"How much does that woman know…?" –Danté

Chapter 2.10 - Numb
Part 19

Danté was up before the dawn the next morning, and was unsurprised to find Dirk at the table, clearly waiting for him and glaring.

Danté sat down, sighed, and looked over at the irritated dwarf. "I told you I was an assassin."

"Seventeen people dead in a bar in Palmacosta."

…Ouch.

"They bring in a bullet for you?"

"Six of them." All six of which Dirk promptly dumped on the table.

Danté winced again. "Double ouch."

Dark eyes narrowed. "And then, ah open the door yesterday afternoon, an' ah find the Grand Cardinal of the Iselia Ranch standin' at the door askin' after ya. Somethin' about a deal?"

Danté sighed. "Consider my grave dug. I'm well and truly aware of it, no need to make it any deeper."

"Then why the hell—"

Danté held up a hand and twisted. Was that…

Lloyd came bounding down the stairs, and a quick swipe had the bullets hidden in Danté's palm.

"Morning!"

Lloyd paused and blinked at the table, then took another glance at Danté, who sighed. "You trying to get down here early enough to catch me in the middle of my exercises?" he asked.

Lloyd nodded.

Danté sighed. "Alright. Come on. Might as well get the two of us doing our thing. Dirk and I can have this discussion in the workshop after breakfast." Danté shot Dirk an almost apologetic look, but the dwarf's expression was neutral. The slightest bit of gratitude, but also irritation.

Dirk hadn't expected Lloyd to come interrupting them. To be honest, though, Danté had almost been expecting it.

So he got to his feet, stepped out the door with Lloyd on his heels, and set to doing his stretches, bullets tucked away in a pocket.

It was almost familiar. Standing there, doing his stretches, with Noishe watching the both of them and Lloyd almost bouncing, ready to start the morning.

Danté signaled for him to start, finished his last couple of stretches, and then took off, himself.

It wasn't the run he'd had through Palmacosta, but it woke him up. It got his blood pumping, got him moving, and Danté was only halfway through his usual course when he realized that Lloyd had stopped to stare at him.

Heh. There was a world of difference between practicing and being in practice.

He stuck the final landing and turned to raise an eyebrow at Lloyd. "Start from the beginning."

"Huh?"

"I saw you get distracted, kiddo. Start from the beginning."

Lloyd was quiet for a moment, but then complied, and Danté climbed up onto the stable to sit and watch as Lloyd made a second attempt at the run.

Dirk sat down next to him a moment later, and Danté glanced over at him for only a moment before sighing. "I let one of them go."

There was a pause, before Dirk looked up at him. "Whaddya mean?"

"There were twenty people in that bar. Me, the barkeep, eighteen others. All eighteen of them had marks on their heads, knew it…" Danté paused, suddenly not seeing Lloyd, but looking around the bar at the all of the dead bodies again. "They caught Silas. They thought they had his assassin pegged. If there hadn't been an innocent caught in the middle of everything, I wouldn't have done anything even near that… public."

The hand on his shoulder startled him, but Dirk was more than used to Danté's knee-jerk reaction of 'kill it dead' when he was startled, and so the pretty silver dagger Niflysobir had given him didn't break skin.

Dirk gave him a worried look, even as he gently released Danté's wrist. "Ya said ya let one go?"

Danté nodded. "He had a daughter about Lloyd's age… Mark went out for him because he was taking too long paying back a loan. Loaner was dead already, anyway…"

Green eyes once again following Lloyd's path around the house, Danté didn't really notice when Dirk pulled the dagger out of his grasp. He'd planned to have the dwarf look at it anyway…

"Where… Where did you get this, lad?"

Dirk sounded unsettled.

Danté looked down and shrugged. "Gift from an aeros-form protozoan I made friends with. She said it was her partner's before."

"Her partner must've been dead a few thousand years. This is old. Ah haven't seen enchantments this strong on anythin' made in the last two thousand years."

There was a decidedly long pause, until Danté decided to bite. "Enchantments?"

Dirk nodded. "Old stuff. Runes and forge magic. Ain't somethin' ah could do even if ah had the touch fer the magic. We're above-ground." There was a pause, and Dirk held the dagger out for him again. "Ah'll… There's a ritual. Ah'll talk ya through it tonight."

Danté raised an eyebrow. "Ritual for what?"

Dirk sighed. "The old blades like that'n… the enchantments… they're made ta answer ta their wielders, regardless o' whether they're human or elf or whatnot. If the blade accepts ya, it'll be another powerful weapon at your disposal, somethin' outsida yer guns. If not… Are ya gonna argue too loudly if ah ask ya not ta carry it?"

Danté shook his head. "It's dwarven in nature. I knew that from the moment I saw the runes. Niflysobir may have gifted it to me, but I'm not going to argue with you if you'd rather it found a home elsewhere."

"Don't even have ta send it elsewhere, just… don't be usin' it. If it don't accept ya durin' the ritual, it ain't gonna do more than cause problems for ya. Ya find enough o' those on yer own."

Yeah, Danté certainly did.

Lloyd finished his run and glanced around, looking almost worried when he didn't spot Danté right off.

"Up here, kid."

Red-brown eyes rose, and Lloyd grinned.

"Ya gonna explain the Desians eventually?"

"Yes. Later. Maybe see if I can't get Lloyd to go find some strawberries or something."

Dirk chuckled a bit. "Good luck with that one."

Danté shrugged. "I'll figure something out. You deserve to know. I might have told Forcystus to go through Erik, since he's at least been pre-warned of this mess, but… You need to know. And I need to make sure Lloyd understands at least the basics of what's going on."

"Yer gonna tell 'im?!"

Danté stopped halfway across the roof, aiming for the ramp that led up to the terrace and then the hallway on the second floor. "Dirk… I can't hide everything from him. I can't. And… I wish I could be sure that he would never follow in my footsteps. But if he does… I don't want him finding out about all of this ten years down the line." He turned and looked at the dwarf. "I wish I could keep my silence, truly, I do. But I'm not hiding everything from him."

Dirk watched him for a long while. "A'right."

Danté took a deep breath and stepped inside. He only made it about halfway down the stairs before Lloyd nearly barreled into him.

"Didja see? I think that was the fastest I've ever done the whole thing!" Lloyd cheered.

Heh. Yeah. Danté hadn't been sure if that speed had actually been Lloyd, or if he'd just been that desperate to stall that the time had flown past.

"Yeah. You did good, kid. Come on, I see breakfast on the table."

Indeed it was, set out where Dirk had left it to come join Danté on the roof of the stable.

Lloyd hopped up into his chair and started eating, only to pause partway through and look out toward the stable. "Isn't Dad gonna come eat?"

Danté sighed. "I think he's got a lot on his mind."

"Does it have to do with the Desian last night?"

Danté winced. "Yeah, kiddo. It does."

"You said you weren't a Desian…"

"I wasn't," Danté replied automatically. Then he sighed. "'m still not, technically."

Lloyd looked so scared. "You said…"

"I know," Danté whispered. Green met red-brown, and Danté shifted and held his arms out, pulling a mostly-willing Lloyd into his lap. "I know. I didn't really want to, either. But… I've got… a special skillset, for a mercenary. And… that got the attention of one of the Grand Cardinals." He sat there holding onto Lloyd for a long while. "I wanted to say no. I wanted to just walk away and pretend that I never even considered it for a second."

"Why didn't you?"

Danté rubbed the tears away silently, never once letting go of Lloyd. "Because Kvar's giving me a rather singular chance. A chance to learn the Ranches, inside and out…" He stopped here and glanced toward the stairs. Dirk was sitting near the top, not close enough for Lloyd to notice, but close enough for Danté to have heard him sitting down. "A chance to know where to go to get you back out if they slip past me."

Lloyd sniffled. "But… Won't you be in a Ranch, too?"

"Not really. For a few months, yeah, Kvar needs to make sure I know what I'm doing. But… Most of what I'll be doing will be in-and-out work. I won't be inside any of them for very long at a shot. It's just… a little something else to add to my usual work," Danté replied. "I'm not going to enjoy it. But… if it means I've got an advantage I didn't have before… It's something I'm willing to put up with." His grip on the boy tightened for a moment before it loosened again, and Lloyd slipped out of his lap, trying to dry the tears.

"So… They're not gonna take you away?"

Danté shook his head. "No. And they're not going to take you away, either. Not if they don't want me coming after them. Which they don't." Danté poked Lloyd in the forehead to get the boy to look at him, and then smirked. "I happen to have it on very good authority that I am utterly terrifying when I'm in a bad mood."

Lloyd giggled a bit. "No you're not."

"There's a man in Palmacosta who'd argue that point with you, a few of them, actually, but they'll have to wait until you're older. I'm not dragging you all the way around the continent just so you can convince them otherwise," he shot back, still half-smirking.

Lloyd laughed.

"Come on, back up in your chair. Best get your breakfast eaten, Dirk's on his way down."

"Huh? How do you know that?" Lloyd asked, even as Dirk took his rather obvious cue.

"'Cause he's got better ears, lad."

Lloyd looked over at Dirk with wide eyes, clearly surprised by the dwarf's presence, even as Danté and Dirk chuckled a bit.

By the time breakfast was done, Lloyd was chatting on about some of the dreams he'd had lately.

And Danté had to stop and try not to choke at one point.

"And the pretty lady wasn't alone this time! She had someone with her, and he looked just like you, Danté!"

Danté coughed, managing to clear his airway as he glanced over at Lloyd. "Dark."

Lloyd nodded. "Yup!"

Danté swallowed, feeling his appetite abandon him.

Now it wasn't just Kairi. It was Kairi and Dark both.

"And Kairi said you were in trouble, 'cause you found me."

Danté coughed again, this time trying to cover up the laugh.

"I think you got that one backwards, brat," he muttered. "I distinctly remember waking up to you asking me if I was okay."

Lloyd tilted his head to the side. "But…"

"Nope."

"So… When she said Dark was kinda like my uncle…"

Danté blinked, glanced over at Lloyd, and blinked again. "How much does that woman know…?"

"I dunno."

"Rhetorical question, kid. I don't think I want to know. I may be terrifying, but Kairi makes me look like an amateur."

"Look like a wha…?"

Danté snickered at the baffled look on Lloyd's face. "She makes me look bad at being terrifying."

"…Um. Aside from the whole thing with the mean girl pulling her apart, I really don't think either of you is terrifying."

Danté snorted. "Oh dear. Dirk, I am so sorry."

Lloyd looked so befuddled. "Why are you apologizing to Dad?"

Danté bowed his head and laughed. Really, actually laughed for the first time in ages. "Because he's going to find himself very decidedly outnumbered in a few more years."

Dirk snorted from across the table. "Ah think ah'll manage."

Danté just shot him a grin. "Yeah? Pretty sure that's what Zion said after Kairi wrecked all of his carefully laid plans, backup plans, and the backups for all of his backups. She then proceeded to continue wrecking every little plot he came up with, and to be honest… in hindsight, it's absolutely hilarious."

He paused and sobered up a bit at the memories. "Wasn't so funny at the time. Kinda tends to happen when I'm on Zion's side and Kairi's pointing that deadly katana at me, but… In hindsight, knowing full well that Zion was an idiot and his plans weren't something I wanted to go along with… Yeah. It's really quite amazing how completely and totally Kairi managed to ruin things for him."

Green eyes slid over to meet red-brown. "I'm glad she's alright. I wasn't sure if what I was doing was going to be enough to save her or not."

Lloyd smiled. "I think she's been trying to find you. She keeps asking about you."

"That so…?"

Why? Why would Kairi care about an enemy? An enemy she should have assumed was dead?

…How did she even know enough about his relationship with Lloyd to tell the boy to call Dark his uncle?

Danté sighed to himself as Lloyd continued to prattle on about the 'pretty blue plains' and Kairi. He knew, from the way the boy talked about their interactions, that it was, without a doubt, Kairi.

How was she contacting Lloyd? Did it have something to do with her telepathy, or another skill he'd never actually seen in action? Or… was Lloyd the one bridging the gap between their worlds?

…Danté shoved that thought out of his head.

It was unlikely. Even in the event that he'd be able to ask Kairi, the chances of getting an answer, much less one that made sense, were slim.

So he'd just have to settle for the knowledge that Lloyd had Kairi visiting him in his dreams.

…He should probably finish eating, but he really wasn't hungry anymore. And he did still need to explain things to Dirk… He sighed and stood up, heading for the sink. It wasn't like he had left that much on his plate. He really didn't like wasting food, regardless of whether he was hungry or not.

"And then I was gonna ask Noishe to—Are you going out?"

Danté smiled a bit to himself at Lloyd cutting himself off. "No. I'm going to go stand in the corner of Dirk's workshop, like I said I'd do earlier."

"Oh."

Sadly, yes. 'Oh.'

Best to keep Lloyd innocent.

Fun Fact: This lines up (sort of?) with Chapter 11.8 of AEtT, where Kairi and Dark take a quick side-trip to the TimeStream after Kairi has a PTSD moment at the remains of the Monolith of Syal, prior to taking on Gnome for what ends up being the final time.

That scene actually happened a few weeks prior to this scene, I think (I'd have to double-check the timelines, which would require writing them out, so... pass), which means at this point in time, Kairi has still not sealed Lloyd's memories. (I know some of you are watching for that.)