faderift | OPEN: Kirkwail

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Ghosts
WHEN: Wintermarch 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post. More content warnings than you can shake a stick at, probably, including allusions to slavery and violence in the body of the log post. Please use appropriate warnings in the subject lines for your own threads.

The storm sweeps in like an assassin: unexpected, in the dark, and throwing sharp pricks of sleet at exposed eyes and noses with expert aim and enough force to almost draw blood if the angle is right. Half an hour after the clouds crest the cliffs is all it takes for the city to retract indoors and huddle around fireplaces, settling in for a long night that will, unforeseen, turn into a long two days.

The Gallows, too, is pelted with ice; the walls of the cliffs and the fortress protect much of it from the worst of the wind, but when it can find a path over or through the walls, it slams through windows or doors to scatter papers and snuff out fires.

In the dark, in the rain, hurrying between towers or already accustomed to jumping firelight casting strange shadows and the wind howling like a wounded animal, people might be forgiven if they don't notice at first. But there's a hanging in the courtyard, a dozen translucent wisps of bodies dangling from the idea of nooses, and there's a girl's voice in the basement of the templar tower screaming for her mother, and there's a ghostly man in the library holding the blade of a knife to his palm and whispering this is it, this is it—or maybe there isn't, actually, when you lift your head to pay closer attention.

But as the night wears on they multiply, and they brighten, and even if you haven't noticed them, they begin to notice you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He can't touch her. He cannot touch her, not with all of this going on. He'd never touched his sister again after this day - never braided her hair, never held her hand, never adjusted her dress, never fastened her necklaces for her - even though before that point, they'd spent their childhoods curled up together on couches, exchanging careless chaste kisses. That, of course, had been the source of it all, the vicious slander - that innocent affection had been so easy to twist into something horrific. He was rarely so careless ever again...but he has been with Sidony, hasn't he?

He's grateful to her, in some strange way. He was cheered by the revelation that she doesn't fancy men, and at the time, he'd thought he'd just been glad that she was coming to some realization about herself. But it's also that there's no chance of anything between them. She would never. And so she's safe. Not that Nadine wasn't safe, because she also wouldn't - wouldn't ever - and he wouldn't ever -

Maker, it's just like back then, all the panic and terror as he tries to review everything. He tries to remember - was there ever a moment? Ever a single moment? Where he crossed the line, where he hurt her? Did he do it? Is he a monster? Has he terrified her into silence and complacency? Madness runs in his family - Rutyers can't trust their own minds - what if his mind is lying to him; what if he thinks there's warmth between them, affection, when she just lives in terror of him and his touch and -

He runs his hand through his hair. He thinks he might vomit. Behind him, his younger self is snarling, "I never touched her," and Nadine is confirming, but he can't look at Sidony. Instead, he presses his eyes shut.

"It was slander." His voice is low and thick. "These are all lies."

Things are beginning to make sense to her now. The game they play with one another, dancing around faux affection and teasing, the reaction he had when she had lied with pretend seduction - she had never pictured herself adopting another sibling, not with the ire that Octavian brings her, but she can admit that Byerly had that place in her heart. How had she described him to Jester? A rogue indeed; a terrible rogue, but a very good friend. There is no denying that he had been that for her, without hesitation or pause.

She tries to picture it herself. She tries to imagine the suggestion that she and Octavian might have done the same, her parents reaction, and she cannot because she cannot even wrap her mind around the idea of herself and her brother like that, just as Byerly himself cannot picture it without nausea and pain. Her heart aches for him and she wishes, wishes, there was something that could be done, something that might dispel the images in front of them. Sidony has wished to be a mage for many reasons but this is the first time she had wished for magic for someone else.

There is no doubt in her mind about Byerly's honesty, but she's not sure he would believe her if she were to say it. He is witnessing his own heartache drawn out in front of him and it is agony, surely; it must be so painful. She has no memories like this, nothing that makes her think she would break to witness it again - and any sourness she is, any negativity she carries, is only a burden because of her own selfishness, her own frustration with her limitations. She has never been spoken to like this, treated like this, accused like this.

"Do you think me so cruel to trust the word of a ghost over you?" She shakes her head, moving closer, not touching but protecting, trying to make herself a physical obstacle between Byerly and his memories, as small and slight as she is. "I trust you, Byerly, more than I would trust anyone else. I believe you. Please, let me help."

Let me help. The request is so earnest, so absurdly kind, that he almost wants to laugh. No - he does laugh, clapping a hand over his aching eyes. The sound is cracked and harsh, but true; there's no falsehood in it. Let me help.

How could she help? Good, true Sidony. How could anyone help? Their family is fractured, now, his sister in the south and him here and his father still in that crumbling house and his mother, perhaps, as well. There is no help for this. There is no putting it back together. There is no remedy.

"How like a Nevarran," he says, low and miserably amused, "to seek to breathe life into a dead thing." He shakes his head. "My dear surgeon, for this, there is no cure."

Even so - he seems vaguely calmed by the request. In some way, her kindness has soothed him.

"Is it such a Nevarran thing? I thought we agreed they were more concerned with fucking the dead than giving them life." As if such crude language might be enough to break the spell that's come over him, as if this might be enough to undo the damage that bearing witness to this memory might do. No, there is a thorn in his paw and she is not the soft ally that might be able to draw it out without wrath.

Honestly, to herself, she does not know what she might be able to do to help him. It's not a situation that any book or novel might have prepared her for; how do you aid your dear friend when he is viewing nightmares of his own past with his companions as a witness to it? She wishes she could turn and tear the skin off his father's cheeks, scratch out his eyes with her long nails, but it is impossible.

This is a nightmare, and she cannot wake him.

Finally, she reaches and brushes her fingers over his again, offering her touch, her tenderness. He might reject her again, might turn from her completely, but she thinks this is a risk worth taking. This is a risk she would bet her own heart on, because Byerly deserves to have someone protect him, deserves to have someone to take his gaze away from his own heartbreak. It would be unjust otherwise.

"Would you turn your back on this and look only at me? Would you trust me in that, Byerly?"

OPEN: Kirkwail

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