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]

Jade sits in the silence for a minute and lets that all settle in. Seven times Asch was killed versus the three that Jade counted. Jade might suspect it was more than just three, but just same it could have been countless more than seven before Asch realized. ...not that it's a competition, of course. It's just humbling, in a way.

He pulls himself back into some form of working order, understanding Asch's decision-- How much higher did the stakes get when Mythra joined the resonance, after all? How much harder was Jade willing to fight, just to make sure his driver didn't poison someone besides him?

"I hope he does too, for your sake," Jade says, though it may not be his place. "I certainly understand," with an accompanying look at Mythra which is probably telling enough, "but I'm sure I'm not the one you want to hear that from."

sneaks in two months later

[photonedge]

Seven times keeps ringing through Mythra's brain, but she breathes slow, reining her emotions in without dulling them entirely, so they're not quite so overwhelming to the rest of the resonance. She cards her fingers through the ends of her hair as Asch continues, because Jade's all the way over there on his own bed, and there's really no way to casually move over there without it being awkward.

She doesn't need the look Jade sends her to see the parallel - though it has her ducking her head, a faint blush accompanying some probably-welcome warmth in the emotional bleed despite herself - but it's sobering. (As if any part of this conversation wasn't.)

At least Citan hadn't had any grand schemes for the two of them.

"I think he would have, too," she says, in agreement. Asch did it to protect him, so - regardless of how else his brother might have felt about it, he must've understood that part, right? That's just what siblings do, for each other.

[bloodyashes]

"I was able to control who his next driver would be, at least," Asch says. "And I left him a letter."

It's... probably not enough, but at least it's something. More than most blades get, when they wake up.

He stretches against the window and then pulls his gloves off, revealing the unnatural ether lines underneath, as he begins to straighten his hair with his fingers. Few blades even have ether lines on more than their hands or wrists, but here he is with a set of lines too jagged to be called delicate across the backs of his hands, before they shift suddenly into almost-runic rings around the base of his fingers. The lines climbing back from his wrist, however, have all the elegant flourishes of a fire or water blade. And on the palms of his hands, a shape like a tuning fork, connected to the rest by a wide, shimmering line of red running straight down his inner forearms.

[crimsonsnow]

Whether or not Jade was intending to pursue that line of thought any further frankly doesn't matter. Asch takes off his gloves, revealing his ether lines, and all other thought simply grinds to a halt in Jade's mind. He his both fascinated and unsettled all at once. He's not close enough to make out the finer details, but even at this distance the sight of them makes something in his core scream of horror. Seven blades sacrificed to create one, indeed.

"Ah, so you don't layer as much as you do because of the weather, I see," Jade comments.