Of Shields and Squires

[Nick Allen]

Hard as it might be to believe, the Sassy Owl was still in the same place as he knew it. This might have surprised him a little if he hadn’t remembered exactly how long Claire and his father had known one another. It was a trick hed done a few times with Alex. Maybe more than a few really. He landed in the beer garden, though you’d have to have seen his entrance to know the true direction he’d been traveling to begin with. The Owl was really just a pivot point in a much more involved run. Nick entered through the back door, taking a little time to let his eyes adjust to the lower light within, and then it was search around for Claire. He was more nervous, now that he’d had a chance to realize exactly what he’d done (and who he had to answer to for it). He liked Claire, really he did, she just usually made him nervous. The wiping of his palms on his jeans had nothing to do with being nervous, and neither did his hesitation as he finally caught a glimpse of her. He shoved a totally not nervous pair of hands deep into his pockets and moved with best possible speed in her direction. (In this case best possible was a slow walk that already had him slouching like he had been caught getting Alex into a scrape.)

Huffing a soft sigh, and suddenly finding that blue t-shirt with the This is how I roll image across the front interesting, he managed to get a few words out. “Au… Uhm Claire?” He squinted a little at the almost utterance of what he normally called the woman. “I saw your note to come over and…” Nick suddenly checked the distance to both doors, wondering if it was too late to make a break for it. “...talk.” He didn’t sit, didn’t do anything more than stand there wearing that I’m so guilty look, that was punctuated by the furrow of eyebrows and the crease that appeared in between.

The pretty blonde behind the bar spotted Nick before Claire did and across the distance between Casey the bartender and her boss, she tipped her head toward the boy coming through the door. It was enough to make Claire straighten from her lean in anticipation. It was an odd line to walk between the knowing and the showing but she did it with practiced ease limned with only subtle shades of awkwardness. Despite the impending meeting, she was dressed casually. Seldom was it something more than a jeans and a t-shirt sort of day. As she turned toward Nick’s approach, her Converse squeaked against the old wooden floors until she came to face him. He was tall, taller than his father by a fair clip, and handsome in a roguish sort of way.

In short he looked like trouble.

“Hi. I’m Claire, but you already knew that.” Still she extended a hand toward him for a shake. There was nothing soft or dainty about her grip, all business and calloused as it was. But it was brief and she quickly dropped her hand with a light slap against her thigh. “So, uh, first things first, congratulations. For awhile I thought I might end up with Six or Michi as my squire, so honestly I’m a little relieved since I don't know either of them. Getcha a drink or something?” She paused to squint at him. “If you’re even old enough to drink…”

Somewhere amid the butterflies in his stomach a smile boiled forth spilling over his face. It wasn’t praise, but it was close enough to pull that toothy, half embarrassed half preening look to his mouth and send it directly to his eyes. He had an odd thought as she shook his hand, he’d never done that with her before. Their first official meeting had happened so long ago, all he really remembered was that she’d had pink hair, and he’d let her know about it. Her grip, while not surprising, held strength, even if she somehow managed to keep it feminine. Maybe it was just that it was smaller than he remembered. His own hands were covered in rough skin, in part from the forge work, but perhaps even moreso from roof racing. “I did know that, but it’s nice to meet you.” He managed to leave the again in his head at least. “Of course most people do know who you are, Overlady.” He uttered off the small joke with an easy laugh.

“I’d say that for a while I was afraid you’d end up with Six or Michi too, but I really wanted the opportunity to acquire the Squireship.” He’d nearly let his plans, his real need slip by saying he was after the shield. He was so bad at this kind of thing, dancing around the truth seemed an immense waste of time to him. “Can I sit? May I, I mean. And well I guess… May I? I left my ID at home.” That was probably code for I’m not old enough to drink. It did have the fortune of being one hundred percent the truth though. After Monday’s issues, he’d stopped carrying any kind of identifying markers. Not that he’d be able to come up with an alias and stick to it, should he be picked up by the Watch. He wished he could have been more articulate with her, but much like her daughter, Claire flustered him if for different reasons.

“Eugh, call me, Claire, really. C’mon.” She made a face at the title if only because even ten titles and four years later, it still felt awkward being called by a sports title. On one hand, it was ever an oddity to meet the older version of someone younger that she already knew. On the other, it was fast becoming old hat, so she didn't make an awkward comment about how she had just met his younger self here recently. Hooking a stool with the foot, she tugged it aside to make more room at the bar, a roll of her wrist gesturing for him to join her.

“Two OctoberFests but only two. This is a business meeting.” She cut Casey a cheeky grin and the blonde rolled her eyes before dancing off to fulfill her boss’s request. A pair of beers were set out soon after and the vicinity cleared out for the pair to talk. At that hour, it lulled between lunch and dinner and therefore was fairly dead in the restaurant. Behind the bar, flat screen televisions replayed the week’s sports highlights as well as broadcasts from various Terran sports as well. Claire preferred football over baseball but with the World Series approaching, it covered half the screens. “Don’t tell your father that I’m an enabler or I’ll have to beat you with that shield I’m gonna give you. Oh, so, about that. You legit about this squire thing or was it just for the win?”

His hand went to the beer, he was glad she was making the offer of it, had been about to take a drink of it when she mentioned his father. Nick stared at the bartop, doing his best to look like he might be reading the label on the bottle. Mostly he was just trying to hide his face, or as much of it as he could, but even in profile you can see lips pull inward and brows that pinch. “I haven’t talked to him, I suppose you could say I don’t want to talk to him.” Still true, though he’d let her come up with her own reasons why. God, unless she asked him. He lifted the beer to his lips, something he was going to wait to do, but he needed to do something, or be stuck like that for too long. The swallow was held, until he could distinguish hops over the mild bitterness he always found in beer. It helped, the moment passed by enough for him to trust his own expression once more. He focused on her face, it was odd that he had a strange fondness for her, even though she wasn’t exactly the Claire he knew.

“Do people actually just get into things like this for a win? I’ve been in my share of races, but I mean that’s kind of the point o f a race, right?” His head shook, and his shoulder came up ever so slightly. “No, I needed this. It’s not a prize to me.” It is, or would be a tool. It occurred to Nick exactly how dangerous this meeting could become for any of his plans. If she phrased her questions just right, he’d give away everything. Everything that she didn’t already know that is. “What is it that you need out of me from the position. I know Addie does the cookie thing, but I’d hate to be arrested for poisoning you accidentally. I guess I’m a little like him, and a lot of things that have happened over the past two weeks have made me a little I don’t know, angry, or somewhere between angry and upset.”

"Ah, are you playing the blahblah-I don't wanna talk to my parents here-blahblah thing? They always do that. It never lasts." She remarked thoughtfully, turning toward the bar to give him a profile view sidelong. Much as she had always, she looked no older than twenty-one, maybe twenty-two, her skin free of marks and scars and smoothed to a granite polished finish. It was an unearthly sort of thing, that kind of youth, both a blessing and a curse in and of itself, but she wore it like a badge of her burden, stuck forever on the top side of too-young-to-know-better. Hell, he’d pass her up before long, that was a scary thought. Her own swallow gave him a few more moments to compose himself, a strategic pause meant to glaze over the brief crack in his cheeky facade.

“They do. Some of them. It’s just a sport, after all. Others do it for the glory, to be a part of history. Even if sometimes they probably shouldn’t.” Claire cut him a pointed look aside, her brows lifting. But it was back to her beer for another drink or two and a gentle shrug of her left shoulder. “I suppose if you’re gonna do something, you may as well go big or go home, right? So all I want is effort. Prove you won it for a reason, use it well, learn from it. If I can help with that, I will.”

Mention of Addie was cause for pause though, her conversation with Michi the night before still fresh in her mind. Pursing her lips, she considered her answer just a little bit further before adding on to it. “The point of a squireship is to benefit the squire, not the baron, or in this case Overlord. If there’s something, anything, I can do to help, just say the world and I will. You know that, right?”

(Many thanks to the player of Claire for working with me in this endeavor!)

[Claire Gallows]

“It’s not like that. Seeing him hurts too much. He wouldn’t have wanted me to anyway. It wasn’t part of the plan.” He turned on his stool, to face her fully again. “I don’t intend to be here long. I know that’s probably selfish of me to push so hard to win, and then abandon the post. A huge part of me wishes I’d never come, but it had to be me I guess.” He’d idly been playing with the bottle on the bar. Now it made the trip to his lips again for another swallow. “Besides, there’s someone back home that I really need to see.”

“I know I shouldn’t have, but… Swords may be just a sport, but the squire weapons, they are much more than that, or they could be. Hell… heck aunt Claire maybe they want to be sometimes. I won’t embarrass you, won’t let you down. I’d fight everyone that went renegade just to keep them away from you for a little while.” Would he lose? It was a guarantee with some of them. It wouldn’t stop him from doing it though. “I’ll admit that I don’t know how things are supposed to work, and yeah, I figure you’d do anything for me. If I knew what I needed I’d ask. I’m just fumbling in the dark. I do have certain advantages over anyone else that might have taken the shield up. Even if it is the speculation from one of the two who made it. It would have been nice to be able to tell him if he was right or wrong.” Nick let out a small laugh, just one, and it was accompanied by a thoughtful smile. “I think Addie just likes to cook. Makes her feel, I dunno, normal I guess.”

Impulsive, it was probably the best way to describe Nick. He knew what he was saying to her, and that there was no need for interpretations. He knew he should have avoided much of it. The problem with Nick was, he’d never seen a height he didn’t want to jump off of. In his head it didn’t get much higher than he was right now. “You don’t want me here. Not you you, but the other one. You aren’t the one who asked us to come, but we were asked and well, I’m here. I was asked to come home too. I don’t know how to do that now. I don’t know how to help Addie. You could fill the room with everything I don’t know, then stack the things I know I shouldn’t be doing up next to it. So, when I tell you that if I knew what to ask, I would. Maybe you’ll believe that much at least.”

"Mmh, so if I manage to hold on to the title, I'm gonna be replacing my squire before long anyways. That's a shame." She sounded genuine in her reluctant remorse, drowning it with a swig of Sam Adams. Each note he divulged, every minute detail was squirreled away into a catalog of what's what in the grand scheme of things. "But you know, Addie said the same thing about Raven and... her dad. In some other life, I've got kids that felt the same too... you aren't the first to deal with feelings like that, I promise. But if you have to go home, you have to go home. C'mon."

As the conversation progressed and twisted around the initial subject, she stood upright, straightening out a comfortably lazy lean there at the bar in favor of a clean one-eighty toward the booths around the corner. They were quieter, less open. It wasn't as though she didn't trust the Owl, she did. But anyone could venture by and time was such a precarious thing. He could follow and if he was smart he would. She slid into one side of the plush booth and waited until he caught up to speak again. "I don't just mean with the squire stuff, Nikolai. I'm not really sure how the next... what're you, twenty? Twenty-one? Years might go, but if you're here now, that tells me a couple important things. The bit that I know about Addie’s situation is enough to make me wary about your involvement, or at least why you may’ve been sent back so long after she was. But what’s done is done, right? You’re here now, we do what we have to.”

That was a lot of we in there but she meant every word. Having brought her beer with her, she took the opportunity to drain a good portion of it, sucking down the satisfying brew with a pop of her lips afterwards. It did little to take the edge off though and she leveled an even look upon the young man. “I wouldn’t want you here because time’s a fragile thing. I know that, and likely whoever sent you knew that. But you said we were asked. You and who?”

Rising at her cue, he followed her deeper into the Sassy Owl. Listening, yes he was doing that. He always listened, even if ten minutes later he was doing quite the opposite of the advice given. Addie, had she been there when he found the note, would have advised him to say nothing to her God-mother. He’d have listened to that too, then made his own leap of faith. She’d said a great deal, maybe it was payment for the amount he’d given away. He still had a lot to say, but her last question stopped him short of beginning. Did he address that first, or last? If he’d taken time to ponder it too much he’d likely have made a different decision. He looked at it like an obstacle course though, and the swiftest way was to clear as many that stood in your direct path, and get to the end. “My father, who else would be crazy enough to figure out a way to get where we needed to be?” He said it quite matter of factly, as though this Claire, who in his defense looked exactly the same, already knew everything the other one did. It probably wasn’t fair of him, but he was not used to how eschew he needed to think.

“If he’d been able to make it here, we’d probably have been and gone already.” He felt a little like a poor substitute for the real thing. “But you know how he feels about Addie… or maybe you don’t? Don’t worry, you will.” That story would take the next seventeen years to fully tell. “Twenty one this month, so I guess I shouldn’t have taken the beer.” That of course didn’t stop him from taking another drink of it. “The person that sent us, me, knows that time is fragile, but she also knows that it can heal too. Your concern was the balance, and yet… I don’t have a sense for these things, but I don’t think things have ever been in balance for us.” He stared at the opening of his bottle for several moments, uncertain what was his to to tell and what wasn’t.

“Sure, I know that Addie’s recent situation was pretty bad. Bad enough to make people feel the need to do something about it. Not that there was much I could do, something I didn’t find out ‘til I got here. The other thing bothers me too. The cause of her nightmares I mean.” He may have seemed slow at times in the uptake, but given time to think he could be insightful. “And here’s why… This Sanda… Sandy guy, he’s not the first person ever resurrected in Rhydin by a long shot. Right?” He fixed her with those coffee colored eyes in a look that said he probably knew more than he should. “What’s different, what happened? It seems much more likely that answers lay there, instead of her… accident.” Don’t even get him started on whatever changes he’d made with his bulldozing his way through the past. “I’m no mage, even with my talents. The only ones I know who are, I’m avoiding. I mean I suppose we could try and pin down one of those robed guys and push for answers, but I doubt that they’d have them either. I doubt they can see any further than their use for Addie. I know that I can’t go anywhere while they’re still here, and looking for her.”

Things Nick didn’t know, a vast array of them, one thing he did. Claire wasn’t a slouch, she’d likely worked out things long before he’d shown up here. What should he have done? Dance around the truth, outright lie to her? It wasn’t in his nature to hide from the things he’d done. More than likely it was in him to say this is what I’ve done, and this is why.

Kruger hadn’t made it though he was supposed to be there. Why did that not surprise her? Because it was Kruger after all and nothing surprised her when it came to him anymore. Claire also didn’t say anything on the matter because the choice of tense said more than she ever could. Letting him talk until he had nothing more to say, she sat back in the booth and patiently heard him out. It was a lot to process. When all was said and done, what could she even say to that?

“Well ****.”

That summed it up nicely. For a few moments she eyed Nick sitting across from her, legitimately unsure of just what to say that would be beneficial to the situation. Too much could tip the scales further than they already were. Not enough and she’d feel like she was letting the kids down. They still were kids after all, right? “I don’t know what Addie got herself into but it was bad enough to get sent here to fix it. I can only… interfere so much with it though or else I forfeit my children’s lives and as much as I want to help Adelaide, I can’t do that at the cost of Avy and Alex. Man… this is why I advocate locking you kids up until they’re thirty. Then they can’t get into trouble and the world won’t end. Problem solved.”

She finished off the beer and set the empty bottle on the table with a shake of her head. “No, but really, you’ve gotta be careful with it all. I’m sure I don’t have to give you the same lecture I gave Addie about the changes we make and how they impact the big picture down the line. Step on a butterfly, change the world, you know? But you,” she paused, “you’re your father’s son and that means… that means what. That you’re going to do what you have to, cost be damned. Doesn’t it?”

[Nick Allen]

“I’d never do anything intentionally to hurt Averia, or Alex. If you can’t help, because of them, then don’t.” He’d managed a chuckle that still held a bit of the kidlike giggle, at Claire’s take on what would stop the kids from getting into trouble. “They’re both important to me, probably the last most important things other than my mother. So, yes, I worry about the things I do, and what impact it has on them. What if they’re feelings change towards me. The problem is, that Addie’s important too. I love her, not the same as Alex, or Avy… definitely not the same. I ask myself all the time if changing that is worth saving Addie. It’s almost literally what I do every night before bed. Avy said it, these things cost, the question becomes can I live with the cost of what I’m doing? My answer I guess is selfish, because I want to believe that whatever happens I can change people’s minds when I get there. I can live with the changes, and do my best to bring back just a little of what I know.” Nick grew a little wistful, thinking of everything he remembered, and what it would be like to be the only one of them all who did.

“You’re right though, I am my father’s son in some ways. Maybe it’s because I understand the costs, that I do try to leave a little evidence of me behind here. Like gaining squireship. It’s not much in retrospect. History will barely remember much more than my name. It’ll be all the evidence I have that things were different once. So, if there’s a price to helping Addie, I’ll pay it. Even if it means that I’m never able to do more than look at her and wish things were the way I want them to be. I do have one small hypotheses. Rhydin is generally a chaotic place. It tends to ebb and flow. Now, this now seems to be even more than that. It feels more like a riptide, and maybe, just maybe the things I do will be lost in that.” It was his hope, there just seemed to be too many coincidences. The stripping of an overlord’s title, Addie’s accident, the creation of the new squire and the shield that Nick was now the bearer of. The immense controversy surrounding the governor’s race. Speciesist violence at extremely high levels. In light of all of it, he didn’t doubt that much of what he did would be attributed to the wrong people by history itself.

“I may be his son, but I don’t want to be him. I won’t sit back and let what I want most go on without knowing how I feel. I’m afraid someone will have to kill me first.” More secrets given away. He wouldn’t be his father in that way either it seemed. Maybe that was Kruger’s problem to begin with.

It was a whole lot of frank honesty from a boy she had only formally met less than hour prior. It carried with it an innate sense of vulnerability that she couldn’t help but admire. He wore his heart on his sleeve, the consequences be damned. It was something she could never do herself. After he finished his explanation, she stayed quiet for a few long minutes. He was right, this Rhydin was all twisted up and she couldn’t help but wonder just what had made it crazier than usual.

“Sometimes… sometimes we think we can live with the cost. And we can. Because we’re strong enough to hold the world on our shoulders. But, sometimes the cost is not ours to bear and instead we’re forced to watch as the weight breaks those we were trying to protect to begin with.” She lowered her gaze to the table and rubbed at a smudge that would likely never come up. There she kept her concentration though her mouth set back into motion once more. “If I taught her well enough… and by the gods, I hope I do, then she knows that too. It’s why her father isn’t here now... though…,” she looked up at him with an odd expression, her brows furrowing. Whatever she meant to ask was lost to a shake of her head. “No, I don’t need to know that. Anyways… if you were sent back to make a change, just be sure you’re changing the right thing. Every choice, Nick, every single one has a consequence. Sometimes they’re the tiniest of consequences but they add up. And before you know it, you’re staring down the barrel of an entirely new existence with no idea how you got there.”

Claire glanced out of the booth toward an alcove that led to a set of stairs to the Owl’s second level, a private residence only accessible by a handful of people. When she looked back to Nick, her expression had softened but her tone was grave. “Entire worlds have burned for lesser choices and pettier reasons. I suppose what I’m trying to say is… do what you have to but think very carefully on what that must be. It’s bigger than you or me or silly things like Overlords and squires. Do you wanna see the shield?”

He hadn’t considered that. Had he done things that others would need to bear the burden of? Would he know it when he saw it? If he did, what was his responsibility to those people? Did he move to lift them from those burdens, or would that just make things worse? Had they ever made things better? Too many questions and no way to know from here if they held any weight beyond the knowledge that things could happen, and likely had. If he had thought anything about what Claire had said regarding Avy and Alex’s father, he wouldn’t put it together for several hours. “I wish I could say none of that will happen. I want to, and I’ll certainly try to be careful, or maybe more careful is the right way to put it.”

Nick had watched Claire, through the giving of advice and expression of concerns. She could be subtle, unless of course you’d had time to watch her over years and see a variety of facial expressions as they were cast your direction. “You do an amazing job with them, even if sometimes the clothes they wear only survive one outing. I’m lucky to be a part of it at all I think.” He looked off in the direct that she had, toward that alcove and whatever lay beyond in her thoughts. “I’d like to see the shield.” It wouldn’t be his first time, but to hold it, to take it as his own and use it. That would be a first, for him, for the shield for everyone really. He left the bottle on the table. He hadn’t finished half of it, but it was early and he still had a long way to go to get to seaside.

He followed along after Claire when a thought did strike him. “August 5th, 2033. You said if there was anything you could do… go early to Enlightenment park. My father has a forge deep beneath the park. I think if you search you can find it, find him. I don’t think he’d want it to be strangers.” Nick’s swallow was forced, and necessary to get the lump that had lodged itself in his throat out of the way. He’d said it softly, he wasn’t really sure if she’d heard him at all. Maybe that was one worry he’d had that wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

August 5th, 2033. It was a date she quickly committed to memory for reasons yet unknown. But she didn’t question him. Instead she slid out of the booth, leaving her bottle behind and starting for the steps. Earlier in the day, Cooper had taken the twins out which left the apartment above empty save for the shield that sat just inside the door. When she reached the top of the steps, one door was opened to a narrow corridor that had two other doors within. One led to another staircase with an external exit while the other seemed to be her goal. She paused, grazing a hand across a set of runes in the door frame. The quiet click said it was unlocked and stepped in just long enough to hoist the shield up with both hands before tugging the door shut with her foot.

“I don’t really know what it does or anything, but the craftwork is sound, as I’m sure you figured. I think it’s suiting that you’re the first, future consequences aside.” With that she cut him a crooked smile and passed it over. “I guess that’s all I’ve really got. Good luck with it, yeah?”

Movement helped, it didn’t calm nerves, or make him worry any less about the things he had yet to do. It did give him an outlet, albeit a small one. He ascended the stairs behind Claire, it was a slow procession to someone used to finding ways to skip as many as possible. That somehow seemed appropriate. He’d begun his quest, coming in late but charging headlong into the contest. Always, Nick had an eye to the leader board and tried hard not to let his low position behind the leaders steal his resolve. What else could he do? It seemed far more important for him to have it than the others. But then again he wasn’t in their lives, except for Michi, and maybe she had goals she needed to reach as well. She’d get the chance again. He wasn’t lying when he told Claire he had to go home.

Nick waited just inside that first door, letting Claire take care of the retrieval in her own way. He didn’t really remember ever being up here. Most of his memories were of the estate in New Haven. Did that mean she hadn’t purchased it, or wouldn’t? Had things changed so much? In his head he began to see a little differently. This was Claire, his version of her, but it was also countless other versions as well. The ones that hadn’t moved in a different direction. With his revelations, he’d just affected all who came after, even if it was just in a simple way. The thought wouldn’t have long to live at the front of his mind. Her return and the burden she carried stole it all from him, or at the least put it in line for a later contemplation.

Good luck with it, she had said as she offered it over to him. “I have time to figure out some of that I believe.” He didn’t put the shield on his arm, or try to equip it to him in any fashion. He wasn’t sure what it would do to his style of fighting that required freedom of movement and as a general rule, access to both hands considering he chose to wield two weapons most of the time. Nick did take the time to trace his fingers across the surface of it. When he’d seen it it looked exactly the same, but how many blows had it accepted over the last seventeen years? He’d at least be able to count the first of them. He didn’t know what to say, thank you didn’t seem like nearly enough. He set it to the side for a moment, then just crushed Claire into a hug that he hoped would convey everything he didn’t know how to.

As quickly as it came on, it was over and Nick was bounding down the steps with the shield under one arm. He hit the doorway at the bottom of the steps, looked up at her with a half grin. “I’ll make you proud of me!”