hadriel | eighth; video + action (heartbreaker, heartbreaker, i wanna tear your world apart)

video.

[Nick hasn't been absent from Hadriel for very long in Hadriel days, but for her, it's been months since she's seen the all-too familiar walls of the colosseum, and finding herself within them once again feels nothing short of catastrophic. She's sure she's been angrier than she is now at some previous point in her life, but at the moment, she's having a hard time pulling such an instance from her memory. Shaking and tense, she turns to her phone.]

Which one of you fuckers brought me back?

[She knows exactly who and what are responsible for her being here; this is nothing more than a defiant swing in the dark.]

action.

[Later, once the shock of being returned to Hadriel has begun to fade, Nick can be found right back at Delight's bar, serving drinks as if she never left. There are slight differences, for those who know her well enough to notice - her hair is grown out past her shoulders, and underneath the anger and irrational feeling of betrayal at being brought back after managing to make an escape, there is something like calm, an almost-peace that wasn't present before.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh hey. It's her again. He was wondering why the bar was a bit emptier than usual.]

Uh, welcome back?

[Nick inhales a deep breath, holds it for a count of three, and then exhales loudly through her clenched teeth.]

Thanks. I guess.

[It's not his fault she's back; she knows that much.]

Wish I could say I was glad to be back.

You weren't really gone that long. Unless it was...different for you.

[Time, he knows, can be an obnoxiously difficult little shit when it wants to be, and he long since stopped puttin' any kinda stock in the concept of linearity.]

[Nick shrugs, making an attempt at telling herself it doesn't matter. She doesn't really convince herself.]

About six months, I guess.

[She laughs, a quiet, angry, bitter sound, no real mirth.]

It's funny. I had these nightmares for a while after I got back where I'd ended up here again. I was just startin' to think they were gone for good.

Yeah. Time don't make a lotta sense sometimes.

[A lot of the time, actually, but he doubts she really needs to hear that right now. Lady's not having a good time of it. And, heh, he thinks maybe he can relate, a little bit.

His laugh matches her own. There ain't a scrap of humor to it.]

The second you let your guard down's the second it all turns around, yeah?

You'd think I'd know better by now.

[If you never let your guard down, you can never be surprised. Nick feels so stupid for letting herself believe the nightmare was over for her.]

Well ... what did I not miss while I was gone?

[Well, he would'a held onto his hopes, 'cept he knows that's a recipe for disappointment. Don't make you wrong to think otherwise, though. Just makes you an optimist.]

Oh, y'know. The usual. Misery, death, the works.

So ... same shit as always, then. Good to know. If y'all'd had a big party without me, I would've been mad.

More or less, yeah. Though I think we've missed ya at the bar.

[Not a lotta people will take in stride the fact that there's a skeleton there that drinks condiments.]