Reilanin // Start Over

[winterwhite]

Who: Reilanin
When: Between the 3rd and 6th of August
Where: Stonecaster
Before/After: After Jordan is killed and Reilanin and Chisaki deal with the aftermath.
Warnings: Improperly channeled grief.


Cold.

It was cold in the house.

She "woke up" on the couch blearily. She didn't know how much time had passed. She didn't recall straightaway that anything was out of the ordinary, only that she was confused as to why she was on the couch. She shifted, and something moved in her arms.

The urn-like vial lay there.

She stared at it a long time, trying to process its presence. As hard as she tried, she simply couldn't come close to what it was, and she eventually sat up, holding it in her hands and staring at it blankly, before she put it down gently on the coffee table and stood.

The mana potion and her resting mode had cleared up the damage Jordan had done. Ignoring the emptiness of the house and the blankness of the wards, she went to the bathroom and drew water into the tub. She didn't think to heat it. She stripped and got in, washing herself free of her own blood, her mind flatlined. Mechanically she went through the motions of cleaning herself up, got out, dried herself off with a towel and wrapped it around herself, drained the tub. She took her clothes and brought them upstairs to lay them out on the bed, sheets still rumpled from the last night Alexander had been in the house. It didn't register as she looked over her clothes and then began to repair the torn bodice.

The lock of his hair fell out, drifting to the floor. She bent down and picked it up, then put it aside, unfeeling.

Her dress and its layers repaired, magic again applied to clear it of bloodstains, grass stains and dirt, she dressed again, every movement methodical. Every snap and button done up, every lacing tied off, all done on her own. She had always been able to do it on her own. It had simply taken less time with Alexander.

She took up the lock of red hair and put it back into her bodice before she drifted back down the stairs. Her steps seemed louder, as though they echoed. Once at the bottom she turned to the front door and picked up her boots. She sat once more in the living room and put them on, seeing that the lacings were even and firmly pulled and crossed. She left the room, finding her satchels in the study upstairs next to her staff.

Down once more. Every step was like a shotgun blast. She could still hear Jordan's pistol going off. She picked up the vial of ashes and considered them objectively. What properties would a molavvas have...?

She returned to the World Library by way of portal. Her office was untouched from the other day. She put the ashes on the shelf, next to the heart of the Asha, and considered their placement a moment before she turned and went to her desk, sorting through the leftover demands from Upas she had yet to complete. She left once to go to the front desk to ask if any mail had been left for her. She returned with the next list and steadily worked through it without any regard for time.

The details weren't the problem. Reilanin knew what had happened, at least insofar as to know what the end result was. The house would be empty when she returned. She would be alone. She would be alone for a long time. But there was no understanding to go with the knowledge. She worked tirelessly because in this place she could not tire, and when everything was done, she had no other option than to return home.

But it wasn't home anymore.

The portal opened into the study. There were no signs of other life inside the house. She gripped her staff tightly and did nothing to settle in, instead stood and waited, sensing throughout the house with all of her might for... for what?

Dead. Alexander was dead. There was no one else in this house.

She took a slow step forward, then another. She made her way out of the study, into the hallway. She looked into the bedroom, where the bed remained unmade. Her book rested on the side table. One side of the wardrobe was open.

Down the hall. Down the stairs. Sound ricocheted off the walls. Quiet but noisy. Her skirts brushed the stairs as she walked down them.

The bathroom was quiet save the familiar drip, drip noise from the tub's faucet. She ignored it and continued into the living room. Things, useless things littered the living room. Books, Alexander's tablet, a half-finished mug of tea, the little plush dog she had sent him from Earth in its prominent place on the coffee table. She stared at its stupid little expression for a long moment before she turned to the cellar. She opened the door, but nothing more. The air was cool, but the meat in it would go bad sooner rather than later.

She shut the door again with a decisive click before she turned to the kitchen. The last place. Something in her chest twisted again. What was she looking for? There was nothing to find. He isn't anything now. She stepped towards it, but could not enter the kitchen. She knew what awaited her there. She knew. She knew. And it scared her beyond belief.

Nothing. There was nothing.

The kitchen was as quiet as the rest of the house. Even with her in it, it was devoid of life. She was not a living being. She could not fill up all of the empty space within these walls. There was no warmth. There was no sound, no meaningful sound. There was nothing to wait for. Nothing to stay for. Nothing to come back to.

"...Alex."

Her voice startled her. It was so loud on its own! So loud, and yet there was no reply. She waited.

"...Alex!"

Her voice broke. She understood- she didn't understand-

This was the reality of the situation now. Alexander was dead. He would not be back. The house would stay like this forever. He was gone. This was not Afera. She could break every single dish but he would not be back to help her pick them up. She could feel fear welling up in her.

"I don't want this."

No one answered her.

"I don't want this!"

He isn't anything now.

"Do you hear me! I don't- I don't-!"

She cried it into the stillness and it came back to her, horrified and alone. It was like being beneath the veil all over again, but there would be no reprieve. She would not see Alexander's face ever again. She would not live and see it. She could not die and see it then either.

"No, no, no... no...!"

She moved away from the kitchen, clutching her breast, the crystal that served as her heart seeming as though it would crumble within her. Without Alexander, what would she do? What did she have? There was no home with only a single person to live there. There was no one to define her within it. Alexander's death had devalued her. Who she had become, who she had sought to be- it was Alexander that had shaped her.

But that shape did not hold without him to define her. It meant nothing without him.

The house meant nothing without him.

She could feel it welling up in her. Grief was unknown to her. So absorbed in it, she could not see outside of what had caused it, could not express it, could not reach past it. It enveloped her tightly and she cried out again as one wounded. Realization did not bring clarity, only more confusion, only more grief. This place that was so full of memories mocked her now.

There would be no relief. There would be no comfort.

The fire began at her feet and spread from there. She breathed, panting as one in pain. The floorboards began to blacken. The edge of a carpet began to curl before bursting into flame. Untouched she stood rooted to the spot, forcing the fire out further and further from her. The house- her home- it would all go down in flames. She would erase it. It could not exist. If Alexander could not- if he could not-

It expanded quickly. More and more caught on fire. The ring on her finger and her own shields safeguarded her from the flames. The archway into the kitchen was wreathed in fire. The couch, the armchair, igniting without hesitation. The flames creeped down the stairs into the cellar, the place she'd hid during the heat of the day. They made their way upstairs, as intent as she had been to devour the knowledge tucked away in the books lined up in the study.

There were traps in the house. She knew them all. Some she had disabled, some she had moved, some she had left as they were. As she forced more fire into the house, as she felt her wards falling one by one as the fire destroyed them, she reached out and broke every ward that she and the previous owner of the house had ever set up. The attacking books were disintegrated in the air. The sleeping spell was thwarted with only a glance. The house itself tried to get up and walk away, but Reilanin stumbled as its foundation shuddered and collapsed. The upper levels began to lose strength as its supports on the main floor turned to ash. The fire spiraled up and up, like a tornado, eating away at pointed roof and the weathervane that spun recklessly around until the heat caused it to bend over under its own weight, melting away.

As debris fell, her shields came to form a protective bubble around her. She had no thought to her own safety, only the will to burn, to burn more, to see everything destroyed by her own hand. As the frame collapsed, it glanced off of her shields and settled over and around her, eventually falling to encircle her. Magic ate away at the charred bits and broke them down into ashes. More, more- there could be nothing, nothing to salvage, nothing to save, nothing to remember. She could not remember. She did not want to remember. The sound of everything burning was deafening, a roaring in her ears, a rage that did not fall silent even as the house was reduced to nothing more than char and ash. The noise did not stop, outraged and wounded, until she breathed in and stopped screaming.

She clung to her staff still, tightly, but collapsed regardless of her intent, keeping upright only to her knees, staring sightless at the mess of ash beneath her feet. Her shield flickered and died away, and once again that featureless calm washed over her. Her mana was low- she wouldn't even be able to light an orb without risking falling into mana burn- but it was done. Not even the ceramic of the dishes had survived, none of the glass of the windows. Everything had been churned into dust.

No one approached the house. No one dared. Mage's houses- unreliable things. She sat for a long time, thoughtless, numb, unaware of the world around her.

She would start again. Be as she had been before Alexander had twisted her life in with his. It was the only answer she had- it was the only answer that made sense. When she sensed enough of her strength had returned, she dragged herself up again, her clothes covered in ash and soot. She walked out of the wreckage, towards the pond. The tree out in the front, the fence, both remained untouched. Only the plot where the house had stood had been affected. The rest didn't matter.

Pendleton squawked at her approach. Unable to tell whether he was upset or not, she hesitated. She was not good with animals. Neither of them had been. But this was not a thing to tie to Alexander- someone else had given Pendleton to her.

She considered killing the penguin, and stood a long time in thought while the penguin returned to the water, jumping out again onto the rock formation to the side. The duck, skittish, kicked its way through the water away from her, only to drift back lazily as though it had never been bothered.

Reilanin took the ward down and stepped forward. The duck panicked and flapped its wings and flew away. She stepped back again, startled, and watched it go. By the rocks she noticed more movement, but did not register it right away. Her staff she put back into its holster across her back. She waited until Pendleton came up again and grabbed him out of the water.

A footstool shuffled out from behind the rocks. She looked at it a long moment before she understood, and she reached down and picked it up as well.

And without looking back, Reilanin opened her portal for the last time from Stonecaster and stepped back into her office in the World Library.