Wildling's Woe 4

Oskar finds an old friend in a familiar haunt, while Milton quietly grows anxious over the delay.

Delvin opened a single eye, his head pounding against his skull. He rolled off of the rope he'd been hung over, his headache reducing only slightly as his blood receded from his head. It was taking less and less of his purse to turn an evening into nothing more than a guessing game of what he'd done. And more often than not, he woke on the rope and not in bed.

As he stood up, his sense of balance screaming as he wobbled slightly, he checked his purse and pockets. His purse was lighter than it should have been, but his pockets had gone unmolested. The comfort of a selection of knives and brass knuckles brushed against his fingers as he casually stretched and shook himself awake.

It was late morning if the single beam of light in the drunkard's room was any guide. Not that the detail mattered too much. Delvin hadn't hurt for money in some time, certainly not in the last decade. Few unaffiliates did. Let alone ones with his reputation or unrecorded criminality. The benefits of sticking with adventurers; you could, if you were smart, steal someone blind and blame the quarry you were after. And Delvin was brilliant.

As he approached the bar, he was just about to rap on it when he heard the door slide open without the usual squeak. Only 'regulars', most of whom Delvin knew, were aware of the trick for it, but the owner hadn't taught anyone in a long time what it was. Delvin eyed the polished shield above the bar as he poured himself a stolen drink, wondering who had come in this early.

That couldn't be right. Yeah, he'd heard Oskar had a kid, but bringing him here? Oskar hadn't even invited Delvin to the wedding, not that that stopped him from attending, but bringing his boy here was insane. He turned around to face the friend he'd not spoken with in, Gods, twelve years, a quiet fury working its way from his gut to his arms.

"Just what the Hells did you bring your kid here for?"

The angry shout broke Oskar from the blindness of nostalgia for the bar he'd spent countless nights drinking, gambling, and occasionally fighting in. He smiled as he registered whose voice it was, the lad he'd grown up with, who'd taught him the tricks he used to earn and defend his title in the Winter Wrastle. Delvin.

"He's not mine. Or do you expect me to believe you only crashed my wedding and never checked on me after?" Oskar answered as he walked near to his old ally. Brother, even.

"Then whose kid is he?" Delvin asked, ignoring the accusation of sentimentality. Even alone, he'd never openly break the first rule of the gutter: Care for no one but yourself.

"Not Kid. Milton." Delvin shifted his attention to Milton properly, noticing the sideburns and thin moustache barely extant on the 'kids' top lip.

"Wildling?" Delvin's ire settled as curiosity overtook him. They were clannish folk. Horribly skittish of tall folk. Even the commune settled in Meurthurgard kept almost wholly to itself, preferring to deal with the city through just one of their own, Samson Longhollow.

Oskar nodded before adding, "His family was taken. Mamre demands I help him, and I'd prefer to have a few old friends at my back to find them. You in?"

"You know the name of my God, and its not Mamre." Delvin said, turning back to his drink.

"Still playing that angle? You know, if someone's taking his kind, it's ransom they want. They'll have something worth your while." Oskar's shoulders dropped. Over the years, he'd thought he'd gotten past Delvin's cynicism. Maybe he had. Yet time had built the wall thicker than before, it seemed.

Delvin pulled a sour face as he turned around, considering what coin a ransom job could bring. The fact that Wildlings rarely involved the Guardians only heightened his interest. "You said a few old friends. I'm guessing you mean Wrath?"

"You know of anyone better?" Oskar asked, doubting that their devilish friend would even be around or how they might find him.

"Heard of one," Delvin said before draining his mug dry. He was hooked. "But you'll have to convince the Arena to loan him out. He's their star gladiator."

"Gladiator? Hardly my first choice." Oskar remembered the last time Delvin had recommended someone. The scar on his arm flared at the memory.

"You didn't see him kill that Caymanid then. I did. He's good. Had it dead in seconds, despite fighting in a simulated marsh." Delvin saw Oskar's hand balling up at his side. Mariana's scar still stung him then. Callous bitch and her poison.

"The Arena will want gold. You're willing to cut into your profits?" Oskar prodded, knowing Delvin's distaste for sharing anything would have redoubled alongside his cynical act.

"Of course not." The glint in Delvin's eye told Oskar some hare-brained idea had taken root in his old ally's mind. "The Arena will get a story. The Champion with a heart of gold. Left his title undefended to aid a wildling, a farmer, and a lowly merc to rescue a family." Cold, selfish Delvin, offering just the salacious tale the Arena dealt in most often. "You can't tell me the Arena will pass on that opportunity. Even if he dies, they'll market his successor as a scoundrel who deserves comeuppance."

"You really should have been a bard, or an alderman the way you bend words." Oskar said, chafing in a way he hadn't felt for over a decade. Delvin could talk the whiskers off a cat in seconds if he focused on it.

"Dear Oskar, I'm too honest for that." Delvin knew it was true, even if Oskar may not have. He had learned well how to talk and think fast and let others fill out the lies for him. Often, it was just ignoring the right questions or playing off certain assumptions. All too easy for a gutter rat who'd learned firsthand the difference between true charity and deals of smiling devils in angelic guise.