#ferena

[skwoosp]

felt like drawing all my OC eyes

[splinteredash]

[ she has something to discuss with you! ] She finds him in the classroom. Head peeks around the corner at a very familiar figure; she's careful to keep out of sight and be as quiet as possible. The second she caught wind of a rumor involving a very tall and brooding man, she went searching! Lo and behold, there he is, in the kind-of-see-through flesh!

Now that she's found him, she doesn't know quite how to approach. She was only able to speak to the Líf from her world briefly. (Kiran had him teach a skill to Alfonse, and then he was gone), and even then he barely made conversation.

Can't really be mad about that though. He's... gone through a lot. But it doesn't give him the right to be a big flake! She will talk to him and they will bond!

With a motivated exhale, she emerges and stands in the doorway. For a few seconds she stands there. He... makes her sad, and she cannot entirely decipher why.

Sharena's smile widens. She will lock that sadness away. For Líf's sake. She wouldn't want to burden him with her own sadness.

"Wow! Black Eagles," she chirps, hands clasping behind her back as she walks calmly into the room. "If I had known you were teaching here, I would have totally joined! But I think I look great in blue." She was also in the Blue Lions before.

When she's a few feet from him, she stops. Smile disappears when she gets firm. "And before you say anything. I'm not the Sharena you know. Different Sharena. Same Sharena but different." She blinks, confused by her own words.

A deep breath. "Same Sharena that you know but different, in that, like, I'm not from your world. Like not from the world you're in now and the world you're from, but, like, I'm from a different, different world."

"..." Her smile returns, this time a bit sheepish, and a pink dusts over her cheeks. "I kinda got lost?" Oops. "But it's fine. Totally fine. I'll find my way back, and in the mean time, I'm going to make the most of my time here!"

There's not a lot for Sharena to watch. Lif does not so much as stir as he enters his headspace. With nothing left to write on for the day, no lesson plans to draft up, and a likely-busy Thrasir not at his side, a lack of purpose stays his hand. His body knows neither hunger nor exhaustion, making little use of the monastery's facilities--and he would rather rip the lofty laurel from a god's head than offer them a single prayer.

So he anchors himself to his classroom, and resigns himself to wait for life to happen. Excitement is often tragic; he prefers silence.

Today, he would not be getting silence.

Sharena glows at the entrance to his class, and at first Alfonse is unsure of what to think. His eyes rip through their worn appearance so that his shock may truly be displayed. And as she speaks, time crawls to a standstill. Where there was a void of thoughts there are now thousands. They swarm him, circling and buzzing like an impossibly thick cloud of locusts. He wants to feel everything--despair, relief, envy, happiness--but as she mentions her chosen house, they fall flat. Everything converges on hope.

Hope that this Sharena is faring well. Hope that her optimism lives. Hope that she is the same Sharena he once lost--that the gods have finally shown him some pity, that they honored his deal. Hope that the bright beacon before him is the first of many swells within his undead chest, and Lif rises from his seat to meet her.

But hope is crushed by the harshness of the truth. Whatever embers of his past she had lit behind his crimson die with her next few breaths. Breaths of life, which he envies, and he mimics with the eitr beneath his mask.

Lif's shoulders fall, along with every last wing and compound eye belonging to one of his thoughts. He raises a gloved hand, as if to say that she need not explain, but there is no stopping her. He should have known as much, seeing as how this is still Sharena. But time has made him grow distant. He feels a blade twist into his side as the useless endeavor achieves no goal, knowing it is a greater indication of how far he strayed from his humanity.

This, too, eats at Lif.

"I... Do not know what to say," he admits, solemnly averting his sister's gaze. He cannot smile like she does, and even if he could, it would be marred and ugly--and concealed by his monstrosity of a face. "I wish you well, Sharena. Please... Do what you will with the precious time you have."

Lif's voice shudders, for he knows, greater than all, that there is no going back once it's used up.

"If I may assist you in any way... Do not hesitate to ask."