PLEROMA | FRIENDS LOST (END OF SOVISERI)

[coerthantorment]

[Estinien can be felt in the communion space, after having essentially gone missing during the final days of the mission. He's only just now returning to Greentruth in the company of friends. The tone of his psychic transmission is fraught with sorrow and anger in kind.]

Himeka and Abel have been taken by the Kenoma. They... are the Regent's prisoners.

[His presence becomes distant for a few beats after, like he has to steady himself.]

The creature of Innocence we found in Venera... its hold on me is far greater than I ever realized. I was drawn into a battle with the Kenoma, in the defense of other Pleroma, and when I found myself outnumbered and trapped... it came to my aid. Yet, 'twas at a cost I would not have willingly paid.

Angered by their broken "promise", it lashed out at those that bore its mark. 'Twas this moment of weakness that allowed them to be captured. It struck Ryunosuke and Alphinaud as well... Ryunosuke is safe. Alphinaud... has vanished somewhere I cannot reach.

[He's doing his best to give an objective account, something he became skilled in doing as a soldier. It's clear how much this is weighing on him, though.]

The... creature has been attempting to enthrall me. To change my body and steal my memories... it told me that Alphinaud was 'among the light', and that he had no further need for me. That Himeka and Abel had chosen to suffer in this world. I...

[And finally, the anger takes precedent, a fire wrought with misery.]

I will take them back. No matter what it demands of me. I... will bring them home.

Comments

clenches fist

[warmare]

[... It is hard. As he had conceded to her before, that very first time she allowed him to speak to her through the shards that were now embedded in their chests. She knows it is.

And she has been lurking slightly in the muddled communion Estinien sent out, observing if not speaking. Even if she thinks going to Achamoth to save two people is foolish and risky... she feels no need to say it when so many have already. He had given her his word, and she will trust in it... and right now-]

Here.

[She pulls from her saddlebag a thick piece of cured game jerky, some of the fare she had been surviving on in her bitter seclusion on the misty forest floors of Lohkimareen. Ripping the piece in two, she hands the larger to him, insistent.]

You will addle your mind if you keep using your shard to talk to that many people at once. Eat and let it settle.

[... She almost tells him to sleep, but. Perhaps that would be particularly unwelcome now, after the forced slumber of the Innocent. If she phrases it another way-]

I will need to sleep eventually. Do you tire?

[coerthantorment]

[It's really just wonder after wonder, recently. Even with the constant scream of a dozen different anxieties within his mind, he notes every time that Hayame expresses care in these small ways. They are gestures that are familiar to him in a way that is particularly comforting. Small enough as to not be overwhelming.

...Which can't be said for the communion discussion he's been having. She's completely right in that regard. Every time he makes an announcement via communion he finds his head buzzing with how many people he has to speak with in short succession, the instantaneity of it making it feel impossible to escape. Everyone wants to help, they want to plan, they want to make sure he's okay.

He doesn't know how to be okay, right now. He doesn't know how to talk to all these people. If it weren't for his sense of duty to them all, he would have just said his piece and left. It would be easier.

Easy like taking a piece of jerky and just eating it. There's nothing complicated about that.]

My thanks. [He does fold his shard away for the time being. He needs a moment to reflect. His belly feels numb in the way that it does when stress overrides appetite, but he eats anyway because he knows not eating won't help it get better.

He pauses at her question. He nods slightly.]

...My mind tires of thinking. Yet... despite craving that silence... it chills me to imagine being lost within it again.

[warmare]

[The ways may be small, some of them slightly awkward with inexperience and a lack of use, but they are... there. The same hand had that had held out the blade he had given her in offer for taking the head of his kill in Venera (honor) now extends with the food she has made herself (sustenance), but despite the vast difference between what she offers... to her, they are both "care". Even if they aren't as natural or as easy as they would be for perhaps most anyone else, Hayame thinks... How had Matsukaze looked, when he held out those rice balls to the boy she herself had labeled a demon? How had she watched his sister interact with that armless beau of hers, fussing and fixing... How had her own brother's hand felt, when he clasped hers in his and promised that he wold make her a warlord's horse? The care she has received and seen in her life has been sparse and few, and but-

She remembers it. She can... try. She can nod when he thanks her, her version of "you're welcome" when saying such a thing out loud and acknowledging it would be almost strangely embarrassing.

As she chews her own piece of jerky, she wonders... how does he do it? She had barely managed to get through her own first attempt at a mass communion when she'd needed just some writing for a sign, and then only a few people had filled her head (heart? shard?) with outrage or disbelief, but his message... (Perhaps... He was stronger than her. Or perhaps that is simply something you became capable of... when you were trying to do what he was.)]

I will not allow that.

[... It's a lofty claim, to be sure, but she sounds sure when she says it, without more than a beat between when his mouth closes and hers opens. Belatedly... She realizes that isn't enough, of course not-]

... Now that we know it is effective. Appealing to the shards.

[Perhaps that is what to call it, the strangely terrifying and intimate act of allowing another aion to brush up against the shard that functioned as their "soul". But even saying it... She was not the one who was forced to slumber. She did not know.

Her dark eyes slide as subtly as she can towards his face, and the grotesque wings attached to the side of his head. Those things...]

I am no entertainer, but if I might offer some manner of diversion...

[... If it were Matsukaze, he would know what to do. Even Kohibari would. Koume would. Yubari would. Any jinba that could have been saved but her. In a time like this, when all she can think to offer is her blade again... Would they offer a song? A tale? A flank to sleep upon that was warm and comforting with a double thrum pulse of paired hearts? She isn't sure, and her voice trails away.]

[coerthantorment]

[After having been compelled into solace, it's easy to disturb himself, imagining that any desire for rest of quiet could be the being luring him towards it again. It's foolish, of course. He needed sleep even before his corruption at its hands. Yet, the thought keeps occurring to him regardless.

Could he really trust himself? Were there more insidious effects that he was not yet aware of? Would he even realize what was gone?

It had already taken things from him, things that he struggled to fully form an image of except by the shape of their absence. It didn't want him to remember things that would hurt him, this he knows, and so he tortures himself by keeping those pains at the surface, for fear of losing them and never knowing the difference. The people he loved and missed... the only thing crueler than losing them in the first place was forgetting he'd ever had them.

His gaze turns to her much less subtly as she asserts her ability to wake him, were he to be lost again. His silvery gaze lingers, taking in the sight of her, as if endeavoring to make an imprint that will be harder to forget. There's gratefulness in his eyes because, somehow, he finds himself believing her claims.]

...Perhaps I should rest, then, while the option remains. [While she is still there, before being awake any longer would be unduly difficult.] I would trust myself to your vigil. Were I to become lost, I know I would recognize your call.

[He still remembers what it had felt like, to feel that connection cut through the smothering embrace of the entity.]

[warmare]

[It occurs to her now, as she accidentally meets his gaze more directly... That his eyes have changed, too. They were not- They were not so pale, not so silver, when she'd first looked up at him from the floor of that lodestone cavern that somehow existed beneath a ceiling of eerie blue water. They'd been... more grey, like a thunderstorm on the horizon, and now...

She finds that she hates it almost as much as the wings hanging like parasites from his skeleton. And yet... there is nothing she can do about it. She is no mage, no witch, no expert in the ways of aions and this chaotic, foreign world of Horos... She can only fight, and guard, and... call. She can at least call him back. (And he said... He trusted her. Someone trusted her.)]

... Rest while you can, Estinien. You will be needed soon enough, if you are to lead the vanguard to Achamoth.

[He will need to respond to all those people clamoring for answers and attention in the strange space called "communion", so surely, now, while he can and she is there to watch over him...

Her own gaze, the dark grey eyes of a different storm, fall to her dominant hand, that had not so long ago pressed against his shard to bid him return from the clutch of the Innocence beast. If... If that medium was a comfort, if it was actually helpful for staving off its influence or its reach...]

- I will keep vigil, but perhaps... I will rest my body before we return to Lohkimareen. My flank may make a more restful pillow than the ground.

[... It definitely would, here at the rocky border near entrance to the valley that held the Shrine of the Innocent where they waited for Naruhodo and a revived Meteion to join them. But she still says... "may". Something easy to brush aside, if she has overstepped or if it reeks to him of unwanted sympathy. Something she had seen others so often doing with each other as they lay down to bed at night or took casual naps in the sun, in that village of orphans in the mountains that might no longer even exist... that she had never quite managed.

How pathetic of her, if she could conquer it only now.

Yet even still... after one more glance around them, the relative peace of their surroundings that allow her to feel it is acceptable to risk laying down (even if she will keep her bow right beside her)... she begins to fold her long dun legs beneath her and lumber down to her belly near to him.]

[coerthantorment]

[Ever since he started seeing this side of Hayame, it's felt like she has been giving him something precious, something rare and fragile. At first, he could barely believe it, after weeks and months of seeing her grate against everyone else around her. Now, though... he doesn't take it for granted, but he is starting to see it as a part of her. There is kindness in her, even if it's borrowed from people she remembers, even if bringing it forward seems to require significant effort on her part.

He knows that well, doesn't he? It can be hard to know what to do when you want to thank someone, to show them your affection or care. It takes a lot for him to warm up to people, too, and there are few he would share warmth with. While understanding the weight of what she offers though, he could not so easily turn it down.

And he finds he doesn't want to, besides. As she offers it, he finds he does crave the comfort of having someone near, and to know that if something comes for him in his sleep he will not be simply lost.

And so, it's his turn to feel awkward. He doesn't know the first thing about how to rest against a body like this, or what might be uncomfortable for her. When it came to being physically close with others, he often found himself being led into how to engage. Himeka had few doubts about this sort of thing, and could easily fill any gap in his physical space that he left open for her.

Maybe he can try to do the same.]

...Aye... if you would offer it...

[He folds his wings in close, shifting closer to the side she is leaving open to him. Should he just... lean against her? He's desperately trying not to overthink the interaction, and so he leans against her side as he would against a comrade's back while surviving as the night's watch. His wings fold around him in the semblance of a feathery cloak.]

[warmare]

[It has been... a long three months and some that Hayame has spent in this world called Horos. For most of those within the group called Pleroma... it seems to have been more than enough for alliances, friendships, and sometimes even more to form between people, with fellow aions or the natives of this world. But she... has always struggled with such things. As a jinba in a stable where you knew that your worth was predicated on the price of your future sale, when you knew that any misttep or weakness could lead to the flensing post and the fate of an Armless... you learned to rely only on yourself. You learned not to trust, and to view those who spoke of hope and freedom with disdain and disbelief.

In that village in the mountains, where she had first been prisoner, then tolerated, then teacher, all under the gentle, knowing guidance of a man who knew what it was to overcome a burning, violently consuming hatred... It had taken about two months of peace amongst her own kind in a world of potential freedom for her to begin to hope for a better life. But then... it had all been ruined by her own mistakes, the arrow loosed from her bow before she had known not to shoot. That made it harder to do again, heavy with the weight of her failures and guilt, the rage at the loss of her world either completely or just for her...

But she... If it is for someone who said they trusted her... More importantly, for someone she respected enough to believe when they said they trusted her... Could she not. Could she not try?

Hayame remains still as he moves closer, trying not to look... afraid. She manages to swallow it down to slightly anxious, somewhat hidden by how she intentionally looks the other way as he settles against her flank, afraid of making a womanly expression or betraying her fear that it is too much, too shameful an offer to make despite the fact that logistically there should be no problem with such a thing between two comrades. Her hide twitches and jumps beneath his body as he settles, an instinctive, equine reaction to stimulus that settles as she accepts his weight as welcome and not bothersome, but.

She takes her bow in hand, to remain vigilant as she had promised. She clears her throat.]

... Are you comfortable enough to sleep?

[She has regained much of the weight that she'd lost on the haggard and ill-advised journey over land and not portal from Venera to Lohkimareen, when she had met him in the forests after their first communion with the bones of her lower shoulders and ribs stark beneath her dun coat. Her equine half is firm with muscle, with the fact that she's more nervous now in some ways than if she were up against an enemy in battle, but she is... warm, with a slightly higher body heat than humans possessed. She is softer, around the curve of her rump and her belly.

And perhaps more reassuring, for a man who did not wish to consign himself to silence or anything that felt alone like the forced peace of Innocence... she has two hearts, a double-thrum pulse heavy and obvious against his back.]

[coerthantorment]

[It's a difficult moment for both of them, though it's less caused by trauma and more simple inexperience for Estinien. He's been in close quarters with fellow soldiers before, no doubt, but that was largely impersonal. This has his thoughts racing mostly because he understands that it does mean something, and he doesn't particularly want to make either of them feel like a fool on account of his uncertainty.

He wants her to feel accepted, after all, and he wants to receive the comfort she is offering in kind. Unfortunately, these kinds of interactions can be complicated even with people far more comfortable in their own skin.

That said, despite being unfamiliar with Hayame's body type, he can appreciate the sensation of it once he's there. It's certainly nicer than leaning against a tree or fence. It's enough to rest his head, and he is well practiced at sleeping where he can.

His hair drapes across her flank as he settles. He can hear her heart beating.]

I am. [And for reasons he's not sure he's articulate enough to try to describe.] ...I will see you when I wake, Hayame.

[warmare]

[… He is. That’s good. … It’s good.

As shameful as she’d found it, then… when she had been in that village in the mountains, watching jinba who grew up free share affections just as freely by consequence, an easy pat of hand on a shoulder, a bump of withers, laying flank to flank to sleep… Hayame had wondered what it might feel like. She’d almost let herself want for it, someone warm and heavy who would be by her side and remind her that she was not alone. But that had been a weakness then, and it is…

Maybe it is a weakness now, too, but. She is so… she is so tired. She is so empty when she isn’t burnt out with anger, with the fate of her world unknown. She is so burdened, failure after failure heavier than any companion could be. So perhaps… it is understandable that she be weak enough to take comfort from the weight of Estinien’s body leaning against her flank, his lesser weight moving just slightly in a gentle rock of her larger pair of lungs’ inhale and exhale.]

I will be here.

[She gives her word. When he opens his eyes, whether it be because Naruhodo and the birdling have come to join them or because he has simply had his fill, she will be there yet awake and vigilant.]

… Rest well, Estinien.

[Once he has closed them, once she hears his breathing even out, feels his heart slow between the beats of her own, she risks looking back down her body to where they meet.

… He looks tired, too. His pale hair is in disarray.

She does not let her gaze linger overly long. Instead, she turns her head back to regard the quiet wood at the border of the Valley of the Innocent, refocusing her attention on the temporary role of protector. But as she waits, silent and still, aching for a closeness she’s never allowed herself to want and only ruined when she had the chance… her thumb runs gently along the curve of her bow.]