(no subject)

[mogget_cat]

(Millitimed to before Teja's re-entrance)

Yrael spent all of last night and much of today in the woods, searching for what clues he could find. There are a number of scents, some familiar, some not. There are no remaining footprints, due to the drifting snow and his own actions at the scene of the crime. But there are scents.

Just nothing he can do right at this moment. Which is giving him time to slow down and think. And feel.

He doesn't want to. It aches, the loss. He has never had a friend taken away from him in this manner. Some have left the bar for good, yes, but it was of their own choice. Teja... he was taken. Yrael doesn't do well with this foreign kind of pain.

He's currently in one of the high-backed chairs by the fireplace, gazing unseeing at the flames. He has forgotten that he still wears his new, finely tailored suit. It is rather worse for wear, still stained with dried blood and dirt from the night before.

A half-full bottle of Atlantean sits on the table at his elbow.

Comments

[killitwithfire]

"You're brooding," Axel points out, as he slouches into his couch, legs stretched out in front of him.

[mogget_cat]

Yrael takes a long time to answer, as if the words take a concerted effort to recall.

"I guess so."

Is it brooding? Is it grieving? Is it rage being held back until one might use it to a purpose?

[killitwithfire]

"What's wrong?"

Does Axel need to kill something?

[mogget_cat]

Yrael needs to kill something.

"Teja is dead." Never before has Yrael spoken with such tonelessness.

[killitwithfire]

Axel raises an eyebrow, but has the tact to keep from saying anything more than,

"It wasn't me."

[mogget_cat]

"I know that," Yrael growls, but it's not directed at Axel. It is rage and pain, loss and frustration made audible. "I would know if it were you, and I would not suspect you of this anyway."

There was nothing burnt.

"Charlie survived, but he is very badly injured. He still doesn't know."

[killitwithfire]

"Charlie..." Axel muses. "Don't think I've met him, but I've seen him around."

Hard to miss someone that regular, after all, and Axel spends a lot of time people-watching.

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede has been around people who brood when hurt for a very long time, and he recognizes the look, the blank look and of course the alcohol.

That it's Yrael with those things worries him. "What is wrong, Yrael?"

[mogget_cat]

Yrael doesn't blink; his eyes hardly change focus. But he seems to grow more solid, more here, after a moment.

"Teja is dead."

[the_cupbearer]

Ganymede says nothing for a moment.

"I am sorry..." he doesn't know anything else to say; it isn't the time to wonder how Teja died, if he was dead already? Can dead men be killed?

[mogget_cat]

Yrael had not thought so, but in light of recent evidence...

He is mourning.





He has never been good at it. That was his sister's specialty.

[the_cupbearer]

Slowly, Ganymede reaches up and pets Yrael's hair, like he could if he were a cat. Since he assumes that form so often, he would hope touch is comforting.

"Tell me if there is something you need."

[mogget_cat]

Yrael's unblinking eyes eventually close, and he leans into the stroking hand.

"I do not know what I need, right now."

Friends have left, before, but they have never been taken from him.

[boundxkitty]

High-backed chairs don't give someone the ability to lean over them onto the person in said chair.

Which is why Yrael gets a Liz peering around the side of the chair. She's noticed the half-bottle of Atlantean left and can figure out where the first half of the bottle had gone.

"Brother-mine?" Is murmurs softly, questioningly.

[mogget_cat]

He doesn't move. He's not pretending to breathe. His dark grey suit, while exquisitely tailored to him, is spattered with blood and dirt. Yrael's voice is quiet, without any of the spark that usually graces the Bright Shiner's words.

"Liz."

[boundxkitty]

The blood and dirt get her attention fairly quickly, as does his tone. Which causes her to shift to kneeling in front of Yrael, hands on his knees and peering up at him.

"What's wrong?"

[mogget_cat]

Yrael doesn't look at her, his gaze still on the fire, his bright green eyes reflecting more than just the flames.

"Teja is dead."

[boundxkitty]

She frowns, worry and confusion etched on her features clearly.

"Wh...what?"

[mogget_cat]

"He was murdered, out in the woods, last night. Charlie was grievously wounded as well, but will survive." Yrael's voice is roughened into a growl of pain and rage.

[ps_you_look_hot]

Nikola is, at heart, an extremely self-centered person.

So it's understandable that when he sees Yrael in the state he's in, his first thought is for the suit rather than the not'cat.

"Christ, what have you done?"

Understandable, but not really excusable.

[mogget_cat]

What he has done isn't nearly as much as he's wanting to do, right now. He just has no direction in which to channel that violence. The green eyes that eventually turn from the fire to focus on Nikola reflect more than just the flames.

The words take a long time to come, and when they do they are of an utter tonelessness that is completely foreign to the musicality of Yrael's normal speech. "What are you talking about, Nikola."

[ps_you_look_hot]

Nikola arches an eyebrow at the tone, or lack thereof, in Yrael's voice, but he's still concerned about his attire.

"Your suit," he clarifies. "It's completely ruined."

[mogget_cat]

Yrael's unfocused eyes blink. And look down. He had forgotten that he was still wearing it.

Past the all-consuming rage and loss, there is a twinge of regret.

"Oh." Only slightly less toneless. The grief and anger are still there, roiling under the impossibly-still surface.

"I had been going out to... show it off, yesterday afternoon. I was... overtaken by events, and forgot I still had it on."

[ps_you_look_hot]

"Serious events, no doubt," Nikola says, and there's something slightly more concerned than chiding in his tone as he perches on the arm of Yrael's chair.

[mogget_cat]

"I found Teja murdered and Charlie quickly bleeding out into the snow, in the forest." The flat tonelessness of the voice continues unabated. "The rest of my afternoon and night were spoken for, after that."

After carrying the bleeding Charlie to the infirmary to make sure he would live, and bringing in Teja's body, Yrael hadn't left off searching the forest until the following noon. The suit had been forgotten.

Yrael drains what is left in his current glass of Atlantean.