I shall never be forgiven all my faults

Catch all appointments and messages post for consultmybooks. If you have an idea for a thread that would not warrant a journal post or a log, a side thread, or if you wish to continue a dropped thread, please comment here! Title your post accordingly with the date and the format of contact - a.k.a [Voice], [Written], [Action], [Video], etc.

This post here is for personal conversations which should happen but one or both of us doesn't want to put up a new post/log and thus we will just thread it out here. It is also good for follow ups to other threads or to play out reactions to other threads that might not occur immediately at the time of the journal post. This can be used to thread with consultmybooks  anytime and anywhere. This can either be in person (with action), or via the journal's call feature (voice and/or written).

When replying to this post please mark in the subject line when and how it is taking place, in the style of the following examples:

[Action, March 11th]
[Voice, September 8th]
[Written, June 10th]

[Good evening, Luceti. Giles hopes you're having a pleasant, peaceful, quiet night.

Giles also hopes no one was planning to use the bridge crossing the river near the clinic, because it shatters under his weight as he executes an ungainly dive into the river. It was the only alternative. It was the bridge, or another couple of broken ribs crashing into the ground at speed. And Giles has had enough of those this past week, thank you.

Note to self. Flying is not like riding a bicycle.

The Night Fury spends a few minutes half submerged in the river, occasionally letting out a few week coughs. Anyone who dares approach is advised to do so with a minimum of sudden movements. It's fairly clear that this is one dragon that's very recently had the fight of its life, shortly followed by the fight of its past life and the life before that. The battering and injuries might have had something to do with the fall.

After a while to rest, the change in the creature is marked, and as sudden as though he'd been poked with a cattle prod again. Enormous yellow eyes fly open wide, and Giles goes from collapsed to on all four paws in an apparent bound with a bit back cry of pain when he accidentally puts weight on his injured foot. But he shakes his head as though to dislodge the pain, gritting his teeth. Then, unless stopped, he'll be racing off. No flying, not yet. He doesn't want to risk making a worse impression on the place than he already has.

House 32, you're getting a visitor tonight. Actually, not just House 32. Anyone who has expressed the slightest interest or concern in Giles' condition these past weeks will find an enormous black dragon settled outside their place of residence tonight, staring at the door or the window with hopeful eyes. He's too big to fit in any building in the village, right now, but he'll be here to talk if you happen to notice he's there and feel like braving the cold. Take your time. Giles could use the rest.

Of course, the world looks different to a dragon than it does to a man. As a human, Giles can find his way to his friend's houses blindfolded, and once had to do just that. But he's tired, and his eyes aren't the right size, and it's very easy to get turned around. So, whoever you are, wherever you live, you might just look out the window or make the walk home and find a dragon looking intently if tiredly back at you, sitting outside your house or community building.

Maybe come out and see if you could give directions? Offer up a few raw fish? Or, y'know, just wait. He'll limp away eventually, looking remarkably doleful.

There will be no sign of the dragon come morning. But a video post will turn up after a while, showing Giles sitting on a boat. He appears to be working first aid on himself, and not doing a half bad job of it. Given how little attention he's apparently paying the camera, one might be forgiven for thinking he'd just turned it on accidentally.

Then, of course, he speaks.]

I see that Rydia already gave the, um, the traditional speech. And, as always, did it better than I ever could. A-Anyway. Welcome, all New Feathers. I think I've met a few of you already, although time is...a bit fuzzy, at the moment. H-How, um...how long have I been gone?

[The question seems to cost him something, certainly a great deal of emotional effort for such a simple question. Still, before anyone can answer, Giles shakes himself off.]

Um, I'm all right. For the interested. Apart from being a dragon. Were-dragon. Whatever they've done. All in all, it could be worse. I'm all right.

[He seems distracted as he finally splints his hand, before looking back at the camera. Even so, he offers whoever is looking back a friendly if wan smile.] And to those of you that aren't, my name is Giles. It's, um, i-it's nice to meet you all.

Hello. I'm going to be stopping off at Seventh Heaven for a while. I need to get the taste of fish out of my mouth. And then it's been a while since I've visited the garden. I think I'll s-spend some time there.

Sorry about the bridge.

[Quiet sounds - wind scattered dead leaves that have been tracked into the hall, a kettle softly bubbling, the ticking of a clock and the humming of the stove. Giles enjoys the silence for a while before he speaks.]

Happy Halloween, everyone. Day late and, um, a dollar short, I know, but...we were all a bit preoccupied yesterday, weren't we?

...after all of that, though, I must say I still preferred this fiasco to last year's.

[A chair is pushed back. Footsteps can be heard as Giles starts to pace. Edna gives a soft squeak as he picks her up from the floor.]

For those of you who weren't here for Halloween last year? Count yourselves fortunate - not only were we stuck in truly ridiculous costumes, but by the end most of us were hallucinating and half mad. The Malnosso chose to alleviate the situation by stuffing us all in a tent where a maniac in a beak mask teleported about tearing out our feathers all night.

...shame the masks wouldn't burn as well as the costumes. Personally, I found setting that stupid outfit on fire to be remarkably therapeutic.

Do you know what Halloween was, back home? Halloween was supposed to be the night where the world didn't end and the various supernatural beings we had to hunt for night after night didn't show their faces to cause trouble. They all found it terribly tacky, you understand. To a real vampire - one that's survived longer than a month, I mean - plastic fangs are terribly gauche. Even after everything changed, human hopefuls were still something to be scorned.

...sad as I am to admit as much, I still agree with them. But I'd take tacky over horrifying any day.

[A pause, broken only by a soft "thump" as Edna wriggles out of his grasp and lands lightly on the floor. She stalks away, dignity quite bruised.]

How did you all celebrate Halloween back home, then? If you did, of course, I'm aware it's a rather...specific sort of holiday. For about half our years in Sunnydale, we spent it attempting to avert some disaster or another. Which I suppose just goes to show, tradition can sometimes go and hang.

[A chair can be heard scraping across the floor as Giles takes his seat again. His pencil makes rhythmic "tap, tap, tap"s against the paper.]

I need a boat moved. Or, um, I need help getting a boat moved. Not a very large one, but...well, too big for the transporters. I know it's probably a fairly staggering oversight, building it here, rather than the out by the beach, but [he sighs in mingled frustration and exhaustion] I suppose I never thought we'd get this far...

...still need to name the damn thing.

[Filtered away from Helios Sprensonne, Grell Sutcliffe, and Harth Fray - Unhackable]
How do you talk sense into someone utterly bound and determined to refuse to see it? Or, more appropriately, how do you remove the martyr from his martyrdom? Are any of you honestly still blaming yourselves for whatever you did while wearing one of those ridiculous masks? And if you managed to talk, how the hell did you manage it?

...I'm afraid to take my eyes off him like this and I'm not sure I have the eyes to spare.
[/Filtered]

[Locked to Grune - 75% unhackable]
[It's a courtesy filter, more than anything else, although a part of him is holding out hope for a pleasant surprise for people if this works out.] I, um, I think I have everything together. You can stop by whenever you want, and we can get to work.
[/Locked]

[Locked to Helios Sprensonne, Buffy Summers, Ginia Solana, and Link - Unhackable]
[A long silence, a long drawn out and thoughtful silence, before]

I'm sorry. F-For, for how I acted. With that mask the, um, the...two colored one. I think I've figured out what, wh-what it did to me, and I remember how I was and...

...I'm sorry.
[It's a talk he's had with Helios already, but...Giles wants his friends to hear his apologies without being shouted at in the process.]
[/Locked]

[With Helios and Ginia both left in rather poor states by the experiment, Giles can't really bring himself to go far from home or clinic. And, indeed, he'll spend a good part of the day hovering in the vicinity of those two buildings. However, an excuse to get away comes in the form of this strange manifestation of stress baking that had gripped him for most of the morning. Sorry, Grune, but he's already gotten a bit of a jump on the cakes. And the pies. Especially the pumpkin pies.

Most of it is left for Helios - it was his idea, after all - but Giles is going to take advantage of their own survival and the general exhaustion of the village to do something that is probably quite silly. Blame it on the exhaustion, because he does look exhausted, although he's abandoned the librarian clothes for something a little more his style and a little more current century.

Which is to say, he's going to set up a table in the plaza, set out a probably quite impressive array of baked goods...together with a portable kettle of hot tea...and settle in with a book. A small handwritten sign is taped to a space of clear table - "Please take some." If certain people do not stop by his table and take some damn sweets? He'll take the leftovers to them later in the evening. House 7 and the clinic, this means you.

...in the meantime, if you do stop by, you might also catch Giles dozing off in his chair. What? It's been an exhausting few days, and even his patch job on his injuries from Mithos didn't do a damn thing, in the end.]

[The journal turns on to the sound of very unhappy, very British mutterings.]

Honestly, just because I might have the good fortune to miss Halloween this year...really, Malnosso, no need to go to any difficulties on my account. I assure you, I would have found a way to soldier on.

At least they had better taste in costuming this year.

The state of the village isn't quite as horrific yet, at least. Yet. It's always "yet". Really, everything seems...almost familiar.

...as though no one's quite gotten the play out of their system.

[A few minutes of silence go by, before Giles addresses the journal proper. The viewscreen shows that, despite being temporarily left out of any tale in particular, the Malnosso have decided to dress him up just in case.]

Hello, everyone. I'm, um, I'm...well, certainly hoping this is another experiment. Otherwise...well, no, this has to be an experiment. Fortunately, it seems to be a...reasonably patterned sort of experiment, at least. From what I've been able to observe.

Haven't had one of those in a while.

[Of course, Giles' luck being what it is, he's hardly going to remain unaffected for long. It all depends on who he comes across or what the will of Luceti decides to throw him into. He'll be wandering the village for the next long while - most of today and most other days. Observing is the main priority, while he's in any fit mental state to observe. When he isn't? Shaking off the grip of the story takes precedence over everything.

But what story will Giles have a part in telling?]


((ooc: Basically an alternative to the log post. got a thread idea, whether we've already plotted one out or not? Feel free to toss it up here if you want. However, for timeline's sake, assume that any action here takes place before Wednesday. Otherwise, pick the day you will.))

It has been a good few days. It's been quiet and a little lonely, isolation broken only by a surprise visit from Grune. But it's been good. For once, being alone in his own head proved to be a good thing for Giles. Those few days alone on the beach had given him time to think, to process, to deal with the events of the experiment and everything he'd lived through.

The sight of Twilight's...of Angel's face twisted up in fear just before Giles delivered the killing blow has kept him warm on a few cold nights already, and he knows it won't be the last time. He feels...alive. He feels real. The sheer, exultant triumph of being able to kill his killer, coupled with the strange certainty of his soul having been read by Grell, have combined to steady Giles in a way that hasn't been possible for this long of a while in months upon months. And taking a few days to sort himself out on the beach, out of the way of the hustle and bustle and the concern of the many and sundry people that he seems to have surrounded himself with, has helped Giles realize that and comprehend it.

Even so. All good things. It's probably time to go back.

He packs up that morning and starts the walk back to the fort. There are a few tense, bad moments as Giles tries to sort out the teleporter, and several more when he does and has to sit quietly against the wall with his head in his hands, trying not to throw up, once he has sorted out the teleporter and found himself back in the barracks. But overall, a success. At least he arrived in one piece.

Giles stops off at home long enough to drop off his things. The last thing to be unpacked is the small glass jar of seashells - those that didn't wind up on a necklace of twine and given to Grune. But they were still quite nice shells, if he said so himself. No reason they should just sit in a jar.

That's when he realizes that he hasn't seen Ingrid in a while, and has she ever seen a seashell ? Has she ever been to the beach? Well, if she hadn't, they could go ahead and make a good start of it.

The first sign Giles has that something is wrong is when he checks the clinic for her. All right, he'd advised her to move out, to find a new place, but it had to be a good place to start. But his search proves fruitless, empty. Not only is there no sign of Ingrid, there's no sign of her bubble, of her equipment.

Would she really take that with her?

A filtered message to the girl breaks before Giles can so much as breath, and that's when the panic really sets in. He goes walking, then, searching the village for any sign of the girl, checking apartment buildings and the housing roster in the Welcome Center and asking after her in the shops.

It's the Item Shop where Giles finally realizes that his search is in vain. Because there, in the corner, bright and shiny and new, is a purple bicycle with a bell and a basket.

She wouldn't have left that for just anyone to take. She wouldn't have.

...she can't have.

He sounds...upset, when he finally musters up the energy to speak over the journals that afternoon. He and Ingrid had their fights, their arguments, their conflicts. There were things unsaid...things that will never now be said...that held them back. But he cared about her, he enjoyed her company, enjoyed guiding and protecting her, and the letter in his pocket shows him that the feeling was mutual.

And he will miss her.]

For those of you that knew her...

[He sighs, feeling so very tired and impossibly old.]

...Ingrid Grimmholtz has been sent home.

[He remembers the old mantra from Buffy - that they're always better back home - but he can't tell himself that for Ingrid. Not for the girl who spent her life in a bubble and had never so much as pet a kitten before arriving here.]

[Locked to Archie Kennedy and Robert Hastings]
She left letters for the both of you. I have them. I haven't read them. If you want them, I'll bring them by.
[/Locked]

[Several seconds go by.]

...and, in case it wasn't terribly obvious, I'm back. Hello. It was quite a nice vacation while it lasted. I finally see what all the fuss is about with regards to that beach.

...still. [And here he tries to regain some of that peace, some of that good feeling, that's surrounded him like a new cloak all those days at the shoreline.]

Life goes on.

...how is everyone?

[Find Giles around the village today - largely by the river, as he attempts to continue his newfound contact with Sona that has finally started going so well. He'll swing by the grocery store for fixings for dinner before he heads home, and spend most of the evening working on the boat. In another few days of good, hard work, the basic structure of the Unnamed Boat should finally be finished up.]

((ooc: Feel free to run into Giles before or after he realizes Ingrid is gone - just specify which. Location is very much flexible))

( Total TL;DR largely taking place around the Welcome Center )

( [Locked to Grell Sutcliffe - 100% unhackable] )

[It's a stupid, selfish idea. Above all, it's unfair to everyone who might have been worried about him while he was...gone. Helios and Frederic, at least. He doesn't know who else might have seen, heard, or been told after the fact. An announcement would have been made - of that he has no doubt. But in the aftermath of that day...well, who knows what got lost in the melee?

It's a stupid, selfish idea. But the prospect of going back to his life with that uncertainty hanging over his head day in and day out is not one he feels fit to face, especially not now. The knowledge that said uncertainty must eventually fade, like it did before, is no help now. That healing process was agony and if he can avoid it...

Whatever answer the goddess of death gives him, it will be an answer - one he can depend on. Even if he doesn't know how much time he has left, at least he'll know where he's going.

That has to be better than not knowing at all.

And, indeed, Giles feels a little more sure of himself after scribbling the message to Grell. Sure enough that he can get to his feet and walk It's nearing the end of the night - if he steps lively, he might be able to meet Buffy back at House 7 as she's coming home from patrol. And after checking in there, whether or not she really does put in an appearance when he expects her to...well, home again, home again. It's about sunrise when he finally arrives

Whether or not the door to room twenty two is unlocked, Giles gets the door open and slips inside. He has no idea whether or not Helios or Frederic will be awake this early - their sleep schedules haven't always coincided, in the past - but he keeps quiet just in case. It's good to be home, and this place is home, and for several seconds he just stands in the living room and...looks around.

Later, during a more reasonable hour of that morning, Giles will make a voice post to the village at large.]

Um...hello, everyone. I'm back, as I'm...sure you can tell for yourselves.

...I'm sorry if I worried anyone with my absence. It...wasn't intentional, I can assure you. Still, I am back now. Not...much the worse for wear, or so I've been able to gather so far. A-And if you didn't notice my absence...well, that's fine. You can just...feel free to ignore that bit.

I do have some good news. My eyes are, um, finally working properly again. If I had known that it would take what, what happened to finally sort them out...

[A sudden, strange, and decidedly bitter laugh. Not to say that there isn't any humor behind it, but...well, it's the Sunnydale way.]

...I wouldn't have done anything of the sort, actually, because that's...well, ridiculous. Sorry. Poor taste. Still, there's...a few of you that I've met since then that I've...never actually seen properly, aren't there? Funny how Luceti works sometimes.

[A pause, a pause with so much emotion and so much unsaid behind it. Finally, Giles settles on this.]

I would appreciate a filter if you want to lecture me for what happened. [He knows that a few of you probably do, and he knows that he deserves it.]

Beyond that...well, have I missed anything?

[Find Giles anywhere around the village today. No, seriously - anywhere, any point in the entire village and even around the outskirts of the forest. Hell, he'll even venture inside Good Spirits very briefly, just to soak up the signs of life. His surroundings seem almost unreal after over a month of blindness and half blindness, . With his glasses back on his face, everything is gorgeous and clear and sharp. He'll spend quite a while that day wandering aimlessly and taking in the view, readjusting to a world seen through his eyes. And occasionally stopping somewhere quiet to meditate, because old habits die hard.

Eventually, it's back home to work on the boat, dragging the necessary materials to make a sail behind him. Maybe "Maia" isn't such a bad name...]



((ooc: I know I said I'd post this tomorrow, but I heard that we're going to have plans tomorrow and the post is all written up so I figured...well, what the hell?

Your character can also run into Giles coming out of the Welcome Center or on his walking to House 7 or CH7, if they'd be out past midnight.))