RP:Human Touch

From HollowWiki

Part of the Sauriangate Arc


This is a Warrior's Guild RP.


Summary: Lionel and Penelope are equally left damaged in Sauriangate's memorable aftermath. Although their pain is worlds apart, their bond is simple and clean.


Frostmaw: Fort Main Room

Penelope had been wandering the halls, the girl being led back to Frostmaw hours after the battle. Why she did not return to Cenril? Well, there was obviously still an unconscious loom over her shoulders that brought her to Frostmaw to stay – also, Finn. He had business, again, but he was worried for the girl. Either way, she had been staying in a room somewhere, but she was restless. The gore. All the blood. Was she ready for the life of the battlefield? Especially with the war? It was a possibility she would be assigned again to a field of wounded soldiers. More. More gruesome. The girl looked tired, arms crossed, she was frozen staring at one of the art pieces within the halls of the Fort. She was idling, pretending she was intrigued, but really, she was zoning. Sensitive and fragile. There was not that warm light that was usually pouring out of her seams. Might of needed a sign that said ‘warning'. She did not look too hot.


Lionel is haunted. Fine, fine -- his author says this often enough. But today, there’s fresh cause. It was a total victory in the battle against the saurians. The guild exceeded his wildest expectations, as did their allies. Zero casualties. Zero. This was not something the Catalian was as accustomed to as he’d like. Not by half. Why, then, does he ache? Well, there is the obvious fact that Halycanos, albeit understandably, took full possession of his body for the first time in seven bygone years. The pain still sears through his body, although the worst has long since subsided. He can sense the brash fire spirit’s intentions within him; it’s been over a decade and counting since the ancient Ishaarite spirit had malicious intent to consume his mind and wield a corpse like a puppet to the string. They reached consensus a generation ago. They’re partners, now. But deep down inside, he also knows there’s a craving now in them both. Lionel, for the awesome power he will feel addiction’s tug compel him to seek again, and again, in the wars to come. And oh, how he knows there are more wars soon to come. Halycanos, for that total freedom to be man and not mere sword. An old ache swells in Lionel’s heart. For all the high fantasy pomp and circumstance, however, none of this has him so immediately shaken as something else, something simple and human and sad. Penelope Halifax was dragged along into a nightmare. Lionel would never have asked the girl to come if he’d known it’d be so dangerous, so loose and visceral and raw. He never would have anticipated such pack mentality from the saurians. Such united malevolence across species of animal. If he hadn’t been convinced before that something dark was in control of the looming shadow over Lithrydel, this was more than enough. And now, with Kreekitaka seemingly satisfied with just several captures rather than a herd, he’s of the opinion it isn’t him. Somehow, that’s no less frightening a revelation. But Penelope. Poor Penelope. He should never, ever have asked her. As he stares into the flickering flames of his private quarters’ fireplace, Lionel grows restless and ashamed. He exits the room at once, rounds several halls and finds Penelope herself straight ahead before him. He freezes. He opens his mouth but words elude him. At last, he speaks. “I’m so sorry. You were extraordinary… but I’m so sorry.”


Penelope ’s face is flat, there is no sort of expression on her face. Halycanos. Lionel. Who was he? The redness that appeared in his eyes, almost horror. The reflection is deep, he is something else entirely that she does not quite understand. ‘I’m so sorry’ she gasps from her daze. A small hand resting over her chest in a startled manner. She gazes at him in a foreign way. Like she does not know him, or understand him. Perhaps he was just foreign to her, right? She barely knew him. He promised to keep her safe – somehow he made that promise. Was he trustworthy? He chopped off the head of a saurian. So violent. Was he violent? No? The healer was confused. “No,” she shakes her head. “No, I wasn’t..” She did not gaze at him anymore, her eyes were avoiding him. She parts her lips after a moment of silence. “Don’t… apologize,” she mutters. “You kept me safe,” this was not a ‘thank you’ but yet some sort of ‘look on the bright side’, her tone was monotone. She looked uneasy and almost sick. She was lost for words. Very, very lost for words, and it was still almost impossible to look at him. Still that fear in her posture. The moment she was frozen in field, was the same stance she had now.


Lionel has seen that fear before. He’s seen that anxiety, trepidation tinged by a sudden foreignness. It’s been a very long time, but the Catalian remembers. Tears well up in the cold space between eyes and their sockets. Has he lost her already? Was it truly just scant days past that he’d dared to pretend there was ever any chance a man like him could live an ordinary enough life to befriend a healer who bakes? Life is a game of nerve-wracking dominoes for him; why did he brazenly drag her into this? Why did he try to hide his darkness and live a life remotely average when he knows it can hurt others so? Questions flood through him and it’s all too much to bear. The tears streak down from his eyes of azure in a current but the man himself is still silent. Then, without the bravery to look at her head-on, he speaks. “...when I was 14 years old, and after a childhood on the run, I came upon a dead and ruined realm. Cracked towers that seemed almost to… fly… into the sky. The most verdant streams and untouched forests you could ever imagine.” The tears don’t end. He draws a breath but it’s more like a sob. “I found shards of a sword, too. I had no idea where I was. I’d been running all over the world. Lithrydel was just a foreign far-off word to me, still. I took the shards and I washed ashore here months later. I met a man who forged that sword anew. The sword, it… changed me, Penelope. A spirit of fire and vengeance courses through its steel veins. It…” No. Say the name, Lionel. “...Halycanos tried to kill me. He was scared. So scared, and so scarred by the end of his people’s kingdom. Those ruins? That realm? It was his home. I’d lost my home too, after a fashion. It took years, but Halycanos and I came to an understanding. In the meantime, I hungered for that dark power you saw today and I used it to protect -this- realm from evil. I… I used evil to fight evil. I don’t know what that makes me. I don’t know what I am.” Still, the tears. “All I know is I’m sorry I scared you.”


Penelope keeps her eyes steady on the art, but of course that is not what is on her mind. He believed in her. She believed in herself. She felt wrong, and she was shaken by the act of events. So much… blood. The scene was so vivid. The blood spurted in front of her. Thank gosh none of the men she knew went down. Especially him – what? Thank gosh they were saurian, but still. She could feel the heavy tone within his voice, the heavy voice of sadness. Explanation. Honesty. Vulnerability. There is finally some sense of compassion and it is the slightest movement. Her eyes shift to the side and they seem empathetic. He was never meant to be this way. Just a boy washed to shore. A boy connected with evil? No, Penelope. His sobs are unbearable to the woman so connected with people. She twitches. He had a heart, right? He understood her humor, her tenderness. He talked lightly to her. Fed her. He made sure she made it out alive. ‘All I know is I’m sorry I scared you.’ She is still timid and silent and hard as stone. Letting him in was hard, but something sprung at the back of her unconscious, she did not understand what it was. “I don’t know what that makes you, either,” her hand now reaches her collar bone as she fidgets nervously determining her next move. What was this girl’s next move? Someone so vulnerable when she could not be. She looks at him – finally. She actually looks at him with that softened doe-eyed gaze, and his sadness almost stabs her. The fact that he is lost within himself almost stabs her. “…Shh,” she consoles automatically and ever-so-gently. What was she doing? The woman extends an arm hesitantly towards the foreign man to gingerly graze his arm – she cared. Nurture. Nurture was abrupt for this woman. This was no longer about her. Not when his tears were visible. Not when he was in pain. Commanders do not cry – that is unusual to her. “It’s… okay. You’re okay. We’re okay,” the other hand lets go of her collarbone. What else was really there to do with him? For some reason she did not want to push him away when he was so broken and confused.


Lionel is touched. Before he knows elsewise, the woman’s arm is upon his own. This isn’t the first thing that grazes him, however. Her simple, subtle cooing tugs at his soul and his tears slow their chase down wet cheeks and chin. He swallows and holds focus on Penelope. For a stray instant he appears confused, bewildered. Enraptured. Without thinking, his arm reaches out further and his open palm tries to delicately grace her own. A gentle hold to suit her soft response. “I haven’t told anyone any of this in ten years.” He tries to look beyond Penelope Halifax but something compels him to keep his fragile gaze upon her. “Snippets, sure,” he sniffs, shaking his head just slightly. “The relevant… aspects. There are books old wizened men in funny hats have already written detailing my role in battles, it doesn’t matter, none of that matters, it…” He breaks his aimless ramble and closes his eyes. “I won’t let anything like that ever happen to you again.”


Penelope tilts her chin up towards his gaze. At this moment, she determines to be the rock – a steady anchor. His touch grazes her own in return and she allows this. She does not flinch. Physical touch is something that soothes her – hence why Finn held her shoulder most moments of the day’s events. Ten years. Ten years and not a single spoken word except clipped images. She knew very well what it was like to hide things, maybe not for ten years, but it had been a long time. Only one other knew her own tales, and well, he was another story. “I like books,” she adds – odd. She was a weirdo. She does not comment on his opened behavior, she acknowledges his expressed words through touch. The freckled girl is on his level, she understands. His last words linger in the air. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she says this softly and shakes her head, “ever,” she finishes for a brief moment. “I found what I can handle…” She keeps her emotions cut. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she repeats almost as if she is trying to convince herself. A hand still rested upon his arm, a thumb smoothing over his arm before she releases the frail hand to her side.


Lionel senses something ingenerate about their touch -- primal, universal. Beautiful. Human touch. It’s hypnotizing. Days prior, he’d been made to touch Alvina’s abdomen; twins were on the way, and she was glowing and insisted. That brought nightmares back, but then fast soothing, and he hadn’t understood the pattern. He hadn’t understood how his reaction. Now, here in a far darker place, late at night with a strange and wonderful woman, an epiphany spikes through his mind. He’d smiled back there because it was the intrinsic organic goodness of -human touch.- Lionel doesn’t know what he is. He doesn’t know whether the risks he took, the borderline-Machiavellian strategies he’d taken during those years-ago wars, make him worthy to be heralded ‘hero’ outside of sneer and jest from his enemies. Nor does he know what will come next in his life, in the lives of those he holds dear. He is still no closer to unmasking the identities of the perpetrators responsible for the slaughter of his soldiers by Lake Frysta, nor has he answers as to who or what sent the saurians to strike. Yet for this brief candle in time, none of that matters. Penelope likes books. He can’t suppress a grin at that. She graces him with further touch and then insists he need not worry after her and withdraws her hand. It’s a balancing act, this strange, sweet encounter. His grin soon becomes a rich full smile. A real smile. No deceptions; not for him, not for others. “But I will.” Just three words.


Penelope does not smile as he does. Instead, she stares at him lightly, but on the inside her heart aches. A good ache. She had reached him somehow. The girl had been talented in that way, so talented. However, with great talent, there was destruction. His grin is almost contagious by now, and her cheeks begin to glow a pink hue. The healer tries to tuck back her own grin and instead she smirks nervously and awkwardly at his simple and straightforward response. Her head shakes at his words. Two meanings, either she was acknowledging him and embarrassed about his determination or she was rather exasperated. “But you shouldn’t,” her voice kind of chokes and she breaks away from his gaze to gather herself. The human pauses, she blinks once or twice. Whatever was coming forward, the woman was pushing back. The healer tilts her chin again, she shows that image of willpower. Confidence. There is strain. This day had been draining and she was tired and emotional, but she was trying to be short to bear with it. Her emotions were trying to break free to the surface. Instead, she bounces to the next thing on her mind. “You should rest, it’s been… a long day,” she breathes this out easily.


Lionel would press the issue, but a wave of dizziness passes over him. He holds firm, desperately. Penelope appears solid and resolute. Is it some mastered trick? Her voice itself at first seems cracking but soon recovers grace. Exhaustion overcomes him before he can protest. Early this morning and on through late afternoon, Lionel broke into his old self and old scars and old ways and he incinerated countless man-eating predators in a bid to restore peace… so why should it be that he loses so easily to a green-eyed girl with pinked cheeks and chestnut hair? “Only if you promise me you’ll rest, too.” He can’t lose her to the spirit-shivering fears of dark forces whose minions she has just encountered. He won’t lose her to the frozen terror he’d seen in those moss-green eyes today.


Penelope had learned to shape up rather quickly throughout her past. Hiding emotions was easy, ever-so-easy. The woman was straining to hold that confident gaze, but really there was exhaustion, fear, frailness that rested deep within her. They wanted to burst at the seams, but she kept them stitched tighter than the average hold. She would not leak for him as he did for her. Not yet. It was not her time, who knew if it ever would be. “I promise to rest…” beat. “Less or more, I’ll try.” She seems hesitant, but she does make the promise as unnerving as her response is.


Lionel is too beaten to ask for more. He’ll nod slowly. “Thank you.” Simple words, those. Hard words, though. Something feels incomplete, but he can’t say just why. He pulls away slightly and descends down the hall back from whence he’d came. His movement betrays the slips of pain still running through him. His usual steadfast walk of confidence has been replaced with the smallest hint of a hobble. Yet… is that Halycanos’ effect on his body? Is it the scrapes and cuts he’d sustained in the saurian madhouse? Is it the fresh scar from Macon’s brutish Kingsguard two nights before? Or is it something else? Is it something like a soul? Is his step betrayed by physical pain -- or emotional tumult? Perhaps these questions are irrelevant next to the important work Penelope has done for him tonight. She’s healed him. Out there on death’s stage, it was her supplies, her training, her urgent expertise that saved a footsoldier with aplomb. In here? In these hallowed ancient halls? It’s human touch and a pretty smile. “...for everything.” He completes a sentence he only now has realized needed ending. It isn’t just that the woman has agreed to bed. It’s everything. His gaze locks with hers for a few stray beats of the heart and then he’s gone.


Penelope keeps the façade for him. Her “strength” for him. To tear herself down from building herself up over time would be… the almost impossible. There was that honesty that she had for him, a hint of trust that was creeping inside of her. After all the evil she saw today, she trusted him and this has the girl dumbfounded. There was a pinching pain inside the blossomed heart. The light within her flickered back and forth for him today with a small tap of his soul. As he thanks her, she stands still with a tilt of her head, that innocent expression she always had. She watches him move with lack of grace. Faltered steps. Human steps. ‘…for everything.’ She stands there like the doe that she was. Her heart skips a few beats at his words and she almost cracks again as his gaze locks with her own. His azure stare. The woman is at loss for words as he disappears from her, and for the first time, she backs against the wall and actually breathes. Little did he or she know, she was discovering her own humanity.