More Thorns Than Rose

Follows back from Hubofplenty! Probably going to be a bit slow, but otherwise still active! ~Independent Professor Layton roleplay blog, for an AU of Hershel Layton. Characters from other fandoms are welcome to interact. ~Occasionally contains references to vore. --- ~M!A's~ None ~Physical status~ Fine ~Mental Status~ Tired ~Relationship Status~ Taken...? ~Current Residence~ An apartment somewhere in London --- "I hope you aren't lost, because I'm afraid if you are, you won't be making it home too soon... But don't worry, I've got just the place for you to rest~"

[verduresapiens]

“Randall spent hours on the phone yesterday. Talking with friends and family, I’d assume. He asked if I wanted to say anything, but frankly, I didn’t and don’t have the heart to tell him that I’d still rather see the place burn than ever go back. So instead I just told him I’d rather not.”

[verduresapiens]

Contact and Reassurance

It had been quite a while since Randall had last spoken to his friends back home - Simon usually had him running cross country to keep up with this rumor or that, even though lately the man had been content to let him hang about with Hershel. Probably it was as important to Simon as it was to Randall himself - somebody precious to both of them who’d vanished off the face of the earth one day, whose last known  location was ‘being dragged off by Targent goons’. 

It was because Randall hadn’t spoken to his friends in a while that he’d opted to now, while Hershel was busy with spring planting and store things - and probably Scotland Yard things - and was thus significantly less liable to notice.

“Yeah - yeah, we found him.” He’d said, expecting the fuss made from the group likely huddling around the phone. Henry, Angela, and even Dalston had all been waiting for any new regarding their lost friend. “He’s doing pretty good now - or, as good as can be expected, considering what he went through.” Henry was the only one besides him who really knew the details of why, exactly, Hershel had vanished, and knew very well that spilling those secrets could jeopardize a lot.  All the others knew was that he’d been kidnapped.

How exactly did one even begin to explain it, anyway? A curse? A curse that made one eat people? There was no way that he could possibly frame  ‘Hershel was run out of town for becoming a gods-damned magical cannibal’ in a positive light. No, it was easier to tell them that he’d been kidnapped, stolen away by some nefarious organization for nefarious reasons after Stansbury had so suddenly and mysteriously decided that Hershel was evil and had to go.

Even though being adamant that he, too, was as lost as the rest of them had quite damaged their relationship with almost everyone else in town, since, neither would they provide a satisfactory answer that was believable. ‘Hershel is a murderer’ just hadn’t been realistic to them. Quiet, calm, gentle Hershel - a killer? 

Funny, then, that in the end it had been true. Randall still refused to tell them. So too, did Henry. It hadn’t been willing in the beginning, and from the sounds of it, continued not being entirely willing on his part for all the years to come.

“What do you mean, ‘what he went through’?” Came Angela’s concerned voice.

“W-well, the people that kidnapped him... didn’t exactly... treat him well.” He explained slowly, pacing in Hershel’s apartment. Hershel wasn’t there. He was in the Garden, and would be for hours. “They - they, uh... How to word it...” Blessedly, his friends didn’t interrupt, though if he knew them well enough, they desperately wanted to. “From what I know, and from what he let me know, they tried to... well. Break him. Mentally.” Gasps and other assorted noises of horror as they all rattled off questions at once, dying out as Randall immediately began hushing them. He wouldn’t answer anything if they were that noisy!

“You said tried, right? That mean they didn’t succeed?” Dalston, sounding as though he was hoping for a better story than was implied. 

“I mean... Like I said, he didn’t tell me much.” Technically Hershel hadn’t really told him anything, Simon did, but Randall would happily lie if it meant the man’s identity stayed out of all this. He was paranoid enough already. “But from what he did tell me, after he escaped, it took a long time to...put himself back together.” Another pause, Randall grinning just a little as he heard Henry preemptively shushing them all.  “He’s not the same as he used to be.” Randall added, eventually. “Really prickly. Apparently he thought I sold him to the people that kidnapped him, so he... might have... just maybe threatened to - to commit violence.  A lot of violence. On me. But we sorted it out - everything’s fine now!” Preempting the outrage. “He likes his solitude. Apparently one of the reasons he was so hard to find was because he changed his name. I don’t blame him, what little I know is enough to give a man nightmares... But yeah, he’s doing really well for himself now. Got a business and everything~” That got their attention, and Randall gladly latched onto it. Anything to get the topic off of Hershel’s sordid history. 

But at least they knew he was okay, now. He’d had to. Even if he didn’t tell them where Hershel was (which he wouldn’t) and what Hershel had changed his name to (which he also wouldn’t) they deserved to know that he was, at least, alive and well. Maybe one day even meet up with them again.

It would be nice to one day get the whole gang back together.

[verduresapiens]

“Believe it or not, I’m still here. Randall isn’t, not right now, but I am. It’s been very quiet and I’ve been very much enjoying things. Reflecting on... personal growth, over the years. Kind of funny, really. How far I’ve come. I wonder, what would happen if you put old me up next to current me? How different would we be? Would we get along?”

[verduresapiens]

“Was reminded today that I don’t trust doctors an inch. Doesn’t matter I haven’t been to one in over two decades now, I don’t trust them.”

[verduresapiens]

“...I’ve allowed myself to get overexcited and challenged some woman in a chatroom to an eating contest in a desert town I’ve never heard of. And she has... said she’s coming to get me. Despite me not telling her where I live. I’m... quite worried, now.”

[verduresapiens]

“...How does ‘I would like to not know what hell Little used me to cause’ translate to ‘I should remember so that I can know how to stop it happening again’? I don’t need to know what happened to know how it started.”

[verduresapiens]

“One of these days I want to travel. See if Customs really will stop me from leaving.”

[verduresapiens]

“Also... It’s kind of shocking how much I’m actually enjoying working for the Yard. I thought I’d be miserable, but it’s actually quite entertaining.”

[verduresapiens]

“Can’t believe it’s been two years since I made Dardanos that shrine. Pomegranate trees are doing well enough - finally starting to fruit~ That makes me very happy indeed~”

[verduresapiens]

interminal​:

No, what? Randall putting dumb shit in your plants is an interpersonal problem. Me dropping something is an intrapersonal problem. I wouldn’t have anyone to blame but myself, so it’s a different kettle of fish entirely - and since you’re curious, if I dropped something, I’d probably spend the rest of the day consumed by self-loathing and doubting every ounce of ill-gotten skill I possess.

“Are we really having an argument about the definition of words and the proper usage of analogies? Really? And that sounds like an equally miserable way to react, Jean. I hope you know that. As for Randall, I don’t care what sort of a problem it technically is, you’re still not cutting his hands off like it’s the medieval times.”

[verduresapiens]

interminal​:

Here we go again. You make a complaint, I offer you a perfectly viable solution in response, and suddenly it’s like you never needed help in the first place. Where is he right now? I’m cutting off his hands.

“He’s putting little slips of paper in my plants, not setting them on fire. I might not like puzzles too much, but I’m not about to kill him over it. Is violence the only solution you have to even mundane problems? If you dropped something would you kill a man over it?”

[verduresapiens]

interminal

Would you like me to cut off his hands.

“Please don’t. I like Randall having hands. I’m not so upset I want him mutilated.”

[verduresapiens]

“Randall has been hiding puzzles in my goddamn plants and I don’t know how I feel about it.”

[verduresapiens]

nexusofmuses

[She is Staring.]

“Oh don’t give me that look. The important context here is that I said I could have been. Meaning, I haven’t done a single thing. I have been quiet, and I have been catching up with Randall. No crimes at all. Mostly.”

[verduresapiens]

“Hold on. Wait. Has Lucy been gone the entire time, up until now? You’re telling me I could have been committing crimes in secret this entire time and she wouldn’t have been here to even know? Well I feel cheated of a whole lot of fun. Then again, probably for the best not to risk anything, working with them like I do...”

[verduresapiens]

interminal​:

I’m not gonna talk about my feelings.

And you guys shouldn’t, either.

“Fairly easy to achieve, why would I want to talk about your feelings?” He looks amused. Ass.

[verduresapiens]

interminal​:

Yeah, and I don’t find them all that weird, plantman. [ Well, he does, but in ways he’d rather call fascinating. He’s a man of science. He’s always going to have an almost childlike fascination with robots and aliens. ]

No reason to eat a guy. [ Really, Jean? ] He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t found a way out. Over. And over. Would you like to spend the rest of your natural lifespan dying, alone and in the dark, every three days? I was just trying to help him.

“Jean, not even I would have thought you were trying to help; you - or at least one of you, since I know there’s more than one floating around - tormented the hell out of him before shooting him stone dead and kidnapping his baby. And you’re shocked he hates you? I’d hate you, at that stage. Though I’ll be fair in that I can’t recall if the child kidnapping took place before or after he tried to dragon you to death...

I didn’t call them strange in an insulting way, simply that they’re strange. Interesting. Curious. I’m generally only accustomed to meeting humanoids, Jean, let me have my ‘wow they’re strange’.”