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.
"We always do," he echoes the words as if he's borrowed them from someone else. As if the believing is still slouching its way to the ratway to join them. In the flickering lamplight, he shapes a final shadow puppet crow. "Kaz will draw up a plan," he nods firmly, "If he hasn't already." Chuckles as he shakes his hands out and then pivots back to the basin to finish scrubbing. Once he's rubbed his face near raw, Fides surfaces from the wash-water and puffs out his cheeks. Sighing, wiping the thick droplets weighing down his lashes. "Better?" He asks as he tilts his face to Jesper for their eye on the matter.