[OPEN] baby wake up i found the plot

[simplicitas]

Who: Elsword & You
What: A curated selection of our finest bullshit including: making a grave for a child, sharing the Plot, repairing his armour, and... fishing!
When: Backdated to mid-June
Where: Outside :)
Warnings: There will be mentions of a dead child, but otherwise not too grim. Other warnings TBD/in tag headers.


i. this is the plot-relevant prompt
cw: electrocution mention

[Elsword is feeling a bit better after getting electrocuted within an inch of his life the other day, finally able to move about and do things again. The first thing he does isn't something ostensibly normal, though — the boy never is. Rather, he's coming up to you with a framed photograph, large and featuring a group of many people. One of the people in it looks like you from the past, however you were — younger, in a different form, whichever it may be — and Elsword taps a claw against the frame as he hands it off to you.]

Did we... Did I know you when I was a kid? And I... forgot about it?

[It's difficult to see, but the little redheaded boy in the photograph — no older than thirteen — bears a striking resemblance to the boy in front of you now. If you squint, anyway.]

ii. in memoriam
cw: mentions of a dead child

[Just outside the manor — well, actually, about ten feet away from it, but still — Elsword is holding a large piece of stone in his lap, sitting down in the grass and dragging the clawed finger of his gauntlet against the rock face. If you look closely or approach, you might catch the soft, golden glow of magic, as he tries to carve something into it.

Your footsteps alert him, but all he does is swivel his head around briefly to look at you and nod, before setting back to what he's doing. He's got a few flowers next to him as well, and Leon is curled up at his side, slow-blinking at you with his head against his giant paws.]

iii. i didn't go to blacksmithing school

[It's late into the evening, a bit past dinnertime, when Elsword finally doffs his armour and sits outside the inn hammering away at it. When he went into the mansion, it got messed up by a giant wolf attacking, see, and the consequence he suffered upon leaving it made it worse. He hasn't had time until now to actually sit down and try to repair it, and boy...

...boy, he gets why this is a Profession and not just Something Anyone Can Do.

Dinged-up, broken armour isn't good for combat. It gets weaker every blow until it fractures, and by that point, you're likely to get pieces of metal embedded in you when it fully breaks, depending on luck. He's like... pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. But man... man, every hammer strike seems to make it worse, and there's not a proper forge to fix things in.]

Do you know how to fix armour?

[Maybe he should just give up and go without.]

iv. feesh

[He's feeling a little out of sorts for the rest of the week, no idea why other than "emotions are starting to bubble up to the surface" and "had a generally bad time with the mansion"... so to take the edge off, Elsword can be found doing what Elrians do best.

Fishing.

He's silently sitting by the riverbank on a log, wearing a hat that reads "THE EL WANTS ME, FISH FEAR ME", and catching just... myriads of fish. So many fish for to munch. They're piling up on the bank fairly quickly.

Please feel free to just rob him he won't miss any of these.]

Comments

cw more dead child mentions

[lostpsalm]

<sub>[ rennuid tries to remember the right way to figure the math of those years, himself. it always equals out to heartbreakingly young, no matter how he runs it. eight years is a carving of a chair for someone mildly important. once it was the amount of time he took to play a game with the writing of a poem, until it had been replaced in every word with another from its inception. eight - or nine - is not enough time.

he's stilled, as Elsword spoke. something small and dark crawls by in the corner of his eye, but he pays it no mind. he is watching Tyr'oc, and then, he is watching the fresh, dark soil of the grave. ]</sub>

It's... a cruel wrong, for a child's death. _{[ the words he says next he couldn't have, three years ago. ]} There is not sense.

[simplicitas]

I could have saved her.

[This isn't about him. Yet, all the same, for every life that is lost, Elsword manages to actually feel something — the weight of a duty failed. It's a heavy burden to bear, worsened by his connection with the El. The El does not want him to fail. He is the El's Guardian, and therefore, the guardian of Elrios's life itself. Removed of it, he still feels a deep need to continue to guard everyone here. It's a protective instinct... but there's blowback when something untoward happens.]

I tried to get in days ago. If I had persisted on breaking in, I might've been able to do something. I shouldn't have given up... but she's dead now. All I could do was this much. And there are two other kids still stuck in there, and I couldn't get them out, either.