hadriel_logs | Event Log: Keepsakes

Entry tags:

Event Log: Keepsakes

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Keepsakes event!
Where: All around the city
When: October 15th-October 19th
Warnings: A bunch of random crap.

Well, Hope and Delight are messing with the door again, but at least this time dragons aren't involved, right? This attempt goes a bit better - sure, no one gets sent home, but if everyone will just look under their seats, they'll find a FREE [INSERT SOMETHING YOU MAYBE DIDN'T WANT AT ALL HERE]! Awesome! So nice! Yup, throughout these few days people will be finding things from home - something they loved, something they used all the time, something they hated, something they totally forgot they even had. All sorts of cool stuff!

Well, they might not actually find it. Their neighbor might, or a complete stranger. And who knows where it could turn up? At the park, half-buried? In the Silent Hill zone, kept safe by a horrifying monster? Or hey, maybe in somebody's underwear drawer. Awkward. Better try to find your stuff, or find the owner of whatever weird crap you found. It could be something important.

► This log covers October 15th-October 19th.
► 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 somehow manage to die in this event, please let us know here, and also what the hell?

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The phones do have GPS, and moreover Noah isn't a normal boy. He hears the idle thoughts that drift by, what's wrong with you, but only the surface ones. Nothing deep. Thanks to his own inebriation however minor he thinks that's what the question is about for now and just gives a little nod, swaying slightly when he stands before ducking to grab the bloodstained skateboard that was resting at his side.

"Yeah. Um. There's a GPS but I guess it can be confusing if you've never used one before," Noah says. He's met people who don't even understand what phones are because they're from a time when sending messages by bird was entirely a legit form of communication, so Uryuu's question isn't all that strange. "Sorry, I've had a shot of schnapps earlier so I'm not, uh, one hundred percent sober." he pauses, sighs, then offers, "You want some? It's peppermint."

Let it never be said Noah wasn't down with sharing.

Skateboard. That's normal enough, and Uryuu doesn't look too carefully at it, so he doesn't notice the stain. (If he had, he'd have known, or strongly suspected, having more experience with blood and its stains than any 17 year old really should.)

"Oh. Um..." In fact, Uryuu is new to GPS, though he's a touch thrown off-guard at the comment. Not enough to suspect mind-reading, because it was an obvious answer. Urahara-san's gifted phone had had it, his first such phone at 17, but by then, Uryuu knew Karakura Town so well he never used it. A nice idea, but useless to him. Still, he'd normally bristle at the idea he couldn't figure out something like GPS -- except doing that, he'd show he had no reason to ask the question -- so one way or another he looks bad.

Which makes the offer a nice save, something he quickly latches onto to get away from GPS, "Peppermint?"

So the guy can skateboard and drink schnapps. It's just -- hard not to feel distinctly unsettled. If only he could turn off his own sensitivity.

"Er, I mean, I don't drink, but thanks." He chides enough for being tempted by peppermint, too. Probably a bad idea to start in an alien cave, or whatever.

And he can't turn it off, he just... "Are you OK, except for the, er, insobriety?"

Noah nods easily at the refusal of the schnapps. Peer pressure isn't really his thing. Not anymore anyway. He's not sure if it was before.

He'd be inclined to guess yes, only because he doesn't think well of the person he was before he died.

The other question has him hesitating before turning to show Uryuu the way to the guard station. Usually he's the one that worries about other people he just met.

"What, like... emotional wellbeing?"

He's had kind of A Day so far, what with the skateboard, with the raven of Henry's. The schnapps was suppose to ease that but he does feel a stab of self-consciousness wondering if it still showed on his face.

No, he thinks, like spiritual well-being. Not really something one guy can ask another, or anyone can ask anyone, outright weird unless from a clergyman or something like that -- and despite what Kuroaki said about his Quincy uniform (and the whole cross thing in general), Uryuu's far from.

Even in a cave full of weirdos, judging by the replies to that one guy's post, it can't come out well. Especially in this context. Because your soul is rotting? No.

So he can either pretend he cares about his emotional wellbeing, or -- just go with the easy option, the one right there. Uryuu nods.

"You look a little down," he lies, because how would he even know, comparatively, "but that could be the schnapps. I haven't really been around it, period."

Noah is reminded of that time that Mallory came to visit Gansey. When Noah was having a particularly hard time. The Noah of that moment having a hard time. The way he'd cried, how the others didn't understand because he was just so sick of it all. Sick of decaying. They couldn't see. He didn't let them see. Didn't want them to know what they were sharing a home with and how he was becoming less of a person and more of a thing with every creeping twisting shifting moment unconstrained by the idea of liner time.

Because your soul is rotting.

He wonders how Uryuu can tell.

He wants another drink of the schnapps but it won't help and he doesn't want to go through it that fast. So instead he just shifts his grip on his skateboard and gives Uryuu a smile that's probably not as easygoing as Noah would like it to be.

"Have you found anything from home today?" Noah asks instead of answering right away. He's got a point he'll meander his way to, just trust him. "Seems like almost everyone is."

It's almost a non-sequitur. Almost, but not really; Uryuu blinks, then understands he might have been right. He'd lied, but he was right: maybe he does look down, does feel down, and the reason is, the items from home. Which, in fact, and feeling a little stupid about it, he hadn't realized that was what was going on. Uryuu doesn't know that many people here and he hasn't seen the few he does yet today.

It puts a new spin on that severed hand. A just as nauseating spin, but new.

"No," he says, instead of admitting all that. It might be a good thing. There are things he'd like, but things he wouldn't. If the categories include whatever would hold body parts, he'll get by without, thanks. Or...

"Things that belong to them?" Wasn't the Door supposed to be random and chaotic? Why not just spit out random items? But, that doesn't seem to be the point right now. If this is the response to, you look a little down, then it follows -- "Something of yours?"

"Yeah. Two things. The - the peppermint schnapps was one of them. The other is my old skateboard."

Noah shifts his grip on it again, holding it up for Uryuu to see. The positively screamingly loud design of it, the clash of colors.

"It's a Mark Gonzales. Very expensive." Because Czerny could afford it. "Still has my blood on it from when my best friend beat my head in with it when he murdered me, too."

Noah's ... 'over it' isn't the right word. He's mostly accepted it. More days than not he doesn't think actively think about it.

He's still got bad days sometimes though, and it almost feels good to let himself wallow in the self-pity of it.

At first, Uryuu's thinking, if the items also include stupid things like peppermint schnapps, he's really fine without it. Second, he's thinking, that skateboard, properly seen, is obnoxious, and there's so much going on with the color scheme, he still doesn't see the stain. Third, he's thinking, he has no idea who Mark Gonzales is, or why he should care that it cost a lot.

Fourth,

Oh.

Well, his eyes look for it. Like people always slow down for the car crash. (And the souls stand beside the automobiles, eyes empty and bewildered, tugging at their soul chains, weeping.) There's the stain, yes. Blood, yes. It's complicated, his mind processing, his expression, because he'd have to be a monster to not be surprised, to not be horrified, especially with those details, what made a good story, what made a terrible story: the best friend that bashed in his skull, murdering him with a skateboard.

But --

But, it wasn't anything he hadn't known. The details add specific, gory horror.

But, he's dead, that's the point, the underscore, the end of it, and Uryuu knew that.

He relaxes, and maybe it's too obvious, how the tension dissipates, how with the horror, goes the careful neutrality, the bad lies, the insufficient guards. Uryuu exhales, levels him with a measuring, thoughtful look.

"Stupid way to go," he observes, indelicately, judging that skateboard.

Judging the friend more.

"You've been dead for too long," he adds, an indirect way of getting at it. Does this guy always own up so fast, because he might as well in a weird place like this, or had Uryuu been inadvertently obvious? Ghosts in his world don't read minds, so that's still not on his horizon.

Edited 2016-10-16 05:17 (UTC)

"Seven years, almost eight. Not including time spent here." Noah says, nodding at the 'too late' comment and looking away. Off into the middle distance. He gives a sigh, closes his eyes, opens them again and looks back to Uryuu.

Being sad isn't going to change any of it. It's just a bad day. It'll pass.

"How could you tell?"

He was right, the guess that Uryuu knew, but he's not feeling his own thoughts reflected back at him like with Wanda or River so that means Uryuu's probably not a reader. No one else has been able to tell before without Noah telling them.

Almost eight? In Uryuu's world, there's little chance he would not have already become a Hollow. Few spirits that stay behind last so long with their chain corroding, their spirits distorting. A violent death like that would only make it more likely; he would have followed the murderer, perhaps killed him first as a Hollow.

And, Uryuu realizes, again unsettled -- then Uryuu would have killed him. He rarely permits the thought. Quincy arrows destroying Hollows whereas Shinigami blades purify. He never has to think of the spirit it had been. Speaking to one -- well, it's besides the point, just now.

Talking to a spirit, if one wrongly inside a body that behaved as though it lived, makes the admission easier. This immense facet of his life about which he either boasts to excess, or keeps absolutely private.

"My name is Uryuu Ishida," he says, beginning, again pushing at his glasses. "I'm a Quincy. A spirit archer. The whole of it's complicated, but... I could tell because I can see ghosts and sense spirit pressure. Everyone has the latter. Yours felt wrong."

"Are there a lot of ghosts in your world? I'm the only one I know in mine," Noah is again tempted to go for the schnapps but holds himself back. He looks down at the skateboard instead. It's easier than eye contact.

"The only one I know of anyway. I've got a living body here, so I'm sort of alive... but back home, I'm decaying. Being here has it on 'hold' but what's gone is gone."

"More than ghosts."

When he drops his eyes, Uryuu glances down as well, to his wrist, the pendant on his bracelet. It sounds as though spirits don't behave the same from world to world. He's not sure if it's surprising.

"You feel decayed," he agrees, nodding. "In my world... like I said, it's complicated, but with a spirit like that, you'd be something else already."

Uryuu pauses, then remembers the souls in Rukongai -- that terrible excuse for heaven, but at least they weren't rotting. More to this point, however -- "Do you remember your name?"

'More than ghosts'... Noah's not from the time when he 'met' the demon, so to speak, but once all his friends left and returned he was able to connect with the rest of himself. He hasn't met the demon. He has met the demon. He's glad he has the knowledge that his friends survive it - there's so little of him by the end that without context of their return Noah's not sure he would know if they made it or not.

"My name is Noah Czerny," Noah says with another sigh. They're punctuation to him. "My best friend's name was Barrington Whelk. We were in the same year at Aglionby Academy. I ... think I was seventeen when I died? Aglionby Academy's in Henrietta in Virginia... in the US. My family didn't live too far away from that. I - I had a mom and a dad and two sisters. One of them was named Adele. I don't actually remember any of their names, but one of my friends from home told me."

Barrington Whelk. Uryuu doesn't know much about Western names, but even he can tell that sounds like money, and the obnoxious kind. Which matters less than the fact of remembrance, the details.

"That's not bad," Uryuu muses. The name of his school, his own name, the murderer's, the location (another American), and at least the number of family numbers. That he wouldn't have remembered their names is sad, but it's the sort of sad story Uryuu's heard before. He knows how it goes.

This much is almost impressive for nearing eight years, but it could be he'd stayed around there, making it easy to remember the town and school. Uryuu's still not sure he should be ascribing his world's spirit behavior to Czerny-kun's world, but if it could apply, if he wasn't stuck on the murderer, the next most likely thing, same place. Ghosts tended not to go too far, not while in the living world.

Uryuu scratches his chin, then says what he should. "Sorry for staring. At first. I've seen spirits like yours, but never in their bodies."

Only, spirits like his, again... would have been, so been so close to becoming monsters, monsters Uryuu would have killed.

Noah holds out his arms and looks down at himself before he looks back up to Uryuu, as if to say 'ta-da'.

"I only have a body because I'm here. Guess it's a participation award for showing up?" Noah is trying to not think about when he died a second time here. This is life number three. That's unpleasant enough on its own.

"Back home I'm - most of the time I can pass as normal person. If someone can see me at all. Stuck in the clothes I died in though. School uniform," He makes a face. "I burned it a few months ago. Never wearing that again."

Uryuu nods, mouth twitching at the show of it. Something like Kuchiki-san's situation. Only, her spirit, though technically dead, would not have been shocking in a body -- it's similar to the gigais the Shinigami use when visiting the human world, when needing to interact with it. A shinigami soul was nothing like that of a spirit left behind, slowly corroding until sent to Soul Society, or... it's a point over made, by now.

"Better than a T-shirt," he suggests.

How often could people see him in his world? How many? Uryuu's not sure if it's worth asking; the spirit sensitivity of people in Czerny-kun's world is interesting as a thought exercise, but not much use in practice.

That twitch becomes an actual smirk. "It looks pretty bad for someone eight years out to be still in uniform, huh? So..."

Uryuu looks from the skateboard, eyes again drawn to rusted red, brown, to the bottle of schnapps. "You got what killed you and liquor. If someone's sending you a message, I wouldn't take it."

About as close as he'll get, maybe, to overtly and actually worrying about his emotional well-being.

The smile Noah gives manages to seem a little bit stronger this time around, if nothing else.

"I'm gonna hose the skateboard down, there's no skate park but there's good places for it." Whelk might have taken Noah's life, but Noah's not going to let him take the things that make him happy while he's got a body to make use of. "You know how to skateboard?"

Hard not to appreciate an optimistic approach.

But, uh.

"Um," Uryuu starts, thinking to hirenkyaku, to what he can do by gathering spirit particles beneath his feet. In the passages between worlds, it's... sort of like surfing? Surfing is not skateboarding, he knows.

It's one thing to say he doesn't drink. It's another to admit he can't do something. Even if it's something he has no interest in.

"...Technically, no. I've never tried." Obviously he'd be great if he did. No problem. It's just not his scene.

Surfing is not skateboarding but it's also not completely dissimilar to skateboarding either. Like. A board is involved in both.

"I have another skateboard I got in the place I was before here - wanna try it sometime? Everything's more fun if you have a buddy."

Noah is trying to be optimistic here, okay. There's little else to do in his situation - it isn't going to change either way after all.

For a moment, Uryuu simply stares at Czerny-kun. No one has ever looked at Uryuu Ishida and thought, yes that guy, he is buddy material. Maybe Inoue-san, but Inoue-san was unique. Inoue-san liked everybody. Inoue-san would befriend a piece of toast. For a moment, he cant believe this guy is honestly offering him a go at his skateboard, looking for a skateboard buddy. Probably most people who did skateboard wouldn't look at Uryuu Ishida -- he wouldn't describe himself as a nerd, but he might recognize a certain, er, impression -- and think, yes, that guy, he is skateboard buddy material.

Skateboarding wasn't that big in Japan, and the kinds of kids who did it... again, really not his scene. ~~were they cool??? or degenerates??~~ This sort of friendly, earnest offer... he doesn't want this sort of thing, right? Right?

"Uh," he starts, intelligently, then carefully, does not commit. "Maybe."

The thing is, see... Ishida hadn't been mean to Noah.

He's shy and awkward - less so in Hadriel when he's got a body and time to learn to come out of his shell again, but he's still got the body language of someone who is used to being overlooked, being ignored. Someone who sets up all the flags saying that if someone is a bully, this boy right here would be prime target material. Ishida didn't do anything like that, so... yes, that's really Noah's only quantifiers.

His best friend from home, post-death, threw him out a window. Hell, Whelk killed him, and Noah hasn't really stopped referring to Whelk as a friend.

"It's okay if you aren't into it," Noah says kindly. "But if you want to give it a shot, give me a ring or something alright? I bet you'll pick it up quick if you try it. You look like you have good balance."

That Whelk thing wouldn't say much for Uryuu (or Czerny-kun, stand up for yourself), but there might be something in the simple fact that, Uryuu wasn't actually a cruel person. He could be cold, yes, and he could be cruel, but those he was most, deliberately unkind to, those he mocked, were those already actively trying to kill him. That had to give him a pass.

In fact, he might be cold, but bullies -- they were trash and should be taken out as such.

"I don't know if I'm into it," an admission, still careful, and he can't see himself calling Czerny-kun, "but..."

Flattery will get you everywhere. So, sure, yes, yeah, Uryuu might be cold, and he might also be somewhat, uh, conditionally if fairly full of himself -- but again, he's got the right, hasn't he? It isn't even his bias in comparative Shinigami-Quincy abilities. Even if it was a little different, the basis for his confidence, Uryuu knows --

and reaches, to adjusts his glasses, as he matter-of-factly says, "I do have excellent balance."

Edited 2016-10-21 02:57 (UTC)

"Yeah?" Noah smiles at Uryuu, like the possibility of him gracing Noah with his friendship would be delightful. Noah likes people okay, even if they also always scare him a little.

And it'd be a little nice to hang out with someone with experience at the whole dead thing, if only because he knows dead people rather than being one himself. "Maybe you'll be showing me a thing or two then."

That kind of smile -- two years ago, it disarmed, but he could better rebound those shields of cold distance. Two years ago, initially, even Inoue-san's brightest only briefly threw him, though he was thrown. In the months since, exposure to Inoue-san, to the rest, rather than building a tolerance, have left him vulnerable. He's less inclined now to turn aside, to brush someone off with something brusque and rehearsed. More inclined to accept it.

Responding to his bluster with such an easy, friendly smile, with a kind of agreement, playing along -- he's thrown again. It's just the sort of thing Inoue-san would say, with just her sort of smile. It punctures a hole in his bravado (as legitimate as it was).

"Y-yeah, maybe. Whenever you want."

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casperdisaster - 2016-10-26 20:48 (UTC) - Expand

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Event Log: Keepsakes

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