abraxaslogs | july catch-all

[Usually his Horizon visits are reserved for friends in other territories, in those long stretches between Nocwich weekends. When you all live in the same castle wing, as they do in Thorne, it's not like time together is hard to come by. But that was before Kyle was kept under lock and key, and the watchful eyes and sharp ears of guards.

Wilhelm pulls up to the temple in what he still thinks of as his brother's Ferrari, a sleek black machine assembled from graceful contours and garnished with a cherry red leather interior. Killing the engine, he unfolds himself from the driver's seat. He's got sunglasses on, a lavender polo shirt stitched with the symbol of The Tower over the breast, jeans, and sneakers. On his wrist, a watch that looks a little loose, like it got handed down to him. Around his neck, Kelson's necklace, the only common link between his Horizon wardrobe and his real life wardrobe.

One more thing he's carried with him from the physical world: his new tattoo, the lines of which disappear into the sleeve of his shirt, but one frog can be seen climbing up the fern on his bicep.

His first thought as he approaches with a little flick of a wave is that it's weird to see Kyle in a t-shirt.]

I didn't know you had a dog, Kyle.

Edited (forg tattoo) 2024-07-12 20:37 (UTC)

[ Kahlil has a mixed appreciation for Nayeshi automobiles. Many of them look like beetles to him, the long lines of them slowly moving on the paved streets. He knows very little about them, but enough to be able to gauge that the one Wille always conjures must be one of the more expensive types. It looks fast, even standing still.

He takes in the details of Wille's appearance here - the tattoo is new. He will ask about it, soon, but Wille poses a question first that he's expected to have to explain one day, since they first talked about the siblings they lost. It's only taken a very long time. ]

She's not really a dog. [ He glances over his shoulder at Rousma from where he sits, what he can see of her in the bushes anyway. His smile is fond and a little sad when he looks at Wille again, his brows knitting together. He doesn't stand, silently inviting Wille to sit in the grass with him next to the water. ]

I didn't create her on purpose. For a long time I thought she followed me here - do you remember two autumns ago, when we were trapped in strange places? The maze, the tower made of crates and pink sludge?

[Wilhelm settles onto the grass by Kyle, stretching one leg out in front of him and resting his arm on the bent knee of the other. As something wistful sneaks into Kyle's expression, Wilhelm's eyebrows fold together behind his sunglasses. He watches the not-really-a-dog rustle around in the bushes, and comes up with zero guesses for what she could actually be if not a dog. At the question, he nods. He remembers.]

Rhy went missing. [His body lay in his room in the castle, still as death, but the rest of him was somewhere else.] That was the same time those old gods were possessing us.

[Altogether, not a great month...other than the evening he and Rhy lost themselves in a very different way. But that was just the beginning of a slow-motion crash, the first stomach-dropping foot of an inexorable fall. Wilhelm plucks a blade of grass, idly twirling it between his fingers.]

She just...showed up then?

[ Kahlil nods with another sad smile at the mention of Rhy, watching Wilhelm toy with the blade of grass just as he gets the urge to do the same. He draws up one knee, reflexively staring out into the distance - the same direction as the Singularity, somewhere beyond the boundary of his domain. ]

I guess I must have created her by accident. [ Some part of him that didn't want to let go after he'd seen her again in those domains. He thinks now they must belong to the gods, the Summoned who came before them. ]

My sister - as children when we were first taken by the priests and separated us, they did something awful to her. They flayed her down to her bones while she was still alive, and bound her spirit to her bones, kept her locked up in a monastery on the other side of the world. They did this to many women, because it was the only way they could access and control certain powers. [ He chews on the inside of his lip, pausing. ]

I promised to rescue her one day, to take her with me when I left our world. In my timeline, I did, but I had to leave her behind. I once told you that there is another version of me - and it was his world that I found myself in, before I came here. He wasn't able to save her. She died a long time ago.

[ This is a lot, he knows. But it's easier to just try to explain it all in one go. He avoids looking at Wilhelm, turning back to where Rousma is digging around. ]

I don't remember her face anymore. When I escaped with her, she wore a dog's skin. I know it's strange, but she told me she was happy to taste the air and chase little creatures in the grass.

[He winds the blade of grass around his finger, unwinds it, and winds it around another. Tighter each time, so that the blade presses white and red stripes into his skin.

What happened to Kyle's sister reminds him of what Josselyn's acolytes did to him and the other captured Summoned — not slicing them open, but planting deep inside them something that would rot them body and mind, all in an attempt to anchor their god to a vessel. He can't help but run his fingers over his arm, remembering how his flesh split with sores and fungus and roots.

It's hard to wrap his mind around it, just like it's hard to understand the intersection of different versions of the world. Different versions of your own life. Kyle had told him, definitively, that his sister was dead. Was he remembering the other Kyle's life? Did he sometimes get it mixed up?

Frowning at the dog — Kyle's sister — he imagines another version of himself, whose brother never died in a car crash, who never had to become Crown Prince.]

But...you can't really create people here, can you? They're not...actually themselves.

[He says it softly, looking away from Kyle.]

Edited 2024-07-19 00:48 (UTC)

[ He looks at Wilhelm now, studying his expression before answering - and this, at least, has a simple enough answer compared to everything else about his life and history. ]

No. [ He can't, anyway. If anyone else has gained that power... he shakes his head again. ] The version of Rousma that lives here is part of me. She only knows what I know, and I could control her if I had to but - I'd rather not. So she goes where she wants, and talks to who she wants.

[ She's just a very convincing memory. And one that has a tendency to tell his secrets, unfortunately. His brow furrows, and he looks away again. ]

I know it probably seems strange and... morbid.

[ To keep a 'living' memory of someone around. He seems almost embarrassed to admit all this to Wilhelm now, knowing how much the memory of his older brother affects him. Kahlil couldn't have explained any of this to Wille when they first met. There's a lot Kahlil has intentionally kept hidden about his past because Wilhelm came from a much softer world. He couldn't hold that against him any more than he could hold it against John, but these were still things he couldn't share with certain people.

What's changed, in these nearly two years, is Wilhelm himself. Kahlil can only hope he takes this as a sign of respect for how much he's come into himself since they first met, rather than take offense for what he's never properly explained. ]

[There was a time that he might have been upset to realize that Kyle was withholding the truth from him based on the assumption that he was too young, too soft, to handle it. But he doesn't fault him for it now. It's deeply personal and achingly raw, everything surrounding his sister, and it's not easy to share that sort of thing. Wilhelm shakes his head, his gaze settling on Kyle.]

It's not.

[Once or twice, when loneliness flays like a knife and his grief rises up like the tides, he has considered it. Creating a version of Erik here in the Horizon, just so he could hear his voice again. Just so he could throw his arms around him, and this time he wouldn't have to go. But he remembers how sharply it cut, the time Wanda conjured a version of Erik from his memories with her wild power. It looked exactly like his brother, and sounded exactly like him, but it wasn't real. It wasn't him.

It hurt too much. But if having some piece of his sister around, even if she's just a collection of memories, brings Kyle peace...then Wilhelm can't judge him for it. Plucking a new blade of grass, he points it toward the parked Ferrari.]

That's the car my brother was driving when... [A slow breath.] When it happened. He was going too fast and lost control.

[Erik...Erik is dead. He can still hear his mom's voice on the other end of the phone. He's grateful that the sunglasses hide his watery eyes.]

I guess you could say it's the thing that killed him. And here I am, joyriding around in it. If you want to talk about morbid.

Edited 2024-07-19 15:12 (UTC)

[ His brow furrows, but most of the tension he'd been holding across his body releases, the last of his doubts extinguished by Wilhelm's simple acceptance of the situation. Some of his guilt too can finally be laid down, he thinks.

His attention shifts from the blade of grass in Wille's hand to where he points, the shiny metal machine, not a beetle but not much more like the prancing horse on its front. He frowns at it as Wille speaks about the crash. He can almost recall the screeching sound of tires, usually late at night, up the road and out of sight. It's not difficult to imagine the damage a crash could do to a frail, human body in the center of all that metal. Or worse, if the body isn't properly secured. ]

It's not.

[ He repeats Wilehlm's words, with a small smile. Maybe if Wilhelm had put any noticeable blame on the machine it could be morbid, but he has always seemed more weighted down by the guilt he carries on his own shoulders.

The tattoo on his bicep becomes slightly more visible when he points, and Kahlil gently taps the new lines and colors. Not to abruptly change the subject, but - ]

What is this?

[He drops the blade of grass, and his touch drops briefly to the watch on his wrist. That too had been Erik's. He'd been wearing it when he crashed — his pulse must have stuttered and stopped right beneath the wristband when his heart beat for the last time. But Wilhelm prefers to think of the steadiness of his brother's pulse pumping against the band where it now sits on his own wrist.

A smile pokes out as Kyle echoes his words, and with nothing more they reach an understanding. It's a nice place to be.

He rolls up his sleeve so that Kyle can get a better look at his new ink. In real life, his tattoo has scabbed over and his skin is starting to peel off in flakes that carry the ghost of his tattoo. It's been hard to keep his fingers, always itching for something to pick at, away from it while it heals. But here in the Horizon, his skin is already smooth.]

My new tattoo. [His grin widens, as if he loves the feel of these words.] I got it in honor of surviving two years here.

[Two frogs, rendered in crisp lines and shaded in greyscale, appear to climb up a fern leaf. The whole thing stretches from a few inches above his elbow up toward his shoulder.]

[ Kahlil smiles back. Right at this moment, despite his circumstances in the real world, he could say he oddly feels at peace. He has been blessed to be given this strange second life, with all these strange people in it.

He peers at the artwork revealed across Wille's skin. He's seen some colorful tattoos from Nayeshi, like murals on the skin that cover an entire arm, both arms. Wille's ink is much simpler in comparison, but still more intricate than his own tattoos. ]

They're cute. Like they're off on an adventure. [ He grins, teasing: ]

Is this where all your wages went?

[He laughs, pulling an exaggerated guilty look as if he's been caught red-handed. Of course, he doesn't feel guilty it all. It was worth every coin, to celebrate himself, to mark how far he has come.]

A big chunk of them, yeah.

[He'd been saving up for months, without knowing what exactly he was saving for. He just figured he shouldn't be blowing all of his money on snacks, booze, whatever happened to catch his eye in the moment. The thought of getting a tattoo hadn't hit him until he realized he was coming up on his anniversary in this world.]

I won't be broke for long. I've been going to Borrel to try to get a route started there too. You know, now that it's open fulltime. I have a few clients interested.

[ It makes him glad for Wilhelm to be able to spend his money on something just for himself. ]

That's good. I like Borrel. And the money's not bad... [ The clients are more on par with the castle city than Nott in most cases - and the actual city itself is technically safer. He was surprised that the new regime planned on allowing their Summoned to roam more, but he supposes that getting them better acquainted with a loyalist city is part of the intention, when so many of them already make their preference for Nott clear.

But, speaking of deliveries - ]

How are the bikes holding up?

[ He doesn't inquire about them often, he expects if something was broken or destroyed he'd eventually hear about it. So far, so good, though. ]

[Wilhelm shrugs.]

I figure it doesn't hurt to make some ties with the city our new king is from too. It sort of balances out my involvement in Nott.

[It's not that he's eager to ingratiate himself to Sidwell or anything; he just wants to stay out of hot water. He's prepared to accept consequences for his choices, his principles, but he's not going to go out of his way to draw attention to himself or put a target on his back.]

The bikes are holding up great. Annabeth and I have been taking them out on the trails sometimes. They're surprisingly good off-road, actually. [He flashes a sheepish look at Kyle.] I hope that's okay... I know it's not official courier business.

Good call.

[ He gives an approving half nod. He could not imagine the Wilhelm he knew of two years ago coming to a decision like that on his own. It's possible he talked to some of the others, but Kahlil likes to think he's starting to need them less.

Both eyebrows raise at the sheepish look, but after a moment he shakes his head with a faint grin. ]

It's fine, so long as no one else needs them. It's just you and Cassian using them for work, as far as I know. [ River has taken one out before too, and he expects others have as well. All he really cares about is that they don't break them, and don't break anything else while riding them. He shrugs. ]

Might as well enjoy them while the weather's good. [ It'll be fall before they know it, then winter again. ] I don't know how much use they'll be once it starts snowing again, but I can ask Viktor about different wheels.

[Two years ago, he couldn't think in the long term. Each day felt like a rock isolated on all sides by a vast body of water, which lapped at his ankles and threatened to pull him under, and it was all he could do to keep his head down and crash from one to the next. When that changed, it's hard to say.

Speaking of long-term thinking...in the height of summer's heat, he's reluctant to consider the short bitter days of winter. But Kyle makes a valid point. Wilhelm carefully picks a tiny yellow flower out of the grass.]

Maybe he can figure out how to put the bike on skis instead of wheels. Like a snowmobile, except you pedal it.

[No, he's not sure how that would work. That's why it's not his job to invent things.]

[ Kahlil attempts to imagine that description with only half an idea of what a snowmobile even is, and shakes his head with a laugh. ]

I should probably find out first if it even snows that often where he's from.

[ To help him understand what strange things they're asking him to make, or at least the problem they want to solve. Kahlil grew up on the side of a mountain in the north of his country. He's never particularly missed the snow or cold, especially living in Thorne, but he could recreate it in his domain if he wanted - or needed to.

He looks over at Wilhelm for a second before dipping his chin, mouth forming a line in slight discomfort because this still feels odd to tell people. ]

He's the one I was talking about, last time. [ Like a month ago. He hasn't actually told that many people, the only left in Thorne that he considered mentioning this to is Lucifer, at least to warn him off messing around with Viktor should he catch the devil's attention. But Kahlil also thinks pulling his own fingernails off would be preferable to that conversation. ]

[Behind his sunglasses, he squints at the little yellow flower as he rolls its stem between his fingers. It takes him a moment to piece together what Kyle is referring to, the one I was talking about. Then it snaps into place, and he looks at Kyle.]

Viktor's your boyfriend?

[Boyfriend doesn't feel like a word Kyle would use, but he isn't sure what to exchange it for. And...he can't say he's surprised, exactly. Not that he was trying to stalk Kyle, or that he was obsessing over his teacher's love life, because that would be weird, but it didn't seem like the mystery person lived in Thorne. That narrowed down the possibilities.

He breaks into a grin, and his tone slants into teasing.]

Was it the bikes that made you fall in love with him? They're so sexy, it's hard to resist.

Edited (every day i'm editing) 2024-07-31 02:53 (UTC)

[ Kahlil doesn't acknowledge the word, but at least he doesn't scowl at it. He clearly hasn't decided on a word either. 'Boyfriend' sounds odd to him. 'Partner' is what Viktor used when he's spoken about Jayce before, and he's not sure if it's his to claim.

He lets out a sharp, wordless sound, if it's a stumble he recovers quickly and replies in a serious tone - ]

Is that why you've been taking them out so often with your friends? I really hope you've been giving them a thorough cleaning when you're done...

[It's a funny reaction. He likes it when Kyle loosens up, slips out of the quiet, serious shell he draws around himself. Scoffing, Wilhelm throws the flower right at his face. The thing doesn't make it — it falls limply onto the grass between them.]

Hey, don't try to turn this on me. I'm not the one who gets turned on by bikes.

[He throws his hands up in a wide shrug, as if to say no judgement. But he's laughing all the while.]

I don't get - [ his face scrunches and he rolls his eyes without finishing his sentence, instead flicking the flower from where it lands in the grass back in the direction of Wilhelm while he laughs, which is about as effective as Wille's attempt to toss it in his face - the poor, abused flower gets as fair as his leg where it lands. He seems more amused than exasperated, despite his aborted protest - he likes to make Wilhelm laugh. After a second or so shakes his head. ]

I know nothing can last here. [ Most of them can lose their connection at any time, parting without the chance to say goodbye. He doesn't need to explain this to Wilhelm, and he winces faintly. There are different complications too, in the forms of other people for each of them, though he's not going to get into that - ]

But it's been nice. [ He frowns. ] Coups and escalation of war aside, anyway...

[He only laughs more wildly, his face split open with glee, as Kyle abandons his protest and flicks the flower at him in retaliation. When he rescues the poor thing, its stem is a fair bit bent and it's down a few petals. Well, there's nothing to be done for it but pinch off the rest, one by one. He loves me, he loves me not, except there's only one boy on his mind, and the answer to that question doesn't matter anymore.

Two months later, Kelson is still never very far from his thoughts. It would take time, to bury their short-lived relationship properly. Wilhelm's demeanor drifts back down for a knowing nod at nothing can last here.]

But it's still worth it.

[He still thinks so, despite everything. Sometimes he thinks it would almost be better not to know what it's like to have someone, to love someone, because then there would be nothing to miss. But sometimes he thinks he wouldn't trade that rush, those warm golden days, for anything.]

Lovers on opposite sides of a war...how romantic. It's so Romeo and Juliet.

[ He smiles warmly at that. Wilhelm's experienced quite a bit of heartache in his time here. Maybe that wouldn't be so odd for someone else his age, except for the particular cruelty of these circumstances. ]

I don't know them. [ He gives a one shouldered shrug, than lets out a small huff. ] And I wouldn't exactly call it romantic, worrying so much.

[ Being so far apart, not being able to do anything whenever the the opposing territory is attacked. There's a part of him that badly wishes he could run to Cadens. But one of the reasons he stayed behind in Thorne is sitting next to him. ]

[He was mostly teasing, but there is something romantic about choosing to be with someone despite whatever forces try to pull you apart. There was a time when he'd chosen Simon, against the gravitational tug of history, tradition, expectations. Only, he had ruined it by letting his mother get inside his head. He wonders if now he would be strong enough, brave enough, to stand by his choice in a way that he thought he couldn't back then.]

They're from a play. They fall in love, but their families have been beefing with each other since a long time ago, so they have to see each other in secret. At the end, they both kill themselves.

[He cringes, sucking in sharply. The flower has run out of petals.]

I guess that part's not really romantic, but you and Viktor have way more sense than that.

[ 'Beefing'. That's a new one to add to his vocabulary. The description of the ending gets another raised eyebrow. That sounds very dramatic, like teenagers, and for a moment it brushes over a memory not his own - the first time in a while it's happened to him. He remembers telling Jahn he'd be willing to die to be with him. He remembers meaning it, and the way Jahn had lashed out at him, accusing him of being selfish and thoughtless. He remembers how much that hurt.

His expression goes blank until he catches himself with a light huff. ]

We have some sense, probably. [ He grins again. ] But, sneaking around is a little exciting...

[ It is actually a lot exciting sometimes. ]

july catch-all

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wrap this one up?