makinglies | Respite

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faerun

Respite

The lake is dark and calm with a small breeze by the time they arrive at its shores. The stars above reflect perfectly in the still waters before them, and a small copse of trees lines one side, starting on their side of the river and jumping along the other side.

Chris takes a moment to re-prepare the spell he hadn't been able to cast in five years and gestures vaguely to the area around them as a suggestion for what the others can do. Gathering in the forest, sitting on a nearby over-turned log, it didn't matter to him. What he needed was an hour without interruption.

He settles down on the ground and presses his hands together as he closes his eyes to focus on the image in his mind. Within minutes, the white, shimmering outline of a large building forms in thin air. The gentle glow of its light barely spreads from the growing structure.

As promised, it takes the full hour before the slowly filling-in form is complete and finishes with a jaunty, echoing click.

Chris takes a breath, now sitting in front of the stoop that looks annoyingly like the one he'd passed earlier in the night, and gets back onto stiff legs as the glow fades away, leaving smooth, but otherwise unremarkable, white stone behind.

"Here we are. Home for the next however long we need. I'll start working on food and water next." Once they're inside, anyway, which is why he takes back his things from where he'd left them and leads them into the temple, marked only with the carving of ravens on the black wood of the double doors.

Inside is something just shy of opulence. The same polished white stone makes the walls, though black and gold veins course through the marble. The floor is the inverse, a black stone with white, shimmering speckles like a night sky if looked at for long enough. A single window faced East high up on the wall. The temple was alight with sconces at regular intervals along the walls, illuminating an open area that held all the offerings of comfort Chris could think of.

A large hot-springs-like bath, complete with a miniature waterfall, took up the left side of the room and ran into a smaller, similar bath at dog-height. Next to it, covered by a retractable screen, was a shower. Along the back wall, a raven's head emblazoned the white wall in black and watched out over a set of tables, chairs, and a couple of sofas. The majority of the center was clear for walking, but the right edge and right side of the room held a deeply inset pit of pillows, cushions, and blankets in various soft (black and purple) fabrics.

Finally, in the middle of the right-hand wall, there were two closed doors that, when inspected, revealed one room with a large, soft chair and rug, while the other room was made of nothing but stone with jars, pitchers, and plates on shelves along two walls and a cork wall perfect for catching daggers on the other side.

"I hope it works for everyone. I didn't...I didn't make separate bedrooms this time. I didn't figure we would need them tonight."

♥

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He's quiet a moment too long, long enough to overhear Poppet cleaning herself on his shoulder.

"Not...not intentionally...but not without being aware, either." Which doesn't help. His grip goes tighter on Wolfe's hand, a quiet request for a beat of more time as he gathers his thoughts.

"I just...I thought you gone. One way or another. Either you were gone for good and I was facing heartbreak for the confirmation, or you were gone without your memories and I was facing you looking at me with eyes that did not know me...something I'm not good at handling, historically. Either way, I was more prepared for those options than your sudden barging through a door as we thought to be leaving. I haven't...I'm still grieving you. It's hard for me to let that go in an instant. I am afraid to be hurt again, even though I don't blame you in the slightest. I'm sorry, I know that's not fair."

There's more, things he's not even sure where to start with, but that was the core of it and what made it harder to look at Wolfe too long or dwell on the feeling of being near him. He couldn't slot back into place a hole that had jagged edges.

"Nothing ever is," he replies with a tight smile. It's not fair that all he'd wanted the whole time he was captive was to see them again, see Chris again. Thoughts of being reunited had sustained him, were possibly even why he'd lasted as long as he did. Knowing they were waiting for him meant he couldn't give up, he had to keep trying. And he did. He managed to escape and reunite with them in a daring getaway from Duplicity entirely. It should have been a happy ending to a horrid chapter of their lives and instead its just... life. It's pain, it's worry, it's old wounds that don't heal when you desperately want them to be closed.

"It's alright. I do understand. It'll just take time." Time neither of them want to take, he's sure. Maker - Gods, whoever- what he wouldn't give to skip past this part and reach where they can talk hand in hand without his feeling like he's holding Chris captive. He almost let's go, at that thought, but he doesn't want Chris to think he's pulling back in response to all this. He settles for loosening his grip, but his fingers still thread through Chris'.

"Will you at least talk to me? I'm worried about what's echoing in your head."

Wolfe’s grip loosens and he feels a cold rush in his veins…but his partner doesn’t pull away completely and that keeps the ice from settling.

He wants to apologize again, promise that the time won’t be long or that there’s one sure way to fix it, but he doesn’t want to lie or make promises he can’t keep. He doesn’t know…and he hates that too.

Instead, he brings Wolfe’s fingers up to kiss his knuckles.

“You’re still my partner and my friend. Any reticence to talk to you about what’s in my head is just me being…me. That I can promise you.”

So saying, he sighs. “I’m sure you can guess, you’re too good at reading and knowing me. There’s guilt still, even if I know our situation -having few resources- isn’t my fault. I feel like I can’t stop working until you’re all at least stable and have clothes on your back and food on your plates. I should be able to offer that much.” And despite that very real and present problem…there was his guardians. His purpose. His twin. All no longer his.

But that’s too selfish to bring up when it’s not only he who’s swallowing that reality. His just happened to only be an hour south and yet years away.

"You're right, it isn't your fault. Nor is having to refigure where you stand in your own world," Wolfe's gaze strays down the bank, towards the direction they'd come to set up the temple. Chris' city was burning, still needs to recover, and it will but now without him. Or rather, with who he thought he was but is not. There's an enormity of that question if who they are and where they fit that seems so much more immediate for Chris, whose answer used to lie just a few miles away where someone he thought he used to be is taking that role instead.

"You don't have to offer anything but who you are, Love. None of us expect you to have all the answers. If there's anything we're all good at its surviving, and with the quests before us we'll be able to do a whole lot more than that. We wouldn't even be on this path if it weren't for you. Specifically you." Wolfe brings his gaze back around to Chris and squeezes his fingers gently. "Though I am sorry about your Guardians. Especially your sister."

He doesn't have a brother anymore either, however strained that relationship. He understands.

He squeezes Wolfe’s fingers back but grits his teeth past the sudden lump that threatens the back of his throat.

“She’s not my sister. She’s his sister. They’re still the same age.”

It comes out without his consent and it sounds so petulant outloud, even if that was precisely the part that hurts the most. He’s not even a twin anymore.

“I think I hoped we weren’t aging in Duplicity because it would mean I wasn’t older than her…but it doesn’t even matter now. She can have the home she always wanted and deserved…and I can try and do the same for us. I don’t just want us to survive, we’ve done that for years. I want us to live.”

A frustrated ‘tsk’ escapes him and he reaches his other hand up to pet poppet to try and keep his frustration low.

“To that end, i hope Amelia gets on that page soon, it’s like she’s stopped being herself entirely and is relying on survival to make her decisions for her instead of actually bothering to try. And, no, you don’t need to corner her next, you’re still recovering and not our repair man.”

"I wasn't going to. She'll figure it out, but part of that is letting her be a mess. She needs to fling her emotions around like paint, and its worse that she doesn't let herself." Just like Chris needs an outlet but refuses to find one, like holding the end of an overfull balloon without tying it off. "I'll be there for her in whatever ways I can, cornering or otherwise, because that's what I can do to help. I'm not trying to fix anything. I can't fix anything, just try to make it less bad."

He lets that sit for a moment, discomforted by it as much as he imagines Chris is.

"I'm supposed to be six years, nine months, and fifteen days older than my brother," he adds abruptly. "Only I'm not his brother. But I still feel some sort of way about now being fourteen years older than the boy I still think of as family, and I'll never see him again, even if I wanted to. You could."

Which carries so much weight from where Wolfe is standing. Its nothing like a contest, but instead an acknowledgement that this is so much harder when the people you want to see, the people written so deeply into your memories, aren't really yours. Even if they know your face, they don't know you, and Chris can still see Rhyt. But to what end? There's a hopelessness in that that Wolfe wants to acknowledge, just so Chris knows someone understands. That there's nothing abnormal about him for coming back to that.

And there it was: the very reason he didn’t want to discuss this at all. Regardless of everything, he could still see them all. His grip loosens and his other hand falls from Poppet as she hops up into his hair to nest.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He genuinely wished they could trade. Not having them so nearby would be easier.

And that was quite enough of that topic. He could feel his chest clench for it. Foolish.

“I’ve no room to complain on any of it. I at least get to focus on you all and possibly even do a little of something I want instead of what I’m meant to do.” And figure out who he is without all of that. But that was his lowest priority, he still had enough of ‘him’ to keep going.

"That's not at all what I meant," Wolfe groans, not allowing Chris to pull away. Instead he tugs him closer, wanting to yank him into a hug but thinking the better of that before he does given how Chris said explicitly he's going to need time to be close again. "It's harder for you, knowing they're right there and you can't see them because you're right there as well. Another you thats younger and more foolish and is going to make all the mistakes you know better than to make now and you can't stop them because you're someone else now, you're improved, but you don't get the things that are supposed to come with that because you're not that person. And the rest of us can move forward from that, maybe let it fade into the background, but you're always going to know that on that spot is the life you might have had, the family you should have had, if some assholes from a different plane hadn't cloned you from the ether. And you'll feel the asshole for missing them because you love the family you gained because of all that. But it won't make you miss that family or that city or that life any less."

Realizing he's gotten agitated, gesturing with his free hand back towards what will become Deismyr and trying to catch his breath, Wolfe presses his mouth shut for a moment, trying to regroup. He hadn't meant to get so wound up. He'd meant to be calm, a rock, a stalwart force. Instead he'd ended up nearly yelling at Chris over understanding how he feels.

He lowers his voice to just between them, gently taking Chris' other hand in his and hoping he doesn't notice the tremble in them. "But I'm glad you have a chance to do things for yourself. Sail, maybe. See the Sea of Fallen Stars. All the things you told me you wanted to see and do. I hope that's not tainted by the fact you have the chance to do it at all."

Wolfe's sudden outpouring of feeling is bth too much and the lance to the blister he needed. Wolfe did get where Chris' head was at, of course he did...but a petulant part of him still slightly resented being told his own emotions.

"If you already know what's in my head, why bother asking me to say it?" It's not said as coldly as it might have come for someone else, there's a tiredness in it mixed with fond resignation.

"I do love how passionate you can get on my behalf, even at me." Just to try and smooth that sudden self-awareness he could see in his partner and the tremble he could feel in the grip on him. He needs to offer more, he knows. Wolfe needs more from him, even if he can't be Amelia, he can be better than this.

He takes his hands back once he makes it clear he's reaching up to place them on either side of Wolfe's face.

"You're right, it's always going to hurt. There will be days I expect I'll get lost in my wondering about how they're doing or what they're doing. When I'm brave enough, I might even wish to walk the streets to see how they've been built and how things are going myself...but I still wouldn't not trade any one of you to get that life back. If we are copies, then this is my life. That was my life before, but the last five years has been the basis of my life and going forward, whatever else I do or see or achieve, it will be with all of you. We all need time to grieve what we thought we had, what we thought we were going back to. I promise I will just as I promise there will always be a small part of me that belongs there."

One of his hands sweeps up through Wolfe's hair. "But you and Jon and Amelia have the rest of me. You have my focus and care and love and protection. To the point you all might almost wish I had a whole city to focus on instead." That energy he'd been expecting to put into his people and community would go somewhere, might as well go into his new community and the people he intended to keep forever.

That thought has his expression shifting to a sad smile.

"Honestly, I pity him. I know how lonely he feels, even surrounded by his Guardians. I know he fears facing service to his god alone for eternity. I know he feels out of place among his people, and I know he doesn't know the sweetness of security in the arms around him. I'll miss what I've lost, but it's nothing compared to what I've gained."

"Maybe I needed to hear it too," Wolfe mumbles in reply, trying to combat the thought that its weakness to admit. They're all feeling it. Wanting confirmation of that isn't a bad thing. Chris is rught though, he could have just asked.

Chris' hands touch his face and the torrent of emotion in Wolfe's chest settles to a ripple. Its a wonder how Chris manages to do that with a touch. "I don't begrudge you any of it, I only wanted you to know you're not alone, no matter how you might feel it. You don't have to provide all solutions by yourself, my heart."

He smiles a little too, daring to give a small kiss to Chris' cheek. "And if you're worried that I'll ever grow tired of receiving your attention, Im sorry to tell you that you're not as smart as you think you are."

As if he'd ever be upset with Chris' full attention. However much he thrives on it, he can understand the worry though, given how the depths of his own affections has made all of his partners balk at least once. He can't blame them either; he had to learn to tone it down.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Wolfe simply allows himself feel Chris' hands on his face. He brings his hands loosely to Chris' wrists, feeling the soft skin against his rough thumbs. Its still quiet, but in the alive way of the natural world. The gentle lap of water, birds calling to each other as they dive for morning bugs over the lake, the soft breeze that ruffles his hair...

The gentle tap of a paw on his forehead.

Startled, Wolfe blinks his eyes open to find Poppet has reached out with one if her fuzzy little legs and planted it directly on the worried crease in his forehead.

Wolfe's face under his hands, the calloused and loose hold on his wrists, it feels like it used to. Like it was before he'd vanished and that is heartening. It's the first time he's really felt that since getting Wolfe back other than the little assurances here and there. This feels like them again, even the annoyance.

He's tempted to kiss Wolfe then and there when he's distracted by the sight of a little fuzzy paw on his mage's forehead.

"Ah. See, I think she disagrees, I am as smart as I think I am, I'm just not always right about everything. Most things, mind, but a few slip through the cracks. Whatever else, I'm only human."

He looks out at the lake and nods back to where they're meant to be headed. "And I'm done talking about me right now. We should keep on. If the others bring game back, we probably ought to gather wood for a fire, at least. Did you want to volunteer your own fears and issues for the table discussion, love?"

Chris' flippant reply pulls a chuckle from Wolfe as he draws back, giving Poppet a pet to her head and then shoving his hands in his pockets as they turn further towards the way around the lake. "I didn't grab a hatchet, if we have one, and I'm not keen on blunting my staff's blade when we're goings to fight in the morning. Think you can handle the wood with your scythe?"

They'll have to lug it back, too. Surely a little magic won't hurt...

Or it might, which brings him to what he might answer to Chris' question of his fears. Tranquility had always been something he was afraid of but it was rarely an imminent threat for him. He was never in the Circle, he was never captured save once and that was by a mad Duke, not Templars, so it was a threat that was sort of... over there. Not something that occupied his mind constantly. Now that he's staring down the barrel of it, though, he can't get it out of his head. Which is probably hell for Jon on two counts with the temptation of Wolfe's fear and what amounts to similar in his future.

"I wanted to come out here with you to be reassuring, not pile more on," he sighs, looking up at the sky and choosing to put Chris first. "The point was to talk about you given that you don't really do that otherwise, and I don't want to rehash what worries you already know I have."

He nods at the question about the wood. Death's Door wasn't an instrument for wood cutting...but it was magical and unlikely to take any wear and tear from the mundane use. Once they found a good candidate for cutting, anyway.

Wolfe's next answer, however, leaves something to be desired and he crosses his arms over his chest.

"How many times are we going round in circles, Wolfe? Part of my worries are you and Jon suffering from a lack of magic and turning tranquil or catatonic respectively. Someting I already know is one of your fears, yes. But as we've already stated, you already know my fears and pushed me to talk about them anyway, so which would you like it to be: open sharing or hypocrite? And don't think I didn't notice you haven't yet told Amelia about becoming tranquil, does she know all that entails? I doubt she'd let you come with us to the Shadowfell if she did, she'd push more'n she did."

That gets a wince. "Not my proudest moment, I know. I'm going to tell her, but she's already unraveling. I'm not sure how to help her other than being here, and the threat of not being isn't going to help. I'm legitimately afraid I'm going to break her by putting one more threat of this all crumbling on the table."

Which isn't a lie at all, but it's not the whole truth. Wolfe releases a breath and runs his hand back through his hair, feeling intensely vulnerable. But who was the first and sometimes only person he could be vulnerable with as himself? This version of Adalwolfe Hawke who was made for Duplicity and, as he sees it, for these people.

"I don't want to face it right now. I know I have to, that I'm probably going to end up living it sooner rather than later but... Our emotional connections are what makes us who we are. I've used that to survive this past month, living in my bonds to you and Amelia so I didn't lose myself to what they were trying to get from me, and so many times before. Having to face down losing that, even if only for a time..." He trials off, actively trying to figure out how to continue, and coming up empty of anything that encompasses the sheer enormity of that hurdle. "I don't have words. I don't regret it, not if it means I'll come out the other side able to actually have this life with all of us, but I'm terrified I won't come back at all."

Drawing a short breath, Wolfe looks into the middle distance, clearly not seeing even that. "You've said I'm made of love. I've always liked that, but if - when - I'm Tranquil that's not going to be there. I'll remember you're important to me, that I should protect you, but in the same way I'll remember what I had for lunch yesterday. And there's no cure for this that I've ever encountered so it's hard to picture coming back from that."

A feeling comes over him like he wants to take off running or fight something or he doesn't know what, he just needs to be doing something. But he's not going to go running off mid-conversation, so he takes his staff from his back and fiddles with it instead, tossing it between his hands restlessly. "This is a different world, with different rules, and by the grace of the Matron I'm a part of it now, so I have to believe that it will be alright and I won't stay like that forever. I'm trying with as much as I can muster, but thoughts still creep in."

Karl regaining his emotions and begging Anders to kill him at the forefront.

"On top of all that, with Jon here, I don't want to be such a temptation. I've been trying not to think about it at all."

Chris listens...and bites his tongue a few times, but mostly listens. When Wolfe pulls his staff free, there's a thin grouping of trees around them that the cleric glances around at, but seeing it largely clear, he takes the haft of his scythe in his hand. He squares up to Wolfe and points the end low. Unlit with its blade, it's just a length of black wood, after all.

"Gentle now, I'm carrying delicate cargo...but seems fair that if I don't have a fidgeting racelet for you to use, we can do this."

And he'll take a swipe at Wolfe's ankles to prove he means it.

"For Amelia: you're not allowed to decide what she can or can't handle. You have to let her decide, just make it clear there are side-effects to tranquility and ask her if she's ready to hear them now or later. Let her decide or you'll be doing no better to her than she does when she puts decisions and assumptions on us."

Another swipe.

"For me: don't worry about how I'll handle it when it comes time, I'll handle it fine knowing we're working towards putting that love back. So long as you know who I am, I can carry the rest for you. The fear is your own and rightfully placed...I'm sorry you're facing it down at all. My hope is we can get you both woven in before your energies run out, but if we don't...then we'll fix it. I know we will, that at the least I can promise you on my life."

A pause so he can catch Wolfe's eye as he asks: "Do you believe me that? I know it won't erase or perhaps even ease the fear, but do you believe that I have a second, third, and even fourth plan to make the men I love most whole again?"

"Chris, if I didn't think you had fifth and sixth plans on top then I wouldn't know you at all," its an affectionate rib as Wolfe continues to dance around Chris' strikes. Even as easy as his partner is going, Wolfe can feel himself getting winded far too easily. He's even tapped with the end of the unlit scythe as he stumbles and catches himself. With a frown he swings the staff around to block the next one instead.

"You're right about telling Amelia. I know you are, its fear talking, and longing. I've only had the both of you back for a day. Driving another wedge in sounded awful. Still sounds awful, but I know its better than her being panicked by it when it happens," He swings the staff around from one hand to the other, coming at Chris's other side. "Make- Godss, its like I forgot everything I learned with what we've been through."

The swing to the knees is half-hearted at best, but the movement itself feels good. Like shaking off cobwebs. Pity he can't go all out with Poppet perched on Chris' curls.

A small crease lines Chris' brow for the stumble, but he doesn't say anything. They'll get him back into fighting shape in a matter of weeks, he knows.

He brings the scythe up to block the clow and deflect it to the ground.

"Fear and upset can do that. You'll find your footing again...with us, with yourself...and with your fighting. Later on, we can go all out and I'll put you through your paces. Maybe have one of the others join us to really stretch your limbs."

He spins his staff like Wolfe does and takes a somewhat gentle but pointed jab towards his middle.

"What else is on your mind? I'm here for you, I only need time for finding our certainty, not for being your friend and lover."

A sweet sentiment if he wasn't taking a wide but loose-gripped swing at said lover.

"That I'm out of shape?" He huffs, knocking Chris' staff away from him perhaps a little more vehemently for Chris having pointed at his middle. "I've gone soft and now I don't know if I'll ever be back to the shape I was, which is horrendously vain and selfish when everyone including myself is pondering things that matter more than if my belt has to go out a notch."

He grumbles, spinning his staff again and bringing it around in an easy arc towards Chris' shoulder throught muscle memory more than anything. "And I know you're going to tell me that it's fine and my problems aren't diminished just because everyone else is having problems too, but being self conscious now is bloody well useless."

Whether Chris blocks or Wolfe has to pull the strike, he spins the staff again, this time over his shoulders one handed and aims for Chris' other side without much thought. "I'm worried Mystra will find me wanting, I'm worried I won't be able to learn the magic here, and even if none of that is founded Im worried I'll fail at building this life and actually keeping it. There's always something. A Blight, a rebellion, rifts opening up all over the damned place. What if I'm the problem?"

Slamming his staff into Chris', Wolfe loses his grip and the weapon goes ricocheting off to the edge of the lake with a thunk and a smack.

"Fuck," he says, much more subdued as he watches the water lap against the staff.

He’s much more defensive in his moves, careful as he is not to jostle the catmoth on his head who trill-purrs as he side-steps one attack and deflects another. Jon’s catmoth. Nate’s. Nate would hate this, her being here. Better than dead.
He shies from the errant thought and buries it for later.

His focus is Wolfe and the stream of worries that march obediently out between their light exertion. Though, maybe not light enough for how Wolfe’s blow practically ricochets off Chris’ planted staff.

Chris’ stance relaxes and he looks over at the fallen weapon as well.

“Don’t begrudge your ‘lighter’ thoughts and worries. For all the reality-shattering things we’re dealing with right now, don’t you think it makes sense your mind would grasp onto anything easier to fret over instead? Anything imminently more manageable?”

He stands so he’s in Wolfe’s line of sight and reaches out to take his hand.

“I don’t have answers for Mystra, as I’ve said, but I know we’ll figure it out. We’re all stubborn and resourceful assholes, why wouldn’t we? But Adalwolfe Hawke…if you’re cursed, then so be it. I’ll take terrible event after terrible event with you than a peaceful nothing life without. None of us are going anywhere nor wish any different.”

Sighing, both in frustration and in defeat at Chris' words, Wolfe leans in to kiss Chris' cheek. Hopefully Poppet doesn't take umbrage again. "Thank you. It may not be solutions, but it does help to have you in my corner."

Briefly he thinks of simply calling his staff back to him, but he should conserve his magic as much as he can. Maybe Chris is right and he can have his Fade magic hold out until he's written into the Weave and he won't have to deal with Tranquility at all. Maybe he can get that lucky break. Just once, maybe it wont be the literal worst outcome that he then has to do mental gymnastics around how its not so bad actually just to keep moving.

Just once, he gives in a silent plea, wondering if the Raven Queen is listening, and if she is if that's even something she can grant.

"Let me go get my staff and we can work on getting firewood. I appreciate your listening and resolve, but I'm done talking about this now too." He starts to head for the edge of the lake, then pauses and looks back. "Cursed or not, I love you Chris. I may hate the upset all this is causing, but that will never change how I feel. You're still mine, whatever happening. And I'm still yours."

Sentiment spoken, he heads on down to grab his weapon the old fashioned way; with wet boots

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Respite

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Insight roll of 2 for 13…

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