drown your sorrows in a bar that won't drown you.

[sylphystia]

Who: Everyone's welcome!
Broadcast: No
Action: Málum, Crowley's bar on the Iskaulit
When: The latter half of March, until they leave the system.

[Though there are 'dry bars' down on the water planet, Crowley's bar is still open. Even the apocalypse couldn't close this thing. Whether you're angsting over something you got from home or you just DON'T TRUST THE OCEAN, there is a leather seat at Málum waiting for you.]

Comments

[cloakand_danger]

[Yuan blinks at Felix, snapping out of it a little as he realizes he's not alone here, and offers a curl of the side of his mouth that looks like it wanted to be a smirk but doesn't quite have the heart.]

It's an ocarina. Made from the nut of a Linkite tree, a rare species from home. [He reaches for his fork, and taps the side of it firmly against the wood, producing a pure, resonant note.] ...The nuts sound like wind chimes when they strike against each other in the breeze, and so people have made instruments out of them for a long time.

[lord_wizard]

Interesting. [Which isn't as dismissive as it sounds, though he's more interested in Yuan's fascination with it than he is the instrument itself.]

Can you play it?

[cloakand_danger]

Not at all. [This smirk is a little more genuine, if sardonic, and he decides he should probably elaborate.]

Allen mentioned once that there were other people from my world that had also been at the castle. I don't know if you were familiar with any of them...?

[lord_wizard]

[Felix frowns slightly, trying to recall the haze of people that came and went]

A few, though none I knew quite as well as yourself. I spoke to Raine on occasion, as well as Zelos. There were a few I never quite interacted with? Sheena and Lloyd spring to mind, though only by association. Does it belong to one of them?

[cloakand_danger]

...No. Strictly speaking, it doesn't belong to any of them. [He turns the ocarina over, staring at it contemplatively.] This is the same kind of instrument, the same material, but hers had these little carvings... [He traces a fingertip over the smooth, unmarred wooden surface.]

Martel had one of these when we traveled together, a memento of their parents. She taught Mithos to play it, but...I was always content to listen rather than learn myself. [He's not sure if those names will mean anything to Felix at all, but he's also not sure where to begin explaining, and doesn't particularly want to if Felix already knows.]

[lord_wizard]

[Martel is a name that rings only faintly familiar from a shared dream a long time ago. He recalls only faintly she was important to him, but the details of the story are long lost.

The look on his face is therefore a confused flash of recognition followed by the soft edge of sympathy]

I admit it's been quite a while, and that we always spoke more about magic and other matters than we did our pasts.

[The invitation to explain is there, if he wants to take it, therefore]

[cloakand_danger]

[Every conversation he has with Felix reaffirms why they must have been friends before: Yuan's deeply comfortable with layered conversations, unspoken questions and openings half-offered, letting both of them decide how much of any topic to acknowledge or slip past. It's the knowledge that he could turn aside here, that Felix is obviously willing to let him, that makes him comfortable enough to take that invitation instead.]

She was my fiancee. We met...she and her younger brother Mithos were traveling with Kratos, who at the time was a knight I'd met on the other side of the war we were both fighting in. They convinced me to abandon the field and work to stop the war instead, although I admit I was skeptical when we started out.

[He pauses for a moment, stares blankly at the ocarina, and curls his hand around it, more than half-concealing the surface.] She died some four thousand years ago. Murdered by humans who didn't understand what we were doing to try to help them, to save the world for everyone.

[No matter how much time may pass, there's no concealing the bitter scar that loss left on him...but it's an old bitterness, one he's long since adjusted to living with. The memory of what they did in response is what hurts more.]

[lord_wizard]

[Felix is silent a long moment, trying to absorb this. He's known vaguely that Yuan was very long lived but to be mourning the loss of someone for four-thousand years is another thing entirely to contemplate. Did it get hard to remember someone you'd lost after that much time? Would he eventually know the answer to that question, if his years here turned into eternity?

He stares at his own fingers, face mostly impassive. He draws in a breath, then asks, softly--] And did you?

[cloakand_danger]

No. [His tone is flat and absolute, even a little harsh, but he relaxes shortly after, letting regret seep through instead - regret, and just a trace of the cold fury he may never quite let go of.] ...After that, someone else eventually had to save it from us. [A deep breath, and it's all locked away again, his face returning to calm impassivity.]

...But that's all over now. We've handed the future off into more worthy hands.