I was left to my own devices; many days fell away with nothing to show

[provenworth]

Characters: Elena and YOU
Setting: February 7th – Various Locations [See Prompts]
Format: Action but will match yours
Summary: Elena is running a few errands and meeting up with Dia to discuss a sensitive situation.
Warning: Possible language, who knows?

[Floor 19 | Research Library | Early morning]

[Despite the few bits and pieces of information that Elena has been able to understand and align to their current situation, she’s not been making much progress with the books she’s been working her way through. It was frustrating, the technical details of each of the books extensive and surpassing her own levels of education and training. But, despite the long hours reading and attempting to find something that could be utilized to better their situation, she wasn’t even close to giving up.

Down in the research library, Elena has started a new collection of various books, building a small pile at the end of an empty table. Standing between a pair of bookshelves, she’s holding one massively large book in her arms, head downturned to read through the finely printed text. The only sound that comes from where she’s standing is the shifting of paper as each page is slowly turned.]


[Floor 22 | Art Gallery | Closed to Diarmuid | Noon]

[It wasn’t easy finding Diarmuid’s room, taking her nearly half an hour scouring the numerous levels until she finally found it. The folded note she’d written him was tucked beneath the door for him to find later, the instructions easy enough to understand.

Dia, Need to talk to you. 22nd Floor @ noon - Elena

[And so, after completing her quick stop to the research library, Elena makes her way to the art gallery. It’d been some time since she’s been there, chased out by horrifying paintings of Gaia and Northern Cavern. So she’s not going too far into the gallery, instead staying close to the doorway in case she’d in need of a hasty retreat.]


[Floor 14 | Media Room | Dusk]

[Music can be heard coming from this floor, various melodies can be hear, the volume low to sooth the figure inside listening to it. Seated quietly in a chair to herself is Elena, her left hand resting in her lap and her right upright, elbow on the arm of her chair. Fingers curl into a loose fist and support her chin as she listens, looking almost as if she were asleep. Be careful in your approach, though, Elena is very much awake and beneath her recently acquired leather coat - carefully crafted by a particular red-head - is her firearm.]

Comments

[Floor 22 | Art Gallery | Noon]

[provenworth]

[All in all, the art housed in the gallery is actually quite pretty. All the colors and images of worlds unknown - lost for all eternity. It begs to ask if there was some truth to the statement that they were rescued from their dying worlds. Why else take the art if it weren't the case?

Dia's voice pulls her from one painting in particular, the many shades of blue in the starry sky, twirling in a evening breeze captivating her interest. Nodding, she moved back towards the doorway.]

I did, yes. I'm sure you can guess why I've asked to speak with you. I was hoping you would have a different perspective on the issue that could help me better understand the situation.

[oathshackledbird]

I have a good idea.

[Diarmuid crosses his arms over his chest loosely. While the room itself has him on guard, this meeting does as well. Yes, he has been worried about Reno lately, but at the same time it bothers Diarmuid just a little that she has called him out like this all of the sudden. He doesn't mind trying to discuss ways to help Reno, but at the same time he has promised not to share some of the things the man has told him. Her vague question makes Diarmuid worried she is going to try and pry that stuff out of him just like Reno has pried information out of him before.

He's going to have to keep his guard up.]

It is...a complex issue. Would you mind specifying what part we are discussing?

[provenworth]

[There is a method to her madness, there always is. Especially when the subject at hand was something that was either confidential or of great importance that details be left out until both people involved were on the same page.]

That much I'm aware. Frustratingly so. Despite our partnership on two levels, he doesn't seem willing to share what's going on in that brain of his.

[Which meant that she had to do what she really wasn't expecting and what she hadn't been fond of doing. Collecting information behind his back. Which, if and when word got to him, would possibly infuriate the red-head, even if it was with the best intentions.]

Its been noticed by not just myself, but several others of our team, that Reno has fallen into a fit of negativity. To the point that he appears to be withdrawing from the team as a whole. Hell, the man won't even talk to me without stopping at some point and not wanting to share what he's going through.

I was hoping, as somebody who had a different sort of relationship with him, that you could provide an outside perspective. Maybe tell me anything that he might have told you that could help me figure out what he's holding back.

[oathshackledbird]

Did you ever stop to think that might be because you are doing the same to him, Lady Elena?

[The title is usually a form of respect, but now something else lies in it too, and that something else grows stronger as she keeps speaking. Suddenly, it's almost as if a different person is standing there, Diarmuid's previous open wariness closing off with a snap and being replaced by a cold facade instead.]

Did you just seriously ask me to break confidence with someone I view as a brother? Perhaps instead of seeking out others, you should stop avoiding him and talk to him openly and honestly. Being willing to open your soul and bare your own pain goes a long way to getting someone else to do that same.

[He and Reno had both been in agony emotionally that night in the ballroom, but they had both discovered so much about themselves that Diarmuid believes the pain to have been worth it.]

You do not trust him with your soul and he does not trust you. It is sad your marriage has come to this...

[provenworth]

[When Elena had requested to speak to Diarmuid, it had been with the intent to help get an outside view on what was going on with Reno. An innocent intelligence gathering that she would use to then make a decision on how best to approach the situation. But she hadn't expected to find herself on the wrong end of a lecture.]]

You speak out of turn, Diarmuid, considering the only information that you've been told has been wholly one sided. [And, of course, the idea of breaking any sort of trust causes hair on the back of her neck to rise.] No, I did not ask you to break confidence. What I asked was a fresh perspective because I question my own.

[Arms move to cross over her chest, mouth frowning. Because everything he says makes sense, but there's one hell of a barrier that the man apparently didn't know about. Probably because Reno didn't know it was a barrier that he was putting up.]

Tell me then, since you seem so well informed, how exactly do you be open and honest when the man doesn't want to hear it. Anytime I mention anything of prior experiences I had outside the Tower with him - the him back before our world was destroyed - he shuts me down. After enough times, the desire to share is worn down.

[There's an inch in her palm. A very deep desire to slap him, silence him. For making such a statement boldly to her face.]

Don't you....don't you dare. If he's told you as such, then so be it. But don't you dare assume that I, for one instant, don't trust him. With my life or my heart or my soul.

[oathshackledbird]

What insanity has possessed you that makes you think he wants to hear about a different version of himself? A version he. Can. NEVER. Be!

[Diarmuid gestures angrily, almost tipping a nearby picture off its stand.]

Do you have any idea how much pressure that puts on someone? Especially after what happened with Rusty?

[He turns from her in disgust, taking a few steps away so that he can calm himself and refocus. While Reno has only vaguely hinted at the pressure that knowing of that other version has placed on him, Diarmuid hadn't actually needed to hear the man's words to understand.

For how long had his own greatest fear been that Waver's Diarmuid would show up in the Tower and take his place?

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. How is it that Elena and Reno have ended up on such different pages? Is it really worth it to try and save...

Diarmuid shakes his head. No, he doesn't give up on things, and he won't give up on this. Not when it was their wedding that gave him the courage back then to consider he too might be able to find love in this place.]

Go with him to the ballroom floor and talk. If you trust him as much as you say, go. You cannot hide there. He cannot hide there. Ask your questions and let him ask his. It's time you two stopped dancing around each other and the real issues. The Tower issues. Not issues from your home world. Not issues from his. Issues from the world that you share here.

[provenworth]

I don't focus on him, Dia. I focus on the things that have made me me! Experiences. Stories. Because if I can't even tell him who I am, why should I bother with anything else!? I'm not from his time. I'm two years in his fucking future.

[Cheeks flush with rising anger, arms uncrossing and hands fisting at her sides.]

Don't you go there. I saw Rusty and I haven't forgotten his face. Why else do you think I try so hard to serve as that balance for Reno? I don't want him to end up that way.

[She honestly and truly doesn't, which is why she's retreated within herself. Maintained the solid rock that Reno could go to and rest. Even if it meant denying herself the opportunity to honestly be open to the man. Denying herself the chance to actually take the time to work on her own issues. Though sometimes she's sure she focuses on others so she doesn't have to focus on herself.]

It sounds to me that you're telling me that I have to remain closed to him to prevent that from happening? Which does nothing to better this situation. [And makes the purpose of this meeting wholly useless.] I have no problem going, but I doubt he'll even want to talk given the way he's been acting recently.

[Its taking a lot of willpower to pull back her heated temper and the boiling anger that lay beneath, ready to explode.]

...You care a lot for him.

[oathshackledbird]

You...don't listen any better than he does, do you? I just told you to go to a floor that forces the people on it to tell each other the truth and somehow you pull away from that you are to hide from him even more?

[Diarmuid shakes his head.]

Stop listening so hard to your denials and assumptions and start looking for the truth, Elena. Being a 'balance' is just another name for being someone's rock. Funny thing about rocks is the walls they put up to remain that way makes it really hard to hear what is going on around them. You are his rock; he is yours and neither of you hear what the other is really saying. Being someone's 'balance' isn't being their partner, and husbands and wives are suppose to be partners above everything else.

[He fixes her with a steel-edged glare.]

Stop standing in front of him and start standing beside him before you destroy yourself, and he is too weak to stand on his own. For, if you fail my brother that badly...

[The look in Diarmuid's eyes darkens.]

...you will find out the hard way why I have told everyone they should fear the darkness that was awakened inside of me.

[provenworth]

Funny thing about us Turks, we're stubborn as hell. An annoying trait, though, for anybody who has to suffer us.

[Which is part-joke, part-apology, and whole truth. Its why Turks didn't really have friends outside of the team. That and, well, back on Gaia they had a very big anti-fan base. Arms fold over her chest, hands gripping to her shirt hiding beneath her coat, fingernails biting into skin beneath.

Elena is a very patient woman, willing to put up with a great deal. Willing to tolerate just shy of anything. But what she has little patience for is criticism from outside sources.]

Don't....Just, don't. You talk so passionately about partnership, but you know very little about our relationship save whatever Reno has decided to share. You haven't seen what I have - seen the man crumble at my feet and feeling so helpless. So useless. I do what I can with what I am given and if that means being a rock before being a partner, because that means he might be able to rise to his feet strongly, then so be it.

[Elena returns his gaze with one of her own, expression neutral. But it was the eyes that held their own lethal fire behind them.]

I do not stand in front of him nor have I done anything to weaken him. Everything I do and have done and will do is to give him strength, even if it costs me my own. And if I do fail... [Her chin lowers minutely.] Living with that will be far worse than anything you could do to me. Though I will certainly accept whatever you wish to bring to the table.

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid looks at her quietly for a moment...and then laughs. Loudly. The sound is in no way happy. In fact, it's a rather mocking sound. Suddenly, he understands very clearly why Reno feels the way he does.]

Don't scold me about making assumptions when you are making your own. Don't assume I have not had him at my feet spilling his heart, broken, crying, and helpless. The difference is that I chose to join him there, instead of standing cold and separate from him when he needed someone to be with him. Rocks aren't as supportive as you seem to think they are. Especially not when they shatter and the shards of what the once were kill what they tried so hard to protect.

[He turns then and starts toward the exit, pausing after a few steps, though he doesn't look back at her.]

If you cannot see just how much what you are doing currently is already failing him...

[He looks back at her, finally, and for the first time, sadness entering his eyes.]

...then there really is no hope for your partnership. People change. No matter how stubborn. They move forward. Except for a few. A few who forever insist on remaining in the past. A few who are blinded by what was and refuse to see what now is.

The past may have once made you, Lady Elena, but the past doesn't hold him and it doesn't hold your future. You need to decide what is more important to you before you lose the chance to make the choice. He wants, he needs, a partner who loves him, not a rock who smothers him with good intentions.

However, he cannot make you realize that. Nor can I. That choice is yours and yours alone. What will you do?

[provenworth]

[There was something wholly uncomfortable, foreboding about the man's laughter. There was no mirth behind it, just a coldness that sent ice through her veins. Which she found only amplified at his short speech. About Reno being so utterly open and honest with somebody who wasn't her and the gut-wrenching feeling that it ought to have been.

Though if there were any sign that he was actually getting to her, any further emotion about what Dia had seen and witnessed, what he had been told, was carefully hidden by the veneer of professionalism that she sought shelter under.]

You concern for the man in endearing, Diarmuid, and I can appreciate what you're trying to do for him. I can and I do. And now you've said your peace. I doubt anything further that I could say would change your mind on the matter, much less give you a new perspective on a situation you've accidentally - because I'm sure you wouldn't have put yourself in it by choice - found yourself in.

[Eyes blink, calm expression belying the angry helplessness beneath.]

I came to you out of honest concern, Diarmuid. Not to be chastised for my actions or decisions when it comes to my marriage or my role in it. But I will think on your words, if that brings you any sense of comfort or accomplished duty.

[oathshackledbird]

Duty? Accident? Is there really nothing left to you besides the Turk, Lady Elena? Because I hate to tell you, while it might be a large part of you, not everything can be solved through that lens. The Turks were a family that lived on your world. You need to start noticing your family here. It is very different from that one, even if it was founded with some of the same principles in mind.

[Diarmuid shakes his head, the last of his anger bleeding out painfully. He doesn't like this. Yelling at her, hurting her. He knows he only has one side of the story because only one side wants to share it! The others has already admitting to being more worried about hiding her views and only being strong...

A frustrated sigh slips from his mouth. He wants things to work out between she and Reno. They were the ones who gave him hope that love could be found in a place as terrible as this one, after all! To see their relationship failing so badly...]

I do not act out of duty nor do I act because of a situation I 'accidentally' found myself in. I act because I care. I act because I saw someone who was hurting the same way I was and my heart screamed with an honest need to help. You came to me asking for a new perspective. You have been given it. It isn't my fault you don't like what you are hearing. It almost sounds like you came looking less for a new perspective and more of a confirmation of your own. I am sorry. That I cannot and will not give you. I only hope you can find the woman inside of you again long enough to actually hear what I have told you, instead of just hiding behind the defensive walls of 'Turk' that you have built.

Everyone is wrong sometimes. Him. Me. You. There is nothing shameful about being wrong. The only shame is refusing to see when you are wrong until there is no time and nothing left to fix.

Please...start seeing. I am sure it will help him see again too.

[He bows his head to her, and then turns and walks off the floor.]