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seasonsgreetings2023-04-14 10:33 am
seasonsmods) wrote in seasonsgreetings2023-04-14 10:33 am
Entry tags:
Test Drive Meme #2
Test Drive Meme #2
LOGS | NETWORK | OOC | MEMES | NAVIGATION
You arrive in an unknown space, dressed in white clothes (player choice what kind of clothes, as long as they cover everything). Whatever was happening to you before no longer happens. It's like everything was put on a pause and you were transferred away from the situation without you realizing it happened.
The space that you find yourself in is one of these four options:
An empty landscape filled with snow and ice, almost like a blank canvas.
A field with cherry blossom trees and spring flowers.
A sunny beach near an ocean that seems never ending.
A quiet forest with falling autumn leaves.
All of the spaces seem to continue endlessly. No matter where or how far you walk it almost seems like you're not moving at all. There are no animals here - just those who happened to wake up there at the same time, in the same place. Everyone is wearing the same kind of plain, white clothes.
Despite the possible rollercoaster of emotions you might be feeling, the place somehow feels familiar. Like somehow you belong there.
And it looks like you're not alone.
After half an hour has passed the surroundings change as everyone is teleported into a room with all the other new arrivals, no matter what space they woke up in. It's a large place with plenty of seats to sit in and beverages to enjoy. Medical attention is offered to those who need it and the doctors here are very prepared for any challenging situations.
Here, in this room, everyone gets an answer to where they are and why. A hologram of a man appears at the center of the room, waiting to be heard. He brings a message on behalf of the leaders of Ellipsa.
The Message [ Click to Expand ]
Hello, my name is Olwen. I'm one of the leaders of Ellipsa as it currently is. I'm also one of the four who summoned you here.
Our world is in trouble and we need your help. I apologize for tearing you away from your world and forcing you to come here but I hope you understand. The magic we used doesn't let us ask in advance, nor does it let us choose who we bring here.
This world is composed of four Seasonal Segments. All of them represent one of the seasons. They were the places we used to get our resources from, but now they're dangerous places no one should go into unless they have the power to fight back. All of them have their own sets of powerful monsters and natural catastrophes.
We used to have plenty of people here who could control the powers of the four Seasons. We called them Seasonal Power Holders. Unfortunately, due to a tragedy you can read about later, we lost almost all of them. Now only four of us remain and the world is in chaos. We have done our best to protect the world, but we need more power holders to do that.
That's where you come in.
All of you have been assigned to one of the seasons. Whatever space you were in just now is what season you represent. You will learn different skills based on the season and those skills are going to help you save this world.
These powers don't interfere with your own natural powers. They use a new energy that has formed inside of you. It's harmless to your health, but it's vital to your seasonal powers. Your own powers should still work, even if the dark energy outside the city might interfere with them.
Unfortunately bringing you here wasn't as simple as it sounds. We couldn't do anything about how to keep you anchored to this world other than making a simple spell that helps with it. That is, you need to touch someone else who is not from this world ideally at least once a day. It will help you stay in control of your powers and boost your magical energy. If you don't, the consequences aren't very good. But as long as you hold someone's hand or give someone a handshake, you should be fine.
That's all I have to say about the situation. The staff of the Research Center will give you more information about housing and other necessary things. I will, however, promise that you will be sent home once the situation becomes better. That's the least we can do.
The hologram can be viewed in private in a separate room later, should someone wish to look at it again. For now, the staff of the Research Center hands everyone their new smartphones with their small flower lucky charms (the flower is anything the player decides). They're also told that the building next door is where everyone can find a room assigned to them with some of their belongings there and possibly even any animal companions. Those concerned about their mount-sizes companions are welcomed to the stables downstairs to see if their friends are there. The mounts are allowed to stay there until you find a place more suitable for them.
Once you get your smartphone and necessary information, you're urged to go out and find your apartment. After that whatever you want to do is up to you.
Part 3
The building next door is where everyone can find their new apartments. As you enter, you're told by a friendly native that for the first two months you can live anywhere rent-free and five meals a day are paid for you. After that they get a monthly payment that helps with some of their living expenses, but otherwise they have to have a job to support themselves.
All of the apartments are comfortable, two bedroom apartments with all necessary utilities. They are also completely soundproof. Sometimes the magic system, however, does glitch and you might find yourself rooming with a stranger. This is not the intention and the staff will immediately prepare you your own room if you ask them. But maybe having a roommate isn't all that bad?
Once you get your smartphone and necessary information, you're urged to go out and find your apartment. After that whatever you want to do is up to you.
The building next door is where everyone can find their new apartments. As you enter, you're told by a friendly native that for the first two months you can live anywhere rent-free and five meals a day are paid for you. After that they get a monthly payment that helps with some of their living expenses, but otherwise they have to have a job to support themselves.
All of the apartments are comfortable, two bedroom apartments with all necessary utilities. They are also completely soundproof. Sometimes the magic system, however, does glitch and you might find yourself rooming with a stranger. This is not the intention and the staff will immediately prepare you your own room if you ask them. But maybe having a roommate isn't all that bad?
April is the time for a strange weather effect that affects all of the districts, save for the one in the middle and Frostreign. It's not weird that it rains, but it's what the rain does that has been dubbed as the Rain of Affection.
Anyone who stands in the rain will feel the need to get close to someone. It starts with a need to gently touch someone gently, but can escalate into needing to hug someone. The ultimate craving of the rain is kissing in the rain but that's the most it can make happen. It's a very Safe For Work Rain Effect.
After a successful kiss in the rain, the cravings slowly become less urgent, but the effect can start all over again at any given time.
Of course, there are individuals who don't get too affected by the rain (at all or not as badly) and it only works if it directly hits someone. So staying in a shelter or being in Nightwake Center or Frostreign is definitely a way to avoid this whole phenomenon. Even avoiding the worst of the effect is easy by just going under a shelter or purchasing a nice, maybe even a color changing, umbrella.
It's raining very often until the end of the month at different times in each districts.
After the rain, a rainbow usually appears. Rainbows formed by the Rain of Affection are special, wish granting ones. The natives will explain that if you hold someone's hands and make a wish that wish will come true in some capacity.
Someone wishing for wealth may win a gift card for a shop while someone wishing to see a loved one they're missing may get pictures sent to their mobile devices (how? magic). Those wishing for world peace may find their very presence be calming to others. But the biggest prize is a free regain of a non-magical item or an animal companion. If someone asks for a magical item it will come as a non-magical item and the magical part of it would have to be purchased by a magical-regain, so it's cheaper to just not.
Be careful what you wish for, as each character only gets one wish, no matter how many rainbows they end up seeing during the rainy season.
Solarpeak has a new way of battling against the hot summer days (you know, when it isn't raining). Many shops along the streets sell ice cream mochis of varying flavors. You have your very normal flavors like different berries, fruit and chocolate, but also some very excotic and weird ones.
There's even a flavor called random mystery that is literally that. A randomized flavor that is a mystery to all. It can even be a flavor that no one has thought of before or even something that definitely should not be in any kind of food. Anyone who buys a pack of two mochis will get a free mystery one if they want it (and sometimes even if they don't).
Other districts also have some treats out for different climates. There are various flavors of hot cocoa in places like Amberfall and Frostreign, and nice light treats like macarons in Blossomcrown. Of course various restaurants have their own menus that fit their own season, so you could definitely have a gourmet journey all over the city of Nightwake if you wished.
One morning, on all of the bridges leading outside into the segments, round gates appear. They're portals that bring in monsters. They look normal from the outside looking in, like portals to a lovely garden. But the gardens are the problem as they are infested with different monsters, waiting to attack the city. This isn't the first time natives have seen these portals and before they had people to deal with them, but now? They need otherworlders.
All of the monsters inside need to be defeated for the portal to disappear. No one knows exactly how many there are, but with the defeat of the last one, the portal will disappear from around anyone inside of it, leaving the characters on the bridge.
The portal can be entered from both the city and the segment side and it looks flat when looked from sideways. Like it's just a random 2D structure in the middle of the world.
Those who explore the portal further will notice that they will loop around. It's very similar to the place they started in, back when they arrived, as it doesn't seem to have an end, no matter how you explore the place.
For noncombatants, natives have set up stations to help with first aid and making food for the fighters so they can occasionally come back from the portals to take a much needed rest.
Anyone helping with the fight, either in the portals or outside, will receive a hefty 5000 Moon Coin reward for their hard work. A good way to earn some starting funds!
Monster List [ Click to Expand ]
All of the Monsters listed here will be in all of the portals and there will be several of each to fight.The danger level is indicated with Stars. The lowest level threat is 0 while the highest is 10. From 7 and above, the likelihood of a beast going for a kill increases significantly.
| Name | Description | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| Bubblefish | Bubblefish are lumbering, two-legged creatures, with fins for arms, a long, muscular, finned tail, and a big fish face. They are fast, dangerous predators while in water, but do not count them out while on land, as regardless of whether they are above water or below it, they can blow large bubbles which capture their targets. Once inside the stretchy bubble, victims begin to go numb, their body feeling like it's on pins and needles as the Dragonfish begins to cast various debuffs on them. The bubbles are tough to escape despite their appearance, but the debuffs are lesser when shared, and can be escaped with the propper application of mint or minty treats! Mint has the effect of weakening the bubble to allow it to pop, although you may then find yourself being charged as the Bubblefish goes wild trying to get that minty goodness. | 5-8 |
| Bugboars | These are really more like rhinocerous beetles, but they are the size of wild boars, and they act similarly, roaming about in family groups together, rooting through the ground to unearth any edible material. They are highly territorial, and charge at anything or anyone who gets close. Their eyesight might be poor, but they make up for it with their antennae and the fact that these massive beetles do have wings, and they possess enough control over wind to lift themselves off of the ground at great speeds, or send powerful gales at those who come too close to their young. | 6 |
| Crockodile | Crocodiles with elemental powers of earth, leading to them being able to travel through dirt and stone as if they were water, these large reptiles often hide beneath the earth with only their eyes and nostrils peeking out, resembling the stone they hide within. They are ambush predators, popping out of the ground, large stony jaws open to crush their prey, but even once dragged out of hiding they are hardly easy to defeat. These crocks are stony in appearance and their hide is just as hard to pierce. In addition, they're a little closer to the size of a small car than your average crocodile. | 6-9 |
| Flurry Flock | White birds acting like a swarm that may deceive you into thinking they are harmless doves at first. Upon closer inspection, they more closely resemble a vengeful murder of crows with pure white feathers that they can use to reflect light so brilliantly that one can be blinded, leaving the flock's victim open to attack as they descend upon their prey like a group of voracious piranhas, claws and beaks as cold as ice as they try to tear their foes apart | 3-6 |
| Lavapotamus | These large hippo-creatures seem to be either made of or covered in molten rock that hardens over time when in the air. Usually they prefer to soak in lava and be left alone. Pulled through portals in an environment far too cool for their liking and with people so nearby has them aggressive and dangerous, charging down anyone who gets too near and leaving a red-hot trail of lava in their wake. | 3-8 |
| Minosaur | This creature seems to be a horrific mash of other creatures, similar to a traditional chimera; it possesses the body and horns of a bull, a head like a Tyrannosaurus, the plates of a stegosaurus all the way down it's powerful back and becoming spikes as they trail down it's tail, which ends in a very angry snake head. There is no end of this creature's body which is not hard, sharp, and completely pissed off. If you manage not to get bitten or gored at it's head, you will still need to contend with the powerful hooved legs attempting to stomp down on you, and take care to dodge as the snake head on it's tail spits fire. | 8-10 |
Even after the defeat of the Portals, there's still a lot of things to do! All of the Guilds are open. There's a good training space outside of them to test our powers and computers where you can learn all about what kind of powers you can unlock.
All guilds also have the same Questboard open! Why not take a look and see what adventures await?
- Ask your questions related to the TDM here.
- The TDM is available only to friends of the mods and their friends. If you're not a friend of the mods and want to play in the TDM, please leave a note here to inform us who invited you over. We will get to you as soon as possible!
- Feel free to visit the EMP/ATP - meme!
- New characters can add TDM on their subject line to indicate they're new! They can also comment HERE to promote their new top levels.
- Test Drive is open for current characters to make a top level as well.
- Current characters cannot access the starting area again to meet new arrivals. They can, however, be at the Research Center when the newbies are teleported in.
- The TDM is game canon so anything in the TDM can happen for your character(s) in the game as well.
- Smut is not allowed on the TDM. You can play situations leading to it, but if the thread is turning into smut, please move it to a private space such a post in your character's journal, or a locked post in the game's log community if you decide to app!
- Check Locations: City to find more areas to explore inside the city. Every place in the districts are open. Similarly, Locations: Segments is useful for outdoors adventures.
- You can find monsters to encounter on Beastiary.
- FAQ has information on characters' smartphones as well as general things about the world that might be handy.
no subject
Because Gabi didn't just say "Levi." No way. Not unless there's another Levi kicking around somewhere who isn't the infamous devil known as Humanity's Strongest Soldier. There's no way that Captain Levi has been anywhere near Gabi, much less often enough to comment on how quickly she's growing. So, Reiner misheard. Pure and simple.
"Who says that?" he asks, perfectly pleasant, giving her hair an extra ruffle before taking his hand away.
no subject
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh."
Great start.
She really needs to think of something quickly. Okay, what are all the ways she can talk her way out of this. Quick!
1. Reiner apparently misheard you, so make it into some other name. How about...Lev...a...Leva. Leva? Wow, super creative, Gabi.
2. Say it's some OTHER Levi! Levi's a common name, right?! You can just pretend it's someone from back home for now and then when Reiner has been coaxed into the alliance a little more, tell him the truth!
3. Say it's something else entirely, not a person. Like some kinda object, like maybe, clothes that you don't fit into anymore -- like jeans! Oh, no, that's stupid, nobody would ever call jeans "Levis".
"Nnnnnggghhhhhh...."
She kinda looks like smoke is about to start coming out of her ears at this point. She's just about ready to go with the second one, she's perfectly ready to rationalize it to herself and everything (it'd just stress Reiner out right now to know that somebody he fought is her friend, it'll go over better later), but she just....can't do it. After everything he's already been to, she just can't bring herself to lie to him. Not about this. Not about something that, screw it, is important to her.
"....I ssssaaaid Levi," she eventually groans out, in a she-knows-this-is-gonna-suck kind of tone of voice. "I didn't wanna tell you like this, but it just kinda slipped out. Levi is my friend." She shakes her head and sighs. Screw it, in for a penny, in for a pound. "He's more like my best friend -- well. Not. Not more than Falco, necessarily!" She suddenly feels the need to add. "Falco is like...different."
She starts waving her hands around to indicate something.
"We're not like, not friends, but we're not like, totally like that, either! We're just. We're just kind of doing this thing where we wanna get to know each other in a place besides training and fighting and stuff and I just wanna make sure I take my time, and he's been really patient about it, but I dunno, after three years, don't you kinda know a person, I think maybe I should just ask him if we wanna officially call it something, but I'm also kinda scared to put a label on it but--"
She stops.
She clears her throat.
"I am getting a little off topic."
She started blushing around the time she, completely unprompted, mind, brought up Falco.
no subject
Levi, who stabbed Reiner through the spine and heart. Levi, who would like to see Reiner get what he deserves. Levi, who must be working some angle by getting near Gabi, or who must not know who she is, who she's related to, who loves her, and fuck, fuck, what will those devils do to her if they find out…?!
They're being careful not to kill her, whispers Armin's voice, poison in his ear. But they won't let her rest. At this very moment, they're inflicting pain on her every way they know how—
Reiner swallows, just once, forcing down the fear clawing at his throat. He'll have to negotiate with them. That's all there is to it. He'll have to contact Commander Hange and arrange some sort of agreement to keep Gabi safe. To keep everyone he loves safe.
Gabi keeps talking, and it takes Reiner a moment to come back to himself, to realize she's talking about a boy. A boy that she likes, blushing even as she speaks of him. A boy that she wants to call her boyfriend, by the sound of it, but she's scared of messing things up.
Unbidden, Bertolt face flashes through Reiner's mind, flushed with embarrassment as Reiner teased him about Annie. Protesting whenever Reiner pushed him to admit his feelings. Staring at Reiner with an expression that made Reiner hope, and long, and wish, but—
… Damn. He and Gabi really are cousins, aren't they?
"Falco," Reiner manages to say, the name vaguely familiar, tugging at some long-dormant memory. Something about a Warrior Candidate, maybe? If so, Reiner's mother must approve; she'd want her niece to marry a Warrior, even if it made Gabi a widow far too early.
… Marry? What the hell is he thinking about?
Reiner shakes his head to clear it, fear and confusion and everything else fogging his thoughts. Then he forces out a small laugh. "Sorry, it's just…" His gaze cuts to the side, staring blankly at the horizon. "You were three, Gabi. This high," he says, indicating with a hand, "hanging onto my shirt, yanking it whenever I looked away. And now…"
How old is she? Reiner does the math, throat tightening as he comes up with the answer: fifteen. The same age as Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and so many of the others. No, the same age they were. Because Eren lived to turn twenty, somehow, and—
He runs a hand through his hair, restlessly pushing it back. The last thing he needs to think about right now is Eren Yeager.
"Falco," he repeats, firmer this time, his eyes darting back to meet Gabi's. "Did I like him?"
no subject
She's so wrapped up in it that she doesn't notice how scared he looks, rather than anything approaching anger. She doesn't really look at him again until he speaks, repeating the name she had said. Falco's. She realizes quickly that he...probably doesn't know anything about Falco, either. And then she's blushing for a different reason as Reiner's hand goes to...somewhere around his own knee.
"Well, if I didn't hang onto your shirt, that was usually when you left..." She murmurs, rubbing her own arm. That's the main thing she remembers of Reiner from her youth. That he was gone, no doubt to Warrior training, so often, before he was gone-gone and she wouldn't see him again for years and years.
"....yeah. You actually..." She rubs her head, still embarrassed. "You and Falco got along so well, I got pretty jealous of it sometimes. I was always thinking something like 'where does he get off trying to take the Armor from me and cozy up to Reiner like that?!'" Back when she'd considered anything that got in the way of inheriting the Armor to be her enemy. When she'd been so determined to get it, partially because she just...wanted to be connected to Reiner through it so badly. She looks up. "You guys even had some promise between you...he never told me what it was, though."
In the three years since she'd heard about it, she could make a few guesses, but, they were just that.
no subject
And in the end, Reiner returned a hero, didn't he? He must have. But … if that were the case, how did Eren live to see twenty?
Reiner is missing pieces, important ones. But the weight of everything is already pressing down on him, a mental strain he knows could lead to collapse. He has to keep it together. For Gabi, he has to keep it together. He won't let her witness him fall apart; he can't let her know what a half-assed piece of shit that island made him.
Which is why, when Gabi says, "take the Armor from me," Reiner doesn't immediately recoil. That cold pit of fear roils in his gut, body tingling with the horrified realization that his baby cousin must've become a Warrior Candidate.
Just a candidate, though. Just a candidate. She must've stayed a candidate. She can't have received his Armored. Otherwise, she'd know whatever promise Reiner made … and she would know about the memory they just witnessed. She would've seen it. So she can't have received the Colossus or the Female, either. That still leaves the Jaw, Beast, and Cart unaccounted for, but—
No, she's fifteen. 857. Reiner is dead, and so are the rest of the Warriors of his generation. If Gabi received any of the Nine, she would've told him first thing. Right?
He's sweating, he realizes. Sweating on his forehead as well as the back of his neck. Does he look like Bertolt does when trying to keep it together? If so, Reiner can't be doing a very convincing job.
"That's good," he forces out, making himself smile. Making himself someone reliable, someone strong. "I'm glad that you have someone like that, Gabi. It sounds like you two really care about each other."
Reiner's eyes flick away again, the reminder of their surroundings pressing in, memories clawing at his mind. "We should keep moving. Things will escalate soon if they haven't already."
He turns, takes two steps in the way they'd been moving—and then stops dead, finally seeing what Gabi glimpsed. An extinguished campfire. Discarded supplies. A hole torn into the earth.
Bile rises in his throat. He claps a hand over his mouth, white-faced, eyes locked on the spot where Marcel died.
no subject
Sometimes, she really had no idea why Falco cared about her so much, after everything he'd gone through because of her. Pretty much every bad thing that had happened to them on Paradis had been her fault. But Falco had his own share of guilt, for being tricked by Eren, so he thought they were the same, she guessed. The math on that didn't check out even a little bit, but...that was the kind of guy Falco was.
She kinda missed him, now that she thought about it.
Reiner's mention of things escalating gets her back into the present (well, the past, but, a different past) and she knows he's right. They're going to break the wall soon. She doesn't want to be around here for that. If they don't leave, they'll be dragged along with Reiner's perspective and witness it happening. That thought is enough to make her totally ready to walk through the portal with Reiner, but...he stops. She blinks and looks up at him.
"Rei--?"
Then she sees the look on his face. She's seen a lot of different emotions from Reiner in a short stretch of time, from anger to fear to something she thinks is pride, but the look on his face...she can't say she's never seen it before. Most recently, in one of Eren's memories, as he was crushed by his own guilt over what the memory of him is about to do. But she can remember one other time, when the two of them were at their lowest, him injured and stripped of his armor....
"I couldn't stop him. Eren...is going to destroy the world..."
It's not the exact same, but. The horror and pain and the feeling that he, solely, was responsible for preventing it...it's pretty close. It's enough for Gabi to piece together what probably happened here. For a second, she thinks she doesn't have any idea what to do or say to help him, but after a few seconds of awful silence, something occurs to her. She's...actually pretty familiar with this feeling. She gives Reiner's other hand a squeeze, just to remind him that she's there.
"...do you. Think it'd help at all to say anything?" She asks. "Do you have anything you want to say to him?"
For her part, she's thought a lot, a lot about what she would say to Porco if she had a chance. She doesn't want to dump all of it on Reiner right now - how Porco sacrificed himself to save Reiner from Falco, who'd been turned into a titan by Falco, who'd drank Zeke's spinal fluid protecting Gabi. He doesn't need to hear it right now. But when it comes to the Galliard brothers...she thinks she understands a bit about what he's feeling right now.
cw so much survivor's guilt
And then, when the sun rose: Marcel saving him. Shoving Reiner out of the way when Reiner froze. Marcel disappearing into a Titan's mouth, no time to transform. Marcel's wide eyes staring at Reiner as the Titan's teeth closed down, mouth still open in a shout. Marcel dying to save him.
Reiner was the last thing Marcel saw. What was Marcel thinking? Why did he do it?
Gabi squeezes his hand, pulling Reiner halfway out of the pit of memories. He squeezes back, his hand starting to tremble. Holding onto Gabi like a lifeline.
Does he have anything he wants to say…? Reiner's throat works, too many emotions surging through him, guilt and grief and regret howling like a tempest. He'll never get the chance to find out what Marcel was thinking; he'll never get an answer to why. Maybe Marcel didn't think at all. Maybe Marcel saved Reiner simply because it was the right thing to do.
But it wasn't the right thing. Not by a long shot.
"… You were always apologizing to me," he starts, quiet words for the dead. "I never understood why. Even at the end, I didn't understand it. You said I wasn't supposed to be here, but…" His voice breaks, hot tears stinging his eyes. He slides his hand up to cover them, his lip quivering.
"… But you shouldn't have saved me. You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself. Bertolt and Annie—they needed you, not me."
He sucks in a shaky breath, his broad shoulders curling in. Forgetting that Gabi is with him, forgetting that she can hear everything as he confesses:
"It should've been me. I'm so sorry, Marcel. It should have been me."
no subject
Gabi thought her suggestion might help Reiner find some sort of closure, but she really should've known better - she's already seen what his time on Paradis did to him. All of it is probably much, much more raw and painful for him right now. He's just not in a spot where he can even know that closure is something to look for. It's so terribly easy to see how the shaking teenager next to her becomes a broken man, begging for death in just a short few years.
She beats down the temptation to just throw her arms around him and insist, no, that's not true!, try and take away his guilt, convince him that he deserves to live without it. Part of her really, really wants to tell him that he does, in a way, get to see Marcel and fight beside him one more time. But she knows that if she starts that right now, she won't be able to stop and she's determined to not spill everything about the future on him before he's ready. More to the point, she doesn't think it would help that much. She doesn't have as thorough of a relationship with guilt as Reiner does, but she got pretty acclimated with it the last three years. 'It's not your fault' could be a pretty damn weak salve if you weren't in the right place to hear it.
"Reiner...."
She does, however, fail to beat the urge to wrap her arms around him. Or at least as far around him as she can get them. She buries her head into her shoulder. She can't stop the tears from coming to her own eyes either. It just hurts too much, seeing him like this. But she forces herself to keep talking, through the tears.
"...I...I never got the chance to meet Marcel. But. I heard about him - f-from Galliard-san and Pieck-san...they said that he was." She takes in a breath, bringing an arm up to her eyes and wiping her tears. "They said that he was a natural leader. That he was reliable and cared about everyone around him..." She let out a breath. "The truth is. I'm sorry I could never meet him, but. I'm grateful to him. I'm really grateful to him for saving you."
It felt awful saying that. That she was grateful that Marcel had gotten eaten by a Titan. But the idea of her cousin being gone and never seeing him again felt worse.
"...I don't wanna ask you to leave him here." Because that wouldn't be fair. Not all at once, anyway. He can't leave Marcel in this hole in the ground anymore than Gabi can leave Sasha Braus on that airship. She knows that. "But...can I ask you to please not feel like you have to be him for other people anymore? Not for Annie or Bertolt or anybody else. I'm sorry he's gone. But I don't want you to feel like you have to be someone else, to make up for something..."
She held onto him as tight as she could, tears flowing freely again.
"I just need you to be you, Reiner."
no subject
Then Gabi begins to speak, listing the traits that Reiner knows so well: a natural leader, reliable, caring. All things Reiner broke himself to become. Did he ever succeed? No, if he is even a shadow of Marcel, it's still nothing in comparison. Reiner knows that in his bones.
But … Gabi didn't know Marcel. Gabi only knows him. Reiner, her cousin. The Warrior who went off to fight devils when she was just a toddler. Her cousin, who apparently comes back home and grows a goatee. To her, is he enough?
I just need you to be you, Reiner.
What does that even look like? Who is he when he's not trying to be someone else? He's not Marcel, the leader who looked after everyone. He's not the soldier who fought to defend the Walls. He's not the proud Warrior who earned the Armored. He's not the Honorary Marleyan with a far-off father who loves him. He's just…
What? What is he? A terrified child running from a Titan? A son throwing away his future to earn his mother's love? A boy stretching out his hand and begging the world to wait, please, just wait? A teenager struggling to stitch together the shredded remnants of his sanity?
A beloved cousin. A young man who died before Gabi turned fifteen. Someone that she needs, flawed and fractured as he is.
He can pull himself together for her, can't he? He can get to know the young woman she's become. He can see a time of her life that he will never be able to back home. He can be there for her. He can keep pushing forward.
Just do what you have to do. Just keep moving forward. It's all we can do.
He swallows down the ugly sobs that threaten to rip out of him. Squeezes Gabi a little tighter, his shoulder damp from her tears, trying (and failing) to stop trembling.
"Okay," he says, his voice shaking. He pulls in a breath, releases it slowly. "Okay," he repeats, a little steadier. And then—because it's all too much, too raw and painful—he adds, "I'm sorry."
Is he apologizing to Gabi? To Marcel? Both, maybe. He doesn't know.
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When he gives her a word of ascent, she manages a little smile. Then, she bumps her forehead against his briefly. She doesn't let go of him yet. She wants to just....spend one more moment like this. Holding him not because she's trying to pull him out of the spiral of his own guilt, but just because...she kind of missed her cousin since she arrived at Nightwake, and she wants to hold onto him.
"Okay," she says back. She thinks about telling him he doesn't have to apologize, but she keeps it to herself.
She has no idea how to tell Reiner all of the things that happen in his future. She doesn't know how she's going to explain to him that everything they were raised to believe was lies and the war they were fighting had been wrong and pointless and had nearly destroyed the entire world. She didn't know how they were going to deal with all of the people that Reiner had betrayed and fought to the death and not yet been forced to make peace with being here at the same time as him.
But it didn't matter. She would figure it out. They would figure it out. Right now, all she wanted was to try. Try and prevent the deeply damaged young man next to her, hanging by a thread though he may be, from becoming the completely broken man she saw in Eren's memories. Was that even possible? Jean seemed to think that if you went back to your world, you lost your memories of Nightwake. So maybe it wasn't even possible. She didn't care. She still wanted to try.
And for now, that meant leaving this place. So she finally lets go of Reiner and takes his hand in hers. Her smile is a little shaky, but, it's there. It's there for him. She gestures to the portal in front of them.
"Let's get outta here."
One foot in front of the other.