I can't grant you any wishes, I won't promise you the stars (for Halcy)

[askthelookout]

They rode for several hours. It was slow going, and after the initial wash of activity when they parted, the little ka-tet fell into an uneasy silence, the sort that resisted any attempt to break it. Roland rode at the head of the posse, his face settled back into stiff, unyielding lines, his back straight and his shoulders back, like a statue carved in flesh.

Cuthbert, for his part, rode at the back of the group, acting as rearguard. The smile he'd worn earlier seemed to ebb away with every step they took, and by the time they were out of sight of Gilead, he was as stonily silent as his dinh, looking around at the ruined landscape they rode through, his dark eyes sharp and alert. He didn't speak to Kaine, or to anyone.

When the sun began to go down, Roland called a halt, raising one hand and reining in his horse. "This is the best shelter we're like to fine. Bert, Will, set up camp. Alfred, you'll take first watch. Wake James at midnight. Percival, Jacob, food and water are yours. I'll see to the horses."

With little more than a few words to each other, the gunslingers set about their assigned tasks with the brisk efficiency of long practice. The silence lasted a half-hour more, and then, as they settled in around the little fire with a pot of thin stew starting to bubble, some thin attempts at conversation began. A tobacco pouch was passed, then a half-empty flask of graf, and Bert came to sit beside Kaine as he rolled a smoke.

"How're you holding together?" he asked her, with a sidelong little smile, and proffered the tobacco.

Comments

[apassingafternoon]

She was personally insulted by that excuse of a meal. Not because she was ungrateful or particularly unused to traveling on the road. You couldn't have five course meals when most of your time was spent trying to get from one place to the other but this was just an abomination. It was one while she got off her horse and unpacked what she might need, and it remained an abomination as she smelled it coming along. They didn't even add carrots. Or pepper! What kind of monstruous bullshit was this?

"I'm making dinner tomorrow." No, they didn't have to have a five course meal but Kaine could make a decent meal so long as she had the supplies. And since they'd only just come from her world her pack was full of useful groceries, set to last for the next four months, at least.

"That aside, I'm upset and confused and happy all at once." She shook her head at the tobacco. "No thanks, I'm not fond of it." She actually loathed tobacco and had been incredibly grateful when Nariko had stopped smoking. "Some of that upset is with you, so I probably need to add 'awkward' to the list."

But whatever form her unhappiness was taking it had to be relatively benign. So much had happened that she just didn't have it in her to fight properly, the way that she'd have been willing to go through before ... Everything else happened.

[askthelookout]

"Huh." Bert shrugged and tossed the pouch back to James - the red-haired youth - who caught it out of the air without looking and tucked it into his jerkin. Bert, for his part, settled in and went on rolling his cigarillo, raising one eyebrow at Kaine. "Upset with me why, exactly? No point making it more awkward, we've both done enough dancing around things for a lifetime."

[apassingafternoon]

"Because you killed Christian, and because being a gunslinger makes you so self-important and self-righteous that you think it's just fine to disrespect me. You make your decisions and then that's supposed to be it, everyone around you should swallow it as well that's what we do."

As she spoke she unwrapped her pack to pull out the tooth that Bert and Nariko had obtained back in the Archive Castle. She cleaved it in two with one jab of her sword, the motion was repeated so that she had a far smaller bit to work with. "I'm angry that you've continuously hurt the person that gave me a life so that I could meet you at all, but you'll reason it away like nothing, lock it up tight in some corner of your mind and convince yourself there was nothing else you could have done anyway. Best to move on, and deal with the fallout as it happens."

She put her sword back into its place, jutting from the ground near her. The smallest behemoth piece came into her hands, along with her carving knife. "You're so much like him sometimes that if I didn't have eyes I wouldn't know better. And that makes me so angry that I could vomit."

[askthelookout]

Bert blinked at her, then, very slowly, reached over to light his smoke in the fire. He was silent for a long moment after that, taking a long breath of smoke and watching it coil up into the gathering evening.

"Will you take a walk with me?" he said, at last. "Away from the camp, where we won't disturb the others if we argue? They've been through a hell of a lot more than we have, and I'd sooner have this talk where they needn't pretend not to hear."

[apassingafternoon]

Though she didn't meet his eyes Kaine wasn't angry in such a way that she simmered or flustered in place. She focused her energy on the task she had given herself and so the quiet wasn't any big deal. He'd asked her why and she had answered, it was really that simple. The idea of taking a walk was only bothersome because she wanted to get the general outline done, but ... He had a fair enough point. It wasn't a talk that involved anyone but themselves, no one else should have to suffer for it.

"Alright." She folded her knife up and stuck it back into her pocket to get up, stretching her shoulders as she did so.

this tag is basically the "well that escalated quickly" meme isn't it?

[askthelookout]

Bert took another huff of smoke, then got to his feet, nodding to the other men as he turned away from the fire. With the cigarillo dangling between his lips, he started away, stepping over the laid-out bedrolls and out of the circle of firelight, until the only light remaining was the dim glow of his lit smoke. There, a couple of hundred yards from the other men, he turned to face her, and regarded her for a long moment before taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

"How dare you?" There was a shake in his voice that might have been upset, or might have been rage; he never was the stablest or the easiest to read. "How dare you? You want to talk about disrespect? About expecting everyone else to swallow it down? How about we start with talking about how, above and beyond anything he ever did to Nariko, Christian was Farson's man? How about you step out of your little... your bedamned bubble where what matters is you and her and nothing else, and you realise that everything we've ever loved, everything we've fought for and suffered for and sworn to, just crashed down around our ears because of men like him? You want to talk about Nariko? All right, let's talk about Nariko! Let's talk about how she came here knowing what she did, came anyway, how people - my goddamn people! - died for her! And I love her, I love her because Roland does and fuck knows he deserves some love in this world after everything, but don't you fucking dare stand there and act like if I hurt her, I've got no reason to do it!" His voice was rising into a cracked, thin shout, and although it wasn't clear in the darkness, his face was wet with tears. "Aye, I'll lock it up tight and convince myself there's nothing else I could have done. Aye. I will. It can go in there with all the men I've lost, with Hambry, with Rebecca's girls, with every homestead I've let burn and every shot I've fired and everyone I've killed, and if it ever sees the light of day, I'll go mad." Just as suddenly as it had crescendoed into a shout, his voice petered out. He cursed quietly, little more than a whimper, and dropped his half-burned cigarette, then collapsed onto the earth beside it, head in his hands. "Cry pardon. There's more rage than reason in me, nowadays."

With cersei holding a cup of wine for the image, yes

[apassingafternoon]

Kaine remained quiet for a long moment, looking in the opposite direction of Bert whether he stood or did cartwheels.

"What exactly am I supposed to say, here? It seems like this is less of a discussion and more another reason to yell at me, Bert. If I say anything are you even going to listen?" Everything in her tone and her body language, rigid as it was, said that she didn't think so. It had nothing to do with being unwilling to speak, or with lacking answers, she just didn't have a desire to speak to deaf ears.

ah bert you overdramatic asshole

[askthelookout]

He pressed his lips together, tugging his hands through his hair, and took a long breath. He was silent for a very long moment before looking up at her, his olive skin greyish-pale and his lips almost vanishing into a line.

"Cry pardon," he said again, his voice quiet and muffled. "I'll listen. It... it isn't you I'm angry at, anyroad. You're the last person in this whole wretched world I want to yell at." Then, with a rather weak chuckle, "It's just that I want to yell at the whole wretched world. Look, I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

[apassingafternoon]

"It's fine." It wasn't, and no amount of insisting might prove it, but there had to be some usefulness in saying it, right? In trying to make things better. Or not. Kaine didn't know. All that she could accept for the time being was that whatever she had meant to genuinely talk about suddenly felt trivial.

Her eyes shifted from whatever horizon interested her so much and she stared at the ground. When Kaine's shoulders fell it seemed most of her composure went with it. She suddenly looked at exhausted as she felt.

"You wouldn't happen to know which direction we're going in, would you? I sort of need to know." And if Bert didn't, then she'd have to suck it up and speak with Roland. That had all the appeal of drowning herself in a dirty lake.

[askthelookout]

"We'll sweep out to the boundary of Gilead. There are caves north-west of here, where some of our kin might have gone to ground, and forests beyond that." Bert pushed his hands back through his hair again, taking a deep breath. "If we don't find them there, which is likely, my guess is Roland will have us split - though not into more than two or three groups, few as we are - and recce outwards clockwise and counter-clockwise until we find something worth finding. We'll be a week or two in searching. After that..." He sighed again, heavier. "After that, I guess we'll cut our losses and flee."

[apassingafternoon]

She finally looked back at him as he answered, and, well, it really wasn't a horrid plan. It sounded like something Roland might come up with. The ending bit made her quirk an utterly humorless smile but if she had any comments they were kept to herself. "Two weeks is just long enough, I guess." Long enough for everything to end up utterly fucked. Long enough for too many to die. She tried to put it out of her thoughts and failed.

"Will you go to Kyrat with me when we're done?"

[askthelookout]

"You say that as if there's more than one answer I could give." He pressed his lips up against his hand, frowning. "You're going. Roland's going. Where the hell would I go that wasn't Kyrat?" Then, with a hint of his old humour, "Besides, you couldn't keep me away if you tried. I didn't spout all that mush about you for the fun of it, you know."

[apassingafternoon]

Mentioning the event made her soften up a little bit and she found it in herself to smile. "I guess I just doubted whether he'd go or not. And even though you did mention it I don't actually want to make you leave his side because of me." Even if the idea itself did carry immense weight. "I hope everyone there is alright. Not knowing is always the worst part to me."

She paused for a little bit, shuffling in place before she came out with it. "Bert, I'm not upset about the act of killing him. There's no reality where I want him to live, and that's for a lot of reasons. What scares me is that we're always acting as separate units. Roland's supposed to do this thing with Towers, and Nariko's supposed to get her magic back, but how can we get anything done if we're always," She gestured a little, trying to find the right word. "Always fractured? I don't want it to be that way."

Kaine took in a deep breathe, and scratched the back of her neck. "I don't want us to be that way."

[askthelookout]

Bert sighed, sitting back on his haunches and closing his eyes for a moment. Then he stood, cautiously reaching for her hand.

"I don't either," he said quietly. "I don't want any of... of this, being at each other's throats, being split down the middle. But what the hell am I meant to do about it? I don't know jackshit about being in love, or being apart, or what the hell ka wants from us. I don't know what to do. Alain and Roland are the brains of the outfit. I'm just the beauty."

[apassingafternoon]

She took it, and squeezed gently. "You're a very wonderful beauty, if that's any comfort?" It was a sad attempt at a joke, really, but at least it was kind of a good sign? Or something.

"Right now we can look for whoever is left. And then we can go to Kyrat." In the brief quiet she attempted to lace their fingers together. "... I still think that if we can give them a little time they'll sort it out on their own. Does that make sense? And if they both stop being idiots at each other then it's fine. I know Roland won't ever be the clingy type, and Nariko is wrong for being so underhanded but there is room for it. The way they were at home is proof, to me. We just need more time."

And when she thought about it, that almost felt like a running joke. They all needed more of that commodity to heal, the figure shit out, to breathe.

"I can't tell you I don't love her, and that loving her doesn't guide some of my decisions. But I do want you to know that everything I've promised and tried to do has been for the sake of trying to get everyone on the same page." Kaine scuffed up the dirt in front of her, "I just haven't been very good at it."

[askthelookout]

Bert slipped his fingers through hers, smiling crookedly. "Well, none of us have been, really. At least you're trying. You and Alain. The rest of us are too proud, too stubborn, or too bedamned stupid to get anywhere." Then, his smile fading, "I cry your pardon for what I did. Killing him, not telling you, blurting it out as I did... As you love Nariko, I love Roland, and I've done some damned stupid things to try and keep him safe. Don't tell him I said that, he'll have my guts for garters."

[apassingafternoon]

"Seeing as I'd rather not imagine garters on that man, I think I can do that." But she followed that up with a little kiss, and a far more serious tone. "Thank you. And I'm sorry that I made it so easy to think that I wouldn't care about Gilead. That isn't the case. I know it's not to me what it is to you, but it's still where we met. I didn't ..." This wasn't something she should speak too much on, it was his pain after all, not hers. "I didn't work hard enough."

But they wouldn't do themselves any good focusing on that so she tried to shake it off by guiding the arm attached to the hand she held around her shoulders. "For now we can try to calm the fuck down and find some gunslingers! We'll take it a day at a time, and together!"

[askthelookout]

"You worked harder than we ever asked of you," Bert said quietly, slipping his arm around her shoulders and leaning in to kiss her gently on the lips. "You aren't a gunslinger. It isn't your land. Nobody would have blamed you if you'd cut and run." For once, he didn't take the bait and let himself be drawn out into light-heartedness. Not for the moment, anyway. He pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. "Thanks to you, they paid in blood for that land. It's more than we expected."

[apassingafternoon]

Ah, but he could have taken the bait that would lead him away from the seriousness. That was what she'd expected but hindsight, tricky as it was, told her that she did need to hear that from him. Even if it ached and brought up the wretched desire to cry. She returned that kiss, but just leaned into him for a long moment afterword, eyes half-open.

"I really can't believe how much I love you," Despite the vulnerable tone she spoke with Kaine was happier for it, and she did eventually smile again. "

[askthelookout]

"Me neither," Bert said, and his voice was surprisingly serious. Then he shook it off, pulled that easy cheer back over himself like a cloak. "Then again, I am oddly lovable. Like a three-legged puppy that's not quite figured out where to piss yet." Laughing, he kissed her again, lighter this time, on the corner of her mouth. "Come on. I don't know about you, but I'm dead on my feet. Shall we head back and get some shut-eye?"

[apassingafternoon]

"You had me up until the pissing part." She rolled her eyes and accepted that kiss just as easily as she returned it.

"That's not a bad idea at all. But I'm not looking forward to that stew at all." That said he should probably still eat some of it before falling asleep for the night. With her arm still around his side she pulled back towards the direction of camp. If it seemed like the right thing to do she'd stop when they got a little bit nearer. Maybe gunslingers didn't like seeing open affection for all that she knew.

[askthelookout]

"Ah, well, I wouldn't be me if I didn't put a damper on the mood," Bert said cheerfully, wrapping his own arm around her waist and resting his hand comfortably on the rise of her hip. The dark mood hadn't totally gone - wasn't likely to any time soon, either - but, strangely, he did feel a little easier than he had before. Maybe there was something to letting it all out. Or maybe it was her.

He didn't loose his hold on her as they came closer to the circle of firelight, although he did make an obscene gesture at the youngest gunslinger when the boy whistled teasingly. "Lay off, Jim."

[apassingafternoon]

... Right, they were definitely still in a camp of men, which generally wouldn't bother her but. How did you handle relationship stuff like this? Would it be better if they didn't sleep together or kiss nearby or was it actually alright? She should have asked all this before they came back, goddammit.

A little red in the cheeks Kaine shrugged and let go of Bert easily so that she could drop back to her seat and resume carving. It was going to be her task for this entire two-three week process, and that wasn't very long for what she wanted to do with the hunk of Behemoth tooth.

[askthelookout]

Bert laughed, dropping down next to her and retrieving a bowl of stew for each of them. Whatever she might say about the food, he was used to plenty thinner rations, and he ate with gusto, joking between mouthfuls about everything that came to mind. He was the only one talking most of the time, but he seemed blissfully unaware of that, yammering on animatedly as he talked through what had happened in the other world (notably leaving out all mention of Susan, and skimming over that strange talk they had parted on).

Across the fire, Roland watched, unsmiling, as the light danced over his face. A faint line had appeared between his brows, as though he was trying to put a name to something going on inside him. At last, tapping ash off his cigarillo, he got to his feet, locking eyes with Kaine, and gestured towards the edge of their little camp, where his bedroll was set up. The message was clear: come with me.

[apassingafternoon]

Kaine forced herself to eat but for the most part she was dedicated to her task. She laughed at Bert's jokes when he made them, and found herself more comforted by his chatter than anything else. While she obviously had no reason to distrust the gunslingers she had always been a bit nervous around groups of men, to have one she trusted would probably help maintain her sanity.

She reached such a calm state that the only reason she even noticed Roland was thanks to her finishing dinner, and moving to set it all aside. She caught his look and - didn't hesitate, but Kaine did try to run through the list of things he might possibly want to speak with her about.

But nothing came to mind. Her knife and the rough shape in her hands went back down, and she stood once more, giving Bert a brief little smile before doing as Roland asked. Whatever it was: Best to get it over with.