Loxley startles just a little at the feeling of Thot readjusting herself, the flutter of feathers and prick of claws. He hovers a hand to help, but then she's on his arm, marching foot over foot to crab up onto his shoulder. He brushes a hand over her wing, but otherwise lets her sort herself out.
Suspecting her will have to fix his hair if she fixes his hair. But he picks up his refreshed glass, now leaning his elbows on the edge of the table in a more comfortable slouching forwards.
"A spirit?" he guesses, reaching for his scattered grasp of the local arcane lore. It nudges at another thing he ought to run by Richard, but not everything can be solved right here, at this table, so he focuses. Edges his thumb around the rim of the glass.
Says, "I fall in battle," a little apologetically, if anything. It's the thing on the way to the other thing he wants to say. "Properly fall, none of my own weird shit saving me that time. But you," gentle emphasis, "bring me back. And you bring Kally back. It was beautiful, that one.
"So, you know. If Oghma's not here, then at least he was making himself useful elsewhere."
Confirmation comes at a nod and a tilt at his brow, self-deprecating. He looks down to his wine, follows a fleck of cork spiraling loose at its center when he tilts it. Yes, a spirit.
His expression is difficult to read when he looks back up again, his study inscrutable in spite of its weary intensity, or all the more inscrutable for it. Like trying to read a very wet and haggard letter. One written in a cipher.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
And he is. Probably.
“Not that you died,” it’s unnecessary for him to assure. Until he follows it up with, “What was it like?”
Speaking to Richard without being wholly certain of what he is thinking or feeling is just one of those discomforts that Loxley has gotten used to. It's not an alien discomfort, not limited to only Richard, but made less comfortable in moments like these. Still, he has practice. It involves assuming what he is thinking, deciding it is charitable, and proceeding from there.
So there's just kind of the start of a smile for the question he settles on, and then some quiet as he thinks back to it.
"It was quick," he says. "You acted quickly. I think that matters. But I also felt as though I'd been asleep for days, waking up. But before that,"
death, not life, that's the question at hand,
"it felt like being lost. Like I didn't even know enough to know where I ought to go, no sense of where I'd been, just shadow. We talked a bit about it, what happens when a person dies. You were certain," or he spoke with certainty, "that I would go where those who'd done more good than bad would go. And perhaps that's what was waiting for me, and I don't think I got to see."
His hand wanders up, skritching Thot absent-mindedly under her chin, as though she were still cat-shaped. "But the way back felt like certainty. I ran to it, that sense of knowing. Woke up covered in blood," he tips his glass, "not all of it mine, but certainly a lot of it.
"It's also very odd," he adds, while they're being a little morbid, "to no longer have the scars to show for it. I can't even impress any girls about it."
Loxley’s retelling takes time to hold up against his own experience, one lens beside another glassing a distant flame. His recollection hasn’t dimmed over time. Oghma had welcomed him, only to turn him right back around before his bone-deep relief could calcify into resistance.
No rest for the wicked.
Or for Loxley, who has a princess to marry.
He dials back into the sight of Thot with her eyes crushed shut, stretched like a watering can to the scuff of Loxley’s fingertips, snakey muscle firm beneath the fluff of her feathers. A forked tongue sits blue in her parted beak.
“We could carve you up and I could heal them over again with scars,” Silas says. “If it’s integral to the operation.”
sounds real in affect, but the tip of a look to Richard mid-Thot skritch undermines it. No thanks, goth-dad.
There's a silence that follows, thinking back over their conversation, and before it, his own sense of anxious urgency that had compelled him not simply across the water, but also to pick the lock barring him entry. He ever feels inept about what to do or say about the things that happen to other people, on account of feeling inept about what to do or say about the things that happen to himself.
Still, that isn't any excuse. He says, "I'm sorry you've felt lonesome," and it doesn't ring like hollow sympathy, a sorry for your losses, but of a thing he has contributed to.
Richard settles his attention back on Loxley after a long drink, purple harsh around his eyes in his teeth. He’s scruffed raw and lean, pride shot around the slant of his bones, connections all frayed. Animals dredged out of flood waters have the same look.
He doesn’t know what to say either, hemmed into a half-hearted rifle through reassurances, platitudes.
“It was nice for a time. To have someone.”
This is the truth, for all that it’s also a stumping out of this line of conversation.
“I should rest,” he adds, to make sure. “I’m glad that you’re here.”
Loxley smooths rather than continues scuffing up Thot's feathers, finally lowering his hand. She is, anyway, welcome to stay on his shoulder for as long as its upright or he's not trying to dress down. He nods understanding, an understated gesture.
One that sympathises. They'd talked a while ago of love, or at least of the kinds of partnerships that resemble it. That being a Rifter is a complication. That there was no risk of love happening, for Richard.
Odd reversals all around, really.
"Rest," he bids. "I'll finish off some wine and follow your example."
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faderift2022-08-27 07:25 pm
no subject
Suspecting her will have to fix his hair if she fixes his hair. But he picks up his refreshed glass, now leaning his elbows on the edge of the table in a more comfortable slouching forwards.
"A spirit?" he guesses, reaching for his scattered grasp of the local arcane lore. It nudges at another thing he ought to run by Richard, but not everything can be solved right here, at this table, so he focuses. Edges his thumb around the rim of the glass.
Says, "I fall in battle," a little apologetically, if anything. It's the thing on the way to the other thing he wants to say. "Properly fall, none of my own weird shit saving me that time. But you," gentle emphasis, "bring me back. And you bring Kally back. It was beautiful, that one.
"So, you know. If Oghma's not here, then at least he was making himself useful elsewhere."
no subject
His expression is difficult to read when he looks back up again, his study inscrutable in spite of its weary intensity, or all the more inscrutable for it. Like trying to read a very wet and haggard letter. One written in a cipher.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
And he is. Probably.
“Not that you died,” it’s unnecessary for him to assure. Until he follows it up with, “What was it like?”
no subject
So there's just kind of the start of a smile for the question he settles on, and then some quiet as he thinks back to it.
"It was quick," he says. "You acted quickly. I think that matters. But I also felt as though I'd been asleep for days, waking up. But before that,"
death, not life, that's the question at hand,
"it felt like being lost. Like I didn't even know enough to know where I ought to go, no sense of where I'd been, just shadow. We talked a bit about it, what happens when a person dies. You were certain," or he spoke with certainty, "that I would go where those who'd done more good than bad would go. And perhaps that's what was waiting for me, and I don't think I got to see."
His hand wanders up, skritching Thot absent-mindedly under her chin, as though she were still cat-shaped. "But the way back felt like certainty. I ran to it, that sense of knowing. Woke up covered in blood," he tips his glass, "not all of it mine, but certainly a lot of it.
"It's also very odd," he adds, while they're being a little morbid, "to no longer have the scars to show for it. I can't even impress any girls about it."
no subject
Loxley’s retelling takes time to hold up against his own experience, one lens beside another glassing a distant flame. His recollection hasn’t dimmed over time. Oghma had welcomed him, only to turn him right back around before his bone-deep relief could calcify into resistance.
No rest for the wicked.
Or for Loxley, who has a princess to marry.
He dials back into the sight of Thot with her eyes crushed shut, stretched like a watering can to the scuff of Loxley’s fingertips, snakey muscle firm beneath the fluff of her feathers. A forked tongue sits blue in her parted beak.
“We could carve you up and I could heal them over again with scars,” Silas says. “If it’s integral to the operation.”
no subject
sounds real in affect, but the tip of a look to Richard mid-Thot skritch undermines it. No thanks, goth-dad.
There's a silence that follows, thinking back over their conversation, and before it, his own sense of anxious urgency that had compelled him not simply across the water, but also to pick the lock barring him entry. He ever feels inept about what to do or say about the things that happen to other people, on account of feeling inept about what to do or say about the things that happen to himself.
Still, that isn't any excuse. He says, "I'm sorry you've felt lonesome," and it doesn't ring like hollow sympathy, a sorry for your losses, but of a thing he has contributed to.
no subject
He doesn’t know what to say either, hemmed into a half-hearted rifle through reassurances, platitudes.
“It was nice for a time. To have someone.”
This is the truth, for all that it’s also a stumping out of this line of conversation.
“I should rest,” he adds, to make sure. “I’m glad that you’re here.”
no subject
One that sympathises. They'd talked a while ago of love, or at least of the kinds of partnerships that resemble it. That being a Rifter is a complication. That there was no risk of love happening, for Richard.
Odd reversals all around, really.
"Rest," he bids. "I'll finish off some wine and follow your example."