[ OPEN ] even her sighs were now viewed as prophetic.

[passio]

WHO: dextera and YOU!
WHERE: the town.
WHEN: january, especially after being de-statued.
WHAT: dextera regained his voice! possibly a catch-all later, but we’ll see.
WARNINGS: none right now!



[ there are a number of things to take care of, once he’s been released by whatever forces turn them to stone at random in the first place. he needs to talk to his brother, to guren, to catch up on everything that he missed in the however long he was “gone.”

once all that is done, however, there are only things left to be said.

dextera has never been the jolliest resident of the town, nor was he in his own world, even before the apocalypse that obscured his memories and took his voice. that’s why it’s so noticeable when his mood is skirting the edge of merry when there’s nothing else distracting him, and the reason for it soon becomes clear. on some morning, any morning, possibly all mornings, dextera is doing his usual errands. tending to the chickens, checking on his brother, these mundane things that wouldn’t be special except for the greeting he offers when he spots someone he knows.

practically glowing, at least by his usual gloomy standards, he opens his mouth and speaks. ]

Good morning.



( dextera got his voice back for christmas! i’ll write a few personalized starters for his closer CR since this is an official Big Deal, and i’m willing to work with anything else that anyone has in mind! he has his voice for the whole month (!!!) so we can also roll something into a quest if you like. let’s plot! my plurk is, as ever, pavaal. )

Comments

CLOSED TO SINISTRA

[passio]

[ it’s a war with himself whether he should go to his brother or guren first, after waking up, but simple proximity and the tendency of the two of them to stick together in times of crisis wins out. guren will come later, he will, but sinistra is in the house. dextera can feel him, as he always can, and although their strange connection doesn’t allow him to sense his brother’s emotions as his own, he has a decent guess as to what his brother might be feeling when he sees that days have passed. ]

Brother.

[ his wish is, for now, forgotten, as he reaches out through their connection to catch his forlorn sibling’s attention. ]

I’m back.

[bisection]

[ Now is one of the rare instances where he's left his brother's side. The chickens needed lead outside for some fresh air and to run around for the day, so he's out in the yard. Taking care of them has been the only thing to get him up off the floor, so it hasn't, in retrospect, been a terrible thing.

The familiar feeling of his brother's voice in his head is just about the only thing that could snap him out of the daze he's in as he watches them, cloudy-eyed and silent.

He startles in place and looks up at the house and then around him to catch sight of him, visibly panicked. ]

Brother? Is it you? Really?

[passio]

[ dextera isn’t as panicked as sinistra simply as a function of being the one to have disappeared, but he’s empathetic nevertheless to what his brother must be feeling. ]

…

[ he goes out to where his brother is, and as soon as they’re close enough, he opens his arms—inviting a hug. he thinks sinistra might need it. ]

CLOSED TO GUREN

[passio]

[ …and, once the flurry of activity and emotion that comes from dealing with sinistra is over, dextera must go to guren. it’s a desire as much as it is an obligation, especially when he recalls on the way to ruga how hard the winter season is on guren—christmas, in particular. dextera feels a horrible sense of guilt in the pit of his stomach for simply disappearing through the end of the month.

they may have no exact sense of the days, but it’s enough that the town in its entirety had been set up for christmas, and with the length and count of the cycles of day and night as they are, he must have missed the day itself. guren must know that too. he buries himself enough under the weight of his own remorse for his unwilling departure—a reluctant sort of balance, for earlier—that he slows to a stop before he even reaches guren’s front door.

he’d wanted to share his voice with guren, but maybe he doesn’t have the right to be happy about it. he’s not sure. all he can do is reach out, no matter how much the realization of it all makes him want to turn and run. ]

…Guren.

[ his voice, soft and uncertain, certainly won’t reach guren’s window from here. he tries again. ]

Guren!

[swordfucker]

[He'd been worried. Of course he had been, but so many others had turned to stone in the town before. They came back to normal, he had to remind himself again and again. It would be fine. That's all he had to believe in, and so he believed it and pushed himself forward, like always. He'd visited as often as he could, but Sinistra being there had been... a relief and a worry, honestly. He wanted to help him, but he didn't want to make things worse.

It was all a mess. Everything felt like a mess anymore.

He's thinking about that mess when he hears Dextera's voice. A quiet thing, that he almost mistakes for a cat's meow until he hears it a second time, louder, unmistakably his name. Blinking in his surprise, he stands up from his desk, leaning towards the window and shoving it open to stare below.

Sure enough.]

...Dextera? [It was a voice, but it wasn't the same as Sinistra's. The way they were standing was always different, too. Their eyes. Everything.]

[apocalypticist]

[ Hearing actual words coming out from Dextera's mouth is enough to give Ryo pause, if only for a second. He cants his head faintly, one eyebrow raising minutely as he regards him with mild disbelief. He's not sure how to feel about this; hearing the sound of his voice after months of silence and sign language is kind of weird, honestly. Is this really how he's supposed to sound? ]

Did you wish for your voice to come back? [ It's the first thing that comes to mind, and given the timing a more likely scenario than Dextera spontaneously regaining his voice. ]

[passio]

[ automatically, dextera nods, because he’s not used to having his voice… but the knowledge that it’s back also simultaneously has him wanting to use it more than was ever really natural for him. ]

Yes. I went with Guren a little later in the month.

[ his voice is soft and sweet, not at all the way a cultist turned apocalypse-bringer would likely sound. ]

[bittybat]

[Honestly, Damian may or may not have stopped by at least once a day to check and see if Dextera had awakened from such a solid state. And with Sinistra's despair with the damn chickens, it's no wonder the boy is simply there to tend to them without having to worry about fussing and training some twin brother.

(Maybe later.)

Aside from the surprise of Dextera being awake--and Dextera's voice--Damian looks... a smidgen different in just the small time Dextera was asleep. He certainly looks different than his arrival more than eight months ago, and he's caught between the awkward age of hastily moving from tween to teen; preparations are beginning for his inevitable and sudden jump in stature later. For now, his structure is filling out, his face, and his hair looks more like Dick's than Bruce's.

Not to mention, he sort of gives Dextera this awkward, surprised grin instead of a flat, deadpan glance. Maybe it's almost... excited.]

When did you manage to get the cat to let go of your tongue?

[passio]

[ dextera has never actually seen anyone grow up. he knows it happens, of course, but even with his memories, he’d always been the youngest person around and could only witness the changes on himself.

he does notice that damian is a little different, but it’s something to address later. he returns damian’s grin with a subdued—but no less excited—smile of his own. ]

I wished for it.

[ he touches his fingers to his throat, simply feeling the vibrations of his own voice. ]

It worked.

[whereabout]

[ Joshua, as previously established, has been having a shitty time.

But seeing Dex so happy, and then hearing him - after the initial moment of surprise fades, it's enough to get a small smile from him. If anyone deserves to be happy, it's Dex. ]

Good morning.

[passio]

[ estelle’s presence is still missed in the house, of course, but a little bit of time has passed since then—and dextera was a statue for a bit of it, so he’s not entirely sure what those days have felt like for people who were completely cognizant of the passage of time.

so, for now, he’s genuinely very happy, even if seeing joshua reminds him that there are still things to mourn. ]

I hope… the chickens behaved while I was gone.

[good_ideas]

[They... really haven't spoken in a while. Not since the incident near the forest. She thought he needed time but the moment he smiles at her she has to stop.

And then everything else she'd thought of to say (apologies for tranquilizing him had been first on the list) is gone the moment he opens his mouth.]

...Did you wish for that? [It's wonderful.]

[passio]

[ dextera needs to apologize for needing to be tranquilized in the first place, but the question can at least be answered before all that. he nods, except he wants to use his voice, so it’s accompanied by a confirmation aloud as well. ]

Yes, I did.

[ and he’s so happy about it. ]

[messianic]

Good--

[Morning.

...

...

.. Minato is good at rolling with things without much issue, but...at that, he freezes, blinking slowly.

.........]

Mo...rning...?

[HI DEX.]

[passio]

[ it’s a strange, but not unpleasant, reaction to his voice. he’ll take it. ]

…

[ he smiles. ]

[hypertoxic]

[ The way she jolts when he speaks, you'd think he'd physically shocked her. Vriska stares at him agape, and--

Well, with once all-white eyes filled in, orange sclera and all eight silly pupils, it's easy to tell: they both got wishes granted, didn't they? ]

Holy shit!

[ zips over to him, beaming. ]

Do that again! What the fuck, Dextera! You can talk!!

[passio]

[ and vriska can—be alive again, he guesses!

dextera doesn’t really understand everything about what he’s looking at when he sees vriska, but he knows it’s good, because he ended up looking back over the forums after he came back from stone.

of course he’s happy for her. ]

Haha… I wished for it. Just like you.

[crowsigliere]

Now, the polite thing to do when someone says 'good morning' is, of course, to give them a smile and return the greeting. Kyrie knows this! And presumably, so does Dextera. It's pretty much one of the most basic marks of decency in day-to-day society.

So it stands to reason that hearing an admittedly unfamiliar voice calling out to him should cause Kyrie to turn his attention towards them, and--

"Oh...?"

A pause.

...A fairly long one, in fact, as he brings one hand up to his chin and just... very lightly tilts his head, eyeing Dex with the kind of scrutiny one might expect of a collector determining the legitimacy of a painting. His expression doesn't change. He's still not saying anything. Wow, is this silent consideration starting to stretch uncomfortably long?

...

Everything about him relaxes as he closes his eyes and heaves one, dramatically disappointed sigh.

"No," he says, but he's smiling now at least, and when he looks back again there's a faint hint of humor in his eye. "I think I preferred when you were silent--you were easier to ignore."

[passio]

[ as it turns out, getting a taste of his own medicine in being stared at is deeply uncomfortable, and dextera wonders if he’s somehow offended kyrie by saying good morning to him. then, when kyrie delivers his judgment, it’s clear that his guess was correct.

the humor in his eyes doesn’t go completely unnoticed, but kyrie’s sharp tongue is as hard to ignore as ever. dextera winces. ]

I’m… sorry.

[ the voice may be unfamiliar, but apologies are not. ]

quest 42

[apocalypticist]

[ This particular quest caught Ryo's interest the second it went up on the forum; he's known for a while that there are demons out in the woods, but this is the first time the town is encouraging them to seek them out. He would've preferred to do this one with Akira since they both have experience with fighting demons, but neither of them are blue so he decided to contact Dextera instead since he's both blue and a reliable person to drag along.

The meet up at the edge of the Ruga district as usual, and soon start making their way into the woods to find those dastardly demons. ]

Do you think these demons will be like the ones Ichinose-san's group encountered months ago?

[ If he recalls correctly, they're capable of draining color from people. ]

[passio]

I don’t know. The quest monsters are always different from the others.

[ dextera has, by now, fought a few of the demons for the quest, but he doesn’t really have a point of comparison for the ones that guren might have encountered. so far, though, there’s been no color drainage, and no soul stealing the way the bogeyman taught him to fear.

these demons seem almost tame, in comparison to what the forest can do. ]

But they’re more dangerous than usual. I can feel that much.

FOREST ADVENTURE

[passio]

[ dextera feels… good. the town’s strange tricks are over, for now, and color has been restored to his eyes. he doesn’t know why that would have made him feel better than before, but what’s done is done—and, in any case, now seemed to be as good a time as any to go into the woods with his brother.

getting the pocket watch that he left behind with guren was first and foremost on his mind, and so that’s the reason that’s in his heart when they pass through the first sets of trees. then deeper, and deeper, and dextera recognizes this agonizing feeling of eternity from when he went with guren in the first place. they must be on the right track, but what will the first test be? ]

…?

[ there’s a laugh, in the distance, and dextera stops. ]

Did you hear that?

[bisection]

[ Sinistra's journeys into the forest have been few and far between. He doesn't see a reason to go in unless there's some immediate reason for it. At his brother's request, though, he'll do just about anything, so into the forest he's gone.

He stays close to his back. His brother seems to know the way to go, so he won't question his directions. He only pauses when he hears the laughter and meets his brother's gaze. ]

I did. I heard it too. It sounded human... maybe.

quest 40

[apocalypticist]

[ Kissing a frog does not sound appealing at all and he doesn't think he reward will be very good considering how simple the quest is, but he figures it's worth doing once regardless. Once he dedices to take on the quest, he puts his coat on and heads out to find a frog. He's seen a couple of frogs here and there throughout the month, so he doesn't have to look for them in the woods.

When he finds none in Ruga, he heads over to Bluo to keep looking there. ]

[passio]

[ dextera is already having a bad time in these last few days of the month, but he’s just been trying to survive since it’s about time for the new quests to appear—plenty of frogs had been running around in the early days, but they seem to have disappeared once people began to focus on other, more important things.

he didn’t expect to be caught up in the trouble this late in the game, in other words. the transformation is sudden, but he knows that someone needs to come find him if he’s going to shake this off.

so, he hops down the stairs of his house, and out the front door, cautiously avoiding the chickens all the while. surely someone will pick him up and kiss him. ]