#interactions: puck

[harrowing-hatter-a]

OWED STARTER: @bloodtwin (PUCK)

Barbarians were undeniably useful.

Especially when paired with intellectuals like himself. Wizards and warriors, Artificers and Barbarians: there was strength in such unlikely symmetry. What he needed was not a mere accomplice, but a shield. A loyal protector to stand between him and the chaos of battle, to hold the line while he summoned his inventions or raised his arcane engines of destruction. Gortash was not a man of brute reflex, nor did he delude himself into thinking otherwise—but by the gods, he was a man of exquisite calculation.

The foul-blooded girl, however—Karlach, was it?—had made herself a rather spectacular disappointment. A pity, really. She was a formidable creature—but so certain of her grievances against him, as if her indignation were a matter of divine right! Gortash found that he preferred the unhinged to the uncooperative; madness could be molded, obstinance could not. He kept such a thing in mind when approaching Puck.

“Cold water and salt,” Gortash hummed, placing a bucket before his companion—a peace offering of some kind, complimented by the easy smile on his face. “If you ever intend to lift the blood from your armor, this should do more than suffice. And I, should you wish, would be glad to lend a hand.”

He gestured gracefully to the spot beside Puck. “May I?”

[harrowing-hatter-a]

OWED STARTER: @bloodtwin

Caasimir’s hands were still shaking.

They had been since Alfira’s disappearance. The memory clung to him like blood under the nails—her face frozen in horror, mouth agape, entrails draped grotesquely over her chest. And the warmth he’d felt staring at it—that was the worst part. Her blood had dried in the grass days ago, trampled by the boots of oblivious companions. No one questioned it. No one looked down.

He hadn’t cleaned it.

He couldn’t.

He needed to confess. To unburden. But who could hear it without casting him out? Who would listen to a man who couldn’t even trust his own hands?

Then… there was Puck.

Cass didn’t trust wild cards—but something about their shared amnesia, the quiet chaos around Puck—it all nagged at him. This wasn’t just the tadpole. The man had punted a squirrel unprompted.

Was that lunacy? Or something darker, like Caasimir?

He approached, voice soft but heavy, keeping to the hush of the abandoned village they scouted.

“Puck,” Cass murmured, with a rare weight to his usually velvet tone. “Might I muse on a hypothetical?” he asked, carefully. “Say—someone were… uncommonly bloodthirsty. Uncontrollably so. And perhaps they did something unforgivable.” He paused, watching Puck’s face. “Strictly hypothetical, of course.”

His voice dropped further. “Would that sound…familiar to you?”