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 Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:42 pm
( backdated to March 24th, 2017 )
no one here will see me
Pasha is restless.
Auguste tries to get her to settle down, but as well trained as she is, she's not used to being here, away from everyone and everything else. She's not used to being in the middle of space, in the middle of nowhere, where they are the only two beings left alive for thousands of miles. Auguste has never really tried to figure out just how far away Thrymr is from Earth, but there's no need to; it's simply far.
He's brought her dog bed, but she's not ready to sleep in it yet, though it carries her scent and the scent of the apartment, which soothes both of them. The first day Pasha does nothing but whine and whimper and go in circles, but Auguste keeps a firm grasp on her leash, the harness strictly in place, because if he loses her here, of all places, he will never find her again, and besides, he is the one with all the food.
But he trusts her. And she trusts him. Auguste has spent years training Pasha and there is nothing he is more proud of other than his dancing. She is more than simply his pet; she is the reason he can keep breathing sometimes, the reason he can keep walking forward. It sounds silly, if he says it out loud, but she is all he has right now.
He needs her and she needs him, and he can't do this without her.
The place he's set up camp - has spent months setting up camp - is in the old Thryminian Inner Sanctum. Auguste doesn't want to think about the memories; about all of the twisted, confusing, heart wrenching things he's seen here from his past self. It hurts too much, but this is the safest and most familiar place on this moon. And this is where his former self lived and loved; he has to make himself come to terms with it.
The roof is slightly caved in; there is a large gap where Auguste can see straight up into the inky black sky at night, and he draws Pasha's bed closer to him, pats it encouragingly, and waits until she eventually calms enough to crawl over to him. He loops an arm around her and buries his face in her fur; she makes a small keening noise and then relaxes, snuffling his hair affectionately.
It's only the first day.
He already feels lonely.
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Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:55 pm
no one will hurt me now
He dreams of Thrymr.
Or more accurately, he dreams of Thrymr as it once was. Lush, rolling fields of vibrant, glowing colors that are sprayed in shades of orange, red, yellow, pink, and green. The scent is airy and bright, and the air is so clean that when he breathes in, it feels as if he is inhaling the very taste of life itself; as though he is becoming a part of this world he loves so dear.
A world they love so dear.
He is not Auguste anymore. The cream colored sweater melts away, and so do the khaki pants, the white dress shirt, the loafers. The pale white hair becomes longer, twisting and curling together to form sleek, elegant braids, and all at once the body is wrapped in layers of white dipped in the colors of a sunset. Gold paint encircles wrists, touches under eyes. Paint in a shade of pink streaks over lashes and creates complicated patterns along the slender back, across the curves of the shoulder blades, dipping low, swirling and curling and drawing paths every which way. Some of the lines form flowers, others are just nonsensical, spiraling images of whimsy and light and life.
Ahe's eyes are blue, blue, blue, so blue. Like the ocean, like the stars, like the world around them.
Remember me.
It's just a dream. This isn't a memory. This isn't anything but a dream, a tangle of thoughts inside of Auguste's head, he knows this, somewhere inside of himself, but the dream is too tangled up to make sense of anything real. All he knows is that he is not Auguste.
Remember me.
Gentle fingers brush his brow, touch his lips, skim a cheekbone. There is an aching, painful sadness that is welling deep within his chest so that all at once, it feels difficult to breathe, each one like ice inside of him, needles that pierce his lungs. Dragged, painful, sharp breaths until his heart feels ready to stop with the agony of it all.
Don't forget me.
Remember me. Remember me.
His cheeks feel wet. He doesn't remember crying, but his lashes are wet too.
And then he's no longer Ahe, but he's looking at Ahe, and it feels like he's looking at a mirror reflection of himself, except with more - more of himself, more of everything, more of life, because there has always been so much life to Ahe Hale.
They are both trapped in their mirrors now. Auguste stretches out a hand and feels his fingertips touch glass, and sees Ahe do the same. They can't reach each other; he can press harder and harder, can wish again and again, but the mirrors keep them, hold them, bind them.
Ahe's face crumples. Their lashes are wet, too. Blue, blue eyes.
So blue, like the ocean.
Their mouth moves in soundless words that Auguste can't hear. He bangs on the glass, shouts until he's hoarse, but there's nothing, and all he can feel is that grief that rises up inside of him and threatens to choke him until there's nothing left of himself.
Remember me.
Auguste's face is wet when he wakes.
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Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:15 pm
goodbye gravity, goodbye enemies
Sometimes, as he's working, he thinks of the Negaverse.
He's not running away; in fact, it's the opposite, because this is all that Auguste can do right now. But he still can't help but feel guilty about having left behind the war that rages with all of the people that he cares about. He wants to help, wants to be a part of something more -
And yet.
And yet.
He can't truly believe that the Negaverse is all evil. There is bad. There is good. Or at least, there is the appearance of good; there is the chance that there will be some good. Nothing is ever truly black and white, the Order members are not all pure and on the side of the truth, just as how not all members of the Negaverse are hell bent on taking over the Earth.
It's complicated.
It shouldn't be, but it is.
Auguste's fingers are streaked with dirt as he slowly whittles away the hard packed earth around the bottom of the building. He doesn't remember what it used to be, but it's not very big; a house, perhaps, or some sort of meeting room. It's one roomed, and there is a large table in the middle, several old, cracked chairs around it, and Auguste is trying to at least make it look sort of presentable again.
It's hard work, but Auguste, in spite of his appearance, is used to the manual labor that stems from dancing his entire life as well as fighting. He knows how to do things, even if it feels like no one else thinks that way.
It's an unfair thought. He misses them, Auguste closing his eyes briefly, letting himself indulge in a moment, just a moment, of thinking of them, of his family. Of Colin's green eyes and Nadia's dark hair and Lorne's sweet voice and Giulia's bright smile.
Of Chase's golden gaze, there and gone again.
Something wet nudges his arm. Auguste opens his eyes and finds Pasha nosing at his wrist, encouraging him to keep working, and Auguste smiles at her, drags in his thoughts and his memories and buries them deep, deep within himself.
No more.
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Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:20 pm
still rising towards the dark
He dreams of Ahe again.
It's another dream, influenced by the world he's currently on, but not a memory. A figment of his imagination, if he's being entirely literal about things, but it's hard to be literal when he's dreaming of things that hurt like a knife to his chest, because every memory that he has had so far since returning to Thrymr has been agonizing.
The dreams are not all bad, though.
Sometimes he dreams of happiness. Of Ahe running through the Dellian fields with arms outstretched, reaching up towards the sun, long, flowing robes cascading around them, pale hair a white streak in the brightness, lost in the middle of a rainbow of flowers. Of the smell of fresh air and the taste of happiness. Of the way it felt to Ahe to have fingers laced through their own, touched to their cheek, caressing their jaw. Of laughter bubbling in their ears and in their mouth until there is nothing but pure joy and the sheer relief of being able to spend this time with -
The dream around Auguste is breaking, fragmenting. The pieces are too sharp edged, and Auguste remembers the ending of this story.
There is no happy ending here.
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Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:24 pm
I don't miss a thing
Remember me.
Remember me.
Remember me.
"I don't want to."
It hurts too much. It's like trying to breathe in knives to his chest, Auguste hunched over in the sanctum, on his knees on the cold, dark floor with his arms over his head, his hands clutching his hair. He's rocking back and forth, slowly, trying to remember how to get air into his lungs, and Ahe is screaming at him, desperation thick in their voice, inside of Auguste's thoughts.
No.
No, not at him.
But Ahe is screaming, screaming, screaming, and the world around them is so very, very dark. The memory is clutching at Auguste's throat, suffocating him from the inside out, and he's choking on it, on the devastation and the anger and the fury and the sheer, maddening grief of it all.
All he can hear is Ahe's screams.
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Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:26 pm
I used to know
The memory is taking him over.
He is going to drown in this grief.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:06 pm
the world is small
Blood is dripping down his wrists, staining the pale skin. His fingers are rubbed raw. He's spent the last fifteen minutes clawing at his own skin, trying to get out of it, trying to do anything but remember, because the memories are eating him alive.
He doesn't want to be here.
He doesn't want to be here.
He doesn't want to be here.
Pasha noses at his arm, licks his scratches until the blood stops, until all that wracks Auguste now are sobs, dragged from so deep inside of his chest that it feels like he's going to choke on each one that shudders through his slender body. Every emotion that he has ever held back is suddenly in full focus, in full view, out in the open, dragged to the surface so that it's raw and violent and so overwhelming that Auguste doesn't know what's happening anymore.
Who am I?
Am I you or am I me?
He doesn't know.
He doesn't know.
When he wakes up again, Pasha is curled up by his side, her head tucked underneath his chin. Everything aches, from Auguste's head to the tips of his toes; he doesn't remember bandaging his arms, or his hands, but he must have, because there are neat white wraps encircling what he can see of them. They throb more than the rest of him; he does remember that.
He can see the sky overhead, through the cracks in the sanctum ceiling. It's so dark it's almost black, but if he looks close enough, he can see the threads of midnight blue and the dotting of stars that glow small and bright somewhere thousands of miles around him.
He wonders which one of them is Earth.
He wonders if he will ever see them all again.
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Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2017 4:24 pm
from here I'm weightless
It's been a month.
Sometimes it seems like such a small amount of time. Other times it seems like the entire world has come and gone while Auguste's back is turned. It's hard to keep track of the days, but he does so on the walls of the sanctum with little chalk marks. He needs at least some semblance of order, otherwise he'll never remember where in the world he is.
The sanctum and the surrounding buildings are almost entirely cleaned of debris and overgrown foliage. Auguste stands now in the middle of his newly rebuilt inner sanctum, dirt streaked and sweating, but with a sense of welling pride that he can't seem to quell no matter how much the grief still eats away at him every single day. His arms still ache; the scratches have faded to scars that won't go away, but they're wrapped under layers of white clothed bandages so that Auguste doesn't have to look at them.
He can't look at them.
Not now.
The sanctum's ceiling is fixed, but the hole is still there. Auguste has framed a skylight, a small square without glass (he can't find any on Thrymr, and besides, he would have no idea how to craft it anyway), but at least it's not a splintered, shattered crack in the roof anymore. It looks like it's meant to be there, like it's made to let in the light and the sun and the stars and the night.
There's a gentle breeze that's going through his hair, a little longer now, less carefully kept, tied back into a small ponytail that keeps loosing pale white strands that aren't long enough to stay restrained. There's an almost permanent flush to his cheeks now, but Auguste swipes a fist across his forehead and takes another breath.
The air smells like flowers.
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:33 am
the atmosphere is lonely and beautiful
He's lost track of time.
For weeks - months - Thrymr has kept careful records of all of his days on his homeworld, monitored his daily routine, marked off the passage of each morning and each night in a small logbook that he keeps with him. But time is an elusive thing, quiet and sly; it slips by without him even realizing it, and soon enough, the days have all blended into one.
He doesn't remember how long he's been here.
Four months? Five? Less? More?
It's a tangle of thoughts and emotions, of dreams and nightmares that make it difficult to tell when he's awake and when he's asleep. Sometimes the nightmares clog at his throat, black fingers of familiar faces, gripping the tender skin so that he wakes up grasping and clutching at his neck in a desperate attempt to free himself.
Sometimes he dreams of warmth and sunshine, of gentle hands and soft voices and loving words.
Pasha's food is beginning to run out. He doesn't know how much longer he can stay here without coming up with some sort of solution. August knows he has enough to last a few more weeks at least, possibly a month, but after that is a vast sea of unknown.
Everything around him glitters and sighs. This isn't home, but it's a home, one that he can rely on, one that is growing more and more familiar to him with each passing second. He wants to remain here among the discarded remains of the flowers, wants to lose himself in what they used to be.
The memories are going to eat him alive.
Everything - and everyone - will eventually move on without him. Time does not stop flowing simply because he wishes it to. He wants to be away, wants to be back, wants to live, wants to be asleep, wants a contradiction of things that never seem to be resolved.
His heart hurts. It's been hurting since he left here.
He misses Colin. He misses Nadia, Lorne. He misses -
Everything hurts.
He sleeps under the stars with Pasha's warm, fluffy body curled against his, her head burrowed into his neck. She knows him well enough by now to know when he needs comfort the most, and so she gives it to him, his only source of love and familiarity and reassurance here in this place.
The dreams turn into nightmares that turn into memories. Or maybe the memories are already the nightmares, it's difficult to tell anymore.
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Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:41 am
I don't miss a thing I used to know
The memories, sometimes, choke him.
They're fragmented pieces of glass in his skin. They're claws, raking at his back, at his chest. They're ropes twisted around his neck, cutting off his air, making him gasp for breath. They're a bag over his head to suffocate him, to cut off his world and leave him lost and in the dark and so very, very alone.
Ahe's pain is a physical, tangible thing, however blurry and fragmented the memories and visions are. Auguste doesn't always see them; they come and go like shards of light, disappearing back into the shadows as quickly as they come. The two of them blend together until there is nothing left but a single entity that blurs and fades and tangles together in a complex, confusing breath of air and a beat of his heart.
Sometimes Auguste takes a breath and forgets that he is Auguste.
Sometimes he takes a breath and thinks that he is Ahe, lost to the pain, drowning, choking in it.
The happy memories are precious, adored things, so rare and true that they too ache in a way that Auguste can never fully comprehend. He has never in his life experienced that; has never in his life even come close to those precious few moments.
He wants to. He wants it desperately.
He can't have it.
Nothing is the same anymore.
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Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:56 pm
arise and be all that you dreamed
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Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2017 9:07 am
if I don't make it sing my song
He stands on the precipice of the sanctum and feels the breeze dance over his skin; soft scents of flowers, of ocean, of salt and sand and fresh air. Everything feels so peaceful and calm here - and so tainted and twisted with the memories that tear at his heart and break apart inside of himself.
He closes his eyes, and beside him Pasha rests against his side, her tail curled protectively around his leg. Everything is quiet.
Everything is -
"Time to go home," Auguste says, and it's whisked away on the wind with his memories.
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