lazybox | [voicetest] it's this guy

Somehow the ringing has been silenced, the pain dulled to an ache instead of the mind-splitting rending. Tense muscles unwind and yet her limbs are still her own instead of becoming something horrifying and twisted. The anxious grinding of her teeth has eased to a soft sound that is almost self-soothing, almost purr-like as she finds the motion of his hands drawing up pleasant memories of different times, other places, how long had it been since anyone had done this for her? So busy breaking herself to pieces for others yet rarely allowed a moment like this.

His hands are reassuring in a way that shouldn't be, yet the stroke along her ears makes her sigh in something almost happy, edging towards contentment. A far cry from the broken sobbing that had rent her earlier. Cracking open an eye is enough to make her want to close them again, the Light still edging her vision in a way that's nauseating, so instead she cradles his hand in both her own, thumbs stroking his knuckles.

A part of her knows this won't last. Dreads it. Hates it. The need for rest, for comfort, for anything but more fighting is a desperate cry in the settling debris, knowing that in the end she'll drag herself forward until she's struck down. A part of her knowing that it wouldn't be the first time, and likely not the last. A horrible, terrible cycle they were trapped in, and the flickers of anxiety licked and nipped at her consciousness like ravenous beasts.

Breathe.

He'd always had a pleasant voice, theatrical mannerisms that had made them laugh once, but now she let them brush aside the jittering fears that gnawed at her with each stroke of his hand and his quiet words.

[Their kind hasn't interfered overly much with this world; in some ancient time, primals who still yet exist devastated the land of most of its aether, leaving the sundered people unable to work magic almost entirely. It's long been considered uninteresting, and the attentions of the Convocation devoted instead to more aether-rich shards for the Ardor.

But now, a most curious event. A Calamity by any other name would smell as sweet, and the lasting darkness upon this shard now - nearly ten years and yet to pass - certainly qualifies as such. The only pity is that it is aligned with the dark, else they could have forgone the entire nonsense with the First and the Flood entirely.

Alas, hindsight. For now, with so many of their number out of commission, waiting for rebirth, it falls to Emet-Selch himself to investigate.

And that investigation has lead him here, to a dead city that nigh trembles with aether, not of dark but of light, woven into the stones of the pavement. Or the concrete of the pavement, rather.

Of course, he's no fool, perfectly well aware that he's an intruder in someone else's domain. Thus, with the grace of many lifetimes spent as royalty, does he approach the largest building, in a city far more Amaurotine than any he has yet seen built by mortals.

And there, before the gates, he bows and waits. Sooner or later, the king will come out.]

We may be here, but we are not of here.

[An important distinction, to his mind. They do not belong here, even less than did the Warrior of Light and her friends, Crystal Tower and all, belong on the First. The First and the Source were at least connected, once parts of one whole.]

Someday, we will return.

[Perhaps a shockingly optimistic view, from the normally exhausted, pessimistic Ascian... But how can he hold to any other belief, in the shoes he has stood in for so many millennia? They will return to the star of their mutual, widely-separated birth, one way or another. He believes it the same way that he believes that the Ardor will someday occur.]

This little tree, however, has nowhere to return to. Grow or falter, it will remain here.

[...Something felt off. It wasn't the motions of the useless Kingsglaive remnants or of the half-ruined automata in the empire's abandoned base camps, but something else. Some force Ardyn couldn't identify--not daemon, perhaps not human, an existence he couldn't put a name to and yet felt on the sort of level he felt his covenant with Ifrit. Well. He certainly had nothing better to do than look into it, moving from throne room to gates in no more than a few seconds and a burst of shadow.]

[And truthfully, he wasn't entirely sure what to make of who he found himself faced with. Attire from an era Ardyn couldn't place whatsoever, and some air about him that felt...wrong. Much as that was casting stones in a glass Citadel, something was quite unusual here.]

And what, might I ask, brings one so far into daemon-infested lands apparently unarmed?

The child is quiet, as she speaks. But when she's finished... He nods to himself, as though assured of something.

"You're the same, aren't you?" he asks. And there's that sense of knowing, as though the world were tilting on its axis around a single conclusion. "The reason my friend isn't here is because you are."

A bit harsh, but honest.

"I would remind you," he says, tone almost gentle, "that some of us remain incapable from turning from the path we put ourselves on, all that time ago."

To be aware of his tempering does not undo it. It simply makes him intimately aware of which lines he can push, and which he can't.

"For better or for worse, you have more free will than I."

She cannot help the way she flinches at his statement. It is the truth, which is what makes it so brutal.

"Her soul was sundered into fourteen," Era confirms. "I am comprised of nine of them, but we are not the same, she and I. I will never be her, only myself."

[ Fair enough, she supposes, though she could point out the dwindling number of admins down in the lower floors of the Tower, if she felt inclined to debate. She doesn't, at the moment.

So instead she reaches a hand out to gently brush against a leaf. Honestly the tree itself raised many questions about the life left on this world at all. Questions she's not the best qualified to ask or answer, but enough to wonder about in quieter moments, like this one. She has faith in this little tree though. Dead as the the Burn may have seemed, it nevertheless had been rife with things trying to kill her. She expects this tree has survival mechanisms all its own, to have survived this long. ]

Someday sooner rather than later, hopefully. You have much in the way of luck today?

[ She says "you" but what she means is "your group." This wasn't one of the worst locations to speak openly, but it wasn't one of the safer ones either. ]

[Were Xigbar anyone else, the warping of space might have gone completely unnoticed. To him, however, it's as good as a sudden flare of light in the darkness, and the fact that he can sense a Heart up at the top of the railing besides only confirms it. (As interesting as the city is, he hasn't failed to notice that the inhabitants - if they can be called that - aren't people in any sense of the term he'd use.)

It's enough, too, that he doesn't startle in the least bit at the sound of a voice. He turns, of course. How could he not, and he cranes his head up to where Emet-Selch is sitting as easily as anything. Not that this offers any more of a sense of who he is, of course. The hood stays firmly where it is, and if anything peeks out from under it it's nothing more than a faint glimmer of yellow from Xigbar's one remaining eye. Surely not enough to base any idea of who he is as a person off of. The easy and almost nonchalant shrug that follows... that says a bit more. Enough for a start of an idea.]

Guess you're just gonna have to consider me a gate-crasher then. Or maybe... an interested party.

[The tone of his voice suggests that he doesn't matter too much one way or the other. Nor does he sound immediately hostile, should it make any particular difference.]

But if it's conversation you're after, it might be a little easier to manage eye-to-eye.

He's quiet for a time, careful to run his hand over her ears in time with her still-evening-out breathing, to give her something to focus on and pace herself to.

"Easy, now," he says, voice still calming, gentle. "Flesh is of no consequence beyond the now. Listen to your aether and your soul; those are the things that matter."

The things that have changed so little - the things that even one of his kind cannot change. It matters not what flesh one of his fellows wears, for even the uplifted he would always recognize, by Zodiark's mark upon them if nothing else.

(The Lightwarden's aether is foreign, and would not follow her, if she took to existing as they do. One of many thoughts in his head that Zodiark binds to his tongue.)

"Death and rebirth, it seems, does have its advantages." She sighs, then, and wishes she had a chair. Or a pillow. Something to flop on. "Not that you're any stranger to that phenomenon. Ever were you the more reckless one." Now that's an arguable point if ever there was one. She looks around at the titanic buildings, a sharp pang of nostalgia passing briefly through her before she returns her gaze to Hades. "Gods, I feel like a gnat among giants here." A wry smile at the words - gods indeed.

"When was the last time you slept, old friend?" A question brought by the dark circles around his eyes, so stark against his pale skin, spoken with clear concern.

Why, nothing more and less than simple curiosity.

[...Interesting. Like attempting to shove as many iron filings as possible into a sheath and calling it a sword; not quite one of the Sundered but far from whole, and every bit as dark as one of their kind. Except that the light remains beneath the stones finds its echo in this man as well.

A magical right to rule, perhaps? And the corruption of the ruler leading to the corruption of the land? An analytical part of his mind is furiously making notes.]

Emet-Selch, at your pleasure.

[Hm. Ardyn raised an eyebrow at the display, nothing on his face betraying how fundamentally wrong it was. Magic, even such a minor display, used by someone not of the Kingsglaive or Noctis' retinue? Impossible.]

[Red-toned magic? Ardyn had given such rights to no one, and yet a small smile played across his face as he looked the stranger over. He held his arms out to his sides as if to gesture at the dead city around them, and the magenta phantom blades burst forth to revolve around their wielder at a mere thought. Perhaps not a threat, but a display of his own all the same.]

Ardyn Lucis Caelum is my name, and I must confess few have such a dangerous sort of curiosity to them.

I'm not particularly fond of gate-crashers, so you'd do well to convince me you're the latter.

[I'm sorry, do you want him to get down? Too bad, that's work, and he seems to have no inclination to do so.

You are in his domain uninvited, he's allowed to be rude.]

Not as much as I'd like, as ever. You would think that the laws of matter would be close enough to multiversal, but that's proven to be as far from the case as any other point of consistency.

['Sorry, we're busy reinventing the periodic table because the laws of physics are nonsense.']

But we are at least reaching the point where we can distinguish the samples by something other than their color, which is at least the beginning of something.

The way his shoulders slump in disappointment is but a precursor to his later self's overdramatic motions. But at the same time, there's something hopeful in his voice.

"But you still kept your promise," he says. "To meet me here."

"I've been a member of your race recently enough that I do recall the feeling," he says. "It's only been three or four centuries."

And yet those words... He frowns, unsure what to make of them, after his initial reaction to return the banter is passed. He has to know, he has to ask - "And how much do you remember, on this day, in this place?"

[The glyph does not persist; it seems more an identifier than anything else. Emet-Selch keeps his own eyes - gold-toned, but of a lighter shade than Ardyn's - on the blades more than their owner.

Yes, that would explain... Factor in the corruption... The man's well of aether is probably the nearest approach to his own aside from Hydaelyn's champion and his uplifted fellows. Far too much for a normal mortal, but then, if he assumes the aether reserves of all the souls pressed into this man's body have compounded...]

Few have as little need to fear death as I do.

[It's simple as that.]

The bone-grinding grip she'd had on his hand relaxes, still cradled close, mirroring the way he strokes her by how she rubs her thumbs along his knuckles. So tired. She's been tired for so long and it was seeping into her now that the pain was muted. Stifled. The weight of two worlds' sorrows set aside for a moment long enough to let her almost doze.

She's close to that place, the even motions of his hand soothing her into a stupor beyond the pain. Funny how she'd been so tense from discomfort she'd forgotten what it had been like not to have it.

"I remember making a behemoth pup." Her voice was distant, almost muffled. Still she dared not open her eyes for fear of the head-splitting haze of light. "I was so enchanted with it, I rushed off to show you. I almost remember the sound of your name. Like a dream just out of reach." Her words were almost half-asleep, but her brows creased slightly at that last thought.

The fact that she couldn't remember more, his name more slippery than a fresh fish, she could almost hear the sound of it and yet it escaped her time and time again. This bothered her deeply, but she couldn't say why.

I feel we're about the same with mine, not that I get close enough to look most days. A group of chimerical monstrosities decided to make their nest where we were located overnight.

[ Centaurs may not attack unprovoked during the day, but they needed provoking, if only to get their supplies back... let's just say her glaives had seen a lot of work. The noise and mess had attracted some other groups as well. ]

They made Allag's chimeras seem like a mercy.

"Alas that I missed that, then. I'm sure you made quite the fetching popoto."

Ah, now that's the question, isn't it? "Fragments. Not enough to be entirely certain of anything - but enough to move forward with. I'm certain some of it is yet being blocked from me." And just as certain that she is not entirely free of Hydaelyn's influence, even now. Balancing her aether may have given her some room to breathe, but it certainly won't prevent what she now knows to be tempering from subverting her will. "I remember leaving the Convocation, and bringing forth Hydaelyn. The chaos that enveloped our world before, also. But... nothing after."

"I—" Era sees the way the boy all but wilts, and there is a foreign urge within her breast to scoop him into her arms: to soothe and reassure, despite the disparity between them.

It is not something the Warrior of Light (Darkness) is prone to doing, and she wars with herself briefly before coming to a compromise. She holds out her hand for him to take should he deign to; an offer of comfort within her own.

The smile Era gives him is tired, but no less earnest for it.

"I suppose that she did."

If this Ancient being of her soul was anything like Era herself, broken promises are an unforgivable thing, and must be avoided at all costs within reason.

She finds she likes the thought of similarities between them. Between the soul that she was and the soul that she is. Era will forever be her own person, but inherited traits... That is something like family if she isn't mistaken.

"Your friend desperately wanted to keep her promise."

[He is, it's true, and as unbothered as he seems to be about the fact, he is paying close attention to the sorts of reactions he's getting, both verbally and otherwise. Fortunately he knows better than to demand that Emet-Selch get down. He'll suggest, sure, but he's the one treading in places he might not exactly be welcome, and demands aren't gonna do him any good if the plan is to keep things on relatively amicable terms. (Here mostly read: ones where he's not chased out - or worse - for being a gate-crasher.)

Not that he actually indicates any of that. Instead there's simply a half-nod as if to say 'fair enough.' It'll take a bit of work, perhaps, but he's not completely awful at being convincing even if he hasn't the silver tongue some of the other members of the Organization do.

That said, he's not going to stay on the ground either, and there's a brief pause before he hops neatly up onto a perch of his own. It's a somewhat impressive jump (not least of all because he's chosen a tree branch that had been a good foot and a half above his own head), but still well within the capabilities of, say, the average dragoon, even if he doesn't seem to have any sort of weapon on his person. (It's also still lower than Emet-Selch's own perch, and that is very much a deliberate choice on Xigbar's end.)

He takes a moment to get properly settled in, and only then does he speak up again.]

So. Does this place have a name, or is that the kind of answer I'm gonna have to earn?

[It's not accusatory. Just an unspoken acknowledgement of the fact that he's not really supposed to be here and isn't the intended audience either.]

She is drenched in blood mostly her own; thick crimson pouring from her chest not in a flood, but a pulsating wave. There is a downside to being a Summoner — a trade-off. In return for the ability to channel more aether through one's skin, one first must leave that skin exposed. Like a cannon made of glass, ready to shatter at a moment's notice should one small thing go awry.

And go awry it did, leaving Era to all but drag herself back to her place of respite, one hand pressed uselessly over the gaping wound. Healing aether flares weakly between her fingers as she does her utmost to shove it into her skin, lacking all the delicate refinement of her usual healing touch. It helps to slow the tide, but not to halt it. Even were her magic currently stable and she at full strength there is only so much it can do, and knitting skin back together that has been torn so asunder is not one of them.

At least there is comfort in knowing she will not die from this. The Echo had not triggered a vision (yet, comes a traitorous little voice from within), and thus she is spared that fate for now. Still, that means nothing if she doesn't continue onward.

Her vision fizzes, twinkling spots dancing in front of heavy eyelids; the corners go dark, which even half-delirious from blood loss is a relief. Darkness is more welcome to her than Light. Light is love and life and home, and Light is stagnation and corruption and the loss of self.

A cough, deep and painful, wracks her chest. Lifeblood bubbles from between her lips. She tastes the metallic weight of it on her tongue and chokes it back down. Suddenly as the flick of a switch, as though an invisible threshold has been reached, she feels so very ravenous, her body crying out in want of the living aether it needs to survive. Era's tottering pace slows to a stop as she coughs again, stumbling to her knees. Her focus has suddenly shifted from finding safety to keeping her mortal form. She licks one hand clean of blood, then the other. Uses her tail to wipe more red from her skin that she might consume. Like water spilling between one's fingers, it is an ultimately futile effort — she will never be full again until the wound closes and the bleeding stops.

But still she sits in a daze upon the ground, feasting upon her own blood as it oozes from a wound she has no way of mending.

Edited 2019-07-28 23:22 (UTC)

Normally, he would only observe. That's what he does, what he has always done - a gentle push here or there, and see what happens.

But what is happening here is curious enough without his prodding, and more to the point, all but requires him to step in. It wouldn't do to lose her now, this mortal he has invested so much time and energy in.

(Not that he truly believes that she would die without his interference. If he did, he would be unable to lend a hand, forced to put his god's priorities above his own as all the tempered are. No, the hero would survive, it's just a matter of how much she would suffer doing so, and suffering for the sake of suffering doesn't sit well even in an enemy.)

Aether-rich as he is by nature, in her state, Era will likely sense him before he properly appears, from one of those tears into the rift that Ascians are all collectively so fond of. And so he doesn't bother with a greeting as he approaches, instead just coming to her side as the red bleeds from her.

The orb of aether he offers her is shaped almost like a fruit, swirling dark with a bitter shell and a sweet, juicy inside. She is not gone, not on the edge of turning, but the touch of the Light remains. And if the hand that should contain that aether is showing a bit of claw beneath his gloves, that is a problem for another time.

"Here. This should be enough to sustain you until you can stem the flow."

[voicetest] it's this guy

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slams in here again because i'm not making a new post

I MEAN