Come Sail Away IC Inbox

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's voice mail message is in a weary voice: "Erin Peters. If you called in the middle of the night and I didn't answer, I'm dying. If I pick up and someone on your end isn't dying, they will be shortly. Text otherwise."

Comments

[crushed_pearls]

"...People say that true art is suffering. This is because they are fucking stupid." Erin takes another long sip from her hat. "People talk up artists like Vincent Van Gogh and say, if he wasn't mentally ill we wouldn't have had his art! But the thing is, ol' Vinnie didn't do his best work from depression. He did it while he was being treated. The fucking Hunchback of Notre Dame was primarily motivated by a paycheck big enough for our man to visit every whore in Paris, which, I do not hesitate to add, he did. You've been suffering in silence for ages, little bird. Of course your hand is having trouble moving."

[decrypter]

There's a silence there between them, soft like feathers, like the steam that comes from a neglected cup of tea left to cool on their perch. Erin isn't going to let her call herself a liar either, and it's a frustrating, difficult thing, to accept being loved in a way where others will hold your hands so gently, to prevent you from digging your nails into your own nerves.

"What do I do, then?"

This is her agreement. This isn't hiding behind I'm fine by comparing her injuries to other people. This is admission that perhaps, it hasn't been fine for a very long time. Enough that to find the way out, help is needed.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin sighs softly. Makes a complicated and thoughtful sound; it's somehow both musical and distressed. Finally: "We're going to have to proceed on the understanding that I'm being a hypocrite. Not. On purpose, but still. You good to continue on those terms, little bird?"

[decrypter]

"Okay. I won't say anything about it."

Because hypocritical or not, she needs the advice. Needs a direction, a helping hand, to get out of this quagmire of her own mind.

[crushed_pearls]

"Okay." Deep breath, mainly to steady herself. "Whether or not you're a liar isn't the important part. The important part is, are you getting the help and support and care you need? I know Security's gotta be putting in a heroic effort here, but people have to let themselves be helped too. Set aside questions of worth or taint and try to focus on you. When you're free of the cage you've put yourself in, then you can face the mortifying ordeal of creation."

[decrypter]

There's a silence there, and then Helena shifts, reaches over for that tea that Erin brought to drink some more before it gets too cold.

"...I...am trying to not say it's fine if it isn't."

Which is very, very difficult. But she's come to talk about it, not to pretend it didn't happen, so that's some kind of progress. Even if she wants to apologize for bringing all this up at all, which she will bite back down.

[crushed_pearls]

"It's hard to let go of the things that helped us to endure in a bad place. You had to be fine for a very long time, even before you got far more literally imprisoned. And now you're here, where things can still be so scary, and old habits don't want you to let them go." There's a soft and knowing sigh. "But. That's the devil talking, little bird."

[decrypter]

She nods, a tiny thing, and breathes in the scent of the tea. At this rate, she's going to end up permanently associating tea with hard conversations and loved ones.

"I still worry, every morning before I open my eyes, that somehow I'll be back. And that everything I have here, it'll all fade into the mist. I'll have to go right back to surviving."

As if they aren't surviving here. But it's been months, and she hasn't had to feel that sick sensation of being hunted down.

"This place can be awful, no doubt, but it's not...that. That's why I keep count of how long it's been since I arrived - so I can see how much space there is between myself and there."

[crushed_pearls]

"...Peter Smith cursed my sense of ease when he said that home is where you feel safe, and I realized that I've never had such a place."

A small confession; an admission that Erin knows how Helena feels.

[decrypter]

In this respect, she thinks, she's fortunate. She still remembers that peaceful house, hours where she didn't have to worry about survival. She feels it when she's very close to her friends, close enough to remind herself that they are alive, and she is not there. And it's this that prompts her to ask:

"Have you ever felt safe with those you love?"

[crushed_pearls]

"...Not often. Mostly here."

[decrypter]

"I think, maybe, that could count as a home too. It doesn't always have to be a place with roots in the ground. It can be sitting beside someone who you know will never hurt you, even if they could."

She says it softly, extending the idea out as one might offer out a chick cupped in their hands. Small and fragile, but hopeful all the same.

"Of course, we'll keep looking for that place with roots for you, but...it wouldn't be home without love, would it?"

[crushed_pearls]

"That's been a new one on me too, but I do think you're right." Erin makes a wistful little sound. "I've put my boots into the dust of six continents and I still wanted one place to call home. It's nice to see the world, but...I dunno, maybe in my withered old age I'm just craving the same few faces."

[decrypter]

"Sitting on the porch with your knitting and an ear turned to all the events of the surrounding several miles, knowing your friends by the sound of their arrivals?

She's teasing and not, because honestly, it does sound like a good life, after much hardship.

[crushed_pearls]

"Menacing all the solicitors with eerily accurate beanbag throwing..." Here's hoping Helena knows what the fuck a beanbag is because the narration definitely can't be assed to look up when it was invented. "And you? Seems like we'd need to get something with outdoor enrichment now that you have become bunny. Can't be having you forlornly hopping about the plains of Kansas looking for a tree in the land that God forgot."

[decrypter]

"I...don't know. I don't think I'll be ready to settle somewhere for quite some time, when I know there's so much world out there, and so many different worlds. Who's to say I even stay bound to the earth? But I want to travel in company, wherever I go, and to know I can reach out to those that aren't travelling with me."

As long as she's with loved ones, she'll be alright. As long as she's not absent the joy of sharing this adventure with someone else - she used to think her grand adventure had to be solo, and has been pleasantly reconsidering that.

[crushed_pearls]

"...Vivid mental image of you riding on Security's shoulders through a mountain pass."

And it's cuuuuute!

[decrypter]

"On its shoulders? No, we'd be walking side by side. And that's if it wants to go travelling with me."

But she sounds fond, hopeful about the possibility. She hadn't written that letter without meaning it, where she had talked about wanting to experience all the places it had been. And right now, call her idealistic, but if she can travel with it, she wants to.

[crushed_pearls]

"Don't underestimate the joy of - oh my god we've gotta get you on someone's shoulders in the pool. You make teams of two and the mounted players try to knock each other into the water."

Fun! Activity!

[decrypter]

"That does sound like fun, but you're missing the point of it, which is that...I would prefer to walk by its side."

Her voice gets softer, and wow, did you know, she's going to finish off this tea, thank you for bringing it.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin ruffles the top of Helena's hoodie. "You already are, little bird."

[decrypter]

She's embarrassed, but the hood of this one - red, with small wings - can hide it a little.

"...You're going to need a large house, so all your loves can stay in it with you. Maybe in the country, so there's enough room for everyone."

Is she changing the subject to avoid more questions, yes.

[crushed_pearls]

"Helena, little bird, my friend, flame of my heart, I will burn the world to the fucking ground before I live outside of a city on purpose again." Erin pats Helena's shoulder soothingly. "I promise it's not just city girl snobbery. I was out in the Hedge for the longest time, sleeping in a farmhouse is a one way ticket to me having fucking trauma flashbacks. Not in this life or the next will I willfully commit to that."

[decrypter]

"You can't blame me for considering it. You witnessed where I spent the first part of my life. "

She's not counting the time spent in the realm between as real time, notably, but she thinks Erin will understand. With how fractured, uncertain, and difficult it is to track, only she gets to decide how old she is and what counts as real.

"And just as much as you miss the city, I miss being able to lie down in the earth and listen to all the small things being alive around me. But as I like having the world to live in, you must be placed in a city, and that will never be in question again."

[crushed_pearls]

"You suuuuuure you don't want to join me on a world-devouring rampage? It'll be fun, we can drive an army of demons before us."