middaeg | [open] if you could only see

[This festival, like several other recent ones, had passed in an unexpectedly contented haze instead of something mired in resentment. For Kaede, at least. They became welcome places to distract herself from a house that was suddenly a lot more empty.

Kaede was still inclined to be a prickly person, though. Especially on full moons, festival or no.

There were several threads on the Chimera's hand, leading in very different directions. Perhaps because Chimeras were more sensitive to magic, or because she was...attached, to several others. It led to some fussy thoughts, and drew her out of the house to at least figure out where some of them went. One led her to her Bonded--as expected.

But that left other unknowns, and Kaede didn't like that. One, at least, might be answered soon--one of the threads went a bit tauter, and the sound of footsteps drifted from around the corner.]

Who--

[She started, rudely, her ears pinned back and a disagreeable scowl on her face.

And then, if Zack were listening very closely, he might hear her brain short circuiting for a second.]

Oh. Uh. Hi, Zack.

[The grimace falls from the antlered Chimera's face and her hand lowers, ears coming forward again. A little. She was still a bit sheepish about the fact she was considering mauling the person she didn't know on the other end of the thread. And that it turned out to be Zack and there was...some baggage that came with that. Baggage he didn't seem to know about at all and Kaede's mind constantly skittered away from wanting to talk about.

It's fine. If she ignores it it's fine.]

[ It takes some work, but Zack eventually does find the other end of one of his strings. Like Kaede, he had a couple of them, but in this case he isn't led to a complete stranger. The fact that she immediately reacts with a defensive posture and some steel in her voice causes him to stop short, both hands lifting up in a disarming gesture.

Naturally, that alone causes a slight tug on the string that's holding them together.

The shift in Kaede's expression and demeanor is immediate as soon as she registers who he is, and it makes him wonder if maybe she doesn't treat everyone with the same kindness she's shown him. Is it a chimera thing? Or does it have something to do with their past that he can't for the life of him remember? ]

Hi, Kaede.

[ He seems to have thrown her off just with his very existence, but that doesn't stop him from drawing a little closer all the same. They need to get rid of this string somehow. ]

This your first time tracking down who you're tied to? Or did you have others?

[ Maybe it's a little awkward, but this makes more sense than the last interaction he'd had, so he's rolling with it. ]

[Kaede let out a long exhale, an exasperated hiss over her pointed teeth. She--was being ridiculous. And unfair. And snappish. And...should apologize, at least for starting to snap at him. That wasn't any way to repay kindness, was it?]

Sorry. These things are making me jumpy.

[Kaede tugged a bit on the strings again, in case it wasn't obvious.]

...no, not the first. One led to my Bonded. [It's gone now.] And someone I still haven't found. And...then you.

[Zack, who was now closer and in her rather generous personal space bubble and...Kaede couldn't bring herself to be bothered by that. Her expression didn't change, but her tail told more of the story with a thoughtless, contented swish.]

[ Zack shakes his head when Kaede apologizes, not at all put off by her reaction. It takes a lot more than that to get him worked up or offended, so she has nothing to worry about. And when there's some unknown tug on your fingers all day, it makes sense to be kind of jumpy.

While he's curious about who Kaede is bonded to, he's not sure if that's too personal of a question to ask, so he leaves it alone. ]

I don't know if there's any real rhyme or reason to these things. The other person I was tied to I hadn't even met before, but... I do think I know how to get rid of them.

[ As he speaks, his gaze does take note of the movement of her tail. It's not as erratic as how Cloud's will move when he sees Zack again, so he doesn't think too much of it, but he does assume it's from agitation rather than anything else. Like a cat's response rather than a dog's, though Kaede is neither.

The sooner they can sort this out, the better, right? ]

[The other Chimera's ears lifted up, and while her tail kept switching it slowed down somewhat. Everything about her body seemed to have something to say, except for her face.]

How?

[Maybe there was another way? A less emotionally honest way that was easier to bluff through.

...though that seemed uncomfortably close to lying, and lying to Zack didn't feel right either.]

[ Not at all aware of the minefield that he might be stumbling into, Zack just comes right out with it. ]

Took a little bit of trial and error, but as soon as we said out loud what we thought of each other, the strings disappeared. So with her, I just said something like "I literally just met you, but you seem cool," and that was that.

[ With Kaede, it might be slightly more complicated. Zack still doesn't know her too well, but the same can't be said in reverse, can it? Well, he doesn't actually know how well Kaede knows him, though he's apparently about to find out.

Sensing some nervousness (judging by her flicking tail), Zack offers: ] I can go first, if you want?

[Despite her best attempts, Kaede's ears still flattened. That mirrored her experience with the thread attaching her to her Bonded, too. Telling Ursula she loved her was easy.

Unlike this can of worms she was rapidly running out of excuses not to open.

With a steadying breath that didn't help much, Kaede at least nodded.]

...sure.

[ The tension is still there, and likely won't go away until they get this over with. While Zack doesn't have much to hide, he's becoming more and more clued into the fact that the same might not apply in Kaede's case.

Still, he isn't going to leap to any baseless conclusions, especially when he'll be hearing the truth from her soon enough.

With a nod, he crosses his arms and spreads his legs to shoulder width, looking her over for just a moment before he launches into his spiel. ]

You're someone I'm really curious about, because even though I know we were friends before, I feel like I still don't know that much about you! So I'd like to get to know you better.

[ Maybe he could leave it at that, but the point of this seems to be honesty, so there's only a brief pause before he continues, head bowed just slightly. ]

-- But I know it might be hard for you, having to interact with me when I don't remember anything. So I wanna be sensitive to that, too.

[ It's why he hasn't pushed too hard so far. ]

[That earnestness in his voice and the genuine warmth behind it made Kaede's stubborn resistance falter. It...this was why she liked him in the first place. It was familiar, in ways that predated Zack, and put her at ease. ~~She's not projecting you're projecting.~~

When it was Kaede's turn, she sighed again, ruffled her shoulders a bit--but didn't hesitate any longer.]

You...helped me. Several times. When Dorchacht was still a slave city, and in dreams. You kept me safe when I couldn't remember who I was. And you were...kind to me. Still are.

[This time, her tail's motions were more relaxed, a slow, contented wag instead of a nervous fidget.]

You--we, I think...I'd like to think we were friends.

[Saying the f-word was a monumental task, one her voice hesitated on.

...and yet, it still wasn't enough. The thread was still resolutely there, though a little more transparent now. The red-feathered Chimera muttered a curse, scuffing her feet.]

[ This is a story that Zack's heard a few times now. Lightning had shared how he was there for her when she'd needed it most, and Viren had spoke of the kindness he'd offered when he was new to this place. None of it sounds out of character for him, not at all, and he's glad he was able to help so many people during his first stay here.

He just wishes he could remember.

There's a lot of hesitation on Kaede's part before she gets out the simple word: friends. Why she's so hesitant to use it, Zack can't really say. Maybe she's lost people before, or maybe she just hadn't had a lot of people she could call friend back home.

If that's the case, Zack definitely wants to make sure that changes here. Although he suspects Kaede's found plenty of other people she's been able to get close to, especially if she's bonded to someone. ]

We are friends. [ Present tense. Zack grins at her. See, it's just that simple! Except apparently it isn't, because the red string hasn't left, at least not completely. Zack glances down at it with a frown. ]

What gives? Did we do something wrong?

[At first, Kaede's expression softened a little, and she glanced back up at Zack.

The tug of the string was its own reminder, though. And no matter how she grumbled at it, it wouldn't go away.]

No, it's not...you.

[She coughed, and scuffed her foot again--claws out, this time.]

There's. More. To...us.

[Just. Say the words. Say them. It wasn't so hard, saying so to her Bonded, or to Eren...

...well, no, wait, it was still difficult to talk to Eren about these sorts of things.

But the point was--]

We were...together, a few times. Before. Not...exclusively, just...

[Could Chimeras like her burst into flames? Kaede felt like she should, right about now. Or vanish into a hole in the ground, that'd be great.]

Sorry. [And her voice dipped to a mumble.] I didn't want to...tell you like this. I shouldn't have...

[ More? Zack doesn't follow, and he tilts his head to one side, then the other, trying to figure out what she's even getting at. Sure, he'd guessed that there was something she wasn't telling him based on her behavior, but it could just as easily have been social awkwardness.

Or, as it turns out, a mix of both?

After she says the words, it takes Zack a few seconds to even process them. They were "together"? But between Kaede's stammered words, her lack of eye contact, and the way that she looks like she wants to go hide somewhere, it eventually sinks in.

Together. ]

-- Oh! You mean like... [ His hands gesture ineffectively in the air. That sort of intimacy has been the furthest thing from his mind lately. Sure, there's all the talk of bonding going around, but that doesn't have to involve anything sexual.

Hoo boy.

For once, Zack's at a loss for words, but he needs to say something or he's concerned that Kaede is going to die of embarrassment. ]

No, it's... I mean, you kinda had to. [ He glances down at his hand and finds that the string has completely vanished now. Kaede had been forced into a difficult situation there. ] I'm sorry you were put in that position, though. [ Of having to tell him before she felt ready.

But how to react to the actual information? He's got no clue what to say about that, and ends up rubbing at the back of his neck as he searches for a reasonable response. ]

... At least you won't feel like you need to bottle anything up anymore, right?

[ Well, he tried. ]

[Sometimes, Kaede found these new ears of hers annoying. Right now, though, the fact that they couldn't turn the same color as her hair was a blessing and a half. There hadn't even been a Bond involved, either, just a lot of Monster instincts and stray emotions.

But he didn't snap at her, or react angrily, or with disgust. Which...she should have expected, given Zack's temperament. It helped, regardless, and the antlered Chimera's ears lifted from where they were plastered to the sides of her head. A little. That had gone...somewhat, better than the catastrophic explosion she'd imagined. More of a struggle than telling her Bonded what she had been doing, but with...similar results. Neither of them had shouted or recoiled.

Kaede drew in a breath through her teeth, and sighed.]

...for now, I guess.

[She was still avoiding eye contact, and her formerly mobile tail had curled up still by an ankle.]

I didn't...know about you and Aerith. Sorry. [Again. She'd been saying that a lot lately.]

[ There's no way this conversation wasn't going to be uncomfortable, especially since Zack still doesn't have all of the details of how he and Kaede had ended up in such an arrangement -- and he doesn't think that asking a lot of clarifying questions is going to help right now.

That being said, he can't help but wonder at what he'd been going through back then. Aerith and Cloud hadn't been here yet. He'd probably thought he was going to be stuck in his place with no one from home for the unforeseeable future. On top of that, he and Aerith hadn't seen each other for five whole years before that.

Kaede was a chimera, like him. Maybe they'd grown a connection from that, and one thing led to another...

When Kaede apologizes, Zack shakes his head. ] It's all right. I'm guessing when that all started, Aerith hadn't shown up here yet. And we'd been separated for years, back home, so... [ It's not like he could blame himself or Aerith for needing to move on, when there'd been no guarantee they'd see each other again.

Zack has less tells. No wings or tails (yet) to give him away. He is tapping one foot against the cobblestones, the only sign of any anxiousness on his part. ]

[Finally, finally, Kaede looked back at him. There was still some color on her cheeks, but not the aggressive pink it used to be. Her ears came up, a little bit, and she blinked owlishly at him.]

You're not mad?

[Though...Aerith hadn't been angry, either. Even though Kaede had fumbled in telling her just as much as she did this time.

Five years was a long time to not see someone. But she and Kouta hadn't seen each other since they were children, and they had parted on...presumably, much worse terms. And yet he'd snapped right back into the same monolithic importance in Kaede's world like he'd never left.

Initially, anyway. But that was a story for another time.]

[ While Zack can sort of understand Kaede's concerns, given that this is an awkward thing to have to tell someone who has no way of remembering, he's not sure why she'd thought his reaction would be anger. He shakes his head, causing hair and feathers alike to brush lightly across his shoulders. ]

How can I be mad about something I did? I may not remember it, but...

[ He could be upset that she'd kept it from him, but he can understand that choice too. It's not the sort of information you wanted to dump on someone out of nowhere.

The only thing that really has him anxious is not knowing what she might expect, going forward. If she's got a bond now, she probably doesn't intend for them to be "together" again, does she? ]

I'd still like to be your friend. If that's okay.

[ Anything more than that, he can't promise. He has no idea how things might turn out, but he isn't going to force something just because it was how it had been before. He just hopes that won't disappoint Kaede. ]

[While a little color remains in Kaede's face, her ears came up and her shoulders straighten out of their unhappy little huddle. She flexed her hand where the thread used to be, and found no resistance from the tether that used to be there.]

Yes. That's enough.

[She doesn't smile, but the stressed lines pulling her mouth into an anxious grimace fade. Even after spending so long alone, absent friends still left ragged holes in her chest. Being able to patch one up again was an almost palpable relief, like pulling a thorn out of her foot.]

Is there anyone else you need to find?

[ That's enough. While Kaede may not seem outwardly exuberant, Zack can still piece together that she's relieved, if nothing else. He nods, also glad to have any unpleasantness out of the way. If this means that there will no longer be a strange strained feeling between them, then that's something worth celebrating.

At her question, he glances down at his hands but they're mercifully free of any red strings. He shakes his head. ]

No, guess I got lucky and only had the two. [ Which means that things can go back to what passes for "normal" in this place. ]

So, hey! [ He lifts his hand up in the air and then extends it toward her. ] High-five. We're free.

[Kaede's ears twitched back when Zack raised his hand, but he didn't clout her shoulder, or...anything, just left his hand hanging there. What was he...?

--oh. Right. Uh. Shit, hold on.

Kaede's stretched arms made reaching easy, even with how tall Zack was. And he was leaning it forwards, so the red-feathered Chimera didn't even need to stand on her toes more than usual.

She didn't hit his hand very hard, somewhere between a tentative slap and half of an attempt to curl her fingers that she immediately rethought. And there was a noticeable pause beforehand.

Look, she's not good at this.]

[ That may or may not have been the most awkward high-five that Zack's ever been on the receiving end of, but he manages to hold back on actually saying that. Mainly because he doesn't want to make Kaede feel bad when they just reached an understanding of sorts.

It's something they can work on, if nothing else.

He reaches out to set his hand on the top of her head, between her ears and antlers, and quickly ruffle her hair. ]

All right, I should get going, but... don't be a stranger, all right?

[ They've passed the hurdle of what she wasn't telling him, and now they can move forward with a clean slate of sorts. ]

[That...seemed to go well? Maybe? It sure felt horribly awkward, but Zack didn't seem deterred in the slightest. And it made that weight dragging on her shoulders stay gone.

His hand coming down on Kaede's head was a separate thing, though. And at first, she froze stiff, willing herself not to move. Kaede's eyes pinched closed, but only for a moment. One peeked open, to see what he was up to--

Oh. This wasn't so bad. This wasn't so bad at all. Kaede's hair was very soft, and some of the feathers in her hair started fluffing up under Zack's palm. Her ears even did a little flick-flop before settling back like the feathers did.]

Yeah. I won't.

[open] if you could only see

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