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Open Log ➵

WHO: Hayame and YOU(?!)
WHAT: centaur cryptid action, the angriest breeding season ever, archery, a local lurker probably yelling at kids to get off her misty lawn and stop trying to care about her
WHERE: Lohkimareen [Greentruth heights, misty depths, and forest's edge]
WHEN: Beginning of Visoseri (June)
WARNINGS: potential suicidal ideation, mentions of csa, violence, estrus

01 ➵ IN MISTS [FORESTS BELOW GREENTRUTH]➵ 霧の靡に

[The Aions have been provided lodging among the tall, fortified trees of Greentruth... But one potential member of the Pleroma group has not made use of them a single night. In fact, for the more observant types... the centaur who had been among their number that first night through the portal from Godsblood, who had hung around the edges of the welcome banquet silent, brooding, and angrily eavesdropping... has barely been seen since.

There are whispers, though, the occasional bit of gossip amongst the natives. A man who often works one of the freight elevators that transports supplies up from caravans on the forest floor who complains about an occasional extra load who doesn't even tip. Merchants who talk about being watched by a strange monster or spirit in the mist, shaped like some unnatural combination of mount and man. An armorer who laments that as much as they ought to aid the Aions in their mist, there is just this one who keeps taking shortbows- what is she doing to them?

And if someone were to actually seek out that woman... The search will take them to the dangerous mists below the safety of the Greentruth trees, where shadows play across the mist and large beasts roam. But amongst the tracks left behind by reptiles are faint imprints of hoof, there is a hollow tree that seems to have been made into some sort of crude shelter, game hanging to dry high off the ground and half-prepared pelts stretched out over makeshift racks, and when you turn around-

There might be an arrowhead embedded in a tree near your face, the arrow shaft quivering with the force that has punctured the bark.]

02 ➵ FLETCHER [GREENTRUTH, NEAR GODSBLOOD PORTAL]➵ 矢作り

[There is a downside to the intense aversion Hayame feels to using her shard for so-called "communion". Mainly... she has refused the easy way to know where people are across the planet. To her it is normal, coming as she did from a world in the year 1590 where the most advanced technology consisted of woodblock printing, looms, and matchlock rifles, but...

It means she does a lot of waiting in exchange for trying to keep people out of her head, where she has so much less control than she would like people to think. Risk emotion bleed with inexperience into a conversation that, if held in person, she'd at least be able to control? She does not fancy it.

And in waiting for the man she has commissioned a bow from to appear from Godsblood... she stands (glowers) near the portal from the coastal town, hands crossed beneath her tightly bound breasts. After a few hours... she begins to resent herself for the wasted time, and right there, her large body taking up a decent amount of space near the portal...

She just commandeers a table and starts to work, pulling a feathered kill from its place hanging at her harness and beginning to pluck feathers off it right there, squinting at each one and beginning to cut them into arrow fletching. Sorry, did you need to get past her? Wondering why she's still standing there?

She isn't volunteering. She's working.]

03 ➵ NATURAL DESIRE [RIVER NEAR GREENTRUTH]➵ 発情期

[Hayame has always resented the fact that she was born a woman.

From the moment she had been old enough to watch the empty shell of an Armless woman that was her dam be led to the mounting post each year and understand why, she had known what women were best suited for in a breeding stable. Even as she trained herself in bow and polearm and blade, threw her entire effort into making herself a warrior who would be bought by a warlord to bring him victories in battle, the possibility of being sold as a broodmare or "companion" mount had always been a possibility. Always.

And nothing was a better reminder of the femininity she strove to cover with bindings, strength, and harshness than a jinba mare's heats. The urges frustrate her as they always do, turn normal scents in the air to tempting aromas, make her body into a traitor willing to lift her tail with interest at the sight of potential mates, and force her to burn with desire that anyone with a proper nose or eye would notice.

Which is what has led Hayame to the cold mountain river she is now immersed in up to her lower shoulders, letting the water wash away proof of her want and cool her body. Thinking herself alone... she allows herself the luxury of a moment of weakness, letting down her fetlock-length ebony hair and trying to work her fingers through the tangled strands that have grown difficult to handle without her master's women to provide oils and comb.

The sounds of the water, unfortunately, mean that she is somewhat unprepared for visitors. Her bow and knife, however... are still within reach.]

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[ ...and just like that, Hayame's emergence has all signs of the usual idiotic facade dissolving with suddenness.

Abel's countenance conveys nothing but a stark concern and disbelief; her condition is... deplorable, and for her to have sunken to this state means she has been neglecting herself since her arrival. this isn't the damage of a few days worth of ill care and it speaks to a deep-rooted problem, one that must have wormed its way through her upon waking in the Shrine. ]

Are you-- alright? Ah, you're...

[ ...he trails off, the furrow at his brow deepening as he gently, slowly, holds his hands up in a placating gesture. ]

[Abel is not incorrect. The condition of the jinba mare in front of him is not something that occurred in mere days. Though the roots were planted the moment she was "born" into a world her mind struggled to even accept as real, it began in earnest on her long trek back over land and water and mountain from the city of Venera, something that had cost her nearly two weeks' time in her attempt to avoid the horrors of teleportation. Once the shortbow too weak for her draw strength had broken midway, she had been left unable to hunt, surviving only barely through stubbornness and foraging, but even after she finally made it back to Greentruth...

She hasn't found anything yet worth living for.

And after speaking to the so-called leader of the resistance, the Aion who said that she had been here for years and years, that there was no way back to their worlds that she knew of...

What was the point? To eating. To combing her mane. To oiling her hooves. To trying to eat enough to get the weight back on her bones. To taking care of herself. To all of it.]

I said "what are you doing here"?

[Her voice doesn't crack, though, when she repeats her demand, hating the concern she sees in the whoremonger's eyes. Hating the fact that she was such a coward that she was still alive to see it.]

I'm-- I'm heading back to the settlement, but...

[ why he's here isn't important. has she been making due outside of the comforts of Greentruth or Godsblood all this time--? Abel doesn't move, doesn't test his fortune (or lack thereof) by attempting to approach her; he remains still for now. but it's impossible to miss the light of that worry alight in blue eyes. ]

...I feel that's a question much better asked of you.

[ he bobs his head cautiously toward her make-shift living arrangements.

Hayame... this, she can't truly be planning to live this way, can she...? ]

[Heading back to the settlement, he says, and Hayame cannot help but be suspicious. She had chosen an out-of-the-way location on purpose, somewhere hard to locate and easily defensible, so unless he claimed to have gotten hopelessly lost and simply arrived here by luck...

But perhaps for a man like this... It isn't entirely unbelievable.

It is hard to for her to see worry in the eyes of another. She is so unused to receiving it that it is difficult to even identify, to parse from more negative emotions like disdain or lack of faith, and even once she did- to trust it? There is a long moment where she just continues to glare at him, her grip tight on the cracked haft of her bow, before finally-]

And what would you have me do?

[She doesn't know his name. He doesn't know hers. She had left him whimpering and crying on the floor last they met, so why if he wasn't simply trying to rub things in-]

Live in that city by the sea where I will be gawked at like a freak each day?

[He and almost all of the other Pleroma blended just fine from what she could see, but her?]

Live in the trees like a monkey, where I must calculate whether the bridges and crossings will bear my weight?

[She's waiting for his answer.]

...This isn't your home. This... it isn't your world, and to make matters even more difficult - you are the only one like you in it. I understand that you feel terribly out of place and that it hasn't been easy.

[ contrary to their last meeting, his tone is steady and there is a sharpness behind the sit of the glasses on his face. he is watching her with an astuteness, an acuity, that cannot be faked.

there is a time for all things. here and now, as she is in this moment - there is no room for the usual circus act. that is no use to her, is it? no, what Hayame needs is something else entirely. ]

But this isn't forever. I promise you, until we find our way out of this - we can help you. As much as the situation at Godsblood or even Greentruth might not be ideal... can you truly tell me this is any better?

I know this isn’t my home.

[She cannot help but snap it back at him like he is a fool, like she resents that he even felt the need to say it. Of course it wasn’t. Of course she feels even more… even more alienated and alone than perhaps most of the number brought to this place, because at least they had others who looked like them. Of course she hates herself for even beginning to almost acknowledge that it hasn’t been easy for her.

To bare is to be weak. To be weak is to die. But despite her best efforts not one of the Kenoma she had engaged in Venera had been able to kill her, and she yet lived… she even had the audacity to hope enough to-

Promises. He promises.]

Have you spoken to her. The woman that is the so-called leader of this place?

[It might not have seemed possible, but her eyes are even colder and her tone is even sharper as she asks that question, staring back at him defiantly as if to reject the attempt to understand her.]

Have you?

...Miss Tehri?

[ Hayame's anger is understandable; it also speaks to what lies beneath it: pain. it is something that binds her to so many other Aions in Horos even if she might not be willing to acknowledge such commonality as she is now. it's alright; she doesn't have to. he sees it, even if he knows better than to draw attention to this fact aloud it isn't important to voice it.

she burns with righteous anger, hatred, because she is in agonizing pain. ]

I have.

[ he does not prod or probe for more, waits for her to guide him where she wishes to go on this point. ]

And did you ask her?

[Despite her best efforts, her determination to remain strong, Hayame’s voice cracks just as noticeably as the bow in her hand had. After daring to hope that she might hear something, anything that might make her allegiances more sure-]

Did you ask her how long she had been in this accursed place? How many years there has been to find a way back to our worlds?

[How many years that no one… no one at all had found.]

[ the crease at his brow deepens further still at that, and God help him... the sight of her like this makes his chest physically tight, ache with a visceral sort of pain.

...his hands slowly fall where he had been holding them aloft in some offer of peaceable offering. ]

Do you have something you need to return to...?

[ unfinished business? ...someone waiting for her?

suppose he is answering a question with a question; maybe that is an answer itself. Abel knows just as Hayame does that Tehri's response to that inquiry... was disheartening at best.

close to a century. close to a hundred years, here.

it is a hard pill to swallow. ]

...It's a punch in the gut, I know. But her experience-- it doesn't have to be our own. Things are already different, this time.

[Hope does not come naturally to Hayame. She had learned as soon as she was old enough to hold a training bow and watch the broodmare that had borne her be led off to the mounting post each season that the only way for her in the world was to either succeed and become a warrior who might at least be considered near-a-person or fail and become a horse used for breeding or riding, perhaps even lose her arms in the process.

And hope had no place there. There was no time to dream of freedom or imagine a life where she might be her own person when every moment was spent furthering the best outcome that seemed realistic, to become so strong and so loyal that she would be sold at auction to a great warlord who might make of her a soldier. Even when she had been offered freedom, when it had been right in front of her face... the idea of hoping it could actually happen, after all those years and all she'd known-

The whoremonger asks her if she has something she needs to return to, and Hayame burns with an all-to-familiar mix of anger and shame, so deep and so ingrained that she does not know how to feel it.

She cannot answer him. She cannot tell this man who to her has been nothing but a pathetic heap on a floor that she has to go home to sacrifice her life, to cleanse her dishonor, to do-

To do the one thing that might ever be considered "good" in her entire life. To leap into the arms of the man she wishes she'd been hopeful enough to love and ignite the gunpowder hidden in his clothing.]

What?

[She hates it. That this man before her now still tries to offer her hope when it had only ever betrayed her. She had just started to hope that freedom might be possible, and then her master and all his men had arrived with a hunting party in tow, all through fault of her own. She had dared to hope that an audience with Tehri might provide her with some reason to commit to this cause and stop feeling so lost, and her answer had been a century. A century of no way home.]

What is so different this time, that you can stand there and promise me such a thing? Who are you to promise me that?

[ she does not answer.

there is something binding her to the wish to return home - something that goes beyond the simplicity of yearning for the comfort of familiar things. is it a person she yearns for...? family? a duty? an obligation? a mission she feels the intense need to see through?

he doesn't know, but as long as there is something - it's enough.

he takes a slow, cautious step toward her. there is no fear in his eyes, no trepidation; instead, a firmness, a resolve remains in their place-- obscured and overshadowed only by the intensity of his stark concern for her. ]

What is the alternative? Are you willing to accept that this is it? That you and I are simply trapped here for the rest of our days to live and die away from everything we love, from those who love us, who wait for us to come home?

[ another slow, unwavering step. ]

...You aren't so weak. I see it in you-- I see it. The fire that's kept you alive through what might've crushed a lesser woman. And... it would be insulting to you if I were to accept it's gone out like this. It hasn't, has it?

[She wants to step back.

There is something in him that is so changed from the person she encountered in that safehouse in Godsblood that he appears almost a completely different man. What she hates most of all is that in this moment... She thinks of Matsukaze. How sure and quietly confident he was in those Hayame herself had lost faith in. She remembers listening from behind the tree as he had gently coaxed a boy that she had called a demon back from the brink, and left him weeping in his arms.

She misses Matsukaze. She misses her brother. The only people in the entire world who had ever believed in her.

Her grip spasms on the cracked bow so tightly that the crack gains another inch in length.]

You don't know me at all-

[She starts with the accusation, because the accusation is familiar. She whips the bow out between them as if to use it to keep him physically distant, to stop his approach towards her. And like she always does... she throws out the most damning and aggressive words she can think of, the ones that usually send people running with their tails between their legs.]

I am not weak. None of those so-called Kenoma could kill me, even ruined by that "Innocence"! None of them!

[Not that giant with the scythe, the cat-man with the gun, the brat who made holes in the earth... So that fire must be bright. And why did that matter? Because as much as she desired death over the idea of living forever in this world, of not being able to return to her own... She also desired an honorable one. Like she still deserved honor.]

But I will slit my own belly open before I grow old in this hell. Rest assured.

[... and a part of her thinks. If she was stronger, she would have done it already. But instead, she had hoped. And look what that got her. Standing in a misty forest a nearly a hundred pounds lighter than she should be, having an intense misunderstanding with a man over what the "fire to live" meant.]

Edited 2022-06-20 06:34 (UTC)

You and I both know that the strength you have isn't simply the kind you levy against your enemies.

[ he is not dissuaded by her furious grip on her weapon, even if it is a grip strong enough to further crack the length of the bow. nor does he seem unsettled by the white hot flicker of a fury in her eyes considering he takes yet another step closer, soft crackle of foliage underfoot seeming far and away for how wholly his attentions are on Hayame and Hayame alone. ]

...The enemy isn't something you can aim your bow at, this time. And if you keep on like this-- you know what you're doing, don't you...? You are making an enemy of yourself, weakening that flame already weathering a brutal storm.

Why are you being so cruel to yourself...? What are you afraid of?

[ is living here -- finding a reason to live here -- what frightens her? is she afraid that she can't? is she afraid what will become of her?

or is the prospect of trying too much to bear?

... ]

Why not?

[She has always been able to solve things with her bow, that was the only thing that had ever been desired of her. To be an instrument of war, to aim at the targets of her masters, but here there is no master and there are not even clear targets. Who? Who should she kill to solve this?]

I can find enemies aplenty in this place! I will kill each and every one of the Kenoma who took Estinien apart. I will kill every one who slighted me in Venera and took advantage of my weakness. I will kill the Pleroma who disrespect me-

[If she sounds confident... Perhaps it is just the desperation, perhaps it truly is confidence in her natural strength and abilities, even in a world where people had foul magics at their disposal.]

And then- Then, we will all come back from the dead and do it all over again!

[Perhaps when her voice cracks again on that phrase it will illustrate the root of the insecurities, the current fears that had driven her to the state he sees now.

Estinien had told her. She had been so sure of her path, that she would die in battle here or kill herself if she could not return home and yet even that... Even that would be denied her. The shard in her chest would bring her back to life. She'd tried to break it herself, tried to dash it to the ground, and the mere attempt had made her so sick she'd vomited. So what is she afraid of- ?

She's afraid of never being able to give up her life that she had promised to Matsukaze and that village of orphans.

She's afraid of living. Afraid of something she'd never been given the freedom to hope for or even imagine... let alone trying to do it here, in a world without the only two people she might have trusted to help her do it.]

[ perhaps Abel understands the anguish behind that statement, cracked and desperate, better than most.

it clicks something into place for him to see it, hear it - some hint at the root of her agony, her despair; yes... Hayame undoubtedly has something she wishes to return to. whether it is family, friends, who will welcome her back with open arms-- or an obligation, duty, or mission that she feels calls her name and gives her purpose... to be without it is a cruelty. but to be without the hope she could ever return to it...? that she would live a life unending, knowing the eternal walk of time never growing closer to what she yearns for?

...

he's grown closer, now. does not care to stop, and doesn't seem concerned she will genuinely shoot him with the bow that faintly trembles for the tightness of her grip upon it. no... it isn't that he doesn't fear that she will fire out of some misguided confidence in her disposition; it is that he doesn't care if he does. ]

...So, come with me.

[ his voice is gentle, kind. but it carries a note of firmness behind it - something that is more of a confident command than a request, like a parent telling their wayward child to return home after having spent the night outside alone, shivering and unwell, since 'running away.' it isn't angry; it isn't even disappointment, and it carries no judgment. ]

You already know this, right...? That death is not the escape you're looking for. Starving in the wilderness, allowing yourself to slowly wither-- it will bring you no closer to where you need to be. [ and you deserve better than this. ]

I can't promise it will come easy, and I can't promise you the answers will come anytime soon-- but you have something to get back to. I know you do. So... come with me and fight for it.

[ he stretches a hand, both impassioned plea and the fervent light of that resolve, firm and unyielding, in his eyes. ]

Or can you truly tell me your wish is worth dying for, but it isn't worth living for?

[He really is a fool.

She gives him every reason to leave her be, and still he persists. Still, he speaks to her in a voice like she has heard once before, with words like the ones he had used, and for a moment... For a moment, she almost hears the roar of a waterfall deafening her. Almost feels that same crippling shame that she had felt that day, hauled up from her attempt to kill herself and the strongest enemy in her vicinity, as if she'd merely slipped into the water and needed saving rather than throwing herself at the rocks below in the hopes that the ropes binding them to keep her from running might become her captor's noose.

Almost sees how calm and quiet Matsukaze has looked inspecting his rope burned palms as she screamed and railed against the shame he had heaped upon her in failing to allow her even death. How penetrating and sure his voice had been when he asked, don't you want to live in a world where it's alright to feel relieved to be saved?

The man holds out his hand to her.

Hers twitches. For just half a second, it seems like she might actually be thinking... What if this was a world like that? She was the only one of her kind, and though that came with a crushing loneliness and constant threat of misunderstanding... It still hasn't sunk in that it also came with a certain freedom from the chains both real and metaphorical that had bound her and her race. What if here, even if she had to fight-

But that would require trusting this man. It would require putting faith in the Pleroma, in the rebels of Greentruth, in the aion Tehri. It would require hoping.]

[And Hayame can't do it.

The waver in her expression hardens into a sudden snap of rage as she reminds herself to crush her weakness under hoof, and her bow lashes out- not to notch an arrow and fire, not this close, but to slap his hand away from her, hard enough to snap a wrist or break a finger if he wasn't careful. Something she would never do with a proper bow, but with this weak one already breaking-]

My wish is dying.

[She will crack it on the offer he has the gall to hold out to her, when he knows, should know nothing- nothing about her and what she wanted. Let him know, then, even though she doesn't provide nearly enough context for the snarl that escapes, baring her sharp fangs as she throws yet one more reason to leave her in his face.]

I swore I would bring the flame and light the gunpowder- I am supposed to die on that battlefield with him, and instead I am here listening to some fool who does not even know my name try to offer me something that won't do a damn thing to cleanse my dishonor!

[He wants to get close? She lunges, more like a dog that barks and growls than a woman who was half-horse, snapping her teeth at him from inches away. Even if it would get her compared to a beast, she could sink her teeth into his throat and rip, something even an Armless could do-]

Leave, before I make you regret your senseless pity!

[Nevermind that he had sounded honest. Nevermind that for half a shameful instance... She had almost maybe believed him.]

[ ...Abel had been close, before. Hayame's wish was not to a person, nor a mission.

it was to both.

she had vowed herself to join someone - 'him,' someone she had promised her very life to - and to their shared cause. Abel doesn't understand the 'why,' but in this moment... that detail isn't important. it is just enough context that he can piece together another bit of Hayame's puzzle, and that's all he needs. whether she likes it or not, Horos and its plight is her problem. no amount of snarling and bristling will return her to the man waiting for her nor the battle awaiting its martyrs to play their part.

he will collect each piece with time 'til he's made a whole. he is patient, even if she isn't.

the harsh, painful batting of his hand earns a minute tightening of his jaw, but he doesn't so much as step back or away as she bridges the distance between them like a looming, lunging bear snapping in discontent. Abel doesn't see an angry, violent woman on the brink of an outburst; no... his eyes are still caught on the sight that had preceded this: one of a woman looking into him, through him, and seeing something else. someone else.

he knows that look. and he knows that what he said... it resonated somewhere with her, even if she isn't yet ready to take the hand extended her way. ]

...I'm sorry.

[ pity, she says...

for her impassioned snarling, Abel's voice remains calm and even; it is easy to mistake compassion for piteous sympathy, and there was a time when he was just as guilty of bristling at either as well. maybe it is part of the reason he stands his ground, now. ]

...If you've vowed your life to him, then... what are you doing? If protecting those here means nothing to you, then so be it. But the least you can do is protect and care for yourself so that there's something of you left to get back to when you see him again.

What do you think he'd say if you returned to him this way...?

You're sorry.

[She mocks him with the words that she finds worthless, meaningless, when they come from someone who she does not know and prescribes not to care to know. Throws them back at him as if to dare him to tell her why that does a damn thing for her or for anyone, why she shouldn't just leave right now.

The problem with biting, with lunging, with escalating as quickly as Hayame was known to, however... Is that it leaves very little room for retreating with any dignity. Not that there was any dignity in retreating, the coward's choice to a woman raised on the harsh, black and white lines of a warrior's honor. She bets constantly on winning or dying, even in her arguments and petty clashes, too quick to throw everything out...

So what is left to her but to either beat him like a dog, as she had before, or seem to admit that he is right by leaving with her tail between her legs? As much as she wants to run from him and his words that for half a second had almost seemed well-meaning and nearly trustworthy...]

Don't you dare speak to me of what Matsukaze would say.

[She knows it's gone on too long. She's shown too much. She's let herself be goaded into saying more than she should have, and yet... She cannot excuse that insult, that audacity, snarling her warning with a pointed end of her bow jabbed up and dangerously near the fool's face, not even wanting to touch him, or anyone, with her hands as if she was some common beast that did not know the tools of the civilized.]

You do not know him. You do not know me.

[And if she never made it back? If she never got to tell him that she wished- That she wished if she had ever known a man-]

Or must I beat you again like a dog to make that sense reach your brain?

Then tell me.

[ there is a pleading edge in his voice, in his eyes as he beseeches her. despite the barely restrained violence and the asperity, all Abel can see with each escalation, each protest she thrusts his way, is how very wounded she is. it's like a gaping wound being exposed to the air and he could not be more aware of its existence, can't avert his gaze from it now he's been made aware it's there.

...he implores her. earnestly. it is all he can do; he cannot force her into this - but for her to remain like this is a miserable fate he wouldn't wish on anyone. he cannot leave her this way. ]

Please. If I don't know, then... tell me. I want to understand, alright...? I'll listen to anything you have to say, listen to anything you say at all. All you have to do, is... sit with me, and try.

[All she has to do.

His words make it sound so easy. All she had to do is tell him. Tell him what it was that had lodged those first shards of hatred and despair into her hearts under the guise of pride and honor, and just keep telling him of every single occasion where those shards had been driven deeper, so deep that at one point she’d even been able to fool herself into thinking she wasn’t hemorrhaging at each breath.

And now… Anyone who looks at her can see them. Perhaps it was her change to pluck them out… but instead, she just resorts to what she knows. Trying to hide them. Shove them back in.]

Tell you. Tell everyone about myself to a man who does not even know my name?

[There are so many things she could say, there, and her name is what comes out. She hasn’t heard-

She hasn’t heard someone call her name in so long.]

Do not make me laugh.

[Yet her expression of rage and fear, confusion and defensive bravado, are anything but near laughter, even for a forced joke. As much as she hates to turn her back, to look the coward and retreat… this fool is stubborn, and if she killed him…

Of course. If she killed him, those “Pleroma” would come bother her even worse.]

If you are not gone from my territory by the time I return from my hunt, I will shoot you in the leg.

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