[voicetest] it's this guy

[unsunderworld]

[To the surprise of absolutely no one.

Shadowbringers spoilers abound beyond this point.]

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[heart_of_the_wood]

"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.

[unsunderworld]

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.

[heart_of_the_wood]

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.

[unsunderworld]

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.)

[heart_of_the_wood]

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.