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[volkarin]

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[dwelt]

[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.

[volkarin]

[ 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.

[dwelt]

[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.