summonerd | i just wanna know: who broke it?

i just wanna know: who broke it?

[Sheena'd thought she was all done with dimensional travel, now that the two worlds were united. But here she is, having fallen asleep in one world and woken up in a Tethe'alla that's just different enough from the one she knows to be constantly jarring. Her connections to Aselia's summon spirits dangle loose, snapped by distance - not even Origin's power could follow her here, it seems. That's more than a little unsettling.

It takes her some time, alone in a bizarro version of Meltokio as she is, but eventually she stumbles on a lead - an old scientific journal, a mention of the power of something called an Aegis being able to transcend space and time, at least in theory. And a little asking around tells her that Tethe'alla has its own Aegis, though no one's seen it for years. Well. Worth a shot, right?

Somehow she manages to talk her way into the Tethe'allan castle where the Aegis's core crystal awaits being woken up, with a series of smiles and her very best politicking - yes, of course she's got nothing but loyalty for Tethe'alla, of course she's skilled at this, of course it'd be a great honor.

(Zelos would be proud, she thinks, wryly.)

They're dubious, but her persistence wears them down, or maybe they're just desperate enough for a return of the Aegis's power to let her try, and the orange core crystal is offered out to her.

She takes a deep breath, and reaches out to touch it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anna's still grinning, enjoying this too much to really feel remorse at the precise second, because it was worth it just for how Lloyd hides his face and all that, right now, and the cadence of his whine as it shapes exasperated and mortified around the word mom.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" Anna laughs, still delighted. "Come on, aren't I allowed to tease my son a little! Just a teensy little bit??"

"Absolutely not," Malos says, reaching over and pulling her into a headlock, noogying her gently. "It's not allowed."

"What!!" Anna splutters, annoyed but mostly playing at it. "And why not?"

"Because if you start teasing him I get free reign to tease you about--"

"Oh Architect absolutely not," Anna says, and tries to pry Malos off of her so he'll stop noogying her. This ends the way it always does, with her dragging him to the ground with her and them wrestling playfully, Malos laughing loud and delighted until Anna forgets to be mad.

(It also probably serves as a great way to get the attention off of Lloyd, which might be what Malos had been going for.)

Lloyd snatching the carving before it can hit Zelos' hand comes as such a surprise that he can't help the yelp that escapes his mouth, but at least it's quickly replaced with an incredulous laugh when Lloyd takes off running with it, then trips, then rushes back. Zelos tries to warn him about the root, at least. The fact that Lloyd didn't listen is on him.

At first Zelos has half a mind to race him, and then he thinks about using that speed boosting ability from before to give himself an advantage, but ultimately he dismisses that; honestly, they didn't really complete the perimeter check. The least Zelos can do for their party is walk back to camp while feeling the atmosphere around them, focusing so he can catch anything in a larger range than usual. So he does just that, amplifying his range, slowly making his way and following Lloyd's steps.

It takes him a while to get back, like that, but soon enough he feel his own ether feeding the campfire somewhere close. But before Zelos can reach the camp, he hears an undignified cry from Lloyd echoing through the clearing, then roaring laughter from a voice Zelos now easily recognizes as Anna's. He snorts. Oh, boy. Something's going down. Led by curiosity now, Zelos drops his focus and hurries the rest of the way until he finally breaks foliage and returns to camp, opening his mouth to ask just what the hell did he miss, but all the visual image he gets instead is Anna dragging Malos to the ground and roughhousing her blade.

Oh, okay. That's--not weird, but still not what Zelos was expecting. He makes his way over to where Lloyd is and stands next to him, hands on his hips as he observes the mess happening before them. "Hello?" Zelos calls out, leaning forward. "I leave you people for like twenty minutes and you manage to start fighting! Did I miss something?"

Honestly!

Whatever! It doesn't matter in the end, anyway. Once the playfight ends and everyone's had dinner, the usual night watch arrangements are made and Zelos helps himself to some rest once he realizes that his driver won't be taking a turn tonight. His conversation with Lloyd, awkward as it may have been, sticks at the front of Zelos' mind as he falls asleep and reawakens on a grassy field at sunset, somewhere peaceful, somewhere safe. He spends about a minute just laying there, feeling the fake breeze and sunlight on his skin, taking in the beauty of a world constructed to suit his every whim.

To be honest, he hasn't opened the dreamspace in a long while since his last miserable interaction with Sheena, and he'd intended to keep it that way, but there's something that he still wants to ask. Something about Lloyd's ether and words that haunts him, the sensation of burned ether channels and a pull of power down an arm coalescing on his hand. He said something about an exsphere. Is that what it's like for Sheena, too? How does that affect her? Their lives are very much intertwined. Is she going to be alright after the mines?

Curiosity and worry bloom in his core as he sits up on the grass, pinging a signal to his driver to join him and waiting for an answer.

Sheena's having a nice dream, for once, when Zelos reaches out - something bright and warm and utterly mundane, something that will fade with nothing but the faintest impression left behind. She's never been consciously aware of the connection before it happens, but this time it pulls at her, tugs her away from the dream and into lucidity.

She hesitates, just for a moment, before accepting. Is this really a good idea? But -- he can just kick her out, if he hadn't actually meant to invite her. And she's pretty sure she trusts him not to repeat their first shared dream. There's still a little trepidation in their link as she reaches to accept, gets pulled into Zelos's dreamspace, but only a little.

The atmosphere of Zelos's dream helps on that front almost immediately, as she takes shape, at the foot of the hill. "Hey," she says, raising a hand in greeting with a self-conscious smile, but staying where she is for the moment, keeping a safe distance.

Sheena's acceptance and her form coalescing into the dream manifest themselves in a brief flash of light and a wave of awareness of his driver at the back Zelos' mind. The Aegis lets her talk first, out of courtesy and a freezing anxiety of how she'll react more than anything else. Thankfully, her reaction is more on the positive side, but her smile is hesitant and her distance speaks volumes about how she feels, so Zelos tightens his own mask and greets her with another smile, cheerfully raising a hand to excitedly wave at her in return. "Hey, hun!" he calls out playfully. "Nice of you to drop by!"

The hand comes back down to rest over his knee, his other one set behind him to prop his weight where he sits. He can't feel the grass without taking his gloves off and this upsets him, but any sudden movements are off the table right now, so it'll have to make do. Zelos doesn't get up. Rather, that is all he says and does, for now, and he turns his gaze over to where the sun seemingly lowers over the horizon, an eternal sunset that won't really move so long as the Aegis keeps it that way. It's... calming, though. Somewhere to set his attention to and focus. Ever since getting out it's like sunsets have gotten more and more beautiful.

It helps the smile on his face stay there.

After barely even a few seconds of keeping quiet, Zelos shrugs lazily, eyes still watching the sunlight. "You gonna stand there all dream or are you gonna come join me for the sunset?" he asks, tone high pitched and playful and as nonthreatening as possible, smiling, smiling, smiling, all peace and lies to cover for his nerves when Sheena still doesn't move. "I can't imagine you're comfortable just standing there!"

"It's a dream, it all kind of feels the same," she says, but she acquiesces anyway, taking a seat close-but-not-too-close, keeping him just at arm's reach. There's a moment of silence after that, as Sheena follows his gaze to the sunset in contemplation. If she looks hard enough, she can sort of tell that it's not real, but she can't really put her finger on the difference. She kind of wants to keep watching it, to see if she can figure it out, but-- well. That'd just be putting things off. He seems fine, anyway. She's just getting caught up in worrying over nothing, Sheena decides, as she turns back to face him.

"You don't seem surprised, so I guess you called me here, right?" she starts, stretches her legs out in front of her. "Did... you need me for something?"

Watching the sunset in silence would be super nice if it weren't for the anxious energy that bounces inside of Zelos' core, a ball of nerves that he desperately tries to keep locked inside, away from his driver and under as much control as he can. Like a lock under key being pushed at from within, the fake sun in the horizon slowly, finally starts to descend, remnants of discord in the Aegis' subconscious fighting for a way to express themselves in the empty canvas of his mind, a silent clue to his mental being while he thinks on how to go about this at all. It's a good enough distraction, at least. But for all he prides himself on his silver tongue Zelos actually has no clue how to do this, so the silence spreads, seeping into his bones, his veins, his dream.

Thankfully it doesn't last too long--Sheena breaks it first, asking about why she's here, and Zelos has the decency to laugh sheepishly at her careful tone. "Can't I just want to spend a nice sunset with my dear driver?" he jokes, but... yeah, this must be weird for her, huh. All the other times she's been here have been against her will, so Zelos can't say he blames her for being weirded out. He clears his throat. "But, yeah. Got a question about your world I'm sure you'd be able to shed some light on."

Over in the horizon, briefly, the sun flashes red as the intrusive thought of a dead opportunist comes to the Aegis' mind. He pushes it away as fast as he can, the red flash easing itself into the oranges of the sunset instead. The moment the flash comes the Aegis immediately chooses to draw attention to himself by stretching and yawning loudly, arms held up until his bones pop back in place, ever the image of lazy, casual nonchalance. "I was talking to Lloyd during our walk, earlier," he says to fill the air, voice steady, arms falling back down as he properly sits up to look at his driver, turning to her and gesturing with a hand while holding an easy, casual smile. "He said something about exspheres. I guess I got curious and wanted to ask what you know, since he says you have one, too."

"Sure, okay," she says, though a stab of uncertainty flares in her as he says it - what kind of question about her world could he have that he couldn't have asked when they were both awake? She leans forward a little over her legs, pulling one up close to her so she can rest an elbow on it.

He asks his question, and she lets out a startled little half-laugh. Really? Just that? It's kind of a relief, at least, as unexpected of a topic as it is, and a little of the tension vanishes from her posture. "I'm not sure I really know any more about them than he does, but alright," she says, reaching with her free hand to pull the glove off of her right hand and revealing the red jewel underneath it, in its plain golden setting. Sheena stares down at it for a moment, thinking about all it represents - wondering, not for the first time, what the person whose life was trapped in it had been like - before she angles it so he can see it if he wants.

Looking at it reminds her that she really has no idea where to start, though, with something like this. "It's... kind of a broad topic," she continues, looking back up at him. "What'd Lloyd tell you about them?"

Sheena angling her hand so Zelos can get a better look at her exsphere invites the Aegis to lean forward a little closer to get a good look at it, hovering for a second before he stops, glances shyly at Sheena, and then gently reaches over to grab her hand when he thinks he receives permission to do it, holding her palm flush against his as he brings it closer to inspect it.

He's careful with her hand, as if he were afraid of fucking this up simply by moving the wrong way or something. Zelos is pretty sure that exspheres and core crystals, for all their shared similarities, are really not a 1:1 equivalent to each other, but he still avoids touching it out of a general decency and courtesy. Instead he holds up his other hand close to the jewel itself, hovering as he feels for the mana-ether's flow in the air surrounding it and the concentration under it, gathered in Sheena's palm. It's not snappy like Lloyd's, but it's not still, either. Huh. And it's--it's a lot like Lloyd's flow, really, except where Lloyd's feels a lot more like a raging sea barely concentrated in one spot, Sheena's feels more like the mouth of a river carrying many different types of water in itself, finally debouching into the oceans of her reserves. Not really at ease, but ready, even if sort of inactive for now. What does it even mean?

It's interesting enough that Zelos almost gets lost in the sensation of it before he remembers Sheena asked him a question.

Oh--right. The Aegis doesn't let go of her hand, still feeling at her mana-ether reserves, more out of curiosity and a desire to familiarize himself with it than anything else. "Just the broad generals of it, I think," he begins, carefully and deliberately not meeting his driver's eyes. "Something about them enhancing your abilities, utilizing your world's mana to give you powers, blah blah blah. I mean, he says the wings back at the cave came from his exsphere. So I guess," he laughs, "what I wanna know is what the logistics behind them are, and if being surrounded by ether instead of mana will cause any problems."

She'd invited it, had kind of expected Zelos to want to get a closer look, but she still freezes briefly in surprise when he takes hold of her hand. It's only for a second, and she doesn't try to stop him from it in any way, but she still winces. At least he doesn't seem to notice.

The weight of his attention is surprisingly heavy, intense in a way she's not used to having fixed on her, and it's a relief when he speaks again. "Alright," she says, letting out a slow breath as she gathers her thoughts. "Exspheres do that, but they're... parasitic beings?" That had been the phrasing, right? "They can't make their user stronger without leeching off of a human life, first."

That never stops being fucked up, as long as she's been aware of it, and her face definitely makes it clear how much she hates it. "We've been working to round up all of them, but - it's hard to do that without continuing to use exspheres ourselves." She'll miss the abilities they offer, when they do finally give them up, but. They deserve to rest, too. Sheena shakes her head. "Anyway, if anything, it feels like it's been giving me more power here. Maybe making me more sensitive to the ether here, too? I don't know if that's the exsphere or just my body not being used to it." Is she rambling? Maybe a little. She tilts her hand gently in his grasp, watching the exsphere catch the fading sunlight.

Edited 2019-08-02 09:59 (UTC)

The second that Sheena mentions the parasite thing, Zelos' attentions stop. When she mentions them leeching off of human life, his gaze rises to meet hers, and the sun in the horizon once again flashes red for a second as he doesn't attempt to hide the wide eyed stare that statement brings to his face. He lets her keep talking, though, listening carefully to her words and not really paying attention to the mana-ether flow in her hand anymore.

And then she mentions her newfound sensitivities to ether, and that wide-eyed stare turns into a frown, Zelos' attention returning halfway to the streaming ether-mana in Sheena's palm. He looks down when she tilts her hand, watches the glare of fake sunlight dance on the surface of the jewel. He thinks of teal wings and burned ether channels, of a resonance that feels steady, but strange, somewhat wavering, and his mind starts wandering.

Considering that Sheena's world is primarily made out of mana, and if exspheres are parasitic in nature and they feed off a host's mana, Zelos assumes that maybe her body readjusting to ether instead of mana is probably causing the exsphere to behave erratically in its power output--like a core crystal in a highly concentrated ether atmosphere, such as an ether crystal mine. Similar concepts, but applied differently. But perhaps, he thinks, the difference in atmospheric compositions and biological processes between worlds is what's affecting the way the stone processes the substances. It's not such a crazy leap to make, he thinks. It would explain a lot, but the how or why still eludes him; what's the main difference between ether and mana that would push Lloyd and Sheena to feel like this and for their mana use to be thrown off so completely? How come they're mostly alright until they start using their abilities?

They're not blades, but something about this feels... strikingly familiar. As if their worlds were much more adjacent than what they think. But... how?

He's still staring at the stone. The sun flashes red again, lowering behind the horizon slowly, but making its way out of the picture regardless. Zelos barely registers wondering if maybe the moon will rise in this fabricated mirror of a world, thoughts drowned by him remembering another thing Sheena's mentioned. So he lets go of her hand and pushes himself back to rest his weight on his palms, decides to breach two subjects at once, smiling as gently as he can. "Well, okay. Considering you don't sound at all concerned about having a parasite kind of leeching off your life, I'm just gonna roll with it and assume you don't mind and that's just how it is in your world. Which, okay, that's fucking weird, but. Whatever, right?"

Oh, it bothers him, though. It bothers him, and it will keep bothering him, but without more information to observe, he has no idea how to go about the parasite and what that means for the both of them now, intertwined as they are. So he just makes a mental note to keep an eye on their shared ether and lets that go, sighing and returning his gaze to the sky. "I'm curious, though," he starts. "Is that a thing you're born with, or do you just... get one?"

Sheena doesn't even realize what she'd forgotten to mention until Zelos's voice lifts in that incredulous way.

"Oh," she says. Right, that's kind of an important detail, huh? She hadn't meant to make it sound like it was something he'd need to worry about, and there's a sheepish note in her voice as she continues. "No, I'm not in any danger from it. That's what the key crest is for," she says, traces the metal of it with a finger. "Lloyd would be better at explaining how they work, since he's the one who knows how to make them, but exspheres can't hurt their user with one equipped." She pulls a face, something like a rueful grin before he looks away. "It is pretty messed up, though."

With her hand freed she relaxes a little further, more comfortable than curled in on herself as she leans back onto her other hand, attention still on Zelos rather than the setting sun.

Sheena shakes her head at his question. "We're not born with them," she says. Since it's a dream, she sits up again, twists the key crest just so that it detaches from her skin. She'd rather not do this in the waking world - after over a year of use she's used to the sensation of the exsphere and key crest actually being embedded in her skin - but it's fine here, just a faint echo of what it had felt like to put it on in the first place rather than any real discomfort. Sheena lifts it free, shows it to Zelos. That's the biggest difference between exspheres and core crystals, she thinks, and this is the best way to show that.

Humans are not born with exspheres on them--they use key crests to equip them. That fact alone is what seals the deal about differences between this mirror Aselia's humans and this world's blades, even if it raises even more questions that Zelos is just aching to have answered. But the important thing here is that it's not fully equal, he thinks. Sheena will be fine even if her exsphere is unequipped or gets lost, and that's fine, that's logical, and that fact settles itself into Zelos' mind pretty easily, and yet he still jumps in a slight panic and reaches for his driver when she pops the crystal off her skin.

The sky flashes red again as the artificial sun sets and the last bits of sunlight cascade over them. Sheena--doesn't disappear, or die. Or anything for that matter. Neither does Zelos. So, okay, hoo. Okay. This is a dream. A dream, Zelos. A dream. Repeating that to himself the Aegis tries to regain composure quickly, clearing his throat and dropping his hands half the way back down, anxiously reaching over for Sheena's detached crystal just in case. Zelos makes no move to grab it, an irrational and illogical part of him telling him that touching anyone's crystal, exsphere or core, is inappropriate as fuck, so he just awkwardly remains there until a little laugh escapes his lungs.

He has a feeling the calm he's attempting to portray is not very convincing, but--whatever. "Okay, then. Alright," he clears his throat. "I think I've learned a lot. That's--you can put that back in there now, thank you." That out of the way, Zelos lowers his hands and huffs, pushing his bangs back as he relaxes again. "Architect, how do you just take that off? Your world is so backwards and weird!"

Edited 2019-08-03 04:53 (UTC)

Sheena doesn't expect Zelos to jolt and reach out as soon as she removes the exsphere, but she realizes her mistake the second he does, heat rising in her face. Of course he'd be anxious, if his life is tied to hers and she'd just pulled something that she's pretty sure would kill a blade, if it was even possible for them to remove their own core crystal. Oops. She doesn't miss the flash of red in the sky either, her gaze darting from Zelos to the horizon and back again, even as something that might have been an echo of his panic hits her.

"Sorry, sorry," she says, hurriedly, as she presses the crystal into the back of her hand again. It sits as naturally as before, looking as much like a part of her as Zelos's core crystal does to him, and she flexes her fingers, focuses on the motion rather than on her own mortification. That's better. But he's at least trying to act like it's fine, so Sheena seizes onto that, mirroring his somewhat awkward laugh. "Yours is at least as weird," she tells him. "I still can't believe elemental forces just work, even without summon spirits to make sure they do."

"Well, of course they would work," Zelos shrugs, grabbing onto the conversation Sheena's thrown his way immediately. "Ether is the foundation of our world; it is everywhere, and in everyone. Deprive a person--or blade--of ether for long enough and you'd certainly kill them. Same with the environment."

That's a bit of a morose subject to be dwelling on, actually. Hm. Okay, then. Though the sun is finally gone, the sky flashes red again anyway in the horizon, a little light pulse from far away. That gives the Aegis pause for a second; is Zelos really that anxious? He's pretty sure he's not, but sometimes the dream world has a nasty habit of airing one's secrets that they do not want out there regardless of anything. Trying to put that aside as if it didn't happen, Zelos goes back to the conversation at hand, seguing into it as he plays with a thick lock of his own hair.

He looks up at the stars instead, over at the Zohar Cluster, the one Lloyd called by another name so long ago. "Lloyd mentioned that once, the whole summon spirit spiel. He said they were elemental beings." Zelos tilts his head, watches the cluster flash red again, a titillating light that starts pulsing, his head hurting with each pulse. He bites a groan. What is going on? "He even mentioned another... Ah, something about... Origin...?"

Zelos watches the cluster as it continues to flash red, faster and faster each time. Mesmerized, as static begins to consume his ears.

Edited 2019-08-03 17:49 (UTC)

The dreamspace's scenery shifts quite suddenly, in part because the one who initiated the change has no idea what he is doing. A field of grass abruptly becomes a city of glass that Sheena will recognize, the cold and lifeless hull of Derris-Kharlan spread out around the Aegis and his driver, the stars only warm because it is the nature of dreams to soften things, especially those that we hold close to our hearts.

The one responsible for this sudden change does not know how the dreamspace works, has truthfully only set foot in it once while he functioned as his children's driver, before he realized how thin the walls were, there, before he decided it would be better if his children had no chance of seeing his long and shameful past. So when Derris-Kharlan settles, it is at the same location he stands in the real world. The top of a tower. The center of the blade network. And there you see him, a man with long white hair and tattered clothes, a golden locket on an old chain around his neck, his arm outstretched among the pinpricks of light, his fingers pressed against an orange star.

He realizes that he is not alone.

(This is good. This is bad. He could apologize to Mithos. Would Mithos even accept an apology, at this point? How long has he been able to do this? Would Mithos forgive him for not trying sooner? Why didn't he try sooner?)

There is not really a sound he makes, to convey his horror, but he definitely startles, as red eyes meet Sheena's gold for a brief moment--

(Did she recognize him? She cannot recognize him.)

And then he yanks his hand away from the network, disconnects from the orange port, and everything becomes static.

Edited 2019-08-03 18:30 (UTC)

"Let's avoid that, then," Sheena says, her tone a little forced but still lighter than before, as she settles back down. She tilts her head to watch him as he falls silent, curious about the flashes of light as they start to increase. They're impossible to miss now as they speed up, but--?

From there, it all happens so fast.

"Zelos? What's wrong?" she asks, leaning forward as he tries not to groan, and then --

The dreamspace changes around them, suddenly, and Sheena leaps to her feet, unsure of what's happening but certain that something has gone wrong. There's a soft gasp as she recognizes their new surroundings - why Derris-Kharlan? Had her memories somehow colored the dream, by accident this time? - but that train of thought dies abruptly as she takes in the man in front of them, hand pressed against a star the exact shade of Zelos's ether.

The man jumps just a little as he makes eye contact with her, and something about that expression is familiar, but --

-- She knows that face, she thinks, but just forming the thoughts through the wrongness flowing through the emotional link is a struggle, never mind picking it apart to understand why --

"Who the hell," she starts, squinting, but the buzzing in the back of her head cuts her off, and she can't tell who it originates from but she can see that Zelos has doubled over next to her, and everything is so wrong. The man pulls his hand away from the star like it had burned him, and he vanishes, Derris-Kharlan's ghost hanging on only a second longer before it's gone, too.

For a second there's nothing but static in her eyes and ears, too loud to hear anything else through, and then Sheena wakes up with a wordless shout. Unseeing, she shoves her way out of her bedroll, up on her knees to where Zelos had been sleeping next to her to reach for him.

The static in his ears keeps growing and growing, a stabbing pain tearig through his temples as he watches the cluster, as it titillates and shines its painful light into his eyes. It eventually comes to a point where Zelos can no longer stand it--he closes his eyes and brings his hands to his head, gripping at his hair as the pounding headache grows and grows.

Zelos doesn't see it so much as he feels it, the way his control over the dreamspace is seized from his hands as an external force finally pierces through his unconscious and asserts its own will instead, the mental image of a city of glass surrounded by warm stars searing itself into the Aegis' brain as he doubles over. Zelos chokes on air, grits his teeth. He brings his knees close and hides his face against his legs, groaning, pulling at his hair, trying to find a way to make it stop as the landscape twists and changes against his will, the Aegis hating the way it feels against his core, intrusive and painful and commandeering.

His ether lines brighten considerably with the strain of keeping the dreamspace afloat while some other entity makes use of it for whatever it is that they want. But there's something that he can pinpoint in his misery, a sensation in the air, in his veins, a signature clashing against his and Sheena's, something familiar in a way it should not be. The ether signature of this entity--it feels... way too powerful, too much like a raging sea barely concentrated, even if weaker than what he's already felt before this. It feels important. So in his agony, at least the Aegis manages to hold onto that sensation and store it away for later use, trying desperately to remember it for when--or if--this all ends.

And end eventually it does.

The static left behind as the entity disconnects is overwhelming, but not nearly as much as the sensation of whatever it was that entered his subconscious finally exiting is, a sudden emptiness where there once was a devastating everything. And then Zelos feels like he's falling into endless nothing, falling, falling, falling until suddenly he's rising, the scream that had been stuck in his throat ripped out of him in a gasp as he sits up where he'd been sleeping, gaze unfocused as his hands reach where his frantic pinging through the emotional link tells him his driver is.

Sheena's barely even aware of the rest of the camp as she finds Zelos, his ether lines bright in the darkness. She rests her hands on his shoulders as she inspects him like she expects there to be some physical sign of whatever the fuck that was, but when there's nothing obvious she starts to relax, not letting go.

"What the fuck was that," she manages, breathing still rough and uneven from her panic. "You okay?" He's not, and it's obvious, with the way their emotional link might just as well be a shared scream, but-- it's all she can do to ask, for the moment, lost as she is.

Breathe, breathe, breathe! For fuck's sake, breathe!

A large gulp of air keeps him from screaming his throat raw, and for a terrifying moment after awakening Zelos can't see. His breathing is erratic and his mind even more so as it attempts to reconnect everything that the sudden contact and even more abrupt disconnect left in disarray, everything it messed up. An ether packet pings the unstable, intense emotional link, causing the cacophony of panic terror anger confusion to shake with worry worry worry need until it finds its destination, until it reaches the Aegis' driver.

Zelos can't hear clearly, everything murky as the stubborn ringing in his ears prevails. He can, however, feel a weight on his shoulders that settles in nicely and grounds him, his entire being concentrating on the sensation of touch and the way it helps his scattered mind analyse and acknowledge it. He pings the ether link again. The packet delivers quickly--she's close. Very close. Within the blink of an eye Zelos is struck with a need to feel grounded again, a primal instinct bathed in fear overcoming him until he's reaching forward and wrapping his arms around Sheena.

Words aren't coming, scattered as his mind is right now, so he says nothing. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep, shuddering breath, then buries his face in her shoulder. He sends another message within the currents of his terror: don't talk, please. Don't. He just needs this right now. Please.

Having already been awake for the past while because of his own nightmare, Sheena and Zelos' screams don't wake up Lloyd as much as they cause him a rush of intense panic, a jolt that stabs through his heart, his mouth forming their names before he thinks of anything else. He shoots up from where he was sitting - at Kratos' side, leaning against him - and stumbles, already running to where he knows Sheena and Zelos had been sleeping. He can't tell how much of his anxiety is due to the combination of their screams on a night where he's already seen one half of the duo die before his eyes, or how much of it is just the fact that both of them seemed frightened, or what. But he wants to be there for them.

Lloyd skids to a stop right in front of their bedrolls, already breathing out a sigh of relief when he spots them, shaken and obviously equally panicked, but not bleeding, not hurt, not - dead. Irrational tears rush to his eyes without thinking as the worst of his anxiety drains out of him, and he blinks them back quickly, stepping up to them and dropping to his knees and pulling them both into a hug.

"Sheena, Zelos," he says, and if his breath sounds a little shaky, it's not like he can't blame the mini heart attack they gave him, "you guys are alright, you're both here. We're at the campsite. There's no one else here but us."

The ringing in Zelos' ears starts to fade little by little the longer he remains awake, so he waits it out, clinging silently to Sheena and feeling his own tingling limbs reconnect with his brain. The physical contact is comforting, at least, and it helps to bring him back to the present and away from the falling sensation of his own will in his own space being overruled by some powerful, unknown being. And... what was that, anyway? How?

His thoughts are interrupted. Zelos jolts a little when Lloyd touches him, only relaxing when bits and pieces of his voice make it through the murky sea of his desynchronized hearing. It's okay, it's okay. It's just Lloyd. The Aegis doesn't lift his head from where he hides it, nor does he open his eyes, but on pure instinct, one of Zelos' hands lets go of Sheena to find Lloyd's jacket instead, clinging tight and using him as another anchor to bring himself back. He breathes in, he breathes out. Feels a spark in his core. Their mana/ether signatures are so different that they pull at all of Zelos' focus to keep track of them, yet another technique to keep himself in the present.

And then something else catches his attention.

Zelos doesn't move. He stays where he is, quiet and tight-lipped, emotionally rebooting, thinking, wondering. He opens his eyes into a wide, gazeless stare and focuses all of his brainpower on the hand gripping at Lloyd's jacket. The boy's mana dances under his skin, the sensation familiar and so curious that Zelos unconsciously brings him closer, the currents flowing all the way down to where his exsphere must be. It's something powerful and barely contained that overwhelms zelos' senses, something that nearly makes him flinch in how much it now feels like the newest seared memory in his core.

What the hell?

Edited 2019-08-05 16:08 (UTC)

Even with the absolute maelstrom that is their emotional link, it's a little bit of a surprise to Sheena when Zelos pulls her into a hug. She registers it in a soft, distant part of her, the detached bit that she usually relies on to handle situations like this, but just lets out a shaky breath, wrapping her arms around him as she leans the side of her head against his. It's fine. It's fine. They're safe.

Lloyd makes it over to them, throws his arms around them, and Sheena relaxes into it right away, unfolding one slightly trembling arm from Zelos to complete the hug and pull Lloyd in with a fond squeeze. "Hey," she mumbles, pretty sure she used up most of her coherency a moment ago. The worst of it is fading, she thinks, though the echoes of the horrible wrongness of the intruder's presence hang around, enough to make her shudder and tug both boys a little closer. Is that the emotional bleed? Probably, but she has nowhere near the focus needed to do anything about it right now. For the moment, just being here is plenty.

Being woken up by two terrified screams is not exactly Malos' prefered way to wake up. He jolts upright, eyes scanning the dark for the threat-- ah. Looks like Zelos had a nightmare? Zelos... and Sheena, maybe? Malos stays where he is, because it looks like they have a handle on it, and Lloyd is rushing in away from camp to join their hug only a few seconds later, so, yeah. They've got it handled.

(Anna, meanwhile, sleeps like the dead.)

"Is everything alright?" comes Kratos' voice, and Malos looks up. Kratos looks like he just came into camp from the same direction Lloyd did. Huh. Alright.

"Yeah, I think," Malos answers, and notes that Kratos sounds more concerned than worried about danger or anything. (The ether around here is pretty normal, though.) "Looks like a nightmare."

"Ah," Kratos says, like that explains everything.

They have a slow kind of morning, and after that a pretty slow day, as well. They don't even travel the full day before they stop again, but they're getting low on supplies, and this is the last town they'll hit before they'll be in unpopulated neutral territory for a few days. Supplies will run out before they make it to Sylvarant. And you can't exactly go shopping at night, so. It's late afternoon when they stop, and Anna and Kratos elect to go into town alone, and Malos knows a subtle plea for privacy when he hears one, so he lets them.

Besides, he'd kind of wanted to talk to Zelos, anyway.

Getting Zelos alone isn't a problem-- he's already at the edge of camp, looking like he's deep in thought. Malos approaches carefully, doing his best not to sneak up on Zelos. The clouds in the sky are so thick it looks a lot later in the day than it actually is. The dark of the sky is kind of comforting, actually, a little exciting.

"Looks like it's gonna rain," Malos says, stopping beside Zelos.

This is probably the first time the clouds get this heavy since Zelos was freed, he thinks idly as he looks up at the sky, standing somewhere at the edge of the camp and nervously, absently playing with a lock of his red hair. Thoughts, like leaves in the wind, move freely about his information highways, checking for his databases of the known and the unknown, racking his brain for any sort of connection of revelation about what he's just experienced last night.

He bites at his lip and frowns, pensive as the memory of his dream visitor's ether surfaces, surrounding his buoyant conscious like a raging, if less maddened sea than he knows it can be. Zelos stands tall over it, watching through his mind's eye all the remnants of the waves left behind in his core, and steps forward to take the plunge. He sinks. Sinks, sinks, sinks, floats, breaks the water, comes to stand once more on a buoyant pocket of conscious surrounded by a tempestuous sea, one much more anxious and excited than its previous counterpart had been. The Aegis frowns again, blinking the mental images of water and wind away only to come face to face with the grey darkness of the sky instead.

A sea of wild, powerful ether currents Zelos could easily have drowned in, but didn't. It is the memory of how Lloyd's ether had felt, superimposed over the overwhelming sensation of the dream visitor--a comparison, a test, though they feel similar enough for Zelos to wonder if--

Oh.

Footsteps, accompanied by ether. The Aegis starts, though it's mostly out of being jolted out of his own thoughts than anything. He twists to look at Malos when he speaks and smirks, turning his attention back to the sky again. "Honestly? It just looks awful," he says, shrugging. "I miss the sun already! Where's all the pretty, sunny skies I was promised?"

Malos laughs, a little, at Zelos' complaint. "Hey, they'll be back by morning," he says, arms folded over his chest. "Rain's nice, anyway-- maybe not pretty to look at, but always welcome."

He sends a sidelong look at Zelos, abruptly realizing that maybe... No. Zelos has to have seen rain before, right? Maybe he's never been out in it, though. Malos flicks his gaze up to the sky and even though he doesn't believe that the Architect is worth shit if he exists he offers up a quick prayer for it to just rain already.

"Guess I might enjoy it more because I spent most of this life living near a desert," Malos admits. "Happens so rarely it's always a treat."

Curiosity gets the better of him, even though he knows he probably shouldn't ask, because there's no way the answer isn't yes, but--

"You've seen rain before, right?" he asks, looking at Zelos again.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I LEAVE FOR A COUPLE DAYS AND YOU KILL LLOYD? AND AFTER THEIR NICE DATE? SMFH I'M TIMESKIPPING

COUNTDOWN TO GOD GATECRASHING BEGINS NOW

I'M EXCITED

SAME

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Thanks he got fuckored and rambly

Soon they'll both be fuckored

Pwease

no subject

no subject

HEEERE I AM, FLOATING IN MY TIN CAN

GET THE FUCK OUT THIS IS A PRIVATE DREAM

Sheena please comfort your blade

SHES HERE

AAAAAAAND CONTACT

HUG! HEAVEN! NOW!

HUG HEAVEN NOW!!!!!! Also this tag sucks sorry

HAPPY 600 LADS

WE DID IT!!

no subject

no subject