lazybox | [voicetest] it's this guy

[There had been so many sandwiches waiting for Dakki, when she returned to her room in The Pendants. More than she could finish on her own, though not for a lack of trying. The efforts she'd been putting in to helping save the First were exhausting, and this was the first properly prepared food she'd had in days... but even a Warrior of Darkness has limits. And thus, leftovers.

She really doesn't want any of this to go to waste.

And she has a feeling that someone is lingering about the lobby even when, surely, he ought to have better things to do.

So it is why, after sighing and wrapping everything up neatly in a napkin, she makes her way down to where she last spotted Emet-Selch. Through all of this, she is starting to feel a funny sort of... almost-fondness for him. And being so ominous and dramatic had to be exhausting, too. Surely even an Ascian needs to eat...?]

She felt as if she were tearing apart at the seams, yet there was something strange as she walked the pathways, boggling up at buildings that loomed above her. Mind reeling, she stared up at the trees, to the ocean surface where light, so very far away, filtered through the water. Skull feeling fit to split and all her limbs ached as if made of crystal shards, she could feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.

“Why...why do I know this place?” It was a lie. She knew it the instant the words left her mouth. She didn’t know this place.

She ached for it with such a ferocity it stole her breath away. Far stronger than the need to return to her forest home that she’d long since been severed from when she stood in Fanow. Whatever this feeling was, there were no words for this pain. This sort of desperate, desolate longing of something long since lost. Raising a shaking hand to press her fingertips to her eyes, she gasped for air, fighting for each breath as her mind struggled to wrap around something she knew lay just beyond her reach, burning her with its loss.

“Why?” So many questions and she never had enough answers, and her body was going to burst from it all if she didn’t bite it down again.

It's been three days since Innocence. Three days since the Light nearly overtook her, and the skies went back to everlasting, blinding white. Since she became unable to wield the tools of her various and sundry menial pursuits, being largely unable to see them through the bright haze.

Since Emet-Selch betrayed her. Huge shocker, that - she'd expected the knife in the back to come much sooner. But come it had, finally, at the perfect moment to damn her and all her friends. Perfect Ascian timing.

Even monsters have to move, eventually, and so she had - following old, worn-in paths in her mind to give her body something to do that wasn't giving in to instinct. As those paths tended, it led her onward - and downward, into the depths of the Tempest. Into a city where giants walked, and talked, and generally treated her as one of their own - albeit a child. And she learned. Horrible, terrible truths that seemed utterly unbelievable, but the evidence was there - had been all along, if she looked back far enough. Hindsight is perfect, after all.

So now she wanders the too-large streets of a familiar-unfamiliar city, guided by nothing but vague non-memories and the urging of her friends and the kind words of a not-stranger who wasn't really there.

The pain was less, now, than it had been. Her head wasn't quite splitting, and her vision was actually somewhat clearer, down here beneath the waves. Away from the everlasting white above, the evidence of her failure.

She had one goal, now. Find Emet-Selch.

Era had tried to remain on the Source for a stretch, but until the Scions were returned along with her the option she had were quite limited. She visited her friends, giving them a bare bones explanation of what happened. She slew the Lightwardens and returned the night sky back to a world drowning in Light.

She breathed not a word of the danger she was in, nor the revelations that were revealed to her — not even to Edmont, though Era knows the man is aware she omitted a fair bit from her retelling. She spent most of her days lingering in Fortemps Manor, spending time with the only father she's known. Each day that passed she noted the lines of worry etched ever deeper upon his brow. She did her best to seem herself, and yet the man's intuition was particularly keen when it came to his children, whether they be his by blood or by choice.

Every night her sleep was restless, to such an extent that Edmont had taken to checking on her long after he should have been to bed himself. Era hadn't realized her dreams had been a bother to anyone else — not until she awoke from a terrible dream (memory?) to find the man hovering at her bedside, clearly concerned for his ward's well being. It took her some time to shake herself fully awake. To remember who and where she was.

It was then that she learned it was a frequent occurrence. Every time she drifted to sleep and dreams came for her, she would call out in a language not a single soul could comprehend. Edmont had taken to sitting in the chair at her bedside most evenings after she retired, ready to place a comforting hand upon her brow and soothe her back to sleep like any father would. Most nights, he said, it seemed to help.

When she asked if there was anything that stood out about what she said each night, and his answer told her precisely where she needed to go.

So Era packed up her things the next morning, readying herself to the journey back to the First. The Fortemps household made sure her inventory was fit to bursting with all manner of foodstuffs, freshly laundered clothing, and whatever else they deemed a necessity for her. It was as she was about to teleport to Mor Dhona that she was overcome by the uncharacteristic urge to give Edmont a hug. She does not, however she does pause to take one of his hands in hers, looking up at him with an earnest, thankful smile.

"I shall send word of my safe arrival with Feo Ul," she promises, then whirls away in a rush of aether.

-

"Did I say aught that stood out to you?"

Edmont fell silent then, hand a heavy, comforting weight on her shoulder.

"Hades."

-

The sight of Amaurot silhouetted against the murky twilight of the Tempest fills her breast with something she cannot quite put name to. The enormous streets do not feel quite so foreign to her, though that make sense to her as this is not the first time she's set foot in the phantom city. Still... She finds herself pausing at certain junctures she never paid heed to before, wondering why something seems to be missing from that plaza, or why she can recall the scent of roses when eyeing the remnants of a garden — a garden she has no logical reason to know existed, but her mind's eye tells her there were flowers of the loveliest shades of blue and violet all the same. A red fruit whose seeds burst like overripe grapes between her teeth. The scent of old books and ink. The feel of silken cloth against skin and...

Only skin.

Era continues wandering, fear and comfort warring for dominance within her chest. Every step fills her with a sense of déjà vu she cannot shake. She had always desired to know of her life before she was Era, but...

Her breath catches in her throat and she finds herself in desperate need of a seat. Something (memory) tells her one is nearby, but logic tells her it will too big, much like every other thing in this city.

Everything is too big for her, but —

Why does that feel so wrong?

In the end, Era finds herself sinking to her knees upon the cold, unforgiving stone in the middle of a deserted road. Hands pressed to her eyes, she inhales slowly. Exhales. Inhales. Does her best not to let this overwhelming feeling drown her. Focuses on the way her tail curls around her side. A tail that feels both comfortingly familiar and uncomfortably foreign.

Memories.

She always wondered what it would be like, if she could remember. Era would not call these flashes memories, but does not know what else to think of them as.

"Hades," she says, the name foreign and familiar on her tongue.

It occurs to her then, quite suddenly, what this feeling is.

Grief?

[ The glamour glitch had been going on for most of a day now, which was wearing in a number of ways. It meant time was running out, for the power to be getting this bad. It meant that most of everything was nanofilm, which even for Peryn - who'd seen more than a fair bit of Allagan technology in her time - was unsettling. It also meant there was almost nothing else to look at, besides it, her own glowing violet body, or the monsters that roamed the halls.

Overall it just left her very, very tired. Especially after a shift at trying to decode the collar fluid with the other residents.

Floor One-hundred-and-one is where she takes her respite. Normally she'd be somewhere with more people, but... Not right now. Right now the lone living sapling was more of a comfort, to open her eyes and see something alive. Not to mention the hanging gardens were gorgeous when the glamour actually worked. Part of her hoped that she'd open her eyes and see them, even if she knew it was just an illusion.

She knows better by now than to get complacent though, and even with her eyes closed, her ears are still pricked for sounds of nearby movement - hostile or otherwise. ]

[By all rights, a world very nearly consumed by light shouldn't be something that holds any interest for the Organization. Without any Heartless - and precious little Darkness to sustain them, should they actually succeed in creating any - there's hardly any way to create any of the various things they happen to be looking for. Especially when it's clear enough that this world is already hovering on the brink. Still, it makes for an interesting case study, and the Organization's plans are in enough of a lull right now that it's not like there's any pressing need for Xigbar to do more than check in periodically.

Plus he always has been prone to curiosity, and today that curiosity has led him down into the depths of the ocean. The light might not bother him the way it would an Ascian, but he figures if the local heroes are going to go to all the trouble to bring air to the bottom of the ocean he might as well check it out.

(Of course, he also steers clear of same. No need to have to deal with more explanations then are strictly necessary.)

In the end, it's the massive cityscape tucked away under the sea that draws him in. He's definitely not been invited - indeed, has no idea it might be invite-only - but there are very few places that are barred to a man of his abilities. Which is to say that there is absolutely a Nobody wandering through the remembered streets of Amaurot, taking in the sights without so much as a care in the world.]

[hit me with what you got, i genuinely have no idea how this should shake out]

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)

It sure is That Guy

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Tower of Animus AU

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