shellphones |

Type: Text
Sender ID: tilfrosset (Jill Warrick)
To: Public
Subject: Clive's Departure
Warnings: Possible mentioning spoilers for the end of FF16? Let me know if you want to avoid them.

Good evening, all. This is Jill Warrick.

While I do not enjoy announcing bad news, I am aware he had a fair number of acquaintances who should be notified that Clive Rosfield has left. It seems his last day here was yesterday, perhaps early this morning.

[If this all sounds cold and businesslike, it's on purpose. It's far easier to pretend that she hasn't been crying her eyes out all day through text than any other method of communication.]

With that said, though we did not have plans for a grand event, I must also announce that there will be no wedding. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

[Inconvenience? Sounding like she's putting others out as if she's not the one who lost her other half. But of course, years of hardening her heart against emotional disruptions sure taught her how to fake it until she makes it. Or at least attempt to, badly. She's experienced loss before, but this? It's different.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Whenever Kaveh makes it over with the water, Jill will promptly ignore the mug; it'll just get in the way of the wine working it's best to help her obliterate the entire day away. Nothing seems more appealing that being too drunk to think about losing the person you treasured the most.

She shrugs at his offer, tipping the bottle towards her mouth again for a few swallows. The soothing warmth of the alcohol begins to bloom in her chest, but Jill is far from drunk yet. They might just need more than a second bottle.]

Go on.

I was too young to drink, when my father died. I got sick on the wine I could afford, when my mother...left.

[Kaveh says it, in a conversational tone, like he isn't revealing more about himself than he has to even Cid.

He doesn't like it. but if it helps Jill, even a little, Kaveh will even burn his own pain on the pyre.]

But with Alhaitham....I was the one who left. I think I was drunk for a solid week, and I was so angry--what right did I have to drink? I was the one who left. [He sighs, a little.] I think I spent...the next six years or so, getting drunk or getting more work. Because I didn't want to wonder if he felt so empty without me, too.

[Jill is quiet as Kaveh speaks. She's realizing she doesn't know much about the man, but then again he probably knows just as little about her. It would probably be best for them to do this without the assistance of alcohol, but it's rather too late for that.

She listens. Drinks some more, probably three quarters of the bottle is now gone as she listens and takes in the words Kaveh says, letting them rest in the air for a long while before she finally responds with something, voice cracking along the edges.]

But he was alive. You may have left, but he was still alive.

[What she says sounds strange, like Jill is already far too gone to be making any kind of sense, but it's not that. She drags a hand over her face, covering her eyes that begin to sting with the heat of tears. The words are hard to get out and her lips are moving in silence before she finally comes with her half of the equal exchange]

I don't even know if he's alive.

[And that's what hurts the most: the not knowing.]

...Yes.

[Kaveh exhales out. What more can he really say? Alhaitham's alive. His father isn't. Both these things--are facts he knows.

And Jill has been denied even that.

He taps his pinky against the neck of the wine bottle. More of that is probably warranted at this point.]

Even the finality of knowing was taken from you...and the rifts don't even have the decency to give you someone to be angry at for doing it.

[There's a twisting in her stomach that Jill can't tell if it's envy or effects of wine on an empty belly. Probably a bit of both as she sits here in her little starter apartment in the same clothes she slept in last night, looking like some vagrant who resides full-time in a chocobo coop. One glance at her and one would never would have guessed she has roots in nobility.

No, the rifts are uncivilized things that have no respect for the people it drags through. But Kaveh is wrong. There is someone she's angry at and someone she would place the blame on because there's no where else it seemingly fits.]

I'm angry at me. I can't judge them for no decency when I have none myself.

[Not quite true, but years of self-hate just doesn't go away overnight.]

Ah.

[Something twists on Kaveh's face--an expression of recognition. How awful--he hadn't wanted to to be able to empathize like this.

The expression passes quickly.]

...I can't say I know what it is you've done to be angry at yourself for. [He tries to keep his tone neutral--after all. He doesn't really know Jill, and she'd have every right to point that out, if he tells her right out she has no reason to hate herself.

To be clear, Kaveh doesn't think this situation is a reason she should, but he also knows too well it isn't so simple as it seems from the outside.]

[Maybe it's the lack of having a say in things, control over how and when these rifts do their thing. Maybe it's her trying to make sense of why any joy in her life always seems fleeting. Whatever it is, Jill begins slamming back more wine, to try wash the taste of self-loathing, only to have the alcohol fuel the flames as it takes effect.]

I've done a lot of things, Kaveh. Horrible, shameful, heinous things. Things I would not forgive anyone else for had the tables been turned. Perhaps this is what I deserve.

[She waves a hand in the air, indicating the barrenness of the apartment and by extension, her heart. Basically, nothing.]

I took so many people's happiness. How much of a fool I've been, thinking I had earned any of my own and for so long.

Do you deserve it any less than Benedikta?

[Because--well. He has a pretty good idea what she's done, and Kaveh guesses Jill probably wouldn't deny her that chance.]

Less than Cid? Less than Joshua, for the burden he carried? I'm afraid I don't know enough to understand what separates you from them.

I have no knowledge of what Benedikta's history is like.

[Not quite true as far as what Clive has told her, but true enough that Jill doesn't think it's much of a lie.]

Those two... they have not committed the atrocities I've committed. I don't believe they have as much blood on their hands as I do.

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