#tachoniis

Coming for a soul that was just sucked back to the body was not something you see everyday. Especially with a stone that seems almost familiar if he cared to learn of it. Possibly uncle Hades might know more than he does or perhaps the Raven Queen if she stopped being such a hermit. But right now the god is looking right at the smaller male. It’s just the two of them, no one else can see him at the moment. Maybe make the others think he’s crazy? That’ll be fun.

“Enjoy avoiding death huh? That can get you in much trouble darling” he says coming up to him. Leaning down he gets a closer look of him. Head tilting slightly as he soon takes hold of Occtis’s chin. The god makes a click of his tongue as he feels how cold he is. The lack of blood flow. Maybe he’d decompose in front of them and never notice.

8. what’s a piece of advice you’d give to your past self as a roleplayer?

Since settling into the mess hall for their brief respite at Castle Torch, Occtis has been avoiding meeting Julien’s eye. It’s hardly unusual— or at least Julien wouldn’t have noticed it as being unusual, if not for the circumstances that preceded it. The younger man often seems as though he is looking through him, rather than at him, but this holds in it some different feeling.

Perhaps colored by their last exchange, and how poorly it went.

I don’t mean to say— this is not an insult, but—

Julien cared very little for whatever preceded the qualifying ‘but’ after it left Occtis’ lips. If one prefaces a statement with a precursor like that, the odds of it actually not being an insult are low, and even just this day alone has given him ample practice in taking the judgments of his companions on the chin. He built up his defenses and fired back, hackles raised, because an insult to him is irritating, but an insult to Castle Torch is something more.

And Occtis had drawn back, crestfallen. Not all of us are born lucky.

It wasn’t an insult until Julien made it one.

And not for the first time that week, guilt eats at the edges of him, corrosive and annoying in its insistence. He picks at his food in silence, seated across the table from the late Tachonis, their group that was never quite a proper group fractured in yet an another new and interesting way, with the addition of Dame Seramai to Occtis’ side and the departure of Aranessa from Julien’s.

Julien believes that Vaelus may be worth trusting, thus far, but it is hardly a secret that Thaisha Lloy, at least, would be done with him as soon as possible if she could be. There are only two people in the world who stand alongside him in losing everything to this— only two people he can truly trust to understand— and one is riding for the Orchard without him, and the other no longer wishes to look him in the eye. Despite standing by his encouragement of Aranessa’s choice to go on ahead without them, he feels like a line has been cut.

As always, he only has himself to blame.

Now is not the time to be building walls. He can hear his lady cousin chide as she pushes him towards another boy in the gardens. He doesn’t recall what the fight was about now, but the boy gave him a split lip and had a black eye to show for it. Try building bridges instead.

The apology that day was no less painful than the one he had paid to Thaisha Lloy. No less awkward or stilted— like pulling teeth, some might say. This one will not be executed with any more mastery than those.

“…I was born lucky in many ways— but this was not among them. I never had this until I came here.”

Julien speaks without preface and winces, lips curling into a sneer at his own gracelessness. He looks away, shoulders tense, arms forming a defensive fold over his chest. “As a result, I can get…protective over it. You said you did not mean to insult me and I should have taken you at your word. Even if it was meant as such, it was fairly mild in comparison to—”