fragileprophet | Week 2 - dreamshare catchall with Sandalphon

[You're seated on the Cathedral's stage in a grand chair. Your Fon Master's staff is resting across your legs, and you hold a letter in your small hands. You read the words from the Emperor of Malkuth and you're struck by their sincerity. They're not those of a politician scrawling empty promises, but a simple man who wishes for peace. This is good. As you finish, you look with a smile at the man on his knees before you, awaiting your response.

Colonel Curtiss, I can tell that His Majesty wrote this from the bottom of his heart. I can see why his citizens love him so dearly...this is truly wonderful.

He looks at you, puzzled, and you wonder for a moment if you've said something wrong...but then he smiles, too, relieved. He tells you he is reassured by your words. You don't have time to bask in the feeling, because the man standing beside you interrupts, snapping at the Colonel to leave the letter. The Fon Master needs his rest, he says.

A piece of your heart shrivels as you remember your place, and you lapse into obedient silence as Colonel Curtiss takes his leave.

He lectures you about the importance of neutrality. You feel a spark of encouragement, and timidly try: Emperor Peony only wants peace between both Malkuth and Kimlasca. I...agree with him.

It wasn't the right thing to say. Grand Maestro Mohs turns to you, his eyes full of hatred. He isn't looking at his Fon Master. He isn't looking at a person at all. He's looking at an insect. A wretch. Something he wishes he could squash under his fist. It hurts to look at him as he tells you you are to take no action in this matter. Your purpose is to sign documents, and smile at the people...and take plenty of rests.

You know what he's telling you to do is go back to your room in the Cathedral's tower. It's an unspoken threat of what you may suffer if you dare to come out. So you go.

The next day, a pigtailed girl brings you a tray of food, here to visit you during your confinement. You know that by now, Colonel Curtiss has left, rejected despite your wishes. War will surely come. You hate this. Softly, you ask her:

Anise, am I making a mistake?

She jumps quickly to the defense of the Grand Maestro. Another piece of your heart withers as you turn away from her and stare out the window at the townspeople down below. They look like ants from up here. Suddenly, she speaks again. She tells you how scared the people are for war. She tells you it's stressful. She tells you that the only thing that keeps the people around here smiling is you, and your happy presence. Why?

It's because they have faith and respect in their Fon Master Ion.

You make a choice, right then. You know in your heart that you are not the one deserving of those feelings. You're a peon, a puppet, a figurehead of nothing.

But you love them. You love each and every one of them.

You want to pay them back for those feelings.

You run away.

It's a heart-pounding affair, running away. You've never rebelled, not once. You scale down the side of the building with Anise, and Colonel Curtiss spirits you away in a boat--you pass out when you have to use a powerful arte to escape pursuers.

But you come to and you're in a new bed, on a new vessel, and Colonel Curtiss, though he admonishes you for your recklessness and you can't help but apologize, asks you to trust him to protect you--he tells you that you're important, and not for the Score, or for being the Fon Master, but because your kind heart can save the people from a war.

Your heart is brimming. Before you know it, you're laughing. They don't understand why, and you can't tell them. You can't tell them who you really are, or why this means so much, how scared you've felt each moment that you've been on this world, so you tell them just one thing that only seems to confuse them further:

This is the most excited I've been in my whole life!

From this day forward, your actions are your own.]

Edited 2018-06-20 07:03 (UTC)

[You lack the concept of time. How long has it been since you were created? Months? Years, decades—perhaps even centuries? You don’t know. The days are constantly blurring together.

You snap your head up at the call of your name. Your stomach drops when you recognize the researcher, who beckons you over with a flick of his wrist. His detached eyes appraise you as he speaks to you in a cold, droning voice. It’s your turn.

Screams echo in the lab. Are they yours, or are they the anguished cries of the other self-aware subjects?

As always, you find yourself unable to comprehend what’s going on when the experiments begin. You cannot think. All you know is an intense, indescribable pain burning through every fiber of your being as your body is poked, prodded, churned inside out, and manipulated to the research team’s fancy.

Your overwhelmed mind begs for release, but it doesn’t stop. It never stops until the researchers decide that they’ve had their fill. You are powerless. So you endure, even if you happen to pass out in the middle of everything.

The researchers leave you to yourself once they finish playing with you, and you feel like a broken toy held together by a fraying thread. Amid the throbbing pain, your weary thoughts drift back to their usual place. Why are you here? For what reason do you exist in this hell? Will you ever be more than an object without a purpose, despite possessing self-awareness?

Your arms and legs tremble as they struggle to hold you up. Once you feel well enough to walk again, you wander the lab with heavy shoulders.

You walk.

And walk.

And walk.

Then you spot a flash of white in the distance.

A burst of excitement ignites in your core. You smile as you scuttle down the hall, all of your hurts forgotten.

“Lucifer!”]

[This time, his awakening is a gradual process accompanied by a rested feeling. Sandalphon's eyes open slowly to a view of the ceiling, where he keeps them trained for a precious moment. The joy from the dream seeps away with every second that passes, and he's content to let the emotion run its course.

Before long, he's back to himself. His heart is no longer brimming, but the fondness of the memory remains in his mind as he turns his head in Ion's direction.]

[...but the bed is empty, the blankets tossed in a hurried fashion from the place Ion usually rests, the pillow and sheets soaked from sweat. He hasn't gone far--there are sounds coming from the restroom.

Ion doesn't remember waking up, or leaving his bed. His charged emotions surged his body upward and forward until he was coiled around the toilet and heaving. Spent and trembling, he collapses against the cool floor, hugging himself.

It felt so real, all that pain, but now, now, he just feels so...full of joy.

What is this? In his brief life Ion's only ever had the glimmer of such clashing and charged sensations.

He weeps, but, strangely, he can't stop himself from laughing.]

[If the mess of blankets wasn't worrying enough, the sounds alarm Sandalphon, who all but leaps out of the bed to race to the restroom. He drops to his knees beside Ion, and then freezes when he sees the tears.

Yet Ion is laughing.]

What happened!

I don't...I don't know, I...

[He tries to blink past his tears but they keep coming, and between that and laughing he can hardly catch his breath. Frantically, he tries to wipe his face.]

I'm sorry...I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I don't know what that was.

[He almost blurts out the same question that he had the previous morning, but this is not the place for that discussion. Much like the first week when they found each other after the investigation, he lifts an arm to hover around Ion.]

Are you feeling ill? You shouldn't lie on the floor.

I'm alright.

[He says it before he even has any real time to process the question. It's not that he's not trying to break those habits of false reassurances, but they're just so ingrained he hardly realizes when he says them. Still, he raises himself up, trembling, and grabs onto Sandalphon's arm like a support beam.]

I...I'm confused.

[Sandalphon is slow to rise with the intention of returning his partner to the comfort of bed—but not before a stop at the sink, where he starts the water.]

Wash your face first. We'll talk about it after.

[It's a bit of doing with how badly Ion's hands are shaking, but by the time he's washed and dried himself and they've started back, he seems to have calmed down a touch, stabilizing.]

Were you...

[He starts to ask a question, but rethinks it. In a way, he knows the answer himself, having experienced those feelings firsthand. Ion swallows.]

How did you stand it for so long?

[With Ion noticeably calmer than before, Sandalphon's immediate concerns have been allayed. At the vague question, however, his brow furrows.]

What do you mean?

That place...a laboratory? It was so painful. I felt like...

[He hesitates.]

I felt you wanting to die.

[His jaw clenches and he averts his gaze.]

That . . . was a long time ago. I wasn't the only one. [He hesitates.] We didn't have a choice.

Nobody ever has a choice for something like that. I understand.

[Just last night Sandalphon saw him in his cell, too. The fact that things like this, people creating life just to tear it back down, treating living things like toys to be tossed when they break, happen across worlds? It saddens him greatly.]

And I'm sorry.

Why are you apologizing?

[It comes out as a croak, if that. He asks this question frequently, he realizes. But this time, he's truly puzzled.]

It wasn't you who conducted those experiments. In any case, those ended for me two thousand years ago.

I'm apologizing because...

[How does he express this without sounding foolish? Maybe he should just resign himself to always feeling like he sounds like a fool.]

You deserve better. Because time alone doesn't make up for being forced to endure such pain and isolation. Because someone should tell you these things, but I know that nobody will.

Edited 2018-06-20 09:35 (UTC)

[He discovers now that that wound, though old, is still raw as it burns from the sincerity of Ion's words. Sandalphon doesn't look at him; his voice, faint.]

You're wrong . . . I don't deserve anything. The things that I did after those memories . . .

[He swallows. That's enough. No more.]

[Feeling his cheeks and his eyes beginning to burn again at the sound of Sandalphon's quiet words. Silently, he wipes his eyes on his sleeve.]

You're really strong, Sandalphon.

Edited 2018-06-20 09:58 (UTC)

[This time, he cants his head to appraise Ion. He doesn't believe that—not even for a second.]

No . . . It's you who's strong. You returned the love of your people with love of your own.

[It takes Ion a moment to realize what Sandalphon's referring to. So that was what he saw this time?]

It's the least I could do for them. How could I not care?

[He pauses, his fingers wringing together.]

I've never loved someone the way that you have. I've never felt anything like that before. Like just a glimpse of one person could erase every wrong you've ever had to suffer.

That person . . .

[He purses his lips. His feelings about Lucifer now are complicated—or perhaps simpler than ever.

He can say the same for himself. Ion's memory was the first time he felt so supported and loved.

He fears what will come next.]

Are these dreams going to continue?

I think they may, yes.

[He closes his eyes. He, too, feels apprehension.]

If this is anything like the way we felt last week while separated for too long at a time. I'm sorry, I hope they won't bother you too much.

[Ion is the one who was weeping, but, you know how it is.]

[Ion.]

I should be saying that. Most of my memories are the same. You might see something like again . . .

[He doesn't wish that pain on anyone, especially on someone so pure and loving.]

[He shakes his head.]

It's alright. You shouldn't have to apologize for having trouble in your past. I'm sorry that I'm...taking this so poorly. First yesterday, and now today.

[He puts a hand over his heart. He's just...so weak. Still, so weak and useless. He can't even handle something like this, can he? What good is he?]

Handling my memories isn't your responsibility. It's mine.

[He sighs. He guarded the finer details up to now, and what good has it done? Perhaps he shouldn't sleep, so that he can wake Ion at the first sign of . . . anything, really.]

Sorry.

Week 2 - dreamshare catchall with Sandalphon

TUESDAY

1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject