The world is a blur of blue–stray thoughts and the halo of aftermath. Somewhere distant, deep down, Altai knows this is the tide of Karash’s will. He’s berserking, the others call it. But his awareness of the situation drifts on the very edge, buried beneath the weight of the thing that controls him. (Small price to pay, really–the confusion and the loss of self.)
Karash breaks things down into impulses: left, right, swing harder, step faster, stab up and feel the spray of blood. She thinks so loud that there’s no space for him beneath–no room to process. Just the words that echo and the burning flame of anger eating at his chest. Sometimes he manages to catch glimpses–snarling enemy faces, his friends in danger or hurt, the splatter of red. Never enough to understand the scene, only brief gasps of air before he’s drowning again.(He doesn’t mind, he doesn’t mind. Panic is such a small price for the help of a god.)
Blue aether blinds him to himself and courses through his veins. It numbs him to anything Karash might do with his body. His arm isn’t meant to move like that, not that high or fast, but if she’s in the driver’s seat he can do anything. Up, in, dive, out–Karash commands, her thoughts defeating his own as they respond. He has no idea why they move where they do–nor why his palm meets resistance when his knife moves. In the fleeting seconds between swings he thinks he might have heard someone cry out, but he doesn’t know who or why. He only knows the song of dusk and the dance of violence–stepping to the pattern of Karash’s whims. (It’s fine, it’s fine. He isn’t here.)
Sometimes she knows to leave him when the fight ends. Sometimes she forgets. This time, she must be satisfied with whatever violence she wrought. He blinks back to himself, stumbling but on his feet in the wreckage. Creatures in the shapes of men, twisted and unfamiliar lay at his feet. He doesn’t remember… why did they fight? What were they doing here? His head pounds with the onset of a migraine. (Small prices to pay, the pain and the fog– she saved you again, didn’t she? Didn’t she?)
“You fought valiantly, Brave Champion,” the companion he’s just met tonight insists, smiling as they soothe the bloody rent in his collar with another spell. Altaichin has no words to answer with. He’s too busy trying to recognize himself, let alone the pain threading through his chest or the ache of misuse that threads most of his muscles. (It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing. He’s nothing.)
“Wasn’t really me,” Altai admits. His friend quiets with a nod, as if that’s all he needs to say.
Unfamiliar blood paints his hands where his fingers curl around the hilt of both knives. He hopes whatever they fought deserved it. Surely the others would have stopped him if he went too far otherwise. He scans the team of adventurers briefly–making sure they’re all still here. They seem preoccupied with the enemy corpses, but no one seems hurt.
The knives slide easy back into their sheathes, even as Altai berates himself for putting them away unclean. His hands shake too hard to manage the chore of caring for them now, something like panic caught like a bubble in his chest. Every time he gives Karash control he puts them all in danger, and yet… The value outweighs the risk. If it brings them all home safe because she can use him more ruthlessly and better than he can manage on his own, it has to be worth it. But sometimes he can’t help thinking…
Maybe playing at giving his form to a god of violence will only end in tragedy.
Altai feels guilty for entertaining doubts like these, when Nhaama has only ever come to his rescue. His thoughts spin too far in every direction, scattered thin, and he can barely manage to stay standing. The headache throbs, an early warning for the fever bound to follow. (Small prices to pay, small prices to pay.)
He’ll pay her every tax in every way–every agony and nightmare and passion and ounce of devotion she can take–so long as she keeps them safe. Altai ignores the horrible voice in the back of his mind reminding him he’s never been enough for anyone–let alone a god.
In which a boy can’t catch a break from Nhaama given visions. It’s hard to believe anyone wants to stick around when he’s such a mess all the time.
Self indulgent sloppy mess writing but being not perfect is the whole point of the challenge, right?
Warnings for me doing strange things with visions, aether, and Nhaama lore. Final Days spoilery things. Sappy boyfriends.
CW for: suicidal thoughts, request for assisted suicide
<> = speaking in Xaelic
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Flicker, pop–the image on the screen changes. From one side of the world to the next in the blink of the eye–sometimes even to things that don’t exist and never will. His dreams feel a little like changing channels too, except he’s never allowed to hold the remote.
Blink, look up. The village is busy today, Altai thinks as he listens to the buzz outside Mide’s home. His hands are occupied with a new embroidery design stretched over a square frame, but his mind wanders, thinking of all the chores he needs to do. Wondering if he’ll have time to make a run to Reunion for supplies this week before the wedding—
“<Still fussing with that, moon boy?>” Mide asks, her smile a mile wide as she moves toward the stove to start her breakfast. Her long, pale hair is still piled in a long braid atop her head, warrior’s body already moving with grace even though she’s only just awoken.
“<I just want it to look nice.>” he shrugs, looking at the second row of detailed patterning he’s started. Charms for good luck and happiness are sewn in into its designs–careful not to invoke any specific to Nhaama. “<Unless you don’t plan on ever wearing my wedding gift?>” he teases back, angling his work in the light of the lanturn and reaching for a little more wax to ease the thread with.
Mide pretends to throw the rag on her counter at him, but her smile is warm when she sets it back down. She shakes her head, putting together a breakfast porridge. The giant pot she heaves effortlessly over the hearth will make more than enough for her, her five siblings, and probably half the village. “<Suppose you put enough red in it for a Dalamiq–I might give it a try.>”
“<You might!>” Altai laughs. He shakes his head and leaves her to her cooking as he finishes out the next few stitches. Maybe with a little care he could add a little more red… little rounded arcs like dalamud rising…?
“<You know, ‘Taichin,>” her voice is quiet over the sound of porridge bubbling, but it rings in his head like a gunshot. His eyes snap to her, hands stilling. It’s not often she tries to sound so serious. “<You could… see if that friend of yours wants to come by for the wedding–the traveler we met in Reunion?>”
Quick limbs and a faster tongue—A hand in his as they run. Shorn hair sliding into Anert’s face, barely barred from their eyes by pointed ears—not his, not his, not his.
“<I don’t… think that’s a good idea.>” Something tugs at the back of his thoughts. Foreboding begins to beat through his blood and he doesn’t know why. What has he forgotten?
“<Why not?>” Mide slams the lid of the porridge back down–pays no heed as it starts to rattle or to the way Altai jumps. “<I saw the way you looked at them, ‘Taichin. You nearly dropped my little sister when your eyes met–I know well enough what it looks like when one half finds another.>”
“<That’s not…>” The discord clamoring through his head rises to a crescendo. Fated halves they might be, but Altai’s not good enough to make them stay. Besides, last time they were here they nearly—
Last time you brought them here, you both nearly died. The village turned against you because it’s your fault that Mide and her fiance are– Mide is–
She doesn’t look like a ghost. But he remembers her dying. His hands shake on the embroidery frame, and he sets it down. Slow. “<Maybe I’m just too embarrassed to bring them back here,>” he offers, mouth dry.
He doesn’t hear the answer.
Blink
Find the world again–search out the meaning in the angles of the light and the sensations drifting at a snail’s pace through his comprehension. The sky is a terrible, terrible orange through an ornate window. Its changed light streams in through tattered curtains and makes patterns on the unfamiliar floor.
He can’t remember what he did to wind up in the make-shift medbay, white sheets pulled high above his waist and back propped up on a bevy of pillows. But he feels the pain of it easy enough. His left shoulder hasn’t quite been the same since the last time he dislocated it, but the agony it emits now makes its usual complaints pale in comparison. Altai bends at the waist to sit and raises his other hand to the wound without thinking, leaning hard against the wall that abuts his cot—
“Not sure you should mess with that Altaichin.” a quiet voice sounds from his right. Altai pauses–turns his head slowly to meet it. His mouth feels like dry cotton when he tries to swallow.
Koh’sae Lyehga stares back at him–the older keeper’s mismatched eyes both strange and sickly in the orange light. Altai can’t remember a time when the Company’s contracted psychologist didn’t look put together, but the deep bags beneath his eyes and the bruise at his jaw give Koh a weary and frazzled appearance.
Koh flips a page in his ever-present notebook and slides the thing closed. “Seems you’re back with me. Do you remember where we are?”
Altai starts to shake his head, but something about the design of the room and the smell from outside gives him pause. It’s… faint. Hidden by the scent of the world burning outside but… he thinks he smells the sea.
“Thavnair,” he murmurs. “Near Yedlihmad.” Hiding in the outlying buildings far enough from the village he might not be a threat if he turns like so many others.
Black smoke rises like a heatwave from his skin as he wakes to reality and Altai closes his eyes. He can feel Koh’s gaze against his skin, caught between pity and caution. But there are so many people dying outside, and Altai’s still here, useless as always. He’s fucked up his shoulder again and he’s so inept at controlling his emotions they had to call the psych to come sit with him. He’s not only failing to help, he’s hindering. The last thing anyone needs is another blasphemy. Why did they even call Koh here? They should have done everyone a favor and just—
A careful hand searches for his good one, spot of warmth and Koh’s textured glove against his palm that makes the thoughts still.
“Altaichin, you only need to hold out for a little longer. We don’t know yet–how this thing spreads. We can’t take you back to Limsa like this, but if you can just keep it at bay for a day, or as soon as we learn more, I am going to help you get back. This isn’t the ending.”
Not the ending? Why not? Gold meets green and brown as Altai’s eyes flicker open, but the color is a shade too dim. Shadows cloak his vision like a filter.
“Talk to me,” Koh pleads. “I promise you it will get better. I know it doesn’t feel that way, but I need you to have faith in that.” The words feel so meaningless in his head. Altai barely registers them. He watches Koh instead–lets his vision trail down the length of the other man’s arm–to the syringe held in his grip.
Good. They’re not stupid enough to believe in him completely. Probably a sedative. Must be why his head’s so foggy–how many times have they had to use it already to keep him teetering on the edge like this?
“Altaichin, please. I don’t want to push, but circumstances as they are… I need to know what’s hurting you.”
It doesn’t matter what Koh says. There’s nothing to go back to. No one who cares–not really.
Not true, not true, not true—just on the other side someone waits for you to wake up. Someone who’s always there–who doesn’t mind the confusion or the bouts of sadness. If you could just—
“Just kill me,” he hears himself ask, vision so blinded by pouring black smoke he can’t see. Consciousness fades before he knows whether Koh takes his chance. Altai hopes the man does–no one else should end like this.
BLINK
The sound of water intensifies, sea breaks on the shore nearby and he is d̴͕͇͐y̴̦̓i̴̪͂̈́n̵͙͒ͅg̸͉̅͝,̶͔̻͐ ̴̺̀̓s̸̢̖̾̚e̶̝͊̀ẘ̸̩̫́i̶̧̺͑͐n̷̼͕͂g̵̍ͅ,̷̢̐ ̶̪͉̔f̴̘͋ḯ̴̯̣g̶͖̲̑͆h̸̝̃ẗ̸͕̂͜i̷̧̛̟n̶̤̈́͝g̸̗̹̿̆ awake. The salt spray hits the bottoms of his bare feet every once in a while as the water swirls under the pier. Sun-warmed wood makes a solid seat to dangle his legs from. The sky is a dusky purple that only bleeds orange where the sun sets–a far healthier hue than he last saw. His shoulder only aches in the dull, background way it usually does and Dalamiq and Thavnair are far, far away.
“Oh! Hello Silly-tai. Do I have you back?”
No ghosts. No black smoke. The weight of Altai’s relief could break him. His hands tremble where they rest against his lap and he sags, listing into—
“Whoop! Still a little dizzy, hunh? She’s just not giving you a break tonight.” A broad, warm hand at his shoulder. The feather-light brush of wild hair against his face as Tsetseg leans in to kiss his forehead. Altai rests against Tsetseg’s side and tries to piece together the fragments of his own mind.
“<She doesn’t owe me breaks.>” He murmurs as he leans closer, side lighting with warmth everywhere Tsetseg touches. He remembers this–Tsetseg’s orange gaze the same color as the setting sun. Tall and muscled and gorgeous and completely out of Altai’s league but for some reason he bothers to care about Altai anyway.
“<Owe Shmoe. You deserve nice things. Even when moon mom’s in a bad mood.>” Tsetseg’s hand rubs at his bad shoulder and the phantom soreness of a bad injury only his mind remembers begins to fade.
“<Beloved….>” the endearment escapes him before he can examine it. Beloved. Truly? He’s allowed to say that in this world? Allowed to hold onto it? “<I’m just sorry to be in the way. I didn’t mean to steal your evening…>”
“<I would tell you as many times as you need to hear it—I could never mind time spent with you. I will be here to support you any time you need me. Every time.>” Tsetseg notices the way Altai’s fingers tremble and his free hand skates over their laps to still them.
This can’t be real. Altai doesn’t deserve beautiful things or beautiful worlds. He never has... But the way Tsetseg looks at him so sincerely makes him want so badly to believe. He keeps Tsetseg’s hand in his and settles into the comfort of it, content to go along with the lovely dream and await the dreadful moment he wakes up.
(It still hasn’t come yet the next morning. Or the next. And if Tsetseg catches him pinching the skin inside his wrist to make sure... he doesn’t mention it.)
