tushanshu_logs | There Is A Flame That Never Dies: Enjolras Catchall!

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There Is A Flame That Never Dies: Enjolras Catchall!

Characters: Enjolras and OPEN
Date: The Month of June
Location: Various. Turtle's Head, A Tavern, The Streets
Situation: Enjolras uses an anniversary to mourn, celebrate his friends, and tries to gather Foreigner stories and information about how the common kedan view them.

Warnings/Rating: Grief, Talk of Death, Alcohol.

I.

There's A Grief That Can't Be Spoken. There's A Pain Goes On And On:

(Turtle's Head: June 5th, All Day and Night)

Enjolras is seated at the turtle's head starring out at the water the best way that he can, a hand on his soul gem, which is warm to touch. His thoughts now turn toward, not Taraja, though he'd come here with her often, taking the long trek because she enjoyed it. Today, he's thinking of the others who have slipped him by, of how Combeferre and he started something two...three mid summers ago, in the midst of the awful memories of the barricade and the love he'd learned not to deny himself. Now, he is alone, just starring out at the depths of the ocean, thoughts of those he's loved, and lost, floating through his mind.

IS he condemned to watch them die, then see them vanish in another world? Enjolras supposes he deserves it, but could it be a lie of Malicant's he's taken to his heart? Could it be corruption of his soul? Either way he's at the head, pacing back and forth from time to time and tossing rocks into the water as he tries to look under control, or at least, to have a private place here, where he can break down with the memory, not of their deaths, but of their lives, and the hard truth that this year, he's on his own; dread anniversaries causing him to think in such a way or not.

"At this time in 1832..." He muses, not quite under his breath. After all, who could not think of home, today?

II.

Drink With Me To Days Gone By:

(June 6th, A Tavern In Keelaiai)

He died today. Enjolras died today, holding the hand of Grantaire of all people. Grantaire, who loved his taverns, and his absinthe and whatever drinks that he could get his hands on. Grantaire who had loved...no, He's putting that thought firmly away. It's hardly for tonight, for blaspheming the men who died with and for him. Tonight is for honor instead.

It only feels right somehow, that he is sitting here, in this tavern, taking up a large table with a shot of this establishment's strongest lined up for Grantaire. And a glass of wine for Combeferre, of the kind they often enjoyed bringing back to their table here, a fruity mixed drink that he thought Bahorel would enjoy, brandy for Courferac and Eponine. All in all, there are several drinks lined up around a round table in the corner, and one Enjolras, chastely sipping at a glass of water, ignoring the filled wineglass by his side for just a while still. He's sitting silently, occasionally studying a slowly burning candle, a look of devoted, almost peaceful contemplation on his face, the candlelight catching on his earrings as he waits, for God Knows What.

III.

Let Us Take To The Streets With A Jubilant Shout:

(June 7th and Onward, Streets of Keelaiai)

"Would you like to talk about your life here, how you feel about the Foreigners?" Enjolras asks a keedan girl outside one of the shops and then a boy who don't seem to shy away so quickly from him. "What's it like for your family now?

From time to time, he's also spotting willing foreigners and darting over, notes in hand to learn what things he might. Books promoting Foreigners as normal can't be written alone, and finding out what image they have to lose is quite important after all! Enjolras is willing to grab anyone he can to tell their stories, whether they really wish to speak with him or not. This could be a problem.

IV.

They Will Come One And All, They Will Come When We Call!

(Choose your own!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mostly I happened into it by chance. I learned a bit of white magic back home, and was doing construction. I figured I might as well get some use out of the spells, and the hospital just snapped me up full time. That was back when Mrs. Reyes was running it."

"A very long time." Enjolras nods. "I came on after the explosions because it felt like the right thing to be done. These days, I'm hardly qualified for anything major but I may take your suggestion all the same. It IS a good one."

"Even having a talent for it is handy, since the kedan don't have those abilities," Zelgadis said. "Back home, what I can do would be what any priest or priestess would learn during their studies. You'd have to live in a very small town to not have someone who knew a basic healing spell."

"That," Enjolras smiled, "is amazing. Just to think of people who could heal so quickly as all of that. I love my country as I loved my mother, once, but France, Paris especially, is ill, with some sort of...social cancer. Not the least because so many poor are left to die, instead of being treated for their own ills. There is the free clinic, and the children's hospital, but they are so overworked and understaffed. Imagine how people like that could help. Remarkable."

"It's not perfect. People who can cast the big spells, the ones that can save lives, are few and far between. And tend to be of interest to kings and such. The spells I know would be worse than useless on someone who has a life-threatening injury, or who just isn't healthy -- they work by using the body's resources to speed up healing, which means you need power to spend. As for epidemics... it can takes teams of sorcerers to find a cure for epidemics, and then the country has to get the supplies."

Zelgadis's last memories of his homeworld were of an epidemic and the massive amounts of fallout from it.

"I guess what I'm saying is that magic doesn't make humans not human, just changes the scales a bit."

"Ah, but the best efforts of many could not do so either, in those cases." Enjolras could see the point of that, and the body having defenses besides. "Something more in the line of a broken arm could be healed, then, using your abilities, yes?" Injuries like his own at the barricade could never have been healed under that case. It only made sense when you considered it deeply enough.

As for epidemics...yes that sounded like the way of it. "Doctors in our case, at home." he said, to the last bit there. "The Cholera has taken over and no one is quite sure why, but everyone has been trying, every hospital and doctor are quite overworked and people have started to consider the root causes. More than one person has voiced that the government may be poisoning the water of the poor, but enough rich men have started to fall as well.

I can see where any situation would be cause for more investigation and prevention." He added. "And human is not so bad, usually. I would change the sleep requirements if I had any say, but other than that...helping put us get back together or to get over something that is deadly...it certainly sounds as though it helps. I admire that people try."

"Yes," Zelgadis said. "Basically doing what natural healing would do on its own, but faster. It's a strain on the person, but someone who has studied white magic more than I could could transfer that strain to the environment."

"Transferring it as well?" Enjolras found himself surprised, but also relieved by the idea. It made more sense for the negatives to be able to be put somewhere else, to allow a healer to keep working.

"I would assume there is a darker form of magic in your world as well?" It stood to reason, right?

"Black magic," Zelgadis said. "Most black magic spells are destructive. Not necessarily evil, but there's easier ways to destroy things. There's a few summoning spells that are benign, and some spells that are just nasty."

"Black magic, then." Enjolras nods, noting that he does not describe it as evil entirely, and it does make sense. "There are times destruction can be useful. I can only imagine the care that one must take to wield them with wisdom, instead of out of other reasons."

Zelgadis nodded. "I've seen plenty of not-so-wise uses of it."

"I can only imagine, though," Enjolras frowned a little. "I am not sure I would like to." He's reminded of Malicant's presence, and some of the things he had done,though he knows too, that there are times a bit of support is needed. "I suppose it is a weapon as any other. Potentially used for either good or ill, and requiring a lot of care."

He'd learned that about guns in something of a hard way, when he'd still been young, and his father had attempted to take him hunting. No one had died, but a gun going off in the house when you move it, does give you a bit of healthy respect for them. The hole he'd left in the wall, and his father's resigned sigh had also helped contribute to it.

At least, after the fact, he'd learned.

"Everything is," Zelgadis said. "Humans -- and others -- are what makes good and evil. Everything else... is just a force of nature."

Enjolras found that he could not quite agree. There was God to consider, for himself, after all, despite that their relationship had been...rocky to say the least. Still, humans...er sentient beings did have the ability to apply both forces to their lives, and to use them to ensure outcomes.

"We do hold both of them in our hands, much of the time." That was something that he could agree with. "One must hope to make the right choice then, no matter what. And not to fail at that."

Beings like that might as well be forces of nature as far as Zel was concerned, in terms of their ability to interact with humanity. "Yeah. Even when choices are hard. there isn't always a right choice."

Forces of nature certainly could be a way to describe that sort of power, yes. It made sense in those terms, because after all, what else did a god or gods use but those forces? At any rate, he nodded there.

"I suppose the best thing in those cases may be the choice that does the most good...or even the least bad." he said, considering the barricade, and his choice of sending men away.

He might have had them stay, those who he'd sent home, and up their numbers and expertise, but that would, quite probably, have resulted in their deaths, and they had children. To rob a child of its parents... that was a greater wrong to Enjolras than his own death.

And there had been standing, even in the face of death, rather than surrendering to the guard, or allowing himself to be taken as their prisoner, sham trial and all the rest. It had been better to die as a symbol, terrible as it was. Sorting through them was not always easy.

"Thankfully enough, those choices are not always there."

"True enough. They exist, but sometimes there are easy choices. Or choices where there is no wrong answer." Dinner, for one.

"So there are." He agreed, nodding. "A choice between what one wears, depending on the weather, or, of course, which books to read when you've a choice between a few of them. I see the point."

"Where to have dinner," Zelgadis agreed. "A nice place to be when those are all the decisions we have to worry about."

"Rather." Enjolras nodded. "I do like it when other people have to make the difficult calls instead of us." They'd taken a lot out of him at home, he realized now. He'd still have done them, but a break was nice.

"Or there's no crisis at the moment at all." Zelgadis said. "Though it does make me wonder when something will happen."

"No crisis at all is much better for all of us, true." Enjolras could admit to the point, although that second one was also very present, and very much something he could relate to. "We've been trained to anticipate them, haven't we?" He asked, looking suddenly rather serious. "Life in a warzone will cause that sort of questioning, that need to know, and be prepared for it, I think."

He sometimes could not sleep at night, still, without waking with the feeling something had happened. Monitors turning on were enough to give him pause, to make Enjolras feel that something was going to happen, a horrible broadcast detailing something that had happened, or Malicant himself, appearing to torment him, though he was dead. Irrational though it was, he would admit, at least to himself, that it did sometimes happen.

Zelgadis nodded. "You hear about that problem with soldiers after a war. When being on edge is what's needed to save your life, you can't quite relax when things become more peaceful."

"I wonder if there's a way to learn..." Certainly he knew he slept differently in a bed than camping, but normally cities were... well, had different dangers than the woods. And with friends, he could let his guard down.

"Indeed." Enjolras noted, a hand slipping up to absently play at one of his earrings. It was funny. He had come from a battle at home, from being cautious with the police presence, being badly beaten in 1830, and watching all of those he cared for fall in 1832 before he had been shot eight times for them, but until Malicant had made his appearance, he had thought himself to be doing well.

"Strange," He said out loud, now. "How one war might do it when another left one unscathed." He shook his head, disliking the weakness now that he had needed to admit to it.

"To learn such preparation? I should think it possible. We might ask ourselves where we intended to go should all Hell break loose again, and our safe places become unsafe, what we intend to do to keep ourselves alive, and what we may use to fight. I think it possible to make those decisions, considering some of whom we have amongst us."

Zelgadis shook his head. "To learn how to relax in peacetime when you don't know if you'll ever need those skills again."

"And I think some of that is connection. I had friends back home, but they could take care of themselves against ordinary trouble. Some of them could even handle extraordinary trouble. I didn't know many ordinary people."

Some of that was because he traveled so much, so he knew his traveling companions. Here in Keelai, he'd actually known many of the regular kedan, at least on a 'nod when they pass on the street'. It was weird when you reflected that one's neighbors could be hurt by something Zel would consider an annoyance.

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