lazybox | [voicetest] it's this guy

[voicetest] it's this guy

[To the surprise of absolutely no one.

Shadowbringers spoilers abound beyond this point.]

The white was blinding, something was dripping down her face and she hoped, prayed it was tears. If it were anything other then it was over, but she struggled with her limbs, her mouth opening and sounds spilling out that were attempts at words. She knew they were supposed to be words, but the words wouldn't come it wasn't right this whole shell was broken and bleeding and she hated it with every fiber of her being and—

—it was small and round, vivid purples that they loved so much, with shining horns that would grow to fierce points when it grew large and its muzzle wriggled delightfully and they were so pleased, the blossoms filled the air and all they wanted to do was spend the day beneath the trees, spinning the air into something new and as fascinating as this strange little creature that was neither cat nor dog nor boar. They knew it would be a favorite and the tiles flew beneath their feet as they cradled the wriggling cub to their robes with his name spilling from their lips in a delighted shout—

"Hhhhhaaa—!" It was so close, she couldn't see past the white, past the memories that flooded her, claws sliding across perfect tiles as she forced herself forward, grasping onto something that was just out of reach.

"Hhhhhhaaaaaaa—"

It was there. She could feel it. Something just beyond her. The feel of it like crisp white robes and light dancing on gilded buildings—skyscrapers—of musical conversations and whimsical afternoons spinning things from thin air—not thin air, from pure aether, so much overflowing it was so easy to weave flowers and trees and green growing things and soft vivid creatures with jewel-toned fur and gems betwixt their ears and—a sound rasped from her, a name, it must've been, though she knew not if it was a real language she spoke or something else that was gasped between clenched teeth as a trembling hand clutched at the hem of his robes, clinging for something that felt real when she felt herself coming undone.

Why were they black? Shouldn't they be in white? It was the rule even in—

Her thoughts were shattering faster than she could make sense of them as her head felt crowded fit to burst, and still something spilled down her cheeks, wetting the tiles beneath her.

Please let it just be tears, let it be tears, please please pleasepleasepleaseplease...

Edited 2019-07-26 00:55 (UTC)

He almost turns away. Almost, for there is the half-formed, half-remembered shape of his name, his name, on her lips, and...

He can't. There is no way that he could, not from that name, from the precipice it represents. Even before her hands seize the bottom of his robes, for it would be as nothing to pull the hems from her searching hands, even before the glow of tears hits the pavement -

He cannot turn away, but neither can he simply let it go.

(He takes all the weight upon himself, and keeps taking more, even when what he carries is already too much to bear.)

"Now?" he asks, staring down at her, expression of rage the only mask he has against the hope that keeps his feet planted to the spot. "You choose now of all times to remember? Or is this another of Her games, some desperate appeal to save Her champion in her last moments?"

In spite of his words, he doesn't pull away. And, when inevitably her strength fails and her grip releases, it is only then that he deigns to bend, to catch her hand in his.

Everything was wrong.

This shape was wrong. The whole of it. Every piece broken and too small and not enough. He knows, he always knew what to do even when she (they? Who? Names and physical forms are so fleeting and they all slip through unsteady claws that are too busy tugging plaintively at his robes with a weakening grip they can't keep steady) faltered. Yet they'd been fighting, it felt as if it had been for forever and she was so tired all she could do was cling to the hem of his robe and take relief from the cold tiles she lay gasping on.

Everything was wrong. Hollow. Apologies should have passed her (their?) lips and yet something inside her was still uncertain. What had they been fighting over? Why was this form too tight and twisted when all they'd wanted to do was stretch as far as they could reach and take to the skies and the deepest places in the sea? Too numb by far.

The ringing in their ears was unbearable. Everything throbbing and aching and too much but still not enough.

Words that aren't words spill through their torn throat and the choked sob follows close behind. They're gagging on something, the acrid taste of unbalanced aether burning them as they drown in it, begging for help even though they can't force the words out.

They hadn't wanted this. None of this. They knew that if nothing else but they remembered being terrified. Wanting to save things, stop more pain. Something had gone horribly wrong and they couldn't remember and—

Mykha gasped, somehow she'd managed to curl herself up at his feet enough that she could bury her face in the comforting darkness of his robes, desperate to block out the blinding light when she couldn't stop the ringing in her ears. Her face soaked enough that her paint threatened to smear, but she was trembling all over. Still the word that wasn't a word and was somehow a name was spilling out of her like a prayer, as if it were the only thing keeping her pinned to the ground instead of unravelling in a grotesque ribbon of viscera and flesh.

"Who am I? I don't...I don't remember, but I do..." Sagging, her claws dragged down the robes, too dull to tear them with her grip weakening. She couldn't even hear herself speak over the ringing sound, over how she labored to breathe even as the Light threatened to overwhelm her. "I made things once...they were so warm..."

He lets himself be pulled down by her weak grip, one hand still holding hers regardless of the dull claws threatening to rip his gloves. Whether it is her weight or the weight of the invisible burden that him hunched far beyond the apparent age of his body, he allows it to bear him down onto his knees. Once he's there, his other hand winds up stroking her ears, pulling the hair back from her face.

"...You did," he says, as though the words have been pried out of him, as though they're words he's been waiting a thousand years to say. "The soft, the affectionate - but not harmless, no. I remember..."

He remembers, so very much, that he has to stop in order to find the words, to express this great and terrible thing, the one thing that has gone so long unacknowledged, the person he has so long refused to think anything about that if it were possible, he would have unthought them from will alone.

"...Protectors for children, in a world where children needed no protecting. And how glad we were, when the end came, when we needed a word for orphans..."

The words are spoken quietly, as he pulls more of her hair back and allows her pained head to rest on his knees.

Children. They'd always adored children, the unbridled delight in creating the most fantastical creatures just to hear the shrieks of joy. Too many tails, luxurious fur, gleaming horns. The children had so loved them, hadn't they? They'd also adored Lahabrea's spectral hooved beasts and made one with fur and scales and horns and fangs and somehow they'd never heard the end of it for that slight. A scandal. So offended but they'd been proud of the amalgamation anyway.

"I..." Memories spilled through her and she felt too full. Always too full. She clung to that hand, clutching it tight as her heart struggles against the strain her body is under. Everything hurts so much, she can barely think. It was never so bad as this. Never. Yet for a moment she recalled a blinding, terrifying light and then shattering like so much glass and she clung to him, huddled against his solidity as if it would shelter her from the horrible feelings that beat at her.

"I fed them." Ala Mhigo. Doma. Ishgard. Ul'dah. Places and ages and she ground her teeth, keening as too many places and faces and names, whens and wheres bleeding into one another and she was burying her face against his knees for shelter as her mind insisted they were surrounded by ruins and flames and not cold, cool light filtered through malms of water and air. Eons and seconds and minutes and years condensing until they knew they'd been so desperate to stop the tears and the night terrors and the crying they'd have given anything to make it right, to end it, the spinning of beasts and creatures and blankets and shelters wasn't enough. It wasn't enough how many had to die before it was right and they'd begged and shouted and the fighting had been horrible.

All of it was horrible.

The laughter had died as easily as that. In fire and flame and smoke and ash and the sound of terrified sobbing. Yet it was their turn now, broken and twisted and all wrong, all wrong all wrong all wrONG—they were clinging too tight to him. They knew that, but everything was wrong and they couldn't breathe and this shell was horribly uncomfortable and they just wanted it over.

Why had everything turned out so wrong?

"And clothed them, and loved them. Where there are the first orphans, there must too be the first orphanage."

He continues to stroke her head, even with her hair now safely out of the way if the Light takes her again (his clothes, on the other hand, are of no real consequence).

"Breathe, my dear," he says, voice for the first time truly gentle, words for the first time truly meant. Because the person he is remembering, the reason he has let them go unremembered, unmourned as betrayer, for so long...

"Focus on your breathing, and let everything else go in and out as the tide."

(How many times, did he say those words to calm one of their number, in those days, when all hope was lost? How many times, just to the person whose echo shakes with pain beneath his hands right now?)

"I didn't....I didn't mean for this. Not like this." That much she—they?—knew. Knew in their very bones. She couldn't remember what they'd meant to happen, only that in the end, another lost life was one too many. Something that had lasted on and on and on as they dragged themselves through one battle and the next in an endless desire to stop it all until it had brought her here, trembling and trapped in a too-small vessel that was on the verge of blossoming into something beautiful in a terrible, horrific sort of way. Something she'd loathe more than this tiny vessel. At least this tiny form could feel still.

Too much. Not enough. An overwhelming feeling that left her anxiously grinding her teeth just to root herself to a sensation that wasn't pain. Focus on his hands in her hair, the ringing slowly fading as she listened to him, fighting past the horrible sound that filled her until his voice and her breathing and the rustling of his hand in her hair was what she could latch onto.

"Everything's in pieces, we've lost too many. I don't..." Closing her eyes to hide from the light, she rubs her face against his knees, grinding teeth so hard it hurts as her ears tuck back tight. There weren't the right words. She tried to find them but they slipped through her claws and she was left with an unhappy flap of an ear and a wordless moan of discomfort as she hid her face against him and willed it all to settle itself.

Breathe.

He was right. He usually was, wasn't he? There was too much missing, too many things crowded in too tightly to piece together, but in that moment she wanted stillness. Quiet. Some manner of peace that didn't involve her body trying to tear itself apart from the inside or the world trying to destroy itself. So she clung to him instead, taking solace in the familiar sensation of his hands in their hair until the painful tension bled from her limbs and left her exhausted and limp against him.

"I only meant to protect them." Protect you. They didn't know if they spoke it at all, or if only pieces of it were mumbled against his robes, only that it was a bitter feeling that the urge to save, to protect, had only led to so much fighting it had blotted out countless more lives. A bitter, terrible medicine that left them aching from the cruelty of it.

He wants to take those words as truth. Wants to believe that this broken thing is something more than a shell of the person he once knew, spitting up memories in her dying gasp the way Allagan magitek now spits up errors half the time when it will function at all. He wants so desperately to believe it's true, that there was never any harm meant, that they were all doing what they thought was right.

(What's the harm in believing it? But it edges close, to the place in his mind where his god belongs, and he knows it. He doesn't know if the peace that believing it brings him is worth the effort.)

His hand strokes back along her pinned-back ears once more, as his other hand tightens its grip around her fingers. Somehow, fool that he is, he hasn't let go.

"We've lost too many," he agrees. And she doesn't know the depth of it, in the state she's in, doesn't remember, how the Convocation tried to stand against the Sundering, as the world fell apart around them. She can't remember, will never remember even if everything else returns, because they were not there when they should have been. They were already gone, when the hammer of light fell.

Is it wrong of him, to not want to lose this person again?

"Keep breathing," he says, instead of thinking too deeply on it. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend, for a little while, that it isn't Hydaelyn's champion at his feet. And then ome of the pain, the strain of acting contrary to his god's will by offering His enemies comfort, goes away.

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.

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.)

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.

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[voicetest] it's this guy

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