aeschyluus

[aeschyluus]

CLOAK AND DAGGER.

ordelion:

This meet-up was becoming more populated than she anticipated. She shifted her weight between her feet slowly, her cloak tightly bound around her body to keep her warm as a chill breeze sailed past. Even with the knightly brooch and Rhea’s supposed seal of approval, she couldn’t help but feel as if this man was suspicious. His soured, pale looks, which so reminded her of the demons who taunted her in days long past, did little to improve her opinion. As the red-haired student interrogated Aeschylus, he spoke to them in a few threadbare scares that only confused Lysithea rather than phase her - that there was to be “dangers unknown to your kind” and “much he must not speak of” - along with something more concrete. He showed them the path they were to take on a strange map, which seemed to go almost directly opposite the direction of her home in Ordelia. She was disquieted, and her accusations, loosely draped as questions, began as soon as Aeschylus stopped speaking. “’Our kind’? Should we take that to mean that you are not, in fact, human, or that you hail from outside Fodlan? If so, I must tell you that your map is either outdated or incorrect. And why must we be so secretive about this mission, if we must prepare for so great a threat as you say? Are you asking us to do something against policy? Or are you merely so paranoid that you can hardly stand to tell us little pawns your own name?” No matter Aeschylus’ answer, it felt a little cathartic to be able to formulate all of her frustrations into barbs. Interrupting her little rant came a head of a house, Dimitri himself, whom Lysithea was pleased to be able to recognize. Aeschylus would be a fool to harm them with such a renowned individual around, even with the chaos of the Academy’s various tasks as it is now. As well followed a man she was sure was faculty, who Lysithea initially thought could shed some light on this man’s credibility. He was as confused as the rest of them, however, which did not inspire her with confidence nor trust. Their presence was enough to keep Lysithea from going too far off the rails, thankfully, and she tempered herself and her questions. “Even if you are not so inclined to answer me, Aeschylus, at the very least tell us what sort of threat we are to expect. If only because we must prepare differently for a foe of a certain kind- if it be monsters, we will prepare with arms and armor, and if it be a long trek, we will prepare with provisions and proper clothing.” -> @aeschyluus

One by one, the group grew larger, and Aeschylus nodded to each in turn until he was struck by an unspoken sensation that left his gaze fixed on the face of the student from the Kingdom through which they would be traveling. The silent appraisal went on until another spoke up to question the dangers he had chosen not to name, and he turned away to roll the old map up and return it to his breast pocket. Once more the little one threw daggers with her tongue, and this time Aeschylus responded with a questioning tilt of his head.

"The choice to decline my request is in your hands. Pawns, in my experience, have no such luxury," he answered in his even monotony.

He looked thoughtfully to the rest of the gathering, admiring the range of expressions across each face. They still stood before him, curious despite their trepidation, and willing to hear him out. It was enough to leave him speechless for a moment longer. They wanted answers though.

"The weather poses one danger, though you--" A glance toward Dimitri. "--are more familiar with it than I. Navigation is another, as I know the route only by the ink of a map." Another toward Lysithea. "You are creatures of the light whose feet are molded for the surface of the world. These dangers are not so dangerous to you. But the earth conceals much, and there are eyes where the light does not reach." And last he turned to Fernand. "Confirm for me, Knight: the Church of Seiros has confiscated a number of unusual technologies in recent moons. It is my understanding that you have seen so yourself." Then, to the rest of the group: "Fearsome though they are, these have been but prototypes. Where we go, you will see that these are mere toys by comparison."

@eideslanze @elegiac-boar @vermilique​ @ordelion​

[aeschyluus]

The surface-dwellers were a talkative kind, a fact that Aeschylus felt instinctively more than he could rationalize by his limited interactions with them. Nevertheless, he had braced himself for their many questions; they had agreed to his vague proposal far too quickly for the rest of his preparations to continue undisturbed. Gathering them had been too easy, and things were never easy.

There had been one with a penetrating eye he thought had lingered on his face longer than the others had stared, and the questions unspoken had been nearly palpable in the air between them. But she also seemed to understand the furtive nature of what he asked, and for that he was satisfied. When he turns to find her at the mouth of the shadowed alleyway, its with an expectant lift of his chin. The corner of his mouth twitches at the sound of the title before his name, but otherwise his expression remains unreadable behind a curtain of darkness as she says what she had been keeping under her tongue since their initial meeting.

“There is much that I must not speak,” he answers after the assurance of a beat of silence. His voice is soft - perhaps from disuse - and neutral in its monotony. The addition of another of the students he had selected merely turns his head in her direction. A brief nod of acknowledgment and he continues undeterred by the barbs on her accusation.

“I offer you my name and little else. It is Aeschylus, as you know. Adhered to it is a risk, but it is truth, and truth is valuable.”

He lifts a gloved hand to a breast pocket, unbuttons the flap over the top, and withdraws a small scroll. Unfurling it, he holds it out for the other two to see a map of Fodlan. However, it looks different than those they might have seen in classrooms or even in their own palaces, with monuments and tributaries inked in where none exist.

“We make our trek into the western reaches of the northland.” He traces a line to a forest a student of Fodlan’s history would recognize as the border between the Kingdom and the Empire, though no name denotes it. “Faerghus. There will be dangers unknown to your kind. I advise you to be well-prepared before we depart. But do so in secret.”

CLOAK AND DAGGER. — ♡

          ❝ good, you’re still here. ❞ for his sake, she’d taken pains to cover up a bit too — no glasses like the curious ones he wore, but a cloak of her own, tying back her hair beneath the hood to hopefully keep anyone from recognizing the telltale scarlet. she was curious, yes, but could respect that this was likely more than just a back-alley hustle of the sort he made it look like. no, more than curious, in fact. being fully prepared meant knowing everything it was possible to know ahead of time, certainly more than a hasty order to meet him at the gates when she was ready to depart.

          the shadows of the alley, though a stone’s throw away from the bustling streets of the marketplace, are well-concealed, if today in part by the sheer volume of crowds moving through, making their own supply trips. it was so packed, some bystanders in an alley would hardly warrant a second glance. ❝ i know that you might not be able to explain everything, but any information you can give could be the difference between whether we come back alive or not. sir aeschylus, right? please, at least who you are, where you’re leading us, and any idea of what might be waiting. ❞

      ♡   //    @aeschyluus, @ordelion, @elegiac-boar, & @eideslanze

[aeschyluus]

liminal

houseofreglay​:

What it had yet to let him say was instead written into the still lines of the exposed, bottom half of the stranger’s face as he set eyes upon the page… And the significance of the recognition that came with those crude lines spoke volumes in their place.

Reset. Resume. The stranger continued speaking, and as the request was made, Pent could not dismiss the… intrusive assertion that had it been another time, another place, another life time, he would have been the one scribbling down lists of seemingly impossible requests and this… This person came through for him. (For them? There were… Others.) He spoke of dangers, creatures that were made of not-quite-steel, and lines of blue, not blood, but vivid, piercing blue that shot through like veins, pulsing across the surface.

“I—I beg your pardon?” Whatever fleeting half-memory and static that had snagged his attention like burrs let go, and Pent found himself blinking in the dim light as he followed the lines of his glove (where were the lines?) to the dragon drawing…. “This?”

(his first instinct was to refuse. Because it was one of few things he had left, and if he were to forget again, then what, what, would be left to him to drag those memories back from the tides and prove they were solid and tangible and real)

….he was already tearing the page from the notebook carefully, the fibres that didn’t seem like anything that was made in Fodlan separating easily where the equally foreign bindings held them in a signature. Pent held the now-loose page in his hand, shutting the notebook again with the other. “Somehow, I feel like… This had always been made for you from the start?”

“But first… would you tell me something? I saw you that day, when they returned from the forest. The guards barred the path when the Archbishop led you away.” Something bothered him. Pent’s eyes went up to his cheek, obscured by the hood, but he searched for a bruise nevertheless. “But I swear, I know… I knew who I saw. Were you the only one they found? There wasn’t. There wasn’t a boy with you? Or a girl? Her eyes… No, she had no eyes, did she… but they were gold once. I think.”

Then in a very quiet voice, almost to himself: “Wasn’t that how it went?”

“You have my gratitude,” he said simply, oblivious to the surprise and momentary reluctance that had prefaced the gift, and folded the drawing carefully in half to hide away inside his cloak. He would withdraw it in the privacy of his little corner in Abyss later that evening and scour its crudely sketched lines for keys to the dream-like memories that followed him all the way here.

Aeschylus prepared to conclude their business, but the professor stopped him before he had a chance. His lips pressed into a line. Behind the dark shades, he couldn’t quite meet his eyes and every word he could possibly think to say fled from his mind. Leaving nothing but empty silence.

How does he know.

A quiet question, too afraid to speak up loud enough for the possibility that every theory he had crafted about those memories would come crashing down around him. How did he know, if not--

“They were not there,” he answered abruptly. “In the forest. I am the only one your colleagues brought back.”

[aeschyluus]

a friend in need

@minorindech

On any other day, Bernadetta would have ignored the flyer. The fact she had read it at all was a surprise itself! Usually she was so focused, head down, eyes down, going from place to place and hurrying to avoid having to deal with anyone beyond a handful of people she’d grown close to at school. It was chance that lead her eyes to graze over the flyer, and chance again that she paused long enough to read it over.

The request itself was the next thing that should’ve stopped Bernadetta from having any interest in the task. Meet with someone? Who didn’t even identify themselves? In the marketplace that was full of people? Nope, no way. Absolutely not, not for Bernadetta. She should have put her head back down, kept walking, and minded her own business until she finished class and was able to go back to her room.

But throughout the day, there was just something about the flyer that wouldn’t leave her head. Something that kept making her think of it over and over again. She wondered who it could be. What it was they needed. Why they had to remain anonymous with the flyer. Something…Bernie really didn’t know what, but something in the back of her head told her that she couldn’t leave this alone.

Which is how she found herself before the stranger in the marketplace, peeking around nervously and flinching out of the sight of everyone who moved past. The nerves remained, building up the certainty of her fast approaching death, until her eyes landed on the person she was meeting.

Bernadetta kind of wanted to cry.

That wasn’t new. But even Bernie couldn’t identify any reason for the urge to have hit her so strongly. She takes a moment to blink away the moisture and swallow the lump in her throat. She wants to apologize. She doesn’t know why, but the need to screams in her chest, calling out to be heard.

It doesn’t make sense. She decides it isn’t worth it.

“S-sorry…are you, um…you’re the one who wants help with something, right? The flyer?”

She arrived like a mouse creeping around the corner to the alleyway. Not even Aeschylus - so intently watching the entrance - had sensed her coming. She paused, seemed to reconsider what she was doing here at all (and indeed, she looked quite out of place even when the sunlight chased away the dangers that might have lurked here otherwise), and the familiarity in her fragile, timid demeanor was not just because of its resemblance to the mice of Tagzig. He stared at her from beneath his hood but made no attempt to greet her, nor to make his presence known. Those who would answer his call for assistance had to display a degree of bravery, after all, before he could in good conscience send them to face the metal beast that guarded the mine.

But she finally drew a breath and approached him.

“I am,” he answered levelly, and explained in more detail what he wished for her to fetch for him, and what risks came with it. After a moment, he slipped his hand beneath his cloak and withdrew a small, aquamarine stone that seemed to glow softly all on its own.

“These are what I require.” Other than its gentle light made visible only by the shadows of the alley, the stone sat, benign and inert, in the middle of his palm. “You should find another to accompany you. The church will not be pleased, should you perish on the mission.”

[aeschyluus]

liminal

@houseofreglay​

Fingers gripped the weathered remains of the notebook in his hands, the covers long worn off and pages wrinkled and blanched white where salt water had seeped into the fibres of the pages. Pent had unearthed it from the black box (the key and the bottle rattled around the bottom of it, mockingly) in his office after Cynthia’s abrupt visit.

(He should have known there was some excitement to be had when she burst in flailing through his window, flapping a flyer so close to his face that he couldn’t make out the words. Pent half expected to have to chase away some peddler of elicit goods until she mentioned ‘a pale stranger with white hair’ but then ‘also not super unique because your hair is white and I was thinking maybe he’s elderly and—’ His stomach dropped out from under him as he cut her off.)

But he stood there then. Months of… suspicion and frustrating dead-ends, all to lead up to standing there in the back of the marketplace, clutching the tattered pages and folded flyer tucked in between them so hard that the pallor of his knuckles matched what little of the stranger’s complexion he could see.

“Ae—” Static. The fog in his head verged on painful, threatening, and Pent grimaced, but took a step forward anyway towards him. 

“—I heard someone would be here.” The fog relented. He offered the notebook to the stranger, flipped open to the page marked by the flyer. On the opposite page, there were smudged scribbles in soft graphite, too blurred to read now… And also a very rough sketch of what appeared to be a dragon. “You posted this, I presume?”

The surface was just as terrifying now as it had been when it was an unreachable world beyond fortress gates. The shadowed corner at the far end of the marketplace, between abandoned buildings and old stalls untouched for moons, was still near enough to the heart of the place that the chatter from it was a quiet drone, and the sun still made its presence known through shade and layers of dark robes. The alleyway he had chosen lent him its shelter without its solace, and Aeschylus stood at the back of it like a rabbit poised to run. His eyes remained fixed on the sunlit opening as they had been for what felt like hours now. But the only predators were what imaginary ones his mind made from the wavering shadows.

The shadows lengthened, and the slants of shade at the entrance tilted nearly all the way to one side before footsteps sounded over the lull in distant conversation. Then a man stopped in full view.

Every muscle in his body felt ready to snap, but Aeschylus was rooted to the spot by fear and duty both.

“You have seen my call for assistance,” he answered the man with a calmness that surprised even himself. His eyes fell to the drawing beside the presented flyer. His lips parted slightly, but the speech he had prepared for whatever surface dweller answered his bulletin withered away in silence.

He shook his head abruptly.

“You have my gratitude. The task is not without its dangers, however--” He explained the metal creature that lurked near the cave where the stones would be mined, and the compensation that would be awarded as per the Church’s agreement. With his speech finished, his gaze landed once more on the drawing. Hesitantly, he placed a gloved hand over it.

“... May I have this?”

[aeschyluus]

Metamorphosis

The church had made it abundantly clear that he was not free, and that he never would be. His life, or what of it he valued, belonged now to the very creatures he had been told were the root of all that was wrong in the world. But in the gloom, with the scent of damp earth heavy in the air, and the broken and discarded hiding like the rats that shared their space, the similarities to that which he had once called home nearly outnumbered the differences.

                      If you believe this place holds you, it is a prison. If you do not                        wish to leave, it will become a fortress.

Despite its destruction, and all of the fragments of his former life it had scattered, the dream that had brought him this far compelled him still. Truly he had lost his mind believing in senseless prophecies and the existence of other realities, but there was no way back now. Committing to the madness would cost him nothing anymore.

The uniforms of Garreg Mach’s academy had been so vivid though. And the disappearances. And Thales. Justice. And--

He gasped and doubled over. Remembering that one fractured scene was made all the more difficult by the breathtaking pain that always accompanied it. Seconds passed and the murmuring of voices beyond his door, and the heavy footsteps of Abyss’ always-busy inhabitants pulled him back out of his memories. He straightened up and shook off the lingering sensation as if it had been nothing more than a pinched nerve.

Yes, he remembered what he was doing now. Sliding on a pair of tinted glasses and raising the hood of his cloak, he departed for the surface. He would pry the answers out with technology, if he could. All he needed was the materials.

[aeschyluus]

prometheia –& a justice saga

freliaes​:

He hears Gaius’s instruction, and though Innes would normally be loathe to take orders from the man, he certainly wouldn’t complain if the other found a weakness in this seemingly impenetrable beast. Not moving from his spot, Innes draws another arrow, aiming for one of the blue veins as he lets it loose—

Innes misses! ( 4 - 2 = 2 )

—only to have it bounce uselessly off the monster’s metal plating.

Titanus attacks with a Hit! (13)

The prince curses under his breath, the lingering pain in his leg hindering his movement as he fails to evade the monster’s retaliatory strike. A choked gasp bursts from his lungs as the scorpion’s tail sweep catches him right in the chest, throwing the archer against the wall of a nearby home.

@houseofreglay​

He runs.

The cold slush that seeps frigid water into his boots has long-since lost its novelty. And, for now, his notice. Only the trembling of the earth beneath his feet captures his attention and spurs him onward. Past broken homes, destroyed shops, and corpses now blanched white without the illusion of their magic.

He runs. Heels beat in time with the thunderous pounding of his heart in his ears. Hot breath spills out in thick clouds. The machines at his sides strain loudly on motors not built for speed but follow their creator obediently nonetheless. The world rocks again as another building is knocked from its foundation by a great metal leg and the Titanus rises up into view amidst smoke and debris. Aeschylus nearly stumbles with his awe. His feet slide on the ice as he stops and gazes up in wonder at an old vision made reality, its jointed tail and flattened, segmented body almost identical to a childish design he had sketched some years ago. In another lifetime, the beast would have been a dream come true, perhaps.

White eyes now adjusted to the sunlight sweep out across a field of dazzling colors, beautiful even in destruction. A world he had always desired to see. Would not have, had it not been for… them.

The mousy one he spies near the back, clutching bow with desperate tenacity. Another - Niles, he seems to recall - shouts to the others but he can barely make out the words. And then there’s Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, tending to his allies when his own wounds have yet healed. The bossy one near him, bloodied but searching for an opening nonetheless. The grouchy one, fighting still despite the rumors of his death. The angry one runs with a ghostly companion - a creator and, Aeschylus realizes, kindred spirit - and the loud one soars overhead on the back of (ponybunny) a majestic winged horse, the determination of a hero in eyes that still hold room for play. Alongside her, the odd one with the animal ears sprouting from her head. And at the back… the eldest of them. Pent. Selfless and wise despite his infancy. Some are foolish, perhaps, but they are all brave and inquisitive - how the people of Agartha had once been described, long ago.

Like them, he would not stand passively by any longer. He would no longer simply accept the hand dealt to him. So he runs again, past the backline, breaking through the frontline with his machines still screaming with the speed. A giant claw sweeps down and bats the largest of the three away with the sound of folding metal. Aeschylus staggers into a pile of rubble, but pulls himself free and keeps running without a moment’s hesitation. Momentarily, he thinks he hears shouting, and then another sickening crunch of metal as his sawblade is crushed beneath one insectoid foot. He keeps his balance this time but stops and throws his arms wide.

“What purpose does this destruction serve?” he shouts skyward, and joints creak as the Titanus shifts its target.

“What—“

A wet cough ends his question and his body bends forward with the force of being lifted into the air. Hands claw for the segmented joints of the tail, gripping steel with trembling fury.

“What of your promises?“ He lifts his head, white eyes meeting with a line of blue light - the symbol of his home and, once, his pride. “Who are you liberating?”

The teal of his own glove begins to glow brighter, a maroon smoke gathering about his hands as far as his elbows, coalescing into glittering, geometric shapes. His fingers clasp tighter, his jaw clenches, and all the veins of the Titanus brighten to blinding white. The metal whines. A pop precedes whistling as shrill as a tea kettle.

“This is not justice!”

Crackling, like ice, and then all light drains from the great steel monster. Its legs crumple, its body falls with one final sigh, and with it, Aeschylus. An agonized cry tears from his throat as the pain at last catches up to him. His eyelids feel heavy, his body feels heavy. His hands grasp blindly at the segmented tail, searching for its end and finding only the soaked cloth of his tunic. An early dusk seems to have descended across his vision, his breath quickens. Do not think about it, he tells himself. The roar of his blood in his ears blots out all else.

“Stupid boy,” comes the gravelly voice of Thales as if through water. Black sludge bubbles from beneath the dead form of the Titanus and spreads like oil across the square. Then a wave crests, rows of black fangs harden along a gaping maw and reptilian red eyes blink open. A low chuckle rumbles from somewhere deep below.

“Lambert is dead. You’re too late.”

The eyes plunge beneath the sludge, and it ripples and rises with another wave to crash over the village.

“It is time for these animals to die as well.”

[aeschyluus]

Ewan's in better spirits when next he approaches. Now, he hunts for distraction while the group slowly readies to leave. He's playing absently with the Felix Cube he found in the dumpster. "Um. Hello... I was wondering... Those devices of yours... I liked making stuff too, back on the surface. Like... that clicker you gave Thia. I wrote plans once for something like that, but no earthly idea how to go about it. The food heaters too... We tried, and failed. Can I ask how you make this stuff?"

Aeschylus is surprised when the fiery one approaches him again. After their last conversation, he had expected distance. But now he’s curious, rather than angry, and Aeschylus comes closer. He points to the cube in his hands, tracing over the lines in the metal.

“Many centuries ago, we learned to harness magic as a power source. By building these veins into our machines, we could use it to make the pieces move together.”

He glances toward a nearby food dispenser and then motions for Ewan to follow.

“It is a self-contained energy, but—“ Lifting his hand, he presses it against its metal side and the lights across its front suddenly flicker, then go out. “We can take it out. However, our magic is carefully regulated here so that deviants cannot cause surges or outages.”

[aeschyluus]

minorindech​:

Take your Crests back.

Bernadetta frowned. 

Should she? She shouldn’t. 

She’d seen how angry he had been at Seiros’ name. The pure rage in his eyes. But then so much had happened. And Aeschylus seemed…off. From more than just the bruising.

Bernadetta took a deep breath.

“Y-you said that you guys gave the Ten Elites their Crests, right? But then what about Selkie and Azura? They didn’t have Crests. And…” 

She hoped if he attacked her, he at least did it quick.

“I have the Crest of Indech. O-one of the Saints who fought with the Monster. I-I don’t think you guys gave them their Crests, right? So he couldn’t have been trying to take back mine…”

Aeschylus gazed back at her for a moment, and then shook his head.

“Those that you call the Saints fought alongside the Monster because they are also beasts,” he explained in his matter-of-fact way. “I have heard that they still live even today, the sole survivors of that war. But the people of Agartha stole their blood, too, and imbued your ancestors with their power.”

A thoughtful pause.

“Perhaps with the hope that you may be able to destroy them one day, while we remain exiled underground.”

[aeschyluus]

From darkness into light. Blinded, Aeschylus grasps for Pent’s shoulder, tries to gather his bearings, cannot.

A frigid draft pulls his robes, brushes his hair from away from his face as he blinks rapidly against it. The sighs and whispers of the forest are deafening compared to the echoing silence of the underground city. Or perhaps it’s a different kind of silence, devoid of the constant hum of blue magic.

The ground beneath his boots shifts precariously with each step, sinking them into pockets of cold… Snow, someone calls it. Frozen water. For a moment, he thinks about how he misses the predictable stability of metal flooring, but then he hears a gasp. A soft, private giggle. He turns his head and faintly makes out Eos’ kneeling form through the bloom of light. Her hands sink deep into the ice, unfazed by the cold.

Trepidation grips him again. The gravity of their situation drags his shoulders down, slows his feet until he, too, feels his knees hit the frozen earth. He doesn’t laugh like she does. His hands fall to his sides.

He hears the crunch of footfalls circling back to him. Quickly, rubs the heel of his palm beneath his eye.

“I am fine,” he insists, and pushes himself back to his feet. He will be. Later.

[aeschyluus]

houseofreglay​:

A hundred and seventy years, in their time. But Aeschylus was still so young, and even with the uncanny pallor and striking eyes, Pent could see the fear written into his very gaze as the realization slowly crept to a tangible peak. A keen edge. It pulled at his chest.

“I know.” Pent did. He swallowed against the dry rasp of his throat, trying not to let the corpse in the basement cells take on another face with the knowledge that they would have killed him. (No. Worse, they would have made him wish they had, and there would be no stranger with mercy in the shape of a knife, only the cold embrace of solitude as the time swallowed him whole, forgotten.) Pent breathed out a shuddering exhale, eyes closing for a brief moment. Erase the image. “I know. I do not intend on letting them take you.”

And yet, he feared also.

Fodlan was not his home… And Pent didn’t know all the details about its history–or what they claimed to be history, as even between the accounts given by Aeschylus and the Church’s teaching from Leonie, there were already mounting discrepancies–but Pent knew the surface would almost certainly be unkind.

‘People have to want for it to be true. They have to want to understand.’

After nearly a thousand years, mankind in Elibe still dragged their feet; would Fodlan be any different…? Perhaps the question had been largely academic given that Aeschylus was right–he could not stay either–but it did not mean that the thought of the injustice did not ache. They had been through enough.

(And Aeschylus, bright and brilliant as he was… Would the surface begin to chafe after time and suffocate him with it vastness? Would ‘their kind’s’ reluctance to change wear at him until there was a longing for a home that he could not return to? Pent was certain he would find an outlet–and what wonder they would be–but he still worried that… Well. He worried. That maybe it would be akin to his own growing hunger here.)

His hand came up again–Pent had rolled his sleeved up before, and at the cuff, there was a dark stain that could not have been anything by Hesperos’ blood–and for a split second, he hesitated. For all the youth he had seen in the city, not one had been accompanied by adult… No mothers or fathers or families, just peers. It would not unthinkable that Aeschylus might find no comfort in something as creaturely as contact. (And perhaps in that moment, it was he who wanted it more, and only then paused to consider it.) 

So instead, Pent’s hand settled easily on his arm again, no real pressure, just a casual, lingering point of warmth that seemed almost out of place in the cavernous underground. He offered a tired smile, all that he could muster in the moment, but managed to reached his eyes nonetheless. “I would be proud to see you on the surface, Aeschylus.” 

His voice wavered. For all of his composure, his herding, his caring for the other surface dwellers as their eldest, he was… frayed. The rings beneath his eyes were more than the strain of the procedure on Hesperos. A realization rose to the threshold of Aeschylus’ awareness: they were the marks of worry.

Worry that was, in part, for… him.

The way their eyes flickered to the bruises across his cheek, the meek inquiries after his safety, the doting… the surface dwellers had no reason to empathize or care about him, and yet they expended so much of their precious energy doing exactly that. It was not the kind of fretting that accompanied an elder Agarthan’s judgmental glance. They didn’t think that he couldn’t care for himself. It was… different. Though he couldn’t yet place how.

The warm weight of Pent’s hand against his arm startled Aeschylus from his thoughts, and his eyes widened with surprised curiosity. The smile that had come to Pent’s face was still rimmed in that quiet melancholy Aeschylus had seen when he first arrived at the door, but it was warm, too. Worry was there. Worry was a part of their kind, he was realizing. But it was company for his own ordinarily isolated fear.

Tentatively, Aeschylus brought his own hand over Pent’s.

“Thank you.”

[aeschyluus]

cynthero​:

☆ —       “right,” because that’s how it was supposed to work. if people died, then they died. if people lived, then they lived. they weren’t supposed to come back from the dead. ( if they did, her life would have been easier. or sadder. she can’t decide which yet. ) she had thought maybe it was some weird and crazy magic she didn’t understand. like everything else that seemed to be present and existent in tagzig. part of her hoped that it would have been. if it wasn’t that, then what brought innes back? divine intervention? but, he was —

      she shakes her head. no, she supposes she shouldn’t really question it. thinking was for the real smart folks. it just hurt her head when she tried to put the pieces together. cynthia thought it might have been a case of the risen. or maybe that the laboratory folks put humpty dumpty back together, but there’s no way that could have happened. they didn’t even know they had left. and if they did, she wonders why they let them run now. “that’s what i thought too.” thought, doesn’t think, doesn’t know. “um, do you know? that, that happened t’ people? you never went past the gates before, right?” she’s glad for it if he hasn’t.

      “has that happened before?” a pause. “sorry, that’s a lot of questions. do you want to play that game again? i can answer some questions too, if you want!”

He finds himself struggling to follow her, as he has struggled to follow all of the surface dwellers when they speak around what they mean to say. But he tries. Hesperos has been more adept at it, catching on to their language easily despite his inexperience.

“Did I know that… people died and came back beyond the gates?” Aeschylus parses slowly. A shadow crosses his brow and his mouth presses into a fine line as he thinks of the implications of the question. Of the one who had shown up in this building some hours before the rest returned from the laboratory even though he had been certain that they had all been taken.

“I did not,” he answers tentatively. “Those who have left, have never come back. Until… now.”

Still, he’s perplexed, and he nods hesitantly when Cynthia offers to play the game with him again.

“Yes. I have questions to trade you. Was that one—“ He points obviously to Innes. “—taken with you to the laboratory?”

[aeschyluus]

houseofreglay​:

“If… that is permissible.”

Pent looked at him, eyes widening in surprise, as if startled that it was still even a question. (He looked… Different, then when they had last spoken earlier in the day. Perhaps it was the rim of pink that still lingered around his eyes, almost easily mistaken for a trick of the light with his ‘surface dweller’ complexion and the dim blue of the lighting. Or perhaps that his hair had been pulled out of his face now and tied back in a loose braid.) The rag in his hand was also throw into the crate with all the others. 

“But of course you are welcome.” Their escape was every bit as much his, impossible without Aeschylus’ assistance… If he wanted to leave. But the pang hit him again then. Did he have no family? No friends? There had been some sort of recognition in his eyes when their ragtag little group came back with two new-old faces, but close ties? Pent never heard him speak of other Agathans before, other than the Liberator.

(Thales. The dying agarthan. Why was there such a pit in his stomach when he thought about what they were about to undertake? Not their own deaths; Pent had long come to understand that as a possibility, but–)

Another interjection: Gratitude. Pent could only smile, shaking his head. “The reason would be because he deserved better… But I am afraid that is the extent of what I can do for either him or Eos for time being. Nevertheless, I would be glad to accept.”

Pent watched the contraption fold itself, collapsing seamlessly into ever tighter an tigher confined, powered by a force that he still didn’t fully understand. (Melancholy.) Nothing of the sort would grace the ‘surface’ at least another thousand years, if even that–not when each lifetime had merely a scant few years to contribute to the body of knowledge before ceasing to exist. They filled the ocean with teaspoons. Would he be happy there? Could he be?

“I am afraid that taking the two of the with us might be the only thing left we can do for them.” The choice was obvious for them–to remain in Tagzig would be tantamount to a death sentence, whether it be on a table of sterile steel or… Pent thought of the grime and blade and the resignation that dripped from the Agarthan’s voice, and he flinched. (All he did was speak out.) Guilt by association. It was the only choice.

But for Aeschylus… He stood upon a precipice. The bruises were still evident along his cheek bone. They would do a lot worse if they were caught. Pent took a breath, pausing and collecting his thoughts with care before the words took form on his tongue. “If you leave with us now, Aeschylus… I don’t think there will be any turning back.” And he must have known that as well.

“Yes, I understand.” Aeschylus didn’t lift his eyes, watching instead the wheels of the cube as if he had any reason to suspect their damage. “Hesperos was prepared to come with you. Eos is…” The movement stopped. “She is young.”

He rose to his feet, coming to stand nearly eye-to-eye with the surface dweller. His gaze flickered briefly to his shoulder and became vaguely aware that his hair had been pulled back, leaving only wisps to frame and accentuate the exhaustion that dug hollows into his face.

“In truth, I…” Aeschylus blinked, then found some notch in the wall to stare at instead. “I used to dream about going to see the surface. Now that it is finally almost a reality, I…”

He didn’t know what to say. For a moment, he tried different words, seeing if they would fit, and his eyes came at last to meet Pent’s again as if they held some answer.

I am afraid.

“I know that I cannot stay here, after this. I will be tried as a traitor.”

[aeschyluus]

houseofreglay​:

[Continued (chronologically) from here.] @aeschyluus

He was no longer seated by the time Aeschylus appeared, now once again a familiar ghostly fixture in their lives. Pent busied over the last of the dirtied rags and emptied bottles and bits of black thread–all of it was thrown into a battered crate along with a suspicious oblong shape wrapped carefully in a stained sheet. All of it would be discarded sooner rather than later.

“Ah, there you are.” As if it weren’t him that had been found that time. (His voice was rough.) He turned, looking at Aeschylus from the other side of the saw, so recently cleaned that the blade was still wet. So much of the room was in such a state. “It went well, I think… He is resting with Cynthia for time being. I figured he wouldn’t appreciate waking up in a place like this.”

Not after what has happened. Pent looked down again at the machine. Scrubbed idly at a scratch in the chassis and couldn’t tell if the substance caked into it was dirt or blood. “I overheard, from before, when you were speaking with Bernadetta, that you would be coming with us.”

Pent’s hands stilled by the machine. He would be leaving all this behind. Leaving behind all that he knew.

There was much Aeschylus had to process— much he already had processed, though it brought him no closer to reconciling his world with what reality had thrust upon him in a few short hours. These surface dwellers were nothing like the monsters in his texts, even with their weapons. They risked their lives to save two who were not their own. Two who likely wouldn’t have batted an eye at them, had their situations been reversed. It was an altruism that was almost foolish— an altruism that had long been forgotten by the people of Agartha, if ever it had existed at all.

The procedure, too, had not been demanded of them. Once beyond the gates of the laboratory, they could have abandoned their new charges. They owed them nothing. And yet… the eldest one recognized the poison seeping through Hesperos’ arm, its impact on his life, how he would die or be returned to the laboratory if discovered again, and… risked his own escape again to help him.

It was— Overwhelming was perhaps the word for now, and it wasn’t growing any less so. When he was certain he would no longer hear the shrill buzz of his machines, Aeschylus set side his meditations to observe the surface-dwellers again. This time, though, it was almost as if he had been expected, and he stiffened with surprise in the doorway to the room when the eldest of them called out.

Ducking his head, Aeschylus entered and crossed to where he stood. He eyed the glistening blade warily, afraid to find remnants of the severed limb, blood, the hints of a disaster unspoken, but it was clean. Mention of a “Bernadetta” gave him pause as he recalled his conversations from the past day, but conjured at last the face of the mousy one.

“Yes,” he answered, but hesitated before adding: “If… that is permissible.”

His hand rose to the machine between them, lines alighting along the back of the glove he wore on his left hand as the blue seemed to melt from the saw itself. The blade retracted, the arm holding it beginning to fold inward and collapse. Before long, a cube had taken its place.

“I never imagined that I would express gratitude to someone of your kind, but… I would like to do so. For assisting him when you had no reason for it.”

[aeschyluus]

cynthero​:

from here!

☆ —       well, if he was alright that was fine. she had been worried of worse things that he didn’t show them. ( not that he shows a lot in the first place. ) she doesn’t know if they have ice down here. it’d be good if he got some ice on those bruises. she’s about to suggest it when he brings up a small glowing screen of some sort, cynthia tilting her head down to look. blue dots, black dots. “that’s a lot of dots.” she doesn’t really know what to make of it.

      was that supposed to mean something?

      “confiscate … oh! you mean?” her hand shoves into the pocket of her skirt, rummaging around its contents before producing the machine. it had gotten a little roughed up every time she fell, but for the most part it looked like it was as when he handed it to her. “i don’t think they really knew what it was, so they didn’t take it from me. i had a hair pin and other stuff too an’ they didn’t take that from me either.” she supposes the pin came in pretty handy, though. “i was just worried that you were worried we weren’t —” you know, dead.

      she pauses. “hey, aeschylus? do,” it feels like a stupid question. she had seen plenty of people, but — “do people die here?” her gaze flicks in the direction of the archer at the far end of the room. a ghost? ghosts weren’t real. he was real. “has, has anyone ever come back?”

“I was just worried that you were worried—“

His head tilts, eyes rising from the little device he had gifted her to examine the sudden fall in her expression. Worry and concern have become increasingly common in these surface-dwellers. They are evidently far more anxious than the books had described, but Aeschylus is beginning to find it to be… endearing. Or something. He isn’t quite sure what to think. About that, or the new question she poses.

“Yes, although our lifespans are many times longer than yours,” he answers, though perplexity rings faintly in his otherwise monotonous voice. Surely that is not what she’s asking. He follows her gaze back over his shoulder to where the one he had found first now sits. But that offers him no additional clarity, even as he stares. Gleaning nothing from this renewed study, he turns to Cynthia again.

“I have not witnessed one return from the dead. Death is among the few objective truths universal to all species.”

[aeschyluus]

"What do you know about Solon other than he is a sage? Does the liberator know about him? Also why are there so many damn guards in your city?" He knew it was pointless to ask, but still he craved to know something anything. Why was Solon doing the things he was doing? He felt some of his trust falter from Aeschylus, but he wouldn't show it. For now, Niles wanted to believe he was a good person.

The angry one returned bearing more demands. He wanted more answers. But the answers he sought weren’t as simple and straightforward. They were complicated and messy… and no matter what Aeschylus settled on offering to him, he knew that it would never be enough.

“Solon holds an esteemed position among us, one he received many centuries ago for his brilliant inventions. His ideas sit at the center of much of what runs our city…” It was a statement of fact, and Aeschylus spoke it with neither fondness nor revulsion. “Our Liberator was once one of his disciples, but his own brilliance carried him to the head of the revolution on the surface.”

More fact. He watched Niles cautiously. The sudden curiosity about the guards, however, surprised him, evident only in the blink of his usually unblinking gaze.

“Do your cities not have systems for security?”

[aeschyluus]

minorindech​:

@aeschyluus

Bernadetta smiled softly as Aeschylus agreed to come with that. The relief was immense. Aeschylus might be one of them, and he might not be one of them, but when she looked at him that first time after they escaped the lab and saw the splattering of bruises that he now wore…

too familiar

She felt guilty leaving him behind.

That didn’t change the fact that he…probably knew more than he told them. She didn’t blame him for it. They were strangers after all. But…it was better to have more information than not, right? Lady Edelgard and Hubert were some of the most successful people she knew, and they always seemed to know everything.

She wished they were here, and then immediately hated herself for thinking something so selfish.

“Um…you said that you all gave us our Crests, right? Um, your kind I mean, not you specifically…” She was still a little nervous to bring this up. He’d been so mad about the Goddess. If he poked and asked…it was better not to lie, right?

“Do you know what Solon was doing? He um…there was this weird light, and those of with Crests saw them on the wall, and they separated us and there was…” Bernie trailed off. Too much. Too little? She didn’t know anymore.

“H-he seemed to care way more about us with Crests. Or, um…with special blood? Do you have any ideas what he might have been planning?”

It took her so long to work up to the question that Aeschylus was almost reluctant to admit that he had no answer. Up until now, the surface dwellers had looked to him for explanations, and for once, he felt like he could teach someone something. To them, he wasn’t a mere child. His shoulders sloped.

“No,” he answered. “I… once believed that Solon endowed power to those of us the Liberator selected to join him.” Not anymore, but those words would remain unspoken. “Perhaps he desired to take your Crests back. For what use, I cannot imagine...”

His mind wandered back to Hesperos and Eos, both scarred beyond description and no more “powerful” for it. What had been the purpose of /their/ experiences?

“I am not certain of much anymore.”