@kazeofthemagun | and so, it begins.
he doesn't know... what to think about this place. it's not living, not dead - things seem to be "alive," but he knows better than that. things cannot be alive in the way he's familiar with without aether flowing through it, and the land is BARREN of the substance where the plants, animals, and AIR should have it in that wide breadth he's used to. in his head, he's calling it "purgatory." not quite truth, not quite human, either - he knew the expanse of worlds beyond his own was a very real possibility before being scattered into the fabric of existence, but something about this is DIFFERENT. he's wandered for far too long, and he seems to still be going NOWHERE - the world isn't cyclical, isn't RIGHT. even when he crosses over to different lands, it's all the same twisted web, all the same broken pieces. minutes, hours, days, weeks, months - it's hard to tell anymore. time doesn't WORK right, not here - though it's not like ANYTHING works right here to begin with. his "body" shouldn't even exist, and yet it does; all he can do is walk, all he can do is LEARN. such is the nature of a being that created truth. his wandering has lead to him falling into that survivalist state from years past. he's not human anymore, but his memories, his sense of self? those have all become eternal, etched into his very spirit as he keeps his hood up over his head in order to keep himself at least moderately obscured. that's the problem with being what he is - he glows, and it's obnoxious to an extent. especially when he doesn't know what's an ally and what's an enemy.
it is also in that very same sense of PARANOIA that he hides himself - even though the sense is dulled, even though the living beings he finds here don't have the aether that is characteristic of LIFE, they still have SOMETHING there that he can pick up on. there's something - SOMEONE - near him, and he's not exactly sure how to "map out" the surroundings and the body short of staring it down. so he hides. he hides, all so that betzalel - chaos, his family - won't cry out of torment again, just as they did when he first woke up, separated from his moon, scattered to the winds of time and space. he hides so that the worried fragment of the rebis sitting within his heart may LIVE. don't be found. don't be found. don't be found. you can't risk it, lairus. don't breathe, be still, be SILENT. his breaths fall still - so still, in fact, that if he wasn't "dead" already, he would surely suffocate. he hasn't felt this kind of CORNERING since he heard her voice in a faint whisper when he woke - if she spread her reach, he's a dead man if he's found. so he stays still, stays obscured behind the landscape - and he prays that whatever is there isn't capable of sensing him the way SHE does. don't get found. it's so hard when his heart - the culmination of his entire LIFE - seems to be beating so loud it breaches SKIN.