((Runya gets a visitor from Vira ( @semper-miles ). Mentions of Sorin ( @aetherstitch )! ))
===
The last thing he had been aiming for was to get knocked flat by some Light-ridden monster that wasn’t even remotely related to his current grudges.
Great.
Just excellent.
He of course brushed off any healer help that wasn’t strictly related to getting back on his feet; he saw how they had looked at some of the more obvious signs of his augmentations and had zero desire whatsoever to get them involved, directing them instead to Sorin. (He did not need nor want their pity. He did not need nor want them butchering him further to take it out. He did not need nor want anyone sticking their noses into his business when they would likely disapprove of it anyway.)
His ear flicked, though, as he heard a voice outside the tent. A familiar voice...
Speaking of people who did not need to be in his business--
The tent flap flopped open with a loud noise and Vira darted in, a harried-looking Hyur at their heels. They brightened up immensely seeing him sitting up, but he just narrowed one eye in response.
“Oh, ‘ey, yer up!”
“How very astute of you,” he drawled, but the tone visibly just went right over Vira’s head, judging by how their grin didn’t so much as falter a moment.
“I ‘eard wha’ happened,” they continued, sitting hard on the edge of his bed--causing him to inch away, but they weren’t deterred. “Mourning gotcha...?”
“Well, both Sorin and I both. But yes.”
They tilted their head, though, as they looked at him. (He wasn’t sure if he appreciated how blatantly they showed their emotions on their face, or if it was exceedingly obnoxious. Perhaps both.) “An’ it didn’...’urt Blue, did it?” Their brow furrowed. “Didn’ think anythin’ could ‘urt somethin’ tha’ big other’n another Weapon. Dae wasn’ ‘appy.”
Of course Daeyona wasn’t happy. He would argue that Daeyona was rarely happy just in general, even. But even his petty arse knew when to not debate a point too thoroughly, and so he just folded his arms. “I’m surprised she cares much about him beyond what we can do for her.”
“...We?”
He just blinked slowly, not deigning to respond to the question. And after some awkward fidgeting, Vira just stumbled on in the conversation.
“Well, ‘e’s nice.” And they sounded a bit defensive about it... “An’ even Dae thinks so too.” So there, was what they were clearly itching to cap that with, but they behaved enough to not say it. “An’ tha’ Mourning thing’s...well, y’know.”
He did indeed know.
“So is ‘e okay?”
“Very. He’s been doing little but hover outside since he brought dear Sorin and I here.” He glanced over at the other Miqo’te in question, but Sorin was indeed still out to the world, again. His bouts of consciousness were few and far between, to say the least. “If you look outside the gate, you’ll see him well enough.”
“Ah, a’right...” They relaxed a little at that, and then paused. “...You a’right?”
For a moment, he just tilted his head and wondered why, exactly, they cared. “I’m unsure why you’re asking.”
But Vira snorted as if it was incredibly obvious. “’Cause I wanna ask. An’ Miss Macbalor cares too.”
Ah, Maebh. That had been a segue that he hadn’t entirely expected, and he just smiled more at them...and in turn, they just looked more and more uncomfortable at him, before he finally spoke. “Does she, now.” A question, or a statement? He left it ambiguous.
“...Aye.” They were actually leaning away slightly from him, now. “Wish ye’d stop bein’ weird ‘bout it. Please.”
Why wouldn’t he be ‘weird’ about it, though? Wouldn’t anyone be weird about someone running around in their first ever (and for a long long time, only) friend’s body, using her face and her voice and even her mind? Someone who wasn’t put off by that would be a weirder one, indeed. “Mmmm, no.”
“Hmph.” They folded their arms tightly at that. “Y’r a jerk.”
And he laughed lightly. “I try.”
“But y’r a’right if y’r bein’ a jerk,” they grudgingly admitted, finally getting back up to their feet. “An’ if y’ think Sorin’s a’right...”
“I do.” He was quite sure about that, though the thoughts of that strange dark creature still crossed his own mind from time to time. He knew what that had been, but...he wasn’t quite sure where they were going to go from here with it, either. (Would Sorin be as fierce as Daeyona and keep it bent to his will?) “I am tired, Skor.”
They seemed to all but jump at the opportunity to get out of the conversation, much to his relief--and probably much to theirs, too, judging by the look on their face. “Ah, okay, I’ll leave y’ to it, then. An’ go talk to Blue.”
He could have groaned at that. Between the two of them--or specifically, the mental chatter Blue put off when he was meeting someone new--he wasn’t like to get any sleep at all. But he just let out a long-suffering sigh instead, flopping his head back on the pillow. “Oh, as you please...”
And barely had he finished the sentence before they were gone, leaving a faintly-moving tent flap in their wake. So he just closed his eyes and tried to doze off, as best he could with Blue’s excitement occasionally pinging through the haze of sleepiness.
But one thing that he hadn’t said, and one thing that still permeated his entire being let alone all of his thoughts, was that he just regretted not being there to kill that Garlean. He knew by now through a Swarstral messenger that Ariadne was dead, and so he hadn’t had to ask Vira--and there was little they could say that would reduce the disappointment he felt that she hadn’t died by his hand. (Wasn’t he the one who deserved most to do it?)
But, he supposed, there were still two left out of the three. At least, if they didn’t just throw themselves to their deaths in battle before he could recover enough to have a hand in their destruction.
If he had to drag them back out of hell just to kill them again, he would.
(I had this whole answer typed up basically right after you sent this, and then I accidentally closed my browser window. POOF, it was gone. So here’s my best attempt at reconstructing it...)
Random alt picker sez: Selah!
This is a strange question to answer. You could argue that I am more positive, but I’d say that it’s less a matter of “attitude” and more a matter degree, as well as what kinds of supports I have vs. the ones he has.
Selah is optimistic -- the kind of optimism that slants toward idealism and can occasionally throw the deficiencies of the status quo into sharp, frustrating relief. I have some of the same tendencies -- he gets them from me, hah -- but they show up in Selah much more sharply, perhaps.
Selah is... also much more unhappy than I am, but, again, it’s not a matter of attitude so much as of environment. A “more positive attitude” is not likely to help him much, because it’s his situation that is at the root of his unhappiness. Whereas he struggles with fears of being rejected (again) and with deciding to what extent he can live authentically, I have much more support in my close circles for the ways in which I want to express myself.
And it’s not like he is fundamentally an unhappy person, either -- he takes joy in things, and he does ultimately believe that the world can be a good place. It just... isn’t there, yet. But it could be. In the meanwhile, there’s puppies, and tea, and Orleux and the Grynemerlsyns.
(I’ve also recently settled upon the headcanon that Cannonball, the puppy Negevs was fostering after finding it abandoned in Castrum Oriens, has unequivocally adopted Selah as his owner -- much to Selah’s chagrin and, eventually, reluctant acceptance. There’s a dog bed under his desk now, and cautionary whuffs occasionally emanate from it if someone seems to be intent on disturbing him.)
The Au Ra found himself along the beach once again... resting and relaxing as he watched the waves gently caress the sand on the shore. It had been sometime since he’d actually managed to have a moment where he could relax like this... and longer still since he made himself a nice brew of herbal tea with a little bit of a bite to it.
Jacques set the teapot aside after pouring some into a small cup... the Au Ra loved his teas and he loved brewing his own after all. More so he loved exploring a wide variety of things when it came to making the teas, some more traditional and others a bit... different and unusual. Slowly Jacques brought the cup up to take a sip.
A soft sigh came out of him as he smiled to himself... yeah he was enjoying this moment of peace. Enjoying this moment where he was finally capable of relaxing... and where he wasn’t having to fight his mind and beat it back into submission so he wouldn’t go back into hiding.
@aetherstitch - APOLOGIES FOR TAKING SO LONG! I hope this works out
SEND 🤝 IF WE HAVE NEVER INTERACTED BEFORE AND WOULD LIKE A SHORT AND UNPLOTTED STARTER BETWEEN OUR MUSES
((Taking this in a bit of a weird direction but fuck it :D
A continuation of this overall arc I’ve been doing! Content warning for references to past abuses. Also contains @aetherstitch‘s Sorin and @semper-miles‘ Legatus Silentius. ))
===
Runya could feel the death-grip Sorin had on the headrest of the pilot’s seat, but he paid it little mind as he sent Blue flying towards where he knew his foe to be. The controls and the throttles practically hummed under his hands; the thoughts of the Weapon swirled around his own, cloaking it with Blue’s trepidation in grand contrast to the cold enthusiasm of his own.
Now he just might get a chance.
“Runya.”
Sorin’s terse voice barely even caught his attention, but catch it it did, and one of Runya’s furred ears automatically swiveled. “Hm~?”
“You’re sure you know where we’re going?”
“Oh, yesss.” The word hissed from between pointed fangs, and he didn’t bother to actually turn his head to look back at the other Miqo’te. A swift but light touch to the controls sent Blue arcing to the left, his wing dipping to follow the banking motion as the other rose. Not that that did anything to lessen Sorin’s grabbing his seat’s headrest--
“I need...to make a request, Runya.”
Ah, there it was. That tone of voice that already told Runya that he would shortly have an argument on his hands. That tone of voice that implied Sorin was about to ask something noble of him--a silly prospect for someone like him. That tone of voice that already got enough of a reaction from him that he just sighed and Blue tentatively poked back at his mind, confused.
It’s nothing, dear. He didn’t need Blue also getting tetchy with him. But he just got a bit of a physical prod in the head from Sorin in response to his dramatics, just so shortly after getting Blue to stop being concerned, and Runya twitched to get the touch off of him. “Ah ah ah, not while I’m driving--”
“I know you’re going to kill that man.”
Runya froze, head still tilted at an awkward angle. The only motion he made, in fact, was his ears flattening back against his skull. “...Yes. I am. I’m glad you’ve caught up with the rest of the class, Sorin.”
“Runya. I’m attempting to be serious. I’m not going to tell you to not kill him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Mmmm...” He wasn’t entirely certain what he was worried about, but when it came to Sorin, he inevitably got a request to be something he simply wasn’t and he did wonder where this was going, with an apprehension that would have his tail lashing if it wasn’t currently firmly crammed into a seat.
“But I am going to ask you to just...” Sorin trailed off, and though Runya hadn’t turned to look--he was still flying, after all--he could practically hear the frown on his friend’s face. “...Please remember that I, at least, think you can be better than to just play with your...prey.” He clearly didn’t want to use the word but had no other option for it at the moment. “Even without you telling me everything, I can tell you full well that I agree this Legatus doesn’t deserve to live and would only cause more pain and devastation if he’s allowed to do so. But I will just take him out myself instead if you start devolving into simply torturing him. Even if you don’t seem to think you’re better than that, I think you can be.”
A long, long silence.
Runya finally chuckled.
“Ah, you were always too noble, dear Sorin.”
“I mean every word of it.” Sorin’s voice rang flatly in the enclosed space.
“It amuses me that you actually think I have a heart anymore, you know.” Runya’s light tone belied the hard emotionless stare wandering over Blue’s cockpit’s screens. “They took my home, they took everything important to me...and don’t they say that home is where the heart is?”
Sorin snorted in annoyance. “And yet you call yourself friends with me. The heartless don’t have friends, I would think.”
“Hmmmm...” For once, Runya didn’t have a snide comeback to the reminder, and he just kept his ears pinned back as he drummed his fingers on the throttles.
“So I’m right.”
“If it wasn’t for how Blue would refuse to do it, I would give this entire Weapon such a spin--” But a small flash in the distance caught Runya’s eye, and when he realized that was some sort of small rocket--
Blue automatically zoomed in on it, and when Runya recognized the suit and the wriggling female figure it was holding, his golden gaze lit up with a dangerous glee that set his entire body quivering like a live wire with anticipation.
“Is that him?!”
Runya’s chuckle in response to Sorin’s question held no humor, as he crammed the throttle to the limit and sent Blue hurtling at full speed towards them. This time, there would be no horde of Legion soldiers to keep him in line, to keep him away from clawing the Legatus’ face as he sneered down at him about at least one of the savages being useful. There would be no whipping him for failing to show the proper respect, there would be no layers of glass and metal between him and the man who had orchestrated what had happened, lording over the testing rooms like some kind of Garlean god toying with his creations...
There would be no one to make Runya do whatever the Legatus asked. There would be no one but Merceus, himself, and the giant biomechanical Weapon that the former had so foolishly lost to the latter.
One of them was going to die, and messily, no matter what Sorin tried to threaten him with. All that was left to be seen was which one of them it would be, and Runya licked his lips and took in an excited hiss of air through his clenched teeth as they hurtled closer and closer. One corner of his lips curled upward, as if dragged there by force.
The Legatus took everything from him. So he, in turn, was going to take everything from the Legatus--his power, his dignity, and his life.
Technically a continuation of my last fic on here. Contains brief amounts of Sorin from @aetherstitch! ))
===
Runya’s boots crunched on the coarse sand of the lake’s beach, and barely had he reached the shore before Blue’s head popped up, almost gator-like, from the center of the water. He couldn’t help but wave cheekily at him.
“Hello~”
A gust of vapor droplets shot out of Blue’s snout in a snort, and he promptly disappeared back under the surface. Runya clicked his tongue, and folded his arms, looking disappointed. “Oh, come now, surely I’m not that unwelcome as company--?”
He was forced to jump back as the water surged up around his ankles, and Blue cut through the water like a shark before rising up out of it in a singular, powerful rush of motion. Cheeky thing, wasn’t he? “Ah ah ah, what did I tell you about doing that?”
Blue just tilted his head, and the click of his blinking was audible.
“Sometime you’re going to scare someone who isn’t as used to you as dear Sorin and I are,” Runya chided, though when Blue leaned down to give him the gentlest of nudges with his nose, even someone as...Runya as Runya couldn’t help but smile and give him a pat. “Mmm, yes, yes, you’re adorable.”
{Yes.} The affirmation leaped across Runya’s thoughts like water droplets.
“No modesty whatsoever, hm?”
He just got a strange thrumming not-quite-purr in response; anyone else might have been a bit intimidated by a huge biomechanical Weapon doing that right in their face, but Runya just gave him another pat. “So, the answer is no, not at all?”
{Yes.}
“Cheeky thing.” But he leaned into Blue’s cobalt snout armor, and his expression took a turn for the serious. Slightly. “I hope you’re doing better, because we have work to do.”
Blue’s head-tilt nearly threw him to the ground, but he managed to catch himself with his hands, though the claws on his gloves screeched a complaint into Blue’s metal in the process.
{Work? What work?}
At least the Weapon was curious more than trying to brush him off; that said, there was a hint of wariness in how the questions lapped around his mind, perhaps because he could sense the hidden edge behind Runya’s words.
“You see,” he replied, lightly, “a little birdie told me that we might be able to keep those that did all of this to us from hurting us ever again.”
With the mental bonding between them, he didn’t need to say too much further; the initial confusion over the metaphor was quickly replaced by jagged mental images of the Silentiuses. (Though, Runya noticed with a clinical sort of detachment, Angerona was barely in his memories. Perhaps for the better.)
{themthemthemthem}
“Yes,” he interrupted out loud, wincing as the flood of thought threatened to overwhelm him, “them. The ninth Legion. The people running it. They’ve become so obsessed with stealing back Angerona’s body and the thing running it, and killing her friends, that I do believe that Legatus Merceus Silentius himself is planning to reveal himself.”
Blue whined. The reluctance was practically tangible, filling his entire head. But he had expected that, taking deep breaths and inwardly hoping that the failsafe that kept things from blowing out his mind didn’t kick on too quickly.
“Blue, Blue...my dear Weapon, if anyone is capable of killing him for good, it’s us. Did you not nearly boil the mind out of one of his daughters? Their mother, when they decided to be cruel to you?”
The whine trailed off, but Blue’s entire frame was still tense. But that was an opening he could take clear advantage of.
“It won’t be long, if he destroys them, before they come after us,” Runya continued in a low voice, his golden gaze burning into Blue’s crimson eyes. Or what passed for them, anyway, on a Weapon. “If we all strike at once--and they are planning to strike him, dear Blue, Macbalor and her friends--then it’s the best chance we have against someone as bloated with power as him. There’s little point in just attacking him one at a time like extras in a terrible play.”
The conflict from Blue, dancing across his thoughts, slowed to a sluggish swirl. And he just gave Blue another pat, resting his forehead against the Weapon.
“Please.”
Very rare was it for him to ever admit that he might just not be powerful enough to topple a foe; even Daeyona, that Daeyona, had fallen to him once, and he still didn’t doubt that he could make a successful effort again if he really wished. (If Sorin and Angero--Maebh would let him.) But...he had been more than privy to just what Merceus Silentius had been building himself up to be--he had been their bloody test bed for the technology--and for the first time since becoming Runya Damask, he could reluctantly admit that he probably wasn’t powerful enough alone to kill him.
He would need Blue.
And finally, Blue just half-closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath.
{...Runya-friend is sure?}
“Runya-friend is very sure, indeed. Or I wouldn’t be asking it of you.” He wouldn’t be risking driving the Weapon entirely away if he had any doubts in it.
A long, long pause stretched between them, and Blue’s emotions always running through his head stilled, turning more inwards where Runya couldn’t feel them. For a moment--also for the first time in a very long time--Runya doubted himself. Blue had made it more than clear that he just wanted the Empire to leave him alone; the concept of proactively going after the Empire to stop them from hunting him down was still a new one to the reluctant Weapon. Pushing it with fighting the other Weapons from the seventh Legion was already asking for trouble, was it not? And if he thought enough was enough--
{Okay.} Blue pulled back slightly and braced himself, the hatch in his chest opening and granting him access into the cockpit. {Okay. Trust Runya-friend.}
“Runya!”
The voice behind him--and the sounds of someone scrabbling down the slope towards the lake--got Runya to turn, and he just smiled when he saw Sorin. “Ah, hello, my friend.”
“Wherever you’re going,” the other Miqo’te panted, carrying his greatsword but no armor, “you’re not going without me.”
“We’re going to kill a Legatus.”
The matter of fact tone made Sorin’s brows rise. “...What?”
“Blue agreed that we should go smash him into paste once and for all. The Silentiuses have had such a fate long overdue, and dearest Daeyona thinks she knows where he is.”
“She told you?”
Runya tilted his head with a smile. “Well, not exactly. But we heard when one of her hunters went to get Macbalor. Close enough.”
Of course, Sorin looked doubtful, but his doubt was overridden rapidly enough by his concern and he just folded his arms. “Then I’m going with you.”
“Oh, the more the merrier.” He would have preferred to not have anyone trying to shackle him to some boneheaded notions of morality, but all the same, he just shrugged and ascended, as Sorin took the longer way up to the hatch on Blue’s back.
Regardless, he wasn’t going to stop until the man was dead. No amount of hiding his intentions behind teasing tones and light smiles was going to change that.
Blue ascended into the sky with a few flaps of his powerful wings, arcing into the night like a comet.
((Runya and Sorin go to fetch Blue. A continuation of this.
Features Sorin ( @aetherstitch ), of course!))
===
Something was wrong.
Runya had barely just said the words before he took off at a run, drawing his book and summoning his Shinryu-egi in one single motion.
He and Sorin both had gone to get Blue, just as Daeyona had requested; not that he himself was in a habit of taking orders from her, but Sorin had agreed to the plan, and he had to admit that the thought of being able to finally put an end to the Silentiuses...
...Well. It wouldn’t be the first time he had swallowed some of his pride.
But the closer they had gotten to the cratered mountain lake that served as Blue’s home of sorts, the more unnerved he had become. Blue’s mental presence, for someone like him, was almost impossible to miss; even at a distance, it lapped around his ankles like a tide, indubitably alive in the same way a shoreline was alive and always in motion, even when little of note was actually happening overall. But when he called out to the Weapon in his mind...nothing came back, and that was not right.
In fact, the more he ran--at least, before he jumped onto his egi’s back to move faster--the more his tail-fur started to stand on end with growing dread. It wasn’t even that Blue’s presence was gone. It was there, all right. But he had to search for it and when he found it, it was...
Frozen.
That was a good word for it. It was there but lacked any of the motion and life that a living creature like Blue should have had in his mind. Those rolling waves were still in the most unnatural way, as if stuck in place by some outside force--
A radioactive violence surged along the mental connection, spraying an acidic metal prickling into his brain and sending him lurching off of his egi to roll down the slope of the crater-lake.
A many-winged hound-masked being appeared with nary a sound or a flare of aether, looming over him with glimmeringly-golden spear in hand.
Ah, the part of his consciousness that hadn’t been all but ablated calmly noted, so this must be that Forgiven Mourning thing. The other half of Daeyona’s...original...soul, Sorin had called it. It certainly lived up to what it was.
(Blue lurked at the edge of the lake, eyes vacant, body swaying slightly as if drunk...with a noose of light around his jaws.)
It kicked out with a gold-clad foot and forced him onto his back with a reedy wheeze on his part, his vision full of static after the burning blow that had hammered into his mind. Shinryu-egi, of course, reflexively defended its master and lunged, forcing Forgiven Mourning back a couple of paces as it sank its jaws into Mourning’s armored shoulder. But of course the half-soul barely even flinched and just reached up with its other hand, prying the egi off and slamming it to the ground once, twice, thrice...
It disappeared, in a burst of aether.
Mourning lunged for him, spearpoint first.
--
Oh, he was going to smack Runya for that.
Sorin at least caught up easily enough, even with the egi vastly outpacing him; Daeyona’s training paying off, he wordlessly knew, but he couldn’t focus on that for long at all before worry overtook him once more. What was wrong?! Runya could have at least told him as much before running off by himself!
He skittered on the edge of a ridge and was forced into a roll down the slope, but he got back to his feet quickly at the bottom and kept running up the other side. Had something happened to Blue? That was the only thing he could think of, and he dreaded it--
He crested the final hill, and the first and only thing that his eyes registered was that THING leaping at Runya in a blur of white with a gold streak of a spear coldly arcing at Runya’s chest and Runya couldn’t get away from that in time RUNYA--
In a sharp motion, he drew his sword from his back. He threw himself forward, clearing the distance in a few bounds. His blade crashed into the spear, and his sheer momentum carried him forward into Forgiven Mourning proper, barreling them both towards the lightly-swaying Weapon.
(Momentarily he feared Mourning forcing Blue to attack him but poor Blue seemed a bit...stupefied. Even Mourning sending him a rather sharp glance did little to get the Weapon to budge.)
He knew full well from experience that he had no time to waste when it came to such a foe and he slashed out, hard, at Mourning’s face with a two-handed strike. The impact rang discordantly and shot all the way up his arms, but it succeeded in getting Mourning to back off and he pressed in on the attack--
(You can be tactical all you want, Daeyona had said, but don’t hesitate to crush them the second you can or they’re going to just wear you out.)
(He knew that better than anyone. He could conserve energy all he wanted while he sought an opening for an attack, but his aether was still terribly strained no matter now tough he made his body physically--)
Mourning recovered quickly and the spear shot towards him as swift as a striking snake, but he weaved around it and swayed as a second strike rapidly followed the first.The point whistled so close to his face that he felt the cold air from it strike his skin, but where another might have faltered in the face of such cold ferocity, Sorin just clenched his jaw and kept dodging where he could and parrying where he couldn’t dodge. He even had to catch the occasional blow on his gauntlets, but the metal held up admirably even with Mourning’s unnatural power driving the spear against him.
But how long could this last?
The whisper in his mind wasn’t quite his own, but occupied as he was by the heat of combat, he simply couldn’t dedicate any thought to it. What he wouldn’t have given to have the same aetherial augmentation as the others but no amount of wishing would change the situation--
There was a way to fix it, if he wanted.
A black speck flickered in the corner of his eye like a living thing; a flame that approached at breakneck speed only to disappear before he could fully react any further than wondering what it was--
That lone moment of confusion cost him, however. Mourning was too close now to effectively use the spear but it could definitely grab him, and grab him it did and threw him and he landed in the shallows of the lake with a splash and he couldn’t get up before Mourning flew over at him and kicked him back down, its foot actually denting the chestplate significantly enough to leave it jabbing his chest any time he tried to breathe and he was breathing an awful lot trying to struggle out from under the crushing grip but it was useless so far--
Are we going to lie down and die here, then?
The black speck appeared again.
We’ve survived too much for that.
It had eyes this time.
We can unlock our true potential.
Runya had rolled just enough to be able to crack off a spell, but it stilled harmlessly against Mourning’s shining armor and pure white hide and dissipated. His heart jumped into his throat--
We can save them. Protect them.
Blue whined slightly but still couldn’t move.
All we have to do is ask.
The speck got closer.
Ask, Sorin.
There was little in the way of fear in his heart; the vast, vast majority of it was dread over Runya Blue anyone else he cared for that this monster would kill--he couldn’t even call it hate for Mourning but just a blazing urge to drive it off to not just be forced to watch it destroy those he wanted to save--
ASK.
He took in a deep, rattling breath, but he didn’t even have to say words; the thought alone, acceptance of the power being offered was enough for something to give in the back of his mind and it flooded out of his skull and joined the speck and it burst to life just as the spear scythed down at his eyes.
It was only the solid shriek of it clashing with something unearthly that kept Sorin from fully believing that it had blinded him in the single breathless moment after the impact...and as he peeked open one eye, he could see that it wasn’t just a plain shadow but a rolling darkness that shifted like something alive. It was something alive, in a way; he didn’t have to be told what the strange creature was to know exactly the answer to the question he hadn’t said out loud.
And it was his darkside that was standing over him, clenching Mourning’s spearhead in its teeth.
Get up.
But it didn’t even have to ask before Sorin was scrabbling upright, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest from the busted armor and searching frantically for his sword--it had flown away from him in the conflict. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mourning trying to pull the spear back, but the darkside-fox just lashed its tails and hissed, doggedly gripping the weapon in its teeth and digging its long claws into the rocky earth in staunch refusal to give the half-souled monster a single ilm of leeway. Red speckled the darkside’s hide like stars and it even lashed out at Mourning’s leg, leaving trails of glaring red aether in the wounds that it left there, and it was only once Sorin took his sword back in hand that the darkside released the spear and bounded back, a furious series of barks like a cackle bursting from its open jaws as it streaked around to one side and let Sorin take the lead in charging straight at Mourning.
Even Mourning, however, realized it had bitten off more than it could handle. Runya was getting up, and the spells bursting over Mourning’s armor increased in frequency; the shadowy fox leapt at it from behind and sank its teeth into Mourning’s leg; even Blue was starting to shake his head a little bit, the light-sodden lasso around its jaws flickering as Mourning’s energies were redirected to the more immediate threats. Sorin himself hammered at the monster of Light and all but glowed with the same starry red aether as his darkside; his sword clashed again and again into Mourning’s armor and even Mourning’s stony hide, teeth bared and the air crackling with dark energy that particularly leaped around his arms with each swing. He sent this damned thing flapping off before he would send it flapping off again--
Mourning, finally, spun, lashing out so quickly and fiercely that it momentarily threw all of its foes off of it. And that was all it needed to leap into the air, still dripping light aether from the wounds they had inflicted on it--but Sorin still snarled in harmony with his darkside, a bizarre impulse that he had been cheated stinging his mind until not only had Mourning zipped off in a blaze of light, but the light had also dropped away from a visibly-disturbed and confused Blue...
Sorin blinked, the momentary anger slipping from his heart and his limbs and only faintly beating at the Dark Knight crystal at his side. Instead, it was replaced by exhaustion and a familiar screaming burn in his muscles all the way down to his bones...
(He knew what aether exhaustion felt like, though, didn’t he?)
His sword dropped from fingers that felt too leaden to hold it, and he staggered over to Runya, forced to lean on his darkside for support. And even that dissolved out from under him, as the burning in his body only intensified.
It was Runya that spoke first, in a hoarse chuckle as he stayed down on the ground (was something broken? but he couldn’t see). “We...ah, maybe messed up...the plan...just slightly. Didn’t we?”
At least I drove it off. At least I kept it away from both of you.
But his traitorous tongue wouldn’t obey his thoughts and he just dropped to his hands and knees, fighting wholeheartedly against the tiredness that, eventually, won out.
(He had done all he could. But it still didn’t feel like enough.)
Runya’s robe, though still cinched at the waist, pooled over his belt and around his back and legs, the latter of which he had idly crossed as he used one claw-gloved finger to scroll through the information on the datapad.
Of course, not all of its secrets had been revealed to him yet; the humming electric harmony of the three Allagan nodes hovering around him betrayed as much, their collective processing power bent wholesale towards cracking the final layers of encryption that yet kept him away from the secrets it still held. But it was hardly as if he was sitting idle in the meantime! Though Sorin had the other half of the number of tomestone-esque pads they had accumulated from the lab—he wanted to help, and so Runya had set him to finding anything interesting out of the ones that still worked—he himself still had enough to keep him occupied, and he had them meticulously sorted on his bed in the Pendants, in order of his own personal interest in their contents.
Some of it was merely clerical; movement of materials, assignments of people, reassignments of people, records of consumption that were drier than a Thanalan desert...Possibly useful, yes, but only interesting in so far as he could have the names of some of the people who had been responsible for what had been done to him. And while interesting that was, he gained little else of use to him than that, and so he set them aside in favor of the datapads with the better information—the experimental information. Specifically, the information pertaining to Angerona.
He pored over the contents so in depth that it left his eyes aching from the strain, and earned him a crick in his neck that he could feel even now. But he could no more tear himself away from it than he could stop breathing.
Soldier Augmentation Program.
On Utilization of Aether by Half-Garleans.
The Principles and Theories of the Eorzean ‘Echo’.
It became clearer and clearer the more he read that her purpose had been just as set as his was even from the start, despite their supposed positions as subject and researcher. With her Legatus father’s blessing—another full name and a residential address he burned ferociously into his memory—she had been lured in with all the same cold-blooded intent they had when they had started selecting savages for their own attempts at experimentation. Though with her, they had employed some subtlety, lying and couching their efforts in the language of assisting with the experiments being done on himself...
It would be elegant, if it wasn’t referring to a plot to tear someone’s mind free and mutate their body and soul and change them into a soulless machine of a person, to be pointed at any target and used to destroy for the Empire’s benefit. It would be almost beautifully done planning, if it wasn’t so glibly referring to un-personing his first ever friend, in every way.
The notion nagged at him as his eyes danced over the details of what they had been doing to her; gifting her, they seemed to think, even if they themselves acknowledged that full utilization of such horrifically powerful aetherial channeling and striking with it would cause too much damage to a body incapable of handling such power without harming itself. But yet, testing it was a worthy sacrifice for the glory of the Empire--not something said outright in the journals and datasets, but something that came through loud and clear to someone like him, who had grown up under their bootheel.
On Flame-Based Aetherial Magic.
On the Efficacy of Aetherial Ink in Skin.
On the Potential for Interface With Summoning Principles--
That last one set his ears back and his tail bristling as it lashed behind him. Was that why they had put the two of them together? Was that why they had conveniently looked the other way when she took pity on him, choosing only to berate her instead of reassigning her? How much of his existence, even his very emotions, secretly hadn’t even been in his control but his captors’, even when he thought it had been?
The nodes, however, suddenly beeped and the smaller one chimed, noting in its robotic voice that access had been granted to the data he had been trying to crack.
In an instant, with ease born of far, far too much practice, he shoved the rising floodtide of emotion back down and chose to focus not on Angerona, but on whatever had been deemed so important that it took three Allagan nodes to get through to it. A few taps with a finger on the datapad’s screen, however, and the reason why they had tried to hide that information became clear.
It was another Weapon.
He had, of course, heard about the entire disaster with the Ultima Weapon, even being as far away from that Castrum as he had been at the time--and even though he had been in some state of pain and trauma for most of his time in the lab, for obvious reasons. As much as the propagandists had tried to quash any rumors that the glorious Empire had failed at something--much less that it had failed so badly it destroyed an entire Castrum--whispers had still gotten through, and who would care about gossiping around some lowly experiment of a savage when it had nothing to do with him? Mind, it had been gossip, and some things had clearly been embellished or underplayed in the telling, but he got the idea well enough: the Empire had found a dangerous Allagan machine, the Empire had tried to control a dangerous Allagan machine, the Empire had tried to use a dangerous Allagan machine--and they had ultimately failed at doing at least one of those things. He even had heard stranger things, some time after, about some attempt at resurrecting the design, making it better, and someone from the lab had disappeared under rather strange circumstances that the monsters running it were eerily tight-lipped about...but...
This wasn’t anything related to the Ultima Weapon. This was something else entirely, and the more he scrolled through it, the more his mind began to turn.
Sapphire Weapon, ARIL exposure, crafting of metal and flesh, Allagan records--the latter was too scarce and the second in the list meant little to him, with no other description of it, but one thing was abundantly clear even before he could fully synthesize what he was looking at: it was definitely another Allagan monstrosity, though one much smaller and less powerful and significantly more damaged than the Ultima Weapon ever had been.
And the thing was in Ala Mhigan territory, even. Not that far from where the lab was.
And if no one had said anything about it on the Alliance’s side of things...well. He could only assume that it had been abandoned there, forgotten in whatever grand rush had sent them all fleeing bloodied and terrified.
...But there were no bodies, were there? Were the two related somehow--?
“Runya.”
He barely managed to click out of the data before Sorin simply barged in, his arms fully occupied with the not-quite-tomestones so similar in design to the one he was looking at. “I take it you must have found something.”
Runya raised an eyebrow just slightly, his ears flicking. “Is that so?”
“You would have come to find me, complaining about them being boring, otherwise,” Sorin replied with a faint but wry smile, setting the datapads down carefully. But it was clear from the tense set of his shoulders and the uneasiness in his stare that he had found something, and so Runya chose to pursue that before Sorin could really ‘read’ him yet again and start prying into what was wrong. (And it was, in and of itself, making him a bit curious.)
“I believe you must have found something as well, dear Sorin.”
“I...did.” The other Miqo’te spoke hesitantly and too carefully, rubbing the back of his neck with streak-laced hands. “They were very...meticulous...about recording what they did--”
“Was it me?”
Sorin wasn’t quite looking at him now. “You did say you were an ‘Aurelius’ once, didn’t you? So yes, it was.”
Runya tilted his head, and barely blinked as he kept staring. “Yes, I did tell you that before we started this, didn’t I? So you knew what you were looking for.” He had been kicking himself internally for a solid bell after that, but it had just...slipped out and he only retroactively tried to justify it to himself as necessary. What this man did to him... “I hope you found something enlightening in it all.”
Sorin finally did look at him, and the morass of concern and pity and even some amount of upset actually made him flinch. “Enlightening isn’t the word I would use.”
But Runya just shrugged one shoulder, though it was a rather stiff sort of motion and one that made an entire section of his back ache in warning. “What’s done is done, Sorin.”
“Runya--”
“I did find some things on Angerona as well,” Runya continued, turning the datapad over in his hand. “I would...like to keep this one, to look at it a bit more. I don’t think she--Maebh even knows the half of what she’s really supposed to be.” Not that he was going to give up information so easily, but...still, he thought it might be worth strategically dropping hints at her at some point, particularly with her latest occupation.
(He did dislike anyone getting one over on him in terms of plotting. Daeyona was a bit dense to come close to defeating him on it, but her...that was a different story. Particularly now that she styled herself an information broker.)
“Runya.” Sorin sent him that look he always used when he wanted to try and make Runya behave, but Runya just smiled in the face of it this time and even pricked his ears up.
“You do know Daeyona very well,” he conceded, flicking his tail a bit more. “But you don’t have a lick of history with her friend, whereas I do. I’d like to be the one to tell her.”
And Sorin did finally dither a little at that, so he pursued that line of thought more closely.
“Do I not deserve to be the one?” he asked in a lower voice. “Even if she’s, well, someone else these days, some part of her is still in there, Sorin. Daeyona let it slip to me. Shouldn’t I tell her?”
Sorin, however, was not quite so easily swayed. He let Runya keep the pad he was holding, but swiftly gathered up the others. “We can discuss that later. Not after you just learned about it,” he added with a significantly sharper look at Runya. “I know you don’t like showing any emotion other than sarcasm, but you can’t be doing completely alright after reading all of that.”
Runya huffed, folding his arms in a slight fit of irritation. “You sound so sure of that.”
“I know you.”
“Fine, fine.” He waved his free hand, but made very sure to hand the datapad over to one of the larger nodes, which split cleanly in half to accept the smaller piece of technology without complaint. (An interesting storage system, but one he was happy to exploit.) “There, now it’s put away and everything--”
But Sorin reached over and hiked Runya’s robe back up over his shoulders, and took his arm to get him up--which get up, he did, with only slight puzzlement. “Ah, hey. What’s all this, then?”
“We’re going to get some fresh air.”
“Mmm, is this because you think I need it, or because you think you need it?”
Sorin just folded his arms and waited for Runya to finish getting dressed again.
“I’m going to take that as a yes?”
“Do you have to be like this?”
Runya smiled. “Oh, but Sorin, you’d be so bored without me being ‘like this’, as you so enigmatically put it.”
Sorin snorted, but there was just the faintest hint of a quirk at the corner of his mouth as well. “You may have something there.”
And at that, Runya slid stiffly over, lightly tapping the tip of Sorin’s nose with his finger. “You know it.” He was willing, for now, to go along with it, and he followed Sorin out without any further complaint. Of course, the Weapon was on his mind, but...well. If no one had found it yet, after all this time, no one was likely to in the next short while, and he could relent long enough to think about it a bit more. And besides, Sorin was clearly concerned for him, and he wasn’t keen on upsetting him any further.
(He knew full well that he was hopelessly stuck with the man, for better or worse. It felt rather odd to imagine running about without him, even. He might as well enjoy it while he could, shouldn’t he?)
