Gabriel (and Jack) Marlowe [010] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistermarlowe) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
wakingthedead2014-11-17 02:00 pm
mistermarlowe) wrote in wakingthedead2014-11-17 02:00 pm
waking the dead 2.0 | october 21-23, 2063 | en-route to the darkest pit.
WHO: Taning Marisigan's strike team within the Infernal Realms
WHAT: This is the catch-all log for all interactions that take place after the party leaves the Cicada Shell Plains for the final phase of Operation "Ela".
WHERE: The carriage Alyssandra Caiphas lent the party
WHEN: Evening of October 21 until the small hours of the morning on October 23 (just before sunrise).
SAFE FOR WORK? Likely!
OTHER NOTES:
+ You're more than welcome to leave starters for texts/emails/calls to characters who aren't actually on the carriage.
+ I won't be posting any NPCs up here. Just ping me if you want to interact with anyone specific.
[ It'll feel like you're taking a train down to another interesting destination within the Fifth World. The "carriage" that Alyssandra Caiphas has provided with the party is incredibly comfortable, with individual rooms for all of the members and imps that politely attend to every need that you might have. The scenery's nice, in a fucked up sort of way. Maybe, in different circumstances, some of you might be able to enjoy it.
Beyond the bedrooms, there's a common dining area, several common rooms and an observation deck to hang around in. You're also welcome to drop in at the front car, where the imps in charge of navigating the lot of you through the area are manning the Night Mares. Everything is styled in a fashion that'll remind the history buffs in your party of the old Orient Express. ]
WHAT: This is the catch-all log for all interactions that take place after the party leaves the Cicada Shell Plains for the final phase of Operation "Ela".
WHERE: The carriage Alyssandra Caiphas lent the party
WHEN: Evening of October 21 until the small hours of the morning on October 23 (just before sunrise).
SAFE FOR WORK? Likely!
OTHER NOTES:
+ You're more than welcome to leave starters for texts/emails/calls to characters who aren't actually on the carriage.
+ I won't be posting any NPCs up here. Just ping me if you want to interact with anyone specific.
[ It'll feel like you're taking a train down to another interesting destination within the Fifth World. The "carriage" that Alyssandra Caiphas has provided with the party is incredibly comfortable, with individual rooms for all of the members and imps that politely attend to every need that you might have. The scenery's nice, in a fucked up sort of way. Maybe, in different circumstances, some of you might be able to enjoy it.
Beyond the bedrooms, there's a common dining area, several common rooms and an observation deck to hang around in. You're also welcome to drop in at the front car, where the imps in charge of navigating the lot of you through the area are manning the Night Mares. Everything is styled in a fashion that'll remind the history buffs in your party of the old Orient Express. ]
For Taning | Evening, October 21.
He's worried about you. The success of this engagement banks on the rescue of your sister, and you know how this one feels when it concerns family. ]
no subject
Now he's just staring off into the horizon, watching the blasted, literally damned landscape roll steadily by. He's a man accustomed to horrors upon horrors, but he finds himself uneasy at the sights he's seeing. Not because of himself, but because he couldn't help but wonder how his sister survived in this place. It almost makes him cringe; the only reason he doesn't is that he doesn't want to show weakness to the demon beside him, affable and helpful and probably sworn to help him though he might be.
That is how you'll find him when you come around: silent as if in contemplation, but with a mouth a little bit too tense for him to seem actually okay.]
no subject
There's a sort of depressing, alien beauty to the landscape. Reminds him a little of the Underworld, only different. ] Hey, Stan.
Join me for a stick?
no subject
He scoots over so you have somewhere to sit here at the front of the carriage.]
Sure thing, man.
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He glances back to the landscape. ] It'd be beautiful if it weren't so fucked up.
[ He won't go straight to the obvious. He's not exactly keen on talking to you about family around someone who isn't a Hound or any of your close acquaintances. ]
For Yulia, morning of October 22
Tomorrow's the day, he thinks. At this point in his Vigil career, probably no one would mistake Taning for a scaredy-cat or a coward, but every time his mind strays over to the thought that he really doesn't know what to expect down there, his stomach flips over so violently he feels sick.
Anyone who walks into that mess hall will find Taning sitting deep into one of the nicely appointed, soft chaise booth seats, one leg propped up onto the seat and tucked close to his chest, cold coffee in hand and food half-uneaten.]
no subject
So, with her own cup of coffee in hand, she walks over and takes a seat on a high-backed chair across Taning.
She takes a sip of her coffee. ]
Good morning.
no subject
(As an aside, no wonder you want to stab him all the time.)
Except he tried for that smile and fell quite flat. So what you get is a polite up-twitch of the mouth in greeting, and... that's all.]
Hey, you.
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She sighs and lowers her cup, placing it on the saucer, and both on the small table next to the chair. She crosses her legs, folds her arms across her chest and leans back on her seat. ]
Please don't tell me you are having cold feet when we're this close to our mission objective in Hell.
no subject
Congratulations, that was so ridiculously incongruous from what he was thinking and feeling that he actually bursts into laughter. Granted, it quickly subsides, but good job anyway.]
Ahaha... no, no I'm not.
[But he doesn't elaborate. You might recognize this tactic as "doing a Yulia".]
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I don't believe it.
[ Translation: Spill. ]
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Hey, at least you won't have to worry about him not being able to get the job done. For him to be like this, it's got to mean that he's entirely ready to carry out the ends of this mission no matter the cost, right?
Right?]
no subject
What is the matter, then?
no subject
That's basically what Taning thinks. The fact, though, that he was out in the open suggests that he really wasn't hiding at all. More like trying to call attention to himself, actually.
He's gonna still be reticent, though. Sorry, Yulia. Maybe if you punched him?]
Just a little bit nervous, is all.
[Yeah, "little bit". And nervous of what?]
no subject
You? Nervous? That's a first.
[ She still expects Taning to confess to whatever it is that he's feeling. (Ugh, why.) And if she gets frustrated enough (not too hard to do that), she might punch the answer from him. Yes. ]
no subject
[Because he hides it, the fucker. Beneath smiles and jokes and acting like a total goofball, it looks like barely anything touches him.
Even now, as when he says that, he says it with a laughing tone that clearly implies, it's fine, just leave me alone.
Except there's a tiny voice at the back of his head that goes, don't leave me alone. I need to talk about this.]
forever and a half later............
[ That, she understands. She hides her own emotions, so much so that she doesn't even realize that she's hiding them anymore. It's troublesome, really, to hide emotions and then forget what they are.
In any case, this discussion is about you, Taning, and not her. So. ]
Are you going to tell me why, or do I have to threaten bodily harm for you to spill?
here's a hassle tag for your efforts
The moment you told him his thoughts like they were your own, he realizes that, no matter how different you two are, in you he has what could only be described as a kindred soul. He has only felt this twice before: with his adoptive father and with his fiancee. The mark of true mage wisdom isn't knowing things and knowing how to apply that knowledge, but a true, instinctive, deep-seated understanding that something just is, and that nothing, save perhaps the universe itself shifting, can stop that is from being.
At that moment, he knew. Somewhere not here, sometime not now, in a different reality, he would have probably loved you. Because you understand. And he's an Obrimos. Obrimos never handle people completely getting them well. For that matter, he does love you now, dear friend. His heart is full to bursting with appreciation.
And with sorrow. Because in that same moment he understood that you will die. You will die before everyone he cares for, everyone else that he loves, and it is a terrible thing to fully comprehend how much it will hurt to lose you in the same moment that he realizes that he will lose you first. It is in that exact same moment, too, that he understands Josh better. No wonder, he thinks, that Josh would be driven to murder if necessary, for you.
These are thoughts far too morbid for this early in the morning, but they are what they are, and if there ever was a place for such thoughts, then in Hell on a carriage heading for possible doom is definitely one.
Losing you, losing anyone, would kill him here more surely than any demon you might encounter.
He stares at you for a few seconds, then decides to tell you the truth. As well as he could put it, anyway.]
I'm not afraid of dying, Yulia. I'm afraid anyone else might.
[His eyes have lost the shadows within them, but maybe now they're unnaturally bright.
He's never felt this vulnerable before, and he trusts you to shut up about this. From a Mortician to a Whisperer, from a Hound to another, from a friend to another.]
still hate you
It's strange, really. They never got along in the beginning, and yet... there seemed to be so many things they have in common. Maybe even more than Joshua.
When she speaks, her voice is steady but soft. ]
Everyone dies eventually, Estanislao. Sometimes, when you least expect it.
[ She learned it the hard way, over the 22 years she'd lived. No one is permanent in this world. Not your parents, not your brother, or your sister. Not even friends you make after thinking the world is over. They all die, one by one, until you're the last one standing.
She knows that for a fact, and she tries hard not to let it affect her. But it does. It still does.
Yulia smiles, sadly, and takes a sip from her coffee, then sets the cup down gently. ]
In this blade, I will be the first to go.
[ And she says it like she is a hundred percent sure of it. Ritual or no, she knows she'll die first. It's better that way, she thinks. She won't have to miss anyone when they're gone. Unlike what happened with the Makhai. ]
no subject
I know.
[And from his tone, you know that he's referring to both of the things you said. Incongruously, he thinks that it is entirely too depressing for you to be getting each other when he has eleven years on you. But then, he thinks, neither time nor tide really care for the feelings of tiny people such as you and he.
It is for that exact same reason that, sometimes, he hates the thought of being a long-lived mage. It's too easy to lose more than you gain when you live hundreds of years.]
Does saying it make it easier?
[He's not gonna say anything about how selfish it would be if it did. If anyone in this blade has the most right to be selfish about how to live or die, it's got to be you.
Do you know, Yulia, how much it will fucking hurt to not force you to run away from death?]
no subject
The truth is, she doesn't know what the answer was? Did it make things easier? Did it make things less painful? She isn't sure. She doesn't know.
It did make her sad, though. But it's not something she would say.
So she shrugs. ]
If it happens, it happens. I try not to think of it too much.
[ She leans back into the chair, folds her hands on her lap and closes her eyes. She takes a breath, and exhales. When she opens her eyes again, she looks at him, right at Estanislao. ]
If this is the end of the line for me, I wouldn't mind it.
I have no regrets.
[ At first, earlier in the year, she thought she would regret this. Would regret staying with the hounds, with the people she met on that plane ride from Jotunheim to the Philippines. But she doesn't. There were a lot of things they did she thought was stupid, but... these were the only people she has left.
Loathe as she was to admit it, she's grown fond of all of them.
And if she dies, she knows she would die for them, or with them. And that's... not such a bad way to go. ]
don't kill me <3
So said the look in his eyes as he looks back at you, holds your gaze for a painful few seconds, and looks away. Less obviously sad this time, but still.
He understands. He really does. He'd just rather you... minded it. Maybe.
Because. Because so many people throw around the word "family" these days that it's kinda lost some of its meaning to him. He is, after all, fatherless, motherless, and currently siblingless. He remembers what it felt like, vaguely, to have had a biological family, and he remembers, scorchingly clear, how it felt like to lose them.
Except, when the bullets and the spells and the daggers start to fly and you start to bleed, sometimes, whoever bleeds beside you becomes your family too. Sometimes you share the same blood with someone the hard way. Spilled on the dirt by the same fell sword, churned into red mud by the same desperate dodge. Perhaps that is magic on its own. He wouldn't really know. He isn't the Bladian.
When a bullet whizzes past, you cringe, not for yourself, but for whoever it is you're fighting with, hoping that that bullet didn't have their name on it. You start, engagement by engagement, inching yourself closer to taking that bullet for them until one day, you do, and you're not even surprised.
Even if that someone is a ridiculously icy bitch like you. Although come to think of it, he stopped minding that maybe the first month after he first met you.
So he responds with the only thing he really can respond with: gratitude. He's not gonna say any of the things that crossed his mind. In the safety of his head, no one but the ones who live there can think of it as trite. And they wouldn't, anyway.
The Assassin. Lady Swallowtail. A Marquess of Hell. And a dragon who's lost his original soulmate.
Yeah. He's pretty sure they'd all understand.]
... Thanks. You really didn't have to do this. Any of you.
we may have run out of salt
[ She smiles ruefully as she takes her cup and finishes her coffee. Of course, as she sets it back down, she swipes a piece of bacon from Taning's plate. It wasn't fair that he was ignoring the delicious piece of food. ]
OTA, the entire ride.