Log: Colt and Daud WHO: Colt Vahn and Daud WHAT: A retired assassin and a retired test pilot have a chat about life after the Void WHEN: A couple weeks ago probably WHERE: A pier in New Asgard WARNINGS: Attempted fish murder, language
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Colt Vahn wasn’t much for fishing. Sure, he’d done it - he’d even gone ice fishing a few times off of Fristad Rock - but as far as relaxation went, it wasn’t his scene. That didn’t stop him from nosing down to the docks one morning, a hat on his head and a rod slung over his shoulder, his gaze moving over the few who were bothering with their gear and their boats and their whatevers until one in particular stood out.
Daud. The God of the Loop. The Outsider, the voice on the radio. Colt wasn’t religious, not really, but he was curious. Here was an actual link to the world that had been - a world that his relatives had living memory of - and he was one nosy motherfucker.
Colt walked up to Daud and gave him a significant raise of the chin. “What’s up, man.”
“Fishing,” he said, even though that really should have been obvious. He was standing on a pier with a rod in his hand; what in the void else would be up? But people here were chatty, so Daud at least tried to reply. Besides, Colt was an interesting one–as far as he knew, the only person who’d come here from more or less the same universe that he did. (Exactly the same universe? Daud wasn’t sure of that. He couldn’t see all the threads now like he could in the Void.)
Colt gave him an expression that was clearly in the realm of “no shit” but wisely said nothing, as it would likely open him up to even further silent faces of askance, and he knew who’d win in an eyebrow-raising competition between him and Daud. With a whistle, he dropped a cold water on the pier beside them, an offering.
“Hydrate,” he said, pleasantly, before turning his gaze to the water as if it was interesting. It wasn’t, really. But if he was going to be nosy, well, he’d make sure it was at least semi-accepted nosy.
Daud took the bottle. On one hand, he felt like Colt was watering him like a houseplant, but on the other, it was a warm afternoon and the water in Vallo was refreshingly clean and crisp. He nodded to Colt in thanks before opening it and taking a swallow of it.
A person with social skills would have actually said thank you with words, or perhaps inquired after Colt’s well-being or his fishing pursuits. Daud was not such a person, and generally only managed conversation when one insistent young woman or another showed up and needled him for a while. So he settled back with his fishing rod and waited for Colt to state his business if he had any, or to shut up and fish if he didn’t.
Colt was known neither for his fishing, nor his shutting up. His offering of water having been accepted, he now felt comfortable harassing the terse man (god?) for answers he hadn’t quite been up to asking about on the network. “You said you weren’t part of the Loop forever,” he recalled, getting right to it. “What were you up to beforehand? And when?”
The when was always the tricky part, when it came to Loop magic. Colt looked like he was in his mid-thirties, was actually closer to--- fuck if he knew. He was well over one-hundred, anyway, possibly more than that. The Loop making him forget shit was a blessing in its own fucked up way.
In addition to Daud’s famed “Dad Energy,” he also projected an unmistakable aura of “don’t ask me a bunch of damn questions.” The fact that Colt had just walked up, given him a bottle of water, and started doing exactly that told Daud a few potential things about him. Either Colt Vahn had no sense of self-preservation, had no ability to read a room, or he was a sufficiently dangerous bastard in his own right that he didn’t share the same concerns as most people. Either way, it was surprising; people hadn’t asked Daud a bunch of pointed questions in a long time.
He didn’t owe Colt any answers for a bottle of water, but he decided to answer anyway. Truthfully, even–he wasn’t trying to hide who he was, just move on from it.
“I was born in the winter of 1795 in Serkonos,” he said. “I made a living as a killer, eventually got out of the business, and died in the summer of 1852. After that…” he shrugged. “I’m not sure how long I spent wearing the black eyes of the Outsider. Time isn’t the same in the Void.”
“No shit it ain’t.” Colt still wasn’t sure how old he was. Looked 35-ish, sure, but with as many day-long loops as he had… he had to have blown past 100 by now. It was probably worse for Daud, given how funky Void magic always was.
He inclined his head toward the other man, smiling a shit-eating grin. “Man, you were around for the Greatest Hits of history, weren’t you? I was never much of a student but I had to write an essay about the decade following Empress Jessamine’s assassination, all the way to the old guard kept trying to start shit in the wake of it. The plague. The dying whale industry.” It occurred to him after he said it that like most of interesting history, it was better studied than experienced.
“And the coup,” Daud concluded, because that was the logical end of that decade, wasn’t it? Delilah attempts to seize the throne, Emily seizes it back, rebuilding in Gristol, dramatic reform in Serkonos, the beginning of greater independence for the nations of the Isles, the end of the Outsider. The world had changed in ways they never expected. How interesting, the black-eyed bastard would have said.
Not that he wanted to talk about any of that. Did Colt know he was that Daud, the hand that killed the Empress? Probably, but if he wasn’t going to bring it up, neither was Daud. “It was a busy decade,” he said rather than touch on the specifics.
Colt nodded, gave a little shrug, let those words stand by themselves a while. He suspected. Oh, he suspected. You didn’t get that kind of haunted, haunting face like Daud had from having a nice decade filled with pony rides and ice cream. All that history - wrapped in superstition and half-truth like it was - well, he didn’t mind giving it a poke like it was an anthill, and then bolting away when things got icky.
“It wasn’t as lively where I was from,” he said, then thought better of it. “Well. Outside the Loop. In the Loop… you saw it.”
An endless cycle of the same violence over and over. It actually wasn’t too different from human history at large, viewed from a great enough distance, Daud thought. He didn’t have that level of perspective anymore, but he remembered having it–which was a strange feeling in and of itself.
“I thought a world without the Outsider would be a better one,” Daud said, thinking of the havoc the Void had wreaked upon the world they came from. “I was wrong. People still got the Void into their hands, and they still used it as fuel for their worst impulses.”
Colt didn’t know who the Outsider was, not really… he’d heard stories, of course - locals talked, especially fishermen, especially madmen in the asylum he’d been tossed into to rot and be forgotten. The notion that Daud wasn’t the Outsider so much as an Outsider was upsetting, and went well over his allotted “supernatural weirdo bullshit” allotment for the day.
“Some folk see everything as a weapon,” he said. “Most folk do, I guess.” The Visionaries certainly had. “You still got any Void magic or is it all gone with you leaving Dorsey’s mansion?”
“I still have the same touch of the Void that I had before I died. Not much more than that,” Daud replied. He wasn’t in the business of giving out details, but sharing the broad strokes with the one other person who knew anything much about the Void didn’t bother him. “I don’t think human beings are able to handle that much knowledge and power outside the Void itself. We’re too small, too limited.”
“That’s me,” Colt said cheerfully. “Too small, too limited, happy as a clam to be that way all the way out here, far, far from the Loop.” It was easier, he found, to pretend utter joy over being away from it. Julianna was never far from his mind, after all, but that can of worms wasn’t something Colt was eager to open. What would be the point? “I just have my slabs and my trauma, and that’s gonna have to be where all that ends.”
He gazed into the water, wondering what the appeal was. “You having a good time out here?” It wasn’t clear if he meant fishing or Vallo.
“I am.” Daud wasn’t sure if he meant fishing or Vallo, either, but the answer was the same. It all felt strange–being normal, going fishing, not fighting or killing–but it also felt good. He’d lost his taste for power and control. Now he was enjoying the mundane pleasantries of a safe world, foreign to him though they were.
Extended conversation with no clear purpose was still something he was getting used to, though. Daud didn’t really know how to chat. Usually his default glaring expression was enough to prevent people from attempting it with him. He was curious as to why it didn’t work on Colt, and that curiosity was finally high enough to make him ask.
“But what brings you out here, Vahn?”
Colt looked back at him, feigning innocence (he wasn’t really great at it, to be honest. His skills rested in offense and violence, not subterfuge). “Can’t a guy get into staring at the sea once in a while?” he asked, gesturing out to the expanse of water in front of them, but at Daud’s skeptical expression, he relented. “Nah, okay. I just…”
What had brought him out here? Daud was a locked drawer of a man, and Colt liked things easy. “I got used to someone to talk to, in the Loop,” he said after a while, because it was embarrassing and also the truth. “I needed one thing, one constant, something to steady me like a shot. You know? And here, there are lots of people to talk to… but I don’t wanna be the old geezer who talks about his time stuck in an anomaly all the goddamn time.” He scratched the back of his head. “You get it. You know?”
Daud had expected an answer more along the lines of ‘just wanted to make sure you weren’t planning to assassinate anybody,’ so this came as a surprise. Daud wasn’t surprised often, and usually when he was the surprise was trying to kill him. This was actually…kind of nice, really.
The sound he made, a little huff of air, almost could’ve been considered a laugh. It had a bit more in common with a snort, probably, but it expressed amusement nonetheless. “I get it,” Daud acknowledged. “I was already a grim old bastard by the age of 25, though. I can’t blame the Void for it.”
“We all got our trials,” Colt replied easily. He had no doubt that the guy fishing next to him was probably some mean motherfucker, but hell, he hadn’t gotten through as many Loops as he had by being nice himself. Even if they were different - and boy, were they different, Colt in his bright jacket and Daud looking as if he were trying to shrink himself - they both knew that scent of gunpowder that came straight from Void magic. And they knew what came after, too.
“You have yourself a nice boring little afternoon. Get you some good… clams? Carp? Whatever,” Colt said, and stood. “I’ll see you ‘round, yeah?”
He delivered it lightly, but there was an implied “and if you don’t come find me, I’ll come find you” attached.
“I imagine so,” Daud allowed. He’d been alone a long time, but he was starting to see the appeal of having friends rather than minions. Maybe it was time for the old guys to stick together a little.