dumbshow | was i ever truly off my bullshit

was i ever truly off my bullshit

[When Kirin Jindosh's house falls into the sea, he almost doesn't realize it's happening. No alarms have been activated, no sensors in his floors alert him to the presence of an intruder; even the mechanisms of his house are silent as the grave, on this completely ordinary day. Were there anything amiss in his house, he would know... and nothing appears to be wrong.

He hasn't eaten in two days. It's unimportant, but he's pushed his hunger to the point of distraction and now needs to put something in his body before he starts to slip in his work. It's this that gets him out of his lab and skulking directly down to the kitchens instead of waiting around for someone to bring him food in the dining area; the cooks aren't pleased to see him in their space (it isn't theirs), but they never are, and Jindosh can eat a pear in peace for five minutes thanks to their studiously avoiding his gaze.

His cooks are among the best of his staff, all things considered. But so it happens that he is not in the high, ocean-overlooking part of his home when it begins to fall. He feels a faint rumble beneath the floor and pauses, head tilted to listen. Somewhere, something creaks. And then something tears.

All at once his perfect home becomes a place of chaos: guards abandoning posts, staff and servants running in every direction, the clockworks not knowing what to do with themselves in the absence of an enemy to put down. Jindosh himself moves like a spectre, the shock of his home's demise too great to spur him into doing something like moving more quickly. Against all odds it's a maid (he knows her face, Maybe if he had a family, but that kind of thing doesn't even occur to him, his home remembers) who sees the master of the house staring dully out of a window as it splinters and does something about it, grabbing his hand and taking off at a run before he can find his voice to object.

The house crumbles. Glass shatters, wood splinters and stone all but dissolves as if it were never the marvel of engineering it was built to be. Metal screams and snaps as it bends in ways it was never intended to and Jindosh has no words for the feeling he experiences as his life's work, years of work and decades of research, slip into the sea like they were never there. How? he wonders. How, how, how? No answer comes to him; his greatest defeat is this, and though he can see no enemy that caused this, he knows: his house is flawless, and if it falls then his enemy has bested him without ever appearing before him.

A worthy opponent, despite the consequences.

Outside the carriage is somehow still working, but it throws itself off its track when a chunk of his waiting room wall lands on the station behind it. Jindosh and the maid are tossed limply into the grass, and the maid scrambles to her feet to continue running while Jindosh sits up to watch his house fall to rubble and dust. He thinks he can see his silvergraph lenses glinting in the afternoon sunlight as they fall, but perhaps he imagined it.

He's still sitting there watching when the dust has settled. When a dark-clothed figure covering her face stalks toward him, says nothing to him as he looks up into the eyes of his own destruction, the Empress, says nothing as she tosses the cracked shell of a clockwork soldier's head into his lap and walks away.

He's still sitting there when the sun begins to set, on the hill, on everything. She may as well have just killed him, he thinks as he finally rises to go pick through his own rubble. It would have been more merciful than this.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's fair enough. They wouldn't do anything I don't tell 'em, though.

[Paolo sighs, finally dropping his hand. He sits in silence for a moment, taking another drag from his cigar and watching how the smoke billows from Jindosh's hand. What a weirdo...

But eventually he sets it down on an ashtray, leaning forward in his seat to pull off his jacket. There's three bonecharms sewn on the inside of it, singing the second they're revealed to the open air, but his attention is going to undoing the wristbow strapped to his arm.]

You can have a look, ahead of time. Have it back to me before I wake up tomorrow.

[He's enjoying his wine, thanks... He's had enough of this wine to not completely blow off Paolo's strange invitation, but he's still not convinced. On the other hand, now he has something to look at and there are bonecharms distracting him with their singing.

He takes the wristbow, certainly, but his gaze keeps darting to the jacket. Hmm.]

It has a bend here, [he says, like, immediately after looking at this bow once. Nerd.] It's probably misfiring one in ten of your shots.

[Bonecharms...... let him play in the Void.]

I don't miss. [He says, confidently, but immediately betrays himself by glancing towards the bend. He's definitely lying, but spare him. He didn't even realize, using the thing daily...] ... Usually.

[He sets it on the desk and leans back, not even going to disguise the fact he's waiting for him to put the bottle down.] These things- [they're his charms, no touch] -make me lucky, but they can't make them travel as far as I need them. Especially if you don't want me killing anybody at the bank.

[Let him touch? Pay him in Void toys.]

I can fix that. [Of course he can fix that. He's like 100x the effectiveness of those crappy black market sellers hammering weapons together clumsily in their back rooms. Not that he's very interested in making this bow better, when the persistent singing of the bonecharms is taking up all of his attention...]

Lucky. [explain,]

[As much as he'd like to just... not explain, leave Jindosh wondering, he's in too much of a good mood to be whined at. He sighs, drawing his coat out from behind him to carefully pull the charms out one by one. Don't want to ruin the thread in his very high class jacket, you know.

It's filthy. They're filthy. One of them still has blood on them from before he disappeared into rats, once.] They make you hit harder. You ever fight with these things on, you'll stay on your feet. Things that are just supposed to graze your enemies hit arteries. It just kind of pulls you in that direction, makes you better. And it feels great when it does. [void junkie, Outsider pls call him]

[Hit harder and stay on your feet? Not very impressive, but the way the bones seem to shimmer in the light is. The Void is another puzzle for Jindosh to take apart; Delilah had told him no, to leave it alone and not try to understand it—but Delilah is a useless narcissist playing pretend in Dunwall. The bonecharms Paolo pulls out of his jacket are real, in front of him.

He thinks of the one sitting in his vault in the very same bank they're planning to rob; he has no idea what it's supposed to do, but he's never had an opportunity to investigate it. Perhaps Paolo can tell him what it's actually for.]

Did you carve them yourself? [he wants! to see!]

Some of them. My grandfather's a fisherman, so he used to swipe bones from the whalers. [He holds up one of the smaller charms, its shape cruder than the rest.] I carved this one when I was a kid. I wanted to wind the Blade Verbena, bring home something I earned... A big lug knocked me out of the ring, ended up junior officer.

[So don't talk about his little guy complex, he's handing it over.] Nana carved another one after that... she was bitter about me losing. The other one's fucked up - it's what happens when you try and put broken ones together. Hurt when you use 'em, like the Void's punishing you for it. It probably wouldn't like you experimenting much.

[A charm!! Thank god Paolo hands him the charm when he does, or he'd start talking about his clockwork soldiers being so good at swords again. Paolo's life story isn't nearly as interesting as the piece of bone humming in his hand... He puts the wine down now, finally, holding the charm in one hand and running his fingers over it with the other.]

Hmm. I'm sure it wouldn't. But perhaps...

[maybe, he will do it anyway,]

[Hell yeah. Now Jindosh is the one who's never getting this bottle back, thanks. It's probably nearing its end with all the back and forth they've been doing... he's going to drink the last of it.]

I didn't bring you here so you could wind up dead playing with black magic, boy.

[Wow? Maybe he won't give Paolo the charm in his vault, with that attitude.]

Don't call me boy. And please, don't embarrass yourself thinking I am that careless.

[he is missing two fingers but that is different?]

Then don't act like one. You know something is hot, yet you still wanna get burned.

[He raises his brows, lifting his hand to wiggle his in tact thumb and index finger. Looks like... he still has those... unlike somebody...]

And uh... that's debatable, isn't it?

[Don't make him blow smoke in your face again, Paolo. He's sorely tempted.

But, fine. Look at his self control: he's putting the charm back down on the desk, possibly a little harder than necessary.]

Fine. I'll spend all of my time tinkering with your little weapons instead.

[he whine]

Good. [He rolls his eyes, leaning over to slide the charm back on over... But god, he won't just leave him with nothing. Such a nice guy.]

... We come by some pieces, I'll show you how to carve your own. You're just not breaking any of mine.

[What's this - Paolo... putting in effort? Spoiling him, frankly. He did nothing to deserve this cool bone charm lesson, and yet. Jindosh supposes he can have the one in his vault, but he's not going to tell him about it until they're at the bank. So.]

Hm. Alright. Are you done with this?

[He says, while reaching over to take Paolo's list of numbers and flip it over to look at the fucking bird drawing anyway. His now.]

Yeah-- No, I'm not. [He leans forward to try and take before he can get a look, but he's way too slow. The page is littered with sketches hardly a step above a child's drawing, in permanent, damning ink. What once was serious considerations of how it can be armored deteriorated into small things like "bird brain" being written above the head of the thing, a tiny doodle of a stick figure clockwork but with wings, another but with guns at the end instead of blades. It's bad.

Paolo doesn't know whether or not he hates Jindosh or himself more.] ... I'm goin' to bed.

[Oh.

Oh, wow. Jindosh has no actual words for this, but the judgmental look he gives this paper should be response enough. This little one has wings? That's completely impractical. That's not even how wings work, he can tell from the scribble.]

Are you? You do seem tired.

["mediocre" - jindosh 2017]

I'm exhausted. I had to deal with some asshole complaining his feet hurt all day, you know.

[Yeah, he's getting up, goodbye. Don't even look at him as he passes by.]

Brought a cot up here for you until we can get a mattress.

Perhaps if the Empress hadn't destroyed my home and carriage station, my feet wouldn't have hurt. [Hmph? Nothing is Jindosh's fault, ever, the end.

He's not going to sleep on the cot, or at all, but he manages a pseudo-grateful hum about it. Maybe. Good night you prick!!]

Good night, Grand Inventor. [Paolo waves a hand dismissively, and doesn't even bother to wait until he's out of earshot before he starts laughing at Jindosh's poor feet. He's left him to his own devices and given him shit to do, so all things considered, it's probably forgivable. Probably. Don't come murder him in his sleep.

He figures eventually Jindosh will go to sleep like a normal person, so it's left at that. He spends some time in his evening ritual of cleaning the bar, locking up, and checking the basement, then finally goes to bed. Normally, he would have slept a few hours and gotten up right away, but he thinks he's earned just laying around watching the sun rise through the window. Mindy brought up clothes, someone else is opening the bar, he's going to rob a bank... life is pretty alright. Maybe that weirdo might wake up feeling the same later, and he can tolerate him.]

[Paolo is an intolerable little man and Jindosh would lob crumpled paper at his head as he leaves if he were, like, a little more drunk than he is. If he had more cheap wine!! But whatever - Paolo leaves, and Jindosh is left to his own devices. And Paolo's devices, if they're counting the wristbow he's apparently looking at.

Here's the thing: Jindosh doesn't maintain a sleep schedule governed by reason or good timing ordinarily, and here, at this place? Even if he wanted to sleep, the noise would keep him awake far too long. Unlike his own home, where every noise in the dead of night was something he could pinpoint and deal with, put up more little notes if he had to, the Crone's Hand is teeming with Howlers and rats and when the thugs stop howling for the night, finally, the wind outside howls instead.

So Jindosh eventually puts in the minimal effort of sitting on the cot for an hour or so, fidgeting with the wristbow, before he wanders around the office instead. Maybe he'll sit on the windowsill and stare, again? That was fun. If he sleeps at all, it's in half-hour dozes there before his head hitting the glass wakes him up again.

By morning he's bored, and no less restless than he was the day before. But he's also vacated Paolo's office to wander up a floor and stare... just... down at the street? It's been a long day and night. Nobody said he wasn't allowed up here!!]

[When Paolo finally drags himself up, he figures Jindosh will be asleep. He takes the time to wash his face, put on a reasonably cleaner set of clothes, and slick back what little hair he has to look slightly more refined than he had the last time they met. It's not that he really cares what Jindosh thinks of him, but it does start the morning off with a more positive mood than the last. New beginnings, all that.

He even brings up breakfast with him. It's minimal effort, two plates of hard boiled eggs and bread, but it's enough that Mindy gives him a weird look as he passes by to go up to the third floor. "It's a good morning," he says. "What's so good about it?" she asks, but receives no reply.

Except Jindosh isn't on the third floor. His grin falters, almost believing he did up and run off like he'd predicted... but he thinks to check the fourth before blowing his lid. No one goes up here, there's no reason to. And yet.

And yet, crisis averted. His grin returns, if a bit strained.] You... You get up early?

[The fact that he's standing around essentially waiting for Paolo to come find him is one Jindosh doesn't dwell on. He doesn't know how long this new arrangement will last, and while it's somehow gone better than expected, he doesn't want to spend that much time actually thinking about it. They're going to rob a bank and he's going to get at least a small fraction of his life back, even if he has to take it home to this place.

There isn't anything left to do but take things one day at a time, he supposes. So he tries not to dwell but he dwells a little, while he waits around up here looking out over the Dust District (at this terrible angle, frankly). He looks at Paolo over his shoulder when he arrives, nonplussed. Hey.]

Most days, yes. [He slept like a net two hours, that means he technically "woke up early." Anyway-] You are presuming too much about me again, aren't you?

[tsk TSK.....]

Hey, that's not an unfair presumption to make. Half of Karnaca doesn't rise with the sun.

[That half is probably the wealthy half he still associates with Jindosh, but... whatever. He brought eggs and toast! Look at them as he walks on over.]

I uh... don't come up here, usually. We just use it for lookouts. [It's so... messy... hm.] I can get you a desk, if you want.

[Hmm... he doesn't want this! Great. He looks out at the district again, nonplussed.]

Too much dust. It wouldn't keep. [Sure, the district isn't in dust hell so often, but what could he do up here with a desk besides wait for it to fill with dirt? Shame, though.]

You came to find me— does that mean it's time to get some actual work done?

[there's no way it's past like 8 and already, he is this way]

[What... Paolo looks between his great breakfast and Jindosh, brows furrowed. He made it himself? What is this?]

I came to find you because I thought you'd like something to eat. [Well, he's putting the other plate down on this windowsill so he can eat his toast... dejectedly.] You know, like normal people do in the morning.

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