𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐍

❝ 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍. 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟: 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫, 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫, 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞. ❞

↳ Fides | 26 yrs | he/him | portrayed by dev patel

written by ishmael. 21, they/them pronouns, est.

time: pre-heist location: ratways open

He withholds a sigh. Perhaps in the next event of escape, their hideout would be better stocked. Having to ration wasn’t a concern, but even in his worst weeks of traveling, where the trail had turned cold and he was left alone in lands unknown, he found time to eat, to drink, even for some semblance of strength.

For a mission like this one, he would’ve hoped there would be something more. But between stale bread and stolen vegetables questionably fresh, they would have to be enough.

He glances at the person across from him, and shrugs. “Come on, then. Might as well eat what we can in what time we have left.”

No matter how many stories the street performer weaves for himself and Ketterdam's streets— with his music, with his gestures— he always comes back to this one. Simple in its several acts: there is a fortress, and it falls. There is a person, and they are running. In all his practice, he's never pinned down how it ends. As the pantomimist collects himself before the coming heist ( the charred slat still searing in the memory ) he wonders if he's fated to keep telling it. Telling it. Telling.

There is a fortress, and it falls. There is a person—

And they are speaking. Fides becomes aware that he's the one Yuriy's addressing. His head perks up from where it hangs; as if a puppeteer's string draws it up between the shoulder blades. Despite being the only seat-mate for some feet he still glances about, as if it might be anyone else Yuriy addresses, before he pinpoints the other. Dark eyes peering out from a painted face and swatches of his true skin smudging through the faded patches. Now aware of Yuriy's singular attention, Fides does the he's come to be known for— he flickers back to life like an oil lamp. Like some wind-up tinker toy cranked for this purpose. The messenger leans in to help himself to the meager spread, and as Yuriy cracks the bread he sifts through a few bruised and battered vegetables— no, juggles through them. A nimble passing through the hands for the sake of morale. It works, sparking a spot of fun and levity— until it doesn't. Even a pantomimist fumbles the gesture when the nerves have gone frayed. A carrot catches the crook of his wrist and bounces into his lap. A radish rolls down his shin. A bruised tomato is the only thing he catches— cradled in scraped palms. He sinks his teeth into it, the red echoed in the healthy flush of shame in his cheeks.

The ice in her eyes watch critically as Fides paints the image of his own hanging. Her head tilts to one side, and for a fleeting moment they glimmer with amusement. She’d never actually seen someone hang, but her healer’s mind and it’s familiarity with the body filled in the things that he couldn’t portray with his hands and artistry; if the neck didn’t outright snap, how the rope would instead crush into the trachea, interrupt the flow of blood to the brain. The lips would turn blue first, eyes snapped open wide, limbs twitching uselessly like a fish caught at the end of a hook.  

Maybe they did agree on something, after all. Hanging was a much more interesting end to one as expressive as Fides. Though, whatever fatal card he was dealt, Sigyn had the feeling he would manage to still go out with a flourish. For as much as she didn’t trust the pantomimist, there was value in his consistency.  “I’d prefer to pay for the real thing, anyway. I’ll save my kruge for that day.”

Her legs fold beneath her now, settling back into the small space she’d carved for herself, wondering idly at the back of her head if his little show hadn’t met it’s goal, after all ━━ the air felt lighter, her own nerves disarmed. Nothing she would openly admit.

To his question, her head shakes, a sliver of honestly slipping past her defenses, “no. Just angry, now.” Unfolding the blanket now, she wraps it around her shoulders, bundling up by her face, which she nestles into it’s fibers, enjoying the warmth, despite the lingering scent of smoke. She looks back over to where he sat, apparently deciding to settle there for the time being. “I am surprised you’re still here. Your.. type usually shake loose as soon as there is any real trouble. Which likely means, you really don’t have anywhere else to go, do you?”

The wry quip has him rolling his eyes, though the grin that comes with any shred of criticism is impossible to suppress. That is, until the statement that follows. Sigyn is right. That doesn't make it smart any less (a deduction with deadly accuracy.) His fingers twist subtly into his shirt, as if his chest's been pricked by the notion. No theatrics to mask the truer sting to it this time.

The pantomimist draws his knees to his chest and turns his face, suddenly fascinated by the smallest trail of ants tracking its way by his shoe. Suddenly far more motivated to pick at the stale morsel of bread smuggled down here in a pocket.

At first, all Manu could see and hear was Fides. Darkness still lingering, the drüskelle still in his mind. It took some effort to understand that light, to see how it became flames and how it was followed by gunshots. A lot of them. He couldn’t help but move his shoulders downward, some idle attempt of not getting shot as he held on to Fides in the reminiscence of irrationality. He schooled his face back into annoyance, wrestled fear out of his lines and swallowed the rage. Panicking wouldn’t help. It never did.

Because Manu never really liked the smell of it. The way it cracked on wood as though it was bone. Some essential part of him thought it too vicious. Too dangerous. And too opposite to his own nature to stand. Was it not for the cold and the food, Manu would’ve kept his life away from it. As clean of fire as it was abundant in water. Though people often looked at him and saw a winter coloring, Manu was anything but. Loved everything contrary to it. All the weathers and people and things that would not need fire to keep them warm.

For now, seeing the smoke, hearing the noise, watching the flames, he couldn’t help but curse, loudly. In the kaelish way his mother used to do when things went to shit. An endless line of profanity that made him shake the weight it brought. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Fides,” was all Manu could master, fingers still on his friend’s face, Fides hand on his wrist, grounding him. As always, drüskelle came with fire. The only form of life in a land of winter. Manu fucking hated it. “That’s a really bad, bad idea,” but Fides was right. The way it was just starting, there was still time. 

“Promise me you’ll take only what’s really necessary and I’ll cover you,” Manu shouted back, feet taking him across the kitchen to pick up his coat and harshly put it over his shirt. He had a knife there, in one of his pockets. A rusty, forgotten thing, that oddly survived the sea alongside him. Formerly used to gut fish, now resting in his coat as a reassurance he never really needed. Truth to be told, Manu could be vicious in a hand to hand, violence and blood amusing him utterly. But guns, knifes and tools were unfamiliar. Out of place in his hands as he came back to the sink, filled with water the first big pot he found and stretched his free hand for Fides’ wrist to pull him to the door. “I can get clean water later, steal some clothes… just get what you really need and we’ll be out. There’s drüskelle outside. If they get me, I won’t be buried.”

And even though Manu wasn’t sure Fides understood, it was both a warning and a request. This could get ugly, he wove into his words. And bury me if I die, he finished.

—

Fides' face, were it not already smeared with its usual layer of paint, would've paled like a sheet at the notion. He doesn't give himself time to think, nor to be dissuaded, nor to fear the outcomes— because the time for foresight has passed, and any more will eat into their chances.

In a flash, he's gone. Fides tears through the slat— the acrobat he once was turned loose again as he bounds through the necessary rooms in record time. Blankets bundle into his arms, canteens loop from their straps ‘round the neck, a roll of bandages stuffs down a pocket. As he snags what experience has taught him to be necessities, and rounds the corner to fly back from whence he came, he glimpses his own quarters. Realizes that in his haste, he's forgotten the only belonging in the world to him that matters. His accordion is visible where it sits through the doorway. Now, it’s the only thing he can think of. Fides bolts into the room, seats it upon his chest to pin the bundling of blankets in place, and comes skidding back down to the kitchen

As promised, he's made lightning work of it. Now, he reunites with Manu, hooking an arm through the grisha's to drag him along and out, out! They reach the front of the slat togther, moments from the street, just as the flames begin licking their way up the walls. Fides recoils, covering his nose and mouth with a sleeve and looking to Manu— eyes wide and stricken. Swallowing the fear in the next moment to partner with the tidemaker once more. He may not carry such remarkable skill as the others in the heat of the moment, in the sear of it— but he carries those of the courier. For this, its serves them exquisitely; Fides could find his way with his eyes closed.

where  :  the ratway when   :  evening  ( chapter 1; part ii ) status  :   open

the five dice, wood buffed and dyed the color of ripe berries, spill from her cupped hands out onto the makeshift table, body arched in a mockery of conspiracy, shielding her results.  the scattered pits that indicated a value were faded with age, their paint long since grounded away by salt and sun. she counted three twos, a one, and a particularly faint four.

“   balut !   ” she chirps with an edge of mischief, quickly scooping the dice to hand to the other player.    "   another thirty points for me … which leaves you -   “   lips purse, eyes climbing skyward in exaggerated thought,    ”   nearly twenty points behind.   “   it’s a steep victory, and her third of the night. squirreled away in the burrows of the ratway, the captain hadn’t taken but mere hours to grow restless, making her own fun.

realistically, at the very least however she’d managed to weigh the turn of events in her mind, her new head didn’t necessarily bear any bounties, much less garner any attention. misha palachnik was, at the very worst, a middleman in the grander schemes of ketterdam. a captain first, a smuggler when convenient. her loyalty, by all known accounts, was to the kruge. but her fate was sealed the moment she poked her nose too deep. no one could be seen coming and going from the nest.

she’d made do with games, coaxing her fellow stowaways into a game of balut, the rules of blur of vague demonstrations and hurried gestures with promises to teach as they went, each play a new opportunity exposition.

”   care to raise your wager ?   “

—

When the captain racked up another thirty points to his own lagging score, the pantomimist began to wonder just where the rules all slotted into place. Began to wonder whether they were being bent to serve her gamble, suspicions strengthened by the quick snatches of her hand. This, he communicates in a searing squint— planting his palms on his thighs and sticking his neck out to eye her across the table. As if scrounging what he could from her soul. Rather predictably, her poker face is impenetrable. And so he simply scrunches his nose up in a taunt. And so the kruge bleeds from his pockets, crumpled bills pocking the table like buckshot bruising. Fides is beginning to remember why he prefers their games of cards, in which bragging rights serve the only wager. Though, surely he’s dragged the other through her fill of those, by now. Still unsure of himself, he decides to give it another round before he calls out the unlikely probabilities. Saints forbid she throws another balut.

His face is masked by a faded layer of pigment— the costume of his work is hardly needed in the ratway now, but it serves as something of a safety blanket. Though— a dingy one he hasn’t refreshed since the long hours bent over a map to the van der leyen manor by lamplight, perfecting its details under Kaz’s collaboration. The heist ahead weighs heavy on the mind— but for now, he’s only concerned by the winnings that weigh heavy in Misha’s pocket.

Care to raise your wager? The messenger’s face pulls into a taught grimace as his gears grind in thought. Taps at his temple with the handle of the broom he’s been leaning on like a staff ( a thing he’d snatched from an unsuspecting doorway during scavenging runs; leave it to Fides to snag something hardly necessary, but indispensable for morale. The ratway’s floors had swept up nicely. )

Of all places for the pantomimist among a gang of bruisers and grisha to be, the lion's den is the last Fides expects to find himself scurrying through as Kaz's plan unfolds. The very crow is at his side, and as they slip through winding corridors, Fides he finds himself cursing his earlier faith. What was the sentiment they'd shared with Jesper in the ratway? Kaz always has a plan. Well, just his luck it involves him in this way.

Though, really it's just good sense. Pantomiming messengers make for terribly skilled spies when the moment calls. Really, he'd sealed his fate in the ratway a night previous with the bastard of the barrel himself: heads bowed over a parchment, their graphite lit by lamplight, as he scrawled a map from photographic memory: the way to the Von der Leyen manor. All the details that slipped his own perceptions were filled in by the pairing of Kaz's. Combined, they'd made quite brilliant work of it.

( event: the ambassador, chapter one, part one; location: the slat; status: open )

wylan is already deep in the belly of the slat when he hears the boom, the bannister under his hand trembling like an animal. another moment and people begin tripping out from behind doors, streaming towards the source of the noise, a low murmur rising from their ranks, yet– some instinct pulls wylan further back into the house, weaving around bodies until he finds a safe perch by a thin window, where he watches from a distance as the world falls to hell and fire, the eaves of the building going up quick as a woman’s hair, the hallway filling with the familiar scent of burning timber.

he carefully does not wonder where his friends are, or jesper, or– shit, fides, the reason wylan’s here in the first place, traipsing through the slat in search of the messenger; the note he needed delivered, moments ago the most pressing thing on his mind, now forgotten entirely.

instead, he reaches for the first person he sees stumble within arm reach, snapping his fingers. “over here,” he says, sparing no preamble. “help me with this.” the mercher removes his coat and twists it inside out, pulling at a thoughtfully-placed hole in the lining first with his nails and then, when that proves too slow, his teeth, until he can reach a hand inside the coat and grab at the marble-like objects hidden in its seams. he pulls out a handful, tossing one at the person without warning. the building crackling around them like the body of some great insect, exoskeleton popping under the flames as it begins to come apart in earnest. “smoke bombs. they only last for a flash, and their reach is… limited, but between the two of us…” he shrugs. “could be a way out.”

—

Fides ( loaded with hastily salvaged supplies ) has just parted with Manu, now going where the tidemaker can’t follow, as the fire still blooms behind them and the grisha means to fight back where he can. The messenger is still reeling from the call, fibers of him clashing as some scream turn back, don’t leave them and others save your damned self.

Wylan makes the decision for him — though he sadly can’t appreciate the coincidence involved. Help me with this. “Help—” Fides echoes in a wide-eyed fervor. Mindlessly, his hand shoots out and catches the little smoke bomb ( formative years dabbling in juggling to thank for the fact it doesn’t ricochet off his brow. ) Had he time for it, he’d marvel at how the explosives expert makes a magic of his own from this, colorful secrets spilling from his coat lining. But he doesn’t. He just sweats, and shrieks to be heard over the roar of this great unmaking.

The fire still smolders above, he's sure of it— and though the ratway proves a haven for now, they're still burning, too. Had he authored this scene for the stage, he'd have painted her eyes with embers; but as he slinks in closer, Fides decided no dressings are needed. Inej wears the look just the same.

He hugs his accordion to his chest, by some miracle (or some curse as Kaz might put it) it isn’t broken. Merely singed in places and terribly out of tune. Where Inej smolders and paces at the wall, she seems to be doing some tuning of her own— blades turning restlessly in her hands as rocks on her heels, bounces, pops knuckles in staccato percussion. Fides merely shivers like that which the ratway's named for, eyes glinting beady and black beneath a smear of soot and paint.

𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐒 ( 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧 )

Not a word was uttered by whoever it was standing over her, their lingering presence marked only by their heartbeat and her own growing annoyance  ━━  Well? Say something. What do you want? 

Her lips part, another snappy comment hovering on the tip of her tongue until  ━━  thunk! Something soft and bundled falls on top of her. Sigyn could be accused of being jumpy even on the best of days, which this one certainly did not quality as, and so the impact, light though it was, comes entirely unexpected, and startles her eyes open, her legs scrambling beneath her, lifting her into a crouch above where she’d been laying.  

A blanket, she identifies, now wide awake and deciding exactly where she fell between grateful for anything to chase off the chill, and pissed off that she simply hadn’t been left to sleep.

Her gaze float upwards to the one responsible, and her noses wrinkles into a snarl. Identifying him was the deciding factor  ━━  Fides. 

Silent, sneaky Fides; the quirky pantomimist, no one pay him any mind  ━━  friendly and easy to trust, good for a laugh, how much of a threat could he actually pose? Well, the bones were unconvinced of his character, and when their caution sprawled out in patterns in front of her, her opinion of him had been made up before a single word ever passed between them. 

Sigyn rocks back to sit atop her heels, releasing a long breath as the scare passes. Her hand reaching for the blanket, which she pulls into her lap, thanklessly. She may have no appreciation for the delivery boy, but the blanket itself was still welcome in the frigid tunnels of the ratway.

“When I find your body cold around one of these corners, I won’t be surprised. That’s a good way to get stabbed, you know.”

— Most days, Fides can't look at her without thinking of the bones. He shudders to recall those leaden moments before they'd landed, divining a hole clear through him, by the look in her eyes. By the way they'd closed off to him the very same moment like the sealing of a door. Though used to closing doors, it's jarring to land on the wrong side of this one, here, among the lot of them. What’s one more, is what Fides tries to tell himself. It's what he still fails to hold comfort in as he looks at her now.

He'd never asked what the bones had told her that evening. The forsaken showman in him already knows.

Sigyn takes the blanket, and he laces his fingers together over his knees where he crouches, filthy painted face sporting an air of mild pleasure, however thankless her acceptance was. Chalks it up to progress, however slow.

Granted, the stabbing hypothesis is detailed far too vividly for his liking, by the grimace that pulls across his face. "Hm?" Stabbed? Is his single syllable balk. How unimaginative, he seems to suggest, as he poses another method, ripe food for thought: taking a loop of an invisible line 'round his throat and dropping his head toward his shoulder. When the pantomime draws taught, he pulls a dreadful face.

"Free of charge," Fides affirms. I live to entertain. Miraculously, he settles down into a more thoughtful repose in the following moments. The words he finds for her next, he takes great pains to thumb through his ledgers for. The grate against his throat on the way out, constrained by hesitance:

jesper cannot help but watch in vague wonder, a rare feat for someone who aims to instill it daily, but even fides manages to do things that surprise them, and the thousand and one objects in his pockets pale in the sheer amount that fides has managed to pile on his shoulders, things emerging in an endless stream, far more than physical proportions should have applied. they have expect him to pull out an piano or a few dozen people out of their pockets, doorways to alternate dimensions, they bloody are.

he also doesn’t fail to notice the way that fides leans into his touch, and jesper tightens the grip briefly, pressing back as they saunter away from the crowds, towards empty halls where they can drop personas, go loud, go quiet. they laugh at the joke, bitter that no-one else ever seems to believe him that fides is the funniest person in the dregs that isn’t jesper, a performer even more naturally than themself. “ i can imagine, “ they respond, matching tones. “ could make a whole play out of it, as some point. “

their arm finally unslings as they approach the washrooms, and they cannot help the wrinkle of their nose at the way the makeup smudges even further, dragging dark from his eyes and white across his lips, sweat-streaked and spattered with who knows what. still, they don’t comment, knows that everyone in the rat way looks about as bad as they feel, and they all feel like they’ve just been shot at and burnt out of house and home.

“ it was so much, yet muffled, the darkness something overwhelming, the fire and the light and - every gang battle but amplified from their training, the fact that they were druskelle, the fact that our home was burning behind us the entire time, the numbers of us and them fluctuating with every flicker of the shadows. “ no-one said that jesper was sparing with his words. he can still feel the blood of the druskelle whimpering in the alleyway coat his glove, the heat of the wound still burning his arm, the cries of those too weak to get themselves to the ratway still ringing in his ears.

he shrugs, leans back against a wall as fides cleans up. “ it was bad, but we’ve all seen worse, and i think that we’ve all managed to get out of it alive and sure, shit, we’ve lost alot, but we’ll recover, i don’t doubt it. “

—

Fides scrubs his face and listens to Jesper's account. The way they tell it leaves just enough to the imagination. It’s hardly a surprise. In the handful of years he'd known the gunslinger they'd always been quite the storyteller. ( If the pantomimist didn't admire it so much, he may well recall a time he was as effortless with his own words, and green with envy. )

If not for the fresh terror of its subject matter, it would be a story worth sinking into. He thinks he’ll do so anyway as he pauses in his cleaning and sits back on his heels. A lantern flickers by his shoe, left at the basin to light the makeshift washroom. As Jesper speaks to the forms that flickered with the shadows and smoke, and Fides can't resist leaning toward it. He laces his fingers together. Shapes and reshapes them, puppeteer to shadow-figures on the walls while they contemplate the carnage left in their wake:

A wolf takes shape in silhouette, mouth hinging open as if at the behest of the drüskelle above.

He bares his teeth as he recollects the soldiers and moments prior to their march. His friends’ fear, so primal in nature, as it’d mingled with his own.

The wolf twists into a hare, legs springing out. "—but we were quicker than them, where it counted," follows his hopeful decree.

Then the pantomimist's brows knit in the center as he contemplates what becomes of them next. What might be asked, once the smoke clears, of the messenger he becomes where the dregs are concerned. In thought, he interlocks his palms and curls the knuckles carefully, opposing thumb and forefinger forming the wide-brimmed hat of a shadow-made man. On the wall, Henrik von Der Leyen turns his head. With a shake of his own, Fides rends the figure in two as Jesper draws to a close.

the problems with dating up, jesper thinks, as he shuffles through the people, checking up on every face he recognises and questioning those he doesn’t, is that you end up with far more expectations of life and comfort. what he wouldn’t do to go home and have a bath (ideally also with wylan), is a very low list. seven years ago, he barely knew what a bath was.

he’d pushed his fabrikation past revitalising and into exhausting, emptied out near every bullet, burnt or damaged every item of clothing he was wearing, and still he wasn’t done. but even after this, it would take a couple hours of love with his guns to get them back to a state he could be proud of, and the ash in his hair would be an absolute pain to get out.

still, though, there are things to do and people to help and kaz to find, and next steps to hash out, so jesper continues to shuffle forwards, before turning at the tap on his shoulder.

well, he’d have to take it back. there was one person who looked worse than him, and could do with a bath even more. fides looked as though a dip in the canals would make him cleaner, a feat practically unheard of.

“ fides, my man. come now, you look worse than whatevers left up there, you’ll frighten the children! let’s get you a basin. “ with every face they recognise and see unharmed, a little part of their lungs unclench, breathe deeper, reassured. so jesper throws an arm over his shoulder and guides him through emptier corridors to where washrooms have been hastily mocked up. “ how ‘ you doing? “

—

Messenger, courier, whatever he is to them— a fighter he is not. Though, in his running, in his retreat when the going got deadly, he'd managed to do what courier's do best and snag a few things. His accordion bounces against his sore ribs, and stuffed behind it, around it, and bundled on his back are threadbare blankets snagged from the slat as it'd begun to smolder. Bandages spill from his pockets. Assorted canteens bounce from their straps around his neck. Bloody pack mule he is, he’s a damned resourceful pantomimist. Grand scheme it may not be much, but at the bottom of the barrel, it’d make all the difference. Sore and finally encircled by relative safely, he lets it all slip from his shoulders, stuff and things cascading into a pile up against the wall so he can fold into his friend. Accepts the arm around his shoulder like a lifeline.

At the notion of frightening children (and perhaps in spite of himself) Fides’ lips tug wide, a baring grin. I suppose I will is the evident undertone. I suppose I should like to. Though, scaring soldiers in the throes of flame would suffice just as well in a pinch. Much better, actually. With Jesper, and this far from the earshot of the rest, he speaks freely: "you should've seen the faces on them," he utters, jerking his chin toward the ratway's craggy ceiling, indicating the infantry scattering above. “Eyes wide as saucers, didn’t know what I was nor what to make of me in the hellfire —Way I skittered by, looked like they'd seen some phantom of the carnival." The performer waggles his fingers to accentuate the wavering, ominous tone.

In spite of himself again (it's the only way he laughs, now,) a rasping chuckle shakes loose from the pits of his chest.

How ' you doing? "A wash will do me good," Is his croaking reply as he scrubs at his face with his dirty palms, as if to get a head start on dislodging the mess on them. He only whitens his palms and muddies his cheeks in return. Fides cocks his head to the side to return the pointed question to Jesper as they reel their way toward the mocked up washrooms: "and you? What happened out there— when you faced them?” What was it like? How did it feel? From where he stands, it feels like a great heaving of the earth underfoot. Feels like a war marching forth.

Fides leaves his friend the empty space to respond at will, trusting they'll fill him in, as he sinks to his knees at the nearest salvaged basin, preparing to plunge his hands in—

the ratway — @vaudevilliane

aleni heard it before she saw anything. the gentle sound of music coming from down the way, stirring the exhaustion in her bones and moving her to rise. she had been hugging her knees together on the floor of the ratway, futilely attempting to rest herself amid all the mixed relief, hopelessness and desperation. she’d made it. they all had. but aleni was no longer naive, and she knew this reprieve did not mean any of them were safe.

groaning at the way her bruised body ached with each movement, she stood and padded toward the source of the music. it was, as she’d guessed, fides, striking a tune on that blasted accordion he’d somehow managed to get here safely. aleni smiled, the muscles in her face cracking at the unexpected use. she couldn’t help but feel called back to the first time she’d seen fides, busking in that square on her very first day in ketterdam. how innocent she’d been then; but even now, she still had a love for the music.

“are you taking requests?” she grinned at fides during a break in his playing.

—

The courier, the rusty composer, is perched on the end of a ratway corridor, churning out a mellow melody on recommendation while dregs slumber and see to their wounds alike. It'll be good for morale, Jesper posed— and never was there a more fitting skillset for such things.

War may imprint the flesh, but the fingers know only this: the push and pull, the steady dance, and the rhythm of the bellows as they breathe their layered notes. Fides breathes with the instrument, with the swell of the slow technique, as if meditation is found within the reeds.

The accordion in itself may well be saint sent— stained from the ordeal, ash-darkened, but in one piece— sounding clear and resonant as anything. Legs bent sharply at the knees and head bowed over the instrument as his hands move, it's a gesture neighboring prayer. One he stirs from at Aleni's approach, head dragging upright as if by a marionette's strings. His burns have been patched by now— one palm sporting a stained wrap that doesn't seem to hinder the will to use it. His face has been washed clean, too, mostly— paint's remnants taking the shape of a cherry stains at the corners of his mouth, the afterimage of a smile, like the ghost of the pantomimist's persona.

It had stared with words Manu couldn’t put together. A distant announcement. Something lost to him as his hands played with the water, tiny waves moving the bubbles as he breathed through the shared silence. He realized he was happy. A clear path ahead, a chore to finish, Fides by his side. Manu felt strangely free, unaware of the words, uniforms, threats. He hadn’t mind the eerie silence, the sudden movement in the slat. Not until it was too late. Not until the words vanished and something other took its place. And though a moment before his mouth was closing in the new offering, Manu couldn’t taste its letters, its sounds, anymore. The little token he had repeated and repeated as though it meant more than just soap, as if it offered a whole new life for him to wonder, died in his throat. The gift from a friend who still shied in his edges had not survived the soaring light.

All consuming, shattering, threatening, as the words before. His hands were frozen in the sink, the meal he had just shared with Fides turning in his stomach. Every single muscle in his body screamed at that sign, confusion making his focus falter and the little waves died against his flat hands. Manu couldn’t form answers, couldn’t stop his legs from moving closer to the window, contemplating all that waited them outside. Drüskelle. And the darkness. So much of it. Cunning, desperate, overwhelming. Something forged from the pit of his worst fear and from the cold sweat on his spine. And it throbbed with power. Shimmering, blinding, deafening. Something unnatural, as the light that came before.

A sun and a shadow summoner. Beings that belonged to war stories and saints. To ancient lands and Ravka. Not Kerch. Not possible. Not with this strength. Or were all the rare summoners this powerful? Drüskelle. It could only mean they were back. From the bottom of the ocean, from his nightmares and his rage. His wet hand goes out into the dark, fingers frantically looking for Fides, any part of him, just to touch another hand covered in water. This was real. They were here. The creatures of legend and the creatures of hate. They came to make a speech. They found him. “Fides,” Manu breathed out, the word broken in his lips as he pushed the other closer, hands feeling his elbow, shoulder, neck, face. “Fides, listen to me,” he couldn’t think. Panic moving his fingers, feeling the paint on his friends’ face. This was intimate. And nothing like their small tokens of faith. 

Somehow, it felt wrong to take that step, steal that touch. But the metallic taste on his tongue shot that notion into oblivion. Manu just held on. They were here. They would make him burn. “We need to leave. Now. I don’t know what they want or what they’re here for, but they can’t take you, do you understand? Whatever you do, don’t let them take you,” not you, not again. Regardless if Fides wasn’t zowa. Pointless if the urgency in his voice and in his fingers did nothing to explain how terrified Manu was. Drüskelle. They had found him at last.

—

The way he'd been taught it was so simple, any child in his caravan could understand it — fire takes whatever it's given, and it gives back too. It consumes and it clears groundcover for new growth, and as readily as it burns, man can't live without it. Not in the coldest marches of the night. But now, as he smells the first wisps of it here, Fides knows he never understood it. Hardly fathomed its power. Not when it first devoured the striped canvas of his carnival’s tent that night the slavers came; and not now, when it comes for his home a second time.

Where it was still moments before, their world now pounded with a roaring pulse. Gunshots punctuated the cacophony with their staccato notes, splintering the windows at their backs and dusted them in glass spray. Fides was aware of the prickling of raining shards. Of Manu's palms pressing into his painted face. Of shouts and screams and the rising scent of burning wood.

Of all things to return to him later, lying on his back in the ratway, he'll remember the smell; that if he closed his eyes, he could've believe it a cookfire.