My spirit aches...

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt and all the insomniacs.
WHAT| Avoiding sleep.
WHERE| The Lounge
WHEN| One night, so late one might call it early, before the crowning.
WARNINGS| Some talk of nightmares, but nothing too terrible.



Night time was the worst. While the sun was up, while he had people and things to distract him, he could push the bulk of his troubles to the back of his mind. But at night, once things had gone quiet and he was alone with nothing but the sound of his own thoughts, they would all come rushing back.

Alcohol helped - took off the edge - but there wasn't a drink strong enough to stop the nightmares. The images that haunted him once his eyes finally closed.

Faces taunting. Sometimes Dora, sometimes Neeshka. Howard. Max. Sometimes a combination. At once beautiful and terrible. Dead and alive. Screaming. Whispering. Blaming and crying. 'Why didn't you do more?' 'Why didn't you save us?'

Sometimes, trying to put sleep off, he would pace for hours, to and fro across the floor of his room. Others he would flee into the training room, throwing knives until his arm burned and his back was sore. Tonight...

Tonight, he sat in the Lounge, a cup of black coffee, steaming gently on the table beside him. His chair turned out so he could lean over a trash can. In one hand he held a lump of dark wood, vaguely familiar in size and shape. In the other, was a small dinner knife.

Painstakingly, he worked the latter against the former. The point digging and turning, putting the finishing touches on a pair of tiny eyes.

Comments

[the_marshal]

His head pulled back, blue eyes blinking in surprise.

"I..." his brow furrowed uncertainly, his mouth quirking sheepishly. "I apologize fer that. I don't mean it, I promise."

[gruesome]

"Oh oh, no!" Some held up two hands, alarmed at what he'd implied. "I know it isn't what you mean, it is just a way we are different. And I have always asked humans to call me only Some, and not Mister Some, which I know is something similar of respect. I was only musing."

[the_marshal]

His eyebrows lifted, teeth flashing as he chuckled, low and amused.

"I ain't upset, iffen you aren't, I promise."

But he did make a mental note. Some, no Mister.

Somehow he didn't expect it would be a name he'd be forgetting.

[gruesome]

Some returned the chuckle, a little sheepishly.

"What is that you are cutting?" he asked, as much for a topic change as anything else.

[the_marshal]

Truth be told, he'd all but forgotten about the carving and he looked back down now, expression almost surprised.

"Oh, uh, well," he opened his hand, set the wood down on the table, pushing it out a few inches so Some could see it. "It's a buffalo. They're native, where-" when, "-I'm from."

[gruesome]

He leaned down, hands all folded behind himself, to peer at it.

"You made that? It is very clever. I don't think I have ever seen one in the caves, though I might mistake it for a small mole."

[the_marshal]

For a heartbeat, Wyatt just stared, blinking once, twice... then he laughed. A rich, full sound.

A sound he didn't have much cause to make here.

"No, no..." he waved a hand, struggling to regain composure. "They don't live in caves. An' their much bigger than this. Bigger'en me even. This is jus' a miniature like."

[gruesome]

"Oh!" Some grinned, despite his chagrin. He always loved to hear humans laugh like that; it was like a surprise, to hear that richness in their thin singular voices. "I'm sorry, that's a silly mistake to make."

[the_marshal]

"Oh, not so silly, really," he soothed as he sobered, laugh rumbling slowly back on itself. "Not fer someone who spent most of their time livin' in a cave. Can't imagine ya'd have much occasion to cross ways there."

[gruesome]

"My siblings told me about deer and bears, and our parents brought down a rabbit once." He held his hands cupped, holding the memory there. "And a big aggressive bird goose that actually lived a very long time down with us, through a whole icing." He shook his head, ruefully. "All of us children were terrified of it, but Un-uncle Rennet named it Cleeb and fed it grubs, and it followed him around like a son."