Day 40: Lunch

[whiny-egomaniac.livejournal.com]

*hobble wobble*

"Damn that SCOURGE!" Starscream cried out, the slowly-filling cafeteria producing a jarring echo of his raspy voice. His limping, already bad enough from not knowing how to properly use his crutches, was now exacerbated from the injuries he'd received the shift prior. Despite the gauges in his non-casted leg so lovingly provided by the aforementioned 'patient', Starscream could still put some weight on it, but not so much that he could really stop and rest; relieving the soreness under his arms was out of the question. The nurse that walked behind him with his tray, already upset at having to deal with yet another troublesome inmate, was growing rather impatient as his charge slowly made his way down the food line.

"Just...give me a standard serving of the aquatic creature's flesh, some of those fried potato slices, two bananas, and three bottles of juice," Starscream sighed, his anger from just a moment ago assuaged by the physical exertion needed to move the way he did. "I'm going to sit down here...bring it to me when you're done."

He was hardly surprised to find that one of the bananas was completely bruised along its inner curve, or that the handful of 'chips' on his plate were all on the small side. Tired and frustrated as he was, however, he could barely muster a 'damned flesh-creature' before moving his fingers to the plate, picking one of the longer 'chips' and shoving it into his mouth listlessly.

There was an unusually high concentration of sodium chloride crystals on it. Of COURSE.

[For Tony Stark]

Comments

[1imited-edition.livejournal.com]

Rein froze. The meaning was clear, but her thoughts were not... the very idea was unfathomable. She had accepted that Signum was here, with her, but somehow she could not imagine that the knight would die and she would live. While she had lived the knights had shared in her unimpeachable permanence, and she had died so that they might live as well. It was not...

Fair. A foolish sentiment, from one who had seen only disaster for millennia. She had admonished Hayate, for thinking this same thing when she was about to die, but here with her master's heart she felt the same. She had thought she had made everything right. For a beloved knight, who had protected her through the long ages she had not deserved it, even blind, and at last been freed from that darkness to far from her master's side and that promised end-

"Say it," she said in a voice hollowed by pain. "Please."

A cruel request, perhaps, but it was a cruelty too to leave her that small sliver of doubt, that only nagged more the more she told herself it was unthinkable that there could be any other meaning to the reaper's words. And she wanted to hear something, even those words, more than she wanted to chase this feeling in her mind as she had her sorrow in the old days...

[per-ardua.livejournal.com]

Raine winced; oh, no. Now she realized, too late, who the fallen friend referred to had to be.

She almost wanted to say it herself, to spare Momo this one thing, but since she didn't know many details--or really, anything for sure--she kept quiet. Maybe it would leave Momo feeling like the wound had been ripped open again before it had even begun to heal, but then again, maybe it would just strip away whatever denial she was holding onto.

[hajike-tobiume.livejournal.com]

Momo went still again. No. She didn't want to. Reinforce was intelligent; she should have figured it out. The shinigami did not want to voice it. She didn't want to walk that precarious emotional edge again. She didn't... she needed to be strong and if she talked about it, even if Reinforce was the one person within these walls that had a right to know...

Momo put a hand to her temple as she stared unseeing at the wet journal. She needed to... didn't want to... no. She... She'd find a way. And she did. She shut her emotions down again, blocked them off. If she forced herself not to acknowledge them, she could... she could say it.

The journal was closed with a heavy hand, the shinigami raising her empty eye to meet Reinforce's.

"Two nights ago, Signum was killed by another patient. She'd drawn her sword to..." Something flickered in her eyes briefly. "...to defend me against that patient as he wished to end my existence. Unknown to either of us, he possessed an ability to render steel useless against him."

Momo looked away then, unable to keep things locked back any longer. Her gaze moved to her right hand as she realized she'd had it clenched so hard her nails had cut into her palm to draw blood.

"It was my fault. Her choice to stand between us be damned, it was my fault," she whispered. "I started it all... foolish pride..."

[1imited-edition.livejournal.com]

She shouldn't have said it, she knew. Better to suffer an unintentional cruelty than inflict one yourself to relieve it. Why hadn't she seen that before she'd spoken? Change the name, change the self, but she was still far from Hayate's vision.

But she needed to bear witness, too. She, who understood best the kind of lives they'd lived, and could mourn knowing what she would have mourned, what they'd wished for from death as immortals and what they'd wished for from their lives newly-born.

"I see," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. Just as before, her body betrayed the emotions that ran under her orderly thoughts and speech. To think her champion had fallen in a place like this... it saddened her because it was far from the rightful place she'd earned at her master's side, but it was hard to accept for a different reason. She knew well the strength of the knights, who had been a part of her. Signum had been overeager to fight, perhaps, and proud, but she hadn't been a fool...

Still, this woman had survived. The knight had protected her... to her, that would have undoubtedly meant more than her own survival. It was something to take some joy in, in place of one who no longer could.

"Don't say that," Rein shook her head slowly. "Hers was a very long path. It wasn't you who guided her to this..."

[per-ardua.livejournal.com]

Considering how much it took to make Reinforce cry--she only had once before that Raine saw, and that was while sedated--Raine reached out and squeezed her hand sympathetically. She could at least be here for her--for both of them.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, reaching out and touching Momo's hand as well.

[hajike-tobiume.livejournal.com]

But it was I who asked her to keep me alive.

Momo wanted to say that, but the tears that sprang to Reinforce's eyes stopped those words from ever being voiced. What good would they do? Signum had been a knight and a knight had duty, had honor. The shinigami was vain enough to believe that the knight had protected her out of duty as her position demanded, but Signum had been her friend. Maybe, even with knights, friendship was stronger than things such as honor and duty. Maybe Momo was completely wrong; she wasn't a knight and didn't have the capacity (so she thought) to understand what it was to be one. She was shinigami, nothing more, nothing less.

A failure of one, at that. A Death God, yes, but one that got the people she cared about killed. She'd once said to others, possibly even the first Noah, that she was death. Now... now she knew for certain; she brought death to those she cared about.

Swallowing hard, glancing down at her palm, Momo shook her head slightly in response to Raine's words. The half-elf meant well, but this was something she didn't understand - not like Momo. Not like Reinforce.

Standing up, the shinigami moved around Raine and went to stand by Reinforce's side. Without a word, without even asking, she went to gently pull Reinforce to her so she could wrap her arms around the woman in a comforting hug, to stroke her hair and let her cry. It was easier this way, for Momo. This way, she could focus everything on comforting Reinforce, and once again ignore her own emotional wounds, not feel them like she didn't even feel the cast on her arm anymore.

"I miss her," Momo whispered.

[1imited-edition.livejournal.com]

Rein watched the reaper's approach warily through her tears, and drew back slightly when she reached out for her, but in the end she had little choice but to accept the hug. She understood what Momo did, that to accept her comfort was to give her some relief. She couldn't refuse that, for the sake of her name and for the sake of the one they mourned.

Still... it was strange to be held, in this form. Especially by one who wasn't part of her, like her masters and knights had been. And yet somehow, the gesture put her at ease too, as it had been meant to.

It was good that she couldn't speak like this... all the calm she'd composed before Hayate in the end, for her own death, had fled her.

[per-ardua.livejournal.com]

Raine wanted to hug her as well, but this time she saw how Reinforce pulled away, and remembered how even after a week together the woman had seemed startled when Raine hugged her. So, she simply moved her hand up to place it on Reinforce's shoulder, in a gesture she hoped was comforting but not overly intrusive.

[hajike-tobiume.livejournal.com]

[call it done?]

Momo could sense that Reinforce was not used to being hugged and, with what the shinigami knew of her, she could understand it. Actually, even without the knowledge that she had, she could understand very well. It still took a lot of effort for Momo to control herself whilst hugging or being hugged by another. This time, though, was far easier than most. Perhaps it was a bit of the mutual grief, though she would never be able to fathom the depth of what Reinforce was feeling. Perhaps it was something else. Perhaps, it simply was.

She didn't say anything more than those three words, just kept comforting Reinforce. Focusing on the other woman's grief made it easier to stem the flow of her own. She wouldn't say anymore on it unless Reinforce asked. If the woman wanted more, Momo trusted that she would ask sometime in the future.