[Damica/Ravindra] - With a side order of treason
Who:
Damica
Ravindra
When: After Damica's post to the Guard.
Where: Damica's house.
Rating & Warnings: PG for language and furniture throwing AND RELIGION.
In which Damica tries to get Ravi to stop freaking out about how he's definitely going to die RIGHT NOW. If you need a summary of the evidence in the Myron case, this is a good place to get it. If you need a summary of Hinduism, also a good place!
It was a modest house. Fit for a family of four or so, possibly with room to spare for servants, yet Damica lived alone, and preferred it that way. She'd rather stay at the barracks, but given the resentment some held towards her, she felt it best to distance herself when she slept.
The door to the house lay open, though not invitingly so. Within, the Lieutenant paced, in uniform, pausing to peer at the ledgers as she passed by the small table the book sat upon, inkwell beside, pen in hand. And as she passed the door, she'd peer out, eagerly awaiting the Sergeant's arrival. Things were about to get very unpleasant in Tyrol.
He shouldn't have answered the duchess. This whole thing was a terrible mess and she was setting him up to take the fall for it. Ravindra was, quite honestly, terrified. It was not a feeling he knew well, and he didn't know how to handle it. He was trapped and there was nothing he could do. She would have him announce Myron's killer had been found, and then another murder would happen, and people would cry for blood at his apparent incompetence. He was going to die. There was no doubt in his mind.
For once, he went to Damica glad of her higher rank instead of envious. She had authority; maybe not enough to do anything about this, but enough to try. He went from the station directly to her house, still wearing his uniform's mail, still shaking over his conversation with the duchess. The door was left open--for him, he knew. He stepped inside and closed it after him.
The door closing would have caught her attention, if she hadn't noticed Ravindra entering just before. She stopped her pacing, pen still, watching him for a long moment. She'd seen the Duchess' order. She couldn't even begin to guess how he felt about it, though she knew it wouldn't sit well with him.
"First thing; have you told Amelia to stay indoors?" Damica started pacing again as she spoke, giving the book another glance, then paused, staring at the page. "Oh, yes, fill anyone who isn't already afraid with fear. Good way to find out if a rumour is true." As she scowled at it, she spoke to the Sergeant, "Why are people so... ignorant?"
The question caught him off-guard, though really, anything would've caught him off-guard right then. "Yes, of course," he answered, sounding distracted. That was one of the first things he'd done.
He sank against her door, his eyes unfocused on the ground between them. "I don't know, Damica." He didn't even know what she was talking about. The duchess? The mob? The duchess knew precisely what she was doing. He was certain of it. Ignorance was not what drove her.
"Can we destroy it?" She continued to stare at the ledgers, though she set the pen down. Somehow hoping that that small action would stop the chaos the city was falling into. "The body. Burn it or something. Guilty or not, I don't want that head rotting on a spike, picked at by crows or buzzards. That's not justice. That's barbarism."
Damica raised her hands to her face, rubbing at her eyes, then turned to Ravindra. She'd been equally distracted, just now noticing how sullen he seemed. He almost looked... broken. "I don't know what else we can do. I'm pretty sure this is a ploy to get the Hour to do something, or any of the Others in the city. Talk to them, perhaps?" She paused a moment. "If I could announce it in your place, I would." Could she? What would the Duchess say, or do, if she did?
Destroy what? Her clarification made his eyes snap up, and he stared at her, brows knit, suddenly focused on her words. Her? No, no he couldn't let her announce it instead. The duchess wouldn't let that happen, she was setting him up on purpose. It would be worse for both of them if Damica did that, he was sure.
But destroying the body? "Damica," he said, shaking his head, staring at her, "no. No, what would you even say to excuse it? How do you lose a body, when the duchess is telling people that this is the man everyone wants us to find? She will blame us, no matter what you tell her."
"I don't know. Say it got stolen. Or burn down the station." She found herself laughing at her own absurdity. Yeah, that'd go over well. Oh, sorry your highness, but we let some imbecile burn down the station with the body still inside. Guess we'll need a new head.
"So, what, then? We do as she says? We'll be taking the fall either way. Some of us more than others." Her eyes fell to the floor. "Crowd control, I suppose." That was not going to be easy.
Some of us more than others. He set his face in his hands, and reminded himself to breathe. He was going to die. If they destroyed the body like Damica suggested, they were all going to die. After what seemed like forever, he spoke without looking up. "Damica, nothing we do will be right."
She just stared at him for a long moment before she spoke. "Maybe not, but if we keep thinking like that, nothing will get done. We're the Guard. We need to do anything we can do to keep more people from dying."
He lowered his hands, ran his fingers through his hair, nodded. She was right. He needed to actually think, now. They had to figure out something.
He pushed himself away from the door and walked over to take a chair at the table she paced in front of. Her ledger was open; he glanced at it, but forced his eyes away before he could read anything. He set his arms on the table and his head in his hands and stared down at the wood for a moment before speaking. "I think... I think we should look at this situation from the beginning. To be sure we are both clear on everything, and to help us think it through."
Finally. She'd been worried she'd have to do something drastic to pull him out of it.
Damica followed him to the table, closing the book and moving it to the side as she sat down. Less distractions were better, at this point. She folded her hands in front of her and nodded to him. "The beginning being Lord Myron's death."
He nodded. He laid out the facts, gave her a summary of everything he knew. Myron had been taken onto the roof. He was strangled and the marks looked to be made by human shaped hands. There was skin underneath his fingernails, which meant he'd fought, which meant he'd been conscious when he was taken up there, but since there were no signs of a struggle or a body having been dragged, it was likely he had been led there by the culprit and surprised by the attack. There was one puncture wound on each wrist, not made by fangs, because they didn't quite match with the bite-marks on the Other-killed rabbit he'd been given as a comparison (he didn't say where the rabbit had come from, but left her to assume it had come from the Hour). The body was thrown from the roof sometime before dawn and found completely drained of blood, though a bloodstain, not very large, had been found on the ground with the body.
Then, into theorizing. That he didn't think Myron had been killed by an Other, that he had been killed by somebody trying to incite a manhunt just like this. The evidence didn't add up right, and an Other would know better than to kill somebody so publicly when tensions were already high. He and Rasmus had considered the possibility that a member of the nobility was behind this, because they would have time to plan and money to spend on setting this up.
All that said, he leaned back in the chair, shoulders hunched, and looked at Damica's closed ledger. "The duchess is very insistent on this being the culprit," he said, and then stopped himself before saying anything more. Treason, Ravindra. You are edging very close to it.
Damica listened to it all calmly, watching the Sergeant with great interest. Though some of it she'd known, some she hadn't. Like having had something to compare the marks to. Fitting, considering she'd been planning to ask if the Hour knew of any blooddrinkers who could offer just what had been given.
"Her highness seems intent on using it to her advantage. Placating the Citadel and those allied with it." And possibly provoking the Hour or any independent Others in the city. "So," she mused. "We have a dead Lord, likely killed by a human but made to look like an Other attack, inciting fear and panic into the people, which was likely the desired effect." She paused. "If he was, in fact, murdered to make it look like an Other attack, and we do announce today's victim as the killer, I suspect the next victim will be killed in a manner to target another type of Other."
A pause while he let her words sink in, and then he shook his head. "No." He looked to her, met her eyes. "No, the same. The duchess..." He hesitated, his eyes drifting away as he tried to figure out how to put this.
"Damica." He met her eyes again. "What we say here, it does not leave this house."
She felt a chill run up her spine. Those were never good words.
She kept her eyes locked with his and nodded. "Whatever is said here was never said."
A nod, then a deep breath, and then he let himself say it. "The duchess knows something. She wants his head on a pike before we confirm it is him, and she wants us--" him "--to announce it without knowing for certain. If she was confident that she was right, why would she force me to announce it? Why not take credit herself, if she is doing it to garner favour? No, I think she knows for a fact that this is not the killer, and she wants to blame us for failing when another murder is staged, just the same way."
Damica scowled as she considered his words, then asked the most obvious question; "Why us? Are we just scapegoats to aid in her venture, or does she want to get rid of the Guard for some reason?"
Him, because he dared to question her. Dared to imply that she was wrong. That wasn't something he wanted to put in words, so he left it unsaid. It was obvious, anyway. "We are scapegoats, I think. Or..." He paused, eyes drifting away with a hint of a grimace. "She does not think us loyal enough."
Damica nodded, unfolding her hands that she might rub at her temple. She cast a glance to her ledger, but resisted the urge to flip it open. "Funny thing about loyalty. The more you question it, the less of it there is."
"So." She leaned back. "What do we do?"
"What can we do?" he replied, holding his hands open in a gesture that was not a shrug, but reminiscent of one. "She is the duchess. Even if she is behind the whole thing herself, our hands are tied."
She smirked. "Not about her. About the city." She let her hands fall to her lap, folding them there. "Should we have someone speak to the Hour? Or the Citadel? Not that the Citadel needs any sort of reassurance; I'm sure they're thrilled by the whole ordeal."
"And we need to find whoever's responsible for this mob and deal with them. The sooner the better."
Truthfully he was a little more concerned about the duchess than the city at the moment, but that was only because the duchess was going to get him killed. He tried to shove it aside long enough to concentrate on where Damica had led the conversation. "I think they both will have things under control already, but if you want to send someone to double-check, then do."
And as for the mob...fuck. He sighed. "I heard there is a Guard with the mob. I don't know if that is true, but we should check to see who is missing from duty."
Her eyes narrowed. A member of the Guard participating in such an event? Oh boy was somebody going to be in trouble. She nodded. "It's a start. We should check the rosters when we get back."
She looked away from him, going quiet, not really sure what else needed doing. The things she wanted to do and the things they actually could do were very different. "I don't know what to do about the other part. I wish I did, but I don't. But if you need anything, let me know. Even if it's just someone to talk to."
That was actually the thing he needed most right now. He was still quietly terrified. That had not stopped being a thing that was true. His hands slid from the table to his lap and he took a deep breath, letting it out slow and shaky. "You read what the duchess said, yes? You know what she is trying to do."
She didn't really know what to say. What could she say? He'd questioned her in front of all of the Guard. Granted, Damica felt she deserved it, but she had a reputation! Maybe, if Belief really works as she'd heard, she can work on Believing the witch a heart. Or something.
"She's setting you up to take the fall. And there's nothing we can do to stop it. Defy her, and more will get hurt. Do as she says, and you'll get hurt." Ugh, she was getting a headache. She rubbed at her temple again, then forced herself to ignored it and looked at Ravindra, giving him her full attention.
HE WAS GOING TO DIE DAMICA. He was going to die and he'd be reborn as a frog or something because that was the kind of shit that happened to you when you decided to be a Kshatriya against dharma when you were born a Vaishya.
His eyes narrowed at the wood of the table. "I know that. I did not need you to tell me." He wasn't angry at her; he was angry at his own helplessness and lashing out at her. Didn't she know he was going to die? This was serious, he needed help, not to have the situation explained back to him! He set his head in his hands again, elbows on the table. He wanted to throw something. He kept himself from it, just barely. "I should never have joined the Guard," he muttered.
Damica fell silent. What do you even say in a situation like this she was a guard not a mother sweet Cita. Just before she was about to apologize, he added the last part, and she frowned. "What would you rather have done?" She moved her hands back to the table from her lap, leaning forward. "You're one of the best damned guards I know, and if I had my way, you'd have my job. Cita knows you'd be better at it. Most of the guards probably know it, too. If anyone can get through this, get us through this, it's you."
"I know that!" He shot up from his chair, throwing it to the ground in the same motion, and stood there glaring down at it, his back turned on Damica. Throwing things goal: failed.
"I know that," he repeated. He turned, facing her. "I am good at what I do. I love this job, Damica. But I am not Kshatriya. I was not born Kshatriya. I was stupid to think karma never would catch up to me but here," he threw an arm out, indicating in some grand sense the entirety of the situation at hand, "it has. This is karma telling me I was supposed to stay out of the Guard. To stay Vaishya, where I was born."
Damica barely managed to not wince. Barely. What was it with men and violence? ...not that some of the women around here were much better. What was it with Tyrol and violence??
She watched him silently through his tirade, letting him get out what he could before she spoke. While she may not have any idea what those terms were, the idea of being 'born' something and doing something else was all too familiar to her. "So does that mean I should have allowed my father to marry me off to another lordling and sat idly by, tended to by maids, bearing this strange man I'd never met and who likely wouldn't have cared for me all the children he wanted, never complaining, never getting anything I wanted, and never even have considered joining the guard?"
He slammed his hands down on the table, looming over her (not something he got to lay claim to very often, looming). "No. You still were born Kshatriya. You are a noble. Now you are a warrior. You still are within your caste. Whether you had followed your father's wishes or joined the Guard, you still are fulfilling Kshatriya dharma. It is not the same as being born a merchant and becoming a warrior."
Damica's eyes narrowed, her voice raising. "Noblewomen are objects. They're married off at the age of fourteen to whoever pays the highest price. Noblemen are the warriors. Noblewomen are expected to do as their fathers say until they're sold off to their husband without ever even kissing a guy, then expected to do as their husbands say until they're too old for their husbands to bother with anymore. The only reason I was able to join the guard at all was because I was damaged goods." That made her pause, flinching, and she lowered her gaze from Ravindra.
When next she spoke, it was quiet. "Anyone can be a guard here. I guess that's the great thing about Tyrol. It doesn't matter what you are at birth, you can always fall back on the Guard. I wasn't born a warrior; I was born a wife."
UGH. Damica, just. Stop. She didn't know what she was talking about, and it just made Ravi angrier. He wanted to flip the table, too. Fuck! She wasn't listening.
He turned away, righted the chair (ANGRILY!!!) and sat down to address her. He was going to try to explain this, calmly (as calmly as he could when he was this angry), and then get mad at her once she understood and still kept being thick. "Hindus believe," he said, folding his hands over the table (to keep himself from flipping it), "that you are born into a caste. Which caste is determined by your actions in past lives. If your karma is good you will be born into a high caste. Kshatriya is the caste of lords and warriors. Nobles and soldiers, to you. Vaishya, what I was born, are merchants. It is not something you choose. It is something that happens because of who you are. How you have lived. What you have done. It is where you are supposed to be, not because of a god or a lord dictating it, but because the universe itself has put you there."
He was actually calming down as he kept going, distracting himself from his own anger by finding his fallback: storytelling. By this point he didn't seem angry at all anymore, just explaining the system to somebody who didn't know it. "Dharma is your role in life. It is determined by your caste. You know how Cita--the Citadel--they expect an objective morality, an action is good or it is bad and it does not matter who you are. It is different for a Hindu. Something that is morally right for a Kshatriya is not morally right for a Brahmin. If a Brahmin--a priest--kills an enemy soldier, that is bad, he will be reborn in a lower caste for that, but if a Kshatriya does it then it is good and he is only fulfilling his dharma and he will be reborn in a higher caste.
"So you, a noble, a lord, who became a soldier, a warrior, you are still Kshatriya. You still are fulfilling the dharma of your caste, you only have moved to a different place inside your caste. But me, a Vaishya, a merchant, who thought he could move up to a better caste within one lifetime, to be born a Vaishya but become a Kshatriya, that is a trap that Tyrol's freedoms have laid on me. I never should have done it, because now, now I am being punished for not fulfilling the right dharma. For doing what a Kshatriya should, when really I am a Vaishya."
He stopped, letting out a sigh, slumping back in his chair. With one elbow on the arm of the chair, he set his face in his hand, covering his eyes. It was something he'd never really put into words before. He didn't want to admit that he was living in the wrong caste, when being a warrior fit him so well. But this, this whole thing with Katrin, with the investigation, with everything going as wrong as it possibly could, was proof. His karma was coming back to him.
"I am Vaishya," he muttered. "I never should have tried."
Damica listened quietly, though at first she wouldn't look at him, when he got into it her gaze rose from the floor. He was a pretty good storyteller. She leaned on the table to watch him while he spoke until he finished.
"Your caste system is broken," was the first thing she said, with a smirk. Then, "All right. So, all this, Katrin, the murders, people dying, the city in a panic, everyone in hiding. This is all your fault? Seriously?" She sounded skeptical.
His hand dropped and he gave her an incredulous look. "What? No." He pushed himself straight in the chair. "Karma--it is everyone's karma. What happens to everyone is what is supposed to happen to them. It is not all because of my bad karma. They also have bad karma. Do you think I am really so egotistical?"
"Hardly. That's what's confusing me." She shook her head. "You're helping people. Trying to fix things that other people broke. Trying to right other peoples' wrongs. But you're not supposed to be doing this? What should you be doing? Sitting back in your shop and ignoring that people around you need help?" As she leaned back in her chair, she held her hands up in surrender, hoping to ward off another fit. She didn't think her chairs could take too much tossing. "I'm just trying to understand. I'll listen to any explanations you have, just try not to throw my furniture around too much or I'll have to deck you." She smirked.
He folded his arms and gave her an amused noise along with a quirk of the mouth that was not really a smile. "It is the dharma of furniture to be thrown," he said. And then a serious answer: "Helping people is always right. It is only the manner in which you are supposed to help them. As a Kshatriya you help by providing safety. As a Vaishya you help by providing goods, livelihood."
Damica shook her head. "The dharma of a chair is to be sat upon. If you break its dharma by throwing it, I'll have to punish you with a fist to the gut." She let out a sigh. "I still think it's a load of crock. No offence to you or your culture, but if as a merchant, you're only allowed to help others by selling them things, what happens if some woman comes into your shop being chased by a lecher? Are you supposed to just... watch?"
That got more than one amused noise. In fact it may have been shockingly close to a chuckle. He could argue about the dharma of furniture all day, man. All day. But instead of continuing with the joke, he just sighed at her scenario. "You have only a very basic understanding of the way it works, Damica. In that case it would be his responsibility to help her--allowing people to be harmed is as bad as harming them yourself--but it is also his responsibility to do so nonviolently."
She frowned. Sure, there were ways one could solve a problem without violence. But you couldn't avoid it all the time. But, she'd bother him more about that another time. "So you're not supposed to be fighting, basically. What's your punishment for doing so?"
"There is not a set punishment for these things. If your karma is bad, bad things will happen to you. You will be reborn in a worse place in your next life." He looked away, shrugged one shoulder. "The duchess will get me killed and I will be reborn as a snake or a frog or a moth or something until my karma is balanced right to be a human again."
There was a short joke in there, but she just couldn't bring herself to say it. Instead, she eyed him. "Would you remember ever having been human? I mean, if you wind up dead tomorrow, which is not going to happen so just shut up, and became a frog, would you live as a frog that entire life with no recollection of your previous life? I mean if you don't remember then it's not that terrible a life, is it?" She paused. "And you'll still be playing a part in the balance of things or whatever by eating the flies, or being lunch to the snake, so so what if you fuck up this one life? You've already fucked it up, might as well keep going. Most of us only get one life!"
Ah, he didn't even know what to say to that. Of course he would be serving a proper role in any of his future lives. Of course he wouldn't remember, but it would still be him. "Everyone gets many lives," he replied, letting his arms fall apart to rest on the chair's arms. "It is only that you do not believe you do, because Cita says there is only the one."
He paused for a moment, his head cocked to one side, and considered how to explain the cycle of death and rebirth to her. "There is a part of you, the Atman--the soul, you would call it--that is you. Your self, which is carried through every life you have. You will not remember your previous lives consciously, but your Atman knows them. Your Atman remembers. The bodies of your thousands of lives are only shells to fit around your Atman. So when I am reborn as a frog after I die, I will still be me. I will only be me as a frog."
Oh he did not just do that did he? "...you're lucky I'm not the sort to take strong offence to being told 'Cita's lying to you'." She only sounded mildly offended, though. It's not like she was a devout worshiper; she only attended service for special occasions.
And it was clear she wasn't that offended when she started to smile, and then snicker. "I think you'd make a cute frog. Little pudgy thing." She was doing her darnedest not to burst into laughter, though it was pretty clear she had to try really hard.
If he'd been drinking something, he would've choked on it. The look he gave her was half amused, half disbelieving. Did she just say that? Was she making fun of his weight? He started to respond, stopped, and tried again. "I hope it is not a part of my Atman to be so in every life."
It's a good thing drinks weren't involved, or she'd have totally missed what he was referring to. As it was, it took her a minute, and then it was her turn to give him that look of disbelief. "What, pudgy?" She smirked, then reached around the table to jab at his gut while adding, "Hey, some people like that." A pause. "Though I think you'd be safe as a snake. Snakes don't do pudgy."
Did she really just--?! Ravi was just stunned for a minute. His weight was one thing he would really just prefer nobody mention, ever. He was suddenly self-conscious as hell, thanks Damica. He shifted nervously, looking away. He had to give an appropriately lighthearted response to keep this from getting awkward, too, augh. "Then, ah, I shall hope for a snake." He tried not to mumble it, but didn't quite succeed.
Damica's smile faded. He was seriously bothered by that? Wow. She pulled her hands back. "Sorry, that's not-" Great Cita how do you fix something like that? "I didn't realize you were bothered by it. Won't happen again." Okay now change the subject but what to oh wait what time is it. She glanced around, noticing the darkness outside, and started to stand. "We should probably go check the rosters."
Quick apology and then moving on to pretend it never happened. That was exactly how he preferred his awkward moments to resolve. Thank you Damica you are the best. He was glad to have at least one friend who understood these things without him having to explain.
"We should probably, yes," he answered, rising from the chair. Moving along, pretending nothing awkward had just happened.
While he waited for her to gather whatever she needed, or to just lead the way toward the door, he told her, "Thank you, by the way. I still do not know what to do about the duchess, but at least I don't feel--" terrified? like he was going to die the instant he said anything? "--as bad about it, now."
Damica stopped to grab up her ledger and pen, and cap the inkwell before snagging that up as well. She had plenty back at the station, but liked to keep one on her just in case.
She gave him a smile. "I don't, either. But we both needed a distraction. And, hey, I learned about karma and dharma and... all that other stuff." She may not have gotten it all but it was pretty interesting! With that, she turned to get the door.
Damica
Ravindra
When: After Damica's post to the Guard.
Where: Damica's house.
Rating & Warnings: PG for language and furniture throwing AND RELIGION.
In which Damica tries to get Ravi to stop freaking out about how he's definitely going to die RIGHT NOW. If you need a summary of the evidence in the Myron case, this is a good place to get it. If you need a summary of Hinduism, also a good place!
It was a modest house. Fit for a family of four or so, possibly with room to spare for servants, yet Damica lived alone, and preferred it that way. She'd rather stay at the barracks, but given the resentment some held towards her, she felt it best to distance herself when she slept.
The door to the house lay open, though not invitingly so. Within, the Lieutenant paced, in uniform, pausing to peer at the ledgers as she passed by the small table the book sat upon, inkwell beside, pen in hand. And as she passed the door, she'd peer out, eagerly awaiting the Sergeant's arrival. Things were about to get very unpleasant in Tyrol.
He shouldn't have answered the duchess. This whole thing was a terrible mess and she was setting him up to take the fall for it. Ravindra was, quite honestly, terrified. It was not a feeling he knew well, and he didn't know how to handle it. He was trapped and there was nothing he could do. She would have him announce Myron's killer had been found, and then another murder would happen, and people would cry for blood at his apparent incompetence. He was going to die. There was no doubt in his mind.
For once, he went to Damica glad of her higher rank instead of envious. She had authority; maybe not enough to do anything about this, but enough to try. He went from the station directly to her house, still wearing his uniform's mail, still shaking over his conversation with the duchess. The door was left open--for him, he knew. He stepped inside and closed it after him.
The door closing would have caught her attention, if she hadn't noticed Ravindra entering just before. She stopped her pacing, pen still, watching him for a long moment. She'd seen the Duchess' order. She couldn't even begin to guess how he felt about it, though she knew it wouldn't sit well with him.
"First thing; have you told Amelia to stay indoors?" Damica started pacing again as she spoke, giving the book another glance, then paused, staring at the page. "Oh, yes, fill anyone who isn't already afraid with fear. Good way to find out if a rumour is true." As she scowled at it, she spoke to the Sergeant, "Why are people so... ignorant?"
The question caught him off-guard, though really, anything would've caught him off-guard right then. "Yes, of course," he answered, sounding distracted. That was one of the first things he'd done.
He sank against her door, his eyes unfocused on the ground between them. "I don't know, Damica." He didn't even know what she was talking about. The duchess? The mob? The duchess knew precisely what she was doing. He was certain of it. Ignorance was not what drove her.
"Can we destroy it?" She continued to stare at the ledgers, though she set the pen down. Somehow hoping that that small action would stop the chaos the city was falling into. "The body. Burn it or something. Guilty or not, I don't want that head rotting on a spike, picked at by crows or buzzards. That's not justice. That's barbarism."
Damica raised her hands to her face, rubbing at her eyes, then turned to Ravindra. She'd been equally distracted, just now noticing how sullen he seemed. He almost looked... broken. "I don't know what else we can do. I'm pretty sure this is a ploy to get the Hour to do something, or any of the Others in the city. Talk to them, perhaps?" She paused a moment. "If I could announce it in your place, I would." Could she? What would the Duchess say, or do, if she did?
Destroy what? Her clarification made his eyes snap up, and he stared at her, brows knit, suddenly focused on her words. Her? No, no he couldn't let her announce it instead. The duchess wouldn't let that happen, she was setting him up on purpose. It would be worse for both of them if Damica did that, he was sure.
But destroying the body? "Damica," he said, shaking his head, staring at her, "no. No, what would you even say to excuse it? How do you lose a body, when the duchess is telling people that this is the man everyone wants us to find? She will blame us, no matter what you tell her."
"I don't know. Say it got stolen. Or burn down the station." She found herself laughing at her own absurdity. Yeah, that'd go over well. Oh, sorry your highness, but we let some imbecile burn down the station with the body still inside. Guess we'll need a new head.
"So, what, then? We do as she says? We'll be taking the fall either way. Some of us more than others." Her eyes fell to the floor. "Crowd control, I suppose." That was not going to be easy.
Some of us more than others. He set his face in his hands, and reminded himself to breathe. He was going to die. If they destroyed the body like Damica suggested, they were all going to die. After what seemed like forever, he spoke without looking up. "Damica, nothing we do will be right."
She just stared at him for a long moment before she spoke. "Maybe not, but if we keep thinking like that, nothing will get done. We're the Guard. We need to do anything we can do to keep more people from dying."
He lowered his hands, ran his fingers through his hair, nodded. She was right. He needed to actually think, now. They had to figure out something.
He pushed himself away from the door and walked over to take a chair at the table she paced in front of. Her ledger was open; he glanced at it, but forced his eyes away before he could read anything. He set his arms on the table and his head in his hands and stared down at the wood for a moment before speaking. "I think... I think we should look at this situation from the beginning. To be sure we are both clear on everything, and to help us think it through."
Finally. She'd been worried she'd have to do something drastic to pull him out of it.
Damica followed him to the table, closing the book and moving it to the side as she sat down. Less distractions were better, at this point. She folded her hands in front of her and nodded to him. "The beginning being Lord Myron's death."
He nodded. He laid out the facts, gave her a summary of everything he knew. Myron had been taken onto the roof. He was strangled and the marks looked to be made by human shaped hands. There was skin underneath his fingernails, which meant he'd fought, which meant he'd been conscious when he was taken up there, but since there were no signs of a struggle or a body having been dragged, it was likely he had been led there by the culprit and surprised by the attack. There was one puncture wound on each wrist, not made by fangs, because they didn't quite match with the bite-marks on the Other-killed rabbit he'd been given as a comparison (he didn't say where the rabbit had come from, but left her to assume it had come from the Hour). The body was thrown from the roof sometime before dawn and found completely drained of blood, though a bloodstain, not very large, had been found on the ground with the body.
Then, into theorizing. That he didn't think Myron had been killed by an Other, that he had been killed by somebody trying to incite a manhunt just like this. The evidence didn't add up right, and an Other would know better than to kill somebody so publicly when tensions were already high. He and Rasmus had considered the possibility that a member of the nobility was behind this, because they would have time to plan and money to spend on setting this up.
All that said, he leaned back in the chair, shoulders hunched, and looked at Damica's closed ledger. "The duchess is very insistent on this being the culprit," he said, and then stopped himself before saying anything more. Treason, Ravindra. You are edging very close to it.
Damica listened to it all calmly, watching the Sergeant with great interest. Though some of it she'd known, some she hadn't. Like having had something to compare the marks to. Fitting, considering she'd been planning to ask if the Hour knew of any blooddrinkers who could offer just what had been given.
"Her highness seems intent on using it to her advantage. Placating the Citadel and those allied with it." And possibly provoking the Hour or any independent Others in the city. "So," she mused. "We have a dead Lord, likely killed by a human but made to look like an Other attack, inciting fear and panic into the people, which was likely the desired effect." She paused. "If he was, in fact, murdered to make it look like an Other attack, and we do announce today's victim as the killer, I suspect the next victim will be killed in a manner to target another type of Other."
A pause while he let her words sink in, and then he shook his head. "No." He looked to her, met her eyes. "No, the same. The duchess..." He hesitated, his eyes drifting away as he tried to figure out how to put this.
"Damica." He met her eyes again. "What we say here, it does not leave this house."
She felt a chill run up her spine. Those were never good words.
She kept her eyes locked with his and nodded. "Whatever is said here was never said."
A nod, then a deep breath, and then he let himself say it. "The duchess knows something. She wants his head on a pike before we confirm it is him, and she wants us--" him "--to announce it without knowing for certain. If she was confident that she was right, why would she force me to announce it? Why not take credit herself, if she is doing it to garner favour? No, I think she knows for a fact that this is not the killer, and she wants to blame us for failing when another murder is staged, just the same way."
Damica scowled as she considered his words, then asked the most obvious question; "Why us? Are we just scapegoats to aid in her venture, or does she want to get rid of the Guard for some reason?"
Him, because he dared to question her. Dared to imply that she was wrong. That wasn't something he wanted to put in words, so he left it unsaid. It was obvious, anyway. "We are scapegoats, I think. Or..." He paused, eyes drifting away with a hint of a grimace. "She does not think us loyal enough."
Damica nodded, unfolding her hands that she might rub at her temple. She cast a glance to her ledger, but resisted the urge to flip it open. "Funny thing about loyalty. The more you question it, the less of it there is."
"So." She leaned back. "What do we do?"
"What can we do?" he replied, holding his hands open in a gesture that was not a shrug, but reminiscent of one. "She is the duchess. Even if she is behind the whole thing herself, our hands are tied."
She smirked. "Not about her. About the city." She let her hands fall to her lap, folding them there. "Should we have someone speak to the Hour? Or the Citadel? Not that the Citadel needs any sort of reassurance; I'm sure they're thrilled by the whole ordeal."
"And we need to find whoever's responsible for this mob and deal with them. The sooner the better."
Truthfully he was a little more concerned about the duchess than the city at the moment, but that was only because the duchess was going to get him killed. He tried to shove it aside long enough to concentrate on where Damica had led the conversation. "I think they both will have things under control already, but if you want to send someone to double-check, then do."
And as for the mob...fuck. He sighed. "I heard there is a Guard with the mob. I don't know if that is true, but we should check to see who is missing from duty."
Her eyes narrowed. A member of the Guard participating in such an event? Oh boy was somebody going to be in trouble. She nodded. "It's a start. We should check the rosters when we get back."
She looked away from him, going quiet, not really sure what else needed doing. The things she wanted to do and the things they actually could do were very different. "I don't know what to do about the other part. I wish I did, but I don't. But if you need anything, let me know. Even if it's just someone to talk to."
That was actually the thing he needed most right now. He was still quietly terrified. That had not stopped being a thing that was true. His hands slid from the table to his lap and he took a deep breath, letting it out slow and shaky. "You read what the duchess said, yes? You know what she is trying to do."
She didn't really know what to say. What could she say? He'd questioned her in front of all of the Guard. Granted, Damica felt she deserved it, but she had a reputation! Maybe, if Belief really works as she'd heard, she can work on Believing the witch a heart. Or something.
"She's setting you up to take the fall. And there's nothing we can do to stop it. Defy her, and more will get hurt. Do as she says, and you'll get hurt." Ugh, she was getting a headache. She rubbed at her temple again, then forced herself to ignored it and looked at Ravindra, giving him her full attention.
HE WAS GOING TO DIE DAMICA. He was going to die and he'd be reborn as a frog or something because that was the kind of shit that happened to you when you decided to be a Kshatriya against dharma when you were born a Vaishya.
His eyes narrowed at the wood of the table. "I know that. I did not need you to tell me." He wasn't angry at her; he was angry at his own helplessness and lashing out at her. Didn't she know he was going to die? This was serious, he needed help, not to have the situation explained back to him! He set his head in his hands again, elbows on the table. He wanted to throw something. He kept himself from it, just barely. "I should never have joined the Guard," he muttered.
Damica fell silent. What do you even say in a situation like this she was a guard not a mother sweet Cita. Just before she was about to apologize, he added the last part, and she frowned. "What would you rather have done?" She moved her hands back to the table from her lap, leaning forward. "You're one of the best damned guards I know, and if I had my way, you'd have my job. Cita knows you'd be better at it. Most of the guards probably know it, too. If anyone can get through this, get us through this, it's you."
"I know that!" He shot up from his chair, throwing it to the ground in the same motion, and stood there glaring down at it, his back turned on Damica. Throwing things goal: failed.
"I know that," he repeated. He turned, facing her. "I am good at what I do. I love this job, Damica. But I am not Kshatriya. I was not born Kshatriya. I was stupid to think karma never would catch up to me but here," he threw an arm out, indicating in some grand sense the entirety of the situation at hand, "it has. This is karma telling me I was supposed to stay out of the Guard. To stay Vaishya, where I was born."
Damica barely managed to not wince. Barely. What was it with men and violence? ...not that some of the women around here were much better. What was it with Tyrol and violence??
She watched him silently through his tirade, letting him get out what he could before she spoke. While she may not have any idea what those terms were, the idea of being 'born' something and doing something else was all too familiar to her. "So does that mean I should have allowed my father to marry me off to another lordling and sat idly by, tended to by maids, bearing this strange man I'd never met and who likely wouldn't have cared for me all the children he wanted, never complaining, never getting anything I wanted, and never even have considered joining the guard?"
He slammed his hands down on the table, looming over her (not something he got to lay claim to very often, looming). "No. You still were born Kshatriya. You are a noble. Now you are a warrior. You still are within your caste. Whether you had followed your father's wishes or joined the Guard, you still are fulfilling Kshatriya dharma. It is not the same as being born a merchant and becoming a warrior."
Damica's eyes narrowed, her voice raising. "Noblewomen are objects. They're married off at the age of fourteen to whoever pays the highest price. Noblemen are the warriors. Noblewomen are expected to do as their fathers say until they're sold off to their husband without ever even kissing a guy, then expected to do as their husbands say until they're too old for their husbands to bother with anymore. The only reason I was able to join the guard at all was because I was damaged goods." That made her pause, flinching, and she lowered her gaze from Ravindra.
When next she spoke, it was quiet. "Anyone can be a guard here. I guess that's the great thing about Tyrol. It doesn't matter what you are at birth, you can always fall back on the Guard. I wasn't born a warrior; I was born a wife."
UGH. Damica, just. Stop. She didn't know what she was talking about, and it just made Ravi angrier. He wanted to flip the table, too. Fuck! She wasn't listening.
He turned away, righted the chair (ANGRILY!!!) and sat down to address her. He was going to try to explain this, calmly (as calmly as he could when he was this angry), and then get mad at her once she understood and still kept being thick. "Hindus believe," he said, folding his hands over the table (to keep himself from flipping it), "that you are born into a caste. Which caste is determined by your actions in past lives. If your karma is good you will be born into a high caste. Kshatriya is the caste of lords and warriors. Nobles and soldiers, to you. Vaishya, what I was born, are merchants. It is not something you choose. It is something that happens because of who you are. How you have lived. What you have done. It is where you are supposed to be, not because of a god or a lord dictating it, but because the universe itself has put you there."
He was actually calming down as he kept going, distracting himself from his own anger by finding his fallback: storytelling. By this point he didn't seem angry at all anymore, just explaining the system to somebody who didn't know it. "Dharma is your role in life. It is determined by your caste. You know how Cita--the Citadel--they expect an objective morality, an action is good or it is bad and it does not matter who you are. It is different for a Hindu. Something that is morally right for a Kshatriya is not morally right for a Brahmin. If a Brahmin--a priest--kills an enemy soldier, that is bad, he will be reborn in a lower caste for that, but if a Kshatriya does it then it is good and he is only fulfilling his dharma and he will be reborn in a higher caste.
"So you, a noble, a lord, who became a soldier, a warrior, you are still Kshatriya. You still are fulfilling the dharma of your caste, you only have moved to a different place inside your caste. But me, a Vaishya, a merchant, who thought he could move up to a better caste within one lifetime, to be born a Vaishya but become a Kshatriya, that is a trap that Tyrol's freedoms have laid on me. I never should have done it, because now, now I am being punished for not fulfilling the right dharma. For doing what a Kshatriya should, when really I am a Vaishya."
He stopped, letting out a sigh, slumping back in his chair. With one elbow on the arm of the chair, he set his face in his hand, covering his eyes. It was something he'd never really put into words before. He didn't want to admit that he was living in the wrong caste, when being a warrior fit him so well. But this, this whole thing with Katrin, with the investigation, with everything going as wrong as it possibly could, was proof. His karma was coming back to him.
"I am Vaishya," he muttered. "I never should have tried."
Damica listened quietly, though at first she wouldn't look at him, when he got into it her gaze rose from the floor. He was a pretty good storyteller. She leaned on the table to watch him while he spoke until he finished.
"Your caste system is broken," was the first thing she said, with a smirk. Then, "All right. So, all this, Katrin, the murders, people dying, the city in a panic, everyone in hiding. This is all your fault? Seriously?" She sounded skeptical.
His hand dropped and he gave her an incredulous look. "What? No." He pushed himself straight in the chair. "Karma--it is everyone's karma. What happens to everyone is what is supposed to happen to them. It is not all because of my bad karma. They also have bad karma. Do you think I am really so egotistical?"
"Hardly. That's what's confusing me." She shook her head. "You're helping people. Trying to fix things that other people broke. Trying to right other peoples' wrongs. But you're not supposed to be doing this? What should you be doing? Sitting back in your shop and ignoring that people around you need help?" As she leaned back in her chair, she held her hands up in surrender, hoping to ward off another fit. She didn't think her chairs could take too much tossing. "I'm just trying to understand. I'll listen to any explanations you have, just try not to throw my furniture around too much or I'll have to deck you." She smirked.
He folded his arms and gave her an amused noise along with a quirk of the mouth that was not really a smile. "It is the dharma of furniture to be thrown," he said. And then a serious answer: "Helping people is always right. It is only the manner in which you are supposed to help them. As a Kshatriya you help by providing safety. As a Vaishya you help by providing goods, livelihood."
Damica shook her head. "The dharma of a chair is to be sat upon. If you break its dharma by throwing it, I'll have to punish you with a fist to the gut." She let out a sigh. "I still think it's a load of crock. No offence to you or your culture, but if as a merchant, you're only allowed to help others by selling them things, what happens if some woman comes into your shop being chased by a lecher? Are you supposed to just... watch?"
That got more than one amused noise. In fact it may have been shockingly close to a chuckle. He could argue about the dharma of furniture all day, man. All day. But instead of continuing with the joke, he just sighed at her scenario. "You have only a very basic understanding of the way it works, Damica. In that case it would be his responsibility to help her--allowing people to be harmed is as bad as harming them yourself--but it is also his responsibility to do so nonviolently."
She frowned. Sure, there were ways one could solve a problem without violence. But you couldn't avoid it all the time. But, she'd bother him more about that another time. "So you're not supposed to be fighting, basically. What's your punishment for doing so?"
"There is not a set punishment for these things. If your karma is bad, bad things will happen to you. You will be reborn in a worse place in your next life." He looked away, shrugged one shoulder. "The duchess will get me killed and I will be reborn as a snake or a frog or a moth or something until my karma is balanced right to be a human again."
There was a short joke in there, but she just couldn't bring herself to say it. Instead, she eyed him. "Would you remember ever having been human? I mean, if you wind up dead tomorrow, which is not going to happen so just shut up, and became a frog, would you live as a frog that entire life with no recollection of your previous life? I mean if you don't remember then it's not that terrible a life, is it?" She paused. "And you'll still be playing a part in the balance of things or whatever by eating the flies, or being lunch to the snake, so so what if you fuck up this one life? You've already fucked it up, might as well keep going. Most of us only get one life!"
Ah, he didn't even know what to say to that. Of course he would be serving a proper role in any of his future lives. Of course he wouldn't remember, but it would still be him. "Everyone gets many lives," he replied, letting his arms fall apart to rest on the chair's arms. "It is only that you do not believe you do, because Cita says there is only the one."
He paused for a moment, his head cocked to one side, and considered how to explain the cycle of death and rebirth to her. "There is a part of you, the Atman--the soul, you would call it--that is you. Your self, which is carried through every life you have. You will not remember your previous lives consciously, but your Atman knows them. Your Atman remembers. The bodies of your thousands of lives are only shells to fit around your Atman. So when I am reborn as a frog after I die, I will still be me. I will only be me as a frog."
Oh he did not just do that did he? "...you're lucky I'm not the sort to take strong offence to being told 'Cita's lying to you'." She only sounded mildly offended, though. It's not like she was a devout worshiper; she only attended service for special occasions.
And it was clear she wasn't that offended when she started to smile, and then snicker. "I think you'd make a cute frog. Little pudgy thing." She was doing her darnedest not to burst into laughter, though it was pretty clear she had to try really hard.
If he'd been drinking something, he would've choked on it. The look he gave her was half amused, half disbelieving. Did she just say that? Was she making fun of his weight? He started to respond, stopped, and tried again. "I hope it is not a part of my Atman to be so in every life."
It's a good thing drinks weren't involved, or she'd have totally missed what he was referring to. As it was, it took her a minute, and then it was her turn to give him that look of disbelief. "What, pudgy?" She smirked, then reached around the table to jab at his gut while adding, "Hey, some people like that." A pause. "Though I think you'd be safe as a snake. Snakes don't do pudgy."
Did she really just--?! Ravi was just stunned for a minute. His weight was one thing he would really just prefer nobody mention, ever. He was suddenly self-conscious as hell, thanks Damica. He shifted nervously, looking away. He had to give an appropriately lighthearted response to keep this from getting awkward, too, augh. "Then, ah, I shall hope for a snake." He tried not to mumble it, but didn't quite succeed.
Damica's smile faded. He was seriously bothered by that? Wow. She pulled her hands back. "Sorry, that's not-" Great Cita how do you fix something like that? "I didn't realize you were bothered by it. Won't happen again." Okay now change the subject but what to oh wait what time is it. She glanced around, noticing the darkness outside, and started to stand. "We should probably go check the rosters."
Quick apology and then moving on to pretend it never happened. That was exactly how he preferred his awkward moments to resolve. Thank you Damica you are the best. He was glad to have at least one friend who understood these things without him having to explain.
"We should probably, yes," he answered, rising from the chair. Moving along, pretending nothing awkward had just happened.
While he waited for her to gather whatever she needed, or to just lead the way toward the door, he told her, "Thank you, by the way. I still do not know what to do about the duchess, but at least I don't feel--" terrified? like he was going to die the instant he said anything? "--as bad about it, now."
Damica stopped to grab up her ledger and pen, and cap the inkwell before snagging that up as well. She had plenty back at the station, but liked to keep one on her just in case.
She gave him a smile. "I don't, either. But we both needed a distraction. And, hey, I learned about karma and dharma and... all that other stuff." She may not have gotten it all but it was pretty interesting! With that, she turned to get the door.