tushanshu_logs | I'm not sleeping (November Catch-all)

Characters: Erskine Ravel and anyone?
Date: The month of November, with some slight backdating to the end of October
Location: The Healer's Guild, maybe venturing out into the city?? Who knows!
Situation: Erskine's recovering from his pre-Keeliai ordeal at the Guild. If your character would have any feasible reason to be at the Guild, or to find out he's back, feel free to visit! If you'd like a starter please poke me, or just toss something up yourself. I don't mind :)
Warnings/Rating: Probable mention of torture, lots of mental trauma/anxiety/fogginess. Possible spoilers for the Skulduggery Pleasant series--if you'd rather not be spoiled, please mention that in your tag and I'll do my best!

Awareness comes and goes. There are good days, here and there, more as the days progress. It's all a fog at first. The expectation of pain. The confusion of where he is, when he is, which world this is. Who's still alive? Is he even still alive, anymore?

For now he haunts the Guild, huddling in the room they give him at first, wrapped in a blanket like it's a shield. After a few days he begins to venture out of the room, wandering through the Guild, trying his best to avoid confrontation wherever he can. There are dark circles under his eyes, his pretty face lined with exhaustion and fear. Sleep and Erskine have never been the best of friends, but it's only gotten worse since he's returned to Keeliai.

Keeliai. They've explained it to him, where he is, how he got here... more or less. It rings some bells, but nothing seems very clear. More like the memory of a dream, with faces and names not always connecting. Some are familiar... and some that should be here, aren't.

It will get better. At least, that's what they tell him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sonja is a bit of a common sight at the shelter now that Brigid has hired her to run the books.

She's not quite the people-avoider she used to be, but she does still tend to hole herself up in dark corners with the ledgers.

Erskine, on the other hand, has become much more of a people-avoider as time has worn on. No longer the easy-going charmer he used to be, he's little better than a mouse these days. Of course, coming from the kind of situation he's come from....

But eventually he does visit the shelter and speak with Brigid, and he's overjoyed (in his own, quiet way) to have been warmly received. The shelter means more to him than he's really sure he could adequately explain to anyone who isn't a Dead Man. Which is why he's currently staring at one of the doorframes in the interior of the shelter, running his hands along the wooden frame and the little inscription carved there in Irish Gaeilge. If you didn't know the inscription was there, or weren't quite close enough to spot it, it would look very much like a pretty man in a nice suit stroking the doorframe.

...yep. That's pretty much what's happening here.

Ooops, apparently someone is now in the doorway and doesn't know she's here. And she waited too long to say something so now its awkward aaaaand he's stroking the doorframe. Why is he doing that?

Okay, Sonja, this is only going to get more awkward the longer this goes on. She kind of loudly clears her throat.

The sudden, unexpected sound nearly causes Erskine to jump out of his skin. He doesn't quite go running, but he lets out a little cry of surprise and grips the doorframe to steady himself, his knuckles almost immediately going white. It takes him a moment to reassure himself that the sound wasn't a hostile one, only someone clearing their throat--during which time he angles himself through the doorway, so he's very nearly hiding behind the frame he'd been admiring only a few seconds ago.

When he spots Sonja his eyes are wide, his heart racing. Flighty would be a polite way to describe him.

"I... I'm sorry." His accent is unmistakably Irish. "Was I disturbing you?"

"No." Yes. "You're fine. I'm Sonja."

How to phrase this?

"Is there something... on the door?"

He takes another moment to breathe deep, to try to slow his heart, before he answers.

"It's... just the inscription. I'd forgotten what most of them said, I only remembered that they were there. I was going back through the shelter to read them." Finally he lets go his death-grip on the doorframe, massaging the knuckles of that hand with the opposite to try to work some feeling back into them.

"I- Sorry, I've forgotten my manners. Erskine. It's a pleasure to meet you, Sonja."

"Hello Erskine."

"You.. forgot? You're Kedan then, or is this place sort of like the Midnight Hotel?"

She had no idea how she might describe what the Midnight Hotel was 'like' but she knew that the building was sort of mostly gone now that Anton had left.

The Midnight Hotel. Erskine's been trying not to think about it, about the fact that Anton's gone; the mention of the Hotel leaves him breathless, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Not the place to fall apart, not now. Not here. Don't think about it.

The hand that had been massaging his knuckles clenches down, each hand gripping the other.

"No, I'm not kedan." He forces his eyes open, forces a small smile. "I left Keeliai, for a while. I just got back a few weeks ago. Everything's a little fuzzy since then." In all honesty everything had been a bit fuzzy before he'd left too, but that was a detail Sonja didn't need right now.

"Oh, like me then. I just got back a little while ago myself." Not Kedan, so foreigner, most likely.

"Did you... know Anton?" It was a fair assumption to make. She was suffering from the loss of Anton too, although she couldn't know how much more personal it was to this man.

Yet another Foreigner who'd left and returned. Erskine knew of a few others. Maybe it was cause for hope, that some of those who'd left might come back to them. Maybe it was foolish to think that way. Erskine was trying very hard to err on the side of hope.

"He's my brother." The answer rolled off his tongue, a simple truth--despite the fact that he looked nothing like Anton Shudder. Shudder had been at least half a foot taller than Erskine and bore more than a passing resemblance to a funeral director, whereas Erskine looked more like a movie star. There was grief in his voice as he spoke of the other man, though he tried his best to tamp it down. "He helped me renovate this building, actually. The light sigils above the beds, the fire ward sigils... all Anton's work."

"O-oh." Wow.

Surprise. Awkwardness. Questions. Guilt. Anxiety.

"I- sorry." About Anton. She didn't add that. She's sorry about a lot of things too, so maybe it was better that it was just a blanket apology.

"Are- are you... okay?" Of course he's not okay. He doesn't even look okay, he looks like a wreck. "I mean-" Subject change. "-what does that inscription say?"

He doesn't acknowledge the apology beyond ducking his head a little. It's no one's fault, of course, but the sympathy is appreciated.

It's probably a good thing she tacks on that extra question at the end, because he doesn't really know how to answer the other one. Are you okay? He hasn't been 'okay' for a long, long time, or at least not for more than brief moments.

"'As you slide down the banisters of life may the splinters never point the wrong way.'" He can't help but smile as he reads it, despite the grief. It's a common Irish toast--and so very like one of the Dead Men to leave that little parting gift for him.

"But- I've interrupted your work. I'm sorry."

"No! No, it's fine-" she shuffles the ledgers aside.

"Do you want to talk? About Anton? If you don't, that's fine, but if you're up to it and you think it would help, then I have a kind of selfish investment myself."

She tried to inject a humorous tone into it. She wasn't sure how successful she was.

"Do people actually do that? Slide down banisters?"

He's quiet for a moment, considering, before he shakes his head slightly. "No, I'd... I'd rather not. But thank you." Talking about Anton would only hurt more, and given the circumstances, would bring up some painful subjects he'd really rather not discuss. "Were you close with him? I don't remember seeing you at the Hotel, but... my memory isn't what it used to be." He offers a little smile, at that.

"What, you've never slid down a banister?" Erskine looks mildly shocked. "Did your world have some kind of rule against fun?"

"I mean, I think categorizing it as a blanket ban on the entire concept of 'fun' is perhaps unfair but... yeah, pretty much." Kanbei was strict and also a huge worrywart and he fussed over Sonja constantly. It was sometimes suffocating, but she wouldn't change anything for the world.

Also what if you fell?? That sounded dangerous.

"I don't- I'm not sure if it was mutual. We were friends. He helped me when I first arrived. I think you must have arrived after I left."

I'm not sleeping (November Catch-all)

Shelter

sorry this is so late ;~;

is good :3

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