tushanshu_logs | [Midnight Hotel] June catch-all

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[Midnight Hotel] June catch-all

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of June, 2016.
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the month, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

The Hotel’s numbers have dwindled slightly since last month, but there are some new additions of note – firstly, Jintou, an ex-Snake kedan brought there by Aqua and Akito’s Chihuelan mugger Marcil, the one with a noticeable scar on his cheek, who was recently bargained out of the Snakes’ imprisonment. Jintou, while still skittish, has relaxed enough to start getting bored by being limited to the Hotel, as he’s not allowed out unless escorted. Malcil, on the other hand, is lean and bruised like he came out the worst in a fight and has no desire to leave at all—he barely leaves his room, in fact. Any interrogation will make him clam up and back away.

For the most part both are given a decently wide berth by the other kedan in the Hotel, though the kedan are more likely to recognise Malcil as Chihuelan than Jintou as a Snake and he, therefore, bears the brunt of both dirty looks and intense curiosity.

Another notable newcomer is the unfairly gorgeous man who has been making himself known on the network recently. He can be seen around the Hotel, wearing a frilly maid’s apron and doing some cleaning, with varying degrees of skill but with a magical talent people may recognise as the same discipline as Skulduggery Pleasant – using air to lift furniture to vacuum underneath, conjuring water in his mopping bucket, and so on.

If anyone asks, Anton will just say he summoned a cleaning faerie.

It’s notable that this unfairly gorgeous man doesn’t have a room of his own – he can be seen coming in and out of Anton’s private bedroom. They obviously know each other well, since Erskine has a habit of stroking Anton’s hair given the opportunity. Several times throughout the month Anton will be slightly late for his shifts and emerge with his hair still damp and unbound, only for Erskine to come by a bit later and sheepishly plait it for him while he’s working at the desk.

While there isn’t much physically different about the Hotel this month, aside from the newly settled exit into Sky Sector, Anton himself is more protective. He’s more watchful, more inclined to look up even at minor signs of tension – though he’s no more likely to interfere than before. He will also regularly scout the Hotel's entrance for anyone who seems to be paying undue attention, thanks to Sokka's mugging right outside its door.

Anton's alert, and no wonder given the Hotel is now housing two essential fugitives.

[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE POST TO THE STATUS PAGE IF YOUR CHARACTER WOULD LIKE A ROOM, JOB OR AREA IN THE GARAGE, OR ARE MOVING OUT. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.

[Both Jintou and Malcil can be threaded with by request to the mod account, though Jintou will be more open; however, any new information will need to be bought with reward requests.]

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The first time Raine had tried to track Erskine down, she'd found him asleep in the common room, and hadn't the heart to disturb him nor the inclination to wait for him to wake, with no indication how long that might be. This time she found him mid-vacuuming, which was an improvement by virtue of his being awake, though a little concerning in that Erskine appeared to be mentally somewhere else entirely.

Raine considered again the possibility of not having this conversation, which was going to be uncomfortable no matter how she framed it, but-- no. It was necessary to build any kind of foundation going forward.

"Erskine?" she prompted, from a distance where she could evade any negative reaction to being startled.

He could count on two hands the number of times in his life he'd vacuumed anything, and the vast majority of those times had been here in the Hotel, in Keeliai, over the last week or so. Thankfully there seemed to be very little to it. Unfortunately the task was so monotonous that it was easy to get lost in thought while he did it, between the simple pushing motion of the vacuum and the droning noise.

He'd joked before that he didn't care for introspection. It had been true then, but it had never been more true than it was now. Too many things to think about and none of them pleasant. Cleaning was meant to be a distraction--or so he assumed, judging by his own guess at Shudder's motives--not an invitation to brooding. Easier said than done.

Ravel flinched at the sound of his own name, jerking slightly as though he'd been struck. It took him a long moment of blinking to clear his vision and deep breaths to steady himself before he turned to look at Raine--

--and then immediately looked away, turning his attention back to the vacuum.

"Miss Sage."

Raine wondered, briefly, if that was fear she was seeing. It certainly wasn't anything resembling being pleased to see her, but she'd expected that much, if Erskine was conscious of all that she and Valdis had been told.

She hadn't expected to have to navigate a conversational dragon's nest quite so soon, either. Did she want to enforce a return to formality, knowing what she knew now? Raine studied him a little longer, then sighed. "If you insist on maintaining a title, Master Sage or Healer Sage is more technically correct," she said, and her tone was a little cool, but not unkind. "However, I believe I told you to call me Raine."

Her staff was in hand, but carried out of the way, behind her. Not in a position to be used immediately. A compromise between being unarmed and being outright on guard. "I'd like to speak to you," she added. A brief pause, considering the vacuum. "When you're not busy?" A bare uptick in pitch made it a question rather than a demand.

Fear certainly had something to do with it, of course, laced with a generous portion of guilt. It had been so much easier dealing with her when all she'd known about him was that Anton called him his "idiot brother" (thank you, Anton). But now she knew, and he didn't know where they stood anymore. They'd been cautiously friendly acquaintances, before, or so he'd thought. Didn't finding out that one of you was a murderer warrant resetting things back to the factory defaults, so to speak?

"...Raine, then."

He sighed quietly and lifted a foot to press the power button on the bottom of the vacuum, dropping them both into sudden silence. Without looking back at her, Ravel moved over to the wall, unplugged the vacuum from the outlet, and wound the cord up. That done, he crossed his arms over his chest and turned to regard the healer, noting the presence and position of the staff. More than anything his expression conveyed weariness, or perhaps chagrin, but not anger.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'm probably done here for now, if you like. What can I do for you?"

Improbably, one of the people she trusted best in her world was a convicted murderer, and while the circumstances were moderately extenuating, they hadn't known those at first. To say nothing of the complexities of her relationship with Solomon... Surmounting Erskine's character flaws wasn't completely out of the question.

"A talk," Raine said levelly. "Regarding what Anton saw fit to tell us. That's all." His posture said defensive; his expression just said tired. She was perhaps a little sorry, but she'd already waited some time, and the knowledge could not now be un-known. This was important. "I'll be surprised if Valdis doesn't ask you for much the same, if she hasn't already."

She tabled, too, the internal debate of whether or not to warn Erskine about Valdis. She was trying, very hard, and such a warning might be unfair to one or both. In a moment she simply gestured back the way she'd come, head tilted a little in inquiry. "Tea or coffee? A walk?"

Situation and time he could have some choice of, but 'not at all' was not going to be among the options she offered.

That's all. Right.

"A walk," he replied immediately. He'd had enough trouble lately trying to keep his hands steady on a cup of tea, and he had the sneaking suspicion that this conversation wasn't going to do his nerves any favors. Besides, walking next to her meant he wouldn't have to look right at her while they were talking about him murdering his best friends.

He uncrossed his arms again, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers with his shoulders slightly hunched over, and gestured toward her with a nod. "Lead on."

Raine nodded in return, and without further ado led him out of the Hotel, into Earth sector. She was most comfortable there, could pick out a path through a less trafficked section without much thought put into the route, which was for the best at the moment. She didn't speak again until they were a little ways out, and when she did her eyes were on Erskine, watching his reaction.

"You killed two of your brothers," she said aloud finally. It was cool and distant, without real rancor, as if she was simply testing the sound of the words. "Anton's explanation was abbreviated. I'd like to know why, in your own words."

She was aware this was a horrifically blunt approach, but they both knew where the conversation was going; there was no sense in stepping lightly around it and prolonging the dread of the topic.

Edited 2015-06-05 10:11 (UTC)

Ravel followed, although there was a noticeable hesitation as they approached the doors leading outside the Hotel.

Somehow, when he'd agreed to this walk, he hadn't actually envisioned them going outside.

And maybe that had been foolish of him. There was only so much space in the Hotel, and anything they said would be subject to prying ears. And then, of course, there were the wards. The slightest bit of panic on his part would set them jingling as they presumably had last time, when he'd had the panic attack with Valdis. Of course she would want to avoid that if they were really going to have this talk.

So he followed, though not without one last spike of anxiety before they were free of the walls and the wards and the understanding that no violence was to occur. ...that couldn't be what all this was about, could it? The freedom to do violence? Raine was a healer. Not that he couldn't defend himself anyway, should it come to that, but if anyone were to try to take revenge for Anton it would have to be like this, wouldn't it? She was a healer, but Ravel didn't know her well enough to know if she'd try something like that or not.

It was only after he'd started silently counting the ways he could incapacitate her, should she try some magic he wouldn't recognize, that Erskine took a deep breath and realized he might be just a touch paranoid. This was why he needed Hopeless, or Anton. Someone to knock some sense into him, because he honestly wasn't sure if it was paranoia or not (did it count as paranoia if he deserved it?). Only Hopeless wasn't an option anymore.

He let out a sharp breath at her statement, turning his face away. You killed two of your brothers.

And even if I could manage to forget it, no one will ever let me.

Abruptly he pulled his right hand from his pocket and reached up, twisting his hand in a brief rotation in mid-air. The air immediately around both himself and Raine shimmered in a sphere, creating a bubble around them. They could still breathe, still see, but the density of the air around them shifted to make sound harder to pass through. If they were really going to have this talk, they might as well at least do it in relative privacy.

Not that he wanted to be having this talk at all.

"Does it matter?" he asked softly, pointedly looking anywhere but at Raine. "Do you care about the politics, or do you just want to know how much of a monster I am? If I'm going to kill anyone else?"

The bubble didn't quite startle her, but it made her blink, provided a moment of distraction. Her staff was in her outside hand; Raine turned as she walked to reach up and tap at the bubble, curious as to its nature. "Fascinating," she said, with feeling, when she ascertained the shift in density. Previously undisplayed magical techniques were worth a brief diversion. "I knew a man once who did something like this-- that was months ago, though, and he was from another world entirely. I presume this is to prevent eavesdropping?"

It seemed the most likely and sensible thing. It also reminded Raine of the darker possible applications of such finely controllable air magic. She gave that due consideration, then discarded it. This was a peaceful conversation.

In a moment she turned again, settling back into an easy walking pace. This was not a man proud of what he'd done; his reaction to her words would have told her that much, even if Valdis had not suggested that already. It softened her tone a little. "It does matter. I don't believe you're a monster, for what it's worth." She shook her head. "Nor do I think you plan to repeat past actions. However, at one point those politics obviously made you believe the sacrifice was worth it. How, and why? That's what I seek to understand."

He nodded in response to the question about the magic but didn't offer to go into any further detail at the moment--much as he would have liked to discuss magic and magical theory more than the present topic of conversation. He just wasn't feeling particularly chatty, not with the pall of death already hanging over their little talk.

How much to explain? Short answer: none. Better answer, because she probably wasn't going to take that first one... the bare minimum.

"I was trying to change the world," he replied at last, eyes on the path ahead, anywhere but on Raine. "I was changing the world. We couldn't go on the way we were but so few of us could see it--or if they did see it, they refused to acknowledge it, or do anything about it. People fear change. I'm sure it's the same in your world.

"Someone had to force the change. I had the resources. I had a plan. And yes, it required getting blood on our hands. Revolutions are rarely peaceful--but I tried. Much as it's sometimes necessary, I don't like killing. I tried to keep the casualties to a minimum.

"Ghastly was nearly the end of it. There was no other way. Anton was... in the wrong place at the wrong time. I couldn't help it."

"Of course it is," she said. "It's human nature." A pause for consideration. "The nature of people, in general. To fear what's new, what's different; I've seen parents turn on their children for little more."

Raine sighed, quietly, and turned their footsteps along a quieter street, bordering a park. Erskine's explanation, rather than setting her at ease, was so far hitting warning bell after warning bell. It wasn't fear that made her heart heavy, really, but perhaps resignation.

"Revolution requires sacrifice," she said aloud, letting it hang in the air, and for a few seconds her mouth curled in distaste. It was, occasionally, true, and she misliked it all the more for that. "Hm. It's true that restructuring an entire world is difficult, and nearly impossible to do without some kind of price paid. However, it's one thing to be the one willing to pay that price, and another entirely to be the one who sacrifices others for it."

Some kind of context on her own side of things really was going to be necessary, wasn't it. Raine watched the path, the stone ahead of them, debated briefly about what to share. "I know both sides," she said, finally. "My friends and I set out to save our own world, when it was fading. The Chosen One -- my student, a girl of sixteen -- had known it was her duty to give up her life for that since she was very young. I, too, knew her fate since agreeing to tutor her; I guided her willingly to what would have been her death." She shook her head again, frowning a little. "One of my other students disagreed, when he discovered it. Forcefully. It was a profoundly selfish act, to save one life valuable to him at the cost of condemning the entire world. However-- there was another way. One generations had missed in blind obedience. And it required that naive selfishness, the determination to save everyone, no matter what, in order to see it."

Now she turned her gaze to Erskine again, despite that he refused to look at her, and the way she watched him was thoughtful. Not quite wary. "I wonder. You say there was no other way; you say you couldn't help it. Is that true? Or is it something you tell yourself to avoid facing the choice you made?"

Erskine hadn't really expected to sway her to his cause with his explanation. He wasn't expecting anyone here in Keeliai to understand, not if Skulduggery and Saracen and Dexter hadn't understood. It had simply been the most concise summary of everything that had happened over the last several years; she could take it as she wished.

The line of his jaw tightened at that last bit, however--the suggestion that there might have been another way and he just hadn't chosen it.

"There was no other way," he replied tersely, keeping his eyes firmly affixed on the street ahead of them. "If there had been I wouldn't have hesitated.

"I tried. I'd stay up late at night, every night, trying to think my way around it. Anything to not have to kill Ghastly. We had a sorcerer in Ireland who knew his true name, a man of near limitless power, giving magic to mortals. I tried to help him from the shadows, because if he'd succeeded magic would've been outed anyway. I could've abandoned the last of my plan. He failed, of course."

His steps slowed, and for the first time he at least glanced at her.

"No one wanted my life to change what needed to be changed. There was no one around to make that deal, and the Sanctuaries would have covered up anything I could have done on my own. So I had to make the decisions no one else wanted to. I had to be the bad guy."

Raine could only think that it was fortunate Lloyd was not the one in this conversation; likely, he would have already tired of using verbal methods to achieve any kind of resolution.

"It's impossible to say," she said instead, cool. "And it's true that without a solid grasp of the context, I can't judge. I offer the example only to tell you two things: that I am familiar with what it feels like to believe sacrifice is the only way, and that not being able to see the way out alone isn't a mark of shame." A huff of an exhalation here, which would almost sound like laughter if the conversational material weren't quite so somber. "Men ten times your age could not see what a boy of seventeen could."

She let the rest of his words wash over her, thinking, analyzing. It wasn't a decision he'd made lightly, she could tell that much. Raine was still half sure he was clinging so firmly to the conviction that he'd had to do it to avoid bearing the weight of what he'd done; if that was the case, so long as he continued to do so, he could never come to any kind of peace with it.

When Erskine was done talking, Raine considered for a moment, then quickened her pace and turned, putting herself in front of him to catch his gaze. She stopped there, tilting her head back a little to attempt to catch his gaze full on. "I understand you believe you had no choice." It was quiet, but sure. That didn't make it right-- but he knew that, as well. She was putting aside for now, too, the matter of if that belief was true or not. "Why were you alone?"

For he had to have been. If any of his brothers had known of this, they would have tried to help him. Erskine had been alone, both then and when his plan came to fruition, and it made no sense.

Erskine had to stop short to keep from walking right into Raine, and then drew back a pace, shoulders hunched, as she stood up to him. He still wasn't handling direct confrontation like this very well in most cases, even if there was no real expectation of violence--although to his credit he at least allowed her to catch his eyes.

Why were you alone?

He didn't know how to answer that. He wasn't sure he'd ever even bothered to ask the question of himself, or at least not in so many words. He just... was. He'd been alone for so long he barely remembered what it was like to not be alone, even when surrounded by the men he considered his brothers, his family.

He'd been alone ever since Mevolent, and then again since losing Hopeless. He'd been alone for a hundred years.

After that initial eye contact he lowered his gaze, his breath hitching. It was probably a good thing they were no longer within the walls of the Hotel to set the wards off--and suddenly he wanted, more than anything, to be back in the Hotel. To curl up in Anton's bed and try to sleep, or at least to hide.

He still didn't know how to answer her. There was the easy answer, but he'd be damned if he was going to talk about that. Not with anyone who wasn't a Dead Man. Possibly not with anyone who wasn't Anton at this point. After another moment of quailing his whole body tensed and his expression hardened.

"You really want the answer to that? Ask Mevolent."

Ravel put his hand back up and flicked at the air, dispelling the bubble of sound around them, and turned on one heel back in the direction of the Hotel. He'd had enough of this.

Ah. Belatedly, Raine matched this with the other part of what Anton had said. Grimaced. She'd prodded a festering wound, hadn't she? "Erskine," she said, and, when that seemed unlikely to catch his attention again, she quickened her pace and followed him. Regardless of whether or not they exchanged any more words today, she wasn't letting him make the walk back alone. Not in his state, not in this state of the city. She'd match his pace, staying a step behind and to his right.

Near the Hotel again, she sped her footsteps to pass him, not to stand in his way but to pull the door open and pause there, leaving him room enough to get by unchallenged. "Erskine," she said again, quite calmly. "I'm sorry." A beat. "I may have my doubts, but please understand you have nothing to fear from me." She hadn't made that clear earlier; now, she felt, it was imperative to do so before Erskine could flee. That said, however, she fully planned to let him go, and would make no other move to stop him.

Edited 2015-06-07 07:43 (UTC)

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[Midnight Hotel] June catch-all

C? June 1 or 2

let's just go ahead and get the HUGE SPOILER WARNING out of the way

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