PSL - Felih and Rihnn go to the First...

[featherfoot]

And it's not right.



P'rihnn is honestly not sure what happened. One moment he had been fighting Zenos - or rather, Elidibus in Zenos' skin - and the next he was here. He vaguely remembers being hit by a powerful headache and seeing Elidibus approach him as if for a decisive blow, but the voice that had called him didn't seem quite the same as before. Was this how it had been for the others? For the Scions? Did his body lie on the ground in the Ghimlyt Dark, soul torn away? And for this?

He looks around his surroundings, frown growing deeper and deeper as he realises he hasn't the slightest clue where he is. There is no place he knows with such dense, purple foliage... and the light shining down on him is strangely oppressive, though he can't say why.

Fortunately he can see a nearby structure, and what looks like it might be a path. He can vaguely make out something beyond the trees, too, so... that way, then. After checking to make sure he still has his chakrams, just in case, P'rihnn makes his way to the wooden structure, looking around him to see if he can spy someone he can question.

Comments

[crystaltower]

No, no, no, no. What is he to do? Simply accept Felih's undeserved affections, knowing all he has done? Is he meant to simply confess his crimes and act as though he is a man almost two thousand years younger? Forget his goal? Still the energy around him grows, and he is consciously aware of it, considering if it would be best to force Felih back and hide behind his barrier once more.

"Did you even think for a moment it was me beneath the cowl?" the Exarch counters. "This was no act. My secrets shall remain secret, no matter how I-" A pause, as the pain of speaking hits him and he has to take a moment to push through. "Do not press me. All I ask of you is to fulfill my dearest wish and help this world. Save our home. That is all. I cannot be who you want me to be."

Then he can finally stop this madness and die at peace.

[seasoflight]

"You did everything you could to hide everything about you- your voice, your scent, your visage, all hidden and out of reach behind a barrier! Can you truly even say I am at fault for not being able to recognize you, when your body is what has changed so much?" Felih protests, before he suddenly stumbles, an agonizing pain cracking and spearing through his skull.

He knows the pain well now, though the pain seems to grow worse every time it happens. He cries out in agony and collapses, clutching at his head, before he slips into an Echo- and his body into unconsciousness.

The memories are clearer than ever, Felih notices every time he walks through another's heart.

A younger Exarch- a man who still looks so very much like his beloved Raha, the fur still scarlet, the crystal not yet consuming so much of him. An Exarch who wanders among the people and knows them, loves them, and whose people love him- and a small Viera- no, Viis- child for him the Exarch has struggled to bake a nameday cake.

Lyna.

A memory, so very clear, of a grandparent- Raha as a grandfather!- trying to do something for his grandkit's nameday, the playful teasing and encouragement from the citizens around him, the energy of the child...

But it doesn't line up with what he knows. No one in the Crystarium knows the Exarch- not even the ones whose faces he recognizes. And certainly not Lyna... so what is this memory? How can it be true?

Several minutes later and he slowly, blearily opens his eyes, dizzy and still feeling his head throbbing, body feeling a bit weak as he looks up and sees the ceiling.

[crystaltower]

To have Felih suddenly drop down after so persistently holding on to him comes as a shock, and the Exarch immediately, reactively moves to slow his fall lest Felih crack his head open on the Ocular floor. "Wh... what..."

For a moment he fears that this is his doing - that maybe the energy building around him had finally been too much for Felih. Or perhaps he is still feeling the wounds - mental and physical both - of the recent battle... it is only as he checks for sign of injury that the thought it might be the Echo crosses his mind, but even that thought is no guarantee that it is. Not after such an exhausting, agonising and stressful experience as the battle in Lakeland. And so, when finally Felih stirs, it is to find the Exarchon the floor beside him, watching him with wide, worried red eyes.

"You're awake..."

[seasoflight]

He sees a familiar, yet not-familiar, face over him, contorted in concern, and Felih relaxes and smiles weakly, a hand coming up to cup against the crystal cheek and rub over the cheekbone.

"J-Just the Echo. D-Don't fret. You- I... the memory I saw was so sweet, and yet... it cannot be. You, younger, out and about in the Crystarium, trying to make a cake for your granddaughter's nameday... Lyna called you grandfather. But the people I know... they don't... know you at all, do they?"

He's trembling as he tries to sit up.

[crystaltower]

The Exarch flinches back at the touch, gentle as it might be, and shakes his head. So it was the Echo, and -

A small, choked sound escapes him as Felih explains further, eyes widening even more for a moment as he reveals such a treasured - and private! - memory unshared with anyone for so long. Though the thought it might be the Echo did occur to him, that it might reveal some of his deeply buried heart somehow hadn't registered. "That's - no. No, that... never happened..."

He can't look directly at Felih as he says so. If Felih already realises it can't be right, then surely he won't push him on it.

[seasoflight]

Felih is tired, but even as he sits up, he stubbornly tries to stick close to the Exarch, refusing to let him shy away.

"It must have happened," Felih insists. "I cannot see false memories. Somehow- this happened. Really and truly, and yet... now... it 'never' happened. Did you erase their memories somehow? Or perhaps..." His brow furrows as he tries to consider the possibilities. No, it wouldn't make sense. Less than a hundred years, is how long the Exarch has supposedly been here. And yet, the body he sees before him is ravaged by so much more than a hundred years, it feels like...

"What's going on, Raha? This Tower, this body- something is... something is making things change in ways that shouldn't be possible. Before... you said this tower moved through time, to be here. If the tower can... do that, then-" His eyes widen and his breath hitches. "-someone inside it could do the same..."

[crystaltower]

"It never happened," he repeats, as firmly as he can manage. Felih is... too clever, and much too close to the truth for his liking, raising up old memories he tries so hard to not think on when they hurt as they do. "...Lyna was adopted by a caring couple and raised as their daughter, with no connection to me." Because nobody is connected to him in this timeline. Not truly.

As Felih goes on to creep even closer to the truth, he looks away. Maybe he should reveal the truth of it, if Felih is so close...? He tried once, many cycles ago, and nothing changed... but perhaps it could still be different? This time around was already different enough...

He can always force another cycle, if need be.

"Only I can control the Tower," he reminds him, quietly.

[seasoflight]

If anything, the Exarch's skittish reactions and dodges only serve to confirm and fuel Felih's suspicions, eyes narrowing as the man himself confirms that only he can control the tower.

His hands shake where he's still gripping tightly at the Exarch's robes, refusing to let him run off or avoid him.

"...was it you? How- your body, it's like this because the Tower demands a toll, does it not? How many- how many times?"

If the tower could travel in time once, it could feasibly continue to do so... at a price. It puts the pieces in place, it explains the "impossible" memories, the Exarch's strange behavior and impossible reservoirs of knowledge and "foresight..."

[crystaltower]

The Exarch looks away, unable to bring himself to meet Felih's accusatory gaze, but knows his avoidance is answer enough - he can't summon tbe strength to pull away from his grasp, and even the crackling of energy around them has grown weaker.

"...I don't know," comes the eventual, almost inaudible answer. His eyes squeeze shut, as if fearing some kind of retribution when he adds, "I lost count."

[seasoflight]

Felih freezes. He stares at the Exarch in disbelief, eyes going wide, before his trembling hands let go of the Exarch. He seems to collapse more where he's already on the ground, entire body shaking as tears well up in his eyes, heart feeling as if it's being rent asunder into a thousand bleeding pieces.

G'raha had been through countless tries to save this world, at the cost of his body, his life- his joy. But why? Having to try over and over again... how many times had things gone "wrong?" Was this his first time here? No, it couldn't be. The Exarch knew too much for it to be. Knew what he would do, where he would go, what he would try to say or save...

"H-How many times..." he whispers, breaths shaking. "...h-how many times have I failed you?"

[crystaltower]

The Exarch takes a sudden, deep breath when Felih releases him, eyes growing wide again when he drops to the floor, tears in his eyes and immediately blaming himself as the Exarch should have expected. He stays stock still for a long moment, before going to his knees but not reaching out to touch Felih.

"You never have," he says, as firm as he can manage. "The failings are mine. Always, only mine."

[seasoflight]

Felih clearly doesn't believe that, shaking his head furiously.

"It has to be me. I'm- I'm useless alone," he whispers. "Alone here, in a world I don't know- fighting to slay monsters I can barely comprehend- can I really contain all that light without fail? All the Sin Eaters are living beings corrupted by Light, are they not? Will I succumb to it? Or do my enemies smite me first? Where does it go wrong, Raha? What do I do?" he pleads, shaking, looking up at the Exarch with tears in his eyes.

"You, who have already done a century's work- more! Possible millenia! You who can control this tower and travel through time, with the knowledge of countless changes and variables and outcomes- and every time, I- I must... fail..." Every time, he must go against what was planned, or do something wrong, or fail at a critical junction. It must be- that must be what happened...!

[crystaltower]

The Exarch shakes his head, unwilling to accept Felih's certainty of his own failures. Long ago he might have reached out to comfort him, but not now.

"You mistake me for a wiser man, Felih. I do not have the answers or the knowledge to see this to the end. Any other man would have ceased this folly long ago..."

A pause, and a sigh as he recalls the times he has seen Felih succumb to the light, the times he has been slain. Each time, he thinks on how he could have done something, and sometimes he even does, but the end result is always the same no matter what.

"I have seen, I think, two thousand years or more, and am none wiser for it. How could I be, when so little changes no matter what I do, and yet I try time and time again regardless?"

[seasoflight]

"Is there truly nothing...?" Felih whispers softly. "How many times have you kept yourself hidden from me, Raha? How many times has your secrecy been my downfall? If- if we are succeed, if we are to do this- would it not be better for us to work together, with all our cards on the table?" he asks, a plead in his voice, as his heart continues to break in his chest.

This is all so terribly, horribly wrong. For G'raha Tia to be warped like this, crystallized and a shell of the man Felih had known years ago... he cannot imagine how much has gone so wrong. He wants to fix it, wants to reach out to the man he loves, but the Exarch remains cold and distant as ever.

[crystaltower]

How many times...? The Exarch is not sure it matters any more. It has been many cycles since Felih last learned the truth of his identity, but even knowing the truth and what was at stake brought them no closer to success. Still he was caught in this endless loop of just trying and trying to save everyone, even with his heart so crystalline he can no longer be sure if it is out of love and care for those he protects or out of nothing more than soulless routine.

Is it even possible for them to see this to the end?

"...how many times would you have me break your heart?" he asks, voice barely audible even to him. "How many times do you think I can bear to present you with your friend's withered, shambling corpse, held together by naught but a refusal to die?"

[seasoflight]

"You keep saying you're not the man I knew," Felih whispers, "But if that were true, the thought of breaking my heart wouldn't matter to you."

He reaches for the Exarch's crystalline hand and holds it fast, pleading as he looks up at the other man. "I want to stand at your side, Raha. I want to do everything I can... everything I must. I don't wish to fail you yet again, not when- not when you've..." His voice trails off as he swallows hard, eyes roaming over all the exposed crystal he can see, how the other's mane has turned white from the way the Tower has claimed him.

Raha cannot keep going on like this.

[crystaltower]

The Exarch hesitates. Damn it all, he hesitates - with Felih holding onto his hand, pleading with him, desperate to believe he is still somehow the same person he was centuries upon centuries ago, clutching at whatever he can to prove it and somehow finding just the words to throw him off balance.

“I have used you,” he says, finally making an effort to pull his hand away. “Lied to you. Made a weapon of you… and I speak only of this cycle, not the myriad other times I have seen you suffer through every hell imaginable. Though my actions are undone, and you do not know the suffering I have caused you, I cannot forget.”

He lifts his head, and fixes Felih with a steady gaze.

“I have betrayed you, Felih. ‘tis true that I thought to spare your heart from the truth of it, but the fact remains unchanged.”

[seasoflight]

Felih's ears stay pinned low against his hair, and he leans in, stubborn as ever and refusing to let go of his hand.

"No, darling," Felih murmurs, a weak smile on his lips. "People have done far worse to me for far less. How could I ever turn away from you? You insist you are some villain, but I know your goals are noble."

His other hand reaches out and gently combs through the long white mane his first love now bears. "You can try your hardest, Raha, but you will not convince me to forsake you."