middaeg | Deceuer Catch-All

Yes.

[ it doesn't really matter which one. soren trudges over to the stack of planks with eren in tow, blinking past the incessant snowfall. once they arrive, he scales the length of them and moves to steadily ease them down... but he wobbles in his fatigue and ends up loosing grip on one of the pieces with a huff. it topples with a jarring clack that dislodges a few others, coalescing into a small wooden avalanche about several boards strong. labor foul! at least soren is wearing boots... ]

Ah...

[ —and eren is not. he’s wearing protective soles that get tied to his ankles, actual fitting boots don’t fit his talons in any comfortable fashion. that is to say, when one topples, it takes extra arms for the other to last. eren only has two, and their both incredibly lanky wyvern wingspans that stumble at the attempt to hold the loosened planks.

about two land one on top of the other, on his toes, while the last edge scrapes his raw, plucked ankles to a brand new laceration that’s starts of as a white scrape— then bleeds. that’s not the problem, though! oddly enough, none of this seems like a problem.

it is, actually. his toes are seering and his metabolism is too slow for him to react as quickly. his eyes are just. still going wide. there goes the inhale. and there goes the retarded watery eyes.

]

[ you just suck at shoe-shopping, betch. get soren to hook you up.

( or don't, because feet must be f r e e. )

that looks painful, and it's mostly his own fault. it's almost as though he's nothing to eren but a source of pain and trouble these days. soren stoops to adjust the planks so that they aren't squishing anyone's toes anymore, sliding them up and away to the base of the pile. while he's down here, he gets a good eyeful of the abraded and bleeding skin surrounding the cuff where scales have been peeled away to reveal pitted, oozing flesh... as though he'd been trying to carve his own leg off just to be rid of the shackle. ]

Eren... This looks terrible. [ he begins to reach into the deep pocket of his knickerbockers. ] It's going to get infected at this rate. [ if it already isn't... ] You need to stop picking on it.

[ (no shoes only freedom)

inhale, exhale. once eren closes his eyes and allows the bulging sting to pass over his toes to nothing but a dull, echoing ache, he could pay it less heed. with the wood in the place it needs to be, eren sits on to of them to stick out his foot and give it a once over, rolling the pants leg up higher to give it some breathing room. the scrape get nothing more than a brush of his thumb to rub and get it to stop eventually. just apply pressure . . . and while he’s at it, why not muse in this crust winter wonderland? ]

Maybe I should snap it off myself. No one else can do it. [ he’s talking about the cuff, right? or maybe a dull callback to their scuffle? something something soren couldn’t finish it off and left him there to suffer in a cage of jaws he rattled himself out of? he’d been more miffed at the brief imprisonment than the loss when he was still conscious. or maybe he’s actually talking about his leg, who knew. eren was a bit mysterious when he talks to himself. ] They say third time’s a charm.

[ not even soren reads into all three of the buried meanings eren's words may contain. he slips a linen cloth out and hovers close, subtly offering it to the wyvern if he chooses to take it or offering to press it to the fresh wound, depending on silent cues he picks up from him. soren gives him an odd look, for he can't quite decide if he's referring to the cuff or his leg. reason dictates the cuff, but soren's gut feeling expands into the possibility of the latter. he frowns, uses his free hand to fumble around for an antibiotic solution. ]

That's a stupid idea.

[ it might be, but for such a wretched thing clamped around his ankle and restricting his every move (it isn't), snatching away his liberty (it wasn't entirely), it was a very entertaining idea. the cloth receives a watchful eye only after soren's movement is close enough for him to react, belatedly pinching the fabric in his talons to toss it into his palm. ]

This might as well be, too.

[ cleaning it. when he was biting his cheek not to pull at the rawness as is. he needed to find somewhere later— he only didn't look like he was losing it because he was keen on keeping an unreadable, jaded expression. ]

It's not if you stop.

[ soren is not eren's keeper, and it's not up to him whether he listens to him or not. there is one dimension of eren's behavior that could concern him, and it's all because they share the same species. many people see the fault of one as the fault of them all. he tips the potion over into another thin cloth, an unctuous and transparent watery green dribbling out to soak it. then, gathering his leg in the other hand, he dabs the cool liquid against his angry flesh. ]

Let's say you managed to break this off. Word would most surely reach the Coven, and then what do you think will happen?

[ eren lifts only one shoulder in a half-attempted shrug, a gesture with both hands at soren's own actions. "same to you", it says wordlessly, but if it makes soren feel better in someway, he won't stop him. he doesn't want to stop, and he probably only would if the thing was off and quit constricting him the way it was.

the muscle riding up eren's calves clench, ripple at being touched and how the rawness stung beneath, but— nothing he couldn't hold with a breath in. he brings his attention elsewhere, up, as the dull sting gently begins to fade into inevitable background noise. it was nothing but a pinch when his skin would tear every month before . . . this. ]

I'd be the first they'd hear from.

[ he already has a plan, it seems— ]

[ soren raises his head to look up at him, brows cinching as he tries to descry what eren's intentions are. true, if he notifies the coven that his shackle had come off, that would be better for him than them finding out from another source... depending on how he explained himself to them, of course. but after that... ]

Then they will find other means to stifle you. Another ankle. Another type of device, another spell...

[ he casts his attention back on patting out his small dose of aid. ]

It might not be a bad idea to give them a visit soon, anyway. I can't promise they'll care about you enough to make adjustments for your sake, but it's better than letting yourself skin your leg to the bone.

[ they'll probably be more concerned for their own sakes that eren would go so far to break out of his binds. ]

[ just staring down at the cuff's vicinity has eren hyperfocusing on it rather than soren who was talking and right next to it. negatively, his toes curl into the floors the more his eyes stay fixed, along with his talons that grip at the wood he's resting on and cause them to creak. he can't see anything that makes more sense than getting this off because it was squeezing him in places he didn't like, it was reigning him in like cattle tags. he could almost hear the chains that accompany it with each drag, and the fold of his ears close to his skull brings out a muttered and strained lack of rationale. ]

It's suffocating.

[ it doesn't connect lucidly that they'd just give him something else. another cuff, a collar— anything that wasn't some sort of restraint would work, but he didn't know that until all of this began to unfold. ]

I know.

[ he does, and he doesn't at all. their shackles click briefly together as his hands move. he feels eyes on his back, of passing onlookers glancing at what the two dragons who tried to kill each other are doing together, but he pays them little mind, and they keep their distance anyway.

obvious pain squeezes the wyvern's voice. it's not from a place that physically aches. it must be a place that comes from a time when he was an eldian who "inherited" extraordinary circumstances, when his helplessness to alter the future his incredible powers had given him insight to riveted him to one path forward. then there were the parts he'd never seen nor been told, the parts where someone with eren's powers would be sought to either control or exterminate... and he couldn't hide them very well, either. not for too long. could that be the source of some sort of complex? that said... ]

I imagine this must be harder on you than it is me.

[ that gets a sardonic but weak beginning of a laugh. yeah, that— ]

If I were still only human, I’d wait. I’ve been chained and locked up before too many times. The more I look at it now, [ for the record, he doesn’t look at it, and makes an effort not to ] the more it makes me want to vomit.

[ eren dips his head for a moment in consideration. ]

Or eat it.

[ with ends by rubbing the exposed softness of his neck that led to his still bandaged and healing nape. his shoulders shrug high before falling down one side with more exasperation once he sighs. ]

Like we wouldn’t have fought, but, [ gesture, because trying to convey something void of actual negative emotion is difficult. he just. doesn’t feel anything important. a battle was won and he had lost squarely. the only true guilt he harbors is to have affected styx in a way that made him feel responsible. ] I don’t care.

[ so merry christmas???? he guesses???? and happy #justdragonthings ]

[ ??? what kind of merry christmas is this, you ho ho ho?

phantom pain aches at the side of his ribcage where new scars will likely remain. eren reminds him what that was like. after eren finishes speaking, soren shakes his head, focused on his shackle where the other dragon isn't. he sighs, mostly tired. ]

I don't really care, either.

[ about their reasons for fighting.]

My own failure to get a grip on the conflict and consider a better solution is the main source of my regret. It has little to do with your drive to hoard what I wanted, which I can't exactly hold against you.

[ he understands how gripping that urge is, how impossible it is to resist wanting to take and keep something of interest. if he can't help it, neither can eren. ]

My memories of that struggle are hazy in places, but I got the distinct impression that when I was about to end your life, you were... trying to help me do it. It almost felt as though you would rather die in my jaws than be left for capture.

[ that's the jingle bell rock

eren considers his own guilt when soren mulls over his and it's . . . completely different. just as he thinks to share his own, there's something off in the thought the other dragon brings up. eren shakes his head stiffly, minding his nape, and with it his hair shivers from side to side. ]

That's not it. [ there was a time where he was nearly nonfunctional— he was pinned to the ground and prime to be eaten. someone told him to rest and he did not. she flailed his arms in every way he could, clawed them deep into the maw of the armored titan . . . and pushed, with all the might left in him. he left the scar on soren for it just as the dragon had left a permanent dent in his neck of scars upon scars. it reminds him of that time, and with that, he explains. ] I'd rather free myself from you [ and maybe die trying, but never as a primary option, ] than sit there and wait for you to do it.

[ not so much born from a need to die, it was never that— it was the belief of fighting and the prospect of living free. at the worst case scenario, dying free, but eren never considered death until he was at its doorstep with his whole body through the gates. ]

I didn't need to become a dragon for that. I was born that way.

[ soren mulls over this for a few measures as he wipes at the dark sheen of still-oozing blood from eren's newest injury. there isn't much to think about. it had been worth considering the desperate line of thought that, if he had annihilated himself, he would not have had to deal with the coven's restraints — or in a worse outcome, parliament's. then soren could have been charged for murder, and he probably wouldn't see the light of day very often after that.

some would resort to suicide above that fate. but eren is familiar with how capture need not be a permanent condition when the opportunity arises. it's so simple, an instinct that all living creatures carry some way or another: he was struggling because he wanted to be free to live. waiting to be freed from a life-or-death struggle is a far cry from waiting for shackles to come off. ]

I didn't think it had anything to do with dragons. When you put it that way, it sounds like something we're all born with.

[ how is he supposed to express this unsettling feeling? was it all just a nightmarish figment of his own madness? had he imagined him trying to escape his own skin? or maybe that wasn't suicidal at all, and by destroying his draconic body, he could revert back to the form he is in now? it's not worth overanalyzing. eren denied that suspicion, and that's all there is to it. he pats the ankle cuff. ]

But in this case, waiting for your freedom is better. Don't rip your leg off just to earn what is already going to be yours soon. [ with a wrinkle of his nose, he adds ] And please, don't eat it.

[ look, he gets that you're basically a cannibal and dragon has been on the menu before, but don't take it to the next level by eating yourself... ]

[ it's a lizard thing.

something on eren's face— was it his lip, his eyelid? it twitches. a subtle shiver beneath his skin at the prospect of waiting. waiting. waiting for something that was already his, of course. he tries to process that, humanly, and it meets a wall. a massive wall that told him the opposite. told him that he wasn't sure if he'd be alive the next day or the day after that and he'd wait? he'd just wait? what if it never came because he waited it's so stupid to wait why wait when he could have it sooner why wait when he could have it now—

it was irrational, literal lizard brain thinking. he nods, but his stiff neck only goes through the empty motions of it. he can't bring the warning born of concern to heart. the silence becomes pregnant as he stares at the cuff, and with further inspection, isn't actually staring at it— he's looking at a point beyond it again. when he comes back to, his tongue flicks, and his eyes fixate onto soren, for the first time in a few moments. ]

Thanks, [ a, gesture, ] for trying. I don't have anything held against you either. [ he wanted to make that a little clearer to end any interrogation marks still in their heads and move on. there's also one thing he too wants to share, for some reason, and it's the only thing that gets his shoulder to relax and focus on something else. ] If I regret anything, it's for Styx.

[ soren in turn focuses on eren, his unexpressive face softening a margin as he's reminded of the big, soft-hearted idiot who called eren his best friend. he recalls the uncharacteristic grief that flickered in and out of his demeanor as his grins eroded to reveal the surface of his anxieties to him. here is the man who sits at the source of those worries, capable of shifting the tides of styx's emotional well-being, those lightless grey eyes upon him. it isn't just styx that can be stirred by eren, though. it flows in two directions. this regret is proof of that. soren's gaze floats back down.

he sees this more from the other dragon's perspective, playing the same role. no matter how hard ranulf tried to be strong for him, soren knew he was suffering beneath it. ]

I understand. [ he's sure he does, even if their problems, their microcosms of shared inner lives, are more nuanced. ] I caused quite a bit of trouble for my Bondmates, too, and yet... I thrive on their support. But I think that's exactly what they want: to hold me up when I can't do it well myself.

[ shining the light upon himself and his own bonds, his own vulnerabilities, that he cares for others, relies on others like any ordinary human being whether he's got monster parts or a troubled past or what... it's a reflection of what styx wants for eren. and though their relationship hardly has anything to do with soren, perhaps... he still would like the best for them. ]

That’s been . . . Hard, for me.

[ allowing others to support eren had been a thing of the past. as one tragedy struck another and as the boy became an ugly monster, he wanted to carry the burden alone. eren’s pain dug deeper, his guilt had rooted itself into places that he had to learn to live with, but that didn’t mean it was a stroll to live with. all those lives— all those lives he took. who could live normally with that? eren couldn’t— he wants no forgiveness and seeks no redemption, that’s not something he’s worth.

he lives now for the people who are worth something much more than him, that gives him more than enough freedom that he could ever hope for if he was stuck here and this was for who knew how long. styx. the orphanage. all those children that he’s seen himself in. mikasa, while she’s still here.

he’s always wanted to live, but circumstance hadn’t treated the will with kindness. it was unbreakable, yes, but to be as rough as diamond, he had to grow cold. ]

But I’ve been doing better than I started. It’s all thanks to him. The kids, [ his eyes raise to the dragon, as a gesture unspoken. ] everyone I’ve met here.

[perhaps it is proof that soren reads into that gesture correctly when his impassivity slips with a few blinks and he redirects his own gaze to pretend like he needs to double-check his ankle again, perhaps wrap it up so that the sticky surface doesn't attract a host of dirt and debris. he can't see many ways in which he personally helped make an impact on eren in this sense, that he isn't just some blip on his radar ill-equipped to form any meaningful connection beyond skirting past the boundaries of their personal depths wordlessly, in their language comprised mostly of motions and bodies and senses, the purer parts of communication that often convey more truth than words. in the end, it's not about him — it's about styx and the others, and he's content being on the sidelines like this.

styx would like to have heard eren say this much. he won't tell him, just as he won't tell eren how much styx didn't want him to give up on changing course and getting better. it sounds like he wants to. soren's voice remains soft.]

I'm glad to hear that. Knowing him, he would be, too.

[he may be just one unobtrusive point on the constellation of eren's everyone, but he figures it wouldn't hurt matters to have one more person express their moral support. even if that person helped him tear a few blocks down in draconic rage.]

[ it goes without saying. in fact . . . something about this has suddenly made eren's ear scales burn redder rather than their muddy purple-black hue. maybe it's the fact that people like soren and styx are rooting for him or something, what the hell.

he's frowning. ]

Do you have plans after today?

[ the question strikes a match to soren's curiosity, naturally, and he raises his eyes back up with the glint of inquisitiveness. don't think he doesn't catch the shifting hues. ]

Not really.

[ don't notice me senpai i get shy

unceremoniously, he lifts himself up from his seat and rolls his shoulders to spread the heat to his joints. it's a good thing too, some of the other volunteers nearby were beginning to stare with the amount of resting he'd been doing. ]

Then we can get a drink.

[ where isn't explicitly said because— eren doesn't actually care where as long as his focus was elsewhere, for the time being. it's the only few minutes where he isn't scratching his ankle raw. ]

(( cont here))

Deceuer Catch-All

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject