Caspar Vaux (sentinel) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-02-28 18:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, caspar vaux, rictor cassul |
Who: Rictor Cassul and Caspar Vaux
What: Holy Knights versus Rangers (with bonus feelings, because reasons)
Where: Puzzles
When: The night before the King's Ball
Rating: R for stupid boys and their potty mouths
Status: Complete
The encroaching weekend meant a break from dawn reveille and so, predictably, Rictor found himself at Puzzles with a few other Blades. The men were intent on burning away some of their hard-earned gil, taking advantage of valuable free time before the next mission finally whisked them out of Emillion. The drink was running freely in the packed bar, as was the conversation, until the doors swung open and let in a blast of cold. The doors had opened countless times tonight—but this time, instinct than anything else made Ric look over, his senses prickling. He caught sight of a small group of dusty Rangers, mostly familiar faces, and he checked for Zacheus. Only to find the exact opposite. Rictor laughed. “Ignore ‘em,” Balder said beside him, amiable and laidback as always. Rictor waved his hand, turning his attention back to his pint of Kerwonian ale. But then the Rangers came sauntering up to the bar and Caspar Vaux’s nearby presence was like an irritable itch—Rictor could pick him out of the crowd immediately, as if a spotlight had been turned on the sentinel. While Filip exchanged friendly words with one of the archers (did he know her? it looks like they’d dated; this on its own invited a great number of questions), the two groups melded with cheerful greetings, hullos and claps on the shoulder. While Rictor and Caspar remained silent, the air knotting between them. Finally, he couldn’t resist any longer. “You fucking reek, Vaux,” Rictor said, arching an eyebrow. “Just off assignment in an Malboro’s arse or something?” Caspar had walked into the bar with a team of Rangers, head held high, pride emanating off the group in waves. He had insisted they all go to Puzzles, and in the end, it hadn't required much convincing. Men (and women) liked to celebrate a job well done, and a bar with no call was always the correct answer. Of course, he should have realized that they wouldn't be the only ones with that same bright idea. And this wasn’t the first (nor, by far, the last) time they’d crossed paths here. He had spotted Rictor Cassul across the room the moment he had crossed the threshold. The men were like magnets with like polarities; painfully aware of the others' presence while simultaneously irritated by it. Even though Caspar made sure to start at the other end of the bar, mingling groups and shifting conversations eventually landed him in the one place he had been trying to avoid - an arm's length away from his least favorite Holy Knight. Their proximity heightened the tension in the room, and Caspar could tell from the look on his friend Joner's face that the others had begun to notice. It was no surprise that Rictor finally broke the silence between them; a moment later, and Caspar would have done the same. "That's right, Cassul. She told me to tell you she missed you. That's no way for a godly man to treat his girlfriend, you know." The knight barked an instinctive laugh, but it was low and unamused, his hand tightening around the glass. if he’d ever stopped to marvel at the effect, it was really quite fascinating: the way his entire body seemed to go rigid around the sentinel, muscles winding tighter and tighter, a palpable weight sinking into his bones and wiring his jaw. Beside him, Balder was already facepalming. “Funny,” Rictor said. His voice was a gravely drawl, the southern Kerwonian accent coming out heavier here, as it always did. “I mean, considering I only moved onto her once I was done with yours. The hundred eye-stalks and poisonous gas were a real fucking upgrade, I gotta say.” Please stop them, Filip was mouthing helplessly at Joner, but the other Ranger simply spread his hands helplessly. They would have to let it play out like usual. One might as well try to stop an earthquake. Leaning onto the bar across from him, Caspar's body unconsciously mirrored the same tense configuration as Rictor's. His muscles were wound too tight, a common reaction for some trained for and expecting a battle. Because on a certain scale, that's what the two men were preparing themselves for. Whether it would stay confined to words or turn into a physical brawl was difficult to tell (it often depended entirely on their whims), but even a few comments in, the possibility for a skirmish was steadily escalating. A thousand retorts flew through his head, at least five of which involved Rictor's sisters, but Caspar knew even now that he could not go there. "Should've known you'd go for my sloppy seconds. Listen, Cassul. I know I'm pretty fucking inspiring, but you have to keep this hero-worship down to a bare minimum. It's starting to get embarrassing." “Just fucking irresistible, what can I say?” Rictor’s hackles were up. But before he could open his mouth and say something else, still stubbornly digging his own grave, the Blades continued doing their very best to dissipate the situation. “Heyyyy,” Balder announced aloud, bright and chipper as if he’d just woken up and consumed a fistful of sugar. “Anyone wanna play some darts? A sip for every hit in the middle ring, a shot for every bull’s eye. Loser takes the tab.” Both of their heads turned to the dartboards in the back of the room, attentions drawn to this new challenge. “Yeah, sure,” Rictor said grudgingly, now leveling a questioning look at the Rangers. Everyone else relaxed slightly. It was a safer outlet than outright punching each other in the face, at least. The location shift caught him by surprise, but Caspar shrugged and followed the rest of Rangers. If Cassul was in, there was no way he would back away. He acted like a moth to a flame around Cassul, and he knew it; he would match every reckless decision head on time after time, no matter what the outcome. Joner shuffled to a spot beside him as the group rearranged themselves in front of the dartboards at the far end of the bar. "You okay, Vaux?" Caspar grunted affirmatively, more nonchalant than he felt. "Yeah, sure. I shall be better when we wipe the floor with their holy arses." He raised his voice to address the whole group. "What do you say, boys? Holy Knights versus Rangers? We can give you a little taste of what real skill looks like. Unless you don't think you can handle the stakes." “Of course we can,” Ric shot back before anyone else could respond. “Absolutely,” Filip said placidly. The dark-haired Blade was smiling, but there was a small, small competitive flame lit in even his expression; meanwhile, Balder was already ripping handfuls of darts from the mottled boards, scooping them up and bringing them over to the two ragtag groups, where they mingled and grinned and laughed at each other, and ordered more drinks. “Let’s make some extra stakes.” Rictor was leaning against a nearby table, arms crossed across his broad chest, still watching Caspar like one watched a fellow predator in the room. “If we win, the Rangers have to go ice-dipping in the river. And I remind you all that it’s still Capricorn.” He grinned toothily. Caspar was on his feet at the front of the Rangers, eyes locked with Rictor's. Joner's face was split into a wide grin, encouraged by the palpable excitement in the room. "You sure about that, Cassul? We Rangers are used to harsh climes." Caspar chuckled next to him. "It's not going to come to that, Joner. We're going to win. The Holy Knights are the ones who'll have to go ice dipping, buck naked." A rouse of cheers rose up from both sides, and Caspar spotted a couple of men on both sides bouncing on their feet in their eagerness to let the competition begin. Each group split into multiple teams around individual dartboards. To no one's surprise, Caspar headed straight for the dartboard closest to Rictor, Joner following close behind. Sure, the entire game had been couched as a friendly wager, but they all knew whom it was between. Balder and Filip joined the men already at the dartboard, and Caspar motioned for a young Archer named Elayas to be the third Ranger in the group. The redheaded bowman was a young and newly-initiated Ranger, but he was a damn good shot. Maybe this is a mistake, Balder thought, eyeing their competition as the archer stepped up to the plate. The Rangers had a decided leg up on that regard; Rictor’s bullets didn’t tap into the same kind of long-distance specialisation. His brow furrowing, the blond halberdist turned to exchange a look with Joner. Joner, meanwhile, arranged himself directly opposite the tousle-haired Balder Lorz, obviously matching him with a cocksure grin. Like family members dragged into their brothers’ battles, all they could do was go with the flow. The first round went by between the Rangers and Blades with darts landing in the wood, appreciative roars, squabbling over the exact definition of a hair-thin line. It wasn’t as strenuous as meeting each other on the battlefield – and thank Faram for that – but the tension was still high, the competitive drive egging them on. “Remember when we had that chocobo race on the banks of the Eruyt?” Ric asked. He and Caspar had distanced themselves from their comrades, carving their own corner out of the room, as if a shell had been cast around the pair. The others were perfectly content to let it stay that way. “Our mounts threw us in the fucking river.” It had been summer; nothing like the swim the losers of this particular wager would have to take. Caspar didn't smile outright, but the corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement at the memory. "How could I forget. Never, never, never race downstream from a fucking city. It was fucking disgusting." The boys, eighteen at the time, had been forced to spend their nights out in the summer heat to avoid stinking up their quarters, which had only made the stench worse. "I could have sworn we'd get tossed out of the guild, Knights or not." It took a lot to get chucked out once a Knight had taken his oaths, but Caspar and Ric had toed that line on few too many occasion. “They kept throwing water spells at us, to no avail.” The holy knight tried not to laugh, and failed slightly. Different times. Decade-old memories. They’d been much younger, then. And then the gears in his mind turned, wondering. Cas hadn’t mentioned it yet, which would imply that he didn’t know— Twirling one of the small, sharp darts between his fingertips (it looked feeble, for a man accustomed to hefting a two-handed claymore), Rictor gave the sentinel a calculating look. “Did you know Siri’s in town?” "It never made any sense. Water spells for stench we picked up from the fucking river?" Caspar had argued it with their mentor then, and he would argue it again today with anyone who would listen. "Fucking rid--" Caspar stopped short, momentarily forgetting what he was about to say and why. His brain worked furiously, trying to reconcile his reality with the bomb Ric had just dropped. He stood there staring, not sure for the briefest of moments whether Ric was pulling his leg. He wouldn't, not when it was important. Not when it came to Siri. "Are you fucking serious? When? How?" Say this to Rictor Cassul’s credit: for once in his damned life, he managed to rein in his reactions and refrain from letting that smile slide its way onto his face, like the cat who got the cream. I know something you don’t know, he might have said waggishly, once upon a time, as an impudent lad of thirteen who ought to be punched in the face and slammed down into the mud. He had grown that much, at least. “Been here about a month. The Mages Guild back home sent her up here to continue her learning,” Ric said, his voice passably neutral. “She’s living at the tower.” Caspar's eyes grew wide, the challenge all but forgotten at this point. "A month?" he asked, incredulity visible even to those who hadn't known him as long as Ric had. A fucking month. He didn't really understand how it could have been possible. Sure, he'd had a fair chunk of back-to-back missions that had kept him away from the city, but Caspar felt that he would've known — felt it in his gut — if Siri had suddenly resurfaced so close to him. But one whole month had passed and nothing. His mind continue to whirl, logic finally coming to battle the disbelief. After all, he wasn't the only one who hadn't known. Ric clearly hadn't known much before — pain in the ass though the Holy Knight could be, Caspar didn't believe even for a second that Ric would have kept something this large from him — which meant that Siri had found him and not the other way around. Well, Caspar would just have to go find her too. He would have to wait for a normal hour, and possibly after the King's Ball, but he would find her. His mind made up, the panic subsided, and Caspar returned to his normal self. Rictor watched the transformation settle in. "How is she?" It was much more a loaded question than it sounded, but nobody except the two men would understand that. Rictor paused to mull over his response, picking through the right way to phrase it—and while he did so, he flung another dart at the board, but hardly paid much attention to the results beyond Balder’s hoot of approval, from what sounded like very far away. She’s found time, I found it for her was one way of putting it, but it only made half-sense even to these two. “She seems the same,” Ric said. “No better, no worse. But I think—” There was a pause, a subtle shift in the tone between them (where was the namecalling, the shitstirring? anyone eavesdropping now might have claimed that they were two wholly different men). “But I think her being here will be good for her. Being around us. As anchors.” Caspar wasn't paying much attention to the game either, sparing little more than a cursory glance at the dartboard before he took his turn. Same is good. Better would have been better, but at least she isn't worse. He nodded silently at Ric. Caspar always knew in the back of his mind just how important their presence had been to keep Siri grounded to this reality (it was one of the reasons he had lost so much sleep over his decision to leave Reinberg for Emillion), and he didn't question that finding them again would somehow make a difference. "You know I --" Caspar stopped and swallowed, unsure whether to voice the thought that niggled the back of his mind. It wasn't the fact that he was talking to Rictor that gave him pause — hell, the Holy Knight was the only other person who would understand where he was coming from — but rather that he was about to air an issue at all. The normal Caspar would have worn his feelings close to his chest, but this situation was so far out of what constituted 'normal' that rules didn't matter anymore. "I always felt guilty. All these years, I still always felt guilty." Rictor froze as thoroughly if someone had cast Stop on him: standing motionless, still, careful not to say anything lest he shatter this uncomfortable moment. If he simply refused to respond, kept throwing darts, could they drop it and pretend it hadn’t happened? But the words had been squeezed out from Caspar’s throat, and Rictor had heard them, and he understood. “Me too,” he finally said, gruffly. “Came to Emillion a year after you—” (and what mockery Vaux had given him for that, Rictor Cassul always being the straggler coming in late) “but I always wondered. If it was selfish.” They’d picked up appointments as an Emillion Ranger and Silver Blade, both of them chasing their professions to the Valendian capital and trying their very best not to look back. Discomfort settled into the air around them a space between them like a prickly blanket in a winter storm — both endlessly needling and impossible to shake off. Caspar instantly regretted opening his mouth, but they were in it now. "I think we were." Nobody had handed them the key to Siri's sanity, but they had chosen to take that burden upon themselves, only to shrug it off when the opportunity for new adventures had come knocking. Allowing her to rely on them and then letting her down had been so much worse than if they had left her on her own all along. The way he saw it, they had only one option: penance. "We'll have to make up for it." This time they made promises (and of course they would, because they were Cas and Ric and she was Siri), they would have to keep them. Rictor nodded, his hand tightening around his drink. The rules of the drinking game had fallen apart as his attention drifted, focusing instead on this conversation. “Good thing, then, that Faram’s handed us this opportunity on a platter,” he said. They had Siri back, and they’d have to look after their oldest friend, no matter what happened. Atonement and penance were familiar concepts: Rictor had browbeaten himself with them during Faram’s Mass and the Fete of the Holy Saints, times for reflection and consideration. Guilt had sunk into his bones during a lifetime of piety, a notion that followed his steps and beat itself against his shores, biding its time and telling him, for all his arrogance, that he was not good enough, would never be good enough. Caspar Vaux was almost a comfort against that invisible voice, a yardstick which Rictor could measure himself against, a standard to be set, goal to be met, another flesh-and-blood creature to exceed (whereas holiness could not be measured, was intangible and fleeting, tended to slip between his fingers). But when the two of them pitted themselves to the same goal, results soon followed. “Hey,” Balder said, the other knight’s voice breaking into the conversation. The outside world crept its way back in. “C’mon, lovebirds, we’re just about to crown the winner of this damned exercise, if Filip and Elayas have kept score and done the math properly, which I think they have.” Ric grunted, draining the rest of his drink. Caspar nodded, brought out of his own reverie by Balder's interruption, the sounds of the crowd which had faded away growing louder into a dull roar. Rictor was right. They had a chance to fix their fuck ups, and this time they'd do right by Siri. But of course, this was neither the time nor place to get bogged down in regret, not when the honor and possibly shriveled balls of so many men were on the line. Caspar chugged the remainder of his ale and brought it down onto the wooden bar with a little too much resolve. "Alright, you Faramforsaken bastards. Who's going to be taking their fiery coals for a little ice bath soon?" |