[Midnight Hotel] April catch-all

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: Month of April, 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 of April, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: None thus far.

The last month has seen some new faces, including a young man by the name of Yuri who’s taking over the Hotel’s breakfasts. Thanks to a suggestion by Skulduggery Pleasant, there is now a sheet on the desk for newcomers to write their names and languages—an informal Foreigner census sheet, as it were.

There is also a new feature in the lobby—a birdhouse with a peppermint-fragranced candle on the porch and an owl tucked inside to project the nest. It’s hung from the balcony over the desk, and in fact its presence there has dissolved some tensions among the kedan which had not been readily apparent until they were gone. If anyone asks, the kedan will freely explain that a house-guardian traditionally protects a homestead against nightmares, bad luck and ill-will. Fighting under the eye of a house-guardian is Very Bad Luck, even if fighting in the Hotel wasn’t bad luck already.

The garage is also newly opened, shiny and bright and still smelling of steel and brick from the construction. The Bentley has claimed her rightful place inside it, but be careful about touching her; her owner is possessive. There is a sign-up sheet at the front desk for the four fee-based work-spaces now available there. They’re medium-sized and in cubicles against the wall, with some space underneath for storage and power outlets. Chairs are bring-your-own. There are also storage spaces on the other wall, for those who’d like to lock their things away somewhere more private.

In general, however, the Hotel is running quite smoothly and more and more the kedan are relaxed about being there. Those who are regulars are less likely to call it ‘the Foreigner’s hotel’ and more likely to call it by its name, in passive recognition of its place in the city at large rather than as a representative of the outsiders.

[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 OR A JOB. Anton will manufacture means of payment until Foreigners are able to properly offer recompense or choose to move out.

Comments

[redlightgreenlight]

None of the emotions rolling off of Gene were unexpected, but the intensity was excruciatingly painful to feel, just another curse of the Void existing alongside her soul.

"You once said that you could look into my essence," she said, "And I told you that you wouldn't like what you saw...My species do not possess souls, or at least, we aren't supposed to. In the place of a soul, we possess a darkness that we call the Void. The Void gives us our power and we can call upon it to supplement our strength, speed and agility. It also heals us from injury and can even bring us back from death. But the Void has another purpose...It enables us to steal the souls of others.

But, unlike the rest of the members of my pack, I do have a soul. A soul that is protected by a barrier created with holy magic. That barrier began to collapse beneath the constant onslaught of the Void and the Void broke through and tried to destroy my soul."

The memories of the nightmare were returning and her own fear, merged with Gene's wasn't making it easy for her to maintain her composure.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene listened.

It was a curious thing for him, just listening when the intent wasn't to glean information that he could use to wound, to hurt. This time, he was listening to someone explain their behavior, to even, perhaps, apologize.

It was a strange feeling. He wondered if Bakura had felt this way when he'd made an awkward attempt - but his murder had succeeded, and Valdis's hadn't...though certainly not for lack of trying. If not for Wan and Vergil, he would have died long before Tony got there.

"That doesn't explain why you attacked me." His own soul was tarnished, impure; he'd been told as much by something of an expert. "Without your soul, do you only seek to kill?"

[redlightgreenlight]

"Not usually," she replied, "A soulless hound is stable, cold and manipulative, but I was in a state of flux...You see, the goal of a Hound is to seek out condemned souls and consume them." She flinched, realizing that what she had said might just hurt the boy more, "It is possible that, while the Void was busy trying to tear my soul apart, it decided to go after yours as well."

[wrathfulkhan]

Stable, cold, and manipulative. Ouch. Sounds a bit like Gene had been when he first showed up, perhaps minus the 'stable'. He still has that coldness, that manipulative ability in him, but he's been trying to be more...human. More open. Better than what he was, what he is.

"Because mine's condemned," he said flatly. It can be read as a question, but it didn't come out as one.

[redlightgreenlight]

She hesitated to answer, uncertain of whether or not she could divine the motives of the Void.

"Not necessarily in the way you believe," she said, "No soul can be entirely pure, so by that rule, the Void could potentially take any soul it wanted. But the soul can be tarnished by a person's own feelings of themselves. Those with darker pasts can most certainly be a higher priority target, but part of forgiveness is forgiving yourself as well as being forgiven by others."

[wrathfulkhan]

He shook his head, once, dismissing the notion. "No. A demon looked at my soul and the souls of two others, and mine was the one singled out as impure."

Forgiving himself. An absurd notion. Tony had forgiven him for his sins, but he never would.

[redlightgreenlight]

She sighed, "If that is what you believe, then you have your answer, but you must realize that the Void is a violent, cruel creature, instead of taking my soul as a whole, it decided to tear it apart, piece by piece."

It had been beyond painful, a nightmare she hoped to never relive.

"But you must remember what I said about the impurity of souls. No soul is entirely pure, out of the three of you, yours was simply the most impure."

She didn't think that the information would help him in any way, but she would be truthful with him.

"That doesn't mean that the Void won't demand a more pure soul, the first time I met Wan, the Void wished to kill him for the amount of light he possessed. Perhaps the Void simply wanted to stop you from reaching your potential to be part of the light side."

[wrathfulkhan]

"More impure than that of an arms dealer...!" he snarled, half to himself. He hadn't done more wrong than Howard Stark at that point in his life, surely. The man had been indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands. Gene's chief trespass at that point - and chief misfortune - was to be born.

The subject was still a sore one; more sore than he'd expected. He squashed the emotion, packing it back up. Then he smiled thinly, unwilling to believe her explanation.

"Well, it failed, didn't it? I'm still here. Though I have my suspicions it will try again, if that's the case."

[redlightgreenlight]

"Yes," she replied softly, trying to hold the painful emotions at bay, "But it would first have to tear down the barrier between it and my soul and take my soul into the darkness. If there is a next time, it won't play around and will simply destroy it right away."

She laughed bitterly, "Good news for you and everyone else because without a soul, I suspect there would be nothing to anchor me here. If I'm not here, then I'm not a threat to anyone."

[wrathfulkhan]

"Let's hope there isn't a next time," Gene noted. At least he was the only one who had been hurt by Valdis' loss of control.

Well - that wasn't strictly accurate. He was the only one with the physical scars, but he was sure that Valdis had some mental scars of her own.

He reached for his soul gem, almost absently, running a thumb across its face. He'd wondered what it meant; why it had manifested as this of all things. What the dark lines - the flaws - meant in it; what the color-shifting chatoyance could signify.

[redlightgreenlight]

"Yes," She replied, knowing that the chances were slim. She knew exactly what had occurred to spark the near disaster.

"Have you ever heard the story of the Two Wolves?" She asked, watching him touch his soul gem and resisting the urge to reach for her own.

[wrathfulkhan]

"I have not," he said, tilting his head at her. Clearly, she was going to be one of the wolves, or at least one of them might represent her. As a fan of myth and allegory, and someone who usually found it to be relevant in his own life, he was open to hearing about it.

[redlightgreenlight]

The story was one she had been told by a Cherokee Elder, it seemed like a lifetime ago, and in a way it was, but she remembered every word.

"Within us all there two wolves locked in battle. One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

She sighed heavily and shook her head, feeling that she possessed far more of the former than the latter.

"The battle is fierce, but in the end, the one you feed is the one who will emerge victorious."

She had been so foolish. Her actions on the cliffs had almost cost her everything and now she had to pick up all the pieces and try to put them back together.

"After Dante disappeared, I made the mistake of feeding the evil wolf. I fed it enough that it was almost able to defeat the good one. It is a mistake I shall not make again."

[wrathfulkhan]

"I think my good wolf was slaughtered as a pup," Gene remarked. He could name the day, remember the very moment that the evil wolf consumed its twin, to use the language of the allegory. The moment when all of his energy, all of the loathing he possessed had been turned on Zhang, the man who had killed his mother.

He nodded, thinking. "As long as you know what you need to do."

[redlightgreenlight]

She laughed and shook her head in sad amusement. The poor boy had no understanding of the story if that was the conclusion he had come to.

"You love Tony, yes?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene's reaction was curious; he went very quiet, and very still, and stared at a point on the floor about twenty feet away. He drew his arms closer to his body, hunched his legs, and didn't answer.

Though perhaps that was answer enough.

That four-letter word was one that hadn't come up between them, by some unconscious joint agreement not to use it. They cared for each other, surely, and were well-known to do so by any Foreigners who paid attention (and probably some kedan, too). But love? No, no, he couldn't, he wasn't capable of it, he didn't have that in his soul, his tarnished, broken soul.

And it would hurt too much to love, and to not be loved back. To have his heart open and raw and vulnerable to a thousand terrors.

The chord the word struck was true, somewhere he didn't like to think about, but he'd go to his grave before he admitted it.

"That's a personal question," he says at last, quietly.

[redlightgreenlight]

"I once thought as you did. That I could never be loved, that my darkness and evil was too great to ever experience that kind of feeling or to receive it from another. But Dante changed that...You might be able to lie to yourself, Gene," she replied, "But you cannot lie to me."

"I know without looking that you are capable of love, because I can feel it in your essence. You said that it died, but this forced empathy of mine tells me that your good wolf is still alive, perhaps hungry, but alive nonetheless."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene continued to stare at nothing, and didn't say a word.

"No," he said after the silence had dragged on far too long. Though whether it was a refutation of Valdis's assessment or denial of the glimmer of recognition he'd felt was anyone's guess.

[redlightgreenlight]

She sighed. No amount of reasoning could change the boy's mind. If he was so caught up in self loathing that he wouldn't listen, then so be it.

"I didn't ask to speak with you in order to be your therapist," she said. She had enough of her own problems to deal with, "I asked because I wished to apologize and explain why. I felt you deserved that much."

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene could be quite intractable - especially when he was beating himself up.

The change of subject led to a change in his body language. This was a safer subject, somehow, and his posture eased, and he looked at Valdis again.

"So the incident with the Void. It won't happen again?" His voice was a little more brusque than it had been; he was still wrestling with his emotions, and concealing it less well than he usually did.

[redlightgreenlight]

"No," she said firmly, "The barrier has been restored and will hold."

There were conditions to that statement, but Gene didn't need to know what they were. For as long as she fed the two sides equally, then there wouldn't be a problem.

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene nodded. "Good." He still wasn't comfortable around her, nor would he be for a while, he was sure. But the fact that the Void was going to be contained was very nearly enough for him.

He just resolved to keep his emotions under a more stringent lockdown around her from now on. She could probably sense the turmoil swirling around in his mind, no matter how he tried to quiet it.

[redlightgreenlight]

She nodded, ignoring his emotions as best she could.

"Yes," she said simply, "Please tell Tony that I'm sorry as well."

[wrathfulkhan]

"I'll try," he said, "but I think he'll be less likely to forgive you. He gets very...protective."

Couldn't mean that Tony loved him. Only meant that Tony was protecting what was his. Nothing more, nothing less.

[redlightgreenlight]

"Is that so?" She said, a small smile on her face, "In my experience, people only protect what they love."

After all, she was the last person who needed protection from outside forces, but that hadn't stopped Dante from trying anyway.