Aspel Cassul: When in doubt, Aspel! (weaponry) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-05-27 19:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, aspel cassul, magnolia paget |
Come on, dry your eyes, meet me on the other side...
Who: Aspel & Mag
What: Disorientation and tears.
Where: The Armory/Aspel's apartment.
When: BACKDATED: 4/21/14 night
Rating: PG-ish. (Recovery from death, self hate, etc)
Status: Complete!
They had been in the middle of a conversation. The flow of it all moving normal enough, simple things about their days, and the events that had transpired, surrounding the respective work, and outings. The whole thing had seemed easy, simple enough to get by on, a conversation that shouldn’t require any real thought, no particular breaks, but then, when was anything ever easy enough? Everything was a mess around them, that was true, but it was just the two of them, alone, with no one else around. Things didn’t need to be… so hard here, did they? “Ah, but you see I-” And Aspel’s thought disconnected, her sentence cutting short suddenly, and for no apparent reason, as she seemed to disconnect, a distance slipping into her gaze, almost as if she had become completely removed from where they were. A disorientation of sorts, vaguely similar to that of when she’d been sick with plague many months before. Yet, the problem was, this was sudden, abrupt, there was no slow onset, there was no lead in, no being stuck inside of it until otherwise healed. Just as suddenly a slow, jerky turn of the smith’s head seemed to roughly help pull her out of what had happened - a span of seconds, dragged out long enough to be obviously noticeable suddenly disappearing with a weakly forced smile - before she seemed to come back, eyes and posture adjusting to the here and now. “I…” A beat, a struggle. “My apologies.” Her eyes fell down as she swallowed, seeming to try to replace herself in the here and now, stumbling along, but trying to keep up. “Where were we?” Mag blinked. They had been talking normally moments ago―as normally as two people could in their circumstances―but then something had swept over Aspel’s features and, it seemed, erased all memory of their conversation. “I was at the Kranky Knight’s outrageous new prices. I don’t know where you where.” She frowned, concerned, and asked, “Are you all right?” Posture shifted, something a bit stiff, almost bordering on automated but not quite. Clearly, there was something shaken within her, what it was, how it still worked, she still didn’t know. “I…” The sentence dropped as she struggled with trying to find the words to say. “Apologize.” No, that wasn’t quite right, but at the same time, she felt oddly scolded, and another shift occurred in where she sat, eyes slipping away. “I…” The question deserved an answer. “I am…” Another pause, something inside of her fighting with her. “I, I do not…” Her sentence fell off again, eyes searching for something she couldn’t find as they ticked back and forth across the room. “Mag, I.” A hard swallow was taken, could she get out any one sentence this night? “Something…. Something is wrong.” Aspel struggled to get the sentence out, a fracture in her collected facade, not one of her standard irrational panic, but of a sincere fear. “I, I am not well. I…” She choked on the words, not being able to get the rest out. In an instant Mag was at her side, her arms wrapping around Aspel. "Shhh, that's all right, darling." She pulled back and placed a kiss on Aspel's forehead, trying, despite her concern, to put on a smile for her friend. "I don't actually care about the Knight or their prices. That bartender can go drown in vanilla pudding for all I care." Yet she had to wonder if her words were reaching Aspel at all. Mag had been so focused on the fact that Aspel was now alive again, she had barely given any thought to how going through death could have affected her. The touch caused her entire body to stiffen, going rigid in the moment she was touched. Who had touched her aside from Mag? The whole idea of contact, of being around other people, of... Functioning... Was difficult. She wanted to be touched, to interact, but not, she wanted to be functional, but not, she wanted to.... But it didn't matter what she wanted in the end now did it? Others wanted things more than she did. Aspel had worked to avoid what she could, and fake what she couldn't. Everything left her feeling a shell of herself, each action taken out of some knowledge of a norm instead of a desire of any sort. Her jaw locked, struggling, she was struggling again. "I..." Words, what were her words? "I am not right." Her voice cracked again, threatening the brink of tears. Regardless, these were a little easier to get out with Mag there, with the feel of another hume caring and near by, but at the same time it didn't change the fact that she also wanted to run. To feel Aspel stiffen at her touch hurt more than anything she could have said, but Mag tried to keep it from her face. She pulled back slightly, to see her friend's expression, but kept Aspel's hands in hers. "Is there anything I can do?" Mag asked, concerned. "To make everything right?" "No." The word was barely a whisper, Aspel's voice cracking, her eyes stinging with tears. "I just...." A hard swallow as eyes fell away, an attempt to pull herself together as she fell apart. "I am..." This sentence fell short too as a tear broke loose, sliding down her face regardless of how she tried to hold it back. "I am not well." Her voice broke, tears coming fully now, and the hand not held down rising to cover her face. "I am not well." A choked sob broke her speech. "I am not right." Tears continued to stream down her face, and the two simple sentences fell like a mantra whispered from her lips and Aspel attempted to start to curl in on herself. Thinking of how Aspel had tensed earlier, Mag tried to resist the urge to envelop her friend in her arms again. She succeeded, for about two seconds. "Oh, honey," she said, running her fingers through Aspel's hair gently, trying to soothe her. "You're okay. You're wonderful. And I'm always here for you." She closed her eyes, wished for her next words to be an accurate prediction. "And Rictor will come around. Who you are is more important than the skillset you use. And you're a wonderful person." There was another brief moment of muscles freezing before Aspel relaxed again, seeming to fall apart in the hold. Touch was such an alien thing, even from someone as close as Mag. The tears would not stop, and the words that had been being repeated ‘I am not right. I am not well.’ were enveloped in her tears. There was no air for words as she began to cry harder at mention of Rictor, and the loss of a life the smith had thought she was possibly, maybe, after all these years, beginning to build. In one instance of panic, in one moment of fear, and desperation, she’d destroyed it all. Everything she’d fought to build, to protect over the course of the last… Nearly seven years. “I am not well.” The words came again, strained, low, pathetic even in the best of senses, and the truth was - as a sob wracked her body again - they were right. "If you are not well now, you will be," Mag whispered into the embrace, over and over, as though by taking Aspel in her arms she could shield her friend from any misfortune that may ever think to cross her path. |