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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    he don't look a thing like jesus, agetta
    #1

    He walks, primarily because he can.
    He feels no fatigue, the muscles do not cry out with want for rest.
    The chest does not heave with labored breath because he does not draw breath.
    And the unbearable weight has been lifted.

    He thinks of his sister still, but he no longer feels suffocated by the guilt of it. The pain is gone, replaced instead by the cold fist of ice in its ribbed cage. And perhaps this is worse, the fact that he longer feels anything at all. His sense of touch has been dulled so much that he almost does not register it at all and the emotions have stalled, too. The heart does not cry out in agony. Or love. Or anger. These things cannot penetrate the thick shield of ice closed around it now.

    So, he patrols the border. Not because he needs to but because it satisfies his need to move. He feels no overwhelming urge to leave Pangea now. Not now that he has been reunited with Anaxarete, not now that she has given birth to their two children (the heart does not even yearn for their first daughter, somewhere out in the world maybe, or perhaps dead), not now that he feels as if he has something to escape.

    It is in his wandering that he stumbles upon her, quite by accident. He’d thought about returning to the meadow because it had been the last place he’d seen her. He’d thought about going there to tell her that he was no longer in pain and that she need not worry about him. But he’d never quite gotten around to it, perpetually distracted by other things. Sometimes things as simple as his perpetual motion.

    He sees her now and registers her as a friend but the heart does not stir and he does not smile. There is no longer a faint glint of warmth in his eye when he approaches her. “Agetta,” he says by way of greeting, tilting his head as he studies her. Had he known that she was here? “I didn’t realize you’d made Pangea your home, too.” He smiles then, but it is something automatic. It is not malicious, certainly, but there is something insincere about it.

    i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
    i worshiped at the altar of losing everything
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    #2

    She’s lost in thought when he finds her and Agetta welcomes the distraction. The smile that chases away her cloudy expression is followed by a little too-cheerful “Kensley!” She hears the over-enthusiasm as soon as it comes out and just barely covers up a scowl at herself. She was very happy to see him, of course.

    Probably just as happy as she was to not be alone with her thoughts any more.

    Her enthusiasm waivers when she registers the clinical manner that he looks at her with and her expression furrows a little with concern. A smile from him finally appears, but it does little to add any warmth to him and thus does little to ease her worry. But she replies, to his query - finding warmer grin by way of her family as always. “Just within the last year - I was pregnant when I met Ana and she offered my family a place to live. One of my daughters has magic and has been enjoying her lessons here.” She does not know for sure that Anaxarete is the magician friend he had spoken of - but his presence here makes her wonder it now.

    Instead of asking though, she gives him a soft smile - giving into the waves of concern tugging at her. It is far better to focus on him than herself. “How are you? You seem to be doing… better?” It’s a question, not a statement and her hesitation on the last word is obvious. Although there is a smile on his face, and though the absolute soul-wrenching sadness seems to be gone, she misses the warmth in his eyes when they had first met - when they had both been ghosts in theory only.

    Agetta


    @[kensley]
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    #3

    She knows Ana. He wonders, in some abstract way, if she has always known Ana.
    He listens, quite intently, though the expression doesn’t change. He thinks the white child must be her daughter. “Beyza,” he says, a matter of recognition and so little else. And were he still weak, crippled beneath the unbearable weight of all the things he’d done, he might have yearned for the simplicity of their first meeting, the precious little warmth he’d felt in his smile. But he is no longer weak and he is not moved to regret, not yet.

    He tilts his head at her appraisal, glances down as if he might see through the chest to the stagnant thing beneath. When he looks up again, the mouth has twisted itself into something like a smirk. Something that suggests he knows something secret. It is not malicious, no, because he knows that she is his friend. And even without a beating heart he knows that he was fond of her once. Perhaps he still is.

    Different,” he says without inflection. Here, he might have drawn a breath, held it hard and fast just to feel the lungs spasm. But he merely goes on looking at her, blinks occasionally – more out of habit than any real necessity. “I don’t know if ‘better’ is the right word.” He rolls a shoulder then, turns his focus to the horizon. “Relieved,” he murmurs and then nods. This is the perfect word to describe it.

    You were right,” he continues and then drags his focus back to her face. “She was happy to help. I should have asked a long time ago.

    i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
    i worshiped at the altar of losing everything
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