Miscellaneous Buildings

[Vanitypirate]

"Why, but has that ever stopped anyone before?"

It was plain to see, for Tilly, that the man might be the slightest bit distracted. It was practically written over his forehead, even moreso as her last question went unanswered.
Not that she could rightly blame him for it. She'd told him so much-- it sounded unbelievable when spoken out loud.

Following his gaze to the tavern, she presumed to walk in that direction, and asked softly,

"What's on your mind?"

[azmoham]

He glanced towards her and then back to the craggy, crumbling skyline that made up the Hamlet, silent as he considered how to answer.
"I suppose..."
The mage began slowly, choosing his words with care.
"Many things. Your marriage, your child, your curse. My own place in the matter, and what may be done about it."
But that wasn't all, it was perhaps an evasion, an obvious answer. 
"I am worried, arguably overmuch, about the way things are turning. Solomon has been...quiet recently and it has me in something of a mood."
He nodded his head towards the staff that occupied his left hand as they traversed the sometimes-paved often-times-not streets of the town, progressing slowly towards that most familiar inn. Around them, the village worked as it always had, with a dogged and yet dreary persistence, as if unwilling to surrender to and yet not bold enough to resist the indomitable press of the dark house which stood like an ancient idol on the hill, brimming with menace and looming like a storm over the whole area. 

[Vanitypirate]

"Solomon?" Tilly echoed, quiet, as though hesitant to break the new silence.
She rubbed her jaw, and recalled the cacophony of voices-- of friends-- that, at one point, welcomed themselves to her mind.

She'd heard from Solomon, once, and then never again.

"Well... he's dead." She pointed out awkwardly; he already knew that.
"But you mean... his ghost isn't talking to you anymore? Did he use to...?'

[azmoham]

The man snorted, shaking his head.
"As if death means anything here, I thought the hordes of skeletal nightmares in the dungeon would've taught you that by now."
He said, as if a professor lecturing a student.
"And at any rate, he did, until a few weeks ago or so. I'm..."
An expression passed across his face, as if someone had just jammed a hot poker into his ribs and he was trying not to let it bother him.
"Not sure why he stopped. I, I'm quite afraid he may have...passed on."
He went quiet, the quiet 'tap, tap, tap' of his staff against the cobbles now seeming to carry a sort of mournful note. When at last he spoke again, his voice was heavy with some unnamed emotion that Tilly could perhaps place as a sort of grief.
"I know by all rights I should be quite pleased that he's found peace enough to move forward to, whatever is that comes next. However, I cannot help but miss his company. He was a most excellent friend, you understand."
He gave her a searching look, as if hoping to find some spark of that same emotion which now overfilled his words.
"I'm quite sure you're aware of what it's like. To lose a friend, perhaps more..."
He sighed, and was silent, that hollow staccato rhythm filling the air between them once more. It was better that way, lest the cruel specter of silence descend on them, leaving too much unsaid.

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly took on a more thoughtful look, blonde brows creased in such a way to indicate concentration.
She braved to pat the mage on the shoulder, a platitude to comfort an undoubtedly painful experience.

"I never told you-- or anything-- about this, but he talked to me, once, too, when Missy was still here." She tapped at her hatted noggin and glanced to the sky, as though she could pick Solomon's spirit out from the steel-grey clouds overhead.
"He talked to me in my head, and it's not a very pleasant thing for someone to be poking around your head, so I was rather short with him. That vexed him, I think, and he never talked to me again. But that was years ago."

She squeezed his shoulder a final time before tending vainly to her hat.

"My great-uncle Benjamin used to go on these fishing trips, see, without telling anyone. He'd just pack up and go be by himself, and come back a week later with a sunburn and a smile on his face. And my great-aunt Mary would be worried sick, of course, but she was always happy to see him back."

Tilly smiled weakly and looked ahead,

"So maybe he's just taking a bit of a fishing trip, hm?"

[azmoham]

He started when her hand touched his shoulder, stumbling in his stride for a moment and it was only thanks to the stick in his hands that he didn't fall over.
Hmm, still supporting me even now...
Dusting imaginary dirt from his person, he nodded, regarding her with a look of similar contemplativeness.
"I, I do hope so. I miss him, even his awful puns."
A weak smile formed on his lips as he spoke, recalling the man's love of uniquely terrible wordplay.
"Although I admit, I rather hope he not bring back any, ahem, 'fish' with him should he return. After all, who knows what sort of thing that might turn out to be."
Jacques chuckled, his eyes too turning towards the vault of gloomy thunderheads which lurked above them.
"You know, I'm not sure I've ever told you much about my father, but he liked to do the same thing. He'd simply stroll out the door on sunny afternoons with a camping pack slung over his shoulder, sometimes he'd leave for a week and sometimes a month, but he always came back...That is of course until he didn't."
He stated the last part rather matter-of-factly, as if it were merely a comment about the weather and not his dearest parent's rather messy death.
"But ahhh it made him happy. I think he never truly felt comfortable with a roof above his head, he needed to see the sky, I think. One thing he and I never really did see eye-to-eye on. Still don't, if I'm being totally honest."
He waved a hand towards the clouds above them, shrugging.

[Vanitypirate]

"Why, I have to say I can't blame him. I'd chew my own leg off sooner than stay cooped up inside all day..." Tilly hummed, smoothing out her coat lapels for the uncountable time that day, but it brought her comfort.
She cast a glance over and watched him as he talked.

"You never did talk much of your father." She cocked her hatted head, "What happened to him?"

[azmoham]

"Pffah! You best tell Bloo-Lekalis that lest he expect you to be the dutiful housewife of his dreams."
The scholar laughed, now grinning openly. The woman's question dimmed his merriment a little, but not much.
"Landslide, he was investigating some ruin or another, they say he was crushed near instantly. A quick end at least."
He grimaced briefly, avoiding the woman's gaze.
"He never was very careful, I suppose that's something Lavinia and I both inherited from him, among other things."

[Vanitypirate]

"There's no better teacher than experience." Tilly maintained her cheerful disposition, permissible now, she thought, with Jacques's laughing grin.
To see him come up with a sunny smile like that, even if just for a moment, she'd hoped she helped to lift some of his troubles.

"Though I hope you don't follow in his footsteps, hm? 'Least, you ought to mind crumbling ruins and the like."

Her own smile faded some, though, lest she make too much light of a rather sad incident.

"That's a crying shame, though... a boy needs his father." She added with a careful touch of sympathy, "How old were you?"

[azmoham]

Once more his face grew thoughtful, though notably lacking some of its earlier dour overtones.
"Twelve, I can still remember, we were at dinner when the currier arrived. Lavinia nearly choked on her drink, mother was...less affected."
Whereas when he spoke of his father there was some clear hint of affection, that rapidly faded at mention of his other guardian.
"Can't say its terribly shocking, it was a marriage of convenience after all. For all she liked to brag about it, my mother was not particularly flush with riches at the time. Father however, his family had gotten rich trading weapons and goods across the disputed territories in middle Europe, a job most people considered far too dangerous, which merely meant the market was wide open. He had no head for numbers though, always preferred to bury his head in the past rather than try and reap the rewards of the present. Hmm, funny, almost sounds like someone you know eh?"
A wry smile wormed across his face out from under the veil of his frown.
"For all the ways in which we were alike, I never quite found his wanderlust, I was always more comfortable in a dusty old mansion than a dusty old tomb, much to father's chagrin I might add. "

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly winced, as though the words could harm.

"'Twelve'... that's so bloody young. You were still a child."

Though, as much as he shared similarities with his father, she found herself resonating with some aspects of this fatherly Mienier-- notably, the wanderlust that Tilly herself was indulgent to.
How many times had she nearly perished, herself, in these cursed ruins? She'd always intended to return to expedition as soon as she could part for her little one.

It was an unpleasant possibility that she might find her end in some dungeon and leave the poor thing on his own, but what was the alternative?

With a sigh, she pushed the unhelpful thought aside, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

"What made you come here in the first place, then, if you were such a homebody? Not that I'm complaining-- and it's certainly a good thing you're a homebody now."

[azmoham]

A stone curtain fell over his features, reasserting a carefully composed look of polite disinterest, one that the woman beside him would no doubt have seen before.
"Mistakes. I thought I knew what I was dealing with, that my readings and my preparations could keep me safe."
A snarl overtook his features for a moment.
"Foolish. Idiotic, truly. Nobody is safe when they tinker with the things that lie beyond the pale. I hope you realize this."
The full weight of his presence fell upon her then, like a leaden blanket, as he tried to impress upon her the inescapable truth of these words.
"I...There was a, price to pay for what I know now. For what I once thought to have mastery over. Pfftah."
he scoffed, lips twisting in malice as he considered his folly.
"Misanthropic moron that I was, I thought...I wanted it to be different, that I was different, unique. Qualified to hold these forces, I should've known better..."
He glowered fiercely at the muddy paving stones, brows creased, expression craggy like the face of some sheer cliff, like the one his father had died on...After a long minute he coughed politely to signal the end of that particular line of discussion, the almost palpable rage dissipating once more like mist off a hot street.
"I do believe I was rambling, my apologies."
He spoke with his rather more conversational tone, cool and collected as always, though not daring to meet her face.

[Vanitypirate]

"You were still young; you didn't know any better."
Tilly counted the cobbles under her feet, what with her hands in her coat pockets.
It seemed that she always regretted stowing them away; it was difficult to keep them idle.

"Everyone's heard of this place, but there aren't any words out there that can tell you what it's like here. Nobody here knew any better." She squinted, and looked to the man who had nearly escaped the hamlet-- if it weren't for Tilly.

"...What made you come back, then? Just the wedding? Considering you aren't much for magical exploits anymore."

[azmoham]

Jacques sighed, rubbing his brow with his free hand in a gesture that seemed to add a decade to his age. 
"I would like to think its merely out of a sense of comraderie and a wish to see you happy, and B-"
he paused, brow scrunching again for a second as he caught his mistake.
"Lekalis of course. But, that would be a lie. I cannot deny that curiosity has once more lead me by the nose back to this place, back to you I suppose. Funny how that happens so often."
The last part seemed to be almost an aside to himself, with how his eyes turned upwards back to the sterling tide above them.
"And, perhaps in a more petty sense...I was dreadfully bored. This town, this dreadful, awful town which has almost killed me more than any of my ill-thought experiments, still holds something magnetic about it. Like an itch, I want to know, why do these things happen here, what is so special about this area that it seems to draw about it such, strange and awesome forces as those lurking in the dungeons, and within the village itself."
He stopped walking to wave his hand once more, this time to encompass the whole of the Hamlet. A few wary peasants eyed him, but most knew better than to investigate too deeply the goings-on of the mercenaries by this point.
"I mean, the place is practically humming with things, I cannot name them but I can almost seem to feel them in the very air its..."
he closed his eyes, faced turned skywards as a few fat droplets of rain pattered to the ground around them.
"Different. I've never seen anywhere like it, and I've seen more of this world than I would truly care to."
He opened his eyes again and looked to the woman, her straw blonde hair seemingly at odds with her grey-blue figure.
"I admit then that your marriage and malady both provided a rather convenient excuse for my escape from the village, I'm afraid it didn't provide quite the same allure for my sister."

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly took a keen interest in the raindrops and her expression lightened to see the wetter turn of weather.
She drew a hand out from her pocket, at last, accepting the possibility of it fidgeting once more to feel the rain against her palm.
It brought her joy.

"...I know that feeling, being hopelessly antsy and bored. I don't think, when I'd gone on all those expeditions, I'd ever really... thought on what it means to die. It didn't concern me 'til recently when I stopped killing myself for coin-- and that's only because what harms me, now, doubly harms others."
Fingers cupped in a design to collect as much rain, she parted them and watched the water slip between her fingers, almost childishly amused by it.

"I... likely don't have to tell you twice not to find some ruin to collapse on you-- I think you're the most sane scholar here, all things considered." She brought her gaze away from the rain on her fingers to look at Jacques, flaring her teeth into a sunny smile.

"But if you'd please, kindly promise to study the humming things in the air from afar, I think I'll be happy."