#S'ria trauma psychological read

[snow-system-wol]

In From the Cold

It's... not a very pleasant time for him, is it?

And the consequences are fairly severe.

(Handling this specific piece of writing a bit differently. Due to the more extensive nature of things, the trigger warnings themselves will be given below the readmore)

(Typically, we do not crosspost chapters from the more triggering side set of stories / ones including writing from other alters in our system, but this is 100% MSQ so, in this case, we will.)

•quest-typical triggers (possession, forced body swapping, implied drugging/similar state, kidnapping, violence)

•heavy paranoia regarding possibility of nonconsensual sexual interactions

•allusions to CSA

•emetophobia warning (after S'ria awakens safe in his actual body, just the paragraph beginning with "You force yourself upright")

You awaken and it all feels very wrong. The most obvious and pressing thing is the stupor you claw your way out of, the already too familiar sense of having been drugged present in the heavy way your eyes open (if not by substance then by some other means). The next is, of course, that you are not where you were before (nor do you have any sense of how long you may have been unconscious and that idea does not sit well.)

Looking up from your plate and across the table, you just have to bite down on a near-hysterical laugh. You don't really remember all that much of your childhood but – He had done these, right? Champagne socials and formal dinner nights? And at least a few times, just like this – you and Him seated at a too long table, playing out a parody of normalcy for a short while.

You wonder, sometimes, if He wished for actual family in those moments instead of…you. Or perhaps He had imagined it more like a romantic dinner for two, as if properly trying to court you first, before... well, ending the night as was typical in that place.

What a strange unintentional mockery of that Zenos had stumbled upon, though the original memory is a joke in of itself. This is barely weirder, somehow.

Perhaps it's all that, or perhaps it's whatever slumber you just snapped out of, or perhaps it's something else, but your mind doesn't feel…quite right. He may be acting too dull and placid to get a rise out of you, maybe, but Fray should've been stirring at the first sight of Zenos' face (and Fandaniel's for that matter, shite was he standing much closer than you'd expected him to be). They aren't though, it's just you, and a confusing and jumbled sort of “you” as well.

Fandaniel is quick to make you aware of your new circumstances, a faux-polite smile on his face, and you feel – odd. This body feels unfamiliar and weak and ill-fitting, yes, but any truly upset reaction fails to come. You can't help but agree with him about it feeling rather refreshing. More than anything else, the long-ingrained phantom touch on your skin is finally gone, knowing that this is a body that He has never been able to touch. It's a relief.

A relief that lasts only as long as it takes to remember that your true body still exists and you have no idea where it is or what may have been done to it while unattended. Then the fear starts to set in.

You are trying to pay attention to Fandaniel's monologue, as surely important as it is, but you can't help but keep picturing mental images that distract and disgust you. It is the oddest thing though. The body doesn't seem to feel nausea and there's the sense that there isn't even anything in its stomach if it could – and while you can feel the body trembling with panic, the heart barely is beating faster.

You immediately suspect that this body is not alive, if it ever even lived in the first place. The unsustainability of this form only worsens your concern over what may have become of your true one.

You watch Fandaniel traipse over to refill the wine glass in front of Zenos and the giggle actually does slip out of you this time – where it is soundly ignored. That was your job when there were guests over. Gods, one really does need to be careful with those reds, though, they stain. Pour with a flourish, but never to the extent that one risked spilling. The difficult part is not flinching if you're touched, lest you shake the bottle.

You wonder if Zenos has noticed that you aren't paying much attention to him. It isn't like he can see your face at least, but, he'd be able to tell, right? You focus on him more once he stands up. He does not walk towards you though, no, striding towards a darkened section of the chamber while you try to follow his words with a mind clouded by that lingering tiredness and by anxiety both.

He talks about things the same way a predator kills a prey – circling vaguely around the point he wants to make before diving straight into the heart of it. The room brightens enough to see your body slumped loosely in a chair at the same moment that you realize what Zenos plans to do with it.

As horrified as you'd felt over the vulnerability of your abandoned body, the idea of him puppeting it about is viscerally worse. You'd been morbidly worrying about – well – it's not like your corpse-like vacant form would likely hold much interest for Zenos, if he prefers you as live prey, but you cannot deny that there is an edge to the violent obsession that has you afraid of what directions his fascination may go. There is an overlap between the carnal natures of violence and sex both, and if he craves one of those two with you…

But at the very least, your body looks precisely as dressed and put together as you last remember it. (And you are so intensely glad that G'raha had borrowed his scarf back while you were resting by the fire, because you fear you may have to burn these clothes when all of this is through, because one of the two of them had to have put your body where it currently sits and your skin crawls at either of them having done it.)

On the flip side of that coin, opposite to whether there'd be an urge to defile your body while it was unoccupied, is this new proposal – Zenos wants to feel what it is like to be in your skin, and gods help you, there is not a single thing to stop him from indulging in any whims he might have.

You have to remind yourself that you are being irrational, that the situation is already pretty damned bad without you drawing all sorts of horrifying possibilities out of thin air.

Your body sits up, smiles, and disappears – and it finally dawns on you that in your fear for yourself you had not considered what he may choose to do while wearing your face.

Gods, you are already physically strong enough to overpower any Scion in a one-on-one, maybe even two-on-one, fight – the ability to catch any one of them completely off guard just rendered it unfair. You could probably kill half of them before they even were fighting back, that is, if they'd fight back. You realize, your borrowed heart in your throat, that you don't know if… well, perhaps some of them could overcome it, but the twins, G'raha, could they even bear to fight back against you?

With them knowing you share your body and mind among multiple people, would they think that you'd just finally snapped before considering foul play? The idea of any of them spending their last moments thinking that you killed them has grey clouding in the corners of your vision.

You desperately hope that at least some of them know you well enough to see through such a ruse, if you can't get there fast enough.

And you suspect that you actually can't, this choice of body bordering on cruelty – feeble and tired, in a way that feels as though weakened by illness. You can't say you remember all that vividly, but you'd swear your body held more strength than this as a half-starved teen…or maybe your sense of scale has just degraded away from a normal person's over the years.

While the injuries are adding up as you pick your way through the ruined city, you really are trying, so it's just so utterly hopeless of a thing to be caught in that blast. And this damnable body – it was dead, you know it – it has to have already died before you were shoved into it and is desperate to return back to that state, having only half awoken in the first place. Heart: sluggish, mouth: dry, eyes: as you are presently realizing, seemingly unable to cry. (And fuck, you want to in the moment, the frustration and pain overwhelming.)

For a near mercy, you can't feel the cold very well, either. At least blood is working as it is meant to – not that it is ideal, the way the inside of your armor is slick with it, but it provides some measure of normalcy and sense of severity.

You don't need that anymore. Measuring severity, that is. Half-conscious and crawling, you know you won't be alive all that much longer, if you can't so much as stand.

…Even if you can't walk back to meet Zenos, you shall still crawl. 

The stars, for once, grant you a kindness and allow you just enough time to intervene. You don't even really care what you are seeing, what manner of form Zenos was taking, so long as you block the attack from landing on G'raha and Alisaie. Your eyes are blurry, but the sound of metal on metal is clear and your heart sings with relief. Summoning the last of your strength, you fling yourself at Zenos.

(Your body is tall, lanky, probably not all that hard to knock over if taken off guard. You are right.)

The rest of the Scions have gathered by the time you lose consciousness and it is a relief to know that none of them are unprepared now.

 

Your eyes open blearily and for a moment you are confused about if you fell asleep in camp. It's dark around you, aside from the lights about camp, and bitterly cold. The memories of the sudden tempering scream echoing from the tower begins to return to you. There is quite a group clustered around you, Scions plus Lucia and Maxima besides. Too many people, to be fully honest.

“Is everyone all right?” Your voice comes out strained and multiple people sigh in relief.

“Perfectly fine, yes. I hope the same can be said of you.” G'raha's voice is so gentle and caring with how he says it that you almost relax for a moment before the rest of your memory catches up with you and you immediately understand why he'd asked. The answer is most likely, ‘no, it cannot – fuck, absolutely not.’

Gods, you don't know how long you've been unconscious, but you can feel how recent his presence is, you doubt it'd been long at all, it barely even feels faded from you. There is an almost physical sense of residue clinging to you, on your skin and filling the spaces between your organs, and you feel defiled in a way that is near incomprehensible.

In a near hysterical train of thought, you almost rather he'd just have fucked you instead, something your mind could at least parse. (No, you don't. You don't wish that. The devil you know is no better than the one you don't.)

You bite your lip to try to ground yourself, nearly jolting at the pain of your tooth scraping an injury that is already there. You focus and feel a corresponding dull pinprick ache in your thumb. It's an easy sequence of events to follow – the mistake of Zenos catching your fangs on your skin, probably a common accident if not used to them – and then the wondering, ‘ah, I guess these are pretty sharp?’ and poking your finger solidly enough to bleed for your efforts. That's a normal thing to check, that's normal, of course he'd be curious about having fangs given his hunting and biting obsessions. Nothing needlessly unsettling about that, the possession part besides. You'd do the same, maybe, in that position. 

(It's easy to picture him doing that, but it's also easy to keep picturing things. Maybe he'd taken a moment to properly map out and feel how sharp all of your teeth are, heedless of the violation of jamming exploratory fingers in your mouth. Maybe the body's instinctive gag response to such a thing is just from your own broken psyche and he could've poked about to his heart's content. Maybe he'd been curious, had kept exploring this body just to know his enemy a bit better, while the ability to do so was right there and no one ever had to know –)

The ‘not knowing’ is almost the worst part.

It is very poor comfort to you that you genuinely and honestly do not think Zenos would go so far nor even want such a thing, because you can picture and feel it and so that distinction of reality no longer matters.

How alien your familiar flesh feels. You are staring down at your hands and legs as if they don't even belong to you and right now they do not and you can feel the way that you are shuddering and breathing so fast that your head spins, with lungs so tight that any attempts at sobs come out as squeaks (and you are tearing up, but you will not cry, you will not cry.)

Your ability to focus on more than your building breakdown is very limited, but you at least have the lingering awareness to be aware of much you're having a whole thing in public.

Someone, you do not know or care who, reaches for you and all you can do is press yourself further against the crate behind you and force out a desperate “don't.” The hand retreats immediately and you are glad for that. No one touches you, at least (the only hands on you are those that your mind conjures).

But there are still far too many people standing around you and talking incomprehensibly and looking at you and too fucking close to you – with the violation burning in your body from the inside out and knowing what is surely about to happen, you want them to stop looking and not see you like this. Let them avert their eyes to this, please.

You force yourself upright enough to at least get to your hands and knees before being sick. It is a miserable experience, your body fervently trying to reject any trace of him. It feels like it should help, but no such luck – the sensation is far deeper and harder to reach. You are reduced to empty dry heaving without the sense of defilement or the phantom touch having abated at all.

You'd rather be put back into that near-shattered corpse than feel like this.

The dissociative fog in your head is worsening and welcome. You find yourself not caring who steps in or what happens, so long as you don't have to experience the body like this.

Alisaie was very aware that S'ria had started to spiral into panic attack – but it didn't take someone who knew him to figure that one out, the way he had stiffened and begun hyperventilating. She winced sympathetically at S'ria turning over to empty his stomach, but Alphinaud seemed far more concerned at that reaction than she was. He paled and paused for a moment before snapping into something more put together and tersely focused. He firmly told everyone except for G'raha and herself to stop crowding S'ria and leave, and his tone left no room for arguments.

Turning her focus back to S'ria, it seemed as though he'd physically settled enough to stop and slump back into his prior position against the crate. There are immediately concerns in her mind, looking at how weak and exhausted he seemed. He needed rest and to be moved somewhere warm (as well as hydration whenever it seemed manageable for him.) These seemed easy and universal conclusions to come to, watching G'raha knelt down by S'ria to try and convince him to relocate.

Alisaie wasn't sure what she expected to happen, but she was at least well aware of the sort of sappy ease and comfort they often had around each other. She did not expect him to flinch away from G'raha, curling up with a mistrustful look that held little recognition. G'raha looked stung but not surprised.

She remembered speaking with S'ria, sitting on some rocks together out in Ahm Areng, about the nature of his other parts – and immediately wondered if this wasn't the same one she'd briefly met (or only seen, not even spoken with) out in Gyr Abania, the way his body language made him look like a scared child. She also realized, tactically, that Alphinaud asking her specifically to stay wasn't only because S’ria normally trusted her as a person.

Alisaie shifted closer to S'ria, Alphinaud and G'raha backing up a touch in response.

“S'ria?”

He lifted his head to properly look at her, something he hadn't done for either of the boys. That was a good start. He shifted closer to her and further away from them, and she immediately realized they would have to split up for him to successfully rest.

She could do this – it was just like looking after Halric, wasn't it? That had been nice, in its own way. A catharsis at being able to provide a sense of safety and comfort to those who needed it.

While her place on the battlefield would always differ from Alphinaud's, she fully understood why he'd followed a healer’s path – as she'd done much the same outside of battle, and was prepared to do so again now.

“It's really cold out here. Do you want to come inside, where it's warm?”

S'ria made a noise that might've been agreement but made no attempt to move.

Alisaie tried again to prompt him, hoping it would not backfire. “Ria? Can you stand for me?” She'd never asked if that name was okay to use, before this incident.

His eyes snapped to meet hers, finally looking clearer, and he struggled to get to his feet. Alisaie nearly sighed in relief when he took her outstretched hand and let her help him up.

She quickly led him back to the small house they'd been occupying before they could get intercepted by anyone unaware of the situation. S'ria seemed to largely relax once they were safely in the tiny bedroom with the door closed, where Alisaie immediately turned the heater back on to full blast, remembering how icy S'ria's hand had felt in hers. She opened a bottle of water she'd grabbed on their way through the house and handed it cautiously to S'ria, waiting to see if his hands would support the heavy glass.

“Here, drink – slowly.”

S'ria drank most of the bottle over the course of several minutes, thankfully without incident. Alisaie started running through a mental checklist of physical health needs and comforts.

“Ria, is there anything you want? Food, something warm to drink?”

He shook his head cautiously. “...hurts."

It was almost startling to hear him suddenly speak, sounding completely different than normal as well. Alisaie also almost swore over the fact that medical aid as a potential need had slipped her mind, given the lack of major battle as a reminder.

“I'm sorry I didn't ask sooner – what hurts?”

S'ria quietly raised his shirt on one side and Alisaie winced. She understood the impulse, given who was in the body at the time, but trust S'ria to body ram himself hard enough to damage his own ribs. She supposed future consequences were not on the table in that moment.

She hated that S'ria had quietly wandered about for several minutes without complaining about the injury just as much as she loved that S'ria let her sit down right next to him without flinching. He looked calm and peaceful for the duration of the healing process. 

By the time the healing glow had left her hands, S'ria looked to be falling asleep sitting up. She urged him to properly lay down and drew the blankets over him. Alisaie made it a few steps away from the bed before a soft voice spoke up again.

“Menphina, wait.” Alisaie's heart lurched. She turned around and made eye contact with S'ria in the dimly lit room. “Don't go.”

“All right, I'm not going anywhere.” She sat back down, fighting with the straps of her boots and kicking them off gently enough that they wouldn't absolutely thud onto the floorboards. The moment she crawled under the covers, S'ria more-or-less immediately latched onto her as a physical anchor.

There was a moment of mental readjustment when he started purring, of confusion about if she'd misread his emotional state, until she remembered that purring wasn't just for contentment – it was also an instinctive self-soothing response to distress or pain, especially among miqo'te children. (Which, according to his mind, he probably was one right now.)

Alisaie adjusted them into a position that seemed most comfortable for both of them. S'ria appeared to fall asleep before long and she waited to see if enough adrenaline would leave her body for her to do the same.

 

Alisaie awoke, disoriented, knowing it was probably some odd time in the afternoon by now. The obvious cause of her returning to the waking world was one Warrior of Light somewhat awkwardly wiggling free of her arms. It was… hard to interpret, especially while half awake. It didn't seem like the movements of the child from last night, but she also suspected that S'ria's reaction to waking up unexpectedly in someone's arms would be far less subtle.

“S'ria?”

There was an immediate freeze and then a slow exhale. “No, I am sorry.” The voice was high and soft, properly enunciated – and very clearly not S'ria, yes. Alisaie struggled with her reaction. Her first instinct was to demand to speak with him and see if he was okay, but he'd been very clear with them about requesting a different person not being something that really works, so that would just be… cruel of her to say then, she supposed, rejecting Menphina’s presence immediately.

“Is he all right, at least?”

Menphina seemed to be struggling with how to answer that question, but her face and body language did that for her. She brushed Alisaie's sleep-mussed bangs out of her face with an expression that was equal parts concerned and apologetic.

“Pray give me a moment to fully wake up and settle in – and then I believe a conversation with everyone else present would best serve.”

[snow-system-wol]

G'raha accidentally went down a bit of a side journey doing research and unearths some info that might be of interest to S'ria. (cw: clinical reference to CSA)

Ao3

It was not completely unheard of for S'ria to not see G'raha for an entire turn of the sun. 

Not unheard of, but still quite rare these days. G'raha no longer stuck so close by his side, with both of them doing their own tasks apart for much of the day, but S'ria typically saw him by some point in the evening. G'raha almost never slept in his own room anymore, so at the very least, S'ria saw him by the time he was turning in for the night.

It was not so the previous night, S'ria falling asleep alone – disappointed, but not concerned.

Come morning, he did ask around if anyone knew of G'raha's whereabouts. The first few answers, that he was excused from work today and was not working yesterday either, had S'ria worried, but the additional answers about him having been sighted in the Noumenon put his heart back at ease.

Knowing G'raha, he fell asleep while researching some side project. S'ria would have liked to check on him, but G'raha was likely in a level deeper than a non-Archon, non-citizen could freely wander into.

(Oh, if S'ria threw his status around and implied it was important, then perhaps, but that was not warranted here. If G'raha did not turn up by the ‘morrow, S'ria would simply send Krile in after him.)

G'raha did return that evening, though, a heavy backpack weighing him down. He seemed nervous, and S'ria was a touch concerned about that bit, but it wasn't much to consider. He remained a bit ill-at-ease for all of dinner, though, and it was a little awkward.

It wasn't until after dinner that G'raha actually addressed what was clearly on his mind. He dragged his backpack over and sat down on the floor, half on his futon and half in the pillow nest, and patted the spot next to him. S'ria gently settled down, waiting.

“Forgive me for my absence – and forgive me for this indiscretion. I did not perform research solely to be invasive, but I will confess that I began chasing more information when the lead presented itself.”

S'ria's tail swished behind him. “Raha, the evasiveness is making me a bit anxious.”

“Ah! Forgive me, ‘twas not my intent. Unfortunately I have just made myself nervous as well. Allow me to start from the beginning.” G'raha pulled out a tome from his bag and flipped it open to a marked spot. “I was reading a historical account, back from the Sixth Umbral Era, and one of the relevant parties was described in a way that was not unlike you and yours. You'd said you'd never met anyone else, so I began to … dig.”

S'ria shifted closer, peering at the page in excitement. “What did you find? Oh – that's not…”

“Not a modern script, no, but I can read it out for you later if you should like to hear the exact words. And worry not, my search was not fruitless, even if ‘twas a bit…circuitous.

"First, I began looking for books on identity, psychological care, trauma, pertaining to that era… As I am certain you can imagine, this was easier said than done. The priority given to such social topics varied greatly by location, and many did not put an emphasis on it. I did eventually find a medical compendium that appeared to be describing diagnosis of the same phenomenon.”

S'ria leaned forward, intensely focused. “So, it is a thing other people experience? Does it have a name?”

To S'ria's confusion, G'raha's immediate reaction was to look a bit uncomfortable.

“It does, but, err… I do not know if it is meant to be translated so literally, but –”. G'raha visibly winced. “The medical compendium rather indelicately used ‘mindshatter’ – a-a term that has long since been declared unusable, I promise!” 

S'ria was not particularly sure if that was offensive or just odd. Certainly, it was not a polite way to be called, but it hardly seemed a condition a psychologically well person would have, so was it warranted? Ah, but, if others had this too, then perhaps thinking of it so judgmentally was unkind.

It probably said much about S'ria that the first time he truly considered whether he thought of his mental health too harshly was upon realizing it was rude to people other than him.

“You were able to find newer sources?”

G'raha nodded. “Yes, I used the old name and tracked it through records until the name began to change, and then checked modern medical tomes for those.”

S'ria raised his eyebrows. “And the new name is less…?”

“Ah, well, names, really. Each group of scholars took it upon themselves to give it a new name – some in different cultures, some in the same institute and arguing with their peers. ‘Separation of the self’, ‘traumatic deintegration’, ‘divided soul’, multiple identity phenomenon’ – to name a few.”

“So there really isn't an agreed upon name?”

G'raha gave him a sympathetic smile. “Unfortunately, no. You could pick one, if you'd like.”

The intensity of his focus broken, S'ria laid back onto the pillows. “That seems overwhelming right now, no thanks. What else did you learn, though? About what it is?”

S'ria could see G'raha's ears perk up in the corner of his vision, him scrambling in his bag for presumably more borrowed books.

“Ah yes, here we are!” G'raha cleared his throat, dropping the excitement from his tone. “...Are you certain you would actually like to hear about this? Some of the information may be uncomfortable for you.”

S'ria ears flicked, deep in thought for a few moments. He could feel G'raha's eyes on him.

“I think I'd like to know, at least.”

“Very well. Er, here are the details that seem to be consistent between different experts.” G'raha's cadence changed, suggesting that he was directly reading bits of the text. “An individual with this condition will exhibit multiple selves, of count ranging from one additional self to many. Said other selves may have different personalities and gender, and may not share memories or consciousness with the individual's primary self.”

It was uncanny, to hear this described so…casually? So concretely? S'ria did not want to be special or anything, but he'd honestly assumed there was something uniquely wrong with him. 

“That all sounds…very familiar, yes.” S'ria tried to unclench his jaw. “Does it say why?”

G'raha was quiet in response for a little too long, and S'ria sat up to look at him. He was fiddling with the edge of a page, looking briefly at a loss for words.

“Raha?”

G'raha briefly shook his head. “Forgive me, I just do not wish to be indelicate with how I put this. The condition is a protective mechanism, allowing the formation of specialized roles and quarantining of memories. It forms in response to prolonged trauma at single-digit ages, particularly, er –”. G'raha's voice dropped far quieter. “Particularly when experiencing repeated sexual abuse.”

S'ria understood the hesitation in saying that out loud – he could not suppress his shudder, the sudden trembling in his hands, a slight buzzing in his head. It was odd. He'd never had it referred to in such a clear clinical way before, and it was… difficult to describe how that felt. Equal parts validating and horrifying, perhaps.

“I… I see.”

“I apologize, are you quite alright?”

S'ria took a deep breath, trying to still his hands. “I am – I am not having a flashback, that is, I just – it is a bit cathartic to have it all laid out so plainly, but a bit overwhelming too. I don't want to sound ungrateful, I'm very glad to know this isn't just me.”

S'ria gently eased himself back into lying down. “Thank you for doing this research. I might ask you for more information some day, but right now I need… some time to think about this.”

G'raha slowly laid down next to S'ria and took his hand. “Of course. Let me know if you need anything.”

S'ria's mind wandered to the obvious weight of G'raha's backpack when he'd entered, wondering what else could be found within those pages. No, no, he didn't need any more in his head before he'd processed what was already there.

Still, it was nice to know – somehow intense and anticlimactic all at once – that the way he experienced the world was not a wholly unique one.