Ahhhh, it's weird thinking how close everything is... maaan xD This is a chapter that's been in my head for years now... writing it out—finally writing it out, it's like, it's like... ahhhh! Haha... It's hard to believe, I guess...
Dina: nnnnn... It is scary...
Torn: -C'mon Dina get your shit together almost there-
Dina: ;w;
Torn: -Come onnnnnnnnnn we can do thissssss-
Dina: -tries to stifle some of her whimpers and sort of fails-
The Aloft Champion
Chapter 37: Incarnation
Dina
I wish I could hear my own breath. Gasping, gasping off the cusp of sound, hot and hard and... itchy in my throat, my translucent throat, my eyes and hair and hands and motions all so very jagged, so very wild. Stumbles and slips and feet that slide straight through the snow below. Wide eyes that I cannot see, that no one can see. Blank and silver, spinning all around me, a snowstorm within a snowstorm. Colder, colder, particles of ice piling onto the plain as it gathers speed and climbs upward, upward, further.
So much energy, fleeting, spilling out of me like blood from a wound, my head dizzy, my breath not even breaking the horizon and it... and it feels so strange, so different not to see any sense of my presence being here. It... It twists into my heard, a cold, chilling sensation... it hurts. It hurts not... being real. It hurts not to be seen, to be felt, to be... there.
His eyes were so much stronger, his gaze so much more focused upon me when I saw him. Gentle yellow irises took me in, a lip twitching into the faint impression of a smile almost immediately. Ghostly pale, battered, yes, but... so real. Different, yes, but... oh, but... I still cannot remember his name. Nobody spoke it, either, nobody had a reason to drop it into conversation. And it is not as if he knows I do not remember... the beloved I created in my head, in her trap, he knew, but... he was not real.
Dinu. Dinu... is someone else. She fits into a little space in my memories, with the Calio Slablets and the semifinals of the Caliosteo Cup—I remember—I remember he had to fight her, but she did not care if she won and let him demolish her team. And then my beloved and I were in the final round... because in the semifinals—that is right, that is... Pauleen broke my hand and it all comes spinning back into me like a plow to my chest.
Woozy and frantic, I crash into the earth below, my body partially... sinking into snow. I try to yank out legs and toes and knees without much luck: still, some vague piece of me phases through. There is a faint nip, if at all, of the chill, but it may also be my wishful mind supplying the notion for me...
Ah... No, no, Dina, you need to keep going—I—ah—remember, remember the hurt and shocked and drained expression on his face as he opened up that little path in the snow for you, as that ancient smacked him in the wrong place and he crumpled to his knees and he told you to keep going... He told you because he saw it too, the concentration in the air, the snapping of scales and claws and flames and too many things to keep track of.
A shaking hand flicks up to my side. I watch, head tilted, as a slight discoloration plays along the silvery wisps, faint white to nothing to white to silver again, strengthening and then blinking out when I am not very attentive. Saw all that, he... he saw all that, too, with wide golden eyes... Nnnf, I can—I-I can do this...
No Torn, no beloved, no Dinu, even. And that... that is fine. Ye-Yes.
One step, two, three, pushing back through a world so much solid than me, when the claws fasten around my whispers of pressure tremble up and down my spine as the nails tighten and tighten and seek little chinks in my wispy armor, if even armor at all, as I feel myself beginning to melt beneath her presence.
Gasp. I do not even hear it but it trembles down deep from within me and I jerk out of her large—shaky—grip. For sudden seconds I find myself unable to breathe and nearly collapse, just like that, all over again. My body aches for the ground and I—and I have to force, on trembling feet, myself back up. It seems even in this form my muscles pause, clumsy with the motions, with standing up and going still instead of utter collapse. H-Heh, that is a little embarrassing...
My eyes reluctantly trail back up to the thing that caught me and I forget what feeling it was stuck in my throat, just that it lumps and sticks and suddenly I cannot breathe all over again. The wet pinch in my face—a suggestion of tears—trembling little fingers mashed into fists that not even I can make out of small, silvery wads of... of something, I cannot even tell what.
What surprises me is not my soft attempt at speaking, running over the words in my mouth, wincing at each stutter. What surprises me is when it pours through, hot and wet and flowing. "I-I—Nnnnh! Z-Zoazoa, it is... y-you!" While raspy at best and but a stub of what I once could freely speak with, any voice is more welcome than none at all.
In a rush of sound, my flushed cheeks push out air loudly. Zoazoa, so quiet now, her bloody gaze sharp, murderous, gives off the impression that I am even louder. That every tiny whisper of noise that comes out of me is an explosion. My twitching body. The slight yelp as the cold sneaks up into my feet. Hair twirling in the breeze. Hard, hard gasps of breath.
Stony silent, she faces me in a shimmering aura of ice. I lose my nerve and glance back. One... two—
Faster, faster, I turn back and flee. My tail spikes up behind me, wagging frantically, back and forth and back and pelleted in snow, and I hear her thorny feet crunching on behind me and my heart goes pounding wildly in my chest.
These ghostly whimpers begin in my chest. I try to stifle them, to halt them in the midst of their beckons, to swallow them back down... but they do not want to stay down, and so in the end I sate myself in the attempt of ignoring their existence. She must hear me so well, oh, she must know exactly where I am, oh, any chance of a lead I once had is horrendously mistaken.
When the footsteps stop. Oh, the horrible stench of silence overcomes me and with a quiet cry I lurch off as nails claw past one of my shoulders. I glance over it and there they go, beady dark droplets, but I do not stay long enough to find out what they mean, where they land, what they do. M-Maybe Zoazoa will get curious and she will spend some time doing that instead of... instead of...
Nnnnnnnnnnnggghhh...
What happens when she... when that is... when she lops of more than part of a shoulder...
H-Huh... She was not kidding... when she said... she was ready to kill me.
I wish I still did not care. I wish it did not matter to me, then, then this—this terrible pounding in my head would go away, then my heart would stop beating so frantically, then I would not have to swallow around a boulder in my throat, then I would not have to breathe so loudly again... but then I would not have to breathe at all I-I guess and I... I am not sure if I can d—dhhh—
PWHHFH!
Oh—Ohh...Ahh, hill, hill, I-I did not see that hill coming, oh no... My fingers twist around the throbbing ankle in question but I think it has gone numb, too much snow, too much exertion, not enough rest. We-Well if that is all that is the matter then that is fine, I am fine, absolutely wonderfully fine, oh... S-Stop trembling so much, Dina...
It appears I have lost the girl, if but for precious seconds. Scrambling, I duck around the side, my fingers digging into the snow—only stopping to wonder now if that even helps with anything. Another ledge, a second ledge, precarious and scabbed over in hard stones and frost, rests just in front of my feet. In the pounding moments I have before she shows up again, my head splitting, heart shrieking in my chest, I think about it, I really do, I think maybe I should—maybe I should ju—
Her guttural screech sizzles in the frigid air. Maybe a sliver of her shadow crosses my vision—wh-what a bright sun up above—and that is all it takes for my foot to slip. Words, sounds, meaningless jumble fly from my lips and I cannot begin to say what happens next and tears gush out of the corners of my frozen cheeks and my raw fingers slip and a toe slams against a stone and then I cry out a second time—and if she did not hear me the first time she certainly has now.
But whether she finds me I have yet to encounter. My body goes spilling down the slope and sticks into one edge. Trans...parent. Again. And the further I slip and the further I stick... the more silver my body goes, the more edges I lose, until all I am is but stardust glued together again. No voice, no pain, no cold... Somehow I miss it. This raw aching... in my chest, lulling, throbbing.
My eyes just so happen to stray over the far side of this ledge... and it is unanimously decided I should not fall off this next one. Thick, hard rocks support my vague figure as best as either of us can manage; my palms bite into their surfaces as I curl up and scrabble past all of that slick ice. When I find another batch of snow again, it is without thinking that I climb. Down, down drops beneath me; while I try to chastise myself from looking, my gaze snaps back anyways, staring down that tipping vortex of swirling white and nothing else.
That would... hurt. If I fell from here.
We-Well... There are no more ancients over here, hu-huh... That is good, that is... very good... A soft gasp peels out of my throat when I slip, unfocused, and I turn back to the task in front of me. This scary... expedition.
My beloved, the Mier boy, oh, Todd... I wonder where they are now. It hurts, a little, thinking of them, this pinching ache in my chest, but I smile beside myself too.
As I climb, my mind wanders, and steadily I steer it in the direction of the ancient that is here, though I cannot see her now. H-How do I fare against her? S-Sure, I know the limits of my body, of the battle form she transformed herself into... but it is not like I have any advantages, where I am now. What do I—What does she—Oh, I grope for any thought of...
That is right. The chill burns out of me. That is right... I know her past. I know how lonely she was, for years and years on end. I know the battle she struggled with, the war of adoration and fear, the way she felt about her father. Her... scary father, the only man who ever gave her a piece of kindness. Gentle... warmth. A smile.
Which must be scary. Which—Which must be really scary,really really scary, really hard to live through, really hard to try to do, to stop him and then fail and then die terribly... to haunt my body, select me as a host, seeking shelter from all the scary things that happened to her... taking me over... finding none.
Trembling fingers twitch, clamp, release and—and I lose a good measure of space, sliding back down again. Oh, no...
A trifling piece of me wonders why I even bother here, why I even dare going further when I know who is coming and what she will bring with her, what kind of pains I will be forcing myself through again to come into contact... and then I think of my beloved, whose skin she so easily tore into like the flesh of a fruit, his blood ripening around the cut edges and my stomach clenches.
She has hurt him. Clawed tips of fingers slicing, thicker, thicker, snagging into him and striking where she can... leaving her work on display for all to see. The bruises dappling under his neck, the tapered white scars along his chin, his jawline... the way those hungry eyes follow him as if—as if... Oh, I cannot have that, now can I. N-No. No. Not... at all.
Ha-Hahaha... if Trikko was here... he would laugh at me... He would laugh at the serious pout on my face and... maybe cheer me on with very subtle, very careful implication. And Nyra would be so... pleased. It is... It is different, the silence in my head, the utter lack of warmth where vivosaurs once were and sometimes—sometimes when I approach Zoazoa so near that I feel myself solidifying there is this permeating sense of a chill eating at my insides. Solemn, strenuous silence.
Heh. But I cannot let myself grow sidetracked. This is... This is important to me. So I need—I need to do this. I need to. I need to try, if naught else. I... My thoughts grow quiet, hushed, thick. I would... take his lashes if I could. I-I would. My heart pules at the disfigured slights among an otherwise gentle demeanor, a soft expression...
It makes me sad... seeing him hurt.
And, we-well... I cannot have that. Perhaps this fight grows tiresome, meandering to follow along with, and perhaps I know, embedded deep inside of my head, I know that all of these obstacles, barriers, pains, fears would disappear if I only let them, if I only stopped moving, if I only ceased and rested and let my head fall.
Maybe I should not put so much heart into another person. Maybe I should not... hurt myself so much in order to be near them again. Maybe the effort is not worth it, worth him, at the end of everything. Maybe I should... stop, maybe I really should.
He—Heheh... hah... maybe... maybe, maybe...
Maybe one day the word will fit.
Detonation. The feeling explodes from within me, hot and sticky and squeamish down in my lungs until I spill out among the snow again. Ice that bites at my fingers—white fingers, not so silver as they were earlier—soft coppery orange curls streaming out in front of me, the wind biting into those little coiled spots around my eyes. Hot breath, each inhale a sharp piercing sound, wet tears, sharp teeth, a small smile tearing into quavering lips.
But... of course, then, that means—that means—
I duck and curl aside just as fingers shred into the spot where my head just lay. Breathing goes frantic and I feel air accumulate in white puffs around my face as I turn and shift and turn again, back and back and twisting around an onslaught too clumsy and too hasty to predict well enough where I go next. Pulling back, I continue again up the side of the mountain as fog penetrates my senses, wet dew stifling my nose. Wet little jewels encrust among my scales and tousle my hair, tail flying.
Wheezing punctures through. I fall once, twice, and the third time I crumble her claws rake down my back. That strange silvery mist sprays off of me in showers—and I am not quite solid, not truly. Closer, closer to the edge as my heart races and arms pump and feet twist and the next time I slip I know that—that I cannot possibly fall this time, her shadow looming over my figu—
Voice. A... voice. My head pops up from the snow. I turn weakly, hair billowing down in sheets around my face.
Unclear and shaky, I miss whatever the meaning is. But I think they realize, for there is a soft cough before a second attempt, one easily cutting through the mist.
"Release her." My throat catches. "Zoazoa. Release her. Now."
My... darling, no—do not... please do not get yourself into this.
Heart pounding in my ears. Fingers lurching off of my forehead. I wrench my neck to turn around the body collapsed on top of mine, sharp nails so delicately perched around my spine. One thumb in particular plunges into the thick, corded skin beneath my chin. So much as I try to hold back that whimper I feel it trembling inside of me. Stubborn tears bite at my gaze.
A lip quivers, threatening to open, when I feel the pinch of misty blood-like gray swelling around the newly-cut scratch in my skin. I move my mouth any further and... we-well, I feel the rest of her fingers curling up by my throat. N-No words then. I-I-I can do this.
Curch, curch... Footsteps beating into the snow as he steps closer. "Zoazoa, I told you t—"
"NO!" Violent growls shred out of her throat and her vibrating body slips as it catches over me. "NO, YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! YOU CAN'T, YOU CAN'T! I WON'T LISTEN! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Hissing, hissing, whimpering, hating. I try to stay as still as I possibly can, but I cannot help when a finger slips and cuts a lengthy curve out of the bottom of my throat.
Grayish-red plumes and I wince softly, a finger fluttering to try and hide it before he—
"Zoazoa." His voice deadly. H-He saw it. He definitely saw it. "Cease."
Such lethal calm causes her to forcibly curl in upon herself. Hissing returns. "SHUT UP!" Her high-pitched whine uneven due to the sudden splurges of cracking. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UUUUP!" My breathing is frantic soft. Any more and she will—Ahh, ah, that is—That is not good—I... ahhhh, hold your breath, Dina... "I'LL KILL HER RIGHT NOW! RIGHT THIS INSTANT! I WILL, I WILL I WILL I WILL IF YOU KEEP—"
She cuts herself off when a hand clenches around hers, yanking her scrawny form off of mine. A-At some point, she must have lost her battle form... but this entire time, I-I did not even... notice.
My held back tears finally shed down my cheeks as I inhale deeply. I feel myself shaking while trying very hard not to. Nothing... works. Nothing works, not ignoring, not enforcing, not... not... Oh, I feel so—so cold...
When I dare peek back at them again, Zoazoa lies in a state of shock. Her dark, curdling gaze has gone silent in her face and my beloved... oh, my heart twists in my chest at that... look. He swallows, eyes narrowed, haughty globes of burning saffron penetrating deep into her face, his face set, rigid, lips slightly parted as he breathes hard.
When I glance upon the utter hatred gleaming from inside of him, I... finally go still.
My... beloved... oh, my beloved... oh my beloved...
A head snaps and I turn and I watch as the ancient inside of my body hardens and her jaw unhinges then, flashing sharp teeth and she launches and words wrench out of my mouth as I toss myself forward and she slams into me and those—those claws, those... those teeth... puncture my neck. I squirm back at the touch, at the... cold mouth in my throat, the claws shredding my arms, compressing me against her, when she pulls back and stares and eyes split wide open when I collapse instead of he.
With a crrch, my semi-transparent form hits the snow, crumpling upon impact. So many puncture wounds bleed out of me that the ghastly silver color leaves me drained, my complexion... weakening, my vision... my vision is so... so... so... fleeting. Spinning white pulls against my unrelenting head. Bright, bright golden eyes find mine and I can make out the impression of a face, a face lacking color... tears sprawling out upon me from the figure above.
Dina, I hear him crying, Dina, in this weak, faded whisper, bubbling in my head. My lips purse and form at the word I lack, the word that makes up a heart, my heart, the heart I so filled with him, but the name is still not there, and I cannot say it, cannot say him... cannot before I... before it all...
Oh, dizzying darkness... I did not miss your presence...
Colors beaten out of me... body aching... mind a mess, a strewn mess of emotion and dry loss... Breaths weak, but—but audible... gasping little gulps of air, whatever I can manage... A discordant song breaking into my consciousness, hammering out my feelings, my heart, my sight... until the snow crumbles from beneath me and all that is left are the ashes.
I sit up and my head falls into my hands... crying again before I can even tell. These awkward, dry, heaping sobs that take away more breath than I can replace, my weak gasps so loud I wonder if he still hears me, somewhere, someplace... oh, I cannot... I cannot be this far away again... I cannot do this one more time, I—I—I...
But there is no time to cry. There is no time to feel sorry, to shut down, to break off once more. She may have me trapped again... but that only means I need to be even more careful, not this thoughtless, weeping ditz who will certainly be hurt, be killed, in a painful way if I am any more... disobedient. Uuuf, she will only make it worse if she has to take longer...
No... No! No, no, stop, stop that, stop that... Come on, Dina, come on... I did not get this close only to fall all over again. Ye-Yes... Yes, right, right... Oh, I push shaky legs back over shaky feet and stand on the ashes again. A weak smile twists my lip as I lean over, pool a handful of the black particles, and toss them off into the horizon again. There is no change.
Not until a ball of black matter shoots back toward me, one that catches in my hair as I struggle to avoid it, spilling out behind me in a mixture already gone as quickly as it came. Well... that is, until black builds upon black and the pieces stitch themselves together, revealing in frantic harmony the glowing red gaze of the girl whose form has stuffed into a body that was once mine.
Her long face resembles mine, but also does not, too thin, too sharp. The eyes are similar—large—but gaping, empty, pained. Thin, scraggly dark hair sails about her face, softer and straighter than mine... and much more matted. Scars climb up and around her, marking like little tallies of all the things she ever managed in her life, stinging accomplishments, painful reminders. Her body, thinner and much feebler than my own, leans nearer—and she reigns taller than me by a good handful of inches.
Staring back at me. That is all she does for I cannot relay how long. Eyes wide, face set, lip curled over the serrated corners of teeth. Then the lips pull and strain creases over ghastly pale cheeks, compressing, pushing, forcing the words to come. All but easy, not a habit. "You... die. Now."
And she stands there like that, staring wildly, waiting... for something. I twitch back with some effort, glancing back and forth, my eyes weak, my smile failing.
"N-Now?" I mumble. "Or... soon?"
Glimmering dark eyes set upon me. "I don't... need your sass," she spits, dribble gleaming past her lip. "You know how it works. It takes... time, to... make things happen." And her fingers clench, and she—she is waiting. She is waiting. Waiting for enough strength to... kill me.
Oh—Oh—ohhh, then I have time, I have... time. But what do I... what can I say? I only have so much and if I waste time filling up the empty air with nonsense then I will be no closer than I already... hmmmm, there must be—must be something I can do... ye-yes, something... oh, umm... ashes, ashes, dust, black, um... um...
It sinks down in my stomach. I struggle swallowing, glancing back at her. It hits me then, hard, and I stumble and I squeak, "U-Um... Wh-What was your mom like?"
Her response is as baffled as... well, as it probably should be. "I'm going to kill you." Blatant. Obvious. "My... mom? But I'm... I'm... I..." The gaze dulls and I catch a snatch of something, just a hint of—of—craving, longing.
She does not question me afterward.
"My mom was... was nice. Really... nice." Big, dark eyes poke up toward me, as if threatening me to retaliate. "The nicest person to ever exist." She puffs her cheeks. "Ever." And that is final. "But she was... really soft. Really... innocent. She believed things when people told them to her, even—even when they were really outrageous things, things that... couldn't be true." Lips pursed together tightly, she mutters the last sentence in a state of hesitation, flinching partway through: "Like that... that my dad wanted to mate her.
O-Oh. In another world entirely, those big eyes wobble, and Zoazoa struggles to compose herself. "She... She was so... She was so... nice. So much... better. Than my dad. But she didn't live for very long because... because then she heard more lies and she acted on them. Really fast. Too—Too fast. She heard things about how—how my dad was evil and planned to—to kill her and kill me and... and it was too much for her feeble... mortal mind. She tried to run away, tried to... tried to take me with her and then—and then a-and then she..."
She... My face heats. She heard lies about... Zongazonga wanting to... um, to be with her but then... there were lies later about him wanting to... hurt her? So then... So then at some point, that means... that means that maybe there was some form of attachment. Or... Or maybe not, maybe he just saw no reason to kill and that was it but... but still, but...
I remember the gleaming wisps of zombiesaurs that charged out of the night, and while they tore me, they only tore through to get to... to her. To the mother of... Zoazoa. Because it was they who... killed her. A-Ah. Ah.
"He wasn't gonna kill her." The voice inside of her throat is tiny, and she speaks like that of a child. "Wasn't... gonna kill her! He only killed people in the tournaments, he wasn't—he's not a monster!" Those eyes lash back at me and she screams, "Does that make you the monster?! ARE YOU THE MONSTER FOR KILLING HIM?" And her voice comes at me so fast and so hot, steaming like fire as it curls along the edges that I flinch back.
Does it... make me a monster? I-I do not know... I do not feel like a monster but from the sound of it Zongazonga did not feel like a monster either...
"Did I..." My voice is tiny, too. But a different tiny. Soft, quiet, gentle. "Did I really... hurt him so badly that I—"
The lip upturns into a snarl. "YES! YOU DID." N-Nnnnh—"YOU KILLED MY DAD!" Wheezes snatch out of her and she curls up around herself, eyes reeling, head blotchy, teeth grinding against one another. "You did—you did! You... You killed him! Way back when he tried to... kill your stupid boyfriend! I—I..." Fingers clenching and unclenching, those eyes so wet and shiny I mistake her tears for ink, the color draining out of her face with each sob. "You—I... I..." Weak, ragged breaths drag out of her as she falls to her knees. Intense shivers crawl amok her. "I didn't... I didn't think we were monsters..." A gasp, then bleeding into another sob. "We're not monsters... we're not monsters... We're not..."
Ahh... But I thought—But I thought... in her memories, in the memories I gleaned out of those visions, I thought... she died at the unfaltering hand of her father. She disobeyed, and she was destroyed.
Maybe... she does not remember it that way. N-No... Maybe not. Maybe... not. Some instinctive curl of my hand opens up and I step toward her, the little cowering creature on the ashes, but her hand snatches out and slaps me back. So that is as far as I get.
I try at starting some number of different sentences, thoughts ajar, thinking—maybe... but then I lose it, or I lose my nerve first. Lose the hope in my heart. But she just wails softer and softer, those eyes so sad and weak, and eventually I lose my nerve to not say anything and mumble, "U-Um, what was the name of your mother?" Because she... Because she never told me.
Staring at me like I must be a girl of such vast idiocy that she cannot even form a word to say in response. Then a blink, then a sigh, her head tossed back. "I don't... know. I-It was a long time ago." While wet, while shaky, speak she does. "I don't... know if I ever learned it from her. She didn't... talk much about herself." The lip curls over and she mutters, head low, "I don't want to talk about it anymore." Swallow. "What was your mom like? Cuz I know she's dead too."
"He-Heh..." Before I can think to stop it, a sharp grin bites into my lip. "I... do not know. I think I was... too young to remember much of her. She... She also died... very young." My eyes do not waver from the ground, though I do not feel very much when I relay this to Zoazoa. "A creature... destroyed our home planet. She was still on it... when others escaped. H-Heh, not... not many made it out.
A shard of her remains. "Amethyst. She was... named Amethyst." I like that... simple, maybe, but... nice. I wonder why my brother and I were named after our dad instead... heh, not that I dislike Dina, Dino... Dynal.
While she sits there, staring up at me with wide, vacant eyes, I make my way toward her again, and I sit there, and I watch her, that glassy dark gaze. "Your mom... I am sure your mom was the nicest person to... to, um... ever exist." I am sure...
"Y-You're right." Is that sass? Pff... "She is! She was! She... She always will be. E-Even if she's dead she... she still is." Yes, I... I am sure. "And I... I'll... Nnnnh. I bet she wants me to live. Because... Because I deserve it. I... I deserve it." Wavering, just slightly. "And I do! A-And besides. You didn't... even try to fight it. Not... when you learned about it. Not when I took over. Not until that stupid boy had to..." She trails off. Her eyes are heavy. A-Again. Like storm clouds, waiting to fell rain.
My fingers curl around my legs; I trace vaguely through the ashes on the earth in between us. Flowers, leaves, little things. "He is only... sometimes stupid." My cheeks heat. "He-Heh! No... No, maybe he is always stupid, very stupid, to someone like you. But... But he is... very smart to me." I am not... very smart. Ha-Haha... But that is okay. Because... he is. "If... there is anything he lacks, it is... joy. Heh... he is... he is not very good at smiling."
Zoazoa snaps her face up to my level. Our height difference mars the effect; her trembling chin raises to almost the level of my nose. So I have to look up at the strain she has put upon herself. "You haven't seen him in a long time. You don't... know if that's true anymore." Her fingers snatch upon the soil, blowing up a wad of ash. Small sparkles sizzle off of it but she takes no note. "He smiles more now! And... he's not smart, he... he broke his foot and hurt other people and he's... and he's..." A hiccup. "He's mean!" So loudly it reverberates in my ears, mean mean meeeeaaannnnnnhhh.
"I do not think he is mean..." I mumble, mostly into my knees. "He is... scared. But he is so gentle and... caring, if you do not scare him." A smile bursts upon my face as I giggle softly. "A lot of things scare him, but... that is okay." Because not a lot of things... scare me. And because I am not very good at being scary myself. Fear was such an integrated part of my life for so long that I must... I must be very resilient against fear now. Ha-Hah... At least, I like to think so. Maybe not so much... a lot of scary things happened while I was inside of Zoazoa...
"Yeah... Y-Yeah?! Well... Well you..." Her eyes drop to her feet, tone soft, quavering. "You don't know that. He's... another person. And you haven't seen him in... in a long time."
My gaze falls too. "But... I love him. I love him... Zoazoa. So I would like to think—I am sorry—I would very much... like to think that I do know him."
When I utter her name, I glance back as she flinches, her body freezing up around her like I... like I gouged her with such a well-aimed fist that she has temporarily lost all of the strength in her body. And then it all comes rushing back, a flood, a whirlpool, a downpour of dizzying power, and she slams back down upon me and there I land, back upon the ashes, the breath sucked out of me.
Her voice, low, guttural, thick, sluices my ear. Hot breath. Punctured by gasps. "No, no, nnnnnnnhooouuuuuUUUUUHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhHHH! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT! YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT! YOU KNOW NOTHING, YOU... IDIOT!" Cold claws pierce at my throat, wriggling about the skin and watching it slither between her clenched talons. I feel my voice go higher and my breath come faster, frantic, desperate, until I try to shut it off and these stars explode in dazzling lights about my vision, pockmarking my senses, blinding my sight.
My voice but a pule against her vast currents, I whisper, "But I do," because I do, because I really do love him, really... really. And maybe I should not put so much love into someone, maybe it is wrong to adore the little things about him, the way his eyes light up, the little hesitant quirk of a smile, the way he picks up on any shift in mood so... easily. How... protective he is, and a little clingy—heheh, or maybe a lot—and how easily he shrugs off the way Torn... yells at him, and he makes it look so... silly...
The way he turns to me, the shift immediate, when he hears my laughing... the happiness he tries and fails to hide when he realizes, oh, it was he who made me laugh that way...
I do not mind... if he did change. Even if... if it was in a bad way. Even if... he was mean.
Something about him, something hidden in those warm, yellow eyes... deep down inside of him, something... that he has, and he alone... something that makes him so special, so... important to me... something that evades all past his flaws, or my flaws, or situation or circumstance or Zoazoa, even... or scary ancients.
Because I love him. And as I close my eyes, my heart so warm... I feel safe again. Just thinking of him... so freely, so openly... how I love him.
It is then that I feel the wet plurp on my cheek. For a second my warmth dissolves as I mistake it for a tear in my throat, the warm blood seeping up into my face, landing so perfectly on my cheek, my last moments as I lay dying... when I shift and glance and realize... oh. Oh.
"Z-Zoazoa! Wh-Why are you crying!"
No blood in sight, no blood at all, just the fractured expression upon her face, the condensed lips and taut skin and haunting, shimmering eyes. It... It almost is like she cried away the blackness, like all that she has left is the faint impression of a color that once was, beneath the murky dark, beneath this cool, glassy stare. Long ago.
She goes so still, so quiet that I nearly ask her again what is wrong when she raises a hand and stares down at it, slowly shaking her head. Black hair scatters with each shake. Forceful. Weak. "I-I wish... you still didn't care." She shudders, swallowing. "I wish... you let me kill you. Because then I—then I wouldn't have to feel bad about it. I can tell myself whatever I want and it still works because you still don't care.
"Then you had to make it... complicated." Her voice goes quiet again, soft, childish, squeaking every few syllables. A struggle in her face leaves her breathtakingly open, gaze a wild mess, hands clenched together in front of her. Still she lies on top of me. I stay where I am. "You had to... start caring and then I—then I had to start thinking about it, about what I was doing and I... and I...
She swallows again. Snot and tears leak out of her face. "Now if I kill you I... I... Why did you have to make this so hard?" Her face lowers in on mine again. "Why?" Her rank breath spilling out on me. Slimy droplets splatter over my scales. "It would've been so much easier if you just let me win! My... My life was awful! I... deserved another chance to—to do something with it! But why... So you... So why can't you..." Her eyes splinter. She cannot say.
Blank. Having lost her thoughts, I attempt to supplement with mine in this strange, quiet, measured tone. "I... I... um..." Her hysteric breaths slamming against my face. Those wide, hopeless eyes. The ashes crawling underneath me. "I—Torn. Torn... helped me. Helped me try to..." Oh. "But... But he did not—none of them... none of them convinced me. H-Huh." It was he who... "The boy, he... he listened to me. And... made me feel better, and... and then I could not stop thinking about it... about dying, about... losing that and..." And well... then I could not let it happen. It hurt too much to.
"I-I am... sorry." Blush dusts my cheeks. "But I cannot... I cannot... s-stand by and do nothing. Not... again. Not this time." The one time she truly needed me not to. To stay how I always was.
Funny how she is on top of me now, how easy it would be for her to run a claw beneath my throat. I talk so big but... but she may as well have already won. H-Heh. As she lies there, staring at me with such an incredulous face, a sniffle breaks out of me and I wince, turning back. Do not cry now... d-do it later... or something.
Her father stands between us. A thin layer of grime, of death, of mistakes that happened before and could happen again, if she let them. Who I... defeated. Because he would hurt my beloved and I could not have that... I could not have him terrorizing people evermore... and then I... and then the battle form and the scales and then it all came together so... fast. S-So well.
His shadow lays on top of us, inching forward and back with each of our flinches and pulls, feints and peaces. Will he strike? Will he prove all-powerful? Or will he not, will he be lost? The memory of the creature sporting such lucid, black eyes, the half-decayed battle form, the monstrous head, those... rotting limbs.
We got so... quiet, now. She wants to kill me but she does not. Wants to live again but yet—but then...
And in the midst of this silence, she finally shatters.
"I can't."
What emotion once riveted in her tone has been all but sucked out.
"I can't do this." So simply. So finally. "I can't... kill you. Ha-Hahaha..." A hand covers her face. "I never could. I never... could. I-I told myself, I told myself I just needed a little time to adjust, it felt so weird being on the outside for once, living a life, breathing air, having control, but then a little time became more time and then I... and then you started waking up and hating what I did to you and I... Ohhhh... I-I wish I could kill you...
Big, gaping eyes turn back toward me. "Why can't I kill you? H-Heh... why can't I kill you... No, it's obvious." And she turns again, fixated on some point far, far behind me.
As she turns, I regain more of my bearings and manage to pull out from under her, sitting next to the sad... sad girl. Grief edges into her head, and her face tilts toward the ground. Shadows catch by her eyes, round her lips, under her neck, elongating and sharpening like weapons of their own. So much shorter than her, I still have to look up slightly to feel as if I search into her gaze, and whether the shadows hit me or not I cannot tell.
"You're too soft, Dina." Quietly. Her voice hitches when it flows into my name. I flinch a little at it; she never... spoke it before. "Too... soft. You could've killed me first. You know that? You could've killed me first if you just... went and did it. Then it'd be over." A weak laugh crawls out of her throat, and she winces, like it drags out of her, aching and sore. "Then it'd be over before it even started. But you didn't. Because you're too soft."
My eyes pull back. "I... nnnn..." No, but... "I think it was... a little more than that. You—You wanted to live..." When I realize. "Oh! Oh... we can both live! We can... We can share my—"
"No." Shaking her head. A rueful smile pierces her lip. "No. We're not sharing your body, Dina." O-Oh... My gaze lingers back toward her. "I... shouldn't have possessed you. I'm already so... broken, it... it didn't help me." Teasing at a little smile again. A flicker of pain darts along her face. "But you should've done something to stop me. I mean... I lived inside of you for... what, almost twenty years?" She rolls her eyes. "Did nothing... you idiot.
She exhales slowly. Softly. Almost like she... is breathing away all the hurt done unto her for so many years. "Dina... please. End this. End me. I shouldn't... be here. I shouldn't be here anymore than my—than my dad should be. Oh... gosh, all those poor ancients that..." Her eyes shine, face gentle, pitying. "They probably... shouldn't be here either. It's... been so long—t-too long." Deep intake. "Too long.
And then Zoazoa turns fully to my side, and she asks me again. "Dina. Please kill me."
"A-Ahh..." My heart is... heavy. "But I—I..." Cold. Oh, I feel so cold, cold fingers crawling into my mouth, down my insides... "I-I do not want to... k-kill you... Z-Zoazoa." I-I did not even want to kill Zongazonga... he was just... he was just hurting my beloved so much that I... that I... it all just happened and I...
I never even thought of it like killing until she told me so and... and now I stare back at what I did, so... empty.
She winces. "Dina! Please. I-I don't know if anyone else can even do it... Please." The eyes scatter. A breath hisses out of her. "It's like—like killing my dad. He wasn't real either. He was... He was in a lot of pain for a long time. It's—It's like that.
And then the tears return.
"Please... Please kill me. I can't... I... please... kill me..."
And... well, I-I take in her dreary, teary face and those lost eyes and the small, resigned smile. I watch the shadows disperse along her as she raises her head to mine, as she waits patiently for the end she begged so desperately, so gently for. My heart is trembling in my chest and every time I start a sentence the words fall apart before they even reach my lips.
But it is like what my beloved said—what... what he said that his friend, that—that Mier said. About being broken. About being weak, and slowly losing themselves over the centuries upon centuries upon centuries... millenia evermore.
So it is with cold, unfeeling fingers that I lower myself to the ground, that I gather little handfuls of the ashes, that I turn back to face her, that I try at a smile and my smile utterly collapses in upon itself, that I raise the ashes to her stead and send a magnificent bolt of white-hot energy to smite her asunder.
The form begins dissolving so quickly, quickly, picking up speed and dissolving ever faster, then, until she is gone so quickly that it is like with Reyna, with Nyra, with Trikko, like when everyone else left that for a second I convince myself into thinking that she never existed in the first place.
Then with a jolt, white puffs of—of snow harden about me. Soft coughing wracks my throat, my lungs. My eyes frantically dart about the horizon, so horrendously white-capped I fear I never truly escaped the black nexus, merely migrated.
When I catch the silhouette turning. Bundled in sweaters, silvery white hair flipping in the wind, pale skin shrouded in a flush. Wide, golden eyes. Mouth hung slightly agape.
Wordlessly he falls to my side, hands on my shoulders, guiding me to sit up. And then the arms fold around me, and my body hungrily absorbs the warmth he gives off. My hands quickly tighten around him, our foreheads bumping, tears streaming down his cheeks only to freeze as they go.
It is then that I realize how damp my own cheeks are... crusted in frost, layer upon layer of wet... H-How long have I been crying... oh, how long indeed...
His smile meets mine in a sloppy—but ever so warm—so loving—kiss. When his whisper reaches mine he practically speaks through me. "Dina... Dina..." his gaze so full, so... tender.
My mind catches on and I try to nod as I search for his name. His name... The piece I was missing for so long, I... I try to focus on his face but the longer I take the... further blurred he gets. But... But it is not from the tears, it is... it is something else... I—Oh, I feel so... dizzy... all of a sudden I am tilting and my head lands at his shoulder. His grip tightens upon me.
He never held me so tightly. As gentle as I remember him being and as tight as he did get when I first slipped away... no, this is something else entirely... I... I... Ru... Ru...
"Rupert..."
Like a slap, like a stone, like a storm it hits me and I feel my tears come down harder. "Rupert..." My tiny, tiny voice cherishing him and so much love all wrapped inside of two little syllables. Two wonderful, beautiful syllables...
I try to go on, to tell him how I love him, how much I yearned for him as I was gone but I am so... dizzy, so weak and struggling that the words cannot come. They slip lamely off my tongue and I glance up to him and I try to say and before I know it stars trickle into my vision again and I—and I shift toward him and my lips brush his nose and I try to say something, to warn him, to tell him, to—to—something—when I lose it and the world runs dark and then there is nothing.
Nyra
aaaaAUUUUGHHHH!
That... That..! Ahhh, some... monstrous paw just ran flat on top of me. I grunt and I squeeze and I wriggle back from the monsoon of throbbing pain that follows... but it seems I'm not moving anywhere anytime soon. Stars spangle my vision and I cry, trying, oh, trying to force myself erect and, well, failing miserably.
I'm stuck. Oh—Oh, look who it is, I know that voi—
HOLY FUCK NYRA, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? TELL ME WHAT DO—AUUHH! SHIT! The dimetro swerves as a second paw nearly comes down on him next.
I squeal. TORN! LOOK OUT, LOOK OUT! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER OR YOU—YOU'LL GET HURT TOO! BE—BE CAREFUL, TORN!
Of course, Torn is the polar opposite of careful and immediately goes barging back in until I snap at him to get back again, that—that idiot dimetro. The ancient's... well, he's got me, th-that much is sure. My... My gaze is going gray, too... oh, no, I won't last much longer if this weight doesn't come off of my back...
And of course, Torn has to pick up on that tidbit too. SHHHHHHH—FFF—FFUUHHHCCKK! GAAAAH, DAMMIT! NYRA, WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO! THIS THING'S FUCKING GINORMOUS! I CAN'T... I CAN'T... AHHHH, DAMMIT! DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT ALL TO HELL! He goes screaming and stomping and tries toward me again, only for the shadow of a paw to scrape by and yank him back by the tail until he can slither out again.
I'm not sure how long we end up arguing about this. It goes on for some time, but I'm so busy phasing in and out of consciousness that I can't say I'm sure just how long it goes. Torn, the stubborn work he is, won't leave me be, even so. I know it's... it's coming soon, though, I feel it... but that... oh, that fool, he won't go...
Because he has those feelings, I bet. Oooh...
It's neither of us that get the other to listen. In the end, it's... it's her.
A voice, a presence, a sensation searing hot down my brain. A screech tumbles out of me and I stumble forward but I can't even get forward so I just stay this awful, crumpled mess.
Reyna's—Reyna's saying something. I feel that presence and then I hear Reyna up there with Rupert and—and—and it all just comes crashing down on me.
TORN! TORN! DID YOU FEEL THAT! PLEASE TELL ME YOU FELT THAT, TORN!
WHAT THE HELL OF COURSE I FELT IT! WHERE THE FUCK IS REY—
Tears jam out of my eyes. DIIINAAAAA! TORN, THAT'S DINAAAA! SHE'S! SHE'S BACK! SHE'S OKAY! TORN, YOU HAVE TO GO GET HER! GO FIND REYNA AND GET HER!
WHAT THE FUCK? He pauses then. NO! NYRA, YOU'RE COMING!
Oh, goodness, what a stubborn... NO! I hiss. TORN, GET OVER IT! YOU SHOULD'VE KNOWN BY NOW THAT I'M NOT GOING TO DEVELOP ANY SORT OF FEELINGS FOR YOU! When I catch a third voice, lumbering off somewhere, still safe, still alive, still—TORN! GO GET YOUR BEST FRIEND AND SAVE HER YOURSELVES!
There we go. He starts turning back, this look of confusion thick in his face. ARE YOU SURE? NY-NYRA! YOU CAN'T BE SURE! MAYBE YOU'RE JUST—
NO, TORN. I cough. No. And my best friend, the one I always go to... she comes into my head. Mistress. Mistress, regal and sweet and overprotective Mistress, losing her heart over some loser like Camri, like anyone, someone so strong and empathetic as her falling so easily. Losing hope... so easily. I-I can't have that. If there's anything I know I can't have that.
It all flashes through me like glass. It leaves me breathless. Leaves me aching. Oh, Torn...
But there's something we all can agree to. GO GET TRIKKO AND FIND HER! A weak grimace slides through my face. I'm... yeah, I'm losing it, fast. And... Heh, be nice to Rupert, while you're at it. Be nice to him for once.
He tosses back one bewildered, hurt stare after another, charging forward at least slightly with each turn. But we all know what weighs more heavily, and anyways, I'm stuck, and even when I do collapse it'll just be into a medal. So I'll be fine.
Besides... he needs to stop brushing that poor tricera off. He'd never admit it, but anyone with eyes—or just anyone in general—Reyna knows, too—can tell that it's upsetting him. Oh, Trikko... oh, all of them...
With the smashing of my bones I feel it coming and I hold my breath as all of my aching dissolves into one tiny droplet of matter, a little glowing medal. And I stay there, holding my breath, waiting, thinking of her, of living, of whatever comes next in a nonsensical sort of joy for some heightened number of seconds until it all goes spiraling into blackness.
I'm so happy...
Ahhh, those were... ahh I'm so happy xD
I couldn't completely focus when I got to the end, where Dina FINALLY comes back and Rupert's there with her, I just... I got so happy ;;w;; I was like YOU DID IT! Hahaha...
Zoazoa finally came to terms with herself and everything she'd caused. Wonder what that's gonna lead to next chapter, with all the loose ancients still around, not to mention Rupert's dad?
Hahaha... wonder what's gonna happen next chapter, huh xD Who do you think's gonna get the POV this time? (haha, if you look at the last three... it's a little obvious)
oh heck I'm so giddy hahahaha