Welcome to Gaia! ::

The sky wound down the sun, threw cloak over the colors and made them black early in winter. Five and the stars weren't out, despite the dark. nor six, nor seven. There were clouds tonight, coming in with the front and threat of rain on the week's end.

When nine struck the bell towers of Destiny City's dioceses, Titanlåvenite stood on a four story roof of a gentrifying neighborhood filled with boheme-second hand bookstores, tattoo parlours and too many bars per square mile. It was one of the streets where the 20-30 bracket liked to go on 'pilgrimages.' Sedans were already circling tight blocks looking for any signs of available street parking while the last of the business people left for home. The rest of the revelers would fill in the gaps. Wednesday was hump day, after all.

Bar crowds were easier to draw from. They didn't think further than alcohol and a long shift for the reason of fatigue. And now Titan didn't have to touch them to draw from them. It was different, and uncomfortable, to consider, and an approaching signature was a welcome distraction. A General?

Dark carmine unmistakable, like vital gore. Mouth as much a wound, as visceral, once.

My Lord— No. Not his. Not for a long while, to a young life. Or a long while to one in war, where weeks were years and months were decades. A year might as well be a century, a passing age of the world. You were leaving, gone from all traces and places. Where I couldn't follow. Unwelcome. Unvowed.

"General Obsidian. It has. " Titanlåvenite's brows furrowed together. Is it the addiction returned? Someone tracked him down? A threat? Boredom?

The glamour of uniforms had no consistency in whether they betrayed sickness or not, however hard one looked for the signs, until some outside Fate chose it time or not to show. How to ask all that he would know? Answers were not guaranteed. And how much was rude? How much remained of what had been, in the other man? and...?
if honest, in his own heart?

too much, everything, never enough, not enough, nothing

"Are you returned to active duty?"

"I resigned from the SpecOps last may. Hessonite." The name drummed in the broad lungs with more contempt than could be wise to show. But the woman herself could think no different if reported on his opinion, given how he'd tendered the event. "It has made no change, but all the change? I am...alive. Service has been dulled. Dim. They whet no blades. "

"And you...?" My Lord.
Obsidian had seen plenty of Sovereigns come and go. The man's opinion, even over the distance of time, was still one Titan trusted. If he was disappointed in even Laurelite, the Queen, then there must be sound reason to call it propping. Like a paper doll. However strong the power in her. There had been another queen once, and she'd been used up. And Titan had seen enough service to have witnessed Hessonite as leadership.
Lesson starting to be learned- not all leaders, however approved to power, were worthy to it.

Names echoed to darkened rooms or the striation of streetlight through blinds on damped hair. Two years, I have not seen these eyes. Heard this voice. I have missed you. I cannot keep you, can I. Even now.

"How are you?...Yourself. 'What doesn’t kill you…' you said once. "

To want death- Titan's heart ached. Addictions were like that, by all he'd ever known. From where Obsidian had been, in the lowest part, before the healing of the apartment away from the Rift, it would have been a blessing compared to the alternative. The Youma were walking sacrifice, pitiable and terrible, to their own vice, to war, and to poor chance. Duty, while the answer for now, didn't necessarily erase that earlier want. Obsidian hadn't said it was gone, only that duty was heavy and drew inevitably back.




Foreign words. English plain, but foreign. He knew them from saying them, or equivalents. Admissions to his family, to teachers, to Colin, but they weren't vocabulary he heard. Stupid people did wrong, and often. Stupid people inconvenienced others, made mistakes, broke things. People like him were accountable to others for these. He still was.

Obsidian is not speaking lies. These same faults and I spit at the feet of the General Queen, and left her service. Called her unworthy to lead, in my heart. But I weathered it for him, in my vow. " I hear you."

"Thank you. I do not regret. But I hear you, and...it is much." Titanlåvenite shifted stance, one more relaxed, hand hooked and relaxed at belt. "That time... was still all I ever asked."

"Near, but unbroken. Tempered. I understand more. See more. " Not all given power are good leaders. Not all done right can win a reward, a friend, a lover, a war.

Must we remain separate, though? Possibly. Sometimes saying fault sours all flavor of a person to the other. They call the saying part of the shame, not a proof of strength. No answer unless I ask. A right word at a wrong time, with too much other omen, can color it unjustly. Then leave the door open for later?
I love him still. Can clasped hands sooth Want for him and Lonliness for me?
Even for a breath. Too ....desperate.
Patience. Time.


Obsidian seemed to fight with himself, but over what, Titan wasn't certain. His own mouth offered slow and soft a smile. "It is a lot to ask another to take Lordship, in these days. I am...sorry I put that on you. I did not really understand how different that part of me was. Or how much it was to ask. "

"Maybe, sometime, what vassal failed, a shieldbrother can give." Maybe too bold. But so the door is open. But not demanding. His taste may be different now. Or fulfilled.

He may have new lieutenants now. A team.


" Your call I will still answer, gladly. If you need someone like me for a mission. " He didn't shy from looking at play of wind through feathers of red against the man's cheeks. "Though you may have others now. Do you have new Lieutenants and Senshi?"

Two.
Indeed the General had moved on, probably in many ways. You knew that in offering anyway. Instead of yes or no, or nothing, he asks why. What does that matter in the end? To look for a source of poison? Or to plant one and let it grow between like a shield?

That horrible powerlessness, where something was either unrequited, or returned but not wanted. A diseased limb, as much as the 'rotten core' that Obsidian spoke about, that needed to be removed. Love had no part or effect of the outcome they'd last spoke, and it had not kept his Oath to the man intact. Or the man's presence. It would not matter as an answer now. What more answer could be given? And what outcome would result? It wasn't a puzzle he had the social cunning to navigate. "Until we are youma, we are still human. "

If not love, there was enough truth in hearts of just Need. They all still had hearts. Touch and brief closenesses kept them whole, operating better, operating closer, more efficiently, more in tandem. Even if it was just answering cold Need, like seeing to a rusting machine with steel wool and oil.

"I hope to see them at training with me in the Colosseum, some day. Your recruits. It is posted, and every day. Optional. Live steel and youma when the creatures are hungry and want to try to eat an officer as much as anything else."

" And you are welcome, too. It has been a while since a sword made me bleed. If not, there will be other operations to fight alongside and see. "

It is the place of a leader to have to kill their own, if they are unfit. The offhanded comment from the other man, making light of these new replacements, wasn't off-putting inherently. It was no worse than should be expected of any hersir. It relied on oaths, though, to have meaning, to work for both the commander and the commanded. The aspirations, respects and authorities of any of the officers were suspect. More than suspect, they were abysmal. But where could faults lie for bitterness? It is no different than when I knelt. It will never be different, until someone chooses to do it right from top to bottom. And it may not work then, with no surrounding support.

I wonder if Metallia would kill every officer. And what would push that need. Obsidian avoided any answer direct to the offer, Titanlåvenite noted. He wasn't surprised. There was a power in leaving the option open, even if he never chose or intended use of it. Leaving it open meant knowing and having someone's direct attention even a little. It meant having some power over that. Power was the currency all the Generals had to accrue and show off for some of the unsavory recruits.

It was a sorrow when the hand drew away. An echo of physical pain and tightness in his chest and stomach and a vow broken. "Maybe then. "

If even that could even the ground? He'd never heard any discussions about whether older officers had more or less power in them from the Throne. Every officer had strengths and weaknesses with weapons and fighting style, or with division served. If Infos had more subtle knowledge then that, it was probably too fractious to give out. And in this case, it didn't matter. Obsidian would always be Obsidian, until he was a Youma or dead. Titan had no high hope for facing the man in combat, practice or otherwise.

"Good hunting, Sir." Titanlåvenite bowed and turned to the lurid, under-lit clouds of the fully-fallen night.