ihaka mulligan (takuta) wrote in thecaldera, @ 2018-03-20 02:45:00 |
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“So-” It was the kind of so that signalled the start of a conversation. A real conversation, not the shallow chit chat and office talk that filled the empty space before. The real reason Ihaka had dropped into Ben’s office unannounced. He sat back in his chair, across from the deputy director of Temperance. “I hear you want us to re-seal the caldera.” He dropped the sentence casually, like he was asking Ben what was new. There wasn’t even the slightest change in Ben Canton’s expression. He simply stared at Ihaka from across his desk, red pen poised but frozen over an exam that should have been graded yesterday. Ben blinked, tilted his head ever so slightly and closed his eyes for a moment. “Beg your pardon?” “I hear you want us to re-seal the caldera,” Ihaka repeated, measuredly. Slowly (not that slowly,) Ben’s face hardened. He leaned back in his chair, still staring at his colleague. It was hilariously easy to process. Ever since Charre Valois strolled into Everett’s chalet with Ihaka in tow, Ben had suspected that he was also a Craftsmen. He either just assumed he was wrong after Elle outed herself to him, or somehow managed to forget. Ben forced himself to unclench his teeth. Sure, after how hilariously, breathtakingly fucked both Ben’s personal and professional life happened to be? It was easy to process. However, that didn’t mean it didn’t piss him off. These fucking assholes. No, he couldn’t say that. Something else. Ben breathed in slowly through his nose, and nodded slightly, not to Ihaka, but to himself, like he was wrapping up a conversation and coming to a decision. “You son of a bitch.” Something like bemusement flickered across Ihaka’s face and settled on his lips in the form of a slight quirk in the corner of his mouth. “I have been called that.” Ben let out a wild, short-lived bark of a laugh. Against his better judgment, he dropped his pen on top of the desk instead of throwing it at Ihaka, and shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not even a little bit surprised.” “Not even a bit?” Ihaka edged forward, smile growing into something more fond - perhaps because Ben reminded him of what he used to believe humanity could be. “Aren’t you clever.” But he wasn’t clever enough to solve this caldera problem on his own. Which is why Ihaka was here. “Regardless, I thought you might need some help.” He continued, “But you should know I’m not going to help you convince the rest of them. I’m not sure if renewing the seal is the right thing to do, myself.” After chewing back a slew of words that might have gotten him something other than help, Ben mulled over Ihaka’s words, then Charre’s. He expected nothing less than secrecy, but as much as Ben was frustrated by Ihaka offering no other identities, it didn’t surprise him. It made perfect sense. How else could they have survived so long? The heat steadily drained from Ben’s eyes, and he found himself back to his usual self. Tired and visibly annoyed. “That’s fine,” he lied with a scowl. “Everyone else said the same thing. I get it.” He shifted in his seat and leaned forward to fold his arms over his desk. “But if sealing it isn’t the right thing to do, there has to be another option.” An unspoken ‘right?’ that lingered in the air, but Ben didn’t give it much time before he continued. “This was dropped on us only weeks ago. This is the only option we know of, but it can’t be the only one I’m open to. We need all the help we can get.” But Ihaka already knew that. A stillness came over him and his smile slipped just briefly enough to allow a hardened weariness to peek through. In truth, Ihaka didn’t know what other option they had. He had isolated himself in New Zealand for twenty years, only to find nothing; but that wasn’t something he felt that he, as one of the Craftsmen, should be telling a mortal. But more than that, there was something that pulled at him more - “Tell me about the cryptids you’ve had lately. Andrew Jackson and the thing that broke into your bathroom - What do you know about them?” Apparently, one trait Ihaka shared with Elle and Charré was that he liked to answer a question with another question. It was starting to drive Ben damn near insane, but what else could he do? The frown didn't leave Ben’s face, but it didn't deepen. “Andrew Jackson was using his cane as a staff. He was absorbing life from the victims he attacked. He was obsessed with the occult when he was alive, but we're still working on figuring out if this is something he did to himself. Either way, the consensus is that he shook loose on the day of the earthquake and sunspoke. We have the staff but there's not a lot any of us can actually do with it to try and study it. It's not like any of us know magic.” Ben rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses and drew in a deep breath. “As far as the thing that broke into my house goes, we don't have nearly as much. It's traveling through the sewers, it steals anything that can be considered medicinal, and it keeps leaving grey slime whenever it pays someone a visit. No one’s seen it, and we haven't been able to collect a sample because people keep cleaning their bathrooms before we can make ourselves look like freaks and ask to look.” “Hm,” Ihaka frowned, his eyebrows creasing gently above the bridge of his nose as he noted- “That’s bold of them.” It was a concern he had brought up to the other Craftsmen when they’d asked why he wanted to reveal his identity to Ben. The fact that there had been two cryptids in the past two months that had been reported by mortals numerous times nagged at him. The what if that lingered at the back of his mind pushed its way to the forefront - What if what happened to his son happened to someone else? He had told himself over the past two decades that he wasn’t the kind of person to concern himself with what happened to mortals anymore. But as Maya’s all too familiar reminder that it wasn’t his job to save everyone echoed in his ears, Ihaka had to admit to himself that maybe he was still more that person than he wanted to be. “Well,” His eyebrows unfurrowed as he leaned forward slightly in his chair. “I know magic. Maybe I can study it.” If Ben didn't have a job to do, it might have been easier to be as mad as he wanted to be at Ihaka. His cautious ways were in direct conflict with the need to get things done, and of the three Craftsmen he had met, Ben believed he could trust Ihaka’s intentions the most. Someone could have put a gun to Ben’s head and demanded he explain himself, but he wouldn't have been able to do it. As the seconds carried the moments away, Ben became much calmer, more able to reflect and assess with a clearer head. Ihaka just had a… look about him. It had been fleeting, but it was there. It was too familiar of a thing to miss, but it wasn't like the assessment was worth much, Ben thought grimly. Elle had a look too. What else was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do? After a stretch of silence, Ben was less like a statue and more of a living, breathing person who quickly came to terms with a very real fear of being taken advantage of. Or worse, making the wrong call, and Vigil paying the price. Ben hated being vulnerable, but apparently he was going to need to get used to it. “I would appreciate it,” he said as plainly as he would have to Ihaka any other day of the week before. It was just the right amount of detached. It was the only way he could feel better about it. “We have his remains as well, if you wanted to take a look at those.” At that, Ihaka laughed, perhaps a bit too cheerfully for it to be in response to the remains of an undead president. “I would like a look at those, actually.” Shigeo would be excited to hear about his findings. Unlike Ihaka, Ben didn't laugh. His brow furrowed, his eyes widened slightly, and he didn't so much as blink. Of all the presidents Ben would have liked to see get mowed down by a Snowcat, Jackson was at the top of that list, so… fair, he decided. That didn't change the fact that there was some (likely morbid) inside joke or story about Old Hickory that he wasn't privy to, and Ben wasn't going to bother wasting the brain cells to try and figure it out, or even subject himself to trying to imagine why an associate of Charré and Elle would be laughing about wanting to see a god damn zombie president’s corpse. Slowly, Ben dragged another gradeless exam across the desk and towards himself with his palm. When Ben was more confident he wasn't about to have a stroke, he finally blinked, then shook his head as he looked down at the paper in front of him. “Yeah,” he sighed, rapping his pen lightly on the desk. “I bet you would.” |