fatespoken | ∞ [ action post ]

Entry tags:

!ooc,
action

∞ [ action post ]

✏ LOGGING: This is your thread for logging, whether spontaneous or plot-related, silly or serious. His normal haunts include shifts at the Blue Light, various city bars, cafes, random encounters, etc. Prose preferred, [] are fine too.

✉ TO SET UP: Just drop me a line at aeloriax[at]gmail.com or Y!M/AIM (listed in the post below) to give me a heads-up. I'm open to anything as long as it fits ICly.

TRACKING:
March;
Peter & Amory [ Blue Light ] ✯ this is a song lyric [ in progress ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is a prime example of why evasion doesn't solve problems, only postponing them where many times they enlarge themselves tenfold past their original size. Of course, he had never thought- well, that's a lie. He's definitely pictured the possibility of being stormed by a mob of Pevensie's friends if the culprit was discovered. He had never thought Caspian would be the sole attacker, but the question most puzzling him as he feels the Telmarine's hand grab his collar— how did he ever find out? How could he ever have known?

"Lied about what? What are you talking about, Caspian?" he stays true to his previous farce, setting confusion in his tone as he stares wide-eyed at the Telmarine. Wide-eyed only because it makes him appear innocent, just as the inflection of his voice perfects the portrait. Admitting fault now would destroy any chance of leading Caspian astray with lies, and Amory's far too inclined to saving his hide to miss out on a chance to convince the King that he's mistaken.

Edited 2010-03-17 10:48 (UTC)

Turning tail would appear to give your problems a prime chance to bite you in the arse. Chase might be many things, and a coward, at times, is one of them, but he's learned to take what's coming to him when it's got him by the... well, collar. Even from his angled view he can tell Amory's played his hand wrong, that denial, scorn and anger in return would be his defence in innocence, which renders his innocence the lie. Caspian isn't the easy mark he sometimes plays. Not when he's pushed to this point, and Chase threads his hands back through his hair, looking around the bar for anyone else who might intervene before he has to.

He's heard a little about Peter's condition -- something he'd been meaning to look into when not overwhelmed with other work or cursed himself. Amnesia isn't exactly a freak diagnosis in this city. Painful to the forgotten, but for the patient? Ignorance is bliss. So something has been put on the backburner when he might have been a better friend, at least one more prepared, had he followed it up earlier.

He stands now, Caspian's unspoken warning not going unnoted - he's still out of the line of fire - and catches an empty bottle, setting it straight again before it can roll off the table. "Caspian," his hand raises in a gesture that smooths the air if no one's temper with it, "he's not going to talk to you when you've got him like that. Take a step back."

"You were the last one with him."

How does Caspian know this? Well he certainly doesn't feel any incentive to share it with either Amory or Chase. That would put Eden in a tough spot. So he argues in the face of wide-eyed innocence, feigned innocence. No, Caspian X isn't such an easy mark, even he knows when Amory means what he says in his own defense he is usually abrupt, stubborn, frustrated in return. Right now he is none of those things and that only infuriates the Telmarine.

"You--you did something to him," he says, full conviction behind his accusation. Days passed, he has considered other possibilities, that Peter was subjected to a curse (a long one) or Peter had left and returned a new slate as many others have before or that he might have been attacked by the White Witch who has not been heard from since Christopher and his friends stood against her. Persistence has paid off in revealing none of these to be true. It should be a relief for Caspian but it does nothing for him. Learning this happened at the hands of someone he considers almost a friend--someone Peter trusted--is still a severe blow, leaving only the question why which still matters very little when compared to how the magic will be reversed. Not if either, but when because Caspian will beat it out of Amory if he has to. His other hand clutches at Amory's collar too, both lifting as if he might drag the man across the table.

"No," he addresses Chase without looking at him, without looking at the echo of a face of someone who is at the center of this mess. Caspian doesn't even think about missed opportunities where the doctor might have been able to help Peter. With magic involved that would have been only headache and heartache. Similarly Caspian hasn't thought about asking for His help either. That he's gotten this far is no doubt partly due to faith, but he knows it's not his place to ask the lion to force change on human nature. Amory will do what Amory pleases because that's his way. How enraging. "He owes us" me "an answer," he speaks through clenching teeth, "and I will damn well get one from him."

Caspian almost never swears, never threatens, never comes close to causing fatal injury unless afflicted by some kind of injustice. Learning his uncle killed his father was one of those times. Burning away his friend's memory to the point where, as Edmund has emphasized, the High King of Narnia asks what's a Narnia falls in the same realm. Amory may as well have taken a pick-axe to his head. By now they've definitely caught the attention of a few patrons, but none willing to intervene yet.

Ignorance is Bliss.

Undoubtedly, it is painful to be forgotten, but to forget is more than ignorance, more than merely not knowing; the loss of memory is the subtraction of identity, unraveling the filament binding human form to self. Can two people, identical in composition but strangers in memory be considered the same person? Can the divided Peter Pevensie, unknowing of the heart of himself that is Narnia truly be the Peter Pevensie as others know him? As he once knew himself? It is a question that rests at the root of Amory's guilt, lidded and tempered with pride as its wax seal. The truth of what Amory Felix believes is that forgetting one's self is a step below death. Both involve negation, one leaves a husk— a paraphrase of what had been.

Maybe he's being dramatic. Maybe it's a matter of over-thinking, but as fingers grasp his collar, brown cutting hazel, he tells himself that Caspian has every reason to seek revenge, if revenge is what this is. Nevertheless, this revelation doesn't diminish the reflex of self-preservation, certainty not when it comes to Amory Felix, and in this position his mind yet compiles escape routes. Caspian may be something of a friend, a friend if truth was the only sound, but if he had to burn Caspian's hand to cinders to save his life, then he would. It's the honest truth.

It is because of these exits that he can look at Caspian without fear, even if the idea of him physically defending himself against the Telmarine is laughable. He's exhausted and sick, and top it all off, moderately inebriated. But he still locks eyes without the slightest waver of expression, flat-lining his lips as he lets lids fall to a half-set glare, "I had-- I have no reason, no motive to ever hurt Peter Pevensie. Don't be a fool," his tongue tries to trap the venom, but when did rationality ever proceed temper for Amory?

Edited 2010-03-18 07:40 (UTC)

There it is. The sharp edge to his tongue that hints at something else disguised in lamb's clothing. Not that Amory could be considered the proverbial wolf; the wording could have used some work but he's right in saying he has no motive to hurt anyone if his Garbo-esque mantra of wanting to be left alone is to believed. He spits out enough hostility but it's meant as a shield, not a weapon. There's a saying for it back home: 'all mouth and no trousers.' Amory has the sheer bad luck of being able to get himself in trouble with mouth alone and that slip of his tongue just now - I had - is enough to give Chase questions of his own.

If Peter was the one to feel guilt for then it would be Peter here with his fists balled in Amory's collar. It might be a simplistic view, but in medicine it's practiced often enough that what isn't known won't hurt. Peter doesn't know what he's lost. Caspian is all loss and fury, quite terrifying in it, and anyone should feel guilty for turning his benign days here on their head. He'll see enough of that.

Chase's instincts still tell him to keep his distance. Responsibility and the feeling that this isn't going to end right on either part see him levelling his shoulder somewhere near Amory's, his hand going to brace Caspian's arm. "Yeah, you're helping," he tells one and, to the other, "You can get your answers without choking him. One step back."

Don't be a...

What?

Split seconds pass to fill the space of silence that defines Caspian's complete surprise at Amory even suggesting it. He should expect it from this man's mouth, finds it not exactly out of character for Amory Felix, but to hear it leveled at him is another kind of experience entirely. More than this is a single word making all the difference.

Had.

If he had his sword, blood would have been drawn already. Because he doesn't and because his hands are already close to Amory's face, Caspian chooses to disregard Chase's interjection. Well, not completely. The arm he braces stays where it is, bending only to bring Amory closer against the table. His other hand curls into a fist whose knuckles cover the short distance to Amory's face. Caspian aims to hit him hard, not just once, not just twice, but repeatedly. It is brutish, it is far from noble, and he doesn't care. Amory is flippant and callous with his words, his mouth pays the price.

Don't be a fool.

The Telmarine thinks to himself he was a fool for giving Amory Felix his time, his friendship, and the benefit of the doubt.

This is hardly the first time Amory's had close contact with a fist. Would you expect less from someone with a mouth like his? He hasn't always been a bastard, but sarcasm and candor have always sat comfortable in his words, and he's definitely gotten equal due for it. Including one or two fists.

There are two options in this situation. Either he takes it like a man or finds some way to slither out of it. The latter would require some magic elbow grease, or in other words, perhaps some quick teleportation. However, last Sunday's encounter with Peter had taken enough out of him in terms of stamina and lashback, and he's not eager to add on an additional charge unless it's absolutely necessary. A deck, or two decks in the face won't kill him. Then, there's the option of evasion, which would actually make sense in this case. Whether he can dodge the blow in time is an uncertainty, but there's no time to think in a pas

Well, see.

There was no time to think as the fist of an angry Telmarine comes barreling into his eye. Stars and stripes of the non-patriotic kind explode on the right side of the canvas, and yet the strike has managed to set his reflexes on edge. Only thanks to said reflexes does the subsequent one-sixteenth of a second involve Amory's head snapping away to dodge.

Whether he's fast enough is the question.

Answered with a sickening thud, the clicking of knuckles, teeth and bone. Amory was quick enough, just, and it's Chase's jaw that takes the brunt, his own blood he can hear pounding in his ears as, balance and grip gone, he crashes elbow first against the table. Finally other people stand as glasses shatter and beer pools into new stains on the already tarnished carpet. Chase has gone down with the table, a staggered two part descent. He'll be more pissed off later, more that the knock took him by surprise and took him down than at Caspian's missed target.

Never been knocked out by an eighteen year old. Still not quite. Am I--

He is bleeding, the hand cupped around his jaw confirms. His own teeth have split his lip, but as he gingerly presses his tongue against his teeth none prove loose, just slick with copper and salt. He hisses, fingertips pressing over the connecting points of his jawbone. Dizziness and pain make his head swim, hard to focus on which of the two to glare at as he looks back up.

Amory's reaction doesn't still his fist. His flippant manner earlier had only stirred Caspian to action and his evasive manner now encourages him to give chase. One probably doesn't expect that to be quite literal in any sense but it very well is when his fist cracks against the blond man's jaw. This does stop the youngest of the three, it stops him immediately followed by a step back. What grip he had on Amory is released in a style similar to discarding that which shouldn't be touched in favor of hands falling open to his own sides, while he stares at the doctor who went down in disbelief. What is Caspian X, the King of Narnia, doing? The altercation has caught enough attention to render the Coliseum a little less loud than it was before he came in. Whether the talking and muttering going on from other patrons relates to how they might eject a troublemaker or how they ought to bet on a fight between two seemingly lightweight combatants is unknown to Caspian, but it doesn't matter to him either way.

Note he hasn't forgotten Amory's place in this, he is just remembering himself. Something Peter Pevensie can't do right now. He turns to Amory again.

"I wanted to believe you," he says to the other man, tone losing its sharpness, its edge, "do something if you ever cared at all." The Telmarine points at Amory before sending a glimpse of anger now mixed with hurt and question at Chase for the briefest moment: What else can I do? If it makes Chase feel any better, Caspian shakes his hand out, knuckles sore from impact.

It's a graceless fall to the floor, knees collapsing in contact with the ground, palms slapped against soiled carpet as Amory tries to balance himself. How pathetic to be prostrated before the Telmarine, and so it's in a second that he forces his legs beneath him, a jerky shift to a kneel. It's all too much movement for a head that's already swimming, thudding, shattering as though those brights have reversed themselves and now bore into his skull. But despite the haze, Amory knows what, who must have played cushion for that second impact by the sudden collapse and clatter of sound that follows. However, Amory doesn't feel bad for Chase. He doesn't hear the chorus of the jury around him. There's nothing to nothing to feel besides the resounding shudder of a throbbing eye and pounding head, along with the sickness sliding up his chest as he folds his head into his palms. Another pathetic position, Amory realizes, but at this very moment, regardless of the minutes before, he doesn't give a damn.

He knows he deserved it.

He deserved it and more because Amory is not blind to the way he is acting or to the anger belying Caspian's pain. One needs to be perceptive to be able to pull together facets of a character so as to ground a farce in reality, but even fine-tuned perception isn't necessary to sense something shadowing Caspian's rage. An emotion of a softer shade, inlaid in a voice losing its sharper edge. In a man who would raise his fists on behalf of another. On behalf of Peter Pevensie.

Amory's thoughts meet contradiction in silence, contradiction in the hollow of his chest, and the words of the King fall like dead weights.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

∞ [ action post ]

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity

keep it all from sympathy / your day today your dignity