exsiliumlogs | new old pavements [open]

Entry tags:

new old pavements [open]

Date & Time: 10/5 and beyond if need be
Location: Not far from the Hold
Characters: Martin, you
Summary: Looks like a lot of things need rebuilding or fresh construction (be it in prose or brackets or drawthings)
Warnings: I...I don't have to warn about 8 billion apologies anymore.............HOW...

With bare feet and over-sized clothes, Martin looked more like a refugee than a familiar transport. But then, things weren't particularly familiar anymore. In that, it was exciting...and frightening. Already the expectations he had were greatly sobered through mere days alive in Exsilium. Perhaps the timing of his rebirth was off. Things had tapered to a tense silence above ground, though by the itching feeling in his throat and lungs, things weren't utterly clean of the attacks. Rubble and broken places – even the places where transports called their tentative homes...It wasn't as disturbing to him as it perhaps ought to have been. But he had little to compare it to; life as a Darkov was sheltered and sparse, with community life restricted to family and a rigorous cause.

All in the past. Exsilium was now, for good or ill.

He hugged his arms and settled them on his knees, seated on..a piece of wall? Something that wasn't designed to be a seat, whatever it was. Probably a piece of wall. His mind wasn't on it.

Where to start?

...Start? Hadn't things already begun? Strange, the way his mind started tapering away from the things he knew were right. The human condition was at play, dropping heavy drapes over his clarity. Heavy was the best word for it all – uncertainty, grief, excitement, guilt, relief...it wasn't the miserable trudge of days long gone. This was a steady and certain hope, not the desperate clawing and groping of a boy ignorant of the world and himself. Even with fear crowding in, the flicker of truth within remained.

It was going to be alright. Even through the worst of things...

His body shuddered against both the chill in the air and the unknowns.

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The bottle flew without Martin so much as giving it a fleeting glance, eyes still locked and focused. His shape shuddered, feeling the faraway chill of his body at rest in the open air. No harm, just cold.

Your bond to him is stronger than mine. Not a criticism, just a fact.

The young man leaned, bringing his eyes level to Bariyan's. He hurt a great deal, even without this latest happening. It was a twisted, complicated tangle of time, place, and people mixed together into an existence Martin could only glean and observe from a distance, never wholly understand. Not for lack of wanting; he was very compelled to peel away the things making his second father unhappy, but there were things there that needed to remain, even if he had right to touch them. He did not. He knew his place.

Will you forget?

The question carried more the ring of the child than the man, and Martin was looking up at him again.

Are you going to forget what I've told you here?

Bariyan looked back.

He could tell the truth. The truth was that he did not know. He could never be certain, these days, what he would remember and what he would forget. He would remember enough, he thought, enough to make him hesitate and try to recall more, but he would not be able to play back all the details. Especially not when they mattered the most. If they were fated to mean anything at all.

He could say that. Or he could god damn well remind himself that whatever he felt was of no consequence, and that he had called the boy here, and that the least he could do was to be grateful.

"No," he said, opening up the next bottle. "I will remember."

Not a lie. More like a promise that he he was not guaranteed to keep. But that was an underpinning of all the promises that Bariyan had ever made, after all.

Intangible fingers settled and curled against Bariyan's leg, his head settling over them. A dormant lion, shifting and billowing not with breath but with the light of itself. There would be no arguments or protests, no notion of how the answers and realities meshed and settled in Martin's mind. He was sad, of course, but he was a great number of things as well. Most importantly, though, he was there because Bariyan called. Because there was a need for him. It took precedence over everything, remembered or not.

I am the lance. The thought was locked to himself, stamped into his being so firmly like the metal linked around Bariyan's neck. As deeply as the conditions he accepted to be that lance. A living person. A son. He was so many things...anything but blind as he once was. The boy he was would never have fathomed it, could hardly comprehend the real meaning and point of all the sacrifices made on his behalf. Bariyan would not have to suffer like that for Martin's sake anymore. No one would. Even without touching the truths he had basked in before returning to time, he was confident in that.

It was the things outside of himself that gave pause.

As miserable as he was, as pessimistic and unbelieving and hopeless, Martin's presence did calm him down. It had helped. Perhaps only temporarily, but even temporarily was something, and for that Bariyan was grateful. But the sorrow remained, as it always would. The sorrow, and the despair.

He placed his hand over Martin's head. He felt nothing, would have felt nothing even if Martin's physical body had been there; it made no difference to him.

"You have to promise...." Bariyan blinked, heavily. His vision seemed to blur, but he rubbed his eyes clear before he could determine why. "You have to promise me that won't put yourself in danger. Not on your own. Not without me."

But he knew he could not wrestle that promise out of anyone else here. He would never have the influence to sway anyone, to convince others.

Martin's head turned, staring up at Bariyan once more. Like the call, it was a statement of authority he was compelled to give his full attention. He rose, part of him passing through the hand as he did so, the crowned man again.

I can do this. Unless doing so stops me from finding you. He had sworn to be there for him – with him. Even if he'd ever wanted to, it was a rule he could not break. In somehow breaking, terrible consequences he was not immune to would arise. But the fear of punishment had not driven him then, nor did it now.

His hands reached over and hovered near the sides of Bariyan's face.

I shall not be alone in facing this future. Neither shall you.

Bariyan leaned into that hold, insubstantial as it was, eyes closing.

"Thank you," he said. And he knew Martin's promise to be true. He had no doubt of that. He had Martin, now, even if that made him uneasy at times. And Martin would always have him; that much Bariyan could guarantee. From now until the end, whenever the end decided to come.

Now it was the others he worried for. Others slipping away from him before he realized that they had ever drawn close. Koltira, gone so quickly, disappearing to die alone....

But if Martin said that he would return, then so be it. Bariyan could be content with that.

The gratitude was hardly necessary, but Martin warmly accepted it. Being there was one thing – being wanted there was a layer more. It made his enthusiasm for the contract all the greater.

As the golden shape, he had no breath, but he could push the air enough to graze stray strands of his unhappy contract keeper's hair from his forehead. Something not felt, but done anyway out of affection.

I will come find you here soon. On my own two feet.

He withdrew, feeling the faraway shudder from his body. It had been a fair amount of time away, and it would not do well for it to remain unattended for much longer. Twisting, then billowing anew, Martin bent toward the direction it lay and departed to restore himself. He'd have the way back to Bariyan well in mind, having traveled the route already or not; he couldn't ignore the call.

Bariyan felt something like panic rise as Martin vanished. He began to reach, even, before he forced himself to realize the fundamental truths again; that Martin was still here, and that he would return in due time.

In the meanwhile, Bariyan finished off the rest of his drinks.

He got to his feet with his last bottle in hand, and staggered his way down the stairs, back to the ground. No use in forcing Martin to make that climb himself.

The boy was late in coming, having been sidetracked by an unexpected – but interesting – encounter. Martin had to take care, too, still having to watch where he stepped, lest he cut his foot on some shard of broken glass or jagged rubble. Shoes or no shoes, that was still bound to happen if he wasn't careful.

It was strange, too...The path from above was different than on the ground, but in his head, he still carried the notion of direction taken from his brief experience outside of his body. It was practically instinct in a way which wasn't quite instinct for a boy at all.

After hesitating to survey, he hopped over a small barricade of clutter, passing through the next wave of low-hanging dust and haze to finally see the building materialize – to finally see Bariyan's slouching shape, more importantly.

He said nothing, simply slowing to stop before him, wiping under his nose with his sleeve and letting out a loud breath.

There was a comfort in seeing Martin's physical form that was different from Martin's spiritual one, some difference that Bariyan could not -- or would not -- place. But it drew a weak smile out of him, however brief, and he extended his arm to drop the now-empty bottle away from him before bending at the knees to look more closely at Martin.

"Are you getting sick?" Bariyan asked, listening to Martin's breathing. Looking at the dismal skies. He could not feel the weather but he supposed it had to be cold, or getting colder.

Winter... was not a season that he was used to. He'd been raised on the edge of a desert, he'd died in the middle of one, and the empire he'd spent most of his undead life in had been tightly-controlled all the way down -- or up -- to the weather. But he'd seen winters. He'd seen them here, even.

Bariyan frowned, and straightened up to walk. "You need warmer clothes. Come on."

"I don't think so..."

Martin looked where Bariyan did, allowing himself a test swallow just to be sure. The rawness of his throat had almost subsided, though he could feel a scratchy tickle now and then. He barely noticed most of the time, half a mind to believe it was only really there if he thought too hard on it.

But it was growing colder, and that much he didn't need to stop and consider. The shirt was very thin from age and wear, and though the pants were thick enough, they didn't fit very well. The chord holding them up wasn't long for the world, either – especially if he didn't take better care. He could hardly protest the remark on that ground, and he didn't bother, simply nodding and taking Bariyan's hand. Almost an instinctive move; something virtually unthinkable before.

A thought did cause him to hesitate, however.

"Everything's been broken up here," he said, looking doubtful. "Places they sold the clothes and things, too..."

Bariyan saw Martin reach for his hand and closed his fingers around the boy's palm. Instinct on his part, now.

"I know," Bariyan said, leading the way. "We'll just have to make do with what we find."

As they walked, he considered Martin briefly again, almost wonderingly. It was strange, having to consider the future in the long-term. He was still unsure of whether or not he was comfortable with that, but it was how he had to think, now. Which meant that he had the luxury of fussing over the small things just as much as the big ones.

He took them through the city, cutting through new shortcuts that hadn't existed before the bombings. He picked briefly through the debris, and combed more carefully through buildings that were still half-standing.

Underneath a cracked table, he found a left shoe that looked to be about the right size. He tossed it to Martin and stepped away to search again. "See if that fits. I'm going to look for the other one."

They'd been scavenging since their time in the outlands – before their most recent excursion, even. The car, the empty house, the race back to Exsilium from the Masked...Yet Martin still held qualms about picking through the broken losses, especially within the city. People still lived here, though many had died. And he...wasn't one of them, was he? Human, maybe, but...

"Huh–" The toss startled him out of his thoughts, barely catching it in time and with little grace to spare. He stared at it, confused for a beat, before it clicked. Oh. "Alright..."

He swiped clear a bit of curb and sat, fiddling with the shoe, finding it awful tight before even getting it on the way. He grimaced, trying to wriggle the rest of his foot in by scuffing it against the ground. With too much force and too much loose gravel underfoot, Martin's foot slid fast and sent the shoe sailing over Bariyan's head.

"Yah–!"

Bariyan blinked and looked up as the shoe went sailing, then followed its trajectory all the way to its landing. He straightened up from the most recent patch that he'd been searching. Then he turned and walked back to Martin, looking down at the boy. For a moment he simply stared, expressionless.

Then something like a smile flickered around his mouth.

He didn't say anything, merely moved back to search. A few moments later he straightened up again, this time to toss the next shoe towards Martin. Making sure to note its approximate size first, this time.

"Here. Maybe this one'll work better."

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new old pavements [open]

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