middaeg | [Closed] Trails of Snowed In

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[Closed] Trails of Snowed In

Who: Trails House Residents + Visitors
When: Deceuer 6th - 10th, during the snowstorm
Where: Trails House
What: Snowed in!
Warnings: Will mark as necessary

It was safe to say that the Zemurian house was always lively, but the heaviest day of snowfall was particularly so. Everyone was home, and some had invited some friends over for dinner or socializing. It was too late before they realized just how heavily they were snowed in, and that they'd be stuck together for awhile. Best to make the most of it!

With all these people, at least it was a roomy house. There was:

The Main Floor which has a living room with a functional fireplace, kitchen (half stocked with useful cooking ingredients and half with "random things the other roommates thought would be cool"), a dining room, and the music room that's been transformed into Elliot's bedroom - because of course it has.
The Second floor which houses Towa, Crow, Machias, and Fie's bedrooms. Some of these rooms have a worrying amount of weapons, try to guess which. There is also a spare bedroom with a full sized bed, for any guests. Too bad you'll probably need to share.
The Attic, which was Rean's room and made up to be comfortable for a harpy. Shiny things are all over the place, and the bed is more like a nest of blankets.
The Basement which contains Randy and Lloyd's rooms. Coincidentally, this is the easiest place to find dirty magazines in the house.
The Cellar, which houses any alcohol that hasn't been drunken already, as well as a 200lbs wild boar carcass. Lovely.
And lastly the Courtyard which is...covered in snow. What else did you expect.

Make yourself comfortable or try to make a break for it. It's gonna be a long storm.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ eren doesn’t conform to your human molds of weird anymore, elliot. if he wants to get back to bed, that’s fine— the dragon just isn’t getting any closer. he’s at the other end, plucking the razor in one of his talons and slinking toward the far side of the bed. ]

Lex and Peridot got sick, [ with the magic flu, and that was inherently harmless. the dragon growls again, behind a maw shut and full of exposed teeth like one would see on a skeleton. it’s not defensive— it’s a sound of uncertainty. ] and they didn’t feel like you do.

[Ngh. There's a twinge of anxiety from Elliot, but he still sits down on the bed because he really feels out of sorts and was serious about wanting to rest.

There's a sliver of himself that just wants to ignore this and sleep off his fever, but he should be forthcoming with the little dragon bond with a razorblade - as is a good rule in life]

That's cause it's Cwyld. [No point denying it] They're considering letting me into the basement, but I have to build up a resistance to Cwyld first. So they injected me with a small seed of it that I have to live with for awhile.

Don't worry, as long as you don't touch the injection site, I'm not contagious.

[ who knows, eren has a history of shanking. play it safe.

the explanation is truth, and the dragon stops breathing for a moment. the air is still and he freezes in place, waiting for more answers to come and thank gods, whether they exist or not, he doesn’t really care about them, more comes. there’s still tension around the shoulder of the dragon’s folded wingspan, but it’s more than expected. ]

“Breaking in”, huh. [ he fucking TOLD YOU, exploit all options!!!! ] Where is it?

Edited 2019-12-12 10:47 (UTC)

Don't get smug. [HE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE IMPLYING] I said they're considering, so they could still say no. Or they could be sending me on a wild goose chase on purpose. So breaking in's still on the table.

[What is trusting authority figures, after all]

Upper left arm. [He can tell Eren is tense, and while it's understandable, he's also tired] It's got a thick bandage covering it and I have Cwyld treatment supplies in the closet, so can you please stop acting like I'm gonna turn you into a Shade?

Edited 2019-12-12 13:54 (UTC)

[ maybe this was the wrong place and the wrong time for eren to be, or for both of them to be. even a thinner tone for all of this could make a difference— but the cold, the magical disruption, and perhaps something else, makes eren feel

irrationally affronted. as if some lesser thing was gleefully assuming facts and tying him up for it. what was once a mild line of energy beginning to rest spikes with a burst of anger that very well comes from nowhere. nowhere. it wasn’t there, building up. it erupts from one second to the next, and perhaps . . . for the first time? body language tells that he’s threatening his bond. his sick, tired bond that needed rest and a bit of word that things were okay and that he believed him. because he did.

but something in him flips that switch off, and thrusts himself as his own priority. he snaps as soon as the witch is done, an ugly sound rasping from his throat, and the rattling of his tail like a rattler dancing to a warning strike. ]

Talking wasn’t even an option for you, and I didn’t push to change your mind. [ you think i’m smug, eren thinks. and thinks more. thinks everything that could pick him apart but doesn’t voice it. it only tumbles in blind flashes of negative emotion that felt, really, like dragonfire. you make assumptions you’re always anxious you’re always pitying yourself you always need someone to stroke your head you don’t deserve the freedom you have because you throw it away like garbage— ] Don’t push me to change mine.

[ says the cat sized dragon with a razor. ]

[That ... was quite a reaction. Elliot really didn't expect Eren to snap like that, because there hasn't been any aggressive feelings before. So when Eren reacts like that, and keeps throwing negative emotions at him - there's a moment where he is taken aback. He has the same sort of confusion about pain that child does when they touch a hot stove.

What was that about? ]

[And were he still younger, maybe this would be the part he cowers and apologizes.

Fortunately, he's older now and dealt with enough temperamental people to know that you shouldn't immediately cave when someone is being irrationally snappish like this. And since Eren is currently the size of Celine? He feels incline to do what they'd do to Celine when she acts like this.

Namely, reach over and pick him up like a cat, hands away from the snapping mouth, and proceed to put him on the floor before letting go and pulling his hands away. He's used to cats lashing out, okay.]

Oookay, if you're gonna be so grumpy and insist I'm so plagued, then you should go somewhere else. Because this is my bed and I need rest.

[In other words, no. I'm not putting up with being threatened by my bond. He isn't upset or angry from end, taking care not to feed into it. But he's also not in the mood to put up with this]

Also put back my razor, would you?

[And with that, he's lying down properly on the bed.]

Tch’—!

[ will there be lashing, like a cat? yes there will. eren brings havoc when it comes to sound, high pitched screeching laced with spat hisses. he has to be fast. he really does. because once the dragon is on the floor, the anger doesn’t stop there! we are having a wild bonanza of a party. someone unpleasant has taken the wheel. ]

It’s not yours.

[ I aM fReE. oddly enough, or surely, really, eren doesn’t submit to the request. he scurries off in a fit of hissing rebellion, making sure to drag the razor along the wooden floors like his tail does. maybe because he’d rather drag himself than waste more energy on chicken running. looks like a childish tantrum—?

maybe because he’s tiny. at least elliot would get some peace for a while. he’ll be hiding out in the stove. and thinking about it. and thinking about it. cursing what made so much sense to him, ]

[ until what made sense doesn’t anymore, immediately. it was then that eren knew . . . something was very wrong, sure, but he also fucked up. he seriously thought, for no matter how long, that elliot didn’t deserve his freedom? what?

the same way the anger came, it dissipated. and left the dragon confused, highly concerned and worrying. agh, damn it. he left him there. elliot took it well, but he doesn’t know if that’ll cut it. he didn’t even get to ask him about how it went, or what else the witches said, or how long it would take. how did it feel. he hasn’t had something like that happen without build up since. since his first full moon.

if elliot rests, at least he’ll be able to. his bond is quiet and cold rather than boiling after a while, with distant touches of doubt, plenty disorientation and— shit man. regret is the worst damn thing you could feel. eventually, the door creeks open, and an eye stares through it, looking straight at the bed. he lets himself in, as erenisms are, but he doesn’t say anything.

just a seven foot tall dragon man draped in blanket burritos, trying to be as quiet as possible. ]

[It's safe to say that razor's wrecked after that stunt. The floor's been scrapped, but the blade was really not made to be scrapped across the hard ground like that. Elliot had made a sound of annoyance as Eren did that, but choose not to follow, he wasn't kidding about being sick.

He was worried about what was going on with Eren, but he knows it's better to give the other space and let him fume over ...whatever it was. So while Eren sulked, Elliot had muted all his bonds - all three of them being active in very different ways made it hard to focus on getting sleep. Once he woke up, he'd check on Eren. That was the plan he decided on as he started to drift off.

He dozes lightly, as one does when you're sick. That dream he was told infected people have about happened again. It made as much sense seeing it as it did hearing about it.

When Eren comes back, the door being open makes him stir. He's still not fully awake, so when he sees a tall figure looking in on him, his tired brain assumes its the tall person who lives here and would try to be discreet about checking up.

So in a tired mumble without lifting his head from the pillow:] 'm fine Crow...

Edited 2019-12-12 18:45 (UTC)

[ crow would’ve been better, perhaps! he stole the guy’s darts, too, but, no. it is one eren jaeger that doesn’t seem phased by the name. silent, he stays, closing the door behind him and stepping over with a few things in hand. one of them is a mug of hot chocolate. probably (way) too hot for elliot to drink right now, anyway, but cradled in his palm without any sign of burning. it wouldn’t, anyway. the other is a new razor, placed just on top of the other’s nightstand, when he gets there.

hot cocoa, too. eren doesn’t make to sit on the bed, yet. instead, he goes for the floor, easily tall enough to seem like he’s sitting on a stool in front of elliot’s bedside. ]

You look the same.

[ softly said, as well as subdued. ]

[He blinks a few times as the tall person approaches, waking up enough to realize that isn't Crow - it's Eren. He moves his head to rest the side of his face on the pillow so he can look at the other one. ]

Eren...you're not little anymore.

[His tone isn't mad, but more passive, his eyes follow the mug and the razor being put on his bedstand, but his eyes go back to focus on his bonded. He's still tired, but there's both curiosity and concern in those big green eyes of his. ]

Feel any better?

[Because uh, that sure was one sudden tantrum you had there.

[ yeah. not small. things are . . . easier to ignore, like this, with a calm mind and evened rationality. he had enough time to trim around the pointed edges, anyway. thing is, those thoughts— they’re still there. like some entity that lost the proper strength to step out of the shadows and fight him.

he could push them aside, but they’re still there. it’s the first worry he’s had about himself in months. his undominated confidence takes a chip, felt through the bond in the deepest, rawest thread. eren watches the other’s eyes, doesn’t stray from them— and sighs. ]

I’m sorry. [ an outright, meaningful apology that he could at least hope to make. he’s not falling back on reasons or, whatever he could hide behind here. it was still his fault regardless. eren’s knees pull up to his chest, wings wrapping around them as a bat’s would if he were clinging to a branch. ] I’m getting too comfortable.

[With Eren right here, he lets down the wall of the bond he'd raised while he was trying to sleep. Eren does feel calmer now, but he also feels worried - rattled. That outburst had been pretty out of character for him, Elliot has to admit, so it makes sense that it'd rattle Eren about where it could've come from.

Elliot meanwhile feels calmer about it. There was worry for Eren, but he hadn't been deeply hurt by the tantrum - he had saw it for what it was. A tantrum.

Instead, he scoots back in the bed to give Eren enough room to climb up and join him if he wishes- better than kneeling on the cold floor]

It was monster instincts, right? [He reaches over, tenderly brushing some hair off Eren's face. He's not upset with him, it's okay. He accepts his apology.] That impulse felt a little new though.

[ he doesn’t want to have another tantrum like that when he’s ten meters high and weighing thousands of pounds tho ellie. it’s worrying and treating it as just a random tantrum is as dangerous of fooling around when wall maria could be breached by titans. the dragon wrinkles his nose as he’s touched— his own hair tickles.

after some silence, and a lengthy sort of pause, eren eventually rises to join his bonded on
the bed. he sits on the edge, sideways, and no more than that. ]

We need to be more careful. [ him, especially. he needs to be self aware. he needs to know himself to better combat . . . that. whatever that was. ] It’s not even full moon, Elliot.

I know. [About the moon cycles. He did make a point of learning them in this city. Was that worrying? Yes. But Elliot remains calm, even with his worry about Eren. His bonded was already rattled as it was, adding onto it by building his own anxieties might only make things worse. ]

But completely rejecting it only makes it worse, right? [The hard truth of the monster instincts. Whatever that feeling was, Eren couldn't lock it away. It'd only come out later and much worse if they didn't deal with it] So maybe it's lucky it first popped up now and not at full strength during the full moon.

[When whatever impulse was there is a lot stronger, and harder to control. They have a chance now to figure out how to deal with it]

What was going through your head when it happened? I felt some of the feelings through the bond, but I don't know where they came from.

Edited 2019-12-19 13:23 (UTC)

[ he almost doesn’t want to say it. it’s hurtful and eren in no way wants to be hurtful right now, there was no reason to (besides, that could be a weapon he’d need one day, who knew). as long as elliot remains calm, eren could be mildly influenced— calm gives him the clarity to think twice, to breathe in.

a point is taken in not rejecting things, but far easier said than done. eren feels that burning in his own flesh now. it was easy to allow his body to change— being shaped so radically, mentally, without his approval, not so much. no one in their proper sense of self would be so quick to, unless they were truly all those things, and didn’t mind it. there’s even the small urge to snap at him then, as small as it was but still present. it’s not so simple. he just— has enough self control to keep his mouth shut, and force the calm to strain it down.

he’s only trying to help. how much it would, he’d be the one to deem. ]

I wanted to do something and you went against it. [ a pause for what else he thinks is helpful to disclose, before concluding: ] There’s not much else to it.

[Elliot knows it's far easier said than done, Eren isn't his first bond to struggle against the changes. Rean had struggled a lot through his early months, thanks to his own emotional issues and history. But even if it was harder to do than say...it was the truth.

He listens to what Eren says. He has a feeling there's more to it that he's reluctant to share, but at least that's something. And....boy, he can see why it disturbed Eren in particular.]

In other words ... [He rephrases, keeping his calm] You wanted to completely control the situation, even me. Is that it?

[It's not accusatory in any way, but rather a check for clarity to make sure there's no misunderstanding. With other people, this wouldn't be that strange urge. Some people really liked control. But Eren was the opposite of that, he loved freedom so much. It's one of the things that drew Elliot to him in the first place. That shared desire for freedom.

If the monster instincts were making him feel something so opposing to how he naturally was ... that was worrying.]

[ eren catches the worry like a frog snapping its tongue at a fly. it’s something that makes him sigh, makes him want to seclude because holy shit if it wasn’t true, to eren’s surprise. he was all for freedom. he fights for it. he does anything for it. yet . . .

it’s not as romantic as elliot paints it to be. the second someone else’s freedom constricts eren’s will, it’s no longer his to protect. it’s his to destroy. freedom is, after all, something you take. one cannot be free without shackling their opposite.

it’s elliot’s words that make eren realize: nothing actually changed. this world wasn’t changing him. it’s just getting worse, and out of his conscious conteol. ]

. . . Yes. [ and candidly: ] Don’t act like I’m not capable of that in the first place.

[ the difference was timing and want. eren didn’t want to say nor do that at the time— but it didn’t mean he never actually did it on his own agenda. ]

[Elliot wasn't about to deny it. He knew that Eren could be ruthless and deny people's choices if he desired. The Dorchacht mission had plenty of incidents like that. But he wasn't about to confirm it the exact way Eren thought either.]

I'm not. Anyone's capable of it. [Humans loved freedom but they also like to control things. Even he was capable of it, that controlling streak came out of him when working on his own music. He knew it was a reason he was hard to work with sometimes, but he wasn't about it change it.]

Though, admittedly, most people don't run the risk of going feral if they never act on it... [Which was the huge problem now. It'd be tempting to just tell Eren to shove that impulse away, but it wouldn't help in the long run. They had to find some solution.]

It wouldn't be good for either of us if I let you control me, but ignoring it completely might make things even worse. We need a compromise.

[ eren remains in silence. he’s thinking, too. he’s thinking how to mold these outbursts without running a massive risk of doing something he’d regret— and once, many moons ago, he was shaped into a man who was taught not to make choices with regrettable outcomes. or, at least– choose the one you’ll regret least. ]

I’d want an annulment if it ever came to that. [ “letting” just makes it sound worse, but fear not. he knew what elliot meant. he just hates it and is trying his hardest not to snap. it’s pushing all of the buttons he usually has a complete and iron grasp on, and now he doesn’t.

he has to breathe, and attempt to keep as collected as possible in his words. it shows. ]

. . . When something comes swinging and you need a second to strategize, what do you do? [ eren pauses to give his bond a moment, before he answers in his own way, through his own combat experience. ] I fall back. Even if it’s to dodge a few strikes.

[An Annulment wouldn't solve the problem, he thinks but stops himself from saying. He can understand Eren's stance there, he doesn't want to control Elliot. He understood that sentiment, but at the end of the day, Eren needed a witch bond. And with this impulse, he would just try to control any other bond that he made.]

...I brace myself. [He says, thinking of his own experience to answer Eren's question] It's easier to cast spells to help protect myself than risk losing footing or ground by dodging.

Though to be fair, I am pretty clumsy.

[ not that eren hadn’t thought of that— he knows he needs a witch bond and wasn’t stupid enough to consider breaking every one he saw, but any knowing submission to him simply would’ve meant that that particular bond hadn’t been the right choice. witches that submit willingly weren’t the right choice for someone like him, especially now.

on the same page or not, it doesn’t matter now. eren’s still speaking with him, and possibilities were still on the table. if any bone in him believes elliot had a good chance of mediating, not cutting things off already was a telling sign. the dragon listens, with a talon skimming under the flesh of his jaw. it was a reasonable way to think. he couldn’t say he was completely wrong. every situation had the winning act to it . . . ]

I can win a fight if I fall to the ground and know what I’m up against. I can’t if my head’s rolling. [ they have completely different fighting styles to boot, but . . . ] Your way is still valid, for the way you work.

[ hm. it’s only when he’s reminded of a dream that his eyes widen, travel to the mage’s staff, the violin one, and he remembers— ]

—Don’t talk back.

[ if he had the right idea, words would just fuel his fire. ]

Mm...and yours is a valid way to fight too. It just wouldn't work for me. [Elliot's been in enough battles to know his strengths and weaknesses. He's seen people fight with Eren's style, and he can see it's value, enough to take notes from it. But still, he would never be as nimble as Fie when it came to dodging and he knew it.

But this wasn't exactly about combat. More their own approaches to life, and what to do about this.

Then he hears Eren say that last thing. It's certainly enough to get Elliot to raise his head off the pillow and look at him, trying to decipher if his bond is for real]

Are...you testing me or is that a serious suggestion?

[BECAUSE WITHOUT CONTEXT, THATS A BAD SUGGESTION]

It’s serious.

[ said with his eyes still away and sliding all the way over to his other instruments. the violin looking ones especially, both his from home and the one he got here. ]

I don’t need more fire when I’m like that. It’ll just escalate and you’ll never have reason. [ similar to how there’s no arguing with someone who had their mind set. you’ll waste breath, and energy, and run the great risk of getting hurt. that’s when he points his talon at the instrument, the tip of his tail swaying off the bed’s edge and dangling like a hook. ] It’s a long shot— but speak the language you’re best at.

It worked, once. Remember?

[Closed] Trails of Snowed In

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