soup but it tastes bad

[bloodyashes]

The forest is quiet, and almost trackless - who needs a trail, after all, when the only person who ever passes this way is a single flesh eater, coming and going from the tower in the distance?

(But this story does not begin with Kratos Aurion was a blade.)

It begins, instead, with two blades in a remote forest, the same way another one ended, in the distant past. A blade of justice, and a flesh eater driver, seeking audience with the Aegis who is rumored to reside in the tower. And the story starts, just as the other ended, before they ever reach the tower.

Ether flows through the air - light-aspected, with hints of water and wind - and converges on a point. The crystalline structure doesn't look so different from the trees and underbrush that surround it, save for the fact that it glows white with a brilliance that's visible even in the direct light of the sun.

(The last story began, Van Grants was a blade.)

(It was not a happy story.)

Near the 'roots' of the tree, there is another core crystal to be found. Although it seems broken, it pulses with a dull red glow, indicative of the blade inside being ready (perhaps more than ready) to manifest again. Equally clearly, it has not been disturbed in a very long time - only the glow separates it visually from the natural stones around it, moss and dirt breaking up the too-square outline.

To those who can sense ether, however, it is practically a beacon. And to those who can see the threads of fate...

(This isn't the story of the Aegis. But there's a thread tied here, nonetheless, that hasn't disappeared.)

Comments

[crimsonsnow]

"It would be silly to have made it all this way and not continue our investigation, detour or no," Jade says, to reassure Mythra. Unless Asch has any serious objections, their plans haven't changed at all. He just hopes they'll actually find what they came out here for.

Unlike Mythra, though, he'll cut his losses. Finding Asch must have been worth something, even if it wasn't who they intended to find. Time will only tell, with Asch.

Speaking of time.

"The year's 2423, which I imagine will be more use to you than the actual date, given as you were growing moss when we found you," Jade answers Asch's question.

[bloodyashes]

The date Jade gives is enough to bring him up short. It is one thing to know it's been at least a lifetime, to see the forest in an unfamiliar arrangement, but...

"Nine hundred years," he says quietly, and then -

"Why are you looking for the Aegis?"

If that seems like a jump ahead, well, why else would they be out here? There's no reason to come here except for the tower in the distance.

[photonedge]

Well! Mythra had figured Asch had been there for a while, but - she's not sure what kind of number she'd expected. Not that one, certainly.

"Nine hundred?" she repeats, incredulous. That's so many. That means Jade's at least that old, too. Which... makes sense, she guesses? Or at least explains why he's the strongest blade she's ever met. (... Maybe the second strongest, now.)

But, alright, Asch's next question. It's not that big a jump, really. Not that weird that there wasn't anything else worth looking for out here nine hundred years ago, either. "...We've got something to ask him," she says. And then, because of course someone whose last driver had been that bad would be on board with their plan (it's a good plan!), she continues, "It's about fixing the blade system."

[crimsonsnow]

Well, Jade was expecting a large number of years, but safe to say he wasn't execting a number as large as nine hundred. That's a long time for Asch to have been out here. And that also means Jade himself is easily a thousand years old, which is a fun thing to think about. Of course it is the curse of blades to never remember the full extent of their lifetimes, but Jade still finds himself upset that he doesn't know anything at all. He'll have to ask Asch, see what he knows. Perhaps later.

Asch's current question is much more pressing, after all.

...not that Jade could really give a better answer than the one Mythra has already given. All he can do is elaborate a little. He has the sense that Asch would prefer having more information than less.

"Our friends are working on a means for blades to keep their memories between lifetimes, as well as - hopefully - a way for them to reject a resonance at any point, should they ever find a want to. At the rate we're going, though, we'll be lucky to affect the lives of more than twenty blades. We're hoping the Aegis knows something we don't."

[bloodyashes]

Jade's thoughts are right on the money - Mythra is already getting an expression that says all too clearly that that isn't enough information to go on when their mutual driver starts to speak.

He listens. And... It hurts, somehow, because it makesw him suddenly hyperaware of Van's blinders. Not just the one the man had on himself, that prevented him from seeing any other solutions, but the ones that being in resonance with him put on Asch.

Because when it's put that way, the solution is simple, almost elegant. To free blades, just give them the freedom to walk away.

(The freedom that Asch himself was willing to kill and die for. The freedom that he would have done about anything for.)

(A freedom that Jade must have been willing to kill for as well, considering.)

"Count me in," he says. From somewhere under the bitterness, an almost idealistic determination sparks from the banked embers of who he might have been if not for Van. "I'll help however I can."

[photonedge]

Mythra grins, her own determination echoing against Asch's. It is a good plan. Even if the Aegis only offers them advice, instead of directly helping like she's half expecting... her family will definitely be able to figure it out from there.

"Well, what're we waiting for?" she asks. "Pretty sure that tower's not getting any closer." With that she turns, making her way out of the clearing and back to the broken brush they'd passed through to get here.

[crimsonsnow]

"We certainly aren't getting younger, either," Jade hums, laughing to himself. He hesitates, just a second, more than ready to gesture for Asch to go ahead of him and leave Jade at the back of the pack, because despite everything he's not fully comfortable having literally anyone other than Mythra behind him, but. Trust is earned both ways, isn't it? And if Asch says he'll do whatever he can to help them find the Aegis, fix the blade system, then the least Jade can do is take him at his word and assume Asch isn't going to stab him in the back.

...an awful lot of deliberation over an action as simple as following after Mythra, but that's alright. Jade does follow after Mythra, thinking idly to himself if it'd be worth it to use the fire Asch has granted him to make this sorry excuse for a path a little wider. It probably isn't. If he ended up setting the whole forest on fire, Mythra'd never let him hear the end of it, never mind the impression it would give Asch.

[bloodyashes]

"Speak for yourself. I feel a couple centuries younger already."

He's a little surprised at how easily it slips out, but since both Jade and Mythra are going ahead, they likely won't see his "startled at my own mouth" expression. (Too bad the emotional bleed will probably out him.)

Whatever. This is fine. Asch watches their progress through the underbrush for a moment, and there's a faint tingle of 'are you serious?' in the resonance before he jumps into a nearby tree. Another couple jumps, and he's outpaced Mythra, dropping to sit on a low branch in front of her with an amused expression.

Are you blades or what? he doesn't quite say.

[photonedge]

Mythra doesn't even worry about turning her back on Asch - not when he's been so straightforward about everything so far. Besides, the ambient ether in the resonance is doing wonders for Foresight without her even putting any extra effort into it. It's fine.

Less fine, though, is the mess of underbrush - she'd hopped across the last few feet of it earlier to get in sight of the tree, and she gets halfway through blasting it before Asch catches up to her.

She doesn't say anything, either, but she does huff, looking like she might cross her arms for a second before she eyes another nearby branch, gauging the distance to it for just a second before she leaps.

Her landing is only a little awkward, catching herself on the tree trunk, but her balance is fine, and she almost immediately springs up to the next branch. That is a better idea. Why hadn't she thought of it before?

"Hey, race you back to the path," she says, rather than admit it, not giving him any more warning than that before she's off.

[crimsonsnow]

If Mythra is feeling any discomfort over having just now thought of this as an option, Jade is easily feeling that same discomfort. He's not surprised, of course, nor is it really shame that he feels. Just a quiet, burning anger that he's gotten used to, gotten better at tucking away. He's not sure his anger over all the things that were robbed from him will ever abate.

Anyway he's not about to race, or anything - let Asch and Mythra at that; they're more kids than he is - but Jade isn't about to walk the rest of the way, either. So he joins his blades in the trees, a little more gracefully than Mythra does (muscle memory is one hell of a thing, it turns out).

[bloodyashes]

Mythra's challenge sets loose a spark of competitiveness that even Asch didn't know he had - more familiar with the motions of bounding through the trees, he catches up with her quickly. He can't get too far ahead, though, because like it or not, whatever path she's aiming for simply didn't exist the last time he was awake, so he has to rely on her for direction.

That doesn't mean he's going to make it easy, though, or stop short of enjoying himself, even if it's a painfully short race overall.

(He's not really surprised that Jade doesn't participate in the race. That's not really his nature; ice blades don't tend to get caught up in things like this. Of course, dark blades usually don't, either, but that's only his primary element. Asch contains multitudes.)

When they reach the trail, such as it is, he comes to a stop still in a tree, one arm wrapped around the trunk as he balances on a branch. "Keep it up and you'll get good at it," he says to Mythra, before gauging his direction and taking off in the direction of the tower. No point in waiting, indeed.

[photonedge]

It's more embarrassing to Mythra than anything that she hadn't thought of it first - there's nothing for her to have forgotten, just something she should have realized and didn't. Her face is still a little warm from it as she tries to take back her lead, though the challenge of doing so is enough to be distracting. At least where her less-refined reflexes fail her, her speed doesn't, and the trees here are more than old and sturdy enough to carry a blade's weight for the split second she touches down on them.

"What do you mean, get good?" she demands as she catches up. She's doing fine, thanks! Sure, she might have almost lost her balance once or twice, but she hadn't fallen, and that's what's important. But then Asch's on the move again, and she's not about to let that challenge go unmet, so she follows, pushing herself a little more as she gets used to the motions. She can tell distantly that Jade's following, even if he's slower. It's not like they can lose each other, with the resonance and all. He can take his time if he wants to be boring about it.

[crimsonsnow]

They don't make it quite as far as the tower before they have to stop and set up camp. Theoretically, they cold press on without it, but Mythra insists Jade keep track of his limits now that he has them (which his fair, even though he cold have gone another day), and it's nightfall, anyway. The dead of night is not exactly the best time to bother the most powerful blade on the planet, lest they be mistaken for thieves or murderers.

The field surrounding the tower - where they set up camp - is devoid of any real landmarks. No rocks, no trees. Just grass that probably shouldn't be so yellow for how tall it's growing; as if it's dying as soon as it's sprouted from the ground.

There's nothing to do but kill time until morning, and now's as good of a time as any, so.

"I have a question if you don't mind, Asch," Jade says, turning to look at the boy from where he sits. "I know you said you only met me once, but I'm still curious. About the meeting, and..." well, there's no point not being honest, "...anything else you know about me, actually."

[bloodyashes]

He's not nearly tired - unlike Mythra and Jade, who have been travelling for what must have been a while to reach this point, Asch is quite literally fresh from the crystal and ready to go. A few hours of running isn't nearly enough to wear him out.

So they're camped in a patch that's somewhat less grassy off the side of the trail, and he's still filled with restless energy when Jade asks his question. A pause, as he considers where to start.

"... Jade of the Crimson Snow, Curtiss-class, Imperial Blade of the Malkuth Empire and personal blade of Emperor Peony IX." Malkuth might not even exist anymore - knowing his luck, it probably doesn't - but the general information is important to frame his own personal experience with Jade. "His Majesty resonated with you shortly before a succession crisis - while he was far from the favored candidate, being a bastard son, he wound up taking the throne as his half-siblings all killed each other off. For the duration of the struggle, you were his first and last line of protection. The moniker 'of the Crimson Snow' comes from an incident where you froze an assassin's blood while it was still inside his body, bursting the veins. Might've been more than one; you had that reputation well before I was ever around."

[photonedge]

She's content to settle down for the night, the satisfaction of having pushed herself thrumming in her core even if she could go further. Mythra's never heard of Malkuth or its emperor, but she shrugs that off - history's never been something that interested her much, and, again, nine hundred years. The rest of what Asch says is much more interesting, anyway, and she leans in as he talks.

"Holy shit, Jade," she says. "Why didn't you just do that?" Like, would it have solved their problems any quicker? Maybe not, she has to admit. But it would have been so satisfying.

[crimsonsnow]

That's... an awful lot more to digest than Jade actually knows how to. Him? An important blade with a reputation? He's annoyed he's never heard about it, but he admits for all he's been reading up on history, he hasn't quite worked back an entire nine hundred years in any of the books yet. He supposes it makes sense, though. Citan is the exact kind of asshole who would find the most powerful and most important blade he could get his hands on and then make said blade be his personal goddamn secretary.

Jade's grateful for Mythra's question, or else he might tip too far into the fury quietly building in his veins.

"If I'd tried that on Citan, it would have ruptured his heart, and then were would we be, hmm?" Jade responds, though the satisfaction Mythra regards the idea with is somewhat contagious. And it would have been satisfying. It just also would have doomed them.

...he's not sure he appreciates Asch having that information about his-- (NOT his driver) -- about Citan, now, but Jade supposes there was no reason to keep that a secret from Asch, either. In fact, Asch probably already had an idea of the picture, even if not the full of it.

Still, no need to dwell on the matter.

"What was Peony like, Asch?" Jade asks, directing the subject elsewhere. Curiosity is a hard thing to sate, but even if Asch only met the Emperor once -- and chances are he did, if he met Jade. Peony would have more reason than Citan ever did to keep Jade close, after all -- Jade would truthfully be satisfied with any information.

[bloodyashes]

"I never met him personally," Asch says, to head off the disappointment (he feels that curiosity in the resonance, one of the first things Jade has really let slip through - Mythra blares her emotions much louder than he does, and indeed much louder than Asch himself). "I wasn't really in a position to be running in the same circles as royalty."

(There's not even surprise that Jade killed his - their? - former driver. He expected that, on some level, because there's only so many ways to become a flesh eater, and ultimately even fewer reasons, even if the details differ. Wanting to live, or wanting your driver to die, or both.)

"But by reputation, he was a good man, probably the best that could have come out of that succession crisis. Progressive, cared about the people - resistant to war, and put a stop to a lot of blade experiments that his father had been running when he took the throne." That's the main thing Asch knows about his policies directly, admittedly. Karl was the one who started the Hod research facility; Peony was the one who shut it down. "As far as I knew last, he hadn't married. You were his blade for at least twenty years, starting when he was fairly young, since he was in his middle thirties the last I knew of him."

As for the more personal... "He allowed you a great deal of freedom to move around, effectively making you military ambassador. When you offered to find me a less bastard driver, I think you intended him to help, but that's just a gut feeling. You seemed to like who you were with him better than your driver before him."

[crimsonsnow]

The more Asch speaks the less and less settled Jade feels. And that's ridiculous, frankly, how information about the blade he was nearly a thousand years ago can unsettle him so thoroughly. Jade does what he can to keep the sudden flare of his jealousy and fury out of the emotion bleed, but it's hard, in part because there is simply so much of it.

(If he had better words to describe it, he would realize he was grieving, for what could have been, for a life he could have had-- did have, in another lifetime, one he is cursed to never remember because that is simply the lot of blades. And for all the tools he has in his belt, he has no experience in coping with a grief like, or with how unfair his life has been and how unfair life always is for blades.)

So if the temperature drops a few degrees around him, the ice in his veins restless, well. At least he's leaning into the ice, and not one of the other elements he now has at his disposal.

A part of Jade wants to ask sorry, what, becuase quite frankly he's finding what Asch said difficult to believe. Imagining a driver give himself that much freedom is laughable, impossible. It doesn't connect in his mind the way it should -- but he knows Asch is not lying. What reason would Asch have to lie? So Jade sits, silent, and tries to believe it, tries not to get blindingly jealous that in a previous lifetime he was blessed with a driver who actually valued him as a person.

"You're right," Jade says, his smile tight, the emotion bleed as throttled as he can get it. He does not look at Mythra, as if simply refusing to give her full view of his brittle smile will keep her from seeing right through him. "Peony does sound like a good man."

(It's going to take Jade several more times hearing it before he processes the full of information Asch has just handed him.)

He's not foolish enough to think that his blades aren't going to notice how quickly his mood has turned sour, but old habits are hard to break.

[photonedge]

Mythra makes a neutral noise at Jade's response - that's fair, unfortunately, Jade with his memories is definitely worth the tradeoff a little satisfaction - but falls silent, otherwise. She doesn't want to interrupt.

The full weight of all of this is a little lost on her - she gets why Jade would want to know about his previous life, and it's not like she's not curious, too, but it's hard for a blade essentially on her first life to wrap her head around it. Jade's always been Jade, right? So when his emotions curdle and sour, before he tries to pull them back out of reach (and that's enough of a worry on its own), Mythra doesn't exactly follow.

She doesn't need to follow to know what to do next, though. So she punches her already-present curiosity up a little, leaning forward across Jade towards Asch.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" she says, and if it's a little transparent what she's doing, well, whatever. "Your core crystal... I've never seen anything like it before. Is-- you're not an Aegis, right?" There's plenty of doubt accompanying it - she's pretty sure he's not, but what other explanation is there for all the elements he's holding onto?

[bloodyashes]

Mythra gets a look that says that Asch knows exactly what she's doing, but isn't going to call her on it. Really, he'll take the change of subject - he's not so stupid that he can't see that Jade needs time to work this out with whatever he thinks about the person he is now, and they haven't even gotten to "your last life then ran flesh eater experiments" levels of painful irony yet.

You know, unlike that question.

It startles something almost like a laugh out of him, if a laugh could be made of glass and shattered core crystals. "I'm not," he says, blunt and firm. He shouldn't be surprised about it, really, but he's never met anyone who saw all of his power and didn't already know, didn't know his life story better than he did himself.

(Well, except for Luke, and Luke had no reason to notice. They were the same, in form and structure if not in experiences.)

"But I'm the best attempt at faking it, at least as far as anyone could manage back then."

[crimsonsnow]

God bless Mythra, really. Jade doesn't know what he'd do without her.

He takes a moment to breathe, to yank the ambient ether away from freezing, listening to Mythra's question (one he'd wanted to ask himself, and perhaps the one he should have started with), and then to Asch's answer. It's a nice distraction. He kills thoughts of Citan, and thoughts of Peony, and latches gratefully on the excuse to think about anything else.

"Best attempt I've seen so far, actually," Jade says-- too tired and unsettled for the brightness of his usual humor, but he's playing at it well enough. The irony that he and Mythra, of all people, are stumbling on yet another artificial Aegis almost makes him more tired. "But the last attempt I saw involved four scientists who couldn't find the motivation to see the project to completion halfway through."

[photonedge]

Mythra cheerfully ignores that look from Asch, but at least he doesn't say anything about it. She's allowed to cover for her driver when he needs it.

"That... makes more sense," she says, the heat of self-consciousness threatening to rise in her cheeks anyway. It's her turn to give Jade a look, more halfhearted than anything. That's the truth even if it's not the whole story (or the most flattering depiction of her family), and Mythra can't imagine anything she'd like to get into less than that one, right now. She just shakes her head to drive the thoughts away before they can take root.

"Hey, I'm artificial, too," she tells Asch, instead. "So you're in good company, at least." Her tone's light, backed by pride - Mythra's got no hangups about what she is.

[bloodyashes]

It's a little less effective when you pull it on someone you're in resonance with, Mythra.

Her pronouncement gets far more of his attention than Jade does, for perhaps the first time. There's a patient inspection of her that could almost pass for ice, the one element he lacks, but it isn't exactly truth he's seeking.

(Lightning is the compassion of ripping off a bandaid.)

"The attempt that made me took the lives of seven blades and a human," he says carefully, evenly, with the emotional bleed dulled sharply. "Might have been better if they weren't so motivated."

And then he takes in a deep breath, like he didn't just say 'eight people died to make me,' and instead says, "You look like a normal blade. I never would have guessed."

Not like me, he doesn't say, but it's obvious that's what he's thinking, as he curls his hand closed over the forked ether lines on his palm, hidden beneath his glove.

[photonedge]

And just like that, her pride dies abruptly, stopped dead in its tracks by the sheer horror brought by Asch's words. Mythra pulls her end of the emotional bleed in, gripping it more tightly than she's used to as she uses that tension to try and temper her outward reaction.

... She doesn't get very far on that one.

"What the fuck," she breathes, unable to take her eyes off Asch. "That's... How could someone do that, just for power--?" and she cuts herself off, because okay, she knows, of course she knows just how disposable blades can be, but. Eight lives for one attempt is still so many more than she can fathom. She can't even respond to the rest of what he says, just swallowing hard.

[crimsonsnow]

Jade breathes in sharply, doesn't bother biting down his roiling disgust. He's unsurprised. He knows as well as Mythra does - perhaps even better - that blades are considered disposable to many. And the math... tracks, he thinks, in ways he doesn't really want to think about at length because he doesn't want to know why he knows that.

He adjusts his glasses very carefully, just so he doesn't have to look at anyone for a moment.

"If that's what it took, perhaps it's for the best we didn't try any harder to produce results," Jade says, quiet. Eight lives for one blade of Asch's power? Citan wouldn't have even batted an eye.

Jade considers Asch, expression grim.

"Were you the only one?" he asks, because he feels it needs asking.