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Arton left the common area as soon as Izayoi disappeared with Hien and headed into his own room without so much a word to anyone else.There he stripped off his layers of armor until he was just wearing the common clothes he wore underneath it all. He dragged his smithing kit out of his backpack and pulled the pieces of armor around him. Halfway through tinkering with the chestplate he realized that he was missing a precision tool. A quick but thorough search revealed he must have lost it at some point on the journey. He didn’t want to face Valheim’s forces again without the modifications so he pondered on who might have the tool he needed.
There was a firm knock on Eliane’s door and waited for it to open
”Sorry to bother ya, but do you happen to have some small pliers?” His upper right arm and lower right leg were tightly wrapped with bandages over his clothes, traces of red poking through the fabric. There was clear exhaustion in Sollan's eyes and overall expression, as much as he tried to hide it with a small smile.
Eliane was not so quick to retreat from the common area once they were within the safety of the safe house. With the adrenaline from the battle wearing off, she prepared a nice pot of steaming coffee with the beans she had brought along with her from Midgar, before she finally retired to her room. She had spent a lot of her special shells during that fight to shoot down those bizarre bird-things and to take special care of Reisa, so she needed to replenish her stock of explosive bullets. It was going to be some time until she could buy more, so after taking a sip of coffee, she pulled out her own toolkit to hand reload some of her regular cartridges with the more potent stuff.
She was midway through this when there was a knock on the door, but she stood up and answered.
“Oh, Arton.” Eliane tilted her head as she looked at him, but nodded at his question.
“I do, but I’m still halfway done with them,” she responded, gesturing at her handiwork at the nearby desk. Said pliers were out, which she used to pull the bullets from their casings to reload.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes.”The Skaelan officer suddenly held up her pot of black nectar.
“Coffee while you wait?”His eyes did wander over to the desk, briefly looking it over as he considered his response. It would be easy to decline, slink back to his room, and come back in a few minutes
“A coffee actually sounds great, actually. It's been a rough night.” He cracked a smirk, speaking as if she wasn't there. His thoughts were a complete mess and trying to process what he had seen tonight. Arton entered the room after getting permission and found a padded chair, likely used for reading, and let out an exhausted sigh. It was strange the one person he seemed to be able to relax around was also the one he had been most paranoid about.
”Is overthrowing a foreign occupation also what you had in mind when we started this journey?” He let out a small chuckle, reflecting on the path so far.
“Good thing I have a spare cup,” Eliane declared, as she poured him a still-hot mug of the caramel-colored drink for Arton before handing the beverage to him. She turned back to her work as he found a seat nearby.
There were light tinkling noises as Eliane continued to work on her cartridges, fitting the little slugs back into the brass shells.
“Hmm…” she hummed in response to his question.
“No. But it was a possibility that we considered…”The aroma of the coffee flowed into his nose before he took a small sip and was thankful that he had practiced restraint. Arton chuckled at her response
”Of course.” However, that chuckle soon died out after he realized Eliane was dead serious. He stared down into the swirling, dark golden liquid and nervously thumbled the rim of the cup.
You had a good view of Captain Reisa, right? Was there anything about her…that seemed strange?” Arton asked lowly. He couldn’t get her face out of his mind since they made it to the safehouse. There was a sickening feeling in his gut that he couldn’t shake. It wouldn’t make sense. She was supposed to be dead.
Eliane canted her head to the side in the way she usually did in response to certain things. In this case, it was Arton’s reaction to her words. Didn’t it make sense to have contingency plans? Taking the opportunity to take a sip of her own coffee while he played with his –and wasn’t that a waste– she kept her head tilted for his next question.
“Reisa? Hmm…” She thought back to the entire fight, recalling how strong her armor was against her bullets. She held up one of her newly refilled explosive rounds up to Arton, and gave it a shake.
“The amount of explosives I used in addition to Chisaki’s was more than lethal, but she did survive a high powered round to the chest,” she allowed.
“Maybe she’s still alive. I wouldn’t be too surprised.”Another pause.
“But what makes you think that?”The possibility that she could be dead didn't even register in his mind. It wasn't that Arton believed Eve, Eliane, and Esben didn't do sufficient damage. He took a deep sip of the coffee in his hands, hoping it would steady his nerves like a stiffer drink.
”She didn't seem to concerned with her situation.” He added before the pause, finding the courage to reply to the question that would surely follows. The time was here.
”Because…I think I…I think she is someone….I knew… used to know.” The cup trembled in his hands much like his voice. His breathing pitched as he finished, feeling ill all of a sudden. Her ruby eyes were burned in the back of his mind ever since that day. He had been unable to sleep since that first encounter because something inside him knew…that Captain Reisa…was Furi.
It had been nearly two decades since she was taken but seeing Reisa's face tonight dug up memories he thought were long buried. It was impossible to say for sure but Arton
HAD to find out and that put him at odds with Izayoi
”I lost both my parents in a bandit attack while we were traveling. There was a girl named Furi, my best friend, who was traveling with us. They took her and they might have gotten me if not for Cyth, my mentor.” He grimly recalled, failing to include the guards and couple servants that had accompanied his carriage. A secret for another time.
Eliane paused her tinkering to turn around and look at Arton after that statement. She leaned in, interest obvious in her eyes. It didn’t stop her from sipping her coffee, though. The story behind the loss of his parents was new to her, but she wasn’t the type to be good at offering sympathies, and so she didn’t offer them at all.
“I see. That woman is Skaelan?” She was assuming so, and said it with surprise before she continued, still sound skeptical and confused. “How does a little girl go from being snatched by bandits to becoming an awful Valheimer committing warcrimes on foreign soil?”
Arton looked just as confused as Eliane sounded. The Furi he knew was confident and steadfast. Her family was struggling financially but she had dreams of entering the Garden. His form slouched and his eyes looked towards the ground. Eliane wouldn't be able to help him think this through if he withheld important information
”It wasn't bandits. It was Household Guard. Their first volley killed the guards, the next hit took down the few servants that accompanied us. My father took down one and wounded another but…” He trailed off
”They would have taken me too if not for Cyth.”Arton finished the rest of his coffee before it reached room temperature. The details of his tragedy closely resembled an infamous incident in which the Overseer's, Overseer Auclair , brother and his family were ruthlessly murdered while traveling to their southern estate. There were no bodies of the attackers found at the scene nor the body of the brother's son. It nearly sparked an international incident at the time. His attention turned to Eve as evidence of Valheim's sorcery
”They made Eve, right? Maybe they, I dunno, are mind-controlling her or something.” He said exasperated.
Eliane blinked at Arton, and then stared at him with a nearly blank expression. It wasn’t quite incredulity, but it was a very close approximation for Elly. That amount of information, and that amount of
contradictory information was troublesome to process. That was significantly before her time in the Household Guards, but even so– the very idea that the Guards ambushed and killed those that they were sworn to protect was unthinkable.
She opened her mouth, raised a finger, before closing her mouth and pausing.
“Impossible! The Household Guards? Treason like that would have tainted the name forever.””Unless it wasn’t…” Arton trailed off as if something had just clicked in his mind. It was easy to throw his anger and grief towards the guard and the houses. He had accepted in his heart that they were responsible for everything that transpired. It wasn’t until fighting against Valheim and the expression on Eliane’s face that he dared to question that belief
”Valheim. It was them.” He breathed the words through gritted teeth. They had infiltrated the king of Edren’s castle so why couldn’t they impersonate a few Household guards? They were obviously skilled marksmen of their own. Guilt, shame, and anger coursed through him at his ignorance and of his blind prejudice towards his own people.
”Thanks for the coffee. I need to…go.” A deep wrath wrapped around his voice as he stood up, setting down the coffee cup with a heavy softness. His original reason for the visit disappeared in his mind.
Eliane’s eyes widened at the revelation. It was a lot to process, but it made sense. Valheimian meddling as far as Skael? And then there was Arton’s background to consider with what he revealed, too.
“Yes,” she simply agreed, pausing over what Arton had said and the implications for her and Skael. Maybe she would have to talk to someone else. For the moment, the coffee and the cartridges lay forgotten.
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