Yuui D Flourite (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feyecandy) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
asgardeventide2013-11-24 05:04 pm
feyecandy) wrote in asgardeventide2013-11-24 05:04 pm
Entry tags:
Accidental (?) video | O, longing of the arteries / to purify the blood | Forward-dated to day 363
[The light in the room is muted and warm, but still bright enough that you get a clear view. You can see a fair slice of the room, in fact, but the obvious focus appears to be the man kneeling in front of a woman, both seemingly unaware of the camera. The angle is such that his face is relatively visible to any viewer, while hers is somewhat hidden behind her hair, although those familiar with her might recognize Ghanima’s tanned skin and sun-bleached hair, or the crysknife in her hand.]
[Fai, his eyepatch a little bit ascew so a hint of a scar is sometimes visible when he moves, has his good eye shut as the video feed starts, but soon opens it to reveal a slit pupil, a yellow sclera. He smiles a little bit tautly, as if both amused and feeling some strain.]
At your leisure, my lady. I think I’ve got myself under reasonable control. [A hint of a joke there, but rather dark.]
[She pulls her hair around to rest over only one shoulder, revealing more of her profile and the long, graceful line of her neck to the camera. It’s most definitely an unnecessary intimacy when she places the edge of her deathly pale blade against her own throat to draw a thin red line there before kneeling down as well, tilting her head to offer Fai the wound, but she sees very little reason to resist her urge to flirt a little with danger in this situation.]
How reassuring.
[Her tone is very dry, filled with the same dark humor as Fai’s]
[His eye widens just a bit in response, and his face betrays unfeigned shock for a brief moment, before his smile widens a bit, not really in humor as to mask any other treacherous emotion. He nods gracefully before leaning in, mouth closing over the wound.]
[And with that, the feed ends.]
[Fai, his eyepatch a little bit ascew so a hint of a scar is sometimes visible when he moves, has his good eye shut as the video feed starts, but soon opens it to reveal a slit pupil, a yellow sclera. He smiles a little bit tautly, as if both amused and feeling some strain.]
At your leisure, my lady. I think I’ve got myself under reasonable control. [A hint of a joke there, but rather dark.]
[She pulls her hair around to rest over only one shoulder, revealing more of her profile and the long, graceful line of her neck to the camera. It’s most definitely an unnecessary intimacy when she places the edge of her deathly pale blade against her own throat to draw a thin red line there before kneeling down as well, tilting her head to offer Fai the wound, but she sees very little reason to resist her urge to flirt a little with danger in this situation.]
How reassuring.
[Her tone is very dry, filled with the same dark humor as Fai’s]
[His eye widens just a bit in response, and his face betrays unfeigned shock for a brief moment, before his smile widens a bit, not really in humor as to mask any other treacherous emotion. He nods gracefully before leaning in, mouth closing over the wound.]
[And with that, the feed ends.]
[ACTION] VERY TRUE. But they're gross in a... uh... good way?
And that in itself was a strange emotion to analyze. Why didn't he feel trapped, why didn't he fear her? It had been enough for Kurogane to more or less say, 'I understand enough, and I don't judge you. I forgive you,' for Fai to fear him more than he'd ever feared anything aside from losing his twin. More than his uncle, more than losing the people of Celes, more than killing Ashura. But he didn't fear Ghanima.
Ghanima said that fear was the mind-killer. And Ghanima wouldn't forgive him. When it came to sacrificing everything else for her twin, she wouldn't think there was anything to forgive. And when it came to bearing the responsibility of their death... she would see the crime for what it was, and she would know there was no forgiveness for something like that.]
You do understand. And from the moment I met you, I- I felt... something. Something in us that was alike. [The words came halting and harsh, because he didn't know how to put words to feelings properly.] So that's why I came to you. There are two people in all of the world whose blood I don't want to pass my lips. The first is my twin, and the second... is the person who used to give me blood before I came here. You... You're about as far away from both of them as anyone can be. [A pale smile, and he refrained from adding, Even if you're also very alike the latter.]
[ACTION] Y... es?
[ From the moment they met there had been some kind of connection. Some kinship of the soul drawing them towards one another.
Perhaps it is just that they are both so desperately incomplete, and for more or less the same reason. ]
And not to worry, I will not deny you my blood in the future. Forgive me for seeming... disturbed. Brothers, twin ones in particular, is something of a... personal thing for me, as I am sure you have gathered by now.
[ACTION] Look at my keywords. LOOK AT THEM.
I know. I don't- I understand why you were upset, I imagine I might feel the same in... similar circumstances. [Although trying to imagine similar circumstances the other way around is admittedly difficult. He hesitates for a moment, and then reaches out and silently takes her hand in his, careful not to scratch her. His nails may not extend in this place, but they are still very sharp.]
[ACTION] /screams
He... he pushed me away. He pushed me away, and I lost him.
[ There is no way to mask the pain in her voice, because this is more or less shoving a knife into a still bleeding wound.
That is what she had seen repeated in Fai's actions. Keeping secrets to keep your twin safe. It's not the same, no, because Fai and Yuui are not... quite right. Not in synch. But still it had been there, the reminder of being pushed aside. Deceived.
Left.
She should not be speaking of this. Not in this way, but while she could stop herself, she doesn't want to. She is so tired of being a strong, impenetrable fortress. She wants to be touched again. She wants to connect again. ]
[ACTION] I am done leave me here to die
[He can feel his anger echo hers, the very idea utterly unnatural and revolting to him. He wants to say that he wouldn't do that, but he knows that's not true. When he chose himself, when he said Let Yuui live, he'd chosen to leave his twin behind. He'd promised that they would leave that place together, that he would save them both, and he'd broken that promise.]
[Yes, answers a small voice inside him, but would he have left twin in that tower alone? Would he have gone away from that place and left his brother to suffer forever in solitude? Wasn't it worse to be alive and alone, than to be dead when that was what you'd chosen?
Wasn't he, somewhere, angry with his twin for having been allowed to die? Didn't he hate himself just as much because his moment of weakness had meant that he condemned himself to something much worse than death?]
Ghanima. [No "my lady" this time, no attempt at false distances.] Why? Why did he leave?
[ACTION] NEVER DONE
[ How obvious is it that this is something she clings to? That this is what Leto told her, and what she needs to believe. ]
He saw the future, saw something coming... something that would destroy all of humanity. We had to stop it. So we... he found a way.
[ She had helped form it, but in the end it had been Leto's plan. Leto's Golden Path. ]
We'd always told each other everything but... he started keeping things from me in a way he never had before. I still thought I would be by his side through it all but... we were attacked, and he let me think that he was dead. So that he could do what he had to do, alone. He changed himself. Changed himself forever.
[ Ghanima swallows, aware that she probably isn't making much sense but how does one even condense and summarize the story of her and her brother? She doesn't even really try, she just let the words come as they will and let Fai make what he can of them. ]
He returned to me but not the same. He is losing his humanity little by little, turning into something else, and he keeps begging me to help him find a way to die, and I can't. I can't even do that for him.
[ACTION] EVERYTHING IS TEARS
And another knife drops through his heart, and this time from a completely unexpected direction. This time it's not because the hand squeezing his reminds him of another hand, much smaller, holding his tight and refusing to let go until they were torn apart. No, this time it's because he remembers a sad smile and bloody hands and golden eyes that were still tranquil, a beloved voice saying, The beast has always been in Celes. It's because Ashura had done what he thought was necessary to change the future he saw, and had never asked Fai.]
[But also, as her words sink in, he thought, Am I doing that? Am I turning myself into a monster so that I can change the past? With Kurogane's blood on his hands, and probably in the end, with Sakura's and Syaoran's too... what would he be like? Would his twin hurt as much as she did, to come back to life only to find his brother so inhuman, so changed?]
[He pushed the thought away, but knew that it would come back, knew that once thought it was going to haunt him. There is one thing he can say, one thing he needs to say, even if it might not be welcome.]
He shouldn't do that. He shouldn't ask you to kill him. [He can't look at her, and he hopes that she will understand why he has to say it.] No one should ask that of someone. [...but he had asked Kurogane, hadn't he? He had. He knew he had. It was cruel, but he still had. Letting him die was the same thing as killing him, at least to Kurogane. But he's not going to think about that either.]
Not to your twin. Even living on when you hurt so much that you hate your heart for the way it keeps beating - even that is better than living without your twin. Even that is better than... knowing that it's your fault they're gone.
[ACTION] EVERYTHING IS TEARS
[ She's not sure, because she is not sure of much at all when it comes to this new creature that was once her brother. No. Who is her brother. She mustn't let him go, because it is for him that she does everything.
Yes, the aim is to save mankind, but what keeps her going is that she is doing it for Leto. ]
Sometimes... I want us both to perish. Together.
[ It is such a weakness to admit, and one she would never give in to, but it feels good to have spoken the words. To acknowledge the allure of slipping into death with Leto's arms around her. ]
[ACTION]
[And what are you doing? demanded a voice in his head, a voice that he'd thought he'd be rid of in this place, but which seemed to have followed him even here. When you've betrayed everyone you now care for to bring him back, what then? Will you live on for him, or will you bring Ghanima's fate to your own brother?
He would not listen. He could not, not now. Maybe he still had some of that man's blood in his veins, maybe it was this that spoke to him, but he would replace it with hers until his voice dwindled.]
Ghanima, I- I know. Do you know how I came to be this way, why I have this sickness? I was dying. Finally dying after a life spent wanting to. I wanted to sleep like my brother sleeps and to never have to wake up again. [His face twists, and he looks away. Anger. Anger is what he needs, his one defense against the intruder in his head, in his heart, in his body.] And then that man decided I wasn't allowed to. He took it on himself to bring me back and to keep be alive with his blood. And now I have to keep going because I owe it to my brother, because he needs me...
[ACTION]
He needs me. ]
Who is he, the man?
[ACTION]
He was meant to be my enemy. All my life, I've known that I must kill him. But I... [His face twists into a bitter little smile.] I grew to care for him. And he for me. I was careless, and now things are... complicated.
[ACTION]
As they tend to get. I suppose it was not easier for him to watch you die than it would be for me help my brother to his grave.
[ Yes, she's calling him a hypocrite. ]
[ACTION]
I know. I had thought... I hadn't thought he'd care so much for me. I hadn't thought it would hurt him so much to see me die. [He hadn't thought he'd ever see Kurogane close to tears.]
But I have to keep hating him, Ghanima. Not because he deserves it, but- but because I have to choose. Between him and my brother. And we both know what I have to do.
[ACTION]
I am sorry.
[ Because she knows that while it isn't really a choice, that does not make it less painful. ]
[ACTION]
I never thought I could love anyone apart from my brother and my father. and I know I can never love anyone more than my twin, no matter what happens. But I- My heart is weak. I wish I was more like you, Ghanima. I wish I had even a fraction of your strength.
[ACTION]
I'm not the strong one. My brother is. He chose the agony that I could not have allowed.
[ Would she have made the sacrifice herself? She's not sure. She'd been weakened by fear, and Leto must have known that.
She'd failed him. ]