Twenty

Elijah Poirot

[did I sleep okay?]

Elijah Poirot

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 4) ( fail )

Eleanor Yates

[willpower]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Elijah Poirot

Eve was a temp. Eve occasionally did some work as a secretary when someone was sick or had the flu or was on maternity leave. she barely averaged five hours a week at the job, and who was she to know most of the people in the office. When she knocked on Eleanor's door, the tall and then brunette with the unfortunate choice in hipster glasses cleared her throat. She looked… shaken.

"There's some guy freaking out in the emergency stairwell."

---

Today, Elijah Poirot turned twenty.

He had taken he stairs to see Eleanor. Climbed and counted every last one and marked every step and the sound it made on the way up. He wasn't sure why he needed to see her by the fifteenth step. He wanted to turn around, wanted to make it another near month before they had more than a passing conversation about mermaids and by the time his foot hit the seventeenth step the young man sat down on the stairs and would not, could not drag himself to go any further and he tried, tried to place where he was.

When Elijah closed his eyes, the world went silent and black and suffocating.

There were things that lived in between their worlds. Things that chose that darkness between and lived there. Things that waited, that hungered in the void because it was in their nature to hunger. In their nature to devour all and leave nothing. To pick the bones clean and torment, torment, torment until there is nothing left of the psyche but a shell. Unless only shadows reign,

There were things that even these creatures feared. Things that were dead long before they came to the world above. Things that were beyond human comprehension and something cold and gentle and terrifying . Something that finally, finally whispered to him-

"Stop."

It was all Elijah could say in reply, all that would come from his lips again. And again. And again, stop. He opened his eyes and the world hadn't come back yet. He colored them, and there was no difference.

We open our scene with a young man cowered in a stairwell. Dressed decently enough from work.

Richard Levasseur

[I WANT TO ROLL TOO.  stam+ath: RUNNIN' UP THE STAIRS + specialty Tireless + ability aptitude :D :D :D]

Dice: 8 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1

Richard Levasseur

Footsteps.  Footsteps pounding up the stairwell!  Ridiculously fast: thudthudthudthudthudthudTHUD, a few beats of quiet at the landing, then THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD.  Floor by floor, closer and closer, until all of a sudden Richard rounds the bend looking all tall and tanned and apolloesque in a sleeveless jersey, in track shorts, in gym shoes.  He pulls up short, startled.  It takes him a beat, and then he recognizes --

"Elijah.  Hey!"  Happy surprise takes a quick turn into concern.  "Hey.  You okay?"

Eleanor Yates

[awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Eleanor Yates

Eleanor likes Eve.  Eve is competent but not self-important.  In fact, she's a bit self-effacing, which can be grating at times when Eleanor is not having a good day.  Eleanor, once a judicial clerk and once a criminal prosecutor and then and now a turner of the Wheel and safeguard against stagnation of souls, finds self-deprecation tiresome, even irritating.  When she's having a very bad day indeed, she starts wanting to hit people and call them mice.

Today, however, is a very good day, and Eleanor has more of those than not.  She is working at her desk in her office, which is reminiscent of a sea at calm, or a winter's dawn.  She is humming to herself, a song from a movie made in 1939.  Occasionally words make it out:

"Hmmhmm hmm-hmm, I'd be gentle,and awful sentimental,regarding love and art,I'd be friends with the hmm-hmm,and the --"

And the door is knocked upon, and Eleanor looks up, silenced, summoning Eve with a come in.  And Eve, who does not know who to turn to but one of the only people still on the floor, says that there's a guy freaking out.  Eleanor frowns.  "A student?" and Eve doesn't know, and Eleanor rises, pushing in her chair to her desk and walking out with the temp, closing her office door behind her.

After a short walk, she opens the door to the stairwell and as the handle turns, she feels the sea pulled by moon and chopped by wind, roiling underneath, the waves rising into endless patterns with the sky, blue on blue on blue on blue on blue on blue on blue.

This feeling of waves both rhythmic and chaotic, she knows, means that Richard and Elijah are nearby.  The stairwell door closes behind her, quietly because she holds it as it swings to a click instead of a slam, and then she descends the concrete steps quietly, sliding a pale hand along the round railing, painted black.  They are on a landing, and she turns the corner to that landing, bringing with her the feeling of the perfect, silent serenity of midnight in January, a full moon turning the untouched snow a faint shade of diamond blue.  She brings with her the feeling of descending, descending, descending, when air is no more than a memory and the light is just a round brightness rippling and shattered by a surface that is now so far above your head, and that encroaching darkness.  She brings with her the feeling of heartbreak.  Bone-break.  Sword-break.  She brings the feeling of something that was whole,

not anymore.

Eleanor's presence, in some ways, can be peaceful.  But not comforting.

--

"Elijah?" she says,

her voice more gentle than her presence.

Elijah Poirot

[can I take Eleanor right now? WP, -1 (because seriously, double botch, oww)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Elijah Poirot

there was sound.

that was the first thing that he noticed was that there was sound, all sorts of sound, different sounds and his stomach turned and he didn't want to open his eyes again and-and-and-

His heart was beating too fast and the color wouldn't come back to his cheeks and the world was spinning. Sinking. Sundering suffocating oh god, he could feel every inch of him dying and that brought elation because… because it meant Eleanor was there. The world was here but he knew, he knewthis couldn't be true. And it  was hard to focus, so damned hard to focus.

When he looked at Richard, his eyes were a thousand yards away. He looked past Richard, past Eleanor, at something that wasn't there and he pinned in with a gaze that was at once too distant and too sharp to be anything other than delusional. Sound was what he held on to though, because the sound wasn't going to betray him and amidst the cacophony of who knew what else, he picked out some familiar voices.

"I... I can't make them stop. I can't fix this-" and he shut his eyes again. 

Eleanor Yates

Elijah's pupils are the first thing she notices when she gets closer.

Eleanor comes down to the final step before the landing that Elijah's curled on, and she lowers herself -- with elegance, with effortless physical control -- to sitting there too, knees up.  She is wearing gray slacks, somewhat high-waisted, somewhat wide-legged.  Her blouse is sleeveless and bright, yellow flowers on white, a scarflike collar that flutters when she moves.  She left her jacket back in her office, but it goes with the slacks.  Eleanor crosses her arms over her knees, watching Elijah.  Her hair is, as it almost always is, long and somewhat unruly at the ends, like she has forgotten all about it.

"Elijah," she says again, more firmly, watching him even though he can't see her.  "Elijah, can you describe for me what you're experiencing right now?"  Her eyes skip to Richard; they say: stay.

They may also say watch him.

Elijah's is not the first psychotic episode she's been witness to.  And even the affable young man before her could lose control in ugly, ugly ways.

Richard Levasseur

[shit!  this wasn't refreshing!]

Richard Levasseur

Of course Richard is staying.  Attempts to make him go, in fact, would likely result in more declarations of His Place and how it is With Her.  He defers, however, entirely and immediately and gratefully, to his acarya.  He is standing just half a stride away from Elijah.  He does not crouch down.  He remains as he is, upright, watchful, keeping an ear out for interlopers.

"I found him like this," he says to Eleanor, low.  "I just got here, myself."

Elijah Poirot

What was he experiencing? Could he describe it-

He had to focus. He had to keep his mind together as best he could, he had to focus back on being in the moment no matter how horrifying and terrible that moment well may have been. He had to focus. his pupils were wide and dark, though one could still tell his eyes were green. they dilated uniformly, which seemed to rule out him having a concussion, mostly.

Elijah inhaled sharply. Tried to put words together.

'It's dark and there's nothing. there's Nothing. No light no sensation, nothing except-e-except there's something here. There has to be something, right? i-If there's nothing there then what the fucking fuck just touched me?" he inhaled sharp, his breathing shallow. There was a capital in his voice, as though Nothing were truly something that could be fathomed.

Eleanor Yates

When Elijah describes what he's feeling, where he is when he knows he isn't but he is he is he is, Eleanor has the strangest feeling.  It's pity, yes, but familiarity, too.  She smiles a little, even.  She sees Elijah struggling and does not encourage him, neither does she tell him it's okay.  She doesn't want him to be having a psychotic episode, after all.

"Right now you are in a stairwell in the Ricketson Law Building at the University of Denver," she tells him, and does not touch him.  "You're with me, Eleanor, and Richard is here too.  And maybe you are also in a dark place of Nothingness, but that does not stop you from being in a stairwell, on the DU campus, with Richard and Eleanor.  We are not touching you, but if it would help you to be touched by something and someone you know, I will hold your hand."

Her eyes move up to her apprentice, whom she smiles at a little.  "Richard has been in some very dark places, some of them full of nothing, and has not been alone.  I don't think it was the same as it is with you.  But maybe Richard could tell you about that, and how he got out."

Elijah Poirot

"I'm in a stairwell on campus with Eleanor and Richard," he repeats, as though this is important. As though he has to say it to make it real, as though he had to repeat it like some mantra to solidify in his mind that he was there and nowhere else. Elijah could feel his heart beating hard and fast, he could feel something agains this spine slowly slither its way upward and he could think.

"Can I hold your hand? Please?" with a quiet desperation, a need for contact, a need to feel something that was real and human and not distant and terrible. He repeated, again, to himself I'm in a stairwell on campus. because he needed to say it, because he needed to repeat it. Because his voice was shaking and his knees wanted to give out.

Maybe Richard could tell him how he got out? As though there was some escape.

"I-I'd like that," he said, desperate to hold on to something real.

Elijah Poirot

(edit, scratch: and his knees wanted to give out)

Eleanor Yates

Mantras are common among -- well, all Awakened and plenty of sleepers.  They hold a special place, however, for the Euthanatoi, the yogis and yoginis and the aesthetics and the sufis and the rest.  Even the ones that Eleanor mentally refers to as the militant gun-bunny white boys of their tradition tend to have things they say to themselves, or to people they are about to kill, like rituals.  Like prayers.

"Sure," she says, and offers her hand out to him.  She puts it beneath his hand, in case he really can't see her, and says: "My hand is about half an inch beneath yours.  If you hold it, I'll squeeze yours, and that's how you'll know it's me."

Which is what happens.  If he takes her hand, holds it.  She squeezes his, stronger than she looks, firm and steady.

Richard Levasseur

Elijah is lost in a dark place.

He's lost in a dark place even though he is also in this well-lit stairwell in this very modern, very eco-friendly building.  He's alone in a dark place even though he is also surrounded by people who like him, who care about him, who want to see him find his way back to the light.

He is lost in a dark place, and Eleanor reaches out to him.  Richard watches their hands link.  He feels something inside, a stirring, a moving, moved.  He does crouch down now.  No -- he moves, he sits down, he sits on the step right beside Elijah, close enough that if Elijah were to lean over a little he'd feel Richard beside him, lean and lanky and relaxed, brotherly.

"I went to a very dark place full of Nothing," he says, "the night I became a Euthanatos.  It was necessary, a part of the Tradition.  A tradition in and of itself.  I guess the thinking is you can't fully understand the Cycle if you don't experience it.  Maybe it's also because you don't appreciate the light until you've seen the dark, or any number of other cliched saying.

"I found my way back," Richard continues, quieter, "by reaching all my senses out.  All five of them plus one.  I was searching for my Acarya, and she was very, very far away by then, almost as far as you are from us.  Up until that moment I didn't think I'd be able to reach out so far.  But I did, and I found her, and through her, I found my way back.

"Maybe you could look for her too.  Or me.  Or someone or something you care about, who can be your anchor and your beacon."

Elijah Poirot

He dropped his hand into hers, and it was a drop- a little off but there none the less. He reached for her, content to feel her hand in his, as though a real contact, a genuine anchor in the dark was what he had been searching for. Perhaps, perhaps this was it. Perhaps in this moment of terror- and it was terror, genuine soul-riding fear- he was content as he could be to hold someone's hand and remember that the world was something bright and that there was soothing here and he had a reason to not get lost and he had people and places and things and all those other elegant nouns to remember.

He had a purpose.

He'd come here with a purpose before the world went dark and he remembered what it was, with his hand in Eleanor's, holding on as though holding her hand would make a difference- because it did. He listened to Richard's voice. He hung onto stand the words and the wisdom. He searched for someone, he looked for an anchor.

He knew where his anchor was, at least sometimes.

"I wish Alicia were here."

Eleanor Yates

Mind-reader she is not.  But Eleanor would tell him: the world is neither bright nor dark; it is both, and it is whatever is between bright and dark, and it is whatever is beyond bright and dark.  And she's not a life coach, but she might also say: you can't get anywhere by running from anything.  you have to run towards something.

She doesn't need to, though.  Richard tells Elijah to search for a beacon.  Someone or something he cares about.  And the first thing he comes to is not the hand under his own or the brother at his side but a young woman Eleanor has only vaguely heard about on Ginger, the last time she checked it.

It's been on her mind to say something about that message, but now's not the time.

"Tell us about Alicia," she says, curious.

Elijah Poirot

"She feels like chaos," he said, words tinged by fear yes but there is a fondness there, "when I first met her, we were both rolling and it was a trip because we're in the bathroom and I feel this person who feels like I do, or at least close. Her hair is soft… I remember kissing her and telling her that we needed to find more reasons for her to smile… I remember breaking a drawer at the Marriott and she does things and we keep a journal

"And she's so fucking sad, and I keep thinking I need to try and find some reason for her to smile because she cries. She cries and… and I've lost my shit like this twice with her and both times she'd been so fucking patient."

He laughs, because he knows why. he knows that she's accustomed to dealing with people whose mental state was questionable. she was gifted with the terrible fact that a fair portion of the men in her life were clearly unstable and yet she had yet to kick Elijah to the curb or sever ties. For good or ill, she was stuck with him.

"But she laughs sometimes, and her nose crinkles up and she stole my books in the Aurora public library and we do stupid shit together and I want to keep doing stupid shit with her. I want to find more reasons for her to smile."