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"The power of oaths and words." Normally, with how he was feeling, he would have hunkered to mention any of it, as much as someone his size could ever actually make themselves smaller. He didn't know how to explain it really- he didn't have any of the books or stories he'd grown up with there. Even when he did as a child, no other kids in school understood or felt the same when he pointed to the fetters, to the rings and to the oath words and how they seemed the same.

"We have very little power. But one of the things we can weave are words. Words and ideas are what moves everything. The sworn word is a knot that binds a man to many things. It makes a knot in his fate to the things he swears to and by. It is like the knots of the Norns. Breaking oaths turns the sharpness of the world on the breaker. The weapon bends and shatters, the lover scorns, and all good things and truth comes against the one who fails his own oath or cannot be trusted to keep his words and his truth." The street with its walk and don't walk, puzzled drivers trying to write off strange dress as early Halloween enthusiasm, paced by. Even as he stomach flipped to be talking about so close a topic to his heart, he was still calmed to have the mans hand in his own. Kairatos hadn't let go, and didn't seem about to. It was something in all the drowning, a solid tie still like the tree that maybe would be some help to survive.

"It is important not to swear by things not worth it then, because a man can bind himself too much, or in ways where his death and dishonor are unavoidable."

"I am worth no oaths."
Thoughts of eating or ordering food as they found the diner entry doors were long by the wayside in his thoughts, mostly unheard in the roar of the rest in his ears. *Gjöf sér æ til gjalda. My gift of service was given back. My word on sword ring and blade...what is the return of that?

It is as well all true. I have done so little since my promotion. I have only talked to enemies. I have brought no honor home to offer the throne, no shields or rings of fallen foes, no rope bound captives, no new lands to pledge. I have done nothing at all.
Oh gods, it is deserved.
I am no boon. I have lived ill virtues. 'I hesitated... I weighed', not 'I fought... I avenged... I endured...'

"Even Jarl saw that. No...just Obsidian. I cannot call him title." Titan let go of the knight's hand, drawing his back like he didn't want the man to catch illness.

Titan didn't move back from the hand returned to his shoulder. It drew his attention more sharp again, more present, but without malice or fear. It was exactly the sort of reassurance from a companion that he needed in that hour. A friend to just be there, real, and tender in heart while buttressing in body.

"He has a reputation. It was deserved. The ranks of the Konge and Kvaen are for those who can lead many. Maybe he was that once, but it has not been so for a long while. " There was no dumbness in taking the truth of that reputation for what it was. At the darkest moments, Obsidian was as dangerous to other officers and nobles as he'd been to the enemy.

"It will never be," Titan shifted, stepping forward and hugging the knight around his bull-decorated shoulders. It was a gentle hug, a little uncertain. That the Bull of Mars was a measure shorter made it a little awkward, but at least the man was athletically built to provide a substantial girth of presence.

"He broke my oaths to him. "

Sadly for Titan, he didn't have enough vocabulary to really work around what 'profound' meant more than someone who was really good at finding things often. Or had done a really great job finding something already. It jumbled around for a few moments with the very off-putting idea that The Bull had been recruited on such terms. It cheapened the service, having no want greater than power for its own sake. Or that was the impression given. Maybe he'd wanted the power for a reason.

"We were not given a choice in our conversion. " None of those brought into that back room as the doors closed and Howlite had approached them each. Death hadn't even seemed on the table. It was just automatic that those who resisted were held as she'd plunged her hand into their chest. "But I had known Obsidian before, and I looked for him. He'd spoken before that I could earn the bearing of a warrior, the rights to protect and serve. "
That first meeting, amid a few other instances, was well burned into memory from long review and adoration after. "Swear yourself." It was almost a purr. "To me, and no other. Make me believe you."

"' To be of his drótt, his war band, and to try to become the stallari. Into battle, be my disgrace that Obsidian be surpassed in valour, a disgrace not to equal his valour, an infamy to survive him and returned from the field. I oath to defend and protect, to give my deeds to his renown. To fight for his victory, my rewards his love for me and keeping. Betrayal's reward is death, even by his blade.' " Reciting the oath again, shattered as it was, felt like glass in his throat, thickening hoarse at the end.

"It was on my life, but I am not dead." It was said mostly into the fluff of Kairatos' hair, given that the man was so much shorter. Why am I not dead? Because I was unworthy.

Very reluctantly, the captain let the knight have himself back, rather than hug-mauling him more.

'Used to race' connected vaguely to the report that had been tendered to Laurelite regarding the missing Realgar. There had been some sort of accident, there was probably newspaper archive somewhere of it, the details of which they hadn't sought out. Alkahest would have been the one for that, regardless.

One of the waiters appeared to wash the doors, probably sent by the manager to make sure there was no battle going on out there between costumed folk. With none going, the man set to spraying and wiping, not emoting either way about the hug or close conversation.

Picking up pieces, from an oath sworn on life? It doesn't even make sense. It wouldn't be impossible, I guess, but it isn't even supposed to be.
But it is.
I am alive, so I can go forward or I can stop. It is simple. These days have shown pretty plain that I'm not going to just fade away and stop existing. If I want to die, then its my business to do something about that. And if I don't...then there has to be something else. There is still the Sovereigns, still Metallia.
“The Negaverse is a former shell of itself. It’s broken at the core--and it isn’t getting any better.”
"Maybe you’ll fix the Negaverse. Or maybe you’ll leave it, too. But don’t succumb to temptation like I did."

Obsidian had withdrawn first, when his meaning was broken, into the Rift. He said himself he'd given in (thank goodness for context clues) to the temptation of ruin. Two last orders, one was to not do so himself. Ladon and I stayed by him. Pulled him out and helped him glue some things back together, or find pieces to substitute new ones. New normal. New goals. Kairatos is trying to point out that I'm at the cross roads where I either start finding my new normal, or I break one of the last orders and ...follow ruin. Wherever that leads...maybe to Bazzite.

"Maybe. " But he wasn't confident. Wolframite was pretty volatile himself since his demotion and branding. He wanted to see the small man again, but for help ? It might be asking to draw water from a well that had none for others. He didn't want to drown Wolframite's chances of recovery by needing for his own. That felt like a decision. The certainty of considering what steps to take meant something for neither following ruin nor doing anything rash in more immediacy. Titan amended, "Probably not."

Walking to the door and startling the waiter-washer back from them before the man remembered they were also customers and hurriedly held the door open for them both.

"But it's always that way. People are busy." Having to come to decisions and then put in the effort. Its nice when there is support, but there's usually not. It doesn't make a difference in the fact that it still needs doing. Like Colin moving away for so long, or like 'growing up' and not having Anna there. It makes it harder, but then I just have to work harder, ja? Ja.