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]

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.

[bloodyashes]

"Four of us," he says, because Jade's factual question is easier to handle than Mythra's pained emotions. He can't handle those feelings in himself, nevermind someone else, not without somewhere to go and let himself work through it.

(He wonders if they have a church, whatever place they've settled, if they're settled anywhere at all.)

"Two sets of two. The blades they created were too powerful for a human to drive. So they split us into pairs - the only genuine blade twins in existence, probably."

A pause, and then, purely because they've unintentionally shared hints about Citan and not being on an even playing field bothers him - "A flesh eater with good internal resonance could drive both halves, though."

It isn't a suggestion. It's too bitter and sharp to not be some level of the why.

[crimsonsnow]

Four of them. Four of them, each as strong as Asch is, and... likely not enough for their creators, given that Asch isn't an Aegis, and was driven by a flesh eater, besides. Jade pockets the disdain he feels towards those who created Asch and his counterparts, used to it but no less pelased.

(What Asch says about his twin doesn't go unnoticed, and neither does the hint of information about who Jade presumes was Asch's driver. A flesh eater who Asch killed. Likely the driver of both Asch and his twin.

Did Asch kill his driver to protect his twin? Jade couldn't blame him, if so.

Nor could Jade blame him, if Asch had any other reason, actually. It's just he understands-- Citan died for insulting Mythra, after all.)

Jade doesn't bother asking where the other three are. Asch certainly wouldn't know, given how long it has been. So instead, a different question.

"What about your memories? Is that something all of your counterparts share?" Because they were made to mimic the Aegises, maybe. It would make sense.

[bloodyashes]

He shakes his head, firmly. "Not unless they talked to the same after-the-fact researcher that I did after I was gone." He can't entirely rule it out, especially in Luke's case since Guy and Tear knew well enough who Dist was and why Asch went to speak with him, but...

There's an unpleasant roil of anxiety in the emotional bleed.

"Other than being able to use multiple elements, we're just too-strong blades. I might be somewhere closer to an Aegis in power, but I can't do most of the things that they can."

There. That should divert from the questions of why he wanted his memories for a little while.

[photonedge]

Mythra successfully pulls the worst of her horror and anger (on Asch's behalf) out of the emotional bleed, though it's hard not to stew in it a little. Architect, that's fucked up. It's not exactly a comfort that what they got must not have been what his creators were after, but - at least they'd probably stopped there. Or sought some kind of method that didn't require that much death.

"We can look for them, after this," she offers. "I know it's been a long time, but..." She trails off, because they must be somewhere, right? Right. Maybe one of their friends would have heard of some other blade with too many elements and a misshapen core crystal - it's not like it'd be a surprise at this point, if Anna turned out to be familiar with Asch's twin or their counterparts.

[crimsonsnow]

"Interesting," Jade says, about Asch's memories. Not too much different from the memory patch his friends worked out for Mythra, he supposes. At least, in theory and implementation -- something added after the fact, not part of the build. He wonders how much Asch's apparent memory patch differs from Mythra's, if they differ at all.

(Quite honestly, the fact that Asch cared enough to seek someone out to patch his memories doesn't even register as important to Jade. Of course he would. What blade wouldn't?

Some of them just have a more complicated relationship with their memories than others.)

"Too-strong blades seems to be the theme, with artificial Aegises," Jade comments, adjusting his glasses. It's not quite telling Asch the experience they have with it -- only Poppi, but, still -- but there's no reason to keep that a secret, is it? Jade wonders what Asch will think of the irony, when he finds out. Two blades involved with humanity's last attempt at recreating an Aegis, finding a previous attempt...?

Anyway.

"I'm certain we can dig up some information, if you want us to," Jade finishes Mythra's thought. He figured if Asch wanted to find his twin, or the others, he'd ask, but there's no harm offering, either.

[bloodyashes]

"The strength of an Aegis is what most people fixate on," Asch agrees. "Unfortunately, there's too many people who only care about that."

He lifts his head in the direction of the tower, still easily visible against the sky. "I'm sure the Aegises have their own stories of what people will do for that kind of power."

Another one of those intuitive truths that come tumbling out of his mouth before he even really registers them. He makes a face, and deliberately doesn't think further on the subject, because he doesn't really want to know what those stories are, at least right now.

But focusing on the offer made to him doesn't make him feel any better.

"Maybe at some point," he says. "I'm not sure I could handle it right now, remembering when they don't." Well, not Sync, he could deal with Sync fine, they weren't close by any measure. But he can't imagine seeing Ion outside of the church that meant so much to him, the place where he was always helping people, and Luke...

What would he even say?

[photonedge]

Mythra exchanges glances with Jade over Asch's head. it's not a secret, exactly, but sharing that one feels... worse, somehow. well. She's probably overthinking it. If Jade thinks sharing it is a good idea, she trusts him on enough things to take his lead on this one.

"You're right," she says. "Otherwise they wouldn't keep trying."

She just nods at Asch's rejection of her plan. He has a point - one she does not want to think about, thank you very much. "That's fair," she says after a moment, a little softer than she meant to be. "Not like we can't look later, if you change your mind." She pulls her legs in closer to her, resting her chin on them.

It's quiet after that, the conversation more or less over. Jade settles down first, but Mythra's not long after him; so close to the Aegis's tower like this, all three of them as jumpy as they are, there's no point in keeping a real watch.

(If Mythra wakes briefly in the night to see Asch off towards the edge of the clearing, she doesn't say anything about it. He's only just woken up and they'd thrown a lot at him, after all.)

Eventually, though, morning comes and they set off, clearing the final bit of distance to the tower. It's even more imposing up close, somehow, the Aegis's power almost palpable in the ether levels. All that light (and the fact that they're finally here, finally going to fix things) has Mythra bright and impatient as she stares up at it.

"So do we just... knock?" she asks, reaching out to do so. Here goes something.

[crimsonsnow]

"I don't see why not," Jade says, letting Mythra go ahead and do so.

He's not exactly intimidated by the tower, though it's certainly impressive. The residual ether here is overwhelming -- it was bad enough in the field, but now at the tower itself it's so thick it's a wonder anyone around here can breathe. But then, he suppses the Aegis who lives here doesn't mind it, so much. And the Aegis' driver...? Well, who knows anything for certain about them.

There's no answer to Mythra's knock. And the gathered ether makes it difficult to gauge whether or not there actually is a blade in there or not.

"I wonder," Jade says, taking a step back and craning his neck up to consider the tower. There's a few windows and balconies, much higher up, but each is absent of anyone, Aegis or otherwise. "If anyone's home."

[bloodyashes]

The tower isn't particularly intimidating to Asch, either. More than anything, he finds himself comparing it to the cathedral at Daath, and it's the tower he finds wanting. It's an impressive structure, to be sure, but there's not feeling in it, the way there was in so many carefully fitted panels of stained glass.

(He wonders if the cathedral is still standing, and immediately discards the notion. No point getting his hopes up.)

Even as Jade wonders aloud, his intuition swings into action. No, the Aegis isn't here. Unfortunately, there's no way to express that certainty without explaining where it comes from, and he's not ready to do that, yet. Instead he turns his eyes up at the windows as well, and says, "Well, I doubt the Aegis is deaf, so if anyone's here, they're ignoring us."