hugtopia | text

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.

Ardbert's head raises at the whimper, his eyes focusing on her face. He quietly uncurls his legs and lays down on his side, resting a gentle hand over one of hers. Era needs time to get her bearings, but she also needs to not be alone.

"I'm here, Era. I'm right here with you."

His touch startles her. She bolts upright in a panic, then promptly blacks out for another few seconds from sitting up too quickly.

When she comes to this time it's with an irritated groan.

Ardbert goes from lying down to sitting up in an instant, catching Era before she falls down hard again. "Era!"

Era shivers, tries to speak, pauses, remembers to breathe, then tries again with more success:

"Did I hit m'head?"

"I don't think so." Ardbert does a cursory glance at least for blood. "No blood, at least."

He's utterly distracted from what caused her to fall for the moment.

While she trusts him implicitly, Era also doesn't feel right. She brings a hand up to her still-throbbing head and presses her palm to her temple with a small hiss of discomfort.

"Feels shite."

Ardbert pushes back her hair gently and winces. "Okay, you definitely hit your head. Just a bit of blood, doesn't look too bad yet...."

Her tail taps slaps the ground irritably at the confirmation, startling the living daylights out of her.

"Shite," she grouses.

"Easy, it's got you all disoriented." Ardbert gently starts to channel some aether into her to boost her levels. "You should heal it before it makes you feel worse."

He's going to let himself continue to be distracted, honestly.

The aether feels nice, but she doesn't put it to use.

"You do it."

Era is pretty sure she taught him basic healing spells...

"Right." Ardbert stops the flow of aether and reaches out like Era taught him to sense the wound. "Just a bit of blood and a mild concussion. That I can heal."

Which he starts doing, carefully.

"Gods, I should've checked you the moment you fell."

It's no surprise to her that Ardbert picked up basic healing so quickly—their aetheric affinities may not be the same, but their natures are near identical enough to make up for it. Era leans into the touch, sighing softly at the flood of relief. She hadn't realized just how badly it hurt until the pain was all but erased.

"'s fine, Ardbert."

Ardbert stops when he feels it's healed. He strokes her forehead once it's healed, keeping his eyes away from hers by looking at the top of his head. Slowly, he lets himself shift back to the cause of this.

"Your Echoes really are stronger than mine." Mournful, tired. "I'm sorry. Your Forgiven Hope nightmare reminded me too much of that night that forever haunts me."

"They don't knock me out like this at home," she admits. "But in all other ways they're the same."

Your Forgiven Hope nightmare

Era shivers, hand immediately grasping the arm that had been transforming in the nightmare in question. The reassurance of warm flesh and scale soothes her.

The reminder of her own vision makes her go stiff again, flashes of those newly stolen memories running through her mind.

"...His name was Dunstan. He lost his parents to Eaters, and his brother to a shortage of medics."

Ardbert looks up briefly and places his left hand over her hand when she touches her arm. His ring and his hand are the same temperature, as always. His eyes drop back down, as he can't meet her gaze.

"Dunstan." The name forms like melancholy on his lips. "His voice was so gentle that it cut through all the chaos. And just when I found solace in it...."

He closes his eyes. "It's the reason why I remained behind when you went to Amh Araeng. And the reason I asked about what you call flashbacks a while after I arrived here."

At least his hand is steady right now. "Older horrors I witnessed are hazier. This one is new and vivid. It's the one nightmare I consistently have."

Era wishes he had told her (various ways she could help him interact with the world tumble through her mind in a jumble), though understands why he didn't.

"...He is with his loved ones in the Lifestream." A paltry reassurance, but reassurance all the same. "And when his soul is reborn it will be under the sunless sea you gave back to the world."

Part of him wishes he had, too. His previous existence ended without knowing Dunstan's name or story. It had been too much, and he had felt too reliant on Era already. She was the only one who could truly see or hear him in the entire world and cared to interact. Who would want a depressed ghost following them around?

Her attempt at comfort brings forth a sad smile as he removes his hand from over hers and straightens to sit upright again. "How often that's been the only comfort since I ended my own life."

Ardbert then leans forward again and continues leaning forward, bracing himself on his forearm briefly before he can rest his head on Era's leg. "But it's no longer the only one."

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 ...

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being corporeal can kinda suck pass it on

Yes it can

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