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It had been barely a couple of weeks since Grizzop left him at the temple. Since no one came back. He was still not used to the shackles yet. To the lack of magic drumming beneath his skin and humming in his ears whenever he needed it. Nor was he used to the wind and rain, cuttingly cold on his barren head. They were helping, the cuffs. Almost as much as they hurt.
It hadn't been easy to trace Zolf's footsteps to this place. After Prague, he basically vanished. Reports of a dwarf with watery legs cropping up for barely a week, traceable only to the nearest temple of Poseidon until all he had had to go on was rumors. Then nothing.
According to his information, Zolf should be in there. "Taking on the storms" his contact had said. What ever that meant.
With a deep breath he opened the doors.
There was only one dwarf in there. He sat at the bar, stark white hair cropped much shorter than Dwarven custom, Oscar's eyes flickered to the legs, barely visible in the shadow of the bar but definitely not liquid. No gift from Poseidon in sight. Not the blond hair he expected. But when the dwarf gestured to the barman and ordered another drink it was in Zolf's Somerset baritone. When he turned his head, the pure white beard was braided in the two distinct if slightly unkempt strands, the profile was the same as the man who swore to drown him in a bucket less than a month and a million years ago.
"Zolf?" it came out a question. A raspy little thing, jittering with uncertainty and utterly devoid of magic.
"You must be desperate or stupid to show your face near me again." the threat echoed hollow with the slight sway of a man too drunk too early in the day as Zolf turned around. His eyes widened at the sight of what Oscar knew was a barely recognizable figure with only a vague resemblance to the man that limped away from the airship in Paris.
"By the Storms, what happened to you?" He might have been mistaken but there was almost real concern in Zolf's voice.
"I could ask you the same thing." Oscar tried to quip, but shivering, with the rain still clinging to his frame, it fell flat.
"Bad breakup" Zolf gruffed into his drink. "Now you."
"I apologize I will not be able to recount my story quite as concisely." he might have lost everything but he still had his words. "Is there maybe somewhere more... private we could talk?"
"Nowhere with Whiskey." he took another sip.
"I could argue that I'm not sure this establishment serves anything worth calling whiskey either."
"Then conjure some. Or leave."
"I can't. That is part of the story."
"Oh," Zolf looked actually apologetic "I'm sorry."
"May I sit then?" Zolf made a weak, noncommittal gesture, but he also almost imperceptibly moved to make space.
It took a while to find the words. Longer still to string them together. So much had happened.
He started with Prague. Grizzop, Kafka, Hamid's surprise past, L.O.L.O.M.G, the Opera, Bertie's death. Sasha being Undead.
Zolf almost managed to not let his face betray him, but the mention of the sickly rogue made him wince like he'd been slapped. Oscar pretended he didn't notice. A man and his guilt are private things, he knew that better than anyone.
He continues. Kairo. Hamid's family. The sandstorms. Azu. The Heart of Aphrodite. Apophis. The tentacled assassin they kept calling Squizzard. The secret study. The trail to Damascus.
Listing it all, in roughly chronological order made Oscar's hands tremble. Everything went to shit so fast. So far. How could any of this ever be fixed?
He kept pushing the words despite the lump of despair in his throat growing and growing as he neared the most recent past.
The drought. The factory. The riots. Guivres. Confessing the curse had already long started felt like a rock tumbling off his heart and punching him right in the stomach. Grizzop saving his life. Barrett. Rome.
"And then I came to find you."
He fell silent. The rough clatter of the bar felt strangely distant as the strange pair of shaved Human and white haired Dwarf stared at separate points of the wall in silence.
"Do you have any... questions?", it was Oscar who broke first.
"It seems like we're both in pretty deep shit." He put his glass face down on the counter and pressed a gold coin next to it with a clank. Then, he pulled out a pair of crutches where they had been hidden in the shadows under the bar and let himself unceremoniously glide from the bar stool he had been sitting at.
No longer obscured by the shadowy wood, Oscar could finally see his legs. The water was gone. Patched trousers and cheap leather boots covered what ever Zolf had found to replace them. Judging by the clenched Jaw and jerky movements with which the Dwarf inched towards the back of the tavern, it wasn't an elegant or painless solution. Probably the opposite. Oscar found himself halfway through a simple pain reducing spell before he was reminded of his predicament by the cold metal around his wrists.
He followed Zolf, slowly. Apparently he was renting what passed as a room in this place.
"Close the door." Zolf gruffed as he let himself all but fall on the little rough chair next to the little rough desk in this little rough room. There was not much more in it. A barely human sized bed. A small trunk underneath. A small round hole in the wall that was probably supposed to be a window. But it was dry. It even seemed clean, at least in contrast to Oscar's wet boots and what he knew was weeks worth of travel mud, sweat and dirt. He carefully pulled off his damp coat and hung it on an empty hook on the wall. He wondered if Zolf didn't have a coat to hang up or if it was stored somewhere else entirely. When he turned back around he felt lost. Nervous even. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, not daring to sit down on the bed while still crusted in mud. Zolf looked at him stangely. Like he was waiting for something.
"What now?" Oscar hated how small his voice sounded. Like a school boy lost on an assignment.
"Now? We save the fucking world I guess." Zolf replied. Cracked his knuckles and pulled a notebook from a hidden pocket somewhere. He took a deep breath and a half burned candle next to him flickered to life.
Before Oscar could say anything or even just pull his jaw off the floor Zolf flashed him something that could even be described as a grin.
"I don't need a God to believe in something ." he even chuckled a little. This answered exactly none of Oscar's questions.
The smile on Zolf's faded as quickly as it had appeared.
"No, I don't know why. Yes, it's still the same kinds of spells. No, I haven't told anyone. No, you can't tell anyone . For all I know this is just Poseidon's newest special way of fucking with me but for as long as I can I will use it to find out what is causing these fucking storms. And get my fucking friends back apparently. So are you with me or can I finally kill you."
Instead of an answer, he just held out a hand.
Weeks of uncertainty. Hanging on to nothing but the belief that Zolf maybe, just maybe , had anything to say or at least would kill him quickly instead of torturing information he didn't have out of him like he imagined the meritocrats where going to do if they found him. Weeks of nothing to go on. Only a future that looked worse the more he looked at it to go towards. And there he was with a legless Dwarf too stubborn to lose his magic when he lost his faith. With nothing to go on but spite and the stubborn hope that maybe they could.
His hand slightly trembled but his gaze was steady as he looked right into the sea green eyes, that for the first time since they met so long ago in London, did not have hatred in them, only fire.
"I'm in."