alphawolf (alphawolf) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-01-07 12:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dani moonstar (mirage), haleth of the haladin |
You should name it after him.
Who: Haleth and Dani
What: Talking in the snow about libraries and things.
When: 12/28
Where: The Ranch
Status: Complete
There was still snow all over the grounds at the ranch, and it was cold outside. Without hair on her head, it was even colder than usual, and Dani realised that having hair to keep your head warm was something that a lot of people took for granted.
The archery targets hadn’t been brought inside for the weather, since no one had been expecting it. She’d dusted them off, and brought along her bow and her arrows, but she knew she didn’t really have the strength to pull the string back anymore. So instead, she’d parked her ass on top of one of them and lit up a joint.
Screw smoking in front of the kids. No one was outside right now, anyway. They were all indoors in classes or enjoying the warmth of the rec room and its new WiiU or their 3DS’s anyway.
Boots crunched through the snow somewhere to the left. Haleth was trudging back from an early morning scouting session. One of the kids thought she’d heard something over night and she’d spent the entire morning tracking what turned out to be a larger than normal coyote. She’d simply chased it away.
The sound would have alerted Dani on a normal day. The dreams had trained her to be combat ready as surely as any soldier, but at this point in her life she just didn't give enough fucks to do much more than wave the smoke away and glance in the direction of the noise casually.
When she noticed it was Haleth, she waved a hand at the woman and went back to taking long puffs off her joint, "Hey there, new girl."
Haleth wrinkled her nose, but she just needed to take one look at Dani’s condition to quiet any comment about the pot. It didn’t matter to her anyway - she’d done worse with her brother when they’d hung out with some of his friends. “Hello. You’re out here early, or it’s later than I thought it was.”
"I'm trying to keep busy. The Library's all ready to... Become a reading room and not a library at all, we've got everything section off, and I don't really have a reason to be here. But..." Dani frowned a bit and took another draw off of her joint. Haleth was familiar to her.
They'd never had much of a chance to talk, though, since Dani'd been just finishing off college when Haleth had been hired on to help mind things on her grandfather's property. She didn't know how close the woman intended to get to her. They had a lot in common, and keeping the more private parts of their lives private was probably one of them.
But she had little to lose at this stage in the game, "I was working with this kid, and he's gone. In the library. I like to think he's better off now, but it's not as easy as I thought. He was keeping me sane, and I feel like it's selfish to miss him or feel this depressed about it."
They’d met once or twice before, but then it had just been Haleth and the old man. She’d gotten along with him fairly well, before he passed. She’d stayed long enough for the funeral, before moving on. “It’s not selfish to miss people, when they pass on. But if he truly is better off, you can be happy for him too.”
"If he's found peace, then I'm happy for him. I just wish I knew for sure. I mean..." Dani winced a bit, and motioned half-heartedly in the direction of the library, "He was staying in the room next to the room that Wrex had given us for the library space. When I got the idea to convert it to a nicer reading area, I suggested clearing that room out and knocking the wall down to give us more room."
There was a pause while Dani stubbed out the remains of her joint. She was generally not too worried about anyone inhaling the smoke, since she usually smoked a blend that wasn't mood-altering. But that wasn't the case today, and she didn't need to get Haleth stoned. When she was done, she added, "He was okay with the idea. Gods, he really just wanted that library to work out so much. I'm going to name it after him somehow, I think, but what if having a room to call his own was the only thing keeping him here?"
“What… happened to him, if I might ask?” Haleth didn’t want to stir up something painful, but she was curious. She knew what it was like to lose someone. She also knew what it was like to want people to shut up about it.
"...He was a ghost before I met him. His spirit was hanging around. Unfinished business, I think. Maybe I helped him finish it, but I don't really know. Over Christmas he just disappeared, he's not here anymore. He's just gone."
Dani had no idea how much Haleth had been told about the craziness in Orange County, but there was no other way to describe Tate's situation.
"A ghost," Haleth replied, looking at Dani with an odd look on her face. "There was a ghost and you talked to him?" What was wrong with people here? It snowed in California, people talked about dreams as though they were real, Dani was talking to ghosts and just a few days ago she swore she'd seen a woman flying through the sky.
"Lots of people talked to him. He was a regular installation at the ranch, just like all the other kids. The library project was actually his idea. I just helped out... well, it's where Wrex put me when I couldn't do lessons anymore."
It was more important now than it ever had been, before, that people know where the credit for the library idea came from. Dani didn't want to steal anything from what he'd accomplished, "He worked so hard for it, you know? He made all the calls to get the donated books, and everything."
Haleth opened her mouth, then closed it as she tried to absorb that information. She didn’t think Dani would be lying to her, but she didn’t know the girl enough to really tell. She was usually good at catching the lies, but… “You should name it after him.”
"Yeah. That's what I want to do. I should find out of Obi's back to his old... er... young self. I can talk to him about what we can do to add the name. Maybe to the front counter, I've got some ideas."
Most of those ideas were from Restaurant Impossible, but they could easily be applied to a reading room of sorts, "A collage of letters of his name, maybe backlit or something."
The huntress nodded her head. “That is not something I can advise on, even if you wanted the advice. I think whatever you do will be appreciated by him, wherever his spirit has gone.” Now that was something that Haleth did believe, even if she was skeptical of the ghost thing. But who was she to tell this woman how to grieve?
"Thanks. I'm not sure I was looking for advice. I want to ask him what he thinks, but it's not like he can answer that question anymore." Dani snorted a bit. Tate would probably have thought it was a silly gesture, or maybe one that he didn't deserve because of the things he'd done. But the Ranch wasn't about the things you'd done. The Ranch was about the things you were doing now, to fix your life. She'd always believed that. She had to.
"He'd bring me cheeseburgers while I was in the hospital. Sneak them in, sometimes at odd hours. It really helped. And he gave me stuff to do to keep me busy. He probably doesn't even realise everything he did for me. It's just... God. They all end up leaving, don't they?"
“Yes.” Haleth didn’t mince words. “They do. But while they’re here they impact your life in those meaningful ways. Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean they had no purpose. Just because they end up leaving doesn’t mean you shouldn’t accept new people into your life, who will impact you in new ways.”
Dani nodded her head. It was all true, and she appreciated the fact that Haleth was willing to be straightforward with her. She simply had a hard time getting her heart to believe what her head already knew.
"If only I could get the rest of me to understand. I try to tell myself all of that, and I tell myself that I have to keep going. I can't let the fact that other people I cared about or depended on are gone keep me from moving forward. And I still have to depend on people and care about them, even if I end up alone. It's just... it doesn't always sink in."
By the look on Haleth’s face, that was something that she truly and dearly understood. “One step at a time, until the past is behind you and the future is here. And when it is, you never expect it, but you’ve made it.”