And I feel summertime passing in haste, like running out of patience... [OPEN]

[hellpyre]

Who: One very broken half-demon and whoever might actually go looking for her.
Open: Open
When: Day 80
Where: The Bastion, Rin's apartment
What: Rin hasn't been seen since she and Night returned from looking for their lost loved ones. Some one is bound to notice her absence sooner or later
Format: Action
Warnings: None

[Rin had been an almost constant presence in the distillery kitchen in the month and some odd days she had been in the Bastion. If she wasn't out on the Skyway or sleeping she was helping Mireille, and even on her worst days being able to cook was enough to put a small smile on her face.

But for the past two days - ever since leaving with Night to the Skyway and returning - she was nowhere to be found. She wasn't in the distillery or anywhere else.

Well that wasn't entirely true. She was in her apartment. But that was the only place she had been in nearly two days.

And she would wind up staying there, so long as no one came looking for her...]

Comments

[silvervine]

[ Unfortunately, there's an incessant scratching at the door when Kuro wanders back to the apartment. He'd been off on his own adventures. A wandering off for a day or two wasn't all that weird when there was so much to explore and so many chickens to follow around.

His claws are nice and sharp, so he makes quite a bit of racket, but his voice is pretty strong as well.

Hey! Hey, the door's closed.

Because that wasn't obvious. ]

[notduchess]

Rin, if you haven't been washing while you've locked yourself in here, I will drag you out by that tail and scrub you down.

[ The knight remembers another talk, where being very down on herself was Rin's thing. Sulking and isolation seems to be the next step. ]

[yinyangfox]

[ For his part, Seimei had recovered. He was never one for wallowing in grief or self-pity in the first place, but Kaoru had done well to pull the onmyoji out of his funk earlier than anticipated. As such, he'd busied himself with laboring on his house, enduring Kaoru's attempts at making him sleep somewhere other than under trees and attempting at cooking for himself in his finished cooking pit.

Failing miserably, but unwilling to ask for help, he made several more abysmal attempts before finally giving in and wondering if something weren't wrong with the pit. The one person he knew to ask for advice was Rin, so he went in search.

At the distillery, he was informed that Rin had not, in fact, been made available. Finding her behavior odd, Seimei does the only thing he feels he can. He summons up a shikigami servant and sends it into the apartments. Already once he'd gone in without invitation, and the feeling - while exciting at first - had left him in a state of unease for quite some time afterwards.

So instead, a stranger paces brazenly into the house, marches up to Rin's room and knocked. ]

Tap-tap-tap.

Hello? Lady Rin, are you in? I have a message for you...

[ Outside the door stood a dark-haired man with kind eyes and a broad, toothy smile, dressed in clothing not unlike Seimei's, though predominately black. In a sort of self-torture, Seimei's shikigami tended to take after Hiromasa. Sooner or later, he'd have to let go; for now, it hurts less than banishing the memories altogether, and the shikigami find the form familiar and easy to adopt. Besides, no one but he knew it was Hiromasa's likeness. ]

Lady Rin, the honorable Abe no Seimei requests audience with you. He awaits your response. Tap-tap-tap. Shall I tell him that you are unavailable?

[hellpyre]

[Luckily Rin can hear him, even back in her bedroom where she's lying on her side staring at the wall, because really that demon telepathy isn't limited by walls.

Upset as she is, she can't really ignore her familiar, so soon enough the front door opens.

She looks awful - hair messier than usual, bags under her eyes, clothes a rumpled mess. She doesn't even try to smile at Kuro.]

Sorry, buddy...

[hellpyre]

[She has a better reason for this sulking, though.

The door doesn't open, but she does call out.]

I'm fine.

[Yeah that's a lie]

[notduchess]

And that's why you haven't been seen doing anything you normally do for two days. Clearly.

[ The sarcasm. It might seep through the floorboards. ]

[hellpyre]

[Rin would have ignored it, if not for how damned insistent the shikigami was being. And at her bedrooom door, too. That made it that much harder to put a pillow over her ears and try to pretend she was asleep.

Soon enough she slipped out of bed, hair a tangled mess, dark circles under her eyes and her knee length skirt and baggy teeshirt all rumpled and askew on her body. It was probably a good thing she didn't have much in the way of cleavage, given that her shirt was almost completely off one shoulder.

When the door opened, she looked as annoyed as she could, not wanting to betray just how much she was grieving. It didn't even phase her that this appeared to be a total stranger in front of her.]

What does he want... ?

[hellpyre]

... okay, fine, I'm sick. And I don't want anyone to catch it.

[More lying.

Rin you're really bad at this.]

[notduchess]

... I'd think someone would have heard you coughing, retching, or seen you going for soup if that was the case.

[ Yes Rin, you are. ]

[hellpyre]

I've been sleepin'. That's normal when you're sick, ain't it?

[Rin if you have to ask then you're just giving yourself away]

[notduchess]

Not for two days straight, without food.

Also you can open your door or I can open it on my own.

[ Unless you get really creative with your lying. Which Duke is doubting is possible at this point. ]

[yinyangfox]

What does he want?

[ The shikigami's brow cocks up. Hiromasa it might look like, but a shikigami was its own force and personality. And being a spirit god, they don't tend to follow common social mores and dictates. Eyes trail lazily down, lips quirking in a grin. ]

Well. I know what I'd want. But I don't know what he wants. To talk, I guess? The exact message was-- Heck I don't know. Something like "Lady Rin are you well-blahblah-I cannot figure out this cooking thing because I'm a hopeless idiot setting myself on fire-blahblah-I will die without someone feeding me like a naked baby bird-blahblahblah-My hat is stupid.

[ The shikigami sniffs and stands there, staring at Rin before bearing his teeth in a broad grin. ]

So, I'll go tell him you said no, throw yourself off a cliff, right?

[hellpyre]

[Damn it...]

Geez alright...

[There's shuffling, and then the door opens, revealing one mess of a teenager on the other side of it.]

[notduchess]

... I don't need to haul you to the bathrooms, do I?

[ Really. Being gross generally doesn't help moods.

On the other hand, if Rin isn't taking care of herself, its clearly because her mood is gone south. What had Rin been talking about last time, the twin sister? ]

[hellpyre]

[Rin stares for a good minute after that... wonderfully eloquent explanation. A hand goes to her temple, fingers rubbing there while she grumbles under her breath.]

Lord...

[She can't even grieve in peace, can she?

She waves a hand, shifting her shirt back up on her shoulder. She wasn't even going to bother getting properly dressed for this nonsense.]

No, it's fine, I can deal with it...

[Maybe. She couldn't promise keeping herself together was going to be on the agenda, but she was willing to try.]

Where is he?

[hellpyre]

I ain't that dirty yet.

[except that she had been kind of around a lot of ash and dirt before getting back with Night, and there had been a lot of crying alone for the past two days...]

I'm alive, okay?

[Can she be left alone now?]

[notduchess]

... You keep shutting yourself away, and we might not be sure of that.

[ Duke doesn't actually step into the room, but there's an armored foot in the way of getting a door slammed shut. ]

.... You found more of those statues, didn't you.

[ that's the only thing the knight can think of. And maybe a specific one... ]

[yinyangfox]

Outside. But you know, if you wanted to stay in, I could always go down there and tell him you said no. Then I could come back up here. Just a thought.

[ The shikigami waggles a brow suggestively, frowning dramatically when the shirt is replaced properly on her shoulder. ]

Foot rub? Shoulder massage? I'm great with my hands.

[hellpyre]

[Her face falls, and as much as she tries to hide it, it's impossible to completely cover that flash of intense pain in her eyes.]

... Night did. I-it... was just hard to see her like that... especially after we lost so many people earlier.

[Well, that's a truth, but it's still not a whole truth.]

[notduchess]

Your twin.

[ That flash of pain really leaves few other options. ]

I can't tell if its worse, knowing that there's a remains out there, or not knowing if where or what they're doing. One on hand, knowing. On the other, hope, which damn well hurts more than it ought to.

[hellpyre]

... no. I'm fine, thanks.

[She's not, no, but being hit on in her current state wasn't exactly something she welcomed right then. Not that he wasn't at least somewhat attractive, but she had the strange feeling what she was talking to wasn't human or entirely real, either.]

I'd rather he not catch himself on fire tryin' to actually do somethin' for himself.

[hellpyre]

[That shut her up. A little too well, because any retort she might have had utterly died in her throat, and she lacked any words to follow them up with.]

I don't wanna talk about it...

[yinyangfox]

Well, good luck with that. The man's a complete idiot when it comes to cooking. You know he only learned how to cook anything at all for this guy?

[ The shikigami pointed out, plucking at the robes on his chest and indicating the body. ]

Everything else he ate was made by us or the butterfly. Lemme tell you, she was great. Man, I'm gonna miss that bug. Anyways, 'sup? You look like shit, I don't mind sayin'. If you go down lookin' like that the fox is gonna have an apoplectic fit. You'll end up choking down weird tea and talking about feelings. [ Here he made quotation marks with his fingers for emphasis with his drawn out tone. ]

Splash some water on your face, dry up and pretend like you were sleeping. [ The shikigami frowns slightly, cocks his head to the side and sighs before finally adding. ] If you don't want him to know what you were really doin'.

[notduchess]

Completely understandable. I'll leave you alone - well, somewhat alone, because in return for not talking about it, I want you to keep up what you normally do. At least go outside for most of the ... ah, day. I know how tempting it is to go and leave the world to do its own business, but... You can look at it two ways.

[ Awkwardly scratching behind one ear. ]

You can either live your best for them, since they aren't around and you ought to live up to them, or you can live your best, because you know they wouldn't want you moping about and growing sick and lonely and bitter as hell.

[hellpyre]

Why shouldn't I be bitter?

[She already sounds pretty bitter about it, really. She has good reason to be. She'll never know why Father Fujimoto saved her, and now she's left wondering why she was spared from the Calamity at all. Why her, when Yuki was far more competent than she was?

It didn't feel right. None of it did, and she was hating it more and more.]

What's gonna happen when you're all gone and I'm left here? Say we manage to survive all of this shit anyway, and everyone dies naturally. I'm still gonna be left behind.