entrancelogs | [ota] It leaves us with regrets and picks apart the threads

Entry tags:

[ota] It leaves us with regrets and picks apart the threads

Who: Clementine + you
Where: Mansion
When: April 5 - 12. Plus, all of April and May
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Clementine returns from her canon update. Feel free to reply to the network post here since I won't actually spam the network community too. Action spam or prose is totally cool with me.
The Story: First week and a half

It's warm.

She's felt like she was freezing since she fell into the lake of ice. Was that really just yesterday? It's warm here. Her hands press to grass, and she stares at the ground, shuddering because she thinks the frozen water might have seeped into her blood. She knows it's warm but she still feels cold.

She's back in Wonderland. A rush of memories, of emotion hits her. There are so many people she cares about here, and she hasn't seen them since she left, and it feels like she's been gone for years instead of- days. Weeks? Time is funny.

AJ isn't in her arms anymore. It's just him and her now. Seems right. She can't trust people anymore.

Now that the adrenaline has faded away, the bullet wound in her shoulder hurts like fucking hell. She killed someone else she cared about. Again. Does she even belong in this place with people who are good, who do what's right? If they knew, what the fuck would they think of her. She feels like she might be sick, but there's nothing in her stomach to puke anyway so it's just her insides twisting around like knots.

She pulls her network device out, texting a quick open network post, because she won't remember everyone she'll want to text to let them know:

It's Clementine. I'm back. In my room.

If anyone is up at night, they might run into her, a child with blood on the shoulder of her jacket with a very clear hole through it. No gun for once. She left it with the last dead body she's left behind her.

When she finally makes it into her room. She writes the names of more dead people on the wall (Sarita, Sarah, Luke, Rebecca, Kenny). She pulls out blankets from the closet and piles them on the bed and puts herself underneath them, but it doesn't help with the cold. She tries to get out of the damn jacket, but she hisses out pain and stops midway. She stays there for a week and a half without leaving.

Rest of April/May

Eventually, later in the month, she finally leaves her room again. She's got the small shot gun from Christmas with her, holstered to her back.

She's in the cafeteria in short sleeves, which means she's revealing a certain scar for the first time since she came to Wonderland. Sometimes she's reading books about taking care of babies as if osmosis will happen if when she's sent back. Somewhere in between reading how often they have to feed and sleep, she tosses the book away from her so hard that it almost hits somebody.

Then she picks up baking. She used to with her mother all the time, and if she can kill people and survive walkers and gun shots and ice lakes, she can make some cookies if the recipes right there, right? Maybe.

She ends up making a big mess in the kitchen as she tries to spoon big chunks of cookie dough out on to pans, smirking at her giant mess. It's kind of hilarious she can survive so much and fight so hard and then get defeated by cookie dough.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He and the young Clementine have been like two ships passing in the night for a while, and today is no different. While Clementine is dragging herself to their floor, Anders is in the diner, satisfying his belly after a vigorous training session and a shower.

Clementine, back again? These people from zombie-inhabited worlds seem to ping pong across the multiverse faster than Anders can keep track of them.

You missed some kind of event. Space happened.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how terrible was the trip home? 1 being "bearable if grossly unfair" and 10 being "human extinction"?

Clementine doesn't answer immediately. Michonne helps her get changed and to fix her bandage, and she's in pajamas, but she's having trouble sleeping. She still has Richie's coat too, because it makes her feel warmer than anything else.

Really? Sounds like a cool Event for once. Kinda pissed I missed it. The question make her pause and even smirk a little bit because Anders has a very unique way of putting things, which she likes.

5 maybe?

It seems like an average level of terrible and still bearable. She knows she'll move forward after what happened with AJ in her arms. She'll take care of him if nothing else.

Asking where a person's been and what misfortune's befallen them can be depressing enough as is. Spicing things up at least has the added benefit of being able to fit in a laugh or an eye roll. Clementine's probably old enough to appreciate the art of deflection.

Maybe it'd be different if the majority of people returned with happy news, but so often they don't.

Just a lot of window shopping elbow-deep in aliens. You would've liked it.

So a middling terrible? That's not so bad.

Or is it?

Yeah, I would have. You should tell me about your space adventures some time. Clementine may be ticked she didn't go, but she still wants to hear all about it, and maybe another good, fun Event like that will come along.

Even if it doesn't, she prefers Wonderland to where she's from, and she's just grateful to be back at all.

It's not human extinction levels.

She's smirking faintly. Her perception of what's horrible and what isn't is likely skewed.

I'd be happy to. A part of me still has a hard time believing it was real, which is funny considering we have to deal with Wonderland's memory fragments every other week. Being close to the stars was more surreal than usual.

Anything short of the complete and total annihilation of the human race is a lot of ground to cover, and Anders is guessing he's not speaking to someone who had as marvellous a time as the rest of them did on the space station.

Consequently, there's a pause before he composes the second half of the message and sends it. Short and sweet and a little less dressed up in Anders' brand of frivolity in spirit, if not noticeable in the light manner of the words.

That covers mankind--and how are you faring?

I bet it was beautiful.

It's still pretty in her own world. There's not much about her world which she'd call pretty. Everything is falling apart. Dead bodies are everywhere, and walkers roam around with their skin falling off and their moaning.

The sky's pretty. No more electricity means the stars are always shining. There's a pause. Finally, at the moment, she decides for something honest.

I've been better.

I took some pictures for posterity, you're free to them if you're curious.

It's an offer without an expiry date if she's occupied trying to screw her head back on straight, as Anders suspects she must be. Getting slingshot between universes makes for a serious adjustment period; understandable that she might not be in the mood.

The second line of her text gives his suspicions all had not been sunshine and rainbows more weight, and he considers those three short words from his diner booth.

Anything a hot shower and some rest would fix?

I would love to.

She smiles at the thought. The pictures might make it come more to life for her than only hearing about it. Sometimes words can't do a thing justice. She wishes she could have been there but pictures will be the next best thing.

She swallows, breathing out shakily.

I don't think so but both of those things sound really, really nice. I wasn't gone very long in my world. It's just really shitty over there.

People aren't. Good. Can't be. She includes herself in it.

Were anyone to walk past his seat right about now, they'd find a blond man idly tapping out the half-remembered melody of an old song with his spoon against his mug, contemplating the words of a young girl he doesn't know well but has great sympathy for.

I was afraid you'd say that. I'm sorry to hear your situation back home has gone from bad to worse.

It might not seem like it today, but after a few days of rest and showers you'll start to feel like your old self. And I've no doubt there are people here who're looking out for you and missed you while you were away.

I'll swing by whenever you're up for company. If there's anything a healer could fix in the meantime, don't hesitate to ask. I'm only a mansion away.

Right. Magic. Magic can heal. It makes her smile softly at the reminder. Magic is amazing. She curls up further in her bed under the blankets, and she feels herself nod off a bit at long last. Exhaustion creeps up on her.

You're only a hallway away too.

I'll take you up on that. The healing thing. Tomorrow evening if you have time. Gonna sleep for now.

There's a pause since she realizes that sort of comes out of nowhere. She hasn't mentioned she was shot.

I'm okay, but you never know when an Event's going to happen and I want to be at my best when it does.

Makes dropping in easier. Tomorrow, then. Say around 6? I'll leave you to get reacquainted with your friends until then.

Given the inherent danger of her world, her alluding to an injury is unsurprising, and he types out the deceptively casual reply with the grim expectation that whatever the matter is, it wouldn't surprise him, either, to find Clementine's version of a 5 is really more like a 7 or 8.

At the appointed time the next day, Clementine will a knock on her door. Her neighbor is here and he's come bearing provisions.

I'll be here.

Clementine doesn't know that she'll be leaving her room anytime soon. It's better to- to stay in this room, to stay put until she gets her bearings back.

She stands up and moves to the door at the knock, opening it slowly. She's got a sleeveless shirt on, and there's a bandage at her shoulder.

"Right on time."

The sun is still up and painting everything in red and oranges when he blinks in the light of the open door and looks down at Clementine, the reflecting light making the ginger tones in his hair look redder than usual. His face wears a smile, and his hands hold a bag. "Wouldn't miss a date with the best neighbor I've ever had," he replies in greeting.

Then his gaze transfers to the bandage on her shoulder. Hard to miss, that. Injuries have a way of standing out in the worst way when worn by the young.

He sighs instead of fusses, like the sight of her merely confirms something he'd feared. "A souvenir from home?"

Clementine laughs a little and then steps back to give him room to step inside of her room. The laugh's a bit scratchy, but it's genuine. "Did you even know your other neighbors?"

She lets out a breath and then glances up at him before she nods. There's a grimace on her face. It hurts, but it's-

She's had worse.

"Gunshot wound. Do you... have guns where you're from?"

"The future king of my country was right next door, in fact. You probably would've liked his cat, it was a real talker. But that's neither here nor there."

In Wonderland things change, people leave. Some people like Alistair leave and stay gone, while others like Clementine return for whatever reason Wonderland deems necessary. And sometimes the worse for wear, at that.

He looks her over with the practiced eye of a healer. She looks pale and worn around the edges, lines of pain around her eyes. Is it any wonder she'd been reticent in her messages the other day? He's seen what bullets can do to wood and plaster; what they could do to a human body would make any healer shudder.

"I've encountered them here. Why didn't you say you'd been shot sooner? I would've come yesterday," he says. It looks like someone's tended it already, at least. That's a start.

"He- Wow. Was it weird being next to the like... king?"

He would have been very powerful back where they're from, but the power wouldn't move over to Wonderland with him. It shouldn't at least, but sometimes when people are used to having a lot of power, they have a tendency to expect it. They try to push people around. Power is good. Power keeps people safe, but it's also- it also bulldozes anything in their way.

Clementine shakes her head a little and then shuts the door behind him.

"It was already bandaged up, and it didn't hurt that bad. I mean, I've had a lot worse. Just with Events, I don't want to be injured when the next one comes."

Come to think of it, Anders doesn't think he's ever heard what sorts of rulers Michonne and Clementine's world has, whether arls or teyrns or zombie overlords, or if they have any at all after the undead swarmed in. With the collapse of civilized society, it seems enough just to be thankful Clementine had survived her trip back to that dangerous place.

"It was surprisingly... normal," he replies, humoring her curiosity as he sets his bag down. "He hadn't yet taken up the mantle, just another man I might have passed on the street. I wouldn't have gotten to meet him like that if not for this place, so for that I'm thankful. Same goes for you. If I didn't say it yesterday, it's good to see you again."

After all, it'd be a crying shame if Clementine didn't get a chance to adopt her cat and finish her studies under Georgia.

As he's not her father and hardly in a position to wag his finger over her being stubborn, Anders lets her omission go. "I believe you about having worse, but I'm not so sure about the rest. But better late than never. I'm here now--if you sit, I can take a look."

Clementine smiles at what Anders says. There's warmth in her gaze which somehow manages to exist behind her hard edges.

"It's good to see you again too."

She means it genuinely. It's good to have a neighbor who makes her smile and laugh when both seem like such a struggle for her lately. She still has to adopt her cat. She plans on doing it once she gets re-settled into this world.

She nods and then sinks into a chair immediately. "Do you need me to take off the bandage?" She doesn't know how this healing thing works.

Hard edges can be softened, physical wounds can be healed, but in Anders' experience the clincher is having the mental fortitude and the will to survive to snap back after a rough go of it. Clementine's smile contains a trace of that fortitude, a sign that she's down but not completely out.

The fact that she still has that much in her despite looking like the weight of the world is on her shoulders is reassuring, if nothing else.

"If you wouldn't mind. I'll get a look at what I'm dealing with." And while he joins her at her side to help her remove the bandage, he glances at her face and says, "How did it happen? Or is that the price of readmission when you go back to visit your home?"

"Two of my group were trying to escape with a prisoner and all our stuff, because they thought someone in our group had lost it and was dangerous."

They were right, but they were going to leave the rest of them to burn. She unravels the bandage from her arm until there's just the bullet wound. No bullet in it. It went clean through but she winces because it does still hurt like hell.

"I heard them, and I tried to stop them. The prisoner shot me."

"For some reason thieves and cowards tend to make poor travelling companions, I can't fathom why." Nasty business. Anders makes a rueful. "Brave of you to step in. Good thing your prisoner wasn't a better shot."

Once the ugly knot of flesh is exposed, Anders bundles up the soiled bandage and sets it aside, then turns to survey the injury itself. There are many days when he feels as though his abilities are going to waste here, knowing there are darkspawn to fight at home and Karl is rotting away in some Free Marcher cell, but it's moments like these that he's glad he's here and can leave people a little better than when he came.

He gives a confident nod, followed by an equally confident smile. "Well, not to worry. This is no match for a spirit healer from Thedas. Just sit back and relax and you should feel some relief in a moment."

The advantage to magic is that it doesn't require half the discomfort and mess of stitches; holding his hands above her shoulder, he calls forth his mana for the spell, which manifests as a soft, cool glow about his hands. The light passes from them to Clementine's wound, settling deep in the muscle, dulling pain and repairing flesh. Bit by bit, the healing spell finds what damage the bullet had done and works to undo it.

"You look less like a pincushion already."

"No idea," Clementine says with a smirk since obviously she knows better. Of course, none of those people seemed like thieves or cowards until it was too late, and she's been asked to steal from others multiple times. She always refused despite being hungry, starving. It never mattered. She suffered the consequences regardless.

She sits back, watching with amazement.

Magic is new to her as of Wonderland, but she finds it wonderful in ways that can't be put to words. It's like a fairytale from back when she still believed in fairytales. She stares as the wound heals in front of her eyes with this soft glow from his hand as if it could possibly be so simple.

She laughs a little, swallowing abruptly thickly through a well of emotion in her throat as her hand slides over the healed skin. The pain is gone. How incredible magic would be if it existed in her world though she knows his own world has so much terrible in it too. So many people are dead, and-

"That's amazing."

He doesn't miss the shift in her face, the way that she looks at the fading glow and newly repaired flesh of her shoulder with untold feelings that seem a little too big and a little too complex for a girl's features.

The same could be said of a gunshot wound. The same could be said for a lot of what Clementine's divulged of her situation.

"Doing all right?" he checks, returning his hands to his sides after the last of the healing is completed. Though the healing spells he's concocted aren't meant to cause pain, he'd like to know if she's at all overwhelmed. It seems safe to guess this might be her first brush with a mage--or perhaps even this brand of magic on a broader scale.

Clementine nods. She's okay. She manages a smile that's not quite a smile. Her hand slides over her shoulder, and it's like it's gone.

It's not there anymore. She feels no pain at all, and she's used to feeling- lately, she's just been used to feeling some low level amount of pain always. It becomes such a part of life that- It half feels like something is missing to not be hurting, like she's more free somehow than she was before.

"I know magic has shitty sides of it too, but I wish mine had it sometimes."

They could fight zombies. They could heal people who are dying. She could do more than what she can do with a gun.

The attempt is enough to pacify him. It wouldn't be the first time finding a spell amazing came with a dose of fear attached, and he wants Clementine to be comfortable in her own room. She seems like she has so little to rely on as it is; it should be a sanctuary she can retreat to to escape what threatens that comfort and safety.

"So do I," he admits, pulling himself up from his bent position. "A world without it doesn't seem like its one in equilibrium. Some blame our world's problems on magic, but it can do great things, too."

Good things, which he hopes he can do for her.

"I have something else for you--something from another world."

He returns to his bag, and pulls out an object vaguely conical in shape with three sleek, metallic-looking fins that form a tripod. A rocket shape, to someone familiar with rockets. A vibrant red liquid sloshes lazily within despite the device lacking a cord, and as they watch the color slowly begins to deepen, darkening to plum. Were Clementine to watch it long enough, she'd see it shifts through most of the spectrum of colors.

"This followed me back from space. Since you didn't get a chance to see the event for yourself, I thought you could have the next best thing--a little piece of it."

Edited (c/ps all my tag drafts in here, i guess) 2017-06-03 11:00 (UTC)

[ota] It leaves us with regrets and picks apart the threads

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