Wheeling Gull Isle razor sharp and ready to cut

you get turo's 600th post!

on the topic of sirius it seems neither man is feeling inclined to speak any further — arturo has no recent information to offer dakarai and the subject drops with dakarai's mention of keeping a lookout. arturo is well versed at reading between the lines and the silence that follows carries with it what the gangster assumes the ebony man leaves unsaid. the teekons are vast, running with the assumption that sirius has survived his time on his lonesome, and the likelihood of the pair catching up — if he was still in the wilds on top of being alive — was about as good as arturo running into hemlock or his children. but he doesn't mention that. he leaves it unsaid, something that he's quite skilled at doing.

it comes to pass that confessions are not finished as dakarai begins to speak once more. to hear that there was ( is? ) resentment against him personally does not come as any sort of surprise to the gangster. he's no stranger to making enemies — it's the nature of the beast in his business. he is not a mobster if he does not make as many enemies as he does allies. yet still, even with the tentative truce and kinship that hangs between the fallen men, arturo will not apologize for the punishment he placed upon the star crossed lovers. they had made mistakes. mistakes that had cost teaghlaigh, that had cost lotte and the lotturos ( for they had been born days earlier than they'd been meant to ) that cost the svartell family as well...all of it irrevocably tied back to dakarai and olive and their choices. their trespasses. claiming or excusing it as ignorance would not do any favors, and so arturo accepts it as begrudgingly as he can without comment aside from, "we all make mistakes, dakarai." the gangster draws thoughtfully, "all we can do is to learn from them and their consequences."

"your children were innocent of you and olive's crimes. i do not blame, nor punish children. i am many things and not many of them good but even i am not that monstrous." a small comfort, he is sure. arturo breaches with a swipe of his tongue across his jowls. "it is a shame about your second boy. aries. i hope he realizes the extent of what he has gotten and devoted himself into." but when he did, perhaps it would be too late. the presumed death of roarke and malliadh was much more comforting to arturo then the consideration that they might also walk among those warmongering wolves with their venomous secrets ( and that sounds bad, even in his own head ). "i hope he realizes it before it's too late." arturo amends himself.

the sea had begun to receded during their conversation and though the sandbar had begun to rise out of the frothy, foaming surf arturo does not move towards it. "thank you dakarai." it is a heavy compliment to hear that dakari respected him to still look to him as cennasach; and truthfully not words he'd ever thought he'd hear. both men had grown, had learned: it was evidenced enough in the fact that they were even having this conversation at all. "for whatever it's worth, i hope you find sirius. i hope that life is kinder to you than it's been within the past year." some of that unkindness being by arturo's own decree, but it had been a necessary evil at the time and arturo is nothing if not a man who stands by his decisions without apology.

with those words, spoken with the intent of being a goodbye arturo begins to head towards the partially destroyed sandbar with the intent of heading back to the mainland and then south to lotte's grave where he must allow himself to mourn and grieve her in a way he had denied himself when witchdoctor had taken over.