Warning: SPOILERS for CHAPTER 5 AND ONWARD
Content warning for slight suicide ideation.
Some nights are better than others. Some nights he doesn't wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, mouth dry and stomach churning, heart racing until he's picked out every single one of his three companions sleeping in the quiet air. He doesn't mistake shadows for blood and the pale moonlight for the pallor of death.
Some nights he doesn't slip out of bed and stumble noiselessly out of the room he shares with the three other warriors of light, right underneath the bridge aboard the giant airship they've taken to calling home in this world and the past. Doesn't drag himself to the edge of the deck for a breath of fresh air, arms tight around himself in a futile attempt to subdue the shivering that overtakes him from the chill inside and out. Doesn't succumb to the pain in his head and chest and upend the contents of his stomach over the side of the worn railing, tears trailing down his face and mixing with the bile, just missing the loose black undershirt he wears that is very little protection against the elements.
Tonight is not one of those nights.
Ringabel kneels beside the railing, gripping it until he can feel the splinters penetrate his skin. Good. The pain brings him something to focus on, to distract from the afterimages of death that still linger behind his eyes. He can almost taste the blood in the air, pooling across the old wood of the deck he stands on now - and he inhales sharply, letting his eyes slip shut.
Some nights he is unable to sleep at all for the nightmares - memories - that plague him.
Sighing deeply, the taste of sick still heavy in his mouth and the back of his throat, he pulls himself up and leans over the railing, rubbing his face with tender, sore fingers. They've moored for the night off the coast of Eisen. Grandship, for as old as it is, makes a wonderful, near impenetrable fortress. Very few could take them by surprise like this, aside from perhaps Alternis Dim…
The thought of that man, his old self, makes him sigh. It seems as though with each passing day and night, more of his memories return, and it makes it harder and harder to reconcile the Ringabel-that-is with the Alternis-that-was. Where one died and the other was born only for to die in exchange for the original. His eyes slide over the patch of wood that marked where Alternis - any Alternis - had fallen over the edge and into oblivion, fingers trailing over scored marks the man's armor had left in the wood, as though to memorialize his greatest failures.
Without thinking, telling himself he simply wants to get a better look, Ringabel climbs easily over the railing at that very spot, eyes fixed on the darkness below, his hand keeping an easy grip to prevent an accident. At this height the skies underneath the ship are nothing but a black void, nothing like the bright light and churning waves that would have been at the base of the Holy Pillar. If he concentrates he can make out the waves reflecting bits of the light of the stars.
His head feels light. His hand is cramping and burning, the splinters digging in deeper as his grip tightens. If the old railing were to give away under his weight...
"Ringabel?"
Edea's voice is sleepy but there's a touch of fright behind the question. The name.
Just like that he snaps back into his skin. That's right. He is Ringabel, at least to them. Rakish, yet responsible.. Their guide - quite literally, as the only one to pilot Grandship - and yet a person they can happily ignore with ease. A part of him wishes she had ignored his flight from their room. And the other part of him feels guilty that she should find him in such a state.
He hops back over the edge of the railing without a word, his movement the only acknowledgement that he's heard her and busies himself with examining his hands for splinters, even though they both know he can't see them in the dim light.
After a moment, after he's gathered himself back up, he speaks, finding that he's unable to look at her, his eyes drifting away to the path she's walked on to find him, seeing no sign of the others. "I hope I didn't wake you, Edea. You need your rest, after all."
She dismisses his comment with a shake of her tousled blonde hair, the movement causing his eyes to flicker over and take in the sight of her. His beautiful angel, clad in a light white shift and slacks that hug her hips, make her glow in the light from the skies above and the few torches left burning. She is alive and healthy, a fact that simultaneously makes his heart swell as much as it does hurt. "No, that's not it. I just…" She trails off, but the rest of her sentence is understood.
Like himself, like Tiz and Agnes, Edea has been plagued by nightmares of late. It's no wonder, after all. All of them have lost something, wounds that have held hostage their hearts. But while his, Agnes, and Tiz's wounds are old wounds that are unable to close, festering with hurt despite the time and care given to treatments, Edea's heart is subject to new lashes and punctures with every new world they visit, every familiar face. Each time she faces her master, her comrades, her father, her pain and her nightmares grow in number. It hurts him to see her suffer so, but there are some wounds that cannot be dressed with bandages, or cured with a potion.
She continues while he's lost in his musing (or while he's distracted by the stunning sight that is a half-dressed, vulnerable Edea Lee).
"What were you doing?" He can tell she is trying not to sound accusatory, or curious, but it's strained, either way. He's scared her, and he feels guilty immediately. He wants to ease her pain, not cause it anew.
He deflects the topic, something he's gotten so good at doing. "I felt a little ill, so I thought a bit of fresh air would help. Perhaps there was something amiss with dinner tonight."
She pauses. "If you really want to tell the Proprietress that she gave you food poisoning, be my guest."
It's that simple statement that breaks the tension over them both. He laughs, the sound noisy and sharp in the quiet night. "Well, perhaps it wasn't her food after all. Don't tell her... I do rather enjoy eating." But she's smiling at him now, despite the apprehension in her eyes that will never fade. Not while she's looking at him. At him, Ringabel.
She moves to stand closer, to join him at the railing, and he moves aside to give her room, jumping when their arms brush against each other. He had thought himself past such flustered movements, but it catches him off guard either way and he jumps, the slight contact sending electricity coursing through his veins. How pathetic he was.
They stand quietly for a few moments. As peaceful as silence can usually be, he finds himself unnerved that this woman of all people can be so quiet and introspective. As long as he can remember - and that memory is fractured and broken, clouded over with darkness and the deep red of pools of blood - she has been lively and loud. So bright and sunny, his sun and his guiding light, the same as her father.
Her voice drags him away from his thoughts again. Shameful as it is, he had been lost in them. The night, with its suffocating darkness, is so easy to get lost in. The more he regains his memories, the more comfortable darkness is to him.
"I'm sorry, my dear, can you repeat that?" He asks lightly, making sure to inflect his voice just so.
She makes an annoyed vocalization. "What's wrong with you, Ringabel? You've never been like this before!" He can tell that he's scared her, with his pains and the way she's just found him and he immediately feels like he is the worst person in the world. His hand twitches as though it wants to reach out to her and intertwine around her own, but instead he tucks it under his other arm.
She's quiet for another moment. "Will you tell me? What's happening?" Her plea is sincere, born of concern for her friend.
He swallows hard. He probably should. It's only right, after all, that Edea knows about his memories returning, about the dread in his stomach and the cause of the agony in his head each time a new crystal is awakened. She has kneeled beside him on more than one occasion as he's bitten back tears from both the pain and the visions that have knocked him out, her hand warm and comforting on his back. Tiz already knows. Agnes already knows. And he will be damned if Airy knows before Edea does.
"I…. remember." He forces himself to say. "I've regained most of my memory." The important bits, at least. There's still gaps here and there, years at a time missing where he can't explain how he grew from being the abandoned child Alternis Dim, covered in the muck of Florem's slums, to the Dark Knight Alternis Dim, draping himself in the darkness willingly and serving as right hand to the Templar. How it happened doesn't matter. Just that it did.
"Really?" She turns to face him, and her hand grips his forearm. "But, that's a good thing, right?" Perhaps it should be, aside from the headaches that result from years of memory flooding back in. He avoids her gaze.
Ringabel repeats the same statement he'd said to Tiz, taking the easy way out. "I'm not so sure."
She's waiting for an explanation, he can tell. He can feel her eyes searching his face, her gaze burning over the hard set of his lips, the dried tracks from the tears he hadn't quite bothered to wipe away. He can hear her take a breath. To yell at him, to inquire more, he doesn't know. But suddenly he's frightened of what she could say, and he barrels on.
"I am the Dark Knight Alternis Dim."
Silence descends over them both, and his eyes wander over to the pathway both of them have taken to get to this point. It's empty. Neither of their roommates have noticed their absence. Datz or Zatz have not noticed the intruders on the deck.
"Ringabel…." Edea's voice is soft, and trails off. "I figured as much.".
He looks at her, surprised. "You… you knew?" Something, something like anger or disbelief that she could keep such a secret from him rises from the pit of his stomach. He feels hurt, inside and out, heart and head.
Edea shakes her head, and her arms wrap around her own torso. Despite the feeling of pain in his chest, he wants to take her into his arms and apologize. "No, I didn't. I didn't know what to think at first. It's been years since I've seen Alternis' face, what with the asterisk and the helmet… but when he fell overboard, and we were suddenly transported to a new world, I had other things on my mind."
"Other things," He repeats, his voice forcefully even. Other things?!
"I knew you looked similar but I thought it was just a… resemblance! There are other people we've met - in the same world - who looked similar. And you were nothing like him. You're… Ringabel. He's Alternis."
"I am the Alternis of the world before the one we met." He finds himself explaining. "Just as we've been transported to a new Caldisla each time, so too did I find myself in the Caldisla where we met, my memories of my past gone." He suddenly does not want to be having this conversation. Not now. Not like this...
Edea continues, unable to look at him, her arms wrapping tighter around herself. "When we first started noticing the new worlds… Maybe I didn't want to believe it. If you were Alternis, where was your Edea? Your Tiz and Agnes?"
She's not helping.
Ringabel swallows hard, his headache pounding harder behind his eyes.
"I…" How does he explain what he saw? He's mentioned before that he'd seen visions of Edea dying, only to have been met with harsh rebuke. He can't handle that ridicule again, not right now. Not when the vision of his beloved dying in his arms is transposed over the figure of the lovely lady in front of him.
It turns out he doesn't have to. Edea places her hand on his arm, warm and soft despite the chill in the area. "It's…" It's not okay. "You don't have to explain. You're alone." Her eyes, so clear and blue and full of sadness are also full of understanding.
He exhales a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and the strength in his muscles escape along with it. His knees buckle and he grips the railing tightly as he lowers himself to the deck. Edea follows, and her arms wrap around his shoulders, the touch burning as he lowers his head to hide his face in her shoulder. Nausea and pain rise up again and he nearly retches.
"But… but you have us!" The poor woman continues, her voice bewildered at the sudden display of vulnerability from a man usually known as so composed. Her fingers dig into his skin almost painfully, a pain he gladly accepts as he leans against her, lifting a hand to clutch her arm. He is like a child, clinging to the woman he loves for comfort, but she says nothing and one of her warm hands moves up to run her fingers through his messy, damp hair, her cheek resting tightly against his temple. He can feel tears and doesn't know who they belong to.
They stay like that for a few moments, Ringabel soaking in the warmth of Edea's touch before he finally pulls away, embarrassed as much as he is comforted. "I'm sorry. Forgive me," he says, unsure of what exactly he's apologizing for. His past failures or his breakdown, or perhaps both. Perhaps everything. This is not exactly how he had planned on letting Edea know about his memories.
She's pouting, from what he can see in the light, and her cheeks are wet before she wipes them with the back of her hands. "There's nothing to forgive, Ringabel." She says, almost sullenly. And when he opens his mouth to tell her that yes, yes there is there, there are so many things he needs to beg her forgiveness for, beg Tiz and Agnes their forgiveness for, the Templar, the whole world even, she cuts off his protest with her mouth, her fingers grasping tightly onto the collar of his shirt.
Anything he might have said instead becomes a woefully inarticulate noise of surprise against Edea's earnest and inexperienced lips. Their teeth bang together, and he feels the sharp twinge of his lip being cut somehow along with the taste of blood that accompanies it, but Edea's hands are strong at his collar and he closes his eyes, tilting his head to make them both more comfortable. His heart and his head are pounding, but the brief comfort he feels is worth it, at last for a few moments.
He doesn't deserve this, not one bit, and that knowledge causes the pounding all too soon turns to sharper pain. He pulls away, breathing out a pained moan against her lips, bringing a hand up to cradle his head as he tries to steady himself against the railing. Ringabel - Alternis - Ringabel thinks that he is the most despicable person on the planet (save Old Man DeRosa, at least). He doesn't know what to think of anything now.
Edea notices his pain of course, even if she can't notice his internal self-loathing. "Okay," she breathes, and Ringbel peeks one eye open to glance at her face, noticing how red it seems in the scant light. His own feels hot enough to match. "Let's get you inside. You need to rest."
"Of course, my dear." He hardly has the energy to argue with her even if he wanted to, and stands unsteadily. Were it any night but tonight - any world but this one - he might happily invite her into his own bed so that they can continue where they left off, but now…? The idea of blissful, peaceful darkness is more appealing than his angel's arms. What is he becoming?