Human Touch – Marto Copperkettle – 23.03.2023
Apr 4, 2023 0:07:27 GMT
Velania Kalugina, Andy D, and 3 more like this
Post by Marto Copperkettle on Apr 4, 2023 0:07:27 GMT
When the sending came from Velania, Marto was surprised, happily so. But it didn’t last very long. She sounded worried about An’Ahkrim but that wasn’t it either. There was something about her tone, the words she wasn’t saying that made him respond with, “You’re not going without me. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.
The answer revealed itself as she was talking about the things she was bringing with her for the once-fiend. He knew then that, despite the conflicts of the past, An’Ahkrim really had changed. After all, out of all of them, Velania was the only one who had kept her head at the time.
Plus the Jackal was keeping an eye on the now mortal An’Ahkrim. If that wasn’t indication that he had changed then what would that really say of them all?
He chose to believe because he had to…
“A curious choice of flower as a bookmark on his night-stand.”
Marto’s heart did the barest of stutters when Zola suddenly spoke behind him. Was it because he hadn’t been expecting her to even speak to him? Or because she suddenly was?
“Lavender,” she continued at his blank look. Then she shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing, I don’t know.”
Maybe it didn’t matter. They were speaking now, isn’t that what counts?
The halfling did his own shrug. “It smells nice. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gone back off the deep end. Not every sprig of lavender is an omen of evil.”
“I know but he recoiled when he saw us.”
He wondered if Zola was still looking for a fight or just didn’t see things the same way he did.
“The last time he saw me was in Phlegethos. Then he sees me like this-” Marto gestures to his smouldering armour, shield, and softly glowing axe, Guiding Light, “-in his own home. His reaction makes sense.”
He was also on death’s door after being gored by some kind of super large bore, which we still haven’t spotted yet.
The beautiful warrior frowns, seemingly unconvinced. “Last time I saw him I gave him a crayon. I’m just getting nervous.”
Ah…
“Then come walk with me?” Marto says, gesturing in the direction he was headed in. Maybe helping him on patrol would help her focus.
“Cor’Vandor looks amazing by the way,” Marto continued, glancing up at Zola. “But don’t tell him I told you that.” He winked.
Zola giggled. “I think he heard. Gwen is a lot cuter though.” She says this loud enough to make sure her mystical fey mount can hear.
There’s a distant harumph from the winged white hart, whilst Gwen, who was on Marto’s pauldron, tweeted her delight at the compliment.
The two walked the perimeter in silence for a beat or two.
“So, how have you been?” Marto asks Zola.
“Recently, not the best. Restless, quite restless.”
His brows drew together. “How come?”
“It’s going to sound a bit odd…”
The halfling knight just waited. Zola seemed to want to speak about things; it would just be a matter of waiting for her to be ready.
“I’ve been preparing myself mentally for months for this big thing that never ended up happening. This threat to my community back home. And it was resolved much quicker than I expected it would be.” She shakes her head. “It’s stupid because everyone’s safe and I should be happy and I am happy. I think I’ve just got a lot of pent-up belligerence that… I haven’t got an outlet for. Do you get it?”
Gwen was looking at Marto. But the halfling was looking ahead of him at some middle distance.
“Kinda…” But did he? “I don’t–” He stops that thought and tries again. Honesty and truth this time. “It may sound weird, me giving you any kind of advice on what to do. I put things to the side for a while. That was my way of trying to deal with my pent-up frustrations, I guess.”
“I see.”
Gwen shook herself. “I don’t think that was what she needed to hear.”
Marto tries not to wince. “Look, I know I’m no good at this…”
Aloud he says, “It is a good thing your people back home are safe. Just because you weren’t part of the direct solution doesn’t mean you can’t be there in the future though.”
Zola only grew more concerned. “I hope there won’t be any threat in the future. But I didn’t even consider that I might not be there.”
The robin tilts her head. “You really aren’t good at this, are you Marto?”
The halfling doesn’t seem to be listening to her though. He has stopped, and so has Zola, the single connection of his gauntleted hand resting on her arm.
“It’s okay.”
The forest around them grows quiet. Zola appears to take a moment to breathe.
“It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to feel a little bit lost sometimes. As long as you don’t let yourself get consumed by that restlessness… or listlessness… or whatever-you-call-it-ness.” His gaze is steady, strong, and heartfelt. “You are needed, Zola, just maybe not where you thought, because it just hasn’t presented itself to you yet.”
The night grows still around the halfling knight and the drow bladedancer, connected by a single touch.
“Perhaps you’re right…” Zola’s face relaxed as she smiled. “Thanks, Marto. I needed to hear that.”
“Guess I was wrong. She’s really pretty when she smiles at you,” Gwen said. If a bird could look impressed, that’s precisely what she looks like.
Marto ignores her, nodding at Zola. Then he clears his throat and begins to awkwardly fuss with his hair.
“Oh how’s Fog?” Zola asks.
“He’s great, thanks,” he says quickly. Then he smiles, at the thought of the firbolg. “Thanks for asking.”
“Good. He’s a… swell guy.”
“Interesting choice of words,” Gwen observed.
Marto chose to not think too much about it
“Yes, he is.” And more.
Together, they walked on…
Guiding Light’s edge gleamed as it moved up and swept down, hissing softly through the nighttime air as Marto worked on felling one of the pine trees on the edge of the clearing. By now everyone but Zola seemed to know that An’Ahkrim and Velania were in love. One way the young knight wanted to show his support was by making them a bed that could hold both of them. The once-lumberjack had been impressed with the once-fiend’s woodwork. The home he had built was sound and didn’t make Marto’s head spin with how unsafe it was. In fact, it would have been a beautiful home… if it had more than one window that only faced north.
He was so focused on the old movements of heft and swing that Marto didn’t notice he wasn’t alone anymore.
“Oh. Nice of you to show up,” he said, giving the Jackal a quick look over. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve been busy.”
Ker-thunk.
“I get it. Like I said, it’s nice of you to show up.”
Ker-thunk.
“Oh,” the Jackal said, flatly. “Usually when people say that it’s sarcastic.”
Marto grinned but kept chopping. “Maybe a little bit.”
Ker-thunk.
“Do you know what happens when an aboleth has a baby with an astral dreadnought?”
Marto didn’t even have to think about his answer. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Exactly.”
“Well thank you for dealing with it,” he says sincerely.
Ker-thunk.
“Which is your job,” he adds.
“Oh okay. That’s what I get, is it?”
Ker-thunk.
Marto cocks an eyebrow as he looks up and over to where Kavel and Dwirhian are talking. He didn’t know where Gwen had flown off to, but he knew Velania was taking care of An’Ahkrim alone in the cabin.
“They’re fine by the way,” he says, nodding in the cabin’s direction. “They’re inside. Having a moment. Don’t go in there.”
Ker-thunk.
“I wasn’t going to!” the Jackal says as if offended that Marto thought he would.
Ker-thunk.
There’s a whining groan, the sound of wood splitting, the creak as bark twists under the weight of too much tree on one side. Then the pine is falling, safely crashing into the clearing.
Marto sighs, satisfied with how well it was going so far. He gestures to the felled tree. “Wanna help me with this?”
He begins to strip the tree of its bark. The Jackal had not moved, but Marto could tell there was something on the angel’s mind.
“If you want to vent, you can vent to me a little,” he offers. “It’s okay to care about these people. And it’s okay to admit it.” Marto glances at Zola who has mounted up on Cor’Vandor. “It’s okay to let people in.”
Zola still had not cleaned the demon boar’s blood from her glistening armour. He pauses as Cor’Vandor took off into the sky, a divot appearing between his blonde brow.
“D’you know why Velania’s original guardian did such a shit job?”
The question was unexpected. Marto turned around to look at the Jackal.
“Not exactly,” he said, continuing with the work at hand.
“Got his heart broken too many times,” the celestial said, as if that explained everything. “He saw too many mortals come and go, loved them all too much, and he couldn’t take it.”
The halfling didn’t like the tone in the angel’s voice. “He isn’t you though. Nor are you him.”
The Jackal scowls. “He’s a fucking piece of shit. I can admit that I care for you. All of you. Even you, you fucking brat.” Marto resisted the urge to pull the same kind of face he would have to Berton once upon a time. “What’s a massive problem right now is that I’m not allowed to help some of you.”
“Do some of us need help?”
“Have you seen Sorrel?”
Marto slowed a little in his woodworking. “Not much recently. Not since a couple of weeks ago. She seemed okay at the time. But you being worried about her…” He trailed off. He couldn’t help it. Something about this conversation felt different. Problem was, he didn’t know what.
“She’s about to go through something massive and I’m not allowed to help.”
That finally did it. Marto stopped what he was doing and straightened up.
“I’m not much of a stand-in but… I can try.”
He wasn’t sure where the compulsion to offer this help came. Marto just chalked it up to a friend offering the obvious – a friend might be in danger and though this big, strong angel man wasn’t able to be there, Marto could try to be there instead. That’s all it was, surely.
Or was it?
“All of them are coming after her and I could kill them in the blink of an eye,” the Jackal continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard Marto. “I could destroy them, I could pave-… She wouldn’t have to worry about them ever again in her life.” He looks at where Zola had been. “She wouldn’t have to draw her swords ever again. I could get rid of them all.”
“But it’s not your battle to fight.”
“No.”
“It’s not your battle to fight,” Marto repeated softly to himself.
“You can’t see the forest for the trees, darlin’...”
“So. Imagine it’s not just your mum or your boss telling you it’s not your battle but it’s the literal goddess who made you. Because it’s meant to be ‘good for their character’. So you have to stay away and you’re not allowed to talk to them about it. And they hate you for it, the people that you love, because they think you’ve let you down.”
Marto shook himself out of his thoughts. “They don’t hate you. None of those people think you’ve let them down, even the ones who aren’t here. Even if you aren’t physically here with them, sometimes the support isn’t physical, it’s that feeling thing again, right? It’s that love thing.” He had gotten close enough to the Jackal that Marto tried to poke him in the chest.
His finger passes right on through.
The Jackal suddenly looks very tired. “Just hope she’ll forgive me.” He looks at Marto. “Tell her to take care.”
“Tell her yourself.”
There’s an exasperated growl. “I’m not fucking allowed,” says the Jackal.
Marto just shrugs. “I’m sure you could find a way.”
“It’s the word of the literal deity that prevents me. Don’t tell me I can find a way.”
Maybe there really isn’t a way for him, but maybe I could on his behalf…
“…I’m not saying that.”
“Those were literally the words out of your mouth.”
“Well I’m not saying it now,” he says firmly. “I get it, your hands are tied. I don’t entirely understand it. I don’t have any such ties…”
There’s a moment where they both realised those words might not be as true as Marto intended. The young knight turns away, once again reflecting on the strangeness of this chat. How similar it felt to the dream he had when he drank that soup-tea with Fog and the others in the Feythorn.
It both thrilled and sent chills down the halfling’s spine.
Marto ploughs on. “…and anyway, having a sister who said ‘fuck you’ to Fate herself… I still feel like there’s some way-”
He turned around only to find the Jackal gone. So much for trying to convince him of a loophole.
“Okay. I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her…”
Gwen had decided to follow the drow sword dancer of her own accord. The little fey spirit knew Marto still cared deeply for her, though the love he had for her was different than it once was. Still, even she, a small remnant of the Spirit of Harmony knew that he would want to know what was going on with the woman he once loved.
And so the little red robin spied upon the crystal crowned drow as she spoke to her greater fey spirit companion.
“I need a crusade, Cor’Vandor,” Zola said softly in Sylvan. “I need… an evil to contend against, lest I be without purpose. Marto is right. Jaezred Vandree is the true protector of the church, not I. I need to find my calling elsewhere.”
One of her blades, perhaps the one called Castor, emanated a shimmering moon-like light, which made the blood on her skin nearly blend together.
Blood and skin and moonlight.
A concerning combination, paired with the words she just spoke, that Gwen was sure the young knight she served would want to know…
Thank you Zola Rhomdaen for the small contribution at the end ⚔️
Continued in ‘El Arte de Cuidarte’ 🌲
Lyrics from ‘Human Touch’ by Bruce Springsteen
The answer revealed itself as she was talking about the things she was bringing with her for the once-fiend. He knew then that, despite the conflicts of the past, An’Ahkrim really had changed. After all, out of all of them, Velania was the only one who had kept her head at the time.
Plus the Jackal was keeping an eye on the now mortal An’Ahkrim. If that wasn’t indication that he had changed then what would that really say of them all?
He chose to believe because he had to…
You and me we were the pretenders
We let it all slip away
In the end what you don't surrender
Well, the world just strips away
“A curious choice of flower as a bookmark on his night-stand.”
Marto’s heart did the barest of stutters when Zola suddenly spoke behind him. Was it because he hadn’t been expecting her to even speak to him? Or because she suddenly was?
“Lavender,” she continued at his blank look. Then she shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing, I don’t know.”
Maybe it didn’t matter. They were speaking now, isn’t that what counts?
The halfling did his own shrug. “It smells nice. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s gone back off the deep end. Not every sprig of lavender is an omen of evil.”
“I know but he recoiled when he saw us.”
He wondered if Zola was still looking for a fight or just didn’t see things the same way he did.
“The last time he saw me was in Phlegethos. Then he sees me like this-” Marto gestures to his smouldering armour, shield, and softly glowing axe, Guiding Light, “-in his own home. His reaction makes sense.”
He was also on death’s door after being gored by some kind of super large bore, which we still haven’t spotted yet.
The beautiful warrior frowns, seemingly unconvinced. “Last time I saw him I gave him a crayon. I’m just getting nervous.”
Ah…
“Then come walk with me?” Marto says, gesturing in the direction he was headed in. Maybe helping him on patrol would help her focus.
“Cor’Vandor looks amazing by the way,” Marto continued, glancing up at Zola. “But don’t tell him I told you that.” He winked.
Zola giggled. “I think he heard. Gwen is a lot cuter though.” She says this loud enough to make sure her mystical fey mount can hear.
There’s a distant harumph from the winged white hart, whilst Gwen, who was on Marto’s pauldron, tweeted her delight at the compliment.
The two walked the perimeter in silence for a beat or two.
“So, how have you been?” Marto asks Zola.
“Recently, not the best. Restless, quite restless.”
His brows drew together. “How come?”
“It’s going to sound a bit odd…”
The halfling knight just waited. Zola seemed to want to speak about things; it would just be a matter of waiting for her to be ready.
“I’ve been preparing myself mentally for months for this big thing that never ended up happening. This threat to my community back home. And it was resolved much quicker than I expected it would be.” She shakes her head. “It’s stupid because everyone’s safe and I should be happy and I am happy. I think I’ve just got a lot of pent-up belligerence that… I haven’t got an outlet for. Do you get it?”
Gwen was looking at Marto. But the halfling was looking ahead of him at some middle distance.
“Kinda…” But did he? “I don’t–” He stops that thought and tries again. Honesty and truth this time. “It may sound weird, me giving you any kind of advice on what to do. I put things to the side for a while. That was my way of trying to deal with my pent-up frustrations, I guess.”
“I see.”
Gwen shook herself. “I don’t think that was what she needed to hear.”
Marto tries not to wince. “Look, I know I’m no good at this…”
Aloud he says, “It is a good thing your people back home are safe. Just because you weren’t part of the direct solution doesn’t mean you can’t be there in the future though.”
Zola only grew more concerned. “I hope there won’t be any threat in the future. But I didn’t even consider that I might not be there.”
The robin tilts her head. “You really aren’t good at this, are you Marto?”
The halfling doesn’t seem to be listening to her though. He has stopped, and so has Zola, the single connection of his gauntleted hand resting on her arm.
“It’s okay.”
The forest around them grows quiet. Zola appears to take a moment to breathe.
“It’s okay not to know. It’s okay to feel a little bit lost sometimes. As long as you don’t let yourself get consumed by that restlessness… or listlessness… or whatever-you-call-it-ness.” His gaze is steady, strong, and heartfelt. “You are needed, Zola, just maybe not where you thought, because it just hasn’t presented itself to you yet.”
The night grows still around the halfling knight and the drow bladedancer, connected by a single touch.
“Perhaps you’re right…” Zola’s face relaxed as she smiled. “Thanks, Marto. I needed to hear that.”
“Guess I was wrong. She’s really pretty when she smiles at you,” Gwen said. If a bird could look impressed, that’s precisely what she looks like.
Marto ignores her, nodding at Zola. Then he clears his throat and begins to awkwardly fuss with his hair.
“Oh how’s Fog?” Zola asks.
“He’s great, thanks,” he says quickly. Then he smiles, at the thought of the firbolg. “Thanks for asking.”
“Good. He’s a… swell guy.”
“Interesting choice of words,” Gwen observed.
Marto chose to not think too much about it
“Yes, he is.” And more.
Together, they walked on…
Ain’t no mercy on the streets of this town
Ain’t no bread from heavenly skies
Ain’t nobody drawin’ wine from this blood
It’s just you and me tonight
Guiding Light’s edge gleamed as it moved up and swept down, hissing softly through the nighttime air as Marto worked on felling one of the pine trees on the edge of the clearing. By now everyone but Zola seemed to know that An’Ahkrim and Velania were in love. One way the young knight wanted to show his support was by making them a bed that could hold both of them. The once-lumberjack had been impressed with the once-fiend’s woodwork. The home he had built was sound and didn’t make Marto’s head spin with how unsafe it was. In fact, it would have been a beautiful home… if it had more than one window that only faced north.
He was so focused on the old movements of heft and swing that Marto didn’t notice he wasn’t alone anymore.
“Oh. Nice of you to show up,” he said, giving the Jackal a quick look over. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve been busy.”
Ker-thunk.
“I get it. Like I said, it’s nice of you to show up.”
Ker-thunk.
“Oh,” the Jackal said, flatly. “Usually when people say that it’s sarcastic.”
Marto grinned but kept chopping. “Maybe a little bit.”
Ker-thunk.
“Do you know what happens when an aboleth has a baby with an astral dreadnought?”
Marto didn’t even have to think about his answer. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Exactly.”
“Well thank you for dealing with it,” he says sincerely.
Ker-thunk.
“Which is your job,” he adds.
“Oh okay. That’s what I get, is it?”
Ker-thunk.
Marto cocks an eyebrow as he looks up and over to where Kavel and Dwirhian are talking. He didn’t know where Gwen had flown off to, but he knew Velania was taking care of An’Ahkrim alone in the cabin.
“They’re fine by the way,” he says, nodding in the cabin’s direction. “They’re inside. Having a moment. Don’t go in there.”
Ker-thunk.
“I wasn’t going to!” the Jackal says as if offended that Marto thought he would.
Ker-thunk.
There’s a whining groan, the sound of wood splitting, the creak as bark twists under the weight of too much tree on one side. Then the pine is falling, safely crashing into the clearing.
Marto sighs, satisfied with how well it was going so far. He gestures to the felled tree. “Wanna help me with this?”
He begins to strip the tree of its bark. The Jackal had not moved, but Marto could tell there was something on the angel’s mind.
“If you want to vent, you can vent to me a little,” he offers. “It’s okay to care about these people. And it’s okay to admit it.” Marto glances at Zola who has mounted up on Cor’Vandor. “It’s okay to let people in.”
Zola still had not cleaned the demon boar’s blood from her glistening armour. He pauses as Cor’Vandor took off into the sky, a divot appearing between his blonde brow.
“D’you know why Velania’s original guardian did such a shit job?”
The question was unexpected. Marto turned around to look at the Jackal.
“Not exactly,” he said, continuing with the work at hand.
“Got his heart broken too many times,” the celestial said, as if that explained everything. “He saw too many mortals come and go, loved them all too much, and he couldn’t take it.”
The halfling didn’t like the tone in the angel’s voice. “He isn’t you though. Nor are you him.”
The Jackal scowls. “He’s a fucking piece of shit. I can admit that I care for you. All of you. Even you, you fucking brat.” Marto resisted the urge to pull the same kind of face he would have to Berton once upon a time. “What’s a massive problem right now is that I’m not allowed to help some of you.”
“Do some of us need help?”
“Have you seen Sorrel?”
Marto slowed a little in his woodworking. “Not much recently. Not since a couple of weeks ago. She seemed okay at the time. But you being worried about her…” He trailed off. He couldn’t help it. Something about this conversation felt different. Problem was, he didn’t know what.
“She’s about to go through something massive and I’m not allowed to help.”
That finally did it. Marto stopped what he was doing and straightened up.
“I’m not much of a stand-in but… I can try.”
He wasn’t sure where the compulsion to offer this help came. Marto just chalked it up to a friend offering the obvious – a friend might be in danger and though this big, strong angel man wasn’t able to be there, Marto could try to be there instead. That’s all it was, surely.
Or was it?
“All of them are coming after her and I could kill them in the blink of an eye,” the Jackal continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard Marto. “I could destroy them, I could pave-… She wouldn’t have to worry about them ever again in her life.” He looks at where Zola had been. “She wouldn’t have to draw her swords ever again. I could get rid of them all.”
“But it’s not your battle to fight.”
“No.”
“It’s not your battle to fight,” Marto repeated softly to himself.
“You can’t see the forest for the trees, darlin’...”
“So. Imagine it’s not just your mum or your boss telling you it’s not your battle but it’s the literal goddess who made you. Because it’s meant to be ‘good for their character’. So you have to stay away and you’re not allowed to talk to them about it. And they hate you for it, the people that you love, because they think you’ve let you down.”
Marto shook himself out of his thoughts. “They don’t hate you. None of those people think you’ve let them down, even the ones who aren’t here. Even if you aren’t physically here with them, sometimes the support isn’t physical, it’s that feeling thing again, right? It’s that love thing.” He had gotten close enough to the Jackal that Marto tried to poke him in the chest.
His finger passes right on through.
The Jackal suddenly looks very tired. “Just hope she’ll forgive me.” He looks at Marto. “Tell her to take care.”
“Tell her yourself.”
There’s an exasperated growl. “I’m not fucking allowed,” says the Jackal.
Marto just shrugs. “I’m sure you could find a way.”
“It’s the word of the literal deity that prevents me. Don’t tell me I can find a way.”
Maybe there really isn’t a way for him, but maybe I could on his behalf…
“…I’m not saying that.”
“Those were literally the words out of your mouth.”
“Well I’m not saying it now,” he says firmly. “I get it, your hands are tied. I don’t entirely understand it. I don’t have any such ties…”
There’s a moment where they both realised those words might not be as true as Marto intended. The young knight turns away, once again reflecting on the strangeness of this chat. How similar it felt to the dream he had when he drank that soup-tea with Fog and the others in the Feythorn.
It both thrilled and sent chills down the halfling’s spine.
Marto ploughs on. “…and anyway, having a sister who said ‘fuck you’ to Fate herself… I still feel like there’s some way-”
He turned around only to find the Jackal gone. So much for trying to convince him of a loophole.
“Okay. I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her…”
Oh girl, that feeling of safety you prize
Well, it comes at a hard hard price
You can’t shut off the risk and the pain
Without losin’ the love that remains
We’re all riders on this train
Gwen had decided to follow the drow sword dancer of her own accord. The little fey spirit knew Marto still cared deeply for her, though the love he had for her was different than it once was. Still, even she, a small remnant of the Spirit of Harmony knew that he would want to know what was going on with the woman he once loved.
And so the little red robin spied upon the crystal crowned drow as she spoke to her greater fey spirit companion.
“I need a crusade, Cor’Vandor,” Zola said softly in Sylvan. “I need… an evil to contend against, lest I be without purpose. Marto is right. Jaezred Vandree is the true protector of the church, not I. I need to find my calling elsewhere.”
One of her blades, perhaps the one called Castor, emanated a shimmering moon-like light, which made the blood on her skin nearly blend together.
Blood and skin and moonlight.
A concerning combination, paired with the words she just spoke, that Gwen was sure the young knight she served would want to know…
You might need somethin’ to hold on to
When all the answers, they don't amount to much
Somebody that you could just to talk to
And a little of that human touch
Thank you Zola Rhomdaen for the small contribution at the end ⚔️
Continued in ‘El Arte de Cuidarte’ 🌲
Lyrics from ‘Human Touch’ by Bruce Springsteen
