AUDIENCE: LUP

[retellers]

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week 4, monday

[retellers]

[ well. this is one time where spying works, so he writes castle and meets her about halfway to it, in the forest. ]

... Hey. [ he won't ask if she's okay, just. raises a hand awkwardly to put on her shoulder? ]

[evocationary]

[ she lets him. she's shaky and her eyes are rimmed red. ]

If I kill someone, can I give him his memory back? [ she asks, voice wavering in the middle. ]

[retellers]

... It doesn't work like that. You'd only get yours.

[ he'll squeeze her shoulder a bit and. lead her towards the castle so she can cry in church, he's not great at this comfort thing ]

[evocationary]

[ oh yay church that's where she wants to be

which is only half a joke, because she does really find comfort in the flowers. she follows him, pulls her hood up. she doesn't want him to see her cry. ]

I don't know what to do. [ which she hates. ]

[retellers]

[ well, he doesn't have to look at her, but he can still take his mask off and sit with her next to the flowers. ... and also give the mask to her if she wants to hide her face. ] ... I don't know. I don't think there's an easy answer.

[evocationary]

[ oh, fuckin' sweet. she takes the mask and immediately puts it on. now she is wolf. grrr, argh. ]

We have to beat this stupid fucking competition, then. [ she says, ignoring how her voice keeps breaking in places. ] I want to ask you about the notes people keep finding in these places they come back from. Do you know about those?

[retellers]

I've seen the first one. Haven't seen the second. [ he's pensive for a second ] Pretty sure the first was written by Fox. Sounds like them.

[evocationary]

[ she is just going to gently lean against him if he'll let her. she knows he's garbage at comfort but it's fine. either way he's going to feel how cold she is like always.

she digs around in her pocket for a second, and pulls out the second note - though it's been transcribed. it's not the original one. ]

I'm awful at word scrambles. Is this one Fox too?

[retellers]

[ he will. he will even tentatively put an arm around her shoulders? he is garbage but he is doing his BEST. anyway he reads it and... frowns ] ... Yeah. Doesn't fit anyone else's writing style. [ he's aware it's kind of a toss up between him and fox, going by personalities. ] But...

[evocationary]

[ aw BUDDY. she doesn't seem to mind if it's tentative. she just settles in. this has always done better for her than words. ]

But?

[retellers]

[ he's doing it. he is doing A Comfort ] What do you think it means? [ it's half deflection, half wanting her thoughts on it. ]

[evocationary]

[ look at he go ]

Oh, bud, like I know. [ she says, with a sigh. but she looks down at it. ] It just, uh - mostly it makes me feel like a lab rat, you know? Like we're being used by you guys to kill each other.

The nova thing for the Realm has to be true, I've... seen it, with my own eyes, I've seen what's happening. But hearing that maybe team leaders are just ordering hits against each other because you all keep killing each other's pawns? Like, not cool.

[retellers]

So you think the hit was to another participant. Right?

[evocationary]

... Yes? Well, I did.

Was it actually a hit on team leader? [ ??? ]

[retellers]

[ i hate that cloud strife isn't a stupid bitch. anyway, he points at the report, specifically the line that starts with "Some are h_ping" ] Forget what's happened here so far. If you read this one on its own...

[evocationary]

[ a pause. ]

Fuck. Okay. So we think that one of the Leaders is pulling that being in that eats the nova, but we can't... like, we can't kill the team leaders. I assume any direct hits weren't successful since all the Leaders are still alive - unless you're about to tell me one of them is being Weekend at Bernie's'd - but also, like - that's what that rule is for, right? The one where if you kill enough people on a team, the team Leader has their power stripped on Thursday.

So it was just a whole thing to try and get the Leader that's responsible vulnerable so we can kill them?

[ and then, in a just pure like, pepe silvia fashion ] Do you know why Kano is asking us to protect Goat?

[retellers]

I think that hit was successful. [ wh. he looks back at the flowers ] I told you to stop thinking about anything that's happened here so far. But I guess it's more like anything you remember happening. We've done this before.

[evocationary]

[ ... haha ]

No, wow, fuck that. Fuck that a lot? [ ... ] We've done this before? All of us?

[ she looks back down at the note. ] So this is... from a round before? Did we fuck up the first time? Or - how many times have we done this?

[retellers]

... I don't know for sure, but it's what makes the most sense. The memory I got this weekend... was what happened in a previous round. How it ended. [ he was hit back to back with two bad memories and was just very tired ]

[evocationary]

[ WHEEZES

carefully she's going to wrap her arm around his waist, for support. ]

What? What do you -- okay, tell me. What happened?

[retellers]

[ he tenses for a second but lets her ] We tried to deal with the people who's nova got splintered differently. They lived. But everything... fell apart. It was ... bad. [ that's important. b... bad. ]

[evocationary]

[ she's gentle about it, at least. ]

Bad. Like the Realm exploded bad, I assume. [ ... ] Was it all of us? Or just the leaders? I - you guys told us that you gave up all your memories to delay us losing ours at the very start.

[retellers]

... All of us. But I think... I think the teams were different. [ it's hard to know details off of one memory of a bad end, rip. ] I just know by the end, we knew we'd have another shot. Might be why... When I felt her splinter, I didn't even think about letting it be. Like I knew I had to make sure it was taken care of.

[evocationary]

[ ... ]

Was Yoshizawa splintering? [ she bites her lip. ] Whoever fucking - killed her didn't have to do it that way.

[retellers]

[ oh she did the math. oops. wolf sighs. ] Whatever actually happened, it's on me. I asked.