He can barely hear Pacce outside as the air thrums around him and the lightening that isn't there crackles. Electric blue eyes watch him even as he whispers under his breath. With every prayer and murmur he loses bits and pieces of himself. The man sings, and the fire lord and the free one sing back. He knows this, even though he can't hear them in his head now, because the voices are everywhere in the Chamber, even if the one of the man in front of him is the loudest, and he can pick them out because he knows them better than knows himself now, maybe.
The prayers stop because he can't breathe and something jolts into him in angry bursts and he hurts and then it stops and something, or maybe somethings because it's getting harder to tell one voice from the other now (even if he knows the sounds better than he knows himself, maybe), stirs quietly in his soul. Or his mind. Maybe he doesn't have a soul anymore. The new voice kicks his body into overdrive, jumpstarting it until his air stands on end and his fingers twitch with energy, and he quiet stir turns into a thick boom, like thunder over the sea; a frightening crack, like two rocks banged together; and something like the violent snik snik snik of hooves beating against stone.
I will shock you.
He's not surprised, but he is afraid. Mama and Papa were killed by a thunder fiend, after Sin attacked and they were already hurt. Something in him quakes, and the being in him is mighty and powerful but it is sympathetic as well. He feels something like sorrow and for the first time he remembers that even the Aeons had been human. The thought prompts the question, and he struggles not to jump. What is my name?
The sparks ripple through him. He doesn't want to know the name, doesn't want to name it, because even if all creatures need name, he is afraid. If he names it, it will be real. The free one seems more inclined to speak, a whisper of wind against him. I thought even dreamers need names. He knows in some part of him that is not him, but is not them either, that this is true, and part of him is scared of this thought. The thunder steed mutters again, voice booming despite the volume.
I had a name, once.
They were human, once. They were human. He is surprised when he realizes that he has to remind himself that he is human too.
What is my name?
He is human, and he will allow himself a human pleasure; spite. He leaves the Chamber and his brothers follow. He stops when he sees the girl and her guardians.
I had a name, once.
They don't call him anything at all.