The Tarnished Path Retraced

[Nixie]

When Seven joined her on the floor, the bump of a boot caused her to instinctively make way for him, scooting to the side and letting her knees fall away from him. Making no comment on his apology, nor the accidental brushing, she watched him in silence. Wiping dirtied fingers in the crook of a leg, she returned tender digits to the soothing wetness of her mouth. Only nodding in response to his advice as a new log was sacrificed to the greedy embers. Quickly bringing the dying heat back to life as pitiful flames stretched to lick the offering. Nixie's eyes followed the sparks until they were snuffed out and consumed by the surrounding darkness. And when they were, her gaze fell back to the slowly growing fire.

A crackle, then his voice. Glancing sidelong at him, her stomach dropped with the question and self-conscious eyes fell to her lap.
"I..." Suddenly it seemed the newly flourishing tendrils of warm light that forced shadows back, were also chasing her confidence away. Threatening to leave her bare. Trying to force its way into darker places Nixie wished to leave hidden. In retaliation she pushed herself back away from the the penetrating glow, into the shadows that continued to peal way. Pulling knees to her chest, she wrapped arms around them and hid herself behind the feeble shield they provided. "They..." Resting a dampening forehead against bent knees, a long breath of dissatisfaction left her, an almost-silence following after. The constant crackle of wood being devoured by flame filled her ears, and its light stole her words. She should have anticipated this question; how could she have expected answers and in return give none? Somehow she was still unprepared for it, leaving her searching for words to provide an answer, without providing one. "There were people." A pause. "They sent me here." An undertone of hostility to her voice. Then without warning she rolled forward onto her toes and stood. "The rest doesn't matter... or it shouldn't. Not to you." Her words quiet, as they usually were.

Intentionally keeping her gaze from Seven, if only to avoid the possibility of staring eyes, she scanned the room. By now her own had adjusted enough to make out a clear path in the darkness and when she found the bar she turned. Taking care in her steps, she strode over in relaxed pace, successfully stepping around the few chairs that stood in her way. Coming to a stop, she pressed her hands to the surface and leaned over the counter. Straining to look over the shelves, she mumbled aloud. "Where do they keep the petching food around here?"

[Seven Xu]

“Alright,” Seven shot back, some defense in his retort—he’d tripped some emotional wire, but had narrowly dodged the snare. Everything matters. The words died on his tongue. There was something there. Something more.

He followed.

The wrap of darkness afforded Seven some grace; there was some advantage to being able to see a chair’s leg rising from the floorboards, or a loose nail jutting from between age-old cracks in oiled wood. The halfblood skirted around furniture and disrepair and he passed Cadman as he swung around the bar. He shrugged defeat at her question, though his hands went to work rifling through the contents of the shelf all the same. An empty bottle tipped and rolled and was caught by another.

Seven slackened with a breath of victorious mirth, and he turned, producing a jar between bony hands. There was some smugness in that smile, but it was a smile all the same. “Preserves.”

The weighted glass warbled as it settled on the counter between the girl’s splayed hands. “Listen, I didn’t mean to offend you before.” Seven twisted, grunted, struggled with the stubborn jar’s lid, and seized the comfort most found in guileless empathy. He’d certainly apologized enough. “I know how it is to leave home on a sour note.”

The battle was won with a heave and a sloppy suck. The lid rattled to the pale blanket of dust that covered the stretch of bar between them. Seven tipped the mouth in Cadman’s direction, yellow-green brine between polished lips. “And before that—I just don’t make a good first impression, or a good second impression for that matter.” Not that he cared for impressions. He searched her gaze. “Let me start over. I’m Seven Xu. Please have a pickle.”

[Nixie]

Watching from her side of the bar, Nixie twisted here body to try and steal a glimpse at what Seven fiddled with. Blind to what he held, the tink of glass against glass was the only clue she had. But it seemed she wouldn't need any others to solve the mystery when he turned to presented a jar, followed by a word. Preserves? First picturing jams and jellies. Nether of which would fill an empty stomach, not even if it were here favorite: blueberry. If she hadn't doubted her assumption, she would have scowled at the find and forgone any effort to scrutinize or understand just what was really inside the container. Tilting her head in her inspection of the jar, she was soon distracted when Seven spoke again. She wouldn't interrupt him, instead only watching with curious eyes as she sometimes did. He's apologizing again? Self-reproach felt like such a foreign thing to her; having grown too accustomed to earning apathy from others, and giving it in return.

With Sevens victory over the jar, Nixie hoisted herself up onto the bar with a grunt where she sat comfortably cross-legged. Dark eyes moving to the open jar when he offered its contents. With one hand planted on the counter between her legs, she reached into the jar with careful fingers, quickly finding what might have felt the largest pickle. Perhaps she was too careful though; her choice slipping away to the back of the jar.
"Nice to know your name hasn't changed since the docks." As if to her it was common for names to change from meeting to meeting. Or perhaps a joke? Though her voice held no hint of humor. "Mine's still Cadmn.... Thanks for the pickle." Trying again, she was a bit more determined this time, even digging short-cut nails into the thin slippery peal before drawing her second choice. Exposing it to the warming air, she let the juices drip away, her gaze turning to Sevens once again. "You don't have to keep apologizing you know. You didn't offend me." Maybe he had wanted to move on past the apologies, but Nixie hadn't caught wind of it. His earlier words still ringing in her ears. "Sour note is an understatement though..." She whispered as an after thought before biting down on the bitter food with a crisp crunch. A dribble of vinegar-water falling from lips corner and tracing the contour of her jaw. Wiping it away with a short sleeve, her curiosity was getting the better of her. Not learning from her last mistake, she pushed for a story. "What happened?" Her gaze wouldn't meet his; feeling the question might have been a pushy one.

[Seven Xu]

“Nothing.”

He hardly felt comfortable discussing the business of his home life with those he shared his new life with, let alone a peculiar girl—or boy, he hadn’t quite decided. There was something unnerving about a young woman’s voice coming from that mouth, as if it were out of place. Seven’s gaze drooped, trying to determine whose body could be wrapped between the folds of a shirt, or the crease in a pair of trousers. “I mean, there’s nothing worth telling.

“I suppose ‘sour note’ was an overstatement for me,” he lied—painting a prayer on a wall with a father’s blood was certainly more than a sour note—then he turned to continue his search through dust-riddled shelves. Despite his excitement in their discovery, Seven had no true love for pickles. “I was just trying to make you feel better.”

Blind fingertips knocked a row of fell jars above his head. They were pulled to the ground, but did not shatter. Seven’s surprise caught him as a gasp in his throat, and he took a stumbling step backward in a belated attempt to dodge the mess. One leaded jar landed on his toe with a sickening thump; Seven’s teeth grit so hard his jaw hurt.

“Gods,” he cursed, kicking at the offending jar. It traced a rumbling path across the rippled floor in its retreat. One white-knuckled hand had sought balance against the bar top, but now it slipped away, wanting for the warmth of a trouser pocket. “This place is shit.”

As if on cue, the patter of rain on a low roof began. It was slow at first, but it was enough to discourage parting from the dim, hollow tavern.

[Nixie]

His subtle refusal to grant a story came as no surprise to Nixie; if he was anything like her, there were things he most likely preferred keeping to himself. Or at the very least, out of light conversation. Though perhaps it was as he said, and there really was nothing to tell. Even while she rarely let her eyes fix on him for very long, she did feel his gaze upon her in that dark room. A burning feeling that emanated from behind hidden ears. Even if the initial feeling was unsettling, she wasn't bothered by studying eyes or silent lips. So accustomed to it, she might have even been able to guess at just what he was wondering. Having come across so many others that stared with those same eyes, and asked the same questions. Nixie wouldn't mention it though. Then he spoke, but not with the question she had come to expect from others. While he may not have meant it, in her mind it felt as if he were revoking his earlier statement of supposedly understanding the 'sour notes'. A dropping feeling in the pit of her stomach. No, I guess he doesn't understand. How fortunate. Falling prey to the lie of a mask.

Taking some of the pickle between teeth, she bit down, gaze shifting to Seven when she heard him rummaging through the shelves and more words came. To make me feel better? The questioning thought causing her to slow her chew, eyes digging into his back. Above him she saw warm light caught in falling glass, swallowing, her legs fell over the edge of the bar where she pushed off its cabinets to stretch forward and catch one of the jars, missing all the others. If only she had caught the one that assaulted Seven. Flinching with the sound of its impact, she asked,
"Should I tell you to be careful this time?"

Sitting perched on the bars edge now, the sound of rain reached her ears and sent eyes drifting to the ceiling.
"Rain?" Pausing before she repeated herself. "Rain..." Her gaze fell to a darkened window, sprinkled with water, where her mind left for another place. "I used to love it." A thought backed with a story she wouldn't tell, mumbled aloud on a whim. And after the sound of rain filled the silence, she spoke again, in a whisper; fearing she would chase away its music. "Was it really an overstatement?" Then a pause, perhaps expecting an answer. Shifting the jar she still held to another hand, she watched the drops streak down the window. "Are words still meant to be comforting if you take them back?" Placing the jar down on the bar next to her, she turned her gaze to the floor and cleared a growing knot from her throat before an unpleasant silence could fall. "Never mind..."

Moving from the bar, to her feet, she took to gathering up an arm full of fallen glass containers from the floor. If only to keep herself busy or distract from her odd question.
"If you don't want to go out in the rain, I'm sure we could find something to do around here." Hoping to move the conversation on, and keep him a bit longer. When she couldn't hold another, she stood upright again to set one of the jars down. "We could explore the rest of the tavern." Placing a second. "Who knows what we might find." Placing a third. "I'm sure this place has some kinda' alcohol. If you were so inclined to share a drink with a stranger." Placing a fourth. "I could probably find something to drink to."

[Seven Xu]

The sardonic grin he wore was lost to the darkness and another dusty shelf. He had let the list of questions fall to a dozen small silences; when she seemed mollified with the death of a one-sided interrogation, Seven opened his mouth.

“Yes, let’s get drunk; that will help our coordination.” He exhaled a short laugh and stooped to sweep a blind hand across the shelf beneath the bar. His fingers caught the cool, thin neck of a bottle and he pulled it into the dim light. Orange danced across deep green glass, whose murky contents were not left alone long enough to settle.

He wriggled and fussed at the cork that denied his drying mouth its drink. “Rain is all well and good, when it’s water and not something else. I never had to worry about something else before I moved here, but I’ve seen stranger things fall from the sky than you might think.” Seven grunted in his efforts. The cork came loose with a dull pop beneath a coaxing white thumb. He bent to sniff the bottle’s contents. “I don’t know what this is,” he joked, “but it smells like sweet piss.”

Fortunately, it was rum. Seven’s lips latched to the bottle long enough to get a mouthful of the swill before it found itself in Cadman’s hands. He swallowed, and then rubbed his mouth with the back of a hand. He passed her on his way around to the bar’s front, looking again for a reason to call her anything but female. Her throat was smooth.

“Better we find a lantern or candles before one of us gets hurt.”

[Nixie]

Question after question, none were answered. Granted, most of them could have been called ether odd or nosy. Perhaps he had none to give, or maybe he did but they weren't meant for her ears. Whatever the reason, simple or complex, Nixie couldn't keep herself from wondering if she had upset him in some way. It wouldn't have been the first time. After all, her conversation skills weren't exactly exemplary. Rubbing people the wrong way with a feckless or unintentionally belligerent word seemed commonplace in her daily life. Even so, the prospect brought an uncomfortable feeling. But thankfully before an imposing silence could compel her gaze to wander, he spoke, and her concerns were put to rest.

While Nixie's attitude may have been leaning towards sullen or dispassionate since the two had run into each other out in nightfall's streets, a faint smile had snuck its way over her features. Slightly amused with Seven's persiflage, she watched him as he felt out a dark shelf to retrieve a bottle of sorts.
"Your coordination seems just fine. At least we might be at the same level if you had some drink in you." Poking fun at her earlier display of blindness. But that brought a question to mind. How was he able to navigate so easily through the tavern? Before she could indulge in a new found curiosity, he spoke again, and interest was drawn elsewhere for the time. Something else? "What, besides rain, falls from the sky?" Though to her dismay, once Seven's fight with the bottle was over, it seemed he was distracted with whatever concoction filled it. Such a colorful description of its smell pushed eyes unconsciously open wide; perhaps surprised when he still took a swig.

When the bottle was practically forced upon her, she took it in hesitant hands. Cupping one under the bottom while the other wrapped around its neck.
"Piss?" Gaze shifting from the bottle, to Seven, then back, she held it under her nose and smelt for herself. To her surprise it didn't smell as offensive as Seven had made it out to be just a moment ago. In fact, she actually found it pleasant. Taking a small sip, she swooshed it about to test the flavor. As it moved under and over tongue she felt a growing burning sensation. Though it wasn't unpleasant like the one the stove had given her, it was... interesting.

Once satisfied she would indeed enjoy the drink, her head fall back and the burning liquid ran down. Though.. she had been too eager. Eyes tearing and throat burning, she held a hand to her lips; lest she make a mess, and swallowed hard. Clearing her throat and catching her breath simultaneously, she turned to glance at Seven. Lips damp with ether spittle or rum, she spoke.
"What else falls--" Coughing again. "--from the sky?" Still recovering from her fit. Then sliding down off the bar, she set he open bottle on its surface as a hand dug down into her pockets to pull forth a small box. Holding it up, she shook it a few times, perhaps to grab his attention. "I already have the tinder, if we can find something to light." Not wanting to try and light a candle or lamp using the stoves fire. Out of precaution more then anything.

[Seven Xu]

Seven laughed and moved for the matchbox, but instead settled on the bottle. A candid (if not rude) sleeve rid the glass lip of the other’s spit before he took another mouthful; it burned a trail down his throat and pushed tendrils of dizzying warmth through his chest. He almost coughed, but he swallowed that too. The bottle’s end found the counter with a scraping thump.

“Sunflower seeds,” he began, plucking the proffered box from Cadman’s hand between his thumb and forefinger, “tiny round beads of glass, pine needles, saw dust, fire.”

He continued his search of cupboards and shelves, stooping and stretching and balancing precariously on his toes as he scoured the abandoned tavern for a lantern or a few candles. It was a full chime of shuffling, mumbling, and listing different combinations of things that the Trickster could throw from the sky before Seven happened upon the rusted cage of a lantern that had fallen into disuse.

It was old; it was wrought from iron and had a candle well-burned in its belly. Seven grunted with the effort of lifting it onto the counter, setting it down carefully beside their shared bottle. The box in his free hand slid open easily; a match struck coarse grain and roared to life between his waxy fingers; flame fed an old wick and yellow-orange flooded the room.

When Seven turned to Cadman with a smile of self-satisfaction, it was obvious that the dim fire was not the culprit of the unnatural hue in his dark eyes—they burned as red as hot coals beneath a curtain of white-blonde. He noted the blank stare of someone blinded by shadows had gone from her, washed away by recognition. “Better?”

[Nixie]

Listening, curious ears perked as she seemed to hang on every addition to the growing list. It all seemed so far fetched and strange; having never seen it first hand, but she knew better then to doubt there was anything Ionu wouldn't or couldn't do in his own domain. Instead of questioning, she wrapped fingers around the bottles neck and knocked it back, accepting what Seven said as truth with another swig of the disarming drink. But in that moment of forced acceptance she had failed to notice the hand that reached to pluck the tinder box from her. Sure she had offered it beforehand, but not the entire box! Contrite, she mentally kicked herself; she should have thought to remove just a few before his approach. In the action a disquiet had arisen in her; as it always did when her pipe, or anything related to it, was taken. She should have known he would return it afterwards, but regardless, something of a panic bubbled inside her. One that wouldn't reflect outwardly aside from a slight furrowing of her brows and the touch of force in her return of the bottle to the bar.

Watching him toy with the newly found lantern in a fretful silence, her lips were sealed shut. And in the instant it was lit, Nixie reached to retrieve her tinder, smoky eyes falling to his hand as her own fingers wriggled in between his in an effort to free the small box. When she had a firm old on it, her gaze returned to his, the question falling on deaf ears and her fingers freezing in his palm. Thoughts of the tinder held captive were washed away with the sight of warm light washing over pale white features in flickering waves. Leaving shadows in its retreat that were not unlike fresh wet sand in color. Though it was not his alabaster skin that had struck such a cord in her, it had been the blood red jewels that set so beautifully within its folds. In that moment her breath had left and an awestruck mouth hung fairly agape. Perhaps it was the influence of rum, however little she had taken, but it was as if she had never seen such an intriguing site. Or maybe she had, but spent so much effort on avoiding eye contact that she had missed it long ago.

How much time had passed while she was entranced with him, she couldn't say. Seconds? Minutes? She seemed to believe in the latter. Finally, when her lungs begged for air, she reluctantly let her gaze fall away. Taking a deep breath, she returned the tinder to her pocket then turned to the rum once more. And, with haste, indulged in several large mouthfuls. In her hurry, a dribble managed to escape from the corner of lips clasped over bottles mouth. She really had no idea how to handle her drink... a sudden dizziness rushing over her. In an effort to set the bottle back down on the bar, she managed to hit the edge of the counter and almost sent it crashing to the floor. Lifting it slightly, she found the surface and slid it towards the center to a safer spot where it wouldn't drop so easily. Then her voice came in a mumble.
"Your eyes.. they're... I'm sorry." Was she apologizing for the color, or for staring so impolitely? Both? That was left to interpretation.

[Seven Xu]

Seven snatched the bottle while it was still wobbling to stare into his misshapen reflection. “My eyes,” he peered, but saw nothing that merited the awkward slack-jawed silences of which he was subjected to heartbeats before. “My eyes are fine. Maybe you should pay mind to your own; you nearly broke something tripping over that chair earlier.”

His gaze lifted, and he managed a smile. The bottle’s lips found those already slick with spit and rum. It was difficult to shuffle off the feeling his newfound companion had doused over their already tense conversations. As if forcing small talk with the socially inept halfblood wasn’t trying enough, she’d taken to staring him down like a hungry dog leers at a piece of meat.

Maybe she’s a half-wit.

A deafening clap of thunder yanked Seven from his skin and the bottle from his hand. When it hit the floor it shattered, sending up a torrent of green and yellow-gold that coated floorboards and boots. Seven grit his teeth and took a stumbling step backward, muttering something that could only be construed as obscenity. Coppery bitterness stung his tongue where he had bitten it.

“Don’t—don’t step in that.”