#daud 01

The tall towers and bleak, somber architecture of the Sea of Crises was almost a comfort to Estinien when he saw them from the train window. Certainly the city felt safer and more familiar than the trains; Estinien firstly did not trust any manner of vehicle that did not live yet seemed to think and operate on its own. He might have endeavored to find another method of travel if he hadn’t seen what lay outside of the train’s transparent tubes--which is to say, nothing but stars and inky blackness barely penetrated by the light of the red sun the entire structure seemed to be built around. It was enough to make one dizzy, and paranoid besides. He dreaded what the return trip would be like.

Upon reading the names of the train stops, Estinien had assumed that they were all oceans, similar to the summery beaches he had discovered around the place he supposedly was now to live. Evidently that was not the case, and the “seas” were mostly metaphorical. In Crises, it seemed that the most water one could find was in the dirty puddles in the cobblestone streets, or the heavy fog that sit about the city’s shoulders like a fur stole.

It was within that murky mist that Estinien was crouched atop an austere building of gray stone, perhaps resembling the snarling gargoyles that were his only company there.

The Sea of Crises feels a lot like Ishgard, but also distinctly different from Ishgard, and both these things are putting Hilda on edge. It doesn’t help that the rat people who populate the mare are keen of skulking in the shadows and popping in and out of the edge of one’s vision. One of them startled Hilda with a high-pitched psst earlier and then tried to sell her... She’s not quite sure what it was but it looked like it would put her in danger of losing multiple fingers if she tried to use it.

Unsettled as she may be by this familiar-but-unfamiliar place, she presses on. And would you look at that — here’s a relatively normal-looking person. He seems to be walking around without any particular destination and — hang on, did he just disappear? And then reappear a few yalms away?

Hilda’s seen teleportation, and while she’s never had a reason to attempt it herself, she knows what it looks like: it takes a few moments to prepare, and it surrounds you with aether so concentrated it’s visible to the naked eye. Now that Ishgard has opened its gates, you can see adventurers teleporting into and out of the aetheryte plaza constantly — and none of them can just do it instantly like this man. This bears investigating.

As unsettling as Mare Crisium and its rat residents may be, the fair that Shokudaikiri seems to have found himself in the middle of is fun. After stopping at a horse display and chatting to a surprisingly nice rat about horse care, he moves on to check out the games.

He hasn’t heard of bobbing for apples, but it looks like fun, so he decides to try it. After paying the rat-woman running the attraction, he takes a look at his competition: it seems that he will be facing off against a bird who’s likely a resident of Nectar and a dour-looking human man whom Shokudaikiri would never have pictured in this kind of situation. But what’s a festival for if not trying out new ways to enjoy yourself? He certainly had fun at the festival that Aizen had convinced the Master to organise back at the citadel. It was the height of summer and the middle of a heat wave, but the festival let everyone forget about the oppressive heat and—

No, this is not the time for reminiscing. As far as he knows, none of the other Sword Warriors are here, and he should focus on his current situation. Even if the current situation is bobbing for apples.

After a time, she is a little more herself. A little more... present, filling her own skin until she’s fit to burst, then receding again- full, empty, full, empty, like the beating of a heart. Of her heart. Of the Heart. She can still hear the secrets, sliding into her ears, but they are... bearable, now. She can’t stop her mind from seeking the whispers, but she can turn her eyes away, and, when she remembers that she has a body and legs attached to that body, she can walk away. With enough distance, the connection snaps.

But she remembers who she is, mostly. I am Jessamine. I am Jessamine. She remembers what she was. Empress Kaldwin, second of my line. Mother to Emily Kaldwin, third of her line. She can feel the void still reaching for her mind with its hungry, grasping fingers, but she is.... she’s adjusting, she thinks.

She’s as put together as she’s ever been, outwardly, as she descends the stairs, one hand ghosting along the railing. She feels as if she is falling already- the last thing she needs is to fall for real. This thought comes and goes. On the third flight, her hand drops to her side. She forgets.

The lobby holds little interest for her- she wants to go outside, to see the streets, to hear the people. Tricks and traps and so many little cruelties, her heart whispers to her, but that’s okay. That’s expected, isn’t it?

Her fingers lift to the door, and it swings open before they can make contact.

Red coat. Heavy hands. She knows those arms, the way those fingers feel around her throat. She knows the way they can shove a knife in through the heart, then drop your already dying body in an instant. The way the form can disappear into nothingness, with your daughter held tight in those cruel, cruel hands.

She gasps and takes a stumbling step back, hand lifting to her sternum, feeling where she’s whole, she’s whole, she’s whole.

Her eyes lift to his face, and she’s distant once again.

His hands do violence. But there is a different dream in his heart.

“Assassin,” she says, voice soft and low and hollow- not a cry for help, piercing and pleading, the way it was once, when last they met and her voice could reach his ears (though not his heart), but an acknowledgement. It buzzes in her own ears. She wants to do violence. She wants to put her hands on his throat. She wants to dig her fingers into his eyes.

Talon’s never been to the Sea of Crises. He was hesitant, of course, to even go beyond his own sky-high tree where he lived. Staying barricaded in his room for days on end, though, doesn’t bear much results for... anything. But what does he want results for in the first place? His hands are grasping at ghosts. Noxus, he thinks, but something more specific than that. Katarina. Marcus. The knives. Home. 

A purpose, he mouths with the cool silk of the scarf caressing his lips. He wants a purpose.

Stalking the streets of Crises-- it’s like Noxus, but not quite. Like a painter in Demacia heard from a friend of a friend of a friend what Noxus was like and tried to construct an image from it. Something’s lost. Something unsettling. Talon sinks deeper into his scarf, and continues scanning the streets.

There. A man, much taller than he, strolling the streets doing Gods know what. What he’s doing isn’t important; what’s important that he looks unaware, distracted and vulnerable. What Talon is expecting to nab off him, he doesn’t know, but whatever this man has on his person, it’s bound to be interesting and valuable, from the looks of it.

The heat is like quicksand, inescapable and close: it drips over every part of him and then squeezes. He’s not so far from ‘home’ that he couldn’t go back and find something else to wear; but by the time he realizes that, his shirt drenched through with sweat and clinging to him like a lover, he has already wandered past the point where it might matter.

He took off his shoes perhaps a mile or two ago, close to Bì Xìu, and left them. The beach is deserted: especially in this isolation, he has to consciously remind himself of the possibility of being seen, or even being forced to interact with someone. Normally, that kind of a specter might motivate him to keep himself presentable-- but he’s hot, and rolling up his sleeves and undoing a few buttons seems like a small sacrifice.

At least the water is still cold. The spray of the surf is welcome today, even when it manages to soak into his trousers, bunched up around his knees. His stated goal was to look for shells and flotsam, but the idea of walking on the sand is about as appealing as walking on glass. He’s keeping an eye out, anyway: he’s managed to collect one nice conk shell and a few polished black pebbles.

Even if he’s being burned alive, there’s a pleasantness to the solitude, and the sound of the water.

It’s different somehow, not to be watching: he didn’t really know how different until now. There’s still the feeling of vulnerability that haunts his thoughts, whispering danger to him, but he feels-- what is it exactly? The feeling of biting into a ripe peach, or studying your father’s hands as he teaches you to roll dough, or sitting on a rooftop to watch the dawn.