The Stormfather

"Hey," Mark whispered. "We're gonna get out of this, okay? We'll go back to the house, get everything back to normal." A tear formed in Mark's eye. "We're gonna be fine." Right? Don't ask me. You got yourself into this.

The procession continued for several minutes, eventually leading them to a road with a group of (I don’t know whether it’s carriage times or car times) vehicles ready. They quickly loaded themselves in, putting Mark and Marewill in one with two guards up front and two behind. They began moving. They didn’t stop for about half an hour, eventually stopping. Some of the guards got out for a few minutes, and muffled conversation could be heard from outside, though too quiet to understand. Eventually, the guards got back in and kept driving. And kept driving.

Mark inched along, eventually stumbling and hitting the ground hard. His aluminum ‘gloves’ (no clue what these things are called but it’s a thing used in prisons for dangerous people to cover their hands idk) slamming hard against a pebble on the ground. He was lifted to his feet by two of the guards. He did his best to hide his smirk, and hide the fact that there was now a decent in one of the aluminum cases. He continued walking, wary of what the guards could do at any moment.

Eventually, one of the guards walked over to their cell. "Get up." He opened the door, bringing them into the main part of the barn. Guards whispered to each other, sending messages along lines that slowly formed around Mark and Marewill. One of them in particular stepped towards the two, pistol holstered on his belt. "You two cause a lot of trouble, you know." Oh, yeah I wonder why- "Maybe you shouldn't have tried to kill us then." Mark spat. The others around him reacted quickly, readying weapons to see if he would try anything. He backed off, still staring at the one of them who had spoken. "Watch your tone. Or you'll end up like the Marksmen." The captor said, lifting his pistol out of it's holster, holding it at his side. "Move it." He pointed to the door. "At least your next cell will smell better." He wrinkled his nose. "Not sure why we picked at rusting barn, but whatever." Mark began slowly moving towards the door, watching those around him warily.

He sighed, kicking around some of the dirt in the cell. "I... I feel like there should be something we can do. Every time I've been in situations like this, I've always been able to do something. I've always been able to fight, or scheme, or do some hairbrained and far-too-complicated method of escape. Now... It's just... Nothing."

he fell silent, glaring out at the guards. Let me through, Mark. I'll break us out of here, kill all of them and make them pay. They will feel the hurt that you now feel! Let me- "No." He growled. "No!" The guards glanced over at him, but didn't really react. "Not everything is solved with death." He whispered. He turned to Marewill. "Do you think... Do you think any of them would've noticed we're gone by now? Do you think they'll be coming to help us?"

"I- I know. I just can't help feeling..." Mark searched for the word. "I don't know. I should have been able to stop them. I stopped the group that was prepared specifically to kill us, and got caught by some backup after taking out their main force." He glared out at one of the guards. "Even with the Killer's help, I couldn't have won. It just seems that whatever outside force there is in this Ruined world, it really has it out for me."

"I...Hopefully the others don't end up caught like us. It...Hopefully they can organize some kind of defense against these people." Mark sighed. "Although, if they did, they'd probably end up in a real prison. Something about this... These people have put a lot of money into this. They had a good amount of Breath, at least fifty, because they were able to see Spren." He paused for a moment. "They also had a lot of rifles and firearms, which don't come cheaply. And this... place... It seems like they've gone through an awful lot of effort for this 'vengeance'. And, if they've gone through this much effort to capture us, why haven't they either captured the others or killed us? Do we know if they even want to catch the others or not?" He sighed again. "This doesn't make sense to me. None of it does. Although... When has life ever really made sense? Maybe this is just me trying to find a deeper thought when there isn't one. Maybe this is just me trying to find some reasoning that they won't kill us, my deeper human survival instinct kicking in with it's last resorts. I don't know. I..." "I'm... I'm just so... tired of all of this."

My handwriting gets so bad sometimes that I have to rewrite things two or three times for school. none of my teachers have a clue what I’m writing.

"True." Mark said. "Though we're not criminals anymore, or, at least, we haven't been arreste-" Mark looked at the bars surrounding him. "Maybe we did get arrested for treason."

“None of them are how you picture them. All of us… We do what we can to survive. That’s it. We’ve made mistakes. We sure as hell have, but that doesn’t make every one of us bad. Instead of looking at Adris and the ones who went after your father for your blame, look to the ones who offered them and all of them a way out of the gutter if they did the job. Look towards the corruption and scams that forced all of us into the streets in the first place.” Mark stared upwards. “You say that I’m not like them. Maybe that’s true. I’m the only of them whose sworn ideals, who has accepted the authority of others. But I’m more akin to them than you can know. Without them, I’d be dead. I wouldn’t have been there to fight the Marksmen. The rebellion may not have happened in the first place. You say that I’m not like them as a compliment, and I accept that sentiment. But what you are truly saying, or what I dearly hope you meant, is that I am not like what would seem to be to those who don’t know them. Those who see them as criminals, and nothing more.” ”Deep down, I am like them. I…I am a criminal. A murderer. A revolutionist. An enemy to the capitol. Someone just going through life and trying to stay alive. We don’t like the things we’ve done. It… it haunts us, for long, long times. But sometimes, we just needed to do what we could to survive.”

“I-“ Mark sighed. “I didn’t have much of a choice. I wasn’t doing very well, not at all. Not many jobs are great for Soothers, except for…” ”At first, it wasn’t anything terrible that I was doing. I would use Brass to scam some Capitol agents, take some from the rich who would barely notice. Then… We got caught.” He sighed. “That was what made them see me less as a scammer and more as an assassin. First time I killed someone, the peacekeeper who broke into our lair and started shooting. I barely registered it before my knife was in his throat. We all realized that I was good at fighting soon after that, when there was another scuffle with agents of the Capitol. Things…. Devolved quickly, after that. We had to leave our lair, which left us vulnerable. We had to move into the domain of other gangs. We tried joining some of them, but nobody wants to take in people getting hunted by the peacekeepers. Too much of a risk.” ”We settled, eventually, in Adris’ childhood home, oddly enough. Didn’t realize that criminality had taken over pretty much everybody in the neighborhood. Three gangs formed. Us, the Steeles, and the Raiders. The Raiders were… caught… a few months after we got there. Then, well, you know most of the rest. Sereine… Then we and the Steeles merged. We eventually decided our name should be the Steeles. There weren’t many of the Rusted even left.” Mark groaned. “Not enough of us knew how to fight. With me gone…”

“Whatever you’re trying to say, just say it. I’m going to listen to you, no matter what it is.” Stupid Ideals.

“I…” For a moment, Mark seemed angry, though he quickly calmed down. “Is there much that you wouldn’t have found out in the last few years?” He paused. “There isn’t much of a story to tell that you weren’t there for.”

One of the two sighed loudly. “Not me.” The other grinned, although they weren’t playing for any stakes. There were fake coins on the table that they were betting.

“No.” Mark sighed. “The best thing to do is probably to go along with them.” Until bullets start flying. The Killer finished, in Mark’s head.

“They didn’t search me, I don’t think.” Mark fumbled with his aluminum-encased hands to dump out his pocket. “I have some brass.”

"What do we do?" Mark murmured. "Is there anything that we can do?"

There were a few of the Marksmen around, two of them playing cards while the other was watching Mark and Marewill. The ground was dirt, strewn with straw, and the cell was in the corner of the building. It seemed like animals had been kept in this place, with the pens that were made along the walls.

“Hopefully.” Kill all of them. Mark ignored the voice. “ It seems like the only reason they haven’t killed us already is as a way to get the rest of your family and the Steeles to suffer.”

"So... What's left? Scheming?"

"I-" Mark groaned. "So we're getting captured for fighting in self defense and acting in accordance with human nature. Great. Well, we can rule out using logic with these people."

"Why?"