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

[favoriteanalyst]

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.

Comments

[favoriteanalyst]

"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."

[notathreat]

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.

[favoriteanalyst]

"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.

[notathreat]

"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."

[favoriteanalyst]

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.

[notathreat]

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."