Nowhere Else to Go...for Now...

Alistair waited outside for the last of the patrons to leave. He could have gone elsewhere, but really...he had no clue what would drive him to come here of all places. What was he expecting from Vervain ? Understanding? Cursing? Something to tell him he was wrong in his decision? Alistair knew it wasn't wrong, that much he realized...what he had done, would have happened eventually. It was inevitable, and if it weren't Ashetta leaving him behind, as she already had begun doing so...it would have been him. It was best what he did, preserve some small remnants of good he still thought with her.

His breath drew steady as he finally entered, watching as Vervain began closing shop. "Evening m..." he was about to call her mum but stopped himself, instead he didn't wait to be asked, and began assisting with stacking the chairs on the table. Alistair was silent, his dark curls pulled back and bound tightly.

"...evening." He finally corrected himself. "How have you adjusted to all of this?" There was no need to go for the jugular just yet, perhaps some normal conversation would do him some good.

Vai knew that she'd gotten to grips with this new space remarkably quickly, so of course life came to throw her a curve ball. Not that it was her curve ball, really - no, things in her own life were very good indeed. She was just starting to clean down the Rathskeller when the movement at the doors caught her eye. Turning to apologise and mention that they were closed, she halted at the sudden sight of Alistair and a mixture of emotions flickered across her face. Then he spoke, stumbling over the word she'd grown used to him saying, and a sad smile settled on her lips. "Evening, Al," she murmured, nodding to him and finishing wiping down the counter as he went about stacking the chairs. "About as well as I can expect," she admitted. "I didn't expect to have this place, and there is plenty of game if you know where to look. Devrum and I are building a house in the woodland. Things are good..." He might not want to go for the jugular, but the elephant in the room would crush them both if it went unmentioned. "Need I ask how things have been for you?" She sighed, crossing the room to Alistair. Should he allow, Vervain would reach up to cup his face in her hands, meeting his eyes steadily. "What happened, son?" she asked. "I'd hear it from you directly now, if it's all the same." vervain where the wild things are

Alistair had given the faintest of smiles, finding comfort in Vervain and Devrum's happiness...gods knew they earned it. They paid their dues, and it was time for them to reap the rewards. "That's good..." He nodded, his eyes never leaving the task at hand even as he spoke to the huntress.

Than he felt her hands against his stubbled face and he was forced to look in her eyes. He sighed heavily into her claim of being her son. "I had no intention of you finding out otherwise...I owed it to you, to come...and speak." It wasn't like Alistair to find difficulty gathering words but here he was.

"She's gone...not from here, not from you...but from me. I tried...I tried so very hard." Alistair muttered in a voice both filled with sadness and exhaustion. "In the end...it wasn't me she wanted. It wasn't any of this...I don't know what it is or was...but it isn't me. Not here...starting to think not ever.

Perhaps I was selfish in thinking I could change her, bring her something she never had before...love...just, love..." Alistair shook his head.

"It wasn't enough...it had never been enough...and I will have to live with that. Ashetta has the rings...they were meant for another...not for me, or us...not anymore. I would not tarnish the importance of them...I love you very much mum...and I always love Ashetta...but her path is her own...I would not linger and tarnish the good I still hold for her here...and here..." he would gesture to his head and heart respectively.

"Mind her...please...I still hold hope she will find a way...it just won't be with me." This time Alistair would cup Vervain's cheeks and kiss her forehead. "I suppose...before I go about settling my own path...could trouble you for a drink?" Had she refused he would certainly understand, and he half-expected Vai to do so. Either way, Alistair waited none the less.

Vai listened quietly and without interruption as the man she had come to see as her son spoke, and much as she loved her daughter - and she did love Ashetta dearly - she could see the pain of her unpredictability written all across Alistair's face. He said he had tried and she believed it fervently. This was the man who had taught her daughter that there was more to life than pain and fear... she was just sorry that Ashe couldn't accept it. "There is no shame, Alistair, in wanting to love someone. In wanting better for them," she said softly, letting her hands fall away and smiling sadly as his lips pressed to her forehead. "Just as there is no shame from walking away from something that is causing you so much hurt. I'm so sorry, that she couldn't find peace with you." There was more she would have liked to say, but it didn't feel right; like it would be some kind of betrayal to Ashe, to let any further words slip out. A drink, though? She could do that. "I hope you plan for your path to bring you to the Rathskeller on a regular basis. If you think I'm going to stop checking up on you, you're sorely mistaken." So saying, Vai motioned to one of the barstools and moved behind the counter to fetch him a drink. It was liquor, and strong too, the former huntress sliding it across to him and tipping him a wink. vervain where the wild things are

"You're took kind, much more than I deserve. Thank you...mum." Alistair attempted to look happy she accepted the offer but could only muster a pathetic attempt at a smirk as he made his way over and propped himself onto a stool. When the drink arrived he trailed a finger along the rim of the glass before pulling it back with a silent wince.

"I don't know exactly where my path will lead. Just, one of those instances you feel, with utter confidence you understand the world and how it works...just to realize it is something else entirely.

Never had a family of my own, at least not by blood...I was spared the kindness of a fine man, elder and wise and just, the purest of souls." He recalled fondly with his time growing up as the adopted son of Ishmal back in Northwind.

"It was a fool's dream, to have a family. A dream that felt so real I nearly smelt and touched it...so vivid it was. Living out our years in peace that proved so illusive...I had a son and daughter, hair raven black as their mother." Smokey voice muttered as tears welded but fought against all logic not to slide off his cheek. So they remained and shimmered.

"The same dream, every night...to see her smile so completely...just mirage now...smoke in the wind. One I'll have to force from my mind..."

Alistair stared at the empty glass and turned to Vai, asking without asking for another round.

Vervain

Vervain leant against the other side of the counter as Alistair accepted his drink, the former huntress not having bothered to pour herself one, but she did leave the bottle out. She had a feeling he might need it. There was no objection of him referring to her as if they were still officially family - she'd always be his mother, if that was what he wanted. She was just sad that things had ended the way they had... even more so as Al continued to speak. "Not a fool's dream. Never," she murmured, reaching out to rest her hand on his forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It might not be with Ashe and deep down, that sounds like it was for the best, Alistair. I think we both know it." She sighed deeply, refilling his glass the moment he looked as though he wanted it. "I'm so sorry, son." There didn't really seem to be much more to say, much as she might want to. "Maybe it's time for you to focus on yourself, for a change. You were everything to my daughter, and I mean that literally. You cared for her so much I think maybe you lost yourself..." vervain where the wild things are

Alistair nodded, Vervain was saying all of the right things. She was a mother, it was in her programming to know exactly what to say and how to say it.

It was hard to debate her, even harder to hear her make sense. "I lost myself...but never saw it because I put so much of myself in trying to protect her, give her a chance to be more than what she thought of herself as...you can't save everyone...lesson I was due to learn."

He double-took a glance at Vervain realizing what he said just as he was about to drink. "I didn't mean..." Alistair huffed, embarrassed by his accusation. "...I wish her to be happy, to be safe. As long as she has you and Devrum I know she will be...I didn't mean to say she wouldn't...

Suppose you're right though. There's nothing for me but to try and rebuild what's been broken...and I will, it'll take time but it'll happen...and I'll be all the wiser for this...just..."

Fingers reached up and rubbed between his eyes. "...Perhaps a change of subject before I talk in circles of my misery...thank you though, mum...for listening." Alistair smirked, more genuinely this time hoping she knew to refill him again.

"There's something I never told anyone since arriving...At some point between Northwind, and arriving here...I saw my father. Not a vision, physically...I saw him. I was in his study, a scattering of books and contraptions and all sorts of...organized madness." The latter chuckled as he shook his head.

"I saw him...and he looked so happy to see me. He told me he was proud, and had been watching me all this time...however I ended up there, time was limited...but he gave me a mask and said to mind it, it wasn't quite finished, but it would prove of value to me.

This sounds like madness I know...but when I woke here, I looked to the side and I was holding the very mask he gave me. It's at home...haven't the mind to even try to see what it does. Never saw anything quite like it...but it was a small token, compared to actually seeing him...there was so much I wanted to ask, but time...never enough time. Before a word was spoken on my end I was here...madness right?"

vervain It would be a lie to say that the idea of her daughter being beyond salvation didn't send an icy shard right into Vai's heart... but this wasn't about her right now. It wasn't about Ashetta either. Her daughter's demons were many and they were strong, but it simply wasn't fair to ask or assume or hope that one man could forsake himself in order to keep them from baying at her door. "It's okay, Al," she murmured, smiling sadly and nodding to him as if to absolve him of any embarrassment. "I know you didn't mean it like that. I hope for her to be happy, too... but I also hope for you to be happy, more than anything." She shot a smirk right back at him as he decided on a change of subject, Vai reaching out to top up his drink almost as if she had been waiting for it. If Alistair got drunk enough to need to be carried away home, she'd do it - just this once. Especially given that she was the one plying him with it. To hear that he'd seen his father, though... Vervain tilted her head, sinking down onto a barstool opposite him, fingers drumming musically against the bottle. "You mean to say your birth father?" She resisted the urge to ask how he knew it was him, swallowing her questions down to listen to the rest of the tale. "Madness... that's certainly one word for it, Al," she murmured, leaning an elbow on the counter. "But madness doesn't give you evidence, does it? You say you have the mask at home... it can't have been anything but reality, if that's true. And we were pulled here at random, for a reason we still don't know... is it truly so far-fetched?" In the grand scheme of things, it didn't sound that bad actually. "What does it do? The mask, I mean. What does it look like?"

ALISTAIR "Sounds even crazier hearing you speak of it..." Alistair confessed with a faint grin, even a chuckle. As he shifted glances between his glass and Vervain . "Yes...my birth father. All these years I felt a part of me was drifted way, like a message in a bottle...you never really know if it'll ever be found. If it is, you would never know anyway...yet there he was. Can't explain how I knew, but I did...just as you would know Ashetta had you never met her...there's just a sense." She had asked about the mask and Alistair shrugged, slightly embarrassed he had no answer for her. "As for mask, I don't know...seems rather unremarkable...but he seemed intent to warn me to mind it. There has to be something more to it than simple decoration. I just don't know how to activate it...that or I perhaps part of me is afraid to." Again Alistair chuckled and shrugged. "I haven't the head to even really study it more than a passing glance anyway...but enough of my wallowing pain. I speak anymore of it and I'll drink you drink of your business and that leaves us an a rather awkward crossroads..." Stubbled, more sincere smirk shared as he took Vervain's hand and gently curled his own around her fingers. "You always seem to know what to say and the exact moment someone needs to hear it...for your kindness...for your acceptance and love, I can never repay you."

Vervain listened intently, propping an elbow on the bar so she could cup her chin in her hand, a small frown on her face. As fanciful as Alistair's story might be, as she had already said, they'd all been through something she would have considered quite impossible if she hadn't been living it. If he said he'd seen his father - that he knew it was him - then she believed him wholeheartedly. Which just left the matter of... why? A smirk flickered across her face. "I'd challenge you to drink me out of business," she murmured, sitting up again and ruffling a hand through her hair. "Well, if you ever get the time or inclination to study it a little more, I'm more than happy to look at it for you as well. There are a lot of stories about masks... and even a few weeks ago I'd have told you not to take them seriously. Now, though... who knows?" She shrugged. His hand curled around hers and Vervain gave it a warm and gentle squeeze, smiling across the counter to him. "I'd hardly say always," she said. "And I would never expect you to repay it, Alistair. I give it freely, always. Tonight and every night after. You joined my family and you'll stay part of it, if that's what you want." vervain where the wild things are