vor | Eighth Cream Cake: [Written/Action/Voice] FORWARD-DATED to the 9th

[A week of research was a questionable coping mechanism. It succeeded in keeping him from having to talk to anyone. Also, in keeping him busy. However, a week buried in information brings on a loneliness that makes unchecked depression go rampant.

That's the worst part about it, sometimes. Being so utterly incapable of breaking the ice, of visiting someone and drudging up polite conversation and leaving that loneliness behind. He can't conjure the energy to visit anyone or ask for a visit, but everything is so much worse when he's lonely. Walking that circle is worse than rummaging through page after page of data, wanting to find and yet terrified of finding. He hated it alone in the research rooms, but feared going back to the same cycle, the same circle, as before.

When he comes back, he puts off going back to the flat for as long as possible. He sees to the horses at the stable, introducing the new mare to the others. Horses don't require conversation, but they provide companionship. Gregor is faintly disturbed by that thought, as if working with the horses might be more harmful than therapeutic. He finds himself clutching Babushka's mane in both fists, his face buried in her shoulder, heart pounding with the sudden, dizzy speculation that the one thing that makes him feel happy in this place is poisoned by his own weakness. No. No, no, no, he's not about to start thinking that way. Working with the horses means working with the hands, and that's human interaction. He enjoys that part. There's a premise to it, nothing forced. It's okay. He's being ridiculous about this. Gradually, he releases Babushka's mane. Her placid temperament helps. It's as if she barely noticed.

He should go home and take a shower, but instead he sits in the stable and sends a written message out, filtering it only lazily since it's nothing important.]

[Filtered to Ivan Vorpatril, Buffy Summers, Adele LeBlanc, and everyone who works at the stable or takes lessons - 35% unhackable]

I've come back.
--GVB

[/Filtered.]

[Then, it's anything he can do to keep from going back to that apartment. He knows once he's there, he'll nest in his safe little area and be completely trapped, alone with his own thoughts. So he plunks himself into the coffee shop with a cup of coffee and a cream cake he brought over from the bakery. He should check up on Loki (he has his own problems). He should talk to Nephry (she shouldn't see me like this). Or Molly (neither should she). Or Buffy (no pretending no no no...). Or Adele (nothing she can do). The trouble is that he's not fit to be seen by anyone. There's really nowhere to go but home, is there? Like it or not, he's chained to that place. Heaven forbid he send out a message to any one of them, or even that idiot Ivan, saying, I need help, today is a bad day, I don't care what you do just make sure...

Make sure of what? That he doesn't topple off any more balconies? He knows where death leads here. Everyone does. It would sound so stupid to explain why having one week asleep, one week ushered painlessly by during the wait to go home would be worth a death penalty.

...He needs to talk himself out of thinking that way.

At last, he sends out a voice message.]

The public stables are open, with three horses available to anyone who needs them. Just check them out with the on-duty stable hand.

[After inquiries are responded to, there's nothing to do but go home. Once he is there, he is most likely to curl up on his couch and not answer the door or any messages.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Loki shrugs.] I've nothing but time when you need help for it. At your convenience.

Maybe in a couple of days. I have at least one riding lesson tomorrow. Maybe I can enlist Ivan to help.

...Dear God, I have to tell Ivan.

[It's not that he thinks Ivan will take it hard. He just thinks he'll receive some push-back from his insistent cousin. Maybe he'll at least be relieved someone else is babysitting his depressed Emperor now.]

Whenever you like. Just let me know. In addition to being an acclaimed magician, I can lift heavy things as well.

[He raises an eyebrow. Apparently this is a problem?]

Two days. It should give me time to pack, I guess.

[Loki nods.]

Two days, then. It'll give me time to chuck out the things I stuck in that room at any rate. [And clean up all the papers and tea cups that seem to keep drifting across his house...]

Can't you magick all that away?

[Ignore the dryness of that tone.]

Edited Date: 2012-10-10 01:42 pm (UTC)

I could. It'd be a waste of effort, though. Rather frivolous.

More so than picking everything up by hand?

It's a question of energy expenditure.

I can either pick things up and toss them in a bin.

Or I can use my will to split them into their component atoms and then disperse those atoms appropriately. Or turn them into something else. Or teleport them to a different location entirely.

All of which ultimately requires a good deal more effort. I only make it look easy, you know.

...Ah. I see.

[Loki nods.]

'tis also better to do things the normal way, sometimes.

Otherwise you begin to forget.

[Gregor nods, eyes drifting away as he sips his non-alcoholic wine.] Ivan'll be here for dinner. I'll talk to him then. Hopefully he won't decide to pull up his own roots and try to follow me.

[Loki raises an eyebrow.]

I ought to go, then.

[He laughs.] I'll be a bit disturbed if a young man starts sleeping in my front yard.

He's not coming till 1800. You can stay. [He shrugs.] I'll see what I can do. He might just shack up in the nearest empty house. I doubt I'll convince him to stay here. He thinks he's ImpSec now.

[Loki has made no move.] All right. We've a lovely bottle of grape juice to finish, at any rate.

Men who think they are on a mission are the most dangerous sort. [Oh yes. Totally ironic statement.]

[Loki quietly stares at his glass for a moment, transmuting that grape juice back into the original wine.]

I think feisty women truly are going to be the end of me.

Who?

Will you forgive me if I'd rather not say?

"Why would you bring it up, then?"

[Loki isn't certain, himself.]

Perhaps I'm more comfortable poking at my bruises in the presence of someone I like.

[Gregor seems somewhat cheered by the admission that he is liked.]

That sounds fair enough. Poke away.

[Loki snorts.]

Same lady as previously mentioned in my litany of woe.

I seem to have become a fool.

Edited Date: 2012-10-11 05:26 pm (UTC)

Your lady-friend? [He rubs at a temple.] She also lost her memory, I take it.

Yes, the same.

Though I rather liked her before the mess. Now I like her more. [He rubs his forehead. This is so, so very stupid.]

Did she feel the same way without her memory?

We... got on rather well at that time. [Loki can't help but smile there, and it's a rather uncharacteristic sort of smile for him. Because it's a painful memory, but thinking of it just as itself, it's very sweet indeed.]