voidgates | IC Inbox

You mean stuff I do for fun?

[ Thal's balls, why not just ask the question in a normal way? ]

Played with toys when I was too young to hunt. [ He shrugs. ] Then I was... [ He hesitates; this is getting too close to things he doesn't talk about. ] ...I was one of our hunters.

I still hunt, when I've leave. Fish, too. Read, sometimes, but I'm not much good at it. [ All things, notably, that he can do by himself. ] I grow orchids. Grew orchids, I guess.

You do anything other than play with toys?

Edited 2022-06-09 07:41 (UTC)

I was supposed to be a huntress, but I was never much at it. No good with lances or bows. I like listening to stories, though, and telling them. Maybe I could've been a fair bard, but for the bit about the arrows.

[She's quiet for an interval, thinking it over.]

Do you ever think about how big the star really is? How much that's really out there, farther than the eye could ever see. All the lasting remnants of everything that ever came before. I like finding out about places like that.

[ He does not find it in the least surprising that Summer likes stories. She certainly talks more than enough to be a bard. Nor does it surprise him that she wasn't much for hunting. A person can train a certain amount of coordination into their body if they don't come by it naturally, but he'd wager she wasn't overly inclined to try.

These are both opinions he keeps to himself. ]

Sailing with the Crimson Fleet, I've seen the ocean. Water stretching so far that it's all you see in any direction, and from the top of the mast you can see the star curve away beneath you.

[ He looks forward, reminded of other, older things, the way she says lasting remnants. A dangerous topic to admit to any knowledge of; this is why it's best perhaps to avoid others from Eorzea. He's not that good of a liar. ]

A single malm of the forest is a world unto itself. What dwells there is older than anyone's imaginings, and it carries more secrets than anyone'd be able to learn in their life.

What is it you're lookin' for?

[If the measure of a good bard is the ability to keep an audience engaged, Summer thinks idly, then mayhap she really could've been a good one — at least as far as Ezar is concerned. She wonders if he's noticed that not only is he at a point of volunteering information on his own, he's asking questions without being prompted or baited into them.

Hopefully he hasn't noticed. She's certainly not going to tell him.]

You mean what secrets? It sounds funny, but...I'm not usually the one who knows what we're looking for. I just listen to the people who do. My friends, usually.

[Which. Feels odd to admit, somehow? It's not as though it's any new revelation. It's just a little new to put into words and say aloud.]

Or were you expecting me to say something like, "I'm looking for who I really am"?

[ There is an overly long pause as Ezar tries to make sense of that, and further tries to figure out if there's a way to repeat his question, in a more specific way, without it becoming obvious what information he's fishing for. Because Summer's not dumb, she'd sniff it out, he's certain of that, and if he admits to anything at all, she'll just hypnotize him or whatever it is she does and then he'll say even more he shouldn't.

What he really wants to know is if he should turn around and run now, because he might have been terribly wrong to think she as safe to be around as anyone from Eorzea potentially could be. There is no good way of asking that.

A little of his consternation shows by a shift in the angle of his ears, back just a few degrees more. Worried. He isn't sure how to divert away from that, either. This is just one more reason he doesn't talk to people, as a rule. ]

Aye, isn't that why most people go poking about where they shouldn't?

[ A suitably grouchy answer, he hopes. ]

They're either huntin' for treasure or huntin' to fill some other emptiness.

Or hunting the things that like to stake out a domain in secret places, because most people are smart enough not to go poking about where they shouldn't.

[A single malm of the forest is a world unto itself, he says. She's never much felt at home in forests, preferring the savannas and deserts that more closely resembled home, but thinking of thickets and green canopies and the horrible many-eyed things that live in them has her thoughts spinning back to the Qitana Ravel, and the Vii who took up the cause of protecting it, and the Lightwarden that found all those circumstances perfectly suitable for a permanent home.]

Everything feels like a secret when you're not much of a scholar, I suppose. Even small things.

[She pauses, and then before she can think better of it, she adds one last thing.]

Maybe it's a little like being at the top of the mast on the ocean. It's the sort of place where you're supposed to feel lonely. You sort of...feel lonely along with it, instead of feeling lonely on your own.

I'd want to think many of those places got their own protectors. [ His lips twist bitterly. ] But I wager a good many of 'em been killed or driven out.

[ When you're not much of a scholar. Well, he can hardly argue with that, since he isn't and never has been. But it grates at him somehow, all the same. ]

Mayhap bein' much of a scholar means a person gives secrets less respect than they're owed.

[ It's dumb to even say these things. He should just be smiling and nodding. Why isn't he? ]

Mmm. Can see how you could feel that way. [ He tucks his hands in his pockets, shoulders rising in a shrug. ] Climbing the mast never made me feel lonesome, though, nor bein' out in the Shroud on my own. Just makes me feel... small. And that ain't the same.

Not just protectors. Invaders, too. Parasites.

[His remark in rejoinder to the topic of scholars has an odd effect, though — it actually gets her to laugh, bright and more than a little unintentional. Because what an apt description of people like Y'shtola and Urianger and G'raha: unwilling to leave any stone unturned, always poking and prodding and forming theories at every turn, determined to shine light into every nook and cranny of shadow.]

...You're right, though. Small still belongs — you to it, and it to you. That's different than standing in a place that isn't yours.

[ He certainly can't disagree with her mention of invaders or parasites. All manner of things find their way into hidden places. But further commentary on that would be too revealing, probably. It's hard to know when to stop talking... probably why it's better to not start. ]

Small just means you're part of something bigger. Better'n being cut off.

But the only places I ever been like that [ "a place that isn't yours" ] were made by the fuckin' Garleans.

[ So she probably means something even more different from that. ]

Did you feel like you belonged in the Maelstrom?

[That could so easily sound like it's a rhetorical question, challenging or sarcastic, but it...isn't. It's wholly genuine, and in a way almost tentative, as though Summer genuinely doesn't know either way which way his answer will go.]

Or with the dragoons? Or...whoever you served with. Your companies.

[ Another long silence as he contemplates how to answer that, and what the true answer would even be. ]

Think it depends on what you mean by that.

[ It isn't even an attempt to be evasive; it's a question of what that kind of feeling is like. Which may be its own answer, that he can't immediately classify a place being somewhere he's belonged. ]

Mm...

[This is just a conversation of lengthy pauses by now, isn't it.]

I think. It's like the difference between "my arm" and "my boots". They're both yours, but one is a part of you and one is separate. So.

[She shrugs a little.]

"My Maelstrom". More like your arm, or more like your boots?

[ It's certainly a clarifying answer. And that makes his own answers plain, though he wonders what they say about him. The only thing he can think of that might rise to that standard of 'my arm' was his clan and their place in the Shroud... but even then, was that true? He'd left them, run away. Could he have even attempted that, if he had truly belonged?

He doesn't know. It's certainly not something he can talk over with Summer. He can, at least, answer that one specific question. ]

Boots, more like.

[ He shrugs. ]

Pay's good, and they take care of their sailors. But it's a job like any other.

Mine, too. My Flames. My Ul'dah. My thaumaturges. Boots.

[She pauses. They're being honest, after all, and all things considered it can't really hurt.]

My friends were boots, for a long time.

Implies they aren't that any more, aye?

[ In which case.. another thing for which he can be glad, for her. It is not something he has, nor thinks himself ever likely to have, though there is part of him that might wish it. ]

I don't really know when it changed. I just know that it did. It snuck up on me.

[A quiet hum.]

But it's a little overwhelming, to live in a world of boots and suddenly find an arm.

[ That gets a surprised little chuckle out of him. In the realm of taking a metaphor too long, it's... vivid. And fun. ]

I... imagine so.

[ An act of imagination, truly, because it certainly hasn't happened in his experience. He clasps his hands lightly behind his back. He's not sure what brought this topic on, but he looks down at her, offering as much of a smile as he ever manages. ]

But a good thing for you, aye? So I'm glad to hear you've found such a surprise in your boot rack.

Though I s'pose harder, for you to be away from them.

...You are, aren't you. Glad, I mean. I was wrong about what I said before.

[She glances sidelong back at Ezar, a faint wrinkle in her brow as she regards him thoughtfully. She's not usually one to admit to being wrong, but in this case, she does it freely. It's funny how, ambling along like this, she can almost imagine a white coat and black sleeves and a roguish grin framing an accent straight off the streets of Limsa Lominsa.

If she could have just one of them —

No. No, she can't make choices like that. Not when there's too many "just one"s to choose from, and she's already lucky enough to have G'raha Tia already here and waiting for her.

But there's something unique in the way she misses Thancred by comparison to the others. Like just the sight of him sets something anxious and feral in her at ease, because where Thancred is, safety follows.]

No arms for you, then? You don't have to say anything more than yes or no. 'Tis only idle wondering.

Aye. [ He is glad, and she was wrong, but there's no need to belabor the point. But he adds, very softly: ] 'twould be terrible, I think, to find no happiness or pride in the success of others.

[ Particularly when you've none of your own. He's already got enough to be bitter about that's of his own making; he doesn't need to borrow from others.

He lets the silence stretch again at the question, looking straight ahead. ]

No.

[ Another hesitation, as he tries to decide if he should say more than that, chewing the words over. Perhaps it's a residual factor of whatever the hells that synch had been, making him trust Summer far more than he ought to. Maybe he's just too tired after a decade of holding all of this in, and his conversation a couple of weeks ago with Scully had already put a crack in his reserve. ]

Too dangerous.

Mm. I think...

[Because this, too, is dangerous. This is Ezar volunteering information that he didn't have to, taking a risk that's likely against his better judgment to take, and if she's not careful, she might well make him regret that confidence, and then he won't do it again.

Hmm.]

I think doing things alone because there's no other choice is a self-fulfilling prophecy. One that's hard to get a second point of view on, because there's nobody else but you to view it.

[She shrugs a little.]

When you live your whole life with no arms, it's hard to imagine what you could do if you had two of them.

Mayhap.

[ There is so much he wants to say, suddenly, the words gathered so thick in his throat that he feels like he's choking on them. How he still wishes so desperately at times that he could get another view on things, but he can't because then there would be too many questions. How he tries to imagine what it would be like, all the time, and yet cannot form a clear vision because he doesn't know who he would be, had he never left home; not himself, any more, it almost feels like, though who the hell is he anyway?

He's so bloody lonely. And he didn't feel it, not like this, not before he came to this place and Aerith reminded him what it was like, a little, to have a family, and now Summer's talking to him like they might be friends and he doesn't know what to make of any of it.

Have all of his burdens passed, because he's dead? Maybe this is what the afterlife is actually like, and he's just overthinking it.

And of all things, that last is what's easiest to untangle and give voice to, ridiculously, an abrupt change of topic that doesn't feel abrupt to him because he can hear the screaming of his own thoughts. ]

D'ya think this is some kind of afterlife, here? Aerith says it's just another world of the sort people are taken to all the time, but she's also not from Eorzea.

I was talking about my mate, for what it's worth. He has a habit of forgetting he has arms. Or thinking armless solutions are the right ones.

[This metaphor has gotten SO WEIRD.

But then he brings up the afterlife, and she actually stops still in her tracks at that, almost causing Ultros to smack into her ankles as he squishes and blurbles along behind. Because — she'd know, wouldn't she? She'd know because...because...]

I don't think so. I hope not.

[.................]

Who's Aerith?

[UH-OH.]

Think your mate'd be over it, aye? Since he ain't alone if he got you.

[ Though it's also a habit, he supposes.

Summer's reaction causes him to rethink what he asked, from a different angle. Too much in his own head, he supposes. Because if it were some kind of afterlife, then everyone would have to be dead, and... seems like Summer isn't. Aerith says she isn't. And for himself...

He still doesn't know how to think about it. He always thought being dead would be a relief, an end. And so far it hasn't been, but he has no one to talk that over with, either. ]

Ah... dumb thing to say. Pay me no mind.

[ ...oh shit. ]

My friend. Here. [ He looks away, shrugging. ]

Edited 2022-06-10 19:53 (UTC)

I think he'd cut his arms off for me if he had to.

[Scratch that. Now the metaphor has officially gotten SO WEIRD. Besides, pivoting to this talk of Ezar's friend is far, far more interesting.]

Well, you know what I'm going to ask about her already, don't you? Boots or arms?

[ Now you made it really weird, Summer. The look Ezar gives her is rather eloquent on that point. Though he still says. ]

And I'm glad for you in that, too.

[ Because even this weird shit is better than her asking about Aerith. Hells. ]

Dunno. Not been here but a month. But...

[ There are so many ways Summer reminds him rather eerily of Aerith, from her refusal to accept his sullen silences to the absolutely bizarre shit she says, seemingly at random.

But.

But Aerith has something she doesn't, through no fault of hers. Aerith called his soul, and he could not help but answer, because some things cannot be forgotten no matter how many years have passed. Aerith knows what it is to be hunted, to be at best a curiosity hiding in plain sight, to harbor secrets that people have killed and died for and run until exhaustion threatened to claim her.

She's a small echo of the home he's permanently lost. Someone his spirit knew was family long before he could admit to himself.

And he cannot possibly say any of these things to Summer, because it would open him to too many questions he can't answer. ]

Anyone laid a hand on her, I'd kill 'em. So... I suppose aye.

[ Easier for a soldier to put things in terms of violence. Let her read him as an overprotective male and nothing more. ]

Edited (I keep finding typos!! DX) 2022-06-10 22:59 (UTC)

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