2017-07-20: To A Life Worth Living

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  • Log: To A Life Worth Living
  • Cast: Noah Hawthorne, Cassidy Cain
  • Where: Adventurers Guildhall, Adlehyde
  • Date: July 20, 2017
  • Summary: Takes place a day after Sometimes a Body Likes to Feel Appreciated. Eager to depart the ruin that Adlehyde has become in the aftermath of the Metal Demon invasion, Noah Hawthorne stops by the Adventurers Guildhall to say goodbye to a very, very drunk Cassidy Cain.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

People often say that pride goeth before a fall.

She doesn't know, herself, what King Justin Adlehyde might have done to draw this much destruction here, though she will certainly find out why eventually several weeks after the events of this evening take place, but for now the destruction of one of Ignas' rare, green gems seems particularly senseless - some abject lesson about History, or any story, really, that if one cannot find the bodies of the fallen, chances are, they're probably still alive. The invasion of the supposedly extinct Metal Demons shocked the continent, articles splashed on newsprint reflecting the very thing (ranging from 'How Did This Happen' to 'Oh God, Oh God, We're All Going To Die'). Any decent human being, at this point in time, would be out there with the rest of Morgan Newkirk's crew, to get back to rebuilding what had been destroyed and find some sense of solidarity with her fellow man through this entire ordeal.

But Cassidy Cain has often professed to be a selfish creature and she thinks, at this point, that she has gone above and beyond what was originally required of her.

The muffled sounds of orders being barked, of hammers ramming nails into wood, the squeal of wheels beset by substantial loads and the clop-clop-clop of horse hooves fill the half-lit confines of Morgan's personal bar entrenched deep within the halls of the Adventurers Guild building in the kingdom's capital, fortified to the nines with thick lumber and steel, a temporary headquarters for refugees and the like who have yet to leave the decimated city for safer environs, if any such exist, or if any such are left, in Eastern Ignas. As everyone else toils throughout the midnight hours, the blonde thief spends it alone, having spent a considerable amount of time filling all the empty, broken spaces inside her with anything and everything that she could get her hands on; alcohol, of which Morgan's supply is considerable, and a hefty amount of recreational drugs.

She had also spent the last half hour chasing away Dr. Lucas Maurier, an old acquaintance, who had attempted to pull her out of her binge, failed miserably, and lanced into her more wounds with the precision only an experienced physician and alienist could boast. He had stormed out of the room furious and indignant, which only encouraged her to obliviate her senses even further.

So when Noah Hawthorne finally finds his quarry, he would find spent bottles lining the counter and filling a table, accompanied by the frenetic plucking of guitar strings with the woman on her knees playing for an imaginary audience. Her head bobs up and down, fingers on the cords:

~When we first met he seemed perfectly normal
I never dreamed he'd make my life so hard
You see, my baby, he started to change
Started lookin' kinda strange
Wearin' all that white makeup and those black leotards
Well, I guess he kept his little secret pretty well
Now, ever since I learned the horrible truth, you know my life has been a living hell
That's right, you see...~

Her head lifts up after another triumphant caress of those strings. Bright, but glassy eyes find his shadow in the doorway. Fingers point towards him before they return to the strings, her grin splitting her lips and affording him a glimpse of her teeth.

~He never told me he was a mime
He never told me he was a mime, oh no
Actin' like he's trapped inside a big glass box all the time
He never told me, he never told me he was a... ~

Her head bobs even faster:

~Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-mime...!~

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

Emerging from the castle dungeon into the orange glare of an all-out assault of the heavens on the once-emerald pastures of Adlehyde, Noah had by necessity parted ways with Morgan, Cassidy and Jude. The plans he'd laid against the possibility of the worst coming to pass needed someone to oversee their execution. That someone had been him.

It was a harrowing solo escape from the bounds of the city, avoiding collapsing architecture, roaming Metal Demons, agitated rioters and desperate, fleeing citizens. He'd been forced to leave wounded behind: the time he spent helping just one person would be a waste when so many more would soon be waiting.

Forty-eight hours of hell saw the establishment of a refugee camp outside of the city limits, well clear of the fire break from the raging inferno that spread into the fields. For Noah they remain a blur of exhaustion. He'd not slept in the dungeon and there would be no time once the wounded and displaced began pouring out of Adlehyde. He spent hours setting up tents and constructing cots alongside the muscle he'd recruited through Newkirk, hours helping the wounded to the staging area for medical help, and hours more carrying out the bodies of people who never had the chance to be assigned a tent or a cot, perishing almost too quickly to leave bloodstains behind.

By the time he'd rendezvoused with Gwen at the warehouse he'd been covered in sweat, filth, and blood and deliriously tired. The single silver lining is that he was by that time too numb with weariness to think much about the impact of what had happened, or dwell on all that was lost.

That would change quickly. Though the brutal physical punishment of the work that needed -- and still needs -- doing in the camp has given him an outlet for all of the roiling poison in him, staying in Adlehyde is the last thing he wants to do. When things are for the most part organized, he hands control off to Newkirk's people and Gwen Whitlock and, following a few errands and the occurrence of at least one significant surprise, he assembles all of the things he brought with him to Eastern Ignas, slings his pack onto his back, and readies himself to go.

Typically the type to disappear from people's lives suddenly and without so much as a goodbye, he can't quite bring himself to do that where Morgan, Cassidy, and Jude are concerned. However briefly, they were for a time something more than passing acquaintances. They risked their necks together. They had -- he assumes -- one another's backs. And at least in the case of Cassidy Cain, they'd gone through some kind of mind-boggling underground adventure, the outsize events of which he'll be recounting at bar counters for years to come.

He's vaguely aware of the current situation as a result of his constant recent contact with Morgan; that Cass and Jude made it out alive, though the latter was injured. It's Morgan who tells him where to find Cassidy when he says he's planning to pack up and head out. He may have said something during that conversation about how she's trying to drink him into poverty.

She's his last stop: when he does darken the Guild's doorstep he has that leather rucksack of his over his shoulders, weighed down with heavy contents and strapped along the exterior with pieces of gear he needs fast access to on horseback -- binoculars, canteens, ammunition, folded maps.

Everything in him still aches. There are bruises and scrapes aplenty. Beyond those largely superficial maladies, however, he seems intact even at a glance, no pallor to suggest hidden hurts.

No glassy-eyed songs about mimes, either, which seem a pretty good litmus test for other kinds of unseen wounds.

Slowly he tilts into the door frame, the leather strap of the pack creaking quietly. He drops all of his weight into his outer leg, letting the doorframe counterbalance, and skews his brows when she points at him, wearing an expression that seems as though it's not sure whether it wants to become amused or concerned. It manages a little bit of both.

"Mimes aren't going to tell anybody they're mimes, Cassie. They don't talk. That's the whole thing," he points out, easy baritone mellow for the time being.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

And darkening the doorway that she has effectively commandeered the space of is Noah Hawthorne, preparing to return to the wilds from whence he came.

If she notices the gear and the air of imminent departure around the dark-haired relic hunter, she doesn't show it; it is very possible that she doesn't, considering her state of wild inebriation. Through tousled hair and heavy lids, she peers at him from where she is kneeling; her frantic guitar-strumming stops at that, and Cassidy laughs. With all the other ambient noises, muffled as they are, it sounds like an ill fit, incongrous to the others - wailing from the basement when yet another refugee succumbs to his injuries, or the audible toils outside. None of that seems to register save for that hint of pleasure at seeing him.

"Dinnae think the lyricist thought that through, either," she points out. "Wish I had the talent tae spin a rhyme or two myself, but I'm nae a poet."

There is relief as well - a thing she would probably not admit to, but is present regardless until it fades in that split second moment between her kneel and righting herself back up, lurching on her feet and tossing the guitar sideways on a cushion. Long legs take her to the counter where most of Morgan's supply remains spent. The Beastman does not appear to be exaggerating when he claims that she is trying to drink him into poverty, because she is absolutely not done laying to waste his private liquor stash. If nothing else, it reveals much of the two's relationship, having known one another for much longer than Cassidy has known Jude, or longer than Noah has known any of them.

Friends, maybe. As close to a friend as someone as mercurial as the thief can possibly keep, in an industry where friendships are often deadly liabilities.

She hops on the wooden surface, and by hops it seems more like a controlled belly-dive on the curve of the counter before skittering like a crab into the other side of it. She lands somewhere behind it with a thud and a groan, and while invisible from his sight, there is the unmistakeable rattling of bottles until she manages to give up on what she is looking for and ends up dragging a crate full of libations to the surface. That same, cutting smile finds Noah's silhouette at the doorway.

"Dinnae worry, I have permission," she tells him.

Sort of.

"Have a seat. I take it you're about tae do the rest of what most of the city is doing, running off tae greener pastures, though I have it on good authority that you were here for some other business. Going tae go back tae it, then?" She props her chin on one hand, elbow braced against wood. "Some hellishly destructive detour this is, ay?"

Watching him from under hooded lashes, her smile tempers at the corners.

"Alright, then?" she wonders.

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

Of being a poet: "Me neither."

He stays there in that lean while she wobbles to her feet and careens toward, and then over the bar, his eyes tightening when she hits the ground on the other side with an audible thump after disappearing in a flurry of red and blonde. The sound of glass clinking tells him she's not broken anything significant enough that it's going to keep her from pursuing the all-important objective of staying drunk, so he's free to shift his attention elsewhere. Hazel eyes wander the evidence of a long binge: the empty bottles marching down the length of the bar and accumulated into a gleaming crowd on one table. Quick calculus, even accounting for the possibility that her tolerance is exceptionally high, tells him she's been at this for a while. Something in his expression shifts, though it's well-curtained within that typical look: content and slightly aloof.

She pops back into view then, and not with one bottle but instead an entire crate of them, earning a slow arch of one of his brows.

Have a seat, she says, and he uses his shoulder to shrug himself back to his feet, rolling the opposite to free it of one of the rucksack's straps. He finds the least sticky place on the floor to set it down once he's close enough to the bar to half-sit on one of the stools, and then -- once he's fully settled across from her -- hands her the rest of his attention.

"I was here for other business," he paraphrases, confirmation. The corner of his mouth turns up, but it's a lazy thing, and so is the humor in his eyes, lidded and leonine. "Got a little distracted."

Something more serious slides into the conversation, but subtly, under the surface of wry things, like a crocodile just beneath the glassy stillness of the surface of a lake. Is he alright, she asks? Most people on Filgaia ask that question out of courtesy. They don't actually want to know.

Noah's gaze wanders her face as he contemplates the answer he ought to give.

"We did what we could," he says finally, shifting his weight in the stool and dropping his focus down to his boots, head tilted over to one side. He props one of his boots on the low rung of his seat; the other stays planted on the floor. It's not a thing that he needs to watch himself do, but it's a beat of broken eye contact he inserts with offhand finesse. "That's all anyone can do, and more than most will."

That's what he's been telling himself, anyway.

He takes a breath deep enough to expand the breadth of his chest, then rolls his shoulders and straightens again, eyes lifting, leaned forward to brace his arms on the bartop. "Never meant to stay this long, but Adlehyde was a nice change of pace from choking on dust in the Badlands, and then I met this crazy girl-- " Just a flicker of a smile, "-- and did a few crazy things. It seemed like sticking around might take me places. Now, though..." Head cocked, he slides his gaze toward the door, and the echoes of tragedy and rehabilitation still dancing up and down the hallways. "Adlehyde's a briquette, and I think I've imposed my philosophy of heroism on you enough." He flicks a look at her sidelong, winks. "It's time for me to get to doing what I came east to do. I'm not one to overstay my welcome. Couldn't rightly leave without saying goodbye, though."

After a pause, an inkling of that earlier sobriety returns when he asks, carefully: "How's, uh. How's Jude? Newkirk said he was a little rough."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Exceptionally high, yes, but methods to get her there haven't exactly been recreational - another twist in her story. The sheer abundance of bottles, however, speaks of a coping mechanism that is more self-destructive than anything, but not something so unique as to be all too notable.

As Noah settles in one of the bar stools, and claims to have been distracted, emerald eyes and their gold flecks turn over to him, her smile not flickering once. Relieving the crate of a few bottles, she sets the rest of it down, deft fingers inspecting each label. "I'll say," she tells him. "Just a little, methinks."

He may doubt her interest in his state and that speaks more of his powers of observation and perception than anything else; by nature, Cassidy was a user - more often than not, when she professes a genuine curiosity in a person, it's more than likely that it's for some personal benefit to her and she would be the first to say that she was, underneath it all, a profoundly selfish creature. But in this instance, there is nothing to gain from her asking, and she wouldn't be the sort to call much attention to that, either.

That light expression remains, but those bright glassine irises are heavy in their inscrutability when his hazel stare falls on her pale mien in an attempt to divine some cue as to how he should respond. When he does, slender shoulders lift from underneath the crimson fabric of her tailored shirt, watching the way those copper-veined eyes fall somewhere towards his boots. At the angle of his lowered head, her hand lifts; she must be drowning in the influence, instead of just being under it, for her fingers find his dark hair in a light touch.

No words come from her, though. Words never cease to fail her in these moments, standing out as one of her more blatant contradictions when she makes a living with words, but cannot find them when they matter most and is left fumbling with these silent gestures to speak for her.

Her hand has returned to the bar once he lifts his head again and recounts his adventures with a crazy woman. "Ay?" she wonders, with a grin and a hint of teeth. "She sounds like a pain in the bloody arse, wonder if I've met her. Birds of a feather and whatnot." There's a glance towards the fortified windows. "Well, you know what I think about heroism, but I do have a tremendous respect for resilience. Nae like a giant bloody disaster tae rekindle your faith in your fellow man, or at the very least the survival of the species."

Couldn't rightly leave without saying goodbye, though.

"Nae much for goodbyes," she tells him simply. "Always thought the future's too malleable for that. You'll nae know what tomorrow will bring, after all, unless you're a god damn seer and from what the weird types tell me, those're exceedingly rare. I will accept a 'see you' or the equivalent, though. And a couple of shots with me before you go."

She turns around then, in an attempt to rummage the cabinets behind the bar for clean glasses. She does not stop moving when Noah asks about Jude.

"He's sleeping," she tells him, finding a couple of small tumblers, blowing the dust from the tops and scrutinizing them carefully. "But he's in good hands, a local doctor's looking after him." All technically truthful.

Returning to Noah, she reaches out to uncork one of the bottles on the counter and pours. By the scent and color, it is whiskey, her eyes watching the way liquid fills the bottom of each receptacle.

"So what's next for you, luv?" she asks, lifting her eyes once she's well and sure whatever lingering shadows there have been locked away. "Those people from June City still after you?"

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

She touches him, and his eyes lift, but his head doesn't. The rest of him stills.

The only thing Noah Hawthorne knows for sure about Cassidy Cain is that she's full of surprises, so it shouldn't surprise him when she does what she does, offers him that simple little gesture of -- what? Reassurance? Comfort? Sympathy? Commiseration?

It does surprise him, though. Throws him off-balance, a little hitch in the well-oiled machine of his social acumen. If pressed as to why, he might find it difficult or even impossible to articulate, knowing only that he wouldn't have, didn't expect that from her, and having been the recipient of it, feels a beat of something like guilty unease. Clearly taking something hard, drowning her sorrows, hanging around waiting for her partner to recover, and there he goes anyway, doing what he always does: pack up once the fun's over and hit the road.

It's fleeting. He sweeps it aside, reminds himself that he really does have prior obligations to follow through on. And anyway, adds the little voice that pipes up every now and again, inordinately gifted at justifying anything and everything: She's not the type to want you hanging around to fuss, and you sure as hell aren't much good at fussing, either.

...But she touched him the way a friend would, and now he's bailing out.

Though he quirks a rueful smile for her, lopsided, when she declines to accept anything like a goodbye, he doesn't speak up until after she's answered him about Jude. Whether it's the casual language or the casual tone, he clearly takes that answer to mean the man is well on the mend, and maybe wasn't even so badly off as Newkirk said. It's easy to tell: his response is brighter than would be appropriate otherwise. "Good! Good to hear it. For a while there, I thought there might not be enough doctoring to go around."

He reaches for his glass, slides it closer, but leaves it where it is, the face he makes when Marza and Kissinger come up not conducive to smoothly draining a shot: it's a grimace that weaves together annoyance and dismissal. "Probably, if they're still being paid. An' if I don't miss my guess as to who's doing the paying, there's no shortage of gella for the job. Brose sent one of his former colleagues along my way, though, and she's got a job for me. We'll see how Marza and company like running the blockade." Ever-so-briefly his gaze and smile take on a flinty quality, something with an edge, distinct from his affable, warm, easy-going demeanor.

"After that..." Fingertips on the glass containing the shot, he lifts it and considers it, eyes narrowed. "Well, that depends on how far I get with the contents of that little prosthetic you smuggled off of the Mamma Mia in your bad dress, I guess. If I'm lucky? Back to the desert. Out to Dazil." His eyes lift. "Once Jude gets back on his feet, you two might consider wandering out that way for a spell. This little venture of mine could be lucrative." Pause. Twitch of the lips. "'Course, it's likely to involve 'scrabbling around in the dirt,' but we can't possibly have worse luck than you and I did at the Hollows. After that, everything else is bound to be a breeze."

Two, three full seconds of looking at her, and then he arches a curious brow. "What are we drinking to?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

It could be a lot of things.

It could be because of Jude, sleeping because shock and surgery have rendered him alive but comatose, his survival a thing to be left to chance; Lucas had been vehemently blunt about being uncertain whether he'd be able to live through the night, or the next few nights - everything inside him could simply fail. It is the uncertainty that doesn't just keep her here, but anchors her here, unwilling to leave despite knowing how capable she is of flying away when she feels she has to, because she has been in this position before - one of the very few times in her life when she actually felt like a decent human being.

It could be because of Morgan's words the last time she decided she was going to get drunk in this very room, not just the surprising revelation that he had been an arena slave, but also that he had been waiting for her to ask about it with his constant dropping of breadcrumbs, welcoming her to pry. Because a body likes to feel appreciated, he said.

It could be because their attempts in Adlehyde had amounted to failure, and for all that she has tried to divest herself from the shadows of her formative years, it still sticks, because back then, this outcome would have been unacceptable, and she hates the fact that she remembers. That she can't help but remember.

It could be because he was leaving, she expected this outcome and hates herself for her foresight. Ignorance, after all, can be bliss.

Good to hear it!, Noah says, and in spite of herself, the added brightness to his expression does well to bolster her own, Cassidy's grin broadening until her teeth are in full view, liable to reflect dim torchlight.

And people wonder why she has chosen to lie for a living.

"Dr. Maurier's a good soul," she tells him, in spite of the row they had just a few moments ago, which left the alienist and physician storming off angrily, and her nursing a new bottle. "I warned him about what was happening, and he could have left, but he's nae the type. He moved here tae help and that's what he's going tae do until it kills him." She smirks. "Makes me sick, sometimes. That's the kind of guy that'd make any ne'erdowell feel bloody inadequate."

Mention of Ambrose makes it easier to put those lingering shades to the back of her mind. "I'm actually surprised he dinnae go tae Adelhyde with you, or maybe I should nae, considering how loudly he complained the last time I saw him." Though there's an easier smile there, suggestive that she remembers the old professor fondly. "A colleague, then? So another archaeologist?" The flinty look draws out another laugh, palm flat on the counter as her free set of fingers clamp on one hip. "Going tae lead them tae a really wild chase, then? I s'pose if you're facing down an army, might as well try tae lure another army tae do the fighting for you." Satisfaction seeps into her expression there, though it's less to do with Noah and more to do with memories about a runaway train and pitting one dangerous gang against another...

...even if it did end up with her and Jude in a hairier situation than she intended, herself.

She visibly perks up when he mentions a lucrative venture, though this flattens immediately once he mentions more scrabbling in the dirt, though the twitch on the corners of his mouth does not escape her. She gives him a sidelong glance, tilts her head just so upon the doing. "Well, now that you said that, it's guaranteed now that we'll find sommat or end up doing sommat worse than gluing a bearcat tae a kraken. It'd be hard tae think of sommat more horrifying now, but since the words have been spoken, whatever it is waiting for us there, it's going tae be worse."

Cassidy sighs. "But as it so happens, we are heading that way, eventually. Jude's talented at making you forget he's a journalist, but the rag he writes for needs more stories about the Kislev - Aveh front and he's nae as lucky as me, so his arse got tagged for it. He's nae looking forward tae it, and trust me when I say I've tried tae ditch him before I had tae go with him." Tried being the operative term. "See what I mean about the future being malleable? Maybe you and I're nae through with one another yet, luv."

She picks up her tumbler and lifts it towards him. His question earns him another one of those flashfire grins.

"What else?" she states. "Tae a life worth living."

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

Another archaeologist?

This question provokes a more nuanced response in Noah than the simple and likely expected nod or shake of the head. He does nod, but furrowed brows and the smallness of the movement both lend it an uncertain air. "Maybe. I assume so? She's more rough and tumble than most academics, and doesn't talk much about her work." Or any work. No discussion of the cultural significance of the mystery Zeboim artifact in her possession, no debate as to its provenance -- nothing he'd expect from most of the people devoted enough to a subject to dedicate their lives to learning more about it.

After a beat, he stirs and his eyes refocus, one broad shoulder hoisted in a half-shrug. "Then again, I'm pretty rough and tumble for an academic, so who knows. Takes all kinds. Maybe that's why Brose sent her to me."

There are a lot of things Noah can fake. He's something of a social chameleon, capable of moving within different class and lifestyle strata at will, more adept at imitating the rich and powerful than one might expect for a man who steadfastly rejects those things even in passing mention.

Not innocence, though. He feigns innocence in the wake of her reminder that they're definitely going to be doomed now, if they weren't before, because of his decision to recklessly tempt fate, and there's not a soul on all of Filgaia who wouldn't immediately send him to the gallows if tried.

While she carries on explaining why she and Jude may eventually wander through the remote adobe huddle of buildings in the deep desert that is Dazil, Noah is setting down his glass, leaning up and over the bar, and rifling on the working side for a piece of paper. The scrap he finds it serviceable, though damp to one side. He produces a pen from who even knows where, and by the time she finishes he's able to slide it back to her across the bar, capping the pen and making it disappear. "Well, assuming I don't get gunned down in the crossing, that's where you can reach me, whenever you get there." Pause. "Probably."

Above the address is a single word: Salihah's.

He plucks his glass up again and extends it to meet hers halfway, finding a smile for her that's more solid than the ones that came before it. Approval gives it density. "I can always drink to that."

The contents of the glass disappear, the empty sat down with a clack. He sniffs through the vapors, and as he slides the glass back toward her to be refilled -- gaze downcast enough that his lashes screen it for the most part -- he notes, offhand and quiet, "I think Adlehyde was just the beginning." He might have meant 'of their acquaintance,' save that the tone he uses makes it unlikely.

The Metal Demons, perhaps. Or the Malevolence, or something else altogether, a greater driving force pushing the world in the direction of sudden chaos -- or merely accelerating a process that began when the world had half of its habitable regions blasted into useless tracts of waste.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

"What are you talking about?" She says this with a tone so innocent she would be convicted on the spot if any judge in Filgaia had heard. "You're the most prim and proper man I've ever met, Noah Hawthorne."

But for the rest of Noah's inevitable escapade, Cassidy says very little, nor does she comment about the possibility of him getting gunned down at the border. Instead, her fingers reach for the piece of paper in his hand, taking it and glancing down at the single word and its address in Dazil. "Nae a familiar place tae me, but ay, when we get there, I'll darken your doorstep for a change. Did you spend a lot of time in Dazil before you ended up here?" It's a question more born out of curiosity than anything else; he had mentioned it before, in the aftermath of the Mamma Mia's sinking - normally when she leaves a place, she doesn't return for quite some time.

Like Lacour; for a place that has become the only home she has ever truly known, she hasn't set foot in it in for several months now.

Pocketing the note, she clinks the edge of her tumbler against his own, draining the whiskey and letting it mingle with the already formidable cocktail ravaging her system, but for all that she has put away, she somehow manages to stay upright, the only signs of her present state evident in the flush of her cheeks and the heavy set of her eyes. All of this, and she hasn't even touched the drugs yet - that will come later.

Picking up the bottle of whiskey, she refills their tumblers with two shots each before she leans into the counter directly across from him, arms folding over the surface.

I think Adlehyde was just the beginning.

"It is," she tells him; the words leave her in a sigh. Two short syllables, but each laden with certainty.

"Perpetual travelers like us cannae help but build up a certain set of instincts over the years, methinks," she continues. "Nae going tae lie, it's probably the reason why I've made the connections I did, the same ones that clued me intae what's about tae happen in Adlehyde. I s'pose if there's something else brewing over the horizon, they would know. That's how I found out about the Lacour King's kidnapping and the rest just..." She gestures to the side. "Dustballed from there, like the Physics-defying boulder we shook loose in the Hollows." There's a twitch on her lips at that.

"If I hear anything else, I'll toss you sommat. Might be a little tricky considering we'll be moving in separate directions for a while, but I've got a trustworthy courier on retainer. Only signed up in the first place just tae keep my head above the water, might as well make sure a few others joined mine. Safety and victory in numbers, after all."

She takes another sip of her whiskey, winking at him from over the rim.

"Try tae do that on your own until then, ay? Would hate tae wake up one morning and realize the world's less fun with you gone."

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

He's not as quick to down the second glass. Not because he couldn't, but because the moment he does it'll be time for him to set out into the oppressive heat of the day, and though he's eager to get to his next destination, he's less eager for the journey that'll take him there.

She says the address isn't familiar, and Noah's lips twitch upward at one side. "I'd have been surprised if it was." No more explanation than that. One assumes she'll have all the context for that remark she could possibly desire once she turns up there, should that day ever come to pass. "I like Dazil," is how he answers her curious question. Not exactly an answer, but not a non-answer, either. "I've spent more time there than most places, and usually wind up finding my way back. It's not much to look at after the first few sunrises and sunsets. Sand, and lots of it. But for every other one of your senses? It's tough to beat. The food's good. Spicy enough to make your insides leak out through your nose if you're not careful. Drinks are strong. The music's good." He trails off there, and sets aside the further praises he'd been ready to sing on behalf of the little jewel of a city in the desert in favor of summary: "There's just a lot to like."

His grimace at her mention of the absolute lack of integrity that physics displayed during their two-person expedition into the foulness of the Hollows is brief but says plenty: he's still holding a grudge. The laws of the natural world ought to behave themselves, in Noah's opinion. Without understanding them, it's difficult to know how to get ahead.

"Don't bother with the courier for as long as the blockade's going. Just use the Memory Cubes. I make it a point to stop somewhere and check for messages when I can. This job's going to take me out into the Badlands-- " Again, he thinks, and restrains a sigh, "--but there are a few settlements out that way that have access, and we'll have to stop at least once to resupply. If I find out anything I think you'd like to know, that'll be the way I try to get it to you." As good as a promise of fair and equal exchange of information, where Noah is concerned.

She winks, quips. 'Safety and victory in numbers,' she says, a statement that he answers with a small smile, though it's subdued by the fact that he isn't sure he necessarily agrees. Then again, those are echoes from another lifetime.

A less compassionate one.

"I try. And, hey -- I've got nothing Metal Demons want. It's other people I've got to watch out for. Though...better men and women have tried than Kissinger and Marza, and you see how that turned out," he adds, with a twinkle in hazel eyes. "You, too. I don't think they'll keep after you once I'm gone, and I'm not sure either of them is bright enough to try milking you for whatever you might know, but keep one eye open anyway. The man keeping them in gella is a sore loser, and I've dodged them enough that they might be getting desperate." He doesn't sound or even look especially concerned, when he delivers that warning. Maybe he's seen enough of Cassidy Cain and Jude Moshe to feel they can hold their own against foes like that. Maybe he's pretty sure the odds of an incident are low. Either way, he deems that the unavoidable moment has arrived, and there's nothing else he can do to put off the inevitable. He tips his head back, drains his glass, knocks the bottom of it on the bar as he sets it down and leans to the side enough to snare the strap of his pack, hauling it up and beginning to draw the straps up his arms.

His look for her is assessing while he does. The empty bottles on the bar, the flush in her cheeks, the way she coasted over the bar and hit the ground on the other side. The way she's in here alone, getting that drunk.

"You sure you're gonna be alright down here, Cassie?" Subtext: 'or just alright in general?'

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Listening to him, she realizes that Noah, too, has a gift for words; at the very least, the way he paints a picture of Dazil makes her want to visit it again, her memories of the desert city for the most part hazy and one of her earliest jaunts since her rebirth in Aquvy. Like Lacour, Aveh is a destination that she doesn't really visit all that often, but his recollection of everything he likes about it reminds her of the days she spent there, when she had been less alone in body and spirit.

And the very last time.

"I've nae been there in a while," she tells him after a sip of her whiskey. "Nae since I was a wee lass, I wonder how much it's changed since. The last time I was there, I was thinking it would nae be so bad tae die there, surrounded by the things I really like."

Green eyes slide back over to him at his sigh; laughter insinuates itself in both her expression and tone. "Dinnae you just leave the Badlands?" she wonders. "But ay, Memory Cube it is. Nae the sort tae trust just leaving word in some receptacle waiting for the recipient tae get it, call me old fashioned, but knowing myself and what I get up tae, dinnae be surprised if you do find sommat in there from me." The promise of an equal exchange of information has that glow of pleasure heightening. "Ay, you do that. Funny that, how you can look forward tae sommat and nae at the same time. Ever since falling intae this thing together, doubt that we've told each other anything good."

She pauses, tapping her fingertip against her chin. "Maybe except the last time you brought me that Goddess liquor, though that came with news about Moon Cancer." What she has taken to calling the Malevolence effect sweeping Filgaia.

His talk about Metal Demons has her rolling her head back. "Methinks that whatever they were after in the castle while we were in it, they got, which dinnae bode so well for the rest of us down here, if Adlehyde is any indication. Still, looks like all of that's petered down a touch and we're free and clear tae do what we need be doing before we got sucked intae this mess. Did what we could, far and beyond even. Dinnae think the world has the room tae ask for more from us, but it's proven me wrong many times before. The balls on it, ay?" A sly smile curls up on the corners of her mouth. "As for Kissinger and Marza, now I am hoping I run intae them. You've been around me long enough tae know that sometimes, just sometimes, I cannae help myself."

Whatever that means, but that glint of mischief sets those eyes alight, and she slowly drains the last of her whiskey.

She watches him prepare for his departure from underneath lowered lashes, but when he turns to angle a glance at her, she's already turned her attention to the other bottles on the counter, pouring the rest of the whiskey bottle in her tumbler.

You sure you're gonna be alright down here, Cassie?

There's a laugh, an open smile directed towards him at that, liable to put the morning sun to shame. "Ay," she tells him with a nod. "I know I dinnae look much, certainly nae like a specimen such as yourself." Last punctuated with a lascivious waggle of her eyebrows. "But I was groomed tae survive almost anything that people who know me oughtae call me Cockroach Cassidy while at it. Would rather nae do it the hard way, though."

She falls silent after that; for a few heartbeats, she does nothing but watch him.

But finally, she leans her hip against the counter, pointing a finger at him from around the tumbler.

"Dinnae tarry now, luv. Get a move on." Her mouth finds the lip of her glass. "I'll see you when I see you."

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

Wince. "Moon Cancer and a two-day headache to follow up," Noah murmurs, remembering -- barely, and hazily, and with some effort -- the events of the night he returned to town from his visit to the beached vessel from the moon.

He adjusts the straps without paying much attention to the process. This is a thing he could do in his sleep, and often has; roused from bed -- his or someone else's -- in the small hours with a sudden need to depart, he could kit himself out and be gone in less than a minute if need be. "First off, if you want to take on Marza and Kissinger, you won't hear any objections from me. One less hurdle for me to clear on my way to where I'm going. And second? Just think for a minute about how boring things would be if the world didn't prove you wrong from time to time. No surprises. No corners to turn, expecting one thing and finding another." There's more of Noah, and all of the fabric that makes up everything he is, in that one offhand remark than in most of the conversations he holds at great length. "Finding something sweet where you expected nothing but the sour? That's the sweetest of all."

The pack settles, and after shrugging to test the tension in the straps he stills again, the better to watch her assure him that she'll be fine. In other circumstances, or perhaps with other people, the teasing little compliment would almost certainly have riled up the side of him most people are used to -- shameless in his womanizing and prepared to avail himself of even the slightest opportunity to do that. He seems to have taken her at her word on that rooftop, though, and as (by her own admission) it seems likely they're going to find themselves back to back again some day in the future, she's cleared the hurdle of being someone whose thoughts about those things deserve at least a modicum of respect, and thus restraint on his part.

So there's no ulterior motive when he spreads his arms, palms tilted slightly upward, a hybrid between the invitation he's issuing and 'seriously?' "What. No hug?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

His words about the world and the surprises it often brings are taken to heart, if not just because she and Noah are similar - kindred, in a way - on several fundamental levels. "Nae going tae lie there have been times in my life where I deliberately evened out the odds just tae roll in the uncertainty," she tells him. A situation is a thousand times more boring to her if the advantages and disadvantages are too great, after all.

"But ay, I'll remember that. Besides, she'd be wanting her gun back, and I dinnae take too kindly tae people who take things from me."

That would be that, except for that last gesture; palm up, an expectant look. After a blink, for a moment, she stares at him. A woman who, rightly, expects and even relishes surprises, it is Noah's turn to do something she hadn't expected. Given her questionable track record in various relationships, on any other day, it would be enough to give her pause.

Jude was on his deathbed, and whatever happens there, she intends to move on herself, to get as far away from Morgan as possible before the disaster that is her life sweeps him up as well. She has burned bridges with people she has considered family, for reasons that are just as selfless as they were selfish, without so much as batting an eye with anyone witnessing, back to the wind before they even realized what happened. The promises she has made to herself after she had put her old life to the pyre have cost her greatly over the course of the years and while her regrets are few, they are significant - enough, more than enough, to cripple anyone with a good and feeling heart.

She shouldn't even entertain these overtures, if she were truly noble and kind.

But she is tired, inebriated and uncertain of what tomorrow would bring. Grieving, too, if she was being honest with herself. Guilt and self-loathing. This wouldn't be the first time she has sought and found comfort in the physical, even if it inevitably means a parting, however permanent or temporary that would be.

And so Cassidy pushes through the small door leading out from behind the counter and moves over to where Noah stands. Her arms band about his neck, her nose finding the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

She doesn't know what it is, whether it is his solidity, warmth or both, but slowly her fingers tighten their grip on the back of his shirt, one set splayed over dark hair at the underside where his skull curves upwards. With heat stinging under her lashes, on the verge of it betraying her, she shuts her eyes and silently counts to ten, giving him a tight squeeze in the process.

Eventually, slender limbs loosen, easing away. Canting her head back to look at him, that smile returns. "Everyone gets one," she tells him, reaching up to cup the sides of his face with both hands.

"Basht," she tells him; someone as well-traveled as he is would recognize an old blessing for good fortune, from the guttural tongue of the Churari gypsies. "Give 'em all the Hells at the borders, luv."

<Pose Tracker> Noah Hawthorne has posed.

She stares back long enough that he starts to look a little unsure. She's not really going to leave him hanging, is she...? Not that he hasn't suffered more dramatic and even meaningful rejections in his lifetime, but damn.

In the end she concedes, made tractable by a confluence of factors in her own life, only some of which he can even hazard a guess about. It suits him well: he's not the type to be sparing with either praise or affection if he feels they're deserved. Life is short; on Filgaia often brutally so. That undercurrent through his life, the awareness of the span of his life and the way it dwindles with every beat of his heart (and the way it could be snatched away from him in an instant, and not necessarily in the ways most people might expect), can't stomach the thought of unfinished business, unspoken sentiments, unattempted endeavors, merely for the sake of avoiding risk.

"Man. I thought you were going to leave me standing here like an idiot," he says, just before she reaches up and closes the last of that distance. He is, like many men of his size and physical description, cautious with people less formidable than himself; the hug she gets is careful until something in the quality of it changes. That token embrace from her tightens, something vented through fingers that twist in the back of his shirt, and though it inspires another mute pang of guilt it also offers something sweet to wash it down with. Arms that could under other circumstances snap her spine like a sun-brittled matchstick tighten just enough to offer up some momentary, unyielding bastion of quiet and reassurance. Noah Hawthorne may as well be a fortress.

A patient fortress. He may not know all of the reasons conspiring to tighten her arms that way, but he doesn't need to know what they are to understand what it's like to be suddenly beset by a wave of emotion. He gives her time and plausible deniability, letting go once he feels her arms loosen, to place his hands on her shoulders and look down. Brow arched and furrowed, head tilted: "One? Not big on hugs, huh. Duly noted."

Well, some people just aren't.

There's an easy smile for her as he takes two steps backward, sliding his thumbs beneath the straps of the pack where they dive over his shoulders and downward: more of a simmer than a flash, too knowing to dazzle, but there's a Puckish glitter in his eyes nevertheless. "Will do. Tell Jude I said -- well, you know."

With a wink he turns, and only a few long-legged strides later, he's gone.

As it turns out there was one ulterior motive involved in that parting gesture. Somewhere in there he slid a folded piece of parchment into one of her back pockets. With one ragged edge it seems to be about the size of a journal, so its origin isn't likely to be any mystery. She already knows that he sketches things he runs across in the wilds; it was probably too much to hope that she and Jude would escape the same treatment. Her profile occupies the upper half of the page: on her back, staring upward, hair a puddle behind her. Just from the neck up, though there are flecked suggestions of stars ranging across the empty space above. His view the night they got beyond wasted on moon liquor and laid on the roof of her boarding house.

The image below that is stylized, almost cartoonish, though it's clearly Jude.

Jude, sitting like a rodeo rider atop a massive, bucking super-cow, the scale helpfully illustrated by the roughly-sketched-in, comparatively far smaller, clearly baffled fox-man (the question mark popping out of his head makes that clear) standing off to one side next to a milking stool and a kicked-over bucket of milk, the blue hue suggested by a washed-out smear of ink.