mashtater (mashtater) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-01-23 11:58:00 |
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Hey, Knight in Shining Armor! Need to thank you for saving me!WARNINGS Allusions to homophobia
Lucky for him, Solaire had been just around the corner with the most powerful painkiller Alexei had ever seen in his life. Granted, the lack of pain resulted in him doing more damage to his ankle on the way, but they had a nice witch in the creepy world who could fix a lot of it. Alexei had already given his thanks to Hannah; now he just needed to find Solaire and do the same.
Finding Solaire wasn’t too tricky - nearly everyone was sticking close together for the time being while they sorted out what was what. Alexei grinned and waved when he saw him.
“Hey, Knight in Shining Armor! Need to thank you for saving me!”
Solaire was fussing over his Astora straight sword, which had been with him through any manner of calamity. The one-hander was so familiar to him that he could clean it in his sleep; its blade was viciously sharp and its hilt was plainly engraved with a golden sun etched into its surface. He straightened upon hearing someone call out to him, welcoming the distraction as he welcomed all conversation, perking like a dog scenting a treat.
“Look at you!” he said, a grin lighting up his features as his polishing cloth stilled. “You’re walking much better now.” His healing was based in miracles, a particular form of magic. Solaire had never been fantastic at casting sorcery-based spells, but the few miracles he’d learned had been so ingrained in him that they almost never fizzled out when they were needed. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better, but you mind if I sit?” Alexei asked, nodding to the chair nearest Solaire’s. He could walk, but not so well that he wanted to spend a bunch of time standing around that he didn’t have to. He was used to being careful of any lower-body injury; back home, failure to do so could be the end of his career.
Solaire gave the chair next to him a light push with his foot and settled in. “By all means. I saw what looked like a witch assisting you with your ankle? Good luck that they’ve healers here.” Some might also comment on the above-average population of monsters, but that wasn’t Solaire’s style. Focusing on what was helpful and good was his way of things; he figured a realist could chime in whenever they wanted and tell everyone how they were doomed.
“Yes, her name is Hannah!” Alexei cheerfully replied as he took the offered chair. He was a uniquely Russian sort of optimist, the sort who knew that when people wallowed too deeply in winter, they didn’t live to see spring. “Very nice woman, and very good at job. Sprain like that back home, would be six weeks, maybe more, before I am walking without pain. How are you? You are going back out I know, looking like you come back safe.”
“It looked nasty,” Solaire offered cheerfully, being one of those people who enjoyed bonding over how catastrophic an injury seemed, and would likely send his friends pictures of his various bruises if he knew how to use that feature of his phone. “But I’m glad she was able to set you right.”
He gave his shield - freshly polished, and gleaming with a sun painted on the business side - a fond pat. “I went out a few times, yes - looking for stragglers. So many of us are here! I can only imagine there’s an important purpose here that we’ve yet to discover.”
“From reading network, I hope maybe important purpose is getting people out of here,” Alexei replied with a grimace. “I am feeling bad for people who have lived here for months, fighting monsters in fog. To be taken from home is hard, but to be taken from home and brought here? Is very hard.”
“It’s very possible,” Solaire agreed. “Back home, that’s what I did for a living - went to other worlds, and helped people out who were in trouble. So this is familiar! If a little unclear.” He smiled, scrunching his face a little conspiratorially as he did so. “It’s easy to see what the problem is when you show up to a foreign kingdom and there’s a giant dragon clinging to a castle; this whole… spooky ash and isolated-but-competent group of people thing is less… obvious? But I’m sure we’ll find our quest,” he added, lest he come off as complaining. “We’ve talented warriors here, and some incredibly intelligent people.”
Alexei couldn’t help but appreciate Solaire’s cheery approach to what looked like an impossible situation. He could do that in the face of a losing hockey game, but doing it in the face of a scene straight out of a horror movie was impressive in a whole new way. Clearly he needed to get on this guy’s level when it came to sunny disposition.
“This was your job?” he asked, intrigued by the notion. “Hop to new world, kill dragon, save princess, on to next?”
“Or prince,” Solaire corrected with a rakish wink. “But yes, I suppose you could call it a job. I didn’t get much paid for it, save in gratitude and the occasional enchanted item. I was part of a band called the Warriors of Sunlight, and our duty was to help those in need when we weren’t on our own quests.”
He missed his people. He missed the Chosen Undead and her strength and stubbornness. But he was used to saying goodbye to people - or being forced to. He focused back on Alexei, remembering what he had said hazily the last time they’d spoken back in the regular Vallo. “You said you represent your country playing that ice game of skill, yes? That must be very exciting, having all those people watching.”
“Is very exciting! I am not representing my country, though - Russia is having very bad problems with human rights, so I am not playing for them,” Alexei explained. “Someday I may play for my new country, though, if ever I am there again. I was very close to being citizen when I am landing in Vallo.”
Alexei loved his homeland and its people, but he hated how some of those people turned against the others, making them afraid to be themselves. Making him afraid to be himself. The way Solaire could just wink and mention saving princes like it was nothing at all, like it would cost him nothing more than saving princesses would - that was nothing short of miraculous to Alexei. It seemed even easier than it was for the Americans and Canadians.
Solaire knew all about countries leading poorly, albeit no one gave a crap about who you chose to take up with in Lothric, and he nodded in sympathy. “Was your new country the same where the rest of the original hockey team was from?” He figured they had to have met somehow. Perhaps even played against one another, initially. Solaire did love him some enemies-to-friends tales.
“It is!” Alexei cheerfully replied. “Well, mostly. Zimmboni is from Canada. All others are from America, though, and our teams are in America. Zimmboni and I, we play for Providence Falconers - professional team, so we get paid to play hockey for crowds. Other guys at Haus, they play hockey at university with Zimm, and Lardo was manager for team. They are still in school, or done with school and having other jobs to do. Nothing cool like fighting dragons, though.”
“I wish we had hockey back home!” Solaire said with a sigh. “It’d give everyone a much-needed morale boost. Things are-- well, they’ve been better. The only way to keep people from going hollow is to make sure they have hope, and that’s very difficult to obtain, lately.” He’d nearly gone hollow himself, and would have had the Chosen Undead not intervened. Solaire had no doubt that hockey would have at least staved off some of the drama and depression.
“What does that mean, hollow?” Alexei asked. He knew basically what the word meant - hollow tree, hollow out the pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, Sleepy Hollow - but he got the sense that there was more to it where Solaire came from. There was something in the term he was missing, beyond the fact that his English vocabulary wasn’t perfect.
A few weeks ago, Solaire might have stumbled over answering that, launching into a detailed description of the term. Now, though, he had vocabulary, “Think your people call them zombies!” he answered far more cheerily than the subject matter required. “Although the curse moves a great deal slower than the ones in your stories - the transformation can take decades, it’s all in the--” he tapped his temple “mind power and attitude!” His hand slipped back to his shield. “But we all went hollow, in the end. We stopped it-” he added hastily, lest Alexei think he might be in danger, “and I’m fine now, but-- anyhow. Watching landscapes horrifically transform into apocalyptic hell-holes is kind of my speciality! I may write a primer.”
Alexei had a reputation for being a bit dim, but he wasn't - he was just cheerful and struggled with speaking his third language. He was clever enough and thoughtful enough to recognize that Solaire's endless optimism was wrapped around a core of pain, loss, and sheer determination to keep helping instead of hurting. It was sad, and it was also the same kind of awe-inspiring beautiful as soaring mountain peaks and the ocean at sunrise.
"You should," Alexei said, offering a smile in return. "Would help many people, yeah? Lots of us never saw home fall apart, not like this. Would be good, knowing what to do and not to do."
“I just wish you never had to see it happen in the first place,” Solaire said with a small smile. He leaned in so that he could speak in a lower voice, not wanting to insult anyone. “It’s apples to oranges, comparing, but while these poor people here have had the worst time of it, they were saved from one thing - they don’t know what the ordinary Vallo is like, so they can’t see the decline.” He shrugged. “Meager comfort when being chased by some of these awful monsters, but-- everyone’s pain is something specific and personal, yeah?”
“Speaking of pain…” Solaire gave a furtive glance about, and pulled out a small vial of golden liquid. “I only have a little bit left, else I’d have given it to the medical team, but I worried that it’d cause more problems than it’d solve. Finish it up? It’s called Estus, and it’s a healing potion. This much won’t do more than firm up a hurt ankle, but… that’s exactly what you have in this case. I’d like it to be used well. If you’re at your best, you can help others, if we need it later.”
"I'm no fighter," Alexei replied, something of a protest in his voice. "Not like this. I'm big, can punch somebody on ice or in bar, but what we are having here…" He shook his head. This was so far beyond his experience of fighting as to be entirely alien and a bit frightening.
On the other hand, in a place like this, there were lots of ways to help. People who were fighting needed other people supporting them. Alexei might not know how to use a sword or a gun, and he definitely didn't have super powers, but if he could walk properly he could run supplies or carry an injured teammate off the ice - metaphorically speaking.
"--but I will do what I can to help," Alexei said with a determined nod, finishing a sentence that he wasn't sure he could. He took the remaining drops of Estrus from Solaire and tipped the vial back. As he handed the empty vial back, he smiled. "Taste is minty."
Solaire set the empty vial back into its spot at his hip, hoping that he’d get more. Who knew if he would; they received presents back in Vallo, but here… he doubted anything so pleasant would occur. “I quite like it!” he agreed with a smile, glad that Alexei had agreed to take the potion. It wouldn’t have done anyone gravely injured much good. “A full vial can bring you back from the brink of death, but I haven’t had one of those in a while.”
With a sigh, he rose, something cracking in his back as he did so. Must have been sitting there too long. “Would you accompany me to get something to eat?” he asked with a flash of a smile, as if asking Alexei to dance. “I think this sword is about as clean as it’s going to be.”
"Food!" Alexei brightened still further. "Yes, let's go finding something to eat."
With his ankle actually able to support his weight again, he could get to it under his own power. Alexei stood, gingerly testing the joint out, and found not a twinge of pain remaining. He grinned at Solaire. "You are good at this knight in shining armor thing. Like ray of sunshine on your shield, cheering up everyone."
Solaire was used to people rolling their eyes at his optimism, or just-barely-tolerating it. But Alexei seemed sincere in his approval, and that made his already warm smile go blinding. He did so love approval, after all, particularly from someone he had already decided he was fond of.
“Don’t say that too loudly!” he laughed, “people will get the impression that you like me!”
"I do like you, solnyshko," Alexei confirmed with another bright grin. And if he liked him a little more than was allowed, especially when he smiled like that...well, it wasn't as though he didn't have plenty of practice wrapping that up and setting it aside. "Come, where is food? All that running is making me starving!"