nightlogs | The Quiet Of A Room With No One Around To Find Me Out [Open]

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The Quiet Of A Room With No One Around To Find Me Out [Open]

Who: Elle & you!
What: Elle has been hiding since Halloween night. She's fine.
Where: Her room, the infirmary, or the kitchen.
When: Post-Halloween event, aftermath of meeting the Baba Yaga (content warnings below apply to this thread!)
Warnings/Notes: limb loss, dismemberment, self-inflicted injury, references to cannibalism

Elle doesn’t want to admit that she’s avoiding everyone, but every day she fails to leave her quarters is a day that makes that fact harder to ignore. In the aftermath of Halloween night, it’s been all too easy to fall back into her tried and true coping mechanism: isolation and making sure it’s no one’s problem but her own.

a. Elle won’t be leaving her room anytime soon, but there’s plenty of reasons to seek her out. Maybe they need to ask her something, maybe they heard the elves or yetis gossiping about how she was in the infirmary on Halloween, or maybe they just haven’t seen her recently and decide to visit. She can only hope that Jack and Loki have kept quiet about the whole thing.

If someone knocks on the door, she will answer it, but she’ll only open the door enough to stick her head out, keeping her left side blocked from view. She’ll greet them with a casual “what’s up?”

She looks exhausted.

b. Inevitably, the food and medical supplies Elle hoarded before people got back from Burgess is has run out. She doesn’t have much of a choice but to leave.

Elle decides to venture out early in the morning, ideally before even any ‘morning people’ have woken up and after even the ‘night owls’ have gone to sleep. She plans to hit the infirmary first, then the kitchen, and hopefully slink back to her room unnoticed. Her arm is covered by a heavy blanket thrown over her shoulders, so hopefully if she does run into anyone, she can make the interaction short and get past them unscathed. She’s silent as she sneaks through the halls (which is not very helpful if she ends up in someone direct line of sight), but noise is inevitable as she rifles through the medical supplies and pantry respectively. Anyone passing by those rooms will be able to hear that someone’s up and about.

c. Let me know if you have another idea!

(( action or prose is fine, will match style ))

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[Just the person Elle wants to see.]

I'm doing alright. Hank, and everyone else, did a good job and I'm healing well. Do you have a minute?

[She holds the door open in invitation.]

I wouldn't mind the company. I don't want to go out much until I've removed the stitches.

[Elle isn't against emotional manipulation, for a good cause.]

[Trapped.]

[He doesn't want to go in, but if he says no and doesn't give her some of his time, it's callous. Especially after what she gave up to save him.]

[Mentioning the stitches get him.]

Uh, sure.

[Oh, this is not going to go well.]

[Hook, line, and sinker. Cougars are ambush predators-- why waste all that time chasing your prey when you could wait for the perfect moment to strike?]

I won't keep you for long, I know you're busy. There's just something I need to talk to you about.

[Elle steps back to let him enter and gently, but not silently, closes the door behind him. She doesn't want him to feel trapped, but this conversation shouldn't be open to prying ears.

Elle's room has a classy winter theme-- fairy lights, snowflakes, and various baubles, but the color scheme is mostly varying shades of pink, gold, and white. This is slightly undercut by the bloodied bandages in her trash can and a small hospital's worth of a medical supplies sitting on the desk.
]

I just- [She furrows her brow, avoids eye contact, and rocks back and forth on her heels.]

There's someone I'm worried about, one of the Guardians. I don't want to tell on them, not yet at least, but I'm really concerned. They've been going on missions by themself without telling people, I'm pretty sure they're hiding injuries, and they've barely given anyone the chance to help or support them and it's...

I'm really worried. I think they're working themself into the ground. If they're not careful they're gonna get someone hurt, whether it's them or someone else.

I know you probably hate being in charge, but you've been a Guardian longer than most of the rest of us. What do you think should be done? Should someone step in?

Edited 2023-12-28 02:41 (UTC)

[Jack would have keened on - if not for the injury part. He doesn't realize he's been clocked, so naturally his thoughts go to someone else.]

[His nervousness about being invited in gives way to concern and attempted problem-solving.]

Someone's hiding that they're hurt? Were they hurt on the mission? [Why are they hiding it?] They can't go out on their own, it's too dangerous. Especially if they're not willing to get help when they're hurt.

[He instantly flits back towards the door, planning on finding and talking to whoever it is.]

Who is it? I'll go talk to them.

[Clueless. But he doesn't know what she and Loki saw.]

I don't know how they were hurt. I imagine it was mission-related, but I can't be sure. I think they're too used to operating alone. They've forgotten that we're here to support them.

[Elle nods once to herself, glad to hear his response, then steels herself for the next part.]

Jack.

[Her voice is serious. She hasn't moved from her place in front of the door.]

Jack, I saw it.

[He freezes right at the doorway like he's suddenly made of the same ice he's so skilled in making. The emotional reaction to it also causes the room to get colder.]

[He doesn't turn to face her again, not right away.]

Saw what?

You had to change shirts. Only Loki and I saw, and he promised not to say anything as long as I talked to you about it.

[Her voice is painfully gentle. She moves out of the way so the conversation can be as private as he needs it to be, but no matter what it's happening.]

[He stands there for a moment just breathing. Then his head hangs and he slowly turns back around. The way he leans on his staff is with the energy of a wisened old man, someone who's had most of the life drained out of them. It betrays a weakness and frailty he's been hiding, been powering through. His body language is tight with pain, now that he knows how useless it is to mask it.]

[The way he leans on his staff so often, looking so casual, has been hiding just how much he's been using it to actually support himself when he isn't flying.]

[His voice is quiet. Gentle but the way that comes with resignation.]

[He's made as much peace with this as he can.]

Don't tell Bunny.

[He shakes his head slowly.]

My version of Bunny had already run down every lead he could before he was captured. After we lost the others, watching this was killing him. He was trying so hard to hold onto hope but -

[Jack heaves out a sigh.]

But he's not even here now, is he.

[So much for hope. Having a Bunny isn't the same as his Bunny.]

Edited 2023-12-28 03:24 (UTC)

[Her heart breaks, a little.]

I won't, unless I have no choice.

[It's not a threat, she just doesn't want to make a promise she can't keep.

She moves to sit on her bed, leaving plenty of open space beside her.]

I'm here.

[She says simply. It's not the same-- she knows it's not the same, just like no one here will ever be her pack mates, but it's something.]

Can you talk about it?

[What happened, what it's doing to him, how long he's had it-- anything. She's giving him the space to start with whatever feels comfortable.]

[He slowly takes a seat. It's more comfortable than standing. He burns through so much energy just holding himself normally, moving with his usual energy. And even more while fighting. Long-term exhaustion isn't the only reason he crashed so hard after they all arrived.]

We know when the spirits in our world came into existence - some are as old as the world itself. But we don't know exactly when humans started to transform into myths. A lot of the spirits that were alive at that time didn't really care much about humanity.

There are two of them that were part of some of the earliest known, though. That are remembered, even if most people think the stories are myths: Gilgamesh and Enkidu. They're two of the first human-turned-myths in recorded history.

There's a part of the story where the gods were so enraged by their attempts to defeat death that they cursed Enkidu with a sickness and he died.

[He finally looks up at her again.]

It wasn't a sickness, though. It was a poison.

Edited 2023-12-28 03:44 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the stories.

[She hates to admit she doesn't know something, but it seems relevant right now.]

So a spirit cursed you with poison?

[There's something she's missing here.]

Edited 2023-12-28 04:13 (UTC)

[His hands clench harder around his staff.]

No.

Pitch Black did.

[The newbies had all been warned about him, about the risk he may pose to them, about Pitch freeing Kuk in his arrogance and haste to kill the Guardians.]

[If they fail to stop Kuk, Pitch Black will have condemned all of existence.]

Edited 2023-12-28 04:31 (UTC)

Fuck.

[Yeah, she knows who Pitch Black is at this point.]

And you've no idea what it is? Did it happen at the same time he freed Kuk?

No, it was after Bunny and I were the last ones left.

Pitch has always been obsessed with me, ever since I joined the Guardians. For a while, I thought he was just...deranged and wanted us to work together because our power is so complimentary, but the Fates said something once that made us think maybe he was someone else before he was Pitch Black, even if he doesn't remember it.

[His eyebrows knit in thought.]

And one time when we all got ambushed by Kuk's people and he was out of it, he called me...son. And called me by a different name. Nightlight.

Like maybe I remind him of someone.

[A child from an old life? But who had he even been before to become Pitch Black? Why didn't he seem to remember anything from before he was Pitch? Could someone like that have even had any family?]

[Jack shrugs the thought off, clearly thinking the speculation isn't going to really go anywhere. Not anymore.]

Pitch wanted me to work together with him to stop Kuk. But only if I was willing to go under certain magical oaths and binding spells so even if the world was saved, I'd have to keep working with him. And only if I'd turn on Bunny.

I refused. So he used the last bit of Enkidu's poison in existence and tried to take away my choice. He put the poison on his scythe and tagged me during the fight.

He claims to know the antidote but he won't give it unless I give up my freedom for good. And for what? His help? Pitch was the one stupid and arrogant enough to free Kuk in the first place. If I worked with him and managed to stop Kuk it wouldn't be because of Pitch, it'd be in spite of him.

It was clear even then he had no idea how to fix all this. But he wanted to use me to hurt Bunny and on the off chance I could stop Kuk, he wanted to be able to control me after. And probably try to hurt the others where they're imprisoned.

So I said no and I keep saying no.

Before they got Bunny too, he ran down every lead he could think of. We asked all the still-free myths we could about the poison but even the ones alive back then hadn't paid much attention to humans. And the gods that made the poison have long since faded away.

So now I'm dying from a poison so old nobody even remembers how it was made and everyone else besides Pitch who might have known the antidote is either trapped or long gone.

[Elle just sits and listens. Her mind races as she tries to organize all the information Jack's giving her.

This is fucked. If she were back home, she'd have an idea of where to start. She just. doesn't know this world well enough to be an effective problem-solver.]

Do we know for sure that it's the last of Enkidu's poison?

As sure as we can be. Katherine helped us find a few myths old enough to know there was only one vial left. We got the same answer from a few sources we could trust. Different people had protected the vial over time - and then lost it.

Just...nothing else that was any use. They didn't know anything about an antidote.

So...

[He shrugs.]

They also told us how long I probably have.

[His eyes are glassy. Yes, he's had 300 years, but his life has been complicated. There had been many joys over those 300 years, as he danced on the winter wind. But he'd been lonely. Lost at times.]

[Not knowing his purpose or that he'd been someone else once.]

[It's only the last two years that he's finally come into his own. He has a purpose. He has the Children to fight for. He has friends - family. He can remember those he loved and lost and carry their memory with him.]

[He's had so much time but it's his time as a Guardian that he wants to last longer.]

[But it won't. And that means he's been reckless. That means his life seems like it's worth risking as a bargaining chip because it'll be gone soon anyway, so why not leverage what little of it's left now? If it's for the children? That means that he's brokered deals banking on the fact some of the spirits he's challenged don't know the truth. Yes, he'll come back in two years time to do your challenges to the death, et cetera et cetera.]

[Because they don't know he won't be there by then.]

It's not as potent as it was. They think it got less powerful over time. So I have more time than Enkidu.

But I've got maybe...six months to a year left. And I'm going to get weaker as time goes on.

[Hence his willingness to just get things done, whatever the cost. Hence his exhaustion causing him to engage in higher risk if the outcome is more of a sure bet to protect the kids than him actually getting out there and fighting.]

[For instance, if you can successfully make a deal with Baba Yaga, then you have to fight less witches. High risk, high reward. A magic charm from a powerful witch is a far a surer bet for victory than a drag-out fight - if you can pull it off.]

Okay.

[She understands, now. She doesn't like it, but she understands.]

Okay. Six months, we can work with that.

[Elle looks back up at him.]

I think you should tell Bunny. I get why you don't want to, and I'm not going to push you on it, but I think you should.

Other than that... I can help you keep it quiet, Loki probably will too, on one condition:

You let us help. No more going solo.

You go on missions with a partner, or at least back-up, and you communicate. If you start delegating now the transition won't be as painful later.

[She's getting into logistics mode. She should probably back off on that for now.]

That is to say, I'm on your team now. I may not be as effective in the field as I could be, but I can do support. You're not alone anymore-- I'm not going to let you be alone in this anymore.

[He nods his head back and forth at the mention of Bunny, a silent acknowledgement that she's right, that he knows, but that he has to think about it.]

[But then she says the rest.]

[And he cannot tell her no. He can't say that his life isn't worth someone risking themselves when he probably won't last long - because they'll risk themselves anyway, the way she did. They'll get hurt the way she did. They can avoid them getting hurt if he takes less risks.]

I can do that.

[His voice is thick, raspy, when he speaks again.]

I'm so sorry that you got hurt. After Bunny was gone, I just got used to - the risks I've had to, just for a chance -

Sometimes that's been the only thing that let me fix the problem in front of me. A gamble. A challenge. A risky deal not meant to kick in until - until after. And it was okay, because why does it even matter what I risk if I'm just going to die and fail everyone?

Because it was inevitable. I thought I was just - that I was maybe buying them a little more time before -

Before -

[He thought he was buying them a little more time. One more Christmas. One more Easter. A few more visits from the Tooth Fairy for them to delight over. A few more nights of good dreams from the many spirits that were helping take over for Sandman. A few more snow days. A few more stories. While trying to do the work of six to do it all.]

[He wasn't the right Guardian to come through in the clutch and stop all this by himself, though. He didn't have the craftiness of Anansi, or the caring ferocity of Tooth, the sheer skill of Sandman, or North's ability to be a walking legend and do a hundred impossible things before bedtime. He couldn't carry the hopes of the world like Bunny or have any hope once his friend was gone.]

[He hadn't been fighting to save everyone because there was no way he could stop something so big on his own, especially as he grew weaker and weaker, and more and more tired.]

[No, he'd been fighting to give the children just a little bit more childhood. Shepherding them in their field of rye before the darkness came, keeping them from falling off the cliff for as long as he could.]

[Before it was all over.]

[Tears brim in his eyes. His face contorts. His hands grip his staff so tightly it creaks like it's going to break.]

[The arrival of the new myths hasn't registered the right way yet. It was another problem to be solved, a group that needed care and guidance. Unaware of their circumstances, thrown in over their heads, the first thing Jack'd had to do upon meeting them was race around Benedict's theater, trying to direct them to exits, and kill as many iterations of Kaa as possible before they poisoned them.]

[They'd all left said theater battered, some of them poisoned near to death, others injured, one or two scarred or even permanently deformed. Boimler still had metal embedded in his body after whatever went down there. Others had mental scars, like how the combination of the theater and the unfortunate Elf experience had set Branch off in a very obvious and very public crisis.]

[In his mind, they hadn't really been the cavalry. Only Bunny had, but he'd been out constantly, putting out endless fires, that Jack knew would only keep spreading. He and Bunny just weren't enough - he already knew that. The others had just been people to shepherd and care for too. Until recently.]

[Until this fight with the witches. While Jack was off trying to score a miracle fix, they'd all held their own. When Jack failed with Baba Yaga, Loki and Elle had been willing to sacrifice to save him and in the process snag the charm he'd be trying to get from her.]

[He's not alone anymore. It's not even just him and Bunny - something he already knows isn't enough.]

[Jack tries to hold it in, slapping a hand to his face and covering it, trying to stifle his now snuffly little gasps. Holding it in is just making him rattle apart faster, though.]

Edited 2024-01-03 08:47 (UTC)

I don't. know how much this helps but I have been through worse. My world is... well, it's a lot more similar to the where this one is now than I'd like.

[It's barely even a cold comfort, but it does give Jack some context as to where she's coming from.

She smells salt in the air before she sees him cry. As he continues to speak, tears start pooling in her eyes too.]

I'm going to give you a hug, now.

[She waits just long enough to give him a chance to protest before she wraps her arm around him, holding him close and tight.

A low rumble starts in her throat and she starts smoothing down his hair-- instinctive comforting behaviors. She'll try to silently encourage him to lean as much of his weight on her as much as he can.]

It's okay, you can let it out.

[She speaks softly.

There are other things she needs to know: when he was poisoned; if they know where Pitch got it from; what deals Jack has made and with who. She'll think of more as time goes on, she's sure, but for now she's more than content with giving Jack a place of safety to break down.

He's been going too hard for too long, something like this was basically inevitable. She's just glad she's able to be here for him.]

You're not alone.

Edited 2024-01-05 01:01 (UTC)

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The Quiet Of A Room With No One Around To Find Me Out [Open]

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