goodweather | IC INBOX ( SAIL )

~Useful...~

Grace looks back down at her frog, her voice distant, her posture so very tired. ~...I am sorry. I did not know where else to go. The imperious one who shares my cabin is not a thing of comfort, and the elegant Maeve has others she must care for, and...and...~

...I didn't know who else might understand. It was a good dream, and I woke from it and felt...I didn't know where else to go.~

"... Would you like to come inside, Grace? I'm not sure that this is a conversation for the hallway."

A mute nod; Grace gets up, 'standing' on nothing, and drifts towards Phil to be let in.

Some part of her is very sorry to have disturbed him, but that part is not being listened to.

He does as much; the lights aren't on, of course, leaving the room in darkness when he shuts the door and seals off the light from the hall.

A moment passes. "Oh, wait, you can't see." And he turns on a lamp.

The room is a decorated one, full of the evidence of his being here; piano books, rubber ducks, an ominous dagger peeking out from an open drawer in his desk which is full of half-projects and the wall above it tacked full of writing and notes. But he gestures to the couch, where both of them can sit. Well, if Grace cares to sit. He's gonna sit.

She does indeed care to sit, hunching over around her frog as if to protect it from the world. She doesn't speak up for awhile, though when the light turns on she flinches and blinks, turns her head away from it.

~I...I should ask, before I share, if...you...are okay with hearing. I am unsure who else might understand, when I do not understand myself. My feeble words fail me.~

"Bit difficult to say yes to something I don't know about," he hums, "but. Yeah, I'm in a comfortable place right now. What's going on?"

~...It was a strange dream. The Baron was there, the creator of my original captivity, in the deep lake at my village, chained to the villagers in the water. Others were there as well. You, the golden warrior Dimitri, Helena, Jack... each asked in turn if I was certain, and I said yes. The Baron and the villagers were drowned one by one, and when the last died I was a living thing again, of air and blood, stripped of my might and my wounds, my spear long gone. Somehow then I was in London, and there was to be a great debut...~

She squeezes her frog, tight and desperate.

~I woke happy, and then became terribly, awfully sad. And I didn't know where else to go.~

He listens. Quiet, patient, attentive, in the way he so often is.

“What was it that made you happy, and what was it that made you upset?”

~...This is difficult to answer. To watch the villagers die again...they made me this, they were the architects of my silence and my misery. To revenge myself was such a great thing, and yet, and yet...and yet...it haunts me. They haunt me. I have slain them already. There is no life in that village any longer, no living thing escaped my wrath, they were scattered and shattered and drowned by my hand, and I still want more? There is no more to be had. From beyond the grave they reach out and grip my heart still. It is disgusting.~

"That sounds pretty common." His tone is--sympathetic, attentive, caring, but washed of the higher awareness and willpower that might otherwise make it more... elegant. As it is, it's a bit blunt-ended. Stripped of finery in the same way an artist abandons a work before the end.

Also just going to conveniently skip that Grace slaughtered the village that abused and murdered her because he has no idea how to unwrap that right now. One thing at a time. Something something in theory you can just say the perfect things to all the bad guys to make them change their minds, but absolutely not in practice maybe.

"You still live with the consequences." Gestures at Grace in general. "Physically and in memory. That pain's complicated. It sounds like, uh, that just the fact that they're gone doesn't make the pain they created disappear too. The past lies like a nightmare on the present... I guess literally in this case."

He blinks a bit, pausing (the wheels are really struggling to spin here), then continues. "Pain is usually a--a measure, that something's wrong. It's a request that something needs to be fixed, healed, but sometimes that's complicated to do, and you can't always... do that. If those villagers can't hurt you anymore, but it isn't helping what they've already done... is that what's bothering you? That it's not over?"

Edited 2023-09-28 08:03 (UTC)

~...Perhaps. It has never been over. The villagers raised me as a god to make themselves happy. The god of the lake returned me as this because they angered him, and in my death throes I was stupid enough to pray. The Baron locked me in his Manor for his vile game. Now I'm here, for the hurts of my soul to feed the ship...~

~...Am I truly such a savage and worthless thing that no one has ever wanted me as myself...~

Hmm. “No one?”

It’s not a challenge, more of an inquiry—okay maybe a little bit challenge, but it’s a… a prod. Urge for further thought. Rita did this to him all the time. Very Socratic of you, he’d say.

~...Perhaps not no one. The man Yufei has only known me as this, the gentleman Maxwell is unconcerned with my past...but even here it forges links in my chains. So many knew Helena before they met me, and though she understands the terrible power she wields and restrains it...will those who love her do the same?~

Edited 2023-09-28 17:16 (UTC)

He thinks of Darcy’s look of disdain, the damnation they so easily point towards Grace. Of Security’s refusal of any kindnesses, however awkward and inelegant and brutal, that she can think to offer.

That they are both his. And that they know better than to force a choice from him.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to see. Not comforting, I know, I’m sorry. But it sounds like you’ve got a few who would still be on your court.”

He pauses to stifle a yawn. “But, if it isn’t that you still think about them that bothers you…? Is it what you wanted? That bothers you, I mean.”

~It must, mustn't it? I had no power when I was just a girl, no words, no respect. I was not heeded or feared or even loved and yet...and yet...~

She curls in on herself, fighting not to cry, or at least the closest she's capable of.

He offers his hand, taloned and scaly.

“Yet your body—you were yours. It was familiar. Nothing changed it. Nothing could.”

She takes that hand in her own cold one, webbed and tipped with ragged claws. ~Yes. I fear being only a girl again, and yet...yes. You have the right of it, gentleman Phil. Perhaps if I could forge my own body I might be happier, but such dark science cannot work here, not as I know it. One must die first.~

Useful, he'd called his own wings. Anyone on Earth might think him so lucky. Wings. What a dream.

Here is a difference: Grace wants to make her body her own again, not touched by gods, but not helpless either. Useful. Phil waits for the day where things will finally be settled enough again that he can simply shed his changes, be as he was for every other year of his centenarian life. Grace never knew peace as an untouched person; Phil lived forever as one. He can't see himself wanting otherwise.

It doesn't change that they both want out of what they've been given, but it is something he's noticing.

"Magic and gods aren't native to my world, and ever since leaving it, all I've been doing is getting yanked around. I wouldn't know how any of that works. You'll have to ask someone else." A beat. "But I've lived for a long, long time. So I... know a thing or two about what waiting and hoping feels like. Every minute of it sucks. I'll be here, if I can."

Grace nods, just once. It's a while before she finds the words to reply. ~Thank you, gentleman Phil. And my apologies again for waking you. I...know this cannot be easy on your heart to speak of. I am humbled by your generosity.~

"Hey, it's alright, don't sweat it. I've got a lot of practice with hard conversations. This is the sort of thing you do for friends. If I wasn't okay enough to have a talk like this, I'd let you know."

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Possibly heading for a wrap?

yea 👍