[Week 2, Saturday: Lenka]

[fallbymyhands]

[she waits until the campfire party is over (one she was mysteriously absent from, if only because she needed a walk to clear her head), to find Lenka. the only comfort she could have offered after Talcott's execution was quiet company. she isn't sure she can do much better now, but. . . well]

[she'll try]

Utsugi.

[wherever he is, she's approaching]

. . . how are you feeling?

Comments

[soylentprotag]

If they're a clue as to how powerful those behind this are, I--

[He cuts himself off there, rubbing a little at his face with a hand, and trying at the same time to cut off the persistent tremble in his hands. It's irritating. Even through all of the nightmares and sleepless nights he's never reacted quite this way, where none of the ways he normally moves forward are working.

And it's getting harder and harder to hold his Arc steady as the weeks wear on. Maybe it's just exhaustion.

Maybe it's the slow and unrelenting realization that there is no sense of escape here that doesn't immediately involve either a dance with death that doesn't just involve himself, or dealing with a world he knows nothing of and doesn't know how to really free himself of. He would trade all the trees and greenery he could see here, for something to hold on to.]

I don't know.

[fallbymyhands]

[the tremble in his hands is far more obvious than he'd like, surely. and Mitsuru notices]

You're shaking.

[soylentprotag]

This--

[Can you hold a God Arc with those hands?

That's the first thing he thinks of, and with it he forcibly clasps his hands together, ignoring the persistent ache in his right arm. None of it is anything he can afford, not here. Not anywhere. He has to be able to fight, to think, to move; that's what he does. It's how he lives.

He could blame it on the altercation with the moose. Mitsuru was there. He could gloss over it. It's simple enough. It'll pass. He could--]

It's nothing. I just need sleep. [he's not a particularly practiced liar, but he plows on, because there's something else they should discuss, too] --Kirijo. About the... about the cabin defense.

[fallbymyhands]

[she's about to push him a little more, but he changes the subject far too quickly for her to keep up. a moment of silence passes, before she nods and decides to go along with what he's saying. for now]

Yes? What about it?

[soylentprotag]

[He lets the silence run out, pulls more of the pieces of himself together in the meantime. They've been drifting apart again, like ice sloughing off into water. Smaller and smaller and harder to find and retrieve. He doesn't need all of them, but he does need a handful for tonight, to make it through to tomorrow.]

... I think it would be better if I stepped back from it.

[It's said quietly, but steadily, something he's been thinking for a while. Something, if he's to be honest, he'd been thinking about since the end of the first week. This week... it's enough. He's done enough, to the point where he doesn't know where he's going anymore, plowing blindly forward. It's going nowhere.]

I'll help find replacements.

[They'd be down at least half. Responsibility is a curse.]

[fallbymyhands]

[well, needless to say, that admission takes her by surprise]

Why?

[soylentprotag]

[Her surprise makes him pause for a moment in turn. He'd felt like it was... almost obvious? At least some of it. It takes him a moment to start again, voice not quite as steady as before.]

Because it's hard to trust my judgment.

[It's impossible to draw a distinction between him not trusting his judgment or anyone else, so he just casts a wide net and drags the whole thing into it. This week, last week... this is a place where most of his skills feel like they hinder more than help, and where he's stumbled more than he's stepped forward to lead.

He'd still been new to it, back at home. He knows he'd gotten ahead of himself -- but back then, he hadn't been able to help it. Maybe he can help it now.]

[fallbymyhands]

[another pause while she considers this]

You are the one who doesn't trust your judgment, correct? Because of the mistakes you have made in weeks past.

[soylentprotag]

... I don't think anyone would.

[To him, that's just the objective assessment: in common parlance, he fucked way up. In less common terms, he... doesn't feel like he's gotten anywhere, since he got here. Since things started going wrong, which was immediately. It's like... back before his God Eater days. When there was nothing he could do, about anything.]