[Video/In person] ~As if the planet is made of clay - this is a tragic mix of wayward magic tricks~

[stalking_horse]

[Perhaps you've seen a dirty-blonde white Earth Pony wandering around in a bit of a daze; he hasn't been out much, mostly keeping to his room, with very disoriented-seeming forays into the kitchen and occasionally sitting and staring off into space. His flank bears a mark of a Deerstalker cap and a magnifying glass, and his Inverness cape and said hat have converted along with]

[Yep, this week has been hard on the poor detective.]

[As for the video feed? Well, there's said white Earth Pony, sitting out front, with a pair of binoculars. He's holding them with one hoof, and just staring at them.]

I thought I'd gotten used to everything, you know. Like this place couldn't do anything to surprise me and I'd taken all the shots I could to my worldview and understanding of reality.


I think ... that I just lost some major part of the feeling that things made sense.

[He shakes the hoof with the binoculars, just staring at them almost morbidly.]

Requiescat in pace.

Comments

[stalking_horse]

[Sure, he was studying psych and all, but really, at the moment?]

[You're dealing just as much with one of those times where a lot of his hard-built Professional Adult is cracking, and his teenager is leaking, albeit in a direction that's more desperate than anything.]

Please, don't leave again - I didn't mean to snap at you, and I was being a - stupid self-centered teenager, but almost all of the other few friends I had are gone now - and I don't want to end up hurting you or driving you away and ending up without even that.

[movingforces]

You weren't snapping at me. [Saguru, you're kind of tapdancing on all the wrong nerves. You apologizing just makes her feel like a- like a tool.]

I was being the exact thing I hate- someone who whines and moans about their problems and says "pity me!" and forgets that other people have problems, too. [And yes, she is edging for the door.]

[stalking_horse]

[ ....... Let's see, history of active abuse and depression plus a few incidents of direct severe trauma versus history of parental half-abandonment while involved in other things and a lack of social experience aggravated by recent indirect trauma.]

I'm fairly sure I can guarantee that your childhood was a Hell of a lot worse than mine, and I know that you've got a lot more reasons to be bothered by something like last week than I do, particularly when I spent it well aware that it was an excuse to avoid my problems.

[movingforces]

...don't say that. [You're making her more uncomfortable, not less.] After all, it's the past. It's supposed to be left to itself.

[She can't bring herself to say it, but knowing she's basically out-lived his expected lifespan hurts. It makes it painful just being around him.]

[stalking_horse]

That doesn't make it go away, or hurt any less. [Because if it were that easy your life would be all sunshine and roses, wouldn't it?]

And besides, I'm - occasionally a stupid pessimistic fatalistic teenager about my own affairs.

[Yeah, he was still going to be leaking about it and wasn't exactly in a stable place yet, but damned if he didn't know when it wasn't a good time to indulge that, and he HAD gotten a few good breaks while she was asleep to dust himself off a little.]

[movingforces]

[Tris is shaking her head.] That doesn't-- [Tris is dropping her head and just- sighing.] It doesn't change the fact that I've outlived your estimation of how long you will survive. [And NOW she's going back in the room. And not leaving. Not for a while.]

[stalking_horse]

Wait, please - I - [And that's the door again.]


[Yay being a stupid teenager. Yay having at least one potential future where he damn well knows better than to say something like that, as much as it bothers him and he doesn't have a lot of faith in the Schrodinger thing.]

[Well, back to sitting out of the way of the door and waiting.]

[movingforces]

[Tris is sticking her head out of the door and looking at Saguru and Chime. Erm. Well, this is awkward.]

[stalking_horse]

[And that is a very clear, blatant, and sudden perk up from being a complete and visible pile of mope.]

Tris? Ah - I'm still sorry about that; I've been - ...well, moody myself since last week, and being stupidly intent on pretending nothing's wrong enough that I didn't think, and it WAS stupid - please stop - the disappearing thing - I can't really offer to talk in your room but I do want to have you around and -

[Hi. This is a stupid teenager moment. Saguru is currently not a Master Detective, but a slightly babbly eighteen year old boy who is kind of falling over himself.]

[movingforces]

[Tris is just going to slink out of the room and close the door. She's looking kind of... "whipped dog" is putting it mildly.] No. You had every right to say that.

[stalking_horse]

[...And you know, closing the door actually does get a moment of relief.]


Ah - I ... think I've been sitting too much on things like my survival odds back home. I meant obsessing over the plot apparently deciding to destroy one of my few remaining bits of logic I could apply to it; I was finding something frivolous to focus on to avoid dealing with anything.

Including looking after the few friends I have left here. [And considering how very tenuous and still half professional that is with Mikami, and that Mukuro is Mukuro...]

[movingforces]

....I fail to see how you could count me as a 'friend'. [People don't make friends with Tris, and it's pretty clear that Saguru calling her such still makes her uncomfortable.

Especially with how she's been acting.] Especially considering I'm not a very good one, if I was so busy having an- an indulgent fit of high drama over how terrible my life is, to the exclusion of thinking about anyone else. [Even bringing up that she has problems gets this very visible body-language 'urge to bolt'.]

[stalking_horse]

[... Your self esteem issues are slightly amazing the more the ends up piecing together about them.]

I think we both basically did that, as much as mine was less high drama and more fretting over something blatantly silly. [The death of logic WAS something that bothered him, as much as the manifestation was silly, but it wasn't exactly an important point to argue right now.]

And in the time I've been here, you've been one of the more reliable people I know, as well as - about the only person my age that I've been able to talk to much without too much worrying about the politics and dancing around certain things, and you've given me far more chances far more easily than most of the people I know from back home. I hardly expect anyone to be perfect or not have their own problems, and God knows what you have said and what I have seen so far is more than enough for me to know you have more than enough to deal with yourself.

[movingforces]

[Tris is digging at the floor a little with a front hoof. She's not quite sure how to say it, but she's damn sure she should have been able to control herself better so that her issues were less of a... thing.]

It still doesn't excuse my behavior.

[stalking_horse]

...

Well, neither of us are perfect and both of us are perfectly capable of screwing up.

But actually trying to do something to fix a screw-up seems more productive than beating yourself up over it and shutting in your room.

So, do you want to try to find somewhere to talk that's not the hallway? I'd rather try to figure out how to fix things than have a continuing train wreck, myself, and I think I owe you a bit more explanation myself.

Truce?

[The last question's a dry half-joke, and he's holding up one hoof and it's like there's a moment where he's forgetting that the whole "pony" thing means hands and some kind of handshake isn't exactly going to work. With an earflick as that sinks in and he's trying not to think about it.]

[movingforces]

[Tris is looking at the hoof and snorting softly. She still doesn't feel better, but... hell, she's always been good at slapping functional-seeming wallpaper over things.] Truce. Where to?

[stalking_horse]

[They kind of both do the wallpaper thing reallyAt least it's not hiding and self-destructing in a way that isn't allowing for anything.]

[...And if he didn't want to drag Chrome into this, he DEFINITELY doesn't want to suggest his room and risk bringing Mukuro into it.]

I'd say my room but the Author's decided it's not possible for me to have a room to myself... the attic is usually left alone, though.

[movingforces]

[Tris is smiling crookedly at Saguru.] The Author seems to have decided the same thing. It's rather nerve-wracking, really. I've had my own bedroom since I was ten, and before that it was the girls' dorm at Winding Circle...

[stalking_horse]

[He'll be going to lead the way to the attic, possibly forcing Chime to shift, with a pause to make sure Tris is with him.]

I'd always had my room to myself before I came here. At least, from what I've seen, Chrome's quiet... my first two roommates were people I knew from back home - and the first one was solely responsible for how accustomed I am to my dignity getting destroyed.

[reflecting_ghost]

[...As much as Chrome's not the best socialized thing, she does know that it's not a good sign when someone's being that kind of upset and is in and out of the room that fast, and not a good sign to not see Chime, either.]

[This doesn't really mean she's sure what to do, but...]

A-are...are you alright?

[movingforces]

Fine. [Tris is going to curl up in her bed and pull the blankets over her head. She really doesn't want to talk to anyone, and Chrome is- a little too much 'squishy innocent bystander' to get the usual porcupine routine.]

[reflecting_ghost]

[Chime isn't there, she's obviously not fine and not talking about it. This is something she's not exactly unused to, considering who she lives with.]

[She's picking up Toka and quietly padding over to tug on the blanket, keeping pretty careful; and will be holding out the raptor-baby.]

[movingforces]

[Tris is- almost growling at having her Blanket of Woe and Misery pulled down. She's just- looking at Chrome and Toka for a moment before sighing heavily and just burrowing her face into the pillows.] Give me a minute. I'm going to have to go grab Chime- what I've been doing has hardly been fair to her at all.

[reflecting_ghost]

[The growling doesn't even really seem to register; why it's almost like she's USED to people growling and snapping at her without meaning it when she's trying to help. She doesn't really answer, though, just nods, and backs off to her bed with a very confused raptor hatchling.]


((SOB. SKIPPING BACK TO THE OTHER THREAD Y/Y?))