[Though he's only just tentatively been returning to the more public spaces of Greentruth, it's been enough time to notice that Hayame has not returned from Venera. Why, she couldn't say. It could be anything from her deciding she would simply not return, to her being lost, to her being killed. That's what prompts him to reach out, even though he's already said he wouldn't stop her if she chose to leave.
He'd like to know that she's still carrying on, one way or the other.]
Hayame.
[He feels as if he might have to be a bit pushy with his attempts at communion to get a response. She'll feel the presence of him around her shard, reaching for her attention.]
If you take your shard from your body, you can speak to me. Pray, tell me if you are alright.
[On the bright side, them both being Firebrands makes his communications carry much more strongly than they would otherwise.]
[The journey back to Greentruth has not been easy.
It isn't as if she thought it would be. But the idea of trusting her body once more to those magic spells, to letting her body disappear into the air and hope that it reforms in one piece miles away... She couldn't stand it. Not after everything that happened in Verena. Not after she'd tried to die so many times, and no one had been able to kill her in a way she could accept. Not after that woman had forced her magic into her body and forced it to heal instead of slowly bleeding out.
The bow she'd taken from the abandoned garrison in Venera had snapped when she was hunting. The one she'd taken from the Greentruth armory had snapped in battle in Venera. Now, her shoulders and ribs are beginning to show through a dun coat that is dulling, her hooves are cracked, the forests are still days away, she is staring at the knife in her hand...
And she's hearing voices in her head.
But there are none in Estinien's at first, because the woman he has tried to commune with... Has been ignoring her shard this whole time, and hasn't asked anyone about it, nor made friends or allies yet who would reach out to teach her. Until now.
A long, long moment passes. Perhaps even minutes... before a faint, faint impression of his name comes through in what might be Hayame's voice, trying to confirm that she hadn't gone insane.]
[He can't really blame her for her first response being like this. After all, when Ernesto had first contacted him by communion, he'd thought he was being hunted by some ghostly presence. As it is, he's relieved to feel that impression of recognition, to at least know she's there and possibly understand what's going to.]
Aye. Estinien.
[He tries to answer that flicker of familiarity by projecting the particulars of his presence more strongly, confirming that it is him. He at least has past experience with psychic bonds, even if the one he knew best was particularly unpleasant.]
With your shard exposed, you'll hear me more clearly.
[Along with the words, he tries to project the mental image of what she needs to do to pull the shard from her body and use it as a receiver. It comes naturally, once you get used to it.]
[There's no reason for her insanity to take his name, just because it's one of the few that she actually knows in this strange world. Hayame knows this, and still she hesitates. Still, she looks for a physical source... and finds none.
Instead, her mind is invaded. Not just by his words, but by... images, impressions of a visual that involves pulling the gem in her body... out of it. At first, unable to control herself in this strange way and not even realizing he might be able to feel it, the only thing transmitted is disgust and distrust. She hasn't touched it since she arrived, for fear doing so would... do something. She wanted it out of her, but to touch and feel some reaction in her body was so disgusting a thought...
But eventually, that distrust becomes... a faint sense of embarrassment. Why, when there is no one there? But what if he could see her, with magic eyes? He's talking to her somehow, isn't he? With some magic spell- ?! Her fingers hesitate on the tie holding her shirt closed, ashamed that her cheeks feel hot when she's been seen bare by prospective buyers plenty of times-
The impression vaguely shaped like close your eyes, first somehow makes it through.]
[Estinien, of course, has no idea what that means. He glances around the area he's sitting while doing this, half expecting some sort of unfathomable trick. Eventually, though, he just does what he's asked, frowning to himself as he does.]
Fine.
[His accent comes through, at least. He also stops probing quite as urgently, in the event she meant that metaphorically.]
[... Is he closing them? How is it that she feels like he's closing them? Hayame doesn't know, just like she doesn't know how he's even talking to her at all. But he is. She can't have gone insane in such a specific way as that...
So after another long bout of hesitation, Hayame carefully undoes the ties of her top. From there, she hesitates again, before swallowing her learned disgust over what she will see and undoing the ties of the thick fabric she wears tightly wrapped around her chest to bind her breasts down.
But once she has bared herself, something even more difficult presents itself. With a sense of bodily horror leaking through the bond... Hayame touches her fingers to the arrow-shaped chunk of obsidian embedded in her sternum between her breasts. She has no nails to use to pry it out, she cuts them to the quick so that they won't interfere with her archery, but if she gets a decent grip...
[He's relieved to finally hear her and to know his message has actually been received. After having honestly wondered if she'd died, he must admit he's pleased to hear from her, even if he can never really guarantee a pleasant conversation with Hayame.]
Ah, full glad am I to hear from you. I'd come to wonder if you'd been slain.
[Something happened. Something worked. Somehow, she’s standing half-starved and half-naked in a pale excuse for a mountain cave and Estinien is talking in her head.
Maybe- Maybe she hadn’t gone mad. Maybe it was something in the water, and she was hallucinating…]
I am not so easily defeated.
[The problem with these shards and shared legacies… is that the words are that, but the impression is despite best efforts.
The knife is still out, unsheathed in her non-dominant hand.]
Is it your intent to convince me of the efficacy of your “spells”- ? I won’t use those things that make my body disappear again.
[Estinien wonders if he, himself, was ever this difficult. It is sometimes strange to be on the other side of that equation. All the same.]
Nay. Mine only intent was to find out if you were still living, and if so, if you wanted for succor. Make no mistake, if you have simply opted to travel alone, I will not pursue you... but I offered you my service, in the event you should call upon it.
[...As maddening as it is that she is apparently running the whole way back.]
Hayame is hungry. Both of her stomachs have been empty of anything but foraged mountain vegetables and fruits for two days now, and even then… it wasn’t much. This wasn’t her world, she didn’t know the flora, and she could only half trust things she saw the native fauna eat first or that she’d seen on the banquet tables in Greentruth.
If she were being honest…]
There is no point in pursuing me. I am yet days from the wood.
[And that’s where he was, wasn’t it? With everyone else who simple left Venera for that “shrine” and then vanished into thin air.
Right?]
What does it matter, if I am still living? If it is the knife you are worried for, I will put it back in your hand.
Hayame... you know full well why one person might care if another still lives.
[He might have wondered if she'd ever cared about anyone before coming here, but he's seen enough to know that she definitely has. She must be being obtuse to say these things, he thinks.]
Do you imagine that I am offering my service to you for my own benefit?
[He's not Himeka, or Abel, or Ernesto. He's not reflexively friendly to every person he speaks to. The fact that he cares about her is apparent through the emotional ebb and flow of communion, and he isn't going to mince words about it.]
[Hayame will feel Estinien attempting to speak to her through her shard, much as before. The character of his thoughts is disorientated and desperate, as if reeling from unseen pain.]
[He thinks he is, anyway. He's at the lodestone specifically, having been forced to activate his returning stone. He didn't want to risk traveling to the portal in the state he was.]
Two of the Pleroma... the Kenoma had taken them prisoner. I found... freed them... but I was outnumbered...
[Flashes of it translate through their connection. First, him tearing out of the shard of Kaeya, only to be cornered by Makoto, Gen, and Eustace. Fragments of memory show the savage claws and tail of his draconic from spilling blood, flames erupting upon his foes, until a fourth Kenoma arrives, turning the battle against him.
His recollection of things cuts away as a mace cracks across his horns.]
That winged beast of Venera... In my moment of weakness, it came upon me again.
[It's a chaotic, violent jumble of images. Miles away, on a ship at sea between Venera and Godsblood, Hayame staggers on the deck, clutching at her shard. She was already seasick, this was-
"M"... Her rage flares personal and hot when Makoto's face flashes into her mind, and Estinien is treated to images of her own- the tricky little brat teleporting, here, there, her pinning him to the wall with an arrow... but then reinforcements, a sword that flew, the traitor she'd been escorting back in Kenoma claws, failure-
[He stumbles over his words, his attempts at communion fluctuating uncertainly. He can at least relate to those feelings of failure. He had achieved his objective, in a sense... Ryunosuke and Thoma were now free, and would have otherwise been carted away to Achamoth. Yet, it felt as if his own emotions had been his undoing, opening the door to the Innocent so that he might be consumed.]
It... overwhelmed me... my body... I had thought myself free, but yet...
[There is that feeling they had all experienced when being consumed by its illness, only magnified, to the degree that he could no longer tell the difference between himself and the being that possessed him.]
My... My friends that were touched by it as well. That freed me from its clutches. They will not answer. I cannot reach them.
[Maybe another person would think they succeeded. After all... the woman and her child who would otherwise have been targetted by the Regent, who would have been disappeared or killed if she hadn't made the choice between the traitor Kenoma and the Veneran... She was alive.
But Hayame is not another person.
And she doesn't think she is Estinien's friend. Or anyone's... "friend". Who are his friends? That red-haired woman she saw in the vision with the Innocence, perhaps? She didn't... know.]
Who... ?
[Would she know, even if he named them? Maybe not, so more importantly-]
[He has to think hard about timelines, as everything is blurring together at the moment.]
Hours... I thought...
[It feels as if there are cracks running through his thought processes, breaking him from the inside.]
Himeka... She was in Godsblood. Abel as well...
[There are faces to match it. It's the red-haired lizard woman that she's met before. And then the tall, silver-haired priest that she is undoubtably much less fond of. Regardless, though, he is not necessarily asking for her help. He's not sure what she could do. But...]
I only wanted to be sure that you had not fallen as well.
[She… doesn’t realize per se that she’s referred to them by the names she used in her head because… this… is in her head, somehow. Never mind how, she’s trying not to think of it and also not to get seasick.]
I yet stand.
[No matter how unfortunate that may be, when she wants so badly to just-]
Where are you? This- I am on a ship. To Godsblood. But I will have to leave that place near soon as I arrive.
[There's a flicker of what is almost a sad, anxious chuckle at her calling Abel a whoremonger. He won't argue. The mirth doesn't last long.]
I returned to the lodestone... Once I was permitted my freedom by the creature, my strength had all but left me. Its power... 'twas overwhelming. It dispensed of the Kenoma nigh effortlessly, with me as its blade...
[If only he could feel good about that. If only he wasn't afraid.]
[ As much as Hayame would no doubt love to never hear from her most hated Kenoma-turned-Pleroma acquaintence ever again, tragically he comes knocking at her door (the borders of her mind) one afternoon, his presence serious.
At the very least he gives her an opportunity to accept his Communion request first instead of rudely pushing forward immediately with his questions. ]
a man brave enough to communion privately at hayame appears!!!
[... To say that Hayame is surprised would not be incorrect. She is alone- or, she just might as well be, with her captive wearing bit, blindfold, and earplugs, hanging from a woven bag attached to her withers. She did not expect anyone attempting to speak with her, let alone the presence she can vaguely sense now.
After a moment, guarded, not only afraid that he had seen the desperate weakness of sentimentality in her during the last hour of the raid on Achamoth but also still resentful of the insult she has not yet forgiven...
Hayame touches her shard. Makes herself open to what he wishes to say without any guess at all as to what it could be.]
[ For Hayame's generous allowance in letting this strange wolfman into her mindscape, she will be rewarded with a very succinct message and his best attempts at keeping this conversation strictly professional. ]
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5th of visoseri
He'd like to know that she's still carrying on, one way or the other.]
Hayame.
[He feels as if he might have to be a bit pushy with his attempts at communion to get a response. She'll feel the presence of him around her shard, reaching for her attention.]
If you take your shard from your body, you can speak to me. Pray, tell me if you are alright.
[On the bright side, them both being Firebrands makes his communications carry much more strongly than they would otherwise.]
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It isn't as if she thought it would be. But the idea of trusting her body once more to those magic spells, to letting her body disappear into the air and hope that it reforms in one piece miles away... She couldn't stand it. Not after everything that happened in Verena. Not after she'd tried to die so many times, and no one had been able to kill her in a way she could accept. Not after that woman had forced her magic into her body and forced it to heal instead of slowly bleeding out.
The bow she'd taken from the abandoned garrison in Venera had snapped when she was hunting. The one she'd taken from the Greentruth armory had snapped in battle in Venera. Now, her shoulders and ribs are beginning to show through a dun coat that is dulling, her hooves are cracked, the forests are still days away, she is staring at the knife in her hand...
And she's hearing voices in her head.
But there are none in Estinien's at first, because the woman he has tried to commune with... Has been ignoring her shard this whole time, and hasn't asked anyone about it, nor made friends or allies yet who would reach out to teach her. Until now.
A long, long moment passes. Perhaps even minutes... before a faint, faint impression of his name comes through in what might be Hayame's voice, trying to confirm that she hadn't gone insane.]
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Aye. Estinien.
[He tries to answer that flicker of familiarity by projecting the particulars of his presence more strongly, confirming that it is him. He at least has past experience with psychic bonds, even if the one he knew best was particularly unpleasant.]
With your shard exposed, you'll hear me more clearly.
[Along with the words, he tries to project the mental image of what she needs to do to pull the shard from her body and use it as a receiver. It comes naturally, once you get used to it.]
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Instead, her mind is invaded. Not just by his words, but by... images, impressions of a visual that involves pulling the gem in her body... out of it. At first, unable to control herself in this strange way and not even realizing he might be able to feel it, the only thing transmitted is disgust and distrust. She hasn't touched it since she arrived, for fear doing so would... do something. She wanted it out of her, but to touch and feel some reaction in her body was so disgusting a thought...
But eventually, that distrust becomes... a faint sense of embarrassment. Why, when there is no one there? But what if he could see her, with magic eyes? He's talking to her somehow, isn't he? With some magic spell- ?! Her fingers hesitate on the tie holding her shirt closed, ashamed that her cheeks feel hot when she's been seen bare by prospective buyers plenty of times-
The impression vaguely shaped like close your eyes, first somehow makes it through.]
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Fine.
[His accent comes through, at least. He also stops probing quite as urgently, in the event she meant that metaphorically.]
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So after another long bout of hesitation, Hayame carefully undoes the ties of her top. From there, she hesitates again, before swallowing her learned disgust over what she will see and undoing the ties of the thick fabric she wears tightly wrapped around her chest to bind her breasts down.
But once she has bared herself, something even more difficult presents itself. With a sense of bodily horror leaking through the bond... Hayame touches her fingers to the arrow-shaped chunk of obsidian embedded in her sternum between her breasts. She has no nails to use to pry it out, she cuts them to the quick so that they won't interfere with her archery, but if she gets a decent grip...
It comes out of her. No blood follows.]
... Estinien.
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Ah, full glad am I to hear from you. I'd come to wonder if you'd been slain.
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Maybe- Maybe she hadn’t gone mad. Maybe it was something in the water, and she was hallucinating…]
I am not so easily defeated.
[The problem with these shards and shared legacies… is that the words are that, but the impression is despite best efforts.
The knife is still out, unsheathed in her non-dominant hand.]
Is it your intent to convince me of the efficacy of your “spells”- ? I won’t use those things that make my body disappear again.
[… Hence the delay.]
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Nay. Mine only intent was to find out if you were still living, and if so, if you wanted for succor. Make no mistake, if you have simply opted to travel alone, I will not pursue you... but I offered you my service, in the event you should call upon it.
[...As maddening as it is that she is apparently running the whole way back.]
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Hayame is hungry. Both of her stomachs have been empty of anything but foraged mountain vegetables and fruits for two days now, and even then… it wasn’t much. This wasn’t her world, she didn’t know the flora, and she could only half trust things she saw the native fauna eat first or that she’d seen on the banquet tables in Greentruth.
If she were being honest…]
There is no point in pursuing me. I am yet days from the wood.
[And that’s where he was, wasn’t it? With everyone else who simple left Venera for that “shrine” and then vanished into thin air.
Right?]
What does it matter, if I am still living? If it is the knife you are worried for, I will put it back in your hand.
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[He might have wondered if she'd ever cared about anyone before coming here, but he's seen enough to know that she definitely has. She must be being obtuse to say these things, he thinks.]
Do you imagine that I am offering my service to you for my own benefit?
[He's not Himeka, or Abel, or Ernesto. He's not reflexively friendly to every person he speaks to. The fact that he cares about her is apparent through the emotional ebb and flow of communion, and he isn't going to mince words about it.]
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sorry for the delay! business trip kicked my butt
it's trips kicking butts all around
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Sovereign Citizens Day 9
Hayame... Pray, hear me... Are you yet well?
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Estinien?
[He asks if she’s well, but… she’s not a liar. First things first- he wasn’t in Venera any longer, which meant-]
Where are you? Are you in Godsblood?
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[He thinks he is, anyway. He's at the lodestone specifically, having been forced to activate his returning stone. He didn't want to risk traveling to the portal in the state he was.]
Two of the Pleroma... the Kenoma had taken them prisoner. I found... freed them... but I was outnumbered...
[Flashes of it translate through their connection. First, him tearing out of the shard of Kaeya, only to be cornered by Makoto, Gen, and Eustace. Fragments of memory show the savage claws and tail of his draconic from spilling blood, flames erupting upon his foes, until a fourth Kenoma arrives, turning the battle against him.
His recollection of things cuts away as a mace cracks across his horns.]
That winged beast of Venera... In my moment of weakness, it came upon me again.
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"M"... Her rage flares personal and hot when Makoto's face flashes into her mind, and Estinien is treated to images of her own- the tricky little brat teleporting, here, there, her pinning him to the wall with an arrow... but then reinforcements, a sword that flew, the traitor she'd been escorting back in Kenoma claws, failure-
Failure.]
The winged...
[What did they call it?]
It still lives in you that strongly?
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[He stumbles over his words, his attempts at communion fluctuating uncertainly. He can at least relate to those feelings of failure. He had achieved his objective, in a sense... Ryunosuke and Thoma were now free, and would have otherwise been carted away to Achamoth. Yet, it felt as if his own emotions had been his undoing, opening the door to the Innocent so that he might be consumed.]
It... overwhelmed me... my body... I had thought myself free, but yet...
[There is that feeling they had all experienced when being consumed by its illness, only magnified, to the degree that he could no longer tell the difference between himself and the being that possessed him.]
My... My friends that were touched by it as well. That freed me from its clutches. They will not answer. I cannot reach them.
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But Hayame is not another person.
And she doesn't think she is Estinien's friend. Or anyone's... "friend". Who are his friends? That red-haired woman she saw in the vision with the Innocence, perhaps? She didn't... know.]
Who... ?
[Would she know, even if he named them? Maybe not, so more importantly-]
How long?
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Hours... I thought...
[It feels as if there are cracks running through his thought processes, breaking him from the inside.]
Himeka... She was in Godsblood. Abel as well...
[There are faces to match it. It's the red-haired lizard woman that she's met before. And then the tall, silver-haired priest that she is undoubtably much less fond of. Regardless, though, he is not necessarily asking for her help. He's not sure what she could do. But...]
I only wanted to be sure that you had not fallen as well.
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[She… doesn’t realize per se that she’s referred to them by the names she used in her head because… this… is in her head, somehow. Never mind how, she’s trying not to think of it and also not to get seasick.]
I yet stand.
[No matter how unfortunate that may be, when she wants so badly to just-]
Where are you? This- I am on a ship. To Godsblood. But I will have to leave that place near soon as I arrive.
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[There's a flicker of what is almost a sad, anxious chuckle at her calling Abel a whoremonger. He won't argue. The mirth doesn't last long.]
I returned to the lodestone... Once I was permitted my freedom by the creature, my strength had all but left me. Its power... 'twas overwhelming. It dispensed of the Kenoma nigh effortlessly, with me as its blade...
[If only he could feel good about that. If only he wasn't afraid.]
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Estinien isn’t the only one who doesn’t know how to comfort.
But she wants-
Finally,]
… Do you feel it still?
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communion; like early sekiseri??
At the very least he gives her an opportunity to accept his Communion request first instead of rudely pushing forward immediately with his questions. ]
a man brave enough to communion privately at hayame appears!!!
After a moment, guarded, not only afraid that he had seen the desperate weakness of sentimentality in her during the last hour of the raid on Achamoth but also still resentful of the insult she has not yet forgiven...
Hayame touches her shard. Makes herself open to what he wishes to say without any guess at all as to what it could be.]
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I heard you have M's head.
[ Straight to the point. ]
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He gets the same in turn.]
I do.
It did not dissipate.