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Riddle sits before a mirror at Styx, in a flat meant for a normal worker. After it was concluded that he wasn't in immeadiate danger from exposure to the Underworld by the latest Overblot, they let him sit and care for himself in peace.
However, Ortho checks on him routinely every other hour, like he will in a bit under five minutes. The robot is still getting checked. No anomalies in his functions were found the first time around, so now he's being monitored for anything that'd maybe show up while he's powered up.
All the Rosehearts has really been doing the last four hours is try to sleep, which he couldn't, and fuss with his hair. Always vibrant red as a well-painted rose. Until today.
White. Like a dead student's or child's clothes in the coffin.
As soon as a person has begun to work at a full-time job, they are acknoledged as worthy to wear the red of the Queen of Hearts instead. Contributing to the Queendom like a full-fledged card soldier.
The tradition isn't quite as prevalent as it was fifty years ago, a natural effect of more people of different nationalities migrating and younger generations not understanding the need, but still frequently followed and viewed as such.
Riddle had, unlike his mother who has black hair, worn her majesty's red since his hair started growing. She'd told him what an honor that was. Maybe viewed as improper on a child since he shouldn't be grieving one of his parents quite yet, but it isn't like he was seen outside very much.
He's sure that once it'd become known that it was his natural hair colour, they'd congratulated him on it. People don't believe in the Great Seven watching over them anymore, but they'd have joked about him being blessed by the first Queen.
And now it's white. Not even off-white.
He knows that when a child is mourned, especially when they'd been young, parents and close family and, in some cases, close friends let their hair be changed to resemble the burial clothes.
Should many people at once suddenly wear white hair, it is widely acknowledged that a great tragedy has occured and condolences are frequently offered.
And while he himself isn't as strict as he used to be, he still feels like he is, or should be, mourning. But who? Vil would warrant bright red, and he only looks old right now, he's not dead.
Himself? That'd really be the only person he could, right?
He looks like a mourner at the same time he feels he should be the mourned.
His thoughts make no sense.
"Riddle Rosehearts, I'm back again!" Ortho's chipper voice calls out. Has he been staring at himself for five whole minutes?
"Come in." Oh. And Idia's there too.
The humanoid immeadiantly starts talking. "You know, Idy owes you all sincere apologies, we started with Vil, actually, but he's still making his sorrow known at a very impressive volume and did not wish to be seen at this point in time."
"Rook's with him?"
Idia nods, fiddling with his fingers, clearly struggling with himself. "I apologize for what happened." Ortho nudges him in the side, eyes curving slightly in what everyone's come to learn is a smile. "And... it'smyfaultandthankforsavingmeandOrtho!"
Riddle nods and turns back to the mirror. "Alright." He thinks of Vil, unable to accept it quite yet. "What about-"
The humanoid takes it up. "...Schoenheit is afflicted with a condition we know, but haven't studied extensively. The employees were as smart as to not follow the born Shrouds to the Gate. Or that close."
All he can do to that is nod, white at the edges of his vision when he lowers his head.
"We are thankful, of course!" The small robot leans into the student's field of vision. "But, plainly stated, a case this... severe just hasn't existed before him." At least he sounds sorry. "The people before him caught a drop where he was soaked in the influence."
He would like to believe he isn't selfish. But there is a matter he needs to ask about. "And me? My... my hair?" Himself, as ill-fitting as it is with the Pomefiore Housewarden just a few rooms at most over. He asks Idia. Instead of Ortho, holding his gaze. If that senior wants forgiveness he will earn it where it's difficult.
"We don't know." His hair flares embarassed pink at the edges, but his voice is steady yet.
"Okay." What else is there to say?
But the Shroud isn't finished, returning to babbling aimlessly in a genuine attempt at what might be comfort. "The hair you've got now won't naturally turn red again, that's for certain, but we don't know about the stuff curently growing!" He's lucky Riddle is so used to Ace and Deuce. "You might just need to grow it out!" Then he goes quiet, waiting for an answer.
The Rosehearts has full access to his magic. His grip tightens around his pen. He's earned the right to his rage this time around, hasn't he?
"Not even a kind of therapy for Housewarden Schoenheit? No idea of what is actually missing or if it could be replentished?" Instead, he just sounds like the tyrant he now knew himself to have been.
The light in the mirror dims. "We... we don't know how to create vital energy." He talks faster as the built-in lights return to their status of being the primary sources of illumination. "Or transfer it from one person to another. It isn't food from food or water, it isn't magic though ones magic pool is dependent on it, there are old written-down rumours of people who replentish it naturally and can transfer it but that's either fiction or the percentage of the population who can do so is microscopic and the ones who discover it within those limited numbers areaspecofaspec..." He has run out of breath.
"In shorter terms, you cannot fix what you destroyed." Vil Schoenheit of all people, disfigured. The gem of his magepen glows the color it's owner will have to dye his hair to.
Idia's shoulders hunch in as Riddle tallies up his wrongdoings. "You followed a Phantom to Tartarus after your..." What can he even say? "...brother thought it was his original, you overblotted, tried to swat us out the air like flies, risked the lives of all of Twisted Wonderland for a powertrip, gave up when a group of students of whom the oldest hadn't even begun their last year at Night Raven and the youngest of which were sixteen who, in multiple countries, still count as minors, you simply GAVE UP on yourself and damned the half of Ramshackle to die on your choices, your misplaced fury drained me in a minor capacity, disfigured your school mate and lack any way to fix any of it."
Dead silence follows. "Your right to end your own life is debatable, Director-to-be. Murder is not." He giggles, lifting his gaze to twirl one long strand of white around his pointerfinger. "Name me one good reason any of us owe you any amount of leniency."
"...I didn't ask for that power."
He huffs out a breath. "Vil's going to die on the fact you used it." He carresses the little crown over the gem. "Either that or vital was the wrong adjective to use." The light is blinding. "You are a weakling and a coward, Idia Shroud, and I regret the fact I ever thought of you with an ounce of respect as my upperclassman and a Housewarden."
The Watchman doesn't appear to have any words to that.
"You were meant to protect us. Not just Night Raven, everyone." His eyes burn and he hates it. What right does he have to cry when Vil is maybe three rooms over? "I'm sorry life means that little to you. You'll get what you're seeking because nobody but a program would still stay with you voluntarily." Not to mention he hasn't since his own Overblot and anything before that was when mother caught him with Trey and Chenya or at the toddler stage.
Riddle doesn't see any kind of brighness through the distoring veil of blurred vision. "I don't make a difference between attempted and successful murder, you know?"
The door shuts behind the guards, Ortho, Idia.
"...I want to go home..."
...
The next time a check-up happens, the humanoid is alone, simply opening the door the second the clock reads 6:30.
"Going to lecture me on my insensitive words?" He asks before a single word is said, still seated before the mirror. He's become as appearance focused as the Fairest on Campus.
Ortho meets his eyes in the reflective surface. "You were honest. I would've liked it to go smoother, but I hold no grudge for you not adhering to a wish I never even stated to you." He moves around the chair to stop before the human. "May I conduct a scan of your vitals?"
"You may." If he can teach the being before him manners and, maybe, even boundaries, it'll be better for everyone.
He doesnt feel any different during the scan, softly swinging his legs under the chair. "You've got a drop in blood sugar levels."
Riddle shrugs, used to the familiar declaration. "I have usually eaten a tart by this time of day."
"So you've said." Ortho carries a chair over to Riddle's side. That's... new. The technomantic robot never had issue with standing beside or before someone, unmoving and often unblinking. "Has your mood to do with your changed haircolor?" Now he's looking where the human is too, at clean white strands.
His head snaps over to the smaller figure beside him. "Why would you-"
"I checked the Queendom of Roses traditions, though surface level. The meanings of red and white were immeadiantly described."
The Rosehearts nods. "I did not ask how." It's obvious, with internet access and all, not to mention the archives of the Isle of Woe.
"You reacted sensitively, which was to be expected. But not in the manner a lone Overblot should've caused." He explained, eyes fixed at the follikels like they might bloom bright red any second now. "Not afraid, see? You'd words to say and you spoke them clearly."
All Riddle has to offer in response is a huff, at first.
"I do want to hear it from you."
Whatever Styx wanted, they could probably get from him anyway. And the practice didn't belong to him... So why not? "Considering there is really one person I should be mourning, my hair should be a bloody red. Vil works hard and has amassed a very respectable reach and wealth." He brushes a hand through the inappropriately bright strands. "While some would maybe wear white for him as strict traditionalists, it would be proper in my view to showcase my respect for him as he already is very accomplished."
The humanoid nods.
"So if I wear white I would mourn something incomplete. Which is either me, which feels... very wrong since I'm sitting here and my only actual loss is the vibrancy in my hair..." He halts, looking at Ortho directly. "...or..."
The robot too turns to look at him. "What is it?"
"...you."
"Huh?" His head tilts in such an innocent, child-like manner it clicks into place for the other.
Riddle reaches out, hesitates, then gently traces the edge of the speaker where his left cheek would be. "To mourn something unfinished, cut short, unfair." He smiles. "It'd fit you."
"...If you say so." His eyes click softly when he closes them, leaning into the touch until the human has to use his entire palm and lean weight against it the pressure to keep holding it. "But isn't that for my original?"
He shakes his head even if the other can't see it. "Your development. The fact you wouldn't have been alive if not for him. I can only honestly mourn someone whom I've met, after all." His smile fades. "I will think of him, too, yes. But I will grieve what could've been for you."
The humanoid's arms lift and slot around the comparably squishy waist of the Rosehearts carefully, leaning over the arm of his chair in a way that would've been wildly uncomfortable for a human. "I'm perfect in every way except that I've not been born."
Riddle huffs and embraces the smaller figure in turn. "That's funny, considering my fault to my mother is the fact that I am." The flames aren't as hot as they look and feel vaguely tangible against his cheek when he rests his chin on the crown of Ortho's head. "Humanity has made me woefully flawed in her eyes."
"The irony is funny." He agrees and stays still and silent after that.
The robot waves good-bye cheerfully when he leaves to try and check up on Vil Schoenheit once more half an hour later.
Riddle leaves the second chair where it is, finally rising from his own to go to bed. He feels drained, but his hair doesnt feel like it's trying to burn his scalp from his skull from shame anymore.
His last thought before he pulls the heated blanket over himself is owed to Vil. The one before that belongs to Ace, Deuce, Jack, Epel, the Prefect and now Ortho, too.
The group would like the robot if they got to know him.