RP:Little Cup of Sorrows
Part of the The Day I Tried To Live Arc
Summary: Lionel delivers the news of Khitti's death to Pilar. There are tears.
Frostmaw
Lionel leaves half his bowl of venison stew untouched, exiting his quarters after fetching Hellfire from beside the bed. The road to Chartsend is long and harsh, and Helga Wind-Hammer advised him not to delay. It seems Pilar’s duties have been keeping her rather preoccupied of late, and there’s the matter of ogre sightings down Venturil way and nasty weather. With luck, the ogres will be kept contained by the saurians -- but containment between two dangerous races is never ideal. Besides, Lionel’s luck is tempestuous in the best of climes.
Chartsend
With the most pressing matters left to his council, and the more secretive of them being handled by Esche in particular, Lionel rides south-by-southwest out of the city and through the mountain pass, then travels the dry canyons and proves his doubt: the ogres are avoiding the saurians, and a pack of them descends upon him shortly before the dawn of his fifth night on the road. He chooses evasion, felling one but eluding the rest in a game of cat-and-mouse until he’s confident they’ve lost his tracks. Six nights later, he arrives in far-west Chartsend, where he pays better-than-average coin for a room at the tavern. Frontier adventurers talk of all manner of foul beast to be felled, song to be written, but Lionel doesn’t have the mind to listen. He keeps an ear out for the sorts of tales he’d fear might be too much for bands of mercs, but otherwise he sticks to his stew, which is raptor tail red pepper. Having worked up a hunger, he eats it all and asks for seconds. When the sun rises over Chartsend, the Catalian seeks Pilar and steadies himself at the door of 44 Bluebell Street, knocking twice.
Pilar was an early riser, especially on the days when she had to travel to Frostmaw for work. Her hours at the Eyrie Outpost caring for the animals had been rearranged with her move to Chartsend, so she only had to fly up there three days a week, though they were long days indeed. Today, however, was her day off, and she was spending a lazy morning drinking coffee and reading the paper. In the master bedroom, her lover still slept soundly. The knocks at the door startled Pilar; who could it be this early? Pilar set her cup and paper down, adjusted her housecoat, and went to the door. She peeked through the peephole and her eyes widened. Lionel? All the way out here? Pilar opened the door, giving him a polite smile with her greeting. “Good morning.”
Lionel is quick to cycle through his masks when the need arises, so he nods pleasantly. “Same to you. Sorry to disturb you so early.” Unfortunately, Lionel is nowhere near as skillful at the conveyance of false countenance as he once was. Which is to say, in plainer terms, that he rather sucks at keeping it all contained because he’s gotten too close to a few of Lithrydel’s citizenry. He has a family now, and he’s lost his sister. His face suddenly breaks the act, before Pilar can so much as potentially invite him inside. He looks like a mess, not seconds after replying cheerfully. “I’m sorry. May I sit down for a moment? You’ll want to as well.”
Pilar's smile dropped milliseconds after Lionel's. She should've known this was bad. Lionel wasn't exactly someone who'd make the long trip to see her for fun. “Of course. Come in. Do you need a drink?” Pilar stood aside and allowed Lionel to step through the door. Straight ahead was the living room, with a couch and a few armchairs, and to the right was the kitchen. Pilar's coffee and paper lay forgotten on the table. Wherever Lionel chooses to sit, Pilar will follow. After fetching him a drink (or not, it depends on his answer), she sat down nearby, her eyes locked on his. There was a lump in her throat and a knot in her stomach. Something terrible had happened, and she was dreading his next words.
Lionel sobs through burgeoning tears that make his azure eyes look like flooding pools. “No, thank you… I mean, y-yes, please.” He sits down somewhere, he isn’t sure quite where. (It’s one of the armchairs; he just can’t seem to comprehend that.) Taking a few sips from whatever it is that Pilar should offer, he neglects to thank her but seems to smile very slightly in appreciation. His sobbing stops suddenly, but it’s a forced act. His voice is still raw and dreary. “I’m sorry for breaking down like this. It’s…” Deep breaths, Lionel. In and out. There you go. He wipes the wetness from his eyes and proceeds. “The five of us, I mean, ah, Brand and Meri and Esche and I, and she…” That’s not proper sentence structure. Why hasn’t he said her name? “We went up against the creature that was Amarrah, or Lydia, or… it doesn’t matter. We, um. Things have a way of getting out-of-hand, don’t they?” He takes another sip and suddenly his eyes are piercing. “Khitti is dead, Pilar. I’m so… sorry. I’m so sorry.” The tears return like waterworks.
Pilar had not expected Lionel to begin crying in front of her. Gods have mercy. She fetched him a cup of water and handed it to him, sitting on the arm of the chair and putting her hand on his back as he started to speak. And then he said it. 'Khitti is dead.' Everything that she had been denying, spoken plainly and laid bare. The letter, the letter, the goddamn letter. She'd chalked it up to dramatics, to metaphors, she'd refused to see the obvious truth. Khitti was dead. Pilar's face crumpled and she let out a wordless wail. She buried her face in her hands and started to sob in earnest. A door opened, and a naga rushed into the room from down the hall. Yozenra's eyes were wide with panic, her normal stoicism gone. “Pilar!” She saw Lionel there, too, also openly crying, and looked between the two briefly before rushing over and scooping Pilar up in her powerful arms. Whatever had happened, she'd learn soon enough without asking.
Lionel is staring at what remains of his cup of water as if it were an alien. When did he drink from it? Why is so much gone? A dark, ridiculous thought streaks through his mind: is the cup a collection of his tears? Then, Pilar is crying, and he wonders if perhaps it is a collection of hers, not his. But she is not at the right angle to weep openly into a cup. Are her tears magical, to teleport from cheek to glass? Suddenly he realizes that the water is water, and this restores some measure of balance in the universe right as Yozenra takes hold of her lover. “Oh,” he mouths, and he swallows the rest of his drink like scotch after a bad night out. “Please look after her,” he pleads to Yozenra. Such strange words, he dwells, as if distantly. No doubt the naga will find them strange, too. “I appreciate the hospitality, Pilar… I’m so very sorry.” He makes for the door.
Pilar hiccuped. She tried to say something, but could only sob. Yozenra looked to Lionel. “Wait. I don't know what's happened, but... I can tell she's not the only one who needs looking after. Please, stay, just for a little while. You look tired.” And heartbroken, and all-around terrible, but Yozenra kept that to herself.
Lionel looks between Pilar and Yozenra, sobbing. He hiccups, too. It’s a whole lot of hiccuping today in sunny Chartsend. What a mess. “Th-thank you…” It’s back to an armchair with Lionel, but not the same armchair. A different armchair. It doesn’t matter. He’s still crying and if a crossbow were pointed at his face just now with its wielder demanding he declare the name of the furniture he sat upon he’d be dead and the killer would be disappointed. He’d be crying whilst dying, too. Tears for fears. Lionel is so tired that he can no longer cry, and so his face is red with white patches and his eyes look damned near swollen shut. “Something could have been done to prevent it… I keep remembering it, but it’s a fog, too. I just… wish I could have done something…”
Pilar was pulled into Yozenra's lap as the naga took the vacated seat. The vampire took a long, shaky breath. She wanted to know what happened, but then, no she didn't. What did it matter? Her sister was dead, dead, dead. “I should have been there...” she said, her voice breaking as she struggled to stop crying. “I should have been there for her, but I wasn't, and she needed me and I wasn't there and--” She started sobbing again. Yozenra kissed her cheek and closed her eyes. They were bonded, body and mind, and with Pilar's emotional state, the walls that kept her thoughts to herself were down. It took only a few moments for Yozenra to figure out what had happened. Khitti was dead. “Oh.” Yozenra had only met Khitti once, and had hated her since. But Pilar had loved her, and her grief was more important than Yozenra's grudge. “Pilar... It's not your fault.” She pushed you away, Yozenra wanted to continue, but she bit her tongue. Pilar sobbed, “Then why does it feel like it is?”
Lionel winces. “It isn’t,” he says. “What happened to her in that battle could not have been stopped by one extra presence, no matter who that may be. This, I promise you. It feels like it’s your fault for the same reason it feels like it’s mine: because we loved her, because she was a sister to us, and because she’s dead.” Some time passes before Lionel draws his next precarious breath, and some time more before he speaks again. The tears return, flowing down his face. “I know what I need to do now.” He says it like epiphany. “I -do- need to leave, after all. There’s someone out there who, if we can even imagine it, is having a harder time of this than we are, Pilar. His name is Brand, and I asked him to hit me, and he did, and now he’s a serving member of the Warrior’s Guild.” If that story doesn’t make sense to the two women, that’s probably for the better. “He wanted something to occupy his mind. I think all of us need that right now, but I can’t leave him alone. Oh, he’s got the crew, but…” He steels his voice. “I can’t leave him alone. Yozenra, was it? Thank you for being a part of Pilar’s life. It isn’t my place to say such things, but I’ve never been good at holding my tongue. Brand needs someone now, and I’m going to be that someone. Any of us left alone will blame ourselves into pieces.”
Pilar sniffed. “Brand... He loved her, too, didn't he...” It wasn't a question, but a spoken realization. She knew only that he was Dominic's other half. She didn't even know that Dominic was gone now. She wiped her eyes and got up. She walked to Lionel as he stood, and drew him into an embrace. “You and he are always welcome in my home. Let me... let me know when the funeral is...” Tears began to flow again, but she swallowed the sob that threatened to rise.
Lionel is embraced, and -- uncharacteristically, one might argue -- embraces back. He doesn’t confirm Pilar’s spoken realization, because he clearly doesn’t need to. “I will,” he promises. “And thanks.” Lionel can no longer cycle through his masks, because they’re all rather cracked with bits of truth he cannot hide. The more stoic and composed man that departs from 44 Bluebell Street is authenticated by what Pilar has helped him see: none of them can afford to be left alone just now.