closed | you're a lost soul

[castitas]

Who: Kate Marsh + You!
What: February catch-all for Kate: Goodsir's disappearance, Kate running off in search of him and that going so well + her getting sick / Frozen Hearts prompt.
When: The month of February.
Where: Various, Milton area.

Content Warnings: likely to come up in threads are discussions of suicide, discussions of cannibalism; discussions of character death; instances of hypothermia; supernatural afflictions and body horror. More TBA.



closed starters | please contact heolstor / _heolstor on discord for plotting

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[castitas]

[ Sure, it's a level of trust to let him be here. Like this. With her. Tim is still a teenage boy and she's a teenage girl. But she... she does trust him. All those nights she's let him in here, sleeping on her floor. He never once tried to do anything. He's never hurt her. He won't hurt her. He's keeping his hands to himself. ]

You're so— [ She isn't sure what word to use. For a long time there's silence, and she's frowning as she stares off for a long moment. ] I don't know. ... Different. Like your life's a whole bunch of different pieces of a patchwork quilt.

[ Arranged in a pattern that doesn't make sense to her. The things she's learned about him, all the different pieces. But maybe that's on her. They might make sense to him, they just don't always make sense to her. Evil men in another country. Teams of detectives. The Neon Knights. Being brave enough to go running into burning houses where the flames are just an illusion.

It's no wonder she always had such a hard time trying to understand him. But that's just— Tim. That's who he is. And she's probably a patchwork quilt of her own, just as difficult for him to piece together and make sense of. It's not a bad thing.

She's cold, but Tim's warm. The blanket and the wolf-dog curled in beside her are both warm. She reaches for the dog again, her fingers gently brushing against her muzzle (Merry huffs a little, his tail wagging at Tim's fussing). ]

You can't just... call her 'Girl Dog', she needs a real name.

[ Sure, she's one of Merry's littermates, but she isn't sure just who she belongs to. Like when Tim brought another one of the wolf-dogs to her room, the night they— ]

Who's dog is she?

[ployboy]

[Through his nose, a shaky exhale. It falls short of a laugh or real humor, because they're talking about real and serious things.

Chaotic, broken lives.

Yeah, Tim means to convey with the matching silence. It drives him crazy too. Life and how hectic it is and how many people are in it, and how he's past the point of being a boy- past having the ability to ask for another road to take.

Girl Dog lifts her head. In Tim's uneducated opinion, she's more wolf than dog in a way that defies the pedigree percentages. No doubt that's why the Prince chose her, picked her out of the litter.] Huh?

[Tim had thought he'd told her.

But thinking back, his- everything had been sloppy, hurried and incomplete. With the mortification of damning the family he loves (and hates), Tim makes the choice to keep Kate-- here. Here, where her body now is next to his. Connected, kind of. Not away.]

My little brother's.

[The words are rough. Not because of sentiment. Because of disuse. They're foreign.

Yeah, Tim hates how complicated everything had to become too.

If he were whole... he would have loved a brother, of course. An imp of a little brother. Tim swallows, and explains the wolf on her bed.]

He probably had a... an important name for her. Something pretty. I don't know.

[Something Arabic, maybe. Elegant but strong.

Tim defends himself by mumbling,]

Siblings, huh. Always picking up after'm.

[castitas]

Wait— [ It's probably for the best she can't turn all the way round to face him. It'd mean disturbing the wolf-dog resting against her, and she already looks pretty comfortable. Kate doesn't have the heart to do it. But she turns a little, tries to crane her neck to look back at him.

He'd said it, she didn't register it, in amongst all the mess of everything else: Tim's babbling, her sorrow and just wanting to disappear. As much as she wants to disappear, she still cares. Maybe just not so much about herself.

That's her all over, isn't it? Feeling and unfeeling. Sick and tired of everything, and yet she still cares about others.

Tim lost a brother. Kate did too.

It's hard to define what Harry Goodsir was to her, but brother might have been close to it. She never had a brother before. ]

You... you didn't say you had a brother here.

[ Never told her. There was one here. Specifically. She peers at him over her shoulder, back twisting towards him to look at him as much as she can without disturbing the wolf-dog.

Her face is red and tear-stained. She looks tired. She is tired.

She doesn't know what to say. Except— ]

I'm sorry.