a ray of light shone in my darkness

[bearshermark]

WHO: Eleven + various! YOU, if u want
WHEN: Late May
WHERE: The farm
WHAT: Catch-all for misc threads
WARNINGS: Violence, dark topics?

[ooc: prompts in comments. if you've got an idea for a thread outside of El's open thread that you think would work better here, go for it. If you'd like to work something out, pm or plurk!]

Comments

Alina

[bearshermark]

[The shock of discovery fades into crushing relief. Eleven sways with it, footsteps faltering as his chest swells, as it tightens his throat and catches in his breath. He veers away from the clean, warmer rooms they've fixed up in favor of an undisturbed space.

He trembles through delayed exhaustion, leans back against a wall only to slowly slump down the height of it. Hands clasped tightly together between knees and chest while his heart pounds a rapid rhythm beneath his fingers, through the unstained fabric of his coat and undershirt.

The tears come on the cusp of such relief, in heavy, wet breaths alongside the stinging twinge of fear that emerges in the wake of holding something fragile]

Archeval

[bearshermark]

He knows it's a mistake the second after he makes it, shifting to defend his core rather than spin out of the way of the oncoming blow, and it costs him.

Eleven lands hard on the ground, startled to breathlessness in shallow wheezes. Hunched over on the ground, his free hand forms a fist in the center of his chest.

"..Sorry," he manages, feeling monumentally foolish. Of all things, he'd panicked. He should know better. Even so, his fingers take conscious effort to unfurl. "Didn't.. mean to.. do that."

[darkeststars]

Archeval tries not to lean on the Force too much in their sparring matches, considering the whole point is to practice pure saber techniques rather than beat up his opponent, but sometimes reflexes and the way he's using his powers to hold up the metal blade get the better of him. He's looking startled, chagrined and perhaps a little worried right now as he lets the tip of Eleven's borrowed sword drop, not having meant to put so much power behind that strike -- it... it was him, right? He knocked over Eleven on accident from failing to hold back? That's the only thing that makes sense, anyway, normally El is more than match enough for Arche's own half-improvised technique when they're purely sparring...

He shifts his grip on the sword as he hurries over to the other's side.

"Did I-- get you in the chest...?" He's frowning down at the other young man for a moment, propping the tip of the sword against the ground as he bends to offer El a hand up. He's gotten a lot freer with this particular gesture lately.

"Don't know what you're apologizing for, things happen in a spar, just-- Are you injured?"

[bearshermark]

"No," Eleven assures, accepting the hand up and steadying himself. "It's my fault. I thought- it was.. stupid."

A waste of Archeval's worry, really. He knows what happened: that tiny, flickering light had sensed darkness, and perceiving threat, Eleven recoiled to protect it. He glances off, chagrined.

"..You should actually probably try to attack me here. I can't risk that becoming a habit."

[darkeststars]

"I should try to... what do you mean?" Arche's frown just deepens as he glances El up and down, hand on his hip, trying to make sense of what just happened.

"Are you saying I should go for the chest? Is that--"

For a second, he hesitates. If it were him, he wouldn't want somebody prying into something like this, but. Eleven's all but gone and brought it up himself--

"Are you talking about... the spot with the scar...? I haven't ever noticed you favor it before."

[bearshermark]

He colored, but neither did explaining the alternative to a person he considered a hard-won friend hold much appeal.

"Yes." He shifted. "And I haven't, or shouldn't. I'd never thought of it, before. But the power I thought I'd lost.. I found there's something there, now."

[darkeststars]

".....what, your... goddess?"

What is it that Eleven called it again? The 'spirit of the Luminary'? Hm. Apparently Archeval heard the word without properly registering it, at the time. He hadn't expected to find out that Eleven's life is, apparently, very much defined by it. He'd like to say something about the Force inside El having recovered from the previous attack against him, but Arche has become painfully aware lately that his own theories about where they are, and where all these people and their powers come from, may not be an adequate explanation for things--...

"...I thought you said you had that literally ripped out of you."

He scratches his chin for a moment with a thoughtful hum, trying to figure out what to make of this information.

"How did it -- get there? Did you do something? Or if something happened around here--..." He definitely doesn't trust any of the prevailing supernatural powers of this area, okay.

Hendrik

[bearshermark]

It was their turn to take watch for the night. Eleven dressed in his warmest clothes and settled his back against Hendrik's; relaxed, but ready to bring a sword swiftly to bear should it become necessary.

Not more than a few minutes into the quiet evening, he found a swift distaste for it. The voices whispering in the woods, calling to them, pleading for false aid, and managing to sound like every soul that had fallen with Yggdrasil.

They would be there for hours.

He swallowed and wracked his brain for something to occupy them with.

"..Cobblestone," he landed on finally, "I don't think that I ever- ever properly thanked you for saving them."

[unswervingcompanion]

This was much better and far more akin to what he was used to. He'd been wondering on and off as to why the Luminary seemed to view him differently, more at arms length as it had been right when...well before they had truly become companions and more importantly friends. But with the fire lit, he kept his eyes opened for danger as his axe and shield could appear out of nowhere with a swiftness if needs be.

The Luminary was his oath sworn charge and the knight would tear anyone apart that threatened him. But still, the arms length thing and that puzzled and confused him, having thought they were quite past that stage. They'd fought Mordegon and saved their world, but something had changed here and Hendrik's mind went back to it time and again with puzzle pieces that didn't seem to want to fit.

But finally the other broke the silence and he nodded, feeling guilty. "Your..where you were raised. They did not deserve to be put to death. They were fortunate Jasper listened to me."

He didn't even want to think what would've happened any other way. Jasper had been pretty intent on following King Carnelian's bloodthirsty orders but Hendrik only saw that their deaths would've been rather pointless.

"I apologize that I had not done more."

[bearshermark]

Eleven shifted with a short hum. He remembered months of quiet, buried terror, half-convinced that he may have brought about the deaths of everyone he'd loved. Finding them alive and well in the Last Bastion had been the weight he'd needed lifted from his shoulders enough to breathe and retain a will to fight after having lost everything else.

"You did plenty," he assured on a sigh. "More than Carnelian even knows. ..I don't think I could ever have forgiven Heliodor, otherwise."

[unswervingcompanion]

Hendrik shook his head as he had doubts that he did plenty. Yes he had their lives spared but he only began to feel a little bit better when the village had been rebuilt. He remembered boys prancing around and picking up wooden swords saying they were the Luminary and they would save the world.

And that was the only time a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. But of course the boy had his back to him and would never witness such a thing. "I informed his Majesty of what I had done only after we had been in Cobblestone." After Carnelian had recovered and seemed more at peace in a slight sense for his memories had been robbed and he was distraught over wanting to find Princess Jade.

The Luminary might've forgiven Heliodor, but Hendrik would have regrets forever. "We had not acted as we should have." So he tried to atone on and on, but wondered if he would ever truly make peace with Heliodor's role and his own even if he had acted on wrong information. His crimes seemed pretty unforgiveable in his own mind.

[bearshermark]

"No," he admitted, frowning.

The people of Cobblestone had done nothing to deserve their village burned or a lengthy imprisonment, but that wasn't a burden he could relieve anyone of. The blame for that rested with Mordegon's corruption.

"But you've done your best to make amends since. You were the hope people needed when I couldn't be. ..And that means more to me than even you could know."

[unswervingcompanion]

The knight was quiet, still blaming himself for not seeing what his master had become and for not seeing what his friend had turned into because maybe then his choices would've been different.

No, they most definitely would have been different.

He opened his mouth to say he did nothing but in the end he ended up closing it gently. The fact that the Luminary thought highly of him had his mind quietly reeling. So it took him a moment or six before he spoke again, this time in a lower tone.

"You had your own trials to face. Of that I am certain."

[weifinder]

Wei Wuxian is not well versed in certain kinds of easy interactions at this age, but he's been learning his way back toward them, courtesy of his rediscovered son and his nephew, so greatly wronged by the world. Which doesn't make him less awkward in the catacombs of his own mind when he finds Eleven in the wake of the burning, as the susurrations of wind through frozen limbs of nearby trees carries over their mutual silences.

Or the silence that falls when whatever prayers it is Eleven puts out into the world find a trailing end.

Grief over situations one could do nothing about is something he's familiar with, and pragmatic about these days; the personal griefs are ones he's still slowly dealing with, instead of shoving off to never examine again. It didn't, however, make him any good at offering solace to others, but it has reminded him there's importance in trying.

So when he does find Eleven as the funeral has wound down, he slings an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in for a side hug, partly to leave the young man easy room for escape.

"How are you holding up, ah?"

[bearshermark]

The gesture is an unexpectedly welcome one, and he lingers in it through the dull grief and hollowed uselessness that aches through both mind and soul.

"I'm okay," is the one lie Eleven finds himself making repeatedly, habitually, and he grimaces the moment it leaves his mouth. He's found it's what people need to hear when their own hope hangs by that very fragile thread, but Wei Wuxian is not a frightened Erdrean in need of an unflinching hero to believe in.

"..Not really," he admits after a moment, letting loose a sigh and relaxing into the partial hold. He's too worn to care if it seems childish to accept comfort; he needs it more than he'd known.

"I'd just.. really hoped we could help them. I hope they weren't frightened or in pain for long. I hope their souls have somewhere to rest."

He swallows, somber eyes lowering from the makeshift pyre to the frozen earth. "Then I wonder if my wishes or prayers mean anything, here."

[weifinder]

He waits out the lie, keeping his arm slung as it is, and after a moment gently prompts Eleven into a turn if he likes, where a half hug could become an actual embrace. He's more reminded of his brother's actions growing up, the kind of unfetteredness that could be that close, provide that comfort. Jiang Cheng was not so unlike Jiang Yanli in that way, for all his tongue was perpetually sharp, and he defended himself with anger, as his mother did.

Some of those hopes Eleven voices now are ones he has no answers for, and won't offer cheap reassurance over. For the rest, he can only be honest.

"They mean something as long as you give them meaning," he says. "Prayers will find their way. Souls sent properly to rest will rest, and while I don't know if this world ahs a reincarnation cycle, they'll be part of whatever whole they came from, one way or another."

In this he feels somewhat confident, having not yet detected any shattering of soul that would keep it from being able to join anything greater, or find life again, in whatever reincarnated form.

[bearshermark]

Eleven folds easily, turning into Wei Wuxian's hold and wrapping loose arms around the man. He takes in shuddering breathes, body weak where the rest of him feels vulnerable. But he's grateful beyond measure for the steady solace of quiet comfort and soft assurance.

In the moment, it feels as though he's failed everyone that's ever depended on him. He knows it isn't true, but no concrete examples of such spring to mind, leaving his failures to pile up uncontested in an insurmountable defeat. His shoulders slump beneath the weight of them.

"..I hope you're right," he mutters, the words muffled against fabric. Yet another hope- as tentative as the rest of them. "I just wish there was more I could do."

[weifinder]

Sizhui has reminded him of the shape of these things, and so his arms bend and he encloses Eleven in the kinds of hugs he'd been given as a much younger man. He even manages a less than awkward stroke of his hand over Eleven's head, borrowed from his shijie's remembered soothings, a woman slain two lifetimes too soon.

He can be steady, for Eleven's grief and horror and whatever else it is. One learns and grows. Feeling that is as natural as breathing in air.

"I think most of us have felt that way," he says, weighing how to say, or what to say. His words at times like these tend to veer too honest, even when he tempers them. "For the times when we're helpless, through no fault of our own. It doesn't mean we stop trying, or stop caring. Learning what our limits are, and how to push past them, is part of growing up. Even old as I am," he says, as if he's ever stated his age, "You're still growing."

It was a roundabout way to say life sucks, shit happens, and you learn from it or die trying to pretend nothing ever went astray, but it did sound better to say that way than directly.

"The best thing to remember is not to try and take these things on alone."

[bearshermark]

It feels like counter-intuitive advice. He's been relying on other people for most of his life, has even been sure at times, he's more burden than boon- that maybe what he needs to do is find what it is he can do on his own.

But he isn't so stupid as to try in an unknown world or one covered by darkness.

The title he's struggled under feels so far out of reach, laden with promises he's already failed or may never live up to. Not to mention he's failing his own expectations of himself. But he can feel the shape of the answer there, given form by Wei Wuxian's insight, coaxed to honesty by gentle hands. He'd known better than to make promises he wasn't sure he could keep to the miners- had only ever said they were trying. But the promises he'd made to himself were different.

"..I thought I could do it," he confesses, eyes closing. "I'm Yggdrasil's- She's Light and Life. If anyone should be able to.. but I can't, as I am now. Maybe, someday.."

after the conversation with the miners

[paperbutterflies]

Sizhui is upset by what has been revealed, but he is way too used to having other juniors around him to lose himself to it. Rather, he keeps an eye on the rather shocked younger boy and, once they are outside, stops.

Tears are streaming down his own face, but he ignores them to step in front of Eleven.

"Come. I'll make us some warm tea."

This ... all of this leaves one cold from the inside. Tea doesn't solve anything, and, yet.

[bearshermark]

Eleven is shaken, but he's had time enough to regain himself that the clammy trembling and dizziness had mostly abated. His hands are still unsteady and his strength questionable, but he's no longer fighting the urge to be ill.

If Sizhui were a friend he'd known, he may well have hugged him. The man's voice remains admirably steady despite the tears running down his face. But they aren't friends- yet- and so he can't know how the gesture would be received. What he does know is that he doesn't want to be alone, not with half-panicked thoughts and doubts still plaguing him.

"Yes," he agrees without hesitation, swallowing heavily. "That sounds nice, thank you."

Eleven sweeps a hand through a gesture indicating that he'll follow wherever Sizhui wants to lead. "..I'm sorry I wasn't much help, after."

All he'd been able to do was offer apologies and quietly try to reassure through his own uncertainty.

"I'm grateful you were there."

[paperbutterflies]

Sizhui is not unfond of hugs, though he has grown where those are rare and reserved for very special occasions - not in the least because of the fact for the first three years of his stay in the Cloud Recesses, Hanguang-jun had been recovering, and touching his back was not a kind thing. Not that Hanguang-jun is very fond of being touched in the first place...

But Sizhui had been a child, and in many ways an exception.

So while a hug would have been good, he can very well manage without - and probably will not think to offer it quite yet. Tea and company, and perhaps music, those are what he will begin with for comfort.

"I am glad you were there, too. It - facing that alone, any of it, would be too much. And do not worry about being help - that you wanted to be with me and try to find a way out for them, that is enough." He shrugs very slightly. "I have had some encounters with... dealing with those who should be dead and at peace, and how they affect those who are left behind.

"It does not make it easier."

He is just explaining why he wasn't as profoundly sickened.

[bearshermark]

Eleven takes some comfort and strength from that- that his presence had at least been some help even after his mind and body had begun to rebel against him. He breathes a shuddering sigh and nods.

"I can't imagine it does." His own experiences with such things are limited to long-dead souls in need of a simple, more impersonal service.

His stomach churns, uncertainty spiking once more over wayward thoughts. "Erik..."

Eleven swallows down a wave of prickling nerves. "I- one of my best friends is named Erik. Blue eyes, like they said. Since Ery awoke there.."

[paperbutterflies]

"... oh."

Sizhui considers this carefully.

"I don't think they would have failed to mention if the person is new to their group. But if you want... they said he was out there where the skirmish was. We could go look."

[bearshermark]

It's unlikely that it's the same person; he knows that, and suspects Sizhui is entirely correct in that assumption. It probably isn't, but.. he can't be sure.

"If you don't mind," he manages after a moment, fingers taking up their trembling again as he fidgets with his baldric, because if they're wrong and it is Erik..

"No matter who it is, we could at least make sure he isn't eaten by wolves."