HAMIS 11, 2719 ❁ EVENING
No, it hadn't, had it? Today had been tumultuous and immensely difficult to get through, and -
That wasn't right either. He'd spent it in the kitchens, working dough and baking rolls, and.... no. That wasn't it. He'd been sent to clean a handful of particularly messy student dorms, yes, and he'd run into a rude little girl and....
He couldn't remember. None of it felt right, and he couldn't tell what he'd done yesterday or today, or what he'd done even a week before - did it matter? He had to believe that if he couldn't remember it, if it hadn't been eventful enough to make some impression in his mind, then it didn't matter. He hoped it didn't, because all of it had escaped him entirely.
Lars was walking, but gods if only he could remember where to. It felt as if he'd only woken up a moment ago, and had found himself lost in the halls of Brunnhold, directionless and confused. He came to a stop to collect himself, lifting his eyes from the floor below and to the stairway that descended into darkness before him.
Ah, right... he'd been walking to Laboratory Beta. Things started coming back to him now; he'd just cleaned up in the baths after a day of work outdoors. It wasn't often that the blonde was called to such manual work, and he could admit that tidying and maintaining the grounds of the university weren't his favorite tasks, especially in such heat. He'd retreated to the baths as soon as he'd finished his work, and he could feel it now, the cool air pressing against drying blonde waves as he walked down the stairs in silence.
He hadn't wanted to go back to the dorms yet, not when there were still a few hours until he had to sleep, and so he'd opted to visit the laboratory. At one point, the Hessean might've visited the kitchens in his rare moments of downtime, but as of late he'd taken to avoiding such places when he could. He did a lot of that, now - avoiding. It felt, sometimes, that all he ever did was avoid; avoid people, avoid places, avoid thoughts and opinions and feelings and everything else he could possibly avoid. It used to be easier. It used to be easy to blend into the background, and to go about his life like normal, like nothing ever mattered and nothing ever would, but it simply wasn't true anymore.
Everything mattered, and everything hurt.
He wasn't a Savatier. He wasn't; he was one of many of his kind, without magic and family alike, and whatever name or future he'd had in the past was meaningless now. They had no parents but their fellow passives, but now - now he really had none. Now he had nothing. Past, present, future - nothing. Nothing. Nothing, and no one.
Not Jamie, or Donatien, or Morgan, or Professor Moore, or Professor Devlin, or Miss Madden, or Fionn - he had himself, but he wasn't enough. He wasn't enough for himself, how could he have possibly expected to ever be enough for anybody else?
The passive moved through darkness, carrying a heavy weight in his chest and an unshakable chill in his bones. He wasn't even sure of what he meant to do, when he got to the laboratory, or what he meant to say to whomever he found - was he expecting to see the Professors? Miss Madden? He wasn't certain he even had the words to accompany his thoughts, or if he had anything to say at all. Nothing came to mind, but then nothing ever did - he wondered if that was yet another flaw in the makings of his mind, like the inability to use magic, or to express himself, or to act like one was meant to. He wondered what parts of him weren't flaws, and found a much shorter list.
Lars felt himself stumble, his shoe catching on something unseen, and the servant was on the cold ground before he registered what was happening. He didn't fall too hard, he'd simply not been expecting to trip and fall; he pushed himself up into a sitting position, but didn't move any farther just yet.
What would happen if he didn't move, and remained there in the darkness? Would he sink into the floor and never be seen again? Would he fade into the shadows of passing professors and servants on their way into the lab? Would he watch the world around him continue on, as if he'd never been there at all, as if nothing he'd ever said or done had affected anyone else's life in the slightest?
He supposed he didn't need to sink into a floor for it to be true.
Lars forced himself upward to stand, dusting himself off before continuing on, as if he'd never fallen. He resigned himself to neutrality, his face relatively blank and unchanging save for a twitch now and then beneath his eye, and his hands went to straighten the tuck of his shirt and the line of his trousers before he reached out to open the door to Laboratory Beta.
He heard noises immediately - like the sound of someone banging things around, or throwing things, or something equally as aggressive. He hesitated for a moment, listening to the clatter and reconsidering if it was a good idea to go inside. After a few moments, the blonde decided not to stray from the plan, and opened the door fully to step inside the lab. A blue gaze swept over the room, only stopping when it found the source of the noise - Miss Niamh Madden.
"Oh - I didn't mean to disturb you, I'm sorry," Lars offered, his hands drawing together in front of him and fingers intertwining, "should I come back another time, Miss Madden?"