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[hollow_king]

[You never know, he might respond to a message. If he feels like it.]

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[callmefives]

Fives gives it a couple of days--for more reasons than just waiting out his supposed inmate--before he seeks Horseriver out. When he finds him he pauses at the common room door and raps his armored knuckles on the door frame to get his attention, rather than just barging in. At least he has his helmet off... and tucked under one arm, but he's not wearing it.

"I don't know if you've checked the network." He'll give him the benefit of that doubt. "But we've been paired for the month."

[hollow_king]

Horseriver is lost inside himself, a confusion of partial souls and a deep well of memory which has not been helped by his recent experiences as someone who wasn't any of him and yet was. In it's way, almost a familiar feeling but not - and it hasn't done anything for his mood. Still, he's aware enough to hear the knock and even turns slightly to look the man over. He takes Fives in, expression full of a sardonic amusement.

"You would be the new 'warden' then. What strange calendar we keep here. So, is there some reason you have sought me out?"

[callmefives]

"Because it's my job to. You didn't answer my message on the local network, so here I am."

[hollow_king]

"Is it? What would you say your job is, exact?"

[callmefives]

That... he's honestly not entirely sure of, which is a continuous source of low level anxiety to a man who's used to always knowing exactly what his purpose is and how he should be accomplishing it. "To keep an eye on you, to provide you with whatever you might need that the barge doesn't already provide." That seems to be all that's expected of temporary wardens.

[hollow_king]

He snorts. "As I said to the girl, you sound like a house warden except with even less power. Keep an eye on me? What is there I might do in such a place as this? You cannot provide me with the only thing I need. There is no use for you at all that I can see." He doesn't see much reason to be pleasant to anyone but especially not those who claim some sort of 'responsibility' over him.

[callmefives]

"Given how often people seem t'turn up dead or things get wrecked, more than you'd think," he points out. And he's trying to be patient and calm, but he's so kriffing frustrated with these temporary pairings, with inmates who have no interest in trying to work with him, or even accepting that he might be willing or able to help them in some way.

"What's the one thing you need, anyhow?"

[hollow_king]

"All I need - the only 'right' one has - is to be allowed to vanish into the emptiness of death. But I have been informed that only the Admiral can make that happen."

[callmefives]

That... more than takes him aback. He's spent so much of his incredibly short life struggling desperately to survive that the idea of someone simply wanting to die is almost unimaginable to him. "Why do you want to die?"

[hollow_king]

He sighs. "How many lives must a man live before he's allowed to die, to leave the world and consciousness behind forever?"

[callmefives]

And that catches him even more off guard, because he knows of plenty of incredibly long-lived species--though he tries not to dwell on the idea, given how brutally short his own life is designed to be--but he's not sure what to make of the idea of multiple lives. "How many have you had?" It's part curiosity, part buying time to think.

[hollow_king]

He shrugs. "I could not say, indeed, living is not truly the word for what my existence has been down these last centuries. Sixteen generations, perhaps, or more, and if I had the family line written before me perhaps I could list my deaths but it is not a number I can recall easily."

[callmefives]

"... how does that even work?"

[hollow_king]

"Do you know anything of magic?"

[callmefives]

"Not a kriffing thing."

[hollow_king]

"Then I am not sure that you would understand."