hugtopia | text

"Emotionally?"

Gods, it's hard to remember Arbert without her memories of Ardbert taking over and influencing it all. She purses her lips in thought.

"...Resentful, guilty, and desperate."

Edited (icon) 2020-09-01 00:55 (UTC)

"Aye, I was. Because I took everything upon myself. All of the coordination with Elidibus and Urianger, all of the emotional labor, everything. Even though my friends were right there. You saw how miserable it made me, how close I came to breaking."

... and you probably didn't notice, but it hurt my friends deeply, seeing me become like that. They didn't know what to do—I wouldn't let them truly comfort me. Everything just got worse and worse for us. I couldn't be the man they needed me to be, because I could barely keep myself together and was no longer myself."

He strokes her tail slower. "... this isn't anywhere near as bad as that, but it's of the same vein. You'll hurt me by hurting yourself. Don't give what you can't spare and don't take all the suffering upon yourself."

Edited 2020-09-01 01:30 (UTC)

Era remains silent for a time, tail twitching under his touch.

"...It was moronic not to relegate duties amongst your fellows," she states eventually. "They were Warriors of Light too, and more than capable... But Hemera was nothing if not stubborn, so it's no surprise you would try to carry such a burden on your own."

Her gaze shifts until she's left staring down at her hands. Era fidgets with the spinner ring she always wears, soothed by the smooth motion and soft sound it emits.

"I can spare anything less than my life, Ardbert. I exist to protect, and do all I can to ease the suffering of others. It brings me happiness to do so, not pain."

"Aye, it was both moronic and not a surprise. I helped no one." He can admit that now.

Era is still not getting what he's trying to say, and he's not certain he can explain it. "You find solace that you need in this pendant. I don't want to take that from you. I hardly got a chance to know Hades, anyway. It just doesn't feel right."

They're back to this again. "Your love for each other is an ocean, whereas the love between him and I only had the chance to become a puddle. You get first choice in anything that was his, and I begrudge you naught for it, as that is how it should be."

"You'll never be taking anything away," Era frowns, purposefully ignoring what he says about her finding solace in the auracite. "Unless you intend on leaving me? I can think of no better place for my most precious keepsake to be than with my most precious person."

Ardbert lets out a soft sigh, his hand stilling on her tail. He removes it entirely so he can reach up to rub at the base of one of her horns while still holding her close. Era will know that face he makes, the one where he's trying to say the right words.

"... I won't force you. But when you're ready to grieve, I'll be right here by my side like you've been at mine."

The touch is soothing. Her eyes flutter shut and she leans into his hand, tail wagging gently against his leg—

Then he speaks up, and she suddenly goes very still.

"I've already grieved, Ardbert."

"I think you've told yourself you've already grieved. While you can speak of him now, you haven't felt anything since the first traumatic shock." Ardbert's voice is gentle as he rubs her horn. "But I'm not you, and maybe you have already grieved your last." He doesn't think so. "... if you later on realize you haven't, I'm here for you, as your betrothed."

"Thank you." Era has yet to resume any movement. "But I am done grieving. My focus is one again upon fulfilling his dying request."

He was going to let it lie, but he can't. Era won't face the truth on her own. Ardbert is hating this already.

"You've yet to shed a tear when you shed plenty about me the first day I came back. I think you're in denial about your own feelings. Especially when it took this long for me to start grieving for him, and I barely knew him compared to you. And before you forget, I wandered for over a hundred years being able to do naught but watch a dying world. I've see people grieve—and I've seen people pretend they were done grieving, only to break later."

Ardbert's voice is so achingly gentle.

"You don't have to hold yourself all up on your own anymore, Era. I'm here. I'm strong enough and adjusted enough now to support you as you've supported me." He even can cook simple fare now and knows how to do the chores so she needn't worry about him if she needed time to herself. "Else I wouldn't have otherwise accepted your ring. ... so I won't let you fall into that stupor again, and I can be there for you when you break. You'll do so in my arms."

Edited 2020-09-01 03:41 (UTC)

"At home you're gone forever because I wasn't strong enough. Of course I would cry to have my best friend returned to me," she snaps. "But I can support myself on my own, because I am done grieving him. I will not break, because there is nothing that will break me. I can support us both without wavering. I will continue to remember him without faltering, and share the memory of our people, as was his final request of me."

"I'm gone forever at home because we were given a shite hand and had one card left to play."

Ardbert clearly doesn't believe her about being over her grief, and he drops his hand gently to her waist to give her some more room to rage. "You're allowed to break or falter when it's safe. You're safe here with me. You're to be my wife, and I would be a terrible husband if I didn't help you with your burdens like you've helped me with mine."

She's never used that tone with him before, which means he knows he's on the right track. Ardbert knows if he doesn't push her, she'll never deal with it. He doesn't plan to force it entirely now, either, but just enough to get the ball rolling.

"Helped you?" She scoffs, and her voice raises. "For fuck's sake, Ardbert! I nearly killed you and my baby both!"

Ah. He knew that was part of it. Now it's out in the open. She's never raised her voice before or used language like that, which he also notes quietly. There's so much guilt there....

"No, you didn't. You taught me everything I needed to reach out for help when I needed it. It was me who wasn't strong enough to pull you out of it and wasn't able to take care of myself on my own. That'll never be the case again. It's safe for you to grieve for Hades."

"You shouldn't've needed to be! You should have had time, and I was too weak and selfish to give you any consideration!"

She hates feeling angry. Hates how she hasn't the room to move her arms around wildly in her anger. How she has to contain it all within her while perched upon Ardbert's lap with his hands on her waist.

It bubbles up inside her and Era stamps it out as best she can, but lightning sparks between her fingertips all the same, no matter how tightly she smothers her fists against her chest.

"If I could not be with him all I wished for was death, because imagining life without him was utter torture. I couldn't've cared less for anyone else."

The truth hurts. Both of them knew it. But now she's said it.

She needs more room to react, so Ardbert gives it to her. His expression is still gentle, even if her words made him flinch. Ardbert uses his strength to stand with both of them, holding her up by her hips for a moment until he's certain she's standing and stepping back to give her room (especially with lightning crackling in her hands). It's time they both face the truth so that she can begin to mourn.

His expression is that of understanding, and he wonders if it'll infuriate her further (good). "Aye, I knew. That's what hurt the most. That I wasn't enough. That we weren't enough."

But she hadn't been enough for him, either, when he sought oblivion and got his wish.

Edited (I was so focused on the words I forgot to pick an icon) 2020-09-01 12:45 (UTC)

Even with the added space Era remains as she is; immobile and stiff, fists clutched tightly to her chest. She has already chosen to stamp down on all the anger-frustration-grief welling up inside of her, and she stubbornly persists in doing so. The faint echoes of a scream ring out pointedly from the abyss but she ignores them, clenching her eyes shut and gritting her teeth and focusing on crushing these unwanted feelings beneath her heel.

"You've never been enough," Era tells him, fingers still crackling with aether. It whips at the skin of her hands, leaving faint marks behind as it's quickly reabsorbed. "You've always been too much."

With Hades there had been a deeply rooted yearning that was fulfilled in his presence. With Ardbert there has always been this desperate need.

However unfathomable the depths of her love for her dearest Architect, it is different from the love she has for her soulmate.

Hades had been her heart, but Ardbert is her soul. It is like comparing the ocean to the sun—with one she drowns and with the other she burns.

Edited (tenses haha) 2020-09-01 16:26 (UTC)

He wishes she would let it all out. Scream. Cry. But she's a Warrior of Light, one younger than him in experiences. Era never had dozens of years to watch those around her work through so many different sorts of emotions. She's only had her own emotions to learn from for most of his life.

Ardbert barely starts to be hurt by the first pronouncement before the second one obliterates it with confusion. "Too much? How am I too much?"

While he can guess, they both need her to say it.

There is only so long her internal struggle can persist. Tension builds until she seems fit to burst, edging up against the precipice, and then—

Nothing.

Like a switch being flipped.

The crackle of electricity is suddenly gone, leaving nothing behind but a faint spiderweb of marks on her skin and the scent of ozone in the air. Her body relaxes, as though suddenly freed from a binding spell. Not a single ilm of her gives any sign of emotional turmoil.

"You are in front of me," she says, voice light and unwavering. "And yet you are within me. An inescapable fate."

When Era opens her eyes her gaze is distant in thought. She looks at him and through him. Tilts her head fractionally as if listening for something.

"I am me and you and them. And you are you and only you."

Edited (redundancy ) 2020-09-01 20:59 (UTC)

Godsdamnit. Era's suppressing her emotions like she always does. Ardbert would be utterly disappointed if she wasn't still talking.

She's talking about the other shards that Rejoined from the Calamities before.

He moves forward, heart aching for her, but doesn't quite close the gap. "You shouldn't have had to be me, too. I sought only oblivion, and I wasn't strong enough to deny its call. Unlike me, you clawed your way back, Era. You fought, and you fought, and you found your will to live."

Ardbert glances down, ashamed. "And both times, I left your side. You shouldn't have had to walk through the darkness alone. The fault does not lie with just you. I, too, was too weak."

Edited (motherCRYSTAL, you two, honestly) 2020-09-01 22:00 (UTC)

"There was never going to be another way, Ardbert. Even if you clawed your way back... Even if you were restored to your body... You would have been unable to contain a single Lightwarden's aether." Era stares down at her hands now. "My soul was seven times stronger than yours and Blessed six times over. It would always have fallen upon me."

She has thought about what could have been far more often than she rightly should. Perhaps there could have been another way, but even in hindsight she cannot see one.

"You saw what a single Lightwarden of a single shard could do. Imagine one with the strength of all five combined, and then times it by seven... Then add the ability to travel between worlds."

It would have been the end of life as any of them knew it.

"You had no choice but to give your existence to me. I was too weak to contain the Light on my own, and Forgiven Hope would have destroyed all our worlds."

Ardbert opens his mouth to say that they could've done something between the two of them, perhaps. Maybe they could've contained the light between the both of their souls. It had only been a little too much—

But he's cut off by that familiar feeling, bringing his hand up to his head as he's suddenly taken away from himself through the power of the Echo.

His counterargument is forgotten by the time his hand drops limply to his side and he looks up to her in faint horror. Ardbert was doomed no matter what. Cruelly, that gives him relief. He couldn't have saved himself. It had been the best he could do to accept the end of his existence as a separate person with a smile.

"Forgiven Hope," Ardbert knows that would've been the name of her Sin Eater. "Gods, if I hadn't... I would've been left behind to watch, again...."

Ardbert slowly brings his eyes downwards as he brings his hands up. They're trembling. It had been the same as those in Era's strange shared nightmare. He can remember the gentle medic's screams.

The quiet hiss of air slipping through grit teeth is the only sound that escapes Era before she staggers, then crumples to the floor.

☉

There is chaos all around them. A night that should have been filled with joyous celebration is instead filled with bloodshed. The sound of armoured footsteps on wet earth. Steel meeting cold, unyielding flesh. Yells and screams and pleading.

A young medic is reassuring his comrade.

(We need only hold on a little while longer. Reinforcements are coming, remember? The captain said so. We're going to be all right.)

They cannot feel the rain. They cannot feel anything but desperation as they see the Sin Eater sneaking up on the vulnerable young soldiers.

"Run!" They shout at the top of their lungs. "Run, damn you!"

The medic remains blissfully unawares, continuing to offer reassurance to his friend—

(The Warrior of Darkness has returned. The bloody night has returned! So stay with me, eh? You can't go dying now!)

—as deaf to their voice as everything else in the world, but they can't stand idly by. They can't just do nothing.

"Godsdammit!," they scream, loud and angry and desperate, drawing their axe and charging at the Sin Eater. "Please let this work, please let this work..."

The powerful swing goes through the foul creature as if it were air... They go through the creature as if they were air (but even air has more impact on the world than they do), momentum carrying them stumbling forward until they come to a stop. They stand still, axe hanging uselessly from their arm, back facing the young men they tried to save.

The medic's dying, desperate screams for help (Help, help! Someone, anyone!) are quickly cut off by an unmistakable gurgle. Then, silence.

Their empty hand clenches in a fist.

"Why did you spare me? Why? What have I done to deserve this mercy!?"

The battles rages on around them and they can do nothing.

Ardbert looks up slowly from his shaking hands as he sees Era hit the ground just at the edge of his vision. He drops his hands to his sides and just mutely walks over to her. There's nothing he can do to stop an Echo once it begins.

So he sits down in front of her, cross-legged. His shoulders slump, his head hangs, and he rests his forearms heavily on his thighs. Knowing what she is seeing, he feels naked, vulnerable, and raw.

It had been the worst moment of his afterlife since he met Era. Enough that it drove him to stay near Lakeland and in the Crystarium instead of following Era without explaining himself. He had said nothing to her about what had happened when she returned, immediately deflecting the conversation from himself.

Now she knew.

Normally when she rouses from a vision it is an immediate process. One moment she's living a memory, the other she's back in her flesh. It's always a bit disorienting but never overly so.

This time, however, Era is slow to regain awareness. When her eyes flutter open she has trouble focusing because everything is too much. She feels the floor beneath her, slowly warming up from her body heat. She feels the breeze from the patio doors brush through her hair. Her clothes against her skin. Too many textures and temperatures and feeling—

She blacks out again for a half-second, having forgotten the need to breathe. When she comes to again it's with eyes clenched in pain and a tiny, confused whimper at the back of her throat.

she has her priorities ok 💦

tbf they are good priorities 😎

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cw: reference to extreme, self-destructive grief

cw: also suicidal ideation

these disasters

complete disasters

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cw: suicidal ideation AGAIN

just blanket cw forever bc these two are idiots

cw: speaking of which, ECHO TIME

ahahahaha ahahaa ...

relevant icon

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