No More Songs [visual |backdated to the morning after Glitch's post]

[hasaheart]

In the movies, or in Other-Side movies that is, the best friend always seems to know if or when something is wrong. Wyatt and Glitch have been friends for years, the best of friends and more: brothers (in-arms and otherwise), partners-in-crime, confidantes, fellow Ozites swimming in a sea of faceless drones and Other-Siders. They were bound to the same fate by oath and duty and magic, and even after their quest was ended their friendship lived on. It wasn't easy. It wasn't perfect - but what would life or friendship be if not for the bumps in the road.

In Taxon, in what poses as real life to those trapped, Wyatt goes about his day like any other day in blissful ignorance of his friend going into the wind.

It isn't until the next morning, when as part of hardly-ever-failing routine Wyatt checks through the list of names on his tablet...and finds one missing.

He stares for a moment; the cogs of his brain halt and squeak and attempt a reversal. No, that can't be, can't have read that right--

By his third painstaking scrutiny of the list of names and residences and shops, Wyatt can't breathe. His kitchen goes from a bright safe haven to a black hole and the walls are closing in and he. Can't. Breathe.

~*~

The face that appears on the tablet is white as a sheet and drawn with tension. Look any closer and you might see that jaw snap clean off his face. It's a moment before he speaks, because like so many times before he doesn't know where to start. He's been over all the rational explanations. He's even gone to Langwe and Gale's. He went to Glitch's shotgun house.

Now he's back, and there's no escaping the fact his world is crumbling. The walls are coming down and his back isn't strong enough to push back.

His lips fold inward. He swallows. "Glitch is gone. I don't know what else to say. I don't know."

Comments

[hasaheart]

He nods, thinking maybe they ought to have a bake-off of some sort. Nothing like a bit of competitive cooking to bring a small group of people together.

But that's a stray thought brought on by another memory. It was good, showing Madelyne the ropes.

"Yeah," he says. What else can he say, really? "Me too. I know you were good friends with him."

SORRY! I thought I replied to this!

[genequeen]

"Well, we spent a lot of time in each other's heads," she says with a rueful sort of expression. She seems amused and yet stricken. Madelyne, it seems, doesn't make friends easily, or at least she feels she does not. For someone who can read minds she's really, really bad at knowing how people feel about her.

"No where near the loss for me that it is for you, though. What would be the best way to commemorate, do you think?"

no worries~

[hasaheart]

And Cain nods, feeling like he sort of knows what she means by that, and gestures towards the kitchen table. "Please."

He takes out a pair of mugs, plates, spoons...

Commemorating.

"I planted a Wishing Tree in the forest nearly an annual past. It's still there." He shrugs his good shoulder, setting out the plates and mugs and spoons. Turns on his heel for the coffee.

"It's an Outer Zone tradition. Or a Munchkin Country one. I don't remember."

[genequeen]

The pies end up on the kitchen table, all four of them. It will be a challenge to see if they're up for four pies. The thing is, though, that she's probably making up for quality with quantity. That or she's just nervous and not good with dealing with loss.

Maybe both?

"Should we have a picnic or give it a companion?"