and they carried on like long division

[imatreenow]

Who: Silver and Mithos and maybe probably joined by Sayo at some point
What: ...who knows, honestly. Something akin to "bonding" except it's kind of awkward and one-sided-ly hostile.
When: August 14th-20th
Where: Building 2, room 1; the garden outside House 11
Summary: Frey takes a week off to cope with Kaori's departure and Silver steps in to assume his responsibilities of keeping an eye on Mithos. Things happen.
Rating: PG

Comments

[tsuntrader]

To truly understand, I'd have to be you.

[imatreenow]

...No. Kaori understood. [A certain distance echoes emptily in his voice. He suddenly wishes he hadn't used the past tense. She's gone but, somewhere out there, she still understands. She just doesn't know it, and it makes her understanding hurt more than it helps.]

[tsuntrader]

[...That prompts silence out of him, at least for a moment.

...But when the moment passes...] Don't say it in the past tense.

[imatreenow]

How is it any better in the present tense? She's still gone, and no words can change that!

[tsuntrader]

[...Sigh.]

She's not gone. She's right there. [He points at... Mithos. Right at his heart.]

1/2

[imatreenow]

[In his heart.....just like...]

[imatreenow]

What good does that do me? [He shoves Silver's finger aside.]

I can't talk to her...I can't see her! I can't-- [hold her hand. hold her. be with her. He shakes his head sharply. In there, she'll fester. She'll fill him with an aching longing for the past, which he already can't turn his eyes away from.]

[tsuntrader]

You can water her flowers, you can keep her kind words close to heart, and you care for the things she cared about. You can think about the fact that you got the rare, fated chance to meet her in the first place. [...] What else can you call meeting someone in Luceti, anyway? A slim to none chance, that's what.

That's what good it does you.

[imatreenow]

That has never been enough. [When someone that important enters your life and your life is stretched to new dimensions, it can never retain its original shape and the empty space left behind will never quite be filled. It will always have been better if they had just stayed.

He'd always kept Martel's kind words close, cradled at the core of his heart as the walls caved in around it. He'd done what he thought needed to be done to honor her wishes, and in doing so twisted everything she cared about beyond recognition. He never once stopped cherishing that he had been given so loving a sister in so harsh a world.

He clung to all this to a fault. To the point where he wouldn't be able to let go. To the point where memories became as painful as they were essential to existing, to the point where obsession and ritual left him hungrier by the year.

Kaori's absence is less visceral, but it won't be easier. Endless thoughts and memories, could-have-beens and never-knows, will never amount to more than a cold husk of her companionship.]

[tsuntrader]

Of course not. Moving forward and living is too. Otherwise you'll just end up being eaten alive by your past.

[imatreenow]

I'm sick of hearing that, like it's really a choice I have!

[tsuntrader]

You do. You just have to believe in it.

But no one can make you do that except for you.

[imatreenow]

[He shakes his head, wondering - for far from the first time - why Silver would even care at all if he's happy or miserable. It rejects all logic.] You're wrong. Even if I wanted to...

[At this point he wonders if he can even argue that he doesn't want to...but somewhere inside he's afraid to let go of the past. What if the past becomes all he has of people he cares about? When he thinks like this, there's a distorted something-like-comfort in knowing he will never learn how to change anyway.

By now, they've arrived at the house and the garden is visible from the edge of the road.]

[tsuntrader]

You kept your entire planet from falling apart, but you still don't believe that you can do anything you put your mind to? You really are stupid.




[...Right. Garden. He didn't bring Mithos here to argue with him. He brought him here for this.]

[imatreenow]

I used to believe that...but there are some things that nobody can change, no matter what.

[He breaks off from Silver to slowly walk around the perimeter of the garden to the other side, with the solemn manner of a worshiper entering a church. His eyes roam the rows of plants, desperate for something, but he doesn't know what.]

[tsuntrader]

[Wrong. But he doesn't comment this time, instead giving Mithos the space to look through the garden that he can appreciate far, far more than Silver ever could.]

[imatreenow]

[In the silence, Silver melts away. By the time he reaches the other side of the garden, he realizes: being here without her, it is not the same place. The spaces her body once filled with tender work now only hold ghosts of memories. It feels empty despite being so overwhelmingly full. It's just a garden, a patch of dirt hosting plants, yet it can never be just that.

He sinks to his knees beside a rock just outside the garden's border, at the spot where he'd given Kaori her birthday gift. He sets his bag on the ground next to him, eyes never leaving the flowers as he just breathes.]

[tsuntrader]

[...Great. Silver quietly moves to the other side of the garden. He touches a couple of the flowers along the way; he can't quite recall the names of them, but he knows them well from Kaori, from Shiemi... From seeing the garden every day as he heads out, early in the morning.

-Right, focus. ...Or at least focus a little.] Don't just stare at them. It's rude.

[imatreenow]

[He tenses as Silver comes closer. An intruder, unwanted. His voice comes out softer than he intends, blunted by the loss that permeates his bones.] ...Shut up.

[He reaches into his bag, eyes drifting from trowel to gloves to watering can, all so insignificant, so meaningless, pausing on the panpipes he'd tucked away. His fingers brush against them, hesitant.]

[tsuntrader]

[The softness of that statement catches Silver off guard. He debates speaking anyway... But he'll give Mithos a moment.]

[imatreenow]

[Slowly, he extracts the pipes. Raw memories wash ashore, breaking on the inside of his eyes - the way Kaori had smiled when he played for her and it was how it's supposed to be. His heart rattles, seeds in a parched husk. His eyes ache.

He stares down at the pipes in his hands. He wants to be alone. He wishes he could be small and hidden and safe to shatter at the softest touch of the past. Martel's music, something he hates to share with just anyone... But he needs this right now.]

[tsuntrader]

[What... What in the world are those? He tilts his head a little as Mithos pulls out the pipes. He's too musically inept to begin to recognize that it's for music, let alone know what it is.]

[imatreenow]

[Head bowed as if in prayer, he closes his eyes to try to erase Silver from beside him. It isn't hard, with memories fogging the air and lonely-lost emptiness suffocating him, all demanding to be inhaled. He lifts the pipes to his mouth, takes a breath, and exhales the first note.

It's the song he had been playing the first time he met her. It was an accident that she heard him, and he remembers wondering if it was a mistake to bare himself, and now he knows it was anything but. The melody is slow, peaceful - but beneath the serene surface churns a yearning for something that can't be reached. He tries to wrap himself in the music. It's a security blanket that can't be pulled around him tightly enough.]

[tsuntrader]

[Silver quietly listens to him. On one hand, he doesn't understand music. It's hard for him to properly appreciate it.

On the other hand, it's strange to hear someone so sad, so angry, so unstable play something so soft and soothing. Mithos...]

[imatreenow]

[Don't think about anything. Don't think about how much it hurts don't think about all the missing pieces don't think about it don't think. Just wedge yourself into the spaces between the notes, curl up, and be. He can never reach the point where it all vanishes, but with the well-worn tune of days long gone he can at least come a few steps closer to it.

He doesn't want to stop. Instinctively he knows nothing will be different when he re-opens his eyes; he'll just remember again. He plays as he always does when he's alone, repeating entire sections to draw the song out longer and let himself hide a little more. He does nothing about the unannounced tears that slip down his face; his hair gives an adequate veil.

It has to end eventually, though. The final note dies. He lowers the pipes and his eyes open reluctantly. With the back of his hand, he wipes quietly at his face. He doesn't lift his head. Nothing to acknowledge that Silver is there, even as his existence presses into the back of Mithos's neck.]