Finding Quynh PSL

[stillthrillsme]

Joe gives Nicky a tight nod and shoulders the door in, breaking the rusty lock easily. He holds his gun in one hand and his flashlight in the other, quickly directing it around the small, dingy room. There is a mattress there and a few plastic bags full of trash, but no-one. Joe lowers his gun, sighing heavily through his nose.

They've been in Morocco a week, and they can't seem to find Quynh. To his credit, Booker was able to find the place he keeps seeing in dreams pretty accurately, and once Joe and Nicky got there, a few people remembered seeing an Asian woman wander on the beach, looking lost and confused. But since then, nothing.

They've been asking beggars all over the city, interrogating merchants at their market stalls, and even hacked into the local police files to see if they had any information. Nothing. It's like Quynh came out of the water and went up in smoke. Joe turns back to face Nicky and he shakes his head, his shoulders slumping a little. 

Comments

[broadswords]

They've been turning the city inside out. Yusuf's given him a small poster that Nicky'd rolled up with great care, uses only when he badly needs to jog someone's memory. They've split up throughout the day, reuniting by evening to mull over their discoveries with dinner. But so far: nothing.

Their sister has been spat out by the sea, and... they have nothing. Nicky spends an evening pacing irritably in the living room waiting for Booker's texts to give them any location, and it's only on Yusuf's behest that he stops and tries to nap, legs stretched out on the futon on the floor, sitting up against the wall.

Now they finally have a broken lock, and a room that looks lived-in. Nicky wrinkles his nose as he glances around, picking up empty food wrappers, leaning in to examine the blanket. It hurts, that she should be here, like some outcast, some leper. He holsters the gun, going still, measuring his breaths. It's not fair.

'She was here,' he murmurs, to Yusuf.

[ironquynh]

Quynh has no doubt that it is easier than ever to leave your mark on this new world. So many things that flashed and made noises; life-like images of people and things everywhere, strange writing that was becoming more familiar by the day. The world was all around her but it was also recorded and displayed all around her, in clarity that had before taken a skilled mason decades to master.

Yet she had limited capacity to leave her own mark; everything familiar had been washed away by the passage of time, everything that had once been connected to her gone except for the blade at her waist and the necklace dangling loosely around her neck. Two tokens of the past; and now there were two more tokens of her past, wandering around this city, evidently looking for her, dressed comfortably and at ease in garb she's never seen them in before.

They look no older than they had before, but they have changed, and Quynh watches them go into the building from her perch on the steel stairs embedded in the side of the building halfway down the block.

They are looking for her, Nico and Yusuf, but if they bring salvation or damnation, she's not yet certain. For now she ties the cloth she's created to lure them to her onto the railing of the stairs. Then she climbs the rest of the way up to the top of the building, slipping away from sight, still not certain that she wants them to see her, but knowing that she needs to see them.

If they happen to look this way, they'll see the white cloth hanging from the stairs, red lines stained into it carefully by her blood; familiar lines, ones that once symbolized Genoa's flag.

[stillthrillsme]

"Maybe," Joe answers, doubtfully. He can't imagine Quynh living in these conditions either, sleeping on a mangy blanket and eating food she scavenged from the trash. Not that he hasn't done the same thing himself, not all the years of his very long life were good years, but Quynh was so bright, so clever, Joe wants to believe she would have found a better situation than this already.

He gives Nicky some time to look through the wrappers and soda cans before he heads out, his face tight with concern. He sighs and puts his gun away as well, rubbing at his face and looking up at the pollution-heavy night sky.

A flutter of white catches his attention and his eyes go wide. The makeshift flag brings back memories of the Crusades, of seeing Nicolo for the first time under that white banner stained with blood. "Nico," Joe says, gesturing for him to come closer and nodding up at the white cloth, negligently hanging from the stairs above them.

[broadswords]

Nicky hunts through for any useful pamphlet, any sign, and finds nothing. It looks like any other squatter now, and Yusuf's words start to draw him towards that conclusion. His doubt needles at Nicky. These conditions are poor, and they've lived in like, but at that time, they were at least together.

Is she alone in the desert, like she once was? He hadn't pressed Andy for details of after, when the end result was clear to them. No, he'd simply assumed that it paralleled how Yusuf had drawn him in. It's his words that comfort and heal.

The room yields no secret. Nicky makes a frustrated noise, and leaves to rejoin Yusuf.

'What is it?' he asks, but he's already found it. Fluttering innocently in the breeze, the handkerchief of a lover's promise, or something left behind as a signal. That is — in the pale light of the streetlamp, it looks too dark, too much like blood. Nicky freezes, eyes widening, and the wave of that emotion crashes instantly; he blanks into fury. 'Who has done this?' he demands, moving towards it at a brisk walk.

[ironquynh]

Her siren is drawing them nearer, and Quynh slips over the various pipes and metal this world is now filled with, ducking underneath a larger one and crouching so she's hidden behind its girth. They are armed but so is she, and while she doubts their capacity to harm her, the half millennia has eroded her trust in everything.

She still feels like she's in the water when she dreams, occasionally when she's in the middle of the street as well. Muscle memory, too used to pressure, and the oppressive current that sometimes dipped that far down into the ocean.

Quynh cocks the gun ( this one was easy to learn to use, her precision with the bow meeting with speed of which she's never seen; it took a while to knock the rust off, but she keeps it near to her. better her than the man she'd taken it from, who had been terrorizing a group of young ladies and subsequently found himself lying in the dirt, bleeding out from a severed femoral artery. the world has been cruel to her and she, in turn, has been quick to be cruel to those who are unkind in this world. ).

There is an exit, a few meters away, but the closer Yusuf and Nico come, the less likely her escape will be noticed.

And yet something compels her to stay.

[stillthrillsme]

Joe glances over to Nicky when he asks who has left this macabre display for them to see, but he doesn't answer. They both know there is only one person who could have left the old flag of Genoa for them to find.

He follows when Nicky starts heading for the makeshift flag, drawing his gun again, his eyes watchful. They get to it soon enough and Joe lets Nicky examine it, looking around with narrowed eyes. He can't tell if this is a message, or a trap. Once, he would have known Quynh well enough to be able to tell the difference. Now, he's not so sure anymore.

"She could still be there," he says, quietly. There are many places where she could be hiding, inside the derelict building. "Do you think she's trying to find us too?"

i forgot to hit post smh

[broadswords]

Every step towards the spectacle rouses some old anger — razor-thin, pulling taut. Nicky stalks forward, habit making his advance purposeful, rather than the full-on, desperate sprint he so desires. It's a well-armed trap, someone might have to gnaw an arm off to get out of it.

He pulls at the corner once it's within reach, frowning deeply. Displeasure roils in his stomach, and by the time he glances at Yusuf, ever faithfully following, his expression is black as thunder, though the colour leeches, at the soft question.

'She might be,' he answers. Who knows — that hope feels suddenly very fragile. 'Let's look around. Someone wanted us to see this.'

Re: i forgot to hit post smh

[ironquynh]

There were some things, that remain true despite the passage of time. The advantage of higher terrain, for instance, and when she hears Nico and Yusuf on the rooftop, she knows that the time for escape has passed. But what kind of reunion this might be remained to be seen, and she climbs up the ladder next to her swiftly, until she's on top of the structure, looking down at the plane of the rooftop.

Her gun is drawn at them as instinctively as she would have drawn a bow, centuries ago, and she is not surprised to see Yusuf similarly armed. The symbol has drawn them to her, and it's with a vindictive pleasure and a contradicting spike of guilt that she catches Nico's face, his indignation and that cold fury she does not remember ever being the target of.

They feel more and less familiar to her, this close. Time seemed to touch everything, and nothing all at once. But they are together - are always together - and her finger is on the trigger but she does not pull it, nor does she come down. "You look for me," she says, a statement of fact, the inevitable and yet the comprehension of it hovers just outside her grasp.

[stillthrillsme]

"Someone did," Joe confirms, reaching out.There is both fury and despair on Nicky's face, in a way that makes Joe's heart clench painfully. Still holding his gun up, Joe rests his free hand on Nicky's shoulder for a while, giving it a gentle squeeze. This is not the time for a hug and yet he wants to provide physical comfort for Nicky. He's here, the touch says. By Nicky's side, just like he's always been.

They make it onto the roof, Joe shining a light at the darkest corners, his eyebrows furrowed. Then he hears her voice, immediately recognizable even after centuries. He looks up and sees the shape of her, a dark outline against a backdrop of pollution-heavy sky.

"Always," he replies, his voice tight and rough with emotion, cracked open by the magnitude of seeing her again.

[broadswords]

Simple and powerful — the touch calls him home. Nicky stills. Yusuf is here, at his side, as he has always been. From the first day to the last, in spite of any separation. He exhales most of his displeasure. He needs no more comfort, although it may be freely offered, and also freely taken, if so. This isn't the time or place. They need to clear the rooftop.

Her voice stops his heart. Wildly, he looks for her, looking as cracked as Yusuf's voice expresses.

'Always,' echoes Nicky. She's so dark against the sky, her eyes burn — he steps forward with more certainty than he feels. He's never been the target of such an expression. Or at the business end of a gun, from her. 'Sister,' he calls to her softly, in the tongue they always shared, around their campfire, under the sky. 'Please.'

[ironquynh]

Nico's movement draws the aim of her gun, though looking at his face down the narrow barrel of the metallic thing, Quynh realizes that she has no desire nor need of drawing death forth tonight. Not right now. There has been enough death between the three of them, and so her gun falls away, though whether it had ever been a threat, she is unsure.

Her eyes scan the roof behind them, the ones next to them and across the street. There is no An, and the absence draws another spike into her heart.

At least they remember the old language, the one that has faded away to nothing in this new world.

"You have found me." That much is evident, and though she wants nothing more to fall into their arms, there is an oceans worth of weight between them, and it twists her up with anger and resentment and sorrow. "What do you want."

[stillthrillsme]

Joe tenses up when Nicky steps forward and Quynh points her gun at him, though he doesn't move to stand between them. Then Quynh is lowering her weapon and Joe takes that as permission to come closer too, coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nicky, his face upturned towards her.

There is only one answer to Quynh's question, only one thing Joe wants from her, even after all this time.

"Come with us," Joe says, softly. "It'll be Nicky, you, Andy and I. Like the old days." His eyes are beseeching, full of emotion. "You can meet the new ones, too. You'll like them. We'll settle down somewhere, learn to know each other again."

[broadswords]

Whether she had meant it in that moment — the time for it has passed, like a stone turned over. Nicky holds his ground, grateful that his beloved comes to stand beside him, as the two of them will assuredly stand together against this dark trail of water that is behind Quynh. Her loss and pain, time is enough to heal.

(Not all. Andy is — Andy is not like them anymore.)

'It can be like the old days,' he says. 'Or we will make our own new memories and know each other again. Our family has grown, but none of them took your place. It's always been there for you.'

[ironquynh]

The old days - when An promised her forever and she was betrothed to the ocean instead, left to rot and die in a cycle of maddening torture. Her gun doesn't rise against Yusuf, though her eyes snap over to him sharply, then to Nico.

But to sweep everything that has happened away, just like the currents swept away her sense of self, her identity, her life - it is a tempting though, and a bubbling rage grows in her chest as she thinks of it.

If only it were that easy.

"And if I do not want to come with you?" So long alone, perhaps that was what her life was meant for, the interlude of a few thousand years a brief respite from the way fate had meant it to be. There is no place to return to, no family she is a part of. That person is not the same one that stands before them now. "We are no longer the same."

Let the new ones take her place.

[stillthrillsme]

The words are like a slap to the face and Joe jerks, stricken. "We won't force you," he answers, quietly. They could try, but Joe doesn't want to. What good would it do, to make Quynh come along if she doesn't want to? "We can only plead, and beg for you to come back to us," he adds, his voice raw with emotion. And beg he would, if he thought it would make a difference. For forgiveness, for time, for love.

He closes his eyes to keep his emotions in check, his shoulder pressing against Nicky's for support. "That is true," he admits. It pains him but he can see it, how the ocean has changed Quynh into something strange, something unlike the sister they knew. He looks up to her again. "But it doesn't mean we cannot love you anymore."

[broadswords]

Nicky remains stony, in the lines of his body, although his expression flickers when Yusuf's grief shows all over him, torn between nursing the blow on Yusuf and trying to deal with the pain as it's struck him too. And most of all wanting to desperately climb up and embrace her, push all this away through the wave upon wave of their love and affection.

— but that is the problem. Their sister has no more taste for oceans than they do.

'And it does not mean you don't have us,' he says, building on Yusuf's words, the emotion in them stark, honest. 'We searched for you. We were just searching for you. There was no one we wanted with us more.'

[ironquynh]

Quynh's shoulders rise, her jaw clenching. "If you were truly searching, you would have found me." - though she knows that's not true. How were they to find her when she had been lost even to herself?

She turns, away from them, to the edge of the platform, dropping herself lightly to the ground with the intention of fleeing to the escape stairs. Let them continue looking, and maybe once she is able to find herself, she will allow them to find her as well.

But she cannot flee, doesn't move towards the escape stairs. Instead, she moves in the opposite direction, until she looks around the corner at where they stood, her shoulder flush with the wall. To flee, to stay, to want, to spurn. They all happen simultaneously, but the pull of them is undeniable, and after so long she craves that familiarity. That comfort. Craves them.

"Where?" Where are they staying, where are they going - where are the others? So many questions she's harbored for so long.

[stillthrillsme]

"We looked for decades!" Joe says at once, unable to bite back his anger and pain at being told he would have managed to find Quynh if he had truly wanted to. "Years and years and years spent on boats, all around that cursed sea. We asked everyone, we found every single man who was on the ship that took you. We followed every lead until there was nothing. Nothing, Quynh!"

He takes a deep breath, his heart in his throat and his expressive eyebrows tight with anguish as he watches her move away, dropping from her perch.

Hope slips back on his face when Quynh asks where, his eyes gleaming with tears. "We're staying at a hotel." He gives her the name and the street. "Joe Jones and Nicky Smith." He swallows past the emotions stuck in his throat, trying to sound calm and reassuring. "Then we'll go back to the others. Probably in London. We have a house there."

[broadswords]

Instead of opening his mouth to argue — despite the storm in his heart, something that Yusuf has snatched away deftly and now expresses — Nicky's response to the accusation is to close off, body going still, as though caught in an ambush. Yes, they looked for decades. They wept and grieved and hoped, and even now, that hope flares, when she moves so out of their reach.

'We want for you to come with us,' he adds, very quietly. Barely a whisper, like the words were not spoken at all. 'Dearest sister. We have missed you unbearably.'

[ironquynh]

They looked for decades, and she suffered for centuries more.

The gun she has slipped away into the belt of her dress, and the small sheathed knife at her breast reassures her that she is not defenseless. There has not been a time when she had feared physical harm from Yusuf or Nico, but knowing the weapon is close by stays her urges for violence. For now.

Her lips curl at the sound of those names - names of people they have grown into, another reminder of the passage of time.

She comes forward hesitantly, like a nervous bird, glancing between the both of them, ready to scatter at the first sign of movement. Step by step until she's close enough to touch them, and she reaches to brush her fingers against Nico's cheek. She's not sure what she had been hoping for, but the confirmation that they are real is both overwhelming and met with a dull emptiness. Her eyes shift to Yusuf to watch him as her fingers shift down to Nico's jaw, then further down so her thumb bumps over the bob of his throat.

[stillthrillsme]

Joe stays very still as Quynh makes her approach, his gun still at his side though he has no intention of lifting again unless he absolutely has to. He watches as she comes forward, closer and closer, his eyes dark and hopeful. Quynh's touch on Nicolo's face is so soft it makes Joe ache to reach back. He doesn't dare.

"Please come with us," he whispers when she glances over to him, echoing Nicolo's earlier plea. "You don't have to do this alone. We can do it together."

[broadswords]

If he's being tested, it is one he can bear. Nicky does not move, just raises his chin, but without the wolflike glare of a challenge. No part of themselves, body or soul, have been secrets from each other, there is no reason to begin with this now. He's not afraid of what she will do.

And any physical wound will heal.

'We will do it together,' he says, still very quietly, barely above a whisper, only for their ears. 'It was true then, and it remains true.'

[ironquynh]

Their voices, this close, are like silk against the rawness of her heart, a soothing balm on an injury that still smokes from the heat. Quynh withdraws her hand from Nicky, takes half a step to Joe, catching a tuft of his beard between her fingers as she looks to Nicky this time.

"And what if I harm you," Quynh asks; there's a madness that chases her, that spurs her hand where before she would have stayed it. A darkness that lurks, that clouds forgiveness with a prospect that she has not yet had the strength to acknowledge completely - that she will not be able to forgive. That she will slice into the only thing that doesn't heal as quickly as their flesh and bones do.

"What then?"

[stillthrillsme]

Joe stays very still as Quynh reaches for him in turn, her touch so light on his beard he can barely feel it at all. He does not flinch at the question, tilting his chin up in determination. "We will heal," he states, calmly. They always do. "And then there will be nothing to forgive." Joe expects some measure of madness -how could it be otherwise, after what she has endured? And still his loves her, his sister that was lost and miraculously returned.

Very slowly, letting her see what he is doing so she has the time to move away if she needs to, Joe reaches up, meaning to take her hand in his. "Please," he says, again.

[broadswords]

She's as connected to them as she always was. His heart lurches towards her, painfully, powerfully, almost moving Nicky forward towards her as well, yearning and anguish married and so unhappily together. Instead, he blinks, his will keeping him on the spot. Simply watching, waiting, being there. The last unspeakably small, and yet impossibly important.

'Please,' he echoes, softly. He wants to reach for her as well, but two might look like chains, and Yusuf is the better of them, more patient in his gravity. Nicky waits.

[ironquynh]

That Nico doesn't intervene is calming; there is trust, misguided as it may be, but the idea that there is space in their world to trust her...

There's a comfort she cannot deny, a swell in her chest that tips over the precipice as Yusuf's soft hand encases hers in warmth.

She's been so cold, for so long.

"I will hurt you," she murmurs. She's never been able to deny Nico of much, nor Yusuf by extension. "But I have no strength to save you from that pain." For now, she will go with them.

[stillthrillsme]

Yusuf holds her hand in his lightly but preciously, his fingers sure. He tilts his head forward at her warning, his dark eyes gleaming with tears. "So be it," he returns, quietly. "If that is the price to pay, we are willing." He speaks for Nicolo because he knows - Nicolo and he have discussed this often enough. Both of them have endured terrible pain through the centuries, they will endure this too.

"Come," he says, giving her a very gentle pull. "Come with us." Back to the hotel they have a room at.

[broadswords]

It would never be a mistake, to trust her. She is different, the sister he remembers would never have smeared blood all over his own flag, have pierced it unerringly into his heart as one of her arrows. She had never turned herself against him like that. And even if it's done now, it is simply forgiven.

He nods as Yusuf speaks. Yes, they'll endure. The joy they have awaiting once all reunited is worth every pain imaginable. Nicky moves to flank her, giving her space, and protecting his beloved's wide open side.

[ironquynh]

The last thread of resistant snaps at the lightest pressure from Yusuf's hand, drawing her towards them, taking her with them.

For so long she'd hoped, and then forgotten, brought back now by their presence ( though had it been long at all, in that coffin, throughout all that pain? ).

So much is different, not just her, but there is some comfort in the idea of having guides that are familiar with this world, and while she remains cautious and uncertain, she will try.

For herself. And perhaps, for them as well.

[stillthrillsme]

Joe wakes up with his face mashed into his pillow instead of Nicky's shoulder, as it usually is. He's also on the floor, he notices quickly, curled on top of several pillows and blankets, his shoulders hurting a little. He hasn't slept much on the ground in the past century or so and frankly, does not miss it.

He opens his eyes with a put-upon sigh, getting his bearings. He remembers managing to bring Quynh back to their hotel room the night before, and striving to persuade her not to go up to the roof to sleep. She'd flat out refused the bed so they'd made do by piling up a little nest on the living room carpet instead, hence Joe's current predicament. He rolls onto his back carefully, craning his neck to look at the others. Nicky's awake already (of course he is) and Joe reaches out to take his hand, his eyebrows arched interrogatively. Is everything alright?

[broadswords]

Nicky was particularly fussy over dinner. Yusuf had dutifully given him the takeout menus from the drawer, but the evening had been passed with several disgruntled phone calls from various takeout outlets as he requested to know more about the dishes. Eventually a little Turkish shop had been delighted to provide specifications, and Nicky had decided to enclose a little extra for the who had brought it to their door.

The boxes, practically licked clean, are stacked neatly on the small coffee table, lit by the side from the lamp. Nicky's eyes closed, then opened, watching Quynh. Yusuf's breathing had lulled him, but it had seemed clear after a while that he was meant to stay awake and watch over them both.

He reaches back at once, twining his fingers with Yusuf's. Everything is quite peaceful, and it's a pleasant surprise. He can do nothing about his own area which looks barely slept in, but for this, he will be forgiven, and it can be made up for.

After a grateful squeeze, Nicky shifts, sitting up.

[ironquynh]

The four walls they had brought her into were spacious only for a while; they move around her with care, and while one part of her demands it to be so, the other part struggles to reconcile their earnestness with what she knows herself to be capable of. She is a danger to them, just as much as she is a danger to themselves.

The cuisine of this century is infinitely more robust than that which she is used to, and after centuries of nothing but salt water in her mouth and down her throat, suffocating her... even the containers she can fish out of the giant trash vessels is edible.

Yet Nico insists on causing a scene, which is comforting in its own way. He has always been so particular in certain areas, so amiable in others. The food is begrudgingly delicious, and perhaps it's to stave off any more comfort that will ultimately lead to disappointment that she snarls at them when they try to goad her into the bed.

She spent ages suffocating in the sea, she doesn't need a bed of sinking sheets and pillows and mattresses to smother her while she sleeps. The floor is more than adequate, though the roof would be better, and she concedes to the bedding, but only so that they might lie down quicker.

Quynh had taken up the furthest most edge of the blanket, stoutly glaring at Nico, whose eyes seemed destined to stay open throughout the night. There had not been much sleep to get, and she scowls at them presently, reaching out for each other like that. Habit, surely, and one that's she's certain they take for granted.

How many years had she reached out, and felt nothing?

[stillthrillsme]

Yusuf squeezes back, holding Nicolo's hand in his gently. His eyes briefly roam over Nicky's body and the way his side of their makeshift bed looks barely slept in, his eyebrows arching a little. He knows better than to ask about it, but expect a gentle request for you to take a nap later on, Nicky.

He rolls onto his back carefully, spotting Quynh at the very edge of the blanket, glaring mightily at the both of them. "Good morning," he says for the both of them in old Ligurian, and reaches for Quynh too, meaning to take her hand in his. She can glare all she wants, that's not going to stop Yusuf from extending affection towards her as much as he can. He won't ask how they slept, because he knows. "Breakfast?" he says instead, glancing back towards Nicolo.