Scene #8892: Disarming

Owner	Pose
Aidan Proudpick	It's a small section of Quicknest. Another mining town. A factory, a brutalist steel edifice, sits in the middle, now offline. Broken shells of rat bots and robots and turrets lie around. Homes have been mostly left alone, but the place is still relatively barren of people. Instead, everyone has congregated to a few set of stone houses, huddling together. Aidan is there. He doesn't particularly care if Kale knows where he is currently living. Or maybe he just wants someone, anyone, to know he hasn't left it all alone. With all of his things destroyed once more, he's back to a tunic and breeches, wearing a hemp cloth apron. He's a little mussed, having to go back to a pre-multiverse fur care routine, along with just being haggard. About two people are working, pulling out whatever they can salvage from the factory, saw blades, metal, pieces, and putting it in piles. Aidan is with several men and women, baking bread, preparing soup. There's a sort of peace to it. Helping everyone. He can't hear anyone but the people around him. No elites. A soft chatter. This is what he missed. Maybe it's a bit indulgent to stand with those few people he's helped.
Kale Hearthward	Kale arrives from the coast, flying in low, staying off sensors. He's not particularly stealthy, but then again Petra doesn't seem to be paying particularly too much attention to this area. Aidan gets a five minute warning via radio, and Kale doesn't leave the channel open to negotiate an alternate time and place. He shows up actually four minutes after the five minute warning, setting down on the edge of the mining town and proceeding inward from there. He's got his large, red, sound-technician-at-a-rock-concert-level headphones on again, and he's heading straight towards Aidan to the exclusion of anything and everything else. If there's a conversation, he interrupts it. "Proudpick." "We need to talk."
Aidan Proudpick	"Kale." There's a few guns lifted at Kale by reflex, but everyone immediately goes back to how they are, whispering a general worry about those left in the Empire. That voice and that stance. At least he has the headphones on. The look is resigned to his fate, but with dignity, Aidan putting a soft smile on his face. He points towards one of the less occupied houses, where his so called 'Lord of Ohio' flag hangs. Once the apron is off, he walks towards it. "Come on, Aegis is in here. And I'd like to have a little pride left by the end of the week, we can talk in there." Most things have been removed to double up homes into safe spaces, leaving it bare. Aegis is almost reverently in the middle of a table, a simple buckler with blue glowing lines. Aidan picks it up and turns back around to face the bird, holding it out, waiting patiently and steeling his self-respect.
Kale Hearthward	"Sure," says Kale, neutrally. He lets himself be lead into the house. Though once inside, he doesn't move to take the shield. "You don't have any left," he says, answering something Aidan said previously. "You don't have any pride left," he adds, in case it wasn't clear. "You lost." "I need the reality of this moment to sink in for you. That you not brush it off. Because otherwise you aren't going to learn one bit of anything from all this. Because otherwise we'll be right back here or worse in a few weeks." "So my question is." He leans against the wall near the doorframe, watching Aidan, still making no move to take the shield. "Are you going to hear me out so that I know you know how much you've lost and why you've lost, or are you going to get all riled up and make me finally write you off as a lost cause?"
Aidan Proudpick	He looks at the shield thougtfully, tail flat on the floor. "Yea. What little respect I got from anyone is gone. Even Madeleine had to lay out a line for me. 'Stop being a pushover, stop trying to impress people who hate you, or I can't respect you.'" He sets the shield back down on the table and leans back against it. "I didn't lie when I said I admire and respect you. And yer one of the only people to look at me in the eye and talk instead doing it over the radio." Aidan nods, "I'm listening."
Kale Hearthward	Kale raises an eyebrow. He wasn't actually expecting this response, honestly. "Well right now..." "... I could kill you, and suffer basically no repercussions from it." "Nobody would really care. Maybe I'd get someone from the Watch coming to bother me, and Petra might be mad I stole her kill, but that's about it." "That is how much you lost. I don't think there's anyone who's willing to stand up for you right now." Kale stands up a little bit straighter. "And you know that's not the worst it could get. I've held off on telling people everything you did during the protest. It wouldn't be a good look for you if I did. You'd go from having no respect to... negative respect, probably." "And now you're down your main weapon, and giving up your hopes and dreams, and as far as I can tell not one person has spoken up for you. You can talk about not impressing people who hate you, but I don't know if that's... leaving barely anyone out of that category, at this point." "So I want to know, before I take this shield away, do you understand why things got this way?"
Aidan Proudpick	It's clear on Aidan's face that he didn't think of that. That DOES make things worse. He grips the table behind him hard, steeling himself for that fact, absorbing it, then letting it out. He listens quietly, nodding in appreciate to denying the full report. "Knight... always just a title. Not hero, just. A knight. Someone powerful and respected. To prove we were better than, well, you," He snorts, then shakes his head. "It hurts." Aidan finally sits down in one of the left over wooden chairs, breathing out a sigh. He counts on his fingers, "Shouting that I wanna be a hero instead of proving it. Thinking that I was some kind of underdog against the whole multiverse. Caring about every little insult The Dame Commander and Petra threw at me. Not listening to people who wanted to help me." He breathes out a soft sigh, "Getting mad people keep calling me a coward." A look up, "I probably missed a few."
Kale Hearthward	"That's a start." "You've lost this much because you haven't realized that words matter." "Starting with you going to the Concord, and asking for their help if... the Paladins invaded? That wasn't a free thing to ask, or insinuate." "Running your mouth at Eggman, getting him to invade." "Running your mouth at Petra, instead of doing anything productive, causing her to be frustrated." Kale glances over at the door leading out to Aidan's liberated village. "This is a start. And you almost gave all this up by running your mouth on the radio about it." "And then when you didn't get the respect you thought you deserved, going and challenging Lilian like that - shouting 'fight me' over and over, and calling her a liar. And then proving your words to not have meaning when you took them back just an hour later." "And then you let Lilian entrap you here. Throwing yourself on her mercy, telling her you'd do anything to make up for things, and she took the thing from you that matters most to you, doesn't it?" "I think she made the right decision. Your penance needed to hurt." Kale stands back up straight. He goes over and picks up the shield from the table. "Words matter. This is something that myself and a lot of other people I know have all realized, independently of each other, and yet it's something that I don't know if it's sinking in for you even with me spelling it all out." "All of this? All of this situation, all of your situation, it's almost all entirely due to things you've said. You've barely even done anything to self-sabotage, it's all been your words doing it for you!"
Aidan Proudpick	Aidan grimaces. "I didn't do it for her or her mercy. I did it because I said I would. Because I failed miserably and took it out on someone. I deserved that. And my house." Aidan smoothes his hand through his hair, opening his mouth to justify something else, then close his mouth again. He just nods. He doesn't look at Kale taking the shield off the table, just staring forward. He is thinking carefully, "No, I'm listening. But what can I say." A sideeye towards Kale, "Deeds matter too. All I can do is show you this wasn't a waste-a of your time. Or Angela's for sparing my life." Words bubble up to the surface, trying to justify something else, shutting his mouth again.. Finally, he looks at the shield. "A written code, the shield, hating you, swinging at bullies- it's kid stuff. For a kid pretending to be a knight."
Kale Hearthward	"Yes! You get it, finally!" Kale says it emphatically, and too loudly. He clears his throat. "Yes. You get it." "Pretending to be a knight, and then not living up to it. And then not listening when people were telling you you weren't." Kale's quiet for a moment. "Look." "I promise this whole talk is leading somewhere. But, before that. I have to know. Just between us." "Do you have an actual written code? Like, can you recite it to me? Or were you just saying that you had a code, and were trying to make it up as you went along?"
Aidan Proudpick	Instead of grimacing, Aidan actually leans back and laughs. Laughs at himself. He just needs to laugh. It's short, but warm and genuine. He points at the back of the shield. "I was doing so bad at following it, I wrote it on the back. Honesty, Sincerity, Generosity, Respect, Humility, Compassion, Honor, Courage." A faint smile. "I failed all of those, didn't I?"
Kale Hearthward	"Yes," says Kale, flatly. "You did." "I think I would have preferred if you told me that you didn't have a code and were just pretending." He takes a moment, and a breath. "Okay." "You're without your main weapon. You're without your main driving force, as well. You're going to - I don't know what you're going to do without both of those." "You still owe me a favor. This isn't me cashing in the favor, this is me making sure you survive long enough that I can get something useful for it out of you." "I am having medic lessons at my place in Fall. It's Hazelthistle's idea, she wants me capable of stabilizing people and patching them up if she's not around, or for times and places she can't come with me." "You're going to start joining me for them, and that's going to fill the gap for you till you can figure something else out. And keep you from doing something stupid and dangerous for everyone else because you don't have your full powers anymore." "... You've already asked the Watch about what retraining they have available for you, though, right?"
Aidan Proudpick	A nod. He deserves rebuke as well. "I still know the man I want to be. And I have one more vow to keep, and people to help. That's gonna have to be enough." A little groan at 'Hazelthistle.' No, okay, the pit does go deeper. Seeing disappointment from her. He opens his mouth to say something. 'I'm a wind mage. I have tricks you don't have.' But he shuts his mouth again and just nods. "Not for me. For my team. They are itching to get serious about this." Again, that look of about to ask something, then realizing looking a gift horse in the mouth is stupid, he just says. "Thanks."
Kale Hearthward	"I know you have tricks I don't have," says Kale, as though Aidan's actually said it. His method of blocking out his mind-reading isn't entirely perfect. "That's not the point." "Just keep in mind - your people are only part of who you need to worry about. You've got your peers out there too." With that, Kale goes for the exit, shield in hand. "You're welcome."
Aidan Proudpick	A mutter. Stupid mind reading. "One last thing. Been trying to say it since a year ago. I'm sorry. For ever saying you won't change." He sits in the darkness of the empty house for a bit longer, then he heads back to making bread.