Mag Paget, Shotgun Knight (clippedwing) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-06-29 17:03:00 |
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The bartender at the Blue Bear did not seem surprised to see Kiernan settling into a stool in front of the bar; it was Mag who received a curious look as she sat next to him. It was all the confirmation she needed that he had probably never come here on this day with company before. She felt a little like she was intruding upon a private ritual as a glass of stout was set in front of Kiernan, and the same in front of her―but she was there because he had invited her, she reminded herself. She was not intruding; he had let her in. “A toast?” she asked, keeping the uncertainty out of her voice as best as she could. “A toast,” he agreed, raising his glass to hers. The day had been better than he had expected, all things considered; most he saw throughout the afternoon had been surprised to see him around the guildhalls, laughing and offering bouts to whoever was around. Some of it had been forced, of course, especially when old memories resurfaced, but then, some habits died hard. Such as this one. He took a large gulp of the stout and set it down on the bar counter. “Ugh, never could get used to this stuff,” he said. It was his first complaint of the drink since his sixteenth birthday. She smiled, setting down her own glass after drinking. The stout had a bitter edge to it going down, different from the sorts of liquors she favored. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but it had never appealed to her either. “Maybe that’s why people drink strong-flavored liquors on special occasions,” she said, half-joking. “It doesn’t feel quite right if no one winces after the toast.” “I’m fine with strong liquors, as long as there’s a helpful dosage of strawberry puree to go along with it,” he said with a grin. “And with actual strawberries inside, too. And blueberries.” A pause. Then, he chuckled. “He’d have given me so much crap for that.” It was a moment before she could think of what to say. She had not known Torin; what had happened had been many years before her arrival in Emillion. But this was not about her―this was about Kiernan, and she was there to listen to him, whatever he needed. “Brothers are supposed to tease, I think.” Unbidden came the memory of her own long-dead brother throwing barbs at her, hiding her shoes to make her worry, whispering apologies to her in the middle of the night. She took another sip of the stout, an unnamed toast. “And you would still have been the one with the strawberries.” He laughed. “Hard to argue with that.” For a moment, his thoughts stole away to how he and Torin had tortured their younger brother; back then, it was easy to wave it off as good-natured teasing, and if things hadn’t gone the way they had, he might have still been able to convince himself that that was all it was. Then Kiernan wondered if Elwen -- if he was even still alive -- ever gave thought to Torin, on this day or ever, but there was no use dwelling on ‘what-ifs’ and ‘I-wonders’. “He wouldn’t have known what he was missing,” he finally said, taking another large gulp of the stout. The quicker he finished this off, the quicker he could wash it down with a daiquiri. Mag caught herself glancing at Kiernan again, and looked down at her glass instead. She considered the foamy surface for a moment, as though the right words to say may be floating around underneath, but of course, there were none, and Kiernan was too close to her heart for platitudes. So she drank in silence. Then, “You went into work today.” He pursed his lips. This wasn’t the first time this came up today, so he should have known to expect it all the more. “Yeah, I did.” "I guess you got a lot of people gaping at you in the corridors." Mag gave a half-smile; turning to look at him, she added, "If you'd rather not talk about it, that's fine. But I thought when I heard, maybe that's a good sign." “It’s…” He paused and considered. “Something.” He ran his finger along the rim of the glass, his thoughts spilling out of his mouth before he could give full any of it consideration. The effects of the damn stout, he guessed. “Twenty-three years is a long time, and longer than he was alive. I think he’d be pissed if he knew what I’ve been doing. And it’s not that I’m forgetting about him or anything, it’s just that…” A sigh, and a longer pause as he let himself wordlessly reflect on the events of the past few weeks. “What if that harpoon hadn’t gotten his heart, and he’d have survived? He wouldn’t have let anything that happened to our family since affect him, I think. Not the way I did. And now that I had my own brush with death, for the first time in a long time, I find myself wanting to move forward instead of clinging onto the past, which is what he would’ve done. Which is what I’m sure he would have wanted me to have done for all these years. And maybe… this... what I did today… well, you know how they say you can’t move into the future until you’ve let go of your past, right?” "They do say that, don't they." It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that none of it was his fault, that it was natural to be affected by things like he had gone through, that he had a right to hold onto the things that had been so important in his past. But she stopped herself, because she did not know if she was making excuses for Kiernan or for herself. She took another sip, then added, "I think you're going in the right direction. You're strong. You'll move past this." She felt a surge of pride as she looked at him, that he was doing what she could not seem to, and she reached out to take one of his hands in hers. "And I'll be with you, whenever you need to share a stout with someone." Kiernan smiled, took her hand and let the fingers entwine, and squeezed, his chest feeling fuller. “Thanks,” he said, lifting their hands to kiss the back of hers. “Wouldn’t want anyone else.” Because you’re my future. |