sephirahisms
The change itself had not been traumatizing. After all, Netzach is used to odd things, used to the world twisting itself up and turning into something terrifying on someone else’s whim. There were plenty of abnormalities that did such a thing, and Netzach could move through the world without being bothered. There was no reason to, after all, considering that they and everyone else were built on a system of illusions and strangeness that they had been forced to accept at one point.
This is different somehow, different in the way where you walk into a room and, although it isn’t obvious, you know someone has been there.
Dull greys and greens, along with the dampness and the smog, remind them of the Backstreets. It’s not exact, given that they recognize the dilapidated sign from a corner store they went to a few times, and the street sign is another that would have never been in the Backstreet. However, there are things to remember, and the parts that Netzach so frequently struggles to find, surge and riot beneath their skin until they feel a bit like splitting apart. It hurts something badly, and Netzach’s abrupt extension of memories leaves them dizzy and clinging for something familiar.
They remember walking to the store, remember Carmen’s face and remember how it felt when their hair wasn’t so long. Everything at once stings so severely that Netzach is set with wobbling legs, trying their hardest not to cry from the stress.
It works until it doesn’t, and they’re left in the middle of the street, wondering vaguely if something equally terrible to the Sweepers or the Fixers will come and annihilate them for being out where they shouldn’t.
A step comes from somewhere behind them (they think), and Netzach freezes, contorted someone unnaturally, and pulling at their hair in an effort to calm themselves down.
@wyrmblight –> lordspeaker
had it not been for the familiar layout of the city and the frantic individuals fleeing from an invisible threat, estinien would have believed he was reliving nidhogg’s memories once more.
dragons prowl the land in hordes, incinerating all that bar their path irrespective of the past alliance between dragon and man; an alliance that mattered little in the face of greed. and estinien, had he been none the wiser still, would see this carnage as what it is and react with misplaced anger, mindlessly brandishing his lance against the foes that shouldn’t be.
would, but their forced union, the time spent floating in the turbulent tides of nidhogg’s sorrowful memories, had changed his perspective, and what once was terror incited from the spread of those wings was replaced with pity. regret.
and now, hearing nidhogg roar from atop one of the skyscrapers, wings spread like storm clouds and darkness, estinien curls in pain, his left shoulder and right forearm throbbing in response. as if he was one of them; as if he is nidhogg himself. he would have stay like that, gritting his teeth and battling the anguish flooding his senses, were it not for the lone dragon making its way towards a figure standing still in the middle of the wreckage. one with striking green hair—
—netzach?
he would have warned the artist to get out of the damn way, but with the dragon already poised to unleash hellfire upon them and seeing that they won’t make it in time, estinien shook off what pain yet remains and leaps behind them, wrapping his arm around their waist and jumping away just as a blast of flame spews forth from the dragon’s maw.
fortunately, only the tails of his armor ( and some other villagers ) got caught in the fire, and he managed to land safely behind a truck parked just a little ways away from the dragon. estinien places netzach down and peeks at their face.
“ hey, what’s wrong? ” gently, carefully, he takes their hands away from nearly tearing their hair and crouches before them. “ ‘tis me, estinien. look at me. tell me what’s wrong. ” if he can’t manage to calm them down soon enough, they will end up burned to death like the many that fell to their rage.
@lordspeaker > @sephirahisms
