Too Many Wrongs

As always, Aurnar's home is a warm and inviting space. There's the smell of freshly baked bread that fills the house, and the bread in question sets out on the small table in the middle of the living area. It's been broken and passed out alongside a complementary tea which was also passed out. With welcomes and general pleasantries given, Auranar is settled in her customary chair and enjoying her own portions of both. "I wanted to let you know Dolan, that I finished copying that book for you and Magpie. Well we finished it. I'll give it to you before you leave, so don't let me forget."

"Great. I can't wait to read it." That, at least, seems to have improved Dolan's mood, like nothing else that has happened since he arrived has. Quiet, almost surly is not a good look on Dolan, and it's a rare thing indeed, but it's possible that the deep chill and the wind howling outside the window might have something to do with his grouchiness. He wears a high-collared shirt in a pale rust color over the sleeveless sheepskin-lined duster he's come to favor since his release from the temple, paired with doeskin trousers and his usual tall adventuring boots. His left shoulder is encased in what looks like a lined leather cuff that buckles and straps to arm and shoulder with several metal buckles.

"Thanks," he adds, almost as an afterthought. "Magpie wanted to go to the Vast with us. Maybe if the book's done, but we need to go to the camp first." He finally starts chewing slowly, on the hunk of bread, taking just enough tea to be polite.

And of course, Dolan's mood does not go unnoticed by Andelena, who stays close to him. The Sunguard has been enjoying the bread and tea, but she has kept a careful eye on Dolan throughout, as though she's measuring him to see if things still fit him--when in actuality, she's measuring how comfortable he is. "We do," Andelena agrees. She's not changing the subject off Dolan's sentiment, even as she bites into more bread.

Nor does Auranar fail to notice her guest's bad mood. Though she knows not the source, she is a hostess first and foremost and noticing his lack of enjoyment of the tea, she assumes that this is the source of his displeasure. "Would you like something else to drink? I have water and... Oh! I have a little ale if you'd prefer something like that?" It was bought for baking into bread and using for fish, but Dolan didn't need to know that. "I had heard that you were all planning to go there yes."

"Either." Dolan sets down the teacup with real relief, and the hunk of bread as well. "Nothing wrong with your tea, but I've had enough tea for the rest of my life." A ghost of half a smile pulls at his lips, enough to stretch the scars on this face, at least. He, notably, does not lean back in his chair, instead choosing to sit up straight with his back away from the back of the chair.

He puts both elbows on the table, leans forward, then takes his left elbow down, leaving his chin to rest on his right elbows and the left arm in his lap. "Speaking of going to the camp, where's Verna?" he asks suddenly. "If we're going to go, we need to go soon if not now."

"We kind of drank a fuckton of tea," Andelena says, a ghost of a smile on her lips, too. "Bry did especially. Can't blame him for being fuckin' sick of it."

She puts her teacup down, and her face is just as sober. "But what Bry said is true. We have an advantage now, and if we strike now, that camp is ours for the taking. We need Verna to make that happen, though, because we can't get there on our own."

Auranar stands up, going into the kitchen which is only a short stop away and getting a pair of glasses of water. She brings them back out and offers them to the couple sitting on her couch. Once the water is dispensed, she sits down again. "Well she's not here at the moment. She's out shopping." She offers a faint smile at this, going to pick up her tea cup again.

Dolan picks up the water and takes a careful, then more enthusiastic pull of the water, but at the mention of Verna having gone shopping, he sets down the glass slowly, and fixes Auranar with a stare that of the two women, only Andelena has ever seen him wear before. Barely-controlled fire snaps in his eyes, and his lips set, his features a mask of barely-contained fury. "Gone shopping, yeah?" His words are low, but match the expression he wears. "Did anyone ever manage to get into the camp while I was at the Temple?"

Andelena puts a gentle hand on Dolan's knee, her eyes closing slowly as she breathes in and out, quietly. "Seldan did, with his husband," she said. "That is how we as a group came to have Maugrim's totem, which Telamon took home from Zeke the other night to give to his wife.”

"I-" Auranar is glad for Andelena's intervention, because she hadn't really known about Seldan's trip to the encampment. She relaxes subtly, looking at Dolan. She might not have ever seen him angry, but she recognized anger when she saw it. "I don't know of any trips besides that one. Verna hasn't mentioned it to me at least, and I think she would."

The look that Dolan wears is absolutely thunderous, and it's quite clear that in this moment, his reason is on a beach in the Jade Islands somewhere with a drink in its hand, completely unaware of the goings-on at the moment. He ignores Andelena's hand on his knee, the muscles beneath her hand bunched. "Someone I don't even know and who doesn't have a gods-be-damned reason to do _anything_," he snarls. "And now the opportunity is COMPLETELY FUCKING WASTED?!" His voice rises and he brings a fist crashing down into the table, sending water splashing and bread bouncing. "What in all the green garden hells was everyone DOING?!"

GAME: Andelena rolls Will: (15)+10: 25

There's a look that crosses Andelena's face as Dolan's fist makes contact with the table. A look that's too complicated to parse in one go, a look that's a mixture of many things--especially as she lowers her gaze and gets up, immediately going to pick up bread that flew. She sort of awkwardly puts it off to the side and kneels down in front of Dolan, taking a hand if he allows it.

"Bry, baby. Close your eyes and take a deep breath for me, please," Andelena requests, firmly but gently. "I know you're hurting. I know you're angry. It's okay to be angry. /Please/ just take a deep breath for me."

Auranar lowers her eyes. Dolan wasn't wrong really. Everyone - herself included - had effectively sat on their hands while he was recovering. It wasn't right. "No, he's right Andelena. We could have done so much more with the window he gave us. _Should_ have."

Amazingly, Dolan actually allows the taking of his hand, although he grasps Andelena's hand hard enough to hurt. He does take that deep breath, and it's enough to keep him from destroying anything. Physically, at least. He might have a bruised hand tomorrow, but he doesn't even seem to notice. "What was it? Playing with flowers? Wedding preparations? And everybody seemed to just fucking _forget_ that there are _werewolves_ all over this city? That there are _shadow demons_ working for these people who are after my family? I can't walk outside my own damned _door_ without feeling like I've got a knife in my shoulder. That's never going to go away. It's not going to get better. I'll be lucky if I ever pick up that greatsword again."

He slashes his arm across his body in a furious gesture. "Well, it doesn't look like it matters a damn if I can fight or not. I'd fucking better, because nobody else fucking will."

Andelena seems content with the fact Dolan's not destroying anything else in the physical sense. She lets him talk. She lets him speak. The look in her eyes suggests that she doesn't feel entirely blameless here--after all, she did participate in the wedding talk--but there's also a weariness in her face like the kind that Dolan's turned into ignition for his rage. These things are things that she, too, hasn't forgotten. Can't forget.

After all, her own mother is in league with the shadow demons. After all, she is the one who walks with Dolan--who's held him as he was in pain, who's accepted him and told him yes even as he asked her if she was really going to stand by him, a man who described himself as broken.

The hand that's held enough to hurt does make her wince, just a little. But this is a fraction of the pain. This is only a fraction of the weight. A weight that they both carry.

Auranar has the grace to look embarrassed. Again... He's not wrong. Her wedding had been perhaps ill-timed but there had been no other choice in it. With her grandmother's demands... but Dolan knew nothing of that, and explaining now would not aid her or him. "I did not forget." She says softly. "Not about the werewolves or the danger. It's no excuse to say that I wanted to wed my wife, not good enough to admit that I was consumed by those things. I swear... I did the best I could. But I..."

What was _her_ excuse? She had none. None that were good enough. "I should have forced Verna to take me." She admits finally. "This shouldn't have all been on you."

"Verna will sit on her hands forever if you let her. If I didn't need her help to get back there, I wouldn't bother." There's an edge to Dolan's tone, and he turns away from the table. "Someone's got to do it. Maybe Tel can take us back there. Maybe I can get Tanith to do it if I give her enough fish." The remark is entirely offhand. "Just know that I let Kol have me, to get us that opening. That in to the camp. And we're about to lose it with almost nothing gained from it. And she goes fucking SHOPPING." He abruptly releases Andelena's hand and strides towards the window, and stares out at the howling wind and the city. "Don't worry about it, Auranar. I'll find someone who can help. If I have to find some way to get there in the Dream, that's what I'll do."

Andelena gets up, following Dolan over to the window. She doesn't take his hand this time, but she does stay close to him. "I think Tel can take us," she says, speaking up for the first time since she asked him to breathe in deeply. "You, me, him, Dirk, Magpie--I think we probably have it covered from there." She seems to be forgetting Telamon's wife, but since she's never met her, she has no frame of reference for the woman's capabilities.

Auranar rises to her feet, but doesn't move toward Dolan. Instead she sets her tea cup down and watches the pair. "I can talk to Verna. Let her know how important this is, and that it needs to happen soon." She wrings her hands. "I..." She trails off again. "Please Dolan, don't go off on your own. I don't want you to get hurt again."

After a moment, Dolan leans his head wearily on the window, its coolness against his forehead. "Not gonna," he mutters, sounding almost - deflated. Defeated. "I know what happens when I do that. Ain't gonna. I have to stay able to fight. That vision still echoes in my damn head, and it just ain't happening fast enough." What he speaks of might just be a little unclear. "That maid. No idea what happened to her. I've got figure all this shit out, and I'm so damned TIRED. Didn't think it'd be as bad as it was. I was a damned idiot."

The key phrase, 'tired', seems to activate something for Andelena. She gently takes his hand, her fingers wrapping around his. "Let's go home, Bry," she says, in that soft and gentle voice she only ever uses for him. "Come on, baby."

She looks over her shoulder at Auranar. She doesn't mouth anything, or say anything, but there's a look there in her eyes that suggests all manner of things. A sort of her own exhaustion, yes. But there's also a sort of regret: perhaps that this had to happen like this, or that it had to happen at all.

"What are you talking about Dolan?" Auranar asks before Andelena can speak, and then Andelena is suggesting that they go and Auranar startles. "Oh! Yes... If you're... I mean please don't feel like you have to stay on my account! It's... it's okay." She smiles at Andelena's expression. Then she straightens and heads for a little stand near the staircase. "I'll just get the book I promised Dolan..."

"Yeah. We'd better. Sorry, Auranar." His fingers laced in Andelena's, Dolan straightens from the window, and turns to Auranar. "'M just frustrated. This is our last chance and it'll disappear on us any day now. Ain't no way they don't know he's dead by now." Leading Andelena by the hand, he turns towards the staircase and its stand. "The book'll help. It should give us some clues about Jal'goroth. Something to go on. If nothing else -" He stops short, and presses his lips together, _hard_. He at least seems to have regained some measure of his sanity, and if his brown eye is still dark with pain and frustration, that is not a surprise. "You caught me on a bad day. Sorry."

There is, at least, a small smile in Andelena's face as Dolan apologizes. "You've got the best reason out of all of us to have a bad day, baby," she says, gently, before she looks back at Auranar. "Thank you for the book, Auranar. And... the hospitality." The word is said so carefully, even despite the awkwardness, but... it's said genuinely. Truly. If nothing else, Auranar allowed a hurt soul to express himself.

"Of course. Nothing to apologize for." Auranar defers as she opens the drawer. "What's that doing in here?" She murmurs mostly to herself, pulling out the book and tucking it under her arm and when she turns there's a also a slender knife in her hand. The knife is particular and one that Auranar has never seen. It has a ring at the end of the handle incongruously. "I'm not sure what this was doing in there..."

Dolan's just about there and ready to accept the book, peering at it eagerly, when she produces the knife as well. He catches a glimpse of it, and stops _cold_, a memory instantly seizing him. A memory of cold chains and blood and what goes into the ring on the end of that knife. Without warning, his front is suddenly on fire, a memory of agony beyond all speech seizing him, and he becomes utterly unaware of his own pained scream, or his slump against the staircase, staring sightlessly into nothing.

"Bry!" is the word that tears from Andelena's lips as she goes to wrap her arms around him, to catch him and keep him from tumbling and hurting himself.

Once she's got him in her arms, her steel-grey eyes are completely and totally ablaze, looking up at Auranar. "Put that fucking thing away!" she growls. "/Now!/"

Her attention returns to Dolan--poor Dolan, poor Brydion, who she loves more than anything, who is not safe from this even if the man who caused it is gone, gone, gone. "Brydion, it's okay, it's okay, we're in Auranar's house. I'm here. It's me, Andie. You're safe. You're /safe/." The words tumble out of her quickly, effortlessly, like so many times before, because she loves him, because she swore to stand by him.

"Dolan?!?" Auranar questions, the sound of pain startling her, but he falls to the ground, eyes staring off into the distance and nowhere near where they are. Andelena growls at her, and she hastens to obey, shoving the knife back into the drawer and then hovering over the pair. She remembers dire warnings not to touch Dolan, but Andelena is touching him? Is it okay now? She doesn't know. "Did I... Break him? Is he okay? What can I do?"

There's no response at first. Dolan remains unresponsive in Andelena's arms, his heart racing, skin beginning to prickle with sweat, but still staring off into the middle distance. The hold Andelena is using at least doesn't seem to make anything worse, even if he is knotted-up tense in her arms. What is wrong is entirely unclear, but what is clear is that _something_ went badly sideways when the Corona saw the unusual-looking knife.

"He's reliving the events of what happened to him with you-know-who," Andelena explains to Auranar, patiently, despite the situation. Now that the knife's gone, she has no reason to loose her cool. "That knife--that was one of the knives used on him. Don't touch him; he's only okay with me touching him right now. Just... Just stay calm. Tell him he's here in your house. That everything's okay."

She turns her attention back to Dolan. "Baby, it's okay. It's me, Andie. Your lady. You're in Auranar's house. You're safe here. You can't be hurt anymore. I love you. Everything's all right."

Auranar kneels where she is carefully. Soothing her skirts and placing the book on her lap. She nods once to Andelena's words, the horror of that _thing_ being in her house muted by the immediacy of what is required. Dolan has to be brought back to himself - to the present. "You're here Dolan. With me. Auranar? You're in my house. You're here. We were having tea remember? You don't like it, but you were drinking it out of kindness." She offers a very faint and worried smile.

It takes a few minutes more to bring Dolan back to himself, and the first sign is that his lone brown eye - shifts focus. Moves to Auranar. Confusion registers on the mobile half of his face, and he blinks the one eye. It's always odd watching Dolan blink, because it could look like a wink. "I-" His voice is suddenly hoarse, half-choked. "Where-"

"You're in Auranar's house, baby," Andelena says soothingly, again using the voice that she uses only for him, only for the man who she loves more than all save Daeus. "It's me, Andie, and you're okay. You're safe here. You're okay, baby, I promise. He can't hurt you anymore." She leans in and kisses him on the cheek. This was a bad one, and he needs the comfort.

Auranar nods to Andelena's words encouragingly. "Just what she said Dolan. You're here at my house. It's okay." She wishes she knew what to do beyond offer semi-comforting words.

"Fuck." Clearly trying to sort something out, Dolan shifts a little in Andelena's arms, shaking a little still. "Damn, I hurt." He rubs at his chest, where the strap is and a little below. "I fell, didn't I." It's not a question, and his eyes are still dilated. "I - don't even remember why. Just -" He falters, fumbling with words. "Don't ask." He shakes his head quickly, unaware that he may not be making much sense.

"It's okay, baby. Let me help you back up," Andelena says, doing just as her words suggest. She shoots Auranar a grateful look just for being here, just for talking. That, alone, is often times enough.

She puts her hand to Dolan's cheek. Not a slap by any means, but something to help him ground himself to the real. "When you're ready, we can walk home, okay?"

Auranar rises to her own feet, holding the book that she'd copied carefully. "You can stay as long as you like. Whatever you need." She wishes there was more that she could do than offer her gentle words, but Andelena seemed to find them sufficient, and Dolan was slowly recovering. When he's recovered enough, and he wants to leave, she gives him the book she made. Sees them out the door and into the bitter cold of the day. She watches Dolan hunch his shoulders against it and is reminded that he's not fully recovered. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. She feels the sting of a desire to see him back to his old self, and the harsher sting that comes with the knowledge that it will not come. A voice whispers that it's her fault. A wiser voice whispers that it's all their faults. Every one of them.

-End