divergentresolve | (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.

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If the way Aurus' look sharpened made Hakkyuu nervous or caused anything to tighten in his stomach than he sure as hell didn't let it show on his face. In fact, he firmed his expression further and clenched his jaw as he pushed his shoulders back slightly to meet Aurus' stare directly.

"Then don't act like me saying I physically changed overnight is trivial, because you might not be laughing, but you're also not taking it seriously."

He looked away then, glaring furiously off to the side and holding a tight fist at his side.

"I don't even know if Ebonhawke's still standing. I don't know if anyone's still alive. I don't know it--"

Something lurched in his gut and Hakkyuu snapped his mouth closed abruptly as a wave of something unpleasant and unfamiliar swept over him. He really wasn't used to feeling anything like anxiety or deep uncertainty that leant itself to almost despairing sorrow, but the realisation that he didn't know if Vrenille was alive or dead welled up in him like a spring as he bite down hard on something in his throat that felt suspiciously like it wanted to be a sob. He was absolutely not going to start crying in front of this massive fucking tree. No way, no how.

The fact that Hakkyuu was trying not to cry was as obvious as the fact that the whole situation had worn him emotionally thin. But despite the harshness of his words, Aurus was not actually without sympathy for what the boy had been through, and the truth was that he hadn't meant to imply that any of it wasn't serious, not least of all the physical change.

It wasn't the change to his body that had the boy on the brink of tears though, as Aurus could plainly see. It was thinking about his city and about the people there, and that was absolutely something that Aurus agreed was an immediate concern, and (unlike his sudden pigment change) one that suggested a clear course of action.

"Then you must go back and see what has happened there. We can leave tonight at dusk."

We because he was not planning to send this unarmed, unschooled, traumatized boy out into the desert on his own, knowing that he had no real way to defend himself, knew barely a thing about how to navigate the landscape, and that chances were high he'd run into something a lot worse than the local devourers and desert bugs.

"I know that!" he snapped even before Aurus was done speaking, and therefore before he heard all that the sylvari had to say. It was such a visceral reaction to cut Aurus off immediately at the mere suggestion that he needed to return because it felt like such a blatantly obvious thing to say and the thing he wanted to be doing right now except the oppressive heat of the height of the afternoon made it impossible. It was all the frustration of the situation, the heaviness in his bones, the emotional exhaustion and anxiety, and the anger at himself for feeling the way the lump in his throat rose and made his voice crack at the edges.

It was embarrassing and enraging, and here was Aurus saying 'then you must go back' as though that wasn't the most obvious thing in the world.

It took a second for the rest of Aurus' words to catch up with him, and when they did he when entirely silent, jaw set and willing his lips not to tremble as it dawned on him the extent to which this stranger was willing to help him. There was not hiding the look of surprise and the emotional heaviness of that realisation washing over him as he stared up at Aurus as if he were the only soul left in the world and Hakkyuu might just physically grab onto him for dear life at any moment.

He closed his eyes, refusing to risk even the chance of Aurus seeing them well up before ducking his head to try and keep all his feelings in check. He was failing miserably.

"... When is dusk?"

"About three hours," Aurus said, not unkindly, with a glance out the front of the cave which served as much to gauge the angle of the sun as to give the boy a moment to compose himself.

He wasn't unsympathetic to how overwhelming this must all be. If Hakkyuu really did want to grab onto him, seek some kind of solace from an embrace, admit to himself for a moment how much like a child the whole experience had made him feel, Aurus would not rebuff him. But he doubted very much that the boy would actually take that step, and he certainly didn't want to pressure him to it.

What seemed much more likely was that Hakkyuu would prefer to keep both his privacy and his dignity intact. He was still dressed only in that sheet Aurus had handed him, after all.

He ventured to place a hand on the boy's shoulder, steady and hopefully reassuring. "Get dressed," he suggested. "You can come and sit with me if you like."

Hakkyuu would cling to Aurus over his dead Ebonhawker body.

No matter how shaken he was from everything, how raw and brittle and unstable he was feeling, Hakkyuu would always resist seeking out physical affection, or even just physical contact, as a means to balance his own sense of instability.

In fact, Aurus' suggestion made Hakkyuu scowl deeply, his newly coloured eyes turning cold and hard as he turned away to indeed dress himself.

"And what difference would sitting with you make?" he hissed partly under his breath. He might regret that impulsive smacking away of Aurus' offer once he was fully clothed again with three hours spread before them until dusk.

For better or worse, Aurus did hear that grumble. He'd been preparing to withdraw and give the boy his privacy (such as it was), but he pause and glanced back briefly over his shoulder.

"Who knows," he said dryly, "you might actually learn something." Doubtful at this point, all things considered, but still possible.

At any rate, he was not going to take that dismissiveness as the final word on the matter. He went back to his meditation spot once more and sat down, but he purposefully left a clear spot beside him on the woven reed mat where Hakkyuu could come join him, in his own time, if he eventually swallowed his pride enough to do so.

With his back prickling at Aurus' answer, Hakkyuu channelled as much focus as he could into redressing himself. There were a lot of feelings swirling around him, many irrational, some not, but he couldn't make sense through the thick sludge of it all that he willed himself into silence. He could pick a fight over nothing, point out that Aurus' smug attitude was unwelcome and stupid, but he just felt tired and for that moment the silence felt like more of a comfort than a sting.

Setting himself on the edge of Aurus' hammock after pulling on his clothes, Hakkyuu draped his arms over his knees and hung his head between his legs.

Before this day, Hakkyuu would never have said he was someone who expected prolonged experiences of anxiety. Momentary bouts here and there, but not something that arrived in steady consistent waves that rocked his stomach and brought a sense of nausea at such a regular interval that he was starting to anticipate it. He hated this, hated how weak it made him feel, like paper trying to catch rain and not tear.

He remained where he was quite stubbornly for several minutes, his eyes closed to focus. Or at least that was what he told himself, but perhaps there was an extent to which he didn't want to risk seeing his vision blur completely against his will and with no ability to make it stop.

Suddenly, Hakkyuu stood up. For a second or two that was all he did. And then, he moved over to Aurus on his meditation stoop and stared down at him. Or at least for a certain value of looking down; Aurus still had decent height to him even when sitting and gave Hakkyuu time to look at him more closely. He examined the leaf-like texture of Aurus' face, the way the fern leaves grew from his skull and trailed down his back, the lines of his neck and shoulders, where there was clearly some kind of well-defined muscle and the strength contained within them, and how, despite how closely he looked, it felt like this man--this syvlari--was entirely impenetrable to him in so many ways that he couldn't put into words or even thoughts, but it was clear as day how far apart they were.

Swallowing the lump that had mysteriously appeared in his throat again, Hakkyuu continued to look Aurus over in silence without taking up the space that had been purposefully left open for him beside the Secondborn.