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 Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:33 pm
Everything was so much lately. Work, powered life, her relationships and lack there of. Her planet, tugging at her constantly and even full on stealing her away just to drop her in the ruins of her garden and remind her that she was a failure. Sitting on the bench in the park, Hver's bench, she brooded about it and wondered why her asteroid had ever thought she was good enough to grant the power it had granted her.
Every day that sense of disconnect and wrongness had grown, that overwhelming sense of anxiety Ida couldn't shake. It had fed the doubts, though there had never been any shortage of them to start. She had been a normal girl once. She'd never asked to be part of a war. She wasn't made for it. She wasn't a strategist or a fighter, she didn't have anything that set her apart from anyone else and quite often, there were many, many people who were better at anything she could do.
Like Hvergelmir. Beautiful, gentle, kind, patient. Everything Ida wanted to be, but wasn't. Not really. Everyone had loved her... just like Ida had. She'd loved her so much... without any expectation it would really be returned as anything but friendship. Hver had sat here, night after night, willing to be a place of calm, of peace and understanding, putting herself at risk just for a chance that that would be what someone needed at a critical moment, a moment that would bring them to the light. Ida could never had done that. She was too rigid in her beliefs, often too confrontational when she met someone of chaos.
Hver should have been the Princess, not her. She would have made better use of it. What had Ida done, since that power had come to her? Get into a bunch of pointless fights. She'd never realized how that power would draw chaos to it, set her apart from the rest of the White Moon. She had to keep it under strict wraps to keep from getting swarmed any time she went out. Pointless. Useless.
That was why she'd left...
Tears welled up as Ida leaned forward, the edge of the cold bench seat biting into the palms of her hands as she gripped it. The path through the park was muddy with snow melt and people's tracks. What grass had appeared through the melting snow as brown and lifeless as the plants on Ida.
What was even the point of it all any more? Five, seven, ten years of fighting this war. Neither side gaining any head way. No resolution. Just new faces appearing, old faces fading away. A grisly meat grinder of people's lives. All so carefully under wraps so none of the 'normal' people knew about any of it. Only the propaganda. Order was a pathetic mess, truly. How they had managed to not get over run was probably more due to sheer numbers and good luck than anything else.
Miserable, exhausted, Ida felt that tugging again and fought it stubbornly, resentfully, while she rocked in her seat, trying to find some comfort in the cold and empty place where her love had been.
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 4:29 pm
Kerberos was never entirely surprised to arrive at the park bench where he spent so many of his nights and find it occupied. The occupants varied; sometimes it was Murikabushi with a cheery "what's up, slut!" and a bubble tea. Recently, it was Faustite, with questions and uncomfortable revelations.
Tonight, it seemed that it was Ida.
She looked troubled--and Kerberos wondered if she was here for him, or for the ghost that sometimes seemed to haunt this space.
(Hvergelmir wasn't dead, he had to believe that--and yet, still, she was a haunt, a whisper, a memory that would not disappear.)
"Ida?" His voice was soft, as he approached, and sat next to her--a little space left between them, in case she needed it, but still close enough to, he hoped, be a comforting presence. "What's going on?"
She might not open up to him. But he could at least try.
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 5:22 pm
The voice and presence startled her out of her thoughts and Ida straighten up, wiping her eyes with embarrassment.
"Ah, god, I'm sorry... I forgot you used this bench now." How stupid she'd been to come here. Of course Kerberos would be here, he'd taken over for Hver after she'd left. Ida was actually putting him out, since her being here meant he wasn't going to see anyone chaos who might have otherwise come. Stupid. She'd let all of this get so deep into her head she was making stupid mistakes.
"Its dumb." Ida admitted putting on a smile for him, something that said 'i'm fine, but look how silly I'm being'. "Everything has just been a lot recently, you know? And I was thinking... about Hver. I know she lived with me and everything, but something about being here just felt closer to her tonight."
It was equally dumb to have come where when she'd literally shared a bed with Hver. A house. She could have sat on the balcony and remembered mornings with cups of tea and the sunrise gilding her hair.
"I should go, so you can get back to your work. I never came here when Hver was here. I didn't want to scare anyone away."
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 5:34 pm
Oh. Yes. There was something very wrong, that was obvious enough. And here Ida was, burying it, pretending it was nothing, when she was sitting on Hvergelmir's bench and crying and thinking of what she'd lost.
"Ida, wait." The very suggestion that she sohuld leave had Kerberos shaking his head. "My work is as much helping our side as it is them. There's space on this bench for you, too, if you want to sit and talk. About Hver, about...anything."
Perhaps Hvergelmir had focused her interventions on Chaos, and that was honorable and good--but as much as he admired her, as much as he still loved her, Kerberos was not Hvergelmir.
"Anyway, that's not dumb at all. The parts of her you knew at home...I bet they were different than the person she was here, right?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 6:03 pm
Ida shook her head, finding it all too easy to give in to his urging to stay, just to have a moment with someone who'd known her. Someone she could talk to about it. She hated doing it, she was normally so strong about stuff like this, but with the anxiety and the pressing weight she'd felt for months now... the temptation was too much to resist.
"I... loved her as Hvergelmir. Before I knew her as... you know?" She confided. "Some of that was the fake memories, remember? Of that other time, that never happened... But some of it was real. I had admired her so much and that was enough for me, because of course, I could never actually imagine she'd return it."
She laughed, at herself and her past self, and how dumb it sounded, despite what Kerberos said.
"And then afterwards, I was okay that she loved other people too. It was enough that I got to be with her, I didn't mind sharing her. The more love you share the more you have, right? And when... A-Alkaid took me, she made the deal that got me back. She was so brave, so kind and patient. I felt like she always knew the right thing to say and I loved her for that." As much as Hver had loved her back? She'd thought so, but lately... she had doubts about everything she thought she knew. The bench was cold under her, but the space between them now felt a little warmer for another body. She glanced over at Kerberos, hoping he'd forgive her for unburdening herself like this, wondering what he thought of her childish tears.
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 7:08 pm
Kerberos nodded. His memories of that future--they were different than Ida's, clearly. But he'd been a different person, int hat world that never came. He'd seen a path laid out before him, and forcibly diverted it. Ida, though....Ida had become everything she was meant to be, it seemed.
"She was easy to love," Kerberos acknowledged. "I was never really brave enough to try, but...the feelings were there."
He sighed. But this wasn't really about him--it was about helping Ida, when she clearly needed it.
"She was good at that. Saving people. At knowing the right things to say." He exhaled. "This place...it was right here that she finally talked me around. Got me to agree to purify. It actually happened on her Wonder, but.....it started right here."
When she looked at him, tear tracks on her cheeks, it was so easy to reach up, to gently brush his thumb over, to wipe the tears away.
"What's got you here, tonight, all tied up in memories? Did something happen, to bring her back for you?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 7:47 pm
She flushed when he reached out to touch her face, her eyes dark and wide. She ducked her head after, scrubbing her cheeks in embarrassment. His fingers had been warm after the chill air, and it had felt nice... She couldn't remember the last time someone had touched her like that. She missed it, as much as she missed Hver and what they'd had.
"I don't know." Ida said as her shoulders lifted and dropped. "I've just been under a lot of stress lately and just kinda... lonely. It makes me think of her a lot. I know she left because she had an important duty. I know that duty was more important that anything else, and I understand why I couldn't go with, why we had to break communication, but..."
A sigh slipped from her, her eyes cast down and away.
"Sometimes it makes me angry too. That..." She swallowed as thickness rose in her throat, fighting it down with more of a flush and a touch of the resentment that had been festering inside of her. "That it was more important than me. Than us. That she chose her duty over me. I know why she did, and I told her to go when she told me, but I can't stop feeling it. Its gotten worse lately... And maybe I just need to grieve it properly, so I can let it go and move on. Its been years already."
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:04 pm
Kerberos nodded. "You've got some heavy weight on your shoulders these days," he agreed. "Makes sense to feel a bit lonely, and to want someone who always seemed to know what to do."
He sighed, glanced away for a moment, up at the sky. Where Ida and Kerberos and even Hvergelmir's little island were, out there in the black.
"It's sort of left open, though, isn't it. It's not like she died--that would be awful, but it would be an ending. We would be able to mourn her. But she's just....gone. This great, gaping absence. And here we are, trying to fill that hole left in our lives, with no real way of knowing if she'll ever come back to us or if she's gone for good."
He sighed.
"Time doesn't always heal all wounds. Trust me, I'm kind of an expert." He smiled, wryly, though there was an edge of bitterness to it. "But there are ways to make it better. Like sharing with a friend."
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 6:15 pm
It was true, what he said. There had been no time frame on her leaving, no mention of when she might come back. With no communication, not even letters, there was no way of even knowing if she was still alive. Ida had accepted that, believing duty was more important. And she'd been faithful, if sad, for so long. But the more time passed, the less she felt okay with it, and the more sad she was. The more she felt abandoned and left behind. There never was a true end to any of it, even if they'd said their good byes when she'd left.
The more time passed, the more she had moved from sad to resentful, to angry. At Hver, at herself. At the way a tiny voice had whispered that she wasn't good enough to keep Hver here, or she wouldn't have left her. Then the anger had faded back into a melancholic kind of nostalgic sadness. Missing what she'd had and scared she'd never find it again.
Sharing with a friend... That broke the dam holding it all back and Ida dissolved into true sobs this time, not just tears. She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes as she cried, letting out all of the horrible feelings in a flood of tears. It wasn't going to change the situation, but it was nice, for once, to just let herself feel all of it and let it all come out. She wasn't alone, and Kerberos understood. He'd loved Hver too. She didn't have to pretend or hide anything, and if he had cared about seeing her cry, he wouldn't have offered her sympathy. It had been a long time since she'd last cried like this... just floating along in a haze of saddness.
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 6:34 pm
There was something comforting, in a way, to be able to talk with Ida about this. What Kerberos had with Hvergelmir had been different than what Ida had with her, but they had both still loved her, and lost her.
And it was clear that the wound was still fresh.
"Oh, Ida," his voice was soft, and gentle, and he reached out to gather her up in his arms and hold her close. She looked like she could use the comfort, and he was here, willing to give it.
More than that, he didn't say, just gave her the chance to cry it out as much as she needed.
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 7:16 pm
She felt Kerberos put his arms around her and for a moment she resisted... and then gave up and melted against him, slumping down into his arms. Head tucked into his shoulder, cheek against his chest, she soaked up the warmth and the support like sunlight, letting it seep in and sooth the cold, raw places inside of her.
No one had held her like this since Hver had left, and while it was another reminder, it was also something she had always craved. Being touched, held. Being taken care of, even though she tried so hard to be the one who took care of everyone else. She had to consciously let go and allow herself to have what she both wanted and needed right now, without reservations.
It took a while for the sobs to slow and her shaking to stop. Longer for the tears to stop, but they did, eventually. It exhausted what little reserves she still had after a long day and left her drained and wan. Her face felt puffy and her head hurt from the pressure of her tears, but some of the pain had eased. Not a lot, but more important than that was the release of something that had been knotted up inside of her. She felt like she could let go, now, even if it still hurt. Hver was not coming back in any of the ways Ida wanted her to, and she accepted that.
Even with the crying subsided, she was reluctant to straight up again. Kerberos was warm, smelled like flowers and person, and he was sturdy, supporting her tired weight so she didn't have to. Pulling away meant meeting the cold again, and holding herself up with the energy she had left. Neither was particularly appealing.
"I'm sorry." Ida sighed, her throat a little ragged and her sinuses hurting.
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 7:38 pm
It felt easy, to hold Ida like this and let her cry on him. He couldn't help but recognize some of his own tendencies in her--particularly the one to carefully box up any pain and pretend that it simply did not exist.
But the box could only hold for so long, and it seemed that Ida's was well past containing whatever she was carrying.
He reached up and stroked her hair, gently, holding her close and letting her cry. And maybe, it was a little cathartic for him, too--it wasn't closure with Hvergelmir, directly, but it was an ending of sorts, to grieve what was gone and what would never return.
"Nothing to apologize for," he said, softly. And he kept his arms around her, since she didn't exactly seem eager to leave. "I keep water bottles in subspace--want one?" A habit he'd picked up from Murikabushi and wished he'd thought of earlier.
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Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 10:36 pm
Ida thought about it for a moment, assessing her headache and her itchy eyes, the tightness and heat of her skin.
"Yes, please." She said to the offer of water, finally reluctantly sitting up and leaving the warm circle of his arms. She straightened herself, took back some of her self control, and took the water when offered. Sipping it, she brooded over her thoughts and confessions, rubbing the tear stains on her cheeks to dry them. At least she felt a bit more in control of herself now. The terrible spiral had been broken, for now, and she could think again beyond just her resentment towards Hver and her feelings of unworthiness.
"Thank you for listening." Ida said when half the bottle was gone. "Its not normally this... much, for me. I've just been having a hard time recently, and that's made the feelings a lot more to deal with than they usually are. I've thought about seeing someone, but..."
A sigh escaped her as she shrugged. "What am I supposed to tell a therapist? There is no way of knowing who's secretly part of the other side, and how do I get real help if I'm spending the whole time trying to carefully phrase things to not give away that I'm a senshi?"
She shook her head, sipping the water again.
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Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2023 2:00 pm
It was nothing to produce a water bottle and hand it to Ida, and let her take a moment to drink it and gather her thoughts. He was reluctant to let her go, but clinging when it wasn't wanted wouldn't help anything, so he just let a hand rest on her arm.
"I'm always happy to listen for a friend," he said, and he smiled. "But it's hard, yeah. I have a weekly sobriety group, and I've had to talk around magical things before...." He sighed, heavily. "It's not easy, and it means that maybe I can't get all the help I need, but....it does lift the burden somewhat."
He certainly couldn't tell his group that a woman with magical authority over him had locked him in a tiny room in an extradimensional space to initially break his addiction, for instance, but he could tell them that he'd been locked in a tiny room and left to sweat out withdrawal with only token medical supervision. All in the details given and elided, as it were.
"It might be worth a try, at least. But if not,. I'm no therapist, but I can always provide a listening ear."
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2023 1:40 pm
She nodded slowly as she sipped, thinking it over. It was unlikely she'd actually go see someone, but it was worthwhile to know that Kerberos invited her to confide in him. That was something she could see herself doing... once in a while. Not too much, so she didn't burden him, but maybe when things got to be overwhelming. Ida felt like there were so few people she could truly confide in... maybe Kerberos would turn out to be one of them.
Lowering her water, she covered his hand with one of her own and smile, the expression a bit less watery even if her eyes were still red and her face flushed.
"Thank you. I does mean a lot to me. And you know... you can always reach out to me too, for anything at all. I always want to help in whatever way I can." Ida said, her expression turning rueful. "I said I wanted to support our side, after all, and I did mean that. Even if I'm not a great leader or a great fighter, I can still help support the people who are."
That senshi might not have thought that worth much, but it was all she really had to give.
"I should probably let you have your bench back. No one is going to come while I'm here."
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