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[morns]

🧙 WHO: Kate & Red Wine
⚔️️ WHAT: Second meetings and healing circle therapy
🕒 WHEN: IDK whenever the healing circle is on
🗺️ WHERE: the castle gardens
⚠️ WARNINGS: healing circle so probably trauma, mirror aftereffects, etc. will update if needed!


The bustling chaos of the market is an easy distraction, full of noise and five different stall owners vying for your attention at any one time, but eventually the repeated calls to check out THIS shitty piece of tat instead of the OTHER shitty piece of tat wear on Kate's nerves, and the circle forming to the side becomes more interesting.

It seems like a whole lot of nothing, but that's still an improvement over the salesman a few feet away who is yelling about his all natural haircare solutions. Keeps your curls looking bouncy! (Sure.) Stepping out of the maze of hastily thrown up stalls and onto the grass is a breath of relief — the wash of quiet calms the growing irritation of frayed nerves, a moment's peace which Kate embraced long enough to fold her arms and lean against the trunk of a tree, watching witches and wizards guide confused looking passers by to grab herbs, to join in with their circle.

Sounds ridiculous, but the quiet chatter and shuffling of footsteps, people running through the gardens to try and get the herbs required, is a much less irritating distraction from the words which have lingered in the back of her mind since she stumbled into the hall of mirrors;

Giving up really runs in your veins, doesn't it?

— tch. Grey cat ears twitch and her nails dig into her sleeves as her arms wrap more tightly around herself. She shouldn't keep lingering on it, not when it's just some dumb spell, when there are so many other things she could be doing, but it keeps coming back nevertheless. And, almost as if sensed, a witch perks her head up and calls over to Kate;

"Why not join in? Just get some nice smelling herbs and relax with us, dearie!"

Kate's eyes — currently as feline as her ears, the sharper nails and the tail which twitches as she's addressed — dilate at the suggestion, betraying the surprise that keeps itself out of the rest of her face. "I'm good." She'll just watch.

But that doesn't deter the witch. If anything, she grows more stubborn about it. "Don't be silly. You should!" Hm, just let her look... Ah! "How about partnering with that gentleman, there?" She gestures vaguely, and Kate — despite herself — follows the direction of her arm.

Right to a familiar face.

"...Ah." Welp. "... Hey."

She's good at this.

Comments

[morns]

With the silence broken, the onslaught of emotions seems to subside, fading into the same old background noise they usually are in a way that's so sudden and unnatural that Kate can't suppress the shudder that passes down her spine.

Things should not work that way.

"Don't think it matters," she offers by way of reply to his first comment, because all too much of that mess of feeling was simply that familiar that it's almost laughable. Like attracts like, maybe. Always finding people who are some amount of fucked up.

Or maybe Avalon needs them to be some amount of fucked up to come here in the first place. Who knows.

As for it being a bad idea? Probably. But they kind of knew that going in, didn't they? Otherwise neither of them would have tried to insist that they just wanted to observe.

The herbs keep burning, but she drops the connection, lets her hands sit loosely threaded together in her lap and inhales, trying to push away the odd awareness that the ringing of pain switched off like a light and clear her head.

"You're by yourself, then?"

The question is broached after minutes of silence, her words slow and carefully chosen. alone, perhaps, is a simpler way of putting it, but that word draws up the pangs of the emotional bond forged and gets lost of her tongue, replaced by something softer.

[judgementor]

The question slips under his ribs like a knife and lodges there, sharp and uncomfortable without quite being pain. His gaze wavers for just a moment before it drops, and the tips of his ears dip ever so slightly downwards (something he tries to keep from happening in mixed company and is much more difficult with these ridiculous animal ears he's currently sporting).

"You could say that," he replies, his voice deliberately measured to keep the swell of emotion out of it.

"I've had people I was close to, but... I don't have any of them now." Red Wine sighs carefully then rubs the back of his neck. "And as you might imagine... when you're a couple of centuries old, making friends isn't always easy."

[morns]

The animal features are a bitch. Her tail twitches and her eyes dilate way too easily, letting every little fluctuation in her mood be broadcast to anyone with eyes.

Annoying. But at least she's not the only poor sod dealing with it.

Her gaze travels upwards, head tipping back and away from Red Wine's face for a moment. Whether intentional or not, it allows him a touch of privacy as he speaks. So people have left, huh? It hurt to realise Kaede wasn't around, but not as much as the ache for home she feels every day.

Not because of home being any good, but simply because of who is trapped there. She likes people here, many of them, but none of them are as easy to slip into working with as Ainsworth was. None of them are her brother, that piece of her heart always lodged with him even when they can't talk or when they're at each other's throats for stupid little things that wouldn't matter five minutes after hanging up the phone.

She can't imagine what it's like to be centuries old, would never want to imagine, but making friends is an art that hasn't been easy in years, and only got worse the older and busier she got.

So maybe, if that were to continue, she could imagine it being impossible.

"Easier to put yourself where there's no chance of being hurt." Being alone sucks, and even if only in the most practical of terms, Kate doesn't believe people were made for it. There's a reason humanity came together in tribes and villages, towns and cities. Because no one person has all the skills they need to survive alone, without any contact with the rest of humankind. But losing people, feeling that grief again...

That sucks more. So it's easier to deal with the ache of being alone than to let yourself think you're getting better, that life is getting better, and watch it be snatched away.

[judgementor]

He lets out a soft laugh through his nose. There's truth in what she says, but Red Wine has been around for long enough to know that it certainly isn't as easy as that.

"It's easier, but if you know you're not going to die, would you want to be alone forever?"

Despite the words there's a twinge of fondness with it. Outside of this place Red Wine has people to rely on, people he knows will be by his side no matter what and who he can trust to not leave him alone. He misses them too, but in a different way to how he misses Bailey.

"Avoiding getting hurt isn't worth that." He sighs then, forcing his shoulders to relax. "I've lost people before. It's different every time."

[morns]

That's the fundamental difference, isn't it? Kate knows life is temporary, knows her life is temporary, and wouldn't have it any other way. The thought of filling out endless amounts of time, watching people come and go through centuries?

If she were Red Wine, she'd have already gone mad.

But at least... "Got your answer, then." If he thinks it isn't worth it, and doesn't like being alone, the answer is simply to keep making friends, isn't it?

wanna wrap this up?

[judgementor]

Some Food Souls do go mad. He knows of some who have crumbled under the weight of their isolation. Some might be able to come back from it, and some others... they turn their minds to things that make them no better than the monsters that Food Souls were first summoned to fight against.

"I suppose so."

Then he sighs, shaking his head with a faint and rueful smile.

"What do you think - shall we get out of here?"

done

[morns]

"Before they start round two?" Because she's looking over at those leaders and they do seem to be chatting and preparing.

Yeah. Let's get out of here. She thinks they've seen enough of each other's pain for one lifetime.