Meteion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
perfectlygoodbird) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
aionlogs2022-07-31 05:02 pm
perfectlygoodbird) wrote in aionlogs2022-07-31 05:02 pm
closed
WHO: Meteion and Estinien Wyrmblood
WHAT: In avoiding the Kenoma, a bird runs into another problem.
WHERE: Venera
WHEN: 26th of Soviseri.
WARNINGS: This will only end in tears, with Meteion a shard.
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The bird has been doing her best to keep a low profile ever since the events of the Sovereign's Moon had come to an end. She'd spoken to no one, though that had hurt. Hurt in ways that Meteion had not comprehended until now, when she was well and truly alone. There wasn't anyone she could trust any more. Not after the things she had done--but she also had no one to blame for that but herself. Meteion had made her choices now, like she had made them so long ago. Her sisters were no more, though, and despite the assurance she'd had from Cid that the Final Days had not been her fault...was that something the bird truly believed?
Not now. Not yet. She couldn't.
Meteion tugs the edge of her mantle further up over her head. She can't really hide her legs or tailfeathers--not without leaving a trail--so she keeps to the side streets, trusting in the fact that she is small and unobtrusive to hope that prying eyes simply pass over her.
WHAT: In avoiding the Kenoma, a bird runs into another problem.
WHERE: Venera
WHEN: 26th of Soviseri.
WARNINGS: This will only end in tears, with Meteion a shard.
.
The bird has been doing her best to keep a low profile ever since the events of the Sovereign's Moon had come to an end. She'd spoken to no one, though that had hurt. Hurt in ways that Meteion had not comprehended until now, when she was well and truly alone. There wasn't anyone she could trust any more. Not after the things she had done--but she also had no one to blame for that but herself. Meteion had made her choices now, like she had made them so long ago. Her sisters were no more, though, and despite the assurance she'd had from Cid that the Final Days had not been her fault...was that something the bird truly believed?
Not now. Not yet. She couldn't.
Meteion tugs the edge of her mantle further up over her head. She can't really hide her legs or tailfeathers--not without leaving a trail--so she keeps to the side streets, trusting in the fact that she is small and unobtrusive to hope that prying eyes simply pass over her.
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Piece by piece, he is shorn of everything he once held dear. Even now, he only recalls his homeland in flickers, fragments of light that only seem to taunt him with an escape from a prison he'll never truly find his way out of. The people and places of before vanish just beyond his reach, and even in the now, they fall one by one. Himeka, Abel, Alphinaud... one by one he's found them gone, nothing but silence on the other end of his desperate communions.
He's found answers for the first two, at least, but at what cost?
The Innocence within him had wanted him to forget, to make him tranquil beneath a veil of blissful ignorance. It hadn't worked, but the structure of his mind is cracking beneath the pressure of the attempt. He can think of only one thing to do, in the aftermath: to seek vengeance.
He leaves before Ryunosuke can stop him, heading back to Venera through the portal he stashed in the ocean caves. His goals are nebulous: he will capture a Kenoma, and break them open for everything they know of Achamoth and his friend's imprisonment. Any that linger in Venera will face his wrath.
His presence in the city is obvious. He flies above, scouring for the telltale void of the Kenoma. It's reminiscent of when he drowning in illness, on their first trip here, surrounded by three sets of feathered wings and purely white in a way that glows in the fading daylight.
He spots the aura of an Aion's presence in the shadows of an isolated sidestreet. He sees no Pleroma within it, and so he swoops downward. It's only when he's close that he sees the mark of the Innocent within her soul, and a strange lack of darkness.
"Meteion..."
He speaks, his voice rigid with strain. His tail lashes behind him.
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Lost. They're both lost in some way, aren't they? She can see the marks of the Innocence on him, dug further in than when she had last seen him here. They had been in opposition, then: he was lost then, as now, but in a different way. There was nothing left of the man, the dragoon, then. Just a shattered shell.
That had been worse. There's at least recognition in him now, but still. He can't help her. He won't. Not because he doesn't want to. He might want to, in fact. Meteion cannot tell. The empathy that had been her companion for so long was gone now. And why? She did not know. She could not know.
So Meteion chooses the one thing she can still control.
"Stay back!" she screams, one hand thrust out to reject Estinien. She'd wronged him once. Whatever happened next would only be...fate. Karma, maybe. It's only right that Meteion gets what she deserves.
She turns to flee down the darkening Veneran streets.
cw: decapitation
Yet, he also recognizes her as someone who had gone to the Kenoma, and in a way, that had felt natural to him. He knew her from his home, he thinks. It's hard to piece together so quickly, but he remembers a strange dark word, and her, but devoid of colour. He remembers what she could become.
It's so familiar, isn't it? He remembers seeing Howl, in a broken pile of feathers, begging for Estinien to leave him. He'd listened. He'd allowed him to go back. And because of that... he'd...
She's escaping. He remembers, she can fly. Would he lose her? What if she returns? What if she's captured, made to become that creature of sorrow and despair that had one threatened to consume them all? That compassion he's seen in her, extinguished forever?
He has to stop her.
"No," he gasps, lunging towards her, his dragoon's leap aiding his speed. His lance is already being drawn, lashing out like a great claw, the destructive power of Ala Morn causing its blade to bite with extreme ferocity.
His weapon meets her neck, severing it with ease.
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Meteion's body curls in on itself at first, though that particular movement is stilled as her body begins to dissolve into smoke, wispy bits floating around and crawling eerily over the pavement until nothing of her head is left at all. All that remains of her sad little body is a palm-sized, pear-cut stone of the palest magenta, sparkling in the dying light of the day.
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Remorse swells in his gut as he watches her body begin dissolving away. A clean kill, at least. No risks taken, he tries to tell himself. Yet, he feels dirtied. He approaches cautiously, taking her shard gently in his claws, and he feels as if he is something too tainted and ruined to touch a shard directly without inflicting pain or illness.
And yet... he feels no distress in the crystal as it brushes against his scales. Is this how he had been, when Himeka held him after his death?
"Forgive me," he murmurs, the cracks in his mind seeming to widen again. Her shard looks lighter, he thinks. Lighter than the other Kenoma he'd seen. Had she thrown off its power? Had the flicker of her soul not been an illusion?
His first thought is to take her to the shrine of the Innocent, but then he remembers what Tehri had told him. That the land is touched by the power of the Innocent, that going there might threaten him, given his condition. At first, he starts trying to think of other possibilities, but he keeps coming back to thoughts of the valley.
This can't go on, he thinks. If he is to lose everything... then perhaps he can find a way to make use of himself, one more time, to those that had given him so much.
He retreats, finding a location where he can perform the ritual to bring the two of them to the valley. He will offer her shard to its kindred as penance, and maybe... maybe he will find a way.
He arrives in the shrine in a swirl of light and color. Already, he can feel the presence of the creature bearing down on him, stealing away his breath. He's afraid, he has to admit, but yet, this is only what he owes. What he is owed.
He rests Meteion's shard on the floor of the cavern, taking a few steps back. His wings furl inward, as if for protection.
"Creature of Innocence, I have brought to you your lost kin," he says. "Pray... free her from the Kenoma's touch."
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The voice speaks within him, first quietly and then louder. It recognizes Meteion's shard as soon as it sees it, the lost sister it had implored to find the light. There is a sense of relief in it now, of nurturing comfort.
Her shard shines pure... the darkness has fled... my sister need only welcome the light of morning...
The presence is a bit less overbearing in its joy. Estinien will feel it with him, as if resting its hands on his shoulders.
Thank you...
cw: sort of suicidal comments
"Listen to me," he says, spurred on by the way he chafes. If it would go so far as to thank him, can it not simply listen to him, even once? "My comrades... my friends... the ones that swore themselves to you in my name... the darkness has taken them. Two have been taken to Achamoth, and the other... I know not. He is lost to me, and my communion cannot reach him."
And he can't avoid the flash of anger and helplessness as he says that. It's this being that has done this to him, this being that has cursed his loved ones and damned them to these fates. The anger infects his words as he goes on, unable to hold it back any longer.
"You bound them to their promise, their promise to keep me well, keep me safe, but... then..." His claws clench as this sides, shaking. "'Tis you... 'Tis you that has damned me. That has taken me apart, piece by piece until... until there is nothing."
The last part is a snarl, as if he is fighting to contain his roar. His pain becomes clearer in each word he says.
"You must help me save them. You must... 'else I will hurl myself upon the Regent's thorns until there is nothing left."
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No!
His own wings are forced to move of their own accord, wrapping him in their embrace even as he struggles. Moving will feel increasingly difficult, his body is slowly going numb.
The boy... he is among the light... he needs nothing more from you... the others... they have made their choice... they chose this world... it's pains...
He will be brought to his knees, a feeling of lightness overtaking him, as if set adrift from his physical form. His thoughts will begin to blur, the world around him melting away in favor of an inner dream, shielding him from the woes he so desperately tries to express.
I offered you sanctuary and gave you death... I will not allow it... not again...
Its voice grows increasingly frantic and disorientated, as if incapable of hearing what he says with reason. There is only guilt and regret that blinds its, because its paradise had failed, and nothing is more emblematic of that than the life that been lost under its watch.
...Must... Make it right... I must...
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He thrashes and fights, but it doesn't last forever. As the entity's pacification gradually overwhelms him, he can feel his strength leave, his mind untethered and left to drift. He tries to think of Himeka, of Abel, of Alphinaud... but gradually even his sorrow is taken from him.
In the end, he can only weep, the tears falling even after he has forgotten why.
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The Sleeping Beauty Aftermath;
But he isn’t there. And when she reluctantly pulls her shard from her flesh to reach out in an unfathomable way across the land reaching for him… he isn’t there, either. She looks for him, under the guise of other work, limping injured through the rebel base and gritting her teeth through the pain, striving to minimize the weakness on display collected injury by injury in her violent clashes with the Regent’s forces in Venera, but-
He isn’t there either. And somewhere along the way, putting one hoof in front of the shaky other on the misty ground… Hayame realizes that she’s alone. No, she’s always known that. She remembers, more like, in the silence without work or battle to fill her mind with rage strong enough to cover the despair constantly nipping at her fetlocks. Her business with the craftsman had concluded now that her bow was in her hand, and only the debt remained. The Kenoma she had once thought might be able to guide her if she could only force the black sludge out of his body had been captured, and was likely now dead.
… What a fool she was. What a failure.
She deserves little more, however, after all she has done and not told a soul, and so at first she simply resigns herself to it. It was predictable, and honestly she deserved the sting to have expected different. He’d probably left to search for the whoremonger and that healer woman, either alone or with some other Pleroma. This is what happened when you admitted to weakness, to injury, like she had when they last spoke.
There is no place for the weak. They are left behind, or they die. … But she can’t die until she returned to her world where her corpse belonged or she lost her life at the Regent’s feet.
So when the two busybodies confront her about her injuries and offer her the insulting pity of healing… she swallows her pride, stuffs down the abject horror she feels when magic courses through her body and forces flesh, muscle, and tendon to reknit in an unnatural way she can only assume will curse her one day… and lets them.
Now… now that she was able to fight again… she reaches out for Estinien again.
… and again there is no answer, it almost feels as if it… as if it closed off to her, as if her message is rejected. It is a… strange (painful) feeling. He has been the only one who ever bothered to try to contact her using the shards in private conversion, the strangely intimate and terrifying Knowing that came with it, and she had not thought to be rejected now, but- She cannot fault him for that. He may be in battle, in need of focus, or…
Well, she will simply find him and assist, and that will banish any doubts he may have about her capabilities.
The search takes her to a strange place. One Hayame has never been or thought to go. She grits her teeth and uses portals, following the vague sense of direction towards her fellow Firebrand, but though she begins to think she is close… is this not one of the “shrines”? She hears no clash of steel or even blood in the air… In fact, it is almost eerily absent of activity, as if the entire thing was covered in some sort of… strange sensation she can’t quite put her finger on.
She didn’t know what “peaceful” really felt like, unnatural or otherwise. Stepping cautiously into the crystalline space, bow at the ready…
She finds Estinien.
Convinced it is a trap… she stands just as frozen as the crystallized man, looking for signs of an ambush… and finding none. Her paranoid movements are slow and careful, but her hooves echo on crystal and nothing answers but the sound of her own breath and her two heartbeats.]
Estinien… ?
[She calls out, and no one answers. She moves closer, and no one attacks.
And finally, she stands in front of the crystallized man, hunched over in what looks like pain, his eyes hidden behind… feathers, and his cheeks stained with… something that looked like tears, but what must surely be a trick of refracted light. What is she supposed to do?
If she is alone… if no one is there to see it…
Hayame folds her limbs beneath her to risk going down to her belly on the cold crystal floor, staring at the statue that had once been a man. Was still a man? Was he even alive? Should she break it, and tear his shard out? Should she wait? Should she… use her own shard, somehow? Should she ask one of those magic using people for help? Should she go get someone?
A long… long hour passes. Finally, feeling like some foolish maiden trying to break a curse in a lute ballad, she risks… touching it. A hand calloused from bow use since fillyhood awkwardly moves, hesitates, hesitates again… and then alights on a crystallized shoulder.]
… Estinien?
[No answer.
What was she thinking?]
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He is awash in a gentle light, floating without direction or urgency. Any fears about his condition are smoothed away as quickly as they arise, the reality trapping him desperate to maintain its unblemished stretch of soft white. Some might call the sensation heavenly, and yet...
He hasn't passed peacefully. No, dark cracks of anger and sorrow appear every so often, leaving gaps in the perfection of this world almost wide enough that he can reach through, only for them to be sealed at his fingertips. His heart aches, even when he has no memories to tell him why.
He hasn't forgotten how badly he wants to be free.
Sometimes there is a feeling of loneliness and searching there as well, almost like he is being missed. Like someone is... looking for him. He reaches for the call of this kindred spirit, pleading for someone to find him in this place, before he's swallowed whole. Someone who, like him, doesn't want to be alone.
For the longest time, he feels helpless to make any sense of it, to truly grasp the form of what he's experiencing. Yet, as her fingers touch the crystalline surface of his prison...]
...
[He cannot speak, but the softest of breaths move past his lips. She may feel something of his presence in that physical connection - even as his body refuses to move, his soul struggles to break free.]
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Is she hallucinating? Had she actually gone mad, like she thought she had when she first arrived in his hell? Was she so foolish as to have… to have wanted something so badly she tricked herself into sending it? She doesn’t know, and it leaves her frozen in that moment, her fingers spasming, knuckles paling.
Could crystal breathe? Could crystal make her shard ache?
Even though she’d checked the perimeter on her way in, they should be alone… Hayame instinctively looks around to make sure she isn’t seen before she leans in closer, just enough that she can press her cheek and ear against his chest, listening for a heartbeat. Was it there, or was the fact that she had two of her own pounding in her chests just masking a weak pulse? Biting sharply into her lip, she rises up, this time to hover in front of his face, staring into the pained and sorrowful expression before she raises a hand and holds it in front of his mouth, attempting to feel if another breath would emerge or if she really had just imagined it.
Stupidly, hopefully,]
Estinien… ? Can you hear me?
[She swallows the lump of anger, disappointment, and despair threatening to well up the moment she had to admit she was talking to a chunk of crystal. But until then… her other hand hesitantly gripes about to find… no, she’d never seen it, but something about their shared legacy guides her touch towards the center of his chest, near where her own was. There- was that his shard, then, beneath her palm? If she had brought a chisel, instead of just paltry words-]
… It is Hayame. I came-
[I came looking for you feels almost too embarrassing to say out loud. “Hayame the Mad Archer”, perhaps that is what they will call her-]
… If you are alive, you must give me some sign.
[… Please.]
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If anything, though, it's that potent complication, that raw knot of feelings, that draws him most easily from the dream that traps him. He can feel her there with him. She wants him to return, and with how far she's come, he couldn't bear to refuse her now.
Along with that empathetic touch of his shard, she will feel his lungs begin to move beneath her hand. The breath that had been so shallow is stronger now, and with it, the crystalline veneer that traps him begins to break and fall away into nothing.
He sags forward slightly, his weight against her hand. She will see the softness return to his features, the feathers of his wings no longer sculpted into place, but light and airy to the touch. The warmth has returned to his flesh, no matter how pale it might be.
Through still locked in slumber, he has returned to life.]
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Estinien has heard more than most, even if that number is still a mere fraction of the things Hayame swallows and buries beneath pride, anger, and the veneer of a warrior. Even now… she cannot muster the words to express how she truly feels in this situation, because even she doesn’t actually know.
But one thing that echoes in the spirit of communion, in the legacies they happened to share… is how angry she would be (how distraught) if one of the few people in this place she felt had even a chance of understanding her were to die now. How foolish she will feel if she has again put her trust in someone she should not have. … How much more alone she will feel if he is gone.
How much she doesn’t want to be alone, despite all of the biting words and violent outbursts and stone cold walls.
- But then he gives her what she asks for.
His chest moves beneath her hand in a far more noticeable inhale and Hayame’s breath freezes in her own lungs, feeling more reprieved and less insane by the second. As cracks appear upon the crystal layer formed around his body, she even dares to let herself hope, her dark eyes widening as she pressed her palm more firmly against his chest. What looked like feathers beneath the rock turn out to actually be that, to be wings somehow, there of all places?, and as the crystal continues to shatter and flake off of his form, gradually freeing him-
She instinctively moves to catch his body as it sags forward, her forelegs splaying awkwardly around his own in a scramble of hooves to support his upper body as it slumps unsupported. The weight itself is nothing for her, but it’s deadweight and she struggles to adjust him in her arms into anything remotely resembling a comfortable position, too stunned at the moment to say anything, even his name.
It worked? It half-worked? He was breathing again, his skin seemed nearly warm, but he didn’t- If she waited, would he open his eyes? Did she… if touching his shard had done this, would touching it more directly finish the job?
As her mind races and she clutches at his limp body, the sound of her own pants for breath, the pounding of her twin heartbeat in her bound chest, and the tinkling, crackling sound of shattering crystal distract her just enough to not notice the sound of someone else approaching from behind…]
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It had earned him another rebuke from the Entity. A less severe one than the last, at least, but it seemed the being had as much an issue with Estinien's emotional well-being being threatened as it did with the physical threat of the Kenoma. When the entity's presence had cleared, Ryunosuke had found himself in possession of yet another wing to match the first. And Estinien...
Full of anger and grief, he could not be calmed, nor reasoned with.
He'd taken off, despite Ryunosuke's protests, and what could an ex-lawyer do but helplessly watch him go? He has his own wings now, yes, but apparently they're nothing to match the Dragoon's. A clumsy attempt at a take-off-- something he wouldn't have dared try if he weren't so desperate-- earns him only a face full of wet sand, and a re-opened wound on his left arm.
He is no stranger to loneliness. Even so, he's fairly sure he's never felt quite so alone as he did in that moment: crumpled in the sand in front of the Lodestone, staring helplessly up through the waves, with only the sound of rushing water and a few sparkling crabs for company.
All the way back to Greentruth and hours past his return, that loneliness had persisted. He's at an utter loss for what to do next. He'd tried to reach out to Estinien by Communion, but of course the man hadn't answered... Where he had taken off to, Ryunosuke couldn't begin guess. Perhaps back to Venera? Or... No, surely the man wouldn't be foolish enough to head to Achamoth on his own. Would he...?
Ryu can acknowledge that he's wallowing rather dangerously in his own sadness, but times like these are when he feels the absence of his friends the most keenly. Times past, whenever he'd find himself in a rut with a case, he would turn to Susato for advice. Or Iris, wise beyond her years, might have some sort of practical advice to help him get his head back on straight. Often he even finds himself hoping he'll shift his gaze to some random part of a room, only to find Sholmes lurking there the way he always used to, nonchalant as if he'd been there the whole time.
None of them are here though. And much as he enjoys the company of several of his fellow Pleroma, he has yet to find anyone here in Horos who he feels totally comfortable reaching out to in that same way. Whatever he does next, it's up to him to figure it out himself. So... Where should he even start?
The Entity... It was clearly becoming a problem. For Estinien, for all of them...
Just as the Regent had implied, Ryunosuke notes to himself with some bitterness, so he'll give them half a point for saying one thing that's proving to be at least partially true. He knows he can't track Estinien down, but. Maybe he can get a bit more aggressive in trying to figure out what this thing is. Whether it can be reasoned with at all, or be gotten rid of...
That's how he winds up coming to the Shrine of the Innocent, at once taking out his shard and preparing the now familiar teleportation ritual which will bring him right there. He hasn't been to the Valley before, but he's heard of it from Dextera, and luckily enough he does have a very convenient visual reference for the proper sigil, uh... 'on hand'. It's a wild shot in the dark, and he has no idea if he'll even find anything there... But it's the only lead he's got. Hopefully, it's safe enough... Tehri had warned against Estinien going anywhere near the shrine, but she'd said nothing of the Promised.
Emerging from a flash of light outside the cavern, he hadn't expected to feel so soothed upon arriving. His worries and pains are still with him, but immediately, he finds it hard to feel quite so restless in this place. He's sort of lost in thought wondering at that, as he steps into the cavern.
He's really not trying to disguise his approach; he's too weary to even keep his new tail from dragging behind him across the ground as he proceeds. But he picks it up in a hot second, in tandem with puffing his new wings out. An automatic reaction of shock.
Someone is already here?
It's... That horse lady, from Venera. The one who wouldn't give him her name. And...
Ryunosuke sucks in a sharp breath.]
"Estinien!?"
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It's that man, Naruhodou, looking like some sort of sick amalgamation of bird and lizard, (why?), and she-
For a moment she freezes, hyperaware of that fact that she's holding Estinien, in a way that could look inappropriate, his body slumped against her, her hand splayed across his chest, her other arm slung under his arm and around to his back to support his uncooperative weight. Just one single moment, before everything catches up, and she hisses across the distance between them, barely audible because something like emotion is stuck in her throat.]
Be quiet!
[It feels almost like something might hear them. Something that wasn't Estinien. And the man asleep in her arms-
Her hearts seize at the idea of allowing him to be disgraced in this way, and before Ryunosuke can get any closer she shifts the slumbering dragoon in her arms to free up the hand that had been hovering above his shard in order to reach into the saddle bag on her withers and pull out a scrap of cloth, hunching over him to hide the sight of what she was doing from the other man.
Asking what Naruhodou was doing here, if he'd been followed, why he looked like that... Even being angry about being found in such a shameful position, being snuck up on... It could all wait. First--
As quickly as she can, (as gentle as she was capable of), she wipes the traces of tears away from Estinien's cheeks.
She couldn't let him be seen like that.]
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But... No, that's just a kneejerk reaction. Thinking about it for longer than a split second leads him to conclude there's something else going on here. The biggest source of concern being there's not a single hint of response from Estinien that he can see... Is the man even conscious?
With an increasing sense of dread, he swallows thickly and dares to move deeper into the cavern. He's going to attempt to circumvent Hayame and go to Estinien's other side, whether or not she lets him may be another story.]
What... What happened to him?
[He speaks in a hushed tone. Whether he's doing that because he's listening to Hayame's demand, or if he's just spooked, she can decide.]
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1/2
Since it's a 1/2 I'm just gonna tack this on as an aside
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To Godsblood (backdated to early Firaseri)
The journey itself is fairly normal, as these things go. But she figures that if they'd wanted to move faster, they might have waited a day or two. Until she could fly again. (Though Meteion isn't sure, now, that it would be that easy. Attuning to the Kenoma had been simple, if rather uncomfortable. There's a part of her that doubts attuning to the Pleroma would be nearly so bad...but it is far less intuitive on her part...is it not?)
Mostly, she keeps quiet. The entelechy is uncertain of her welcome, and her thoughts lean more towards how she can keep the other Pleroma safe. She's done her very best on her flight from Achamoth to not leave a discernable trail. But Meteion has no idea how much success she had, nor is she certain that the Regent isn't simply powerful enough to track her--though that is if they so choose, and they'd never had much use for her in the past.
Still, the very idea weighs on her mind, and so she is unusually silent, as opposed to her usual chatty mien.
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It had happened so quickly, and even now, he's not sure that the choice he made was just. Effective, perhaps - she had not escaped back to the Kenoma, and according to the entity, there was brightness in her future. Had it been cruel to put her through this, though? Was it unnecessary? It's hard to say.
He supposes Meteion is no stranger to cruelty to begin with, having experienced what she did as an empath in a sometimes brutal universe. Even so, he feels a difficult shred of guilty as he watches her linger, unusually silent. He owes it to her to say something, he thinks, though he isn't quite sure what.
"Meteion," he starts, breaking the silence. He's returned to a mostly human form, besides the three sets of angelic wings and generally snow-white colouring. His silvery gaze, still draconic, linger.
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"Estinien?" The tone of her voice makes a question of his name, though her gaze is open and trusting. If she has any misgivings about what he did in Venera, she seems to have left it in the past.
She moves closer to him, then, and rests a hand on his arm, gentle. As odd as his transformations are to him, Meteion isn't judging. She's not certain they are good, but she trusts him.
Admittedly, it's the Innocence she's uncertain of, though she knows it at least means well.
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He shakes his head, trying to make sense of everything. Something he really wonders how a being like this ended up becoming the Endsinger, or a Kenoma. It's a horrible thing to contemplate.
She doesn't seem upset with him at all, but he feels the need to say it anyway.
"I... apologize, Meteion. I had not realized the Kenoma had left you when I struck." He pauses for a moment, and then adds: "I feared that were I anything less than swift, that you may end up in the Regent's clutches once more."
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"You don't need to, Estinien. We both weren't...in our right minds, I think, at that point. And even if that was not the case--you were doing what you thought was best, and you were protecting the Pleroma. I only want to do that, too. I feel like it was what needed to happen."
A hint of fear crosses her face, and her hand drops. "I do not want to be in the Regent's clutches. So if what you did then prevented it, it is all to the good. And I would bid you do it again."
Never mind that dissipation wasn't an incredibly comfortable sensation, and Meteion doubted it was a good thing if it happened too many times, but she meant what she said.
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And yet...
Even in the Kenoma, her heart had been true. He remembered her at his side in Venera when he had been too ill to know himself. He remembers speaking to her before all that, and being charmed by her compassion for something as foreign and antagonistic as a primal. He manages a small, wavering smile as he thinks of it.
Oh so tentatively, he reaches over to lay a hand over hers. While normally physical contact makes him nervous with anyone he isn't very familiar with, here he can't possibly read in any ulterior motives or misunderstanding. Much like her legacy, the Innocent, there is a simple grace to her.
"I will," he says softly. "As long as your heart craves the light, I will fight to keep it within its reach. To protect you from those that would claim you."
A bold declaration, perhaps, but he means it. Her having abandoned the darkness is deeply meaningful to him, especially in this time of turmoil and fear.
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Even if it felt like she shouldn't, sometimes. Estinien was a private person...but she could simply not speak of his feelings to anyone else. Unless he bade her to.
"I need to do better. It isn't right that I rely on others to save me. I might not like the idea of fighting, and I know I'm not very strong, but..."
Meteion just shakes her head. She isn't in a hurry to become a combatant, but if there's no other choice...or if there are people she wants to at least defend...
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Hope that one can be better, do better, and achieve greater things than they'd previously assigned themselves. He nods to her, his approval not out of judgment but out of encouragement.
"There is much you can do without ever drawing a blade," he says. "To heal, to protect, to soothe... they are noble paths. I am full glad to have you at our side, no matter what path you choose."
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