closed ☾

[noch]

WHO: Merrin + Cal, Merrin + Cobb
WHERE: Cal's workshop, those houses Cobb is fixing up
WHAT: Everything's just hunky dory here, nothing to worry about.
WHEN: Just after the superhero city event!
WARNINGS: Mentions of slavery and genocide in the thread with Cobb.

[ haha just kidding starters in comments below ]

Comments

[noch]

Maybe it's naivete showing through, but she looks surprised by the admission, that people can just be born into slavery, and their parents and loved ones can be taken from them so callously. She's not so naïve as to believe that the galaxy doesn't have dark corners, but... yes, she sees now why he would describe their alternate life as peaceful, compared to this.

"I am glad you are no longer a slave. I will do that," she assures him. "Keep quiet, if that's your wish." Secrets are very safe with her, though this one—it seems as though he's... ashamed of it, and it doesn't sit right with her. If anyone should be ashamed, it's the people who kept him as a slave in the first place, and she can feel a thread of cold, protective fury snake through her chest.

Probably not very helpful to unleash at the moment, though she does frown, her eyes narrowing slightly. (Tattooine was the name of his planet, wasn't it? Maybe she can take the Mantis on a detour, when she gets back.)

And she feels compelled to add, her tone very firm, "I do not know you so well yet, Cobb Vanth, but I believe that it was never who you are."

[heypartner]

"Folks look at you different when they know," Cobb explains as he moves to do something with his hands. He needs to keep himself busy against the wave of unease he feels talking about this. He gets back to work on pulling out some rotted wall where there was a leak in the pipes.

"It's always gonna be a part of me, kid. I'll always carry it. It's not who I am now, you're right, but it's there." He can't ever escape that past. It's burned into the back of his neck, hidden behind a scarf around his neck even now when he's inside.

"Just like you'll always carry what hardships you went through." He yanks at the wall, tears it free and tosses it to a pile that's building up a little distance away. "But I'd rather folks didn't know that side of me."

He was trusting her a lot with that information. Hopefully, his trust wasn't misplaced.

[noch]

"I understand." Hardships? Yes. Your past being a part of you? Yes. Hiding it from other people? Yes, even if she doesn't necessarily agree, if only because she's not in the habit of caring what other people think. If they pity her, then that's not her problem. But that doesn't mean that she can't respect his wishes. "They will not know. Not from me."

She pauses for a moment, silently watching him work, her brow furrowed. When she speaks again, it's with a very slight hesitation, though her voice is unwavering. "In that world, my family had died. You knew that when you took me in." There's another pause, in which she shifts her weight to one foot, gaze lowered. "It is the same here. When I was young, my sisters and mothers—my entire coven was cut down. I was the only one to survive, though I did not... no one took me in."

So she understands what it means to carry your past with you. The loss is hers now. It's who she is. They're similar in that way, and also in the way that she can't quite settle with her discomfort, and so she gestures to the wall he's working on. "This wall. It must be removed?" Give her a task to do and she'll do it, please, just be forewarned that it may involve some magick.

[heypartner]

Like recognized like, Cobb thought. Merrin lived a hard lonely life losing all her family like that. At least Cobb could hope his family was still alive out there in the galaxy somewhere. She didn't have that. She'd never have that. Cobb would be fiercely protective of her here.

"Well, you've got somewhere here on your side," Cobb says with a nod at her. "Whatever that means to you."

They wouldn't be father and daughter. That just wasn't who they were here but Cobb figured they could be friends, at least.

"Not the whole wall, just this part here. Get rid of the wet stuff, find the leaky pipe, and then fix it up." Cobb only knew this from the Engineering information in his head. He gestures to the part that needs to be removed. "Shouldn't take too much work. Figure I'll be done with it by sunset."

[noch]

Someone here on her side. First Cal, then Cere and Greez, and now Cobb. It... means a lot to her, actually, if only because it was a long time before anyone was ever on her side again. Before she had friends, people she could rely on. That's what sticks out to her most, after her experience in the city—looking back at her real life on Dathomir, after her sisters had fallen, it was... lonely. So crushingly lonely. In retrospect, she's not sure how she survived it.

"It means very much to me. Thank you, Cobb Vanth," she says quietly, sincerely. She wants to ask him more about his life before coming to Temba, how he became free—but she isn't sure how to do it right, without causing pain.

Instead, she turns and studies the wall, taking note of the section he'd pointed out that needs to be removed. "I will help," she announces, just before raising her hands and summoning her magick, misty green ichor flowing from her fingers and into the wall, pulling it free.

[heypartner]

"Ah, just call me Cobb." He waves a hand at her. Using his last name feels so formal and they're well past that. It can be a sign of respect, he knows that, but Merrin didn't respect him less dropping the name.

Cobb's about to hand her a tool when the wall gets ripped out by her magic. It's exactly around the wet parts, smooth as anything. It reminds him of Obi-Wan lifting things with his mind just with a green glow he could see.

"Huh."

He's probably underestimated her all this time but when she explained magic he had just assumed it was like the Jedi. Nope, she's something else.

"Well, that takes care of that."