2020-12-27: Heroes Never Die
- Log: Heroes Never Die
- Cast: Marivel Armitage Brad Evans
- Where: T'bok Village
- Date: 12/27/2020
- Summary: Marivel lets Billy know of Brad's fate.
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
The Village of T'bok is a small place - a few rows of homes, a few rows of barns for animals, a few buildings that might have been shops once and now don't look safe to work in. The kind of small settlement, slowly limping along to its death, that people are talking about when they say Filgaia is dying. A place slowly limping from its last legs to its deathbed...
Near the center of the small town, the local Armsmeister - a graying old man who must not have his own shop, seeing as he's sitting next to a pile of boxes clearly containing the materials of his trade - sits nearby a woman in a blue dress; that latter is the local member of Irving Vold Valeria's Memory Service, the small army Irving employs to keep tabs on everything happening out in the world. There's only one or two children playing, though there are a few older teens about. One, a young girl with short, slightly wavy blonde hair down to her shoulders, dressed in a plain villager's dress, emerges from a house in the middle of town, and sits down on the step, hand rubbing down the flank of an old, brown-furred dog.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel held off for a time. She's not sure hwy. She thought, maybe, Brad would step out of the shadows or reveal himself to be on Spira. She isn't someone to give up on the hope that someone she thought was dead could possibly actually secretly be alive. It's not uncommon for soldiers thought dead to turn up--perhaps wounded or otherwise--having been lost in the fog of war. And sure, Brad blew up a bombaround his NECK but Filgaia is a strange enough place. She gave it some time.
And then she thought of Billy.
Marivel, shrouded in her Sun Prevention Gear, steps into town--having appeared outside it. She makes her way through the village, glancing about. Her eyes settle on Valeria's Memory Service agent for a time but it doesn't reall disrupt her plans. She turns, glancing around. Her name, she thinks, her name it was...
She approaches the young girl with blond hair. Just an average villager, she thinks, living a normal life except for one key element.
"You're Merrill, right?" Marivel asks as she approaches.
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
The young girl looks up, patting the dog a couple times on the back. "I am," she says, with no hesitation. There's a smile on her face. "Miss Marivel, right? I remember. You all saved us with Mister Brad."
She smiles even brighter at that. "We heard about the big fight off at Kattelox. T'Bok's sleepy, but we get our news sooner or later. Guess y'all must have been on some big adventure. Good to see ya came back."
She leans to either side, as if attempting to find someone lurking behind the pile of coats and hats.
The big brown dog looks up, peering at Marivel. Dogs always sense the problem before people do. He ruffs, unhappily.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel smiles. She looks at the dog and she exhales out a sigh. What is it with her, lately, and upsetting canines. First Luceid, now this good boy. She doesn't want to think about it too hard because the harder she thinks about it, the harder it is to share the news she has to bring. "It--yes." Marivel says. "The big fight off at Kattelox is what I wished to talk about. I would have come sooner, but we were stuck elsewhere for a while so I couldn't visit, and I wanted to give it some time just in case but..."
She does not look behind her. She knows who Merrill is looking or. "Tis--It's about Brad."
She could lie, she thinks, say that it isn't as if Brad is confirmed deceased. It's even true, but it is a lie all the same. Marivel learned a long time ago how to lie without lying.
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Merrill sets a calming hand back on the dog's back. "Easy now, Rush, no need to get Miss Marivel wrapped up in your horseplay."
She looks back over to Marivel with a giggle. "Rush is gettin' a little older, but he still loves to play. Don't mind him none."
She tips her head a little, curious at Marivel's reticence. The smile stays on her face, though it does dampen down a little. She's not a fool, she can read a mood, even if Marivel's outfit makes her face unreadable. "Did he get himself hurt?" she asks.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel's eyes can be seen but the mouth is mostly hidden by scarves. She DOES have to at least see, even if the hat is big enough that it shadows her face.
"He... We were in a battle against Odessa agents." Marivel says. "But as the battle was nearly over, we got ambushed by a Gebler weapon along some of Odessa's clone soldiers." The less Merrill knows about Solaris the better, Marivel reasons. "We had to fall back from our position suddenly and quickly. To cover our escape."
"...I told him not to, but Brad did not listen to me. He charged into the thick of it and forcefully detonated an explosive with himself as the epiccenter to buy us time to escape."
"He saved us but he's... He's gone." Marivel says. "I tried to give it some time in case of a miracle but... We haven't heard from him since."
There's still a chance for a happy ending, she thinks miserably, but not for him, not for Billy...
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Just hearing the name Solaris can mark a person. Best to avoid it. Gebler is already a more fearsome thing than someone like Merrill could expect to reckon with. She doesn't really look like she's following the play by play....until Marivel explains the point. Her face freezes.
Perhaps she should weep. But she just looks down. "Gone again....has he," she murmurs, distantly. "You know...this isn't...the first time, he's left us. But I thought now that he'd come back, maybe, maybe he'd...."
Rush snuffles his head up into her lap, distracting her enough that she keeps it together, patting the old dog on the head.
She smiles down at him, then wipes wetness from her eyes. "Guess we should tell Billy, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Maybe she could have passed this off to one of Irving's people, Marivel thinks, so she didn't have to see this. She hates it. She hates the whole damn concept of heroes. But she chose to be the one. She could have just left them to it. Let the understanding slowly dawn upon them. No more tears, Marivel, the world shall weep instead.
"...He wanted to come back. I wanted him to come back." Marivel says. "To be honest, part of me was hoping he was hiding out here. I'd pretend I didn't see him and we'd never see each other again."
She looks to Rush and says, "He's a good dog. I'm--"
She sighs, shaking her head. "...Yeah, we probably should tell Billy."
She raises her head. "I'll--I'll come by more often too. Help out and... Do what I can for him, while Brad can't."
He'd probably laugh at her to see her like this, she thinks. She can't stop thinking about how for a moment, she thought he was up to something treacherous. She didn't want to look ahead and know.
She moves closer.
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Merrill stops at the doorway, briefly, after Marivel speaks. "You don't have to worry too much," she promises, quietly. "The village has been doing our best for him."
She steps into the house. It does look like a home someone lives in - tapestries on the ground, pictures on the walls, a kitchen table with chairs and a stovetop ready for use. But the key fixture of it all is the man in the rocking chair, facing away from the door. Caucasian - and quite pale, now, seeing as he scarcely goes outside. He looks about as healthy as a man whose mind has shattered can - he isn't raggedly thin, though certainly he hasn't been eating well.
He stares out the open window, with a peculiar posture. Like he weren't aware of himself enough to sit properly. His eyes are a thousand miles away.
Merrill squats a bit to his side, putting a smile in her voice. "Billy. One of Brad's friends is here."
He moans a reply.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel looks up, cheeks puffed out. "I'm not worrying...! I'm doing just fine...! I just owe him, that's all." Not even Rush is going to believe that lie however adept she is at it.
She follows after Merrill. She looks around the house. She takes it in. It's a humble abode. She wanted to live in someting nice and small and less empty too, she remembers. The Castle was too big even before her people went extinct, and it's even emptier now--yet she can't bear to just leave it be.
She approaches Billy. She crouches down nearby. This up close, it's easy to see Marivel's age. It's not in her skin or her body--it's just something in the eyes, just how tired they look.
"Hey Billy," Marivel says, crouching as she extends a hand, but--pulls it back. "Hope these fine people have been making good company."
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Billy Pilder's blonde hair has been trimmed and kept. He's definitely not being neglected, at least, for all his blue eyes barely see.
But his head does slowly drift from the window. He doesn't look at Marivel, quiet; but the way he seems to shift his hear toward her, halfway turn his face, is an approximation of attention.
Merrill slips backwards a bit, giving them room. "We do our best," she says, quietly. "He's been getting better, lately. Town doc helps him do exercises so his legs don't go all bad. I think..."
She wants to smile but something catches in her throat. "He seemed a lot happier, after Mister Brad came by."
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel's eyes widen when Billy looks right at her. She doesn't say anything for a while. "..." She lowers her head. It was hard to tell this to Merrill, it's practically impossible to tell Billy. "Brad," Marivel says.
She is quiet again. She just managed to say his name. Is that all she can do?
Her time in the Memory Maze. It was less terrible because she was with Ana. But now she's here. And she's there. But soon she will just be here. Once Ashley's time catches up--well, there is no time in the Memory Maze, but...Maybe she can collect one of thoe Brad Clone bodies, work on it for a while, reconfigure it, use her darkest sorceries to fetch Brad's soul and slap it inside--
--but she doesn't actually have that sorcery. And if she looked, she's adventured long enough to know what kind of horror she would find.
"I'm sorry," Marivel says. "Brad won't be able to come by again."
It is hard, she knows, but who is she really hoping to please by lying but herself? She must be honest. Even if it's impossibly hard. "I'm sorry. Nobody was supposed to--"
She scrunches up her face and exhales out slowly.
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
Merrill cannot, quite, suppress a sob, a hand over her mouth. She stands rigid, supporting herself. You have to be that strong to try to be a 'normal villager', out here.
Billy just looks at Marivel. His gaze is a million, billion miles away. When he breathes, it's slow.
"He," he croaks, words forming. He shifts in his chair, more quickly than before. "He......."
He squirms, an uncomfortable thing to look at. "He...!"
His eyes go wide, tension alive through his entire body, fingers gripping the rocking chair's armrests with sudden white-knuckle power they shouldn't even possess. "Hero...!!"
He shifts, throwing the rocking chair aside. His legs are paralyzed; he falls immediately to his knees. But not before he grabs Marivel by the shoulders.
And meets her eyes.
And for a second, she can see him - the man Brad Evans loved. A wild smirk on his face, his eyes kind but focused. She can practically hear the danger in the air. Like a memory lived out.
"Heroes never die," he says, with total, perfect clarity.
"Not as long as they have the will to fight."
A second passes, then two, then three, and then his legs fail him and he falls to his side.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel looks up into Billy's eyes. He starts speaking. He. He. He.
He's going to break down, she thinks. She was honest to him like a fool and he will collapse into despair and die. He will lose his will to live, rapidly lose his strength, and die and it'll be her fault, just like the people in Adlehyde she failed to save, just like Lumen she failed to save, just like the King she failed to save, just like Brad and Yuna and Ana and--
Hero...!!
Marivel hates that word. Her fists tighten into fists. She hates it. It's like nails on the chalkboard, a lie masquerading as truth, a fancy way of saying 'Sacrifice'.
But then Billy's eyes focus on her. He places a hand on her shoulder. And she accepts that she will be struk.
But then she sees it. The smirk.
Ana...she'd smile like that from time to time. It's a grin that she's only ever really seen on a human face. The immortals of these worlds could imitate but never quite match it. It's brilliant.
Like staring into a sun that does not burn her.
Heroes never die. Not as longn as they have the will to fight.
She remembers her hands shaking, then, on that last day. Anastasia resting her hand upon h er own until she stopped shaking. Without a word.
"...Billy..." She manages.
He falls to his side.
CANCELLER
Until he doesn't. Just as he's about to tumble to his side, Marivel whispers the spell and catches him in a hug before he tumbles. It's fierce, like the man had just saved her life.
Only for a moment before she gently sets him down in his chair.
"...I underestimated you, Billy." Marivel smiles. "...Surely I underestimated him too."
In this moment, at least, she actually believes it. "So...just be patient. No more sacrifices."
<Pose Tracker> Brad Evans has posed.
His strength is gone, but Marivel catches him.
That ferocity, that focus, is gone. He's off in his own world again, his body limp like a sandbag. But as she puts him down, he breathes, "My......hero....." to someone far, far away.
Merrill has stood on, shocked beyond action in the frenetic few seconds this all has taken. But as Marivel sets him back to rights, and comes to her own epiphany, she dabs at her wet eyes, and tries to muster a smile. "I think...we'll keep on hopin' too, Miss Marivel. Mister Brad's crawled out of one hole and came back to us. Took him ten years, last time, and we never lost hope. I'm gonna keep believin' in him."
Rush trots into the room, like the old hand who knows he hasn't been needed. He steps right up to Billy's chair and flops down at his feet, gruffing a canine agreement.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel isn't going to let this man tumble over like a broken man. Whatever happened to him to make him the man he is now--
--wasn't enough to destroy the man he was. Not entirely. She watches Billy for a long moment before pushing herself up to her feet. That weight is never entirely gone, but it feels lighter now. Once again humanity--it's just so incredible. She refuses to put her faith in any goddess or even the Elw. Only humanity has stuck by her through all this time. Only they haven't abandoned her.
She looks to Merrill, smiling back at her. "Thank you for letting me see him."
She dips her head once to her. "If he keeps you waiting for another ten years I'm never gonna let him hear the end of it. He's lucky to have someone like you in his life. I hope one day he can stay here instead of ... return here."
She pauses a moment. "Allow me to assist with the chores for today. I'll be out of your hair on the morrow, but I hate to be a guest who did not pay their host due respect."