Steady Hands

"Steady Hands" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
There was something about the familiarity of Haligan that felt wrong, given the circumstance of the past week. Taking a deep breath of cold air, Dario relished in the lack of wartime that the island provided, even if it was just temporary. It was eerily silent, as a good portion of it’s populous was back at the Jaw.
“It’s strange to be back… so soon, at least.” The stag, welcoming the calm as a light breeze wisped between the three figures that had arrived just moments before. “Do me a favor, Juro. If anything goes wrong, you know, during all of this…” He looked to Vox with a nervous grin, understanding that the scout knew better of what to expect from Tree. “…please tell Milae. Alive or dead, I’m sure he would love to hear about what is about to happen.”
“You know it’s not going to be as bad as you think it is.” Vox tried to give a reassuring laugh, but he himself hadn’t had the best interactions with her prior to this day. “You’ll feel a ton better when you get this all off your chest.”
The small ball of warping space that was their portal to the island flicked around their heads before nestling itself in the back of Juro’s scarf, while the Bookkeeper rummaged around in his bag for his usual pen and journal. The pencil twirled impressively between fingers then settled into a point towards both men, “I’m getting one heck of a story out of this so–absolutely, whatever you need.” He said, doing an almost perfect job of masking his excitement save for the grin wider than the norm that stretched across his face. He followed Dario and Vox with an energetic step.
Juro’s tone and demeanor would have lightened the mood if this had been any time but now. Dario continued to survey the nearby homes, his heart beating faster as they wandered.
“Vox, do you remember the house? I don’t reca-”
“This one.” The scout stopped dead in a hesitant stance. “I honestly didn’t expect us to get here so quick.”
Dario looked onto it from a few feet behind Vox, feeling a dread creep over him. He had played out the hypotheticals of a conversation with Tree, but never had a single one end in a manner that he would be prepared for.
“Let’s get it over with.” Dario spoke softly, his confidence he tried to portray drowned out by his shaky nerves. He felt his fingers begin to bounce off of one another as he approached the door, opening it as lightly as he could muster. 
“…Tree? You home? It’s… it’s Dario.”
“…took you long enough…”
They heard a shuffle from across the house, and Treepelt emerged from behind the partition of what had previously been Liam and Verdandi’s place of residence. The half-breed laid a paw on the main pole supporting the house, and her pupils shrank in the light of the door frame as her eyes flicked from man to man, resting on Juro for much longer than the others before finalizing an increasingly alert, serious gaze on Vox. She looked tired; she had been in some kind of rest before the three arrived. She still had one bandage remaining under the collar of her shirt from her time in the Jaw. 
“The kits?” Tree said in a low voice.
The realization hit him has hard as her tone did – the perception was not good.
“Okay, uh, this probably looks bad, now that I think about it.” He put his hand on the back of his head as he watched his wife’s demeanor grow more impatient by the second. “They’re fine! They are doing just fine.”
“Yeah, they’re good, I promise Tree.” Dario interjected, feeling a compulsion to try and justify their absence. His words were frantic. “Kendra’s leg will be good as new in no time, and I don’t think Liam had anything too bad happ-”
“Dario, please, shut the Hel up.” Vox stepped towards him and grabbed his arm tight. He leaned close to him to whisper. “You’re making this so much worse. Please, Gods, just stop talking.”
“Will you just tell me what happened?” Tree’s claws dug into the wood with a slight crackle, not as a sign of impending doom, but a simple sense of stress and impatience by the two of them going back and forth. “I promise I can take it. They’re alive, right?”
“Ignore him.” Vox glared to Dario for a second before returning his focus back to Tree. “They are fine, and I’m not just saying it. I would have brought them with us, but they’re doing great work back at the Jaw. You would be very proud of them.”
He coughed into his hand, unsure of how to transition the topic.
“We are actually going to be heading back, but Dario… Dario needed to talk to you. It’s important to him.”
He pushed the deer forward, who stumbled over his hooves against the wood floor. He felt perspiration forming on his head, and his already racing heart was on the brink of exploding in his chest.
“Y-yeah. I wanted… I was hoping to talk to you about… the whole ‘being gone’ thing with Vox and I, and some things that I didn’t tell you before.”
“…okay.”
She paced to the round table near the fire pit that made up the central heating unit of the building, and folded her arms, positioning indicating that she expected them to sit. Her famous steely eye landed back on Juro, who she could see was making too many notes for her liking. “Unless he has something to do with it, he leaves,” she stated, her tail swiping back and forth, once. 
Juro flicked an amber eye up, the pencil hovering still in the air, unaffected by the tension, like he was already used to Tree’s mannerisms despite only having officially met her for the first time. He glanced between all three of them, before sighing and giving an accepting smirk. He was used to being kicked out of places–he still had his ways around it.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, voice low and charming, then with another spin of the pen he stepped backwards and disappeared into thin air, familiar hum and bend of space folding into another closed portal. He resurfaced on the roof of another building, keeping a pinprick of Virion open by the keyhole so he could still listen in. Pen continued making lines on parchment.
Juro trailed out in the corner of Dario’s eye as he slumped himself down directly across from Tree. Nothing in his life had ever made him feel more uncomfortable, but he couldn’t blame anyone but himself for being put into the situation. He waited for Vox to be seated before he began.
“I don’t think I… I never apologized, first and foremost, for being gone. I know that you probably didn’t worry so much about me as you did for Vox, but I just wanted you to… to know that.” He swallowed, feeling his throat tighten and his voice waiver. His fingers were tapping with a fury he hadn’t felt before. “I, uh, had something happen to me… was it a year, or two years… probably closer to two years… wait, when was…”
Vox kicked the stag to pull him out of his head. “It was two years, Dario. Don’t distract yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah- two years. Uh, Vox and I had made camp, and things were… less than amicable, would you say, Vox?”
“At the very least.” Vox pressed his fingers against the sides of his head, visibly distressed at Dario’s inability to focus. “Ignore me, I’m not here.”
“But yes, we… we were fighting. You- he said things, about you and the kids, and how he should never have left… and I agreed, but I told him that he could leave at any time. He told me he couldn’t leave me out there alone… that he felt that he owed me, and we were yelling… and then he left. I was upset, and I didn’t know when Vox would be back, so I tried to sleep, and then…”
The deer’s eyes shut tightly, as the scene of his capture played out in his head. It was one that had become all too familiar. His fingers could no longer tap against one another from how badly his hands shook. He felt Vox’s hand squeeze one of them gently.
“I… they took me and c-chained me up.” The words felt like weights being dropped one by one from his mouth, with each getting caught heavier in his throat. “I didn’t- didn’t know where I was, or where V-Vox was…”
The taut, focused frown on Tree’s face lessened, and her tail stopped lashing quite as hard. “I remember,” she said softly. She was thinking all the while he was explaining, and she knew that his being captured obviously lengthened their ten-year stint, although she wasn’t sure what it had to do with what seemed to be a difficult confession.
dario-the-deer
He was only able to glance up at her for a moment before looking back down to his hooves. The punishment of reliving these events was far worse than anything that could be imposed by the half-breed, who wasn’t as intimidating as she was before.
“A hawk… Sylar, was his name… he wanted to know about why I hadn’t aged, and I didn’t understand it myself. I mean, Hel, that was the whole reason Vox and I left in the first place, and I can recall him…” He heaved a drawn out sigh before continuing. “…he beat me to the edge of consciousness, and while I was fighting to just stay awake, I had visions of High Central. Visions of the day that Vox was supposed to die, and I did in his place. I didn’t realize it before, but before I went to cover his body, I… I tried to save myself as well, with an incantation. I went against what I was told when I was a yearling, and I tried to cheat death.”
A surprising surge of clarity caused his words to become more steady as he spoke.
“I had violated a very sacred rule of my gift, and death would have been the ultimate punishment if I had, you know, stayed dead… but I didn’t. I had a debt to repay, and I knew as I lay bleeding on the floor at the talons of a hawk what I had done. I am not aging because I am being punished for what I did.”
He looked up once more, seeing the same fixed look from Tree directed at him.
“I’m sorry that this is so much information… I just wanted to make sure you understood all of it. Vox… didn’t know, and I kept that from him for years because… I wanted to see my mom and dad again. I wanted to know if they were okay. I mislead Vox for eight years, and kept him away from you and the children because of my own selfish intentions. Hel, my eye looks the way it does now because I just told Vox in the last few weeks. I know that doesn’t change our actions and our absence for all of those years, but… if you’re going to hate Vox for all of this, know that I could have- I should have stopped it when I could.”
tree-the-cat
The older woman put her folded arms against the chair in front of her and pressed her lips together while sighing. Her auburn-and-black bangs fell in front of her eyes as she turned her head aside, fixating on something invisible on the other side of the room. With her face obscured, and the lighting of the house dim, she looked very suddenly like the young rebel from more than twenty years ago, shoulders heavy with supernatural misery rather than adult worry. She looked back at Dario, and the illusion was gone. 
“Well, did you do it on purpose?” she said wearily. But her inflection revealed nothing of her passed judgment yet. “Did you set out to hurt someone by keeping quiet?”
dario-the-deer
“O-of course not, no.” The question caught the stag off guard. “I was just… I was scared, that Vox would want to return home, and he should have. I think between wanting to find my parents, and not wanting to admit to my mistake, it clouded my judgement… but that’s no excuse. So no, I didn’t try to hurt anyone by it… it was just selfish. It was prioritizing my own life over Vox’s- over yours, and Liam, and Kendra… I should have said something. I am so sorry, Tree.”
tree-the-cat
“I know.”
It was almost said too quickly over his last few words. She drew herself back up into her initial stance, arms tucked in, tail swishing, eyes shrewd as she looked between the two of them. 
“I don’t have anything to say that can help you,” she finally decided. “You fucked up. You took too long to fix it. You’re also doing the right thing by giving us the courtesy of an explanation.” She put a few fingers to her temple, mimicking Vox. “But you don’t need me to tell you that. You already know. Any kind of…response from me is going to hurt more than help.”
Tree was tired, but something lifted a little as she looked into Dario’s eyes. “But if this has told me anything, it’s that your brain is just fine rattling around in a kid’s body while doing some growing of its own. It was a concern of mine.” Her mouth quirked a little, remembering meeting Dario for the first time. “So thanks for proving me wrong.”
She rested a hip up against the chair in front of her, still not sitting. “What I will say is that even with this guy–” she jerked her chin at Vox, “–between me and the kids, I got the better end of the stick. I missed out on ten years of an idiot. They lost a father. I think you’re smart enough to know that. And the difference here is that, if I know the kids, their view of this is still pretty skewed.”
dario-the-deer
“Yeah. I know.”
Dario had calmed at some point while Tree spoke; he often forgot how the years had changed her, for better or worse. He knew that the animosity that divided the couple would never truly mend, and there was only so much weight he could carry in that regard, but it didn’t change the one fact that Tree vocalized… that the children had a far different perspective.
“I haven’t talked to them yet. The last few days have been… they’ve been hard, Tree. The kits are well, but I know that they will both need time to process everything once they return.” He managed to meet her eyes with his and keep them, knowing that the worst was behind them now. “I promise you that I will tell them, and whatever you and Vox might need from me, I swear that I will do everything I have to in making things right.”
He shifted his gaze to Vox, who had been justifiably silent throughout the entire exchange, in hopes that he would chime in.
“Uh… yeah, that’s… that’s good. Thank you Dario.” The scout looked at Tree, with her attention still on Dario. He was convinced that she was intentionally avoiding looking at him still. “Tree… do you think that we could have some time to talk? Of course, if you’re not up to it, this can wait until later… but I would like to have some time before we get back to the Jaw.”
tree-the-cat
“Hmph.” Her torn ear flicked, and she regarded him coolly. “Yeah, sure. Sounds like you need to get back soon, anyway. You’re not leaving Liam and Kendra there any longer than you have to.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
dario-the-deer
“I wouldn’t dream of it. As sure as I am that they are doing just fine, it wouldn’t hurt to go back and be a helping hand.” Vox smiled to Tree, understanding that he would not receive one in return. “I promise I’ll bring them with next time we head back. That was on me, I’m sorry for that.”
Dario had already made his way closer to the exit as they spoke. “I’ll let you two talk, I don’t want to intrude. I’m going to take a walk over to the Great Hall if you want to meet me when you’re done, Vox.” He looked at Tree, feeling a wave of relief wash over him. 
“Thank you for listening, Tree. I hope the next time that we speak is on a much lighter note.” He grabbed a cloak that had been placed near the door. Being antlerless had a few advantages, such as borrowing clothing that would not typically conform. “I’ll just be borrowing this if you don’t mind. Still quite cold out there.”
He ensured that the door was firmly shut behind him before he trekked off into the general direction of the Great Hall, his heart feeling slightly less heavy than when they first arrived.
akkeyagentofhelheim
Juro finished off the last sentence with a flourish and a sigh. Dario Hjort’s was a story that the Library wasn’t plentiful in, hence his interest in this opportunity for any tidbit from the man’s past. It was unfortunate that it was such a heavy one.
He raised his arms rigid straight, and used that as momentum to bring himself into a sitting position in one smooth motion. What he wasn’t counting on was the sky suddenly going dark, black lazily streaking across and above him in very thin, inky strands. He could still see the village and nature below him, but they were oddly lined in white instead, and the shadow brought about pricks of light that dotted the horizon curiously, but Juro could tell that it wasn’t your normal night.
But it was quick. It was so fleeting that he ended up doubting his own eyes, as he blinked and it was daylight once more on Haligan. The Bookkeeper shook his head, chalking it up to tiredness, and swept the vision away as he went to look for Dario.