16 Summer 218, after E44: Reckoning
The Beauty
Astarael
Astarael heads over to the prow of the ship, and finds a familiar figure there. Warbler is busy moving about pots and organizing the curious garden he has built here over the past half a season. It’s in disarray from the battle earlier, and a few plants seem to have been stripped of its fruit recently.
She walks to the halfling, and lays a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, Warbler.”
Warbler
Warbler’s vision is still recovering and his body aches as he moves about the garden. Everything is too bright, his eyes are dry, and as one color shifts into focus another blurs whenever he moves his head. The sensation is nauseating, and is not helped by the myriad smells that he only recently noticed emanating from every inch of the ship.
He feels something on his shoulder, and leaps backward spinning to face his attacker catching himself at an odd angle with his walking stick. He lets out a sound that is somewhere between a gasp and a chirp. The blurred figure looks like a storm of contrasts, until he hears the voice vibrate through his skull.
“Oh, uh … H, Hey Astarael.”
Astarael
Astarael feels Warbler jump, and gently takes a step back, remaining calm as he whirls around to face her.
She offers a concerned half smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She looks around at the garden. “I’m glad this didn’t get destroyed. Though I’m confident if it had, you’d find a way to fix it, and make it even better than it was. Perhaps I can assist you, though? I’ve got no gardening experience, but I can try to lend a hand nonetheless.”
Warbler
Warbler’s eyes partially focus, and he notices the smile on Astarael’s face. He quickly beams back with a wide grin of his own as he steadies himself.
“I, I’m still learning to garden myself” he chuckles “Here!” he says as he waves a hand to the half cleared bench. “I’m moving the bonsai over to that table to give our new friend a little space.”
He slides a glass bottle onto the bench containing soil and some very unusual flowers.
Astarael
Astarael bends down to be at eye level with it. The small plants are truly marvelous. She turns to look at Warbler again.
“A very unique addition to the garden. I’m sure that Sav will be interested in studying them as well.”
She pauses for a brief moment, and catches Warbler’s expression. His face is smiling, but there’s something more beneath it. An emotion Astarael is more familiar with. Something quite the opposite of being ok. She glances behind him at the deck of the Beauty. The fresh red stains of blood have already oxidized into brown rust. The bones and bodies are gone, but it will take some good scrubbing to remove all traces of the battle.
“Warbler, there’s been so much going on lately that we have never gotten to finish our chat about my time in Galoring. I know you had more questions. But it’s important to me that you know something else first. In the past, it’s been very hard for me to talk about my time there, not because of what was done to me, but because of the things that I did. I’ve struggled to reckon with my past, and my present, because I know that most people will and should think less of me if they knew the full truth. I did what I could to atone for my past mistakes, but in order to continue to survive, to keep all of us here on this ship safe, and to ultimately do what I can to help foil the Baroness’s plans, I know I will have to do more terrible things.
“The only way I can deal with it is to try and see it like this: Although we may need to do monstrous things, it does not make us monsters. Sometimes it seems like we have no other option- which isn’t true. You can always choose to do nothing. But sometimes that has an even greater cost.
“No matter what side you’re on, it feels like you’re in the right. People will always find reasons to justify what they do. But if you keep your ability to love others, and have compassion for all, you will be fine.
“I’m not always good at showing it, but I try. The Baroness will never feel true love, or care for anyone besides herself. That’s what sets her and I apart. She is the true monster.
“So, I hope you won’t think less of me as you get to know me better.”
Warbler
Warbler looks down at the deck of the ship, and clasps his hands behind his back as he absorbs Astarael’s words.
“Hmm, I … we … we’re all monsters …” he says as he rolls his shoulders with a loud pop, and tilts his neck to one side looking back up at Astareal “and … as long as we’re in Isendel, that’s all we get to be …”
He lets out a long sigh, “whatever you’ve done in your past led you here, and all any of us can do is try to take the next step on the path …”
“Your path led you to this Baroness … what kind of monster is she? What kind of monster did she try to make you?”
Astarael
Astarael sits down on the deck, her back to a planter. She does her best not to look concerned at Warbler’s statement about them being monsters.
I truly hope that’s not true, Warbler. And it’s worrying that you think so.
“She’s the worst kind of monster, Warbler. Someone who only sees value in others based on what they can give her. Or do for her. She’s power hungry, and incapable of compassion or love. She had an innate ability to know just what someone else needs in order to make them compliant to her will, and fiercely loyal to her alone.
She can do this just by intuition, but…she can also see into your mind with a touch.”
Astarael’s face contorts into one of grief.
“A thing she did to me, once. And something I’m afraid I’ve just done to Vanja as well.” Her voice trembles. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know I could. I just…felt a compulsion to reach to her. And suddenly, it’s as if I lived through some of the things she’s said and done.” She whispers now. “It was a monstrous thing to do to her. But now I know the truth of the matter. And although her intentions were good, her actions were selfish, Warbler. She put all of us in so much danger. More than once. She…she let us walk right into a trap.”
Astarael’s head is in her hands.
Warbler
Warbler sits down beside her, stumbling a little on his way down, but catching himself in a way he believes looks intentional.
The distortions will fade with time … they always have before, he thinks to himself, the tang of copper still clinging to his teeth as a chill runs through him that he can’t seem to shake. Then again … I’ve never been something big before.
He gives Astarael a little nudge with his elbow. “Hey, maybe what you did was monstrous, and maybe Vanja was selfish, but those things are already done. We all make mistakes, and we’ll all make more … some of us more than others. The only thing we can control is what we do next …”
“We may need to be monsters to stop something worse … like your Baroness” he stammers a bit as he tries to collect his words, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t also be good people …”
“… do, do you think they’re going to kill her?”
Astarael
Astarael looks at Warbler with a serious expression, then down at the deck before her. “To kill her would change us all, irrevocably, and put us on a path to being more like the Baroness and those who serve her. I will do what I can to prevent that from happening.
But, she does pose a danger to us. I wish I could believe that she can learn from this, and change. But I don’t think she’s ready. We need to find a way to minimize future risk to all of us, with consequences in keeping with her actions.
I am also worried about Sylas. I don’t trust him, and I don’t think he should be allowed unrestricted access to Vanja. His motivations are suspect, and I doubt anything useful could come of interrogating Vanja. I already know everything.”
She turns to Warbler again. “So much loss of life, and all because of what she told them in Northgate. She gave them a reason to come looking for us. Then she warned them we were coming. And never thought to warn us we were expected.” Astarael pauses, and takes a deep breath. “You have a kind heart, Warbler. You went out of your way to earn our trust, when you joined our group. You have mine, without question. Do you think you could ever forgive Vanja? Do you think you could trust her, knowing these things?”
Warbler
Warbler’s eyes go wide as tears uncontrollably well up in the corners of them.
“Forgive her?!? …” he says with a whimper.
“I can’t believe she forgave us …” he growls without realizing that he’d begun raising his voice.
“We … I … left her in Northgate … and then when we found her in that box … most of us were more concerned with what she told her captors than her recovery … She, she’s lost everyone she cared about to help this group … her brothers!” he shouts.
Warbler stands, so he can look Astarael in the eyes as he regains his composure and says, “We … betrayed … her … and she didn’t feel safe with us, that suffering thing trying to latch onto her, calling out for help from that, that Swan …”
“She was just trying to find a way to survive … we all are …” he pauses a moment to catch his breath and soften his expression.
“Sav tried to kill her, Ethan shot her, you invaded her mind, and then she was dragged away in chains. If Vanja is capable of forgiving all of us for that … then I trust her with my life … we all make mistakes … the whole point is that we get a chance to learn from them … to be better…”
Warbler plops down into a seated position and lowers his head. “I’m sorry I yelled …”
Astarael
Astarael sits in silence for a while, stunned by Warbler’s outburst. Her voice sounds far away, catching in her own throat.
“It’s ok…I…I didn’t mean to invade her mi…”
Weak. Afraid. Pathetic. Your fault—it’s your fault.
She chokes back a sob, closing her eyes to fight back tears.
“I’m glad to hear your perspective, Warbler.” She whispers mostly to herself, “And you’re a better person than I.”
To Warbler, she says, “I did try, you know. I tried so hard to reach her. I had been through a similar experience when I was captured. If anyone could understand what she went through, I could. And she knew this. But she didn’t want it. She didn’t want any of us. She chose to wallow in her own misery. She wanted to feel special, after thinking we had abandoned her- without any evidence that would be the case, I might add. She didn’t even hold out for a single day. That’s why when Vivian came to her as the Suffering, despite Vanja knowing what the Suffering could do, she listened to it. Let it give her power. Like the Baroness, it told her just what she wanted to believe.
“We will all have to pay the price for our choices and actions. And I’m afraid we will continue to pay for hers.
“I don’t have forgiveness in my heart for her, and I don’t have faith in her willingness to learn and change. I won’t stand by and let her be killed, but nothing will be the same, after this. I’m sorry you’ve been caught up in it at all.
“If you were looking for somewhere safe, for a way to survive…being with us isn’t it.”
Warbler
“Survive … hehe. Oh … Oh, no … I’ve always figured this was a one way trip for me.”
“I just … I just want all of you to survive, because you might just … you might just be strong enough to stop them, the Swans I mean.”
Warbler wraps his arms around Astarael’s shoulders in a hug, though they can’t quite reach, and says “It’s ok, I know I can trust you to do the right thing.”
Astarael
Astarael puts her hands to Warber’s arm, accepting the hug. All of her self control leaves her, and she begins to sob. She’s unable to reply, but manages to nod her head in response.
Warbler
by Shaun McCallumHe takes a step back, and smiles while wiping a tear from his eye. Walks a few steps to his work bench, and retrieves a small bucket full of tomatoes. Then offers one to Astareal.
“Real shit day huh” he says as he raises another tomato over his head as if for a toast. “Un schou,” he mutters, just before taking a bite.
Astarael
“You can say that again.” She takes one, nodding her thanks, and takes a bite of her own tomato. It’s delicious. She stands and turns to leave.
“I should get back to supply recovery. But thank you, Warbler.”
Astarael gets up and begins to walk over to where some of the crew are hauling an interesting looking chest over the rail of the Beauty, finishing her tomato as she goes.
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