The trip is only going to last an hour, and that's awesome, but there's more immediate issues on Vorpal's mind than the trek through the hedge, their dangerous captive, or the recently freed, panicky victim. His mind's set on Teagan as they move back, so he takes the time to urge them back a few paces from the others, enough to talk without being easily overheard.
"Hey. You up for talking a little while we're heading back? Sorta serious, but it could wait if you're not comfortable."
"Hnngh?" Teagan is, at times, not the most eloquent of people, and especially not when their faces are covered by a patchwork of silvery bruises. They fall back a bit from the group, though, and roll their shoulders slightly; there's the subtlest of hisses inward, because that does hurt a bit. Whatever Teagan took off the body has disappeared into the pockets of their battered trenchcoat. The noise isn't a word, but it is, at least, a question in response, as Teagan falls in step alongside Vorpal.
Vorpal sets their matchlock pace to the rest of the group, just a little bit back, eyes flexing, narrowing faintly, at the quiet hiss. "Two things. Three, sorta, but the third isn't the same sort of important. First, most pressing- how the hell did you get so fucking beat up? You look like Dracula developed anger management issues, took Tae Kwon Do, and saw you in the bathroom."
They can't see his eyes narrow, but they can feel it. Teagan's hands come to rest on the handles of both their machetes: Baby to their left, and the cold iron machete that Neirin made for them hanging in a new ring holster on their right side. "You and I need a secret-keeping pledge," they answer, as if that's sort of the answer, "if you want the real answer to that. God knows you already know more about me than just about anyone else in -- basically -- anywhere."
It IS part of an answer, and V recognizes it. It gives him some tiny pause. "... mm. So it's not as simple as "snuck off and got in a fight" or "I dunno, magic." Hm. If you want a pledge, that's fine. I don't aim to release or abuse your secrets, so that's fine by me. That something you want to work out later? Is the answer something I need to know while we're still out here?"
"It is both as simple as those answers and not simple at all," answers Teagan, rolling their shoulders again and setting their lips in a line. "If I didn't trust you enough for a pledge, I wouldn't trust you enough to tell you anything. Unlike most people, I'm sorta the fuckin' opposite about pledges. Unless I already trust you, I ain't gonna get in one." Which might have something to do with how they view Freeholds, now that a person has opportunity to think about it. "Well, I mean, if we get in another fight, I'm gonna have to ghost. This shit has to work itself out."
Which is probably frightening enough in and of itself: wounds magic can't heal.
"Maybe about an hour or so."
Teagan gets Vorpal's attention while they speak. Such a common thing, but Attention isn't some abstract for Vorpal, it's something he almost literally has to Pay. And Pay he does, taking in every word Teagan offers, nodding slowly, lips curled down as he considers the implications. "... Mm. Okay. I know enough basics to hazard a few guesses, but end of the day, sounds like a deal that's just a bit raw on your end in the aftermath." He's quiet, somber, considerate. "Alright. I'll keep that in mind. Hour long cooldown after engagements. Is this something you got control over? If we're gonna need to go in for a series of engagements? Or do we just have to assume you're gonna be done after one scrap?" No judgement, just inquiry. "Don't want to risk putting you in a situation where you're forced to break yourself on whatever deal that is."
Their head turns toward him, the little fractured-mirrors inside their gaze reflecting back bits ot the shadowy godling to himself. "If it's important enough to justify really bringing everything to the table, then I need time. Or it might kill me. And that's my call, what is or isn't worth bringing it all to bear. Sometimes I need an hour, sometimes I don't." Teagan flares the fingers of one hand out, makes a small, almost dismissive gesture. "He needed to die before he could get his hands on the other human." That wrath flashes across their face again, visible as a lightning strike. "It'll kill me someday, Johnny. And that's how I'm supposed to go."
"It's your call, lovely, but it's on my shoulders if I put you in a position to have to -make- that decision unnecessarily- for instance, if I've got someone else who might be able to pull it off without coming back battered worse than british fish. You'll go out on your terms, and I'm not gonna deny you that, but I'm gonna do my damnedest to keep that at arm's length and you within it," says Vorpal.
They're about to say something else, maybe, but then their hand goes out and touches his arm at his last four words. There's something gentle in that touch, and Teagan goes quiet. "Look," Teagan answers, "You're not wrong. But I'm the one who's going to make the call, and I'm not going to be able to tell you, always, when I make that call. If you see me looking like this, or worse, and you know nothing hit me? You know it won't heal. That's the important thing."
Vorpal nods. That's true. It's the important bit he need, and he acknowledges that, with a nod. "Alright. That's fair, and useful. Thanks. It'll be kept in mind. Can you at least tell me if you jack yourself up like this again? You don't always reappear after, and without the visual, it'll be damn hard to tell you're hurting."
Silence follows. "How do you want me to tell you?" Teagan asks, explaining, "I don't want anyone who doesn't understand to know. It isn't -- " Silence. Teagan's very good at silence, and very good at keeping an even, steady pace. It's the sort of pace that a person can keep up all day, if they're used to walking. Inertia keeps a person going.
Vorpal snorts. "Gimme a break, Teag, you can send me messages in silence that nobody else is gonna hear, can't you? The wind and you are better friends than it and me are, even, last I checked. I might be misunderstanding, but isn't that a pretty reliable method, if you can't gimme some nonverbal cue?"
"Well," answers Teagan, "If I'm dried up after a fight? I won't be able to do that. I don't make a point of carrying around bits of your hair to burn up. That's the only way to do it on the cheap. I more meant -- " They pause, considering. "A code, maybe. Some way to like... say it, without saying it."
"Hm. Point. Though you could, if that'd help. Not the -biggest- fan of leaving bits of myself lying around, but it's an option in an emergency, I suppose. Though I should learn that trick myself sooner rather than later." Vorpal's eyes trace over the girl they rescued. "... maybe -after- I figure out how to feed humans our fruits. Not sure which is higher priority. As for a code... hm. Could ask me for a Stabapple thorn. Ostensibly, that could be to reap it for a bit of glamour. But it's poorly used that way, and you'd never ask for one to fight with, not with your blades at hand. So say that's what you're saying, if you ask for one out loud while you're all invisible?"
"It'd help me find you, if I needed to, anyway, in the time being. Speaking of. I wonder who this belongs to." Teagan pulls out the locket from in their pocket. The locket? Oh yes. A gold locket, on a chain meant for a woman, in which is a lock of hair. "I took it off the bitch." They trail back to the matter of the code, and then nod, once. "I'll ask you for stabapple, if I'm not in a way to get into another fight." Not, of course, if they're injured. Just... if they think they're up for another fight or not.
"That's not- /quite/ what I asked, but I'll take it," murmurs Vorpal, with a sort of grave amusement. "As for the locket... I'm sure I can't say. Though- before I lose my train of thought, lovely, let me bitch at you for one more worry." It's a tone that says, in other circumstances, he'd stop them and grab their shoulder or something. But, they're being navigated through the Hedge, and not everyone likes wandering down fresh-made Trods some Godling whipped up to avoid having to spend an extra four hours in the Hedge.
"You sounded... -real- unbalanced back there. REAL unbalanced, like you were taking pleasure in knowing that you'd killed that bitch's lover. Not that you'd killed a Loyalist, because that's well and good, a fine hunt is to be celebrated, but you sounded -sadistic.- In a way that disturbed -me.- As if the glee wasn't in slaying someone needed dead, but in having caused extra pain and suffering to an already-hunted quarry." He's careful with his words, trying to pick his way through what feels like a minefield. "... it's not that I think she deserves any better. Because I don't. I don't regret our actions one bit. But seeing someone take glee in what seems to amount to emotional devastation, deserved or not, is... I mean, that's the sort of thing I'd look for as a warning sign in someone I was Tending as an Agent. So- front with me. What was the deal there? What am I missing?"
The look they give him aside is kind of a warning when it sounds like he might stop them and grab their shoulders, because there are others around, within not that far of a distance, people who could come back and listen in. "Hmm," Teagan noises back at him when he says he's going to bitch at them for one more worry.
"Well, I am a sadist sometimes, though usually that's confined to the activities of consenting adults," answers the Shadow. That isn't a joke, either, it's just a statement. "You're not Summer, so I won't expect you to understand," they continue, and then stop after a minute. "When wrath comes up over you, it needs somewhere to go. When you make a home for it in yourself, you need to... "
"Either you let it pass out of you, pass through you, or ... " Teagan's hands still rest on the handles of their weaponry. "Or it stays in you. It's like... a see-saw. The ends go up and down, and the upness and down-ness doesn't ... affect the center. It has to pass through the center. Or the center point comes unfixed, and the whole thing breaks."
Vorpal listens. His worries might be stereotypically aimed at a Summer, but he's willing to hear out what Teagan's got to say, and snorts in amusement at the bedroom sadist comment. He doesn't -say- "you know what I meant." Because it's clear Teagan does.
"I can get that. It's a little like Dawn. Dawn's more like a river than a seesaw. It's meant to flow, to move, always shifting towards the light at the end of the tunnel. If it's let sit, it stagnates. Mosquitoes and shit, malaria times a thousand of the soul. So I get it, sorta slantwise."
"Can you help me wrap my head around the glee that seemed evident in it, though? I'd have been far less concerned if you'd been berserk furious and kicking her teeth in. Laughing about slaughtering her lover, specifically gloating over something like that- that's where the worries live."
"What I'm hearing from you is that my anger doesn't look like you expect a Summer's anger to look, and so you are worried." The Summer turns their head to the side, staring at Vorpal for a moment with those broken-mirror eyes. Bruises slowly fade on their skin. "Make no mistake, I was fucking angry. Still am. I'm furious. And spite comes from anger, and sadism of the sort you're talking about is an outflowing of anger." They shake their head, looking at the trod ahead. "I was angry to find tokens of affection on them, because it meant that they should have known better. It meant that as fucked up as their love was, that they had it in them, that there was something in him -- is something in her -- that should have known what they were doing was wrong. And it made me -- makes me -- fucking furious."
"And honestly, I wish she'd been awake. She might have said something useful if she knew I had that shit. As it was, I was just ... letting my spite out before it ate me."
"That's twisting my words a bit, lovely, but in a sense, it's right. I'd say it's more accurate to say it didn't look like anger to me at all, and -that's- what worried me. I thought what I was seeing was gleeful malice, less furious spite. I see where you're coming from now, though. Seeing that there was enough person left to love, but not enough to -care-. Yeah. That's- pretty infuriating, that they'd limit it to their own hearts and care little what happened to anyone else's."
"I- appreciate it. That was a pretty rough accusation, if I'm hearing you right. And I'm sorry, if asking about it hurt you. I just didn't understand what I saw. It didn't feel like you, what I thought I was seeing. I wanted to hear what I was missing."
"I knew what they'd done before everyone else did. Knew why they had her. I saw it on the air. In the way the blood rolled down her skin, in the patterns of the thorns. I was standing behind him the whole time everyone was talking to them, and I knew that they kidnapped her, that they intended to kill her... and why. Before you all did. And I wasn't sure if Wind -- if whispering would take the sound from my lips so that it couldn't be heard by those near me. The contract can be a bit vague. I couldn't take the chance he'd know I was there. Not with a human with us. I was standing there shaking with anger, full of knowledge, and I couldn't ... let it out, at all. And then after the fight -- such as it was -- was over so fast... " Teagan's voice trails off. "And then all that shit."
"I can take their faces now," they point out. Maybe that's a change of subject.
"Hm. I didn't know what they ultimately planned. I knew why they were whipping her. Read it on them. They wanted her glamour, and they wanted to weaken her spirit. It doesn't surprise me that they planned to kill her in sacrifice to their twisted faith, though. Don't know if I prefer to know that, or to keep thinking they just meant to turn her over to become one of us."
Vorpal nods sharply at the comment about the fight. "Such as it was. Yea. That wasn't a fight. That was a stay of execution and an applied sentencing. We're closer to their Master, though. If Fate be with us, I'll have its golden, sandy blood all over my blades before season's end."
"... does it weigh on you? Knowing things? Are you at peace with that, or is it a burden?"
"They kidnapped her. They were going to kill her. And even if they were going to turn her over to become like us... " Teagan's teeth flash, bared like an animal's, and then their face flattens back out again. The breaking of their poker face is very brief, but telling, and almost a measure of trust.
"I'll see your way into that Realm, if you need me to. I can be whoever. And I will be, if it stops them." Not one more, not one more. Their constant mantra. Not one more like me, and it's worth dying for.
"It is a necessary weight," answers Teagan, after a while.
"I know. -I know,-" murmurs Vorpal, soothingly as he can. "I wasn't saying that'd be better or worse. Just thinking out loud." A moment to ponder the offer, then a brief nod. "If that proves to be a key to get us in, all the better. We'll milk her for everything we can before she's put down. Give you all the tools we can scrounge to help you get that gate open. We take every step one at a time, and pry open the jaws of fate's guillotine. See if we can't coax this Eternal Sands to put its head into the cradle."
One hand reaches out to take one of Vorpal's, and holds it for a moment before letting go. "I'm willing to, anyway." Like impersonating a Loyalist is something they do every day, and twice on Tuesdays. It can't be the first time Teagan has, after all -- they've made that much clear to Vorpal on more than one occasion. "I want to be there when you talk to her. I'm not giving up the things. I don't need them anymore, to look like her or her dead boyfriend, but... " But having the objects will help in the event they have to imitate her, after all. "Don't invoke Fate unless you really mean it. That's the shit that has me seeing things I don't always want to."
Vorpal squeezes the hand tucked into his, nodding faintly. "Good. Alright. I don't mind you being there at all. I -want- you there, considering the role you may play. It won't be a single run, considering the amount of information we need to milk out of her, but if you're up for the time commitment, I'll see that you're a part of it. I don't believe there's any Freeholders with both the talent and willingness to perform this role the way you can. Should be an easy sell."
"Yeah." Silence follows on for a moment or three, and they let go of his hand, returning it to Baby's handle. "Even if there were people who were up to the role... there are only a couple of Squires in this area, and none of them can do what I can. It's ... " And then Teagan turns the palms of their hands up, looking down at them, and shrugs. "Whether you sell it to anyone or not, I'm in this. I can't not be, Johnny."
Vorpal nods slow. "I know that feeling. I don't think I could back out of this even if they ordered me to. So yeah. I got you in on this." They're agreed, at least.
The trod opens up in front of them, and as they come back into the local Hedge, Teagan takes in a deep breath. "Have you done all the Talking To Teagan you feel you need to do, Johnny?" Their hands still rest on the handles of their machetes, comfortably so, as if that's exactly where those hands belong. "Or is there something else?" It's not maliciously said, or even angrily in the least. There's something else in their voice, but it's hard to pin down.
"Myep. Definitely exhausted all the serious talk I could muster this week. I'll have to scrape up a little more later on to get something off to the shiny hat and the fightfight boss, but us? No, I'm fuckin' through, lovely." Vorpal laughs, grinning at the mirrorskin, just as at ease with those hands on machete handles as he is when they're anyplace else.
"Good," answers Teagan, looking up the trod toward the others, and then stretching out their hand again toward Vorpal. "Because I'm all out of fucking serious, too." There's a sharp glitter in their eyes, then, casting fragments of rainbow light briefly. Mirrors do that, now and again, even if Shadow's don't: every so often they do cast light into the world. Don't tell anyone. "Might reverse the words later, but... " and once their hand has Vorpal's, Teagan disappears again, invisible, but their fingers knit into his. "I want to show you something. And it's definitely not a Serious Talk kind of place."
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