divergentresolve | (no subject)

Entry tags:

aurus,
hakkyuu

(no subject)

Dust always had a very particular feel upon the tongue: a mixture of the instinctive need to spit out the taste of something that did not belong in the mouth and the awareness on every level that it was one of the flavours of defeat. Hakkyuu had felt the wrongness of dirt against his lips before, sometimes from gravity alone, sometimes with an angry pressure upon the back of his skull, sometimes mixed with copper and pain, but he had always resisted both the presence of it against his mouth and whatever the cause that had put him there. But as he lay upon the dry floor of the Crystal Desert so many miles from the confines of Ebonhawke and stared up with huge, terrified eyes, it didn't occur to Hakkyuu to think about the grit getting sucked in against his teeth with every panicked breath he drew in, nor to lift a hand to wipe a messy, wet trail of saliva away to rid himself of the wrongness in his mouth. There were more important things for his instincts to focus on in that moment, like the form hovering a short distance from him.

There was no part of that moment, winded and sore in an uncharted area, that did not feel like a bad dream to Hakkyuu. He'd watched from outside of the stronghold that he had lived his entire life in as the Elder Dragan swept up from the south and transformed the land beneath it to crystal and death in the wake of the breath of its thunderous roar and in the shock of bearing witness to the destruction he could only think that it had to be unreal because these were the kinds of images described in legend and book, not seen with the eye like a storm cloud rolling across the mountain. But watching fawner and charr forces instantly transformed to deathly moving formations of black and amethyst crystal stumbling their way from the scorched land that would soon be referred to as The Brand toward him instilled the only clear thought Hakkyuu could muster clearly through his shaken and shattering psyche.

Run.

And he had. A fast as he could for as long as he could, and then pushed even longer until he fell upon his knees and let the contents of his stomach burn up through his throat and hit the dust ground hotly between his splayed hands, the image blurring through watery eyes and the sounds of his own choked sobs muffed behind images of shambling crystal horrors.

After the immediate euphoria of throwing up wore off and the adrenaline that had sent him tearing from the Branded faded out, the shock truly set in and without knowing where he was, which direction he was headed, and with no sense of agenda, Hakkyuu walked. He didn't know how long or how far he'd walked after watching the dragon take flight, or how long and far he'd run after the Branded spotted him, and again, in the flats of the desert, he'd walk again with no clue how far or long he'd go with is sense of self held away from his consciousness as the haze of shock was the only force driving him forward.

It was impossible to say how long it may have taken until sheer exhaustion forced him to stop, but instead the encounter he had with another being was what interrupted the otherwise unrelenting forward path Hakkyuu had unwittingly forged for himself. The creature seemed to melt upward from the desolate ground, a bright flash of purple movement in the sandy backdrop, with golden spear in hand spinning to capture what little light poked through the clouds against the long edge of the blade and length of the hilt. The world spun, Hakkyuu's mouth felt dirt, and the image that swelled into view in his eye filled him with a third dose of the cold, unbelieving dread he'd felt in such a short space of time.

The figure loomed, tall and menacing and clearly not of--or no longer of--the realm of the living, and Hakkyuu choked on an attempt to get air into his lungs as his wide eyes drank in the sight of what he was sure in that moment was nothing other than glorious, fiery death. For what else could a creature formed of spun tarnish and flaming purple wings bring to him? What else could he possibly expect to find behind the metallic-looking face that bore three pairs of eyes and sharp protrusions like a beetle's mandibles? What else could he expect but for that golden spear to be the weapon used in his execution?

When the Margonite extended a gaunlet-esque hand toward him, the grey muscles in the bicep shifting unnaturally as a talon brushed upon Hakkyuu's forehead. He must have made some unholy sound of terror as a searing pain unlike any he had ever known rolled through every nerve in his body and drove him to his feet only to stumble and crash backwards once more against the sand. Perhaps he meant to say words to warn the creature off, perhaps he even thought he said them, but they were only guttural sounds of primitive distress as he waved one hand furiously in front of him as if to ward the Margonite away and grasped his head where the creature had touched him with the other.

He was going to die here. After everything, he was going to die in the desert, far from his home.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aurus was as disinclined to be impressed by that statement as he was to be offended, and the steadiness of his gaze probably said as much--just the same expression of mild judgement that he'd had already, his brow perhaps rising half an inch. Really?

His answer was as dry as the air around them. "Evidently the same kind who will rescue helpless lost boys from being attacked in the desert," he said with the unsubtle implication that Hakkyuu ought to show at least a modicum more gratitude for the fact that he was here and alive.

Even if he didn't say it aloud immediately, Hakkyuu's averted eyes and the slight gesture of chewing the inside of his cheek probably hinted that he acknowledged that Aurus had a good point. A very good point. He was starting to feel convinced that the sylvari was neither his attacker or kidnapper after all, but it was only starting to dawn on him that he had indeed been rescued by this plant. Man. Thing.

He went quiet again, perhaps even seeming a little sheepish. Maybe. Whatever it was, he was quiet with his head down slightly as he set back to his fruit.

Then, without any additional context, and without looking up, he said, "Hakkyuu."

Honestly, he could have been making a random sound for all the additional information he gave. Sorry, Aurus. So sorry.

Two could play at this game, and Aurus was not above doing so, not for a moment.

While he appreciated that he had indeed made his point and was being offered a concession to acknowledge it, he still wasn't going to present himself as too soft a touch.

After all, he really wasn't too soft a touch.

So although he realized what he was being told perfectly well, he still had a little remark to make on just how he was being told it. He gave the boy a tilt of his head that was rife with mock inquisitiveness. "Hmm? Oh, is that supposed to be your name?" (He knew very well that it was.) "It sounded a bit like a sneeze."

A beat later, though, he gave his own name in return, "I'm Aurus."

Lifting his eyes to Aurus and setting a firm stare on him without lifting his head, Hakkyuu said, as dry as the desert itself, "No, I had dust in my throat."

He didn't even crack a smile, but as he sliced off the last sliver of fruit flesh from one half of his cactus pear it was clear that he wasn't offended by Aurus' jab.

"Nice to meetcha. I guess. Thanks for not trying to kill me or anything. And giving me fruit."

He paused, looking up at Aurus again with his eyebrows pressed into a skeptical line as he stopped mid-chew.

"... You didn't, like, grow this yourself, did you?" he nodded in the direction of the other half of the fruit, after consuming the rest.

Edited 2017-01-10 20:41 (UTC)

Aurus gave Hakkyuu a perfectly deadpan look. One that by no means let on his internal reaction: Honestly.

He had, in fact, collected the cactus fruit from out in the desert, part of the necessary routine of life here, much of which was devoted to assuring he had food and water.

"As a matter of fact, they grow out of my ears while I sleep. Why do you ask?"

Hakkyuu didn't immediately resume chewing, instead keeping his eyes fixed on Aurus before wrinkling his nose in disgust and glancing away.

"Gross. Are you all like this?"

Aurus suppressed a smile, though it took effort.

"You might have to be somewhat more specific," he answered, still giving nothing away.

He was waiting to see if Hakkyuu would start eating the other half of the fruit or if his sensibilities would prove too delicate for the joke. Of course it was also possible that the boy would call his bluff. Aurus hadn't discounted that, but at the moment it didn't seem so likely.

For his part, Hakkyuu wasn't so squeamish that Aurus' joke was about to put him off so he started to chew again. And not only that, he started to slice into the second half of the cactus fruit.

"Gross. I meant gross. Are all you plants fucking gross?"

"Probably," Aurus said with an impressive deadpan. "You'll have to ask the next sylvari you meet."

It was more likely that the boy would discover the joke long before he met another of Aurus's race, but for the time being, Aurus saw no reason to tip his hand, especially since Hakkyuu was still eating, which he badly needed to do.

On the other hand it seemed to Aurus that he probably shouldn't tease the young man too much, even if it was rather easy. So he followed this up with an honest offer.

"You'll find a basin and a ladle at the back of the cave if you wish to wash yourself. Dump the dirty water outside."

"Yeah, and when am I gonna meet more sylvari..." He muttered, mostly to himself but it was aloud enough that it didn't really make what he was saying difficult to hear at all.

When Aurus offered him the use of the basin and water, Hakkyuu looked over his shoulder to the back of the cave. He frowned then and shot a glance back at Aurus.

"Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?"

He wasn't used to getting help just because you needed it, not because the people of Ebonhawke were heartless, just that there wasn't much to go around so getting something for nothing seemed alien to him. There had to be a catch, he just couldn't figure out what it was.

Aurus turned to go back to his meditation seat, leaving Hakkyuu to his fruit and to the privacy of a bath if he wanted it. He didn't bother to point out that the likelihood of Hakkyuu meeting more sylvari anytime soon had been precisely part of his point.

As to why he was doing this... "You wandered into my square of desert," he said mildly, as though the question actually mattered to him very little. "If you died within it then I'd have to clean up--bury your body." He sat down. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to dig a grave in the sand?"

Ok, so it wasn't exactly a true answer, but it wasn't a false answer either, and most importantly it seemed like it was the right answer to give to a boy with Hakkyuu's abrasively coarse attitude about where he was and what had happened to him. Would he learn the contours of the real answer? Certainly he could, but it would take a shift in his attitude before he began to do so. At this point, Aurus thought, he might just as well leave without ever knowing.

For a moment, Hakkyuu looked a lot like a cat who had seen a soap bubble one moment and then been confused when a second later it had vanished without a trace, like he couldn't make sense of this logic from any angle until he shook his head with a guttural sigh of irritation and went back to the fruit. He attacked the flesh with more vigour now, more urgency to shove the stuff in his mouth because in a lot of ways...he did want to clean up. There was no point in acting otherwise and while the offer was there he was going to grab it.

He ate in relative silence, allowing Aurus to settle down if he wanted to, but when there were only two hollow shells of the outer skin of the fruit remained he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and stood up.

"... You're really weird," he proclaimed, having come to this conclusion for sure at that point before padding across the length of the cave to the bathing area that had been pointed out to him.

Legs crossed and eyes half closed, Aurus gave no external sign that he heard Hakkyuu's words at all. For all that could be judged by outward appearances, he didn't even stop focusing on his breath. But he did, for a moment, and that was where that tug at the side of his mouth and the fleeting half-smirk came from. He had to admit: he was amused.

Admittedly, it was harder to meditate with the sound of another person's movement there in the back of the cave, but rather than growing distracted, Aurus merely incorporated the sound into his mindfulness, his focus sometimes settling on it--the swishing of water or an echo of breath in a place it was usually not--before returning to his breathing once more. Actually, what was even more distracting was his curiosity about what Hakkyuu would do next, once he was done bathing and was faced with the only other person present effectively ignoring him.

What, Aurus was very curious to learn, would Hakkyuu do here in a desert cave with nothing to distract or entertain him?

For his own part, Hakkyuu tried to ignore Aurus while he bathed, and he did so with a mind not to be wasteful of water. It took him a little while to settle down, longer than he'd imagined to feel assured that Aurus wasn't just going to turn around and catch him naked and washing himself. He wasn't bashful exactly, but he still didn't know much at all about this massive plant guy and for the time being he was happy to clean himself in verbal silence.

He hadn't even been in the desert that long and the water felt incredible against his skin, washing away the grim of several days of walking and the salty residue of evaporated sweat. He sighed faintly to himself as he pressed his fingers into tender parts of his muscles and groaned as his touched dipped against scrapes and bruises in his skin. He closed his eyes, head tilted back as he drained a ladle of water over his hair, then lay his hands either side of the basin.

Small droplets slipped off the tips of his hair and along the line of his jaw as he just let himself stay there, arms bracing himself against the basin with his eyes closed. It was pleasant enough in the cave to dry off naturally and after a few long moments of just letting the air from the mouth of cave roll over his damp shoulders and the water steadily dry in patches on his skin, Hakkyuu opened his heavy, tired eyes. What he wasn't expecting to see was the eyes staring back at him in the water, or the shock of snowy-silver hair, or indeed how pale he looked in that wavy reflection. He'd managed to ignore the change in colour on his arms and body, but it was undeniably obvious seeing himself staring back in the water.

His reaction wasn't instantaneous, he left just enough time to confirm that it wasn't something strange with his eyes or something in the water or the basin distorting his appearance, but the moment when he struck away all these variables very logically as when pure irrationality took over.

Hakkyuu shoved himself back abruptly, sending the basin and all the water within it flying across the cave and spinning across the floor as he stumbled back to press his wall against the back of the cave with his eyes wide.

"W-what... What happened to me?! What's wrong with my face?!"

The clatter was certainly attention grabbing.

Blinking at the suddenness of the commotion which demanded his attention at the back of the cave, Aurus looked round in a snap, taking in the spilled basin, the patch of water pooling on the floor and sinking into sandstone, the naked boy with his back pressed against the wall.

It was not exactly a reaction he was anticipating. But then he hadn't seen the boy before his encounter with the Margonite.

In context, his reaction was probably frustratingly calm. He hadn't even stood up yet. But he doubted very much that him rushing over or getting all alarmed was going to help the matter any. For a moment he blinked at Hakkyuu, deciding how best to answer. He opted for bluntly: "I don't know. Is there something wrong with your face?"

Hakkyuu didn't respond to Aurus directly right away, instead momentarily staring at his somewhat shaking hands and turning them over between jittery breaths.

He swallowed thickly then, not looking at Aurus as he spoke, "I... have red hair. And brown eyes. And my skin isn't this white."

At that point, he looked across to Aurus.

"What happened to me?"

"Huh." Well that...that was news.

Now Aurus did stand up, grabbing a sheet off the hammock-bed as he walked over and tossing it to Hakkyuu to cover himself. "You looked the same when I found you as you do right now."

But of course that wasn't the whole answer, nor was it an answer that would help.

"You don't remember being attacked so you remember nothing of the thing that attacked you." He gave a bit of a sigh. It wasn't a question, just a statement of why the explanation would be sparse, likely unsatisfactory.

"I don't know what they were either. I'd seen them at a distance, just for a few days. Their bodies," he gestured with one hand towards Hakkyuu's face, "were the color that your eyes are now.

"They didn't beat you or stab you. Merely touched you. They didn't get a chance to do more." What Hakkyuu would infer from that Aurus didn't know him well enough to guess, but it should at least be clear that whatever had happened, it would almost certainly have been worse if it went on uninterrupted.

The knowledge of his own nudity only really occurred to Hakkyuu belatedly as Aurus handed him the sheet, something he felt a degree of gratitude for even if he didn't express it verbally. To him, it really was a matter of high level concerns versus low level concerns and his attention was far from focused on his appearance as his hands half-hardheartedly fumbled to wrap the sheet about his middle.

Aurus' preemptive assessment of how his explanation would feel unsatisfying to Hakkyuu was absolutely correct and the concern entrenched on his face started to melt into a frown, the harder lines of his face starting to return as confusion and frustration laced with panic started to settle in.

"Something touched me in the desert... and stole my skin, eyes and hair?!"

"Stole?"

Aurus mused on the word choice for a moment, then turned towards a shelf on the far wall from which he took a small hand mirror. Hopefully Hakkyuu wouldn't break it in his alarm since it was the only one that Aurus had.

"I suppose that depends." He passed the mirror over, face down, so that the boy could turn it over when he was ready. "Just how unfamiliar do you find yourself now?"

As if sensing there was a kind of danger afoot, Hakkyuu shrunk away from Aurus cautiously as he offered the mirror to him. His eyes flickered nervously between the down-turned mirror, Aurus' hand, and Aurus' face until he reached out quickly to take it from the syvari.

Rather than lifting the mirror to look at himself immediately though, Hakkyuu let it hand at his side--simply wanting to hold it himself rather than leave Aurus standing there with it.

"What else would you call it? If you looked one way and then some... thing touched you and you suddenly looked another? That sounds like something getting taken to me!"

Aurus was patient, letting the boy take his time, but he wasn't simply accepting his logic.

"Not every change is a theft, Hakkyuu."

The answer Hakkyuu received gave him pause, staring at Aurus with a look somewhere between confusion, surprise, and generally seeming a bit lost. There was perhaps something to Aurus' words, something that would need Hakkyuu to allow himself sit properly think on for it to have real value and impact on him in a productive manner. But in that moment, between the exhaustion and agitation and Aurus' words feeling opaque, it just served to make Hakkyuu feel scared and angry.

With a small snarl of annoyance, he thrust the mirror back at Aurus, reflective side down against his chest before letting go, trusting that either the sylvari would react quickly enough to catch it or not.

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd be sayin' that too if you went to sleep looking one way and waking up another."

Aurus did grab the mirror as it was shoved back into his hands, exhaling a bit of a sigh. It shouldn't really surprise him that this boy lacked the perspective to think about what had happened to him in more calm and measured ways.

But then Aurus had spent so long alone with nothing to do but contemplate and reflect. Perhaps his perspective on what was and wasn't "surprising" might have been a little warped.

For a moment he considered pointing out that Hakkyuu hadn't gone to sleep at all. No, he thought, probably not the right approach.

What he said instead was, "Well, I suppose in that case you can just go and steal it back, hmm?" Purely rhetorical, of course, since it was an obvious impossibility.

Hakkyuu wasn't self-pitying enough to point out that he'd had a pretty shitty past few days and that maybe Aurus should lay off the lofty, unrealistic expectation that Hakkyuu should take this as a learning experience, but he also wasn't self-aware enough in that moment to realise that was where his suddenly swelling anger at Aurus was coming from.

He glowered at Aurus and his irritatingly calm reasoning about the whole thing. The Secondborn wasn't to blame, of course, but he had no idea where to direct the rage that was starting to make itself known to him behind the thick exhaustion and trauma, and Aurus was the only one there.

"You think this is a joke?!"

If the calm so far was irritating, it would probably only get worse from here, because Aurus didn't show the slightest sign of rising to to Hakkyuu's anger. He breathed a slight sigh, returned the mirror to the place he'd gotten it from, then turned to the boy again before answering.

"In the past four days an elder dragon has awoken. It has flown into this desert from somewhere to the north, presumably in Ascalon, and it has killed the only dragon to ever have allied herself with the free people of Tyria. It has manifest a new spawn of crystalline aberrations that are out there somewhere haunting the land to the north of us, and on my doorstep I have seen crystalline monsters of another kind--humanoid, hovering, and malicious, with eyes in rows like insects' legs.

"I have walked more than two nights in the desert, I have split the skull of a thing I have no name for, and I have carried a half-dead human boy back to my home, not knowing if he would ever manage to wake up."

Here he gave Hakkyuu a very sharp look and said, with slow, deliberate pointedness, "Do you see me laughing?