15strangers | sorry for your loss

Entry tags:

*round 6

sorry for your loss

[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]

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Oh.

[He’s not sure what to say at first. He’ll ignore Bonechewer for the moment and focus on the others.]

I’m sorry that you’re stuck here...and can’t be with them.

[He rubs at the bandana around his neck again-it might get some of it’s color rubbed out of it at this rate, but he’s sure it’d be fine regardless.]

[She laughs a bit, but it's a hollow laugh.]

I'm afraid it's only myself and the Tempest at home anyway. My brother comes and goes as he pleases, and I sent Astra to continue her studies with a friend of mine. Cordy as well, but not the same friend.

It pains me to have them scattered so, but it wasn't exactly safe in the city of their birth.

Still not exactly nice to be here, away from any of them, though. I’d rather be separated from all of my family and know they were safe, then be stuck here, knowing they’re not safe.

[This time he’s actively doing something-looking at the wedding band around his finger. There’s a sadness in his eyes. A longing.

No one likes to be away from their family. Not when they’re so important to them.]

I'm afraid it's not so simple.

[ Is anything ever. ]

I sent them away because it was hardly safe in the city of their birth. I'd discovered that several of my contemporaries had ties to the cult of one of the Abyss' most powerful demon princes.

Politics being what it is, I can't cut off contact with them entirely.

But I can make sure my children avoid the same fate.

[Cults. It seems like cults just keep coming up when they talk to each other.

But he nods, somewhat understanding.]

Yeah, that’s...that’s understandable.

But I’m still sorry for you. That they just...keep taking us away from the people important to us. When we’re trying to set things right and get our kids out of danger, and we just end up in another one of these things.

I’m going to feel sorry for you on that. And you can’t change that.

[Not when he can relate so well to it...]

There was so much I wanted to do for them before I came here...

But it's as you said. I'm hardly the only one suffering this fate.

I might be in that boat with you, but I think it still might be different, at least a little bit. I don’t know about you, but I at least got to see them before I got taken here. It wasn’t long, but...it was something.

[And he has it feeling it was more than most others got.]

Small blessings, I suppose.

I was on the verge of a breakthrough in breaking the curse placed over them, but I've all the time in the world to think about its potential drawbacks here.

I guess.

[That second part gets his ears to perk up, however.]

They’re cursed?

[That’s definitely concerning, no matter what way you slice it.]

...it's complicated.

[ It involves a lot of backstory.

You may want to get a snack. ]

[~~It’s fine, there’s worse things~~]

I’ve got time if you’re willing to explain.

[And he’s still got several snacks in baggies. The only one that wanted to eat during the trial was McBurn, apparently.]

The short version: do not find yourself in bed with a vampire, as it ends very poorly no matter what happens.

[ She's just getting started. ]

...noted.

[He’s never going to, but it’s good advice regardless.]

Was it a bad break-up or something? Or were they just a terrible person and you had a lapse in judgement?

Terowyn was a lover of mine who fell victim to the vampiric curse after he died. I thought he was still there, that by some miracle he was still mine...

...it's not so simple.

The thing they don't tell you about vampirism is that your soul literally slips away not long after. You can fight it all you want - he certainly tried for a few months - but in the end, the person who inhabited that body is gone.

And all you're left with is a malevolent husk bearing their memories.

Ah.

[At that, he feels like he’s heard enough, story-wise. No need to drudge up more bad memories, after all.]

I’m...I’m sorry that happened, too. That you lost him that way.

[It’s one thing to lose a loved one the normal way-it’s a whole other thing to lose them, and see their body become an enemy.]

I left his side when I knew I'd lost him forever. By then I had other things to worry about, and...

When I first found out about my daughters, I was at least glad I had a piece of Terowyn left. It's not ideal, but I was grieving and I was going to take whatever I could get.

The priestess who delivered them was about to tell me my children were dead. I held them in my arms and they had all the pallor and chill of the grave.

I know what undeath looks like, King. I'm a necromancer. Comes with the territory.

I'm glad that she was wrong in her assumptions, but... well. We had to do some tinkering with her memories, magically speaking. Not something I approve of normally, but hopefully you understand.

[He feels his heart stop when he hears that. To go through something like that, having one small hope to remember someone, only for those children to nearly die when being born...he feels a small bit of relief when she says they lived. No one should have to go through that.]

If it’s to keep them safe? I can understand that well enough. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t like to keep the people you care about safe.

[It’s not nice, but just necessary sometimes.]

It's...complicated.

Not like undead are exactly shunned where I'm from, but. Vampires. You understand.

[He nods.]

Yeah, I do. It’s good that you had that option, at least.

[Considering the other option that he can think of would’ve been...not as merciful.]

We’ll get to see them again, though. When we get through all of this. I promise that we’ll figure things out.

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sorry for your loss

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DID I SERIOUSLY MAKE THAT TEXT

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CW: brief mention of child death/stillbirth

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