Till [Alien Stage] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foreversembrace) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sticksandbones2025-11-10 05:06 pm
foreversembrace) wrote in sticksandbones2025-11-10 05:06 pm
Entry tags:
Forget everything and just enjoy it [OPEN]
Who: Till and YOU!
What: Till returns from the garden after dying during last month's event
When: Start of November
Where: Various Places(tm)
Warnings: N/A, will edit if needed
[Till pays little mind to the ghosts currently haunting the Grove. A vision of his past self is nothing compared to that of the person he watched die. The facsimile of the person who would end up killing him.
He'd lost the scarf Mizuki gifted him in the scuffle. He remembers how Ivan ripped it off his neck, probably torn and bloodstained...it would be no use for him, now. It does mean that his neck is no longer covered, the brand not just out in the open, but visibly marred now thanks to the suspiciously human-like bite scars surrounding it. Just knowing they're there makes him want to tear at his throat, so he manages to find an older face-mask he'd used when he first got here to cover himself up. It'll do until he can find something else.
Part of him wonders if people noticed his absence. He knows some would, like Mephisto and Flamebringer who were well aware of what happened (the latter more than the former), but the rest...they wouldn't have known where he went. He could have just as easily been stolen back to the Segyein, a fate worse than death. Yet, he can't find it in him to reach out to let people know he's okay. He doesn't want to announce that sort of thing, it feels...weird.
He can't find his voice.
So, Till keeps to himself the first few days. He stays back at the house with Jibang, Mephisto, and Faust, and he allows himself time to recover mentally and physically. He hadn't lost a limb, and he's pretty sure he hadn't forgotten anything...ugh, his head is swimming with too many thoughts. He decides to relieve some of the anxiety by picking up his guitar to play. Not to sing...just to play.
...it's then that he learns he cannot. He can't remember the notes. He can't recall where his fingers should sit on the frets. Even when he tries to force himself to play something, it comes out awful and out of tune, like he's never held an instrument in his entire life.
The revelation is akin to having a cold bucket of water dumped over his head. He shouldn't...care this much about something he was bred to know how to do by the aliens who kept him, but being able to play, to write music was the one thing Till felt like he really had. This was his. It COULDN'T be taken away.
And now it's gone.
...he stays home for a while longer, not sure what to do. Maybe the house residents will notice how strange it is. How silent Till's room is, until he eventually has to leave and get outside, to not be there. He ignores everything else and everyone who might be there, instead making his way to the Inn building. He manages to scramble up to the rooftop somehow without eating shit and falling off, and there he sits with his arms wrapped around his legs.
He'll be up there for a while.]
What: Till returns from the garden after dying during last month's event
When: Start of November
Where: Various Places(tm)
Warnings: N/A, will edit if needed
[Till pays little mind to the ghosts currently haunting the Grove. A vision of his past self is nothing compared to that of the person he watched die. The facsimile of the person who would end up killing him.
He'd lost the scarf Mizuki gifted him in the scuffle. He remembers how Ivan ripped it off his neck, probably torn and bloodstained...it would be no use for him, now. It does mean that his neck is no longer covered, the brand not just out in the open, but visibly marred now thanks to the suspiciously human-like bite scars surrounding it. Just knowing they're there makes him want to tear at his throat, so he manages to find an older face-mask he'd used when he first got here to cover himself up. It'll do until he can find something else.
Part of him wonders if people noticed his absence. He knows some would, like Mephisto and Flamebringer who were well aware of what happened (the latter more than the former), but the rest...they wouldn't have known where he went. He could have just as easily been stolen back to the Segyein, a fate worse than death. Yet, he can't find it in him to reach out to let people know he's okay. He doesn't want to announce that sort of thing, it feels...weird.
He can't find his voice.
So, Till keeps to himself the first few days. He stays back at the house with Jibang, Mephisto, and Faust, and he allows himself time to recover mentally and physically. He hadn't lost a limb, and he's pretty sure he hadn't forgotten anything...ugh, his head is swimming with too many thoughts. He decides to relieve some of the anxiety by picking up his guitar to play. Not to sing...just to play.
...it's then that he learns he cannot. He can't remember the notes. He can't recall where his fingers should sit on the frets. Even when he tries to force himself to play something, it comes out awful and out of tune, like he's never held an instrument in his entire life.
The revelation is akin to having a cold bucket of water dumped over his head. He shouldn't...care this much about something he was bred to know how to do by the aliens who kept him, but being able to play, to write music was the one thing Till felt like he really had. This was his. It COULDN'T be taken away.
And now it's gone.
...he stays home for a while longer, not sure what to do. Maybe the house residents will notice how strange it is. How silent Till's room is, until he eventually has to leave and get outside, to not be there. He ignores everything else and everyone who might be there, instead making his way to the Inn building. He manages to scramble up to the rooftop somehow without eating shit and falling off, and there he sits with his arms wrapped around his legs.
He'll be up there for a while.]
:)
Flamebringer doesn't immediately approach when he sees Till out and about. Partly because he's not sure what to say — he knows, for as much as he'd like to deny it, that Till will be extremely cross if Flamebringer blames himself for this or is too sympathetic in that way he tends to mask with curt words and brazen swordplay. He does know, however, that Till hates when his scars are showing, whether the brand still remains underneath them or not. He remembers the scarf he used to wear, one that Flamebringer neglected to pick up, and even if he had it would've been ruined beyond repair. Fragments of battle are better left in the past anyhow.
It's better to move forward.
So, Till will go a couple days without seeing much of Flamebringer, until he approaches late one afternoon as the sun is setting and hands Till a new scarf.]
From the tailor shop. ...since your old one got wrecked.
[It's so quintessentially Flamebringer to give a man a flower scarf.]
It's gonna snow soon, so you're gonna need to stay warm.
no subject
Till hasn't intentionally been avoiding him, but he also hasn't been seeking him out specifically. Hasn't sought anyone out, preferring to brood alone as he deals with...everything. He knew he wanted to speak to Flamebringer at some point, but how do you even begin to broach something like that? It's likely not a conversation either of them want to have, and it shows in the way they miss each other for a few days.
Well. At least until now.
He takes the scarf quietly, a little surprised by the gesture. It's clearly handmade, and the flowers are...very much a Flamebringer staple. And despite how Till can be, with his false bravado and intense attempts to seem like a Man to hide his own insecurities, he doesn't really waste much time removing the mask so he can wrap the scarf securely around his neck a few times instead, covering up the scars left behind when he does so.]
...thanks, Flamebringer. This...means a lot.
no subject
[He says quietly, reaching idly for the box of cigarettes in his coat pocket. He fidgets for a moment, his fingers visibly moving around inside the pocket, curling around the box, but...
After a second, he just huffs and pulls Till into a hug with the opposite arm, plopping his chin down on top of the shorter man's head.]
Sorry I failed you. It won't happen again.
no subject
The hug...is completely unexpected, but not exactly unwanted. Till's breath hitches a bit painfully in the back of his throat as he's pulled in, but he doesn't fight it. In fact, he finds himself relaxing in Flamebringer's hold, his eyes literally aching from holding in tears of anger and grief at what he'd lost ever since he'd woken up. He still can't bring himself to cry, but...he very much leans against Flamebringer now, practically falling forward against him.]
S'not your fault. [...] But it's okay.
[Because he knows Flamebringer won't accept an "it's not your fault". He FEELS responsible for being there and being unable to save him, so...that means as much as how Till feels, feeling like it's his own fault for dragging his own wraith around for so long making it everyone's problem (intentionally or not).]
no subject
[He has not let go, by the way! He's squishing Till up against him and he will not take no for an answer. Normally this is the point where you'd say "enjoy the titties" but uhhh... there isn't enjoyment here, there's only sadness.]
Sword fight, fistfight, whatever.
[And then if Till dies again, maybe Flamebringer can be mad that Till was "weak" or whatever.]
no subject
Till has very little confidence he'd be able to learn any of that. He's just a scrawny human in comparison to people here who run the gamut of being a power nonhuman to nearly being a god, if Suri weren't nerfing them of course. That's why he ends up exhaling on a broken sounding little laugh, muffled against the edge of Flamebringer's shirt.]
Y-yeah...? What if I wanted t'learn how to use a gun?
no subject
[Holding his Till... squishing his Till...]
I'm blind in one eye, you don't want me aiming with one of those things anyway.
no subject
[He says it lowly, the lilt of humor in his voice just barely there.]
...I don't. Wanna go through that again.
[Dying, as it turns out, really fucking sucks!!!]
no subject
[Till gets squeezed tighter, with Flamebringer not letting go and clearly not intending to, despite the way he'd reached for the cigarettes earlier.]
Guess I just have to shove you on my list of people to protect and... keep trying to keep you out of harm's way.
no subject
But he just...doesn't have it in him. He's completely deflated. He is wet and sad.]
You'll be lucky if I ever leave the house again, so. Prolly won't be hard.