CoR Boop the Badger

Realization came, and with it, anger. Broch had gotten up, started pacing, impotence turned into motion, into a desire to do something, anything - hurt, maim, destroy. His fist met the wall, and she sat, silent, turning her eyes outward, keeping watch while he had his moment, just like she'd have done for any of the Pack.

He wasn't Pack, but damn if she didn't know that feeling. Five fucking years and half of the people she'd known were dead. That was why she'd gone to Ragenard, as soon as she could, because she knew he could take it, because she knew he'd understand, because she knew he'd know she needed the hurt as much as the destruction. She knew she should forgive him for holding back, with everything else going on, but it was all still a fucking mess and everything was still knotted up together, tangled and inseparable, and there were other things she wasn't able to forgive him for, even if she could manage it for that.

And Broch had lost four hundred years, and, she suspected, everyone. So she stayed where she was, and she let him pace and she let him hit the wall until he bled, and she kept fucking watch because if anyone decided they wanted to mess with him while he was having a moment, they were going to have a fucking problem, and she was going to be a fucking problem.

The pounding stopped, after a moment, replaced with a growl, laced with pain and poison, precursor to the curses that followed. Only then did she stand, slowly, reaching out just a little and resting her fingertips on his arm, only for a moment. She didn't try to hold him or hold him back or hold him down, because she didn't know what he needed and she doubted he did either, and this wasn't the time to push him. One touch, just to be there so that he didn't have to be entirely fucking alone, and then she stepped past him and over to the axe she'd left against the wall, the one he'd been carefully not going for the whole time, and picked it up and carried it back over, blade down beside him.

"I'll go. With you."

Fuck if she knew how that was going to happen, but if he wanted to go rip up some sorry bastard in a field of corpses, what the hell. It seemed like a good time.
 
It still felt as if there was not enough air in the cart. He wasn’t done. But there was nothing more to be done about it for now. He glared at a spot on the wall, lost in his own thoughts about all the faces he’d likely never see again. The friends he’d lost, the family that was gone. All lost in a blink of an eye. Another time altogether.

He was spiraling into a dark place, something beyond rage filling the void and the numb. It filled him with something heavy, something dark and foreboding. Something he’d never felt, not like this-

Until he felt her touch. He didn’t flinch or pull away, his gaze lowering until he saw her fingers on his arm. He watched as she pulled away to go and grab his axe and lay it down beside him.

”I’ll go. With you.”

She would never know how close he was to losing himself that moment. Nor would she know that she pulled him back from losing himself to that dark that dwelled. He simply gazed at her, letting the rage slowly fall until he was at least in control. He doubted it would ever go away, but for the moment he was sure he could act without killing anyone for the moment.

He wished they could communicate better at that moment without the stupid book. He wished that he didn’t have to learn a stupid new language that didn’t exist in his time. Hell, he wished he didn’t have to be in this situation at all.

So for now, he did the one thing he knew would convey a message. He walked over, slowly so that he didn’t startle her. Reaching over he grabbed her shoulder, and pulled her into a hug.

“Okay.” He answered, butchering the word more than likely in Lutetian. He added, in Iverian, “But this is my fight. I cannae let ‘im take anyone else. Once I know ‘ow to say tha’ in yer.. Lutetian speak, I will remind ye.”
 
Rhetta didn't delude herself into thinking his anger had faded. It was still there, like a river that had been dammed off, building up behind the walls. It would be there, when he wanted to let it out. It might be there when he didn't, because things had a way of building up on their own. That was fine. If he needed to bleed it off, a little bit at a time, she'd be there. She'd done that for people before, after all. Mostly Jacques.

Broch approached, with the same sort of I know you are dangerous and I am dangerous, but we do not need to kill each other right now sort of manner she'd been using on him. Rhetta appreciated the acknowledgement, unspoken as it was. She also noted the understanding, analytically. People didn't always pick up on her as a threat. The ones that failed to do so got shifted into her mental grouping of people she didn't rely on. You didn't trust someone to have your back if they couldn't recognize a threat, after all.

The hand on her shoulder was enough of a pact, accepted and understanding.

The hug was a surprise. She didn't kill him for it, which was also a surprise for at least one of them. She could still get to a knife, anyway, and it was probably best to go through the side rather than tangle with all that abdominal muscle - he wasn't actually threatening her. Control. She could manage control. His was a dam, hers was a precipice - balanced, always carefully balanced, one nudge from the avalanche, just the way she liked it.

You couldn't defend yourself when you were hugging someone. You couldn't protect them, either. She'd learned that as a toddler, hadn't she? 'Sit next to me, Maggie, if you sit on my lap I can't keep the Pack safe.' Always make sure that someone was ready to move in case of an attack, always make sure that someone was on guard. Her eyes dropped half closed - better focus on peripherals when direct vision was useless, hyperawareness shifting to the sounds of the railyard, the scents that might indicate an attack was imminent. Mud, metal, chipped gravel, echoes of the previous rain with a hint of dead worm. Him. Mostly him. He smelled kind of all right, for-

His broken Lutetian pulled her out of that one before she had to think too hard about it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. He'd said something else, mostly words she didn't know, ones she'd look up later, if she could figure out where one word ended and the next began. She shifted, turning just a bit, opening her position enough that if anyone interrupted she'd have space to step out and shank a bitch, which let her relax a little bit more.

The odds of someone actually attacking them inside an armored bank car inside the railyard were low, she was fully aware, but she'd also spent her entire life preparing for anything, any time. That didn't go away. Prison had just made it worse, spending half of her time in solitary with no one to watch her back and no one to watch over Ziessel. Excuses to keep them apart had been frequent, and the lack of having the Bloodstones there to rely on had just acerbated what was already a fairly strict retinue of hypervigilance.

Rhetta exhaled, carefully, then nodded slightly towards the car's door. "Out? Or in?" That was about all the Iverian she had on the subject matter, with no real way to express the rest of it other than Lutetian which he wouldn't understand most of. "I don't know if you're feeling trapped in here or if this is shelter and out there's worse for you right now." People got that way, after fights sometimes. Sometimes it was the confinement they couldn't stand, other times the wide open area just seemed like a battlefield, with too many angles they couldn't watch, and it was better to stay inside somewhere that felt safer, even if that was a cage. Better to control a small area than leave yourself open to a large one, or better to be out where you could see what was coming? Without knowing what he'd faced, she couldn't guess. One of these days, with better Iverian, she was going to have to find out.

And find out who the fuck this 'Nuadha' bastard was, since she'd just gone and agreed to kick his ass and all.
 
Broch looked conflicted at the question. He did feel trapped in this cart, there was no denying that. He needed to move, he needed something to do, he needed his father’s hammer and forge.

A hammer and forge that existed 400 years ago.

He felt the lump in his throat and he had to cough to keep from that line of thinking at that moment. Trapped he may be, but he wasn’t ready to face the world outside either. Facing the world meant having to face a world that was not his own. To have to learn everything all over again. And face the fact he had lost everything.

He gently took the book and started looking through the pages, his grey eyes like dark storm clouds threatening to release the storm they held. Once he had found the words, he attempted the best he could.

“Forge? Blacksmith forge? Hammer? Clang, clang?” He mimicked the motion as he butchered the words hoping to come across more clearly. “Need work.” Something. Anything. Just to make it familiar to him again.
 
He was back to the book, searching up more words he didn't know. The one he came up with was a strange ask, but maybe it hadn't been four hundred years ago. The gestures were amusing - but also helpful at getting the point across.

The Railyard did not have a forge. Neither had the Den, of course, but... this wasn't the Den. The Railyard was still very much a work in progress. Did progress include building a forge? Was there any reason they couldn't set one up off to the side?

That was probably a Ragenard question, but who knew when he'd be able to answer it. Baron would probably be for it, he liked that sort of build-rather-than-destroy sort of thing. Desmond - probably wouldn't stop him, would he? Unless he said to wait and ask Ragenard, which was a possibility. She should probably take Broch in to Desmond anyway, so he could fill in the details of the situation with actual Iverian rather than whatever attempts she'd been making.

"We don't have a forge... yet. Not yet" Her head shook a little, then she emphasized the mutability of this situation with a shrug. "We'll see what we can do."
 
The mountain of a man sighed when she shook her head. No answer. That was fine—he could make one himself.

With slow, deliberate movements, he reached for the axe—his father’s axe—and rested it against his shoulder. The worn handle felt solid in his grip, a familiar weight, a tether to something steady. Without another word, he turned toward the door of the shattered box he’d partly destroyed and stepped out into the open air.

There was water nearby. Clay-rich earth. The means to make mud.

That would do.

He drove the axe head into the ground with a dull thud, rolling his shoulders before kneeling down. His fingers traced rough lines in the dirt, mapping out what he would build.

Not because he had to. Just to keep himself busy.

Just to keep himself from thinking too much.
 
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