open.

[ex_adept179]

Who: Slaine Troyard adept and you.
What: -1 goddess
When: March 18th
Where: Library at Elsa's School
Warnings: Angst.


[When Slaine couldn't locate Dal Dal, that had been concerning, but it wasn't the first time. As it got later, he tried looking for her only to find that he couldn't. Nowhere he looked and nowhere he tried gave him any indication of where she was...that is, until he finds his kitten batting a crumpled piece of paper around.

And, once he does...

Well. Maybe it's fortunate that he's by himself, because it feels like his insides twist into knots. His throat feels tight, his eyes burn, and in the end he just sits there crying for a time. The note's a half-smudged mess by the time all's said and done, and he doesn't know where to go - or what to do. He's not even sure who he should ask about something like this.

If she's gone, what then? Does he get reassigned - is he already reassigned?

Eventually though, he makes his way to the library in Elsa's school, hoping the red around his eyes isn't as noticeable to anybody else as it is to him. He takes up a seat in the corner as he usually does, and simply buries his face in a book, hoping it's easier not to worry about what happens next if he's focused on something...though that doesn't seem to work as the page in front of him blurs and he winds up wiping his face with his sleeve]


[ooc: Rolling with Dal Dal having left him a note as per her drop message. At this point he's figured out she must be gone but hasn't woken up in his new god's temple. Good stuff? Good stuff]

Comments

[reformedsinner]

Slaine?

[Hakkai pauses on his way to the shelves, frowning as Slaine wipes his face with his sleeve. It's not unusual for the young man to be in that corner with his book. It is unusual for him to be --

... crying?]

What's wrong?

[Abandoning his plan to finish the Kojiki for a little research into the relationships of the Heavenly dignitaries, he starts for Slaine's corner.]

[ex_adept179]

[Slaine stiffens upon hearing his name, trying his best to subtly dry his face as he sits up straighter. Futile as that effort might be, he'd expected to go unnoticed rather than have someone figure him out right away.

Someone doesn't know he can be pretty transparent under the right conditions]

My god, she just...

[He trails off. The words form a lump in his throat, so he instead offers Hakkai a rumpled piece of paper when he's within arm's reach. A note from Dal Dal saying she knows he'll be alright, and taken care of...

No explanation, simply well-wishes. And a smudge that might've been an emoji once]

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai takes the note, reads it, and looks back up at Slaine with shock reverberating openly across his face.]

She's gone?

[She's gone and she knew she was going and left a note? That's -- new.

Horrifying, and new. So whoever is making these attacks isn't striking from hiding; the gods know. And yet, they still have no chance to fight back, or to offer any information to those left behind.

Unless the note is forged, of course.]

This writing... does it sound like her?

[ex_adept179]

[He nods, albeit stiffly, lightly tapping the blur that was once a drawing]

She used those little faces a lot... And I've seen enough of her shopping lists.

[Despite his efforts, his voice isn't entirely steady, but he pretends not to notice it himself]

I don't...I don't know when she wrote it.

[Maybe she had when they learned how easily gods could vanish, or maybe more recently than that. It's the part he's unsure of, because Lily found the paper somewhere. He's unsure where it was before that]

[reformedsinner]

Ah... that's a thought, yes. [She could have prepared it in advance.]

My condolences, Slaine. Would you... [He hesitates, not sure how to comfort the young man.] Would you like tea?

[ex_adept179]

[For a few moments he simply considers that.

Tea...it might be good. It's warm. So was his god, albeit in a different way-

He shouldn't think on that]

...Would it be an imposition? I'm sure you have other matters to attend to.

[reformedsinner]

It's no trouble at all. I was only going to read.

[Hakkai smiles gently at Slaine, and gestures towards the library door.]

It can wait. Please, come with me. Do you know if you've been assigned to a new god...?

[ex_adept179]

[He starts to pick himself up, hugging the book he was trying to read to his chest without much thought to it. Once he stands though, he goes still, pondering that]

I'm not... [Biting his lip, he considers] ...How would I know if I've been assigned a new one?

[It probably stands to reason that he has to have been, right? Otherwise, he couldn't be here...probably]

[reformedsinner]

I'm... not sure.

But you might have a new name.

[Hakkai glances at him, thoughtful. Slaine is still here, visibly the same. Would he be that way as a shinki with no god? Would he even remain here if no other god were supporting his existence?

Hakkai doesn't know.]

I'm not certain, though. From what I've learned, we're quite different from normal shinki in a variety of ways.

[He turns to lead the way to the kitchen. It's not too far; on the left, at the other end of the hallway, and he sets a kettle on to boil at once.]

[galactically]

[Sheryl happens to wander from one table to the next when she stops, noticing Slaine in the corner, burying his face in a book. With the sight of a familiar person, this would normally be her cue to start pestering chatting up a storm, except...

Seeing him wipe his face with his sleeve is new to her.]

What happened to you?

[She backtracks, slowly resting a hand on his shoulder with a concerned look.]

[ex_adept179]

[So much for playing it cool. Slaine can only imagine if he's drawn attention - concerned attention - he's failed to look convincingly fine. His shoulders stiffen under that touch just enough to be perceptible as he braces himself and looks up, trying his best to appear perfectly composed.

The red around his eyes from rubbing at them so much betrays him however]

It seems I can't find my god anywhere...

[He manages to sound forcibly calm, but his voice wavers around the edges. frayed by his mounting concern that perhaps something he had done resulted in her winking out of existence]

[galactically]

[Slaine can try to appear as cool as a cucumber, but the redness around his eyes is so noticeable to Sheryl that she'd have to be blind not to see it. A look of surprise crosses her features as she carefully removes her hand from his shoulder, arching an eyebrow at him.]

Not even at her temple?

[She says slowly, cautiously. Something drastic must've happened, otherwise Slaine wouldn't have been crying.

Her hand curls inward, feeling it tremble, and she presses it against her chest while her owlish gaze remains locked on him.]

[ex_adept179]

I checked there first, and once again before I came here.

[He glances down then, tugging a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket. After taking pause to watch it cautiously, he offers the paper to Sheryl for her perusal.

Simply a note in Dal Dal's handwriting with her well-wishes. Things like saying she knows he'll be okay and that he'll be treated well, ended with her signature and a smudge that was once a drawn emoji]

This is all I found...and I've no idea when she wrote it.

[galactically]

[Once Sheryl takes the paper from Slaine, she skims through the message with a curious look, then her eyes turn narrow as she finishes. "Dal Dal"? The name is barely familiar... Ah, that one person Sheryl deems irrelevant if she can't remember anything else about her, aside from calling that girl "unprofessional" over... something.

Yeah, she pretty much forgot.

Idle thoughts aside, there's a grim look over Sheryl's face as she returns the paper to Slaine. He's clearly affected by his goddess's lack of presence, whoever she is, and this is starting to remind her of what happened to Yuuki over the BBS.]

Does she usually leave goodbye notes like these?

[ex_adept179]

I've not been around that long, but...no.

[Shopping lists he'd certainly seen in abundance, and they'd quickly become a collaborative mess of her demands and his counters to them, but... Nothing like this. And being as new as he is he can't say he expected it.

One day, Dal Dal was there, and the next she wasn't.

He has to wonder if something he's done caused this]

[galactically]

... I see.

[With Sheryl being warned that gods can disappear, seeing a farewell note only evokes suspicion from within herself. The mentions of knowing that her shinki will be fine and that he'll be treated well... could it be that she's being replaced? Tsuzuki did say that the Heavens don't care about human laws, so making a god say farewell to their shinki isn't out of the question.

As she takes a seat next to Slaine, a worried expression settles across her features. She pauses, trying to think of the proper words to say.]

I have a guess as to what might have happened to her. [A pause.] I'm not sure.

[ex_adept179]

Gods...sometimes they vanish, don't they?

[The words leave him with a clear, grudging reluctance. Slaine doesn't want to believe it and doesn't want to think it. But if he can't find her anywhere and can't reach her by phone, and found a note like this, it seems there is only one conclusion to be drawn.

One that he hates the notion of, but denial of an unfortunate reality doesn't make it go away]

[tofus]

[School is starting to become something of a mixed bag for Rise. She's clearly good at some things and not good at others, but the encouragement of the staff does push her to go forward and learn more. And that's not a bad thing.

Which is why she's going around the library at this hour, picking up a few books on history and math. Hopefully, they'll help out a bit.

But when she passes by one row of bookshelves and sees a familiar head of hair and stops. When she sees him wiping his face, that's when she starts getting concerned and approaches quietly.]

Slaine-kun? What's wrong?

[ex_adept179]

[Slaine starts when he hears a familiar voice, quickly scrubbing at his face with his sleeve as though that won't just make it redder. He tries to compose himself as he looks up at Rise, but it's fairly obvious that he isn't in the best of steads, right about now.

And he only sustains eye-contact for a few moments before it slips down to the book he's holding instead]

It's just... My goddess disappeared.

[He'd been alright with all of this, strange as it was, because it was reassuring to have such a warm and kind presence around. And now that she's vanished, he doesn't know what to think, or how to feel]

[tofus]

[Rise stays just a few feet away from him, looking down at him with growing concern. So another god has disappeared. She distinctly remember Yuuki not taking it well once she transferred into Hajime's shrine, and from the looks of things, he's taking it the same way.

She comes up beside him and slowly slides down the wall until she's kneeling, placing the books on the floor in front of her.]

Oh, geez. Really? I'm so sorry, Slaine-kun.

[ex_adept179]

[He can't help but feel that being spotted means he's betrayed some terrible weakness that'll come back to bite him later. Why that feeling gnaws at him so uneasily is impossible to know, of course, when he knows so little of himself. But it's there all the same, lingering on the periphery of his mind.

Slaine's eyes stay trained on the book in front of him. He's read the same line over and over again, unable to make progress, and even now the words blur under his attention]

I couldn't find her anywhere, and...

[His voice is unsteady around the edges as he tugs a wrinkled bit of paper from his pocket, smoothing it out against his book before he offers it to Rise. A note in Dal Dal's handwriting, assuring that he'd be okay, and taken care of...or else]

All I found was this.

[tofus]

[Gingerly, she takes the note, holding against one of her own books to make sure she wasn't going to ruin it anymore. She can't say she ever met his goddess so she doesn't know what she's like personally, but from what she knows from him and what's written on this note, she seems like a good goddess.]

...I'm sorry. [Rise passes it back to him, hugging her own books against her body herself. He must feel pretty alone, scared. It's bad enough when you don't know yourself, but when the one thing that could hold you together disappears, you feel even more lost than normal.]

She sounds really nice, and cares about you a lot. I'm sure she wouldn't want you to be sad...

[ex_adept179]

[When the paper's passed back to him he folds it back up, quietly tucking it into his pocket once again. He didn't want to lose that one, small thing, if that was all that remained of the first connection he'd made as a shinki. And it seems that may truly be the case, the more time passes.

And Rise has a point: Dal Dal probably wouldn't want him to mope around like this, even if he misses her. Letting out a shaky breath he attempts to better compose himself, sitting up straighter]

I'm sure that you're right...

[tofus]

[She smiles a little brighter, and might even nudge his arm with her elbow a bit. That's right. No moping around! There's a bright side to all of this and he's not alone.

That's what everyone told her on the first day she woke up here.]

Of course I'm right! And you know, you're not the only one. Yuuki-chan's god disappeared too. Hajime-san took her in. I'm sure you'll find a great god and get along great with them too! You're not going to forget her, but you just gotta keep going on.

[ex_adept179]

Yes, I remember it happened to Yuuki too...

[And he thinks she'd been with her god longer, and had far more right to be distressed as she was. She didn't get a note, like he did, and part of him feels silly because he simply couldn't manage to keep this to himself.

Or keep out of sight, at any rate. He'd hoped reading would be more of a distraction than it proved itself to be]

How silly I must look, after all my talk when we first met.

[Because he hasn't forgotten that]