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.
.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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...
no subject
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.
no subject
As it was in Venera, he has become like a statue, with a shimmering aura like the crystals that fill the shrine. There he will be left until awakened.