towerofanimus | Sinking

Characters: Enoch and anyone (one prompt closed to Urotsuki, one closed to Lucifel)
Setting: Various floors in the tower, August 2, August 6 and August 8. More prompts to come pending Individuation and infiltration results, watch this space!
Format: Starting in prose, but it doesn't matter.
Summary: Enoch makes an attempt to help someone in particular, and then has a complete and utter breakdown two days later
Warnings: Mentions of character death?

August 2, Floor 101

a - open: Anyone on the hanging gardens floor who happened to be passing under a rather tall palm might have a few dates fall at their feet. Or on their heads - thankfully the palm in question wasn't a coconut palm! Looking up would reveal someone's up there - Enoch, with ropes made of braided gauze and stone weights helping him scale the trunk, making his way down slowly with a bunch of dates awkwardly held in one hand. Maybe he'd share!

b - closed to first responder: Something had caught Enoch's eye as he headed back to the stairs with his new harvest in hand - a Succubus, hovering patiently where she could catch nearly anybody passing through. At first, Enoch seemed curious by her lack of aggression, though still wary. As the monster fluttered over to take one of the dates from the bunch in his hand, all his wariness and curiosity gave way to a dazed calm. Seeing this, the Succubus dropped the fruit, useless to her, and took Enoch's arm to lead him off. Anyone care to try to snap him out of it or attack the Succubus before she kills him?

August 6, Floor 12(locked to chainsawn)

Enoch had managed to avoid seeing Kidou's gravestone until now, that part of the graveyard already cared for by his fellow gravekeepers. It figures that on the day he saw it, he would get that note from Urotsuki. He'd asked to meet her on her favorite floor, and it was sure she would be the one waiting for him. He entered the floor, into the swirling galaxies of destruction, keeping an eye out for the girl.

August 8, Floor 69, later 81 (Locked to brbtalkingtogod)

It didn't matter that Rick had been possessed. He still hadn't been trying to attack him. He had been running. And all the same...

Enoch wandered, his gaze a far away, troubled one. He didn't seem to have any idea where he was going, following staircases and riding elevators. He passed people without acknowledging them. Everything the monster in control of Rick still stung, mixing with the guilt of killing him, churning in his gut and filling him with numbness. It was only a matter of time before he stepped where there wasn't a step, tumbling off into the soft clouds of the floor below.

The pain began to abate. Dazed, Enoch stared straight up, already unwilling to move let alone what the floor would do to him. Even the peaceful air of this floor couldn't pierce the defensive numbness yet, only counteract the pain and guilt, so it left him with a detached sort of feeling, one in which nothing quite seemed to matter.

August 8, Floor 81

Lucifel had moved Enoch away from that floor, and while it seemed he would stay with the scribe all day, even he had to leave for various mundane things like food and drink. While his guardian wasn't there, Enoch lay in the bulges of the windows, facing up to look at the stars above. He appeared vulnerable, hugging himself and staring out at the alien constellations distantly, his back propped slightly against the incline so he wasn't lying flat, cradled in the bulge of the window. He had to apologize to Rick, but he had no motivation to even move. To think more on that thought. He let his mind empty again. He doesn't acknowledge anyone who simply approaches (unless their names are Patrick Dawn or Lucifel), but he will respond to conversation attempts, though it may take a try or two to get his attention.

August 11, Floor 100

Well, he hadn't meant to do anything on this floor. But when four shadow children walked up to him and grinned unsettlingly, ultimately trapping him on the stairs, he had to jump off, floating to the room below with his Arch.

It took him a moment, in the sudden sharp pain of seeing the house in Meridian again, wound torn open by his prior encounter with the thing that had possessed Rick, to realize the shadow children weren't attacking him. Instead, they'd followed him off the stairs and gathered around him. He reached out to gently push one out of his way, and his hand went right through it.

He had to wonder if he was hallucinating. On seeing someone else pass by on the stairs with their own in tow, he asked, "Ah...do you know what these are?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

*Young children were of no consequence to the Succubus, she didn't even expect her to fight - she didn't even spare her a glance over her shoulder.

Until the rock hit her and she let out a startled cry, crashing to the ground. Enoch staggered and stumbled into the trunk of a nearby tree, the haze in his mind clearing slowly. The dates in his hand dropped to the ground and he reached to pull the sling from around his neck, his other hand going to the pouch at his waist. As the Succubus struggled to her feet, Enoch's point-blank shot hit her between the eyes, and she collapsed again, dazed and bleeding from her new head wound.

It took another moment for him to tear his gaze away again, and pick up the dates he'd dropped before walking quickly towards Yotsuba.*

Thank you, Yotsuba.

[As the Succubus hit the ground, Yotsuba kept her gaze up and away from the monster. She would have drawn another bullet, but when Enoch managed to compose himself and take the monster down for the count, she abandoned those thoughts and looked up at Enoch. She wasn't sure if the creature was dead, but it probably was, from her view of things. If she wasn't, well, then Yotsuba would fire another shot.

While she would smile at Enoch, there was no way she was letting him off without trying to act a bit like a grown-up.]

You're welcome! Be more careful, okay?! Your head gets really messy when you look at that monster, so be careful! And don't die! And..what fruits are those? Are they yummy?

*He smiled a bit, amused by her attempts to sound grown-up and responsible. She'd earned it after a save like that.*

They're dates, and they are. ...I need to wash these before we can eat them, though.

*He actually wants to boil them down into a syrup to dip nutrition bars in. But he's going to forget all about that soon enough.*

[While Yotsuba wasn't aware the the syrup made from a date could make a nutrition bar taste better, her smile would just widen at that comment, partially because she was always interested in good food and partially because she was really curious about this new fruit!]

Okay! Let's wash them off and eat them together then! They look yummy..and we can eat them somewhere without any monsters!

[And Yotsuba would even remain on foot during the whole thing, since Enoch's armor made it very hard for her to play cicada and sit on his shoulders.]

*They were only one flight up from the dorms, after all. Enoch leads Yotsuba up to the fifth dorm floor bathrooms, where he broke a few dates off for Yotsuba.*

Here, go wash these in the sink. I'll wash the ones I have, and we can meet outside.

*Sure, leaving him alone to such a mundane task wouldn't help him. But he didn't want to deal with Yotsuba asking if it was really okay to go into the men's restroom, nor did he want to intrude on the privacy of the women's.*

[Normally, Yotsuba would have tried to hold Enoch's hand or the like, but this time, she didn't, choosing instead to put her sling back in her sash pouch before taking the dates that Enoch handed her when they finally reached the bathrooms. Yotsuba, for better or worse, was puzzled about this, since she hadn't quite learned about gender-separated bathrooms yet and wasn't sure why they were separating. But since they would meet again, she just smiled and spoke up.]

Okay then! Yotsuba will do that and we'll meet back here!

[And with that, Yotsuba would take her dates into the girls bathroom and wash them off in the sink, singing as she did so.]

Splish, splash!~
Time to take a bath!!~
So that we can eat you up!

[A few minutes later she would run out of the bathroom, carrying washed but not dried dates and looking around for Enoch.]

*Enoch would take longer because he had more dates to wash, but he eventually came out to join her. He smiled down at her.*

There you are. Did you get all the dirt off of yours?

[And when he finally came out, she would smile up at him and hold up the wet dates when he asked the question. While they were wet, they were free of dirt and grime.]

I did! Did you clean yours?!

Of course I did. *Enoch can't help but chuckle.* You should eat the softest ones first, unless they're too soft.

*He finds a particularly overripe date on his bunch and shows it to her to feel for how soft is "too soft"*

[Yotsuba, of course, couldn't just look at the date, she tried to touch it and see how it felt, which was..a bit squishier than the dates she held. Not that she really minded.]

Oh..it's super squishy! Do they taste yucky like that?

*He doesn't mind, of course. That'd been the point.*

They're not good to eat when they're that soft. It can make you sick.

[Thankfully, she didn't press on it so hard that it broke the skin of the fruit, and after feeling it, she pulled her hand back to better hold on to her dates.]

Okay! Yotsuba doesn't wanna get sick, so I'll try and remember!

[Not that she thought it was easy for her to get sick, even though she was pretty average when it came to fighting back colds and the like. However, with that done, Yotsuba would take one of the dates she was holding, check it's freshness, and bite into it, smiling as she chewed and tasted it before swallowing and speaking.]

It's yummy, Enoch!

Sinking

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