[FLASHBACK] Incrimination (Oluse)

[Paragon]

Adarin frowned, deep furrows forming on his forehead. The boy was clueless. Deluded, even. So he thought he was a pureblood? A pureblood at heart, but not so. The truth always hurt. "Your mother... Vanthan blood flows through her veins. Vanthan. Not Denvali." He spat the words, like they were toxin born in his mouth as he spoke. "But..." he looked Oluse over, watching reassuringly, "I think you can be redeemed." He shook his head, turning away to conceal the smirk that formed at his mouth. "How terrible Oluse... your own parents lying to you for all this time. They obviously don't trust you. I've seen that in your father. He doesn't want to give you even the simplest of jobs, for fear you'll fail." He paused, watching carefully. "They do not believe you."

[Oluse]

Susceptible as he was Oluse looked on toward his deceiver with horror. He had no deeply ingrained prejudice against outsiders as Adarin seemed to. But, if what Adarin was implying was true then there was something coming, and it was to be attributed to those outsiders. Oluse would naturally push the thought side, but he couldn't deny that his father and mother had never mentioned his mother's nature to him before. Was the perhaps deliberate, was it a lie?

The critical analysis of the thought was broken violently as a thought occurred to him. If his mother had Vantha blood, than so did Oluse! Oluse's mind ceased its spiraling directionless thoughts, and he simply listened to Adarin as he finished his deduction.

Finally, as Adarin's words stopped, Oluse gave a resolute expression. It almost seemed angry, for a moment it was almost as if he were angry at Adarin. But, then he replied in a surprisingly steadfast and indignant tone, "They don't believe in me. You don't think I know that, Adarin?" He addressed the man by his first name, he felt like he could speak to Adarin as an equal. It was also a test, a test to see if Adarin could accept Oluse as an equal in return.

If Adarin did not object to this casual title, Oluse would continue by saying, "Why would my parents do this? Are they that ashamed? Is it really something to be that ashamed of? he paused a moment, then said, "Well I suppose it is. But, why? And if it is really so bad, Sir- Adarin, how could I hope to redeem myself? I can not redeem blood, I can not change it in my veins." His voice was shrill now, voice still working with effort to reach that of a man's, cracking from time to time. Oluse was at a complicated age, stuck between boy and man. The boy within him cried out in fear for guidance, the man within him cried out in angry for answers. In the end, all Oluse could do, was cry out. For he was too ignorant to do otherwise.

His trusting eyes rest on Adarin, waiting for his response.

[Paragon]

"I didn't realise you were so aware of the situation. You surprise me, Oluse." Adarin swallowed carefully, fragments of his plan coming together like clockwork. "You can redeem yourself by hurting them back. Don't you feel it... like a dagger to the heart? They just think you're a child, incapable of everything. You have to show them you're not just a child. You have to do something to hurt them." He eyed him. Manipulation was so easy on this malleable soul. Oluse was a lost boy, his confusion only exaggerated by Adarin's meddling. "What would hurt them, Oluse?"

[Oluse]

Oluse only thought for a short moment before giving up, feeling that he knew full well the answer to such a question. "There is nothing I could do to hurt them, Adarin!" He gave out with exasperation, forgetting again to call him "sir."

"All they care about is their work, and their patients! I couldn't hurt them if I wanted to. Cause you can't hurt somebody who doesn't even care about you!" His brow furrowed in anger, as his fists clenched, his hormones beginning to take charge of him again as they often did in those days.

[Paragon]

Adarin watched Oluse's anger with interest. Passion, rage... they could be channelled. "Calm," he uttered, lowering his hands, "you're an adult now. And besides, you just spoke of the answer to my question. The patients. They care for the patients. Perhaps... you could play a little trick on one of them." You can aid me with a target, Oluse. You can become implicit in my plans, and pay the price of your dirtied blood. "You could help me with a little trick, and then your parents are sure to notice you. You can get to them that way, Oluse." His smile twisted into something unkempt, something wild. He lacked decency, but he was all the better for it. There was no room for niceties, for tolerance, as this world rebuilt itself from the destruction of its past. There was only room for cold, hard action. However cruel that was.

[Oluse]

And their cruel conversation did continue to wage devious intentions upon one very unlucky soul, as the two sat within Adarin's cold Denvali home. Little did Oluse know as he set out from Adarin's stead with new purpose, though the sprigs of the finally snowfall of the season, that he too was an unlucky soul. One bound by tragedy within the contracting words of he and Adarin's fateful plot.

He went home right away, not waiting for dark for the first time in some time. He did not grab wood as he entered his home. He left his arms empty to slam his shoulder against the door to jar it open. The first attempt failed, so with more force he slammed again, this time spilling into the room with a slight stumble, before righting himself. The fracturing sound was inevitable, and predictable. But still, Oluse cringed against what would be silence, and cast a look about the main floor of his families home, checking if he was alone or not.

[Paragon]

As Oluse crashed into his home, he glanced around like a curious owl, discerning whether he was alone or not. There were no sounds in the house. He crept to the rooms, peeking in to check, and finally felt satisfied that he was alone. His father was probably at the clinic, and his mother and sisters were often out. There was a seed of doubt in his heart, but Adarin had stoked the anger at his parents, and it was this that drove him on, as the first steps of their plan unfolded.

[Oluse]

Oluse didn't relax once he realized he was alone. A part of him felt a twinge of dread at the prospect, the smallest idea that his intentions might actually work. That that half thought out plan might render the reward he asked for.

As he approached the cabinet, wisely sealed shut against the public, Oluse knew in the pit of his stomach that that was the moment, the one in which he could walk away and nobody but Adarin and himself would ever know. But, Adarin's words drove him forward, enforced by his new found pride "...Don't you feel it, like a dagger to the heart? They just think you're a child, incapable of everything. You have to show them you're not just a child." Words that presented the fragile mind of the boy an ultimatum, a path with two turns and he knew he must choose one. Inaction, denial, childhood was one that would never give him his own place in the world. Or, this plan, control... action.

With a deep inhale and tempered and restricted exhale, a nervous force behind it, he crouched down and slipped his fingers under the secure cabinet's base, curled them upward and retrieved the small key cleverly tucked within a lip specifically made under the skirt of the wooding for this exact use. Something even Adarin wouldn't know about, only his family. Straightening, he slipped the key into the hole, and with a click that made Oluse's hair stand on end he pulled the door open, as if there had been no precautions made against such an action what so ever, as if the universe wished him to carry out that action, he looked up the tender insides of the impenetrable carapace of wood, shining in a soft and dwindling fire light like hidden treasure.

He worked quickly at this time, paranoia filling him with a false sense of urgency. He ran his fingers along the contents of the cracked safe, cool, smooth, clear vials of the most valuable, and most pungent of remedies and potions his family possessed. Finally his finger lingered upon what he searched for, clear as water the label turned ever so slightly away from him, only catching the last four letters of the tonic's name, "rian." Adeptly Oluses hands pulled his target from the shelf, replacing it, with a slight ting of glass against glass, with a vial of pure Denvali water, the feigned name upon the label forged by his own hand.

His tool acquired, lifted from his own blood's work, Oluse pushed the cabinet's doors shut once more, turned the key back with the sound of a complicated latch, and slipped the key securely back to it's position, then stuck the vial into his pocket, keeping his hand wrapped around it, not able to part from it, for fear it might somehow slip from the pockets of his over sized coat or from the confined of reality all together, if he were to leave it a moment to it's on devises. His trust in everybody, and everything, was fading as he committed his first prominent act against anther's trust.

And so with that he walked toward the exit again, his heart pounding, his head light, and heart heavy. Next was Adarin's part of the plan and he hoped it would work as well as his own, or at least part of him did. Regardless, there was no turning back then.

[Paragon]

Adarin sat alone, glancing down at the pile of crumpled papers on the table. Sentinel, it announced brashly on the front. And inside lay every thought, every dialogue, every idea. He looked to the window, and smiled. Out there, Oluse executed the first step in a long chain of events. A chain that would change the face of Denval, and its destiny, and where it was headed. For all the boy knew, he was playing a prank, 'drugging' a patient of his parents. But he had no idea of the consequences - no idea at all. And he could use those to manipulate in more ways than one. His fingers pressed against his pile of papers, outlining the letters of its title. Sentinel was the future.

[Oluse]

Oluses eyes fluttered open, oddly serene in contrast to the dream he had been having, a repeat of the night before, though his memory didn't serve him. It felt like falling to Oluse, like falling. He couldn't place why, however, he felt good. Really good actually, he had succeeded flawlessly. The socializing was a bit shaky but aside from that the plan worked flawlessly. He had done what Adarin had instructed and took charge of his own destiny. When he told his parents what happened they would be furious, but they couldn't underestimate him anymore. He was a little nervous, and not knowing if he could tell them straight out he decided to wait to see if they could figure it out. Oluse smiled up at the straw stuffed ceiling above him with evident glee. This was fun.

He clunked down the stairs in a torrent of heavy steps, skipping the bottom step and landing with a heavy thud on his feet. He looked around, and his mother was gone, disappointing. Perhaps she would head the news while she was out, though. How much of a fool her patient made of himself.

His father however was there, and his sister fixing breakfast. Oluse grinned to himself, foolishly, his father returning a skeptical glare over the infusion he was working on with water boiled over the fireplace. He didn't ask what Oluse was grinning about, but Oluse knew by the end of the day he would, and that kept the toothy smile pasted firmly to his face. "Good morning father!"

A pause then, a more straight forward expression, a searching look,"Goo-" A knock at the door, and the sentence broke. Oluse wondered if that was him, his nerves sparked like a log int he fire poping with excitement. His ssiter started toward the door but Oluse stepped in front of her.

"I'll get it." He insisted as he went to the door, wrenching on it till it swung open, hitting the opposite wall with a bang. He smiles proudly out the door, before he saw what stood before him. Two strong warriors, with weapons strapped securely tot heir side. Oluse blinked a few times in surprise. He had made a fool of himself... but for the guard to come? Well, no matter, he supposed. "Father," he said with a somewhat diminished smile, "I believe this is for you. I need to head to school." The words came out at nearly haughty, lacking the respect they should. His father grew more suspect and rose to meet the men at the door as Oluse squeezed himself past the man standing there and darted off. He only made it a few steps before the men's eyes moved off of him to his father, however. They seemed very serious for some reason, not a concern for Oluse. All he was concerned in was hearing his father's reaction to the news! Oluse ducked into the overhang with the wood, where he could make out the words being shared with his father, and waited impatiently, his body nearly vibrating with excitement.