2017-08-17: To Teach Them How To Bleed: Difference between revisions

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On another day, perhaps she would be her usual self.
On another day, perhaps she would be her usual self.


But there are numerous factors at play; the extent of her injuries, the fact that Matohska tried to ''stitch'' her, pushing her to the brink, the amount of drugs in her system that had been necessary to sink the pain to more manageable levels. All of that could have conspired to peel away the layers that the blonde normally wears on her person and demeanor like second skin. But even after all of that, she could have managed. She could have kept on hiding behind her smile, if it wasn't for what she had seen the moment Morgan decided to plant himself between her and certain death, throwing his Life to the winds of chance and let the deliberate whether he lives through this or not. Not just risking his life for her, but ''trusting her'' to do him right.
But there are numerous factors at play; the extent of her injuries, the fact that Matohska tried to ''stitch'' her, pushing her to the brink, the amount of drugs in her system that had been necessary to sink the pain to more manageable levels. All of that could have conspired to peel away the layers that the blonde normally wears on her person and demeanor like second skin. But even after all of that, she could have managed. She could have kept on hiding behind her smile, if it wasn't for what she had seen the moment Morgan decided to plant himself between her and certain death, throwing his life to the winds of chance and let them deliberate whether he lives through this or not. Not just risking his life for her, but ''trusting her'' to do him right.


It reminds her of a runaway train and a cuplink piled high with explosives. It reminds her of a similar choice that someone else in her life has made.
It reminds her of a runaway train and a cuplink piled high with explosives. It reminds her of a similar choice that someone else in her life has made.

Latest revision as of 06:48, 18 August 2017

  • Log: To Teach Them How To Bleed
  • Cast: Cassidy Cain, Morgan Newkirk
  • Where: A Baskar encampment in the borders of Lacour and Adlehyde
  • Date: August 17, 20117
  • Summary: Takes place immediately after Whacking At Beehives. For reasons of her own, Cassidy Cain attempts to destroy her friendship with Morgan Newkirk before it becomes more significant.

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.

"Isn't it usually 'Was it something I said'?" Morgan's tone is amused as he switches his attention back to the wounded conwoman. "Cause I was just about to say the same thing. Though you know Noah, he gets prickly at some things. Who knows what it was to set him off." A smirk. "Or maybe he just wanted the company of a dark eyed Baskar. Hard to tell."

The cant of his shoulders as he says it, the way his gaze strays to that now closed tent flap as he reaches across to hand the flask towards Cassidy. Morgan himself doesn't believe what he's saying, and it shows. Just what did set the other drifter off.

Mysteries abound tonight it seems.

"I have no idea what a dragonstone is. Gonna guess it has something to do with the Metal Dragons, but thats about as much as I can guess. I'll put some feelers out, see what I can dig up about it though."

"Last time I saw a hilt like that was at my shipwreck, salvagers went over it before I got out of Kislev and left one of those behind. In the side of a Lizardman." A smirk at the memory. "But no idea how a Demon got hold of it. Or Haydlens if you wanna get technical."

There is a pause though as he turns his attention back towards the woman. That half-amused look in his eye as she smiles so winsomely at him. "...ya know. I've stolen from ya plenty, Noah too, but ya never felt the need ta carve our hearts out. At least not physically. Verbally is a different matter."

A longer pause before he breathes out a sigh. "Now...ya were about ta ask me a question afore Noah came back with your prize?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

"Ay. Maybe the impending blockade run's weighing down on him more than he'd like. He and I are similar in a lot of ways. I know if I had tae be responsible for a bunch of people out tae kill themselves trying tae get across, I'd be thinking long and hard about ditching."

With Noah having left the tent, Cassidy pulls her legs back up on the cot, sinking further in the mountain of pillows behind her. Lips pressing her cigarette in between, smoke curls from the corners of her mouth - she never blows it, out of habit, letting it escape as it will. Settled further into the covers now, she reaches up when the man offers her the flask, plucking the cancer stick from her mouth in order to take a heavy swallow. She pushes it back into his hand after.

"Still, nae use prying, I s'pose. Noah's never been one tae ask us for any details unless he's really curious, oughtae probably do the same. Know a couple in my life who dinnae take too kindly tae people prying, either."

If she is still wondering about the relic hunter's sudden exit from the tent, the blonde doesn't show it; either she is genuinely disinterested, or she is very much content to let sleeping dogs lie. The cigarette returns to her lips, her gaze falling on her jacket where the shattered sword rests, listening groggily, but attentively to what Morgan says about the hilt. For someone who had nearly had her ribcage shattered open by a Metal Demon, the fact that she is awake and listening suggests either a body capable of withstanding tremenduous amount of punishment, a stubborn enough mind and spirit to overcome her physical limitations, or both. It's difficult to discern; in all of the years that Morgan has known her, she normally prefers to talk her way out of trouble instead of shoot her way out of it.

"Haydlens?" she wonders. "What do you think the hilt is?"

Though when he rightly points out that he's stolen from her plenty, she smirks. "In that, our ledger's balanced. I've stolen from you as much as you've stolen from me, and I think you've seen how tenacious I get when I'm trying. Noah's nae stolen a thing from me, either....and if anything, he actually returned sommat tae me that I needed. Besides, you've nae heard the phrase about punishment fitting the crime? That bloody bastard tried tae steal sommat huge from me."

Recalling it sparks the embers of that carefully subsumed anger, stoking it into a slow burn. "And you should nae have butted your nose in. Why dinnae you leave when I told you tae?"

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.

"Mmm, I'll catch up with him and the rest and give em a hand." Morgan promises. "He'll yell at me about it but..." A shrug from the fox as he reclaims his flask. The battered and monogrammed thing is slipped back away as he takes a deep breath.

And winces just slightly.

He recovers quicck enough but its obvious that the man should be in bed, even if he won't be. Finding a seat finally so he isn't a danger to the tent falling in on itself the Fox shrugs slightly.

"Not your normal salvagers blade. Its old, obviously. And its been intentionally modified. Its ornate, so I'm gonna guess its not an everyday weapon. Don't know who it belonged too, but I know those fellas that seem to like technology are the ones that picked over my ship. So I'm guessing it belongs to them."

The tech thieves. Morgan's pet project.

He shifts again, the tattoos on both shoulders becoming easily visible under the light shirt he's wearing. Mostly because they happen to glow by themselves. On the right shoulder is what looks like a globe surrounded by a stylized laurel wreath. On the left is what looks almost like a coat of arms. Emblazoned on the center of the stylized shield is a grinning fox and the words '251st Strike Pilots. The Foxes Teath.' can be seen in scrollwork under it.

The rest of the artwork on his right arm seems more conventional, though similar to a symbolgist's tatoos.

"Thats apparently what they call themselves, the Metal Demons."

Then the last question comes and he shakes his head slightly as a smile curves up a corner of his mouth. "Well it wasn't like I was doin' anything important at the time. So figured why not." A beat pause as he holds that grin a moment. "Come on Cass, you've known me long enough. You know I'm too stubborn ta listen ta good sense."

Which means he's in the correct company.

At least judging from the fact that she's still awake after everything thats happened.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

"Ay, he might. Still getting tae ken the lad, even in the thick of it, I've nae seen him lose his temper seriously."

As Morgan details where he had seen the blade, something within her relaxes. Enough, at least, for Cassidy to let go of the subject and not force her hand about it. Noah's warning from earlier was enough to suggest some familiarity with its origins, but that isn't beyond his skillset - he had mentioned before that ARMS and weapons were a specialty of his, the older the better, and while she is fully aware of his tremenduous capacity to lie, she is almost certain that had been an honest statement.

Her, however...

Green eyes with their gold shards find the initials embossed on the flask before she returns it to him; initials that do not match his name, but that isn't unusual either. She would be surprised if half her acquaintances weren't traveling around under an alias, Drifterhood was a dangerous occupation and an even more dangerous life. Battered, beaten, it reminds her very much of the lighter she carries in her person, though she dismisses the thought as quickly as it enters her head. The glowing tattoos catch her eye, because they can't help but - the wreath and his designation from a past life, however, is new.

Her mental acuity returns in increments; pain was always good for that and way her temper bubbles underneath the surface is enough to have heat rushing into her blood once more and the fact that she notices all of these things, mentally catalogues them swiftly to remember later doesn't help. Ten years away from the abyss that had borne her, and she still does it. She can still...

Loathing fills her, as thick as tar, flooding the spaces where pieces of her had been broken off, never to be recovered. Bitter and viscous enough to choke on. Her fingers unconsciously ball in a tight fist on her knee.

"Will nae tell you again, Morgan," she says, words forced through the growing tightness of her jaw. "The bloody bastard's mine. I ken you mean well. You always do, but you lingering around was the last god damn thing I needed. Dinnae ken if you just miss being part of sommat bigger than yourself or what, or just part of sommat, but you're barking up the wrong tree."

There are other ways to communicate her reasons why. She could tell him that it was personal, in ways that he could understand. She could tell him that it was trouble that had nothing to do with him.

She could tell him the truth.

Instead...

"Already ken what you're going tae say. If it had been you in my boots, or if I had been in yours. But I'm nae like you, Morgan. You cannae say that if it had been the same as you, I would nae have left you either. Because I could. And I would."

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.

"If you keep hanging round him I'm sure you'll manage it sometime." Morgan replies with a smirk. "You're damn hard to be around sometimes." The fox leans back, tail curling slightly around one ankle. Eyes closing as he reaches for the flask again. Pain is an old friend for the fox, but whiskey is a good chaser for it. He's had worse, if rumors are to be believed he'd come close to dying quite a few times in the arena. A past life, ten years ago, but still they talk about the fox that fought his way out of the pits.

Apparently that makes an impression.

The man before her doesn't show much of that brutal time in his life, but the scars go deeper than skin. It made him sharper, harder, less likely to trust. That time in the dark. Its not something that he likes to dwell. Not something that he likes to remember. Its a part of him now though, dark and caged somewhere behind that smile of his.

That sharpness is what causes him to catch that balled fist, feel the unfocused wrath and fire behind her words. She doesn't have to tell him its personal. Its obvious that it is. Something happened. Something bad.

She's the consummate conwoman when she's on the job. He's never seen better, enough though he won't tell her that. This is different. This is raw. Stripped of the veneer down to the bloody bones. It's real.

Or she's better than he's given her credit for.

There is a dry chuckle then. "If he's yers then he's yers. I ain't gonna get in the way of a claimed kill." He says slowly. "But that don't mean I'll let ya fling yerself face-first at somethin I've seen tear a Gear in half. Espicially when yer plan ammounted to 'blow it up real good'." He takes a pull from that flask, shaking it to check the contents before setting it on a stool between them. In case she wants a second nip.

"I did it cause I wanted ta, and I wasn't about ta let ya do it alone. Ain't nothing more complicated than that."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

On another day, perhaps she would be her usual self.

But there are numerous factors at play; the extent of her injuries, the fact that Matohska tried to stitch her, pushing her to the brink, the amount of drugs in her system that had been necessary to sink the pain to more manageable levels. All of that could have conspired to peel away the layers that the blonde normally wears on her person and demeanor like second skin. But even after all of that, she could have managed. She could have kept on hiding behind her smile, if it wasn't for what she had seen the moment Morgan decided to plant himself between her and certain death, throwing his life to the winds of chance and let them deliberate whether he lives through this or not. Not just risking his life for her, but trusting her to do him right.

It reminds her of a runaway train and a cuplink piled high with explosives. It reminds her of a similar choice that someone else in her life has made.

And what she had done afterwards, the moment she realized it. She can still feel it, sometimes. The weight of the black box in her hand and the red button set on top of it.

He chuckles and it only drives Cassidy further into that firestorm temper, gritting her teeth. "That's nae the point, Morgan!" She sweeps a hand vehemently to the side, as if believing herself capable of batting the words he levies at her, like physical objects lobbed in her direction. "Dinnae care if you ken the kill was mine! Dinnae care if you figured you'd help out just enough tae make it happen, I dinnae want it! That's nae complicated either, is it?! I dinnae want you there!"

Even while being dishonest, she doesn't mince her words, throwing every barb at him in her very real attempts to bleed him hard enough that he would be forced to withdraw. To get up from his seat and leave the tent in whatever degree of anger or hurt she has managed to cause, and just get away from her.

Because she knows what it means if he doesn't. What it'll mean if he doesn't. And she can't.

She can't.

"Did you think I'd be grateful?! Or that this would prove anything?! Sommat like...what, the depths of our friendship or whatever fookin' shite they put in those trite wee greeting cards at the gella store?! What the bloody hell do you really ken about me and my life that you can look at it and decide it's bloody worth it?! Especially when it's me, when you ken I would leave you tae die if all of that was inconvenient for me! What the fook is wrong with you?!"

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.

"Whats wrong with me?" Morgan just smirks at that. "Lady you ain't got enough time ta hear all of it."

He watches her rail against him, throw those barbs as sure as she flings her grenades. As sure as he places her bullets. The lady knows how to con, which means she knows how to hurt. The right angle, the right inflection, the right gesture to make the barbs flung from her lips as stinging and painful as possible.

His ears slowly flatten back against his skull as he narrows his eyes slightly. For handfull of heartbeats it looks like those daggers have done their work. That Morgan might just take the hint and wonder off into the night. Stung and burned enough to follow what most people would take as common sense and leave the woman to her convalescence.

Then his head cants slightly upwards, eyes sliding away from her and to a torn corner of the tent. Fixing on the sparkles of stares in the night sky above for a moment as he takes a deep breath.

Painfully holds it.

Then lets it out again.

The pain helps him focus, even as it sets sparks to his blood so he turns back towards the firey and angry blonde his eyes gleam just slightly in the light of the tent.

And her hopes are dashed.

"I don't give a good goddamn what you want, Cass." He finally says, eyes fixing back on her. "Espicailly when its lookin' like what you want is ta get yerself killed on the point of a Demon's sword." Seems that the barbs she flung towards him find as little purchase on his broad shoulders. "Ain't lookin' ta prove anythin'. As fer yer life, well I don't know much. I don't pry. But I know enough that I'd rather not have ya die if'n I can help it. So here we are. Yer gonna have to find a way ta deal with it."

His eyes narrow slightly towards her, shrewed old fox. Leaning forwards just slightly as he watches her anger fly about. Watches as she wields those words she's so good at as weapons.

"Just what are ya so scared of, Cassidy Cain."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Words have always been her weapons of choice.

It can't be helped, for a woman who makes a living doing what she does; years of refining her craft, of traveling with a troubled anthropologist and behaviorist, which only gave her further insight as to how to bend and twist people to her every whim. She sees the effects take shape almost immediately, starting with the way the Beastman's eyes narrow, when tension braids across his shoulders and how his ears flatten backwards...the bristling of his tail. She knows that she's managed to cut him, and deep, otherwise he would be hiding behind a smile - if nothing else, the tattoo burning with an iridescent light on his person was enough to give her the ammunition she needs. Enough for her to learn and realize and remember that Morgan Newkirk was a fox and not a lone wolf; a man who needs comrades at arms and would do anything to keep the ones he's managed to find. Whether it was because of his nature or whether it was because of his losses, to somehow fill his own empty niches, she doesn't know, but for her purposes, that doesn't matter. The desperation she tries to ignore, welling up somewhere from deep within her stomach, enables her to view it as yet another tool.

Another thing to exploit.

Cassidy scents it like a shark smelling blood in the water; everything about him seems to tighten, but whatever degree of relief she manages to feel is drowned out by a sudden wave of nausea that clips her out of nowhere. Because despite her last question - what the fuck is wrong with him - she knows its answer and really, it has less to do with what is wrong with Morgan and more to do with what is right with him.

And she can't with that, also.

Steel shores up his words; a paltry reflection as to how deeply her barbs must have cut, this rejection of his camaraderie, on a man who is probably just trying to reclaim whatever family in the past that he had lost. And here she is, discovering that wound and doing her best to slice it further open and make it worse.

Anything and everything.

Whatever it takes.

But I know enough that I'd rather not have ya die if'n I can help it.

Something passes over her eyes at that; inscrutable, unreadable, but raw and real, a glimpse of whatever volatile storms the entire evening has managed to condense within her - a window that she shutters away from him by glancing at the other side of the tent. A tic manifests at the tender hinge where her jaw meets her neck, a headache blossoming at the back of her head, every jolt pulsing thunderously in its labyrinthine depths, in time with a single word repeated over and over:

Why?

She wants to ask. The desire is so overwhelming that it almost suffocates her.

"You dinnae ken shite," she says instead, her voice low and wreathed with smoke, every syllable brimming with barely-smothered heat.

The act of keeping him away spares her from taking in his own expression when he asks her what she's afraid of, and she is incensed enough, in pain enough, drugged enough, that she almost tells him.

Almost.

"And you dinnae want tae ken what's behind that door, either," is all she utters in rejoinder, before turning on the cot, her back to him as she drags the afghan on her, effectively ending her part of her conversation with resolute and stony silence.

Well, it's not as if she could just walk out of the tent.

<Pose Tracker> Morgan Newkirk has posed.

The fox, for all his sly smiles and cunning stratagies has never been one to hide emotions unless its behind a smile. Pushed too hard it always comes out, that raw emotion at the core of the odd gunman. It was worse in Kislev when the emotion was focused on rage and survival. Out and free again that fire is dampened, hidden and banked for when he needs it most. Telling hits let it loose now and it shows.

The flattened ears. The snow-white tail, so different than the most ubiquitious sandy yellow, with its fur brissled and spiked. Peaking out from around his legs, curling from the side of the chair, that tail speaks volumes about the state of Morgan's mind.

He reaches up to scrub the heel of his palm against his right eye. Frustration writ large on his features as he tries to master his own emotions. Most of what she says and thinks was true. He needed people. He needed friends. On some elemental level. It felt good to be part of something. To be told it wasn't needed, that it wasn't wanted, that it wasn't welcome. The barbs rake across his mind. One hand reaches up to rub against the coat of arms on his left shoulder, the gesture itself unconcious.

He could just leave.

It would be easy. It would be what she wanted. It would spare him any further pain.

The decision balances there for a long moment. Caught between breathes as the fox watches her turn away.

Its that moment that the decision is made. As she sullently pulls the afghan around her, flopping over with her back to him. Bandages visible under the bright baskar cloth.

There is a rustle as he gets up. Painfully, carefully moving. He stands there and watches the sulking conwoman for a moment.

...because she's totally sulking.

Then he steps forwards, towards her bed. A russle of cloth again as he pulls the afghan up around her shoulders. "I ain't the only one that don't know shite." The fox finally says with a smirk that is audible even if she refuses to look at him.

Then a object is tucked towards the afghan. Cool, metalic, slim. Battered and well loved. The faint hint of good whiskey wafting up from the flask as he slips it between the sheet next to her.

Then he's turning away.

"You need that more than I do," He tosses over his shoulder. "So I'll come back for it." There is a pause then as he adds.

"I always come back."

That phrase, so innocous and simple. Quietly said, but with so much assurance in it. Its almost impossible not to believe. But backed behind there is the thread of raw pain, emotion dreged up from his past by razor edged words. Ancient wounds reopened as sure as the ones he recieved today. She can almost see him, tail drooping just slightly. Ears at half mast. Some ancient hurt gouging into him once more.

A pause again, then the rustle of the tent flap.

Then quiet.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

What follows does nothing to alleviate the urge to purge the contents of her stomach in the nearest bucket; she tries to tell herself that it's because of the drugs, the blood loss, the trauma over getting stitched up and the expenditure of energy she cannot afford to spend. That it has nothing to do with the fact that she had just attempted to do what she has always done whenever someone starts to see something in her that's worth keeping, worth saving - worth anything really. Jude had been bad enough, and it's in moments like these when she can't help but wonder, also, why she had mostly given up trying to chase him away; reasons founded on other lies and mistakes, needs and desires so breathtaking that she has even managed to mostly convince herself.

The idea of doing something similar, as far as Morgan is concerned, is something she can't and shouldn't fathom, either. She can't. There isn't enough room.

You're an incredible shit, Cassidy Cain.

She says nothing, unable to trust herself to speak. Not after that - not after when he pulls up the blanket higher on her body, when he tucks the flask into it. The hurt he tries to mask even when he promises her that he always comes back. Not after what she had done, and what she had tried to do.

Words uttered as if he knows. As if he managed, somehow, to unearth this one forbidden part of her that she tries to keep buried deep, forever sealed up in the privacy of her own emotional mausoleum.

I always come back.

Her fingers find the weight of the battered, well-loved silver thing, turning it over her palm. Lying on her side, back towards the tent flap, a thumb passes over the monogram embossed on the front plate, left to stare at the two M's in silence.