lucetilogs | TERRACE Draft

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TERRACE Draft - Remaining Days

Who: All Draftees
What: All hell breaks loose
When: From the 27th to the 1st.
Where: TERRACE!
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post covers the second to sixth day! Be sure to check the info post on the timeline to know what's up. At 2AM on the 27th, the attack will break out while most people are sleeping. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Some random NPC quotes about the island itself.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

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[ The sight of blood doesn’t faze her like it once did, but Asch’s demeanor did. He was tense and unsettled in a way she’d never really seen him before, and it made her oh so nervous. What could have happened out there to make him feel this way? ]

Do...[ Do you want to talk about it? ] Do you want something to drink?

[It takes a moment for the question to pierce through his funk, and even longer for him to nod his head. He doesn't need much, or even anything fancy; just a bit of liquid to clear his throat and give him something else to focus on.]

[ She disappears for a moment, mind racing, and returns with a cold glass of water in hand and holds it out for him. After a moment’s hesitation, she sits. She intended to stay by his side, and while she didn’t want to pry, she also could not ignore the anguish of someone so close to her heart. ]

[Asch accepts the glass quietly, holding it in silence for a while before he lifts it to take a long drink. It helps, a little, but not the way he'd like. Not that he expected it to.

Her presence does help, and he hadn't expected that either. Any other time he'd have brushed her (and anyone else) aside. And while it isn't as if he wants to talk about it, he just...

...dammit...]

...You don't have to stay. I'm sure there's plenty of people who need your help.

[ She glanced around. There were other wounded in the clinic, but they had been attended to or were currently being attended to. She wouldn't have to feel guilty about staying with him, then. Besides, she wasn't convinced he wasn't hurt - even if it wasn't physically. ]

I can stay. I'd like to keep you company.

[The temptation to brush her off returns with a vengeance; he just wants to wallow in his own misery again, something that is pretty much impossible for him to do comfortably when he has an audience. He hates being seen like this. It grates on his pride and fuels that perpetual self-loathing that he hasn't been able to shake since the replication taught him a lesson in his own worthlessness. He doesn't need her presence here to remind him of how pathetic he must look right now.

He wants to yell, to lose his temper and freak out at her and, most likely, frighten her off. He shouldn't get comfort for this; he shouldn't need it, and he sure as hell doesn't deserve it.

Anyone who can murder their own mother, even as an illusion, is nothing more than a monster, after all.]

No one... asked you to do that.

[It doesn't come out as harsh or fierce as he'd like. His voice is strained, half-hitched and uncertain. He doesn't even know what he wants anymore.

Except forget. He knows he wants that- the one thing he absolutely won't get.]

I'm doing it because I want to.

[ She says it softly, kindly, but without a moment's hesitation. She was sitting here because she wanted to be, she was with him because she wanted to be. Asch was someone very, very dear to her heart, and while he suffered, she couldn't sit by idly and ignore it when she felt like she could help.

She reaches out, to set a hand on his shoulder or his knee, but thinks better of it for the moment, letting her hand drop back into her lap. ]

I'm here for you, Asch.

[His gaze drifts fleetingly to her hand, having seen it lift, then away once more. It's for the best; he's probably a mess, bloody and miserable and in much need of a shower, and she's so... pure, for lack of a less cliche term. She's good and fair and kind and he stabbed his mother. People like them shouldn't mix.

Still, her presence is soothing. He's just wary of coming to rely on it when he knows that it isn't one that he can keep- when he has to get over this and return to the front lines. It isn't as if the war will pause until he gets over this.

If he ever does. That remains to be seen.]

...Thank you.

[It's faint this time, almost inaudible; not a phrase he says often, or easily. But what else is there to say, at this point?

He can't count the number of people he's killed over the course of his life, doing the work he does, but he hasn't felt the weight of his title since he was a child. It's a more harsh burden than he remembers.]

[ She watches him carefully, still slightly bewildered at seeing him like this at all. He was so...distraught. And she wanted to know why. She wanted to help him, offer him advice. But it didn’t seem right to ask, and she wouldn’t pry. Not when she couldn’t be sure if it would do more harm than good. ]

What do you need?

[ She didn’t know what else to offer. But whatever he needed, she would do her best to comply with. ]

[He closes his eyes at that, his hands tensing around the glass he's holding. What does he want? Besides his old life, his old memories, the world he'd just destroyed to be free again? Besides a life cycle of death that he's apparently doomed to enjoy until he goes back to his world and dies for real?

...Ugh. He feels sick, his hand trembling a little. He can still feel his mother's blood on his face, even though it had disappeared when she did.]

Nothing, unless your hair can magically erase memories or something.

[ She doesn't hesitate this time, reaching out to set a gentle hand on his knee. Her hands were shaking, but not because she was nervous. She was scared, for him. What had happened that he wanted to forget? Whatever it was, it had clearly taken its toll. ]

No, it can't. [ Reflexively, her other hand tucks her hair behind her ear, a note of regret in her voice. ] Though...I'm starting to wish it could.

[ If her hair could heal minds, maybe Asch wouldn't be suffering right now. And maybe...she could forget the horrors she had seen here.

But... ]

...But is forgetting really better?

[He does nothing for a long moment, then quietly opens his eyes, glancing down at the hand on his knee. There are a select few that he'd accept comfort from that, even after changing so much in the last few years; it's honestly surprising, that she'd be one of them. He wonders if she has any idea.

Finally, finally he looks over at her again, trying to will his emotions back to the corner of his mind, the way he'd always done - where they belong. Where they're safe.]

It can't possibly be worse.

[ She wanted to have a sound response to that, a piece of hopeful advice she could give. But in all honesty, she was feeling the weight of everything come down on her, too. On the one hand, she regretted that, the fact that she couldn't say something brimming with hope and encouragement. But on the other hand, the thought of such words felt false on the back of her tongue. He didn't need to hear how everything was going to get all better. He didn't. ]

Maybe. [ It could or it couldn't. Maybe it depended on the person. That was beside the point. ] But memories make us who we are.

[He wants to laugh at that, bitterly and without humour, but doing that to her would be cruel. She's just trying to help him; it's not her fault that he's someone who really can't be helped at all.]

That's no comfort to people who don't like who they are.

...I like who you are.

[ The words are softly murmured, said more on instinct than on thought. ]

Do you want to talk about it?

...Not at all.

[Honestly, he can't think of anything he'd want less than that just now. But it was kind of her to ask.]

I understand what you're trying to do. It's not that I don't... appreciate the effort. [He can't look at her, though, so he's not sure how sincere his words may seem. They feel hollow in his mouth.] But I'm too close to it right now. I'd rather not discuss it.

[ She nods, understanding. Talking it out wasn't everyone's way of coping; she'd learned that well, especially from Asch. ]

Okay. But if you ever need to, I'll be here for you.

...Yeah. I'll remember that.

[He can't thank her again, not right now. He can't think of a good reason to be kind or comfortable with anyone at this moment, when he'd had so little hesitation in killing the one he knew he loved the most in the world. He doesn't feel particularly grateful for anything.]

[ If he didn't want to talk about it, maybe she could try the opposite - distracting him from what was plaguing him. It was tempting to talk about what she'd been going through, but that seemed shallow. She thought they'd need something far removed from this draft altogether. ]

Have I ever told you about the Snuggly Duckling?

[There's a pause, and then he glances up, quietly surprised. The topic change isn't unwelcome, though, so after the moment passes he shakes his head.]

I don't think so, no.

[ She takes that as an invitation to keep going. ]

It was the first place I visited after I left my tower. Don't be fooled by the name - it was a pub full of scoundrels and thugs. [ A light smile plays at her lips as she says it, though. ]But I ended up meeting some amazing people there.

...Amazing scoundrels and thugs?

[It earns her the tiniest of eyebrow lifts; it's a reaction, if nothing else. Conversations with Asch tend to be a series of small victories when they go well.]

[ At least she's got his attention, if only marginally. ]

I wasn't expecting it either. My mother spent so many years telling me about how awful people were out in the world that I was terrified at first. But it turned out a little understanding goes a long way.

They had dreams, just like I did.

[...Hah.]

Even terrible people have dreams sometimes.

[He's been there, he knows it well.]

That's true. They do. [ Gothel had been one of them. Her dream was nothing but selfish, and Rapunzel saw it for what it truly was now. ]

But sometimes terrible people have good dreams, too. They just don't know how to reach them.

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