Relative safety is cause enough for celebration

[warriorscribe]

Characters: Enoch and anyone
Setting: Cafeteria, this post is totally on the 18th what is schedule fail
Format: I'm starting prose, but I'll match you.
Summary: Enoch isn't one to turn down hospitality, and constant fighting's left him tired and hungry. And then he gets a taste of nostalgia. Basic aftermath post here, yep.
Warnings: Nothing yet!

Had it been a day as promised, he might not have had to rely on Rapid-Fire Recovery to avoid death. At least he had all his armor back because of it.

It was not a day. But they were safe. He hadn't even realized everyone had somehow lost half an hour, thinking he'd perhaps blacked out from fatigue. His steps had been uncertain on the stairs as he returned to the cafeteria to check on the others.

The sight of the "refreshments" as the strange-sounding voice had put it, took him by surprise for all of a moment before he made his way to the table and took a bread roll. He may need to sleep, but to refuse this food would be rude, and if he went to sleep now, he'd just wake up sooner than he needed from hunger.

His fatigue was forgotten when he bit into the roll and tasted the familiar sweet tang of that fruit he didn't know. Chewing slowly, he looked down at the roll in his hands. Bread with this flavor was the first food he'd given Armaros when they'd first found themselves in Meridian. It was what he'd been eating when he'd written...his free hand went to the pocket containing the card he'd written the words "my hero" on, fingering the plastic surface where he knew the words to be.

He forced himself to swallow and looked up at the ceiling, a habit to hide tears from observers. But no tears came. The tight ache of grief was there in his chest, but...he was too drained. Too relieved. And in spite of everything, he felt accomplished. He and the others had held them off and kept everyone below them safe.

"If I could celebrate this with you..." he whispered, not seeming to realize he'd spoken aloud. He reached for more of the blueberry-flavored rolls, as many as he could fit in the crook of his arm.

Comments

[knightime]

"Yeah. That's a good way to see it."

Oh. This is hitting awkward territory really fast. How do you explain not having parents and ectobiology to someone? You don't. That's something Dave isn't really interested in figuring out.

"What? Naw, man. I just never had any. It's complicated. Don't even worry about it. Bro was like the best fucking parent." Except when he wasn't, but that's not important. Hahhhh.

[warriorscribe]

Never had any? It didn't sound like he wanted to talk about it, though, and while Enoch was a curious man, he wouldn't pry if the other seemed uncomfortable. It sounded a lot, in fact, like he was an adopted orphan and his brother had never made any secret of the fact.

Back to last names, then. "Now that I think about it, most last names I've heard sound as if they come from lineage or a place..."

[knightime]

Dave just gets really weird about family stuff. But it's hard to really talk about your brother when you also know he's dead.

"I guess that's what they are. I mean, it makes it easier for you to know who's related to who. It's not that huge of a deal though. It's totally cool not having a last name."

[warriorscribe]

That's true too - if Enoch had known that, he would've dropped the subject a lot more quickly.

"We started out without them well enough," he said with a weak smile, an attempt at humor despite their state.

[knightime]

It's not Enoch's fault that Dave is ultra cagey about things about his Bro.

"They're kind of nice to have. You wouldn't get the same feeling if you yelled Dave at the top of your lungs versus saying Strider," Dave said with a shrug.

[warriorscribe]

That sentiment, at least, is something Enoch can agree with, as a scribe. "That's true. They do have very different sounds to them. Though, it isn't sound so much as meaning that most parents name their children for."

[knightime]

"I think we're kind of overthinking this whole last name business." And he's probably distracting you from eating. Oops.

[warriorscribe]

Well, Enoch wouldn't know. This is the first time he's had last names explained to him, after all.

But he respects the desire to change topics, so he offers Dave one of the blueberry-flavored rolls. "Food like this was ordinary in Meridian - the world I was in before this one. It was strange, but it made mealtimes interesting."

[knightime]

Dave takes it from him. That was nice of you. He just mumbles a bit of a thanks.

"What is Meridian?" Sounds like some medieval world or something from Dave's point of view. "These are kind of like breakfast shit I think. Something that's quick to eat. Although, I'm pretty sure making it would take hell of a long time."

[warriorscribe]

"A world similar to this, but...kinder. It was near many 'rifts' that would take people that happened to be near them to the city. It was...mostly peaceful there."

He looks down at the rolls in his arms before starting on another one. He misses Meridian...misses the peace, misses Armaros.

[knightime]

"Guess this isn't exactly Disneyland."

Dave can say that he definitely rather not be here, but he can't say he misses where he was before. Then again, he doesn't have an opinion about it either because he only saw a glimpse of things before waking up here.

[warriorscribe]

"Where?"

The question had to be obvious, considering how obviously ancient he was. Not knowing last names, and all.

[knightime]

"Forget it. It's a future thing I guess."

He forgets. Not everyone gets the great chance to go to Disneyland.

[warriorscribe]

A comparable peaceful place in his time, Enoch assumes. Automatically, he accepts the dismissal, long used to Lucifel giving up on or failing to explain things that for whatever reason he deemed unnecessary or didn't feel like talking about.

"If you say."

[knightime]

Dave was pretty sure that it wouldn't help, even if he did explain it. How do you explain an amusement park to someone who's probably never seen one.

"Maybe one day you'll see it and you'll come back to me telling me all about it. I'd just be like 'yo dawg, I told you so' or something because, fuck if they don't do a good job at trying to make it the happiest fucking place on Earth." Not that Earth exists anymore for him.

[warriorscribe]

"If it can be restored." If it was truly gone. Enoch wasn't sure what he thought anymore. On one hand, there was the person with the once-flooded world. On the other, Dax didn't strike Enoch as deceitful. Could Ruana be hiding something from all of them?

"I'll be certain to watch for it." The tone was friendly, almost joking, though the thoughts from before didn't really make that clear.

[knightime]

"You think it's actually gone?" Dave was always skeptical about it, but Dave arrived from a Green sun. He had no planet to be saved from. It was already gone as far as he knew.

"It'll happen. We can't be stuck here forever." At least, he likes to think that.

[warriorscribe]

"I don't know. We don't know enough yet." Enoch didn't want to believe it, himself, but that was mostly because if he did believe it it would mean acknowledging that everything he'd done was in vain. And that was three centuries of pain that would be negated.

"Something will show itself eventually."

[knightime]

"What if I told you I wasn't on a planet of any kind to be saved from, but they send me home to one anyways. Before I arrived here, it was already gone. It got destroyed by meteors or something." Not that it really changes anything to be honest. They were all still stuck in this Tower regardless.

[warriorscribe]

"You were sent back to a world that was already destroyed?"

That was strange, indeed...though, wouldn't it be possible for something to be destroyed in one manner and then have something else destroy it further? He didn't know anything about the worlds others were sent back to...

[knightime]

"Yeah. As far as I'm concerned, it should have been destroyed completely. Nothing left for it to exist. I think I was floating over nothing, so i guess I should be glad that when I get sent back, it isn't to nowhere."

Dave will just completely never believe that the tower dragged him here because something destroyed wherever he was.

[warriorscribe]

"I'll ask about it when I can..." Just because it made no sense to him didn't mean there was no answer. As long as he asked someone who wasn't untrustworthy...

[knightime]

"Good luck getting an answer. They're pretty cagey about information." At least, it seems like they are. "And most of what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt. But if you find someone who might be able to tell you anything, that's a start."

[warriorscribe]

"Dax doesn't seem like a dishonest man. I'll be certain to ask him, when I do ask."

At least, he'd seemed genuinely concerned for them, and had given them this feast when someone had asked for a celebration of their survival. He doubted the others would have done the same.

[knightime]

"It depends if they're willing to tell us anything." They've given some information, but not quite enough for what happens here.

Honestly, he didn't care much for Dax. He was kind of just there and it was usually the easiest time when Dax was in charge.