Taken back by surprise, my traveller returned

[sightlessgod]

WHO: God Eye Sister Latea Galatea [sightlessgod] and Robin Tim Drake Stevie Kent [bratwonder].
WHAT: They totes have some serious talking to do. :[
WHERE: Mendelssohn Orphanage
WHEN: Today, a very rainy and gloomy afternoon

Comments

[bratwonder]

Tim slouched around a bookcase just as Stunningly Beautiful Warrior Woman struck a decisive blow to the shins. He'd come in without the enraptured audience noticing - it wasn't hard - but he couldn't help but snicker when the familiar voice mentioned how the heroine was also blonde.

Huh. Who knew Galatea was good with kids?

He swung around to survey the scene, and amended that thought a couple times. Who knew Galatea had bad hair days? Who knew Galatea made swordfight sound effects? Who knew Galatea was blind?

Well. Obviously not him.

". . . Um."

And that was about as much as he could get out. After everything that'd gone down the last two weeks, seeing another ally down - down and out? whispered a nasty little voice in the back of his head - was just too much to process. Maybe it was all a joke. A trick for early Halloween.

[sightlessgod]

She'd been right in the middle of telling the children about the dashingly attractive warrior rescuing an ineffectual and brash squire when she heard Steven's approach. To her audience, she said,

"That's enough for today. We'll resume tomorrow afternoon. Run on along, now."

There was a collective groan from the group, but after a bit of coaxing and a lot of promising, they cleared out of the room reluctantly, and Galatea was left with her guest. She was quiet for what seemed like a very long time, but when she did speak her voice was warm.

"Hello. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

[bratwonder]

"Longer than I thought."

He felt sick. Every second, the possibility that this wasn't real faded further into the foggy distance. He'd spent two months watching the lives of people he trusted, relied on, and cared for go downhill with no way to stop it, and now that he'd finally woken up... it looked like he shouldn't have bothered.

Tim swallowed hard against the knot in his guts, and looked down. "Should I bother asking what I missed?" he mumbled, slumped backward against the bookshelf. Standing up straight was for losers with no muscle atrophy.

[sightlessgod]

"We were all very worried. I'm glad you're..." Alive, her mind helpfully supplied, but she went for something gentler, "awake."

She tried to smile, but it was a weak attempt and flickered away just as quickly as it had come. She'd had too much happen as of late. It was wearing on her. So instead she tried for something easier. "It depends on what you'd like to know first." She sighed and leaned back against her chair, trying to settle on what she was feeling, and decided she felt old. It was a foreign concept, given that she hadn't expected to live as long as she had, and the feeling was both vaguely comfortable and terribly depressing.

Quietly and with great sincerity, she said, "I am sorry I couldn't brace you for this very well. It would have been in poor taste to mention my... condition over the journals."

[bratwonder]

At that, Tim just scowled. "Does it look like I need to be coddled?" he grouched. He immediately winced at his own phrasing, and just as quickly shrugged it off. Well, this was going fantastically already.

A rough sigh echoed her soft one, and he ended up across the room and plopped down on the floor next to her chair without really noticing that he'd got there. "I guess I don't need to know anything." He didn't put a lot of feeling into that. He wanted to know everything. But wasn't that what had got him the coma in the first place?

[sightlessgod]

Luckily, she'd gotten very good at being patient with people, and this was no different. "Of course not."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I think you deserve some sort of explanation. I can tell you..." she gestured to the scar across her eyes, "about this first." She never looked forward to telling this story, but it was a necessary evil.

"I returned home for a week apparently, though for me it was much longer...seven years, to be precise. There were...things happening there that I didn't agree with." The massacre in the North, for instance. She laced her fingers together, put her hands on her lap. "It became...difficult for me after a while. I'd gained no friends in the Organization, and I'd been asking far too many questions for their liking."

[bratwonder]

He leaned against the chair leg, brushing against her knee without making a big deal out of it. "Time travel." he identified flatly, his tone speaking volumes. At least it hadn't happened here (where maybe if he was awake, he could've helped stop it.)

"So didja quit?"

[sightlessgod]

She considered ruffling his hair for a moment, decided against it, and nodded. "I don't particularly understand the specifics of it, but yes." Her blind gaze tilted up to the ceiling and leaned back in her chair. Now came the worst part of the story

[bratwonder]

There was a good long silence.

Finally, Tim turned slightly and delivered a swift punch to her knee.

[sightlessgod]

The punch would have been easy to dodge if she had any inkling he was about to do so, but she had certainly not been expecting it and so the blow hit home.

"You hit me." She said this in a baffled tone of voice. And then again, as if she needed to confirm the information. "You hit me." She frowned down at him.

"What in the world has gotten into you?"

[bratwonder]

He scowled right back up at her. "You took out your own eyes!?" he demanded, completing the circle of confirming the obvious. Waving his hands was probably a wasted gesture, but he did it anyway. "Your own--" He huffed a sigh. "Geez, 'Téa."

This time it was his arm, thunking down on her knee so he could rest his chin. "All I wanted to know was, who to pay back for all this." Or at least get a good start. Justice. Vengeance. Something he could do. Anything except feeling useless yet again.

"... Can't you heal it now?" he finally asked, with little hope.

[sightlessgod]

"I did." Her voice was very soft, and a little resigned. "It was the best thing I could think of, and it worked." For a time, anyway, but there was no need to tell that story.

She smiled, and finally she did reach down to ruffle his hair. "Your concern for me is appreciated, but I'm afraid there is no one to blame for this. It's not bad. I don't need..." and she paused for a moment, backtracked. "I'm not bothered by it."

She shook her head at his question. "Over time...as the wound heals over, it becomes more difficult to recall the memory of how the wound itself can be healed. But I'm not unhappy." She said something similar to what she'd told Phantom Miria and her group not too long ago.

"Some things are more important than light."

[bratwonder]

"Yeahh, maybe." he grouched, trying not to let himself be mollified by the gesture. He'd figured as much- otherwise she would've done it when she got here, well away from The Man and whatever enforcers would come after her in her world.

The thought just worsened his mood, so he shoved it away. "So what, you're a den mom now?" he asked abruptly, changing the subject. Seemed like a lot of women in his life ended up in that profession.

baww so late ;;

[sightlessgod]

Galatea sighed. She hadn't expected him to take the news well, but his obvious displeasure was a bit disconcerting. "You could say that, I suppose."

There was a pause, and she rolled her shoulders back. "I see nothing wrong with giving someone a mother, when they are without one. It is a luxury I may have wanted for myself, a long time ago."

She glanced toward the window, her expression unreadable. "If I were called to fight here again, I would do so without protest. But I could not have served the Organization. Not any longer."

aw honey <3

[bratwonder]

He nodded against her knee. "Makes sense." But he didn't say which part.

"You keepin' in practice?" he asked, not idly. Training was rough, but maybe when he was better they could pretend he was good enough to spar with her. Or something.

[sightlessgod]

She put a hand on his head and nodded, pleased that some of the hostility had left his tone. That was good.

There was a smile--close to a smirk, but not quite. "Of course. I can't allow myself to get lazy, after all." She would be training more if Miria was around, and perhaps spend less time eating cake and telling stories to children, but Miria wasn't, there were no monster attacks she knew of, and so she was happy to relax.