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
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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?
no subject
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?
no subject
...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--!
no subject
- 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.]
no subject
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?
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
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
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
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.]
no subject
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?]
no subject
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...
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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...]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
He was used to operating alone, and much of the time, it just doesn't occur to him to ask for help. Not when he feels like he should be able to handle something on his own. Yet, he can see the cost of those proclivities here. Hadn't Himeka herself told this to him, again and again? That every time he found himself lost in his own head, fearing for what he could or couldn't do, that he needn't face it alone?
He sees now that he hadn't taken Hayame's offer as seriously as he should. He'd appreciated it, been heartened by it, but all the same he'd found himself deciding that he didn't want to bother her without cause. That she'd been offended, maybe even hurt by his choice to leave her out of what followed... his gut twists as she squeezes his hand more tightly, his eyes widening with gentle surprise. Maybe he had been reluctant to assume that he could possibly mean all that much to her.
...He's never claimed to be intelligent, with issues of the heart. And so, his brow creases with good-natured self-deprecation as she calls upon the offer he'd made to her all those moons ago.]
Aye. I was. And so you shall have it.
[He has to pause, not wanting to speak an untruth. He doesn't know what the future will hold for him, with all that has happened. But...]
...I will not be so witless as this again. Not while having such trustworthy comrades.
[Not while knowing it meant so much.]
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And Estinien gives his word on the bare minimum she demands. His eyes look at her... strangely. His lips move upwards in the corners. His hand is warm in hers. And she... something twitches on her face. The death grip on her hearts relaxes slightly, the overwhelming pressure of her failures lightens a single life's worth, and after her defeats and disappointments in Venera...
Something strange happens.
For the first time in months, since even before she had woken up in the crystal-filled Firebrand Shrine in this land she hated and never asked to come to... Hayame feels her lips curl just ever so slightly into something that other people might just call a smile, a confusing, knotted mix of emotions in her chest pulled tight and then loosened just enough to allow an expression like that to show up on her face. A bit awkward and unpracticed... but sincere, and precious in its rarity.]
Good.
[Simple. That was good. And with his word secured, his limbs no longer bound by crystal, his heart and head no longer asleep...]
Then let us away from here, quickly. Here--
[She finally moves her heavier body, pulling in her forelegs from where she had cradled him in her bony "lap", hauling herself back to her hooves and using her tight hold on his hand to help him up after her, in consideration for the fact that he could possibly be weakened after his ordeal... and the hope that perhaps it will excuse her shamelessness and presumption, as if she had certainly only touched him to begin with to help him- not her.]
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Ryunosuke had wandered off deeper into the cavern when she'd insisted he not look at... Wwwwhatever she was doing, and since then he's been having his own unsuccessful parlay with the Entity. Still rattled by the echoes of its screams-- screams that, in the end, had resolved into the voice of a woman, eerily enough-- it takes a second for it to click mentally, that there are now two voices coming from the direction of the spot where he'd left Hayame with the stricken Estinien. He gives a little jolt once he realizes, hurrying back in that direction... Trying very, very hard to put his discomfort and concern over the abrupt absence of the entity's presence here in the shrine out of his mind.
A thrill of relief goes through him when he emerges to find Hayame helping a now very much awake Estinien up off the ground.]
Ser Estinien--!
[A mixture of relief and concern written on his face, he hurries over to the two of them.]
Thank goodness...! [He glances briefly at Hayame.] I, I wasn't sure what to expect, Madam, but...
[But. Thank you?
...Mid-thought, his relief quickly starts to give way to exasperation, as he realizes the threat is now passed. His attention snaps back to the dragoon.]
...Gods, do you know I've been worried sick about you? You took off and, and this is where you decided to go? [His tail begins to lash back and forth across the ground, betraying further agitation.] Did you not remember that you were specifically warned against coming here??
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As Hayame pulls him to his feet though, his three sets of wings adjusting and folding as he tries to keep his balance, he feels a shift of energy in the cavern. It's the presence of the entity, he's sure of it, and as he holds his head with his free hand he is about to eagerly agree to her recommendation to leave.
...But then it turns out that Ryunosuke is there, too.]
...
[Estinien looks confused - perhaps a bit overwhelmed - to be caught between Hayame and Ryunosuke here, both scolding him for his reckless behaviour. He feels foolish trying to explain himself again when Hayame has already called him out on it, and his ill ease with the vibe of the shrine doesn't help him articulate himself.]
I... had only thought to entreat with the entity... as well as...
[Suddenly it occurs to him that he's forgotten something.]
Meteion! Her shard... 'twas here...!
[He starts searching in a panic, though he doesn't have to go far. There's a familiar chrysalis growing several feet away. The kind that would be about the right size to host the Aion in question. If one looked close, they may even see her shard inside.]
...Praise Halone... 'tis yet unharmed...
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But it disappears completely the moment Ryunosuke appears, to be replaced by a flash of learned shame and cultural humiliation, her locked joints finally pried open to release Estinien's hand as quickly as she can before she can be seen from up close to be holding it. Before anyone else can see her caring, or being so lewd as to touch a man's bare skin in such a fashion where others could see.
And when the other man glances at her in thanks... He's greeted with a dark, resentful glare over the dragoon's shoulder. A glare that says did I not say what would happen if you turned your eyes back here?
But the punishment will have to wait. Estinien is off, and though she almost reaches to try and keep him still, not sure if he is strong enough yet- he proves himself to be, and so she relents. Instead, she follows the short distance to gaze at the inside she can barely make out. A shard... Why did that name sound familiar... "Meteion"... ? Ah- The birdling creature.]
That is a Kenoma's shard? You managed to capture one?
[Good. He has succeeded where she failed. In Venera, she had nearly taken two... and yet they had been ripped from her hands, one by other Kenoma intent on reclaiming their traitor and one by her own betrayed trust. If Estinien at least had claimed one... They would have better knowledge of Achamoth, of other inner workings, potentially...
But the idea of staying here longer, with him affected by the entity and their continued presence feeling this risky, like it was just daring the thing to crystallize him again...]
How long does it take to reform?
[They can't move a... a crystal cocoon. She's strong, but not- not strong enough to move it unless she let herself be trussed up like a plowhorse, and that-]
Estinien, it feels as if you taunt fate each breath here...
[Only then does her gaze move back to Ryunosuke, appraising. Normally, she'd never suggest it. He looked too weak to defend anything, let alone something so precious, but it wasn't as if they were under assault... if it would just be waiting-]
If it need be watched over, Naruhodo can handle it.
[Can't he?]
Perhaps we may withdraw to the borders of the Innocent's domain, and wait there for its revival before we regroup within the wood.
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