thusia | (no subject)

Was it worth it?

[ ...shakes his head. ]

None... would ever have considered it so.

Did you.

[Her voice is rough, low, reaffirming. That isn't what she asked.]

Did you consider it so?

...

[ behind her, breathing quickening, growing shallower. ]

I... saw naught else....

Did you accomplish anything, beyond harming my friends and dying?

...

[ a choked noise in the back of his throat. ]

...I see.

[ ---and he shoves the chair out from under him and staggers onto his legs, palm slamming against the wall, a sharp breath and wrenching the words out-- ]

It was there, it was there and all I could see and nothing else because I was afraid and it had to end---

[She flinches, but still refrains to turn towards him.]

Did it? Did anything end? You've made enemies through this, Chrys! All you managed to end was yourself and Chrono, for how temporary an end it was, and now people are going to treat you like a rabid animal, wary and waiting for you to lash out again so that they can retaliate.

[ pain lancing through his legs like lightning, but the red sparks keeping aside the white haze closing in on his vision and she's saying more but he can barely make out--- focus on--- ]

.....haahh.... hahhh... hnk--

[ --show her, have to show her--

--and he lurches forward, his foreshortened elbow slamming against the doorframe to brace against as his only hand snaps out to grab her bare arm. ]

[It's how he's breathing. That's the sound of someone on their last legs, about to drop, and angry as she is, that still concerns her. Lenalee's entire body goes taut as he hits the wall, and she starts to turn without realizing he's reaching for her, completely prepared to push him back into his seat.]

Chrys, what are you— sit back down—

[But, no.]

Hey. Let go!

Please--

[ just one word, hoarse with the same desperation as those of that night-- stay back, only this time don't go-- and his fingers tighten almost painfully as his head drops and he wills with all his heart-- ]

[ --a silent battlefield a crumbling temple smoke and iron tanged air bodies of the priests in pools of black robes and their (your) own dead (breathless, not dead) still scattered like wildflowers, down on one knee, the sear of divine lightning on Chrysos's (your) back not enough to stop the glance at the false blue sky above, as it vanishes, leaving only rock, and a man's voice, a god's voice, the King of gods so long deaf to the people's cries before finally, finally, this uprising (massacre) to make them see and hear and act, speaks:

I do wish I didn't have to do this,

in jovial and mocking words, mocking them (you), mocking the reason they (you) stand there, hollow, grieving, desperate, these years and years and countless undying years as family (brother) and loved ones (my love) fell mad, were taken (consumed) by the stone of this false haven-tomb, and still the gods turned deaf ears to the pleas, the pleas of let us return, where true sky was

and the voice, over all, Commands: Thou art a Blank.

and the terror, black boned cold as everything everything everything thought mind memory heart pieces fall away stripped to nothing drained like water all of them by this Power this Command and they (you) can do nothing at all-- ]

Edited 2012-10-09 02:08 (UTC)

[ ---torchlight and dim and tunnels your only world for endless days, blood and ichor on your hands and in your eyes for the (two?) hundredth time as you and your teammates step past the screams and groans of bodies unmangling themselves with resurrection, bodies in uniform colors other than your own purple (red) to the vast throne of stone in the dusty colosseum (Arena), to a single pair of Judge's (God's) hands applauding and well done, o victorious Blanks, and you, still Nameless, are still walking to reclaim yourself, to remember, and in the torment of hope that this will end, as long as we keep moving, not even knowing why it started save that a wish was needed, wanted, desperately, and could be granted, if one held on long enough, walked long enough, escaped the stone long enough.

And for that you close your mind to the ever-rising wail of horror in your own heart, the urge to rip at the earth, the throne, your own throat (futile endeavour). You close your mind until there is only the narrow focus of a scope, a white tunnel, walled to everything else but what lies next, and that is there are wounds to tend to and amend, see to the other teams, and you say as much with face and voice impassive to the others you lead as they look to you with hollow eyes of their own--- ]

Edited 2012-10-09 02:09 (UTC)

[ --from your vantage point in the massive tree above you see all too well the blur of Chrono's wings shoot across the drop to the water far below, the demon slamming Kidale against a branch about fifty yards down, snarling in madness, and your gun already in hand and aiming for the clawed hand raised for a fatal blow

and a voice, Ptou's (Messenger's) voice, Commands: Thou art mine servant.

and Chrono stops

and the world falls away to white, cold, hollow, sights and sounds muffled all around, only the clarity of heartbeat pounding in the ears, and a litany

it is here still here and what has been could be again never again not in this life it cannot be never again

looping endlessly, only vaguely aware of your self slowly rising and watching as the demon kneels before the Power, as the others of the group tend to the wounded, and they will manage, and so your body turns away and runs, runs, runs back to the undergrowth you barely see but your body knows to see, even as your mind closes in on itself and the litany and nothing else at all, nothing, nothing, as your body goes through all the motions to keep moving, for there lies the next step, the next step and the next. ]

Edited 2012-10-09 02:12 (UTC)

[And it mixes with the anger and the pain she's already feeling, clenches like a vice around her chest about to wind her. She gasps, but it's strained. Sharp, breathless, just shy of whiteout.]

Stop.

[No more, it's enough, let her go. Enough enough enough enough enough, and Lenalee falls to her knees with her hand over her mouth, heedless of dragging Chrys down with her.]

[ --there's a jolt in his legs with the sudden weight and a gasp escapes him-- he lets go, but not fast enough, and he hits the floor on his side and the second white-hot shock that jams into his bones is enough that he just lies there splayed out, breath ragged, face half-buried in the crook of his good arm, one blue eye wide and for a moment staring at nothing. ]

...hhnk-- haah, haahhh... hnngkh...

Edited 2012-10-09 04:07 (UTC)

["I'm sorry," she means to say, but the words fail her grandly. She thinks she might slough right off her bones, like the whole of her is dead skin (maybe she'd like to, because then she wouldn't need to face all of this).]

I— I can't take it anymore. All of you... you've never even known peace.

[ ...he slowly blinks the red and purple and black out of his vision and thinks, for a moment, that the pain is a good sign, a sign he's still here, this kind of pain he can deal with. Push it aside, take hold of the senses and listen...

swallows-- and takes a deep, slow lungful of air, before he just... curls the rest of his arm and hand over his shaking head, a feeble protest, one more correction to make. ]

I knew... long ago.

[He'll hear her make a choked sound, protesting just as he had protested.]

Then you ought realize now that there is no way something like this would have brought that peace back again. Right?!

...I know. I knew.

[ it's quiet, in contrast with her shouted words, quiet and quavering with... for the first time, possibly, in all the times you've heard him speak, pure misery. ]

I knew... and yet I could not stop myself.

That is the truth of it.

[Then what is she supposed to say? She goes quiet, breathing hard.]

[ there are times when silence speaks for itself. his own labored breathing fills the spaces between hers, as the seconds tick by...

"Rabid animal", she said, before. ...an apt word, for what he's become. Fingers fist in his hair. ]

...I'm sorry.

[Laughs, the sound almost unpleasant. Were he to look at her face, he'd see no humour in it, so it's just as well he does not.]

I don't understand how so many of you see murder as your best option. After everything Sabra put you through, wouldn't you have gotten jaded of it by now?

[ humour's not expected at all in a situation like this. And no, he sees nothing, with his eyes buried in the crook of his arm it's just what he can imagine, which might not be all that far off. ]

...