(no subject)

[ka_sera_sera]

Who|  Roland Deschain and the Signless
What|  talking
Where|  D12
When|  after Signless' death and after Roland's begun TB treatment
Warnings/Notes| none so far

After seeing Signless' death, Roland gave it a little time. He doesn't know how much time a person might need after something like that, but there's just as much danger in letting it sit for too long, so he doesn't. He doesn't know much about Signless' life here, what he does, where he spends his time, but he figures the district number he'd seen on the back of the man's jacket is a good place to start and so this morning finds Roland leaving the elevator and making his way into district 12's common room. There's a dark cloth tucked in his front jacket pocket, though he needs it much less often than he had before beginning treatment, and out of the back pocket of his pants spills a mess of light blue yarn. He'll look through the common room first, then the kitchen and the tribute rooms. There's a little fear niggling at the back of his mind that he won't find him in those places or anywhere, that Roland's few allies in this place will all start going the way of Cuthbert, but there's no true reason to think that and so he ignores it. Just starts to wander through the place, looking for those familiar features.

Comments

[69problems]

Lucky for him, trolls are easy to find. Signless is curled up on the common room couch, his tribble tucked against his chest. His horns are even easier to spot: they haven't yet been filed down into points, and are still their original rounded nubby selves.

At first he hadn't truly remembered what had gone on in the arena after a certain point. It was all mist and haze around the time he'd had his fang knocked out, just flashes of faces and echoes of shouts. The reruns have given him a better idea of what had gone on and in the face of that he's decided that today will be a day for processing. And for figuring out who he needs to apologize to.

He looks up at the entrance of someone who isn't one of his districtmates, and his face brightens a touch when he realizes it's someone familiar.

"Hello, Roland."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Signless." When Signless' face lightens, Roland's does too. The change is slight, but still noticeable - part response to the other man's expression, part simple relief. Roland's spoken to people here and there since he died, but this'll be the first time he's spoken to someone he considers, in some small, distant way, his. His through the connection to Karkat, who in turn has - had - a connection to Cuthbert. If the thing his world called tet is analogous to family, this visit'd be more like visiting a distant cousin than a sibling. But even so, it feels good. It feels better.

But this visit isn't meant to be about him, and the topic is a dark one. Or might be, depending on whether Signless is the type of person who needs to talk about things. He sits a couple feet away, giving Signless some space, and his eyes flick over the ball of fur in his arms before dismissing whatever it is as, for now, unimportant. "How are you doing?" He watches Signless' face closely, hoping to hear truth rather than any polite nonsense.

[69problems]

"Well enough. Better than after some arenas. Though that may just be because I don't remember much of it after a certain point. I've been piecing it together through the recaps."

His mouth twitches, just slightly. It's almost sad, that this is the truth. Several arenas ago he might have been much more horrified at his own actions. He might even have been in the middle of some kind of breakdown. Now it's just one more thing on top of everything else he has to deal with, and it seems downright banal in that context.

"I've seen enough to gather that I was very much not myself."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Not at all. And if even I could tell that, all your allies should understand it as well." He thinks, for a moment, on a couple of the arguments the capitol's been replaying. Even without context, and even with the capitolites talking over the recaps, it's clear some of those arguments covered very personal ground. He supposes the tributes who've been here longer know how to handle that; Roland, on the other hand, is not quite sure.

What decides him is the fact that he doesn't have the patience to dither over it. He came to check on Signless, so that's what he'll do. "I think the simplest explanations might come to the people you simply fought. The ones you spoke to, argued with... those might be a little more difficult."

[69problems]

"I plan to apologize to all of them once I have a better grasp of what exactly I said and did." He could probably find the tapes somewhere of the full fights, not just the edited soundbites the recaps have been featuring. He also doesn't particularly want to watch them any sooner than he has to.

"I wish they could have found another way to make me entertaining. I'd much rather be suffering horribly but in control of my own mind, if given the choice."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland nods, feeling exactly the same. "Which is probably why that's the last thing they're going to do." His tone is matter-of-fact, his expression only a little bleak. It's a cause for neither outrage nor alarm; just the way things are. The way they're going to be.

It does, though, remind him of something else he'd wanted to ask. "When we met, you said something about..." He tilts his head, squinting a little as he thinks back. "About your memories not matching the age of your body. I'd ask you more about that, if you don't mind speaking of it."

[69problems]

"Oh." He isn't displeased, more just surprised. It wasn't on the list of questions he'd been expected, but he supposes it is the sort of thing one would have questions about.

"No, I don't mind. I suppose the best place to start... have you met Kankri?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"No." Despite what he'd said to Susannah not long after arriving here, despite what he told himself, he hasn't actually tried at all to become familiar with his fellow prisoners, nor to form any particular alliances with them. It'd be the smart thing, good strategy, but he just hasn't. He doesn't think too hard on exactly why. "Haven't met many in this place. She has something to do with it?"

[69problems]

Alright, that's going to make this a little more difficult. Then again it was going to be complicated no matter what.

"He does, yes." Which is the understatement of the year, but he's still trying to figure out where to even begin.

"He and I are both Kankri Vantas. To make a very long and complicated story short, his universe ended partially due to his actions and mine was created as a second chance. As I grew I began to remember and re-live his life -- my past life -- through dreams and visions. So in effect I've lived two lives across two different universes. Stop me if you need me to go back and clarify anything, I know it's a lot to wrap your pan around. I thought giving the simplest full explanation first and then filling in the blanks as needed later was best."

[ka_sera_sera]

He shakes his head. "You lived his life first, and then your own." Roland says it not as if asking for clarification, but as if explaining. He understands well enough, sees the meat of it; are there really any other details he needs to know? "Was it ever difficult, knowing more than one life? Remembering similar events?"

[69problems]

"Sometimes. Our actual lives were very dissimilar, but meeting others whose past lives I'd known was sometimes jarring. Separating who they were on Alternian from who'd they been on Beforus."

It was easier when he'd had a chance to know them personally: his Meulin and Mituna and Porrim were very much their own people. It was harder to separate Her Imperious Condescension from the Meenah he'd known.

"That and I didn't necessarily remember his life clearly or in order. It was like putting a puzzle together for a while, until I had most of the pieces. Even now it's not complete, but I haven't had a vision in sweeps so I think I have as much of it as I'm going to get."

[ka_sera_sera]

He nods. "I wasn't asking out of curiosity, but because I was hoping something about it might help me. But our two situations aren't similar enough." It'd been a little much to hope for, anyway. "Do you ever see something that reminds you and forget? That you're not back there?" It's not easy for him to admit, but if there's even a small chance their situations are at least that similar, Roland's going to take it.

[69problems]

"People, mostly, but never for very long when the circumstances were so wildly different. I wish Alternia had been more like Beforus, but... I'm sorry that I can be of more help to you."

The whole problem with Alternia was that it was such a stark contrast. It was nothing like Beforus had been and it never would be, despite all his efforts.

"What is your situation, exactly?"

the spoileryest spoiler it is possible to spoil for this series

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland leans forward, elbows on his knees, thinking it over. It's not as if he doesn't know the answer, but- "It's not enough to distract me in a fight. And nothing Susannah needs to know about." He glances back to Signless, then looks down to watch the fingers of his left hand trace the scars where two fingers of his right used to be. "Don't know whether you know of her. District 10, no legs below the knee, dark skin. She probably wouldn't be surprised, I told her about... about the cause of it. I told Cuthbert everything," he adds, looking now at his shoes, "but, ah."

But everything ends. Usually sooner than you expect. That's the way of things, and his relationship with Cuthbert had been no exception. He moves on.

Roland sits back, glancing toward the door, then looking at the Signless and this time trying to hold his gaze. It feels strange to be saying this out in the open where anyone else could walk in, but he's not about to ask if they can move. "My world has no word for it. I think Susannah's does, but I don't remember what it was. The same events," he says, twirling the two fingers of his right hand in a circle a few times, "again and again. Not my whole life, but, ah... maybe a year. Maybe a little more. I didn't remember any of it until a moment before I came here." He tries not to let his gaze go distant, to let his mind go back to that moment or let his face reflect the horror of it.

"Did your world have any similar concept?" Definitely not trying to distract himself, here. Not at all. "Either of them?"

[69problems]

He's right, that really isn't the same thing at all. It sounds a lot worse, all-told. But it also does sound familiar, in a fuzzy, far-off sort of way.

"...No. Neither Alternia or Beforus had anything like that. In the time between, when I was Kankri still and before we reset everything..." He concentrates, trying to pull up as much information as he can on something that's not the clearest of his memories.

"One of our number could manipulate time and sometimes that would result in the kind of thing you're talking about, though not exactly the same. She'd know much more about it than I do, but she isn't here."

He kind of hopes she never comes, either. Damara Megido in Panem is a distinctly terrifying mental image.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland stares between his knees, takes a breath. "Alright." He stands. Foolish to really expect much, anyway. "I'll let you get back to it. If you need any help making reparations to anyone, call on me. I've heard gifts tend to help." With that, Roland slips the mess of blue yarn out from where it's been in his back pocket. The yarn is scarf shaped. More or less. "Think you'd have any use for this?"

[69problems]

"You don't need to leave, I -- probably."

He looks the messy thing that's trying so hard to be a scarf over and has a sudden very forceful moment of missing Porrim, not mother-Porrim but friend-Porrim from back when he was Kankri and she'd force her knit creations on him.

He reaches out and takes it, back in the present. "Thank you."

[ka_sera_sera]

He snorts. "If you ever find real cause to thank me for that I'll be very surprised." Roland is under no illusions as to his level of skill. He'd tried for a scarf because that's what the magda-seen* had recommended for beginners, and is aware that he'd only barely succeeded.

But before Signless had thanked him he'd asked him to stay. Roland leans against the side of the couch, looking Signless over and trying to decide whether the question came from politeness or from need. "I could stay a while, if you wouldn't rather go over all the footage alone."

(*magazine)

((ooc: also, is there more for them to go over or shall they fade soonish?))

[69problems]

"I'd like that, if it isn't too much trouble for you." He likes to have people around him when he can help it, even if they're just sitting in companionable silence together. It helps to calm his nerves to be with someone. Absently he winds the scarf around his hands.

"But I'd understand if you'd rather not."

((Sure, we can fade out after this if you like!))

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland watches Signless's hands, reads the movement as a nervous gesture. Genuine offer, then.

To be honest, he has been avoiding the arena reruns. There's no way, though, to completely avoid them. And even if he does take advantage of the polite excuse Signless had given him to leave Cuthbert will still be dead, replays of that death will still be near-impossible to avoid, and someone Roland thinks of as his - even distantly - will be sitting alone in this room, watching Capitolites thrill over footage of himself hurting people he cares about.

Some people need to be needed, Roland'd been told, long ago. He wasn't one of those people then, and thinks probably he still isn't. Not quite.

Roland lowers himself to sit back beside Signless, nods at him. "This sort of thing's probably best done in company, anyway."

He doesn't need to be needed. But it helps.


((aaaaand... fade))