[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

[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.]