voidgates | IC Inbox

[ 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.

...Pity.

[She'd pull away to stare at him if she could, but as it is he's got her held snug and fast, and so she simply lets her tone convey all the sentiment for her instead.]

What part of anything I just said sounds like pity to you?

You said giving is what he does when someone needs help.

[ ...why does she sound like that? ]

He sees me as someone who needs help. And he is kind to want to.

But...

[ He breathes out a little heh. ]

I'd like to not be merely... someone who needs help, I think. Though that is surely my own failing.

You didn't come running for me when I was scared and alone because you pitied me, you numpty. Besides, you said yourself it's not pity and you know it's not. You just feel safer pretending it's born of pity because it would frighten you to the bone otherwise.

[She shakes her head.]

Wicked white, it's like you think you have to hate yourself twice as much to make up the balance for everyone around you who doesn't.

[So she says, followed by a huff.]

The more you try to punish yourself, the harder he'll work to try to save you. You do understand that, don't you?

[ He opens his mouth to argue with her, because from the first time G'raha met him, it was always in the context of trying to save him, trying to help him... but if he thinks about how he has come to know Summer, hasn't it been the same? Their first several meetings had been him trying to help her out... he was merely much worse at it than G'raha. And he has little doubt she would point that out.

Which leaves only... all else she's said, which is all true, no matter how he'd like to deny it. And all that remains is the question. ]

Why?

[ He doesn't shout it, sensitive to the fact that G'raha is sleeping in the other room. But the quiet word has the all the vehemence of a much louder demand. ]

You're right that I hate myself. I have every reason to. And I don't understand why you don't, nor him, and I can only feel as if I've deceived you in some way.

Because hope is everlasting.

[She shifts in his lap, adjusting enough that she can get a hand free and bring it up to his face — at first like she's going to rest her fingers over his mouth, but then skimming aside to hold his cheek instead.]

You said something earlier, about unspoken things — if you know something, why does it need to be said. You want us both to look at you and recognize the terrible things you've done and say so. And you think that when we don't, it's because you've deceived us.

But like you said yourself, things aren't lesser just because they're unspoken. I know you have blood on your hands. You've made mistakes and bad choices and suffered for them. You've made others suffer for them. You're not a hero, and you've not lived your life trying to be good.

[Her thumb traces over the curve of his cheek.]

In a world destroyed by calamity, Raha took up the burden of hope. In a blighted wasteland of despair, he built a city of refuge. He doesn't look at your sins and pity you for them. He looks to what can be raised out of them, by the work of his hands.

You don't have to believe he's right. You don't have to agree that he can do it. Mayhap he can't. But if nothing else, you do have to see that he thinks he can.

[ And she seemed so surprised, when he said he loved her. How could someone do anything but love her, when she says such things, and so matter-of-factly?

A strange thing for him to think, perhaps, when he's always been certain he wouldn't feel this particular contraction of the heart toward anyone again, let alone a woman. But what he sees when he looks at her, what he takes in when he nudges the bridge of his nose against her neck and breathes her, isn't woman. It's Summer.

Ezar holds her all the more tightly with one arm, so he can raise his other hand to cover hers. ]

I always thought of hope as a poison. But I know it isn't. It's that...

It asks for so much. It opens such space to fail.

[ He's already failed so many people, caused such disappointment. He doesn't want to do that to either Summer or G'raha, but he's already let himself become so close to them that he can fail them, he can hurt them, another mistake on his part, perhaps. ]

I'm so tired of killing hope.

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