closed

[perfectlygoodbird]

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.

Comments

[warmare]

[Hayame is just about to take her hand off the crystallized figure and berate herself for her idiocy… when something happens. Something that makes her almost jump with how sudden it felt, like she’d been trailing her fingers over the edge of a fence and then suddenly been hit by a pulse of electricity that makes her draw back in shock, clutching her hand.

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.]

[coerthantorment]

[If the touch against his shoulder was a current of connection between them, her hand falling against his shard feels like lightning - the kind strong enough to restart a frozen heart. While not quite as potent as touching a shard that's been fully exposed, his spirit pulses with the comfort of trust and a prickle of ill-ease, all at once. As with many things Hayame-related, it's complicated.

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.]

[warmare]

[For every word that Hayame says, there are ten, twenty, a hundred left unsaid. Words she has never been taught how to even begin to say aloud, that are too shameful to admit to, that would disgrace her reputation, that seem weak, that admit to how very lost and confused she has felt every single day since she had become a failure and realized that her entire life was a lie built upon the bodies of her own kind.

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…]

[locumstudentesquire]

[Meanwhile, Ryunosuke has been beside himself with worry ever since Estinien took off the day before. News about Abel and Himeka had hit him hard, but whatever he was feeling at that time was absolutely nothing stacked next to Estinien's.

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!?"

[warmare]

[Hayame did not normally let people sneak up on her. Her sense of smell was better than a human's, her hearing was better, her eyes were sharper... but today, it happens, because her focus is on the one impossible thing happening in her arms and the strange blanket of peace over the shrine has dulled the edge of even someone as paranoid and war-like as her. When she finally does hear the approach, too close, close enough for it to have been the last thing she heard if it was an enemy-

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.]

[locumstudentesquire]

[It... Could be misconstrued as inappropriate, and for a moment Ryunosuke does kind of wonder if there is something salacious going on here? (Guys, this is the INNOCENT'S shrine??? FOR SHAME???)

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.]

[warmare]

[The reason Hayame has avoided laying down properly, fully on her equine belly, ever since she was spirited away to Horos... is because it's difficult for a jinba to react quickly from that position. There's precious moments lost trying to haul a heavy body back upright, valuable seconds when she was vulnerable- and even if she wanted to (and instinctively, she wants to) she can't easily throw herself back on all four hooves to try and move away from Ryunosuke or block his path.

But without realizing it, her grip on the man in her arms becomes tight and protective, her hackles raise when asked a question she doesn't know the answer to, as if it was some sort of attack leveled at her she couldn't defend against.]

As if I would know- ?!

[(As if he would know, that she'd gotten here only an hour past, and already found him-)]

He was some sort of- some sort of crystal rock.

[Did that mean it had something to do with this shrine? Was it the same crystal that they were "birthed" from, that decorated these shrines?]

Now he breathes, but-

[If he wants to examine Estinien, however, he'll have to ask. Because Hayame seems to have forgotten that she's holding him tight, the shameful proof of his tears hidden in the clutch clutched in her fist.]

[locumstudentesquire]

[He can clearly see that she's upset, maybe even more so than the last time they'd spoken. Unfortunately for her... He's also concerned about Estinien, so he's not about to go anywhere without an argument.

He doesn't try to take him from her, at least, or anything odd like that. He's kind of stooping, looking Estinien over, taking in the extra changes and the lack of color, and--

He glances up at Hayame.]

Crystal? Like the petrification we saw during the plague? Or, or was it somehow different?

[warmare]

[Was it different? She hadn’t considered it, because she had not encountered any aions during that time in Venera who had fully crystallized… not in person.]

I don’t…

[Know. Again. A reminder of how powerless she really was in this completely foreign land when all of the knowledge she has accumulated in her life comes to naught but useless or wrong. What kind of crystal… She points at some of the chunks of it that were left behind when the cracks had formed and he’d slumped into her inexperienced embrace, jerking her head with a whip of long ebon mane.]

Look for yourself!

[Her own body had largely manifested the Innocence as feathers, and look-]

There are all these accursed… growths upon him now…

[A hand moves to one of the small appendages growing out of the side of his… his head? as both of her stomachs roil in disgust. She would not call them “wings”, not if it was a creature not born with them as was proper, they just appeared in some disgusting way, and even if one pair had… three?

One of her hands inches towards the feathery base near his temple. Maybe if she removed them, he would wake… ?

But then her eyes lift, dark and as icy as she could make them to hide the despair and helplessness beneath. This Naruhodou man… his scaly bits were suspect enough, but incongruous to it all…

Feathers. White, fluffy feathers that fill her vision and remind her of the chaotic snatches of images Estinien had once shared through communion and legacy.]

You. Did you have some part in this?

[locumstudentesquire]

[Ryunosuke jolts like she'd just physically struck him, the wings in question puffing up in his surprise and then pressing flat to his back, the feathers flattening out as if to make him appear even smaller. It looks almost like an admission of guilt, but it's just as automatic as any of his other nervous mannerisms...

...Mannerisms which have also played a role in getting him accused of murder before, but. We're not going to talk about that here!

Still, the accusation stings, and he's not going to react well to it.]

M-m-ME!?!? Certainly not! I, I've only just arrived here! I didn't have anything to do with--

....

[He falters, heart sinking. Didn't he, though? Maybe he hadn't personally put Estinien in this position, but... To say that he played NO part at all in the events would be a lie.]

...I wasn't the one who brought him here. I can say that much with certainty. I don't know what he was thinking, Miss Tehri warned him not to come out to this shrine--!

[warmare]

[Hayame's expression is no different from the one she'd worn looking at him fluster and sputter in the safehouse of Venera. She is a woman who suffers no fools, who has little patience for weakness or indecision (even in herself), and men like this set her off far too easily. They said so many damned words and yet said so little?

- No, perhaps her expression is a little different. It's angrier, to cover her fears the only way she knew how.

Estinien had known not to come here, and still had? Why? He says he had nothing to do with this, but he obviously knew something about it, if he knew of conversation between that Tehri woman and the man she held limp now against her chest. Her voice is sharp, sudden, like the crack of a whip.]

Then what can you say with certainty?

[That's the only thing she's interested in.]

[locumstudentesquire]

[Ryunosuke flinches at the harshness of her voice, but he doesn't cower back so much this time. He shoots her a sharp look instead, snapping:]

I-- I don't know! I just, I just need to think a moment--

[The last few days have worn on him greatly, and docile as he tries to be be most times, he has his limits.

Even so, the subtle differences in her behavior haven't totally escaped his notice. The ferocity with which she's guarding Estinien in particular... He can't put much thought to it right now, but it's something he'll contemplate, when he thinks back on this later.

His eyes are scrunched closed in frustration until he manages to take a calming breath, exhaling slowly. When they're open again, they glance over the pieces of shattered crystal she'd indicated before, which he contemplates with a frown.]

We were at the Lodestone before this... We'd just left Venera. Before that we were in a fight, he-- He saved me from the Kenoma, but that thing possessed him in the process. And then it came back again, after we got the most horrible news...

[He looks pained, at the latter point. None of this is best explanation, but he's mostly thinking out loud, more than telling her what happened. Trying to sort through his thought processes, figure out why Estinien came here, and how he wound up in this state...

Did he... Did he come here to try and negotiate with it...?

Ryunosuke looks up at her again suddenly.]

Oh! W, Wait! You said he was crystalized before, did you not? But, but he clearly isn't now-- What was it you did to free him?

[warmare]

[The snap from a man as fangless as this is nothing to her, much like the bark from a small dog she could kick out of her way with a flick of her tail. A dog with... horns and a tail, for some reason, with white, feathered wings for some reason. She allows him his "moment", yes, but she is not patient, she is glowering, her pupils dilated, her knuckle pale where they clutch the unconscious (sleeping? dead?) man. Maybe it will read as anger, or perhaps muscle fatigue from their unnatural, splayed position around Estiniens body, how her forelegs intermittently tremble.

She needs him to be faster, though, before she allows herself to think that this-

This is the first time she has ever embraced anyone. The first time in her entire life.

"That thing"... "Horrible news"... Hayame's incongruous-seeming sharp teeth are bared by the way her lip draws back, unable to stop herself from barking,]

Did you never learn how to make a proper report? Details!

[Even though her own talks with Estinien, only bare pieces of the puzzle gleaned through communion scraps and brushes of image fragments from their firebrands, could be combined in her mind to fill in some of the gaps, she chastises him nonetheless. ... and hypocritically lies, when asked what it was she had done to achieve... whatever this was, just cracking the crystal from his skin.]

All I did was touch him!

[As if now, he was the one accusing her of something.]

[locumstudentesquire]

[A frown.]

Really? That's all?

[ It's as if he doesn't even hear her demand for details, either too lost in thought, or... Maybe he's stubbornly withholding until she asks more politely? Probably a bit of both.

He doesn't look convinced in the least by her explanation though, staring back at her with a hardened expression the way he does when he's glaring down a lying witness at the stand. He has no way of proving she did anything other than as she says, but...]

...If that's really all you did, it doesn't seem to be doing the trick any longer. [He rubs his forehead, grimacing with the strain of thought after days of high stress and running himself ragged with rescues in Venera.] As I said, we were together, at the Lodestone under the sea, recovering from a fight. But while we were there he got the news that... That Miss Himeka and Father Abel...

[He glances away, fighting to keep from being overcome with grief, and guilt. He has no idea if she even knows who he's referring to, when he says those names... Actually, he rather doubts she does, if her aversion to exchanging names is indeed universal to the other Pleroma. But he's going to use their names anyway, and she'll just have to deal with it as far as he's concerned. They're supposed to be working together to survive; if she wants to know what's going on, she should learn who they all are.]

...They've been captured. By the Regent's forces. Estinien was furious, understandably so, but... He flew off... That was a day ago, and this is the first I've seen him since.

[warmare]

[He asks if that's all... and it might directly result in Estinien having sore ribs if he ever regains consciousness, because Hayame, who is always ready to hear the worst interpretation of any words thrown her way, interprets some sort of insinuation there that makes her hackles rise and her cheeks burn with what she wished was only anger, and it makes her grip tighten and her clipped-short fingernails dig in for purchase.]

What else would I do? I'm not one of those sorcerers!

[Maybe if she were... Estinien would be awake. Maybe she wouldn't be failing again. Maybe if he hadn't interrupted...

Once he finally provides details instead of vague references, things begin to slot into place. Last they'd spoken, he had told her that the whoremonger and the healer woman (Abel, yes, and Himeka) were missing. He had been worried. But he had told her he would meet her in Grentruth... and then he hadn't been. The timeline comes into focus, but it doesn't... explain the state he is in now.

Her eyes narrow into a glare at the fluffy white wings on Naruhodo's back, on Estinien's body everywhere. (What was that thing, behind them? She didn't notice it before, barely notices it now-)]

This is that Innocence thing's shrine, isn't it? I'll just take him away from here- far away from it's influence...

[... Except. Being in Godsblood or Venera far from this shrine hadn't stopped the thing from possessing Estinien in the first place, and by the time the words have left her mouth... She already doubts it will do anything, no matter how sure her voice sounded.]

[locumstudentesquire]

[Ryunosuke shuffles his wings uncomfortably, ticking his ears back at her glare. It's not hard to guess what her issue is with them, and he can't say he disagrees. His other changes-- the ones he gained while fighting Kaeya, that is-- have felt more correct, in a way. It's dysphoric for him to actually look at them, but as long as he doesn't do that, or think about them very hard, he can already almost forget that they're there. He doesn't quite understand why that is, but it's a distinct phenomenon he's observed in the short time since he'd gained them.

The wings, on the other hand... Feel alien. A phantom weight, like an unfriendly spirit had reached out and tacked them on when he wasn't looking, and now he can't shake them off. In actuality, he supposes it wasn't anything so deliberate on the part of the entity that caused them; three times now he's had it speaking in his head, and he's noting it doesn't seem fully aware of the effect it has on the Aions it reaches out to... All the same, they feel like delicate, fluffy badges of shame, pinned to his form as punishment for not keeping his 'promise'.

You could say he's well aware of what they evoke. She has every right to be suspicious... But he'd rather not be glared at for them, all the same.

As for her idea, he immediately echoes what she's already thinking:]

I'm... I'm not so sure it will make a difference! That thing's influence seems to have no geographical bounds... Maybe it's more powerful here, since it is the shrine of the Legacy it's associated with, but it had no trouble reaching him before...!

[They should just need to wake him, right? No longer crystalized, he appears to just be sleeping... But if their arguing and the horse woman's death grip haven't woken Estinien up, what will...?

Ryunosuke gets back to his feet, his gaze casting desperately about the cavern.]

Maybe... Maybe there's a clue elsewhere in here...

1/2

[warmare]

[Even though she herself had known the moment she said it that the idea wasn't sound... Hayame still bristles when Naruhodo expresses those same doubts out loud. She bites back actually saying anything aloud, but it's obvious on her face and in the way her tail whips angrily across the crystalline floor behind her.

But when he gets back to his feet... her jaw tightens.]

- You go search, then.

[It's not a bad idea, even if she didn't see anything outstanding herself, just crystal and crystal and... something-like-crystal. But, the only thing she can try, then... She points to a far off corner of the cavern, just a bit too aggressively to not be suspect.]

And do not turn your eyes back here, or I will rid you of them and you will never again know how ridiculous you look.

[It would surely be a mercy, even, to be blind and not need to see what sort of monstrous and ridiculous appearance his body seemed to be taking on... She glowers on even through his confused reaction, his eventual acquiescence... but she doesn't actually move until he's on the other side of the cavern and she's positive that if she spoke quietly she wouldn't be overheard, equally positive that he wasn't looking.]

Since it's a 1/2 I'm just gonna tack this on as an aside

[locumstudentesquire]

[Well... The place that would actually be helpful to investigate would be the area immediately around where Estinien lay, but. Alright.

With that demand, it couldn't be more plain that she's up to something, just as he'd suspected. It does make Ryunosuke worry a bit, and he'd consider pushing back on it. But...

He sees the way she's holding on to him, and he senses the fear bubbling underneath the anger that she's fronting. She's just as concerned about Estinien as Ryu is himself. Whatever she has in mind... If she'd already managed to get Estinien un-petrified, she was clearly doing something right. So...

Yeah. He'll go elsewhere in the cavern, even if he's fairly certain that he won't find anything at all by going further away. If his absence is what she needs in order to operate, so be it. He's entrusting things to you, Hayame.

While he's off on his own, he'll take the glove off his marked hand and try to do what he originally came out here for.]

[warmare]

[Even then... She hesitates. Finally, finally, she releases her defensively tight grip on the sleeping man in her arms and tries to arrange him more... more appropriately. Her chest feels hot, where he had slumped against her. Strangely sweaty. Heavy. Awkward, unsure if such a thing could be said to be an- No, it did not matter.

What mattered was... Seeing if she could wake him, even if she risked being seen in the process. The longer they stayed here... Something just didn't feel right.

With one last insecure look towards Naruhodo, making sure he wasn't watching... she looks down at Estinien's body. He was breathing... he looked peaceful... but at the same time, that almost didn't feel right, either. Not when there were still so many enemies, so many battles to fight. If, once they had killed the Regent, he were to look like this... She would let him rest. It would seem earned, and right, but like this-

Her hand moves, hovers vaguely near his temple, almost brushes pale hair off his face... but it feels too intimate. Something she shouldn't or wasn't allowed to do. And yet... allowed or not, she must attempt something even more personal, even more potentially violating. Careful, mindful, (a little scared, a little embarrassed), she uses just the tips of her fingers to tug his clothing down until she can see his shard. There it was, almost sparkling in the light reflected off the crystals all around them.

Unsure, she finally works up the courage... and splays her hand over his chest, the polished surface of the shard smooth along the curve of her palm. As she does, she attempts to call him with his name once more, hoping he might answer.

Would just touching it work, or... would she have to use hers?]

[coerthantorment]

[Somehow, all of the arguing and Hayame's defensive gripping strength made little impact against his slumber. Strangely, he felt more peaceful now than he had when he was trapped within a deeper mental prison. With Hayame's presence having reached him, he doesn't feel like he's struggling alone anymore.

If there was someone still there... maybe he could be saved after all.

He doesn't flinch as he's repositioned, his strangely sparkling hair pooling over his shoulders. He seems completely at rest, until her hand once again makes contact with his shard. The sense of kinship between Firebrands flares to life once again.

And again, he hears her calling.

Had she really not left him? Could that sense of warmth, physical or metaphysical, really be her? He finds himself reaching, trying to wake, fighting against his own unmoving form. She may see it, in the way his breath changes rhythms and the way his eyes move beneath their lids. His fingers lift on one hand, searching.

He murmurs her name.]

Hayame...

[warmare]

[Despite the fact that Hayame had somehow succeeded in cracking the crystal that had encased his body moments ago... There is a part of her that thinks she can not possibly be capable of making him open his eyes. After all... though she had succeeded at almost every mission set before her by the stablemaster, brought back every escaped jinba (but the last) that she had been tasked to hunt down, impressed countless potential buyers at Exhibition Day...

There had always seemed to be something that guaranteed her defeat.

Becoming a warlord's horse, cleansing the dishonor of her capture, accepting the possibility of a life lived freely amongst her fellow jinba, offering up her life in a leap into Matsukaze's arms, finding honor in the heads she took to prove her worth, saving the Kenoma who had put himself and his defection into her care... If she wanted it for herself... If she took the risk to care... Hayame has always failed.

But Estinien is right here, right in front of her, trapped in some sort of magical slumber and more than anything... Hayame wants not to fail again. Bow-calloused fingers that have been used for almost nothing but training, hunting, capturing, and killing splay over the bare skin of his chest and the chunk of shard embedded in it. He is so warm- or perhaps that is her, overheated with the stress of her indecision, feeling as if she is hyper-aware of every bead of sweat that forms on her brow or traces down her throat to trickle between her tightly bound breasts. Were they bound too tightly? She feels as if she cannot get enough air into any of her four lungs-

He stirs in ways both physical and not. Through the bonds of Firebrand and the direct touch against his shard, she feels what she thinks is him responding to her call, even though that, like everything about this, should be some insane and unrealistic fantasy. It's like a distant echo through water, though, as if he was still trapped somewhere and needed help to find his way back...

When she sees his lips begin to move and leans forward anxiously to receive his request... it is her name. When she sees his body move, it is his hand, twitching as if reaching out. Can she be so foolish and maidenly as to think that it means he needs her, or is it just that he needs anyone, someone... and she just happens to be here? Apparently she can be foolish and maidenly, to even consider such a thing as if it mattered... Estinien is one of the strongest in the Pleroma, the efforts of her revenge against the Regent fairly required him, he was a stalwart ally in battle if he'd stop flying away alone-

And he had been... kind to her, in a way that she had been able to accept. He had been the first to put a weapon in her hand and give her the power over her own life (or so it had felt, before she knew that aions would not die properly). He had reached out to her in communion when no one else had dared. When she had been contemplating slitting open her own belly on the way back from Venera... he hadn't pressed her with positivity or platitudes or offered her some sort of impossible seeming appeal for hope or faith, he had simply agreed with her. Living was hard. Choosing to survive and not just end it all was hard. So surely, she can... She can repay him. Just a debt, just a need to be even, nothing at all to do with feelings or gratitude or a desperate need not to lose one of the pitifully few people she has even slightly allowed to know her.

It takes Hayame longer than such a thing should take any woman. Any man, either, or any warrior. Her hearts are pounding in her chest, shame colors her skin with a slight flush, her tail is stiff and upright, twitching. But finally, her course of action is decided, and slowly, as if such gentle things were completely foreign to her (because they are)...

She moves her touch from his shard to his hand. Awkwardly, she curls her fingers around his, just tight enough to hold and lift. If her touching his shard roused him... but he needed to know what direction to "swim" away from the clutch of the Innocence that sought to trap him in peace and slumber... Now that he was searching, she must need to show him where to go.

Swallowing her pride, her fears, the customs of her upbringing, and the way she had learned to hate her own body... Hayame uses her other hand to tug her robe open slightly, to loosen the bindings beneath. Once it is done... she can inhale, shaky and too loud, she can fold Estinien's large, strong hand in hers... and then press it between her breasts, so that his bare knuckles might brush up against the arrowhead-shaped chunk of obsidian shard embedded in her skin.]

[coerthantorment]

[It only gets louder. Though his hand barely moves, he feels like he's already reaching as far as he can. His mind swims, trying to grasp what exactly has happened to him. He remembers the fields of flourishing grass, and the rainbow sheen of the shrine itself. He remembers the voice in his head and the feathers closing around him, binding him more inescapably than any chain.

Remembering stirs the fear in his heart. He'd made a mistake. He wants to go back. If he remained here, would Himeka and Abel be left to rot? He'd left Ryunosuke, abandoned Meteion, and broken his word to Hayame. He'd said he would be back, and now...

His fingers graze her shard, and the bond becomes unmistakable. He hadn't returned, and so it seems she's come to him.

His eyes flutter open, his slit pupils widening in the dimness of the cavern, awash in silvery irises. Slowly, they focus on his surroundings, a sharp inhale signaling his true awakening. He can see her above him, her long dark streaming down behind her like a river. He's so happy, so relieved, that he doesn't even think about how she might react to so intimate a gesture.]

It truly is you...

[It would have been a completely unreasonable thing to expect. Even if he felt she owed it to him, how could she have known? It feels miraculous.

He can still feel her, through their linked shards, like a torch in the night - and yet, her expression seems so pained.]

[warmare]

[Hayame has never in her life held another person's hand.

She had tumbled to the hay from the body of a mother whose arms had been flensed from her shoulders to make of her a broken broodmare, and it had been humans that raised her in full knowledge that she was a well-bred investment, a tool that would only find a semblance of respect and personhood in a world dominated by their species if she were obedient, strong, and easy to use. And to do that... to succeed the most she was capable of in a system such as that...

Weaknesses such as a need for comfort, sympathy with others, or a desire to feel another's heat were unnecessary. It wasn't as if her culture was particularly free with touch in general, human or jinba, especially where anyone else could see, but... beyond a few mistakes in fillyhood, the one time her brother had placed his hand gently over hers when he swore to assist her in making sure she proved herself and was sold as a warhorse instead of a mare... the one time Matsukaze had grabbed her wrist to haul her back up from death at the base of an icy waterfall as if she needed saving and hadn't just tried to kill him...

Is this what it was supposed to feel like?

Estinien's hand is warm. It is calloused, much like hers is, from gripping weapons tight with determination and rage from youth. Her palm feels unjustifiably sweaty, for reasons she cannot explain. Her fingers wants to tighten their grip and not let go only just a bit more than she wants to run away from the scandal of their bare skin touching in such an intimate way. But mostly... she understands shamefully in that moment that she wants to know if it would be different if he squeezed back. Wants him to be alive enough, awake enough, to be able to.

- Something happens, when she presses his knuckles up against her shard in the soft valley between the breasts she usually bound down as tightly as she could to minimize her femininity beyond what was necessary for an archer attempting to keep draw arm unhampered. The firebrand flares to life, like recognized like, and the torch she hoped to be to guide him out of the darkness he'd found himself glows bright and desperate...

And his eyes open. She honestly thinks it might be some sort of hallucination, at first. It couldn't be actually happening, because if it was... it might meant that she was succeeding. That this bizarre, magical, instinct-driven something technique of hers had actually worked... and it renders Hayame frozen as he blinks and tries to reorient himself in the land of the un-crystallized, as if words or movement from her, even an attempt to hide the emotional (anxious, hurt, angry, sad, lonely) look on her face or hide the fact that she is clutching his hand might ruin it.

But then he speaks, and she has to believe it. It truly is you, he says, and Hayame struggles to force the words half-swallowed and trapped in her throat back out again, part of her river of inky hair sliding over a shoulder as she leans in just an inch under the excuse of being able to hear his voice in the crystal cavern where the peaceful silence is almost oppressively loud. Was it really her?]

... Who else would it be?

[She thinks she means it physically, to say that of course it is her because no one else among the aions could be mistaken for her- not with her centaurine form, her distinctive coloring... let alone that now he lays in the bony cradle of her forelegs. It truly is Hayame, no matter how disappointing that should be... and yet all she feels through the bond is happiness and relief. (Happiness-)]

... And you? What of Estinien?

[He had spoken of the Innocence entity as something capable of stealing away his sense of self, of robbing him of memories and bonds, and so now, only able to assume that the same entity is to blame now... did he remember all he needed to? Was he yet himself, the same man that had put that hunting knife in her hands what seemed like so long ago despite it being but the pass of a single season?

She needs to know the answer from his own tongue, before she can let herself even begin to feel that same sense of relief and maybe... maybe...]

[coerthantorment]

[Happiness really is fleeting with such things, but his relief endures, even as the reality of what brought him here starts to sink in. Her question strikes more deeply than he might have imagined - had the entity done something to him, as he slumbered? Had even more been taken from him? Had it succeeded in removing the memories it had tried and failed to take from him before?

He recalls what brought him to the shrine. His stomach turns with it, in fact. He'd felt on the verge of madness with the sorrow of having lost Himeka and Abel to the Kenoma, still reeling from the entity's assault on his mind. He'd left the safety of the lodestone in a frenzy, desperate to find something, anything, that he could do to make it feel like he wasn't utterly helpless to save them.

He'd hoped to capture a Kenoma, to do whatever it took to draw from them the information he needed, and he'd failed. Instead, he captured Meteion, free of the darkness that had once burdened her. Still scrambling for purpose, he'd come upon the idea that led him here: he would bring Meteion's shard to her kin, and in doing so, implore the entity for its help in repairing the damage it had caused.

...The answer he received was predictable, in retrospect. Yet, he still remembers his pain. He remembers what he lost, and it makes him believe the entity's hold on him is not yet complete.]

...He is here, aye. Fool that he is...

[The euphoria of being free is fading, his expression falling to something more somber. Yet, there is a certain shine in his pale eyes, at seeing her so close. His brow furrows ruefully, his fingers tightening around hers.]

I... had thought to challenge it... the entity... to demand its contrition...

[He finally begins to shift. His body feels lethargic, like the aura of the shrine still wishes to hold him in place. Yet, somehow, the spell binding him has been broken.]

Yet 'tis I that must needs ask for forgiveness... had you not arrived... I would still be its prisoner. Thank you, Hayame.

[From the expression on her face alone, he can tell this wasn't easy for her.]

[warmare]

[Estinien’s may fade when he takes stock of himself and what had brought him here, but to replace it… when he confirms for her in his own words that he is all there, at least all enough there to call himself the man she had come to know, finally… Hayame let’s herself feel joy, swelling to fill the gap he leaves behind. It may not be a simple, cheery sort of happiness that washes over her shard beneath his knuckles, but it is still something good, whether hard-won and barely believed or not.

She might fail to save that village of orphans if she can’t return home… maybe she already had failed them, failed every jinba that ever existed if her world were gone and she was the only one that remained. She had surely failed Matsukaze, whether she could make it back fulfill her promise to die in his arms or not, unable to believe in the future he had offered her among his herd strong enough to betray everything she’d ever known. She might have failed to capture a single Kenoma in Venera and only managed to leave Achamite heads in her wake, she might have failed to let take the holy man into custody, had to watch him be snapped up as a traitor before her eyes, but this time-

This time she’d saved someone. This time, finally, she feels a well of something like pride and relief swell in her breast, filling both her hearts momentarily to the brim.

Momentarily.

And he squeezes her fingers in his, which makes her hyper focus on the desperate thrumming of her pulse, strong because of how close to her auxiliary heart their hands were, clutched between her half unbound breasts. Suddenly, she realizes how shameless she is being, had been capable of being when his eyes were closed, but now-

Her hold had been so tight with nerves that she struggles to unlock the joints and release him, even as a flush of color creeps up her skin. Even as she says-]

You are a fool, Estinien. A rash, reckless fool who does not keep his word.

[It might be a bit difficult to get up from where she had awkwardly arranged his limp body on her “lap”, and she would normally move to assist him… but not yet. Instead, she forces herself to keep looking him from this scandalous distance, even as the flush of a woman who has never held a hand creeps up her neck. First, before she can accept his apology-]

Did I not tell you that you had my bow? If you had asked—- if you had asked, I would have let those magic healers touch me.

[… Sooner. She would have done it sooner, she must mean, because in order to find him, thinking she may have been left behind because she’d been weak enough to admit to being injured… she had swallowed her pride and bowed her head low to human men she chafed to subserviate to, let hands by laid on her to knit back flesh and bone.

But once she says it, it sounds too selfish, too womanly to speak only of herself, so presumptuous to think it was her he should have called, and so she quickly tries to add-]

I am sure— I am sure that there are plenty of others who would have answered your call, instead, and yet-

[He came here alone, to a place that the ptarmigan lizard claimed the aion Tehri had already warned him not to tread, he hadn’t told a soul that she could identify. Maybe she cannot even feel glad to have saved him, when the pta- when Naruhodo might have even been good enough, and so Estinien-]

Were you not fool enough to offer me your service? If so-

[She had not truly believed him, then, when he’d said that. Even if it was just niceties, maybe nothing near as heavy or binding as such words would be in her own world…]

You will claim to me now that you will not do such a witless thing again until that winged monstrosity is out of you.

[She isn’t fool enough to demand he swear it, and make an oath breaker of him. Anyone will do. It didn’t have to be her…

But she is fool enough that her fingers clutch tighter at his hand without realizing it.]