[mission: hyrypia] i am not there; i do not sleep

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Graze
WHEN: DAY :019 - DAY :020
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; down on the planet Hyrypia, a Host is laid to rest.
WARNINGS: Mentions of character death, funerary services. Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :019

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe with you in it is suddenly different. --No. That's not right. You're you, the universe is as it's always been, and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or coming up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and yet everything is.

Here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small, faintly hexagonal chamber with a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been calmed. There's something peaceful about waking up here - like you belong. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful void - fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety. A matching dread. An easy comfort. Maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a nearby closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone. There are a handful of you here, somehow intimately familiar to each other.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room it's quiet and still, feeling for all the world like a shell for some vast dark thing.

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the black. It says:


PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is sound and sensation: a warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze. It says or feels like:

( Come meet with me, won't you? )

Where exactly this meeting is supposed to occur isn't immediately clear, but head in the direction that seems correct and eventually Station 72 gets you where you're meant to be: a circular briefing room with tiered seating, empty now, before a woman with a sheet of graying hair and something focused in her expression. It's been some time since she's spoken with a young host - since she's done one of this briefings. Apparently she's feeling something like her usual self. She smiles and it's very warm.

"Welcome to Station 72. Unfortunately, you won't be here long but we'd like to answer as many of your questions as we're able before you leave this place."

[ooc note: please see here for the catch-all briefing thread]


THE STATION
WITH A LITTLE UNDER 24 HOURS before it's time to make the trip to Hyrypia, this is as good an opportunity as you're going to get to familiarize yourself with Station 72 before you leave it. There's plenty to see, but a distinct lack of people to make conversation with. It's lonely and quiet and there's a sensation of dust gathering even where there is none. Maybe studying the briefing files on your databank is the most proactive distraction, but if not? Well there's plenty of places to get lost...

In the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its very alien pilots unload two heavy trunks, then dole out a series of kits to the new hosts. One of them - the pale female alien who her calls herself Rhan - cheerfully announces, "Get changes and buckle in. I'm afraid we've some grim business ahead of us today. Funerals, you know. But chin up, my darlings. One uncomfortable day and then we'll leave the matter behind us. --Oh, but do be gentle with the others. I suspect they might be tender for a few days yet."

You leave the Station. If you're lucky, you might one day make it back.

HYRYPIA - THE GRAZE
DAY :020

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION
A SHIP DESCENDS from the iron colored sky early in the morning on Day :020. Before it even pierces the planet's atmosphere, its cargo should be obvious to the other Carbauschians: a new batch of Hosts, freshly hatched and just in time for the grim festivities.

The idea is simple: that they are part of a mourning delegation, only here to briefly oversee Lavellan's funerary rites. Luckily (...) there's plenty of comatose Hosts lying in the tents to trade places with the newcomers.

Better get to know your new friends quickly - there's plenty to be brought up to speed on (such as, uh, the recent death of one of the elder Hosts), and likely enough work to be done that the new spare hands are welcome. Or maybe the state of nothing-like-faux mourning is a good excuse for some alone time on a strange new alien planet. You're all so very, very far from home.


BURIAL RITES
THE FUNERAL has been arranged to the Hosts' precise specifications. Each and every single request they've made has been met, carried out by two soft-spoken, contrite Hyrypian servants who had come to them not long after their return from the hunt. Perhaps because the members of the other envoys are unsure whether it's permitted or welcome to attend, the site of the funerary pyre is hardly full to bursting with onlookers. Or maybe the burning of corpses goes against some obscure tradition. Or maybe some of the minor envoys simply don't care much and think the Carbasuchians are best left to their grief alone. Still, while it's hardly the entire encampment in attendance a notable selection of diplomats and their respective entourages and several of their Hyrypian hosts have turned out for the ceremony. It seems the Descendants in particular have turned out in some force, including the very hunter saved by Lavellan's quick thinking.

When the time comes for the rites to proceed, it's left to the Hosts to light the fire and say their farewells to their fallen comrade - the first and hopefully last to be lost in this strange land.


A SOMBER CELEBRATION
ASH SCENT HANGS HEAVY STILL over the encampment. Or maybe that's simply the perception - after all, the breeze still blows in from over the Great Flat. Surely it's just a memory of the smell which lingers, as circumstantial as the mournful note the wind sighs as it cuts across the Graze and into the tangled Finger Maze.

However, matters of the universe don't pause for the tragedy of the loss of an envoy - and there is so much riding on this Pilgrimage. To their credit, the Hyrypians have done all they can to provide for the Carbauschians in their time of grief (including a visit from the Matron Bassita herself, pale and full of sympathy and apologies), and as evening falls what clearly was meant to be a carousing party to celebrate a successful hunt and completion of the Pilgrimage's first stage has been considerably tempered.

The drinks still flow; the food is still plentiful, rich and lavishly spiced - but the music being played is soft and careful and of the hundreds of small technomanced insect lights the drift over the encampment tonight, a considerably portion of them are dedicated to lingering around the charred skeleton of the funeral pyre as a sober acknowledgement of what has come to pass.

Give it a few hours and maybe the mood will lighten slightly. On the other hand, there's nothing like an uncomfortably close tragedy to bring people together - and as Rhan suggests, maybe now's exactly the right time to ask a few pointed questions. Or to get hammered with new friends. Or to take a nice long walk while everyone else is consumed by the muted festivities.

---

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch, the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia, the funeral of Lavellan and the supremely awkward dinner party meant to wrap the first stage of the Pilgrimage. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information if you're brand new to the game. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

OTA

[shiro2hero]

1) THE FUNERAL & "PARTY"
[He doesn't speak.]

[He's all too aware of the new minds around them. The new faces under veils. The new sensations. And so, he keeps his focus narrowed. Keeps his mind from wandering. If he focuses on the mental walls, keeping them up and strong, the tearing, roiling thing in him won't have an escape. Will it?]

[The fight, despite cutting his symbiote power loose, is still running at breakneck speeds through his head. The fight, and the resulting confrontation with the Darkling.]

[Shiro is dressed entirely in black, as usual. Hanging on the fringes of both the party and the funeral. During the FUNERAL, he never so much as glances away from the fire. Before the flames take hold, he can be seen stepping forward, briefly. To set something near the body. And then retreating back to the edges. The PARTY doesn't fare much better. He mostly just shakes his head and keeps watch.]

[Silently.]

[Everything held in rigid, precarious control.]



2) THE AFTERMATH
[It's away from the world. Away from prying eyes. Closed off in the tent he's been using since this all started. Where no one tends to look unless they know him. Unless they have reason to look for him. The perfect place to drop the walls.]

[Just a little.]

[The walls slip. And all that's beyond is crackling, sickly green light over what feels like empty air. The impression of a broken body thrown skyward again and again and again and there is nothing he can do. The guilt like a wild animal he can't control. Something alive and hungry and what does it matter they won? If he couldn't bring everyone back. What does it matter it was out of his hands? His friend is dead and gone and he felt it.]

[Striking one of the tent supports with a fist hurts. It's irrational. But restrained enough to not resort to using the metal hand. Just one short, sharp blow before he stops, making a long, silent effort to pull himself back together again.]


3) the wildcard
[Hit me up with anything else?]

2

[skaikru]

( she isn't looking for him. doesn't notice him leave, doesn't wonder what he's doing. for as pleasant as their first interaction had been — shiro's advice in terms of building barriers, the brief interlude from her internal torment brought about by the swooping sensation of flying when they'd held hands — clarke hasn't sought him out since. they haven't bumped into each other accidentally, but in such a small party of travelers, it's inevitable.

so while she isn't looking for him, she can see the fabric of the tent rattle when he strikes it; can almost feel the impact of fist on wood if she tries. if he's not yet so lost in his own grief, shiro might feel the press of clarke's consciousness before she even reaches the tent flap; pressing and concerned but muted. it's a type of exhaustion that eclipses grief that hangs about her shoulders, and checking on people — counting them, naming them, assuaging her own fears with the presence of others — is beginning to feel automated.

are you okay? she almost asks. the words are on her lips, but feel useless. are any of them okay right now? some of the newcomers seem to be faring better than the rest, but how long would that last? so instead, she swallows. tries again. )

Did that make you feel better?

[shiro2hero]

[He's fighting his way out of it. Trying to. Desperately. Like struggling from the inside of a net. Or out from under an insurmountable weight. But trying. Maybe if he'd been faster, maybe if he'd been more aware or stronger or just better...]

[It's the notion of someone brushing his thoughts. The feeling of someone else. That's what makes him suck in a sudden breath. Stand a little taller. Shoulder it all back under wraps. Even if it is the person he'd offered his own assistance to. When she'd first arrived.]

[His back is to her, for the moment, when she speaks.]

No. [A shaky breath out.] I'm not really sure what I thought it was going to accomplish.

[His head leans against it, though. Trying to ignore the memory of green lightning flickering across his walls.] I'm sorry.

[skaikru]

( sorry, he says. and aren't they all just one big pit of sorry, a swarm of people trying to deal with the idea of loss in all manner of different ways. none that had worked so far, least of all platitudes of sorry, and clarke shakes her head, even if shiro can't see it. ) It's fine.

( is it really, though?

there's the sensation of intruding, of walking into something intimate — a loss of composure, a slip of vulnerability. and while she's drawn to stay and comfort, there are some wounds that can only be healed in solitude. he'd retreated from the party for a reason, one she understood quite well. and so she offers: )

If you want to be left alone... ( an open question, felt to fetter out in the air between them. there's a reason she's not moved from the entrance of the tent, or shrugged off her hood yet, but also a reason she hasn't ducked back outside yet either. ) Just don't hurt yourself.

[shiro2hero]

[The phrase It's Fine makes him... laugh. A short, sharp sound that isn't really all that humorous. How many times has he said that? Has it ever been true? Is it true now?]

I... don't really know.

[He turns slightly then, to look at her. There's apology in his face, still. He's sorry she had to see that, feel that. Sorry she was here for this feeling tearing through them all. The feeling growing, the more he thinks on it. The green lightning, lurid and grating, threatening to rip down the walls he keeps up.]

No -- [No, he says, finally, raggedly. Hand coming to his head.] Can... can you just. Talk.

For a minute. If you can?

[If she has time, if she has the inclination. Focus, think, and he misses the coin he'd borrowed from Bucky, focus on something anything else than the memory, the thought of tossing him clear like a horrifying rag doll.]

2

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy finds her feet taking her towards Shiro's tent almost before she realizes what's happening. The guilt, the anxiety, the feeling that should have done something more--all of it presses on her. All of it is familiar. She closes the flap of the tent behind her just as Shiro strikes the support and without thinking she rushes forward to grab at his arm, to hold him back in case he does it again. ]

Shiro...!

[ Her mind brushes his just as her hands touch his arm, her own confusion, grief, and uncertainty spilling against his. What does she say? How does she do this? It's all so new. So strange. ]

It's not your fault.

[ Maybe that's what he needs to hear right now. ]

[shiro2hero]

Aloy.

[It's said with no small amount of relief. You're still here edged under the murmur of her name. He's not making any move toward striking out again. Even if her hand wasn't on his. Even if she weren't here. It hadn't accomplished anything.]

[He seems to shudder, under her hands.]

Isn't it?

[Someone needs to say it. Someone needs to hammer it through his skull. But who knows if it'll sink in. His head bows. Metal fingers reaching to cover hers, like that's going to hide the way they shake.]

[huntsmachines]

It's not.

[ Aloy rests her hand against his shoulder now. She's not exactly the most touchy person, but this... this calls for it. She can remember the feeling of helplessness and guilt at the death of Rost and the other would-be braves. The idea she should have been able to do more. ]

I promise you, it's not. Even if it feels that way.

[ Aloy hesitates, then pulls him into a hug. ]

[shiro2hero]

[He wants to demand to know how she can say that. How can she say it's not his fault when he was there. He'd stood there. He'd watched it happen and been helpless. Felt it. In every gritty, crackling detail.]

[But lashing out at her, who's only here to offer support, to help does no good. It's not her fault, any more than she says it isn't his.]

[Take care of your father edged through with tossing him clear like a horrifying rag doll over Allura's face as the doors close and seal and every time he's lost someone...]

[His fingers, the real ones, the ones that won't hurt someone as strong as she is, tangle in her sleeve.]

I want to believe you.

uno

[bracchium]

[Every last inch of restraint Bucky contains in his body is focused on not running, on not breaking from formation and attacking those responsible for the whole in the back of Lavellan's head. He, too, is aware of the new faces, the old faces disguised as friends who want only to dig into each others' skulls. Everything about this whole procession, the fake grief he can hear in the links. It disgusts him and that's an awful low bar. He disgusts himself for not stepping in, for not insisting he be involved.

Even now, he burns with anger, with the desire take heads for those who thought it suitable to cut open one of their own. The HYDRA flashbacks come on stronger with each wave and trying to contain them more and more difficult. He finds himself wandering closer to Shiro, to someone who is almost a mirror of himself. His coin is in his hand as he brushes against Shiro. He can't imagine Shiro is handling this any better than him at the moment. Actually, no, he's too selfish. He doesn't want Shiro to handle this any better. Not with their shared past.

But maybe, just maybe, they can vent their anger into the link without it exploding into their Nestmates.]

bucket buddy

[shiro2hero]

[He pulls back, instinctive, when someone brushes him. Until the rest of him realizes who it is. Realizes and leans into him. Just a bit. He's still holding himself back, under control. Throttling it all down and away and burying it where it won't hurt anyone.]

[This is no party. This is... this is something else. And more than anything he wants to be gone.]

[But they can't. They've got to stay on the mission. Even if part of him is latching onto the familiar presence at his side like a lifeline.]

(I'm. Not going to ask if you're okay.)

[He can't imagine the other man's any better off right now than he is.]

[bracchium]

[Bucky wouldn't blame Shiro if the latter took his head off. Bucky might've if the roles were reversed; he hates being touched uninvited, but he wanted his presence known without touching too much of the Nest. He doesn't mind that Shiro leans into him a little, that he does expect. Neither of them are okay. Not with what has been done to one of their own. Lavellan lays with his head cut open by his fellow Nestmates.

There's absolutely nothing okay about any of this situation.]

( Good. )

[shiro2hero]

(I don't understand it.)

[And... he also doesn't expect Bucky to answer. Or to give him more to go on. Hopefully that's clear. He's not looking for someone as on edge as he is to give him anything other than the feeling he's not alone. He's not the only one who feels his skin crawling off his bones.]

[Feels... an ache, where there hasn't been feeling in a long time.]

(There's nothing to be gained by this.)

[He's gone, the awkward smile and hesitant reassurances and the bafflement at appliances and the understanding and the he's just gone what can this accomplish.]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam's there the moment the walls drop. He was there before, of course, trying to get away from everything out there for just a moment before he has to go back, before he has to keep up appearances, even if those appearances are a drunk ass noble mourning the loss of a friend.

But he's at Shiro's side after the punching, taking Shiro's hand in his. He doesn't use his healing ability, just checks to make sure Shiro didn't break his knuckles or anything.

He gets it. He's drunk, and his walls are patchy as always around Shiro, and he can feel all that anger and guilt and the feeling like what does it matter, and he remembers -

He'd finished the mission after Riley died, ash on his tongue and the scent of charred flesh burned in his nostrils and eyes stinging, the echo of his screams in his ears - they told him Riley died on impact, they told him he didn't have time to scream but they didn't know shit because they weren't there - but he'd finished the mission. Everyone commended him on his dedication but it was because he'd wanted to take them the fuck out, to go and go and go until every last one of them was no longer a threat. He'll never know who shot the RPG that took down Riley, and he's accepted that, but that only ever meant that he blamed the whole damn organization, that he wasn't gonna stop until they were gone.

So yes, he'd finished the mission. And that's what he'll do now, because it's all he's got, and it's - he's not in a place yet, where he can snap himself out of it and remember that no, it's not.

But he is in a place where he can focus on Shiro, where he can pull him in and slide a hand into his hair. ]

( I'll shield you. Let go. )

[shiro2hero]

I'm okay. I'm okay...

[Physically. Physically he isn't hurt. His hand is fine, the tent support is fine, he never should have let it out that way. He never should have cracked, or let his guard down. If he hadn't, if he'd been stronger or faster or better at hunting, or less afraid of his stupid arm or if... If a thousand and one other things. Other potential "what ifs" that won't do any good now. That just drag him down.]

[His shoulders are sagging, even before he thinks about it, into Sam. Against him. His hand is curling tight in that familiar grip.]

[A shake of his head, bowing into his chest. Sam wants him to let go. Sam's giving him an out but those... those feelings. The things bouncing around in his partner's head don't need his own pain, his own fleeting, choking thoughts - of the awkward smile and hesitant reassurances and the bafflement at appliances and the understanding and shared aches in missing limbs and lightning setting off like stars and -]

Sam...

[It's a plea and it's a prayer and it's a reminder all in one. Breathed out raggedly. Leaning his forehead to the other's.]

(What about you?)

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ This is what never cracking gets you. This is what thinking you can always be strong ends up in, it turns to punching things because you don't know what else to do and then beating yourself up mentally because you cracked, of course you did.

People always crack. The best any of them can ever hope for is to pull themselves back together in a way that means they might not crack as much next time, they might be able to come out of it a little faster, they might know the signs a little earlier.

That's the kind of stuff he'd say if he wasn't drunk, if he wasn't currently cracking himself. But he thinks it, as Shiro lets himself lean into Sam, and he thinks they should both just crack.

They already are.

His hands are tangled in Shiro's hair, but his mental presence is wrapped around him so strongly that the sensations might as well be real, that he might as well actually have wings curled around them both, a flurry of feathers downy soft and steel strong, pressed up against Shiro's back as he holds him close. ]

( I already let go. Just waiting for you to join me, sweetheart. )

[ Does he know what the hell he's saying? Not really. He's drunk, if they're talking about letting go. But it sounds good, so he's gonna go with it. ]

[shiro2hero]

[they should both just crack]

[But he isn't supposed to.]

[He's never supposed to.]

[It's just ... he suddenly doesn't think Allura's words accounted for this. If anything ever accounted for this. For the feeling of someone being ripped away on a visceral level. Like their hand torn out of yours -- their heart stopping under your palms. And... knowing, somewhere, the people you'd come to trust, to respect, were using them as a science project. As the thing you were supposed to be.]

[Going to them for help and pleading and hoping they've got to listen they know you they respect you they'll help you and why aren't they listening why are they looking at you that way and don't put me under-!]

[There are hands in his hair. There's a pulse under his palms. There is a life here, and holding on while his brain wants to focus on the one that slipped away. One last check. One last safeguard, a question. If Sam's all right. Doesn't he need it, too?]

[An assurance.]

[He isn't supposed to.]

[He's never supposed to.]

[But it comes. There buried up in the physical and mental wrap of arms and mind, his hands pressed flat and desperate to the back of Sam's shoulders, breathing harsh and jagged against the softness. It comes and it cracks like the lightning strike casting furrows in the ground. The roar of a sun turning to nova, something hot and sharp and seemingly endless in the moment.]

[It hurts so much.]

1.

[deployed]

[ In the aftermath of the last trail, the makeshift autopsy, it is hard to separate the grief churning within the Nest from his own consciousness. There is a difference between mourning a comrade in arms and the deeper, more personal loss of a friend. Lavellan is not Monroe. Lavellan had skirted along the edge of Bellamy's consciousness, dependable but ultimately a stranger. Bellamy tries very hard not to allow himself to be mired in shared loss. It's more difficult now than it had been with Anakin, who had been ripped from them just as suddenly in a blaze of fire.

There is no need to comfort the Darkling. Clarke has sought refuge with Lexa, and Murphy is a prickling point on the edge of Bellamy's consciousness. He will seek him out next, after the ceremony, after he susses out Shiro's reaction. ]

( This was not your fault. )

[ It's the fault of their hosts for pitting them against that creature. Assigning blame where due might alleviate part of what's coiled like a spring in the depths of Shiro's mind. ]

[shiro2hero]

[Any other time, the voice would be more welcome. Any other day, the presence would be one to lean against. A comrade, a friend. Someone who'd offered up a reassurance in himself. He doesn't know exactly who was part of this -- part of the members of their party, their team, who took part in enacting his nightmares on a friend. His and Bucky's.]

[There were traces of it, in their link.]

[God but he doesn't want to accuse Bellamy of all people. But he has to know. Before he can accept "this was not your fault" he has to know if his broodmate was one of those who cut into Lavellan.]

(Were you ... did you watch it happen?)

[He doesn't quite win the struggle to keep the desperation out of his voice. But it almost works.]

[deployed]

( Yes. )

[ It's more complex than a simple "yes," but Bellamy doesn't elaborate. He'd stepped into the tent. He'd supported the idea of an autopsy. It's what he would have expected if he'd been the one who died in the canyon.

And it confirms what he and Murphy had suspected after Murphy's scans on Concordia. They symbiote was growing, meshing with their brains in a way that made it impossible to cut out. They wouldn't get free of it so easily. It was a closed door, but it doesn't diminish Bellamy's hopes of returning home. ]

[shiro2hero]

(What good did it do.)

[What good did ripping into their companion, their friend, his friend, like he was some experiment do them? Thinking it, thinking about it makes his skin feel like it's going to claw off his bones.]

[These are the people he's let into his head. People he trusted. And ... He doesn't know if it's the leftover traces of his symbiote's power, if it's Bucky's anger, his own? Whatever it is, it makes the words sharper, harsher, than they have a right to be.]

[What did he die for? -- is the real question. What and why. And Bellamy has he answer to neither.]

(Did he -- did he want this?)

[otrazhenie]

[ Another funeral. How many is that now, just from the past year? Too many, really. There's a relief that at least she didn't know this person, and she feels terrible for thinking that way when so many of the Nest are grieving his loss. Her own grief threatens to rise to the surface throughout the service, but she does her best to keep it tucked away, instead focusing on the others.

After Shiro moves to set something by the body, Elena finally steps forward, walking through the small crowd to stand by his side. She doesn't say anything at first, just slips her arm through his, the one she'd helped to heal just days earlier. With everything that's happened, it feels like it's been a lifetime since then. ]

[shiro2hero]

[It isn't anything she's done or said or anything like that. But he doesn't look at her, as she steps beside him. Elena has done nothing wrong. Looking at her, at anyone, now, feels like a disservice to the person they're leaving behind. A disservice to his friend.]

[To one more person (one fewer person) who understood.]

[His arm aches. Old phantom pains and echos of green light where there should be purple flickers. Elena's hand slides through his other arm, and he finds himself gripping onto her hand. Tightly.]

(... are you okay?)

[otrazhenie]

[ It doesn't bother her in the slightest that he doesn't look at her. People handle grief in different ways, and she's certainly no one to judge him for what he's feeling, or what he feels he needs to do. If it helps ease the pain in his soul to stand vigil like this, then she'll simply stand with him for as long as he'll let her. ]

( I didn't know him. I feel guilty for being grateful for that. )

[ She's just lost so many people. The thought of losing one more... Leaning in against his arm, her free hand wrapping around his elbow. Holding on, for both their sakes. ]

[shiro2hero]

(Don't be.)

[Don't feel guilty. Don't beat yourself up over it. It's better that some of them don't know. That some of them don't hurt like this. Don't feel like part of themselves have been ripped apart, shredded and cut open under hot lights and held down and pieces pulled out, the people they're supposed to trust betraying that trust betraying them and don't put me under don't please listen--]

[He shakes his head. Human hand tightening on hers reflexively.]

(I'm sorry. It's -- it's bad.)