[FLASHBACK] Incrimination (Oluse)

[Paragon]

Timestamp: 80th of Winter, 510 AV Adarin sat in the front room of Pater's house, sipping at his beer, while glancing round at everything in the house. Pater was a true friend of Adarin's - one of the last. The years had not been kind to him. His friend was busy, bustling about the place like a wild horse. "You need to calm down," Adarin said measuredly, "it won't do your health any good." Pater turned to look at him, a twinkling in his eyes reserved only for his friends. It was a knowing look. "There's a lot to do Adarin. There's always a lot to do. And anyway, aren't you the one with all the ambition - you're a fine one to talk." "Oh, I'm ambitious enough," Adarin replied with a nod and a soft laugh, "but sometimes, you have to sit back and do some counts. There is study and measure to perform before action can be taken." I'm in it for the long game...

[Oluse]

Oluse had returned home late, as had become a custom of his since the first snow of the year. Not much new had happened in Oluse's life for some time, and though the boy's body had begun to grow and change, nobody seemed to notice his mind had as well. This frustrated him, though not enough to build the courage to confront his father about his yurnning to take on more challenging tasks. No, Oluse knew his father wouldn't accept Oluse's mastery of the novice skills, he would just give Oluse more of the same work, not anything new.

So he tried to ignore these thoughts and do as he did every time he entered the house. He took a large armload of cut wood from the lean to beside the house, and went inside. With a loud knock he pushed the door, which had been in need of fixing since fall, open, and stomped his feet on the lip of the portal to knock off the snow. Awkward with his encumbrance he stepped inside, kicking the door shut behind it, having to offer a second kick to secure it. All before looking around over the load of wood just under his eye level. "Oh, Mister Adarin, good evening. Father." He didn't make eye contact just nodded, and started to set the wood by the fire, preparing to select one to throw in.

[Paragon]

Adarin glanced towards the door as it burst open, and a young man stumbled through holding wood for the fire. It was Oluse, Pater's boy. He was a quiet one... perhaps unsure of himself, or perhaps something else. "Good evening, Oluse," Adarin said to the boy with a smile. Pater turned from his medical preparations and watched his son carefully, failing to greet him. There was something in the way he looked, Adarin thought. A longing? A yearning? Regret? Families were complex things. Life alone was much simpler - and Adarin had barely knew anything different. He had only been a teenager when his parents had been taken away from him by the fire. The fire, lit by some foreign bastard. An Inartan criminal, they had said at the time. "Come on," Pater suddenly said, "get the fire going." There was no love lost between these two. Their relationship seemed more of a working one than a family one. Adarin turned back to his friend, taking another sip of beer. "Where's Mertam then? And the girls? They're out?" Pater nodded, continuing to create poultices and salves for the next days healing duties. "Yes. They were tending to a birth in the village, and the girls wanted to watch. You know what they're like, always eager to get involved." Those last few words had an edge to them, and Pater glanced at Oluse as he said them. The fire crackled. Sparks floating out as Adarin gazed back into the flames. Back into oblivion.

[Oluse]

It was true, of course. Oluse was quiet, but perhaps that wasn't all. Even the most astute in Denval had trouble noticing this, however. He was bright, at least in his field, and he worked hard. Well that is, he used to work hard. He used a small hatchet by the fire to split one of the logs into splinters to help the flames start more from the cinders that were left. His father hadn't bothered to stoke it in over an hour at least. Oluse didn't shirk his duties out of laziness, he did out a desperate attempt to get his father to notice how valuable he was to the family, an attempt he knew went unnoticed. His father just went without the duties getting done, and got mad after. Oluse tossed the pieces in, jerking his hand back quickly when it felt warm. The pointed words from his father hit home, though Oluse didn't look, nor did he respond to the command to build a fire. He wasn't a naturally defiant boy, he loved to please people. So, when he did feel disgruntled it often just made him quiet. His eyes half closed against the heat as the flames caught, and he leisurely set a good dry log upon his small stack. He was grateful he had gotten home before the embers cooled, it would have made the job harder.

He sat staring at the fire a moment, plotting his next actions. He wasn't one to move without thought, though he often wished his preparedness would spread to thought about his words prior to the time to speak. That was not an area he felt very bright in at all. He carefully stood, gloves in his left hand, leaving his coat on for the time, till the room warmed. He faced away from the fire, toward Adarin, and his father who wasn't facing him. This didn't surprise Oluse, and he in turn didn't bother to give his father any mind.

Oluse gave a sharp nod toward Adarin's emptying brew. "'Darin, would you like anotha', Sir?" These were in the days before he forsook his Denvali accent, giving little attention to how he sounded to others. He was Denvali, and a Denvali didn't bend over backward for anybody but themselves. He, of course, had always found pleasure in serving others, and this was not well received among all Denvali. Primarily amongst the other children of the town. A town he thought a city at the time, but at a population of under a thousand could hardly be called a town at that. The other children found his willingness to be "helpful," as a simple annoyance and borderline paranoia at best. Perhaps Oluse's formalities had sprung from his odd relationship with his father. Oluse had told himself long ago that this didn't bother him, and thought little of it anymore. When he wanted to help he offered it, and if people didn't like it, or how he offered it, he didn't help. He found it quite simple, really.

[Paragon]

"I'll take another, lad," Adarin said with a nod and a wink of his eye. He looked up at Pater carefully. "Oluse, bring it to the table and come and sit down. Have a chat with me." Oluse's father turned round and eyed him. But Adarin merely smiled back. He pushed the boy too hard. He had unreasonable expectations. Surely it was enough to be pureblood Denvali? Oluse brought the drink over, and Adarin thanked the boy. "Pull up a chair," he said. He lowered his voice a little, making sure Pater couldn't make out all the words he spoke. "Now... what are your plans boy? What are your ambitions?" Adarin would not see a young man's chances destroyed by an overzealous father.

[Oluse]

Oluse's family had owned The Stranger's Welcome before it had adopted the name, and long before Oluse's conception. Though his family had taken a new profession they maintained the more prominent of the brewers traditions, which was to keep a fair stock of the Fortis Spiced Ale on hand for the most part. The ale was no longer manufactured by his family, but to honor his great grandfather, the one to perfect the recipe, the local tavern still kept a steady supply of the brew on barrel. Oluse tapped their own small barrel of the ale, expertly finessing the liquid into Adarin's mug with only minimal foam. Being out of sight of the other two as he poured he took the opportunity to quietly suck the remaining foam off the top, before heading back into the main room and setting the foamless mug on the table for Adarin.

Oluse did as instructed, pulling up a chair and settling into it, the thick taste of the dark spiced ale still on his tongue. He gave a slight smile to Adarin, and his seemed drunken tone. Oluse had always liked Adarin, he had feared the man when he was younger with a distant respect avoiding his presence, but since he had begun to age more he realized Adarin despite his quirks was a good friend to his father, and saw all Denvali as family. The question, though Oluse felt it was likely spurred by no more than a few mugs of spiced ale before his arrival, was intriguing. And he was entertained by the attempt at secrecy from his father.

He gave the question a quarter minute of consideration before responding with a measure of certainty. "Well, Sir, I will of course improve at herbalism and medicine, help my father, and eventually take the business when he retires." He then lended Adarin a nod, a reassurance more to himself than Adarin that the words were true. His face held slightly less resolution than his words, however. A few seasons before those words seemed to be absolute fact to Oluse, but with his father's reluctance to allow him to break away from childish tasks and onto the more challenging he had begun to question the path that was all but set out for him. He had no natural fighting prowess, so the prospect of escaping his parent's profession via the military seemed very unlikely, not to mention his lack of interest in martial training. And, he knew of no other true aptitudes he harnessed.

[Paragon]

"That's what I thought you'd say," Adarin replied with a nod, "and there's nothing wrong with it. Truly." He looked to Pater, and thought of his own father. A blacksmith. It had always been assumed that Adarin would become one too. Yet his parents deaths had seemingly broken the inexorable path he had been walking. "Do you not desire to make your own mark though? Your destiny is yours to forge, and yours to forge alone. Great people have shaped Mizahar. You could be one of them, boy. Does that not interest you?" He smiled warmly, making a start on the new ale. It was good stuff. Rich. Fulfilling. He had planted a seed, and he was sitting back to watch it grow. It needed no cultivation. The spark was there, he could see.

[Oluse]

Oluse's expression was reserved and a bit doubtful when Adarin mentioned that it was 'truly' fine that he wished to adopt the family business. He didn't know Adarin's opinion on physicians like he and his father, though he had always assumed the man must have accepted the career as respectable, since he was friends of Pater. Oluse didn't find Adarin to be the type of man to waste his time with those he didn't respect, without some more vocal objections to their ideas. And he knew from overhearing his comments of other townsfolk that Adarin could become much more 'vocal' than he had been in asking this drink induced question of Oluse. Oluse smiled at this thought, letting it show through like most of his smiles, seemingly random in origin. They weren't, however. This one was brought on by the concept that if Adarin did not waste his time with men he did not respect then his sudden interest in speaking with Oluse must by that logic mean he suddenly respected the boy for some reason. Though an odd occurrence, it boosted Oluse's vulnerable ego.

Something did spark his curiosity in the question, however. Quietly he responded with an inquiry of his own, "Adarin, don't you find physicians to be the most impactful profession there could be?" He paused a moment and thought about his own perception of society then corrected himself, "Well that is of course short of the farmers and fishermen that feed us." He nodded, enforcing his statement as fact over the previous, or rather in conjunction. "Food keeps us healthy, and so do doctors. What more impactful mark could one leave on his countrymen than to put them in good health?" He smiled, a bit devilishly as he thought of the Temple of Nikali, and the jobs he supposed he could be doing, such as Justus'. He, however, couldn't muster the courage to actually share this thought out loud, so he let the question stand alone. More than anything to circumvent the question which had been directed at him. He thought about it as he aimed a new inquiry back in retaliation, but still couldn't piece together how he really felt about becoming a doctor for the rest of his life.

[Paragon]

"Oh, of course. I cannot deny the importance of health. I've always respected Pater for his profession. But here you are, treating your patients day after day, and yet don't you feel that nothing changes? A cured patient is replaced with another sick one, and sometimes they die for you can't treat their ills." Adarin took a rather large sip this time. After the accident, so many years ago, the healers had not been able to repair his damaged eye. It was impossible, they had told him. Better to take it out completely, they said. And now he wore an eyepatch over his left eye, half in darkness, half in light. It described him so eloquently. "There are problems in this world. In Denval. There's a poison spreading, like a parasite growing larger and larger as it feeds off its host. At some point, things will have gone too far. People can't just sit by and cure fevers. They have to make changes. Big changes." His speech had somewhat transcended the conversation with young Oluse. At certain points, Adarin even forgot the boy was there. His own thoughts were tumbling out, induced by the fine ale. Yet he hadn't revealed anything, all the same.

[Oluse]

Oluse's face shifted slowly from a tentative smile to a searching expression as Adarin spoke. This expression was aimed into the man's eyes, curious and engaged. He listened carefully to his words and tried to make sense of them. Oluse could admit that it was true, that a healer could not heal the source of conflict, only the result. That was the nature of healing, and farming. It remedies problems, but it did not stop them from recurring. Only the patients themselves could do that, but in the case of hunger there was no solution.

Oluse then spoke the first coherent thought that came to him, quiet, and assured. "You can't change human nature." The comment held a certain blatant, and simple honesty to it. A truth that seemed obvious to the boy. It wasn't defiant, or a playful challenge of rhetoric, just a simple comment with no intention or focus behind it other than to state an observation.

Though, still, after this comment Oluse did not relinquish his attempt to comprehend what Adarin was trying to say. He respected his elders and was interested in what they had to say, even tinged by a few ales. His face remained relaxed, save his brow which furrowed ever so slightly as he looked at the man across the table. "I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to say, Sir." His expression remained searching, prodding as his head tipped a fraction to the side.