Day 44: Sun Room, Second Shift

[superdynamic.livejournal.com]

[from here]

He really had beat the rush. Suzaku found a chair as close to the corner and as far from the bulletin as he could, and turned it to face the wall before curling up in it. His nurse frowned at him again, but she was still being cooperative, and frankly he didn't care what she had to say in the slightest. He didn't care even if he got sedated. All he cared about was finally having a few moments to himself, to sort out what Euphie's love meant and what the hell Lelouch's problem was.

It felt like he had all the pieces of a puzzle and was just too stupid to figure out how they fit together. What Lelouch had said about Shirley at breakfast and the tone he'd taken with Euphie on the board, Lelouch asking how Suzaku was, Lelouch dying. . . "All we can do is move forward and look out for the ones we care about." Euphie struggling to get out her last words, pain overtaking Suzaku's consciousness while he fought pathetically to carry out Lelouch's order. . . The last couple days, when he'd felt like he was finally figuring this out, seemed so far away now.

There were a couple things that were certain, at least: he hated what Lelouch had done, he always would. But he -- he didn't hate Lelouch, and he hadn't for a while now, and that wasn't going to change. And he didn't have much time, because everyone but Suzaku was terrifyingly mortal. And Lelouch was an idiot, but he still wasn't sure about the how and why of that one yet.

[for the Saucinator]

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[slipperymagic.livejournal.com]

This boy looked every inch the noble son, or perhaps a very wealthy merchant's boy. It was hard to tell, but it put Howl in a mindset where he politely sat up and inclined his head respectfully to the young, blue haired boy. The color was less distracting while he was still riding the wave of sedatives. Howl was frankly much more struck by his age for the time being. This boy was younger than Michael by at least several years, which was not a comfortable realization when Howl remembered what he had seen just last night.

He put that out of his head, and focused on what he knew, and Howl knew how to behave around nobility. It was something you had to pick up quickly in a place like Ingary, especially if you just stumbled in one day without a pedigree or even a single coin to your name. Howl had been called upon by royalty and nouveau riche alike, and they all wanted proper recognition. Even from a wizard like Horrible Howl. Wizards and witches, on the other hand, were their own special category, to be respected and then not invited over for social functions unless you really needed a favor from them.

"Good day," he said with an equally polite smile. Smiling, fake or not, came much more easily to Howl. "Pardon me if I'm a bit...," he apologized with an incoherent gesture that he hoped adequately explained his deteriorated mental capacities. "I'm--"

Howl hesitated for just a split second. He was trapped in an asylum, where after the sun went down, monsters and magic reared their heads. By day, the nurses were going to assume he was mad anyway, and his fellow patients included petite, pink-haired ninjas. Howl was thoroughly tired of being Howell. He had played that role for most of his life, and discarded the dull name for a reason.

"I'm Wizard Howl Pendragon," he said graciously.

[deadlynoble.livejournal.com]

A...wizard. Ciel wished he could have claimed to be more surprised but considering whom he had for a butler and the kind of affairs that greeted him on a day-to-day basis, a wizard was hardly any cause for surprise -- unless this man was truly out of his wits and wasn't a wizard at all, which also seemed likely considering his unusual behavior. There was something sloven about his movements that didn't escape Ciel's notice, and he had good reason to believe he was either ill or injured and heavily medicated.

Regardless of how unimpressed Ciel was, he had to act impressed, lest he make it rather obvious that his background wasn't exactly as normal as others perceived it to be. The eye patch alone was rather unusual but could easily be explained away by an eye infection or an injury. Such were common enough that no one would bother to check. Even the nurses had neglected to mention it whenever they crowded him and cast their attentions upon him.

So it was with this in mind that he continued to play his role accordingly, feigning mild shock and staring up at him in disbelief. "...a wizard?"

[slipperymagic.livejournal.com]

"Of course." Howl leaned back, and felt a strange mix of pride and suspicion that the one-eyed child thought he was certainly, certifiably insane. He couldn't find it in him to care for once, although at least it would assure that no young, scared children would come running to him for help later on. Howl doubted he'd be able to handle the prospect of getting young boys killed at night. Ryuuzaki's death was still hanging over his head, and he could feel it descending upon him whenever the drugs cleared for a moment.

"I'm not the oddest thing to wander these halls," he sighed, almost sad to admit it. He wondered what, precisely, was this boy's story. There had been something strange about everyone he had met. Was there not a single, average soul amongst them? "It feels a great deal as though I'm just part of some twisted menagerie. It's a bit of a blow to one's sense of importance, isn't it?"

[deadlynoble.livejournal.com]

The honor of being the oddest thing he'd ever seen generally went to Grell Sutcliff for the sheer preportion of gregariousness he possessed, but since he'd come here, Ciel had seen creatures he never would have even imagined. They were all various degrees of hideous and horrifying, and he knew he was only just scraping the surface. It still bothered him as to where they come from and where they were being held during the day. He suspected someone was merely opening a portal to hell and letting its denizens run loose.

Not even Sebastian had been so terrifying of a demon, but he had made some vague mention of the creatures that inhabited his true home in the past. What Howl had said afterward had caught his attention. He had noticed, too, that no one taken appeared to be "normal" by any means. Everyone had an extraordinary story or appearance thus far, as if they were being hand-selected rather than randomly as he had previously supposed.

Continuing to feign ignorance, he gave the older man a look of wariness. "Do you have powers and the like? Being a wizard...?"

[slipperymagic.livejournal.com]

Howl sighed quietly when he remembered the details of his magic use the previous night. He hadn't died just yet, but severing the bond between himself and Calcifer had done something unpleasant to him. Muffling of magic in any of its forms seemed standard at Landel's, but Howl still had no heart. There was no way of telling how long his magic could support his body in this state. He could hear the clock ticking down, but couldn't see the hands.

Howl pulled himself from those dark thoughts and looked up at Ciel again, with eyes that were particularly empty and glassy, even by Howl's normal standards. "I'd be a poor wizard if I didn't," he teased sleepily, and then left it at that. "And what of you, young man? Do you have any magic? Or a name, perhaps?"

[deadlynoble.livejournal.com]

Ciel didn't miss how the man -this Howl- had been momentarily distracted, weighed down by disconcerting thoughts, judging by the subtle change in his expression. Had Ciel incited some sort of memory? Or perhaps the mention of magic had reminded him of the state of things here. Even Sebastian's powers and abilities had changed drastically and were currently questionable at best. He wasn't certain how it was even possible. For a time, he had suspected some sort of barrier to have been placed around the institute but, given the fact that they still didn't work in Doyleton, it might have been the result of something more physical.

As a power-based being like a wizard, being without one's magic would be quite the misfortune. Even Ciel had suffered from some of the repercussions of Sebastian's newly-acquired weaknesses here. He could feel the change in their bond, the fact that he couldn't respond right away to his call. The contract and its seal... they no longer felt as strong as they used to.

Shaking his head slightly to the question, Ciel answered, "I don't have any magic." Then he shifted towards a more polite tone, feigning a small smile again. "The name is Christian Porter, sir. It's nice to meet you."

[slipperymagic.livejournal.com]

"Nice to meet you as well, young Master Porter," Howl said. Although, much like Ciel, there was an attempt at sounding pleasant, it came out melancholy.

Howl was extremely adept at feeling sorry for himself, which he ha long since decided was quite called for at the moment. His mind was all tripped up and tangled in the recent revelations, and the cost they might have. Howl didn't want to die, and he didn't want Calcifer to either. Wasn't that why they got themselves into this mess? Through the drugs, beneath the preemptive mourning, Howl felt a spark of anger. If everyone was correct that some sentient being had done this to them, then that individual was responsible for whatever had happened to Calcifer, and whatever would happen to his family and dependents.

"Where do you call home?" He continued with more composure.

[deadlynoble.livejournal.com]

Ciel tried to keep from frowning at the "Master" attached to his name. Had this man suspected something about his status already? Or was he merely in the habit of referring to others in such a formal manner. He re-evaluated his own body language and realized he'd probably been sitting too straight -in a poised manner befitting of his own status rather than how a commoner would sit. It was difficult to cover up so much finely-combed breeding, but in his mind, Christian Porter was a boy far from who himself, in personality and status.

Come to think of it... he had merely developed this persona on his own. He had no actual access to his records to figure out what he was truly supposed to be like. What did the institute know about him? He had to reach those files this evenings and find out with certainty. Not just his own, but the files of every single patient here, which would help him to pinpoint where Grell Sutcliff was hiding along with this Luxord character.

Uncertain how to answer for a moment, he merely went with his actual place of origin. "I come from London, England." There were enough people there of varying backgrounds that they wouldn't be able to pinpoint him to anything, and anyone who was from there would be able to detect his manner of speech anyway. "Yourself?"