Avery barely leaves his room the next few days, only exiting to find something small to eat or to wash up. The next couple of days after, he finds it in himself to pick up a sword again and practice in one of the ruin's courtyards.
It's the only thing that keeps him out of his own head, and even then his practiced movements still sometimes descend into furied flailing and slashing whenever a stray thought hits too close to a nerve.
He's doubted her lately. He shouldn't, he knows. Vanessa loves him, has always loved him, but now there's a part of him that wonders if the sickness that's overtaken her has been present the entire time. He'd never gotten the chance to speak much with anyone in town, after all. She'd always pulled him away for this or that or something would happen to whisk him away on another adventure. And then there was the time he'd woken up to find she'd cut his hair.
Avery enters the ruins once more in a huff and heads for the kitchens. Technically, eating is pointless. He hasn't felt hungry in the way he used to since that day with the graverobbers, though there's an itch in the back of his mind and a few slight, insistent shifts from the thing inside of him that let him know that he'll need something else before long.
He doesn't take much interest in swordplay. His lord had been the martial type, certainly, but swords weren't a weapon he was ever interested in. When the other man runs off to swipe at nothing with his sword and be alone with his thoughts, he lets him be.
He's cooking again. He doesn't need to eat, but he finds comfort in the repetitive motions anyway. He barely notices (has let his guard down enough) when Avery enters, preoccupied by the cutting and chopping and heating that comes with the process of creation. (More soup, made from what grows around here at this time of year. Less spicy, more fragrant; spring has been here for some time.)
Like this, relaxed, at peace, he looks completely different. At least for a moment, until Avery speaks and he scoffs.
Avery is content to flop down into a nearby chair and watch the wizard for awhile. The soup smells just as good as it always does (though he already misses the hint of spiciness), but it's the expression that catches his eye--or, rather, the wizard's body language.
He's never seen him like this before, calm and unhurried. If it weren't for the whole undead thing, Avery would think he'd stumbled in on a completely different man. "Funny. I always pictured you more into potions and hexes than pots of soup," he says after a moment. It's the first time he's spoken to the wizard in days.
That gets a little sigh as he stirs. He doesn't seem particularly bothered.
"Even servants of the overlord need to eat," he says, and his tone is, for once, not mocking in its amusement. "At least, their living ones did. It would be terribly impractical if I didn't know some cooking."
Avery hums softly, head cocking to the side. "Right." And the guy probably had a life before the overlord scooped him up, anyway, especially if that soup back at that cottage was anything to go by.
"I don't get it," he finally adds with a heavy sigh. "Why? The guy practically made it his duty to conquer kingdom after kingdom and grab as much power as they could. So why join in? What, did he promise you unlimited power or a piece of the pie or something?"
The spoon clinks gently against the sides of the pot as he stirs. He glances at the other man, wondering if it's worth the risk to share anything about himself to someone who has ample reason to simply discard it.
"He was kind to me at my lowest point, when others were simply disgusted by my weakness. He continued to treat me well. That's all."
Perhaps it doesn't mean much, to someone whose ideals soar high above such mundane concerns.
That gets another sigh, more exasperated this time. "Yes, of course I'm serious. I wouldn't be bothering to tell you if I weren't." He returns to chopping vegetables, for a moment, letting the stew simmer on the hearth.
"He hated prisons and shackles of all kinds. He gathered power from who - and what - he broke free from their chains." A pause. "Though I was never quite sure why we kept coming across things that specifically needed your wife to work."
"You...!" Avery puts his head into his hands and groans loudly. "It was coincidence?! All these years and it was coincidence?!" He doesn't even know what else to say. He'd assumed for so long that that there was some sort of strange obsession at play, that there was a grudge or prophecy or some sort of other evil business hanging over his dearest Vanessa's head.
"He desired a world that wasn't weighed down by the powerful, where weakness wouldn't matter."
The wizard stares into the soup contemplatively.
"He believed that the only way to accomplish it was to destroy such things entirely, in order to start anew." There's a long pause. He just keeps stirring.
Avery shifts in his seat and crosses his arms, looking away.
No.
He is not going to feel guilty. It's not his fault. He killed the man, sure, but he was only doing what he could to protect the woman he loved--loves. And it wasn't like the guy was in the right anyway. A world like that was nice in theory, but it was fragile. Someone would come along and the cycle would start again. If he hadn't killed the overlord, then someone else would have. Or else the guy would have died and everything would have been thrown into chaos.
So he has no reason to feel anything about it at all.
Another laugh. This one is bitter, with a cold edge; more like the person Avery has grown to know, in some way, over the years. All sharp edges, mocking, guarded, only genuine when seeking to wound.
"I believed in it because he was there. Without him...it's better to let things be. He believed in that, too. The fairness of life and death."
Death is fair, in its own way. He'll concede that much. But life isn't fair in the slightest. It was an argument they'd had before, time and time again.
You'll understand, he had said, gentle as always. But his lord is gone, now, and he feels no closer to understanding. Perhaps he never will.
"Surely you don't want me to go on destroying the world. Upending the tenets of society. That sort of thing."
That more genial humor is back, its edge a little blunted. He pours out soup into two bowls, placing one in front of Avery. He drinks deeply from his own, taking what small comfort from it that he can.
"Or does that not matter to you any more?" It's a genuine question, rather than a barbed one.
Avery sinks sulkily into his seat, bowl resting against his bottom lip.
Does it matter? Did it ever? His first instinct is to say "yes, of course," to insist that he wanted to keep everyone safe. But when he thinks of everyone, he thinks only of her, and that turned out to be one big misunderstanding, didn't it?
"I don't like it, if that's what you're asking. But it's not like I'm a hero anymore, either."
"Ah, so you've decided to give it up? I can't say it's not a good choice. Being a hero earns you little but scars."
There's an almost rueful tone to the words, like he speaks from experience. A vulnerability that lingers just enough to be noticeable, before he puts his guard up again.
"You're such a child," he remarks, looking at Avery sinking into his chair. "It's still a surprise to remember you ended up killing me."
"I only did it in the first place because you guys kept stealing my wife," Avery replies, rolling his eyes. "And now that someone's made it so that I have to kill people to survive, it kind of makes it hard to take the moral high ground."
He sighs. "At least you're a good cook." A long drink of his soup later, he peers over the side of the bowl to look the wizard in the eye.
"It wasn't on purpose," he says, but there's no bite to the words, as much as he tries.
"It would be a stretch to say so." His voice is dry. "It's where I got my fine companion from, the source of my power. And it ate me from the inside out, they deemed me a failure, and I was abandoned and exiled to the woods."
He pours them both another bowl. He drinks his next serve like someone else would drink alcohol.
"I was left to rot and branded as cursed for the rest of my days. The end."
His lips hover over the edge of the bowl, frozen in place, golden eyes icy even as they glowed brighter than before. He remembers hearing others saying something about him when he was young, how he had "potential," how it could work "this time," and others completely dismissing the idea and pushing to leave him as he was. He hadn't understood it at the time, but now... As absurd as it might have seemed, he believed the wizard entirely.
And these were the people he had been defending.
"No wonder." He can't blame the wizard at all. Better some evil (morally ambiguous?) overlord with weird ideas of weakness and strength than a bunch of corrupt bastards who infected others with parasites and left them to die.
At least the wizard had dragged him with him afterwards, gave him a place to live, and cooked for him, even if the man did seem to hate his guts.
"Bet you found it satisfying, seeing the whole place iced up like that."
"I didn't find it particularly objectionable, no," he says, after a long moment. "Though I wish I could have razed it to the ground myself. Some things feel better when you do them with your own hands."
Is that a bad thing to say? Yes. Does he care? Not really.
All this talk about pasts and histories and he doesn't even know the hero's name. He's not sure if he should ask, or if the other man is interested in divulging it (or interested in his own.)
"And we're pretty much roommates at this point," Avery agrees. The second the words are out of his mouth, he realizes just how silly it is, but... it's not exactly wrong, either. "It'd be pretty weird if we didn't know eachother's names."
It's not like it changes much. He gets the wizard's--Ekkehardt's--point of view a little more now, but it doesn't change what happened.
"We'll just consider this a truce. An official one."
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It's the only thing that keeps him out of his own head, and even then his practiced movements still sometimes descend into furied flailing and slashing whenever a stray thought hits too close to a nerve.
He's doubted her lately. He shouldn't, he knows. Vanessa loves him, has always loved him, but now there's a part of him that wonders if the sickness that's overtaken her has been present the entire time. He'd never gotten the chance to speak much with anyone in town, after all. She'd always pulled him away for this or that or something would happen to whisk him away on another adventure. And then there was the time he'd woken up to find she'd cut his hair.
Avery enters the ruins once more in a huff and heads for the kitchens. Technically, eating is pointless. He hasn't felt hungry in the way he used to since that day with the graverobbers, though there's an itch in the back of his mind and a few slight, insistent shifts from the thing inside of him that let him know that he'll need something else before long.
"This sucks."
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He's cooking again. He doesn't need to eat, but he finds comfort in the repetitive motions anyway. He barely notices (has let his guard down enough) when Avery enters, preoccupied by the cutting and chopping and heating that comes with the process of creation. (More soup, made from what grows around here at this time of year. Less spicy, more fragrant; spring has been here for some time.)
Like this, relaxed, at peace, he looks completely different. At least for a moment, until Avery speaks and he scoffs.
"How eloquent of you."
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He's never seen him like this before, calm and unhurried. If it weren't for the whole undead thing, Avery would think he'd stumbled in on a completely different man. "Funny. I always pictured you more into potions and hexes than pots of soup," he says after a moment. It's the first time he's spoken to the wizard in days.
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"Even servants of the overlord need to eat," he says, and his tone is, for once, not mocking in its amusement. "At least, their living ones did. It would be terribly impractical if I didn't know some cooking."
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"I don't get it," he finally adds with a heavy sigh. "Why? The guy practically made it his duty to conquer kingdom after kingdom and grab as much power as they could. So why join in? What, did he promise you unlimited power or a piece of the pie or something?"
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The spoon clinks gently against the sides of the pot as he stirs. He glances at the other man, wondering if it's worth the risk to share anything about himself to someone who has ample reason to simply discard it.
"He was kind to me at my lowest point, when others were simply disgusted by my weakness. He continued to treat me well. That's all."
Perhaps it doesn't mean much, to someone whose ideals soar high above such mundane concerns.
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He isn't sure what surprises him more: the overlord's ability to be kind of all things, or the wizard ever being anything close to "weak."
"We're talking about the same guy here, right? The one who kidnapped my wife practically every three months?"
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"He hated prisons and shackles of all kinds. He gathered power from who - and what - he broke free from their chains." A pause. "Though I was never quite sure why we kept coming across things that specifically needed your wife to work."
Now that he thinks about it, that is sort of odd.
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A coincidence!
"So what were you trying to do all this time?"
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The wizard stares into the soup contemplatively.
"He believed that the only way to accomplish it was to destroy such things entirely, in order to start anew." There's a long pause. He just keeps stirring.
"Not that it matters now," he says, quiet.
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No.
He is not going to feel guilty. It's not his fault. He killed the man, sure, but he was only doing what he could to protect the woman he loved--loves. And it wasn't like the guy was in the right anyway. A world like that was nice in theory, but it was fragile. Someone would come along and the cycle would start again. If he hadn't killed the overlord, then someone else would have. Or else the guy would have died and everything would have been thrown into chaos.
So he has no reason to feel anything about it at all.
"You're not going to continue what he started?"
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"I believed in it because he was there. Without him...it's better to let things be. He believed in that, too. The fairness of life and death."
Death is fair, in its own way. He'll concede that much. But life isn't fair in the slightest. It was an argument they'd had before, time and time again.
You'll understand, he had said, gentle as always. But his lord is gone, now, and he feels no closer to understanding. Perhaps he never will.
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"I've given my life for two causes now. In death, I've yet to decide on my next ill-advised ideal to follow."
He grips the pot and lifts it by brute force from the hearth. The metal creaks in protest, and he eases his grip, letting it cool.
"I'm tired," he says, bitter, ashen. "Surely you understand what it means to be tired."
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"Ugh, look. I'm not actually trying to get on your case for this one, okay? I don't like you but I... respect you. I guess.
So watching you give up that easily is kind of annoying."
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That more genial humor is back, its edge a little blunted. He pours out soup into two bowls, placing one in front of Avery. He drinks deeply from his own, taking what small comfort from it that he can.
"Or does that not matter to you any more?" It's a genuine question, rather than a barbed one.
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Does it matter? Did it ever? His first instinct is to say "yes, of course," to insist that he wanted to keep everyone safe. But when he thinks of everyone, he thinks only of her, and that turned out to be one big misunderstanding, didn't it?
"I don't like it, if that's what you're asking. But it's not like I'm a hero anymore, either."
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There's an almost rueful tone to the words, like he speaks from experience. A vulnerability that lingers just enough to be noticeable, before he puts his guard up again.
"You're such a child," he remarks, looking at Avery sinking into his chair. "It's still a surprise to remember you ended up killing me."
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He sighs. "At least you're a good cook." A long drink of his soup later, he peers over the side of the bowl to look the wizard in the eye.
"So you were a hero once, huh?"
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"It would be a stretch to say so." His voice is dry. "It's where I got my fine companion from, the source of my power. And it ate me from the inside out, they deemed me a failure, and I was abandoned and exiled to the woods."
He pours them both another bowl. He drinks his next serve like someone else would drink alcohol.
"I was left to rot and branded as cursed for the rest of my days. The end."
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And these were the people he had been defending.
"No wonder." He can't blame the wizard at all. Better some evil (morally ambiguous?) overlord with weird ideas of weakness and strength than a bunch of corrupt bastards who infected others with parasites and left them to die.
At least the wizard had dragged him with him afterwards, gave him a place to live, and cooked for him, even if the man did seem to hate his guts.
"Bet you found it satisfying, seeing the whole place iced up like that."
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Is that a bad thing to say? Yes. Does he care? Not really.
All this talk about pasts and histories and he doesn't even know the hero's name. He's not sure if he should ask, or if the other man is interested in divulging it (or interested in his own.)
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"Avery," he says after a moment.
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"Ekkehardt, then," he says, at last. "It's not as if either of us lose much from knowing each other's names, now."
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It's not like it changes much. He gets the wizard's--Ekkehardt's--point of view a little more now, but it doesn't change what happened.
"We'll just consider this a truce. An official one."
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