scarsolderthanyou | In the Night: IC Inbox

[It actually takes several days for Stone to bother stopping by the post office. He never has packages or letter or anything, so why bother? It's a boredom visit after Rastus's meeting that has him dropping by, getting the letter, and puzzling over it a moment until he works out what all it says.

Then he goes hunting for Rosinante in person, because seriously, what an idiot kid he is.]

((Switching to prose because I think we both prefer it?))

It's one cold day in the depth of winter here in Beacon, so while a hefty part of Rosinante still wants to withdraw and just not be found by anyone for the next entire lifetime after how he acted, he's instead making himself busy in order to keep warm. And maybe to think about something that isn't that particular brand of personal horror.

So at the moment, he's over at the north end of the square, just past the church, working on converting some of the recently-felled trees into barricades. The spirits will attack again, or if they don't then the people will turn on each other. The raucous marching band will come trooping along through town, and people far from a building will need something to hide behind. He's dead silent as he chops wood, having muted himself so as not to make a bunch of obnoxious noise so close to the main part of town, but the light catches his movements and glints off his axe plenty well.

He pauses to catch his breath as he finishes splitting off a long board, then looks over at the sound of footsteps and thumps a hand to his chest, mouthing the word calm as he does so.

"Stone. Hey."

Eh, Stone was tracking him mostly be scent, which holds much better than he'd expected in all this snow. So he finds him before too long. And he paces right up through the snow, and swats the guy's elbow. Lightly. "You're an idiot. Get down here on my level, would you?"

He doesn't want to just hug the guy's hips.

There's a momentary pause as Rosinante tries to work out Stone's intent. He certainly doesn't seem angry or upset, though he hadn't really expected that. The lantern effects were widespread, and Stone is easygoing. The apology still felt necessary, however. Rosinante is upset with himself, and upset that the others experienced whatever that version of him was.

He leans the axe against a tree trunk and squats downward, hunching with his arms over his own knees like the awkward bird his brother is named after, yet somehow they occasionally both resemble. "What is it?" he asks, not bothered by the casual insult, which is probably intended as an endearment anyway.

He gets another swat, this time to the back of the head, but it's still light enough that it doesn't hurt. And then he gets bony arms wrapped around his shoulders in a hug. Raksura are weird, sorry, Rosi. "Next time you want to blame yourself for Beacon shit," he says, "come find me first and I'll swat you again to remind you not to."

The swat doesn't bother him. The hug does, but he doesn't say anything. He just tolerates it without pulling away, offering only a frown in return for the duration.

"I'll remember that," he sighs after a moment. He's not going to argue it, for bringing up what happened would draw attention to it and that's the last thing he wants. If he's forgiven, then fine. He shouldn't be, but fine.

"I just hope it doesn't happen again. We still don't know what caused it."

Rarely has Stone had to deal with someone who doesn't like hugs. What a weirdo. He gives Rosinante a sidelong look, somewhere between incredulous and wry, and lets him go. "I'm not going to assume it won't. Starting to think nothing around here ever happens the way we want it to." Which will be problematic when they're hunting World Eaters, if they ever even get to that point.

"Yeah. There's no time to get complacent, that's for sure. The moment you're comfortable, something new happens."

Something worse, specifically, but he doesn't feel the need to point that out. The lanterns are particularly bad because what happened was no hallucination. The lanterns are an extension of themselves, their souls, however one wants to see it. Harm that befalls those is dangerous.

"Anyway. You're right, no point dwelling on something we have no control over," he concludes.

Someone needs a lesson on the important difference between thinking of something and actually doing it. "Of course I'm right, I'm usually right. It comes with being my age. You're okay, right? Not going to mope yourself into a corner somewhere for the next week until something else horrible happens?"

"Moping doesn't solve anything," he snorts. "I feel like shit, but I'm not going to hole up and ignore everything because of it."

No, instead he's going to keep busy by doing menial but helpful tasks. Chopping wood, fixing the furniture he and Sora destroyed, touching up the paint inside. Useful things, but also tedious things. It's purposeful, for in tedium there's a sort of meditation he finds useful. Sometimes just emptiness, sometimes a chance to think ahead.

"You'd be surprised how many young consorts and warriors would argue with you about the benefits of moping," Stone says with some amusement. He surveys the wood-chopping. Gives Rosi a toothy grin. "You need another tree yet?"

He has Sengoku to thank for his take on things. Nothing to break a kid out of spiraling depression and constant cycles of fear like manual labor. Sengoku managed to find some way to make it gentle, calming, rather than the tough love it could have been from anyone else. But what else would be expected from a man who is also a Buddha of a sort?

"Wouldn't mind one," he says with a shrug. "We'll need a lot. Barricades and shelters, building restoration, plus we can trade the nicer pieces to Pluto." No boats being made anymore, but there are lots of other uses for the wood.

Stone is not ever in a million years going to admit that when he was younger, he did his fair share of moping. In his defense, consorts are encouraged to do that kind of thing to some extent, and he did have a blatant physical defect that might make his chances at finding a queen (specifically one queen, but) more difficult.

Still was stupid, anyway, and he knows better now.

"Guess I have my job for the day, then. Want to come along?" Isolating himself isn't good, either; Rosinante should have company. "I'll let you ride on my shoulder, if you want."

Hm. Isolating himself is practically his favorite pastime. But he feels somewhat obligated to say yes out of guilt over the person he became and who he had tried to apologize for.

"All right," he decides after a moment of consideration, and pairs it with a nod. "Could be fun."

He'll bring the axe along, because why not. Could be helpful for shearing off branches. So he picks that up in one hand, and lantern in the other.

"Of course it'll be fun. You'll be riding on a dragon. I’m told that's pretty impressive." Stone grins, amused half at his own expense, adopting that dumb "dragon" word so easily, and half at the actual joke of being vain about it.

So he shifts up to his winged form, relieved to be able to do that again without looking like a damn major kethel. And he crouches down, offering Rosinante a hand to climb onto, and to use as a step up to his shoulder. If Rosi braces his feet on the ridge of raised scales at Stone's collarbone, it will give him a bit of stability. If he weren't so tall, his feet wouldn't even reach; it's bonus for Rosinante's height, for once.

Ah, yes, very funny. Slightly awkward, given context Stone doesn't have about his people's fondness for dragons, especially after the past week, but he's not about to bring it up. There's only a slight flicker of lineface before he adopts a casual smile and accepts that this is happening. This should be fun, and cool, and it probably will be once he just lets go of the current issues plaguing his mind.

Rosinante hooks his lantern onto his belt at his back and pulls himself up without too much trouble, finding plenty of handholds and footholds among the scales - and it's true, with his height there isn't much climbing needed anyway. Last time he fell but this time he's determined not to.

"I'm good," he announces. "Ready whenever."

In the Night: IC Inbox

Feb 3

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yaaaay prose is easiest XD

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