pawnstorm | Empty chairs at empty tables [closed]

Going by appearances, one might not have even known that Potemkin had heard the news. Indeed, ritzy broadcasted speech aside, the daily workings of the Hall of Heroes had continued on as usual. Birds tweet, maids bustle through the halls replacing vases of wilting luminescent flowers, yellow summer sunlight pours through the window, and Potemkin keeps to himself, currently in the space of his own room. He stands in front of the windowsill as if observing what a lovely day it is.

It's for the better that nobody sees his face. Even just from his body, Dasvidaniya had visibly marked him. Thunderland and Sion had tried their hardest to keep him patched up during the mission, and a team of doctors afterwards, so he had left with a heavily-treated right hand and assorted bandages on his legs, from the Noir soldiers who had gotten shots where he was less able to defend himself. So lost is he, he doesn't notice that someone else has entered the room behind his back.

"You alright?"

Shinn's not interacted much with the big man, but if there's anything he can tell from body language, this guy was pretty shaken up by what happened outside. While he wasn't able to participate in his assigned position in the end due to his injury, Shinn still heard about everything that happened.

"Heard a lot of things went to the crapper out there."

Not a very good liar, even nonverbally, isn't he?

Now is the time for his verbal lying to back up this argument. Potemkin jumps a little - a strange reaction, if he really was tranquil - and faces the roommate who had been there lying in bed. He must have completely passed him by. Potemkin feels foolish but he has to speak up soon before things get awkward.

"Yes!" he says, reverberating with recovering shock. "I mean, no, I would not describe it as a "crapper" mission. But I am alright, thank you."

Yeah, no. He's not. Being a good liar here, but Shinn's going to just roll with it as if he's telling the truth. So he doesn't move much from his current position, still not even trying to make eye contact. But Shinn can sympathize a bit. Trying to look as if nothing's wrong outside after such a catastrophic event is only a natural reaction from most of the soldier he's seen in his life.

"...could've sworn you looked anything near alright physically, but okay. Let's just say that you're mentally okay then."

Potemkin sits there blank-faced for a moment, outplayed and outmaneuvered from his spiel he was going to go into on how these were minor injuries and nothing to impede a Zeppian soldier. He can't argue against him, so he refrains from bringing it up at all. He passes on to Shinn's next point which.

"I...can say that I am better off than most, out of those who were involved in recent events." He can firmly consider that the truth, with so many traumatized and grieving right now.

"...Yeah. Even for an attack, that was really messy."

...Shinn's at least taking that at face value. He's not one to question someone's decisions, after all. But from his next words, it's clear that Potemkin's fiery roommate is actually taking this quite hard too.

"No point, really, involving civilians like that. They should've just attacked us head on. I've seen worse but,"

...

"I don't think the younger Heroes need to live through that kind of experiences. That's why us soldiers are here, to do their dirty work."

Us soldiers. Someone involving himself in his same role, his experience, the one he sometimes arrogantly believed he was alone in, resonates with him. The impact it has to the center of his chest causes his feet to slide, barely, back toward the window, and Potemkin can be seen to slump, like Shinn has removed the supports holding him up. Or maybe he's simply being relieved of weight now that Potemkin's finally dropped the bullshit.

"As soldiers," Potemkin speaks up slowly, unsure of how to start, "Is it really not our fault? When an army causes mass destruction, or takes lives along its path. Of course, it was the attacking force that thinks of such things, but..."

"Partially, yeah, what's not to stop the other side for blaming us from taking away men fighting for their countries from their families? None. Both sides are never right when it comes to war."

Shinn's stare is slightly distant as he said what came next to his mind.

"All there is are senseless and meaningless deaths and sacrifice. It's hard to live through those. I don't want those that haven't experienced wars to have to see the ugly side of humanity that close."

Everything Shinn says has truth behind it, tested and inarguable. Potemkin lets each part sink in, which manage to chill a room open to the summer light by themselves.

"I thought this way of fighting a war was a joke at the beginning. The attacks of Noir, and the powers even the strangest heroes have shown, have proven that this is all serious, but that doesn't make it right." Potemkin seems to be calling for justice, but he sounds defeated before he started talking. He's simply rambling in the face of helplessness.

"It looks as if they tried to damage your knees." She shook her head as she came to join him by the window. Her wounds were harder to tell, with her covering herself from neck to toes in fabric. But she moved slowly, stiffly, clearly sore in body.

It didn't stop her from walking though, even if she hadn't been going to the training yard as much as she usually did.

"Or just your joints." She remarked, her gaze flicking to his face, and over his body. There was nothing lascivious about it; more of an assessment of various injuries. There was a lot of him, and that...meant there was a lot of him to hurt. "You didn't die, did you?"

That was Caren for you. Subtle as a hammer to the face. Or knee.

He slowly turns around, from the window he had been staring through to the strange girl who had walked in and who he had come to associate with unease. Nothing more, and as Potemkin always reminded himself when he started having these thoughts, there are much worse things than unease, but he's not comforted by having someone to talk to.

"My weapon makes it a very attractive option to target what is harder to block with my hands..." he starts saying while she continues to move, intending to only answer her question, but her last inquiry makes him pause.

"No?" That came out as quieter than what he was expecting. Feebler, like he's lost his lead navigating this topic.

It only meant that he had sense. She was creepy, no doubt about it; it was only due to Sion that it was tempered in this room, if only a bit. Though...she had to shake her head a little. Potemkin was a big target, and a bigger shield. It made him a very attractive target. Even if their shared rank meant they wouldn't be hurt easily. It just spoke with how badly they had tried to hurt him.

"I don't think I've seen your weapon in action? Clearly, I should, once you're up for it." She made to lean against the wall by the window, her arms folding under her chest. It might have looked funny, anyone looking in on the two: the giant and the girl. But it wasn't.

"But I wondered. I was curious if I was the only one." Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Apologies if the question was abrupt but...I've been wondering for awhile."

With Caren next to him, Potemkin wants to face out the window again. But, no, there wasn't anything particularly interesting outside. He simply wanted look away, from everything and anything, to stop from these thoughts from continuously assaulting him. And that will show if he did. So he stays, facing the direction she had came to him from. He is acknowledging her but without eye contact.

But 'The only one' makes him uncomfortable, and he can't help but look down and turn to her slightly. "You...died?" He thinks that he should feel sorry for her, but it's so strange of a situation, he's not sure what he does feel.

She did hit him with something rather uncomfortable. She didn't seek out his face, or force him to look into her eyes either. Instead, she was staring out the window. She should have brought seeds, grain. For the birds. They would have liked that.

"Yes. Sion brought me back, the second time. That's why he's been so..." She sighed, and made a motion with her fingers, unable to encompass everything he's been acting. Clingy, distant. In pain. "It was a particular experience. But now we may know something of what Kings are capable."

Revival. Of normal people? That was an unknown, and it had taken a lot to bring her back. Sion and the others couldn't just bring back the lost people. Not by now.

That, that is - Potemkin can't hide it, without words his eyes widen and his mouth makes the barest of a frown - that is miraculous. Not out of the edge of belief, as somehow he's confident that Caren is completely honest, but pushing the very border of it.

"Particular experience, indeed," he says, clearly shaken a little. "I never expected their magic to be so powerful." Or anyone's magic.

Then he realizes the other implication of what she said. "...the second time?"

She had no reason to lie. Not really. Besides, she could easily show him where her skin was still healing, since her body had been pushed to the limits. Too many areas of skin were filled with new pinkish skin.

"It was a shock to me too. Were this home, it would be taken as either a heresay, or a miracle of god." Depending on who did it. She didn't look at his face. She was still watching the birds.

"Yes. Adrasteius revived me the first time. I might have not needed it if it hadn't been for the smog."

Potemkin instantly conjures in his memory the smog she's talking about, so much of it there was in the train. Potemkin had been able to come up with his own solution, his strength allowing him to create emergency ventilation in the cars, but undoubtedly there were many who couldn't escape it in time. He's talking to one of the damned right now. Potemkin had witnessed many horrible ways to die, and even his recent history has given him several new ones. His heart never hardened however (something he held in pride, as an inability to feel would make it worthless), and imagining what it would feel like to go out choking brings out a reaction of horror. Caren may not be paying him attention, but he can't continue ignoring her after hearing that. He faces her, but also starts to crouch and bends his neck down. Now he's not quite as much as a looming front of authority, but almost to the tiny woman's eye level.

"I'm so sorry you experienced that."

She'd been able to beat it once or twice, but not then. Not those times. She'd lost the strength to move, much less punch an airway. But...well. It was what it was, and she lived again, thanks to the magic of others. How long, she did not know, but her body kept moving, kept breathing.

"It's-" She started, and turned her head, noticing then that Potemkin had managed to crouch down and to her eye level. She startled, taking in a small breath of surprise, eyes widening.

However, it only lasted a few seconds, and she calmed, exhaling a soft breath. "It's fine. It's better then I, then other heroes or citizens. And now we've established facts. It could be important, especially if we have battles of similar intensity."

Getting at the level of other people is not something he did often, and he's done it less in this new world where officially no loyalties were declared, nothing sworn to, noone he felt he had to do anything but stand proud to. The few times he had talked to someone this way, it was when a situation had struck him as truly harmless, like sorting things out with an almost blind Peacock. Maybe that's his part of his motivation now, trying more than ever to see Caren as just a young woman who is under his charge as much as anyone else who lived in peace. But mostly he wants to bridge the gap to better give his sympathy, as little as they seem to have in common sometimes.

"A new precedent has been made, yes. But - I don't want to hear about you dying any more. Not another time." Potemkin's words are speeding up, almost on the verge of tripping on top of each other. He's only realizing as he talks that what's driving them is his guilt - in a way, Caren is one of those he's felt this failure towards. But unlike the others, Caren can be talked to.

It had startled her. She hadn't seen his face up close before; too often he was far away his head near hitting the clouds. She wasn't used to people speaking to her face to face, short as she was.

But if she held any unease, she masked it after a few more moments. His words were enough to distract her from anything she felt, to consider him.

She'd upset him. But then she always forgot how people saw the world differently than her.

"I won't speak of it again." She watched his face, his eyes especially. "But I will also tell you I'm not seeking death. So it should be a non issue."

Should. But she would still move forward, still be a shield unasked for.

[ A while after Ryder's announcement, Shinn's just sitting there in the room, being strangely quiet compared to his usual yelling. If there's anything to rile him up, it should be this. But it's strangely so familiar to something back home, and horrifyingly so. History keeps repeating in different places, and as usual, hatred flares up everywhere, whether it's from Ryder's words, or from the citizens themselves.

"GET OUT!" some people said to him earlier. Being unwelcome in several places due to an unfortunate circumstance sure sucked, but it's not something he's not used to, so it didn't faze him much.

They're still reeling from their loss. It's understandable.

So here he is, just nursing his own wound, right arm in a cast as he lies down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. ]

[She's not surprised that he's...well. Rather diminished about it all. Something might have beaten him down again, much like it had been with the dragons and the devastation left in their wake.

But...still, there was a feeling of helplessness. At least, for him; she had done what she could during the Operation.

So she did what came naturally to her: she came up to him, took one look at his face, and gave him a sound whack to the head.]

Geh—!?

[ There's some amount of sputtering as the she made contact with the teen, who clearly was not expecting being whacked while he's on the bed. ]

The heck was that for, you witch!?

Oh, you're not dead. Good.

[Or in a coma. Hey, she didn't whack him on the arm or anything.]

Get up.

Why?

[ More reasons to whack him! No I kid, he's actually getting up. ]

[She doesn't whack him ~~yet~~. But she waits for him to get up, her arms folded over her chest.]

You've had that look in your eye ever since we came back from the trains. I'm sick of seeing it.

[Hey, she gave him time to recover. That was nice?]

You need to eat. Bathe. Not to mention see to some therapy for your arm. Moping around is useless and an eye sore.

[She offers him a sweet smile.]

Unless you want me to smother you in your bed?

What, did you suddenly decide to become my mom or something?

[ He's getting up regardless, but that doesn't mean he's not going to sass his way, consequences be damned. ]

Ah, so you do want me to smother you.

[She grabs his pillow. He's getting up, but this might make him move quicker.]

Hold still.

I'm up, I'm up!

[ Here he is, a soldier back in his homeworld with some renown, and he's being threatened by a nun.

WHAT IS HIS LIFE NOW. ]

Good.

[And nun drops pillow on the bed. Was that so hard?

Also she's terrible, so...there's that too.]

Now, have you eaten?

[And terrifying. He could threaten her but...that just wouldn't go well, small as she is.]

Empty chairs at empty tables [closed]

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