neverheardofhim: (Default)
Varric "Dadric" Tethras ([personal profile] neverheardofhim) wrote in [community profile] trusthell2017-02-04 03:41 pm

And it's the stars, the stars that lie to you.

[This week, Varric opted to take a page from Vanille’s book. Gathering everyone together after the roller-coaster that the first trial had been proved to be somewhat cathartic for himself. He hoped that it would prove to do the same for the others.]

[He wasn’t alone, of course, having found himself blessed with the most ragtag team of chefs and party-planners. He might have had words for and thoughts on Elda and Kimbley, Mikazuki was welcome company, and he wasn’t about to turn away potential allies, even in a fight as simple as cooking dinner.]

[Once everyone’s set to a task, baking a cake, brewing tea, or stirring stew (the only task Varric could think to assign Elda to), Varric excused himself to his room. His first task was writing up cards, each personally titled and signed by Varric.]


Food in the Library. 5 p.m. Don’t spend the night alone.


[Each note was slid under a door and accompanied by a single rap on the wood.]

[With his tasks completed, Varric returned to the kitchen to put out any potential fires and, with luck, set the food out. A table in the library would be adorned with plenty of tea, cake, pancakes courtesy of Viktor, and stew thanks mostly to Varric (sorry, Elda).]
matchbreaker: (Look I re-did it!)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-08 07:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ It won't get better.

But it also has to get better.

Really, that's a paradox of eternity. Elda continues to cry for a long while, but once she's pretty much run her course, she backs off, still curled on herself a little, but adjusting the towel such a to cover herself more. Modesty is almost an afterthought now, but... Well. She ...

Hanyuu has to understand, being as old as she is. But- ]


He died in his sleep. I... remembered it earlier this week. [ . . . ] It's sort of stupid to say to a former ghost, but to a vampire, the line between life and death can be really murky. For the older among us, it's not very hard, if you're underfed or you're just not holding on to fall asleep and never wake up, becoming dust.
oyashiromama: (but i'm okay with see-through skin)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-08 08:54 am (UTC)(link)
[It will get different. Not better, not worse. Just...different.

Hanyuu listens to her speak, and she winces.]
I...yes, I can understand that. The older Ryuun got, the more likely it was for them to simply fade away on the wind. [She is the last of her kind, after all. The last Pureblood.] ...I'm so sorry you had to remember something so awful.
matchbreaker: (POLKA DOT IT)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-08 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She... nods. Into the wind huh? Elda exhales, and wipes off her tears with her hands. She's at least not actively crying now, but he does have a little bit of snot on her face too. She ...

She's grateful. ]


What about you?

[ She's not even sure if she means the memory or how she is after the trial ]
oyashiromama: (but when it's over‚ i'm still awake)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-08 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[Oh, that is...a loaded question in so many ways. Hanyuu hesitates.]

Me...? Me, I... [If she's asking about Hanyuu's memory, she... She can't share something so good, not after what Elda just told her, or what they've seen today.] ...I... My memory was a fortunate one. Thinking of it is all that's...keeping me afloat.

[She doesn't want to expand on that. It feels wrong to.]
matchbreaker: (Waffle Crew)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
[ Elda is not a good enough person for her not to feel some cruel spike of jealousy in the moment Hanyuu answers her. So much so that she almost screws up her face in expressing that. But just as quickly, almost to her surprise, she moves past it to instead be genuinely glad that's the case. Elda smirks, and then reaches out to pat Hanyuu on the head, as if She had been the one who was just sobbing. Her hand then rolls down Hanyuu's cheek, tilting up her chin ]

Good, glad to hear it. [ And that was a bit more curt than she intended, but it's clearly at least to some extent sincere. ] So why not tell me something else?
oyashiromama: (lost in skies of powdered gold)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
Ah...

[...She can't help but keep a sad, grateful smile from her face. She understands. She...she was just as jealous, when it seemed Elda had the better history of the two of them. The smile sinks to confusion, after.]

What...kind of something else? I...aah... [There's...what she talked about with Watanuki earlier, and cried her eyes out over.] ...about...the trial?
matchbreaker: (With a chicken wing...)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
Or anything. I know you married a man, I don't even know his name. I don't know a lot about you yet. So if you don't want to talk about things which make you think of fish girl, I'm sure both of us are old enough to have a dozen other things to say.

[ This is her being "nice." ]
oyashiromama: (no matter where i sleep)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
[Well, there's kind of the problem, what reminds her of Alani is what reminds her of...

She sighs, and nods. This is going to be an uncomfortable moment, she knows.]


My husband... Yes, I suppose that's a good place to start. His name was Riku. I... He was a human. He was the first human not to fear me...or hold me on a pedastal. He was the first to see me as a person.
matchbreaker: (MY NUTS)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
A human?

[ ... Elda can't help but have her alarm leek into her tone there. And maybe... jut maybe, a little disgust. It's not. Directed at her? Or at him, specifically. ]
oyashiromama: beneath the skin (plants awoke and they slowly grow)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 04:52 am (UTC)(link)
[Yeah, here it is... She expected this, and she sighs, face to the floor, and nods.]

A human. I...saw the information on the wall, our first few days here and...well, I know you must have your own reasons. But I figured talking about him...and, then, my daughter, with you would just be an awkward subject.

[Halfbreeds, after all.]
matchbreaker: (tbh im not sure if the above is better)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 05:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ . . . Does she want to explain herself? Elda- ... Elda hesitates for a moment, because she doesn't want to offend Hanyuu. If anything, she feels sorry for Hanyuu, making that mistake. Because what could that be except a mistake? But she also doesn't want to spread out even more of her tragedy, clarifying certain little points.

... ]


To me, that can't help but sound like a mistake. But I don't know what it's like for demons or ghosts or whatever your people are. But a child of a vampire an a human is a dead end. They can't produce children - ever.

[ There's more to it, but that's... ultimately the heart of it. ]
oyashiromama: (please hang around)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 05:50 am (UTC)(link)
[Hanyuu stiffens. She lets Elda finish, and she doesn't lash out, because...it's a different perspective. It makes sense, why Elda would think that, but, when she's done--]

I can understand why you say that, but to me, it was the opposite of a mistake. [Ah, her throat is tight, and it shows.] The years I spent with Riku... They were short. Far too short. But they better than any of the decades I spent as a warrior. My people...we barely had any connection left. Most of them had...become something like ghosts, when we arrived on Earth.

[It's. complicated-]

The few of us with bodies left, Purebloods- most of them were Jedas to begin with, a part of my connected family. Most...were much older than me. And...we were dying, rapidly. Before Riku...I barely spoke with anyone. Just the elders, and the artificial intelligence designated to assist me with protecting the village. There were only...two humans who I became friends with, him and one other. But I treasured them, more than anything. Them...and my daughter. My Ouka.
matchbreaker: (N'Zoth)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's a few questions to ask here. What's an artificial intelligence? They got denied bodies? A dwindling population...

But she doesn't ask. She just keeps even eye contact, as much as she can, with Hanyuu. She tries to keep her face even and maybe even supportive. She can't totally manage it, but she tries, at the very least, to accomplish this.

Hanyuu is being sincere and telling her perspective.

She'll respect it, and even sympathize ]
oyashiromama: creatures lurk below the deck (and in the sea that's painted black)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 06:46 am (UTC)(link)
[That's...good, this reaction. No words, but...it seems Elda understands, at least a little. Again, she appears a little grateful.]

...I got almost...almost three years with Riku. [This...hurts so much to say. This, she hasn't told anyone here, hasn't ever told anyone-] Enough...to fall in love, and get married...and have a child. But... One of my brethren, one who'd wanted...a challenge, against the most powerful Pureblood in the area.

[She's looking at the ground, her hands curled to fists.]

He... There are Purebloods, and there are Mixed-bloods. The Mixed-bloods, they are ones who were like spirits and tried assimilating with humans, the species with the highest functions. Basically, they became the same being, by combining before human embryos had personalities, and at the start, it worked out fine...but...Japan was overtaken by illness. And the spirits took to adolescents...and both personalities fractured, and suffered. If they reached terminal stages...they would lose all control of themselves. Kill, no longer be anything but...a monster, in every sense of the word.

[She trembles, lightly.]

So... That Pureblood, he set off a bunch of Mixed-bloods. My job, my duty, was to stop the ones that were laying waste to the village, and to watch over those who could reach terminal symptoms, so...I responded. I went to stop them, and he...

...he possessed Riku, and used his body...to fight me. There was no saving him.
matchbreaker: (when will i use this)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 07:02 am (UTC)(link)
[ ... Three years.

Elda doesn't even know how to react to that. She doesn't understand most of it. Pure bloods? Mixed bloods? Embryos? Mergers? The intellectual framework of what Hanyuu's explaining doesn't make a lick of sense to Elda, who has been so firmly grounded in the early 20th century that he doesn't know what a television is. But none of that is at all relevant in the face of the emotional current of the story.

Three years.

Spirits that assimilated to humans and became the same being. So that was something like their reproduction, maybe? She doesn't even bother to figure out that, there's no point in trying to intellectually understand it in this instant. Rather, she instead notices other details - a duty to deal with those laying waste to the village and watch over the ones who were kill. The spirits merged with older people...?

Three years.

Elda hasn't noticed herself doing it, but she dropped the towel as she lost feeling in her hand, and she scooted closer to Hanyuu with wide eyes that are once more brimming with tears. Because there's something incredibly clear through all of this, even if she's comparing tragedy and even if she doesn't understand. Because really, there is more tragedy in someone having to kill their loved one than to them dying in their sleep. Even if she failed James or James failed her or any of that, that's all sophistry.

Three goddamn years.

In the end, even the fact she had to kill him - that's not quite sophistry, of course, but... ]


... That's way too short.

[ Because what's three years against eternity. That was unfair. That wasn't near enough time. ]
oyashiromama: (you are haunting me)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 07:47 am (UTC)(link)
[She doesn't really expect her explanation to make total sense. Once, she recalls, Rika asked her, and she tried to tell her...even just a little, and it all flew over her head. If she hadn't grown up in the environment, she doesn't think she'd be able to understand it, either way.

But.

But...the moment she hears that. The moment she feels Elda inch closer, the moment she stops talking and really thinks about that. ...So long ago, and yet-

Her voice cracks.]


Y-yes. It was. I wanted...so much more time with him. [It's an understatement. It would have been hard: watching him grow old, staying the same that whole time, that youthful horned-woman the village didn't trust, it would have been so damn hard, watching him, watching Ouka, but still, it would have been better, so much better-

If she could've saved him. If at least, she could have had a little more time.

She blinks out tears. Every time she thinks she's cried out, she's not.]
matchbreaker: (this her her titsdaughter)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 07:53 am (UTC)(link)
[ Three years. Three years against eternity, against the fact that Hanyuu is older than even her parents or Japan's Elder vampire is something that is utterly ... it's impossible. even a human lifetime would be too short. It's another reason why any relationship with a human can only end in tragedy. It's impossible to think otherwise.

And she's sure there's more to the story, there has to be, right? She had a daughter.

Elda though, she needed to respond somehow. Sympathy was cheap - that's what she had meant to Hanyuu during the trial. Still, wanting to do something but not sure about just hugging her again - while she sure considers that, Elda (naked oops) reaches her hair, somewhat try at the very ends of it and brings the tip up to clean up Hanyuu's tears with that soft, silky thing he holds so much pride in.

That's weird and she knows it, but it's showing her symapthy in a more physical way]
oyashiromama: (there's nothing that i'd take back)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 08:10 am (UTC)(link)
[She feels the tips of the hair on her cheek, bemusedly looks over, and- ...oh, goodbye towel, she supposes...this is fine, as much of a protest as she'd made about it before, she really isn't too bothered, if Elda isn't. She did bathe with Shino a few times, after all. Besides, there's something more important to focus on right now-

Like the fact that Elda's hair is wiping away her tears? She seems...so very proud of that, so very protective of it. While the face she makes is bewildered, it's also touched. Really, give Hanyuu any physical affection and she'll eat it right up. It's part of being denied it for so long.

So, before she...continues that, finishes it, with a watery laugh-]
Thank you.
matchbreaker: (D J COLIN)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
[ As for Elda...

She portrayed all the sentimentality she wanted with the act itself. She pulls back a little, still keeping quite close to Hanyuu when she does, and pulls her towel back about herself, waving a hand not doing that dismissively ]


You've got nice skin, wouldn't want to mar it!
oyashiromama: and let the human in (so breathe in‚ breathe out)

1/2

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 08:27 am (UTC)(link)
...Sure. [Whatever she wants to tell herself.]
oyashiromama: (i'm finally at peace but it feels wrong)

2/2

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
[..but... Elda's assumption is right. There is more to the story. So... Hanyuu steels herself. She told Watanuki about this, before, so it's not as bad. Sort of.]

After that, well... I used up so much energy. Fighting a Pureblood is different than a bunch of Mixed-bloods, and...I got so angry I tapped into something deep in myself. Something...raw, and primal. Not unlike the Mixed-bloods themselves. I had to...re-cooperate, away from the village. Everyone thought I died then, but... [She shakes her head.] I simply...couldn't appear to humans anymore. We Ryuun, we could...sort of...switch, between a spirit and a physical body. It was helpful, when we had to hide from humans, but...I liked being physical more. I could feel the wind, and the rain, and...obviously, I could try living normally.

After that fight, I lost almost all of that ability. I couldn't...be seen by humans anymore. I couldn't interact with them. ...I couldn't raise my daughter. She was left...to my only living human friend. [...yeah, still not easy to tell.] I was too hurt to do so anyway.
matchbreaker: (tbh im not sure if the above is better)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 08:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ Oh.

She could wipe her tears again, could hug her. She doesn't know what to even say to that. But she instead just holds up the towel with one arm, and the other arm goes out-

To hold her hand. So she might squeeze it as she listens. That's - awful. ]
oyashiromama: i'll be there to hold your hand (and as the world comes to an end)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 08:55 am (UTC)(link)
[That's...genuinely very nice, she appreciates that. ...A small smile rises to her face, though.]

It's...it's okay. I still... It was ten years before I felt recovered and...mentally ready enough to return to the village. And it was very peaceful, while I was gone. [She almost wonders, still, if...she brought the trouble, herself-

No, not right now.]


I'd recovered enough so that...Ouka could see me, interact with me. Only her, and...I felt too- too foolish to tell her...that I was her mother, after I had to leave her like that. [She...squeezes Elda's hand.] But she knew. I don't know when, but...she figured it out, my...very smart girl. Ouka, she...I trained her, and stayed with her, for ten years, until... Until I died, in a...difficult battle. [Which is...a part of the story she is not ready to tell again.]

She told the people of my...heroism, and my sacrifice, and they already worshiped me, though...fearfully. Their belief in my strength grew tenfold. It was...that belief that made me a god.

[There's...a finality in that. It's not the end of her story, because obviously, there were centuries more to go, but. It sounds like all she's able to say.]
matchbreaker: (Is annoying!)

[personal profile] matchbreaker 2017-02-09 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
[ It was their belief that made her a god? She died? Elda... Elda doesn't know what to make of all of this again. She really, truly does not. But she ignores the intellectual questions to squeeze Hanyuu's hand back and once it's all over, once she's said the final thing, Elda laughs. Not at her, of course, nor at her story. But she, squeezing Hanyuu's hand replies, ]

God or gods have never been kind to me, [ dislikes: the church ] and I've never known a god I could probably squeeze out the hand of. [ She already agreed to friend, to equals. It'd be redundant to go into that again. But... well. ] Humans'll really believe anything when they're confronted with some grand hero though, won't they?

[ She is, by proxy, affirming Hanyuu's heroism while denying her divinity. ]
oyashiromama: (we're stuck in slow life)

[personal profile] oyashiromama 2017-02-09 09:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Everything Happens So Much, the Hanyuu story

She lets out a deep breath and lets her shoulders relax. That's...so much, between Elda and Watanuki, she's talked about so much that she hasn't in centuries. (Not like she had anyone to talk about it with-)

A little laugh, filled with a small snippet of humor.]
It does have some basis in reality, you know. It's like I'm a kami or something of that nature, just a little subset of Shintoism. [...but...she's not really in the mood to argue, and it really does feel nice to be seen as a friend, instead of a god. It's like if Rika were older.] If gods haven't been kind to you, then...I'll be the first.

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