Chapter 008 - [Voice]/[Action]

[consultmybooks]

[It's the afternoon of the seventh when Giles finally finds his voice again, enough to address the village at large. He still doesn't sound in any fit state when he finally sends the message out over the journal - there are several seconds of silence preceding it.]

For those of you who...weren't already informed...

[A pause, as Giles mentally prepares himself to take this leap, this final step. His voice is quiet, but steady, when he finally gets the words out.]

...Helios Sprensonne was killed in the fighting.

It...we lost him in the middle of the night on the fifth. S-So he, he should be back sometime on the twelfth, or the thirteenth. I, I would appreciate it if...those of you who know him would keep an eye out for his return. Frederic and I will do our best, of course, but...it's a big village, and...we've never done this before.

A-And if you don't know him, he...he has blond hair, and green eyes. About...mid thirties in age. He's a bit shorter than me, and he has a bit of an accent. Not sure how many of you know what "Romanian" is...just, just please help him if you see him. He's a bit of an absentminded fool, really...might need some help getting home.

...thank you.

[Locked to House 7 Residents + Jack Sparrow - 20% unhackable 75% unhackable, courtesy of Buffy's efforts]
First and foremost? Someone improve this filter, please.
Besides that...his magic doesn't last if he dies. We might need to make other arrangements.
[/Locked]

[Locked to Frederic Francois Chopin - 20% unhackable, 100% unhacakble, courtesy of Frederic's efforts]
...whatever you want to do about this...about me...all I ask is that you decide it before he gets back.
Even if it's just so I can be moved out.
[/Locked]

[Floor five, room twenty two...home...is not an option right now, for reasons he understands even if those reasons only make everything harder. Even so, he'll really only venture into the village proper, armed only with his umbrella and a string bag, to pick up some food from Seventh Heaven for lunch and dinner. He still doesn't trust himself to work a stove or any sort of electrical appliance beyond a light switch or a shower, and without Frederic...

...without Frederic...

...Helios was taken from him, brutally ripped away by the teeth and fangs of monsters. But Frederic just...doesn't want him near, right now, and that hurts almost as much and maybe even more. Because Giles understands perfectly well, now that he's come down off the power and the bloodlust and the rage. He understands why the composer is leery of being around him. He knows that, when all is said and done, Frederic is the only one who can give him any kind of absolution for what he did that night and that his friend has no reason to give it.

He understands, but it makes getting through the day...the thought of getting through the week...almost impossible to bear.

Anyone who wants to find Giles will likely either encounter him on the way to or in Seventh Heaven. Otherwise, they'll find him at home or just generally in the vicinity of CH7 - most likely on the front steps and fidgeting anxiously with a lump of artist's clay the size of his fists. It took a few tries, but he managed to find an apartment that was unoccupied, on one of the higher floors. He can't bring himself to move any further. The area around this particular community building is an area he's familiar with even while blind, and on top of everything else he can't trust himself to

He'll take care to be high enough on the steps that he can take shelter under the building's canopy from the rain - dry clothes after coming home were the best feeling in the world and the greatest comfort after the long nightmare that was this draft, and he's not eager to experience rain again. Not even if that rain is just a light seasonal shower, nothing on the ferocious monsoon that marked their last day and night in the rain forest.

He seems shell shocked, shaken, exhausted, and overall like a man who has lost his best friend and waded through blood this past week and is trying to deal with it. There are bad moments, all day - moments where the wet, squelching sounds of bodies exploding ring in his ears. Moments where he feels as though he's choking on someone else's blood. Moments where he hears the howls of the Shift Hunters in the wind, and the light rainfall of the day becomes the sharp sting of the monsoon. Moment's where he fears he might not be able to lock up the part of him that smiled as his victims...and they were victims...died bloody, where he fears that this is who the people he loves will know him to be from now on.

Moments where he's glad to be alone so he can just break down and cry for the loss of his best friend, of the man he refuses to stop thinking of as his own beloved brother.

And there are some moments...the worst, strangest moments of all...where he's just glad that he wasn't one of the unfortunate few to die in that jungle. He's lived through death once. He can only hope, has only hoped, that even Luceti isn't cruel enough to make him live through it again until the end.

Thanks to the last of Helios' magic, he's unhurt at least.

His eyes, at least, have lost their black color.]


((ooc: If anyone notices - I am very sorry for the repost, I don't usually do that sort of thing. However, my entry wasn't showing up on my friend's list - seeing as how I have myself friended, I thought that was odd. I had been futzing around with the time settings, and I thought that might have knocked my journal entry down to a lower "time" past more entries than it had actually should have been when I posted. I'm reposting to see whether or not that is the reason why my entry wasn't showing up.

And, hey, turns out that it was! Teach me to mess around with technology I don't understand *derp*.

The moral of the story is that Lazarus doesn't fix everything. Every time I've tried to recover this entry with Lazarus, it's reset my changes to the time that knocked my entry off my friend's list listing in the first place. Soooo...sorry for the comm spam, guys!))

Comments

[consultmybooks]

I can only imagine. And I hope that's all I have to do. [He's had plenty of people near to him sent home since his return, but he hasn't yet had to deal with the problem of them not remembering.]

...I can't be the only one.

[herotypical]

[ these misunderstandings, she felt, were the knot of their co-frustrations. ]

No, Giles. Of course you're not the only one ever -- but the only one that I've known. Been close to. [ that is, everyone else forgot her except those from home. and they forgot ever being here, on the second go. ]

[consultmybooks]

...and look what that's done for us.

[herotypical]

Believe me, it's better than the other way around. The other way around? Hurts so damn much, Giles.

[consultmybooks]

Better for the ones who do come back, as well. All these people talking at me...can't imagine how I would have reacted if I hadn't remembered most of them.

[herotypical]

I always feel like a villain when I have to be the one to break the news.

[consultmybooks]

Do you?

...you've almost taken on the role of Watcher with regards to this place, Buffy. Especially to us.

So I, um, I suppose I can see where the feeling w-would arise.

[herotypical]

The three things I hate most to do most? Brief the New Feathers, tell a New Feather they've been here before but they don't remember that they know me, and tell the village at large that someone has left.

[ a sigh. ] I've done that last one -- oh, let's see. Angel, Dawn, Faith, Jim, Willow both times. Xander. [ and soon she'll have to do it again and it will be painful.

but for now, she changes the subject: ] There was an experiment, once, that convinced me I wanted to switch careers. I Watcher'd up.

1/3

[consultmybooks]

[Giles just...stares, at that.]

2/3

[consultmybooks]

[...mental image...]

3/3

[consultmybooks]

[The mental struggle ends with Giles pressing both hands over his mouth and trying to choke back some slightly hysterical, mostly highly amused laughter.]

[herotypical]

Gee. I'm glad my Shiftly anguish entertains you, Giles.

[ but she smiles back and gives him some more fuel: ] There were pencil skirts and sensible shoes. And glasses. I wore glasses.

[consultmybooks]

[The added fuel has the desired affect and is greatly appreciated by the former Watcher. It gets to the point where he's wiping tears out of his eyes. The good sort.]

...you didn't dress that sensibly when you were a guidance counselor.

[herotypical]

...At least it didn't last long.

[consultmybooks]

At least it didn't, no.

[After a beat, more seriously.]

...have you ever thought about how you're going to manage this new system, then? The new relationships between Watcher and Slayer?

[herotypical]

[ a long, lengthy exhale. ]

It's about strategizing, I suppose. [ oh, the cool but charming tactician -- albert silverberg -- has had quite an impression on our young woman while she has been here. ] Not all of them are going to be able to plan. Not all of them are going to want to plan. But they'll need plans, so they'll need thinkers. Tactical types. Not necessarily mentors -- [ she holds out a hand. ] Not that I didn't appreciate what you've done for me, Giles. But they broke the mold on Watchers when they made you.

[consultmybooks]

Very kind of you to say so. [He doesn't believe it - as far as Giles is concerned, if not for Buffy, he'd have spent his life much the same as most Watchers. One thought that torments him in particular is the wondering of what it would have taken to put him in Hanselstadt right alongside the last of the Council.]

Some of the other Slayers must have the capacity for tactical thinking.

[herotypical]

Yep. So I'd like to do as much in-house hiring as possible. [ in analogy only. there was very little like hiring about it. ] If they want to.

[ then, on a slightly different tack: ] Dawn keeps talking about donning the Watcher shoes.

[consultmybooks]

That's a good route to take. There are still Watchers out there, men and women trained by the Council...but they won't be of any help to you.

Dawn and Andrew...they're the sort of people you'll need.

[Not necessarily a hint from the future, not really. She knows he's been traveling. She knows this knowledge could have come about at any point between Sunnydale's destruction and her present.]

[herotypical]

I'd much rather see her in something more...normal, Giles.

[ she's bright and capable -- why couldn't she go to law school? or try to become a doctor? or take a year off and travel the world? anything other than getting stuck in the horrors of buffy's field. ] Safer.

[consultmybooks]

...good Lord, you're from earlier than I ever thought.

[She went to school. She pissed off a Thricewise. She got turned into a giant.]

You can "rather" all you like. It's up to her, in the end.

[herotypical]

[ as far as buffy is concerned, dawn is currently safely tucked away at school -- however, she has had the, uh, giant bit sort of told to her by dawn the first time she was here. kinda. obviously, some details were left out. ]

I know it's her choice -- it doesn't mean I'm going to stop rathering anything. [ a slight edge; this is, she feels, a matter between herself and dawnie. one that is actually working itself out rather neatly of late. ]

[consultmybooks]

As her older sister, I would expect nothing less of you.

[Giles, for his part, sounds...decidedly distracted. This knowledge changes a lot. By her time, skinless Warren and Amy haven't reemerged. He hasn't partnered up with Faith. Harmony isn't even a blip on the radar.

Oh, boy.]

[herotypical]

[ she has heard bits and pieces from others who have filtered through -- such as giles partnering up with faith. she still is coping with that one. ]

Hmm -- what is it? [ she can hear that distraction. ]

[consultmybooks]

You're just...not as old as I thought you were.

...I thought you were just demonstrating an impressive grasp of ironic understatement when you told me last time that I'd been spending a lot of time with Faith.