Old Red

"Old Red" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
The last few days had been…bitterly disappointing for Dixie. His mind continued to seethe after his visit from the Dark Brotherhood. Also, on better terms or not with Grey, what could not be rightfully undone by her hand still kept him awake at night. The lack of sleep and sense of hopeless injustice had caught up his mind into a whirling dervish of experimental thought…and plotting. After his letter delivery to Grey, Dixie had sought out and followed another possible thread that he thought might help him, only to quickly realize that he would need help.
Which is what brought him to the fence of a small garden in the village. With a carful hand, he reached out his cane to tap on the wood of the fence. “Dario Hijort?” 
@dario-the-deer
dario-the-deer
His ability to immerse himself in a seemingly repetitive and mundane task was the perfect escape from the politics and current events of Haligan. The past few months have thrown his mental state into disarray, and the task of supporting life in these various floral entities was the start of piecing himself back together.
The sudden mention of his name caused him to jump and seize up for just a few seconds; he hadn’t been bothered here at any point during his time gardening, and now that he thought back on it, he couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone else here.
“Hey- hello! Good morning, or afternoon, I’m so sorry, I’m not sure what time it is.” His lack of anticipation for the stranger’s arrival flustered Dario slightly. “I’m absolutely covered in dirt, Gods… please excuse me, is there something I can help you with?”
moe-lazyeye
Dixie waved a hand as if to convey that he didn’t mind, and that Dario should stay relaxed. He gave a sigh and pulled a paper out from his coat. “I won’t take up much of your time. I just came here to…” He glanced at the paper in his hand, and then lowered it as he leaned on the fence with a contemplative look. “Mr. Hijort…this island is perhaps one of the most just, and safest on the planet…but certain matters weigh heavy on my mind…like the dichotomies between how individuals like Whiteland, the Phantom, and the Time Jumper were handled…according to their respective crimes…” 
dario-the-deer
Each name drove a proverbial dagger deeper into his chest, and each for their own reasons. Darien… Indigo… Milae… his friendly demeanor seemed to break at the mention of justice on Haligan.
“You’re not saying anything that hasn’t weighed on my own mind as well.” He leaned down for a moment to finish packing soil around a newly-transplanted flower bud, before returning to a towering height to address the man once again. “I’m not certain what I can do to help you… and I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name.”
moe-lazyeye
Dixie’s face shifted face shifted in feature at little at the sudden realization at how tall the man was. Then he sniffed once, and held out a well groomed hand. “It’s Dixie. And I don’t mean to sew discontent regarding the leadership here. It’s not their fault they’re caught in such an…” He hesitated as he remembered his discussion with Malak. “An…impossible…situation.”
He cleared his throat as he shook his head once. “No matter though. The matters still haunt me, and I found something that could lead to some…perspective for all of us I suppose. But I neither had the strength or position to follow through with it.” Dixie held out the paper to him. “You might though…”
dario-the-deer
“Hah”, Dario laughed to himself, looking around to the work the past few weeks had culminated into. “I would argue the opposite… I don’t really associate outside of a small circle of folks here. I try to keep my head down as best as I can when it comes to those sorts of things.”
It was quiet for a few moments, with Dario looking the man up and down. Dixie didn’t visibly pose any sort of threat to him, but he was still uneasy about the unprompted encounter. He wiped the sweat gathering on his forehead and hunched down into a squat to rest himself.
“Is there something that you’d like me to do for you? I’m not good for much, but I can always try.”
moe-lazyeye
Dixie set the paper into his hand. “It’s a map…with a location.” He took a step back, and glanced away. “Like I said…I have a great conflict of beliefs and desires warring against each other with all this. But…”
He pointed a finger at the paper. “We see Indigo, Malak, Milae…and Darien…the results of our actions and choices are clear to us…but it’s not the same for him…no one ever cared to see what our actions did to him.” Dixie looked visibly uncomfortable. “You can throw it away for all I care…I just realized…I wouldn’t be able to face that truth…I wasn’t connected well enough to the matter to warrant it…”
He gave Dario a short nod, and prepared to make himself scarce. “I appreciate your time…” 
dario-the-deer
Dario held the paper in his hands with the most tender touch. Why the Hel do I have this?
“The truth? What does that mean?” He continuously shifted his attention from Dixie to the map, back to Dixie, back to the map… it was an ominous delivery from the man, and the deer couldn’t fathom why he would be the one to receive it.
“Wouldn’t… literally anyone else be better equipped to handle this? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking at.”
moe-lazyeye
“The truth is that I want to see this rebellion thrive, but also see the criticisms that could tear it apart. When Central falls, a torrent of slander will be their last attack against the Rebellion and it’s leaders.”
Dixie turned back around and unfolded the paper in Dario’s hands, and to point out the location marked on the map. “The truth, is that Darien, Malak, Milae, and Indigo all have something in common. Leniency. But the same can’t be said…for Rhenco…and you know as well as I that what happened to him was because things were personal.”
“You and your kin are best equipped to handle this. You need to make the call to abandon him. Find and end him…or make the treatment of the criminals here consistent. Otherwise fear and resentment will drive people to madness…I would know…” 
dario-the-deer
The stag fought with a fury to keep himself from trembling; nothing about meeting Dixie had been pleasant for him, and to hear that name again sent a chill deep into his spine. Rhenco. 
“I- this, all of this is… it’s a lot, Dixie.” He fixated at the point that was mentioned on the map. “I’m not going to toss this, but I need to find someone better able to help with it. If you don’t mind me asking…” He quickly wiped off a bit of dirt that had landed on the map, ensuring that it wouldn’t be compromised. “…why me, of everyone on Haligan?”
moe-lazyeye
Dixie studied him closely, and then he tipped his head forward a little. “Compassion…” He answered. “I don’t think people want to face that man after he was torn to pieces. I don’t think anyone wants to risk seeing themselves a villain for what happened, despite his abhorrent ways.”
He tapped the paper lightly. “Rhenco will have to be left in whatever state he’s in, killed, or given the same treatment as the other killers and rapists on this island. And I think only someone with your level of compassion can make a call like that given the severity and longevity of his crimes.” 
He pressed his lips together. “I honestly don’t know what the right answer is…and although no one would ever defend him…I’d hate to see him used as a proxy to accuse the Rebellion of objective bias…As I stated, I don’t feel fit to try and find the answer myself.” 
demon-in-the-dungeon
And why is that, merchant?
Behind Dixie was a slim but extremely tall pair of porcelain legs, and as both men looked up, they beheld the Warden, arms crossed and face unreadable against the gray sky. The misty rain that had plagued the land for several days now coated her body in glossy, wet veils, and her essence illuminated a halo of scattered droplets around her head, the moisture steaming away into nothing if it got too close. She tilted her head down at Dixie, fixing him with a scarlet gaze, waiting for his answer. Invisibly, she reached her mind out to Dario, reassuring him.
moe-lazyeye
If Dixie had hair, it would have stuck up like a cats.
“Ooookay!” He ducked around her and backed away a little with raised hands. “I-I-I.” He coughed once to clear his throat.
“Pardon…that wasn’t very poised. Listen…I mean no harm in any of this. I got curious and opened up something I couldn’t close. I didnt know what to do with the information so I gave it to someone else. No matter what you do with it they’ll be some kind of risk, some kind of blowback, I’m just looking to prevent the one that’ll harm the rebellion the most. But it’s not my call.”
demon-in-the-dungeon
Yet you believe it your call to assign the responsibility to someone else, someone who is marginally involved in the situation. Her presence loomed further; she slowly revolved to face him as he backed away. As a supplier, the only retaliation you should be concerned with is mine. My judgment has already been passed. But you clearly feel insecure about mine or Grey’s ability to handle backlash. 
moe-lazyeye
“You all take ciritsim so personally.” Dixie said, and seemed a bit hurt. “I see a problem and I didnt pretend it’s anything other than what it was. It has nothing to do with your character. And of course I’m insecure about matters, because I care.”
He spread has hands as he kept making distance between himself and the demon. “I found information. I confided in Dario. If you take exception, I have no qualms. Take it and do with it as you will.”
“I’m sorry, Nala – I don’t mean to interject…” Dario spoke in a voice that he believed sounded loud and confident, though the truth of that matter was obvious to the other two entities in his presence. “…is there cause for concern with Rhenco? I thought we had moved past all of that by now.”
“You all take criticism so personally.” Dixie said, and seemed a bit hurt. “I see a problem and I didn’t pretend it’s anything other than what it was. It has nothing to do with your character. And of course I’m insecure about matters, because I care.”
He spread has hands as he kept making distance between himself and the demon. “I found information. I confided in Dario. If you take exception, I have no qualms. Take it and do with it as you will.”
A short rumble reminiscent of distant thunder echoed across Dario’s garden, making the stems of the flowers tremble. When someone trespasses on what decisions I consider under my jurisdiction, she said flatly, I take it very personally. You tread thin ice, Donz. She turned her head towards Dario without breaking eye contact with the retreating Dixie. I do not consider Rhenco to be a threat, either to the Rebellion or Haligan’s system of justice. I find it discomforting to hear otherwise.
“I think discomforting is a great way to describe this entire… experience.” He glanced over to Dixie, who was still working towards separation from the demon. The nervousness he felt at the beginning of their conversation had since dissipated, evolving instead into a frustration towards Dixie. If what Nala had to say was true, and Dario had no reason to believe it wasn’t, then this conversation was nothing more than just an unprovoked intrusion. The half-breed was thankful to have the demon there for support.
“Dixie, I won’t throw away this map.” He felt it still sitting in his fingers, nearly impossibly heavy with the burden it wrought. “I want to believe that you have good intentions here… but I’m not going to be seeking out answers on your behalf, or placing myself in situations where I don’t belong.”
Dixie, who had been keeping his gaze away from Nala, dared to look her way and make eye contact. “Dixie…please.” He requested. “None of this was intended to be a trespass or an attack.” He spread his hands, a look of frustrated, near hopeless coming to his features. “Listen…I have been brushed aside as an outsider, someone with no authority, and a ‘Donz,’ as if I’m not even part of the wilderwest kingdom, or that I haven’t been fighting against Central for nearly as long as you have.”
His breath left him as his hands dropped. “Grey’s the Chief. I shouldn’t have said it to anyone other than her behind closed doors. You take exception to people questioning your judgement. Look I can see the door after a while, and I’ll go. But I hope in my absence better ears for protest take my place. You won’t be negotiating with Central fascist forever, eventually it’ll be regular people. Ones far ruder than I over matter much less than that of freely galivanting mass murderers.” 
Dixie looked away, and then towards Dario, his posture very, very tired. “I would have accepted ‘no’ for any reason…my intentions and desire for help were sincere…….I’ll handle it myself….pay me no more mind.” 
Dario felt… remorse? That, or something closely resembling it. The look of defeat across Dixie’s face caused him to think back on his words, wondering if they were too harsh.
“It’s… it’s not that I don’t want to help. I just… we’ve been through a lot in the last few months, and I’m afraid of putting myself or anyone else I care about in harm’s way without knowing that it’s necessary. I wouldn’t be opposed to what you’re suggesting if I know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.”
He couldn’t look at the man, or at Nala. He felt horrible about the entire moment.
“I’m sorry, Dixie. I’m sure you are well intentioned… but knowing that you chose to talk about this with me, you also have to know that I don’t really know what I’m doing. I like to think I’m learning, but it’s all very foreign to me still.”
Nala put the tips of her delicate porcelain fingers to her mask and closed her eyes. Human politics gave her the closest equivalent to a headache that demons were able to experience.
Dixie, she said, do not be so concerned with upholding the social welfare of the Rebellion. If people think to question either the Chief or the Commander, they may take it up with them, or with myself, as enforcer of their law. You may further inquire of our motives–she tilted her chin and her consciousness towards Dario, who was clearly struggling with the topic–but not here. She sent Dixie a mental image of where she often stood guard and left it as an open invitation.
The civility cause Dixie’s postures to relax a little. But he still looked like a rag wrung dry.
Not here…not there…nowhere…
He politely waved a declining hand, before he touched the side of his head in acknowledgement of the vision she had sent him. “With respect, and I do mean that, even up to this immediate moment, I see the pattern. A change of location or figure of authority won’t make a difference.”
He pulled his coat a little tighter around him. “Lives were ruined. And I don’t know how to reconcile that with myself. But maybe that should have just been a me problem since this started.”
He turned to Dario. “No need for apology…I take responsibility for this.” He closed his eyes, and lifted his hand to indicate his planned departure. “By your leave?”
The deer’s face slumped; he felt as if the damage had been done at this point. He wracked his brain to find any sort of misstep in the conversation.
“I suppose, if that’s… what you want, of course.” Dario flashed a forced smile to Dixie, wanting to at least leave the new acquaintance with that respect. “But I don’t want you leaving here thinking that I can’t be of use to you. I just need to know that I’m not putting anybody in harms way… you understand, right?”
He took a deep breath, knowing that he couldn’t just let the man walk away without even so much as trying.
“If I were, hypothetically, to use this map… what am I expected to do? You mentioned punishments for crimes, but I don’t… I’m just a tiny piece of this rebellion. Nobody here would even think to listen to me.”
Now Dixie began to actively walk away. “N-no. Dario, truly, forget that this happened. I found the location of an enemy, and delivered it to the Rebellion. Let’s just leave it at that I…I dont even know where I was going or thinking with any of this. But please…”
He turned his back to them as his feet crunched swiftly through the snow as he left. “I have to go…”
Dario didn’t have the opportunity to reply, as Dixie had distanced himself enough by this point. The last few things the man had mentioned haunted the stag, as if it were a warning of some sort. He turned to face Nala, much less nervous than before. He knew she had his best interest at heart. He forgot how small he felt in her presence; a sensation he could never get used to, but almost appreciated, at least in this very second. It was comforting.
“Nala, you said Rhenco wasn’t a threat to the rebellion. Did you mean it when you said it, or were you just trying to dissuade Dixie?” He still held on to the map the man had entrusted to him earlier. “I haven’t heard anything from anyone in regards to him, but Dixie seemed really concerned.”
Her physical body turned and strode away through the damp earth and snow at the same pace as Dixie, but it left behind a luminous imprint of her astral self, which was only a few inches taller than Dario as opposed to several feet. Her glowing red claws tapped on her upper arm as she fixed her shining eyes on the Rebellion’s ally, who was at a near-run as he left the conversation. Then the Warden pulled out of her own thoughts.
It is…something I am required to believe. After what we have done to him, how he has failed, how the fates themselves refused him victory. After all this, I must believe. She was cautious to commune with Dario as intensely as she would with someone like Liam, so the most she did was impress the feelings that were reflected by her words to the outer layer of his mind. Either way, that man is not as concerned with the rebels’ safety as he is with the Rebellion’s standing amongst the people. He questions how the morality of our leaders will appear to everyone else…as well as his own morality by associating with the people that let the likes of Rhenco walk away. She continued with a touch more bitterness, If only he himself had been present, as you were, when that monster failed every second chance he was given. I do not make my decisions lightly.
The picture in his mind was one of hyper-realism; a return to the last moment that the Rebellion saw Rhenco. Though it was considered a victory amongst the rebels, Dario never saw it that way. There were no winners in recent Haligan history.
“I would never imagine you as someone who did.” He stopped his tapping fingers, knowing that he was in a safe position now. “As much as I understand his frustration… believe me, I felt it for a long time after our trial… life has to go on. Milae and I have accepted that.”
He clutched the map tightly before folding it neatly and placing it in his pocket. The stag wasn’t certain whether he would end up using the information he was given, but it couldn’t hurt to have it close by.
“I do appreciate you being here… it’s really good to see you again, Nala.”
Nalaagura turned fully to face the anxious-faced deer half-breed, and her tense stance relaxed a bit at his words. Having heard of your many plights over the past few years, it is good to see you, too. How are you faring on Haligan? She noted the plants sprouting around his hooves, clearly cultivated by him, and hoped that he wasn’t trying too drastically to escape from the world around him. It seems like only yesterday to me that you were chasing young Liam and Kendra around White Hallows.
Dario took a knee to tidy some loosened dirt left behind by Dixie, failing to stifle a grin at the thought of the Arnason children in their younger years. He didn’t often get the chance to think of how life was before.
“Yeah, I didn’t realize how much I would miss that… and they aren’t even my children.” He felt the smile fade from his face as he continued to tend to the earth beneath his hands. “It’s hard to think about those times when I caused that family more grief than they deserved. If not for me, Vox would have been around. Liam and Kendra would have had a dad when they needed one most. I hate how selfish I was, and for what?”
He stopped rambling for a moment to catch his breath – any further diving into his past would not bode well for his emotional state, and the last thing he wanted was to crumble in front of Nala.
“My apologies, I didn’t mean to carry on like that… but yeah, I hope to have that one day. Granted, once things settle down here.”
Beside him, the demon knelt as well, throwing an eerie scarlet light over the garden. I, of all beings, will not judge you for past mistakes, she said gently. Once this storm is weathered, I think you will have that chance. They are still rather fond of you.
Dario froze for a moment, thinking back to a long repressed memory of his mother… this conversation felt eerily similar. What would have normally caused a torrent of unpleasant emotions instead gave him a long awaited comfort.
“And I of them, of course. I wouldn’t have any sort of family without all of you.” He turned his head to look at Nala; he could remember when her proximity to him invoked fear. “I don’t want to keep you for too long. The sun will be setting soon, and I’m still waiting for Milae to return. With everything going on, he’s going to be exhausted.”
He took off his gloves and placed them in the pocket opposite the map. It hadn’t left his thoughts quite yet.
“Nala, can I ask you a favor?”
Anything.
“I know that he’s not too fond of me still, and given everything that happened with Kendra during the attack… I just want to talk to him. I worry about him more than you know.”
The fingers began tapping. His voice grew soft as he trailed on.
“Would you be able to plant that seed in his head? Or… at least just let me know if he doesn’t want to see me?”
There was a pause as rain continued to patter against the ground and the roof of the couple’s house, in a steady rhythm. Well, of anyone that is remotely able to suggest anything to him, I suppose I will do. Her words were joking, but the little expression she could show with her eyes was tender, as well as the cloud of her emotions shifting around them. I can do that.
The swelling in his heart could only be matched by the tightness he experienced in his throat – it was exactly what he was hoping to hear. Even if nothing would come of it, he had to try.
Thank you, Nala.
He stood back on his feet, elongating his arms outward in a full stretch. He hadn’t realized how hard he had worked his body today. Old injuries were starting to creep back, and he didn’t want to have to limp back to the house.
“I suppose it’s about that time, my friend. Please don’t be a stranger; I really do enjoy having company when Milae isn’t around.” He chuckled to himself, “At least when it’s well-intentioned company.”
For some reason, I feel he would rather not see me when he is around. But I won’t take offense. We tend to clash. Nala gracefully lifted herself from the soil and tilted her head to the east. She couldn’t deny that she felt intensely curious about the map that Dario held–she already extracted its contents from how much he had been puzzling over it–but she knew that it could be very foolish to pursue it, especially by herself. Her wariness about confronting such threats as Rhenco had grown, after what he did to her. It was more comforting to pretend he no longer had any relevance. Simply call me if you need me. 
“I certainly will.”
He turned away from Nala, ready to make the trek back inside and prepare the evening for Milae. Before he could get too far, he turned back once more.
“My door is always open, for you… or for anyone, really.” Dario flashed a quick wave. “Save travels to you.”