voidgates | IC Inbox

Well. Long as you don't mind it.

[ But considering... everything... he's gotten the distinct impression that Summer thinks it's a good idea, may the Gods help them all. Or that at the least she'd prefer it to his normal fuck-and-run method, since that doesn't seem to be what G'raha's about either.

Who knows. Why is this shit so complicated? ]

Yeah. That's the... hard part.

[ He falls silent again, thinking. Hells. ]

I think you'n G'raha got this image in your heads, about how it was, bandits wantin' to sell me off. Like they snatched me out of my village and chained me up or somethin'. That ain't how it went.

I was... lost. Alone in the Shroud. Survivin'... [ He can't tell that part of the story, how he was surviving. ] ...by my wits. They found me and took me in cause they saw they'd have a better time of it if I was with 'em.

I took up with one of 'em. After a couple of weeks. He told me he loved me. An'... I think he might've, some. [ He would have known, had it been entirely false. Even desperate and lonely, no one could have lied to him that perfectly, from that close. But he can't explain that either. ]

But turned out he didn't love me as much as he loved the gil some... fuckin' Imperial named... Aulus would give 'em for me.

[ He rubs his forehead. The rest can be left unsaid, since he already owned up to the massacre in front of Summer and G'raha. ]

So I haven't taken up with anyone since then, aye?

Edited 2022-07-01 22:11 (UTC)

[She's quiet awhile, letting him finish first and then processing what he says thereafter. Not just a kidnapping, then, but a betrayal. A false sense of security born of love and relief and acceptance, snatched away in an instant.

And thus...thus did I use you!

The thought comes sudden, unbidden, and sobering. Making a face, she licks her spoon clean before turning it so that the scoop faces inwards, and starts trying to hang it off the tip of her nose.]

But you don't think Raha will really do that to you. You just can't shake the bad associations. The feeling that twists in the pit of your stomach when you feel yourself starting to trust again. Aye?

Aye, a bit.

An...

[ Another long sigh. This is far more than he likes talking about himself, at all. But if he wants useful advice, he knows he needs to fully describe the problem. And he is serious about his question. ]

Got kept in my mother's house long past when she should have sent me off to live amongst the men. [ No need to get into the why of it. Though it's perhaps enough of an admission from him that he came from somewhere, that he had a mother. ] So it was just me around a lot of women and much younger boys. Til I left. And then I was busy.

So the only time I... ever had anythin' like that was... him.

[ So he has no idea how this is even supposed to work internally. He's read books, of course, but he's well aware such things are fiction and that's not how life works, which is part of what makes the stories so nice. And he's of course seen plenty of people pairing off and the like, but... observing from a distance isn't nearly the same as doing it yourself. ]

Edited 2022-07-01 22:46 (UTC)

Oh, I've noticed that. Some part of you finds it reassuring when I tell you what to do. The way your mother would've told you what to do, mayhap? Or your matriarch.

[He is a Keeper, after all. She succeeds in balancing the spoon on her nose, theatrically drawing her hands away as it wobbles and oscillates, but doesn't fall.]

What are you looking for advice on, really? How to behave? How to sort out your feelings? How to think about whatever it is you want to do with him?

[She pauses, hesitant a minute.]

How it works out if I'm in the picture too?

[ He grimaces, but she isn't wrong, necessary. His one major act of rebellion had been in fighting with his mother and leaving home and... the results of that had not been good for anyone.

He'd rather make it a joke at his own expense. ]

Mayhap I'm just shit at thinkin' and need someone to do it for me. 's why I ended up enlisted.

[ Thal's balls, this is awkward. ]

But... all o' that, I guess. [ She has hit on the entire litany of things he doesn't know, doesn't understand, and that make him deeply nervous. ]

's weird to me that you keep G'raha around as you do, 'stead of sending him off until you want him for somethin'. [ He laughs. ] Men are a right pain in the arse and best in small doses, I was always taught.

He's not "men", he's Raha. And you know exactly why I keep him as close as I do.

[She looks as though she's about to shake her head, but catches herself (and her dangling spoon) just in time, snatching it off her nose so that it doesn't clatter to the tabletop. It spins easily in her fingers before she digs it into the ice cream again, which is possibly a little disgusting, but it's not like Ezar hasn't kissed her before, so.]

It's not strange if you find yourself wanting to love him, you know. He makes it so easy.

[She shrugs.]

Your problem is that you can't see things from any vantage point but your own. You may have traveled far afield with the Maelstrom, but for you the world ends at the tip of your own nose. If things aren't as you expect them, then it's the things that are strange, not you. Because you know how it ought to be, and it's the other things that aren't in alignment with that.

[ Softly: ] And what if I do, after tellin' myself so long I oughtn't love anyone for the sake of my own safety?

[ He regards her silently for a long moment, contemplating what she's said. That it's deeply unflattering isn't an issue; he's far more comfortable with that anyway. But it doesn't strike him as quite correct, either.

He leans back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him. Then, with great deliberation, he drops the Lominsan accent, speaking as he'd done long ago before joining the Maelstrom and adopting it as cover. It gives his voice a far softer cast, a lighter pitch, the underlying growl gone. ]

I'm well aware that I'm the strange one, you know. Even among other Keepers.

I was also strange among my own tribe. For... a lot of reasons. But now I owe it to them to remember how it was.

So what makes you say that?

...No, I want you to answer me, I think. We'll speak of me for a minute, instead.

[She spoons up a mouthful of ice cream again, savors it, then points her empty spoon at him.]

Tell me why I keep Raha around instead of sending him off until I want him for something. Be as plain about it as you like, I don't care or mind. But I want to hear you say it.

All right.

Because you love him. Even when he desperately annoys you. Perhaps even particularly then. [ His head tilts as he considers her, as if he's looking at something somewhere beyond her. ] Because you spent so much of your life feeling as of you couldn't connect to anyone, as if you were strange and missing something you cannot define, as if there was no belonging. And with him you've found a sort of belonging, a connection to another person so strong as to be unbreakable that bound you together from the moment you meet even if you didn't quite realize it at the time.

Because he's yours in that particular, terrifying way you say it, that means you'd rend the star in two if anything tried to take him from you. Because you do not let what is yours go.

[It is, of course, always unnerving to be read so openly and so plainly, but it's not as though Ezar is wrong, and it's not as though she didn't invite it. Quite the contrary; if they're going to be picking each other apart in these midnight hours over ice cream, it's only right that they should both have ample opportunity to discomfort the other.]

There's...I think one thing you said that I'd change. But on the balance you're exactly right. And you didn't need me to tell you a word of it.

So when you think about the way I act toward Raha, why start with what you were taught, and not what you know about me?

You assume that I start with one and the other is lesser because it is unspoken.

[ A mild observation. ]

I can well see and understand why you do what you do, at least in this case, and you've told me much of it as well. So why should it need to be said?

What you might not know is what I have experienced, because I don't like talking about myself even when I'm not mortally afraid it'll get me killed. This unfunny joke of mine is as much a ghost I carry as the fact that I once massacred a company of bandits rather than let my lover sell me to an Imperial.

[ He rubs his face with his hands. ]

Fuck, I hate talking. [ I'm so bad at it. ]

Edited 2022-07-02 01:55 (UTC)

Hmmm.

[She mulls over that a minute, playing with her spoon before digging back into the ice cream again. For all that she's been indulging, her scoops have been relatively small — possibly so that she can reach for more of them by comparison, and make her prize seem to last longer.]

Aye, I think you're right.

[ He breathes out a mirthless little snort through his nose. ]

What would you have said differently, by the way?

[ He'd like to know what he's misunderstood, because it is all a part of Summer and... for whatever reason has made him throw caution to the winds, he does want to know her. ]

Why should it need to be said? I know it.

[She gazes at him for a long moment, steadily, and then huffs a soft laugh under her breath and shakes her head.]

Mm. No, it was the part about being bound from the moment we met. I wouldn't have said that it was because I didn't realize it.

[ He considers this, thinking back over the story G'raha and Summer told him, other things they have said to each other. ]

Yes. I ought to have realized that.

[ But he's never claimed to be a perfect listener, though he does try. He'd always rather listen than talk. ]

The two of you fit rather perfectly, like the halves of a torn leaf. It is lovely to see, and it makes me happy to be around you for that reason.

[ He smiles wryly. ]

Maybe that question isn't... how it works if you're 'in the picture.' It's how it works if I am.

[ There doesn't seem to be a need for his presence, though he's certainly grateful to be around. ]

Edited 2022-07-02 02:38 (UTC)

...That's between you and Raha, isn't it? You're not in love with me.

[She shoves her spoon into the ice cream, letting it stick there while she folds her arms in front of her across the tabletop, leaning over them with drawn-up shoulders and a slouched, pondering posture.]

So really it's two pictures, I think? You and him, without me. And me and him with you.

[Her brow furrows even as she says it, like once the words are hanging in the air she's not altogether certain they're right, but that doesn't make them any less said.]

You're not asking me to try to speak for how he feels, are you?

No... I'm not. [ Not asking her to speak for G'raha, at least.

If he wanted to find out what G'raha felt, he'd ask him. Maybe. If he was brave enough. He'd much rather talk to Summer... but he also knows she isn't going to speak for G'raha.

He considers, eyes half-closed. ]

But I don't think it's two pictures, is it? There is no separating him from you, and I wouldn't ask that of either of you. To pretend there would--could be a... [ He hesitates, just because even saying this as a hypothetical makes him nervous. ] me and him without you would be a... lie. A fiction.

[ He looks up at her, considering again. ]

And I don't think I'd want that, either. Is that strange? I...

[ His voice becomes softer, less certain. ]

I need you. I think. I...

[ He closes his eyes, shoulders hunching. ]

The only person I'm certain I love is you.

[ Maybe because it's easier. Safer. He knows he can trust her. He knows she can't be using him, not like that. There are fewer complications. How he feels about her may be difficult to admit, but it's not terrifying. ]

[It's surprising that she doesn't break her neck, looking up as fast as she does. Rationally, she knows there must be many, many deeper layers of nuance beneath the simplicity of that revelation, but that doesn't make it any less of a shock, to hear it.]

I...I don't un...der...

[It's not...unheard of, not after what happened when their monster transformations were all coming to a head, but still. Still, it's. Something.]

...

Make me understand, then. Why me and not him?

[ How can he explain what he barely understands, himself? ]

I... trust you. More than I've trusted anyone else in years. I know... you won't let anyone take me away. You promised.

[ He rubs his face with his hands again. ]

You don't scare me. You... didn't let me walk away. Over and over.

[ Safety. How long has been searching uselessly for safety? For someone who cared enough to make him stay even when he thought he needed to leave to save himself? He makes a small sound, too sad to be a laugh. ]

You're Summer.

Edited 2022-07-02 03:53 (UTC)

[There's still a lingering buzz of astonishment ringing in her ears by the time Ezar concludes his explanation, but by the time he's out of breath and words alike, the sharpness of the emotion has mellowed. He'd caught her off-guard, there's no mistaking it, but the picture he paints is closer to what she'd thought it was initially than his remark had led her to believe, and so in the end she finds herself nodding slowly.]

I'm different enough from what happened to you in the past. I don't remind you of those memories, or how it felt.

[Which, if she's right about that, implies by extension: ]

Does Raha make you feel the things you felt for the bandit? And it's too close?

Sometimes. [ He hates to admit that, because G'raha deserves better than to be compared to that person. But it is true. ]

And... it's too much. He... keeps trying to give, and makes me feel too much, and... [ He shakes his head, thinking of the choking panic he'd felt, sitting on the bathroom vanity. ] I don't know what he wants or what to do.

It was easier, when I thought it was pity, what he feels toward me. But... it's not, and I don't know why.

[ He hugs his arms around himself. ]

He sees too much. He's the sort of person I was taught to hide from, but... I find myself wanting to trust him and that frightens me, too.

[And there it is. Suddenly, Ezar's reservations, and the volatility that arises when he and G'raha are put in close proximity, begins to make a great deal more sense.]

You do know what he wants. It's just that the way he shows it looks too close to things the bandit did, and it all muddles together until you're afeared they're one and the same.

[She regards him for a moment, steady and more than a little thoughtful, and then quietly pushes her chair back and gets up to move around the table to stand in front of him.]

Make room. Hold me, instead of yourself.

[It's not a question. He's right; she won't let him get away like this, either.]

Do for him what you did for me, before. Tell me why he does what he does.

[ Ezar looks up, confused, and then hesitantly opens his arms to her. But it will feel good, he thinks, to hold onto her.

He swallows hard and tries to take a mental step back, to consider the question the same way he thought had before. ]

I think... you're as part of him as he is of you, and it's never been at any sort of doubt for him, even when he didn't know at all how you felt. He needs you so much he built you a city and broke time itself for you. You give him a home and a belonging when it's plain to see he's spent most his life lonely even though it hasn't made him bitter, just more giving. And he thinks if he gives enough of himself, it'll be a wall to protect you and the world.

[ But what any of that has to do with him, he either doesn't know, doesn't see, or doesn't want to see. He'd have an equally different time trying to explain why the hell Summer seems to like him, too. ]

Edited 2022-07-02 04:46 (UTC)

[It's not the most comfortable of ways they could be arranged, certainly, but it's a necessary one. To give Ezar something tangible to hold onto, like when he was drunk and teary-eyed and clinging to her like a lifeline.]

Giving is what he does when someone around him needs help.

[And maybe that's the puzzle piece that Ezar is missing, really. Maybe he doesn't realize that he needs help, and G'raha sees it when he doesn't.]

The Crystarium was never meant as a gift for me. The First was a blighted wasteland when he first landed there, and the survivors went to the Tower looking for help. And he opened it to them. He welcomed them to take anything from inside it, anything they could put to use. His only restriction was that no one could make a home inside the Tower, because he knew someday he would use it to carry himself to his death and he didn't want to risk taking anyone else with him when he did. The city grew up around the Tower, because being near him made them safe.

[Feo Ul had called the Crystarium the Exarch's garden, and all in it his flowers. It makes her heart ache to think of it.]

He sees you, tortured with memory, and so he gives. And giving frightens you more, and so he gives more. He holds out his hand and you can't help but see a knife in it. And when he sees you startle at the knife, he tries all the more to get you to take his hand.

[ He wraps his arms around her and bends to rest his cheek on her shoulder. He breathes her in and some of the tension leaves him; he breathes himself out. ]

Ah, so it is pity.

[ In a way, knowing that makes it easier. He knows little about relationships, but he knows enough that neither pity nor 'wanting to help' someone is really a basis for one.

But there is part of him that's sad, to realize, that it isn't anything in him really, other than a hurt that seems to require soothing. Though he can hardly expect anyone to want him for himself when he takes such care to not be seen for himself, not unless it's someone like Summer, who is relentless in her own way. ]

I've been overthinking it.

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