aionlogs | EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

Sovereign Citizens

VENERA

In contrast the Aion's last visit, they now arrive in Venera on a completely average day... or so it seems. Unlike Godsblood, Venera has been given no warning as to what's about to befall it; the Kenoma are simply authorized to arrive and begin their bloody work without fanfare. Even their entourage of Achamite soldier don't stick out that much; in the time since the plague left, the city has refilled with occupying forces. Notably, the Hylician ones seem to be keeping out of the way, almost as if they've heard some things and would rather not be involved too closely in what's to come.

As opposed to the ghost town it was during the plague, Venera is now reasonably active, with most attending to their usual business. Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers. Initially, the targets of the Kenoma hit list will have no way of knowing what's coming for them, but after the first couple attacks word will begin to spread. Those that have recently been engaging in seditious behavior will become harder to find, leaving their usual homes and workplaces to stay elsewhere, and making other attempts to escape the Regent's attention.

Once those alerts have been raised, the Kenoma will have to engage in more detective work to find their targets, questioning other Venerans and seeking out fugitives in the homes of their family and friends. In the meantime, some of those who believe they are in danger may become desperately enough to seek out the Pleroma directly, imploring them for aid. Unfortunately, seeking out one sect may just as easily draw the attention of the other. Most uninvolved Venerans will be too terrified to intervene one way or another, reluctant to aid in the persecution of their neighbors but fearful of consequences. If your Aion travels openly, it will take some effort to pin them down long enough to hold a conversation.

SEEDS OF DESPAIR

Several days into the culling of Venera, the Aions will have witnessed the city gradually withdraw into itself. The streets become vacant as more and more people decide it isn't worth the risk to be seen outside, abandoning work and play alike to hide out in their homes, refusing to answer their doors to all except the most desperate pleading. Those that can't avoid their daily obligations are quiet and morose, trying their best to remain unseen and unremarked upon.

If your character has been observed as a Kenoma, either now or in their previous visits to the city, the citizens will look upon them as if they are the messengers of death. If you are seen as a Pleroma, they will resist your gaze, as if fearing your presence alone might leave them marked. In rarer cases, you will see those with stronger spirits, with glares of hatred or determination. They are powerless now, but seeds have been sewn, and whether they are the seeds of despair or of action are yet unclear.

By the time the Kenoma's hit list has been fully addressed, several have been killed and several more have been rushed from their homes to flee the city entirely. There have been holes left in the tapestry of the community they were once part of. One way or another, their absence will be felt keenly by those they left behind.

QUESTIONS

What is the best way for Aions to travel to Venera?
Estinien has plans to get an early start for the Pleroma by teleporting to the Lover's shrine and flying somewhere closer to set up a portal from the ocean caves near the Godsblood Lodestone to a spot of farmland closer to Venera. Paul will be setting up a portal directly from Achamoth to one of the Achamite outposts in Venera.

How much force can the Kenoma use while interrogating Venerans?
While they are generally not permitted to kill Venerans who haven't tried to physically fight them, they will be permitted to apply both physical and mental pressure upon those that refuse to provide them with information regarding the whereabouts of their targets. This duress should be proportional to the resistance the Veneran is offering. The Regent is not inviting them to terrorize Venera on a level to a level they cannot reasonably blaim themselves for.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Very well.

The voice speaks in Ryunosuke's mind once more, as the screaming voices begin to fade. Eustace and Silco are allowed to retreat, though it is yet to be seen whether Gen will go along with them. For Silco's part, he may notice Kaeya's shard grow briefly hot, as if absorbing the aftermath of the strike to its holder's body.

The building falls around them, as Ryunosuke focuses his attention of protecting the remaining captive. The entity drifts upward, riding the shifts in the air, its wings outstretched. It breeze past the falling stone as if dancing. Its back is turned as Makoto approaching.

The wings of light he's been wearing, summoned by the pain of others, come to life. With a solid beat, they bring him to a halt, their feathers wrapping around him in a form of ethereal bondage. Turning to him slowly, the entity's pure white gaze meets his. It spins in the air, arriving behind his bound form, wrapping him in its arms as if in an intimate embrace. The metal beam dissolves into light.

"Still you hate," it whispers in his ear. "You, who soiled sacred ground. I will burn out your infection. I will make you anew."

The spear of light, which has been floating nearby, soars through the entity's own back and straight into Makoto, binding them together. The Kenoma within him screams again, and Makoto will feel its presence leave him entirely. Unmoored from his sect, he is helpless.

He wants to keep fighting, he thinks. He has to. What else is he supposed to do? He always has to keep bristling and clawing and baring his teeth. Even as he hears the distant rumble of bricks collapsing, the sound muffled to a dull roar by the blood still trickling from his ears, Gen's first instinct is to look blearily upon the destruction surrounding that glowing entity. His mind whirring, chugging, struggling to think of what else he can do to hurt it. He's supposed to keep fighting, right?

-- then he feels fingers latched around his wrist. Yanking him forth.

Gen almost stumbles that first step. But somehow he manages to stagger forth, finding momentum even on wobbly legs as Eustace pulls him away from that fight. Even if he can't hear whatever it is that Eustace is saying, his words rendered into so much static past the constant buzz of tinnitus, he can tell Eustace is trying to get him away from this chaos and -- ...

maybe that's fine. Maybe that's permissible. Past the heavy curtain of exhaustion starting to shroud his thoughts -- both the Shimmer's effects and the adrenaline rush of combat starting to fade, leaving bloodloss to start weighing heavily down on him -- Gen can't fight the secret, shameful urge to live just a little longer.

Even as that entity's glow grows ever stronger behind him, casting a blinding light across their surroundings, he doesn't look back as he's pulled away from the carnage.

It always ends up like this.

Every time he believes he’s gained ground, every time he feels he’s attained something, every time he thinks he’s at his end, it’s always taken away from him. Finally when he had felt satisfied in their contract, J had refused to give him the peace he wanted; he tore away his mortal life and granted immortality instead. The love and care he had promised had fallen away into ash, replaced by confusion, pain, and humiliation. Every step he had made in Hell to overtake his master had been checked with often violent impunity. Even here, with each scrap of strength he’s able to graft onto himself, he only ever seems to find more faults, more weaknesses, more vulnerabilities, all so numerous he struggles to see himself ever covering for them all.

Again, the phantom angelic wings beat — as they’ve been doing all along, a double-image to the draconic wings sewn into his lower back — but this time they do more than leech away his vitality, arresting his downward motion so that he hangs in the air against his will. The feathers act with newfound agency to press forward and ensnare him to restrain his movement, the make-shift spear of twisted metal melting away into motes of light in his very hands. A fiercely-burning ember of anger burns at his core, dire, frustrated and humiliated at his own impotency, his own powerlessness, even with everything he’d done to try to assure otherwise. He might not be able to move, but he still tries as the pale arms, banded in their opalescent scales, slip around his wounded body; he can sense the creature behind him, can hear the soft words of its two-toned voice curl into the shell of his ear, scarcely centimeters away. That ember of anger flares up, fanned by hatred and disgust — he hates this facsimilie of intimacy that it forces upon him, he hates that fucking sanctimony that dribbles from its lips…! His jaw clenches, and his mouth twists into a feral snarl; two tiny white-hot pinpricks begin to burn in the corners of his eyes, but they’re tears of anger and helpless frustration. He knows it’s pointless and yet he struggles anyways, muscles straining in vain against the grasp of the myriad feathers until they fall entirely inert. Shimmer’s hold on his body ebbs and fades, the vivid indigo light pulsing visibly beneath his skin beginning to disappear altogether. Exhaustion hits him all at once, causing each of his limbs to fall limp and leaden, feeling so heavy they might tear free from him at any second.

I’ve always hated voices like yours. Words like yours. Those that told me no God would offer me salvation without burning out from me something I never even asked for in the first place.

He comes by his bitter indignation honestly; its roots sink deep into his essence, all the way back to when he was still human and remembered well the feelings of guilt and regret.

Makoto has nothing else to say to it; really, he is very nearly about to succumb to the pain of his wounds and the exhaustion of his body when the spear moves with the dreadful surety of a guillotine. Its blade plunges through Estinien’s Innocent-possessed body behind him, and then again through his own chest, causing a fresh, new bloom of spiritual agony. The last of the Kenoma retreats as far as it could, screaming, and as it does so does he, though really all he can manage at this point is a strangled cry that cuts itself off with an ignoble choke. The Kenoma having been entirely banished, whatever abilities imbuing his body fade along with it. The Shimmer, gone; the power of his enmity, faded; his wings hang from him, as heavy and lifeless as windless sails. Darkness begins to encroach on all sides as both his body and his mind reach their limit, truly and fully spent. But he does not go gentle into that good night; despite the feathers’ restraint and the spear impaling him and adjoining him to the creature, he manages a few half-hearted jolts of pointless struggle. And then, finally, he goes fully limp.

With Makoto defeated, hanging limp in its arms, there is seemingly nothing stopping the entity from fulfilling its promise. Estinien's expression is blank as his body is made to shift, eyeing the shard at the back of his enemy's head. Claws fingers probe its edges, spiritual magic working within them, coaxing Makoto's shard free from his body, where there will nothing left to defend it from purification.

Gradually, though, Makoto's vestiges of consciousness will feel something building. The Kenoma, screaming in pain and forced to retreat only moment before, is making a resurgence. A weight of heavy darkness forms around the heart of his being, like a clawed hand rising from the depths and endeavoring to drag him back down to the protective shadows. There is a familiarity to it. A kinship.

The entity makes a sound if discomfort, as if burned by its attempt to remove his shard. The lance, still running through his body, flickers... and then shatters. Darkness overwhelming floods through him, every orifice seeping with it. The entity is forced to retreat, even its halo of light unable to pierce what emerges.

"Destroyer! Defiler!" the entity cries.

A fissure has opened around Makoto, sending cracks of unreality through their surroundings. From within it, one clawed hand of darkness emerges after enough, slowly pulling Makoto into the void.

It's then that Makoto will know this touch, as it's one he's felt before.

In trouble again, are we?

The Regent's voice whispers to him as the abyssal gate closes, taking Makoto with it.

...And then there were three.

Well. Four? It's unclear how to account for the entity mathematically, in this scenario. And let's just say that Ryunosuke doesn't even have the slightest idea where to start with processing any of what just happened after he'd scrambled his way back over to Thoma. The voices have stopped screaming at him at least, which is a marked improvement on things. With the Kenoma dealt with, he can let his forcefield up and focus on finally getting Thoma free.

He sends Thoma off to go get help, just in case. Because that... Being still seems to be inside Estinien, and it seems rather upset about losing M to boot. Ryunosuke isn't sure what to expect from it now.

At least he knows not to run at it. If he's not aggressive, it shouldn't bother him... Right?

He cautiously pokes his head out before stepping out into view again, eyeing innostinien warily.

"Umm... Hh. Hello there...?" he says cautiously, ears held back nervously. What else does he say to it? 'Thanks for the assist, now could you kindly remove yourself from our dragoon'?

The entity drifts back down to ground level, staring into nothing now that Makoto has disappeared in the Regent's clutches. Its anger at the loss has faded quickly. Then again, it may be difficult to detect disappointment with a presentation like this.

It doesn't look at Ryunosuke as he speaks. Instead, it seems to be murmuring to itself.

"The boundary grows thin... Left unchecked... What can be done... As I am...?"

It seems lost as it speaks, as if also disorientated by its lack of clear focus in the aftermath of the battle. Its attention drifts.

Ryunosuke's brow furrows in consternation. Barrier...?

It's not paying attention to him, nor is it releasing its hold on Estinien. Which is making him increasingly worried. But how to get its attention?

Hadn't it said a name, earlier...?

He steps a little more into what appears should be its field of vision, waving a hand up and down to see if it will acknowledge him or react at all.

"Um... Mr... Or Miss. Monad...?"

"I am not the Monad."

Its voice is dull as it corrects him, as if gradually losing vitality along with its focus. The fiery halo is growing dim, its form becoming less solid, as if witnessing a ghost.

"Speak."

Perhaps it is offering Ryunosuke one last opportunity to say his piece.

...It's not? Then... It was just using the power of this 'Monad' thing?

Ryunosuke notices that it seems to be fading, and he starts to panic. Terrifying as the entity is, and as much as he'd like to see Estinien back to normal, he's conscious of the fact that he may never get a better chance to ask this thing questions... And he has so many.

They tumble out of him in a frantic rush, in his desperation for answers. Too many for it to answer with what limited time it has left, most likely. But he can't help himself.

"Who... Who or what are you then, really? What is this barrier you mentioned? Why does the Regent claim that you've destroyed this realm before? And what... What is going to become of Ser Estinien after all of this!?"

The Regent claimed this thing was swallowing his spirit up, but what does that really mean? And can the their word on the matter actually be trusted, given that there seems to be no love lost between the two of them?

There is a delay in it answering, like it is having difficulty processing his questions. It remains silent at first, staring into nothing, with no ready answers to anything he has asked.

"I am the solution."

It sounds more like something it is repeating, a piece of lore remembered from a book, than anything with raw conviction behind it.

"Before... our ends are sealed..."

That last statement loses its sense of tonal duality, largely coming through in Estinien's voice as the indistinct impression of wings leave his body. He is left to sink down and crumple against the earth, hollowed out by the absence of what took him.

As Estinien returns, it is only to a tattered facsimile of his old self. Gone are all the elements of himself he'd managed to regain since his rebirth. As his transformation fades, his scaley armor, horns, and tail leaving him, all that's left is blinding porcelain skin and feathered wings that curl about him as he falls.

His strength is gone, after all. He doesn't have anything left to keep his defenses raised. Even his mind feels exposed, filled with holes and cracks. In those initial moments, he can barely remember why he is in the state he is, or why he seemed to be an entirely different creature for the several moments preceding this. Who is he, really?

His slitted pupils have returned as least, his eyes wide and staring into nothing as he wretches, shaking like a man on the verge of completely losing his mind. He makes a woeful sound, trying to hold together the fragmented parts of his identity.

Ryunosuke wants to shout at it, lose his temper with it; what does any of that mean? Its left him with even more questions than he started out with!

His frustrations have to be set aside for the time being; Estinien is coming back into himself, and he looks an absolute mess. Sounds an absolute mess.

"Ser Estinien--!"

Face writ large with concern, Ryunosuke hurries in to try to steady him, and help him to at least sit up so he's not in a complete heap, a clawed hand firmly at his shoulder.

"You're alright, everything's alright, it... The entity is gone; the Kenoma are gone as well," he says, trying to talk him through his return. The man seems so distraught, Ryunosuke isn't sure if he's even picking up on anything he's saying... But he has to at least try, right?

Estinien doesn't push away Ryunosuke's attempt to steady and comfort him, though he doesn't make it into a sitting position either. He's writhing, grabbing at his hair and head as if trying to tear something out of it. He feels like he's in a dream he can't wake up from, with no concrete sense of time or space. Even his own body doesn't feel real.

He yells, suddenly, at no particular target. Thankfully, it doesn't amplify into the roar that Ryunosuke has heard more than once at that point. Instead, he curls forward again, his wings still doing their best to shelter him, as if from some unseen threat.

"What has it done... ?" There hasn't been enough time to feel around the edges of the gaps in his memory, to take full stock of what he's lost. Right now, it feels like throwing white paint across a tapestry. "I can't... Who... Who was I...?"

What came before this? Before he awoke here, trembling? He remembers fighting against the Kenoma, again and again, and suffering for it... but he'd had a home, hadn't he?

Where had it gone?

It quickly becomes apparent that this is far beyond the scope of anything Ryunosuke has ever dealt with, particularly in terms of providing comfort in a moment of crisis. This is... Surely this must be lunatic behavior?

The shouting spooks him particularly badly; he flinches back, the feathers on his new wing flattening down in his fear, and for a moment he's quite tempted to just bolt to a safe distance. If he encountered a stranger behaving like this back home... He'd try to find help, from someone who is better equipped and better trained to deal with this sort of thing.

But he's not back home; Estinien isn't a stranger, and there's no way he can just leave and run off to find a doctor or something like that. He'd already sent Thoma off for help, anyway... Which he now rather regrets doing, as the man would probably be a better help here than he himself is. Ryunosuke can only boggle at the dragoon at first, in his usual way, trying frantically to think of what to do or say; indecision throttles his mind, a half a dozen arguments and counter arguments clashing and cancelling each other out until his mind is nothing but a snarl of white noise. In the end, he just blurts out the first, most obvious thing that rises to the top of his mind:

"ESTINIEN!"

He shouts it, the exclamation preceded by the loud automatic thwack of Ryunosuke's tail against the ground. He hopes it's enough to get the man's attention, but even if it isn't, he'll continue on anyway, trying to pull Estinien's focus away from whatever is distressing him and towards anchoring himself here, in the present, by providing an answer to his question:

"You ARE Ser Estinien Wyrmblood! You are an Aion of the Pleroma, and a man of exemplary courage and strength! I don't know what's happened either, but, just-- for the moment, please, set it aside! Focus on my voice, focus on what's right in front of you, right here!"

He's not the right person for this job. If ANYONE should be here trying to calm Estinien down, fighting to rescue him from whatever this catastrophic spiral he's trapped in is... It should be Himeka. Hell, it should be anyone who knows more about this man, about his past, the world he comes from, his accomplishments and triumphs, his highest and lowest points... All the little things that make him who he is beyond just his martial ability, and a vague knowledge of his life as it is in Horos.

It should be Himeka. But Himeka is not here. And so, once again, Ryunosuke finds himself the locum player, a mediocre replacement acting a role that he's barely qualified for, because he's the only one around who can.

However unprepared or ill-suited Ryunosuke may feel, his cries do draw Estinien's attention. He suddenly falls quiet, a silvery eye turning to stare at him through a part in his wild white hair. He breathes raggedly as if he's only just realized he was asphyxiating.

It genuinely answers a question for him. In the wake of having been taken, body and soul, by such a creature, he had been dropped back into this realm mid-freefall. Even though he has a sense that he has faced a feeling like this before, to lose himself in the soul of another, this had been a window into overwhelming psychosis. Had he even been anything besides a vessel for that force? If so, did anything of him remain?

It seems that it does, at least, because hearing his own name does something to ground him. It's one thing that feels right, that feels like it belongs to him, and gradually it rallies other memories beneath its banner. His breathing begins to slow, and he no longer attacks his own body in a terrified frenzy.

He lifts his eyes and looks around him. He remembers this. He was just here.

He makes a sound as if he's trying to speak but the words keep cluttering together and tumbling out of his mouth formlessly. After a few attempts, he manages to communicate again.

"Am... Am I..." He trails off, as if answering his own question within his head. He brings down his hands, looking at his disconcertingly unblemished skin. "You are..."

With such vulnerability, the passing of the entity really has left him in a state of dire innocence.

Ryunosuke allows himself a small sigh of relief. That Estinien has stopped attacking himself is a definite improvement, something worth celebrating at the very least...

The questions he's asking, though... Deeply concerning. Ryunosuke tries to play along, tries not to let on to his own anxiety knowing that losing his own cool certainly won't help the situation any... But alarm bells are going off. Just how much has he forgotten!?

"I-I'm... Ryunosuke Naruhodo, remember?" He keeps trying to hold that eye contact as he speaks. "I'm... Well, I'm one of the Pleroma as well, actually, if you can believe it..."

He says it with a bit of a scoff and a rueful smile, unable to keep himself from turning to self-deprecation. Joking helps pad things out while he tries to think of other things he can add on in any case; details that might help jog Estinien's memory further. And it helps Ryunosuke keep his own delivery steady, so he's not just blurting out a frantic list of things in his desperation to find something that provokes recognition. He goes on...

"You saved my life, just now... But we met several months before this, at the lodestone beneath the waves-- Do, do you remember that?"

Well. He can't quite keep the desperation out of his voice towards the end there. But he's doing his best.

Ryunosuke holds Estinien's gaze for a few moments longer before he once again turns his attention to their surroundings. He'd saved his life... slowly, he remembers. He can still see where the earth had crumbled, where he'd struggle for freedom, with so many Kenoma bearing down on him. He remembers the blood, the feeling of Kaeya's shard in his claws.

His fingers instinctively grasp at his shard.

"...The Venerans... have they been..."

He remembers coming here to defend them from culling, he remembers fighting in the streets. Had they succeeded? He remembers coming here to help them once before, when the city was still with illness, when he had been...

He flinches, choking on his breath. He had been so sick, so powerless. The Innocence had held him tight, eroding him with its presence. Is this the final result? Is he being hollowed out so that it might live through him?

Slowly, he lays down on his side, as if the energy to do anything else has left him.

"Ah...!"

He looks alarmed at first when Estinien lays down like that, but... You know what? That's fine, actually. The man deserves to rest. Ryunosuke isn't about to insist that he sit up instead.

"Let's... Get somewhere safer first, shall we? Then we can discuss the Venerans. Just wait there a minute..."

Ryunosuke struggles to his feet and hurries off to locate his belongings that had been taken from him on capture. Lucky for him that they hadn't simply been disposed off... It's a bit awkward, slinging on his pack and his bow with the addition of his new wing, but he makes do. He does a quick detour to pick up Estinien's discarded spear as well, and then returns to the man in short order.

He'll take the burden, then, of contributing his energy to recharge both of their returning stones; he's fairly spent from the constant bubbling and stupid stunts he'd pulled during that whole debacle, but he wouldn't dream of trying to get Estinien to do it himself. He reaches out to do the elezen's first, then his own. In a flash they'll both be back in the safe, Kenoma-free embrace of the Godsblood lodestone.

Edited 2022-07-28 00:03 (UTC)

He stares ahead, letting it all sink in as the returning stone slowly activates. He's experienced the use of these devices before, he knows, and the sensation of its magic building brings him back to images of the shrines. He was fighting to save people from those children of darkness, he thinks. The same that he's rescued Ryunosuke from. He had dispensed of them like a blade in the Innocent's hands.

With Ryunosuke deferring conversation until they are safe, Estinien spends those five minutes in silence. He flinches as the stone finally activates, the whorl of light and colour making his stomach turn, too familiar to the luminous world he'd been trapped within only minutes ago. When he opens his eyes again, they are resting on shimmering sand, the sound of moving water echoing in the caverns nearby.

"I remember..." he murmurs to himself, gazing at the rippling water suspended above. He'd arrived here with a knife in his back, as help rushed to his side. He remembers the waves of her red hair, the familiar warmth of her healing touch... Himeka...

He remembers meeting Ryunosuke here, too, sitting at the edge of the water explaining what he could. He remembers approaching Hayame as she rested despondent in the corner of the cavern, and how startled she'd been at the sight of his wings. Is it possible that he was a fully formed person before this, with a history and memories?

Friends...?

Ryunosuke has always liked the Lodestone; if anyone were to ask him what his favorite location is in Horos, this would probably be the answer. The sands, the sounds, the shimmering sea life flitting about... It conjures up childhood daydreams of underwater palaces wrought from coral and pearl.

Which does make it kind of a shame, that every time he has wound up back here recently has been immediately post some insane crisis, with one of his friends either dead or injured or missing.

Setting his gear down, Ryunosuke glances at Estinien quietly, noting his reaction. Maybe this means the amnesia won't be as long lasting as he initially feared... He nods encouragingly, growing visibly more excited.

"Yes! We met here, back when I first arrived. I asked you all kinds of questions... You answered them, uh. Mostly patiently, hah..."

An awkward pause ensues.

"...W-wait here another moment, please, I think there might still be clothing or blankets laying about from that day that, ah, we can use..."

The nudity has NOT escaped his attention. He scampers off to find something suitable, and comes back with some pants and a blanket, which he holds out to Estinien while very pointedly staring off in the opposite direction.

He thinks he remembers that. The whiteness seems to fade from the center outward, with the most recent events reemerging first. He's in a surreal state, now, where his life in Horos feels more real than anything that came before it. This will pain him greatly, once he's in a state to realize it.

His gaze drifts back to Ryunosuke sluggishly, finally resting on the pants and blanket like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do with them. He takes them in hand, staring, looking between them and Ryunosuke's turned back until it hits him. Right. He's naked, isn't he?

"Ah..."

He starts to feel distantly awkward because of that for the first time since his release. He clumsily starts pulling them on like wearing clothing is a new thing he's just discovered. Yet, once he's wearing them, he does feel better, even if they are a bit short. He pulls the blanket around himself, his brow furrowing as he tries to put it all together.

"You're... you were there..." he murmurs eventually, even such simple information feeling laborious to drag up. "You had a mark... one of the... promised..."

Where are the others? Where are the others he felt?

"I felt its anger..."

Ryunosuke's own clothes aren't in a particularly great state either, thanks to the TWO ENTIRE NEW LIMBS he's grown over the past few days, but they're at least holding up...

On that note, he's quite aware that his body has undergone some pretty drastic changes, but he hasn't actually had the chance to investigate the full scope of them yet, since he was captured right after it had happened. So while Estinien dresses, he putters around (without straying too far), searching for a tide pool or some other reflective surface that he can check himself in.

"...'Anger' seems like an understatement," Ryunosuke snorts, chancing a glance over at the other Pleroma. "It was... Downright wrathful really... And it was certainly keen to let me know it."

His one wing twitches unconsciously.

He had been it at the time, so he knows. Right now, he almost feels like it's discarded husk, hollowed out to contain it but then left empty afterward. He stares at Ryunosuke, his physical changes not holding any particular meaning to his addled mind.

He seems at a loss, but eventually, a thought begins to gnaw at him.

"Was this... my doing?"

He doesn't fully understand it in the moment, but there is the growing sense that the events causing the Innocence to arrive was his fault somehow. He remembers fighting, he remembers blood on his claws, he remembers roaring and shaking the earth. But then...

It had lashed out at individuals he remembers caring for. Ryunosuke was the only one in his presence at the time, but he'd felt them across the gap. His stomach turns, as it suddenly falls into place.

"Himeka..." he murmurs. His eyes widen as he stares into nothing. It had hurt her, and Alphinaud, and Abel. His body tenses, a shudder going through him. No... No. What had he done?

He starts fumbling for his shard, pulling it free.

Catching a glimpse of his own reflection is enough to make Ryunosuke startle back, but Estinien's question draws his attention away before he can start slipping too far into dysphoria over it. He turns to the dragoon with a surprised expression, and for a moment he's at a loss for words.

Can he definitively say it wasn't Estinien's doing? He doesn't mean that in an uncharitable way. It's just that their understanding of this creature that possesses him is so limited...

At least in a small way it's a kind of relief to hear Himeka's name pass Estinien's lips; he remembers her, well of course he does, he wouldn't forget his best friend. But as for Estinien's sudden panic and alarm that follows, Ryunosuke doesn't quite grok the reason for it right away. The thought that the others might have been affected by the entity's wrath same as he was hasn't crossed his mind. They weren't in the immediate proximity of the incident, so, why would they be?

"...What's wrong," Ryunosuke asks gravely, returning quickly to the other man's side.

Once his shard is removed Estinien falls silent, trying to focus in what is plainly a use of communion. Yet, his brow only creases with more and more worry as he tries. After about a minute of reaching out, he looks up at Ryunosuke, his expression wide-eyed and confused in a way that seems almost child-like.

"...She will not answer. Why... can I not hear her...?"

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locumstudentesquire - 2022-08-08 19:49 (UTC) - Expand

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