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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Flick leans into Pell, his muscles relaxing, no longer able to hold him. He does focus on Pell, because he can. Pell is familiar and Flick inhales his scent, trying to draw himself out of the memory and into the present.

"Orien." It was a bad story. It tainted whoever heard it. And now, thanks to Cal, Flick felt like he'd never be clean again, like his very soul was tainted forever. Cal had made the darkness part of him, let it touch him. Cal had made him like him. "Cal hung Orien by his guts in the Nayati. So much blood." Flick looked at Cole, remembering the bucket overflowing as he tried to wash the blood off the floor of the house he shared with Seel while hara tried to clean up the Nayati. "I couldn't clean it all up."

Pell feels as if he's been struck in the chest. He keeps hold of Flick because he isn't sure what he'd do if he wasn't holding on to his friend, but his eyes are on the knife The blade that was used to carve up his once-instructor. No wonder Flick and at some point Seel had left. Orien was the heart of Saltrock and no matter what Pell felt about him, he cannot abide this. Still, the question remains. It's not delicate but it slips from him like his breath had actually been knocked out.

"No... Why?"

For a moment all Cole could do was shake. He forgot after he helped people, but he wasn't certain if he could forget this--it was too...vivid, too horrific, and too close, now that he'd found the knife that had done it. But he still had to try to help. He couldn't stay frozen forever. Climbing out from under the pain was something else entirely.

Once he was more centered, he finally thought to hide the knife behind his back--not that it was entirely gone. But he wasn't going to make Flick take it back.

"I'm sorry. I tried not to look."

He knew it. This was a bad story. And it wasn't completely told just. Just the shell. There were so many indentations to it, places where people could get lost. And Pell. His death had changed the world.

Flick tried to continue, distance himself from the story the way he had when he had told it to Itzama, but he still couldn't help think, 'I'm sorry, now you both will be tainted too'. " Thiede was using Saltrock as a recruiting ground for the Gelaming. Orien summoned him when you came." Flick's mouth twitched. " He had a fit when you died, I think. He said, 'it's done'. Cal thought it was all Orien's fault. And it was senseless. Orien didn't need to die, because I you're not dead Pell." He let Pell hold him, not sure of what else he could bring his body to do, or what Pell could do. They were both in shock. "We were all used. Puppet strings deep inside. I can still feel the hooks." Little did Flick know, just yet, that in running from Thiede's clutches, he ran into someone just as bad.

Flick looked at Cole, thankful he could no longer see the knife. It made telling the horrible story easier. "I know you did. It's a bad story, it can't be contained. It's not your fault."

Edited 2016-10-17 12:21 (UTC)

This had been... about him? Over his death? Pell let go of Flick and took a step back, feeling sick now. In body and heart -- it was Thiede's fault, he'd been thinking, never knowing Orien could have been part of it. If Cal was right, if coming to Saltrock for him is what caused all this, he never should have... he shouldn't have left home, shouldn't have started down this course of events that have so clearly scarred his best friend and are now hurting someone else, someone completely uninvolved. He looks to Cole, who seems to have gathered more of himself again, and takes another step away. His death. His fault. A murder in his name.

"I am dead," he says numbly. "You said it yourself, I won't be who I was. I'm not your friend there. This was my fault, Orien was--"

And curse his vivid imagination. It's almost enough to make him throw up right there but he turns away instead, towards their house, and takes numb steps towards it. Despite the trauma he may have inflicted, Orien was his teacher, and now he was dead. Pell thinks to the bag of seeds from Orien's garden he'd been given. Probably the only good thing left behind of the har. The memories Pell had weren't. But Orien was Seel's friend, he was their leader, he was.... gone. At Cal's hand. In his name.

He'd say god help them but no god could. And still, in this moment, he wanted Cal.

Pell breaks into a run towards the house, the little carving of Aruhani falling from his pocket as he does -- he doesn't notice. He just wants to lock himself in his room and not come out.

Cole wasn't in much better shape--he wanted to just curl into a little ball and cover his ears and try not to hear anything. The only reason he didn't was because it wouldn't help. It didn't work like that. It slid beneath everything. It was always there. The people he talked to might not understand why he had to forget, why he wanted to, but if he didn't, he would lose his mine, swallowed in someone else's hurting. He had to forget if he wanted to stay him.

He physically flinched when he felt Pell's pain hit him too, but braced himself against it. He couldn't flounder underneath it again. It was easier when he left, but then he was torn. They both needed help, and here he was, still frozen, still trying to sort through everything. How was that helping anyone?

"Tangled, tied, and twisted, together like tightness and tired of trying. Which one is it?" A pause there before he continued. He'd never been so unsure of himself and certain of what needed to happen at the same time.

"You should follow. He needs you and you need him."

Flick looked stricken, going from one friend to the trail of the other. He didn't want to leave Cole, but he couldn't be in two places at the same time. Why did this tale keep coming back. It was like he couldn't get away from it. He wanted to curl up and stare at the ground, remembering how the bucket of water sloshed over the blood wet floor, how he tried to clean it but just ended up making it worse. Finger painting in blood. And worse, he remembered finding out the night before. Washing the knife. Going back to bed.

Pell was wrong. Cal had made him just like he was, and now he was trapped in a nest of lies and pain.

"I'm going to come back for you. Or will that make it worse?" Flick asked the spirit-not-spirit. He wasn't sure.

He didn't answer right away--he wasn't sure if it would make it worse. But did that really matter? He was supposed to help people. And he could forget later. Next time he'd be prepared for it, now that he'd had a taste, now that he knew what to expect.

So after a few moments, he just shook his head.

"Yes. But that doesn't matter. I can find it again. If you still need me."

"Thank you." Flick tried to collect himself. This was his fault really. Not Pell's, not Cole's. Now he had to take care of it. He could dissolve into a pile of tears later. He did his best to shove everything aside, but he couldn't, not completely. There was too much pain and the memories were still too fresh. Stagnant.

Giving Cole a kiss on his cheek, he reached over and took the knife. He needed to get rid of it. Really this time. Or give it a new purpose. It wasn't the knife's fault.

Flick went inside the house he shared with Pell, picking up the statue of Aruhani that his friend had dropped. Aruhani. He stared at it for what might have been a long while or only a couple seconds, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was fitting, he find this now. What had Lee told him? Aruhani was displeased with him. Why wouldn't he be? Turning his back on everything he discovered and everything he was.

He was done being afraid and tired of being pushed around. Maybe it was time to let this go too. No, that could wait. Flick needed a clear head to think about it, and another clear head to listen. Right now, his friend needed him.

"Pell?" Flick asked the room quietly.

Pell is indeed in the house, and his room. It's dark, shades drawn, but there's a glint of something silvery moving. As Flick's eyes adjust he'll be able to see Pell sitting cross-legged on the bed, his braid undone, running a brush over his hair. Mima's, as found by Emily earlier that day. It doesn't give him much comfort to do it himself but he's pretending as hard as he can that he's back in his family's little farmhouse late at night, gossiping with his sister. Back when he and everyone he's come to know was still safe.

He glances up when Flick calls him, eyes shining in the dim light.

"It was because of me. That's why you left Saltrock, too, isn't it? So anything that happened to you is also my fault. And I know something did. I know you've been hiding terrible things from me." Another stroke with the brush, and his voice softens. "Did you ever find my family, Flick?"

"No," Flick shook his head, moving to the bed to gather Pell in his arms the way he used to when he was still human, the way he'd hold Lee when she was upset.

"It's not your fault. I make my own choices Pell. I chose to leave Saltrock, Orien's death may have made me realize that sooner than I might have otherwise. Don't you see, Pell? You were like a pebble thrown into a lake. The ripples touch everything, set things into motion, but that's not the rock's fault. It's not your fault. "

He took a breath, steeling himself. He would not be afraid. "I have been hiding things from you. Horrible things. And they did happen because I left, but because I left, some good things happened to me too."

Flick took the brush Pell had been running through his hair." I found your sister. And your brother Terez. Actually, I've been living with Mima for the past eleven years."

"Then who threw the rock in the lake? Thiede?" Pell feels like he needs to blame someone, that things this terrible don't just happen. That the world isn't such a horrible place as that. At least now he knows Cal is alive, if broken, if so horribly broken that he might not be put back together so easily. He huddles into Flick's arms, listening and hoping that the future version of himself is a person who can make things happen, too, that he can try and fix some of the bad that's been done.

Then Flick takes the brush, and Pell stops breathing at the news. "You found them. Eleven years... she's alright? Does she hate me for going? She knew I would leave. She was the only one who saw him, really saw what he was. Mima and I might as well have been twins, as alike as we were as children. Is she still like me?"

Flick shook his head, an arm wrapped around his friend tighter.

"I don't think even Thiede can control destiny that much. Can he? You didn't have to react the way you did when you first saw Cal. But you did. It was meant to be. Did I ever tell you what happened to me when I heard the Call? My parents had me on some kind of drug so I wouldn't hear it. And I didn't. But I could still see what I needed to do, even if I couldn't hear it all the way. You can't fight it. I'm not sure if it's destiny or not, but I do know that something in me connected with that har that I followed, who brought me to Orien to be incepted. Can you really say that didn't happen to you Pell? It just....is."

Flick could tell him more, and is half tempted too, but more news about Cal can wait. Pell didn't need to know about Tyson right now. Orien was painful. Finding out that Cal hosted for Terzien, well, Flick didn't want to hurt his friend.

"Mima's fine. And she doesn't hate you. I think she understands, you two are a lot alike. I thought she was you when I first saw her. I promise you, Mima is safe. We've worked out a life together. I think she always knew you had to leave, Pell."

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Event Log: Keepsakes

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets

Re: Cole | Closed - Flick and Pellaz | Streets