WHERE Frye-Meleski Train WHEN Friday Morning, May 21 WHAT Returning a book, roasting of one’s bedhead, coffee offerings & discussing power hungry siblings (on Serefin’s side). STATUS Complete! WARNINGS PG but some talks of misuse of powers and fratricide.
Evie didn’t sleep at the train much anymore. It wasn’t the fact that she had no desire to walk in on something she’d later regret, or an attempt to keep away from anyone. It had just become a habit and preference to enjoy the balcony and the ability to jump several stories down every morning. The fact that she’d been spending more and more nights over at Sara’s helped.
But she still stopped by on a regular basis, after confirming there wouldn’t be any awkward encounters as she picked up knives and bombs from their storage room, or books from her end of the train. In this case she was making a delivery, the messy journal tucked under her arm. It was late enough that Jacob was already gone for the morning, but it was early enough that Evie carried an extra travel coffee cup for Serefin’s remaining aura.
What the aura didn’t show was his unkempt hair in all of its glory, and Evie stopped short of the doorway as she caught an actual glimpse of him. “Dear god,” There was no hiding the beginning bubbles of amusement. “I suddenly understand exactly why you’re my brother’s type. Is it always like this?”
"Good morning to you too, Dame Frye," Serefin drawled behind a yawn. He was blissfully unaware of the disaster his hair was, having only rolled out of bed minutes before her arrival. As much as he didn't want to admit, sleeping next to Jacob had its perks, but those immediately diminished once he was absent from the bed. Sleeping seemed like an afterthought when it had to be alone.
But it wasn't just his hair that was always like this. Serefin had managed to climb into sleep pants that hung low on his hips. He was also sans shirt, only a small housecoat covered his torso, but that hung open as he leaned against the opposite doorway. Modesty was not something Serefin cared to indulge in, and he figured he and Evie were far past that given his relationship with her brother.
His hand combed through his hair, not quite helping but at least not making it worse. "Is it because of this? I had thought I was your brother's type because of my charming and insatiable personality," Serefin said with a grin, his eye going to the journal tucked under her arm and the coffee in her hand.
"Please say at least one of those is for me. I'll even offer to start the kettle so you can have tea, perhaps dig out a pastry. Though it does seem strange to host you in your own home."
Evie raised an eyebrow at his lounging form. “Like he needs more charm around him.” She ended it with a disgusted tsking noise, but held out the coffee for him anyway. The journal was going to be handed off eventually as well, but Evie found no reason to do it so quickly. “No need to host me, I know my way around.”
She did, and she’d already finished her tea this morning, so there was no rush towards another. Even if her eyes did dart towards the kettle. Evie backed up and perched on the edge of the nearby chaise lounge in the room. She brought the journal forward to her hands, turning it over slowly. It had been chaotic even before she got her hands on it, and Evie’s own notes and translations went to her personal journal.
Evie wasn’t hesitant to turn it over - she trusted him and it had technically blonged in his hands in the first place - but she always had a pang of regret when knowledge left her hands. “I believe I’ve finished with this. If you still wanted it? Not a single curse from the translations.” That she was aware of.
Serefin eagerly took the travel cup from Evie, and fell gracelessly onto one of the other chairs when she said he didn't have to host her. He was more than happy to oblige as he took one sobering sip from the coffee. There was something novel about the idea that whatever was in this cup was supposedly the same bitter grit that he had made in Tranavia. This was better, always would be. Another, albeit small, benefit of being in Vallo.
Though he nearly choked on said coffee realizing what the journal was in her hands and being offered back to him. Serefin would rather chug the coffee and burn his throat than speak to his half-brother's magic notes. But that was childish, and he only thought about it once before steadily putting the cup down on the table.
"Did you make your own facsimile to keep all your notes tidy?" Serefin asked, slowly reaching to take the journal. It may not have been cursed for her, but Serefin worried it was not a universal truth for everyone. "I did not expect you to give it back, if I am being honest. I promise that I am not nearly as—" Unhinged wasn't the right word. "Fanatical in my notes. We may share blood but it's my mother's, the patriarchal side is where everything goes sideways."
Evie nodded to his first question, but she’d left it at home, figuring there had been no need to show it off to someone who already knew the language fluently. Unless, of course, it was cursed for Serefin.
She suspected in some way that even if it wasn’t physically or magically cursed, it was emotionally that way. The Chaos Trio had already decided to put his brother into the ground if he’d ever made an appearance here, and they certainly knew some of the things he had done. Obviously the journal had been an eye opening experience for Evie as well, reading the-- fanatical ramblings, as Serefin had put it.
But her eyes still narrowed at him, thoughtfully, as she took in his body language. “Serefin, what makes you think I assume you’re anything like your brother? Jacob and I are twins and we still vary in incredibly large ways. Blood doesn’t contribute to--” She gestured to the journal. “That. He’s his own brand of insane.”
"Call it preemptive defensiveness," Serefin said, holding the journal in his hands, flipping it over and back. "I am used to people making many assumptions about me that are wholly incorrect. You are not so narrow minded as the slavhki, but it is easy to see similarities when you put my brother and I side-by-side." It had also been easy to blame himself for why Malachiasz was taken under the tutelage of the Vultures, and how he contributed to the descent into wanting godhood.
"We have also made no light decisions to murder one another, so there are some things we cannot avoid. It might be in the blood, you do not know for certain," Serefin added, a little sourly. With a dismissive huff, he tossed the journal with all his forced nonchalance on a small table beside him. Emotionally cursed, indeed.
"But let us be thankful for the differences. He could never pull off my hair." He fussed with the unruly strands in an attempt to divert the conversation. "And I am truly grateful for your differences with your brother. It is difficult to imagine either of you being anything but yourselves."
Evie watched the journal get tossed, she kept her face as impassive as possible, as casual and calm as her training had taught her. She’d always been very good at that, but it came less from the Assassin training as it did just being a woman that wore trousers in a supposedly “male dominated” society, where one might have to stop the murder from flashing across their face if a man said something stupid in her direction.
Which was often, back home. Here she just got to use the skill to mask her worry over Serefin’s fake nonchalance.
“Be honest, could anyone truly pull off your hair?” She’d gotten an image in her head of Malachiasz, and none of it was good. That was familiar, in comparison to the Templars. “I know you’ve never had such aspirations of ascending to godhood, did just random insanity or power hungry madness drive him down that path, or did something happen to trigger it?”
Serefin was more than content to beat off Evie's questioning. Be annoying and frustrating and go back to talking about his hair, or her hair. But Evie wasn't just anyone, and Serefin was not quite awake enough to expend the energy being peevish.
He took his time though, agonizing as it was, and sipped gingerly from the travel cup. "We didn't grow up together, he and I," Serefin said, which sounded like a non-answer or the wrong answer—a distraction. But in Serefin's mind the answer she wanted was wrapped up in history; something Serefin didn't often talk about. "A little when we were children, but that was when he was being paraded around as my cousin and was particularly kind and soft spoken. But then the Vultures took a keen liking to his abilities, and I did not see him again for sometime. I thought him dead."
Skipping blithely over the incident in the hallway where Serefin had been the catalyst for drawing the Vultures' attention, he continued with, "He was, is, the Black Vulture. Led those messy zealots around like a personal army. I assume that our magic wasn't enough for him anymore. When you are at the top, where else is there to go when there is one else who can challenge you?"
Serefin shrugged, drank again, and settled back in his seat. "You can let me know when my family history bores you."
Evie took it all in, listened and absorbed, learned more about Serefin and filled in a few blanks along the way. It was both an unfamiliar tale and a familiar one if she added on one of those pretty picture filters. Serefin’s world was even more complex and messy than her own, though, and she didn’t envy that for him.
It did make her all the more glad he was here, however, and away from all of that shit.
“Learning things about people has never been something to bore me,” her reply was light and simple, though the whole thing still made her want to tip a splash of bourbon into some tea. “But that kind of power corruption is common, I’ve seen it a great deal in Templars. Even a few Assassins have fallen that way. We’re supposed to remain a neutral party, take no sides except the one that promotes freedom for all.” She inclined her head towards the book. “Are you going to destroy it?”
There was a little solace knowing that power corruption came in all forms. That his own distaste for it was universally acknowledged. "The fact that you have remained neutral in any sense is better than most people. Too easy to fall to one side or the other," Serefin said with a dismissive wave. There was another story there, another time.
He heaved out a large breath, as theatrical as it was purposeful. There was a lot in that question. "It wouldn't matter if I did, would it?" Serefin asked, giving the discarded journal a once over. "Part of me believes that the words inside there are contagious. It's existence breeds the possibility that someone might do it again, and as many lives as I have, I do not think I'd like to have a repeat occurrence." He made a gesture then of slitting his throat.
"But someone else's words aren't going to thrust that corruption on another. Those people will always have had the proclivity for it, and therefore whether it's this journal or something else, a person made for madness will find a way to make it happen." It was a whole lot of words just to say no, but Serefin was not always succinct.
"Besides, if I wanted to destroy it, I would have found a way to steal it from you sooner. I trust you with it Evie, just as I would trust Jacob with it. I do not think either of you have the inclination toward what Malachiasz wrote upon those pages. Neutral parties, and all."
Evie had opened her mouth to already say similar - to interrupt him that words could corrupt but not to those who resist it. But he found his own way around that, and she was glad for it, glad Serefin had that mindset already, that he could see he was different, even if he was a self-deprecating scoundrel. But she was used to that.
“Sara had it hidden for me,” Evie replied, with a little smile. “While I was gone, that is. It was never here on the train.” She felt a little bad about that, but only a little, as Evie went with knowledge first and feelings second. It had been a point of contention in the past with Jacob, even. “I’ve no inclination towards-- God abilities or anything beyond what I was born with, it’s true. But I do appreciate knowledge and that’s typically where my interest lies.” Not to mention it gave her an extra reason to keep an eye out for his brother. Ugh. It was a good thing they’d already collectively agreed to stab him if he ever showed.
Evie regarded him with a solemn smile at being trusted, even if she knew that by now it was nice to hear. “But-- thank you, for letting me have that closer glimpse into your world, beyond the parts you’ve already shared.”
"Of course she did," Serefin said, matching Evie's little smile. "I admit I looked, but I was much more curious where you stashed your weapons. I'm working my way through the entirety of the train." It had kept him occupied during those first few days when the involuntary trip to the past had seemed like it would be short, a day or two. How wrong he had been.
But at her thanks, Serefin waved a quick dismissive hand. "None of that. I did it for myself—" That was a lie, but he could sound egotistical and selfish if he tried hard enough. "I wanted someone else to know that I was not simply grossly overestimating my sibling. I like to be right." Serefin also liked to be wrong too, and he had doubted himself long enough on that mountain top to reconsider stabbing his brother. The blood would always be on his hands, and some days he regretted it. There should have been other ways.
"And it is only fair to have some knowledge of my life in return. I have moved promptly into your home and infiltrated your life in ways you probably did not want and are now stuck with," Serefin said. Not remotely apologetically, in fact, he looked quite pleased.
“Good bloody luck with that.” Serefin’s pleased look earned an eyeroll from Evie. Or maybe it was searching for her weapons. Either way, it was exaggerated and very like her, identical to the ones she gave Jacob on a daily basis. Which was a good sign, all things said, as Evie reserved those exaggerated eyerolls for the precious few. The fact that Serefin was now soundly counted among them was higher praise than she was willing to voice out loud.
“If anything you were understating his mania.” She didn’t say he was right, even if he was. Malachiasz’s insane ramblings provided certain insight into exactly what kind of chaotic demon he was, under it all. There were times the translations made her skin crawl.
It was a thought process she’d rather not continue, and Evie had a feeling Serefin might feel the same. She blew out a breath. “Go put some clothes on, I’d like pancakes and I’m dragging you with.”
"I was trying not to sound dramatic, there is already enough of it in this place," Serefin said in response to his understating mania. He knew he was biased, and he had every right to be, but there was something to be said about letting people come to their own conclusions. Serefin could easily convince people of the lies, but it was much harder to convince them of the truth.
He abruptly stood at her request, pulling the robe around himself in an attempt to re-dress. It did not stay closed. "I'll find a shirt if you're paying," Serefin conceded, but gestured to his hair, "however, I can't be held responsible for the rest of this."