sorry for your loss

[cuteandinnocentpet]

[When people are returned to the main floor, they will find a trail of cupcakes from the elevator to the dining room. There is a table of drinks, pills, and cupcakes and cakes from the automat.

And on the table, in the center, is this asshole, with a party horn in its mouth. Despite that, it talks into everyone's mind.]

As you strangers tend to have a tradition of parties after an execution, I took the liberty. The plates and cups are over there.

[. . .

be merry I guess]

Comments

[mermaidkin]

Maybe it just means your negative feelings are stronger. As Kurama so intelligently speculated and scanned, there is a strong aura of negativity in this place that affects cognition in many ways.

[Look how very much Hiyori respects Kurama.]

[poorlovefool]

[He scoffs at that, taking another sip. He'll just... figure it out as he goes.]

Tell me about it.

[He doesn't think he has to spell out that his feelings are more negative. They've dipped for a wide variety of reasons. He never had any idea what Kurama was going on about with the scanning, so he just ignores that. The guy's dead anyway, and he's just lucky it wasn't someone he liked more. As bad as it feels to lose him while Eric was still angry with him, with no way to make up.]

[mermaidkin]

Well, being so close to the presence of our leader yet not actually filling the wonderful role he's chosen for you might well leave anyone with directionless rage.

[Hiyori examines the back of his hand. He'd had to finish and throw away his cupcake.]

...or maybe we're joking.

[poorlovefool]

Shit, everyone's trying to throw their lives away, might as well sign up for that.

[and before he gets any funny ideas]

Just kidding.

[see how you like it, man]

[mermaidkin]

[Ah, Eric can troll back!]

You get that's what it looks like to us, right? Your pointless struggling.

[poorlovefool]

There is a point. I made a promise. For better or worse, in sickness and in health...

[you get the idea. He's thirsty again, another deep quaff follows.]

[mermaidkin]

Hmmmm. Well, that at least makes sense in your case. All the stuff Vita Clotilde-Morris ever talks about, she could do right here.

[But he's supposed to be listening and relating... After Eric seems satisfied with his sip, he'll speak again, a little softer.]

What is it like? Pardon the broad question.

[poorlovefool]

Oh... it's fine. I'll answer since at least you admitted it makes sense.

[Link can be so stubborn on this, WONDER WHY.]

Mira and I... we've been through a lot, together and apart. We both have dangerous minds, but in opposite ways that kind of balance out. Because of that, we don't ever take for granted the comfort we bring each other, and yet every day is an adventure. There's a bunch of little things we do that have meaning just to us. And can't forget that we have a kid. Well... He's more like a little brother, honestly, but the older we get, the more it starts to feel like we're parents. We've been joking about things like that lately - although, I guess Mira makes it hard to tell when she's joking or actually serious. It's one of her charms.

[the lights that float around him are a little dull this time. He's still super depressed, but Mira remains his angel]

[mermaidkin]

I won't deny that we have... opinions, about the role either of those two might play - they're probably good in some ways and bad in others from your perspective - but I can at least grasp your idea of "every day for the rest of my life, no major compromises", or such. Quite well.

[He's just getting that out there softly as he starts... processing this monologue, the lights that Eric has been able to hold onto.]

So you'd explicitly say that... even though you can't completely predict her, you can trust that - I, I know this sounds too clinical - she'll be a... net positive? And you likewise take pride in providing something similar for her? You've somewhat literally made this... safe little world together.

[Tired.]

It sounds very nice.

[poorlovefool]

It's heaven on earth - [awkward pause.] - er, Nirn. You get what I mean.

[Hiyori does seem tired. Which doesn't look like eternal happiness to Eric, who is also tired. Too much to really feel the smugness that follows, but the bitterness is there, as grimy in his mouth as this sand cocktail.]

...Well if you let me out of here, maybe you could visit on your day off. Oh wait, you don't get any, do you?

[mermaidkin]

[Hiyori was giving a pretty pronounced glare at those first couple words, but the correction to Nirn pacifies him completely.]

Yes I do!! Especially if I get that promotion I've been dying for!! Good employees get days off when they can play golf.

[...what is golf]

[poorlovefool]

[Don't look at him like that, it's a figure of speech!!]

...Aren't you more of a swimmer?

[He doesn't know much of anything but like. The swimsuits, man. He sewed seven of them.]

[mermaidkin]

[A FIGURE OF SPEECH THAT BECAME POPULAR IN CERTAIN SOCIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENTS WITH SPECIFIC VALUES ABOUT AND DEFINITIONS OF MARRIAGE but that he clearly meant in a purely figurative way so it's fine.]

...the company has boats.

[poorlovefool]

[Is he talking about tugboat golf courses??? ...Eric doesn't care.]

Oh, whatever.

[mermaidkin]

I mean that it's not efficient for me to remember how to swim. If I want to engage in recreational sports... at least there's still golf.

[poorlovefool]

It's NOT? But what if you fell off your tugboat golf course?

[he's just decided it's that kind of golf. Don't make him think about drowning any more than he has tonight.]

....And what if there are no golf courses where you're going?

[mermaidkin]

Then I'd just...

[there's a lot to unpack here. but he smiles]

...find some other way to be happy. Listen to the radio. Read a book.

It's not like it would be my first time keeping myself entertained. I moved from Japan to the US and back again. This has been the easiest time, though!

[poorlovefool]

[...Eric is the last person who can try to pep talk him back up on the virtues of swimming, honestly, but he finds something to zero in on with that last assurance.]

So this is your third handstand. Guess I was right after all.

[mermaidkin]

But it's by far the easiest one. The only one where I've had actual support. Many hands, light work.

[He raises his eyebrows.]

That applies to a lot of tasks, doesn't it? Like cooking pies.

[poorlovefool]

[Eric's eyes widen in surprise when he mentions that, and then he leans over the table to keep his voice down to a whisper.]

Do you realize every time you compare your situation to that, it only makes it sound worse? I was miserable back then. And I was the only one who made it out alive, until I brought them back.

cw suicide related topics

[mermaidkin]

Of course you weren't doing it for fun. [Hiyori says after a step into this redefined narrow space. He tilts his head like Eric is using terms of multivariable calculus.]

It seems easy to say your problem was not being trained to think it was fun, but your entire point is how bad that also sounds... [He looks closer, intensely curious.] What would you have done differently? Ignore the idea in the first place?

[poorlovefool]

[is he leaning into his lean? that's kinda gay... no, this is just respecting privacy, it's fine!!]

T... They completely lied to me about Mira even being in trouble, so of course I wouldn't do-

[He has to think about this though, because she might have just had him killed there, or if he hadn't been there in the second trial, Babette might have just let everyone including him get misvote executed while she was an invisible unknown...]

...Well. Messing with the past is probably a bad idea here. But anyway, I thought I would be laying my life down for Mira after Farkas died. I don't see how me thinking it was fun would make it any easier to commit.

[mermaidkin]

[Hiyori reacts remarkably impassively to Eric's startlement at the closeness. Whether that's less gay because he's not paying attention to the other man's movements or more gay because he doesn't mind invading, who knows.]

But you'd already made your commitment. You and Mira—oh, right, you didn't remember that part at the time. [Thin smile. He really didn't think of how that'd sound at the beginning, but he's still pretending to have twisted the knife.] Still, though. Weren't your choices commit and be miserable, or commit and be happy? ...that doesn't mean there was no good reason to be miserable. We just want to know if there really was another choice.

[poorlovefool]

[The impassiveness makes it simple to get used to, but he's still pretty sure Fie would tease them if she was here.]

I thought we were friends. I'd still have done anything for her, though....

[Eric's fingers flex on the table as he thinks about this. This possibility that he could have done everything in the Depths with a smile, with ease in his heart. It really would have made that part of it easier.]

.... My misery left me with a lot of wounds in my mind that wouldn't have been there if I had just been happy. But Mira saw how broken I was and did what she could to heal me....

[You know what though, he's not going to go into detail on that, and he desperately hopes Hiyori doesn't actually know even that much to begin with. Moving on.]

She also listened to me, out of her interest in me. If I was happy when I was d-doing all that stuff, I wouldn't have been me.

[mermaidkin]

So a reason you cared for her was because she listened to "the real you". And she got to see the "real you" again...

[This is giving him a lot of thoughts. He's looking deeply at the foam on top of Eric's beer. Mostly, he feels like the acceptance Eric's describing isn't possible in the world in general, yet Mira's current commitment to him is undeniable. Hiyori takes a deep breath and offers a thin smile.]

Well, you are married now. So it seems likely enough that if you really do get out of here the way you hope, that process will start all over again. But we don't think escape will be that easy. Very best of luck accepting your fate.