❝hold your own, know your name❞

[guiltapalooza]

Characters Willow (guiltapalooza) and you! OPEN.
Setting: The infirmary.
Format: Action to start, but I'll match if you want prose.
Warnings: Maybe some mention of past violence.
Summary: Though she's laid up in the infirmary with some pretty debilitating wounds, Willow's feeling a lot better than she has in months, and is more her usual self. Her magic is finally back, and she's welcome to visitors.

[Willow is currently propped up in bed, a stack of pillows fluffed behind her and the layers of blankets tucked around her. There's healing, scabbed scrapes on one cheek, and her right hand is splinted; she's wearing rather boring gray thermal pajamas, but along the neckline clean white bandages can be seen wrapping across her torso. It's not a surprise that with how battered she is she's also very tired. She's rather dazedly holding a mug of tea in her hands, cradled in her lap to stabilize it while she rests and not bother her injuries.

But despite all this, when someone enters she looks up to greet them with a sleepy smile.] Hey.

Comments

[guiltapalooza]

I don't envy you, that's for sure, [she admits, sighing faintly as she fidgets in bed. Her healing wounds are itchy and uncomfortable, and still lingering painful since she doesn't want to be doped on painkillers. Meditating to speed her healing along just makes the itchiness worse.

She tries to focus.] Well... we more or less got along okay at first. I mean, he's a jerk, but he didn't seem like a murderous jerk. I know he feels something for Eridan, as his ancestor. My Eridan, I mean.

Apparently he doesn't feel anything for the other one, because I found him with his arm torn off, in the hallway. He was just left there, bleeding. [The words are terse and clipped off. Willow's trying not to get emotional about it, but she has an instinctual reaction to innocent people getting hurt, and jade Eridan was young enough and nice enough that she thought of him that way.]

[floreatnoctem]

He can be quite deceptive about his more violent habits, yes.

[Chidori had already been more or less well-aware of them considering the state in which she'd met him, and she'd never really been surprised that sea life wasn't the only thing he'd easily take a sword or his rifle to.]

...I recall that. Eridan was very much against telling me what happened to him.

[Yet another thing to discuss with Dualscar when she got a chance to do so.]

Is that why you're so angry at him?

[After all, he might not be the one Willow was dating, but it was a version of Eridan- Chidori couldn't honestly say she'd be able to keep herself neutral if someone hurt the other Minato, so she could understand if that was part of the reason.]

[guiltapalooza]

No. Well, I was. I was angry. And I know that there's no point in fighting him over something that's already happened, because... if I killed him he'd just come back.

[She says this relatively matter-of-factly. Though Willow hates killing anyone, hates even talking about it, the circumstances of her life have taught her that sometimes it needs to happen. Sometimes the way to keep people safe is to kill what's making them not safe, no matter how human that thing is. So while she's not thrilled to have to do it personally, she'd be perfectly willing to kill Dualscar, or anyone else that needed it, herself. It's just one of those things that needs to be done, in her view.

But as she'd said, that's not a real option here.] So I cursed him instead. I gave him empathy for a day; I made him consider other peoples' feelings before he did anything. I thought maybe the experience would be educational. [There's a beat, and then she forces herself to reluctantly admit,] I also made him say bad pick up lines as some petty vengeance. [She couldn't really help herself on that one.]

[floreatnoctem]

Revival does not seem to matter to some here.

[She knows it wouldn't matter to Strega, if any of them got vengeance into their heads. She doesn't quite like the idea of Willow- or anyone else, really- killing Dualscar however, especially not when it's put so flippantly.]

Oh- was that you? I thought something was strange when it happened out of nowhere. [A beat, and-] The pickup lines could not have been worse than anything I've heard from him before.

[guiltapalooza]

[Willow's more than socially aware enough to realize that straight up telling Chidori she wouldn't mind seeing Dualscar dead was problematic, but in her opinion it was deceitful to pretend it wasn't true. It would just make more problems for Chidori if she wasn't aware of how things really were. She's had altogether enough lying in her life to realize that.]

It matters to me. Violence for no reason isn't a habit I want to get into. If they're just going to come back, it's... it's vengeance, it doesn't protect anyone. [And evidently she's not okay with that, or rather, she thinks she shouldn't be.]

[As to the last part, she says sheepishly,] That was sort of the point. That was me, but-- I probably shouldn't have done it. [She'd known that before, but it'd been covered in her usual desperate attempt to avoid feeling guilty. Which, of course, failed eventually, and now here she was.]

[floreatnoctem]

[She did, if nothing else, appreciate the honesty- even if it did set her on edge to think of someone deliberately harming one of her friends. She didn't have many, and she tended to get protective of ones she did.]

A wise decision- and one I wish Dualscar would learn to make as well. [She really is working on it, but...] Or at the very least, keep such things contained to his own species. They don't quite seem to mind it as much. It's... strange.

[And a little troubling, at times, but she's not a troll. She has no right to judge, considering their society and what she's learned of it.]

Well, that hardly did any harm, save perhaps to his pride- and that could certainly stand it, considering who we're talking about.

[No use pretending Dualscar took very much of that bit of the experience as hard as someone else would have.]

[guiltapalooza]

[Willow knows the feeling. Nothing creates tension quite like having two of your friends in a vicious feud, and she's not happy to be one of the culprits. Even when she and Anya hadn't gotten along and put Xander in an awkward position, it hadn't been anything like this.]

It's socially normal for them to have vengeance cycles, I think, [she says, as it's something she's been thinking about herself.] Eridan never seems to get why I'm scared of going too far. And Dualscar is... I don't know how old, but old enough to be pretty thoroughly indoctrinated.

[She shrugs slightly and fiddles with her tea, running a finger along the rim and getting it damp, trying to hide her discomfort. It's hard to be sanguine talking about your own failings.] I do want him brought down a peg or two, but not-- like that. By antagonizing him. I got carried away, and it was stupid of me. [She was supposed to be past that, now.]

[floreatnoctem]

I sorely believe they need to reevaluate how wise something like that is in a place like this.

[With the way things have been going lately, she honestly thinks the aggression they all show toward each other could be better directed. And she doesn't simply mean the trolls, either. All of them could probably stand to be a little less petty about their grudges...

But then that would probably include her distaste for S.E.E.S., and she's not sure she can let that particular grudge go so easily.]

To be honest, I hadn't thought to ask his age. Perhaps I shall.

[She's not sure about the lifespan of trolls really, but Dualscar at the very least looks considerably older than her.]

Don't worry too much about it now- it's done, and I'm sure you've better things than to bother trying again. [Chidori shrugs, and reaches forward to pat her leg.] I'm sure he'll get better soon.

[She hopes.]

[guiltapalooza]

I think they need to reevaluate a lot of things, [she says sourly.] Why did all the reasonable trolls have to leave? All the ones that left are a little... un-adjusty. [By which she means they all seem to think playing by troll society rules is something inviolable that doesn't need to be reexamined. (Her perspective may be very slightly, aka massively, biased on this.)]

Ask his birthday, too, [she suggests, perking up as she redirects things in a sillier direction quite deliberately.] Or just make one up and surprise him with a little shindig. Maybe if he had presents and streamers he'd spend less time pimp smacking me. I really don't want a repeat of that experience. [Implication being that Chidori's right, Willow really doesn't want to try again on fighting him if she can help it.]

[floreatnoctem]

How many of them have gone? [She can't say she really knew how many there were to begin with, but she'd like to know who's left at least. And how high she needs to set her guard.]

Birthday? Do they even celebrate things like that? [She can't be sure they do, and if they do, she can't imagine what trolls would do to celebrate it. More to consider, at least.] Though I suppose something like that couldn't hurt... provided I could get anyone to attend.

[She has no illusions about his popularity in the tower, no she does not.]

[guiltapalooza]

I guess I'm mostly thinking of Aradia, but I haven't seen the Summoner around in ages. And both of the Solluxes, too. I wish we could trust anything we get told; I want them to be alright.

[And thinking of them all stuck in a barren wasteland, a crumbling post-apocalyptic landscape of their world, is genuinely upsetting. Willow bites her lip.]

Not too sure about troll birthdays. I think they call it a... wriggle something? [She's only heard it mentioned in passing, so she's not too clear on that.]

It doesn't need to be a party or anything, just cheer him up a little. Get him thinking about that instead of starting fights.