From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
The last time - really the only time - he had really interacted with Vervain was when they were first brought to this place from Northaven. Everyone had been on edge, but the huntress has gone off with Remi and that small redhead to look for food, so his first impression of Ashe’s mother had been a good one. And hopefully, he had made a halfway decent impression of himself. He had never been good at judging how he presented his true self to others, as most interactions with people outside of the Guild had been with characters he created for aliases.
He sat in the rathskeller with his guitar in his lap and a partially finished drink in front of him at the counter. Kalt absently strummed at the strings with a gentle smile on his face. He had never gotten the opportunity to play so freely until he came to this world, and there was something so purely liberating about not having to constantly look over his shoulder.
Silver Wing flashed a small grin to the brunette in the room with him. ”Uh, Vai, I was wondering if you had a moment for a chat?” Kalt asked casually. He knew her full name simply from having heard it from shared company, but she had introduced herself to him initially as Vai, so that was how he opted to address her. ”You and I don’t really know each other, well, at all.” A light chuckle was added at the end of the sentence, as he was pretty damned positive Ashe hadn’t mentioned him. ”I’ve been spending time recently with Ashe, so I thought I should make a proper introduction. One preferably not followed by a savage bunny attack.” Kalt smirked at the memory. This world was bizarre. From savage bunnies to demonic pumpkins... What else did it have in store?
Unlike the young man sitting in the Rathskeller, Vervain couldn't confess to have given the other much thought at all since their encounter with a rabid bunny with a taste for blood. (For good reason - she did her best to get that out of her mind, thanks). Sure, she remembered Kalt, and he had seemed pleasant enough at the time, but things had happened since then. She had opened this place. Devrum was building them a house and had confessed to wanting to start a family. Her daughter had disappeared off into the woods after separating from her husband.
So when he addressed her so casually it had taken a moment for her to recognise in him the face of the man who had joined them on their search for food and water. When she did, however, she greeted him with a polite nod and a smile, abandoning the barrel she'd just finished rolling into place to move and lean against the bar, hearing him out where he was slouched with his guitar. "How very astute," she said warmly, smirking at the obviousness of his remark. She arched an eyebrow, however, as Ashetta's name made it into the mix, Vai cocking her head slightly.
"She hasn't mentioned anything," she murmured - important, because based on his 'spending time recently' with her daughter, she got the impression this might not be a platonic or friendly meetup. "Go on," she urged him nonetheless, if he was going to make his proper introduction. "I have it on good faith that the only bunny here has been cooked into a stew, so you should be fine."
Kalt couldn’t help the smile and breathy laugh at the bunny comment, but he didn’t verbally acknowledge it. He stopped strumming and placed his guitar on the ground, leaning it standing against the counter. Say what they wanted about his music, but his love for the instrument might have been unparalleled.
He laid one arm over the other on the bar and found the woman’s eyes, paying her enough respect to give her his full attention - especially when it came to Ashe. ”I’m not shocked that she hasn’t said anything about me,” he said calmly. ”She hasn’t said much of anything to most people since... Well, you know...” He trailed off, but he knew that Vervain would be able to put together that he was talking about the end of the relationship with Alistair. That had been when Ashe shut herself away from most everyone.
Kalt took a breath, swirling his drink in the glass gently before speaking again. ”Anyway, I’ve gotten her to talk to me, to open up finally. She’s living - mostly - under my roof with me and my daughter, Theea. Of course she still spends some nights outside, but I’m sure you know you can’t really tell Ashe what to do.” He grinned at the thought of how many times he tried giving Ashe an order back at the Guild, and how many times it failed miserably. ”You’re her mother. I know if my daughter was staying with someone I didn’t know, I would want to know what was going on.”
01-01-2019, 03:40 PM (This post was last modified: 01-01-2019, 03:40 PM by Vervain.)
"Yes," Vervain murmured. "I'm aware." For every step forward with Ashe, her daughter faced dozens of steps back. And in truth she'd thought that she and Alistair were unshakeable. That it was real. When Vai had stood among the candles and the bonfire at their wedding it had been a moment that would forever warm her heart. Having missed so much of Ashe's life, to be part of something so important was something worth reverence. Except... it simply wasn't to be. It wasn't either of their faults, in her opinion, but that didn't lessen the pain for either party.
Vai arched an eyebrow at Kalt; whether intentional or not, his comments prickled her. A stranger could get Ashe to open up, had succeeded where her own mother had failed. Still, at least she was talking to someone. The huntress scoffed and shook her head. "I don't know, actually. I've known her for less than a year - but you can bet that I'll tell her what to do in a heartbeat if I think she's doing something dangerous."
Shrugging her shoulders, Vai straightened up again. "Thank you for telling me. And thank you for putting a roof over her head, though it does sadden me that she wouldn't choose to come home."
Kalt observed the way Vervain reacted to his words, the way her expressions were so similar and so different from Ashe’s. Must be where nature came in because he knew that Ashe didn’t know her mother for most of her life. Nature couldn’t be the explanation for such similarities.
The way that the huntress reacted to his words intrigued him, however he kept a relaxed energy, perfectly masking the analytical tendencies that he could never shake. She was right of course, Ashe and her mother hadn’t known each other for very long, but did that really matter? Kalt had never known his parents, never heard stories about them, never even known their names, but he wanted to believe that if he met his mother, she would see him, really see him. It was a child’s fantasy, an unrealistic expectation for anyone to possibly live up to, but it was a small light that he had held onto in a very dark childhood.
Kalt watched the woman straighten herself, and he felt a slight frown tug at the corner of his lips. ”I’m sure she’ll return home when she’s ready,” he said, flickering an understanding smile. ”It’s my belief that she’s afraid to. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever known, but her heart is fragile, such is the way with great strength. She’s been hurt and is just looking for a way to punish herself because she is the villain in her mind.” He took a slow breath, his fingertips absently tapping a melody on the bar counter. ”I’m simply trying to give the light back to her. I’ve done it before, but never have I seen her so willingly turn to the darkness to reprimand herself.”
He had brought her back from the edge multiple times, brought her back even when he had truly started to believe she was lost. Not once had he allowed her to lose herself, and that continued into this world. Kalt had always held onto her, so no way in any hell was he going to let her separate herself from everyone who still loved her.
"Yes, that's my hope as well," Vai murmured regarding her daughter's return home. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But as she had said, for now at least she had a roof over her head and she was talking to someone other than her spider and the sounds of the forest. That would have to be enough, she supposed. Absently taking up a rag to polish a bar that needed no polishing, she glanced up at intervals to regard Kalt. He waxed poetic about her daughter, she noticed - all great strength and great fragility - and she couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
Then there was that comment - I've done it before - and Vervain really was intrigued. "Forgive me, I thought you had just met her?" she asked, tilting her head curiously. "Did you know her from Northaven, or...?" She hadn't heard his name back in the settlement, but that didn't necessarily mean he hadn't been there. But when there were others - Remi, Ronin, even Devrum, if Ashe could pluck up the courage - Vai thought it odd that Kalt hadn't come up even in conversation.
Kalt regarded Vai’s caution towards him as typical. He had never met the parents of someone he was interested in, mostly because Ashetta had been the only one to hold his eye. In Northwind, the only parent Kalt met was Ashe’s father, but he had basically been a prisoner of the Guild, so it wasn’t like there was much bonding time allowed there.
When Vervain asked how Kalt knew her daughter, a small smile appeared and was accompanied with a light chuckle. ”Uh, not exactly,” he said, raising a brow. ”We go…a little further back. I actually met Ashe when she was five years old.” He shrugged with another small smile. ”We were in the Guild together.”
There were a number of reactions that Kalt was ready for from Vai, but he wasn’t sure which one to expect. Caution? Anger? Intrigue? Better safe than sorry, so he prepared himself for anger.
His jaw feathered slightly, as he allowed his words to settle with Ashe’s mother. ”I’ve known her for almost her whole life, but I was part of the life that she was trying to put behind her.” For Alistair and the rest of her family. They wanted Ashe to be the sweet innocent girl that she looked like, but Kalt had been there for the violence, for the abuse, for the soul-sucking darkness that they had gone through. He was there to protect her as much as he could, but when he couldn’t, he made sure to be there to help put her back together. ”That’s likely why my name was never mentioned.”
01-12-2019, 11:37 AM (This post was last modified: 01-12-2019, 11:39 AM by Vervain.)
Vervain couldn't help the way her blood turned to ice at the mere mention of that fucking Guild, at the fact that Kalt had known her daughter when she had lost her, when she'd been desperately trying to find her for so long that it had seemed impossible. Her hand clenched around the rag she was using to clean the bar, knuckles white, and she took a long, long moment to consider her next words.
"Why are you here now?" She wanted to know, voice quiet. "When she lost the man she loved, when you admit yourself that it was a life she's trying to put behind her. What reason do you have to cause her more pain, other than selfishness?"
Taking a deep breath and letting it out again, she put the rag away and turned her back on him to arrange the bottles. "Stay away from my daughter," she said simply. "Or I will make you."
01-13-2019, 06:11 AM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2019, 10:57 AM by Ashetta.)
Ashe had been planning on a visit to the Rathskeller since she parted ways with her mother, when she finally left the forest behind her. She was still struggling with not vanishing entirely from everyone she knew. While she still sometimes slept out in the trees, she had been spending her nights under a roof, within four walls.. between two arms. She had gone to see Ronin, found Remi in the street, reminding her of how much she missed them. And it reminded her of how much she missed her mother.
So Ashe descended the stairs of the tavern, a curious spider peeking out from under her hood as the smell of his favorite treat wafted towards them. She brushed gentle fingers over Soot as light and warmth and the smell of wine and good food found her. A brief smile flickered over her lips, and there was a sudden thought of this being a homey place, and that perhaps her mother could make any place she went feel that way.
The whole tavern was in view then, and as she stepped down into the former cellar, her eyes found Vervain behind the bar and -
Shit.
Kalt sat across the counter from her, his guitar propped on the floor by his side.. her mother’s back was to him, but there was tension in her posture, and the look on his face did not allude to lighthearted conversation. She stood entirely frozen for a moment, her heart thudding loudly in her chest. Oh gods. She hadn’t told her mother about Kalt yet. She hadn’t figured how how to tell her about him. How was it she could possibly explain who her fellow assassin was to her?
Ashe swore under her breath, and she made her feet carry her forward. ”Mom,” she called out just barely loud enough to carry. No choice now, she thought with grinding teeth, and she promised herself she’d thoroughly wreck Kalt in their next training session. ”Didn’t think to see you here, silver,” Ashe murmured tightly as she came to stand beside where Kalt sat, leaning forward against the bar. She looked at her mother, and her stomach flipped anxiously. What had he said to her? ”Mom, I see you’ve met my … Kalt.” She stopped herself from cringing and glanced quickly at the man beside her.
Ashe’s face heated, and she busied herself with drawing Soot from behind her shoulder, settling him carefully on the bar. He teetered a moment, but Ashe kept her arms loosely circled around the spider - she wasn’t letting some fat demon cat go for her pet. She glanced between them, chewing the inside of her lip before she cleared her throat. ”How… long ago.. did you two meet?”
Of course. Almost as if it had been done on purpose, Ashetta's voice rang through the Rathskeller as Vai stacked the bottles that needed refilling and moved fresh ones to the front. She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter and her daughter alone, blue eyes troubled. "Hi, Ashe," she said softly, putting the empty bottles into a crate and hefting it to the end of the bar where it wouldn't be in the way.
"Yes, I've met your Kalt," she said without looking at either of them. "We met the first day we arrived here, if only briefly. But I would say we have only known each other for the past few minutes." Leaning down beneath the bar, she emerged with a tray of glasses that had been left to dry and were in need of a wipe.
01-14-2019, 03:30 AM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2019, 03:32 AM by Kalt.)
Kalt’s eyes hardened just slightly when Vervain warned him to stay away from Ashe. Selfishness? No. If he had been selfish, he would’ve revealed himself to her the moment they got to Northaven. Gods, he had so many opportunities to reveal himself, but instead, he remained hidden. He watched her to make sure she was safe, and he fought their Master to keep him as disconnected from Ashetta and her family as he could. If he had been selfish, she never would have been with Jasper, never would have married Alistair. Gods, he fucking wished he had been selfish.
He was about to speak again, to tell the woman behind the bar what the truth was, but he was cut off by the voice of the girl being discussed. His head turned over his shoulder with a small smile he couldn’t help at the sight of Ashe approaching. At her address of him, he simply shrugged nonchalantly, but gave her a confused and strangely satisfied glance at her comment to her mother.
Kalt’s eyes narrowed for a split second, as he brought his gaze back to Vervain, his fingers interlacing together. ”Not just yet,” he murmured. ”You aren’t gonna like what I have to say. I won’t blame you if you wanna break a bottle over my head. Won’t be the first time it’s happened.” He fought back the smirk at the memory of a bar brawl he had started in Northwind. ”But it’s important, and clearly no one has said it yet.”
If there was one thing Kalt was good at, it was talking. He knew what he wanted to say, and he knew how to articulate it. The only problem was getting people to listen to him when what he had to say was a harsh reality. Regardless, it really was important. It really was something that Ashe’s mother and everyone around Ashe just never understood, never heard. That had to end.
He looked at Ashe gently, then turned his gaze back to Vervain. ”You look at her and see the little girl that you knew... You see your daughter. You can see what everyone sees... Vibrant blue eyes...” His eyes flicked to Ashe then. ”So full of life, even when it hurts. A smile that shines brightly enough to guide a ship through a storm... A heart so pure it tears itself to pieces trying to protect the ones it swells for...” It took all of his strength not to kiss her, then and there. His self control was put to the test, but he forced himself to look back to the woman he was actually talking to.
He paused, getting himself back on track. ”It’s beautiful. She needs her mother, as any girl does, but...you’re blind to what else she needs. It’s not selfishness that brought me back. Five hells, she probably wouldn’t even know I was here if I hadn’t had to stop her from going underground.” With everything that Vervain didn’t know, he wondered if she would understand the significance of that, but he didn’t ask. It wasn’t important to the point he was making. ”I love her more than my own breath, that much is true. But that’s not why I came back.
”She was brought into the Guild at five years old. I was there through everything...her first kill, her first contract and many more after, her training. I was there the first night she was brought in when I had to use my magic to thaw out a little kid who was the size of a peanut.” He didn’t bother hide the grin, as he glanced just briefly to Ashe. Still the size of a peanut. ”Whether you like it or not, twelve years of violence and killing and bloodlust is not something anyone can just walk away from. She can’t rid herself of it through just the want to change, no matter how strongly she wants it. You - or anyone else for that matter - can’t rid her of it by sheer force of love, no matter how strongly you give it. If that was possible, I never would’ve come back. If it was possible for her to walk away, to truly and fully leave that life behind her, I would’ve stayed in the shadows and let her live her life, let her stay married and attend family gatherings and do whatever else it is that having a normal life includes.” And that was true. It was painful, agonizing even to admit, but it was true. If it had been remotely possible for Ashe to be completely free from the life that she had tried so desperately to be free from, he wouldn’t have come back.
”But that isn’t the case. She needs someone who understands her. I have a daughter, so believe me when I say I understand how much you love her, how much you want to protect her. However, no matter how much you love her, no matter how much Alistair loved her and tried to do right by her... No one could understand her without living the life that she did.” Kalt shook his head slowly and drew a breath. ”That’s why I’m here.”
"I'm sorry, did I fucking stutter?" Vervain's voice was smooth and dark, her tongue as sharp as a razor's as her grip tightened on the glass she was wiping. She turned to regard Kalt with near identical blue eyes to those he rambled on about, though her gaze was incredulous and unimpressed as she stared him down. He waxed poetic about her daughter like she was some dark angel fallen from the skies, like she was this beautiful, tragic creature that could only be healed by a touch like his own. It took all of Vai's self-control not to laugh in his face.
As he continued, truly twisting the knife in deep by daring to talk about the daughter she had never gotten a chance to know, Vai didn't break a bottle over his head. But she did throw the glass at him - hard. "Do you enjoy listening the sound of your own tripe, or is there a point to this?" she snapped. "I get it, Kalt-who-I've-known-for-five-seconds. You think you know best. You think you know it all, don't you?" She shook her head.
"You know absolutely nothing about me. What, do you think I pranced around Northwind for over a decade in a petticoat calling Ashe's name? A man who killed his own family to save them from starving to death taught me to string my first bow." Vai folded her arms across her chest to stop them trembling or launching another glass. "I travelled with murderers, rapists, thieves, ones who didn't have the skill or finesse of an assassin. Ones who had to get their hands real dirty, and live with the consequences because it was always personal."
Her lips twisted in disgust. "You have no idea what I see in her. You haven't a clue what I might understand. For instance, my daughter can speak for her fucking self, thank you."
Burning eyes flicked to Ashetta. Her voice softened, barely. "He said 'let you stay married'. Were you with him while you were still married to Alistair?"
01-15-2019, 04:31 PM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2019, 04:34 PM by Ashetta.)
Your Kalt. The sentence wasn't supposed to come out like that, and Ashe glanced quickly at him before back to her mother. The tension here was so thick she could have cut through it with a knife, and she felt every muscle in her coiling tightly. He was just leaving? The weight in those words was clear, and she found herself gathering up Soot to hang onto her shoulder. This was not the visit she expected to have with her mother, and this was absolutely not how she intended to bring the topic of Kalt to her mother. Ashe cleared her throat and looked between them, furrowing her brow. "Is there some kind of problem...?" she asked warily, and she cast sharp eyes that said everything they needed to at Kalt: What the fuck did you say to my mother?
It was then that he started speaking, addressing not Ashe, but Vai. And with every word, her heart was sinking with dread. Shit, she thought again, her wide eyes snapping towards her mother for a minute. Bad. This was bad. Ashe had no idea how her mother would react to the way Kalt was talking, and it was clear he'd already let it spill that they were in the guild together. Ashe chewed her lip anxiously before she looked at Kalt and tried to open her mouth, to stop him, to make him shut the fuck up, but there was rarely any stopping him when he decided to do something. She didn't understand those things he said he saw in her - no one sees that, don't be stupid - but she recognized the intent in his pretty words.
Ashe listened in stunned silence. Frozen. Soot appeared to sense her unease, crouching closer against her with a soft hiccup and chitter, and Ashe's hand rose to brush over him. She didn't know what to do, what to say. Five hells, she had not been prepared for this, for a conversation like this, and her mind was reeling trying to process what the two of them said.. but frustration was rising with every word spoken. Vai loved her, had fought to finally find her. It was true that she had only been in a total of four and half years of her life, but this was her mother. Her mother who had looked Ashe in the eye as her daughter held a blade to her chest, lightning curled around her throat.. and she hadn't looked away. Her mother who had held her as she broke apart under the weight Master had heaved upon her in Northaven. Her mother who had found her against all the odds.
And there was Kalt. Kalt, who knew her better than anyone, who had been there suffering alongside her and found whatever light and warmth they could in a life of unending dark. Kalt, who always brought her back when she was too far gone. Two important people in her life, and within a minute of seeing them together, they were at each other's throats. Had she expected her family, her mom, to have any understanding of Kalt, of who they were to each other? No, not exactly, but when her mother threw a glass at Kalt… Ashe's blood was boiling.
Ashe met her mother's gaze evenly and with hardened eyes, her question leaving a bad taste in Ashe's mouth. She grit her teeth. ”No,” she half growled. ”Never. I never did that to Alistair.” That her mother would think that she would… there was a time that Alistair had questioned her loyalty too. Ouch. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised - no one had ever seemed to have any faith or trust in her. ”I chased after Kalt when there was a disguised man that appeared to know me twice, but I never knew it was him.” With that she shot a glare at Kalt before returning blazing eyes back to her mother. ”Kalt didn't even show himself to me or tell me he was around until weeks after Alistair left, wouldn’t have shown himself if I hadn't been about to do something fucking stupid.”
She shook her head and squeezed the bridge of her nose with a heavy sigh. A headache was starting to throb behind her shut eyes. ”If both of you could stop this territorial, who-knows-who-better bullshit, that would be great,” Ashe said sharply as she looked up at them. She settled her gaze on her mother, and while part of her warmed at how viciously Vervain came to her defense, how fiercely she fought to be there for Ashe, her frustration was a hot coal in her chest.
”Kalt was trapped in that hell, same as I was.” She didn't say that he had been taken as a child too, that he'd been one of Master's favorites as she had been, that he knew the different breed of torment that she did. His story was his to tell. ”He might be a fucking prick,” she tossed a raised brow his way before looking back at her mother with a soft frown, eyes imploring. ”I don't care if you don't like him for that, but if it's the Guild in him you're rejecting, take another look at who your daughter is. I have never spoken very much on what my life was in Northind - I don't exactly blame you for assuming the worst. But I am telling you now, Kalt is not the enemy. I might not have survived the Guild without him, and he's been helping me survive it now,” she tapped her finger against her temple. ”Up here.”
She had a feeling nothing she said would get her mother to listen, to hear her, had probably already heard all about Ashe's talk with Devrum. The bear said he would kill Kalt, and that thought had her fingernails digging into her palms. Dev's threats might have been fierce and genuine, but none of them wanted to find out what would happen if any of them tried harm him. Hers. He was hers, and the world itself would come to its knees before her and she would go to places she would never return from should anything so horrible were happen as people she loved hurting him. That kind of betrayal...
Her eyes turned to Kalt then, and her jaw feathered. ”And you are a fucking asshole,” she growled. Her hand thumped down on the bar before her fingers curled, her eyes narrowing to a glare. ’You're dead in our next session,’ the look said, already imagining the ways she'd kick his ass the next time they trained. ”She is my mother. I don't give a shit what she does or doesn't understand about my life, it's not as if I've given her much of a chance to.” It was a painful truth - she never breathed a word of the things she had been through. The killing and bloodlust were the least of it, but talking about it… that would have made it real. Real in the way Kalt was making sure she knew it was now, not letting her pretend those things never happened to her. ”You will respect her and the things she did to get back to me.”
Ashe let out a heavy breath and braced her elbows against the bar counter, digging her fingers into her hair. ”I'm too fucking sober for this,” she muttered to herself under her breath. She didn't look up as she spoke to them. ”Neither of you know anything about each other, so stop fucking acting like you do.”
Vervain threw the glass at him, and he instinctively caught it before it hit him or shattered on the floor. Granted it wasn’t the smoothest catch, but he did manage to hold onto it until he put it down on the counter. Whether that would piss her off more or not didn’t occur to him.
Was there a point? Seriously? Did she... Did she not hear anything he said? Vai said that she got it, but Kalt could’ve laughed at what she said afterwards (he didn’t, but he could’ve). He was about to interject, about to answer Vai again before Ashetta had a chance to, but he - with an incredible amount of self control - managed to bite his tongue. Even as Ashe spoke, the man quietly sighed through his nose, jaw feathering just slightly.
He never claimed to know Vervain. He never claimed to know anything about her past or what she went through, about what she did to try to find Ashe. Nothing. His words were focused on Ashe and her well-being, but Vai didn’t hear it. Could his delivery have been a little better? Of course. Tact was never his strong suit when interacting as himself. Beating around the bush was pointless in his eyes, but perhaps he would have to learn how to do it at least a little bit.
Regardless of his ability - or lack thereof - to convey his point with elegance, he was speaking plainly without any hidden message. Vervain apparently heard accusations and judgements in his words. He was stating facts, not pointing fingers, but he didn’t understand why she wasn’t more willing to listen. He was talking about her daughter, about Ashe’s pain and the road to her recovery. As a father, he knew that he wanted what was best for his daughter, and though Theea and Ashe were very different situations, he thought the mentality would carry across. Wouldn’t it?
He saw Vai’s defensiveness almost as denial. She didn’t want to face the truth of the hell that her daughter’s life was. Kalt couldn’t blame her for that, but facts were facts. It was done. She had gone through hell for over a decade, and that was fact. And yes... Kalt wanted to come back and say that fuck yes, he did know it all. He knew it all because he lived it right beside Ashe. He knew it all because he had six more years in the Guild than she did. He knew it all because when Vai couldn’t be there - whether she wanted it or not - he was there. So yes, he knew it all, and he wouldn’t deny that. Not that he would say it aloud right then.
Kalt listened to Ashe address her mother in his defense, and he stayed silent. He didn’t need to respond. He didn’t need her to step in to defend him, but he wasn’t going to shut her down. When she turned to address him, however, his brows lifted for just a moment in confusion. There was a moment where his mind went back over the conversation, and he thought for that moment about any time he might’ve disrespected Vai’s attempts to reunite with her daughter. He didn’t think he disrespected that... He didn’t think he ever claimed to know anything about Vai or her life or anything about how she tried to find Ashe. Besides, he might’ve started the conversation, but she was the one who started the fight! He had to stop himself from pouting and pointing fingers at Ashe’s mom for starting it.
When Ashe buries her fingers into her hair, Kalt pursed his lips. ”No,” he said firmly. ”I finally got you mostly sober. No one needs your lightweight ass drinking during a serious conversation.” He took a long, slow breath and glanced at Vai, before turning his attention back to Ashe. ”Your mother clearly doesn’t want me here, so I’m gonna head home and work on my tools.” Aka, sharpen his knives, but he wasn’t about to say that in front of Vai. ”I don’t wanna smell any alcohol on you when you get home, and please just fucking talk to your mother about what needs to be talked about. It’s long overdue.” He glanced again to the woman behind he counter, then picked up his guitar and nodded to her. Kalt flashed half a grin to Ashe and would leave the Rathskeller if no one stopped him.
