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 Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2014 5:45 am
She had taken him home and wrapped him in a blanket and Zippeite had not powered up since. He stayed Cassidy Bresner and stayed there. I don't want to go out, I don't want to do anything, I just want to lay here was his mantra response to any invitations.
He did attempt to indulge in her offer of video games, but he wasn't very good at it. He played like he was still half asleep and then after she won or got bored, he laid back down and pulled the covers over his head.
But in what seemed like a stationary haze of being was actually plagued with his mental thoughts racing. Up and down on great highs of delusion and devastating lows of self loathing and depression. Reasoning and excuses and rewrites of history that were eventually washed over with crippling reality as he stayed in Gently Ponsonby's apartment being doted on like a lobotomized pet and trying to reason out how he could possibly go on, and did he even want to.
Life with Gently was easy. It was the sort of consequence free and immature living that had been attractive to him when he was a fourteen year old idiot who thought the Negaverse fought aliens and life had endless possibilities. Ostensibly, he felt like this should have made him happy, and so in his haze as he occasionally tried to step out of his comfort zone and participate in it again, he found himself confused and frustrated when it didn't. Reckless indulgence didn't offer any more thrills and after some crushing trial and error he came to the conclusion that while Painite's care and affection might have been genuine, their lifestyle was not.
She was out for the night, and he had gotten up in the late evening with a purpose. He left her a note that didn't do much in the way of explanation.
I'm sorry, Gently.
But it's not real.
Bye.
He planned on writing more, but nothing came out. He had briefly debated facing her in person and trying to explain himself, maybe even attempt to get her to come with him, but all endings he could envision ended with drawing her anger and being run through with a spear. Painite was an excellent partner when you were both buying in to the same delusion, but he could recognize fragility, because the same thing resonated in him too, and it was an ugly piece of themselves that didn't take well to reality creeping in.
He powered up that night and left with what little precious things he thought to take along carefully kept in his pockets. The captain started in a familiar meeting place and began an ambling pace to comb the area, in search of a familiar Cosmos squire he anticipated could help with his chosen solution.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:15 am
To Zippeite, the place where he went was 'where he had met Hvergelmir twice before.' To Hvergelmir, on the other hand, the place where she'd encountered the young captain was 'on the way home,' and also 'near the 24-hour froyo place.' She'd been on her way home, still in uniform, enjoying a large cup of yogurt that was actually mostly toppings and only slightly yogurt -- and that was when she's felt the Chaos aura in her vicinity. It seemed to be circling, sort of, like it was going around the block. Then it came near and stopped. She closed the distance on her own, turning a corner. "Zippeite," she said quietly. "Hi." It had been a while. Their last meeting had gone so poorly, she'd botched it so incredibly badly -- Hvergelmir hadn't expected to see him again. But here he was.
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Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:43 pm
"Hi..." Zippeite said, freezing in place with his shoulders stiff in his stance.
He glanced to her cup of toppings, and then to her face, then down to his boots. His stomach suddenly felt full of rocks as he considered he could still take back the whole endeavor. Gently probably hadn't returned home to find the note and if she had, he could laugh it off as a prank.
He was silent as he considered where the point of no return would be and if this was it, if he was willing to jump past this barrier.
And then he inhaled as if that could inflate his chest so he wasn't slumping so badly and with all of his mustered ability to speak up, he forced himself to make eye contact, fists tightly clenched at his sides.
"I've been doing a lot of thinking," He said with such force it sounded almost like an announcement. His voice cracked into hoarseness from a lack of use, and he realized he hadn't spoken much in the last few days. "I... I uh..."
He swallowed and his brow sunk as he tried to think of what to say. "I'd like your help."
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Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 4:29 pm
The first thing Hvergelmir did was look for some place to set down her froyo. She was generally a touchy-feely kind of person, and even without context, someone asking her for help might as well have been an invitation for her to enter their personal space. She plunked the cup of sugar down on a nearby newspaper box and approached, reaching out slowly to try and rest a hand on Zippeite's upper arm. He looked frightened. Well, he always looked frightened. That was nothing new. He looked like he could use a hug, too. "Of course I'll help," she said with conviction, blithely not thinking about what she was going to do if he asked for her help with something that she was morally oposed to. In her mind, she didn't think past the point where someone wanted help and they wanted it from her. "Are you okay?" He didn't look okay; she wondered what had happened. He looked sort of shellshocked.
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Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 6:21 pm
Zippeite flinched at her physical contact and displayed a smile that was so forced it looked almost pained instead of a small gesture of apology like he meant it to be.
His fingers found a small pocket in his jacket pocket and fumbled with tracing the small object within it as a reminder. Unable to turn it in, or use it or consume it, this last week he had held on to and often stared at the glowing starseed he had pulled from Marcel's chest.
He remembered how Hvergelmir's explanation of what it was finally clicked in the days after the man's death, and how it had become an invaluable object. He knew eventually it would fade away, maybe back to the cauldron where it came from, but until then he had done his best to keep it from being crushed or taken.
And now he needed it to remind himself that there was already nothing to go back to, so he might as well just spit it out.
"I want..." He took another deep inhale to inflate his lungs again, and tried really hard not to puke. "Camelot said he could purify me if I came to find him. I... need someone to come with me, though."
It felt weird to just come right out and say it, and it didn't really feel very believable. He had operated with heavy weight since making his decision and had tried very hard to get himself up and out and gone and to accomplish this he operated with enough purpose to fight off his lethargy.
But just saying the words, it didn't feel like he would believe him. They were way too easy to say.
"I don't really uh... I don't know anyone very well who isn't Chaos and when my memory gets fried, I guess... I guess I don't really trust anyone else to make sure nothing... bad happens to me..."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:56 am
It always stung to have her affections rejected -- even when it was by someone who couldn't really be blamed for his discomfort. Zippeite's awkward attempt at a smile just told her what a bad state he was in, how confusing he found the concept. That didn't make her inclined to pull away, though. Instead, she brought up her other hand to brush her fingers over his temple. "For that," she told him, "I would go with you to the ends of the Earth." The prospect that this lost boy wanted to come home to the fold was heartening -- but Hvergelmir was worried. It was an abrupt decision, it seemed -- and he seemed to be jumping in with both feet, not exactly in the best state of mind. What had happened? What kind of position would he be left in, once he came out of the other end of a purification with half of his memories gone? "Do you want to talk about it? I know it may not seem like it right now, but -- once you forget things, you won't know what you lost. You might not understand your decision, then, and it might help to have someone who knows what happened. If people in the Negaverse are the only ones who have any idea why you decided to leave, it would be . . . easy for them to lie to you."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 9:24 am
"They don't know why," Zippeite countered with a little bit of fire in his voice. "Painite thinks everything is fine, she has no idea I left tonight, and with any luck she won't ever figure it out. When you switch sides you get... I mean people don't recognize you, right? No one knows why, and no one's going to know."
His gloved fingers fumbled with the little object in his pocket again.
"There's nothing to go back to, no matter what," He said with a firm nod. "That's all you need to know. No matter what they say, no matter how good they claim it is or how much is just waiting over the horizon there, there's nothing to go back to. Nothing important to me. They can make all the claims they want but what's... what was important is gone. And I just need to be reminded."
He had been told, often and repeatedly, that with his civilian life burned to the ground there was nothing stopping him from being 100% dedicated to his general and the Negaverse.
He had been trying really hard to stick to that idea, and make himself believe it was true. But it wasn't. It was more hollow than ever and the more he had been told that he had rid himself of dead weight holding him back the more he realized he had lost everything he was hoping to go back to.
"I've been in the Negaverse since I started high school," He started to explain. "And I guess I never really saw... how much I missed. I never hung out with friends that weren't in the Negaverse, I never went a school dance or did any dumb high school teenager things. I never learned any skills or got a job or got my first car, none of that. And now, this year I turned eighteen. I graduated. My mom died. And my mentor is fawning over my future. My family's gone, and I have no one but them. I grew up with them, for them, and they're all I've got.
"But they're all liars," He said. "I need to start over. I need to try again. So..." He paused and gulped down rising anxiety, even as he attempted to display conviction, "I'm going to take this chance and I'm gonna do it. I just uh... I just wanted someone I could trust not to lie to me to... come with me."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 3:20 pm
And no one's going to know.Whatever it was that had happened, his mother dying -- no doubt a crucial piece -- was only part of it, and he had no intention of telling her the rest. That worried her -- if he left the answers with no one, he might start tomorrow with a gaping hole in his mind where his conviction should've been. But if he was determined to see this through, she wasn't sure she should stop him. I'd go with you even to the ends of the Earth, she'd just told him. She had to stand by that. The last thing she needed was people afraid to talk with her because she was acting like purification needed gatekeepers to tell some people they weren't allowed to have at it. And hadn't all Vespa's problems recently stemmed from his desire to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, from what she'd heard? Wasn't there some risk in delaying, in letting more people in on things? Hadn't Bischofite's purification gone to hell from a surfeit of people? "Alright," she said. "I won't lie to you, and I won't let any of our people hurt you. I'll protect you as much as my oath allows. I'll take care of the rest." Hvergelmir patted the front and sides of her dress uselessly -- she hadn't yet figured out a place on her costume where she could store something to send messages with. "I don't suppose you have pen and paper?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:20 pm
"No, why?"
Zippeite had been woefully and willfully ignorant of the mechanics of the other factions, but he did remember a knight explaining the message system to him before, and he suddenly shifted his posture.
"Oh. To message Camelot?"
He cleared his throat and looked around. His entire demeanor shifted. The stiff shoulders and flared nostrils of teenage boy conviction had been traded off for a weird and shifty behavior that seemed almost guilty and suspicious.
"I think he's at the library but before him, there's someone I need to talk to. If I really am going to disappear I just uh... I need to make a stop first on the way."
He cleared his throat and a very faint heat rose to his cheeks as he tugged on his uniform collar.
"A civilian, not an officer. but."
Deep inhale, deep exhale, and then he powered down.
His shaggy hair needed to be pushed out of his face and the threadbare t-shirt he had worn tonight had been used and abused to a special softness you only got through effort. Cassidy Bresner the unassuming even if a bit angry looking sometimes teenager in every way.
"If I'm definitely going to disappear and never be uh," He gestured up and down at himself, "This person again then I need to tell her good bye."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:49 pm
Hvergelmir relaxed visibly, lowering her hands to her sides. If he knew where to find Camelot, that was a good sign he'd had friendly relations with him before, beyond just the alleged offer of purification. And if he was willing to power down in front of her -- it was a show of extreme trust. But most of all, it was reassuring to know that he had a human connection he still wanted to reach out to -- someone he wanted to leave a piece of himself with, even just symbolically. If he wouldn't confide in Hvergelmir, a stranger, maybe whomever the woman was that he knew as a civilian, he'd be willing to entrust his secrets to her instead. She probably could've likewise powered down to travel with him. Hvergelmir didn't imagine there was much danger to her identity at this point -- he'd already outed himself -- but she couldn't help but remember the way he'd been fidgeting with something in his pocket as they spoke. If it was a communication crystal, if he'd been broadcasting everything they said . . . the last thing she needed was to out her own identity along with leading poor Camelot into a trap. "Alright," she said, reassuring. "That's a good idea. Lead the way. I'll give you some space when we get there, if you want."
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Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 8:41 pm
He powered back up, suddenly feeling blind without the ability to sense auras, and gave a bit of a nod. His breathing took on a shaky quality, but one of sudden excitement and adrenaline as he turned and started walking in the direction of Lydia's house.
Something was going to change tonight no matter what.
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