khuioduan | A stoic mind and a bleeding heart

[In the early twilight hours of a very hot and muggy morning, there's video on the network showing nothing but a dark wall. It might be some kind of misdial, except misdials on the network in Aifaran aren't possible. A prank, maybe, but X's name is attached to the video. What kind of prankster doesn't remain anonymous?]

Can we --

[He cuts off, with a pained yelp like he just stubbed his toe on something. He's still not in frame.]

-- go to hell.

[For anyone who's known X longer than a couple of minutes, the fury in his voice, the ragged scream, even the phrasing -- all of it is so incredibly uncharacteristic that X seems to frighten even himself.]

No. No. You're all wrong. Your family was wrong, you're -- you are better than you think you are. It can't be over. Nothing is ever over, not even when -- you think you're safe, you know, you think you know what life is all about, and then you look up and there's fire in the sky over your home and you never see it again. But let's face it, who am I to lecture upon what is reality and what is myth?

[If it sounds like the haggard and broken rambling of someone who's insane, that's because it is.]

No, wait -- sorry. Sorry, I'm… I don't. I don't know.

[The camera finally moves, slowly, and X appears. He looks terrible. He looks like a child who's woken up from a night terror, drawn in and crying, desperate for help. The sight of his own face on the camera makes him stare.]

Oh.

I'm sorry. I'm -- I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I swear, I didn't mean to.

[The video cuts off there. Whether on purpose or by accident is anyone's guess.]

(OOC: It might take X a bit to respond to anyone, so please feel free to threadjack each other in the meantime!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Adding to the veritable cornucopia of well-wishers and worry-warts currently blowing up X's inbox with their messages, Kit's text arrives sometime later. He's been away from the Bridge for a while himself, and is kicking himself for it now; if he'd only stayed home, if he'd only made himself available somehow--

--well. No sense in making himself out to be the one in need of comforting here. He sends his message.]

Hey there, salroka.

You give me a call when you feel like it. I've got a new card game to teach you.

[Seeing a message that doesn't have anything to do with what happened overnight is like a refreshing breath of fresh air. Kit, of course. The down-to-earth, practical, and subtly empathic approach that seems just as typical of him as it is of the dwarves back in X's home world.

He doesn't reply all day, not until after dinner. When he does:]

Are you at home? Learning a new card game sounds wonderful right now.

[Soaking wet after being caught out in a rain storm while walking his now equally drenched little bibiru companion, Kit finds his yimo on his bedside table and checks it--shit, when did that message get here? He absently towels off the top of his head while tapping out his response.]

Sure am. I'll get the card table set up.

[the card table in question just being the foot of his bed, which is where he usually plays cards when he's at home. When X shows up, that's where Kit will be, shuffling a deck of cards while his bibiru snoozes in his lap.]

I'll be right there.

['Right there' turns out to be a bit optimistic, because the thought of returning to the room he'd broken down in is a taller order than X realised. His hands shake; his breathing comes ragged. He needs several minutes to master himself, all the while ashamed his reactions are taking such a toll on his body.

Then he goes home, because he'll have to eventually anyway, and because good company and a game might be just the distraction he needs.

The rain's let up by the time X arrives, so he's not drenched, but the shoulders of the coat the Fool bought for him are wet. He goes to shrug it off, then decides the extra layer might be comforting right now, wet or dry.

His bed's still a mess. X gestures ruefully at it.] Sorry about that. I didn't have time to -- I, um. It just.... felt like too much.

[If X is expecting some rebuke or criticism for how he keeps up with his share of the housework in the room, he's not going to get any of it from Kit, who won't be winning any awards for tidiness himself. He glances towards X's side of the room, then back again, quirking a little grin.] That's all right, [he assures him a little quietly so as to not wake the bibiru still snoozing in his lap, then gestures at one of the chairs he'd pulled over to the bed.] C'mon, sit down.

[He watches his friend pensively, still shuffling the cards in an absent-minded fashion.] You want to talk about, um, anything?

A stoic mind and a bleeding heart

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