“And I should have made it clear that I would … protect you.”
“All he needs is a little affection.”
Hands clasp together shyly.
Two strides become one.
~
Walking into the Wet Wagon’s warm dry air still feels like coming home.
It’s not even the temperature, Áesta thinks as he navigates his way through the afternoon lunch crowd, causing him to feel this way, either, as Hell isn’t nearly as hot as humanity tends to think it is (which, truthfully, Áesta never quite understood: what, exactly, is so bad about heat? and is fire not purifying? wouldn’t Hell, then, be a place of redemption rather than punishment? do they think Heaven is cold???).
Instead, it’s the what’s housed inside the air: murmurs of livelong friends, laughter between sips and stories, the smell of beer and ale and wine and mead and love and care…
And the joyful way in which they call his name.
~
Gwendolen is the receptionist of the Wet Wagon.
She’s also the daughter of the establishment’s owner. Roughly
21 years old (Áesta’s never really cared for age [being a daemon and void being
will do that] but he’s come to understand that it offers a pretty solid marker
for a human and most other being’s maturity—in other words: it lets him
know what they can/can’t handle [which is an important thing to know when, half
the time, a human can go mad knowing he’s a daemon]), Gwendolen’s surprisingly
capable when it comes to running her parent’s business: almost single-handedly
serving everyone each day, from open to close, with only a couple of breaks in
between to decompress or momentarily hang out with friends while her parents or
some other co-worker covers her back.
When she sees Áesta picking his way through the bar (greeting the five people he slept with but not eating—not really), she takes one of these few breaks with a warning that it may take a while.
Her co-worker has no problem with either.
~
The upstairs of the Wet Wagon is exactly what Áesta thought it was: a living space.
The walls are the same off-white on the inside as they are on the outside but significantly cleaner with plants dotting the corners and picture frames hanging wherever they find space. Happy smiles on three little faces (Gwendolen, Mrs. Wet Wagon, and Mr. Wet Wagon) clutter whatever wall space aren’t already taken up by colonial-style muntin windows, furniture, and artificial lighting. There’s also the occasional picture of a dog.
Áesta tries not to hiss at those (he prefers cats and dogs don’t prefer him).
The kitchen is cozy with country style wooden cabinets, a white cottagecore countertop, stainless steel sink, and a small but strong light wood table for four doubling as a low island counter when needed. In a corner, the building’s old wood stove has been converted into a fireplace—which Gwendolen immediately lights—and thus the center-point of the place’s living room. Light wood (Áesta thinks it might be Aspen’s wood), similar to or the same as the wood in the kitchen, chairs topped with off-white cushions surround the fire, the pale colors darkening and livening as the flames begin to dance within the hearth.
Similar in style to Jarl’s bungalow back home in
Shantown, a dark corridor sits between the two spaces, almost sectioning them
off like an inverted wall, and most likely leads to the family’s bedrooms and
bath.
Áesta tries not to think about the sense of comfort that comes from thinking about the little oak home.
(It’d been something of a prison, at first, so that sense really makes no sense.)
~
“Should Ah be worried t’at ye aren’t feedin’?”
Áesta smiles somewhat ruefully as Gwendolen pours herself some tea and then joins him on the couch. “No.” He settles into the cushions with her, getting comfortable along side her, just long enough to think; it’s weird, after all, and still surreal to him that it happened.
And it’ll be that for her too, never mind that she was there when he PROMISED to PROTECT him.
“Earl… ‘E fed me. Jus’ now. In…”
Áesta pauses here, just now realizing something.
He looks at Gwendolen thoughtfully, “‘Ey… Jus’ ‘ow much do ye know?”
~
“Yer a daemon of old.
“Ye feed oof of attention, worship, love, etcet’ra.
“Ye’ve been summoned ‘ere by a priest, of all t’ings—t’e one t’at came ta get ye t’is morn’.
“Yer ‘elpin’ ‘im do somet’in’ t’at requires a lot o’ travel—supposedly somet’in’ ta do wit’ t’at boy ye asked of; an’ t’e red man, too—an’ it requires ye ta ‘ave a constant stream wit’ ‘im, too—hence ‘im needin’ ta keep feedin’ ye—but ‘e’s a priest an’, hwile ‘e’s getting’ bether at feedin’ ye, ‘e still struggles wit’ t’e morality of it.”
~
Áesta breathes thoughtfully, staring into the fire before them as they sit together in that explanation.
He’s always found that it helps to have someone else put things into perspective for him.
Especially if that someone is a witch.
But…
~
“‘E did it.”
Gwendolen looks at him in confusion, he feels it more than sees it, but doesn’t ask him to elaborate. Instead, she just waits.
“‘E pr’tected me from Mariti.”
“REALLY?” she asks, eyebrows raising. Áesta doesn’t have to ask her if she knows why Jarl would have had to do that: he might never have been to the Wet Wagon, but to Gwendolen’s grandmother’s Herbal Hut, he has. Gina used to be a renown herbalist famous for curing anyone that came to her as long as they were curable: she never gatekept daemons or spirits or anything of the like, unlike so many other so-called healers did.
If you needed help, Gina would offer it (for a price, of course) no matter what you were.
Many respected her for that. Even more resented her for it.
Áesta was (and still is) one of the former.
Thus, it was to her that he went after having to deal with the focar. And he never forgot about her. Especially since she both knew about what happened with Mariti and offered to keep tabs on him for free.
She was unbelievably kind and that he why he never forgot her.
Gwendolen actually looks a lot like her (then again, Mrs. Wet Wagon might, too). She’s about as shrewd, too. “Ceart[SD6] .” He lets her squeal in excited surprise as he revaluates that recent moment. Then, he amends himself, “Well, ‘e tried to.”
“T’at’s still degrees bether t’an hurtin’ ye!”
Áesta stares at her for a moment before flushing into a nod. She’s right, after all; doubly so because this isn’t just about beatings and burnings and crucifixes and chains: it’s about how Jarl could have focáladh him, too.
Not, of course, that Áesta would be too opposed to that from HIM…
(Unless it makes Jarl too upset to enjoy it. That would be a problem.)
Gwendolen sniggers at him. She then coos: “Ooo~ Look at you~”
He tries to hide his blood blackened face and glare at once.
Of course: he fails.
~
“Or did you really fail to treat another living being with love and respect.”
“‘E also…” Áesta frowns, blush still in place, and stares into the fire as though the answers he seeks are in those flames. Beside him, Gwendolen respectfully quiets and waits for him to continue as she sips her tea. “‘E… called me anot’er livin’ bein’… An’ said… Ah deserve love an’ respect…”
The witch’s eyes go wide behind their caked lids, “Wow…”
“Yea…” The daemon pauses as the idea sinks in.
Then: “But hwat does t’at even mean???”
“In gen’ral or in terms o’ you an’ ‘im?”
~
“In gen’ral: it prob’ly means ‘e no longer sees ye as jus’ a daemon, an object, or as some unfeelin’ munster.
“‘E’s basically ‘umanized ye. hWich is good ‘cause ye don’ deserve none o’ t’at—one—an’—two—supposedly, it’ll be easier on bot’ of ye hwen ye feed.
“But, t’ree, in term of t’e two of ye…
“‘E cares ‘bout ye.”
~
“You lied to your whole parish, manipulated them like the monsters you’re supposed to protect them from, tricked another person whom you literally hired to help you, violated him, insulted him, shamed yourself, indebted yourself, defiled a relic of God, and got yourself cursed to eternity; and, still, you play the victim… I’m not going to lie: I was blinded by fear and prejudice at first, too; I also assumed he wanted me to sin, fall, be disgraced; I even hurt him due to this fear; but then I talked to him, worked with him, and found the truth: All he needs is a little affection.”
Áesta swallows thickly as he recalls Jarl’s words. Those weren’t just words of protection, like he first thought; they were words of JUDGEMENT. The priest had literally laid bare all the other priest’s sins and told him, clearly and in no uncertain terms, that he had been WRONG and, perhaps, DESERVING OF PUNISHMENT.
Especially that; because, Áesta suddenly realizes with a start: Jarl did not ask him to lift his curse.
He’s letting him keep it, letting him keep enacting his own brand of punishment like it’s divine…
(He… really does care…?)
~
“Ah t’ink we’re leavin’ tonight.”
“Tonight???” Gwendolen frowns, brows furrowed, and rests her tea cup on her knee. “In t’e dark???”
Áesta chuckles, “We do seem ta like it t’at way…”
“Because yer eejits,” the witch says disapprovingly. The kohl around her sharp blue eyes intensify it, somehow making the expression look condescending as well as concerned. The void being laughs.
“It helps cover Handsy’s magic.”
“… T’at’s fair…”
~
“T’ere weres one t’ing Ah wanted ta ask ye.”
“To keep an eye on t’e bhastaird so ‘e suffers justly?”
Áesta laughs, “Not t’at, not t’at!”
It’s on the tip of his tongue—to ask her to contact Red, Jasey, and ask them what in all of Existence they’re THINKING—but he doesn’t—can’t—let it slip (He can’t know; He CARES now; He can’t know; He’ll hate me); instead, he asks: “Do ye know which Lock t’ey got off at?”
Comments (0)
See all