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[kaderp]

Kadar was Brooding. With a capital B and a look on his face like someone had stolen his candy, kicked his puppy, and then run over his brand new robes on with their motorcycle.

He had nearly died. That wasn't quite what it felt like, and the first time he'd died had been almost more peaceful-- but this was his second chance. He was supposed to be able to enjoy it, wasn't he?

But-- he'd been dragged into the sarcophagus again. Maybe whatever had really brought him here... well, perhaps it wasn't here as a second chance after all. It was a distressing thought. He would give almost anything just to go back and be able to follow his brother out of the Temple; not to cause Malik that additional heartbreak like he so clearlly was. It hurt everytime Malik looked at him, to see how upset his brother was, all the time.

Kadar wanted to go back to how things were, or at the very least, know what was going on.

So he was sitting, brooding a little, in a not-quite-so-dark corner off of the living quarters of the castle, drawing little stick-figure Assassins in the dust and then wiping them away. It was a little pathetic, really. He should definitely be interrupted.

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[sakedrinking]

Haku hadn't been much better as of late. She already felt out of her element, afraid and so unused to dealing with people without her family around, and with everything that had happened with the shadows and Quatre and... all of it she was beginning to wonder how much longer she was going to survive. Something would happen sooner or later that would leave her broken, irreparable, waiting for the moment she shut down for good.

It scared her.

No.

It terrified her.

She wanted to go home, but there was no way to do that, and even if she hid in her room forever she still risked shutting down via lack of power. She had to get sunlight some how, and the tiny windows in the rooms didn't cut it.

So today like so many days after that attack, she struck out cautiously from her room, looking around nervously even in the living quarters for anything that might try to harm her.

It was the scratching from the corner was what made her jump first, but as she turned around she realized with quiet relief that it was only Kadar. Kadar looking about as down as she felt.

"... K... Kadar-san... ?"

[kaderp]

Kadar, for his part, had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn't even noticed her approach-- and it wasn't like she was trying to be stealthy. He grumbled at himself internally. What good did it do him if he was going to be such a novice that he was practically letting himself get killed?

Despite this, he pulled himself up a little straighter and did his best to offer Haku a smile.

"Haku," he offered. His tone wasn't cheerful -- not terribly close, really, but it could settle for an attempt at happiness. "Hello."

[sakedrinking]

For one who wore her own emotions on her sleeve, his distress and weak smile were not easy to miss at all. She felt guilty, being so wrapped up in her own fear that she hadn't even noticed how anyone else was doing until now. Her shoulders slumped noticeably, and she started to take a step towards him but thought better of it.

"Are you alright, Kadar-san?" she asked, voice soft and hesitant. Should she even try prying?

[kaderp]

Kadar was good at lying-- when the situation called for it. He could lie about his name and his job and nearly anything else that it was necessary to lie about, but this? This wasn't worth lying about, and he didn't know how to handle it. How to handle talking about it.

"I..." he started. Thought it back over and looked down, instead. "I will be."

[sakedrinking]

Haku stared at him, mouth slightly open. God, how eerie it was to hear those words, that exact cadence coming from some one else. How many times had she said that after all the things her previous master had done to her? More than she could count. More times than she cared to count, really.

Slowly her feet moved forward and she took a seat on the stone floor next to him, wrapping her arms underneath her legs as she gave him a sympathetic look. Her heart went out to him, as much as a robotic heart could anyway.

"I'll be okay, too," she said, smiling weakly.

[kaderp]

Kadar offered her another smile, at that. She was still new here; still getting adjusted-- and as far as he knew, still alone. He wasn't sure it was better anymore, to have his brother here, to have Altaïr here, when he knew he could not return with them. Knew that even his being here was practically a lie. The heart that pounded in his chest and the blood that pulsed in his veins was a lie, and it hurt with every beat.

He did not want to burden her with his own problems. There were too many of them, and they were too hard to vocalize, and he knew that if he started he would not be able to stop, so instead he just nodded.

"I believe that most things can be fixed, with time." And he did-- he just no longer believed that he was in the category of things that could be fixed.

[sakedrinking]

"I'm... starting to believe that, too..." Haku said after a flash of hesitation. Once upon a time, not so many years ago she may not have believed such things. But after living so long with the other Vocaloids, after being loved by family rather than hated by her creator, she had slowly realized in her short four years that time did fix things. Even if it did so very slowly.

"It helps... to have friends," she offered after another pause. Her family was still not there, but she had, at the very least, made a few friends along the way. It helped with that feeling of loneliness that didn't want to go away completely.

[kaderp]

"It does." He could agree with that. It would have been harder than Kadar wanted to consider, if he had been here without family, or if he had been here entirely alone. It felt like the people he knew were slipping through his fingers, sometimes-- they were always disappearing, and he had the quiet fear that he was going be the next one to vanish.

"It's the reason I know I will be all right."

[sakedrinking]

Haku only nodded silently to that. Maybe it would be the same for her in the end. She was making friends, even in all her recent paranoia and skittishness.

At least. She thought she was.

"... we're friends, aren't we?" she asked quietly, turning her gaze to the floor sheepishly.

[foolnornovice]

There is a part of him that is more sensitive about the subject than he would admit; it is this part that keeps him guarded as he patrols this area of the castle, so that maybe they will have a warning next time, and not be caught off guard like the last-- so that he will not have fear holding him by the throat.

He's distracted by that mass of white in one of the rooms as he walks by. Stepping back, he approaches without a sound, not a word until he is close enough to figure it out, despite how familiar the robes are. ".. Kadar."

[kaderp]

Kadar's paying a little more attention now-- and even if he wasn't, he knows those footsteps; knows those steps. Knows Altaïr, after years and months spent idolizing him for his ability to be a competent Assassin. To be everything Kadar tried to be.

He lifts his head a little and offers Altaïr a smile that isn't as wide as it should be, isn't as genuine or honest as Kadar should be.

"Altaïr."

[foolnornovice]

He realizes that Kadar knows it is him, but still he keeps quiet, responding only when the other moves. Going as far as to sit beside the other, he looks over, hands settled on his knees.

"Safety and peace," he greeted with a nod, trying to read the other's expression. There was a small breath in as he shifted, moved to approach the concern in a more direct manner. "Does something weigh on your mind?"

[kaderp]

Kadar hesitates for a moment. He doesn't want to look like he's being weak. He'd just be a novice, someone that couldn't cope with the strain of being -- of being dead.

"I am... worried," Kadar says, after a pause, looking back down. He traces his fingers through the figures he'd drawn, erasing them in a few seconds. He frowns a little at them. It shouldn't be so easy.

"About home." About going home, more specifically, but...

[foolnornovice]

He notes the reluctance and for it he does his best to mask his own. A breath in and he settles himself, watching Kadar with worry, much like the guarded look he normally possesses. Worried about home?

Yes, that was the general feeling he believed others to have here but... This was Kadar. Shifting, he turns his eyes down.

"Going back home?" Asking 'what about' did not seem necessary, not if Malik had been here longer than he had and knew about Kadar just as long. "I do not blame you for being so."

[kaderp]

"I remember dying, Altaïr." It's a quiet confession. He's admitted it a few times, but it never feels the same when he says it, and he's never really let himself feel the quiet, painful notion that his life is over and his story is done and the confusion then about why he is still here.

"I remember," he repeats, a hand over the wound he'd received at the hands of Robert's men. There's not a sign of it anymore, and he doesn't know if it's better or worse. "And my brother has told me how things went on without me."

kiwi look at the keywords

[foolnornovice]

Quiet. That's what he is at the admittance, because he never believed he would have to speak of this with the person who died himself, not with Kadar. He doesn't know what to do so he sits there and listens, trying to make the end and beginning of his words.

His throat is dry, his chest is tight, but still he keeps composure. "What are your thoughts on it? It is..." A loss of words. "I am not sure how to phrase it, forgive me."

SOB ;w;

[kaderp]

"My only thought is that I want to return home," Kadar says, and there's an undercurrent of despair in his voice at that. He wants more than anything to go back home, to be back home with his brother and Altaïr and the familiar smells of Masyaf. He would even take the dirty, stagnant smell of Acre right now, or the smell of the drying pottery in the Damascus rafiq's bureau, or anything that wasn't musty stone walls that reminded him too much of the Temple.

"Brother does not believe it is possible."

[herotherhalf]

Dark enough for him. He remained inside during the day, careful to avoid rays of sunlight. Kadar's scent was attractive to him, all of that anxiety? He could smell it. Course he was fine for eating for a few days still, and he'd much rather find out exactly who he was dealing with here.

"Men in cloaks? Hm. Interesting fixation you've got."

[kaderp]

Kadar had heard him approach-- even if it was quiet, it was still there, and he was doing his best to pay a little more attention, even if it wasn't much. He looked up at Harth and offered an attempt at a smile that fell yards short, landed on its face and did a barrel roll into a pole-- but it was still a smile. After a fashion.

"It is what most people wore, back... where I am from," Kadar offered. Not home. He can't call it home anymore, as if he was capable of simply returning. Home was here, now, wasn't it?

[herotherhalf]

"Where would that be?" He drawled calmly. Almost bored. He looked Kadar over again, noting his musculature and his own outfit. How interesting. There was a time when people wore similar clothing. He knew, he'd seen it. Been there done that.

[kaderp]

"Masyaf," Kadar offered. If Harth did or didn't know where that was-- well, that was okay. Kadar would elaborate as much as he could, with limited and outdated geography. He was getting used to people not knowing about Masyaf or the Assassins or any of the things Kadar took for granted.

[herotherhalf]

Not likely, but it it was a minor detail.

"I've never heard of it." He admitted, turning his head from side to side. "I'm from a place called Haddyn. Bet you don't know where that is either.

"Now, when I imagine would be more interesting. When are you from?"

[kaderp]

"I do not know of Haddyn," Kadar admitted. "But I have not heard of many places too far from Masyaf-- Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus, and I know of some far off lands, but I have never been there."

He frowned for a moment at "when", and his face clouded a little as he remembered-- again-- his sense of time simply ending. "It was 1191, the last I remember."

[herotherhalf]

"Jerusalem..." There was some pause. That was a place near Old Euro, wasn't it? The old world. So far behind the times it was almost forgotten. And that other continent? Africa? They called that the wild. Turned into desert or jungle. Completely unfit for humans to live.

"You know of Noram? Aah. North America. The new world across the ocean. That's where Haddyn is."

[kaderp]

Kadar looked completely stumped. "I have never heard of... North America before," he admitted. "It must be after my time." Most things here are, he realized.