from everything to nothing just like that.

[airily]

Who: Zaveid and Eizen
Broadcast: N/A
Action: On the Blameless
When: After the shuffle

[ He's spoken to Sorey. He's spoken to Mikleo. He's hidden away and tried to face all of this by himself, to pretend as though it's not happening - but it's not that simple. It's not like he can just shrug it all off and let himself act as though he's okay, because he knows he's not. Nothing is going to be okay because Eizen is here and the very last thing Zaveid can remember is seeing him fall and die, hearing the death rattling roar of a dragon as it's life left him.

You did the right thing, Sorey. Don't be so hard on yourself.

Don't worry, I'm sure he's satisfied with the outcome.

It was easy to say it when the decades were finally over and there was nothing but peace. It's harder with reality bearing down on him like a lead weight. He has to force himself to shrug it off, had to force himself to breathe and try to come to terms with it all; he had to go and deal with this. He had to go and face Eizen. He needs to... Push forward, through the pain and the hurt. Through the losses of Dezel, of Mikleo, of Eizen, all of whom have come back to him. ]

I'm coming.

[ It's easy to find out what ship he'd ended up on and Zaveid is used to the shuttles now. It's less easy to step over the threshold, to direct it, to get off, to walk... It feels like there's a weight in his shoes, and he stops, waiting in the shuttle bay, crossing his arms and tilting his head up to stare at the metal above him. The air is almost oppressive here and it makes him feel disgusting, suffocating but... He has to do this.

He has to try. ]

Comments

[rockily]

[ Eizen didn't expect the message, he was certain he wasn't going to hear from Zaveid at all after a week of nothing but silence. The seraph was avoiding him for some reason or another, ignoring his presence while seeing to Velvet's. It bothered him, more than it should have, even as he learned of the amount of time that had passed since Artorius' defeat.

A thousand years.

He didn't survive it, did he? Not as himself, not as the first mate of Van Aifread's pirates, not as a friend to the Lord of Calamity, not as Edna's loving brother. He couldn't have, there is no way, though somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind he hoped there could be. Something that might save him, spare him the horrors of becoming a dragon, of losing his mind to malevolence.

It'd make sense but he couldn't think about it now, not with other pressing matters sitting on the forefront of his mind. The Shepherd, Edna, pacts, everything they told him coursed through his head like some sort of deadly storm. He needed something, some sort of confirmation, a compass to navigate the storm, it's why he messaged Zaveid in the first place.

Eizen finds him in the shuttle bay different from what he remembers him and for a moment is at a loss as what to say. The years feel almost tangible looking at him now, centuries taking on his form. He stops a safe distance away, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking over the other man. He barely looks like the young malak who had once gotten under his skin, who he had chased across an entire field just for the chance to wipe that stupid grin off his face and find out what he knew about Aifread. ]

Zaveid.