Post by orby on May 14, 2019 13:22:15 GMT
Mornings these days usually found Caim sitting curled up in a nest of thin blankets with a book in his lap. He had three of them now. It was a tiny little stack compared to the packed shelves full he once had, but these were more his than any of those had ever been. Picked out and paid for by him alone. And with the gold he'd been given as a reward after the fire the other night, he could even say he'd made the newest purchases with his own money.
Today's book was still new. A first time reading something was exciting enough that he might have been annoyed by the knock at his door, were he the type to get annoyed and were such knocks not novelties still.
"Yes?" he called, already sitting up with the book closed around a finger to save his place. That acknowledgement was apparently all that was needed for the inn's boy to open the door and peek his head in.
"Scary lady lookin' for you downstairs," the boy announced in a rush. Evidently he'd grown used to both the tiefling staying in the inn and the intimidating sorts that sought said tiefling out, because the boy didn't linger to stare this time or offer any escape routes in advance. Such progress.
The door fell shut again and the sound of small feet scurrying away somewhere faded out behind it. Caim blinked at the spot the boy had occupied for a moment, surprised. Scary lady. Kara again? The idea had him perking up and setting his book aside immediately. Was it too much to hope it was a social visit this time? It was nice to think someone might come calling on him just for his company. It was also nice to hope that maybe she wasn't dying for once.
He moved quickly just in case.
Slipping on his boots but leaving everything else, Caim headed into the hall. He could come back if there was any need to go out, and aside from the odd barfight it'd been a quiet enough place to make brief appearances without a cloak to hide behind.
It felt like a rock dropped straight into the pit of his stomach when he spotted the pale head of the person waiting downstairs, platinum blond hair faintly touched with silver in places. Definitely not Kara. But still very familiar.
Meredith Marraine sat with a straight back and folded hands at one of the tables in the middle of the tavern, empty at this hour save for the innkeeper quietly puttering about behind the bar. She had a steely grey stare and the thinly lined face of a woman in perhaps her early forties. Her expression was as unreadable as ever, intimidating in its inscrutability. She wore simple clothes, no armor today, but the red and gold color scheme suggested he'd find the symbol of Lathandar somewhere on them with a closer look. He expected nothing else from the provost of the Shrine of First Light.
For a moment, Caim considered slipping back down the hall into his room again before she noticed him there, but he barely had the moment to think it before her eyes darted up and locked him in place.
"Caim," she said, voice cool and just as hard to interpret as her face. Her chin lifted just slightly, authoritative, and she tapped a nail on the table's surface to indicate the chair opposite her. "Sit down."
The command sparked a flurry of discomfort in his gut. It was a familiar tone, one he'd grown used to hearing in more recent years as he pushed at her rules more and more. But he'd grown complacent, having gone weeks now here without hearing it, and he was a little stunned by how quickly all sense of ease left him. He hadn't realized just how relaxed he'd grown in his time here.
He could have chased that ease. Turned around and gone back to his room, or just kept walking right past her out the front door. Caim imagined she was angry, but it wasn't as if her manner was threatening and she'd never hurt him before. In theory, there was no reason to obey.
In practice, though, he hesitated in place for a long few moments with his heart in his throat before slowly descending the stairs and seating himself across from her. The idea of so callously ignoring someone didn't sit well with him to begin with. Doing so to her was just unthinkable.
That thought gave him no comfort as he sat there stiffly, though, trying to resist the urge to fidget under the weight of her gaze. Distantly, he noted the symbol of a road traveling into the sunrise embroidered over her heart, just as expected. Silence hung over them for a few seconds before he realized she was leaving him to say something first.
The silence stretched on a bit longer while he bit at his lip uncertainly. What could he even say?
"How did you...?"
She scoffed. "Did you think I would never be able to track you down? You aren't very subtle." Her eyebrows arched very slightly, just a centimeter or two. "I'm amazed it even took this long."
That could be taken as an admission that he had managed to disappear decently, or at least better than she would have expected. He wasn't given much time to take any kind of pleasure from that before she abruptly went on.
"Are you done?"
"What?" Caim blinked, whatever explanation he'd been composing in his head scattering like windblown sand. Meredith's expression was unimpressed. She sighed, perfectly nailing the part of the exasperated parent trying to be patient.
"This escapade of yours. Have you had your fill yet? Had some fun with your stolen gold?" Her stare was pointed, and he felt his cheeks warm with guilt and shame.
"It's not like that," he said, frowning. "I planned to pay it back eventually, when I could..."
"Of course you did." Her arched brows drew together indignantly even as her voice remained perfectly even. "And I suppose this is all my fault, hm? Because I said no. Is this your idea of punishment, then?"
The very idea had him fumbling his next attempt at words. "I-It's not punishment." His brows knit together, distraught. "I wasn't trying to... I just..."
"You just wanted to do what you wanted." Her eyes rolled skywards as if sending up a silent prayer, and her tone took on a disappointed edge. "You used to be such an obedient child. I never thought you would ever be so selfish."
That one made him flinch. It was like a jab straight to the heart. Selfish. He'd thought it himself, hadn't he? How could he argue with that? The thought lingered and ate at him no matter how much he focused on everything that had made him finally flee in the first place. The lack of freedom, the isolation, that horrible vague sense that something was wrong without any real certainty.
Once upon a time, she'd made his day when she told him he could participate in services if he remained silent and wore the robes and hoods and veils she gave him. It was all with purpose, as she'd explained when he later asked. Ceremonial. The ornamental metal rings and bracelets and necklaces and headpiece all weighed heavily, but they marked him as being special. It was only appropriate for what he represented to them.
It took what could probably be considered an embarrassing amount of time for him to notice how neatly the decorations on his fingers hid the sharp points of his claws where they would have shown through the gloves. Or how the headdress hid the shape of his horns where they disrupted the smooth fall of the hood and veil. Or the fact that copper and bronze were oddly cheap options for a display of opulence.
Altogether, it painted a picture he didn't want to look at. An unflattering image for everyone involved -- deceit from people that should have been beyond reproach, stupidity on his part for buying into it -- if he took it to be the truth.
The uncertainty was the worst part of it all. Not the thought that he'd been lied to, that his very nature was being treated like a scandal to be hidden away while they fed him pretty stories to cover it up. No, what left a sick, churning feeling swirling through him was not being sure. If he worked up the courage to ask, what kind response would he even hope for? What was worse, being right? Having been mislead because what he was was something shameful and being too stupid to realize it for so long? Or being wrong and outing himself as someone so distrusting and self-absorbed that he could accuse the people who'd cared for him all his life of something like that? If he was wrong, then he was an awful person for having such doubts, and everyone would know as soon as he spoke up.
The idea of it held his tongue in a vice. He could no more ever bring himself to voice those suspicions than he could settle them, and so the sick feeling lingered, clenching around his lungs and weighing heavily in his stomach, spoiling any bit of satisfaction he used to get while healing during services.
"Caim," Meredith said, pointed and sharp as a blade, and he was abruptly reminded of where he was. Not back at the temple but instead here, miles away and without even the now-familiar weight of a cloak around his shoulders. It was a far cry from the last time they'd talked, before he'd left behind the veils and adornments and the oppressive stone walls.
He drew a breath, trying to calm his frayed nerves. The gesture was like trying to douse a fire with oil for all the good it did. There was a tight grip around his heart that only constricted tighter when he dared to meet Meredith's eyes, and it made getting any words out feel like a daunting task.
He tried anyway.
"You don't understand," he began, hoping he sounded self-assured rather than pleading. By the way her eyes narrowed, however, he could immediately tell he'd misstepped.
"Don't I?" she said, icy. What hint of indulgence there'd been in her tone seemed to freeze over. Caim grimaced, and he couldn't put together some alternate lead-in before she powered right on through his quiet fumbling.
"You think you know better, is that it? Do you think this is mature? That your talents are better spent hiding out here in the cheapest hovel possible?" Her tutting was dripping with her clear displeasure, and she shook her head. "Have you even spared a thought for those affected by your absence?"
He shrunk in on himself, throat tight. "Of course I--"
"The whole clergy of the temple," she continued over him, "Saying nothing of those who make the trip out for services only to be disappointed. I suppose what you want matters more? This whole rebellious--"
"Lad."
A gruff, masculine voice cut in, and a tense breath leaked out of Caim as he looked to where the innkeeper was leaning through an open door to some back room. Meredith frowned at the interruption, but the man carried right on in the sudden silence he'd created. "Need ya for a sec back here. Th' boy cut himself peelin' potatoes like a damn fool."
"Huh? Oh..." Caim just blinked for a moment, surprised by the request. He'd never helped them out like that before. But he'd healed a number of people right here in the tavern, so it wasn't as if anything was a secret. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. "Of course, I..."
Already halfway out of his seat -- perhaps a bit too eager for the opportunity to get away for a few minutes -- he spared a glance back at the provost. "I'm sorry, just...give me a few minutes?"
The look she gave him in return was impatient, lips pursing into a displeased expression, but she gave a tiny nod of assent and waved him off. He couldn't help the slight relieved smile that slipped onto his face despite everything, returning her nod before rising. He hurried to join the innkeeper, who lingered there just a moment longer with eyes on the waiting woman before shepherding Caim into the back and shutting the door behind them.
The space back here was no more glamorous than the rest of the inn. It was a fairly small room, the necessities of a kitchen packed in with just enough of a walkway left to maneuver through. Another two doors on different walls led elsewhere, and Caim glanced between them curiously as he took it all in and failed to spot the inn's boy anywhere amongst the storage and stovetops.
"Where is he?" It only occurred to Caim belatedly, with a spark of guilt, that he didn't actually know the boy's name. Or the innkeeper's, for that matter.
"Hell if I know. Pro'ly hiding lazin' about somewhere upstairs."
"What?" Caim's eyes shot back to the innkeeper, who was simply standing with his arms crossed, watching the tiefling with an odd look. His ruddy face was hard to read, the beard and mustache covering the lower half and making the endeavor even more difficult, but there was something knowing in that stare.
"Lady out there was givin' you a hard time or somethin'?" Caim just gaped at him and he shrugged his shoulders. "Not my business, whatever it is." He inclined his head towards one of the closed doors. "That's th' back way out."
"I don't..." Caim trailed off, unable to find the words. He took a moment to process the man's few words again just to make sure he really was understanding correctly. Not the words themselves, those were simple enough, but the gesture...
"Maybe I'm wrong." The innkeeper shrugged again, attention seemingly dropping to his nails as he idly picked at some grime under one with his thumb. His voice and manner were, by all appearances, unconcerned. "Jus' forget it then. If 'm not, though...door's right there."
Caum stared a moment longer, and then another, recognizing what he was being offered and scarcely able to believe it. The innkeeper was the picture of careless disinterest, but he'd paid attention. Stepped in to provide an escape for someone who didn't even know his name...
Exhaling a shaky breath, Caim abruptly moved to grip the man's hand. It went stiff under his fingers as an uncomfortable expression crossed the innkeeper's face, but he gave it a squeeze like that could convey all the things he couldn't even begin to express.
"Thank you." He tried to meet the man's eyes, but the innkeeper just scowled and shook Caim off, turning away and huffing.
"Just go."
Even that curt response couldn't quell the rush of gratitude in him, or the spark of hope breaking through the tension that had gripped him tight since he'd first laid eyes on the provost. Offering a quick tentative smile -- it was all he could give at the moment, his bag and cloak and everything were all still up in his room -- Caim turned to slip out the back door.
Today's book was still new. A first time reading something was exciting enough that he might have been annoyed by the knock at his door, were he the type to get annoyed and were such knocks not novelties still.
"Yes?" he called, already sitting up with the book closed around a finger to save his place. That acknowledgement was apparently all that was needed for the inn's boy to open the door and peek his head in.
"Scary lady lookin' for you downstairs," the boy announced in a rush. Evidently he'd grown used to both the tiefling staying in the inn and the intimidating sorts that sought said tiefling out, because the boy didn't linger to stare this time or offer any escape routes in advance. Such progress.
The door fell shut again and the sound of small feet scurrying away somewhere faded out behind it. Caim blinked at the spot the boy had occupied for a moment, surprised. Scary lady. Kara again? The idea had him perking up and setting his book aside immediately. Was it too much to hope it was a social visit this time? It was nice to think someone might come calling on him just for his company. It was also nice to hope that maybe she wasn't dying for once.
He moved quickly just in case.
Slipping on his boots but leaving everything else, Caim headed into the hall. He could come back if there was any need to go out, and aside from the odd barfight it'd been a quiet enough place to make brief appearances without a cloak to hide behind.
It felt like a rock dropped straight into the pit of his stomach when he spotted the pale head of the person waiting downstairs, platinum blond hair faintly touched with silver in places. Definitely not Kara. But still very familiar.
Meredith Marraine sat with a straight back and folded hands at one of the tables in the middle of the tavern, empty at this hour save for the innkeeper quietly puttering about behind the bar. She had a steely grey stare and the thinly lined face of a woman in perhaps her early forties. Her expression was as unreadable as ever, intimidating in its inscrutability. She wore simple clothes, no armor today, but the red and gold color scheme suggested he'd find the symbol of Lathandar somewhere on them with a closer look. He expected nothing else from the provost of the Shrine of First Light.
For a moment, Caim considered slipping back down the hall into his room again before she noticed him there, but he barely had the moment to think it before her eyes darted up and locked him in place.
"Caim," she said, voice cool and just as hard to interpret as her face. Her chin lifted just slightly, authoritative, and she tapped a nail on the table's surface to indicate the chair opposite her. "Sit down."
The command sparked a flurry of discomfort in his gut. It was a familiar tone, one he'd grown used to hearing in more recent years as he pushed at her rules more and more. But he'd grown complacent, having gone weeks now here without hearing it, and he was a little stunned by how quickly all sense of ease left him. He hadn't realized just how relaxed he'd grown in his time here.
He could have chased that ease. Turned around and gone back to his room, or just kept walking right past her out the front door. Caim imagined she was angry, but it wasn't as if her manner was threatening and she'd never hurt him before. In theory, there was no reason to obey.
In practice, though, he hesitated in place for a long few moments with his heart in his throat before slowly descending the stairs and seating himself across from her. The idea of so callously ignoring someone didn't sit well with him to begin with. Doing so to her was just unthinkable.
That thought gave him no comfort as he sat there stiffly, though, trying to resist the urge to fidget under the weight of her gaze. Distantly, he noted the symbol of a road traveling into the sunrise embroidered over her heart, just as expected. Silence hung over them for a few seconds before he realized she was leaving him to say something first.
The silence stretched on a bit longer while he bit at his lip uncertainly. What could he even say?
"How did you...?"
She scoffed. "Did you think I would never be able to track you down? You aren't very subtle." Her eyebrows arched very slightly, just a centimeter or two. "I'm amazed it even took this long."
That could be taken as an admission that he had managed to disappear decently, or at least better than she would have expected. He wasn't given much time to take any kind of pleasure from that before she abruptly went on.
"Are you done?"
"What?" Caim blinked, whatever explanation he'd been composing in his head scattering like windblown sand. Meredith's expression was unimpressed. She sighed, perfectly nailing the part of the exasperated parent trying to be patient.
"This escapade of yours. Have you had your fill yet? Had some fun with your stolen gold?" Her stare was pointed, and he felt his cheeks warm with guilt and shame.
"It's not like that," he said, frowning. "I planned to pay it back eventually, when I could..."
"Of course you did." Her arched brows drew together indignantly even as her voice remained perfectly even. "And I suppose this is all my fault, hm? Because I said no. Is this your idea of punishment, then?"
The very idea had him fumbling his next attempt at words. "I-It's not punishment." His brows knit together, distraught. "I wasn't trying to... I just..."
"You just wanted to do what you wanted." Her eyes rolled skywards as if sending up a silent prayer, and her tone took on a disappointed edge. "You used to be such an obedient child. I never thought you would ever be so selfish."
That one made him flinch. It was like a jab straight to the heart. Selfish. He'd thought it himself, hadn't he? How could he argue with that? The thought lingered and ate at him no matter how much he focused on everything that had made him finally flee in the first place. The lack of freedom, the isolation, that horrible vague sense that something was wrong without any real certainty.
Once upon a time, she'd made his day when she told him he could participate in services if he remained silent and wore the robes and hoods and veils she gave him. It was all with purpose, as she'd explained when he later asked. Ceremonial. The ornamental metal rings and bracelets and necklaces and headpiece all weighed heavily, but they marked him as being special. It was only appropriate for what he represented to them.
It took what could probably be considered an embarrassing amount of time for him to notice how neatly the decorations on his fingers hid the sharp points of his claws where they would have shown through the gloves. Or how the headdress hid the shape of his horns where they disrupted the smooth fall of the hood and veil. Or the fact that copper and bronze were oddly cheap options for a display of opulence.
Altogether, it painted a picture he didn't want to look at. An unflattering image for everyone involved -- deceit from people that should have been beyond reproach, stupidity on his part for buying into it -- if he took it to be the truth.
The uncertainty was the worst part of it all. Not the thought that he'd been lied to, that his very nature was being treated like a scandal to be hidden away while they fed him pretty stories to cover it up. No, what left a sick, churning feeling swirling through him was not being sure. If he worked up the courage to ask, what kind response would he even hope for? What was worse, being right? Having been mislead because what he was was something shameful and being too stupid to realize it for so long? Or being wrong and outing himself as someone so distrusting and self-absorbed that he could accuse the people who'd cared for him all his life of something like that? If he was wrong, then he was an awful person for having such doubts, and everyone would know as soon as he spoke up.
The idea of it held his tongue in a vice. He could no more ever bring himself to voice those suspicions than he could settle them, and so the sick feeling lingered, clenching around his lungs and weighing heavily in his stomach, spoiling any bit of satisfaction he used to get while healing during services.
"Caim," Meredith said, pointed and sharp as a blade, and he was abruptly reminded of where he was. Not back at the temple but instead here, miles away and without even the now-familiar weight of a cloak around his shoulders. It was a far cry from the last time they'd talked, before he'd left behind the veils and adornments and the oppressive stone walls.
He drew a breath, trying to calm his frayed nerves. The gesture was like trying to douse a fire with oil for all the good it did. There was a tight grip around his heart that only constricted tighter when he dared to meet Meredith's eyes, and it made getting any words out feel like a daunting task.
He tried anyway.
"You don't understand," he began, hoping he sounded self-assured rather than pleading. By the way her eyes narrowed, however, he could immediately tell he'd misstepped.
"Don't I?" she said, icy. What hint of indulgence there'd been in her tone seemed to freeze over. Caim grimaced, and he couldn't put together some alternate lead-in before she powered right on through his quiet fumbling.
"You think you know better, is that it? Do you think this is mature? That your talents are better spent hiding out here in the cheapest hovel possible?" Her tutting was dripping with her clear displeasure, and she shook her head. "Have you even spared a thought for those affected by your absence?"
He shrunk in on himself, throat tight. "Of course I--"
"The whole clergy of the temple," she continued over him, "Saying nothing of those who make the trip out for services only to be disappointed. I suppose what you want matters more? This whole rebellious--"
"Lad."
A gruff, masculine voice cut in, and a tense breath leaked out of Caim as he looked to where the innkeeper was leaning through an open door to some back room. Meredith frowned at the interruption, but the man carried right on in the sudden silence he'd created. "Need ya for a sec back here. Th' boy cut himself peelin' potatoes like a damn fool."
"Huh? Oh..." Caim just blinked for a moment, surprised by the request. He'd never helped them out like that before. But he'd healed a number of people right here in the tavern, so it wasn't as if anything was a secret. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. "Of course, I..."
Already halfway out of his seat -- perhaps a bit too eager for the opportunity to get away for a few minutes -- he spared a glance back at the provost. "I'm sorry, just...give me a few minutes?"
The look she gave him in return was impatient, lips pursing into a displeased expression, but she gave a tiny nod of assent and waved him off. He couldn't help the slight relieved smile that slipped onto his face despite everything, returning her nod before rising. He hurried to join the innkeeper, who lingered there just a moment longer with eyes on the waiting woman before shepherding Caim into the back and shutting the door behind them.
The space back here was no more glamorous than the rest of the inn. It was a fairly small room, the necessities of a kitchen packed in with just enough of a walkway left to maneuver through. Another two doors on different walls led elsewhere, and Caim glanced between them curiously as he took it all in and failed to spot the inn's boy anywhere amongst the storage and stovetops.
"Where is he?" It only occurred to Caim belatedly, with a spark of guilt, that he didn't actually know the boy's name. Or the innkeeper's, for that matter.
"Hell if I know. Pro'ly hiding lazin' about somewhere upstairs."
"What?" Caim's eyes shot back to the innkeeper, who was simply standing with his arms crossed, watching the tiefling with an odd look. His ruddy face was hard to read, the beard and mustache covering the lower half and making the endeavor even more difficult, but there was something knowing in that stare.
"Lady out there was givin' you a hard time or somethin'?" Caim just gaped at him and he shrugged his shoulders. "Not my business, whatever it is." He inclined his head towards one of the closed doors. "That's th' back way out."
"I don't..." Caim trailed off, unable to find the words. He took a moment to process the man's few words again just to make sure he really was understanding correctly. Not the words themselves, those were simple enough, but the gesture...
"Maybe I'm wrong." The innkeeper shrugged again, attention seemingly dropping to his nails as he idly picked at some grime under one with his thumb. His voice and manner were, by all appearances, unconcerned. "Jus' forget it then. If 'm not, though...door's right there."
Caum stared a moment longer, and then another, recognizing what he was being offered and scarcely able to believe it. The innkeeper was the picture of careless disinterest, but he'd paid attention. Stepped in to provide an escape for someone who didn't even know his name...
Exhaling a shaky breath, Caim abruptly moved to grip the man's hand. It went stiff under his fingers as an uncomfortable expression crossed the innkeeper's face, but he gave it a squeeze like that could convey all the things he couldn't even begin to express.
"Thank you." He tried to meet the man's eyes, but the innkeeper just scowled and shook Caim off, turning away and huffing.
"Just go."
Even that curt response couldn't quell the rush of gratitude in him, or the spark of hope breaking through the tension that had gripped him tight since he'd first laid eyes on the provost. Offering a quick tentative smile -- it was all he could give at the moment, his bag and cloak and everything were all still up in his room -- Caim turned to slip out the back door.
