foolishwren | 90. [Video/Action for Olivine Inn] Dated to whenever Team Silent + Crow gets to Olivine.

Current Mood: resigned
Current Location: Olivine City
Current Music: "Dawn", Poets of the Fall

90. [Video/Action for Olivine Inn] Dated to whenever Team Silent + Crow gets to Olivine.

_{[It's quiet.]

[In more ways than one.]

[Actually, 'quiet' is a pretty good word to describe everything over the past few days, from Heather's perspective.]

[She's been quiet. After making an angry spectacle of herself in front of everyone, she hadn't been in much of a talkative mood. The trip down Route 38 had been spent largely in solemn silence, even after Crow had joined them mid-journey-- something that practically didn't seem possible.]

[The network's been quiet. Relatively, anyway. So many previously-prolific voices had vanished. Those who were left had understandably been left to pick up the pieces of everything that had come undone and, well, it's hard to blame them for being quiet-- those ones who had lost people, anyway. God knows Heather couldn't muster the fire to keep getting angrier as word of new disappearances had continued to flow in. The moment when she had seriously considered destroying a harmless Pokemon egg and its contents had been the moment she'd burnt herself out.]

[And, perhaps the only one that's sort of comforting right now, the city is quiet. The hustle and bustle of summer is both long ago and far in the future and as such, Olivine City in February is a great deal calmer than it had been the last time Heather had been here. That's sort of good, really. They've all needed to do a lot of thinking lately.]

[It's morning-- hardly even dawn yet.]

[At first, the camera isn't even SHOWING Heather. More a very close view of the floor, and the railing at the top of the staircase leading up from the lobby of the Olivine Inn. The cameraman is probably a Pokemon, but who knows which one it is... Godzilla has long since retired from his 'Gear-stealing shenanigans and so has Butch, now that he can WOOOOOO and QUAAAAAAG at his beloved Flapper in person.]

[But whichever one it is, it carries the camera with an air of quiet determination, and once it situates itself within view of its trainer, who seems to be sitting silently by a window in the deserted lobby, it sits itself down with a rustle and zooms in.]}

_{[Eyes shut, she almost looks asleep, except for the fact that she's absent-mindedly stroking something with one finger-- something bristly-looking and pale yellow that seems to be in the process of contentedly nuzzling its way under her chin. ... Something with four bright blue eyes not dissimilar to the odd markings on that little egg she had been threatening to crush last week.]

[The video doesn't last long. It lingers on Heather and the new Pokemon for fifteen or twenty seconds, and then shuts off. Whoever had been filming, it seemed, had no agenda outside of showing the network that, no, Heather had not gone through with her impulsive plan. Fortunately.]

[The whole time, Heather just carries on obliviously.]

[Remembering hurts... but there's nothing anybody can do to change that.]

[Half to herself and half to the creature, who doesn't seem to be aware of how close it had come to maybe NOT EVER GETTING TO HATCH, she mumbles after a few seconds.]}

... Stage five. I think.

That's acceptance, right?

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Something like that...

_{[Here, Henry looks a little guilty. He's been squirreling something away in his napsack for months. The night everyone got something from Home, he'd wound up with his SCRAPBOOK OF NIGHTMARES.]

[And hadn't peeked at it since.]

[Henry was deliberately trying to forget what had happened to him.]}

_{[It's okay, Henry. She's not judging you. She just wants to make sure you'll be okay.]

[Which is probably evident in the way she rests her hands on her knees and just sort of... looks at him with a seriousness that she usually doesn't.]}

What kinds of weapons did you have on you?

Guns, knives, baseball bats? Anything?

_{[Because as good as he is with that fry-basket, she doesn't favor his chances with it if he's against a GOD.]}

I-I don't know. I had a shovel...and a gun, I think.

_{[Henry touched a hand to the side of his head as if ghosts were lurking just outside the hotel room door and making his brain throb against the inside of his skull. He didn't want to think about it.]}

"I know I had a gun."

_{[She nods.]}

Okay, good. That should be enough if you play it right.

_{[After all... she hadn't had much more than that.]

[Piercing him with that out-of-character stare, she spreads her hands.]}

The thing you gotta remember is that gods can die. They can be killed. They're strong but they can be killed. If you get them before they can finish coming into the world all the way.

_{[She's under no illusions... she knows that if somehow God had been fully formed when she took it on, her chances would have been a great deal slimmer than they already were.]

[But she'd done it. It could be done.]}

_{[Henry breaks eye contact and tries to think back to everything that had happened before he lept down that hole like a Sunderland.]}

That's the idea. _{[He frowns at nothing for a while, but pipes up again.]} Do you think..._{my being stuck here is stopping the world from ending back home?}

_{[IT'S A LOT OF PRESSURE FOR SOME RANDOM STONER ART KID OKAY?]}

_{[It's okay, Henry. It was a lot of pressure for a meek nonfiction author and a teenage girl, too. Your friends understand.]

[She blinks at the suggestion, and then frowns and shakes her head.]}

I don't-- no, our time here doesn't... change anything. As far as I know, when people go back, they... go back to the exact same moment they left from.

...Oh.

_{[Henry takes a moment to look physically ill at the thought. He'd been sleeping fairly well too in his little thought cocoon!]}

But. Yes. I was descending into...somewhere. After finding Walter had gotten down off his cross. I think his ghost-self moved it.

... Yeah. Sounds like you were comin' up on the end, there.

_{[Her tone is laced with understanding.]}

Just keep a cool head. No matter what you see, keep a cool head and just do what you need to do.

_{[She doesn't need to emphasize the importance of it all. As much as that final teeth-to-the-throat struggle had been... it had been more than just about her. Just about her father. It had been about whether or not the sun would come up tomorrow.]}

I know you'll be able to do it.

I'm cool.

_{[Henry fiddles with a button on his shirt. It's a wonder he still has any left.]}

I'm Mr. Cool.

_{[No matter how serious this is, she's Heather. She can't not smile at that. One side of her mouth quirks up a little bit.]}

That's the spirit.

_{[He nods a little bit and suddenly remembers his original quest.]}

Mr. Cool needs his smokes.

_{[Like. Twelve of them all at once. Memories he'd tried to shove under his mental sofa had been stirred into the air like dust and now he needed somewhere to sit and veg out.]}

'Fraid I can't help you with that one.

You're on your own against Dad.

_{[Because she's pretty sure he's the one responsible for their disappearance and that is one thing she knows better than to fight him on.]}

_{[Henry groans. He turns and slowly reclines on the bed in defeat, draping an arm over his eyes as he does so.]}

If I'm supposed to be some kind of God-killer, shouldn't I at least be allowed to blacken my own lungs in peace and quiet? It should be a...a privilege. Yeah.

_{[She can't help but snort a little at the dramatics. She let her weight settle in one palm as she leaned over to look at him a bit better.]}

Hey, fighting God's rough enough all by itself. Pretty sure it'd be a lot harder with lung cancer.

_{[Henry rolled away from her. Dramatically.]}

Nobody who ever killed a god ever got cancer.

_{[Murdered in his own house, sure, but...]}

_{[She lets out an amused chortle, reaching out to try and roll him back over on principal.]}

Oh really?

So you've met a lot've people who've killed gods, huh?

_{[Henry somehow converted his body to DARK MATER because he refused to be budged.]}

I've met a couple.

_{[Well, when you're the obnoxious little sister, you have a job to do. So she grabs onto Henry's shoulder and tuuuuuuugs COME ON BRO ROLL OVER.]}

Ahuh. And they're both smokers?

You don't know!

_{[He twisted his fingers into the sheets. SHE WOULDN'T MOVE HIM. He'd end up falling off onto the floor before then.]}

I could have met ten--no-- FIFTY chain-smoking god-killers before you and Mr. Mason!

_{[Well, she'll keep trying!]}

Ahuh, sure.

You totally know a bunch of cigar-huffing deity-assassins.

You're like... a god-hunting socialite.

You bet I am.

_{[Growing tired of her trying to move him, Henry lets go with one hand and reaches around, blindly trying to plant it against her face. GO AWAY LITTLE SISTER.]}

Don't make me drop my egg!

_{[The attempt is successful and she leans back under the shove, reaching up to peel his hand away from her face. She's grinning, though.]

[As much as she's still scared that he-- or Harry-- might disappear any day... it's hard not to smile.]}

Yours still hasn't hatched yet?

_{[If she can successfully pull his hand off, she'll be holding it by the wrist and contemplating the benefits of using it to make him hit himself.]}

_{[Henry stopps fighting long enough to contemplate the little egg..]}

Nope...What do you think it is? Can I have my hand back?

Dunno. Can I see it?

_{[She did let Henry's hand go, but only after angling it over to bump him in the face a few times first.]}

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90. [Video/Action for Olivine Inn] Dated to whenever Team Silent + Crow gets to Olivine.

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