volkarin | SALTBURNT

[ Once again, the answer — or at least some facet of it — is clear in Emmrich's features before he even opens his mouth to speak. This is a question that he knows how to ford, that he has a concrete, unwavering answer to because it's been his calling for nearly as long as he can remember. ]

I practice for peace, [ he begins, holding August's gaze. ] I practice to protect the living — to ease the passing of the dead — as best I can. Such is the mandate of the Mourn Watch, and such is the north by which I align my personal compass.

[ A direction which had not steered him wrong, necessarily, but certainly into deeper waters than he'd expected, and at a much higher cost. ]

For better or worse, I still believe that learning more about the source of the magic in this place will bring us closer to being able to escape its hold, or at least give us some answers as to why — and how — we've all come to be here.

[ He leaves the rest unsaid, presuming August to be smart enough to pick up the threads of what he's spoken aloud and tie them to what he's already said on the network — that he knows he needs to reassess his approach, that he doesn't mean to dive so blindly into it all again. ]

[august lets his answer settle. he has no greater good when all he yearns for is 'more' and his moral compass points in odd directions for more information and power with risky outcomes. that's what he's good at finding. there might be room for more here if he allows it, for the story that emmrich paints for him so nicely.

the necromancer is better, with his practice and his tired guilt, because august can be sure just by looking at him he'll try to keep his word. nothing about february was peaceful, but the result - the true end, may very well be. time will tell.]

Do you really believe learning about their magic will give us answers?

[not mocking, august's youth shows through his expression, a flicker of hope beneath his hardened expression. there's purity in those answers and god forbid they have a little hope. the fantasy doesn't stick and it's snuffed out by his own version of their reality. words he can share with a stranger but never his friends, lest he ruin the hope in them, too.]

I don't.

[ Emmrich shrugs, knowing the answer to August's question is self-evident. Of course he believes it — he wouldn't be pursuing it otherwise. He's of that blissful, rare class of people with little to no doubt regarding their purpose, their art, to the point that he doesn't seem to take any offense at August's following remark. He can see that little glimmer in the boy's features, despite how briefly it shines — the kind of thing anyone else might call the folly of youth. ]

What path do you intend to walk, my friend?

[ Curiosity colors his voice rather than any sort of challenge. ]

There's certainly more than one way to skin a cat. The more of us that can devote our efforts toward ... [ a pause, as he chooses his words ] ... enlightenment, escape, or empowerment, the more likely we are to make some headway.

[ It doesn't occur to him that August might think their situation hopeless, in no small part because that simply doesn't register to him as an option. ]

If you've a plan, I'd like to hear it.

[it isn't what path august intends to walk - soon he'll realize that no matter how many forks appear in the road or which direction he chooses he has only one end. in saltburnt, he can play pretend. he can act like there are choices here that matter when deep down, he doesn't know at all.]

What I intend to walk doesn't matter.

[but he doesn't want people to get hurt. he'll withstand plenty to avoid spreading pain to others, that much is clear with how willing he'd been to go into the crypt with one friend and mostly strangers (aside from parisa who - belatedly, he thinks he should check on). a wash of disbelief as he stares at the older man. so emmrich isn't even considering the potential of certain doom.]

Look, I'll do my own research, but don't get your hopes up. I don't think we're here for anything.

[ It's less that Emmrich doesn't consider failure to be an option than that he accepts the possibility of it, the same way he accepts that death waits for all of them, in one way or another. He'd tortured himself about that inevitability, once, twisted himself into endless knots, but— he doesn't need to fear it, now. Doesn't fear it, when he wears proof of devotion around his ankle.

Gently (surely): ] Of course it matters, August.

[ But he lets that go for the moment. Purpose is better served by its own discussion, not as part of another whole. ]

There's always a reason. Perhaps not the kind of cosmic, all-important reason we'd like, but— it can be as simple as, "We are warm, because it's summer." "He bled out, because he was wounded." We are here because something brought us here. If we know what that something is, does that not leave us better off than we began?

[ Emmrich shrugs, as if to say he isn't trying to impress his own views upon August, but rather to explain his own path, why he's chosen to go through the metaphorical woods rather than around them. ]

All that to say, I shall hope my fool's hope that you'll find something in your research. And I'll be sure to share my own discoveries with you, in turn.

[he makes such simple explanations and august wants it to be complicated. the thought passes through him as quickly as it comes; the reality of it falling as gently as emmrich's certainty. if that's it, a painless conclusion to solve their reason of existing here, then it's something he'll have to accept. does accept. the workings of it all over his face like august has brought him an unsolvable equation he's dissected too many times and he's become blind.]

Yes.

[in agreement as much as he is stubborn to naturally resist in this moment, he can't deny truth: emmrich is seasoned and august is still a boy compared to him. they are both from knowledge vastly different and the same, but he expects worse things than 1+1=2. he wants to prove him wrong, which will fuel his search for information on his own.]

Thanks for meeting with me. [sliding out from the booth, ghostly quiet.] I'll let you know if I find anything.

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