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 Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:08 pm
Lysithea fell silent, almost doll-like in her plastic obedience. Malus leaned against her as if she were a hitching post meant to ground his embittered thoughts. Faustite watched them both, his gaze so easily concealing the minutia of his attentions, with only his eyelids to betray the most general directions.
By the time Malus asked his own question, Faustite was through both vegetable wraps and halfway finished with the sausage pie. But the question forestalled his voracious eating habits; his fork hovered halfway between his mouth and plate while his gaze sought the ground distantly. A thin smile turned up first, wistful, before a crooked smirk took its place. He nodded, more to himself than to the pair in accompaniment. The smile then faded, and he looked to the senshi out of the corner of his eye. "Sometimes."
It isn't a simple question, is it. Faustite considered never answering further than that. Malus's and Lysithea's answers from before formed a precedent for letter-forged withholdings, couched in self-preservation. Perhaps they saw prudence in caution. Perhaps they thought to protect their own lives from one of the Negaverse's youngest officers. But such a move smacked of flimsy commitment, of rote living held in highest esteem over any and all ideal — over any chance to preserve the sanctity of human life about which Lysithea spoke so fondly. Perhaps, then, he should set a new precedent. "The relationships I had aren't possible anymore. I can't enjoy the ocean's perfect silence with my father, or entertain dinner guests with naïve curiosities — I can't afford the time — but I developed very different relationships in their stead. More potent ones. And it's these relationships that pushed me to be who I am.
"The Negaverse gave me hard experiences. Austere ones. Events that normal people can't relate to — that senshi can't relate to either. For every hour I spend alive, I stray further from everyone else. Contrarily, those experiences mean more to me than reestablishing old relationships, or reclaiming people lost." He bowed his head.
"When I was still human, my general disliked my reticence for pulling starseeds. He opened my femoral artery, left me to exsanguinate or save myself. I pulled and ate the starseed of someone who was dialing an ambulance for me. Who was holding pressure over the wound. Even now, it feels surreal." He shook his head, his wistful smirk returning. The fork, momentarily forgotten, was retired to his plate. "You won't find that level of cruel optimism in my old privileged life. You won't find it in the White Moon either. Nor with knights. But their potency, their poignancy, sustain me in ways my old life couldn't."
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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:37 am
There was no doubt about it now, the food was utterly repugnant. Lysithea watched the Captain eating though. Watched as he seemed to not be able to get enough of it, and quietly, she set more out for him should he choose to partake in anything else.
Her arm remained firmly around Malus, and though she was still confused. Still unhappy with the images that his words had painted in her mind, she wasn’t going to pull away. She should have expected such things. Especially with how Faustite was speaking of his tenure with the organization but…
It was just so hard to imagine. She had known that the Negaverse had the capacity to be monsters but…to hear about it first hand was just…
It shook her more than she could have ever admitted out loud. And here she had once said that she would join them. “I don’t know just what kind of General you had, Faustite…” Lysithea’s voice came out sounding hoarse and she cleared her throat before trying to speak again. “…But they sound like a monster. That…isn’t how you should care for someone who’s life you quite literally hold in your hands…I understand ‘tough love’ but how did that help you to grow? I can’t quite…wrap my head around that. If you had stuck to your morals. You would have died. You shouldn’t try to break people in your care…”
The senshi’s eyes closed and she hoped that Evan hadn’t gone through that. That Zack hadn’t when he was still Sanidine. That Sanidine hadn’t…treated any officers under him with such malice.
Quietly she let out a sigh. “No. You’re right though. About relationships you had not being possible. But…you can always create new ones. New people to love. New hobbies. New dreams, new desires. There’s always a chance for happiness somewhere. There’s always the chance for light to shine through in the darkness…”
At least she hoped there was. After tonight…well. She might have to rethink her own ideals.
Her hand around Evan squeezed tighter, worry and stress flooding through her body.
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Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 8:44 pm
Something was wrong with Lysithea, and Malus was suddenly hyperaware of his every word, every gesture. She wasn't taking this well, and she wasn't hiding it particularly well, either. It was an odd sensation, unsettling and arguably frightening--that she would be the one losing her stability.
Which was a problem, given how much he relied on her to be his stability, too.
They'd said things in this conversation--things he'd never wanted to bring up, things he didn't want to expose her to. It wasn't that he was avoiding the truth, it was just that he had always assumed they had a basic understanding of what it meant to be a youma.
He had been him, always, just to lesser and lesser degrees the longer he was exposed to the will of the Negaverse. Towards the end, it felt like he was hanging onto scraps of who he once was.
He was himself.
...Just their version of him.
If he'd been stuck there for much longer, he had no doubt that 'he' would have disappeared, replaced by the same hollow shell all youma must have eventually become. There were few to his knowledge that weren't little more than feral beasts.
...Like Airi. A sad little pain pierced his heart, the sting of losing a friend. He hadn't seen or heard from the youma in some time.
Not all youma were bad. Some could be saved.
Malus tried to listen to Faustite, tried to understand exactly what he was saying. It was difficult when his dialogue was littered with a number of words Malus couldn't immediately translate. He wasn't stupid, but he found himself rapidly ashamed that he was trying to piece together what was actually being said so he didn't make himself look like a fool.
"I have to say," he said slowly, "It doesn't really sound like any of those things were pleasant experiences. Just 'different' ones. Not that I'm judging," he insisted; he was fully aware it wasn't his place to criticize anyone's life or choices.
"...I guess, from an outside perspective it sounds like you're trying to make the best of a bad situation. Like you're trying to find value, to justify the experiences you've had in the Negaverse. Maybe I'm wrong," he wasn't arrogant enough to speak with any solid confidence. "...But I guess, maybe I've got a little experience with that."
There were plenty of uncomfortable experiences in his life, and he didn't like to talk about anything that reminded him of the helpless, worthless, hateful feelings. This conversation was already so far out of his comfort zone, though, what was a little more?
"I mean. I thought it was easier to justify what was going on around me, like that was going to validate everything that was going on. If I could pretend like it was meaningful, like it had some purpose, I could manipulate it into something it wasn't. Something better. But I was an idiot," he said, with obvious disdain. He sat a little straighter, like he'd found some resolve now that he was digging through old thoughts.
"If you're happy with the experiences, then that's one thing. If you're happy with what those experiences have done for you, who they've made you, then I guess that's all anyone can ask for. But you aren't happy with the experiences, I mean." He shrugged. "There's a new path outside of the Negaverse. And it can be anything you want it to be. A fresh start, a new path. You can take the experiences you had before and build onto them, or leave them behind. You can do whatever you need to do to be a better person, to be happy. To be who you want to be."
He shrugged and watched Faustite; he managed to keep eye contact if only because this was important and a little voice in the back of his head told him that if he let his gaze stray, Faustite might find some way to doubt the sincerity of his words.
Malus was no authority to adhere to. Faustite had no obligation to listen to him, to trust him, or to humor him. He spoke knowing this, and while there was that nagging self-doubt in the back of his mind, he didn't present his discourse with any doubt.
"It just seems more like a prison, only instead of being in a cell, you're trapped in your body. And you're not even trusted to be fully in control of it because as soon as someone bigger, 'better', than you tells you to do something, you have to. Or you get punished. And so far as I know, the Negaverse is the only one that throws their weight around like that, so if you ever get tired of it, at least you know there's a way out, right? ...I don't know. I don't want to sound like I'm preaching. Maybe your experiences are different from mine. But, I was trapped. And from here, it sounds like you're trapped, too, and just trying to adapt. Maybe not even just enjoying it, just trying to survive."
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Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:49 am
Faustite shrugged, the motion feeling wan and irresolute in the face of Lysithea's charges. "He isn't my general anymore." With that general long vanished, he now had another that diametrically opposed Lysithea's beliefs. As a lieutenant, he staunchly believed as she believed — that generals and captains should have a lieutenant's best interests at heart — and now he found such a phrase austere and distant. Unreal. Perhaps that thought only applied to people.
'There's always a chance for happiness somewhere.' Faustite found no room to doubt such a phrase. Even as youma, he nosed out small snatches of happiness in his tenure. He found Aue, with whom he shared a pleasant relationship. At any point where his duties sank their hooks in his back and dragged him down, he could spend a couple hours on the Finn's couch watching him play inane video games. He had Kamacite with whom he could share tea and expect no barbs launched his way. He had the vaunted skyscrapers of the city to top on a cool fall night, where he could look out at the sodium starscape below. He had reams of reams of poetry to read, new shoe styles to collect, the pleasant feel of Vaseline applied to the stomas in his back. Life was not so loathsome as Heliodor found it.
"You're right," he returned at last. Even in the Negaverse, he didn't face a wasteland of misery.
And Malus had his own points. Drawing up his legs, Faustite shifted focus to the next speaker. What came next was essentially a quality of life evaluation, thankfully lacking a basis in purification. Faustite's attention flickered back toward the grass, ever a brilliant lavender, as he nodded his comprehension. Occasional twitches of the mouth belied a private humor, a joke shared only with himself.
"I understand what you're saying," Faustite returned as Malus wound down. "I'm caught at a crossroads where both my options can seduce. One has power and temerity and vengeance, the other humbleness and happiness. What life I want or what life I should lead." He looked to Malus, then to Lysithea, ever brimming with motion that wound and wound tirelessly, pointlessly. "That question can't be answered in a picnic. You understand, don't you?
"To toss away my memories, everything I've known myself to be — that's a hard task. It's a leap of faith. That gesture places a lot of trust in you. A lot of responsibility." Strange that they would call such a burden on themselves. They had to know the breadth of the Negaverse — not only in the countless youma infesting the core of the earth, but also the swollen ranks that dominate the surface — and yet they chose this path. They chose to talk over agents one by one, as if the next grunt picked from their rank might yet turn the war. They must believe so staunchly in the power of individuality for them to take such an approach. Or they're simply trying to survive, and tug others along where they could. What a strange choice of fate.
"If I choose your path, I'll hold you to that responsibility."
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 7:36 pm
Lysithea blew out a long breath and rubbed at her eyes, feeling suddenly tired. Her body ached as though she had suddenly come down with the flu, and she wanted nothing more right this moment than to go home and crawl into bed until all of this was processed. Finally she turned her gaze back on Faustite. “Then I’ll prepare a room just in case. Tell me what you like. If you expect us to take care of you on the off chance you purify, then fine. We will take care of you. I will take you into our home, and I will make sure you have all the love of a family that you desire.”
She didn’t move her hand from around Evan, but she wanted to embrace Faustite. She wanted to embrace him and become what she had been for Evan. It couldn’t be that utterly difficult.
Quietly she held her free hand out to the half youma. “I am willing to take on this task, but I need to know what about you that you would need after the fact. I can provide whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. What makes you happy Faustite. What would make you feel at home, because I know it can’t be answered in a single picnic. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have more. It doesn’t mean that we can’t get to know one another, we can’t plan for it to happen…and even if it doesn’t…I’ll be ready. Your home will be ready. You only ever have to ask and you’ll belong.”
In the grand scheme of things, helping one half youma would do nothing for the war. Helping Evan did nothing for the war and neither did helping Tanais or the other half youma they had purified…but it had changed the lives of all of them. It had been something that utterly changed everything. Bringing one from the edge of suicide. Bringing one from the edge of madness…the war in its entirety might never be won. But Lysithea would not rest if there was someone that she could help. If there was a life she could pull out of personal darkness…then she would.
It didn’t matter about the many. It mattered about how hard you tried for the few. “I know we ask a lot. But I am prepared to give a lot right back to you, Faustite.”
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:29 am
Malus was not the dominant conversation partner in this meeting; he was willing, albeit reluctantly, to talk about his experiences. He could give what support he could, share where his mind had been and how he'd changed. He had a role he could fill, but he was a guest in Lysithea's house. She had experience in this, she knew how to better talk to people.
He nodded, unwilling to interrupt Lysithea's offer or distract from what she was saying; it was the most he could do to show his support for what she was saying without interjecting, himself. There was more he could say, maybe more that he would, but not now. For now, he simply acknowledged that whatever role he could fill, he was willing. He would help wherever he could, however he could.
Chaos was a poison, an intoxication. Maybe it treated some people better than others, maybe it worked for them, but it hadn't for him--or anyone he'd known.
No one needed to be trapped if ever they wanted out.
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 6:11 pm
'All the love of a family that you desire.'
What a sentiment. Did he remember what he desired anymore, or did Schörl meticulously supplant all his wants like soldiers knocked neatly into line? Did she whittle those urges away like shavings off an arrow shaft? For her answer, Faustite remained silent for a spell. Dark eyes combed empty food containers and untouched meals alike while the words simmered and stewed. What did he desire? If given the chance, what would he want out of a life given back to his control? And would it be the same want as the person who inherited his body?
And what of these two? Did they want this or were they obliged to offer it? Their passions vocalized so ensured that they wanted it. This offer fit their sensibilities perfectly. It validated all that Malus endured as youma, promised to mend the minor tear between them. Their course was not an empty one.
"Then we'll be in touch." So much remained to relearn about himself. He had Elex's old journals to read, reflections to make on what quality of life he enjoyed as Eion. Research to do on what boys his age liked, on how to be a boy instead of a monster. He would require another visit to Castor for information on Kholat Syakhl, for contacts he might know or lovers had in those thousand years past. So much remained of the road ahead before he could begin to answer Lysithea's question. Her open invitation was nearly too much to bear. "There's so much to do before I can answer you." So much to fear in a misstep, so much destruction to be had for a life as delicate as tissue.
Faustite rose, his hand extended to invite the Unicorn Senshi to her feet. Malus seemed in charge of their meal and would need a moment to collect errant goods before Lysithea led them back to Destiny City.
Fear has prevented or rescued you from becoming,
to know utterly what you’ll never be, to understand in doing so
what you are.
"Take us home, Lysithea."orangeish sherbert apologies for the long wait; kyuseisha no hikari please feel free to consider this a close!
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