Xerxes Break (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
payingfordeliverance) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2021-12-05 09:55 pm
payingfordeliverance) wrote in deercountry2021-12-05 09:55 pm
Entry tags:
002: Regrets collect like old friends, here to relive your darkest moments
Who: Xerxes Break and you
What: A catchall, including event threads! Open prompts in the post, closed ones in the comments. As usual the open prompts are very "here's where to find him, make something up," so if you'd like to plot out something more specific feel free to PM me here or at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
blithering
When: November and December!
Where: All over the place
Content Warnings: Consuming magic mushrooms for great mental health justice in prompt one, loads of anxiety and references to verbal child abuse in prompt three. Other warnings added into threads as necessary!
Mid-November Mushroom Funtimes
Probably the least surprising habit Break acquires as he learns to cook is eating whatever he's working on at every stage from start to finish. He has no idea what half the spices he's squirreled into the house even are and can't tell the difference between a great many of these onions and things either, and makes dinner happen mostly by having some idea of what should be in this or that and tossing things in and deciding on the fly whether that was a poor decision or not. It's fine, he's only poisoned someone once and it turned out to be an annoying vileblood fluke. We won't worry about it.
Anyway, that's how he comes to be chewing idly on a weeper mushroom Black Alice found and abruptly acquires mental health.
This is not to say he turns into a sparkly pastel version of himself and goes trotting about like a horrid pretty pony or anything, a fate he will conveniently avoid in a couple weeks. No, he still misses his home and his people terribly, still worries about the ones he's met here and this "farm" thing he keeps hearing about, frets about his kids and frets about winter's swift approach. It's just that these things don't feel like such a burden anymore, and he has no trouble convincing himself to get out of bed or leave the house or speak to other people. Things don't set him off into fits as they usually do, and the challenges he knows are coming don't feel insurmountable, as though the slightest oversight on his part will bring some horrid disaster down on the lot of them.
And, most importantly, for some reason his eyesight restores itself. His morning cough vanishes and his usual aches and pains recede, and Xerxes Break honestly feels better than he has in a year or three. He feels almost young.
Given how annoying Trench is, he doesn't really question it. Magic mushrooms. Sure, why not. The next few days are a flurry of productivity, as he tracks down people to help seal the windows and various drafty places in their ramshackle old house, ousts whatever "the hissing thing" is from the root cellar and gets it all spruced up, dutifully allows White Alice to haul him all over town, badgers the other kids pretty much every time he runs across one, and perhaps even beats up a blood zealot or two. He's easy to cross paths with as he's out and about most every day, and while he sometimes pretends he is still blind just to mess with people, it's pretty obvious given the way he slows down to stare at everything from the canals to the architecture to the ocean itself during one of his walks on the beach that Break can see. With no idea how long it will last, he needs to commit as much of the place as he can to memory.
Late November Boat Loot
The eventual permanent restoration of Break's sight brings with it the likewise permanent feeling that he ought to be doing more, somehow, and his restlessness only worsens when people he knows -- Lysithea among them -- turn up with injuries. The arrival of the eery frozen boats gives him an outlet for this. The boats have supplies, and both his household and the bakery always need supplies. So, clearly, slithering around in these things with no one on hand beyond his omen to save his bum if things go sideways is a fantastic idea, and he will not run into any trouble at all.
Break has managed to swallow several lessons from the last bits of his life back home. Unfortunately it seems that asking for help rather than doing whatever the hell he wants on account of being invincible was not one of them.
December Misfortunes
Break has no idea what a Blessed Day is and therefore no idea that he has one on December 21st. From his perspective, a rabbit's foot keychain turns up in his house one day for absolutely no reason, and Break panics and stuffs it into his coat pocket before the kids see it because half of them either love or were rabbits at some point and most of them are experiencing darkblood stressbasketry and really just no one needs to be dealing with a disembodied rabbit's foot lying around in this family.
He then forgets about it in favor of various other things that have him anxious and paranoid, and goes about his business.
What follows is multiple days of bad luck following Break around everywhere he goes, ranging from minor annoyances like slipping on ice all the way up to the stove in a favorite restaurant bursting into flame the second he walks in the door. It takes him a while to catch on, given that these unlucky things are happening to the people around him, rather than Break himself. But a fun fact about Break is that in his own world, his red eyes mark him as something called a "Child of Misfortune", and while he spent the bulk of his life dismissing it as nothing but a superstition, being told repeatedly that you cause bad luck simply by existing tends to mess a kid up.
In Break, this has manifested in a habit of blaming himself for things he is only barely connected to. Already feeling weirdly guilty about not getting abducted to the Sleeper Farm where he absolutely would have saved people he likes from being tortured which obviously means their injuries are his fault for having...not been around at the time...it does eventually cross his mind that the same darkblood powers that were giving him health problems have now turned outwards instead, and he is the source of all this bad luck.
This does not help his anxiety.
After a few days he will rediscover the rabbit's foot and notice the bad luck magically clears up when he hides it somewhere else. In the meantime, regardless of where one encounters him, he can be found skittish and hypervigilant, ready to jump into other people's bouts of bad luck almost before they have even realized it's happening. After all, if these things are his fault somehow, it's his responsibility to fix things until he can get things under control again.
What: A catchall, including event threads! Open prompts in the post, closed ones in the comments. As usual the open prompts are very "here's where to find him, make something up," so if you'd like to plot out something more specific feel free to PM me here or at
When: November and December!
Where: All over the place
Content Warnings: Consuming magic mushrooms for great mental health justice in prompt one, loads of anxiety and references to verbal child abuse in prompt three. Other warnings added into threads as necessary!
Mid-November Mushroom Funtimes
Probably the least surprising habit Break acquires as he learns to cook is eating whatever he's working on at every stage from start to finish. He has no idea what half the spices he's squirreled into the house even are and can't tell the difference between a great many of these onions and things either, and makes dinner happen mostly by having some idea of what should be in this or that and tossing things in and deciding on the fly whether that was a poor decision or not. It's fine, he's only poisoned someone once and it turned out to be an annoying vileblood fluke. We won't worry about it.
Anyway, that's how he comes to be chewing idly on a weeper mushroom Black Alice found and abruptly acquires mental health.
This is not to say he turns into a sparkly pastel version of himself and goes trotting about like a horrid pretty pony or anything, a fate he will conveniently avoid in a couple weeks. No, he still misses his home and his people terribly, still worries about the ones he's met here and this "farm" thing he keeps hearing about, frets about his kids and frets about winter's swift approach. It's just that these things don't feel like such a burden anymore, and he has no trouble convincing himself to get out of bed or leave the house or speak to other people. Things don't set him off into fits as they usually do, and the challenges he knows are coming don't feel insurmountable, as though the slightest oversight on his part will bring some horrid disaster down on the lot of them.
And, most importantly, for some reason his eyesight restores itself. His morning cough vanishes and his usual aches and pains recede, and Xerxes Break honestly feels better than he has in a year or three. He feels almost young.
Given how annoying Trench is, he doesn't really question it. Magic mushrooms. Sure, why not. The next few days are a flurry of productivity, as he tracks down people to help seal the windows and various drafty places in their ramshackle old house, ousts whatever "the hissing thing" is from the root cellar and gets it all spruced up, dutifully allows White Alice to haul him all over town, badgers the other kids pretty much every time he runs across one, and perhaps even beats up a blood zealot or two. He's easy to cross paths with as he's out and about most every day, and while he sometimes pretends he is still blind just to mess with people, it's pretty obvious given the way he slows down to stare at everything from the canals to the architecture to the ocean itself during one of his walks on the beach that Break can see. With no idea how long it will last, he needs to commit as much of the place as he can to memory.
Late November Boat Loot
The eventual permanent restoration of Break's sight brings with it the likewise permanent feeling that he ought to be doing more, somehow, and his restlessness only worsens when people he knows -- Lysithea among them -- turn up with injuries. The arrival of the eery frozen boats gives him an outlet for this. The boats have supplies, and both his household and the bakery always need supplies. So, clearly, slithering around in these things with no one on hand beyond his omen to save his bum if things go sideways is a fantastic idea, and he will not run into any trouble at all.
Break has managed to swallow several lessons from the last bits of his life back home. Unfortunately it seems that asking for help rather than doing whatever the hell he wants on account of being invincible was not one of them.
December Misfortunes
Break has no idea what a Blessed Day is and therefore no idea that he has one on December 21st. From his perspective, a rabbit's foot keychain turns up in his house one day for absolutely no reason, and Break panics and stuffs it into his coat pocket before the kids see it because half of them either love or were rabbits at some point and most of them are experiencing darkblood stressbasketry and really just no one needs to be dealing with a disembodied rabbit's foot lying around in this family.
He then forgets about it in favor of various other things that have him anxious and paranoid, and goes about his business.
What follows is multiple days of bad luck following Break around everywhere he goes, ranging from minor annoyances like slipping on ice all the way up to the stove in a favorite restaurant bursting into flame the second he walks in the door. It takes him a while to catch on, given that these unlucky things are happening to the people around him, rather than Break himself. But a fun fact about Break is that in his own world, his red eyes mark him as something called a "Child of Misfortune", and while he spent the bulk of his life dismissing it as nothing but a superstition, being told repeatedly that you cause bad luck simply by existing tends to mess a kid up.
In Break, this has manifested in a habit of blaming himself for things he is only barely connected to. Already feeling weirdly guilty about not getting abducted to the Sleeper Farm where he absolutely would have saved people he likes from being tortured which obviously means their injuries are his fault for having...not been around at the time...it does eventually cross his mind that the same darkblood powers that were giving him health problems have now turned outwards instead, and he is the source of all this bad luck.
This does not help his anxiety.
After a few days he will rediscover the rabbit's foot and notice the bad luck magically clears up when he hides it somewhere else. In the meantime, regardless of where one encounters him, he can be found skittish and hypervigilant, ready to jump into other people's bouts of bad luck almost before they have even realized it's happening. After all, if these things are his fault somehow, it's his responsibility to fix things until he can get things under control again.
no subject
Oh.
Oh, yes, this is much better than snacks.
Baltus does not possess opposable thumbs but he does possess teeth and cunning, and in half a minute he's managed to chew the lock on the window open and shove the thing up in a complicated series of brutish manipulations not worth describing which will no doubt be a factor in the house deciding it needs to install a birdie door. This accomplished, assuming Qrow will let him get away with it, Baltus just picks the whole bird up ever so gently and lopes back off to the parlor with him.
There are a lot of teeth in here. But, Baltus is very careful, and since he is made of smoke and shadow, there isn't any slobber. It's fine. Qrow shall be dropped smack on Break's face in just a few short moments.]
no subject
hey
what,, the fuck/?
whAT tHe fUCk?!
hey. hey???
Qrow might be technically capable of human-tier sentience when he is a bird; otherwise, there would be no purpose to having been given the ability in order to aid in spy work. That does not mean some birdlike instincts are not retained, and though he realizes at any point he could transform back into a human and escape this situation, the bird part of his mind is just kind of emphatically screaming at being inside a giant dog's entire tooth-filled mouth and he oscillates between staying still and silent and fluttering his wings aggressively enough to make Baltus open his mouth to cough or something. Everything happens SO much and he regrets hIS ENTIRE LIFE AND ALL OF HIS CHOICES SCREAAAAHFKLSJKDJF--
--ah. now he is on Break's face. Qrow just...slowly...slides off him and flops directly on the floor on his back, seeming every bit the human equivalent of a beached whale as he lies there for a minute.]
Brothers, that was fucking terrifying. I never want to do that ever again.
no subject
He calms down somewhat when the crow turns out to be Qrow, being a human person saying human words. This only lasts a moment before he props himself up on his elbows and shoots an incredulous look in the general direction of his omen, who has plonked his bum right on Break's leg.]
What in hell was that?! I suppose you're quite pleased! [Baltus makes a happy roorooroo sort of noise and flops over Break's legs in a noodly way, tail thumping gleefully. Making a disgusted noise, Break goes to pull his blankets up over his head.] Good gravy! Well, now I'm really not getting up, no way. Here, Qrow, have some blanket. It's safer in here.
[Whether he means Qrow can take a blankie of his own from Break's surplus or he's invited to crawl right into his pillows with him is up for debate, given Break's current hasty retreat into his fort. Break will deal with it either way. He's mortified enough that Qrow deserves some blanketfort, honestly. Baltus is unrepentant. This is the most energetic Break has been all day.]
no subject
...Well, after he's got all the bitching out of his system first, anyway. He does not go to make himself cozy in Break's side of the nest, because that's Intimacy™ and only acceptable for nieces and in "will never cross paths with this person ever again" circumstances. The fact that he is even still here speaks to the fact that Break has already crossed the threshold in which the latter could possibly happen, so. He will curl up under this section of blanket instead, thank you.
He groans, dramatically:]
I came to check in on you guys and he just suddenly decided my wings were no good and that I needed a taxi. No idea why.
[Perhaps next time he should call ahead to ensure Baltus is not in A Mood? ....nah.]
no subject
[Break lifts his head so he can raise his voice as he tosses this sentiment in his omen's general direction. Baltus continues to be very pleased with himself, rolling back and forth, until:]
How did you even catch him? Have you left a window open again?
[The omen stops moving for a few seconds, legs in the air. Then he flips abruptly and scurries back to the kitchen. He sure did leave the window open! Break sniffs in somewhat mollified disdain as Baltus departs and settles down again, shifting to give Qrow a little more space on his giant pillow pile.]
...I am, ah. Dreadfully sorry about that. I suppose he's -- well, I'd meant to call on you also, but it's the sort of day that just won't start, you know, so -- probably he's pleased he could bring you to me, it's one less person to worry about.
[He is babbling a little, noticeably different from his usual silver-tongued sing-song. Break is embarrassed, now that they are both here. Not by being caught in a blanketfort, no; blankets improve your life and Break is not sorry. Rather, he really had meant to get a move on in checking on all his own people, and having one of them show up out of nowhere instead feels a lot like having a grown-up walk in on you and see your giant mess when you really were just about to clean your room, honest. That feeling of being caught misbehaving when you were not actually committing any real misbehaviors but the sensation of having done wrong is heavy all the same.]
no subject
He's not sure how much Break wants to talk about it, though. He hates talking about his feelings. The only times he's usually ended up doing it is when something in Deerington (or Trench) made him through some manner of fuckery. So here in this blanket pile in what he'd intended as a casual visit more than anything else, knowing Break is not doing great--because just won't start is an understatement, of course, what it really means is feeling crushed under the weight of too much grief and despair and responsibility, desperately trying to get air into your lungs while actively drowning. It's those times where he chased a blackout because existing was just too much effort some days.
He can't make Break admit to any of that. Instead, he just flaps a hand from his spot on the floor curled up in his blanket.]
It's been a fucked-up month, don't worry about it.
[Not like he hasn't been somewhat absent the past few weeks himself, honestly.]
Everyone been in one piece over here?
[Just checking in case the reason for the Day That Won't Start is a maimed or formerly dead kid or something and he needs to drastically adjust his vibe here.]
no subject
We've done weirdly well for ourselves. Truthfully, I think nothing the kids have seen here yet has actually bothered them more than anything they saw at home.
[Which is not to say that everyone is unscathed and untraumatized, just. Literally everyone in the house save for White Alice has lived through some form of massacre or other and she is honestly an even worse case because she felt the souls of one such massacre drain into the dimension her entire soul was attached to in one fell swoop, so they have that going for them, Break supposes??? He hates everything.]
And you? Has your household been well?
no subject
Well...I mean, almost all of us got kidnapped at various points, but nobody died or lost any limbs or eyes? Sooo I'll take that as a win.
[He genuinely does sound fine about that, which perhaps speaks to the kind of bullshit he's gotten inured to over the years, both in Remnant and Deerington. Oz and Ange had both gotten injured, but neither of them sustained any permanent damage, which officially qualifies as "better than things could have gone" in Qrow's book.]
...My blood powers kicked in for the first time too, I guess. Still deciding on if that's good news or something I'm pissed off about, though.
no subject
[Break somehow manages to visibly deflate despite already being more blanket lump than person. He is talented in this fashion. But if Qrow isn't making a big deal out of it, Break will try not to, also. He wasn't there and didn't reach out, so it's honestly not his right to get worked up about it.
He decides he shall attempt to rally with a joke.]
...losing eyes is rather terrible. I really can't recommend it.
[It is not a good joke. Meh.]
Is it at least an interesting power? I've not sorted my own yet, but I suspect I may not want to know.
no subject
["A deep personal insult" and/or "an actual slap in the face" are others.]
I've been seeing these flashes of visions, of people in trouble. And then I know exactly how to find them, but they've already been hurt, so by the time I get them it's just a bit too little, too late.
[He will get better at using these visions, as time goes on. Fair to say he'll grow lowkey obsessed with them. But for the moment, all he has on the topic is salt.
...But hang on, that joke--]
You lost your eye? Was that before or after you went blind?
[Break your ability to roughly keep pace with him continues to be increasingly impressive tbqh]
no subject
[Not that Break will intervene when Qrow starts messing with them on purpose, unless he really goes off the deep end. Even if he can't prevent people from being hurt, the ability to know exactly where he needs to go to prevent them from becoming dead is a valuable thing, if it ends up working out that way. Break would use such a thing too, if he had it.
He cracks a dark smile at the other bit, though.]
Did you think I wear my hair like this as a fashion statement? No, it was taken from me years and years ago now, and there's naught but an extra hole under the fringe.
no subject
Right? It's...better than nothing, maybe.
[Especially when he's already operating at a negative at all times, pretty much. Anything that brings him a little closer to breaking even is, perhaps, a welcome development. If he could just get past the part where it feels like someone's making fun of him personally.
But he can only gloom about this so long because Break's answer to his question does an entire record scratch in his brain. He had assumed Break meant he was stabbed or slashed in the eye at some point, like Ruby and Maria had been. He did not expect the other man to imply he literally had nothing in that entire socket. What the fuck.]
H-hang on, uh. A hole? You mean it was just -- ripped out, entirely? Brothers...
[Auuuugh. You know that feel where something has you psychosomatically all itchy, like when you have to brush a spider off your leg? This is one of those moments.]
no subject
It isn't something that bothers me anymore. As far as old injuries go, at any rate. Mm, but -- you see why it means something to me if you say everybody escaped with all their useful bits still attached. Especially given...what I'd heard of the place.
[He does not mention, of course, that it was the pale Alice who relieved him of that eyeball, or that she did so in order to give it to her blind cat to use instead and said cat will still be running around with it in his own head if he ever turns up here. Break won't ever forgive her for that, per se. But he's made his peace with how she became the sort of person who would do such a thing on a whim, and is slowly trusting her more and more in her resolution not to hurt anyone anymore. She's shockingly stable in this place, compared to how he was when they met.
Still weird as shit, mind. But stable.]
no subject
[Ironwood not being here does wonders for how bitter he is about the man on the actual day-to-day. He's able to bring the man up without immediately souring his mood, for once. He shakes his head, letting out a huff of something that's not quite a laugh.]
But y'know what the real fucked up part is? Even that place still didn't seem as awful as Deerington October.
[It is quite possible nothing will ever be as bad as Deerington October, though. It is truly difficult to top that entire situation. Still, though, even with Trench having been relatively tame even despite the Farm he will be knocking real hard on wood every October for the rest of Forever.]
no subject
[Break says this vaguely, as though it's something he'd forgotten and only just remembered. This may be true, honestly. Everything had happened so quickly at the end, and it's not as though Break could see that a whole limb had abruptly gone missing while he was otherwise occupied. He had to be told, when they were all together again...
After a few moments, he huffs, and pushes himself into sitting up.]
Regardless of how fucked up this or that is or was...I should make lunch. You've come all the way out here.
dreamwidth idk what you did here sIGHS and rewrites!!!
[What this guy has done doesn't even sound particularly strange to Qrow, which is somewhat humbling when he's aware they come from entirely different universes. He doesn't know if that is something Real Magic (TM) would be capable of, to be fair, but if he were to discover such a thing had been done to him, he doesn't think he'd hesitate.
Still, when Break sits up and offers to make lunch, for once, Qrow doesn't jump on it. Maybe it is a healthier choice, to pick oneself up and get moving, especially on a day that won't start rather than simply lay about and dwell on whatever led him to seek refuge in this blanket nest in the first place, but something about it sits wrong, for Qrow. It reminds him a little too much of times he's spent drunk, scraping himself off the floor of whatever hole in the wall he'd landed in to actually do his job, then finding his way back to crash and get even more trashed until the next time he needed to make himself useful.
Not that he necessarily thinks Break is in danger of that, but he's not sure forcing himself to do things just because he's got company is actually going to help. And maybe he's a little more worried about what's provoked this than he'd strictly like to admit.]
Not that I wanna be turning down free food, but you don't have to if you don't want to. I can raid your fridge some other time, huh?
no subject
[Pulling one of the blankets close, Break scrubs his face with it, and then wraps himself up like a little old grandma as he pushes himself to his feet. Break does indeed possess a sense of shame, but things like fashion and mobile blanketforts and otherwise looking like a moron do not trigger it. Qrow has seen Break's honest-to-god dead body, courtesy of that stupid river ride they wound up on in the first weeks of their acquaintance. That is exponentially more mortifying than being seen skulking around like a ghost in a sheet.]
Anyway, you'd be doing me a favor. [Half heartedly, he flaps a corner of the blanket in Qrow's general direction.] While everyone else was getting kidnapped and hacked to pieces, I ate a strange mushroom and had quite a grand few days. Somehow the damned thing cured my nerves and my eyesight both, and I'm afraid I got excited and had a cooking fit.
[There are so many leftovers, Qrow. Help.]
cw: addiction reference
What has him frowning is instead the matter of a mushroom that cured his eyesight; that explains quite a bit, Qrow thinks. He cannot relate to a disability in the same way, of course, but he thinks if something allowed him a reprieve from his Semblance for a time, and then things went back to normal, he would be having a similarly difficult time. Knowing himself, he'd be singularly at risk for getting addicted to said fucking mushrooms--psychologically, at least, if not physically. At the same time, it has him wondering.
Magic ... couldn't heal people in that way, should not be able to cure Break's blindness anymore than it was able to stop the ravages of illness that killed a knight who saved a princess from a tower, and set the world on a collision course with an apocalypse.
Qrow hesitates, unsure if it's even his place to comment, but he spent twenty years as Ozpin's eyes, tasked with gathering information. Even having abandoned the war, that part of his mind is never idle. Ultimately, he makes the observation quietly, tentatively, as one might seek to test the structural integrity of a jenga tower before laying a final block upon it and moving away.]
Wait, if a mushroom can fix it, that has to mean there's something to fix, right?
[If the eye was just no longer functional, then there wouldn't be any way to bring it back into use temporarily, was there? Like how Ruby's eye and Oscar's leg were both replaced by prosthetics; there was no magic any of them--even Oz--was aware of that could bring something back from nothing, after all.]
Blood Ministers are basically doctors around here, right? Maybe they could help find out what happened.
[Offering hope is a dangerous thing, of course. He is not sure if it is right to do so, when it may fall through. The loss of a hope that had carried him through decades of an unwinnable war had propelled him to his lowest point, after all. It's because of this that he dithers, slightly, unsure whether or not to stay on the topic or return to the safe one of food. Ultimately:]
...Either way, we could always use the extra food. You saw how bottomless Ruby's stomach is already.
no subject
[He heads off to the kitchen, hand out to feel along the wall in the hallway as always. Qrow needn't feel awkward prying into the matter. It's been bothering Break intensely, and he seems to have no issue whatsoever dumping all the details onto him. Unlike the old hurts Trench likes to bully them into having heartfelt talks about, this is a problem he can be matter of fact about, and another mind to help him try and sort it out is something welcome.]
By the end my whole body was withering around me. I collapsed several times, and each time I recovered just a little less. Although I was quite injured when I died, the illness, I think, is what really killed me. [Another of Break's tiny mysteries revealed. Qrow no doubt remembers what terrible shape Break was in when he guided him off the rocks that first day, clinging exhausted to his omen despite not having any notable wounds.] Because of that, when I arrived here, it wasn't a surprise when I needed to rest for a time, before I could really be up and about. Nor was it a surprise when the aches stuck around -- though it's nowhere near so terrible as it was -- and my eyesight never returned. Knowing all this, if they were healing mushrooms, it'd make perfect sense for them to fix all that, right?
[Break shakes his head as they arrive in the kitchen, where Baltus has gotten into a fight with the window; the house is just sentient enough that it does not appreciate being chewed on, and the window is stuck open despite his best efforts. Shuddering in the cold, Break moves to close it, and it shuts easily for him. His omen gives him a stinkeye and slithers beneath the table to sulk.]
But they weren't healing mushrooms. They're meant to fight corruption, and -- for calming nerves, helping the day start, that sort of thing. Why ever would easing that fix my sight? And if it was true healing, why would it have faded out again as the effects wore off? Shouldn't it have stuck? I really don't know, Mister Qrow, and it's driving me mad.
no subject
As for the matter at hand, though -- he starts to think through the possibilities. His first thought is that the mushroom is something like a painkiller. Something that blocks a physical sensation without repairing the underlying issue. But the only way that would make sense is if his eye wasn't physically damaged at all and the blindness was a secondary result of something else.
But then Break explains the mushrooms were for clearing corruption, and suddenly Qrow remembers something from back in October.]
...I might have an idea, actually. Kind of a longshot, but...remember when I was sick during that festival and you had to help me home? It turns out I wasn't actually sick. Trench was doing something with my blood, so I'd feel like shit if I wasn't around Vileblood. If the mushrooms are supposed to...help with corruption, and that's tied to all the blood magic in the air, maybe it's your blood that's making it worse?
no subject
Which, to be frank, they might.
For the moment, though he'd offered to make lunch, Break pauses to lean against the counter with one hand still clutching his blanket and the other dragging slowly down his face. It's a line of thought he's been doing his best to stay away from, but with Qrow bringing it straight to the table like this after being given the overall situation to sort through, well.]
Miss Lysithea did wonder, once, if...the forms we take here are really just a matter of expectation, particularly for darkbloods. And I am getting the impression that Miss Alice -- the pale one -- is still floating about and carrying on simply because it hasn't crossed her mind that she shouldn't be able to anymore. If that's the case, I suppose I could be ill simply because I'm supposed to be. But that's...
[Just past his hand, Break's mouth twists into a ragged, bitter half grin.]
Ugh. If so, I don't know how to change it, then. Darkblood powers are the last thing I want to mess with. My capacity for making enormous messes is simply too great.
no subject
I get it.
[By now, they have been through enough together that he expects Break will simply believe this, rather than ask for details.]
...But I mean, if those powers are already leaking out to affect your body, Trench could ramp it up any time so it starts affecting others. It's probably safer to test out how to manage it now, rather than let the town decide when it's going to become everyone's problem, right?
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Qrow has a solid point, obviously. Wasn't he just telling him that his own powers appeared as a surprise? In a time of intense stress, no less. To think that Break's powers, whatever they are, were active all along is a comfort in a way because he might miss an abrupt manifestation down the road. On the other hand, if he's somehow making himself sick, that means they're dangerous right out of the gate, too, and even less trustworthy than he was already thinking.
He doesn't ask why Qrow would understand this problem in particular. On top of his general respect for secrecy, he's currently very busy being horrified at the notion of residual Hatter powers he can't control turning his kids to dust in a nasty accident.]
...I wouldn't know where to start. If it's -- at all like what I could do at home, and I think it is, then...I didn't come to understand that I was anything weird until the very end. The one time I used it on purpose, it was on instinct alone.
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Well...isn't it like you said? The kid doesn't stop floating around the house 'cause she doesn't think she shouldn't be able to anymore. And you weren't sick the last few days. Maybe you just need to focus on what that felt like, and pushing that image outward onto yourself. You remember what this place looks like, don't you? Try to picture it.
[Admittedly, he doesn't know if this advice is as useful for magic that comes from the blood, rather than the core of one's soul, but it's the only way he knows to think of activating powers -- to reach deep within oneself for the source of power, and then to push it outward into reality.]
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Instead he's getting specific suggestions and encouragement. So few people have treated him this way in the past, and it's almost always marked some sort of turning point. He remembers the one uncle of his own who'd bothered to take him aside and teach him to fight smarter rather than harder when he was a sour little child, and Shelly's serene refusal to be frustrated with him whenever he'd startled and lashed out unintentionally. Now if he doesn't figure this out, he'll be disappointing someone who's bothered to help him out over and over again, and he really will feel like an ass.
Baltus slithers out from beneath the table and slinks over to tilt his head upwards, resting it against Break's stomach. Absently, letting the blanket fall, he rubs his omen's ears.]
Is that how you change into a bird? You just...know what it is to be a bird, so there you are.
[Could it really be so simple as remembering what it felt like to be at his best, and deciding to be that instead of what he is?]
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