Event Log: Dust to Dust

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Dust to Dust event
Where: All over the city!
When: January 14th-17th
Warnings: A big ol' mess.

It starts off small: the wind picks up, particles of sand and dirt and dust begin to fill the air. You might not even notice at first, not until you have to wipe the dust off your windows to see outside. After all, it's been a long time since Hadriel has experienced weather, and it's never experienced a weather event not caused by the gods before.

But the gods aren't in charge of the weather now, and even if they could prevent this dust storm, they have way too many other things to do. So it's up to you to deal with it, and as the wind rises and the dust storm moves into the city, there'll be plenty to deal with.

Once the storm is at its peak, it'll be almost impossible to see outside - and it won't be safe to go wandering, either. Entirely besides falling and hurting yourself, if you aren't wrapped up well enough the particles in the air will abrade your skin. Love that sandpaper feel! Oh, and breathing? Yeah, better make sure your nose and mouth are covered, or else they'll be full of sand, too. Hope you've got some goggles stashed away to protect your eyes. Luckily, it won't last too long - 'cause you'll have plenty of cleaning to do once the storm is over.

► This log covers January 14th-17th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you foolishly get scoured to the bone, please let us know here.

Comments

[tongueamok]

[Given it has a bed and a sitting table, Carlisle has taken to calling his private sanctuary a cottage rather than a shed these days; however, it's not so private at the moment, so perhaps the former designation is more appropriate. He's surprised to have company, first because of the rather isolated location of his garden, and second because of the storm brewing outside. He'd only stepped in to see if he had anything to cover his face with, but perhaps he shouldn't, as he's now face-to-face with someone he's been meaning to call, meaning to speak to for some time since the Null's invasion. He wrote a little speech, has practiced this meeting in his head in front of his mirror.

And yet, her immediate reaction riles him, and he retorts in kind.]

I suppose a friendly greeting is beyond you, isn't it?

[Good start.]

[dedikated]

( Snapping at each other seems to be how these things go. The irritation that's already lingering in the pit of her stomach, thanks to the dust storm outside, quickly spikes further as the familiar voice snaps at her for some slight she didn't even know she was doing. Great. Carlisle's here, too. That's what she needed, after how badly their last two encounters have gone. )

You too.

( How is she supposed to greet you if she doesn't know you're there, Carlisle? Huh? )

[tongueamok]

[The cottage isn't that big, Kate. Use your eyes for something other than your work and looking at Ignis for a change.

Albeit belatedly, Carlisle feels the guilt from their last conversations still heavy on him, and realizes this might be an opportunity if he can manage to control his temper. What had Lance said? That perhaps she is too dense to realize why it is that her behavior is troubling? Well, obviously not with that exact wording, but the point remains the same: Kate is, perhaps, blissfully unaware of just how it is she comes across when she goes running into danger, and shouldn't be judged so harshly until Carlisle himself has made it perfectly clear how he feels about that. That last part is difficult terrain all by itself.

He starts slow. Step by step, he reminds himself.]

Has the storm outside grown that intolerable?

[dedikated]

( Excuse her, but it's hard to see when your sunglasses have been scratched to shit and you're trying to blink sand out of your eyes.

As if answering Carlisle's question, Kate unravels the fabric around her neck... and promptly drops a small shower of sand onto the floor. You might want to stop her before she unpins her hair and adds to that. Or maybe not, we're not the boss of you, Carlisle. )

... Aye.

( There's a brief pause as she tucks away now ruined sunglasses, staring at Carlisle a moment as the implications of that statement sink in. )

You been here long?

( And what is this place, anyway... She'd thought it was just a small shed of some sort, but there's a bed and a table. Almost like someone lives here from time to time. )

[tongueamok]

Since this morning, but I am often here at that time.

[On second inspection, Kate might realize the shed is far more personalized toward a certain clergyman: there's an odd shrine of some sort on one wall, furs covering the bed that come from beasts only a capable warrior could have slain, gardening implements all arranged carefully by size and shape, as one so fastidious would do.]

This is my garden, after all.

[dedikated]

( Now that she looks, properly looks, she can see the little details. It certainly isn't out of place with what she's seen of his apartment, his part of the house, and now the apartment he shares with Glacius. Lips purse at the comment, because she knows she was gone a few years but- )

... Weren't it on the roof?

( She remembers running past it. But then, she hasn't come across it since she came back. Little details get muddled up and forgotten after so much time away, but once it's mentioned... she's certain it was on a roof before. )

[tongueamok]

It was, but—

[Oh. Oh, she doesn't know. She doesn't know.]

It burned. Sh- Shadow burned it to the ground. I moved it because- b-because there was nothing left of it.

[It really has been some time since they had a real conversation, hasn't it?]

[dedikated]

'e did what.

( Good lord. The move makes sense but now it opens up a whole new set of questions. Like what was going through Shadow's mind and why she missed this. )

Why?

( Strange how the wrong tone used can make a question sound like a demand. )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle's hands curl, fists forming as he remembers that night: fire all around him, the hedgehog standing over him, bruises forming where he'd been struck. There was fear he couldn't dissipate for months, guilt he still lives with. Shadow had his reasons, but—

No. He's been told that doesn't make what Shadow did right. He has to believe that.]

He... always took things hard. That— that was before you vanished, I believe, but when you left, he- he lashed out at people. He lashed out at me. I—

[Didn't he tell her this? He's so sure he did, but it's hard to remember with all they've been through, with her disappearance and Glacius' lament and the gods and the Null and she never even told him about her death so why would he tell her about this anyway this is a terrible idea and what's the point in—

He cuts himself off again, trying to stop that downward spiral. He has a script. He should use it. Stiffly, he picks up his satchel from the table, digging through it for his journal.]

[dedikated]

( He did. The memories flood back as soon as the words leave Carlisle's lips, but it's hard to keep track of everything she was told happened during her absence, to keep track of everything that's happened since she returned.

She said, once, that Hadriel wouldn't wait for them, that they had to keep moving, and she was right. Sometimes it feels like nothing happens in the city, but something always is, even if they're not being invaded by monsters or robots. )

What're you doing?

( She can't help but... find that movement strange. The sudden cut off, the way Carlisle moves to his bag, and immediately, Kate feels her muscles tense, not sure what she's expecting, other than this argument to escalate.

It seems like that's all they do now. )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle fumbles with his journal, his hands already shaking as he turns the pages, looking for one in particular.]

Kate—

[Just as the doctor suggested, he did indeed write a script.]

I often feel that you do not understand the gravity of your continued existence, nor the impact you have had upon others. You would rebuke any attempt I make to impress this point upon you, and insist that risking your life is a necessity at best, and inconsequential at worst. I have witnessed more than once the effects of your absence, and I request that, in the future, you bear in mind the sorrow of those who would believe they have somehow failed you in your passing.

[And with his letter read, he slowly closes his journal, his fingers tight upon it as he tries to swallow down his nerves; they linger in his throat, ready to suffocate him.]

[dedikated]

( Whatever she expected, it wasn't to be read a letter, her entire self freezing in place as Carlisle goes over the words like a kid stuck at the podium in a school assembly. The irritation at being told to take care, yet again — in nicer words than usual — flares instinctively, hand curling into a fist.

She speaks before she thinks or has a chance to calm it down. )

I know. Why's everything got to be about Glacius being sad? ( This time, her voice isn't nearly as even as it usually is when she's cornered like this. She's tired of having this same discussion go in circles, where Carlisle just doesn't get the fact that she isn't the only one who's had an impact worth protecting. If all she needed to care about was herself, she'd just focus on finding a way home. But she can't, not after all the things she's gone through with the people here. ) Am I not allowed to try and keep my friends safe?

( She remembers dying to keep Faith and Shadow alive, to give them a chance, remembers Faith yelling at her that she shouldn't be any more special than anyone else just because she has a Name. It was never about being a Phoenix or a once in a million Superhuman, though, it was always about the fact that Kate couldn't stand to watch her best friend die when she could have prevented it. Not again. Not like Marc did.

And she remembers Glacius' words the last time they chatted — If they did not care, then I am sure they would not have a problem with you putting yourself in danger. It's enough to catch her anger in her throat and make her swallow it. To try again in a more even tone to ask the one thing that's been confusing her all this time. )

... I don't know what you want me to do.

( Last time, he said he wasn't asking her to stay in and hide, but what is she supposed to do about this? In Kate's eyes, she's never gone out there just for the hell of it. )

[tongueamok]

[A tremor runs through Carlisle at the mention of his partner's name, shaking the journal in his hands; his brow tightens, his nerves along with them as another knot is tied into the thread of his composure. She didn't call him foolish for his concerns, but her reaction wasn't comforting all the same.]

I want you to stay safe. I—

[She still doesn't understand, he chides inwardly. Did she ever understand what it meant to Glacius when she vanished? What it meant to him? She's always spoken of it so lightly, if at all. His teeth grind harder, his head bowing, the thread pulled taut as he struggles to hold his temper.

He nearly chokes on that lump in his throat as he forces himself to breathe. The storm outside batters against the windows, the gales refusing to relent.]

I want you to leave the battles and the fighting to anyone else. Anyone! They haven't- they haven't died before, so let them, rather than throwing yourself into the fire. Work at the Clinic, or find another way to help others. Let them risk that the gods won't bring them back, not you.

[dedikated]

( Unfortunately for Carlisle, that suggestion is... pretty much the worst one he could make when Kate has only just wrangled her temper under control. Her eyes narrow, gaze levelled firmly at Carlisle's head, eyes alight with something more than simple defiance.

How dare he? )

No. Never.

( Of all the things to ask her. To tell her to stay away from battle, when doing so—

Visions of getting to her friends only to see Marc be caught and killed before her eyes dance in the front of her mind. )

Why the hell am I supposed to be okay with people dying? I'm not more important than anyone else here, Carlisle.

[tongueamok]

[That thread holding his own temper, already bare from their earlier near-conversations and circular argu,nets, finally snaps.]

Yes you are, Kate!

[He tears his eyes from their spot on the floor, thrusting them toward her with unbridled vehemence. One eye burns as ink wells beneath it, but the fires in his chest are so hot that they draw all his focus. With no restraint, the words pour from him.]

You are important to Glacius, and your godforsaken Clinic! You are important to me! Does that even matter to you?! Or is my word worth so little to you that you'll be thrilled when I'm gone?! Do you- D'you think I wanted to find out you'd died secondhand? Or watch my partner absolutely destroy himself in your absence? He blamed himself for Emily's death and I've no doubt he'll do even worse over yours! At least you can- at least you don't have to die here! You don't have to think about what's going to happen when there is nothing left of you and you're leaving someone behind, because have you ever thought of that?!

[He only stops there because he finally has to paw at the ink coming out of his eye, the vile liquid searing him worse than any tears.]

[dedikated]

( She nearly bites back at the immediate you're important to Glacius, but Carlisle doesn't give her a second to do so, and instead she grinds her teeth as words flow as freely as the ink from his eye, not breaking her own glare

Not until those last words come out. )

I have. ( Truthfully, not at the moment of her death, because all she could do was try and save the others, damn the consequences. But since then... Since then.

And every time, she's decided it would be worth it. That they'd get over it well enough. )

I can't watch more people I l- care about die. Not again, not if I can stop it. ( She knows she isn't strong enough to handle Glacius dying like Marc did. Or Carlisle. Or Ignis, or Jo, or Henry, or so many of the people here. She still feels the helplessness, the anger which burns in her chest to know that she did fail more than one of her friends during the invasion. For all she says she wants to protect them, what happens?

She fails them. Just like she did Marc. Just like she did Faith, when their doubles appeared.

There's a moment, a pause where she inhales deeply, tries to get her voice back under control as she feels it spiralling. )

I've failed enough people for one lifetime.

[tongueamok]

And I've lost enough people for one.

[Her heroic ideals butt against his internal selfishness, causing more sparks from the friction. She's willing to risk her life if it means not losing others; he's the type who isn't willing to risk at all. He has always been a coward, the end of his family line and the miserable failure of it. He has run from his problems for as long as he's lived: he heals so that others might not perish, drinks so that he doesn't have to suffer the burden of his own paranoia -- even lived when he wasn't supposed to, resulting in his accursed status. Would his family still be alive if he'd died that day? Would his father and his uncles still be around to carry on the family legacy long after the death of the only heir?

Those are questions he's asked himself time and time again, usually in better mental states. Unfortunately, as he asks them again now, they only serve to rile him further. Down his eyes go again as tears well in them, the ink in the one spilling forth and trailing down his face.]

My father died but months after I should have, taking my place for my failure. My uncles both vanished, and I was blamed, interrogated, and tortured for it. Before being taken from my world, I was effectively alone for years. I lost my entire family, and by being dragged from one world to another, I lost the only place I had in this existence.

[Can his goddess even hear him so far away? He has pondered that more than once, as well. He doesn't want to know the answer, preferring the bliss of ignorance. So much has been a burden on him, and he has so little time to make things right.]

I cannot bear to lose what I have here. I don't want to lose you. It is... [He swallows that lump in his throat, finally forcing it to move as the rest of him shakes, his voice quiet and trembling.] It is an inevitability, but if I could- if I could just keep all of this for a little while longer...

[dedikated]

( It's strange, how hearing that strikes a chord deep in Kate's heart. She isn't cursed, isn't facing down an inevitable death, but the loss of her family stings even now, years after the fact. They're not so dissimilar after all. Perhaps she's always known that, but never wanted to reconcile that fact. Never wanted to admit that she operates on fear just as heavily as Carlisle often does.

She fights it. Gets angry at it. Tries to deny it exists with alcohol and years of hardening her heart. But she's just as scared. Scared that any family she builds from here on out will eventually be killed like the one she grew up with. Scared that she isn't enough, that her continued existence over Marc's was nothing more than a mistake. )

You're not the only one.

( And now her voice is empty, rather than taut with restrained emotion. Bland as she recalls things which have been facts for decades now. )

Lost the last member of my family ten years ago. He went to fight and I was too tired to join him. ( Even Kate can't hide the derision at herself for that decision. She's spent every day since hating it on some level. Even on the good days, it lingers. A dark cloud always reminding her. ) I was supposed to protect him. But I was too fucking tired to do it.

( The next words are so quiet it would be forgiven for missing them, especially with the way Kate's refused to look at him since the argument stilled down to these confessions. )

It should have been me.

( Marc was the smart one. The useful one. She... she was just angry and tired. She'd just spent years wanting nothing more than to be out and to do... she doesn't know what. She wouldn't be able to do anything if she'd left, anyway. )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle's voice is equally small as he responds, ink dripping from him; the stress is terrible upon them both, even if his is more visible.]

Perhaps it should have been us both so many years ago... but here we are, still alive. Perhaps we should take advantage of it.

[Glacius wouldn't want to hear either of them talk like this -- he wouldn't want them arguing. The alien's hearts are too kind for either of them.

Carlisle turns his head away, glancing out the window. The storm outside seems so quiet compared to the one thundering in his chest. He speaks again, his voice barely audible over the squall.]

Do you... want to live, Kate?

[dedikated]

Keep telling myself that. ( That she should take advantage of it. She tries to, under the banner that it's what her family would want. That it makes no sense for her to be given this chance Marc so deserves and keep wasting it.

It doesn't make it any easier to take advantage when every voice in her head reminds her that Marc could and would do far more with these ten years than she has. That, perhaps, if Marc was alive, they would have made better choices with regards to Manchester and not spent that decade trying to repair everything. It certainly doesn't make it any easier when Hadriel is in trouble and she knows that Marc would be better at defending them, would be better at knowing what to do. What the city needs.

Back home, she at least felt some purpose with what she did at the clinic. While she knows, logically, that it's better the clinic doesn't rely too heavily on any one person, it aches to know that the thing she's spent seven years learning is barely more than a little useful here. That her effect is limited to first aid and organising shelves. )

... Yes.

( But despite it, that still holds true. She has things worth waking up for, both here and back home, but still—

Still. )

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle was hoping to find some relief in her answer, praying that, upon hearing whether or not Kate does want to survive this, he would have a better understanding of her.]

As do I.

[And yet, he feels something else churning in the pit of his stomach, something vile and terrible and surely indicative of the abomination he is.]

And you have the chance to do that here. You have the chance to survive this, and to keep living, and to do great things... and of that, I am envious.

[He feels his nails dig into his palm, and hopes that is sweat or blood that's pooling against his skin rather than more ink brought on by his unraveling nerves.]

I am envious that you have time. You have been offered an opportunity to live up to the expectations of others, but you still risk your life, insist you're unimportant as you throw that gift to the winds. You would gloss over your own death as though it didn't matter to- to anyone. To me. You would treat me as though I cannot make my own decisions, moving my entire apartment without so much as a word of consent, but when I worry incessantly over your well-being, you rebuke me. Why? Why can you not see what you have?

[And if she could, why would she not cling as tenaciously to it as he would?]

[dedikated]

( That she can understand, even if she can't understand what it means to have your life on a timer in that way. They've all but completely avoided the fact of Carlisle's mortality since it was shared, replaced it with bickering and unspoken worry. She doesn't want to accept that Carlisle's right about it, but it's unique to his world, and they're here in a city which barely allows them to fix basic injuries half of the time.

Everyone she's lost, she's lost suddenly. No warning beyond the risks of a job, a lifestyle they'd survived for nearly seven years. The lingering inevitability is entirely alien to her.

In other words, she doesn't know how to deal with it.

But she knows her answer to what Carlisle asks as surely as she knows anything. )

Not much point if you lose everyone you have.

( The idea of being alone again, devoid of everyone who's become friends, close to family, is terrifying. It took so long to learn that pushing people away was a terrible idea, she doesn't want to lose the ones she's let in. )

[tongueamok]

I have already lost everyone. And now, as I near the end of my miserable existence, I would give literally anything to not lose what life I have eked out in these final years. To not lose Glacius, to not lose Miss Rey, to not lose you.

[Ink drips heavily from his eye, escaping the crevices between his teeth; he wipes it onto his sleeve as usual, the stains he has to wash out more numerous every day. There is only so much he can do about them -- only so much he can do at all.]

Fine. Fine then. [Ink smears across his cheek as he drags his sleeve along it.] Risk your life on some heroic aspiration of saving others... [Like his father, like his uncles, like so many lost to him.] But should you ever act as though your survival and you aren't important ever again, so help me I will force the thought into your head until you believe it.

[He said he'd give anything to keep what he has, and if that means damning himself, then so be it. Maybe he'll rethink that later, but as he's standing there, the storm outside as while as that in his chest, ink pouring from him like old wounds reopening, that's as much a threat as it is a promise.]

[dedikated]

( To not lose you.

Those words are rarer in Kate's life than she realises before they're said. It's a punch to the gut. So much between herself and Marc had been unspoken, and that spiralled out into everything else. She lost the ability to say those sorts of things to anyone, and in turn, they didn't say them to her. Faith did, but she said them to everyone. It took most of a decade for them to even say they were best friends - took Kate dying in a city they should never have been in in the first place.

Hearing it from Glacius is one thing. Hearing is from Carlisle, who for so long had prefaced all his arguments with how it would hurt Glacius' feelings, is another thing entirely. One that's enough to stun Kate into silence, into stillness. Something different from the usual stillness of a viper about to strike, or a cat stalking its prey; this is like a person frozen by powers and magic.

With nothing more than a few words.

The storm continues to bluster outside, battering the building and howling, ringing in her ears. It takes the crash of something against the door to finally snap her out of the speechlessness, and then only to say; )

I'm not letting you die, Carlisle.

( It's true, she has no idea how to fight this kind of death. It can't be fought by weapons and claws, and his world and the rules of it are nothing like her own, or Hadriel's. But she has to figure out some way of keeping him alive.

He's become too important to her to simply give up. )

[tongueamok]

You say that as though you have a choice in the matter, Kate.

[Her reassurance should be something that brings him comfort: it's what he wanted, isn't it? A sign that she's actually listening to him rather than deflecting his every -- and often nonverbal, unfortunately -- attempt to reach her? No, that wasn't it, not entirely. He wants her to see what she has, and perhaps her insistence is a way of showing that. How sad it is, he notes inwardly, that she wastes it on the unattainable.

The storm continues to rage outside, but what fury lingered in his voice drips away with the ink from his eye, from his nails, from his lips. Bit by bit, it is worn away, just as he is.]

You may choose to throw yourself into danger on behalf of others in the hopes that your sacrifice will change the outcome for the better... but there is little, if anything, you can do about this. That anyone can do.

[And just as he struggles to come to terms with her methods, so he has struggled to reconcile himself with his impending end. He's had years to deal with it, but has only found recently that he wants things to be different -- that he desperately wishes he could change his own fate with the same arguments that might change the minds of others, that might change how they see themselves and their own worth.]