The explosion rends through the sea air, a cacophony of noise and light and in its wake, a massive wall of water barrels down on their ship. It rolls and bucks like a wild thing intent on tossing people free from its deck. Bodies spill into the ocean, quickly lost to one another beneath the churning swell.
Beneath the waves and tumbling in the tumult, Aislinn struggles to sort up from down. Her mind is sluggish, her limbs, leaden with exhaustion, are slow to comply. That overwhelming aetheric display of hers earlier may prove to be her undoing. She makes a bid for the surface but it’s no use, her vision darkens as the ocean steals the last of the air from her lungs and sends it rushing to the surface in a cloud of bubbles. How insulting, to know too late which direction the surface lie.
Rising had hissed as she hit the water, salt in her wound, hazy from blood loss. She manages to break the surface and quickly looks around for her allies.
No Cravendy, no Sosuke, no Aislinn, just Rhea clinging to the capsized hull and casting his gaze around them, looking for the others.
Just then, she catches a flash of red in the water beneath her and dives back down without another thought, grasping hold of Aislinn and tugging her back to the surface.
There would be no descent to a watery grave this day.
Getting information about Kazushige's current whereabout from the Maelstrom was like pulling teeth. Aislinn would not be disuaded, however, and though calm and methodical as her inquiries were, it soon became clear she wasn't going to be shaken off. Eventually, she had been directed here, to Camp Bronze Lake. She supposed that was a good sign. Bronze Lake was a spot of respite. Maybe Cravendy's concerns hadn't been as bad as she first thought.
After asking around the hot springs, she finds him up here, staring out over a cliffside ledge. The gravel crunched under her boots as she made her approach. But she remained behind the low fence. The memory of plunging from a cliffside is still a little too fresh in her mind, thank you very much
"Kazushige." She says, more than certain he had tracked her approach and was aware of her presence.
She's not wrong; he's aware of her approach as soon as he can be, but not as soon as he should be. It's her first clue that something is off, because he only turns to watch her approach once she's around the corner of the building--and he looks a little startled to see her there. He smooths that out of his expression with a blink. "Aislinn," he starts, low and pleasant enough, but there's a hesitant lilt as the sound tapers off. An unspoken question. Why are you here?
Kazushige no longer has a bandage wrapped snug around his head, but there's a small shaved section at the back of his head, a lumpy, healing gash against his scalp. His eyes are dark, he holds himself straight-backed but it's not as effortless as it usually is.
The startled look in his eye sends a disconcerted ripple through her. She’d very nearly surprised him. She shouldn’t have been able to. “I came to see how you’re doing.” She replied to the unspoken question as her sharp gaze sweeps over him, taking in the tell-tale signs that all is certainly not well. He’s making an effort, she’d give him that. “People back at Heartwood have been saying they’re concerned.
Kazushige smiles faintly, but it's placating. "I appreciate the concern, but I am well." It's such a well-practiced dismissal that it almost sounds genuine. He gestures slightly to their surroundings. "My injuries have been tended, and I expect to return to the field shortly." He steps away from the cliffside, back behind the barrier--perhaps so the conversation is a little less awkward for the distance, perhaps so he can start making a hasty retreat (though he doesn't, yet).
Aislinn tilts her head as she listens to the practiced tone. She would have believed him. But she believed Cravendy more. “I understand they have you paying off this debt. But they don’t have a right to run you into the ground, you know.” She can see him trying to discreetly edge his way around her and pins him with her gaze. “I made myself a nuisance with the Maelstrom to find you here. I can make myself a nuisance to you too.” She says but there’s a spark of stark, bone dry humor in her eye that makes it unclear as to whether she’d actually follow through.
Kazushige blinks slowly--and then tellingly enough, he looks away. His gaze settles somewhere on the crumbling ruins, the hills, the lake--anywhere else, and the silence stretches onwards between them, as though he's not sure how to answer her. He's a man with so many walls up between him and everyone else that it's difficult to find ways to say yes, or no, or help.
Kazushige's fingers flex lightly at his sides. "Ah. Heartwood as a whole is paying the debt, I am... merely in a position to help in more direct ways."
Aislinn waits him out. Unlike most, a little silence never bothered her, nor did she ever feel the need to fill it with a bunch of words. Besides that, she knows a little bit about putting on a face, going alone and getting on with it. As he turns to stare anywhere but at her, she takes a moment to get a better look at his head injury, but from this distance she can’t say whether they’d patched it up right or not. “I know all about the ‘position’ they have you in. Can’t say it sits right with me. How long do they expect you to keep this up? Until they get you killed?”
Kazushige's brow wrinkles downwards. There's a bitterness that creeps itself into his expression, and a weariness that combats it. He sighs quietly. "I imagine it is simply a matter of using what they have at their disposal when all resources are stretched thin." It's a reasonable assessment of his situation. A generous one, even. A frustrating one, too--maybe he should be angry. Maybe he /is/ angry, but he buries it under propriety and obedience.
Or maybe he just doesn't see himself alone as something worthy enough to be angry over. To fight for. "With luck, we'l see a resolution before it comes to that, however." He does give her a hint of a wry smile, there, so that's something.
Aislinn narrows her eyes at him, wordlessly asking him if he really believed that or any of the talk about utilizing what they had at their disposal. Inhaling a breath, she motions to his head. “Can I at least take a look at that while I’m here?” She asks. “Put my mind at ease and all that.”
At her scrutiny, his expression softens. Logically, sure, he believes it. Or rather, he believes that's what the Alliance tells themselves to make it easier. "Ah," he hesitates, and it's obvious there's no good reason for him to refuse. The tips of his claws dig slightly into his palms. "The Resonance reacts more often to aether," he warns her softly. Is it a gambit to get her to rethink the offer, or the truth? Perhaps it's both.
Aislinn watches him hem and haw, a flicker of doubt moving across her face. She studies him silently, trying to judge the truth of his words while weighing the risk. She shifts a bit, more of a resettling than anything. She’d come here for a purpose. She didn’t like leaving with it undone. She could, of course. Turn away. But its a level of selfishness she couldn’t live with. “All the same.” She says, tipping her chin up. “There a place you can sit around here?” She turns and glances around them. “Because let’s face it, I’m not getting a good look from way down here.”
Kazushige manages (just barely) to keep himself from deflating in the wake of her stubborn determination to see it through, but perhaps it shouldn't surprise him. For as stoic as he is, he always seems to bend to wills steelier than his own, and Aislinn is no exception. Her comment does get a quiet chuckle out of him. "There ought to be something, yes."
Aislinn follows Kazu to a small table surrounded by several stools. He takes a seat and she draws closer, her fingers gentle as they tip his head down so she can get a good look at the wound. “Does it still hurt?” She asks before proceeding, scrutinizing the stitch work and looking for signs that it may not have been healing right.
Kazushige dutifully, he leads them to an empty table, and takes a seat. It's easy enough to turn his back to her, but his motions are stiff and wary, his shoulder tight with stress. At this height, she can get a better look at the gash, at least--it's angry looking, yellowed with bruising that belies he was likely struck with something blunt. The stitching is adequate, but not meticulous, and from the look of things he's mostly been left to heal on his own, rather than with aether.
The sight causes a low, angry noise to tumble from Aislinn’s throat. Stitchwork with no sign of any attempt made to facilitate the healing of the wound with aether. “What the hells happened? Someone really managed to clock you from behind? And is this Resonance of yours the reason they refuse to use aether?”
Kazushige is silent in the wake of her questions. Either he doesn't know the answers, or he does and he's considering how best to phrase them. "I was caught unaware, yes. I was..." He trails off for a moment, shrugging one shoulder in lieu of shaking his head.
Kazushige closes his mouth instead. How does he admit that he's not sure exactly how bad the injury is, because the pain is being handled by the compound he's already on? He can feel it in his sluggish reflexes, in the limitations of his spatial awareness, in the lack of coordination of his movements, in the vertigo when he moves too quick. But pain? A dull soreness, as he'd indicated. He mulls it over in silence.
It makes a hot flare of defiant indignation on his behalf flare up under her surface. She lets it out in a huff of breath. “Look, I ain’t saying you and I probably don’t have some things to hash out, but I got more than a little respect for you, Kazushige. And if what I’m hearing is right, they’re using you like you’re disposable. And this bomb collar? Inhumane. You good with just wearing that thing for gods’ knows how long or until one of them has a bad day and hits the button?” As she speaks, she reaches out a tattooed finger. Halts. Fists her hand in hesitation and then gives herself an angry shake directed at herself this time. Was she really going to be like them when she knows she can do more for him? She begins writing an aetheric calculation across the wound, rerouting channels of aether to the site of injury.
Kazushige stiffens. Given that she's at his back, she likely sees the way the scales at the back of his neck start to bristle--though they're somewhat inhibited by the subdermal nodules affixed there to pair with those at the front of his throat, holding the whole thing in place. "What solution do you propose, Aislinn?" He asks carefully. "It--chafes," he admits through a clenched jaw, "but--what was the alternative?" He swallows, his tail coiling and folding itself around his ankle.
As the incantation settles, it's likely clear to her there's more than just the wound affecting him. There's a drug in his system, its influence thick and heavy in his bloodstream.
She was quiet as she concentrated. There was more at work here than just the head wound. Something was poisoning his system. She could leave it. The idea was laughable really. Aislinn fixed things, that’s what she did. Leaving the compound in his system wasn’t something she could do even though she knew it’d cost her more aether and therefore more risk. “It’s a piece of technology, Kazushige. Technology fails. All the time. Sometimes on purpose.” She said, hoping to get her point across. “I’m guessing something like that came from the Ironworks. I hear they’re really good about keeping their schematics organized.”
Kazushige: "And afterwards?" He asks quietly, "do you think they would simply allow me my freedom after it 'fails'?" His hands tighten on the hem of his yukata, working into the fabric as he feels her start to work on his wound.
“Do you really think after all this they’ll just remove the collar, clap you on the shoulder and wish you the best?” She countered. “I’m thinking you’re smarter than that.” She feeds cleansing aether through his system, making adjustments to her calculation on the fly, in hopes that she can neutralize whatever compound was dulling his senses.
Kazushige's jaw clenches hard at her words. Is he so naïve? Does he expect to be able to win his own freedom by playing by rules he's already witnessed firsthand were malleable, goalposts shifting nearer or farther all depending on the whims of the Alliance? No. He expects to be a tool to them, until he lives out his usefulness. But he doesn't see a way out.
"So what do you suggest? That I run? Did you suggest the same to--?" He bites back on the unexpected bitterness that creeps into his words, the name locked abruptly behind his teeth. He feels the soothing aether begin to wash over him, but it doesn't stop at the dull throbbing in the back of his skull as he expects it to. It starts to trickle through him, and his vision blurs for a moment. He ducks his head slowly into a hand, a sharp, familiar ache beginning to flare up behind his eyes.
She doesn’t need to think overly long to know who Kazushige was referencing. “No.” She says, her voice softening around the edges. Her sigh is a quiet sound. “I don’t know what I’m suggesting. Only that I can see where this road leads, Kazushige. I don’t want that.” She notices the moment his head dips. He’s clutching his head as if in pain. She pulls back her aether, concern flooding her. “Kazu? You alright?”
Kazushige breathes out as her aether withdraws. It leaves the ache behind, but it doesn't worsen--for the moment.
"I'm--alright." No. No, she wouldn't have told Florus to run. "I know where it leads, too, Aislinn." He speaks quietly, waiting for the ache to subside, but it just continues to throb static into his vision, hissing into his horns, even his voice sounds scratchy and distorted (though it isn't).
"I--" Awkwardly, he's at a loss. He's too proud for a bald-faced lie, but it's not easy to redirect a doctor when they've realized something is wrong.
She stops. Pulls back and circles around him, kneeling before him so she can get a good look at his face, trying to understand what was going on. Something was wrong, it was all over his manner, the way he held his head. Is this what he tried to warn her about? Or was this something else? “You don’t look alright. Keep breathing. How painful, 1-10? Be honest."
Aislinn: ((The memory Kazu would see through the Resonance: https://lettersnorth.tumblr.com/post/187623903402/prompt-9-hesitate
Kazushige: ((omg, wee Aislinn ;A; ))
Kazushige hears her. He hears her, and he watches her as she comes around and he wants to answer her, but when he opens his mouth to try, there's just a choked noise at the back of his throat as he lurches forward. He tries to catch himself on the table, but it's too late; he's slumping off the seat, and his awareness is lost in a memory.
To Aislinn's discerning experience, he looks for all the world like he's having a seizure--and if she's ever seen someone descend into the Echo normally, this is not like that. Whatever method had been used to graft this ability into Kazushige is brutal and inefficient, replicating a desired effect without mind to what it might do to the recipient. How it achieves this is difficult to say without an understanding of what, exactly, was done to him, and perhaps an understanding of the Echo, besides.
Eventually, it subsides.
A swift cry of alarm leaves her as he suddenly slumps forward. She tries to catch him but he’s a towering Au Ra and she is…decidedly not. Her small frame is knocked aside and her hip hits painfully against the wooden boards beneath them. She hasn’t seen him when the resonance takes hold but what she has seen in her colorful history are overdose seizures. This isn’t that, but, nevertheless, she pushes herself up and hurries to try and move Kazu onto his side, to tear off a nearby cushion from one of the chairs to place under his head. All the while, she tells him it’ll be fine. Just keep breathing. But she’s not sure if it’s him or herself she’s trying to convince. When it finally subsides, she pulls the flask of water from her hip and unscrews the top, setting it next to him. “Easy, now.” She says, her voice shaking along with the breakneck pace of her pulse.
It takes time for Kazushige to come back to himself, his breath shuddering and uneven. Echoes of pain pulse behind his eyes and rakes claws back along the inside of his skull, but slowly it begins to subside enough to where he registers Aislinn's presence. He feels more than he hears the sound of her water flask being set next to him, and carefully, he cracks his eyes open a fraction.
He grimaces, and while he should perhaps know better than to try and rise, he struggles to do so anyway, if only in an attempt to show that he's fine. He's fine. The constant throbbing dulls just slightly as vertigo assails him once he's sitting up, but better that than the alternative.
"I--I apologize," he says haltingly, as though that might do something for the alarm still writ in her features, as though he isn't the one worth worrying over. He's struggling to pull the stoicism he normally wears back around his shoulders, but it's all he can do to run a trembling hand down his face. The visions began in fragments, but now--now they were clearer than they'd ever been, but the fits and the pain were worse.
Dragging his hand away from his face, it drops to his side as he pats at his pockets and produces a small vial, a handful of capsules rattling inside the glass. Though he'd taken a dose already this morning, succumbing to one of the Echo visions always leaves the same migraine behind for bells afterwards, and it's only when he's fighting with the cork stopper that he hesitates.
"...these are, ah. Gentle Fist provided something for the migraines when they began," he starts to explain, although given the time frame, there's no way those were the same capsules Gentle Fist had made for him.
She stays there, sitting on the decking as he stubbornly pulls himself up. He doesn’t look half as steady as he’d like her to believe and she tenses, half ready to jump into action should he topple over again.
“Don’t.” She shakes her head in the wake of his apology. “Not like you didn’t warn me.”
She doesn’t ask what he saw. She doesn’t want to know. Like him, she’s adept at sweeping things under the rug. Shoving as much as she can under there and then carrying on. She’s made an art out of it.
When the vial of pills comes out, something in her hedges. She had read his medical file before coming out here, she knows Gentle Fist was providing him with pills to combat the constant migraines from which he suffered. But the math is all wrong. Kazushige had been with the Alliance long enough that whatever the Roegadyn had made for him surely must have run out by now.
“Wait.” She says, sharp and with half a mind to reach out and grab the vial from his hands. “The Alliance. They know about the migraines or the pills you need to hold them off?”
Kazushige meets her question with silence. He turns his gaze down to the bottle, rolling it between the calloused pads of his fingers. He exhales quietly, coming to terms with something internally. He could have tried harder to avoid this conversation (and perhaps obligation would have had him do so), but try as he might to appear otherwise, Kazushige is not a machine. He's not without self-awareness, as much as he tries to swallow over it or shove it aside--most of the time.
"They do. These are their make," he answers softly, "the migraines worsened as the Resonance was triggered more frequently." He might be able to wrangle his voice enough to sound steady and calm, but there's a storm in his expression. He stares hard at the vial, then lifts his gaze to meet her eyes, and perhaps it speaks into the silence for him. Perhaps it confirms her suspicions--but what can they do about it?
There’s a whole undercurrent of unspoken words that flows between them. Nothing needs to be said, he’s aware whatever is in those pills is more than just a cure for his migraines. And her lips fall into a thin, flat line. Because he was right, what could they do about it? And she can commiserate. It’s a helpless, impotent position she’s found herself in far too many times. But she hasn’t exhausted every avenue yet.
“They don’t get to just do what they want.” It’s more a defiant remark than any sort of truth.
Because didn’t they? Wasn’t that the privileged position of authority? To do whatever they felt, run roughshod over anyone caught on the outside and call it justice? But short of breaking Kazushige out of the collar and condemning him to a life as a fugitive, what exactly was she going to do? She had to stay within the lines to be of any real help whatsoever. At least for now.
“The agreement was you work off your debt. Not try and kill you by tossing you out on every suicide mission they can come up with. They’ve got to expect we’re going to have a problem with that.”
The alchemist in her rises to the forefront. “Do you mind if I take one back with me? I’d like to figure out what they’re dosing you with. Maybe I could make an argument from there in regards to your treatment, especially if they’re purposefully drugging you. Maybe pivot and wedge myself in here as your physician since they’re obviously doing such a piss poor job of it. I’m former Maelstrom, if it comes down to it. They couldn’t say I don’t have the training.”
Kazushige doesn't realize he's holding his breath as he listens to Aislinn, tension threading its way through every limb until he's so wound up it's only a matter of time before something snaps, if things keep going the way they are. Every time he catches that hint of defiance in Aislinn's words, however, it drags him a little closer to the surface of the mire he's drowning in. Just as Cravendy had, she reminds him there are always ways to fight back, even if he can't see them.
He breathes out, slow and unsteady. He works at the cork until it's free and dumps a handful of the capsules into his palm, offering them out in Aislinn's direction. They look innocuous. Benign. They both know this isn't the case, but even if the likelihood of foul play is high--it's not a given. It may well be that anything strong enough to deal with his migraines has side effects, but it is certainly worth knowing for certain.
"Tread lightly," he warns quietly, though she likely doesn't need to hear it, "the chirurgeons who have been providing these are not necessarily the ones who decided on the formula, or its purpose." They'd be a convenient scapegoat, however--even if the orders came from higher up the chain. Discrediting them might give Aislinn her in, regardless.
Aislinn appreciates the warning. It was a delicate balancing act, not to let her pursuit of answers or her frustration slip the rein and run away with her. But again, for the second time in recent memory, the reminder comes to her unbidden, that there wasn’t ever a problem that was solved by losing one’s head.
“I will.” She promises him as she pockets the pills.
She stays with him until he’s steady and, if not better, at least able to rise to his feet. She’s reluctant to leave, knowing what she’s leaving him to. But she also she knows right now it’s the only way to try and help him.
Kazushige seems to recover well enough, though he takes one of the capsules and chases it with a sip from the canteen Aislinn had left out earlier, offering it back to her once he's finished and back on his feet. It's obvious enough he's still trying to cling to the unbothered stoicism he usually wears as he rises, whether out of a sense of pride or, more likely, the comfort of familiarity.
It's increasingly clear there's an uncomfortable dichotomy between the face he presents often to Heartwood--a steady pillar of leadership--and the man he is beneath his obligations. He yields too easily to the desires and expectations of others, but maybe that's why he tries to hold himself apart. It begs the question of why he's here, why he's putting himself through this when he could escape, what he wants--if anything. Maybe he doesn't know.
He offers her a small smile, placating and automatic. "I will be well enough. The Maelstrom seems a little less willing to simply throw me to the wolves." The smile falters, splintering into something more raw. He glances aside, starts taking a step away from her along the wharf.
"...thank you." It feels inadequate.
It’s clear he’s grasping for that familiar cover of steady calm. Trying to pull it over him like a well worn blanket. Well, Aislinn can relate. Sometimes it's the only thing you can control when everything else seems out of your hands. And so, she lets him have it.
“Of course.” She murmurs as she rises and it almost seems equally automatic. “Though, I hope I can have something to show that will warrant thanks.” That, was a little more honest.
Again, she seems reluctant to leave him in this drugged state, senses dulled that otherwise could be used to keep him alive on these punishing missions Cravendy told her of. But the sooner she finds the answer, the sooner she can return and be of real help.
She leaves him with the same optimistic words Cravendy gave her, “Just like every time we deal with shite, we’ll all live past this mess.” There’s a tightness in her chest that says even if she had her doubts, she really just wanted to believe it.
Then, with a nod, she takes her leave, assuring him once more. “I’ll be back soon.”
Lin rested. Like she told Nyscera she would. A whole evening in which she didn’t do hardly any work at all and fell asleep at a reasonable bell. The next day, she makes her way to the clinic to do the rounds she put off and pokes her head into Cravendy’s partition to see if she’s awake. She does this by very medical, very professional means. “You awake?” Sometimes it doesn’t need to be complicated.
Cravendy is awake! And she has, in fact, already bullied the medical staff to let her out occasionally to presumably get drunk. Cravs does a good job of looking like she’s okay so, even though her bones are mending together like shattered porcelain, strength of personality combined with her officer authority is enough to sneak by.
It’s a different story if Lin is doing her rounds though...but thankfully, Cravs is resting up at the moment. She’d answer back in response. “Aye! Come pull up a chair. Just sittin’ ‘ere doin’ nothin’ for the ‘undredth time, burnin’ the seconds away.”
Aislinn enters the room, her eyes falling on the wide brimmed straw hat Cravendy wore. Given the setting, it’s out of place to say the least but something about it has Aislinn giving a wistful, passing smile. “Resting up is like that. Honestly, you’re lucky after a hit like that a few broken ribs is all you took.” She says with her blend of frank honesty as she takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “I’d ask how you’re feeling but it sounds like you’re just itching to get out of here. Probably a good sign.”
Cravendy snorts lightly with a smile. “I agree. Personally don’t enjoy fistfightin’ above my weight class with a steel giant, but...” She lets out a breath. “Yeah, it’s pretty dumb. Will make a good story, though!”
Cravendy rests a hand over her chest and tugs slightly on her dangling earring. “Crazy as it might be, we’ve ‘ealed through worse. I’m determined to get better fast though, since there’s dark tidings just beyond the ‘orizon. The towers ain’t just ‘ere after all, and there’s one in La Noscea.”
“Stories are something we do have in spades. A bit of a silver lining, I guess.” Aislinn deadpans as she watches Cravendy fidget with her earring. “I’ve heard. Desert’s got a few too. We supposed to go visit them all?”
“All of ‘em are bein’ dealt with one way or another by the Alliance, but whichever ones Heartwood ends up visitin’, I’m not sure,” Cravs responds while twisting the red fabric of the earring around her index. “...Hah. I may’ve made ye mad already by checkin’ myself into the clinic so late, but I also snuck out to visit Kazushige too. Before ye rail on me, let me pass on what I learned.”
“First off, the guy’s bein’ taken care of by Alliance medics. I don’t like ‘ow ‘e’s bein’ treated with ‘em, which is a problem in and of itself, but that’s another issue.” Cravs releases the earring and returns her hand to her lap, feeling listless and fidgety. “Anyway, next up is La Noscea, and after that there could be more. I ‘ave no idea if we’re doin’ somethin’ similar to this time.”
Cravendy looks forward in a daze, focusing on something far away but approaching. “Supposed to be some kind of lunar Leviathan tormentin’ the lands. So.” She blinks, refocusing her gaze on Lin. “I plan on bein’ there, specifically.”
Aislinn listens in the quiet way of hers with those eyes doing their fair share. It’s often what isn’t said that’s just as important. Aislinn has several questions but she starts with the easiest. “Why’s Kazushige being treated by the medics? What’s happened to him and what do you mean how’s he treated?” She asks, feeling a protective surge in her small frame. It wasn’t like she didn’t have her issues with Kazushige, because she did. But he was one of them at the end of the day. If something was amiss, she wanted to know.
Cravendy shrugs, feeling as though her own hands are tied. There wasn’t much she, an ex-pirate working off her own debt of issues, could offer Kazushige except advice. “First off, there’s the whole bomb collar shite, and it ain’t just there to prove some point. ‘e ‘ad a big ‘ead injury when I saw im, too. Think they’re sendin’ ‘im to do the most dangerous jobs, like ‘e’s expendable or...if ‘e dies, then it’s worth it to save Alliance lives.”
“That’s my read anyway. I know ‘e used to be with the Empire, but we all ‘ave ghosts in our past. Who ‘e was, who ‘e is, it doesn't justify...this. But what do I know. I’ve always played fast and loose with the law.”
Aislinn glances away, a tight frown marring her face. “What else are you supposed to do when the law stomps on you like that?” She murmurs. Inhaling a breath, she shakes her head. “Don’t we get any say in how he’s treated? At this rate they’re going to get him killed.”
“Falls on deaf ears,” Cravs mutters bitterly. “...Maybe they’d listen better to ye, though. ‘ard to say. There’s a ‘ost of ‘ard choices to make.”
Cravendy crosses her arms loosely. After a pause, she’d speak quietly, ensuring any others in the clinic wouldn’t be able to overhear. “The world might be in danger or whatever, but if there’s a choice between ‘im and others...then I would choose both or die tryin’. And ‘owever ‘e can find freedom from this situation, that’s where I’ll toss my weight.”
Which includes supporting less than legal cover ups. Cravs doesn’t explicitly say this, but it’s hinted at. Ultimately, it’s up to what Kazushige has up his sleeve though. She sighs, pining for peace again.
Aislinn doesn’t have any more faith than Cravendy does in her ability to make the Alliance listen. “Don’t know why they would but I can go try.” She pauses, listening intently as Cravendy spoke. “Choosing both isn’t a choice at all though, is it?” She replies, her voice equally low. “No one gets to have it all and trying to is how you lose both …but I’m with you on finding a bit of breathing room. The Alliance is getting a little too close for comfort. I’m not liking it. First the Adders, now the Maelstrom,” Aislinn’s gaze flicked away. It was too close for comfort. For a variety of reasons. Seemed like cover-ups and misdirections were the order of the day. “Puts us in some difficult spots.”
Cravendy lifts her chin slightly and presses her lips into a thin smile. Her eyes speak a wary and hardwon determination that looks both fearful and confident, like she’s fully aware of the folly of the path she’s pushed all her chips in. “...That’s what most’ll tell ye. Wish for the world and ye get nothin’. I get it...”
Cravendy: “...but now, I’d rather be a dumbarse and fight for that anyway. No matter ‘ow low the chances.” She laughs. “Was never good at math, anyway. That’s more up yer avenue.”
Cravendy gives Lin a glance, observing her reaction. She had some inkling of the other woman’s past - not all the details, but enough. “Wouldn’t be wild to expect the Immortal Flames. This conflict ‘as the whole world on fire, and so far, it's been bringin’ all kind of stuff to light.”
Aislinn sighs, low. Ever the pragmatist. Cravendy was right. She was always the overly cautious one, weighing the odds and hedging the bets. Then Cravendy went and said the very thing she had been thinking. The Immortal Flames. And maybe the cartel had paid for her bounty to go away, if she wanted to believe Sterling on that. But did she really want her past coming to light and a whole host of other charges besides murder they could haul her in for? She tenses and shifts her attention back to the Seawolf, a shrewd sort of calculation behind her eyes. “Pretty sure we can both agree we don’t need the Flames coming to the party. But I can’t be the first one to tell you our math doesn’t often work out when we bite off more than we can chew.” She rubs a thumb absently against the palm of her other hand, worry creasing between her brows. “This is going to be a mess, anyway you look at it."
Cravendy gently knocks her fist against Lin’s shoulder, hoping to bat her out of the anxiety that’s taken hold. Cravs assumes Lin is always battling against it beneath that facade of calm, and she’s making that assumption right now. Even if she can’t always catch it (because everyone is woefully good at hiding these things), Cravs functions on gut feels nowadays. “‘Ey. If the Flames come, it’ll just be like everytime we deal with ‘em. We’ll all live past this mess.”
Cravendy Hound: “Yeah. But between bitin’ off more than we can chew in the ‘opes of makin’ a difference, and shyin’ away from risk to let someone else make a muck of things...It’s tirin’ as hell, but I don’t mind. Cause at the end of the day, whether it’s us or another, these problems don’t go away.”
Blinking, Aislinn is jolted to one side but the physical contact does what Cravendy intended and it stops the spiral of thoughts. She passes the woman a grateful barely-there smile. She’d only just gotten rid of the Yellowjackets, she doesn’t need to sort out the Flames yet. And hopefully never. “Nymeia willing.” She agrees. Sort of. It’s a non-committal response from a pragmatist. *There’s only did and didn’t happen.* Old advice rumbling in her head. She shakes herself and turns the conversation. “We’ll put a pin in that. But the least I can do is go see what I can do for Kazushige.” She then tilts her head towards the Seawolf. “But tell me why these towers are setting you off? You weren’t right before we hit the one in the Shroud, you’re nervous about the one in La Noscea. You’re off on benders. What’s going on?” She asks, allowing her concern to color her voice. Aislinn could make a guess. She knew what had happened to Cravendy’s crew. But she leaves the question open ended.
Cravendy feels her eyelids get heavy from current exhaustion and what she anticipates, but being tired is better than being overwhelmed with panic. She has a plan and it isn’t running away anymore. Her fears lie at the end of this road, but somehow, that feels better than avoiding it perpetually.
“Always went on benders!” she starts. A chuckle leaves her. “Though yer right, not to this extent I suppose.” Another long pause stretches between them as Cravs feels around for the right way to put things. “Ye know, I never got over it. Tempering. Bein’ tempered. The what-ifs and who might still be alive if I didn’t run from Leviathan all those years ago,” Cravs continues, voice quiet and toneless. “...Primals. They never stopped bein’ at the root of this -- I don’t know! This trash?” She throws up her hands in frustration, then points to her own heart.
Cravendy shakes her head, deep forest curls falling over her eyes. “I see this as a second chance to prove that I’ve grown past this. That this time, I’ll stay, and I’ll make a difference, and I /won’t/ regret anythin’. That I’ll stay with my crew.” She falls back against a pillow braced against the bedframe with a huff. “That’s all it is, Lin. That’s all.”
Aislinn stares down into her lap as she takes that in. There’s something to be said for swearing you’ll get it right this time. And she’s the very last person who can say anything against how Cravendy’s going about it. “Something to be said for proving something like that to yourself.” She lifts her head and meets Cravendy’s exhausted gaze. “Just don’t burn yourself down in the proving.” She says, like she knows something about it. Then she nods and gets to her feet.
Cravendy looks about ready to crash and sleep was always the best medicine. She saw the irony and ignored it. “Until La Noscea just take it easy in the meantime so those ribs aren’t causing you problems by then, alright?”
Cravendy rests her gaze on the area beneath Lin’s eyes and then, after a breath, looks up. “I won’t do anythin’ I don’t ‘ave to. Got plenty I ‘ave planned for after this, so ye don’t ‘ave to worry! I ain’t the same lily-livered person anymore. I’ll...” Cravs looks mostly certain, but there’s a hint of doubt still lingering within her. What if she isn’t enough? What if she’s fooling herself? She won’t know for certain until the pressure is on. “I’ll fight. For myself, and for those I let down. But, Lin.” She exhales deeply and it helps. It leaves her with a fond look on her face as she regards her friend. “Ye’ll be there to support me, right?”
Cravendy laughs mutely to herself and looks up at the ceiling with her eyes closed.
Aislinn deciphers the hesitation that flickers behind Cravendy’s eyes. Because she knows it. Intimately. She leans forward and presses a hand against the Seawolf’s shoulder. “You’ll do what you set out to do. Because you’re right. You’re not the same person you were when you showed up here. You’re more.” She says, her quiet voice even, as if this was simply an immutable matter of fact and she was just the one pointing it out.
It’s Lin’s turn to surprise Cravs with a touch. Her eyes blink open when Lin meets her shoulder, and she reaches up to pat Lin’s hand twice, comforting and being comforted. Cravs grins because she can’t find the words initially. “...Thanks. It’s...thanks to ye,” she admits. “To a lot of others, too, but ye’ve been there all this time.”
Cravendy remembers a time when she was so against saying thanks that she’d literally run than say it. A time when she avoided things she enjoyed because it went against her image. She doesn’t know if she’s ‘grown’ or if she’s shed those inhibitions, but she doesn’t think the wording matters. Another obstacle and another plan to overcome it - that’s what she’ll focus on for now, for Lin. For Wyda.
Most of all, for herself. Slowly but surely, she’s working towards someone she’s happy being.
Aislinn’s lips kick up at one corner as she nods, taking Cravendy’s thanks with a faint color rising across her face. She gently squeezes her shoulder and then lets go and straightens. “Bit of a long way from where this all started ain’t it? Intend to be here with you a while longer too. Figure by now, we can get each other out of just about anything.” She chews her lower lip and then nods again. “Get some rest. We’ll figure a way out of this mess one way or another.”
Cravendy chuckles again. “Why ‘ave we been through so much anyway? Nymeia and Llymlaen tagteamin’ on us, got a bone to pick? Seven hells.” She sinks deeper into the covers with a good-natured, toothy grin. “One mess after another, but we’re veterans in dealin’ with this kinda shite at this point, aye? Enough shite to make me laugh.”
Cravendy: “But one day, we’ll take a day off and let nothin’ ‘appen for once. Just watch the blue sky, an’ all that.”
Aislinn makes a noise of agreement. "Gotta laugh. Alternative is to just go crazy."
A few more words would be exchanged before they’d part ways. Adversity awaits, but both are well aware, and when you’ve felled ‘gods’ and/or cheated death countless times, anything feels possible. This hope is hard-won and a survivor.
Alchemy was a science. Creative interpretation could only be achieved through thorough understanding of the rules. A small amount of foxglove could encourage a weak heart to work harder, more than that would have the opposite effect, bringing on palpitations, malaise and death. There was a structure and an order to it all.
Science though it was, there was something of the divine in it. The ability to create something greater than the sum of its parts or deconstruct and unveil what lay hidden. Like most of her work, when Aislinn stood at the alchemical workbench in the clinic her world dwindled down to powders and tinctures. The murmur of the distillation process, the world of possibilities held in a dropper of fluid.
For suns she had been painstakingly grinding up the pills Kazushige had given her. Testing and weighing, pulling apart the individual regents until she could read the powder like a fortune teller read a person’s fate in the bottom of a tea cup.
What she found was more than she had feared. Aside from what she expected, given Gentle Fist’s original formula, a steroid to handle the inflammation and a compound known to reduce the severity of seizures, there were also several classes of chemicals she knew were abnormal and outside the realm of typical Shroud alchemy. Synthetic and, if she had to guess, of Garlean make. Perhaps it wasn’t too surprising to find in a remedy meant for a Resonant.
What was surprising, and disturbing, was the amount of Dreamflower contained in each dose. It was an element Aislinn was more than passing familiar with, having spent a considerable amount of time maintaining the machines her cartel ran to refine the plant. And before that, running somnus all over Thanalan. The dose contained in the pills was enough to coax a dangerous dependency. Even if Kazushige stopped now, he’d suffer debilitating withdrawal symptoms.
She could back it off slowly. Lessen the dosage with each set of pills and supplement it with a safer painkiller. It would still take weeks. Longer than she would like but what choice did she have?
The only silver lining in all of this was that she had a glaring infraction of the law in her hands. As she was only too aware, Dreamflowers were an illegal substance. And someone in the Alliance was using them to drug Kazushige for reasons unknown.
“...That’s what most’ll tell ye. Wish for the world and ye get nothin’. I get it...but now, I’d rather be a dumbarse and fight for that anyway. No matter ‘ow low the chances.” She laughs. “Was never good at math, anyway. That’s more up yer avenue.”
Cravendy gives Lin a glance, observing her reaction. She had some inkling of the other woman’s past - not all the details, but enough. “Wouldn’t be wild to expect the Immortal Flames. This conflict ‘as the whole world on fire, and so far, it's been bringin’ all kind of stuff to light.”
The Immortal Flames. Did Aislinn really want her past coming to light and a whole host of other charges besides murder they could haul her in for? She tenses and shifts her attention back to the Seawolf, a shrewd sort of calculation behind her eyes. “Pretty sure we can both agree we don’t need the Flames coming to the party.
