well long live all those lies

[hotspurred]

Who: Henry Percy (hotspurred) & OPEN, + one closed to Maketh Tua (mismanagement)
What: Post-event revival.
Where: Hope's temple, Delight's bar, Guard HQ, and all around Hadriel.
When: 25th for Hope's temple and Delight's bar, 26th for Guard HQ, 27th onwards for the rest.
Warnings: Mentions of death, violence and probably gore, heavy drinking, swearing. I'll match format!


HOPE'S TEMPLE
I ✠ open;

The sensation of coming back to life is eerily similar to waking from an unintended sleep: a sudden, startling rush of consciousness, a powerful momentary disorientation, and finally the painfully clear, indisputable knowledge of what occurred without your will.

He died.

When Henry squeezes his eyes shut, he sees Maketh smile like it was but a handful of seconds ago that she raised her pistol at him and fired.

It leaves him reeling. The foundation beneath his feet is crumbling away leaving only a yawning fissure.

Death, in his mind, had been a battle lost: an unmistakable enemy, a bitter fight, his sword in his hand and his shield on his arm, glory entwined with the despair–

Not the woman he named sister preying upon his trust. Not the nothingness that followed where purgatory should have waited.

Henry sits up, then staggers off of the altar and over to a corner where he sinks to his knees and bows his head. Pressing his gauntleted hands together, he turns to the last resort of a breaking man. In his armour he resembles an effigy immortalised in worship.

As others return to life under Hope's power, he remains kneeling in the temple, his lips moving in silent prayer. It brings him no comfort. Respite eludes him. But prayer is all that he has left with which to try and ground himself.

He knows that there is no choice. He must cope.

O God, but he cannot.


II ✠ closed to Maketh;

What permanently stirs him from his desperate and ineffectual prayers is the next resurrection. He instinctively registers the blonde hair and familiar form, and it makes him flinch. He feels sick as his hands drop and he pulls himself to his feet; he hates himself for watching her like a threat. It hurts deep inside, knowing that something has broken. Yet he ignores the creeping hesitance and walks over to the altar, leans his hip against the far side. He did not know that she died too – of course not, but he still thinks it with a pang of discontent.

Libera nos a malo.

He cannot tell his welcome. For once he does not know where they stand. But that she is family has not changed: he still cares for Maketh as much as he ever has. It would be easier if he merely felt angry. Instead he feels betrayed – lost – as he looks her over with concern.

It does not take long for the distance between them to annoy him, however. Pushing off the stone, he moves closer. Where once he would have just taken her arm, this time he keeps a step back and offers her a hand, tension in the lines of his jaw and shoulders.

I wanted you to see this echoes in his mind.

He leaves the choice of closing the last of that distance in Maketh's hands.

“Welcome back among the living.”


III ✠ DELIGHT'S BAR;

There is something pathetic about drinking alone in his and Maketh's apartment, and so Henry chooses to drown his woes in public at Delight's bar. Apparently it's a popular choice given how busy it is. That's good. The background noise helps him remain alert by keeping a portion of his attention on external matters – another of the many instincts of a martial mind.

Once he begins to make real progress towards drunken oblivion, he looks either side of him at his fellow patrons, then lets out a short, bitter laugh.

With a sharp edge, he wryly remarks, “Who died?”

Though it might as well be who else.


IV ✠ GUARD HEADQUARTERS;

Never mind a hangover, the morning after his revival Henry suspects that he might still be a little bit drunk. Waking late by his standards, he forgoes his usual early morning training and leaves off his armour, instead dressing in some scavenged clothes he does not care about destroying. He arrives at what remains of the Guard headquarters at six, and immediately applies himself to the task of restoring HQ to some semblance of order.

He begins by clearing out the rubble, broken furniture and burnt husks. He sorts what scattered paperwork survives into three piles: ruined, partially intact and wholly intact. He doesn't bother organising them beyond that right now. Once that is done, he gets on with painstakingly scrubbing the walls and floor, cleaning them of dried blood, viscera, soot and ash. Determined to see it done, his focus is unyielding.

The truth is that he does not wish to think. Being a knight is his whole existence, and because of that, he cannot – beyond last night – turn to drink. So he occupies his emotional restlessness with physical exertion. It may not be a cure, but it treats the symptoms.

Whether others come to assist or merely watch him toil, he keeps at his self-appointed task.


V ✠ WILDCARD;

From the 27th, Henry doggedly resumes his usual schedule, beginning with his five a.m. training session. But in addition to his normal Guard duties, lessons and intensive training, he can be found doing yet more: seeking out replacement furniture for headquarters and scavenging bricks to repair the holes in their wall, with or without assistance; cataloguing the damage done to Hadriel by the doubles; going for nightly runs around one a.m. without fail. It appears that in an effort to cope, he's finding ways to be as active as humanly possible. Feel free to bother (or be bothered by) him.

Comments

II

[mismanagement]

Death had been slow in coming this time around. The double - that thing with her face - had given her time to think about it. Get used to the idea. It stuck her to the wall with her own damn blade and--

And.

Maketh wakes slowly. She doesn't come back to her body for what felt like a long time. She wakes up slowly and she wakes up crying.

Henry is there. Offering a hand.

Maketh screws her eyes shut and covers her face with her hand. She doesn't want to be here. She wants to be dead.

[hotspurred]

"Maketh--"

Despite everything, Henry cannot bear to see Maketh in such distress. With her sobs in his ears he takes that last step and places his outstretched hand on her back. Pushing through his discomfort -- Percies do not retreat -- he gently pulls her to his chest.

"Maketh," he repeats, less sharp this time.

If this ordeal has left a part of him hollow then he is reassured that it is not the part which bears love for her.

[mismanagement]

Stars, she doesn't want any of this. The last time she saw Henry, he'd been on the ground by her feet, face down and utterly still. The double had dragged him there. A better angle, it said. So you can fully understand what you've done. Your failure.

Even know she can hear its voice. Did you really think you would get away with it? The Empire always finds traitors. Always and forever.

Maketh shudders hard, keeping her eyes closed. She grabs his arm, knowing she's shaking all. It's pathetic. She can't stop. "Henry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Don't cry, stupid woman. Don't you dare cry.

Too late.

[hotspurred]

Maketh's words leave him winded; the ground lurches beneath his feet. Beneath his armour the muscles of his back tense as he suppresses a flinch. In a harsh rush of breath, Henry says, "Do not...!"

He swallows against the sudden tightness of his throat.

"Apologise not."

He doesn't want one. He is most certainly not ready to hear one.

Henry shakes his head and brings his other hand to cup Maketh's head tenderly. It is impossible to miss her shaking.

[mismanagement]

Maketh shudders all over, curling in on herself. It's over. She was foolish to think any of this would last. She betrayed the Empire. Of course it would come back on the people she loves. It's the way of things. It's how the Empire has always been. Make the punishment thorough and abject, fitting to the crime. Of course that thing killed Henry. Maketh should have seen it coming, should have warned him.

This is the price for her failure. Maketh knows the cost very well. It was never supposed to be paid by anyone else.

She clings to Henry, shaking and crying. "You--you're alive."

He's alive. The double didn't torture him like it had promised. It only shot him. There are worse deaths.

What an awful thought.

IV

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin arrives at Guard Headquarters a little later than Henry does. Having witnessed the actual destruction, he knows how much work there is to be done, and he has come to help.

He walks around the structure outside and inside, making a tally of the structural damage and what it will take to repair the building. He's done a lot of scavenging since he arrived in the city, so he knows where to find materials. He has construction and masonry experience. And he has tools.

"A month or two to complete the work, I guess. Unless you want me to take time off from patrols to concentrate on this? Whatever you want, Commander."

[hotspurred]

Henry sets his hands on his hips and sighs. A building is infinitely easier to maintain than a castle, but it's still an inconvenience that they have to repair it in the first place. The sooner the walls are made intact the better, but he'd rather not take guardsmen off of patrols, even if experience tells him that nothing should occur between now and the next surge of the Door.

"Could you not lead a construction team? Were you and a few of us to sacrifice a couple of hours a day, might we not keep patrols and yet cut that time down to mere weeks?"

If not then he'll take Curufin off patrols and see what assistance he can provide, but it seems to him wiser to have more hands available for any necessary heavy lifting and much more efficient in general.

On the other hand, his experience with building work has always been to appoint those learned in the trade to handle it.

[so_dark_a_road]

Having once built and maintained a couple of castles, Curufin can well agree with Henry.

"I certainly could. And it would be the best option, I think, to divide our time between the work and the patrols. We can find people outside of the Guard, I'm sure, who will be happy to volunteer their time. I can teach any strong and fit person to handle a hammer or a trowel. I have much experience as a builder."

[hotspurred]

"To our good fortune."

Henry gives a sharp nod -- which he immediately regrets, wincing at as his tender brain protests the motion. He's finally beginning to sober up, but the closer he gets to true sobriety, the more his head pounds.

"I will assist. Make your plans and recruit who you can -- sensibly. I shall see this wreckage," he nudges a blackened lump with his toe, "cleared and cleaned today."

And honestly, it might be for the best that the actual labour cannot begin immediately. He may well be inclined to throttle anyone who is too loud for the next twelve hours.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin starts to smile, and then he sees Henry wince as he nods.

But he takes care of business first. "I will get right on it. I'll complete my plans and give you a written copy later today. Tomorrow I'll tell you who else I was able to recruit. And we'll start on the work by tomorrow afternoon."

He gives that blackened lump a concerned glance. When Rey's double set off the charges, Curufin got into the building and tried to get anybody out who was there at the time, but it is looking rather as though someone was killed in the initial blast.

"Are you all right?" he asks, softly. Signs of a hangover, certainly, but that's probably not all, considering Henry has just recently experienced death and resurrection -- and who knows what other major stressors? Hadriel is a stressful place.

III.

[fracturedbeauty]

Yukari's had it rough since coming back, mostly with his own ego. He's especially on guard for anyone that might want a piece of him for the way his Double was behaving. His humoured smile that seemed to never be fazed, well, has become a pretty serious look as he doesn't particularly look to make eye contact with people.

After no one seems to be immediately at his throat for being a lecher, he decides he's going to take it easy; hiding in a dark, familiar corner of the bar to nurse his self-esteem back to health.

When the Knight beside him asks who died, he sets his drink on the counter, with an audible click. Who did die? Dying by the hands of Sans' clone still felt like the remnants of an offscale dream. The fact that he's here doesn't make it feel any less like a dream. Finally, he speaks, in a rather cold tone.

"Hopefully those beasts did." Not that he's seen a trace of the doubles since his return.

[hotspurred]

"Beasts."

Henry echoes flatly, intoxicated enough that it takes him a moment to understand. He was dead too soon to see the full impact of the doubles, though at this point he's caught up on what happened. He blinks slowly.

"Oh, those. Evidently they are gone. Your worst potential self--" he gives the bar a hearty smack with his fist, "--smote. Picture it in your mind. We shall drink a toast."

He lifts his glass.

Dying for your trust in one you consider family is wretched, but Henry can still not take any pleasure in imagining the death of a creature with Maketh's face and voice. The evil double of a stranger, though? Well. That will do as a symbol.

[fracturedbeauty]

Henry's level of intoxication hardly goes unnoticed. Still, Yukari raises his glass as well. At least the thing that had his face no longer exists.

"Indeed. Cheers." He takes a particularly deep drink from it. "You're one of the Guard, aren't you?" He's pretty sure he's seen this guy around before, just never really spoken to him. He had been longing to torment the Guard for some time, but today, he just doesn't feel up to it. He'll just have to take notes for now.

"Do you drink here often, or is there a reason for you to drown it out in liquor." Might as well offer a shoulder, before Henry gets the bright idea to turn the attention on Yukari.

[hotspurred]

"To the well-deserved end of beasts!"

Henry knocks back what remains of his own drink, then signals to the bartender for another to be sent his way.

"I am."

One of its commanders, in fact, but he doesn't bother pointing that out.

Like many an Englishman, he's also something of a sarky bastard, so he scoffs at the second question, shooting the other man an incredulous sideways glance.

"Truly? You must ask on this day?"

It's unfair to expect everyone to be aware that Hope is finally resurrecting those who died at the hands of doubles, but he's not exactly considering that right now.

[fracturedbeauty]

He carefully watches the man throw back his liquor, idly wondering perhaps how many he's already had. Taking note of the type, and how often. Liquor is a very powerful thing, which is why Yukari won't drink more than he's capable of handling, and certainly no where near as much as Henry's had.

"That's quite the position, you must be thrilled." He might be just slightly sarcastic, testing how much he can throw by the drunken Guard before he catches on. So far, Henry seems like a very tense drunk. While he may be laughing and cheering, he certainly has an air that it is exactly what he isn't feeling, but wishing he would.

"But of course. I can always ask later if it's more convenient." He returns a little snark himself. Not that he really, particularly cares as to why the Guard is indulging himself. The snark is appreciated, though. It gives Yukari a little more security in being out and about. And is a strong indicator that Henry might be good for a battle of wits or three when things have calmed down. Although, he is uncertain to if Henry's just behaving that way over the alcohol's influence.

III - delight's bar

[pellameno]

Pell's snuck out, away from Cal's watchful eye while the other slept. He just needed a break from it all, from seeing the evidence and memory of what his double did everywhere he looks. It's late and he's several drinks in by now and has always been a lightweight -- especially drinking hard liquor, which he chose tonight for the express purpose of finding oblivion at the bottom of a bottle. Maybe someone will come to collect him, maybe they won't. He doesn't care at the moment. When Henry speaks Pell turns his head, spotting his friend and raising his glass.

"Quite a few people, as I understand it. I was... indisposed."

[hotspurred]

"Ah, Pell."

Henry lifts his own glass in greeting, then grimaces, a dark look in his eyes.

"Indisposed...? I am sorry to hear you were not spared. You are a good man."

Henry's grimace soon transforms, however, as bemusement settles in. If it was not immediately obvious that he is deep into his cups, he adds:

"Well. A good fairy." That, in fact, had been what he'd suspected before Pell had clarified. It's Pell's ethereal, androgynous looks. "No— what was it? Wren... Wrae... not a wraith, verily. Wraet..."

He's certainly trying.

[pellameno]

"That creature was everything I am not and then some. It gave me all its memories daily, so I get to feel like I did the things it did." He gives a little shudder, taking another drink... and then Henry's continuation brings a tiny smile to his lips. The first of the day.

"You can call me a fairy, if it's what comes to mind. Better than most things my kind have been called." And then he's sliding off his stool, coming to sit closer so they can talk. "It's Wraeththu."

[hotspurred]

"Wraeththu."

Henry nods to himself. He can remember that. Probably. The drink does tend to complicate these matters, but he is not about to stop.

"You gained its memories? That is..." he shakes his head. He does not want to bring back bad memories when he himself is here to escape them.

He cocks his head at Pell.

"I cannot picture it. An evil you. That," he declares, "is a contradiction if ever I heard one."

Contradiction comes out a bit slurred, but he manages to wield it. To himself, he then mutters impossible, as though he genuinely can't imagine the prospect.

"Ah, but you must be here to forget."

[pellameno]

"Hara can do that, share memories and emotions. And it had all the same abilities I do. If anything it was stronger than me, because it was willing to hurt people. I suppose it thought sharing them would be an exquisite torture -- it would have been right."

He doesn't manage a smile at Henry's insistence on the contradiction, but there's gratitude in his voice. "That's kind of you to say. Thank you."

And he was here to forget, but it wasn't working so well. Instead he was just dwelling through the fog of alcohol... which managed his anger but not the depression. Turning him into quite the sad drunk.

"Forgetting may not be in the cards. Is it working for you?"

[hotspurred]

[Henry has always slept a little differently to most people in Hadriel — in his era, bi-modal sleep patterns are the norm. He never used to leave his apartment for that brief period awake in the middle of the night. But since his resurrection, he has been waking up restless and dwelling in that dark hour. So he has turned to the only coping method that has any result for him: physical exertion.

Which is why it is a little after two in the morning and he is out taking a jog. He's been at it for about forty minutes now, but his pace remains steady. The point isn't to wear himself out or injure himself through strain. It's merely a gentle way of building more endurance. He still does not feel grounded, but this is as close to as he can manage these days.

...It's strange, but he can feel the weight of eyes upon him. Not threatening, just... present. For a few minutes he ignores it, but it slowly irks him more and more until he speaks out.]

Who goes there?

[He glances over his shoulder, trying to spot the persistent source in the dark.]

my gift to myself for making it a year -- getting more icons!

[hotspurred]

[Even before Shadow steps into the light, the height and colour of those watching eyes puts suspicion into Henry's mind. The reveal only confirms it.

Henry stops and turns around properly.]

Shadow. I have wondered what befell you after you failed to show for lessons.

[He looks Shadow over for any obvious signs of harm. He would have eventually got round to pursuing an answer, but in truth he cannot afford the mental expenditure right now. However much he develops his physical endurance, it does little to replenish his emotional endurance.

Existential dread and the deep wound of a beast with Maketh's face and knowledge using their close bond to kill him have taken their toll upon him.]