tushanshu_logs | The Midnight Hotel January catch-all

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The Midnight Hotel January catch-all

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of January, 2016
Location: The Midnight Hotel
Situation: Catch-all post! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel over the month of January, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. Please also see the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: None thus far.

The Midnight Hotel was among the few buildings which showed no sign of having been damaged by the invasion six months ago. That followed, of course; the Hotel hadn't even been present. But either way it stood out, and many of the kedan knew by now that the building, so different from the architecture of the rest of the city, was a safe-haven. Too many mistook it as a Foreigner safe-haven alone, but not all; even now there was usually one or two kedan present.

Some of them were gang-members, ones with whom Anton had forged closer relationships before the Foreigners' year-long disappearance or simply those who chose to visit in defiance of the general public's opinion.

Anton had taken great pains to give the Foreigners structure and normalcy. While the means of payment were, in some cases, not much more than an illusion, he gave as much in the way of purpose as he could. As a result there were now many Foreigners on staff at the Hotel, though of course the rules were still in strict effect. Anton himself was readily available at most given moments if needed for assistance, questions or otherwise.

There was also an oddity in the lobby: a construction in one of the corners where a long bank of three public consoles was being built. The Metalworkers responsible for its construction were generally taciturn and more concerned with their work than with interactions, but they didn't seem worried about being observed or by the close proximity of the Foreigners.

[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. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out, so you can assume they're 'paying' in some method.

If you have a specific job for your character to do around the Hotel (eg working the kitchen, security, house chores) please also note that so I can keep track of Anton's casual staff.]

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"Thank you." Valdis quickly vacated the hallway in favor of hiding in Raine's room. She didn't want people to see her like this, didn't like feeling what she was feeling. She turned to face the woman, trying to decide where to begin.

"I don't have anyone else," She replied," And because the last time I felt this...emotion, it was coming from you."

Raine shut the door behind Valdis, and her eyebrows were raised by the time she turned to her visitor again. All of this seemed massively uncharacteristic; it must be bothering her quite a bit. Dismissing for now the unlikeliness that Raine was the only person on the turtle qualified to help Valdis, emotion meant it was a problem related to Valdis' empathy issues. Which meant...

Oh, dear. Raine had a very distinct suspicion about where, exactly, this conversation was going. "Which emotion?" Raine asked, instead of immediately jumping to that conclusion. Let Valdis explain in her own words; if it was the one she'd failed to identify, she'd learn better that way. "As I recall, there were a few."

"Words...seem to fail," She replied, struggling to even get a firm grasp on the currently weak emotion. It was there, just lying beneath her confusion, laughing at her. "There are moments when it feels...pleasant? And then others when it hurts. And then at times it feels almost like anger, but it isn't." She was certain that she sounded crazy, "It's warm, no...it burns...like fire...at times it is sharp and strong, at others, like now, merely simmering" She shook her head, "But it won't go away."

No one emotion could be made up of all that, but for some reason, this one was and it was infuriating.

"...Have a seat," Raine said, because there were manners when it came to guests, and this could take a while. She took one herself, using the motion to buy time for getting her thoughts in order.

This was almost certainly what she'd thought it was.

Raine watched Valdis, and resolved to avoid naming her suspicion as long as possible. "In other words, you're experiencing a more or less omnipresent emotion you can't identify, at a variety of intensities, and you're certain it's the same feeling despite variance in its manifestations." She wasn't questioning, just summing up; Valdis was best qualified to judge that particular aspect. "Where in your body do you feel it most strongly, and in what circumstances do you notice it most?"

Valdis was uncertain if she'd even be able to stay still, but she sat, trying to force the agitation away. None of this was fair, she knew that Raine knew the name of this feeling, but the woman was withholding it for some reason. Either that or she really was going crazy and Raine was trying to avoid tell her.

"It manifests in different forms, but at its base it is the same." She replied, agreeing with Raine's assessment. She raised her hand and touched her chest, "It feels like a tightness in my chest," She paused, trying to pinpoint when the feeling was the strongest, "And it seems to arise most when I am around...a certain person."

This was becoming embarrassing, perhaps she should just leave and suffer through it, or avoid that particular person entirely, but the prospect of cutting him out of her life didn't make her feel any better.

Raine waited a beat, then another, as if she expected Valdis to have something more than that. When it became obvious that she did not, that her previous assertion that positive emotions were harder for her to grasp was something of an understatement, Raine sighed a little, resigned, and glanced away. "What you're describing is what it feels like to care for another person," she explained. Not too hard to draw the conclusion that it was romantic in nature, but small steps might be necessary here. "Rather strongly, it sounds like. Do you ever find yourself concerned for this person's well-being? Seeking out their company for no practical reason, or the thinnest of excuses?"

"I know what it is like to care for another," Valdis replied disbelieving. She cared about Malachi, about Wan and Anton and Zuko, but this wasn't the same, "This is ...different."

But was it? Now that she thought about it, there was a similar flavor to the emotion, but it was still different somehow. But her mind began to spin as Raine's questions continued.

"Of course I worry. He's such an idiot, rushing blindly into things without a care for the consequences and I'm pretty sure he's trying to get himself killed." She shook her head, "Sometimes he can be really sweet, probably without meaning to considering how he always ruins the moment with his idiocy. But there are moments...when I feel like he cares." Which in all honesty was just as confusing as what she was feeling, "I've never had that before..."

Valdis was clever enough, from what Raine had observed of her, to put the pieces together. Either she genuinely had not even the faintest notion, or her powers of denial were impressive indeed. "It is different," Raine agreed levelly. She leaned forward, fixing her gaze back on Valdis. "Think about it. You say the last time you felt this emotion from someone else, it was me. I care about a number of people here, yes -- my friends -- but consider which one of them we were discussing when it came up."

Raine quirked a smile at that, a little one, more amused at herself than Valdis. "As I recall, you identified the nature of my relationship with Solomon relatively quickly. I... suppose it's harder to see these things from the inside. But the way you speak of this man-- it's almost soft." For Valdis, at any rate.

If anyone else had treated her like she was fragile, like she couldn't take care of herself, she would have considered it an insult, but when it came from him...it held no barb, leaving her pride intact. She was lost in the feeling, thinking about what it meant, when Raine's words finally registered. Her eyes widened in shock as she suddenly understood and it was both wonderful and terrible all at once.

"No," She replied, her voice hardening, "To love another is to give yourself a weakness." But she didn't sound as if she believed her own words, more as if they were something that had been repeated over and over. Something that had been memorized out of necessity. "It clouds your mind, weakens your judgement. To choose weakness is folly." She was shaking her head now, trying to convince herself that Raine was wrong, "I am not foolish and I am not weak."

"I can't be..." She said more quietly, "I can't afford to be." How did everything go wrong so quickly? Damn that smile of his, so clear in her mind. Damn the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes when he made up his mind...she swore in her native tongue. She was in love, and no amount of protesting was going to make it go away. "But I am."

Raine waited this bit of realization out patiently; it was, after all, what she'd been hoping for. Much easier, for someone like Valdis to accept something so evidently distasteful, when she came to the conclusion herself rather than being told.

If Valdis was paying attention, she might notice that something in her words had thrown Raine off, made her expression strangely distant for the space of a few breaths. But by the time Valdis had come around to concluding that she was in love, it was gone, and Raine was back to her previous neutral calm.

"Weakness is relative," Raine said at length. "Those you care about can be harmed, can be used as leverage. My brother was-- possessed, once. Kidnapped. I still dream about it, sometimes." 'Nightmares' went pointedly unsaid. "And Solomon-- well. I believe we've been over that. But all the same, if it wasn't for my brother, I would not now be here, and Solomon is one of the key reasons I was able to break Malicant's control. I find that what a person can do for the sake of someone precious to them often far exceeds what they will do for themselves alone."

"You can be stronger for those you love, but they also make you stronger because you aren't alone."

She though she understood, but now, instead of feeling confused, she just felt fear. There were too many things that could go wrong, too many things that could cause pain. She couldn't be in love for the simple reason that if that love were broken, then the opposite emotions could take over and balance could be lost.

"But what if..."She stopped. She couldn't allow herself to be weak, she needed to pull it together. Why did positive emotions hurt so much more than negative ones? She shook her head, she couldn't allow this emotion to run rampant, it could ruin everything. "I won't let it rule me," She decided, "I can't. Love is a hopeful emotion and I have lived far too long to not have noticed that eventually people will fail you."

"Precisely." Raine's agreement was for Valdis' initial assessment, however. When Valdis had done speaking, Raine shook her head shortly. "That is, of course, your prerogative," she said slowly, "but you may not find it quite that simple. Consider also that trust is a key part of love; if you feel so strongly about this man, there is a good chance that you are already sure he won't fail you, whether it's conscious or not. Is all this really so unfamiliar to you?"

Valdis' phrasing at least in one aspect suggested more years than her appearance would imply, but the woman herself still seemed-- erratic. Not wholly stable in an emotional respect. When it was down to cold logic, Valdis seemed to function soundly, but here and in this context, she was harder to predict.

Trust? Yes, she supposed that despite her better judgement, she did trust him. "Even if he doesn't fail me in life," She replied, looking away, "Eventually, life will fail him, that is a familiar fact."

That was the problems with mortals, they died and she would be left alone with only the memories and pain. She felt so lost. If Raine was right, then it was too late for everything.

Definitely more than a typical mortal lifespan. Raine pressed her fingertips briefly to her forehead, as if to stave off a headache. "Valdis, what are you looking for here?" she asked, blunt. "Of course he'll die someday, whether at another's hand or by time alone. We both know this. True immortality would be a curse, not a gift."

Though that did rule out Cain as Valdis' mystery man.

Raine went on. "I'm not here to talk you into or out of love. I've identified the emotion for you; what you do now must be up to you. You have no need to justify your decision to me, and certainly I don't imagine you'd give much weight to the opinion of someone so emotionally compromised. However." She raised one finger, a gesture intended to get Valdis to wait just one moment longer. "It seems to me that you're afraid of what you don't understand, and you won't find that understanding by running away from it. That's all."

The truth was, now that she had a name for the emotion, she didn't know what she was looking for, unless it was a way to not feel it anymore. Yet Raine spoke sense, she couldn't just run away from it and it would hurt either way. She looked up at Raine when the woman made reference to their last discussion, but waited until she had finished before answering.

"That's where you'd be wrong," Valdis replied quietly, finding a sense of calm despite her fear an uncertainty, "You may be compromised when it comes to Solomon Wreath, but when it comes to other things, your mind still seems sound enough. I wouldn't have come to you otherwise."

She did hold a certain amount of respect for the woman, not as much as she held for Anton, but certainly more than she held for others she knew.

"Thank you."

"I'm flattered," Raine said, some dryness in her tone. That certainly was a backhanded compliment. "Perhaps the next time we speak, we can bypass the men in our lives entirely."

She wouldn't turn Valdis away if she came asking advice again, but Raine was not at all the best person to ask on this front, and rather hoped it wouldn't recur. "Whatever you decide to do, I wish you luck," Raine added, sitting back.

Valdis was at the door, feeling the need to flee from everything and unaware that what she had said could have been interpreteted as an insult. She turned back to face Raine as she opened the door.

"Perhaps." Her mind was still spinning, confusion dulling her normally sharp senses, then she slipped out the door and carefully closed it. She needed air.

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The Midnight Hotel January catch-all

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