hadriel_logs | like a vagabond through the distance [OPEN]

Entry tags:

like a vagabond through the distance [OPEN]

Who: Rey and You!
What: Awful harmonica playing + dealing with the aftermath of a certain visitor flavor.
When: All over the month of November.
Warnings: Rey can't play instruments for shit and I'm sorry ~~not really sorry~~ okok.
Also the second prompt will likely have some triggering themes of trauma and torture and whatever. I'll update if necessary.

I. Harmonica Song (Far As the Road Goes, I'll Go the Road)

Music is a gift. People find comfort in it during dire times. Much like the instrument itself, the breathy notes of the harmonica has a nostalgic quality to Rey's ears.

Unfortunately for everyone else within a twenty-foot vicinity of her, she is both tone-deaf and can't play for shit.

Somehow, her brother always made it look easier. Her tune doesn't sound nearly like the scenes of old movies she's seen before, with the weary prisoner playing melancholy tunes reminding him of home or the bad-ass cowboy on an epic pursuit for revenge. It sounds more akin to a wailing cat being strangled to death.

And you've got front-row seats to the worst performance you've probably ever seen before in your life. Like it or hate it (let's not kid ourselves here -- you'll hate it), the player doesn't care. She doesn't even believe that this harmonica fell out of the Door and into Firo's possession for a reason. If anything, she doesn't believe in fate, or destiny, or whatever and never has. Because it's seriously doubtful that providence would throw such a terrible instrument at Rey's feet to deliver you ~~a beautiful presentation of unrealized talent~~ torture.

Truth is, she's just bored. That's all there is to it. Patrols are boring. Sitting in bars by her lonesome is boring. Everything is boring.

If music is one of the many spices of life, then Rey's delivery is its antithesis of a flavor most foul.

But that's just like, my opinion.

II. First Spiral Neighborhood (But Now We Move a Different Way)

Despite the relief efforts of easing some stress and paranoia, Rey's occasional excursions offer no respite. When she heads home, her bearing is heavy, and she hasn't slept in some time. Not when she sees the same face every time she closes her eyes, before a flash of red and visions of blood and pain hurls her awake.

Better to be restless than being shaken up in the middle of the night in sweat and panic. Most of the time, she can't even hide that she's more dazed than usual lately. IV's presence may be gone. The lingering memories of her atrocities and the scar near Rey's own heart, however, remains.

She stops before she enters her house, slowly taking a step back. A hand comes up over her chest, the mark from the rebar mercifully hidden beneath the cloth of her shirt.

Without even realizing it, she's gone pale again. What more, she's been standing still for a while, just staring at the door to her own home. This place where she should feel safe.

Yet, at any point, she can be taken back. And the worrying reminder will never leave, no matter how comfortable she gets.

IV is gone. But like the plant, her untreated poison festers.

III. Choose Your Own Adventure (Freedom is the Way I Live)

[ooc: Have some other non-event stuff you want to do with Rey? Hit me up via any one of your preferred contact methods!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Not really," Rey admits.

For the time being, she's decided to take a break from walking, sitting on one of the crates by one of the various unrestored structures in the city. Mostly she has been playing random tunes every now and then to pass the time, since it isn't as if she's out of breath from her patrol/wandering.

Eh. Le shrug.

Oh. He was wrong. Maybe she was playing bad on purpose, to be funny? He's... he isn't sure. Humans can be kind of hard to predict, sometimes. (He's pretty sure, at least, she's a human. She's got the same furless skin Chara and Frisk have, except for the mane up top.

"Um," he offers, helpfully, clacking his claws together and trying not to look awkward. "Is this your first time playing that? Not that it sounds bad, I'm just curious."

Human on the surface, but something else underneath. Appearances meant everything, though. It was the point when she had been created. Sometimes the deception works to her advantage, others -- to her own disadvantage. Particularly when she had been made unaware of her own status of being something inhuman.

She hesitates a moment, blinking at the goat child. It didn't really strike her as odd until after she started engaging in conversation with him, strangely enough.

Maybe she has been here too damned long.

"Oh, it sounds plenty bad; no worries admitting it." She waves a dismissive hand. "Do not have the 'gift of music' like my brother, it would seem."

A brother? That's something Asriel can relate to! Sort of. He doesn't have any brothers, but he does know a lot about siblings. He brightens up a little at the mention, shuffling maybe a half-step closer.

"Golly, I know how that feels. I have a sibling, and they're super talented," Asriel blurts. "They're smart, they're good at drawing, they're amazing at making things. They're - they're basically just the best ever!"

But, you know. They also aren't exactly the greatest person. Asriel pipes down, cutting his own enthusiasm off with a single thought.

"Um... what's your brother like?" He instead ventures.

'He's everything I'm not and never will be,' Rey resists the inclination to say. Her jaw tightens, and then relaxes again before she replies with an actual answer.

"Similar to yours, it sounds like." When it comes to her brother, the icy monotone she speaks melts away into warmer words. Something more like-human than not. "We weren't... We didn't know about each other until a few years ago. But he was kind, and determined to find me after he learned that he had a sister. Had family."

The details had been left purposefully vague, mostly because Orion never talked much about how he got to that point. It may have something to do with him being less kind than Rey makes him out to be.

Not that it matters to her.

Kind and determined. Whoever he is, he definitely sounds like Chara.

"I can tell you love him a lot," Asriel answers. He can recognize the warmth in their voice - something he's a little surprised he's still able to do, soulless as he is. "My sibling... we didn't know each other for a long time, either. But when they came to us, it was like something I'd been missing for my entire life had been filled up. I don't think I really understood just how lonely I'd been until I had a friend like them around."

It'd been so, so hard to live without them. Not even... there had been times when it hadn't been worth living at all. Not in a world without love. But that's a weird thing for a kid to say, isn't it? So he just smiles softly instead. "Sometimes, family is something you find instead of just being born with. But... no matter where it comes from, it sure is special, isn't it?"

Love. Yes.

There was a time that Rey had no concept of the word. Its meaning was lost. How could something like her be loved if it had never known it in her many lives? Any idea of familial attachments had been soured by the memories written into her head. With broken homes and unstable relatives, why would she ever want such a wretched thing, anyway? People do all sorts of terrible things for love, after all. She has seen it.

But then there was Orion. The anomaly. The strange one who had grown up knowing love, even with pain and hardship peppered throughout the years. He had been through so much, and still found it in him to care for someone like her.

So it can't all be hopeless, can it?

An odd wave of nostalgia comes with hearing this strange creature-child speak of his sibling. She even makes a sound that's almost a laugh at that last part, finding only one thing to be funny about it.

"You're not the first to say something like that." The corner of her mouth twitches, but not quite into a smile. "Actually, have come to find family of that sort here as well. It's--"

Nice?

"--not as terrible as expected."

Not as terrible as expected.

That's... it's something Chara would sometimes do, too. Like they weren't allowed to just come out and say they liked someone or something. Like you were supposed to hide it every time you hoped or loved or started to be happy with your situation. Like it's safer, somehow, to couch your expectations and blunt the raw edge with roundabout, formal words.

He's not sure if he's just trying to fool himself into believing he can still feel, but he thinks - he thinks he'd like this lady, if he weren't empty.

Maybe he's couching his expectations, too.

He scoots closer. Pauses a second, like he's waiting for her to shoo him off or move away or do something else that might indicate she doesn't want company. But... "Gosh, you have? I'd like to hear about them! Er, if you don't mind. I don't really know anyone here, yet, so it's just - it's nice to hear that people are settling happily, you know?"

No shooing. Rey is more surprised when she sees him inching closer, seeming more and more interested in the subject matter. If it hadn't been for the likes of Muscovy (among a few others), this behavior would have been a conundrum. It isn't like Rey has a face that most strangers are comfortable approaching without caution.

But then, most people that she tends to associate that attitude with aren't... Well, they're usually human. Normal humans, in most sense of the word. And the ones from her world have every good reason to be wary of her.

"Give it some time, if you're around long enough," she assures him, before gesturing to an empty spot on one of the crates she's seated on. A silent gesture for him to sit and listen, if he'd like.

...She's nice. Not acting impatient or annoyed by this kid hanging around. He smiles brightly and clambers up onto the crate, settling where she indicated. Isn't terrified to meet a monster, even if Hadriel apparently has some monsters that are... um... that aren't very much like the ones in the Underground.

"How do you know how long you're going to be around?" He ventures, even if he's pretty sure she wouldn't know that. "I hadn't really planned on being around at all - um, around here, I mean." Better to clarify. Don't want to sound too gloomy. "I thought I'd go home when all the other visitors did, you know?"

Rey's face blanches. "You came in here with the visitors... and stayed?"

The way people were talking, the fact that that was even a possibility hadn't occurred to her. Though she doesn't sense IV's presence in the city anymore, it seems just as likely that she could cloak herself somehow if she was, much in the same way that made it difficult for Rey to hunt down the synthetic woman herself.

Gathering her senses, she shakes her head. The roiling in her stomach and the dizziness makes it difficult to see for a moment. Then, it's gone.

"There... There's no way to tell how long someone will be here for sure," she tries to continue. Deflect. "One minute you're here, and the next -- you're not. That's just how it works."

Most people would want that. For Rey, however, the constant threat of being sent back without notice is all too consuming.

Oh... he said something wrong, didn't he? For a moment, the conversation grinds to a halt, and she looks like she just tried to swallow an entire tupperware tub of snails.

"Sorry," he offers, even if he isn't quite sure what to apologize for. Did he maybe break some sort of rule about this world? Maybe he really was supposed to leave with everyone else. But if it's unpredictable, if nobody has any control over it... then it's not like he had any say in it, right? It's not his fault.

"Was, um, was someone important to you one of the visitors?" Maybe she's sad because she misses someone? Like her brother, or somebody else. Makes sense, right? Surely.

If the snails were made out of razorblades, then yes. Rey is having trouble trying to choke that down. She does regain her composure enough to assure him, though. "No worries. Not your fault."

Her eyes shift to the empty space in front of her, not really seeing the forked city road but just the air around it. It's the only way she can think to maintain her composure when he asks about the importance of someone he's never known.

"Wasn't like that," is Rey's immediate response, knowing that IV was (and still is) important. Just not in the way that he most likely thinks. Then she adds: "She hurts people. Did it back in our world; did it here."

...Oh. She hurts people.

Asriel looks down, folds his paws together. (Still has arms, still has legs. Doesn't need to double-check.) He doesn't think he should tell her that he's hurt people too. This was going so nicely, after all. She seems so nice.

That's selfish, though, isn't it? Putting his loneliness before everyone else's safety. That's entirely what he was trying to avoid by staying underground with Chara. Despite everything he's been through, maybe he hasn't grown up enough yet. Not enough to really move past not wanting to live in a world without love.

"I'm sorry," he offers. "But... she's gone now, right? So... you don't have to be scared of her anymore, whoever she is."

To be fair, Rey is no saint herself. She knows what it's like to delight in the pain of others. To love it. It's a side of her that she tries to keep buried, far beneath the various memories swimming in her head.

Her jaw locks up. "Not scared," she retorts, almost defensive. "More concerned for the people she can hurt. Would hurt. Has hurt."

But she isn't as altruistic as she seems to claim, is she?

No. She fears as much for her own life, for whatever waits for her should the Door ever send her back home -- again. That IV will be the one waiting.

"Have no right to be scared, anyway. Am not much better than she is." Baring that in mind, one has to wonder how the two synthetic women's body counts compare.

Not scared, don't deserve to - more of the sort of language Chara would sometimes use. They always seemed to think that fear was the worst thing in the world, that it was far better to try and transform it into anything else. Anger, detachment, numbness, laughter. Anything.

He wonders, sort of, if he can still feel fear. He's definitely got the hang of numbness, but he's... he's not really sure it's all that better.

"What do you mean, not much better? I think you're nice," Asriel offers, because she has been nice. "We don't even know each others' names, but you're trying so hard to make me feel welcome. I don't think that's something a cruel or scary person would do."

Sighing, Rey leans forward, resting her elbows over her knees as she stares on ahead.

"Means that, where the two of us have come from, am not very reputed for being nice. And that isn't without good reason."

At least here, she doesn't have to live with the same stains if people just don't know. Or, they could know, but having not experienced the extent of the damage she's caused to those in her world firsthand, they can't possibly judge her without bias.

"Sometimes... um..." He falters, fiddles with his claws all the more. "I wasn't always a good kid," he confesses. Feels woefully inadequate to truly describe the horrible things that he did, and yet it somehow simultaneously feels like even admitting that much will have her recoiling from him like he's the most repulsive being she's ever met.

"But that's not who I want to be," Asriel adds quickly. "That's not how I want to be remembered. Maybe... we could pretend? We could imagine that the things that happened in another world weren't - weren't really us. That coming here was like starting over, and now... we can be somebody different."

All things considered, Rey isn't surprised. After all, the Door is supposed to attract chaos and evil; traits that can differ from person to person. Of the youth that have come here, she hasn't seen any that fit her society's definition of a 'good kid'. Not that her society is without its faults, either.

Finally, her eyes shift to him, studying him out her peripheral vision. The things he says aren't too far off the mark. More than once Rey has seen this city as a do-over. A chance to start off with a clean slate. This place is a mess, but at least it's a mess that she can't claim responsibility for.

"Who do you want to be?" she asks, simple and earnest.

"Myself," he blurts, even if that's wistful thinking. Technically, "yourself" is the only thing you can be, no matter how you act. But it's... he doesn't like to think that boredom was all it took to make him such a bully. Everyone thought Asriel Dreemurr was a kind person. Could he really call himself that if he could be swayed to cruelty so easily?

"I want to be remembered as a good friend," he decides. Don't think of the bad parts as being really him. Just remember him as someone who was your friend for a little while. "But I've let my friends down a little too much for that, maybe." Let Chara down. Hurt his parents. Made Frisk suffer. Manipulated Papyrus.

"Um... what about you?"

Wistful, and even vague, that it might be, Rey can relate. Can understand what he means, and where he's coming from when he continues.

"Sounds like you've had some pretty shit luck," she comments, maybe putting off on answering his next question for a few seconds longer before falling into silence.

It's complicated. More so than it should be. Sometimes, Rey misses when things were simpler, when right and wrong didn't mean a damn thing. She was a monster herself back then, though, and that isn't what she wants to be anymore. Has to keep that cage locked tight for as long as she can. It's hard, because that's life, and death has always been easier.

Letting her wrists hang between her knees, she draws in a sharp breath. "Don't know. Used to be different people all the time. Some were horrible, others... Well, not saints, but better."

Better than the Salamander -- that fiery shadow-thing rattling in her cage.

The swear rolls right past him for a second, before he remembers that Asriel is a good kid, the kind of kid who was absolutely shocked when Chara said forbidden words like "pissed off" or "hell." A little belatedly, he claps his paws over his mouth.

Maybe it'd be funny or cute if he said something, but... this isn't a very funny or cute moment, huh? He drops his paws, looks away. Gives up on trying to act good, because it feels a lot more real to act like he knows exactly how it feels to have been a horrible person sometimes.

"It's a little bit scary, isn't it? To know you're... capable of it. Of being someone bad." Would Chara have taken the circumstances of their mutual death at the hands of those villagers and decided it meant this world was kill or be killed? Would Frisk? If anyone else had the power to go back in time, to undo all their actions consequence-free, would they abuse it the way he had? Or was everything that happened just proof that a seed of toxic, horrid awfulness had always been somewhere in his soul?

"Especially when it's - it's so easy. You'd think that being mean would feel awful. That it'd be the hardest thing in the world to hurt somebody, right? But it isn't. It doesn't... it doesn't feel like anything at all."

It doesn't occur to Rey to filter herself when around children. Her time spent with the younger types is few and far in between, and what little encounters she's had with their kind never really balked at her colorful use of language. Not like she hasn't heard (or said) worse.

So she doesn't think about it. And instead, her concerns lie more with the fact that this kid looks like he's about to start crying when he speaks. Maybe she should have changed the subject, or said something more comforting. What, she doesn't know. This is far beyond her expertise, and something her brother would be better at.

She tilts her head at him, a hint of sympathy on her usually expressionless visage.

"You don't have to talk about it if it bothers you. Whatever you did, though, am not going to judge you for it. So long as you're making an effort to be different, it doesn't matter."

Rey may seem nice, but her own acts have painted her as something else for a long time. A monster that most people only knew about in second-hand stories. Just because she's no longer that thing anymore doesn't mean that it isn't still a part of her in some way.

He flushes under his fur a bit, hastily scrubs his paw over his eyes. Always was a crybaby, huh? Coddled. A spoiled, thin-skinned, sensitive kid. Somehow, in his efforts to be sympathetic, he made this about himself. Now she's comforting him, not the other way around.

"We can both do our best," he offers, trying to put on a smile. "We can be whoever we want to be, as long as we keep trying, right? Maybe that's why we were brought here. To have another chance to prove we're better than our worst parts." Maybe it's better, after all, to be a crybaby than to be a Flowey.

"Um," he adds, a little belatedly, because he's realizing he made the same mistake he made with Frisk, almost. "What's your name?" Can't just call her "the human lady" forever, right? "I'm Asriel."

The thought that he is the one making an effort to comfort her goes over her head. Most people simply don't do that sort of thing with someone they just met. They don't make nice like they've known each other for a long time.

But there is an odd sense of familiarity in this kid. She sees a little bit of Muscovy in him, and she remembers how things had started out between the boy and herself. It could've gone... better. A lot better.

Things are different now.

She nods absentmindedly, almost like she's only half paying attention. "Could be. Sure."

Though she isn't so certain. This place is supposed to bring chaos and evil, but not everyone here fits either bill. At least, not by the definition that she knows.

"Oh." After talking, she had almost forgotten about introductions. Not that she is usually the one to think about them first. "It's, um. It's Rey.

like a vagabond through the distance [OPEN]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)