(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

[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))