deercountry | 001: What have I done? It's too late for that

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001: What have I done? It's too late for that

Who: Xerxes Break and you
What: Catchall for the month. Three open prompts, and some closed ones in the comments.
When: All through September!
Where: Whatever amusing chunk of Trench we wind up in at any given time

Content Warnings: Character is depressed and processing a lot of canon deaths; also, character is blind, and sometimes has a lingering cough due to an old chronic illness! Other warnings will appear in thread headers as necessary.

In and Around Trench: Feel free to choose wherever your character would be! He is exploring, after all

Break arrives in Trench thinking a year-long nap sounds like a fantastic idea and maybe he will do that and everyone will just have to deal with it. It's not even a week before he's too restless to stay settled long, and barely a few days after that he loses his patience with the various fussy teenagers who have already adopted him and takes off on his own to spend his days investigating this new city. To be led about with somebody's arm through his can be very pleasant and enjoyable, but Break's independent streak is as vicious as ever, and anyway, he'll never learn his way around the place until he maps it out on his own. All he has to do to get home is hunt down a lamp, so it's fine, right?

This is not quite as simple as it sounds. Break is completely blind, and has zero context for the place at all.

He has no trouble whatsoever getting around. His omen, a big black borzoi, keeps his shoulder beneath Break's hand and helps him wind his way through crowds; the canesword in his other hand ensures he doesn't run into or trip on anything. He moves it in such a leisurely, whimsical way that at first glance it almost looks like he's swinging it around for the fun of it, rather than using it to find his way. So no, he doesn't run into anyone or anything. No, his real problem is that he's still finding and memorizing various landmarks, the city is huge, and there are plenty of times when Break finds himself in some new place with only half an idea how he got there and no idea at all what he might find. Well! Break does not like being fussed over for being unable to see, but it's not like he can hide it these days, and in a situation like that there's nothing else to do but own it. So, whenever he gets frustrated, he steps to the side a bit where he won't be in the way and lifts his voice to make a cheerful announcement.

"Begging your pardon! I seem to be lost."

Sometimes what he gets out of this is a passing raven cussing him out, which he enjoys. Other times some Trenchie delighted to assist a Sleeper catches him, and he proceeds to charm them into telling him all about the city for as long as they are willing to waste their time on him. Sometimes, he gets a fellow Sleeper. Sometimes he has something specific he is looking for, and other times, he has no idea what is even there to be found, and a small adventure might be had. This is how he spends many of these early days in Trench, and slowly but surely, he begins to put the puzzle of the place together in his mind.

Soup: The "here is my character, come bother him" prompt

The rain and chill do not trouble Break much. If anything they suit his underlying mood perfectly, and he's the sort of guy who is at his comfiest when he can be wrapped up in a nice long coat and stop somewhere for a warm drink. He likes the sound of the rain drumming around on things and he likes taking his little walks more slowly, with only Baltus to guide him around, so that his other hand is free to hold his nice new umbrella. The omen also enjoys these times because it means he gets to carry the canesword around in his mouth like a big stick, which he does proudly and with his head held high, as it is an Extremely Important Job.

Break wastes no time in finding a really good soup place with owners who find him endearing in his eccentricities, and he selects this restaurant as his personal lunch place on especially rainy days. He lingers there to enjoy a cup of tea after his meal, often. He likes the warmth and the smells from the kitchen, and the cozy security of building up stomping grounds. The one sad thing about it is that he usually comes alone, and while it's a comfort to have Baltus tucked in under his chair, some of what he's missing most about the world he left behind is idle chit-chat with his loved ones over tea before everyone got back to their days. That he can no longer see in order to stare out the window or watch the other customers coming and going just makes it worse. Break lives in a bubble of darkness now, and it's easy to lose himself in sad moments when it's just him and his soup and his tea and his weird but devoted shadow creature.

Maybe it's his darkblood powers that make him so eye-catching when he gets into this mood, subtly twisting the atmosphere around him so that the light hits him just so, making him seem weirdly far away and terribly lonely even if he isn't making sad faces. Perhaps it's the way Baltus sometimes emerges from beneath the chair to sit up and drape his long face over Break's lap instead, offering comfort. Or maybe it's just Break's lot in life as a Brooding Swordsman™ that certain kinds of people always really want to reach out to him. Regardless, somehow, even if there are plenty of available places to sit, when Break is wishing he had some company the most inviting chair in the whole restaurant is the one that's across from him.

Omen Funtimes: Two for one special, you can have a dog and a sword

As the month progresses and Break continues to heal from his various maladies, his restless energy only increases, and he resumes training with his sword and even gets to fight a monster. There is decided Bloodsport influence working on him here and quite frankly Break does not notice. He's always been a fidgety guy, and his mood improves significantly after he proves to himself that he can still fight if he has to, even in this place. There is absolutely nothing weird about waking up with an intense craving to hit things with a sword. In fact that's probably the most normal thing to happen to Break since he discovered himself to be a damned squid.

Unfortunately, a side effect of this is that Baltus gets the zoomies.

The omen is very proud of being a church grim rather than a proper dog, but the fact remains that he takes the form of a sighthound, with a prancing gait that shifts into something almost horse-like at top speed. Baltus genuinely tries to remain at Break's side, but their shared restlessness gets to him. Increasingly, on their walks about the town, the omen has to stop and spin to get it out of his system, and sometimes takes off running down the street at full speed only to nyoom right back to Break's side seconds later. Sometimes, instead, Baltus is distracted by an interesting person, and someone might find themselves abruptly dealing with a six-mile nose curiously sticking itself into whatever they are doing.

"Baltus! Stop messing with people, you noodle!"

Getting scolded by Break always results in a vigorous wag from the omen's plume of a tail. Baltus is happy that they are both feeling so energetic...!

By the end of the month Break has decided neither of them are fit to be out in public and has discovered the Farther Shores, where he enjoys going barefoot on the warm sands and Baltus can run as he pleases, unobstructed. Sometimes, Baltus even goads Break into chasing after him, or wrestling with him playfully in the surf. Break's sword is never far from his hand. If anyone were to stumble on them here, it likely wouldn't take much to get a friendly spar out of him. If not, omen playtime is equally welcome. Break is just really enjoying this whole thing where he can run around and breathe at the same time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's a good thing Baltus is there to keep Break from thrashing in the boat. Qrow is not sure what would happen if they fall in the river. He thinks, with some disdain, that they might find out anyway, if this turns out like escaping the lab or that disastrous car ride with Clover and they're supposed to experience fake drowning on their way out of whatever this is, but he does not think he would like to test his luck, as it were, just yet.]

Who the hell knows. It can't mean anything good, though.

[It never did, in Deerington. But just as soon as the words are out of his mouth is his cynicism proven justified; the other shoe crashes down upon them in the form of an overpoweringly pungent scent of rot. Qrow doesn't even flinch.]

Of course.

[He just can't wait to find out where that's coming from.]

You are awfully calm about this, you know that? Baltus, your bum is very large, if you wouldn't mind --

[With some very careful shifting, Break manages to shove his omen's hind end onto the floor of the boat and get himself into a sitting position right as the scent hits. Baltus growls again, briefly, and moves to keep the bulk of his body pressed against Break. The swordsman drapes an arm over the dog, his eye darting uselessly as he listens hard, and detects nothing.]

...what do you see?

[He hates that he has to ask. Truthfully, Qrow and Baltus are the reason Break is not currently panicking. If he were here alone, he'd do his best to sort himself out, of course; Break will never be the sort of person who just lets anything get the better of him without a fight. But it's not like that stops him from being terrified the whole way through, and his fear now is reflected in his omen's fangs, still exposed even as Baltus sits calmly.]

I was in Deerington for a year.

[He says, as though that explains everything (it kind of does, though).

If the circumstances weren't so .... this, he'd probably have snickered a little at Break trying to get out from under his omen, but as it stands he's far too tense. His posture and body language are much more rigid than his calm tone would suggest, honestly. He knows whatever is coming is going to be fraught at best.

He's about to answer Break's question with "nothing yet", when that nothing finally comes into view. Fuck. Shit.]

...Corpses.

[The boat drifts closer to them, enough so for him to be able to make out the faces. Birds are picking at the exposed flesh as they stare sightlessly into the void. He tears his gaze from them after a moment--and Break can hear that now Qrow is rattled, a slight tremor underlying his breathing.]

...One of them looks like you. [He could just not tell Break about the others. It's not like he would know. But something about lying about what he sees in this moment feels wrong, like a betrayal.]

The others...the others are--are from my family.

[Break is similarly tense, his hand gripping the hilt of his canesword more firmly at the mention of corpses. But then, Qrow doesn't leap into action about it. And while Break is wondering if this is the sort of situation that might make the other man freeze up -- a common affliction among those who have seen combat, something Break himself has experienced -- Qrow goes on to elaborate that one of the corpses seems to be his, and the gears in Break's head begin turning in earnest.

He cannot be in two places at once. Unless that's his "old" body, the corpse he left behind when he was reborn into this new world, but -- Break has a hunch that he would know if that were the case, somehow, and he feels nothing. If anything he just feels a surge of annoyance at the idea of his body lying around somewhere where people can look at it when he himself is not in it. So, if he is here and there but not really there there, and Qrow was expecting peak bullshit, and somehow they've been transported from the street to a boat in the first place --

Baltus lets out a snort, and puts his teeth away.]

It's not real. [It's not a question. This is the conclusion Break has come to during his long silence.] I am told that...Deerington was someone's dream. So then, to be pulled into something like this so suddenly -- it's meant to be a nightmare of sorts, isn't it?

[It's a pretty sharp deduction from the limited information Break had. Qrow is somewhat impressed he came to the same conclusion as himself without ever having been in Deerington, honestly. But regardless of whether or not it's real, it's here, and unfortunately (ha) they are going to have to deal with it.

Qrow really, really doesn't want to deal with it. He sighs, feeling a familiar exhaustion down to his bones as he cards a hand through his hair.]

...Yeah. Hah, you know, I almost had my hopes up for a while there that coming to the "Waking World" meant leaving that kind of shit behind, but no such luck, I guess.

[Does he sound particularly bitter at that last bit? Maybe. It's hard to tell when his entire attitude is so thoroughly soaked in salt right now. He covers his face with a hand.]

Back there--in the dream, this kind of thing happened all the time. It usually made us talk about whatever we saw.

[It was almost tragic when it could be attributed to the nightmare of a little girl, the twisted-up ghost of a psyche who maybe thought she was helping somehow. Here, there is nothing to attribute their current circumstances to but the Pthumerians. Even with his empathy for Cynthia, Qrow has little patience for beings that feel like gods, these days.

He'd like to be angry about it. He'd like to sock Never Mind in his big, ugly beak. He also knows there's as little point to it than there could be to convince the Brother gods to not blow up Remnant if the relics are reunited. A useless effort with dubious catharsis at best.

Maybe if the body he sees on the other bank wasn't Break's, he'd be more comfortable hedging around the issue some more until one of them came up with a better idea. Instead:]

I can go first, if it's easier.

Tch.

[To be fair, Break has been piecing the situation together as best he can in much the same way he did years ago when he first fell out of the Abyss, three whole decades ahead of where he'd been when he went in -- eavesdropping mostly, asking questions here and there, but taking stock especially of what other Sleepers are inclined to mention entirely on their own. Overwhelmingly, he hears that Deerington was a dream. The rest is informed by his own exposure to Abyss nonsense. He certainly never spent all his days worrying that the Abyss itself was going to somehow reach out and make him start seeing awful things for the joy of it. But there were multiple Chains who could create illusions, and the Cheshire Cat's realm in particular forced Break into a vivid dream of the past, once. Put into that sort of context, it's easy enough for Break to believe in what's happening now, and his shoulders fall as Qrow confirms it.]

To see one another's dead...what a cruel and wretched place.

[With the initial crisis over, Baltus takes it upon himself to move carefully to the very center of the boat, settling directly in between them. Given that Baltus is huge and ridiculous, this results in his front half leaning up against Break, and his back half curled with one long noodle leg splayed out so that his paw is resting on Qrow's knee.

The omen's primary duty will always be taking care of Break, and he keeps himself tangible when he could be a shadowy waft expressly because Break finds touch to be comforting, a way to ground himself in his blindness. But, though Baltus is keeping the secret between them for his own entertainment, the omen has not forgotten that Qrow has shown up when Break needed help twice now, and their present situation is shaping up to be the third time. He is definitely worth a paw upon his person, and Baltus will keep an eye on Qrow, too, he has decided.

Absently, Break takes the opportunity to bury his fingers in the fur behind his omen's ears, none the wiser.]

...well. I can't see a blessed thing. Since that's the case, if this isn't something to fight our way out of... [He'd have certainly tried, in the past, and might now if the one person who understands these things weren't so resigned to it. As it is, Break is very tired, too.] ...I can only know what you tell me, right? Baltus would never snitch about such things, so -- whatever you leave out, I can't question it.

Would you believe I'd still take it over Remnant?

[It kind of sucks, Qrow thinks, that there are Sleepers still being brought in that didn't make the choice to step through that door, to give themselves over to the sea on that flowered beach. He and Ruby and Oscar and Oz had made the decision to let their old lives go, together. Even if it turns out more miserable than Deerington in some ways, it's still a chance to be freed from an endless war, to live his life on his own terms without the fear of Salem hanging over his head.

Baltus places his paw on Qrow's knee as Break speaks up again, and Qrow feels a flicker of guilt down his spine as the man voices the thought he'd had a moment ago. It is, Qrow would assume, Break's way of being kind. Making it easier on him, in his own way. All the same, hearing what he's realized already about their current dynamic (that the amount of information Break has about their surroundings is up to him) only reinforces his decision to get the difficult, unpleasant shit over with. He made the choice long ago that he didn't want to be the person who hurt others just because he could anymore. Withholding information based on what he can see may not be quite the same, but it feels equally wrong.]

...No, I'll tell you everything.

[He's silent a moment after that, staring down at the water and his own vaguely distorted reflection as he gathers his resolve.]

There's three of them. The one that looks like you, and two others. Yang Xiao Long, my other niece, and...Summer Rose. Their mom.

[Ruby's, by birth. But she was Yang's mom too, in the ways that counted. She was more of a mom to her than Raven ever was, anyway.]

Edited 2021-09-26 01:25 (UTC)

[Kindness, yes. A reassurance that whatever conclusions or judgements Break comes to at the end of all this, he will do it on information that comes from Qrow alone. It wasn't a comment on the power dynamic between the two of them so much as a reminder that Qrow has more control here than he might think, if Break is the person he's stuck here with.

But, making the choice to tell Break everything is control too. Break will respect that by listening carefully.]

...your sister?

[His guess is based solely on the fact that "Summer Rose" sounds far more like "Qrow" as names go than Yang Xiao Long does, so he is assuming the niece's name came from the father. That, and the pause before her name is something Break finds a little telling.]

[It occurs to Qrow that this might be the first time anyone has asked him about that. Nobody has inquired which parent he is related to, simply accepting the relation of "uncle" he and Ruby both professed. Getting into the truth is complicated, but there's no way around it at this point. He's made his bed in this boat, as it were, and now he has to float in it.

He shakes his head, letting out a faintly bitter scoff that might have passed for a laugh if it were more ambitious.]

Nah. Technically, Summer was Yang's stepmom. Her birth mom is the one that's my sister. She left after having her. Summer stepped in to help after she was gone...and Ruby came along a couple years later.

[He's not sure how much of their family history this stupid boat ride expects him to unearth before it'll let him go, but he stops there to let Break pick up the reins--either to ask follow up questions or blessedly skip over to telling his own story.]

Mm. Good on her.

[He murmurs it. Break has certain feelings about stepping up to parent a kid who needs you. He did it, in his own weird awkward way. Oscar Vessalius, arguably one of the people Break admires most, did it too. That this mythical Summer person would do the same means he respects her automatically -- and, given the implications Break has picked up on that Qrow chose the kids over the sister, it's a point in his favor too. That's right...the topic of family came up that first night they met, and it felt so heavy between them Break wasn't able to tolerate it too long. Probably it's no surprise that a place apparently intent on terrorizing people would choose this method to strike at Qrow.]

Young Ruby is "the niece" you weren't wanting to upset that night, right? I suspect I may have met her, the day I arrived...playing pirates with little kids on the boardwalk. [A pause, because he's pretty sure he knows where all this is headed, and the idea of having to talk about it is pretty dreadful.] Then, for the other two to appear at you like this...does this place merely want you to see awful possibilities, or...?

[Or is it a memory he's having to relive. It's as much a question about the way the world works as it is a question about Summer and Yang. Break is pretty sure he knows exactly why the other corpse is his own and exactly what it must look like, too, but -- if this place wields worries in addition to truths he needs to know about it. He'd rather not be caught by surprise like this again.]

Yeah, that's her. On both counts, sounds like.

[He's both surprised and unsurprised Break has met her already. Ruby always did have more social energy than he does. Even in Deerington, he hadn't managed to meet all of her friends. Qrow imagines they'd make good friends, what with Break being a swordsman who shares her passion for baked goods.

But it seems difficult to focus on pleasant conversation like that with the corpse-shaped elephants in the room, as it were. Break finally asks the obvious question, here, and Qrow hesitates a long moment. Another sigh leaves his throat before he sets to ripping off that miserable bandaid.]

...Summer's been gone a long time. We never found her body. [Another reason he knows this is fake.] Yang...I don't know. Back in Remnant, she fell into a void in time and space, and I don't know if I'll ever see her again.

[Ruby is in the same situation, but she is in Trench with him. If Yang had washed up with them, he'd have been content not knowing. As things stand, it's slightly better to be aware of the "lost in a void" situation than when she and Ruby were just missing and unreachable in the aftermath of Atlas having crashed into Mantle and immediately flooded, when being unaccounted for meant more than likely "definitely crushed and/or drowned" but like...not by much. He's not even sure if it's a "trapped in a void until someone finds a way to fetch them" or a "died immediately upon falling" state of affairs. He tries not to think about it much.]

She was in the dream with us too, but she woke up before the door to the Waking World opened.

She was kind enough to rescue me from a toddler who had decided to have toddler problems on me.

[Despite the fact that he can't see anyway, Break is paying very close attention to Baltus's ears instead of letting his unseeing gaze move toward Qrow, his omen steadfastly tolerating Break's need to fidget. It's the only way he can give the other man any kind of privacy. It isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, to talk of those who are missed. But this place is not only forcing the issue, it's doing it in a way that's twisted and corrupt. It does not escape Break's attention that the fate of both these people is unknown, and whatever magic is causing this has chosen to present one of the more grisly options available, and without a doubt it's done so explicitly to taunt Qrow with some of his dearest losses. And they may not be losses forever, but is that really better? It's been bad enough for Break to realize that if he can be here, it will never be impossible for his own loved ones to show up later, and because of that he has no choice but to hope and hope and hope even if he knows they're better off where they are, and now things are even worse here than he thought and those wishes have now become something inherently evil on his part, and just -- ugh.

Catching on to the threat of one of Break's fits, Baltus emits a warning grunt, to distract him. Break is overwhelmed enough by the flood of horrible, horrible possibilities hitting him now that he indulges in resting his face entirely against the top of his omen's head for a moment. When he does sit up again, though, his anger is visible on his face, and he skips right over the awkward sympathies he could express now and goes straight for his most immediate problem.]

Mister Qrow. This place is going to hurt my kids, isn't it?

Edited (needs more spiraling) 2021-09-27 01:09 (UTC)

[As someone who has been around since the girls were toddlers and is thus distinctly aware of what Toddler Problems can look like, Qrow can certainly empathize with being trapped in such a situation. But the mood for lightheartedness has been gone ever since he came to on this boat. He can't even bring himself to smirk at the mental image of this guy accosted by a tiny child on his leg.

The question looms heavy. Qrow would like to say that things will be fine, that Deerington had been an alright place to live in between the disasters that came about, even comfortable sometimes, but it would be an obvious dodge. One that there's no point to, besides. He has long since tired of kind omissions.]

Yeah. If it's enough like Deerington, sometimes it'll share their memories without warning, or it'll show them their worst fears, or compel them to say anything that's on their mind, even if they think they'd rather keep it to themselves. They might hallucinate their friends as their worst enemies, or get possessed by a monster, or suddenly go insane for awhile.

[He closes his eyes, feeling the exhaustion in his bones.]

...It wasn't an easy place to live. But it wasn't all bad. Sometimes shit like that'd clear the air, force us to talk about things we needed to, even if we didn't want to.

[A careful breath. He opens his eyes again, though he doesn't turn to face Break.]

Guess it depends on what you're used to, I guess. The world I came from didn't have the mind games, but it wasn't exactly peaceful.

Edited 2021-09-27 02:06 (UTC)

[Break's expression grows increasingly disgusted over the course of this extremely helpful comprehensive list.]

...mine had an annoying penchant for getting one into trouble over the heart's deepest wishes, from time to time. More importantly...those brats have had to shoulder bringing about the end of a load of world-ending drama started by a madman and a bored asshole. I'm told we succeeded, but the losses were -- many, and this is the first chance anyone has to pick up the pieces of what's left.

[He takes his omen's face in his hands and squishes his doggy cheeks.]

Then, that's to be my new very important duty, isn't it, O Noodley One? In a place where perfectly fine conversations on perfectly fine days are to be ruined by having one's most horrible pains and losses thrown into one's face like so -- if the brats are to be allowed to simply be brats from now on, it will be up to us adults to fight back the horrors they come home with and no time to tarry on it, isn't that so?

[As Break rants, Baltus's ears perk up tall, and his tail wags hard enough to thump audibly against the side of the boat. If nothing else, the omen is pleased at this new development. Once Break has a reason, sooner or later, everything else will fall into place.]

[Qrow is nodding along, thinking to himself how they really do seem to have quite a few things in common, and how this is the first chance any of them have had to be free of the responsibility of saving the world in years, decades, and millennia, respectively, when Break says something that thoroughly distracts him.]

"Noodley One"?

[This, at last, is the thing that gets Qrow to turn around, eyebrow raised. Is that what Break imagines he looks like??? This is a terrible impression to have made. (Break wouldn't even be entirely wrong, is the worst part; for all that Qrow certainly has the muscle to handle his ridiculous heavy weapon, he does not exactly have the broadest build ever)]

Oh--you mean the dog. That makes more sense.

[Well, that was a little embarrassing. But...one has to get back to the topic at hand eventually. He huffs slightly, just to get the last of his fluster out of his system.]

...Your kids dealt with apocalypse bullshit too, huh? Congrats on pulling it off, at least.

[He rubs at his face.]

Ours is...complicated. But one of the things we learned in the dream was, there's other versions of us back in our worlds, living their lives as if they were never in Deerington.

[Let yourself be more than you were, Sleeper, Cynthia had said, at the end. You're allowed to be something new.]

We could start over, without having to feel like we'd abandoned our world to being destroyed. And then...we found out about Ruby and Yang falling into the void. It just didn't seem worth trying to go back, after that.

[It really was the final straw for him, ultimately, learning what happened to his nieces while he was keeping the Ace Ops occupied in the hangar. For months, he'd been resigned to going back if the girls felt a remaining obligation to their planet and the war they'd ended up in, unwinnable or not. But he doesn't think he could go back to bear that grief. It'd destroy him.]

For all the bullshit this place might throw at us, at least we'll be together.

Edited (typo >:[) 2021-09-27 06:08 (UTC)

Ah, are you also a set of sentient legs?

[Break is absolutely throwing stones in a glass house here. It is very possible that Baltus is a noodle rather than something sturdy and wolfish explicitly because Break himself is mostly legs and spite under the long coats he favors. Like omen, like person, and all that.

It's fine. Sometimes it is advantageous that no one suspects you of being horrifying and deadly.

This new line of conversation is much more positive than talk of corpses, or so Break thinks. Now could be a time to swap apocalypse stories, and probably it says something about him that entire worlds in danger of ending feels like a much more comfortable topic than more personal griefs. But, it's the latter they're really here for, isn't it?]

...we're not getting out of this silly boat until we've both explained ourselves, right? [They can further compare notes about their worlds and their kids later.] Then, in my case -- if I believed for an instant some other Xerxes Break had taken over my life, I would already be fighting the gods here to find a way to get back there and kill him.

[You know, as one does.]

I imagine that...that's why that third body is here. [He trips over the word "body" a little bit, but honestly, referring to his own self as a corpse feels a little disgusting.] I am not at all pleased at -- having died. Since being pulled here...that's on my mind.

[It's something of a relief that he can't see it, honestly, though the way he imagines it looks isn't really far off from the truth. That body rests slumped up against one of the posts lining the riverbank, flopped like a marionette with its strings long shorn and carelessly thrown away. One shoulder is doused with blood, stark and vivid against the white of his old coat; harder to see is the stain on the dark purple of his shirt, but it's there on his side. The face is bowed forward enough that his messy hair hides his eyes, but the way the blood on his chin is spattered and smeared implies that it came out of his mouth. Probably that sight in particular is not great when paired with the cough Break had at breakfast the other day, and waved away as a lingering issue at its worst in the morning.]

Edited (forgot some words) 2021-09-27 08:48 (UTC)

Hey, my legs are fantastic.

[This noodle(y) incident has lightened the mood just enough for a more joking remark, though it's also not quite a joke. Listen. Even someone with as many insecurities as Qrow isn't immune to vanity.

But Break finally admits to the reason his own corpse is here -- ah. It's surprising, if he's honest. When the dream had been crumbling, and Gerry had disappeared before it was time to go through the Door, Qrow had assumed it was because the man was dead. That a ghost could not make it to the other side to Trench.

If Break had died, that means both Gerry and Clover could have washed up here too. They just...didn't. Like Emerald, and Jaune. Just a matter of luck of the draw, then. Something he'll probably dwell on and brood over in depth later, when he's alone with his thoughts and the reminders of those he's lost. But for now, they have a boat to escape, and he's certainly about to tell Break how he ought to feel about this new life in Trench.]

...For what it's worth, the "other self" thing might just apply to us. I don't know how it works for people who weren't in the dream first.

[Really, it's weird that people are still being brought in at all. Sodder is dead, after all. He hadn't thought anyone but the Sleepers in the dream and the inhabitants of the original Deerington she was from would be here.]

Not that it helps the...dying part. That pretty much just sucks.

[Super eloquent there, Qrow. Just really poignant and meaningful words to hold onto. He's...never been good at knowing how to handle grief, honestly. He drank his way through a decade of it as every remaining member of their little family grieved Summer alone, isolated in their own islands of grief, unable to reach out. He and Clover never talked about it, before it was too late.

He certainly doesn't know how to help a person grieve their own life getting cut short before they were ready--especially when he is not someone who hasn't, at his darkest, lowest times, considered if people wouldn't be better off without him and the problems he brings--both from his semblance and just who he is as a person. It has never gone further than those dark thoughts, because Qrow is a man who takes his obligations and loyalties seriously; it would be one thing to get killed in the war, or in the course of protecting his family, but anything less was meaningless and thus unacceptable. Even so. It doesn't ease the sense of being a bit out of his depth with this.]

I can't pretend to know what it's like, [he admits, at length] not being able to see the other side of a fight like that when you know you've won.

[That's why they left Remnant behind, after all. Their war was unwinnable, and they had a chance to start anew. A chance to be free of all of it.]

But...you're not alone, you know. These places--if there's one thing they make you learn real fast, it's that you can't do any of this shit by yourself. So...[he rolls a shoulder, seeming to grapple with the words a bit. It's more sentimental than he would otherwise allow himself to be, but this is important.]

I mean, if you need a bird's eye view of your kids, when things get rough...I'll be around.

Even if we hadn't won, it's --

[Break cuts himself off, because that's a moot point; if they hadn't won either the world would be undone entirely or the past would have been rewritten starting at a point years before he himself was ever born. No matter how you look at it, the person he is now would never have existed, and that's really what they were all fighting for in the end. No, that's not quite the problem.]

...my death became inevitable a long time ago. Even if -- I had merely died and stayed dead, at least I'd have finally gotten some rest. As it is...this isn't the first time I've lost everything, and had to build a whole new life from the ground up. For this place to go on as though forcing me to do it again, without my dearest loved ones, is a gift, what a brutal farce.

[It's part of what's kept him so listless deep down, these past few weeks. Break has been here before, been in this place in his head where his grief was so great that simply stopping would have been a relief. The first time, Lady Shelly had caught him, seeing straight through to the heart of him and calling him on his desire to have someone just save him from it all, and then she'd done so. Her words from that time have kept him going here in Trench, and he knew from the first day that one way or another, Oz and Elliot and the Alices too were going to become his new "reason". It's these things that have gotten him to bother getting out of bed each day.

Still. None of that eases the grief; it merely gives him an armor of sorts against it, a piece of driftwood to cling to such that at least he doesn't drown. Some days he can stay afloat and most nights it's as brutal as his arrival in this world, leaving him bruised and battered and exhausted from being flung into the force of it over and over. And, because Break has been here before, he knows there's literally nothing for it but to give it time, to ride it out, and to live from moment to moment if he has to.

Terrible.

But it does help to have the kids here, more than he can say. Baltus helps. Having apparently found the one adult in the place who seems to understand what it means to prioritize a bunch of kids, that's a good thing too. It'll hit Break much harder later just how terribly this whole thing could have gone, if he'd been dropped into this dumb boat with a true stranger instead of at least somebody he's already found himself having a late night chat about family with on the bathtub.]

...you've got some gross friendship stuff hiding in you, hm? No wonder Oz took a shine to you so easily. [It's definitely that and not the whole thing where Break deeming another human being acceptable in any capacity is an exciting once-in-a-lifetime event, as far as these kids know. Joke's on them; at any given time Break probably likes six whole people at once.] Thank you. After all they've been through, I don't think I'll be able to chase them all on my own anymore. Surviving has made them too energetic.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001: What have I done? It's too late for that

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i can't remember which corpses we were doing on qrow's end so i'm going with summer and yang

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cw: description of a bloody corpse, eeeeew

cw for vague reference to suicidal thinking

continuing that cw