2024-02-12: Deciding Who You Are
- Log: 2024-02-12: Deciding Who You Are
- Cast: Redi Hayworth, Hicalu Wilwisp
- Where: Hilton
- Date: February 12, 2024
- Summary: Later in the day, after her return to Hilton, Redi and Hicalu have a talk.
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
It is a couple of days after they checked into the hotel in Hilton. The first full day after, Redi didn't do very much. She slept a lot of the day; when she was up and about, she didn't talk very much.
Now, it is closer to lunch time. She managed to get up earlier; she talked with Yulie, too, when she awoke. She is feeling better, but that's relative.
She wouldn't say she is better.
She sits on the balcony, now. Redi looks different, in that her ever-present uniform isn't on. Just plain brown trousers and a white button-up shirt, not tucked in. Her hair is messier than usual. She sits in a chair, looking out over Hilton's skyline: apartments, stores, and so many masts and steam stacks in the distance. The sea dominates the horizon.
She feels worse than she did. And, in a mood where she feels like everything is a betrayal, that feels like a betrayal too. She felt better after talking to Yulie.
And now, despite her best efforts, the sadness -- the hurt -- the questions are back. That, too, feels like a betrayal.
But it's not hard to find her, when Hicalu gets back to the rooms. And Redi is up, and while she can't see it, that's a big step.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Is she gonna be okay?", was the question of the hour. Hicalu's asked it a lot. He's worried a lot. He doesn't really know how cursed girls recover from being shunned like that, but he's pretty sure a heal berry muffin won't cut it.
She just needs... rest.
Tragically, it's hard for Hicalu to track down an oven on the go like this. He went to the local bakery, instead, to pick up some cupcakes. Redi might see him, walking back with the basket over one tattooed arm, because he sees her. And his ears perk up, and his mouth says something, but he's all the way down there so who knows what it was --
But soon enough, Hicalu gets up the hotel stairs, and bustles out into the balcony. "Hey, Redi," he says, with a gentle smile. "You're up? Here -- I just picked these up," he puts the cupcakes on a table between the balcony chairs, before he takes a seat, too. And of course he takes a cupcake, if only to demonstrate to her that they won't bite. (They're not even healing cupcakes, so she doesn't have to feel bad.)
"... nice view, huh?" He asks, looking out over it all.
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi sees him. There's a blink -- and there's a small smile, more an effort at a smile -- and then she waves. She can't make out what he says from down there. But it gives her a moment to collect herself. Her thoughts.
She wants to talk to him and she doesn't, at the same time, and it's... terribly conflicted, all around.
When he comes onto the balcony, she looks at him. She puts on the same effort at smiling, before she looks at the cupcakes. "...hey," she says. "Yeah. A... couple hours. I talked to Yulie some."
She says it mostly so Hicalu doesn't worry she was alone.
She looks back at the city. But she takes a cupcake, too, and idly starts at the paper around it. "...yeah. It is," she says. "It's... like I remember it." She swallows. "How she remembered it, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu does look glad to hear Yulie was here for Redi, when she woke up, just as he says, "That's good." They've been teaming up to make sure Redi's never too far from help, surely.
He sighs, unwrapping his own cupcake and taking a bite. Nom, chomp. "That's all gotta be a lot," he says, after that moment's pause. "You know -- the 'she'. It's, uh..." He pauses, again, because should he really bring up his own doppelganger here?
Mmmaybe later.
He wants to get a better idea where Redi's at, first.
"How are you going with it?" He asks, because he's a pretty direct guy, really. "The whole -- not-your-memories memories bit. Like," he hurries to add, waving a hand, "I'll say it again 'cuz I reckon you were kinda messed up at the time, I made friends with you, so I've always known you -- y'know, if something happened before, that doesn't change how you're my friend. But... it's gotta be a lot, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"I... yeah," Redi says, looking down at her cupcake. It is a lot. She opens her mouth, like she should say more. And it's not a lack of thigs to say -- it's too many. So many that she feels like she could get crushed underit.
She stays quiet, for a moment, when he asks how she is doing with it. Redi hesitates.
"...thanks," she says. "I--I know. I know you made friends with me, not..." Not her. She closes her eyes. "I don't know. No, I mean, I'm not... I'm not doing good. I'm all torn up inside. And I'm..."
She lowers her head. "...I keep asking, do I have any right to those things? That life? I liked it a lot. But... i-it wasn't mine. But who am I, if it's not real?"
She takes a bite of her cupcake, and sighs, then opens her eyes and looks back at him.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"I guess... if you'd asked me that, like, theoretically, before I knew all this... I'd say you didn't," Hicalu admits, scratching at his cheek with his free hand. "Since I would've just been thinking about the person who came before, not how, like -- you're sitting here feeling a bunch of feelings and they sure seem like they're yours from where I'm lookin' at you. Haha," he's laughing because he's nervous, not because he's happy, "I feel like that's totally not what I'm s'posed to say here, but... it's complicated, right?"
He looks down at his own cupcake, his ears aeroplaning down to either side of his head. "But just ditching you like that... I can't rightly explain it none, but I really, really felt like she was makin' a mistake with that one. I keep tryin' to figure it out so I can help you out, but... y'know, maybe it's nothin'." It isn't nothing, but he shakes his head, anyway, and takes another bite of cupcake.
"But it's different," to what?, "since, y'know, she -- died. She's gone now. You're not, like, showing up and making people think she burned a village down when you did it or nothin'." Random example. Don't worry about it. "So, like... no one's usin' that life no more. I guess I can't say it doesn't hurt anyone with how Mrs. Hayworth was goin' on, but..."
Hicalu clicks his tongue, and blows out his cheeks. "Aww, man! Why am I gettin' all stuck in that when the point is you can decide who it is you are? Right? Like, that's the important bit."
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi is quiet for a moment. She looks down, but she nods. "N-No, it's... that's true. That's what someone who--who knew the person I... that came before would say. That I don't. But..."
She keeps looking down, not at him. Her breath feels heavy when she exhales (but it's not lost on her that she is, still, breathing). "I'm... I'm glad you think so, though," she says. "I don't... I don't know if there's anything more I can say to her."
Then she looks up -- and she peers at Hicalu. Redi is quiet, for a moment. She isn't doing that -- nothing terrible, nothing awful. "I... I guess that's true. I--I know it's for me to decide."
She puts a hand over her face again. "But I don't--I don't know," she manages. "Every time I remember something, I know it's not something I lived. Every time I start to feel something about a memory, it's--it's like those shouldn't be my feelings. And--and even the person all of you knew, the things that I did, they're... they're so tied into who I thought I was."
Redi laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I feel like I was lying to all of you. I--I feel so stupid, being upset about it."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Prob'ly there's nothin'," Hicalu says, gently, on the matter of what Redi could say to the woman who isn't her mother. "Not right now, anyway. When someone's that upset, they don't hear what anyone has to say... even if it sucks to get locked out like that."
Maybe they can have a conversation later, when Mrs. Hayworth is actually finished grieving. ... maybe. Hicalu won't be the one to close the door on it, anyway.
But even if it's her decision, she just doesn't know, and Hicalu listens as she talks about her uncanny existence. He keeps his eyes on her, even as she laughs. Laughter can communicate a lot of things which isn't merriment.
"It's not stupid," he shakes his head. "Like, all a sudden you gotta question everything about yourself? That's not stupid. It's huge. Super-mega-huge. It's no fair to beat yourself up over havin' feelings about it, yeah? If you didn't have a bunch of bad feelings I'd be real worried -- bet Yulie would be, too. I mean, nothin' 'bout this is much of normal, but bein' upset? Super normal."
He hums, as he finishes off his cupcake to give himself a moment to think. "I don't think you can lie if you didn't even know you were lyin'," he suggests, finally, tilting his head. "When I think of lying, it's, like -- it's somethin' you know you were doin'. Being mistaken ain't the same as lying, Redi. You had an honest belief about how your life worked. If you were just lyin', I don't reckon it would be screwing you up this bad now, 'cause you'd have been prepared -- you woulda known the truth already. This isn't something you did to hurt other people, it's... y'know, it's hurting you, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"...yeah."
Redi is quiet as she thinks about that. About how she feels betrayed, hurt, and worse from the things her mother -- someone else's mother -- said to her. About how much she still misses her, but nothing will change that now.
And she stays quiet for a little while longer. It isn't stupid, he says. She takes another bite of her cupcake, then she nods. It makes sense, in a way. Lying is when you know you've said something dishonest.
"I... I guess so," she says, a little quietly. "I guess it's okay to be upset. But I... I just don't have any answers, either. And when I think about--about what I d-di--"
Her voice hitches. Some things that she knows she did are still hard to think about it.
"I can't even say it out loud," she says, instead. This time, her laugh is almost a sob. "I couldn't to Yulie, I couldn't to you.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu, whose hands are now free, reveals just why he would ensure something so devious --
-- reaching over the table to put a hand on Redi's arm.
"Hey," he says, gently. "Hey. It's okay. It's okay not to have answers, and it's okay if you can't spit it out."
He pauses, tilting his head, as he rewords a statement in his head. "... you wanna write it down?" Is how he puts it, eliding any reference to letters. "If you can't say it out loud, maybe you can say it some other way." She must want to say it, he thinks, if she tried with both him and Yulie.
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi hesitates, when he puts a hand on her arm. Then, she pats his hand once. Redi's other hand comes up to cover her face.
"I--"
Write it down? She thinks about that for a second. Then, she shakes her head.
"N... not yet," she manages. She rubs at her face, then looks up at him. "I think... I think if I write it, if I say it, it's true, and I--I can't just... I can't do that yet. It's--"
It's not stupid. They went over that.
"Maybe... maybe later, though."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Sure thing," Hicalu agrees, easily. "Just -- remember it's an option. You'll know when you're ready to try those options out, I reckon. Even if it's all real confusing right now... you're still the one in your head, Redi. You know how you're feelin' best."
He tilts his head, again, as he thinks. "Well, I don't really know how to answer 'who am I', those kinda big questions, but... you been drinking water, Redi? And have you managed to scrub yourself up? Stuff like that -- y'know -- it might not be a big answer, but if you feel cruddy in your body, your feelings aren't gonna feel much better. So -- you reckon we can have a proper dinner tonight?" Oh no! He's insisting she actually sit up and eat a full meal!
At least he's suggesting it for dinner, so she has some time to prepare herself for this horrific demand.
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"R...right. Yeah," Redi agrees. "When I'm ready." She is the one in her head; she doesn't have to worry about that. Even if she has questions about who, exactly, is in her head.
"I--um--I had breakfast," she says. Then, she thinks of the times Hicalu dragged her off for a meal. So she clarifies: "Real breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, and juice. Yulie made it for me. And, uh..."
She glances to the side, then shakes her head. "...didn't clean up, though." She isn't wearing any of the usual get-up -- but more than that, she only really managed a shirt and pants.
"Dinner... um. Dinner would be good," she says. "I'm... I'm trying, you know? I know I can't lay down in my room forever."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"I know you know," Hicalu says, "but I kinda get the feeling you need remindin' about this stuff, since you've got so much goin' on. Nothin' wrong with that, either," he adds, waving a hand, "I'd be lyin' if I said I never became a blanket pile on my bed."
Beat: "Not that I ever dealt with something this big," he adds, abashed, scratching at his cheek again. "But I kinda get it, you know? Like -- it's all so big, it feels like it's gonna crush you into one of those pancakes. Yeah?" He is glad to hear Yulie got Redi proper pancakes, though.
"But you are trying," he adds, and treats it seriously. "I can tell. Just 'cause it's too big to solve that easily doesn't mean you're not trying -- real hard. I was real happy to see you were sitting out here gettin' some fresh air, you know? It's a good sign."
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"Y-Yeah," Redi agrees. "I always..." There's a flinch, as she remembers. Of course, this was true of both of her lives. "...I have a habit of getting bogged down in work and not quite eating right."
She looks sideways at him, then she shakes her head. "...yeah. It's--it's like that. Even earlier, after I talked to Yulie, I felt better. Then... then it was back, after awhile."
She exhales, then she nods. "I... I guess it is," she says. "I barely got out of bed yesterday." Redi is quiet for a moment, then; she even takes the last bite of her cupcake.
"Thanks, Hicalu," she says, her voice quiet. "Not... not just for the cupcake. For coming with me. And staying, today. A-and... you know. For speaking up for me, the other day."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"That's why I'm giving you a hard time about it!" Hicalu replies to Redi's troubles with eating right, and injects some cheer into the statement, for all their conversation is a touch dismal. "You're welcome!"
He does grow more thoughtful, though, considering what she has to say next. He's listening; those giant ears of his are good for something. "Hey," he says, at length, "it's no problem. Like I said, you're my friend. Ahh, maybe I got too fired up, back there, but... even if it's not my usual style, I'd do it again." He scratches at one of those big ol' ears, as it quirks on his head. "You're not alone, you know? Me and Yulie -- and even Riley and Xander, y'know. We care about ya."
He shakes his head, smiling. "And it's okay if you feel bad after we get done talkin', too, okay?" He says, putting Redi's misery together with the way she did feel better after talking to Yulie. "Sometimes feeling bad is a feeling that goes away right quick, but sometimes it settles in and it stays there, even when you try to fix it. Mana always used to say that some sicknesses were in your body, but some of them are in your heart, and if I ignored those ones just 'cause I wasn't running a temperature or nothin' I'd end up breaking it. So... be nice to yourself, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
That prompts Redi to laugh, even if it's a little short. But... Hicalu has always nudged her to eat. And that memory is, unquestionably, hers. That feels nice.
She looks up at him -- then she blinks a little, when Hicalu says he got a little fired up. She smiles again, though it's still brief. "...Yeah," she says. "I... I know. You're all still here. I even saw Xander and Riley coming by."
Keeping an eye on things, as it happens.
She quiets down, though, as Hicalu explains about sicknesses in the heart. She hesitates, putting a hand over her chest. But, she nods. "I... y-yeah. I think I understand. I'll try to."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu still isn't entirely sure how to take Riley and Xander, but he can't just cut them out of the equation -- and they have earned a lot of esteem from him for keeping an eye on Redi like this. Is it possible to say something like, 'for a pair of murderers, they're not that bad'? That feels like an insane statement but it also might not be a WRONG statement --
Anyway.
"They've been keepin' an eye on things for ya," Hicalu says, on the Fangs, confirming that Redi did in fact see them.
Hicalu doesn't exactly know the word for depression -- or at least, he doesn't remember it, because it's entirely likely someone told him what it was and then he decided it was just a descriptive word and forgot it was also the name of the thing -- but he can describe depression. And it seems he's even able to describe it well enough for Redi to absorb most of what he means, which is always a relief. "That's good," he says, nodding. "So long as you try, I'll be happy."
He looks out over the vistas of Hilton, green gaze veiling. "We'll be here as long as you need," he assures her. "But later... now I'm back on Ignas... I think there's somethin' I have to do. Because... I don't want you to be sad. I don't want you to be sad, so..."
So... what does that mean?
"... don't worry about it," he answers that question, shaking his head. "I'm just thinkin' out loud. It'll keep for later."
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi has her own reservations. But, right now, it's difficult to not empathize. She feels more like a monster than she ever did before.
She nods, then she looks at him. "I'll try," she promises. She quiets, though, looking at him as he looks out at Hilton -- at the seas beyond, too. She doesn't have a look, herself.
"Something you have to do? For... me?" Or is it something else. Redi blinks her eyes; she feels like the thought is a little hard to pull through her own feelings.
Still, she tries. And when she does, she finds concern bubbling up. What does that mean? And why does it worry her, to hear him put it like that?
"A-All right," she says. "For... later. But... I'll go with you," she promises. "Whenever you're ready, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu can at least confidently say that Redi isn't the kind of monster Riley and Xander are. They're much more terrifying, for obvious reasons.
(The reasons are all obvious, aren't they?)
"Ahh... kinda," Hicalu says, rubbing at an ear. "It's more like, wonderin' how someone like you might really be feelin'... instead of just bein' scared. Not that I know if it's the same thing or not, but... I at least shouldn't run away. That doesn't feel good... does it?"
His smile grows strained. "I -- I would like that. But it might be pretty dangerous, Redi. It's..." His hands tighten, on the armrests. "... this guy called... Nogitsune, right? And the... Ears of Valmar..." ... as his gaze grows distant and unfocused, and sweat beads his brow. Is that why he has so much trouble -- believing in Riley and Xander?
"... he looks just like me," Hicalu says, at a whisper. "That's what they all said. When they told me about, the villages he devastated. I don't know, who, but... I couldn't find him in Aquvy. So, maybe... now I'm back here... I should find him. I shouldn't run away."
(Again.)
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"It... yeah. Running away doesn't feel good," Redi says, a little quietly. Even if part of her wishes she could. But she doesn't have anywhere to run to. And, besides, she would really be alone then.
It would be running from the people who care for her.
So, really, it's an easy decision. Even through the haze of feeling sorry for herself -- it's an easy decision.
"Nogitsune..." And the Ears of Valmar. "...we should keep that quiet from Xander and Riley. I don't know how they'd react. But--but..." She swallows. Someone who looks just like him -- someone who destroyed villages.
"I'll be with you," she promises. "You won't go it alone, okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Yeah. It was... awkward? Uh... I mean... I didn't wanna think about it. Better... not tell 'em." How do you tell the Fangs of Valmar that there's more Valmar which is apparently you but definitely not you running around listening?!
The answer is obviously denial.
But Redi promises he won't be alone, and Hicalu smiles a little easier, at that. "Th-- thanks. Sorry, I know that's a lot to dump on you at the -- at the -- everything," he just kind of gestures to all of her, haplessly. "I just been thinking about it, with the -- everything. It's weird how... I got a story that relates, huh."
He sighs, shoulders rising and falling in a great breathe-in breathe-out shrug. "But I guess, y'know -- at least that means it's not just you, right? This sorta thing, I guess -- it does happen, just not too often. But if it's somethin' that other people go through, too, they've prob'ly found their own answers about it all already. I dunno if that helps none, but..."
Hicalu smiles to Redi, again. "No matter what, you're my friend who hears about a guy wrecking a village and immediately goes, 'yeah, I'll go meet him with you!' That bravery and loyalty and, like, caring and stuff, that's all you, Redi."
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"Y-Yeah... uh, one thing at a time," Redi says.
Or, maybe, never bring that up. She has no desire to let Xander get all of the parts of Valmar, regardless.
"No, no, it's--it's okay, I... I get it," she says, a little quieter. "You mentioned it's... you know. You know a bit of how it feels. I... see what you mean."
She replaced someone else. He has someone who looks just like him, running around.
Then, she nods. "Yeah. Not... just me," she says. "It's... it doesn't exactly help, but it doesn't hurt, either." She smiles back -- and then she laughs, a little quietly and a little sheepishly.
"I... I guess it is."
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
At least Hicalu can be pretty confident he's not a part of Valmar, if Riley and Xander haven't decided to eat him yet. Wouldn't their... Valmar-senses tip them off if he was??
(He presumes that Riley and Xander have Valmar senses. It seems logical enough.)
He nods, though, as Redi works through how he knows a little about how it all feels. That halting realisation feels about as quick as how he figured it out --
But when she laughs, he grins, in turn. "There yarh!" And he has a very small-town boy kind of accent, but cramming 'you are' into one syllable is REALLY over the top. "See? I knew you could still laugh for real instead of a like, secretly hurting but laughing to cover up the pain kinda deal. C'mon," he says, pushing the basket of cupcakes towards her. "Have another one, okay? Enjoy a thing that tastes good!"
There are a lot of problems he can't solve, looming over Redi's future and his, but he does have a lot of cupcakes.