Miguel O'Hara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninjavampire) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nightlogs2023-11-13 11:02 pm
ninjavampire) wrote in nightlogs2023-11-13 11:02 pm
Entry tags:
talking to ghosts
Who: Miggy & You??
What: Miguel stays behind to do dead honoring activities
Where: the Pole to start
When: Late October, Early November (Day of the Dead time)
Warnings/Notes: themes of mourning, though it can be lighthearted also
Miguel would be reluctantly absent during the action around Halloween. A strange enough decision, given his first instinct would be to throw himself into the fray as a distraction.
But as of late, he couldn’t hide that something was eating at him. The gloomy spell over his mood seemed more intense than months prior, burning away his patience and making short tempered remarks and the flashing of fangs more easy to let slip. He'd done okay keeping things somewhat under lock, but it was clear now something was definitely wrong.
And so, after some tense, but persuasive conversation just convincing enough to accept staying behind, Miguel finds himself idle on a quieter and lonelier Pole for a few days.
((prompts incoming - brackets or prose are fine))
What: Miguel stays behind to do dead honoring activities
Where: the Pole to start
When: Late October, Early November (Day of the Dead time)
Warnings/Notes: themes of mourning, though it can be lighthearted also
Miguel would be reluctantly absent during the action around Halloween. A strange enough decision, given his first instinct would be to throw himself into the fray as a distraction.
But as of late, he couldn’t hide that something was eating at him. The gloomy spell over his mood seemed more intense than months prior, burning away his patience and making short tempered remarks and the flashing of fangs more easy to let slip. He'd done okay keeping things somewhat under lock, but it was clear now something was definitely wrong.
And so, after some tense, but persuasive conversation just convincing enough to accept staying behind, Miguel finds himself idle on a quieter and lonelier Pole for a few days.
((prompts incoming - brackets or prose are fine))
no subject
Miguel in the midst of trying to process all this could never get himself to cry. His eyes remained stubbornly dry, even as it felt like his chest was being flipped inside out trying to confront everything he worked so hard to lock away. Even if it felt like the right reaction.
The forlorn look on his face was the closest he’s gotten in a while. He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a breath in, and regains his composure.
“Yeah. That works.”
A hand reaches out to take the box and look at its contents.
“This kind of game isn’t that common in Nueva York. All relegated to hard light and holograms, for the most part.”
The subtle, comb-like ridging on his palms were more discerning without the suit, and he could feel the imperfections right away on his fingertips. This hand-carved game couldn’t be more different from the machine world they both came from.
“Kids have more fun with something physical to move around, I think.”
no subject
But then Miguel gets to 'kids' and his expression morphs to one of soft, pure empathy. Children hadn't died of unnatural causes in Troll Village for twenty years but before...
Well, there's a reason his grandma sacrificed herself to save him. Because Chef was reaching for him. They hid the kids and elders in the half-finished tunnels on Trollstices but the Bergens sometimes came in between and caught the village off guard.
Everything about Miguel suddenly makes sense. Coping with anger, intensity, and anxious control. Branch created an environment he could control but Miguel seems to like when he can control the environment around him. When it makes sense.
When the pieces fit together perfectly just like they're supposed to.
A troll laying traps everywhere conflicted with that even if it had been Branch's own way of controlling his environment and his fate.
"My grandma was great with kids. If...if this is about what a loved one would like if they visited then... then they can share the candy and do a puzzle together."
He liked that image. He knows it's what his grandma would do, draw some child in close while they did a puzzle together and happily point out the loving presence of said child's parent. He can almost hear her voice, saying, 'Look, sweetheart! Look what your daddy left you! He loves you so much.'
no subject
"Hm. Thank you."
He sets the box on the wooden surface at the bottom of the altar. He figures doing the puzzle at some point in the night would be good. Maybe when he was alone with his thoughts and needed an activity for his hands. He then reassumes his place watching the candles, looking away.
"Seeing one of you would be quite the surprise." he says, steady but comfortless. "She'd be enamored."
no subject
For the better really. He wants to briefly pay his respects.
"Yeah, I guess that's apparently the whole reason I'm here. Human kids seem to like my world."
He looks up at the ofrenda, initially fidgeting his fingers, but ultimately clasping his hands in front of him in a polite sign of respect.
"What was her name?"
no subject
Honestly, he is feeling too tired to be angry about it. Just cautious. He's exhausted himself trying to confront all the tangled emotions of something very painful, something he'd kept completely bottled up, trying to find an ounce of peace by the end of it and barely managing to scrape anything aside for the trouble.
He hesitates when Branch asks the question, like saying the answer might dissolve whatever defenses he had left. But Branch seemed sincere so far...
"Gabriella."
no subject
Branch comes over next to where Miguel is sitting, kneeling next to him.
He doesn't clasp his hands in prayer. Different world, different cultures, different ideas of the afterlife, different beliefs. Instead he just rests them on his knees.
He does close his eyes and start whispering, speaking to her, the way someone would at a troll funeral or memorial services.
Most of the words aren't audible, but Miguel might catch the beginning "Gabriella, I'm sorry that you're gone -"
But the rest is under his breath, so Miguel can't hear. Branch tells her he's sorry that she's gone. That he wishes she could still be with her father. That it's not fair that she had so little time. That if she wants some company where she is, his grandma will watch out for her until she can be with her father again.
There are no tricks. There is nothing insincere. It is just something that happens in Miguel's world and many others, someone quietly paying their respects, with the tender sympathy they would for a child.
Eventually Branch opens his eyes and stops muttering under his breath, quiet. He looks sidelong at Miguel.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he says softly.
no subject
His calmness falters, struggling with finding the correct way to respond. Miguel's usual way of dealing with these things was to run away.
Running into his work, getting lost in the past, having voice messages pile up until he finally deletes them all and pretends they never existed. Letting anger get the better of him, because the anger was easier to deal with. Never showing his throat, because that would let someone else get the impression that they could comfort him.
He didn't know what to do with comfort. The sincerity felt alien, but also wrong to reject. It would never be okay. Not really. But some part of him wants to hope he can get close, someday. Maybe after he'd worked hard enough to fix his mistake.
"The gift is more than enough." he says, finally. "Thank you."
cw: cannibalism ref, child death
"My people tried to protect us, but sometimes the Bergens surprised us and came between Trollstices. They thought the kids were - that we -"
He breaks off because he doesn't want to go too deep into something as dark as ;they thought we were more delicious.' Children were happier. Children' had more joy inside to suck out.
"So I know better than to - than to say certain things."
You didn't say that it wasn't someone's fault, especially if you didn't know the situation. You didn't know if they'd been there, desperate to save their child as they were ripped out of their arms. You didn't know if they'd tried to knock them out of the way of a massive hand but were a second too late. You didn't know if they blamed themselves for letting them play outside at all, even if it wasn't Trollstice.
Even if it really wasn't their fault, kind words wouldn't change that they felt it was.
(There's a lesson in there, somewhere, maybe, about fault. About how Branch can grant that grace of "it was the fault of the aggressor" to everyone but himself. But he doesn't see it yet.)
"But one thing I do know is... is how much parents are willing to give for their kids. That they'd give anything. Everything."
His hand tightens on the door frame, and now he locks his eyes on the floor outside.
His voice gets subtly raspier. "Because of what my grandma gave up for me."
It isn't something he offers up easily to anyone. It's not something he's told the people he gets along with more, like Stacia. But in this place of grief, with someone else who apparently knows grief like he does - because there is no other way for a parent to lose a child than that child being ripped away too soon - he finds the words.
"I also know sometimes the world makes that not matter." He quickly adds, "I'm not going to ask anything or say anything else about that, just that I wish -" He thinks of Miguel's face when he saw the design on the puzzle, of the two hands, and about how many troll-lings had been ripped right out of their parents' arms, and about how if his grandma had been a second later, she might have been one of them. "I wish the world had let you hold on."
He doesn't wait for a response, doesn't elaborate further, doesn't want Miguel to feel pressed to offer up anything more, doesn't want to look him in the eyes, and certainly doesn't want to be in a position where he feels like he has to elaborate more about his grandma, so he books it after that, away from the door and quickly down the hall.