where is the truth of you?

BODYGUARD, ex-merc, ex-noble

36, she/they/he, shown as Eleanor Matsuura

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𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍:  11 maccius 936 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: la crinière du lion / the lion’s main  𝐖𝐇𝐎: @vaskaofcalais

It is not everyday that one of Calandre’s advisors deign to visit The Lion’s Mane for matters not related to the Empress, but it is also not everyday that Sidonie Dupont finds herself so close to her wit’s end that there’s practically nowhere else for her to turn. Her jaw practically aches from clenching in frustration at Amelie and her cryptic cries; in shame in response to Calandre’s palpable disappointment; and in unease, too, as it’s beginning to feel as though something bad is going to happen. The Mane, then, serves as a reprieve. If something bad happens here, well, at least it’s expected.

Odeline forbid Degaré decide to toy with her today. 

And forbid She does, as the proprietor is nowhere to be found–but Vaska of Calais, current bodyguard to Her Imperial Majesty’s artist and past companion to the Dupont woman in the Obsidienne, is. Without preamble, she claims the seat beside them. “Two drinks, s'il te plaît--one for me, and one for them,” Sidonie calls to the barkeep, motioning to Vaska. 

“It’s been awhile,” the Court Mage says in lieu of hello, her attention settling on her companion as the barkeep flits away to retrieve their drinks and other requests. She’s not seen Vaska for a couple of years, and certainly not so close to home; she knows them only in the Obsidienne, in the near-dead town that dares to exist near the inky black desert. It’s both odd and bittersweet, seeing them here. Odd, because she’s more accustomed to interacting with them without the pretenses of Court dealings and leering eyes of nosy nobles; bittersweet, too, considering their presence serves as a reminder of better times—of times when she was free to study magic in the way both she and it deserved, of times when she felt less like a collector’s trinket and more like the Empress’ advisor, and, more importantly, friend.

Two tankards are placed in front of the pair. She nudges one closer to the other. “Have a drink with me, Vaska—for old time’s sake?” 

here is a hideout, or less of a place to hide and more a place to skulk, lurk, to hide in a corner with a plain mask or sit at the bar and tease out information from degare. here is a place to exist as vaska of nowhere and nothing, where responsibility has been tucked away at home and the drink is the only thing that they need to bother communicating with.

or would be, if not for the fact that a drink requires the mask at least partially off, and a hood tucked up does nothing to prevent familiarity, to prevent sibling-like smiles from sliding into seats next to them.

but the tension is not distaste, almost the reverse, the extent of fondness that surges up and threatens to knock them off-balance - seeing them in court at calandre’s side and being unable to reconcile the image with the one stood next to them, the power of the elements at their beck and call.

so vaska cannot help but push their hood back and turn towards them with a warm smile, accepting the drink with grace. then the greeting and their breath freezes as they stumble over a response. here, the city demands formality, demands a person that vaska hasn’t been in a very long time, and yet the familiarity and ease of the desert chokes up their throat, past and present and future colliding.

it’s all they can do to nod.

where : the lion’s mane 

who : @vaskaofcalais​

Seeing Vaska again, Sainte thinks, is like seeing a ghost - she’s not sure how much she even believes in ghosts, really, but there they are, plain as day, a shred of her past resurfaced in the city. Not the most pleasant one, either, though there are pleasant memories. Mostly, though, those are overshadowed by unpleasant ones, by the way that Gaspard spoke of Vaska until he died, telling Sainte that they are the exact sort of mercenary you should not become. Telling her to have morals, to keep her dignity. Her honor. 

And so she has. And she has filed Vaska away in a compartment of her mind that she chooses not to touch most of the time. She remembers seeing him at the funeral, but even that she’s shoved to the back. Now, in the Lion’s Mane, the place where she feels at least a little safe, it’s a strange jolt. She knew, of course, that they were here. Had seen them with the artist. But still, it puts her on edge. 

She approaches him anyway, though. Sits down at the barstool beside them, orders a drink, doesn’t even look. She’s unmasked, with just her cloak, with the large hood. The Mane has, surprisingly, become somewhere where she feels almost safe. Comfortable. Now though, she wishes more than ever that she had her mask. “You’re looking..” She pauses, but the right word doesn’t come to her. “Well.”

it’s this a bitter pill to swallow, alongside the chalk and dryness of the rest of the city, somehow staler and worse off than the dust and choking air of the desert. out there, one could pretend that certain things didn’t exist, certain relationships weren’t cut off, certain hurts were never established, certain funerals never happened.

those rose coloured days look like now, filtered through the bottom of a glass, amber and amonia. rose coloured, blood washed thin but never snow clean, scars tucked away and ignored with familiarity.

only his second time back at the mane, welcomes and nods already exchanged with most, but not all, never all. he sees her now, through that lens, amber and rose, wipes his lip as she sits down, next to him. vaska straightens the scarf-mask loose around their neck, before leaving it, and their face, bare, lets the world see the crook to their smile at her opening.

‘ that’s about as good as it’s going to get, to be fair. you’re looking better than i feel, in any case, though that’s not a hard competition. ‘ their head tilts, gaze settling before sliding off sainte and back onto their cup with a sigh. the base of the glass is near empty, foam stuck in half-circles down the sides, dark at the base, a faint grit shining through where it rests on the table. but their gaze cannot help but look back up, drawn back, scanning the younger merc for any wounds, heart clenching at each change they can catalogue. ‘ how have you been, sainte? the city treating you well? ‘

Roth sheathes his word, the sound of metal scrapping the scabbard one that makes an echo inside his ears, one that rings of familiarity. Though, despite his last action, nothing about the Chevalier appears to be less wary of the company he keeps. Roth shifts his weight from one leg to the other, inviting a more relaxed stance though it’s not completely successful — perhaps because, solely his fault, the conversation had scrapped the top of a memory he prefers to keep buried. 

The Chevalier’s right hand tightens into a fist, as if trying to distract his body from the burning (albeit, fake) sensation that runs down his back and arm. Just the mention of their own burn marks is enough to send Roth’s into a frenzy, decades old and still fresh. “Do they now? I wouldn’t know.” He would like to believe he kept his voice deadpan but as his grip tightens around the handle of his sword, Roth realises that, maybe, it hadn’t been the case. 

Thankfully, the rest of his expression is covered. Bodyguard to Sylviane Amaury. There’s a smirk that appears on his lips, away from her eyes. “Bodyguard?” It’s not really a question, eyebrow raised as Roth’s eyes remained on them. “Shouldn’t you, you know, be bodyguarding? Instead of threatening people in an alley?”

---

he sheathes the sword but vaska cannot drop her eyes from his stance, from his hands, even as he doesn’t shake hers. They drop their hand as the moment stretches, open palm even as roth’s curls into a fist and his voice flattens entirely, curving away from uninterested to trying to hide it, and vaska cannot help their own interest from peaking. the sarcasm fades, defense and hurt intermingling with the desire to lash out, to poke at the something hidden behind the flat sounds.

‘ don’t tell me how to do my job. ‘ she tightens the mask around the lower half of her face, eyes sharpening above them. ‘ why, you need advice doing yours? left a bouse to burn down with bodies trapped within? or getting involved in a decade old conversation that you didn’t need to butt into? ‘

they sneer, the curve of it showing in their eyes above their mask, before sighing, dragging a hand over their eyes. adrenaline at the first meeting slowly fades, and they’re too bristly to deal, the sleeplessness that dragged them out of bed in the first place laying leaden over their bones. ‘ one i never wanted to start, nor this one either, to be fair. i’m not at home because i’m out here for a drink. you going to join me or not, stranger? ‘

status: closed for @vaskaofcalais date: the 9th of maccius, 936 location: the summer palace

Michel comes to realize that this is not something he can avoid with ease. The area in which the mural is being painted is directly along the way he’s been taking to leave the Palace early in the day to make his way out to the site of the explosion. Watching things come together in fragments, loose shapes and outlines – it’s been pleasant, but there he’s also equipped with the understanding that at some time, he will have to come face to face with Vaska again and the experience is less than likely to be pleasant.

He can remember when they’d come to the barracks, all that time ago, when he’d had less power and less capability, and he’d seen their face when they were denied, time and time again, the opportunity to seek out some kind of closure. Calandre had denied them, too, but he hadn’t learned that for several years, mentioned off-handedly by the Empress when words of Vaska’s endeavours reached them.

They’d been a mercenary. The lines in the sand were blurry at best, and Michel is glad he hadn’t been sent after them when they’d finally closed that chapter of their life. He doesn’t think he could’ve carried that with him forever, on top of everything else. Death is one thing. A complete and utter denial of what makes the most obvious sense is something else entirely.

He meets Vaska for the first time in however many odd years here, in this sunny, well-lit spot, flashes of color already beginning to emerge, and his mouth has gone dry. “Calais,” he greets, voice sounding wry and dry even to his own ears. “You look well.”

over the years, they have learnt which paths to tread, and which one’s to avoid, faces and names and histories and people that lead vaska to hide in sylviane’s shadow like a ghost, swallowed up by the earth and the past, a glance over by those who, just as equally, do not want to see her. guarding is easy from the background, a whisper of steel and the glint of a blade, plain featureless mask that lets everyone present that a bloodstain rests behind it, that accusation isn’t a pointed barb from either side of the gaze.

but the earth opens up and the sky tears into pieces and there’s a shifting under ground and perhaps now there’s old hurts coming to light, a turned face to what vaska has to say, impassive in the face of his requests, and vaska lets the mask shift, shorten, reveal a scar, reveal unblemished skin, the only thing still covered is their eyes.

but this change, this transformation, hibernation ending, means that there are uncomfortable things from the past that arrive, hauntings of possibilities turned flesh and plate, and a patch where it feels shadows draw into, michel a darkness against the colour that sylviane has been painting.

Their recall to Val Faim is abrupt, enough that they are still mulling it over even when they arrive back in the city. They were on the brink of something, they are certain, and now the city closes around them like a vice, wide open skies and endless sands now confined solely to their mind and their canvases. Still - stepping into their home is like settling into a warm bath at the end of a long day. A balm for their weary mind.

Sylviane trails a finger through the dust on a cabinet top absentmindedly, smile blooming as they walk through the front room. “Yes,” they reply, turning back to where Vaska stands at the front door, sunlight drifting through the kicked-up motes of dust and settling on his shoulders. Their heart swells, as it does every time they think of him this way. “Home.”

“It’s a good thing we’re already dirty,” they continue with a laugh, “since I don’t think I could stand all this dust otherwise. We should have written ahead, had someone in to fix the place up.” Even as they say it, their heart rebels, already set on turning the place inside out themselves, reclaiming the space with Vaska by their side. Remaking it for the person they are now rather than the shell of who they’d left behind two years before.

They drift into their sitting room, collapsing onto a covered divan in a plume of dust. They sneeze, then laugh again, then sneeze again, choking on the dust and mirth. “Vaz,” they gasp, “Vaz, come help me. I’m being attacked. You have to save me from the dust, it’s going to kill me.”

tease, but suffused with warmth, and even his previous sarcasm had been overlaid by sunlight-rich honey, a fondness built into the foundation. vi smiles at him, and perhaps all the journey has been worth it to end up at this moment, for their smile and the way their mouth wraps around the word home, gaze pulling vaska into that creation, as though their hands were responsible or capable of building this moment and this place.

at the suggestion, they shake their head, knows that neither had suggested it as a course of action for a reason, turning instead to close and lock the door, ears tuned to listen to sylviane walk into the main room, senses attuned in the way they have been for near a decade, body angled towards them, an eye, an ear, a red thread linked.

so they hear as vi sneezes, and again, and vaska cannot help the smile that blossoms, teeth and laughter, bites down on their lower lip as he chuckles. ‘ sure, sure, i’ll cut every mote in half. knight in shining armour, fighting off the dust! ‘ with the exclamation, they tug off the scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face, before using it to fan the air harder, snapping it into the fabric to send more dust rising, scattering and catching the setting light that peeks through the edges of the curtains.

THE TENTH OF MACCIUS, AT WHAT REMAINS OF THE PROPHET’S TOMB. OPEN TO ALL.

They don’t know much of Odeline, save for bits and pieces. A few lines in old songs, a prayer they’ve borrowed and tried to make their own. Every orphan needs a God, after all, so Agrippine finds some faith in a prophet who appeared to the world as a girl. It is poetic, Agripine thinks, though they know so little of poetry. It is profound, to Agrippine, though most things seem profound to them, without memory to explain the simplest of things.

The Obsidienne must not be not so beautiful as Agrippine imagines Odeline to be, but it has an appeal of its own. At times, they feel that they are like the Obsidienne; an endless desert where many have entered and no one returned. Is that not the heart of grief? Is that not the loss they carry? They have tried to return to themself again and again in vain, emty air running through their fingers like coal-colored sand when Agrippine grasps for their past.

Among the rubbles of the Prophet’s Tomb, where only a few days prior Agrippine was quite literally blown back, they listen. When another’s presence casts a shadow over Agrippine, their earnest for more stories of Odeline outmatching their habit of taking flight. Without a word, Agrippine shuffles aside to make room for them and bends their head towards the spot. “Here.”

there are changes rumbling underfoot of this city, this country, this world, shattered voids carving through night and sand, ashen buildings cutting through stone and security. vaska hasn’t thought much on eternity, for there is no good outcome for him, no salvation, no matter how much vaska kneels, for guilt does not mean remorse, nor forgiveness.

it is not for knowing or uncovering the mystery that vaska’s feet find him at the tomb, nor eternal mercy, but some curiosity, some boredom. some grief, perhaps, a prayer not for his soul but for those taken. perhaps this is why his old mask is hanging from his belt, in remembrance, of calais, of those killed in its name. perhaps it’s not forgiveness from odeline that vaska seeks, but forgiveness from those whose name vaska killed in.

The tailor nods at their refusal of tea, keeping the smile on her own lips as they acknowledge it. “Well, let me know if you change your mind.” If he truly wanted three outfits, they’d be here for a while. “Don’t worry about being behind. There’s no time like the present to catch up, right?” Cyril walks towards him, keeping her tone light and understanding. Although she can’t imagine what it’s like to live a life where fashion isn’t as common as all the breaths she takes, even when asleep. 

“Hm, three outfits…” Cyril repeats, looking at the client up and down — studying him with interested eyes, though no judgement could be found in them. “Do you want something more practical for day-to-day, trousers, dress, skirt? And colour wise, are you a light or dark shades kind of person? Just let me know what you’re comfortable with and we can work together.”

---

at the scrutiny, vaska cannot help but shift from one foot to the other before stilling, reminded instead of sylviane’s look when they study someone for a portrait, the glaces they brush him with as they sit in the kitchen together and sylviane doodles absentmindedly. a measuring up, but not of character, more angles and shades and edges. so vaska shrugs, eyes crinkling  in the touch of a smile. ‘ i put myself entirely into your hands. i would prefer the everyday to be trousers and a darker colour, able to get more wear, but otherwise a white dress, a green suit, a pink kimono, you are the artist here. ‘

the pleasantries are out of the way, but that merely leaves vaska without the familiarity of the small talk, the well tracked grooves of conversation that every noble can be reliable with, no matter the tensions or the shifts in politics, clung to with all the strength of drowning men when left floundering in strange situations.

once, vaska took advantage of this, slashing through them to cause discomfort, taunting his break away from civilisation in front of them. now, however, vaska misses the familiarity of it, vertigo from the ease at which he finds the paths once again. no matter the blood on your hands, discussions of the weather was always safe. two years spent in the desert, but even the seven before, spent in sylviane’s shadow meant little time for mingling, but it seemed as though times were changing, and vaska was no longer fit for hiding in the shadows, but courtly appearances were perhaps once again demanded, and vaska didn’t want to be seen to be scrambling.

a journey, over, sand and dust worn into every crack of their shoes and clothing. still, for all the exhaustion that travel inevitably brings, they had spent the night previous in an inn just outside the city, and the morning finds the pair traveling into the city, walking back into the empty air of thier home.

with a sigh of relief, vaska slides his and sylviane’s saddlebags into the floor by the front door, then unslings his side bags, throwing up some of the thin layer of dust that now coated the untouched house. well, there’d be a while to clean and get the house resorted, groceries and supplies to stock back up on, work to get done before the court appearance later that day, but for now -

Roth can admit that perhaps he’d come too late to the situation to fully grasp what had been going on — but he can also admit that it would make him a fool to take one’s words over another when neither of the people involved seemed particularly trustworthy. One has been let go and the other will meet the same fate; but they didn’t have to know that, not yet anyway. Because, against all expectations of the night, it’s the one he keeps locked in front of him that caught his interest for no other reason than the fact she seemed to have the same marks he has — as messed up as that sounds. 

The Chevalier lets out a scoff. “Like I said, from where I stand, all I saw was her defending herself from being threatened with your blade,” and with that emphasised word, he points his sword an inch closer to him. Roth holds his sword right there for a few heartbeats, keeping his scrutinising stare on them. 

His eyes then look at the cut in the shirt, his interest unable to be shaken away from what he has seen. A part of him wants to keep his question to himself, lest the person in front of him decides to ask him questions about his own story (even if his was better concealed than hers). The other part of him knows that, even if they ask, he doesn’t have to say anything —  neither of them did. 

So, Roth nods towards where he’d seen the scars. “What happened to you? Another stranger you threatened?” He almost uses the tip of his sword to move the fabric back but instead he brings his arm down and his sword with it.

the other scoffs and vaska can’t help their lips twitching up as well, darkly amused at the twists of the night, the truth in his words and the places that the universe has managed to fit them into. perhaps this is what they deserve, but it’s not going to be something that they take, promises and people that tie red threads around their fingers, anchoring them away.

as his sword moves closer, vaska drops the fiddling, looking back up at him, eyes half-shuttered with exhaustion, with boredom. she scans his face, glancing over the colours, the gilt of his mask, the glimpse of his face through the cutaway, and so catches it when his eyes scan over the scar, once again exposed. he’s used to people staring when they catch sight, the questions that dance on tongues, the curiosity of suffering.

and he does, but he also puts the sword down, so vaska tugs her coat sharper, covering the glimpse of reddened skin. ‘ another stranger, threatening my father. ‘ they sneer, sarcasm coming up for defense. ‘ why, never seen a burn wound before? don’t relax your guard, even nobles get smoked out of their houses. ‘