Logs:Hearsay/Theresay

Hearsay/Theresay
Dramatis Personae AJ, Dallen	2024-05-22 "I majorly screwed up and now Bryce is gone and everyone hates me - !" (shortly after AJ flees the patio, followed by setting the record straight.)
Location <XAV> Lake - Xs Grounds
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. Today it's overcast, with spotlights of sun pouring through breaks in the clouds to shine warm spotlights down on the distant shores and unseen brush. Om the pier, shoulders shaking weakly as she tries to hold herself together, sits AJ. She's still dressed in her large, baggy band tee and the knee-high leggings she'd been wearing in her earlier interaction with Quentin, Leondrias and Tok. The guilt was eating away at her, causing havoc with controlling her powers. She wanted the lale to swallow her whole and let her disappear from sight. It felt like it was what she deserved, after all ... Dallen comes down the hill from the mansion with his backpack over one shoulder in a yellow and gray raglan shirt, neat blue jeans, and gray hiking boots. He looks kind of pale and haggard, but maybe that's just because he's dressed poorly for his complexion. He starts to walk along the shore, then stops when he notices AJ, and reroutes to the pier. He stops a couple of steps away from her, shifting from one foot to the other. "Are you okay?" he asks quietly. She sniffles abd half-turbs, looking back at him. "Nn - no -!" The girl sobs. "I - I screwed up! I majorly screwed up and now Bryce is gone and everyone hates me - !" Dallen's fingers play restlessly over the foam-padded shoulder strap of his backpack. "I'm sorry you're feeling bad." He wraps his other hand around the single strap he's holding, and there's a sort of rhythmic pattern to all of his fingers tapping lightly along its length. "How did you screw up?" "Bryce wanted to- to run but there was this family with a little boy and I - ... I thought that somebody should give them a chance. So I stayed, and Leondrias dud too and while we fought the bugs B - Bryce he -- novidy was watching him and - and he -- he - !" Another sob escaped her. "If I hadn't stayed he'd have survived and - and the family died anyway according to Quentin! 'Cordibg to him I'm trash for not protecting him .. !" Dallen is frowning very intensely at the water somewhere beyond AJ. "Bryce wanted to go, but you stayed and fought," he says slowly, in the tones of someone trying to work through a riddle, "against thousands of alien soldiers. In the open. In the park." Suddenly, his eyes snap into focus on her weeping face. "What do you mean he'd have survived." He copies her intonation so accurately it doesn't even sound mocking. AJ's shadow on the pier was already shaking with the force of her sobs, but now it's twitching and distending at the edges, as though something were struggling to burst from inside of it. "I didn't ask what Quentin said. Quentin wasn't there. Quentin was with me. I'm asking you. You were there." Dallen's shadow is darkening and gaining a strange, unpleasantly surreal depth. "Did they lie to me? Is my brother dead? Would it have been okay to let him die if the family with the little boy lived?" "Th - there was blood nd his f- feathers ... I only caught a glimpse before Leo pulled us out-!" Her heart was pounding g 8n her ears. Her arms began to sizzle bur AJ tried to stop it nest she could. "What - what do you mean they lied? Is - did they find Bryce alive?" He eyes filled with hope, washing away some of her despair. Dallen squeezes his eyes shut. AJ's shadow more or less goes back to normal. His own, not so much. "Would I be asking you this if they found him alive. They say he's missing. They also weren't there. You were there," he repeats this doggedly. "You said he didn't survive. Did you say that to justify abandoning him?" His fingers press hard into the foam. "Did the family you were protecting survive?" AJ vehemently shook her head. ,"N- no! No! I - I thought he didn't survive because of the blood and people said he was gone, and so evody told me the family I tried saving... they were gone. All of them. Including the little kid...! " She admitted softly with teary eyes. "Who told you?" Dallen asks immediately, then tries to soften the demand a little too late with, "Please. Were the people who said that there? I want to ask them. You said Quentin knew. But he was protecting me and Nahida and Manny and other people. He wanted to go save Bryce but we asked him to stay." Dallen is blinking a lot, and swallowing hard. "Maybe he could have protected Bryce, too. Maybe he heard things in his brain. What did he say? Tell me. Please thank you." AJ looked a bit taken aback by his request. "L - Leondias saw what happened, I just caught a glimpse of the - the ground before we left ... I was distracted with the aliens." She told the truth. "A couple students told me he'd been eaten too, as was the f - family and that I got people killed playing "hero", pretending I was an X-Man and everybody hates me for getting Bryce killed ... !" "Quentin. Leonidas." Dallen speaks the names clearly. "Are they the 'couple students' or are there more? Tell me who they are and if they were there with you. Please." His breathing grows quick and shallow, and his eyes fixed on the empty pier between them. "I don't hate you. I'm sorry if other people hate you. That is not as important as what happened to my brother. You were there and you keep saying he was killed but you don't actually know. Are you spreading rumors." "I - I don't know! Leomdias was there but the three girls that saod it weren't -- there!" AJ pointed them out, standing nearby in the open with cruel sneers. "They told me!" In reality, AJ was pointing at an empty space urgently with a shaky hand. Dallen looks in the direction AJ is pointing, eyes searching for the three girls she mentioned, then back to AJ. "You told me my brother was dead," he pronounces each word individually, to be sure he's saying them right, "because they told you. You don't know their names. You know they were not there, and you did not ask them how they knew. You just repeated what they said, without knowing if it was true." He's blinking back tears now, shoulders hunching. "That was cruel. And wrong. And you should go see the counselors. Right now. Goodbye." He turns on his heel and walks swiftly away. "They - ... what?" AJ does a double-take between Dallen and where 4ye girls are watching. She cNhear their mocking giggles so clearly! ... But it's not real, is it? She looks back at Dallen. She wants to apologize, explain, but he's already leaving. Her throat tightens and she scratches at her arm as it itches. Memories of those councilors make her grimace. No no no! She can't- ! But then she says her jaw. He's right, something is wrong, she hasn't hallucinate this badly in months! So AJ beeline for the manor despite her trepidation, her ànxiety and disgust. She has to, before thus filtration- and her mind - falls apart further.