Empty chairs at empty tables [closed]

[showsnopiety]

Who: Q 108 Roomanates
When: After Ryder's announcement, before the intro
Where: Halls of Glory, room Q 108
What: Four heroes try to press on after the Operation. Sort of.
Rating: PG so far, maybe more for mentions of death and suffering.



[They still lived together. And the results of the Operation had been...unpleasant. Death, suffering, torture of a sorts; even Caren, who enjoyed some of these things, had been left confused and off balance.

Some of them went to Lasker and back. But they came back, time after time, to this room. To the dorm.

And they had to face each other, and the things they had done.]

Comments

[burlyheart]

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.

[showsnopiety]

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.

[burlyheart]

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?"

[showsnopiety]

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."

[burlyheart]

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."

[showsnopiety]

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."

[burlyheart]

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.

[showsnopiety]

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.