Fifth Drop - Again, until you decide to drop. Now I'm so high, so high, so high [Action]

[antivanleather]

plans.






His eyes snap open as the thought finishes and for a long moment he can't breathe or think past the remembered pain of a gaping wound and the cold, blissful slide of a knife through his heart.  No Isaac, so kind, so cruel to cradle his head.  No grit of dirt or stone under his cheek and digging into his back.  No clash of battle or distant, strained cry that was so very familiar- oh.  Katniss. She'd seen.  He's still wrapping his mind around being alive, around breathing when his hands fly to his chest- whole and slick with sweat rather than blood.  Alive.  He is alive.  It is no trick, it is no twist of necromantic intent.  He feels no lesser than he had before. Well. Mildly ill and lethargic, yes.  But he lives.

And remembers nothing at all of being dead aside from it being a decidedly uncomfortable process to achieve.  If he spends too much time thinking on it, he'll drive himself mad.  All he can do is take that he is alive with good grace and get to his feet.  Laying here is becoming uncomfortable- but for a fair while he can't bring himself to move, relishing the simple act of laying out in the sun and being able to breathe without smelling his own death

When he does rouse himself from where he's settled in the woods he will, without any real sense of urgency- which is fairly odd for him, go first and foremost to Isaac's home.  There was something he gave the Forgemaster to hold onto that he needs back.  Afterward he finds himself wandering to the clothing shop to find a shirt. Perhaps shoes.  Something beyond the plain white trousers the Malnosso gave him upon his revival.  From there, it's home.  Home to check in on his boys and be yelled at quite a bit.

At his house he'll pick the lock to the front door since he does not have the key upon his person or feel particularly inclined to calling attention to himself, slip inside, and make his  way to the kitchen to brew himself a mug of coffee.  If a hearty measure of brandy makes it way into the mug as well- can anyone blame him? He's settled there for the first hour he is back home, sitting quietly in the kitchen and sipping away.

Comments

[250mhzwabl]

If nothing else, there was tea. It had meant that the house had been rather heavily caffienated as of late, but tea was something they were all used to. It was something that made them actually get up and move, which had become a rare thing in the hours that they were home, huddled up in two and threes and silent save for the ever-present background noise of Jack's music. They'd all fallen into a patchwork provisional routine, tumbled-up bits of what was good for them and what they needed, the former as much as they could handle and the latter to fill in the inevitable chinks. Tea, at least, was blessedly a little of each category.

That, and that alone, had Jack wandering into the kitchen with an empty mug in each hand, perplexed by the time he reached the doorway by the smell of coffee. It wasn't like Max to make coffee when there was already a kettle on, so why-

-and that was where his thoughts stopped - his everything stopped, to be precise. Because while he'd said loudly and repeatedly that Zev would be back, of course he would be back, this was Luceti after all, he hadn't quite figured out the trick of actually believing it. In his mental best case scenarios, the dead stayed dead. In the worst case you were going after your former friends with bludgeoning weapons. And he couldn't quite work his brain around it when faced with the precise reality of what he'd been saying, any more easily than he'd been able to in the past week and change, that Zevran would ever be sitting at their table again, quietly drinking a coffee while the sun streamed in through the window.

To his credit, at least, he neither dropped the mugs nor fainted. He only stared, and went paper-white, and listed until his shoulder hit the door-jamb with a very solid thump.

action

[relictusdeus]

[Bruised, bloodied, and with a heavy sense of tiredness in the body and mind, the Forgemaster had made an uneventful return from the draft to find another loss awaiting him at home. There was no savaged corpse, like Zevran had left, and yet, what little remained for him was somehow worse in that there was no immediate, cold, undeniable sense of finality to Hector’s disappearance. Isaac had smoothed his fingers over Hector’s shirt and breastplate in an absent, meaningful way, memorizing every fold and contour and mark engraved. And even after skimming the contact list for the name of his erstwhile companion twice over, he had stepped outside and reached far for him, palpating the air for the faintest trace of his aura until he allowed the reality of the situation to penetrate.

Hector had vanished yet again from his life, without warning. While turning the fact over and over in his mind, the sense of heat and pressure building in Isaac’s chest had given in a sudden, wildly irrepressible fit of laughter. On and on he had laughed until he collapsed into bed, spent and heaving for breath. Yes, of course. As expected of him. As expected of the Malnosso with their clever sense of humour.

The lone Forgemaster then did as he was wont to do, and pursued his interests with a fiery intensity, busying himself with hunting and sorcery. The days are growing warmer and he’s grateful for it, spending longer hours outdoors. He happens to be out at this hour, sitting atop a boulder with his attentions on a crow perched on his raised gauntlet. It decides after some shifting about and ruffling of feathers that it prefers to rest upon his shoulder and preen itself. They are beautiful, verbose animals and made for affectionate company, he muses; nonjudgmental company, moreover, something that had meant that much more to him as a lonely child. It's hard not to like it; he tends to feel a sense of kinship among creatures believed to be of ill-omen.]

Did I say you could stand there, you miserable sack of feathers? [The crow blinks its wise, beady eyes, carefully considering this before cawing by his ear.]

[z_jay]

[Recently there had been a quiet in the house, more or less from an absence of much to really want to speak of. The sound of a cup being moved in the kitchen went without notice as he slipped in, heading for the ice box. Jack often would partake of tea-- same as Max, he figured. Must be a British thing, though he did have the shock of his life when he turned to see who was sitting there.

It was hard to shock someone who had likely seen a lot of shocking things, but here Eugene was, with a sound stuck in the back of his throat and eyes transfixed on the figure before him. Long, blond hair, pointed ears, tanned skin... and speaking of skin, he was in the flesh...]

Zev?

[There was a small chance that this was a dream, though admittedly in his dreams he still has all his limbs, which led him to believe that his eyes, and mind, weren't deceiving him. When he didn't dissipate or otherwise vanish, he let out a soft scoff of laughter, disbelieving and very... hopeful in a way that could be painful. That should know better.]

H-how long have you--?

[Action]

[abjurer]

[He's sort of moved back into his own room and out of the pillow fort that the living room had become after their return, although he still spends most of his time around Jack and Eugene. He thinks it makes them feel less worried about him, and he- he likes the company, honestly. It makes him feel better.

He's returning to the house late that night though, a few drinks in the bar in the village has left him a little on the tipsy side, but happily so.

He just stares when he sees Zevran in the kitchen, reaches up to rub his eyes and he's too tired for this, really.]

Figures the night I get drunk would be the night we get ghosts.

[thebellthatbinds]

There wasn't supposed to be anything special about today. It was just another day in the quiet and thankfully steady stream that had followed the Draft. She'd needed the calm of settling back in at House 44 and coming to terms with everything that happened with the support of her house mates and friends. And yet despite that, there was still so much doubt in her mind, so much fear and insecurity and it eats at her little by little...which is why she had wanted to distract herself in the shops. Glancing through the racks of clothing she stops in front of a row of hats, idly tracing her fingertips over the rims and wondering how low she might be able to wear them to help cover her eyes when a step too far to the left made her bump into someone; someone she didn't see because they were in her blindspot of course.

"Sorry-"

Inwardly cursing herself she looks up...and freezes at the sight of the elf, her eye wide.

"Zevran!"

[stillplaying]

Maybe it's unsurprising that it's in the woods that she spots him. It's where they had first met. It's the place where she spends most of her time. With the arrival of spring weather and a new (not so welcomed) roommate, she's been spending more and more time out there. Time away from Effie Trinket and her rules.

At least in the woods, Katniss can be herself.

There's no mistaking the elf when he walks by. No mistaking that long blonde hair or tanned skin. But unlike the last time he returned from time away, she doesn't attack. She doesn't even approach him. To do so would mean acknowledging from where it was he did return.

It'd mean acknowledging a death she hadn't been able to stop. And that apology she owed him just seemed too painful to bear.