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

[seasoflight]

Felih refuses to give up, and it's not long until he's draped his arms over the Exarch's shoulders and pulled him close, clutching tightly at him while a hand tangles into the long white mane, and he wonders what happened to the beautiful crimson it had once been. His features frozen in time by crystal, young as he remembered, but the eyes so weary and pained and terrified.

"You don't get to decide that," Felih whispers against his neck, on the side of Raha's good ear. "I decide who and what I care about. And you- you... you've no idea how I've longed to see you again..."

There's tears pouring down his cheeks as he nuzzles at cold crystal, heart breaking into pieces as he realizes how the man's body has truly been ravaged by time and the Tower, nearly unrecognizable.

[crystaltower]

Oh no, oh no... he can't bear this. He can't bear it, having someone finally touch him after so long keeping himself sequestered within the tower. Not so gentle, not so caring, and certainly not Felih after all he's done to hurt him. He is trembling, and reaches up to press his hands against Felih's shoulders as if to push him away, yet he cannot muster up either the strength or the will to do so.

"How could I show you what's become of your friend...?" he murmurs, but only because he is unable to speak any louder for the moment. Then, a shuddering gasp, and he finally musters the strength to push Felih back and he raise his voice in urgency. "What of Lyna?"

[seasoflight]

"It would have been easier if you'd just told me from the start," Felih hiccups, trembling as he clings tighter, terrified to let go lest he somehow lose the man all over again. But the Exarch grips his shoulder and suddenly pushes him back, startling him- until he blinks in confusion.

"Lyna...?" Why Lyna? Then again, she was the captain of the guard, and such a crucial figure would be difficult to replace... "She was injured, but alive. I tended her wounds, and told her to rest, but she's stubborn and angry and refused," he replies, ears low.

[crystaltower]

Easier? Would it? The Exarch simply cannot believe that. It might make it easier to gain Felih's trust, but a great deal harder to not leave him heartbroken and betrayed... not to mention for him to do what he must to achieve his goals. Such thoughts are secondary to Felih's answer, however, and the moment he hears Lyna yet lives some of the tension drops from his shoulders and he can't help his sigh of relief.

"...good. I..." He struggles for words for a moment, before simply settling on, "I'm glad."

[seasoflight]

Felih can't help but be confused, tilting his head slightly at him.

"You... seem more invested in that answer than I would expect, all things considering," he murmurs. "Do you know her well? Likely not, considering you've hidden yourself away here all this time..."

[crystaltower]

"Better than she knows," the Exarch says, “please, say nothing of it. Were something to happen to her, I couldn't..."

He stops, then looks to the mirror, in part so he does not have to look at Felih’s tearful face any longer - he has no reassurances to give, no apologies strong enough, and there is nothing he can do to ease Felih’s pain and anger. Nothing he can do to stop this cold, hollow ache that spreads through him. What little humanity remains hurts.

His voice still wavers, but he tries to change the subject. Tries. "P’rihnn is not with you?”

[seasoflight]

Felih can't help but keep steadily gazing at his beloved, ears low, trying to puzzle out what on earth the Exarch could mean by that. There's still so much the man hasn't explained, still so much hidden...

The question catches him off guard.

"Oh. No, we were wounded, so I tended to him and put him in bed and forbade he leave it. I may have had to use an enchantment to do so," he says with a small, wry smile, before he sighs and hugs the Exarch close again, still stubbornly trying to give the man some more affection.

"Darling, I want answers," he murmurs quietly. "Please. How did this happen to you?"

[crystaltower]

So he, too is fine... the Exarch finds himself glancing aside, wondering why he barely feels any sense of relief to hear it. P'rihnn is as much a hero as Felih, as committed to helping everyone as Felih is, but it's so hard now to even know what he feels.

He knows that right now, however, he cornered. The crackling of aether around him hasn't stopped building and grows stronger by the moment as he fights the urge to throw him back once more and retreat. How can he look at him and think he can still be called Raha? How can he even think to show him any manner of affection after putting him through so much.

"I'll not say," he says, voice slipping back into forced, hushed, calm. "'tis more than I can bear to say. Never you mind me - I am far beyond saving." He meets Felih's eyes again, only for a moment before the building aether bursts again, hoping it will force him back. "Please, I beg you - save them, out there. They need you far more than I!"

[seasoflight]

Felih is enduring, even despite the aether. The tower can do all it pleases to try and electrocute him, but stubborn as he is, he refuses to let go, refuses to stop cuddling and soaking up every touch and breath and hint of a familiar scent now buried under crystal and inhuman aether. He purrs, still blinking tears back as he holds tight.

"Raha. Please," he murmurs, his heart breaking even further to hear that he is beyond saving. "W-What's that supposed to mean? This- what's happened to you... is it irreversible?"

"I have tended so many wounded, my darling," he whispers. "I have done as much as I was allowed to do. I just wish to stay here and get answers."

[crystaltower]

"There is nothing you can do for me," the Exarch insists, and as Felih insists upon such painful closeness he tries to push him back, hands on shoulders. "Why do you suppose I hid myself? Better you think me dead - 'tis barely even a lie."

[seasoflight]

"No, no, no! Stop saying that as if I cannot see you right here before me- as if I cannot feel you in my arms! Raha- no matter how you have changed, or grown, you are still the man I cared for so dearly, the man I adventured with so long ago," Felih insists, ears pinning back as he pleads up at the Exarch.

"After so long without you- don't ask me to act as if you aren't right here within reach."

[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.