faderift | fast enough to get in trouble and not fast enough to get away

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fast enough to get in trouble and not fast enough to get away

WHO: Mobius, whoever has business with him
WHAT: open-y log for mobi during fantasy september (and like late fantasy august too if need be), for various catchup purposes
WHEN: both pre- and post-arlathan forest
WHERE: [makes a general motion to kirkwall] Around
NOTES: warnings will be in subject lines if/when need be!

Before the mission to the forest, Mobius still has plenty to deal with. After the Conclave, the 'secret' of his life being a(n ex-)Templar does not stay quiet for long. It isn't something he ever addresses publicly; he's not taken to speaking on rumors just because they exist. But if someone comes to find him about it directly, he might actually be willing to talk to them about it.

So long as it isn't someone interrogating him under some ridiculous pretense of the good of Riftwatch.

But that isn't the only thing to deal with. Sylvie and Loki are both gone, wherever and however Rifters go. Sylvie takes a little more time to notice, but given her absence on the training grounds and around her usual library haunts where she, catlike, likes to cause him some trouble, it doesn't take too long. Loki--of course he noticed Loki being gone right away. Given they had finally started to see each other, at least sexually, and Mobius trying to get used to the idea of sleeping with someone and staying, in their bed, together, instead of leaving immediately after. Not every night; he was hardly about to move into Loki's-which-was-Alexandrie's place. But often enough.

So when he awoke in Loki's bed one morning to the conspicuous absence of Loki, well. That took a much shorter amount of time to figure out.

It stings.

After the mission to the forest, Mobius returns worse for wear. Like a lot of other people, in fact. He is in various states of burnt and bruised and battered. He'll heal as surely as anything else, with time and patience. But.

He has very apparently lost some kind of use of his hands.

The fingers still bend and curl. His fists can still form. Can still point, can still count on them, or give a thumbs up. But on the training grounds, his sword has a habit of slipping from his grip as though there's no grip at all. When jotting notes down, he's snapped more than a few quills and has taken to putting up with writing with the nubs where the tip remains. Meals have become fraught affairs, where he is slow and careful with utensils--and finger foods don't always fare much better. He can be seen, when not spilling half of a meal, grabbing at bowls or cups that he is warned are too hot to the touch and not minding at all. There's not much yet that seems too cold, but no temperature seems to bother his hands at all.

He tries to eat during off hours, or to take things somewhere a little more private. His training sessions have shifted to earlier in the morning (which, given the habits of nightmares, is not much of an inconvenience) when there are even fewer people. But it isn't as though he can hide the way he sometimes grips things too tight, or too loose to drop. He hasn't yet taken to wearing gloves, so one might be able to catch nicks and cuts and scrapes and a few angry red marks.

He's fine, basically. Definitely fine. Others have had it worse.

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He could lose Ellie, too. Would she simply slip from his fingers? Dissolve like morning fog? How would it go? How does it happen? He could lose her, and his pile of close friends would nearly entirely vanish. Astarion--Abby, too--

Sure he has friends from here. But...

If he's honest, he's not sure he's going anywhere in particular anymore. It does feel better to move. It isn't running away if the problem is internal, after all.

"I-" He starts, stops. Uncertain. Tries again. "-think the quiet of it all might be the worst part. That's awful, isn't it? That I kind of wish something had happened to him instead. So he'd still be tangible. So there'd be some reason behind it."

Ellie listens, and she's so quiet that the words might be lost entirely. She feels like... static, really. Like a white noise in the back of her mind. Mobius is a solid, real comfort.

But she doesn't really know what to say.

"I don't think it's awful," she says, finally. "But I don't think that would be better."

Ellie falls to silence. She knows why, but saying why feels cruel.

"...No," he agrees, voice quieting, "it wouldn't be better. I know." Not like it would've been any better if he'd awoken to a corpse. But the not knowing had been awful.

And what more is there to say? He feels like he should say more. That there should be more to say. For his own sake. For Ellie's.

But there's a lot of nothing.

It's a lot of nothing, maybe, but the silence is filled with another solid presence. Somebody they both know cares about them, and knows what they lost.

They end up in one of the herb gardens. An interior garden, peaceful and quiet and surrounded by stone walls. She finds them a bench to sit on, mostly to stop walking, and just... sit. Just be, for a while.

Ellie thinks of Lance, and his inability to stop moving. The way Nate would crack jokes instead of look directly at the problem. Gene's soft, sincere invitations to dance. Over and over again, until-

Grief isn't something that Ellie was ever encouraged to talk through, when she was young. It's been crushed down, over and over, put into a box that now has the density of a black hole. It all exploded outward once, a wildfire that burned away everything she had. She's still learning how to live in the ashes, stirs the embers from time to time.

Now, though- she wants to. She wishes she could. Dina had tried, had been such a good example. Had let Jesse's memory live in her every breath, had let her sister live in her laugh. And Ellie blinks fast for a second, clasping her hands in her lap.

"What did he teach you?"

What a question. The peace of the garden makes him think twice about a flippant answer.

It isn't that Mobius is unused to loss or mourning. It just feels different here. It never really gets easier, with time, with practice. It stings fresh every single time. What did Loki teach him? To take his time, and to take what he wants while it's still there. That there doesn't have to be regret in the morning. That love is an incredibly complicated term, and for some people, it isn't.

"Every monster has the capacity to become better." Whether said monsters take that opportunity, that's another question.

It's a one-two punch, hearing it -- Ellie's knowledge of Loki as a shitty person is mostly secondhand, whispers and references and very few concrete examples or facts.

It doesn't surprise her, and it never scared her. But it's a different sort of perspective, all hitting at once.

Ellie blinks fast, draws in a breath, holds it. Grips her hands together until she can breathe shakily out.

"You were close." It's not a question.

"So were you." Breaking into his place for shits and giggles and it being a mutual game kind of means close. Maybe not close-close. Maybe not as close as Abby was to Loki, and not the same kind of close with Mobius.

"Not sure he had a lot of people to feel close to." Or maybe he did. Sylvie's complicated history. Alexandrie and that complication. He knows several people Loki was certainly not close to, but.

He looks over at her, everything in his pose and his bearing screaming tired, fucking exhausted. "You want a hug?" he offers up. Because he might want one. "Or you want the breathing room?"

Ellie glances up at him, and oh. Oh, shit. She more than hit the nail on the head.

Mobius looks as exhausted as she feels, and then some. It's not often that he slips around her, even when all the Templar shit came out he still had all his shit together.

But now, he looks like a stiff wind might crack something.

She appreciates him asking. And part of her, awkward and lonely in her grief, does want the space. But she's never seen someone who so clearly needs one.

So before she can think about it, she reaches out, winds an arm around his shoulders. It holds the awkwardness of someone who didn't get these a lot growing up, isn't used to being a comforting presence to most people over toddler-age.

But after a second she remembers, and she softens.

That she tries is good enough. If she had said no, he wouldn't have held it against her, but she tries, and that's wonderful. It's awkward and stiff, even as he seeks to reciprocate.

It's when she seems to remember how, when he feels that shift, that he bundles her up in his arms in something of a bear hug. None of this awkward shoulder clapping type of hug. A warm embrace, turned toward her and leaning in as much as he pulls her in. Not long, not too long, but enough to get a good squeeze around her in. They could both use this, he figures.

Ellie had intended for this hug to be a comfort for Mobius, specifically. But then he opens up, pulls her in close for a settling, warm, squeezing sort of hug.

And it's been a while. A long while. Longer still since she's been willing to accept it, and draw comfort from the contact.

Ellie shuts her eyes and squeezes back, letting all the breath out of her chest until the tension in her shoulders eases.

Yeah. They both could use this.

She hugs back. Squeezes. Needs this. And maybe it's been some time since she's let herself have this.

They can hold onto this as long as needed.

She even deflates in his arms. He rests a cheek against her hair and makes a sound that could, in another universe, under better circumstances, be something almost like a laugh. "Hey, kiddo. Been a while, huh? You ever need a good hug, you know where to find me."

He had to call her kiddo.

Ellie's a grown woman, she's hugged plenty of people, but few people just... feel like this. Talk to her like this. And it hurts, as much as it's good. The grieving is better, now, than it was. It rattles along inside of her, something covered in broken glass. Back when it was fresh it was so big, she couldn't take a full breath without it bleeding her.

Now, it mostly only cuts when she's not expecting it, and she's learned to adjust herself, not yank back.

"It wasn't supposed to be for me," she mumbles, but she clearly appreciates it anyway.

"Yeah, well. Obviously we both needed it."

And it does feel better. Even if temporarily. It still hurts, aches, is a yawning and howling pit inside in a way that he doesn't think he can truly explain to Ellie in spite of the fact that they are both adults and should be able to talk about it without it being weird.

But it's weird. And it's a little much. Too much to sort out right now. Hasn't let all the pieces of himself slide into place what all about it nags at his heart in all directions. Right now it feels just that someone he cared about left in a tremendously unexpected fashion, plus something extra on the side left uncategorized.

He leans back, but keeps an arm around her shoulders. Selfishly, he's glad they can still do this, be this, without what he was getting in the way. "Mourning's a weird and personal thing. I don't think I'll be okay about it for a bit. But knowing I got others at my back, that's a good place to start from."

Ellie smiles, a half-smile that says she knows what he means. It's not okay, it'll never be okay. But as long as he's still trying, it's fine to not be perfect. To not be okay.

"It won't always be like this," she says, truthfully.

It changes, but it doesn't go away.

"It'll just feel like it'll always be like this, until I wake up one day and realize it isn't."

He lets out a sigh of a breath, releasing some of that grief in one go. It'll fill back up in his lungs, he knows, but...maybe the company will make it slow for a time.

"Should probably stop dropping by the place for the time being, though. At least until someone occupies it again." It won't be him. It was never a place to stay.

"More like... you wake up one day and you realize it's... been different for a while, and you don't know when that changed. And then you feel a little fucked up about it."

Ellie puts her foot over the toe of his boot, presses, eases back, almost mumbling it.

"And... yeah. I'll steer clear."

Mobius squints, tilts his head. Give her words a thought. Gives her a thought.

"You know," easily, casually, "pretty sure the healthier reaction is to not feel fucked up about it when you have that realization." He nudges her shoulder. "Seems to me like when you have that realization, you get that you've gotten used to it being different, and that's okay. Healing."

Just, y'know, far as he understands it.

Ellie breathes around the weird stuttering feeling in her chest, and her mouth twists at one corner.

Mobius has called her on it before. On the guilt.

"I guess I'm just worried about forgetting."

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fast enough to get in trouble and not fast enough to get away

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