#thread: aftermath

[mockiatto]

Aftermath [OPEN]

Open TOA starter!

The Ethereal Party was a smashing success! That said, perhaps it was a bit too smashing… the reception hall and parts of the surrounding campus are looking worse for wear with how littered the ground is with broken decorations, spilled punch, and trampled cat-ear headbands. When only a few students stepped forward to volunteer their help, the administration decided to up their game and hand-pick a few “struggling” students to help out with the cleaning, hoping that the good deed will help them see the inherent value in performing good deeds. Whether those students take the lesson to heart, or even need the lesson at all, is another story…

Jakob couldn't leave this to just the students. He hadn't even been there for the all too lively party that left such a mess but he still scrubbed at the floor, scowling as he tried to mop up a dried patch of spilled fruit punch.

It felt more like a crime scene to him than the remains of a ball. Perhaps that was his own bias against messes.

For heaven's sake, it made Dwyer's bedroom look like a sanctuary of cleanliness by comparison.

"Why was any of this left to set and dry?" he grit his teeth, kneeling down with a rag to furiously finish off the stubborn spill. "Absolute negligence. Incompetence. Thinking some handful of inexperienced whelps who caused this mess would care to clean it..."

He'd clean it all himself if he had to, just so Corrin wouldn't step in spilled refreshments or bits of glass. Was she still in the habit of going around barefoot? That made him work all the harder, only glancing up as someone passed by.

"You there, have you an ounce of respect for your own campus? Get busy."

[amnesiac-pawn]

Aftermath (Closed: Morgan and Inigo)

It had been a long time since Morgan felt fear like this.

How does one describe the pain they feel, seeing two of their closest friends at each other’s throats? How does one describe the terror that grips at their heart when such a phrase shifts from metaphor into reality?

Morgan can’t.

For once, he has no more words.

Even when instinct causes him to lunge forward, ready to throw himself in front of his brother to stop this stupid fight, he can’t speak. Even when a familiar pair of arms wraps around his torso to hold him back, his tongue is stilled. Even when a soft voice whispers, “Don’t, Morgan, they need to settle this on their own,” his mind draws to a blank.

He watches as Laurent’s fingers wrap around his brother’s neck.

He says nothing to stop it.

Their eyes lock, all pain and sorrow and fear and guilt, and just like that, it’s all over and Inigo is retreating to lick his wounds. The arms wrapped around him, holding him in place, finally let him go; his legs are moving before his thoughts catch up with the rest of him.

Inigo doesn’t even make it quite back to his dorm before Morgan is on his tail. The door bursts open, revealing a tearful young prince, on the verge of absolute breakdown at any second.

Quivering lips part.

Finally, he finds his words.

“Please, tell me you’re alright.”

@theindigoflirt

[gallantgautier]

Aftermath (Selkie & Sylvain)

continued from here with @kitsuneiisms

Sylvain’s own stick of dango remains untouched in his hand. He could call it lack of energy, or just sheer unwillingness to make any sort of movement while Selkie sits nearby. He could call it for what it is, the knowing that he can’t stomach the thought of food right now. Perhaps, it’s a combination of all three.

He knows what she had been about to say, quiet as it is. Anyone who had been there would think the same. And even if he wanted to, his expression doesn’t shift. He knows what he saw, it wasn’t some trick of the light, or even strange magic caused by Gricenchos itself. He was there, felt the hammering in his chest as he wove his mount between two monsters. He can’t unsee it no matter how hard he might try.

The Lance in his hand gives a pulse against his palm, its own heartbeat calm and steady. Awful, really, that it would be grounding now where it had been unsettling before.

He holds back a scoff, it won’t do any good, and he’s sure she is sorry, even understands why she would keep such a thing to herself. It’s not exactly something you broadcast or even bring up over lunch.

Instead, he remains exactly where he is, and asks in a low, uncharacteristically accusatory voice; “What are you?”

[farfromtarsus]

cont’d from ʜᴇʀᴇ @primeacumen​

Malcolm stood still in the doorway for a moment, blinking down at Vivian Blackwood. That was a lot of blood, from what he knew not all of it hers... but if there was discomfort in his eyes, it was only surprise that she’d come here. He’d been adjusted to seeing familiar faces spattered with blood long before he’d ever set foot on the Enterprise.

He caught an ensign in science blues peering over at them with fear or fascination or both, and sighed. He shot a dark glare fit to put the fear of god in the kid over her shoulder as he stepped aside. “Yeah. C’mon in...” Don’t know what kind of company you’re expecting, though, he thought but didn’t add.

Whatever reservations he had about being able to help, it wasn’t entirely out of his jurisdiction as chief security officer to....try.

[gallantgautier]

"Sylvain!" A familiar voice calls out as Selkie approaches her friend. His name graces her voice, rather than the playful nickname she'd given him before - and in her hands, two sticks of Dango. As she stops to his side, the kitsune extends the snack offering, though there's a certain rigidness in her frame. "We haven't really talked since... you know. Almyra. Do you think we could chat?"

There’s a thin, hazy sort of film over his eyes, or maybe it’s over the world, he can’t tell. There’s conversation around him too, the usual bustle of day to day life, conversations that sometimes clip to a halt as he passes, but it’s muted, like there’s water sitting upon his eardrums, a dull buzz.

Is it the Lance’s doing? Or the enormity of everything that comes with it? More expectation stacked upon him, the invisible ring of his crest clamped tight around his neck, a choke collar on a hound.

The only thing he really, truly registers is the awful, unending twitching, like a needy child, always after his attention. Sylvain isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with it right now. It’s not like he can just toss something so important in his room and forget about it, especially with his father on the grounds somewhere. He doesn’t want to think about what would happen if he crossed paths with the Margrave without the thing in his hand.

On heavy feet, he drags himself to a secluded spot, around the side past the gates to the entrance hall, sets the Lance to rest against the wall, and slumps against it with a heavy sigh. He lifts a hand, near numb with how tight his grip on the weapon had been and fists it into his hair, the sting of it distracting from the scream he wants to let out. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want any of this. What he wants is to crawl away somewhere and hope he just disappears, unchallenged, unnoticed, until everything just stops.

“-vain!”

A bitter laugh scratches in his throat. As if he’d be that lucky. He shifts, trying to change his stance into something casual rather than heavy, pinning a smile in place as he turns to find... Ah.

There’s the barest hint of a twitch of his lips, and his eyes flip down to the offered stick of Dango. He’s not proud of it, but there’s a reason they haven’t spoken since Almyra, and the hesitance in both her voice and posture as she says it tells him she might have already guessed as to why. His own shoulders go stiff, and he clenches his hand into a fist when he found his fingers instinctively extending towards the Lance.

There has to be a reason she’s still allowed to be here.

“Yeah, hah,” he laughs, humourless, carefully reaching for the offered Dango. But his eyes never leave Selkie, unblinking, like a stag watching the wolf stalking through the bushes, “it’s been a while, hasn’t it? We should catch up.”