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The bar is in its late night peace, where wandering souls call it a half-home for the night. A guitar player politely plucks some strings in the corner of the tiny, long empty stage. A new face for his traveling band, he had a hard time following the rhythm, so he’s thoughtfully strumming a melody for the milieu, trying to read it like all the good musicians seem to do. The old barkeep has that old man view on life and rarely shuts the door on the people lingering in his keep. The residents of this village know him by hard hands and soft heart, and repay him with respect. Nary a ruckus has been seen in this establishment for near twenty summer nights, nor twenty winter colds - a little haven of safety well loved and yearned for. A charm of small towns.
The seats are worn yet have only been restored, never replaced. By now could be as hard as petricite wood itself - and someone could use them as good alternative weapons in a fight - but, presently, they idly abuse Locke with an uncomfortable rest. He supposes that demon hunters should be grateful for even that.
His leg gets lightly bumped on under the table, and it jolts him and his companion more awake.
“Sorry,” sitting across, Shauna’s shadowy eyes glare at her drink. Her skin is still pale, lips tinted a pitchy crimson, streaks of grey in her midnight hair. If he didn’t know her since childhood, he would have guessed she was arriving her mid forties - but that’s what happens when a demon indwells a person. They feed off of bonemarrow and soul, making one suffer the worst kind of sickness imaginable - dying. He can’t categorize how far along she had been with that creature on her back - most possessions he’s hunted down have just barely been saved in the nick of time due to sheer luck, or hadn’t been lucky enough -, but he’s sure she’s survived this long due to her hot temperament… and he’s sure that’s how she got possessed in the first place, as well. Fiery characters like her shine bright and burn up quick.
He would never say this aloud, least of all anywhere near her - but he wants her to slow down. Meander to a trot rather than a sprint; stop and smell the flower or some shit. At a pace like this, and finding her in situations like these, he gets a dreadful feeling he won’t see her again if they part ways after this inn. Gazing at her now, she looks so… at the end of her road.
To pull him and her out of their gloomy, sleepless thoughts, he bumps back at her leg, gaining a sharp look and glare. Protector, those eyes were like bolts to his soul; it makes him grin.
“Hey, drink not to your linking?” he nods at the half-drunk mug.
She huffs through her nose, but looks down somberly. “It’s too sweet,” she murmurs in her alto voice, then pushes the wooden mug towards him with purpose of not seeing it returned.
Locke’s eyebrows rise above his pink crystal glasses. He glances between the drink and her disappointed face, and points at the drink and then himself. “And you think I like sweet drinks?”
Her eyes don’t even study him, she just knows: “You knew Nile’s every stash, and had the guts to put the blame on me.”
“One time!” he quickly corrects, remembering vividly the runaway down the halls from pure murder on his heels. “But don’t you think my tastes have changed?” he doesn’t reach out for the drink - not yet -, because he wants to see her reaction. It shouldn’t be anything - from his memory, she drifted away from everyone after her parents' deaths. She’d most likely scoff him off, say nothing, go back to her thoughts in silence. Yet… deep in his unguarded chest, he hopes to get a glimpse of the past girl he was awestruck by in a single glance.
…Nah, that girl was long gone. He only has memories of her now.
He watches her sit still in her seat - and he’s not sure if he saw it right, but something flitted down her eyelashes. Like momentary… sadness. The realisation kind - time having passed by and moments turning into years. He sees her brows draw in a smidge, then her lips thinning in a line to control herself. Though another emotion flies through her and she does the unimaginable. She looks back at him as if she’s trying to piece together history she wasn’t there for.
“You don’t like sweets anymore?” she asks; the alto makes it sound rough, but it is genuine.
His mouth falls open. Dumbfounded; completely. Nervous; for good reason. Charmed; pathetically so.
“I… nah, you got me,” he quickly breaks for the drink to busy himself. “Demon hunter pay doesn’t give much allowance for candy, so thank you.” He takes a sip - yep, this kind of sweetness could kill her. He wonders how she managed to drink half of it; probably out of spite, not wanting to admit her mistake of ordering the wrong drink.
Over the brim of the glass, he sees her eyes lose that confusion and morph into her usual no-nonsense stare. “After all these years, you’re still bad at lying,” she leans back and folds her arms.
“I am the most honest man I know,” he jokes with the usual while finishing his drink.
Of course, Shauna doesn’t laugh. Not even a courtesy smirk. She looks to the barkeep doing his solemn thing, and he can see the gears turning in her head. Planning her steps carefully, measuring the time between daylight and nighttime, counting the leftover bolts and how long she can hold out. He sees her decision before she needs to say anything.
They get up simultaneously - her, sharp as a knife; him with a cat’s easiness -, and she glances back at how quickly he follows her plan. Leaving through the creaky door, she puts on her red glasses and paces away from residential building to speak between only them.
“You still live in Brookhollow?”
“Main ward here, actually,” Locke rolls his shoulders, emphasizing the heavy, cursed seal on his back.
“Then you know where the suppliers are,” Shauna locks him with an expectant answer.
He tilts his head, not giving her his smirk, because he’s, again, trying to read her thoughts. She avidly hates the occult for their use of magic - a deeply ingrained Demacian thing, and her parents practicing it behind her back. She uses the same, basic, silver weaponry he does, since they were trained under the same archery teacher, but, in demon hunting methods, she seems to have a rule of only using silver. No salts, sigils or elixirs; pure fury on the demonkind. She can read seals, as he’s gathered from their little walk-and-talk to this town, but who taught her what inquiry hasn’t escaped his lips yet.
“I may,” he answers provokingly, and it does pinch her brow, “but, if you want to not get blacklisted from every shop three caravans down the road, you’ll hafta let me do the talking.”
She folds her arms: “You think I’m going to shoot a merchant and pillage their wares?”
“Mmm, yeah. Yeah, with the kind of people selling the kind of things around here, you’d probably do that,” she makes the grin slip on so easily.
She catches the underlying message, and something ancient flushes over her features. A grudge, deep in her bones - and, with the world he sees through his special lenses, tiny, raccoon-like eyes pop into the woods; awaiting for the kindling to catch fire and invite to dance in the flames.
Her glare has pure emotions. “I don’t understand how you could so easily fraternize with those… magic wielders. I’ve heard how they say they can protect and heal others; demons say the same, and they flay us like pigs. Lies, Corvin! They lie. Magic lies.”
Locke’s lips downturn again; the moonlight reflecting on his lenses and hiding his eyes infuriates Shauna more.
He responds quietly: “There are some lies we have to believe for our own sanity.” His head turns towards the long hushed, tightly knit houses: “Like these people living here. They lie to themselves all the time, telling themselves: There are no demons in the Wyldwood. Telling their children: There is nothing in those woods that will snatch you up.” When he turns his tinted glasses back at her, her glare hadn’t lessened, but her shoulders eased: “The fact they do believe in lies is what keeps them safe. And what keeps our job easier.”
“So what you said about my parents - was it a truth or a lie?”
His fist tightens: “I would never lie to you, Shauna. Come with me, and I’ll show you how deep this side of the world goes. You just need to... not kill the first mushroom eater we see. Deal?”
The way her crimson lenses tint her eyes is… fearsome. It runs a tingle down his spine with excitement. “...Fine,” she concedes.
A heavy silence hangs over them. He realised there that they have walked two similar yet different paths; and he would like to know what happened to her in these absent years, but her porcupine prickliness will take him some time to get through.
…Porcupine prickliness. Porcupine. Heh. She kind of resembles one; and she really does bring a grin on his lips easily.
That same grin draws her attention, and she asks why he smiles so much.
“When I’m happy, I smile,” he responds airily.
There’s scepticism on her brow: “In a job like ours, what could you possibly be happy about?”
You. Seeing you again.
“Going shopping together!” he finger-guns at her. “I always wanted to go shopping for the occult with a buddy!” He turns on his heel to be the one guiding the walk now - and so she doesn’t see the flush starting to rise on his face. Luckily, she trails after him while she complains.
“I… no, I’m just looking for pure silver. I’m not buying any of those koo-koo dolls, or the likes.”
That makes him bark a laugh and turn half-way to her: “You mean voodoo dolls? Haha, I’ve heard regular people using them as sort of ‘revenge’, but they can’t actually use their power. But man, there are loads of other interesting stuff I gotta show you! I once bought this purple, glowing potion, and now I understand why no-one trusts any liquid that they can see through.”
“Ugh, I don’t see you for ten years and you’re drinking sludge now,” she comes to his pace, and the space between them is comfortable. It’s not the same friendliness she had towards him when they were children, where she bumped his shoulder affectionately, taught him where she aims to make the perfect mark hit, or read with him a book late in the night in their shared space. He misses those summers, but at least he has this now.
“You ordered and drank a drink you didn’t even like,” he cheekily responds.
Her composure breaks a bit as she throws her arms open: “I didn’t know that was a sweet drink! You’re living around here; could have told me, you ass.” She lightly kicks him under the shin, which gets a laugh out of him, and she curses. “Corvin, you’re dirty!”
He looks down at his ash-caked shoes and hems of his clothes. It’s so usual, he often forgets even the feel of it. “We got through a demon fight, Nile’s well was overgrown, and you are as dirty as me. That barkeeper was a saint allowing us to even walk in. And did you just call me an ass?”
“Ass for being dirty, ass for lying. It looks like you’ve been walking through fire.”
“You… wouldn’t be off the mark.”
She looks at him with a strange look; like she doesn’t want to believe that the pieces she’s connecting are aligning. Her gaze turns sour again before he can ask.
“After re-supplying, I want to go back to my estate. You can come with me, and whatever we can’t speak of in these parts, we can talk things out there. I want to know what you’ve been up to,” the offer is thrown out then and there.
His eyes widen at the opportunity. Is that… care he hears in her voice? That unexpectedly makes the ashen butterflies flutter in his chest. Best not tease her for that, though. “Oooh, an estate. Y’know, I completely forgot you were an aristocrat’s daughter. Can we throw one of those posh parties? I’ve never been to one, since my mom always sent me away, but I always wanted to know what happened in them.”
“They’re dreadful, so no, we are not doing that,” Shauna classily dismisses his teasing and looks to where the sun starts to rise above the forest canopy. “But other houses send courtesy chocolates, and I’ve been having a hard time getting rid of them.”
He sees it as invite once more and happily gasps, and puts a hand over his heart: “Shauna, you know the way to a man’s heart.”
She turns her head - and, although her eyes have her usual glare, there is a cunning smirk on her lips. For a second, he thinks he’s conversing with Evelynn yet again. “Who says I will be giving any to you?”
His smile wilts and his pace slows down: “You wouldn’t?”
This time, when she half-turns to him, he swears he can feel the summer breeze from fifteen years ago. She walks ahead of him, all confident and proud, healthy and bright like she always had been, with that little head tilt and smirk that made his heart skip a few beats - looking back at him with an invite to forget about training and run away from Nile’s tasks. To find adventure just there, over that creek - in that ancient oak tree that kept all of their stories and secrets. Among the tall rye grass that hid them like hares; and in the poppy fields that outstretched far to the mountains, where the white and blue kingdom sat like a faraway dream.
She huffs, and it’s as close to a laugh as Locke will get from her right now. “There’s only one way to find out.”
His grin jubilantly returns. “After all these years, you’re still using bribery to get me to follow you, huh,” he happily hurries his steps to reach her side again.
“You would have followed me, anyway,” she turns to the slowly illuminating road ahead.
Their pace falls in rhythm, and he can’t help but continue this thing that’s flowering again between them: “Don’t you think I’ve changed?”
Glancing at him, she knows she doesn’t need to think on that.