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

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.

"Augh. I mean, I guess, but I can still want the sun instead!"

Zelos sets his hands on his hips after that, and he can't help it when he tears his gaze away from the grey above and over to Malos when he hears the blade's question. He snorts, a little huff of air escaping his mouth as his eyebrows shoot upwards. Has Zelos seen--what kinda question is that? "I've definitely seen rain before, thank you very much," the Aegis laughs, flapping a hand about in front of him while his trademark shit-eating grin settles on his face. "Why do you ask?"

"W- well," Malos splutters, blushing faintly (the purple glows a little brighter thanks to the cloud cover), because fuck that was a really dumb question, wasn't it, why did you open your mouth, Malos. "I dunno just curious I guess," he says in a rush, then coughs into his hand, then clears his throat.

"Anyway," he says, arms crossed over his chest again. He sends a look at Zelos, curious but trying not to look like he's curious, or staring, or anything. "How've you been doing, Zelos? I know traveling on the run while also being on a rescue mission ain't exactly the most glorious way to be living, but, like-- you enjoying yourself?"

Under any other circumstances Zelos would perhaps at least feel some sort of shame at making a grown-ass man blush like that, but given the ridiculousness of Malos' question itself, all that happens is that Zelos ends up laughing. Good to see someone else in this godforsaken group blushing other than himself! Geez. Zelos keeps his hands on his hips and looks up at the sky, pretending, for as long as it takes for Malos to speak again, that he's not aware of the other's antsy staring. That sticks out to the Aegis more than it otherwise should have, makes him think of Lloyd, of Anna. Blood relation or not, Malos is so very much like the rest of his family.

He offers a thoughtful hum. "Well, as much as I can, I guess," Zelos answers, shrugging again. "I could probably do with finer meals and softer bedding, but I guess that's the price of tagging along with you outdoorsy types." Pepper a laugh in here, something controlled that shakes the shoulders, accompanied by a self-satisfied smirk. "Still, I kind of miss my bed, you know! Softest thing in Tethe'alla!"

"Ha, that's a mood," Malos says. "But, hey, this ain't forever. 'ventually we'll get you and Colette safe and somewhere where you can settle down, and have a nice bed again, and only travel if you wanna travel."

Malos turns, sends Zelos a reassuring smile, as a thought occurs to him. "Once we're in Sylvarant we might be able to find an inn to stay at for a night, if you want. Might be nice to sleep in a real bed, y'know."

He laughs, then his tone softens, a little less jokey but no less sincere.

"Honestly... anything else you want, just lemme know, I'll see what I can do."

"Man, you got my full support if your mission is to find a good bed. I swear my back will be permanently damaged at this rate!"

It's a joke accompanied by a laugh and a grin, something weaved out of pure amusement to hide the lurking anxiety that starts to rise from Zelos' core crystal and up his throat, threatening to seize it should he stumble and the mask fall. Malos' comment about he and Colette settling down isn't malicious, he knows, but it still sparks a fire of uncertainty in the Aegis anyway.

What is he going to do when he and Colette are safe? It's not like they can hide away from the humans, or like they can fool themselves into thinking they'll have peace. Being an Aegis means being persecuted and terrorized for the rest of their lives. And that's not even counting the elephant in the room: Zelos and Colette were made to destroy, it's their purpose, their entire being. What happens when they aren't needed for that anymore?

What happens if his sister doesn't even want--

A clap of thunder above wakes Zelos from his little reverie, and he can't hide the way he jumps a little at the sound--that was so close. He turns his attention back to the sky, pouts. "Definitely did like the way that sounded behind walls," he jokes.

Malos jumps a little at the thunderclap as well-- he didn't even see the lightning, so he definitely wasn't expecting that, let alone so close. He blinks, looks to Zelos, then laughs, shaky but good natured. "Yeah, thunder's a little scarier up close," he agrees. "But it-- ah."

And then it starts raining. No fanfare, the heavens just open up. It's not pouring, exactly, but the rain is steady nonetheless. Any longer than a few minutes in it and they'll all be drenched.

"Hah, there it is!" Malos says, delighted. He'll probably hate being wet twenty minutes from now, but at the moment it's nice. "This is nice."

First observation made about rain: it's fucking cold. Not that the weather wasn't already cold in the first place, but the droplets of it that fall and slowly start soaking their clothes and hair are definitely enough to make Zelos shiver when they touch skin. He jumps a little, his second observation hitting late: this, it's a lot different than what he'd thought it'd be while he'd observed it from behind intricate glass windows, less impersonal, more real. He's no stranger to water, but rain is... definitely something else.

Malos sounds delighted, talking about how nice the sudden rainfall is. Which, in all fairness, Zelos can see the appeal of it: he feels refreshed and stimulated, his mind working to make little notes of the way the rain affects his skin and the environment around them, the way the smell of ether in the ambient is disguised with the slowly rising petrichor from the soil. This is... nice, Zelos guesses. It's an experience, at least. It's--

--making him sneeze.

Water drips down his now flattened hair and onto his nose, and with the cold of the breeze hitting his wet skin, it makes him sneeze. The Aegis shivers again. His temperature is lowering. Not dangerously, but more than what he's comfortable with, and, okay, what the fuck. Zelos tries to heat himself back up with his inner ether reserves and comes up with an ineffective shudder instead, and the longer he stands in the rain his hair feels even more disgusting, his clothes now clinging to him, and--

He sneezes again.

Actually, fuck this. Zelos grumbles under his breath. "Easy for you to say," he complains in a low voice, rubbing at his arms with wet gloves that holy shit are starting to feel so gross clinging to his hands. "You're not the fire blade around here! And camp is gonna suck, too! Do you have any idea how much more ether it takes to ignite wet wood?" The rain is falling at an angle, so Zelos whines out loud while walking over to stand behind Malos, trying to somehow reduce how wet he can get. He scoffs. "I feel like I should charge you for these unacceptable working conditions, or something."

"C'mon, it's not gonna kill you," Malos laughs, considering Zelos. He sounds so miserable, and the way he hides behind Malos is kind of endearing. "Should let up before too long, and I wouldn't ask you to light a fire while it's raining anyway. We can live without."

He flashes a quick smile at Zelos. "We can head back to camp, if you want. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out some kind of shelter so that you don't have to get totally soaked, even if I gotta tie a blanket between two trees or some shit."

Another scoff, as Zelos considers Malos' words, as he rubs at his arms for warmth. The ether around them is wavering with the rain, prickling against his skin. "Honestly, why haven't you people invested on a camping tent, or something? You'd think you'd be--"

He stops, abruptly, choking on his words. Stands upright. The Aegis feels it in his veins, the way the ether in the area is suddenly pulled in the general direction where the camp is, something so strong and immediate that Zelos is pretty fucking sure that Malos would have to be either dead or unconscious not to have noticed too. It's not natural; it isn't quite like a cannon blast, but it's not like a normal blade's ether discharge, either. It feels more like a vacuum gathering ether in a specific area back at camp, concentrating it, and holding it right there.

And then there's the dread that drips into his core from the emotional bleed, making Zelos' skin crawl and his core to freeze over.

Thunder claps again, somewhere off in the distance. Zelos hardly pays it any mind. Instead he turns to look at Malos again, visible confusion on his face as he silently asks, for a second, just what the fuck that was. The Aegis doesn't wait for an answer; he twists on his heel and starts sprinting back to camp, uncaring of the rain or if the other blade is even following.

Edited 2019-08-11 21:16 (UTC)

As soon as the rain starts pouring down, Lloyd groans mid-way through a sentence in his conversation with Sheena, feeling his hair deflate as fringe starts to fall in front of his eyes. He pats at his pockets, hoping he still has the one hair tie he usually kept around for Colette's sake, and pouts when he can't find it, only finding carving tools in one pocket, and the core crystal Kratos had entrusted him with earlier in the other.

("Taking him into town is a bad idea so... Would you watch him, please?" Kratos had asked, pressing Mithos' core crystal into Lloyd's gloved hand. Touched by the trust hidden in those few words, Lloyd nodded.

"I'll keep him safe.")

Grumbling, Lloyd starts to make his way under treetop cover, grabbing Sheena's wrist and pulling her with him. "You wouldn't happen to have a spare hair tie, would you?" He asks, petulant, when they're at least somewhat sheltered from the worst of the rain. "I can't find one! This sucks!"

And then. A noise.

Something incessant, on the fainter side of things, but still audible. It pulls at Lloyd's attention, distracting him from his whining, and causes him to furrow his brows, listening for where it's coming from. It sounds close, but he can't see anything worrying, least of all through all of this rain. "Do you hear that?"

Dormancy is boring, in all honesty. Not that it can be avoided. Mithos has to do checks, make sure his core is functioning properly at a fraction of the power it's been using for decades, now. It's... kind of empty, honestly. He misses the warmth of Martel's ghost in his veins.

It's alright, though. It's only for a little while. They'll save the rest of her from Sylvarant, reunite her shards, and then she and Mithos can form a loop through Kratos, just like before.

Just like before.

Mithos runs through the checks one more time, making sure his core is functioning properly, making sure all the old pathways for resonance haven't completely atrophied. It all looks fine.

He pings the outside network to get Kratos' attention. Waits. The response isn't immediate, which is somewhat strange, but Mithos supposes there are any number of reasons Kratos could be busy at the moment. Perhaps the safer, smarter thing to do would be to wait until he feels Kratos' ether brush his core crystal again, but Mithos has always been impatient.

He pings again, and again, and again, waiting.

Pwease

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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!!

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WET RAT WET RAT WET RAT

WET RAT WET RAT WET RAT

WET RAT BUT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P5qbcRAXVk

HERE WE GO

(mithos voice) LET ME OUT, LET ME OUUUUUUUU