(closed)

[usurpers]

Who: eren + people
When: february
Where: aefenglom, dorchacht, respective wildes
What: a catch-all for closed starters! hmu on discord @owlie#3609, liberos or eren’s plotting comment if you’re interest in doing something!
Warnings: n/a, will updated where needed.

“eren let me see what you have” “a knife” “no!!!!!!!!!!”

Comments

[mirshikar]

Were I to hold anything against you, friend, it'd be how easily you revealed this secret of yours. [ And while their passions are the same, their cause often coinciding... ] Have we grown so close that you would cease to protect your interests around me?

[ And that? It's both reassurance and riposte ("you smell good, but not that good," and Eren, how dare you) delivered with the gleaming edge of a draconic's teeth. It needn't be said that Asura wholeheartedly enjoys this, the easy rhythms of repartee and the challenge posed by the Wilde and its terrain; the way the mane of his ravendark hair curls into oblivion beneath the Summer swelter and humidity, and how very cool Eren's ebon scales feel beneath the palm of his hand. All of it, Asura takes pleasure in, and unabashedly, it shows on his face. ]

My kind, we make it a habit to keep the nature of our frailties under lock and key. [ Lest the taboos and banes be employed against them, by either friend or enemy. Yet... Asura would guard this knowledge as though the taboo were his own, because what is human is worth protecting, and Eren is comrade and human both. Funny, how Asura has become a reliquary for the ebon dragon's memories (as Eren had so too become warden of the King's own), but in the end, perhaps this too is balance. That one universal truth he'd spoken of. ] And you...?

You went and spilled everything, no different from how this pool— [ The one Eren has unearthed the location of by the sensory dart and flick of his tongue, tasting moisture and who the hell knows what else. ] —is rumored to hide nothing and reveal all.

[ Like the human heart isn't more complicated and profound than anything in the realms. Reflecting its true desires is something Asura will have to see to believe, judging for himself if the pool with its mirror-sheen surface is a wonder no different from the Hedge's Soul's Skein Museum or the Bone Vein of the Grim Graves. ]

Guess I won't be needing to exercise my divination magic today, huh? [ Footfalls slowing to a measured stop, Asura makes short work of unfastening the canteens from Eren's back, setting them one by one upon the grassy earth below which shows no outward sign of infection. And no different from an oasis, the clearing which they've stumbled upon is starkly absent of any of the Wilde's treacherous overgrowth— it is pristine, protected by a dense thicket of trees, and in seemingly being bereft of threats, it makes... Asura rather disinclined to trust. ] Didn't think it'd be possible to find without a locator spell.

[usurpers]

[ maybe that had been some sort of trust eren deeply sought from somewhere, with someone. he’s only come to trust himself, and how much damage that has caused is somewhat measurable. how much would it have saved if he hadn’t had faith only in himself, since the beginning? the mental scarring of mangled bodies flattened onto forest earth, bitten in half and a neck snapped back into tree bark had stuck with him to this very day. even of a more recent tragedy, of a bullet bursting through sasha’s gut— in all circumstances, if he had acted on his own, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did.

distance between his loved ones had grown, his heart an icy block to catapult them even farther, and leave space for him to work. years of silence, oppressive weight on his shoulders and even depression cracked open when the king of summer was present. he could be himself after spending so long without the right. by choice, but. it was something he’d always gravitate to to remain sane. ]

At this rate, [ he merrs; his neck lifting but his body still against asura’s mighty palm as they found the pool. it didn’t even seem like the wilde, and the dragon’s hide still remains naturally tense as he tastes the surrounds for any other visitors, close or far. it was too lovely to be simply lovely, eren has learned, especially after falling for hallucinogenic sap from a carnivorous rose bush. ] you’ll know more about me than my own family.

[ he fail to see him for who he is, or maybe eren himself had failed to read who they were. perhaps not, if he struck every single one of their weaknesses with eerie precision. after a beat, as the dragon stares up at one of the protective trees in thought— he turns his neck and hooks the curve of his horn into one of the carrying straps of his opposite side. ]

Or my bonds. [ he’s— actually thankful for that. at most points he’d prefer to be less involved in his bonds than he could be. a problem that he’s still attempting to find balance for, with some work and a little patience. ] Don’t think that’ll stop me from my own interest, though.

[ eren was destructive. eren had tunnel vision. even if he’s come to befriend many here, and begins to hold them dear— they’d all come in second place to him, and he’d shatter them the same way he’s shattered the people he loves if he thought he had to.

he does wait for asura before making the extra steps toward the pool’s edge, a web of canteens being dangled over the witch’s head and between eren’s fangs, and somehow . . . he becomes a momentary menace until forcibly taken from him. ]

[mirshikar]

Even if I should be the appointed warden of your memories...

[ A choice which Asura does and does not understand, though he largely suspects it is for the same reason he has entrusted so much to Eren: they are not Bonded and they are not family, nor will they ever be, and that stark lack of connection leaves no room for frivolous things like pity. Like the barrier of judgement and the hindrance of doubt.

And when the King had spoken the root of his sordid origins aloud, it had been as though a Changeling had received the words rather than the human which Eren is (and will always continue to be, despite his wyvern's form). Instead of idle consolation and apologies, he'd been met with solidarity and the taste of Eren's unabashed satisfaction (gratification, which Asura had felt before, something reserved only for those stories and expressions ending in freedom) lingering like the ripe flesh of fruit upon the back of the tongue.

Similarly, regardless of how destructive Eren is, the one companion he is incapable of shattering is Asura. Asura, who is removed and held aloft by what he suspects he will glimpse in the pool, should he only cast his eyes directly upon it.

But that is for later. Now is for bold proclamations. ]

The day you cease to pursue your own passions— [ Here, Asura's hum is mulling and deep, a thrumming oscillation of sound which reads like a drumroll leading into a peak: ] —is the day you become no Eren I know.

[ And Asura would weep for the loss. ]

Now... [ Let it be known that Asura is a man of many faces. As easily as he is righteous and warfaring, he can be downright draconic and mephistophelean. As readily as he can be grandiloquent and espouse Summer's rhetoric, he can so too be positively (shockingly???) informal and uncouth, laughing and boisterous when he asks: ] What the ever loving fuck are you doing?

[ That head-bobbing thing, which causes the web of canteens to swing, their leather straps becoming impossibly intertwined as their empty canisters clang! against one another in discordant rhythm. And while it should be notice that Asura's grinning something fierce in his amusement, he still shifts to wrest the canteen's free of Eren's fangs. The how of it? Well, that's easy. Reaching up, he seizes the canteens, uses his body weight to pull down and see their straps severed against the grate of carnivorous teeth.

The canteens? Fallen into the bassinet of Asura's arms. And Eren? Well... the state of the King's companion has yet to be determined. ]

Don't tell me that the pool has got you spooked.

[usurpers]

[ eren would be no more, indeed. the same way asura’s fiery presence would vanish if something as cold as melancholy were to rest on his shoulders and ask him to cease. the dragon’s bobbing stops, for the most part, the instant those dangling canteens are snapped out of his teeth and leave behind rope getting chewed out of his maw in remainders. ]

I’m fucking with you. [ ay?? ay??? that’s a reasonable amount of stalling, isn’t it!

the pool manifests, and once more, a familiar face appears amongst the easeful ripples that seem placed by a breeze— eren’s reflection is horned no more, scaleless and the picture of how he would truly look. human, as he was. still growing and ever tall, he has his back set against a tree and his knee propped to his chest, hair long with age but tied back into a bun. asura’s reflection is not the one that bounds next to him, but if a blond boy reading a book, occasionally looking at him with a smile, probably blabbering about whatever it was that was written on pages— eren’s eyes and heartfelt smile are focused elsewhere: on a woman with black pixie cut hair, a red scarf around her neck even in such pleasant weather, and a gaze so soft, too soft, smiling back. it’s mikasa, of course.

the scene manifests in full form, and will do so for a few moments, with eren, the dragon one, wordlessly hovering his skull over it to inspect his heart’s wishes. seems legit, but it saddens him. he’s given this up long ago, as unremorseful as he was. his mouth moves, his teeth clatter, as if he was going to say something— but nothing comes. not immediately, anyway. ]

And I’m not afraid of it, either.

[mirshikar]

Y'know— [ —Asura starts, stops, heaves one hell of a sigh as he does a juggler's dance of popping canteen caps open one after another, thoroughly unwilling to forego his hold on the lot of them. Why? An easy thing, to see rivulets of water risen from the pool, the air surrounding suddenly thick with the pull and pulse of evocation magic as the King weaves a wordless spell to hurry along the process of seeing the empty canisters in his arms filled.

If any after-image or hint of a heart's desire lingered upon the mirror-sheen surface of the pool, it is disrupted now, when water snakes through the air, refracting light as it's directed by Asura's power and will. To say that Asura holds no reverence for the scene which he and Eren had glimpsed (idyllic, more so than any day which the King himself has known) would be inaccurate: the interruption had been orchestrated on the account of the ebon dragon's dispirited reception of the vision, borne of a want to dispel Eren's sadness (something which tasted like ash and stale rations upon the tongue) before it might be able to enshroud him (and kill Asura's tastebuds) because: ]

Just when I think I understand humans, there are people like you who go and put me back at square one. [ Water streaming into the canteens at his direction, Asura does not turn his eyes back to the pool again; it has proved itself a wonderment, and he sees no further need to test its magic. What he'll wrest with instead is this: ] Mikasa has been drawn through the mirrors, and this is a desire easily fulfilled.

[ And as such, it should not have been reflected in the pool at all. Yet, Eren is all clattering teeth and stilted silence in the place of the sunset exuberance marking his scales, leaving only one possible explanation: ] ...you have not gone to her yet, have you, Eren?

[ So yeah. Asura, he doesn't get humans (or is it just this human?) at all. Can't begin to fathom any cold rationale which might prevent a mortal from pursuing one of the most powerful emotions (love), second only to wrath itself. ]

[usurpers]

[ if only it were so simple to accomplish such feats. the dragon remains still-quiet as canteens fill. still quiet. uncomfortably so when his eyes tell all: sadness. ]

I have. [ twice, directly. a few times afar. except eren hides behind his monstrous appearance to see her, and has long since stopped when her blood smeared onto some of his scales. drove him absolutely mad. ] She doesn’t know it’s me.

[ and, he much preferred it this way. things just weren’t so simple— muscle moves uncomfortably beneath his hide, as he rises to take the canteens to carry once more. ]

We’re not on good terms— and that was my choice. Sometimes the safest thing you can do for someone is create distance.