After(life) Party--

[soylentprotag]

[Lenka isn't talking much, though he spends most of the time after the execution either expressionless or frowning, moving among the ones still left at the campfire to check on people and try to make sure none of them are trying to either follow Boa or possibly throw literal or metaphorical stones at each other. Probably everyone's too exhausted for any of that at this point.

At some point he disappears for a little bit and comes back with an entire table and supplies -- not from the kitchen, but from the stash he'd accumulated in Cabin 2. It's not much, but it feels better than eating anything from the kitchen right now. Nobody wants that.

There's just some crackers and fruit snacks and some cheese with them. A few baggies to take them to go since most people aren't hungry right this moment. Once that's set out, he'll idle at one end of the table, staring out into the lake.]

Comments

[bladeisme]

It's fine.

[His tone is light, as he sits down next to Lenka, to join him at staring at the lake. Actually - light is the wrong way to describe it. It's more like how someone who doesn't know what to do in this situation might sound like as they desperately try to stay strong.

Something Lenka's probably familiar with.]

It was - something, anyway. I know that he's there in the Stone, so...I couldn't just leave him there.

[He lifts his head, sighing.]

I wish - that it wasn't the only thing I could do, but...

[soylentprotag]

[Oh, he's familiar with it.

It's the counterpart to his own even tone -- stubbornness painted over hollowness painted over the very last ditch need to keep going, because there's nothing else to do. Retreat is no longer an option, even though running away is always what he's been told to do. Run, survive, and yet there's nowhere to run to now and the price for surviving mounts with each passing day.

But there's something soothing about seeing the rituals around death here. The ones that aren't forced on them in the form of accusations and slips of paper condemning one of their own.]

They... were probably all there. Watching. [he looks down and away, not quite another flinch but something like it; Ren] She shouldn't have done that.

[Even though it had seemed like Red didn't have full control over it, and there's something deeply unsettling about that. How angry is Sol with them, exactly?]

But if that's the only thing we can do in the end, then -- maybe it will help.

[Once the pieces fall and everything settles again, like mud on a lake bed.]

[bladeisme]

...Yeah. They probably were.

[Which makes ichigo frown, because -

God. He's had experience with doing things he never normally would due to outside (or inner) forces. But how must they feel, trapped inside of there like that, without being able to stop a damn thing that's happening...?

It makes him shudder.]

...Maybe it will help. I'm not - sure, Lenka. But - I'm willing to do whatever I have to to get to the end of all of this.

[soylentprotag]

[Each time he thinks this place has settled, each time they've seemingly found any kind of respite or pattern, something new and terrible and vicious is thrown at them -- raking through old and still-bleeding scars. He's going to have trouble looking at Lance and Lillith for a few days. He might have even more trouble with the others.

It's debatable. Looking is a relative quantity nowadays, when their eyes are no longer quite their own nor reliable for keeping them where they need to be. He closes his rather than look back up, clenches his fists, unwilling to look too hard around the campfire just at the moment.

It's an abyss they can't look away from.]

... I want to help them. I want to help us, and Stan and Red, and I-- [it always feels like there's so little he can do lately, though he drags himself onward anyway, inch by inexorable inch] If there's an ending where we can take back what we've lost, the souls, I'll do anything.

[It's a slightly more incoherent echo of the sentiment, is all it is. But it's sincere for all that, something from the depths of him.]