[ clearly not!!!!! it is definitely not strohl standing in front of a fucking destroyed screen near the simulation room, greatsword held in both hands as if he'd just finished a strike. his shoulders are hunched, and he's breathing hard, glass tink-tink-tinking from the broken frame onto the floor.
also of note is as ace approaches, he can see strohl's sin and fear tattoo. it's not often made much of an appearance this week - he wears a lot of layers like a ponce - but it shines through his clothes, today, black ink strokes that blot out the proud halian crest on the back of his coat.
he's barely even prescient enough to notice ace there at first beyond the sound of crunching glass, but it wasn't your fault is enough to get him to rouse out of whatever furious, griefstricken moment he's put himself in with a sharp, loud bark of a humourless laugh. ]
[ i tried to read this tag four times last night and was like i DONT GET IT and the answer was because i needed to be in bed. anyway ]
--Why the hell should she!? Two times, now, Ace, two times in a row, where she's gone off on one of those damned trips and died the next day.
[ it's so fucking frustrating to have the power ripped away, sure, but even worse, to have it history repeat itself. cycles, alex said. it makes him want to scream, want to throw a tantrum even worse than he already has, but it all stems from frustration and loss and sorrow. to lose anders on top of it - someone strohl admired, someone he's gotten close to in the short time that they've been here, was just like a coup de grace, longsword followed by shortsword to bleed strohl dry.
his hand whips out when he says this, gesturing at the world around them, but he drops it, the greatsword heavy in one hand, instead. ]
[ he's surprisingly calm in the face of strohl's anger, maybe, but he's also being blunt: ]
It's these places that killed her. Yeah, it's bullshit, that she got tortured and then someone killed her--out of their own free will or not--and it wouldn't have happened anywhere else. But you think she'd blame you?
[ he's also gesturing around them when he talks about these places ]
You know what she told me a few days ago? That she was worried, because you try to take responsibility for everything. You wanna prove her right by thinking you failed her when there's still someone out there with blood on their hands just wandering around?
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but i want an ace thread so whenever he looks up from his phone he might hear the sound of shattering glass in the terminal. ]
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reflexively following the noise to go see what is up over there! probably not strohl related though. clearly not ]
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also of note is as ace approaches, he can see strohl's sin and fear tattoo. it's not often made much of an appearance this week - he wears a lot of layers like a ponce - but it shines through his clothes, today, black ink strokes that blot out the proud halian crest on the back of his coat.
FAILED HER AGAIN FAILED HER AGAIN
so not the drama ]
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Beats punching a tree, I guess. [ he doesn't care about walking over glass and it scrunches under his feet as he comes over ] It wasn't your fault.
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he's barely even prescient enough to notice ace there at first beyond the sound of crunching glass, but it wasn't your fault is enough to get him to rouse out of whatever furious, griefstricken moment he's put himself in with a sharp, loud bark of a humourless laugh. ]
I swore I'd protect her.
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[ not that he doesn't get it, really. he'd been this mad more than once. ]
She cared more that you wanted to than anything you swore.
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--Why the hell should she!? Two times, now, Ace, two times in a row, where she's gone off on one of those damned trips and died the next day.
[ it's so fucking frustrating to have the power ripped away, sure, but even worse, to have it history repeat itself. cycles, alex said. it makes him want to scream, want to throw a tantrum even worse than he already has, but it all stems from frustration and loss and sorrow. to lose anders on top of it - someone strohl admired, someone he's gotten close to in the short time that they've been here, was just like a coup de grace, longsword followed by shortsword to bleed strohl dry.
his hand whips out when he says this, gesturing at the world around them, but he drops it, the greatsword heavy in one hand, instead. ]
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[ he's surprisingly calm in the face of strohl's anger, maybe, but he's also being blunt: ]
It's these places that killed her. Yeah, it's bullshit, that she got tortured and then someone killed her--out of their own free will or not--and it wouldn't have happened anywhere else. But you think she'd blame you?
[ he's also gesturing around them when he talks about these places ]
You know what she told me a few days ago? That she was worried, because you try to take responsibility for everything. You wanna prove her right by thinking you failed her when there's still someone out there with blood on their hands just wandering around?