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[zauneyete]

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© TESSISAMESS

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ur a star bb, action

[fallingsand]

[ A star fell down in the distant hinterlands and all that stood between Silco was a wall and a guarded gate. It wasn't a place people were supposed to go and yet, a hefty reward was being offered for anyone daring enough to make the trip. Now, where Bruno comes in is, well, he wasn't supposed to come in at all, and yet he's decided to insert himself alongside Silco where he's waiting, watching the guards. The smaller man is silent even with the burlap sack full of... who even knows what... and when he does slide up next to Silco, he'll announce his arrival with a quiet, ]

One of them is about to leave to patrol down the wall.

[zauneyete]

[ Silco didn't jump out of his skin, but... it's close. The man seized, and his head turned to look at Bruno with a dual-toned gaze, a hiss of anger, but it's silent all the same. He'd been watching the gate from behind a structure, his head popped out every now and then, before he returned, and his eyes narrowed at the smaller (somehow) man next to him. ]

What are you doing here?

[ He looked again. Not yet. Nobody's left yet. Even if he doesn't know why Bruno is here, he will take the information. ]

[fallingsand]

Well, you're gonna end up being burnt to death if you try doing this alone and I... don't... know who else I could have sent to help you, so... here I am?

[ That's a very vague and disturbing answer to that question, Bruno, wow. Still, he will turn out to be spot on about one of the guards turning to leave the gate behind and carry on further down the wall, away from where the two of them are skulking about. ]

[zauneyete]

What?

[ His tone was a sharp, harsh whisper. Silco's single eye narrowed, and his lips peeled back from around his teeth, before the guard moved, and Silco held a hand out, his fingers ticked off the moments, before he started to move, once the guard was just enough paces from rounding a corner and out of sight that he would miss them. ]

Explain later.

[ He said, because Bruno was right, and he started to move toward the way out, to get through the gate. ]

[fallingsand]

[ Bruno found himself fine with not having to explain, actually, so when Silco prompted him to wait until later, he sure would just that, or possibly not ever. It would heavily depend on whether Silco brought it up again. Although, with how bizarre his statement had been, chances were high but until then...

He wouldn't say anything else since he wanted to keep up and not draw any attention. Bag firmly shuffled back over a shoulder, he trailed along after Silco towards the gate, idly wondering how they were going to get back in once this little adventure was over as the gate to the Hinterlands loomed closer with every quiet step. Getting through would be simple enough. Without a guard to stop them, there was no enchantment or anyone else to leap out and pick a fight and on the other side? Untamed wilderness, vast and uncaring. ]

[zauneyete]

[ Getting back was something Silco had thought of quite a bit, holding onto those precious sparks as he'd figured out what he needed to do. He hadn't used all of his yet, and it had been his plan at the time, but now that Bruno was with him...

Well. He could always just leave him, but perhaps he'll use the opportunity to see what the man could do -- and more importantly: if Silco didn't abandon him, perhaps he'd consider him as an ally for the future. It might be necessary, as the danger increased in this strange realm.

His feet were quick on the path, and while Silco had been nearly fifty when he'd died, that hardly kept him from moving quick now, and he could imagine he was younger, running from Enforcers, although when they cleared the threshold of the gates, he kept moving, until he managed to slip behind the brush not more than twenty feet away.

Just to catch his breath, and figure out the next step.

He turned, to see if Bruno made it, expecting him to follow. ]

[fallingsand]

[ Bruno himself was quick on his feet despite actually being fifty, although he certainly never had a chance to ease into the life of someone who had minions to do the hard work. Most of his life, some hundred stairs down, some hundred stairs up, or more, depending on how often he had to climb up and down his tower. The past decade of lurking through the walls had been a cakewalk compared to that...

This was even simpler. It was mostly flat earth with very few obstacles in sight. So when Silco stepped aside into the brush to wait and catch his breath, he would find Bruno walking right by him and then slowly... coming to a stop... and turning to glance back over his shoulder at him. ]

Are we, uh, stopping for a reason?

@mikey

[invinciblemikey]

silco.

we should be soulmates.

[zauneyete]

[ Silco doesn't respond for a WHILE. Consider him appropriately stunned. ]

You have heard my opinion on them, yes?

[invinciblemikey]

i either don't remember or didn't care to remember

go again.

[zauneyete]

Ah, you don't read everything and notate it?

I think "soulmates" are a foolish excuse to link us together, and make us easier to manipulate.

[ Gosh. It's almost like there's a complex there. ]

[invinciblemikey]

... you need a date or a hobby or something.

if it is, it's me. i don't give a shit about whatever the fuck you do

and i know you also don't give a shit about what i do.

so. easier if we're together if it ain't bullshit.

don't be proud and stupid and old.

[zauneyete]

All of those traits are what kept me alive, you know.

[ But.

But.

He's noticed it. Those creeping, crawling moments. Those spaces when his mouth opens, and he says something -- and Silco often thinks the things that he doesn't say, but it's quite different to feel his mouth open, and things start to slip out of his mouth. He's heard something about these shadows now, how they bring out the worst traits in someone, but Silco was already such an indulgent man in his darker side -- the only thing he feared -- that was the loss of that tightly held control. Something he so carefully had crafted over the years, when he'd been so angry and out of control, in those early years.

Now he wasn't, but his shadow chose to use that against him. It wasn't darker impulses, Silco could do those just fine. It was the carefully held control and secrets --

And he could not say some things. Such as how he died, now. ]

This isn't some... ploy to read my mind, is it?

[ It's a more token response, but Mikey's point isn't what sells it, it's the fact that otherwise, he might say something he shouldn't. To the wrong person. ]

soulmate radio

[invinciblemikey]

Wait, what the fuck, you got a kid?

[zauneyete]

[ GRINDS TEETH... ]

I'm almost fifty. Is that so surprising?

[invinciblemikey]

Huh. I thought you were fifty-five or something.

It ain't surprising. I just wasn't expecting it. She a good kid?

[zauneyete]

She's a wanted criminal.

[ Heh. Well, she is his daughter. ]

So by most definitions of "good"...

[ Silco is working VERY hard to hold back that tangled mess of emotion/pride/disappointment/care. What slips through is a complicated, confusing jumble that can only be called: parenthood. ]

[invinciblemikey]

And? We're both wanted criminals, we can't judge her.

We ain't 'most', either.

[zauneyete]

Actually, I'm not a wanted criminal.

[ After all, he'd been cleared of every charge, and Piltover had found his pill easier to swallow. ]

She's brilliant, one of the brightest minds I know.

[ Don't make him say it Mikey, he thinks she's perfect the way she is, obviously. ] So yes, quite a "good kid".

[ Just mercurial, manic, and a bundle of chaos. But then again, most children are. ]

forward dated to the first

[invinciblemikey]

(his memory had never been that great. states of dissociation where he can't tell what he's doing, bad and good aren't tangible concepts. there's also the gaps, the tricks his memory plays to keep himself afloat.

this doesn't feel like any of it. he feels like there's bits and pieces of information, familiarity even when he barely recognizes where he is, a sense of dejavu that feels more real than not - and inexplicably wrong to the fifteen-year-old that steps out of the deplorable place he thinks he calls home, and walks. there's something pulling, a sense of comfort coming from one of the houses, and he can't explain why his feet are moving towards one, but he's learned his intuition is often right. he even hears the faint voice of his late brother telling him to seek what his feet are guiding him to.

and he opens the door to find-- what the fuck? who the fuck?

it's automatic, he doesn't even hesitate to think - who's this old motherfucker?)

[zauneyete]

[ Silco is, unfortunately, a paranoid motherfucker. There's a bed in the place, there's a chair, and a desk. He's been arranging things carefully in the small home, but there's papers everywhere, collections of writing and different traces of information. Silco's desk faced the door, in fact, and while he doesn't have a knife on him, he stood, before he remembered to read and feel the presence at the back of his mind -- a companion of sorts.

It kept his shadow from expressing things, smothered it, to keep it from saying the things Silco couldn't dare say. Like who'd killed him -- something that he'd blissfully kept himself from thinking of thus far.

He calmed himself, but his head tipped at the person at the door.

Huh. That he can hear it as clearly as if it were said made him laugh, and he sat back down. ]

Rude.

[ He said, but didn't exactly protest. He was, after all, pretty old. ]

[invinciblemikey]

(wait, hold on.

rude that i entered without permission, that i ain't doing much but trying to figure out what's going on, or rude-- wait, huh?)

... Rude what? Who the hell are you? I know you, don't I?

[zauneyete]

[ This is Awkward. Mikey was supposed to be a reliable underworld type, and that meant he'd been reliable enough that Silco had something over him, he had something over Silco, and they were going to use each other to stand against their shadows, lest something happen.

Except now, the 28 year old he'd partnered with was younger. He had touched no other tethers, he knew nobody else that he could hear in his head like that, he even had the same tone to his thoughts, but Mikey was young. Far younger, and clearly he didn't remember him. Which was even worse.

What does he even say? ]

You called me old. [ He pointed out, taking his cigar from the ashtray, and pointed it at him. ]

You really don't know who I am? You've been here for months now, and you don't remember?

[invinciblemikey]

... So-so. It feels like I've been here and haven't. Feels like I know you but that I don't. All I know is that I had the urge to come to this house and now I'm here.

(and slowly, it comes back, a smidge. a name. information that he can't quite connect. so, he'll step into the house, sitting on the desk the other seems to be working at. somehow, he feels soothed, which is weird to think considering the creepiness on the man's expression, that eye--

wait, it was the river.)

... Silco.

[zauneyete]

[ Silco blinked, one eye closed, the other stared at the kid, before he nodded. ]

Well, you haven't lost all of your faculties along with your age.

[ It's blunt, the way he said it. Look, he knew what teens were like, didn't he? ]

You're right. We're -- [ UGH. He hates the word. Hates it. It's the sort of thing Silco didn't buy into, and therefore... ]

-- How much do you know about this world? Or how much do you remember?