summonerd | i just wanna know: who broke it?

Sheena frowns at Lloyd's casual mention of not sleeping, but doesn't press it for the moment. "I can't feel any of the summon spirits from here," she admits, with a frown. That new connection to Zelos is distracting, at least, but it's been a strange few weeks for her, without those threads in her mind. "I guess it makes sense that Origin would be able to track me, though." She lets out a slow sigh, just letting everything settle.

"A mess, I think," she says. One that she'd certainly made worse, by jumping straight to murder. "But you know what? Yeah," she says. "Let's figure it out tomorrow." She flashes him a smile and reaches back to untie her obi, letting it and the obijime drop to the floor, before she joins him, climbing under the blankets. Not sleeping alone is always good for preventing nightmares, at least.

[There is nothing of value here.

White walls, a tall white ceiling, a white floor, white, white, white all around pulsating in a light that burns brightly, yet flickers on and off in a quickly pulsing pattern. Bright, then dark. White, then black. Nauseating, yet almost like a heartbeat, though it is merely a mockery of one, for its owner has none. It is interrupted only by neon orange lines that spread through the floor, up the walls, all the way to a central point in the ceiling where they coalesce and drip, drip, drip down into the a ball of snapping, electric ether suspended in midair, loud and echoing in the otherwise empty room.

The ball of energy croaks and snaps and screeches, too much hatred fed to it from its source that lies motionless on the floor, eyes shut tight, mouth opened in a soundless scream that instead reverberates out of the orange tinted lightning ether ball. It is an agonizing screech, something ripped out of a silent, aching throat and amplified through its ether. And there on the floor, at the center of the orange lines and powering this creature up and giving it shape, lies a poor, broken doll.

And the only thing he knows is pain.

Pulling from within himself, an aching, intrusive screeching scraping at his veins that takes and takes and takes and takes everything it can find, something acidic, something sick and satisfying that mixes at the bottom of his stomach in a concoction of pure hate. Hate for the world that birthed him, hate for lights behind his eyelids, hate for himself, for every second of this torture that he's forced to stay alive for, death a mere, unattainable dream so far in the horizon and already snatched out of his hands by a smiling doppelganger in a mirror.

Agony exits not in sound, but in clear, transparent tears trailing down his cheeks and falling onto the pristine floor. The screeching ball of ether roars and rips thunder out his veins, using him to exist, to live, to destroy and kill. A harbinger of death. An angel's thanatos.

It's taking everything he has.

Someone, please, let it end.

Someone,

please,

let him end.]

She's been here before.

She's been here before, and she'll be here again, because it all leads back here in the end, doesn't it? No matter how hard she tries, no matter how hard she swears that she'll be stronger this time and that it'll never happen again, it always seems to work out that someone's dying and it's on her hands.

The colors are all leached out of Volt's temple, black and white and orange rather than blue-gray stone lit by violet, but she'd know it anywhere, often as she revisits it. Just as she would have expected, there's Volt, furious and upset and completely impossible for her to understand, and there's someone lying on the ground below him, like a stringless puppet.

She's frozen in place, the crackling of lightning too sharp and overwhelming for her limbs to obey. She can't approach him, not here with no one to help her understand Volt's pain and no pact to rein in his power. She's alone, and unprepared, and it looks like she's going to get one more person killed, if she hasn't already, and she hangs her head, fists clenched.

But something in her tells her to look, at least, to see just whose life she's ruined now, and--

-- it's Zelos, the orange light pooling beneath him as it bleeds out of him, the sight familiar and deeply alien at the same time, and she can't let this happen, not again, not one more time.

A bolt of lightning flashes past her cheek as she takes a step, and she ducks but keeps moving anyway. Volt's words rattle through her bones, hard enough to make her tremble, but she doesn't stop til she reaches Zelos.

"Let him go," she snaps, and even through the tears streaming down her face her voice is iron. She steps forward once more to stand over him, body interrupting the flow of ether between them--

And then there's nothing but orange light.

[He

hears

a

sound

A voice, he realizes after focusing, after it comes closer and takes with it some of the pain. It's familiar, somehow. He must've heard it recently before. He can't open his eyes, but he knows the way it echoes from remnants in his brain, in his ether, and with herculean effort the source attempts to open them. Violet eyes slowly, slowly open to see the way that the orange thunder coming from his soul grows in intensity, and in that bright, bright flash of light he sees a shadow standing over him, shielding him, becoming engulfed by his own destructive force--

--and Zelos screams.

It only lasts about a second or two before he slaps his hands over his mouth, eyes wide and lost yet staring ahead. He's jumped into a sitting position, the knee-jerk reaction a reflection of him wanting to get as far away as possible from the dream, and his breathing comes in harsh, shallow breaths that he struggles to control. Zelos nearly chokes. Where is he? What the hell was that?

Breathe, just breathe. One, two. You can do it.

Slowly, then all at once, everything comes back.

His awakening, his driver, their memory share and their escape. Anna, her blade, Sheena's friend and their tentative plan to go see Mithos. The nap he took a few hours into his watch with Malos when he got bored. The port he'd opened in his sleep, the Aegis dreamspace open and apparently mixing with Sheena's restless dreams. Sloppy. Careless. Foolish. Zelos takes a deep breath. Holds it, exhales shakily, notices his own trembling. It wasn't real, he tells himself. It wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, but the leftover ache in his bones still keeps him half-anchored in the dream, that all-too-familiar feeling of his ether being pulled from his veins to power something horrible burned into his retinas from both the dream world and reality itself.

And then he remembers Sheena. Remembers her voice, her shielding him.

Remembers his ether destroying her.

Zelos lowers his head into his hands, groaning. He doesn't know why that feels as wrong as it does, why it hurts, but the feeling is intrusive and he wants it gone. Come on, wake up. Wake up, wake up. It's okay. It's alright. You're not in the cannon anymore, you're out, you're out.

It's okay.]

Edited 2019-03-23 07:30 (UTC)

Sheena wakes to the sound of her own screaming.

She cuts herself off quickly, choking on the sound, the momentum of the dream carrying over as she sits up, almost certainly disturbing Lloyd in her scramble. She can't catch her breath, doesn't trust herself to open her mouth without screaming again.

It's just a dream. It's not like she's not used to nightmares, by now, so this one shouldn't be any worse than all the others. She'll get over it.

But... this one had been different, somehow. Immediate in a way dreams don't usually feel after waking up.

She sweeps her legs over to the side of the bed, burying her face in her hands.

It's over. It's over, but why does it still feel like it actually happened?

Malos is lazily packing supplies for their journey, since he has nothing better to do with the time, and staying still too long makes him kind of antsy (he's honestly not sure if he was always like this, or if it's a bit of Anna rubbing off on him) so he might as well. He's in the middle of refolding a travel blanket when it happens.

The thud of a textbook hitting the floor, followed immediately by a scream-- two screams, separate. One from Zelos. One from-- Sheena? He knows it's not Anna (she's still asleep, he can feel that) and... Well, simultaneous like that, the Aegis' driver certainly makes the more logical choice, here. (He knows, if only vaguely, about the Aegis dreamspace, since Kratos talked about it before.)

Well, shit.

Sheena's probably fine, if Lloyd's with her, so Malos goes to Zelos instead-- finds him in the living room, upright on the couch with his head in his hands, breathing heavily, desperately. One of Anna's textbooks lies discarded on the floor. Zelos must've been poking through it out of boredom, must've fallen asleep in the middle of it. (Valid as hell, though, those things are unnecessarily dense.)

"Hey," Malos says, gently, loud enough to get Zelos' attention the first time (hopefully). He holds his hands up and in front of him, a little, where Zelos can see them. He doesn't get close, either. He's dealt with enough people post-nightmare to know not to do anything dumb.

He can only guess what the nightmares are about, but knowing wouldn't much change what he says next, anyway.

"Hey, it's alright, you're safe."

[Zelos is still heaving when Malos calls out, still pushing himself out of the dream and into reality. He doesn't hear the first one, though the sound of the other blade's voice definitely ripples in his conscious, distracting Zelos from the remnants of pain in his veins and the image of Sheena shielding him from his own ether. When he calls out the second time, speaking for longer so that his words actually manage to rip the illusion of a white room and orange lines away from his eyes, Zelos gasps.

He blinks. Lets out a shuddering breath, looks around. He's on a couch. It's night. There's a textbook on the floor that he vaguely remembers reading through, the subject matter reminding him way too much of his previous life to be comfortable, so he'd dozed off. Right. Of course.

Right.

Malos isn't hard to find in the darkness, the purple glow of his core crystal giving him away in a second. For the first time tonight Zelos notices the light illuminating a web string of scars around his core. He tucks the information away for later use, raising his eyes to meet the blade's again. Malos stands far away, hands up, cautious, and Zelos feels a little embarrassment crawl up his spine at the sight. He shuts his mouth. Clears his throat. Looks for an empty mask to construct, then at least some words to diffuse this situation with, anything at all.

He finds none.

Tongue like lead in his mouth, face carefully blank, shivering repressed and kept to a minimum, Zelos hums low in his throat.] "Hey," [he calls out. His eye twitches just a little when his voice still comes out wobbly and small, but he otherwise remains deceivingly calm. Zelos clears his throat again.] "Must've fallen asleep."

Malos hesitates, mind hastily sorting through his options until he lands on the best one. He can hear the tremor in Zelos' voice, knows what all kinds of people look like after nightmares, from Anna to Patroka. It doesn't take much to guess Zelos probably isn't the person who'd want to talk about nightmares, after they're over.

(At least, probably not with Malos, who he barely knows.)

Malos can work with that, though.

"Yeah, that happens," he jokes, because he's pretty sure Zelos would rather he pretend he didn't catch Zelos vulnerable at all. (Patroka's like that, too, and so is Akhos half the time.) He darts a glance towards the window, catches a glimpse of faint warm light through the window. Perfect. He definitely needed a change of subject.

"Hey, you woke up just in time, though," he says, sending Zelos a grin as he makes his way over to the window. He checks, first, through the curtain gap-- no solicitors. He can't feel any unusual disturbances in the ether, either.

The sun's only just started peeking up over the buildings. Their view from the slums probably ain't the best view, but the clouds this morning mean the sky's painted gorgeous colors, pink clouds against the pale blue of morning.

Zelos has... probably seen a sunrise before, but who knows, right? So Malos nods for Zelos to join him.

"It's always nice being awake to see the sunrise," Malos says. "Come check it out."

Edited 2019-03-23 21:44 (UTC)

[A noncommittal grunt and a dry huff are all Malos gets as replies while Zelos gathers himself back up behind his blank mask. He watches, carefully and tense, as Malos walks over to the window and peeks out of it, some of the sunlight outside is already peeking through, which means at least Sheena got some sleep. Good. He doesn't want his driver exhausted for tomorrow.

Zelos wills himself to stop shaking. This is... weird. At least Malos isn't asking about his dreams, nor is he making it a big deal about the state he'd found Zelos in, which means the shame he's feeling is easy to discard and dismiss after a few deep breaths. With time the blank mask gains a few strings of words he can use to defend himself with. And then Malos speaks, and Zelos actually scoffs.]

"You really gonna risk that?" [he asks. It's a little easier to keep a conversation rolling when Zelos can be a smartass over literally anything else. He pulls his right leg close to his chest and rests his arm over his knee, gesturing vaguely with it while leaning back a little on his other hand, regarding Malos with a smirk.] "Ya can't seriously be thinking it's safe out there right now."

Malos just sends him a look, somewhat exasperated, though it's really not that hard to find patience for this brand of bullshit from Zelos.

"Safe enough for you to take a look out the window, if you want," Malos promises. "It's fuckin' gorgeous this morning."

He leaves it at that. Zelos can choose not to if he wants. He's free to make all the choices he wants now.

[Wow, okay, actually getting shut down like that? Kinda pretty annoying. Zelos pouts a little at Malos for a second, then rolls his eyes like he can't believe this, shrugging and pushing himself out of the couch.]

"I've seen plenty of sunrises," [he says, lazily stretching his arms over his head like a cat. He takes care to keep himself nonchalant and casual as he controls his trembling legs and slowly makes his way over. He raises an eyebrow and peers out the window, hands on his hips, torso lowered dramatically.] "What makes this one so special, huh?"

"I mean, it's gorgeous as hell, for starters," Malos says.

And then, he risks a glance at Zelos, wondering if he should, but-- man, the Irvings aren't really known for their incredible caution. So:

"Plus, it's the first sunrise since you were set free," Malos says, fixing his eyes out the window again. "That makes it pretty special, if you ask me."

[He's not tense, not per se, but Zelos is also not completely sure of what to do with himself now. Malos' words ring heavy in his ears, the 'set free' bit louder than anything else. Is this really freedom? There isn't a lot in this situation that he can directly control, and he's not sure of everyone else's true motives, but...

But this isn't the castle. This isn't the cannon.

Zelos straightens up and crosses his arms, thoughts suddenly vanishing in the air. He just stares through the window glass at the colours in the sky and wonders, for a moment, if during this journey to Mithos' location he'll finally get a chance to see a sunset or a sunrise from somewhere other than behind a window, from behind a cage's bars. He doesn't know. He can't really predict what's to come, but.

For now he guesses he'll just take this, and simply hums.]

Lloyd absolutely falls off the bed when Sheena screams.

He catches himself before his face hits the floor, thankfully, but he doesn't even have the mental capacity to think about where he's at before he's standing, reaching for his swords as a paranoid reflex, scanning the room for any -

wait. Sheena!

Lloyd glances back at the bed, heart pounding, and sighs deeply when he sees she's safe, she's - well, she must have had a hell of a nightmare, but they all have. She's okay. He puts his swords up against the wall again and gently climbs back onto the bed, making sure to make enough noise as to not jolt her, and sits by her side at it's edge.

"Sheena," Lloyd starts, forcing his voice to stay calm, soft, and patient, although Colette's always been the one that was the best at comforting. Careful not to be too hasty, he wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her into a weak hug she could easily brush off if she decides to. "You're here. I'm here. We're here."

He gives it a few moments of silence, a few beats for them both to relax after their sudden awakenings, and then breathes out, counting to three and then back. "Are you alright? Anything you want to talk about?"

She doesn't lash out, this time, but she doesn't react to his hug either, just letting Lloyd pull her in without moving herself. After a moment she uncurls enough to twist and lean in, resting her forehead against his shoulder as her breathing starts to even out. She's still trembling, but it's less pronounced now, his presence grounding.

"...Sorry," she says, after a long moment. "I just--" She takes a slow breath, lifts her head from his shoulder so she can look down at her hands in her lap. "Guess I should've expected that, with how much happened today." She lets out a shuddery laugh as she forms a fist, loosely, then relaxes it. She's here, and Lloyd's here, and she's not--

--getting back in the cannon--

--letting anyone else die because of her own incompetence. (Where had that come from?) She straightens up the rest of the way, slowly, looking over to him. His face is hard to make out in the low light, but his bedhead looks as ridiculous as it always does. It's a shame her head's still too much of a mess for her to enjoy it. Still, she smiles, says, "I'll be okay, I think. Did I wake you?" After everything, she'd fallen asleep too fast to see if he'd needed her to make good on that promise.

"I'm fine," Lloyd answers immediately with a reassuring smile. He's not lying - even a handful of hours of sleep did wonders for his mental clarity, and, well, it's not like really needs to sleep anymore, anyways. He rubs at her shoulder absentmindedly, paying attention to how her pulse slowly normalizes itself.

"How about you?" He asks, after a few more moments of silence, concern still etched into his face, voice still quiet. "Do you think you want to try and sleep again?" Lloyd spares a glance to the windows, where he can see dawn's rising light peeking in through the thick curtains, dark enough for more sleep but signaling the start of the day. Maybe Sheena could sneak in a few more hours before they hit the road, but he's been in her position often enough to know she's probably going to forgo sleeping more, and he can't blame her.

"Maybe I better not," she says, sheepish. "Might be tempting fate too much, after a dream like that." The worst dreams don't tend to strike twice in the same night, but... with the way that one had felt, she's not sure it's worth risking it. Easier to just go without sleep than shake off two nightmares like that. Sheena reaches out with one arm to squeeze him in a quick hug, grateful, then pulls away, reaching for her hair ribbon on the nightstand.

"I napped a little while we were waiting for the sun to set, anyway. It'll be fine." She finger-combs her hair loosely, pulling it back into order as best she can before she ties it back. That's better, at least.

Lloyd nods understandingly at her response, deciding to get ready to face the day too. Standing with a stretch, he walks over to wear his jacket had landed in his exhaustion last night and shrugs it on, buckling his belts into place and sliding his suspenders onto his shoulders. With the rest Lloyd got, he feels more alert and aware of himself than he had for the past few weeks, so concerned about Sheena's safety and trying his best with Genis to comfort Colette that he had forgone rest.

Knowing that Sheena is safe has done a lot to make him feel better, but now that he's woken up in this world the truth settles in and it makes him uneasy - he has no idea how they'll get back to their own home. And even worse, there is a part of him that thinks of Anna and Malos and this Zelos, as much of a stranger as he is, and.

That part of Lloyd wonders if going home is his primary desire anymore.

He shakes his head. He's being dramatic. He wouldn't leave any of his friends behind for the world.

(A world where he has a family he doesn't have to fight to keep - it sounds like a dream.)

Ignoring his own think track, he shoves on his gloves and boots, willing himself to look stronger than he feels. At least now he feels at least a fraction of a percent more ready to face Zelos, though his heart constricts in his chest at the thought of introducing himself to a doppelganger of one of the people he failed, a doppelganger of the man he loves. But it's fine. It's fine, he'll be fine.

He wills a smile back onto his face, walking across the room and opening the curtains the slightest bit, allowing the light of dawn to hit him in the face. The warmth of it relaxes him the slightest bit, so he turns back around and claps his hands together. "Ready to take on an alternate universe?"

Sheena fishes around on the floor for her obi before she stands, too, wrapping it around her waist to start tying it. She's done this thousands of times, could do it in her sleep if she had to, but it's still involved enough to help pull her thoughts back into focus. There's no point in spending all day dwelling on her dream - she'd met a version of one of her oldest friends, who hadn't remembered her, and then she'd spent the day on high alert to keep him safe. Of course Zelos had gotten mixed into her oldest nightmare, after all that. That's all there is to it.

And speaking of Zelos... maybe the fact that they're awake so early is better, actually. She'd like to have an actual conversation with him that isn't interrupted by murder or eavesdroppers, and Lloyd could probably use the time to get used to this whole mess of a situation. This world's already thrown so much at him in the day he's been here. She pushes the finished bow of the obi around until it's at her back as it should be, then reaches for her boots.

"It'll never know what hit it," she says, with a grin. Possibly it may already not know what hit it, after yesterday. "Oh-- actually, I meant to ask. Did Origin say anything about how to get back?" She'd never really had a more detailed plan than hoping she'd know what to do with the Aegis, but that hadn't happened, and if Zelos has any ideas he hasn't shared them, at least.

Lloyd winces, rubbing the back of his neck because he most definitely does not really have a crystal clear way of getting them home. In his defense, hearing Origin say that this was about his only chance to find Sheena really changes the way one might plan out a rescue mission.

"Sorta?" He gives her instead, sheepishness claiming his tone as he rests his hands on the grips of his swords, suddenly wishing he had his Material Blades on him rather than Gagnrad, but, whatever. "Origin has little to no power that reaches over here, I think. He told me to find the reflection of himself that could lead us home."

Whichhhhh is a lot less specific now that he thinks about it. Given the existence of blades and an entirely new system of mana - ether? - Lloyd wouldn't bet on summon spirits being a part of this universe. He bites at his lip, lost in thought. As much as it sucks to think about, Sheena and he might be here for longer than they originally thought, especially if they're going to help Zelos out with whatever it is Sheena broke him out of.

"Maybe the Origin over here conveniently has an interdimensional portal? Or just two really strong Rhieards?"

Lloyd Irving, think through a plan completely before kicking it off? Absolutely not. Sheena can't help but laugh at his expression, fond.

"Actually..." She pauses, both feeling at the edges of her connection with Zelos to make sure the comparison's right and not really wanting to be the one to bring his name up to Lloyd. "Zelos does kind of feel like Origin." Which is a hell of a sentence, now that she's said it, and her face is very clear that she doesn't know what to make of it. "That's how I wound up finding him, but I didn't expect him to be..." Well, him. Has Sheena mentioned lately that she hates this world a little? She scowls, taps her boot against the floor to drive her foot into it properly as she thinks. "But he can't be Origin, right? That wouldn't make any sense."

Lloyd would like to note that he took the introduction of Zelos' name into the conversation quite well, thank you, mostly hiding the way his heart sinks deep into his chest cavity. His smile wobbles but stays on, for the most part, and he manages to keep eye contact. He's getting better at this whole ignore how you're feeling thing, finally.

"I - uh, still don't really know anything about this world," Lloyd says, shifting his weight onto his right leg and crossing his arms in thought, "but Malos told me about something before you guys got here. Zelos has a core crystal, right?" He didn't see it if Zelos does have one, but if Sheena has to personally bust him out of the Tethe'allan government's hands, maybe it's not a far cry to assume he's a blade here.

(The idea of Zelos being used against his will as a weapon sickens Lloyd.)

"Core crystals don't... seem too far from exspheres or cruxis crystals. Do you think maybe they could be connected back to this world's Origin?"

Edited (forgot to capitalize god's name, F) 2019-03-26 22:28 (UTC)

Unfortunately for Lloyd, Sheena's spent enough time with him to catch his reaction, and she shoots him an apologetic smile. She's not that far ahead of him on dealing with this, really - she gets it.

"Yeah, he does," she says, thoughtful. "His power felt pretty different from what an exsphere does, but... the concept's so similar. I dunno. They could be." She sighs, lifts her arms over her head to stretch. "But why would Origin be connected to blades?"

"I dunno," Lloyd replies with a small shrug. "Maybe he helped create them? Or helps keep them powered or something? I'm drawing a blank."

He blinks, lifting his arm so he can support his head on the palm of his hand, shooting Sheena a glance, "where are we planning on going from here, anyway? Maybe if we can start keeping an eye out for Origin while we travel!"

That sounds like a good idea! Origin wasn't easy to pinpoint the first time, but it's not like they can't do it again, right? And hey, maybe they can even get him to help Zelos while they're at it. Someone with the power of a god isn't necessarily someone to be sneezed at.

"Guess we'll find out when we find him," says Sheena, matching Lloyd's shrug. Then he asks about their plans, and last night comes back to her.

"Actually..." she says, hesitating. She probably should've mentioned this before now, but better now than to let Lloyd be blindsided by it later. "Last night, Zelos said he wanted to... go to Mithos." Wow, that sounds so much worse than Sheena'd expected it to, and she winces, quickly continuing, "Apparently, he's an Aegis here, too? I've been here almost a month and it doesn't seem like there's anything like Cruxis, so... maybe this Mithos is different. Malos thought it sounded like a good idea."

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DID SOMEBODY ORDER A FUCKED UP DREAM

make it a double

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la6Kc7RAmWc hey

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

hoo boy

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HE DEADASS DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO RESPOND

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