#laesarus

it dawns a tranquil enough morning (or should be, judging by the lights cast by the underdark's fungi) that Vann uses to its fullest. He's the first to rise for the third day in a row and though he knows he ought to return by the time everyone else is up and readying for another day's march, today he lingers by the lake they came across a day before. Vann, for once, gives into frivolity: a quick swim surrounded by silence and comforting, living lights should help ease some of the tension he's been dragging for the last little while. The water's pleasantly tepid, warmer even closer to the bottom. [ It's the first time in ages he's had the chance to reason past his ... aversion to breathlessness. Three feet under, he watches the lights ripple and slowly settle as lake's surface stills again. ]

there's a flicker of gold that It reminds him of Sol's eyes. They speak only as necessary now, and she does her utmost to stay away from him. He exhales, and colors muddy and mix again like a painter's palette. The first thing to come to mind in the morning is often a source of prolonged grief; given their recent animosity, Vann is hardly surprised that even half - blinded and deafened by deep water, that unease is forever present. Lungs emptied, he kicks to break the surface with a deep but silent breath. It's no mind - numbing plunge into icy water, but he does feel better.

he unfurls a thin blanket to dry off. [ I pity such a lonely existence. ] Vann clicks his tongue at the recollection. He doesn't regret defending himself, but loneliness is a blade that bleeds its wearer; it's painful enough to bear without having to be reminded of it. He wonders if Sol resents him, if for no other reason than to be rid of the tension between them before the seams continue to fray. His hands slow down as Vann's own thoughts sequester him away, and he stops halfway through lacing his trousers. Water droplets trickle down the side of his neck. [ I never claimed to be good, and I don't pretend at honesty. ] He ought to speak to her.

half - dressed, Vann wrings the last of the water out of his hair, and only then does he realize he's paced some distance away from his belongings. He turns, the blanket - towel slung over his shoulders.

and it's for her that he's sent for. At a distance, Sol is nothing if not an interesting creature: a walking and breathing hearty display of arrogance and power barely kept check by companions far more human than she herself could ever hope to be. He almost sympathizes with the cleric she's ... fraternizing with, for he's been saddled with an impossible task. The leash will never be tight enough, the fist will never be closed enough, and that is precisely what Enver aims to exploit. That, and Sol's own headstrong and independent nature.

the eleventh bell rings, muted, somewhere in the distance; shortly after, a knock to the door. Well, at least she's punctual. He calls for whoever's outside to enter, and he all but perks up when his suspicions are proven correct. ❛❛ Somehow I expected you wouldn't stay put, ❜❜ Enver says by way of greeting as he stands, and circles around the shoddy table to meet Sol at the halfway point.

it's been some time since he's graced the Blushing Mermaid and even though he's cloaked in self - made notoriety, Enver Gortash is good at blending in when he truly wishes to. The Lower City knows him and he knows the Lower City; there are times where being remarkable is hardly a challenge, especially in the backrooms of one of the roughest establishments in Baldur's Gate. Hardly anyone, if anyone at all, will care a fig for what a criminal kingpin and a sorcerer have to do together.

❛❛ Happy to see you found your way around. ❜❜ he smiles if only slightly, knowing he's already being appraised. ❛❛ I took the liberty of ordering liquor; a dry table isn't conducive to business and by my reckoning, you and I have plenty. ❜❜ And if the bottle goes untouched, it's no matter: at the Mermaid, it's best to act like everyone else.

they can forgive themself for losing him,  they can forgive him for being lost and finding himself among others,  but revan cannot forgive the ease with which he stands apart from them,  and how there is no room left for them among the guardians.  it’s petty,  but petty is something real,  something human enough to keep their shape contained within armor,  to keep memory and emotion from spawning new landscape,  so they cling to petty.  cayde doesn’t approach them and they make an effort to be unapproachable.  it’s not particularly difficult; they exist as a what, not a who, something pulled from the architecture of the pale heart, and the aftermath of revan's impact and the path forced through their memories is a general trepidation that they refuse to find awkward.

eventually,  the pale heart offers night,  because all who traverse within the traveler —even the things that threaten to blacken false earth and poison false trees—  remember the rise and settings of stars on a horizon.  the guardians embrace the offering,  setting up lights within their perimeter and laying out places to rest,  and revan hovers on the periphery,  watching from more directions than they have eyes for.  they still shape the pale heart like a current defining a coast,  they still struggle to breathe without something beneath their feet moving with the rhythm of it,  but there are here,  present,  made of all the facsimiles of flesh and blood.  the vanguard notice,  and ask simple tasks of them to keep their hands busy and their feet firmly planted.  the guardians are also polite enough keep curious questions to themselves when they notice revan’s gaze constantly wandering to the resurrected hunter.

this is how cayde finds them, counting supplies and making inventory lists. revan refuses to grant him the illusion of stealth, glancing up to watch his approach, but the hard edge of their stare doesn't slow his pace. “ i got you something. ” cayde seems to materialize an object out of thin air, wiggling it in his hand to show off his prize. revan has to do a double-take to fully process what he's holding.

“ what is that. ”   they know exactly what it is.  they would call it old,  which means it is ancient by anyone else’s standard.  older than cayde,  older than the golden age,  older than the sight of the traveler in their star system. revan opens their hands on reflex as cayde drops it into the grip.

the cheap,  mechanical toy comes to life in their hands,  eyes clumsily fluttering open,  unbothered by the flowers growing out of revan's hands that seem determined to choke it out.  me love you,  comes the tinny,  distorted voice out of plastic and fake fur,  and cayde,  the bastard,  laughs and asks, “ i didn't miss your birthday, did i? ” ⸻ @laesarus

the familiar warmth in his voice eases something in their chest so far that it breaks, giving way like a dam. the flora in their hand quiver. “ you missed a couple. ”  the words taste numb on their tongue and sound distant in their ears,  as if beneath water. he's destroyed something in them, washed it away under torrent to make room for the regrowth of something older. curiosity eventually outweighs confusion and incredulity and aching grief, and revan turns the furby over in their hands as if handling a delicate antique.  “ where on earth did you find this ? ”

“ it’s a secret, ” cayde says. he has the nerve to sound proud, as if he knows the extent of his work.

they find themself strangely entranced with it. “ i didn’t have one of these as a kid. ”  revan tells him. their voice is light for the first time in a long time, but they do not notice, too busy caught up in the children's toy and re-learning the pace to a conversational rhythm they haven't had in a long time.   “ i never wanted one.  i thought they were creepy. ”  the furby laughs, and revan frowns at it. “ it still is kind of creepy. ”  cayde seems to find that just as funny as the gift itself.

SHEPARD HAD BEEN THINKING THAT the SR-2's felt awfully empty. Though that, he supposes, might be a personal problem — for the majority of the crew, this has been a delicate, multiyear process at last reaching its long-awaited culmination. For him, it has been less of a process and more of a violent uprooting. Passed from the hands of the Alliance into the vastness of Amada space and into the emptiness of cold, suffocating death; then between the hands of Cerberus scientists and lab technicians ( well, probably more like through their hands, given the alleged state of Shepard — what was left of him — when they found him ) ; then thrust, with disgustingly little ceremony, back into life and into the flames of a crumbling Lazarus research station. And then back into command of a ship too eerily familiar to reject as the one that was once his ... but still too jarringly — despite the obvious and overwhelming human presence — alien to be the real thing.

He had spent the past days tracing new routes through the ship, angling around the instinctive paths tugging him towards his old crewmates' stations. The room that Liara had made into her temporary quarters/office was no more. And he had realised, when Gardner's patience ran out and the mess sergeant had actually snapped at him, that he was staring through the man and at the spot where Kaidan used to linger. Admittedly, he's been avoiding the once-populated hangar, too, where the rest of his crew so often gravitated. The Normandy SR-1 had operated with barely a skeleton crew before its steady accumulation of additional allies once it had passed into Shepard's hands; the SR-2, though bustling with more than thrice that, felt far larger and far more lifeless than its predecessor.

He was hoping to change that quickly, once he'd checked in with now-Councillor Anderson — he owed that much to his captain and his old mentor — and could set course for Omega. Fill the ship with not his people but, at the least, still people he can perhaps afford to trust.

... Wishful thinking. No, that isn't it. This is some sort of terrible, divine, malicious wish-fulfilment.

Captain Revan — they're a pleasant and more than welcome addition. A familiar face and a reassurance: a sure ally amongst a team thus far made of Cerberus' top picks.

But Saren Arterius? Once the Council's most prized Spectre, turned traitor to the galaxy and fanatical crusader for synthetic-organic fusion at the hands of the Reapers? That's another story, and after their last exchange — well. Shepard hasn't even begun to think about where the hell they stand with one another after that shitshow.

Still, there's no use in pondering it, he figures as he slithers past the rest of the crew, through the CIC and into the elevators, and towards Starboard Observation. He'll find out when he sees the bastard up close, in person, for himself.

" ... Saren. "

Shepard casts a quick glance across the room. If not for its sole occupant looming in sight, it looks remarkably untouched. Silence wells for a moment, thick and awkward in the space between them. The air, despite Starboard Observation's temperate conditioning, is frosty against his skin. Shepard wets his lips, twists his mouth in a half-grimace of a failed smile.

" Hope there's no hard feelings. " A little humour couldn't hurt. And he would have been fine if he stopped there. But, of course, he doesn't:

" What with the, uh — well. Telling you to kill yourself. " ... " ... you know. On the Citadel. " ... " ... back then. "

SPECTREs bear a great burden,   nihlus remembers the words; platitudes and speeches spilling over him like a cold tide, as he stared up at the galactic community's council, inaugurating him into the citadel's SPECTRE forces from their proverbial pedestals.  they are protectors of the galactic peace. both our first  and last line of defense.  the safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold.

if there is any truth to those words, carefully pieced together like glass puzzle pieces, sharp and translucent, nihlus does not find it in the eyes of a furious, injured batarian slaver, green blood in his mouth and seeping out of his eyes; dark, shiny, mostly pupil, they stare up at him with a cultivated hate that nihlus does not care to understand.

@laesarus's commentary is dry, dark with humor, “the world ends around us everyday.”

"of course," nihlus tilts his head in an acknowledging bow; his green eyes are warm and luminous against the dark plates of his face.

the batarian hegemony maintains a sociopolitical entity of slavers and spies and aggressive propaganda campaigns; they are rarely interested in galactic peace.

it makes his job harder. he remembers that, as he lifts his pistol (and the burnt, branded skin of the hegemony's victims, the blisters around their shock collars, as nihlus helped them out of small cages). gently curls his talon over the trigger, as the mercenary begins to fear, begins to beg.

nihlus watches the bullets, bright and burning, as they burst out of the weapon and sear into his face. kills him.

nihlus has seen many, many worlds end, many lights leaving many eyes. only feels the recoil.

they’re not eager to admit it, but their days revolve around him.  they are by no means isolated—  there is little the hero association could do to keep rasputin out if they tried, and with rasputin comes the revenants, comes the rumbling of war drums.  revan lives in a haze marked out by alternating between pain and painkillers and the sterile routines of hospital staff but they are still something sharp and dangerous.  they still work.  but few people actually come to see them.  mirai has been a ghost and cate only managed to get time with them as a formality.  the revenants are simply not allowed near, and revan tolerates it the way anyone tolerates a compromise.  they could never bring themself to admit to being lonely, but japan's [ former ] no. 1 hero shows up like clockwork.  and so they keep him as a timepiece. 

— i am here.

their gaze doesn’t first meet his eyes but instead drifts to his side where they know the wound [ the singularity ] sits beneath his clothes.  it’s where they always turn to first, these days.  in art they speak of the focal point, the epicenter which draws your eye before anything else, from which all other aspects exist in relation to.  to call toshinori's old injury as such would make it akin to art, to suggest beauty, even.  but perhaps they are determined to find beauty in it—to build a barrier against the despair that coils in their gut, to leave no loose soil for it to take root in.  so they look, as they always do, first to his injury and then to the rest of him, watching as toshinori  slips through a door with a smile and [ yet another ] bento in hand.  he’s determined to keep them fed, it seems.  

“ you look good, you know. ”    it’s amazing the work properly fitting clothes and fixed posture does, but revan notices other details now. a fuller face, a less haggard air to him.  it's as if the weariness he wears now is due to them rather than the effort it took him to get here.     “ like you’ve been taking care of yourself. ”

i've been trying, toshinori replies, a touch shy.  they make note of the way he flushes under the compliment, the reflexive thanks coming with a sheepish [ guilty ] scratching of the neck.  despite the gauntness, despite the heavy shadows, he is made of gentle contours.

he settles in the chair by their beside in silence, but it’s a different kind of quiet than they're used to with him.  heavier.  weighed down by the blood on their hands that toshinori can now see, that was dragged out into the open as if they were exposed to a blacklight.  it turns their attempts at conversation stilted and awkward as the two make small talk, toshi giving updates on his students, revan sharing gossip about the facility's staff that they really shouldn't know considering their status.  they resent the distance of it, the careful choice of words required as they attempt to navigate this new landscape.  [ they should have planned for this.  anticipated it in some regard.  to miss a possibility in its entirety is the highest order of failure. ]  idle, uncomfortable conversation is eventually interrupted by the creak of the door swinging open and revan almost sighs in relief seeing a pair of nurses coming in to do rounds.  the medical staff always enter flanked by guards ;  not even the presence of the great hero all might is enough to ease the wariness from the rest of the hero association.  revan sees the careful placement, the watchful gaze, and is satisfied to be recognized as a threat, even laid up.   “ i take back all those times i called you a terrible patient, ”    they joke to toshi, light and smiling as one of the nurses takes their blood pressure.    “ there’s nothing i’d rather do than break out of this place. ” the nurse at their side shoots them a look, masking fear with irritation, and the smile on revan’s face spreads into a cold grin at the sight.  

they forget in these moments that he’s there to see them like this.  @laesarus opens his mouth, then closes it.  waits for the nurses and their guard to leave, waits longer for the words he had on the tip of his tongue to find their way out again.  they expect— a reprimand. disapproval wrapped up in betrayal, in heartbreak.  they do not expect guilt.  i understand now, how you felt back then.  watching you suffer tore me apart.

revan stares at him, eyes wide.    “ i don’t think you understand me at all. ”    there’s a note of bitterness there, curling their lips into something sad and sardonic.  the tightness peters out near their eyes, their gaze still soft even as they clench their hands into fists.  there is always a bit of them that gives, just for him. “ you did what was necessary.  i respected it.  admired it. ”

he was beautiful then, too.  even when a bloodied figure slumped against the wall, determined to walk away from a fight on his own two feet as lifeblood spilled out of him.  even when he was a shell full of meat and tubes and medication.  all the fissures in him kept whole through sheer determination and rage and the desperate hands of others pressing seams together long enough to form a bond.    “ i finally got it, you know. ”    they tell him,    “ i understood how they feel when they look at you. ”    massive stars were meant to die in a spectacular fashion, something bold and brilliant and unforgettable and they could no more stop him from burning himself out than they could stop the mechanics that governed the fusion engine at the heart of the sun.  there was grief, yes, but more than that was the wonder, the delight and affection that bleeds into their words, even now.    “ you were the most incredible thing i’d ever seen. ”

the capital city of illium boasts a decadent nightlife, asari philanthropists pooling their resources together for an unforgettable night at THE METEOR GALA, a yearly event that gathered the highest officials of asari politics, asari military, and turian military hierarchy. the gala was set in the ballroom of the tallest building in the economic district, a spiraling skyscraper that allowed a clear, perfect view of the stars above them.

the windows to the ballroom lead into a yawning balcony that spanned the circle of the spire. the walls were gilded, shimmering with shades of sunflower yellow and gold. crystals adorned the decorative themes, mirroring the shine of the night sky.

nihlus holds a glass flute. turian champagne. absentmindedly swirling its contents in his hand as he observed the crowd.

he feels like his face is bare. like he is out of his element. in spite of the decorum that @laesarus had drilled into his cognitive programming, it felt more like a performance, and less like a real state of mind.

he eyes the asari that stares at him from across the room, adorned in an electric-green dress with an open back, pretending she is still talking to her salarian husband. glancing at him. smiling at him.

he sighs. wonders if she was worth the diplomatic incident.

but his eyes wander elsewhere. ignores her entirely. searches for saren.

he finds him. a silver sword in the midst of the gold. a sleek, towering figure dressed in the traditional turian robes. black and grey. accentuating his natural physicality and strength.

he admires his mentor. he envies him. saren does not look out of place, in the throng of other military officers. captains. generals. huntresses. but only nihlus can recognize the set in saren's jaw, the mark of annoyance that the turian male is clearly internalizing for the sake of etiquette.

he is as annoyed with the party as nihlus is.

nihlus approaches him. his aura is a smile, welcoming saren into a more familiar atmosphere. their friendship was useful for such occasions. their partnership was a boon for the sociopolitical niceties that they could not entirely relate to, as soldiers. as warriors.

"i'm sorry," nihlus intervenes, addressing the group of people saren had attracted. "but i must speak with your man of the hour, immediately. SPECTRE business."

saren excuses himself with the same solemness as if this was not all a lie, an excuse to leave the growing throng of people who fawned over the infamous SPECTRE.

they escape into the balcony, the wind blowing slow and heavy over them as nihlus inhaled, spilled the rest of his champagne over the balustrade. watches it shimmer as it falls from the impossible height of the building.

nihlus laughs at him, soft and carried over the breeze. "that was exciting, hm?"

how many times have they had this song and dance , these verbal bouts ? it had been too many to count now , spanning across years of ' rivalry '... a cat and mouse game they had both been ascribed to playing — with neither of them giving an inch , at least , that's how it would appear to an outsider. maul could feel it , the force around her was a cacophony of light and dark , ebbing and flowing as his words hit their mark. you cannot hide this from me... i know your strength is waning. maul did his best to bite back a smirk , scoffing at her words , ones that he heard many times before. all of you jedi say the same thing... how it infuriates me , this insipid need to feel superior. you are not better than me ! fury bubbles within him , gloved hands itching to reach for the saber at his hip , but this was sol... and he found himself hesitating — the prospect of her joining him was too great , and he was so close... the zabrak would not allow years of gentle probing and scratching to go to waste. rage is barely tethered , under collar and yoke , his voice barely able to hide his frustration.

" oh , sol , you cannot afford to be this naive... i know you are smarter than that. " he starts to move , circling around her , yellow and red irises refusing to look away with every slow and deliberate step. i can sense the rage in you... just under the surface. begging to be released. they aren't so different , beneath her jedi dogma , there is more... the urge to peel the layers away to expose her ire , to fuel that need for justice and turn it into righteous vengeance — it was so tantalizing. " you speak as if you jedi don't use your clones the same way... they are born to die , to be discarded , can you not see the hypocrisy ? " their clone army meant little to him , but he knew sol cared... she cared very deeply. " we both use our pawns accordingly , do we not ? and there are darker forces at play... your order has become complacent. "

to maul , that had been apparent for decades... his murder of qui-gon had fully announced the sith's return , yet sideous had been left under their noses all this time... reaping his well sewn crop. yes , yes , it's slowly falling into place... i can see it all coming together , piece by piece. even so , he still didn't have the full picture , and that sent a chill down his spine. " if you come with me , i can guarantee your survival... your order has been doomed for many years already. you cannot save them. you must become something new. " he stops then , standing but a few feet away from her — his features soften ever so slightly , his hand slowly extending , palm open as an invitation. " i can help you become that , i can teach you how to unleash your potential. i want you to live. "