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Everyone knew who Warci was by now. Not only had he been one of the first of the Heiress’s army, but he was also too dang friendly for his own good. He talked to everyone, performed wherever there were the most people, and had bought every single of-age person in the Hamlet a drink at least once (or convinced them to buy him a drink, if he was feeling less generous). He’d observe his audience and appeal to them, altering his material wherever needed (he could be clean for the kids, but he could also belt out long strings of cusses that’d make a sailor blush). Simply put, he was accessible--a people’s hero. It made him popular among the Hamlet’s residents, and that popularity ensured that he never overstayed his welcome in the barracks. He always had somewhere to go, or people to entertain.
Warci was friends with the entire population of the Hamlet, it seemed, especially those few he fought alongside against the horrors in their backyard. He’d mentor Pipin, gossip back-and-forth with Siggy, tease Villehardain until he finally got a smile out of her, follow Maynet around on her walks with musical accompaniment, spar with Fontemai, purposely touch anything Bosanquet told him not to touch, on and on and on. He had time for anyone and everyone, his companions especially, and he would fight to the death to keep them alive.
Piquiri could understand that motivation. It was the only reason Warci was still alive to drag him to the tavern, anyway.
Ever since that day in the Cove, the jester had practically been attached to Piquiri’s hip (when compared to the others, anyway). Saving his life had made them instant best friends in his eyes, and again, Piquiri could understand. It was irritating a good half the time, but he could understand it. Besides, it came in handy to have a “best friend” whose entire job was about cheering people up. Warci only needed to take one look at him to decide he needed a break and was going to get one whether he wanted it or not.
Now that Piquiri’s head was cluttered with something other than the memories of his latest outing, any annoyance towards the fool sitting across from him was smothered under gratitude. It wasn’t about drinking to forget, that was a failed venture from the start. It was about familiarity as much as it was about the liquor. A tavern was a tavern, and in his experience, a tavern was home. The only difference was that for once, he wasn’t sitting alone.
Neither of them was drunk enough to devolve into complete incoherency, but neither of them were sober, either. Piquiri’s lingering instincts never let him get completely wasted (though his high alcohol tolerance meant he didn’t need to monitor himself). Instead, he preferred just enough to take the edge off and make his day a little less terrible. Warci, it seemed, preferred to drink to match. Another example of him changing his methods to suit his audience.
Piquiri knew that was all that was because when the crowd formed (everyone knew Warci, of course they wouldn’t be left alone), Warci had no qualms with getting utterly trashed. He also had no qualms with gradually wearing Piquiri down until he loosened up and properly joined in with the fun, or whatever this little outing between friends had turned into. “Public performance” felt like the right word. Warci was practically glowing from the crowd’s attention, and was the one who spurred on practically everything that followed. Piquiri wasn’t the kind of man to enjoy this kind of thing (he honestly thought it a little childish) but he also wasn’t selfish enough to ruin this for the jester. So, he went with it, albeit with some resistance.
They all found themselves telling stories about anything and everything, especially strange or hilarious things they’d witnessed, causing the bar to fill with uproariously laughter and snarky comments. Piquiri’s turn came up and he picked the first memory that came to him. It wasn’t a special story. It wasn’t even funny. It was just some little tale about this kindly florist and her daughter who Piquiri had encountered at some point in his solo career. Still, the others ate it up anyway, making jabs and left-field remarks that would’ve inevitably led to tangents had Warci not climbed up onto the table.
“Alright alright, ladies and gentlemen!” Warci clapped his hands a few times to get the crowd’s attention (and drew the attention of everyone in the bar by accident). “It’s been a pleasure, really, you’re all beautiful as ever, but I’ve gotta be the responsible one for once and get my dear friend here to bed. He’ll get cranky if I don’t tuck him in!”
Piquiri vaguely remembered threatening to hit Warci over the head with a bottle. He remembered blatantly not meaning it, but he could’ve sworn he saw him flinch, just a little.
“See? There he goes already!” Warci turned his attention to Piquiri, jumping off the table and grabbing his arm, pulling him to his feet. “I know buddy, it’s already so far past your bedtime. C’mon, we’re going home. Barkeep! Put all this on my tab!”
The barkeeper didn’t even look up (the Heiress always paid her soldiers’ tab, he had no reason to suspect trouble). The crowd started to disperse, shouting their scathing forms of goodbyes as Warci dragged Piquiri back out of the bar by his arm.
The perpetual autumn chill was like a slap in the face, sobering Piquiri up just enough to notice how odd this all was. It wasn’t that late yet, and Piquiri still wasn’t anywhere near drunk enough to be cut off, especially not by Warci of all people. And still, Warci was so insistent, even now, holding his arm in a death grip as he pulled him towards the barracks. For once, he was totally silent aside from the faint rattling of his bells, and he kept his attention fully locked forward. No looking around, no wandering, no commenting on their surroundings, no jokes at Piquiri’s expense or his own, no pulling out his lute “for the effect,” nothing.
Piquiri felt his nerves prickle, and not because of the cold this time. Everyone knew Warci. Everyone knew how he acted and how he thought. They knew what he wanted them to know, anyway. Piquiri was beginning to realize that he didn’t know the man leading him through the Hamlet’s dead streets at all (then again, Warci didn’t really know him either, now did he?).
Warci changed course, and the two of them ducked behind the blacksmith’s shop, long since closed down and dormant for the night. He stopped, let go of Piquiri, and turned to face him. His mask’s eyes cast heavy shadows over his true ones, but Piquiri could still feel the intensity of his gaze.
“That woman you talked about. Her and her kid,” Warci spoke. “Do you know anything else about them?”
Piquiri blinked. “What’re you talking about?”
“The woman and her daughter! From your story! Come on Piquiri, I know you didn’t have that much, so answer me!”
More than anything, it was the complete lack of any humor in Warci’s tone that left Piquiri at a loss. More uncharacteristic behavior. His fingers twitched, longed for the hilt of his dagger. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I’m not taking any more chances.
He forced back his instincts, the alarm bells sounding in his head, shut them out before they could get any louder. There was an explanation for this, clear as day. “Why, are they yours?”
This time, Warci definitely flinched, shrinking back. He took a moment to collect himself, shaking his head and rubbing at his ring finger. “...Once. Doesn’t matter now.”
“Sounds like it matters a lot if you dragged me all the way here just to ask about ‘em,” Piquiri noted.
Warci shook his head again, violently enough that it caused his bells to sound. “Gods Piquiri, stuff it! You saving my life doesn’t entitle you to my life story! Just answer the Light-forsaken question!”
While Warci snapped at him, Piquiri saw his hand brush against his dirk’s hilt. Reflexes kicked in, instincts flaring up with a vengeance. Warci froze at the realization that he was suddenly staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Hands away from your belt, Warci,” Piquiri warned.
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” Warci asked, placing the offending hand on his hip. Still too close. “Went through all that trouble saving my head just so you could mug me behind the Blacksmith’s? After I bought you drinks and everything? You think you know a guy...”
“No,” Piquiri growled, eyes flickering from Warci’s face to where his hands were positioned. “I don’t want to shoot you. Never did. Still don’t.”
“You say that, but you’re still pointing that there gun of yours at me. Go on, I know you’re tired of me and wanna kill me dead, and I’m not afraid to die. It’s just the two of us--you don’t gotta lie to me.”
“I don’t. I’m not.”
“So what’s your problem? You a yellow-bellied chicken or something?”
Piquiri took a deep breath. Alright, this was where the conversation was going. He supposed it was only fair, considering he’d been poking at whatever things Warci had buried.
“In my line of work, survival comes to the guys who shoot first and ask questions later. If you ain’t the one pulling the trigger, you’re the one getting shot. Friendship or honor among thieves”--he felt sick just repeating that phrase--“didn’t do jack to change it, either. Only made it more likely to happen.” He gestured to Warci’s hand, still too near the dirk and sickle hanging from his belt. “Hands away from the blades.”
Warci paused, watching him carefully, before slowly removing his hand from his hip and therefore, from his weapons. “You could’ve just said that from the start. I can be a fine fool without help.”
“Me saving your life doesn’t entitle you to my life story,” Piquiri parroted, the slight smirk audible in his voice as he holstered his flintlock. “But now that I’ve told you some of mine, it’s only fair for you to tell me some of yours. Call it a trade.”
“Nope. Nuh-uh. Out of the question.”
“Not even if I sweeten the pot by telling you more about those two girls?”
That got Warci’s attention. He rubbed at his ring finger again, mulling the offer over.
When Piquiri looked back at all he knew of anything, he had no idea why he was so interested in picking at Warci’s brain. Questions would get you killed a mere second after asking them back in his old trade. But he wasn’t partaking in his trade anymore--he’d abandoned both it and his gang long ago. The game had changed.
He wanted to know just who this beloved jester was. Who he really was. Piquiri was tired of being locked in this limbo of pseudo-security. He wanted either to be able to trust someone again, or to duck out before things got ugly.
Warci heaved a sigh, crossing his arms. “Fine, fine, let’s get this over with. Ask your invasive questions.”
“Relax, it’s only the one,” Piquiri replied. “Just curious about why you’re going on about your family not being important when you’re chomping at the bit to hear any news of them.”
“Back up, I never said they weren’t important,” Warci hissed. “They’re very important! They’re...they...they were everything to me.”
Piquiri quirked an eyebrow. Warci turned away, leaning back against the wall of the Blacksmith’s.
“I had the most beautiful wife in the world. You’ve seen her, so you know how pretty she is, but trust me, she’s just as drop-dead gorgeous on the inside as she is on the outside, and she’s sharper than any sword this guy here could make.” Warci loosely knocked against the wall with the back of his hand.
Piquiri nodded along, leaning back against the wall beside Warci.
“We knew each other for our whole lives, from when we were little anklebiters getting into all sorts of trouble to...the last time I saw her. She was always there, and I was always hers. That was how things were, and we were happy.” There was more to it than that. Warci’s tone betrayed it well enough (it was so clipped and forced, hiding the full extent of his feelings. He was doing it to protect himself, to just recount facts instead of feelings--Piquiri recognized it well).
Warci scuffed up the grass with his foot, shaking himself out of his melancholy for a moment. “I see lots of guys whining and moaning about how their wives get on their nerves, but y’know what I think, Piquiri? I think that says a helluva lot more about them than it does about their wives. Next twit who goes spouting nonsense like that is gonna be my next assistant.”
Piquiri snorted. “Going straight for the jugular, huh?”
“You know it!”
Piquiri shook his head in pity for whichever poor soul Warci was gonna catch in his crosshairs. The jester had a reputation of publicly humiliating his audience participants--or assistants, as he called them--unless they were children, obviously wouldn’t be able to take it, or he was just feeling charitable. This was obviously not one of those times.
“Give the guy time to fire off a quick prayer or something,” Piquiri said. “You haven’t finished answering my question yet.”
Warci deflated. “Right, right. Yeah.” He looked ahead, pausing for a moment. “...You said I have a daughter?”
“Yep. You leave before she was born or somethin?”
Warci curled in on himself, crossing his arms again. “You just had to come right out and say it, didn’t you? Went and spoiled the punchline.”
“Then tell a less obvious joke next time.”
“Ouch. I open my heart and soul to you and you insult my jokes. Guess I know what kinda friend you are now.” There was the slightest jump of amusement in Warci’s voice now, though, and the distraction had gotten him to loosen all that tension coiled in his posture.
“Never trust a bandit, Warci.” Piquiri counted this as a job well done.
“I’ve gathered...you are gonna tell me more about how they’re doing when we’re done here, right?”
“Relax, I’ve given up my life of crime. You’ll get what I owe you. Now, we’re almost done, back to business: why’d you leave?”
Again, Warci flinched, shying away from Piquiri as if those three words had physically snapped at him. He took a deep breath, turning his eyes upwards. Despite the near-constant gloom that hung over the Hamlet, it had one of the brightest night skies Piquiri had ever laid his eyes on.
“...I was offered a job in a nobleman’s home,” Warci explained, tone closed off once more. “I’d be their personal jester, and I’d get room and board. My wife couldn’t come, but I’d hoped that by taking his job, if I somehow did well enough, I’d be able to pull her up the social ladder with me.” He barked a laugh, harsh and without mirth. “What a crock that was. You can’t ever please a noble. Why do you think they live in such fancy palaces? Because nothing’s enough for ‘em. All they do is take and take, feed off of us and then get mad when we don’t got anything else to give.”
Warci’s hands had clenched tight into shaking fists by this point, but he remembered himself and let the anger roll over him and off his shoulders. “So I took from them. An eye for an eye and all, a life for a life. I took back what was mine, and I walked out of that place, that town, that whole area, and I never looked back.” He tilted his masked face towards Piquiri, not quite looking him in the eye. “There. That good enough?”
“You’re looking back now,” Piquiri stated.
Warci started, as if personally offended. He stood up straight and looked ready to argue, but he stopped for a moment and his bravado abandoned him. He leaned back against the wall, defeated. “I guess I am, but I shouldn’t be. It’s not like I can just go running back to them like nothing ever happened. Like I don’t have the law on my tail, or like…” He hung his head, the worn and battered appendages of his hat hiding him even further. “...like I didn’t leave them in the first place. My wife has a hundred reasons to hate me, and my daughter doesn’t even know me. I shouldn’t even be calling them my family anymore. The Warci they knew died in the palace, covered in noble blood.”
...And yet, you still love them like he did, Piquiri finished, but he wasn’t here to argue or to try to change Warci’s mind about his place in life. This whole friendship thing made that surprisingly difficult to remember, but once again his social hesitations prevented him from saying things he’d regret. That’d be going into things too hard and too fast. They weren’t at that level yet--Piquiri wasn’t ready for that yet.
But he still remembered kneeling beside Warci on the rocky floor of the Cove. He remembered the sickening smell of blood and seawater, and the lingering scent of decay. He remembered arguing with Marci about whether or not they should take off Warci’s mask, because the gutted jester was barely breathing and he wasn’t about to let him die here after they’d just won the fight. He remembered Warci’s voice, broken and frail, begging them to leave it on.
He understood why now.
He couldn’t just let this slide. Some soft, long-buried part of him was revolted by the very thought.
“Warci, take your mask off for a second,” he said, before he could hold himself back again.
Warci looked straight at him this time, bells rattling with the sharp turn of his head. “What? Why would I do that?”
“I wanna check something. Won’t be long.”
Warci rubbed at his ring finger again before shrugging. “What the hell, I’ve already shown you more of me than I’ve shown anyone in years. What’s one more bit?” Resigned, he slipped the mask off, and finally looked at Piquiri with eyes Piquiri could look back at.
Thanks to the Hamlet’s radiant night sky, Piquiri could make out a few details of the famous town jester. Warci looked a bit younger than Piquiri had been expecting. He clearly wasn’t in the same age range as Villehardain or even Fairfax, but his freckled face still had some youth to it. He was clean-shaven (as much as anyone could be around here), and some strands of dark curls poked out from under his hat, resting against his forehead. His eyes were a dark enough brown to nearly be black in the low light, if not for the hints of amber that caught whatever light they could.
All of it told hints of who Warci used to be, before the Hamlet, before the nobles, back when he felt he had a home to go back to. It could only give hints, though, hints muffled underneath the scars that littered his features. Most of them were old and relatively small, but Piquiri could make out the famous burn marks he’d gotten during Vvulf’s attack on the Hamlet (according to Fontemai, he’d taken a bomb blast at near point-blank range for Villehardain. Piquiri still couldn’t believe he’d survived that, if that was true). His nose was a bit crooked, having clearly been broken a few times without being set properly. His lip had been split, and his eyes with their brilliant amber flecks cast such dark, exhausted shadows under them.
Warci shifted his weight, eyebrows knitted together. “Well? You done checking yet? Because if you’re gonna be staring at me like I’m some kinda work of art--first of all, I’m flattered--then I’m gonna start charging a fee.”
“Yeah, I was right. Your daughter looks like you.”
Warci froze. It was strange, being able to see his expression change when all anyone had to go off of before was his voice and body language. It was strange being able to see him stare at Piquiri, dumbfounded, mouth hanging slightly open (Piquiri had noticed at least one chipped tooth, so he added that injury to the pile). It was even stranger to see him almost smile, almost be genuinely happy, if it wasn’t for the wave of grief and regret that weighed down his brow. He turned his whole body away, furiously wiping at his eyes with his arm before Piquiri could properly notice the shine of tears. The mask was back on a moment later.
Piquiri left it at that, and kept his end of the bargain. He told Warci all the extra details he knew about the woman and her daughter. He told the full truth of everything, of the hard times they’d been going through and of their resilience and optimism despite it all. He painted a clearer picture of them, especially of the child Warci never got the chance to meet, and Warci hung on every word.
Piquiri didn’t once lie to him, but he did neglect to mention a few things. He didn’t tell Warci about how his wife got through each day by holding out hope that her long lost husband would find his way back to her door. He didn’t tell Warci about how she’d told their daughter so much about him that the sweet little girl already admired him and would get angry at anyone who’d suggest that she didn’t have a father.
Piquiri didn’t tell Warci that his family missed him as much as he missed them. It was too late for that kind of news. The Old Road took its travelers to Hell, and Warci had been neck-deep in it for over two years. No matter how much it hurt, he’d put the final nail in his own coffin by coming here.
He could never go back. Not anymore. None of them could.
Best he think there was nothing to go back to.