014 - [Action]
[Today, the final day of Luceti, is a day like any other for Grune. She wakes early and dresses neatly, braiding and pinning her hair carefully, the same as always. Housemates will find her going through her morning routine with seemingly no awareness of everyone's impending deaths
( Read more... )
...he's not one of them.
Even if he felt well enough to walk that far, or beaten down enough to ask for help, he wouldn't leave. It seems wrong, somehow. If one man has to stay behind to witness the end of the world, it should be him.
He's made it to the clearing where the boat still sits, never having been brought to the ocean. Who knows? Now, it might never reach the ocean. But it's been a place of solace and safety in the past, and Giles has turned to it for that much now as he settles in with blanket and tea to watch the world end.
Or so he wishes. But the effects from his penalty removal are continuing to make themselves known, even as the world crumbles around him.
When his journal starts recording, however, he's slipped into the slightly fevered murmurings that mark a hallucination, bringing him forcibly back into the memories he'd forgotten and that had been shoved back into his mind at the worst possible moment.]
The coming months are, are going to be hard, I suspect on all of us. But if it's guilt you're looking for, Buffy, I'm not your man. All you will get from me is my support. And my respect.
Reply
Giles?
Reply
Buffy?
[...no, he's not in his old car. He's not in the darkened streets outside Buffy's house. He's not in Sunnydale. He's...
Giles sighs tiredly and takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes.]
...hello, Grune.
[He does not look well.]
Reply
Are you all right?
Reply
[If they live that long. And it isn't just the drugs putting him out of sorts. It's Helios, and Ginia, and Buffy...]
...I remember everything, now.
Reply
Reply
[And good lord, does he wish it wasn't. An echo comes in a sharp, stinging flash and vanishes just as quickly, but it doubles him over with a sharp gasp of pain.]
Y-You must perform the ritual...
...d-do you know what happens, t-to people when they die here, Grune?
Reply
Reply
When people die here, they, they come back in a week. And they're completely unharmed, as though they never died at all, it's just that...th-they're always missing something.
For me, it was memories. And...I finally got them back.
Reply
Reply
But what's the loudest right now is the screaming, the "Read me my signs, tell me my fortune!" and "You stuck a needle in me...you poisoned me" and "Get out". And he wishes it wasn't.]
Knowing is...always better.
Reply
...That's right. She didn't get to give Giles her important message yet, did she?]
Giles?
Reply
Yes, Grune?
Reply
Thank you for being my friend. I'm glad that we were able to spend so much time together, and I'm so happy I was able to come here and meet you. [Thinking of all the wonderful things they did together, her smile deepens.]
I love you.
[Even if the village is all right after everything is finished, these are important words to say. No matter what happens, she wants Giles to hear them.]
Reply
[...what do you say to that? What do you say to such a genuinely honest and sincere declaration of love even as the world falls down?
He smiles at her, looking more together and peaceful than he's felt in a while.]
...thank you. I'm, um, I'm very glad we're friends as well, and I'm glad I was able to meet you.
Reply
Where are you right now? Maybe we could have a little visit.
Reply
Leave a comment