pyrighteous | [OOC] Folkmore IC Inbox

[ The guard looks dimly ill at the thought. Wandering around as some kind of ghost, struggling to find his way, maybe ending up in someone else's body ... He shivers a little. ]

I'm glad you thought of it. That ... alternative is horrifying.

That was all Master Draxum. I never knew about that part...

[Pretty horrifying for him, too. It would be the same problem all over again, except he's not sure the rest of them could have managed it half as well as Hunter has.]

... He knows what he's doing, I'll give him that. He knew what to do in Hunter's head too.

[Casey makes a face at that. He's still trying not to be angry with that man, but a little bit still lingers.]

He doesn't always know as much as he thinks he does.

[ The guard cocks his head a little at that. ]

What do you mean?

[He hesitates, then. The fight's over and done with, Draxum won't do it again- that's enough, right? Now it's just a matter of Draxum learning how to do better, and Casey figuring out how to gradually trust him again. (Hopefully. Eventually.) And Hunter... well, he learned plenty too. They're all good.

On the other hand, he'd want his big brother to look out for him, if he had one.]

Did he tell you any of what happened? With Draxum and his galdorstone.

[ The guard slowly shakes his head. ]

Nothing at all, aside from the fact that he bought one specifically to chip off for me.

[ Unsurprisingly, Hunter hadn't really wanted to relay his fight with Casey - or bad decisions with Draxum - to the guard. ]

[Well, he can't blame Hunter for that. Hopefully he won't get mad that it's getting shared now, but... Casey hadn't told anyone else, and he kind of wants someone to hear about it, if only so he has someone else to help him keep an eye on Draxum's poor decisions. And to rant a little. (Mostly just in case, though.)]

Draxum wanted to open a portal to our world to send a message, but he needed more energy to try it. Hunter offered his galdorstone as a power source.

[ The guard's eyes IMMEDIATELY go wide with horror. ]

What? Doesn't he know what that would do to him? To us?

I don't think he does. I could only guess. What would happen?

[Because context clues are there - if his heart runs out of power, how would he stay alive? - but it sounds like the guard is more certain with his knowledge than a guess.]

[ Oh yes. This is the utter, grim certainty of someone who witnessed it first hand. ]

It powers us. It's what keeps us alive.

[ Nothing Casey hasn't assumed so far, most likely. The guard's hand flinches towards his chest. ]

If the stone's in good shape, it'll recharge. But if it's not, then it can't replenish any magic. You lose your mind first, and then your body falls apart.

[ Here, the guard's voice wavers just a moment. This memory hurts to dredge back up. ]

... Belos had me do it to the guard before me. One with a different stone. Except he didn't tell me who I was actually destroying - he told me I was fighting a monster. And I believed him.

[Casey's eyes widen at that, horrified. He'd felt it, right to his core, that it was bad, but he never thought it was like that. His fear had been Hunter's death. This is... beyond that. Awful. What if Draxum had pushed too far? What if his failsafe hadn't worked and the stone wouldn't recharge? So much could have gone wrong. He could've lost himself... lost everything.]

I'm so sorry... that's horrible. [Add that to the list of wretched things Belos has done.] Do... do you know what kind of state the galdorstone is in?

[It's been used for so many guards before, and now this. Is he going to be okay?]

[ Here, the guard hesitates. Can he know for certain? No. Not really. But he has good reason to assume that his logic is correct, given he's seen the opposite play out already. ]

... The fact that we can talk like this means it's probably still fine. I'd be lost first if it were in danger.

[ Put simply, bluntly. An ailing galdorstone couldn't possibly hold a fully realized guard like this. ]

[Some of the tension that had been rising in Casey's body language bleeds out at that; his shoulders slump, and he presses his face into his hands. God but he really didn't want to start stressing about this situation again. Can it still be okay? Can everything be fine, be allowed to be fine, after everything?]

Probably fine... [It isn't enough, but it has to be enough. The discrepancy is going to be the end of him one day.] He promised he wouldn't do it again. That extra galdorsone he got is proof of that. So he won't be tempted to use his like that, ever.

Nothing's ever definitely fine. [ The guard pairs this with a faint shrug. Like. Sorry Casey, you'll never get unqualified reassurance from THIS guy.] But that's a good idea. Yeah. Hunter is ...

[ Baby brother darling he is trying so hard not to dunk on you. He really can't say anything that wouldn't be rude, so he doesn't. ]

Anyway. The fact I'm here is proof the galdorstone is okay. And if he's acting normally - including stupid, boneheaded decisions - the galdorstone is still okay.

[ Okay fine a little rudeness as a treat. ]

[Casey's lived a life of perpetual Not-Fine-ness, he knows it well. He nods along with the response, though it's the last comment that makes a smile creep back onto his lips, weak and worried, but grateful. It was a stupid, bonehead decision. He'll remember that one.]

Don't worry, I really let him have it. Probably too much. If he does anything like that again he's so doomed.

[He doesn't think Hunter will, though. He'll trust in that promise, as long as he can. Anyway, they have two other galdorstones if one is needed. That should be plenty.]

Good. He needs -

[ The guard hesitates. He REALLY is trying to be respectful of his baby brother he swears!! ]

... I feel like all of you have been really kind to him. Which is good. But that means it's doubly important to be harsh when it's necessary, or else he'll stop trusting the good things.

[He's doing well at being respectful, actually. And this feels like pretty important information here.]

Stop trusting the good, huh... is that why he took so long with Rue's letter? He was afraid you would end up replacing him.

[ At that, the guard nods. He’s had that conversation with Rue by now, and also a follow up via notebook with Hunter. ]

Rue’s been perfect so far. Which is great, but I think…

[ He hesitates. Trying to put this gently. ]

We can’t fully trust until we know what the bad reaction looks like. That’s why Draxum is easier sometimes too even if he’s objectively a bad choice.

[ Sorry Draxum both Hunter and the guard genuinely love you. But. ]

Oh...

[Hearing that, he can't help wilting a little. It makes sense, and he can work with it, it's just... depressing.]

I get it. It's like a limits test. [Pressure on a new material, seeing how much it can take before it breaks... feeling suspicious of sort of thing can be instinctive. You can't trust a support beam until you know what it can handle.] It's easy to love someone when everything's fine.

[He hesitates.]

He looked kind of freaked out when I yelled at him for it.

Yeah. Not on purpose, just.

[ A depressing reality. Hunter certainly doesn’t set out to do this on purpose; he can barely verbalize the same feeling that the guard is taking about now. The guard is a little more equipped to test boundaries - and has, gently, in the way he talks to Casey and Rue and Draxum. Briskness is both a personality feature and a deliberate coping mechanism for him. ]

He probably was. The standard we have for the bad reaction is… well…

[ Belos. ]

But he didn’t write anything to me about it aside from an apology for how tense he was, so I’m guessing that means you worked it out.

We did, yeah. [Thankfully. It could've gone so poorly on either side, if things had been a little different. So Hunter didn't bring it up...? Either that means things really are okay, or he hadn't felt a strong enough need to.] He's been normal since then.

[At least as far as Casey can recall noticing.]

I've been... kinda low-key pissed off and tired lately. Since the mindscape happened. I'm trying to keep that on lockdown, especially with Hunter.

[ The guard doesn’t perk up, exactly, but something shifts in his demeanor. Refocusing, tuning himself in Casey’s direction. ]

What did it make you see?

[ The guard is fresh to this; he wasn’t involved, and he doesn’t have any baggage either. There’s not much Casey could say that would hurt him the way it would Hunter. ]

[It still makes Casey hesitate. He's talked about this to death, he's not sure the guard deserves to get it dumped on him as well, especially with so much else going on. Though at least the specifics of the dream, Hunter knows already. Sharing it with the guard isn't that weird.]

...My world's... destroyed. Don't know if you know already. Aliens invaded and killed everything. ...Everyone. In those dreams, it showed the last day. The end of the world, and the last of my family, dying, just to send me somewhere safe.

[Because that's the reality of it, isn't it? They'd proved that, when Leo refused to go himself after the Casey of that dream failed to show up. (They'd killed him, he realized belatedly. They'd sealed the door he'd used to escape the Krang and reach sensei. His own dream guide had cut him out of the picture to save sensei, and it still didn't work. How pathetic is that?) The time gateway was as much to save Casey as it was to save the world.]

She wanted me to accept it. That I couldn't save anyone else... that I was always gonna be the only survivor. But I couldn't, so... I kept going back, over and over. I kept failing.

[Witnessing that sort of thing again and again has... kind of done a number on him, in that bones-deep-wound-reopened kind of way that he doesn't know how to heal from yet.]

[ The guard listens, quiet and somber. A little surprise plays on his face - he has some details from Hunter, but not nearly this many - but mostly his expression remains muted. It’s a different kind of horror from what the guard experienced- he doesn’t even have Hunter’s apocalypse to compare it to.

But the sensation of watching the same scenario play out over and over again - to be forced into learning a hard lesson by brute force if nothing else… yeah, he can relate. ]

It’s not wrong. Wanting to do it differently, and trying over and over again to affect it.

[ it’s not as though he watched every one of his successors in horrific detail, but he had enough of a view - and the occasional flare of energy and instinct - to try. ]

It wears away at your whole existence, doesn’t it? That level of failure.

[ He says it so, so gently. ]

Have… you talked to anyone about it? Hunter?

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