open | with the sound of my heart

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Madi, Lucien, Skull, and YOU!!
WHAT: catch-all
WHEN: mostly Satinalia and later
WHERE: Kirkwall and The Gallows
NOTES: post-murderhaus h/c is gonna go here

Comments

[murderbaby]

It's warmer than nothing. Mhavos allows it, despite normally being rather prickly about his personal space. He relaxes quite obviously when she hums the tune. "I'd dreamt it for years, but never well enough to remember it."

[sulahnan]

"That sounds infuriating," she says, dryly. Like not being able to remember a name that's right on the tip of your tongue.

[murderbaby]

"I learned not to think on it," Mhavos says, "I learned not to think on anything that didn't help me move forward. It's quite an empty life." He leans into her slightly, nudging her shoulder. "I don't recommend it."

[sulahnan]

She exaggerates the reaction to his nudge, trying for some levity, but it falls a bit wide of the mark. Much better is the silliness of her simply rubbing her arm against his where he's leaning to generate some warmth.

"I dunno that I can recommend the opposite, of course. Dwelling on things that move you backward. Seems like a bad idea."

[murderbaby]

Having grown without much positive physical contact, or memory of it, his attempts at the art are shaky and rare. Yet, in this moment, he knows what's expected, and he wants to live up to that. He puts an arm around Athessa's shoulder, awkward, maybe, but precise enough to carefully avoid agitating her wounds.

"Perhaps it's best to live in the moment? I know elves are expected to mourn ever for our lost glory, but I for myself am enough of a depressive without."

[sulahnan]

"Fuck glory," she says, leaning into his only slightly awkward side-hug. She's old hat enough at hugs and affection to be able to salvage it, resting her head on his shoulder. Somehow, this is managed without either of them jabbing any sharp joints into the other. "I just want peace. I think we have to find some kind of balance, living in the moment but still thinking about the future and learning from the past without it becoming a chain around our necks."

[murderbaby]

"That sounds like a dreadful lot of balancing," Mhavos acknowledges. He finds himself comfortable with their odd placement of limbs, despite himself. "I'm glad I'm not the only one doing it."

[sulahnan]

She scoffs, then sniffles, though that could be due to the cold just as easily as it could be from emotion.

"Seems you're better at doing it than me. You seem far less of a mess about everything. I tried to live in the moment for a long time and found I was just putting off dealing with everything I was trying to leave behind."

[murderbaby]

It shocks half a laugh from Mhavos. "Rest assured, Athessa, I wake daily cold with sweat in a beleaguered panic that I am..." A sigh. "Elsewhere. Perhaps I am doing the same as you once were. I don't know. Whatever direction I am going, I feel rather blind to it."

[sulahnan]

Elsewhere sounds all too familiar, the way that certain things take her back to the hell of Devigny's estate, the way Vanadi's eyes went vacant during their sparring match, or when she touched that scar across his throat. It makes sense that Mhavos has a similar experience, but all the same...it hurts to imagine him suffering like that on top of everything that just happened.

"I wish I could say something that'd make any of it better," or everything, but elves know better than to shoot for the moon. "I'm sorry for everything you've had to deal with just to be here, now."

[murderbaby]

"Do you know what makes me feel better?" Carefully, he pats her back, trying to warm them both. And then, of course, he recites a poem:

"Securely, after days
Unnumbered, I behold
Kings mourn that promised praise
Their cheating bards foretold.

Of earth-constructing Wars,
Of Princes passed in chains,
Of deeds out-shining stars,
No word or voice remains.

A smoke of sacrifice;
A chosen myrtle-wreath;
An harlot’s altered eyes;
A rage ‘gainst love or death;

Endure while Empires fall
And Gods for Gods make room...
Which greater God than all
Imposed the amazing doom?"

[sulahnan]

Athessa listens, trying to parse some meaning but only ultimately able to appreciate the cadence of the words, the sounds of them.

"It sounds nice," she says, to that effect. "But...I'm not sure I understand it."

[murderbaby]

"It's about... time passing, and what is remembered. When empires fall, and histories burn... people continue to live. Living is in itself worthwhile; it's self justifying." Something he tries to remind himself of, more and more often. "Or that's the meaning I choose to take, anyway."

[sulahnan]

She hums, thoughtful. "It's a good meaning."

She wishes she felt it. It's easy to tell someone else that living is worthwhile, that just being is enough. But turn it around and it's not so easy to tell herself the same thing.

After a few beats of silence, Athessa asks what she had assumed Mhavos would tell her, if he ever cared to.

"What happened to your mother?"

[murderbaby]

"Oh," Mhavos says, quietly surprised by the question, but not enough to really feel anything about it. He hasn't in decades. "She died in a purge with my father. I wasn't raised in an Alienage. A merchant found me and wrote up a service contract."

[sulahnan]

"How old were you?"

She doesn't even know who his parents were and she feels the loss. It takes effort for her not to feel things, even for people she doesn't know.

[murderbaby]

"Four," he says without weight or feeling. "And I was twenty-four when my contract was ripped up, making... two decades."

[sulahnan]

If you pause the video you can pinpoint the exact moment that Athessa's heart rips in half.

"It feels silly to say I'm sorry," she murmurs. It's true, too. What do you say to someone who has just revealed that they've only known a life of servitude? "Or to wish things had been different. It's not like we can change it now. But...you deserved better than that. Still do."

Another sniffle. "So...you were raised, what...by a master?"

That leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, just saying it. Gross.

[murderbaby]

"I didn't," he says, but doesn't dwell on it. Things are the way they are. He can't mourn it; the existence of the very world, its structure and rubric, cannot be mourned.

"A merchant family found me and needed someone to entertain and care for their young children. I learned to read by attending their lessons, which gave me more value, when my contract was sold to a noble house. And from thereon I worked to make myself more and more valuable."

[sulahnan]

She won't pity him. She won't do that to him. But she will clench her fist into the edge of the jacket draped over them and seethe for the injustice of expecting a child to care for other children, and likely suffer for any mistakes. For the injustice of making someone feel like they're only worth what someone will pay for them, their only value that of a contract in some human's hand.

"Is a clerk that valuable to them?"

[murderbaby]

"An elven clerk whose contract can be bought? Yes. Those need only be paid in food and lodging." A vague gesture of the hand, and so on. "I kept studying in my spare time, learned more ways to be useful, and things went on from there."

It's so easy to skip over the part where, once, his master called him to his room, and Mhavos, full of fear, was actually relieved when the matter only pertained to learning how to kill. The memory sits deep in his mind, not forgotten, but largely dormant.

[sulahnan]

Athessa is quiet, mulling over what Mhavos is saying, feeling indignant on his behalf for something bygone. She doesn't know what to say, if she should say anything at all, so she simply takes in more rootsmoke and offers him the joint in turn.

Maybe he'll keep talking. That would be better than anything she might say, surely. She puffs out a couple of smoke rings, then breathes out the rest into the shapes, ruining them.