Party Regrouping (Current Location: Clock Town) Thread 7: Rip

Ruul's face was still an inscrutable mask as he stepped through Clock Town's gates. Night had fallen, and the party had had to fight off a couple of monsters on the way. Nothing they couldn't handle though, even with their loss of morale.

Ruul headed towards the Stock Pot Inn to see if any of the others had made it back and gone there.

Calcifer walked along with the rest of the group, his cuts bandaged, his eyes downcast.

Kairo kept glancing over at Calcifer. Every now and again he would open his mouth to say something but the words never seemed right, so he closed it again without speaking.

Ruul asked in the lobby if anybody matching the rest of the team's descriptions had been spotted, to no avail.

Wordlessly, he left and headed instead for the Lazy Possum. No luck there either. Unlike the Stock Pot Inn, however they had room.

He glanced at the three remaining members of the party. "Rooms together or separate?"

Calcifer worried Aero's leather bag with a callused thumb. His tired eyes wandered around, vaguely remembering Clock Town before looking off to the side, avoiding anyone else's gaze. He shrugged.

((I went back and noticed I hadn't mentioned that Calcifer should've acquired Aero's bag and poisoned knife before she was cremated. Let's assume that was written.))

Leighi thought back to everything that happened these past 3 days and felt tired from doing so, he heard Ruul say something and just replied with "I don't care." He walked towards the closest place to where he could sit down and fell down on a bench, completely exhausted, both mentally and physically.
He hoped getting rooms would be taken care off soon so that he could just fall asleep and hopefully get enough rest to cope with his mental exhaustion.

"Why don't we split into two groups?" Kairo suggested. "You and Leighi take a room and Cal and I can take one."

"Saves money," Calcifer half-mumbled.

Kairo looked at Ruul, his face crestfallen. He was just as sad as any of them though he had no right to be. He hadn't known Aero as long as Calcifer and Ruul nor as well, he thought.

"That's what I was thinking." He was desperately trying to bury his depression, and making a little bit of headway. They couldn't take down a wolf that towered over their heads if they were looking at their feet. "Two rooms for two."

"Right away, sir." The lady handed him two keys. Ruul held one out to Kairo and Calcifer.

Kairo took the key and led Calcifer up to their room. It was decked out with two twin beds with a table in the middle. Kairo instantly moved the table out of the way and pushed the beds together, regardless of what Calcifer wanted tonight, Kairo meant to see that he was was there when the other Gieru needed him.

Calcifer dropped his bag off of his shoulders, and laid Aero's neatly on top of it. He watched Kairo maneuver the furniture, his ears flicking at the harsh sound of the wood against wood. Immediately when he was finished, the Gieru sat heavily down on the side of the nearest bed, his knee cracking. He grimaced and clutched at it. "Nn,"

"Are you well?" Kairo asked, immediately regretting it.

"I need to cut my hair." Calcifer choked back tears that came on quickly, unable to after just a moment, "I have to cut my hair again." His throat hurt from not sobbing. His ears turned red.

Kairo moved around the beds and hugged Calcifer. He could not know the pain his friend was feeling but he thought he did and that made him want to take it away.

Calcifer held onto the sheets at first, on impulse wanting to reject Kairo before his grief gave in.

((Short timeskip? Idk, I don't want the crying and grieving to drag on, let's get past the mostly depressing part lol))

Ruul's room was on the floor below. Leighi looked like he was about to collapse already, so it seemed like the better choice. Once they were in the room, Ruul poured himself a cup of water and sat down. He stared at it for a while before taking a sip. A couple of pieces of ice drifted on top as he pulled it away from his lips.

The first time he had met Aero, he had handed her a piece of ice to wet her mouth before somebody passed her a jug of water. At the time, she just seemed like the average troubled waif...

He shook his head. He didn't want to start reminiscing. He downed the rest of the drink in one go and lay down, looking at the wall.

After a while, Calcifer calmed down. He ended up lying on his side on the bed, over the sheets, his face still flushed and the skin around his eyes damp. "I'm so hungry," he murmured, staring at an awkward space in the floorboards. But he was too tired and worn out to get food. But he was too compelled by hunger to stay still. "When will we eat?"

"I... I can see if I can get you something, if you don't want to eat with the rest of us, that is," Kairo said.

"Don't leave." He swallowed, "Please." A hand wandered up to the side of his head and sifted through his hair. It hung loose in his pony-tail.
After a couple of minutes, he sat up and stared at the two bags nestled on the floor. He got up and reached for his. When he pulled it out, his knife still had a little blood on it. "... I can't cut it as short as it needs to be myself. I'll cut my scalp."

Kairo took the knife and looked at it for a while. "Why do you need to cut your hair?" he asked.

"We cut our hair when we grieve. It... symbolizes our pride, our sense of worth in a way. When we cut it, it's like letting go of a huge part of who we were. The more you cut off, the more you've grieved... It's a shameful thing. When you're hair isn't long enough to be tied back. Men never keep their hair down. It's intimate." A minuscule smirk crossed his face, "Unless you're Kairo."

"Heh, I always wondered why I got weird looks when I was younger, before I left. My mom wasn't a gieru so she never taught me the customs and things," he said. "How short do you want it?"

Calcifer's little grin faded. "As short as you can make it." He pulled the tie from his hair, and it fell over his shoulders. He looked away.

Kairo started slowly, first taking the majority of the length off Once he'd done that, leaving about an inch of hair to hold on to he began to take it shorter, almost to the scalp. The hair gathered around them on the bed after a short while, he was done. He had tried to make it look like he hadn't just hacked it all off and tried to make sure it was mostly the same length.