Confession

[Chance]

Chance is leaning on railings looking out over the lake, he has a card in hand and is inspecting it, but the rest of the deck has been put away. The pack is once again at his feet rather than on.

[Wharil Choc]

He looks tired. He's still in the same clothes he'd been in all day, still with the messenger bag slung over his shoulders, still unquestionably lost. But this time, it doesn't seem like he'd been looking for anything in particular in the first place. He was just walking, eyes glued to the path ahead of his own too feet. Except something tells him to look up, and when he does he sees the lake, along with uncountable things in the foreground. Walking toward the water he catches sight of the vaguely familiar man standing at the railing. Wharil stands next to him now, looking out over the water. "Hey Chance. Fancy meeting you here."

[Chance]

"Fancy that. I was just thinking about you." he smiles and offers Wharil the card, it's offered in a way that it's the back wharil can see, not the card itself. "How was the rest of the meal?"

[Wharil Choc]

He takes the card, holding the back up to himself for a while as he seems to drum up the courage to flip it. "Alright enough. I didn't really stick around. That Dylan guy...not really what I thought he'd be, y'know?" With a sigh he turns the card over to see the front.

[Chance]

It's the queen of diamonds "Maybe, guess it remains to be seen doesn't it." he shifts so he's facing Wharil "That took a lot more effort than it should have I'm going to guess you don't have any mirrors at home?" it's a question, but it sounds almost rhetorical.

[Wharil Choc]

He smiles at the card, relieved. "No. No that's not it. Well, I don't have any mirrors, but thats because I just moved in. No, I thought it'd be the other one."

[Chance]

"I know you did, but the other card is just a mirror, so what about you are you so afraid of. You saw what you expected to see, and you were afraid and you were guilty. Are you afraid of yourself? Or are you afraid of what I might have seen?" it's a very measured voice, entierly different from how he was earlier. "What are you afraid that she knows, because she knows it, and you can't run from it, and that's part've what scares you most isn't it?"

[Wharil Choc]

He's quiet for a long while, except for his hand tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping away in time on the railing. It doesn't stop, even after he's finished trying to avoid the question, glancing around, out over the water, at the sky and ground ahead of them. He keeps tap, tap, tapping even as he speaks. "So that's supposed to be me? Two of spades? Two of swords." He shakes his head, a bit of disbelief. "No. Maybe you did it wrong. Or I did it wrong. Or maybe...maybe I'm stuck with this thing."

[Chance]

"I can do it a hundred or a thousand times. Unless you change that's you, that's how you see yourself that's what you think you are. That's all that card shows me, what you think." He takes the queen back. "I can help if I know what you're stuck with, but you have to at least face it, don't hide." he sounds a lot older in that moment that the mid twenties he looks "You're going to have to trust me though, and to that ends, I am Chela Chance of the Lhaksmists. And as a fellow turner of the wheel, this is our confidence, nothing you tell me on this leaves my lips, by your will, by my will and by her will. This I swear to you." he says it heavily and seriously his eyes meet Wharil's as he does.

[Wharil Choc]

The corners of his mouth were turned down slightly, but he shared Chance's gaze, meeting the Lhaksmist's eyes with his own, and nodded in understanding. "We all make mistakes, right? With this thing that we do, we don't ever get out of it without something going wrong. So...I fucked up once. That's all. I thought I could control things and I pushed too far. And now I'm stuck with him. The man with two guns." He shakes his head. "I can feel him: Cold spots in my apartment. I can feel him watching me when I'm alone. I thought I left him behind, but seeing that card again today I--" The wind picks up slightly, and he pulls his arms close around himself. "You know what a gremlin is?"

[Chance]

"Spirit of some description." he says "Don't know much more than that, as for him, you wont be able to leave him behind whilst you're still carrying him, that's how it works. Well for starters. You're trying to escape him, run away, no matter how fast you run though, you can't escape it here." he taps his temple.

[Wharil Choc]

"Yeah. Tell me about it. Thing is, I did this to myself. I made him almost from scratch. What he looked like, how he works. I don't even know when that stopped. He's supposed to be an agent of balance. No, scratch that. He is an agent of balance. But all he sees is the fight, not why they're fighting. What do I do when cops raid a crack house or some idiot robs a bank and he decides that the good guys need to die?" He shakes his head. Tap, tap, tapping still. "I've got to get this under control somehow, and I have no idea where to start."

[Chance]

He considers for a minute "You 'built' a spirit enforcer?" he asks, just like he's trying to get it straight "Start at the beginning, maybe a fresh mind on it'll help. Sit down, you want a drink?" he sounds sympathetic, "You look like you could do with one, not that I've met one of us yet who couldn't." he smiles "Then sit down and tell me this story, from the beginning in detail."

[Wharil Choc]

He chuckles. "You sure about that? Its a really long story."

[Chance]

"Do I look like I don't have time?" he asks "Come on I'm a vagrant, I don't have to be up in the mornings, I don't have to be in bed early, and no one gets to tell me what to do aside from her. And last I checked she's not arguing. Stop trying to get out've this. I'm on the same side as you if you recall."

[Wharil Choc]

He smiles, nods, and takes a breath before speaking. "Political Triage International. They're a sort of freelance peace keeping group. They go into high conflict or disaster areas and set up humanitarian aide, and take care of their own defense and security. Half doctors and diplomats, half soldiers and mercenaries." He sits next to chance, back against the railing. "They're also run by Chakravanti. I was living in Charleston, attached with the Bleak House Cabal, and one day I come home and there's a flack jacket, a journalist's handbook, two passports, and a PTI badge. We all got something like it, but one other cabal mate and I received press passes and a seperate Itinerary. We'd be separated from the others for a while. They went straight to Darfur and we started with Tsunami and conflict coverage in Central Asia and worked our way to meet up with them. No one told us but the idea was for us to get to know the people we were working with. They were looking for something within PTI, and we were the ones that would find it. The others would take it from there."

[Chance]

"Ok." he nods there are cards in his hands once more shuffle shuffle, it's as notable as Wharil's tapping, after a little while it's just background and it's obviously less than background to him, he's an attentive listener.

[Wharil Choc]

"I thought, with my work, that I'd seen injustice and cruelty before, but i hadn't seen anything like this. In Myanmar elected officials were taking the bulk of relief aid to their families. This trickled down so badly that troops that were supposed to be protecting villages wound up turning into starving bandits that would rob the villagers, and all they'd get is expired food anyway. In Darfur it was much worse. Villages would be razed in a matter of hours, and there'd be absolutely no reason for it other than...hate. I tried small things at first. And...some of the awakened within PTI helped me bless a in a village. They grew crops in horrible conditions and for a while it looked like that made things better. But then a neighboring village got wind of it, and then the Janjaweed heard about it, and both villages were destroyed." "Eventually I got tired of seeing all that ugliness. We would make rounds by caravan, moving between PTI outposts and camps throughout the month. I pulled some strings and managed to get my hands on some extra weapons, so I spoke to every team leader I met and convinced them to carry a second side arm. A chrome one, to go along with the standard issue gunmetal black baretta. And then I started rumors. I'm not really proud of it, but it was so easy. People in that place were so superstitious you just had to whisper the word ghost and everyone was paying attention." "And then...it started. There were rumors of a man with two guns that had helped a village fight off attackers in the north. The same man with two guns was breaking through road blocks and opening supply lines. Someone would boast about killing a man with two guns and a week later they'd all shake their heads and whisper about how the man with two guns had returned from the dead and come back for revenge. I made...a Sudanese Johnny Appleseed. Only he gave out bullets instead of apples."

[Chance]

"When really you needed someone who gave out hope and apples?" he asks but it doesn't sound like he's trying to detract, and infact sounds like he should go on.

[Chance]

Per Alert

[Wharil Choc]

"And at some point...I heard the PTI members talking about him. A man with two guns rode with a small group of Janjaweed and miraculously overtook an outpost, even though they were out numbered. A man with two guns walked right through the front lines and opened fire on Doctors and injured patients in a hospital. That place was rife with angry, vengeful, violent spirits, and somehow I had given them a form they could take. I provided them with that. They saw a man with two guns because they'd all heard the rumors, and they all believed, and even though I was the start of it all there came a point where even I couldn't tell which ones were real and which ones were just rumor." "Then I got captured. Someone leaked the position and route of our Convoy, the same way someone moved a mine field from the edge of a swamp to the edge of a PTI camp in Myanmar. It wasn't a coincidence, you see? It was exactly what we were supposed to be looking for and...and it found me. Twenty of us captured. One killed every day. Three of us survived. And we only survived because, in the end, when they had me tied down on a metal chair in a room that smelled like blood and piss and death, I knew...who to call. I knew his name and I knew that he existed because I made him. I called the Man with two guns to my side. He's been there ever since."

[Adonis Preston]

*Adonis wore a tieless business suit. On his sides and behind him he was followed by an entourage of bubbly bouncy girls in their 20's, all of them above average in terms of looks. They were laughing and squeeling like a bunch of girls a decade younger then them. Adonis was the quiet one out of the bunch, only really half-listening to what they were saying and just scoping out the landscape, taking a long deep breath in.*

[Chance]

"And?" he asks and then he stops, it'd been quite and peaceful out where they were and now someone was coming "And we'll finish this later, perhaps your place next time, mine's a bit roomy and people tend to walk in. He sighs heavily "Where is your place?"

[Wharil Choc]

He chuckles, but quietly so like he didn't really want to. "Lake View. I don't...I don't know the street names yet. Hold on." He digs through the messenger bag, pulling out a notepad that had already been written on, and flips a few pages before finding one with a picture of the actual place in the corner. He shows it all to Chance. "There you go."

[Chance]

"Cool, I'll drop by some time, we'll finish this chat. Coz it sounds like you could really do with it. First big bit of advice though mate. You fucked up, like you said we all do, bigger thing though. You fucked up for the right reasons, and if you're gonna fuck up, that's the only way to go about it."

[Adonis Preston]

"Oooh I like this place!" one of the girls says spotting the waterfront. "Enjoy as much of your break as you can girls, because on Friday the club opens and its work work work for you all. Gonna be a busy grand opening and we're still short staffed." "Aww..." they all seem to say in unison. Then one among them needed to go to the bathroom so the herd of girls collectively decided to go together and Adonis was left alone for the time being. He takes out a cigarrette and makes his way over to the railing of the waterfront, lighting up the cigarette.*

[Wharil Choc]

"Heh. Yeah, I try telling myself that sometimes. It all comes down to hubris though. If I wasn't so sure I could--" The group approaches, and there was even a man now standing near the railing. Wharil eases his way up to his feet moves into a standing lean against the railing. "Yeah, we'll talk later."