just a puppet on a lonely string || Day 142

[gianthobo]

Who: AZ and anyone who wanders past
Open: Open
When: 142
Where: Near the monument
What: An old man takes some time to doodle. Don't judge. Or do.
Format: Whatever
Warnings: None

[Some days are made for being lazy. AZ is taking advantage of one of those days right now. The giant man is sitting next to the monument, some paper sitting both nearby and on his knee. He has a piece of charcoal in his hand, held carefully so as to not lose it. With great care, he starts sketching on the paper.]

[A few finished sketches sit nearby, depicting the Bastion with people around it. He's good enough that it's not hard to tell who's who, though the features might be smudged a bit. Some are people he's spoken to, but given how quiet and solitary he usually is, most are just of people he's seen.]

[Bother him?]

Comments

[ourlegends]

[ This is really what she needs; to be assured that, yes, despite her independence and all of her accomplishments, she is still a child. To be told that it's okay for her to cry at the loss of something that was such a huge part of her life. To be told she could have cried back then, too, when she was dealing so much. Back then, she'd held things in.

Until N left, that was.

When he left, she had sunk to her knees and cried like a baby at the giant, gaping hole in the wall where he had left on Zekrom. And then she had passed out right there, after she'd cried for all of the things she'd experienced, all the battles fought, all of the things she'd been caught up in for the past however long.

No one told her it was okay to cry back then. All they'd told her was that she was this heroic person.

Even though he was silent, though, AZ's actions and the way he was handling this was telling her right now that it was okay.

Even though she was trying hard not to cry right now, she appreciated the fact that he was telling her that. ]

[gianthobo]

[He gives her a little squeeze, a reassurance that he's there, that this is okay, that he doesn't think less of her because of this. He's seen the amazing things that children can do, but that doesn't mean that they're not allowed to be children.]

[He'd wanted to say something to the ones who had saved them, wanted to reassure them that things would be all right. To tell them how thankful he was that they had helped him, but he didn't have the words. He'd requested a battle, in front of everyone, to show how he felt through his Pokemon - and then Floette had come back.]

[He couldn't say anything that felt right, so he had left with her. But he still felt like he had to express how he felt somehow.]

[And now there was no chance to do it. But to support another Trainer, one who had done so much and yet was still so young - this he could do. He'd never had children of his own, and he'd never really known his brother's children, but he'd seen families grow up and how they acted. He only hopes he's doing the right thing.]

[He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief - though it's really more like a towel - and holds it out for her.]

[ourlegends]

[ She looks at the towel handkerchief and slowly reaches out to take it from him. ]

T-Thank you ...

[ Her voice is quiet, and partway muffled due to stuffing her face into the handkerchief to try and wipe away the tears that were still falling despite her calming down. They probably wouldn't stop completely for a while ... ]

[gianthobo]

It's all right.

[He keeps a hand on her back, gently holding her. He's here. It's okay.]

[ourlegends]

[ It was okay. It was okay.

But it still felt like it wasn't.

The realization that everything she had known back home was gone had hit her hard, and it was difficult to keep an optimistic outlook in the face of that ... she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she would be okay. She would move on. She'd keep living, because that was all she could do now.

Right now, though, she felt none of that. She felt hopeless. Incomplete. Blank.

It was hard to exist right now, even with the support of a man she had only just met. ]

[gianthobo]

[He closed his eyes for a moment, before opening them again. How could he help? ... He really couldn't. He knew that kind of despair.]

[Still, he had to try. He had to be there.]

I'm sorry. But... at least you're safe. You and N. And who knows? Maybe we'll find others, further out.

[ourlegends]

[ She nods. ]

I hope so. I hope we find others.

[ Because that would give her even more hope that not everything was completely lost. She needed that. And ... yeah, at least she still had N, and she had her Pokemon, even if Reshiram was no longer with them. ]

[gianthobo]

All we can do is keep moving forward, right?

[ourlegends]

Mhm.

[ That's all they can do now. She knows it. ]

[gianthobo]

[He backs off a little bit, now that she seems more steady.]

... You can think about the past, you can regret it, but... you can't change it. You can only change the future.

[ourlegends]

[ She nods again. ]

Right. We can ... we can only change the future ...

[ But she'll probably cry about this a bit longer, when she's not around anyone. Except maybe N. ]