Fragment: Dawning Realization
Jan. 25th, 2021 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rekindledtitanThe snow is starting to drift down again, painting over the slick-freezing patches of meltwater, the rucks of churned snow and mud. The scattered armor and the still-smoldering corpse. The alien stars above prick weakly past the warm glow of lantern lights drifting up and away. A solitary point of light descends past them, outshining their glow as the little Ghost returns to his Guardian.
A flicker of shimmering blue light illuminates the snow as he sweeps a scan over the body lying there. Cataloging the damage in a snapshot. Recording the details. The price paid.
Minor abrasions: anterior cranium; right scapular plates.
Superficial burns: face, covering upper mandible and mid-face.
Three (3) inter-plating wounds, non-critical, detailed:
One (1) laceration to anterior throat, fatal, detailed…
Organic contaminant detected: sputum, human-
It takes a moment to see. Another moment to store away in his memory, in the spark of Light at his core. Its twin calls up from the corpse beneath him: he reaches out, kindles it to life again-
Restores.
She sits up in a rush, golden eyes flitting over nothing: he knows once again she’s parsing where and when and who she is. Only a moment. A hand goes to her face, but the warm spatter of contempt is gone: he's already wiped it away. Ghost hovers close, anchored tight by concern as she focuses on him.
“Well,” she says simply, “’least that’s that.”
“...Maybe not.” He tips his shell; her eyes follow his down to a dagger, lying in the snow beside her. It's covered in a pale fluid, catching a shine in the twin glow of their gazes. Blaze pinches the blade between thumb and forefinger as she picks it up. Her brow plates are drawn together.
“She, uh. She really doesn’t listen, does she? I told her this goes no further.” Won’t take the truth for an answer, won’t talk to Steve herself, won’t understand final is final.
“Guess we’ll have to give it back to her.” The blunt matter-of-factness in her tone specifies it’ll be handle-first. They’ve got no further obligation to play along with Amelia’s version of reality.
“Let me store it, Ghost says, and it disappears in a transmat shimmer at her nod. He’ll keep it safe in containment. “Are you… all right?”
“I’m fine, Ghost,” she tells him, of course. “Not the first time I’ve had my throat cut.” She lets out a ‘heh’, adds softly, “Not even the first time it’s been her.”
But this is different, he thinks. The thought aches and grates like rusted wire beneath his shell. Guardians get used to being torn apart, burned, beaten, broken, maimed. But this isn’t the same as fighting a monster for the sake of innocent lives, or a clean fair death in the Crucible, or even the dark dreams she means now. Ghost knows that all violence leaves marks, but all violence isn’t interchangeable.
“You catch much of that?” she asks, looking up at him direct now. Unsure how far away he was hiding.
“No.”
Another nod. Ghost studies her expression: relieved? She pushes to her feet, marches toward the diminished pile of armor nearby. The black parts make a scatter of sharper shadows in the snow. “You didn’t miss much. Steve and Nike?”
“They went back to the Tower a few minutes ago.” He’s known her from the moment of her raising. He’s never heard her say a fight wasn’t worth being there for. “Did you hurt her?”
“Didn’t get a chance. Tossed her around some, set off a steam explosion in proximity- not too close, I guess, I didn’t see any burns. She kinda went to pieces soon as we got up close.”
She unbelts her mark, folds it respectfully before setting it aside. Ghost stares at her back, his points twitching. “…And then she slashed your throat open?”
Blaze shrugs. “Well-“ She lifts the chest-piece, voice muffling a second as she pulls it over her head, “I guess ’having a breakdown’ and ‘violent’ aren’t mutually exclusive.” She stoops, twists round, pulling on greaves, rerebraces, cinching her pauldrons into place. Reassembling the Titan, albeit a little damper.
“Good news is,” she says, hunting down her gauntlets and boots, shaking snow off them, “she wants nothing to do with Steve. Might hassle him anyway, but he can handle himself.” Ghost relaxes a bit. It should be regrettable, another door closing on someone Steve used to care about. Someone who might have been a friend to him again. But after this… Steve has enough dangers to contend with.
There’s no going back to making cocoa and telling stories, a while yet before they have to meet Adia and Caspar. The lights and sounds of the Dawning celebration reflect down the street as they head for Blaze’s preferred bar a block away. It’s quiet, tonight. She steers past the mostly alien clientele to sit at the counter and orders one of the two things on the menu that she’ll drink. Ghost trails along after her.
Her order comes in a thick glass, the liquid inside glowing softly. Ghost doesn’t bother to scan it. Blaze has a few swallows, nurses both the drink and her buzz for a few minutes, deep in her thoughts.
“Are you okay, Ghost?”
His points twitch as he looks up, jolted out of his own ruminations. Where to start? How to give a shape to the things that claw at him? What has he a right to share?
He settles on the guilt. “…We brought Steve to the Tower together. Your decisions were mine, too. If people are angry, we both bear the responsibility, but you’re the one getting hurt.”
“Course I am. I’m your Guardian, remember? That’s what I do.” Her hand closes warm and protective over him, pulling him closer to her chest. “I take the lead, so I take the fire. And there’s no way in the multiverse I’d let you be her next target.” He can feel the warmth rolling gently from her, the fire within burning bright again. The steady whisper of telemetry signals from the sensors in her chestpiece…
“Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about sharing punishment,” Blaze is saying. Sitting on her thoughts has never suited her. Once she’s started talking through them they all come rolling out. “I don’t think that’s what that was, exactly. I mean, that’s what it sounded like. She got hurt and she wanted to knock my head, lay into me for it. Seemed fair to me. Hell, I thought maybe once I’d heard her out she’d even cool off and listen. And you know, I thought… I know what it’s like to be mad at something you can’t do anything about. Sometimes it feels like a fight is the only thing you can win. Even if it’s the wrong one.”
She knocks back the last of her drink, lifts the glass to request another with a frown. “But the way things went out there, none of it sits right. I know it’s Amelia, but that just wasn’t… hey, Ghost, what’s wrong?”
He’s moved away from her, folded in on himself and looking into space. It takes him a minute. “I pulled the audio telemetry from your armor.”
The armor. The armor left sitting ignored and nearby In the darkness as she chased Amelia through her wall of fire. “Oh. Shit. How much did it, uh-?”
“There’s… there’s enough.” The points of his shell are trembling. “The way she talks to you- and…” Blaze leans over him anxiously as he struggles with his words. To process it. To contain himself.
“She talks about Steve as if he’s not even a person.” He can hear his voice shaking. “As if he’s… some thing that belonged to her. She… she doesn’t even care what he would have wanted, or if he wants to find out where he comes from, or what he’s feeling! All… all she talks about is how she’s entitled to know about him. She- she never even asks if he wanted that. And she acts as- as if she’s the only one who- as if we didn’t care about him just as much!”
He shuts his stuttering outburst off, shuddering with a weight of unfamiliar emotion. He’s always the quiet one, the subtle one, the careful word to Blaze’s full-throated challenge. Her eyes don’t leave him as she sits back, lifting a hand for him to bump against for comfort. The barkeeper ventures close enough to set down her order, then beats a hasty slither elsewhere.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Blaze’s voice is rarely so soft. “Amelia wants him hidden away from her, but you’ve been there every single day, watching over him. Keeping it all in, never saying a word. Watching him be someone new.”
“We- we all have,” he points out, quiet with embarrassment. “You, and Thor…”
“Ain’t the same, though. He meant so much to us, but he and you… if you had any more of a connection I’d have been out of a job.” It’s the wrong time to joke, she sees that as soon as he flexes in alarm, and she closes her fingers over him with a low sound of reassurance.
“Hey, it’s okay, I’m kidding.” Mostly. “But if I’d gone first, and you survived… he’d have been the right choice, is all I’m trying to say.” There was a time not long ago when she was sure it would end that way, and if not for Steve… She strokes Ghost’s shell with her thumb, feeling his Light flutter against her palm even through the hardened mesh. “I can’t weigh what Amelia’s feeling; I don’t know her that way. But we both know she’s not the only one whose heart got broken.”
“…He was my second friend, ” he whispers finally, lost for the words to encapsulate all of what he’s feeling, the unspoken truth she’s finally called out.
“First one you didn’t dig up yourself,” she agrees- teasing a little, but it matters. The first friend not bound to him by shared destiny. She was still new when they met Steve. Much less sociable. No fireteam to run with, so new to patrolling populated zones or meeting anyone outside the Tower besides a fellow Guardian - or a hostile alien.
The memory crowds in on her readily: Ghost as he was then, a terminally shy presence at her side, focused so intently on his Guardian alone. He’s gotten quieter since the Fallen took him, quieter again since Steve died. But he’s never gone back to that.
“Kaolin, the others… they were kind. They were my friends because they were yours-” all that mattered to an anxious Ghost protective of their new Guardian, “but Steve made friends with me.”
“You made friends with him,” she points out, slugging her drink.
“...He saw me differently. Not just as your Ghost. Of course he didn’t really know what a Ghost was anyway, but…” She nods; he doesn’t need to explain it to her. “...When I found you, I wasn’t alone for the first time in centuries. You were the end of my Nightmare. But Steve… was something else. He was… special.” Utterly inadequate. Steve was something he doesn’t have the words for. Something he never tried to examine and now it’s too late. Now Steve is another man, one who has a Ghost and it’s not right to say anything, it’s not right to want to get close…
“He carried the Light,” Blaze says solemnly. She pulls her hand back and pokes Ghost gently, snapping him out of it. “Hey. Remember the picture? Get it out for a minute, would you?”
It’s tucked lovingly into the most secure compartment on their ship. Ghost pulls it into the air between them with the whisk of a transmat, and Blaze takes off a gauntlet to unfold it with care. It’s a page out of a sketchbook, pencil lines in a familiar hand. Ghost drifts close to study it with her. The drawing shows two people: a blonde woman in uniform, confident, direct, ready to go toe-to-toe with the world; and behind her, hand on her sleeve, a shorter man. He’s slightly built, half hidden by his companion, but there’s presence in his curious expression as he looks around them, the touch that could be asking reassurance as easily as lending guidance.
“…Steve was always real good at seeing people for who they were.” She can’t help the wry tone. He called this one better than he could have known. “Remember, the man who drew this isn’t gone as long as we honor his example. Keep his legacy alive. And we're gonna do that for him.”
“...Of course we will. We... made a promise.” He's trying to reassure himself. They never back down from their duty. At least… his Titan never would. He has to ask himself if he can really live up to the same. For now, Ghost huddles closer to her, away from the hollow ache he feels. Blaze shifts her arm, making a nook for him while she drinks and he absorbs himself in pencil lines and memories. A respite before the next battle.
He can’t help wondering how Steve would draw them now.
A flicker of shimmering blue light illuminates the snow as he sweeps a scan over the body lying there. Cataloging the damage in a snapshot. Recording the details. The price paid.
Minor abrasions: anterior cranium; right scapular plates.
Superficial burns: face, covering upper mandible and mid-face.
Three (3) inter-plating wounds, non-critical, detailed:
- Puncture, left rear abdomen, above existing scar, penetration to depth…
- Puncture, right clavicle above plating, penetration…
- Puncture, upper left throat…
- Puncture, right clavicle above plating, penetration…
- Puncture, upper left throat…
One (1) laceration to anterior throat, fatal, detailed…
Organic contaminant detected: sputum, human-
It takes a moment to see. Another moment to store away in his memory, in the spark of Light at his core. Its twin calls up from the corpse beneath him: he reaches out, kindles it to life again-
Restores.
She sits up in a rush, golden eyes flitting over nothing: he knows once again she’s parsing where and when and who she is. Only a moment. A hand goes to her face, but the warm spatter of contempt is gone: he's already wiped it away. Ghost hovers close, anchored tight by concern as she focuses on him.
“Well,” she says simply, “’least that’s that.”
“...Maybe not.” He tips his shell; her eyes follow his down to a dagger, lying in the snow beside her. It's covered in a pale fluid, catching a shine in the twin glow of their gazes. Blaze pinches the blade between thumb and forefinger as she picks it up. Her brow plates are drawn together.
“She, uh. She really doesn’t listen, does she? I told her this goes no further.” Won’t take the truth for an answer, won’t talk to Steve herself, won’t understand final is final.
“Guess we’ll have to give it back to her.” The blunt matter-of-factness in her tone specifies it’ll be handle-first. They’ve got no further obligation to play along with Amelia’s version of reality.
“Let me store it, Ghost says, and it disappears in a transmat shimmer at her nod. He’ll keep it safe in containment. “Are you… all right?”
“I’m fine, Ghost,” she tells him, of course. “Not the first time I’ve had my throat cut.” She lets out a ‘heh’, adds softly, “Not even the first time it’s been her.”
But this is different, he thinks. The thought aches and grates like rusted wire beneath his shell. Guardians get used to being torn apart, burned, beaten, broken, maimed. But this isn’t the same as fighting a monster for the sake of innocent lives, or a clean fair death in the Crucible, or even the dark dreams she means now. Ghost knows that all violence leaves marks, but all violence isn’t interchangeable.
“You catch much of that?” she asks, looking up at him direct now. Unsure how far away he was hiding.
“No.”
Another nod. Ghost studies her expression: relieved? She pushes to her feet, marches toward the diminished pile of armor nearby. The black parts make a scatter of sharper shadows in the snow. “You didn’t miss much. Steve and Nike?”
“They went back to the Tower a few minutes ago.” He’s known her from the moment of her raising. He’s never heard her say a fight wasn’t worth being there for. “Did you hurt her?”
“Didn’t get a chance. Tossed her around some, set off a steam explosion in proximity- not too close, I guess, I didn’t see any burns. She kinda went to pieces soon as we got up close.”
She unbelts her mark, folds it respectfully before setting it aside. Ghost stares at her back, his points twitching. “…And then she slashed your throat open?”
Blaze shrugs. “Well-“ She lifts the chest-piece, voice muffling a second as she pulls it over her head, “I guess ’having a breakdown’ and ‘violent’ aren’t mutually exclusive.” She stoops, twists round, pulling on greaves, rerebraces, cinching her pauldrons into place. Reassembling the Titan, albeit a little damper.
“Good news is,” she says, hunting down her gauntlets and boots, shaking snow off them, “she wants nothing to do with Steve. Might hassle him anyway, but he can handle himself.” Ghost relaxes a bit. It should be regrettable, another door closing on someone Steve used to care about. Someone who might have been a friend to him again. But after this… Steve has enough dangers to contend with.
There’s no going back to making cocoa and telling stories, a while yet before they have to meet Adia and Caspar. The lights and sounds of the Dawning celebration reflect down the street as they head for Blaze’s preferred bar a block away. It’s quiet, tonight. She steers past the mostly alien clientele to sit at the counter and orders one of the two things on the menu that she’ll drink. Ghost trails along after her.
Her order comes in a thick glass, the liquid inside glowing softly. Ghost doesn’t bother to scan it. Blaze has a few swallows, nurses both the drink and her buzz for a few minutes, deep in her thoughts.
“Are you okay, Ghost?”
His points twitch as he looks up, jolted out of his own ruminations. Where to start? How to give a shape to the things that claw at him? What has he a right to share?
He settles on the guilt. “…We brought Steve to the Tower together. Your decisions were mine, too. If people are angry, we both bear the responsibility, but you’re the one getting hurt.”
“Course I am. I’m your Guardian, remember? That’s what I do.” Her hand closes warm and protective over him, pulling him closer to her chest. “I take the lead, so I take the fire. And there’s no way in the multiverse I’d let you be her next target.” He can feel the warmth rolling gently from her, the fire within burning bright again. The steady whisper of telemetry signals from the sensors in her chestpiece…
“Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about sharing punishment,” Blaze is saying. Sitting on her thoughts has never suited her. Once she’s started talking through them they all come rolling out. “I don’t think that’s what that was, exactly. I mean, that’s what it sounded like. She got hurt and she wanted to knock my head, lay into me for it. Seemed fair to me. Hell, I thought maybe once I’d heard her out she’d even cool off and listen. And you know, I thought… I know what it’s like to be mad at something you can’t do anything about. Sometimes it feels like a fight is the only thing you can win. Even if it’s the wrong one.”
She knocks back the last of her drink, lifts the glass to request another with a frown. “But the way things went out there, none of it sits right. I know it’s Amelia, but that just wasn’t… hey, Ghost, what’s wrong?”
He’s moved away from her, folded in on himself and looking into space. It takes him a minute. “I pulled the audio telemetry from your armor.”
The armor. The armor left sitting ignored and nearby In the darkness as she chased Amelia through her wall of fire. “Oh. Shit. How much did it, uh-?”
“There’s… there’s enough.” The points of his shell are trembling. “The way she talks to you- and…” Blaze leans over him anxiously as he struggles with his words. To process it. To contain himself.
“She talks about Steve as if he’s not even a person.” He can hear his voice shaking. “As if he’s… some thing that belonged to her. She… she doesn’t even care what he would have wanted, or if he wants to find out where he comes from, or what he’s feeling! All… all she talks about is how she’s entitled to know about him. She- she never even asks if he wanted that. And she acts as- as if she’s the only one who- as if we didn’t care about him just as much!”
He shuts his stuttering outburst off, shuddering with a weight of unfamiliar emotion. He’s always the quiet one, the subtle one, the careful word to Blaze’s full-throated challenge. Her eyes don’t leave him as she sits back, lifting a hand for him to bump against for comfort. The barkeeper ventures close enough to set down her order, then beats a hasty slither elsewhere.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Blaze’s voice is rarely so soft. “Amelia wants him hidden away from her, but you’ve been there every single day, watching over him. Keeping it all in, never saying a word. Watching him be someone new.”
“We- we all have,” he points out, quiet with embarrassment. “You, and Thor…”
“Ain’t the same, though. He meant so much to us, but he and you… if you had any more of a connection I’d have been out of a job.” It’s the wrong time to joke, she sees that as soon as he flexes in alarm, and she closes her fingers over him with a low sound of reassurance.
“Hey, it’s okay, I’m kidding.” Mostly. “But if I’d gone first, and you survived… he’d have been the right choice, is all I’m trying to say.” There was a time not long ago when she was sure it would end that way, and if not for Steve… She strokes Ghost’s shell with her thumb, feeling his Light flutter against her palm even through the hardened mesh. “I can’t weigh what Amelia’s feeling; I don’t know her that way. But we both know she’s not the only one whose heart got broken.”
“…He was my second friend, ” he whispers finally, lost for the words to encapsulate all of what he’s feeling, the unspoken truth she’s finally called out.
“First one you didn’t dig up yourself,” she agrees- teasing a little, but it matters. The first friend not bound to him by shared destiny. She was still new when they met Steve. Much less sociable. No fireteam to run with, so new to patrolling populated zones or meeting anyone outside the Tower besides a fellow Guardian - or a hostile alien.
The memory crowds in on her readily: Ghost as he was then, a terminally shy presence at her side, focused so intently on his Guardian alone. He’s gotten quieter since the Fallen took him, quieter again since Steve died. But he’s never gone back to that.
“Kaolin, the others… they were kind. They were my friends because they were yours-” all that mattered to an anxious Ghost protective of their new Guardian, “but Steve made friends with me.”
“You made friends with him,” she points out, slugging her drink.
“...He saw me differently. Not just as your Ghost. Of course he didn’t really know what a Ghost was anyway, but…” She nods; he doesn’t need to explain it to her. “...When I found you, I wasn’t alone for the first time in centuries. You were the end of my Nightmare. But Steve… was something else. He was… special.” Utterly inadequate. Steve was something he doesn’t have the words for. Something he never tried to examine and now it’s too late. Now Steve is another man, one who has a Ghost and it’s not right to say anything, it’s not right to want to get close…
“He carried the Light,” Blaze says solemnly. She pulls her hand back and pokes Ghost gently, snapping him out of it. “Hey. Remember the picture? Get it out for a minute, would you?”
It’s tucked lovingly into the most secure compartment on their ship. Ghost pulls it into the air between them with the whisk of a transmat, and Blaze takes off a gauntlet to unfold it with care. It’s a page out of a sketchbook, pencil lines in a familiar hand. Ghost drifts close to study it with her. The drawing shows two people: a blonde woman in uniform, confident, direct, ready to go toe-to-toe with the world; and behind her, hand on her sleeve, a shorter man. He’s slightly built, half hidden by his companion, but there’s presence in his curious expression as he looks around them, the touch that could be asking reassurance as easily as lending guidance.
“…Steve was always real good at seeing people for who they were.” She can’t help the wry tone. He called this one better than he could have known. “Remember, the man who drew this isn’t gone as long as we honor his example. Keep his legacy alive. And we're gonna do that for him.”
“...Of course we will. We... made a promise.” He's trying to reassure himself. They never back down from their duty. At least… his Titan never would. He has to ask himself if he can really live up to the same. For now, Ghost huddles closer to her, away from the hollow ache he feels. Blaze shifts her arm, making a nook for him while she drinks and he absorbs himself in pencil lines and memories. A respite before the next battle.
He can’t help wondering how Steve would draw them now.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-07 01:42 am (UTC)"Of...of course." She steps aside and gestures to the spartan quarters. "Sit wherever you like if it suits you." She's been enough of a poor host for one night. "You...ought to be. We had several critical level threats in attendance." The angel drops her gaze to the floor. "My being there. In the Nexus. Poses a substantial risk."
no subject
Date: 2021-02-07 12:51 pm (UTC)She's listening, while she does, leaning forward with her arms on her knees. "There's a lot of potentially dangerous beings in the Nexus. I could probably stand to learn more about them, but-" This isn't the main point, wait. She studies Nike with a troubled frown, as if she could maybe figure out what's going through the angel's head from outside.
"Your being there?" Well, it took a whole minute, but she's lost. "Could you explain how?"
no subject
Date: 2021-02-07 02:33 pm (UTC)an ordera...request. That's something to latch on to.Something familiar that's well worth forcing herself to retrace her steps and get reluctant words out past her lips. The angel bows her head and summons her wings as if to make a point.
"I'm a demon. We both know that I am...different. From your mortal civilians, from the Guardians, from most species who frequent the Nexus." Facts. She can cling to the facts and strangle her emotions into order. Order is what she is. Order is neat and tidy and blissfully empty. Nike's voice steadies even as it loses its affectations. "I am from the lowest order of Justice dominion creatures. Thus it stands to reason that there should be others like me who are much more powerful, powerful enough to rival gods. Other creatures of Order. Or of Chaos."
"There are others. Not from my world but of a similar nature. Angels of the house of Order. Fallen from the house of Chaos. They are old and powerful in ways mankind cannot fathom. They have noticed me for what I am. I tried to hide, I tried to disengage but at every turn their curiosity over my being could not be swayed. They pretend to be on equal footing with people in the Nexus to suit their whimsy, but if anyone upset them they could wipe out everything in the Nexus. Perhaps not the place itself, but the people who frequent and call it home...certainly."
Facts are simpler than people. Nike can't keep hiding behind them for long though. She has to get to the part of why her actions endangered them but for just this moment she wants to be free from all senseless extraneous influx of data. Even if a jagged whisper creeps in and reminds her that this is Proof she'll never fit in among the people she's come to care so deeply for. That she's proving her wailing at Lucifer to be correct by sitting here hiding behind the mask of Order just to have a simple conversation.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-08 12:54 am (UTC)She hadn't really thought ahead to how many of them there might be, or what would happen if Nike encountered them.
"...The reports said something about a cabal of angel types- angelic? - in the Nexus. I saw a couple in the crowd, but you'd have a better read than us on their threat level. You think they're that powerful?" Her fingers drum restlessly on her knee plates, small sparks flying as she lines up the pieces. "And they've been setting sights on you?"
no subject
Date: 2021-02-08 04:38 pm (UTC)"One of them is..." Nike swallows. She's afraid to speak his name, as if it might summon him or draw one of his infinite eyes to this world. "He is very powerful. He claims nothing but peace to the Nexus but he cannot be trusted to honor this. Lucifer is....he does not understand mortals. He does not understand life on this scale. He does not understand a lack of power. I...should not have tried to reason with him. But I did. And he did not understand." Nike shakes her head.
"I tried to give him the respect his power demands but he insisted he did not want it. He actually asked me why I was afraid. As if he couldn't fathom why a mote of dust would fear being Seen by the sun itself. We are to....take his word that he wouldn't harm the people of the Nexus." Nike clutches at her own arms as tightly as she can.
"So I either play along with his whims or I risk everything in the Nexus by upsetting him."
no subject
Date: 2021-02-08 11:50 pm (UTC)She shuts up and listens, instead, attention held by Nike's building distress. And it's not a predicament she can instantly grasp, with a less visceral grasp of the cosmic power involved. With all the cavalier bravery of the immortal on her side.
But the quiet terror in Nike's voice, her description of helplessness in the face of overwhelming destruction, strikes at a shard of something deep within her and resonates, aches like long-buried shrapnel. And another part of her, bright and closer to the surface, responds without thinking to lean forward and close her hands on the angel's arms.
"Hey. Hey, the Nexus was still there when I left, so you must have handled it." There's a flicker of heat in her voice, a touch of the anger starting to smolder within. "Did he hurt you?"
no subject
Date: 2021-02-11 12:50 am (UTC)They supply the belief all such beings of the Collective Unconscious need to exist but still....
"I didn't...." She's caught off guard by the embrace. So similar to the one Lucifer had tried to wrap her up in. Given freely by the only person Nike has ever cared to impress. "I didn't handle it. I broke down and started crying." She hates herself with every fiber of her being to have to admit to that. "N...no. He does not wish to hurt me. I amuse him. He wishes me to be his companion." Even though Nike is terrified of him in turn. Lucifer cannot seem to understand why. "H...he embraced me and pitied me when I caused a scene."
no subject
Date: 2021-02-12 08:46 pm (UTC)She's not pulling Nike into her own arms, yet- she's been doing a lot of thinking on the angel's unwillingness to voice her own wants - but her careful grasp is warm and earnestly meant. An easier response to give than knowing what to say to Nike's self-recrimination. "It's okay, Nike. Everyone's got a breaking point. I don't even know what I would have done if..." How can she even compare it? "So this incredibly powerful, scary guy just shows up and decides he wants you to hang out with him. And... you don't feel like you can tell him to get lost."
That's not a question. Blaze knows by now that Nike is afraid to say no to her, and even with the contract between them, Blaze is far, far closer to the angel's level. She's glad to know Lucifer didn't actively try to hurt her friend, but the twisting feeling in her guts doesn't feel much better.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-13 01:53 pm (UTC)"I told him..." Nike takes a breath. "I told him it was irresponsible to pretend to be as mortals. That his whimsy nigh guaranteed no one would pay him the respect his kind deserve and all too often demand of mortals. But I know what he is. And I would treat him as he ought to be. He did not wish to hear it. Did not want to admit there was such...light years of differential in the power of himself over those he mingles with."
"I cannot be his friend. I am incapable of being powerful or important enough to ever be anything within a marginal estimate of an equal to him. And...what's more. I realized in chastising him that I was no better. For I too have strived to pretend to be mortal. To lie to the people around me. I fear I will never fit in the way I imagined I would."
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Date: 2021-02-15 12:18 am (UTC)"It's not the same," she says immediately. "You're not like that." Then, "Is that how you think of it? When you're joining in like one of us? Being part of the team?"
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Date: 2021-02-15 12:53 am (UTC)This time when Blaze's hands squeeze tighter Nike lifts her face once more. She's trying to regain her composure. Kill the emotions once more.
"I will never be a Guardian, Blaze." Her words are feather-soft. "Your Traveler will never find me worthy. I have to accept that." She wears their armor, uses their weapons. She can in fact do some of the things the Traveler's chosen can do in a slightly different way. Like them she can die over and over without long term damage so long as Blaze is unharmed. "I had...allowed myself to forget this. Until Steven was reborn. Until I saw for myself what it means to become a Guardian."
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Date: 2021-02-27 11:58 pm (UTC)She's starting to feel like she has a handle on what's upset the angel, but she's not prepared for Nike's words. Not prepared for how hard they hit. Nike has always been different to any of them, obviously. Different in ways it's taken Blaze a long while to fully appreciate. But she's always thought, if anything, that the strange nature and antics of her human associates (friends) was something the angel mostly just tolerated. Accepted without necessarily understanding. It didn't occur to her that Nike might envy any of it.
She's at a loss for what to say first - what comes out is: "But you don't need it. I mean- I know you're not of the Traveler, but you already carry your own Light. And I don't need the Traveler to tell me you're worthy."
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Date: 2021-03-13 02:57 pm (UTC)Dizziness washes over her. She feels unwell.
"I know it isn't necessary to be of use to you but..." But she had
wanted to bedone her best to be like the other Guardians. Prove she was worth keeping around even when Blaze did not think to summon her. "I...thank you. That is...kind of you to say."no subject
Date: 2021-03-13 08:32 pm (UTC)"It's only the truth, Nike." She needs to pull her thoughts straight. They keep throwing up conflicting impressions; fragments of thought about debts and demands and red sunlight through glass, the feel of tightness in her chest- irrelevant, unhelpful scraps scrunched up into one tangled ball of metal. Problems all running into each other.
She sits back a bit, letting go of Nike but propping her arms on her knees as she leans forward. Okay. One thought at a time. Drag out each piece and straighten it out.
"I guess it's... about time we talked about this. You did the right thing, trying to tell Lucifer what's what. The way I see it, it's like if the Traveler showed up in a human shape and told us to treat it like anyone else. I mean, I trust in the Traveler. Not everyone does, but I believe it'd try to treat us right. But it's not like us. It doesn't think like us or operate on our level. Doesn't follow our codes or laws. If I got in an argument with it, it could make the ground swallow me without even thinking. Wouldn't even be anyone in the galaxy who could hold it to account. And it ain't exactly fair to demand the weaker party pretend like that imbalance doesn't exist. Like it doesn't matter."
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Date: 2021-03-19 05:54 pm (UTC)"...Did I? But if it upsets him, even if it's the truth does it not put people in more danger? I...I was willing to lie if it would keep people safe. But I did not do it effectively." It's something of a relief to hear Blaze saying the things that she's been struggling to express so clearly.
That stuff about her being worthy, well. Nike's not sure how that makes her feel. In the moment it's one more strange buzzing sentiment she can't stop replaying in her head.
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Date: 2021-03-21 02:35 pm (UTC)She shifts where she's sitting, pulling back to rub at one antenna, gaze dropping for just a second. She ought to look Nike in the eye when she says this.
"Just like when someone's on the powerful end of an unequal contract, and they try to act like it's just a formality. When they don't get- when they don't think about how much power they have over the other person, so they expect they can just be a friend to them like anyone else. Truth is, they- I - have to face up to what it really means." She pauses, as if she's taking a deep breath. Maybe allowing Nike to, if she wants.
"So... we have to talk about our contract. I want to know if we can undo it. Make a new one - if you want to - on better terms."
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Date: 2021-03-21 11:39 pm (UTC)"It...you." Why is it so difficult for her to speak? "It can....be terminated." But through the leaden weight of her fear she latches on to that last bit. "I. I am proud to be your servant, Blaze." Don't leave, don't take this from her completely. But she struggles for the words to express the violent churn of emotion crashing over her in waves.
"I had thought....I..had a place here. A purpose."
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Date: 2021-03-22 09:58 pm (UTC)"But it doesn't have to be as a servant. I'd rather you stay as a team-mate. As an equal, whatever arrangement it'll take for that." She frowns at herself. "I mean- I don't know if I'm framing this right. I don't want to suggest you should do it, if you don't want to. But I want you to understand that I'd welcome it, if you do."
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Date: 2021-03-22 10:56 pm (UTC)"I do not know what that would even look like. What that would change....what it would mean." Nike admits in a voice so small it's nearly lost to the dormitory they're crowded in. "I do not think I am your equal. Were we to face each other..." She can't even imagine striking down Blaze. Though she can imagine with very certain clarity the titan breaking her.
Nike stars at the hand outstretched to her. When she reaches up it's to grip at the sides of Blaze's gauntlet with both of her own hands rather than giving the Exo hers.
"I fear as an equal all I would do is let you down. I am no Guardian."
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Date: 2021-03-28 11:09 am (UTC)She pauses, her eyes focused elsewhere for a moment as she takes in Nike's whispered fears and too many of her own memories cry out in echo. "I know it's... frightening, this kind of change. Better than almost anyone, I'd guess. It's terrifying, when you feel-" it all coming apart, shuttering into darkness, every thought falling away to horrific nothing" "like your only anchor's crumbling away. When you don't know what's going to be left of you on the other side." Her gaze flits over nothing; then she shudders a little, deliberately recalibrating.
"But. But sometimes- sometimes, when you choose it - when you have a purpose to hold to-" she reaches out half-consciously as she recalls the Forge, and a warm wind brushes over her fingers, "turns out it's a good kind of frightening. The kind that comes with being free suddenly."
She turns her hand in Nike's hesitant grasp, to touch the angel's fingers. Her glowing gaze is seeking Nike's again. "I don't know all of what it would change, either. Or who you'd become. But I think maybe you want to find out. So I want to help you."
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Date: 2021-03-30 10:52 pm (UTC)"I've already been freed, Blaze. You freed me from a life lived in constant fear, chained by my birthright to be nothing more than any of my kind."
And she is afraid of losing her place at the Exo's side. That someone else will replace Nike as the titan's faithful servant. But more than that...she's afraid of letting Blaze down after all of that.
"The contract can be broken." Nike hears herself say, even though the words feel ice cold in her throat. "I would stay to hear your renegotiation proposal."
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Date: 2021-04-04 10:12 pm (UTC)Some tension goes out of her armored shoulders, when Nike accepts her offer. Blaze nods quickly, her fingers curling over the angel's delicate hands and squeezing cautiously. "Great- then we can do it whenever you think you're ready. I figured you might want some time to think over what you'd want out of the deal. Any guarantees, things you'd want me to do for you. Or... not do."
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Date: 2021-04-05 08:30 pm (UTC)Her gaze sweeps over Blaze who is visibly relaxing. Watching her body language, watching her grip shift to squeeze Nike's own fingers and suffuse them with warmth. This result...pleases Blaze. This is what the titan wants. It's made her happy.
Nike has...made her...happy.
Even if she is afraid of what this change will bring, is it not worthwhile if it pleases Blaze? Seeing her mistress-no. Her fireteam leader--no, again. If they are not master and servant, what else is there? Seeing her...friend? Is that what they are? Nike has made her happy, whatever Blaze is to become to her. And that feeling still spreads warmth beneath Nike's skin as much as it ever did. It makes her stop trembling so much.
"I...won't know how to do any of that, Blaze. But I'll try."
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Date: 2021-04-05 09:33 pm (UTC)She gets up to leave, needing some space herself as much as she expects Nike will. "Try to get some rest, all right? It's been a long, strange night."
But she pauses in the doorway, looks back. "And Nike? Lord Saladin's next induction for the new Guardians is coming round at the end of next month. I expect to see you there, understood? Have a good night."