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 Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:27 pm
✖ Depression ✖
It was too long to feel this way, Cesc thought on the tenth day of being unable to lift his head from his pillow in the morning. Too long to feel tired, too long to feel like he hadn't slept. He was beginning to feel used to the feeling of waking with pain: a throbbing head, eyes that felt like they'd been blackened, a jaw tight from clenching his teeth.
Twelve times he woke in the night, in terror of being alone.
Twelve times he rose and opened the doors to Vivi and Shepard's rooms. Checked that they were in their beds. Breathing.
It wasn't fair. Wasn't fair that he wasn't feeling any better, wasn't fair that Vivi and Shepard gave him lingering looks and hopeful smiles and tried to make him laugh when he couldn't find it within himself to do so. Wasn't fair that Zurine wrapped her arms around him and set her chin on his shoulder and tried to imbue him with her sweet faith and all her care.
What was wrong with him? He was safely at home. Nobody had died. He was surrounded by care and love.
He put his head into both of his hands, digging his fingers into his shortened hair. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair, wasn't fair. He wanted to weep but for days he couldn't find the tears within him. Wanted to be overcome with anger, or sadness, or anything.
There was nothing. He deserved nothing, and that was all that was within him.
Cesc drew in a ragged breath.
He hadn't shaved for days. Pink stubble lined his jaw and cheeks. Pink, light thing that he was.
He'd stood in front of Anya, pink and bright, a neon sign pointing to her. How had he thought he was shielding her? He'd already been grazed then. How had he not understood that he was the hunter's target? Shielding her -- idiot, ******** idiot, he should have run as far as he could from her to keep her safe.
Melisande with her broken wing. Rivener screaming in loss and pain. All the weeping and pain and torment. What did he think would happen when he fired that flare?
He'd summoned them all to their nightmares. He had. He'd squeezed the trigger and brought them all there. It was him.
He wanted to be something better, someone stronger than himself. To be able to stand in front of his memories and accept them and humbly move forward. To grow. But he had not even confessed them, had not even unburdened himself that far. How could he?
He would have to look one of them in the eyes again one day. How would he stand it without shattering from shame?
Cesc dug the heel of his hands into his eyes. His chest tightened.
Ten days with the same thoughts. Ten days of hopeless darkness.
How much longer?
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:33 pm
✖ PRP Check Up: A Twisted Game ✖
Cesc sat on the couch and threaded his fingers together. He sat and sat and sat and waited until he heard Shepard's footfall on the stairs, and then he rose. "I need to get my stitches out," he said, his eyes imploring. "I need -- I need to talk to Alex. And to Zul." So Shepard called. * Vivi held his hand on the car ride home. Shepard filled the silence with talk about sports, his pauses awkward, unused to making idle conversation when the both of them were present and so better equipped to make it. Cesc kept his mouth closed until they parked the car, and then he spoke -- the whole story, the whole thing, right there in the garage behind the bakery.
And when they wept, and Vivi kissed him, and Shepard put his strong rough hands around his shoulders, Cesc felt that he had finally rid himself of some stout poison that had been thrumming, living in his veins. He was exhausted, weak, bled out -- but it was gone.
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:36 pm
✖ PRP: Something Borrowed, Someone Blue ✖
At a glamorous wedding, Cesc meets the calm healing power of the beautiful Ethiriel. * Vivi sat down next to him at the wedding's end, her hands cupped over one of her knees as she crossed her legs. She looked at him tenderly but without artifice, and Cesc could feel her taking in his haggardness, the purple underneath his eyes, the unhappiness around his mouth. But she seemed serene to see it. He felt better than he had earlier. How she knew, he was not certain, but she seemed to. He looked away and allowed her eyes to continue roaming his face. His hands ached to smooth his hair, to try to wipe away the darkness from places they both knew it did not belong on him. But he stilled, and let her look. From talking with Ethiriel, he had garnered a new appreciation of seeing. Of being under another's gaze. "You know," Vivi said, at length. "I was once so unhappy." Rhedefre tilted his head up, toward her. "What?" "I had a family once," she continued. "A very grand one, you know. Many dozens strong. In the cirque, where I grew." Cesc nodded. He knew this part of her history, from stories and pictures and videos taken. She rejoiced in telling of the circus, and he had always reveled in hearing of it. "But you know, it ended quite suddenly," she mused. "And when it did, I thought -- this is all. I am to be unhappy forever now. I was given my cup of happiness early and I drank from it too strong and too much." She put her hands together, like trying to capture water. Then she allowed her fingers to fall away from each other. "And now, nothing remains for me, I thought! It has gone." She paused, and Cesc turned his neck to look at her as she had him. It hitched his breath to see sadness still there in her eyes, her brilliant, cheerful gaze he had gotten so accustomed to seeing. "And perhaps -- perhaps what was painful the most was how very true it felt," Vivi continued, her eyes dropping. She slid a slender hand into his, squeezing his fingers. "How very final it felt! There would be no happiness for me any more. This I accepted. That I had to live, I knew. That it would be grey, I accepted." Cesc paused. He shook his head. "And then you woke up one day to color?" He prompted. Vivi shook her head. She let out a faint little laugh. "How lovely it would be if that were so, would it not? To be unwell and then to wake up well. But that is not healing. That is amnesia! No -- I woke up unwell many times. I was in the grey many days. Sometimes there would be color and I would find hope in it, and then the next day there would be none, and I would think 'did I imagine the color? Did I simply hope for it, and so I believed I saw it?' It is not overnight, or linear, or what you expect. But it heals. The happiness, it returns. Frightened at first, yes." A lump formed in Cesc's throat. He nodded once, his eyes on the ground. He thought of the happiness he saw always on her face, the ever-present smiles she wore, the alternating gentleness and exuberance of her joy. Vivi smoothed a curl at his cheek. She leaned forward and kissed him, her lips gentle. "I think," she said quietly, "Maybe it is that you found a bit of color in your grey today?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:37 pm
✖ PRP: Stronger ✖
Ready to make strides, Cesc and Shepard visit Iorek. * [ongoing]
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:39 pm
✖ Ruin: One Hour ✖
Sweat it out, Rhedefre thought.
Visualize it. Spare nothing. The anxiety, the pain, the healing, the uncertainty. All the muck in his veins, the darkness tracked over his light. Visualize it and work, work, work, sweat it all out.
He put weights on his wrists and flew. Strapped a pack to his back and went flying through the woods near his home, listening to the ache of his muscles. He could hear his heart in his ears, the sweat wetting his hair, snaking down his back. It had become a morning ritual, pre-dawn. Before he fed, he weighed himself down and he flew, flew, flew as far and as fast as he could.
You have control this time, he thought, his voice soft in his own head. You can stop when you want. Nothing will happen.
Sweat, sweat, sweat.
He focused on it instead of his heartbeat, frantic rhythm in his ears.
Nothing will happen if you stop. No arrows snapping through the air. No one will scream. No one will need you. Stop or go. Stop or go as you please.
He went, and tried not to fear the horizon.
--
There was the briefest moment of dirty triumph after he squeezed the trigger. A smile tried to wrangle its way onto his face, and he thought, he truly thought, that he'd won. It was all over.
But as the green light fell and dispersed, and silence and darkness once again joined hands, he knew.
Who had he called? There was no team waiting behind him. There was nothing waiting. Villagers, perhaps. Other Raevans. But who knew where they were? Who knew where his own team was, if they still lived? That was the reality of it. He had no assurances of anything. The hunter had split off to follow him. Had he finished Anya, Zeke, Iorek? He nearly had the night before...
There was a chance that he was alone, alone in the terrible winding wilderness, without a friend. With only the security of one green flare to warm his foolish, triumphant smile.
He hovered at the cliffside. His hands felt bloodless and useless, fingers cold around the gun. The shadows squirmed around him, uncomfortable. It was like a black shroud concealing a mass of centipedes, wriggling, trying to escape to air. No, he was not alone. Friendless, but not alone.
There was the Eye, and all it birthed.
His gold eyes did not meet it. He hovered, battered and useless, at the cliffside, his gaze below, at Kyou.
How long should he wait before he knew he was alone? An hour, a day? How long before he gathered the strength to fight the fight himself?
Why could he not fight it, himself?
The blood and mud on his cheek gave him one reply. The taste of bile in his mouth, another. His muscles gave off tiny tremors when he tried to move them. He was not the warrior he wanted to be. He was not any kind of warrior.
He lifted his eyes slowly. Could dawn even reach here? Penetrate the fog of this darkness? He was at the bottom of the ocean, the depths of a cave, places where animals evolve without the uselessness of eyes. No light. No light.
Kyou's spindly legs gave him something, an impotent anger he could feel rising as frustration behind his eyes. He lifted his gaze slowly and tried to ignore the things he knew to exist behind the shadows.
Stop. There was a whisper in his head.
He thought suddenly of the stories of angels, who covered their faces so as not to frighten mortals who gazed upon them. Of creatures who burned you to look at them. He knew, he would burn to look straight at this.
Of course he couldn't fight. He couldn't even meet its gaze. To meet its yellow eye would open a door through the light in his own. Just as dawn spilled through him, darkness would slip in. And he was not strong enough to be an evaporating light, to be the one that did the burning, to blaze in strength.
He was barely a dawning light, and he was small and unwelcome.
And alone.
--
Rhedefre stopped at the foot of a cliff, his chest heaving. Sweat poured down his face. He could see the ocean, the swell of the tides. There was chill in the air. The jungle humidity was far, so far away, but he was still sweating it out. Still ridding himself of it. He had no choice but to exorcise it himself.
He forced himself to stop, there at the cliffside. He looked down, down to where the eye would be, and tried to draw up his gaze.
He lifted one hand, and mimicked a shot, a signal fire.
And the dawn came as if called, rifling through the treetops, and finding him.
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:43 pm
✖ PRP: For a Friend in Need ✖
Finally, Rhedefre and Anya talk about the horrors in the jungle. * One day at a time.
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:45 pm
✖ PRP: Pastry Perfection ✖
With things finally settling back to normal, Lulu visits Rhedefre for a piece of carrot cake. * [ongoing]
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:47 pm
✖ ORP: A Sweet Christmas Party ✖
Cesc, Vivi, and Shepard all make an appearance at the first Lab event since the jungle -- the gorgeous holiday party! * The laughed, and drank, and socialized. It was a lovely normalcy.
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:48 pm
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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 12:48 pm
✖ PRP: New Beginnings ✖
Melisande makes good on her promise to see Cesc again when things are better. * Did he have any New Year's resolutions? Perhaps to always be as strong as she made him feel they all could be.
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Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 4:11 pm
✖ PRP: Budding ✖
Cesc goes to Second Chances to see how things are going with Melisande. * Create, he thought. He flexed his hands and heard a strange noise, a cracking outside his body, like the snap of a tiny firecracker. The air smelled, for the briefest moment, singed.
He studied his fingers, bewildered.
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Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:48 am
✖ PRP: What Makes a Man ✖
Zul and Cesc have things to talk about. * He would try to be better, Cesc thought. He would try to know when to ask for help.
He felt like Zul would always give it, whenever it was needed.
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Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:52 am
✖ PRP: Bat Race✖
Cesc tries to put his power to good use, but it doesn't work out quite the way he and Ronan thought. * "I hope I get to meet him or her soon," he said, half to the bottle and half to the man.
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Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 11:18 pm
✖ PRP: Returning the Favor✖
Things are not well, this time for Ethiriel, when Cesc goes to repay her kindness. * With the music and the company both enchanting, Cesc felt it was a night well spent.
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Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:56 pm
✖ ORP: Crawfish Boil and Pot Luck ✖
With bread in tow Shepard and Cesc go out to mingle with other Lab members. Cesc also plays some games.* "Did you meet some friends?" asked Shepard on the drive home.
"Seemed as though you did," laughed Cesc in return.
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