genessia | Throwing Caution to the Wind [CLOSED]

And he's been more weird this week. It's hard to put into words why or exactly how, but maybe he's too smiley, or too chatty, or too moving about.

But there Theodora is, perched on the end of a bed with a cupcake he doesn't remember making. Did he make it? Or did someone else make it and she liked it better and she's concerned about that?

Hardly worth the face she's pulling, and he thinks about it some more and-

"Oh. That's today, then?" Zaveid knew the day he considered his birthday was somewhere around now, but exactly when it was escaped him.

The pensive look is replaced with a hasty but sweet as always smile when she feels him arrive, and she stands up to offer him the cupcake properly and steal a kiss on the cheek if he'll let her near. "Yes... at least I think so, unless you've somehow changed it..."

He doesn't lean away or anything, but he's slowly sliding to awkward again. She's free to give him a cheek kiss and cupcake plate.

"I haven't really gone talking about it much, so... Totally missed an opportunity to have extra cake."

"There's always an opportunity for extra cake..." she smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

She lets him go much sooner than she would like, sure that it was only yesterday that he would cling to her and smother her with affection.

To her it... sort of had been.

"Zaveid..." She's scared. She doesn't want to do this, but it can't be avoided. It's not fair to either of them. "I-... We need to talk."

"Ah, right." Like Zaveid hasn't lifted cakes when he wandered through a place that had them.

..... And here he tilts his head a little, something a little out of character, perhaps, with how she knew him.

"What's I screw up now?" because it is him. He's the one who changed, who grew older, if not up.

She doesn't expect a pleased reaction, but she hadn't expected such an edge. It's almost as though he had been expecting this.

Not that he shouldn't have. They've been Off for weeks.

Alarmed, ahe reaches out to touch him, to keep some connection steady through this. There's too much distance already.
"Nothing! Why would you think that?"

He's a tense like he still isn't quite used to this, even with his slow warming up to this, again.

"Somethings have changed and others haven't." Remember how he's shit at keeping promises-?

Zaveid scratches at the side of his head, looking away. "If it's not something I did, them-" is it who he is now? He is pretty sure it is. "then what do ya wanna talk about?"

Some things had changed, and she hadn't been around for it. It's natural he would move on... would he really be able to come back to her? The words feel like daggers in her chest.

She lowers her own gaze, absently running her thumb over his skin. "I just want to talk... actually talk," she tells him, voice quiet so as not to disturb Libra should he be home. "You've been through so much and I wasn't there for most of it and I just... want to know if I still fit into it somehow. If I'm holding you back... you know I can't live like that. And I would never want you to, either."

It takes him a good minute to... Really figure out anything. He wants to brush it off, avoid it entirely somehow.

Actually talk. When was the last time he actually talked about much of anything? Possibly in a field of white flowers that don't grow well unless there's a lot of them, on a mountain.

... For a second he tries to pretend it's that again, just words on a breeze that can't talk to him anymore either, but that just. Hurts.

So it's a moment, where he is visibly wavering on his feet - what does he do, does he just go, what even is all of this? - looking aside like he might find answers there.

"I dunno." it's a mumble. "I thought I'd gotten over. The whole thing." And moved on and what not. A thin wobbly smile. "Might just have been good at foolin' myself."

She holds him steady, or at least keeps her hands on him to show her support, but can't seem to get past the lump in her throat.

"Or you did and I've ruined it by ...coming back..." she says, resigned to the 'fact'. Would he have been better off without her? Her heart and too recent past tells her no, but her head's spinning with the possibility.

Zaveid stares at her for a minute.

Ah, he'd already hurt her, hadn't he?

"I'd probably be off in the woods or something if you weren't here." Avoiding people, maybe with a small job so he could pay for occasional things.

....

"And it wouldn't be that different from - uh, what Midgand is now."

She blinks those doe eyes up at him, confused. Exploring doesn't sound unlike him, but the way he says it...

"...Why?" Midgand? Her brow furrows.

Remember the human country trying to rule all the islands? Midgand. It's just Glenwood now.

Why.

Dammit he really doesn't like talking about stuff-

"Humans." A shrug, but. "... Seraphim. And hellions."

Cause that's totally enough explanation, right-

She's lost and can't understand with just that.

"It's still that bad?"

"Well, I mean the troubles with old whatshisface are all done. Maotelus is doing a much better job at the whole fifth empyrean thing." He's referring to how Inomminat was 'the nameless one' or something like that.

"There's usually a blessing about the whole world now, which was pretty nice." Past tense is important, and if Theodora can sense that Zaveid is okay with this topic because it is sort of not entirely his issues? Well, maybe she knows him too well, still.

"Humans seem to be remembering that the other four and him are about, which is a plus, but doesn't mean they don't forget other shit about keeping the place nice and safe for us all."

She can most definitely tell he's skirting around something, but what it is she can't quite place.

"'Was' nice?"

She nods quietly, "...You still travel, then?" Surely... Especially without her there as an anchor... holding him back. "...Can they see us?"

Maybe she's taking little stand at different topics to see what sticks best.

"He's gone missing." How do you misplace god, basically, then becomes the question. But its happened, s o. How doesn't really matter. "He's not really in his temple anymore, and his blessing is more or less not there." Zaveid can still sorta talk to him, but its not quite what it should be.

"Yeah. Not about to sit put and wait for some human who can maybe fix things to maybe actually do it." Which seems to be his idea of what the other seraphim are doing. ".. Nope, that was a whatshisface thing. Mighta met two who can, but.." A shrug.

"Missing?" She's almost skeptical, somehow, but she's also more focused on not letting things get too far off the original subject. She's more interested in Zaveid, not these empyreans.

"So what have you been doing all these years?"She desperately wants him to have at least found some happiness, but even now, standing alone with him, she can almost feel the... loneliness? Regret? She isn't sure. "How are the children?"

...she... may have forgotten in her sometimes flighty way that... it wasn't just yesterday.

Theodora. Theodora your two sentences there don't work together.

He's about to try to bs his way past what he's been doing when-

"Theo..." This is why he's hurting her, isn't it. He's changed, she can't remember, she thinks its them and a house and-

"They were humans. How do you think they are."

Oh god.

She stares at his chest for a moment when she realizes what exactly she's asked, then slowly steps backtositback down at the edge of the bed. "R-Right...sorry..." Her eyes are searching the floor as she wonders why the hell she had thought to ask that, entirely unprepared for the reality. She's not unfamiliar with the idea, of course- they don't live very long, humans- but the situation is so odd in itself and she isn't focusing on the right things, and there's so much to ask, and-

It takes her a moment to gather her thoughts, or at least scramble to collect the million threads that keep splitting off one after another, but she finally makes up her mind. Forget it. She's going right to it. "Walk me through it, Zaveid. From the... end, I guess," she manages, trying her hardest to keep the waver from her voice and her winds still.

Edited 2018-09-21 01:27 (UTC)

Well, she stopped Zaveid in his half thought through escape - his weight had shifted awkwardly as she stepped back and he's definitely looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

Cause if anything would tear this all apart, this would, he's certain.

"Wow i completely forgot about this." And so he shoves the whole cupcake in his mouth.

Sorry he cant answer.

Well, she stopped Zaveid in his half thought through escape - his weight had shifted awkwardly as she stepped back and he's definitely looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

Cause if anything would tear this all apart, this would, he's certain.

He'd done a great job of not thinking about all of this for so long.

... Somehow, he thought it would hurt less, revisiting it. He doesn't want to tell her- with how she didn't want to kill - that he spend a year or so chasing around a dragon so it wouldn't eat people. That's the same. He doesn't want to tell her about the Abbey.

... So he takes another meaning, because missing things hurts and he hates the feeling of they forgot and .... she's important enough, that maybe, he can fill her in, and it isn't... fake, or something.

"Another malak finished you off. I couldn't find anything that would cure dragons." It's half mumbled. Yeah, he couldn't keep a promise. Again. Totally big news to her. But its another thing he's failed so miserably at that -

So he's just gotta keep going, so he doesn't think on that. Who knows, maybe she'll decide he is too much of a mess after all. "He had someone close to him, that he was worried about falling and... trapping the way he saw me trapped. I might have told him I'd kill him when he was a dragon cause he killed you."

.... Just maybe.

She doesn't expect him to tell her every detail, but she needs something, anything to ground her in this new time and place with him. It's not fair to hold him back with expectations of what she's accustomed to, especially as she's the one who's been gone so long.

She watches him in earnest silence, keeping her hands to herself despite the way his shoulders fall and make her want to reach out to him with her reassuring touch.

Trapping the way he saw me trapped.

It stings much more harshly than she supposes it should; she had turned, she hadn't had any control, and knowing Zaveid and his promises... he wouldn't have ever turned away or let her be as she was for too long. With no known cure and an endless lifetime to suffer... he certainly would have been doomed to his cause... which was no way to live.

She nods, demeanor sobered and eyes on the floor. "It sounds like I owe him a great debt, then, whoever he is." Was? She's not sure. "As much as I adore your attention, chasing after a dragon doesn't seem like freedom." While she admires his dedication and the loyalty she's so confident in...she never would have wanted him wasting his time on her...or putting himself in that much danger over a lost cause like her.

"...How long was I turned? The last thing I remember was begging you to go..." A shudder runs through her as she remembers their final moments...just before waking up here, in a pod, mostly safe.

"Two and a half, three years." It's quiet, immediate, and with a lot more sure of himself sounding than he ever is with time anymore.

Ah, on to another awkward topic. "Maybe if this place and its bullshit magic make it work out. I started hanging out with him - he explored with pirates, so he knew the other continent a bit, and maybe they'd have cures." An Awkward shrug here.

"He decided to take on a Lord of Calamity - a daemon so strong their domain interrupted Maotelus'. He's a dragon nowadays."

Which... Totally doesn't sting.

Her eyes fall shut again, and she might look as though she might be sick. Years. More than enough time to hurt someone, including Zaveid, or even kill.

She forces it down and manages a nod. Maybe she could thank his savior, should he ever appear in the city, but she's so unsure of so much at this point, she dares not hope. At least Zaveid had been able to travel and explore, instead of wasting away with her-

She does look up at him at the reveal, partially shocked that anyone would decide to take on a ... 'Lord of Calamity' and the other part of her readying to comfort him should he need it. Another dragon?

"...How have you escaped it so long?" Sure, between her own fall, and now this other man's... If Zaveid had been close enough to him to know the details of how he had fallen, had he been close enough to be affected as well?

There... might have been a time or two she's caught something different in his eyes, but that could just be her mind- and the time distance between them- playing tricks on her.

Edited 2018-09-22 04:44 (UTC)

Yeah, he just won't mention that Eizen actually got to kill her because Theodora almost got him. He didn't want to see her this distressed and was part of why he was avoiding the topic.

And he hadn't even mentioned Hellkite. He just keeps getting close to people who become dragons....

For a second, he is tempted to twist the words - how did he get away from the Lord of Calamity and the new dragon, but, well, it's not like Eizen cared after he grew scales, he's not being chased by a lizard.

"Probably Siegfried. It kills hellions - daemons - without me getting their malevolence." a casual shrug again, even with the sinking gut. He goes around fighting and killing all the time now Theodora, it's not what you liked in him at all....

While he's not saying it... there's something in the way she's sitting there before him that says she definitely understands more than he's letting on, even if she's not acknowledging it herself out loud. It doesn't take a genius to realize that something as dangerous as a dragon, if left alive for even just a few years, would create a lot of damage and... probably claim a few lives.

"Siegfried is the weapon, right?" The one he had used to 'cure' her when he and LIbra had found her in the mountains of Fayren.

Hellions and daemons, though... From the way he says it, they're something familiar to him, something... common. Like... "I'm guessing your time after me hasn't exactly been... peaceful, then..."

She won't look at him, but there's more of a resignation in her voice than disappointment. Dragon friends, exploring, daemons, malevolence...

"Yep." Not much more to say about his gun, to be honest.

He snorts, smile a little too sharp to be a proper smile at all. "You know well enough that peace isn't easy for malakhim, so long as humans are about."

Zaveid hears disappointment, sorry Theodora, and is starting to get sharp because he's certain this is where it goes up into flames-

Nope, she's not too familiar with that sharpness, and despite her prior hesitation, she immediately (if tentatively) reaches out to him on instinct, hoping to lead him closer to her, to the bed where he can sit with her, if he'll allow it.

"I think I always knew you'd never be able to let that go..." Just like how she had refused to leave the children, all the while knowing what it was doing to her.

Well, it works out for her. He might have twitched - Theodora didn't strike out, but clearly a life of fighting made him expect it.

Like he didn't expect this at all. It isn't hard for her to tug him over to sit, plate with the forgotten cupcake and all.

Takes him a minute. "Thought you hated that."

She keeps a her gentle hold on him, even as he sits, spreading her fingers up over his forearm to his wrist before settling in his hand if he allows it.

"I do," she admits, nodding. "I just hate the thought of you being in harms way, but..."

It isn't exactly the same, sure. She hadn't actively been participating in something inherently dangerous to most beings, but..

"I spent so many years with those children, knowing the whole time I'd eventually..." She breaks off, trying to figure out how to word it. "I'm not exactly in a position anymore to tell you to stay away from unsafe things." Not after what she's put him through, even with the best intentions for her young ones.

Zaveid is tense, but it's not much to stop her from holding his hand.

He's a little stuck on that she does hate that he gets into fights, so it takes him a minute to really hear that it's the in harm's way bit, that maybe she is being a little pot and kettle about the children and him fighting.

..... Nope he's still stuck on it. "Even if it's most of what I've been doing the past couple hundred years?"

She gives a weak, somewhat bitter half-laugh. "You think I'd expect you to change your creed for a dead woman?"

She was gone. While she appreciated that it still at least bothered him even now that he might be going against her wishes... she had left him to his own.

The reality of saying it stings, though. She had died. Sorry if her grip on his hand tightens a little and she suddenly can't move her gaze from her knees.

"Managed to for a good decade after you.. Got taken out."

Now seems like a great time to eat some of that cupcake.

She takes a deep breath, even as she lets go of his hand to unwrap the cupcake to finally give it a try.

"Mm... " She hugs herself as she finally diverts her eyes to his knees. "It looks like it's made you stronger in the end, though, the fighting."

A weak attempt, maybe, but: "At least you were able to take care of yourself without me."

Edited 2018-09-24 00:27 (UTC)

He suddenly has the feeling they're talking slightly off topic from one another.

"Was I really that hopeless?" Help her unwrap that is a go.

Look, she doesn't want to dwell on her death, and while parts of the past are easier... she really just wants to know where they stand now.

...but she is going to sit back on it for a minute or so, because that was something akin to lightheartedness and if there's anything they need at the moment... it's that.

"A little."

..... What does he even say to that?

......

Zaveid breaks a chunk of the cupcake off and eats it. Not bad!

... But while his mouth is full "Thought I was doing pretty good then."

"You always did your best," she agrees, grinning a little, even under the heavy weight settles across her shoulders. "Even if I did have to slap sense into you every now and then."

She's quiet again for a moment, weighing her options. One wrong phrase could ruin everything, send him running again. She's already fallen once, but even with Seigfried's effect keeping her stable... she's not entirely sure she could handle it should things fall apart completely.

"Do you..." She failters, shaking her head. Nope. Not ready.

"How's your birthday cake?"

"Does anyone ever come with enough sense? “ He's not really sure. Slapping sense happens a lot.

Well, let him chew a bit more-

"Good. Someone definitely soaked the pineapple for a while in rum."

That grin turns into something more like a timid- but genuine- smile.

"Are they still your favorite? Or... at least up there, someplace?"

He does have to think on that.

"Yeah, still favorite cake."

She nods, happy with that answer, but still weighted. At least she's done that much right, but the ever pressing questions sober her a little.

"Do you still feel the same about other things as well?"

...that look in her eyes as she turns them on him might imply a bit more than he's prepared for.

Maybe an unspoken 'me'.

Look, he's never prepared for this sort of thing anymore. He got all sweet and close to Theodora, aaaand she almost literally turned into a dragon in his arms. Not a great way to set this up.

... There's a sassy retort on the tip of his tongue, but he takes another chunk of cake to shove it away.

... He cares too much still. Perhaps its not too much but its Enough that it is a little annoying but-

"I might not go by Zaveid the whirlwind anymore.... but I'm still Fylk Zahdeya."

.......... More cake before his face starts to burn.

She watches him in hopeful (if terrified) anticipation for his answer...

...then lets her eyes fall shut as something between a sigh of relief and a nervous laugh escapes her.

Sure, he can enjoy his cake, but she's just going to lean over and press her forehead to his shoulder to hide the tears that are suddenly welling up. At least there's some sort of hope for them then, right?

"So you don't want me to leave?" she mumbles from beneath her hair, still tense but... much more 'Theodora' than she's felt all evening.

"No." Dummy. Why would he want that. Its wonderful and terrifying if only because her being here highlights how much he's fucked up over the centuries she's been dead.

.... She's not at a good spot for him to drop his head against hers, so... pat pat?

She lifts her head at the awkward patting to give him some more space, pushing her hair back behind her a ear a bit and avoiding direct eye contact. No need for him to panic over welling tears of relief.

"You're sure?" She laughs softly, still too tentative."I.. I honestly thought for a while you wanted me gone."

Like you were actually over me.

Theodora, he knows you're crying. The wind tells him lots of things-

But yes, not directly seeing them totally helps.

"Wasn't you in specific, was mostly a... I didn't wanna deal with anything."

Theodora just so happened to be a Messy Point and he'd lashed out.

At least he doesn't have to see her this way.

She does glance over at him at that, though, eyes filled with concern. "What do you mean?" She pauses to think a moment, then shakes her head. "I know you've been through a lot... but for whatever reason, we have a second chance to work through it now. ...together."

She's not going anywhere.

Throwing Caution to the Wind [CLOSED]

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