Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

[snowblindmods]

Characters: red-marked characters and their new friends
Location: ???
Date: Morning 354, Morning and Day 355
Summary: A quiet morning and a confusing morning, or maybe they're both, or maybe they're neither.
Warnings: gore, psychological horror, warn for specifics in the subject lines

Part Four OOC Post
Part Five OOC Post

Comments

[sleight_of_fate]

Not sure, honestly. But I would rather talk about just about anything, than see you bust yourself up. This place is already terrible.

[He takes a slow breath, trying to decide what would be better. Anything would be better, but he can decide on something specific, he's sure.]

There's a lot of empty space here and it fills up with loss, and pain, and fear. We're already hurting so that's what it fills up with.

[warriorscribe]

It fills with what we're handed. I don't know if there's a way to make happiness out of this.

[He's been told he should make his own happiness. The angels were never very good at tact. He doesn't know how, and they couldn't teach him.]

[sleight_of_fate]

This place gives us sadness.

We have to try and find something else with the little bit of good we do have. The people that are worth saving. Maybe...maybe hang in long enough to go someplace good after all.

[warriorscribe]

[The people he cares about. Ginger, this Rhys, Wilson, John. Brian, chaos. Angel, the other Rhys (our Rhys, he had instinctively called him in conversation with...)

Beckett.

Is he good enough for any of them? He's hoping. It's the last bit of hope he has, in their goodness and ability. But right now, in this cell, with his autonomy compromised in a way more thorough than it ever should have been, with his body and will having been twisted into weapons to hurt people and nothing to do but watch the aftermath unfold before his eyes...]

I would do anything to save them.

[sleight_of_fate]

[Rhys smiles quietly. There's people here that he would give a lot for, but he still has a hard time feeling like it's home. Rome wasn't built in a day, though, blah blah. He's been here for, what? Three months now? It's hard to build a life on that.

He'd just happened to be feeling particularly disposable when he got here.]

They're good people. Most of them are, I think. This place managed to pick a lot of us that are fucked up somehow, but not always the bad kind of fucked up, just...

[He waves vaguely. Maybe he understands. Not bad. Just hurt. Sad. Broken.]

[warriorscribe]

I understand.

[He can't deny he came in damaged. It was the town capitalizing on its source that began his downward spiral here, months ago. Almost a year. He's lost some time but he's pretty sure they were closing in on a year.]

I'm-...I think I would rather face this place, even as I am, if it meant someone else could live an uneventful life.

[He tenses against the barrier, pushing himself up again. For the moment, though, he only stares at it, motivation lagging behind physical strength.]

[sleight_of_fate]

[Rhys isn't even sure what he wants, anymore. He was lost before he came here. When he arrived, he'd hoped, even without his powers, that it would be a chance to make a difference, but now, he's not sure.

He's trying, though. He's trying so hard. It's not his fault that life keeps putting him back here. In this same Cell, it seems, at times.]

"When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day".

[The recitation is slightly slurred, but fairly on-point.]

[warriorscribe]

[Giving him something to think about is a good way to keep him calm. He goes quiet as he listens to Rhys, closing his eyes and letting the meaning, the feeling of the piece sink in.]

The strength of charity, as God's own grace to those who need it.

[He knows it for the abstract it is, God's grace. That more often than not, it is only humanity which reaches it and God has sworn Himself to peaceful inaction - but striving for something outside oneself is a powerful motivator. It is a misconception everyone needs.]

[sleight_of_fate]

[The funny thing is, Rhys doesn't even believe in God. Not the "Big G" sort.

But he tries to believe in some kind of light, something beyond. At least for the good people. He already knows what's waiting for him after he dies, and there's comfort in knowing, even if it's not Elysium.

Maybe he'll get to hang out with some virtuous pagans from time to time. That would be cool by him.]

I stopped believing in God a long time ago, traded it in for all the little gods we make for ourselves, but...gotta be a light somewhere.

I've seen enough to know that.

[warriorscribe]

There is.

[There's something soothing in being able to confidently say something, anything, to someone here. Something that tells him he is, in this, able to even have that confidence still.]

And if whatever you believe encourages you to make yourself as much like that light as possible, it doesn't matter what form it takes.

[sleight_of_fate]

[It's funny, he supposes. Knowing there's a light, but that it's not for him.

But there's still something.

Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.

]

Sorry. M'kinda tired.

But you're right. And I appreciate it.

Anything we can hold onto here is important.

[warriorscribe]

Anything...

[Like, maybe, the will to resist. He can only manage a weak shoulder check into the unyielding barrier, and he drops to his knees. His mind hasn't given up, but his body needs more time than it is willing to give.]

...We're all tired. We- we don't have far to go. If we can escape Miller now, we don't have far to go.