's...?"

"You know I don't actually know?" Payton said, and it sounded like a question. "She's been coming by and visiting, sometimes staying for dinner, for uh, years now, really. As long as the ranch has been here. But, you know, Fred never talks about things."

"She's real nice," Payton added as he led her around the house, where there was a barely-discernible path worn into the dry grass. "She lives in Divinity's Reach, that's where she works too, but I don't remember what she does." He side-eyed the house, but didn't say aloud whatever the thought was.

Charlotte looks nonplussed. "I see. I certainly don't want to get in the way of anything. I don't... well, could you just let Fred know that his old friend Charlotte is looking for him, when he gets back?" She smiles at Payton. "I'd really like to see him again."

"Of course!" he said, smiling. "His 'old friend'," he repeated, and nudged her with his elbow, snickering.

Charlotte continues smiling but her eyes are faintly annoyed. "Thank you so much for your hospitality."

Payton pauses for a moment, and something passes through his eyes--doubt, maybe--but he turns and points west. "See where that paved road starts? It'll take you right there."

"Thanks," Charlotte starts to move away, then pauses and looks at him. "At the risk of sounding desperate--you don't have any idea where he goes, when he's not here?"

Payton took his hat off to run a hand through his hair. "I mean... he goes on these cartography trips, and sometimes he tells me if it's to a particularly dangerous place.... like that time he and some buddies of his went to Orr." A pause. "I... sometimes he comes back all beat up, though, you know? I worry about him."

Charlotte nods solemnly. "I do, too. There's always been something a little bit... reckless about him, hasn't there? Like he doesn't really care what happens to him?"

Payton scratches his eyebrow. "Yeah, he was like that when we were kids, too." He stares toward the ground for a while.

Charlotte looks pensive for a moment. "Look," she says finally, "instead of letting him know I came by, do you think maybe you could send me a bird if he shows up?" She smiles sadly. "If he knows, he may decide to evaporate before I can get here."

"That's a good idea," Payton said. "Smythe, right?"

Charlotte's smile grows warmer. "That's right. We'll team up on him. For his own good."

Payton laughs. "All right, you good from here? I feel like I should check on Carl."

"Absolutely. I'll pay more attention so I don't go blundering into any more pasture. Thank you so much. It was really lovely to meet you, Payton. I hope we'll meet again soon."

Payton looks a bit surprised at the last remark, but turns and puts his hat back on. Hands in his pockets, he meanders back toward the paddocks.

Charlotte heads down the road in the direction Payton indicated. Once she's out of view of Fred's ranch, her stride lengthens and she moves a bit faster. In town she heads straight for the tavern to locate Fabia.

Raucous laughter bursts through the door as soon as Charlotte opens it. Fabia isn't hard to spot--the large, orange, brooding shape in the corner, being rambled at by a drunk farmer-looking type human.

The laughter is coming from the bar, where a young woman sits perched on the counter in a small, patched skirt, trying to play a fiddle and failing, but laughing along with the others; they were mostly older, working class types, an even mix of men and women, but the men were sitting closer to the... musician?

Charlotte weaves through the crowd, making a beeline for Fabia. She puts a hand on the drunk farmer's shoulder, gives him a coin, and nods her head toward the bar to get rid of him.

The man looked up, foam moustache and Amish-style beard giving him the full St. Nicholas look. He smiled at the pretty lady, looked at the coin, and wandered toward the bar in a confused, daydreamy amble.

Fabia plopped her head on the bar and one of her forehorns left a dent in the dirty, soft wood.

Charlotte grins as she takes the barstool next to Fabia, tossing the tails of her coat behind her. "Find out anything?"

"Humans smell bad, their drinks smell bad, and small towns out in the middle of nowhere hate charr," she said into the table.

Charlotte nods slowly as though this information is all about what she expected. "I had a bit more luck. I've got an informant now. But what I did not expect," she adds acerbicly, "is that I only missed the bastard by one bloody day! So whatever the hell is going on, he's not dead or gravely injured." She leans against the bar, glowering.

Fabia lifts her head. "Wait, he was at his ranch? Yesterday?"

"Yes!" Charlotte says, indignant. "So what the fuck is he playing at? He's off the grid long enough that they want me to go looking for him, but he's faffing about at home?"

Fabia's nose wrinkles. "He did -what- in his home?"

Charlotte snorts. "Messing around, wasting time. But since you ask, that reminds me--there was a woman there. A very curvy sort of woman, trying to look younger than she is, who goes by the name Jewel even though that's not her real name and who 'works' in Divinity's Reach in a profession unknown." She raises her eyebrows at Fabia. "What does all that say to you?"

Fabia sniffed, scratched at a fang, plopped an elbow on the table. "Uh, she.... likes jewels, and..." she shook her head and shrugged.

Charlotte stares at her a moment, then shakes her head in resignation. "Charr are so literal." She flags down the bartender and orders a pint of beer. When the bartender moves away, she turns to Fabia and says in a low voice, "Sounds like a prostitute to me."

Fabia lowers her massive head to also speak in a low voice, which also makes it very grumbly and hard to understand. "So he abandoned the.... ah, apple trade, to sit at home with hookers?"

"It seems highly unlikely, but at the moment I don't have any better theories." The bartender brings Charlotte's beer, and she takes a long drink and thumps it back down on the bar. "What kind of prostitute is still hanging around her john's house the day after he's left town? Not a very ambitious one, if you ask me." She seems nettled.

Fabia bites the inside of her cheek and stares at the counter. She finally looks back up and brushes her mane out of her eyes. "Well, the next spot to check is in the big city, if you've gotten all you can out of... Jewel, was it?" She licks her teeth after saying the name, as if it's far too sweet for her palate.

"I didn't get much out of her, as it happens. I couldn't think of a good way to grill her. But Fred won't have told her anything anyway." Charlotte dismisses Jewel with an irritated shake of her head. "We'll check his hidey hole in the Reach next. With luck, we'll catch up with him."

Fabia narrowed her eyes, staring at the middle distance. "You don't think there's some kind of double-agent bullshit happening, do you?"

Charlotte blows out an explosive breath. "It's crossed my mind. I don't know as much about Fred as I'd like to, which means I don't have any idea who else he might be working for. I'm going to have to get into his file one way or another."

"You think this Jewel person might be some kind of informant?" Fabia mused aloud.

"Or she could be an agent." Charlotte drums her fingers on the table. "I find it very suspicious that she's hanging around Fred's house when he's not there. But on the other hand, Fred wouldn't be that stupid."

A cute waitress with a little pink apron suddenly appeared and put a gigantic t-bone steak in front of Fabia. "Here you go, mi... si... um, here you go!" and she whirled away to hide in the kitchen again.

Fabia grabbed for a fork and stabbed the hunk of meat. "He must be -kinda- stupid, to run off in the first place. You hear he left an initiate all on her own in the Shiverpeaks?"

Charlotte stares at Fabia's steak, lost in thought. "Yes," she says at length. "And it makes no sense to me." She lapses into silence again, slowly rotating her beer glass on the bar surface.

"I assume..." Fabia picked up the entire steak on her fork and ripped a huge bite out of it. "That he never talked to you about running," she said with a mouthful.

Charlotte remains silent for a bit. She does not seem to be put off by Fabia's table manners. "Not as such," she says finally. "But he did say 'fuck the Order.' Or words to that effect."

"Nah, see," Fabia said before finally swallowing, "If someone said that about a Legion they'd get their ass kicked all the way to the Blood Legion homelands." She ripped a bite out of the steak again--it was already half gone.

Charlotte scowls. "Yes, well, humans are different. When we're forced into something we don't want to do, we tend to resent it."

Fabia chewed the steak in thoughtful silence.

Charlotte rubs her temple. "I just can't explain how he's at his farm yesterday, under any scenario. Double agent, abandoning his post--none of it explains why he'd be at a place where it'd be so easy to find him. He has to know someone will come looking for him." She says this last with quite a bit of bitterness.

Fabia smacks her lips and covers her muzzle to belch. "You wanna stay here the rest of the day? We could probably reach DR by nightfall."

Charlotte drains the rest of her beer. "If you're done eating, let's go. We've got a sepulchre to search."

Fabia grabbed the rest of the steak with her paw and carried it out with her, wasting no time leaving the smelly human bar.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Ex-Partner

One of those cloudy days, where some people stayed in fearing rain, and others risked it to go shopping. So far, there'd been no sprinkling or thunder, and the marketplace was busy but quiet, all but for a warband of charr practicing their marching.

"One, too-wuh, thuh-ree, fo-wer!" occasionally echoed its way under the market roof and there was a shuffling of claws on concrete.

Business had been slow at Charlotte's flower cart that morning. Parading charr soldiers weren't her biggest customers. She occupied herself fluffing the flowers in their little vases of water, trying to make them look their most attractive, and occasionally echoing the charr captain's orders in a mocking Big Tough Charr voice under her breath.

One young-looking charr bounded through the market, nose wiggling intensely. Her hair flopped around wildly--dreadlocked with colorful beads throughout--just like the tunic dress she wore, colorful and floppy. This creature was on a mission. She froze in the middle of the market, nose still wiggling. Eyes narrowed.

Charlotte noticed the charr--she was hard to miss--and watched her casually as she went about her work flower-primping. Any diversion was welcome on a day like this.

The young charr suddenly zeroed in on Charlotte's flower cart. She bounded forward, claws kicking up gravel as she zoomed, eyes wide with excitement.

Charlotte's eyes widen a little in alarm at the oncoming charr. She moves sideways along the wagon, towards the end where she can access the weapons she keeps strapped to the underside. Just in case.

The charr scatterscrambled to a stop just in front of the cart, panting, her little nubby teeth showing a bit. Her eyes were round, pupils circular as she looked over the flowers. "One of these smells amazing and I need to know which one it is right now!"

Charlotte's eyebrows lift slightly but otherwise she betrays no surprise. She eyes the charr up briefly and seems to come to a decision. "I specialize in fragrant flowers. Perhaps you were struck by the delphinium?" She gestures to a vase of long stalks that have small flowers growing up and down them, arranged in an attractive spectrum of blues and purples and pinks.

The charr's muzzle darted toward the delphinium, nose wiggling. She gasped. "That's it! It's even my favorite color! How much for the purple ones?"

Charlotte smiles. "Ten copper a stalk."

The charr carefully extracted five purple delphiniums with her relatively petite claws and placed them gently on the counter. "Just a sec," she said, grabbing for her wallet. "Oh," she said, more quietly, "Can you make change for a silver?"

"Of course. Would you like me to wrap these in some tissue paper?"

"That'd be good. It's shedding season and I'd hate to get fur on them before I can get them home," the charr rambled excitedly as she put a silver down. "Sorry, did that sound gross?"

"Not at all." Unperturbed, Charlotte considers the rack of tissue-paper rolls at one end of the wagon and settles on a pale green. She rips a length off and wraps the delphinium stalks in it. Then she deftly picks up the silver and replaces it with 50 copper.

"It's my first time in Lion's Arch and I've never bought from a human before. Not to sound racist! I just didn't know if you knew about shedding," she continuted to ramble, gently pawing the flowers off the counter and holding them against her chest. She paused her talking to give them a sniff, then went on. "Well actually my mom brought me here as a cub but obviously I don't remember that so it feels like my first time here."

Charlotte smiles, delighted. "I imagine that was the old Lions Arch, anyway. It's pretty much a different city altogether now."

"That's what I've heard! Everything is so... white, it hurts your eyes when you first come outside. Like when they have to readjust?" She paused again to sniff the flowers, as if she was sipping a nice drink.

"Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Interesting design choices they made." Charlotte makes a wry face to indicate that no one invited her to be on the design committee.

Plodding footsteps approached from the side.

The young charr looked up and ducked her head, smiled a little, at the approach of Fabia.

Fabia eyed the young charr, then Charlotte, jaw moving as she ground her teeth. She lifted her jaw in acknowledgement of Charlotte, then crossed her arms when she got near the cart. She looked at the flowers in the other charr's hands, dubious.

Charlotte's enjoyment fades a little with Fabia's arrival. She makes a sour face at Fabia while the charr's attention is on the customer.

The young charr customer suddenly gasped. "I'm Sooty by the way!" she said to Charlotte. "Can I get your picture with me?" she asked as she got a tiny traveling camera from her pack.

"What--?" Charlotte says, taken by surprise. She's never seen a charr tourist with a camera before. That's more of an asura thing. "Uh, yeah. Sure. I'm sure Fabia will be happy to take our picture."

Fabia rolled her eyes, appearing to bite the inside of her cheek. She plodded around the cart to take the camera from the happily bouncing Sooty.

Sooty held up the flowers and leaned near the counter to make sure Charlotte would be in the shot, grinning ears to ears.

Charlotte leans in toward the young charr and gives the camera a wide smile calculated to irk the photographer.

A bright flash and popping sound indicate a successful shot, and Fabia plonks the camera down on the flower cart to stalk off to the side again, tail twitching.

Sooty grabs up the camera. "It's not one of those fancy Rata Sum ones that can show you how the picture came out, so here's hoping!"

"However it turns out, I'm sure it will be a fine reminder of the day you came to Lions Arch and bought flowers." Charlotte rearranges the delphinium display so that there's no empty patch and throws a smirk over her shoulder at Fabia.

Fabia just twitches an ear and goes to lean on someone else's stall, currently empty, with her big meaty arms crossed.

Sooty beams at Charlotte with her nubby little teeth and puts her camera away. "Thank you, this was fun, I gotta go find my 'band now," she says as she starts to step away.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Sooty. Come back soon!"

"I hope so!" Sooty scampers off, holding her flowers carefully, giving them several good long sniffs as she disappears into a small crowd on the other side of the market.

Fabia stalks back over and picks up a daisy to look at it, grunting disapproval at the entire exchange.

Charlotte watches her go, her brow furrowing slightly. "I hope they don't trash her flowers." She looks at Fabia. "Trying to teach her a lesson about acting too human."

Fabia quirks a brow, shrugs, scratches the base of her horns. "If they let her in their 'band, they're probably all a buncha fluffy airheads too."

Charlotte smiles. "I hope so! That, I would love to see." Her smile fades and she goes back to arranging her flowers. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your arrival?"

Fabia rolls her eyes. "Got a letter from a little bird. It was for you, but I read it anyway." She holds out a slightly crumply letter between two claws.

"How many times have we talked about this?" Charlotte says, wiping her hands dry on her skirt. "Letters from birds are very personal to me."

"We're partners, we share everything," Fabia drawled with exactly zero intonation.

Charlotte grimaces. "I guess I should be grateful you don't have a boyfriend, then." She takes the letter from Fabia's claws and opens it.

Fabia sneers and does a sassy headbob.

Charlotte's manner changes as she reads the letter. She looks much more serious. When she looks up at Fabia again, there's no more hint of teasing.

"So... ex-partner, huh?" Fabia asks. "Sounds like a piece'a shit."

Charlotte bites back a sharp retort and composes herself. "You have no idea," she says. It could be taken multiple ways.

"Guess we better dig up his file, find out where he might'a gone," Fabia said, rubbing her whiskers.

Charlotte nods silently, looking at the letter again. After a moment she sighs and folds it up. "Well, I'm glad you're here. You can help haul the wagon back to my flat!"

Fabia sighs, the kind of sigh only a charr can manage, with a gravelly growl hidden under it.

Charlotte cranks a few levers and the racks of flower vases are withdrawn into the wagon. She pulls the brightly colored tarp down over the sides and secures it, then pulls out a sturdy leather tow-rope and holds it out to Fabia with a smile. "I'm so lucky to have a partner with superior musculature!"

Fabia wordlessly takes the tow-rope and starts moving the cart toward Charlotte's place, and despite her expression it hardly seems like any effort.

Charlotte follows a few steps behind, keeping pace with the cart wheels. She taps the folded letter against her hand, face troubled.

Her flat is just a few blocks away and it includes some kind of garage or something in which she keeps her flower wagon. By the time they reach it, Charlotte seems to have sorted through her feelings. Her expression is bland and businesslike.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Evening is falling as Charlotte lets herself out of Ocas’s front door, and the streets of the Salma District are alive with people going to and fro. Charlotte is not at much risk of being recognized as the old star of the Coronet Theater; her hair is dark now, and her clothes, though still finely made, are subdued in color and utilitarian in design. She wears a long, dark leather coat, from beneath which two fine steel swords flash occasionally as she walks. She heads down the street towards the main thoroughfare, her face relaxed, appearing in no particular hurry.

On the corner ahead, a small knot of people laugh together.  Clearly they are enjoying the evening, the city's tension fled as order has been restored long enough to feel solid once more.  One of the group, to the right as Charlotte approaches, stands a head taller than the others.  His head tilts back with his laugh, a bit of breeze playing with his pony tail, and she realizes it is Donari, wearing nicely tailored street clothes in his preferred green and black and gold.

Charlotte slows as she approaches the group, giving herself time to decide whether to stop or to keep walking—or, knowing Donari, time for him to see her and make the decision for her.

A woman in the small group starts to tell another joke.  Donari turns to murmur something in the ear of the man next to him and his eyes flick to the approaching swordswoman, just a casual glance concealing his attention to everything around him.  The barest shiver runs through his expression; Charlotte remembers that tiny tell of shock, quickly masked.  He smoothly continues his whisper, but now instead of a side comment he is making excuses and sliding out of the conversation.  He raises a questioning eyebrow at Charlotte with a subtle head tilt suggesting shall we talk?

The corners of Charlotte’s mouth lift in an almost imperceptible smile, and she gives a slight nod of her head.  The two of them fall into step with each other, heading for a bench by a small patch of grass shoehorned into the city planning as an almost-park -- while it is occupied, Donari has spotted the signs of imminent departure and the pair snag the seat before anyone else thinks to.

"So," he says, leaving an inviting pause.

"It's been a long time," Charlotte says. There's more warmth in her voice than the last time they spoke.

"Long enough to fancy it a dream," he replies, voice rasping with a huskiness little better than in their Ebonhawke meeting, though less raw and painful.  "You look ... well."

Charlotte looks him up and down. "So do you. I like the ponytail."

His mouth quirks in acknowledgement, a hint of of-course-I-do in his face.  "There hasn't been as much need for wigs of late.  It seemed a bit more mane might be in order, and of course take less time to maintain."  His hand lifts but does not come near touching her.  "Your hair is lovely in any color ... " he chuckles at himself.  "I am in danger of becoming the most banal of men.  Listen to us.  Tell me in truth:  are you well?  Are you happy?"

Charlotte looks across the park for a moment, considering. "Yes," she says at last; "I think I am. It's very strange living life as a different person. I have all of her memories and none of her fears. In some ways I feel the same, and in some I feel like that old life was just something I watched on stage."

A slow sigh leaves Donari's lips.  He leans back, stretching an arm along the bench's back, but on the side away from Charlotte.  "Pray forgive me that the memory stays rather more vivid in my mind.  The curse of excellent recall."

"You should try dying," Charlotte recommends. "It really loosens your grip on the things that used to seem vital."

That buys her a flashed smile.  "I told you how I intend to pass.  Most of my plans are flexible but still I hold to that.  And much as I might like watching myself on stage, I aver 'tis better to be on stage being watched."  He ripples his fingers at a sword hilt.  "You seem ready to prevent it happening again."

Charlotte's eyes follow the gesture to her sword. "Oh! I keep Ocas out of trouble by making him practice with me. I’ve never really given any thought to having to defend myself. Life as a florist isn’t that adventurous. Anyway, I already experienced the worst. I died alone, in fear and agony. However it comes about again, it probably won’t be as bad the second time.” She says all of this without the slightest hint of bitterness or rancor; just stating a fact.

Nonetheless, Donari's mouth sets a bit more grimly.  "I've seen enough death to know it's nearly always bad.  Do you remember Jerred?" He names one of the di Bette's able doormen.

Charlotte thinks for a moment. "I think so."

"He fell aiding the house against the White Mantle, along with other good people on staff."  Donari recites a litany of several names.  "Even those who fell quickly, I'd not call it a good death."

"I'm sorry," Charlotte says. "What about your family?"

"Thank the -- the whoever we thank, now," Donari responds soberly, pulling his arm back into his lap.  "All alive.  Mother unscathed, though her garden is gone.  Father ... still bedridden, he was briefly hostage in the Park and forced on his knees.  They're not recovering this time.  Lucy got a badly wrenched shoulder but mostly has use of her arm once more, and Tancred -- her fiance, you've not met him, he's in the Seraph -- came back alive from the Lake Doric push."  He pauses.  "Have you heard aught of Nishi?  I've no idea where she was during the siege."

"She doesn't live in the city anymore. She went back to live with her father. But I haven't seen her since before. She'd moved on, and I decided it was better to let her."

"The troupe may persist," he says sadly, "but 'twill never be what it was.  Everyone who survived the Arch has 'moved on,' it seems.  And some who didn't survive, as well," he adds wryly.

"All things come to an end," Charlotte says easily. "What about you? Have you moved on?"

Donari's husky voice manages a droll tone.  "Some claim I've grown up.  I suppose Nik's been gone long enough that his fecklessness no longer infects me.  And, well.  "tis difficult to play the jigging fool when the world's tumbling down."

"Nik's gone, is he?" Charlotte sounds wistful.

"Forever and a day now," confirms Donari.  "Born to Travelers, he went off Traveling again.  I worry for him, from time to time, given his madness."  The last bit sounds fond.  "He'd little enough sense of reality, last I saw him."

"Things could never be the same without him." Charlotte sighs. "The only certain things in life are change, and death."

"And love," Donari reminds her.  "That does keep springing up."  His smile returns, slightly teasing.

"Oh, I don't think that's certain at all. Plenty of people live and die without it."

"How cynical of you."  Donari's shoulders lift in an eloquent shrug.  "You and I likely disagree on the percentages there.  Tell me ... I know you've changed your view of me.  Fair enough.  But can you, as you are now, find it in you to love anyone?"  He searches her face.

Charlotte shrugs a shoulder. "I don't need love the way I used to. I'm perfectly content without it." She smiles wryly. "Say pain is a certainty, if you must. Love falls in that category."

At that, a recoil, fingers pressed delicately to chest, expression appalled.  "It should never be so.  Was it, at the time?"  With concern, he continues, "Or is that how you perceive it now, in your stage-watching memory?"

Charlotte considers. "It wasn't your fault," she says after a while. "It wasn't you that caused me pain. Well, sometimes. But it was mostly... this giant, sucking hole inside of me that I could never fill. I wanted to fill it with love--I thought that was the only thing that could fill it. But it never came close."

He nods thoughtfully to that.  "I'd not wish such a gaping hole on anyone, to be sure, though it also gave you passion.  You shone with it."

Charlotte smiles ruefully. "I'd rather not shine, and be whole."

Donari reserves judgment on just how whole she is.  "So what are you doing now, in your non-shiny fashion?  Clearly you're not hand-to-mouth."  He taps the nice leather of her coat where it splays on the bench.

"There was my share of the payout when Lion's Arch demolished what remained of the house and built something new there. Between that and my flower wagon, I get by. I've got a much smaller apartment in the Commodore's Quarter. Very modest. I find I'm less attached to the idea of a home these days. All the things I craved, that I thought would make me feel... safe, or something--they don't have such a hold over me now. If it doesn't sound like _too_ much of a cliche--I just feel happy to be alive."

"Beats the alternative," he agrees, firing a cliche right back.  "I confess to curiosity on that point, however.  How did you break back through the Mists?  Without becoming all pale and ooooooooohhhh," the latter in a ghostly tremolo with fluttering hands.

Charlotte shakes her head. "I've no idea. No one I've consulted has any idea." She sighs. "I've come to terms with the idea that I may never know."

"Then I shall live in the hope that the process does not equally mysteriously reverse itself.  There is an easing of the heart, knowing you are not lost after all.  Even changed as you are it does ... beat the alternative," he repeats in a dry but sincere tone that conceals the memory of raw grief.

Charlotte gives him a gentle smile. "I might wish for you that you could let go of the past as easily, except that it wasn't easy. I wouldn't want to put you through my process, anyway."

"I promise you, Bright Lady, I've been through several processes of my own.  I'd trade away very little of it -- other than the loss of good people.  I never wish to stop feeling."  They've not yet so much as touched; now he reaches for her hand.

Charlotte turns her hand over to allow Donari to take it. "I haven't stopped feeling," she says. "I've stopped needing. There's a difference."

He lifts the hand up to gently kiss her knuckles, then folds both hands over it.  "You still shine," he decides, and stands, slowly releasing his grasp to let her fingers trail off of his.  "It is merely a different light.  If you do need aught of me -- need with a small n," he amends -- "then you know my address.  Send a bird, unsigned, for I'm not the only nosy one in the house."

Charlotte nods. "I will, if the need arises. I'm sorry for what your family's been through, and I'm glad they're all safe."

"Thank you for that.  Be well, please be ever well," Donari rasps in his smoker's voice.

Charlotte smiles sardonically. "I'll do what I can."

A nod, a head incline to suggest the much more florid bows he used to employ, and Donari melts into the flow of people heading to their homes or favorite cafes, his height making him visible for a shorter time than one might expect.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

After the food was consumed, and Jack made his farewells and headed in the direction of the Gate, Charlotte picked up her empty market bag and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm going to see my-- friend, Ocas." She looked at Fred. "Want to walk with me over to the Salma District?"

"Sure," Fred says, adjusting the collar of his jacket. "But what is he really? Not just a friend?"

Charlotte looks surprised, and then amused. "He's really my cousin," she says in a low voice. "You didn't know that? I thought you had my file memorized."

"You flatter yourself," Fred says with a smirk. "Nah, I knew, but you had an awkward pause there and I'm actually more curious why having a cousin would be a secret."

"Because Charlotte Ocas is dead. She's buried back there." She jerks a thumb in the direction of the cemetery.

"So Thaylius can't have two cousins named Charlotte? It happens." Fred shrugs, then puts his hands in his pockets.

Charlotte frowns a little. "It seems implausible. First, 'oh look, my long-lost cousin, Charlotte Ocas.' Then a few years later, 'oh look, my long-lost cousin, Charlotte Smythe."

Fred scratches his jaw. "Good point." He glances around the street.

Charlotte starts walking. "Now that they're finally getting around to doing something with the arch, they've paid off Thaylius Ocas, who was Charlotte Ocas's next of kin, for her property there. So I'm paying him a collection visit."

"Shame about your house," Fred says as he walks alongside her.

"It was more of a shame about me," Charlotte says dryly.

"Yes, it was," Fred says, looking ahead.

"I was devastated about the house when I first saw it," she says. "It was my first real home. Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't. Oddly enough, history of property ownership isn't usually listed in the files," he says, amused.

"It should be. It's important. I was in the orphanage until I was sixteen, and then it was various boarding houses and inns, and when I had my traveling show with Nishi I had my little wagon. But the house in Lion's Arch was my first home. I paid for it myself--well. Donari paid for part of it but that was only so there'd be room for two. I paid my share. And I fixed it up myself, exactly how I wanted it. It meant a lot to me." She sighs. "Seeing it in flinders at the bottom of the cliff certainly did not improve what was already a very bad day. But now that they're starting to build something new, I feel better. That all belonged to my old life. I don't need it anymore."

Fred turns his head to watch an alley cat slink past them. "You gonna get a new place there?"

She nods. "I plan to. I hope the property prices won't skyrocket too fast."

"It'll mostly be guilds getting places there, I'd think." Fred keeps his eye on the cat until it disappears behind some carts. "All the homeowners have gotten other places by now most likely."

"Oh, I think plenty of them will be back. If you really love Lion's Arch, you can't be happy in some other city."

Fred looks at her, eyebrows up. "Y'know, I've heard that. I never saw the appeal."

"It's the spirit of the place. 'We'll make what we want out of the materials available to us.'"

"Which, now, is mostly provided via the generous donations of the Consortium," Fred says, nose crinkled.

Charlotte sighs. "True... but I hope the spirit will remain, nonetheless."

"Yeah," Fred mumbles, looking up at the banners high above them as they pass underneath.

Charlotte side-eyes him. "I don't need much--which is fortunate, because I can't afford much. They didn't exactly pay fair market value when they declared my house eminent domain. But I'll settle for something small, as long as it's mine. Nothing as glamorous as a cattle ranch, but..."

Fred points at her. "Hey. You haven't seen my ranch."

"I'm sure it's glamorous, nonetheless."

He narrows his eyes at her and puts his hand back in his pocket. "It's all right."

She smiles. "I'll need some kind of job, I suppose. I was thinking of becoming a florist."

"Really? Huh. My aunt always wanted to be a florist," Fred says, surprised.

"I figure it can't be that hard. Buy flowers, arrange them together prettily." The corners of her mouth turn down in a little somber moue. "I was going to by flowers when the attack came. I think that's where the idea came from. Is that morbid?"

"I don't think so," Fred says with a shrug.

"It's like my final thought got imprinted indelibly on my brain or... whatever. Flowers!"

Fred snorts a little laugh.

Charlotte smiles at him. They're nearly at the entrance to the Salma District now.

Fred looks at her for a bit, then turns his head to watch the people they pass on the street, quiet for a little while.

"His shop won't be closed for a little while," Charlotte says. "I think I'll wait, so I can see him alone. Do you want to get a drink? Or are you needed urgently back at the... ranch."

Fred raises a brow at the invitation. "Nah, the ranch hands still think I'm doing training with Jack."

"Well, come on then. You got lunch, I'll get drinks." She tilts her head in the direction of the tavern.

Fred walks toward the indicated tavern with a smile. "I was gonna ask who's buying."

"Of course you were."

"Just keeping things fair." He walks up to the door, checks the signage.

"We should have a tally system," Charlotte says. She waits for him to finish reading the sign before opening the door and entering.

Fred follows her inside. "No need, I have a mind like a steel trap."

Charlotte smirks and goes to the counter to order a cider. She arches and inquiring eyebrow at Fred.

Fred glances over the back of the bar. "Whisky."

The bartender nods silently. He pours a pint of cider for Charlotte and a couple of fingers of whiskey for Fred, and sets them on the counter before them. Charlotte picks up her pint and navigates through the middling crowd to a table.

Fred follows, and takes a seat at the table. He takes a sip of his drink, considers, then seems to approve and takes another, larger drink.

"So," Charlotte says. "Single, orphaned cattle rancher, whisky drinker, disapproves of anarchy." She nods her head a little with each point, as though keeping a mental checklist. "Extended family of aunts and uncles, and presumably cousins." She takes a drink of her cider.

Fred raises his brows. "Yes, that's me. Well done?" He takes a drink.

"I'm just reviewing what I already know so I can decide what I want to find out next."

"Ah." He sets his glass down and folds his arms, jacket creaking.

She looks at him speculatively. "How'd you get into this line of work?"

"You mean other than ranching," he clarifies.

She nods. "You can be vague, if you want. Just give me an idea."

He scratches his chin. "Hm." He glances at her, then down at his glass. "Well, I was in with some bad people who M was interested in taking down. He was just an agent back then."

"Ah. And he found you among them and saw your potential and persuaded you that there was a better path?"

Fred snorts. "He paid me to turn them all in."

Charlotte's eyebrows go up. "And you did it? I hope he paid well."

Fred leans his elbows on the table. "Well, a bunch of them bolted and got out of the Reach before they were rounded up. One tried to kill me... M offered me a place in the Order, said he'd keep me safe, and I joined. I spent fifteen years tracking the others down." He picks up his whisky and finishes it off.

"Fifteen years?" Charlotte looks aghast. "They must have been some really bad people." She takes a drink of cider. "Or was it just a matter of protecting yourself?"

Fred taps the corner of his glass on the table a few times. "It was both. Anarchy is a terrible idea." He looks down at the glass and tap tap taps it on the table.

"You've mentioned that before. Do you want another?" She points at his empty glass.

"Nah. Actually yes. I do," Fred says. He looks over at the bar.

The bartender sees Fred looking at him and nods.

Fred holds up his glass for the bartender to see, then sets it on the table and looks at Charlotte again. "What about you?"

"What do you mean, what about me? You know how I got into this--you were there."

"Nah, I wasn't the first agent you ever knew. What was his name, he was in your file..."

"Oh, that." Charlotte grimaces and take a drink of her cider. The bartender arrives with a fresh whiskey for Fred, and removes the empty glass.

"Thanks," Fred says, glancing up. Then he looks at Charlotte, head tilted just slightly.

She sighs. "Leander was my lover. I had no idea that he was involved in... well I had no idea about him at all, as it turns out. He needed to get something and he couldn't figure out how to do it, so he used me." She smiles bitterly.

"I see you weren't thrilled."

She looks down at her pint of cider, one hand distractedly brushing back the tendrils of dark hair that have escaped her braid. "I thought he loved me. It wasn't the first time or the last time I made that mistake."

Fred takes a drink. "Sorry to hear that."

"He asked me to seduce a man and then steal something from him."

"Did you?"

Charlotte takes a long drink, draining her glass. "No to the first. Yes to the second. I figured out another way."

"Ingenuity. No wonder they sent me after you." Fred smiles.

She returns the smile, though it doesn't reach her eyes.

Fred stretches, then drops one arm over the back of his chair. "There's something I just gotta ask you."

Charlotte appears lost in thought. "What?"

"Why... did you buy a house with Donari di Bette?"

Charlotte sighs and signals the bartender for another drink. "I didn't set out to. I was only going to buy half the house--it had two apartments in it. The upper one was very small, but I was used to living in a wagon, so it didn't bother me. My involvement with Donari started around the same time I was putting in my offer on the apartment and... I don't know." She sweeps her hair tendrils back with both hands this time, and keeps them there, holding her head. "Some sort of madness overtook me."

"I'm not judging. It just puzzled me, is all. Living with someone never seemed his..." Fred waggles a hand vaguely. "...Thing."

"It wasn't," Charlotte says archly. "Until me." Then she sighs again. When the bartender sets a new pint of cider in front of her, she picks it up and drinks. "It puzzles me, too. I knew from the first day exactly how things would go. And then I conveniently forgot."

Fred takes a drink. "Yeah, funny how minds work like that."

"At least I have the consolation of being proved right." She takes another healthy swallow.

Fred sighs in sympathy, and takes another drink.

She gives him a wry look. "All right, now that we've discussed my romantic failures, it's your turn. Why isn't there a Mrs. Rancher?"

"Ah. Well, do I seem like much of a catch? Don't answer that." Fred gets a box of cigarettes out, puts one in his mouth, then offers Charlotte the box.

Charlotte seems to give this question a serious appraisal as she takes the box and removes a cigarette from it. "I don't see why not. You're sort of ruggedly handsome. Sometimes you're funny. You're not particularly stupid."

Fred huffs a short laugh and gets a match to light his cigarette, shakes it out and drops it in the ashtray. "Thanks. I guess I just never wanted to get married. It wouldn't suit my lifestyle." He shrugs and hands her a match.

Charlotte takes the match and lights her cigarette. She blows out a stream of smoke, still with that appraising look on her face. "That's it? No sad story? No one that almost got away?"

"Nothing serious since I was... gosh, still just a kid, really. Must have been around eighteen." He pauses, and gets a thoughtful sort of frown. He glances to Charlotte, then down into his glass. "Look at you, got me talking about myself."

"Like you said. I'm ingenious." She smiles. "Tell me about her."

Fred sighs a cloud of smoke and leans back in his chair, crosses his arms. "Her parents were rich. To this day I don't know what she saw in me. I would climb the vines on the side of her house to get to her bedroom window, and knock on it til she opened it for me." He smiles a bit, shakes his head.

"Was this before or during your anarchy phase?"

"During. Right before it ended, actually. When I switched sides, I told her I had to leave. She asked me to take her with me." He shakes his head again. "She hated life in the city. We had that much in common, if nothing else."

"You said no?"

Fred leans his elbows on the table again. "Of course I said no," he says down at the table, and takes a drink, dropping his cigarette in the ashtray still smoldering.

Charlotte watches him. "Surprisingly sensible for an eighteen-year-old boy. You regret it, though."

Fred shrugs, still looking at the table. "It was a long time ago."

"Do you know what became of her?"

"Nope. Never saw her since."

"Never thought about looking her up?

Fred looks at Charlotte quizzically, almost amused, even. "Thought about, or actually considered?"

She smirks. "With most people, I'd assume 'thought about' was a foregone conclusion. But not you. Either one."

"Thought about, yes. But not actually considered. If she ever did forgive me for leaving her behind, well... I'm sure she's moved on either way. Married, kids, the whole deal." Fred picks his cigarette up again to take a breath off it.

"One of the most romantic things a woman can hear is, 'I made a mistake.'"

Fred is quiet as he thinks for a while. "Sparing her those fifteen years wasn't a mistake, though."

Charlotte heaves a hopeless sigh. "So that's it? Since then you've just been married to your work? Which, by your own admission, you don't even like that much."

Fred stares at the cigarette in his hand, and gives the tiniest few nods.

Charlotte frowns at her cigarette. "Sorry."

A beat of silence. "Her name was Christina."

Charlotte stubs out her cigarette and is silent a moment herself, at a loss. "Another drink?" she says at last.

"Nah. Don't want the drinks to cost more than lunch did." Fred takes a last drag of his cigarette then drops it into the ashtray.

"You're buying next time in any case/"

"I should make Jack start paying. We can have a whole rotation going," Fred says with a smirk.

Charlotte smiles. She looks out the window--it's getting dark outside.

Fred watches her for a second. "Why'd you get mad earlier?"

Charlotte turns to look at him, her face blank. "What?"

"When we were in the cemetery. You stopped talking. Remember?"

"Oh." Instantly she looks annoyed again. "Why'd you really want us to meet in the cemetery? There was nothing that important about that mausoleum that you needed Jack to come all the way here."

Fred looks confused. "It's a hidden base that leads out of the city northward. There aren't a whole lot of those, and it might be important someday."

"There've got to be at least a dozen other hidey-holes that'd be more relevant to Jack. You took us there because of me."

Fred quirks a brow. "You... seem to be under some kind of impression I spend a lot of time thinking about you."

She stares at him for a long moment. "You're right," she says at last, tersely. "It makes more sense that you're just an insensitive lout who didn't consider that I might not enjoy walking past my own crypt."

Fred takes a deep breath. "You didn't die, Charlotte. I'm still not sure what happened to you, but it wasn't reincarnation, or resurrection, or anything like that. Okay?"

"No. It's not okay. And it's not okay for you to take digs at me about how it happened a long time ago and I should get over it."

Fred holds up a hand, baffled. "When did I say that?"

"When Jack asked if either of us was there."

"Hold on." Fred scans the table, recalling the conversation, as if it's written on the surface. Then he frowns at Charlotte. "That's not what I was saying. I was talking about myself. Am I not allowed to have problems, just because yours are worse?" His tone is dry and airy.

"You didn't say It's good that I can talk about it. You said It's good that people can talk about it. When it's obvious that I don't want to."

Fred leans back in his chair and looks off toward the far wall. "Then don't."

"Fine." She gets up and starts to leave.

Fred doesn't say anything, just shakes his head as his eyes wander the room, avoiding Charlotte.

Charlotte sweeps out into the evening without a backward glance.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

In the Skull Plaza of Divinity's Reach, sunlight bakes the cobblestone roads and the occasional Seraph dozes against the corner of a building. It's a quiet day, with distant echoes of hooves or footsteps droning out of focus and fading into a murmur.

Fred has a light jacket on and sits on the wall at the base of the Grenth high road. He swats at a fly.

A woman in a simple peasant dress enters the plaza. Her hair is chestnut brown and tucked into a French braid at the back of her head. She has a straw market bag over one shoulder. She approaches Fred's position obliquely, not looking like she has a particular purpose in mind.

Fred looks down at Charlotte and nods in greeting. "How's the city find you?"

Charlotte looks up at him and smiles. "Better than the last time I was here."

Fred glances around the plaza. "Been shopping?"

"Browsing, really. I haven't got the money to spend on anything but the essentials."

"Well that's no fun."

Jack didn't have trouble finding the place Fred had described, though he definitely felt eyes on him as he went -- aside from his stature, he was blue with a bright red mohawk, and he was also Sylvari. In short, he stood out like a sore thumb. Still, he managed to get to the spot without any incident, briefly lofting a hand in greeting when he saw the man in question.

"I happen to have come into a bit of good luck recently, though, so I think things will be all right."

"Is that so," Fred drawls as he looks toward Jack. He raises a hand in reply, then hops down from the short wall, adjusts his jacket, dusts himself off. "I should buy that kid a hat," he thinks out loud.

"What kid?" Jack wanted to know. If anyone had bothered to notice, his ears were rather large, too, and tapered.

"You." Fred cracks his knuckles.

Charlotte gives the sylvari a pleasant smile. "Hello. I'm Charlotte Smith."

Jack blinked, looking from one to the other. "I'm not a kid, really -- and hello, ma'am." That last was to Charlotte.

"Don't worry, that's just Fred's way of patronizing you."

Fred smiles.

Jack snorted. "I'm getting used to it. He's not the only one that does it."

Fred starts walking toward the city cemetery. "Have any trouble on the way here?" he asks, glancing to Jack.

"No, just a lot of awkward staring."

Charlotte follows, a little reluctantly. Her face is wary. "Where are we going?"

"Just a short visit," Fred answers, and nods at a passing Seraph who looks at them.

Jack glances between them, but doesn't ask the question: Why the cemetery.

Charlotte scowls at Fred's back and follows silently.

Fred walks through the cemetary gate, glances at a small family clustered around a headstone, and continues toward the back of the cemetery, where the larger mausoleums are. He looks over his shoulder at Charlotte and Jack but says nothing.

Jack raised a brow -- or his equivalent -- following still without a word, though he did glance at Charlotte to see if she had any clue what Fred was up to.

Charlotte is keeping her eyes on the ground. Her shoulders are rigid.

Fred narrows his eyes at Charlotte for a moment, then looks forward again and comes to a stop in front of a mausoleum. The family crest engraved into it features two swans with their necks entwined, wreathed by the branches of some kind of tree.

Fred turns around, crosses his arms, and leans back on the mausoleum. "All right, kid, try to find anything strange about this thing," he says, pointing a thumb at the crest.

Jack's ears twitched. No, he'd heard Fred correctly. "The symbol, or the physical thing?" he wanted to know first, though he stepped forward to examine it anyway.

"You figure it out," Fred says.

Charlotte looks around uncomfortably.

Given that he had little to know knowledge of human heraldry or symbolism, Jack opted to explore the physical piece of stonework that made up the symbol first. Running his fingertips over the pattern lightly, and then trying to discern if there was any magic to it. It would take a few minutes, but he'd eventually find the buttons.

Upon pushing in the swan's eyes, the mausoleum made an internal grating sound, and the front started to lower into the ground.

Fred stepped away and walked a few feet out to glance at the family they passed on the way in. Seeing them leaving, he walked back over to the others.

The swan door lowered until it was mesh with the ground. A magic lamp lit itself just inside a doorway, and showed stairs leading underground. Fred entered, smiling faintly.

Jack inspected the doorway, not looking too thrilled. After a moment though, he ducked down to enter, as well, not wanting Fred to get out of sight.

Charlotte rolls her eyes at the whole thing and enters the doorway as well.

The stairs end inside a stone room, with another staircase on the other side. A few shelves and desks are crammed into one corner, and overflow with maps and charts.

The swan door grates closed behind them, and another magic lamp lights itself near the other stairs.

Fred grabs a wooden stool, pulls it toward the center of the room, and sits down. "Well, here we are. It's not much, but it's good for you two to know how to get here."

Jack looked around, smoothing a hand through his mohawk and flicking dew off his fingers towards the floor. "What is this place? And ... why in a mausoleum? Because people wouldn't look for live people in a graveyard?"

Fred points to the far staircase. "That leads through the city walls and out to the north. It's in a mausoleum because people are unlikely to stumble upon it by accident."

Charlotte leans against the wall and crosses her arms.

Fred looks up at Charlotte. "What?"

"Nothing," she says shortly.

"Right," Fred says, looking unimpressed. He then turns to Jack. "So. Are you still in the Order because you don't have the nerve to try to leave, or because you enjoy the work?"

Jack gave him a sort of flat look. "I'm in the Order because I was told even if I wasn't they'd watch me like a hawk anyway. Which is creepy as fuck. Not that being in the Order seems much less creepy, but at least I'm on the inside of the door with the creepers and not on the opposite side getting watched. Though I'm sure they still do that, too."

Fred folds his hands behind his head and crosses his ankles. "They watch everyone, whether they know it or not. Not in their houses, or through sewer grates, or while sitting in trees with spyglasses. Think of them as an overprotective mom who thinks the only way to keep you safe is to keep an eye on your every move."

"I suppose that's an improvement on a Mother who's response to your existence is basically 'go out and do good, follow the rules, shoo'." He muttered half sarcastically. "I'm not sure which is worse."

Fred's eyes lower to the floor, staring, thinking soberly for a moment. Then he looks up at Jack again. "Ever heard of 'pure research'?"

Jack's golden eyes narrowed. "The term rings a bell, but I don't know why."

"The Priory is lauded for it all the time, but the Whispers do the same thing." He drops his hands. "Pure research is the collection of knowledge with no purpose in mind for it at the time. Anything to put a dragon to sleep would be great, but we haven't managed to find a way yet. At least, not that I've been privy to. Anyway, most of what we collect and fill out reports on is just for posterity. Like that thing you delivered for that fallen agent."

"That'd be this." Jack reached down to his belt and set a large, ornate hourglass on the desk where it could be more easily seen. "Apparently though, me finding it and the person who had it at the time was a mistake." He says this dubiously, as if he's unsure.

Fred looks at the hourglass, intrigued. "Elaborate."

Jack sighed. "I found a man dying on the rocks in Lion's Arch and he had this with him, in a crate. He was obviously masquerading as a sailor of some sort -- accent, clothes, he had all that right, but there were several indications that he wasn't a sailor at all. When I touched this thing, it kind of ... latched onto me. My magic, that is. I had a lot of it kind of ... walled off, at the time, a mental barrier if you will. And a team of my Coalition members accompanied me to Orr to try to break the grip of the hourglass. Long story short, it worked, and the Order afterwards gave me an ultimatum. Join up, or be resigned to the fact that since no one else could wield the hourglass, they were going to watch me forever to make sure I didn't... you know, I have really no idea why they'd watch me, either." He scowled. "I chose the former option, obviously. More to have a choice than anything."

"What does it do?" Charlotte asks from her spot at the wall.

Jack shrugged. "Now? Not much of anything. The spirits associated with it were laid to rest. But it's still "attached" in some way -- if I left it here, for example, and walked back up the tunnel, it'd be out there waiting for me and not on the desk. I use it as a magic focus, which is saying something because I used to be unable to use foci at all without making them explode."

Fred scowls. "Ex...plode?"

The sylvari sighed. "Was that not in the file? No, I suppose not..." he mused, "given I'm not in the habit of talking about it. Fine. I don't have a lot of finesse with magic, but I have a lot of 'oomph'. And when I was a sapling I was terrified of being a mesmer so I didn't use it. I left the Grove and pretended to be a warrior, instead. And over time I built up a sort of mental block on my magic, like a dam." He tapped the top of the hourglass. "The trip to Orr got rid of the dam, so to speak."

Fred tilts his head a little, then looks at Charlotte. "That reminds me. Has your magic changed at all since the, you know?"

"Yes."

Fred looks unamused at her short response. "How so?"

Charlotte looks from Fred to Jack and back to Fred again. "In that I can't do it anymore."

Fred scratches his jaw. "I see."

Jack was semi perplexed by this turn of conversation, tilting his head at Charlotte. "What could you do...before?"

"I was a mesmer," she says. "Now I'm not anymore."

Fred looks annoyed at Charlotte stealing his terse act.

Jack looked between the pair of them and gave an annoyed huff. "So, why are we here besides 'hey, here's a safe place'?"

"Yeah, Fred."

Fred scowls. What, like secret underground rooms aren't totally cool? "Now you know of a hidden way out of the city, and where to come for these." He stands and walks over to the shelf and desks, picks up a scroll, and tosses it at Jack.

Jack caught the scroll, examining it. "What's this?"

"Dunno." Fred walks toward the staircase they came down earlier.

Jack looked at Charlotte. If you know him better than me help.

Charlotte just shrugs at Jack, and offers a commiserating smirk.

The swan door opens when Fred gets close, and he steps back out into the sunlight, squinting. "Anyone hungry?"

Jack looked at Charlotte again, "Am I supposed to keep this?"

"Probably." Charlotte looks after Fred. She still seems annoyed.

Jack sighed, walking up the passage. He forgot the hourglass, but sure enough, it was waiting for him near Fred's feet when he emerged from the swan-door. Rolling his eyes, he picked it back up to fasten to his belt once more.

Fred starts walking through the cemetery, looking around for other people. There's no one around.

Charlotte swings her market bag over her shoulder and follows the others.

Fred makes sure the others are following before setting off down the street. "How's Ebonhawke?" he asks Charlotte.

"Disgusting and depressing," Charlotte says. "But I'm not planning on staying. I'm going to return to the Arch once the reconstruction is done." She sounds more cheerful now that they're out of the cemetery.

Jack hummed slightly, careful to adjust his gait so he's not outpacing them. "I know it won't be the same, but it will be nice to see Lion's Arch not broken."

"Brings up bad memories every time you see it, even just passing through the gates," Fred says.

"I'm glad it's changing," Charlotte says. "It's moving on."

"Were either of you there, when...?" he didn't finish the question, he wasn't sure he needed to.

"Yes," Charlotte says shortly.

Fred sighs. "I got there an hour after it happened. Couldn't get inside, because of the gas, so I had to wait... I got a few people out, ones that were inside and had sealed their windows and doors."

Charlotte's sharp response had the effect of shutting Jack down quickly; he closed his mouth, and only nodded at Fred's words, offering no other reply.

"It's finally been long enough people have started talking about it," Fred says, turning down a street toward some vendors hawking food and baked desserts. "It's good to be able to."

Charlotte shoots Fred an annoyed look.

Fred looks at Charlotte, then frowns. "What?"

"Nothing."

Jack swallowed, but made no comment, tucking the scroll in his coat and his hands in his pockets. Content to be the awkwardvari looming in the background, for the time being.

Fred flops his hands at his sides. "What did I do."

"Can we not discuss it right now?"

"Fine, all right." Fred walks over to one of the food carts and surveys its offerings.

The merchant behind the cart is talking to a kid who looks about 10. Something about free samples.

Jack gave Charlotte some breathing space and walked up to flank Fred, looking over his head at the cart. His eyes strayed to the boy, briefly.

Charlotte hangs back, calling to Fred, "Get me something," and then wandering a few yards away.

Jack tried to catch Fred's gaze, speaking quietly. "Are outings with you always this much fun? Deep snow, Priory nerds, grumpy Charr -- underground warrens, icy former mesmers?"

Fred shrugs at Jack. "I balance it by having a horrifically boring home life." He looks at the merchant once the little kid scampers off down the street, denied a free sample. "Two wraps, and whatever he wants," Fred says to the merchant, gesturing at the jolly blue giant.

Jack put up a hand to forestall questions, "Just the same, please." He glanced back down at Fred. "I should introduce you to Magnus, sometime. You'd probably get along like a house on fire."

Fred looks up at Jack. "I never understood that phrase." He sets some coin on the stall counter.

The merchant smiles and hands them three wraps in little cloth napkins with decorative lace on the edges.

"I think it means to get along really well really fast," Jack chuckled. "What I meant was, you'd either do that or kill each other."

Fred walks over toward where Charlotte is to give her the wrap. "Who is he?" he asks Jack.

"Someone a bit like you," the sylvari replied. "'Around' a long time. He's been teaching me more about hand-to-hand, without magic."

Fred narrows his eyes. "Are you calling me old."

Charlotte takes the wrap from Fred.

Jack grinned at him. "I wasn't, but does the shoe fit?"

Fred scratches his head. "Probably." He wanders over toward a bench and sits down, then frowns at the lacey napkin.

Jack followed, though remained standing so Charlotte would have room to sit on the bench if she so chose. "Old humans usually have grey or white hair, Fred."

"Well shit, I'm not -that- old," Fred says.

Charlotte smirks to herself and sits down on the bench. She peels the wrapping off her food.

"How should I know? I'm not around humans much. When I worked aboard ships I stuck with Niver and Alekk, so if anything I know more about Norn and Asura." He peeled the napkin halfway off the wrap, and took a bite.

"You can tell from the lines around his mouth," Charlotte volunteers. "And all those little lines around his eyes." She takes a bite of her wrap.

"And," Fred says, "You can tell her age based on how cynical and sassy she is," gesturing at Charlotte.

"That's true. Women mellow with age. So I'm obviously still quite young."

"Women do -not- mellow with age."

Jack looked at Fred curiously. "How do you know that? Are you married?"

Charlotte chokes on her wrap.

"Hah! No," Fred says, looking to Charlotte to make sure she isn't about to die.

Jack watched Charlotte with some concern, replying slowly, "Then how do you know how they get when they're older, if you don't have one?"

Charlotte manages to swallow and clears her throat. "Yeah, Fred."

Fred looks baffled at Jack. "There are more ways to meet women than being married to them. ...And by that I mean I have relatives, and have seen people on the street."

Charlotte snickers.

Fred scowls at her.

"Sylvari don't have relatives, not like that, anyway," Jack reminded him. "I have the Coalition but I haven't been there long enough to see if sylvari age like that or not."

"Sylvari haven't existed long enough for anyone to see if you age like that or not," Fred says, then finally takes a bite of wrap.

Jack shrugged. "I know, but..." he paused. He was no longer sure where he was going with this conversation.

"Speaking of being old," Fred begins, "I remember when sylvari first hit the papers. No one believed it at first."

Jack looked amused by that, tilting his head to study Fred while he worked on finishing his wrap. "Why not?"

"It was pretty weird," Charlotte says.

"A whole new species of sapient people? At the time only a few... not-sylvari had interacted with the Firstborn. It sounded made up." Fred shrugs.

Jack shook his head slightly; a bit of dew off his fronds might spatter on Fred by accident. "What sounded made up about it?"

"Generally, entire groups of people don't just arise out of nowhere."

"Yeah," Fred agrees. "We haven't seen an entirely new species for... what, hundreds of years? At least?" he says in Charlotte's direction.

"Sorry, I'm not as old as you," Charlotte says. "It's hard for me to remember that far back."

Jack hid a smirk behind his last bite of wrap, trying not to laugh.

Fred laughs, surprised.

Charlotte smiles, pleased with herself.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Donari has donned workingman's clothes for this midafternoon visit to Ebonhawke, complete with slouch cap shading his eyes.  A rough linen satchel hangs from one shoulder as he mooches along the city's back alleys, whistling.  The sound is merely competent, a far cry from how it used to be.  He rounds the corner leading to Smitty's forge and pauses to assess the approach.  His whistling continues, doing nothing to abate the noisomeness ahead. The alley is devoid of people. A mangey looking cat is in the gutter, eating the scraps off of some fish bones. He continues to the door, testing the latch.  Finding it unlocked he steps inside, closing it behind him.  His posture maintains the impression of a working stiff as he scans the interior with a lackadaisical glance. Charlotte is leaning on the counter, looking bored. When the door opens, she stands up. A look of surprise is quickly replaced by one of recognition and then irritation. "Donari, what are you doing here?" Donari straightens to his normal posture.  "Well, you still know me well enough to see past appearances."  He shrugs, walking up to the counter.  Laying the linen bag on the counter he leans with his hands on the edge of the wood.  "I came to see you, obviously." "To what purpose?" she asks him warily. Soft sadness crosses Donari's face.  "To make sure you are well.  You left Ocas' so suddenly.  And now you are ... " he waves a hand around the squalid little shop, so different from Ocas' establishment.  "Proving a point, I suppose." Her jaw tightens. "Is that disapproval I hear?" A pause.  "Perhaps a little.  Born of worry, Charlotte."  Donari turns to lean his right elbow and hip against the counter.  "And some concern that whatever restored you might change its mind.  I went out of my mind when I found you.  I dread a repeat." Charlotte looks at him silently a moment, then turns and goes to the door behind the counter, sticking her head through to look into the room beyond. Then she returns to the counter. "Did you really?" He nods, and keeps his voice pitched low though she's clearly just checked for eavesdroppers.  "You were in the snow.  In the rows of dead, the hundreds, thousands of them.  I saw your dress, your hair, and then your face ... I was screaming.  They had to drag me away."  His voice roughens as he tells the tale.  "I'm at war with the Six because I lost you.  For all They've noticed." Charlotte looks unsure of what to say. She looks down at her hands, which are fidgeting on the counter. "I'm sorry you had to go through that." Donari flinches as if struck.  The distance in her tone ... when once she wanted nothing more than for him to lose control over her.  "You might understand then just why I have a need to make sure you live this time.  I won't press myself on you, but I'll not just vanish while you might need me."  He stands up, leans hands on the counter again, tilting towards her for emphasis.  "I never stop loving anyone." Charlotte rubs her temple. "Fine. I understand. And I am sorry." She looks up at him. "For what it's worth. I wouldn't have put you through that for anything." His mouth twitches left in quirked amusement.  "I think it was harder on you."  He eases back to reduce the intensity.   She smiles a little. "Granted. But my revenge fantasies never revolved around you finding me dead. They ran more along the lines of me falling violently in love with another man and you eating your heart out for the rest of your life." "I fear I could not have granted that, so long as you were happy.  Which is part of why you set me aside in the first place."  A rueful grimace at himself.  "Now, is this where you really want to be?"  His head tilts subtly side to side to indicate the shop and by extension the city. Charlotte looks around the dingy room. "For now, yes. It's an easy place to lie low. I have to come up with a plan for what I'm going to do next. As someone recently pointed out to me, everyone knows Charlotte Maunqmal is dead. Unless I want to spend the rest of my life being studied in some sort of asura lab, I have to become someone else." "I imagine your skills are more than up to that task.  Yet it hardly means you can't have friends visit who remember the old you."  Donari reaches into the cloth satchel. "And who bring you things hard to come by in an Ebonhawke alley." Charlotte raises an eyebrow. Donari pulls out a long item, wrapped in much finer, gauzier linen than the outer bag, followed by a small crock and what looks like napkins wrapped around silverware.  He sets them all atop the larger bag as insulation from whatever the hell's been on that counter and unfolds the wrappings with a "ta da!" air to show a pair of loaves of crusty bread, two butter knives, a short bread knife, and a crock of sweet cream butter.  "From Applenook," he smiles. Charlotte looks at it all with a rueful smile. "I suppose you wouldn't be Donari if you didn't bring a picnic with you everywhere you went." He laughs, and takes her comment as permission to saw off some thick slices, pushing the butter towards her to let her have first dibs on it.  "It was a long trip and Ebonhawke cooks might be the only thing keeping the local rat population in check," he quips.  "It was most imperative I be prepared." Charlotte takes a piece of bread and spreads some butter on it. "It's not actually that bad here. I'm getting used to it." With Charlotte served, Donari helps himself to bread and butter as well.  "Oh, there are worse places than this, even in the Reach itself," he agrees.  "But reminders of better places never go amiss, at least for those with a choice."  He chews thoughtfully a moment, the crust crunching faintly.  "I'd like to tell you I understand something about you far more than I did at first." Charlotte looks at him curiously. "Though you accepted it later, when first we met you refused to be older than twenty-nine."  A lift of a shoulder.  "I ... share in that now.  Foolish as it is, I want Thursday never to come." Charlotte looks a little disappointed that it's not a more personal confession. "It's particularly foolish for you. Neither your career nor your desirability require you to be young. You're a wealthy man. Nothing will change." "Ah, you think so?"  Donari flourishes the butter knife.  "Much is excused in youth because of that youth.  Look at what Father did, running off to play spy.  No one says how brave he was, how loyal to the Crown, how stoic under deprivation.  No, a fifty year old man can't go dashing about having adventures, it's just not done, it suggests a pitiful refusal to let go of one's younger days." Charlotte shrugs and takes a bite out of her bread. Spreading butter on another piece, Donari accepts the silent comment.  "True.  Yet I thought I'd be forever young.  Then there was the Arch, and you, and that damned stone.  My lungs, too.  It's as if all the golden luck I had was a lifetime's allotment, now spent and gone." "Or, it's like you've got the same problems as everybody else." "Exactly.  Most unfair!" Charlotte just looks at him. About half the loaf is downed with similar banter before Donari wipes his lips and knife, leaving the latter for Charlotte's use on the rest of the offering.  "Thank you," he says somberly. "For what?" "For being alive."  He bows slightly, faintly formal.  "I'm very glad you are." She smiles faintly. "You're welcome, I suppose." With that, Donari excuses himself, resuming his workman's slouch as he navigates the alleys back towards the Gate.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Pork Pie

Charlotte arrives at the training yard near sunset, an undistinguished-looking sword sheathed at her hip. Her clothes are also undistinguished-looking but at least practical for their purpose. She looks around the yard, squinting against the setting sun and trying to find Fred amongst the training recruits. 

Fred's wide-brimmed hat gives him away. He's leaning against a stone wall, watching recruits and trainers mill about. He turns his head toward Charlotte and raises the brim of his hat so he can make eye contact, with a smile.

Charlotte sees the hat first, and then the smile, which brings a smirk to her face. She waits for him to walk over to her, her hand on her hip. Fred takes the hint and walks over toward her, avoiding getting too close to some young recruits swinging swords around. He looks up at her and nods his head toward the building to her left. "C'mon," he says, and puts his hands in the pockets of his duster as he walks up the steps toward the building. Charlotte frowns and hurries to catch up with him. "Where are we going?" "To teach you how to use that sword," he says, and goes inside the building, not waiting to hold the door open for her. Charlotte huffs a sigh and follows him without any more questions, knowing he'll just take further delight in aggravating her with non-answers. He leads her down a hall toward the back of the nearly empty building, to a door where an Ebon Vanguard stands sentry. "Sorry, this area's off limits to civilians," the Ebon Vanguard says. Fred points a thumb back at Charlotte. "I'm here to train the untrainable." The guard's eyes brighten with recognition at his words. "All right, go on in." She steps aside. Charlotte gives Fred a dirty look behind his back. The guard gives Charlotte a quizzical look as Fred walks through into the walled-in courtyard beyond.

Charlotte follows Fred through the door and looks around the courtyard. She does not look particularly happy. A mix of what look like Ebon Vanguard recruits and plainly dressed young adults stand around or spar in the clearing. It looks pretty much the same as the other training camp, but a Whispers Lightbringer stands on the far side near the wall. A norn woman, with her arms crossed. She watches Fred and Charlotte. Fred stops near a target dummy, rests an arm on its shoulder, and looks toward Charlotte. Charlotte looks at the Lightbringer, and then follows Fred to the target dummy. "What is this?" she says in a low voice. "Some kind of recruitment push?" "No," Fred says, sounding surprised. Her brow furrows in confusion. "Then what? Why'd you bring me here?" "To teach you to fight," Fred says, and draws one of the folding daggers from his side, spins it open and it locks into place with a click. "I wouldn't really let you train with the green kids in the Ebon Vanguard. You're not gonna be in the military." He takes his hat off, lets it hang at his back. "Er. Right?" Charlotte looks at the Lightbringer again, then back at Fred. "This isn't some kind of test?" "I don't do that kind of thing." Fred steps away from the dummy and gestures at her sword. "Where'd you get that?" Charlotte glances down at the sword. "I borrowed it while Smitty was out. I had a much nicer one, but I think they buried it with me." Fred nods. "You ever take fencing or anything?" "A little. Ocas tried to teach me. And before that a guy named Braden." She smiles a little grimly. "I never really took to it." "You already know about stance and balance and all that, then." Fred looks over his shoulder at the norn Lightbringer. "Hey," he calls, and beckons her over. The norn uncrosses her arms and walks across the training field toward them. "Yeah, I--" Charlotte begins, but closes her mouth at the approach of the Lightbringer. The norn puts her hands on her hips and looks Charlotte over. "I'm Helga. Name?" "Charlotte." Helga nods, looks at Fred. "I assume this is the one who needs to learn to fight." "Yup," Fred says, idly twirling his dagger around his fingers. "She asked for training." Helga picks a sword up that had been leaning against a training dummy. "I'll go easy on you, since you're short," she says to Charlotte with a wolfy grin. The wolf-paw tattoos on the backs of her hands add to the effect. Charlotte looks from Helga to Fred. "Wait. What?" Fred offers his dagger to Charlotte. "Here, this can be your offhand. What do you mean, 'what'?' Charlotte accepts the dagger in confusion. "I thought-- I thought you were going to be training me." "I don't use swords," Fred says. "I can teach you guns and daggers, and how to use a sniper rifle." Helga stands there patiently. Charlotte rolls her eyes and stifles a sigh, turning to face the norn. Helga is at least one and a half times Charlotte's size. "Fine." Helga spreads her feet into a dueling stance. "Ready?" Fred leans on the dummy again. Charlotte bears up under the assault of the norn much better than she has any right to, her blades always seeming to be in the place they need to be to deflect the blows. It's clear, though, that her strength isn't up to the task for long. At the end of twenty minutes, she looks exhausted, but quite pleased with herself.    Over time several trainees made their way over to watch the lesson. Fred was sitting on the ground against some crates, brim of his hat shadowing his face. At a glance he appeared asleep, but his expression shifted at the end of the twenty minutes when the training was over. A confused smirk. The norn looks mystified as the training ends. Charlotte thanks her and walks over to Fred, smiling and looking a little superior. Fred lifts his head to look up at her, half his face still hidden in shadow from his hat. "You said you never took to it." "I never did!" Charlotte says, sounding pleased. "Until today." "Maybe you just weren't trying very hard before." He holds a hand out for his dagger. Charlotte presents the dagger to him hilt-first. "The giant wolf-woman was a good motivator, I'll give you credit for that." Fred smiles and spins the dagger around his hand to fold it up. He slips it onto his belt under his duster and stands, stretches a little. "She knows her swordfighting, that's for sure." Charlotte eyes him. "I guess it's my turn to buy you a meal." "Yes, it is. You know Ebonhawke better than me, you pick a place." He studies her, something about her is confusing him, apparently. Charlotte brushes away the wisps of hair that have escaped her bun and clung to her forehead. "Well nowhere in Ebonhawke is much to write home about, but the food at the pub won't kill you." She looks at him looking at her. "What?" The look on his face disappears. "What what?" Fred turns toward the exit of the grounds. Charlotte follows. "You were giving me a look." He shrugs and starts walking. "Dunno. Guess I was just thinking." "Thinking what?" Charlotte sounds amused. "Don't remember." Fred opens the door and steps inside the Vanguard building. "That dumb cowboy thing's not entirely an act, is it?" "Well I do own a ranch, and it has cows on it." He glances over his shoulder at Charlotte as he walks past the guard. "Ah, you reached to the heart of my subtle jibe." Fred just smirks and keeps walking. The pub was starting to fill up the further the sun sank. The waitstaff were busy, and mostly ignored where Charlotte and Fred sat in order to pay attention to the more rowdy customers, who were boasting about their intolerance for charr. The bartender kept glancing under the counter where she kept a stick for hitting drunks with. Fred didn't even seem to notice the few loud customers, just calmly chewing on a toothpick. "I really hate this place," Charlotte says amiably. She cranes her neck to try to find a barmaid to flag down. "Whyever so," Fred drones, his eyes drifting toward a large, tall man who was standing near a table, trying to egg another man into an argument. "What do you want? We might have to ambush someone to get anything at all, so we'd better be prepared." "I want that guy to get punched," Fred says, still watching the failed attempt at an argument. Then he looks at Charlotte. "But besides that I don't know. What do they do that's good, or at least tolerable? I'm not picky." "How do you feel about pickled eggs?" Fred shrugs, then nods. "Really?" She makes a face and then gets up to go to the counter and demand attention. After a lot of vociferous shouting and gesticulating, she returns with two tankards of beer. "I'm pretty sure that the wine here is laced with something, so you get this." She puts a tankard down in front of Fred and resumes her seat across from him. Fred raises his brows. "Huh." He picks up the beer and takes a drink. "Mm," he says with a grimace. "So what did you think of Helga?" "I think she hits like a charr tank. I'm not going to be able to life my arms tomorrow." She takes a long drink of her beer, and her grimace matches Fred's. "Ugh, I really have to go back to civilization." "So," Fred says, staring thoughtfully at the table. "You really have no memories between that day in L.A. and finding yourself on a road in Kessex?" Charlotte shakes her head ruefully. "No, nothing." "Not even... flashes, sounds, smells?" Fred looks at her. "Unfamiliar voices?" Charlotte considers. Then she shakes her head again. "No. There's just a gap. I remember everything turning white, and realizing that I was dying, and then... I was standing on the road. Only it doesn't feel like it happened right away. It feels like there was a long time in between, just... with nothing in it." Fred takes a drink, then scratches his jaw, eyes scanning the space in the air just beyond Charlotte. "Strange," he says quietly. She shrugs one shoulder, looking a little glum. "Yeah, well. That about sums it up." "I know a guy who'd wanna talk with you about it," Fred says, looking at Charlotte again. "Memories are a... touchy science, apparently, but he's done work with that kinda thing before." Charlotte looks dubious, but before she can say anything, a wide-hipped barmaid comes by and drops a huge pork pie on the middle of their table, along with a plate of wilted-looking greens. She tosses a couple of spotted knives and forks onto the table alongside the food and then stalks off without a word. Charlotte looks at the food. "Looks like they forgot the pickled egg." Fred picks up a fork and looks at it in the dim light. "Well as long as they don't charge you for it." He rubs at a waterspot on the fork. Charlotte takes one of the knives and hacks the pie in half. "So who is this guy?" "Friend of mine from the Order," Fred says, just under the din. "Huge intellectual, but not all there socially." Charlotte frowns. "He's not an asura, is he? I don't want to end up on a dissection table." Fred snorts, amused. "He is an asura, but I don't think he's ever dissected anyone." He squints at the fork, not trusting it. Charlotte is less fussy. She stabs a piece of pie with her fork and eats it silently. After a long moment passes, she says, "You think I got hit on the head and spent that year somewhere that I just can't remember, don't you? Or that someone drugged me so I'd forget what really happened?" Fred learns to accept the fork despite its flaws and gets some pork pie for himself. "There were reports of the Nightmare Court dragging people away during the attack. Some of them survived and stumbled back to civilization eventually." "Nightmare Court?" Charlotte repeats, skeptical. "What would the Nightmare Court want with me?" "You're alive, and you can feel pain," Fred says, contemplating the nuances of the pie. Charlotte lapses into silence again, stabbing at the pie with her fork. "It's not just the memory," she says after a while.   Fred watches her for another few moments of silence. "Yeah?" Charlotte addresses the pie when she speaks, her voice just loud enough to be heard above the crowd. "My body is different, too. I used to have a birthmark. It's gone now." Fred's brows twitch, and his eyes narrow on her, reading her face, the movement of her shoulders. "Is there a scar there, or is it just..." He waves his fork vaguely. "It's just gone." Fred eats in silence for a bit, considering that. "Is there anything new?" He looks at her hair. Charlotte scrunches up her nose. "Nothing new, exactly. But things that I think are different. I think this mole--" she indicates a small, pale mole on one cheekbone, not much more than a glorified freckle-- "used to be closer to my ear. Other things just feel off." Her eyes turn up to his face and then back down to the pie. "That sounds insane, doesn't it?" "Not the most insane thing I've ever heard." His eyes linger on the mysterious moving mole. "When did Ocas try to teach you swordplay?" Charlotte looks a little surprised at the abrupt change in direction. "Oh--it was a little while after he opened his forge, I think. Maybe two years ago?" Fred nods, staring past her. "Before L.A. then." Charlotte looks at him quizzically. "Nearly everything is before L.A. for me. Hard to learn to fence when you're dead. Or whatever I was." "Yeah, yeah I know," he says, shaking his head a bit, glancing at her. "Just trying to sort it all out." He picks up a green leaf, looks at it, then tosses it back down. "M wants me to send him reports about you and anything I learn about your history around the ..blank spot." He watches her for a reaction. Charlotte purses her lips. "Of course he does." She sighs and takes another forkful of pie. "Send me copies of anything you learn." "I don't have to tell him anything if you don't want the Order to know," Fred says, punctuating it with a heavy sigh. Charlotte looks at him, and a slow smile graces her face. Then she returns her attention to the pork. "I don't know. I think maybe I want to come back." Fred blinks. "To...?" "To M and all our friends." She looks at him. "You think it's a bad idea?" "I'm not sure." He scowls at the greens. "I think I'm mostly just surprised." "I don't really have anything better to do. And I thought it might be nice to belong to something again. Lately I don't even really feel like I belong to the human race." Fred nods faintly, then looks up at her and nods again. "I'll let M know, if you want. He'll be happy to hear it." She smiles coquettishly at him. "Will you still be my partner? Imagine all the evenings like this we could share." She gestures around at the dank bar. "Mnh," Fred grunts, looking around. "Woulda been better if that guy had gotten punched." He looks at the large argumentative customer, who was now passed out in a corner. Then back to Charlotte. "But I don't know. I don't have another one right now, so maybe," he says, with an indifferent shrug. She gives him a knowing look. "But you'll make a recommendation to M, and he'll take it." Fred shrugs with an open hand. "If you want." "Oh, no. I'm leaving it up to you." Fred taps his knuckles on the table idly as he looks at her. "All right then." He cracks his knuckles and looks around the tavern again. It's quieted down some now that some of the rowdier customers are passing out. "So, Fred. How'd you get into ranching?" "Hm? Oh. My uncle does it, so do all his sons. I sorta picked it up from them." "What about your father?" Fred sighs as he looks at her. "Never knew him." "Your uncle raised you?" He smiles briefly. "Sorta. He tried." "I take your point." Charlotte takes a last bite of pork pie and abandons her fork. "There, I've learned something about you!" Fred smiles, amused, and folds his arms, elbows on the table. "I guess that's fair." "Considering how much you know about me from our friends, I'd say it's just a beginning." Fred gets a pack of cigarettes out and picks one out of the box. "In my defense, words in a file aren't the same as really knowing someone." "That's true. It's more like knowing all of their personal details without them being aware of it. That's much different." Fred looks like he's going to retort, but just shakes his head and offers her the pack of cigarettes. Charlotte takes one. "Thanks." Fred puts the pack away and gets out the matches, offers it to her. "I don't remember you smoking before. You always done that?" Charlotte strikes a match and lights her cigarette, then tosses the matches back to Fred. "I used to do it in secret. That wasn't in the file?" "Nope." Fred lights his cigarette and puts the box away. "New studies are being done and there's a rumor it's bad for you." He stands and pulls his hat off his back, puts it on his head, tugs the brim down. Charlotte shrugs. "I seem to have less fear of things that might kill me than I used to." Fred stands still a moment, considering that. "It'd suck to be the only known person to have died twice." Charlotte laughs. "I think I'm going to end up with that distinction whether I smoke cigarettes or not." "Right," Fred says, and does a finger pistol at her. "Mortality. I always forget that one." She smiles. "It does slip one's mind." "I should start thinking about it more. I'm due a midlife crisis any day now." He glances around the room. "Did you pay ahead or do you do it after, here?" "Oh, I put it on Smitty's tab." Fred laughs, surprised. Then he laughs again. Apparently that's the funniest thing he's heard all day. Charlotte's smile widens. "I guess I'll be hearing from you once you've made your report?" "Yeah," Fred says, still grinning. He turns to head for the door. Charlotte stays at the table, finishing her beer and cigarette.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Beef Sandwich

The alleyway at the end of which Smitty's Forge was situated was a pleasanter-looking place on a warm afternoon. However, it was worse-smelling. The refuse in the gutter had been sitting in the sun long enough to release its odors into the air, and there was no breeze to mitigate it. Possibly because of the smell, or possibly for other reasons, there seem to be no customers at the forge this afternoon.

Down the alley walks Fred, in a gray duster and his wide-brimmed leather hat, scratching at his chin. He pauses outside the forge and squints up at it, as if looking for something, then he seems satisfied with what he's learned and walks to the door. He knocks on the door frame, not wanting to touch the door itself for fear of breaking the crummy-looking thing.

After a moment the door opens, and Charlotte is standing there, looking puzzled. When she recognizes Fred, her expression turns annoyed. "I'm not a butler, you know."

Fred smirks. "I learned a long time ago not to open closed doors unless I already knew what was behind them." He looks around her, seeing if anyone else is in the shop.

Charlotte looks over her shoulder as well. "It's a blacksmith's shop," she says. "You've already been here. Did you think we'd moved in some kind of clandestine weapon-smuggling operation while you were away?" There's nobody in the front part of the shop, but sounds of movement from the back.

Fred glances at the "WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE" sign on the front of the store, then raises his eyebrows at Charlotte. "You might'a." He bears a hint of his cowboy accent today.

Charlotte considers this and looks like Fred might have a point. Then she frowns again. "What do you want now?"

Fred takes a small step back and puts his hands in his pockets. "To talk to you. Can you spare a break?"

"Probably. I haven't done anything all day. Just a minute." She goes toward the back room, the door of the shop swinging shut behind her.

Fred turns and steps away from the door, getting a cigarette and match from his pockets and lighting one. He throws the match onto the ground and grinds his heel on it. He wanders a bit, looking around at the entire alleyway, wondering how many of the other stores had clandestine weapon-smuggling rings in them. Probably a lot.

Charlotte emerges again a couple of minutes later. "I'm on my lunch break."

Fred looks at Charlotte, then at the garbage in the gutter. "You wanna walk and talk?"

"All right." She looks at him a little warily and starts walking up the alley toward the street.

Fred walks along with her and holds the cigarette in his teeth, hands in his pockets. "I gotta ask. Why Ebonhawke?"

Charlotte eyes his cigarette. "Do you have another of those?"

Fred fishes in his pockets and gets a cigarette and match for her, holds them out.

"Thanks." Charlotte stops walking long enough to light her cigarette, shake out the match, and toss it in the gutter. Then she starts moving again. "I started out in Divinity's Reach. Well, actually I started out in Kessex Hills--that's where I first woke up. Then I went to the Reach trying to remember who I was. Then I went to Lion's Arch. Well, there's not much left of it now, is there?" She exhales a plume of smoke.

Fred just shakes his head in answer, watching the road as they walk.

"Once I remembered who I was, I went to my family in Divinity's Reach. I have a cousin there. But it was... oppressive. There were too many memories, and not all of them felt like mine. So I went somewhere I had almost no associations with."

Fred points a thumb back down the alley. "Was this really the only place you could get a job?"

Charlotte grimaces. As they reach the street, she turns left. "Probably not. I didn't want to be a barmaid, though. My cousin is a blacksmith--our fathers were, too. I don't know if I was drawn to it because of that, or because I knew nobody'd possibly ever come and bother me there." She blows out more smoke with a laugh. "If that was it, I guess I was wrong."

Fred smiles and huffs a breath of amusement, smoke coming out through his teeth. "Yeah," he says, and glances around the nearby roads. "I thought I was being clever when I bought a place way out in the boonies past Queensdale. But nah. It's never far enough."

She gives him a look of wry amusement. "Don't tell me you tried to escape them, too? I thought you loved your work."

Fred takes the cigarette from his mouth and holds it at his side, taps the ash off the end of it. "Nah, I didn't try to leave. I just thought maybe they'd forget about me and give me more time between assignments. As to whether I love my work..." he looks up as they pass a street lamp, and shrugs. "Not sure I've ever loved it. It's just something to do."

Charlotte makes a skeptical noise but lets the subject drop. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Fred looks at her. "Where are you gonna go from here?" He gestures his cigarette around at the city. "You're not gonna stay here, are you?"

"No. I don't think so. But I haven't figured out where to go, yet. I can't go back, that's all I know. My old life is ... well, it's gone. I don't even think I'm sorry about it, either." She sighs and crushes the last of her cigarette out on a brick wall as she passes it. "I don't know if I'm ready to start over, though."

Fred nods, then tosses his cigarette into the street. He looks at Charlotte again, eyes looking over her face as he seems to genuinely understand what she means. "Just don't take too long, or you never will start, eh?"

"You don't think I've got a future as Smitty's shopgirl, then?" Charlotte says with mock disappointment.

Fred smirks. "From what I've seen of him, his standards of upkeep and social standing are just too high. You'll never make it." He speaks perfectly dryly.

"He is a bear on appearances," Charlotte sighs. "There's a sandwich vendor up the street here. You can buy me lunch."

Fred grimaces at the street ahead of them.

"Well, if you've got something better in mind...."

"Yeah, I do. You buying your own lunch." Deadpan stare.

"I should have known better than to accept an invitation from a yokel." She gives his duster a withering glance.

Fred looks down at his duster, then frowns at Charlotte. He adjusts his collar and looks forward again. "I'll get it this time, but you get it next time, deal?"

"All right, if you insist on being egalitarian."

"At least it's better than anarchy." He tries to spot the vendor she spoke of.

"That's an interesting way to go through life. 'At least it's better than anarchy.'" She repeats the phrase as though seeing how it tastes.

Fred nods faintly. "I've tried it, it's not as fun as it sounds. Which one's the sandwich shop?"

Charlotte points to a cart halfway up the block. She looks at Fred speculatively. "You know, you're an enigma, Fred. I don't think I've ever gotten you to talk about yourself."

Fred shrugs, looks at her, shrugs again and looks forward.

"You get me talking about myself--that's an excellent technique, by the way. One of these days, though, I'm going to get you talking about you."

Fred just grins, still looking ahead.

They arrive at the sandwich cart. There's a bit of a line. Charlotte draws to a halt at the back of it. "You know what I'd really like to do," she says, "is learn to fight. Really fight. The idea of cutting something to ribbons, or smashing it to a bloody pulp, has a strange appeal to me lately." The woman standing in front of them in line gives Charlotte a nervous look over her shoulder.

"Really?" Fred waits for a punchline or something, staring at Charlotte.

Charlotte furrows her brow a little and nods. "Strange, isn't it?"

"Not... to me. But it is coming from you. You're not worried about breaking a nail?"

She shakes her head. "No. Nor about getting a run in my stockings."

"Well then." Fred looks at the line, then back to Charlotte. "I can arrange that for you."

Charlotte looks at him calculatingly as they shuffle forward in line. "Really? And why would you do that for me?"

"Old time's sake?" He doesn't sound convinced of his own reason.

She tilts her head as if listening to something. "No. Try again."

He narrows his eyes. "Maybe I don't believe you, and want to see you try anyway?"

Charlotte's eyes widen. "Oho! A skeptic! Very well. Name the time and place."

"How about outside the Vanguard training grounds? They let anyone in to spar with the recruits." He glances past her down the street.

It is almost their turn at the sandwich cart--only the nervous woman is still in front of them. "You're just going to throw me at some hapless recruits, are you?"

"Yup, that's the plan." He looks past the woman ahead of them, to the vendor.

"Fine. When?"

Fred squints his right eye, doing calculations. "I'm free in three days."

Charlotte smirks. "I'm flattered that you're spending all your free time with me, Fred. From this I conclude that you don't have a girlfriend--so now I know two things about you. You're single, and you don't enjoy anarchy."

Fred lowers his head and grins in amusement, caught off guard. Then he looks up at her again. "To be fair, you don't know what's keeping me busy for the next three days."

"That's true... I suppose you could have three girlfriends and have to spend a night with each before you have time for me again." The nervous woman finally leaves with her sandwich, and Charlotte moves up to the head of the line. "Beef, please."

"One for me too," Fred says to the vendor, and sets the coin for their orders on the cart counter thing.

Charlotte smiles at Fred. "It's strange--of everyone from my old life, I think I knew you the least. But I feel the most myself when I'm with you."

Fred knits his brows, considers, then looks at Charlotte. "Maybe that's why."

She nods thoughtfully. "Maybe it is. You have the least expectations of me, to be who I was. Or maybe I just don't care about disappointing you."

Fred shrugs, leans one arm on the counter while he waits. "I have no expectations for anyone."

"No, that's not possible. You have to be able to predict people at least a little to... function."

Fred scratches his jaw. "I predict that they will always be disappointing."

Charlotte laughs. "That sounds more honest." Their sandwiches are ready, wrapped in wax paper. Charlotte takes hers and steps aside for the next person.

Fred picks up his sandwich and wanders away from the cart. "What about you? Do you find people predictably disappointing?"

Charlotte seems to give this serious thought, her brow furrowed. "No... I think the disappointment always takes me by surprise."

"Shame. You should start working on that."

Charlotte sighs. "Yeah. That can be part of the new me: expect disappointment. It's right up there with 'it's better than anarchy.'"

"I should write a book."

Charlotte laughs in spite of herself. "It'd be a best-seller."

"If I only ever sold it in shitty bars and on the street at 3 in the morning." He examines his sandwich.

"You could change lives," Charlotte says with wide-eyed solemnity.

Fred absentmindedly shakes his head as he attempts to unwrap the sandwich without it spilling all over the ground.

"I'd better take this back to the shop before Smitty regrets giving me a lunch break," Charlotte says. "But I'll see you at sundown in three days, Swefred Cutteridge."

Fred looks at her, then around at the nearby pedestrians. "Just Fred, seriously," he says, with some distaste. Apparently he doesn't like his full name.

Charlotte smirks. "Thanks for the sandwich."

He raises his sandwich as if in a toast. "Do you really not always get lunch breaks?"

"Depends how hungover he is."

"Tch."

Charlotte smiles. "See you." She turns and heads back toward her dank alleyway.

"I'll see you first." He gives a sloppy salute.

Charlotte laughs and shakes her head as she walks away.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Smitty's Blacksmith Forge is at the end of a dark and narrow Ebonhawke alley. It's an unremarkable storefront, just a door with a sign over it bearing the symbol of an anvil. There are no windows. An assortment of dusty- and battered-looking barrels is stacked outside the front door. A paper tacked to the wall states WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE. In the fading light of sunset, it's difficult to read. A figure in red and black Whispers robes lands on the roof and rolls. There's a slight clattering of roof tiles, then the man stands up, dusts himself off, and starts walking along the roof's apex, every foot placed carefully and silently.

Below, the door swings open, spilling a rectangle of light onto the cobblestones of the alleyway. A large man appears in the doorway, his rotund shadow nearly blocking the light; he stands there a moment, grunting something at someone still within. Then he closes the door and stomps off down the alleyway, in the direction of the pub. The Whispers agent ducks beneath the shadow of a chimney, and watches the man leaving. He waits until the man is at least a block away before continuing moving along the roof, crouched low. He measures something in his mind, then slides down the side of the roof and catches his heels on the gutter, leaning back with hands behind him on the roof, somewhat awkward-looking, but at least he hasn't fallen. He cranes his neck to watch the front door of the building. The door remains closed. The agent's brows knit, then he stands and turns, hops backward off the roof. He catches his hands on the gutter, pauses, then drops to the ground. Whumpf. His robes flare out when he lands, and he looks around the alley. The alley is deserted at the moment, but it has the look of the sort of alley where bad people might gather once full dark arrives. The Whispers agent flattens his back against the wall of the store and checks the doorknob. The doorknob is not locked. He turns the doorknob and pushes it open, but stays with his back against the wall, listening for movement inside. A woman's voice calls, "We're closed." The agent takes a deep breath, then raises a hand in front of his face and clenches it into a fist. He vanishes into thin air. Two seconds later, the door pulls itself closed. The interior of the shop is as unprepossessing as the exterior--a tiny, cramped, ill-kept room, dimly lit by a single lamp. There's a scarred and splintered wooden counter, and behind it a door leading into another room. Charlotte emerges from the back room, a rag in one hand, and looks around, her mouth open to tell whoever it is to get out, they're closed. But there's no one there. They must have left already. A tang of cold magic wooshes through the room and the light from the lamp flickers, then the Whispers agent appears, standing three feet away from Charlotte, with one hand held in a "shh" gesture in front of his masked face. He's short, and tan, with freckles on his bare shoulder. Charlotte takes a step back and gasps in surprise, but recognition of the uniform, if not the agent, stops her from screaming. Her eyes narrow. The agent holds his hands up to show he's not going for his weapons--the two folded daggers on his hips--and says, "Is your name Charlotte?" He has no accent, just a very plain, somewhat rumbly voice. Charlotte's expression turns wry. "If you don't already know the answer to that, you're not a very good agent." He drops his hands and his posture shifts to looking annoyed. "I'm seeing if you do." She sighs. "Yes. It's me. Take the mask off, I hate talking to you when you wear that thing." He pulls his hood back and takes the mask off. Green eyes glare at her. He's even stubblier than usual and his hair is a bit too long, some of it falls in his eyes. "Where the hell have you been, then?" "It's nice to see you, too, Fred." He crosses his arms, still holding his mask in one hand. "Oh please. I saw your grave. It was damn good. Now where were you really?" Charlotte looks at the ceiling and heaves another sigh. "I don't think you're going to believe me." His expression hasn't changed. "All right then, what's your cover story?" "It's not a cover story. I was dead." "..." "I told you you wouldn't believe me." She gives him a look of irritation and walks over to the counter, rubbing it with her cloth in a futile effort to clean it. He widens his eyes and shakes his head in an okay whatever look and walks over to stand on the other side of the counter. He plants his hands on it, looking right at her. "Then you need a cover story. You can't keep going around telling people you came back from the dead. That's going to get you locked up or worse." He sounds more than annoyed. He sounds offended. Charlotte glares at him. "I am not going around telling people," she hisses. "The only people who know are people who already knew I died." "Charlotte, everyone knows you died." His hands clench the countertop, turn into fists. The gloved one creaks. "I'm flattered that you think I'm that famous. But nobody in Ebonhawke knows, nor will they if you'll stop talking about it." He backs away from the counter, swings his arms to shake off the angry energy, and paces the room. "You were in a circus act. Dwayna's sake, woman." He turns in place to look at her. "There's a portal to Divinity's in this town. You think people don't go through it sometimes, bring stories with them? Theater, plays, posters, any of that ringing a bell?" Charlotte laughs. "That was over a year ago. You think people have memories that long?" "Yes, they fucking do." Her laugh just makes him angrier. Charlotte gives up on cleaning and throws her rag onto the counter. "Well, no one's recognized me. Sorry to disappoint you." He sighs and runs a hand down his face. "Why did you come back? Why now?" He tucks his mask away in one of his million hidden pockets. "Because I thought it'd have the most impact if I waited -just- long enough for people to adjust to the fact that I'd died," she says. "Isn't it obvious?" He blinks slowly, just stares deadpan. "I don't have the slightest idea why I came back," she says, in a quieter but still tense voice. "I had nothing to do with it." His brows lower. "Were you expecting the Order to come for you?" He meanders back over to the counter rather than keep talking to her from the middle of the room. "Before or after I came back to life, do you mean?" He drops his shoulders and tilts his head as if to say you don't really think I believe that, do you? "Honestly I haven't given the Order of Whispers a thought. I've had a lot of other things on my mind. Why are you taking this so personally? Do you think I threw myself into Scarlet's poison gas so that I wouldn't have to work with you anymore?" Fred leans back from the counter, face curled up into a scowl. "No." He shakes his head as if that were such an incredibly ridiculous thought he can't bear it. "Neither of us liked or hated each other. But we were partners, and you 'died,' and people don't 'die' without having a reason to." She stares at him. "A reason to?" Her voice shakes with anger. "The reason I died was that I went to buy flowers at the wrong time. And when the clouds of poison gas arrived I ran into a blind corner. That's the only reason." Fred turns away, rubs his eyes. He finds a rickety little chair and turns it around, sits in it backward, arms resting on its back as he looks over at Charlotte. "Okay, I'll stop asking. But you were involved with the Order, so they're not just going to leave you alone to build a quiet new life in Ebonhawke. M is gonna want to know who... nevermind that. Anyway, I'm here for two reasons. One, to see if you have any new allies..." he glances around the store. "...and whether they're compatible with the Order's." Charlotte closes her eyes and bends over the counter, resting her forehead on it. "I take it back. I did throw myself into a poison gas cloud to get away from you." Fred lowers his head, fighting off a smile. He scratches his jaw and looks up again. "Their orders, not mine. You intrigue them for... some reason," he says, frowning, puzzled. "Maybe because I died and came back to life," Charlotte says in a muffled voice. "That must be it," he says airily, nodding at the floor. She lifts her head. "Do you honestly think that I could fake my own death well enough to fool the Order of Whispers, and hide from them successfully for a year? And that then one day I'd take it into my head to reappear and become a shopgirl in a blacksmith forge?" Fred watches her coolly. "Yes." She looks surprised. "Your assessment of me is both much higher and much lower than I might have expected." One side of his mouth raises in a sneer-smirk. "Well I know you didn't do it alone, and taking advantage of a massive tragedy like that kept them from digging too deep. They lost a lot of agents." His expression fades. "I know. I was one of them." He leans back in his backward seat, hands on the back. He stretches out his shoulders, rolls his head, then puts his arms on the back again. "Second reason I came here was to see if it was really you." She looks at him with an eyebrow raised. "Well? What's your verdict?" "Your hair's darker," he observes, and shrugs. She scowls. "I know." He smirks. "You stop coloring it?" Charlotte stands bolt upright. "Ugh! Get out of here! We're closed!" Fred looks pleased with himself and stands up, cracks his knuckles. He takes his time heading to the door. "Wait!" He stops and turns to look at her, brows up. Charlotte looks a little surprised at herself. She picks up the rag and starts wiping the counter with it then, but it's clearly something to keep her hands busy. "You haven't gotten an answer to your first question yet. M won't be happy." He lowers his head to look at the ground, smiling faintly. She speaks in a low voice, looking at the counter. "If I have any allies, I don't know who they are. The last thing I remember is the attack on Lion's Arch. Then nothing until a few weeks ago. Anything that happened in between, I don't know anything about it." Fred's eyes scan the floor, as if her words were written on it and he could figure them out if he kept reading them long enough. He draws his mask from his robes and looks up at her. "Well, there's always the Order. And..." he shrugs. "There's me, if you want." He puts his mask on and pulls his hood up. She looks at him, one eyebrow cocked. "You're offering me a choice this time?" He nods, hood swishing with the motion. "Yeah. 'Cause, honestly?" He taps the black circle that holds his hood on, with the Whispers oroboros logo on it. "Fuck these guys." Now both eyebrows go up. "Are you going to tell M you found me?" He gestures his hands out in a lazy shrug. "Yeah." "What's he going to do?" Fred scratches at an eyebrow. "Probably send me back here with a bunch of propaganda trying to get you to rally to the cause. Find out if you're in touch with any family, learn who knows you're alive..." He looks around the room. "Audit the guy who owns this shithole..." "Sounds exhausting. Have a good time!" His expression is visible even under the mask and hood, even in the dim light, even from the other side of the room. Fred is not amused. He turns and opens the door, suddenly vanishing into thin air. The door closes, apparently on its own. Charlotte's shoulders droop a little once he's gone. She looks unhappy. She takes her apron off and tosses it onto the counter next to the rag, extinguishes the lamp, and retires to the inner part of the store.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Ocas is staring at a cup of coffee. Ostensibly he knows what to do with it, but somewhere between his hand and his brain there was a disconnect. He looked exhausted--there were dark circles under his eyes. Well, darkER circles. He sighed and picked up the cup of coffee. Then he set it down again. Finally he just leaned over the table and pushed his fingers into his hair, burying his face in his palms.

Charlotte comes downstairs in her nightclothes, which basically consist of one of ocas's old shirts. She doesn't look like she spent a very restful night, either.

Ocas doesn't look up at first, until Charlotte steps on the creaky stair. His head snaps up and he looks suspicious...until he recognizes Charlotte. "Oh," he says, "sorry. Still not...used to having another person in the house." He rubs his eyes. "How was your night?"

"The same as all the others." She goes to the cupboard to get a mug and pours herself some coffee. "Yours?"

Ocas doesn't answer for a minute, then "Fine, pretty much..." He takes a sip of coffee and makes a face. It's gone cold.

"You don't normally have your head in your hands like that when everything's fine."

Ocas swallows and looks over at Charlotte. He's afraid of her reaction. "Just. Worrying about Nico."

"Why? What's happened to him?"

Ocas runs a hand through his hair. He's silent for a moment.

"He said he loves me."

"Oh, no! Call the Seraph! Doom is upon us all!"

Ocas looks up at her. He just looks confused. "What?"

She puts cream in her coffee and brings it to the table. "Why are you so gloomy about someone saying they love you? You already knew anyway, didn't you?"

Ocas sighs. "Because I can't love him back, remember? I'll fuck it up, like I always do. It's too soon." He looks up at her. "I was trying to do what you told me."

"Did you tell him you had an appointment at the palace?"

"I tried deflecting what he said. But he just acted confused and hurt. And we both got kinda drunk..."

"I'm certain that was not included in my instructions."

"I know that." Ocas grimaces. "It was an accident."

"How do you -accidentally- get drunk? And by the way, drunken confessions of love don't count."

"It happens all the time, Char. The stuff we were drinking was stronger than we knew, I guess. I don't think he was drunk when he said it...it was after the edge had come off."

"It happens all the time that you accidentally get drunk?" She arches an eyebrow at him. "I think you have bigger problems than Nico."

"I meant it happens to people in general all the time," Ocas says, giving her a frustrated look in response.

Charlotte just looks at him. "So?"

"So...I'm upset! I hurt him." Ocas groans and puts his forehead down on the table. "I thought it would be for the best but now I'm not sure."

Charlotte rolls her eyes at his lowered head.

She gets up and goes to the icebox to look for some breakfast.

"Are you going to the forge today, or are you planning to stay in and wallow?"

"No...I'm going in to work." Ocas looks up at her. "Did I do something to piss you off?"

"I can't be your wailing wall any longer, Ocas. I've got more important things on my mind. And at a certain point if you don't like the way you are, you either need to change, or stop complaining and live with it. Just pick one and get it over with."

Ocas hackles rise, more out of worry and offense than actual anger. He watches Charlotte as she arranges her breakfast. "I wish -you- had stayed the same," he says. "I hope you get tired of me soon because this new attitude of yours is not like the Charlotte I knew." He gets to his feet and scoops up his bag. "I'm going."

"I can't be the Charlotte you need me to be," Charlotte says fiercely. "Or the one that Donari needs. -She- died. -I'm- here. If you don't like it, I'm sorry. I'm sorry dying changed me. That must be so fucking hard for you."

"Well what do you want me to do?" Ocas asks. "I lost my cousin. I mourned for her for a whole fucking year. But then I started to get my life together. Do you want me to mourn you again? I can either treat you like the Charlotte I know or I can treat you like a stranger. It's your choice."

Charlotte stares at him for a moment, disbelieving. Then slowly her face closes. "Fine."

"Fine what?"

"Fine, I'll choose. I'll leave today." She looks around, realizing that she doesn't have any possessions. "I'll leave now."

Ocas looked stunned. He hadn't expected that. "I..." He didn't want her to leave. He didn't want -Charlotte- to leave. This woman, though...did he want her to stay? "You don't have to do that."

"I think maybe I do." Her voice is calmer now. "Maybe I can't figure out who I am here."

"Where will you go, then?"

Ocas looks haggard and miserable.

"I don't know yet." She walks over to him and stands before him. "I came to you so you could tell me who I was. But you don't know the answer any more than I do. And I won't learn it here. Memories aren't the right answer."

"I tried," Ocas said softly. "I wish I could do more for you. Charlotte, you know I love you, right?" He just stood there lamely, unsure if she would accept a touch or a hug.

She nods. "I know. And I love you, Ocas. And you did everything you could. It helped." She rests a hand on his shoulder. "If you love him, then love him. Stop worrying so much about what's for the best." She pauses and looks around the room again. "You never know when you're going to run out of time." With that, she kisses his cheek and slips out the door.**

**After changing into some real clothes.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Midafternoon, another lovely spring day in Divinity's Reach.  The streets are fairly full with all sorts out enjoying the air, or out on business but enjoying the air as a bonus.  Donari threads his way through, wearing clothes suitable to Ocas' neighborhood.  A pack is strapped to his back; in his arms he carries a medium sized box with holes in the side that let out periodic yowls.  Anyone looking askance gets a rueful what-can-you-do smile, nothing to see here, just a man with a cat.

He approaches Oca's door and knocks politely, shifting the box to a left-arm carry, leaning slightly right to balance the weight.

After a few moments, the door opens, and there is Charlotte. Her hair is clean and up in her accustomed bun, and the old brown robe has been replaced by a simple peasant dress Ocas found somewhere. Her face is gaunt and hollow-eyed, and her collar bones stick out, but her expression is a little bit more Charlotte than it was the previous day.

"Hello, Donari. As promised, you are a man bearing a cat."

Pamela's yowl from inside confirms Charlotte's observation.  "A man with a heavy cat," nods Donari.  "I take it Ocas is out and about?"  He hefts the box back into both arms.  Pamela's not a giant of a cat, but she keeps shifting about and the box itself is wood.

Charlotte stands back and gestures Donari inside. "I sent him to the forge. He needs to work if he's going to be supporting me." After a pause she adds, "And I thought it might be best if we got a chance to speak without him here."

At her invitation, Donari steps inside, setting the box down in the middle of the main room.  He lays the pack carefully on the table.  "Fair enough," he says quietly.  He looks at Charlotte with the sun coming through the door behind her.  A thousand things come to mind to say, none of them seeming right.  At last he only says, "I missed your voice."

Charlotte doesn't answer him immediately. She leans over to peer through the holes in the box. The cat mrrrows at her. Carefully Charlotte opens the door of the box, reaches in, and pulls the cat out. She looks at her for a moment, lips trembling a little, then holds the cat to her neck. "Hey, sweetie." Her voice is thick. 

Donari steps quickly over to shut the door.  "I hope the windows aren't too wide open," he says with a smile as Pamela sniffs delicately at Charlotte's ear and settles paws around the curve of Charlotte's shoulder.  "She hasn't lived in a place this crowded yet.  She's gotten used to having large gardens." He flips a graceful hand to indicate the other side of the door.  "That could confuse her."

"Cats are adaptable creatures," Charlotte says, lowering Pamela to the floor. "I'm sure she'll adjust." Pamela retreats under the table and hunkers down. Charlotte turns to Donari. "Would you like some tea?

He is so damned tired of tea after months of medicine mixed with it, but damned if he'll reject her in any way.  "Please, if it's no trouble."  He moves over to the table, Pamela slinking further back, and undoes the pack.  "Meanwhile I can get out her things so you can decide where what goes."

Charlotte goes to the stove--the Ocas house kind of has everything but the bedrooms in one room--and puts on the kettle. She occupies herself by looking around in Ocas's cabinets for a teapot and cups and the kind of tea that she used to make sure Ocas had so that she could drink it when she visited. There's still some left, all these months later. "You're not entirely sure that I'm Charlotte, are you?" she asks conversationally.

Donari removes things one at a time.  Some heavy bottomed ceramic bowls come first.  "No," he says thoughtfully.  "Though I believe you believe you are.  And some of my ... uncertainty .. comes from, well.  I'm not the Donari you knew, either."  A ceramic tray is next, deep sided, pristine clean and yet somehow one just knows it's held sand for days when the cat can't go outside.  "So far it all feels terribly unreal, a left-over fever dream."

Charlotte laughs a little. "You should try being on my side of it." She shakes tea from the tin into the teapot. "I'm not entirely certain that I'm Charlotte, either. Sometimes I feel like I am. Sometimes not. And I have wondered how much of that might wear off in time. Or perhaps there really are parts missing, or parts added, and I won't ever really know for sure. When I first... arrived, I didn't remember anything at all, and it came back slowly, and the more that came back the less I was certain I wanted to know the rest." The kettle whistles, and she picks it up using a hotpad, but her hand trembles as she pours and some of the water slops onto the counter.

He should go to her, should embrace and comfort her, yet after yesterday's kiss he fears she'll take it amiss.  Instead, he reaches in the pack again.  It's slumped down in ridges now that the big items are gone and the smaller things fallen to the middle.  Out comes a lumpy sack, faint jingles shaking from it.  Ears perk under the table.  "It sounds that you are ... " he glances at the tea strainer.  "Filtering back through a mesh.  Mind and body are refinements of what was there before."

"Ordinarily that might be true," she says, wiping up the spilled water with a towel. "But this isnt' even my body, is it? Ocas said mine was buried. If it's not my body, is it my mind? How can I know?" Her voice shakes a little. She tosses the towel into the sink.

Donari grimaces.  "What's a mind but memory, and how we use it?"  He pulls out a rolled up sheepskin, and it's starting to look like he's doing stage magic with all the things that keep coming out of the pack.  "You wouldn't want your old flesh back, anyway.  It was ... you were beautiful even in death, but Grenth doesn't preserve things long after the spark is fled."

Charlotte sighs. "It turns me in circles, thinking about it. I shouldn't be here--by everything I've ever understood, I can't be here. And I don't know if I want to know how or why I am. But I think it's like before the memories came back--I could feel them out there, calling to me, leading me, making me look for them. Not knowing might be the worst thing." She removes the tea strainer from the pot and puts it in the sink next to the towel, then pours the tea into two cups.

Another sack comes out of the pack.  Donari steps over to set that one on the kitchen counter.  "Food," he explains.  "Giles was sure she'd starve."  He tilts his head down at Charlotte.  "We all want to know where we came from.  You and I found that out once, for both of us, and weathered the shock.  I imagine you are strong enough to manage it a second time."

She flicks her eyes up to his and then looks away again. "This is quite a bit different than finding out one's parentage." She goes to the icebox for cream. Donari gazes at the line of Charlotte's back a moment, then returns to the table.  He bends over to check that Pamela is still there -- she is, hunkered under a chair on the far side from him -- and removes the final item from the pack, signifying this by flopping the pack to its side.  It is a bedraggled string of feathers, some missing, some nibbled in half.  His staff did a good job cleaning it, but nothing will ever restore it to its orignal Ocas-neck-adorning state.

Charlotte turns away from the icebox, cream pitcher in hand, and sees the feathers. She laughs. "Ocas's boa! It survived!"

His mouth quirks left.  "It's how I coaxed her out from under the bed.  She lived inside my coat for a time, with that to comfort her."  Long fingers neatly strap the empty pack closed and roll it up.  He uses it as a weight on one end of the boa, letting the other dangle off the far side of the table for Pamela's eventual notice, and returns to the main topic.  "I think 'tis not so different, my star.  We both made ourselves into something based on who we thought we were.  We were both remade by understanding our true origins."

A sigh, as he swivels a chair out and settles in it, leaning loosely forward with hands draped on knees.  "I think you need to know.  If only to make sure 'tis nothing easily undone."

"I don't know if anyone can tell me. I've never heard of such a thing happening, have you?" She pours cream into her own tea, and adds honey to both. She brings them to the table, and after setting Donari's cup in front of him, she takes a seat on the other side.

"Only in ghost stories and some of Lucy's more outlandish novels.  No I didn't read them, she read them to me!" he adds defensively.  "I was helpless!"  Donari turns his chair around to face her.  All this action is a bit much for Pamela.  The cat bolts out from under the table, then freezes in the middle of the room as she realizes she is in a strange place, and bolts back underneath, this time at the end so she won't be by anyone's feet.  Donari shakes his head at the tabby.  "Your return, though, I can almost believe the Gods have good intentions after all."  He lifts his cup and sips.  She's made it just like she used to for him, and the wash of memory holds him still.

Charlotte watches him solemnly for a moment. "One thing I know. The things I was most passionate about before, the things that meant the most to me, are the things that feel most distant now. Perhaps that's shock, and I'll recover. I can remember how important they were to me--how vital--but all that's left now is a hollow place."

A subtle mix of emotion passes across Donari's face, ending in what looks like understanding.  "If what moved you before no longer does, then something else must have taken its place.  Even if you don't know yet what that is."

Charlotte is not distracted by this misdirection. She looks at him steadily. "I think it's for the best. We were never going to be good for each other. With my desperation to be loved, and your need to please, all we were ever going to do was wind each other up. And now--well. I never would have forgiven you for being only almost perfect." 

He hides a deep pang behind a mock wince, hand pressed to his heart.  "Almost?"  More tea to steady himself.  "I'm sorry, Charlotte.  I have been, ever since you bade me leave.  I thought myself the most flexible of men, yet I could not become what I intended in time to be what you needed, before it was too late."

"It wouldn't have mattered. It never would have been enough, don't you see? You were not born to love the way I needed to be loved. Maybe no one was." She looks down at her tea. "If any good has come of this, perhaps it's that I can finally let go of frivolous things."

Donari looks down in turn, hooding his eyes against revealing the pain at his love being termed frivolous.  Justifiably so named, in many ways, and yet it hurts.  "Then you shouldn't have taken Pamela," he says in a slightly hoarse voice.  He clears his throat to continue more smoothly, "You can't get much more frivolous than that beast."

Charlotte bends and peers under the table at the cat. "I don't know," she says. "Cats are very independent. They don't need anyone, really. Perhaps she can be a role model for Ocas and me."

Another lift of the cup.  He has to drink enough of this to reward her effort in making it.  "I hope you do not remain so aloof for long.  This second life is a gift, to you more than anyone, and it might be a sadness were you not to embrace it for so long as it lasts."  His eyes, his tone, all are laced with regret and concern for Charlotte.  Pamela peers back at Charlotte.

"There's more to life than love and admiration," Charlotte says. 

"I know."  And it seems he does.  There are lines in his face that have arrived since LA burned, a gravamen in his demeanor when he lets the mask slip.  "That was not my meaning.  There's more to life than hiding in a house with a cousin and a cat."  A finger lifts.  "Which I'm sure you won't do forever.  This is raw, new to you, and you need time.  I understand that.  Just ... don't stay in the eggshell of your second life longer than is needed?"

That's when Pamela decides Charlotte is not at this moment an axe murderer and leaps into her lap.

Charlotte laughs a little at the sudden arrival of the cat, and strokes Pamela's fur. "You're right, of course. Ocas has asked me to work at the forge with him, and I've asked him to teach me to use a sword. I don't know why, but that's something that appeals to me just now."

Donari tilts up his cup to finish all but the dregs and sets it aside.  "It seems wise.  And he does know blades and their use."  Pamela turns around twice on Charlotte's lap and plumps down in the slight hollow of the dress' skirt, head tucked under and one foreleg dangling off the side.  "You may have need of one, besides.  Did you know we have a new Dragon?"

Charlotte raises an eyebrow. "What? Didn't we have enough already?

"A big new one, to the west.  The fighting is intense.  The Pact Fleet's preparing a massive assault, but ... this is something akin to Zhaitan.  And its tendrils reach across the land.  It's wrecked Fort Salma and even Concordia.  I have no reason to imagine the Reach's walls will hold out vines that tunnel in the earth that far."  Donari leans forward earnestly.  "Please learn all you can to protect yourself."

Charlotte looks skeptical. "Protect myself from a dragon that can breach the city walls?"

"The dragon itself?  No.  But it has minions a-plenty, and those can be fought.  You can't miss them.  Piles of corrupted plants in mobile form."  Pamela's faint purr fills the spaces between words.  "I know you're no longer interested in ... the stage.  But you were an acrobatic sort of dancer.  Remember to dance aside." I need you to stay alive this time, his eyes say.

"I doubt it will come to that, if the Pact is on their way." She rubs the fur behind Pamela's ears; the cat closes her eyes and purrs. 

"Regardless."  Donari stands, taking his cup to the sink to rinse it out.  "The world's no safe place, now.  The Gods hate us, we're pinned between dragons, and people continue their feuds and hatreds past all reason.  Asura mess with old magics to make them newly horrible."  He sets the cup very carefully upside down in the drainer and turns to look intently at Charlotte.  "Please learn to fight."

She smiles at him. "Very well. If it will help you sleep better at night."

"Very much so.  And now, bright star, I think I'd best go."  Because I want to kiss and comfort you and you don't want me to. "Will you call on me, at need?"

"If I have need, yes, but I think that Ocas and I are well-equipped to take care of each other." 

Donari looks at Charlotte for a long moment.  He nods, resigned.  "As you wish.  Then I hope you will call on me just for frivolous banter or an extra hand at the card table."  Don't send me out of your life again.  "For now, I'll leave you to watching Pamela learn her new abode."

Leaving the pack and boa as they are, Donari walks to the door.  He wishes she'd come hug him goodbye, kiss him, that he'd had any excuse to touch her and confirm she's no phantasm.  But she's got a cat on her lap, so he merely nods to her in respect as he puts his hand on the latch.

"Goodbye, Donari. Thank you for the cat. And for your understanding." She watches him leave, offering neither hope nor outright rejection as the door closes behind him.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Charlotte sits at the kitchen table. There's a mug of coffee in front of her, but she's not drinking it--she's staring into space. She has a cigarette smoldering in one hand, and the ashtray in front of her indicates that it's not her first of the morning. There are dark circles under her eyes.

Ocas comes down the stairs relatively early, and is surprised to see Charlotte already there. He crosses to the table and pours himself a mug of coffee. "You're up early," he says, watching her with some concern. "Did you not sleep well?" 

He's more worried than he lets on. The expression in her eyes, the lackluster attempt to enjoy coffee and cigarettes--they frighten him.

Charlotte's eyes flick up, startled, when he speaks. "Oh. Morning." She rubs her face. "It's been hard to sleep since I got my memory back. I close my eyes and suddenly the sky's on fire." 

"Oh." Ocas doesn't quite know what to say to that. He sits down across from her, and says, "I can't imagine what that must be like." He clears his throat. "If...you do want to talk to someone about it, I think my friend Nico would be willing. But you don't have to, obviously."

"I don't really know what he could say that would help," Charlotte says, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray. "I think it's just a matter of time."

"Really? Has it been getting better at all, with time?" Ocas asks. He watches her stub out the cig and wonders if its too early for him to have one. Probably. He smoked about half a pack last night out of nerves.

"It feels like it only just happened. When I... woke up, I didn't remember anything. It only came back to me a few days ago."

"Oh, I see," Ocas says, and runs a hand distractedly through his hair. "So it feels like everything just happened yesterday..." He puts a hand over hers on the table. "If you want, we can go back to the city and look at all the places its being rebuilt. Would that help? If you saw new growth there?"

She shakes her head. "I saw it already. Don't worry about it, Thay, I'm sure it will pass." Her voice starts to grow sharp.

Ocas withdraws his hand. "Oh," he says. He picks up his coffee mug and sips at it--still too hot. He burns his tongue. "Ow. Um...I went to a party yesterday," he offers, trying to think of something that might make the conversation less pointy.

"Did you have a nice time?" Charlotte asks. She looks at the pack of cigarettes on the table for a moment, then takes one.

"Not really. I kinda fucked up," Ocas says with a sigh. "Nico was there. He...has a crush on me, I think. I'm pretty sure."

Charlotte lights the cigarette, inhales, watches Ocas, exhales. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do--oh. Ugh. These women just swarmed me, trying to get me to talk about my swords or whatever nonsense, and Donari kind of hinted that Nico and I were together, to get 'em off me. I agreed and sort of pressganged Nico into pretending to be my boyfriend so we could get away. I think...it kind of hurt his feelings. I've had the idea that he's found me attractive but I didn't realize it was this much...I feel terrible."

"He seems like a big boy. I'm sure he'll survive."

Ocas' shoulders slump and he looks away. He rubs his upper arm, and should Charlotte be perceptive--which she always is--she would notice a blush creeping across his cheeks. "Wull..."

"What?" she snaps.

Ocas looks up, both taken aback and hurt by her sharpness. "Nothing," he says, and shakes his head. "I'll just...get breakfast on the way to the forge. I'll see you later." He gets to his feet.

"No--Thay, I'm sorry. I've forgotten how to talk to people. Sit down and tell me about it." She runs a hand through her hair distractedly. It's tangled and really needs a wash.

Ocas doesn't sit down again, but he does rest his fingertips on the table. "It's really...you have more to worry about, it's stupid." 

Charlotte runs a finger over a mark in the table. "You like him. That's what it is. I could tell as soon as I saw you together."

Ocas blinks and looks over at her--but then again, this is Charlotte. She knows everything about him. He nods. "Yeah. I do." He licks his lips and sits down again. "But I don't want to mess it up like I usually do, Charlotte, I swear. I know I've just gotten through a divorce and its too soon for me to do anything or see anyone."

"Yes, it is." She looks up at him. "You need to stop."

Ocas swallows. "How?"

She shakes her head wearily. "I don't know. Just choose to stop. Finding a new lover isn't going to change how you feel about yourself."

He doesn't reply immediately. Instead Ocas slumps a little, his elbows on the table, and pushes a hand into his bangs. "I can't help it," he says quietly.

"Then give in." Charlotte takes an angry draw from her cigarette. "What do you want me to tell you?"

Ocas looks up at her again. "I don't want you to tell me anything," he says. "I know you have other things to worry about." His voice is brittle. "I can handle it."

Charlotte takes a breath, and then reaches out to cover Ocas's hand with her own. "You can handle it. You don't really believe it but you can. You've never believed that you were good enough, just on your own--that you deserved things, that life would give you things and you didn't have to chase everything that came by just because you might not have the chance again. But you can just stop and be still for a little while, Ocas."

After a moment, Ocas seems to relax, tension unwinding. He turns his hand so he can take Charlotte's palm to palm. "Thank you," he says. "I've never been good at being patient. Maybe it's a side-effect from the flash." He gives her a small smile. "I guess it means I have to avoid Nico from now on, huh."

"I don't know. I suppose it depends on how he feels about you. If he's really that interested, if he actually cares, then he'll wait. If he absolutely has to be with somebody right now, and you have to get on board before the train leaves the station--then he's just another Donari, isn't he?" She grimaces and puts her cigarette back in her mouth. 

"Good gods, I hope not," Ocas says, and he goes a little pale. He already tried the Donari special, thank you, and he did not like it very much. "I don't think he's that way at all. He's never actually been with someone before. He says he's dedicated to the idea of soulmates." Ocas sighs. "He appears to be losing his faith in that, though."

"I never did understand your hurry to rush into things. The best part is the slow build. The tease." There's a ghost of her old smile on her lips. "After that it's all downhill."

Ocas blinks. He'd never tried the tease before. "Charlotte," he says, suddenly, "teach me how to do that. I mean, I'd like to...you know, indicate that I might be interested without actually rushing into things, you know? How do I do that?"

"I'm not sure I remember. It's been such a long time. Even before the whole... Mists sojourn, I was with Donari for so long. And I think I turned into an old woman while I was with him." Her eyes grow distant. "She used to be good at it. I mean, I was good at it. Dammit I have to stop doing that." 

Ocas watches her with concern. "Charlotte, don't you like the person you were before? It's okay if you don't...but you should know that I loved her. Everyone loved her. She had her faults but she was a good person and had a good heart. I think she still has it."

Charlotte looks at him and doesn't speak for a long moment. "I liked the woman I was at some point. I don't like what she was turning into. Or maybe I liked some parts of her and not others. She was always so independent. She knew what she wanted and she went after it. And then it seemed like she lost her way." She stops. "Fuck I'm talking about her like she's somebody else again."

"I don't mind, as long as you still feel connected to her in some way." Ocas takes her hand again and squeezes it. "I think what you need to do is remember the things you liked about yourself and hold onto them. Forget about the other stuff. You had a good thing going, Charlotte, and I'm positive you can do that again." He gives her a warmer smile. "What do you say? You can help me slow down and I can help you pick up speed again."

She looks a little alarmed. "The last thing I need right now is to start seeing someone."

"That's not what I meant!" Ocas exclaims, wide-eyed. "That's not what I meant at all. I just meant in general, not...no, I wouldn't suggest you do that at all." He gives her a pained look.

"Very well. I'll try." She finishes her cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray. 

"You want him to think that maybe someday you'll relent. So you can't be too definitive. Spend time with him. But if he flirts with you, deflect it--act like it's a little joke between the two of you. He won't know whether you're being evasive or flirting back."

Ocas looks like he wants to write this shit down. Instead he just nods and bites his lip in concentration. "Okay. Okay! I can do that. And through that I'll find out if it's right between us."

Charlotte eyes him. "You might need to start out a bit easier. Only meet with him in public places, to start, and always have somewhere that you might need to go, in case things get out of hand and you need to retreat. Plus it makes you look busy. In demand. 'Oh, can't stay, darling, I've got an appointment at the palace.'"

Ocas chuckles. "I doubt he'll buy that I have to go to the palace," he says, "but I see what you mean." He rubs his shoulder again, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I have to be kinda insincere, don't I."

"I don't know that it's insincerity. You're sending a message--I like to be with you but I'm not ready to take the next step. It's just... in code."

"That's...yeah, I can see that," Ocas says. "I did say that, to him, yesterday afternoon. He looked so badly like he wanted to kiss me that I told him I couldn't. I hope it didn't hurt him, but I think if I do what you say he won't be, any longer. If I can pull it off." Ocas sighs. "He just looks so badly like he needs someone to love him. It's hard not to rush in immediately to volunteer, you know?"

"But that's absolutely the wrong thing," Charlotte says forcefully. "You should never be with someone just because they need to be loved. They should need -you-, specifically. You should be the absolute only one that they can't live without. Who wants to be with someone as a... a space-filler?"

"Oh, no, I know that," Ocas says, though he looks thoughtful now. "I mean, I think I know that." His brow furrows. "I don't know for certain about him yet. I think it'll be good to get to know him better."

"There's probably no harm in it. As long as you're not getting to know him better in bed." 

"Oof," Ocas gulped. "I'm pretty sure he's a virgin."

Charlotte's brow furrows. "It sounds like you need to take this slowly for his sake as much as for yours. You could really end up doing a lot of damage."

"I know! The stakes are fuckin' high, here." Ocas shakes his head and sighs deeply. "But despite all that I still like him. He's sweet. And compassionate as anything."

Charlotte smiles wanly. "He sounds nice."

Ocas looks at her and returns the smile softly. "He is. But we should get going. It's a new day, yeah?" He gets to his feet. "Do you want to come to the forge with me today? Maybe practice some fighting when I get a break?"

"I've got to wait for Donari. He's bringing the cat. But maybe I'll come by in the afternoon." She rubs the back of her neck tiredly. "I think beating up some practice dummies might make me feel better. Or maybe I'll try to sleep."

"That might be a good idea. Do you want me to stay while Donari's here?"

"No. I need to face him alone, I think. Get it over with."

"If you think that's best," Ocas says. "Just please, please don't let me find him cooking naked in here when I get back." He grins. "I'm kidding."

Charlotte does not look amused.

Ocas' smile vanishes immediately. "Sorry."

"I don't feel anything for him anymore," Charlotte says. "It upset me at first. But it's probably for the best. It never would have ended any other way than it ended the first time."

"Fair enough," Ocas says, rather softly. "It probably is for the best. Do you want me to bring anything home for you?"

Charlotte thinks. "Maybe a chocolate cake." 

"Chocolate cake. Got it. I will bring you the most delicious cake there is." Ocas steps forward and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Take care of yourself today."

She smiles. "I will. I'll probably be by the forge later."

"'kay." Ocas grabs his coffee mug and swallows down most of it. "I'll see you later. Bye, Char." He scoops up his keys and makes his way out the door. Charlotte sits glumly for a few minutes, then gets up and starts cleaning up her cigarette butts and coffee mug. Might as well at least start pretending to be a real live person.

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

Ocas is sitting by the open window. It's a gorgeous day out and the scent of flowers is wafting into the house. It's rather ruined by the scent of cheap cigarettes wafting from the lit one in Ocas' mouth, but what can you do. He's humming to himself as he repairs a rip in a shirt sleeve, making surprisingly neat stitches as he goes.

Charlotte comes slowly down the steps, one hand trailing on the bannister, her hair loose and spilling around her shoulders. She's still wearing the drab brown robe she'd shown up in.

Ocas looks up. He smiles a little and removes the cigarette. "Hey, sweetie," he says, a little hesitantly. "How do you feel today?"

Lenauryn: "I don't know." She gives him a small smirk as she comes over to the table and takes a cigarette from the case there. "I say that a lot, don't I? I think mostly I'm amazed that I woke up and I was still here."

Ocas looked her over and twisted his mouth to one side. "Well, no one can expect you to get yourself together all at once. You've been through, well, a lot." He got to his feet and put the shirt on his seat. "What do you say we go shopping today? Get you some new clothes? I can afford to get you nice stuff."

Charlotte runs a hand through her hair and holds her cigarette with the other. "Not yet. I'm still afraid of running into anyone who knows me from before." She looks at him. "No offense, Thay, but the look on your face when you first saw me is not one that I'm looking forward to seeing on other people's faces."

"Oh," Ocas says, and sighs. "Fair enough. I can see why you wouldn't want that." He chews his lip and shifts his weight. "Do you want something to eat...?"

"I suppose." Her cheeks are gaunt. She hasn't been eating well. "I'm sorry about yesterday, when your friend was here. I feel like I don't remember how to talk to people. I hear in my head the things I should say, but I can't say them, or if I do they come out wrong." She sighs, exhaling smoke. "He was a priest of Grenth. Do you think he noticed anything... off about me?"

Ocas shook his head. "I don't think he did." He gives her a look of concern and sympathy. "Maybe you just need time?" he suggested, trying to hide the hope in his voice. "Time to...settle back into who you are, kind of thing?" He went to the cupboard and pulled out some bread and butter, and surprisingly, a bowl of oranges. He's learned to stock his own pantry! He's like, kind of a real adult!

"I don't know if anyone can be the same after... something like this." She seems to realize how glum she's being and rallies, giving him a smile. "But I'll try."

Ocas fetched some hard salami and a knife, then brought everything to the table. "Don't push yourself," he said softly. "This is too weird to take all at once. We just have to...adapt." He gave her a small smile. "But I am glad as hell that you're here, Charlotte."

She smiles at him. "I am, too. I don't know what it would have been like to stay dead, but I know what it would have been like to stay lost. Now I feel like I might at least have something I can rebuild upon." She reaches for his hand and squeezes it. "Thank you for taking me in."

"Pssh, as if I would leave you out in the cold," Ocas says, grinning at her. "But you're not stayin' here for free. Your room and board will be covered by listening to me complain and sharing wine and cigarettes with me." He gave her his characteristic lopsided smile and flumped down into a chair. "Come to think of it, actually, if you felt up to it you could help me at the forge. I need someone to help me with the storefront."

Charlotte stirs. "Yes... maybe. Maybe work would be good." She cuts a slice of salami and puts it on a slice of bread. "Before I could remember what had happened to me, I was just wandering around the Reach like a lost soul. And I saw the Coronet. She's under new management now. And I didn't know why, but it broke my heart. Now I know. But I also know how hollow it was. The attention and the admiration she always craved--what a stupid waste of time it was."

Ocas blinks at her. "She...meaning who you were, before?" he asks, a little uncomfortable with this idea. "Nothing you did was a waste of time. You were chasing your bliss."

"No, I wasn't," Charlotte says. "I was searching for a piece of me that'd been left out, or broken off along the way somewhere. Trying to fill a hole."

"Is that a bad thing?" Ocas asked, a little desperately. This didn't sound like the Charlotte he loved.

"She was never loved enough. Never -could- be loved enough. There wasn't enough love in the world to satisfy her." Charlotte's eyes are distant, her bread and salami forgotten.

"What are you talking about, saying 'her' like she wasn't you? Like you aren't still yourself!" Ocas' voice rose in pitch and volume, his anixety creeping into his tone.

Charlotte looks at him blankly for a moment, and then turns her face away, looking both surprised and upset. "I meant me." She takes a bite of salami and bread.

Ocas swallowed and sat down next to her. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "but you're scaring me."

"Sometimes it doesn't feel like it was me," Charlotte says, not looking at him. "Sometimes it feels like a story I read."

Ocas was silent a moment. He needed her, needed her to be Charlotte. Gods knew he did. But clearly she was struggling, and so he had to help her. "Charlotte..." He put a hand on her shoulder. "I...just want you to be happy," he said finally.

That makes her look up at him. There are tears in her eyes but she smiles. "I know, Thay. That's all you ever wanted for me." She takes a deep breath. "Anyway, I'm too old for the stage, and I don't think that death improved me much."

Ocas returns the smile with a gentle one of his own. He takes his hand off her shoulder and takes her hand instead. "Well...you've always been smart as a whip and can pretty much handle anything," he said. "I doubt you'll be without purpose for long."

"Working at the forge is a good first step. It'll keep me occupied, at least."

"Yeah, and commissions will start piling up like crazy with your pretty face behind the counter instead of my ugly mug." He grinned at her.

She laughs a little, and picks at her food. Some new expression crosses her face. "Maybe you could teach me how to fight."

"I'd love to!" Ocas exclaims. "I tried to teach Cauthrien..." he trails off.

"Do you want to talk about him?" She smirks sadly. "We've spent a lot of time on my problems."

"I...yes," Ocas said softly. "If you don't mind. I haven't really spoken to anyone about it."

"I want to hear." Charlotte slices herself some more bread and looks around. "It's too early for wine, isn't it?"

"Its like 2 pm, I think its a little early," Ocas said with a wince. "Never too early for cigs, though," he smiled a little.

"Maybe some coffee, then."

"Coffee sounds good," Ocas said, nodding. He got up to start making it, bustling around as he made preparations.

"Tell me how you met him.

"We met in a bar...just randomly. He is really gorgeous, Charlotte. He's black and he dyes his hair this lavender color...and it matches his eyes...he's beautiful." Ocas zones out for a moment, a distant look in his eyes. He comes back to himself abruptly and clears his throat. "Er, I was pretty taken with him."

Charlotte smiles. "I couldn't tell.

Ocas gives her a helpless smile. "Sorry. I just...I loved him, desperately. He's loud and ostentatious and brash as anything but he had softness to him too..." He looks down at his ringless hand. "I wish we could have made it work," he says softly.

"What went wrong?"

"We just weren't ready," Ocas murmured. "He's only 26, and we both have family issues...I was asking too much of him, and I know that. It was my fault, Charlotte. I started driving him crazy, in the end." Ocas slumps-- thinking about this is hard.

"Sounds familiar." Charlotte gets up and goes to the kitchen, fetching a couple of mugs from the cupboard.

"Yeah..." Ocas says, heavily. He looks across at Charlotte. "But, damnit, I -want- to be married. I want to find someone. But I think I have to put that on the back burner for a while. I've been with too many people in too short a time...I don't like what it's doing to me."

"You've been filling the hole, too." Charlotte takes the coffee off the stove, fills the mugs, and puts one in Ocas's hands.

Ocas snorts. "I know what you mean, but that sounds like a cheap innuendo," he says, with a doofy smile. He cradles the coffee cup in his palms and looks at the steam rising from it. "I really did think he was the one. We were perfect for each other...until we weren't."

Charlotte looks in the icebox for cream. "I know what you mean."

"So...yeah. We filed for divorce, signed the papers. Made it official. He moved out. I still find his things here sometimes." Ocas sighs. "And I'm going to put my nose to the grind stone and not look at anyone, at all."

Charlotte adds cream to her coffee and goes back to the table. "Maybe we won't find anyone. Maybe we have to learn how to live with that possibility." She laughs a little. "It'd be hard for me to explain the temporarily-dead thing, anyway." She runs her hand through her hair again, shaking out its waves.

"No, not you. You deserve someone. And you will find someone." Ocas sounds very certain of this. "You deserve to be valued by someone more than just me."

Her smile is thin. "What will come, will come." She looks down into her coffee cup for a moment. "Have you heard anything from Kamaro?"

"No," Ocas says, shaking his head. "Nothing. But I get the feeling he's okay, don't you?"

Charlotte shakes her head, more as a gesture of helplessness than as an answer. "I really screwed that one up, didn't I? So convinced I could make something out of Donari that I sent away the man who actually loved me."

A politely confident knock comes at the door, one that doesn't demand but certainly expects an answer.

Charlotte's head jerks up, and she's out of her seat in a moment. She looks at Ocas.

"Uh." Ocas looks between Charlotte and the door. "...Who is it?" he calls out.

"A man bearing gifts," comes Donari's voice, muffled by the door but far more robust now that he's healed.  His tone suggests he's smiling.

"Oh my gods!" Charlotte pales. She heads for the stairs, tossing Ocas a panicked look over her shoulder.

"Fuck," Ocas mutters under his breath. "Uh, coming," he calls, and darts a look to the vanishing Charlotte as he goes to the door. He ran a hand through his hair to smooth it somewhat--old habits die hard. He opens the door. "Hey!"

Donari stands there, hair ponytailed and garments casual but nicely made, with the sword Ocas forged for him hanging just-so at his hip, the cover over the glow-orb closed.  He holds his hands a bit wide, one grasping a wine bottle, the other a small cloth bag containing some objects.  "Hey, Ocas.  I'm glad you're home.  Have a few minutes?"  His voice has just a bit of roughness to it and his cheeks have filled out again from the gauntness of months past.

Charlotte crouches at the top of the stairs, heart hammering in her throat, trying not to make any noise.

Ocas smiles, and it's a genuine smile. He is glad to see Donari despite the panic he's experiencing over the blond fugitive upstairs. He gives Donari a quick hug--and he notices that Donari is wearing the sword. That gives him a twinge of both amusement and pride. "Sure," he says, "but the house is a mess--maybe we should just sit out here? It's such a nice day...and the mess is very embarrassing. It's a sty."

The taller man glances past Ocas' shoulder, noting the pair of coffee mugs.  He smirks conspiratorily.  "But of course.  The air out here is lovely ... speaking of which, I'll need to be upwind of you."  He pivots aside gracefully so Ocas can step out and choose seats.

Ocas frowns a little. "I don't -stink-," he protests, and then glances at the lit cigarette still in his hand. "...Oh." He flicks it away and steps down the stoop. He takes a seat on the bottom step and pats the space next to him. He does not, however, close the door. He has the feeling that someone would be interested to hear what's said.

Upstairs, Charlotte breathes a sigh of relief and quietly tiptoes to the window. She stands to the side of it where she's unlikely to be seen, and watches the two men below. 

Donari settles on Ocas' left side, upwind but pretty close thanks to the stoop width.  He manages minimal physical contact in the process, splaying his left leg away and putting the bag between his feet.  "Kills me to have to be so damn careful about what I breathe," he semi-grumbles, presenting the wine bottle to Ocas by resting its body across his right palm with his left holding the neck.  "In any case, I thought you might have a need for some of this."  It's a much finer label than Ocas normally buys.

Ocas blinks and accepts the bottle, staring at the fancy label. Of course Donari would bring him something like this. "Wow, thank you," he says, looking up at him. He smiles, but it evaporates after a moment. "You must have heard about the divorce."

At the window, Charlotte watches them intently, hands fisted at the neck of her robe, willing herself to feel something other than unhappy dread.

A nod.  "How could I not?  I've been far more mired in family business than I used to, Ocas, and a good part of that lies in schmoozing and gossip.  Plus, of course, when the names mentioned at the next cafe table are those of men I know, I do tend to take extra notice." He dips his head at the wine.  "That's for later, this hour isn't right for it and it should breathe twenty minutes out of direct light before serving.  This ..." he pulls out two smaller bags from the one between his feet.  "This is for now."  He hands one to Ocas.

Ocas closes his eyes and passes a hand over his face. "Six above," he mutters. "The posh circles must be saying horrible things. I can only imagine...I hope they aren't badmouthing Cauthrien, I really do. The whole thing was my fault." He shakes his head and sets the wine down behind him on the step. There was an odd air about him--tension that didn't quite match up with the nature of Donari's news or the man's presence itself, which had used to cause such anxiety in Ocas. He didn't seem to want to still his hands. 

He did, however, accept the little bag from Donari with a curious look. "What is it?" he asked, carefully peeking inside.

Charlotte relaxes a little. It seems that their conversation is on safe ground. She leans against the windowsill.

With a smile, Donari lets Ocas find out for himself, though the banana smell is a strong clue.  He waits for Ocas before opening his own matching bag.  "The comments aren't so kind, no.  Mostly lapse of judgment on his part.  To be expected, there are a lot of idle rich who delight in petty commentary on those suffering misfortune."  A pensive gaze for a moment.  "It can be dealt with, through guile, banter, and being likeable, but it takes work to do that."

Ocas gives him the dryest look he can manage. "And we both know I have no skill in any of those things," he says. He looks down at the banana chips, and that manages to coax a smile from him. "This is nice, though, thank you," he says, looking sidelong at Donari. He hopes that the man doesn't notice that his hands have started shaking, but knowing Donari, that was probably a futile wish. Ocas fishes a banana chip from the bag and puts it in his mouth. 

"So...enough about me. What have you been up to, besides Sir-di-Bette-ing?"

Charlotte raises an eyebrow as she watches them. They seem to have genuinely become friends in her absence.

"Oh, I don't know."  Donari opens his own chips bag.  Some other small things clearly remain in the larger bag.  "You're not so shabby at banter.  And most of the time you're on the likeable side."  He thoughtfully noshes a chip.  "I've been ... recovering, really.  Asura medicine is effective, but not designed to soothe." 

 He elects not to mention the hand shakes.  Yet.  On the other hand ... "Having good company does help."  He tilts his head back a bit to point it into the house and at the extra coffee cup.

Ocas blanches. "I..." he starts, and curses himself as his skill in fast talk fails him. He can't think of an explanation. What could he say, what could he say..."Nico!" he blurts. "I mean. I had a friend over earlier this morning. Nico. He's a priest of Grenth, commissioned a sword from me." He knows he's babbling, and tries to cover it by putting like 4 chips into his mouth at once. Graceful, Ocas.

Charlotte's eyebrow arches higher when Ocas uses Nico for his cover. She knew it.

Donari raises a brow and eats another chip.  Ocas is so clearly lying.  Curiosity rises; yet he's here to console, not to distress.  Another time, and he'll figure out who Ocas' recent guest was.  "Ah, lucky him."  A hand drops briefly to caress the swept curves of his rapier.  "He'll have a family heirloom fresh made."

Ocas blushes as he swallows his banana chips. "He seems to like it, yeah," he said. "Though I doubt he'll be using it as a family heirloom." As he says that, he glances back up to the house, nervously checking for Charlotte. He can't see her in the window. His shoulders relax slightly, but not much. There's still clear tension in his body.

Charlotte draws back a little when she sees Ocas's head move to look at her, just in case Donari's gaze follows.

Not recent, still present, ahah.  Never obvious, Donari doesn't turn to look.  "A treasured life-long possession, then.  It can be hard to care who has our things once we're done with them."  A chip meets its crunchy end.  "Even though sometimes we do.  I know some people I'll want to make sure aren't left in the lurch when I'm gone."

"I've always wanted to have a kid to leave things to," Ocas says distractedly. "'least one." He shifts the banana bag in his hands so he can crack his knuckles jerkily. "Donari--" he says suddenly. "D'you...believe death is forever?"

Charlotte leans back towards the window. Is he going to rat her out? 

"Thinking of joining Grenth's order yourself?" Donari teases.  "That's a question for them.  But I like to think it's only ... a beginning.  That what awaits in the Mists bears no horror or pain, no regretful looking back and clawing at the world of the living."  A graceful shrug moves one shoulder.  "I intend to wait quite a few decades to find out, of course.  Just in case."

Ocas bites his lip, thinking hard. "So...you don't think that we lose who we are? That our...souls, or whatever, retain the spark that made us who we are?" He looks sidelong at Donari, and there's a pleading look in his eye. Please let her come back to who she was, please. Please don't let Charlotte have really died.

Charlotte is also curious on this point. 

Donari crunches some chips.  "Who we are lies in part in what we are," he says at last.  "I've been a few things, but always springing from being a di Bette.  Fight against it, accept it, my blood has shaped me."  His eyes flick to the wine bottle, and all the knowledge of wine learned from his father that it implies.  "We're freed of that in the Mists.  Once I'm there, I'm sure I'll still be handsome, agile, charming, and oftimes devious."  He grins his old boyish grin.  "But I won't be a di Bette, will I?  I won't have the concerns the family's needs impose on me."

Ocas considers for a moment. He's not quite sure if that answers his question, but how could anyone answer that question? He might have to ask Nico about it. Or Charlotte, if he could get up the courage. "I just...I want to think that whatever made up our souls doesn't evaporate," he says quietly. "She was so many things...so much passion and determination..." He seems to be talking to himself more than Donari at this point.

Charlotte hugs herself, cupping her elbows with her hands, as though keeping out a chill.

Ocas can only mean one "she" by that.  Donari shuts his eyes for a second, taking a slow breath of the fresh spring air.  "I'm sure she still is," he says softly, looking at Ocas.  "Somewhere.  And time is different in that somewhere.  Decades from now I'll have my gentle end in a wonderful bed, and then I'll see her again, as will you, and we'll all be our young, best selves.  The Gods can crap on us a lot, but They didn't make the Mists.  We'll be free there."

Ocas' nerves collapse. He drops the little bag of banana chips by his side and buries his face in his hands. "I don't know what to do!" he says, slightly muffled by his hands. That seems to be all he can say for the moment, as his tension is compounded and he turns into a tight ball of anxiety.

Charlotte turns away from the window. 

Donari scoots right the pair of inches needed to press against Ocas, wrapping one long arm about the blonde's shoulders.  He drops his mostly empty chips bag to join the other.  "You're not asking hypothetical questions, are you?" he realizes.  "You've lost someone recently.  Let me know if you want to sneak into a Grenth temple to vandalize something, I'll help.  It can be ... cathartic."

Donari's scent is familiar and, surprisingly, comforting, though not compelling like it used to be. Thank the Six. "You don't understand," Ocas said hoarsely, dropping his hands from his face. "I don't...know how to explain it. I don't think it can be explained. I...she's..." He looks up at Donari and just says, "Charlotte."

"Is gone, and yes, yes further loss will raise her specter.  I miss her so much, Ocas, any little thing can remind us, give us pangs, but we cannot stay paralyzed by it forever, you cannot afford it, I cannot."  He leans down enough to reach the larger bag, arm tightening its press around Ocas, and fishes out the remaining items:  a box of Ocas' favorite cheap cigarettes, and two boxes of much finer ones.  "Here.  I think the wind's doing its job."

Charlotte paces back and forth in the hall upstairs.

Ocas looks down at the cigarettes and swallows, hard. "Donari..." He twists his mouth to the side, his brow furrowing. He takes the cigarettes and places them on the stoop, then grabs Donari's arm and gets him to his feet. "Come on," he says, his voice low with determination. He leads Donari into the house. 

"Please come down," he calls, and it's clear he's not talking to Donari. "I can't handle this on my own and you know that. Please come down."

After a long moment of silence, slow steps descend the stairs.

Donari had followed Ocas biddably enough.  Besides, he's such a meddler, he's ready to help with whatever guest (obviously not this "Nico" Ocas lied about) might be causing such distress.  He's ready ...

A robed figure is coming down the stairs. She stops at the bottom, arms around herself defensively. Her eyes are large and full of trepidation. It's Charlotte! 

He wasn't ready.  Donari's mind goes blank, then he starts looking for the con, the scheme, the motive ... what would anyone gain from this?  On the outside he simply stares coolly for a theatrically long moment.  Then, "I see why Ocas has been consulting with Grenth," he says with perfect poise.  Because this can't be Charlotte.

Charlotte's eyes move to Ocas's face. This wasn't the reaction she was anticipating. 

"I'm sorry, Charlotte," Ocas says, his shoulders slumping. "But he does have a right to know." He looks more defiant than apologetic, perhaps because Charlotte hasn't been acting like herself. He feels more justified in bringing Donari in.

"It was inevitable, anyway," Charlotte says. "Hello, Donari." 

Impossibly, that's her voice.  He knows, knows how hard it is to perfectly mimic a voice.  How you can't fool someone who knows the voice, is listening for the false note.  Voices are far more complex compilations of sound than most ever realize.

"Who are you?" Donari demands, his own voice gone harsh.  He surges forward, grabbing her shoulders, pushing her to the wall.  An icy fury fills his eyes, which glow suddenly bright blue.  "Why are you doing this?"

"HEY!" Ocas lunges after Donari and grabs him by the shoulder and the back of his collar, hauling him bodily away from Charlotte. He's stronger than he looks, thanks to all that time spent beating up metal. "Don't treat her like that!" he snaps. "She's Charlotte, Donari!"

Charlotte is taken by surprise by Donari's sudden movement, and the jolt against the wall stuns her for a moment. She is opening her mouth to answer when the blue glow of Donari's eyes stops her. "Good gods, Mal, what happened to you?"

Donari stops his instinctive eel-wiggle free of Ocas' grasp, standing poleaxed still in Ocas' grip.  Mal.  Ocas would know to bid her say that name; Ocas wouldn't, he's not an instigator here.  Lucy would know; Lucy wouldn't be part of something this cruel.  "A ... lot of things," he whispers, though unaware his eyes have lit up blue.  "You were .. one of them."

Ocas remains as a support for Donari, should he need it, and watches his face. The blue glow was eerie, and 'eerie' and 'Donari' should never mix. "She came to the forge the other day," he said in a low voice, turning his gaze to Charlotte. "It's really her. You're really Charlotte...aren't you?" The question almost came as a plea. 

Charlotte looks into Donari's eyes for a long moment. This is the closest she's felt to being sure. "Yes."

Now that Ocas is supporting rather than restraining, Donari is able to step forward.  He approaches slowly, almost uncertainly.  But he knows how to tell for sure, and if it is her, this won't be the first dead woman he's done this with.  His hands rise, one to her shoulder in gentle apology for the previous attack, the other to cup her head, and he bends to kiss her with tender love.

Ocas' mouth falls open. He stands there dumbly for a moment, then throws his hands up into the air. "What the actual fuck, you two?!" He manages not to let any indication show of his irritation in how much genuine affection Donari puts into the gesture. Damnit.

Charlotte lets Donari approach, knowing his intent, and hoping that perhaps this will awaken the part of her that seems to have been left behind in the Mists. She closes her eyes as he kisses her, and lets it linger for a moment. Then she turns her face away with a small, sorrowful sound in her throat. 

Donari lets go of Charlotte, shaking his head.  He backs up, eyes still luminous sapphire.  "You're not Charlotte.  You almost are, but ... you're not."  He sounds puzzled.  He can't make this fit, he can't explain it, and most horribly he's not in control.

"Yes, I am," she says, but there's less certainty in her voice now. She looks at Ocas. "I am, I am Charlotte, Thay, I am Charlotte I'm Charlotte."  She takes a step toward Ocas, her voice rising in pitch. Tears threaten to overflow.

Ocas forgets his momentary irritation and holds out his hands to Charlotte. He swallows as he takes her slightly chilly hands in his. "I know, I know," he says in a low voice. "But where's the rest of you? You're different, Charlotte, and I'm scared." He glances at Donari. "That's...why I had to let him in, I thought something might..."

Charlotte's face trembles as she stumbles into Ocas's arms. She hides her face against his chest and sobs.

Oh by all the hateful Gods.  He's made a woman cry; guilt stabs deep.  And though she's missing something, what's there is real.  "I'm sorry," Donari says sincerely.  "You, you're not a fake."  He brushes a finger through Charlotte's not-quite-the-right-shade hair.  "I suppose .. the Mists can give something back, but must have their due."  He drops his hand.  "Do you perchance still have that part of you that wants to see me rage?  Because I think I could manage it just now."

Charlotte turns her tear-streaked face to him, still clutching Ocas. "I'm sorry."

Ocas puts his arms around Charlotte and holds her, subconsciously trying to shield her from...something. He's tired, now, and seeking desperately for some kind of solution. Something that would make Charlotte smile and lift this horror from him...and from Donari.

He swallows, shuts his eyes briefly, and then gently nudges Charlotte away so that he can look into her face. "Charlotte," he said, "it's going to be all right. We may have lost part of you, but I don't care. You are here now, and you are who you are. I will love you no matter what. You're my family and nothing will ever make me treat you like anything else. Okay?"

Donari's eyes still won't fade.  It's a serious blow to his poker face skills, how they blaze.  "I have no idea how this has happened, how it could possibly have happened, but I never stopped loving you.  I'm -- " he swallows, hands fisting, eyes blinking, which is only more visible thanks to the glow.  "I'm so glad you're back."  Her face still isn't right.  Where's that freckle?  Have the cheekbones shifted angle?  But his doubts are gone, and he  will accept this gift.  "Does Nishi know?"

Charlotte wipes her eyes. "Not yet. I don't know where to find her." She finds she can't stop staring at Donari's glowing eyes. She's not the only one who's not the same. 

"Donari what the fuck is up with your eyes.

"Oh hell."  Donari lifts a hand up, pale shirt cuff and darker palm showing a faint blue cast as he looks at them.  "I thought that had stopped."  He looks past his hand.  "Nishi went home.  The last I checked, she was still there."

Charlotte nods a little and looks back to Ocas. Her face is solemn and seems very young, very vulnerable. She doesn't seem to have any of Charlotte's old defenses, at least not at the moment. "What am I going to do? What if I never..." She trails off, not knowing how to complete the thought.

Ocas takes Charlotte's hands again and shelters them between his own, holding them close to his chest. "You'll live, Char," he says quietly. "You don't need to get your old life back. You'll build a new life. And I'll help. Donari will help. You won't have to feel like you've lost anything, because you'll gain so much." He swallows, and, trying to reassure himself as much as her, "you're going to be fine."

"All I have is yours."  Donari makes no promise.  Even now this could turn out to be an astounding counterfeit.  "You'll have a place to stay, if this house does not suffice.  Food.  Comfort."  He means consoling and solace, there.  "And a cat, if you wish."

"I don't want to live with your family," Charlotte says, rather stiffly. "I want to be with Thay." She looks at Ocas. "With my family."

Ocas gives her a small smile and strokes a strand of hair away from her face. "Yeah. I'll help you, Charlotte, don't worry."

Donari raises both hands palm out.  "Oh, I didn't mean with me.  I can convince Mother and Father of quite a bit, but this?  The staff would .... the gossip!  We can't have a, ah, revenant ghosting about the halls.  Apartments, though, small homes.  This -- " he gestures about the room -- "is best.  So long as you can put up with Ocas and his assignations."  He's teasing with that last. "I was serious about the cat, though."

"I don't want one of your love nests, either," Charlotte says. "I'm fine here." She takes a sharp breath and changes tack. "I'll take the cat, though. If it's all right with Thay."

"Oh, uh, of course," Ocas says, blinking. "Animals...whatever, bring 'em all. I'd been thinking about getting a dog, anyway...maybe Pamela will deter me from that." He smiles, a shade of his old doofiness showing through as he looks at Charlotte.

The sudden barb from Charlotte seems to cheer Donari for some reason.  At least, his eyes fade back to green.  "I look forward to showing you more changes than odd eyeballs, bright lady.  Not least, I've no 'love nests' now.  You'll have Pamela on the morrow, along with a supply of her preferred food so that she may be weaned from it less traumatically."  He quirks his mouth.  "Assuming I can pry her from Giles and Merrin, anyway."

"Thank you. Did-- did anything else survive Lion's Arch?"

Ocas found he was absolutely desperate for a cigarette but decided to wait on it. Donari's lungs would probably explode, or...something.

Donari sits in a chair, pushing the cold coffee away so he can rest his arm on the table.  He rubs at his beard.  "Feel free, Ocas," he says absently.  "I'll live."  He looks at Charlotte with sorrow.  "Not much did, and nothing I cared to keep after I found you.  A few mementos went to friends.  But I couldn't ... couldn't bear ..."  Blue shines deep in his eyes.  "I'm so sorry.  I should have done so many things differently, any one of which would have had me with you that day."

"You found me?" Charlotte asks quietly.

Ocas nods to Donari in gratitude. He goes to the window to light up, however, and tries to blow the smoke out across the garden than into Donari's immediate area.

Donari appreciates the gesture, though the leftover smoke from past cigarettes is enough to rasp his lungs a bit.  "I did.  I wasn't the first ... they had me identifying ..." He rubs his forehead.  "I'm not ready to talk about it.  Not until I can believe all this in my bones, my star, not until I'm sure this is real and I won't shatter you into dust, I won't wake up to find I merely dreamed."

With that he stands.  He bends over Charlotte's hand with exquisite courtesy.  "Tomorrow," he promises.  "I shall be a man bearing a cat."  And he looks to Ocas to share in a glance how unnerving, how sudden a shock this has been, and heads for the door, eyes flickering blue light, green eye.

Charlotte's arms wrap around herself again. She looks like she's trying to keep herself from flying apart. But her face is calm now, her eyes wary. "Good-bye, Donari." 

[charlottemaunqmal-blog]

The evening was growing dark as she slipped down back alleys, cowl pulled low over her face. There was a queer, empty feeling in her stomach that might be fear or might be just emptiness. She stopped on the corner where she could look at the sign over the door: Ocas Brothers' Forge. It was open. He'd be in there. And once she went through the door, she couldn't go back. 

Steeling herself, she went to the door and pushed it open.

"Though she may wander or travel so far, I know she will love me...uh, wherever I...are~. That doesn't seem right." Ocas' clear baritone voice broke off into plain talking as he puzzled over the words.  He was in the forge, hammering away at the tang for a new sword. He was sweaty and soot-stained, but he felt good. Better than he had in a while. The vigorous, clean exercise was making his body hum with energy, and that allowed him to ignore his worries for a time. He was about to start singing again when he heard the bell over the door in the front room jingle.

"Damnit," he mumbled, looking down at himself. He was really going to have to hire a shopgirl or something soon--he couldn't keep running back and forth to the front room."Coming!" he called, and let the forge cool down a little from its snarling heat. He set his tools aside and let the sword pieces keep warm in the fire--they'd come out brittle if he let them cool down now. He trotted through into the front room, wiping his face with a relatively clean cloth. There was a woman there, her hood pulled up over her face. "Ah, may I help you?" Ocas asked, wiping his hands.

She almost lost her nerve when she heard him singing. He sounded happy. And what if it was a mistake, coming here? What if he told her he didn't know her, that she was wrong about everything, that she was crazy after all. She'd almost turned and left when he came into the room, and then it was too late. Her hand fell from the doorhandle, and she turned toward him. Very slowly, she lifted trembling hands to her cowl, and pulled it back.

Ocas felt a shock run through him, down his spine to his core. He stared. The smile slipped from his face, replaced by a look of horror and incomprehension. That was her face. That was his Charlotte. But it couldn't be. There was no way on the green earth that Charlotte could have come back. He swallowed, hard, and tried to breathe. One inhale, one exhale, and then another..."Ch-charlotte?" The word came from him in less than a whisper.

She closed her eyes against the flood of relief that rose out of her heart and tightened her throat. She had to lean back against the door, because her legs were suddenly weak. "Thaylius."

Ocas himself stumbled back against the counter, his free hand scrabbling at it to support his weight. "That can't be you," he said, his voice strained. "It's not possible."

Charlotte opened her eyes. The last dim but stubborn hope that it had all been a misunderstanding, just a case of a lost memory, died when she saw the look on his face. Her hands tightened on the fabric of the cowl, pulling it tight around her neck as though to ward off a chill. "What happened to me?"

"How can you--how..." Ocas stammered. He had gone very white, still trying to keep himself upright with the support of the counter. "You're dead. You died. You should be dead." Wide-eyed shock had yet to be replaced by relief or joy. Ocas had seen enough in his day to know that sometimes magic that seemed magnificent was actually incredibly, dangerously evil.

Charlotte's hands tightened further, the knuckles white. "I don't know how," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I had to come here. I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"But...how..." Ocas gulped. He straightened, and tried to control his breathing. "I don't understand," he said. "You've been dead for months. You...is it really you? Can it possibly be you?" He took a step towards, her, and then another. "Charlotte..."

"I don't know. I think so but I don't know." Her voice is a strengthless whisper. Her hands start to shake and her face crumples. "I don't know, I don't know!"

Ocas closed the distance between them and grabs her hands. Her skin is chilled. "Tell me you know me," he said, desperation creeping into his voice. "Tell me what you remember, by the Six, please!"

"Your my c-cousin, Thaylius Ocas," she said. Her teeth were starting to chatter from the shock. "Can we go further in? I don't want to be seen."

Ocas swallowed again. "Yeah. Yes." He led her back further into the shop, going back into the forge. He himself was beginning to tremble. "You're shaking," he said, "are you cold? Where were you? What do you remember?" He knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help it. 

She collapsed onto a bench, grateful for the warmth of the forge. "I remember going to the market for flowers. I remember running when the attack started, trying to find a place to hide, and dying there. And then I remember walking down a farm road in Kessex. I didn't know who I was or how I'd gotten there. It's taken me some time to remember. Part of me didn't want to." Now that the trembling had subsided, the tears were starting to flow. She looked up at him. "Did I really die, Thay? Did I really die did I really die--" Her voice faded to a thin squeak as she asked it over and over, rocking herself back and forth.

Ocas sat down beside her, unable to take his eyes off her. He didn't understand, didn't understand anything, but here was Charlotte. This was the shape of her, the sound of her. This was -her-, in the flesh, but..."I saw the body," he said hoarsely. "We buried you...I saw it..." He reached for her and put his arms around her, trying to pull her in to hug him. "I don't--I don't know how you're here but..." He hugged her tighter. "Charlotte you're home."

She buried her face in his chest and sobbed. 

Ocas held her as tight to him as he could, burying his face in her hair. She -smelled- right. This had to be Charlotte. At that scent, the familiarness of her, Ocas himself broke down. He started crying, keeping his arms as tight around his family as he could. 

Finally Charlotte's tears seemed to exhaust themselves. She sat up, slowly and stiffly like an old woman, and looked around the forge in a daze. "I thought I must be mad. I still feel like I might be."

"I feel pretty much the same," Ocas said, running a shaking hand through his hair. "How could this possibly have happened? P-people die...they don't come back. But. You're here. And you're you."

"You're -sure- it was me you buried? Maybe the body was too-- too burned or--" She broke off, nauseated. "Maybe it wasn't my body."

"I-I'm pretty sure!" Ocas said, looking horror-struck, although the alternative was just as terrifying. "It was your body, Charlotte, I don't doubt it. I saw it with my own eyes."

She exhaled a shaky breath. "I don't know, then. I don't know. And I feel--I don't feel the same, Thay. I don't feel right. It's like I'm looking at everything through a pane of dark glass. Or touching things with gloves on. It's all... distant."

Ocas looked at her for a moment, then took her hand from her lap and squeezed it. He interlaced his fingers with hers. "This is real. You're here," he said, his voice low and determined. "Can you feel that? We're here together."

Charlotte bit her lip and nodded. "I don't know what to do now, though."

"You'll...stay with me for a while. Do you have a place to stay? Who cares. You'll stay with me for a while, and I'll...help you get back on your feet, help you feel more connected to things again. I'll take care of you, Charlotte." Ocas was babbling again, still holding tight to her hand. His eyes were still wet from tears, and he was focusing on her face like it was the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen.

Charlotte nodded a little manically, glad to have him take it out of her hands. "Okay. I'll stay with you." She looked up at him. "But you can't tell anybody! I don't--I'm not ready to see anyone else."

Ocas looked surprised, but he nodded. "I won't tell anyone," he said, slowly. "I...haven't spoken to any of the old crew in a while, anyway." He looked a little pale. "Oh, Charlotte, so much has happened since you...since you went away..."

She looked at his face as though really seeing it for the first time. "Tell me. It would be good to get my mind off of... everything else."

"I...I don't know..." Ocas stammered, looking down. He looked desperately ashamed. "It's not good, Charlotte. I did a lot of bad things while you were gone."

She gave him a tremulous smile. "Well, of course you did. I wasn't here to talk you out of them."

Ocas gave her an equally weak smile in return. "That's certainly true. I wish you had been here. I went real astray without you." He lowers his gaze and fidgets with a hole in his work pants. "...do you really want me to tell you?"

"I want to know what happened after I-- while I was gone. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, though." She waited for a moment. "I'll get it out of you eventually anyway."

"I slept with Donari," Ocas blurted. He looked up at her, looking like a miserable stray dog that had lost its way. "I'm sorry--after you d--after we thought you died, it was so hard, on both of us...we went to each other for support and one thing led to another..." Ocas covered his eyes with his hand. "I fell in love with him."

Charlotte's face bore no discernible expression. "That was foolish of you."

Ocas looked up at her. For a moment he couldn't say anything, then he said, "It was. It was very...stupid." He bit his lip. "Are you...angry?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm not angry." Her brow furrowed. "I should be angry, shouldn't I?"

"I don't know..." Ocas said slowly, watching her. There was something about this lack of reaction that made him worry even more than he had been. Charlotte was a powerhouse. She was passion on two legs. How did she lose all of it? Maybe being dead...did that to one. "I thought you would hate me for it."

"No, I don't at all. I'm only sorry that you fell into the same trap I did."

"Well I'm done with him," Ocas said quickly. "It was only a passing thing--of course that's all it could ever have been." He shut his eyes briefly. "I did get married to someone else," he said, hesitantly.

Charlotte raised her eyebrow quizzically at him. There is a hint of the old Charlotte in the expression.

"Um," Ocas says, getting to his feet, "maybe we should talk about this later. Why don't I take you home, we can...figure out what to do? And maybe I can help you find..." He trailed off. He was going to say, 'find yourself' or 'find out how to feel alive again' or something of that nature, but he didn't want to offend her. Offend her or make her sadder than she already seemed. Perhaps it wasn't sadness--perhaps it was just a lack of any emotion whatsoever. Ocas didn't want to think about that.

"Very well. I am tired. And-- I don't know what else." She rubs a hand across her forehead. "Nothing feels real. Nothing has felt real since I--I came back."

Ocas swallowed. "I want to help," he said softly. "Maybe I could help you feel like yourself again. We could go to the Coronet, maybe, or get some wine and cigarettes and chat?" He didn't sound like he believed either would help much, but he was desperate to do -something-.

"No!" she said harshly. "Not the Coronet." She took a breath and resumed more quietly, "I've already been by. There's nothing for me there now."

"Oh," Ocas said, and swallowed. "Well, then we won't go back there. That's fine. It's fine." He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Maybe you should just rest."

"Yes. A bed. And maybe some food. Perhaps tomorrow I'll feel ready for other things." She looked up at him, her eyes rather hollow in her thin face. She had clearly not been eating well. "I would like to feel like myself again. But I'm not sure I'll recognize it."

"I'll do my best to get you feeling that way again," Ocas said with a ghost of a smile. He held out his hand to her. "Let me take you home."