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.]
no subject
But that's not how it works. Till has always known this from what the others have told him, and he's tried to be careful because of it. But how careful can you be, exactly, when you're being stalked by a cruel clone of your past? No matter how he feels about Ivan, or the way their last moments together were...he knows that he wasn't like that.
He couldn't have been.
Till looks at Genya briefly out of the corner of his eye before his gaze shifts away again, shoulders hunched.]
When you die here, somethin' gets taken away from you. Might lose a limb, or a memory. But you always lose somethin'.
no subject
He takes a step back, panic rising in his own throat. Seeing Till's hunched over form, however, draws him back into the moment, and out of his own selfish thoughts. He regains his ground, then advances so that he's standing beside Till instead.]
You still seem like you. That's... that's something, right? [But it's a halfhearted reassurance, and they both probably know it. Genya crouches down beside him.] Can I ask what it was?
no subject
He lost something arguably more special to him.]
I can't play music anymore.
[He answers simply, his voice empty as he says it.]
I could...play almost any instrument you put in my hands. ...I wrote music.
It was one of the few things I was actually good at.
no subject
[If Genya sounds baffled, it isn't because he doesn't understand its importance. Rather, it's hard to fathom how the idea of knowing a skill could be taken away. It's a magic a hell of a lot more power than any blood demon art, he knows that at least.]
What the fuck, man!
[He isn't sure why he feels such anger rising. It wasn't like he and Till were on the greatest of terms. But even if he wanted to punch the guy before, it wasn't like he wanted to take away something so important. And it is important, he can tell by the way Till holds himself now.]
You can - you teach yourself again, right? There's no rules against that? Maybe I can find some books in the library to help you, or -
no subject
...I don't really know. I haven't had it in me to try.
[At least, not yet.]
And I haven't found anybody who's gone through something similar who could tell me.
[Though to be honest, Till hasn't asked. He just feels too shitty about it. Ashamed.]
no subject
[He tries to sift through his own thoughts, any solution he can come up with, but finds there aren't any options. He's still so new, and he's done such a good job avoiding people, that he has no idea where he can even point Till toward.]
There has to be someone. I can try looking around!
[Genya isn't the best at talking to people. But he does know people. White Lily and Shadow Milk might have an idea. He'd even suffer through being pleasant for the latter if it meant actually helping.]
We'll figure out a way to fix it.
no subject
...you want to help me?
no subject
[He's not exactly the best at it, in his eyes. But if he has a reason to be, whether it be trying to speak to his brother or help a guy out, why wouldn't he? Sure, he'd punched Till, but that was basically how he said hello. And given the way he took it like a champ, Genya can't help but think of him as a friend now.
You know. As you do.]
no subject
Funny, how that works.
But it would be a pretty shitty thing to do, to say this and then not actually mean it, right? Not that people aren't capable of shitty things, but...Till wants to hope that humans- for the most part- wouldn't do that.
Not here. Not with what they already have to be dealing with.]
Yeah, but...it was my fault it happened. I was the one who let myself get killed out there.
no subject
So yes, Genya absolutely means every word that he says.]
What do yo mean, your fault? Did you just lay down and die about it? Or did you get caught in a situation too big for you?
[There's no judgement in Genya's voice, only a desire to understand what the hell Till is saying before he starts spouting out more self-help crap. Buddha, if only Himejima could see him now.]
no subject
[...]
I kept trying to run, but he kept showing up. Everywhere. Always out of the corner of my eye, following me somewhere. I just...I got tired of running, and tried to face it head on.
[And well, we all know how well that turned out.]