driftfleet | huntress mingle

[They had a few new people, and Keith was trying really hard to be okay with that. But it was stupidly hard to do that when he was feeling insanely less than social. He was coming to realize that it was definitely going to take some time to deal with the repercussions of what he'd almost done during his time back home (had he been back home? he still wasn't sure) and how things had changed for him in regards to the team and Voltron, but he was at least trying, right?

He'd be around the lounge, in his room, on the bridge at the pilot's station, or in the cargo bay with the punching bag.]

[Pete was trying his best to be social, but it definitely had mixed results. While he might make an effort to chat up anyone he came across- he had yet to get to know most of them after all, to say nothing of any visitors- he had a bad habit of secluding himself away in the lab. A self-replenishing laboratory to play with was kind of his dream come true, even if the variety to those unlimited supplies was much more limited in nature. Overall, he's taking to his assigned role pretty well! He even enjoys it!

Things he's not taking to well: the food. He kind of struggles to force it down, and every so often someone might find him using some of his allotted protein meals for various experiments in the lab. He also has yet to leave the ship to get himself a proper pair of shoes. Someone make this dweeb get his life in order already.]

[ooc: Other wild-card like scenarios are also fine! He's an inquisitive kid and kind of loves the hell out of science and space in general, so it's also a given he'll be exploring everywhere and inspecting all the things because GUYS YOU'RE IN SPACE DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW COOL THAT IS?????]

[Lately, the Blameless has been rather boring and lame and she hates it. So, Edna spends more time on the Huntress than on her ship or the Iskaulit.

SHE IS NOT LONELY!

But...most of her friends are here. So, this is where Edna is.

On this ship, reading the pathetic books in the main room, visible or not. She has given up caring now. So, Peter, enjoy the floating book right there.]

[ Zaveid has never been much of a social person, and that doesn't change even with the newcomers to the fleet. Sure, he's friendly enough, but he doesn't go out of his way to go and chatter to humans in the same way that Sorey might; he doesn't need to eat, but he does wander around and snack sometimes, hovering here and there and generally making a nuisance out of himself and possibility irritating anyone who can see him. Someone has to do it, and with his pain from losing Dezel still rocking him... Well. He has to do something to keep his mind off it.

It's when the Christmas presents come that everything changes. The last gift he's had from home hasn't exactly been amazing - painful, to say the least, and he's glad he was able to pass it on to Eizen - and he takes the box and slips away with it, not quite daring to open it in public. Just in case.

He's glad he didn't.

When he opens the box the entire room seems to explode with gust and air, whipping around him as he slips into something a little less controlled, his heart racing in his chest. He puts it to one side and slips away, trying to calm his emotions - and anyone nearby, if they can see him or not, will definitely be aware of the wind that thrums through the room. It's only his concern for his plants and flowers that stops him from losing complete control and, instead, he makes his way to a wall and he punches it.

Zaveid keeps punching until it hurts, until something physical balances out the mental, punching and punching until he's sure that if he was human his bones would be mangled and shattered, breaking under the weight of his own strength. As it is they're sore and bruising, and he doesn't care. He feels sick and nauseous, shaking as he drops down to his knees, breathing out with his hair a tangled mass around him. He's close to losing it, to throwing up the scraps of food that he has eaten in the last few days, and he hates it. He's meant to be a seraphim, he's not meant to feel so human like this -

For the next few days he sits in a corner of his room, for the most part, staring at the dents in the wall where his hands had been. The box sits in the middle where he had opened it, one side of the lid flipped open, but the contents are hidden by a little bit of bright green paper, smelling of flowers and something soft and feminine. He wants to curl up with it, but he's afraid if he does the smell will disappear, so instead he sits and breathes it on the wind, pretending as though he isn't still crying. ]

[ After Dezel's loss he made a conscious effort to visit the Huntress more often, in part to keep an eye on Zaveid but Mikleo and Sorey as well. The blow surged something protective in him, an instinct that had always been there but now sat at the forefront more than ever before. It was why he was there the day the presents arrived, when the surge of wild wind pulls at his senses that makes his brow furrow.

Something is wrong.

Eizen is there, at Zaveid's room, before he had a moment to think on it, the thuds of flesh hitting metal resonating in his bones. He doesn't knock, he doesn't announce himself, pushing his way into the room and closing the door hard behind him. It's worse in there, the wind that rips through the room a perfect reflection of Zaveid's emotions. It's sharp against his skin, coat whipping around wildly, Eizen ignores it. ]

Zaveid.

[ There is no hesitation in his movements, in the way he crosses the floor until he is beside the other seraph, shielding him with his form. The other man is a mess, falling to pieces in a way he hasn't seen in hundreds of years, not since - Eizen looks over at the box, dread curling deep in his stomach. Shit.

Hands reach out grabbing shoulders to turn him from the wall, grip tight, grounding. ]

Hey, idiot. Cut it out before you hurt yourself.

Edited 2017-12-20 22:36 (UTC)

[ Zaveid keeps punching; he keeps slamming his fists into the wall, pushing himself harder and harder even as the wind curls around him. It's comforting, something for his mind to focus on, each slam of pain getting worse and worse the more he repeats. It's easier to focus on that, on the way his fingers burn and his knuckles ache, than it is to think about the box sitting in the middle of his room, innocent and plain, as if it hadn't turned his world upside down.

He barely notices Eizen come in, doesn't really pick up on his voice until there are hands grabbing at him. It's an anchor, something real, and the nausea prickles at him all over again. He twists, tugging even now, trying to get away, to get back to the methodical punch, punch, punch, something familiar to help him overcome the weight of his own emotions and hurt. He doesn't want Eizen to see him like this, doesn't want him to recognise his grief, but there's no undoing it. There's no going back when he feels as though he's falling apart.

They've been like this before. On a cliff edge, a dragon's dying cry echoing around them, a whisper of true names coming between them. Eizen was a rock, stalwart and strong, standing in the face of Zaveid's pain and rage and shouldering it all to free him. Here, again, he does it, over and over and over, and Zaveid knows how undeserving he is, how unworthy he is of such kindness, of such tenderness, of such warmth from someone he had shunned and ignored for so many months. He doesn't deserve anything Eizen gives him, but he drinks it in all the same.

Everything hurts, from his heart to his hands, and the noise he makes is mournful and broken. ]

Maybe that's what I was goin' for.

[ Voice a whisper, Zaveid lets his shaking arms drop down, lets Eizen move and manipulate him. The wind calms, a little, gusts brushing through their hair even as he shakes, trying to swallow it all back down. His eyes sting and his throat is sore and he wants to scream, but Eizen's grip on him is too tight, too secure, too real. ]

It's better that way.

[ He didn't need to look to know what is inside that box, what could make Zaveid fall apart like this, to sink back down into a despair hundreds of years old. A pain that never healed, because Zaveid never let those wounds heal, no matter how many years passed he carried them instead. Theodora, Silva, Dezel, Eizen himself. Each of them still sat there, wounds on his heart and his soul.

All Eizen can do is what he has always done, what he did on that cliff with the dragon's roar filling the air; wind and claw ripping at his skin, eyes burning deep into his back as Eizen struck Theodora down. He saved him once, freed him from a curse worse than his own, he'll save him again. ]

No, it isn't. You're going to make the others worry.

[ Forcefully he takes hold of Zaveid's hands, his grip like iron, the familiar glow of an arte surrounding them. It curls up from the pattern on beneath them, winding up and across Eizen's body before coalescing at their joined hands. The are is warm, reaching out to the pain in Zaveid's hands and soothing it, mending any cracks or tears to the other seraph. A warm gust of air that travels across their skin, carrying Eizen's earthy scent amongst the gusts of Zaveid's pain.

It's not much, a balm for the physical hurts, but there is no arte that can heal the heart.

Even after the glow subsides an his arte disperses, Eizen keeps hold on him, expression furrowed as the knuckles inside his gloves start to lose their color. ]

You know it isn't.

[ Sometimes, Zaveid thinks about how he had been, back then, chasing after a dragon and trying to protect it, protect the memory of the person he had known, and he thinks about how much he really hadn't changed over centuries of time. He had done the same thing for Eizen in the end, chasing him around, waiting until the very last moment of sanity and clarity had faded away. He pushed and pushed until there was nothing left, and it's a winding circle that he's been trapped in time and time again.

Eizen reaches for him and Zaveid doesn't know how to reach back. He's scared, afraid that if he lets go he's going to crumble and fall apart, give into the urge to break into pieces. He doesn't want to shatter in the way he had in front of Sorey all those months before, but at the same time... It's there, on the edge, one more step, one more nudge being enough to push him over, to break him and leave him desperate and needing to be put back together again. ]

They're always worrying.

[ Not that they don't have reason to when he acts like this. He barely pays attention when Eizen's hands go to his and the soft pulse of warm arte covers his fingers; Quickness, he recognises it, uses it himself these days. It's a memory, an aching reminder, and when he breathes in air he doesn't need all he can smell is Eizen, earthy and real and solid, the gentleness of his touch a balm to the broken whirlwind of the tempestuous spirit that Zaveid knows he is.

He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve the kindness from someone he had been so cruel to for so long. Zaveid wants to cry all over again, but he pushes himself back into some kind of stronger state. He has to try. He has to. ]

I can't do it. I can't deal with it, Eizen, not again. Not anymore.

[ Even with all the years that separate them now Zaveid hasn't completely changed, part of the foolish malak he had spent so much time chasing down still remains. Broken, perhaps, in more pieces than he used to be, but there all the same. It's what breaks Eizen's heart, knowing despite saving him that day on the cliff, he fell back into the circle once again.

He never wanted Zaveid to punish himself for Eizen like he had with Theodora, then again he never wanted to get so attached that parting felt worse than the malevolence that surrounded him. He never wanted any of it, but he holds no regrets.

Eizen exhales a noise that is lost in the gust, features softening at the cracks forming in Zaveid's face. Those tiny things he learned how to read a long time ago. It only confirms his suspicions, stomach sinking as he spares a glance to the box in the center of the room.

Again, he says. I can't deal with it, Eizen, not again. Theodora, it has to be. Few things could tear him apart like this, few things affected as much as his former lover's loss of form and mind. He spent so much time, months, weeks, maybe even years, trying to protect that dragon even as she lashed out at him in rage. Eizen can remember the sound of Zaveid's pleas, begging him not to hurt her, not to kill her. ]

I know.

[ Fingers squeeze Zaveid's hands, gaze returning to the other seraph. ]

You don't have to. What do you want me to do?

[ With it, with him. ]

[ Time had been cruel to Zaveid and he's aware of it, all the mistakes and bad choices he'd made leading him up to one brutal, painful moment. It slams into him and makes him feel as though he is shattering, breaking, the urge to slump down and forward into Eizen's arms almost too much for him. He wants to feel safe again, wants to feel as though he's put together, somehow, without needing to rely on Sorey or Mikleo - he's sick of hurting them, just as much as he's sick of being hurt himself, of the pieces of his mind falling away one by one.

It won't be long, he'd told Sorey. He had been afraid, terrified of his own malevolence, and here, in a moment like this... He's reminded. It won't be long, can't be long, until his time comes, until he runs short. Maybe the only thing keeping him together these days is having Sorey as a vessel to keep him safe.

Jaw clenched tight, Zaveid swallows, forces himself to breathe, to try and find some calm, to summon whatever strength he has to push himself back into one solid being, to take control of himself and his powers. The wind dies down, slowly, into gentle breezes that push against their hair and skin, and he lets himself tilt his head, glancing up at Eizen as if he has all the answers, as if, somehow, he'll magically make this all better. ]

Someone's really got a grudge against me, huh.

[ The coat, the gun, Dezel and now this, bringing all the sharp, painful points of his life together over and over again. He turns his head to glance at the box but feels the nausea prickle at him again, churning in his stomach, and he has to turn away, eyes closing as he shakes his head. His hair is as short as it had been when he was younger, still growing back, and he wonders...

Does it make Eizen remember, too? ]

I dunno. I - I can't... I don't know what to do with any of it.

[ Horns. Scales. Body parts. Parts of Theodora's corpse. ]

It's just gonna be there.

OTA

OTA

no subject

ota

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