westwhere | everything is happening right now

Entry tags:

everything is happening right now

WHO: Five and OPEN (with some closed starters)
WHEN: After the events in the Tower
WHERE: Serthica (various locations)
WHAT: Aftermath / November Catch-All
WARNINGS: Usual Five-related warnings (language/will edit as needed)

( Planned starters being added. If there's anything you'd like to do pre-event just hit me up and I'll write it in! )

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At some point, Five started to appreciate how small their apartment is. Some might find it claustrophobic, but there's a certain comfort in being able to see every room from any one vantage point. Along with the wards that Wrath put up that keeps is blissfully void of unexpected visitors, it's one of the only spaces where he's able to work without the constant threat of something appearing and upending his progress. (Which is what he's generously calling what he's doing now.)

It could use more wall space. He used up what he could reach in his bedroom this morning, and his equations have spilled into the kitchen and encroached on the living room until he'd gone back to his pad of paper to cross reference what he'd been working on over the time he spent in the Mouse House. With every hiccup, the solution becomes more complicated, but there's a solution in here somewhere. The trick is finding it before he loses what's left of his family, or the rest of them finally turn on him and he doesn't have any more quiet afternoons to work on his math.

He acknowledges, at least to himself, that he's made mistakes. Several, as he's reminded with the way his back still aches from the worst of the injuries he sustained in the tower. Mistakes that have snowballed since he came here, and every new complication stretches him beyond what he can rationally handle. So he messes up, when he can't afford to. People disappear. It's unfortunate, but he's only human and he hasn't been under this much stress since he was counting down the days until an apocalypse.

The idea of murdering a child had really seemed like the right solution to their problems.

Five takes a drink of coffee, that he spiked just to get through the morning, and shuffles his papers. He misses his wife. Obviously. Seeing visions of her in the Unwinding, and again in the tower, made him realize just how much he leaned on her. She would have pointed out where he went wrong. Got him to take a step back to see that he was jumping to the wrong conclusions. And she'd probably have something to say about his drinking, but it helps dull the buzzing pain and the curse that he realizes now he really should have taken care of back on the ship when he had the offer.

His droid is a poor substitute, but it keeps him company. One of the few things Five easily adapted to was having it around to clean up after him and prepare his meals. When he got back from the tower, he was starving and suddenly couldn't remember the last meal he had. Maybe it's his knack for working with robots, but the droid did as he asked, its many legs making sandwich after sandwich in a neat stack on the table that Five reaches for whenever he remembers it's there. They're not bad; he was lucky to find something like peanut butter in a place like this. A candle burns nearby. It helps.

Even with the sustenance, having to go back and rework his equations for the hundredth time is starting to make him crosseyed. He's run his hand through his hair so many times he's nearly pulled it out. He spots Wrath with emerging from the next room, because it's hard to miss him in their tiny space, and stops writing long enough to greet him. It's good timing, he needs the break, and Wrath always helps to put things in the right perspective.

"There you are." Had he gone out? Maybe he'd been here for a while, but Five hadn't heard him. He turns and gestures to the stack of sandwiches at his side. "Hungry?"

Wrath has been here for awhile, but Five was lost in what he was doing and had not noticed. It is only recently that he steps out into the main part of the apartment. He had taken the time in his own room to be aware of Five's current state of his emotions along with the state of his curse. It would be impossible not to notice, which means this is the worst possible time for the city to erupt in whatever chaos remains as the group chooses to stay to attempt to set it all right again. Being the king of Hell is about more than judgement, than reigning in the demons who slither through it seeking power at any cost, it is also about balance, and this city has tipped off the scale of any type of balance. He knows Emilia too wishes to see justice be done in this place. There are many innocents affected by the cruel twisting of dark magic throughout it including the dragon she has come to love so well. They have made the right decision by staying, but he wonders, worries, strategizes.

On top of all that, the Tower has placed the curse - his curse, Emilia's curse back into his focus again (not that it has ever left, but in the village, on the seas, there were few resources for solving it). There is no time to deal with it now, but he refuses to allow it to continue on, to hope that when they return he will find a way to break it. This is a world full of curses - one exists inside of his roommate now, feeding on the misery of those around and poisoning him with it in the process. The mirror itself within Five may be a key to doing so, but he hasn't had the chance to ask him yet. He will find a way to end it, to lessen it, to stop it before they ever are returned to Hell, which means the beacon is not yet a concern for him.

For the time being though, the group has more immediate concerns.

He walks over to Five, noting the candle, the sandwiches, the paper, the equation that has spilled out on to the walls here - well, there goes the decor. The question gives him pause, but he shakes his head especially as he smells the sickening sweet condiment Five has placed upon his sandwiches from here. Safe to say, they have vastly different tastes (aka Wrath is kind of a snob and would not have deigned to eat human food at all before Emliia introduced it to him through her cooking).

"...no." There's another pause as he surveys the equation on the wall. "How long have you been working?"

Five doesn't push any food on him. He should tell the droid to stop, but he thinks it helps him focus to have it working in the background, and it'll probably figure it out when it runs out of bread. The sandwiches should keep for a few days, so it seems like a good idea to stock up so he can grab them as needed. At the moment, he's still starving, and he takes a bite of one before he answers Wrath's question.

"Since I got back." A while. Not long enough to get where he wants to be. He notices what Wrath is looking at, and it occurs to him that he did say something about keeping his equations to the walls in his room. Things he forgets when he's in the middle of working. "I had to rework that one. Too many variables."

Hence why he had to spread out into the kitchen. It's almost said like an apology, so he might have meant it as one.

"The good news is that I'm going to get it right eventually." Lila is proof of that. She might not know how he does it, but if he believes what she told him, he's able to gather his siblings and bring them back to face whatever is waiting on them there. Theoretically. Unless he's creating an alternate timeline, but that's just something he'll have to factor in. He'd like to believe he's heading in the right direction.

"It's the meantime we have to worry about." If he doesn't have time to figure it out. Which, given how long he's been working, seems likely. It was either this or stockpile weapons for when shit inevitably goes down again, no thanks to Five's last meeting with the Beastmaster's kid. He lowers his pencil to turn to Wrath. "I've been meaning to ask you. The wards you put up, did you say they protect against compulsion too?"

Wrath hears the tone of what Five says, aware he does not hand out apologies with any ease, accepting it for what it is. At least, they are unlikely to stay in this city much longer at this point. The equations themselves are nothing that Wrath could ever parse. He is intelligent and well read, but the technology and math is beyond the time within his own world.

He turns away from the equations, leaning back against the counter as he watches Five, aware that he has not slept or ate for some time at least until this moment where he's taking bites of the sandwiches he has piled up. It's clear in his body language, and mortals especially require both.

"...you sound confident." It seems to go beyond pride or belief like he has another reason to believe he will get it right eventually even if Wrath doesn't know what that reason is.

His own expression shifts to one that is more serious. The meantime promises to be dangerous, but that is not new in this world. Rarely do they have the chance to settle down, to rest.

"It would depend on the compulsion. Primarily, it would prevent anyone from getting close enough to use compulsion." However, he is aware this world operates differently than most, and his own magic has been tested. "What are you worried about?"

His confidence comes from an unreliable source, but he hasn't found any holes in Lila's story. Mostly because he hasn't had the time to interrogate her. Maybe if he weren't so sure that the rest of that story isn't as rosy as them all getting home, he'd have already cornered her about it. Right now it's too much of a distraction, so he's trying his best to use it as motivation.

"I got a tip about the future." Simply put. Wrath is one of the few, or the only, person outside of his family that he might elaborate on that with. From the way he sighs with his full body after he says that, it's been something he's had a hard time not thinking about.

There are more important things.

"It's happened too many times. Again in the tower." If Wrath thought the Unwinding was bad, the tower was worse. He found who he was after, but he should have come with more of a plan. "I spoke to the Beastmaster's child and told him who killed his father. I don't know if I can get close to him without it happening again."

Somehow he needs to figure out a way to shield himself. It never worked with his sister, but Wrath has some resistance. And Emilia said she learned how, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. Just not something he could learn overnight.

"I went there to kill him, but I couldn't. He vanished." He left that part out when he was talking over the network about it, and he watches Wrath for his reaction. "I think it's going to be a problem."

"...what tip?"

There are only so many places a tip from the future could have come from after all. It is not as if they can reach the worlds they came from, and Five would not attempt to until he has found all of his siblings and worked out the equation he has been wrestling with. There is a long pause when Five mentions the Tower. For the most part, Wrath was unaffected except for that damned fourth level, and then he was as compelled as anyone else, lost in the vision of temptation that switched swiftly to one of damnation.

"If you want protection from it, it will not come from the wards but training your mind. Even then, it would take time, and this world has seen fit to push past my own protections against such compulsion."

Which he has trained over countless decades, centuries so his brothers could never influence him and his actions, so he could never be controlled as he was by his Maker in Heaven. Even then, Wrath was ultimately able to resist, but he refuses to ever be placed in such a position again.

Wrath takes in the rest of what Five says. If he is looking for a reaction from Wrath, Wrath's expression does not shift at all through what he says. It is one aspect of him that has frequently angered Emilia - his ability to make himself unreadable, but he imagines Five might find some comfort in it.

"I'm surprised you told him who killed his father." It must mean Five did so assuming he already knew - a mistake. "It is unlikely the child can be killed by conventional means alone. He is no child - not entirely even if he has the demeanor, appearance, and personality of one." Wrath does not know what he is, but he is not merely mortal, merely human. Or he would have aged, he would have died in the volcano. "It will likely be a problem if he has as much power as he apparently does. Chrichter was the one making the mannequins so is he aware of the child?" Do they have a relationship? Why exactly does Chricter want to help him? There are too many pieces missing.

"We make it back." So no matter what happens, he succeeds in doing what he set out to do. He just has no way of knowing how long it takes for him to get there. "Someone from that future showed up out of the blue. According to her, we were all there with her."

He doesn't look as relieved as he should with that knowledge. There's always a catch, and he's clearly leaving plenty of room for mistakes. He diverts his attention to the sandwich and takes another slow bite. Wrath makes it sound possible to train to be able to resist compulsion, but as expected, it's nothing he can do in the amount of time they have. If wards can't help, he's going to be at a disadvantage. Things he should have considered before antagonizing him.

"I thought he had something to do with my brother's disappearance. He would have had the motive, but he didn't even know his father was dead." An explanation, not an excuse. Five felt something was off the moment the child started crying. It never crossed his mind that it wasn't all an act until then. Wrath doesn't seem to judge him for that much. He's killed innocents as indiscriminately as he has those who deserved it, but he's been thinking about it since then. He knows he should feel more remorse for the things he's done, but every time he tries, he can only say it's enough that he doesn't like it. He's detached from the emotion that would make most people hesitate. It makes him a good assassin, but not much else.

"...I haven't looked into Chrichter as much as you have. You think he's making them for him?" The mannequins. In the tower it felt like the child had been twisting them to whatever nightmare he thought up, but maybe he was pulling from what was supplied for him. "Do we know anything about his abilities?"

Wrath assumes Five has already considered the obvious that the person from their future comes from an alternate version of their world or that she comes from a future where they've all been sent home via the beacon. He can tell there is something else on his mind when it comes to the information he has learned, but he does not ask that quite yet either.

The Tower brings new challenges, and as a group, they have to figure out how to solve them and how to deal with the fallout of what occurred there.

"I am certain you're aware you should be vaguer in the future when speaking to someone who may have been responsible for the disappearance of one of your siblings. Never reveal your hand too early - certainly not without something else given in return." Especially when they have no idea what exactly this child-but-not can even do. He can tell it is an explanation, but he needs Five to think differently on how to approach those situations in the future. Granted, with how loud his mirror at the moment is - the cursed misery that radiates out from it, it's unlikely he is capable of thinking clearly at the moment. It's another reason it needs to be removed though there is hardly time at the present.

"I think Chrichter is making them for his own reasons and motives I do not know if he knows of the child. The child may simply be taking advantage. When we saw him in the Remembrance headquarters, he appeared to be... losing control of his own mind, unstable, volatile. I do not know what has angered him so. He has a cult of people willing to follow him, to twist mannequins to their uses within the two halves of the city."

Wrath is right, he knows it, so he can only look down and pick at the edges of his bread. It'd been torture getting up there; he was beaten and angry and not in his right frame of mind, but how often can that be an excuse? The last few months he's been slipping and their problems just keep escalating. That it coincides to the last time he let his curse go unchecked for too long and broke the mirror doesn't escape him.

When he mentions Chrichter's mental state, Five scoffs, because of course he's losing his mind. Anyone who builds a cult around creating living dolls has to have something wrong with them, but especially here. Reality has never felt like such a loose concept as it has since they arrived.

"He might be the easier target," Five finally says. He rubs his eyes and reaches for the mug at his side while he contemplates that. If he's not undead and has no powers, Five could take him easily, but he doesn't know what those consequences might be.

The droid interrupts his thoughts when it finishes going through the entire loaf and moves to clean up the counter. He stares at it for a while, letting his thoughts swirl around all the scatter pieces of his life that he's tried to keep together. He's reminded that he has something else he needs to ask Wrath. As important as it is, he has to think about how to put it that doesn't violate the trust that was given to him by an unlikely source.

"I need a favor."

Edited 2022-11-13 20:24 (UTC)

Wrath is grateful he simply accepts it. He can see in his expression that he is aware of the problem. Humans so often let their emotions cloud what they do. It becomes dangerous especially in a place like Hell, but it can be dangerous here too where so many of the cards are stacked against them. It does not help that he has a cursed mirror inside of him radiating misery at an incredibly high rate - higher than when they last spoke about it.

"He is most certainly the easier target," he says in agreement to that, because as far as he could tell Chrichter was human - granted those senses have been muddled since arriving, but he saw nothing to indicate he had any special protection. "And he also may have valuable information."

However, Wrath would approve of Chrichter being killed. It would certainly improve the city a great deal to not have him making mannequins any longer and wielding them within the city for whatever he believes the correct moves are. They say they want the city to return, and yet their attacks always seem to be set up in a way that should divide the city instead.

He looks over at Five after a moment. They have come to a point where they are no longer counting favors back and forth. They simply give them when they are able whether it is information or something else.

"...what is it?"

It's not a bad idea. If Five hadn't had so much going on, he might have already thought to hunt Chrichter down back when Wrath first came out of that room filled with mannequins and dark water. Or earlier, when Wrath had been investigating the assassination attempt. They live together and yet he was still too involved in his own mess to keep tabs on an obvious lead.

He should have at least looked into it before going up that tower, but at the time he couldn't pass up the chance to find the child. Now he's positive that things are going to get worse and everything is going to get more dire. Possibly because of him. He can't be everywhere at once, which is why he's asking this now.

"I need help keeping an eye on someone." On top of everything. It doesn't feel natural to go out of his way for someone who wanted him dead not that long ago, but he owes it to Diego. Learning about her pregnancy changed some things, and that's not the only reason he's asking. "The woman from the future's name is Lila. She's important, to my brother. If everything she says is true, I can't let anything happen to her."

Wrath tends to look out for most people from within their group given he thinks all their skills are likely necessary to set this world right and use the beacon to truly return them all back where they belong. However, he has always made an exception for Five's siblings (and Five), looked out for them more than most given Five asked him to do so back when they were in Taravast.

"...I can do so."

There is a pause. Lila.

He remembers hearing her mentioned on the network, seeing a conversation or two she had. She seemed familiar with the Hargreeves, which had piqued Wrath's interest at the time.

"You trust what she says to be true?"

He can tell from his reaction that he's at least heard her over the network. That saves him having to describe her. If he wasn't expecting hell to break loose, he wouldn't bring it up, but given the circumstances.

"As a general rule, no. But I can't take the risk in case it is." It's a pretty big leap for him to suddenly have her back, but family is family. That she happens to be the only source of information he has about whatever else occurred in the future, and her apparent success in helping to jumpstart a briefcase, means his hands are tied.

"Thank you," he adds, sincerely. The past few months haven't let up on him at all, and there aren't many others he trusts enough to ask. He hasn't forgotten what Wrath did in the Unwinding and how he tends to fare better in these situations.

He frowns to himself and tries to chase away the memory of that disturbing episode in the rain that ultimately lead to him jumping to all the wrong conclusions. And since he's decided he's taking a break until he finishes the sandwich, he really should be keeping better track of his roommate. Make sure he hasn't overlooked something. Which he most certainly has.

"I don't know about you, but I didn't vote to stay because I'm optimistic."

Given Wrath does not trust his own brothers (and would not protect them - though they have no need for it generally speaking), he can accept this. There are many reasons why he may wish to protect this particular individual without necessarily trusting them nor caring about them personally himself. She has valuable information if nothing else, and there must be a reason Five finds it important to protect her because of it.

He nods in simple acceptance of the sincere thanks.

Wrath notes the frown on Five's face, wonders what it is he's considering at the moment. This city has brought many difficult experiences to the entire group, and Wrath would prefer to be free of it entirely, but the wrongness of death being utilized in this way is impossible to shake.

"...why did you vote to stay?"

Five would think the answer is obvious. He's a stubborn old man who can't leave well enough alone. Even if he's the only one still refusing to accept that his brother simply disappeared, he'd like nothing more than to find someone to blame. It would have been refreshingly simple if Lila had been behind it, but there might be only one way to find the answer.

"Unfinished business." Not just with the child and his brother. He hasn't chased down Mingyu yet, so he assumes someone tipped him off that he figured out who was behind his memory loss. If they left, it'd be too easy for him to slip between the cracks.

"It seems like the majority of their populations is either dead or they were never alive to start with. We should work on stopping the spread at its source." That makes it sound more responsible than getting revenge. "If I didn't think it was more trouble than it's worth, I'd suggest dusting off the artefact to put an end to all of it. "

Wrath occasionally likes to prompt people to say the obvious because the way they answer can be telling in its own right. Unfinished business. With the child, with the disappearance of his brother. He is curious if there is anything else though he does not ask.

His gaze narrows, however, at the rest of what Five says. Wrath is many terrible things, and he has never shied away from the reality of that, but his position is ultimately one of balance, of justice, of condemning the worst of souls for what they have decided to do in life. Wrath has accepted Five taking the tongue because he showed proper precautions with it and showed that he head learned from previous mistakes, but the casual way he makes that statement along with Five's misery flowing out of the mirror is making Wrath reconsider.

And because of the danger of the artefact, he will not simply allow the statement to go unaddressed either.

"And what purpose would that serve? Say there was no trouble attached, what purpose would be served through summoning the kraken on an entire city?"

Even if destroying the entire city was the right move (and it isn't), the use of the tongue would not be an efficient way of ensuring all that needed to be destroyed would be destroyed. People would run. Escape. The disease would spread beyond this place. The boy may not even be caught up in the violence brought on by the tongue and then escape to do this elsewhere in a new city.

Five raises an eyebrow when Wrath latches onto his offhand comment. He hadn't given that option much thought, or much serious thought, aside from the growing desire to see the entire city wiped off the map. It isn't even a viable suggestion, considering they aren't near enough to the ocean, and he would wave it off if he didn't think Wrath needed to hear his answer.

"Nothing good." He doesn't want to admit that he would rather see it end up like Taravast, because he lost two siblings in that fight and he's been paying for it since. Not that his plan to get them back is any less crazy. He glances up at the wall where he'd scrawled his last equation and shakes his head. "I didn't factor it in."

Besides, there's no separating the trouble that comes with it. Even if it didn't immediately backfire, they made sure everyone knew he has the artefact and he knows they'd come after him. There are no easy solutions. He feels so mentally spent trying to account for all their problems that he has to look back at the candle to make sure it's still burning.

"Saving them is a lot harder. I barely made it up the tower to find the child." Not to mention he can't be certain that killing him would save anyone. But Wrath stayed too, and he's suddenly curious. "Is that what you want to do?"

Wrath is reassured by Five's answer. It is unclear if the tongue could summon something else out if it were to be used here. They still do not know enough about the artefact, and it is still being hunted down by that group who wanted it along with all the members of this group who would come for Five's head should he decide to use it. He is grateful Five sees that despite all that is currently happening and the strength of his own curse, which is the primary reason he had to be certain.

Saving them is harder. This is true.

"The most effective way to end what is happening here and prevent its spread is finding a cure to the disease, stopping it at its source as you said, and killing Chrichter and anyone far gone enough to be on his side. The way this city is both a mockery of death and life at once."

It spikes this wrongness in Wrath's bones, and so his motivation goes beyond saving necessarily though he feels no need to bring unnecessary death to innocents. A long breath follows.

"And understanding what the child truly is."

But it's unlikely he can just start spouting a different type of sickness to replace the one they can hopefully find a cure to.

Is there even anything left to save? Five still hasn't gotten to the bottom of what happens in the Unwinding, but he knows he nearly lost himself there. Even the people left alive could just be husks, playing a role the child assigned them. Chrichter's motivations aren't clear enough to know if he's just another puppet too, but he agrees with the sentiment.

As for what the child is, at least he can be vindicated that Wrath didn't think he was one from the start. Doesn't make taunting him with news of his father's death any smarter, but it helps to distance himself from the implications. He's not really a child, and if Five is honest with himself, it was more his confusion that he was acting like one that made him hesitate.

"We know he takes after his mother. I saw it myself." Spores literally formed out of his tears. "Chasing her off seemed to stop the sickness from taking hold in Taravast, but doing that here runs the risk of her finding him. Then there's Wei Wuxian claiming he's alive."

Alive means he can be killed. The question is if that would only make him more powerful. As curious as he is, he knows his track record with magic and how his attempts have gone to deal with it himself. The tower is still too fresh in his mind.

"Or he doesn't take after anyone, and the man in white is responsible for everything. If he made them, he could make others."

"...alive and yet he has not aged, and he somehow inherits the ability of his undead mother," Wrath speaks slowly, because the Undead should not be able to transfer their power as a biological mother might to their child. Once they are dead, the connection should shift, and yet- This world continues to elude his understanding of both life and death, of the creatures that can exist in both. He trusts Wei Wuxian's senses - they have always aligned in a sense with his own when it comes to reading what is dead, what is alive, but-

This city in particular seems to be making it all more unbalanced due to the protection that prevented anyone from being able to see, living versus dead.

"The man in white clearly has a great deal of responsibility. In all truth, for all the answers we have received, we are left with only further questions." And it is unlikely these questions will be answered in this city, but they have to lay it all to rest one way or another.

This place is not sustainable - much of it is not real, not alive ( a child's playhouse like they found in the room where the mannequins are made).

Wrath echos some the same thoughts Five had. He isn't undead but he isn't human. Five didn't know what he was dealing with when he confronted him, and he underestimated him after Diego managed to land a killing blow to his father. The extent of his powers are unknown. Neither of his parents could manipulate the mind and create alternate realities. For a moment he wonders if Lila could mimic that sort of power, but he doesn't know if it's wise to put that idea in her head.

He doesn't even know if he can fight against something that took complete control of him, more than once. They induced fear in him with a touch, trapped him in a fantasy born of his own memories, and struck him down with disease that overtook him in seconds. The only reason he survived them was because someone found him in time.

"He got too close." He doesn't elaborate what he means, but as he moves to grab his cup he's reminded of the wounds that weren't all miraculously healed by the magic in the tower. They took control of someone he trusted, who literally stabbed him in the back. As much as he likes to boast how he refuses to die until he accomplishes his goal, his fate slipped out of his hands and he's yet to feel like he's regained his grasp on it.

That's what he was attempting to do when he got back to the apartment, and the risks of attempting his own solutions seem less and less important. He's so tired of being in pain, of losing his family, that he's close to doing anything to make it stop. He holds in a breath and looks back at Wrath. If he told him everything he's thinking, he already knows what he'd say.

"Are you going to see Emilia?" he asks in a more casual tone, like all it took was a sip of coffee to stop him from spiraling. "I need her to make me some more candles."

Wrath's gaze narrows at the statement without elaboration, and now he is watching Five carefully like he is searching for weakness, for any sign of pain at all. What exactly does that mean? He got too close. Five doesn't elaborate, and Wrath does not know that he would even if asked.

For the moment, Wrath allows for the change of subject, but he files the information away regardless, keeping an eye on Five, not entirely trusting the casual way he speaks.

The question gives him the slightest of pauses though his expression doesn't shift at all despite the aching distance between Wrath and his wife at the moment. They have not seen each other nor spoke beyond check-ins since their last painful conversation regarding the curse, regarding what Emilia does not know and what Wrath has not allowed himself to choose, because she does not know it. Now she has shut him out entirely. Any attempt he makes to reach out, she responds in an icy fashion that is all too familiar to him, and he no longer intends to simply wait for her to be ready. They have already lost such time - more than she could know.

In true demon fashion and evasiveness, however, he answers the question with one of his own.

"Do you not have enough candles?"

He does not know that he has seen Five without one since their arrival.

Five tilts his head at the way he dodges the question. It might have gotten by most people, but he's familiar with the technique. With everything that's been going on, he hasn't been paying attention to their usual visitors. Now that he thinks about it, he hasn't seen the two them together in a while.

"Not anymore. That's one of the last, and this isn't a time to run out." He gestures to the candle burning near him that has been burning for hours already. If not for that, he could have passed out almost as soon as he got back from the Tower. He needs them to stay focused and alert, especially now that he's potentially made their situation worse.

He frowns at Wrath, suddenly concerned that he's missing something that's going to become a real issue for him. Allison hasn't mentioned anything about it and she sees Emilia all the time.

"...Why? Is there a shortage I should know about?"

"...not currently. However, our next location may fail to have the supplies needed."

So if Five does truly have a need for these candles, they may very well run out of them or the ability to create more of them at any time. It is something to keep in mind as Wrath begins to wonder whether or not he is truly addicted to them. And yes, Wrath shifts the focus away from Emilia at present, because he is not going to stop by her home to see her.

She would simply kick him out again. He has to come up with another way of seeing her, and he knows she'll be interested in helping cure this city whatever it takes.

"And, I believe, sleep is vital to mortals at some point - candle or no candle. Have you slept?"

Going too long without it is certainly not going to help with Five's current mindset regardless of the candles. It isn't as if he can carry them lit on his person without potentially damaging his clothing.

If Five didn't think he was deflecting to keep from asking about Emilia, he might take more offense to his concern. For one thing, if supplies are going to be running low, it's more of a reason to stock up now. Especially before shit inevitably hits the fan because they decided to stay. And for another, there's far too much going on to waste precious hours sleeping. Isn't it enough that he's taking the time to eat?

"I was asleep for days during the Unwinding, and you saw how that turned out." It wasn't a restful sleep, but he distinctly remembers waking up in the Mouse House. The implication is that he hasn't slept since then, but the candles work just fine.

"We have no way of knowing what power they have over dreams." He hadn't thought of it before, but now that he does, it's worth noting. Then he chews on the edge of his sandwich that he's started to lose steam on and adds a little quieter, "And I have too much work to do."

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