acatalepsy_logs | [OPEN] Well. That Didn't Go Quite As Planned

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[OPEN] Well. That Didn't Go Quite As Planned

Who: EVERYONE
Where: The Temple of Beginnings
When: Immediately After The End.
Rating: PG-13, may vary by thread
What: You fall, you pick yourself back up and you move on. Or at least, you try.

Fished Out Of Water
One minute, you are witnessing the fabric of an entire world implode as it is literally ripped apart by powers unknown. The next, that tell-tale twist somewhere beneath your sternum, before you are bodily YANKED away from Akvos, away from the ocean and the Queen and the King and the Princess.

And land back on (mostly) solid, dry ground.

Welcome back to the Temple of Beginnings. Don't worry, there's no hurry for you to get back up just yet.

Hey, Howya Doin'?
Once you do get back up, now is the time to be taking stock of the situation - yours, your friends, and even those new merfolk neighbours (who may need a hand getting their fins back into the water). There is also the missing members of the Circle to consider: people who disappeared on the journey to Akvos, and those who never made it back..

(There's also that small matter with a certain 'witchess-san' that may be a cause for concern to some more than others.)

Whatever the case, it's a lot to process right now. Take the time you have, because you don't know if it'll be enough for what you need.

[[ OOC: Here's an open post for threads reacting to the end of the Akvos world hop. Feel free to use the above prompts, and/or make your own! ]]

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All right. I just wanted to be sure. [Sheryl says, continuing to lean back until she's against Konoha's side. She adjusts the bear hide around her shoulders, since the cardigan is drying off by the fire next to her dress.] You're warm.

I'm a very good singer. There aren't many better than me in the whole galaxy. [She closes her eyes.] But it's not very good for closing ominous rifts or defending palaces, is it? That damn witch could've at least given me a useful power. [There's frustration in her voice. She exhales.]

Did I tell you about my boyfriend? From home. I did, right? I wish he was here.

[It’s a comforting weight- another person. A reminder that you’re alive... even if other people weren’t. Warm, and safe feeling... just for a while. Beneath Sheryl’s shoulders, Konoha’s large, main set of lungs expand and contract along with her breathing, slow and even, just a half second behind the auxiliary set in her human chest.]

... no, I guess not. Mine isn’t much use to save anyone like that either. I could... I could stop them from starving. But.

[But not save them. Not protect them. Not keep the children they’d promised would be safe alive... and her eyes press painfully closed at the memory, the fire flickering through her lids.]

The one who used to be a kabuki actor? Yeah...

[Could he have helped? Could Gonta? ... No. Gonta wouldn’t be more useful than her, would he? Even as strong as he was... what were any one of them against a world collapsing?]

[She feels the expanse and contraction of those lungs behind her, and for a second wonders how that even works, to have two sets of lungs, but she doesn't linger too long on it.] Yours is still useful, Konoha. People can't enjoy a song very much when they're starving.

[She leans a little more firmly against her now that she's settling in. The fire crackles.]

I thought I saw him die, once. During a battle, his plane-- [right, she won't know what that is]-- his ship, it was destroyed, while I was watching.

He was okay in the end, but I'll never forget how that felt. Like my heart was torn out of my chest and all color in the world went with it.

[All she can do is hum in something like agreement. Her power was useful, more so than not. She believed that. She's seen people starving. ... It just hadn't been useful in Akvos... Not when it really mattered.

Konoha forces herself to open her eyes again, listening in silence to Sheryl's words. Plane. Ships in the stars that flew. That could be destroyed.]

... I know it must be awful, to lose someone. To have to watch it happen.

[She's glad for the other woman, that in her case, it had been a fleeting grief. In her own life, despite living with the knowledge of violence and slavery forced upon her race for decades... She's been personally fortunate.]

My parents were killed, but I... I was really young, I don't really remember. No one... No one I loved like that has ever died.

[Not...]

Not like that.

[Horrifically.]

It was a hard couple of minutes, that's for sure. [Underselling it a little. She wiggles her toes, stretching them out near the crackling fire. She knows what it's like, to not know your parents growing up. It's something the two of them have in common.

She turns to her side a little so that she's facing Konoha's human half.]

We were... under attack. The colony fleet was being attacked by giant insects, called Vajra. We'd entered their territory, and so they were defending themselves. Whenever there was an attack, everyone had to go to the shelters-- like we were, down beneath the palace.

Hundreds of people died in the attacks, but it wasn't ever like that. I don't think I can even wrap my head around it yet.

[Now that they've been to Akvos, huddled together in the shelters beneath the castle, Konoha can imagine better what Sheryl talks about. Giant bugs, even... She can kind of believe that, it's sort of like the story of Tawara Todo, he defeated a giant centipede...

But her expression falls as the thoughts inevitably lead back to Akvos. To stop the tremble in her lip she bites in, fingers knitting together before she forces herself to separate them, latching instead onto her forelegs.]

... Do you think they're really all dead? Every single one of them?

I don't know. [It's honest, if tired.] Everyone who went into the rift wound up somewhere else, right? That dream world... maybe they all went there, too.

But probably not.

[A long breath.] We should probably... think of them as gone. It might be better for our hearts, in the end. We can't be let down that way.

[She hadn't thought about that. Could they be in the rift the same way they'd been? She'd been able to see her parents, even if it had been just an illusion... but there had been terrifying things within those dreams as well...

So was it even a relief, to think they might be alive but stuck in there?

Despite her attempts to not do this again, not cry outside the privacy of her room in the Temple... Konoha has to pull a hand from her foreleg to wipe aggressively at her eyes, trying to stop the tears before they come.]

Y- Yeah, you're probably right... I mean... Their world is gone, I guess...

[Something she'd never had to conceive of. A whole world... Gone.]

[She can hear that shakiness in Konoha's voice, the telltale tremble of tears. It's something that she feels a lot of herself.

She stands, sort of. She winds up sitting as far up as she can on Konoha's side, right above her horse foreleg. It's close enough that she can wrap her arms around Konoha's human half from behind in a gentle embrace.]

Edited 2019-01-27 03:31 (UTC)

[Oh.

Konoha can't help herself, not anymore, a small hiccup giving away that she's started to cry, given freedom to release it by the comfort of Sheryl's embrace.]

I'm sorry-

[Her hands move to hold the other girl's arms, tears hot on her cheeks even as she closes her eyes to try and banish the thoughts- the Rift, the destruction of Akvos, the babes she had held in her arms...]

I've never seen people die like that before-

[Accidents, illness, sure, but. That...]

[Sheryl lets Konoha hold her arms, lets the jinba's strong grip take hold of her as she weeps, pressing her face to the back of the other woman's shoulder and trying not to cry in kind. It's difficult, and there is perhaps a little dampness on Konoha's skin right where it meets Sheryl's eyes.

She doesn't shush her. She doesn't say it'll be okay. This is a time for grieving, after all, and who knows if it will ever be the same?]

I haven't, either... it was awful. It doesn't seem fair.

Do you think-

[She'd tried not to think about it. Tried not to imagine for fear that her ignorance of such matters, magic and all this... dimensional travel... would mean she couldn't even begin to understand, but.

Her fingers tighten just a bit on Sheryl's arms, afraid to let go.]

Do you think it's because we did something wrong... ? Or- Because we went there in the first place... ?

[A soft intake of breath. It's something she, too, had been worried about. Had feared.]

I don't... think so? The king had been plotting all that time, hadn't he? Things were already getting worse when we got there. If we'd never been there, he'd have tried to do the same thing.

So I don't think we had anything to do with it. [She doesn't sound sure, though.]</small

[She wants to believe that. After all... Sheryl was right, wasn’t she? Even if they hadn’t gone there, that King would still have come, right? It’s not like... any of them had opened that rift thing... Could they have?]

Why would the witch send us if we couldn’t help them... I can’t help but think-

[Not her, she wasn’t smart about those sorts of things, magic and fighting, but-]

If we couldn’t help, why did we even go...

[Her voice is quiet, tears hot on her cheeks as she mumbles her regrets. Part of her feels like this isn’t fair of her, it’s not like Sheryl has the answers anymore than she does, probably, but.

But she’s here and she’s sad, too.]

[It's so hard to not burst into open tears of her own. Konoha's grief and sorrow mirrors her own, her tears contagious. Sheryl takes a breath as she presses her face into the other woman's shoulder, and it comes slightly ragged, but she holds herself from crying-- or, at least, fully weeping-- with willpower alone.

Isn't this what she'd told herself? What she'd learned? She'd be the songstress of despair.] I don't know. It feels cruel of her, doesn't it?

Maybe we could've stopped it, or maybe there was nothing we could do. That still doesn't make it our fault, Konoha. It's not our fault!

[She says, her voice a little hoarse, a little too emphatic.

Maybe Konoha isn't the one she's trying to convince.

There's a difference between causing it and failing to prevent it, right? Right??]

I just-

[She can believe it, she thinks. She can believe it wasn’t their fault... and though she doesn’t know if no one amongst their group could have helped, she at least can think that people like her and Sheryl, people without those sorts of powers and knowledge, surely couldn’t be held accountable...

Her hands tighten a bit further on Sheryl’s arms to prevent herself from releasing the other girl, to stop the urge to cradle nothing but air in her arms where once she had held infants, making them laugh and soothing them when they cried. Her own tears grow bitter, hotter, even as her head hangs low, biting fiercely at her bottom lip but unable to stop how her shoulders shake beneath Sheryl’s cheek.]

I just can’t stop thinking about the children... they didn’t deserve any of that, they-

[Her voice breaks, the dam holding back the worst of her sobs beginning to break.]

I had one in my arms, she was there, and then when we were pulled back here-

[She was gone.]

[These words are what break her will, her resolve. Konoha's grief mirrors and echoes so much of what she herself feels. The warriors, the civilians, the king and queen and princess-- what happened to them is sad, but in a battle things like that happen.

The children, though? The ones she'd taught Ranka's song, the ones who'd huddled around her and Konoha for security and comfort.

It's cruel. It's too cruel, and Sheryl's knuckles are white as she squeezes Konoha, her own tears now flowing openly down her cheeks, grieving and desperate because this is cruel, and horrifically unfair, and whatever she tells herself or tells the jinba, Sheryl is furious with herself for not being able to have prevented it.]

It's not fair... it's not fair, is it? For that to happen to them-- it's not fair!

[Being strong will have to wait, apparently. Because she's joining Konoha in weeping openly. Again.]

[It’s not.

Konoha has always known the world wasn’t fair. Her own birth parents she had never known, killed by wars and use by humans before she was old enough to remember. That wasn’t fair. People died just because they caught a sickness, or wasted away for lack of food, that wasn’t fair. But she’d at least been loved by a new family, scraped together enough food to live, and time to smile.]

I just wish- I just wish we could have saved more... even just one more...

[And those children wouldn’t have that chance. Not even the slimmest chance, and it’s heartbreaking.

She can’t just let Sheryl cry like that, not like this, not together but apart, and so Konoha shifts, enfolds Sheryl under a foreleg instead of beside, pulling her into a more proper frontal embrace- though with her forelegs it probably feels a bit like two embraces, her arms hugging tight around Sheryl’s shoulders and equine legs about her hips, but-

It gives them better things to cry on. Each other.]

[Sheryl's not expecting the change in position and it catches her off guard, but aside from a moment of stiffness in her posture there's no hesitation or uncertainty. Konoha is warm, and her arms are strong, and even if it feels a little odd to have two sets of limbs around her, she's not going to complain. Not as she buries her face into Konoha's shoulder, tears hot and angry and sad and bitter flowing from the corners of her eyes.

She doesn't say anything, her fingertips pressing into Konoha's human back, the sound of her tears wet and sloppy and not at all the image of the cool, practiced idol. She grieves, and that's all she can do for the moment.

Just one more. Would that have been so hard? Such an impossible task for an omnipotent witch?

She's not sure how long they weep together. But eventually, tears cry themselves out, and she's left sniffling as the fire burns behind her.] I don't know... what I'll do if that happens again, Konoha.

I can't let it happen again. I won't. I'm not going to!

[But what can she realistically do about it?]

[Every time she thinks that she hasn’t anymore tears left... Konoha manages to find some. In spades, now, with the thought of the children in her mind. It’s different from the stories she’d heard growing up, different from the suffering she was familiar with... so abrupt, so sudden, such a violent and final clash and end that she still can’t even fully understand it.

But it’s comforting to know she’s not alone. That Sheryl grieves too, that she isn’t alone with these emotions in a sea of people too jaded or too afraid of being weak to cry.

She keeps her face buried against the other girl’s shoulder still even as her cheeks begin to dry, nodding to the words. The conviction, even if she also doesn’t know what exactly can be done by the likes of them.]

I don’t know either... So many people said I should learn to fight, that I’m strong... but I don’t-

[Swallowing, she wrestles with the guilt, with the selfishness of wanting to be protected instead of learning to fight herself. For thinking that fighting shouldn’t solve everything.]

I don’t want to use my strength like that...

[Misery loves company.

Perhaps that saying wasn't made for times like this, but it does help, in a way, to grieve together. To know that the pain isn't theirs to bear alone, even if they all feel it in different ways.

Maybe it's just that they needed a good all-out cry to dull the ache in their hearts. She's not sure.

She does, weirdly, feel better. Not much better. But better.] If you don't want to fight, nobody can make you fight. You shouldn't let anyone make you fight.

That can't be the only thing we can do, can it?

[She touches her forehead to Konoha's shoulder another time before leaning back so she can get a little more air.]

I tried to learn how to fly like Alto does. To fight like he does. ...I wasn't very good at it.

It can’t be...

[Can it... ? Not everything should... so surely not everything could be solved with violence. She wants to believe that.

Konoha pulls a hand back to grope about at her waist until she can find the pouch worn at her waist, pulling out a worn but clean cloth that she offers to Sheryl before beginning to wipe at her own face with her sleeve. ... She needed to do laundry already anyway.]

We’re not good at fighting but- Surely there’s something we can do...

[Because she’s never felt as powerless or as useless as she had the moment the rift closed. The moment it had sunk in that that entire world was lost.]

But every world is so different and I don’t even know what will do good and what won’t...

[Oh, a handkerchief. Sheryl uses the proffered square of cloth to dab the streaks of tears from her cheeks before handing it back to Konoha. She takes a breath.

The pain is still there. The sadness and grief is still there. But having wept, openly, in her friend's arms... there's a sense of release and catharsis that she hasn't had since they've come back.] Don't say that about yourself, Konoha.

[She slowly pulls herself back into a sitting position, leaning against her friend's front in a way she hopes is comfortable for the jinba.] You've got plenty of skills. You're strong, you can cook. You know how to survive in the wild and build a fire. There are plenty of things you can do that don't involve ever having to hurt someone.

[And she's just a singer.]

[Even if it wasn't comfortable physically, Konoha wouldn't say a word. She takes too much comfort from it mentally to want it to change, taking her handkerchief back to finish wiping her tears before she sort of... drapes on Sheryl a bit, unwilling to give up that physical contact just yet.]

Then you can't say those things either, Sheryl.

[And there's not a hint of falsity in her voice, nothing said just out of sympathy or kindness.]

You know how to bring people together and make them feel things... Like safe, or confidant, or calm... That's the same as me.

[She believes it. When people's bellies were full because of her food they were happy... But they were also happy listening to Sheryl's voice.]

[Honestly, she doesn't mind the contact at all. Besides the fact that Konoha is very warm and she herself is chilly after misadventures in freezing lakes, it's just nice to have that contact. It's reassuring.

She takes a breath, slowly.] I'm the last person to say that music isn't important-- that keeping people's spirits up isn't important. I've been the songstress of despair before.

But it doesn't warm someone's body or keep them from going hungry or help them live. What you do does.

[OPEN] Well. That Didn't Go Quite As Planned

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fade out here?

yyy