[open] post-imprisonment log

[sterngaze]

WHO: Liem & you!
WHAT: Liem is released from the naughty-Kenoma dungeons
WHERE: The Citadel, possibly Achamoth proper
WHEN: After his release on Firaseri 6th
WARNINGS: References to Liem’s imprisonment, including brainwashing, torture, & self-harm

I. The Wounded Option

[Liem is released from the Citadel’s dungeons without fanfare, staggering from his audience with the Regent back to his own rooms and sequestering himself there to recover from the most immediate after-effects of Dionys’s ministrations—or to at least attempt to. Rest is out of the question; the stings and aches throbbing through him would make sleep a struggle even if he could close his eyes without being transported immediately back into Dionys’s clutches. His mind feels like a sieve, his thoughts slipping away from him like water and leaving him only with the jagged edges of the past ten days. The best he can do is nurse his filthy and abused body while he tries to piece his mind back together.

He spends a lot of time alone over the ensuing days, but the observant or well-informed may have noted his return from the occasional servant delivering food or medicine to his room, or from hearing the sounds of activity within it. The sounds of running water are especially obvious, should one happen to walk past while he’s washing.

But of course, he has to tend to his injuries all over again once he’s stripped off the bandages and washed away the salve. Some of them are easier to reach than others, especially given the lingering pain involved in moving around too much. After bandaging his arms and tending the half-healed cuts and bruises on his chest, a short hiss punctuates his attempts to minister the lashes on his back.

Any knock on his door is meet with a brief silence, followed by the door cracking open and Liem’s dark, tired eyes peering out from it.]

Can I help you?

II. The Insomnia Option

[It doesn’t take all that long for restlessness to lure Liem out from the confines of his rooms. The walls start to creep in on him after just a couple days; the quiet starts to become oppressive. It’s too much like his cell in the depths of the Citadel, and it’s too much like his cell in the cathedral back home. Leaving the barren stone and cold, empty bed behind, he ventures out into the Citadel at large, seeking something to keep him occupied.

a. The middle of the night is a strange time to find anyone in the kitchens, but that’s where Liem is right now, smelling of oranges and cinnamon, his sleeves folded back to the elbows and his head bent over a small pie filled with some kind of soft white cheese. Flour dusts the bruises and half-healed bites on his wrists and forearms as he carefully lays a lattice of dough strips over the top, lifting his eyes from his work only briefly as he hears someone come in.

b. Regardless of how sleepless his nights (and his days) have been, or how residual aches from his injuries still plague his waking hours, Liem still turns to training as something that can occupy him even while he’s only operating at 50% at best. Target practice is something he could do even in his sleep, so the deep shadows beneath his eyes and the lethargy in his movements don’t stop him from finding a target to practise with in the pre-dawn hours when most of the Citadel is still dreaming. Stress and exhaustion have made him jumpy, though; the sound of approaching footsteps filters into his awareness slowly, and then in a rush all at once as he whirls to point his crossbow at whoever just walked in.

c. During the day, Liem mostly keeps out of the way in parts of the Citadel that don’t see much use. There’s a spare room near the top of a tower that stays empty for hours at a time, and it’s here that he can be found curled up on a window seat, gazing out of the narrow window while he scratches at a notebook with a stick of charcoal. Or at least, that’s what he’s been spending much of the afternoon doing, if the formless doodles and patterns scrawled across the pages are any indication. Liem himself isn’t available for comment, leaned as he is against the cool stone wall in the grip of a shallow and uneasy sleep.]

III. Wildcard

[Liem can be found around the Citadel or, later on, even out in Achamoth itself. His inbox is also open for post-imprisonment communion! Feel free to hit me up on plurk at Sporelett or DM me on discord if you want to hash out something else.]

Comments

[sterngaze]

[Liem listens quietly, letting the cool slide of the salve draw some of the tautness from his back as the slight sting turns gradually to numbness. He doesn’t truly relax under the careful attention—his nerves are strung too tight for that, despite the gentleness of Paul’s hands or the thought put into his words. But some of the misery eases from his face, and from the line of his shoulders.]

You’ve never refused forgiveness? To anyone?

[Even to those who slide back into sin again and again, harming the people around them? Even those who have done wrongs for which they could never atone?]

Intention and desire are such flimsy, changeable things.

[vivificantem]

They are. I'm not going to deny that, either.

[He breathes in deep, trying to find words. To reset, in some way.]

But who am I to decide that they're not enough? Sometimes flimsy intentions are the best we have.

[sterngaze]

[In a way, Liem does understand where Paul is coming from. It costs nothing to offer forgiveness, and there is neither kindness nor justice in holding onto grudges that will only colour future judgements. On a personal level, he sees why he would choose not to hold Liem's betrayal against him.

But at the same time, he's done many things in his life that he simply accepted he'd need to carry with him forever—wrongs that couldn't be righted, and shouldn't be forgotten or forgiven. And he's always believed that this is the way it had to be. Sometimes life is unfair, isn't it? Sometimes there is no forgiveness.

And yet, just as his wanting could never earn him forgiveness back home, his doubt now can't stop Paul from giving it to him.]

If that's enough, then… I'll try not to disappoint you.

[vivificantem]

That's all I'm asking for, in the end.

[It seems to placate him, in the end; in all honesty, he isn't sure if this is going to get him scolded by the Regent or not. He can see where it might; he can see where it might not be deserving of reprimand at all. But if he's blunt, in the moment he doesn't care; this is what he's always done when someone has transgressed, and this is what his heart is telling him should be done now. Whether it does Liem any good in the end or not... Well, that has yet to be seen.]

I can help you with bandaging it as well, though I admit I've never been the best at it.

[sterngaze]

… Thank you.

[Liem doesn’t expect that showing him kindness right now would draw the Regent’s ire; it’s their servants, the other aions, who he’d expect might take umbrage at it. Still, although it might not end up costing Paul anything at all to show him kindness at the moment, when he’d first returned to his rooms, he hadn’t been expecting anyone to be willing to support him. So regardless of the personal cost to Paul, or lack thereof, he is still profoundly grateful. He reaches for a roll of bandages near one hand and slides it across the table, nearer to Paul’s reach.]

It doesn’t need to be the best; I appreciate the help all the same.