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[hollow_king]

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

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[allgotrabies]

She laughs and wiggles her toes at him. He stays here sometimes, Horseriver says, and Annie feels a sense of pride for him. "I think I talked to him a little when I first got back. There's a lot of new faces. How'd you get to know him?"

[hollow_king]

"People come and go." And he doesn't keep track of most of them so half the time a new face is someone he probably already met.

He sits down on the bed, he's not wearing shoes, just a pair of modern slacks matched, perhaps a little incongruously with the sleeved tunic from his own world. He shrugs slightly, "We ran into each other during someone else's slight tumultuous arrival." Jedao's brief blindness, the kinship he'd found - those are too close to vulnerabilities for him to share about someone he considers a friend. "He serves well enough as company." Since Horseriver generally doesn't seek out company, it's practically a declaration of friendship, as close as he ever gets.

[allgotrabies]

"He seems pretty chill," Annie agrees, and sits down near his feet. "I met your warden, too. Odd?"

She shakes a bottle of polish and surveys his toes as if they're small canvases.

[hollow_king]

He rolls his eyes at the mention of Odd, more in slight exasperation than actual dislike. "The ghost boy, yes."

[allgotrabies]

She snorts. "Ghost boy, huh? Here, flex your foot, I gotta buff your nails." She sets to work on that and adds, "He seems nice. Way nicer than some other wardens. Has he been a dick to you?"

[hollow_king]

"He sees ghosts, I believe that makes talking to me sometimes an uncomfortable experience for him." He sounds just as amused by that as he is. He flexes his foot, idly watching her work. "He's very...nice. And very young."

[allgotrabies]

"I haven't told him I'm a wolf. I guess it'd be safe to, but..." a small shrug. She's not going to any time soon. "I'm afraid I'll get some warden who's just an unrepentant asshole, but maybe it's worse to have a really nice one. For me anyway. I doubt we'd get anything done."

She picks out a polish that will change color with his mood and works on his big toes. "Do you ever think about that? Or did you, before Odd?"

[hollow_king]

"Telling people that, in my world, led to death, I believe it's not different in yours, however different the barge is." But in reluctant semi-defense of Odd, "The only danger in telling him would be an abundance of...niceness. I am made of many ghosts, he has to see the remains and I often didn't die a nice death. His gifts might not have been ones that would led to him being killed but I think they made him - unusual."

He likes the color, he prefers the colors of the natural world to the artificial barge but he does sometimes admire the colors in clothing and other materials. "No, I did not think much about wardens at all. Except when they would come by to bother me."

[allgotrabies]

"Niceness isn't so bad, considering the alternative at home is burning at a stake," she agrees. "I just can't get past the thought of being seen as some kind of monster. I don't know maybe that's stupid of me, with all the people we've got here. And Bill."

She blows on his wet toes. "Who else is okay in the new group? Jedao seems cool if we both like him. Anyone else?"

[hollow_king]

"It is not a stupid thing to fear, one of those signs that you are not a monster." He's firm on that point, at least. He knows plenty of monsters. "Is Bill the triangle demon? He is less irritating than some." Probably not something people say about Bill a lot but he has different standards for demons.

He shrugs. "I believe Jedao's warden is also new. There is also another god-touched boy." He doesn't know if either of them are 'okay' but he also doesn't know who's new, really.

[allgotrabies]

"God-touched?" He's told her what that means, or what it means in vague terms, but she watches him with her eyebrows raised. "What makes you say that?"

[hollow_king]

"He said as much. It is no surprise, the soul of a star would be bright indeed, the gods like such things."

[allgotrabies]

"We've got a star on board? Who?" She thinks of the people she's seen and shakes her head; none of them seemed especially special.

[hollow_king]

"He looks like a boy, with red hair." He doesn't pay much attention to names and tends not to remember even when he does.

[allgotrabies]

"Huh, I haven't met anyone like that. Is he nice?" She has so little time for people who aren't. (That people would say Horseriver is not 'nice' would astonish her.)

[hollow_king]

He half-shrugs, his definition of 'nice' wouldn't be particularly complimentary and he's sure he doesn't know what hers is. "He has been used by the gods, it does not seem to have made him cruel." He smiles slightly. "I have met many young men who would refuse to claim such a word, most of them were fools so I suppose that is one test."

[allgotrabies]

"Sounds like he'd get my approval." She blows on Horseriver's toes a moment. "Does being used by the gods--being chosen--make most people cruel?"

[hollow_king]

"No, but it means a hard path, none who walk such roads come out unchanged. Sometimes it opens one to a new understanding, sometimes it is a wall, sometimes it is the destruction of all that was once worthy of merit. Sometimes it leaves them mad. This is true whether one has followed the purpose of the gods or gone through war or torture or any of a thousand different types of suffering."

[allgotrabies]

"How do you know if you're being used?" She asks, not looking at him, not looking at his toes, but rather at the first day she became a wolf, and all the death and fire and torture that has come from it.

[hollow_king]

Horseriver doesn't touch easily. In part it's the disconnect between his mind and body, in part it's just his general reserve and sardonic distance from others. So there's more weight than just his hand when he rests it on her shoulder a moment. "Those who are tools of the gods may never know or might see in the ending as they realize the shape of the purpose they have given so much to. Yet, life is often simply hard and cruel, empty of any purpose but that you can see with unchanged eyes. For the ones who lives, there is no great difference, the pain is the same."

[allgotrabies]

The pressure of his hand brings her gaze up to his, and for a second she lays her cheek against his knuckles.

"Are you free of your gods yet? Or is being dead the only way?"

[hollow_king]

"The hunt is done, I am now subject to the grasp of a different god." He is free of his gods, but he's not free. And not just because of the Admiral. "There are some curses that cannot be undone, even when complete."

[allgotrabies]

"Curses aren't a thing in my world, I don't think." Unless being a wolf is the result of a curse. But if it is, it's the best thing that's ever happened to her anyway.

"Can you tell me?" All of it, she means, but leaves it open-ended for whatever he will share.

[hollow_king]

"They are not...frequent, not usually to great extent." Small curses are different. "The curse that kept me chained to existence, it is broken now but that does not change what my soul has become, does not remove all that has happened. I will not give my soul to the gods who let such a thing happen, I just wanted an end."

[allgotrabies]

"What is your soul now?" She has never believed in such things, even on the barge. But with him, it's impossible to deny that they are real, even if just in his world.