thisavrou_log | points to spinal chord on brain diagram [open]

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points to spinal chord on brain diagram [open]

Who: Chara and YOU
When: 11/23 - 11/24
Where: Literally all around Avagi this child is wandering in a disoriented post-fight daze
What: Chara fought in a trial. Chara got a prize. No one is happy with this.
Warnings: Emotional distress probable, in addition to the usual Chara warnings.

The temples began to sing.

They emerged bloodied and ragged along the edges, one hand clasped around the rust-brown stains fringing every tear in their clothing. One side of their hair has become uneven where a hank of it was roughly and sloppily cut away mid-combat. They limp. Their eyes are glazed with hunger, with emptiness, with exhaustion. Their motions are stiff and automatic. Whenever someone draws near to them, they flinch and hold ready, a blade of red steel gleaming in their hand. A smile tears over their features in a blaze of forced and painted-on glee.

They emerged from the Trial of Life victorious, in a manner of speaking - in a very loose manner of speaking. They emerged from the Trial of Life, having not died or fled, and thus are eligible for something of a prize.

That is when the temples began to sing.

They ignite with a soft blue glow, ethereal, illuminating their surroundings in a cool sweep of runic light. The light takes root inside them, nestling like a seed in the center of their chest; not patience-blue, not integrity-blue, and certainly not determination-red, but something else entirely. It aches in solemn acknowledgment of itself. The child's eyes squeeze shut. The blood has begun to hammer in their ears anew, as if rejuvenated enough to feel like it ought to redouble its efforts to spill out from their torn veins.

The hum pressing across their ears has begun to vibrate in their bones.

As they cross through the portal's bridge of light back to Avagi, the whispers and fragments of other people's thoughts begin to trail after them, silver-tinted specters of other people's thoughts.

[Chara scored the empathy reward for their participation in the Trial of Life, meaning that, to quote the info post: others stay inside their body, but gain a sense of those around them. This manifests not as telepathic knowledge of their thoughts, but an empathic resonance—ghost-vision showing their emotions in stark clarity.]

[This more or less gives them the ability to know and feel anything your character is experiencing emotionally so that's you know fantastic. Feel free to tag in with prose or brackets; I'll match you! Let me know here or over at arrpee if you want a closed starter or something more specific!]

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[His head pops up. Recognition on his face. Chara -- they're still here too -- good -- glad to see them in his head. He offers up a tired smile. Hunk said he'd been out for a week, or something like that. But it doesn't feel like it.]

[He really, genuinely is relieved to see them.]

Chara. Hey.

[Refraining from mentioning they're still here, because. Like Hunk said. It'd been less than a week.]

You... look a little confused. You okay?

[Good.]
[Glad to see them.]

[He means it. He means it, and they cannot even deny what they now know without question. It's an ache in their chest, the beat of a heart settling a little heavier in the cage of their ribs. They're still here. He's even - relieved.]

[They are already pale beneath their hair, unevenly shorn as it is, but they blanch even further. At the present moment, they can recognize the lack of wisdom in spinning an unbelievable lie. Their smile is tight-lipped and wan, their breath short.]

I've been seeing things, of late.

[That's the fastest way to crank the concern up to eleven. Like a fire flaring to life under the hundred small lights of everything else pushing down his shoulders. He accepts it. There's no fighting it.]

[He hunkers down. Immediately. Doesn't move to grab Chara, or tilt their head up. Nothing. Just gets to their level.]

Seeing things? Like what?

[What can I do? - how can I help them?]

[Does he never consider himself in the algorithms of his concern? Is he always last on his list of problems? Since when does that matter? Since when do they care where he lands on his personal agenda?]

You're confused. Tired. Conc - [No. They cut the word off abruptly, regarding him with something like muted shock.] What happened to you?

[Well. That just makes him more confused. Why are they asking him that? Is there something on his face? Did they hear about the fainting incident?]

Recently... or in general? [Humor, depreciating, dark coping mechanism.] I'm at least two of those things on a daily basis, Chara. [Honestly.] But that doesn't answer my question.

[... if only because him being "tired" and "concerned" is basically common knowledge by this point. He shakes his head.]

Do you need medical help? I can go with you to the sector.

Edited 2017-12-01 02:54 (UTC)

[It's a clean, familiar drape in deep streaks of wine-red, humor sliding neatly across the knots and snarls in his internal narrative. It's easier to laugh at things. Humor wicks away the deep-seated hot-penny cling like the slick of blood across the back of one's throat. It makes it easier to bear.]

[That stopped working for them the day they learned to file a smile into a weapon.]

You were just coming from the sector. [And therefore - something's wrong.]

I... you know me. Don't take the best care of myself... got a little bit of a forced nap.

[It's true. As much as he's avoiding the huge issue of I thought I was gone for weeks problem. Because Chara comes first and what if they need help. He's fine.]

[Tired, wrung-out, worried but fine.]

But you said you were "seeing" things?

[His denial really does go to the very core of him. Wrestling with his own thoughts, with his own worries, with his own problems, and all of that is set aside the moment he encounters a child who looks - who looks that they may not be having the best time, so to speak.]

[Because not the least bit of it is forced. Because every inch of it is utterly genuine. Because it does not occur to him to not help. Because - because - ]
[Big kids don't cry.]
[There's a heat in their cheeks, and it's not because they're wearing a smile.]

Why do you care?

[Of all the things out of Chara's mouth, somehow, he doesn't expect that question. He blinks. Genuine confusion in his face and thoughts. It has never occurred to him not to.]

I... never really thought about it.

[Because caring just seemed natural. It was just what you did. And maybe, in some weird, slight way, he's reminded of someone lost. But he'd cared even when Keith was here. So it changes nothing.]

You just seemed like you needed it, I guess.

[But he's still baffled. Literally no one has ever asked that question of him before. About anyone.]

[Does it have more to do with him than it does them? Does it have more to do with a sense of righteousness, of concern for a general everybody, for shades of memory keyed to an unrelated name and an unrelated face? Does it matter at all, who they might be?]

[Are they asking this now because they know he cannot lie to them when the undercurrent of his every fluxing emotion is bared to them the way it is? Taking advantage, taking what they can - taking too much, too fast.]

Because of who you are.

[And not for who they - ]
[Well, who would?]

And yet, you are always your own lowest priority.

Maybe that's it. I don't know. Maybe I've always been like this.

[Always looking after others. Always throwing himself into harm's way for them. Because someone had to. Someone had to drag his first team to safety, someone had to make sure a handful of teenagers survived, someone had to be the one to take charge or else they'd fail.]

[... someone had to look out for Chara.]

[So he did.]

I feel like we've had this part of the conversation before. [And not much has changed. There are more scars, now. More grey in his hair and more memories uncovered, but... he's still running himself ragged.]

[Because someone had to.]

[So he did.]

I'm sorry -- I know this probably isn't answering your question, but I don't know if I really can.

[He's tearing himself apart at the expense of others - ungrateful, selfish, undeserving others such as they who have done nothing but generate more frustration and more hoops to leap through and more pain and even if this must be the truth, objectively, he tunnels through that regardless and still has it in him to be concerned for their well-being, as if that matters.]

Why is that? [Why can he not prioritize himself? Why can he not exhibit that typical selfishness all humans ought to possess?]

Anyone ever tell you you've got a career in philosophy?

[It's stalling. He knows it. He's not going to deny it if they call him out. But also, he's got to gather his thoughts.]

[Why is that.]

[He's wondered it, too. So many times. And more recently, when Hunk confronted him. The little comments the others make. Why is it so hard to just... take something for himself? Anything?]

... I don't know, Chara. [Lost faces, lost lives, sacrifices, it can't ever happen again, he can't ever let his guard down.]

[hardest thing I ever lived through was not saving someone]

It's complicated. That much I do know. Even if I explained it, I don't think it'd make sense to anyone else.

[How to Engage in Existentialist Discourse in Ten Steps or Fewer.]

[The subdued swirl of his thoughts breaks through at the hot jag of something far more potent, splitting the muted exhaustion that mantles everything else, slamming up against their shallow defenses with all the subtlety of a ballistic projectile.]

[hardest thing I ever lived through was not saving someone]

[On the contrary, they are in the very unique position to make perfect sense of it all. And they choke it out, even as it catches in their throat.]

The hardest thing you've ever lived through was not saving someone.

[His head pops up from where he'd lowered it, rubbing at his temples as the headache started setting back in.]

[hardest thing I ever lived through was not saving someone]

You remember that? [Or--] You... How did you know I was thinking that?

[Has Chara always known these things? Is that why -- why they are the way they are? Is that what they meant? Seeing things?]

I did say I've been seeing things.

[There. A flicker of their old humor, but it's ever so slightly off; wry, deprecating, paired with a tired slant to their shoulders as opposed to the rigidity that so typically straightens their spine and bolts their shoulders back.]

I still am.

... Chara.

[Maybe he should feel bad about this. Or at least upset -- unnerved. Someone reading his thoughts should terrify him. And maybe, honestly, if it were someone else, he would be.]

[But Chara?]

[Now he's just worried an apologetic. Like they've got enough to deal with -- they don't need his garbage on top of it all.]

I -- hey, would it help if I gave you some space right now? I can. [I will and I won't like it, I hate walking away but if it helps--]

[He's a confusing person.]

[He's a confusing person, because what he wants is so stark in opposition to what he's willing to do. His own needs, consistently undercut by the needs of others, and so swiftly and so simply and so easily that it is nothing more than instinct at this point, the immediacy at which he channels that shift - ]

Why do you continue to do this? [It emerges almost plaintively, their brow creasing in exhausted confusion.] Are you incapable of considering yourself in any one of your decisions?

I am considering myself. And... I know that what I want... isn't going to always be the right thing.

[What he wants may not help. What he wants -- Allura's hand in his, Diana's arms around him, Maine's lips, Lucio's eyes are warm and deep, North's smile is genuine, the team in a house in safety laughing talking like everything is fine, Matt laughing -- isn't always something he's going to be able to have. May not be something possible, or something that will, ultimately, help.]

[It isn't fair, to do what he wants. When things like Shay's people in the sun for the first time, freeing prisoners unjustly held, fighting, stopping encroaching darkness -- Chara's comfort are more important.]

[He is something other than himself, now. And there's no going back.]

This is what I have to do. Comes with the job.

You don't have a job here. You only have people whom you consistently place above yourself, even if -

[Contentment, genuine, warm smiles from those he calls friends pulling at the corners of his own lips and the glow of absolute relief when someone else walks free from the chains he cuts; his arms forever full of swords he keeps taking from people so he might fall upon them himself, in his own time; his SOUL forever full of the burdens he tries to carry for other people, smoothing their corners and rounding their edges, not for his own benefit, but simply because he must.]

It's not fair.

[It bursts from their throat like a bubble of light, tremulous.]

Humans aren't supposed to be like you.

I always do. It's not something I can just put down -- it's ... what I am now.

[He almost laughs when they say it isn't fair. A depreciating, tired sound that isn't anything like humorous. No amusement. Nothing. Just something dry and tired.]

[Always in control]

[The smile he gives them is just as tired. Just as frayed at the edges.]

I might not even be all that human anymore. So... maybe they're not.

Human enough.

[Human enough.]

[Human enough, the way Shepard is. The way Lucio is. The way these people are, these people who are all so far removed from what they have ever known humans to be that they cannot help but regret - ]

[Cannot help but envy, cannot help but hate, that these are the humans they met before everything was set so irrevocably in fate, in stone.]

You cannot control everyone else's pain, Shiro. [Does he know that?]

But I can keep myself from adding any more.

[More to Pidge, who's lost her family. To Allura, who lost her whole world. Hunk and Lance who lost any chance at being normal. Keith who lost his future. Himself... well. He'd lost everything already that day on the ice. That day it became clear he had to do anything he could to make sure Matt made it back alive again.]

[He can absolutely keep himself from putting more hurt into the world.]

You're included in that, Chara.

[He can't fix whatever's happened to them. He can just make it so he's not part of the problem.]

You can't.

[He can't control what it is that hurts and helps others. Someone with the best of intentions can tear it all apart without meaning to, without wanting to, because they just wanted to help and be the future of humans and monsters and set them all free and they could do that because they had a SOUL and they had the resolve to change fate, and even the best of intentions can be so, so - ]

[Why. Why them.]

...why?

Why are so adamant in this? [In me?]

Maybe not... but...

[But.]

[Maybe he can't save everyone. Can't make it so no one he loves, no one he cares for, ever hurts again. But he can try. He can try and isn't that what matters? Aren't moments like a first sunrise for the Balmerans important? That little scrap of footage proving Pidge's family wasn't totally broken important?]

[Isn't pulling kids out of a spider-filled jungle, so they didn't have to keep suffering, so they could survive, important?]

[Why are things like what he wants, those little desires, in comparison to all that?]

... I don't know why, except what I've already told you. Except...

[Anyone is capable of doing nothing. I just hate it.]

I can't not try.

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