apostatised | [log] everyone i know goes away in the end

Faced with new and unusual situations, Sparhawk has learned that charging in with sword drawn is not often the best approach, no matter how tempting an idea it might be.

First of all, you need to work out where and when you are, and what rules apply. And then you can start using the sword.

Which is why Sparhawk has ended up in the library, looking for information on the nexus. Although he has digressed somewhat, and is currently browsing through a section devoted to dimensional gates, trying to understand more than one word in three, in search of a way home.

Hear that quiet cursing in Styric, Martel? That's the sound of a frustrated Sparhawk.

...Martel presses his hands against the shelf, leans forward, and an enterprising observer might translate his expression here as 'fuck my life'. Close enough. He shuts the book in front of him with a decisive snap and rises to his feet, weighing whether or not to interrupt. He could very easily just go back to his work and ignore him, but...on the other hand, it's just as likely that Sparhawk will notice him in turn, and there are people he'd rather not be startled by.

His erstwhile brother chief among them.

Mind made up, Martel crosses the distance to lean against the bookshelf, positively nonchalant. "I know that Lady Sephrenia didn't teach you those words. Looking for something, Sparhawk?"

The closing of the book echoes, and Sparhawk stiffens. He had thought that he was alone, but apparently not. Replacing the book on the shelf, he steals himself for the round of pleasantries that accompany meeting someone new.

Only to face Martel. Another curse, this time in Trollish, flitters through his mind, but Sparhawk manages to keep his lips clamped on it.

"I was amazed enough myself to realise that she actually knows more," Sparhawk tells Martel. "And anything I was looking for is nothing of importance."

If he does find a way back, he certainly doesn't want Martel tagging along.

"I wouldn't have been." Don't start, Martel. He glances at the sign on the opposite stack - dimensional travel, gates - and rolls his eyes.

"Nothing of importance to me," he agrees, sardonic, "but if you can't come and go, it's in my best interests to see that you go sooner rather than later. You're trapped, is that it?"

Now, at least, Martel understands why it was that the last time he saw Sparhawk - not this one, another one, one to whom he made a promise - he didn't feel quite...right. He briefly considers and discards the idea that it invalidates that oath (sophistry, and beyond that merely clutching at straws), but it does make a bloody mess of things he'd prefer were a distant, cold memory.

They're from the same world, he's sure now, and Kalten before him. Damn the lot of them.

(The things he wanted, in his trunk, now known to be from some other timeline...but they are his, and all just as he remembered them, and the man who left them behind is dead while he is not. This Sparhawk, he thinks, wouldn't be so tolerant of his nostalgia. He'd best just forget, and be glad to have them at all.)

"As I recall, we were all still reeling from revelations about Zalasta," Sparhawk says coolly. "Amazement was a constant mindset at the time."

Sparhawk is not above rubbing in the fact that things have changed while Martel has been dead.

"I have been trapped since I woke up on that ship, before my arrival here. I have a wife and daughter who are likely anxious about me. Would you not say that was reason enough for wanting to leave?" Sparhawk's tone is slightly sharper as he utters these last words. "And your interests, best or otherwise, are no concern of mine."

Had he time, or the inclination, Sparhawk might seriously considering staying in the nexus, and pestering the ever-loving hell out of Martel, just for irritation's sake.

"Zalasta. The stroppy little baroness mentioned him, too, but-"

But they speak of him as if he should matter to Martel somehow, and the ignorance grates even as Sparhawk explicitly lays out how much he does not give a damn about what does and doesn't grate on him. He cuts himself off before he pursues it, his relatively even mood deteriorating behind a cool expression. (His eyes still give him away, more riled than he wants to be and too sharp.)

"Leaving shouldn't be very difficult. It's merely a matter of finding the right portal. There are ways and I know a few of them."

...it is, through slightly gritted teeth, an offer of assistance. It seems doubtful Sparhawk will take him up on it, particularly when he adds as an afterthought- "You know she ought to have been barren, don't you?"

There is only one baroness that Sparhawk knows that might be considered to be stroppy, which begs the question, what on earth was Melidere doing here, but Sparhawk has other things to think about. He can find out more about her later.

"And should I trust you to not simply show me a portal to the spaces between worlds, claiming that it will lead me home? You've made it clear that I offend you by being here, and my death would solve that, with no chance of a return. Unless I stumble upon your own secret."

Yep, Sparhawk still doesn't trust you Martel, and isn't shy about letting you know it. But he's still polite about it, until Martel brings up the barrenness. To play ignorant, or to acknowledge it?

"You know as well as I that Lady Sephrenia has many talents, which is why it remains an 'ought'," Sparhawk shades the truth. He doesn't dare to outright lie, as Martel knows him far too well, but the shading is near enough. It all depends on what Martel actually knows, or is just guessing at.

"Your death-"

Martel pinches the bridge of his nose, opting to ignore...more or less all of that, actually; he's laughing, mirthlessly. "We tied off our loose ends very neatly, and I hate to see such tidy work undone by the fact I didn't have the good sense to stay dead. I'd rather remember the end than fight with you here, I want you to go home, you idiot. You won and I am the wreckage; I have no secrets here. Do you know it's been a year? It's been more than a year since I died. I am exhausted by it. And now here you are, with a litany of my failures, and I don't have the audacity to call you wrong or this unfair. But for God's sake, old boy, go home, it's not that hard. To your wife and your magic trick child. And stay there. Even Kalten managed to come and go."

...it's at this point that he realizes he's begun rambling like a mad fool, and having never been especially fond of his own shows of emotion, he swears, quietly. The problem with trying to teach yourself to be honest, to be better, to let yourself feel...well, the problem is that sometimes you stumble into it at the most inopportune of moments. Outbursts of things you'd kept hidden, things that shame you, things that hurt and aren't right or fair or reasonable. Always when you need them the least.

"You idiot," he adds, in case Sparhawk missed it the first time.

Edited 2009-11-02 11:57 (UTC)

Well, that was unexpected.

Not the fact that Martel called him an idiot, Sparhawk has been called that by many people. No, it's the fact that Martel, who is normally so cool, calm and collected, has lost it, at least partially.

Sparhawk looks at Martel, studying him. There is so much history between the two men, that Sparhawk immediately continued it, without actually thinking things through. What changes a man, if not his death? And there once was a time that Sparhawk could have trusted Martel with his life.

"Martel," and Sparhawk speaks slowly, as he works this out in his head, "Have you been told anything about what happened in our world, once you died?"

Because if this resurrected Martel is unaware of his own betrayal by Zalasta, then perhaps the revelations will, if not change him, then cast a new light on things.

In the aftermath of his momentary - only momentary, he consoles himself - lose of composure, Martel tolerates this scrutiny poorly, never flinching but somewhat resembling a man who's found himself abruptly in ice water.

"Little," he concedes, ungraciously. "Precious little in the way of anything with detail. Something about some plot for our mother-" his words are unconscious, the plural is unconscious, "-and I hear she's finally married Vanion."

The thought of someone twisting the world to hurt Sephrenia had been enough, on its own, to enrage him; he never knew how far it went.

Edited 2009-11-02 12:28 (UTC)

Sparhawk composes himself, running the tale through his mind to get it straight. God knows, it was complicated enough living through it.

"The whole tale may seen unbelievable, but every word is true, and confirmed from the mind of Zalasta," he begins. "Zalasta always harboured a love for Sephrenia, and was even promised to her for a time. The promise was dissolved when Aphrael was born as Sephrenia's sister. Sephrenia's life was given over to looking after Aphrael and there was no room for Zalasta as anything more than a friend. He did not accept this. He was the one who masterminded the killing of Sephrenia's parents, trying to kill Aphrael while she was still young in her new form. The attack failed, and Zalasta shifted his own blame to the Delphae, remaining a friend in Sephrenia's eyes."

This may not interest Martel, but everything is important. "Zalasta was still determined to possess Sephrenia, but everything that Zalasta could discover told him that only one thing was capable of killing a god. The Bhelliom. The rings that controlled it were beyond his reach, but he knew that I would come, and so he stayed close to Sephrenia, hoping that he could use me to achieve his ends. I was too well guarded."

This is the part that Sparhawk finds hard to say, nearly as hard as his conversation with another figure from Martel's past recently. "Instead, Zalasta found another. Someone who wanted to learn more than was being taught, and would pay well for the privilege. Someone like you, brother."

There is no malice in that last statement, Sparhawk's tone is matter of fact and dry, reciting facts and old history. He pauses there for a moment, to see if Martel wants to hit him yet.

An hour ago - less than that - Martel was glorying in his own cleverness and hard at work assembling word and deed into something he could even, perhaps, teach to someone else one day. Here, now, the words someone like you, brother run through his mind like razorblades and more than a decade too late he understands just how far he let himself fall.

Knowing what Zalasta had wanted enraged him, a year ago; understanding how he sought it leaves him hollowed out and empty. He doesn't bother asking for clarification - he understands what's being said to him.

"He wanted me to...what, precisely." He picks the words out quietly, pulling the cold calm that Sparhawk recalls around him like a shield. "He'd pit us against one another?"

"You were my equal," Sparhawk affirms. "Zalasta thought that you would kill me, and that would enable Azash to gain the Bhelliom. He had made pacts with Otha, even before he came to you. He used you, he preyed on what you thought you wanted, and twisted it to suit his own ends."

He sighs. "I take no pleasure in telling you this Martel, but there is no one else who can. In the end, everything wrong with our world, can somehow be tied to Zalasta, and his lust for our little mother."

"Everything wrong in our lives," Martel corrects him, tiredly, and even that is an exaggeration - but the sheer scale of what Zalasta did staggers him as he imagines it must have staggered Sparhawk even as the reasons why twist in his gut. This is more than he'd imagined when he first heard that name, and he thinks back to the Styric renegade he'd met in Elenia - as if now he can mark it all before, and then after.

That would be too easy. Zalasta's design, yes, but Martel tied the rope around his own hands himself, hung himself on his own hubris. Stupid. Stupid, and long dead history. He wishes he could make himself believe it didn't matter - here they are falling instantly into old patterns, how hard would it be to play his brother's villain one more time? (And how many times can he fail the same way?)

"You know I wouldn't have betrayed her for that."

...that he betrayed her at all is beyond questioning, but it's suddenly very important that Sparhawk understands Martel's devotion to her had never faltered - that he understands that even standing opposite each other there were lines he wouldn't have crossed knowingly.

Sparhawk remains quiet for a moment, letting things sink in. He needed enough time after the revelations the first time round, and it is no easier talking of it the second time.

"In all the time you sought my life, you never sought hers," Sparhawk begins. "Even when you and I met in Arashams tent, you were nothing but polite to her. Even now, you still call her your little mother, and she wept for you. No Pandion could hurt Sephrenia, no matter what the inducement. I know."

"There is one thing you might like to know though," and Sparhawk hopes that the details of the revenge will help. "What happened to Zalasta when his treachery was revealed to us. Shall I tell you?"

'No Pandion' - the smile is not really a smile, more like a shadow of the choking sensation when Candice first (finally) told him what caballero means. Martel knows he still says 'we' when he isn't thinking about it, though, and says nothing at all for a few moments.

It's probably a good thing that the nexus library is this sprawling and ridiculous thing, like anything else here; somewhere else, he thinks distantly, they'd have already been hissed at for being too loud. His quiet isn't anything like 'being considerate', though, he's just taking a moment to decide if he wants to know.

(Of course he wants to know.)

"Go on," he says, leaning against the shelf. "Perhaps I'll sleep easy with it." Probably not, you cynical fuck.

"Whatever you think you are now, you were once a Pandion. Nothing changes that, unless you can change the past." Sparhawk is finding it easier now to talk to Martel the man, rather than Martel the betrayer.

"You're aware of the Troll Gods? The God of Fire claimed Zalasta's life because of a promise Ulath made. When Zalasta appeared to prevent Sephrenia marrying Vanion, I took steps, and Khwaj set Zalasta on fire. A permanent fire. Never to be put out, never to die, and with Zalasta burning in the middle of it, for eternity."

Trolls are rather direct, and Sparhawk is secretly rather impressed with the punishment.

The uncomfortable sensation that Sparhawk can still read him probably comes right along with the two of them interacting on a footing other than warlike; he concedes the point he hadn't argued aloud with a tilt of his head and wryly, silently thinks that when he was trumpeting how well he knew the other man, he'd overlooked the fact Sparhawk knows him just as well. Martel the man is just as much of a bastard, let's face it, but he was a friend, once.

...and that is quite a punishment.

"I'd say Khwaj took a few enormous leaps," he says eventually, half-admiring, of the steps taken. Sweet God, that is the sort of tale you pause a man beforehand, isn't it? He tries to imagine it (and considering how many times he's accidentally set himself on fire, it's a little too close for comfort), and then shakes his head. "Hell. Eternity burning. I'm beginning to think I got off awfully light."

Yes, so, it sounds like Martel is finding his footing again after that humiliating show of (emotion, vulnerability, genuine care) weakness.

Sparhawk is feeling as though he should offer a token threat, just to put things back on their usual footing, but he dismisses that part of him. He's stuck here, he needs Martel to show him the way back, and if he is truthful with himself, part of him wants to see if things can ever change, to where he and Martel can be, if not friends, then civil to each other most of the time (and he can think of a few of his friends, and probably his wife, who would be screaming blue murder at that idea).

"Trolls have an interesting way of looking at the world. Ulath had to explain the concept of marriage to them, to begin with," and Sparhawk looks faintly amused. "And compared to that, I do suppose that a fatal stabbing would count as light."

He doesn't quite know what to think about the return to form. On one hand, it's the Martel he's familiar with, and knows how to deal with. On the other, it's the Martel that knows and delights in the knowing of all the right buttons to press. Sparhawk doesn't really want to have to kill him again.

"It didn't feel that way at the time," Martel observes sourly, in something that's more of a middle ground between unrelenting bastardry and the brief glimpse past his urbane exterior at what he contends with now. "Have you ever seen the sort of scar that sword of yours through the chest leaves? I never thought I would."

If this wasn't quite morbid enough, yes, thank you. In a manner of speaking it could be another concession; he's all too aware of Sparhawk's sword, some memories refusing to fade the way others do. The nightmares vary, but the sensation of drowning in his own blood, the wound destroying him from the inside while the outside burned from torn flesh, that stays with him.

"And if I didn't half wish I'd killed him myself," he says, as if merely speculating, "I might say death is an easy way out."

Living with what he's done is...many things, but not easy. (He should really talk to Henry, but that is a thought he'll think again when he has the space for it. Not now.)

"I'm sure that it didn't," Sparhawk replies placidly. "The scars that you gave me in Cippria are bad enough.Usually I'm too busy trying not to fall over from sheer exhaustion to notice what the marks are. I would have thought though that you would have been resurrected without your scars. I presume that's not the case? "

If you can't talk about your own death with the man who killed you, when can you talk about it? At least Sparhawk will have a different perspective on it, and for Sparhawk's part, he does want to ask what dying is like, but refrains. Somethings aren't needed to be known, no matter what.

"Unless given in mercy, death is no easy way out. Though living can sometimes be the greater punishment," Sparhawk notes. "When Ehlana was kidnapped to force me into doing my enemies bidding, I was prepared to do what I had to. If they had killed her, I would have thrown myself against them, for my life would be worth nothing."

Sparhawk realises that perhaps he's said too much there, and there is a look of steel in his eyes and he braces himself for whatever Martel may say.

"Thus speaks a man who's never died," Martel drawls, when Sparhawk disagrees with him about 'easy', making a vague gesture in the direction of his chest to confirm that no, he was returned to life with plenty of scarring to show for it. (Not all of the ones he remembers, and when he looks in the mirror he feels certain he's dropped a good ten years or so in the resurrection, but he'll never be permitted to forget how it ended.)

He tips his head when he notices Sparhawk steeling himself for his response, and makes him wait for it in that state of agitated readiness - the moments when they're quiet and droll and almost like they were before are the ones that drive the knife in hardest, and in some form of exquisite irony their safest ground seems to be hurting each other. He lets it draw out, then, and lets it be cruel.

"A worthless life is easier to give up than to live with, brother. You see." ...and, then, on the heels of that poignant moment of understanding between the two of them: "She was kidnapped, your wife? I remember Ehlana. I'm sure they regretted it swifter than they would've thought."

It's hard to tell whether that was a compliment, an insult, or both.

"Coming close obviously doesn't count much in your estimation," Sparhawk responds. "Usually at your hands, if memory serves."

And when Martel finally takes advantage of Sparhawk's emotional lapse (and how close Sparhawk was to just hitting Martel, just to fill in the silence).

"She was. By Zalasta's son. They took her maid as well, and for each infraction of Ehlana's, they punished Alean. Words or deeds, anything that was less than respectful, by their own definition of respect. Krager learnt his lessons of manipulation well," and Sparhawk's voice quietens as his anger surfaces. Not even the fact that Scarpa was dissolved helps. Sparhawk still feels that he should have been there to prevent it in the first place.

"It's not the same, Sparhawk, that's all; a different thing entirely. Far be it from me to wholly deny you a martyrdom at my hands."

These days they're really better at sniping at each other than anything else. It's comfortingly familiar and endlessly frustrating, a pattern that seems to be most of all representative of the things Martel is not meant to let himself be any more. If it were as easy as don't be, though...

"Krager was still alive?"

Apparently Martel is getting on board the train full of people who think Sparhawk should have killed that son of a bitch a long time ago. (Yes, he's aware of who was paying Krager's bills - e.g. himself - but that doesn't mean he liked him. Or that he wouldn't have deeply enjoyed the day Krager outlived his usefulness.)

"I would hardly call giving me more reasons to want you dead a martyrdom," Sparhawk snipes back, not quite sure if he is comfortable with this return to form, but willing to go with the flow, at least for a little while.

"And yes, you may add your name to the list of people that still think I should have slaughtered Krager when I had the chance. That may be so, but he was full of useful information, when sober. Rest assured though, that Khalad intends to do something with his currently living status, even if Krager probably couldn't even tell you his own name at the moment."

"Kurik's eldest," he recalls, with an odd expression - and then, remembering as well the last time that Kurik was discussed by the two of them, he doesn't take it any further. (Let them all think he forgot these things, the details of lives he left behind; he wished he did.) "I'm sure he does," he finishes, neutrally.

And speaking of forthright young men, in a nice bit of poor timing for the most put upon of those Ewar is coming down the stairs at the end of this room to head toward them - specifically, toward Martel.

"Got it, sir," he says - and then he pauses, looking from Martel to Sparhawk and back again. He wouldn't have made himself so indispensible in Valdis by now if he weren't exceptionally good at reading a moment. "...I'll just go put it down with the others, then, see what else I can find. My lord. Pardon me."

Edited 2009-11-02 17:23 (UTC)

Having seen Kurik well, if not technically alive, Sparhawk has mostly come to terms with his loss.

"His eldest, and already the favourite to be the next preceptor of the Pandions, if we can persuade him that we're not all useless..."

And whatever else Sparhawk was about to add is cut off as they are approached by another. For a brief instant, Sparhawk wonders if this place can read minds and conjure up people, but that fades as the other man speaks.

"Neighbour," Sparhawk defaults to his basic greeting, rather than say the comments that spring to his lips, all of which are rather uncomplimentary, and probably rude.

Martel spares a moment to silently damn whoever's behind the accursed luck to have Ewar, of all possible people, interrupt them - interrupt them now, no less. He knows who the boy reminds him of and why, and honestly he's more concerned for him than for his former fellow. Khalad is enough of a Kurik-reminder, he's sure, but Ewar doesn't need to bear the brunt of this animosity simply by his proximity and his loyalties. (The fact he worries about the impact of his reputation on the people around him sometimes surprises Martel as much as anyone else.)

"Sparhawk, my swordmaster, Ewar. Ewar, Prince Sparhawk of Elenia. Fetch me the bit on tracking portals, if you would, and leave it with the rest of them. I'll sort it out myself later."

The name 'Sparhawk' is just barely familiar enough; 'Elenia' is what pushes it all the way and Ewar reassesses what he's witnessing in a moment, stoic and a little wary. He knows a dismissal when he hears one, but considering the last time the Lord was alone with one of those men he came back limping and bloody-

Well, he's a little reluctant just to leave them to it, and equally reluctant to question Martel about it in front of him. He might not entirely trust the aristocracy to look after themselves, but neither is he going to call his Lord an idiot who goes around picking fights he ought not be picking in front of anyone else.

"Your highness," he greets Sparhawk in turn, respectfully, watchfully.

Somewhere in the back of Sparhawk's head there is a voice that is rolling about in hysterical laughter. Martel with a Kurik of his very own. He'd think that Kurik would be flattered that he made such an impact on Martel.

He lets none of this show on his face, keeping his slightly grim expression intact (it's what you need for dealing with tricky people). And the watchfulnes of Ewar doesn't escape Sparhawk either.

"Are you worried I'm going to do something rash to your Lord?" Sparhawk asks politely.

The expression on Martel's face is wonderful, really - 'go on, field that, would you?' with a resigned sort of amusement, the kind where you can't help but laugh a little inside because your life is truly some kind of elaborate farce. Kurik's lingering influence no doubt has a lot to do with just how much Ewar - who can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six himself, to Martel's early forties - gets away with in his position, how much Martel is willing to tolerate from him.

"Are you going to do something rash, Sparhawk?" he inquires, all casually urbane innocence.

"...my lord likes to be provocative," Ewar settles on in a neutral tone, which isn't precisely an answer but it is sort of hard to argue with on the heels of Martel's 'innocent' inquiry there. Speaking of how much he gets away with. "I'll get seeing to the books, sir."

He scrutinizes Sparhawk for a moment longer, committing the face to memory, and then bows his head briefly and keeps walking.

"I have been known for it in the past," Sparhawk replies to Martel, trying to match his tone of innocence, but not quite making it. "Although I wouldn't want to make your wife, a widow."

In other words, he's not going to kill you. He won't swear not to hit Martel if he becomes especially annoying. Provocative, as Ewar said. And Martel's expression is highly amusing to Sparhawk, who allows it to touch his face.

"Nice fellow," he comments as Ewar leaves.

"It'd be a pity to do it before we've had the time to make 'wife' official, and after the lengths she went to matching my lifespan," Martel murmurs, dry, and watches Ewar go. (Information, there, if Sparhawk cares to pick at it - he always has secrets, this one, but they are precious few and the things he guards the closest are primarily the things Sparhawk already knows.)

Of Ewar, he says, "He hired himself. I had him in with the other boys renovating the castle and he decided to stay on afterward." ...sound familiar? "Useful young man."

It shouldn't surprise Sparhawk that Martel is living in sin (or what most of the clergy would term sin), but it doesn't bother him.

What is surprising to him is that he's glad Martel has found someone again, and is happy. Wanting his estranged brother to be happy is an novel sensation for the broken nosed knight, and he takes a moment to assess this.

The comment about the lifespan mostly goes over his head though. He'll probably remember it later.

"Were we ever that determined I wonder," Sparhawk muses, unaware that while he's thinking about Martel being happy, his tone has slipped to something resembling friendly, rather than civility. "Khalad is the same way."

"A long time ago," Martel tells Sparhawk, in a tone that an outside observer would probably note as being similar to his, "when we had a great deal more energy to spare to it." He doesn't lack for energy now, but he's not eighteen, either.

"If you believe we were ever that young, of course," he adds contemplatively, after a moment of silence.

"According to Sephrenia, we still are that young," Sparhawk replies, still slightly absent, although starting to come out of his own head.

The conditioned response that Martel equals hate is starting to fade now. This man he has met is both like and unlike the Martel Sparhawk knew. The sharp wit is the same, the acerbic tongue, the provocative way of talking. But all the sins that Martel committed were expiated in blood on the floor in the temple of Azash, and Sparhawk finds himself feeling grateful for what he's beginning to think of as a second chance.

"Would you say," he starts slowly, "That we could ever be more than enemies, after all that has happened?"

An interesting redirection, and Martel regards him with a certain sense of caution - like he's feeling out for the edges of a trap. He can't avoid answering, though, so he offers up a prayer to anyone listening that Sparhawk hasn't gone mad, too.

"We could easily be less than enemies. What would we oppose each other for, when I've already conceded and you've more than won?" He shrugs, like it could be that simple - as if they could just be nothing to one another, after a lifetime bound together over a blade's edge, one way or the other. "More than that, though? It'd be a little presumptuous for me to say, don't you think?"

If there is a trap in Sparhawk's words, he's walking into it himself. And he might as well be mad, for even beginning to think of a reconciliation.

"The past cannot be forgotton, but it can be left in the past, where it belongs," Sparhawk has tried to do this, but old prejudices are hard to discard. "There is no middle ground for us, I think, there has been too much between us. I cannot simply forget that you existed, and are here again."

He thinks that he might leave this story out, should he ever return to his own world.

"Presumptuous or not, would it be something that you might consider?"

When and if he gets home, Martel wouldn't advise the words 'I reconciled with our crazy renegade' crossing his lips, no, not if he enjoys having his friends possess nominal faith in his sanity. (Whereas none of Martel's friends actually think he's sane in the first place, observant individuals that they are.)

"We were brothers - 'once', we like to say. If we weren't still, Sparhawk, it wouldn't matter and we wouldn't be picking at each other the way we are. Yes, I might consider it. God knows it's preferable." A beat, and then more dryly, "If he's listening."

It'll be a long time before religion is anything like easy for him, and this is probably why he's so consistently sharp about it.

And Martel has answered. Sparhawk now knows what he needs to know, and it's time for him to decide what to do with it. But that doesn't involve Martel.

"Maybe not God, but perhaps a Goddess," Sparhawk responds to the other mans statement. He's not tried praying to Aphrael yet, partially out of a worry that Martel simply said what Sparhawk wanted to hear, in order to set him up for a fall. He wouldn't put it past him.

"I will leave you to your books," and after all that has been said, Sparhawk can't think of a polite way of extracting himself from this situation. So, he falls back on this default of blunt. "Till we meet again...brother."

It's not said in a threatening tone, although it could be taken as such.

"'Til then," Martel agrees, masquerading as careless and a little too alert to quite carry it off. "Best of luck finding your way home."

...ha. Yes. Martel turns, then, and leaves first - he still has work to do, even if it might be a little harder than he'd anticipated to set his mind to it.

If Martel is listening closely, he might be able to hear the growl from Sparhawk as he makes his exit through the stacks. Even when trying to be friendly, Martel knows how to irritate the ever loving /hell/ out of Sparhawk.

He needs to go and give himself a stern talking to.

[log] everyone i know goes away in the end

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