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15S R4 Week 2 Saturday Night
[OK, so, if you were following a briskly walking crying lady, you would find yourself in the game room at a dead end. Which is surely for the best. Except, gosh, who moved the iron maiden so the open part is facing the wall. How negligent.
Spoilers Krone is sitting on the ground behind it crying with her arms hugged around her knees.]
Spoilers Krone is sitting on the ground behind it crying with her arms hugged around her knees.]
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Krone?
[All he can think to ask is her name, and he hates himself for that, hates that he doesn't know what else to say, or where to start. He should know, now, but he doesn't.]
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[The tears weighing down her voice are completely unsubtle, and the last warbled word turns into a gurgle then a cough. The direction of the water evidently did not do her throat any favors. At the same time, she can sense how lost and small inside he must be, so she presses forward in the forced thinner voice, a rush that's hushed and awed.]
...I did know in this position I can't actually run away from you. I thought the imagery would scare you away, though! Maybe you really are dedicated to saving humans from monsters~?
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Even in a place like this.]
Sometimes it's the only certain thing I know. May I... may I join you back there, or would you come out?
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Points for your ambition but there's not quite room for two.
[The iron creaks on the ground. Soon enough it's seen that Krone is pushing it back with the back of her hand, so she's still obviously sitting on the floor with one arm around her legs and her cheek pressed against her knees. Her lips are in a slightly calmer pout.]
...I already lost my chance to show you the face I wanted you to see.
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[Hopefully she'll forgive the forwardness of that. They both might have died today, and she was far closer to it than he had been. Having said it, Eric carefullly settles himself down cross-legged, not too far away but not near enough to seem like he wants something that they've not known each other long enough for her to give.]
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I'm a monster in human form. You get it, right? Just to be clear.
[It doesn't actually contradict anything Eric said, and she knows it.]
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If that were enough to frighten me away, I'd never have learned to fight. And... not every monster is one bent on destroying humanity.
[This is not the argument he thought they'd have. It's one he's unprepared for.]
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[She's getting a dreamy smile at this??? Like she does when they're talking about hunting mobsters and vampires. Krone just seems completely contented with logic that extends this much.]
That's where I miscalculated. I let myself believe other people besides you would at least fight for justice in general if not outright defend me. Should have known better.
[Siiiiiiiiiiigh.]
Want a job done right...
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[He knows on some quiet distant level that he shouldn't find that smile in its context so... everything, really. Shouldn't find it encouraging, but he does. Shouldn't find it enchanting, but he's so thoroughly enchanted he might as well be a carnation in a field, waiting for her to speak.]
At least there are two of us. Three, perhaps, Jun pointed out the issue with the note. I wish I could trust more of them, but even Miss Millstein....
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[The teeth in her mouth sharpen her words into a sense quite literal.]
Well, having even a handful of people respect me in any way is new, so I guess I should count my blessings. [But...]
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Eric hangs his head, his hair, even as bedraggled as it is, falling to hide most of his face.]
It's hard to see any blessings at all in a place like this, isn't it? That you're alive, yes, I can see that. That we've met. But it's... God, they couldn't have been less rational if they'd all brought pitchforks and torches.
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Well, they won't. [Matter-of-factly.] Calling them all weak in mind and body would be unfair, but even the ones with combat experience have clearly been ensconced in platoons and control rooms much of the time.
[Her eyes narrow again.]
Erkens really had me thinking you were easily scared enough to relocate the board games from here.
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Scared? Hardly. It is just... it is distasteful, to me, to think of playing games with strangers' blood on the apparatus in plain sight. Even as cheery as that fellow who takes the paper spiders is.
And... it's funny, isn't it, how those who've never fought alone become so brave when they've a mob at their back.
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[She sighs. Her eyes light on the silver pitcher elsewhere in the room.]
I pity Miss Millstein more than anything else. The first time she doesn't get exactly what she wants when she wants it, she just tries to power through the wall. Exactly like what Mrs. Parham was doing the day we first arrived. It's not wrong to recoil from the eggs, per se, but you'd think they could also resist using these newfound powers to harm their comrades.
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[Well, there's the reason she's no longer getting called "Emma".
The first sentence he said had the slightly singsong rhythm of a lesson taught until it became a belief. It isn't that he's seen this before, but he was warned of it, and he fell prey to the same sort of lazily cruel superiority complex, once. The memory does bring a mortified blush to his face, tinting a self-recriminating bitter scowl.]
At the very least I sought out monsters to fight, and "bad men"... I was very simple in my morals, at fifteen. But I only fought John the once, and he showed me what a fool I'd been to think I could prove myself better than everyone by showing off and picking fights.
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...so you don't fight him anymore? [She can't remember if he's dropped the name before, but if nothing else there's obvious familiarity in his voice. Warmth. ...and the air near the iron maiden is cold. Maybe the both of them will be comforted.] Tell me more about him.
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From that point on, it was as though I'd never had that... lapse of madness. We were almost brothers, more than that if I'm honest. I swore to protect him when we were both very young, I'd promised his father, and... for as long as I could, I did.
[The grin falls back, becoming a somewhat bittersweet smile.]
He is strong, and kind, and... very American, in the best of ways. Very direct in his speech, slow to anger, quick to make friends. Absolutely the greatest man to have at your back in a fight. [And yet.]
TPN novel spoilers
[Krone's are twinkling. Like they often are around Eric.]
I had someone like what you're talking about once. A sort of older sister. Cecil... [Krone closes her eyes.] Franklin.
[She exhales. As if everything is coming back in vivid color.]
Seemed to be prepared for everything. Never complained. Always smiling. Except in the face of evil.
[Krone opens her eyes and lets down her legs, hands in her lap.]
That might have seemed like a tangent, I just mean to say... Alliances like that are truly beautiful. There's no need to be ashamed of it.
[Her lips quirk.]
And frankly, your resemblance to Cecil is downright uncanny. I thought if you didn't know it wouldn't be fair.
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Does Krone know, then? Does she know, and with that smile is she hinting that she is the same?! It isn't the kind of thing one can come right out and ask, Eric knows that as much as he knows that falling means hitting the ground at some point, knows it like he knows he can't breathe underwater.
But he wants to ask. He wants to, but refuses to - this is all still too new, too fragile to take such a risk. Let her think it's a thoroughly exhausted and more than slightly pathetic response to a compliment, if he's trembling. He isn't sure that he is, at least. It may just be the possibility of being seen and not judged has his head ringing.]
It's not often that I feel I'm being genuinely praised, being compared to a woman - God, forgive me, I've said that terribly! It isn't often that I'm compared to a woman who touched someone's life and she wouldn't be insulted by such a comparison. I hope I can live up to her.
[This is not the first time he has felt like a blindly fumbling boy around Krone, but it's the first time he's babbled out his feelings so clumsily as all that. He can't help but blush - it comes with the territory of feeling lost and saying things he meant in words that meant the opposite.]
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It's just that—you can't call her a woman. She was only fourteen.
[Wait, so if Cecil was the older one, that means Krone...?!
Then she stands up as she'd have to do to hang him up on the wall.] You will, though. I'll hold you to it. OK, Eric?
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And then it's clear. She fell when she was young, too, though she was the younger, and younger than he had been by far... He brushes away thoughts of John at fifteen, already tall and broad-shouldered as Theseus, as Patroclus. Those are memories he doesn't want this place to steal.
Her hands seem to frame him as though she's the sculptor and he the model whose imitated form could scandalize a generation of critics who needed to be. (He has given it thought, of course - he'd portray her as Minerva, in dark bronze that would evoke well the richness of her skin and hair. Minerva, but not sedate, no, a goddess of wisdom and war.) He nods - for a moment there's no other response he can make. She trusts him to be the best that he can.]
Of course. We should both do our best, shouldn't we?