[OPEN] Catch-all!

[bemist]

WHO: Gebura and YOU
WHAT: Catch-all!
WHERE: Anywhere and everywhere
WHEN: Covering September-December (for the times when neither of us tled, how could we)
WARNINGS: Likely violence, spoilers for Library of Ruina, suicide attempt, will edit if anything else pops up




[ Please just shoot me a quick PM if you'd like a starter, we can work something out! ]

Comments

you and peace are so turbo

[newphew]

[ there is hunter!! just tentatively standing there with his hands in his unfashionable pockets. awkwardly ]

... Hey. Sorry.

[ mumbled, and ready to disappear if told to. he doesn't quite ask for permission, but: ]

I wanted to ask you something. ... Personal.

don't aspire to this

[bemist]

...

You want to ask me something personal.

[ slowly, as though she is not quite sure she heard him right. ]

i couldnt even if i tried

[newphew]

[ he slouches a bit further as she says it ]

Yeah. I....

[ rubs the back of his head ] It's about the stuff in the desert. [ aka: the memshare, if she wants an out, or if she wants to maybe shuffle somewhere with him to have this convo more privately ]

[bemist]

..........

[ You know what, she's just going to step aside to let him come in. ]

Depending on how much you want to know, you may not get the answers you want.

[newphew]

[ he slips inside, waiting for the door to be closed before he actually says anything more. with a cursory little look around gebura's room ]

... I don't want to pry too much. I-- I shouldn't have even been there in the first place. [ in her memories. not that anyone really had any control over it ]

[ but there's obviously something on his mind here ]

[bemist]

That's true enough. But you were. [ And there's no point in regretting it now. ]

So what did you want to know?

[ I'd like to say her room is decorated, but no. Very bare bones. There's a few assorted items on her desk, Mimicry propped up in a corner.

Riveting! ]

[newphew]

[ that's fine, hunter's room is pretty bare too ]

[ he nods in response to her first statement -- there's no changing what happened, what he saw. he seems to be struggling a lil in how to articulate this, but, eventually: ]

Those people in the memory... they were your family, right? Or... something close to?

[bemist]

... Something close to it, yeah. They'd looked after me until I could look after myself.

[ The closest thing to a family she had. ]

[newphew]

But it was a lie, right? They betrayed you.

[ he sounds like he's leading up to something with this, and probably not just rubbing salt in the wound ]

[bemist]

Yeah. I gave them a little money when I started working as a Fixer, and they assumed they meant I was hiding a lot more. So they broke in and tied me up while they tried to find it.

[ Her tone is a little flat, almost monotonous. ]

[newphew]

[ his voice softens ]

.... You didn't deserve that.

[ he's still working up to what he wanted to actually talk about, but even if it seems... obvious to state.... he doesn't want to just breeze past that ]

[bemist]

It doesn't matter whether I did or not. [ On an exhale. ]

In the end, nothing changed. That's just how people in the City are--victims until they have the means to be perpetrators.

[newphew]

It matters. [ to him.... ]

[ he's quiet for a bit, then, finally: ]

How can you trust anyone after that?

[bemist]

I can't. [ Not "won't." Not "don't." ]

Maybe to an extent, I can have some level of trust. But inevitably, I start thinking there's no guarantee someone I care about, outside of my colleagues who went through hell with me, won't do that again. And it'll be on me if I believed in them completely.

[newphew]

Your colleagues from home, you mean? [ or from here? ]

[ otherwise he just... nods, quietly ]

[bemist]

From home, yeah. You could say ten thousand years of being stuck together does eventually mean you're bound to trust them.

[newphew]

[ he keeps meaning to ask his question but that--- makes his eyes widen ]

Ten thousand?

[bemist]

Ten thousand. We didn't age, obviously. Not physically.

[ Well, they were also machines. ]

[newphew]

How is that possible?

[ even belos was only like 400 years old ]

[bemist]

Technology and Singularities. Which is usually the answer to any question about something that should be impossible. In actuality, only ten years passed for the outside.

[newphew]

[ he is having a hard time wrapping his head around this, but.... ]

.... Your realm sounds.... complicated.

[ to say the least ]

Though I suppose time travel exists in the Demon Realm, so...

[ who is he to question anything ]

[bemist]

It's not something most know about it, so you're right.

[ Complicated is one way to put it, certainly. ]

[newphew]

How do you... Keep going? When so much time has passed where you were, but then you get back, and it's only been 10 years?

[ he really can't wrap his head around it ]

[bemist]

You just keep going. It's not like I could have gone back to how things were. There weren't people who missed me, anyway.