[ open. ]

[insertdadjoke]

Who: Jacob Kane (Cain) & someone else. Maybe you.
When: October 14th and forward.
Where: All around Keeliai.
What: Hoofing it around town to get a better finger on the pulse of current happenings. If it's a place where people are, Cain could feasibly be there.
Warnings / rating: Nah.

It was really rather astonishing how quickly Cain could adapt to things. He even surprised himself sometimes, what with the fact that he had literally been pulled into another world with a universe-threatening war and only a few hours after the fact he was on the streets looking for more information. Part of it, he acknowledged, was simply that it hadn't sunken in all the way yet. Regardless of that fact, it was always smarter to push forward than stand still when the world was still spinning around him.

Early on, it was easy to see that he was pissing off some kedan just by being around and initiating conversation. Cain started to pick his questions more carefully, but it wasn't going to stop him; kedan population seemed way higher than foreigner population and that was where he was going to need to get gossip or info if from anywhere. He wasn't above pestering some people on the street or trying to get shopping done if it looked like he might get away with starting a conversation.

Hell, Cain was even willing to stoop to the old classic: "Hey, do you have the time?"

Comments

[insertdadjoke]

Cain dipped his head in acknowledgment to the advice. It was good and offered freely, and he always appreciated it when people weren't stingy with such vital information as that. (Not that he had any ground to stand on, actually, but that was beside the point.) Although the sight of the boy's neck and those inexplicable numbers gave him pause, he wasn't going to let himself trip up and give away that he had seen something most people couldn't see. That was Deathsight 101. Instead of outright reacting to the impossibility, he held out his hand once Akito was done with his task and asked, "What kind of poison are we talking here? Fatal or something even more sinister? Jacob Kane, by the way."

Far be it from Cain to assume one thing when it was entirely possible there was more to the warning than he could see on the surface. Even if the poisoned blades were simply tools of death, that wasn't anything Cain wanted to experience. It was a gigantic pain letting them kill him over and over again until the poison was finally worked out of his system.

[akito]

"Death would be preferable, in my opinion. The Taint manipulates your mind; gives you nightmares and gives you urges to cause violence and chaos, and causes you extreme pain unless you indulge in those urges." Akito eyes the proffered hand and, after a moment's hesitance, takes it; shakes it once, twice, then pulls his hand away. He doesn't bother explaining that there's no cure for it, though Skulduggery managed to cheat it a bit. Not that Akito thinks anyone else can do the same, what with having actual circulatory systems and flesh to be tainted.

"What were you explained when you woke up here?"

[insertdadjoke]

"Got the idea it was just the basics," Cain answered honestly. Everyone had been run down and overworked, in a state of turmoil due to the lack that he later realized was where the Emperor should have been. No leader in place was running the people thin and had turned them into a ticking time bomb of something going horribly wrong after a single misstep. There hadn't been a whole lot of energy or time for full explanations, although he appreciated the jist he had been given regardless.

That poison didn't sound like it was joking around, either. Even above the inconvenience of fatality, something like that would turn someone into a monster if they were untreated long enough and he noticed that the kid didn't speak anything of a cure. It seemed like something to mention if there was one at all and Cain tucked that information away.

[akito]

"Basics being don't say the M-word, where your temporary home is, and what your soul lantern is?" He honestly can't remember what he was actually told when he first arrived, other than he was expected to fight someone else's war for them.

[insertdadjoke]

"Got it in one," Cain said with an acknowledging tilt to his head. It had all seemed very routine, but very rushed and otherwise not on the forefront of the minds who were telling it to him. Learning what he had been over the day, Cain wasn't all surprised nor grudging about it now. "They mentioned we're low on supplies and things like that, too."

[akito]

"Supplies have been low since before I got here, but it's worse now than before." With nobody left to enforce proper distribution it only makes sense. Not that Akito has paid too much attention. He's been so busy that he remembers one real meal a day, if that. Despite being without Agito for so long, he's still used to splitting the regular bodily 'chores'.

"What do you want to know?"

There's too much to explain without some questions to guide him.

[insertdadjoke]

Cain tilted his torso, a full body motion hoping to convey movement. "A whole lot, but we probably shouldn't keep standing in an alley while we talk. You mind?" Regardless of if the kid was coming or not, Cain was going to start moving. He'd had enough of this area anyway, and it was probably all right to backtrack back to the Water Sector. People seemed a lot more likely to live and let live there, even if there was a pain in the ass foreigner hanging around.

After checking to see if he was coming or not, Cain continued. "My biggest question is what happened? I'm going to be kind and assume we're not actually helping the big M, so where'd that idea come from?"

[akito]

Akito follows, though keeps just enough distance between them that he can get away should this Jacob person turn out to be an asshole. "A couple of months ago Mal-nyan took over the palace and went silent, then the end of last month knocked everyone unconscious for six hours. During those six hours he murdered the emperor, Evandau, as well as five of the young turtle hatchlings under the care of Foreigners. The turtle we're on - Asti - was thought to be the last of his kind until fifteen eggs were found. Now we're down to ten children."

It's easier to talk about it if he says it clinically and to-the-point. Pretend like he has no attachment and it hurts less. "Mal-nyan then made a post to the network once everyone woke up, claiming that he would not have been able to have managed all of what he did without the help of the foreigners. I think he means those who were Tainted with his poison, but the kedanese obviously are not so trusting."

[insertdadjoke]

"Which they shouldn't be," Cain allowed with a tilt of his head. He saw the distance the kid was putting between them and that was all right; he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders for all that he was apparently a product of some sort of death experimentation. He didn't plan to prove any suspicions right (he was definitely an asshole, but not usually to kids and definitely not to people helping him out), but the wariness was probably suiting him well in the current situation.

He continued, "Guy sounds like a proper showboater. Either he's playing with all of you to show how powerless you are in comparison to him, or thinks you're an actual threat and wants to make you crumble right from your base of support. Anything being done to try and restore relations with the people here?"

[akito]

"He's an asshole, and I think it's a mix of wanting to show us we're powerless, and thinking we might be an actual threat." It makes about as much sense as anything here does, really. To Kane's other question, he can only offer a shrug. "If anything is being done, I don't know about it. There's not much that can be done to help restore the relations because we can't prove that what Mal-nyan said isn't true. Willfully or not, we might have helped him in some way. And not only that, we confronted the previous emperor about what was going on not long before he was murdered. He expected us to help, yet didn't give us information. Apparently he wasn't at all pleased when we questioned his motives."

[insertdadjoke]

Wasn't that all just a perilous pickle. Cain ran a hand through his hair before it buried down into his pocket where he could keep up his facade of acting his physical age. For all that he wasn't really speak like a young adult, it did help to give the impression to anyone walking around them and giving them the stink eyes.

"It isn't really an easy situation," he said. "Kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking bringing in another of the bunch if it was only going to make things worse, huh?" They certainly couldn't have pulled him out specifically because of the problems and expected Cain to fix it, right?

[akito]

"I don't know why they brought us here in the first place if they weren't going to give us all the information we would need to actually help." If he sounds a bit bitter about it... Well, he is. And any looks he gets from passing kedan are brushed off without so much as a blink. Akito couldn't care less about what people thought of him at this point.

[insertdadjoke]

"Do we know that they have all the information themselves?"

It was entirely possible they were just winding themselves up as having a better position than they did. Then again, the kid still had a point: even if they didn't know more, it was going to be and already was a problem that no side appeared to be completely honest with the other. Cain wasn't above admitting that he was more on the side of his fellow foreigners than anyone who plucked him out of reality because they couldn't be bothered to fight their own war.

[akito]

"They didn't have all of it, but they had more information than we did, and limited our access to places like the library."

The whole situation is frustrating. If they wanted someone to fight their war for them, they could have picked anyone else from his world and they would have been better suited for it than him. But he prefers feeling angry and frustrated to feeling terrified and lonely.

He places a free hand to the pocket of his sweatshirt, where Bird still sleeps despite (or because of) his movement.

[insertdadjoke]

"Now that's just inhumane," Cain said sagely. He was making light of the situation to cover the sincerity. Limiting access to knowledge when expecting an entire group of people to fall down and obey your whims was not going to work. Only trained soldiers knew better than to ask questions, and he doubted any actual soldiers among them would be loyal to the Emperor's cause aside.

He noticed the movement, regarded it curiously. Nothing said on it just yet.

[akito]

Akito shrugs again, not having much else to add to that. He's noted the direction Kane seems to be headed and, seeing the route he's taking, turns a different way. "It's faster this way."

[insertdadjoke]

"Where are we heading?" he asked, making no hesitation in following. Cain wasn't one to care about taking risks all that much, even if "risk" in this case was defined as following an eleven year old down a city block.

[akito]

"The Water Sector. That's where you were headed, ne?" That's all that needs to be said, really, and so he leaves it at that for now.

[insertdadjoke]

"Thought you just might have somewhere more specific in mind," said Cain with a one-shouldered shrug. "Me, I'm just wandering."

[akito]

"If you want somewhere more specific, I can show you the quickest way." Running a delivery service gave him a good working knowledge of the fastest routes, and the safest ones. "Or if you don't want somewhere more specific than the safest area to wander around, I can show you how to get there too."

[insertdadjoke]

"Know any places where the people here are a little more friendly?" He would even take indifferent, but if Cain was going to change his tact it would have to start somewhere more open to it than where he had been lurking around all day.

[akito]

"There's the Welcome Center, and then the suites where the other foreigners live..." He tries to think of more places but comes up blank. Irritated, he freezes a puddle that lingers in the shade of the alley they're cutting through. It helps to relieve some of the tension, though his movement finally wakes Bird up from its nap.

Immediately his posture switches from one of practiced caution to one more befitting his age. "Bird," he whispers quietly, exasperated but fond. "Keep quiet a bit longer, ne? I'll find some good food for you at the market!"

[insertdadjoke]

That little display of frustration was out of the blue and Cain came up short while he inspected it, putting the pieces together quickly. It didn't mean anything right now, but that the kid could use such a power so frivolously only added to the bad metaphysical juju vibe that Cain was mentally harping on.

"Bird?" he asked, stepping forward to get a better look at what Akito was doing. "Got a pet there with you?"

[akito]

Ice comes easily to him now, after having spent all of August practicing how to make it for Quintus' sake during the heat wave. It reminds him of better times - before even more shit hit the fan, so to speak. And the familiarity helps relieve some built up tension.

So he does it again, but this time just freezes the water in his canteen.

"A friend," Akito corrects Kane tersely, not fond of the term 'pet'. "It's still growing."

There's a small peep and a flash of the beginnings of a long, feathered tail; all bright yellows, greens, and blues. Clearly still being grown out.

[insertdadjoke]

That got a raised brow from Cain. He wasn't really one to mince words but if this kid wanted to equivocate a baby bird as something capable of more than just being a pet, he wasn't going to get into an argument about semantics. Not when said kid was helping him out, anyway.

"Looks pretty exotic," he commented from what he could see if the tiny thing. "You want to stop somewhere and get it food?"