Onward, Into Darkness

[cyan_maid]

[Around dinnertime, when everyone has gone to their rooms and had their time to think about the day, a note is slipped underneath your door. It reads:

I've made soup for everyone tonight.
It would be a kindness if you were to come to the cafeteria and partake.
- Jane

And, true to the letter, when you enter the cafeteria, you're hit with the distinct smell of pumpkin. There's a large covered pot on one of the tables filled to the brim with a sweet pumpkin soup full of carrots and sweet potatoes, a ladle beside the pot, and a stack of bowls and spoons. There's even enough cutlery for Bolton and Jamie to come, if they want to show up - Jane is, if anything, an excellent host. Please help yourself! There's plenty more! is on a folded bit of paper beside the pot, but where is Jane?

Well, the kitchen door is propped open, and she's very diligently working on scraping out the remains of a huge, tasty pumpkin and setting the seeds aside. She sniffs every once in a while, and her face is a blotchy mess, but she's still going. Having something to do seems to keep her from diving too deeply into despair.

Just...don't let her, or yourselves, be distracted forever.]

Comments

Pre-party/ During

[kingshaming]

[Xander manages to get through the teleporter, he manages to start walking towards the rooms. He speaks to no one, he touches no one. Just looks forward.

One foot after another. No stumbling, though his pace is slow- like something that wasn't meant to walk and was only going through self destructive stubborn will. If no one calls out to him he will simply go into his room.

He won't be at the party.]

How about after?

[cyan_maid]

[Then someone's going to knock on his door once it's over.]

...Mister Xander?

[It's Jane. Her voice is weak, tired, but she won't let someone skip a meal on her watch.]

Can I come in please? I...brought you something to eat.

[kingshaming]

[It's quiet for too long. Long enough to be terrifying. Before finally- thick with a stutter that seems too heavy and innate to just be from tears]

I...w-would rather not, Jane.

[Like all true true Nohrians we hide our grief, our pain and our screams alone in the dark]

During-ish?

[stitch_in_time]

[Yeah, there's a lot of people who shouldn't be alone right now, and Xander's about at the top of the list. So the Doctor's going to knock on his door a bit.]

[No soup, but he does have a small package of snacks from the cat cafe. And some kind of bottle from the bar.]

Xander, I'm not gonna pretend this is a good time, but do you have a moment?

[kingshaming]

[Damn it, will no one let him sleep? Well, to be fair Jane hasn't shown up yet. Still, it takes long enough for him to answer to be alarming, but when he does open his door a bit his eyes are dull and dark. Like pools of drying blood set into his face.]

I have nothing but time.

During, in the kitchen

[cyan_maid]

[As the post says, if you want to talk to Jane, she's eviscerating a pumpkin. She's taken off her clothes in favor of one of the spacesuits and has the sleeves rolled up to the elbows as she digs through gourd guts, trying very hard not to let her focus waver. An errant tear rolls down her cheek, sometimes, when she pauses to breathe - it's when she's thinking, of course she'd be crying when she thinks - but she's quick to dive back in, not saying a word.

That's not healthy.]

[refusedtoleave]

[Natsuhi's just going to stand in the door way silently holding the empty bowl.

Then, just as silently she goes over to the sink and starts washing up.]

[cyan_maid]

I'll take care of it.

[It's said just loud enough to be heard over the rushing water.]

Please, just. Leave it in the sink, Miss Natsuhi. I'll clean up.

[ratherdoweddings]

[knock knock]

Jane-chan...?

[cyan_maid]

Come in.

[Jane doesn't sound okay when she speaks - if anything, her voice is rough and tired - and she doesn't look away from her work, either, but she's not denying anyone entry. That's why the door's open.]

Did you have some soup, Miss Yurika? I didn't really know what to put in it other than more orange stuff.

[She couldn't stand being in the greenhouse for any longer than it took to get what she did.]

[stitch_in_time]

[Yeah, that's not healthy.]

So. Ah. I take it that pumpkin's not who you'd prefer to be doin' that to right now.

[cyan_maid]

And if it's not?

[It's said in a worn, conversational tone.]

Better I do it to the pumpkin anyway. I might make a pie with the leftovers. Or more soup. Or...a lot of things. Roxy helped me learn a lot of ways to make it versatile.

[When it's your primary source of food, you make that shit work. Combine that with a baking-inclined mind and there's not much two teen girls can't do.]

[curdle]

[ Thomasin quietly peeks in earlier, when she's finished her soup and going to wash up, but then just as quietly steals away to her room. When she comes back, she's holding something in the folds of her apron. ]

Jane...?

[cyan_maid]

[She's still working on that pumpkin when Thomasin comes back, but she turns at her name. By now, it's gonna take a while for the orange goo to come out from under her fingernails, and she doesn't care.]

Yes - oh, Thomasin. Hello.

[Come in, she doesn't bite.]

[refusedtoleave]

[She didn't look at the execution, she doesn't have to, nor does she care enough to. She just heads to her room to get a change of clothes, then showers.

The glitters still there. But it's not the first time.

In the end she's just sipping her soup. Surprisingly calm for the amount she yelled earlier.]

...One of my nieces loved pumpkins, she would have liked this.

[That's almost a compliment about the cooking.]

[ratherdoweddings]

Ushiromiya-san...

[Yurika hesitates before she speaks.]

I know you're doing your best. Thank you, even if I don't always understand.

[refusedtoleave]

Hmm? What do you mean?

[She tilts her head.]

[stitch_in_time]

[The Doctor shows up with a few more pies from the diner, because why not.]

[He's also brought some things from the art room, and he can be found adding to his wall decoration from last week, adding three new runes and translations for Lightning, Kurumi, and Ricky.]

[ratherdoweddings]

What do they mean?

[Yurika looks over the Doctor's mural.]

Is it in your language?

[stitch_in_time]

Yeah. It's- all their names.

[He gestures at the others from earlier in the week, that have accompanying translations in English.] Seth's last name is spelled as 'Twitrite'.]

[That's probably just a typo.]

This place always gets cleaned up durin' the trials. The Benefactors want it to be like it never really happened, whatever their reasons. I might not be able to stop them, but I can do this.

[ratherdoweddings]

[Yurika shut herself up in her room after the trial, but her promise is still ringing in her mind. So she makes her way to the afterparty and picks at the pumpkin soup. She's got something on a string around her neck that she didn't have on earlier, even if -- or maybe because -- this past case might put people off of wearing anything on a cord.]

I'm sorry, everyone. This was awful. But I did mean what I promised to Lightning-san. I won't let this be the end of us.

[curdle]

[ Thomasin's hair is still down when she shows up to the cafeteria; she can't bear to think about wearing those same ribbons that helped condemn Lightning to her fate, and doesn't know that she'll be able to wear that color again without thinking about it.

She eats her soup in sober silence. There's not much to say or do, really. Even later in the evening she might go to the diner and lay out some rosemary on the altar, and after that she supposes she will sleep and learn yet another horrible facet of her own past. But this is now, and what's happening now is that she's eating soup. Truly this is a scintillating toplevel. ]

[ratherdoweddings]

Thomasin-chan... thank you. You've done everything you can for us, every time something happens.

During

[theoverseers]

[Bolton isn't here to socialize, but he is going to come out from his side at some point to get two bowls of soup.

There's something somber and tired about his attitude, like he's on autopilot.]

[cyan_maid]

[Somehow, there's a point in ripping apart this pumpkin that Jane needs to eat something, too - she can't insist the others take care of themselves and ignore herself, that'd be...wrong. Light would have flicked her forehead for that. So, as she's coming out of the kitchen, she sees Bolton, and hangs by the kitchen doorway.

And smiles.

It's an honest, small expression, but it's there. Boys are silly things at every age - it's good to see them take care of themselves.]