multiversallogs | i am hung with graveyard flowers;

Who: Ilde Decima and Hasi; OPEN
What: The water helps her.
Where: The Gross Tar; initially near her waterfall territory in Raven's Gate, after that various areas.
When: Givdi with Hasi; open after that through Shundi.
Notes: Specify time/place (if not Raven's Gate) if you tag in, please!
Warnings: Descriptions of LM:A-related horrors to follow in the thread with Hasi; discussion of rape & related fall out in thread with Jae.

When she finally goes down to the water, it feels so good that she hates herself for a moment sliding in, her clothes on the bank under an illusion. It soaks into her skin like she belongs there and she's glad that she got there first, that Hasi isn't there yet, because sinking into it hurts a little and it's-- not anybody's business what internal conflicts she's having. She just died. She's allowed to feel...whatever this is that she's feeling, and whatever it is she's going to feel it at the bottom of the river for a while, her tail catching light as it flicks up before she dives.

She'll surface, eventually.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"My godmother taught it to me," she recalls, although Prisca hadn't actually intended to in so many words; Ilde's Russian lessons were equal parts deliberately taught and a tendency to listen when Prisca was on the phone to her extended family and friends in Peter. "Sort of."

He gets the subtext, yes, and it makes him smile, but quieter, now. "I paid similar attention." He puts a hand over his chest in a gesture of mock-sincerity. "My poor mother." (Spoiler: he's not sorry at all, his sisters are way worse, and his mother is where they learned most of it, anyway.)

It's more bittersweet, now; it's not that it doesn't matter whether or not her family survived, but the truth of things is that she'll never know. That she'll never see them again, either way. Her life there is over, very literally, and in some ways it makes them easier to think about. Easier to miss.

It means she can smile, here, even though it hurts a little.

"Daddy taught me a lot that way," she says, reflectively.

Wolfgang has long accepted the idea that he will almost certainly never see his family again -- the guilt over that is the worst part, and for most people, it's enough to get them to stay. It wasn't enough for him. That has to mean something is deeply wrong with him. (That has to mean he deserves this.)

"Not on purpose?"

"Sometimes on purpose," she concedes, thinking of her father and-- almost smiling, just about. Emery defined most of Ilde's life and still does, even in his absence; he is always there and always will be, no matter how little she actually discusses him. She's always been her father's daughter, and that's always meant a lot of different things.

(You and me versus the world, that's a theme of her life.)

"He had funny ideas about what he should teach me."

Well, that's sweet. In a weird way. (Then again, "in a weird way," isn't everything, here.)

"That's what I miss the most, I think. Probably most people do but -- sorry, this is depressing." He shakes his head, in the process getting his hair everywhere. It is exceedingly hard to find things that aren't depressing and awful here; always, yes, but of late, especially.

"Isn't everything?" Lately, yes. She can't have good news without feeling guilty for it, lately; everything is too tangled up in something else and people keep asking her questions to which she can't say one thing or the other because it's yes, but, and the but is always something that feels like choking.

Wolfgang pulls another face, gnawing on his lower lip as he tends to do and looks exaggeratedly upwards, like he's thinking really hard. (He is not, actually, thinking really hard right now leaves him confused and exhausted -- that concussion didn't just go away. It is not toughness that has him pushing through it, he can't afford medical attention.) "Raindrops on roses?" he offers. "Whiskers on kittens?"

Musical theatre is the best he's got, yes.

A laugh burbles out of her, unexpected-- she looks like it startles her, for a moment, pressing her hands over her mouth. It's something out of a fairy-story, some finely detailed illustration of otherworldly mirth all done in shades of blue and mother of pearl.

Maybe she just really needed that.

"Brown paper packages, tied up with string."

"That's the only part I remember. They didn't let me perform because they don't let me dance," he says, with a tone as if he's letting her in on a big secret, although... really who's surprised, he's just shy of six and a half feet all and all uncoordinated elbows and knees, it probably looks like he's dying if he tries. A pause, he considers this, then: "Well, once, but I woke up in a train in Bat Yam dressed as Michael Flatley. Never again."

You did not, Wolfgang, stop lying.

Ilde's quiet for a few moments, evidently trying to imagine it.

"How do you dress like Michael Flatley?"

With exaggerated regret: "Bedazzled pants."

i am hung with graveyard flowers;

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