This May As Well Happen...

[golisolation]

WHO: Guzma + Lillie
WHERE: The city somewhere.
WHEN: Towards the end of the event
WHAT: Guzma's lost Tupp, Lucina, and apparently Archie. He's having a hard damn time about it, and then Lillie shows up.
WARNINGS: Cursing, death mention, will update as needed!!


[Tupp, Lucina, Archie...this is all like a horrible nightmare, but he can't seem to wake up. Everything hurts too much to truly be a dream, the danger is very real, and he's too much of a coward to just let himself die. So he keeps fighting, and has continued to fight, channeling his grief and sorrow into anger and vengeance.

Too weak to save them, yet he always finds the strength to survive. It's like a sick cosmic joke, and it's only the cosmos that's laughing, and it seems they weren't quite done with their stand up routine, because in the next few moments he'll run into something even more unexpected than Archie's lifeless carcass.

As he rounds a corner, cigarette in his mouth (because fuck it, he needs something, and not something that'll debilitate him), he doesn't notice that the alleyway isn't empty. It's dark, it's raining, and he's more focused on keeping an eye out for his (possible) pursuers, than necessarily a little girl. A little girl who is entirely too familiar, or so he'd realize if he was looking. Instead he keeps his gaze away from her as he dunks behind a dumpster, obscuring himself from the view of those who might peer down the alley.

As he pops a squat for a moment, taking a breather, his eyes fall to the puddles in the pavement. The slight glow from his cigarette and the ambient light from the street lights are enough to keep it from being entirely pitch black, thus he can see his vague and rippled reflection in them. His gaze hardens with something akin to hatred, and with a whispered curse under his breath, he balls his fist. With one hand, he holds that cigarette in place effectively covering the lower half of his face, while the other he slams into his thigh a few times. Not unlike someone might do to the armrests of a chair were they throwing some sort of tantrum.

It's certainly something to play witness to for most people, but for someone like Lillie, well...it might be something a little familiar than just the sight of the man himself. Even with his hood up, to those who know him, he's pretty easy to recognize.

And if that wasn't enough, as he's hitting himself in the leg, those whispered curses are becoming a little more audible:]

Dammit, Guzma! Of course you'd be the only one left. Fuckin' coward, now ain't the time to be hidin'—but that's all you're good for, HUH?

Shit!

[And at the end of that, he tosses his cigarette away from him, letting his hands scrub back into his hair, under his hood as he basically curls in on himself.

What a sorry sight...]

Comments

[walkontwolegs]

[ When she heard someone behind her she took in a sharp breath, nearly jumping out of her flesh in the process. She almost darted out of the alley and into the open air, but when she heard 'Dammit, Guzma!' she paused.

It wasn't often that she'd been around when her mother's 'guests' were present. She was usually shuffled off to some other part of the Paradise in order to look pretty and do little else. Sometimes however, and only after her brother had left, she would find herself walking the halls at night. Her mother had thought her too obedient to do such a thing without Gladion's influence, but it had been one of those nights she'd caught her mother talking to Guzma, the door a crack open where she'd be able to peek in and hear a few words exchanged.

(That was how she'd found out that Nebby would be hurt by whatever her mother had planned. She hadn't understood any of the scientific stuff - not really, her mother tried to keep her pure and doll-like, and pretty little dolls sure as anything didn't know anything about science - but she'd understood when her mother confirmed what Guzma had said, 'That sounds like it would hurt, heh'.)

Even if she hadn't remembered his voice from that time, there was what had happened mere days ago on Paradise, where he and her mother had entered an ultra wormhole.

A part of her was afraid, but another part of her was hopeful - maybe this was where her mother and Guzma had gone, and maybe she'd be able to get them back. She slowly walked over to him, surely but carefully, and when she was close enough she paused. ]

M-mister Guzma?

[ Her voice was so light, as she was afraid to speak any louder or risk someone bad noticing she was there. ]

[golisolation]

[Her voice was light indeed, but it may as well have been thunderous for how much of a shock it gave him when it hit his ears. He jolts, freezes, then whips his head up to stare at her. His eyes wide and Rowletish, as if he were staring at some phantom. Some horror from his past—and while she is indeed from a past he's left behind since coming here (or there, rather? Whatever.), she's hardly a horror.

No, she's Lusamine's delicate daughter, the one that he had Plumeria kidnap not long before his arrival into this universe. The one he forced to return to the mother she rejected, the mother who wanted to love her, but was denied...or so that's how Guzma was told it went. For all the rain leaves him soaked to the bone, his throat could never be more dry. Words seem to shrivel in his throat, and he finds himself struggling to even swallow the lump that seems fit to form.

What does he do...now? Everyone's gone—dead—and here he is, squatting and staring at this young girl who should run from the sight of him, yet seems to be concerned...for him?]

Whaddaya think you're doin' here, kid?

[Finally, he forces something out, and that's about all he can muster. His surprised expression going dark and stern as his brow pinches in the middle, slanting forward into a glare.]

[walkontwolegs]

[ When his head shot up she jumped again, but she kept her ground, refusing to move rather than being too afraid to. She was stronger than she had been when she had first ran away with Nebby, and that meant she couldn't run away or freeze any longer. Besides, this was for sure Mr. Guzma, and he looked... He looked sad and lost, and hurt, even if she couldn't see any major injuries.

So there she is, standing prim and proper even though she's not in clothing her mother picked out, but rather something she got from the area, from some resistance fighters who were willing to help her blend in. All that trained-in grace in some back alley right in front of Guzma, who to almost anyone but her looks like he belongs in such a sorry place. And when he speaks, well, she replies almost as softly as before. ]

Um... I was brought here by something called the porter.

[ It didn't occur to her that he meant here, here in this dreary and damp place. She'd never had much of a sense of where she did or didn't belong. ]

[golisolation]

That's not—

[He starts but then stops, casting his gaze away from her when he hears some noise down the alley. His gaze turning sharp and focused for a moment, but when the sound dies down into nothing... It takes a moment, but then he looks to her again, that gaze still sharp.]

...Look, ain't you got somebody to keep an eye on you? D'ya really got no sense being by yourself, let alone talkin' to a guy like me in a place like this?

[As if to emphasize his point, he gestures around them—the dumpy alleyway is hardly a place for a girl like Lillie. A guy like him? Yeah, he's used to living in the underbelly of society, but here in this world? Where it's far worse than even he has dealt with? He can't imagine this bright-eyed girl surviving on her own.]

[walkontwolegs]

[ She looks around them, then turns back to him with an uneasy smile playing on her lips. ]

Well... There are people who are letting me stay with them... but...

[ She leans in and whispers now, trying not to let her voice shake because being this close to the man who worked with her mother, who simply leapt into the ultra-wormhole without a second thought... Well it was a little scary. ]

I'm helping them. A lot of them can't go outside, because they'll be recognised. But I can. I tell them what's happening around The City, because no one is looking for a little girl.

[ At least, that was the logic she used when she begged to help them. Even now she was sure that they were going to send her to a safe house and give her a new identity as they'd said they would, because she wasn't suited for this life, but at least she could help until then. It was too much to be put in yet another situation where she just had to sit by and watch as people got hurt. ]

[golisolation]

[Guzma's silently listening as she talks, but he can't help but be distracted by her likeness to Lusamine. Sure, there's about three decades of difference, but she really does resemble her mother in every way but personality. Timid, shy, naive...kind to a fault, but Guzma would argue that Lusamine was too. Kind to him. Kind to those who deserved it.

It makes his chest hurt worse than it had looking at her, being reminded of the woman he had worked so closely with for a time, that he's more or less abandoned the thought of returning home because of—]

Tch...

[His face sours, something pained behind it as he looks away from her once more. It has nothing to do with what she's said, hell, he barely even heard her with getting lost in his own head and misery. It's pretty sad when this little girl who barely knows how to think for herself seems more together than him.]

...I ain't gonna pretend I'm trustworthy, but I dunno how much you can trust the people here. They could be usin' ya, and when your use has been spent, they might even turn ya over to the government.

[He's not sure what his point is, or what he's even building up to till he's already there.]

But we know each other. Better than we know this world or these people.

[Whatever is leading this along, he's not sure. Maybe it's guilt, maybe it's his own selfish need to not be alone. Or perhaps the fact she reminds him of Lusamine and is a connection to her. Whatever it may be, he's following it without thinking too hard about it.

Finally, he stands, towering over the frail girl before him like a giant. Once more his gaze falls to her, hands stuffing themselves into his pockets.]

So, you're comin' with me.

[walkontwolegs]

[ Perhaps in another three decades she'll have the experiences required to recognise such things, to read people well enough to understand some of what Guzma's thought processes are. For now though she is but a child, and one inexperienced in interacting with people outside of Aether, at just being herself around them instead of her mother's (im)perfect little doll.

It's this lack of experience that leads her to believe that maybe Guzma isn't as bad as he seems after all, which might be true in some sense, but not for the reason she assumes.

Her gaze follows as he stands, Lillie having to crane her neck a little to actually still be looking at his face once he's standing. She thinks to herself that he really is a lot taller than she'd ever really noticed. The only time they'd really spent in any proximity to each other was when he had bumped into her on his way to the Ultra Wormhole, and, well, everything had been so chaotic...

Now was not the time to get caught up in that. Lillie nodded at the man, well, as much as one could when craning to get a view of him. ]

Can I tell the people who helped me what I've seen today?

[golisolation]

[Her implied agreement made this easier, if he had to force her, well...he would, but that's just one less thing he has to worry about. However, what she asks isn't surprising, bit...

His expression scrunches for a half-second. Looking away from her and out into the street at the mouth of the alleyway, his gaze hardening, mouth thinning into an even tighter line.]

Don't think that'd be a good idea.

[His answer is short and quick, his gaze flicking back to her in a sidelong glance as his brows pinch.]

Either we could be leadin' assholes back to them, or they could be the assholes themselves. Not takin' that chance.

[walkontwolegs]

[ She had almost opened her mouth to protest, to say they should help, and then he brought up the idea that they could bring bad people to those who had helped her. She went silent for a moment, looking down at her hands which grasped each other in front of her.

People might not take notice of a child, but they would take notice of someone like Mr. Guzma. He was tall, and gruff, and she didn't think he was the sort to try to hide who he was exactly. She couldn't just leave him alone while she told them, either, because then they would be splitting up and she couldn't help make sure he was safe. They were a team now, and you didn't leave teammates behind.

Eventually she looked up to him and nodded. ]

Where should we go?

[golisolation]

I got a place.

[Which isn't very specific, but hey, that's our Guzma! He starts on his way towards the busy street, however he stops when a thought occurs to him. Glancing back over his shoulder at her, his cold stare does little to afford comfort, and neither does what follows. At least, perhaps, not initially. With a quick turn, he grasps at her wrist, pulling her along as he starts again.

She's small and frail, and he's large and strong. He can push past the crowds easily enough, but that says little for her. So, this is his compromise.]

[walkontwolegs]

[ At the glance she initially freezes, the expression being in that moment so similar to some looks her mother had at times. It took her a moment to recover, and by that point her wrist had been grabbed and she instinctively tried to keep up. She had a decent amount of practice keeping up with long-legged people pulling her along so she wasn't doing too bad of a job following him. ]

How far away is it, Mr. Guzma?