[And so he will, gathering up some painkillers, some water bottles, and some... saltines? These are what he fed Viktor when he was still drunk, so surely they will be good enough for a hangover snack, too.
He really doesn't know anything about alcohol. The crackers will be enough.
Anyway, he heads for the Rookery, knocking on the door once he arrives.]
Hello? It's Palamedes, here for the hangover house call.
[vi has managed to walk down the stairs (it feels like a lot of stairs) - a feat in and of itself, and she's reached the bottom before palamedes arrives. she can't remember if he's been here before? using the thinkmeats ...hurts. so she sinks into a chair in the front room (which is where sansa does fittings, many of her swatches and embroideries on display) and waits, head in hands. if she squeezes hard enough maybe she can keep her brains in. her thoughts stilled.
slight exaggeration, but it feels legit.
she can feel her pulse in her palms as she sits. and when she hears an expected voice outside the door, she trudges toward it, opening, blinking into whatever light there is. she looks as bad as she feels.]
[Oh, yes, she does look terrible. He passes her a water bottle first, mostly because it's cold, and she looks like she needs to press something cold onto her... everything? Eyeballs?
Then he comes in, glancing around politely (he has not, in fact, been here before) as he heads for a spot he can unload his house call supplies.]
The tree is quite the landmark. [And,] In my professional opinion, you look awful. Come and see; I brought the kind of painkillers you can sip in a tiny cup.
[Remarkable!! It's in another, non-water bottle, specifically, but he has indeed brought what appears to be a few tiny paper cups, one of which he fills with clear medicine. The extra cups are in case she needs more later.]
[the crying probably hasn't helped. she takes the bottle, sighing as she presses it to her forehead.]
It's a weirdwood. [that's not right] Weirwood. [peering over his shoulder at the selection of things, watching him fill up the tiny cups.] Funny. Little cups are why you're here.
[she will take the offered cup, arch a brow at his statement, take a deep breath and down it like a shot. he is correct. it's awful. nearly regrettable as she fights the urge to let it back up again - she'd done that so many times already, and it feels like the correct response to something that tastes like what she imagines poison might taste like. or very old socks in liquid form.]
If I didn't know you I'd think you were trying to kill me.
[she waves to the chair in a manner that suggests even waving hurts. pal can sit there, she is just going to sink to the floor next to it as she shifts the cool bottle to the back of her neck.]
There's nothing I can say to that that doesn't make me sound like an actual murderer.
[He wouldn't need foul-tasting medicine to kill anybody, etc, etc. Never mind any quips of that particular brand; he moves to settle into the chair, pulling out the sleeve of saltines he's brought so he can lean over the arm of the chair and dangle them in front of her.
Take the crackers. Absorb the crackers. Appreciate them.]
These are for you, too. Viktor barely tolerated them, which confirms that they're the perfect amounts of dry and boring for somebody hungover.
[Take these before he just drops them in her lap. He remains leaned over the arm of the chair, like he's incapable of sitting normally.]
[she imagines it might be one of those if i wanted you dead you'd already be dead situations, which - in trench there are a fair few of people like that - d, standing out notably among them. most of the people with magic. imagining much past that just makes her brain hurt in a new way.
two crackers fall (unmagically and literally) into her lap. she does as she's told, and they're - well, a bit of a relief. practically no urge to hurl them into her lap, and that's progress. plus, they help take away the taste of the mystery liquid.]
The personal victory part's a two parter. First, I found him on the beach and didn't shove him back in. [sigh] I didn't laugh in his face when he fell, and I even got him his stupid bag.
[not gonna cry.]
I got in a fight after. It was "friendly" fire, whatever.
Then he sent me a message on my Omni. You know, that thing people do when they say something nice but they really mean fuck you, or worse?
So I did something different. Something I thought Sansa, or even Viktor---
---maybe you, who knows, might be proud of, and I replied to what he did say, not all the shit underneath it. I was actually proud of me for that, so I figured why the hell not, I'll celebrate, I deserve it.
Turns out that was kind of a mistake. Not the celebrating, but the ...amount of it. And then I puked on a guy's shoes, but he helped me get home anyway, and then I woke up to a worse message.
Which is how I got here.
[on the floor, cried out, sick to her stomach in two different ways, everything aching.]
[Oh good, she's taking the crackers with so much more ease than it took to get Viktor to eat them, the last time; small blessings. Palamedes leans his elbows on the arm of the chair here and listens - it's definitely... a lot, for what sounds like was just a single day into night.
He relates, in any case; there are people here from the Empire back home who he would really love to never see again for as long as he lives, and in the meantime he's adopted a strict policy of zero contact— so he knows, from experience, the aggravation and fury that goes into not telling someone to go fuck themselves to their face. Or digital face, as it were.
First, though, he leans a bit further over the arm of the chair, so he can reach over it and give her a friendly punch on the shoulder, which from a stickbug of a human being like Palamedes is a light tap. The sentiment is the same.]
I am proud of you. Because you're proud of you.
[It's a different kind of proud than the 'holy SHIT' kind of proud one feels when, say, Viktor punched the Emperor of the Nine Houses in the face, specifically. Broadly, he doesn't believe in solving every conflict with more conflict, but his best friend and legally assigned bodyguard is literally a skilled swordswoman, so like.
Sometimes you go in swinging, whether that's literally or with a big 'fuck you'. But the point is, he's proud of that little beat of self-actualization; that's the stuff.
The hangover, not so much.]
Think of it this way: you're not the one who stayed home all night writing tough guy omni messages, alone.
[it's a kind gesture - and she's learned (mostly) not to shrug those off, even when they're in more plentiful supply. she isn't used to it yet, doesn't trust it enough to take it for granted. the idea of anyone being willing (or alive) to care about her, even in such a simple gesture as 'here, eat these' on top of bringing the medicine to her: she will never forget this.
so when the human stickbundle punches her arm, she gives a little wince-smile, leans over just enough to make it look like it had impact, offers him a smile before lowering her eyes, opening the water bottle and taking a swig.]
Thanks, pal. [GET IT?]
[he's not wrong. but it's silco - and he's never lacked for followers. sure, some people sway where the breeze takes them, but that's not all - he attracts loyalty, like it or not. she wonders how that might play out here. any way it's sliced, she doesn't like it.]
Yeah, well. Now he's here and I have to figure out what to do. How to ...live with it.
[Yes yes, he gets it, very funny. At least 'pal' is technically his name, unlike some of these wacky nicknames he's gotten...
Anyway. The guy. Here's the rub: he has no idea who this guy is. Viktor's told him about, eh, local undercity villains, but who Vi is so wary of and what he's done? Nothing. Maybe it's that Singed guy. He'll figure it out eventually.
But with the state Vi's in, and 'learning to live with him' and 'figure out what to do' in the mix, he can take a wild guess and come up with a guy who is bad?
So:] Don't orbit around him. Keep your people informed; focus on you and on them.
[It's the thing he's been trying to express as politely as possible to people who still come up to him worrying about the Emperor of the Nine Houses being in town, as if feeding that particular fire does anything for anyone except stress people out. Palamedes is professionally Done with that one, and so whatever Vi's nemesis here- or whatever he is- has done, this is the advice: don't orbit.
Especially don't obsess.]
And I don't know this guy, but if you're thinking, well, he's dangerous— that's not your responsibility.
[what's it like to have a name that doesn't morph into 50 other words]
I have complete faith in Viktor. [He can punch now? It's hot. Anyway.] And I'm not suggesting you keep yourself completely in the dark, but I've seen what happens when people try to... isolate themselves to keep other people safe, or let their 'orbit' become the only thing they have left. I'd rather not see that happen to you, too.
[He leans his chin in his hand, shrugging. It's not easy, but-]
[Just a moment, while he twists around up here in the chair to get his bag, because he has— another water bottle!! Which he similarly dangles over the arm of the chair, like with the crackers. He's very serious about hydration, he came prepared.]
Here. And everything about this place is weird. I don't know exactly how that one feels, unless we count in reverse. [And there's really no way to explain himself without it kind of sounding like a flex, but whatever,] I'm in charge, you know? Back home. It's weird not having my people around. Leaving them leaderless.
But I can usually excise that anxiety by making something of my presence here, with these other people of mine.
[another water bottle. palamedes, you are a saint. vi owes you big time. she will take that water, uncap it and down it goes. not all, just half. deep breath. still tired, but this is better.]
That sounds like it would be weird. Hard. I ...was a small time leader when I was a kid. It was a long time ago, but I think I kind of get it.
Small time, but big responsibility. Were they your family? [and to maybe make the question less invasive, less painful, even, she will offer something up, too.] Mine were.
Some of them. Well— more than some. We're called the Sixth House, but it's bigger than a single family line. And thanks to consanguinity... [like. well.] I have a lot of cousins and second cousins and so on.
[But not every single person, for sure. Just a lot. It's bittersweet to talk about the Sixth for a number of reasons, not just that they aren't here; there's a distinct chance he'll never see any of them ever again, and that's so... it is what it is.]
As a fellow leader, I can say with confidence that it isn't any less important to be 'small time.'
[consanguinity. she's never heard that word before, so have a slightly confused look for just a moment - though she can work out that it's about blood. and follows him well enough after that.]
Maybe not. At the end of the day it was still on me a lot of the time.
[maybe it still is. the guilt sure is, in any case, and she'll likely never see hers again either. maybe it's less complicated that way.]
[A beat; he's had almost-similar conversations with Ortus, recently, about responsibility and the nature of it, the difference between embracing it and letting it burden you— he wonders if Vi had much of a choice, and whether that's why it seems to sit heavier on her now.
Could also be the hangover. He wouldn't know how bad those get.]
I was thirteen when I took up the mantle. The youngest, historically, but people make jokes about that these days. [nerd jokes.] You?
[she nods at that - it is what it is. doesn't make it easy - nothing really does that. it's harder when she thinks back on how many things she would have (should have) done differently.]
About the same, maybe a little younger, but not by much.
I was already doing it with my sister, I had to, and then, well---
---once you're already looking out for people, and realizing they look up to you, they're all looking at you? You don't just ...stop, or look the other way ...or turn it off.
[at least, she didn't. couldn't. but sometimes - not often - but sometimes - she'd wished to. she'd hated it and stuffed it down so far she'd thought she could escape it until along came stillwater.]
Then I got a surprise vacation from that, because nobody's a leader in prison, just another number. Did I tell you I was locked up for a long time? Anyway, I doubt they made any jokes about me. [would silco have? probably. but in that doublespeak-y way he'd messaged her.] His people, maybe. I was a cautionary tale, or a ghost story.
People make fun of you for that? They must be real dicks.
[Well, Camilla sometimes makes fun of him, but she's allowed. Still, the Sixth are not a bustling nest of vipers, like some of their imperial comrades; they just invented a whole culture around study group behavior, which does come with being a little awkward.
But first,] You didn't mention going to prison.
[Or anyone besides her sister, before this conversation; these two points of interest seem, hm, linked? Yikes. He's quiet for a moment, sympathetically so, before he figures he can just loop back around to the other thing, rather than go for the incredibly piercing question of 'What happened to your people?']
The Sixth allows anyone who meets the prerequisites to sit the exams, the practical trials, all of that; most people don't hit baseline for a few decades, but I'm goal-oriented. That didn't stop any of the 'little Sextus'll try taking the test to become Emperor next' jokes— that's what I meant.
And there isn't a test to become Emperor, for the record.
[But, like, he would whip ass at it, if there were? Details.]
This guy, the one who's got you out of sorts— this is the one who put you in prison?
Okay, now that I get. [they'd all done it to one another - even if it had sometimes been skewed toward her sister getting an unequal and frankly undeserved amount of that teasing, even if it was mostly (at its core) good natured.]
I didn't? Huh. I just put it out there a whole bunch, at least I did when I first arrived, so it's hard to even keep track. Letting people know what they were ..getting into, I guess. Turns out I thought it would matter a whole lot more than it does.
Sansa's mentioned houses before. Gonna guess these aren't exactly the same, so what's a sixth compared to a ...say fifth? There should have been a test.
[a look. no words past that, but a look. because you, palamedes, do not seem like the kind of guy that would piss off the ocean and kill/fuck up a dozen or more people in the process. and then complain about it.]
Put me there? Not ...exactly. Kept me there? Well, his goons kept showing up and trying to beat the shit out of me, so ...who really knows. I gave as good as I got once I got a little older. What I do know? Someone paid off the guards to keep me there. They beat the shit out of me too, by the way. There were no records of my crimes or my arrest. If he did know, he would have let me die in there [the worse crime, here:] while he was raising my little sister. He told her I was dead.
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wont say no
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big weird tree growing out of one side
-> action
[And so he will, gathering up some painkillers, some water bottles, and some... saltines? These are what he fed Viktor when he was still drunk, so surely they will be good enough for a hangover snack, too.
He really doesn't know anything about alcohol. The crackers will be enough.
Anyway, he heads for the Rookery, knocking on the door once he arrives.]
Hello? It's Palamedes, here for the hangover house call.
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slight exaggeration, but it feels legit.
she can feel her pulse in her palms as she sits. and when she hears an expected voice outside the door, she trudges toward it, opening, blinking into whatever light there is. she looks as bad as she feels.]
Hey doc.
[steps back to let him inside.]
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Then he comes in, glancing around politely (he has not, in fact, been here before) as he heads for a spot he can unload his house call supplies.]
The tree is quite the landmark. [And,] In my professional opinion, you look awful. Come and see; I brought the kind of painkillers you can sip in a tiny cup.
[Remarkable!! It's in another, non-water bottle, specifically, but he has indeed brought what appears to be a few tiny paper cups, one of which he fills with clear medicine. The extra cups are in case she needs more later.]
Regrettably, it does taste like shit.
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It's a weirdwood. [that's not right] Weirwood. [peering over his shoulder at the selection of things, watching him fill up the tiny cups.] Funny. Little cups are why you're here.
[she will take the offered cup, arch a brow at his statement, take a deep breath and down it like a shot. he is correct. it's awful. nearly regrettable as she fights the urge to let it back up again - she'd done that so many times already, and it feels like the correct response to something that tastes like what she imagines poison might taste like. or very old socks in liquid form.]
If I didn't know you I'd think you were trying to kill me.
[she waves to the chair in a manner that suggests even waving hurts. pal can sit there, she is just going to sink to the floor next to it as she shifts the cool bottle to the back of her neck.]
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[He wouldn't need foul-tasting medicine to kill anybody, etc, etc. Never mind any quips of that particular brand; he moves to settle into the chair, pulling out the sleeve of saltines he's brought so he can lean over the arm of the chair and dangle them in front of her.
Take the crackers. Absorb the crackers. Appreciate them.]
These are for you, too. Viktor barely tolerated them, which confirms that they're the perfect amounts of dry and boring for somebody hungover.
[Take these before he just drops them in her lap. He remains leaned over the arm of the chair, like he's incapable of sitting normally.]
Then you can tell me the rest of your story.
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two crackers fall (unmagically and literally) into her lap. she does as she's told, and they're - well, a bit of a relief. practically no urge to hurl them into her lap, and that's progress. plus, they help take away the taste of the mystery liquid.]
The personal victory part's a two parter. First, I found him on the beach and didn't shove him back in. [sigh] I didn't laugh in his face when he fell, and I even got him his stupid bag.
[not gonna cry.]
I got in a fight after. It was "friendly" fire, whatever.
Then he sent me a message on my Omni. You know, that thing people do when they say something nice but they really mean fuck you, or worse?
So I did something different. Something I thought Sansa, or even Viktor---
---maybe you, who knows, might be proud of, and I replied to what he did say, not all the shit underneath it. I was actually proud of me for that, so I figured why the hell not, I'll celebrate, I deserve it.
Turns out that was kind of a mistake. Not the celebrating, but the ...amount of it. And then I puked on a guy's shoes, but he helped me get home anyway, and then I woke up to a worse message.
Which is how I got here.
[on the floor, cried out, sick to her stomach in two different ways, everything aching.]
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He relates, in any case; there are people here from the Empire back home who he would really love to never see again for as long as he lives, and in the meantime he's adopted a strict policy of zero contact— so he knows, from experience, the aggravation and fury that goes into not telling someone to go fuck themselves to their face. Or digital face, as it were.
First, though, he leans a bit further over the arm of the chair, so he can reach over it and give her a friendly punch on the shoulder, which from a stickbug of a human being like Palamedes is a light tap. The sentiment is the same.]
I am proud of you. Because you're proud of you.
[It's a different kind of proud than the 'holy SHIT' kind of proud one feels when, say, Viktor punched the Emperor of the Nine Houses in the face, specifically. Broadly, he doesn't believe in solving every conflict with more conflict, but his best friend and legally assigned bodyguard is literally a skilled swordswoman, so like.
Sometimes you go in swinging, whether that's literally or with a big 'fuck you'. But the point is, he's proud of that little beat of self-actualization; that's the stuff.
The hangover, not so much.]
Think of it this way: you're not the one who stayed home all night writing tough guy omni messages, alone.
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so when the human stickbundle punches her arm, she gives a little wince-smile, leans over just enough to make it look like it had impact, offers him a smile before lowering her eyes, opening the water bottle and taking a swig.]
Thanks, pal. [GET IT?]
[he's not wrong. but it's silco - and he's never lacked for followers. sure, some people sway where the breeze takes them, but that's not all - he attracts loyalty, like it or not. she wonders how that might play out here. any way it's sliced, she doesn't like it.]
Yeah, well. Now he's here and I have to figure out what to do. How to ...live with it.
Him.
Whatever.
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Anyway. The guy. Here's the rub: he has no idea who this guy is. Viktor's told him about, eh, local undercity villains, but who Vi is so wary of and what he's done? Nothing. Maybe it's that Singed guy. He'll figure it out eventually.
But with the state Vi's in, and 'learning to live with him' and 'figure out what to do' in the mix, he can take a wild guess and come up with a guy who is bad?
So:] Don't orbit around him. Keep your people informed; focus on you and on them.
[It's the thing he's been trying to express as politely as possible to people who still come up to him worrying about the Emperor of the Nine Houses being in town, as if feeding that particular fire does anything for anyone except stress people out. Palamedes is professionally Done with that one, and so whatever Vi's nemesis here- or whatever he is- has done, this is the advice: don't orbit.
Especially don't obsess.]
And I don't know this guy, but if you're thinking, well, he's dangerous— that's not your responsibility.
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[have a meaningful look, palamedic. (that's a new one she's shared with viktor, hope you are amused)]
I know. I can't stop him from ...a lot. And you know what? I wish I could believe he did turn over a new leaf, or wanted different things, or...
[sigh. time for more water.]
...I'm scared I might have to. Orbit. And I'm not as good of a liar as I like to think I am.
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I have complete faith in Viktor. [He can punch now? It's hot. Anyway.] And I'm not suggesting you keep yourself completely in the dark, but I've seen what happens when people try to... isolate themselves to keep other people safe, or let their 'orbit' become the only thing they have left. I'd rather not see that happen to you, too.
[He leans his chin in his hand, shrugging. It's not easy, but-]
You have people; rely on them. Don't orbit.
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[another pull on that bottle and it's ...gone. is the dirty sock juice starting to work? perhaps. it could also be the venting.]
[she knows she has people. and you know what?]
It's weird, still. When I think about it. Having people. For so many years I've just been relying on ...me.
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[Just a moment, while he twists around up here in the chair to get his bag, because he has— another water bottle!! Which he similarly dangles over the arm of the chair, like with the crackers. He's very serious about hydration, he came prepared.]
Here. And everything about this place is weird. I don't know exactly how that one feels, unless we count in reverse. [And there's really no way to explain himself without it kind of sounding like a flex, but whatever,] I'm in charge, you know? Back home. It's weird not having my people around. Leaving them leaderless.
But I can usually excise that anxiety by making something of my presence here, with these other people of mine.
[Subtlety level: sledgehammer. He's insistent.]
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That sounds like it would be weird. Hard. I ...was a small time leader when I was a kid. It was a long time ago, but I think I kind of get it.
Small time, but big responsibility. Were they your family? [and to maybe make the question less invasive, less painful, even, she will offer something up, too.] Mine were.
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[But not every single person, for sure. Just a lot. It's bittersweet to talk about the Sixth for a number of reasons, not just that they aren't here; there's a distinct chance he'll never see any of them ever again, and that's so... it is what it is.]
As a fellow leader, I can say with confidence that it isn't any less important to be 'small time.'
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Maybe not. At the end of the day it was still on me a lot of the time.
[maybe it still is. the guilt sure is, in any case, and she'll likely never see hers again either. maybe it's less complicated that way.]
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[A beat; he's had almost-similar conversations with Ortus, recently, about responsibility and the nature of it, the difference between embracing it and letting it burden you— he wonders if Vi had much of a choice, and whether that's why it seems to sit heavier on her now.
Could also be the hangover. He wouldn't know how bad those get.]
I was thirteen when I took up the mantle. The youngest, historically, but people make jokes about that these days. [nerd jokes.] You?
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About the same, maybe a little younger, but not by much.
I was already doing it with my sister, I had to, and then, well---
---once you're already looking out for people, and realizing they look up to you, they're all looking at you? You don't just ...stop, or look the other way ...or turn it off.
[at least, she didn't. couldn't. but sometimes - not often - but sometimes - she'd wished to. she'd hated it and stuffed it down so far she'd thought she could escape it until along came stillwater.]
Then I got a surprise vacation from that, because nobody's a leader in prison, just another number. Did I tell you I was locked up for a long time? Anyway, I doubt they made any jokes about me. [would silco have? probably. but in that doublespeak-y way he'd messaged her.] His people, maybe. I was a cautionary tale, or a ghost story.
People make fun of you for that? They must be real dicks.
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[Well, Camilla sometimes makes fun of him, but she's allowed. Still, the Sixth are not a bustling nest of vipers, like some of their imperial comrades; they just invented a whole culture around study group behavior, which does come with being a little awkward.
But first,] You didn't mention going to prison.
[Or anyone besides her sister, before this conversation; these two points of interest seem, hm, linked? Yikes. He's quiet for a moment, sympathetically so, before he figures he can just loop back around to the other thing, rather than go for the incredibly piercing question of 'What happened to your people?']
The Sixth allows anyone who meets the prerequisites to sit the exams, the practical trials, all of that; most people don't hit baseline for a few decades, but I'm goal-oriented. That didn't stop any of the 'little Sextus'll try taking the test to become Emperor next' jokes— that's what I meant.
And there isn't a test to become Emperor, for the record.
[But, like, he would whip ass at it, if there were? Details.]
This guy, the one who's got you out of sorts— this is the one who put you in prison?
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I didn't? Huh. I just put it out there a whole bunch, at least I did when I first arrived, so it's hard to even keep track. Letting people know what they were ..getting into, I guess. Turns out I thought it would matter a whole lot more than it does.
Sansa's mentioned houses before. Gonna guess these aren't exactly the same, so what's a sixth compared to a ...say fifth? There should have been a test.
[a look. no words past that, but a look. because you, palamedes, do not seem like the kind of guy that would piss off the ocean and kill/fuck up a dozen or more people in the process. and then complain about it.]
Put me there? Not ...exactly. Kept me there? Well, his goons kept showing up and trying to beat the shit out of me, so ...who really knows. I gave as good as I got once I got a little older. What I do know? Someone paid off the guards to keep me there. They beat the shit out of me too, by the way. There were no records of my crimes or my arrest. If he did know, he would have let me die in there [the worse crime, here:] while he was raising my little sister. He told her I was dead.
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