|
Lightbringer
|
Chess pointedly did not glance back as Darren and Ehlark hurried o out - if she thought about them too much, she was pretty sure she might hit something. And so, as always, she'd just run away, distract herself, stop thinking about it. Gods, she was a coward, always wanting to flee, never be tied down, get involved in everyone's problems but her own. Coward, coward, coward. Her brows furrowed, fingers circling her wrist, rubbing in a familiar, anxious motion as she knelt down. She shouldn't be so stressed, so concerned - this was her job, after all. But damned worry and insecurity was a carefully hidden presence in nearly everything she did. She shouldn't care so much, and rarely did, but seeing Aerich hurt by those two... well. It made her unreasonably angry, a vast difference from her usual even-temper. "I'll sic Luci after them if they come back," she offered, trying to shake how rattled she was. "And 'sides, if they ever come running in here again, I'll just have to jog their memory with a swordpoint or somethin'," she continued, flashing a grin, trying to guage his expression. In response, she chuckled a little. Her leg hurt, which was pretty much why she decided to sit down in the first place - but she wasn't going to tell him that. "Mm, too much activity for my lazy ass. The dirt calls my name," she answered with a wink. She inclined her head, curious, and alert, as he eased himself down beside her. Her expression broke into a grin as he settled onto the hard-packed earth. She couldn't understand why, but she found his cautious, oddly disarming smile rather endearing. And sort of adorable. Is it raining? Chess snorted a little, fingers straying to her curls, tied into a loose bun, which had now transcended any normal hair behavior and essentially exploded into a frizzy disaster. Another insecurity to add to a ridiculously long list. She was... rather glad he couldn't see her. Chess rather wanted to grimace at her face in the reflection of a pond, or even a scrap of mirror here and there. Of course, she wished he could see, she hurried to clarify, so as to avoid an inevitable self-berating on selfishness. Just not... her. "It's dumping out there for sure. Luci isn't a fan - I don't think chickens appreciate foul weather," she said, nudging him with an elbow. "Get it?" She said in a stage whisper, trying to read his expression, while decidedly not appearing to do so. "Because she's a bird and birds are fouls?" Anything to distract him, anything to make him laugh, wasn't past Chess. She sort of had, admittedly, a rather bad habit of desperately seeking laughter and smiles and any validation from others - but it was different, this time, because she actually cared, if only passing concerns. It had less to do with herself, and more to do with making him less miserable, trying to have him experience some happiness again. She felt she owed him that, and she wasn't sure why. Distractions, distractions, distractions - she knew well what she had, and would do to avoid her own problems and emotions, but distracting him from the awfulness, was something she wasn't sure how to do. Maybe... he liked reading? He sort of gave off book-ish vibes. "Oh - before I forget, do you like to read?" It sort of hit her all too late. He can't read, not when he's blind, Chess. And you just reminded him, damnit. Oh, gods. Really just excelling in this whole reacclimation, trying-to-make-things-better thing.
|
|
|
|
Lightbringer
|
If they come back... His attempt to smile faltered again, but he gave a little nod regardless. She was making it clear that she wouldn't let them near him again, but the fact remained that they would likely attempt to return, and now that they knew Chess would try to stop them... They'd probably try to get her out of the way, which was frightening to think about.
But she was trying to cheer him up, to smooth over what had just happened, and he knew that. He appreciated it more than he could put into words, too.
"Bet Luci would teach them a lesson," he said with a smile and a soft laugh, remembering the chaos that had ensued in the few moments the chicken had been let loose the day before. "Where is she, by the way? Did you manage to find a... chicken babysitter or something?"
It seemed that even Chess's easygoing presence was helping to erase the mental trauma he'd just undergone, but another factor was that Ehlark had attempted to cover his tracks, leaving Aerich's memory of the incident foggy at best. His head still throbbed, though, and the slightest tightening of the skin around his eyes was evidence of the pain he hid.
He huffed softly at her explanation as to why the both of them were on the ground. "Getting a bit out of shape there, hm?" he questioned, having forgotten her injury that she still refused to seek treatment for. It was too late at this point, and if it hadn't gotten infected, it would likely heal on its own from here. Healing was painful sometimes, as Aerich could attest. His ribs protested his change of position, and the ridiculously humid air made it a bit difficult to breathe, but he didn't complain.
And, in what was a massive step for him, when she elbowed him, he didn't immediately flinch away from the unexpected contact. Instead, he was grinning from the joke, and a true, genuine laugh even escaped him, sightless eyes glinting with amusement. "Bet she's in a... fowl mood," he attempted to add onto the joke, failing rather miserably but succeeding, at least, in making himself laugh a bit harder.
But the moment of genuine joy passed too quickly; his laugh turning to a particularly violent coughing fit, his lungs rattling with each heaving breath as he winced with a hand pressed to his side. He really couldn't catch a break... But at least, when he managed to catch his breath again, voice hoarse from coughing, he didn't seem to have entirely lost his good mood, a tired grin still showing on his face.
His brow furrowed slightly at her question, though his grin didn't falter. Reading? He hadn't read anything since before his capture, for obvious reasons. But he had loved to read before... So his answer to her question was a nod and his usual tired smile.
"Haven't been able to since before," he said, stating the obvious he was sure. "But I miss it. I liked the stories," he admitted. "They were an escape." Angling his head towards her to hear her response better, he asked, "What about you?"
|
|
|
|
Lightbringer
|
"Oh. No. I just sorta left her there and hoped for the best," she said with a shrug, slightly concerned, now. Chickens... weren't that messy, right? Huh. Maybe Luci would take over Chess's bunkmate's cot - or, better yet, she could set it on fire with her malicious little chicken brain. Or something. He deserved it, on so many accounts. There was definitely potential here for a self-employed and self-weaponized ball of feathers. "Getting a bit out of shape there, hm?" "Oh, you don't know the half of it. But being lazy is so tempting," she sighed, feigning exasperation through a half smile, as though this was all just so, so hard. "Too wet out there to do anything. I can already feel my boots getting soggy." It was sort of an evasion to any sort of discussion about her injury - but she was fairly confident it was getting better. It hurt less, anyway, and if it was still infected after she dumped a bottle of whiskey on it, to hell with it. Might as well got off the leg at that point, to spite the infection. At his laugh, she grinned at him, delighted. She had never really heard him laugh, not with sincerity - and hell, she had a ridiculous amount of bad jokes up her sleeve, if that's what it took to lighten the mood. And she laughed with him, at his attempt to continue the line of joking - although sort of selfish, part of why she liked to make others laugh was because it was some kind of validation for herself - so, yes, selfish. And she should probably stop thinking that way. Maybe Luci could be summoned to peck out that train of thought. Her own smile fell away, perhaps both at her own thoughts, and the coughing fit that overtook him. She shifted, leaning forward - she wanted to reach out, but wasn't sure if it would help any. The temporary helplessness was frustrating to no end, the knowledge that she could help, could fix the problem, but didn't know how. That he was hurt, and she couldn't aleviate the pain. Her own smile returned as his did as well, but her own was not nearly as bright as it had been before, instead pensive, slightly curious, concerned. "Yeah. I get that. I guess my form of escape was always... running away? But books seem a little more portable and ideal," she said with a little huff, folding her hands in her lap. She had never been a good reader - she got about the most basic schooling in literature, and was taught more in-depth on numbers, handling money and finances whenever they were to sell any of, well, whatever. Goats, trinkets woven from seaside reeds, fish, anything like that. An idea crossed her mind, and she shifted, tucking her knees beneath her, face openly curious. She knew that her bunkmate had came from a merchant family, and had a few stacks of books lying around. "Favorite genre? By the way, textbooks or whatever fancy research stuff is not an option. Just to clarify."
|
|
|
|
Lightbringer
|
"Bet your bunkmate sure enjoys having a chicken making a mess all over his stuff," Aerich remarked with a chuckle, leaning back against the side of the cot as he let out a ragged sigh. The various half-healed wounds he'd forgotten about were protesting the change in position, and his head still throbbed, but he was trying his best to ignore it and stay in a decent mood.
He remembered, though, that he'd heard her limping earlier, and he wasn't going to be distracted from her injury so easily. He wondered if she'd decided to sit down here to take the weight off of her leg, in which case he was going to bring up her injury again and suggest she get it looked at, as soon as he got a chance.
He was distracted from that thought by her laughing at his terrible joke, reacting to her laughter with a broad smile. It was something special to him, to hear her laugh. It wasn't that he hadn't heard it before, he was sure he had, in awkward chuckles here and there because the woman was perhaps the most wonderfully awkward creature he'd ever met. But this time, it almost felt more real, genuine, much like his own laughter felt to her, though he had no way of knowing that.
"Well, anxiety isn't really something you can run away from," he offered. "Tends to follow you around. Plus, if I tried to run away from my problems, pretty sure I would have been executed." A joking grin appeared, despite the dark nature of the joke itself... To tell the truth, he had been desensitized to a lot of things, not that he noticed. Seeing the things he'd seen, living through the hell he'd lived through, it didn't just leave trauma behind. It left a very changed person.
She spoke up again, asking what kinds of books he liked to read, and his expression turned thoughtful. Genre? What genre did he like? It felt so strange that he didn't remember, and it actually bothered him as he fell totally silent, his smile faltering.
"I, um... I'm actually not sure," he admitted, an awkward smile returning. "I don't remember... To be honest. It's been so long since I was able to, really."
Although to be honest... something did come to mind. It wasn't exactly something he wanted to tell her about at the moment, but the memory was unmistakable. He liked sappy romance novels.
Clearing his throat to chase away that thought, he focused on her again. "What's yours?"
|
|
|
|
Lightbringer
|
She paled a bit at his response - that execution would even be a consequence. Whenever she had run, from anything, she rarely thought of consequences - just that she had to get out, had to leave, had to run. A public flogging was about as much a punishment if she would be caught fleeing - she was a footsoldier, not an officer. She knew she should care more, who she left in her wake, what mess followed her absence, but she wasn't noble enough to pay much mind to any of that. She inclined her head, brows furrowed thoughtfully. If he didn't remember, she supposed that left more options open. And her favorite genre? She didn't really... read. For whatever reason, it proved to be exceedingly difficult for her, with what minimal literary education she had. "Em." What was the last thing she read? She could do... road signs. That sort of thing - might as well say that. "Road signs are about the only thing I read. I never had much acess to books, anyway." He mother used to read her tall tales, and Chess had always loved the way it seemed to carry her off to a different world. She drummed her fingers on her knees, before pulling herself upwards - working off impulse, as was per the usual. "Okay. So. I'll be back, in like... a minute? Yeah, that. Right, bye." Without further explanation, she hurried out, making a beeline for the bunks. When she opened the door, it was a little bit of a nightmare. Or a hell of a lot of a nightmare. Everyone was out for training, or something of that sort, and Luci had been left unattened. Chess swore under her breath at the mess of feathers and otherwise she had left - well, too bad for her bunkmates, because she was not going to deal with this for a second longer. She'd figure it out. In a few hours, anyway. It was easy enough to find the stack of books under a certain bunk - her bunkmate was an intellectual, who always tended to toss books her way, in hope she might pick up some literature. Her reading was bad enough, so it wasn't like she would even be able to understand half the book - but Aerich would. Why are there so many options? Classics - she knew a few of those by title. Of course he read classics, cultured merchant's son. What a terrible influence she must be on him, compared to where he had come from. Too bad, he's just have to endure her. She scooped up the stack with a huff, hurrying out while Luci screamed at her. She'd figure that out later, but she was pretty sure she wasn't allowed to bring live poultry into a medical wing. She got a few stares as she ducked into the tent, but most just shrugged it off - her comings and goings had become a normality to them, now, although there was some curiousity in the soldiers' wary gazes - and as much as she enjoyed attention, it made her self-conscious. Unceremoniously, she plopped the books onto Aerich's cot, grinning at him. "Pick a book, any book. There's one with this... red cover, this one says Three Kings, this one is One Thousand Suns, and... one with a green cover with a title that's too fancy for me to read."
|
|
|
|
Lightbringer
|
Road signs. He couldn't hide the bright grin that showed on his scarred face when she said that, highly amused by the fact that when he asked her favorite genre of books, she came back with "road signs." A soft chuckle escaped him, as he leaned back against the cot, mouth already open to say something else when she suddenly rose to her feet.
He could hear her already moving away when she spoke, saying she was leaving, and his amusement shifted instantly to confusion, then to a sort of uneasy gut-wrenching anxiety when he realized he was more or less totally alone here.
Some of the other rescued prisoners had been moved to other camps by now, the lesser injured ones had been sent home. There were only a few in the medical tent at the moment, in various stages of injury, illness, and recovery; but most of the remaining men had ventured out to the meal tent to attempt to rejoin the general population. He could only hear three or four others left in the tent with him, none of whom he was on speaking terms with.
"Chess?" he asked, his voice shaky as he listened for her returning footsteps. Nothing but his own voice in the tent, and the sound of some exhausted guy in the far corner telling him to shut up because he was trying to sleep.
"Sorry."
Well, she said she'd be back... Grunting with effort, his legs shaking under him, he tried to stand to move back to the cot. Unfortunately, he lost his balance and ultimately sank to the ground again with a hiss of pain, his hand moving to his ribs. It seemed he would be here for a while... Hopefully she'd be back soon, or someone would help him up. How absolutely pitiful to be literally stuck on the ground unable to get up...
Eventually, he could hear her limping, shuffling steps returning, and a hesitant smile showed when she neared the cot, all signs of the near-breakdown well hidden beneath his abundant relief that she'd come back.
"I was wondering if you'd ever come back," he huffed, feigning indignance as she went through the book titles. Eyes narrowed slightly in thought, he reached out hesitantly to feel the width of the spines, to take the thinnest book in his hands and run his fingertips over the recessed print of the title.
"What's this one?" he asked after a moment of unsuccessfully trying to figure out what it said by feeling the words. "It seems thinner than the other ones. Might be easier to read... But I'm not sure, you can never really tell without reading the first page." And he couldn't do that, though he didn't have to say it.
"Where did you even get these?"
|
|
|
|
Lightbringer
|
"Heh. Can't get rid of me that easy," she responded with an easy smile. As he reached out, she immediately extended the book, understanding - touch to him, it must be like sight for her. Gods, she wasn't sure how he could handle this - just... everything. She willed her mind away from the scars, because although she could never fix anything (as, most of her life, she was the problem), she could at least do this. Reading wasn't that hard, and it was half for herself, she admitted - selfish, but she needed some time to rest, with just a book and a friend, who she would do her best to make happier. Was he a friend? She wasn't sure what fell into that definition - she hadn't known him long, but she felt at ease with him around, and she supposed that counted for something. Friends. Well, she had good few of those, certainly - none she was particularly close to, though. She redirected her attention, focusing on Aerich's words. "This one is... Fated. Sounds dramatic, so I'm thinking this is our best bet." She wrinkled her nose at his question, huffing a little in amusement. "Temporairily borrowed from an unfortunate bunkmate. He wasn't there to tell me not to. Besides, I have a mean chicken at my disposal, and I'd like to see him try to say no," she continued, offering a relaxed sort of grin. "Alright. Ahem. Before I get distracted, may as well see what this book is about," she said, settling into a seated position, crossing her legs, and launching herself into the first page. "Intro..truh..duct...introduction." I did not bel...iv..be...lieve in destiny. In a world like ou..rs, nobody did. But some worlds are mean-meh...meant to collide." Chess took a breath, heat rising in her face. She was good at running away - coward - but she couldn't, not now. Gods, this was humiliating. She could barely struggle through a page. She paused, trying to grasp that calm, strong confidence she usually maintained. "And..and.." she took a breath, gripping the book in frustration. "May-be I am a fool. But it is hard to bel-ieve that it all was not meant to be. That it was not... fated." Chess tucked her knees to her chest, jaws clenched. The words seemed to flip and swim - she had always struggled with reading, even with a poor schooling - letters were upside-down and all wrong, and she didn't understand them. Well done, Chess! Aren't you a clever thing. She had kept trying and trying and trying to make sense of sentences and phrases, as a child, so stubborn in her pursuit of success. As it turned out, teaching oneself, with barely literate parents, was a problem, and one she was too stupid to figure out. "Alright. I'm bored, too bad first... twenty...nine? chapters. We're skipping a bit." She gazed intently at Aerich's expression, trying to guage what he felt. Was he annoyed? She she stop? Bastard. Stop caring, it doesn't matter. You don't usually. Which wasn't true - she was just rather good at burying insecurity, after so many years, masking, and even morphing everything as nonchalance. She flipped a few pages, taking a steadying breath. "Ne...Neil? Neil," ha, guess the author will get a kneeling ovation for that name choice - she then winced in good humor, because even that was bad for her, before continuing. "I was lost. So, so lost.. hell, I was ru..rue..ruined -" "No. Don't say that. You were always the best of us. I don't deser..ve you." "I'm broken." "I don't care. You're better than any of the rest of the godsdam..ned world." "I don't k..k-no..know how to tell you, I -" "No. Me first." Chess paused, color flooding her neck and face. She hadn't known that when she picked up the book she grabbed... a love story? Ha ha ha. No. Against her better judgement, she continued, rather out of amused curiosity, distracted from her struggle over diciphering the letters. "I love you -" - "could'a done better than somebody named Neil. I'm sure Stand, or maybe Sit would've been the better options, ma'am" she interjected, before continuing - "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't have fan..cky? fan.. f... fancy words for you, or I can't give you the world. I'm sorry that I don't deserve you, I'm sorry that you can't -" "No. It do..esn't matter. I will always choose you, Ren." "His hands were on her back, pulling her to him, and she le..ee..aned into him and...an-" Chess coughed a little, eyes watering as she tried to breath a little normally again. She only had to glance a the page past before her face felt hot and embarassment and discomfort set in - she slammed the book closed, and she jumped up. "Mm, moving on. Any requests? Somewhere... not in this tent you'd like to visit? The feast is today and we could just... go. That sounds like a great idea," she managed, her often relaxed, almost lazy dialect and manner suddenly choppy and bright. Regardless - as always, she sort of found it all funny, and offered a grin that he couldn't see.
|
|
|